Official Town Business (Fox & Oakby Murder Mysteries Book I)

Morning Like Any Other

Imogen smiled and went to his desk, to rearranged the 'cursed papers' that he of course didn't need and had pulled out of the wrong cabinet.

Oakby chewed, Imogen worked.

"Yes, sir, I'm aware of the election system in our country, and of your position in the parish council. And yes, our towns have been wonderful neighbours for centuries–" 

Oakby apparently had finished his scone and was heating up again. Without looking, Imogen stretched her hand and tapped his cup with her index finger. He took a sip, postponing the argument with whoever was on the other end of the line.

Imogen peeked. Oakby was drinking the cream flavoured syrup he considered coffee. Imogen smirked, she'd added an extra spoonful of sugar, since Mrs. Harris, the town hall clerk had warned her of the brewing storm. The sugar was working: little wrinkles ran in the corners of the Mayor's squinted eyes, and the corners of the lips curled up, making him look exactly like a giant purring cat.

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir." Oakby's velvet baritone now sounded almost amicable.

With her morning duties fulfilled, Imogen gave her boss a wave and left his office.

***

Half an hour later Imogen was industriously typing, when the door to Oakby's office opened, and he stuck his head out.

"Imogen, do you have a boyfriend?" he asked, his eyes still on some paper he had in his hand.

Mrs. Harris who was filing the latest agriculture report into the cabinet by the wall, gasped, and dropped her folder.

"No, Mr. Oakby, I still don't," Imogen answered, without pausing her typing.

He hummed noncommittally and disappeared inside again.

Imogen blindly picked up her mug and was going to drink, when a loud hiss from Mrs. Harris made her jerk and almost spill her cuppa.

"What was this about?" Mrs. Harris pale eyes boggled behind her glasses.

Imogen sighed. This would now become a major gossip. Since nothing bigger than a broken traffic light ever happened in Fleckney Woulds, she expected the Mayor's sudden interest in her romantic status to become the talk of the town for at least a month.

"I'm not quite sure, to be honest," Imogen answered and sipped her cuppa. "He does it sometimes. Asks questions out of nowhere. It'll explain itself soon. He might need a plus one for something, or rather." Imogen shrugged. "He just doesn't bother with explaining."

Mrs. Harris eyed the door suspiciously.

"It was a tad too personal, wasn't it?" 

She then looked at Imogen and greedily studied her face, clearly hoping to see Imogen flustered, or hopeful. Imogen snorted a short laugh.

"I don't think he knows that. I also don't think he'd be able to tell how old I am, and whether I have two heads." Imogen threw the door an affectionate look. "He's asked me about my boyfriend about ten times by now. He just needs it for work somehow – but then he doesn't, and he forgets."

Mrs. Harris gave her a doubtful look. "He remembers the county's stats for the last ten years; and when he was at school, he won that poetry reciting competition."

The town legend about Mr. John Oakby, then of seven years old, reciting Odyssey for fifteen minutes straight had been passed from a generation to a generation, and was told to all pupils in every school of Fleckney Woulds. Imogen who was ten years his younger had heard the anecdote from three of her teachers, the passage by the dead blind Greek getting longer and longer with each recollection.