Below par at love and related acts,

He watched the village, knowing how it worked.

He spied on locals, testing their strengths;

Weaknesses too: drink, cards, the other sex.

They all said his life would end up badly,

And it did: shot, in his lair of blackmail.

The obvious suspects: the vicar’s wife,

Whom he caught horizontal one hot night;

The bank manager, dipping in the safe.

A proper nest of vipers, you might say.

Yet that day, on the green, the craft beers flowed;

Tourists and trippers frolicked in the sun.

All rustic reverie hummed and prospered;

The gunshot just a footnote, unnoticed.