Death in Holy Orders

by P. D. James

  Piers said, “One motorcycle and he hasn’t returned. Could’ve been the pathologist, although you’d expect him to come by car. Well, we’ve got some news for AD. If this road is the only access…”

  Kate had her eyes on the map.

  “Which it is, for vehicles anyway. Then any murderer from outside the college must have arrived before ten p.m. and can’t yet have left, not by road anyway. An inside job?”

  Piers said, “That’s the impression I got from AD.”

  The question of access to the headland was so important that Kate was about to say that it was surprising AD hadn’t already sent someone to question Mrs. Finch. But then she remembered. Until she and Piers arrived, who at St. Anselm’s could he have sent?

  The narrow road was deserted. It was lower than the surrounding fields and edged with bushes so that it was with a shock of surprise and pleasure that Kate saw suddenly the great crinkled greyness of the North Sea. To the north a Victorian mansion bulked large against the sky.

  As they approached, Kate said, “Good Lord, what a monstrosity! Who would have thought of building a house like that literally within yards of the sea?”

  “No one. When it was built it wouldn’t have been within yards of the sea.”

  She said, “You can’t possibly admire it.”

  “Oh I don’t know. It has a certain confidence.”

  A motorcyclist was approaching and roared past. Kate said, “Presumably that was the forensic pathologist.”

  Piers slowed down as they drove between two ruined pillars of red brick to where Dalgliesh was waiting.

  St. Matthew’s Cottage would hardly have provided sufficient or suitable accommodation for a wide-spreading investigation, but Dalgliesh judged that it was adequate for the task in hand. There was no suitable police accommodation within miles and the bringing of caravans onto the headland would have been an illogical and expensive expedient. But being in college had its problems, including where they were to eat; in any human emergency or distress, from murder to bereavement, people still had to be fed and found beds. He recollected how, after his father’s death, his mother’s concern about how the Norfolk rectory could accommodate all the overnight guests expected, their foibles about what they could or could not eat, and what food should be provided for the whole of the parish had blunted at least temporarily the edge of grief. Sergeant Robbins was already coping with present problems, telephoning a list of hotels suggested by Father Sebastian to book accommodation for himself, Kate and Piers and the three Scene of Crime Officers. Dalgliesh would remain in his guest set.

  The cottage was the most unusual incident room of his career. Mrs. Munroe’s sister, in removing every physical trace of occupation, had left the cottage so denuded of character that the very air was tasteless. The two small ground-floor rooms were furnished with obvious rejects from the guest sets, conventionally placed but producing only an atmosphere of dreary expedience. In the sitting-room to the left of the door a bentwood armchair with a faded patchwork cushion and a low slatted chair with a foot-rest had been placed on each side of the small Victorian grate. In the centre of the room was a square oak table with four chairs; two others were set against the wall. A small bookcase to the left of the fireplace held only a leather-covered Bible and a copy of Through the Looking Glass. The right-hand room looked slightly more inviting with a smaller table set against the wall, two mahogany chairs with bulbous legs, a shabby sofa and a matching armchair. The two upstairs rooms were empty. Dalgliesh judged that the sitting-room could best serve as an office and for interviews with the opposite room as a waiting-room, while one of the bedrooms, fitted with a telephone socket and an adequate number of electric points, could house the computer which the Suffolk Police had already provided.

  The question of food had been settled. Dalgliesh baulked at the thought of joining the community for dinner. His presence would, he thought, inhibit even Father Sebastian’s conversational powers. The Warden had extended an invitation, but had hardly expected it to be accepted. Dalgliesh would take his evening meal elsewhere. But it had been agreed that the college would provide soup and sandwiches or a ploughman’s lunch at one o’clock for all the team. The question of payment had been tactfully ignored for the present by both parties but the situation was not without a touch of the bizarre. Dalgliesh wondered whether this might prove to be the first murder case in which the killer had provided accommodation and free food for the investigating officer.

  They were anxious to get down to work, but first they must view the body. Dalgliesh with Kate, Piers and Robbins went over to the church, put on overshoes and made their way along the north wall to the Doom. He could be sure that none of his officers would attempt to anaesthetize horror by facetiousness or crude graveyard humour; any who did so wouldn’t serve under him for long. He switched on the spotlight and they stood for a moment contemplating the body in silence. The quarry wasn’t yet even a blurred figure on the horizon and his spoor had not been detected, but this was his work in all its crude enormity and it was right that they should see it.

  Only Kate spoke. She asked, “The candlesticks, sir, where would they normally be ?”

  “On the altar.”

  “And when was the Doom last seen un vandalized ?”

  “At the nine-thirty service of Compline yesterday evening.”

  They locked the church behind them, set the alarm, and returned to the incident room. And now they settled down for the preliminary discussion and briefing before they got to work. Dalgliesh knew that it couldn’t be rushed. Information not given by him now, or imperfectly understood, could result in later delays, misunderstandings or mistakes. He embarked on a detailed but concise account of everything he had seen or done since his arrival at St. Anselm’s, including his investigation of Ronald Treeves’s death and the contents of

  Margaret Munroe’s diary. They sat together at the table, mostly in silence, making occasional notes.

  Kate sat upright, her eyes fixed on her notebook except when, with disconcerting intensity, she raised them to Dalgliesh’s face. She was dressed as she always was when on a case: in comfortable walking shoes, narrowly-cut trousers and a well-tailored jacket. Beneath it in winter, as now, she wore a cashmere roll-neck jumper, in summer a silk shirt. Her light brown hair was drawn back and worn in a short thick plait. She wore no discernible make-up, and her face, good looking rather than handsome, expressed what essentially she was: honest, reliable, conscientious but perhaps not wholly at peace with herself.

  Piers, restless as always, could not sit still for long. After several apparent attempts at comfort he now sat with his legs wound round those of the chair and his arm flung round the back. But his mobile, slightly podgy face was alight with interest and the sleepy chocolate-brown eyes under the heavy lids held their usual look of quizzical amusement. Less obviously attentive than Kate, he still missed nothing. He was informally dressed in a green linen shirt with fawn linen trousers, an expensively creased informality which was as carefully considered as Kate’s more conventional look.

  Robbins, as neat and formal as a chauffeur, sat perfectly at ease at the end of a table and got up from time to time to brew more coffee and refill their mugs.

  When Dalgliesh had finished his account, Kate said, “What are we going to call this murderer, sir?”

  Rejecting the usual soubriquets, the squad invariably chose a name at the beginning of the investigation.

  Piers said, “Cain would be appropriately biblical and short, if hardly original.”

  Dalgliesh said, “Cain it is. Now we get down to work. I want prints from everyone who was in college last night, including visitors and the staff in the cottages. The Archdeacon’s prints can await the arrival of the SO COs You’d better make the others a priority before we make a start on the interviews. Then examine the clothes all the residents were wearing yesterday, and that includes the priests. I’ve checked the ordinands’ brown cloaks. The right number are in place and look clean, but take
another look.”

  Piers said, “He’d hardly have worn either a cloak or a cassock surely, why should he? If Crampton was enticed into the church he’d expect to find the caller waiting for him in his nightclothes pyjamas or a dressing-gown. Then the blow must have been struck very quickly, seizing the moment when Crampton turned towards the Doom. Time maybe to roll up a pyjama sleeve. He’d hardly encumber himself with a heavy serge cloak. Of course he could have been naked, or partly naked, under a dressing-gown, and slipped it off. Even so, he’d have to be damned quick.”

  Dalgliesh said, “The pathologist made the not particularly original suggestion that he was naked.”

  Piers went on, “It’s not all that fanciful, sir. After all, why show himself at all to Crampton? All he needs to do is to unbolt the south door and leave it ajar. Then he puts on the light to illuminate the Doom and hides behind a pillar. Crampton might be surprised to find no one waiting for him, but he’d go over to the Doom anyway, drawn to it by the light and because the caller had told him that it had been vandalized and exactly how.”

  Kate said, “Wouldn’t he ring Father Sebastian before he went to the church?”

  “Not till he’d seen for himself. He wouldn’t want to make a fool of himself by raising the alarm unnecessarily. But I wonder what excuse the caller gave him to explain being in the church at that hour. A chink of light, perhaps ? He was woken by the wind, looked out, saw a figure and got suspicious? But the question probably wasn’t even raised. Crampton’s first thought would have been to go to the church.”

  Kate said, “And if Cain had worn a cloak, why return it to the house and still retain the keys? The missing keys are the vital piece of evidence. The murderer couldn’t risk having them in his possession. They would be easy enough to dispose of chuck them anywhere on the headland but why not return them? If he’d had the guts to sneak in and take them you’d think he’d have the guts to go back and return them.”

  Piers said, “Not if he was bloodstained, either his hands or his clothes.”

  “But why should he be? We’ve gone over all that. And there’s no hurry, he would have time to go back to his room and wash. He wouldn’t expect the body to be discovered until the church was opened for morning prayer at seven-fifteen. There’s one thing though.”

  “Yes?” asked Dalgliesh.

  “Doesn’t the fact that the keys weren’t returned point to the murderer being someone who lives outside the house? Any of the fathers had a legitimate reason for being there at any hour of the day or night. There would be no risk to them in returning the keys.”

  Dalgliesh said, “You’re forgetting, Kate; they wouldn’t need to take them. The four priests already have keys and I’ve checked. They’re still on their key-rings.”

  Piers said, “But one of them might take a set precisely in order to throw suspicion on one of the staff, ordinands or guests.”

  Dalgliesh said, “It’s a possibility, just as it’s a possibility that the defacing of the Doom had nothing to do with the murder. There’s a childish malice about it which doesn’t tie up with the brutality of the killing. But the most extraordinary thing about this murder is why it was done in this way. If someone wanted Crampton dead, he could have been killed without any need to entice him into the church. None of the guest sets has a lock or key to the door. Anyone in college could have walked in to Crampton’s room and killed him in his bed. Even an outsider wouldn’t have had much difficulty provided he knew the layout of the college. An ornamental iron gate is one of the easiest to climb over.”

  Kate said, “But we know it can’t have been an outsider apart from the missing keys. No car could have got past that fallen branch after ten o’clock. I suppose Cain could have come on foot, climbed over the tree or maybe walked along the beach. It wouldn’t have been easy in last night’s wind.”

  Dalgliesh said, “The murderer knew where to find the keys and the code for the alarm. It looks like an inside job but we keep an open mind. I’m just pointing out that if the murder had been committed in a less spectacular and bizarre way it would have been difficult to bring it home to anyone at St. Anselm’s. The possibility would always have remained that someone did get in, perhaps a casual thief who got to know that doors were unlocked and killed Crampton in a panic because he woke at the wrong moment. It isn’t likely, but it couldn’t have been discounted. This murderer not only wanted Crampton dead, he wanted the crime fixed firmly in St. Anselm’s. Once we’ve discovered why we’ll be on the way to solving it.”

  Sergeant Robbins had been sitting quietly a little apart, making notes. Two of his many accomplishments were the ability to work unobtrusively and to write shorthand, but his memory was so reliable and precise that the notes were hardly necessary. Although the most junior, he was a member of the team and Kate found herself waiting for Dalgliesh to bring him in. Now he said, “Any theory, Sergeant?”

  “Not really, sir. It’s almost certainly an inside job and whoever did it is perfectly happy for us to know that. But I’m wondering whether the altar candlestick could be part of that. Can we be certain it was the weapon? OK, it’s bloody, but it could have been taken from the altar and used after Crampton was dead. The PM wouldn’t be able to show not conclusively anyway whether the first blow was struck with the candlestick, only whether there are traces on it of Crampton’s blood and brain.”

  Piers said, “What’s your thinking? Isn’t the central puzzle the difference between an obviously premeditated murder and the frenzy of the attack?”

  “Let’s suppose it wasn’t premeditated. We’re fairly sure that Crampton must have been lured there, presumably to be shown the desecration of the Doom. Someone is waiting for him. And then there’s an angry exchange. Cain loses control and strikes out. Crampton falls. Then Cain, standing over a dead man, sees a way of pinning it on the college. He takes the two candlesticks, uses one to strike Crampton again, and sets both of them up at his head.”

  Kate said, “It’s possible, but that would mean that Cain had something ready to hand, something heavy enough to crack a skull.”

  Robbins went on, “It could be a hammer, any sort of heavy tool, a garden implement. Suppose he saw the gleam of a light in the church last night and went to investigate, arming himself with anything he had handy. Then he finds Crampton there, they have a violent quarrel and he strikes out.”

  Kate objected.

  “But why would anyone go into the church at night alone armed with any kind of a weapon? Why not ring someone in the house?”

  “He might prefer to investigate, and perhaps he didn’t go alone. Perhaps he had someone with him.”

  A sister maybe, thought Kate. It was an interesting theory.

  Dalgliesh was for a moment silent, then he said, “We’ve a lot to do between the four of us. I suggest we get started.”

  He paused, wondering whether to speak what was in his mind.

  They had one murder clear before them; he didn’t want to complicate the investigation with matters which might not be relevant. On the other hand it was important that his suspicions should be kept in mind.

  He said, “I think we have to see this murder in the context of two previous deaths, Treeves and Mrs. Munroe. I have a hunch no more at this stage that they’re connected. The link may be fragile but I think it’s there.”

  The suggestion was greeted by a few seconds of silence. He felt their surprise. Then Piers said, “I thought you were more or less satisfied, sir, that Treeves killed himself. If Treeves was murdered, it would be too much of a coincidence to have two killers in St. Anselm’s. But surely Treeves’s death was either suicide or an accident? Look at the facts as you’ve set them out. The body was found two hundred yards from the only access to the beach. Difficult to carry him over that shore and he’d hardly walk willingly with his killer. He was strong and healthy. You couldn’t bring down half a ton of sand on his head unless you had first drugged him, made him drunk or knocked him out. None of these things happened. You said the
PM was thorough.”

  Kate spoke directly to Piers.

  “OK, let’s accept it was suicide. But suicide has to have a reason. What drove him to it? Or who? There could be a motive there.”

  “But not for Crampton’s murder, surely. He wasn’t even at St. Anselm’s at the time. We have no reason to suppose he ever met Treeves.”

  Kate went doggedly on.

  “Mrs. Munroe remembered something from her past which worried her. She speaks to the person concerned and shortly afterwards she’s dead. It strikes me that her death is suspiciously convenient.”

  ‘For whom, for God’s sake? She had a bad heart. She could have died any time.”

  Kate reiterated, “She wrote that diary entry. There was something she remembered, something she knew. And she would have been the easiest person of all to kill, an elderly woman with a weak heart, particularly if she had no reason to fear her killer.”

  Piers protested.

  “OK, she knew something. That doesn’t mean it was important. It could have been some minor peccadillo, something Father Sebastian and those priests wouldn’t approve of but which no one else would take seriously. And now she’s cremated, this cottage cleared and the evidence, if any, gone for good. Whatever she remembered, it happened twelve years ago anyway. Who’s going to do murder for that?”

  Kate said, “She found Treeves’s body, remember.”

  “What’s that to do with it? The diary note is explicit. She didn’t remember that incident from her past when she saw the body, she remembered when Surtees brought her some leeks from his garden. It was then that things came together, the present and the past.”

  Kate said, “Leeks a leak. Could it be a play on the word?”

  “For God’s sake, Kate, that’s pure Agatha Christie!” Piers turned to Dalgliesh.

  “Are you saying, sir, that we are now investigating two murders, Crampton’s and Mrs. Munroe’s?”

  “No. I’m not proposing to jeopardize a murder inquiry for the sake of a hunch. What I am saying is that there could be a connection and that we should keep it in mind. There’s a lot to do so we’d better get on with it. The priority is the fingerprinting and questioning the priests and ordinands. That’s for you, Kate, with Piers. They’ve seen enough of me. So has Surtees, so you’d better see him and his sister. There’s an advantage in facing them with someone new. We’re not going to get far until Inspector Yarwood is well enough to be questioned. According to the hospital that should be by Tuesday if we’re lucky.”