Past Praying For

by Aline Templeton

  ‘Oh no, in bed by now, I should think.’

  With horrified embarrassment, she heard her own voice make the puerile joke. What could have possessed her? It must be shock, and if she allowed herself to laugh she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop.

  Determinedly not looking at anyone, she hurried on, overriding the quiver in her voice.

  ‘I’m sorry, I was confused for a moment. What I meant was, he’s staying with me at the moment in the Vicarage.’

  ‘The Vicarage?’ That surprised him into reaction. ‘Right. I’ll make time to see him tomorrow. Warn him to expect me. Now, if you can just tell me...’

  It didn’t take long. Vezey processed Margaret’s meagre information in a matter of minutes; in not much more, he established that Suzanne had parked her car shortly after four, that she had left the garage door open in case she might want to go out again, and that she had locked the door at nine o’clock, when she had let the dog out. He remained impassive when she said, her voice trembling once more, that she wondered if it might have been a cry for help that wakened her.

  His manner gave her no encouragement to elaborate or to dwell upon events. When he had finished, he said, ‘We won’t need you again before the morning. I suggest you get some sleep. Jackie, you can come with me.’

  Jackie had been clearing mugs and glasses; with an apologetic glance she abandoned her task and followed him out.

  Patrick got to his feet. ‘Do you suppose he’ll lock us up if we don’t do as we’re told? I’m certainly much too cowed to argue. Margaret, do you want me to walk you home?’

  ‘Good gracious, no. The place is alive with policemen. I’ll be safer than I would be on any normal night.’

  At the door, Patrick said good-night and headed upstairs, while Suzanne, looking worn and fragile, held it open.

  ‘Taking the blame,’ Margaret said with what conviction she could muster, ‘is an indulgence you simply must not permit yourself. I’m saying this to myself as much as you, because if he hadn’t come to see me, this wouldn’t have happened. But we might just as logically blame a stone if he’d fallen and cracked his skull on it. Or Tom himself, for that matter; he chose to trespass in your garage. He wasn’t to know there would be a fire, but then neither were you. Try to sleep.’

  ‘You’ve been very kind,’ Suzanne said. ‘I’ll try.’

  She shut the door, but through the uncurtained window at the side of the front door Margaret saw her stand motionless, her hands covering her face.

  ***

  With fingers that were shaking and clumsy, Hayley Cutler fumbled the brass bolts, fitted only that day, into place on her back door, as if she could keep out by these physical means the darkness she felt surrounded her.

  She had not immediately followed Piers out to see the fire. She had taken a bath first, running it as hot as she could stand and tipping in lavish quantities of the costly bath oil which had been her Christmas present to herself.

  So she had arrived late on the scene, after the crowd had dispersed. A young policeman, looking shaken himself, told her the gruesome story.

  Hayley had fled home, driven by irrational terror: irrational, because she knew how many police were within earshot of even a muffled scream.

  Fear was stalking her close. When Suzanne had asked for the return of her key, Hayley realized instantly what lay behind the request; it had seemed, at the time, comforting that she herself was not the only target.

  Yet someone had struck again at Suzanne – at her garage, like a warning – and an innocent dosser had been, they seemed to think, an accidental fatality of vandalism.

  Perhaps he was. But in her heart she did not think so.

  The walls of the cottage were thick and the windows had shutters which she had never used. Now she went to unfold them; thick with dust, they creaked and loose plaster fell out, but she felt safer once the bars were swung across.

  She had forgotten to switch off the coffee machine, and the red light glowed invitingly. She poured some into a mug, wrapping her hands round its comforting warmth. It might keep her awake, but then she wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.

  The conclusion seemed inescapable. Denied entry to Suzanne’s house, someone had reacted in this hideous way. Might her bolts and bars attract similar revenge?

  Most horribly of all, that gave the stalking monster a human face. Only four people had keys; she was one and Suzanne, the present victim, was the other. There were only two people left; Laura Ferrars and Elizabeth McEvoy.

  She had known them for years. She had talked with them, laughed with them, looked into their eyes and seen no shadow of the insane malevolence this suggested. Their husbands, of course, might have used the keys they held, but who knew better than she that Piers had had nothing to do with it? And James – well, it was impossible to imagine James creeping around at night – it would ruffle his hair! She smiled at the thought, but the smile was short-lived.

  She even considered Patrick, briefly. He was a tough, cold sort of character – at least, he never came on to her the way other men did – and if it had been her garage he’d be right up there on her list. There had been an added chill factor lately, notably towards Piers as well. Maybe he had figured they had a thing going, and he obviously had a weakness for sweet St Lizzie...But it was hardly a reason for starting a fire which might have killed him as well as his wife and child.

  No, the case against the men just didn’t hold up.

  The letter and the apple she had found impaled had alerted her to the existence of hatred, and tonight, alone in the house, she was very, very frightened. At best, the fire had been the work of someone supremely indifferent to the safety of others. At worst...

  She took another gulp of her coffee and shivered. For who could tell whether or not the malignity who had done this had known that the old man was there?

  7

  ‘I will turn their mourning to joy: I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.’

  Holy Innocents Day: this was the prescribed introductory sentence. It was undeniably apposite, but in the light of last night’s events seemed offensively pat. This morning Margaret found herself seriously out of tune with God, and she had always had problems with the Book of Jeremiah anyway, with its suggestion that a new set of wives and children could painlessly replace those so arbitrarily removed.

  Tom had been an innocent, in his way, stripped by his addiction of all the sophisticated cushioning that protects prosperous mankind from the rawness of existence. The latter part of his life, at least, had been spent in what previous ages had seen as the beggar’s office: that of offering others occasion for the exercise of charity. He had been harmless, as harmless as the sparrow to which you might flick crumbs out of your plenty. Could she really believe, today, that not one fell outside the Creator’s knowledge and design?

  Perhaps it was a lesson about eternal values set against temporal ones, but this morning she didn’t feel philosophical, she felt flayed and tired and headachy, and for all the point there was in this service, she might just as well have stayed in bed with an aspirin.

  Generally, she liked the morning services on Saints’ Days. There might be two or three devout souls; on occasions, she had read the service for herself with the sense of acting for others as the link which kept unbroken a chain of prayer stretching back across the centuries.

  Today, she could not rise above a theologically childish resentment that an all-powerful God could not have seen to it that poor old Tom had chosen the garage next door instead.

  Still, she had a job to do, and this was one of the mornings when she did it because that was how she earned her living. She hadn’t always enjoyed going to the bank either.

  She found and marked the readings, being only further irritated to discover her own rebellion echoed in the first one, about Rachel who had also refused to be comforted.

  Her preparations made, she went as usual to kneel in prayer, but finding it impossible to open her mind to God, rel
ieved her feelings with a tirade about waste and futility – spiritually immature, perhaps, but satisfying.

  There were three people there this morning. Clearly, last night’s accident was not yet common knowledge, or there would have been a larger congregation, some in genuine prayer for the tragedy and some to discover whatever gossip might be going. It was a tradition which, if not officially sanctioned, was certainly time-hallowed.

  Elizabeth McEvoy was there, unusually. She was a faithful Sunday worshipper, but Margaret had never seen her there on a weekday. Presumably Suzanne had phoned to tell her what had happened.

  Elizabeth spent a little time after the service kneeling in prayer, and was the last to leave the church. Looking at her drawn face, Margaret said, ‘I’m so glad you came this morning. I hope it helped.’

  Elizabeth looked confused, as if the remark were unexpected. ‘Well…’

  ‘I know. Nothing helps much, does it? Something like last night just leaves you feeling sick.’

  This time there was no mistaking the other woman’s surprise, or even shock.

  ‘Oh, dear God! Is it all over the village? I suppose he was with Hayley Cutler – I could swear I recognized her perfume on the shirt he was wearing last night.’

  Margaret had suffered agonies of gaucherie as a teenager, but it was many years since she had felt so helplessly embarrassed.

  Her face flaming, she stammered, ‘Oh – oh no, you misunderstand me! I wasn’t talking about your husband at all.’

  As if blushing were contagious, Elizabeth too turned a painful colour. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words came.

  ‘You obviously haven’t heard,’ Margaret said hastily. ‘I assumed you would know – the fire at the Boltons’ – ’

  ‘Oh yes, of course.’ She struggled to regain her composure. ‘But – but that was just the garage, wasn’t it? Paula said they had got it under control last night.’

  ‘Well yes, but unfortunately an old tramp had taken refuge there –’

  Her embarrassment forgotten, Elizabeth listened in horror, her eyes filling with ready tears.

  ‘How – how perfectly horrible! Poor Suzanne – I’ll phone her whenever I get home. And – and about the other thing –’

  She paused, and Margaret was wise enough to say nothing.

  ‘I’ve blurted it out to you now, so where you’re concerned I haven’t any face to save. And they always say, don’t they, that there’s no such thing as a mistake in these circumstances. Perhaps I really wanted someone to know. Sometimes I feel it’s destroying me, that I shall go mad if I go on and on, acting as if everything is all right. My whole life is such a wretched mess; whatever I do is wrong –’

  ‘Wrong for whom?’ Margaret interjected crisply. ‘Wrong for you? Wrong for your children? Or just wrong for your husband?’

  Elizabeth stared at her, as if this were entirely a new idea.

  ‘He wouldn’t like me talking to you – to anybody.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s specially relevant, do you? I’m always at the end of a phone.’

  ‘You’re very kind. I’ll think about it. I’d better go now. I felt I needed to come, but I didn’t tell anyone I was going out.’

  As Margaret went back to the vestry, she paused for a moment in front of the altar. She wasn’t yet prepared to surrender her larger grievance, but in fairness she had to admit that getting out of bed this morning hadn’t been as pointless as it seemed.

  ***

  When she got back to the vicarage at half past eight, there was a car parked outside. She was no expert on marques, but it was large and black and somehow brutal-looking, and she sighed.

  It was an unwelcome sight. Muttering darkly, she let herself in and followed the voices through to the kitchen.

  Robert, looking uncharacteristically grave, was seated at the little round kitchen table, facing her as she opened the door. She recognized the man with his back to her as Vezey, the detective who had questioned her the night before. He did not get up as she came in.

  Robert did, to pull forward another chair, though the table was not really designed for three.

  ‘Margaret, you’ve met Rod Vezey, I gather.’

  ‘Yes, last night. Good morning, inspector.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, glancing at her briefly before transferring the powerful focus of his attention back to Robert. ‘So that’s the current state of play. Anything you can make of it?’

  Margaret pointedly lifted the empty coffee pot and made a business of refilling the kettle and noisily setting out a cup, saucer and plate for herself.

  With his elbows on the table, Robert made a steeple of his fingers, and contemplated them.

  ‘Profile of a pyromaniac,’ he said slowly. ‘Well, putting it simplistically, it’s revenge for lack of love, of human warmth. There’s something very trite about psychological symbolism, isn’t there? Conscious symbolism is always considerably more subtle – but I digress!

  ‘They’re more commonly male than female, though that’s based on old research: women are achieving equality in all sorts of unexpected areas these days. Often the parents have been either physically or emotionally absent.’

  ‘Personality?’

  Robert considered the other man’s question.

  ‘Liable to be anxious and self-punishing; when anxiety for one reason or another gets out of control, rage takes over. The fire may be an undirected explosion of fury, or an act of direct revenge against someone in particular. But I don’t suppose that’s really taken you much further.

  ‘Is there any hard evidence?’

  Not much. They can tell it wasn’t a gang of kids, for instance – no trampling on the soft ground round about, apart from the firemen, of course, and the regulation boot is nothing if not distinctive. But there’s concrete right round the garage, so anyone could have walked across it and left no trace.’

  As Margaret came back to the table with the coffee pot, Vezey wordlessly held out his cup to be refilled. Offer it up, Margaret’s better self urged, but she could only suppose that offering God seething resentment controlled by the conventions of hospitality put her on a par with Pyewacket hopefully presenting her with a particularly mangled mouse.

  Noticing his sister’s expression, Robert hurried on. ‘How much have they been able to establish about the way the fire was started?’

  ‘Very neat. Set just as you’d set a fire in the hearth, with paper and sticks. The end wall had been sprayed with that gel stuff they use on barbecues – lethal. I’d take it off the market, if I had my way. We found the bottle – with smudges rather than prints, unfortunately – but it could come from any one of a dozen shops. There was one like it in the Bolton’s garage: there’s probably one in half the sheds in Stretton Noble. It’s real barbecue belt round here.’

  There was a sneer in his voice, and Margaret discovered, to her own surprise, that she felt defensive.

  ‘Eating out of doors is hardly a crime,’ she said tartly.

  Both men looked at her, Robert in mild surprise at her tone, and Vezey, she thought, with the air of one addressed by a kitchen chair; interested in the phenomenon but far from sanguine about the quality of its contribution.

  ‘I didn’t say it was,’ he said.

  Before Margaret could speak again, Robert interposed. ‘And the victim? Is it possible it was murder rather than accident?’

  Vezey gave the question his careful consideration, but the downturn of his mouth expressed scepticism.

  ‘The mechanics would be far too elaborate. And there’s no mystery about him; he was Tom Porter, well known to the local force. Travels round various different circuits in the course of a year, so as not to use up the good will. Done it for years. We lift him every so often when someone complains.

  ‘He goes in to the city during the summer months – where you encountered him, Miss Moon – and he knows all the hostels where he can con a bed in winter. They reckon he would have been making his way to the hostel near Bro
adhurst, but we found an empty bottle of vodka beside him. Presumably some dogooder was misguided enough to give him cash in hand as a Christmas box.’

  The sneer was back, but Margaret managed not to leap into a denial of responsibility. ‘So at least he would know very little about what happened?’

  There was no compassion in his face. ‘Who knows?’ he said, rising abruptly.

  ‘Work that up into a profile for me, Robert, will you? I’ll contact the force in Bath – say I need you here for a few days.’

  He walked out without farewell, and they heard the front door slam behind him.

  Margaret counted to ten. ‘Would you like me to invite you to stay with me for a little longer?’ she asked sweetly. Robert grinned. ‘He’s quite something, isn’t he?’

  ‘Does that sort of rudeness come naturally, or has he been specially trained?’

  ‘He’s focused,’ Robert said placidly. ‘He’s superbly effective – just doesn’t waste energy on the peripheral things.’

  ‘Like common politeness.’ Margaret refilled their coffee cups, but as curiosity overcame her indignation, asked, ‘What will he do now?’

  Robert shrugged. ‘Arrange door-to-door enquiries. Talk to the scene-of-crime officers and the fire scientists. Chase up the path lab for a full report on the body – they’ll drag their feet, because charred bodies...Well, it’s understandable.’

  Shuddering, Margaret agreed.

  ‘Then he’ll have to get back to his desk and deal with the other ninety-three cases he’s got sitting there. Everything else doesn’t stop, you know; this is just one more case.’

  ‘And do you think you can point him to any short cuts?’

  ‘Mmmm. One or two fairly obvious things, I suppose. The neatness of the fire-laying – that’s extremely interesting. Usually it’s a case of dowsing with petrol and flinging a match.

  ‘This suggests someone in the habit of setting domestic fires. Could be male or female, but it does have implications about social class. They don’t put open fires into council houses any more, so setting one is almost a forgotten art. Having an open fire is rapidly becoming another middle-class affectation. And the barbecue fuel – that’s interesting too. Such a very domestic substance to use, wouldn’t you say? Most male fire-raisers would, as I said, automatically think of petrol, or possibly paraffin, if its handy.