But it was not her grand design for the spiritual welfare of her parish that was preoccupying her as she walked along in the fragile winter sunshine. She was very much exercised over Suzanne’s story of the keys, confided it seemed almost against her will, and then only on the promise of strict secrecy.
Obviously, no one needed a key to approach the garage. But Suzanne was convinced that this was the latest, terrifying development in a pattern of persecution against herself, by one of her friends.
Margaret sighed. She had, of course, urged Suzanne to tell the police immediately, but the woman had become almost hysterical at the suggestion.
‘How can I?’ she cried wildly. ‘How can I tell the police that I suspect my best friends? I don’t know which one it is; it’s difficult enough already, and the police would go and accuse them all, and then I’d have nobody left, nobody!’
And her husband didn’t count, Margaret thought sadly, remembering the scene in the supermarket, but she said only, ‘I’m sure the police would be tactful,’ though she wasn’t altogether convinced of that herself.
The other woman shook her head frantically. ‘You won’t tell them, will you? You promised!’
‘No, I won’t,’ she said heavily. ‘I promised, though I wish you hadn’t asked me to.’
‘I’m – I’m sorting it out myself.’ Suzanne turned away, fiddling with the twisted flex of her toaster. ‘Taking precautions. Just till I know, OK?’
And there Margaret had to leave it. Perhaps it would all come out when the police got round to questioning Patrick, who also apparently knew but hadn’t made a direct connection.
Well, perhaps there was none. Perhaps Suzanne was exaggerating. She was certainly overwrought.
But then her mind went to her meeting with Laura Ferrars. That had been very strange. Mrs Ferrars had always appeared a calm and collected person, as you would expect from a woman in her position. It was natural, no doubt, to be upset about the fire – they all were – but not to be able to reply to a casual social remark was surely out of character. ‘No doubt she’d be glad to see you’: that was all Margaret had said, wasn’t it? Hardly what you could call contentious.
Piers McEvoy and James Ferrars would have had access to the keys too, of course, but Suzanne had been forthright in dismissing them. And given Robert’s analysis as well, her gut reaction was probably right.
So who could it be? Laura Ferrars, who had always seemed so level-headed, until today? Elizabeth McEvoy, who had troubles enough, without seeking for more? Hayley Cutler?
She held that thought. The woman was apparently both immoral and unscrupulous, and it was tempting to assume her guilt. But somehow...
If only she could discuss it all with Robert! But she had promised, and though the confidence had not been made under the seal of the confessional, she was bound by professional ethics.
She was most unhappy about it, though. Margaret sighed again as she turned in under the lych gate.
8
‘Sir – ’
Rod Vezey was coming out of the tent of plastic when the voice hailed him, and he looked up. Jackie Boyd, the young DC who, with her short spiky red hair had the look of a fledgling bird, was waiting there, standing uncomfortably as if ready to take flight. Her obvious unease irritated him.
‘Speak up, Boyd, if you’ve got something to say.’
She flinched, but said sturdily enough, ‘They want you round the back. There’s some sort of footprint – not very good...’
Behind the concrete apron round the garage was a fringe of long grass by the fence dividing the garden from one of the little pathways so common in Stretton Noble. This one was gravelled, with more rough grass growing up the shallow bank.
‘Here, sir.’ One of the detectives was pointing to an area by the fence.
‘Someone’s been through here – see?’
The long, lush blades were flattened in the spot where someone would have had to set their foot to cross from the gravel of the path to the concrete of the garden if they were to squeeze through the fence.
The grass had not held what could be termed a footprint, but there was the blurred outline of a shoe or boot.
Vezey studied it attentively. ‘Small,’ he said.
‘That’s right, sir. We’ll get photos and exact measurements, but it looks as if it’s a pretty small chap. A kid, even.’
‘Or a woman.’
‘Suppose so. Not usual, you’d have to say.’
‘Any idea of the type of footwear?’
‘We’ll let the lab boys do their stuff. But don’t hold your breath.’
He turned, looking for his sergeant, a bullet-headed young man called Dave Smethurst.
‘Dave! Get a group combing that area – both directions, on all fours if that’s what it takes. See if you can figure where our friend came from to get on to the path.’
Smethurst nodded. ‘Sir. But I’ve walked it already, and most of the houses have a gate and a neat little path. A fence like this is the exception.’
‘Do it anyway.’
At least it was evidence. He liked physical evidence; you could make something of it.
Then an unwelcome thought struck him. There was a child in this house, and children were famously reluctant to take the long way round.
Suzanne Bolton, her face tear-stained, opened the kitchen window when he tapped.
‘Well, of course he does,’ she said in answer to his question. ‘If it’s the quickest way to go.’
‘When was the last time he did it?’
She looked bemused. ‘I haven’t the slightest idea. You’ll have to ask him – he’s at the Cartwrights’. Yesterday, perhaps?’
‘But not last night, or this morning?’
‘Not that I know of.’
He turned away. Perhaps the lab boys would know how long it took bruised grass to spring up again. They knew the most extraordinary things, but it wasn’t the sort of evidence the Crown Prosecution Service liked. This was what he termed ‘thumb-and-two-fingers’ evidence, the sort they held out at metaphorical arm’s length with a pained expression.
Still, it was another straw in the wind. Moon’s off-the-wall hunches had an uncanny way of proving to be right.
***
Andy Cutler kicked the stand out from under his motorbike to park it in the driveway outside the Briar Patch, and got out a chain and padlock from the pockets of his leathers. The bike had an engine immobilizer, but it was the joy of his life and he was taking no chances. As he bent to fix it, the helmet he had tucked under his arm fell and rolled across the pavement to land at the feet of a woman who was walking by.
She stooped to pick it up, and he recognized her: Miss Moon, the vicar. He thanked her politely as she handed it back to him.
‘That’s a nice bike,’ she said. ‘It’s a Harley-Davidson, isn’t it?’
He stared, astonished. Old dames like her not only didn’t know the makes of bikes, they tended to freak out if they so much as saw one. His pale olive skin flushed with the pride of ownership, and he could not help looking fondly at the machine.
‘Cost enough,’ he said gruffly.
‘What did you do to earn it?’ She actually sounded interested.
‘That was five years of Saturdays and school holidays working in the supermarket.’
He paused, but she was still paying attention, not glazing over like most wrinklies once they’d asked what they thought was a suitable question.
‘Other kids say I’m lucky to have it, but they spent their Saturday mornings in bed.’
‘It can’t have been what you might call exciting either. What are you doing now?’
He looked at her vicar’s shirt and collar; suspicion seized him and he withdrew.
‘There’s no need to chat me up, you know, just because you think it’s your job. I’m not into God-bothering.’
She didn’t take offence. She smiled and said, ‘I’ll let you know when I start the sales pitch. Just at the moment, I thi
nk you’re an interesting person, and I’d like to know more about you.’
‘Not much to know, really.’ It came out off-hand, because he had felt bad about being ungracious, so he hurried on. ‘Foundation course in computing at the local college. It’s pretty naff, but the syllabus is OK. I want to go on and do electronics at university, but Hayley – Mum – says she can’t afford it.’
‘Wouldn’t you get a grant?’
He shot her a sideways look. ‘She says she can’t afford it. She’s always had money for whatever she wants. It just doesn’t stretch to serious handouts to us.’
‘To be fair to your mother, a lot of people find money’s hard to come by these days.’
For a second he was prepared to go along with the diplomatic whitewash, but the lure of being listened to was too strong.
‘She says the business is going down the tube,’ he burst out, ‘but she’s said that before. And then surprise surprise some new boyfriend turns up and bales her out.’
He paused again, but the vicar didn’t look shocked and he went on, ‘Still, this time she’s been in a serious bad mood for days, so maybe she has got problems. She got a huge bunch of flowers today – roses and things – and she looked really pleased till she read the card, and then she freaked out. She tore it up and started pulling the flowers to bits and threw them all over the place. Then she stormed out and shut herself in her room. We cleared it up OK, me and Martha, but – it’s a bit heavy, I suppose. We really don’t know what to do.’
‘Do you,’ suggested Margaret gently, ‘have grandparents?’ ‘Yeah, sure. Grandad and Sarah. They live in Brighton.’ That wasn’t such a dumb idea. Grandad was pretty old, but Hayley still paid attention to what he said.
‘I could go round and see her, of course, if you thought it might help.’
He looked awkward. ‘Well, maybe not. She isn’t exactly into that kind of thing. But I could phone Grandad, maybe; get them to come and see her. Though if he comes I’ll have to cut my hair and lose the earring if he’s not going to have a coronary and make things worse.’
‘Oh, what a shame!’
To his further amazement, the vicar was looking at his ponytail and silver skull earring with what seemed to be genuine approval.
‘I do think it’s a splendid hairstyle – neat, becoming, and at the same time rebellious. All the things a young man’s hairstyle should be.’
‘You’re a funny sort of vicar,’ was all he could think of to say.
She laughed at him. ‘If you mean vicars are usually male and boring and stuffy I’ll take it as a compliment. But it’s a bit sad if you feel I’ve got to be conventional. Jesus certainly wasn’t; he was notorious for having a pretty rackety set of friends.’
He felt thrown off balance, yet at the same time intrigued.
‘I’ve never heard anyone put it quite like that before.’
‘Do me a favour? Come along to my youth club when I get it going. I badly need some street cred, if it’s not to be composed of intensely respectable teenagers. And if you think respectable adults are boring, try talking to a teenager who was born aged fifty.’
‘You didn’t warn me you were starting the sales pitch.’ She grinned, and when she did she suddenly looked a lot younger.
‘OK, so it was an ambush. Think about it, will you?’
‘I might.’
Unlike every other adult of his acquaintance, she didn’t labour the point.
‘Good,’ she said briskly. ‘And now I must go. I’ve got a lot to do today.’
He noticed then that she was looking quite tired, very tired in fact. Then she was gone.
He turned back towards the house, and his spirits, which had lifted, sank again.
***
When Margaret arrived home that afternoon, Minnie Groak had Robert backed against the wall at the far end of the kitchen. He looked afraid to move, like the victim of a knife-throwing act in the circus, as she shot questions at him, her sharp black eyes brilliant with curiosity.
Margaret’s heart sank. She had told Minnie not to come in Christmas week, but after last night naturally Minnie would be round, rootling like a pig for whatever truffle of gossip she might unearth.
Minnie came to ‘oblige’ at the vicarage for two hours every week. This was not an arrangement of Margaret’s making; Minnie was a trial inherited from the previous incumbent.
‘But I don’t need a cleaner!’ Margaret had protested to John Anselm when he broached the subject. ‘I live alone, I don’t have obsessive standards and I can keep a doll’s house like this perfectly well on twenty minutes a day.’
‘Well, that’s a mercy,’ he said, the corners of his mouth twitching. ‘Minnie doesn’t come to clean. Oh, she always gets the Hoover out, but in much the same way as they carry in the Mace to the House of Commons, without any expectation that it will be used.’
She stared at him. ‘Then what on earth –’
He held up his hand. ‘Ah. Minnie is your channel to and from what most of your well-heeled parishioners would probably term the sub-stratum of the village. That’s the small local industry of people who go to the big houses to clean, rather than to attend drinks parties, the ones who rarely come to church and if they do shuffle past crab-wise while you are being sidetracked by the “Nice, morning, vicar,” brigade.
‘Minnie Groak knows about everyone and everything that goes on in this place. If anyone is in trouble, I’ll hear about it; if I want to make a point I can be sure it will be circulated in the right quarter. Of course, it’s a bit like keeping a Venus flytrap as a pet; she has a sordid appetite which must be fed, but there’s plenty of harmless stuff that will keep her happy.’
‘So you pay her to come and gossip?’
He sighed. ‘I suppose so, yes. It’s dirty work, my dear, but keeping one’s hands clean is a luxury which in our business you can’t afford.’
The dreadful thing was, Margaret had begun to appreciate his argument. Reaching the have-nots in Stretton Noble was a serious problem, and she had not yet discovered a better way of making contact. Acceptance of the situation was not, however, enjoyment, and she had looked forward to the week’s respite.
‘Minnie! I didn’t expect to see you,’ she said now with false brightness as she entered the kitchen. ‘Have you had a good Christmas?’
At the prospect of a more promising quarry, Minnie turned and Robert, with impressive agility, dodged about her; greeting Margaret with the enigmatic words, ‘MacGregor! the grandest of them all’ he shot towards the kitchen door and freedom, muttering lines whose source Margaret registered vaguely as being ‘The Relief of Lucknow’, a childhood favourite.
Minnie always arrived for work wearing a man’s raincoat, long, shabby and drooping. When she took it off, the impression remained; her slouching posture, her long thin arms and the grey drabness of her skin and clothing made it look as if she too might be suspended from a peg and ignored.
Only her eyes and the loose, talkative mouth told a different story. As she switched her attention to Margaret, the floodgates opened.
‘Well, that was a nice to-do last night, wasn’t it? What this place is coming to, God only knows – oops, sorry, vicar, but then, He does, I expect – and none of us able to sleep easy in our beds at night.’
She sniffed, portentously. ‘Not but what we might have expected something, what with all the comings and goings this last bit. You might say it’s a judgment, but then it’s not them as deserves it that suffers, mostly. Still, that’s life, isn’t it?’
‘Comings and goings?’ Margaret said feebly, finding herself as usual mesmerized against her will.
Minnie’s rubbery lips curved in relish. ‘You know me, Miss Moon, never one to gossip,’ she said virtuously. ‘But being the vicar, it’s only right you should know.
‘There’s some funny doings, that I can tell you, with all that lot; thick as thieves, they are, the Boltons and the McEvoys – she’s a poor soul, of course – and the Ferrars and that Mizz Cut
ler – no better than she should be, she isn’t. Sacked poor Tracy Weekes who did for her, didn’t she, just before Christmas – fine Christian time to do it, I said to Trace – and told her she was having to cut down. Well, according to Tracy there wasn’t much cutting down anywhere else, the drinks or the posh clothes. And just try asking my fine lady what it’s like up the reservoir of a morning – or of an evening, or any time she can get it – ’
‘Minnie!’ Margaret protested.
‘Oh, don’t go thinking I’m telling you what anyone else couldn’t tell you. That Mr McEvoy, of course –’
‘I’m so sorry to hear about Tracy losing her job.’ Margaret at last managed to find her voice. ‘Is she all right, or is there anything I can do?’
Cut off in full flow, Minnie subsided sulkily. ‘Oh, Tracy!’ she dismissed her. ‘That one’s just as happy signing on. Doesn’t know the meaning of hard work, she doesn’t.’
Ignoring the Hoover standing in silent reproach at her side, Minnie changed tack.
‘But you’ve been round talking to Mrs Bolton. Poor thing, all that happening. A dead man right on your doorstep; not very nice, that isn’t. All right, is she?’
‘Yes, fine,’ Margaret said faintly. This was worse than usual, much worse; she felt too much sickened by this evidence of local prurience to pay her dues. ‘She’s being very brave. Now, Minnie, if I could leave you to do the kitchen, I’ve got a lot to get on with.’
Minnie bridled. She had expected a better return on her investment of effort in coming today.
‘That’s right, you go and shut yourself up, vicar,’ she said spitefully. ‘Better not to be about these days, not once it gets dark anyway, so I won’t be staying late. There’s queer goings-on, no doubt of it; people have seen shadows moving when they shouldn’t be, and there’s nothing to say that old man’s going to be the last.’
Margaret had reached the door, but she turned. ‘What do you mean, Minnie? Do you know something? If you do, you should go to the police.’
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