“The bodies have gone to the mortuary.”
“Of course. Do you know who they were?”
“Mr Webb didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
“Well, we haven’t had them officially identified yet, so it would perhaps be wiser not to say who we think they are until we are sure. But I can say that to the best of our knowledge they are not from your parish.”
“That is some comfort, though of course it shouldn’t be, because they are still—or were—men.”
“Just so, vicar. But now, you asked what you could do for us. I’m sorry to say we shall need to look inside the church.”
“Of course.”
“You have the key?”
“No. The keys are held by the publican in Oakby. As the church is for sale, it was felt that the keys should be available nearby. The pub seemed the place most prospective buyers would visit so we asked Tom Goodall, the licensee, if he would mind acting as custodian. Besides, Tom was once a churchwarden here.”
Masters looked up at Webb. “Didn’t you tell Mr Canning we wanted the key?”
“Yes, Chief. He called in at The Green Man to get them from Goodall. But they aren’t there.”
“Where are they?” asked Masters slowly.
Canning spoke. “Tom told me he had given them to Mr Alexander Heberden some days ago.”
Chapter Three
As Green, Iliff and Berger reached the hedge at the far side of the first field, it was easy to see the large, blackened area where the old rick had formerly stood. They passed through a second gate and made their way towards it. As they got closer, it was possible to make out the outline of the stack itself. The bottom two or three inches of charred straw were still in position, not wholly consumed. Iliff explained that the immense weight of straw above had, over the years, compressed this bottom layer into a harder, more compact and, therefore, less inflammable mass.
“I’ll believe you,” said Green. “But I reckon that if there was any moisture about—and there would be, even though there’s been a drought—it would most likely be at the bottom. So it was probably the damp that stopped that last bit going up in smoke.”
Iliff grunted, and they stood silent for a moment or two, looking at the irregular area blackened by the fire.
“Where’s west?” asked Green.
“Yonder.” Iliff was a countryman, and with the sun shining brightly he had no hesitation in pointing out what Green wanted to know.
“So the stack was lined-up, roughly, north-west and south-east, would you say?”
Green took a moment or two to consider things. “A burning glass couldn’t have been on the north-west end, because the direct rays of the sun never get north of west.”
“This south-west side, then,” suggested Iliff.
Green shook his head. “The sun would shine directly on it all right, but earlier in the afternoon. Our bloody fire didn’t start till after tea, did it?”
Iliff said: “In that case, it must have been right on the corner.”
Green grunted assent. “Unless our boyo tried to be clever and pulled a heap out of the stack and placed his eyeglass strategically on that.”
Berger said: “I’ll comb the corner.”
“Right lad. Get down to it. I want every square inch for a yard every way of that corner sifting through with your hands. Take your jacket off and roll up your sleeves.”
“I could do with something to kneel on.”
“Hold hard,” said Iliff. “There’s a good thick stake in the hedge. It’s leaning over, so it could be loose.”
The baulk of timber was a split pole with the flat side wide enough to kneel on. Thus protected from the worst of the feathery ash, Berger, using a small stick as a probe, gently sifted the black and grey ash: inch by inch as though counting sand grains. It was a hot, dirty task and a slow one. Slow because Iliff had suggested that the beaters could have broken a lens to flinders and Green had retorted that in that case he wanted the bits, every one of them.
Iliff relieved Berger from time to time, and between them the sergeants had been searching for almost forty minutes when Berger looked up and asked: “How’s this?”
He held the stick out towards Green. On it was dangling a piece of brass bent over at one end and flattened along half its length.
Iliff peered closely. “Earpiece,” he grunted, standing up stiffly. “The brass that goes down the middle of the tortoiseshell—or plastic, I suppose. The covering must have melted away in the fire.” He turned to Green. “So that’s that. You’ve established a link between the incidents.”
“You can’t start fires with bits of brass wire,” grunted Green. “I want the glass.”
It was a further ten minutes before Berger unearthed half a lens. He handed it up to Green without a word.
“That’s it, lad. The proof we need. Get yourself up. You’ll likely be able to get a wash at Cobb’s farm.”
“Cobb’s?” asked Iliff in surprise. “We know we’ve got a firebug on the loose, and the way he operates.”
“Aye, lad,” said Green as they walked back to the car. “But haven’t you wondered why that earpiece was there?”
“Not for any reason except that the fire-raiser was too idle to break the lens out of the frame.”
“Idle? Hardly. Not a chap who was so methodical.”
“Why then?”
“You can start a fire if you sling a bit of curved glass on to inflammable material and the sun happens to catch it. But to make sure—if you wanted to burn holes in paper like we did when we were kids, or to light the end of a fag—you’d have to hold the glass away.”
“To focus the rays,” agreed Berger.
“That’s it. So I think our fire-raiser used that bit of brass as a distance piece for the lens, to hold it away from the straw so’s the rays would be concentrated in one spot.”
“I get it,” said Berger. “You think the firebug just broke a pair of spectacles in half across the nosepiece. Then all he had to do was jam the hinge to make sure the earpiece would stick out. He pushed the other end into the straw so that the glass was a few inches away.”
“Right, lad. And we’ll try to prove it by taking a look round at Cobb’s farm.”
“But, Mr Green. . . .” said Iliff.
“What?”
“If that lens was placed like you think, that rick would have started to smoulder within minutes.”
“You don’t say! Look, sergeant, I’ve been telling you for the past hour that the timing of these fires was important to whoever started them. He wanted them all to go off at roughly the same time of day—to mislead us. Whereas, I reckon the time of day was forced on him by the movements of the vet’s wife. So it was no use to him if they didn’t start to smoulder within minutes.”
Iliff opened the field gate. “Then whoever did it wouldn’t have a chance to get very far away before those fires were properly ablaze.”
“Now you’re beginning to think, son. So now you know what you’ve got to do, don’t you?”
“Ask about at the site of every fire.”
“That’s right. Get your local bobbies asking questions.”
“If he had a car, he could get a long way away in two or three minutes,” said Berger. “In fact, he’d have longer than that. The straw might begin to smoulder in that time, but there wouldn’t be a noticeable blaze for perhaps another two or three minutes. In quiet countryside like this it could mean he’d be a mile away before anybody noticed anything amiss—always supposing there was somebody close by to see it early on.”
“There wasn’t at this one,” conceded Iliff, getting into the car. “It was blazing away before those four people in the car and the constable saw it.”
The local man drove them to Cobb’s farm where, knowing exactly what to look for and where—within a yard or so—to look for it, he and Berger again began to search. After raking and sifting for no more than five minutes, Berger found a twisted piece of brass wire, discoloured
by the flames but, as far as they could tell, the twin of the piece unearthed at the rick fire.
“That’s it, lads,” said Green with satisfaction. “Go to the farmhouse and ask if you can wash up a bit.”
“You’re not going to the other sites?” asked Iliff.
“I’m not. Your lads can do that. Though you won’t find anything at the vet’s place.”
“I told you that.”
“So you did. Now, get cleaned up. I want to find His Nibs.”
*
“Alexander Heberden had the key, had he?” asked Masters. “And Alexander Heberden is missing.”
“What?” asked Canning. “Mr Heberden missing? Since when?”
“Do you mean to say the village grapevine hasn’t been working, vicar?”
Canning shook his head. “I knew Mr Heberden was going away to judge at some agricultural show. I did hear, however, now I come to think of it, that he hadn’t cancelled the milk, though that was unlike him, for he was a most thoughtful and considerate man.”
“That would account for it,” said Reed. “If everybody expected him to be away, nobody would remark on his absence.”
“Missing?” asked Canning again. “Are you sure?”
“According to Mrs Heberden he is. She reported the fact to the police.”
Canning stared at Masters with troubled eyes. “I am perturbed, Superintendent. Very perturbed. In view of the fact that you have found the bodies of two men violently done to death within the churchyard, and now Mr Heberden has gone missing while in possession of the church keys—a fact I am at a loss to understand—I fear the worst.”
“The worst, vicar?”
“You have combed the churchyard for signs of a third body?”
Masters nodded. “Thoroughly. This morning. Not after finding the first body in the well, because we had no reason to suppose there would be a second corpse. But after finding the second man. . . .”
“I see.” Canning stared at Masters for a moment, as the idea came into his mind. “You sent for me . . . or the key, rather . . . because you feared there might be another body inside the church itself?”
“I had no reason to think so when I asked Mr Webb to bring you here. But now I know that Heberden was—or is—in possession of the church key, I think I have every reason to fear that he may be inside the church.”
Canning glanced round at Webb and Reed in turn, as if seeking a rebuttal of Masters’ words. All he got, in return, was the sight of two solemn faces. “This is too horrible to contemplate,” he said at last. “Two dead strangers in the churchyard is enough, but one of one’s friends dead in the church itself. . . .”
“Cheer up, vicar,” said Masters, in a kindly tone. “We may be mistaken.”
“I hope so. Truly, I hope so. Heberden! A pillar of society, locally. And two others . . . nameless men, as yet . . . but still men.” He dropped into silence. After a moment Masters got to his feet. “It’s after eleven o’clock. The village pub should be open. I’d like a word with the landlord, and I think you, vicar, could do with a drink.”
Canning looked up. “I really believe I could. But I’m not accustomed to resorting to alcohol for solace.”
“You can’t go into church to pray, vicar. The door’s locked. So come along with us. A drink will do you good.”
Canning needed no further urging, and a few minutes later he was introducing Tom Goodall to Masters.
Masters ordered drinks and while Goodall was serving them, asked how often Heberden had asked for the church key.
“Not often as far as I know. We’ve only let them out a few times in five years. More often in this last month than ever before.” He passed over the vicar’s whisky and pints of beer for the others. “A chap called . . . what was his name? A big chap with black hair and a foreign look about him. Foreign name, too, as I remember. Here, Mr Canning, you brought him here that first time.”
“Who, Tom?”
“That foreign-looking chap. He wanted to see over the church. What was his name?”
“Ah, yes. I remember. His wife was called Happy. I’ll always remember that.”
“Aye, but what was his name? Mel something or other.”
“Melada,” said Canning. “John Melada. He seemed very keen on buying the church.”
There was silence in the saloon bar for a few moments. They were the only four customers and there was nothing to say after this bit of news. The vicar was savouring his whisky, unaware that the name he had mentioned had silenced his companions.
For an appreciable time it seemed as if they were all waiting for somebody else to speak. It was Masters who broke the spell.
“Thank you, landlord.” He turned to Canning. “Shall we go on to the table in the window, vicar? We can talk more easily there.”
The parson agreed, and the four of them sat in a circle. It was obvious that the whisky had helped to restore Canning’s spirits, and he made no objection when Masters signalled to Goodall for another round to be brought before the purpose of the coming discussion was divulged.
They were alone again before Masters began.
“Tell me about Mr John Melada, vicar.”
“I know very little about him. I only met him the once, and that by chance.”
“Tell me about that one meeting, then.”
“It was rather a prolonged encounter and, you might say, split into two parts.”
“It sounds very interesting. Almost intriguing. So much so that I’d like to know every detail you can recall. In full. Leave nothing out.”
“Treat us like a congregation. As though you were preaching an intricate sermon,” suggested Reed.
The second double whisky had completed the job begun by the first. It had loosened Canning’s tongue. Few men—always supposing they were not suspected of any crime—could help but be flattered by the close attention of the three policemen—one of them as eminent as Masters. When the tongue has been loosened by whisky and you are a parson who loves to preach to an appreciative congregation, and rightly recognising that you are not too bad an exponent of the art, then an invitation to give an address is as welcome as oasis water to a parched desert traveller. Canning went ahead without further urging. Extempore as it was, as he warmed to his subject, the vicar’s cameo held his listeners’ unwavering attention. The man of the cloth turned thespian. He played all the parts. He closed his eyes for a moment, as if to recall every detail of some scene and then started his story.
“It was a lovely afternoon in late spring. In late May, this year. I had gone to St John the Divine’s . . .”
Webb leaned forward to interrupt, but Masters laid a hand on his arm to stop him. The questions could come later.
“. . . and had stayed there, half an hour or so, sitting in the sun on the seat we occupied today. I find the solitude there . . . not uplifting exactly . . . but to my liking. I suppose I had fooled myself into believing that I could compose a sermon there, but I confess my sojourn was more in the nature of an afternoon snooze than a creative period.
“I had an appointment in Oakby so, reluctantly, I left the seat. I had parked my car in the village, so I was to walk back. It was when I got to the churchyard gate—I was actually through it and was fastening it behind me—when the noise of hard-soled footwear on the road caused me to look up. An extraordinary sight met my eyes. Coming from the direction opposite to the one which leads to the village was a big, dark-haired man, carrying a young woman pick-a-back.
“Perhaps I should describe the couple to you, because apart from so unreal a mode of transport, they themselves were slightly odd. As I said, the man was big and dark-haired. All of six feet and broad shouldered. A hooked nose—foreign-looking. His hair was unruly, and there was far too much of it for a man rising forty, as I judged him to be. I told you I’d heard hard-sounding footsteps. Small wonder. He had on a pair of tall modern boots in pale tan with thick solid soles—the sort most men would have matured out of before reaching thirty. He also wore
a sky-blue suit, the jacket of which had bellows pockets, epaulettes and a belt which he wore unfastened. And, or so it seemed to me, he laughed continuously—at virtually every word spoken, either by himself or others. But I only realised that after I’d been in his presence for a time. So I’d better move on to describe the lady he was carrying. He had his hands behind her knees, and her legs stuck out in front, so I was immediately aware of her shoes. Quite small and plain shoes. Almost like a school-shoe. Very scuffed. She had bare legs, a flowered summer frock, very faded and short, and what looked to me like a home-made blazer fashioned from the material of an army blanket dyed navy blue.
“She was a small person, though I didn’t realise that until I saw her standing on the ground. But up on the man’s shoulders her head was only on a level with his, and so I should have appreciated her smallness straightaway. But I was too taken by her appearance to notice her size. She was what my mother used to call mousey-fair, with hair as straight as a pound of candles. It was cut in a fringe in front and fell down on both sides as far as her chin: a little chin on an elfin face. It was as though a child was looking through a picture frame. And she wore spectacles. A great pair of dark-rimmed glasses the bridge of which had fallen down to the end of her little nose.
“When they saw me, she asked to be put down. I saw then that, she was not a child but a young woman. I would have guessed, at first, that she was a young student existing on a minimum grant and determined to be defiant about her tatty appearance. But I learned different a little later on.”
Canning paused and finished the last drop of his whisky. Masters gestured to Reed to have the glass refilled.
“You’re doing very well, vicar. You certainly have an eye for detail. We meet very few people who would be able to give so comprehensive a description of somebody they had met only the once, and that some weeks ago.”
“People are my business,” said Canning simply, as though such an explanation were a good reason for acquiring an all-embracing knowledge of all whom he met. That he was not very far wrong in what was, after all, almost a claim to clairvoyance, was borne out by what followed. With his third drink in front of him, he continued his account.
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