Heberden's Seat

by Douglas Clark

  “You could tell her?” asked Masters.

  “At length,” replied Canning with a little, slightly tipsy laugh. “The Heberden family—”

  “Hold it! Hold it!” said Webb excitedly. “You said Heberden.”

  Canning nodded. “Alexander Heberden, the man you tell me is missing, is of the same family as the old vicar. Not his direct descendant, of course, because he was a younger son and so went into the church. Alexander is the elder son’s descendant. As you know, he lives in the old family house, or what remains of it, just on the far side of the village from the church.”

  “He owns the village?”

  “Not nowadays. But he owns a lot of land between Oakby and Beckby. It is all good agricultural land of one sort or another and is well farmed.”

  “You told all this to the two in the church?”

  “The bit about Heberden? Yes, sometime later. But when I was answering Happy’s question about why the tomb had never been used, I told her that after the first vicar died, the Heberden family made a votive offering expressive of a desire to leave the tomb unused for ever. In return, the wardens of the parish hold certain properties in perpetuity, a fact for which I personally am thankful in that the income from the properties forms a not insubstantial part of my own stipend.

  “Melada was on to that as quick as a flash. He wanted to know how, with the church for sale, the wardens could guarantee their half of the bargain. I explained that it was an easy matter because nowadays nobody is allowed to bury a body except in consecrated ground or other areas specifically set aside for the purpose. Now that St John’s is no longer used as a church it would be impossible to get permission to inter a body in Heberden’s tomb, unless the new owner of the property wished to store an urn of ashes there and that would not be quite the same thing as the burial of earthly remains. He heard me out and then asked how, if the church were to be sold, I could still claim the income. I pointed out that the offering was to the parish and so it remains, even though one church is closed. We are keeping within the spirit of the expressed desire and the letter of the law.

  “Melada seemed satisfied and Happy told me what I already knew—that Melada wanted to turn the tomb into a sunken bath. She seemed so upset at the idea that I tried to reassure her by saying that he would have a difficult job on his hands as there was no water in the church. I told him there is a well just outside the vestry door, but explained one didn’t need much water in a church except for the font and the flower vases.

  “He laughed—as usual—and said. ‘I thought you watered the wine, padre.’ I was a little surprised by his knowledge, but I explained that the small amount needed for wetting the two forefingers of the officiating clergyman’s hands and for swirling in the chalice to make certain the last of the consecrated wine is drunk was very small indeed and would be brought to the church by whoever conducted the service.

  “Happy, as I said, seemed pleased that there was no piped water, but Melada said all he would need was a pump. When I added that there was no electricity to drive a pump he said he would make his own with a second-hand compressor bought at an army surplus sale.

  “At that point—because he seemed so very determined to buy the church, even against his wife’s wishes—I said to him that I thought there was some inner compulsion driving him on. He’d brushed aside every objection. No water, no electricity and—as I pointed out—no lavatories either. His answer to that was that he would dig a septic tank in the churchyard.

  “What could one do in the face of such determination? As I said to Happy, I didn’t know whether to be pleased at his strength of purpose or—in view of her obvious unhappiness—to be sad at his wilful disregard of almost insurmountable difficulties and her feelings. But I did go so far as to say to him that I thought he should pay some heed to his wife’s wishes.

  “At that, Melada bent down and lowered the raised flag into its correct position. It was such a perfect fit that it fell home on its ledges with a faint plop as it compressed the air in the tomb. And as he did it, he told Happy that just to please her he would seal it with cement and move the altar so that he could put a sofa or sideboard over it.

  “At that point I had to say that if they wanted me to take them to a garage they would have to cut short their viewing. And it was then that I told Happy about Heberden. She told me she’d seen the name on the seat outside while waiting for Melada to return with the key. Melada locked the church, and catching the end of our conversation, asked if Alexander Heberden was a wealthy man. My reply was that I supposed he was comfortably off, but not nearly so rich as his forebears were, in comparison. I said a bit about taxation hitting men like Alexander Heberden even harder than it hit men like us. To my great surprise, Melada laughed and said he wouldn’t know about that because he never paid any tax. I doubted that, but he said he didn’t if he could possibly help it, and told me not to look so shocked. Christ, he said, wasn’t very keen on tax-gatherers, was he? That bloke Matthew, who became one of His biggest buddies, had to jack in the tax gathering before he was allowed to become a disciple, hadn’t he?

  “I admitted that what he had said was substantially true, so he asked why he should aid and abet tax gatherers in their sinful ways by paying taxes. He reckoned he was doing them a favour by abstaining.”

  “Abstaining?”

  “That was the word he used. He went on to ask me if that wasn’t another thing we preached—abstinence. I could only reply that he was too good a theologian for me, and much as I would have liked to hear more of his thoughts about the church’s teaching, I felt we must hurry away. And that, Mr Masters, is the end of the story. I drove them into Beckby and introduced them to our local repair man and left them to it. The conversation during the journey did not concern me. In fact, I was left out of it. The two of them carried on a conversation virtually as though I was not there.”

  Masters thanked Canning for his report and for his time. As the four left the table, Masters did, however, say that he may find it necessary to call on the vicar again. Canning assured him he would look forward to a future meeting and expressed himself as only too happy to help the police in every way, for, he explained, he did not want a ravening beast loose among his flock, killing and desecrating as it went.

  Chapter Four

  It was after one o’clock when Masters and Reed reached The Chestnut Tree. They had dropped Webb who, declining their invitation to take a ploughman’s lunch with them, had explained that he wanted to call in at his office to see what had dropped on his desk in his absence, but specifically to ask whether the bodies had been positively identified as Melada and Belton. Iliff, too, had driven home for lunch, leaving Green and Berger at the pub to await Masters.

  “Beer and a salad sandwich,” said Masters when Berger asked if he could order for him. “Half a French loaf split longwise and well filled with greenery and tomatoes. Get the same for Reed. We’ve had a session already this morning and we’ve both got a drop to soak up if we’re not to sleep all afternoon.”

  “Boozing from eleven o’clock?” asked Green in amazement after being told what time the party had started. “What were you doing? Sitting on the doorstep waiting for them to open?”

  “Entertaining a talkative parson.”

  “The joker from Oakby.”

  “The vicar of Oakby-cum-Beckby. The Reverend Walter Canning.”

  “He preached you a sermon?”

  “For the price of three double whiskies.”

  Green looked at Masters. “For you to prime the pump that much, the sermon would have to be a bit different from most of those I’ve heard in church. Let’s have a guess at his text. How about: ‘Ding dong bell, body’s in a well.’”

  “You’re getting warm.”

  “So I should be, the number of fires I’ve raked out this morning.”

  “You sound as if you found more than ashes.”

  “And if the body in the well wasn’t a big enough topic of conversation to occupy the mind of a
sermonising parson, you, too, must have found a little something else to talk about.”

  “We found a second body. What did you find?”

  “Two spectacle lenses and two half spectacle frames.”

  Reed and Berger came across to the table with four plates of food and then went back to the bar to collect the tankards.

  “Our find was quite a spectacle too,” murmured Masters.

  “It would be. It would also be John Melada—at a guess.”

  Masters nodded. “He was under the sod. Literally. He had been buried just below the surface.”

  Green picked up his huge sandwich and said: “You know, when my mother saw us kids with a doorstep like this, she used to ask us if we’d got a sore hand. Only we always had mousetrap or a slice of boiled bacon in between. We lived well, you know.” Having had his say, he took a huge bite at the bread. It took some getting through and took a moment or two to separate. As he pushed stray strands of cress into his already over-full mouth, he added: “Want to tell me what the parson had to say?”

  “When we’re all four settled.”

  Green chewed noisily and then gulped to clear his mouth. “I can’t see what the parson would have to tell you that’s so interesting, unless he knew Melada.”

  The beer arrived. Green took a pull. “Was he a pal of Melada’s?”

  “He met him once.”

  Green grunted and picked up his sandwich again.

  Masters recounted the events of the morning and the interview with Canning. At the end, Green said: “He mentioned Rex, did he? I’ll bet you didn’t tell Canning that the body in the well was Rex Belton.”

  “I didn’t,” confessed Masters. “I didn’t want him too maudlin. I believe Melada’s death was a real blow to him. A second one—in so far as he may well have claimed an affinity with Belton equal to that he claimed with Melada simply because Melada had mentioned Rex in his hearing—coupled with the three double whiskies, which I daresay is an unaccustomed amount for him, could have caused him to preach rather than instruct. And I didn’t want that.”

  “You gave him the drink,” accused Green.

  “Admittedly. He didn’t ask for it. I wanted to oil the cogs of memory, overcome any judicious reticence there may have been, and loosen the tongue. Though I needn’t have worried about the last. He’d talk for free.”

  “To some purpose. If what he said about Melada wanting to buy that church was true there should be a good lead following up what happened.”

  “Agreed. Remember there were tombstone notices outside the church and as we’ve been told there hadn’t been any other prospective buyer for years to have put them there, it could be that he actually went ahead with his idea despite his girl friend’s objections.”

  “Could be. But I tell you what.”

  “Something I’ve missed?”

  “What the two of them said in the car. The parson said they ignored him. I find that hard to swallow. When a chap’s doing you a kindness, do you just leave him to chauffeur you about the countryside? I reckon you lean over backwards to include him and offer him sweets and fags. And, what’s more, I don’t believe that a chap who’s as talkative as you’ve made Canning out to be, would let himself be left out of any conversation like that.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’d want an explanation as to why he didn’t pin your ears back with a full account of that journey.”

  “He said the conversation was unremarkable and that Melada and Happy ignored him.”

  Green took a large swig of beer. “It’s too easy.”

  “What is?”

  “To say that and get away with it.”

  “A feeling. If a parson was party to a conversation he didn’t think he should report to the police. . . .”

  “The secret of the confessional?”

  “That sort of thing, yes. If he thought that, and could bull you along by giving you a full account of everything that went on earlier, then you’d think he was being entirely open with you and you’d accept it when he said the conversation in the car was unremarkable.”

  “Which I confess I did.”

  “Right. And so would I have done if he hadn’t said those two had left him out of it. That last bit, as I’ve said, doesn’t ring true to me. The parson’s a talkative bloke, Melada’s a jovial extrovert, and Happy is a little sweetie. That’s the picture, isn’t it? So how could Canning have been ignored?”

  Masters looked thoughtful. Eventually, he said: “I’ll buy that. It’s a point that didn’t occur to me. We’ll call on Canning this afternoon. If he is keeping something to himself, we’ll get it out of him. If not, we can just say we were passing and thought he’d like to know the identity of the man in the well.”

  “Devious bastard.”

  “You put me up to it.”

  “I know I did. Here, Berger, lad, more beer. On me.” Green handed over a fiver and turned back to Masters who said: “You haven’t told us about the fires yet.”

  Green sucked at his partial denture for a second or so before replying. Then he said: “I reckon we’ve uncovered a bit of well-laid-on hanky panky.”

  “To do with the murders?”

  “No obvious link. But judge for yourself.” He then ran through the events of the morning concerning the fires. When he came to the end, Masters said: “You’ve come to the conclusion that four of the fires were started to cover the purpose of the middle one—the vet’s surgery?”

  Green nodded.

  “I think you’ve read the situation correctly. It is right, isn’t it, that the four cover-up fires caused minimum damage—financially, I mean?”

  “No great loss at all. Two tumbledown sheds and two old haystacks.”

  “So the target was the vet?”

  “Don’t you think so?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  Green said: “You’ve got a better idea?”

  “How about what the vet had in his surgery? Could it be something from there rather than an effort to embarrass the vet himself?”

  Green digested this for a moment. “Maybe,” he conceded. “But how will we ever know that?”

  “By questioning the vet himself. About any enemies he may have and about what he kept in his surgery.”

  “You want me to do that?”

  “Only if you want to. We’ve got a lot of interviews ahead of us. I want to see Canning and the wives of the two dead men. Then there’s the diocesan office and Mrs Heberden. I’d prefer you with me.”

  “Fair enough. How about Reed, Berger and Iliff sorting out the vet while we get on with the interviews?”

  “Webb will be with us.”

  Green shrugged. “We’ll need somebody to show us the way.”

  *

  The vicarage at Beckby was an old house standing in a lot of ground. Webb, who was driving, pulled up at the double gates and the three of them got down to walk up the drive to the house. They were approaching from the side, level with the front building line of the house. To their right were trees, some of them very old, which gave way to the front lawn of the house. To the left of the path was the kitchen garden. This area, at least, appeared in good shape, and neat rows of onions, lettuce, leeks and all the other customary vegetables were showing well.

  “The parson’s been digging for victory,” said Green. “It looks to me as if he won’t do too badly in the grub stakes if he gets through that lot.”

  “I’d say he sells some,” said Webb. “The clergy aren’t well paid, and if you’ve got the land and can make a bit on the side. . . .”

  “On the principle that God helps them who help themselves?”

  “It would be practical Christianity, wouldn’t it?”

  “If he declares his earnings it would.”

  Masters said: “There’s a woman coming through the gate from the back of the house.”

  The backyard, with outhouses, was walled off from the kitchen garden. The woman who came through the gate—a sad, once green affair needing a
coat of paint—appeared to be in her early thirties, wore slacks and a sweater covered by a plastic bib apron and carried a trug full of garden implements and gloves in one hand and a kneeling mat in the other.

  “Mrs Vicar?” murmured Green.

  “I imagine so. Hang on.” Masters went towards her and selected one of the tracks of beaten earth between the vegetable rows to get to where she was. She had seen them and stood waiting.

  As Masters approached, she said: “If it’s the vicar you want to see, I’m afraid he’s not available.”

  “Mrs Canning?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Masters. I’m a policeman.”

  “Oh! You’re the one investigating the bodies in St John’s?”

  “Yes. I spent some time with your husband this morning. Could my colleagues and I have another word with him now, please?”

  “Well . . . .”

  “He’s not busy writing a sermon, is he?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Masters had a hunch. “An afternoon nap, perhaps?”

  She smiled. “How did you guess?”

  “Two clues. First, if he was on deck he’d be out here helping you and, second, as I was guilty of tempting him to have a drink before lunch, I suspect he would be feeling a little sleepy on an afternoon like this.”

  “So you’re the one who did it. It certainly isn’t like Walter to drink much at any time, but before lunch . . . you’d better come in. Do you mind the back way?” She went to the gate through which she had entered the garden, pausing to wait for Green and Webb to join them before passing through. The yard was of red brick, old and worn where feet went between the doors of the outhouses and the back door of the house, but covered in a faint green moss in corners and off the beaten tracks, as though nobody had taken a bass broom and given it a good brush up for years.

  The back needed paint. The narrow hallway inside needed paint, paper and carpet. Where this passage broadened out, past the stairs, into the main hall, there was a large square of coir on the floor, two bentwood chairs and a bamboo hall-stand that looked as if it had been left over—if not from a church jumble sale, at least from the white elephant stall of some function connected with the parish.