Missing Joseph

by Elizabeth George

  “You’ve been working on the house since the vicar died?” It seemed unlikely. The place wasn’t that large.

  “It takes time, doesn’t it, to get things sorted out proper and to make them tidy when someone passes on.”

  “You’ve done a good job.”

  “It’s just that they always look the vicarage over, don’t they, the new ones? It helps them make a decision if they get offered the job.”

  “Is that how it worked with Mr. Sage? Did he come to look the vicarage over before he took the position?”

  “He didn’t mind what it was like. I s’pose it was because he didn’t have a family so it didn’t much matter about the house. There was only him in it.”

  “Did he ever speak of a wife?” St. James asked.

  Polly reached for the amulet which lay in her lap. “Wife? Was he thinking of getting married?”

  “He’d been married. He was a widower.”

  “He never said. I thought…Well, he didn’t seem much interested in women, did he?”

  Lynley and St. James exchanged a glance. Lynley said, “How do you mean?”

  Polly picked up the amulet and closed her fingers round it, returning her hand to the arm of the chair. “He never acted any different with the church-cleaning ladies than he did with the blokes that ring the bells. I always thought…I thought, well, maybe the vicar’s too holy. Maybe he doesn’t think about ladies and such. He read the Bible lots, after all. He prayed. He wanted me to pray with him. He’d always say, Let’s start the day with a prayer, dear Polly.”

  “What sort of prayer?”

  “‘God, help us to know Your will and to find the way.’”

  “That was the prayer?”

  “Mostly. But it was longer’n that. I always wondered what way I was s’posed to find.” Her lips curved briefly. “Find the way to cook the meat proper, I guess. Except he never complained about my cooking, the vicar. He said, You cook like Saint Somebody-or-other, dear Polly. I forget who. St. Michael? Did he cook?”

  “I think he fought the devil.”

  “Oh. Well. I’m not religious. I mean the kind of religion with churches and such. Vicar didn’t know that, which is just as well.”

  “If he admired your cooking, he must have told you he’d not be home for dinner the night he died.”

  “He only said that he wouldn’t be wanting any dinner. I didn’t know he was going out. I just thought maybe he wasn’t feeling right.”

  “Why?”

  “He’d been holed up in his bedroom all day, hadn’t he, and he didn’t eat his lunch. He came out once round tea time to use the phone in the study, but he went right back to his room when he was done.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Round three, I guess.”

  “Did you hear his conversation?”

  She opened her palm and looked at the amulet. She rolled her fingers against it. “I was a tad worried about him. It wasn’t like Mr. Sage not to eat.”

  “So you heard his conversation.”

  “Just a tad is all. And only because I was worried. It wasn’t like I was listening to hear. I mean, he wasn’t sleeping well, the vicar. His bed was always thrashed up in the morning like he was wrestling with the sheets. And he—”

  Lynley leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He said, “It’s all right, Polly. You had good intentions. No one’s about to judge you for listening at a door.”

  She didn’t look convinced. Distrust flickered behind the skittish movement of her eyes from Lynley to St. James back to Lynley.

  “What did he say?” Lynley asked. “Who was he talking to?”

  “You can’t judge what happened then. You can’t know what’s right now. That’s in God’s hands, not yours.”

  “We aren’t here to judge. That’s up to—”

  “No,” Polly said. “That’s what I heard. That’s what the vicar said. You can’t judge what happened then. You can’t know what’s right now. That’s in God’s hands, not yours.”

  “Was that the only phone call he made that day?”

  “Far’s I know.”

  “Was he angry? Was he shouting, raising his voice?”

  “He sounded tired, mostly.”

  “You didn’t see him afterwards?”

  She shook her head. Afterwards, she said, she took tea to the study, only to find that he’d gone back up to his bedroom. She followed him there and knocked on the door, offering him the food which he refused.

  “I said, You haven’t had a bite all day, Vicar, and you must eat something, and I’m not leaving this spot until you have a bite of these nice toast fingers I’ve got here. So he finally opened the door. He was dressed, and the bed was made but I knew what he’d been doing.”

  “What?”

  “Praying. He had this little prayer place in a corner of the room with a Bible on it and a place to kneel. That’s where he’d been.”

  “How do you know?”

  She rubbed her fingers against her knee in explanation. “Trousers. The crease was gone from right here. There were wrinkle places as well, where his leg bent to kneel.”

  “What did he say to you?”

  “That I was a good soul but I mustn’t worry. I asked him was he ill. He said no.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “I said, You’re wearing yourself out, Vicar, with these trips to London. He’d just got back the day before, see. And every time he went to London, he looked a bit worse than the last time he went. And every time he went, he came home and prayed. Sometimes I wondered…Well, what was he up to in London that he came back so tired and peaky looking? But then, he went on the train, didn’t he, so I thought maybe it was just the aggravation of travel and such. Getting to the station, buying all the tickets, switching trains here and there. That sort of thing. Makes you tired, a trip like that.”

  “Where did he go in London?”

  Polly didn’t know. Nor could she say what he’d been doing. Whether it was Church business, whether it was personal, the vicar kept the information to himself. The only thing Polly was able to tell them for sure was that he stayed in a hotel not far from Euston Station. It was the same hotel each time. She remembered that. Did they want the name?

  Yes, if she had it.

  She started to rise, then caught her breath with something like surprise when the movement didn’t come easily to her. She disguised a small cry by coughing. It did little enough to hide her pain.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m silly to fall. Got myself real banged up. Clumsy old cow.” She inched her way forward in the chair and pushed herself up when she got to the edge.

  Lynley watched her, frowning, noting the odd manner in which she held her pullover bunched in front of her with both hands. She didn’t stand up straight. When she walked she favoured her right leg.

  He said abruptly, “Who’s been to see you today, Polly?”

  Just as abruptly she stopped. “No one. Least no one that I recall.” She made a show of thinking the question over, creasing her brow and concentrating on the carpet as if she would see the answer there. “Nope. No one at all.”

  “I don’t believe you. You didn’t fall, did you?”

  “I did. Out back.”

  “Who was it? Has Mr. Townley-Young been to see you? Did he want to talk to you about the pranks at Cotes Hall?”

  She seemed genuinely surprised. “The Hall? No.”

  “About last night in the pub, then? About the man you were with? That was his son-in-law, wasn’t it?”

  “No. I mean it was. It was Brendan, true. But Mr. Townley-Young hasn’t been here.”

  “Then who—”

  “I fell. I got banged up. It’ll teach me to be more careful.” She left the room.

  Lynley pushed himself to his feet and walked to the window. From there he paced to the bookcase. Then back to the window. A wall radiator was hissing beneath it, insistent and irritating. He tried to turn the knob. It seemed permanently stuck. He cl
enched it, fought with it, burnt his hand, and cursed.

  “Tommy.”

  He swung round to St. James, who hadn’t moved from the sofa. “Who?” he asked.

  “Perhaps more importantly, why?”

  “Why? For God’s sake—”

  St. James’ voice was low and perfectly calm. “Consider the situation. Scotland Yard arrives and begins asking questions. Everyone’s meant to toe the already established line. Perhaps Polly doesn’t want to. Perhaps someone knows that.”

  “Christ, that’s not even the point, St. James. Someone beat her up. Someone out there. Someone—”

  “Your hands are full and she doesn’t want to talk. She could be afraid. She could be merely protective. We don’t know. The larger issue at the moment is whether what happened to her is connected to what happened to Robin Sage.”

  “You sound like Barbara Havers.”

  “Someone has to.”

  Polly returned, a slip of paper in her hand. “Hamilton House,” she said. “Here’s the phone as well.”

  Lynley put the slip of paper into his pocket. “How many times did Mr. Sage go to London?”

  “Four. Perhaps five. I can look in his diary if you want to know for certain.”

  “His diary’s still here?”

  “All his things’s here. His will said to give all his belongings to charity, but it didn’t say which. The church council said to pack everything up until they decide where to send them. Would you like to look through it?”

  “If we may.”

  “In the study.”

  She led them back along the corridor, past the stairway. She’d apparently been cleaning spots in the carpet sometime that day because Lynley noticed patches of damp that he hadn’t seen when they first entered the house: near the door and in an uneven trail to the stairs where one of the walls had been washed as well. Beneath a bare urn stand opposite the stairway, a strip of multicoloured material curled. As Polly walked on, oblivious, Lynley picked it up. It was flimsy, he discovered, similar to gauze, with threads of metallic gold running through it. It reminded him of the Indian dresses and skirts he’d often seen for sale in outdoor markets. Thoughtfully, he twisted it round his finger, felt an unusual stiffness to it, and held it up to the ceiling light which Polly had turned on in their progress towards the front of the house. The material was heavily blotched with a rusty stain. It was frayed on the edges, ripped from a larger piece, not cut with scissors. Lynley examined it with little surprise. He put it into his pocket and followed St. James into the vicar’s study.

  Polly stood next to the desk. She’d lit the lamp on it, but positioned herself so that her hair cast an oblique shadow across her face. The room was crowded with cartons, all of them labelled, one of them open. This contained clothes, obviously the source of Polly’s trousers.

  Lynley said, “He had a lot of possessions.”

  “Not a lot of important stuff. It’s just that he was a bit of a hoarder. When I wanted to throw something away, I had to put it in his work tray on the desk and let him decide. Mostly he kept things, especially London things. Tickets to museums, a day pass for the underground. Like they were souvenirs. He just collected odd bits, did the vicar. Some people are like that, aren’t they.”

  Lynley wandered among the cartons, reading the labels. Just books, loo, parish business, sitting room, vestments, shoes, study, desk, bedroom, sermons, magazines, odd bits… “What’s in this?” he asked of the last.

  “Things from his pockets, scraps. Theatre programmes. That sort of thing.”

  “And the diary? Where would we find it?”

  She pointed to the cartons marked study, desk, and books. There were at least a dozen. Lynley began moving them for easier access. He said, “Who’s been through the vicar’s belongings, besides yourself?”

  “No one,” she said. “The church council told me to pack everything up and seal it and mark it, but they haven’t looked things over yet. I expect they’ll want to keep the parish business carton, won’t they, and they might want to offer his sermons to the new vicar as well. The clothes can go to—”

  “And prior to your packing things into cartons?” Lynley asked. “Who went through his things then?”

  She hesitated. She was standing near him. He could smell the odour of her perspiration soaking into the wool of her pullover.

  “After the vicar died,” Lynley clarified, “during the investigation, did anyone look through his belongings?”

  “Constable,” she said.

  “Did he go through the vicar’s things alone? Were you with him? Was his father?”

  Her tongue darted out to dampen her upper lip. “I brought him tea. Every day. I was in and out.”

  “So he worked alone?” When she nodded, he said, “I see,” and unsealed the first carton as St. James did the same to another. He said, “Maggie Spence was a frequent visitor to the vicarage, as I understand. She was a great favourite of the vicar.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Did they meet alone?”

  “Alone?” Polly picked at a rough spot on the side of her thumb.

  “The vicar and Maggie. Did they meet alone? In here? In the sitting room? Somewhere else? Upstairs?”

  Polly surveyed the room as if looking for the memory. “In here mostly, I’d say.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was the door open or shut?”

  She began to unseal one of the cartons. “Shut. Mostly.” Before Lynley could ask another question, she went on. “They liked to talk. Bible stuff. They loved the Bible. I’d bring them their tea. He’d be sitting in that chair”—she pointed to an overstuffed chair on which three more cartons were piled—“and Maggie’d be on the stool. There. In front of the desk.”

  A discreet four feet away, Lynley noted. He wondered who placed it there: Sage, Maggie, or Polly herself. He said, “Did the vicar meet with other young people from the parish?”

  “No. Just Maggie.”

  “Did you think that unusual? After all, there was a social club for the teenagers, as I understand. He never met with any of them?”

  “When he first got here there was a meeting in the church for the young people. To form the club. I made them scones. I remember that.”

  “But only Maggie came here? What about her mother?”

  “Missus Spence?” Polly shuffled through the material in the carton. She made a show of examining it. It seemed to consist mostly of loose papers filled with typescript. “She never was here, Missus Spence.”

  “Did she phone?”

  Polly considered the question. Across from her, St. James was going through a sheaf of papers and a stack of pamphlets. “Once. Near supper. Maggie was still here. She wanted her at home.”

  “Was she angry?”

  “We didn’t speak very long, so I couldn’t say. She just asked was Maggie here, sort of snippy, I guess. I said yes and fetched her. Maggie talked on the phone, mostly Yes, Mummy, No, Mummy, and Please listen, Mummy. Then she went on home.”

  “Upset?”

  “A bit grey in the face and dragging her feet. Like she was caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to. She was fond of the vicar, Maggie was. He was fond of her. But her mum didn’t want that. So Maggie came to see him on the sly.”

  “And her mother found out. How?”

  “People see things. They talk. There’s no secrets in a village like Winslough.”

  It seemed a wildly facile statement to Lynley. As far as he had been able to ascertain, there were secrets layered upon secrets in Winslough and nearly all of them had to do with the vicar, Maggie, the constable, and Juliet Spence.

  St. James said, “Is this what we’re looking for?” and Lynley saw that he was holding a small engagement diary with a black plastic cover and a spiral spine. St. James handed it over and went on rooting through the carton that he had opened.

  Polly said, “I’ll leave you to it, then” and left them. In a moment, they could hear wate
r running in the kitchen.

  Lynley put on his spectacles and flipped through the diary from December, backwards, noting first that although the twenty-third was marked with the Townley-Young wedding and the morning of the twenty-second had Power/Townley-Young scrawled at half past ten, there was no reference on that same day to having dinner with Juliet Spence. The day before had a notation, however. The name Yanapapoulis made a diagonal across the lines for appointments.

  “When did Deborah meet him?” Lynley asked.

  “When you and I were in Cambridge. November. A Thursday. Was it round the twentieth?”

  Lynley flipped the pages forward. They were filled with notations about the vicar’s life. Meetings of the altar society, visitations to the sick, the assembling of his fledgling teen club, baptisms, three funerals, two weddings, sessions that looked like marital counseling, presentations before the church council, two clerical gatherings in Bradford.

  He found what he was looking for on Thursday the sixteenth, SS next to one o’clock. But at that point, the trail went cold. There were names listed next to times further back, all the way to the vicar’s arrival in Winslough. Some were Christian names, some were surnames. But it was impossible to tell if they belonged to parishioners or if they indicated Sage’s business in London.

  He looked up. “SS,” he said to St. James. “Does that suggest anything to you?”

  “Someone’s initials.”

  “Possibly. Except that he’s not used initials any place else. It’s always names except this once. What does that suggest?”