“About what time?”
“I’m not sure. Shortly after seven?”
They passed under a leafy archway, into a twilight of long shadows and ribbons of pale sunshine. The path turned stonier, cruder, the ruts deeper where rainwater lay pooled long after vanishing in the pastures and meadows. Tom felt the spongy patches against his heels, the legacy of Tuesday evening’s rain, and the cool air along his face. It was here, on his own walks, that he usually—usually, but not this instant—felt his spirit lift.
“When I went into the church sanctuary,” Sebastian continued, “I could see past the rood screen. I noticed the vestry door was open and the light on. I thought that a little odd. Only a few people have keys to the vestry, and I wasn’t expecting any one of them to be there at that time of evening, so I went to have a look.” He paused, glanced at Tom, then looked off towards the shell of a derelict shed that had captured Bumble’s interest. “I found Peter on the vestry floor.”
Tom wished he could see Sebastian’s eyes, as if the truth might be registered there, but his verger, having tugged at the lead, now crouched in the shadows and called the dog towards him.
Impatient, Tom asked, “And …?”
Sebastian groped along Bumble’s collar and unfastened the clip. “He was dead.”
He rose from his haunches as the dog, released, bounded joyously down the lane.
“Were you sure?” Tom watched Bumble dart into a sprawling shrub and a bird flit out the top. “Perhaps—”
“I was quite sure, Tom.” He flicked him a meaningful glance, and Tom understood in an instant: There was no novelty here. For Sebastian, this was déjà vu—one way or another. According to the archived news stories, he had been discovered in one of the bedrooms at Tullochbrae, the Allans’ Highland home, over the body of his dead brother, clutching the murder weapon, a fireplace poker.
“I suppose the obvious question is why you didn’t ring the police straight off. I think my first presumption would have been that there had been an accident, or that Kinsey had had a heart attack or the like, not—”
“He was lying prostrate,” Sebastian interrupted with some exasperation as they continued down the path. “There was a trickle of blood at the back of his hair, the verge was on the floor, and—”
He let dangle the residual thought.
“And what?” Tom pressed.
“When I stepped out of my cottage earlier to fetch Mitsuko, I saw Phillip walking up Poachers Passage, turning towards The Square. I thought at the time it was odd to see him there, at that hour, and without Bumble. I was going to call out to him, but I was needing to get to Mitsuko, and he was walking away with”—he squinted as if in recollection—“with uncharacteristic haste.”
“And then,” Tom prompted, “two minutes later, when you saw Peter’s body in the vestry, you thought perhaps …” He left the rest unsaid, thinking: Three people now placed the colonel in the vicinity of the church at a crucial time. He watched Sebastian’s lean, strong fingers wind the dog lead into a coil and waited for a response. When none came, he continued, “Why would you think that? Why would you think the colonel might have killed Kinsey?”
Finally Sebastian spoke: “Phillip was troubled about something.”
“About the paintings that used to hang in the Lady chapel?”
“Then you know.”
“He told me this afternoon at hospital.”
Sebastian flicked him an irritated glance. “I knew how angry and offended Phillip was, and so …” He bit along the edge of his lower lip. “I’m afraid Mitsuko flew right out of my head after seeing Peter lying there. I must have passed into a sort of daze, because next I knew I was in the pub, not quite sure how I got there. Walked, of course, but …”
In his mind’s eye Tom imagined the flight out of the church and down Church Walk. But was Sebastian shocked at finding Peter Kinsey dead after seeing the colonel moving up Poachers Passage, or shocked at having rashly killed his old schoolmate before the colonel had even stepped into the church?
“… Then, finally, I remembered Mitsuko up in the tower. I left the pub and went and helped her down. I don’t think she noticed how late I was. She’d got caught up in the views and photographing everything. She was thrilled, talkative, oblivious to my mood. Then, when she’d gone, I went back into the church, to the vestry.”
Sebastian stopped and turned to him. A crack of sunlight flashed across his face, setting his bronzed skin and fair hair aglow. “And when I got there …” He raised a shielding hand against the sun so that his eyes fell into shadow. “When I got there, the body was gone.”
“What!”
“It had disappeared. Vanished. I remember simply staring at the floor. I wondered whether I was dreaming it all. It was like the women at the Tomb—”
“Only without the angels to supply an explanation.” Tom regarded him sceptically, feeling an urge to push the man’s hand away from his face so he could read his eyes. “No evidence of a body having been there? Blood …?”
“Nothing. Though the verge was still on the floor where it had been. I left it. Left the vestry, locked up the church, and returned to my cottage.”
“And didn’t look around the churchyard?”
“I did, but as it was nearly dark …”
“But then, when the village grew concerned about the disappearance of its vicar, you did nothing.”
Sebastian stepped away from the sun’s punishing rays. “The colonel—”
“Did you discuss any of this with him?”
“No.”
“Then he thinks he’s been protecting you with his silence, and you indicate you’ve been protecting him with yours.”
“ ‘Indicate’?”
“Even if Colonel Northmore did murder Peter Kinsey, you can’t seriously believe he was capable of burying him, for heaven’s sake!”
Sebastian’s eyes flashed with an anger Tom had not seen before in the man, and he turned abruptly back to the path. “Bumble!” he snapped, unravelling the lead. “Get back here!”
Tom followed in silence, his mind churning over the peculiar mutual dependence between the two men, separated by two generations, each mutely thinking the other may have murdered a man. Phillip kept Sebastian’s secrets and suppressed his natural revulsion at Kinsey’s robbing St. Nicholas’s, to protect the security of his old friend’s grandson, even if that grandson had killed again. Greater love hath no man than this … flitted through Tom’s mind. But were Sebastian’s motives as unsullied?
His verger turned suddenly to face him, snapping Tom out of his reverie. The strong hands pulled along the lead. Chestnut brown, in the woods’ false dusk the leather strap appeared black, as minatory as a horsewhip in the hands of a zealous groom. “Tom,” he said, staring hard, “I cannot have attention drawn to me.”
“And why not?”
“Because someone’s life would be put in danger. Not to mention my own.”
Tom peered at him, trying to decipher his features in the crepuscular light. “I don’t understand, Sebastian.”
“I can’t say more.”
“Then, if that’s the case,” he said, stepping nearer the younger man, “you’ve supplied a motive, haven’t you? Peter knew your identity. He knew. He used that knowledge so you would be persuaded to give up your cottage to his affair with Julia—Yes, I know all about it. And he used it to silence the colonel as he pocketed money meant for the church. He was, in effect, blackmailing both of you, wasn’t he? … and what a bloody disgrace he was,” he added, pausing to swallow his disgust. “But perhaps there was more—something else he knew that was making life very difficult for you. Did Peter know the identity of this someone whose life would be in danger?”
Tom realised they were now near the end of the level path. Beyond a ramshackle gate, unpainted for years, the path fell steeply through coarse tangled shrubs to a rocky cove below. He looked down towards the churning water. The tide was coming in; little rivers from the estuary had
begun to flow over the rocks. Bumble had set a flock of gulls screeching into the air.
“And then there’s Sybella,” Tom said. “It seems she, too, knew your true identity—or at least knew enough to be a danger. Someone might observe that anyone—other than Colonel Northmore—who knows your story has ended up dead.”
Sebastian pulled the leather strap taut; pectorals beneath his T-shirt strained visibly. “And now,” he said to Tom, his eyes cold, “it would appear that you do, too.”
The Vicarage
Thornford Regis TC9 6QX
1 JUNE
Dear Mum,
Mr. Christmas went up to hospital to visit Phillip yesterday and I can hardly bring myself to tell you what Phillip told him. It put Mr. Christmas in a right flap, and me too! Phillip told Mr. C. he had taken Mr. Kinsey’s life! Phillip, that is. Do you remember last spring when I was with you when you had your hip replaced and I couldn’t get back for Karla’s dad’s funeral? Well, the evening before the funeral, Phillip met with Mr. Kinsey in the vestry and they had a set-to of sorts over those paintings that used to hang in the Lady chapel that I wrote about in yesterday’s letter. It seems the paintings are worth quite a bit of money and Mr. Kinsey went and sold them and pocketed the money himself. I knew he was a devil. Anyone who doesn’t like my braised oxtail is up to no good, in my book. All that smarm, too. Worked with some women, but not with me. Anyway, I said to Mr. Christmas that I could not believe Phillip would do such a terrible thing. He can be gruff—Phillip that is—but I didn’t think he would raise a hand like that, although I thought afterwards that maybe he did some awful things when he was in the War, but then that was war, wasn’t it? Dad might have done some awful things, too, when he was in Malta and Ceylon Sri Lanka during the War, but then he never talked about it, did he. Well, maybe he talked about the War with you, but he never did with me or Jago. Anyway, I was quite shaken, and I could tell Mr. Christmas was, too. He usually keeps his thoughts to himself but he was quite talkative yesterday. I think he wanted to know what I thought. And I said I didn’t think it was possible. I said I didn’t even think Phillip would be out with Bumble, as it was about suppertime, and you know how Phillip likes his routine and always has his meal promptly at 7. But Mr. Christmas said both Dr. Hennis and Charlie Pike saw him—and without Bumble, too. But now, thinking about what men got up to in the War, I’m not sure about Phillip. I asked Mr. Christmas if he was going to say anything to those two CID who have taken over the Old School Room for an “incident room,” and he gave me this look that told me his mind was much troubled. Anyway, he did say that what he told me was in the strictest confidence, and then he dashed off, but happened I needed a loaf from Pattimore’s, so I stopped in at the post office first and told Karla what Mr. Christmas told me. Karla’s very good, as you know, being a churchwarden and all—she’s very discreet discrete discreet and wouldn’t tell a sole soul. I thought no one was in the post office but lo and behold there was Roger’s mother off in the corner looking at the knitting magazines which she dropped as soon as she heard me talking about Phillip. I told her it was all in the strictest confidence and she wasn’t even to tell Roger, and she said okay, though she was quite insistent for some reason that Phillip couldn’t have been out and about at the supper hour—something to do with the middle of Coronation Street, but as it’s a programme I don’t watch, I wasn’t sure what she was on about and anyway Enid’s apt to be a little confused these days. “I feel rather like Jane Marple,” she told me proudly. Jane Marple with a touch of dementia, I thought. Anyway, I was in Pattimore’s a little later and who should I see through the window but Mr. Christmas and Sebastian John going up Orchard Hill together! Mr. Christmas was gone a very long time. The veal I had made had turned to parchment and I was quite cross, but Mr. Christmas looked very troubled and barely said a word, though he did try to make an effort with little Miranda who was still bubbling on about some film she’d seen in Torquay the day before. And then he was in his study with the door closed, though he does tend to retreat Saturday evenings, rehearsing his sermon and such. But he left us with some low spirits, so I had the bright idea of a board game before bedtime for Miranda, only it took me a minute to dig through Mr. James-Douglas’s old games from his childhood that were crammed at the back of the cupboard under the stairs. Of course the die and the tokens had gone missing from Snakes + Ladders. The cats had likely made off with them ages past. At any rate, I found a die in the games table and I used my sewing thimble for a token and Miranda pulled out her funny little “clue,” which she now tells me she found in the v. hall, from her jeans pocket, which worked well enough. I wasn’t sure if children play board games anymore. Jago’s two never seemed interested. Anyway, Miranda took to Snakes + Ladders right off, though I think she thought it a bit babyish in the end. She won, of course. She’s such a bright little girl. I think next time we’ll have to try something more challenging. I noted Cluedo in the cupboard, but you need at least three to play properly, and “Reverend Green in the study with the lead piping” probably wouldn’t do after what’s gone on in the village this past week! I asked Miranda if her “clue” had led her to any “solution” in whatever “investigation” she and her detective Barbie were doing, but she said she needed more “evidence.” I wonder and worry at times how her mother’s death has affected her, but I don’t know enough about the 9-year-old mind, really, at least one like Miranda’s. She’s much more thoughtful than that Swan lot who are always racing about everywhere. And she rarely mentions her mother, at least in my hearing. Maybe it’s still too hard to bear, though I know she misses that French au pair they had in Bristol. She often looks a little vexed that her father and I respond poorly (me, not at all) to her French speaking, though I thought I overheard Sebastian speaking passable French with her the other day in the garden. At any rate, I ended up getting Miranda off to bed at a decent hour. School starts again tomorrow and it will be back to the old routine. I can’t remember Mr. Christmas not tucking Miranda in before, if he was at home and not at some meeting, so me doing it was a turnip for the books, as Dad used to say, although I think Miranda was a bit let down. Your father has a lot on his plate, I said to her, and I’m sure he will look in on you later, which he did. He came out of his study when I was settled into the news looking startled and asked if Miranda had gone to bed, and I looked at my watch and said sternly as it’s ten o’clock, Mr. Christmas, yes she has, and he looked quite downcast, poor man. Anyway, he went up and had a look in. I could hear talking, so it seems she hadn’t been asleep—waiting perhaps for her father. I’m preparing roast beef for Sunday lunch, so I’d best get to it. I can never get any breakfast into Mr. C. on Sundays, as I may have mentioned before, since he has to run up to Pennycross for services first thing, then back to Thornford R for the rest, and seems to run on adreniline adrenaline. I shall try to take Miranda to the service at 11, but I may have to send her on her own. In a few years, she will have to go up to Exeter on Sunday mornings to begin classes for her bat mitzvahh, but I don’t know how this shall happen as, of course, Mr. Christmas has his obligations, and Mrs. Hennis, who takes her to synagogue on Saturdays, is assistant choirmaster at St. Nick’s and has to be there at least when Colm Parry is not, as he isn’t likely to be for a while, I expect, given the great sadness that has befallen him. Funny Miranda being Jewish while her father is a vicar, but we are all very modern in Thornford R!!! There were lots of visitors in the village yesterday. I reckon all the goings-on here were what drew them. So it shall be interesting to see if church attendance is higher. I know Mr. Christmas would like that, but I don’t think he would be too pleased if it was simply because curiosity got the better of folk. I do hope the swelling in his eye has gone down. He will look a fright in the pulpit otherwise. I wonder if there will be anything in the Sundays on the doings here in the village? Of course, I won’t know until Daniel Swan shifts his backside. Did you see the Saturday papers? At least the quality press had a respectful tone. The picture of Mr. Chri
stmas in the Sun was awful. Must go. Cats are well. Love to Aunt Gwen. Hope you have a fine week ahead.
Much love,
Madrun
P.S. I looked in on Kerra at the Waterside yesterday afternoon. So far, so good. I think Liam Drewe is minding his p’s and q’s for the time being.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“I didn’t take you for a reader of The Sun, Father,” said Tiffany Snape, who minded the post office at weekends and didn’t go to church. “More a Guardian man, I would have thought.”
“I’m very fond of the Page Three girls,” Tom responded, depositing all the flyers and rubbish that came with Sunday papers onto the counter.
“Ooh, you are a naughty vicar.”
“None naughtier.”
Tiffany giggled and counted change into his hand. “I wonder what Miss Skynner would think?”
“Let it be our little secret then.” He winked broadly, though he felt fully cheerless, and slipped the coins into his trousers pocket. “It would be good to see you in church, Tiffany. You could bring little Jasmine. I’m hoping to get more Thornford families involved.”
“You can see how I’m fixed.” Tiffany gestured to indicate her responsibilities to the tidy shop and its contents.
“Then your partner …”
“Ryan.”
“Ryan could bring Jasmine.”
“Chance would be a fine thing,” Tiffany hooted. “Do you not have Sky TV up at the vicarage?”
“Ah, football.”
“Got it in one, Father.”
“Tough competition.”
“Perhaps if you did a bit of hocus-pocus at St. Nick’s, I might be able to persuade Ryan to nip in with Jasmine. You were a magician, yes?”
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