Murder at the Old Vicarage

by Jill McGown

  Lloyd sighed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You know I don’t. But if you don’t laugh at this job . . .’ He shrugged.

  You cry, thought Judy.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But what have we got here? We’ve got a caveman. Dressed up like an accountant, but a cave-man, all the same. Frustrated and inarticulate – you said that yourself. A man who beats his wife, Judy – you find him with his head bashed in, who do you look for?’

  Judy nodded sadly, and Lloyd looked at her, his face serious.

  ‘You’ve got too involved,’ he said. ‘You like her. You want to believe her. You don’t blame her, do you?’

  ‘No,’ Judy admitted. ‘Not after what he did to her.’

  ‘See?’ said Lloyd. ‘What are you defending, Judy? Her innocence? Or her actions?’

  She’d walked right into the trap. But there was no triumph in his voice.

  ‘Joanna was home before anyone else,’ Lloyd went on. ‘Saying she had been locked out.’

  ‘She had been,’ Judy said. ‘Marian had locked the doors.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Lloyd.

  ‘Because she’d found Elstow’s body,’ said Judy.

  ‘Why lock the doors?’ Lloyd repeated.

  Judy had just accepted it, until now. Marian had locked up the house in order that no one would find Elstow’s body. But why shouldn’t it have been found? What difference did it make?

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said slowly.

  ‘She didn’t,’ Lloyd said. ‘She didn’t lock the doors at all. There was no reason to, whether or not there was a body in the bedroom. But there wasn’t, because Elstow was in the bedroom, alive. And whoever murdered him locked the doors.’ He sat back. ‘And then claimed that she had been locked out all along,’ he added.

  ‘The time of death is still wrong,’ said Judy. ‘Elstow had been dead half an hour before Joanna got back from Dr Lomax.’

  Lloyd made an impatient noise. ‘No one was synchronising their watches, Judy! It’s all arounds and abouts. Joanna says she got back at around nine-thirty – Freddie says Elstow died at about nine o’clock. Easy enough to lose half an hour that way.’

  ‘Before nine o’clock,’ Judy reminded him, then realised that she had been steered completely off course. ‘And anyway,’ she said. ‘There’s the overalls.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘You’ve seen the house,’ she said. ‘Whatever else Mrs Wheeler may be, she’s a very conscientious housewife.’ Lloyd had entertained her to a number of things which, in his opinion, Mrs Wheeler was. ‘And it seems that he left these overalls in the hall,’ Judy said. ‘Mrs W. was doing a washing, wasn’t she? I don’t think she’d leave a pair of dirty overalls in the hall for long – especially not when it was all decked out for Christmas. I think,’ she said simply, ‘that she would have washed them.’

  Lloyd got off her desk and walked around, which meant that he was actually thinking about what she had said. ‘And if she did wash them,’ he said slowly, ‘then the intruder would have had to know that he was going to need overalls. And that he could find a nice pair all washed and tumble-dried in the machine.’

  Judy nodded. ‘And when we took the washing away, Marian Wheeler knew the overalls should have been there,’ she said. ‘But they weren’t.’

  Lloyd stared at her. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Of course. That’s when she bundled Joanna off to bed.’ He sat on her desk again. ‘Did you notice what she was like when she came back?’ he asked.

  Judy had. Marian Wheeler had been distracted, unsettled. Her mind seemed to be somewhere else altogether. ‘She kept looking at George,’ Judy said. ‘And he’s the one who threatened Elstow in the first place. He’s the one who lied about where he was.’ At last, Lloyd was really listening. ‘Marian Wheeler wasn’t protecting Joanna at all,’ said Judy. ‘She was protecting George. Because if Elstow had died at five, we would hardly have been asking her where she was two hours later, would we? She knew that. Perhaps it was never Joanna she suspected in the first place.’

  Lloyd tore a piece off her blotter, and rolled it into a ball as he thought. ‘But when did he do it?’ he asked, flicking the pellet at the wastepaper bin, and missing.

  ‘Would Mrs Langton give him an alibi, do you think?’ Judy asked.

  Another pellet pinged against the metal bin, and landed on the floor. ‘She seemed to think she was spoiling one,’ said Lloyd.

  ‘Not his,’ argued Judy. ‘Joanna’s. She was very keen to put suspicion on Joanna – and take it right off George.’

  Lloyd flicked another pellet, which landed satisfactorily in the bin. ‘Arrest the whole lot of them,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘That’s the answer.’

  ‘Including Eleanor?’ Judy asked wickedly. ‘You mustn’t get too involved, Inspector Lloyd.’

  ‘With her?’ said Lloyd, with genuine horror. ‘Don’t worry.’

  They laughed, and the moment could have been seized, but Judy let it go. Two rejections were enough for anyone.

  ‘Elstow met someone at the pub,’ mused Lloyd, trying one more attempt at the waste-bin. He missed. ‘There are too many little puzzles,’ he said, picking the coats off the pegs, and – throwing Judy’s to her. ‘Let’s call it a day.’

  And they called it a day, going to their separate cars. Judy drove towards home, considering giving her car star markings to indicate its freezing capacity, as her feet and hands began to lose their feeling. Other people looked forward to going home, she thought.

  But she was going home to the Hills, and earnest discussions about whether gas or electric central heating was better, about whether their furniture had really been a sensible buy, about how the future really mattered, because it was what you gave your children. ‘When they come along,’ Mrs Hill had said, with a twinkle, as though she and Michael were newly-weds. And Judy didn’t believe that Mrs Hill had missed a word of the Christmas morning discussion between her and Michael.

  The Hills might have been sitting with her in the car, pointing out how hard Michael had worked to get their beautiful house, which would be even more beautiful once it had all the necessary things done to it. Pointing out that Judy didn’t really need to work now, because Michael was doing so well. Pointing out that time was going on – it was hard to believe that it was ten years . . .

  She was almost home. Just next left, and then a right, and her twenty-minute journey would be over; she would be safe in the bosom of Michael’s family. She pulled the car into the kerb, and sat for some minutes, the engine running. Then she started the car, passed the left turn, stopped, and reversed into it. She stopped again, for a long time, until her breath began to mist the cold windscreen; she wiped it with a tissue, and started the car, indicating right. Back along the road she had just travelled. Twenty minutes later, she passed the police station. Left at the big roundabout at the bottom of the hill. Left, to the old village.

  She parked her car beside Lloyd’s, remembering the last time. The jolt to her ego of his rejection had been considerable, and she walked almost on tiptoe.

  He might have heard the car, and simply not answer the door, she thought, as she pushed open the glass door to the flats.

  He might be out. You couldn’t tell with the thick curtains and that silly lamp. He’d strain his eyes if he read by it.

  He would just tell her to go away again, she decided miserably, as she climbed the stair.

  When she got to his door, she was out of breath; she had been holding it all the way up. All the way there. She gave herself a moment before ringing the bell, then heard the inside door open, saw the light going on. She could see him through the fluted glass. The door opened, and she was inside, in his arms. He was apologising. Why was he apologising?

  ‘You’re frozen,’ he said, letting her go, ushering her into the warmth of the sitting room. He helped her with her coat, and put a finger to her lips as she tried to speak. ‘Later,’ he said. ‘We can discuss things later. Let’s get you thawed out first.’

 
She sat down, while he went to the kitchen, coming back some minutes later with a steaming jug of coffee and the brandy.

  ‘Just coffee,’ she said.

  ‘Fine.’

  The coffee warmed her, but the silence unnerved her. It must have unnerved Lloyd too, because he began making conversation in the way that he’d told her he did with Barbara. Carefully avoiding any mention of work; even more carefully avoiding any mention of their situation. She took as much of – it as she could stand, then waited for a lull.

  ‘I thought you would be—’ she began.

  ‘I’m just glad you’re here,’ he said, interrupting her. He smiled. ‘Do you want to eat?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘More coffee? Or would you like a brandy now?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  He switched off the lamp. ‘Kisses by coloured lights?’ he said, with a little laugh, and this time he met with success.

  They went into the bedroom, arms round one another. The room was chilly; Judy shivered a little as she pulled off her sweater. Lloyd’s lips caressed hers as he began to unbutton her blouse.

  ‘It’ll be a lot quicker if I do it myself,’ she said.

  Lloyd smacked her hand away. ‘And a lot less fun,’ he said. ‘You have no soul. Andante, Sergeant Hill. Andante.’

  But Lloyd didn’t realise just how many layers of clothes she wore in weather like this. He soon found out, laughing with delight as he discovered what he insisted on calling a vest.

  ‘It is not a vest,’ said Judy. ‘It’s a T-shirt.’

  ‘It’s a vest. And you thought you could whip it off while I wasn’t looking.’

  ‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘You get yourself undressed.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ he said, grabbing her. ‘I don’t want to miss anything. What have you got on under the trousers?’ He took a peek. ‘Long johns,’ he said.

  ‘They’re tights,’ she squeaked indignantly. ‘It’s all right for you – your car’s got a heater that works. They keep me warm.’

  ‘They don’t,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘They’ve got feet. They’re tights.’

  But Lloyd had discovered skin, and was tickling her. They collapsed in a heap on the bed, and the more they laughed, the more andante it became, and the more they enjoyed it.

  Judy had thought about this moment on the way to the flat. She had thought it would be awkward and intense if it happened at all; at best, she had imagined it would be a kind of self-conscious re-establishment of the status quo. But instead, it was like this, and she lost herself completely in the laughter and the love.

  Which was why, when her senses returned, she got up, taking Lloyd’s dressing-gown from the door as she went into the sitting room, pulling the belt tight around her. She stood for a moment in the near darkness; she wanted a cigarette, a B-movie cigarette, and she felt in her handbag for the packet, not wanting even Lloyd’s seduction lighting. Her hand trembled as she struck the match.

  She heard Lloyd arrive in the room; she didn’t turn round.

  ‘And I thought it was the faithful come to Bethlehem,’ he said, after a moment.

  She didn’t need him talking in riddles. She inhaled deeply, and expelled the smoke. ‘What?’ she said, still not looking.

  ‘Joyful and triumphant.’

  She smiled, despite herself. ‘It was.’

  ‘Then what’s wrong?’

  The smoke was drawn through the coloured lights, curling round the tree. ‘I’m frightened,’ she said.

  ‘Of me?’

  She didn’t dignify that with an answer.

  ‘Of us,’ he amended, and this time she didn’t have to answer.

  He came up to her. ‘Because you forgot to keep back a little piece of yourself?’ he asked.

  She put her cigarette in the ashtray, and turned to look at him. Acting came to Lloyd as naturally as breathing. His voice, his expression, his mood. But he dropped the act with her. He pretended that what was underneath was just another act, but it wasn’t; it never had been.

  ‘But it makes you so vulnerable,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  She hugged him close to her. ‘I love you,’ she said.

  He reached past her, and switched on the lamp, which seemed suddenly brilliant.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ she asked.

  ‘Say it again. When I can see your lips move.’

  She hadn’t meant to say it in the first place. She had spent fifteen years not saying it.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ Judy touched the sleeve of the new dressing-gown that Lloyd was wearing.

  ‘Don’t change the subject.’

  ‘It’s nice,’ she said, and glanced down at the one she had wrapped round herself like some sort of fig-leaf; it had afforded her about the same protection.

  ‘The kids gave me it for Christmas.’

  ‘They’ve got better taste than you,’ she said.

  ‘Say it again.’

  ‘They’ve got better—’ She smiled. ‘I love you.’

  ‘You’ve never said that before.’

  ‘I’ve said it now.’ She smiled again. ‘Twice. So that should keep you going for another fifteen years.’

  ‘But what does loving me mean?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘It means I’m here, when I should be at home with Michael. And his parents. God knows what I’ll tell them. I’m a rotten liar.’

  ‘So tell them the truth.’

  Mrs Hill probably wouldn’t believe her if she did, thought Judy.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Forget it. Do you want something to eat?’

  ‘Poor Lloyd,’ she said smiling. ‘You’re hungry.’

  ‘Starving,’ he said. ‘What would you like?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve got to go, Lloyd.’

  He let his arms drop away from her, and walked off into the kitchen, slamming the door.

  It was bitterly cold, and the wind had come back, moaning through the trees. But George stood in the garden in his shirt sleeves, looking across at the castle, its battlements visible in the clear, starlit night. He was trembling, already. Because it was cold. Too cold to stand out here. The frozen snow glistened as the temperature dipped even further.

  The coldest Christmas period since eighteen seventy-something, the radio said. Hypothermia was a killer, they said. Make sure old people wear lots of layers of clothing. Tell them to heat one room only if they’re worried about bills. Make sure they have hot meals.

  He had ten years to go before he collected his pension, before he was consigned to that section of humanity assumed to be incapable of making sure for itself that it wore warmer clothes in winter – who couldn’t even listen to advice on the radio. Ten years to go before other people had to listen to the radio for him, and tell him what it had said. Ten years. He wasn’t old. And yet he felt old. Too old to start again.

  He could go across the fields, to the castle. To Eleanor. She wanted him there. She needed him. But he wouldn’t go. He would stay at home with Marian.

  ‘George?’ Marian’s voice. ‘George, are you all right?’

  ‘Just getting some fresh air,’ he said.

  He could hear her footsteps crunching on the snow, as she walked over. She came up to him, putting her arm round him. ‘A bit too fresh,’ she said. ‘Come back in. You’ll catch cold out here.’

  ‘I always understood that you could only catch colds from other people,’ he said.

  ‘And you’re testing the theory?’ Her arm tightened round him. ‘We’ve just got to carry on,’ she said, in a quiet voice.

  He looked at her, and smiled. ‘You’re better at that than I am,’ he said.

  She kissed him, her face warm against his. ‘Don’t make yourself ill,’ she whispered. ‘It’s happened. We’ll survive it. We’ve survived other things.’

  Lost babies, lost parents, lost dogs. And it was always Marian who kept herself and everyone else together. He kissed
her, suddenly and fiercely. But she couldn’t help him through this.

  ‘Dinner’s ready,’ she said.

  He gave a short laugh. ‘Not much point in my eating it,’ he said, patting his stomach.

  ‘Is it just as bad?’

  George looked at the castle. ‘It won’t get any better until this business is over and done with,’ he said, and he followed her into the house.

  For a few moments, out there in the cold, it had gone. Out in the sharp, breathless cold, there had been no desperation in the pit of his stomach, making him ill.

  But now it was back.

  Lloyd turned down the gas under his rice, and surveyed the multi-coloured piles of matchstick vegetables, ready for stir-frying. Slicing them up had been good therapy. Removing a table mat and fork from the drawer, he went into the sitting room. She wasn’t there.

  He picked up the ashtray, in which Judy’s cigarette had burned away, leaving ash and melted blobs of nylon ribbon. They were lucky she hadn’t set the place on fire. As he put it down, it reminded him of something, and he frowned, looking at it again.

  He set his solitary place, and went into the bedroom, where Judy sat, dressed and ready to leave. But she hadn’t.

  ‘I thought you were in a hurry,’ he said.

  She looked up at him. ‘I didn’t want to leave while you weren’t speaking to me,’ she said.

  Lloyd sat beside her, and took her hand in his. ‘I want to explain how I feel,’ he said.

  She looked away. ‘This must be later,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’ Her hand still rested in his; his thumb moved back and forth across it as he tried to phrase his statement. ‘Judy,’ he said at last. ‘Going to bed with you is lovely. It’s great. Tonight, it was better than ever.’ He paused. ‘Look at me,’ he said.

  She turned, her face a little apprehensive.

  ‘But it’s not why I want you here,’ he said. ‘It’s not what this is about. And your being here just long enough for us to hop in and out of bed seems . . . sordid, somehow.’

  ‘Sordid!’ She turned away again.

  ‘Yes, damn it! Sordid. It’s not all I want out of this,’ he said. ‘But I’m – well, I’m afraid that maybe it is all you want.’

  She looked back, her face angry. ‘That would be funny,’ she said. ‘If it wasn’t so—’ She pressed her lips together, and took a moment before speaking again. ‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘I’ve been married to Michael for ten years. Ten years, Lloyd.’