Murder at the Old Vicarage

by Jill McGown

  She read the headings, COUNCIL VETOES SUNDAY OPENING; ASBESTOS SCARE – NO RISK, SAYS FIRM; NEW MOVES IN BUS DISPUTE; PENSIONER ROBBED.

  Then, along the bottom, the one that made her eyes grow wide, and her face grow hot. It had to be it. It had to be. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

  Morning. Judy’s eyes half-opened, then closed again, despite the angry buzzing by her left ear. After a moment, she sat up, and cancelled the alarm. At first, she wasn’t really aware of Michael’s non-presence; she had spent half of her married life waking up alone. Then she realised, and remembered. Michael had gone to Edinburgh.

  He’d be there by now, she thought sleepily, looking at the clock. And his parents, thank the Lord, would be sleeping soundly in Nottingham.

  She had arrived home to find Michael packing; for a moment, she had thought it was instant retribution. And when she had been told that Ian had come down with flu, and that Michael was going to have to go to Edinburgh in his place, her mistaken impression had struck her as irresistibly funny. She had had to feign a sudden need to race upstairs to the bathroom, where she had pulled the chain and turned on the bath taps, muffling the laughter, nervous, painful laughter, in a bath towel.

  Mrs Hill had been discreetly anxious to know if everything was all right; she was doubtless irritated that another month of the limited time at Judy’s disposal had apparently slipped away. And she informed Judy that Michael’s train stopped at Nottingham, so she and Mr Hill had decided to go up with him, instead of waiting the extra day, since Judy was so busy. He would be glad of the company.

  She had driven them all to the station, Michael being unhappy about leaving his car there at this time of the year. They had all remarked on the lack of heat in the car; they hadn’t been driving all over Stansfield in it half the night.

  Michael had told her that he would be returning on the overnight train arriving in Stansfield at seven thirty-two on Wednesday morning. Judy had said she would meet it, and had queried the wisdom of travelling overnight to a meeting and overnight back again without a break. He had said that nothing would induce him to be in Scotland once Hogmanay had started. Somehow, she thought, that summed up the differences between them.

  And the difference between him and Lloyd, she thought, her heart heavy. Once again, what should have been good had turned sour; once again, it had been her fault. She sighed, and was preparing herself to crawl out from under the warm duvet to begin another day, when the phone rang.

  Lloyd? She picked it up almost timidly.

  ‘Sergeant Hill?’

  Not Lloyd. Constable Sandwell’s voice.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Good morning, Bob.’

  ‘Morning, Sergeant. I’m sorry to ring so early, but I’ve got Mrs Elstow here, very anxious to see you. I said you weren’t due in until nine, but she said she’d wait.’

  Judy took that in. ‘And you think I should come in now?’ she asked.

  ‘Well. It’s just that she seems to think that she’s found something that will help you with the case, and I thought she might change her mind if she had to wait. You know what they’re like.’

  ‘They’ covered anyone who wasn’t a police officer, in Sandwell’s book. He had been seconded to CID, and was proving useful.

  ‘She won’t tell me,’ he said. ‘Or anyone else.’

  ‘Right,’ said Judy. ‘I’m on my way.’

  In under fifteen minutes, surpassing even her Christmas morning sprint, Judy was out in the bitter weather, persuading her car to start. Once it obliged, she got out, and cursed the ice as she scraped it off the windows, realising as she took this exercise that she hadn’t eaten since lunch time the previous day, and that she was ravenous.

  Back into the ice-box, in which she seemed to be spending her entire life, and off on the twenty-minute journey, which she had made, one way or the other, six times in the last twelve hours.

  Something kept teasing her mind; something she couldn’t catch hold of; at first, she dismissed it, thinking that it must be a fragment of a dream. But it wasn’t. It had something to do with the murder. Something Lloyd had said, but she was certain that she hadn’t written it down, which was odd, because she wrote up her notebook every night, and she wrote everything down. People laughed at her notes, but Lloyd knew why she took them. She had a dreadful memory. It probably wasn’t important. And if it had been something about the murder, she’d have jotted it down somewhere. Maybe just a word, or a question mark against a previous note. She would look through her notes as soon as she got time.

  Joanna Elstow jumped up as she walked in, and Judy smiled at her, grateful to her for delaying the moment when she would see Lloyd.

  ‘Good morning, Joanna,’ she said, sounding a little like a head-mistress greeting a pupil. ‘Is there an interview room free?’ she asked Sandwell.

  ‘You can take your pick, Sergeant,’ he said.

  ‘Good.’ She led the way, and went into the first one, closing the door. ‘Take a seat,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’ve been to the house,’ Joanna said.

  ‘Oh?’ Judy reached into her bag for her notebook. ‘Were there signs of someone else having been there?’

  ‘No,’ said Joanna, with a reluctant little smile. ‘Or if there was, she must have been as untidy as Graham. And if she was as untidy as Graham, there would have been signs.’

  Judy smiled at the logic. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘It was always unlikely.’

  Joanna nodded, and pushed a newspaper across the table to her. ‘But I found this,’ she said. ‘Graham asked me to read it.’

  Judy frowned. ‘When?’ she asked, thinking for a moment that Joanna had been communing with the spirit world.

  ‘The day . . .’ Joanna faltered a little. ‘The last day I was there,’ she said. ‘The day I went to hospital.’ She leant over. ‘Look,’ she said, pointing to a news report.

  COMA MAN DIES, read the headline, and Judy’s eyes widened as she read the report.

  ‘He must have known him,’ Joanna said.

  Judy agreed that it was unlikely to be a coincidence. ‘Though they do happen,’ she warned Joanna.

  Joanna smiled. ‘I know,’ she said.

  Judy felt foolish then. She always found herself speaking to Joanna as if she were a child instead of a married woman. A widow, she reminded herself. About to become a mother. But a child. A child of the Byford vicarage; a protected, cushioned child who had become the victim of savagery.

  Along the corridor, into reception, through the CID room. Keep walking. Don’t stop to talk. Get it over with.

  ‘Hello,’ said Lloyd.

  ‘I’ve got Joanna Elstow here,’ she said.

  Even if they hadn’t been at work, with the possibility of someone barging in, there was very little she could say. Perhaps they had said it all last night.

  George didn’t like guns. He fumbled with the cartridges; it was cold in the study, but he hadn’t put on the electric fire.

  He thought of Eleanor, and closed his eyes. Standing there in front of him, hands in pockets, barefooted in her jeans and sweater, her hair swept up in a careless knot on top of her head. Young, and beautiful, and free. Free as a bird.

  He was awkward with the shotgun; it had been a long time since he’d shot anything. Marian did clay pigeon shooting at the castle, when they held competitions, in the summer. She’d once won a bottle of whisky.

  His fingers were stiff; he flexed his hand, and laid the gun down on the desk as he stood up. Marian’s prize had reminded him that there was some brandy somewhere. A drink might relax him. Give him Dutch courage, at any rate. He pulled open the cupboard door, and revealed the bottle, with a tot left in it. No glass. He didn’t want to go out to the kitchen; he swigged the brandy from the bottle, surprised by the amount, by the suddenness of it on his throat. Pushing the stopper back, he stood for a moment with the empty bottle, remembering its origins.

  Joanna and Graham had brought it with them when they’d come over
for the silver wedding celebrations. Fourteen months ago. It was just after that evening that Joanna had sported a bruise for the first time, and told them some story to account for it. George threw the bottle into the empty grate behind the electric fire, but it didn’t break, didn’t even make much of a noise.

  ‘When did you start feeling ill?’ Eleanor’s question echoed in his mind. When they arrested Marian. Because Marian was offering herself up; guarding, protecting, defending her nest. It couldn’t go on. It mustn’t go on. He stared at the gun, then hoisted it to his shoulder, as if following a bird in flight.

  He pulled stuff out of the cupboard until he could lay the gun down inside, and covered it with the papers and bits and pieces until it couldn’t be seen. He closed and locked the door, then went back to his desk, looked at what he had written, and tore it into tiny pieces, letting them fall from his hands into the waste-paper basket.

  Eleanor, turning away from him. ‘Eggs are supposed to hatch out,’ she had said. She must have had to dress quickly, after he had knocked at the door; the sweater label stuck up at the nape of her neck. And he had gone back to her, and tucked the label in.

  ‘Eggs are supposed to hatch out.’ Yes. Yes, they were.

  If the little bird inside couldn’t break the shell, then it died in there.

  And here was Eleanor Langton again, Lloyd thought, popping up for the third time in this investigation. He scanned the page. Could Graham Elstow have been going to show his wife something else altogether? It was possible. Anything was possible. But it surely had to be something important, something that over-rode the fact that he wasn’t on the best of terms with his wife at that particular moment? Lloyd thought back to the huffy silences which had descended on him and Barbara. You didn’t break them for a discussion on the dangers of asbestos, or the desirability of Sunday trading.

  He read the Sunday trading piece, in case Wheeler’s views had been sought, and Graham had been looking for an argument about Joanna’s father. But no, there was nothing there.

  Joanna seemed as mystified as they were. The unnamed motor-cyclist on whose bike Langton had been riding pillion was reported as having been ‘saddened’ by Langton’s death. But he wasn’t Elstow, because he was also reported as having just returned from working in West Germany for eighteen months.

  ‘We’ll check it out,’ he said.

  Joanna nodded.

  They were all in the office now. Joanna sat at Judy’s desk, and Lloyd at his own; that way he had the width of the room between them. He could get up, walk round. Affect deep interest in wall charts and floor tiles. It all helped to confuse the enemy.

  Judy was talking to Joanna, jotting down the odd thing now and then. She gave him a cool glance as he toured the office with no apparent aim; he wished things could be different, as he had at the pub. But the regret was pushed to one side by the thought that then occurred to him, and he went back to his desk, opening his diary to give himself something to do while he thought it through.

  ‘But you don’t recall him ever mentioning Richard Langton?’ said Judy.

  His ever mentioning, thought Lloyd, automatically.

  ‘No, never.’

  Lloyd looked up, and smiled at Joanna. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘but something is bothering me a little, Mrs Elstow.’

  She looked across at him, her eyebrows raised in enquiry.

  ‘Sergeant Hill tells me that you and your husband had reached some sort of understanding after . . .’ He finished the sentence with a wave of his hand in the general direction of Joanna’s bruises.

  ‘Some sort,’ she said dully. ‘I think I really only began to understand this morning.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘What I was doing to him,’ she said. ‘What I was letting her do to him.’

  ‘Your mother?’ Lloyd stood up, and leant on the edge of the desk.

  She nodded again.

  ‘And yet – you didn’t make any attempt to communicate with him afterwards,’ he said. ‘In case it upset your mother.’

  Joanna looked at Judy, not at him. ‘I didn’t want to cause any more trouble,’ she said.

  ‘So you left him upstairs,’ Lloyd said, his voice slightly raised. ‘Not knowing whether he should come down and face the music, or start knotting sheets together.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t believe that, Mrs Elstow.’

  Joanna shot Judy a desperate look, but she was involved with her notebook.

  ‘I – I didn’t get the chance,’ said Joanna. ‘My father took me to the pub.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Lloyd. ‘The pub.’ He pushed himself away from the desk. ‘It was your father’s idea, wasn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not really. It was my mother who suggested it.’

  ‘But it was your father who persuaded you to go?’ Lloyd sat down again. ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t imagine that you wanted to,’ he said. ‘Not after what had happened. You must have felt a bit rough. And – forgive me again – you must have looked a bit rough.’

  ‘He said it would just look worse later,’ said Joanna. ‘He was right.’

  ‘So he persuaded you to go with him.’

  ‘Yes.’ Joanna sounded wary.

  ‘And having persuaded you, he just got up and left you there, on your own?’

  Joanna’s mouth opened slightly, but no words came out. Again, she looked at Judy for help.

  ‘Did he, Joanna?’ Judy asked.

  Joanna’s shoulders sagged. ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ said Lloyd. ‘Your father left the pub alone, but he left after you, not before you. Right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When did you leave?’

  ‘About eight,’ she said, and there was no expression in her voice. ‘I knew my mother was going out, so I gave her time to be well away.’ Her hand absently touched the bruise under her eye. ‘I wanted to get Graham to come with me to Dr Lomax,’ she said. ‘But I couldn’t get him to open the door. I thought he’d locked it,’ she said. ‘I thought he’d got in a mood again, and—’

  Judy looked up from her notes. ‘But your mother didn’t lock the house up until after nine,’ she said.

  ‘My mother didn’t lock up the house at all! Don’t you see? She thinks I killed Graham. She thinks I locked the doors. But it wasn’t me! Graham let someone in, and they locked the doors so that they wouldn’t be disturbed. Don’t you see?’

  ‘Someone?’ said Lloyd.

  ‘Whoever he met at the pub,’ said Joanna.

  ‘We can’t find any trace of his meeting anyone at the pub,’ said Lloyd. ‘He came in alone, drank alone, ate alone, and was ejected. Alone.’

  ‘He said he met someone,’ Joanna repeated mutinously.

  Lloyd stroked his chin. ‘Perhaps you’ll tell us why you didn’t volunteer this information?’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ she said. ‘Not after my father said he’d been with me all evening.’

  Lloyd picked up a pen, balancing it on his finger as he spoke. ‘And why did he say that, do you suppose?’ he asked.

  ‘Because he thinks I did it! They both do!’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘So do you,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t. I didn’t.’ She got up, and came over to him, jabbing a finger down on the newspaper. ‘What about this?’ she said.

  Lloyd picked up the paper. ‘You think your husband knew Richard Langton,’ he said. ‘And by extension, Eleanor Langton.’

  ‘Yes, of course I do.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Lloyd. ‘But knowing him hardly constitutes motive for murder.’ He looked at Joanna’s bruises as he spoke. On the other hand, he thought, perhaps it did. ‘And Mrs Langton was at home,’ he said. ‘All evening. According to both of your parents.’

  Joanna stood up, very erect. ‘Are you going to check this?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Lloyd said. ‘We’ll check it. Thank you for coming in, Mrs Elstow.’

  The door closed behind her, and Lloyd picked up the phone
. ‘Bob? Come in a moment, please.’

  ‘Let’s see what Eleanor Langton has to say,’ Judy suggested.

  ‘No,’ Lloyd said quickly. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Judy.

  Lloyd was loath to explain why not. Because she made him feel uncomfortable. Because she didn’t look at people, she watched them. Because if he were to engage in a battle of wits with Eleanor Langton, he wasn’t at all sure that he would win.

  ‘Because,’ he said, as Sandwell knocked and came in. ‘When we go to see Mrs Langton, I don’t want to ask her if she knew Elstow, I want to tell her she knew him.’ He looked up, and handed Sandwell the paper, with the report ringed in red. ‘Details,’ he said. ‘As quickly as that dreadful machine can produce them.’

  ‘There’s sometimes a bit of a delay, sir. It depends on whether—’

  ‘No lectures about ROM and RAM and downtime,’ groaned Lloyd.

  ‘No, nothing like that, sir.’ He opened his mouth, then wilted under Lloyd’s stare. ‘Sir,’ he said, taking the paper and leaving.

  Lloyd sat down as Judy began flicking through the pages of her notebook. He smiled as he watched her. No one took notes like Judy did. Perhaps she was going to write a book one day.

  ‘Besides,’ he said. ‘We’ve only got Joanna Elstow’s word for how she came by it.’

  Judy closed the notebook. ‘The paper is dated the day she went into hospital,’ she said. ‘And if we’re embarking on a course of taking no one’s word for anything, we’ll never do anything at all. How can you take Sandwell’s word for it that the computer gives him whatever answer it does? Perhaps he’ll make it all up.’

  ‘Sandwell has not proved time and time again to be telling lies,’ Lloyd pointed out. ‘She has. And her parents.’

  ‘You don’t like it because it’s putting a dent in your domestic theory,’ she said.

  ‘No, that’s not why,’ said Lloyd, thoughtfully and truthfully. ‘Why I don’t like it is that it’s yet another puzzle. We’ve got more little puzzles than enough.’

  Judy opened her notebook again. ‘I think I’ll write them down,’ she said.