Murder at the Old Vicarage

by Jill McGown

  Lloyd laughed. ‘Writing them down does not solve them,’ he said.

  ‘Who says? We think they’re connected to the case, don’t we? So if they’re all written down together. It might . . .’ Her voice tailed off, as a good reason failed to present itself. ‘Help,’ she finished lamely.

  Lloyd was having nothing to do with it. He needed answers to questions, not parlour games.

  His shoes had deposited enough of George’s ash on the floor of his car to constitute a sample, and it had gone to the lab. At least that was an answer to one question.

  He watched as Judy worked her way through her copious notes, in which every little puzzle had of course been entered, and he found himself thinking how soft and shining her hair looked, how pleasing the line of her jaw.

  Unprofessional. He had never admired Sandwell’s hair, or Jack Woodford’s jaw-line, fine specimens though they doubtless were.

  She worked carefully, checking every page so as not to miss anything, making a neat list on a sheet of paper. Anything less sordid than Judy was impossible to imagine. And he had probably ruined everything, throwing words about in the way other people might throw crockery. Crockery was less dangerous. Perhaps even someone like Elstow was less dangerous. He had hurt Judy just as surely as if he had punched her.

  She sat back and looked at the list, the tip of her tongue brushing her upper lip as she thought hard about something. Unfair, thought Lloyd. She turned to look at him, and neither of them said anything, until they both spoke at once.

  ‘Judy, look, I’ve—’

  ‘Lloyd – listen to this.’

  He held out a hand. ‘You first,’ he said, because what he had been going to say had had very little to do with the murder of Graham Elstow.

  ‘The things that puzzled us,’ she said. ‘We know the answers to some of them.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘We wondered what Mrs Anthony was hinting about George,’ she said, and then looked at him enquiringly.

  ‘Presumably she’d noticed that he was taking too healthy an interest in the beautiful Mrs Langton,’ said Lloyd.

  ‘Yes. And why Marian Wheeler was still so upset when she was at Mrs Anthony’s. She’d just been to see . . .’ She held out a hand, waiting for him to supply the answer.

  ‘Eleanor Langton.’

  ‘And we wondered what Wheeler thought could have made his wife so angry that she would destroy his Christmas present.’

  ‘Eleanor Langton,’ said Lloyd, slowly, tipping his chair back as he thought about the little puzzles, and the ubiquitous Mrs Langton at the bottom of every one of them, including today’s. Everywhere he looked, there she was, with her long blonde hair and her fine features, and her watchful eyes. Who had provided Marian with her alibi? Who had provided George with his? And who was careful to unprovide Joanna with hers?

  ‘You’ll fall one day,’ said Judy.

  ‘That’s the beauty of it,’ said Lloyd, righting the chair, and the allusion was not lost on Judy. ‘Any more puzzles?’ he asked.

  ‘Who Elstow met at the pub, and why he got drunk,’ said Judy.

  Eleanor Langton? But they mustn’t jump to conclusions. And Sandwell’s computer wasn’t going to come across for a while yet. Its coaxial cable must have got caught in its zip.

  He stood up, and felt a little like an adolescent seeking his first date. ‘I . . . er . . . I’d like to go somewhere nice for lunch,’ he said. ‘And I’d like it much better if you came with me.’

  She looked as if she might be going to find some words of her own to throw at him, but then her eyes softened a little. ‘Good idea,’ she said.

  It was a long way to the pub he had in mind, especially when it was necessary to negotiate ungritted country roads and the impacted snow of the by-passed village in which it lived. But it would be worth it for the food, and the atmosphere. They could talk there, perhaps. At least they could relax there.

  It had changed hands.

  ‘Not one of my better ideas,’ Lloyd said, as they were leaving, encouraged to do so by the simple expedient of the staff suddenly appearing in outdoor clothing, and putting out as many lights as they could.

  Judy, who had chosen the less than inspired Chef’s Special, laughed, and got into the car, shivering.

  It had even been cold. There was a notice apologising, but that hadn’t made it any warmer. They had had to stay, since they were miles from anywhere else that sold food at all.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘You couldn’t help it,’ she answered.

  ‘That’s not what I’m sorry about.’

  They were alone in the car park, the staff having beaten them to the exit, and he kissed her, as he’d wanted to do all day. Her response was less than passionate.

  ‘Are you still angry with me?’ he asked.

  She frowned. ‘Angry?’

  ‘About what I said.’ He looked down. ‘My tongue runs away with me,’ he said. ‘It always has. You should hear some of the things I say to my sisters – even my mum, once.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  He smiled at Judy’s horrified expression. ‘My dad clouted me for that,’ he said. ‘And he’d have clouted me again if he’d heard what I said last night.’ He took her hand. ‘He thinks you’re the greatest thing since rugby union,’ he said, kissing it.

  ‘But you must think it’s sordid,’ she said. ‘Or you wouldn’t have said it.’

  Lloyd sighed. ‘That’s the whole point,’ he said. ‘I don’t think. At all. I’ve never thought anything of the sort.’ He let go her hand. ‘Am I forgiven?’ he asked.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  It was as much as he could hope for. He drove back to Stansfield, only to discover that he could no longer delay his visit to the dreaded Mrs Langton. For a visit, if you could believe Sandwell’s computer, was undoubtedly called for.

  Graham Elstow had been the driver of the car which had hit Eleanor Langton’s husband. Elstow had lived with his parents, next door to the Langtons, and had been coming out of the road just as the motorbike had turned in.

  ‘He clipped its rear wheel when he tried to avoid it,’ Judy said.

  She was reading the print-out while Lloyd drove towards Byford. He was beginning to hate the place, which was a pity.

  ‘The pillion passenger fell off, and went under Elstow’s car.’ Judy folded the sheets. ‘Richard Langton,’ she said. ‘But the motor-cyclist hadn’t passed a test, and shouldn’t have had a passenger anyway – and Richard Langton wasn’t wearing a helmet, or it might not have been so serious.’

  ‘And the upshot was that Elstow was charged with driving without due care,’ Lloyd said thoughtfully.

  Judy put the print-out into the glove compartment. ‘A bit hard to take,’ she said.

  ‘Quite,’ said Lloyd. ‘She might well be prepared to give Wheeler an alibi, given her relationship with him, and this.’ He turned almost reluctantly into the castle grounds, ‘I rather think that’s what Joanna is afraid happened,’ he said, slowing to a snail’s pace along the narrow road. His car’s heater had trumped Judy’s car’s road-holding qualities.

  Eleanor Langton admitted them, a resigned look on her face. ‘I’m working,’ she said. ‘Will it take long?’

  ‘I couldn’t honestly say, Mrs Langton,’ replied Lloyd.

  ‘Well,’ she said, leading the way into the sitting room. ‘I don’t suppose you’d be here if it wasn’t important.’

  Other people might have meant that he wouldn’t waste valuable time on trifles. But Lloyd was uncomfortably certain that Eleanor Langton knew that she intimidated him.

  She stood by the window. ‘Please sit down,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll stand, thank you,’ said Lloyd.

  Judy sat down, producing the notebook.

  ‘Mrs Langton,’ said Lloyd. ‘Did you know Graham Elstow?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, without hesitation.

  ‘You didn’t tell us.’

  ‘You didn’t ask.’ Sh
e sat down on the low seat by the window. ‘Richard and I lived next door to him and his parents,’ she said.

  ‘There’s a bit more to it than that,’ said Lloyd.

  Her face hardly registered any emotion. But something changed about it. ‘He was responsible for my husband’s accident,’ she said, her voice clear but quiet.

  ‘And you didn’t tell us that because we didn’t ask,’ said Lloyd.

  ‘No,’ she said, looking away from him, out of the window behind her. ‘I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t very proud of what I’d done.’

  Lloyd glanced at Judy.

  ‘I met him,’ she said. ‘That lunch time. At the Duke’s Arms.’ She turned back. ‘I’d gone to phone my mother-in-law,’ she said. ‘And I met Graham Elstow as I was coming out.’ Her fair skin began to grow a painful red. ‘I’d had a difficult morning. I’d been talking about Richard, and seeing Graham was the last straw.’ She turned her head again. ‘I asked him how he’d been for the last three years,’ she said. ‘I told him how I’d been. Every detail. I told him what it had been like, what Richard had been like. I told him about Tessa, being born to someone who just lay there and did nothing, and said nothing, and never would again.’

  Her voice was coming from behind the long blonde hair that covered her face, and Lloyd sat down as she spoke.

  ‘I could see I was upsetting him. Terribly. He’d been a friend of Richard’s. I was making him go through it all again. And I couldn’t stop. Eventually, he just walked away from me. Into the pub.’

  Lloyd sat back.

  ‘And I felt good,’ she said fiercely, then moved her head, to look at him again. ‘But it didn’t last.’

  Lloyd didn’t speak.

  ‘It helped, a little,’ she said. ‘Saying unkind things. I think perhaps you can understand that, Inspector.’

  She’d be reading his palm next.

  ‘Then when George came that evening, he told me what his son-in-law had done to Joanna, and eventually he called him by name. And I realised that I was probably responsible for the whole thing. I felt terrible. Then the next thing I knew, Graham Elstow was dead. And I didn’t tell you because I hoped I wouldn’t have to go through all this.’ There were tears in her eyes.

  ‘And that was the only time you saw Elstow that day?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ The answer was ready enough, but her eyes were wary. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Someone murdered him.’

  Judy had relegated herself to note-taker general, he noticed. Perhaps Eleanor Langton unnerved her too.

  ‘I saw him once,’ said Eleanor. ‘At lunch time. I had no idea he was Joanna’s husband! I’d never met her, and I didn’t know her surname. People in the village call her Joanna Wheeler. I didn’t even know she was married.’

  Neither had Constable Parks, thought Lloyd. And the barmaid at the Duke’s Arms hadn’t recognised her surname. Graham Elstow was a non-person as far as the Wheelers were concerned, so there was no reason to disbelieve her on that score.

  ‘Mrs Langton,’ said Judy. ‘When Mrs Wheeler left here on Christmas Eve, she was upset. Can you tell us why?’

  She nodded, and again a blush suffused her face. ‘Something happened,’ she said. ‘Something very trivial and silly, but . . . yes. She could have been upset by it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Judy, and she didn’t press for details.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all this before,’ said Eleanor. ‘But it really doesn’t help you, does it?’

  Lloyd stood up. ‘Oh, I think it does, Mrs Langton,’ he said. ‘There were a number of things puzzling us. Small things. But they do have to be investigated.’

  She nodded. ‘In that case, I do apologise,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise that I would be hindering your enquiry. But I didn’t want to have to discuss my involvement. Especially not with Richard’s mother here.’

  ‘You couldn’t keep it from her for ever,’ said Lloyd.

  ‘No.’ She stood up, and went towards the door. ‘But she was worried enough without my telling her it was Graham Elstow who’d been murdered.’ She opened the door, and Lloyd felt as though he was being dismissed. He was being dismissed.

  ‘I upset Graham, and he got drunk and took it out on his wife. So she took a poker to him. And it was all my fault,’ she said.

  Lloyd looked over at Judy, then back at Eleanor Langton. ‘Mrs Langton,’ he said. ‘That’s the second time you’ve accused Mrs Elstow of killing her husband.’

  ‘Well, didn’t she?’ said Eleanor bitterly. ‘Isn’t that what Marian Wheeler’s charade was about? And isn’t that why George is making himself ill?’

  ‘Mrs Langton,’ he said. ‘Has anyone indicated to you that that is what happened?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘George likes to believe it was this fictitious intruder.’

  Lloyd drove back to Stansfield, beginning to feel that he was getting somewhere at last. He wondered what Eleanor Langton had been like before the accident, before she’d had to spend years waiting for someone to die so that she could get on with her life. But, she’d told him what he wanted to know. She was the answer to the remaining two puzzles. And since all the little puzzles could be accounted for by her presence in the Wheelers’ midst, it was easy enough to put her to one side, and look at what he had left. A domestic. Wife kills brutal husband.

  He said as much on the way back, and Judy didn’t argue. But that, he told himself, was possibly because she wasn’t speaking at all. So he turned his attention to other matters; he asked her again to talk to Linda, and she agreed, absently. She was preoccupied, barely listening.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, frowning. ‘When I was at school,’ she went on, ‘I sometimes even forgot my satchel.’

  Lloyd laughed.

  ‘It was one of those satchels that you carried on your back,’ she said. ‘For cycling.’

  Lloyd liked the idea of Judy cycling to school.

  ‘And I’d eventually be aware that I was too light,’ she said. ‘That’s how I feel now. Too light. Because I’m missing something.’

  He drove into the police station car park, but Judy didn’t get out of the car. ‘Why not Wheeler?’ she said.

  Lloyd sighed. He’d never known her to get this personally involved before. ‘Wheeler was with Eleanor,’ he said.

  ‘Before we got there, you thought she might have been prepared to give him an alibi,’ said Judy hotly. ‘What does she do to you, Lloyd? You didn’t even ask her!’

  ‘She would just have said the same thing,’ Lloyd said. ‘There was no point in asking her.’

  ‘So you’ll take what she says as gospel, but not what Joanna says?’

  ‘You said that if you had pieces over when you’d completed the jigsaw, then they must belong to a different puzzle,’ Lloyd reminded her. ‘Eleanor Langton belongs to a different puzzle.’

  For a moment, Judy subsided, considering her own words. Then she came back into the fray. ‘You can’t say that,’ she said. ‘Not when you didn’t even ask her about it.’

  ‘Neither did you.’

  ‘I was taking my cue from you.’

  ‘I’d sooner tackle George about it,’ said Lloyd. ‘Eleanor Langton hasn’t got a weak stomach.’

  ‘Huh.’

  All right, so the woman had an effect on him. He hadn’t asked her, because he knew that she would answer him clearly and concisely, and tell him exactly what she wanted him to know, and no more. He hadn’t asked her, because she’d been expecting him to ask her, and just for once he wanted to get the better of her.

  ‘She’s a witch,’ he said, ‘I kept expecting to see her familiar curled up on a broomstick.’

  Judy laughed.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ he grumbled. ‘Look what she said about saying unkind things.’ He looked at her shamefacedly. ‘How did she know about that?’ he asked, only half in fun.

  Judy smiled. ‘Because you did much the same to
her,’ she said.

  He got out of the car, feeling slightly better. But there was no doubt that Eleanor Langton made every Welsh superstition in his body rise to the surface and leer at him.

  ‘You fancy her,’ Judy said.

  Fancy her! Not a chance. Wheeler fancied her, though. No wonder he was a nervous wreck, if he was bedding Mrs Langton. No, Lloyd didn’t fancy her. But that just would be Judy’s explanation, he thought. She had no soul for Mrs Langton to probe.

  ‘And Wheeler might never have been near the place on Christmas Eve,’ she added.

  ‘All right,’ he said, as they walked up the steps. ‘What’s the alternative?’ He opened the door. ‘That Wheeler went straight home when he left the Duke’s Arms, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So how did he get there? He was on foot, and the main road would have taken him the best part of an hour, remember. And no one, but no one saw him cross the field. They did see him walking up Castle Road.’ Of course they did. The vicar and Mrs Langton were the object of considerable interest in the village.

  They walked through the CID room, and Lloyd stopped to pick up another sheaf of papers. Information gleaned from the full-scale house to house that had now been completed, and none of it, he knew without looking, any damn good. ‘Practically the whole village goes to the pub on Christmas Eve,’ he said, as they walked into the office. ‘It’s a tradition. And a lot of them use the shortcut from that side of the village. But no one saw George.’

  Judy took off her coat, and sat down.

  ‘Besides which,’ he said. ‘If your little girl’s telling the truth, the house was locked up before George ever left the pub.’

  ‘The barmaid could have mistaken the time,’ said Judy.

  ‘What? I thought we had to believe what we were told.’

  ‘If my little girl’s telling the truth,’ Judy said, ‘she didn’t murder her husband.’

  Lloyd sat down, his face serious. ‘George was in the pub, then went straight to Eleanor Langton’s. Eleanor was at home. Marian was out visiting. We’ve got witnesses to all of that, Judy. And Joanna was at the vicarage, and keeping very quiet about it.’

  Judy sighed, at last admitting defeat.