by Ann Granger
‘I’ve been wondering, too,’ Meredith confessed. She tucked a swathe of hair behind one ear. It promptly fell forward again. She put both hands up and tucked the hair on both sides of her face behind either ear. One side stayed put, the other fell forward again.
Markby reached across the table and took her hand. ‘You’re fidgeting with your hair. It means you’re going to come out with some theory.’
‘No. But I’ve been thinking about Hester, too. I did find her body.’
He wrinkled his forehead in dismay. ‘It was a terrible shock for you. I shouldn’t have mentioned Lower Stovey.’ He sighed. ‘Sorry, this outing tonight is falling pretty flat, isn’t it?’
‘It was my idea to come,’ she pointed out. ‘I thought it’d take our minds off everything.’
‘Exactly. You’re trying to blot out what you saw. That’s normal and I should have been aware of it!’ He released her hand after a brief squeeze of her fingers and added wryly, ‘The thing is, on a personal level I’d like to help you forget it. On a professional level, the last thing I want is for you to blot out that picture altogether. You are, you see, my witness.’
Meredith said slowly, as someone laying out a mental puzzle as she might the pieces of a jigsaw, ‘Of course I’ve been wondering about Hester though I haven’t come up with any theory as yet, sorry to disappoint you. That’s because I’ve nothing to go on. I didn’t see Hester die. I didn’t know Hester although I knew of her existence because Ruth had mentioned her to me. So when I saw her – saw her body there, I didn’t know who she was. Muriel Scott told me. There was something really weird about Muriel’s reaction. She seemed – ’ Meredith paused.
‘Yes?’ Alan was watching her intently.
‘She seemed surprised without being shocked. In fact, until she saw who it was, her manner was quite brisk. It was strange, somehow. I don’t know how to describe it better. From the moment I told her I’d called the police, she seemed to have no doubt it would turn out to be what you’d call a suspicious death. It didn’t seem to cross her mind that it might be a case of heart attack or a lump of masonry falling off one of those monuments and clonking someone on the head. Then, when Muriel saw who was dead, she said, “It’s not anyone I’d have expected to see.” It left me wondering if there was someone she wouldn’t have been surprised to see lying there dead. It’s particularly odd because Hester, of all the people in Lower Stovey, was regularly in the church and Muriel shouldn’t have been surprised to see her there, alive naturally. It wasn’t that Hester was dead, but that Hester was dead, which seemed to throw her. It was the emphasis in her remark. Do you follow?’
‘I follow. It’s intriguing, I admit. However, a shocked person can make some odd, even garbled, statements. Whatever you say, to find Hester Millar stabbed in St Barnabas’s was enough to shake the sang-froid even of the redoubtable Mrs Scott.’
‘Poor Ruth Aston, of course, was horribly shocked, devastated,’ Meredith continued. ‘The real thing bugging me is another perhaps trivial detail. I keep wondering what Hester was actually doing in the church when she was attacked. I mean,’ she added hastily, ‘I know that she, along with Ruth, was a churchwarden. I understand that she’d gone to open up the building. My mind’s working in a more literal way. What action was she actually engaged in? You see, from her attitude she’d been kneeling in a pew praying when the assailant struck.’
Alan smiled faintly. ‘People do still pray in churches.’
‘Yes, and probably Hester was just doing something she always did when she visited the church. But it might be worth asking Ruth if Hester was in the habit of kneeling in prayer for a few minutes when she went into the church. We know why Ruth looks after the church. Her father was its last vicar. It means a lot to her. But it has – had – no personal association for Hester. So, was she a particularly religious woman? After all, it looks as if she was a churchwarden because Ruth was one and it must have been convenient for the two of them to share duties, keeping an eye on the church. I was wondering, you see, if she was kneeling in prayer because something was worrying her and she didn’t know what to do. She was seeking guidance. The other thing that occurred to me – and probably already has to you, too – is that whoever approached Hester near enough to attack her either did so very quietly, so that Hester didn’t hear them and look up or move, or was someone Hester knew and whose presence she felt she could ignore.’
He nodded. ‘It had occurred to me, if for no other reason than that murderer and victim very often are acquainted. Why kill someone who means nothing to you? It would be motiveless. Unless the killer is drunk, drugged or crazed, in which case anyone might be attacked by an outsider with no discernible motive. Such cases are rare, however. Danger lies in our nearest and dearest, not in strangers. And no one,’ Markby smiled drily, ‘has so far mentioned seeing any strangers in Lower Stovey recently – except you and me.’
‘Lionel asked me if I’d need a character reference,’ Meredith told him. ‘Perhaps I’d better take him up on that.’
He grinned. ‘Oh, I’ll vouch for you!’
The waitress arrived to remove their plates. She was very young, fresh-faced and pretty despite the braces on her teeth. She was probably a college student and this was an evening job. She looked anxiously at the amount of food left.
‘Something wrong?’ she asked tentatively.
They assured her in unison there wasn’t. She looked unconvinced but then asked brightly, ‘Would you like the dessert trolley?’
They exchanged glances. Meredith shook her head. ‘No, thank you,’ Alan told the waitress. ‘We’ll just have coffee.’
When the girl had gone, Meredith said, ‘I know you want me to remember things. I’ve tried to remember everything I saw. In fact, the person I find myself thinking about as much as I’ve been thinking about Hester, is Ruth. I thought I might drive out and see her some time tomorrow. She must need support. I don’t suppose she’s got many friends in that village. Unless you count Muriel Scott who, I imagine, is a bit of mixed blessing at a time like this. Well-meaning, you know, but clumsy.’
‘And I, in my sneaky policemanly way, wouldn’t mind you having a chat with her. She might open up to you.’
The coffee arrived and there was a break in conversation. When Meredith took it up again, it was to ask, in response to his last remark, ‘Open up and tell me what?’
He hunched his shoulders, stirring his coffee. ‘I don’t know. Nothing, something, any little thing.’
‘I don’t want to grill her. She’s probably had enough of that already.’
‘I fancy Dave Pearce intended to send Ginny Holding out to talk to her and get a statement today. Holding is good with nervous witnesses. No grilling. Lots of TLC.’ He hesitated. ‘I’ll let Dave know you’re going to see Ruth. This is his case.’
‘Sure.’ Meredith added with a touch of her usual spirit, ‘I’m not pulling chestnuts out of the fire for the police. I’m going to see Ruth just to give her a shoulder to cry on if she wants one. I won’t be a – a mole.’
‘Of course you’re not,’ he soothed. ‘But people sometimes tell you more when you don’t ask them questions – and if you don’t come from the police.’ Unexpectedly he chuckled. ‘Anyway, moles are shy, reclusive creatures. Not your style.’ He pushed his empty cup away and signalled for the bill.
Outside, it was nearly dark but the length of riverside path near the Fisherman’s Rest was lit with lamps strung from the trees lining the car park.
He held out his hand. Meredith took it and they strolled cosily along the quiet track. Here at least the modern world with its bustle and trouble was kept out. The twilight soothed the eye and the sounds of the night were pleasant on the ear. To their left the river chattered softly to itself and scraped watery fingers along the bank which had been reinforced to protect the pub from the risk of flood. A black shape flew out of the trees and flapped across the river to the further bank and farmland beyond. Traffic on the main road to their ri
ght passed at intervals, unseen except for the rake of headlights along the trees.
‘It does seem to me,’ Alan said, ‘as though our house-hunting is jinxed in some way. We can’t go to view a place without it ending with us being mixed up in this mess.’
‘I didn’t find Hester on purpose.’ She sighed. ‘Perhaps the whole thing is just jinxed. Perhaps I’m jinxed.’
‘Hey, hey! Cheer up! We’ll find somewhere, though I don’t, somehow, think it will be in Lower Stovey.’
‘Gosh, no, Alan. It’s a weird place. Even if it weren’t, that house, the Old Vicarage, is far too big. I don’t care what Juliet says.’
‘Juliet?’
Damn! thought Meredith. She hadn’t told him of her meeting with Juliet Painter.
‘I saw in in London. We had lunch. She asked about the house-hunting, being in that line of business herself.’
‘But not an estate agent!’ he said.
‘Most definitely not! She does hate being called that. She’s still dating Superintendent Doug Minchin.’
‘Hope she’s got him wearing a more tasteful line in shirts by now.’
‘She’s wearing contact lenses, not specs. That’s for Doug, I fancy.’
‘The things we do for love. You told her about the house, then?’
‘I asked her opinion. She was all for converting the attic and having separate studies in two of the spare bedrooms. It’s the sort of thing her clients would do. But since her clients are nearly all pop music millionaires or oil-rich sheikhs, as far as I can make out, she would think along those lines.’
‘Blimey!’ he observed.
Meredith laughed. ‘Well, you know Juliet.’
They turned and walked back to the car. As Meredith was buckling her seat belt, she said, ‘I know Hester Millar didn’t live in Lower Stovey at the time your Potato Man was active. But Ruth’s family did and I imagine she visited them even if she wasn’t living at home by that time. And I suppose it’s possible Muriel Scott lived in the area.’
He switched on the ignition. ‘It’s something to think about, certainly. But not tonight, not any more. We’ve hashed it over more than enough. As the saying goes, my place or yours?’
‘Yours,’ she said.
A fine drizzle was falling when Meredith returned to Lower Stovey on Saturday afternoon. The scene of crime technicians appeared to have finished at the church. There were no vehicles outside, no uniformed constable guarding the approach. The blue and white tape which had cordoned off the area lay trampled into the wet muddy ground. The church door, when Meredith tried it, was firmly shut. She craned her neck looking up at the tower but even the jackdaws were sheltering out of the rain. Meredith walked round to the side of the building. High under the roof the Green Man gazed out at his erstwhile domain, Stovey Woods. Water trickled down the funerary monuments of the churchyard, collecting in the nooks and crannies of the carved angels and draped urns. She went back to the car.
Across the road, at the Fitzroy Arms, Norman the landlord was standing in his doorway in conversation with a young man in a raincoat holding an open notebook. The press had arrived in Lower Stovey.
As Meredith drove slowly away, Norman looked across at her car. She waved a greeting but his pale face remained expressionless and he made no signal of acknowledgement. Nevertheless, she was sure he’d observed her movements around the church and classified them as meddling. Possibly, she thought wryly, he blamed her in some way for what had happened.
She drove on and turned into Church Lane. Here a young woman was knocking energetically at a cottage door. Receiving no answer, she moved on to the next. Wisely, the inhabitants were lying low.
At the Old Forge a lamp was lit in the sitting room despite the early hour. Meredith got out of her car and knocked at the door. Ruth’s face appeared at a window and disappeared. Seconds later the door opened.
‘Do come in quickly,’ Ruth begged. ‘Or that dreadful girl will see me.’
Meredith obligingly nipped through the narrow aperture allowed her. The door was promptly slammed behind her.
‘You mean that reporter? The one knocking on doors?’
‘Yes. She’s been once and I pretended I wasn’t here. But she’ll know I’m here now because she’ll have seen you arrive. Anyway, I switched the lamp on because it’s so gloomy in here this afternoon.’ Ruth was leading the way as she spoke.
The sitting room was comfortably furnished, almost a model for a room of its type with its black-painted oak beams and ingle-nook hearth in which logs crackled sending out welcome warmth.
‘You’ll think it odd,’Ruth went on, ‘for me to have the fire going at this time of year. I was trying to cheer the place up and besides, Dilys Twelvetrees was here again this morning, which I could have done without. She doesn’t normally come on Saturdays. I suppose she’s trying to look after me and I should be grateful. Asking her to set the fire at least gave her a job and stopped her plodding round after me asking, of all things, what I intended to do about Hester’s funeral. She kept on about ham sandwiches here or Norman at the pub having a functions room. If he has, it’s the first I’ve heard of it. I dread to think what it’s like. Anyway, who is there to invite back afterwards? There’s only me and James to conduct the service which I don’t even know will be in the church. I mean, how can you conduct a burial service for someone who’s been murdered in the very pews …’
Meredith touched her arm consolingly. ‘Don’t fret about it. Dilys meant well, I’m sure. There may be more people wishing to attend Hester’s funeral than you think. Villagers will want to show their respects. The police usually send along someone in these cases. Alan and I will be there. James can always hold the service at Bamford Church. Have they, the police I mean, indicated when they’ll release the body?’
‘No, not yet. I don’t like to think of Hester lying in the morgue, but frankly, just at the moment I don’t think I can cope with the funeral either, let alone Dilys’s ham sandwiches.’ With grim humour Ruth added, ‘Which will be real old doorsteps, you can bet. With horrible home-made piccalilli, I shouldn’t be surprised, strong enough to crumble the fillings in your teeth! Anyway, I sent her home immediately after she’d set the fire. As you say, she meant to be helpful. I should be grateful, I suppose, for her support. Though I never thought the day would come when I’d turn to Dilys Twelvetrees in my hour of need!’ Ruth rubbed her pale fingers together. ‘I still seem to be feeling the cold.’
‘It’s shock,’ Meredith told her. ‘Drink a lot of hot drinks.’
‘I’ll make us tea in a minute,’ said Ruth as if interpreting this as a hint, to Meredith’s embarrassment. ‘Do sit down.’
‘I only came to see how you were getting on,’ Meredith told her. ‘I won’t stay if you don’t want me to.’
‘I do want you to. I need to talk to someone. I can’t talk to anyone else here, except Muriel and she, poor dear, is so desperately bracing. The sort of person who tells you to pull your socks up. She hasn’t told me that yet, but I feel she will at any minute.’ Ruth slumped into the corner of chintz-covered sofa. ‘Besides I couldn’t deal with Roger today.’
‘I’ve yet to meet Roger.’
‘That ghastly dog,’ said Ruth without malice, ‘is a menace. Muriel dotes on him. I do like dogs,’ she added. ‘But I like ’em well-behaved. My personal opinion about Roger is that he’s the canine equivalent of bonkers.’ She sighed. ‘Perhaps I’ll get a dog myself now, for company. My parents always kept a dog, a labrador.’
‘Don’t rush into any decision,’ Meredith urged. ‘Give yourself time.’
‘Time’s all I’ve got now, isn’t it? Time on my hands, as they say. I’ll have to take up tapestry or something like that. Not that I’m any good with a needle. I suppose I’ll have to carry on being churchwarden at least for a while because no one else will do it. But just now, I can’t go near the church. I’ve told James Holland so. He says not to worry.’ Ruth made a rueful, dismissive gesture.
‘I believe the police came to see you yesterday.’
‘Oh, yes, a nice young woman came along in the morning. I couldn’t answer any of her questions. Hester and I don’t have – didn’t have – any enemies. We weren’t involved in any disputes. To my knowledge, no one has been hanging round the church and there’s nothing in the building to steal. The officer did keep asking about that. It seems lonely churches are targeted by unscrupulous people who hack out statues and remove paintings and decorated panels. They market the goods through the murkier corners of the antiques trade using false provenances. She asked if I thought it possible Hester had disturbed a thief. But I told her, all the brass altar furniture, candlesticks, the lectern and the Bible on it, all that kind of thing, were all removed after my father’s death into the safe keeping of the diocese. When James comes out to take a service, he brings an altar cross and candlesticks with him. The rest of the monuments are solid marble and stone, well attached to the walls or the floor. Anyway, Hester was kneeling in the pew. She wouldn’t have been doing that if she was confronting someone. She wouldn’t even have done it if some stranger came in and was wandering about the place. As a matter of routine, we always kept an eye on anyone who was in the church when we were there. People who came in when we weren’t, of course, could do what they liked. But we never had any trouble.’