by Ann Granger
‘Yes, I knew – know. You sound as though you’re a local woman, Mrs Jones.’
‘That’s right. I’ve spent my entire life in Lower Stovey.’ Linda Jones paused and when she spoke again the bitterness which had touched her voice as she had spoken these words had been carefully eradicated. ‘My parents farmed Church Farm, right next door to this one.’
‘I see. So, on the morning of Miss Millar’s death, you were doing what?’
‘What I always do of a weekday, school holidays excepted. I drove my daughter into Bamford. She goes to the Community College. They stopped running the school bus. Not enough children living out this way. There’s a regular schedule bus in the evening she can catch back again. I pick her up at the top of the lane then.’
‘So,’ persevered Pearce, picking his way through the superfluous information. ‘So you were driving to Bamford and it would be before nine o’clock.’
‘No, I was driving back from Bamford and it was about half past nine or a little after. After I dropped off our Becky, I called into the supermarket. Let’s say it was about twenty to ten by the time I got to the village. Yes, that would be it. When I got back indoors here it was not quite ten. I was in a bit of a flap because I was running a few minutes late and you know how it is, you never catch up if you start doing that at the beginning of the day. I saw Hester as I drove through the village. She was walking past the church. I sounded the horn and waved and she waved back. We didn’t speak.’
Pearce leaned forward. ‘She was walking past the church, not turning into it? Are you sure?’
She was sure.
Pearce asked, ‘Which direction was she coming from?’
‘From Church Lane where she lived, like you’d expect. I mean, one of them always opened up the church about that time in the summer months. I often saw one or the other, her or Ruth.’
‘But she wasn’t turning into the church to open it up as she or Mrs Aston normally did?’
‘No, I didn’t give it much thought, but you’re right. She wasn’t.’
Linda paused to scour her memory. ‘No, definitely not. She was walking from Church Lane past the lych-gate. I remember now, it did strike me as odd and I wondered where she was going.’ She took the lid off the teapot and stared into its belly. ‘This’ll take a drop of hot water. You want another cup?’
‘I’m fine,’ Pearce assured her hastily. ‘How did Miss Millar look?’
‘Look? Like she always did. Normal.’
‘Not distressed or worried?’
Linda stared at him. ‘No. Not that I’d have noticed. I didn’t look that close. After I saw her, I forgot all about it. Then when they made that appeal on the local news, I suddenly remembered.’
‘And you are absolutely sure it was that morning you saw her, the day she died? It wasn’t another day? You did say, it wasn’t unusual for you to see either her or Ruth.’
‘Absolutely,’ Linda Jones said firmly. ‘Because it was the day there was a warning of extra traffic on the main road to Bamford because of some diversion or other and I tried to hurry Becky along a little earlier when we left. Only that was a waste of time. You can no more hurry Beck than you can my father-in-law.’
Pearce swallowed the last of his cake as he considered her information. ‘Can you remember how she was dressed?’ Witnesses often insisted they were right about the day and to be fair, Mrs Jones appeared reliable and the detail about the traffic congestion on the main road lent credibility to her tale. But it never did any harm to check.
‘Dressed?’ Linda’s eyes popped at him in amazement. ‘Why on earth should I notice that? This is Lower Stovey, not in town where people put on their best togs to go out. We all dress much the same here, day in and day out. She was wearing her grey cord trousers, I think. She wore them a lot. But there, I could be wrong about that. She’d some kind of pullover and was wearing her bag slung crosswise over her chest to leave her hands free—’ Here Linda stopped abruptly.
Pearce felt a tingle between his shoulder blades. ‘Free for what?’ he prompted.
‘She was carrying something,’ Linda told him, frowning. ‘But for the life of me I couldn’t tell you what it was, something small.’
From the yard came a new sound, the roar of a motorcycle. Linda looked up. Her eyes brightened and she flushed. ‘It’ll be Gordon!’ She caught Pearce’s eye and explained, ‘It’ll be my son come visiting.’
Blast! thought Pearce. Just when she was starting to tell me something which might be interesting. Good job this son didn’t turn up earlier or I wouldn’t have got that far.
Linda had risen to her feet. The kitchen door was pushed open and a stocky young man came in. His ginger hair was clipped short and he had the reddish complexion which sometimes goes with that hair colour. He wasn’t a handsome youth, with his snub nose and wide mouth, but there was a kind of healthy youthful attractiveness about his face. He wore a leather jacket and carried his motorcyclist’s helmet. Seeing Pearce, he put the helmet down and nodded a greeting to the stranger before going to kiss his mother’s cheek.
‘Hello, Mum.’
She reached up and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Your dad’s about the place somewhere.’
Pearce saw the cheerful expression on the youngster’s face fade. ‘Is he? I really came to see you. I wanted to tell you about next Tuesday. It’s all fixed up, the disco and everything.’
‘I don’t know why you want such a noisy thing,’ she said affectionately. Turning to Pearce, she went on, ‘Gordon will be twenty-one next Tuesday and he’s having a bit of a party in Bamford where he lives. I know they get the vote at eighteen now, but they still celebrate twenty-one, don’t they?’ She turned back to her son and flowed on effortlessly, ‘I don’t think I’ll persuade your dad to come to a disco. But Becky and I will be there. Becky’s looking forward to it.’
‘So long as you’re there,’ Gordon Jones said. ‘It doesn’t matter about Dad.’
Pearce noticed the stricken look which crossed his mother’s face as the boy spoke. So father and son didn’t get along and the boy lived in Bamford. A big strong lad like that, they could do with him at the farm. Had that been what the quarrel had been about? The young man had refused to follow in the footsteps of father and grandfather. Gordon Jones was looking at Pearce, a question in his eyes.
‘Inspector Pearce, Regional Serious Crimes Squad,’ Pearce introduced himself.
‘Oh, yes? You’ll be investigating our local murder, will you? What are you doing here?’ There was antagonism in the youngster’s voice but Pearce was accustomed to that from young males.
Linda spoke before he could. ‘I phoned the police, Gordon, to tell them I saw poor Miss Millar the day she died, early on. I was coming back from dropping off your sister. So Mr Pearce here wanted to talk to me but I couldn’t tell him much.’ To Pearce she said, ‘Bit of a waste of time you coming all the way out here.’
‘We always follow up information,’ Pearce said. ‘Especially in a matter like this.’
‘Stuck, are you?’ asked Gordon insolently.
‘No,’ returned Pearce evenly. ‘Not yet. Not by a long chalk.’ The young man looked disconcerted and taking advantage of it, Pearce made his farewell to Mrs Jones.
As he was opening the door of his car, a tractor came rattling and rumbling down the track and into the yard. The driver, a weather-beaten man with thinning hair and a face which looked as if it might be permanently creased into an expression of discontent, climbed down and greeted Pearce with, ‘Who’re you, then? A copper?’
‘Yes. I look like one, then, do I?’
A snort greeted this. ‘What do you want?’
‘You’re Mr Jones?’ Pearce asked.
‘Course I bloody am.’ Jones stared past him and scowled again at the motorcycle. ‘See you’re not the only visitor. What’s brought you?’
‘Just to have a word with your wife regarding her information.’
Jones’s jaw dropped. ‘What information?’
>
Oh dear. She hadn’t told him. This was, Pearce decided, by way of being a dysfunctional family. But if so, he didn’t think it was Mrs Jones’s fault. ‘Just a sighting of the murdered woman, Miss Millar, on the day of her death. Your wife remembered seeing her in the village around half past nine or a few minutes afterwards.’
‘And she phoned you about that?’ Jones snorted again. ‘Waste of bloody time.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Pearce. ‘It’s extremely valuable to know it. She’s the only person so far who’s come forward to say she saw the victim.’
Jones stared at him. ‘You won’t get him, though, will you? The bugger that killed that poor woman. You coppers never catch anyone — not unless it’s a speeding motorist.’ He walked away towards the kitchen door.
‘Nice type!’ muttered Pearce. He drove out of the yard, wondering what kind of family reunion was taking place in the kitchen behind him.
As he drove back through the village he was surprised to see a second motorcycle, propped up outside the church. The door was open. Pearce pulled up, got out and walked quietly under the lych-gate roof and up the flagged path to the old oaken door with its iron bands. He paused outside and listened. He could make out the murmur of voices within, a man and a woman. He pulled open the door, crossed the porch to the chicken wire door. The inner wooden door behind it had been hooked back and he could see through into the church. The man and woman were seated in a pew in earnest conversation. Pearce had made no noise but perhaps a draught of air had alerted the talkers. The man looked round and Pearce saw it was James Holland, the vicar of Bamford. The woman was Ruth Aston.
Pearce pushed open the wire door and from the top of the steps down into the church, called apologetically, ‘Sorry, Reverend! I saw your bike outside but I didn’t know it was yours, if you see what I mean. The church was open and I though I’d check it out.’
Father Holland got to his feet and came towards him. ‘Inspector Pearce, isn’t it? Thank you for taking the trouble. Mrs Aston and I are discussing what to do about the church.’
‘Let you get on with it, then,’ said Pearce. ‘Good morning, Mrs Aston!’ he added.
Ruth returned his greeting but didn’t leave her place in the pew.
Pearce left them there and went back to his car. He had been a little surprised to see Ruth Aston sitting there so calmly in the church, a few inches only from where her friend had been murdered. But then, he thought, sooner or later she had to go back inside the place, if she was still a churchwarden.
Inside the church, James Holland had returned to his place beside Ruth. She said, ‘I wonder why he came back.’
‘The inspector? In pursuit of his enquiries, I imagine. You’re still all right sitting here, Ruth? You wouldn’t rather go elsewhere?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I’ve known this church all my life and I can’t let myself be kept from it now by what’s happened. Besides,’ she hesitated. ‘I feel close to Hester, somehow, here.’ She cast him a guilty look. ‘I’m not a naturally religious woman, you know.’
Her companion raised his bushy eyebrows.
‘I know,’ she went on hastily, ‘that people, village people, think I am. But despite being a vicar’s daughter and a churchwarden and coming in to clean out the church and all the rest of it, I wouldn’t class myself as religious. All those things I mentioned, they’re part of a way of life. Some people take up flower-arranging and some take up the church. What would I do if I didn’t look after St Barnabas? I lack what I suppose I’d call a spiritual quality.’
‘Do you?’ he asked gently. ‘What is a spiritual quality?’
‘Now you’re going to be clever,’ she reproached him, ‘and tie me up in theological knots. I can’t describe it. But I know some people have it and some, like me, don’t.’
‘We each bring our gifts to the altar,’ he said. ‘All are valid. Dusting and polishing too. Not everyone, thank goodness, has visions.’
She gave a little smile. ‘I wouldn’t like to have a vision. I wouldn’t know what to do.’
‘Like the Victorian child who was asked what he’d do if he opened the door and found Jesus on the step. “I’d ask him in,” he replied. “Offer him a glass of sherry and send for the vicar”.’
This time Ruth laughed.
He patted her arm. ‘I’m pleased you feel you can carry on as churchwarden, Ruth, for the forseeable future, anyway.’
‘Until I leave the village,’ she reminded him. ‘I told you, I mean to sell up.’
‘Of course. I don’t know what we’ll do about the building then. Without you and Hester, I suspect it will have to be closed up all week. We may, in view of what’s apparently been taking place in the tower, have to keep it closed anyway. I’m sorry I had to distress you with that information, Ruth.’
She made a gesture with her hand, waving away his apology. ‘Hester and I weren’t doing such a good job, after all, were we? Still, now it’s been discovered, perhaps that’s the end of it. Especially now the lock’s been changed on the tower door.’
‘Even if the church is kept locked, it will be opened of a Sunday when either I or someone else comes out to take a service. I don’t mean to let the church fall into complete disuse,’ he told her.
Ruth smiled at him. ‘It’s a long way for you to come for such a small congregation.’
He hunched his broad shoulders. ‘No, no. I follow it up by going over to the Manor and taking a service there for the residents.’
At this mention of the Residential Home for the Elderly, which had formerly been Fitzroy Manor and her mother’s childhood home, Ruth sighed.
‘I haven’t seen the old manor house in years. Even when I was a child, we seldom went there. My maternal grandparents were dead and the house closed up. It was on the market and waiting for a buyer. Occasionally my mother would put me in her little car and drive over there and open it up just to check on the place. It was an expedition which, frankly, I dreaded. The house was so dark and musty-smelling. Most of the furniture had been taken out. We had one or two pieces of it in the vicarage, dark Victorian stuff mostly, except for a nice little Regency card-table which I’ve still got. The best of the rest had gone to the saleroom and the only things left in the house were things the saleroom didn’t want and my mother used to say the vicarage hadn’t room for. That meant, she didn’t want them, either. Her other excuse was that the estate agent wanted some furniture left in the house because it looked better that way than empty. I don’t know why he thought that. The first thing you saw, as you walked into the big entrance hall, was a stuffed owl in a glass case! That and some stag’s antlers on the wall. Grisly. Our footsteps echoed as we walked about inside and I clung to my mother like a limpet. I remember one occasion when she took me upstairs and showed me a room with bars at the window. She said it had been the nursery. I was horrified. It looked like a prison and I said so. She laughed and said, oh no, just a Victorian precaution to prevent the children tumbling out. I remember being so glad I never had to live there or sleep in that barred room!’
‘Times change,’ James Holland said with a smile. ‘Children aren’t barricaded away in a distant nursery now until they’re old enough to behave in adult company!’
‘My mother never spoke much about her childhood,’ Ruth said. ‘They kept horses in my grandfather’s day. She mentioned a pony she’d had called Patch. Otherwise, I can’t remember her telling me anything about those days.’
‘Sometimes it’s painful to talk about things you’ve lost,’ the vicar said.
‘Like talking about Hester? I don’t find it painful to talk about her.’ Ruth stared round the church at the various monuments. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot, James, since Hester died.’
‘I dare say you have.’
‘Not just about her. About all sorts of things.’ She glanced at him and gave a wry smile. ‘My father brought me up to see the best in everyone and believe me, I tried! I was a teacher, too, and one always tries to find some
thing positive about the most unpromising pupil. It’s hard though, when you feel yourself wronged, to see the best in the other person. Or when you see a great crime committed to forgive or try to understand the person responsible.’
‘Have you forgiven the father of your child for deserting you both?’ he asked.
‘In as much as I feel sorry for him now, rather than hate him. Simon wasn’t a wicked person, only flawed. Did it surprise you when I told you all about that?’
‘I’m seldom surprised.’ It was his turn for a wry smile. ‘And as you’d told Alan Markby and Meredith, I suppose you thought it prudent to tell me.’
‘In case they mentioned it? They wouldn’t. They’re a very – very discreet couple, aren’t they?’
James laughed. ‘Alan is, certainly. I don’t know that Meredith is always entirely discreet but she’s prudent.’
‘At the inquest,’ Ruth said hesitantly, ‘I did just for a moment wonder if, after Simon had spoken to me, he went off into the woods and did something silly in a fit of remorse.’
‘Ah. Suicide.’
‘But then I thought, don’t be silly, Ruth. Of course he didn’t. Someone would’ve found his body and anyway, I did know him well enough to know that wasn’t his style. Besides, he was engaged to be married to someone else, so they said at the inquest. He’d found somebody he wanted to marry at last. I can’t say that didn’t hurt me when I heard it. But that was Simon’s way. He shook off disagreeable experiences or unpleasant facts and went on his way rejoicing. I think,’ said Ruth, ‘the term “water off a duck’s back” might have been coined for Simon Hastings.’
Father Holland nodded. ‘Met people like that myself.’ She darted another glance at him. ‘Don’t ask me to forgive Hester’s killer. I can’t.’
‘As an abstract concept, of course you can’t. Give yourself time. When we know – well, when the police have finished their enquiries, hopefully with success, that’s the time to start trying to come to terms with it, as you’ve come to terms with being deserted as a young girl.’