The Reluctant Detective (Faith Morgan Mysteries)

by Ockley, Martha

  “I am glad to do anything I can to help, but please, call me Faith.”

  She heard Pat Montesque snort.

  “Such a pretty name, and how appropriate to my mind,” Fred said cheerily. “Now, I don’t think you’ve been introduced.”

  He ushered Faith across to where the pretty blonde stood shyly beside Pat. “This is Jessica, Jessica Rose, one of our servers and very much involved in the parish. You will have seen her on…” Again his words petered out. Ordinary words were insufficient to the extraordinary circumstances that had brought them together.

  Faith shook hands. Jessica’s grip was firmer than she expected. Close up she could see her face was expertly made up to accentuate her striking blue eyes and long black lashes. She wore a sad, stunned look. Somehow she invited protection. Faith had an absurd desire to keep hold of her hand and comfort her.

  “Jessica’s a newcomer to the village,” Pat Montesque’s voice cut in. “Divorced. Arrived barely a year ago, but she was very close to the vicar.”

  Now that was nasty, thought Faith, and she gave the older woman a firm look. Pat flinched, abashed. Faith immediately felt bad. Pat Montesque, it seemed, was one of those pushing women who frequently spoke before realizing how their words would sound out in the public domain.

  “Jessica is an accountant. She does a lot of voluntary work for the diocese and its projects.” Fred Partridge rushed to fill the gap. “She even gave up her holiday to go out to Africa last spring to work as a volunteer on one of the diocese’s charitable projects.” Jessica looked embarrassed.

  “That must have been rather hot,” Faith heard herself saying. “Fair-skinned, like me,” she elaborated. “I find hot climates a bit of a trial.”

  “It was warm,” Jessica responded, and managed a smile.

  It was a getting-to-know-you meeting. Faith got out her diary and obediently made notes of Pat’s instructions about where “the vicar” was expected to be and when. As the notations spread out across Palm Sunday and Holy Week, Faith felt a combination of thrill and awe. She was about to preside over her first Easter celebrations as vicar in charge.

  “We’re fortunate that Canon Arbuthnot from the cathedral has agreed to cover the Easter Day service,” said Pat, ticking another item off her list. “At a time like this, I think the congregation would like the comfort of someone with authority.”

  Fred looked embarrassed. Faith lifted her eyebrows. She decided to let it pass and discuss that with the bishop later. Eventually Pat reached the end of her list. Faith closed her diary and put it in her bag.

  “Perhaps a cup of tea?” said Fred.

  “I’ll make it.” Jessica stood and left the room without waiting for a reply.

  Pat watched her go. “She was friendly with Trevor Shoesmith, of course,” she said.

  Fred’s frown looked incongruous on his round face. Faith knew she shouldn’t be joining in gossip, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “The farmer?”

  “The man the police took away this morning,” responded Pat with heavy significance. “She spent quite a bit of time over there on Trevor Shoesmith’s farm. Riding.” She looked over the bridge of her small nose.

  “From what I understand, Mr Shoesmith was just invited in for a chat. That’s merely routine,” Faith said briskly, cross with herself for encouraging Pat. “In a village like this, I suppose you all know each other.” She looked to Fred for support. He was examining his chubby hands resting on the tabletop. “The police will be asking questions of everyone. It’s what they do.”

  Pat didn’t seem convinced. Fred was surprisingly silent. Jessica returned with the tea. She must have known they had been talking about her.

  “We’ve been discussing Trevor Shoesmith,” said Faith as she accepted her cup of tea. Pat started. “There’s something I need to mention,” Faith continued. “I know that neighbours talk to one another – and they should – but the bishop has asked me to warn you that it is likely the press may get on to this sad event.” She chose her words carefully. “The bishop hopes that all the faithful members of this congregation and most especially their officers” – she glanced at Pat – “will do their best to dampen speculation.”

  The older woman bridled.

  “Well! Of course! Naturally we don’t want journalists poking their noses in around here. If I see any of those, I shall give them a piece of my mind!”

  Faith’s heart sank. “Perhaps it might be better just to avoid them.” She passed out the Reverend Casey’s cards. “The bishop suggests that any enquiries be referred to the diocesan press officer.”

  “I need to mention something,” Fred said suddenly. “It’s worrying me. I don’t know that it should – but it is.” He paused. “They’re saying it’s pesticide.”

  Faith frowned, trying to follow his meaning.

  “I’m a farmer’s merchant,” Fred explained.

  “But Trevor – Mr Shoesmith,” Jessica corrected herself hurriedly, “doesn’t use pesticide; he believes it poisons the land.”

  “Nonsense!” said Pat. “Mind you,” the churchwarden wrinkled her button nose disapprovingly, “there’s certainly no evidence that he does employ such aids or that land of his would look a good deal tidier.”

  “That’s just it, I sold him some the other week,” said Fred, his forehead creased in anxious lines. “Not much. Just a two-litre tin. He said he wanted to try an experiment.” He fixed his round blue eyes on Faith. “Should I tell the police? That’s what I want to know. It could look bad, and…”

  “Of course you mustn’t say!” All eyes swung to Jessica, startled by her vehemence. She faced them defiantly. “You can’t go spreading tales like that. We don’t know anything. The police haven’t even confirmed pesticide. Gossip like that can ruin a man’s reputation – and there’s nothing behind it.” She shifted back in her chair as if conscious that she had been too fervent.

  “It’s ridiculous to think poor Trevor could have anything to do with it. What could possibly be his motive?” Her eyes were pleading. “How can we think such things of our neighbour?”

  The question lingered uncomfortably in the air and broke up their meeting. Jessica left first, murmuring something about an appointment, and Pat Montesque bustled out after her. Faith volunteered to wash up the tea things with Fred in the kitchen behind the hall.

  “Fred,” she shook the suds from the teacup and passed it to him to dry. “If you like, I could have a word with the sergeant about that sale and see what he thinks.”

  That would be best, she thought. Peter would be sensible about it.

  The line of Fred’s shoulders relaxed a fraction as if a weight had lifted from them.

  “Could you really?” he asked eagerly. “I would be so grateful.” He gave the cup an extra polish. “You know, we really are very lucky to have you.”

  Half an hour later, the motorway was unreeling in front of her in the blustery spring sunshine. The trip to Birmingham took two hours and twenty minutes when the traffic was loose. She liked driving. Time to think. Time to consider.

  She had a collection of her favourite musicals stacked up in the CD player. It was a guilty pleasure. The great musical songs, she told herself, were like bright-as-paint fragments of the human condition – uplifting, direct. When the curtain came down you returned to real life somehow comforted. She switched the CD player onto random and settled in for the drive.

  She shook her head, smiling wryly. On Saturday, she had been a curate investigating her options. Now it was Monday. She had witnessed a murder and been put in charge (temporary charge, she corrected herself) of a parish – the scene of the crime. And the scene of the crime was Ben’s crime scene. Was this supposed to happen?

  The CD track had switched to Chicago. She thought it ironic that the song currently playing was “He had it coming”. She sang along under her breath.

  It had taken such effort to switch paths; to change herself from policewoman to an ordained minister of the church. It h
ad been a challenge she had felt she had had to take, but it hadn’t been without cost. The discipline had been hard. She had cut herself off from her old life – even, in a way, from her old self. And now, it seemed fate, or God, had catapulted her into collision with Ben and the police and herself and her past choices; it all seemed to be rolled into one vast confusing imponderable open-ended…mess? Adventure? Challenge? Something!

  Couldn’t resist touching the body, eh? She heard Ben’s voice, teasing, sarcastic.

  The uncomfortable truth was that he was right. Alistair Ingram’s death had reawakened a part of her she thought she’d left behind. She, Faith Morgan, liked investigating; talking to people, analyzing their expressions, reading their body language, peering into their lives; fitting together the broken puzzle of what they said and didn’t say, and why. She was good at it.

  In her mind’s eye she saw Peter Gray, the first moment they’d met, flipping out his warrant card.

  Be honest.

  All right. The authority of the police role was attractive: a card-carrying purveyor of justice. There. She’d said it.

  What was it you left behind? The question popped up and caught her by surprise.

  What was that?

  What had she been leaving behind? Ben? The police? And was it really a question of either/or?

  She had the powerful feeling that God was leading her somewhere. She spoke to the humming silence inside her car – “Did you intend this?”

  No answer.

  “Was I supposed to join your team? Did I misread the signals?” she asked.

  The player seemed to have paused. Then another CD fell into place in the changer. Oliver. Nancy’s rousing anthem soared – the song was “As long as he needs me”.

  She laughed out loud.

  CHAPTER

  6

  THE BEATLES’ GREATEST HITS WERE PLAYING as she opened the door. Her mother liked her to have a key so she could let herself in. Her great-grandmother’s blue china dog grinned at her from the hall table. That dog had sat on the hall table in every house her mother had lived in from as far back as Faith could remember. Just the sight of it made her feel as if she were home.

  “Mum!”

  “In here!” trilled her mother’s voice from the front room above the strains of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

  Faith rounded the corner to see her mother perched precariously in her stockinged feet on the back of the sofa, hanging a curtain. Marianne Morgan was petite like her eldest daughter, Ruth, and she had to stretch. There were two spots of colour on her cheekbones and she was puffing with the effort of it.

  “Mum! You shouldn’t be doing that!”

  Marianne forced the last hook into position. “There!”

  She wobbled as she bent to get down. Faith barely reached her in time.

  “Oof! Not getting any younger,” Marianne said cheerfully, slipping her shoes back on. She still wore heels. Even though she’d turned seventy, she had good ankles.

  “Hello, dear. You made good time. Mr Clean just dropped these off and I wanted to get them up before supper.”

  “Mr Clean” ran the dry-cleaning business around the corner. Marianne had always made friends easily and Mr Clean, being from Pakistan and respectful of elderly ladies, treated her with special kindness.

  “That was very kind of him, but if you weren’t going to wait for me you should still have used a stepladder,” Faith said, giving her a hug.

  “Of course, dear,” her mother replied with a complete lack of sincerity. “Let’s have a sherry. I’ve just come off the phone to Ruth. What on earth has been happening down in Little Worthy?”

  Her mother poured them both a glass of her favourite pale cream sherry. Faith had never liked it as a drink, but it was a ritual they shared. Her mother always drank her sherry from the remnants of a set of waisted glasses Dad had picked up years ago – a special offer from the Esso station with every purchase over five pounds. Dad had loved his bargains.

  “So the vicar of Little Worthy, poisoned before your very eyes with the communion wine?” Mum had never been mealy-mouthed.

  “Sounds like Ruth’s filled you in.”

  “Well, I have to say that village was always a bit sly for my tastes,” Marianne took a sip of sherry and rolled it around her mouth before swallowing. “Everybody was always trying to keep up a façade of some sort.”

  Façade. Don had said the same thing.

  “I didn’t realize you knew Little Worthy?”

  “Oh yes. The head of the Mother’s Union used to hold court there at one point while we lived in Winchester. I suppose you would have been at primary school at the time. Dreadful woman!”

  “Really?” asked Faith, intrigued. As her mother grew older, she became increasingly decisive in her opinions.

  “She’s long gone.” Marianne dismissed the subject. “And Ben Shorter’s in charge of the investigation? That’s a surprise for you.” Her mother cocked her head at her.

  Faith shrugged. “I knew he was back in Winchester in the CID. He’s already collected a suspect: the farmer who lives next door to the vicarage – a Trevor Shoesmith.”

  “Trevor Shoesmith?” Marianne sat bolt upright in her chair. “Not Fran and Bill Shoesmith’s boy? That can’t be right.”

  “You knew them?” asked Faith. Why was she surprised? she thought. Her mother knew everyone.

  “The Shoesmiths? Oh yes. They’ve been dead for years. Such tragedy that family suffered; and as for Trevor, what a sad boy he was – gentle as anything. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “A tragedy? What was that?”

  “Now let me think,” Marianne looked into the middle distance, her glass of sherry balanced, forgotten, on the arm of her chair. “It must have been well over twenty years ago. There was an accident on the farm and the eldest boy was killed. It was doubly awful because Trevor was involved in some way. He was only fifteen.”

  “You mean he killed his brother?”

  “Accidentally. There was no question about that. His father shouldn’t have had those boys handling heavy machinery unsupervised; the other boy was barely a year older. Bill was as much to blame as anyone. The family was devastated.”

  “When did the parents die?”

  “They went – oh! – fifteen years later, or more. Died within a few weeks of one another. They were a devoted couple.” Faith recognized the note in her mother’s voice; Marianne disapproved in some way. “He went with cancer, I think, then Fran followed with a heart attack not long after. Poor Trevor.”

  “Why so?”

  “I said they were devoted. Too much so, maybe. I think the poor boy rather lost out,” Marianne said crisply. Faith smiled at her. Her mother had always been warmly concerned for her own children. “As I say, he was such a sad boy. A bit of a born loser.”

  A sad boy; a born loser. The thought of another sad boy just like that jumped into Faith’s mind. Richard Fisher. The case that had first come between her and Ben; the first time she had seen the worst side of him – implacable, driven and unforgiving. She had a moment of dread. What if that should happen again with Trevor Shoesmith, all because she had pointed him out to Ben?

  “You’re quiet,” her mother said. “There’s been rather a lot going on, hasn’t there?” She was still, her face concerned.

  “I’m fine, Mum. Really.” Faith took a deep breath. “There’s rather a lot to think about, that’s all. You know the bishop has asked me to cover St James’s for the interim?”

  “That’s a step up.”

  “It’s only temporary.” Faith was embarrassed. Her mother’s turn of phrase made it sound as if she were profiteering by death. “The bishop only asked me to help as I was on the spot.”

  “Nonsense,” said her mother. “He’d already invited you to look round and he invited you to lunch.” In Marianne’s world, social niceties meant something. “How did that go, by the way?”

  Faith smiled, relieved to be able to talk about something else.
“The Beeches are good people. Very into their missionary work. They were out in Tanzania for years.” She thought of the faces of Alison and Anthony as they’d talked about Africa. “I think they left a bit of their hearts there. Mrs Beech insisted on going personally to the hospital to check on the victim’s son, Don. He’s a friend of Sean’s, you know.”

  “Don Ingram? Of course. I know Don,” Marianne made a sympathetic clucking noise with her tongue against her teeth. “One of Sean’s set at school. Rather good-looking. They’re up at university together. How’s he doing?”

  “Not sure.” Faith thought of Don’s odd manner. “I’m trying to keep an eye on him. He’s very much on his own now.”

  “Of course, his mother died – of cancer; another one. At least he has Sean.”

  Faith was surprised by her mother’s assurance. “Mum – how do you know all this? I didn’t even recognize him when I met him.”

  “Well, you should pay more attention,” said her mother. “You’ll be moving in with your sister for the duration, I suppose?”

  Ruth had been very generous. She had assured Faith she could have the spare room for as long as she liked. Faith took a deep breath. The thought of her elder sister scrutinizing her every move and prodding her about Ben as she tried to negotiate the rapids ahead made her heart sink. Still, family were important.

  Her mother was looking right into her.

  Faith got up and sat on the floor beside her mother’s chair and put her head in her lap as she used to do when she was little. Her mother’s hand stroked her hair.

  “So what’s the problem, sweetheart?”

  Faith breathed in her mother’s comforting scent of wool and soap and Yardley’s cologne.

  “I don’t know that I’m up to this, Mum. I’m trying. But I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do – what the right thing is.”

  Her mother placed a kiss on the top of her head.

  “Maybe it’s not a matter of guessing what the right way is,” she said. “Maybe God wants you to be yourself and live life in your own way. We are supposed to be made in His image, after all.” She turned her daughter to face her. “Aren’t we?”