The Reluctant Detective (Faith Morgan Mysteries)

by Ockley, Martha

  “Bingo!”

  Faith looked inside. It was a two-litre tin of pesticide. There were dark treacle-like stains around the cap.

  The scene of crime officer was brushing powder over the piano lid with neat, economical strokes, his face intent. Faith stood by, watching him. She didn’t want to stay, but she wasn’t sure if she should leave the church unattended. Ben finished yet another phone call. He spoke in her direction, barely looking at her.

  “I’ll need your formal witness statement.” He started walking to the door.

  He was dismissing her. Faith felt the old stubbornness well up inside her. No matter if she had no official right to be part of this investigation; she had a responsibility to the people of Little Worthy. She wasn’t going to allow her personal witness to be reduced to the insufficient bare words of an official statement. She caught Ben up. She had to put a hand on his arm to stop him.

  “Where are you going?”

  He frowned and looked deliberately down at her hand, pale against the dark wool of his suit.

  “The warrant’s come through. I am going over to the farm.”

  “I’m coming with you,” she said.

  She had to see Trevor Shoesmith for herself – this time she would take responsibility for her actions.

  “Suit yourself,” Ben said, and he strode out ahead of her into the daylight.

  CHAPTER

  9

  GREY CLOUDS HAD COVERED THE SKY. Rain was on its way. Faith could feel the first few specks in the breeze. Ben had long legs, and Faith struggled to keep up. She had only recently taken up jogging again. She congratulated herself on her foresight.

  As they crossed the lane, she noticed a dash of colour on the pristine picture of the green. An old, dull red Ford Escort was parked on the far side. The driver was still sitting in it. A man; at this distance, a vague presence. He didn’t get out. The first journalist, she thought. There would be more soon.

  They were approaching the brick farmhouse. Her foot slipped in a rut of the muddy track. She was wearing her favourite boots. They were a pleasing shade of toffee, and soft as butter. She glanced down ruefully at the splattered leather. She wasn’t sure they would stand up to this.

  Trevor Shoesmith’s home had no curtains visible in the windows. It gave the farmhouse a blank, derelict look. A police car was parked at an angle in front of the door, and beyond it, a white RSPCA van. There was no one in sight. No barking dogs. No movement.

  “I told the PC to be here. Where the devil is he?” muttered Ben, his face grim. The five o’clock shadow along his jawline was stark against his skin. He picked up the pace.

  The front door’s paint had once been ox-blood red but now, cracked and peeling, it had an unhealthy whitish bloom. Ben stopped short. Faith almost ran into the back of him. Instinctively, he put out an arm to hold her back. There were stains on the concrete step disappearing into the patchy gravelled earth beyond. Ben crouched down. He touched the ground lightly. He stood up, the tips of his fingers smudged red.

  “Blood – or looks like. Fairly recent.” He stepped around the stains, pulling on a fresh pair of latex gloves. “Careful of those.” The tone of his voice had changed: calmer, authoritative. Faith’s senses clicked into a higher state of alert.

  He turned the door handle. The door wasn’t locked.

  The front door opened into a kitchen. No hallway. The light was dim. Faith received the impression of shades of sadness; no true colour anywhere. The furniture seemed sparse and utilitarian. A table, a few chairs, and a dirty Rayburn stove in the old chimney nook, its top encrusted with the charred remains of ancient spills. By it stood an old Windsor chair with a dog basket at its feet. Some traces of quality gleamed out in the line of the chair’s curved oak back and legs, visible from under the drape of a plaid blanket and the dirty blue woollen shawl thrown over it. In the basket, old clothes and newspapers formed a nest. Newspapers lay everywhere: in the basket, littering the table and on the floor, sheets trampled with mud and dirt and less savoury stains.

  They found other spurts and dashes of blood.

  “What went on here?” Her own voice sounded startlingly vivid to Faith in the dank silence of the room.

  Ben just grunted. “There’s more here.” He bent over the chair, picking up a corner of the plaid cloth: a dark, stiff stain.

  “It’s soaked and dried. Some time ago.” He cocked his head, contemplating the shape of the stain. “Might have been wrapped round something?”

  Faith joined him, noticing the roughly conical shape, maybe five inches high and broader at its base.

  “A forearm, a wrist?” she suggested.

  “Perhaps.”

  That corner stank. Beneath the matted dog hair, traces of bile and excrement soiled the basket. The furniture, the dirt, the smell, the very walls seemed to seep an atmosphere of despair. A sudden urgency to get out into the full light gripped Faith.

  Footsteps crunched on gravel and a shadow passed the window.

  “Inspector Shorter?” a man’s voice called from outside.

  A uniformed policeman appeared in the doorway carrying his helmet: a middle-aged man, heavy set and greying. His cheeks were flushed.

  “Where’ve you been, constable?” Ben barked.

  “Hanson. Jim Hanson, sir.”

  “I thought you had orders to meet me here, at the house?”

  “Ran into two RSPCA officers as I arrived. They requested my assistance.”

  “And why was that? For God’s sake, mind your feet!”

  The constable skipped back a step and looked down bemusedly at his feet. He had scuffed the stain by the door.

  “Get some tape and mark that area!” Ben’s voice had the force of a blow. The constable didn’t move.

  “Well?” Ben demanded.

  Jim Hanson eyed Faith, uncertainly.

  “There’s something you should see in the barn, sir,” he said earnestly. Ben scrutinized his face.

  “Now?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Lead on.”

  Jim Hanson set off around the corner of the house, then he hesitated.

  “Perhaps the lady would prefer to stay here.”

  “Nonsense,” Faith said briskly. “There’s no need for that. I’m Faith Morgan, Reverend Morgan.” She was glad to be wearing her clerical uniform. Police, firefighters, the medical profession, they were all inclined to give dog collars professional courtesy. Just another one of the emergency services. “I am taking over at St James’s.”

  Jim seemed too preoccupied to want to make an issue of it. He took his cue from Ben, and she followed after them unhindered.

  They rounded the corner of the house where a space opened out. Farm buildings clustered around an unkempt yard, grass growing through its cracked concrete surface. PC Hanson walked on, but Ben stopped. On the ground was a pool of blood. An arterial spray curved up the wall interrupted by a void. The PC turned back.

  “Of course, there’s that too,” he said vaguely.

  Ben looked at him. Hanson’s attention was elsewhere. He was leading them towards a big shed made of aluminium siding within a steel frame. Ben glanced back at the stain as he followed on. Faith gave the blood a wide berth, noting that some of it was smudged and dragged as if someone had slipped in it – or even sat down in it. Across the uneven surface of the yard she noticed a distinct trail of drops and then a bloody jackknife. It lay in a groove of a concrete slab near a drain. Whoever had dropped it had made no attempt to conceal it. She pointed it out to Ben. He grunted.

  The tall sliding doors were open a few feet. An RSPCA officer in a fluorescent jacket stood by them, smoking, his eyes down. As she drew nearer, Faith saw that his hands were shaking.

  There was movement in the gloom within. The flash of another fluorescent jacket.

  Faith stepped over the threshold. Her eyes took a moment to adjust. The space was cavernous. A few bales of straw were stacked haphazardly. Some farm machinery was parked at the far end. There
was a smell of mould among the mustiness, and something else. Something cloying and foul that caught in her throat.

  A man hung from a central beam. His face was congested. There was no life left in him.

  “Is it Trevor?” asked Faith.

  Hanson nodded. “I warned you.”

  Shoesmith’s neck was broken. His head tilted at an entirely wrong angle. Alive he had been over six foot, and broad with it. He must have jumped from quite a height, Faith thought. She felt sick. She pushed her emotional self into a box and tried to think only with her rational mind.

  A tower of bales stood a few feet from where the body hung. It listed precariously, the top bale jutting out, ready to fall. He must have prepared the rope and then jumped from the bales.

  Ben was looking in the same direction.

  “One bale higher and he might have lost his head,” he commented.

  Faith swallowed hard against the bile rising in her throat. The sleeves were rolled up to the elbow of the hanging man’s stained shirt. Beneath, the big hands hung raw and bloody. Shoesmith’s forearms were covered with cuts. Stripes of white scar and fresh seeping wounds running parallel to each other from elbow to wrist.

  The second fluorescent jacket belonged to a solidly built, open-faced young woman with blonde hair scraped back into a ponytail. She looked dazed.

  “What’s your name?” Faith asked.

  “Hannah,” she replied.

  “Faith.”

  “His dog,” said Hannah. Her voice shook. She pointed to a sheepdog lying on a bale. Grey muzzled. Not young. It took her a moment to register what was odd about the picture. The fur beneath its head was clotted with blood. Its throat had been cut. The animal had been positioned with care, its muzzle on its paws, its head turned towards its master in a parody of life.

  “Why did he do that?” Hannah said.

  “Anyone find a note?” Ben asked Jim.

  “Not here. Not so far,” the PC replied.

  “Make sure no one destroys that evidence out there – everyone walks the long way round.” Ben leaned down for a closer look at the dog.

  “The knife in the yard,” Faith said.

  Ben nodded. “Looks as if he killed the dog out there by the wall and carried it in here.”

  “Who found him?” Ben walked back to the body. He reached up and lifted a bloody forefinger briefly.

  Jim jerked his head at Hannah. “RSPCA. Arrived ten, fifteen minutes ago to sort out the animals and found him then.”

  “Been dead longer than that,” commented Ben. “Everyone out,” he ordered and flipped open his phone. “Hanson, radio this in and get the techs out ASAP.”

  Faith took Hannah by the elbow.

  “Come on,” she said, her voice gentle. “Let’s go outside.”

  Hannah looked back at the dog. “Do I just leave him?”

  “For now.”

  Outside they kept to the walls. The two RSPCA officers huddled together, whispering. Faith stood apart in her own space. She tried to pray for the soul of Trevor Shoesmith. She believed in a merciful God. She had no fears about that. What stopped her was anger. It poisoned her thoughts; made them unclean.

  He should have listened to her! This need not have happened! She was angry at Ben. Furious. So much so, she thought she must be shaking with it. She looked at her hands. They were steady.

  Look at him.

  He’s probably on the phone. Process. Action. Deal with it. That’s his way! went the rant in her head.

  But Ben wasn’t on the phone. He was standing alone, entirely still, concentrating on a spot on the ground. Compassion overwhelmed her. The anger dispelled like smoke on a breeze.

  She went over to stand by him. He spoke without looking up.

  “You called it.”

  She wanted to hug him, but they were in public; it wasn’t appropriate to hug an inspector in full view of a pair of RSPCA officers.

  “There was no way you could anticipate this.”

  His blue eyes were like searchlights, direct, unflinching. “No? You did.”

  “I could just have easily have been wrong. Between us, we’ve seen enough suicides. The journey to this point will have started a long time ago – just look at those cuts on his arms.”

  “I never saw those. He had sleeves down all the time.” He shuddered as if to throw something off his skin.

  “I know. I know you didn’t.” She caught herself reaching out towards him and pulled her hand back.

  He straightened up, looking towards the barn.

  “Peter’s on his way.” He glanced down at her. “What time was it that you saw Jessica Rose coming from here?”

  “Around 11:15 a.m.”

  He checked his watch. “Must have happened around then.”

  Faith thought of Jessica Rose leaving the farmhouse carrying that brightly coloured beach bag. What had happened here? She felt disorientated and unfocused.

  Ben looked over at the farmhouse. “I’ll set things going here, but then I need to track down Jessica Rose.” His phone rang.

  “You’d better answer that,” she said.

  She needed to get away. She walked out of the desolate yard and down the track, the mud clinging to her boots.

  CHAPTER

  10

  THE SCENE OF CRIME OFFICERS HAD LEFT the vestry door standing open. Faith walked through the still church into the nave. The paper bag with its contents had been removed from the pew. Someone had closed the piano lid. A residue of aluminium powder clouded its surface, the mess of fingerprints standing out under the dust like skeleton leaves.

  It was peaceful in the nave. Faith crossed in front of the altar and sat down in one of the well-polished pews by a pillar. The light slanted down through the stained-glass windows and glanced on the panel patiently awaiting its restoration against the wall. The cracked glass lamb on its emerald green lawn smiled its enigmatic smile from the shadows.

  What is there to smile about? That poor man! What kind of misery had driven Trevor Shoesmith to that barn?

  Could he really have poisoned Alistair Ingram?

  She tried to picture a living man coming down that muddy track towards the church with murder in his mind.

  She couldn’t visualize Trevor Shoesmith alive. All she saw was the grotesque, distorted husk of a man hanging in the barn.

  Words from Psalm 121 unwound in her mind.

  The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

  The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

  The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.

  Dear Lord, have mercy on his soul.

  The stillness grew around her and she was at its centre.

  She heard a slight noise, and looked up to see Jessica Rose enter from the vestry. Jessica approached the piano.

  Faith stood up. The wooden pew creaked against the stone flags and Jessica spun round with a little squeal of surprise.

  “You!” she exclaimed.

  “It’s gone,” Faith said. The last bit of colour drained from Jessica’s face.

  “Gone?” She swallowed. “What’s gone?”

  “The bag you put in the piano. The police have it.”

  It was like watching a building shimmering under a catastrophic explosion. Jessica held the pose for a second and then she began to shake with suppressed sobs. Tears swelled her pretty blue eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

  Faith went up and put her arms around her. They stood there awkwardly for a minute. Faith noticed for the first time that Jessica was not a purely natural blonde. Rich honey-toned highlights had been skilfully added. Faith wondered briefly what her real colour was.

  “Suppose you tell me about it,” she said aloud.

  She could feel each of Jessica’s sobs in her own chest. Some preparation for Holy Week, Faith thought – murder, suicide, despair.

  Well, Lent is about the true cost of sin.

  Her eye was caught by a drying crescent
of mud, bearing the imprint of her heel, bang in the middle of one of the cream floor tiles. Now see the dirt you’ve tracked in, she thought.

  “Let’s sit down.” She steered Jessica to the front pew. The woman’s breath was jerky, but she seemed a little calmer.

  “I saw you this morning,” Faith began in a quiet, soothing voice. Keep the tone non-committal, she told herself; nonjudgmental – like a story recited to a child. “You came from the farm carrying something in a beach bag, and you left the church with it empty. The bag caught my attention. It looked so bright.”

  Jessica sniffed. “It’s not mine. It was just to hand.”

  Faith found a paper handkerchief in a pocket and offered it. Jessica blew her nose.

  “I wanted to warn Trevor after the meeting yesterday.” Jessica twisted the tissue in her hands. “But she was there, outside the church hall.” The long lashes fluttered. Her eyes were sapphire blue under the tears.

  “Pat,” said Faith.

  Jessica nodded. “She lives in one of the cottages on the green. She’s always looking out. I didn’t dare.”

  The houses overlooking the green were exquisite eighteenth-century cottages, the type rapidly becoming weekend additions to the property portfolios of wealthy London bankers. Pat must be well off, Faith thought, absently wondering where the money came from. She refocused her attention on the woman before her.

  Jessica gazed towards the light of the outside world streaming through the open vestry door. Her words came out slowly.

  “I saw the police cars. They’re up at the farm.”

  Does she know Trevor is dead? Faith wondered. Be still and see what she has to say.

  “Is that why you came here?” she asked.

  “I thought I should move it.”

  “What made you bring the pesticide here in the first place?”

  “I don’t know.” Jessica looked at her wonderingly. Her mascara had smudged, accentuating the shadows under her eyes. “I had to hide it somewhere safe, and I didn’t want to be seen carrying it about,” she said simply. She seemed comfortable that Faith held the authority in that space – all-knowing, reassuring. It’s the dog collar that does it, thought Faith.