The Reluctant Detective (Faith Morgan Mysteries)

by Ockley, Martha

  Faith didn’t want to go into her sister’s house. Ruth lived in a modern close. Ten properties arranged in a neat horseshoe like some blow-moulded Barbie set, each house so like the next, as if individual humanity was an embarrassment – something to be hidden from the neighbours. Given the fallout she had been dealing with of late, it occurred to Faith that perhaps someone had a point.

  She thought longingly of her own Birmingham flat with its high ceilings and familiar clutter. She imagined herself coming home. She would kick off her shoes and make herself a mug of tea and read her post at the bleached pine table. Later she might grill herself some chicken, toss a salad and eat in front of the TV. No questions. No explanations. No making conversation. Just quiet.

  The plastic-coated front door opened and Ruth stood there shoeless in her work suit. She looked cross.

  “So – are you coming in or what?” she yelled. “You’ve been sitting out there for ages!”

  Faith forced a smile and obediently gathered up her things.

  “You won’t believe the day I’ve had,” said Ruth, as she led the way down the hall.

  “Shall I make us some tea?”

  “You know what? I fancy a sherry.”

  Faith sighed internally. Ruth was in the mood for a bit of sisterly commiseration.

  “Maybe I’ll stick to tea.”

  “Oh, don’t say that! I can’t drink alone with you sipping tea.”

  “Don’t let me stop you.”

  “It’s not as if I’m a drinker,” Ruth said belligerently. Faith saw that her participation in the sherry drinking had become a point of principle.

  “Come on. I have had a pig of a day.” Ruth marched to the kitchen and got out two glasses and a bottle of sweet white wine. “There’s this young career woman type they’ve taken on to run some stupid ‘vision’ committee – a waste of money if ever I saw one.” Ruth worked as an administrator at the county council offices in Winchester. “She comes swanning in at ten to three and demands I get this typing done on the double because she wants it at the printers at four. The cheek of it! Thinks she can just come in and give me orders without a thought to the system.”

  “Perhaps if she’s new she doesn’t know the system,” offered Faith mildly, sipping her wine and longing for tea.

  Ruth snorted derisively. “Well, I told her, I am the chief executive’s assistant, and I have plenty of jobs of my own, thank you. Put it on the pile for the juniors and maybe someone will get round to it next week. Ha!” Ruth exclaimed with bitter self-satisfaction.

  Faith leaned back in her chair and stretched her neck.

  “What’s up with you?” demanded Ruth.

  “Oh, just a long day.”

  “Seen much of Ben?” Her sister’s eyes turned beady.

  “A bit.” Faith got up and headed towards the kitchen. “What do you fancy to eat? I think I should cook for you tonight.”

  “Check the fridge.” Ruth followed her, glass in hand, crowding her in the tiny kitchen. “So, spill. How was it? How are you two getting along?”

  It was as if a perished rubber band gave way somewhere deep inside.

  “We found a man hanging in a barn,” Faith stated. “Then we spent an unpleasant couple of hours interrogating the person closest to the suicide. We had to call the doctor. It wasn’t what you’d call romantic.”

  She shouldn’t have let it out like that. It was as if she had spat out something toxic, polluting the mundane familiarity of that kitchen. Ruth stared at her, perplexed and uncertain. Faith could see she didn’t know what to say. Who would?

  “I’m sorry,” Ruth said at last.

  “Me, too.”

  Ruth rubbed her arm and patted it. “More wine?” she said, with a nervous half-giggle.

  “Actually, I prefer tea.”

  “So who was the suicide?” Ruth said, putting on the kettle.

  “Trevor Shoesmith.”

  Her sister swung round to face her. “No! Oh, Mum will be upset.”

  I’m not sure why, Faith thought. Mum hadn’t seen Trevor for years. These exclamations people made on the news of death – they were so insufficient; conventional phrases obscuring the reality that no words could build a bridge into the misery of those truly caught up in the loss. Faith curled up inside at the thought of all the gasping expressions of sympathy there would be from strangers about Trevor Shoesmith’s suicide. Ghoulishness masquerading as concern!

  You are in a bad mood, commented a detached voice in the back of her head.

  “Well, at least Ben was there,” she heard her sister say.

  Faith closed her eyes. When faced with the unknowable, harp on the familiar. It is only human nature. Be charitable.

  “I just don’t see why you are being so silly about him!” Ruth was picking up speed now that she was back on familiar territory. “Ben’s clearly still interested – although why, after the way you’ve treated him, I don’t know. It’s not as if you’ve got any other prospects. And now you’re local. You’re not getting any younger!”

  “Roo – not now. OK?” Faith pleaded. “Have mercy!”

  The phone rang.

  “I’m going to have a bath,” said her sister curtly. “You can answer that.” She flounced up the stairs.

  Faith answered the phone. “Yes?” she snapped.

  “You’re in a good mood,” said Ben’s voice in her ear.

  “The world’s such a glorious place!” she quipped bitterly.

  “Mmm. Tough day.”

  “That it was.”

  The electricity of the open line crackled between them.

  “Thought I would check on how you left Mrs Rose,” he said.

  “For heaven’s sake! She was numb with shock – she couldn’t even speak coherently.” The words tumbled out with a violence that caught Faith by surprise. “She wasn’t in any condition to make any further confessions, and I wasn’t in the mood to pry.” After all they had witnessed that day, he was still expecting her to spy for him!

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it,” responded Ben in a flat voice.

  “I’m sorry.” She wasn’t being fair. Faith sat down on the bottom stair and propped herself up against the café au lait-painted wall. She began again in a more reasonable tone. “She was exhausted. We put her to bed. The neighbour’s keeping an eye on her.”

  “I’ve alerted victim services. They’re sending someone to check on her tomorrow.”

  “Good.”

  Again the silence stretched out between them. It was dim on the stairs. Ruth was trying to save electricity.

  “Did you find a suicide note?”

  “Under the dog.”

  Faith had a brief mental image. “That’s unpleasant.”

  “Mmm. Bit of a mess.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Brief and not very helpful. It’s addressed to Jessica.”

  “And says?”

  “I loved you. I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Meaning I’m sorry I loved you?”

  “More – I loved you – stop – I’m sorry – stop. Two distinct sentiments.”

  Faith shrugged. “Still, the impact’s the same. Guilt trip placed firmly on Jessica.”

  “Maybe he didn’t even put them together in his own head – who can tell,” Ben said philosophically. Faith knew such sidetracks didn’t interest him.

  “Suicide is such a miserable act.” She knew it was a pointless statement, but the waste made her cross. “It inflicts such open-ended guilt on those left behind.”

  “Maybe that is the suicide’s point.”

  “The ultimate passive-aggressive revenge.”

  “Pointless since you’re not there to enjoy it.” He paused. She heard the shift in his voice. “It’s just been confirmed. Trevor Shoesmith had an alibi for Ingram’s death.”

  He waited as if he expected her to crow, or at least offer an “I told you so”, but she just felt exhaustingly sad.

  “Where was he?”

&n
bsp; “We have witnesses that put him in a pub in a neighbouring village on Saturday night. He got so plastered a friend gave him a bed for the night.”

  “And the friend’s reliable?”

  “A respected farmer and his wife.” Ben sounded tired. “According to them, Shoesmith was out of it. He didn’t wake up until late morning on Sunday – after Ingram was already dead.”

  So Trevor Shoesmith was harried in his final days for nothing – all because she had repeated gossip to Ben.

  “So you’re not going say it?” Ben prompted.

  “Would it make you feel better if I did?”

  Ben grunted. The noise of water filling the bath upstairs was loud in the still hall. Ruth went into the bathroom and closed the door.

  “So it’s back to basics,” Ben said.

  Let’s move on. Ben Shorter has a murderer to catch.

  She pulled herself up. It was true; that was his job. And hers was to find God in the midst of this tragedy, and serve the community of St James’s.

  “What’ve you got?” she heard herself ask. When they were together, they would always do this at the end of the day – discuss the case in hand, go over things. Old habits were hard to break. “When was the poison put in the wine?”

  She heard a rustle down the line. She imagined Ben leaning back in his chair, stretching out his long legs as he ordered his thoughts.

  “Well, they had an eight o’clock communion service that morning. No problems there. Mr Partridge, the churchwarden, says he poured the wine out into that carafe thing…”

  “The cruet,” Faith supplied.

  “Whatever – he opened a new bottle for that first service. We’ve checked the bottle. Nothing there. After the eight o’clock service, they’d run low and Mr Partridge says the vicar refilled the cruet,” Ben paused ironically to emphasize his mastery of the term. Alone in Ruth’s hall, Faith smiled. “It was left on that side table by the altar ready for the next service. When pushed, Mr Partridge admitted he might have left the vestry unlocked when he went home for a snack between the services – his usual practice, I am told.”

  “So the poison was put in the cruet after the wine was decanted?”

  “Yes.”

  “What sort of time?”

  “Best guess the wine was left unattended for ten, fifteen minutes between the church emptying after the eight o’clock service and people arriving for the ten o’clock.”

  Faith visualized the vestry and the approach from the vicarage screened by the lime trees, the open field beyond the stone wall. That offered the most discreet access. Slip across the short cut from the lane by Shoesmith’s farm and behind the church. Someone could conceal themselves behind that stone wall and wait opposite the vestry door for the coast to be clear. The front of the church was overlooked from too many points – there was a good chance that passers-by or people in the houses across the green would spot somebody approaching that way.

  “The poisoner would have to be pretty confident,” she commented. “I mean, there is always a chance that one of the churchwardens would come in early, or the vicar.”

  “Puts the focus on people who had a reason to be there – the churchwardens?” said Ben.

  Faith thought of Fred Partridge and Pat Montesque. They were both so ordinary and normal-looking.

  “That’s insane.”

  “Is it? Fred Partridge is a farmer’s merchant. He sells the stuff that killed the vicar.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, I can see he would carry pesticide, but can you identify the particular pesticide used?”

  “Down to brand and batch. The brand is common enough, but it’s only sold through agricultural suppliers – and Partridge is on the list of local stockists. As for batch – apparently each lot has some distinguishable marker – the lab’s made an ID. I’m waiting for the manufacturers to come back with a list of who was supplied with that particular batch. Then we’ll have something to run down.”

  Faith thought of Fred’s homely, open face. “But what could be his motive?”

  “Don’t know. But we might dig something up,” he said. “Wasn’t it good old Fred who pointed the finger at Trevor?” Ben’s question sidled in, crab-like.

  Could she possibly have misread Fred? She hated this. She prided herself on her ability to weigh up people, but poisoning was such a sneaking way of death. It infected the whole community; anyone could be a suspect. All it took was a good actor, or someone delusional. Pat Montesque’s round, powdered face sprang to mind. She lives in one of the houses across the green and Jessica’s afraid of her. Not in that way! Don’t be ridiculous!

  Ben’s voice intruded, breaking into her thoughts.

  “You might be half-right though. What if the poisoner is insane – just someone with a grudge against the church, or the rite, or heard a voice. But none of that helps us. Whoever it was, he or she had good luck…”

  “Hardly luck!” Faith interrupted.

  Ben went on as if she hadn’t spoken: “…the amount Ingram consumed in that wine shouldn’t have killed him, except for his dodgy heart.”

  “You think it was an accident? That the poisoner didn’t mean to kill? Or that the poisoner knew about Ingram’s heart condition?” Faith got up and took the phone into the kitchen. She picked up her tea, cradling the handset in the crook of her neck.

  “We’ll have to ask him or her – when we find them.”

  As she cuddled the receiver close to her ear, his voice was startlingly intimate. She imagined Ben’s mouth close to the receiver at the other end of the line. When we find them.

  “One thing that’s been bothering me,” she said.

  “Mmm?”

  “Why did Alistair Ingram drink that wine? The smell was so wrong.”

  “All pesticide’s manufactured with a stench factor – so I’m told,” he said.

  “Right. I noticed it in the stain on the altar cloth – it was partly why I didn’t try mouth-to-mouth. It makes me wonder, could Ingram have committed suicide?”

  “I thought he was too much of a man of God to do such a thing?” Ben taunted.

  “And I thought you didn’t take me seriously,” she quipped back.

  Ben laughed. “Maybe we’re being too complicated. Like most Englishmen, Ingram went ahead, not wanting to make a fuss – after all, why should he imagine he’s going to be poisoned?”

  “You do tend to get rather caught up in the meaning – it is such a powerful moment,” agreed Faith, thinking of her own feelings when she celebrated the Eucharist. She stopped abruptly. The sense of intimacy she had been feeling between them fractured. Ben didn’t understand the reality she experienced through her faith. He didn’t even recognize its existence. That was the gulf between them.

  “Suicide would be convenient, but…no note,” Ben forged on. Facts were always his defence. “No evidence he was anything but looking forward to his retirement. He had money in the bank, a new lady friend and no skeletons in the closet that we can find. Suicide doesn’t fit.”

  She went back to the hall and sat down again on the bottom step. Her tea had gone cold. On the floor above, she heard Ruth come out of the bathroom and cross into her bedroom. Faith realized they had been talking for nearly twenty minutes.

  “You always were good to talk to,” he said. There was an unexpected tentativeness in his voice. “I miss this.”

  The simple words were like a hook in her chest. But she couldn’t go back. It had cost too much to get herself to this place.

  “Remind me,” he said. “Just why did we break up?”

  “Let’s not do this,” she said in a rush. “I know we’ve been flung together over this case, but can’t we be civilized about it?”

  “Civilized?”

  She wished she had used better words.

  “You have your job to do and I have mine – I have been getting too caught up in this…”

  Ruth came down the stairs, her eyes averted. She stepped over Faith with a smug expression.

&
nbsp; “I have to go,” Faith said. “I’m cooking tonight.”

  “Where are you tomorrow?”

  She had to put a stop to this.

  “I have a deanery meeting at the cathedral.” She wasn’t going to admit to him that it would only last a couple of hours. The pause lengthened between them.

  “OK.” Ben’s voice was steely. “You’re doing your God thing.”

  “Good luck with…” she began.

  Ben broke the connection.

  She put the receiver back down carefully on the cradle. Ruth looked out from the kitchen.

  “You don’t have to cut the call short just because I’m here. I won’t eavesdrop,” she said mendaciously.

  “We were just discussing the…his case.”

  “Just like old times,” Ruth commented.

  Faith went to the fridge. She was too old for this big sister act.

  They needed to go shopping. The fridge was almost bare. There were eggs, though, and half a packet of tired-looking ham.

  “How about a ham omelette?”

  Ruth faced her. Her mouth was set in a mulish line that Faith recognized of old. There was no doing anything about it. Her sister was going to speak her mind.

  “I think you are being dishonest,” Ruth said. “You made such a fuss about leaving the police for the church, and now you’re playing footsie with Ben over this murder. You’re not being fair to him. If you are the Reverend Faith Morgan,” the emphasis was sarcastic, “then it’s really none of your business. He’s not ringing you up for your expert advice.”