THE FLOWER ARRANGER AT ALL SAINTS a gripping cozy murder mystery full of twists (Suzy Spencer Mysteries Book 1)

by Lis Howell

  ‘That’s what we need to tell the police. Should we do it straight away or on Monday? I think we should do it now.’

  ‘But what are we going to say? Guess what, officer, there’s an Isaiah freak on the loose? Come on, Rob, it sounds ridiculous. If you were the police, what would you do? Pull in all the flower arrangers from All Saints and give them a Bible study quiz?’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’ Robert came back to the chair and sat down. She could feel his confusion. The village had been his life for twenty-five years. Which of his friends or neighbours did this? she wondered. Which of my friends or neighbours did it, for that matter?

  ‘Who has a key for the church?’ she asked.

  ‘Lots of people. I still have Mary’s keys. The Bells do because Frank does so much DIY there. Jane Simpson does, on the grounds that Tarnfield House is opposite All Saints and she can keep an eye on the place. Alan does because he likes to be important. Kevin does because he’s a churchwarden like Tom, who also has keys. Actually, almost everyone does. When you drove home from my house this morning did you see anyone around the church?’

  ‘I don’t know. You don’t think about it, do you? We’re all in and out of All Saints at the weekend. Choir practice, flower arranging, kids’ activities. Frank Bell was going early to drop off the ladder, but I assume he’d done it by the time I went past. Mind you . . .’ Suzy forced her mind back to the drive from Robert’s. She had been so wrapped up in what he had said about Mary that she had driven on autopilot.

  ‘There was someone . . .’ she said slowly. ‘I’m pretty sure. I’m trying to remember.’ She bit her lower lip in concentration. ‘It was Stevie Nesbit. He looked as if he’d just come out of All Saints. I wasn’t really thinking about it, though. I was thinking about you.’

  The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, but Robert didn’t seem to register what she had said. ‘Stevie . . .’ he said thoughtfully. ‘He very rarely goes into the church. I mean, when there aren’t services. What on earth would he have been doing?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Suzy shuddered. ‘But then again, perhaps he had an appointment with Yvonne. I remember seeing her hectoring him, when we were at the Bells’ for lunch. Maybe he pulled the ladder away.’

  ‘But he’s hardly a Bible expert, is he?’

  ‘How do you know? He’s an accomplished actor and very knowledgeable about drama. The girlie voice and cute boy act are misleading. He could easily know about the Bible. I hope it’s not him . . .’

  ‘I hope it’s not anyone we know,’ said Robert, ‘but it must be. And wasn’t it a bit of a coincidence that Alan Robie turned up at the church this afternoon?’

  ‘I suppose it was. Do you want me to tell the police I saw him?’

  ‘Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know. I can’t see Stevie as a murderer. Hysterical, volatile, but not evil. The only evil person in Tarnfield was Yvonne. We’re in a difficult position, Suzy. I think we need to have a conversation with Alan and Stevie.’

  ‘But when?’

  ‘It’s late, but I’m going to go and see them now.’

  23

  Whitsun Eve, continued

  Endue thy ministers with righteousness.

  Versicle at Morning and Evening Prayer

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Alan Robie bent over the figure of his lover, who was lying on the double bed. Stevie had a rug over him, and struggled to sit up. ‘Here’s some tea,’ said Alan. ‘Did the sleeping pill help?’

  ‘Absolutely. Thank you, Alan.’

  ‘It was the least I could do. You were in a terrible state. And I know you haven’t been sleeping lately anyway. You’re completely overwrought, Stevie.’

  ‘I know. Oh God, I know.’ Stevie started to cry again. Alan shook him roughly but affectionately by the shoulders.

  ‘Stevie, I went to the church after I put you to bed. You were right, Yvonne Wait was dead. She’d fallen from a ladder. It was obviously an accident. Except . . .’ Truthfulness got in the way of Alan’s need to be reassuring.

  ‘Except what?’ Stevie’s voice was even higher with stress.

  ‘Her hair. It had been cut off at the front. Even I could tell it wasn’t the sort of style Yvonne would have liked, and I know sod-all about women’s fashions.’

  ‘Oh God, that’s awful. It means someone got at her. But it happened before I went in, I swear it. I could see the ladder on the ground and her body on the steps by the altar but I didn’t go near it, I tell you, Alan. It wasn’t me.’

  ‘So why don’t you think it was an accident?’

  ‘Because there was someone else there. And they certainly weren’t calling for an ambulance or giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. I could hear them. They were rummaging in the little room to the side of the church.’

  ‘The flower vestry?’

  ‘Where they keep all the urns and vases and stuff like that. I sat down at the back because I needed to think. Things have been getting so on top of me. I’d gone to the vicarage but Nick wasn’t in.’

  ‘That’s odd. He’s usually around on a Saturday morning.’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t this time. I took your keys and went to the church in case he’d gone there, thinking that at least I would get some peace inside. You know that I was an altar boy when I was a kid. Anyway, I tried praying, and then I noticed the ladder. I sat up and then I could see something crumpled at the top of the aisle. I walked to the end of the pew and I recognized Yvonne lying there. I just turned and ran home. Suzy Spencer nearly killed me as she came round the corner. Her driving is lethal.’

  Even in his misery, Stevie couldn’t keep the catty edge from his voice. Good, thought Alan, he’s getting back to normal.

  ‘But why were you so upset in the first place, Stevie? You can tell me, you know.’

  ‘No! No, I can’t.’

  ‘Yes you can. I love you, Stevie, and there’s nothing worse than knowing you’re in a state, with nothing I can do. I can’t think of anything that would make me love you less. You’ve got to tell me.’

  ‘But you’d never forgive me.’

  ‘How d’you know? For goodness’ sake, the way you’re talking is making it far worse for both of us. You haven’t remortgaged your share of the house, have you?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Or fallen in love with someone else?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Or gone back on cocaine?’

  ‘No!’ But there was an edge of doubt in Stevie’s voice. Alan looked at him. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘only once or twice.’

  ‘In London?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Stevie started to whimper like a small boy. Alan sat on the bed and put his arms round him. ‘Listen, Stevie, I know what you’re like. That’s why I love you. I know that when you go back to London, you play the field a bit. That’s your nature. I’m not like that. I’m doggedly faithful. But that’s not because I’m virtuous. It’s because I’m made that way. It costs me nothing to be monogamous. But I know that it’s a huge effort for you.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Of course I do! I can’t say I like it, but I can live with it. And I hope and pray that as time goes on you won’t need the other things so much. But if you need them now, that’s OK. I’ll live. So you’d better trust me, Stevie, and tell me the truth.’

  Stevie started to talk, haltingly at first and then with increased fluency. When he got to the bit about Yvonne Wait blackmailing him, Alan stood up so sharply that the mattress bounced.

  ‘That awful woman!’ he said. ‘I can’t believe she fell. It would be too much like good luck. Whoever pulled that ladder from under her did a lot of people a favour.’ Then he sat down again. ‘Forgive me, Stevie, that was a rotten, unchristian thing to say.’

  ‘You should be forgiving me. I was so scared that she would tell you about my HIV test that I was prepared to try anything to get you to sell the orchard.’

  ‘You must
have been desperate.’

  ‘Yes, but not desperate enough to kill her. I swear it, Alan. Do you believe me?’

  ‘Of course I do, Stevie.’ Alan smiled, and for the first time Stevie closed his eyes, genuinely relieved. Alan stroked his brow and said again: ‘Of course I believe you.’

  But would anyone else? Alan shuddered. Even he couldn’t be absolutely certain. Stevie was capable of fierce attacks of temper. He wouldn’t kill Yvonne deliberately, but Alan could imagine him kicking the ladder from under her in fury. He felt fear, mixed with anger. His life, which at last had been turning out the way he wanted it, was suddenly under threat. He felt like berating the God he’d believed in all his life.

  Was it too much to ask, he wanted to rail, for two harmless old queens to have a peaceful existence? You created us this way, he said under his breath to some paternalistic force he sensed somewhere above the bedroom ceiling. He thought of the collect for Ash Wednesday. Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made . . . So why make it so hard for us, Lord? Why do people like the Bells and the Simpsons have an easy life and get away with so much, when I have to pay such a price for wanting the domestic peace they take for granted?

  Then he stopped himself, and took a deep breath. He thought of Christ on the cross. A bit of recitative from the Messiah came into his head again. It was from Psalm 69: He looked for some to have pity on him, but there was no man, neither found he any to comfort him. No one has suffered like you, Lord, have suffered, he reminded himself. It was true. This was nothing by comparison with the torture of crucifixion. Giving your life for your friends was what Christianity was all about. Stevie was his lover and he would protect him at all costs.

  * * *

  Early on Saturday evening, Nick Melling came out of the Arthurs’ house and could not stop himself from pausing in the driveway and closing his eyes. It had been an appalling strain. Daisy had been in bed, which had created far too intimate an atmosphere, particularly as her mother was too tired to lever herself upstairs to chaperone.

  Mrs Arthur slept in what was the front living room — an arrangement that had made Nick feel uncomfortable on his rare visits to Daisy’s. As soon as he crossed the threshold at 8 Tarn Acres, he felt as if he was being lured into some female lair, though at least Nancy Arthur had taste — unlike most people in Tarnfield, he thought. This time, as he went up the stairs with leaden footsteps, Nancy had stood watching him anxiously from the hall, with that awful voyeuse Babs Piefield gawping behind her, mouth open in excitement.

  Daisy’s pink frilly bedroom had come as a shock. Her posters and cuddly toys had unnerved him, though he’d reminded himself that Daisy was only in her twenties and had used this bedroom since her teens. But the whole environment was at odds with the mission he had steeled himself to accomplish — giving Daisy the spiritual strength to survive the ordeal of finding Yvonne dead. Why couldn’t she have been sitting in an easy chair, with coffee and biscuits to hand and a reassuring log fire in the grate? Or if she had to be in bed, why wasn’t it the crisp white virginal room he had imagined in the past, with Daisy propped up as a sort of Victorian nun, waiting to receive his blessing? It was hard to operate with Piglet and My Little Pony looking back at him. And Daisy had been so hysterical. She’d actually tried to pull him towards her at one point. It had been ghastly. He had been reduced to suggesting counselling, which wasn’t what he had planned. He had wanted to give Daisy all the support she needed himself, not turn to secular agencies. After all, he was ‘a gifted young priest’; the Bishop said so. So why was this all too much?

  Nick opened his eyes, taking in the little crescent of neat executive homes which he had come to hate. He had walked to Tarn Acres. He had a small car in the garage, but he despised it after the Boxster. When he felt confident, as he had earlier that afternoon, he was capable of dealing with Tarnfield on foot. He could even imagine himself as the benign, much-loved parish priest, nodding and smiling at grateful parishioners as he walked through the streets like an East End father. But when he felt defeated, which was so often the case in the village, all he wanted was to get back into the carapace of his sports car and hide from everyone.

  As he expected, he’d hardly walked a few yards when he heard the sound of someone running after him. It was Kevin Jones.

  ‘Nick! I saw you coming out of Daisy’s. We really need to talk, don’t we?’

  Nick tried to smile. Why couldn’t these people leave him alone? Couldn’t they see that he was under strain too? More strain than they were, actually. On top of everything, he had to go through all these tedious, wretched visits, and mouth all these trite sentences, and all the time he was screaming to be on his own so that he could put his thoughts in order. It was too cruel.

  ‘Oh, hi, Kevin. I was lost in thought. To be honest, I really need to get back to the vicarage and, er, get some stuff together . . .’

  ‘Oh, I know, it’s a bit frantic, isn’t it? But we do need to talk, and Janice put the kettle on as soon as she saw you. A nice cuppa’s just what you need.’

  Kevin smiled the smile of the totally self-centred, and pulled Nick around by the arm. ‘We’ve got some nice ginger cake from Asda, too,’ he chuckled. Nick felt physically sick.

  In the bland living room of the Joneses’ house, ignoring the residue of toys and books on the patchy beige shag-pile carpet, Nick tried to calm his pulse and restrain his impatience while Kevin bombarded him with questions.

  ‘Yes, the Bishop is coming to see me. Tonight,’ he answered. ‘The question is whether we need to have some sort of rededication after a violent death in the church.’

  ‘I think all that is so much bollocks,’ said Kevin forcefully. ‘It’s awful that Yvonne fell off a ladder but Jesus is everywhere, Nick, and if he can be at wars and scenes of carnage, then he can still be at All Saints.’

  Nick had come to terms with the all-seeing mysterious omnipotence of God a long time ago. Some things couldn’t be explained. For example, as he heard Kevin talking somewhere just outside his consciousness, he wondered why some people were gifted and some people stupid. But, like all these things, it wasn’t for him to say. It was God’s will. He sighed, closed his eyes, and opened them to find Kevin’s excited face inches away from his own, breathing sickly ginger cake fumes at him.

  ‘This is our chance, Nick. We can sweep through now and get rid of all that pointless ceremonial stuff. You’ve got to do it, man. We don’t know how the Lord works, but we’ve got to take the chances He gives us. And in the end nothing is bigger than your Vision.’

  Not for the first time, Nick regretted confiding in Kevin. During a moment of lonely soul-searching six months earlier, he’d been interrupted by Kevin at the vicarage door. Nick had invited him in and told him about how he envisaged All Saints developing — how he wanted it to become an invigorated parish with a whole new tradition, which he, Nick Melling would orchestrate.

  ‘Yes!’ Kevin had said ecstatically. ‘Let’s make it a place for young families with real commitment. Not a shrine to Tarnfield toadies!’

  Now, the Vision seemed a scary thing. There had been a few times since the discovery of her body when Nick had wondered if Yvonne’s death was a ghastly sort of mistake, an anomaly in God’s plan, an indication that he wasn’t handling things well at All Saints. But as he looked back into Kevin’s eyes, he suddenly thought — yes, he’s right. I must stop reverting to all my old, sentimental, half-baked ideas about death. God is God and in His wisdom He allowed Yvonne to die. Just because Kevin is fat, unattractive and gauche doesn’t mean he isn’t right. He believes in me. He sees this as an opportunity, which it is. And God sends His messages in many ways — maybe Kevin Jones is the Lord’s despatch rider! I must stop indulging in regret and agonizing over things. Nick gulped his tea and stood up, feeling new strength.

  ‘Thank you, Kevin,’ he said. ‘You’re right. Today marks a new stage in the spiritual development of Tarnfield. And I’m its leader.’

  �
�Good on yer, Nick. I knew you’d come through it!’

  * * *

  The Bishop of Norbridge graced Tarnfield vicarage with his presence that evening. He was hugely relieved to find that Nick Melling was coping. In fact, he was doing better than that. He was on fire with keenness! The Bishop acknowledged that it was, of course, dreadful that someone had been killed in the church. It was an accident, but it was very nasty nevertheless, and it could have really upset someone less intelligent and less, well, classy, than Melling. His main worry had been that he would find that Nick was out of his depth, or much worse, wanting to resign, but thank God that wasn’t the case.

  True, it did seem a little extreme to be talking about clearing the church of traditionalists and starting again. But the Bishop flattered himself that he knew his man. As always with bright young enthusiasts, pragmatism would temper all that ardour and he was sure Nick wouldn’t feel quite so polemical in the morning. And the main thing was — Melling was still functioning, and not looking for expensive or time-consuming support!

  As he went out to his car, the Bishop smiled to himself. Ghastly things will happen in the best-run parishes, he thought, but with luck this could be weathered. His Lordship didn’t want any more crises at All Saints after that business with old George Pattinson. Fortunately Pattinson was out of the way now. This latest incident was just a bit of bad luck, irrelevant to the real job of the vicar.

  So, hopefully, there was nothing to worry about. Melling was a good chap, just as he’d always said. And he should know — after all, they’d been to the same college!

  * * *

  Inside the vicarage, after midnight, Nick started to make a list. Now Phyllis and Yvonne were dead, who else from All Saints had to go?

  24

  Whitsun Eve into Whit Sunday

  The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer.