by S J Bolton
Something was wrong here. Alice and Gareth were trying too hard. Something about the smiles and the banter felt forced. Come to think of it, neither looked like they’d had much sleep.
‘Can I do anything, Alice?’ Harry offered.
‘You could find the boys. It usually takes about ten minutes to get them to the table, so be firm.’
Taking his glass with him, Harry began a search of the house. The downstairs rooms were empty of children so he headed upstairs. ‘Boys,’ he called when he reached the top step. ‘Lunch is ready.’
There was no reply, so he walked towards two doors at the end of the landing. He knocked gently at the first and pushed it open. Joe sat in the middle of the carpet, surrounded by tiny toy soldiers.
‘Hey, buddy,’ said Harry. ‘Mum says lunch is ready.’
Joe looked back down and moved several of his soldiers to new positions.
‘I heard you being sick,’ he said. ‘In church. Everyone heard.’
Great, thought Harry. ‘Well, I hope it won’t put anyone off their lunch,’ he said. ‘Are you coming down?’ He stepped back to the doorway. The room next door must be Tom’s.
‘They died, didn’t they?’
Harry walked back into the room and crouched until his head was almost on a level with Joe’s. The child hadn’t taken his eyes off his game of soldiers. Time to die.
‘What do you mean, Joe?’ he asked. ‘Who died?’
Joe raised his head and looked back at Harry. There were dark shadows under his eyes.
‘Who died, Joe?’ he asked, keeping his voice as soft as he could.
‘The little girls in the church,’ replied Joe.
‘Joe, were you in church yesterday afternoon?’ asked Harry. ‘Did you hear me talking to Mrs Pickup?’
Joe shook his head. He didn’t look as though he was lying. In any case, Jenny had told him about her daughter when she and Harry had been outside.
‘Harry, boys, lunch,’ called Alice from the bottom of the stairs. Harry began to push himself to his feet.
‘Not that one,’ muttered Joe, talking to his soldiers this time. ‘Everybody knows about that one. I meant the other ones.’
Harry was back down on his knees again. ‘Which other ones?’ he asked. ‘Joe?’
Joe looked up at him again. He was the sweetest-looking boy Harry had ever seen, with his pale freckled face, blue eyes and red hair. But there was something in those eyes that didn’t look quite right.
‘Is nobody in this house hungry?’ yelled Alice.
Harry got to his feet. ‘We have to go, buddy,’ he said, pulling Joe to his feet and steering him towards the door. On the landing a noise behind them made them turn. The door to Tom’s room was pulled open. The room beyond was in darkness, the curtains drawn. Tom appeared in the doorway, crossed in front of them and walked heavily down the stairs. It was the first time he had ever ignored Harry.
‘Mummy, after lunch can we do the lanterns?’ said Joe.
Alice was leaning across the table, cutting Millie’s chicken into smaller pieces. She glanced at Tom and then at Harry. A frown line had appeared between her eyebrows. ‘I’m not sure, sweetie,’ she replied. ‘Not everybody likes Hallowe’en. We can’t upset the vicar.’
‘I’m fine with pumpkins,’ said Harry, watching Alice look nervously back at Tom. ‘I’ll give you a hand if you like, Joe,’ he went on. ‘Although, given how talented your mum and dad are, I’ll probably be a big disappointment.’
‘We do trick-or-treating on Hallowe’en,’ said Joe. ‘You can come with us if you like.’
‘Actually, Joe, I haven’t promised anything yet.’ Alice was looking at Tom again. Her eldest son’s plate hadn’t been touched. ‘What do you think, Harry?’ she said, turning to him again. ‘Is Heptonclough likely to celebrate Hallowe’en?’
‘Oh, I’d put money on it,’ Harry replied. ‘Everything OK, Tom?’
‘Tom has to go and see a special doctor,’ announced Joe. ‘Because he’s been making up stories about monsters and last night he was historical.’
‘What?’ said Harry.
‘Joe, that will do,’ said Gareth at the same time.
‘Tom had a bad dream,’ explained Alice quickly. ‘We got home late and the lane was very noisy. It was our fault for leaving him in the car.’ She turned to her eldest son and ran a finger along the back of his hand. ‘Sorry, angel,’ she said. Tom ignored her.
‘Come on, Tom,’ said Gareth, ‘eat some lunch.’
Tom’s chair clattered loudly on the wooden floor as he pushed it back and jumped to his feet. ‘It wasn’t a bad dream!’ he yelled. ‘She’s real and Joe knows who she is. He lets her into the house and when she kills us all it will be his fault and I bloody hate him!’
He’d left the room before either of his parents had time to react. Alice stood quietly and followed him. Gareth drained his glass and poured himself another. Joe was looking at Harry with big blue eyes.
Half an hour later, Harry left the Fletchers’ house. After sending Joe and Millie off to play, Gareth had told him about the previous evening. Neither he nor Alice had ever seen anything of the girl that Tom continually talked about. Alice was taking him to the doctor in the morning.
The sky was threatening rain again as Harry walked down the drive. He stopped as he reached the family car. Someone had washed part of it. The driver’s door and bonnet were dusty and mud-spattered, but the rear window and the panels immediately below it were clean as a whistle. There were even marks in the dust where someone might have run a cloth. There was also, in the top corner of the rear window, a faint mark that might just have been a fingerprint. A red one.
34
16 October
THE KNOCK ON THE DOOR STARTLED HIM, EVEN THOUGH he’d been expecting it. Harry got up and turned down the music. As he stepped into the hallway he could see two tall figures behind the glass of his front door.
Mike Pickup, Jenny’s husband and Sinclair Renshaw’s son-in-law, was dressed in a tweed jacket and cap in muted colours, brown corduroy trousers and a knitted green tie. The man at his side wore a dark-grey pin-stripe suit that looked as though it had been handmade. Neither was smiling.
‘Good evening, Vicar,’ said Mike Pickup. ‘This is Detective Chief Superintendent Rushton.’
The detective gave Harry a brief nod. ‘Brian Rushton,’ he said, ‘Lancashire Constabulary. Pennine Division.’
‘Good to meet you,’ said Harry. ‘Please, come in.’
His visitors followed him into the study. Harry bent to remove the slumbering ball of ginger fur from one of the armchairs and then waited until both his guests had taken seats. The study was the largest room in his house. It was where he worked, received visitors, and sometimes held small prayer meetings. Thanks to the presence of two large Edwardian radiators, it was also the warmest room in the house; and invariably, where he found the cat.
He put the animal on the floor and gave it a shove under the desk. ‘Can I get you both a drink?’ he offered. ‘I have Irish whiskey,’ he went on, indicating the bottle already open on his desk. ‘There’s beer in the fridge. Or I can put the kettle on.’
‘Thank you, no,’ said Pickup, answering for both. ‘But don’t let us stop you. We won’t take up too much of your time.’ He stopped, clearly waiting for Harry to sit down. The detective chief superintendent, who was in his late fifties and whose dominant features were his narrow, slate-coloured eyes and heavy dark eyebrows, was slowly looking around the room.
Harry took the chair nearest the desk. He wasn’t entirely surprised to see the cat reappear and leap on to the arm of the detective’s chair.
He started to get up again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll get rid of him.’
‘No, you’re fine, lad. I’m used to cats.’ Rushton held up one hand to keep Harry in his seat. ‘Wife has two at home,’ he said, switching his attention to the cat. ‘Siamese. Noisy little buggers.’ He reached up to stroke the cat behind its ears. The respondi
ng purr sounded like an engine being fired up.
‘I, on the other hand, am not used to cats,’ said Harry. ‘That one seems to have adopted me.’
Rushton raised his enormous eyebrows. Harry shrugged.
‘Maybe it’s part of the fixtures and fittings of the vicarage,’ he explained. ‘Or just an opportunist stray. Either way, it was waiting for me when I arrived and has been refusing to leave ever since. I haven’t fed it, not once, it just won’t go away.’
‘Does it have a name?’ asked Rushton.
‘That bloody cat,’ answered Harry truthfully.
Rushton’s lips twitched. Mike Pickup cleared his throat. ‘Vicar, thank you for seeing us at short notice,’ he said.
Harry inclined his head in his churchwarden’s direction.
‘The truth is I only heard from Brian less than an hour ago myself,’ Pickup continued. A glance was exchanged between the two men, then Pickup turned back to Harry. ‘Brian and I are old friends,’ he said, as Harry hid a smile. The tomcat was curled up on the officer’s lap, purring like a traction engine as Rushton’s large hand ran the length of his body.
‘Mike came to see me last Sunday evening,’ Rushton said. ‘After the incident during the harvest service.’
‘Jenny and I had lunch at her father’s house after the service,’ explained Mike. ‘I’m afraid we were curious about what happened during Communion. Sinclair obviously didn’t want to discuss it, but Jenny pressed and in the end he gave in and told us. He seemed to think it was just a stupid practical joke that we could all forget about, but after what nearly happened with the Fletcher child a couple of weeks ago, I really wasn’t happy. After lunch I went back to the vestry. Sinclair had poured the contents of the chalice away and washed it, but he’d forgotten about the decanter. I took it to Brian. He promised to have his lab look at it. Discreetly.’
‘I see,’ said Harry.
‘Brian phoned me this evening to tell me the results,’ continued Mike. ‘It was pig’s blood, which is pretty much what we expected. We slaughtered a number of animals on the Saturday and, as you may know, when a pig is killed the blood is drained and saved. It’s used for making black pudding. Someone must have got hold of some – it wouldn’t have been hard – and then found their way into the church.’
Rushton leaned forward in his seat. ‘Reverend Laycock,’ he said. ‘I understand you got everything ready for the harvest service late on Saturday afternoon. Who could have had access to the church between the time of your leaving it and the Sunday-morning service?’
Harry looked at Mike, reluctant to mention Jenny in front of her husband. Mike opened his mouth to speak.
‘My wife was in the church for about a quarter of an hour after Reverend Laycock left,’ he said. ‘Sinclair lent her his keys. I joined her at around four thirty and we both had a good look round the building. She told me you’d suspected children or someone of hiding in the church, Vicar. Is that right?’
‘It is,’ admitted Harry. ‘Someone was messing around in there. I probably shouldn’t have left Jenny on her own, but she did insist.’
‘Jenny was fine,’ said Mike. ‘It was good of you to allow her some time. And the church was empty when we left. We made sure of it.’
‘Who else has keys to the church?’ asked Rushton.
‘Normally, only the vicar and the churchwardens, possibly the cleaner, would have keys to a church building,’ replied Mike. ‘At present we don’t have a cleaner. To my knowledge, only the vicar, Sinclair and I have keys now.’
‘Reverend, I’m not a churchgoer myself,’ began Rushton.
‘Nobody’s perfect,’ said Harry automatically.
‘Quite,’ said Rushton. ‘But Michael here tells me it’s customary for the priest to take Communion first, is that right?’
Harry nodded. ‘Yes, always. The idea is I’m in a state of grace myself before I administer the bread and wine to the other communicants.’
‘Would most people know that, do you think?’
‘I guess so. People who attend Communion regularly, anyway.’
‘What’s on your mind, Brian?’ asked Mike.
‘Well, it seems to me we have two possibilities. Either someone has a personal grudge against the vicar, and he was the one meant to be upset by the incident. Or the culprit didn’t realize the Communion wine would be tasted by the vicar first. Because if you’d taken that cup straight to the congregation, I bet you’d have got to around half a dozen before the first two or three realized what was going on. Then you would have had a problem on your hands. Can you think of anyone who might have a reason to play this sort of trick?’
Harry thought for a moment, because he knew it was expected of him. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve been wondering if maybe someone didn’t want the church to be opened again. Or perhaps I’ve upset someone since I’ve been here without realizing it.’
‘You haven’t,’ said Mike. ‘Actually, people are rather taken with you.’
‘What we’d like you to do, Reverend,’ said Rushton, ‘is to let us take your fingerprints so that we can check the decanter for any that don’t match yours.’
‘I’m happy to do the same, if it helps,’ said Mike, before turning to Harry. ‘Vicar, we need to think about church security. I’ll arrange to have the locks changed first thing in the morning. Make sure there are just the three sets of keys available.’
‘Fair enough,’ agreed Harry.
‘Good. I can have the new keys ready for you the day after tomorrow. Come and have some lunch in the White Lion with me. Shall we say one o’clock?’
Taking fingerprints was the work of a few minutes and then the two men said goodnight and left. Harry returned to his study. He looked at the drinks cabinet. He’d had enough. He felt something warm moving between his ankles and looked down. The cat was rubbing its body against his jeans.
‘I hate cats,’ grumbled Harry. He bent to pick it up. It lay in his arms, purring, comfortingly warm.
Half an hour later the cat was fast asleep. Harry hadn’t moved.
35
19 October
EVI PARKED HER CAR IN THE ONEREMAINING SPACE. THE huge hangar-style building of Goodshaw Bridge fire station was twenty yards away. She got out of the car and found her stick.
‘I struggle with stairs, I’m afraid,’ she explained to the fire officer at the reception desk. ‘Is there a lift I could use? Sorry to be a nuisance.’
‘No problem, love. Give me a minute.’
The fireman led her along the corridor. She tried to keep up but her back had been giving her trouble for days. Constantly leaning on her stick was putting too much pressure on the muscles on one side of her body and they were pressing against nerves. She should be using her chair more. It was just…
They reached the lift and went up one floor, then back along the corridor. Maybe on her way out she could just slide down the pole.
Ahead, her guide stopped at a blue door and rapped on it. Without waiting for a response he pushed it open. ‘Lady to see you, chief,’ he announced before glancing back at Evi. ‘Dr… er?’
‘Evi Oliver,’ she managed through gritted teeth. ‘Thanks so much.’
Inside the room, two more firemen were standing, waiting for her.
‘Dr Oliver, good morning,’ said the taller, older of the two, holding out his hand. ‘I’m station chief Arnold Earnshaw. This is my deputy, Nigel Blake.’
‘It was very good of you to see me,’ said Evi.
‘No problem. If the fire bell goes, you won’t see us for dust. Until then, we’re all yours. Now then, how about a coffee?’ He raised his voice. ‘Where you going, Jack?’
Evi’s guide reappeared, double-checked that his two superiors still took their tea milky with three sugars each and happily agreed to make Evi a white coffee.
All three sat down. Evi would have liked a moment to get her breath back but both men were watching her, waiting for her to begin.
‘I explained on the phone
that I was interested in finding out more about a fire that occurred in Heptonclough a few years ago,’ she began. ‘It’s in connection with a case of mine, but I’m sure you’ll understand I can’t give you details. It’s a matter of patient confidentiality.’
Chief Earnshaw nodded his head. His colleague, too, looked interested, happy to help. She wondered if firemen were bored a lot of the time, actually quite welcomed distractions.
‘The fire was in the late autumn, three years ago,’ said Evi. ‘In a cottage in Wite Lane, Heptonclough, did I mention that?’
Earnshaw nodded and patted a manila file on his desk. ‘It’s all in here,’ he said. ‘Not that we really needed to look it up. That was a bad one. A little lass died.’
‘Were you there?’
‘Both of us,’ said Earnshaw. ‘Every one of our regulars and a few of our volunteers as well. What can we tell you?’
‘I understand that once the fire is contained, there are two basic questions that you need to answer,’ said Evi. ‘Where the point of origin was and what was the cause of the fire?’ Gillian still hadn’t told her how the fire had started. If it had been due to negligence on her part, or her husband’s, it might go some way towards explaining her anger, or her guilt. Both men were nodding at her.
‘Is that a good place to start?’ she asked.
Blake leaned forward. ‘You need three things to make a fire, Dr Oliver,’ he said. ‘You need heat, a fuel source such as paper or gasoline, and you need oxygen. Without any one of those, no fire.
Do you understand?’
Evi nodded.
‘In most circumstances, we can take the oxygen bit for granted. So, what we’re looking for is a combination of heat and fuel. After that, fire travels sideways and upwards from its point of origin. If a fire occurs at the foot of a wall, you’ll see the burn patterns spreading up and away from it in a V shape. Are you with me?’
Evi nodded again.
‘Some things in a house, like synthetic materials or stairways, can distort this, but as a rule of thumb you track the fire damage back to the point at which it was greatest and then look for the heat-and-fuel combination. At the Wite Cottage fire, the point of origin was pretty clear, even though the upper floor eventually collapsed. It was the kitchen, the area around the cooker.’