Day of Vengeance

by Jeanne M. Dams

  ‘Which is the main reason my hair is grey.’

  ‘That, and the number of birthdays you’ve had. Now, when are we going to convene our council?’

  Alan sighed and pulled out his phone. ‘I’ll see what Jonathan’s schedule is for the next few days. And I think perhaps we’d best include Jane and Walter. Walter for his knowledge of Lovelace and the goings-on at St Barnabas’, and Jane for her knowledge of nearly everything and everyone.’

  ‘Good idea. Do you think we could possibly meet here? I’m so very tired of travelling, and the cats are acting much more clingy than usual. I think they’re feeling neglected.’

  ‘If Jonathan can bring Walter here, I think that’s an excellent suggestion.’

  I tidied up the kitchen while Alan made his phone calls, and then I was about to head across my back garden to talk to Jane, when a hard little head butted my ankle, and a Siamese wail sounded. A quiet one, for a Siamese, but peremptory.

  ‘Sam, you rascal, you need attention, don’t you? Where’s Emmy?’

  Samantha indicated, in her feline fashion, that she didn’t give a damn where Emmy was. She, Sam, was right here and wanted a lap. And I, come to think of it, wanted a break. So I picked up the willing cat and settled down on the sofa with her. Her purrs brought Esmeralda from wherever she’d been hanging out, so in no time at all I had two furry heads to stroke, two pairs of eyes gazing up at me (one pair green and one bright blue), and two sets of front paws ecstatically kneading my legs. It was only those paws, their needle-sharp claws occasionally coming through to skin, that kept me from falling asleep right there.

  ‘Cat therapy?’ asked Alan, walking into the room.

  ‘Mmm. Very soothing. The massage is a trifle painful, though.’ I tried to shove both of them away, but cats can gain weight at will and become immovable. If I persisted, the claws would come into play.

  Alan grinned and walked into the kitchen, where he opened a cupboard door. That brought both the cats to full alert. Purrs stopped, ears pricked, whiskers stiffened. Then they heard Alan pop the lid off a can.

  That did the trick, of course. It might be a can of soup or something equally boring, but it might be cat food or even, joy of joys, tuna! They shot off my lap, racing each other to the kitchen. I followed.

  ‘They don’t need any more food,’ I said. ‘They’re both getting fat. And so are you, dog.’ Because Watson had appeared, too, of course, and was jostling for position.

  ‘I know that, and you know it, but they would all disagree. They’re healthy. They deserve an occasional treat.’

  Oh, well, what are pets for, if not to spoil?

  ‘Did you manage to reach Jonathan and Walter?’

  ‘Yes, and they’re both coming this afternoon. Tea time is the earliest they could make it. Jane’s free, too, and she said you were not to bother to bake anything. She’ll bring something.’

  ‘Whew! That’s a relief. I don’t know what we have in the house, and she’s a better baker than I am, anyway. But my word, Alan, the house! We’ve been home so little it looks like Miss Havisham’s parlour.’

  He looked around with exaggerated horror. ‘No decaying wedding cake that I can see.’

  ‘Enough cat and dog hair to stuff a mattress, though. Would you rather vacuum or dust?’

  Our house is very old – early seventeenth-century (although by English standards that’s only sort of middle-aged) – and has a good many nooks and crannies where dirt can accumulate. But it’s not very big, so with two of us working at top speed we got it back in good time to its usual state of slightly shabby, but orderly, comfort. I did make us salads for lunch, since we were going to have a more substantial tea than usual, and the animals were so tired, what with all their narrow escapes from the vacuum, that they didn’t even come to the kitchen to complain about the dearth of hand-outs.

  After lunch I sat down in my tiny office and tried to put my thoughts in as good order as the house. There seemed to be so many threads to pursue, so many unconnected events, so many people to try to catalogue, that my head felt filled with mashed potatoes when the bell rang and Alan admitted our guests. Jane arrived a moment later with trays and baskets full of goodies, and we all sat down to a sumptuous tea: all my favourite sandwiches, and scones and jam tarts, and a plum cake that I would have eaten first of all if I hadn’t been taught manners.

  We didn’t say much at first. The food was too good, and it was too pleasant to sit with good friends, rested, and with anxiety, if not banished, at least at bay. But when we were sated with food and had gone through three large pots of tea, I sat back. ‘Now, before we get to anything else, Walter, I have to know what happened to you. I’m perishing of curiosity.’

  ‘Gosh, I don’t know where to start.’

  ‘You went to St Barnabas’ to try to find evidence that Lovelace was embezzling,’ I prompted.

  ‘Yes. Dear old Jed let me in, and I went right to work in the office. I knew I had to work fast, because someone might come back any time, and then I was to meet Sue—’

  ‘Yes, we know about that. Go on.’

  ‘Well, I found the ledgers with no trouble. Mrs Steele had locked them up, of course, but she hadn’t locked her desk, and the keys were in the top drawer. It didn’t take me long to spot trouble. I’m no accountant, but they hadn’t even bothered to cover their tracks! I suppose Lovelace thought no one could ever possibly suspect him, great man that he was. I’m sorry – he’s dead, and I shouldn’t—’

  ‘Scoundrel!’ said Jane vehemently. ‘Deserves no sympathy!’

  ‘Well, anyway, I got interested in what I found. You wouldn’t believe what he managed to get away with! He’d received huge contributions from some businesses. He knew how to twist arms; I’ll give him that. That money was what was running the church and reviving the neighbourhood and all that, while he stole most of the offering from the plates. And I was making notes like mad, when I heard people talking, and realized it was Lovelace and Steele!

  ‘You can imagine how scared I was. If they caught me in there … well, I made tracks. There’s a little sort of storage room off the office, not used much, but it has a good big window. I ducked in there, pulled the door shut, and headed out the window. That was a bad moment, because I almost got stuck, and I had to more or less fall out of the window. I don’t know how I managed not to break something, but I was okay. And then I ran, across the car park at the back and in between buildings and I don’t know where. And when I finally fetched up on some street a long way away, I realized I had the ledgers under my arm. I hadn’t even remembered I had them.’

  ‘But that meant you really did have to get away.’

  ‘With bells on! I had some money, luckily, and I was close to a Tube station. So I just got on a train, I didn’t care where it was headed, and eventually found myself at Victoria Station. And I remembered, I don’t know why, about that ghastly Jack Everidge and his revolting family, and I thought I knew which station was nearest that country house, Ashhurst. I had just about enough for a cheap ticket, and I was pretty sure no one would think of looking for me there, so I climbed on the first train. Is there any water, Dorothy?’

  ‘Of course. Or there’s beer.’

  ‘Water will be lovely, thank you.’

  When he had his water, he continued. ‘The station was really quite a long way from the house, and I was pretty cold and tired and hungry by the time I got there, but I was out of money. I didn’t think Jack’s parents would let me in, and I didn’t like them, anyway, so I dossed down in one of the barns. It was full of hay, and really quite cosy. And in the morning there was an apple tree, and a pump in the stable yard, so I was all right for food and water. I was worried about Sue, but I didn’t want to call her. I thought it was safer for her if she didn’t know where I was. The only thing was, I didn’t know quite what to do. I couldn’t exactly stay there for ever, and someone needed to know about the ledgers, but I didn’t dare call Gran, either, in case I endangered her. And I didn’t
think the police would believe a word of what I had to say, not to mention the fact that I had in my possession stolen ledgers. I didn’t have your phone numbers.’ He nodded to Alan and me. ‘And then Jonathan came along, and Gran had told me about him, so I thought I could trust him, and … here I am.’

  ‘Thanks be.’ I sighed. ‘Well, that was an amazing story, but now we need to get busy. You know what we’re here to do, or try to do. All five of us have some special skills or knowledge that might help the police in their search for the killer of Dean Brading. I propose for the time being that we accept the death of Mr Lovelace as the suicide it apparently was, so we can concentrate on the other. I’ve made some lists.’

  Alan chuckled.

  ‘Yes, well, I know I’m forever making lists, but sometimes they do help. I’ve made copies of them so you can each have one. I thought that maybe if we worked our way through these, some kind of pattern might emerge that we could follow up. But I realize it’s all pretty haphazard, and if any of you have a better idea of how to proceed, do please tell us. I don’t mind admitting I’m pretty much at sea.’

  I passed out the lists, thinking as I did so that they made a pretty poor showing for several hours of solid thought.

  The first page was headed ‘Suspects’, and included the subheadings ‘Other Candidates’, ‘Commission Members’, ‘Brading’s Congregation’, ‘Family’, and ‘Other’. I’d listed a few names under the ‘Commission’ and ‘Congregation’ headings, and, of course, the two remaining names under ‘Candidates’.

  The second list was headed ‘Facts about the Murder’, and though there were subheadings, there was almost nothing under them. We didn’t know ‘Time of Murder’, or at least I didn’t. We didn’t know ‘Weapon’. Under ‘Place’ I’d put the obvious – Chelton Cathedral – but I didn’t know exactly where in that vast, unfriendly church he had been found.

  The third was also almost blank, but it was the one I hoped we could best fill in, and the one in which I’d put my trust. It was headed ‘Facts about Brading’, and had listed only ‘Dean, Chelton Cathedral’ and the dates, and a couple of notes about his religious views.

  ‘I’ve got lots of blank paper here as well, so one of us can write down whatever brilliant ideas we come up with. Now. Who has anything to contribute?’

  ‘I have a few facts about the murder,’ said Alan, pulling out a notebook, ‘though I don’t know if they’ll be very useful. I wasn’t entirely idle while you were whipping this together this afternoon, Dorothy. I talked to Derek, asked him a few things. He isn’t in charge of the investigation, of course. That’s Gloucester’s headache, and, incidentally – and between ourselves – they’re still not making much progress. They’re having to do too much tiptoeing about. However, they do have a cause of death and an approximate time. Brading died of a subdural haematoma, caused by that terrific blow to the head. They have not yet found the weapon, and, because of the nature of the injury, they can only guess about the time, or even the place, when the blow was struck.’

  ‘“A gentleman was thrown out of a chaise,”’ I intoned dreamily.

  Three of my audience looked at me with alarm. Alan smiled. ‘Dorothy is quoting from one of Dorothy Sayers’ novels. The gentleman in question, who was, by the way, a real person in a genuine medical report Sayers dug up somewhere, fell on his head and was badly injured, but got up, got back in his chaise (whatever that might have been), went home, and didn’t die until some little time later. The poor fellow died sometime in the middle of the 1800s, if I remember correctly, but the science of it is still perfectly sound. That hapless gentleman helped solve the fictional death in the Sayers novel, but it only serves to confuse our problem. The point is that a subdural haematoma – that is, bleeding between the brain and the skull, to put it roughly – can take its time to kill. There is a blow to the head. The victim staggers a bit, falls, gets up, probably says a few things he wouldn’t want his mother to hear, and then goes on about his business. He probably has a terrible headache, and he may feel a bit dizzy and sick. But he may have no idea that his brain is being attacked by more and more pressure as the haemorrhage becomes bigger and bigger. Eventually, if the haematoma gets big enough, and the victim is not treated, he dies.’

  ‘But the kicker,’ I chimed in, ‘is that word “eventually”. Because there’s no really good way to tell how much time passed between the injury and the death – right, Alan?’

  ‘Right. Now the ME down in Gloucestershire puts the time of death at about nine in the evening, based on body temperature and other indications. It couldn’t well have been much later than that, because the body was found at around midnight and rigor was just beginning. However, given the fact that the cathedral was quite cold, which delays the onset of rigor, death could have been quite a bit earlier. The official report says “17.00 to 22.00”. But!’ He held up a cautioning finger. ‘Remember that’s just the time of death. The actual blow, the attack, could have been much earlier, depending on how long it took the poor man to die.’

  ‘So, in practical terms,’ said Jonathan, ‘we haven’t the slightest idea when Brading might have been attacked.’

  ‘Well, sometime the day he died, but, aside from that, it comes down to when he was last seen alive on that day.’

  ‘His wife said he’d been to a meeting in London,’ I said. ‘Didn’t the Telegraph say that, or am I making it up?’

  ‘That,’ said Alan, ‘is what Mrs Brading told the Telegraph, but it was apparently not true, or at any rate the police have not been able to trace any meeting that he might have attended. Nor did anyone see him getting on or off a London train at any time that day. Now, that doesn’t say he wasn’t in London. London is a big place, and there are other ways to get there than by train. But it can’t, at this point, be proven.’

  ‘Which means,’ said Jonathan, ‘that his wife was the last person known to have seen him alive.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  There was a long pause. I drew a breath. ‘That leads me back to the question I wanted to ask Mrs Rudge, or one of the questions, anyway. What sort of terms was the dean on with his wife? I’m sure the police asked that, but people don’t always tell the police everything.’

  We all looked at Jane. This was her area of expertise.

  She shrugged. ‘Never heard any scandal. Never heard they were Darby and Joan, either. No children.’

  She let that remark and its implications hang in the air. I thought of my own first marriage, childless, but certainly not for want of trying. I held my peace.

  ‘Right,’ said Alan briskly, and I thought he knew what I was thinking. ‘Talk to Mrs Rudge. She’s certain to know about the dean’s family life. Now, what other facts about the dean can we dredge up?’

  ‘What does it say in his CV?’ I asked. ‘I don’t suppose you have a copy here.’

  ‘It’s meant to be confidential, you know, and in any case it’s not terribly exciting. Place and date of birth, date of marriage, date of ordination, posts he held before his move to Chelton.’

  ‘Did he move around a lot?’ Walter asked.

  ‘Not a great deal, if I remember correctly. He followed the usual path of the successful clergyman: curate, schoolmaster, rector, finally dean, all in the Midlands. What’s your idea, Walter?’

  ‘Probably a stupid one, but I thought that people who knew him in his earlier days might give us some ideas about, you know, what he was like …’ Walter trailed off into uncertainty.

  ‘I agree,’ said Jonathan instantly. ‘I’m sure Church officials did a background check on him, but they were looking only for anything that might be dicey. We need to know all we can about the man. It would take quite a lot of time, though, to talk to everyone who might have known him.’

  ‘There are five of us,’ I pointed out. ‘Walter, can you take, say, a week off from the BM?’

  ‘I can take a month if I have to. The job I’m working on isn’t urgent, and since I’m volunteering my time, they can’t fir
e me.’

  ‘It won’t jeopardize your real job, though, will it?’ I asked anxiously. ‘The one with the Museum of London?’

  ‘That’s not a dead cert yet, and if they hire me, I wouldn’t start till the end of the summer, so I should be good.’

  ‘And I can devote all my time to this for the next few days,’ said Jonathan. ‘And before you come over all mother hen again, Dorothy, no, I won’t starve with no income for a few days. You never remember that I have a bit of a nest-egg to see me through.’

  I did frequently forget that Jonathan had inherited enough money from his parents that he didn’t actually have to work at all. He lived simply in a tiny bed-sitter in London because he wanted to, and hadn’t employed any help, even back when he could barely walk. ‘Oh, yes, I keep forgetting you’re Mr Gotrocks. Well, that’s you two, then. And, of course, there’s Alan and me. Jane?’

  I had some uncertainty about Jane. I didn’t know her age, but she was for sure quite a lot older than Alan and me, and we’re no spring chickens.

  ‘Count me in,’ she growled. ‘Not too old or feeble to use the phone, am I?’

  ‘Of course not!’ I said too heartily, and got a very sharp look from Jane. ‘Then that leaves Alan and me, and I think we’d better split up. We’ll cover more ground that way. Now, dear, don’t look at me that way. You’ve made great strides in conquering your overprotectiveness, so don’t ruin it. I’m only going to be talking to some old acquaintances of Dean Brading’s, back when he was a humble parish priest or whatever. It’s not as if I were walking into a lion’s den.’

  ‘Your middle name should be Daniel,’ he muttered, but he said no more. Not then. I knew there would be a discussion later, when Jane had gone home and our guests had retired for the night.

  ‘All right, then. We’ll divvy up the assignments later. For now, let’s go back to the lists. Any more to put down under “Facts about Brading” for the moment?’

  ‘His religious and philosophical views are important, I think,’ said Jonathan. ‘A good many people could have either hated or adored him for them, I should imagine.’