‘Tore a strip off the mayor. The building was church property and could not be touched. Car parks were a work of the devil. People should walk to church. I think his father and grandfather came into it, walking at the head of a long file, coming piously to worship, heeding the bells calling them to God.’
‘I thought he didn’t approve of bells.’
‘Only those in days of yore. The demonic practice of change-ringing had turned the simple call to prayer into an entertainment, you see.’
‘Whew! Then there was no love lost between him and the mayor.’
Ruth grinned. ‘Actually, he viewed the mayor as an enemy from then on, but it did the mayor a lot of good politically. The youth centre is a blight on the city centre, and the extra parking on weekdays would have been a boon to merchants. So the dean turned much of the city against him from that moment.’
‘Ruth, you’re not a churchgoer. How did you hear all this?’
‘From a woman you know. Or at least you’ve met her, when you and your husband went to church on your last visit here. Her name’s Caroline White, and she says you asked her about coffee after the service.’
‘Oh, yes, I do remember her.’ I chuckled. ‘She told us we wouldn’t enjoy the gathering at the youth centre. She was quite right, as it turned out, although meeting Martha was a delight. I got the impression that Mrs … um –’
‘White.’
‘White, yes – that she wasn’t a great fan of Dean Brading. Or of the present cathedral clergy, for that matter. Does she go to church as a matter of habit, or for fire insurance, or what?’
‘Fire insurance?’
‘What some of my irreverent American friends call it. Just in case that story about hell is true.’
Ruth laughed. ‘I see. I’ll have to remember that. No, I think she goes because she thinks it’s the right thing to do. Not socially. She doesn’t really care what people think. But she has a strong sense of right and wrong, and she thinks some form of worship is necessary. She’s argued it with me many a time.’
‘Do you know, I think I’d like a chance to meet her.’
‘So she can tell you who really hated the dean?’
‘Partly that, and partly … well, she just sounds like a person I’d like to know.’
‘Nothing easier. I’ll just clear away, and then I’ll ring her up.’
‘I’ll help. This morning would be good for me, if it works for her,’ I added, stacking my breakfast dishes.
‘No, no, that’s my job.’
‘Look, Ruth. I’m still an American at heart. This distinction between hostess and guest – landlady and lodger if you will – just doesn’t work with me. You’ve become a friend. Granted, a friend who happens to be sharing your home with me, and I’m paying you for the privilege because I’m not a sponger, but if you don’t mind, I’ll still act like a friend. Here, if you’ll hand me the tray, the cafetière will fit, too.’
Ruth rolled her eyes but handed me the tray. ‘You are the oddest guest I’ve ever had stay here.’
I grinned. ‘And probably the most troublesome. Can you get the door?’
She flatly refused to let me help load the dishwasher. ‘I despise the thing, but when the house is full it’s a help, I suppose. It’s the inspectors who say I must have one. I must say, I never poisoned any of my family when I was doing the washing-up in the sink, but …’ She shrugged elaborately and continued loading the few plates and cups and cutlery. ‘Now, you go and do whatever you need to do, and I’ll come up as soon as I’ve talked to Caroline.’
I had barely washed my face and brushed my teeth when Ruth was knocking on my door with news that Mrs White would meet me at the cathedral at ten thirty. ‘If that’s not too soon.’
‘That’s perfect. Thank you, thank you. I’ll be off, then.’ I gave Ruth a hug as I headed down the stairs, calling Alan as I went to give him my morning’s itinerary, such as it was.
I was early at the cathedral, but Mrs White was ahead of me. She came out of the shadows, looking at my hat, this time a modest pull-on affair. ‘Knew I’d know you,’ she said without preamble.
‘I know. Nobody except the royals still wears hats. I like them.’
‘Good for you. Do what you want. I always have. Do you want some coffee?’ She gave me a sly smile.
‘Not right now. I’ve had what a southern friend of mine used to call “a gracious plenty” this morning. But I’d be happy to buy you some if you know a place where it’s drinkable.’
‘Don’t drink the stuff. Ruth Stevens tells me you want to know who killed the dean.’
I searched my mind frantically for some misleading response and decided it wasn’t worth the effort, not with this forthright woman. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Do you know?’
‘No. But I have some ideas. This isn’t the place to talk about it.’
‘No. Too many echoes, and it seems wrong, anyway. But can you show me where he died?’
‘Show you where they found him. Might not be the same, you know.’
‘I do know. My husband is a retired chief constable.’
She made no reply, but led me up the north aisle, past tombs and memorials, some very elaborate, some very ugly. I spared a moment of pity for Dean Brading, who had not been able to strip his church of these offenses to his austere sensibilities.
A turn into the north transept took us to a very small chapel, screened off with a curtain and the usual sign saying it was reserved for private prayer. It was empty, so Mrs White and I were free to talk. She pointed to the altar rail, a simple marble affair of two railings, each set into the wall at the far end and supported by a short marble post in the middle, next to the opening that led to the altar. The posts were square in cross-section, like fence posts, and were topped by two squares of marble, a larger one resting on the post and a smaller one atop that. They had very sharp corners.
‘Was that …?’ I whispered.
‘They don’t know. He was found lying on the kneeler, his head close to one of the posts. No blood on the post or the newels, but there wasn’t much blood anywhere. A bit on the kneeler.’
There was no kneeling pad on the chilly marble now. Presumably they had taken it away for cleaning, or perhaps for replacement.
The atmosphere was oppressive, despite the chill of the place. I turned my head away, and Mrs White followed me out of the chapel. ‘I think I could use that coffee after all,’ I said.
The café was several grades above any Alan or I had found. Bright yellow curtains and tablecloths lent cheer, and the coffee was excellent. Mrs White had tea and a cream bun that looked both delicious and calorie-laden. The room was nearly full, and the gentle buzz of conversation gave us privacy at our corner table.
Nevertheless, I chose my words with care. ‘You said you had some ideas,’ I prompted.
‘He was not a popular man,’ said Mrs White. ‘Lots of enemies. Don’t know if any of them would have gone so far, but some might’ve. I made a list.’
She rummaged in her handbag and pulled out an old envelope, torn at the top. In tiny, cramped handwriting on the back were three paragraphs. Each seemed to be headed with a name, followed by a few words I couldn’t decipher at all.
Mrs White watched me squinting and moving the envelope closer to my eyes. She snorted. ‘I forgot Americans can never read English handwriting.’
By now I thought I had the measure of this woman. ‘It’s my belief no one on this earth could read this writing.’ I said it with a smile, and, to my relief, she smiled back.
‘A trifle small, perhaps. I thought of it just before I left home, and the only paper I could lay hands on right then was that envelope.’
‘Can’t you just tell me?’
Her eyes scanned the room. ‘More discreet this way. Get Ruth Stevens to read it to you.’
‘I will, and then I’ll copy it. But could you at least give me a brief rundown? I’m not going to be in Chelton very long, and I want to check out these people.’
&nb
sp; ‘Here. Give it back to me.’ She took the envelope back, took a pen from her purse, and on the front of the envelope wrote three names in block capitals. ‘The rest of what I wrote is just explanation,’ she said as she handed it back to me.
The name that headed the list was Archibald Pringle.
Why didn’t that surprise me?
She told me a little about the other two on the list, speaking quietly. ‘This one, Sarah Cunningham, leads the sacristans.’ To my puzzled look she said, impatiently, ‘You Americans call them the Altar Guild, I’ve heard. Silly name. They’re not a guild. Anyway, at this point she is virtually the only sacristan. She’s a bossy woman and very High Church. Hated him with a passion because he had most of the plate locked away. Built like a lorry, and works out regularly.’
‘So she could, physically, have done it.’
‘Easy as breathing. The only problem is, I don’t think she’d have done it in the church. She’s very devout.’
‘A difference of opinion about churchmanship hardly seems a motive for murder.’
‘You don’t know Sarah.’
I let it go. ‘And the other?’ I looked down at the last name she’d copied for me. David Worthman.
She picked up her teaspoon. Stirred tea that must by now be stone cold. Replaced the spoon on the saucer. Picked up the cup, sipped, made a face, and put it down. ‘The fact is,’ she said at last, ‘I didn’t want to give you his name at all. I had a struggle with my conscience.’
I looked hard at her. ‘You think he’s the one, don’t you?’
‘He has the best motive, but I’m one of the few who know about it. Oh, hell.’ She paused, got her voice back under control, and started again. ‘I’ve gone this far, I’ll have to tell you. That bloody priest killed his wife and child.’
TWENTY-FIVE
I bit back the startled response that came to my lips. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said unceremoniously, pushing my chair back and putting some money on the table.
‘My car,’ I said urgently. ‘Where we can be completely private.’ It wasn’t far away. When we had got in and closed the doors, I said, ‘Now. My first question is this. If what you say is true, why didn’t it show up in Brading’s background check? The commission is very thorough.’
It was a warm day, and the car was hot and stuffy. I asked Mrs White if she’d like some air conditioning. She shook her head and began her story.
‘It wasn’t like that. He wasn’t criminally responsible, only morally. Only!’ Again she had to pause. ‘They were a young couple, expecting their first baby. Both of them had been attending the cathedral for years; they were married there. By the old dean. She was having a hard time with her pregnancy so the doctor put her on bed rest. She was about six months along. The dean came to call.’
Mrs White rolled her window down a bit and wiped her face. She pointed to the envelope I still clutched in my hand. ‘He asked the dean to anoint Lisa. That was her name – Lisa. She wasn’t exactly ill, but she was very tired and discouraged and depressed. The dean refused. He said that was a papist practice, and all that was needed was good strong prayer. David pleaded with him, said he believed in the power of the Holy Spirit through ritual. I don’t know all that was said, but it ended in a flaming row, the two men shouting at each other, and Lisa crying and sobbing. The dean stalked out, and Lisa got out of bed to call after him and try to get him to come back. David thinks she wanted to try to patch things up, but she tripped on her nightie and fell down the stairs.’
‘Oh, dear God.’
‘They got her to hospital right away, but she lost the baby and bled to death in the process. And the dean never once apologized, never once came to visit David, never mentioned anything about it.’
There was nothing to say.
‘And if,’ said Mrs White, ‘if what I’ve told you leads to David’s arrest for murder, I’ll move heaven and earth for a verdict of justifiable homicide. I’m off.’
After a while, I turned on the ignition and sat while chilled air washed over me, trying not to think about anything in particular.
My cell phone rang. It was Martha Rudge, giving me directions to her house for lunch. I wrote them down with some trepidation. I can still get lost in Sherebury, let alone a strange town, and I was feeling too wrung out to think clearly. But I set out and made only two wrong turns. In the end, it would have been quicker to walk, but I was so shaky from the awful story Mrs White had told me that walking might have been iffy, too.
Martha greeted me at the door of a neat, modern terrace house. It was tiny and in the sort of perfect order that I despair of ever achieving. Martha saw the admiration in my eyes and beamed. ‘It’s only a council house, but I like to keep it spick and span. Easier when a place is new, isn’t it?’
I thought of my own house, four hundred odd years old, and said, ‘Indeed.’
There was a pocket garden at the back of the house, just big enough for a tiny bed of cottage-garden flowers about to burst into bloom, a small cherry tree, and a patch of grass with a wicker table and two chairs. The table was laid with colourful mats.
‘It’s such a lovely day, I thought we’d eat out here,’ said Martha, ‘if that suits you.’
I helped carry out the plates and so on, and we settled down to our salads. It was a lovely meal, prawns and salmon and snow peas on a bed of greens that looked fresh from the garden. I picked up a forkful of salad and found I couldn’t bear the sight of it.
Martha looked at me anxiously. ‘If you don’t care for salmon, I can easily get you something else. There’s cold chicken—’
‘I love salmon. It’s just … I guess I’m not very hungry.’
‘There’s something wrong, isn’t there, dear?’
I took a deep breath. ‘I just heard the most horrible story, and I let it upset me more than I should have. I’m sorry.’
‘A story about the cathedral?’
‘About the dean, and some of the congregation.’ I shuddered involuntarily, and felt a tear trying to force its way out of one eye.
‘Is this something Ruth Stevens told you?’
‘No, I talked to another woman this morning. Mrs White. I forget her first name.’
‘Oh, dear. And she told you about the Worthman family.’
‘Yes.’ I couldn’t seem to stop the tears. I picked up my pretty paper napkin and dabbed at my eyes.
‘You sit still. I’ll be right back.’
I sniffed, blew my nose, and tried to pull myself together. Martha was back in less than a minute with a juice glass containing a puddle of amber liquid. ‘Brandy. Drink it down.’
I obeyed. It was pretty terrible stuff, raw and biting, but it did the trick. I made myself finish what was in the glass and took a deep, shuddery breath. ‘Thank you. I did actually need that.’
‘You’re thinking it was frightful brandy, and you’re right. It’s what I keep for the Christmas pudding, all I had in the house. Are you feeling better?’
‘Much.’
‘Here’s a tissue. Have a good blow, then eat what you can of your lunch, or you’ll find yourself staggering out of here too drunk to drive, what with strong drink on an empty stomach!’
I ate a forkful and found I was hungry. So we ate and talked only in snatches, about inconsequential matters, until we had finished our salad. Then Martha brought out coffee. ‘We can have our sweet later. I’d like to know what Caroline White told you.’
‘She gave me names of three people she thought capable of … of killing Dean Brading.’
‘And those names were Captain Pringle, David Worthman, and perhaps Sarah Cunningham.’
‘Exactly. She’d written it all out on the back of an envelope, but the writing was too tiny to read, so she told me the important parts.’
‘May I see?’
She studied it in silence and then handed it back to me. ‘I told you I wanted to air some dirty church linen. The Worthman story is the worst, but there are so many more nasty little stories.
I hate to have to say it of a priest, but the fact is that Dean Brading was a fanatic, and, like all fanatics, he saw only one side of any issue. I don’t want you to misunderstand me. He was a devout Christian who practiced exactly what he preached. The trouble is, his preaching was very narrow. If someone didn’t believe exactly what he did, didn’t worship exactly as he prescribed, then they were cast into the outer darkness. That was what happened to Lisa Worthman. She asked the dean for something he saw as anathema, positively Satanic. In his eyes, her death was justice. She had turned away from the truth. If David had asked that the dean conduct her funeral, he would have refused. David didn’t ask, of course. He turned away from the church completely and had her cremated, with no service at all.’
‘What’s happened to him?’
‘I’ve tried to reach him, tried to help, but he’s drinking a lot these days. Almost all the time, if truth were told. He’s trying to kill the pain, but …’ She spread her hands.
‘Is he … I’m sorry, but I have to ask. Is he capable of murder?’
‘If he were ever sober, yes, I think he would be. But he’s never sober. He makes sure of that. Most days he can’t even walk properly, and he won’t consider a substance-abuse program.’
I shook my head. ‘Sad. Worse than sad. Tragic. But you were going to tell me about some other … scandals, I guess is the word.’
‘No. Not scandals, or not the way people usually use the word. There was never the slightest hint of sexual immorality about the dean.’
‘I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but he sounds as though he wasn’t human enough for that. No wonder he never had any children.’
‘Mrs Brading is rather … withdrawn, as well. I think perhaps they suited each other quite well. What I really wanted to tell you, Dorothy, is that whilst there may have been any number of people who would have had the dean sacked if they could have found a way, and a good few who were ready to slap him in the face, or worse, should the occasion arise, I can think of only the one who hated him enough to murder him. And David Worthman scarcely exists anymore.’
Day of Vengeance Page 22