Day of Vengeance

by Jeanne M. Dams

  ‘You mentioned Colonel Pringle.’

  ‘I don’t care a great deal about the Colonel, as you may have gathered, but he thinks far too much of his own image ever to do anything so undignified as bashing someone on the head, or pushing him into something that would have the same effect. Words are his weapons. As I said before, he’s not a wicked man, only pompous and narrow-minded. He’s a staunch supporter of the cathedral, emotionally and financially. That was why, finally, he quarrelled with the dean. He agreed with his churchmanship and his morality and theology, but he saw that the cathedral was dying from the dean’s attitudes.’

  ‘He would not have killed to keep the cathedral alive?’

  ‘No. He was a soldier, Dorothy. He has killed, and has issued orders to kill, but only in war. He doesn’t hold with murder, as my old granny would have said.’

  I sighed. ‘Someone killed Dean Brading. So far, all I’ve done here is apparently rule out everyone who wanted to.’

  ‘You don’t have to take my word for it. In fact, I know you and your husband won’t. But check alibis as you will, I’ll lay any odds you like you won’t find a murderer at Chelton Cathedral.’

  ‘Is there no one who hated the idea of him maybe becoming bishop, hated it badly enough to stop it?’

  ‘Hated the idea! My dear, haven’t you been listening to me? There wasn’t a man or woman in the congregation who wasn’t praying daily for him to be bishop!’

  ‘But … oh.’ I rummaged in my mind for a memory. ‘I think I understand,’ I said slowly. ‘Years ago, back when I lived in America, my town had a mayor I very much disliked. He ran for governor of the state. I voted for him. I would have voted twice, three times, if I could have. And he did win, and it got him out of Hillsburg, for a while anyway.’

  ‘Exactly!’

  Back at Lynncroft, I stretched out on the bed and called Alan. He answered on the first ring. ‘I’m fine, love. No axe murderers have assaulted me, I’ve had no notes inviting me to midnight trysts in dungeons, nobody’s even laced my tea with arsenic.’

  ‘I’m delighted to hear it. And somewhat surprised. You’ve plainly been frittering away your time.’

  ‘Actually, I’ve managed very usefully to prove, at least to my own satisfaction, that nobody in Chelton murdered the dean. Martha Rudge convinced me that everyone desperately wanted him to win the bishopric, to get him out of Chelton. He had a few loyal followers, apparently, but most of the congregation hated him heartily.’

  ‘But not enough to murder him.’

  ‘Not when a much simpler way of getting rid of him loomed. It seems there was only one man who probably would have murdered Brading if he could. I won’t tell you the story now; it’s very sad and I only want to tell it once, to everyone. But the man has become a hopeless drunk, trying his best, I suspect, to drink himself to death. Martha says, and Ruth Stevens confirms, that the poor guy can hardly stand up straight, let alone assault someone.’

  ‘That should be checked.’

  ‘Of course, and I’ll give you the name when I get home. You can set the cops on it. But I trust Martha and Ruth to know. How about you? Have you come up with anything interesting at St Whoever’s-it-is?’

  ‘Much the same sort of thing. I haven’t your gift of gossiping over teacups, and it’s apparent I still come across as a policeman, no matter how hard I try to look harmless.’

  ‘You’re about as harmless as an irritated adder when you need to act. Most of the time you’re a pussycat, of course, but it’s true you look like a policeman. Of the very nicest kind, that is.’

  ‘Adder, eh? I shall have to remember that. Anyway, I did manage to talk to quite a few people connected with St John’s. They were a bit cautious, but one thing I can do well is read between the lines, and I got the distinct impression that the parishioners were mightily relieved when their vicar was elevated to dean of Chelton.’

  ‘Any active hatred?’

  ‘Not that I could detect. Nor did I learn of any particular scandal about him, to my regret. I begin to think we’re barking up the wrong tree, looking into his past.’

  ‘I’m sure we’re not. We just haven’t hit the right branch yet. Have you heard from the others?’

  ‘Not a word. When are you coming home?’

  ‘Tomorrow. It’s a bit late today, with the train schedules the way they are, but I’ve come to a dead end here, to mix the metaphor, and it’s easier to think logically at home. And don’t you dare laugh! I’m a very logical person, even if my connections sometimes mystify you.’

  ‘You always mystify me. That’s part of the charm, you know.’ And our talk drifted into matters that had nothing whatever to do with the murder of Dean Brading. I went to sleep smiling.

  TWENTY-SIX

  I had told Alan I think best at home, and it’s true. Sitting on my own sofa, with a cat or two in my lap and a sleeping dog at my feet, I can let my thoughts drift until they focus on whatever problem I’m trying to work out, and then I get into gear and start making my lists and getting organized. But I can think pretty well on trains, too, as long as no one’s screaming into a mobile phone. (Why do people think they have to shout into those things?)

  I was lucky this time. I didn’t catch the first train out of Chelton, which would have carried the commuters, but the second, which was nearly empty. I had the carriage to myself for a while, in fact. I found my little notebook in my purse and started to write some random thoughts.

  Why murder? I wrote. Was there really no other way to keep the man from becoming a bishop, if that was what the murderer had in mind? I could think of any number of ways. Manufacturing a scandal about the man would be the easiest. Start a rumour on Facebook or one of the other social media. I don’t understand them well, myself, but I do know that really hot news can spread across the globe far faster than a raging wildfire, and once it’s out there, it becomes almost impossible to deny. Doesn’t matter that poor so-and-so never did any of what’s being said about him. Try proving a negative.

  Or you could just start a whispering campaign. Slower, but equally effective. In some ways, even more so, because the story would get changed from one source to another. I remembered the old game of Telephone. The message at the end was hardly recognizable. And the whispering campaign had the advantage that it was almost impossible to track the rumour to its source.

  Or call an anonymous tip to a newspaper, or TV station. That isn’t so easy now, in these days of universal caller ID and almost no public telephones. But it could be done.

  Oh, there were any number of nasty ways to bring a man down, especially a clergyman. The clergy are human beings like the rest of us, but they are held to a higher standard, and there are few things the human race enjoys more than discovering someone’s feet of clay.

  So, why murder?

  I had once held forth to Alan that the root of almost all motives to murder was fear. Fear that the victim would harm the killer in some way – steal his job, or his wife, or reveal something the killer wanted hidden. Or, conversely, that the victim would keep from the killer something that he passionately wanted – the better job, the woman, the riches.

  I saw now that I had left out one of the most powerful motives of all: sheer hatred. I had no doubt, from what Caroline and Martha had told me, that David Worthman would have killed Dean Brading had he been capable of it. And, God help me, I wasn’t so sure it wouldn’t have been justified. But if what they had said was true, he had crawled so far into the bottle that he was incapable of any action.

  We had been concentrating, at least all of us acting as ‘private detectives’, on church politics. What liberal might have hated and feared the idea of Dean Brading becoming a bishop, hated it so much that hatred turned to murder? What conservative might have seen that Brading’s rigid approach to the life of the Church would harm their cause, instead of enhancing it? What proponent of women’s consecration? What gay activist? Which one, from any of the many contentious groups, might have felt forced to
act in this terrible way?

  But maybe it had nothing to do with church politics. Maybe the vitriol of hatred was poured out on Andrew Brading the man, rather than Dean Brading the potential bishop.

  I mulled that over the whole way home.

  Alan had planned to come home today, too, but he wasn’t there when I got to the station, so I took a cab home. Jane would have been happy to pick me up, but she isn’t getting any younger, and I didn’t want to give her the trouble.

  Watson greeted me effusively, and the cats condescended to twine themselves around my ankles a bit. Cats are not, as some people think, indifferent to their humans. They love us, but in a less needy way than dogs. I do think a dog’s world is shattered when his people are away. And how, after all, can he know we’re coming back? We always have before, true, but I’m not sure a dog’s mind can remember that and draw the obvious conclusion. At any rate, for Watson it was Christmas and his birthday and all the happy times together, just because I was home. It was a heart-warming reception.

  I went over to Jane’s to thank her for looking after my babies, and, of course, she invited me to share her lunch. As we partook of homemade bread and chicken salad, we also shared what information we’d been able to amass. I related some of what I’d learned and then waited for her gleanings.

  Jane had been busy on the phone. She was a teacher for years, and as her students grew up and moved on, a lot of them kept in touch, so her network spread all over the country and as far as Australia and America and parts of Africa and Asia. She had, she said, placed a few calls and then let the network take over, passing on her inquiries to friends of friends of friends.

  ‘Most of it irrelevant,’ she went on. ‘Repetitive. Not a popular man.’

  ‘And that’s throwing roses at it,’ I said.

  ‘Mm. Heard he was thrown out of his first job.’

  ‘When he was curate? What do you mean “thrown out”? Did someone catch him being too friendly with the choir boys, or what?’

  ‘Never any rumour like that about him. Cold fish. Vicar decided he was no go as a priest, found him the school job.’

  ‘And I don’t understand that one, either. By all accounts, he hated children. Why send him to a prep school?’

  ‘Thirty years ago. Discipline still rigid. Brading good at discipline.’

  ‘I’ll just bet he was! So why did he decide to leave? Or was it not his decision?’

  ‘Something happened. Don’t know what. People are close-mouthed. Police need to dig there.’

  There was a sudden cacophony of barking, almost covering the voice behind me. ‘Where are the police supposed to dig?’

  ‘Alan!’ I didn’t jump up to greet him. A person of my years, with my joints, doesn’t jump. But I got to my feet as quickly as I could, and gave him a big hug. ‘It feels like years,’ I murmured in his ear. His only reply was an extra squeeze, which left me breathless and content.

  ‘Had lunch?’ asked Jane.

  ‘No, and breakfast was a long time ago. Thank you very much, Jane.’

  ‘Jane’s been regaling me with what she’s learned. So far, it seems nobody liked our dead dean very much.’

  ‘No. But mere dislike, even when raised to a pretty high pitch, is not usually a motive for murder. Not this sort of murder. Money, ambition, sex, revenge – those are the usual things that set people off.’

  ‘And the greatest of these is money.’

  Alan swallowed a mouthful of chicken salad and sighed. ‘Very often, yes. Tragically small amounts, sometimes. I was once in charge of a case where a woman murdered her elderly aunt for the sake of a fifty-pound legacy.’

  ‘Did Brading leave any money?’ I asked instantly.

  ‘The Gloucester people looked into that, of course. There wasn’t a lot, and it all went to his wife.’

  ‘Aha!’ I said, but without much conviction.

  ‘Your heart wasn’t in that, and for good reason. Mrs Brading is independently wealthy.’

  ‘Thought you knew that,’ said Jane reprovingly. ‘Common knowledge. Why he married her.’

  ‘I had been wondering about that. From all I’ve heard, he wasn’t much interested in women. Nor, I must add, in men, from a sexual standpoint at any rate.’

  ‘Cold fish,’ Jane repeated. ‘Knew he’d never make enough money as a priest to live decently. A scandal, what the Church pays its people. Had to marry money or take a different path in life.’

  ‘So the money angle is pretty well washed out.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Alan, you’d better finish your lunch. I have a story to tell, and it’s going to take away your appetite.’

  He ate rapidly while we let Jane finish her narrative. ‘Nothing much to tell. Same attitudes everywhere. Respected as a priest, but not as a man. Made no allowances. Follow the rules or else. Followed them himself, expected everyone else to do as he did.’

  ‘He followed all the rules, it seems to me, except one of the two most important ones,’ I said. ‘“Love thy neighbour as thyself.”’

  ‘Don’t think the man knew much about love. Old Testament all the way.’

  ‘You know, I’ll undoubtedly be barred from the Pearly Gates for saying so, but I’m so devoutly glad there is now no chance for that man to become our bishop. And honestly, Alan, saving your presence, but I still can’t imagine how he ever made it to the shortlist.’

  Alan downed a last bit of bread and sat back. ‘Political pressure. There was enough opposition that I’m quite sure he wouldn’t have been selected in the end. You know I can’t tell you what went on in the meetings, but I think I’m allowed to say that Dean Brading was controversial. To say the least. But you said you had a story to tell.’

  ‘Yes, and if the dean had lived, I would hope that someone would have told it to the world. They might not have, though, out of respect for the victim’s feelings. Although he might never have known, poor man.’ I told them about the Worthman family, as briefly and unemotionally as I could manage it.

  ‘Whew!’ said Alan when I’d finished. ‘It’s almost unbelievable that the man could have been that callous. I have every sympathy for the husband and father involved. To lose them both, and in such a terrible way … I’ll have to call Derek, though, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I do know. The Gloucestershire police will have to check it out. Maybe they can get the man into rehab and dry him out, though I’m not sure that’s what he wants.’

  ‘Probably not. He wants oblivion, permanently.’

  Jane spoke for the first time. ‘Heard the story, not all the details. Vile. Used to be a good man. Knew his mother. Gone now, thank God.’ She wiped away a tear, and then glared at us, daring us to notice her shocking surrender to sentimentality.

  ‘Anyway, Alan, that absolutely hateful story got me to thinking. What if we’re looking in the wrong direction? What if Brading’s murder has nothing to do with his being named as a candidate for bishop? What if it’s a purely personal motive, like David Worthman’s? He couldn’t act on his hatred, unless everyone who knows him is wrong about his perpetual drunkenness. But what if there’s someone else who could – and did?’

  Alan sighed mightily. ‘You just widened the scope of the investigation by several thousand possible suspects, you realize.’

  ‘Almost everyone who’s ever known the man, in short. Yes, I know. But maybe Jonathan or Walter will have come up with something. Has anyone heard from them?’

  ‘Home tomorrow,’ said Jane. ‘Coming here first, maybe even tonight if traffic isn’t too bad.’

  ‘Good. Shall we convene tomorrow for breakfast? Our house this time; Alan scrambles a mean egg.’

  Next morning, I woke up early, to Watson’s great delight, and took him for a long walk. I was hungry for the sights and sounds of my adopted home. If anything, I love England more than ever, now that I’m a part of it. I have friends and family, cats and a dog, a husband I adore, and a seventeenth-century house which requires constant maintenance, constant care, and which I love almost
as much as I love Alan. I’ll never quite belong here in the same way that Alan does. My ancestors are buried thousands of miles away, not here in some country churchyard that’s existed for half a millennium, at least. I don’t quite speak the language; Americanisms still creep in, and now and then I’m baffled by some English expression. I still look American, somehow, and everyone I meet seems to know my origins, even though when my American friends visit here they all say I talk exactly like an Englishwoman.

  But there is something deep within me that responds to the English air, the English way of doing things, the very colour of the sky and shape of the clouds. This, in some indefinable way, has always been my home, was my home before I was born. This is my place.

  Watson and I came home across the Close, and there stood the Cathedral, the great, looming grey presence that has become another member of my family, a benevolent great-grandfather, perhaps – still, silent, watchful, protective. There were, in World War Two, brigades of men ready around the clock to protect the Cathedral from enemy action. They would have died to save it. As I stood gazing up at the far pinnacles, I thought I, too, would be ready to die for it.

  Watson gave his head a shake to rattle his collar and tags, and remind me it was breakfast time. ‘Yes, mutt, you’re very good at bringing me down to earth, aren’t you?’

  He trotted ahead, lest I had forgotten where his food bowl was.

  Passing through the gate into our street, I saw two vehicles parked inches from each other. One was Bob Finch’s disreputable old truck, falling apart but still serviceable for carrying garden tools. I could hear Bob whistling tunelessly as he worked in my back garden. The other, squeezed between Bob’s car and the gate, was a highly polished, sleek Jaguar that had to be Jonathan’s.

  Lovely! They were here!

  Watson was waiting impatiently by the front door, so I let him in and followed him to the voices in the kitchen.