Holy Murder

by Rodney Hobson

  “We abandoned our post as soon as we were sure she was safe, which was only a matter of seconds, but enough to nearly deafen us for life. Then we scrambled down the steps. Near the bottom we collided with Dr Austin and Simeon Knowles, who had started to make the ascent but turned back when the bells started ringing. Knowles was the next one due to make the drop.”

  “How long were you down in the church before you went back up again?”

  Gail Westerham thought for a long time.

  “Do you know,” she finally replied, “I’m really not sure. I didn’t look at my watch before we were disturbed because you have to concentrate on what you are doing – and you get a bit carried away with the excitement, even after all the years I have been doing it. Boston Stump was our crowning moment.

  “There was all the palaver about getting the bell ringing stopped. I don’t really know how long it all took. Probably about a quarter of an hour, maybe a bit less. I did look at my watch when we got back to the top and reckoned we were running a good 20 to 25 minutes behind schedule at that point. But of course we also lost time on the stairs.”

  “Did you and the others stay in a group with Simeon Knowles?”

  “Yes … no … well, sort of,” came the uncertain reply from Westerham. “We did and we didn’t, if you see what I mean.”

  Amos’s faced indicated that he didn’t see what she meant and the club leader attempted to explain: “We were sort of in a group but we didn’t stick together all the time. We were talking to the church warden to find out what was going on and then one of the bell ringers came in so we weren’t all together in a huddle all the time.

  “Also we had to move at one point because we were blocking the entrance and exit to the church and there were visitors coming and going. Some of our equipment was in the way so we had to shift to one side to let people through.

  “And a few tourists came up to ask us what was happening and whether we’d finished the abseiling. There was an American family who were very interested, heaven knows why.

  “God, what a mess,” she said suddenly and vehemently. “Simeon was such a good man. He’d help anyone in need and always stepped forward if you needed a volunteer.”

  “Presumably at some point the bells stopped ringing,” Amos interposed swiftly, not wishing to allow Gail Westerham to lose her focus on the events leading up to the misadventure.

  “Yes, the churchwarden scurried off to deal with it and then he and one of the bell-ringers came through and apologised. That’s when we went back up the Stump.”

  “Who went back up?”

  “Me, Mike Tate, Dr Austin and Simeon.”

  “Did you all go up together?” Amos asked.

  “Yes, pretty much. We had to go in single file. I went first and the others followed. I can’t say we all stuck together all the way up but we didn’t rush and there wasn’t much between us at the top. Lesley – that’s Dr Austin – gave Simeon a quick check over, then he got onto the parapet round the walkway and leaned backwards. That’s when it happened.”

  Gail Westerham, who had been quite calm and composed up to this point, suddenly broke down and buried her face in her hands.

  Amos spoke to her gently: “Please take your time to recover. I shan’t need to talk to you again today. I believe that the Boston police noted your address.”

  Westerham nodded passively and Amos stepped back to see how Swift had fared.

  Chapter 5

  Detective Sergeant Juliet Swift had not emerged from the vestry by the time that Paul Amos had completed his interview with Gail Westerham, nor was there any sign of Mike Tate, Westerham’s number two. Perhaps Swift was making progress.

  Best not to interrupt them, Amos thought. Instead he found Dr Lesley Austin, the doctor who had been with Simeon Knowles in the minutes leading up to his demise.

  Dr Austin was in her forties, short haired and bespectacled, about 5 feet 8 inches tall and slightly built. Her medicine bag was at her feet in the front pew. She, more than Gail Westerham, seemed to have recovered her composure quite quickly.

  “I’ve seen death before,” she explained to Amos. “Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

  “Why were you here?” Amos asked. “Was it just to take part or were you in the church on duty as a doctor?”

  “Both, inspector,” Austin replied smoothly. “I am a keen abseiler myself, medical commitments permitting, and since we usually turn out at weekends when the surgery is closed, that means pretty much whenever I feel like it, which is quite often.”

  “Did you abseil down the Stump?”

  “Yes, I went first. I always do whenever we allow members of the public to take part in a charity event like this one. I check all the participants before they make their ascent for blood pressure and to see if they are generally in good shape. We don’t want anyone having a heart attack half way up or down.”

  Amos eyed her to see if this was an attempt at black humour. Dr Austin stared back coldly.

  “And what shape was Simeon Knowles in?”

  “Pretty good for his age, actually,” Dr Austin pronounced. “Blood pressure just a little high before we went up the second time, hardly surprising given that we were half way up the Stump when those lunatics started ringing those bloody bells and we had to come back down and start up all over again when someone had shut them up.

  “He was fine when I checked him before we set off the first time. Perfectly normal. He was obviously pretty fit. Breathing absolutely normal. Second time his blood pressure was up a little and his breathing was slightly faster but nothing out of the ordinary. Ditto at the top, but again well within the bounds of tolerance. He would have had no difficulty coming down.”

  “So you were with him at the bottom and then you walked up to the top with him?” Amos asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “You must be pretty fit yourself. Surely you didn’t walk up and down with every person taking part. How many people were there scheduled to make the descent?”

  “About 20,” Dr Austin said, after a moment’s mental reckoning. “We usually allow more if it’s an ordinary church tower – in fact as many as want the thrill of risking their necks. But with this being such a steep climb up and a long drop we restricted the numbers and vetted the applicants. I can’t be sure how many were going to do it because there’s always one or two who chicken out, especially from such a height.”

  “Did anyone chicken out?” Amos asked.

  “We’ll never know,” Austin replied. “It was too early in the day. I’d done the descent and so had Gail and a couple of our own members. Simeon Knowles was fifth in line and the first non-member to make the descent.”

  “Was that deliberate? Had he asked to go sooner rather than later? How was the running order selected?”

  “He’d put his name down first when we opened up the list. It was typical of him to lead the way. He was very keen to show he wasn’t an old fogey. He’s well known in the fens for his voluntary work and raising money for good causes. A great many people have reason to be grateful to him, here and abroad.”

  “In what way?” Amos asked, his curiosity aroused.

  “They say charity begins at home,” Austin replied. “Simeon Knowles believed it began – and continued and never ended – at home and abroad. He’s given financial support to a lot of struggling farmers in this area, and I mean really struggling. And he’s also supported collections for orphanages in Eastern Europe where kids have been abandoned after the collapse of the Soviet Empire. So it was typical of him to be first to step forward when we decided to abseil down the Stump to raise funds for its restoration.”

  “Who approached him to take part? Or did he come to the club? Did he say how he had heard about it?”

  “I approached him,” Austin said in a matter of fact tone. “I knew he’d be keen and it got the list started. He knows people in the local press so he got us good publicity in the Boston edition of the Standard. Hence the big turnout of spectators. All dow
n to him.”

  “Who, if anyone, checked his safety harness? I assume it was checked?”

  Austin bridled a little at the implication that the abseiling club’s negligence could have led to Knowles’s demise.

  “Of course it was checked,” she countered sharply. “I was responsible for seeing that everything was in order – and it was. As a matter of fact,” she went on, “it was the same harness that I had used, so I knew it was OK.”

  “Perhaps, then, you didn’t check it as rigorously as you might have done,” Amos persisted. “Perhaps you assumed it was all right because you yourself had used it without incident already.”

  Austin was now getting really hot under the collar at the clear pointing of the finger of guilt.

  “How dare you,” she responded angrily, rising to her feet. “I checked the harness properly and carefully. It was in perfect order.”

  The words came out slowly, deliberately, forcefully.

  Amos backed down in the face of the vocal gale.

  “Please understand, Dr Austin,” he said quietly, “I must explore all avenues and grasp precisely what happened. I have to ascertain whether this was an unfortunate mishap caused by faulty equipment or human error, or if something deliberate happened here today. If it was human error it is better to establish that now rather than later.”

  Austin stood for a few moments before deciding that she had made her point. She subsided back into the pew.

  “At what point did you check the harness? Was it before the first ascent, before the second, or at the top?”

  “Simeon put the harness on at the bottom. It was something he wanted to do so that everyone could see the event was taking place. I checked the equipment at that point and it was fine. I didn’t check it again as it didn’t occur to me that there was any need to do so.”

  “I gather a lot of people were milling about after you were forced out of the tower by the bell ringing. Who could have got at the harness in the meantime before you went back up?”

  “Well I was there, obviously,” Austin said thoughtfully. “Gail Westerham and Mike Tate from the club – they were the ones on duty at the top. They came down when that racket began, but I don’t think they knew Simeon particularly. I can’t see why they would want to harm him.

  “There was someone from the church fussing round but he went off to find the bell-ringers. Then one of the ringers came out. But there were loads of other people. Two or three other church officials, I think, spectators and tourists. The place was quite crowded. Oh, and there was a family of American tourists.

  “When we went up the second time there were a few waifs and strays on the stairs who shouldn’t have been there but they got through in the confusion. We had to push past them pretty closely and send them back down.

  “Quite frankly, a lot of people had the opportunity to tamper with the harness, though whoever it was needed to know what they were doing. It had to be effective but not readily obvious otherwise we would have spotted it at the top of the Stump when the line was attached.”

  “Who was at the top? And would they have rechecked the harness?”

  “Gail and Mike. No, their role was to make sure the rope was properly attached to the harness. In any case, I went up with Simeon as an extra precaution because of his age so if anyone had rechecked the harness it would have been me.”

  “But you didn’t. Recheck it, that is?”

  “There was no reason to. I didn’t know someone had tampered with it in all the confusion.”

  Amos thought for a few moments. Then he asked suddenly: “You wore the same harness? Is there any possibility that it was tampered with before you wore it? Could someone have attempted to kill you, not Simeon Knowles? You don’t weigh as much as he did so it might have just held.”

  Austin laughed. “Not a chance. Gail and Mike both checked it after I put it on. We were up on the walkway at the time so no-one had a chance to tamper with it after that.”

  “But Gail and Mike both had the opportunity?”

  “Take my word for it, they couldn’t have touched it without the other seeing. “

  “It seems to me,” Amos said warily, expecting an explosion, “that you were the one person with the best opportunity of deliberately killing Simeon Knowles.”

  “I’m sure that’s right,” Austin replied calmly. “If I were in your shoes I’d put me at the top of the suspect list. Well, you know where to find me,” she added, “at least on weekdays. I’ll be at my surgery.”

  Chapter 6

  Amos was more than half way through his interview with Dr Austin by the time his detective sergeant Juliet Swift emerged from the vestry with a clearly distressed Mike Tate.

  Swift hesitated for a few moments after passing Tate into the comforting arms of a woman and teenage girl, before taking a church official through to the vestry. She glanced towards Amos but, seeing him still engrossed with the doctor, decided to plough on with the next interview.

  It was now Amos’s turn to come clear and he looked round. The church was beginning to thin out as the Boston team worked their way efficiently through the crowd and ushered out the least likely prospects. Some visitors, relishing their moment at the heart of the action, were departing reluctantly.

  Amos wandered up to Detective Sergeant Gerry Burnside.

  “We’re getting through pretty well,” Burnside said. “It’s much the same story as far as I can gather. Some people were here for the abseiling, but mostly it was tourists. Those who wanted to see the descent would be outside across the river. Either way, they all say there was a commotion soon after the bells started pealing, a lot of shouting and arguing.

  “Then the bells stopped and a man came through fussing and all apologetic – he’s the chief bell-ringer, although most people didn’t know that, not being parishioners here. He came over to the group near the entrance to the Stump and there was a lot of fussing about, arguing and apologising loudly.

  “Not everybody’s story is identical because people were in different parts of the church and didn’t see it all, but it all gels.”

  “Thanks, Gerry,” Amos said. “Good result for Boston United yesterday, by the way. I’ll take the chief bell-ringer if you and your team could take the other campanologists.”

  “Fine. Yes, they struggle a bit away from home. Haven’t managed to come from behind to win all season. We’ve actually started on a couple of bell-ringers but we thought you’d want the guy in charge as he was the only one of them who came down into the church as far as we can see.”

  The chief bell-ringer gave his name as Herbert Townsend – Townsend without an H, he stressed. Townsend was a fussy little man, short and stout with muscular arms, which Amos could see protruding from a short sleeved shirt.

  “I can’t believe this has happened in a place of God,” he blurted out, wringing his hands. “This, a place of sanctuary. How could God allow such a terrible accident to happen, here of all places?”

  “How indeed,” Amos observed dryly, hoping to stem the pointless lamentations.

  Townsend, however, pressed on undeterred.

  “Boston Stump has stood through the ages as a beacon to sailors, a refuge from pirates, a gathering place for those fleeing from persecution to seek a new life in America ...”

  This rewriting of history was more than Amos could stomach.

  “I think you’ll find it was establishments like this that were doing the persecuting,” he said curtly. “However, shall we get back to the matter in hand?”

  The rebuke stunned Townsend, who sat sulkily.

  “Did you arrive at the church before or after the abseiling started?”

  “Before.”

  “Did you speak to anyone?”

  “Yes.”

  Amos rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, seeking patience rather than God.

  “Shall we try to be cooperative and get this over with, Mr Townsend?” he asked sharply. “When did you arrive and what happened. In your own words.”
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  “I got here about quarter to 10,” Townsend replied, with the bad grace of a schoolboy who has been chastised in front of the class. “I spoke to Dr Austin and watched the abseilers sorting their stuff out. When the first group set off up the tower I wandered through to the belfry to wait for the other bell-ringers.”

  “Did you notice anybody acting suspiciously?”

  “Not really. Mind you, there was hardly anyone around at that time. In fact, I was rather surprised when I came out later – when there was all the commotion about the bell ringing – to see so many people milling about. There were a lot more people than usual for a Saturday morning.”

  “Was it normal to ring the bells on a Saturday morning? Was this bell practice?” Amos asked.

  “Good Lord, no,” Townsend replied, in a tone that suggested everyone should know when and where church bells were rung. “Not unless there was a wedding and they were willing to pay for us. We have our own lives to lead, you know.”

  “Then why were you there?”

  “Dr Austin asked us to.”

  Amos stared at the chief bell-ringer in blank amazement.

  “Dr Austin asked you to ring the bells?” he asked incredulously. “Dr Austin? Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m bloody sure,” Townsend spat out, the frustration of being seen as the bad guy who disrupted the big event of the day finally getting the better of him. “I’m so sorry, I’m terribly sorry,” he gabbled all flustered. “I really didn’t mean to say that. Especially in the House of God. May God forgive me,” he added looking to the ceiling, which seemed at that moment to stretch back to the start of time, square upon square for the length of flat ceiling above the main body of the church then down into the arched chancel. “Please forgive me.”

  Amos was not sure if he or God was the intended recipient of this last plea but judged it best not to enquire. Instead, he spoke soothingly: “I quite understand, Mr Townsend, that this has been a very trying experience for everyone who was here at the time and that this must have been a terrible shock. But I do need to ask you when Dr Austin suggested the peal of bells and if she gave any reason why.”