An Unsuitable Death

by J M Gregson

  “No. I didn’t go back there. The last time I was in the flat was the time I’ve just told you about.” His face had the blankness of a stubborn child’s, desperately wanting to be believed, repeating statements with a blind persistence.

  “You had ample time to go back there in the late evening, after your choir rehearsal in the Cathedral was over. It would have been quiet then, with very little chance of anyone seeing you enter or leave. And a light in the place would have excited no suspicion at ten o’clock in the evening.”

  “No. I went straight home after we’d finished.”

  “Without any further attempt to contact the girl you’d so wanted to see earlier in the evening? Without any further attempt to resolve the dispute you admitted having with her on your last meeting?”

  “No. No, I didn’t go back. And I’ll tell you why. She’d have been high on heroin by that time of the night, particularly if she’d been out. There was no talking to her after a fix.” He was trying desperately to convince them, and now his dejection lifted as an escape route suggested itself. “Look: you found a picture of me there, didn’t you? If I’d been back and cleared away evidence of my presence, I’d have taken that away, wouldn’t I?”

  Lambert smiled. He had considered the matter of that highly theatrical profile picture of the man before him. “You might perhaps have removed it, yes. If you had given the matter any thought, you would have left it. We were always going to find out about a regular boyfriend, who was hoping to marry our murder victim, weren’t we? To find not a single trace of you in that flat would in fact have been highly suspicious. I may say that the only one we did find was that single photograph.”

  Tom revolved this, wanting to ridicule their thinking, finding after all that he could not refute the logic. He repeated miserably, “I didn’t go back there again after seven fifteen on that Wednesday.”

  “Very well. Tell us what happened after the rehearsal.”

  His face brightened as he thought about it. There was someone who could corroborate his account of at least this part of the night. “I helped a disabled girl out to her car. We have two or three disabled people who sing in the choir. This one is a soprano. She has to sit at the front because she has a wheelchair. Her sister is a choir member too. I helped her to get Debbie out to her car. It was parked next to mine, as near to the rear entrance as they could get it. The Cathedral staff leave a ramp to get over the step at that St John’s door at the rear of the Cathedral, so it’s easy enough to get the chair in and out, but I was useful in helping to get Debbie into the passenger seat of her sister’s car.”

  They sensed his relief as he piled detail upon innocent detail. Lambert said, “And after this?”

  “Well, I saw Debbie and her sister out of the car park. Then I drove home myself.”

  “You didn’t go anywhere else? See anyone else, so that we can confirm your movements after you left the Cathedral?”

  “No.” His face was full of apprehension again, as he realised that what he had said about the disabled girl covered him for no more than a few minutes after the rehearsal. “What I told you on Saturday about what I’d been doing earlier in the day is true. I’d been decorating all day and I was knackered. Then we’d had a long rehearsal in the Cathedral and I was pretty well all in. In the ordinary way, I might have gone for a drink with a couple of other members of the choir, but I was exhausted. I drove straight home.”

  “Where you arrived about what time?”

  “I couldn’t be exact. I should think about ten fifteen.”

  “And is there anyone who can confirm this?”

  “No. Again, I think I mentioned on Saturday that Wednesday is my mother’s yoga class night. After I’d spoken to you on Saturday and foolishly told you that I was at home that night, I — I actually asked Mum to tell you that she phoned me at home during the evening, but she didn’t do that of course, because I was at the rehearsal in the Cathedral.”

  “Well, your mother wasn’t called upon to lie for you, because we found where you were from another source. What time did she come home on that Wednesday night?”

  “She usually goes for a drink after her yoga with a couple of her friends. She wasn’t in until after eleven.”

  “Unfortunately for you. Or fortunately, if you are still choosing to lie to us about your movements.”

  “I’m not. I want you to find out who killed Tamsin.”

  “And have you any idea who that might be?”

  “No. None at all.”

  “Then please go away and think about it. If you remember anything you think might be significant, however tiny or peripheral you think it, get in touch with us immediately. And don’t leave the area without letting us know.”

  Tom Clarke found his hands trembling on the steering wheel of the red Fiesta as he drove it with exaggerated care out of the police car park at Oldford. He took the quiet way back to his home, through the country lanes of Gloucester and Hereford. When he had gone no more than two miles, he pulled off the road. For a moment, he stared across the golden stubble of the cornfields to the green hills beyond them.

  Then he put his face into his hands and wept uncontrollably.

  Seventeen

  Lambert, Rushton and Hook held a council of war late on the morning of that Thursday. It was over a week now since the body had been discovered. The press officer, under siege from hungry journalists now that the Sacristan had been arrested fifty miles to the north, was pressing them for news. They had learned much, but could not tell him that they were yet near to an arrest.

  It was DI Rushton who was responsible for the correlation of information assembled from the team of thirty working on the case. “We’ve now got the forensic report to add to the post-mortem findings,” he said. “It came in while you were talking to young Clarke, but it doesn’t add a lot to what we already know. She ate fish and chips sixty to ninety minutes before death, but we’re not sure of the precise time when that meal was taken: heroin addicts are notoriously random in their eating habits.

  “No one saw her buying the food, nor has anyone so far admitted to seeing Tamsin Rennie on the day of her death, but everything points to the time of death as being some time in the early evening. As the body was not found until the next morning, we have to presume that no one could have deposited it in the Lady Chapel until after the Cathedral was officially closed on that Wednesday night. It would have been too risky, with members of the public still around. That in turn means that as the rest of the doors were closed, either the living Tamsin Rennie must have been taken in by the St John’s door entrance and strangled in the Chapel, or her body must have been taken through that door, perhaps whilst the rehearsal was in progress.”

  “Have forensic come up with anything from what the Scene of Crime team passed to them?”

  “Not much that’s useful. Their negative findings confirm that someone had cleaned the flat through very thoroughly in the period between the girl’s death and the SOC team getting in there late on Friday afternoon. Even the chairs and upholstery had been vacuumed carefully, probably with a Dyson cleaner, they reckon.”

  Lambert smiled grimly. The more efficient cleaning tools became, the more was removed that might have been useful to CID. “What did Mrs King, the landlady, have to offer on that?”

  Rushton shrugged. He had not met that contained and enigmatic lady, but he had heard much about her from the team. “She confirmed that neither she nor the cleaner she employs had been into the place before Jack Johnson and his team.”

  “And I suppose the refuse lorry had been round as usual at the wrong time for us.”

  It was Rushton’s turn to smile. “No. They collect from Rosamund Street on Mondays. Our lads took away all the rubbish for forensic to examine. There were ten bags in all from the various residents. Must have given someone a lovely time. But they say this morning that they are satisfied that none of them contained carpet fibres or other materials matching those found in the basement flat.”
/>
  So whoever had left Tamsin Rennie’s rooms so clinically tidy and unrevealing had taken the detritus with them; it was no doubt hidden ever under tons of rubbish at some council tip by now. But you would have expected no less of the man who had gone to such lengths to perpetrate his elaborate imitation of the Sacristan’s work. A methodical killer, this. Or killers: the unwelcome prospect of a conspiracy to defeat detection was looking a little more likely.

  “Do forensic think she was killed in the Cathedral?”

  “They’ve nothing to add to the PM report, really. No sign of murder in the flat, just as there was nothing positive in the Cathedral. But then, what would there be? No blood from a strangling, and if she was held against the floor or a chair, any fibres have been removed by our anonymous cleaner. Whoever killed her wore gloves, probably of the thick leather gardening sort, readily available from any high street store.”

  “So we’re still not sure exactly where she died. The likeliest place would be in the Cathedral, assuming someone could get her there without her suspecting anything.”

  “Tom Clarke? He’s the boyfriend, after all. And we now know he was in the Cathedral that night.”

  Lambert nodded. “And he concealed that from us. But it’s not conclusive. James Whittaker was also near the Cathedral at the time of her death, and he could have suggested a perfectly plausible reason why she should meet him there.”

  Rushton said reluctantly, “Does that let out the Rennies? A right pair of weirdos they are. Either of them could have done it, if you ask me.”

  “We shall, in a minute, Chris. Let’s just spend a moment longer on the place of death. If we could put it definitely in the Cathedral, it would be a help.”

  Rushton shook his head. “I don’t think we can, Chief. The only significant marks on the body are bruises on the back, just behind each armpit. Commensurate with the body having been lifted and moved shortly after death, the report says. It could be that someone killed her elsewhere, then put her in the boot of a car, then lugged her from there into the Cathedral via the St John’s door at the rear and dumped her in the Lady Chapel.”

  “He’d be taking a hell of a risk of being seen, though, lugging a body about like that. Unless there was some other way of getting the body into the place, it looks much more likely that she was lured there alive and killed in an empty Lady Chapel. Don’t forget she was arranged on the top step of the altar like an effigy on one of those medieval tombs, so she’d have been dragged into the right position for that little scene. The bruising behind the armpits could have been from that.”

  They were silent for a moment, picturing that disquieting scene in the dark and deserted Lady Chapel, each with his own figure in the role of the perpetrator of that macabre tableau. Then Lambert said,

  “Right, Chris, the Rennies. You haven’t reported yet on your attendance at their meeting last night.”

  “Right pair of weirdos, as I said! Wouldn’t like either of them as a next-door neighbour. Still less as a parent.”

  “Crooks?”

  “He is, certainly. He’s taking gullible people for a ride, milking them for all they’ve got. My impression is that he’ll move on swiftly when he’s got all the major pickings from Hereford, just as he did from Sussex, and look for a new group of victims waiting to be plucked.”

  “Right. So we’re fully convinced that he’s not a genuine Christian revivalist, just working up his fervour from a real belief in a creed.”

  “Absolutely convinced. Oh, he’s clever all right: it was an education to see him in action. I’ve met a few successful con men, but they’ve mainly been transparent liars, effective only in a one-to-one situation with people who want to believe them. Rennie was a clean-cut, impressive figure, manipulating an audience, using the euphoria of the group to carry him forward. He worked up their zeal, then rode it like a surfer on his board. And he made his pitch for their money expertly and at exactly the right moment.” Rushton sounded almost enthusiastic in his recognition of skills which were so far from his own.

  “Was there no one else there who saw through him?”

  Rushton shrugged. “Most of them had come in search of a Christian message. They were anxious to put some kind of worship back into their lives. Arthur Rennie made it seem simple, made the issues seem clear-cut and unarguable. There may have been one or two who weren’t convinced, but if there were, they went away without speaking up. Apart from one lad, who’d had some previous experience of his methods.”

  “He challenged him?”

  “Yes. But Rennie must have met the same kind of thing before. He was ready for it, handled the lad with the same expertise he used in the rest of the meeting. Turned the feeling of his audience against his opponent, in fact.”

  “Did you manage to speak to this chap afterwards?”

  “No. He stormed out in the middle of the meeting, when he found he was losing his battle. I couldn’t speak to him without drawing attention to myself. But I managed to get a note into his bag as he left. I’m hoping he might contact me.”

  Lambert looked at Hook. “You see, Bert? We sent the right man. Born undercover man, Chris is. You or I would never have shown such initiative.”

  Rushton was never happy when these two old sweats began to have fun at his expense. He suspected that that was exactly what was going on here, but he couldn’t put his finger on the right phrase to challenge. He said hurriedly, “Anyway, I didn’t like Arthur Rennie at all. Be nice if we could nail him with taking money under false pretences.”

  “It would indeed, and hopefully we shall, especially if his victim reads his note and contacts you. However, it wouldn’t make him a murderer, would it? Would you have him in the frame for his stepdaughter?”

  Rushton frowned. “I’d like to. Having seen him in action, having watched the way he handled the one person who challenged him in public, I think he’s pretty ruthless. If his stepdaughter was threatening to blow the gaff on him to the people whose money he’d been taking, he might just have seen her off.”

  Hook said, “Her challenge to him might have been even more direct. Perhaps she was just threatening to tell that strange mother of hers that her husband had been climbing into bed with her, had been visiting her in Rosamund Street for that specific purpose, in fact. Sarah Rennie’s a fierce, passionate creature. I wouldn’t like to be in Arthur’s shoes if she found out about that.”

  Lambert nodded. “She’s certainly that. Do you think she’s as cynical as Arthur Rennie about exploiting people’s faith?”

  “No.” Rushton was surprised how promptly and certainly he had replied. “My impression last night was that she seems passionately in love with Arthur, and that she’s a genuine zealot, carried away with the message of the Lord. A bizarre and pitiless Lord, in her case, but one she genuinely believes in. She was supporting her husband all night, doing the thankless things like starting the responses and rattling the collection plate, but I thought her loyalty came from a genuine conviction, not greed. That made her more frightening, really.”

  Lambert glanced at Hook, found him nodding agreement. “I think we would concur with that. The way she spoke about her daughter, her total lack of any sympathy and determination not to forgive her, were frightening, but we thought genuine. She’s a fanatic, to the point of being unbalanced. I think all three of us have met fanatics who’ve become psychopaths. Having seen her, we’re all convinced that she could have killed her own daughter, if she thought the girl was jeopardising the work of evangelism; perhaps on her own initiative, perhaps in association with her husband.”

  Rushton nodded slowly. “I hope it’s one of the Rennies. They made my flesh creep last night. To be honest, I hope it’s Arthur. If it’s his wife, it will be because she’s unbalanced, because she’s lost all sense of reality. Then we’ll have a sensational court case, the trick-cyclists will get busy, and dear Sarah will be deemed unfit to plead.”

  “Possibly, if she operated on her own. If Arthur Rennie’s involved,
we’ll get him and make it stick.”

  Hook, despite sharing their views on the astounding Sarah Rennie, was still appalled at the thought of a mother killing a daughter, possibly because a mother had taken no part in his own upbringing. He said, “As far as we know, neither of them was near the Cathedral or Rosamund Street on the night when Tamsin was killed.”

  Lambert said slowly, “No, we don’t. But they’re each other’s alibi. They say they were quietly at home that night, watching television. Arthur Rennie even volunteered details of the programmes, without being asked. Whatever we think, the husband-wife alliance is always the most difficult alibi to break. But it shouldn’t prevent us from keeping them in the frame, in our own minds.”

  Rushton said, “What did you think of Councillor and mayor-to-be James Whittaker? He was very nervous when he signed his statement for me. But he’s got every reason to be worried. The press boys are getting ready to go to town on him. His association with that girl is going to break his career in local politics, even if he didn’t kill her.”

  Hook said, “Even with that at stake, I doubt whether he’d kill her. He seemed a fundamentally decent man, who’d got himself into a hopeless situation.” Hook felt the conviction draining from his voice with the weakness of that argument.

  Lambert said, “I’ve known more than one murderer who struck me as a decent man unable to handle desperate circumstances, Bert. People who’ve never been in trouble before don’t know how to cope. They lose their sense of perspective and do stupid things. And even by his own account James Whittaker felt that he had more at stake than power and prestige as a local bigwig. He thought he was in love with Tamsin Rennie. He wanted to rescue her from the life she was leading. She turned him down. He had frustrated passion as well as his local standing as a motive.”

  Hook said, almost as though he was dragging forth the words unwillingly, “He could have got her to meet him behind the Cathedral — promised her a large sum of money, for instance. Then he could have taken her in through that door left open for the choir members and taken her into the Lady Chapel for the exchange. Killed her there, and then simply gone on his way to his meeting, which was to be his alibi for the evening.”