Death on Lindisfarne

by Fay Sampson

  “Then the Romans sprang their trap. Since Bishop Agilbert struggled to speak English, Wilfrid would present their case. And Wilfrid was a passionate and clever orator. He ran rings round Colman. He baffled him with computations of the calendar that fixed the date of Easter. He derided Iona as a tiny island on the outermost edge of the world. He even poured scorn on the revered St Columba, whom the Celtic Christians held to be next to Christ. Poor old Colman was left shocked and speechless. Then Wilfrid played his trump card. Was it true, he asked Colman, that Jesus had entrusted to St Peter the keys of heaven? Honest scholar that he was, Colman could only say yes. Wilfrid appealed to the king.”

  Lucy’s blue eyes held her audience.

  “Remember, King Oswy of Northumbria had much on his conscience. There was that matter of the murder of a rival king that had caused St Aidan to fast to death outside his fortress. He saw himself as a sinner, approaching the gates of heaven and pleading with St Peter for admission. He made his choice. ‘If St Peter holds the keys to heaven, then who am I to go against his Church?’ The king ruled that henceforth the whole of Northumbria should go over to the authority of Rome.

  “It was the death knell for women like Hild. No longer would spiritual leadership be in the hands of the abbeys. From now on, it would be the bishops who led the church. And bishops could only be male. Abbesses continued to attend councils, but no longer with the authority they had had. In time, they were pushed back behind convent walls, no longer out in the world influencing kings and peasants alike, the way they had done. At the Synod of Whitby, uniformity and male hierarchy won.”

  “And so it should.” James’s self-righteous voice cut across the room.

  Lucy’s phone rang. “Sorry!” She started guiltily. “I meant to turn it off.” She snapped the button without looking at the screen. “Right. Any questions?”

  Aidan watched the smile of triumph with which James was gazing at her. As though he had her where he wanted her. How far was he prepared to take male power?

  The discussion ended.

  “Before we leave for the Lindisfarne Centre, folks, I want to give you time to look at the books and artefacts here. It’s a far better collection than the few things I brought for you to see at St Colman’s House.” Lucy gestured at the displays around them.

  Aidan saw her slip her mobile out of her pocket and switch it on.

  There was a general movement, as people rose from their seats and moved forward. Aidan found himself less concerned with the exhibitions of the Celtic Church than with the faces and body language of the people crowding the room. He moved deliberately to stand between James and Lucy. He knew he was being foolish. Whoever was threatening her would surely not do anything in a room full of people. On Lucy’s other side, Valerie was talking to her. The tall figure of the older woman stooped forward over the minister’s smaller body. She was asking something about King Oswy’s baby daughter, who had been given to Hild’s abbey at Whitby in fulfilment of his vow.

  Nothing to worry about there, he told himself. Valerie had always seemed to be on Lucy’s side.

  Aidan turned away, his eye caught by a display of photographs of Holy Island. His eyes widened in admiration. Whoever had taken these pictures had captured the subtleties of colour in the flats of mud and sand at low tide. There was another of an oystercatcher with pink legs leaving a track of wedge-shaped prints across the beach, like Babylonian cuneiform. A haze of sea pinks turned the salt marshes into a rosy mist.

  He heard Melangell’s clear voice rise above the subdued murmur of voices. “They’ve got Mummy’s book about St Chad.”

  Lucy swung round. “Yes. He was one of the first English boys at St Aidan’s school on Holy Island. He went south to Lichfield, when one of King Oswy’s daughters married the Prince of Mercia. Together, they brought Christianity to the Midlands.”

  Melangell was holding the little book with Aidan’s photograph of Chad’s hermitage beside the lake at Lichfield on the cover.

  “This was the last book Mummy wrote before she died.”

  The room fell still. Appalled, Aidan realized that everyone was looking from Melangell to him. He wished himself anywhere but here, under the unbearable gaze of so much sympathy.

  Lucy turned to face him. She was so close their arms were touching. He saw two spots of colour burn on her cheekbones. There was the shock of guilt in her blue eyes.

  “Aidan!” It was almost a whisper. “I didn’t realize. I’m so sorry! I thought from the way you spoke…”

  “That we were separated,” he muttered. His face felt stiff with an illogical anger. “I meant you to. I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  He felt her eyes read his face. She was too close, but he couldn’t move away. The ample figure of Sue was close behind him, hemming him in.

  Lucy’s phone rang again. For a second more, her gaze held his. Then she extricated herself from the crowd and moved away to the door. She was lifting the phone to her ear as she left the sitting room for the quieter hall.

  He was left with the rest of them, the murmured awkward condolences he could not bear. He longed to flee the room, to find the quiet outside, an empty beach.

  He had only taken a step towards the door when Lucy reappeared. One look at her told him that something had happened. She was tense, her face alive with something between agitation and elation.

  Her voice rang out across the room. “Folks, I’m sorry. There’s been a change of plan. I’ve just had a call from Detective Inspector Harland. He’s back on the island, at the village school. He wants to see all of us right away.”

  A wave of astonishment and apprehension ran through the group.

  Elspeth was the first to put a name to the alarm surfacing in all their minds. “So he’s decided she didn’t throw herself off a rock. He thinks Rachel was murdered. And one of us here did it.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  OUTSIDE, THE STREET HAD BEEN TRANSFORMED. In contrast to the leisurely passage of holidaymakers in colourful clothing, black-clad figures in police uniforms were working their way from house to house. Lucy checked, a constriction in her throat suddenly making it hard to breathe. It had happened. The sad, but low-key, enquiry into Rachel’s suicide had become a murder investigation. It was what she had wanted, wasn’t it?

  The tourists scarcely gave them a glance, but Lucy was conscious of the locals looking at them long and inquisitively. In such a small community everybody would know, of course. That girl at St Colman’s. Murdered. Must have been one of them. Which one?

  But was that true? Who else? It was almost impossible to think that one of the small island community might have done it. But what about the hundreds of visitors who crossed to the island daily? Might one of them, perhaps with psychopathic tendencies, have found Rachel alone and vulnerable? Lucy’s brief years in the police force told her this was not typical, but it could happen.

  She led the way towards the small village school. She was aware of her group following her. Her thoughts kept turning back to that more disturbing possibility. Somewhere among them might be one who knew more than he or she should. Could it really be Valerie, grimly determined to protect Elspeth’s reputation at all costs? Or Elspeth herself, for whom Valerie would undoubtedly cover up?

  She glanced round at Peter, walking almost level with her. His head was down, staring at the pavement. The downward lines of his face were heavy with grief. She tried a quick, if forced, smile.

  “At least we know how it happened now.”

  “Does that make it any better?” he muttered.

  They had walked about a hundred yards before Lucy remembered that she had been interrupted in the middle of an embarrassing encounter with Aidan Davison. Why on earth had it not occurred to her that a breakdown of his marriage was not the only possible reason for him to be here alone with Melangell? She felt her cheeks hot with shame. She was an ordained minister, with two years’ training in pastoral care. Surely she should be able to offer words of comfort? But she h
ad fouled it up. She sent up a quick prayer for the wisdom to put it right. For the gift of peace she had failed to offer him.

  Aidan’s pain was raw. Melangell seemed to have survived the loss astonishingly well.

  She turned to see the child’s sombre face following her. What was Melangell making of all this? Lucy threw a reassuring smile at her. The grey-blue eyes met hers with a disconcertingly level stare.

  The low school building came in sight. It must still be the school holidays for it to be available for a temporary incident room.

  The group were stopped by a policewoman at the door. She checked their names.

  “Reverend Pargeter? He’ll see you first.”

  Lucy stepped forward into the glazed reception area. She was led inside, into the schoolroom. Suddenly she was on her own, separated from the rest of her group. She felt their eyes follow her.

  Screens had been arranged to divide the schoolroom into smaller units. Officers were at work on computers. A shudder of fear ran through her. Could Bill be here, in this very room? Would anyone else recognize her? It had only been four years. She thought the backs of two of those heads looked familiar. But they had their eyes on their screens. She walked quickly past.

  She was led round a screen to find two men seated behind a table. Another chair was set in front of it. She had expected to find Detective Inspector Harland and his sergeant Anne Malham. But she did not recognize the tall man beside Harland.

  He spoke for the tape recorder on the table. “This is Detective Superintendent Maurice Barry. The Reverend Lucy Pargeter has just entered the room.”

  “Am I under caution?” she said, a little too sharply.

  “Not at all, Miss Pargeter. Sorry, Reverend. Please have a seat.”

  She was angrily aware how young she must look, even though she was wearing a dog collar. People still had difficulty taking her seriously as a minister of religion.

  “Now, Reverend Pargeter, if you would just take us through your movements on Sunday the fourth of April.”

  She looked indignantly at DI Harland. “I’ve already been through that. First with DC Chappell, then with DI Harland and Sergeant Malham. I signed a statement.”

  Barry steepled his fingers and looked at her steadily over them. He had a clean-cut face with a prominent jawbone. Younger than DI Harland. Keener. His voice was surprisingly gentle.

  “Forgive me, Reverend. As I understand it, the preliminary investigation was into the movements of the deceased. You told us,” he glanced down at his notes, though she had a feeling he did not need to, “that you last saw her alive a little after ten, while you were talking to your group in the priory ruins. You then became concerned about her absence and spent the afternoon looking for her around the coves in the Emmanuel Head area. With Mr Fathers.”

  “Peter. That’s right.”

  “So, let’s go back, shall we, to the time when you finished your talk to your group. That would be…?”

  “By the time they’d finished asking questions, about ten-thirty. I left them free to explore the priory and the museum, and meet up again back at the house for Sunday lunch at one.”

  “And meanwhile you were where?”

  The reality was sinking in. This was no longer just about Rachel. She must account for every minute of her own time until the finding of Rachel’s body, late that afternoon. She was a suspect. In the eyes of the two men across the table, she could have murdered Rachel.

  She felt the prickling of her skin that told her the blood was leaving her face. She was all too conscious of the fact that the two detectives would be noticing this, even if DSI Barry did not say it aloud for the tape recording.

  “I walked along the beach, and around noon, when the water was low enough, I crossed over to Hobthrush Island. That’s the little bit that sticks out into the channel west of the priory.”

  DI Harland consulted the map spread out before him. “It says St Cuthbert’s Island here.”

  “That’s the same.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “Yes. I’d told the others about it. I thought some of them might have walked across to explore while the tide was down. But no one did.”

  DSI Barry leaned across to look at the map. “It’s a very small island. How long did you stay there?”

  “An hour.” She wrestled with a reluctance to tell them. “I was praying.”

  Barry raised his eyebrows briefly. “I suppose it goes with the territory. And you didn’t see Rachel then?”

  “No.”

  She was aware that, from their point of view, she was entering more dangerous ground when she began to describe how she and Peter had headed for the rocky north-east coast in the afternoon.

  “There are coves there. And little caves tucked away among the rocks. I thought she might be sheltering in one of them.”

  “And was she?”

  “I didn’t see her. And nor did Peter. We’d split up. He went out towards Snipe Point and was going to work along from there. I took a stretch further east. We arranged to meet up at quarter to four. I needed to get back to the group.”

  “Did you see anyone else on your travels?”

  Just as importantly, she thought, did anyone else see me?

  “No. Aidan said he saw Sue setting off in that direction from the castle. But it’s quite a walk. And she doesn’t look very athletic. If she ever reached the rocks, I didn’t see her.”

  “So. Just you. Until you met up with Mr Fathers again.”

  “Yes.”

  Barry leaned forward. “You were a friend of the deceased. You lived in the same small town. You’d been trying to help her out of drug addiction and petty crime. You offered to pay for her to join you on this holiday and brought her here in your car. You shared a room with her.”

  “Yes.” Why should such acts of kindness sound like an accusation?

  “Had there been any quarrel between you since you arrived?”

  “No… At least…” She was angry with herself that the question made her feel guilty. “On Sunday night, Rachel missed supper. When I took some food back for her, she wasn’t in our room. When she did get back, I asked her where she’d been. She shouted back at me that I wasn’t her mother.”

  There was waiting silence. Then DSI Barry asked, “And where had she been?”

  “I don’t know.” Lucy hesitated. Then she knew that only honesty would do. “You should ask Elspeth Haccombe. It was she who told me that Rachel was back. And…” she took a deep breath, “Elspeth admitted to me that she’d given Rachel cocaine. Valerie Grayson, her room-mate, came to me yesterday and threatened me not to tell anyone. It might ruin Elspeth’s career.”

  She watched the detective’s eyes widen. Had DI Harland not told him? She had their full attention now.

  “Thank you, Miss… Reverend,” said DSI Barry with heavy emphasis. “That’s most interesting. We’ll have your statement typed up for you to sign later.”

  She rose to leave.

  “Oh, just one thing. What were you wearing?”

  Lucy thought hard. “It wasn’t a great day for weather. There were some squally showers. I think I had on some dark blue trousers, a navy sweatshirt and an anorak the same colour. Oh, and a white shirt underneath.”

  “Nothing in white wool?”

  “No.” She looked at the detective superintendent questioningly. Why did it matter? Had someone seen a figure in white in that area? Was that where they thought Rachel had been killed?

  But DI Harland had talked to the coastguards. He must know that the body couldn’t have got from those rocks to the beach where Peter found it.

  “Thank you.” His lean face rearranged itself in a half-smile. “That’s all, Reverend. You can go.”

  She walked out, aware of feeling like a different person. No longer the Reverend Lucy Pargeter, ordained minister of the Methodist Church, leader of this group, but a possible murder suspect.

  The rest of the group sat waiting on chairs, crammed into the small r
eception area. Lucy met Valerie’s eyes and felt her cheeks burn. Was she safer or in greater danger, now that she had told the police about that threat?

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  AIDAN CAME OUT OF THE INTERVIEW ROOM and was met by a look of glad relief in Melangell’s freckled face.

  “Your turn next, poppet.”

  He had not expected them to interview Melangell. Neither Chappell nor Harland had questioned her earlier about Rachel’s movements. Perhaps, he thought, swallowing suddenly, Detective Superintendent Barry needs her to corroborate what I’ve just told him.

  It was odd how the presence of the police could make you feel guilty, even when you had nothing to hide.

  At least he was allowed to sit in on the interview.

  In front of the two detectives, Melangell was composed. She had even, Aidan noted with a wry smile, a touch of self-importance in the tilt of her chin. She took them clearly through the details of how she and Aidan had spent Sunday after they left the priory. He was relieved to find that her memory matched his. The walk to the castle. Running to escape the rain. The tour of the rooms that ended on the battlements.

  “And the wind was so strong it nearly blew me backwards.”

  She told of their looking over the wall and hearing the quarrel between Sue and James below. Then hurrying back to St Colman’s ahead of the rainstorm. James arriving with a head wound.

  “And there was lots and lots of blood. And then Daddy left me with Mrs Cavendish, when he went to look for Rachel.”

  The pout was back. She wriggled uncomfortably in her chair. She had clearly not forgiven him for that.

  “Thank you, Melangell. That’s all very clear. You’re an observant girl.” DSI Barry checked his notes. “That’s it, I think.” He raised his eyes to her, still smiling his thanks, a shade patronizingly. “One more thing. Do you have a white wool jumper? Or a scarf?”

  “No,” she answered, surprised.

  “Do you know anyone here who has?”

  She thought, then shook her head. “No.”