Murder in Advent

by David Williams

  ‘I’ve no idea. Not yet. And that certainly wasn’t why I wanted to see you. Something much more delicate.’

  The other man stiffened. ‘My relationship with Miss Larks . . .’ He stopped, cursing himself for anticipating again. It was exactly what he’d determined to avoid before the interview, except it was not in his nature. And the Dean disarmed him. He could cope with anyone else, even bully them. The Dean was different.

  ‘Your relations with Miss Larks are entirely your own business and hers,’ Hitt put in blandly. ‘It’s about your movements last evening.’

  ‘I don’t understand. I’ve already told the police where I was.’

  ‘That’s the trouble. Someone says they saw you going into the cathedral at six-thirty. By the cloister door.’ The Dean leaned back in his chair. ‘It’s something you’re alleged not to have mentioned to the police. I imagine it wouldn’t be appropriate for that someone to do so?’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t. I mean . . .’ He loosened his collar. ‘This is stupid. Telling the police would only complicate things. To absolutely no purpose. Who’s saying this? Who saw me?’

  ‘Does it matter? So much as whether it’s true? In a way you could say it’s someone who’s perjured themselves for you already if it is true. I mean by not telling the police.’ The other man paused, frowning. ‘Perhaps that’s putting it too strongly.’ He was thinking of what he’d said to his wife earlier as he went on: ‘I am not of the view we’re obliged to indict each other when it comes to volunteering information to the police. Might be different if one were under oath. In a court of law. Not everyone takes that view, of course,’ he ended, more reflectively than pointedly.

  Welt leant even further forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, fists clenched hard. ‘All right. I did go into the cathedral. At about six-thirty. Force of habit. Did whoever saw me say I also came out again? Straight away?’

  ‘No. Did you?’

  ‘But if I was being watched I must have been seen coming out again,’ he said slowly, concentrating his gaze on the Dean’s face, and hanging on his reaction.

  ‘I don’t think you were being watched. You were simply seen to go in. If you came out again immediately and are prepared to swear as much to me, I’d tell the person concerned just that. And I’d expect your word, our word to be accepted. You say it was force of habit?’

  ‘Most week-nights just recently I’ve been having supper at a Chinese restaurant. The one at the top of Bridge Street. Last night I decided to go back to the Italian place in Talbot Court. At the far end of East Street. It’s where I used to go regularly. Different direction of course.’

  ‘You mean when you went to Bridge Street you’d go through the cathedral?’

  ‘Because it’s quicker. Yesterday I’d gone through the cloister door before remembering I was heading the wrong way. Thinking of something else at the time. Anyway, I came out again before I’d even shut the door behind me.’

  ‘Locked it?’

  ‘No, because I hadn’t had to unlock it.’

  ‘I’d forgotten. That came up before. Pounder hadn’t left, so it wasn’t locked.’

  ‘It often wasn’t. Not at half past six. Pounder was often still around then. He’d usually locked the north door, though.’

  ‘It’s easier for you to go through the cathedral if you’re going to Bridge Street? Even if you have to unlock and relock a door on the way? Sometimes two doors? With cumbersome locks?’

  The organist relaxed a little. ‘In the daytime it’s quicker. With no locking to do. At suppertime recently it’s just been less . . . embarrassing.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t follow.’

  ‘Sounds ridiculous, but it was a ruse. To avoid meeting someone. A few weeks ago when I was making for Talbot Court I was waylaid too often.’ He affected an especially stern expression before remembering this could hardly impress his blind companion.

  ‘You were waylaid? Good heavens.’

  ‘By a lady. One we both know. It was always made to look like coincidence. Because she comes home that way. So she said. But I think she waited for me. I know she did.’

  ‘Every night?’

  ‘Too many for it actually to be coincidence.’

  ‘And you’re a creature of habit. I mean she knew what time . . . ?’

  ‘I have a routine, yes.’

  ‘And this lady studied it? To what purpose?’

  ‘To invite me to supper. At her place. Pretending the whole thing was spontaneous. But always on nights when I think she knew she’d be alone – either the whole evening or because we’d be left by ourselves after the meal.’ He looked at the telephone, which had started to ring while he’d been speaking. ‘D’you want to answer that?’

  Hitt shook his head. ‘My wife will take it.’ The ringing stopped as he spoke. ‘Tell me if I’m being naïve, but why couldn’t the lady invite you to dine in the normal way? By letter or on the telephone?’

  ‘She did. Frequently. I went once. Never again. I’d rather not go into the reasons.’ He made the last statement sound deeply significant. ‘Anyway, she’d given up asking me formally, in advance – when I could plead another engagement, or back out later.’

  ‘I see. Also why you’d go to some pains to avoid these meetings. But the waylaying’s stopped? You mentioned you’d reverted to . . .’

  ‘Because I’m afraid I was rude to the lady earlier this week. She won’t be inviting me any more.’ He paused before adding with evident venom: ‘It’s also why she’s been snooping on me. Aiming to get me into trouble with you and the police.’ He inhaled sharply. ‘It is Olive Merit we’ve been talking about, of course.’

  ‘Oh dear . . .’ began the Dean, just as the door opened and Margaret Hitt appeared.

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, but it’s important. Ursula Brastow’s in hospital. In a coma. It seems she’s tried to take her life. An overdose of barbiturates. She left a note saying Mark Treasure would explain. They’re trying to find him. He’s not due here, is he?’

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was five-fifteen when Olive Merit crossed the school yard to the gate. Despite the strong wind blowing in her face, her head was up and her stride bold. She pulled the light brown topcoat tightly around her, clasping the bulging briefcase close to her unbulging bosom.

  The Chancellor’s sister had a car of her own but she seldom brought it to school. She preferred to walk to and from her work in all weathers. It was less than ten minutes to the house.

  She taught speech and drama to the senior school – boys and girls, but most of the takers were girls aged sixteen to eighteen. Half the sessions were voluntary and normally took place after regular school hours. But Friday was one of her early evenings, and tonight she was in an especial hurry. She had the drinks party to prepare.

  ‘’Scuse me, Miss Merit. Can I have a word?’ The short, dumpy woman who had been waiting outside by the street lamp was middle-aged and unseasonably dressed in clothes too young for her. The tight skirt of her flimsy cotton dress finished well above her knees and well below the shiny black jacket. Her hair was an unreal reddish colour and she wore a great deal of make-up. She wobbled forward in clattering high-heeled shoes.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Larks. Good to see you,’ said Miss Merit in a heartier tone and with a warmer sentiment than she felt was justified – but she tried not to harbour grudges. ‘You looking for me? Something I can do? How’s Cindy?’

  ‘Well, that’s it, see? She’s gone off. Disappeared like,’ replied Mrs Larks, normally a gossipy, loquacious woman but for the moment conscious that drama would be heightened by brevity.

  ‘She hasn’t been with you?’

  ‘I haven’t seen her. But I know she was about yesterday. Surely she can’t have disappeared?’

  ‘Eleven o’clock this morning they came for her. Police I thought they was. ’Cept I got it wrong. They was from the lawyers. I’d just come in from work. I do cleaning in the mornings. Well, Cindy wasn’t in of course. At work.
At the shop she was. They didn’t know where she worked. Only about her being in the cathedral choir. So I phoned the shop and spoke to her. We’re on the phone now. Told her these men was wanting to see her.’

  ‘The lawyers?’ Miss Merit put in shortly, while motioning the other woman to fall into step beside her: it really was too cold to be standing about, and in any case she had no time to waste.

  ‘That’s right. Except I said they was police. Like today, first thing.’

  ‘You had real police round this morning?’

  Mrs Larks sniffed hard and adjusted the white, wet-look handbag that dangled from her shoulder on a long strap. ‘Thought they’d never go. One of them took a fancy to Cindy. You could see that. Her in her shorty dressing gown, too.’ There was unmistakable envy in the tone. She tried to lengthen her step to match Miss Merit’s, failed in that attempt, and reverted to the tiptoe gait that came out closer to a foxtrot than it did to a walk.

  Two of Miss Merit’s pupils cycled passed. Both cast quizzical looks at Mrs Larks. ‘Good night, Miss Merit. Have a nice weekend.’

  ‘Good night, Alice. Good night, Poppy.’ She waved to the girls. ‘So why did the lawyers want Cindy?’

  ‘About Mr Pounder. You know, the one who died last night? Left her a lot of money, he has. So they said.’

  ‘Did you tell Cindy this?’

  ‘’Course I did. And I said she’d better stay where she was. They was coming round to see her.’ Now she was breathing quite heavily. ‘And that’s the last anyone’s seen of her. Could we slow up a bit?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Miss Merit slackened the pace, then had to increase it again as she led the way over a controlled pedestrian crossing. You didn’t mention how much money?’

  ‘Didn’t know how much. They didn’t tell me.’ She transferred her bag to the other shoulder and pulled up her skirt a fraction to improve her stride. ‘I told her it was a lot, though. Then she hung up on me.’

  ‘And left the shop?’

  ‘Straight away, the manageress told me. And she never went to the cathedral this afternoon. I just been there.’

  ‘You mean she didn’t turn up for evensong?’

  ‘That’s right. And not for the practice they had before, neither.’

  ‘Have you asked the organist if he’s seen her? Dr Welt?’ Her lips closed after the question, then tightened.

  ‘No. Why should I? I asked Mr Duggan, the verger. He hadn’t seen her.’ Her toe caught in a paving stone and she staggered ahead of her companion, very nearly falling over.

  ‘Careful.’ Miss Merit took the other’s arm. ‘Well, I think it’s early to be talking about a disappearance. I mean, from what you say she’s only been gone a few hours. Probably needed to think something out.’

  ‘Not like her, it isn’t. Blame meself, I do. For getting the message wrong. I didn’t mean to say they was from the law.’

  ‘Well, there’s no reason why Cindy should want to escape from the police, even if she did misunderstand you. There has to be a logical explanation. She’s not a silly girl, and she’s old enough to know her own mind.’ And it hadn’t been her fault that she’d had to leave school two years before. Miss Merit blamed the mother for that, robbing the child of a great future – and robbing Olive Merit of the chance to create a promising star turn.

  ‘It’s the money. You don’t think she’ll lose the money? Not being here to claim it?’ The questions were more searching than the others, more evidently the real reason for Mrs Larks’s concern.

  ‘Of course she won’t lose it. But she’s eighteen now. Of age. You know it’ll be her money?’ The question was put almost threateningly.

  Money had been the reason for the abrupt finish to Cindy’s formal education. Mrs Larks had claimed she couldn’t afford to maintain her daughter at school. When Miss Merit herself had offered to contribute substantially to the costs for two years both women had turned her down – Cindy because she was too proud, the mother because she wanted Cindy out earning her keep. And, in the process, Olive Merit had somehow forfeited the affection of the child. That affection she sensed had now been transferred to Donald Welt. His ambitious plans for Cindy’s future she regarded as a blind: she was convinced he was only really after the girl’s body.

  ‘I’m only thinking of Cindy. I wouldn’t want her deprived of her rights,’ whined Mrs Larks self-righteously.

  ‘I’ve told you there’s no fear of that,’ Miss Merit countered briskly, dropping the other’s arm, bridling at the hypocrisy and shuddering involuntarily because she had just thought of Donald Welt. ‘It can’t be all that much money. Mr Pounder couldn’t have been rich.’

  ‘Richer than anyone thought. Is what the lawyers said. That’s why they wanted to talk to Cindy. Before anyone else like.’

  ‘Like whom?’

  ‘They didn’t say. Not outright. The police I thought they meant. He was murdered.’ She paused, mostly for breath. ‘Foul play being suspected like,’ she added earnestly. ‘He was a friend of ours.’

  ‘I see,’ said Miss Merit, who was now beginning to. ‘I suppose Cindy can’t have gone to her grandfather?’

  ‘Never. Wouldn’t have her. He don’t recognise her, see? She’s a Larks to him. Not a Daras.’

  Mark Treasure guided the Dean of Litchester through the crowded polished hall of the hospital towards the exit. Detective Chief Inspector Pride was with them.

  ‘You think Mrs Brastow will survive?’ asked the Dean. ‘It was difficult to ask with her husband there. D’you think we should be leaving him like this?’

  ‘The doctor says the chances are good.’ It was Pride who answered. ‘She’ll probably stay in a coma for another day, though. He told me it was a serious attempt. Not a sham like they are sometimes – a craving for attention, if you follow me? Better to let the Canon stay for a bit. He’ll come away later.’

  The others were conscious the policeman was speaking with the special assurance born of experience. They were relieved at his view while neither of them at all envied a calling that produced such a tutored insight.

  ‘It’s an impressive intensive care unit,’ offered Treasure.

  ‘All the support services you could want,’ Pride confirmed in a distinctly proprietorial way. ‘My wife works here. In the physiotherapy department. It’s a good hospital.’

  ‘Dreadful thing to have done. Whoops!’ exclaimed the Dean as Treasure brought them both to an abrupt halt. ‘What did we just miss?’

  ‘Sorry. A trolley with a patient on it. In a hurry. Place is like a railway station.’

  ‘Airport I always think, sir,’ said Pride in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Of course it’s visiting time. Always more crowded. Christmas coming, too.’ He cleared his throat and came closer to the others. ‘Pity we hadn’t known she was into psychoanalysis.’

  ‘Her husband didn’t till today,’ countered the Dean. ‘Would it have made any difference?’

  They passed through the electrically operated doors on to a roofed concourse outside. Pride drew them aside away from the mainstream of human traffic. ‘It was the trick cyclist who gave her the barbiturates,’ he observed with heavy emphasis.

  ‘Who’d have believed she’d have tried taking her life because she wrote me a letter? Even if she is neurotic,’ Treasure said, aiming to steer the conversation away from the direction he figured the policeman was taking it. ‘All she’d done was try to nobble me. But in a really quite inoffensive way.’

  ‘If I could have the details of that now, sir?’ Pride had produced a notebook.

  ‘Sure. She wrote to me about three weeks ago. Said she understood I intended voting against the sale of the Magna Carta. Which was quite true then. She begged I wouldn’t change my mind . . .’

  ‘Begged, sir?’

  ‘That was the word she used, as I remember.’

  ‘Thanks. Go on, please.’

  ‘Well, she explained who she was. How important it was the thing shouldn’t be sold, even though her husband was in favour of sell
ing. That was the odd part.’ Treasure frowned. It was a rum letter and, I have to admit, one I treated as having very little consequence. At the time. Different now.’

  ‘Has to be what she meant in the suicide note, sir. That you would explain. Did she say anything else in the letter?’

  ‘Not that I recall. Oh, she didn’t want her husband to know she’d written, which, incidentally, seemed reasonable.’

  ‘You still have the letter?’ This was the Dean.

  ‘Yes. It’ll be on file at the office.’

  ‘Did you reply to it, sir?’ asked Pride.

  ‘No. Because she specifically asked me not to.’

  ‘Didn’t want to risk Clive Brastow opening it probably,’ said the Dean.

  ‘I’d meant to refer to her letter if I met her alone. And I did meet her this morning. But the opportunity passed for some reason. Oh, I remember now. Some-one else joined us. Then quite thoughtlessly I admitted in the lady’s hearing that I’d changed my mind. About the sale. That was when her husband was with us.’

  ‘Did she seem to take it badly?’ the Dean enquired slowly.

  ‘Didn’t appear to. Now I suppose she must have done. Possibly thought it was the letter made me switch sides. In a contrary kind of way. That would have been indefensible, of course.’

  The policeman looked up from his note-taking, his normally dour expression deepened by the banker’s firm disclaimer. ‘The letter didn’t affect your view, sir?’

  ‘Afraid it didn’t. Not one way or the other. Frankly it seemed an irrelevance at the time. And it certainly didn’t impress a life-or-death decision was involved.’ He made a loud tutting sound which caused two passing ambulance men to look at him as though they’d been accused of something. ‘Obviously, I didn’t know she was in a chronic nervous state.’ The men glanced at each other as they moved away, one shaking his head.

  ‘Her husband said to her he might have to resign if the Magna Carta was sold, sir. He just told me that. But it was right he was in favour of the sale himself of course. The Dean’s sure of that.’

  ‘And I’ve given you the explanation, Mr Pride. Canon Brastow supported the sale on condition the funds weren’t spent on the cathedral but went to overseas Christian aid.’ The Dean shrugged. ‘I’m afraid he wouldn’t have got his way. He knew it, too. We all did.’