The Sinking Admiral

by The Detection Club

  ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘The local cider. It’s a nautical term, apparently – something to do with covering up cables to stop them chafing.’

  ‘Well, it sounds disgusting.’

  ‘Not disgusting, exactly, but certainly an acquired taste.’

  ‘This, on the other hand, is delicious.’ Ben took another swig of his Malbec. ‘We interviewed a couple of the Vikings. Didn’t get much sense, but they looked good. Oh, look – there’s that old girl who kept rabbiting on about being an extra talking to them. Perhaps they wanted to be in her film, as well.’

  ‘I think Vikings are a bit thin on the ground in Far From the Madding Crowd.’

  ‘Oh, was that what it was? Never mind. Do you know that woman?’ He indicated a blazered woman with a glass of white wine.

  ‘Alice Kennedy. Dr Alice Kennedy. She’s the local GP. Sometimes drops in after surgery for a Chardonnay. I’m pretty sure she didn’t go upstairs to the Bridge.’

  ‘Who’s he?’ Ben pointed at a stout man with a battered Barbour jacket and a cocker spaniel.

  ‘That’s Treacle.’

  ‘Really? He doesn’t look the type.’

  ‘The dog, idiot. I think the man’s name is Simon.’

  ‘I don’t remember him.’

  ‘He’s not the type to want to be on TV. He’s a regular – comes in and sits in a corner by himself for an hour, nursing a pint, then goes off home. The dog’s a bit of a menace, though – lifts its leg if he doesn’t keep an eye on it – look, there it goes.’ They watched as Stan’s camera dipped to the floor, and, through a thicket of bodies, saw Treacle directing a sly jet at an immaculate pinstriped trouser leg. The owner of the pinstripes – which ended in a pair of smart black shoes – stepped back sharply, colliding with one of the Vikings, but Stan’s camera lens was still trained on the floor, so they couldn’t see his face.

  ‘Huh,’ said Amy. ‘I suppose you’ll keep that in – for your precious programme, won’t you? Nothing like a dog peeing to raise the tone, is there?’

  ‘The viewing public will love it,’ said Ben smugly. ‘Do you know who he was – the one who got peed on?’

  She shook her head. ‘I was vaguely aware of someone in a pinstriped suit. I didn’t really take in his face.’

  ‘Nor me. Though I do recall someone in pinstripes who looked vaguely familiar.’ The skin around Ben’s brown eyes wrinkled with the effort of recollection. ‘Someone I might have seen on television, some political programme possibly…’ But the name wouldn’t come. ‘We’d better check this footage with some of the regulars. They may recognise him.’

  ‘They’ll be clever if they can do that from a shot of a trouser leg being peed on.’

  ‘Some of them may have known who he was.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Amy dubiously. ‘All I know is that he had a large glass of this Malbec.’

  ‘A man of discrimination. So… if Fitz did go back upstairs at some point, perhaps he went up for a meeting…?’

  ‘With Mr Pinstripe?’

  ‘It’s possible. Let’s see if we can spot him.’

  They watched more, but most of it was Ben’s vox pops, so the camera wasn’t pointing at the stairs, and the pinstriped man seemed to have disappeared. When Stan panned back to the bar, there was the Admiral again, sitting in his customary seat and regaling his audience. ‘He’s about to tell that story,’ said Ben. ‘About the treasure map. Anything in it, do you suppose?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so.’

  ‘When I asked you if he’d really been a sailor, you didn’t answer.’

  ‘That’s because I honestly don’t know. He was certainly keen on the sea – you’ve only got to look around here to see that – and I suppose he could have been in the Merchant Navy or something, but…’ Amy shrugged.

  ‘Oops,’ said Ben, as Stan’s camera, clearly knocked off target, turned its gaze on some chairs and a pool of spilled beer. ‘You did that deliberately, didn’t you? I saw.’

  ‘I didn’t want you making a fool of old Fitz,’ said Amy. ‘Especially when he’d had a few.’ They watched as Stan pointed his lens once again at the seated figure of the Admiral, who, making to lean his elbow on the bar, missed and slopped Laphroaig across his corduroy trousers. Behind him, Amy could see herself, harassed and sweaty, shoving dirty glasses into the washer.

  ‘Ten to ten,’ said Ben, making a note. ‘So, by my calculations, the Admiral could have gone upstairs for another meeting – possibly with Mr Pinstripe – at any time between nine fifteen and nine forty, which was when we picked him up at the bar again, telling his rollicking seaman’s yarn.’

  ‘I think it was about then that Meriel told me she’d run out of food,’ said Amy.

  ‘Meriel’s the one who wants to be TV’s next culinary sex-bomb, right?’

  ‘That’s the one. She’s all right, really,’ Amy added, defensively, forgetting how cross she’d been with the cook. ‘And it was quite soon after that that your friend from university arrived. Ianthe Berkeley.’

  ‘There’s no footage of her actual arrival. Stan must have had his camera focussed somewhere else.’

  ‘I’m sure she managed to get on film later in the evening. No shrinking violet, that one.’

  ‘You speak as though you’ve met her before.’

  ‘She’s stayed here before. On her honeymoon, I believe, although I had the impression it wasn’t exactly a love-fest. He spent the whole time either watching football or talking about it, and she made a beeline for pretty much any man who crossed the threshold, up to and including Simon.’

  ‘Simon with Treacle? She must have been desperate.’

  ‘She might have got somewhere with Treacle. If any dog is over-sexed, that one is – if he’s not pissing on people’s legs, he’s humping them.’

  Ben grinned. ‘Ooh, mee-ow.’

  ‘Yes, well… Anyway.’ Amy took a drink of her Malbec, which really was very nice. ‘She had a pint of Old Baggywrinkle, and I managed to persuade Ted the odd-job man to make her an omelette, and she was talking to Fitz, and to you…’

  ‘Mm.’ At least, Amy thought, Ben had the decency to look abashed. ‘She was going on about some book or other.’

  ‘Yes, she left it on the bar. She didn’t stay long after that, though. I’d sent Ted up to the room with her bag, so I assumed she’d gone to bed.’ Amy raised an eyebrow at Ben.

  ‘If she did,’ he said, firmly, ‘it was on her own, and it stayed that way.’

  ‘None of my business,’ said Amy, dismissively. ‘You don’t think she had a meeting upstairs with Fitz, do you?’

  They watched some more of Stan’s film – at 10.55, when Amy was calling time and people were straggling out of the bar, they saw that Fitz’s stool was unoccupied, and they couldn’t see Ianthe, either, but as Stan’s camera wasn’t pointed at the staircase, they couldn’t see whether or not the pair of them had gone up to the Bridge.

  ‘That’s it, then,’ said Ben, as the screen went black. ‘So, we’ve got Bob Christie from the Clarion, then Rat Man, then the vicar, then the chap who looked like an undertaker, and then, in the evening, possibly the pinstripe man and Ianthe Whatshername.’ He leaned back, stretching his arms above his head, then looked at his watch. ‘Almost seven o’clock. I’m starving. I don’t suppose your sex-goddess left anything stashed away in the freezer, did she?’

  ‘She might. I haven’t looked.’

  Ben picked up a bar menu that was lying on the next table. ‘Looks OK. What the hell are duck fingers? Ducks don’t have fingers.’

  ‘Neither do fish.’

  ‘Fair point. Why don’t you go and see if you can find something, anyway? Failing that, we can always make do with olives and crisps. Then we’ll have another glass of that lovely Malbec, and work out how to proceed.’

  He did the melting brown eyes thing again, and, utterly failing to think of any response that was remotely challenging to his easy assumption that he was a) irresistible and b) in char
ge of things, Amy got up from the table and did as she was told.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Reverend Victoria Whitechurch parked her old Escort next to Crabwell Vicarage and scooted inside as quickly as she could. All that Thursday there had been a raw wind blowing from the sea, and she was in a hurry in any case: her hospital visits had taken longer than she’d expected. If she was quick about it, she would just be able to manage a cup of tea before it was time to go across to the church to say Evening Prayer.

  She paused in the hallway only long enough to drape her fleece jacket over the newel post at the foot of the stairs. A moment later she was in the kitchen, switching on the kettle, then warming her icy hands on the radiator before opening a tin of cat food, scooping it into Maggie’s dish, and plonking it on the floor in the appointed place. ‘Maggie!’ she called. Maggie – short for Magnificat – stalked in and began nibbling daintily, ignoring her mistress.

  There had been a time, a few years back and in her last parish, when Victoria Whitechurch had borne more than a passing resemblance to a fictional woman vicar well known on television, dark of hair and rotund of body. Since then, though, she had lost a fair bit of weight, grown her hair out, and lightened it to a becoming ash blonde. Sometimes when she looked in the mirror she scarcely recognised herself. The comforting thought was that other people from her past might not recognise her either.

  The kettle came to a boil. Victoria bunged a teabag into her favourite mug, poured in the water, stirred it a few times, then fished the bag out and dropped it in the bin. A splash of milk from the jug in the fridge would cool the tea down enough to drink quickly. After the first scalding sip, she moved around the kitchen, drawing the curtains against the chill that struck through the glass, and the draught sneaking in around the ill-fitting window casements. There would still be an hour or so of what passed as daylight on this murky March afternoon, but it was more important to retain what little heat the room possessed.

  In Victoria’s last parish she’d had a snug modern vicarage, purpose-built at the bottom of the garden of the Old Vicarage before that desirable Georgian residence had been flogged off to an aspirational couple from London. What her former dwelling had lacked in atmosphere, it more than made up for in comfort. Now she had atmosphere in spades, and more rooms than she knew what to do with – or could afford to heat. Unfortunately, selling Crabwell Vicarage wasn’t a viable option: years of neglect by the diocese meant that it was quite literally mouldering away in the damp sea air. And aspirational Londoners weren’t exactly queueing up to move to Crabwell, for that matter. Maybe they would be, once this reality programme about the Admiral Byng was broadcast…

  Victoria glanced at her answering machine and saw that it was flashing. With a sigh she put the tea mug on the counter and reached for the phone.

  There was just one message.

  ‘Hello, Vicar, this is Amy Walpole. From the Admiral Byng, you know.’ The voice hesitated. ‘I’d really like to see you for a few minutes. The sooner, the better. If you could ring me…’

  Victoria grabbed a pen and scribbled down the number.

  The church was even colder and danker than the next-door vicarage. Victoria shivered as she tugged the heavy oak door open just far enough to squeeze in while keeping out the draught from the chill sea breeze. She switched on the lights at the back, and moved through the nave to the chancel, where she slipped into her stall and dropped to her knees on the mouldy hassock.

  ‘Dear Lord, forgive me,’ she whispered, before reaching for the well-thumbed prayer book and turning to the section for Evening Prayer. Although no one would be joining her – no one ever did – Victoria never failed in her duty to say the daily offices, here in the church she loved.

  There was no logical reason why Victoria should love this particular church so much. Both of the other churches under her care were far more distinguished: Sutton Magna had magnificent stained glass, while West Underwell boasted one of the finest medieval fonts in East Anglia. No, St Mary’s Crabwell was small and rather ordinary, with cramped Victorian pews and a leaky roof. Its chief treasure was the wooden medieval painted rood screen, badly damaged during the Reformation. The figures of saints on the panels on either side of the screen had evidently offended the reformers, who had gouged their eyes out and scribbled over their faces in an act of deliberate vandalism. Victoria suspected that her special love for that screen was because of, rather than in spite of, its literal defacement.

  Now she was in danger of losing the screen, or the church, or both.

  Only last week the bad news had come, in the form of the archdeacon’s official visitation.

  ‘St Mary’s Crabwell just isn’t viable,’ the archdeacon had pronounced. ‘Not in its current condition, or its financial state.’

  The leaky roof was no longer patchable: it would require a complete re-roofing job. The lead had been nicked a few years ago – hence the leaks – and replacing that alone would cost a fortune. Congregational numbers were at an all-time low. They hadn’t even come close to meeting the cost of their assessed parish share last year.

  Victoria had known it was bad, but she hadn’t been prepared for this verdict. This death sentence, even.

  St Mary’s would be made redundant, said the archdeacon. That would be his recommendation. The diocese might be able to sell it for use as a community centre, a youth club, or perhaps for conversion to two flats. They would naturally sell Crabwell Vicarage as well.

  And Victoria? She’d found the courage to ask the question. ‘What about me?’

  There was plenty to keep her busy at her other two churches, the archdeacon opined. Sutton Magna had flogged off its vicarage years ago, when the three parishes had been amalgamated into one benefice, but the diocese still owned the one at West Underwell. Yes, it needed some work, and it was rather small, but he was sure she would be comfortable there.

  The rest of his thinking on the matter hung unspoken between them: she was a single woman. Not a family man, or someone with anyone but herself and her cat to worry about. She would cope. She would have to.

  ‘Is there nothing else we can do?’ she’d asked in desperation.

  He’d hesitated for just a second, as though unsure whether he should hold out even a scrap of hope.

  ‘Well, we might sell the rood screen,’ he said begrudgingly. ‘The V&A have expressed some interest in it. They might give us enough to keep the church going for another year or two.’

  St Mary’s Church without the screen? Without her faceless friends? Unthinkable. And yet, if that was the only way…

  Victoria stared at him helplessly, her eyes filling with tears.

  The archdeacon smirked.

  For the first time in her life, Victoria Whitechurch hated someone enough to wish him dead.

  Victoria had always believed that God answered prayers, though she’d come to realise that the answer was not necessarily the one desired, or that it would be delivered in the expected way.

  In the case of St Mary’s Crabwell and its future, the answer to prayer had come in the form of a rather ordinary-looking young man who arrived on the doorstep of the vicarage just a day after the archdeacon’s visitation. He was wearing a cheap, shiny suit without a tie, and carrying a clipboard.

  Victoria could see his quick glance at her dog collar.

  ‘Vicar?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Inwardly she sighed.

  It was one of the hazards of her job: you couldn’t just slam the door in someone’s face because you didn’t like the look of them. Door-to-door salesmen, religious nutters, con artists, people down on their luck and looking for a handout of cash or a cup of coffee – she was obliged to give each of them a fair hearing and help them if it was at all possible. It always surprised her how many of these people found their way to the vicarage.

  ‘I wondered if I might have a word.’

  She’d heard that before. But this time the word had surprised her.

  He was,
he told her, representing a well-known mobile phone company. They were seeking ways of improving their coverage in remote areas such as Crabwell, which suffered from notoriously bad reception. In other villages, they’d had great success in siting phone masts in church towers. He’d had a look at Crabwell church, and as far as he could determine, it would be an ideal location for a mast. It wouldn’t be obtrusive, he assured her – either it could be completely concealed within the tower, or it could be disguised as a flagpole.

  And then had come the thunderbolt.

  They were willing to pay, he said. Handsomely. A cheque every year. Ten thousand pounds per annum, minimum. Maybe more.

  Ten thousand pounds. It was enough to pay the parish share, with change left over.

  ‘I can see that your roof is a bit… in need of attention,’ he added tactfully. ‘On installation of the mast we would be willing to cover the cost of necessary repairs to the roof, to compensate you for the inconvenience.’

  Victoria had felt her eyes welling with tears for the second time in as many days. This time, though, they were tears of gratitude.

  Victoria was reciting the third Collect as the west door of the church blew wide open. Only momentarily distracted, she continued to the end of the service and finished with the Grace, then closed the prayer book, crossed herself, and stood to face her visitor.

  The woman had closed the door and now stood with her back to it, hands shoved deep into the pockets of her Barbour jacket. Victoria recognised the tall outline of Amy Walpole, the bar manager at the Admiral Byng.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Amy. ‘I hope I didn’t disturb you.’

  ‘No, it’s all right.’

  ‘I got your phone message, and took a chance that you’d be back a bit earlier than you said. When there was no answer at the vicarage, I saw the light in the church, and guessed you might be here.’

  She sounded nervous, Victoria thought. ‘It’s all right,’ she repeated. ‘Shall we go back to the vicarage? I can put the kettle on and make us a cuppa.’