The Sinking Admiral

by The Detection Club

  Amy shook her head. ‘The thing is, I need to get back and open the pub for six o’clock. The police have given us permission to reopen today. This won’t take long. I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions.’

  Now Victoria was intrigued. She knew Amy Walpole by sight; it was a small village, after all, and the Admiral Byng was pretty much at the heart of it. But though the two women were of a similar age, the bar manager was not a churchgoer and had never made any effort to get to know the vicar. Victoria, for her part, didn’t believe in forcing church down anyone’s throat. She was available if people wanted to talk to her, and was always happy to make time for her parishioners, but she wanted it to be on their terms rather than hers.

  ‘Take a pew,’ she said with an ironic gesture and what was meant to be a welcoming smile.

  Amy Walpole relaxed visibly and folded her long body into one of the cramped Victorian pews. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  Victoria slid into the row in front, twisting to face her. ‘How can I help you?’

  The other woman averted her gaze. ‘It’s about the Admiral.’

  ‘The pub?’ Victoria asked, confused.

  ‘No. I mean Fitz. The Admiral.’

  Victoria flinched involuntarily, glad that Amy wasn’t looking at her. ‘Yes?’

  Now Amy raised her head. ‘There’s something about his death that’s… not quite right.’

  ‘But… he killed himself.’

  ‘That’s what they say.’ Amy’s face scrunched up for just a second. She was tempted to divulge her reason for not being convinced by the suicide explanation, but again decided to keep her theory about the printed note to herself. ‘But I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it.’

  ‘You mean you don’t want to believe it.’

  Amy’s red hair flew around her in a wild cloud as she shook her head vehemently. ‘I knew him,’ she stated. ‘I worked with him for over three years, for God’s sake.’ Looking abashed for just a second, she added, ‘Excuse my French, Vicar.’

  ‘But I’ve heard… I mean, the police seem to think—’

  ‘They didn’t know him. He just wasn’t capable of it. You have to believe me.’ Amy folded her arms across her chest and challenged Victoria with a stare.

  Victoria took a deep breath, hoping she appeared calmer than she felt. ‘Supposing you’re right. What did you want to ask me?’

  The other woman hesitated for a moment, as if framing her words with care. ‘You saw him that day. The day he… died. You came to the pub to see him. In the Bridge. I was just wondering… why? What was it about?’

  Victoria’s eyes widened, but she held herself still and managed not to betray her agitation by any other movement. How did Amy Walpole know about her meeting with Fitz? She supposed the bar manager had seen her coming or going from the Bridge that afternoon, though she herself had been too upset to register much about who else might have been around the place.

  She ran her finger along the top of the pew, buying a few seconds while she decided what to tell Amy Walpole.

  Honesty, said a voice inside her head.

  She had nothing to hide. She would tell the truth.

  ‘He rang me,’ she said. ‘He asked me to come and see him.’

  ‘What about?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Church… matters.’

  Amy looked sceptical. ‘Church? Did Fitz go to church?’

  ‘He’s… he was… one of my churchwardens,’ Victoria stated.

  The other woman’s mouth dropped open; she gasped for air like a landed fish before she was able to get her next words out. ‘I had no idea. He never said.’

  ‘Well, no reason why he should mention it, I suppose.’ Not so good for his street cred in Crabwell, Victoria surmised – he rather liked cultivating the image of the crusty hard drinker, as opposed to pillar of the church. ‘But he was here most Sundays. Quite conscientious in his duties, as well,’ she added.

  ‘Well, I never.’ It took Amy Walpole a moment to process the information, shaking her head and frowning. The idea of Fitz being a believer was somehow incongruous, but the alternative, that he’d gone to church for social reasons, seemed equally unlikely. Granted, she’d never asked him how he spent his Sunday mornings. She was too busy enjoying her precious weekly lie-in before she had to get to the Admiral Byng in time for the twelve o’clock opening. But being a churchwarden… It was once again forcibly brought home to her how little she had known her boss.

  It had started to rain, Victoria noticed in the ensuing silence. Water was streaming down the windows and would be coming through the roof soon.

  ‘OK. So he went to church,’ Amy said at last, still sounding doubtful. ‘What exactly did he want to talk to you about, that last day?’

  Victoria sighed. ‘Let me back up a bit.’ She swept her hands around, indicating the church. ‘It’s not in the best of shape, this building. We’ve all been working hard to keep it going – the churchwardens, the PCC, the congregation, and me.’

  As if on cue, a fat drop of rainwater detached itself from a roof beam and splatted on her outstretched hand. Amy recoiled.

  ‘See what I mean? The roof has had it, and if something doesn’t happen soon, the church has had it as well. There are so many things…’

  Amy looked at her watch.

  Victoria could sense that the other woman wasn’t following her, was in fact impatient for her to tell her what she wanted to know about that last day so that she could get back to the pub. ‘Anyway,’ she said quickly, ‘last week we pretty much got a death sentence. And then, out of the blue, a ray of hope.’ As concisely as she could, she outlined the archdeacon’s pronouncements, and the visit from the young man from the mobile phone company.

  ‘After that, I talked to both of the churchwardens. I was so excited – it finally looked like there might be a way out. An answer to a prayer, really.’

  Amy flared her nostrils, clearly disbelieving.

  ‘It seemed that way to me, anyway,’ Victoria amended. ‘And Greta Knox agreed with me – she’s the other churchwarden. We even opened a bottle of wine to celebrate.’

  ‘Then what happened?’ Amy prompted. ‘What about Fitz?’

  This was the hard part, or at least the beginning of the hard part. Once again Victoria sighed, shifting her eyes to the runnels of water on the windows. It was beginning to get dark. ‘Fitz… didn’t agree,’ she admitted. ‘I told him that God had sent us a way to save the church, and he said that was… rubbish.’

  ‘What?’ Now she had Amy’s full attention.

  ‘He was… old-fashioned,’ she said. ‘Old school.’

  Amy frowned impatiently. ‘Yes, I know that.’

  ‘He said it would be making a pact with the Devil, to sign a contract with the mobile phone company. He said that we still don’t know whether it’s safe to be around those things, that we would be exposing ourselves and our children to harmful rays, and we’d all end up dying of cancer.’

  ‘That seems a bit extreme. But it does sound like him. Fitz was never one to be at the forefront of new technology. In fact he hated all of it.’

  ‘I told him that we didn’t have a choice, really – that it was the phone mast, or the church would almost certainly be closed. But he wasn’t buying it.’

  ‘When was this?’ Amy wanted to know. ‘This conversation? Was this when you went to see him?’

  ‘No, it was on Sunday, after the morning service. I asked him to stay behind for a few minutes.’ For a moment she re-lived her feeling of shock at his unexpected reaction: she’d thought he would be as pleased as she was – as Greta Knox had been – that there was a possible way out of their dilemma. But he’d been vehement in his opposition.

  And then, on the Sunday night, she’d had the phone call: ‘Come and see me tomorrow afternoon. In the Bridge. Half three.’

  Now that it was time to tell Amy Walpole about the meeting, Victoria began to have second thoughts. After all, what business was it of the bar manager’s? What
did it have to do with her?

  ‘I know he was difficult,’ Amy said into the momentary silence, in a surprisingly conciliatory voice – as if sensing her doubts. ‘He could be a right sod, and no mistake. But I did care about him, in a funny way. And he didn’t deserve to die like that.’

  ‘No, he didn’t.’ Victoria went on with renewed resolution. ‘Anyway, he rang and asked me to come on Monday. He seemed so cheerful on the phone that I thought he’d changed his mind – that he wanted to tell me he’d realised it was a good thing after all, an answer from God rather than a pact with the Devil.’

  ‘But he didn’t change his mind?’

  ‘No.’ Victoria closed her eyes, remembering. ‘He was surer than ever, he said. He wanted to tell me that he’d done his research. And he now knew how he could put a stop to this nonsense, as he called it. If I was mad enough to think I could go ahead without his approval, that is.’

  She had thought about it – how he might be circumvented, if he persisted in his opposition. A word from the archdeacon, perhaps? A letter from the bishop?

  Then he’d lobbed his bombshell. As churchwarden, he would refuse to sign the necessary papers of agreement for the work to be done. And if somehow he was overridden, he would lodge a formal complaint, and, as was his right, take the matter to Consistory Court. Where he would win, beyond the shadow of a doubt.

  And if she didn’t like it, she could lump it.

  She explained all of this to Amy, whose eyes began to glaze over at the necessary elucidation of ecclesiastical procedures.

  ‘So what you’re telling me,’ Amy interrupted her, ‘is that Fitz called you to the Bridge to tell you that he wouldn’t play ball about the phone mast?’

  ‘That’s it, in a nutshell.’ Victoria unclasped her clenched hands and turned them palm upwards.

  ‘Well, I’m buggered. That’s all it was?’

  Victoria felt wounded by the dismissive tone. She’d confessed all, she’d been honest. It might not seem like a big deal to Amy Walpole, but Victoria’s whole future was at stake.

  ‘OK, then. Thanks for your time.’ Amy Walpole was unfolding herself from the pew, checking her watch.

  She went to the west door and yanked on the iron ring, then turned back to face Victoria. The vicar certainly seemed to have had a motive to want the Admiral out of the way, but Amy wondered who else might be in the frame. ‘Oh, one more thing. Can you think of anyone who might have had a grudge against Fitz? Anyone who had had a row with him? Anyone Fitz ever mentioned that he didn’t get on with?’

  Victoria wasn’t expecting that. The words popped out before she had a chance to think about them. ‘Bob Christie,’ she said. ‘The newspaper editor. Fitz couldn’t stand him. I think it might have had something to do with that article in the Clarion last year, but I couldn’t say for sure.’

  ‘OK, thanks.’

  ‘I hope I’ve been of some…’ Victoria’s voice tailed away as Amy slammed the door behind her.

  She should have locked up the church, turned out the lights, and gone home to her cat and her supper. But there was unfinished business to be taken care of.

  Victoria returned to her stall in the chancel and knelt once again on the mouldy hassock. ‘Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner,’ she whispered.

  Yes, she’d been honest with Amy Walpole. She’d told her the truth. Up to a point. At least, everything she’d told her was true.

  But was it the whole truth?

  No. She hadn’t told Amy how she’d felt when she’d heard that Geoffrey Horatio Fitzsimmons was dead.

  She had been… relieved.

  She had even been glad.

  He could no longer stand in the way of saving St Mary’s Crabwell.

  And, God help her, no matter how hard she prayed or tried to repent of her wickedness, she was still happy that Fitz was dead.

  Victoria lifted her eyes to the carved wooden figure on the cross, high above the rood screen. ‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘I’m so… sorry.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When Amy got back from St Mary’s on the Thursday evening, the Admiral Byng was empty. Clearly the news that the police had given them permission to reopen had yet to filter through the village. However, she did find Ben hanging around the bar, clearly waiting for her. He had the smug smile of someone with good news to impart.

  ‘I’ve remembered who he is! Mr Pinstripe.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Amy, determined not to sound impressed by his cockiness.

  ‘It just came to me. I thought he looked familiar in the bar, but I was busy with the filming and, you know how it is… Anyway, I knew there was a political connection. He’s an MP. Willie Sayers. I did some research on him once for a programme that never happened. His constituency includes Crabwell. In fact, he grew up and went to primary school here. Shifty bugger, like most of them. I’ve put a call through to his office to fix up a meeting.’

  Amy was not so churlish as to refuse him a ‘Well done.’

  ‘And…’ Ben beamed complacently, ‘I’ve also identified the miserable-looking bastard with the dark suit and the briefcase. The one who went up to the Bridge at four ten.’

  ‘Oh? And how did you do that?’

  ‘Showed the footage of him to some of the people who were in the bar at lunchtime.’

  ‘Very sophisticated technique,’ said Amy coolly.

  ‘Don’t mock,’ said Ben with another annoying smile. ‘Funny how often the obvious approach can be effective.’

  ‘Thank you for that. So who is he?’

  ‘Local solicitor called Griffiths Bentley. Office right here in Crabwell. He’s quite well known around the village, but never uses the Admiral Byng. Teetotaller, I believe.’

  ‘Ah. Hence the mineral water. So presumably he came to see Fitz on a business matter?’

  ‘Well done, Watson. That was my deduction too.’

  ‘Two down, one to go,’ said Amy. ‘So… did you get anywhere on Rat Man?’

  Ben’s brow furrowed. ‘No, I haven’t got anywhere on him. He’s so wrapped up in that puffa jacket. Almost like he was deliberately avoiding being identified.’

  ‘Perhaps he was.’

  ‘That would figure.’ Ben fixed his brown eyes on her. ‘You got any ideas of how we might get a name for him?’

  ‘Just the one.’

  ‘Oh? And what’s that?’

  ‘I thought we could see if there were any appointments for Monday in Fitz’s desk diary. That is, if we can get into the Bridge.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t we be able to?’

  ‘One of the policemen – you know the big hunky one, Constable Chesterton – said they were going to take the Bridge over as an Incident Room.’

  ‘Well, if they are, I don’t think they’ve moved in yet.’

  And so it proved. Amy and Ben encountered no problems getting into Fitz’s office, no ‘Keep Out’ notices, no door sealed with police tape, nothing.

  She went straight to his desk, picked up the appointments diary, and flicked it open on the page with the ribbon marker still in position.

  ‘Monday,’ she read. ‘Two thirty p.m.’

  ‘That’s when Rat Man came up here.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is there a name?’

  ‘Of course,’ replied Amy, deliberately infuriating.

  ‘Then what is it?’ came the testy response.

  ‘Greg Jepson.’

  Ben’s smartphone was immediately out of his pocket as he started to search for the name. Then he looked at her and offered a grudging ‘Well done.’

  ‘It’s amazing how often the obvious approach can be effective,’ said Amy.

  No nightingales were singing in Berkeley Square that Friday morning, but a cold-looking pigeon was picking at an empty Prêt à Manger sandwich wrapper in front of a Bentley dealership. Ben aimed a kick at it, and then looked up at the bland office building overlooking the grand square. Somewhere in there was Mamba Capital.

  It turned out that Gregory Jepso
n was ‘something in the City’. With further digging, it transpired that the firm Jepson ran wasn’t even in the City, but rather Mayfair, the home to the bulk of London’s hedge funds.

  Ben didn’t know much about hedge funds, except that the people who ran them had way too much money. His quick online researches into Gregory Jepson demonstrated that that was definitely true of him. Thirty-four and he was supposed to be worth eighty-two million pounds. Eighty-two million! It made Ben sick. With envy.

  Yet although he could discover how much Jepson was worth, nowhere could Ben find a visual image of the man. He had heard hedge funds could be secretive about their activities, but he still found something odd about the complete absence of photographic records. Maybe Greg Jepson was always as camera-shy as he had shown himself to be at the Admiral Byng.

  Mamba Capital was on the fifth floor. The receptionist was stunning: blonde, late twenties, grey silk blouse that clung in all the right places. The smile that she gave Ben when he introduced himself made his heart skip. And when she stood up and he saw her figure, he knew he had to act. Legs like those didn’t often go with a chest like that. Combined with the more-than-friendly smile, and Ben had to strike. He knew he was attractive to many women, and being recognisable from the television made him even more attractive, so it was worth a shot.

  ‘Nearly lunchtime,’ he said. ‘Can I buy you a drink somewhere around here? After this.’ He gave her his best grin: a sideways effort with a hint of danger.

  The receptionist glanced at Ben’s jeans and denim shirt. Her smile disappeared. ‘I’m sorry, I have some filing to do at my desk.’

  ‘Well, if you have important filing…’ said Ben, unable to keep the irritation out of his voice. He didn’t like being rejected.

  ‘Oh, it’s not important filing,’ said the woman, and led him through a glass door into a trading room where half a dozen men and women were staring at rows of computer screens on their desks. In a small glass corner office with a great view of the square on one side and the trading room on the other, a short man with slicked back dark hair wearing an expensive suit waited for him. An IT geek was fiddling with the huge computer screen on the large black desk.