Consecrated Crime: A Rev Jessamy Ward Mystery (Isle Of Wesberrey Book 5)

by Penelope Cress

  “Do you know where the diary is now?”

  The captain breathed deeply and turned away. A tear clung to his lower lash. “Reverend, I sorely wish I did.” He spat out the rest of his sentence through clenched teeth. “Because the bastard who has it now killed my first mate to get it.”

  Green Ice cream

  With a lawyer on the way, we left the captain downing a tumbler of rum under the officious eye of PC Taylor.

  “Don’t you think it’s time you made him a sergeant?” I whispered, as we walked back into the main bar.

  “It’s not down to me. Anyway, he says he has a phobia of exams.” Dave led me back out in the refreshing midday day sun. “Fancy a stroll along the front?”

  There was a time my heart would have done somersaults at such a suggestion. “What are you going to do with the captain? He can’t go back to Bridewell.”

  “No. I don’t want him free to roam, either. Maybe I’ll put him under boat arrest. Station a few officers there and take away the keys.”

  “Do you still think he did it?”

  Dave paused. His eyes scanned the horizon as the wheels spun inside his head. “The diary might be a brilliant invention to deflect us away from his guilt. No one else has mentioned it.”

  “Well, they wouldn’t, would they? I mean, if they were the murderer. Maybe only the killer knew of its existence.” I thought it was a good time to mention the conversation Annie had overheard on the stairs. My retelling ended just as we drew near to an ice cream stall. “Ooh, they have pistachio! I haven’t had that since I was a kid.” Probably from the same stall.

  “And, if I buy you a cone, will you promise to tell me everything else you have discovered?” My inner child cried yes. I scream you scream, we all scream for ice cream! Dave bought a double scoop of chocolate and raspberry ripple from the straw-hatted vendor for himself and a green stack of mint and pistachio for me. We planted ourselves on a nearby wall to enjoy their frozen creamy goodness.

  “Jess, you must tell me when you learn something new. And getting Lawrence involved in your amateur sleuthing too.” He tutted, “Archie might not have been the only one floating in that pool.”

  “I know. I will be more careful in the future.”

  A thin ice cream coating softened the line of his pencil moustache. I knew what his lips were about to utter. “Jess, there will be no ‘in the future’, do you understand? I was wrong to get you involved at all. This is my case. It’s not like I can use anything you discern from your ‘gift’ in court, anyway. The rest would be hearsay. I need evidence. I need to find that diary if it exists.”

  “Then, let me help.” I focused on my ice cream to avoid his glare and pressed on. “I can go back to Bridewell. Say I left something behind and search the place. No one’s been allowed to leave. I mean, they have had hours to get rid of it but it has to still be on the grounds, somewhere.”

  Dave took a long, pensive lick of his cone and gazed at the sparkling water in front. “If I let you go back there. And it’s a big if. You aren’t to talk to any of the guests. And you touch nothing. Just alert me to what you find and I will send in an officer to collect it. Do you understand?”

  “Inspector Lovington, I always understand.”

  “To be clear, I am only sending you in so that they, whoever they are, don’t suspect we are looking for the diary. If my officers rummage through their drawers, the culprit might get wind and panic. I don’t want more dead bodies on my conscience.”

  “Understood. Only one question? Can I finish my ice cream first?”

  He grinned, “And this is absolutely the very last time ever you play detective.”

  “Scout’s honour!”

  “Were you ever a scout?” Dave wiped his moustache and smiled.

  “No, but I was a brownie for a few months. Does that count?”

  ✽✽✽

  The inspector phoned ahead to warn one of his officers stationed at Bridewell Manor that I was coming and to allow me free access to the house. I left him at the pub and climbed aboard Cilla for the short uphill drive to Upper Road via Abbey View Drive. As they had done in my youth, children were riding their bikes and skateboards down its steep incline in the summer sun. I remembered how Karen used to love to hang out with the skater boys. Such innocent, carefree times.

  I found a police officer manning the security gate. A quick flash of my white clerical collar and he buzzed me through. Ralph greeted me as I approached the main entrance.

  “Reverend, I thought you would have stayed a million miles away from here, given what’s happened.”

  “I lost my, er, phone. I think I must have dropped it somewhere. What with all the chaos yesterday morning and stuff. Inspector Lovington said I could look in my room.”

  “Be my guest, Reverend Ward. Did the inspector tell you how much longer he is going to hold people here? Everyone’s getting cabin fever.” I suggested that people would be free to roam once the forensics team had finished their job and learnt in return that everyone had spent the night with a police officer on guard outside their rooms. “It was like being in prison, Reverend. Anyway, must be done, I suppose. You know the way. I would escort you, but Annie is ready to serve lunch. Between you and me, she’s a little overwrought by all that’s been going on. She cares so much for her ladyship, you know. We so wanted this impromptu dinner party to be a success. Encourage Lady Arabella to do some more entertaining. Like in the old days.”

  “Well, the party was a tremendous success.” I reassured him, “It was the morning after that wasn’t quite to plan. None of you are to blame for that.”

  “But I should have checked the pool. After we heard them. I mean, I was just so tired. Neither of us are as young as we once were, Reverend. And we’re not used to it. Having guests here, that is. It’s usually only us and Ms Arabella. Sometimes Master Tristan. Mr Burton has been away filming since His Lordship passed.”

  I had to rewind the conversation a smidgeon. “What commotion?”

  “It would have been around three in the morning. There were loud voices coming from the pool area. Our bedroom is at the front, to the side. There are not a lot of soft furnishings in that part of the house. Sound carries.”

  “Did you hear what they were discussing?”

  “It didn’t sound much like a discussion. I could tell one of them was the Jamaican guy by his accent. His voice boomed through the walls. I swear he was laughing, though. You know, playing around. I think the other voices were female, but I could be wrong. There was a splash, but I thought they were larking about in the pool. How was I to know it was more sinister than that?”

  I placed a comforting arm around his sturdy frame. “There was no way you could or should have suspected anything other than a bit of high jinks. We had all had a lot to drink.”

  “Yes, Reverend. Anyway. I hope you find your phone. You can see yourself out afterwards?”

  “My pho- yes, yes, my phone. Of course. You are very busy, Ralph. And please don’t worry. Just a suggestion, though. I think you should tell one of the police officers what you heard after lunch. It might be important.” That should give me enough time to safely search the bedrooms.

  I knew everyone was downstairs, but my heart was still firmly in my throat as I pushed against the first bedroom door. The mix of male and female clothes scattered on the bed and draped over the dressing table chair told me I was in Steve and Celeste’s room. Their bed looked untouched, apart from the clothes and slightly ruched sheets. It had been a warm night. Perhaps they had slept on top of the covers. The disarray seemed out of character. I had expected Celeste to treat her wardrobe with more respect, and Steve didn’t come across as a man who tolerated mess and disorder. They had just lost a beloved employee! Maybe they had other things on their mind. Yes, like getting their hands on her diary!

  I dug out the last of the plastic gloves from my trouser pocket and pulled them on. I pulled out empty drawers, searched under the bed, in the folds of the curtains. I ev
en took the lid off the cistern of their ensuite toilet, but everywhere came up empty. My last hope was the desk in the corner. Nothing again, other than a slim brown folder poking out from under the leather-bound blotting-pad. Curiouser and curiouser. Inside was a thirty-year-old letter in French dated the ‘22 Mars’ of that year, and a second document titled ‘Déclaration de Naissance’.

  Even my limited French worked out that this was the birth certificate for a baby girl born a few days earlier on the eighteenth of March. The baby’s name was Guenièvre. The space for her father’s name was blank. Her mother was Celeste Marron.

  Celeste had a child!

  ✽✽✽

  I tucked the folder back under the pad. The logical half of my brain was telling me ‘so what?’ Celeste had a child thirty years ago. It was very unlikely to have any bearing on the current case. I knew Ellen wasn’t her daughter unless she was adopted? I never thought to ask Karen. Well, you don’t as a matter of course, do you? Being Celeste’s love child would explain a lot. It would explain why she went for the job at Aurora and didn’t tell her mother about it. It would explain secret coded entries in her diary, if it existed, of course. And it would explain her desire to use Archie to find out more information if that is actually what I channelled in her cabin.

  There were a lot of ‘ifs’ and this was wild speculation. I had no evidence that Ellen was Celeste’s daughter. I could ask Karen, but how would I introduce it into the conversation? Her password! If the date used on her laptop was the eighteenth of March, that would prove it! I made a mental note to call Dave with this idea as soon as I was back outside.

  I did my best to leave everything as I had found it and sneaked along the corridor to the next room along. The bright pink wig resting on a polystyrene head on the dresser told me I had found Sweetpea’s boudoir. So she doesn’t dye her hair. Her suitcase revealed several more coloured wigs of various lengths and hues safely stowed in fabric drawstring bags. The wardrobe was a floral sensation packed with a kaleidoscope of ditsy dresses and jackets.

  On her desks sat a stack of papers and a rose gold laptop. It was ordered chaos. Initially, her belongings appeared to be a full-on assault on the senses, yet on closer inspection, each had a use and a logical place. I pulled out every drawer and squeezed my hand into every nook and cranny, but there was no diary. This is a wild goose chase!

  Next door was Jenny’s room, and it looked exactly as I expected - tidy to the point of obsessive compulsion. You could have bounced a coin off the tautness of the bedsheets. I’m sure I saw that in an old war movie, or was it ‘Private Benjamin’? She had a neat stack of coloured folders on the desk, all carefully labelled. There was nothing of interest inside any of them unless you had some weird fetish for excel spreadsheets and bar charts. Her black laptop was locked, as was the desk drawer underneath it. Strange, none of the others had locked theirs. Of course, that didn’t mean the diary was in it. For starters, was there even a key? None of the other desks had one. The drawer may have been locked already or stuck shut. I tried to jimmy it open but it would not budge. Short of breaking it, I couldn’t find a way in.

  The only other possibility was that it was still in Archie’s bedroom. I needed to get a move on. Lunch would be over soon. I found Archie’s things gathered in the centre of the room. It looked like the police had already searched here. But they weren’t looking for a lady’s diary! I flicked through his bags and checked the desk and the bathroom. Nothing. I smoothed my hands over the bedcovers and underneath the pillows. More nothing. I went through drawers and pulled open cupboard doors. Even more nothing. Then I noticed that his room had wooden shutters pushed back to let in the day. I unfolded the panel nearest to the bed… Voila! A slim peach gold embossed journal fell to the floor.

  This was Ellen’s diary, just as Jack had described it. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. If Ellen was planning on making a return visit, now would be a good time to call. After a few minutes, I gave up. The psychic hotline must be down for maintenance. The journal entries were mostly in code, and way above my level of intelligence to decipher. I can’t even make above four-letter words in Scrabble. The quicker the police boffins got their smart hands on this treasure, the better. Just take a few photographs first, aren’t smart phones wonderful things! Photos taken, I slipped the diary back behind the panel and made good my escape.

  Almost.

  The second my foot touched the marble floor at the foot of the stairway, my wonderful phone rang. It was Lawrence. I hit ‘decline’, checked to see if anyone was around, and made a bolt for the door. Once I had Cilla back on the main road, I pulled over to make two important calls. One to Inspector Lovington to advise him where to find the diary and suggest a possible password, and the other? To apologise to Lawrence for not calling him earlier, and putting the phone down on him. It’s a good thing he loves me.

  Princess of pop

  I arranged to pop over to see Lawrence after the school day had finished, but first I wanted to check up on Karen. I knew Mum would make sure she was fed and watered. It was my job to keep her company. An important role all this sneaking around had distracted me from. I found my old school friend reclining on a lounger in the garden.

  “You have a lovely place here, Jess. And your Mum is a total star.”

  The afternoon air squealed in response to the scrapping metal legs of my sun lounger as I dragged it across the patio. Snoozing birds of all varieties flapped and squawked their objections to my rude invasion on their afternoon siesta. “Yes, she is. I don’t know how she does it all. Do you know where she is now?”

  “I think she was heading to the market to get stuff for dinner. You are so lucky, Jess, to have all your family around you.”

  “I know. I’m still getting used to it all, if I’m honest. But we’re family too. You, me and Sam. The Wesberrey Angels. We’re both here for you, no matter what.”

  Karen rolled over on her side to face me. “I know, but it’s not the same, is it? Neither one of you has children, do you? You invested your lives in your careers. I gave mine for Ellen and now she’s gone.”

  Perhaps this was my opening to find out if Ellen was adopted. “It’s true I never carried my own child, but Zuzu was always travelling, chasing some new man or other. I was a hands-on aunt to my three nieces when they lived with Mum. I have some idea of your sacrifices.”

  Karen swung her legs around and bent over on the side of the lounger. “But it’s not the same as cooking a new life in your belly,” she rubbed her stomach, “and being one with another human being. We were so close when she was little. We did everything together. Then she hit puberty and everything started to change.” So, Ellen is not little Guenièvre Marron.

  “The teenage years are hard. Children often rebel.”

  “Teenage years, my arse! That’s the priest in you talking. If you had a daughter, you would understand how much it hurts when they don’t want you anymore.” Karen bit back her tears. “Ellen thought only of herself. I spoiled her and she moved on when I outlived my usefulness. No sugar coating that. It’s my fault. I taught her she was special, destined for greatness. The world was hers for the taking. I can’t blame her when she went off to claim her birthright, can I?”

  “I’m sure she loved you, though. She sounds like she was finding her way in the world, that’s all.” I thought about all the times I’d screened my mother’s calls because I was too busy. I never stopped loving her. “Life overtakes us all at times.”

  “Death overtakes life,” she sobbed.

  “Yes, and I know I should tell you it’s all part of God’s plan, but I can’t explain it. We cannot begin to understand his reasons.”

  “If he has any. Jess, I know this is your job, but I’ll be honest I get more comfort from your witchy side.”

  To be honest, at this very moment, so did I. “Cindy told me that Ellen had one shot to send a message back, and she used that window to tell you she loves you.”

  Karen grabbed both of my han
ds and squeezed them. “Yes, she did, didn’t she? And she got my gift. I thought she would think it was childish. Ellen was always so serious. So logical. But she loved Britney. My fondest memories are of her dancing to her videos. She knew all the moves.” Karen drifted off, humming along to a hazy memory of ‘Hit me baby, one more time.’

  “And that’s how you should remember her.” What if the password was Britney’s date of birth? “Karen, when I went out earlier… I was told that Ellen kept a diary. It’s written in code. Would that sound right to you?”

  My friend freed a hand to wipe the teardrops from her nose and cheeks. “Ellen was a fiend for puzzles. Word games. Those quest video games. With what’s her name? Lara Croft! She made up a secret language when she was twelve. I guess she could still use that, or an updated version of it. Why, do you think they killed her for a diary?”

  “I think the diary is the link between her death and the first mate’s. It seems he took it, but couldn’t understand it. I don’t suppose you know what that code was?”

  “No, I always respected her privacy. If she’d written it in code, then she didn’t want me to read it.”

  “Do you think she would have the key to the code stored on her laptop?” I asked hopefully.

  “I doubt it. She knew it off by heart.” Hope dashed.

  ✽✽✽

  I offered to make us both a pitcher of Pimms and lemonade and took the opportunity to call the inspector with my latest updates. Good to his word, Dave had sent in an officer straight after my earlier call to retrieve the diary. It was already bagged and on its way to the forensics lab in Stourchester. With no evidence to charge anyone, he’d given the rest of the Aurora Agency passes to go into town, or for a walk, etc. They still could not leave the island or return to the yacht.

  “Have they hacked Ellen’s laptop yet?” I asked.

  “No, the date of birth you suggested didn’t work.”

  “That’s because Ellen wasn’t adopted. But, she was a huge Britney Spears fan. Try BJS02121981.” Google is your friend.