Divine Death: A Rev Jessamy Ward Mystery (Isle Of Wesberrey Book 4)

by Penelope Cress

  “And how would I know that, eh?” The inspector pulled up a chair opposite me and sat down, legs wide, arms folded, forehead furrowed. “Seems to me that Mr Woodward here was the last person to have seen Professor Cheadle alive.”

  “Yes, but you don’t think Ernest could have brained a man with a candlestick?” I laughed.

  “This is no joke, Reverend Ward.” Dave scowled, one squinting eye on my unusual footwear. He turned to PC Taylor. “I think we have everything we need for now. Will you escort Ernest home, please? Oh, and Mr Woodward if you remember anything else, I trust you will bring it to my attention immediately.”

  Ernest nodded.

  The Inspector added, “Miss Graham, thank you so much for bringing the vicar to see me. I imagine you have a million things you need to do.”

  A visibly bewildered Barbara looked to me for permission to leave. “Go with Mr Woodward. I will be along later.” I watched them leave. “Dave, what is your problem? I did nothing wrong!”

  “Jess, you didn’t mention Tom’s statement to me once last night.”

  “You told me to keep out of your investigation. Not to mix business with pleasure. You were off duty! Ernest wasn’t about to do a runner in the middle of the night now, was he?”

  “Frightened people do strange things.”

  “Why would Ernest be frightened?” I asked.

  “Because not only was he the last person to speak to the professor, someone saw him, Jess. I have an eyewitness report detailing the two men arguing in the churchyard.”

  “Who? They must be mistaken!” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “If you think he did it, why have you let him go?”

  “Do you see any jail cells here?” Dave slapped his hand off his thighs like a pantomime principal boy. “I had to let him go. Taylor will keep a lookout during the day. There’s only one way off the island, and Bob McGuire will alert me if anyone suspicious tries to leave.”

  “Ernest isn’t suspicious.”

  “No, then what do you call refusing to answer questions unless I placed him under arrest? Even then, he declined to talk without a lawyer present. And he’s the only flaming lawyer on this god-forsaken isle.” Dave was on twitch overload.

  “So you still don’t know what they were arguing about, even if it was them.”

  “Oh, it was them. Once we put the cuffs on and threatened to take him to Stourchester, he sang like a canary.”

  What parallel universe have I fallen into, this is Wesberrey, not Chicago during the Prohibition!

  Dave kicked back in his chair. His face wore a very unappealing smugness. “And I bet you are desperate to know what he said.” I knew this was a trap. The glint in his eye told me he was itching to snatch that tasty carrot away the moment I asked.

  “I’m sure I will find out when the time is right. Now, if you don’t mind, I have vicary things to do.” I went to stand up, but Dave edged forward, gently forcing me back in my seat.

  “And those vicary things do not include talking to Mr Woodward. Do you understand?”

  “But he’s my churchwarden and my solicitor and...” My protestations met an icy gaze. “And I understand.”

  Barbara will tell me everything, anyway.

  ✽✽✽

  Tuesday afternoon crawled by with little drama. I knew Barbara would be at that evening’s Walkers Workout, temporarily rehoused in the hospital’s basement whilst the police had command of the hall. With only a month before her nuptials, Barbara was taking every opportunity to get into shape for her big day. Frederico, the former Svengali of the Walkers’ fitness drive (and my older sister’s former Brazilian lover) was renting an apartment thirty miles away in Stourchester. Without Frederico's leadership, though, the group had kept up his fitness regime. Each of us took turns to lead the exercise routines. Wesberrey’s answer to the Kardashians, Avril and Verity Leybourne led tonight’s punishment.

  After an hour of star jumps and squats to ‘80s classics, the group gathered, as had become our custom, for some freshly blitzed fruit smoothies. After the successes of the group at Wesberrey Walkathon at Easter, the Walkers had gained over a dozen new members. This was most welcome, even if most of the new recruits were half my age and body size. Many were also Avril and Verity’s clients at Scissor Sisters, so they naturally splintered off in a huddle at the end of each evening. This left me sipping my glass of mashed banana, grapes and spinach with the more mature ladies, namely hospital administrator, Martha Campbell (who had opened up the conference room for us), my loyal friend and parish secretary, Barbara Graham, and my arch-nemesis and school secretary, Audrey Matthews.

  I wanted to get Barbara alone, but Audrey, normally someone who would choose to redo the entire class on a floor an inch thick with broken glass rather than stand for a second next to me, had other ideas.

  “Mr Pixley was whistling a lot around the school today. It was quite unnerving, if I’m being honest. Unnatural. Like he’s been enchanted.” Audrey had this bee in her bonnet about me being some kind of evil seductress, bewitching every man I met with my sexy clerical collar. Though it amused me to think that maybe this time, she was right.

  “Lawrence is excited at having some money to fix up his beloved school. Isn’t it attractive to see a man so passionate about his work?” I answered.

  “I’m sure in time, he will come to his senses.” She snorted down her banana and honey yoghurt elixir.

  “Would you really rather he was sad, Mrs Matthews?” Martha asked.

  “I would rather he had his wits about him.” Audrey harrumphed in reply. This sweaty pillar of scorn and gaudy shellac nails stood a full six inches taller than me, but I was ready to defend my honour. I knew she knew. Everyone knew. And I was prepared to fight for my man!

  I didn’t need to though as Barbara stepped up in my defence. “We all get what you’re angling at here, Audrey Matthews, but I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. You have the Reverend all wrong. If Lawrence Pixley is whistling like one of Snow White’s seven dwarfs after an evening of canoodling with the vicar here, then I say God bless them!”

  “Just so we’re clear, there was no canoodling,” I interjected. Why did I say that?

  “I have this, Reverend.” Barbara softly pushed me towards the row of chairs by the wall. “Now Audrey, if you don’t mind. The Vicar and I have business to discuss. I suggest you join the others.”

  Audrey knocked back the contents of her glass, grabbed her gym bag and stormed off into the night. The other Walkers raised a toast as she passed. Most of the new members had children at the school, and I can imagine few of them were fans of its officious secretary.

  As the air settled, Barbara lost little time in updating me about poor Ernest.

  “I stayed as long as I could. Ernest wasn’t saying a thing, though Tom spoke enough for all of us. Gabbling away. I didn’t think one man could have so many words in him. Phil came up before I left. Ernest might talk to him. But I made sure they had something to eat. I’m so worried about them. What is Inspector Lovington thinking?”

  “Indeed, he says there’s a witness. Someone saw Ernest and Norman Cheadle arguing that night. Hard to believe.” I shook my head at the very idea of it, “Tom didn’t hold back on what he thought of the professor, but Ernest seemed to be so forgiving. What could have fired him up so? Have you ever seen him angry?”

  “No, never. Not so much as a raised word. He can get a bit frustrated with Tom occasionally, but no, nope, I’ve never seen him lose his temper.”

  I needed to take another look at those witness statements.

  The lychgate

  If I had known that I was going to have to add cat burglar to my job roles, I wouldn’t have worn a neon orange top to the Walkers Workout, but it would have to do. I offered to help Martha lock up to give time for the rest of the group to leave the immediate area and then snuck across the graveyard to the church hall. The cloudy sky helped disguise me in the moonlight, just providing enough light to guide my steps
. Ahead a couple of tomcats were fighting over bedding rights to the latest female in heat, but otherwise, the coast was clear.

  I needed to keep my ‘wits about me’ as, without a lookout this time, I was on my own. Once inside, I left my gym bag by the door to enable a quick getaway if disturbed and crawled along the floor to the Inspector’s desk. The pile of folders in the wire tray was higher than before. The police had been busy. Most of the files contained statements from people who were in the Cat and Fiddle on Friday night, all saying that they saw Norman and Sebastian at dinner, but no one there appeared to see either of them afterwards. There was the one from Tom, confirming that Norman took a ride up to Cliff View before the train closed down at nine o’clock. Then I found the one from Ernest himself.

  “Professor Cheadle arrived at the Cliff View stop around a quarter to nine. He made a comment about keeping my dog on a leash. I knew he was referring to Mr Jennings, so I stepped out of the machine room to enquire what he meant. Professor Cheadle made some very offensive remarks about Mr Jennings and walked away.

  I have attempted to remain civil in my business dealings and social interactions with Professor Cheadle, but I regret to say that his comments on this occasion made me see red. I am a man slow to anger, but I was tired. It had been a long day. I suppose I snapped. I walked after him, demanding an apology on behalf of my friend. He continued to climb along Upper Road towards St. Bridget's. I could not let his comments stand, so quickened my pace.

  I caught up to him at the lychgate. I grabbed his arm. He swung around and spat in my face. I strengthened my grip. He yelled obscenities at me. He called me a sycophantic rube, a fawning yokel, and a clodhopping queer! I am afraid that the last insult was too much, and I pushed him. He squared up, prepared his fists and dared me to ‘take him on’. He lurched at me with his left arm. I blocked him and pushed him back again. I told him he was a drunken hustler, a conman, and a rogue and that wherever he was heading to just leave me and Mr Jennings alone.

  Then I turned and walked away. I imagine he continued towards the church, but I cannot be sure. I just wanted to get home.”

  ✽✽✽

  Norman Cheadle probably entered the church around nine o’clock. Who would have been lurking around the churchyard at that hour? I needed to find the witness statement that placed Ernest in that argument. Poor Ernest. Even the very best of us have a trigger point.

  One folder caught my eye. One with a very familiar name. Audrey Matthews. I wished with all my heart, well at least seventy percent of it, that Audrey wasn’t the witness, but there in black and white was her sworn statement that she had seen Ernest Woodward and ‘an unidentified man with white hair’ arguing by the lychgate around nine o’clock on the evening of the first of May.

  The statement read that she recognised Ernest Woodward because she had known him for many years and she understood it was her ‘duty’ to inform the police because she was ‘shocked’ to see him behave in such an ‘ungentlemanly manner’. Her statement though didn’t stretch as far as to confirm Ernest’s assertion that he left Norman alive and well. In fact, Audrey stated she was afraid of getting embroiled in their fight, so she turned around and took the long way back home to avoid any further involvement. She told her husband Stanley about the fight when she got in and he had told her ‘it was probably nothing and to keep her nose out of other people’s business.’ When she heard about the murder, she knew she had no choice but to tell the police what she saw.

  That was true, I supposed, and normally I would have supported her decision, but it made things look terrible for my churchwarden. What I couldn’t understand though was why Ernest hadn’t voluntarily come forward himself? Or why he refused to speak to the police unless he was under arrest? These decisions made him look guilty. As an experienced lawyer, surely, he knew that.

  I knew in my heart that Ernest was innocent, but how to prove it?

  Perhaps there was something here, amongst the evidence bags or the other statements that would help. I slunk back down to the floor and crawled over a few more feet to the tables at the side of the room. I knew the SOCO team had taken a lot of evidence for testing back on the mainland, so I wasn’t too hopeful of finding anything useful. Then one of the clear bags glinted in my phone's torchlight. It was the candlestick!

  I grabbed the bag and sunk to the floor. The label showed it had been for testing and dusted for fingerprints. They confirmed the blood to be that of Norman Cheadle.

  I knew what I had to do.

  I opened the bag and reached inside. I grasped the top of the candlestick and closed my eyes.

  My heart quickened. There he was! The moon was shining through the stained glass, creating coloured squares of light on the back of his white hair as he walked away. Years of anger and resentment. I saw the candlestick in my hand. There was so much power, so much rage coursing through my arm. Anger. Whack! Revenge. He fell. Blood, so much blood.

  ✽✽✽

  It had felt so real. I was there. I was the assailant, except of course that it wasn’t me. As I sat there in the dark on the floor, my body embraced the release. I was no closer to knowing who killed Norman Cheadle, but I had a better understanding why. This wasn’t a robbery gone bad, whoever killed the professor did so to right some deeply felt wrong. It had lifted an enormous burden from me. I had no sense of guilt. This was a justifiable homicide, at least in the eyes of the murderer.

  Sleuthing 101

  I crept back to the vicarage unseen and avoided any tough conversations with the family about why I was late. Mum, Zuzu, and Rosie were watching a movie with the volume turned up so loud there was no way they would have heard me enter, so I headed straight to the kitchen to prepare myself something to eat. As expected, when I joined them, they barely noticed I was even there.

  In the morning, I sat down at my desk to clear through my emails again before setting off to St. Mildred’s for lunch. There was a yellow Post-It note stuck to my screen. It read:

  Tizzy’s dad’s back.

  She’s invited you round for dinner.

  Weds. 7 pm,

  Luke

  x

  Pretty old school, leaving notes. He could have sent a text. Anyway, I was extremely curious to meet Tizzy’s father. What should I expect from an entrepreneur who had abandoned his wife and daughter to hang out at dance clubs with his associates?

  ✽✽✽

  The ferry to Oysterhaven was unusually busy. The channel, by comparison, was the calmest I had ever seen it. The smooth waters disturbed only by diving seagulls keen to catch their lunch.

  Bob McGuire was, as usual, in top form.

  “Mind how you go there, Vicar. It’s been like this all morning. Out and in.”

  I commented on the beautiful weather and he agreed it was a wonderful day to be alive, which led the conversation on to the latest point of island gossip.

  “Can’t believe what they’re saying about old Woodward. Can you, Vicar? I have a lot of time for that Inspector Lovington, but I think he’s barking up the wrong tree on this one. Though who else could it be?”

  My thoughts exactly. Despite all the evidence, I remained convinced Ernest was innocent. Suspecting it may be Tom was an even further reach. I believed Luke implicitly, so it logically followed that Tizzy didn’t have time to do it. I couldn’t think of a motive, anyway. There has to be a motive. Sleuthing 101. I have two suspects Sebastian DeVere and Isadora Threadgill. Again, what motive could either have to brutally attack Norman? Professor Cheadle was the renowned Neolithic expert whose views on the Venuses would decide their place in history. What possible advantage would either have in killing him before he published his findings? And I couldn’t ignore the candlestick and what I saw.

  Felt.

  Experienced.

  No, Norman’s assailant had determined to get revenge for something. This wasn’t a random attack, but was it premeditated? Whoever struck the fatal blow coursed with justifiable rage. They felt they have done the right thing, a
nd the world was a better place without Norman Cheadle in it.

  ✽✽✽

  Just before Easter, I had spent some time helping at St Mildred’s when Reverend Cattermole was ill in hospital. It was a pleasure to be back here again. The housekeeper, Prudence Beckworth, had prepared a handsome spread.

  “Awful news about that academic fella, eh, Jess? Murder seems to follow you around like an unpleasant smell.” It amazed me it had taken Richard a full twenty minutes of munching mushroom quiche and coleslaw to broach this topic of conversation. “Messy business being done in by a candlestick, I would imagine.”

  “Not the most pleasant of crime scenes to witness, no. I could put the blame for all this drama at your door,” I suggested. “It was your idea to bring in S.H.A.S. to look for that well.”

  “True, you know how much I love true crime. Though I don’t get as involved as you, dear child,” he chortled. Taking a large bite out of a Melton Mowbray he proclaimed, “Mrs Beckworth, where did you get these pork pies? They are to die for! Sorry, Jess, no pun intended!”

  “Richard, how well do you know Isadora Threadgill and Sebastian DeVere?”

  “Well, I don’t know that DeVere chappie at all, but I have known Isadora for… let me see, she used to tag along with her father, Reginald… must be forty years or more.”

  “Tagged along with her father? Where?”

  “Everywhere, they were inseparable. Well, that was until he remarried. His first wife died when Isadora was a child. So tragic. Lung cancer and that poor woman never smoked a day in her life. She worked at the local newspaper. Maybe she got it there, or in the newsroom, at that London paper she worked for before she got married. Passive smoking, they’d call it now. Different world…”