The Killer in the Choir

by Simon Brett

  ‘Look, Heather is up to her ears with preparations for her daughter’s wedding and—’

  ‘Her stepdaughter’s wedding. And I think it’s that relationship which is at the bottom of this mystery.’

  ‘There is no mystery,’ said Jude plaintively and, she knew, hopelessly.

  ‘No? Come on, Jude, where’s your instinct for justice?’

  Jude couldn’t think of an answer that wouldn’t sound flippant, so she said nothing.

  ‘You’re not keeping anything from me, are you?’ With Carole, paranoia was never far below the surface.

  ‘No, of course I’m not.’ Jude shouldn’t have been surprised at being put on the spot so soon.

  ‘Are you sure Heather hasn’t said something to you, something that might clarify the position, might help us to prove how her husband died?’

  Though Jude at times had the same flexible approach to mendacity as she did to justice, she found it very hard to lie in this situation. The temptation to tell her friend and collaborator the truth was almost overpowering. But she gritted her teeth and said, ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I think you’re being extremely unhelpful, Jude,’ said Carole.

  The words hurt. Torn by conflicting loyalties to the two women, Jude felt uncharacteristically miserable. Though in some circumstances she had told white lies to avoid causing suffering, she did not take naturally to duplicity.

  TWELVE

  The wedding morning dawned beautifully. It was one of those May days which held promise that there really would be a summer soon.

  And the florists that Heather Mallett brought in had somehow contrived to make the forbidding vastness of All Saints Fethering look more welcoming. The bride’s beautifully cut dress made her curvaceous rather than dumpy, and the groom looked better and generally more trim in his dress uniform than he did in civvies. It turned out that he was a Major, which Shirley Tattersall, who for some reason knew about these things, said meant he was no slouch. Making Major before thirty was apparently quite a feat. So, Roddy Skelton couldn’t be as stupid as he appeared to be.

  At the back of the church, a group of equally smart uniformed friends from his regiment were ready to form a guard of honour, so that the couple could march out under raised swords at the end of the ceremony.

  And, proud in the front row on the groom’s side, was a tall old man with black eyebrows, who could only be the object of Roddy Skelton’s hero worship, his ‘Aged P’.

  Bob Hinkley conducted the service with appropriate gravitas and what sounded like genuine affection for the participants.

  The church choir excelled themselves. As at the funeral, Heather Mallett had chosen to take her place in the choir stalls, rather than the body of the church. And she joined in a lusty rendition of the two hymns that she and Alice had spent so long choosing. They had finally plumped for ‘Praise My Soul the King of Heaven’ and ‘Jerusalem’. Safe, maybe, but tunes they both loved. From her position at the altar, Alice’s clear soprano could also be heard distinctly.

  And the choir had ably supported Toby the tenor as they sang Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’ during the signing of the register.

  Jonny Virgo had demonstrated his talents at the organ as he played the music for the entry of the bride and the newly married couple’s exit from the church. The first piece was an arrangement of Jeremiah Clarke’s ‘Trumpet Voluntary’, and the final one the very traditional Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding March’. Though she didn’t know much about classical music, Jude could appreciate Jonny’s virtuosity. She wondered whether there had been a point when, before resigning himself to being a teacher, he had contemplated a career as a professional musician. And whether making that compromise had added to the neuroses of his later life.

  He had arrived in good time before the ceremony, leading his frail mother and an elderly friend who was going to look after her during the service. He explained to the choir that Heather, who was at that moment checking arrangements outside the church, had readily agreed to his mother attending the service, ‘because the old dear does so like listening to me play.’

  Mrs Virgo was almost skeletally thin. Parchment-like skin stretched tightly over the sharp bones of her face, and cocktail-stick legs looked inadequate even to bear her light weight. She had arrived at the church in a wheelchair, pushed by the friend, but once she was out of it, her mobility, with the aid of a stick, did not seem to be too badly impaired.

  And she was very smartly turned out. Under the camel-hair coat she wore against the cold could be seen a dress of pink silk, and her thin feet were encased in smart court shoes. Her sparse white hair had been skilfully shaped by a hairdresser’s lacquer. And she clutched a large brown handbag, as though it were a lifebelt in stormy seas.

  But when Jonny introduced her to the choir, it was clear that her mental capacity did not match her physical fitness. She looked vague and uncomfortable, not taking in the names her son relayed to her. She kept peering anxiously at him, worried that he was about to abandon her, and when he had to take up his position at the organ, she was very distressed as her friend led her to their pew.

  From the choir stalls, Jude had a very good view of the old lady, whose agitation seemed to grow as the church started to fill up. She kept half-rising from her seat, only to be gently pulled back by her friend. But the minute her son’s hands touched the keyboard to play the first notes of pre-ceremony music, Mrs Virgo settled back into peaceful, listening mode. And when Jonny started playing the ‘Trumpet Voluntary’, the old woman looked positively beatific. She remained in that state of calm throughout the service.

  Toby, the tenor whom Jonny had brought in to handle the solos, proved to be very amiable. His professionalism had the effect of raising the choir’s talents in the direction of his own, and Jude could see Heather glowing from the quality of the sounds they were producing. Any residual regret that she wasn’t leading the ‘Ave Maria’ as soloist seemed to have long gone.

  In fact, Heather Mallett glowed with satisfaction at the realization of all her dreams for Alice’s perfect day. Her meticulous planning had paid off.

  Though she had not invited the choir to the reception, Heather had demonstrated her loyalty by offering them a glass of champagne in the church hall straight after the ceremony. The same invitation had been offered to Bob Hinkley, and when all of the other guests were milling outside the church waiting for the bride and groom to be photographed, Heather whispered to her fellow singers, ‘Come on, quick! I’ll get you sorted out with a drink before I’m needed in the pics.’

  The choir appreciated this priority treatment and were soon all equipped with champagne glasses. They looked around in amazement at the transformation of the church hall. The florists who had done such wonders in the church itself, had also worked their magic here. The tables laid for the wedding breakfast sparkled with gold and silver. Jude couldn’t help wondering who had actually bought the decorations. She knew they hadn’t been purchased by the bride on the day of her father’s death. And once again she felt a pang about the difficulty of keeping secrets from the terrier-like Carole.

  ‘Listen,’ said Heather. ‘I can’t stay, but I did just want to say thank you enormously for all your hard work. You really brought up the standards of the church choir, and showed what we could do when we really set our minds to it.’

  ‘I hope,’ said Bob Hinkley, ‘that now you’ve proved how good you can be, you’ll aim for the same quality every Sunday at All Saints.’

  ‘That might be tough,’ said Heather. ‘We put in a lot of extra rehearsal. And, of course,’ she gestured towards Toby the tenor, ‘we did have professional help.’

  ‘Something I could have provided,’ Elizabeth Browning reminded them, ‘in my Glyndebourne days. Before the nodules.’

  ‘But,’ Bob went on, ‘we should aim for those standards all the time. We do want everyone to do their best in the service of Our Lord.’

  As the vicar remonstrated, he reached out a hand to touch Heather’s arm. S
he recoiled as if she’d received an electric shock and turned on him, ‘I’m not sure that everyone, Bob,’ she almost spat the words out, ‘thinks that the church choir is as important as you do!’

  Jude was amazed by this sudden outburst, and Bob Hinkley looked shocked too. Heather tried to make up for lost ground too. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’

  Further apology was prevented by the arrival of Jonny Virgo and his mother, whose wheelchair meant they had made slower progress from the church than the others. Her friend, whose services as a pusher were no longer required, had presumably gone home. The old lady looked completely relaxed now she was once again with her son, and Jude was reminded of her level of dependence. The pressure on Jonny, as her sole carer, must have been enormous.

  Heather grinned, her recent retort to the vicar forgotten, as she welcomed the new arrivals. ‘But here’s the man we really have to thank,’ she said, all charm. ‘Mrs Virgo, you must be so proud of your son.’

  The old lady smiled a benign but unfocused smile.

  ‘And, Jonny, thanks so much for recommending Toby. He’s a star! You can keep your Blake Woodruffs, can’t you?’

  Jonny Virgo smiled awkwardly.

  ‘Well done, Toby,’ Heather went on. ‘Alice was very impressed, I could see she was. She’s the one who knows all about Blake Woodruff, of course. I introduced them. I used to know him very well at one stage in my life and …’

  She seemed to pull back on what she was saying, and continued, ‘That is to say, he’s really Alice’s friend. She actually invited him to the wedding, but unfortunately, he couldn’t come. Touring Australia, which, as excuses go, is a pretty good one. Blake and Alice are very close. He confides everything in her. All his guilty secrets, all about everyone who’s ever been in love with him. I think he’s always found it easier to attract love than to give it.’ Heather chuckled. ‘But if he’d been in All Saints today, he would have witnessed the work of a serious rival. Toby, you’re at least as talented as Blake Woodruff!’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the tenor wryly. ‘I don’t know about his talent, but I wouldn’t mind having a share of his royalties.’

  All of the choir members giggled, except for Jonny Virgo, who looked distant and abstracted. Heather’s attention was drawn by someone waving to her from the doorway. ‘Sorry, I’m needed for the photos. Permanent records of this wonderful day. And thanks again to all of you, whose singing was such an important contribution to the day’s wonderfulness.’

  Once the main body of wedding guests came into the church hall, the choir dispersed. Jude didn’t contact Carole to tell her how the event had gone, and Carole resolutely pretended that she wasn’t interested, so the phone in Woodside Cottage did not ring for the rest of the day.

  On the next day, the Sunday, though, it did ring, soon after nine o’clock. A bleary Jude answered.

  ‘Did you hear what happened?’ Carole was high with incredulous excitement.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘A body’s been found, washed up on Fethering Beach.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Earlier this morning. I took Gulliver out for his walk, and there was an area of the beach screened off by the police.’

  ‘Could you see what had happened?’

  ‘No.’ There was a wistfulness in Carole’s voice, as she said, ‘They wouldn’t let me close enough.’ She soon regained momentum. ‘But I met another dog walker and she’d met the person who actually found the body.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Jude, with a level of scepticism. She could hear the wheels of Fethering gossip clicking into motion.

  ‘No, really! And she recognized the body.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Heather Mallett.’

  THIRTEEN

  ‘Another Fethering Floater,’ said one of the sages who always propped up the Crown & Anchor bar on a Sunday lunchtime. His name was Barney Poulton; he was invariably dressed in a thick-knitted fuzzy jumper, and was assumed by non-locals – particularly American visitors – to have been a fixture in the pub from the time when it was built. He represented the salt of the earth, the old village values of a Fethering long gone. (Though he had, in fact, retired to the area only four years before, from Walton-on-Thames in Surrey, whence he had commuted for nearly forty years to a solicitors’ practice in Holborn. His habit of installing himself, as a guru of local affairs, in the same bar seat most days of the week caused the Crown & Anchor’s landlord considerable irritation.)

  ‘You reckon?’ asked that same landlord, wearily, from the depths of his scruffy beard.

  ‘Bound to be, Ted,’ the sage nodded, secure that no one could question his authority on local matters.

  A ‘Fethering Floater’ was the name given to a body found on the beach there. But not just any body. A corpse washed in from the English Channel would not qualify. The ‘Floaters’ were ones who’d fallen into the Fether. The river was still tidal as it entered the sea at Fethering and the flow could be ferociously strong. By some bizarre combination of currents and tides, the body of someone who had fallen into the Fether would always turn up within twenty-four hours on Fethering Beach. And that, the Crown & Anchor sage assured his audience at the bar, was what had happened to Heather Mallett.

  ‘How can you be certain?’ asked Jude, who had come to the pub in the hope of getting more details of what had happened (though she was fully aware that the accuracy of such details could be extremely suspect). Carole wasn’t with her, because she had been asked if the police could visit her to tell them anything she might have seen on Fethering Beach that morning. She claimed the intrusion was a great nuisance, but had been clearly excited by the prospect of giving her testimony.

  ‘You take my word for it,’ said Barney Poulton. ‘I know about these things.’

  Which hardly counted as concrete evidence.

  ‘It’s strange,’ said Ted, ‘to think she was only in here on Monday, with the choir. And I never got much impression of what she was like.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone did, really,’ said Jude. ‘She was quite a complex woman.’

  She was surprised how shaken she had been by the news of Heather’s death. Given what she knew about Alice’s guilt, she felt there had to be some connection. She looked out towards the sea. The weather was as good as it had been the previous day. A few hardy souls were even sitting at the tables in the pub’s garden, bordering on the dunes of Fethering Beach.

  There was nothing to be seen there of the recent police activity. Heather’s body had been washed up at low tide. The police screens had been set up around it, but the returning sea had forced them to move their operations – and the body – elsewhere.

  ‘Of course,’ observed Barney Poulton, sharing more of his wisdom, ‘her husband didn’t die that long ago.’

  ‘No. Back in February,’ Jude confirmed.

  ‘So … delayed shock, do you reckon?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you know, like, grief. Her husband’s dead, her stepdaughter’s married. She suddenly realizes she’s on her own, so she tops herself by jumping into the Fether.’

  ‘That’s not the way I see it,’ said Jude. ‘She was positively glowing at the wedding ceremony yesterday.’

  ‘And no mother/stepdaughter conflict like there had been at the funeral?’

  ‘Absolutely not, Barney. Rather the reverse. The two of them couldn’t have been closer. And if you go back to Heather’s husband’s death … well, she seemed to be relieved rather than upset by it.’

  ‘You can say that again.’ Jude didn’t know the woman who chipped in, but her clothes and vowels suggested she might be another resident of the Shorelands Estate. ‘I was at the wedding yesterday and, let me tell you, Heather was in sparkling form. No, if she fell in the Fether, she certainly didn’t do so deliberately.’

  ‘I was only there at the beginning of the reception. Did she drink a lot?’ asked Jude.

  ‘Not more than would be appropriate
for the mother of the bride,’ said the woman, rather reprovingly.

  ‘Sorry, we haven’t met. My name’s Jude.’

  ‘Ramona Plowright. My husband’s Commodore of the Yacht Club.’ Clearly not one of those women who objected to being defined by her spouse. She went on, confirming Jude’s earlier conjecture, ‘We live up on the Shorelands Estate. Virtually neighbours of the Malletts.’

  ‘And do you know,’ asked Jude, hoping she didn’t sound too much like an investigator, ‘what Heather did after the wedding?’

  ‘No, Len and I left before she did. We offered her a lift, but she said she’d got stuff to do and would sort out a cab.’

  ‘What time would this be?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Tennish. Weddings go on so long these days. Church ceremony, reception, and then the young ones want to dance into the small hours. Fortunately, the church hall regulations mean that the music has to stop at half past ten, and they’re pretty strict about that, but even so … Len and I had no wish to be party poopers, but he’s got a bad back, so we didn’t stay to the bitter end.’

  ‘And were the newly-weds going straight off on honeymoon?’

  ‘No, spending the night at the Craigmullen.’ A recently opened five-star boutique hotel, converted from a former girls’ school on the edge of the Downs between Fethering and Fedborough. ‘Roddy apparently stayed there the Friday night, and his best man drove him into Fethering for the wedding. So, his car would be at the hotel, and the plan was that they’d drive off to Heathrow this morning. Then fly to … I don’t know, Maldives, I think it was. Though, given the circumstances, I can’t imagine they’ve gone.’

  ‘No,’ Jude agreed.

  ‘Absolute tragedy, isn’t it?’ said Ramona, feeling that perhaps she hadn’t expressed adequate sympathy. ‘So awful for Alice, to lose both parents so close together. Well, Heather wasn’t her birth mother …’

  ‘I knew that,’ said Jude.

  ‘… so, for the poor kid it must be like being orphaned twice.’

  Any response to this was prevented by the arrival of Carole, flushed both by excitement and the pace at which she had scuttled from High Tor to the pub.