Late of This Parish Page 10

  It was a hazy, fitfully sunny day, cool for May, but warm when the sun came out. Mayo walked slowly so as to take a better look at the square, seen previously in the dark, liking what he saw even better in daylight. The little precinct had a timeless feeling about it and, despite the jarring police presence, a slumbrous sense of history to which the violent death which had occurred there would in time add its own dispassionate contribution. There were pink flowering cherry trees in the churchyard, lightening the gloom created by the large number of yews, unclipped, with great sweeping branches; he counted thirteen houses, every one charming and no single one like any other in the square, before completing his circuit. One or two were in fact no longer houses. Apart from a largish timbered one, now the parish rooms, he saw that one erstwhile cottage announced itself in its window as a knitwear cooperative, and spotted another of Georgian vintage which had become a solicitor’s office.

  He was looking for an entry Kite had spoken about, and found it opposite the back of the church. A high wooden gate marked PRIVATE, it nevertheless stood wide open, wedged with a stone. He walked down a narrow space between two houses to the top of an overgrown pathway between the two gardens flanking it, where it ceased to bear any semblance to a real path and plunged downwards. It was now little more than a slippery gully between rocks and overgrown clumps of gorse and bramble, likely to appeal to reckless children out playing but no one else. The reason for the gate being propped open was evident. Someone had been tipping garden rubbish, lawn mowings and hedge clippings, now littering the path either side. With some difficulty, he descended a few yards until he could see that it ended at the river bank, then he scrambled back, dusting the loose red soil from his hands and knees and continued on his way.

  He was so busy thinking about the entry that he almost missed the building in the corner. Wedged in between two taller ones, it was a tiny house with a tall chimney, no more than one room and a door wide, one storey high, which had been turned into a shop. The window had been shuttered the previous night and he saw now something he had missed then, a modest signboard above the door which read: M. SMITH, ANTIQUES.

  Feeling under no immediate obligation to hurry, he stopped to look in the window. It was very small, the original window to the house, with a consequent lack of room for anything other than a pretty little display of Victorian trinkets, some glassware and china, odds and ends of bric-à-brac. A lamp had been placed at the back of the display and shone on some small pieces of antique jewellery – and there, set out on black velvet, was a pair of cameo earrings which he knew instantly would solve the problem of Alex’s next birthday present. It wasn’t her birthday until September and by then, the small thought niggled, who knew where she would be? On the other hand, if he waited they might have gone.

  But the shop would be closed for Sunday. He was about to turn away, half-relieved that the problem had resolved itself, but on second thoughts tried the door. Unexpectedly, it opened to a jingling bell and he pitched forward into a dark interior, missing the step down and only just saving himself. As he regained his balance and his wits, his eyes adjusted to the dimness and he saw a face he recognized.

  She’d been Macey then, an ambiguous name: he’d never been quite sure whether it was her Christian or surname, or just conveniently taken over from the ancient sign, MACEY’S MARKET, above her junk shop premises, which were situated in a ratty, half-hidden corner in one of Lavenstock’s less salubrious districts near the canal.

  At one time she’d been a familiar figure around the station, but although he’d never actually had occasion to question her himself, she must have known who he was. For reasons of her own she didn’t let on that she did. When he inquired about the earrings, she named a sum that made him wince. It was three times what he’d expected and he shook his head.

  ‘They’re stone cameos, none of your shell. Perfectly matched faces.’

  ‘Too much, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I could drop the price a bit if you’re really interested.’

  She was anxious to sell. He guessed she hadn’t been here long and wondered who’d buy from her, how many customers she could hope to expect, apart from the odd tourist or two who came visiting the church. His glance round the shop showed there wasn’t much stock, but not bad, what there was of it. No tat. Going up in the world, Macey, and going straight this time, he hoped, though she’d always been too fly to have anything pinned on her. No definite proof, just a strong suspicion.

  He thought the story of her gipsy origins might be true. She had the fierce, dark looks and the wily cunning to make it believable, at any rate. Though no longer young, she was still handsome, with a proud nose and a hypnotic eye. It would be wiser to keep on the right side of Macey if you could – cross her palm with silver, ward off the evil eye. He wasn’t altogether joking.

  He decided to call her bluff. ‘Come on, Macey, you know I’m just a poor copper. I can’t afford that sort of money.’

  ‘Oh, so you’re one of them!’ Her head jerked in the direction of the mobile unit and the police cars, keeping up the pretence that she didn’t know him. ‘What about something else, then?’

  A small tray of jewellery stood on a table near the door which led to the back premises but when he moved towards it she said, ‘Oh, that’s rubbish, I haven’t had time to sort it yet,’ and swept it aside.

  She’s up to her old tricks, he thought, making a mental note to warn Wainwright what sort of customer he’d got on his patch, but finding nothing further to arouse his suspicions, nor anything else he thought likely to appeal to Alex, he said maybe he’d look in again later. What were her opening and closing times?

  ‘Here, I’ve told your lot once.’

  ‘So tell me again.’

  With a sigh she informed him that she only opened a couple of days in the week and at the weekends. Just until she got going, as you might say. She was new to Castle Wyvering but you had to diversify these days, she added grandly. She’d closed at six yesterday and opened again at ten this morning.

  He went to the window and stood looking out. Small as the aperture was, he was able to see most of the lychgate and the churchyard path, as well as the houses opposite. ‘I don’t suppose you get away bang on time,’ he remarked, ‘you’ll have things to do after you close.’ Though he couldn’t imagine what, frankly. No cashing up to speak of, no sorting the stock out or anything of that sort – there’d be all day to do that.

  ‘There’s the locking up to see to,’ she agreed, as if the tiny premises required security measures at least equal to those of the Bank of England. ‘But I’d left by twenty past six – as I told your mates. I’d been hanging on, see, waiting for my son to pick me up in his van.’

  Mayo knew all about Tigger Smith, the origins of whose nickname were shrouded in the mists of time, but for sure hadn’t come out of Winnie the Pooh. If Tigger had shown his weasel face in the vicinity it meant trouble, most likely of the sticky-fingered variety. Most unlikely that he’d stepped out of line and killed somebody. Villains, like union members, tended to stay within their demarcation lines. It was, however, one more fact to file away for reference.

  No, Macey answered his next question, she hadn’t particularly noticed who’d been in and out of the church all day. ‘Why should I, I wasn’t nosey-parkering about, I’d other things to do, hadn’t I? Except I saw a woman go in with some flowers and the parson once or twice.’ Which seemed to Mayo a pretty good score, considering she hadn’t been watching much.

  ‘Which parson?’

  ‘The one they call the Rector. Not that old one in his wheelchair – him as copped it, poor old bloke. Seen him before but not yesterday,’ she said, picking up a feather duster which he couldn’t imagine being put to use for long if he knew Macey, indicating this was the limit of the information she was prepared to impart. ‘What about them earrings?’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Special price to you,’ she wheedled.

  ‘I’ll think about
it,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back, I promise you.’ And before he left her to make what she could of that, he added, ‘I’d get a warning put up about that step, if I were you. Somebody could kill themselves before they’ve had a chance to buy anything!’

  CHAPTER 9

  The house was as full of her father’s presence as if he were still there, sitting in his wheelchair, and not for the world could Laura have touched anything that had belonged to him. It would have to be done, all the grisly clearing away of the remnants of a life, but not yet. Before that she had to get over the present hurdle of being questioned by the police: this tall, lanky sergeant who had an easy manner but a quick, shrewd glance – and the other, the older man with the Yorkshire accent, who didn’t smile much at all and whose eyes never left her face. She listened, ashen-faced, while he told her the results of the post-mortem, and how her father had been killed. She had partly expected it. Dr Hameed, when Laura had been unable to believe her father’s death was unnatural, had indicated how it might have happened. But the altar cushion! She wished he had been spared that last profanity.

  She said, her voice not quite under control with nerves, ‘I suppose you want to ask me all sorts of questions and I’ll do my best to answer, but I can’t promise to be very bright. I feel absolutely exhausted and yet my mind won’t seem to let go.’

  She was very relieved to hear the Chief Inspector say that he wasn’t going to trouble her overmuch at this stage but alarmed at the implication that there would be later, perhaps more difficult, stages. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘you’re very kind. I haven’t really taken it in yet, the whole of yesterday seems like a dream, the accident and – and everything. Miriam says she told you about that.’ She was talking too much, it would be wiser to say nothing, just answer their questions. She tried desperately to pull herself together, while the Sergeant said yes, they had heard, and asked her when she had arrived home after it.

  ‘It was quite late. My father had already left for church.’ Asked to be more specific, she thought it must have been about twenty past six. The rector had arrived about ten minutes later to tell her what had happened, just as she was about to change and start preparing supper. The supper they were destined never to eat. As this occurred to her she was suddenly overcome. Her voice faltered and finally broke. She groped for a handkerchief. ‘I’m so sorry!’ She was desperately ashamed of herself, but she couldn’t help it. Tears came easily to her.

  ‘Take your time, Miss Willard.’ He spoke kindly, the Chief Inspector, there had been compassion in the way he’d told her about her father, but his eyes were no less watchful. He seemed perfectly content to wait until she felt herself sufficiently recovered to put away the handkerchief before he remarked, ‘So you were out shopping most of the day. Was your father alone?’

  ‘Yes, but I’d left him a cold lunch. I knew he’d be on his own all day and that was why I was so anxious to get back.’ Oh damn! she thought, feeling herself flush up in a defensive way that must be telling him more about her guilt feelings than the tears had done. ‘I telephoned him and told him I’d been held up, though I didn’t tell him why.’

  ‘What I really meant,’ he said mildly, ‘was whether your father was expecting any visitors?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. He was going to take things very quietly. A friend came to see him on Friday and it seemed to have tired him out more than usual. And he’d only made tea for himself. The things were still on the tray.’

  ‘This friend would have been Mr Quentin?’

  ‘Professor Quentin, yes,’ she answered quickly, to hide the sharp stab of dismay she felt. How did he know that?

  Then realized that of course, he must have read her father’s diary. Trying not to sound agitated at the mention of his name, she explained that Quentin was a Fellow of her father’s old college in Cambridge, that they had kept in touch. 'He looked forward to seeing him more than anyone else. He didn’t come too often, and he was younger than my father, but they had things in common, a lot to talk and argue about. It was guaranteed to cheer him up as a rule.’

  ‘But not on Friday?’

  ‘No.’ She explained about Quentin’s shortly-to-be-published book and her father’s unfinished one. ‘I think that must have depressed him much more than he admitted.’

  ‘That confirms Mr Oliver’s – Sebastian Oliver’s – impression that he wasn’t quite himself.’

  She was taken aback. ‘Sebastian? He’s at home, is he? When did he see my father?’

  ‘On Friday, just before you came home, I believe.’

  ‘That’s funny, Father never said anything. How peculiar, he was always specially pleased to see Seb – in fact, he never failed to mention if anyone had been in to see him. It was something to talk about, over supper, you see,’ she said simply, not knowing that her words conjured up for Mayo a sudden brief vision of long, silent evenings stretching into the future, the unremitting boredom of spending them with someone whose interests you didn’t share and with whom you'd long since ceased to have anything new to say.

  He seemed curious about the relationship which had existed between Seb and her father, evidently thinking it a strange friendship for two so disparate in age and temperament. How did she account for it?

  She’d often wondered, herself. ‘Well, I suppose Seb cheered him up, amused him – though he used to get exasperated with him sometimes and say any fool can make money, it’s a clever man who knows what money’s for. He thought Seb was wasting a good brain. I don’t know exactly what he thought he should be doing with it. They just got on together as some people do. I know that for some reason, Seb used to take advice from my father where he wouldn’t from his own.’

  Mayo looked amused. ‘That’s about par for the course where parents and children are concerned.’

  He might have a sense of humour, despite appearances to the contrary. She wondered if he was married, with children. She was surprised to see how much the smile lightened and gave character to his serious, anonymous face, made him look years younger and much more attractive. It was the sort of attraction she could appreciate – conventionally handsome men had never had any appeal for her. It was the whole picture, the entire personality which mattered.

  ‘So it would seem as though he’d no reason to have borne your father a grudge, then,’ he was saying.

  She blinked, then almost laughed. ‘Seb? Good gracious, no!’

  ‘But perhaps you can think of someone else – of anyone in fact who might have had cause to wish your father out of the way?’

  ‘No, of course I can’t, that’s preposterous! I know he wasn’t an easy man, and I can think of one or two people who’ve been at odds with him from time to time – but mostly, it was something and nothing, it quickly blew over. Surely he must have disturbed someone who meant to steal from the church ... there can’t be any other explanation.’

  ‘Possibly.’ His voice was deliberately neutral and she guessed it wasn’t a solution that appealed to him. ‘Tell me about your gardener,’ he said suddenly. ‘Lampeter, isn’t it?’

  ‘Danny?’ She frowned. ‘Oh. I see you’ve already been told about the badger incident. You know, I'm really getting awfully sick of those wretched badgers. My father made a lot of fuss about them ruining his lawn and Mrs Oliver encouraging them, and she over-reacted but that’s all there was to it. There’s no way my father could have shot one – and anyway, however angry he was, he’d never have been deliberately cruel.'

  He asked what her father's attitude had been to the bomb at the Fricker Institute. ‘Well, he was shocked, naturally, and had some very hard things to say about the sort of people who are prepared to do such things. He believed all this concern about animals might be better transferred to the plight of some human beings.’

  ‘Need the two be mutually exclusive?’

  ‘No, but they often are.’

  He leaned back in his chair against the old worn velvet, seeming quite at home and at ease and in no hurr
y to carry on. At last he said, ‘So – Danny Lampeter. You’d discount the possibility of him being responsible for shooting the badgers?’

  She thought for a moment or two. ‘He might have for all I know, he’s probably capable of it, but it wasn’t at my father’s instigation, I’d swear. For one thing, Danny wasn’t exactly my father’s favourite person and he certainly wouldn’t have put himself under an obligation to him.’

  ‘Pardon me, ma’am, but in that case, why did he employ him? If he had something against him?’

  ‘It wasn’t anything specific,’ she said carefully. ‘And it was through me Danny came to work here. His sister and I used to be great friends, we went to school together. We haven’t seen so much of one another lately, but Danny’s been having a hard time since he came out of the army and I thought the least I could do would be to offer him some work, though it wasn’t much, just a few hours a week. My father thought he was lazy and insolent, but he’s all right if you handle him the right way ... Surely you can’t suspect him? I –’ She stopped suddenly, remembering something she had totally forgotten in the present crisis. How could she have forgotten it?

  ‘Yes, Miss Willard?’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing.’

  ‘Better let me judge that.’

  ‘No. No, really, it was just something unimportant that occurred to me.’ She couldn’t tell him what was going through her mind until she’d had time to consider what it might mean.

  He gave her a steady look but made no further comment, and proceeded to his next point. ‘There was an entry in your father’s diary that puzzled me.’ He felt in his inside pocket for his notebook, opened it and read the words he’d copied out: ‘ “An action done from duty has its moral worth, not from the results it attains or seeks to attain, but from a formal principle or maxim, the principle of doing one’s duty, whatever that may be.”’ He looked up. ‘I take it to be some sort of quotation?’