Day of Vengeance: Dorothy Martin investigates murder in the cathedral (A Dorothy Martin Mystery) (24 page)

‘And so am I, and my only excuse is age. Or maybe two artificial knees count. I say it’s time to take a break, go for a walk, have some supper, and then resume. All in favour?’

We deliberately spoke of other things over supper, which was informal in the extreme. I set out odds and ends of cheese that had accumulated in the fridge, heated soup out of the freezer, and made a salad. Jane the baker contributed a couple of fresh loaves of bread and another plum cake, and we all ate sitting in the parlour with plates in our laps. The two young members of the party sat on the floor. The weather wasn’t really cold enough for a fire, but Alan lit one anyway, just for the cosiness of it.

‘Walter, I don’t suppose you’ve had time to get that ring for Sue yet, have you?’ I said, my mouth not quite full of bread and cheese.

‘No, you’ve kept me pretty busy with other things,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘And now I suppose you’re going to send me off chasing possible murderers.’

‘I wouldn’t have put it quite that way,’ I began.

Alan finished my sentence. ‘She never does think of it that way, you know, my boy. She calls it innocent curiosity, or perfectly safe little expeditions, or harmless questions anybody might ask – and half the time ends up very nearly in the soup.’

‘But never quite. I do feel guilty about keeping you away from Sue so long, though. She hardly knows me and already she has reason to find me obnoxious.’

‘She thinks you’re terrific. She wants you to come to the wedding.’

‘You couldn’t keep us away,’ said Alan. ‘Have you set a date?’

‘We’re hoping for August sometime. We haven’t talked yet to Dean Allenby, but we’d like to be married here, in the Cathedral. Sherebury is – well, the closest thing I’ve ever had to a home.’ He didn’t look at Jane, and she didn’t look at him, lest they break that ironclad English rule about showing emotion. I’m American, and didn’t care how many people saw me blink away a tear or two.

So the talk drifted to weddings, with the women interested in the clothes and the food, and the men trading rather mild ribaldry. I ventured at one point to ask Jonathan how Jemima was doing.

‘Well, I think,’ he said, looking down at his plate. ‘I … we … I see her now and again, and she’s coping quite well. She’s been assigned to work with the Royal Collection, you know.’

‘No, I didn’t! How wonderful! It’s what she’s always wanted, isn’t it?’

‘Certainly since she started working at the Palace.’ He stopped there, and I was sorry I’d brought it up. The memories of Jemima’s job at Buckingham Palace were painful.

‘I hope she’ll be happy,’ was all I said. I could have added hopes about the two of them, but that was their business.

After we’d cleared away and washed the dishes, we settled down again to our task. ‘How should we organize the search for Brading’s friends and/or enemies, Alan? You’re much better at deploying troops than I am.’

‘By location, I should think. That’s the most efficient. One person can talk to quite a few people in a short time, if they’re all in the same neighbourhood, so to speak.’

‘You’re going to have to tell us, then, what the locations are. I know you said the CV was confidential, but the man’s dead and we’re trying to find his murderer. Surely that makes a difference.’

‘Not according to the letter of the law, but if one considers the spirit, I agree. Let me fetch the paperwork.’

He was back in a moment with a thick folder in his hand. ‘This has everything about the appointment process,’ he explained. ‘I thought there might be other information we’d need. But here’s Brading’s CV. Where do you want to start?’

‘I say with his first assignment. You said he was a curate?’

‘Yes, but only for a little over a year. That was St Margaret’s, Godwick, in Bucks. The rector at the time was the Reverend Mr Coates. Now deceased, the file says.’

‘Drat!’ I said. ‘But there will be other people there who remember him. It couldn’t have been that long ago.’

‘Early eighties. Yes, there will still be a few. And Godwick is a village. Much easier to gather information in a place like that. His next step up the ladder wasn’t actually up, more lateral. He was asked to take over a small prep school in a nearby village, Stony Estcott. It was apparently a struggling concern at the time, and Brading was felt to have the kind of qualities needed to revive it.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Walter. ‘Rigid discipline and very little attention to the boys’ actual needs. Did it succeed?’

‘Seems to have done. At least, he was there for ten years. Surely they would have booted him out if he hadn’t brought the school around.’

‘Ten years.’ I was doing arithmetic in my head. ‘So he left there in the nineties sometime. Is the school still flourishing?’

‘Don’t know,’ said Alan. ‘I’ll find out. Should be an easy search on the Internet.’ He made a note and then continued. ‘He left the school upon receiving a call to be rector at St John’s, in Upper Longwood. That’s a fair-sized church in Oxfordshire, so this time it was definitely a step up. His stipend was just about doubled, and he had a good congregation. In time he hired a curate of his own, so things plainly went well for him there.’

‘Wife must have been pleased,’ commented Jane.

‘We have no information about that,’ said Alan with a grin, ‘but I imagine you’ll find out. At any rate, that post was beginning to look like the church where he would live out his days, until the call came from Chelton Cathedral. His wife was, in fact, pleased about that, Jane, or it seems that way. There’s an article here from the
Church Times
about the appointment, with a picture of the new dean and his wife, and Mrs Brading is beaming.’

‘And that was how long ago?’ I asked.

‘Just on three years.’

‘And we know there are plenty of people there willing to talk about him, both pro and con.’

‘Indeed. Now, who would like to take on his early ministry at Godwick?’

‘I will, if no one else wants it,’ said Jonathan. ‘I do have some training in detection, and it’s far enough back that I may have to really dig.’

‘And I’ll do the school,’ Walter offered. ‘I’m near enough to my own school days to make me fairly comfortable there. Though I certainly never went to a prep school; I’m a child of state schools.’

‘Okay, then, let’s switch,’ said Jonathan. ‘I did go to a public school, from the age of twelve. Hated it, but there you are. Not exactly a prep school – wrong ages – but close enough.’

‘That sounds good. Not that I have any training in detection,’ Walter said with a grin, ‘but I am trained in research, and this sounds like a job for a good researcher.’

‘That’s done, then. Now, there are two assignments left, and three people to cover them.’

‘Odd man out,’ said Jane. ‘Call me when you hit a snag, or need a follow-up. Put my network in play.’

‘That’s brilliant, Jane!’ I exclaimed. ‘Our central research station. As for me, I’d just as soon go back to Chelton, if you’re happy with Upper Longwood, Alan.’

‘Hmm.’ That irritating noise he makes that can mean anything. This time I was pretty sure it was another ‘We’ll hash this out later’. The poor man does try to fall in with my fierce independence, but he’s an Englishman, trained to chivalry, and at moments like these it comes out in spots, like a measles rash.

All he actually said was, ‘Right. Now there’s the question of expense. I’m afraid the diocese doesn’t have the funds to send us all chasing what may well be a wild goose, but I—’

Jonathan raised a hand. ‘Stop. I know what you’re going to say. I can afford to finance my travels, and Walter’s, and Jane’s phone bill if necessary. You two are on your own.’

There was the usual bickering over that, but in the end Jonathan won out.

That seemed to wrap up the evening. It was still early, but we were all tired, and we wanted to get an early start in the morning. So Jane gathered up the leftovers of the food she had brought, and Jonathan and Walter were about to go up to bed, when I had a sudden thought. ‘Wait!’

They all turned to look at me. ‘We’ve forgotten three important people: the other candidates.’

‘Two,’ said Alan gently. ‘Don’t forget Lovelace is dead.’

‘And why does that make him innocent of Brading’s murder?’

A
lan smacked his head. ‘Idiot! You’d better put me out to pasture, Dorothy. I’m getting senile. How could I have overlooked Lovelace?’

‘We all did. And besides, we’ve been exploring the possibility that Lovelace was murdered himself. Look, why don’t you get drinks for anyone who wants them, and we can hash it out. The night is yet young.’

‘But, like me, getting older by the moment.’ Alan shook his head and sighed. ‘Orders, everyone?’

I didn’t have to tell him I wanted bourbon. The two young men opted for beer, and Jane allowed as how she wouldn’t mind a tot of whisky.

When everyone was content, Alan sat down and opened his notebook again. ‘First, does anyone have a case to make against either Dean Smith or Mr Robinson?’

Silence.

‘You and I have met them both, Alan. And I have to say I absolutely can’t see either of them as a murderer. They’re devoted priests, and beloved of their congregations.’

‘You will remember, my love, that apparently delightful people have murdered in the past, and will again.’

‘I know that. But if personal attributes mean anything at all, those two aren’t murderers. Anyway, the police will have checked them out pretty thoroughly, as to alibis and so on. I don’t think there’s much for us to do there. Lovelace, on the other hand …’

‘The police will have interviewed him, also. If you remember, he told us they had done, when we talked to him.’

‘Vaguely. But that was before he died. The police are calling that a suicide, and are, I suppose, putting it down to his guilt over his thefts. But don’t you see? If it was suicide, he could just as easily be suffering the guilt of murder.’

‘If it
was
suicide.’

‘Yes. Alan, can you get hold of the police report on Lovelace? Both of them, I mean – before and after his death.’

Alan shook his head dubiously. ‘That’s the Met, Dorothy. I’m not at all sure …’

‘I might be able to get the Met report on his death,’ said Jonathan. ‘No promises, but I still have a good many friends at the Yard.’

‘And do you think, Alan,’ I pursued, ‘that Derek could get you the earlier one? We are, after all, talking about a crime, or series of crimes, that directly affects Sherebury and the Cathedral.’

‘I can ask. No promises.’

‘What’s your idea, Dorothy?’ asked Walter.

I paused a moment to formulate it clearly. ‘It begins with Lovelace’s ambition, and his vanity. He was so sure he was the right man for this job, and that it would be the stepping stone to Canterbury. Suppose he decided that his most formidable competitor was Dean Brading.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know, Jane. That’s the kind of thing you’re good at, working out how people’s minds work. Maybe Lovelace was worried because Brading was so much of a steam-roller. He might have rolled right over the commission, just by the sheer force of his convictions. Oh!’

Everyone looked at me.

‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. It’s coming – yes! What if Brading really did have a meeting in London that day? A meeting with Lovelace! And Lovelace became more and more afraid that Brading would get the appointment, and so he followed him home and killed him!’

Objections came from all over the room, and they all apologized and let someone else go first. Alan won the round. ‘Dorothy, you forget that the police checked all the candidates’ movements that day. I haven’t seen the reports, but I understand that they all had sound alibis.’

‘Of course they did. But who gave Lovelace his alibi?’

‘I don’t know. I may be able to find out.’

‘Because, if it was that secretary of his—’

‘Mrs Steele,’ said Walter. ‘And she would lie her head off for him. Would have, I mean. She thought he walked on water. If he said he was at the church all that day, she would have agreed.’

‘Did he have a family? Wife, children?’ asked Jonathan.

‘That I can tell you.’ He pulled out the dossiers and glanced through Lovelace’s. ‘No. He lived alone in a flat in Chelsea.’

‘Long way from his parish,’ said Jane with a sniff.

‘Also a long stretch above the income level of the average parish priest,’ said Jonathan. ‘So we can guess where part of his embezzled funds went.’

‘This is all the purest speculation,’ said Alan with some impatience. ‘It’s an interesting theory, but there’s not a scrap of evidence to back it up.’

‘Then why don’t we try to find some!’ I was getting impatient, too.

Again protests. This time Jonathan’s came to the fore. ‘Dorothy, if our murderer does turn out to be Lovelace, there’s really no hurry about finding evidence. He can’t be prosecuted, at least not by any court we could summon. He’s not going anywhere. If he didn’t do the deed, though, someone else did, and that person is presumably still alive and free. It seems to me that it would be best to follow up on Brading’s background, as we’ve planned, and see if that leads us in any interesting direction.’

‘Good sense.’ Jane’s concurrence was echoed by everyone else, and I retired, defeated.

‘Okay, okay. I thought it was such a brilliant idea, but you’re right. Other investigations come first.’ But I was still enamoured of my idea, and resolved privately to do anything I could to follow it up.

Not now, though. A mighty yawn broke through, despite my efforts to suppress it. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I guess I’m too sleepy to think straight.’

‘We all are, love. Time for bed.’

At the magic word, Watson stood, shook himself vigorously, and headed up the stairs ahead of us.

Alan waited until morning to deliver himself of what he’d been pining to say to me for hours. I had barely returned from the shower before he started in. ‘Dorothy, I don’t like it.’

‘You don’t like it that I’m going back to Chelton, where a murderer may be running loose, maybe even a double-murderer – I mean, someone who’s killed twice. You’d much rather I stayed home and helped Jane with her phone calls, or, alternatively, let you go to Chelton where the greatest danger may be, while I go to Upper Longwood. You see, I know how you think.’