Guilty Pleasures (22 page)

‘Or just coincidence?' I said, trying to cheer her up. ‘After all, if the so-called woman and Griff's assailant are one and the same, they might just have been chancing their arms. Though it was exceptionally good luck on their part arriving just as we got back from our travels,' I added, raising an eyebrow at her. ‘Assuming they hadn't been parked there all day on the off-chance.'

‘I don't like that sort of good luck,' she said. ‘Mind you, you do make it easier for people to track you with that highly-visible van of yours.'

‘I hired a car for a bit, but Griff insisted that we were letting the bad boys win the psychological battles.'

‘He would.' She scowled at her mobile, as if willing Robin to ring. ‘But sometimes it's better to win the war, even if that means becoming White Van Man – or in your case, Woman.'

I was worrying too much about something else to argue. ‘What if this man/woman fake police officer finds out you mean to send someone to interview my father? You know, that mole you mentioned,' I added, seeing her face tighten.

‘Easy: I'll go with you myself. Except there's this bloody conference in half an hour about Operation Stack.'

‘How long is it likely to last?'

A little delay suited me – or it would have done if only I'd had some wheels. I certainly needed to warn my father in advance, as I always did. Then there was the matter of retrieving the exercise book from its hiding place. And for all Freya's bravado, I wanted to know Robin was safe and sound.

‘Piece of string. Look, I'll see you out, and – problem?

‘Steve White ferried me over. And he's a bit senior to ferry me back. Tell you what, I'll take your advice – at least some of it,' I conceded with a grin to show that there weren't too many hard feelings, ‘and phone the hire car people. They can bring the Micra or whatever over here.'

TWENTY-TWO

A
part from St Jude's, which I really couldn't face seeing again for a bit, I looked in at every single church in Robin's benefice. I was amazed that they were all still open to the public, collection boxes and silver plate temptingly within reach of any potential thief. In one there was even what looked like Georgian silver gilt candlesticks. I'd have checked the hallmark, only I didn't want to be accused of casing the joint. Presumably, they relied on the fear of God – literally – as a deterrent. Being struck down by a thunderbolt as you made away with it, or paying for a good haul with eternal damnation were not good prospects.

But there was no sign of Robin. Logically, I supposed I should have called at the rectory first, so I headed back through the narrow lanes, once almost being run off the road by a yummy mummy in a huge 4x4 bearing the legend TWINS ABOARD, for a reason I couldn't work out.

Despite the summer warmth, every rectory window was shut. There was no sign of Robin's car on the weed-ridden gravel, with or without its brand-new tyre. Come to think of it, no one had mentioned anything about the tyres Trev and Robin had had to replace: perhaps there was a queue for any sort of forensic examination that wasn't top priority.

At least there was enough mobile coverage here – sometimes I wondered what it would be like to live in a real town, where you took such a thing for granted – for me to text my father, warning him I was on my way. One came back straightaway. ‘No SHAMPOO Urgent Running OUT fancy lunch pa.' He didn't need to sign that one, did he?

A delaying tactic or real need? It suited me anyway, buying me enough time to get home and dig out the exercise book, though what excuse I could give Griff for having hung on to it I'd no idea. In any case, he'd see through it, since it involved my father, of whom he was still deeply suspicious.

As it happened, he was more interested in the rented Fiesta than any reason for my sudden reappearance, accepting with only a shrewd glance that I was acting on Freya's advice. ‘If you're going to Bossingham Hall, I should change those nice trousers,' he said. ‘Unless your father's suddenly evinced an interest in spring-cleaning.'

Easy-peasy to get the exercise book, then. Except I felt a total worm for hiding the truth from him.

What I did tell him was that I couldn't raise Robin. He said much the same as Freya. ‘A priest's public property, my child. He could need to switch his phone off – what if he's at someone's deathbed?'

‘So long as it's not his own,' I said, dourly.

‘I wondered where that had gone,' my father said, eyeing the exercise book. ‘Thought you must have it. Quite glad really. In fact, calls for a drop of fizz. No, not that stuff – not after it's been shaken to death over that bloody track. Can't understand those motor-racing chappies wasting it like that when they win – good stuff, too, unless they put fake in posh bottles.'

I didn't refuse the glass he handed me. Sometimes my father really mystifies me, and this was one of them. ‘And you're happy to talk to DCI Webb?'

‘Have him to lunch if you've got your eye on him. Not too old for you, is he?'

‘It's a she, and you're more likely to have your eye on her. Trouble is, the top she's wearing today clashes something shocking with her hair – she's got a wonderful red-gold mop.'

‘Like that Lizzie Siddal?'

I took another very careful sip: that observation was much more likely to have come from Griff's lips than my father's. ‘Exactly. I think she and Robin are fond of each other, by the way.'

‘Robin the Cava? Oh, dear – church and state. There'll be tears before breakfast. Anyway,' he said, rubbing his hands, ‘give her a bell.'

I didn't point out that he'd changed the usual cliché, presumably in the light of his own experience.

Lunch, which we had late, was an interesting meal. Freya all too clearly didn't take to my father, who was doing his best to charm her – as he must have charmed my mother and every other woman in the book – and refused to talk business, as he quaintly termed it, till we had finished. At last, she actually removed her glass from the table to prevent him quietly topping it up.

‘As I said, Pa, Freya needs information – and I have to say she needs it now. Let me make us all a cup of green tea – unless you'd prefer coffee, Freya? – while Freya explains the problem.'

Whatever reaction either of us might have expected when Freya had finished speaking, I doubt if it was the one we got. ‘My precious child's life is at risk because of some evil woman who bears a passing resemblance! Lina, you and Griff will move in here tonight and remain under this roof until the danger is past.'

Freya held up a hand. ‘I just need to ask, My Lord, if you might have a daughter roughly Freya's age who could be living in Kent.'

‘It's all in the book.' He pointed. ‘Why didn't you look and tell her straightaway, Lina? Save your skin?'

‘Because this is yours, not mine, Pa. I couldn't give away your secrets.'

‘That must be that Griff Tripp's mealy-mouthed middle-class influence. I've never made any secret of my doings. Pass it over. Let's look.'

The three of us scanned the columns. Suddenly, my father jabbed with an index finger still, to my horror, stained with ink. As far as I knew, Freya hadn't the faintest idea of what he was involved with, so perhaps she'd not register it. ‘See. Eileen. Lovely woman. At least, I thought she was until she tried a spot of the old blackmail. Not like Lina's mama. She was a lady. Even brought Lina to come and see me a couple of times, eh, Lina?' He squeezed my hand. First time ever. I nearly died. ‘No, can't be Irene. She had a son, look. Marigold? Strange how they've named rubber gloves after her – she had this fetish . . . No, another son. There's your mother, Lina. And you, of course. Now, who's this up here? Olivia. Olivia Petham. A real lady. County set. Lived in Sussex. And in Scotland, of course. Her brother was a real bad egg. Now,
she
had a daughter. See? About four years older than you.'

Freya, who'd been sitting with her mouth agape, started scribbling. ‘Sussex? Any idea which part?'

‘Check your
Burke's Peerage
, dear lady – everything's in there. Or here – now this woman did not turn out well. Pauline Webster. Gave me the clap for a start.' He pointed at the column in which he recorded results. ‘The clap and another daughter. Frances. Would call her Frankie. She went back to Brighton, as far as I know.'

‘
Burke's Peerage
again?' Freya gasped.

‘Good God, no – father ran a chip shop. Jolly good one too. That's how I met her,' he added helpfully.

None of the other women seemed to have local connections, so Freya snapped her notepad shut. ‘Do you mind if I take this?' she said, reaching for the exercise book.

‘Up to Lina. I know she treasures it – she doesn't have many relics of her ma, you know. Tell you what, Lina, would your phone take photos of it? Just the pages this good lady wants, of course. And then – well, I think it should go back in the hidey-hole where you found it. Safer than with you at the moment. And I meant what I said about you and old Tripp coming to stay. Plenty of bedrooms. No one'll notice.'

In other words, in the main part of the building. The part open to the visitors who paid a tenner a time. The idea appealed – or appalled, in equal measure.

Neither Freya nor I had heard from Robin by the time my father ushered us out. I led the way past the worst of the potholes, seeing her grimace as she steered her Audi in my tracks.

At the bottom I stopped. ‘Anything you wanted to say you couldn't say in front of my father?'

She got out and leaned against the bonnet. ‘Bloody hell, I could do with a fag. All I can say, Lina, is that you're a credit – to yourself. How weird is that, to talk in front of your daughter about the sexual tastes of other women?'

‘Could have been worse – could have been my mother's sexual tastes.'

‘All the same . . . Look, thanks for the info from that book. I think. I'll get on to it the moment I can get bloody mobile coverage.'

‘And Robin?'

‘Quite. Maybe it's some church thing. Why did I give up smoking?' she added, frantically patting her trousers in case one last gasper remained.

‘You know Robin's started to smoke again recently,' I said. ‘Do you know why? He really is incredibly stressed, you know. Before you came on the scene, if that's any help,' I added drily.

‘I thought it was the usual, overwork and underpay. But it shouldn't be like that for vicars, should it?' She looked at me earnestly. ‘Look, you two were never an item, were you?'

‘For five minutes, a long time ago. Friends ever since. No pangs.'

‘'Cos I'm going to do something in even worse taste than your Pa. When – when we were . . . you know . . . I've never known a man so driven.' Hell, was she talking about sex with him? She was, wasn't she! She must be desperate with worry, poor woman. ‘So compelled . . . I shouldn't have said anything – forget it.'

I don't often squeeze a woman's shoulders, but I did this time. ‘Let's just assume there's some big problem he can't talk about. He's a good man.'

‘
He that doeth good is of God
,' she murmured, though I wasn't sure if I was meant to hear.

‘We must help him,' I urged her.

She blinked hard and straightened her shoulders. ‘And that means finding him.'

I reported my morning's travels.

‘Shit. OK, I'll see what official strings I can pull, in a highly unofficial way.'

‘I don't see why it shouldn't be entirely official,' I said. ‘X is dead, almost certainly murdered. You think Cashmere Roll-Neck is dead – the one I'm supposed to have done in,' I explained. ‘I never knew his proper name, and for some reason no one filled me in with all the details the other day.'

‘Ah. Simon Bonnaventure.'

‘Wow. A name like that, I'm surprised he ever lived. What did he do – was he an explorer or something?'

‘An architect, apparently – specialized in disabled access to public buildings. He popped his clogs in Hythe, near Waitrose. Which I happen to know is one of your haunts.' She pulled a face.

‘Griff. End-dated goodies,' I explained.

‘There's one slight problem, though, that I don't think you'll have learned when you were interviewed – you were commendably poised, by the way, as I should have said before. We do have a crime scene. But we don't have a body yet.'

‘Whoops. Who is he? Was he really on the Cathedral guest list or did he gatecrash, like me?'

‘I understood you were a genuine guest,' she said, her mouth tight, as if she was recalling that but for a perverse twist of fate, not to mention the fact that she and Robin weren't then an item, even if they were now, she'd have been there instead.

‘Strange music, vicious seats, Bonnaventure being dead rude. Not the best function to be a guest at. So was he? A guest?'

‘You're very tenacious, aren't you?'

Tenacious
sounded a really good word, though from the way she used it I wasn't sure if she was paying me a compliment or the reverse. I pulled an
if you say so
sort of face.

She continued, ‘Some poor sap is probably going through every single guest to check if he or she brought him in at the last minute – you know,
ran into him at the concert and thought it would be OK
.'

‘And why have you got a fully-fledged murder team on to it if you've not got a body?'

‘You don't want to know.' She shuddered as if she hadn't seen all sorts of stomach-churning sights.