Murdering Ministers (32 page)

“That's not fair,” Tish protested. “The inspector was always open to the possibility that Piltdown was taking the fall for one of his parishioners. I just passed on some information that helped pinpoint which one.”

“You do yourself a disservice, Tish,” said DC Paddock. “You must have had some inkling it was the missus who done it.”

Tish glanced at Oliver, who was sitting contentedly beside Effie's desk in the CID room, eating a banana, while Effie filled a shopping bag with the personal items she'd collected in her week at Plumley. He smiled at Tish and made a courteous gesture for her to continue.

“Well, a lot of this is guesswork,” she said nervously. “Heather Tapster has confessed to killing her husband, but she hasn't uttered a dicky-bird since she got herself briefed up.”

“But we know she wanted to kill her husband because she thought he'd been f—” Foot looked suddenly terrified and checked himself. “He'd been fooling around with little Tina?”

Tish sat down, facing the three policemen, who were sitting side by side at the table, which still stood in the middle of the room. “No, Heather didn't want to kill Nigel. Of course, she was furious when she discovered that Tina was pregnant—she apparently overheard Paul Piltdown's angry shouting match with her husband. But she was still convinced that Tapster was genuinely doing God's work. So rather than just confront her husband, she devised a little test. She fed him some strychnine immediately before his first official appearance as a deacon. She didn't know that a dosage big enough to bring on the convulsive symptoms—which was what she wanted—would be enough to kill him, especially since he had a weak heart.”

“How was that a test?” asked Paddock, hanging on her every word.

“It had something to do with a biblical text,” she replied. “About true believers being able to drink poison without harm. Heather believed all this stuff, and she was convinced that if Nigel was the genuine article, he wouldn't be affected by the strychnine. But if he did react, then he was clearly a fraud, and he'd be justifiably humiliated in front of his followers and in front of the whole church. At the crucial moment, though, she decided she couldn't watch it herself, so she went home and waited, either for Nigel to come home in triumph or for someone else to bring news that he'd been carted off to the hospital. She didn't expect a third alternative—me, telling her she's a widow.”

“I said you were very brave to do that,” Stoodby murmured. The others nudged him to be quiet.

“Why didn't Heather come clean at that point, when she knew Piltdown had been arrested for Tapster's murder in her place?” asked Paddock.

Tish shrugged. “She's not saying. I think it's because she's still totally convinced that she's doing God's will, and she was waiting for some kind of sign as to how to act.”

“So how did you figure out how Heather slipped Nigel the strychnine?” Stoodby was so excited, the seat of his trousers had lost contact with the seat of the chair. Tish looked uncomfortable.

“As far as that goes,” she began hesitantly, “I owe a lot to Sergeant Strongitharm's interview with Mr. Swithin.”

The three men turned simultaneously and glared at Oliver with profound hostility. There was clearly a limit to the courtesy that could be invoked by the Strongitharm-Belfry Look, Oliver reflected complacently, and it didn't extend to interfering civilians in the incident room.

“Wait, there was something else I wanted to ask,” said Stoodby, turning back to Tish. “Oh, what was it?” He covered his eyes, racking his short-term memory. On his right, Paddock unconsciously smoothed some remaining strands of hair down over his ears. Foot, sitting on the other side stifled a yawn with his hand.

Welkin limped into the room at that point. He paused, staring at the trio with amusement.

“Thanks for the reminder,” he said. “Monkey house—the zoo—animals—reindeer—Santa Claus—Christmas. Everywhere in town is getting dark, so get your lazy arses out onto the High Street and catch some last-minute shoplifters! All except DC Belfry, who is an example to you all. She can take the rest of the week off, starting now.”

The three male detectives scurried away. Welkin headed for his office.

“I feel really guilty taking all the credit for this case when it was all down to you and Oliver,” said Tish, wandering over to join them.

“Don't,” Effie replied. “If Inspector Welkin knew what Oliver had been up to unofficially, and that I sanctioned it, he'd never trust me again. So while there's some credit going spare, you might as well take it.”

Tish smiled, and kissed Oliver swiftly and chastely on the cheek. It was a good job Geoffrey wasn't there, he reflected. As Tish cleared away her desk, Welkin emerged from his office without his walking stick and hobbled over.

“Let me see the pictures again,” he asked. Oliver handed over the contact sheets and the loupe, and tentatively directed him to one or two specific images.

“Ben Motley was very close to Tapster when he took these, the week before the murder. It was the moment when Tapster found his guitar was out of tune. You can clearly see that he goes off the platform, gets a pitch-pipe from his guitar case, and blows a tuning note.”

Welkin studied the images.

“Nigel went through the same palaver about tuning his guitar on the Sunday he was murdered,” said Effie. “I saw him leave the stage and go to his guitar case, but I couldn't see or hear what he was doing from where I was sitting—the piano was in the way. But Tina was still up in the balcony last Sunday morning, just before the Communion service. From that high position, she could see over the piano. And a few minutes earlier, she saw Heather deliberately fiddle with the tuning heads of Nigel's guitar, so he would have to retune it before singing. That was also the time that Heather—while pretending to be looking for some sheet music—must have dipped the mouthpieces of the pitch-pipe into a little tub of honey, laced with strychnine, and laid it back in the guitar case. And nobody saw her do it. She even managed to get Nigel out of the way by suggesting he should use the bathroom before Communion.”

“Ten minutes or so later, the poison goes to work,” Oliver commented. “Coincidentally, just as Nigel is drinking the Communion wine.”

“Coincidence?” echoed Welkin. “Could Heather have planned it that way to throw us off the scent?”

“Unlikely. I think it was pure blind luck.”

“Well, it clearly wasn't an act of God,” Welkin muttered. “Where do you think she got the strychnine?”

“Oh, I'd guess it was left over from her time as a missionary in Brazil. She used to practice homeopathic medicine, and there's a popular but misguided belief that small doses of strychnine can help prevent intestinal worms.”

With a final wave, Tish Belfry left the room.

“Listen, Effie,” said Welkin, as the door closed, “I want to congratulate you and Oliver on a job well done. Tim Mallard said I could trust you two to get to the bottom of the Tapster murder.”

“Tim?” Effie echoed.

“Yes. I'd never come across a suspect who behaved quite like Piltdown, so I called my old boss, Superintendent Mallard, for advice on whether to arrest him or not.”

“But you were so insistent that Piltdown was guilty,” she exclaimed. “That was why we…”

Did Spiv Welkin wink at her or was it a trick of the light?

“Merry Christmas, Eff,” he said and limped away before she could reply.

***

The carol service was due to start at half past six, but every pew in Plumley United Diaconalist Church was full at least half an hour earlier. Despite the competing temptations of one more beer with the less inhibited office secretaries or one final attempt to determine which two bulbs in the string of Christmas tree lights had burned out, the people of Plumley seemed unable to resist a religious service at a recent crime scene, conducted by a man just released from prison following a murder charge. Oliver and Effie were standing inside the rear curtain, nervously weighing the competing indignities of sitting separately or asking strangers to squash up and make room for them, when Oliver heard his name called from a side pew. Tim Mallard waved and indicated that he was guarding some space, with the deft use of an overcoat, some papers, and a disdainful expression for any hopeful worshipper who dared to approach him.

“What are you doing here on a Christmas Eve?” Oliver asked him as they slipped into the pew.

“Ah, dear Nephew, I have much to be grateful for,” he answered happily, hugging Effie with an off-duty warmth as she squeezed past him. He bundled his coat under the seat and lifted the papers onto his lap, forcing Oliver to sit on his other side.

“I mean, I thought you'd be at your local parish church,” Oliver said.

“I will be. Midnight mass starts at eleven o'clock, and I shall be back in Theydon Bois and in your aunt's delightful company by that hour, I trust. But I'd heard so much about this place that I had to come and see it. Not at all what I expected from your description.”

He was gazing in admiration around the church, and with good cause, because it was a building transformed. There were still no seasonal decorations, no Christmas tree, and no bunches of red-berried holly, Sellotaped to architectural features.

But there were the candles.

Hundreds of them, burning slowly and steadily and filling the space with a warm, golden light, which filtered away all the Victorian hulk's drabness and decay that was so conspicuous in cold winter daylight. Multi-branched candlesticks the height of a man had been placed at intervals along each of the two aisles, and cramped colonnades of candles paraded across the windowsills and the top of the upright piano, now closed and pushed against the side wall. At the front of the church, the balustrade over which Tapster had tipped so spectacularly was lined with tall tapers, more candlesticks surrounded the acting area on the platform, and several yellow-flamed sconces had been placed on the ledge of the high, bulging pulpit to the right. There was even a stray menorah, just in front of the organ.

A thin blanket of smoky haze was floating under the high ceiling, softening and masking its distance from the worshippers. The church was warm and inviting on such an icy, damp evening.

“Magical,” Mallard sighed. Oliver noticed he was toying with the papers in his pal.

“Is that…?”

“A little Christmas gift from Assistant Commissioner Weed,” Mallard whispered. “My long-lost personnel folder.”

“Sounds like Weed had much to be grateful for, too. I take it you diagnosed his personal problem?”

“Ah indeed. And the Mallard remedy. Guaranteed to work overnight. Unfortunately, not strictly legal, despite the best efforts of many well-known celebrities, which is why the assistant commissioner made no bones about giving me the paperwork.”

It took Oliver a moment to process the confession. “You gave Weed weed?” he asked with astonishment.

“Let's just say God may not be the only one on high this Christmas.”

Oliver spluttered with laughter. The man in front of him, who had last set foot in a church in 1962 and who had been searching for a hassock for five minutes, turned and glared at him piously.

“But can you guarantee that the odor will be gone?” Oliver asked quietly.

“Of course. As soon as Weed left for the day, I slipped into his office and removed the small piece of liver sausage that I asked Detective Sergeant Moldwarp to tape to the underside of Weed's chair last Saturday. Understandably, it had ripened somewhat in the meantime.”

“Diabolical,” said Oliver with admiration.

“And all thanks to young Geoffrey Angelwine,” Mallard informed him. “One of the better pranks he'd dreamed up for that new book of yours. Nobody thinks to look under the chair. Geoff was most helpful when I consulted him on the issue—in the strictest confidence, of course. I didn't even have to divulge the family secret.”

“What family secret?” asked Effie, looking up from her hymn book with interest.

“Hell-oo!” cried a voice from the aisle. “If it isn't my dear old friend Ollie and the charming Sergeant Strongitharm.”

Dougie Dock leaned in with hand extended. He was wearing a bow tie with a pattern of Christmas crackers and a sprig of mistletoe in his buttonhole. Oliver reluctantly greeted the deacon, and introduced his uncle, leaving off his police title.

“Oh, duck!” said Dock with a look of mock terror, and dipped suddenly, covering his balding head with his hands.

“What?” asked Mallard. Dock stood up again, grinning.

“Duck!” he cried, repeating the action.

Mallard looked at him blankly. Then he allowed an expression of enlightenment to cross his face.

“Oh I see, you want to say ‘duck' because my name's Mallard. Mallard being a breed of duck. Oddly enough, I do believe I knew that.”

“What, people are always making wise-quacks, are they? Here, you're Duck, I'm Dock. Now where's Dick? Ah-hah hah hah hah.”

The staccato laughter continued while Mallard resettled his glasses on his nose and peered at Dock carefully.

“‘Dock,' you said your name was?” he said. “Have you lived in this area all your life?”

“Well, not yet,” Dock replied, nudging Oliver and beginning another round of self-congratulatory chortles, although his eyes showed wariness.

“There was a Dock, I remember,” Mallard mused, half-turning to Effie. “Of course, that was a while ago, and I was only a detective sergeant. Let's see, what was the charge?”

“Oh, you're a policeman, too?” said Dock nervously, without his usual interest.

Mallard didn't answer, but continued talking to Effie. “Public nuisance, was it? That covers a multitude of sins. No, something more specific. I think sex came into it….”

The man in the pew in front, who was about to turn round and complain that the conversation was disrupting his meditations, paused and listened. But Dock was already halfway to the front of the church.