Smile and be a Villain (20 page)

‘The library's closing in just a few minutes,' said the museum lady, who was just locking the door behind her as she left. ‘They'll open at two thirty as well.'

‘It's a conspiracy,' I said with a giggle. ‘Let's get a sandwich or something and then have a nap.'

O
ne need never go hungry in Alderney. There's food of one sort or another everywhere you look. We found a little takeaway in Victoria Street, P.J.'s Pantry, where we got a couple of jacket potatoes, in a waterproof bag so we could get them back to our lodging intact. Then we settled down to our accustomed nap. After a disturbed night, I was more than ready for a respite, and fell heavily asleep.

I wasn't even quite fully awake after Alan roused me and got me in motion toward the library. ‘What's so important to see at the library?' I grumbled. ‘I'm still sleepy.'

‘You always say if you nap too long in the afternoon you won't be able to get to sleep at night.'

‘I was making up for last night. And we bought lots of books. Why not just read them?'

‘This isn't a book. You'll like it. Trust me.'

The rain had stopped, but the world was still very wet. We cut through the churchyard for what Alan said was a shortcut. I usually enjoy churchyards, but today this one seemed gloomy, the branches of its trees bowed down with rain, dripping sullenly onto the gravestones. I thought about the hard decision the church authorities had to make about whether to bury the remains of William Abercrombie in consecrated ground, and sighed as we splashed along the path.

The assistant greeted us pleasantly. ‘I believe you may have visited before, yes? Christine told me about you. Did she say that you can borrow books during your stay on Alderney, if you want? We require a deposit, but it will be refunded when you return them.'

‘That's very kind of you,' said Alan, ‘but today I had something else in mind. I wanted to show my wife the Finale.'

‘Huh?' I said brilliantly. ‘What are you talking about?'

He turned me around and pointed. ‘
Voilà!
'

I looked. And looked again. And looked up, puzzled. ‘But – what's it doing here? And where's the rest of it?'

‘This
is
the rest of it,' the assistant said with a chuckle, and went on to explain. ‘You've seen the original Bayeux Tapestry?'

‘Yes, many,
many
years ago. My parents took me on a brief trip to Europe as a gift when I graduated from college – er, university.' It should perhaps be explained that the Bayeux Tapestry is not a tapestry at all, but a massive piece of embroidery, done on linen about twenty inches wide and well over two hundred feet long. ‘The guide told us it was a needlework record of the Norman Conquest, done by William's queen and her ladies.'

‘They used to think so. Now, they've decided they know really very little about it – who made it, or when, or even where.'

‘Not at Bayeux?'

‘No, it's been on display there for a long time,' she said, ‘at present in a lovely museum built expressly for it, but experts think it was probably created somewhere else. At any rate, the original ends in a ragged edge, so it's obvious that part of it is missing. Books have been written about it, and a few years ago two of our residents decided to create what might be the missing scenes. In fact our own Kate Russell – she's on the library committee – started the project, and Robin Whicker, whom you've met, researched eleventh-century Latin for the inscriptions. It's lovely, isn't it?'

‘It's amazing.' I looked at it more closely. ‘I don't remember the original well. It's been over fifty years, for Pete's sake! But this looks exactly like it, as nearly as I can recall. I can hardly believe it's brand new.'

‘We're very proud of it, as you can imagine. You would scarcely credit the research that went into making sure that the linen was the right texture and colour, the yarn dyed with the same vegetable dyes, the stitches matched to the original. Everyone on the island was invited to take a stitch or two, and quite a few did. We also had some guest stitchers, including Charles and Camilla! Look.' She showed us a small picture of the two royals sitting at the tapestry, studying it industriously. ‘And this is my favourite detail.' She pointed to a small bit of the lower border of the last scene, where four stylized animals posed. ‘These are for the Channel Islands, traditional symbols. The donkey for Guernsey, the toad for Jersey, our own Alderney puffin and the English lion with his tail arched protectively over all.'

I spent quite a little time studying details: the tiny, perfectly set stitches, the bright colours, and especially the little animals and symbols that decorated the top and bottom borders. I could have wished for more light, but I realized that textiles are sensitive to light, and the creators of this masterpiece wanted it to last – perhaps as long as the original, now looking good for its thousandth birthday later this century.

When we finally left the library at closing time, I gave Alan a hug. ‘That was the perfect antidote to everything that's been going on the past few days. Thank you!'

‘And the rain has stopped. While you were lost in admiration of the tapestry, I checked the online weather forecast for Alderney. It's set fair for the next few days, so tomorrow we can go exploring to our heart's content.'

‘Lovely. Meanwhile let's stop at the supermarket and pick up some supper fixings. I don't feel like going out tonight. It's around here somewhere, isn't it?'

‘Just down this way.'

Once more I blessed Alan's sense of direction.

As I was stowing our little cache of edibles in our temporary larder, my phone rang. Or rather, it played the first few bars of the
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
, a favourite piece of music I had chosen as my ringtone. It startled me; I'd had no calls while on Alderney. I managed to find the thing in my purse just as it stopped ringing. I looked at the caller ID still displayed: Nigel Evans, our young friend back in Sherebury.

I felt that instant alarm occasioned by an unexpected phone call. What was wrong? His family? Our family of animals? Jane?

‘Why on earth would Nigel be calling?'

‘I don't know, darling,' said Alan calmly. ‘Why not call him back and find out?'

I swear, sometimes I
want
other people to get into a swivet along with me, whether justified or not. I glared at Alan and punched the right buttons to return the call.

‘Hi, Dorothy, stop worrying,' said a cheerful voice.

‘How did you know I was worrying? What is there to worry about?'

‘Nothing, and I knew because I know you. I just came across something I thought would interest you. Jane told me you've got yourselves mixed up in another murder.'

‘I wouldn't have put it quite that way, and we're not sure it even
was
murder – but you've got the right general idea. We're embroiled in something distinctly unpleasant, at any rate.'

‘Concerning an American clergyman named William Abercrombie.'

‘Yes. But what—'

‘I'm coming to that. After Jane told me the story, I started surfing.'

Nigel is the sort of computer guru to whom one turns when no one else can figure out what's wrong with the blasted thing. He works in IT services at Sherebury University, and if there's something he can't do on a computer, it can't be done. It's a good thing he's honest; he'd make the world's most formidable hacker.

‘So you started surfing. And I'm assuming you learned something interesting, or you wouldn't be calling.'

‘Too right it's interesting. Did you know that the man had a wealthy parishioner who just died and left him everything?'

‘Heavens, no. What's “everything”?'

‘A cool couple of million. That's in dollars, of course, not pounds. But still.'

‘But still, as my southern mama used to say, that ain't hay. Wait a minute.'

I related the conversation to Alan and then switched to speaker mode. ‘Okay, got it. Anything else? Although that's quite enough to think about.'

‘This is a little less certain. I mean, I couldn't prove it, but I'm sure in my own mind. It looks as though, with that money and some other little bits and pieces he had lying about, he was planning to buy a big share of one of the computer gambling businesses in Alderney.'

Alan slapped his knee. ‘I was right!'

‘I don't know if he could actually have done it,' Nigel went on. ‘The laws are fairly complicated, and I'm just a lowly geek, not a lawyer. But it looks as though he was setting up a holding company or two, to hide the connections. I rather delved into it, because it seemed a strange sort of operation for a clergyman.'

‘He was a strange sort of clergyman,' I said tartly. ‘Some of those other bits and pieces you mention came from money he embezzled from his parish. And that's not rumour, but cold hard fact.'

Nigel's whistle came clearly down the airwaves. ‘Well. I begin to see why you think he might have been murdered. I might've wanted to have a go myself.'

‘Oh, that's far from the worst of it,' said Alan. ‘About the only sin he hasn't been accused of so far is paedophilia, and that may yet come.'

‘If he was murdered, I sincerely hope you don't catch up with the – I hesitate to call him villain.'

‘We feel a little that way ourselves, but still … Anyway, how are Inga and the kids?'

‘All well. Inga's glad to be back at work. Staying home with those two was much harder work than tending bar, but the Nipper's settled down a good deal since going to school, and we've found a really reliable minder for them. Nigel Peter is spending most of his time this summer trying to read to Greta Jane, but he can't read all that well yet, and she's too young really to understand. I caught him the other day piling books on top of her so she wouldn't try to crawl away.'

‘Oh, goodness, my sister and her best friend did that once to a cat, only it was bricks. They had dressed it up in doll clothes and were trying to take it for a ride in a doll carriage. The cat wasn't best pleased, but it survived to an extremely old age. I imagine Greta Jane will too.'

‘To misquote one of your American authors, she will not merely survive, she will prevail. She picked up one of the books and shied it at him. Got him squarely on the jaw. He won't try that trick again in a hurry!'

We rang off with laughter, and I turned to my triumphant husband. ‘Congratulations,' I said. ‘Good hunch.'

‘I knew I smelled a rat. Back when I was a copper I learned to follow my nose. In this case it seemed there wasn't enough money, but with over a million pounds, he could have done quite nicely.'

‘And don't forget the “bits and pieces”. Unless he'd already spent that on travel and toys. Alan, I cannot grasp why a man with that kind of money would resort to nasty little penny-ante games like stealing from a church jumble sale.'

‘You don't, thank God, understand the criminal mind as I came to do. There is a kind of sociopath, usually with a brilliant mind, who will commit crimes simply because he can. He's pitting his superior wits against all the other poor fools out there, and derives great pleasure when he wins, as of course he nearly always does. It's the victory itself that he loves, as much as the spoils, though of course he enjoys the spoils as well.'

I shuddered. ‘A person like that would have to be completely amoral.'

Alan looked surprised. ‘Of course, that goes without saying.'

‘And he became a priest! What kind of a twisted mind could do such a thing?'

‘The kind he had. Totally egocentric, totally without conscience. I'm not a psychologist, but I would say that such a man would be quite literally incapable of seeing anyone else's point of view, or of understanding why it mattered if an action of his caused harm to someone else. That would be simply irrelevant to him. Witness his reaction to the death of the little American baby, which touched him not at all. He probably chose the church as a profession because he needed to be admired, and because of the opportunity for drama. The Mass is a great drama, and a really fine actor can get a powerful response from the congregation.'

‘What about sermons? How could he possibly preach the Gospel?'

‘Acting again, probably. Such people are usually pathological liars. That is, they don't even know that they're lying. So he could, with a straight face, have made powerful speeches from the pulpit, while not believing – or practicing – a single word he said.'

‘You've come around to anti-Abercrombie side, haven't you? What was the tipping point?'

‘Nigel's revelations. With that kind of money, he could have helped the poor in his community, set up a small foundation, done lots of good. Instead he chose to come to a remote island and get into big-money gambling. And I have to say I'm driven to wonder how that parishioner died, and whether the family suspected undue influence.'

‘Alan! Surely he wouldn't have … but if he was really the way you've described him, he might have, mightn't he?'

Alan looked at his watch. ‘I think I'm going to walk down and have a little talk with Derek Partridge. I think the American police might be interested in the chain of events we've uncovered.'

W
ednesday did, as promised, dawn clear and lovely. It was perfect exploring weather, so Alan and I planned at breakfast what we might do that day.

He had not made a lot of headway with the Alderney police. While they conceded that there was a convincing case against Abercrombie, one that might have been pursued while he was living, there was little point now. ‘Yes,' Derek had said, ‘the man sounds an out-and-out rotter. But he's dead. You can't prosecute the dead. And there are a fair number of people here who are already a bit unhappy about what we've found out about him. Think we're “desecrating his memory”. Hah! Yes, I'll pass along your suspicions to the authorities in Ohio, but I doubt, sir, that they'll do much about it. With murders two a penny on that side of the pond, they've enough on their plates without casting doubts on the death of an elderly woman, a death that was never in question.'