Twelve Drummers Drumming (36 page)

“Was he walking towards the church?”

Eric nodded. “Not what you wanted to hear?”

Tom tried wiping the glumness from his face. Two sightings of the colonel the presumed evening of Peter Kinsey’s death, both of him church-bound, did not a murderer make.

“And,” Eric continued, “now that you’ve set me off down memory lane, Sebastian came by earlier than usual.”

“He comes in for a drink after closing the church, doesn’t he?”

“The man’s as regular as the Westminster chimes. When the sun sets, he goes and closes up. But in early April, the sun isn’t fully set until about, oh, eight o’clock. Sebastian was here about”—Eric squinted into the middle distance—“about ten minutes or so after I’d sighted the colonel going by—say seven-ten or seven-fifteen.”

Tom stared into the dregs of golden liquid in his glass. Did the anomaly mean anything? Sebastian’s being in the pub outside his normal routine was surely unremarkable—people sometimes did deviate from their patterns—but it did call attention to itself, if anyone bothered to pay something so trivial any mind.

“Would you remember his demeanour?”

Eric did, actually. It wasn’t what Tom wanted to hear.

“Pour you another, Vicar?”

Tom looked at the empty glass. “No, thanks,” he replied, pushing away from the bar. “I need a clear head. I have a sort of pastoral visit to make.”

Tom had called at the verger’s cottage only once previously, when he’d first arrived in Thornford Regis, to ask Sebastian for the vestry door key, but then, as now, he felt he was a tolerated, but not wholly welcome, presence once he’d stepped inside. The terraced cottage, the last bordering the cobbled walk between the Church House Inn
and the lych-gate, was small, a conventional two-up, two-down, its entranceway unadorned but for a pot of hostas facing Poachers Passage and the high stone wall that bordered the churchyard. On his visit in late March, the sitting room had been warmed by a low fire burning in the small iron grate, the elaborate Victorian hood of which was the single instance of decorative exuberance amid an almost punishing austerity. The walls were of the same distemper as the church’s, and unembellished but for a wooden crucifix, complete with writhing corpus, over a plain round oak table near the door to the kitchen. Facing the fireplace were two armchairs separated by a short bookcase with a low table in front with tiny towers of books, neatly massed, and space carved out for a single cup or glass. There was no television, no computer. But for the concession to modern acquisitiveness in the form of a smart-looking, lightweight rucksack hung by the door—the only discordant note—it might have been a monk’s cell. Or, perhaps, with no fire, and the sun absent on the far side of the sky, a prison cell.

Tom gave the latter a passing thought as Sebastian let him into the room. He now better understood his verger’s tastes and bearing, but this gave him little cheer. There were no formalities. Sebastian motioned him to one of the armchairs and took the other himself. He made no offer of tea or coffee or a drink, as if sensing that the vicar’s visit didn’t bear fussing with kettles and bags and cups, glasses and ice.

“I was up at hospital seeing Colonel Northmore this afternoon,” Tom said, aware of the thinness of the cushion as he lowered himself into it. He set his eyes on Sebastian’s and got straight to the point. “He claims responsibility for Peter Kinsey’s death.”

If he expected a response, none came. Sebastian’s eyes flickered momentarily, but he said nothing, and did nothing other than let his palms knead the oak surface of the chair’s arm.

Tom continued, “He says that on the eve of Ned Skynner’s funeral last year, he confronted Kinsey in the vestry over … various financial anomalies with St. Nicholas’s, and was so infuriated at
Kinsey’s blasé response that he struck him a blow with the verge, which happened to be sitting on the vestry table. The assault hadn’t been intentional, the colonel says, but the effect was the same.”

He paused, giving Sebastian a chance for response. Again, none came. “Naturally, I find all this troubling. The colonel was very keen that I should believe he ended Kinsey’s life, but I don’t. The colonel is—or has been until recently—a robust man, remarkable, considering his age. And I understand that he had to do terrible things in the war. I know he is impatient, that he can be imperious, stubborn, and quite intolerant. I can—almost—picture him striking Kinsey in a moment of rage. What I cannot picture is his skulking away from such a misdeed. Whatever his deficits, the colonel is forthright. And, furthermore, on a practical level, I cannot picture him somehow removing Kinsey’s body from the vestry and managing to bury it in Ned’s grave. Yes”—Tom held up his hand as if deflecting contradiction—“I understand that Kinsey was not a big man, but shifting a dead weight, even if it’s only ten stone, is not a trifle. It would take the strength of a younger man.”

Sebastian lowered his eyes to his lap, and let Tom continue:

“There’s only one reason I can think of to explain the colonel’s behaviour, other than the brain-scrambling side effects of painkillers.”

He paused to take a cleansing breath, half waiting for even a monosyllabic reaction from Sebastian. Again, nothing.

“He believes,” Tom persisted, “that he is shielding someone. Under normal circumstances, he would, I think, encourage anyone he thought had committed such a crime to own up to his responsibility and turn himself over to authorities. But …” Tom let the word hang in the air. “But,” he repeated, “the circumstances aren’t normal, are they?”

Sebastian looked up from his lap. His face was a mask.

“You’re a sort of prodigal,” Tom carried on with growing irritation. “Though not the prodigal son. More prodigal grandson, if you count Colonel Northmore as a kind of honorary grandfather.”

“Then I can only assume you know about me.” Sebastian spoke for the first time.

“Yes.”

“That reporter?”

“He gave me the key. After that, it wasn’t awfully difficult. Anyone given that key—a name, ‘Kinross’—would have learned what I learned with a little diligence. Colonel Northmore, of course, knew. He fought with your grandfather in the war. He must have maintained contact with you throughout your … ordeal. He arranged for your sanctuary here in this village when it was over, yes? And Peter, of course, knew. You were at school together, at Shrewsbury, were you not? The sources say that’s where you went, and Julia had a notion that the two of you went to the same school. Peter must have recognised you instantly.

“And,” Tom continued, “there was one other in the village—who either knew or suspected—wasn’t there?”

Tom thought back to what he had read online. More than a decade before, James Allan, the middle of three Allan brothers, married a Canadian woman named Jane Bee, at Crathie Kirk in the Scottish Highlands. Sebastian—or, as he was more properly named and titled, the Honourable John Sebastian Hamilton Allan—committed a heinous crime the day after they were wed. And the victim was none other than the eldest of the three brothers, the best man at the wedding, William, Viscount Kirkbride. The trial in Aberdeen was a sensation, in no small part because Sebastian refused to explain himself or speak in his own defence. He was sentenced to eleven years in prison. Two details in the entries had caught Tom’s eye: the manner of Kirkbride’s death—head trauma—and press and public speculation that nineteen-year-old Sebastian was protecting someone with his stubborn silence. The horror of fratricide—the sin of Cain—and Sebastian’s reticence shattered the Allan family and divided its loyalties. His father and his sister shunned him, while his mother, his brother, and his new sister-in-law stood by.

“Sybella arranged to meet with you at the village hall last Sunday night, sometime after you’d closed the church, am I correct?”

Sebastian’s jaw tightened. Then he nodded. “But I didn’t go.”

“So you say. But the afternoon of the fayre, after we found Sybella’s body, the look on your face when you burst into the village hall suggested you knew something about her death the rest of us didn’t.”

“I knew nothing. Truly,” he added as Tom’s brows ascended his forehead. “It was … something … nothing … I was mistaken. It doesn’t matter now. The point is, I was nowhere near the village hall Sunday night.”

“Charlie Pike says he heard someone come in.”

“And why was Charlie at the village hall Sunday night?”

Tom twisted his lips. “I think we both know Sybella liked to be provocative. Particularly with males.”

“I wasn’t about to let her provoke me. She was a child.”

“But one with explosive information, possibly.”

Sebastian looked away, towards the cold, empty grate. “I don’t really know precisely what she knew, Tom. But she would drop hints. Had I ever met the Queen? for instance. My father’s land is very near Balmoral. And ‘aren’t brothers awful creatures’ and the like—all spoken with a certain tone.”

Tom shifted in the uncomfortable chair. “Sebastian, in my ministry, I’ve met with others like you, men who have committed a crime and are trying to reintegrate themselves into society. One of the approaches—the preferred approach, I think—is truthfulness. People are generally forgiving, once they know you’ve paid your debt. But you’ve gone to some considerable length to hide your identity. I’m not sure why. And I suppose I have to say that I wonder how far you would go to keep your identity hidden.”

Sebastian’s expression had hardened. “Shall we take a walk?”

Startled, Tom replied, “Where? There’s a lot of people about the village this afternoon.”

“Along Knighton. Tourists don’t know it, and Bumble wants walking. I left him at Phillip’s for a few hours.”

Tom hesitated. A few of the village’s larger and better appointed homes clustered where Orchard Hill met Knighton Lane, but the homes soon gave way to hedgerowed meadows as the lane narrowed and then shrank to a trail invading thick stands of hazel, ash, and fir, before ending at a steep headland that dropped to a cove in the winding estuary. It was one of his own favourite walks because, at its farther reaches, it was so little used, so perfect for contemplation and prayer. He glanced at Sebastian, who was rising from his chair, at the torso stretched in a plain white T-shirt. The Sebastian he’d seen in pictures on the Internet had been a true toff—rail thin, lean faced, floppy haired, a boy really, with a vacant expression on his face. The Sebastian before him now was a solid presence, surely three stone heavier than the lad in the pictures, the product, he expected, of prison gyms and years spent outdoors, learning his gardening trade at open prison in the last years of his incarceration, then working daily for the Parrys and elsewhere in the village. Sebastian was fit, very fit, and he would forever bear the epithet “murderer.” Unthinkingly, Tom pressed his forefinger into his own belly and found it bounced back all too readily, like a jelly. Pastoral work, endless meetings, and the responsibilities of a husband and father had devoured any private time he might have had for exercise. And then, more lately, there was Madrun stuffing him like an Eponymous goose. He was not fat—yet—but he was not fit. And he was being invited to consort between the hedgerows by a—

“Tom?”

The sound of his name snapped him from his reverie.

“Are you coming?”

Tom glanced up at his verger and met eyes cool with challenge.
“Valley”
and
“shadow”
invaded his mind, warning him away. But he paid no heed. The psalm contained promise of a strength greater than any man could have.

I
n silence, Tom and Sebastian walked up Poachers Passage into The Square. There they glimpsed DS Blessing ushering his superior through the door of the Blackbird Gallery. The detectives didn’t see them.

“Have you had any further conversation with either of them?” Tom asked Sebastian, glancing at a few of the other villagers windowshopping Mitsuko’s display of local artists’ paintings.

“No” was the curt reply.

“I happened to meet the detective sergeant in the hospital waiting room earlier this afternoon. He asked about you.”