Day of Vengeance: Dorothy Martin investigates murder in the cathedral (A Dorothy Martin Mystery) (21 page)

‘But I’m not sure we’re dealing here with a “criminal” in that sense. I think it likely that the dean was killed by an ordinary person who felt he had some overwhelming reason to want the man dead. And if that person was a member of the cathedral, I think he – or she, of course – would either stop attending church at all or, if he attended, would be forced by his conscience to confess. That’s the other reason I believe he was not in the church this morning.’

I came to a stop while I digested that. Watson looked back at me and whined. This was unusual behaviour, and he wanted to know what was going on. A human going for a walk with a dog is expected to keep walking.

‘Then we need to know more about Brading. So we’ll have some idea who would have wanted him dead.’

‘That’s why we’re here, love.’

We walked on in silence for a bit, while I reviewed what we did know about the man. He was married; it was his wife who had raised the alarm when he didn’t come home. Hmm. ‘Does anybody know what kind of terms he and his wife were on?’

‘That’s one of the things I hope you’ll try to find out this afternoon at that tea you set up with Mrs Rudge. According to the official police report, they were the most devoted of couples.’

‘Yes, well, we know what people tell the police, and what they don’t. What about children?’

‘No children.’

‘And I don’t suppose there’s any convenient hint of a scandal in his background – drugs, sex, anything like that?’

‘The police will have looked into all that very thoroughly, Dorothy. For that matter, so did the commission before naming him to the shortlist.’

‘Drat. Yes, of course. Was that your stomach growling, or is Watson upset about something?’

‘I confess, it was I. Let’s take our lovely boy back for some water and a nap, and find ourselves a thumping good Sunday lunch. We’ve had no real food all day.’

‘And I’ve walked too far in Sunday shoes. Onward and upward!’

We were not fated to enjoy that Sunday lunch. When we got back to Lynncroft, Alan checked his phone, which he had turned off while we were in church. He looked up, all traces of animation wiped from his face.

‘We’ll have to go back, Dorothy. They’ve found Lovelace.’

Looking at his face, I knew there was more.

‘He’s dead. Apparently by his own hand.’

We packed rapidly. I asked Mrs Stevens to phone Mrs Rudge and explain, and we were off.

Hunger drove us, a few miles down the road, to a motorway café where we had a quick and rather nasty meal. Watson even turned up his nose at the leftovers. On the road again, I said, ‘All right. What happened? Did they tell you? Who phoned, by the way?’

Alan, who is accustomed to my multiple questions, answered them methodically. ‘Jonathan. He said the police found Lovelace in a pub in Dover. He had apparently intended to take an early ferry to Calais in the morning; he had a ticket in his wallet. He would never have been allowed to board, incidentally; the word was out and all the ports of departure were being watched. He took a room in the pub and was found there in the morning, lying quite peacefully in his bed, with an empty bottle of sleeping tablets on the bedside table.’

‘And it’s supposed that he discovered that the police were on his trail and killed himself rather than face arrest.’

It wasn’t a question, and Alan made no reply.

‘It’s a reasonable supposition,’ I ventured, after a mile or two.

‘Mmm.’

‘But you don’t believe it.’

‘I don’t like coincidences, and this is a whopping big one, Dorothy. The second death, out of four clergymen selected for the shortlist to be our next bishop. I don’t like it one little bit.’ He gripped the steering wheel and set his jaw, and I asked no more questions.

It was well past suppertime when we got home, weary, hungry, and upset. We hadn’t phoned Jane to tell her we were coming, but Jonathan had. So she had a cottage pie warming in our oven, with a crusty loaf of homemade bread sitting on the table and, I discovered, salad in the fridge.

I found, absurdly, that I had tears in my eyes.

Alan put the car in the garage, brought in our bags, and then told me he was going over to talk to the dean.

‘Let’s wait, Alan. We’re both tired, and Jane’s pie won’t improve with age. Let’s sit down and eat supper and drink a glass of wine, and then go over to talk to the dean. We’re both too old to keep running on empty for hours. Go on. Sit.’

Watson thought I was talking to him and obediently sat, looking up with his ‘I’m a good dog and deserve a treat’ face. That made us both laugh, so he got his treat. Then the cats wanted their share, and also wanted some lap time, so we were a bit more relaxed by the time we got through our meal. Animals are wonderful stress-relievers, except when they’re being maddening pests.

‘I’d better go over and say a word to Jane,’ I said. ‘You go on to Kenneth’s. I’ll be there in a minute or two.’

I found Jane sitting relaxed among her dogs, reading a book. I was stunned at her appearance. She had shed ten years, twenty, since I’d seen her last.

‘You’re an angel, Jane,’ I said, dropping down in a squashy armchair that was going to be very hard to get out of, but was oh! so comfortable. ‘We hadn’t really eaten all day, and Alan’s terribly upset besides. That meal was a lifesaver.’

Jane doesn’t enjoy praise. She made a dismissive gesture. ‘Not a patch on finding Walter.’

‘We didn’t find him. Jonathan did.’

The same gesture. ‘Alan’s idea. And yours.’

‘Well, at any rate, we’re very grateful indeed. And now I have to go over and try to calm some of the troubled waters at the Deanery. This is a very dreadful thing, this second death, but I won’t have Alan worrying himself to a frazzle over it, or the dean, either.’

I struggled out of the chair, with Jane’s help, and made my way through the Close to the Deanery.

May would soon be June, and Whitsunday was almost upon us, so the twilight was lingering late. The Cathedral floated, immense but serene, against the darkening sky. Though Evensong was long past, Jeremy was still at the organ; I could hear music drifting softly through an open door somewhere, and gentle light shone through the stained glass. ‘Lighten our darkness, O Lord,’ I prayed softly, ‘and in your mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night.’

At the Deanery I found the serenity less in evidence. Margaret greeted me at the door. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Dorothy. I’ve been trying to persuade those two old dears that the end of the world has not come, but I’m not sure they’re buying it. Maybe you can talk some sense into them. Kenneth takes everything so dreadfully to heart, you see.’

I walked into the room, where Alan and the dean were seated in front of a small fire, glasses of sherry at their sides. They were speaking in low, funereal tones, and the sherry appeared to be untouched. Oh, dear.

Shock tactics, perhaps?

‘Margaret, if you happen to have some bourbon on hand,’ I said in a clear, carrying voice, ‘I think I’d prefer that. We have occasion to celebrate, after all.’

My husband and the dean looked up. The dean looked slightly shocked. Alan looked exasperated.

I went on. ‘I’ve just been to see Jane, and the difference since they’ve found Walter is amazing! She looks younger than I do, and she has fifteen years on me, at least. Thank you, Margaret.’ I remained standing and raised the glass she had handed me. ‘To Jane and the happy issue out of her afflictions!’ The two men stood, perforce, and raised their glasses. ‘To Jane,’ they muttered.

I kept my glass in the air. ‘And to the gallant men and women who helped find Walter and keep him safe, and to them and the God who will help all of us resolve our other tribulations!’

Both men raised their glasses a bit higher at that. ‘Hear, hear,’ said Alan softly, and gave me a rather weary smile.

Both men then sat back down as the dean said, ‘You’re quite right, Dorothy. I’ve let temporal concerns make me lose sight of the important things in life. We must give thanks to God, and Jonathan and the police, that Walter is safe, and trust him to see us safely out of our difficulties. But oh, dear heaven, I don’t want to read the newspapers tomorrow!’

I sat down, having achieved my object. The two men had come out of their funk and were ready for reasonable thought. ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ I asked, really wanting to hear their answer.

‘Everyone concerned will be pilloried, of course,’ said Alan. ‘All of us on the commission, for choosing such unchancy candidates. The police, for not taking action sooner against Lovelace, and not solving Brading’s murder. But the worst is the beating the Church itself will take at the hands of the tabloids and the broadcast media. Back in the day, the Church was sacrosanct, like royalty. Criticism had to be veiled. No more. The media will leap with fiendish joy on yet another huge blot on the ecclesial copybook.’

‘Yes. That’s serious. The police can stand the racket; so can the members of the commission. Oh, none of you will like it, but it isn’t a matter of life or death for any of you.’ I took a rather large sip of my bourbon. ‘Sorry, poor choice of words. I meant that all of you will survive the attacks. But attacks on the Church are another matter. The dear old C of E doesn’t rank high enough in public opinion these days that it can risk publicity as damaging as this. What are you going to do about it?’ I was determined to keep them out of the Slough of Despond if I possibly could. Not that they weren’t right. This was a pit deep enough to drown anyone’s spirits. But positive action was needed, if we could think of any.

The dean sipped his sherry, and then put his glass down and stood. ‘I’ll tell you what I am
not
going to do about it. I am not going to hide, or cover up, or prevaricate. I am going to call a press conference for an hour from now, and I am going to make sure all of the commission members who can attend are there. The ones from this diocese ought to be able to make it, at least. The Archbishops are, of course, not mine to command, but I will request.’

‘Isn’t that stepping a bit outside the bounds of your authority, Kenneth?’ asked Alan diffidently.

‘Yes. But this is my Cathedral, and it’s my bishop we’re trying to appoint, and the buck, as your president once said, Dorothy, stops here. Now, if you’ll excuse me, ladies, I’d best get to the phone. Alan, can you help make the calls? I’ll put my secretary on it, too, but they need to go out as quickly as we can manage, and I’ll want the Chapter here, as well – as many of them as we can reach.’ He turned to leave the room. ‘Oh, and Dorothy –’ he looked me in the eye – ‘thank you for reminding me from whence cometh our help. Sometimes the world is too much with me, and I forget.’

‘Never for long, Kenneth. You’ve certainly reminded me often enough.’

We watched them go, then Margaret sat back in her chair with a long sigh. ‘He’s a man of great faith, but he takes things so seriously, and sometimes forgets that all the responsibility isn’t on his shoulders.’

‘The wonder, in this age of cynicism, is that he ever remembers. What was it like, Margaret, back when he was just a parish priest, without all this burden of administration?’

‘We had a lovely parish,’ she said, smiling reminiscently. ‘Not very big, and not so many of them went to church, but they were delightful people.’

‘Come, now. All of them?’

‘All of them. Truly. Oh, there was the usual run of grumblers, the old women with the bad legs, the old men who didn’t bathe often enough, and one or two young toughs who thought they could terrorize the village, but we all got on comfortably enough. And when anyone was in trouble, the rest rallied round. Our children were young when we first went there, and that made a difference. That huge, draughty old rectory would have been much different without the girls giggling and the boys racing up and down the stairs.’

‘And did Kenneth worry as much about his parishioners then as he does now?’

She laughed a little. ‘More, perhaps. There were fewer of them, and much less to do on the business side of things, so he knew more about their troubles, and took them all upon himself. I speak of a parish, but we actually had three to look after, so Sundays got a bit hectic, especially in bad weather. But it was a wonderful time in our lives.’

‘And then he was made dean.’

‘And then he was made dean. He didn’t want the job at first, you know. We were so happy where we were, and the responsibilities here were so much greater. He prayed about it for a long time. Well, we both did, really. I didn’t want to go, either. I had so many friends in the villages. But the children had grown and gone, as children will, and we didn’t need that big house anymore, so it seemed quite selfish to stay there. And really, we could see that the Cathedral needed us. You weren’t here then, so you never knew how badly it had been allowed to deteriorate. Lack of funds, of course, but also lack of attention. Kenneth finally decided that this was where God wanted him, so this is where we are. And I have to say housekeeping is much easier in a place this size, even if it is several hundred years older than the old rectory. And this is a parish church as well, of course, so he still has the pastoral work he loves. But this appointment process …’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘Kenneth isn’t as young as he once was, and this was never going to be easy, with feelings running so high about so many issues.’

‘And the deaths have made it much, much worse. I’ve been worried about Alan, too. The crime aspects he can deal with. That’s what he’s done all his life, after all – deal with crime and criminals. But he isn’t and never has been a politician or a diplomat, so the negotiations within the diocese and then on the commission have taken a lot out of him. You know, Margaret, if there’s a bright spot anywhere in this mess, it’s that the appointment process has been put on hold until the smoke clears. That gives us all a little time to concentrate on the crime, or crimes, if the Lovelace death turns out not to be suicide.’

‘Suicide is a crime,’ said Margaret. ‘As well as a sin.’

‘So it is, but, Margaret, I don’t mind telling you that I’m hoping it
was
suicide. The idea of a serial killer of clergymen makes my blood run cold.’