Lambs to the Slaughter (8 page)

The vicar noticed he had visitors, though from the expression on his face, it was more likely that he considered them intruders.

‘I'm not interested in buying anything, so you're simply wasting both your time and mine,' he called across the hall.

‘Blessed are the meek,' Beresford said.

‘Should we go over and tell him . . .?' Crane began, taking a step forward.

‘No,' Beresford said, grabbing his arm to restrain him, ‘let the bugger come to us.'

Crane noticed the dark edge that was creeping into his inspector's voice. It was quite a new thing – this edge – but it always spelled trouble.

The vicar, seeing that they were making no effort to move, strode towards them.

‘Treat him gently, sir,' Crane advised.

‘I've had quite enough of you travelling salesmen,' he said. ‘This church hall is private property, and you are only allowed to be here with my permission – which I do not grant. So either leave now, or I will call the police.'

‘But we are the police,' Beresford said, producing his warrant card.

‘Oh!' the vicar replied, somewhat taken aback. ‘I took you for—'

‘You made it quite clear what you took us for,' Beresford interrupted him.

‘It's just we've had such a plague of travelling salesmen in this village recently. And they're so forward and pushy, aren't they? They hardly ever show the proper respect.'

‘I suppose they've got their job to do, just like everybody else,' Beresford said. ‘You don't mind if we have a look around, do you?'

‘No . . . uh . . . I suppose not,' the vicar said, dipping his hand in his paper bag, and pulling out a peppermint. ‘It is not much, as you can see for yourselves, but it serves our humble purposes.'

‘Hmm,' Beresford said, striding off towards the stage and leaving Crane with the vicar.

Though not a believer himself, Crane's view of religion was, on the whole, a rather positive one – he would for ever be grateful to the priest who had comforted his father in his last agonized days – but that did not mean he granted his blanket approval to all members of the clergy, and this one had definitely got up his nose almost as much as he seemed to have got up Beresford's.

It irritated him that the vicar spoke with such oily humility – ‘it serves our humble purposes' – while at the same time acting as if he were the most important person in the room, if not in the county. It bothered him that the man should have been watching the two old ladies work, yet made no effort himself. And it annoyed him both that the vicar should greedily crunch his endless supply of peppermints instead of sucking them, and that he hadn't thought to offer one to either his cleaning ladies or his visitors.

Beresford returned.

‘This place isn't perfect, but it will have to do,' Beresford told Crane.

‘It will have to do what?' the vicar asked.

‘It will have to do as our incident centre,' Beresford said.

The vicar shook his head. ‘Oh, dear me, no, I'm afraid it won't “do” at all. This building does not have the same sanctity as the church, of course, but it is a vital part of village life, and I'm afraid I could not possibly allow—'

Beresford sighed heavily. ‘You do know a man's been murdered, don't you?' he asked.

‘Indeed I do, but since that man was not one of my parishioners, I feel under no obligation to—'

‘If you make me go to all the trouble of sending to Whitebridge for a court order which will compel you to let me use this little shack of yours, I shall be most pissed off,' Beresford interrupted him.

He was handling it all wrong, Crane thought, but that came as no surprise, because he had been handling
most
things all wrong for the past month or so.

‘Could I have a quiet word, sir?' he asked.

‘A quiet word?' Beresford repeated.

‘Won't take a minute,' Crane promised.

They walked to the other corner of the room, and Beresford said, ‘What's this all about?'

‘We could get a court order, but that would take time, and – according to the boss – time is just what we don't have,' Crane said. ‘Besides, the rest of the team is already on its way from Whitebridge, and it'll need a base ready for it when it gets here.'

‘Do you think I don't know that?' Beresford demanded. ‘I don't want to go through all the rigmarole of getting an order, but if this pompous little shit won't cooperate, what choice do we have?'

‘I think I can persuade him to agree,' Crane said.

‘Now this I've
got
to see,' Beresford told him.

‘I think I can persuade him
if you're not here
,' Crane said firmly.

‘You've no chance,' Beresford scoffed.

‘Just give me ten minutes alone with him,' Crane suggested.

Beresford thought about it. ‘All right, I'll do it, Jack,' he agreed, ‘but only to show you that while you're a smart lad, you're nowhere near as smart as you think you are.'

‘I appreciate it, sir,' Crane said.

Beresford left the church hall, and Crane sauntered over to the vicar.

‘I don't much like your superior's attitude,' the vicar said.

‘I don't much like it myself,' Crane said.

But even on his worst day, he's probably better than you on your best, he added mentally.

‘And you do see my point, do you not?' the vicar asked. ‘I simply cannot allow the church hall to be used for the purpose your colleague suggested. So much of village life is focussed on this place – the Sunday School, the Mother's Union, the Christian Fellowship . . .'

‘And no doubt you foster local talent by allowing the village rock bands to practise in here,' Crane suggested.

The vicar sniffed.

‘Certainly not,' he said.

Crane sighed, philosophically. ‘I'll do my best to get the inspector to drop the idea,' he promised.

‘I would appreciate it,' the vicar told him.

‘I mean to say, when all's said and done, sir, you're a simple country priest, and it would be most unfair to foist all that unwelcome publicity on you,' Crane continued.

If the vicar had objected to the phrase ‘simple country priest', Crane would have immediately apologized and tried another tack. But, in fact, those were not the words that the other man chose to pick up on.

‘Unwelcome publicity?' the vicar said.

‘If you allowed this hall to become our incident centre, it would be one of the focuses of attention for the media,' Crane explained. ‘That's not too bad in a way, but that attention would also spill out into other areas connected with you. Since it
is
your church hall, the television people would constantly be pestering you for your views on what's happening to the village.'

‘I see,' the vicar said thoughtfully.

‘And it wouldn't stop there,' Crane continued. ‘Once we'd packed up and gone, the sightseers would arrive – taking pictures of the hall and tramping through your lovely church. You'd find yourself treated like some sort of celebrity – and you wouldn't want that, would you?'

‘No,' the vicar said, unconvincingly. ‘No, I wouldn't. But perhaps we need to look beyond our own selfish needs, and consider the general good.'

‘How do you mean?' Crane asked, suppressing a grin.

‘It is true that the dead man was not an active member of the church – I believe he belonged to some kind of wild Methodist sect in the next valley,' the vicar continued, in the voice he probably normally reserved for sermons, ‘but he was, when all is said and done, as much one of God's children as any of us, and we should all do all we can to help see his killer brought to justice.'

‘So we can use the hall?' Crane asked.

‘I think it would be only right and proper,' the vicar said solemnly.

When Louisa Paniatowski saw Ellie Sutton walking across the playground towards her, she thought she would just burst with happiness.

There was no one else in the whole world quite like Ellie, she decided. Ellie was intelligent. Ellie was sophisticated. And now Ellie was coming to talk to
her
– and all her other friends would see it happening.

‘Robert says he'll hire DJ Dee for the party, Louie,' Ellie gushed.

Louisa didn't really like being called ‘Louie', but if that was the name that Ellie would be using, she supposed she could get used to it. She wasn't sure, either, that she'd like to call her mum ‘Monika', as Ellie called her dad ‘Robert', but maybe if Ellie insisted – and Mum would allow it – she could get used to that, too.

‘Did you hear what I said! DJ Dee!' Ellie repeated, as if expecting more of a response.

‘I don't know . . .' Louisa confessed.

‘The disc jockey on “Radio Whitebridge Late Night”,' Ellie said. ‘You
must
listen to him! Everybody does!'

‘Oh yes, course I do,' Louisa said weakly, though she was sure that by the time ‘Radio Whitebridge Late Night' came on the air, she was already safely tucked up in bed.

‘He's the best DJ in Lancashire,' Ellie bubbled, ‘and he'll be playing at
my
party.'

‘Great!' Louisa said, because if Ellie thought he was so good, then he simply had to be.

‘The only problem is, we've had to change the date,' Ellie said. ‘It's tonight, instead of Friday.'

‘Tonight,' Louisa repeated. ‘But we have school tomorrow.'

‘To hell with school,' Ellie said. ‘If I don't feel like coming in, I'll get Robert to write me a note – and you can get your mother to do the same.'

‘That might be difficult,' Louisa mumbled. ‘My mum doesn't like me missing school.'

‘A bright girl like you could soon talk her round,' Ellie said airily.

‘And I'm not even sure I'll see her, because she's working on this new murder case, and—'

‘Boring!' Ellie interrupted her dismissively. ‘Murder is so really, really boring!' She paused. ‘Can you come, Louie – or can't you? Because I'd like to know right now!'

It was an ultimatum, Louisa recognized. Say yes, and Ellie would continue to be her friend. Say no, and the older girl would want nothing more to do with her.

It would be wrong to go to the party – she knew it would be wrong – but somehow she couldn't bring herself to say that to Ellie.

‘I don't know how I'd get to your house,' she said, hoping to yet find a way to steer through the two disastrous choices which lay ahead of her. ‘You see, Mum probably won't be home, and Lily Perkins, our housekeeper, doesn't drive, so though I'd really like to come . . .'

‘I'll get Robert to pick you up,' Ellie said.

And with those few words, any chance of doing the right thing completely melted away.

The Lower School had to go to the office if they wanted to make a phone call, but the Upper School were regarded as having earned the privilege of bypassing the secretary, so a payphone had been installed for their exclusive use – and it was to this phone that Ellie Sutton went immediately she had finished her conversation with Louisa Paniatowski.

The number she dialled connected her to the university switchboard, and the switchboard put her through to her father's office.

‘I've done it, Robert,' she said, when her father picked up the phone.

‘Good girl!' Dr Sutton replied.

‘But it wasn't easy,' Ellie told him.

‘I'm sure it wasn't.'

‘In fact, it was very hard work, and I shall expect some suitable reward.'

‘What kind of reward are we talking about here?' Dr Sutton asked cautiously.

‘You know that ring I showed you in the jeweller's window . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘That's what I want.'

‘But . . . but it costs hundreds of pounds!' Sutton protested.

‘You're right – it's far too expensive,' Ellie said. ‘So I'll just go and tell that grotty little girl that the party's off, shall I?'

Sutton sighed resignedly.

‘You'll get your ring,' he said.

T
he two civilian Scenes of Crimes Officers – or SOCOs for short – were called Bill and Eddie, and though they must have had surnames as well, no one in Whitebridge HQ knew what those names were, nor felt any need to find out. Bill was tall and thin, Eddie was small and round, and together, in Paniatowski's opinion, they were a formidable team.

It was Eddie who usually acted as the spokesman for the team, and looking round Len Hopkins' kitchen, it was Eddie who spoke now.

‘The dead feller wasn't much of a one for what you might call popular entertainment, was he?' he asked. ‘No television, no hi-fi system, nothing like that.'

‘No, nothing like that,' Paniatowski agreed.

‘Books, though,' Eddie said. ‘A
lot
of books.'

Yes, Paniatowski thought, a lot of books.

So many books crammed on to the bookshelves in the parlour that the shelves were bending under their weight.

Books in the kitchen, books in the bedroom, and books in the spare bedroom that looked on to the yard.

Books on Marxism and capitalism, sociology and the history of the working class, a Bible and a set of religious commentaries.

And pamphlets, too – stacks of them. National Coal Board bulletins, reports issued by the Fabians, briefings from
The
Economist
. . .

A forest of information!

Len Hopkins, it appeared, had not only been a voracious reader, but a
serious
one.

‘I'd like you to get an inventory to my sergeant as soon as you can put one together, Eddie,' Paniatowski said.

‘No problem,' the SOCO replied. ‘Anything else?'

‘I'd also like you to look at the lock on the front door, and see if it's been tampered with.'