Murdering Ministers (11 page)

“Most of the children reported missing turn up within twenty-four hours,” Effie blurted defensively, having rejected the temptation to boast of her black belt at karate.

“But it's been more than twenty-four hours already,” Joan wailed. She snatched a handkerchief from the sleeve of her cardigan and sat heavily on the arm of an armchair.

“Only just,” said Effie, privately bemoaning her blunder. She perched beside Joan and put an arm around her shoulders. Joan sobbed into the handkerchief for a few moments and then blew her nose.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I should be strong. Sam says we have to be strong. He says the Lord is testing us, and if we put our faith in God, everything will turn out fine.”

Whatever works,
thought Effie, although she wondered how Sam Quarterboy would twist that theology if Tina was in worse danger that she suspected.

“Would you like me to call the minister of your church?” she asked. “Wouldn't his help and guidance be a comfort while you're waiting for Tina to come home?”

“The only comfort I could have is for Tina to march through that door right now and say ‘Hello, Mum,'” Joan replied, her eyes tearing again. “No, I don't want to call anyone at the church. Sam doesn't want them to know we're facing this shame. He's a proud man, he'd be humiliated if it looked like Tina was turning out to be a troublemaker or a juvenile delinquent. It was bad enough that we had to miss last night's church meeting for the first time in more than fifteen years.”

“Just because Tina's run away, it doesn't mean she's a troublemaker, or that she's at fault.”

“What else could it be? What did
we
do that was wrong?”

Effie stood up. “Mrs. Quarterboy, we know for a fact that Tina chose to leave, which is good news, because we can rule out foul play. That puts the whole investigation onto a very different footing from the start. She's not an adult, but at thirteen, she's clearly old enough to have some idea where's she's going and how to look out for herself. As I said, I'd be very surprised if she doesn't come home by herself, today or tomorrow at the latest.”

She knew Joan was no longer paying attention to the meaning of her words, but was sifting them for an opening for her own opinions. Effie noticed through the window that a maroon Ford Escort had pulled into the driveway, with Sam Quarterboy at the driver's wheel. She spoke quickly.

“When she does come home, Joan, the very last thing you or your husband should do is accuse her of being a troublemaker or get angry with her because of the fear and worry she's caused. There'll be time to get to the bottom of her disappearance. But first, make her feel welcome and forgiven. And above all, loved.”

Joan Quarterboy looked up, with horror on her small features. “What kind of a parent do you think I am, Sergeant?” she demanded angrily. “Of course I love my daughter. And so does Sam. You don't have children, so you don't understand.”

Effie waited until her instinctive irritation with the woman had subsided. She weighed her responses.
What makes you think…How do you know…
Too challenging. “How can you tell that I don't have children?” she asked, hoping the concession to Joan would disguise her impatience. Her gloved hand hid the absence of a wedding ring.

“You wouldn't be working if you had little ones, would you? Not as a policewoman.”

The front door opened. Joan rushed into the hallway but stayed in the 1950s. “Did you find her?” she gasped.

Sam shook his glossy head without breaking his step and closed the door firmly behind him.

“I've just been—” He stopped, spotting Effie behind his wife. “Why are you here? Is there any news?”

“I'm afraid not.”

“Then I can't think why you're wasting time here when you could be out looking for Christina.”

Effie swallowed again. “We're doing all we can. I needed to ask you some questions.”

“Questions, questions, it's all questions,” Sam muttered, taking off his suede car coat and placing it on a hook beside Tina's anorak. Although he was wearing a thick, V-necked sweater, he still wore a silk tie with his nylon shirt, and his trousers looked as if they were half of a suit. He turned back to Effie irritably. “We're not holding anything back, you know. If we knew anything that would get our girl home sooner, we'd have told you by now.”

“I'm sure of that, sir.”

Effie held her ground, refusing to give him the signs of intimidation that he clearly expected. But she found herself excusing his frustration more easily than Joan's proud foolishness. Sam suddenly seemed too drained to compete.

“I hope at least you used an unmarked police car,” he snapped. “We don't want the neighbors to think there's any trouble in this house.”

“We're trying to be as discreet as we can in our inquiries,” Effie replied, “but we do need to ask the general public if they may have seen Tina. If she doesn't come home today, you might consider an appeal on television. If Tina can see how much you're concerned about her, it may make her come home all the sooner.”

“She's not stupid, she must know how concerned we are,” he said stubbornly, fiddling with his car keys.

“Please, Mr. Quarterboy.”

For all his faults, Sam Quarterboy was intelligent and decent, and in the face of Effie's firmness, he became aware that this untypical belligerence was not helping. He beckoned her into the front room and sat down wearily in an armchair. Joan followed.

“So what are these new questions?” he asked. Effie did not sit down.

“I want to know who Tina's friends are at the church. There's a chance she may have tried to contact one of them.”

“Why would she do that instead of calling her parents?” asked Joan. “And anyway, Sam doesn't want people at the church knowing about this.”

“It's all right, love,” he said. “I've just come from seeing the minister. I told him everything.”

“Him!” Joan blurted scornfully. “He didn't even have the decency to call round last night, after the meeting. You're the church secretary after all.”

“I told Paul Piltdown we weren't going to the meeting because we were all down with a tummy bug. He didn't want to disturb us last night. In fact, he was coming over this morning when I turned up.”

“By rights, they should have canceled the meeting altogether,” Joan grumbled, not wishing to waste the mood of dissatisfaction that had enveloped her. “I trust at least that you were reelected, even if you weren't there.”

“Yes, I was reelected to the diaconate,” said Sam. “But there's bad news, too. Nigel Tapster was made a deacon. Poor Cedric Potiphar had to stand down. Perhaps if we'd been there, our votes would have made the difference.”

“That man!” Joan began, but Sam interrupted her.

“This isn't helping Constable Strongitharm find our Tina,” he declared. Effie chose not to correct him. “Now, who were Tina's friends at church?”

Joan subsided onto the sofa, nervously stretching the small handkerchief that she held in her lap. “Well, there aren't too many children of her own age, these days. They grow up and drift away. If their parents aren't in the church, we don't seem to be able to keep them.”

“Is there a youth club or some other association?” Effie asked.

“There used to be, but it sort of died. We were hoping that Paul Piltdown, being a younger man, might make the difference, but so far, he hasn't attracted many new young people. Dougie Dock runs the local group of the Victory Vanguard, but it's for boys only. No, the only thing happening at the moment is the Sunday School Nativity play, which is going to be part of the Christmas Eve carol service. Tina was going to be in that—she'd been chosen to play Mary. But the other children in it are all younger. She was really looking forward to it. She was supposed to be at a rehearsal this afternoon.”

Joan began to weep softly. Her husband reached across and touched her arm gently.

“I understand Mr. Tapster's become something of a youth leader,” Effie said quickly.

“Unappointed and unwanted,” Joan snorted, despite the tears.

“Nigel's prayer meetings aren't officially sanctioned by the church,” Sam explained diplomatically, unaware that Effie had been well briefed about the Tapsters' practices.

“Did Tina go to these meetings?” Effie asked, trying to confirm what Oliver had told her. “Is there any chance that Mr. Tapster or his wife may be able to help us find her?”

“Once Tina told us the goings-on at Nigel Tapster's house, I kept her away,” said Sam forcefully. “That was weeks ago, and I know for a fact that she hasn't been anywhere near them since. No, if anything, she was much closer to Paul Piltdown, our minister.”

“I was hoping to drop in on Mr. Piltdown later,” said Effie. “Now that he knows about the situation, he—”

The telephone rang in the kitchen. Joan looked up at her husband with a terrified expression on her face, but Effie suspected it was her regular habit. She hurried from the room. Sam and Effie followed her.

Joan was frozen, her back to the others, listening closely to the telephone. Then she turned. Her face was joyous. She mouthed the words: “It's her!”

“Keep her talking,” Effie whispered to Sam and snatched her mobile telephone from her handbag, switching it on and cursing inwardly that she hadn't programmed in any telephone numbers for the Plumley OCU. She scrabbled in her bag for her diary.

“Why don't you come home, lovey?” Joan asked, tears running down her cheeks. “We've been so worried.”

Effie punched in the number for the CID. “I'm going to try and have the call traced,” she explained softly. “But it's going to take some time.”

“All right, dear. All right,” Joan was saying, in a tone that suggested she was nearing the end of the conversation. Sam suddenly snatched the receiver from her hand.

“Christina, this is your father,” he announced. “Tell me where you are and I'll come and pick you up. What do you mean, you—”

He stood motionless for a second. Then he slowly replaced the telephone on the hook. “She hung up,” he said incredulously.

Effie recognized the stick insect's voice on her mobile phone, but she disconnected the line without speaking. Maybe the telephone company would still have a record of the call?

“She hung up on her father,” Sam repeated. Joan covered her face with her hands.

***

“Gawd, Effie, you don't do things by halves,” Detective Inspector Welkin was complaining. He was less wary of antagonizing her when she was on the other end of a telephone.

Effie was parked on a double yellow line near the entrance to Plumley Central station, and she was using the time to catch up on the investigation. She had already called Tish Belfry to report that Tina was alive and clearly staying away from home of her own volition. Joan thought the call had come from a public telephone, but although the girl was coherent and intelligible, she hadn't given any clues to her whereabouts. Effie told Tish to contact the telephone company and then continue with the afternoon's sweep of the area between Tina's school and her home. Then she called Welkin to ask for permission.

“I've just had bloody Trevor Stoodby in my office trying to get all of his mates involved your case,” Welkin continued. “Listen, Eff, I appreciate the crash course in sensitivity training, but we can't have the entire CID out looking for a runaway on the last Saturday before Christmas.”

“Agreed,” said Effie, silently thanking Stoodby for securing her a strong negotiating position. “That's why I just want Tish and a few uniforms—the ones who'd be on that beat anyway. You can keep the rest.”

“I suppose I can let you have Trev, since he seems so keen. Keeps bleating ‘poor little Tina' and mumbling about
his
first Christmas without his mum and dad. I think he was twenty-four at the time. The others don't seem interested. I'm going to send them up the High Street for some undercover work among the shoppers. So what do you think, is the kid going to be home in time for the Queen's speech?”

“I hope so, but I don't think it'll be today. She's scared of Dad for some reason, although he says they didn't have any sort of argument, and he's not aware of anything she's done that would get him angry.”

“Maybe that's the problem. Only
she
knows and she's scared to tell him.”

“I think you're right,” Effie agreed, noticing the man who had appeared at the tube station exit and was now standing uncertainly on the pavement. “I'll check in again later, I've just seen someone I want to interview.”

She folded the phone and tossed it into her bag. Then she climbed out of the car, ran over to the man, and kissed him very hard on the mouth.

***

“Well, this is a very unexpected pleasure,” said Paul Piltdown, ushering his visitors into the manse. “Oh, perhaps not entirely unexpected in the case of Sergeant Strongitharm, since I heard the news about Tina Quarterboy this morning. Very distressing.”

Oliver and Effie followed him into the large living room where Oliver had met the deacons six days earlier. This time, he took the sofa in front of the window. Effie sat beside him.

“You two look like a young couple who want me to marry them,” said Piltdown jovially. Seeing their immediate discomfort, his face fell. “Oops, sorry. Clearly a bit premature for that sort of pleasantry. Effie, I'm sure Oliver will tell you that I'm a past master at putting my foot in it.”

“I'm sure it all goes back due to his influence in your youth,” she replied graciously. Oliver, startled, embarrassed, and now slighted, chose to look grumpy. Piltdown smiled.

“Ah good, you seem to have the measure of this old reprobate. Now, forgive me for my ignorance of police matters, Effie, but I understood you investigated murders with Oliver's Uncle Tim? I trust this doesn't indicate pessimism about poor Tina?”