The Mills of God (22 page)

Tennant, feeling curious, typed in the words Michael Mauser but nothing came up except a question: Do you mean Sieglinde Mauser? At that moment Potter came into the room and Tennant reluctantly switched the computer off. Third time lucky? he thought.

‘I'm off, guv. Is that all right?'

‘Yes, I'm staying with the vicar. Are the night duty boys here?'

‘Yes, hundreds of 'em. If there's a murder tonight . . .'

‘Don't even say it,' interrupted Tennant.

‘Right, sir, I won't. Goodnight.'

Five minutes later the inspector made his way to the vicarage, where the lights were still on. Nick answered the door, smiling a most welcoming smile.

‘Come in, come in. Mrs Culpepper is here. I fetched her,' he added in an undertone.

Tennant felt vaguely uncomfortable that he had just been looking at her personal details on the Internet. But when he saw her face, which tonight seemed particularly beautiful, he forgot all about them and felt himself start to relax.

‘Hello Roseanna,' he said. ‘How nice to see you again.'

‘And you my dear Inspector. It was so kind of Nick to invite me this evening. I must admit to feeling a little nervous when I'm on my own and after it gets dark. What is it about darkness that makes one afraid, I wonder.'

Tennant smiled. ‘I don't know. Night terrors, I suppose.'

‘I know some adults who will insist on having a night light on and others who like their rooms as dark as an Egyptian tomb,' said Nick.

Roseanna looked squarely at the inspector.

‘It is like living in the village of the damned at the moment. Please, when are you going to make an arrest?'

‘Well, we have arrested someone but only for the assault on the vicar. It's Broderick Crawford.'

Nick tutted but said, ‘I'm not surprised about that.'

‘Yes.' The inspector became deliberately vague. ‘No doubt we'll learn more in time.'

There was a slight silence into which Roseanna spoke.

‘Gentlemen, Richard has given me three complimentary tickets for his show and I am wondering if you would like to accompany me to London to see it.'

The vicar answered, ‘Yes, very much indeed. What about you, Inspector?'

Tennant considered whether it would be possible to leave Lakehurst at such a delicate stage of the investigation. Then he thought that just one night off might give Potter a chance to take over and show what he was made of.

‘Yes, I'd like that very much.'

‘Oh how wonderful.'

Roseanna clasped her hands together and looked so delectable that Tennant wished he were twenty years older or she twenty years younger. Then he remembered the remarkable Joan Collins and silently came to the conclusion that age was really irrelevant.

‘When are the tickets for?' asked Tennant.

‘Any night we like this week. You see the show is closing on Sunday and they're anxious to fill the house.'

‘Quite right,' observed the vicar. ‘Well, I'll fit in with you, Inspector. You've got far more on your plate than I have.' He addressed himself to Roseanna. ‘Can I refill your glass?'

‘Yes please. It really is a lovely Beaujolais.'

They fell to discussing the merits of various wine growing regions, both displaying a knowledge of France which was extremely creditable. Tennant was miles away, thinking about the bicycle search and sorry that nothing had been revealed so far. He was determined, however, to identify the bike and search it thoroughly for any trace of protective clothing. It occurred to him that it might have been taken, not stolen exactly but borrowed. He turned to the other two and interrupted their conversation which had now reached the merits of the Bergerac region.

‘I'm sorry, but have either of you got a bicycle?'

‘Yes,' said Nick. ‘It's in the garden shed.'

‘Do you keep that locked?'

‘Yes, I do as a matter of fact.'

‘And you, Roseanna?'

‘We've got two actually. One terrible old thing I used to ride – though I haven't done so for months. The other is much smarter and belongs to Richard. He cycles quite a lot when he's here. Says it helps him to keep fit.'

‘And where do you keep them?'

‘Again in the shed which I'm afraid is not locked.'

‘I'll have a look at them in the morning if that's alright with you.'

‘That will be fine,' said Roseanna, while Nick nodded his head.

The actress finished her glass of wine and stood up. ‘I really must be off. I'm sorry to trouble you, Nick.'

Tennant held up an admonitory hand. ‘I'll get a police car to drive you back, Roseanna, and they can search your house before you go in.'

He spoke briefly into his mobile phone and two minutes later they heard it pull up outside. Both men saw her into the vehicle and Tennant, leaning in at the door, said, ‘I want you to search the house thoroughly before you drop Mrs Culpepper inside. I'm spending the night at the vicarage but I'll be available on my mobile if I should be needed.'

‘Very good, sir.'

They turned back into the warmth of the vicarage and sat down on either side of the fire.

‘Tell me about Broderick now that we are alone. Was he looking for me?'

The policeman decided to be honest. ‘Not really. He thought his lover was in here.'

Nick shot him a perplexed look and then after a moment or two, his face cleared.

‘You don't mean Reginald Bridger do you?'

‘That's the fellow.'

‘Oh good Lord,' Nick answered, his face changed to thoroughly perplexed once more. ‘What on earth does he see in an old boot like that.'

Tennant burst out laughing. ‘Just what I was thinking.'

‘Bridger's married you know. Got two children, as well. Millicent and Maurice, would you believe?'

‘What's the wife like?'

‘A grim-faced woman who is running to serious obesity. No wonder poor old Bridger's gone gay.'

‘Poor chap. No wonder.'

Tennant held out his glass for a refill and they sat in silence, listening to the logs falling in the hearth.

‘You're lucky to have this house.'

‘Aren't I just. It's absolutely perfect for me. I feel totally comfortable here – and that includes old William.'

‘Surely you don't believe in all that, do you?'

Nick chuckled comfortably. ‘Wait and see is all I can say. By the way I take it that the kneeling figure I saw in church, who scared me half to death, was Broderick?'

‘We don't know yet. We'll find out about that in the morning.'

Tennant gave a sudden yawn and said, ‘Today is catching up with me. I think I'll go to bed. Would you mind showing me where I'm sleeping?'

‘Of course.'

The bedroom was pleasantly warm and the inspector, after having given his teeth a brisk brush, got into bed and fell immediately asleep. During the night, however, the temperature suddenly plummeted and Tennant woke and saw standing in the window, surrounded by moonlight, a craggy-faced man.

‘William?' he croaked.

And before the apparition vanished he saw it give him a grin with several missing teeth.

TWENTY

I
t had been very much as Tennant had thought. Traces of an unusual type of material had been found on the bicycle used by Richard Culpepper which had been removed for detailed examination to Lewes. He somehow felt that with this discovery he had drawn somewhat nearer to solving the case. For if the traces had come from protective clothing then, as sure as night follows day, something of the killer would be left on the garments. The net was beginning to tighten.

As everything in Lakehurst remained relatively quiet, he saw his way clear to going to the theatre on Tuesday night. They drove to Oakbridge Station in Tennant's car and got on an early evening train to London. The inspector could not help but notice how few people boarded and left at the station, which was the nearest to Lakehurst, out beyond Speckled Wood. It seemed that it was being regarded very much as a place not to go near. He presumed that half the Lakehurst residents – that half who were something big in the city anyway – were working from home on their computers. The rest were just busy trying to dodge the murderer as best they could.

It was observed by both Nick and Tennant that as the train began to fill up after Sevenoaks, people of all kinds shot a quick look at Roseanna, just as if she were still young and at the height of her powers. She was superbly dressed, of course, in a simple black number with shoulders heightened by a waterfall of crystal which swept down to her waist. Over this she wore a red evening coat, slightly drawn in at the bottom like a harem girl's. Her make up was subtle but clever, highlighting the glorious eyes and the curving, sulky lips. Despite her seventy-two years she looked sensational and Tennant, for one, was proud to be seen out with her.

They reached Charing Cross and took a taxi to something called Hackney People's Theatre, which turned out to be an old library converted into a strange type of community building. Nick, who did not approve of libraries being closed down, pulled a bit of a wry expression as he paid the taxi off. A scruffy fellow in jeans and with a great shock of hair which thankfully covered most of his spotty face and his three-day growth of stubble, tore their tickets in half and muttered something like ‘Frownpairs', which indicated that they should descend into the very depths.

The bar, to which they had apparently been directed, was dire. Small, hot, with a lot of people talking loudly about their theatrical experiences. There were acres of girls in jeans and huge, unattractive jerseys with matching hair and faces, accompanied by similar-looking men, all of whom seemed to be involved in the arts. Then there were the slightly better dressed aficionados discussing the St Pancras prize for all they were worth.

‘I thought Raymondo's entry was stunning, didn't you, Nathan?'

‘Utterly,' answered a youth in jeans with button at the fly, and a shirt with ballooning sleeves. ‘It couldn't have made a statement more about the political morass in which this country finds itself today.'

A voice soared above the rest. ‘Well, d'you see, I envisaged this play as a kind of scena, if you take my meaning.'

‘No, I don't quite,' answered a very short little woman of interderminate age, with tiny pebble glasses which she clearly needed desperately.

‘What Marcus is trying to say, Gwendoline, is that he sees the whole thing aerially – from above, as it were – and the scenes enacted below represent the way in which various people react to the news that John Major is dead.'

‘But he isn't dead,' answered Gwendoline, huffily.

Marcus, clearly the author, heaved a long and pitying sigh. ‘It is a pretence, Gwen dear. That is what I have created. A pretence that Major is dead and that all is not well with the world, d'you see.'

‘No,' she said stubbornly, and kicked one shoe against the other like a child.

At that moment they were interrupted by a short, earnest man with a balding head. ‘Excuse me, would you be Mr Marcus Alnuff?'

‘Alnough,' pronounced Marcus loftily.

‘Sorry, Mr Allno. I wonder if you could spare me a few minutes of your time. I'm from the
St Pancras Commuter Echo
and we would like to do an interview with you regarding the forthcoming award.'

‘Of course,' said Marcus grandly. He turned to his companions and said, ‘Press' in a loud stage whisper and then turned aside.

Roseanna caught the eye of the two men and smiled broadly before saying, ‘
Poseur
,' in quite a carrying voice.

‘Quite,' answered Tennant. ‘What's everybody having to drink? I've got a feeling we're going to need it,' he added in an undertone for Nick's benefit.

He managed to get served just as the first bell rang, so changed the order to three shorts, which they all swallowed swiftly as a nasal voice announced, ‘No glasses in the theatre, please.' They then started on a long trek through big empty rooms until they reached the third, the biggest of all, which had been set out with four rows of folding seats around two-thirds of its area. The space was already quite full but Roseanna, moving swiftly, managed to get three seats in the front row.

In the centre of the acting area stood a large closed coffin with a British flag draped over it and a bunch of stage flowers placed at its foot. Attached to this was a label saying, ‘Always, Norma.'

Tennant was staring at it, thinking sorrowfully of Lakehurst, wondering when the action was going to begin, when suddenly it did.

A naked young man wearing a John Major mask ran across the stage, paused momentarily by the coffin and then ran off. After that appeared two women in macs both playing the part of TV commentators and both – though not at the same time – reporting on the state of the nation, shocked and stunned by the news of Major's death as it was.

Tennant closed his eyes momentarily but was brought back by a dig in the ribs from Nick as one of the women peeled off her mac to reveal that she was bare-breasted underneath.

‘What's it all about?' asked the vicar, extremely puzzled.

‘Search me,' Tennant whispered back.

‘Oh,' said the vicar, none the wiser.

They stared in amazement as the awfulness of what they were watching dragged on but were suddenly alerted by Roseanna whispering, ‘Richard is coming on now.'

Tennant gave a sharp intake of breath as what appeared to be a forensics expert came on the stage. He was dressed in the traditional white protective clothing, had mauve gloves on his hands, and his features were covered by a white disposable mask. In fact he was scarcely recognizable except for the matinee-idol eyes wildly rolling from side to side.