The Snares of Death (26 page)

Dexter studied her nervous demeanour. ‘Are you willing to swear that on the Holy Bible?'

Gulping, Gwen nodded.

‘All right, then.' He paused. ‘There's one other thing, Miss Vernon.'

She stuck her thin legs out in front of her and studied the ladder in her stockings. ‘What's that?'

‘I believe that you've been seeing quite a bit of my daughter lately. She's been spending a lot of time here, looking after your dogs and so forth. I don't think that's a very good idea, do you?'

He was unprepared for the vehemence of her response. Gwen Vernon jumped up and clasped her hands together; her voice shook. ‘If that's what you're worried about . . . well, you don't have to worry about it any more. Your daughter is not welcome in this house!'

‘What?' Dexter stared at her in disbelief: his Becca not welcome?

She compressed her lips and swallowed hard. ‘I promised Alice that I wouldn't say anything to you,' she gulped.

‘About what? Tell me, Miss Vernon! If it concerns my daughter, I have a right to know.'

Gwen couldn't contain herself. ‘Your daughter! That Jezebel! That harlot!' She waved her hands in the air in agitation. ‘A scarlet woman! Is that how you've brought her up? We trusted her! We trusted her in our home, with our dogs! And how did she repay our trust?'

Dexter remained rooted to the sofa, incapable of making a sound.

‘Betrayal! Violation!' Gwen wailed. ‘On that very sofa! Our beautiful dralon sofa, unclean!'

‘Don't be ludicrous, woman!' Dexter bellowed at last. ‘It's Becca we're talking about, not some . . . some floozy.' The woman was obviously quite round the bend, he thought scornfully but with relief.

‘Becca! We trusted her,' Gwen repeated, dirge-like. ‘No better than she should be. Disgusting! On our sofa! While we were away! We have proof!'

‘Proof ? What kind of proof could you possibly have?'

Gwen drew herself up to her full height with a shuddering sigh. Her hysteria had departed suddenly and she spoke with a kind of embarrassed dignity. ‘I couldn't possibly tell you. Nell found it. Dogs do have a regrettable nose for disgusting things, I'm afraid.'

‘What . . . ?'

‘Anyway, we've asked her. She's admitted it. And she's not even sorry!' Gwen turned and started back towards the house. ‘Your daughter is not welcome in this house,' she repeated over her shoulder. ‘Now perhaps you'd better go, Father Dexter.'

CHAPTER 35

    
But if his children forsake my law: and walk not in my judgements;

    
If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments: I will visit their offences with the rod, and their sin with scourges.

Psalm 89.31–32

Bob Dexter had no memory of getting in his car and driving home. His chest felt as if it were in an iron vice; he wondered, remotely, if he were having a heart attack. His Becca – NO. It couldn't be true. It couldn't
possibly
be true. Not his Becca, his lovely Princess. The woman was mad. Yes, she was mad. Or spiteful, trying to hurt him. Saying the one thing that could break his heart. Not his Becca. Not that. He could bear just about anything but that.

The vicarage was quiet when he arrived at home – no sign of Elayne. But Elayne was of no importance. Becca was the only one who mattered.

Becca heard him come in. ‘Daddy, is that you?' she called out from her room. ‘Mark Judd rang. He said to tell you that he'd found a ladder for you.'

He was as white as a sheet, Becca thought, when he opened the door of her room. That gave her a presentiment of disaster, but her concern was for him. ‘Daddy! You look terrible! Whatever is the matter? Is it Mum? Has something happened to Mum?'

‘Becca!' He came to her, took her hands in his. ‘I've just been to Monkey Puzzle Cottage. Miss Vernon told me something – something about you. Something terrible. I know that it can't be true, Princess. Tell me that it's not true.' He thought then that she would look at him blankly, ask what it was, and then it would be all right. He would know that it wasn't true.

Becca sighed. There was no point in lying about it. ‘Yes, Daddy, it's true,' she said as gently as she could.

His cry of pain was so terrible that she shrank from him; he turned even whiter than before. ‘He forced you, then!' Dexter gasped in agony. ‘He . . . he raped you! Oh, Becca, my darling girl! I'll kill him!' he vowed.

‘No, Daddy, it wasn't like that,' Becca said softly. ‘He didn't force me. I wanted to. I love him.'

Dexter gasped and recoiled; his colour went rapidly from white to crimson to purple. ‘Whore!' he bellowed. ‘Harlot! Trollop!'

Becca shook her head. ‘Daddy, try to understand! I love him! He loves me. It's only natural that we should . . .'

‘Natural? It's against God's laws! Fornication! I brought you up to believe in Jesus, to follow the Word of God –' He struggled for breath. ‘That a daughter of mine should deliberately turn her back on God and choose the path of wickedness –'

‘Please, Daddy, be reasonable –'

‘Reasonable? When my daughter commits fornication and thinks it's all right because she loves him? He talked you into it, didn't he?' He gripped her shoulders. ‘Who is he, Becca? Who is this man that you love more than Jesus, more than Bob Dexter? Who is he?'

Becca pulled away, frightened by the look in his eyes. ‘I won't tell you.'

‘You won't tell me? I'm your father, Rebecca. You belong to me. You
will
tell me.'

‘I
don't
belong to you,' she contradicted. ‘I love you, Daddy, but I don't belong to you. I'm a person in my own right, a grown-up person, and I have to do what I think is right, not what you tell me to do.'

For the second time that day, Bob Dexter raised his hand in violence to a member of his family. His hand caught Becca on the cheek, and she cried out in surprise as much as in hurt. He was unmoved. His eyes narrowed. ‘It's Toby Gates, isn't it?' he demanded. Becca shook her head, tears in her eyes. ‘You're trying to protect him! But it won't work.' He took the key from her door. ‘I'll just go and have a little word with Mr Toby Gates. You can stay here and think over what you've done . . .' Dexter locked the door from outside.

‘No, Daddy!' she cried through the door. ‘It's not Toby! Toby and I are just friends! Don't you understand, Daddy? Toby is gay!'

Toby. Gay. Of course. No wonder he'd protested so sincerely that his intentions were honourable – he wasn't man enough for them to be otherwise. So it wasn't Toby. But he had to get away from Becca for now, had to forget the terrible pain of her betrayal. Becca wasn't going anywhere. He could deal with her later.

His mind was unable to cope with the thought of Becca – her defilement, her violation. Violation! The word pounded in his brain. But she'd asked for it, welcomed it. It was too much to bear; his thoughts turned to Noah Gates. Noah Holier-than-Thou Gates, who had dared to pass judgement on Bob Dexter for not being pure enough in his convictions. And Noah Gates, Mister Christianity, founder and head of ‘MISSION: Walsingham', had a son who was a pervert, a sodomite! Noah obviously didn't know, or he wouldn't dare to hold his head up in public, wouldn't be able, in all conscience, to continue at the helm of ‘MISSION: Walsingham'.

Bob decided, then, to drive to Fakenham, to Gates of Heaven, and have it out with Noah there and then. He looked at his watch. Amazingly enough, though the morning seemed like a lifetime ago, it was not yet six o'clock.

The interview with Noah had been stormy; Dexter hadn't expected it to be otherwise. Noah hadn't taken the news well. He'd denied it at first, blustered around a bit; at last he'd called Toby in and put the question to him. Toby had admitted it, and Noah could deny it no longer. The boy had cried – Dexter curled his lip in contempt, driving back home some time later. And he'd always liked the toadying little queer: it showed that even Bob Dexter could be wrong about people. That reflection reminded him of Becca, and how she'd deceived him. Becca. She was no better than a harlot, a strumpet! Pretending to be such a good girl and all the while . . . So it was with hardened anger that he returned to the vicarage.

There was still no sign of Elayne – all for the best, he thought. He unlocked Becca's door and went in. She was curled up on her bed; she raiscd her head to look at him, and he gasped in horror. Her hair! Becca's beautiful hair! Her head was roughly shorn, almost naked, and on the dressing table was the mute evidence of the crime, a pair of nail scissors and a heap of shining silver-gilt tresses.

Her eyes were red-rimmed, but her voice was firm. ‘Hello, Daddy.'

‘Becca! What have you done?' he cried.

‘I've cut my hair,' she said. ‘It's
my
hair. I'm my own person. You don't own me.'

‘No!' he shouted. ‘No!' His desire to hurt her, to strike back at her, was overpowering. He removed his belt and wielded it over her; at last he had the satisfaction of seeing her cower. ‘Now,' he ordered, ‘you'll tell me the name of the man who dishonoured you!'

‘No, Daddy, please! Please don't hit me!'

He held her down and brought the belt down across her back. ‘Tell me!' he screamed. ‘Tell me!'

Terrified, Becca knew that she had to give him an answer or he would surely kill her. ‘It's Stephen,' she whimpered. ‘Stephen Thorncroft.'

Bob Dexter's body was not found until the next morning. It was Mark Judd who found him, when he brought the prospective buyer of the English altar into the church to inspect the merchandise. He was lying where he'd fallen at the foot of the ladder, twisted in such a contorted position that Mark knew immediately that he was dead.

At first it was thought that he'd lost his balance and fallen, alone in the church the night before, and had died, immediately or in protracted agony, of internal injuries. But the autopsy results were clear: he might have fallen from the ladder, but he had died of injuries to the head, inflicted deliberately and at close range with an unidentified blunt instrument.

There was a witness to the murder, for murder it surely was. But she, secure as ever in her ancient niche, cradled her child, smiled serenely, and said nothing.

Part 2

CHAPTER 36

    
In the time of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou hearest me.

Psalm 86.7

When Stephen Thorncroft was arrested on suspicion of murdering Bob Dexter, on Tuesday 14 May, he was offered the customary one phone call. Asserting his innocence, he waived the right until the following day, when it was clear that he was going to be charged.

He rang his uncle Geoffrey, who was by great good luck at his home in London. A short time later, Geoffrey picked up the phone and dialled Lucy's number, obtained through directory enquiries.

Lucy was painting in her studio on that Wednesday morning. Wednesday was the day when she customarily attended the weekly lunch-time organ recital at St Anne's Church, Kensington Gardens, so she was a bit rushed, trying to finish the painting before it was time to go. She frowned when the phone went, but was too conscientious to leave it unanswered. It might be important. It might even be David: although he had a well-known aversion to the telephone, he'd begun ringing her occasionally, and last weekend was the first one they hadn't spent together since their relationship had altered so drastically. David was very much a creature for routine, she'd discovered, and this break in the pattern of their lives, the result of a family christening she'd had to attend in Shropshire, had disturbed him. Their new routine had been established very quickly: long-seeming, lonely weeks apart, and weekends together in London that passed all too swiftly. David usually came as early as he could get away from work on Friday, and left as late as he dared on Sunday night, although once or twice he'd been unable to tear himself away and had stayed until very early on Monday morning.

It wasn't David, she realised with regret as she picked the phone up, but it took her a moment to recognise who it was.

‘Lucy,' said the voice on the other end, ‘it's the man who used to share your bed.'

‘Who?'

‘Oh, forgive me, my dear. I suppose there have been so many that you've begun to lose track.'

‘Geoffrey!'

He laughed. ‘Right the first time. Congratulations.'

‘What do you want?' She was puzzled; he hadn't rung her in years.

‘I crave a boon, my dear ex-wife. In other words, I need to ask a favour of you.'

‘I might have known. Why should I do you a favour?'

‘I reckon you owe me one. After all, I allowed you to divorce me, didn't I?'

‘Only because it suited you as well.'

‘Well, for old times' sake, then.'

‘That's fairly dodgy ground, Geoffrey. As you should know. Tell me what the favour is.'

‘You know my nephew Stephen.'

‘Yes, Stephen Thorncroft. He's a nice chap,' she admitted unwillingly. ‘I ran into him not long ago.'

‘So he told me. You see, Lucy, the thing is –' Geoffrey paused for dramatic effect. ‘Stephen's been arrested. He's being charged with the murder of Bob Dexter.'

‘What!' Lucy gasped. Of course she knew about Dexter's murder: as a minor media figure, and a clergyman at that, murdered in somewhat spectacular and gruesome circumstances, he had gained more press in death than he had in life. But Stephen Thorncroft's name had never appeared in the newspaper reports of the case, and she'd had no idea that any arrest was imminent. ‘But how . . . how can I help?'

‘You will help, then?'

‘If I can,' she promised. ‘I like Stephen.'

‘I hoped you'd feel that way. He rang me a few minutes ago from the police station. He's still in shock, poor lad – says he didn't do it, of course. When they started questioning him he said he didn't need a lawyer because he was innocent. Now, though, of course he must have a solicitor. He didn't even know of one, but remembered that you'd told him that your new boyfriend, what's-his-name, was a solicitor.'

‘David,' she supplied automatically.

‘That's right. David. He used his one phone call to ring me, to see if I could get on to you and have you contact your bloke. A bit round the houses, I know, but it was all he could think of at the time.'

‘Don't you know any solicitors?' she asked. ‘High-powered chaps?'

‘Yes, I offered to find him a London lawyer. But he said he wanted your boyfriend. Said he liked him, and that he was located close by. He's in police custody in Fakenham, but apparently he's being taken to Norwich to appear before the magistrates.'

‘David practises in Norwich.'

‘Is he any good? As a lawyer, I mean?' Geoffrey asked. ‘A bit provincial, I would have thought.'

‘David is a very good solicitor,' she defended loyally. ‘I'm sure he is.'

Geoffrey sounded amused. ‘And you're not a bit biased, of course.'

‘Well, perhaps just a bit.' Lucy laughed at herself. ‘But I'm sure he's excellent.'

‘You'll ask him, then?'

‘Yes. Not for you, mind you,' she added pointedly. ‘For Stephen.'

That jibe could not go unanswered. ‘Is he any good in bed, by the way?' Geoffrey asked with spite.

‘What?'

‘I just wondered,' he said silkily. ‘You
are
sleeping with him, aren't you?'

‘I don't see that my relationship with David is any concern of yours,' Lucy retorted, ice in her voice.

Geoffrey laughed. ‘Perhaps you're not sleeping with him.' Pure malice underlay his words. ‘I thought you'd grown up, that's all. I didn't realise that you were still the same girl who wouldn't go to bed with me till I'd married you. But I suppose if that hard-to-get act worked for you once, it might work again. Of course, you're not as young and innocent as you were then . . .'

‘You bastard,' she said softly, putting down the phone.

Lucy sat for a few minutes, simmering with fury, before she felt sufficiently self-controlled to ring David's offices. Nan was answering the phone this morning, filling in while the receptionist was on sick leave. ‘Goodacre and Whitehouse,' she said pleasantly.

‘Could I please speak to David Middleton-Brown?'

‘I'm sorry, but Mr Middleton-Brown is in court this morning. Can I ask him to return your call later? He'll be in his office this afternoon.'

Lucy sighed in vexation, looking at her watch. There was no time to waste. ‘Could you please tell him that Lucy rang?'

Lucy, thought Nan with interest. The beloved Lucy. ‘He has your number?'

‘Oh, yes.' She looked at her watch again, and thought quickly. In a couple of hours or so she could be in Norwich. ‘Never mind,' she contradicted herself. ‘Tell him not to ring. Tell him I'm coming – I'll be there as soon as possible.'

‘Yes, certainly, I'll tell him.'

Nan told him as soon as he came in after lunch.

‘Any messages?' David asked automatically at the reception desk.

‘Yes.' She watched him covertly. ‘Someone named Lucy rang.'

He smiled, oblivious to Nan's scrutiny. ‘Does she want me to ring her back?'

‘Well, at first she said yes, but then she said she would be coming instead.'

‘Coming? Here?'

‘That's what she said. She said she'd be here as soon as possible.'

‘Thanks, Nan!' he beamed. Nan watched with amusement as he virtually bounced up the stairs to his office. ‘You'll let me know when she arrives?' he turned back to ask.

‘Of course, Mr Middleton-Brown. Immediately,' she added with a knowing smile.

The intercom buzzed, interrupting the work he was concentrating on only sporadically. ‘Mr Middleton-Brown, your visitor has arrived.'

He bounded down the stairs. ‘Lucy!' Under the avid gaze of Nan, as well as one or two clients and another solicitor returning late from lunch, he had to content himself with squeezing her hand, and kissing her cheek. He took her case. ‘What a marvellous surprise! How did you find this place?'

‘I took a taxi from the station,' she explained as he led her up the stairs. Once they'd reached the privacy of his office, he kissed her enthusiastically and at length.

Finally she pulled away from him with regret, breathless. ‘That's all very well, my love, but that's not why I'm here.'

His scowl was only half feigned. ‘You disappoint me. I was hoping that you'd seen the light – that after the weekend without me you'd realised you couldn't live apart from me for another minute, and had come to tell me that you'd marry me right away.'

She laughed at his downcast face. ‘Oh, darling. We don't have time to go into that at the moment. This is a matter of life and death.'

In a few minutes she had told him everything she knew about the urgent errand on which she'd come, wisely editing her rendition of Geoffrey's phone call. He listened without interrupting until she'd finished, a frown creasing his brow.

‘But why did he ask for me?' he wondered.

‘Because he liked you, that day we met him, and because you're so close.'

David shook his head. ‘But I'm not the right bloke at all for him.'

‘Why not?' she demanded. ‘You're a good solicitor, aren't you?'

‘Yes, I suppose so. But it's not my line at all, Lucy,' he protested. ‘I'm a country solicitor. Wills, divorces, minor lawsuits, that sort of thing. Traffic violations, maybe. Not crime. Not murder. He needs someone who's experienced in criminal law. I'm sure that his uncle could get him fixed up with someone . . .'

‘He wants
you
,' Lucy insisted.

‘I don't know.'

‘I have faith in you, David darling.' She put her arms around him.

‘It's very difficult for me to concentrate when you do things like that,' he warned.

‘Just say yes, then.'

He scowled. ‘It just goes against the grain to do anything for that detestable Geoffrey.'

‘Yes, he
is
detestable,' she agreed with feeling. ‘Don't do it for Geoffrey. Do it for Stephen. Do it for me,' she amended slyly.

‘If you put it that way . . .'

‘Thank you, darling. And I'll help you, all that I can. I think that we could make a pretty good team, don't you?'

‘That's what I keep telling you. Will you stay for a few days, then?'

Lucy nodded. ‘I took Sophie to Emily's on my way to the train. So I can stay at least through the weekend. Maybe longer.'

‘That sounds like a bribe if ever I heard one. Clearly unethical.'

‘What are you going to do about it?' she teased.

‘That, Lucy love, will have to wait till later,' was his rueful reply as he disengaged himself. ‘At the moment, I think I'd better get to Fakenham and see my client, if I can, before he's charged.'

Lucy waited in the car while David went into the police station. He was back sooner than she'd expected, frowning as he got in.

‘Didn't you see him?'

‘Yes.' He fastened his seat-belt. ‘But not for as long as I would have liked. They'd charged him already. They're in a hurry to take him to Norwich this afternoon, to the prison.'

‘To Norwich? That's what Geoffrey said. But why?'

‘With a serious charge like murder, they don't want to keep him here locally. He'll go before the magistrates in Norwich in the morning.'

‘How did he seem?' Lucy asked with concern. ‘Is he all right?'

They were coming out of Fakenham; David stepped on the accelerator. ‘He seems fine. A bit pale and subdued. A bit shaken up, understandably enough. But he's a bloody fool.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘He wouldn't see a solicitor when they pulled him in. He was innocent, he said. He didn't need a solicitor.' He scowled.

‘He
is
innocent.' It was a statement, not a question. ‘He must be.'

‘That has nothing to do with it. God only knows what he's said to those cops. I really feel at a disadvantage, coming into it at this stage.'

‘Well, what did he tell you?' Lucy wanted to know.

‘That he'd rowed with Dexter on the day he was killed. Over some statue, apparently. Dexter had cleared the church out, except for this one statue that was too high for him to reach without a tall ladder. He'd made his mind up to get rid of it. Stephen offered to buy it, he says. He says it's medieval, valuable. But Dexter said he wanted to destroy it, that it was a graven image.' For a moment the connoisseur of church furnishings took over from the lawyer and David shook his head. ‘Some of these Evangelical types are beyond belief.'

‘So when was this row with Dexter?'

‘In the morning. But then . . .' David scowled again. ‘He went back and had another row with him later. When Dexter was in the church, actually in the process of getting the statue down. But he didn't tell the police at first. That's where he was so bloody stupid. He didn't tell them he'd seen Dexter again, not until someone else who was interviewed said that they'd seen him come out of the church that evening. Then he had to admit it. But it looked very bad.'

‘Was the second row over the statue again?'

‘That's what he says. But I don't find it very convincing, and apparently neither do the police. I think he's hiding something.'

Lucy thought for a moment, twisting a lock of hair around her finger. ‘Remember what that other priest, his friend – his name was Mark, wasn't it – said about Dexter's daughter? He was teasing Stephen about her. Stephen seemed quite smitten. Could they have rowed over her? Protective papa, and all that? The hated Walsingham influence?'

David took his eyes off the road for an instant. ‘Lucy, you're brilliant! Now
that
makes sense!'

‘
Cherchez la femme
,' she laughed.

‘I'll put it to him the next time I see him. If he's being chivalrous and trying to protect her . . .'