The Snares of Death (42 page)

Alice leaned over Elayne. ‘Gwen, I don't think that's appropriate tonight,' she said sharply. ‘Think about poor Elayne!'

Elayne shook her head. ‘I don't mind. We need to talk about it, I think. Settle it once and for all.'

David sighed. ‘Mark Judd was a fairly unscrupulous young man. That's the first thing that you might find difficult to understand. He didn't operate in the way that the rest of us do – all he cared about, in the end, was what was best for Mark Judd.'

Becca bit her lip and looked down; shyly, Stephen took her hand and gave it a little squeeze.

‘I'm sorry,' said David gently. ‘I know that this is difficult. But I do think it's best that we bring it all out in the open. Then we can put it behind us.' He thought fleetingly of his own life: of Mother, of Gabriel, and of Lucy. ‘We have to come to terms with the past before we're ready to accept the future.' Becca nodded almost imperceptibly and he continued. ‘The second thing about Mark Judd was that he was ambitious. He wanted to get ahead in life. He'd decided that the Church gave him good scope for that, so he'd chosen a career in the Church. He was willing to use any means at hand to achieve his ambitions, and that, also, is something that most of us have a hard time understanding. How could a young man whose churchmanship differed so completely from Bob Dexter's even contemplate using Dexter as a way to get ahead in the Church?' He shook his head. ‘But that is what he did. When his efforts to obtain a living through Walsingham failed, and Stephen was offered the living instead, he turned to Bob Dexter for his help. Dexter was well connected in London, and Mark thought that Dexter's influence could get him a plum London living.'

‘But why would Bob want to help him?' Elayne asked.

‘Because he had something that your husband wanted,' David explained. ‘He promised him that he could get him an advance copy of the programme for the National Pilgrimage. That would have given the protesters an enormous strategic advantage, and Dexter must have thought that that would give him a great deal of influence in “MISSION: Walsingham”. So he agreed to do what he could for Mark in exchange for the programme.'

‘That's why Daddy wrote the letters about that job in Pimlico,' Becca added.

‘But Mark Judd didn't get the Pimlico job,' said David. ‘It was in the
Church Times
on Friday 3 May, the day that Bob Dexter died. On the Gazette page, in the appointments section. The living in Pimlico had gone to someone else. Mark must have seen it some time that day, and thought that Dexter had double-crossed him.'

‘Had he?' asked Becca.

David shook his head. ‘That's something we'll never know. Maybe he had, or maybe his influence wasn't as great as he thought. But someone else got the Pimlico living, and Mark Judd wasn't happy about it.'

‘So he went to the church that night?' Gwen leapt ahead.

‘Oh, yes. He went to the church. I think he was probably there all along, somewhere in the shadows, listening when Elayne came, and you, Miss Vernon, with Miss Barnes, and finally when Stephen came. He heard Dexter accuse Stephen of seducing Becca, heard Stephen leave the church.'

‘He must have found that quite amusing,' Stephen put in bitterly. ‘That I didn't deny it, even when it wasn't true – when he
knew
that it wasn't true.' He spoke quietly, almost as if he were talking to himself. ‘I thought that Mark was my friend. I never knew how much he must have hated me – for getting the living that he wanted so badly.'

‘He hated you because things always came easily to you – all the things that he wanted in life, you took for granted,' David amplified.

‘Was that why . . . why he went after Becca?'

‘Yes, because he knew that you wanted her, that you loved her. By taking her out from under your nose, by treating her the way he did, he was getting his own back on you. You told me yourself that he hinted about his relationship with Becca. He wanted you to know, wanted you to suffer.'

It was Becca's turn to squeeze Stephen's hand.

‘I think, too,' David added, ‘that he went after Becca for another reason: because she was Bob Dexter's daughter. Because he knew that Dexter cherished her, and didn't want any other man to have her. He felt that it gave him the upper hand over Dexter, even though Dexter didn't know about it.'

‘That night,' Gwen reminded them. ‘We were talking about that night, at the church.'

‘Yes. Mark was furious with Dexter about the Pimlico job. He'd heard him rowing with Stephen, heard him accuse Stephen of dishonouring Becca. He must have heard them scuffle, and heard Stephen throw the bar aside. When Stephen had gone, he went into the chapel to confront Dexter.' David paused, collecting his thoughts. ‘He told Dexter that he had been Becca's lover, not Stephen – he wanted to watch him suffer. He told him all the details.' Becca blenched, and David went on quickly. ‘He thought that he didn't have anything to lose, because the Pimlico job was already lost. But then Dexter told him that he would ruin him – he would tell the Walsingham people that Mark had betrayed them, had given him the programme. That's when Mark decided to kill him. He picked up the iron bar from where Stephen had thrown it, and killed him in cold blood. Then he wiped off his fingerprints on his cassock and walked away.'

There was a long moment of silence; no one looked at each other.

At last Alice spoke briskly. ‘What made you suspect the truth?'

‘I should have suspected sooner. It was staring me in the face, really, if I'd had the sense to see it,' David said with a self-deprecating smile. ‘The main clue was staring us
all
in the face: the layout of the church. The chapel is self-enclosed, with a curtain at the back. You can't actually see into the chapel from anywhere else in the church. It had always seemed odd to me, at the back of my mind, that Mark Judd should have found Dexter's body in the chapel the next morning, when he was showing someone something in the south porch. The south porch is nowhere near the chapel – why would he have gone there, if he didn't know that Dexter was there? It was a question that the police never thought to ask.'

‘Ah.' It was a collective sigh of assent.

‘I'd seen the evidence of Mark Judd's personality, in the way he'd treated Becca, and the way he'd treated Stephen, who was supposed to be his friend. And I'd had first-hand evidence, as well – the day that I met Mark, at Walsingham, he told me that he admired Bob Dexter's ruthlessness. That should have given me a clue about what sort of chap he was. But the thing that really brought all the bits together was the
Church Times
for the third of May. I read it weeks later, and there on the Gazette page was the Pimlico appointment. On the day of Dexter's murder. I had known about Dexter's efforts on Mark's behalf, but the name in the
Church Times
wasn't Mark Judd. That's when I knew who had killed Bob Dexter.'

Again there was silence. ‘But how did you find out all the details?' Gwen asked with unusual perspicacity. ‘He was dead – he couldn't have told you all those things.'

David nodded. ‘You're right. He didn't tell me. But he did tell someone: Geoffrey Pickering.'

‘Ah.' Another collective sigh.

‘Pickering admitted it, when the police questioned him. That was the real reason that Mark Judd wanted to kill him – not because of the painting, but because he knew too much about Dexter's murder, and was threatening to talk.'

‘How did Uncle Geoffrey find out?' asked Stephen.

‘I think he just guessed, at first. Your uncle wasn't stupid,' David admitted reluctantly. ‘He'd talked to you, after your arrest. And he'd been to the church – he probably realised the implications of the layout, even if the police didn't. He pretended that he knew more than he did, and Mark panicked. They'd met earlier that morning, before Lucy saw Geoffrey. Geoffrey threw out a few hints about Dexter's murder. Mark admitted the whole thing – he thought he was pretty clever to have pulled it off, and was glad to have an audience who could appreciate his cleverness. A great many murderers are like that, I think. But that meant that Geoffrey had to die as well, and so he invited him to meet him at the Holy Well during Benediction. Of course, it backfired, and Geoffrey was able to tell the police the whole story.'

The evening gradually regained its air of celebration, as Stephen ordered several bottles of champagne and they began to be consumed.

‘You're taking up your new living soon?' David asked Stephen across the table.

‘Yes, next month,' he confirmed.

‘And you're looking forward to it?'

‘Well, yes.' He gave Becca a sideways glance; she looked down demurely. ‘Though I'm sure I'll be coming back for frequent visits,' he added.

‘And Elayne?' asked Lucy. ‘Did I hear you say that you'll be staying on in South Barsham?'

Elayne smiled. ‘We'll have to be leaving the vicarage soon, but I don't want to leave the village. Gwen and Alice are the best friends I've ever had. There's nowhere else I'd rather be than with them.' Both women beamed. ‘I'm buying the old blacksmith's place, just down from Monkey Puzzle Cottage. It's not as big as the vicarage, but it will do for Becca and me. And I don't expect that Becca will be with me for ever.'

No, thought Lucy, observing the way that Becca and Stephen were looking at each other. She probably won't be. She was young and resilient – the wounds that Mark Judd had dealt her would soon heal, and who better to help her through the healing process than the man who had loved her all along?

‘There will be so much for us to do, fixing the church back up again,' Gwen enthused. ‘Elayne will be a great help with that. All the new statues to be bought . . .'

Elayne's expression became remote as she thought of the old statue, the very old statue, with her lovely serene smile. The statue was safe now, and her own life was changed beyond recognition.

‘A toast,' said Stephen, standing up with his glass of champagne, ‘to the finest solicitor in Norfolk! David Middleton-Brown!'

They all drank enthusiastically, then David spoke. ‘I suppose this is as good a time as any to tell you that I'll be leaving Norfolk shortly.' He glanced at Lucy. ‘Not even Lucy knows this, but I've been offered a position with a firm in London.'

‘When will you go?' asked Stephen.

‘In a few months. I've inherited a house in London, and when the estate is settled, which I'm hoping will happen this summer, I'll be able to move.'

Amid the general congratulations, Lucy smiled at him. ‘You don't have to wait that long, you know,' she murmured. ‘You can move in with me, if you like.'

‘I was hoping you'd say that,' he admitted softly. ‘Does that mean that you'll marry me?'

She took so long to answer that he wasn't sure she'd heard him.

‘Well, no,' she said at last in a gentle whisper, reaching for his hand under the table. ‘But please don't stop asking me. You never know – some time I might say yes!'