The Woman In Blue: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 8 (8 page)

‘What’s the conference about?’

‘Women wanting to be bishops.’

‘Jesus wept.’

‘Yes, very probably.’

‘I can’t see you being friends with a priest somehow.’

‘Really? I’m going out with them tomorrow night. Just me and seven women priests.’

‘I’ll send Clough to give you some police protection.’

‘Please don’t.’

There’s a short silence, and then Ruth says, ‘Nelson? I saw Father Hennessey just now.’

‘Really? Where?’

‘Here. In Walsingham.’

‘I suppose priests go there all the time. Pilgrimages and what have you.’

‘Yes, but I thought he seemed a bit odd. Have you spoken to him recently?’

‘Just a card at Christmas. He didn’t sound odd on the card but then no one does, do they?’

‘I suppose not. I don’t send Christmas cards.’

‘Well, Michelle does ours.’

Another silence.

‘Well, I just thought I’d tell you. I’d better go now. I need to get back to work.’

‘All right, Ruth. Take care of yourself now.’

*

‘He recognised her all right,’ says Clough, as they drive back to the station.

‘She’s hard to miss really,’ says Tim.

‘Weird how much she looks like Michelle, isn’t it?’ says Clough, then, when Tim is silent – ‘You know, the boss’s missus. You have met her, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, I’ve met her.’

‘She’s a cracker. Not a patch on Cassie, though.’

‘I can’t think what Cassie sees in you.’

‘It’s my charm,’ says Clough. ‘Can you look in the glove compartment? I’m sure I’ve got some crisps in there.’

Tim looks and comes up with a half-eaten bar of chocolate, which he passes to Clough.

‘Thanks.’ Clough shoves it into his mouth.

‘You should be the size of a house,’ says Tim. ‘The amount of crap you eat.’

‘I exercise,’ says Clough thickly. ‘I burn it off.’

Tim doesn’t like to ask what form this exercise takes. Instead he says, ‘What did you think about our vicar?’

‘OK. He seemed fond of his mum. He looked a bit shifty when he saw the picture of Chloe, I thought.’

As ever, they are all on first-name terms with the victim. Only this time it seems especially poignant to think of that glowing girl – immortalised in so many photographs and in oils above her parents’ fireplace – lying dead in the morgue. Tim supposes that he will be the one to attend the funeral.

‘He did look shifty,’ he agrees.

‘Shall we pop into Fakenham for some chips?’ asks Clough.

‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ says Tim.

He tells Clough about wanting a transfer. Clough listens in silence and takes the turning back to King’s Lynn and the station. He doesn’t mention chips again.

Chapter 12

Ruth calls in to see Cathbad and Judy on her way home. Gone are the days when Cathbad resided in a caravan on Blakeney Beach. Now he and Judy and their two children live in a fisherman’s cottage in Wells-next-the-Sea. Judy’s Fiat is parked outside and there are spring flowers growing in tubs on the steps. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this was a conventional family home, that is until Cathbad answers the door in his wizard’s robes, accompanied by a bull-terrier wearing a bandana.

‘Ruth. Lovely to see you.’

‘I said I’d pop in. Kate!’ This last as Kate rushes past Cathbad shouting ‘Mikey! Mikey!’ She loves Judy and Cathbad’s four-year-old son Michael and recently announced to Ruth that she is going to marry him whether he wants to or not. Thing, the bull-terrier, follows her.

‘Where’s Michael?’ asks Ruth.

‘Hiding,’ says Cathbad, standing back to let her come in.

‘I don’t blame him.’

‘But he wants to be found.’

Whether Cathbad is right or not, no sooner have Ruth, Cathbad and Judy sat down at the kitchen table than Kate enters triumphantly, holding him captive by the hand.

‘Got him. We’re going to play being teenagers.’

‘Why don’t you ask Michael what he wants to play?’ asks Ruth. She feels quite faint at the thought of Kate being a teenager.

‘He wants to play it too.’

‘Do you really, Michael?’ Ruth wants to hug the solemnfaced little boy – she has always had a soft spot for Michael – but she knows that he is an intensely private person who will hug you only if he feels like it.

‘Oh yes,’ he says now with his rare, sweet smile, and Kate drags him away.

Judy settles the baby, Miranda, in her rocker, and puts on the kettle. ‘Or would you rather have a glass of wine?’

‘I can’t. I’m driving.’

‘What about my home-made elderberry wine?’ says Cathbad, pulling faces at Miranda to make her laugh. ‘That’s practically non-alcoholic.’

‘You know that’s not true,’ says Ruth.

‘Cathbad thinks that natural ingredients don’t make you drunk. Or fat,’ says Judy.

Ruth has long since ceased to marvel at the union (unofficial, so far, unless you count a druid hand-fasting ceremony) of efficient policewoman Judy and fey wizard Cathbad. It works, that’s all you can say for it. They seem blissfully happy together and have two gorgeous children. If some of their arrangements are unconventional (Michael, for example, has two fathers, Cathbad and Judy’s ex-husband Darren), then that’s no one’s business but theirs. Now, sitting in the tiny kitchen lit by fairy lights and candles, their home seems an oasis of safety and comfort.

Judy pours the tea and Cathbad pushes the rocker with his foot. Thing comes back into the room and sits by Ruth’s chair, leaning on her legs.

‘I could make some pancakes later,’ says Cathbad. ‘It’s Shrove Tuesday next week.’

‘What’s the point of Shrove Tuesday?’ says Ruth. She’s beginning to feel slightly sleepy. It will be an effort to gather up Kate and embark on the dark drive over the marshes. She thinks of Hilary saying ‘It’s not Lent yet’. Isn’t Shrove Tuesday the start of Lent?

‘It’s a way of using up all your flour, eggs and milk before Lent,’ says Cathbad. ‘In Latin American countries they have carnivals on Shrove Tuesday. The word “carnival” means “giving up meat”, or something like that.’

‘I’m not giving up meat,’ says Judy. ‘I’m always a real carnivore when I’m breastfeeding.’

‘I’ll take you to the carnival in Brazil one day,’ says Cathbad. ‘We’ll dance in the streets.’

They smile at each other. Ruth is beginning to feel left out. ‘I was in Walsingham earlier today,’ she says. ‘I’ve never heard so many people talking about Lent.’

‘What were you doing in Walsingham?’ asks Judy. ‘I remember going to the Slipper Chapel shrine with my school. Slightly weird, I found it. Cathbad loves it, of course.’

‘I was visiting a friend who’s at a conference there,’ says Ruth. ‘We went to see the snowdrops in the abbey grounds.’

‘I’ve been house-sitting in Walsingham,’ says Cathbad, ‘and I’m not sure I love it any more.’

‘Tell her about the woman in the churchyard,’ says Judy.

‘I’ve heard about it from Nelson,’ says Ruth. ‘He says he thinks it was the girl who died.’

‘Yes,’ says Cathbad. ‘Poor soul. I can’t stop thinking that she was asking for my help in some way. I keep seeing her standing there by the gravestone. So beautiful and so sad. Like a visitor from another world.’

Ruth shivers but she notices that Judy accepts this statement with equanimity. She also notes that Cathbad is always susceptible to a pretty face, and Chloe Jenkins, whose modelling shots have been plastered all over the papers, was very beautiful indeed. She also reminds Ruth of someone. She thinks of the letters.
She stands before you, clad in blue, weeping for the world
.

Aloud, she says, ‘I’ve been looking up archaeological digs in Walsingham. There was one in 1961 to find the site of the original holy house.’

But Cathbad’s sixth sense is on alert. ‘Is there an archaeological link to Chloe Jenkins’ murder then?’

‘No . . .’

‘So you’re just researching archaeology in Walsingham for fun?’

‘No . . .’ Ruth ends up telling Cathbad and Judy about the letters, as she had always known she would. After all, Cathbad is already involved in the case, and Judy is still a police officer.

‘So Nelson thinks this letter-writer could have killed Chloe?’ says Cathbad.

‘It’s just a line of enquiry,’ says Ruth.

‘There’ll be prints on the letters,’ says Judy, ‘maybe DNA too, if the envelopes are the sort that you lick. Nelson could get an enhanced search done.’ Ruth knows that Judy is itching to get back to work as soon as her maternity leave is over. She sounds every inch the police professional, an impression that does not diminish even when Miranda starts crying and Judy picks her up to feed her.

‘She’s such a good baby,’ says Ruth. ‘She only cries when she’s hungry.’

‘Which is all the time,’ says Judy. She arranges the baby with practised one-armed ease. Cathbad puts a cushion in the small of her back. ‘You look like a Madonna,’ he says.

‘I feel like a bottle of stout,’ says Judy. ‘There are some in the larder. Don’t bother about a glass.’

*

Nelson is about to leave the station when he gets the call from Tanya, who is still with the scene-of-the-crime team.

‘Boss. I think we’ve found something.’

He can hear the excitement in her voice but tells himself to be cautious. Tanya is so keen to contribute to the case that she could be making something out of nothing.

‘What is it?’

‘Some blue fabric. Looks like it came from Chloe Jenkins’ dressing gown.’

‘Where did you find it?’

‘On a hedge by the Slipper Chapel. About a mile from where the body was found.’

‘Stay there. I’ll be with you in fifteen minutes.’

The Slipper Chapel is a small stone-and-flint church facing directly onto the road. With its stained-glass windows and stone saints in alcoves, it looks somehow too important for its size, like a miniature cathedral. Beside it is a bigger, more modern church. Nelson parks in the car park, empty now but obviously designed for busloads of the faithful. Tanya and Mike Halloran, from the SOCO team, are standing by the visitors’ entrance. It seems to have got darker in the last few minutes and Nelson can only pick them out by Mike’s fluorescent jacket.

‘Right,’ says Nelson. ‘What have you got for me?’

Mike leads the way. It’s a lonely stretch of road, open to the fields on one side, with a tall hedge on the other. Mike shines a torch. A few yards along, fluttering on the dark hedge, is a tiny piece of material, hardly more than a few threads. The fabric looks white in the torchlight, but when he goes closer Nelson sees that it is unmistakably blue.

‘Can’t be sure before we do the tests,’ says Mike, ‘but it looks like material from the dressing gown. We’ve taken photographs, but I wanted you to see it in situ.’ Carefully, reminding Nelson of Ruth in archaeologist mode, he removes the material with a pair of tweezers and seals it into an evidence bag.

‘At that height,’ says Nelson, ‘she might have been being carried.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ says Mike, ‘more likelihood of an unconscious body brushing along the foliage.’

‘Unless she was hiding in the hedge,’ says Tanya.

‘Then she’d be crouching down,’ says Nelson. ‘This is about waist height on a tall man.’

‘But why would he carry her down the road to leave her in a ditch a mile away?’ says Mike.

‘I don’t know,’ says Nelson. ‘And we shouldn’t speculate too much until we get some tests done. Have you spoken to the people at the chapel?’

‘Yes,’ says Tanya. ‘I spoke to the custodian before they closed for the night. I said I’d be interviewing him tomorrow.’

‘I’ll be interviewing him,’ says Nelson. Then, relenting slightly, he says, ‘You can come too, Fuller. What do we know about the chapel place?’

It’s Mike who answers. ‘It’s the Catholic shrine. Called the Slipper Chapel because pilgrims used to leave their shoes here and walk the last mile into Walsingham in their bare feet. That was when the shrine at Walsingham was Catholic, of course. Now it’s Anglican, so the Catholics come here.’

‘Why do you know so much about it?’

‘With a name like Halloran, you don’t have to ask. Lapsed Catholic at your service.’

There are a lot of them about, reflects Nelson. The thought doesn’t make him feel exactly comforted.

Chapter 13

Nelson and Tanya are back at the Slipper Chapel first thing in the morning. Already the road has been cordoned off and plastic sheets cover the section of the hedge where the material was found. A defiant ‘Open As Usual’ notice is stuck onto the sign for the car park.

‘It’s coming up to our busiest time of year,’ says the custodian apologetically to Nelson. ‘Easter, you know.’

Nelson is a bit vague about Easter now that his daughters are no longer at home demanding Creme Eggs. When he was at school – a Catholic boys’ grammar in Blackpool called St Joseph’s, but inevitably known as Holy Joe’s – Lent loomed large in his life. Ash Wednesday, the itchy grey dust on your forehead all day, ‘Remember, man, that thou art dust’, giving things up – sweets usually – and failing on the first pocket-money day, Stations of the Cross, Good Friday Mass, the statues shrouded with purple drapes, Easter Sunday and the glory of that chocolate that tastes like no other.

‘It’s Ash Wednesday next week,’ the custodian, Father Bill, is saying. ‘A lot of pilgrimages start then.’

Pilgrimage, like Lent, is now almost a foreign word to Nelson. But a thought comes to him that maybe that was what Chloe Jenkins was doing, walking over the fields towards the Slipper Chapel. Going on a pilgrimage. And she hadn’t been barefoot, she had actually been wearing slippers. He thought of the body in the ditch, the little feet in the white slippers. One way or another, he would catch the bastard who had done that to her.

‘You probably know,’ he says, ‘that we’re investigating the death of a young woman, Chloe Jenkins.’

‘Yes. Poor soul.’ Father Bill crosses himself. He’s an elderly man, stick-thin, but with a certain wiry strength to him. He looked anxious when the two police officers arrived, but has been hospitable, offering them coffee and making them comfortable in his office, a tiny space spilling over with boxes and stacked chairs and a large statue of the Virgin Mary. Most of the boxes are marked ‘Votive candles’.

‘We have reason to believe that Chloe came this way, perhaps into the shrine itself. Would anyone have been here between eight o’clock and midnight on Wednesday 19th February?’

Father Bill shakes his head. ‘No. We close at six unless there’s a vigil mass or something.’

‘Do you have CCTV?’

The priest sounds apologetic. ‘Yes we do. It’s a sad fact but people sometimes steal from churches and we’ve got a lot of valuable objects, icons and relics, that sort of thing.’

‘That’s good from our point of view. Can you give Sergeant Fuller –’ he nods at Tanya – ‘access to the tapes from the 19th?’

‘It’s all digital now,’ says Father Bill. ‘But that shouldn’t be a problem.’

Tanya nods importantly and makes some swipes at her iPhone. Nelson knows that she’s dying to ask some questions.

‘In the weeks preceding the 19th,’ he says, ‘did you notice anyone suspicious hanging around the chapel? Anyone at all?’

Father Bill looks more worried than ever. The statue of the Virgin seems to be looking down on him, almost with embarrassment. She’s a definite presence in the room, over six foot of painted plaster, blonde hair, blue cloak, outspread arms. One of her bare plaster feet is stepping on a snake. Nelson wonders why she’s been relegated to the back office.

‘We get a lot of strange people,’ says Father Bill. ‘This is a shrine after all. People come here because bad things have happened in their lives, because they want to forget or ask for forgiveness. And people come to the church for sanctuary. That’s why I always feel a bit bad about it being locked at night.’

Had Chloe gone to St Simeon’s for sanctuary? wonders Nelson. Tim said that Larry Westmondham hadn’t known that his mother’s former charge was a member of his congregation. But was it the Westmondham connection that made Chloe feel safe there, even in the graveyard in the night?

‘Do you have a record of who visited on the 19th?’ asks Tanya, determined to get a word in.

‘I can tell you which parties were booked in,’ says Father Bill, ‘but other people are free to visit. We don’t take a register.’

‘Is it free?’ asks Tanya.

‘Of course it’s free,’ says Father Bill, sounding rather acerbic. ‘You never have to pay to enter a Catholic church. Even St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican is free. Unlike the Church of England.’

The Counter-Reformation is alive and well, thinks Nelson. Aloud, he asks if they can look round the chapel and the grounds. ‘Now we know it’s free,’ he can’t help adding.

‘Donations are always welcome,’ says the priest hopefully.

*

The visitors are starting to arrive. A bus is pulling up in the car park: a handwritten notice on the back window proclaims ‘Our Lady, Queen of Peace, Portsmouth. On Tour’. Inside the bus excited OAPs can be seen jostling to be first out.

‘We get a lot of young people too,’ says Father Bill, rather defensively. ‘We have a youth pilgrimage every year. And we have Student Cross in Holy Week.’

‘What’s Student Cross?’ asks Tanya.

‘It’s a pilgrimage,’ says Father Bill. ‘Students walk from London, taking turns to carry a heavy cross. It’s to seek forgiveness for the sins of students everywhere.’

‘That’s a tall order,’ says Nelson.

To his surprise, the priest laughs. ‘Yes, when I think of my own student days . . . Still, the walk does them good. The Milky Way, that’s what they call the pilgrimage route.’

The chapel is surprisingly small. ‘It used to be a wayside chapel en route for Walsingham,’ explains Father Bill. ‘It fell into disrepair after the Reformation – it was even a cowshed for a time – but was restored in the nineteenth century by an amazing woman called Charlotte Boyd. She was an Anglican, but converted to Catholicism. Do you want to look inside?’

Nelson says yes, more from curiosity than because he thinks it will help the case. Even if he visited the shrine the murderer is unlikely to have left any clues behind in the chapel, although, as Ruth is always telling him, we always leave some trace of ourselves behind. Still, it might give him some insight into the sort of person who would spend the time to trek halfway across the country just to see a church that isn’t even the original.

The inside is beautiful, though. All reds and golds, like an expensive cigar box. Even though it is only just after nine o’clock many candles have been lit and people are kneeling in front of the altar, which is draped in blue and white. The church is high and narrow, with arched windows that let in very little light. The air smells of candlewax, incense and flowers. Father Bill points at a box in front of the altar. ‘You write your intention and put it in the box. It’ll stay on the altar all day.’

‘Why would anyone do that?’ says Tanya, too loudly. One of the praying pilgrims gives her a distinctly un-Christian look. Next door is another chapel, filled entirely with candle-holders.

‘This is the Holy Ghost Chapel,’ says Father Bill. ‘By the end of the day it’ll be blazing with light.’

Outside, pilgrims are wandering in the garden or heading for the Shrine Shop. Nelson notes that Father Bill’s principles do not extend to the banning of commercialism altogether. He thinks of the rosary found on Chloe’s body. Was it bought here?

The shop is a treasure house of angels and crucifixes and sundry glittery objects. There are endless replicas of Our Lady of Walsingham sitting rather stiffly on a throne with the infant Jesus on her knee. You can, if you wish, buy an Our Lady of Walsingham fridge magnet. Nelson briefly considers getting one for his mother. There are CDs of devotional songs and Benedictine chants. There are books and postcards and soaps made from Norfolk lavender. One wall is entirely given over to rosaries.

‘These are pretty.’ Tanya fingers some blue and green beads. ‘What do you do with them?’

‘Pray,’ says Nelson. ‘You say a Hail Mary for each bead with an Our Father in between.’

‘But there are so many beads.’

‘Exactly. It’s not meant to be fun. Have you got a photograph of the rosary found on Chloe’s body?’

‘Yes.’ Tanya was given the job of tracing the origins of the rosary and she bristles slightly now. ‘I followed it up and it’s sold here and at the Shrine Shop.’

‘Let’s ask again. They might remember Chloe.’

‘I thought the idea was that the perpetrator left the rosary on her body.’

‘It could have been Chloe’s. We shouldn’t rule anything out. We know she liked angels and that sort of thing.’

The shop assistant is a surprisingly alternative-looking young man with dreadlocks and multiple piercings. But he’s extremely polite and helpful. He looks closely at the pictures of Chloe and the rosary.

‘I’m pretty sure I didn’t serve her,’ he says. ‘I would have remembered. And the rosary is one of our standard designs. It’s popular because it’s got an icon of Our Lady at the end rather than the traditional cross.’

Nelson peers at the tiny figure: blue dress, yellow hair, golden crown.

‘You wouldn’t be able to remember who you sold this rosary to?’

The man looks apologetic. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that we have so many people in here. Hundreds on a Sunday or a feast day.’

As if to prove him right, the shop is steadily filling up. Nelson thanks the man and makes for the exit. He holds the door open for a group of Filipino nuns, who thank him shyly. Tanya stares at them as they pass.

Outside preparations are obviously under way for an open-air mass. Four men walk past, carrying a statue on a kind of bier. Rows of seats face a wooden platform where a table is being draped with an altar cloth. As the men walk past Nelson notices ordinary-looking barrels with a sign above them saying ‘Holy Water’.

‘There was a holy well at Walsingham once.’ Father Bill has appeared at their side again. ‘You can see the site in the Anglican shrine.’

Nelson doesn’t ask the source of the water in the barrels. He wonders if it gets sprinkled over the pilgrims or if they have to buy their own container from the shop.

‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’ says Father Bill. ‘It’s just I ought to be getting ready . . .’ He gestures towards the activity behind them.

‘No. We’ve taken up enough of your time,’ says Nelson. ‘Can you email the CCTV footage to Sergeant Fuller? Have you got her card? Thank you very much.’

Tanya looks a bit sulky as they head towards the car.

‘Can’t someone else do the tapes, boss? I’d like to be more involved with the interviewing.’

Who exactly do you want to interview? thinks Nelson. But he doesn’t want to discourage Tanya, so he says that she can come with him to talk to Hilary Smithson. She brightens immediately. In the distance, voices have started singing ‘Morning has broken’.

*

Hilary Smithson meets them at St Catherine’s Lodge, where the conference is being held. At first sight it looks like a private house, a charming flint cottage like many others on the high street, but as soon as Nelson steps through the door he knows at once that he’s in an institution. It’s the carpet, for one thing, green and hard-wearing, but it’s also the noticeboards, the shiny cream paint and a sense of practicality over beauty. He thinks of the moment when the Sanctuary morphed from country house into hospital. St Catherine’s even has the same hand-sanitisers. How dirty are your hands going to get on a theology course?

Hilary, who is waiting in one of the meeting rooms, is a surprise too. At first Nelson sees an old woman with grey hair, neatly but unfashionably dressed in a blue trouser suit. Can this person really have been at university with Ruth? Then Hilary stands up and Nelson sees that she’s probably his age. In fact, her face is remarkably unlined and her eyes are bright. It’s just the hair that deceived him. He tries to imagine Michelle letting herself go grey. If she’s ever found a white hair, it’s hidden in her streaky gold mane (she is a hairdresser, after all), and Nelson would be the last person to see it. But he supposes a priest is above such vanity.

But Hilary’s handshake warns him not to underestimate her. She’s friendly enough (‘I’ve heard a lot about you from Ruth’), but she looks at him shrewdly, sizing him up. He introduces Tanya and she too gets the treatment.

‘Doctor Smithson,’ says Nelson. ‘You know why we’re here. It’s about the anonymous letters that you’ve been receiving.’

‘I don’t want to make too much of them,’ says Hilary, sitting on the orange sofa that, too, is functional, with square cushions that manage to be both hard and spongy at the same time. ‘It’s probably just some lost soul reaching out.’

In that case, why show them to Ruth? thinks Nelson. He’s not fooled by the whole ‘lost soul’ business. He thinks Hilary was worried by the letters. And rightly too, from what he’s seen.

‘The letters may be nothing to be concerned about,’ he says, sitting opposite her. ‘But recent events in Walsingham have made us extra cautious.’

‘Ruth said there might be a link between the letter-writer and the man who murdered that poor girl.’

‘Did she now?’ says Nelson.

‘She was just speculating.’

Nelson is not mollified. Ruth had no business to be speculating, especially not to Hilary. That’s the problem with civilians getting involved in police work. One minute they’re an expert witness, the next they’re Sherlock Holmes.

‘We’re interested in the letters because they mention Walsingham directly,’ he says. ‘Have you no idea who could have written them?’

‘No,’ says Hilary. ‘There’s no return address and I don’t recognise the handwriting.’

‘Postmark?’

‘London, most of them. One is from somewhere in the Highlands.’

‘Your parish is in London, isn’t it? So it could be someone close to home.’

‘London is a melting pot, Detective Chief Inspector. Half the world passes through London.’

But they don’t stop to post anonymous letters, thinks Nelson. Hilary’s condescending tone irritates him, even though she has a point.

‘Have you ever had letters like this before?’ he asks. ‘It’s my understanding that not everyone is delighted by the idea of women priests.’

‘You’re right, Detective Chief Inspector,’ says Hilary. ‘Not everyone is delighted. What are your own views?’

‘It’s not my business to have views,’ says Nelson. ‘Let’s get back to you. So no one has ever written to you complaining about women priests?’