A Dead Man Out of Mind (10 page)

Tomorrow he would collect the silver from the church safe, and deliver it to the V & A. For tonight, all he could do was talk about it with Lucy. She would have waited up for him, he knew, so it was with confident expectation and anticipation of a warm house, a warm bed, and an even warmer Lucy that he walked a little faster towards home.

Norman Topping's feet did not bear him quite so eagerly towards his house, not far from St Margaret's. He and Martin Bairstow had retired to the pub to discuss the latest development, and hadn't left till closing time, so he looked rather anxiously at his watch as he fumbled for his key and let himself into the house. He'd told Dolly that he wouldn't be more than half an hour – she wouldn't be pleased.

The house was in darkness, and she hadn't even left a light on for him. Holding his breath, Norman crept up the stairs and into the bedroom; perhaps Dolly would be asleep, and the moment of reckoning could be postponed until morning.

But as soon as he entered the room, Dolly sat up and snapped on the lamp on the table between the twin beds. Her appearance at night was even more terrifying than Lucy's daytime experience of her: her hair was wound around pink foam rollers, and covered with a loosely woven hairnet, and her face glistened with night-time potions meant to keep wrinkles at bay. ‘Well?' she said; the word was invested with as much weight, as much meaning, as it was possible to squeeze into a single syllable.

‘I'm really sorry, Dolly.' The coaxing propitiation of his tone didn't carry much conviction. From experience he knew that Dolly's wrath was as unpleasantly inevitable as a head cold, once the scratchy throat had manifested itself.

‘You said you wouldn't be long!'

‘It was important.' In a flash of inspiration he saw how he might distract her, deflect her ire away from himself and on to her pet hobbyhorse. ‘Because of the woman curate, you know. I told you about Martin's plan to sell the silver.'

Dolly's fleshy jaws quivered. ‘And a good plan it is, too. It's just as well that there are people who aren't prepared to stand round and see the True Church delivered over into the hands of those heretics and their female so-called priests, lock, stock, and barrel. Thank God we've got
one
churchwarden with some sense!'

Norman bowed his head meekly at the implied criticism; now was not the time to defend himself.

But in a moment she was on the offensive again. ‘So what does that have to do with this evening? I thought that you had that solicitor chap all set up, and that he told you the silver should fetch a good price. What's happened?'

‘Well, now he says that the silver is much more valuable than he thought. I didn't really follow the whole thing, but what it boils down to is that it might be difficult to sell it – the diocese might object – and it will take longer than we'd thought. Martin and I had to talk it over afterwards, to decide what we're going to do.'

‘Hm.' Dolly narrowed her eyes, short-sighted without her spectacles. ‘And what did
Martin
decide?'

‘That we should wait a while and see what happens. The solicitor is going to take the stuff to the V and A to see what they say about it.'

‘And in the meantime,' muttered Dolly fiercely, pulling the bedclothes around her, ‘we shall have that woman foisted on us. I never thought I would live to see such an outrage in my church!'

CHAPTER 7

    
Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine: upon the walls of thine house.

Psalm 128.3

On the following morning, Thursday, David arrived at St Margaret's at the prearranged time to collect the silver. To his surprise, though, he was met not by the Vicar as he had expected, but by the sacristan. On their previous encounter the man had been wearing a cassock; today he was much more colourfully arrayed in a gaudy multi-hued jumper, adorned with a discreet enamelled pink triangle.

The expression on Robin West's ugly, frog-like face changed instantly from a sulk to a smile as he saw David. ‘Oh, it's you, is it?
Quelle surprise!
The Vicar said that someone would be calling to collect the silver, but he didn't tell me that it was going to be
you
.'

David cringed inwardly, but managed to retain his outward composure. ‘Yes. I hope I haven't caused you too much trouble.'

‘Not at all. Not at all.' He turned and led the way to the sacristy. ‘Though I wouldn't admit that to the Vicar. He expects too much of me, you know. Takes me for granted. Thinks I should be here at the drop of a hat. And he wouldn't even tell me what you're going to do with the silver.' Reaching the sacristy door, he swivelled and gave David an expectant look, tacitly inviting enlightenment on the subject.

‘I'm afraid I can't really discuss that.'

The sacristan shrugged. ‘Never mind. Not your fault, I'm sure.' He inserted the heavy key into the lock. ‘Very hush-hush, it must be. Can't you even tell me what line of work you're in? Are you a silversmith, or an insurance valuer? Or does it have something to do with the robbery? Surely you're not a copper!'

‘Oh, no. I'm a solicitor,' David admitted, somewhat reluctantly.

‘A solicitor!' Robin West paused and looked David up and down. ‘Curiouser and curiouser!'

‘I really can't say more than that.'

‘Yes, I know all about you legal types. The soul of discretion, I'm sure.' The sacristan tapped him on the arm with the safe key and favoured him with a broad wink.

David was relieved as the man turned to the safe and began fiddling with the lock, but the stream of speculation and conjecture never faltered. ‘I can't imagine what a solicitor would be doing with the silver. Very interesting. There are of course other reasons why the churchwardens might employ you – to issue writs, if that's how you say it, to prevent the Vicar from bringing that woman in to this church. Now that
would
be useful.'

‘Woman?' David wasn't really following the train of thought. ‘You mean his fiancée, Miss McKenzie?'

‘Fiancée!' Robin West snorted in derision. ‘Fiancée, I'm sure! No, I mean the so-called curate – you've heard about her, haven't you?'

‘Oh, yes, of course.'

‘Not that I accept the validity of her orders, of course.' The sacristan swung the heavy safe door open. ‘Not even her deacon's orders. Women have no place in the Sanctuary. The very thought is a sacrilege.'

‘There seem to be quite a few people at St Margaret's who agree with you about that.'

‘I should think so! This is a proper
Catholic
parish, always has been!' His voice had lost its customary languor as he went on, ‘I can't imagine what Father was thinking of when he agreed to her appointment! He must have known that heads would roll, that people wouldn't just sit in the pews and accept it!'

David frowned. ‘But what can people do? Apart from leaving St Margaret's in protest, and finding another church? I mean, people may not like it, but . . .'

‘Humph.' The sacristan reached into the safe and brought out a candlestick. ‘I can think of a few people who would rather see that woman dead than at the altar of St Margaret's. I, for one, will not serve in the Sanctuary, or even enter it, if
she
is there.' He nodded resolutely, as though that settled the matter. ‘Here – is this what you want? You'll have to tell me which pieces you're taking.'

Helping David to carry the silver to his car, Robin West continued his litany of grievances. ‘I don't know how we're meant to manage without the thurible or the monstrance. Or the processional cross, for that matter. Will you have them back by the weekend? By Sunday morning?'

‘I'm afraid not. It may be several weeks, in fact.'

‘Then what does Father expect us to do? Though Lent will be upon us soon, and we don't have incense during Lent, so the thurible won't be so critical.'

‘Perhaps you can borrow some pieces from St Jude's,' David suggested. ‘I think that's probably what the Vicar has in mind.'

If he'd been wearing a cassock, Robin West would have twitched his skirts. ‘Oh, I'm sure
you
know more about that than I do. After all, I'm only the sacristan,' he said cuttingly.

Having stowed the silver with great care in the boot, David was anxious to get it to the V & A before anything happened. He faced Robin West with an awkward smile. ‘Well, thank you very much for your help. I won't keep you any longer.'

The sacristan waved a dismissive hand. ‘Oh, that's all right. I don't have to be at work for a while yet.'

David's curiosity got the better of him. ‘What sort of work do you do, Mr West?'

‘Please, call me Robin,' he smirked, then explained, ‘I manage a restaurant. A bistro, really. In South Ken.' With a flourish he produced a card from his pocket and handed it to David. ‘As you see.
La Reine Dorée.
Lunches and dinners, seven days a week. Why don't you call in for a drink one day? On the house, of course.'

Framing his answer carefully, David replied, ‘Thank you very much. Perhaps I'll come in for a meal with my . . . um, girlfriend.' He realised that the word sounded faintly ridiculous coming from a man of his age, but the important thing was to establish the gender of the person involved; a more accurate term such as ‘partner' could be dangerously ambiguous, and he wanted Robin West left in no doubt.

The sacristan took it well, with the equanimity of one who was used to rejection. ‘Yes, of course,' he shrugged. ‘But don't feel that you have to bring her if you don't want to,' he added with a grin, reaching out a hand to touch David's sleeve.

‘Oh, there's the Vicar,' David said quickly.

Robin West's head swivelled to the direction David was looking, and at the same moment Father Keble Smythe saw them. He was leading a small, fair woman towards the church, gesticulating and talking, but when he spotted the two men at the kerb he changed course and started in their direction, saying something to the woman as they approached.

‘It's
her
,' the sacristan hissed. ‘He's actually had the nerve to bring that woman here! If he thinks I'm going to stand round and be civil to her, he's got another think coming!' And with that announcement he disappeared in the opposite direction.

In his astonishment, David had time for little more than a quick impression of the woman before they reached him. The dog collar on her light blue blouse confirmed her identity as the hated and feared Rachel Nightingale, but she wasn't what he'd expected. In the split second that he had to think about it, David realised that he wasn't sure
what
he'd been expecting her to look like – large and looming and hirsute, with feminist slogans tattooed on her forearms, or vampish and red-fingernailed? – but certainly not this. Rachel Nightingale was so slight that she seemed scarcely more than a child, though David knew that she must be approaching thirty-five. Her fine fair hair curled loosely around a china-doll face, a face without real beauty but possessed of character and great sweetness. With a small shock he recognised what it was that gave her face such character: a long, thin scar bisected her rosy cheek, running from the outside corner of her left eyebrow to her chin, the legacy and continual reminder of the accident that had robbed her of her husband and child.

‘This is Mr Middleton-Brown, who is doing some legal work for us,' the Vicar told her, looking perplexedly in the direction in which his sacristan had disappeared.

She extended her small hand for a surprisingly firm handshake. ‘Hello.' She smiled up at David, and her smile was friendly without being in the least bit coy. ‘I'm Rachel Nightingale, the new curate.'

The Venerable Gabriel Neville, Archdeacon of Kensington, sat at his desk that Thursday morning, frowning at the telephone. A moment earlier he'd needed to place a call, but when he'd picked up the receiver he had realised that his wife was on the kitchen extension. Impatiently he tapped his pen on the foolscap sheet on which he was drafting some notes for a series of Lenten addresses which he had been asked to deliver at a prestigious Knightsbridge church. They hadn't made it clear whether there would be six addresses or seven, and he needed to know.

Gabriel Neville, at forty-one, was young for an archdeacon. He was also far better-looking than the average archdeacon, tall and slender with arresting sapphire-blue eyes and a full head of rich auburn hair. His blessings didn't stop with the purely physical, either: Gabriel was accomplished as a preacher, intellectually gifted, and possessed of a wife who adored him and who had borne him two – on the whole – delightful children. He had risen to his present eminent position largely due to his superior abilities and on the strength of his conscientious performance during ten years as the Vicar of St Anne's Church, Kensington Gardens, from which he had been promoted something over a year previously. In his more analytical moments, Gabriel realised that his wife, so very suitable, and his well-behaved and attractive children had done him no harm either when it came to promotion: a family man always makes a good impression on the powers-that-be.

At the moment, however, he was feeling slightly fed up with the demands of family life. He and Emily had argued at breakfast – though perhaps argument was too strong a word for the ongoing disagreement, or rather non-agreement, which had punctuated their life of late. Emily had mentioned that the twins were begging for a dog, and she was inclined to agree with them. At eight, she said, they were old enough to assume the responsibility for a pet. ‘But what will happen when they go off to boarding school next year?' he'd asked. ‘Who will look after the dog then?' Emily had been tearful, but stubborn as usual: no boarding school, she'd said. Why was it necessary to send their children away, when there were perfectly good schools in London, and when they could have places at the cathedral school? She didn't seem to understand that the Nevilles had a long tradition of Eton for boys and Cheltenham for girls; he'd put Sebastian and Viola's names down as soon as they were born. As far as Gabriel was concerned, it wasn't even an issue.