Chapter and Hearse (7 page)

The Sheriff's gaze travelled down from the suspended body to the floor. What the men had told him about that was true too. There was nothing at all there which Black Ian could have climbed on or kicked aside to jump to his death. All that was visible was a large damp puddle on the floor, surely greater by far than could have come from the body above. He put his shoulder to the door of the bothy and found, as the others had done, that the entrance was still firmly barred against them.

‘Shall we batter the door down, Sheriff?' asked Hugh Merkland, always a man of action rather than thought.

‘No,' said Rhuaraidh Macmillan sternly. ‘Wait you all over there while I take a look around.'

He walked slowly and carefully round the outside of the bothy. Ramshackle it might be, but it was still proof against the elements and animals. Deer would not have been able to get in there any more than the four men could. The primitive building had never boasted windows or a chimney.

‘Murdo Ross'll be away over the hills by nightfall,' murmured Merkland restively. ‘We'll no' catch him now.'

‘And Black Ian didn't have any other enemies,' said Colin Mackenzie with emphasis. ‘None at all.'

‘Och, one enemy's enough for any man,' put in Angus Mackintosh of Balblair, stroking his chin sagely. ‘Isn't it, now?'

‘Black Ian was his own worst enemy,' said the Sheriff, stepping back to examine the roof. ‘He didn't need others. You all know that.'

‘Aye, that's true,' conceded Colin Mackenzie, nodding. ‘The man should never have taken cold steel to a kinsman right enough … What is it that you're seeing on the roof, Sheriff?'

‘Nothing,' replied that official with perfect truth. ‘It's quite sound.'

‘It would need to be up here,' observed Angus Mackintosh, looking round the bleak countryside. ‘If the wind had once got under it, yon roof would be away up over Beinn nan Eun in no time at all.'

‘Or down in the loch,' said Merkland.

Colin Mackenzie pointed down the hill. ‘It's a wonder Black Ian didn't just jump into Loch Bealach Culaidh there – if he had a mind to make away with himself, that is.'

‘It's hard to drown if you're a swimmer,' remarked the Sheriff. ‘Or if the water's frozen.'

‘It's hard to hang yourself from a high beam without having anything to hold on to or stand on to get you there,' said Hugh Merkland. ‘I still think we should be away after Murdo Ross…'

‘No,' said the Sheriff quietly. ‘Tell me, is that Ian Tulloch's own axe I saw in there?'

‘It is,' said Mackenzie.

‘Ah…'

‘Man,' exploded Merkland, ‘you dinna need an axe to hang yoursel'.'

‘Ian Tulloch did,' murmured the Sheriff.

‘But…' Merkland's eyebrows came together in a ferocious frown.

‘He couldn't have done what he did without an axe,' said the Sheriff. ‘Or something like it.'

‘But it's rope you need to hang yoursel',' protested Colin Mackenzie. ‘We all know that.'

‘Mind you,' said Rhuaraidh Macmillan, ‘I'm not saying that Black Ian didn't need the rope as well as his axe.'

‘But…' Hugh Merkland began his objection in turn.

The Sheriff said, ‘He needed the rope afterwards.'

‘Afterwards?' echoed Merkland.

‘After he had used the axe.'

‘But…' began Colin Mackenzie.

‘And the rope together,' said the Sheriff.

‘I still don't understand,' said Colin Mackenzie.

‘Neither did Murdo Ross,' said the Sheriff, ‘and that's why he's away to the west in such a hurry.' Rhuaraidh Macmillan gave the door of the bothy another great shake. ‘It's barred right enough and by my reckoning it was Ian Tulloch himself that put the bar on the inside there.'

‘And so,' demanded Colin Mackenzie truculently, ‘how did he get himself high enough to hang himself from that beam without anything to stand on?'

‘Ah,' said the Sheriff neatly, ‘he did have something to stand on.'

‘But there's nothing there,' said Colin

Mackenzie. ‘Nothing at all.'

‘There's nothing there now,' said the Sheriff patiently. ‘There was something there that he could stand on at the time.'

‘That's taken itself away?' growled Colin Mackenzie derisively.

‘In a manner of speaking, yes,' replied the Sheriff. ‘But it was brought there by Ian Tulloch himself using the bang-rape and his axe.'

Colin Mackenzie drew himself up and said with dignity. ‘I'm thinking that you are for making fools of us, Sheriff.'

‘Is it the Little People we're going to have to thank for killing Black Ian, then?' chimed in Hugh Merkland scornfully.

Angus Mackintosh asked instead, ‘What is there, then, Sheriff, that Black Ian could have brought here with an axe and a noose that's gone away on its own after he used it?'

‘A block of ice,' said Rhuaraidh Macmillan, pointing to where some still lay unmelted further up the hillside. ‘Now will you be away, all of you and find Murdo Ross and tell him to come back?'

Chapter and Hearse

‘Sloan,' barked Police Superintendent Leeyes down the telephone, ‘you're wanted, and quickly!'

‘I'll be right over, sir.' Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan didn't exactly click his heels together, but he did get to his feet pretty smartly.

‘No, not by me. Don't come to my office.'

‘Sir?'

‘It's the Assistant Chief Constable who's asking for you.' The Superintendent didn't even try to keep his amazement at this unlikely event out of his voice. ‘Don't ask me why.'

‘Me, Sir?'

Detective Inspector Sloan did a rapid mental revision of his past week and work. As far as he knew, he hadn't blotted his copybook in any way, but you never knew. With the Police and Criminal Evidence Act in operation, even not offering a suspect a cup of tea was capable of being misconstrued by a defence solicitor.

‘You, Sloan. He says,' said Superintendent Leeyes, ‘that it's a sudden emergency.'

‘I'm on my way.'

*   *   *

The Assistant Chief Constable – a gentleman copper if ever there was one – received him with his customary courtesy.

‘Ah, Sloan, there you are…' If there was anything urgent pending, it certainly didn't show in his manner. ‘Take a seat.'

‘Thank you, sir.' It wasn't going to be a disciplinary matter, then: rebukes were delivered to a man standing. On the carpet, if there was one.

‘A little problem has cropped up this morning in connection with the Minster.'

Sloan sat down. That explained one thing anyway. Calleford Minster was not in Superintendent Leeyes's ‘F' Division and the Superintendent took as narrow a view as did the Coroner as to what was and what was not within his jurisdiction.

‘And,' continued the Assistant Chief Constable unhurriedly, ‘it's got to be resolved before tonight.'

‘I see, sir.'

‘By half past seven, actually,' said the Assistant Chief Constable.

‘Time is of the essence, then, is it?' ventured Sloan.

‘It was and it is,' said his superior enigmatically.

‘And the problem?'

‘There are two problems,' said the ACC, ‘and one of them is murder.'

‘Ah!' And the victim, sir…' Every case had to begin somewhere and every case – every murder case anyway – had a victim. ‘Do we know…'

‘Oh, yes, Sloan. There's no doubt about that. The man's name was Lechlade. Walter Lechlade. Exact age unknown. Probably about forty.'

‘And his occupation?' If unemployment carried on on its present-day scale, a man's occupation – or lack of it – would soon cease to be worth recording.

‘Precentor and prebendary,' said the ACC.

‘So this Walter Lechlade was a clerical gentleman, then, was he, sir?' Sloan wasn't quite sure of his ground here, but the words sounded ecclesiastical enough and they were talking about cathedrals.

‘That's the whole trouble,' said the ACC gently.

‘The Church looking after its own?' suggested Sloan. It had, after all, been known to happen.

‘Well,' conceded the ACC, stroking his chin, ‘I must say it was all hushed up at the time. Nothing written down and so forth.'

‘People will always try…'

‘Until Peter Quivel – he's the Bishop in the case – started making a fuss.'

‘Ah,' said Sloan. ‘Truth will out.'

‘I'd very much like to think so, Sloan, but I'm afraid the bishop had his own axe to grind.'

‘It happens,' said Sloan, without thinking. He pulled himself together and got down to business – he wasn't here to philosophize. ‘And the time of this murder, sir?' After all, the ACC had said himself that time was of the essence, hadn't he? ‘Is it known?'

The ACC looked down at a pile of notes on his desk. ‘Between one and two o'clock in the morning.'

‘And where exactly?' Detective Inspector Sloan opened his notebook from sheer force of habit.

‘Between the cathedral and Lechlade's own house nearby. That is, in the lane between the Bishop's Close and Canon de Derteford's house at the corner of Bear Lane.'

‘Not a very usual hour for a clergyman to be out and about, sir, if I may say so.' Sloan tried not to sound at all censorious. Time was when it would have been relatively safe to be abroad at that time of night, but not these days. Small wonder, though, that someone had wanted the whole matter hushed up.

‘Oh, yes, it was,' said the ACC unexpectedly.

‘Not a sensible hour even so, though,' insisted Sloan.

‘He was in the Cathedral Close,' the ACC reminded him.

‘But was it secure?' said Sloan, unimpressed.

‘Well, no, it wasn't actually. That's the whole point. But it ought to have been, Sloan, and I must say you've got to the heart of the matter very quickly.'

‘Thank you, sir.'

‘You see, the gates to the Close should have been shut at curfew…'

‘It's good that these old customs are kept up, sir, isn't it?' put in Sloan. ‘It's still done at eight o'clock every evening at the Minster, I believe.'

‘Yes,' responded the ACC briskly. ‘But what happened the night Walter Lechlade was murdered, Sloan, was that not only was one of the gates – the south gate – left open for his murderers to come in, but it was also left open for them to get out.'

‘Murderers?' Sloan sat up. ‘Was it a gang-killing, sir, then?' They didn't have a lot of those in the mainly rural county of Calleshire, thank goodness, but the ways of the city were bound to reach them in the end.

‘I suppose you could say that it was, Sloan,' agreed the ACC thoughtfully. ‘I must say I hadn't thought of it in that light myself … More of a conspiracy, you might say.'

‘And the gateman given something for his – er – forgetfulness?'

‘He was indeed,' said the ACC warmly, ‘and probably not what he expected either.' He prodded the pile of papers in front of him. ‘He – the gateman, name of Stonyng, Richard Stonyng – said that the Mayor hadn't told him to shut the gate.'

‘What had it got to do with the Mayor, might I ask?' Criminal investigation and local government usually met head on over fraud and planning law, not murder.

‘Quite a lot. The cathedral had been in dispute with the civil authorities about their boundaries for years.'

‘It's not unknown, sir.' It had always been a great relief to Sloan that property disputes were civil not criminal matters. He added a trifle sententiously, ‘Good fences make good neighbours.'

‘Good neighbours the city and cathedral weren't,' said the ACC emphatically, ‘In the old days, men on the run from the Mayor and commonalty used to jump over St Peter's churchyard wall and take sanctuary in the cathedral – much to the city's annoyance.'

‘Men have always tried to escape from justice,' observed Sloan, who carried several scars on his person to prove it.

‘I suppose,' said the ACC, who had been at school at Eton, ‘that you could call it a sort of Wall Game. Anyway, it seems that the man on the gate…'

Sloan glanced at his notebook. ‘Richard Stonyng…'

‘… took his orders from the Mayor that night.'

‘And the Mayor's name, sir?' prompted Sloan, his pen poised. Office holders always had recorded names.

‘Alfred Duport.'

‘And where, sir, does he come in, or don't we know?'

‘Good question, Sloan. First and foremost, he seems to have been in cahoots with the Dean against the Bishop.'

‘That's bad.' It sounded an unholy alliance to Sloan.

‘Very. But not unknown in English history,' said the ACC grimly. ‘In this instance, the
casus belli
…'

‘Beg pardon, sir?'

‘What? Oh, sorry, Sloan. The cause of their dispute was the appointment of John Pycot as Dean of the cathedral…'

‘Not popular?'

‘Not with Bishop Peter Quivel anyway. He said the election had been rigged.'

‘And as it was the Bishop who – er – blew the gaff, do I take it the Dean had something to do with the death of the pre … the other clerical gentleman, sir?' Rigged elections were not usually the province of a detective inspector, but murder was.

‘You've got it in one, Sloan,' said the ACC, beaming.

‘Not a lot of brotherly love lost?' observed Sloan. That, at least, could be safely said about most murders.

‘None.'

‘But why should it have been Walter Lechlade who got killed, then?' asked Sloan, anxious to get at least one thing clear.

‘Pro-Bishop, anti-Dean,' said the ACC succinctly.

‘So where does the Mayor – Alfred Duport – come in, then?' asked Sloan for the second time.