Day of Vengeance: Dorothy Martin investigates murder in the cathedral (A Dorothy Martin Mystery) (23 page)

‘Thanks be.’ I sighed. ‘Well, that was an amazing story, but now we need to get busy. You know what we’re here to do, or try to do. All five of us have some special skills or knowledge that might help the police in their search for the killer of Dean Brading. I propose for the time being that we accept the death of Mr Lovelace as the suicide it apparently was, so we can concentrate on the other. I’ve made some lists.’

Alan chuckled.

‘Yes, well, I know I’m forever making lists, but sometimes they do help. I’ve made copies of them so you can each have one. I thought that maybe if we worked our way through these, some kind of pattern might emerge that we could follow up. But I realize it’s all pretty haphazard, and if any of you have a better idea of how to proceed, do please tell us. I don’t mind admitting I’m pretty much at sea.’

I passed out the lists, thinking as I did so that they made a pretty poor showing for several hours of solid thought.

The first page was headed ‘Suspects’, and included the subheadings ‘Other Candidates’, ‘Commission Members’, ‘Brading’s Congregation’, ‘Family’, and ‘Other’. I’d listed a few names under the ‘Commission’ and ‘Congregation’ headings, and, of course, the two remaining names under ‘Candidates’.

The second list was headed ‘Facts about the Murder’, and though there were subheadings, there was almost nothing under them. We didn’t know ‘Time of Murder’, or at least I didn’t. We didn’t know ‘Weapon’. Under ‘Place’ I’d put the obvious – Chelton Cathedral – but I didn’t know exactly where in that vast, unfriendly church he had been found.

The third was also almost blank, but it was the one I hoped we could best fill in, and the one in which I’d put my trust. It was headed ‘Facts about Brading’, and had listed only ‘Dean, Chelton Cathedral’ and the dates, and a couple of notes about his religious views.

‘I’ve got lots of blank paper here as well, so one of us can write down whatever brilliant ideas we come up with. Now. Who has anything to contribute?’

‘I have a few facts about the murder,’ said Alan, pulling out a notebook, ‘though I don’t know if they’ll be very useful. I wasn’t entirely idle while you were whipping this together this afternoon, Dorothy. I talked to Derek, asked him a few things. He isn’t in charge of the investigation, of course. That’s Gloucester’s headache, and, incidentally – and between ourselves – they’re still not making much progress. They’re having to do too much tiptoeing about. However, they do have a cause of death and an approximate time. Brading died of a subdural haematoma, caused by that terrific blow to the head. They have not yet found the weapon, and, because of the nature of the injury, they can only guess about the time, or even the place, when the blow was struck.’

‘“A gentleman was thrown out of a chaise,”’ I intoned dreamily.

Three of my audience looked at me with alarm. Alan smiled. ‘Dorothy is quoting from one of Dorothy Sayers’ novels. The gentleman in question, who was, by the way, a real person in a genuine medical report Sayers dug up somewhere, fell on his head and was badly injured, but got up, got back in his chaise (whatever that might have been), went home, and didn’t die until some little time later. The poor fellow died sometime in the middle of the 1800s, if I remember correctly, but the science of it is still perfectly sound. That hapless gentleman helped solve the fictional death in the Sayers novel, but it only serves to confuse our problem. The point is that a subdural haematoma – that is, bleeding between the brain and the skull, to put it roughly – can take its time to kill. There is a blow to the head. The victim staggers a bit, falls, gets up, probably says a few things he wouldn’t want his mother to hear, and then goes on about his business. He probably has a terrible headache, and he may feel a bit dizzy and sick. But he may have no idea that his brain is being attacked by more and more pressure as the haemorrhage becomes bigger and bigger. Eventually, if the haematoma gets big enough, and the victim is not treated, he dies.’

‘But the kicker,’ I chimed in, ‘is that word “eventually”. Because there’s no really good way to tell how much time passed between the injury and the death – right, Alan?’

‘Right. Now the ME down in Gloucestershire puts the time of death at about nine in the evening, based on body temperature and other indications. It couldn’t well have been much later than that, because the body was found at around midnight and rigor was just beginning. However, given the fact that the cathedral was quite cold, which delays the onset of rigor, death could have been quite a bit earlier. The official report says “17.00 to 22.00”. But!’ He held up a cautioning finger. ‘Remember that’s just the time of death. The actual blow, the attack, could have been much earlier, depending on how long it took the poor man to die.’

‘So, in practical terms,’ said Jonathan, ‘we haven’t the slightest idea when Brading might have been attacked.’

‘Well, sometime the day he died, but, aside from that, it comes down to when he was last seen alive on that day.’

‘His wife said he’d been to a meeting in London,’ I said. ‘Didn’t the
Telegraph
say that, or am I making it up?’

‘That,’ said Alan, ‘is what Mrs Brading told the
Telegraph
, but it was apparently not true, or at any rate the police have not been able to trace any meeting that he might have attended. Nor did anyone see him getting on or off a London train at any time that day. Now, that doesn’t say he wasn’t in London. London is a big place, and there are other ways to get there than by train. But it can’t, at this point, be proven.’

‘Which means,’ said Jonathan, ‘that his wife was the last person known to have seen him alive.’

T
here was a long pause. I drew a breath. ‘That leads me back to the question I wanted to ask Mrs Rudge, or one of the questions, anyway. What sort of terms was the dean on with his wife? I’m sure the police asked that, but people don’t always tell the police everything.’

We all looked at Jane. This was her area of expertise.

She shrugged. ‘Never heard any scandal. Never heard they were Darby and Joan, either. No children.’

She let that remark and its implications hang in the air. I thought of my own first marriage, childless, but certainly not for want of trying. I held my peace.

‘Right,’ said Alan briskly, and I thought he knew what I was thinking. ‘Talk to Mrs Rudge. She’s certain to know about the dean’s family life. Now, what other facts about the dean can we dredge up?’

‘What does it say in his CV?’ I asked. ‘I don’t suppose you have a copy here.’

‘It’s meant to be confidential, you know, and in any case it’s not terribly exciting. Place and date of birth, date of marriage, date of ordination, posts he held before his move to Chelton.’

‘Did he move around a lot?’ Walter asked.

‘Not a great deal, if I remember correctly. He followed the usual path of the successful clergyman: curate, schoolmaster, rector, finally dean, all in the Midlands. What’s your idea, Walter?’

‘Probably a stupid one, but I thought that people who knew him in his earlier days might give us some ideas about, you know, what he was like …’ Walter trailed off into uncertainty.

‘I agree,’ said Jonathan instantly. ‘I’m sure Church officials did a background check on him, but they were looking only for anything that might be dicey. We need to know all we can about the man. It would take quite a lot of time, though, to talk to everyone who might have known him.’

‘There are five of us,’ I pointed out. ‘Walter, can you take, say, a week off from the BM?’

‘I can take a month if I have to. The job I’m working on isn’t urgent, and since I’m volunteering my time, they can’t fire me.’

‘It won’t jeopardize your real job, though, will it?’ I asked anxiously. ‘The one with the Museum of London?’

‘That’s not a dead cert yet, and if they hire me, I wouldn’t start till the end of the summer, so I should be good.’

‘And I can devote all my time to this for the next few days,’ said Jonathan. ‘And before you come over all mother hen again, Dorothy, no, I won’t starve with no income for a few days. You never remember that I have a bit of a nest-egg to see me through.’

I did frequently forget that Jonathan had inherited enough money from his parents that he didn’t actually have to work at all. He lived simply in a tiny bed-sitter in London because he wanted to, and hadn’t employed any help, even back when he could barely walk. ‘Oh, yes, I keep forgetting you’re Mr Gotrocks. Well, that’s you two, then. And, of course, there’s Alan and me. Jane?’

I had some uncertainty about Jane. I didn’t know her age, but she was for sure quite a lot older than Alan and me, and we’re no spring chickens.

‘Count me in,’ she growled. ‘Not too old or feeble to use the phone, am I?’

‘Of course not!’ I said too heartily, and got a very sharp look from Jane. ‘Then that leaves Alan and me, and I think we’d better split up. We’ll cover more ground that way. Now, dear, don’t look at me that way. You’ve made great strides in conquering your overprotectiveness, so don’t ruin it. I’m only going to be talking to some old acquaintances of Dean Brading’s, back when he was a humble parish priest or whatever. It’s not as if I were walking into a lion’s den.’

‘Your middle name should be Daniel,’ he muttered, but he said no more. Not then. I knew there would be a discussion later, when Jane had gone home and our guests had retired for the night.

‘All right, then. We’ll divvy up the assignments later. For now, let’s go back to the lists. Any more to put down under “Facts about Brading” for the moment?’

‘His religious and philosophical views are important, I think,’ said Jonathan. ‘A good many people could have either hated or adored him for them, I should imagine.’

‘Very well.’ I started to write. ‘Ultra-conservative about role of women in the Church.’

‘And in life,’ said Jane. ‘
Kinder, Küche, Kirche
.’

‘But there were no
Kinder
in his household. I wonder what was left for his wife to do?’ asked Walter.

‘Look after him,’ said Jane, and again there was that hint of a growl in her voice.

‘She must have had a lot of time on her hands,’ said Walter thoughtfully.

‘If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking,’ said Jonathan, ‘don’t forget the woman is nearing sixty.’

Alan, Jane, and I burst into laughter. ‘Go on thinking it, Walter! I can testify that there’s life well beyond fifty.’ And Alan winked at me.

‘So we need,’ I said, when order was restored, ‘to find out if there’s any hint of Mrs Brading having an affair. Given her husband’s exalted position, it would have had to be handled very discreetly.’

‘Somebody would know,’ said Jane. ‘No stopping talk in a cathedral town.’

‘Do tell!’ I grinned at Jane.

‘It would make for a great motive.’ Walter frowned. ‘But then the murder should have been the other way around, shouldn’t it? Husband kills lover, or wife, or both?’

‘Usually,’ said Alan, the expert on crime. ‘But if the lover is a robust man and the husband is not, it could end by the attacker becoming the attackee, if I may coin a word.’

‘All right, then, whoever gets landed with the Chelton assignments makes that gossip a priority.’

‘And maybe we shouldn’t forget,’ said Walter, ‘that it could have been the dean having the affair. Maybe with his attacker.’

‘A woman bashing someone on the head?’

‘Or not,’ said Walter.

Oh. That possibility hadn’t occurred to me, though I don’t know why not. At least one English dean is openly gay and living with a partner. Why not another? ‘That would have had to be even more discreet,’ I mused, thinking aloud, ‘considering Brading’s ultra-conservatism. So you’re positing a lovers’ quarrel?’

‘Just thinking it might have been.’

Jane cuffed him gently. ‘Too timid, boy. Good ideas. Stick to your guns.’

He gave her a million-watt smile, and I could have cried. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe for all the years these two had lost, when neither knew the other existed. Maybe for all I’d lost, never having grandchildren of my own. Maybe just because I’m a sentimental idiot.

Alan said, ‘If I may, I can perhaps speed this along a bit. I take it we’d like to work out the main points before bedtime. Dorothy, I believe we were listing Brading’s views?’

‘Yes, and I admit we haven’t got very far. All right. Conservative social views. Conservative religious views, extremely Low Church in all respects. I don’t know if we know his political views, or if they matter.’

‘Probably Tory all the way. Don’t know if it matters.’

‘But we’ll try to find out anyway.’ Alan made a note on his list. ‘Let’s move on now,’ he said, glancing at his watch, ‘to “Suspects”. Perhaps I should leave the room.’

It was years before I learned to interpret that deadpan English style of humour, and I still make mistakes. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘You’re the obvious top suspect. You know a lot about murder, and how murderers evade capture. And you haven’t a shadow of an alibi.’

‘Motive?’ he asked.

‘You couldn’t bear the idea of him as our bishop.’

Alan held out his hands, wrists together, as if for handcuffs.

‘Thought you wanted to speed things up,’ said Jane, with a mighty frown that deceived nobody.

Alan shrugged comically, and proceeded. ‘Very well. I surrender. I’ll leave my name off the list. Also Dean Allenby. The day he murders someone will be the day the world comes to an end. And I presume we can rule out the two Archbishops and their secretary, and the Prime Minister’s secretary, all for want of motive. Actually, Dorothy, I think we can leave all the other members of the commission off the list for now. The police will certainly have been checking their stories.’

‘I’ll concede, for now. I still think we, as amateurs, might be able to find out a lot the police couldn’t, but we have enough on our plates without them. We’ll save them for later, if we don’t come up with anyone more likely in the meantime.’

‘And your “Other” heading can presumably be filled with our extensive catch in the net we’re spreading around his background.’

‘I’m not sure the metaphor works,’ said Jonathan, ‘but I agree that’s the most likely side of the boat to fish from.’ He moved restlessly in his chair. ‘Sorry. Getting a bit stiff.’