False Tongues (19 page)

‘All right,' Neville conceded. One more, before he had to start preparing his statement for the inquest.

***

‘You shouldn't have told Nicky,' Callie reproved Tamsin. ‘You know what a terrible gossip he is.' The worship session had ended; they'd moved on to breakfast, and the two of them had volunteered to make the toast.

Tamsin widened her eyes. ‘I know,' she admitted. ‘But I can't say no to Nicky. He would have wormed it out of me, sooner or later, so I thought I might as well just get it over with and tell him.'

‘Tell Nicky what?' Val came into the kitchen to assist. She had been the last to arrive at the gathering, even though she lived almost next door, so she'd missed the gossip session.

Callie shot Tamsin a warning look. ‘Don't.'

‘Nicky will tell her, if I don't,' Tamsin reasoned.

‘Then let Nicky tell her. Let it be on his conscience.'

‘Tell me what?' Val put her hands on her hips and looked back and forth at the two of them. ‘What's going on?'

‘Nothing,' Callie stated firmly.

‘Just some gossip,' Tamsin added. ‘It's probably not true, like Callie says.'

Callie shook her head. ‘It's not true. Let's just drop the subject, okay?' She had a horrible feeling that it wouldn't end here, nonetheless: Val would ask Nicky, or he would seek her out to impart the juicy gossip and his own spin on it.

‘Okay,' Val agreed amiably. She snatched the first slices of toast out of the toaster and piled them on a plate while Tamsin slotted in more bread. ‘Sorry I was late,' she went on, smiling smugly. ‘Jeremy wouldn't let me get out of bed this morning. If you know what I mean.'

Callie experienced a twinge of envy, and immediately felt guilty about it.

Tamsin made a face. ‘Oh, rub it in, why don't you? Flaunting your marital bliss in front of us sad spinsters—'

‘You may be a sad spinster, Tam, but Callie has her Italian Stallion waiting for her in London. She only has to be away from him for a few days.'

‘Oh, but they're not sleeping together,' Tamsin blurted. ‘He wants to wait till they're married.'

Callie felt her face burning; it must, she thought, be the colour of the fuchsia pink clerical t-shirt that Tamsin was wearing that day. She wished that Mad Phil's kitchen floor would open and swallow her up.

‘You're joking!' Val turned to her, eyebrows lifted.

‘He's Roman Catholic,' Callie muttered, looking down at that floor. ‘He's Italian.'

Tamsin snorted. ‘So is Silvio Berlusconi!'

‘And so was Casanova,' added Val.

‘Rudolph Valentino. And—'

Callie cut her off. ‘All right, all right. I get the picture.' There was just something wrong with
her
, then.

But Tamsin was not to be stopped. ‘I told Callie she needs some sexy underwear,' she addressed Val. ‘You know that shop—'

‘Oh, the one in Rose Crescent! It's fantastic. Jeremy—'

‘Let's take her there and get her sorted. We could go this afternoon, right after lunch.'

‘That's settled, then.'

Settled. Sorted. If only it were that simple, Callie said to herself.

But there was one good thing that had come out of the dissection of her intimate problem, she realised. It had diverted her friends from the gossip about Mad Phil. If her own finer feelings had to be trampled on, so be it. It was worth it.

***

‘Tom's mum,' Cowley warned as he and Neville arrived at the door of another well-appointed Georgian town house off Sussex Gardens. ‘She's a bit protective.'

‘Maybe we'll be lucky and she won't be here,' Neville said optimistically.

His optimism had no grounding in reality, and he soon realised that Cowley's warning had been an understatement. The woman who answered the door seemed reluctant to open it more than a crack.

‘Mrs Gresham?' Neville said. ‘I'm Detective Inspector Stewart. I believe you've met Detective Sergeant Cowley before. We need to have a word with your son Tom.'

She shook her head. ‘You've talked to him once. I don't see why you need to harass him again.'

Neville made a supreme effort at patience. ‘Mrs Gresham, this is an ongoing investigation. I'm sure you can appreciate that. As we receive information, sometimes we need to ask different questions.'

The door opened a tiny bit wider, then finally wide enough to admit them. ‘He's taken his friend's death very hard,' she said. ‘Please don't do anything to make it worse.' She called up the stairs. ‘Tom, could you come down for a moment?' While they were waiting for him to emerge, she told them, ‘He's revising for exams, you know. They start after the school holidays. Very important, too. We insist that Tom spend at least a few hours every day on his revision, even during the holidays.'

Cowley snorted under his breath; Neville could just imagine what he was thinking.

A young man loped down the stairs, long-legged and slender, towering over Neville and Cowley as he reached the bottom of the stairs. They grew them tall in W2, Neville reflected, reminding himself that this boy, like Hugo and Sebastian, was only fifteen.

Or maybe not quite. As Mrs Gresham ushered them into the lounge, Neville noticed that the mantelpiece displayed several greetings cards with the number 16 in large figures.

‘It's your birthday, is it?' he asked in a falsely jolly voice, hoping to break the ice.

The boy glared at him. ‘Last week. What of it? Who are you, and what do you want?'

‘I'm Detective Inspector Stewart, with just a few questions for you. We won't keep you from your revision for very long.'

Tom glanced toward Cowley. ‘I told you everything I know, the last time. Which is nothing, basically. I didn't see Seb at all that day.'

Out of the corner of his eye Neville could sense Tom's mother, hovering. They needed her out of the way, for starters. ‘Mrs Gresham, I wonder if you'd be good enough to make us some coffee?' he suggested.

‘All right,' she agreed with obvious reluctance.

‘Two sugars for me,' Cowley requested, catching Neville's eye.

No more time to waste, so straight to the point. ‘Tom,' Neville said, ‘we were wondering whether you could tell us anything about…bullying. In respect of Sebastian Frost.'

Tom's head was turned, watching as the door closed behind his mother. That was unfortunate, Neville realised: when he turned it back to face them, he'd had a critical few seconds to arrange his expression to reflect polite disbelief. ‘Seb? Bullying? I don't know what you could mean, Inspector.'

***

The police were not the only ones who had received an anonymous phone call about Sebastian Frost. When Lilith arrived at her desk at the
Daily Globe
on Wednesday morning, she discovered a message on her answer phone. ‘I thought you might like to know. Seb Frost was a nasty piece of work. He was a bully. Ask his mates about it if you don't believe me.'

Unlike Neville, she didn't hesitate. This, she knew in her bones, was a breakthrough. Whether the police had the same information or not, she was going to run with this, as far as it would take her. Though she was planning to attend the inquest, this was far more important. The inquest would be a formality; this was a huge advance.

She looked through her notebook in the vain hope that she'd obtained any contact details for Sebastian's friend Olly. No, just the first name. And in the end she hadn't even needed to use that—or his lame stories of Sebastian's leadership qualities—in her story, once she'd latched on to Richard Frost.

Never mind. She would soon track him down. She'd look for him at the shrine if necessary, but there was probably a better way.

Lilith switched on her computer and went to Facebook. She logged in, then searched for the name ‘Sebastian Frost.' Within a few seconds she was viewing the memorial page.

The tributes to Sebastian were as inarticulate—and in many cases, incomprehensible—as the notes left at the shrine on Paddington Green, but that didn't matter. What did matter was the list of friends who had ‘liked' the page to show their support.

One of them was Olly. Olly Blount. She clicked through to his page. A quick glance at his profile photo confirmed the identification: spiky hair and spots.

And not only was his e-mail address there for all the world to see—his mobile phone number was, as well.

Without hesitation, Lilith pulled out her phone and rang the number.

After a couple of rings, Olly answered. ‘Hullo?' He would probably be looking at the caller ID, trying to work out who it was.

‘Is this Olly Blount?'

‘Yeah, that's right. Who's this?' he asked suspiciously.

‘My name is Lilith,' she said. ‘We met at Paddington Green, a couple of days ago. We talked about Sebastian.'

‘Yeah, I remember.'

This, Lilith decided, was something that ought to be done in person. It would be all too easy for him to hang up the phone—or to deny it, to lie—if she asked him a question that cast his mate in a bad light. She needed to see his face when she put it to him.

‘Could we meet up, do you think?' she suggested.

‘Why?'

She would tell him at least some of the truth. ‘I'm a journalist,' she said. ‘I'm writing a…tribute piece about Sebastian. And I liked some of the things you said about him. I'd like to do a proper interview with you, so you can be credited in the article.'

‘You mean you'll put my name in the paper?'

‘If you want me to.'

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. ‘What about Hugo? Are you talking to him?'

Who was Hugo? She'd be able to find out on Facebook if she needed to, Lilith was sure. She tried to guess what answer Olly wanted to his question. ‘No. Just to you.'

‘Well…'

Had she made the wrong guess? ‘I'll meet you at the McDonald's, Paddington Station,' Lilith put in swiftly, hoping that would be a sufficient lure. ‘By Platform 1. I'll buy you a Big Mac.'

‘Yeah,' said Olly. ‘Yeah, all right. With fries and a Coke,' he added. ‘Deal?'

‘Deal!'

***

When breakfast had finished, Callie volunteered to stay behind and do the washing up.

‘That's not necessary,' their host said. ‘I can deal with it later. You don't want to be late for the morning session, do you?'

Callie wasn't at all bothered about that. ‘I don't mind, really,' she insisted, gathering up the cereal bowls from the coffee table. ‘You've told us often enough that the role of a deacon is to serve other people.'

Mad Phil grinned at her. ‘Well remembered. And quite true. I can't argue with that, so get on with it.'

‘I'll help,' Tamsin said promptly.

Callie stifled a sigh. She'd been rather looking forward to being on her own for a few minutes; much as she loved her friends, she was finding Tamsin particularly trying at the moment.

But Tamsin was on her best behaviour as the two of them worked through the stack of dirty crockery and cutlery. She didn't bring up Callie's sex life again, or the speculation about Mad Phil's romantic exploits. Her gossip was confined to their fellow ordinands. ‘I didn't think it was possible,' she said, ‘but Scott Browning is more pompous than ever. I'm sure he thinks he's going to be a bishop.'

‘He probably
will
be.' Callie rinsed a plate and slotted it in the drying rack.

Tamsin snatched it out and dried it vigorously with a tea towel. ‘Probably. But he's going to have to get out of that dump of a parish first. And as quickly as possible. From what he's said in the sessions, his incumbent is an idiot.'

‘I'd take what Scott Browning says with a pinch of salt,' Callie cautioned. ‘I feel a bit sorry for his incumbent, actually. It must be difficult to have a curate who knows everything.'

‘And doesn't mind telling you so,' Tamsin added. ‘And anyone else who will listen.'

Callie tried to turn the conversation in a more positive direction. ‘I like Jennifer's new hairstyle,' she said. ‘It suits her.'

‘I think she might have a new man in her life.' Tamsin added another plate to the pile on the kitchen table. ‘One of her parishioners, maybe? She's not saying, but the signs are there. New hairstyle, smart wardrobe, and I think she's lost a bit of weight, as well. Classic signs.'

Back to men and sex, then, Callie realised resignedly. Wasn't there anything else to talk about? She tried again. ‘Val hasn't said too much about her job,' she said. ‘I don't know whether the Churchmanship of that parish is really to her taste. But I suppose she was really lucky to find a curacy in Cambridge, with all of the ordinands and wannabees floating round the place.'

It was one of the issues faced by married women clergy, she reflected, especially ones married to other clergy: their employment options were limited, dictated by geographic necessity. In London it wasn't as much of a problem, with the sheer number of churches, as well as schools, universities, hospitals, prisons, and other institutions requiring chaplains. Other parts of the country were not as blessed.

Tamsin sighed. ‘I think Churchmanship is the last thing on Val's mind at the moment. She's being priested in a few months, and that's the important thing for her. Plus she has the wonderful Jeremy to make her happy, and keep her warm at night.' She sighed again, rolling her eyes. ‘Not that I'm jealous or anything.'

‘Oh, come on, Tamsin.' Callie's voice sounded falsely jolly, even to her own ears. ‘There must be some nice, eligible young men in your congregation—'

‘Not blooming likely. Even if I thought it was a good idea to get involved with a parishioner, which I don't,' Tamsin stated firmly, ‘there just aren't any of those sort of men in my parish. It's a family congregation. All of the nice men have wives and babies. And you know that men don't take me seriously, anyway,' she added, gesturing expressively at her generous breasts. ‘They never have. They look at my boobs, at my blond hair, and they think “airhead.” “Ditzy blonde.” It's so unfair.'