Murdering Ministers (18 page)

***

If the bus stop opposite Plumley United Diaconalist Church were a “request” stop, with a red metal flag, a would-be passenger would have to stand on the curbside and raise a hand conspicuously in time for a bus driver to see the signal and come comfortably to a halt. However, it is not a request stop. It is a “compulsory” stop, which means a bus should stop automatically, without being hailed by someone on the pavement. Logically, therefore, there was no reason why the small, elderly man waiting there should have spent the last two hours with his arm more or less permanently raised to shoulder level and stiffly protruding into the path of oncoming traffic. Nor was there any logical reason why at least one of the five buses that had passed during this time should not have picked him up, arm or no arm.

But the little man had long given up on logic, as he had given up on chance, luck, providence, the National Lottery, the British postal system, and—for now—London Transport. For this man was Underwood Tooth, the world's leading expert on being ignored.

Underwood was not at all surprised when the sixth bus shot by without slowing down, its bright headlights cutting through the darkness on this slightly misty evening, dazzling him as the bus missed him by inches. Nor was he bitter, being well used to his role in life after sixty-six years of being constantly overlooked by teachers, waiters, concierges, shop assistants, bank tellers, receptionists, and customer service representatives of all stripes. He merely took the opportunity to rub some life back into the aching muscles of his arm and shoulder and wonder again how long it would take him to walk home. Given the lateness of the hour and the dwindling frequency of the Sunday evening service, he was beginning to think it might be rush hour next morning before a bus would stop to let off a passenger, and he could then make a salmonlike leap for the door before the driver let it slam in his face. A taxi was out of the question; cruising cabs were rare enough in the London suburbs, but since Underwood had never in his life succeeded in hailing one, he had no idea how they operated. He carried some vague impression that all taxi journeys, no matter what the destination, had to pass through Trafalgar Square.

He gazed at the church across the road, its white neoclassical facade looming through the haze. Although Underwood took much comfort in believing that God, at least, was omniscient, he was not a regular churchgoer these days. Whenever he went to a service, he always seemed to find himself without a hymn book. But at least he had never in his life been accosted by a Jehovah's Witness.

However, since this was the last Sunday before Christmas, he had decided to make a rare visit to a place of worship, and a pin stuck in his local Yellow Pages had perforated Plumley United Diaconalist Church, a half-hour bus-ride from his home in Finchley. Long past the habit of phoning ahead for information, he had taken the chance that there would be an evening service at six or six-thirty. But as he had walked toward the building at six forty-five—the bus had taken him three stops further than he wanted—he could see that the front doors were closed and some sort of tape or ribbon was stretched across them. It could have been yellow or white, it was hard to tell the color under the sodium streetlamps. And it had writing on it. No doubt it said “Happy Christmas” or some other seasonal message. He adjusted his glasses. Something about a cross? Surely that was better for Easter. Oh, “Do Not Cross.” Good heavens, it was a police notice. But no policeman around to explain it.

Too late to find another church, Underwood crossed the street and began his long wait for the return bus. He was looking forward to a long, hot bath, not simply because of the evening chill, but to soothe his many aches. For him, Christmas was a season of bruises—the crowds in the High Street meant more people bumping into him or unapologetically treading on his feet while he was shopping. But at least there were the pantomimes to look forward to. He could relax there, immune to every other Englishman's terror that some monstrous, superannuated comic in women's clothes or a third-rate novelty-act conjuror would select him to go up on the stage to receive the traditional abject humiliation, a “bit of fun” for the sadistic pleasure of all the other reprieved playgoers. Underwood would never be on the sharp end of the phrase “a gentleman from the audience—perhaps
you
, sir?”

The crime scene tape must also have attracted the attention of the young woman walking past the church. Certainly, she had ducked into the deserted car park and was now approaching the front door. She glanced around, rather guiltily, Underwood thought, as if conscious that she was trespassing. Could you trespass on church property? he wondered. Or did the medieval laws of sanctuary still apply (not that he would ever need them)? And anyway, aren't we supposed to forgive those who trespass against us?

He tittered at this thought, and the woman seemed to look right at him, but had apparently not noticed the small, solitary figure across the street, reminding him again that he'd make a good peeping Tom, if only he lacked the morals. The woman was little more than a moving shadow to him, but he had an impression of long red hair under a beret, and a remarkably short cloak and skirt for the weather. But what was she doing? Was that fake snow she was spraying across the front of the doors, white writing on the black paint? Maybe it was a Christmas decoration, although why she should seem so furtive was beyond him. She shook the can again, and it rattled. Then she added a few more characters and slipped away, almost running down the street past that big Victorian house on the right of the church.

Underwood couldn't help himself. He had to know what she was doing, spraying words onto the church door at ten o'clock in the evening. He glanced both ways, although the roadway was deserted, and scuttled across the street, stopping at the church steps.

Revelation, 11:7

How odd! He would have to look that up when he got home. But clearly not a Christmas text. He knew the Christmas story was split between the gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, but thanks to Sunday School Nativity plays and composite versions of the tale for children, he was in his thirties before he found out there was precious little overlap between the two accounts. The vicar of his local church had never given him a straight answer to that observation. Or any other observation, come to think of it.

And it wasn't that plastic snow she had used, but white oil paint. Had he witnessed an act of vandalism? Perhaps he should report this to the minister. His address and telephone number were on the notice-board. Would it be too late to call tonight? Would the church have one of these newfangled push-button response systems that inevitably either disconnected him or left him in an inescapable repeating cycle of the same questions? (At least this was one frustration of modern life that was not limited to him he had discovered, overhearing loud complaining, conversations in elevators between people who thought they were alone.)

He had just produced his pocket diary and was noting the phone number of a Reverend Paul Piltdown, when a bus slowed to a halt on the other side of the street. Underwood ran.

Chapter Six

In This World of Sin

Monday, December 22

Detective Constable Trevor Stoodby without a moustache was a distinct improvement. Stoodby standing in the middle of the CID office and thoughtfully reading a Bible was a greater tribute to Effie's reforming influence than even she could have anticipated.

“If you're looking for a loophole, Trevor, remember that there are ten commandments but only seven deadly sins,” she said brightly as she hung up her coat.

He laughed politely, although it was clear that the comment had passed at least fifty feet above his head. “Oh, good morning, Ma'am. I'm checking out last night's graffiti.”

“Graffiti?” Effie asked, wondering why all the office chairs had been placed on one side of the large table in the middle of the room, which had been transformed overnight into an incident room for the Tapster murder. Through the glass wall of his small office, she could see Welkin on the telephone, talking urgently and taking notes. She perched on her desk and sipped the tea she had picked up for lunch.

“Yes, last night,” Stoodby said swiftly, fighting back an instinctive twinge of appreciation for Effie's legs. “Some time before midnight, somebody spray-painted a biblical reference on the front doors of the church.”

“Don't we have anyone keeping an eye on the place?”

“Oh yes, we had a uniformed constable patrolling the perimeter all night, but he didn't see or hear anything. No witnesses have turned up either.”

“So what's the reference?”

“I can't make head or tail of it. It's from the Book of Revelation. Listen. ‘And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.' What do you make of that, Sarge? Sounds a bit like a threat.”

“Or a prophesy. We need to get a sense of the context.”

The door to the room opened, letting in the wispy-haired stick insect (whom she now knew as Detective Constable Graham Paddock) and the bespectacled, chinless chicken (Detective Constable Terry “Tezza” Foot), who had been summoned from their morning assignments by a call from Welkin. This gave Effie a momentary view down the corridor to the public waiting room, where a small man was sitting patiently on a bench. She could have sworn he had been there when she left that morning to visit a succession of outraged and frightened Plumley householders whose homes had been burgled over the weekend. The door swung shut again.

“Anybody looked in on the murderer lately?” asked Foot loudly. Paul Piltdown had spent the night voluntarily in a detention cell and a great deal of the morning in an interview room with Welkin and Stoodby.

“He hasn't confessed and he hasn't been charged,” Effie reminded him. Paddock looked at Foot, as if they were confirming a private joke.

“Yeah, I know, Sarge,” Foot continued, trying to contain a broad smile, which made it look as if he was leering at her. “But these vicars, they're all the same, ain't they? Bent or randy or both. If their hands aren't in the collection plate, then they're up the verger's wife's skirts. Or some choirboy's cassock.”

“That's what you think, is it?” Effie said, with feigned innocence.

Sensing her disapproval, Foot grunted humorlessly and turned back to Paddock, strangely ignoring Stoodby. Tish Belfry hurried into the room, and Effie caught a wisp of Foot's whispered conversation, which included specifying which item of Tish's clothing he would personally like to ascend, preferably on the inside, and the two detectives snickered again. Stoodby shook his head sadly, but if Tish had heard the remark, she ignored it. She stopped dead as she reached her desk.

“Who took my chair?” she demanded.

“Inspector Welkin,” Stoodby told her immediately. “And he wants all of us to wait here until he's ready.”

Tish looked puzzled. “I hope this isn't going to take too long,” she said urgently to Effie. “I need to follow up on something about Tina Quarterboy. I've had an idea.”

Effie and Tish had split up for the morning, checking on various weekend incidents that proved there was more to Plumley's criminal underbelly than murdered lay ministers and disappearing teenagers. Effie had hardly spoken to her assistant since the murder. She had justified the previous day's lunch break with Oliver as partial compensation for her late night and for the stress of the morning—and she knew that Welkin would be too busy with the aftermath of the murder to miss her. Afterwards, she had driven back to Plumley, sending Tish off duty and then spending several fruitless hours reviewing every statement taken in the Tina Quarterboy case. But she had yet to follow up on Tina's brief reappearance. A house-to-house of the area around the church seemed the next move, although it had been too late in the day to get that organized. She found she wanted to ask Piltdown more about the missing girl, but even though he was conveniently on the premises, he was off limits to her.

“What's your idea?” Effie asked Tish.

“Oh, it was your idea really. That business of going to the doctor. As you know, I checked, and Tina hadn't been to her family doctor at all. But since Tina was at school on the day she disappeared, I wondered if she might have gone to the school doctor's surgery instead. I called the school secretary this morning—fortunately, she was there even though the school's broken up for the Christmas holidays—and she gave the doctor's number. The doctor was very cagey, and she wouldn't tell me a thing over the phone, not even whether Tina had been there recently. But she did say I could go round and see her this afternoon. She wouldn't suggest that unless she had something to say, would she?”

“Well done, Tish,” said Stoodby, who had drifted over and was listening respectfully. Tish ignored him.

“So how did Heather Tapster take Nigel's death?” Effie asked, remembering another assignment that had been entrusted to Tish.

Tish grimaced and put a hand on her sergeant's arm. “Effie, I've never seen anything like it,” she confided. “No sooner were the words out of my mouth, than she started howling, bawling uncontrollably, and clawing at the carpet. It was like some animal. I mean, I know my mum loves my dad and would be devastated if anything happened to him, but I thought Heather was going to have a nervous breakdown, right there. Either that or turn into a werewolf.”

“How awful,” breathed Stoodby.

“Well, she had just lost her husband,” Tish conceded.

“I meant for you, having to break the news,” he said. Tish looked at him oddly. Inspector Welkin limped out of his office.

Spiv Welkin's morning had begun punctually at nine o'clock, when, at a hastily convened meeting at the area headquarters, his commander had agreed that Welkin could continue to act as senior investigating officer on the Tapster murder. This was an unusual vote of confidence for someone who was a mere detective sergeant less than six weeks earlier. But, as Commander Hoodwink privately admitted, since there had to be a first time for every homicide detective to be SIO, it might as well be on a murder where the prime suspect was already in the hands of the police. And even if the minister had not done it—despite his convictions, Welkin was scrupulous in his account of the investigation—the true murderer was not going to be a random maniac roaming the borough but one of the other four deacons on the platform, none of whom seemed a flight risk. Besides, Hoodwink doubted that any chief inspector in the area would stoop to joining the parade this close to Christmas and at this stage of the investigation, after the elephants had passed. Why not leave the bucket-and-spadework to Welkin and his team?

Welkin had stopped off on his way back to the police station to inspect the graffito on the church and give the young constable who had failed to witness its execution a damn good bollocking. A two-hour interview with Piltdown followed, but though the minister was pleasantly and apologetically stubborn, he had not made any request to leave. Perhaps he thought he was under arrest, Welkin speculated, although he had not yet formally charged Piltdown with anything—not even obstruction. Then he returned to his office, which seemed to have grown narrower and more inadequate overnight, and started making a series of phone calls with increasing self-confidence.

“Good morning all,” he caroled, noting that all five detectives on that morning's shift were assembled in the incident room. He pointed at the table he had set up. “Take a pew.”

The detectives looked quizzically at each other, and then one by one took a place among the six chairs that Welkin had lined up on one side of the bare table. Effie sat on the far left with Tish beside her.

“Not that one,” Welkin cried, as Foot tried to sit next to Tish. He grumpily moved down one place, forcing Paddock and Stoodby to take the remaining seats to his right. Welkin took the empty seat between Tish and Foot.

“I thought you might want to hear the latest on yesterday's murder,” Welkin continued. “I need one or two of you to assist me as we go forward, but I'd like all of you to help me with something right now.”

He cleared his throat and consulted a batch of notes that he had grabbed from his office.

“First, the initial PM report. Tapster died of a heart attack, brought on by the effects of strychnine poisoning. Traces of the poison were found in his stomach and in his mouth. The other contents of his stomach were the remains of his breakfast, consumed approximately four hours before his death, a minute amount of honey eaten more recently, and some Communion wine. There was also a streak of honey on his left forefinger. The pathologist can't estimate exactly how much strychnine was ingested, but he thinks it was a relatively small dose, perhaps less than seventy milligrams. Enough to bring on convulsions, but not necessarily enough to guarantee death. If Tapster hadn't had a weak heart, and if he'd received the right medical treatment, he may have survived. But he didn't, which is why we're all here.”

He flipped a page on his notepad.

“Right, initial forensic reports. Tapster's glass—or at least the glass that was found in front of his seat on the platform—had been emptied, but an analysis of the dregs shows a trace of strychnine. All the other glasses, including the ones that weren't used, were clean. Communion wine only. Ladies and gentlemen, we must conclude that somebody, somehow spiked Tapster's wine glass with poison, and that's how he died.”

“Fingerprints?” Tish asked.

“On Tapster's glass, we found his own prints and those of Barry Foison, a church member but not a deacon. And before you urge me to arrest Foison, I should tell you that it was his job to prepare the Communion sacraments, and his prints were therefore on practically every glass in the church.”

“Where does he do this preparation?” asked Effie, wondering why Welkin was involving the entire shift.

“I interviewed Foison,” Foot stepped in. “He prepares the bread and wine in a sort of side room, right beside the church itself. By ‘church,' I don't mean the whole building, I mean the big part of the church, where they have the services.”

“Call it the sanctuary,” Welkin instructed.

“All right, guv. Anyway, you have to go through this side room to get from the sanctuary to the back corridor, which in turn leads to all the rooms at the back as well as the church's side entrance. You can also get into this corridor directly from a door on the other side of the church.”

“And when did the preparation take place?” Effie asked.

“Funny story. Foison says he sets out the glasses and plates and stuff before the service. He buys the bread on the way to church. Yesterday, he left the sanctuary during the third hymn to pour out the wine, but he found only a full bottle in the cupboard, and he didn't have no corkscrew with him. Foison says he could have sworn there was half a bottle left over from the last Communion service, and that would have been enough. Anyway, he cut up the bread and, went back into the sanctuary to listen to the sermon. When it was over, he ran out to his car to get his Swiss Army knife, which has a corkscrew on it.”

Of course. Effie remembered watching Foison's slim form rummaging in his car and then slipping around the side of the church, just before she had gone inside the previous morning. She had left that out of her report.

“So basically,” Foot continued, “he never took his eyes off the wine between the time he pulled the cork from the fresh bottle until the time he put the glasses on the Communion table in front of everyone. Including Sergeant Strongitharm.”

“Did anyone else go into the side room while Foison was pouring the wine?” Tish asked.

“One person,” answered Foot. “Guess who.”

“Nigel Tapster,” said Effie immediately, recalling that she had seen the victim come into the church through the side door just seconds after Heather had left. His wife had barely missed a final chance to see him alive, Effie thought sadly.

“That's right,” said Food, slightly deflated. “Foison says Tapster came in during the singing of the last hymn and went on through to the back of the church. Came back a couple of minutes later. Foison assumed he'd gone for a piss.”

“There's one thing that puzzles me, Inspector,” said Stoodby, as if he were performing the final scene of a whodunit play. “Did Foison really think half a bottle of wine was going to be enough for an entire Communion service?”

“Let's find out,” said Welkin. He limped over to his office and came back carrying a large cardboard box, which he deposited on the floor. He took out two metal platters and placed them on the table. Then he carefully lifted out two more devices, which Effie recognized as the glass holders from the previous day's Communion service, although they now had noticeable smears of fingerprint powder on them. Each holder comprised two horizontal metal disks, roughly a foot in diameter, held about an inch apart, with an arching handle that enabled the holder to be carried. The upper disk was perforated with several circular holes, set in three concentric circles. If a small glass were placed in one of these holes, it would drop through until its bottom rested on the lower disk, and so would be held snugly as the holder was passed around the church, perhaps by deacons who weren't as steady on their feet as they had been in younger years.