Murdering Ministers (25 page)

“I thought you said you weren't a copper,” he muttered.

“I'm not.”

“Then why are you here asking my mother all those questions?”

Oliver chose not to ask how Billy could know what had been going on in the living room. He noted that the tangle of wires at the boy's feet included a sustain pedal for the guitar, which could probably keep the sound going for half a minute.

“Among other things, I want to know who killed Nigel.”

Billy snorted. “She doesn't know.”

He played a soft, major-seventh chord, unresolved but inherently rich and haunting. Oliver did not attempt to engage him by pretending to be interested in posters of rock groups he hadn't heard of or the fleet of poorly painted model ships scattered across the chest of drawers.

“What does it matter, anyway?” Billy continued, filling the silence that Oliver had deliberately left. “Can't bring him back.”

“Yes, I'm sorry about Nigel. You have my condolences.”

The teenager looked up testily. “I didn't think you even liked Nigel.”

“I only met him that one time. But I can still be sorry that you lost something special.”

“Who says it's lost?” Billy riposted, but only as a sad, petulant gut reaction. Oliver moved into the room and sat on a corner of the bed, mirroring Billy's posture.

“Perhaps you can help me with something. The police are looking for a woman—a girl perhaps—with long red hair. Ring any bells? Someone who came to Nigel's meetings, perhaps, even if she didn't join you at the church on Sundays?”

Billy waved his head slowly from side to side, but didn't answer.

“Did you know Tina was at the church on Sunday?”

“I told you and that policewoman—me and Chrissie hadn't been seeing each other for a while. The last time I saw her…Well, I haven't spoken to her for weeks.”

“Chrissie?” Oliver echoed. “I was asking about Tina Quarterboy.”

“Yeah, that's Chrissie. That's what she'd decided she wanted to be called. Short for Christina. She thought the name Tina was too old-fashioned, too little-girlish. It was what her mum and dad called her.”

No doubt it would be Krissi or the more intellectual Chrissee before she had finished exploring exotic new identities. But this eruption of private individuality seemed out of character for the girl. “She seems to respect her parents,” Oliver said guardedly.

“Too much if you ask me. Chrissie really wanted to be part of Nigel's group—she really loved him. But her parents stopped her coming to our meetings.”

“Why do you think they did that?”

“She said they were afraid of Nigel's influence on us. But I think they were afraid of Chrissie experiencing something that they were dead to themselves. Nigel said some people were scared of giving themselves up to the power of God's spirit. I think my mum's the same. They all want to get to God with their brains, while he wants to come in through the heart.”

That was the quest that had brought Paul Piltdown to the Diaconalist Church, Oliver remembered. Billy played another brief scale on the guitar and let the sound ring out.

“You said you haven't spoken to Tina, to Chrissie,” Oliver said eventually. “But when did you last see her? It's very important that we find her.”

Billy took off the guitar and leaned it against the amplifier. Even the movement provoked a faint electric reaction from the built-in loudspeaker.

“You telling me the truth about not being a policeman?” he asked, after a pause.

“Yes.”

“What about that policewoman you were hanging around with? The one who was there on Sunday when Nigel was killed.”

“She's my girlfriend.”

Billy looked surprised. “Good for you, Slick. Nice hair. Nice…So if you're not a cop, what do you do?”

“I write books. I was writing an article about your church when all this happened.”

“Oh, books. Then you must be pretty clever.” Billy swallowed. “Can I ask you something? Something that's been bothering me?”

“Sure.”

“Suppose you promise somebody that you'd never mention something. And then that person dies. Do you have to keep your promise?”

Oliver took a deep breath, noticing for the first time the slight, lingering aroma of joss sticks. He hoped they hadn't been lit by the fourteen-year-old to disguise more incriminating smells.

“That's a tough one,” he said, trying not to sound patronizing. “I'd say yes, you have to keep a secret. Unless the death changes the circumstances. For example, if you promised Nigel something before he died, you should generally keep it to yourself. But if that information could help track down his killer, then I think you ought to give it to the police.”

“It's nothing like that.”

But it was a promise to Nigel, clearly. Who else had died? Billy's father, or was that too long ago? And Billy could barely keep the secret from exploding out of his mouth.

“Do you think revealing the secret could help someone?”

“That's just it, I don't know. I don't know if it would hurt someone either.”

Oliver took off his glasses and wiped them on his sweater.

“Look, let's try something. Why don't you let me guess your secret? You don't have to say anything unless I'm right. That way, you haven't betrayed anybody's trust. And if I
am
right, I promise I won't pass the information on to anybody unless we both agree it could help.”

Billy's intrigue pushed aside the last shreds of reluctance. He turned toward Oliver for the first time, his eyes alive. Oliver shifted to reflect his posture, bookending him across the bed.

“All right,” Billy breathed. Oliver replaced his glasses.

“It's about Tina. Sorry, Chrissie.” Process of elimination—Billy had already ruled out Tapster's murder, and the girl's disappearance was the only other matter that would have weighed on his conscience. Besides, it was Oliver's question about Tina that had started this thread.

“Yes.”

“It's about when you saw her last.” Billy had already stumbled over that point earlier in the conversation.

“Yes.”

“You saw her since she left school on Thursday evening?” That was easy—an earlier spotting would hardly have been made the subject of a confidence.

“Yes, go on.”

Now came the challenge. Did Billy see her before or after her departure from the Quarterboys' home in the early hours of Friday morning? If Tapster was involved, it had to be before Sunday morning, for obvious reasons. The young people had gathered at his home on Saturday night. Had Tina turned up then? Or was the sighting earlier? Oliver knew Billy and Tapster had been together that Thursday evening, during Tina's missing hours. And Billy had reacted more strongly to the last prediction, containing the word “Thursday.” Yet logic cried out that girl had been at the manse on Thursday evening, not at the Tapsters'. Oliver took another deep breath and let his gut defy his brain.

“She was at Nigel's house on Thursday evening.”

“That's it,” Billy exclaimed, grinning broadly. “Wow, Mr. Swithin, you must be a mind-reader!”

“Call me Oliver. No, I'm not a mind-reader.” Just playing detective. Effie would have to restore the pat on the head, he reflected.

“I suppose now you know the secret, I might as well tell you everything,” Billy went on. The logic was debatable, but Oliver was not going to stop him. “You see, I went to Nigel's house after school on Thursday to rehearse with Heather for the carol service. I got there at about half past four, and just as I was going to ring the doorbell, the front door opened and Chrissie came out, crying. She didn't stop when she saw me, but just ran off down the street.”

It all made sense. Tina discovered from the school doctor that she was pregnant. The moment school ended, she ran immediately to the man responsible. Then, for some so-far unexplained reason, she ran away from this man to the minister she trusted. Finally, she went home, while Piltdown rushed straight to Tapster to berate him for impregnating the girl. Oliver could cover the route easily in the two hours, allowing for conversations with Tapster and Piltdown. A thirteen-year-old in an adrenalin-fueled state of near panic would take less time.

“Were both Nigel and Heather at home?”

“No, just Nigel. Heather hadn't got home from work yet. I was early.”

“Did Nigel seem upset too?”

“Not really. Actually, he seemed amused.”

Amused? Unfeeling bastard! Was that how he reacted to the news of his impending fatherhood? No wonder the girl had headed for the sanctity of the Reverend Paul Piltdown. And no wonder Paul was angry enough to confront Tapster immediately. When Oliver had met with Tapster shortly after that encounter, he had seemed calm and in control. Had Paul witnessed the same demeanor, or was Tapster a damn good actor?

“Nigel didn't tell you why Chrissie had been to see him?”

“He said she was upset about her parents' attitude. She didn't know if she should defy them and come to the meetings. Nigel said he had counseled her to obey them and go home. He said he didn't want Heather to know Chrissie had been to the house, because it might have made her angry at the Quarterboys, and he had no desire to sow any conflict within the church. So he asked me to keep Chrissie's visit to myself, as a personal favor. And I told him a secret in return, to show that he could trust me.”

A secret Tapster had literally taken to the grave.

“Now that I've told you, does it help?” Billy asked anxiously.

“I'm not sure. But if you don't mind, I may pass it on to my favorite police officer.” Oliver winked at Billy. “She's very discreet.”

Although he couldn't imagine what Effie would do with the information. The police could now plot Tina's zigzag path through Plumley that Thursday afternoon—school to Tapster, say fifteen minutes; Tapster to manse, ten minutes at the most, he had walked it with Paul; manse to the Quarterboy's home, no more than fifteen minutes for a child in a hurry—but it hardly changed what they already believed, except to confirm Oliver's assumption that Tapster was the father of her child. If anything, it gave Piltdown an even stronger motivation for doing away with Tapster, casual and callous despoiler of underage virgins.

“Billy, do you have any idea where Chrissie might be now?”

The teenager shrugged. Oliver touched him gently on the arm and stood up. He spotted a Railway Mice book on the floor—featuring Finsbury the Ferret, no doubt, or it would have no place in an adolescent's bedroom—but resisted the temptation to pick it up and sign it.

“You'd better go back to practicing,” he said after a pause, realizing soberly that after a morning as a private detective, he was no closer to finding an alternative candidate for Tapster's murderer. “Make your mother proud of you.”

“Yeah,” Billy grunted. “Hey, thanks for the advice, Oliver.”

“No problem. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, mate.”

***

Only twenty-seven people in Britain can explain why the day after Christmas Day is called Boxing Day, but that doesn't stop millions of workers from celebrating it by not going to work. An intriguing side-effect of thus having two consecutive public holidays for Christmas is that no matter what days of the week they fall on, the British can easily justify taking the whole week off.

Suppose Christmas Day falls on a Tuesday, with Boxing Day on the Wednesday. Well then, what is the point, the contemporary Bob Cratchet cries, of bothering to open up the office or factory on Monday, when we all plan to knock off work by lunchtime because it's Christmas Eve? And it's hardly worth cranking up the heat for a working week that's now been whittled down to just two days. By the time we finish complaining about our ingrate in-laws and the cheesy Christmas television programs and the blatant materialism of our kids, it's time to go home for the weekend. Isn't it simpler for Mr. Scrooge to close the counting house until the New Year? (He can still pay us, of course.)

This creative logic is a little more challenging when Christmas Day is a Thursday, but several Plumley residents had pulled it off, and so Effie found more people at home than she expected for a Tuesday morning, when she finally and single-handedly conducted her house-to-house inquiries near the church. These idle residents' excitement at finding a young, attractive, and increasingly moist detective on the doorstep was quickly dashed when they realized she was not brimming over with juicy details about Sunday's murder, but merely looking for a missing teenager who was last seen in the area.

By lunchtime, she had visited every house on the street where Plumley United Diaconalist Church was located, but she had unearthed no new sightings of Tina, only complaints about milk bottles stolen from doorsteps and other petty thefts, which seemed typical of life in Plumley. Frustrated, tired, and soaking because of the cool drizzle that had descended all morning, Effie knew it was time to take a break when she found that she had rung the doorbell of a large Victorian house three times before she twigged that she was back at the manse, and its usual occupant was in police custody. She picked up her car from the church car park next door and drove back to the police station, annoyed with herself for not having taken a day off for more than a week, which also meant she had not taken off any of Oliver's clothes for the same amount of time. She missed him, more than she could have imagined, and when she found him sitting in the station waiting room, the only thing that stopped her from spiriting him into an interview room for a brief but torrid reminder of her feelings was Geoffrey Angelwine's regrettable presence.

“And it had bad breath,” Geoffrey said, concluding his list of twenty reasons why he would never be the proud owner of a pug.

“Serves you right,” Oliver retorted. “I asked you not to play amateur detective.”