Murdering Ministers (30 page)

***

The cavernous church was cold and damp. Since Oliver and Effie did not know where the light switches were located, they sat in the gloom, in the same rear pew where Effie had witnessed the Communion service three days earlier. A tour of the rooms behind the sanctuary had failed to produce Tina.

“Where did you get the key?” she asked softly, maintaining the obligatory reverent hush. “Paul said he'd lost his set.”

“I called on Barry Foison before I went to the manse. Oona answered the door. She's not the worst thing a man could lay eyes on first thing in the morning,” he added mischievously.

“You
were
a busy little bee before I arrived,” Effie muttered. “So how about breakfast?”

“Oh splendid, if you have time,” Oliver said gratefully, reaching for his coat. “I'm starving.”

“I meant you were going to tell me how breakfast affects the Tapster case,” she said. He dropped his coat.

“It's about the traces of honey on Tapster's fingers,” he began. “I first thought he had besmirched himself when he was sweetening his breakfast tea, just as he did that evening when I went to see him. But then yesterday, Barry Foison told me that Tapster went to the toilet just before the Communion service on Sunday morning.”

“We think that's why he went out of the church, but nobody's one hundred percent sure. Why?”

“Tapster was a cleanliness freak. If he
had
gone to take a pee, he would certainly have scrubbed his hands clean afterwards.”

“Then where did the honey come from?”

Oliver stared ahead at the dim outlines of table and chairs on the deserted platform, trying to conjure the ghostly figures of the suspects and their victim performing the solemn Communion rite, like a clutch of Banquos taking their places at a feast. “If I want to kill someone with strychnine,” he continued, “I need to disguise its bitter taste. There are classic cases of murderers using brandy or other alcoholic drinks to slip it to their victims. Then Communion wine, perhaps? The problem is that Diaconalist Communion wine contains no alcohol. And while strychnine is a fairly fast-acting poison, we're all agreed that Nigel's symptoms appeared too soon after he had drained his glass.”

He turned to Effie. “But what better medium for strychnine than a taste of honey? Tasting much sweeter than wine. If the poison is already dissolved in something when it's administered, the body will absorb it more quickly. It should work in about ten minutes.”

“But, Ollie,” she said impatiently, “we always come back to the same objection. The pathologist found strychnine in Nigel's glass. And we know he drank from it, because it also contained traces of his saliva.”

“Yes, I've been thinking about that. How did that saliva get into the glass? The communicants get a thimbleful of wine in a tiny shot-glass. They don't sip it daintily—they drain it at one go, like Cossacks drinking a vodka toast, although they balk at tossing the glasses into the fireplace. They certainly don't gargle with the blood of Christ and then dribble half of it back into the glass. Unless, of course, something makes them. Such as the first onset of the effects of strychnine, administered ten minutes earlier. An involuntary cry of pain or a loss of sensation in the jaw.”

“But if the strychnine was administered earlier, how did it get in the glass?”

“Spat out with the wine and the saliva. Some of the strychnine-laced honey could easily have stuck to the inside of Tapster's mouth, washed out when he drank the sacrament.”

Effie considered this for a few seconds. “It's like the stage-trick that Tim told us about,” she declared. “A classic case of misdirection. Everybody thinks the poison was put in the wine, but it's already hard at work in the victim's digestive tract.” She playfully ruffled Oliver's untidy fair hair. “Okay, Ollie, is this the point where I sit back baffled while you amaze me by naming the killer?”

“Hardly,” he lamented, “since I still have no idea how the honey was slipped to Tapster or who did the slipping.”

Effie threw an arm around his shoulder and hugged him awkwardly. “Hey, your mission was to exonerate Paul Piltdown, and if you're right—and please note I'm saying ‘if'—Paul is clearly innocent.”

“How do you know?”

“I was here, remember? I was off chasing Tina when Tapster first exhibited signs of poisoning. But if the strychnine was administered ten minutes earlier, then I was a witness. And I could swear that Paul didn't have any contact with Tapster during the critical period.”

“What can you remember?”

Effie let go of him and sat forward in the pew, gripping the back of the row in front, as if riding a roller coaster. “I didn't get here until the final hymn,” she reported. “It was ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem,' one of my favorites. After it ended, Paul said a benediction, then we all sat and prayed. He walked through the church to the narthex, behind us, and some other people got ready to leave, including Heather Tapster. Oh, Dougie Dock and some Sunday School kids came in through the door on the right, the pulpit side.”

“When did you first spot Tapster?”

“I don't remember seeing him until he emerged from the back room, through the door on the left—this was after Heather had departed. She'd been in the church the whole time, anyway, playing the piano. The deacons milled around at the front of the church until Paul returned from the narthex.”

“Would Paul have had time to slip down that alleyway to the side entrance, meet Tapster, and then run back again?”

Effie's curls shook dismissively.

“The deacons all took their places on the platform,” she continued. “Oh, Nigel Tapster had to get the piano stool, because Cedric Potiphar was an unexpected visitor to the stage, and they had run out of the ceremonial chairs.”

“Ah, ze old poisoned piano stool ploy,” Oliver said with a grin and an unimpressive French accent.

“Hardly, I didn't see Nigel chewing it. Well, the Communion service started, Nigel sang his song and…Wait!”

Her voice echoed off the bare walls.

“You've remembered something?” he asked.

She cocked her head on one side. “Nigel's guitar was out of tune,” she stated.

“So it was the previous week. The guy had Van Gogh's ear for music. Did he make a big song and dance about tuning the instrument, complete with silly jokes?”

“Yes. Only I remember that he was looking really pained, just before he started singing.”

“You're quite sure it wasn't just after?” Oliver asked sardonically.

“No, he was grimacing, wincing as he strummed the guitar. But it was in tune by then, so that can't have been a reaction to what he was hearing.”

“Although it might have been a response to a sudden nasty taste in his mouth?”

“Yes!” she cried. “And that was also the point when I saw him suck on his finger—or maybe he was trying to brush away a strand of sticky honey he'd found on his lips.”

“How much time passed before the first visible sign of poisoning?”

“Oh, at least ten minutes. There were a lot of prayers in between. Your friend Paul can really let rip when he wants to, and there were long readings as part of the order of service. Yes, Nigel must have eaten the poison at the very beginning of the service, just before his song. Possibly slightly earlier. The killer must have been counting on the fact that Nigel was giving a public performance—he couldn't stop and spit out whatever was tasting so foul, he'd just have to swallow it and get on with the show!”

“But you didn't see him put anything in his mouth?”

She thought hard. “No,” she concluded sadly.

They sat in silence, oppressed by the drabness of their surroundings. There had been no Christmas tree erected in the church, and there were no signs yet of any preparation for the evening's service. A shifting in the low rain clouds caused the space to brighten, but only momentarily. Effie stretched self-indulgently, craning her neck back over the pew and staring at the balcony above her.

She froze. Then, illogically, she began to sing, in a soft, pure, childlike voice, the last lines of the carol she had heard on the morning of the murder.

“We hear the Christmas angels,

“The great glad tidings tell…”

Oliver had never heard her sing before, apart from half-hearted attempts to join in with rock music on her car radio, and to his disappointment, she broke off before she finished the verse.

“Ollie,” she whispered excitedly, leaning in closely to his ear. “It's Christmas Eve. Do you believe in angels?”

Was this the moment that Effie had chosen to reveal some aspect of her personal theology? “I believe people think they see angels,” he said diplomatically.

Effie got to her feet and began to edge her way out of the pew, watching him with an amused expression on her face.

“Danni saw an angel the other day,” she said. “Remember? Right here, in a sunbeam.”

She beckoned him silently. Intrigued, he followed her through the heavy curtain at the back of the sanctuary, across the narthex, and into the shallow vestibule, tracing the path that she had followed while pursuing Tina on the one occasion when she had seen the girl in the flesh. But this time, she didn't run out through the main church doors, which were closed. Instead, Effie turned to right and approached a locked door that nestled against the side wall of the vestibule. She peered at the lock.

“I left my bag in the pew,” she hissed. “Give me a credit card.”

Oliver fished out his wallet and mutely passed over his American Express card. She prodded it into the space between the doorjamb and the lock. The door sprang open. Oliver found himself tensing as Effie eased the door toward her.

Behind it was a closet containing an electricity meter and a dead mouse.

Without a word, she marched to an identical door on the other side of the vestibule and repeated the operation. The door opened on the fourth attempt. She handed back his card and carefully pulled the door open.

A narrow flight of wooden steps began behind the door and turned sharply left, ascending into darkness.

They began to climb, single file in the confined space, holding tightly to the crude handrails, Effie's low-heeled work shoes making more noise than Oliver's Nikes. The stairs turned back on themselves. Above them, a dim rectangle grew larger until it surrounded them, and they emerged at the back of the dusty, disused balcony, high above the church floor and level with the tops of the largest organ pipes, far away on the opposite wall. The space was well lit, with more daylight coming through the clear circular window behind their heads. Four rows of high-backed pews dropped steeply away between them and the balcony's parapet. There was an odd smell, mostly unpleasant.

Oliver made a move to walk down the single aisle between the pews, but Effie placed a hand on his arm.

“Tina,” she called gently. “You can come out now.”

Nothing happened at first. Then there was a faint rustle, and a small pale face appeared above the back of one of the pews, blinking in the light. The girl's dark hair was matted, and she was damp with perspiration.

“I'd prefer to be called Chrissie,” she said. Then she vomited prodigiously.

***

By the time Oliver returned from Plumley High Street with several Egg McMuffins and two pints of milk, Tina had taken a long, thorough bath and was sitting in the Manse kitchen wrapped in Paul Piltdown's terry bathrobe, with wet hair hanging in tendrils down her back. Effie had found an electric heater in Paul's bedroom and had brought it downstairs, and the girl was waving her slender bare feet in front of the glowing coils and talking. The breakfast, which she attacked gratefully and gracelessly, despite her earlier nausea, did little to slow her down.

“I spent a lot of Friday just wandering about during the day—I had already hidden my suitcase behind the church, early that morning, because I know nobody goes there, at least not until after dark, when it's best not to ask about the sort of things that take place, if you ask me. I'd taken some food from my mum, but it was all gone by the end of the day and I didn't have any more money to buy stuff, but when I came back to get my case later that afternoon—I was up the High Street during the day—I remembered that the manse door over there was always open. Paul must have been upstairs, so I snuck in and took some stuff from the pantry and then I decided I'd hide in the church for the night.”

“Specifically, Chrissie, it was finding Paul's keys that gave you that idea, wasn't it?” Effie said, her eyes sparkling.

Tina looked shamefaced. “Will I get into trouble for all the stuff I've taken?” she asked humbly.

“No. I'll make sure everything's all right. Go on with your story.”

Tina took a long gulp of milk. “Okay, well, the church was all right as a hideout. It was empty a lot of the time, and I could use the toilet. It got pretty cold at night, but I found some old blankets in a cupboard.”

“And a half-finished bottle of Communion wine?” Oliver ventured.

“Yeah. Boy, that stuff was gross, really made me want to puke. Anyway, I knew when people were going to come in, 'cause my dad's the church secretary and he keeps track of meetings and stuff. There was a big church meeting on Friday night, which they held in one of the Sunday School rooms, and then there was that rehearsal on Saturday—I should have been there, I half thought about coming out, I'm a much better Virgin Mary than pigging Kylie Fenwick. All I had to do at those times was go up to the balcony. Nobody's been up there for years, you should have seen the dust and cobwebs I had to clear away.”

“So it was you that Danni saw during the rehearsal on Saturday?” Oliver remarked, understanding Effie's earlier question about angels.

“I stood up to get a better view. I ducked down again before anyone else spotted me. You two were there then, weren't you?”