The Maggie Murders (33 page)

 Sobers gently laid the
chrysanthemums on Kellow’s grave. They seemed to be the only flowers to have
been left there for a very long time. Walking away from the crisp, glossy
headstones which made up the newer part of the cemetery he joined Jane by the
prettier, though more overgrown older part of Littleham churchyard.

‘Don’t get many black vicars down
here.’

‘And Happy New Year to you too!‘
smiled Sobers.

 ‘Times are changing.’

‘True, very true.’

‘Might get a black Prime Minister
one day.’

‘Or another woman.’

‘I don’t think we’re going to
have another one of those for a very long time.’

‘Once bitten, twice shy.’

‘Something like that.’

‘You let lover boy go then?’

‘Just another innocent victim.’

‘Of who?’ Sobers took a seat next
to Jane on the bench.

‘Maggie.’

‘Which one?’

‘That’s so typical of the
left-wing bias in the Church nowadays!’ grinned Jane, ‘blaming everything on
Thatcher!’

‘Well what about his avarice,
ambition and lust?’

 Sobers counted them off on his
long fingers.

 ‘I’m pretty sure at least two of
those are Deadly Sins.’

‘I’m afraid they’re no longer on
the statute book; well not the one the Police use!’

‘So Jez Carberry walks away from
this?’

‘Well we can’t pin anything on
him. He now claims to have been out for the count on sleeping pills when the
candlestick-maker was murdered. Apparently, they were slipped into his drink by
Maggie Mallowan. There’s no way we can prove otherwise and no evidence linking
him to any of the crimes.’

‘So you’re happy to let him go
unpunished?’

‘I thought vicars weren’t
supposed to be so vengeful?’ remarked Jane, as she curled her feet up under her
bum in a vain attempt to fight the wintry cold.

‘Just wanted to be certain
justice was done. Connie Baker had her reputation dragged through the mud in
this case and poor old George Kellow had his past raked up too. I just wanted
to be certain Maggie Mallowan was guilty.’

‘Well you were the one who put me
onto her, Reverend.’

‘I was?’

‘That night… ‘ Jane looked
momentarily embarrassed, ‘…when you gave me the stuff about the ABC murders…’

‘Ah, yes. The idea of concealing
one particular murder in a sequence of unconnected killings.’

‘The Butcher, the Baker and the
Candlestick-maker in this case, with poor old Kellow being the first to get
done in just because he sold a couple of steaks and a few pounds of mince every
day.’

‘And Jez Carberry found this out
from reading her diary?’

‘It seems she kept a lot of stuff
hidden on her computer. It was just his bad luck that he was something of a
computer whizz and had taken to checking up on her lately. I just wish our
forensic boys had done a better job in finding that stuff last year…’

‘Do you think she meant to kill
her lover?’

‘Given she’d just found out
Maggie had resigned and that her lover had discovered her secret journal, then
yes, I’d say he was very lucky not to have been killed.’

‘So you don’t think that Jez
might have placed all that stuff on the computer himself, before killing his
lover? We’re not going to find one day another secret file called ‘N for
Nemesis’ in which he boasts about setting up Maggie Mallowan?’

For a moment Jane paused to
consider – the case had been so complex, that she didn’t want to think she had
been caught out by a final twist.

‘He would have been seventeen at
the time of Kellow’s murder and hadn’t even met Maggie yet. Plus he did seem
genuinely heartbroken at killing her. I don’t think the easy-going young man we
first interviewed is ever going to be the same again. According to Debbie, he’s
been declared bankrupt and has had to return home to his parents as a broken
man.’

‘The Prodigal Son,’ muttered
Sobers.

‘Whilst Maggie Mallowan seemed to
have died intestate. All her millions will go straight back to the Treasury,
unless someone comes forward with a claim on the estate.’

‘Well that should give John Major
some cash to help rebuild the economy with, but I’m still not utterly convinced
by Jez Carberry’s innocence. There have been younger killers than him; it is
just about conceivable that this whole series of killings could be down to
him,’ pointed out Sobers.

‘For a man who expects me to
believe in an unseen, omnipotent deity, you do seem to require a large burden
of material proof for these worldly crimes,’ sighed Jane.

‘There’s still a part of me which
is a policeman and enough people in this case have had their lives ruined on
the basis of very little evidence; I’d just like to be certain all this was
down to Maggie and not Jez.’

‘He’s got an alibi he doesn’t
even know about!’ smiled Jane.

She recalled last night’s meal
with Debbie. They’d been celebrating the success of Debbie’s article on the
murders and the journalist had returned the detective’s favour of giving her
Jez’s number by filling Jane in on where she’d remembered seeing him before.

More pertinently, Debbie was able
to remember exactly when she had seen Jez before.

‘Debbie saw Jez on the night of
the first murder,’ explained Jane, ‘there was an 18th birthday party on the
beach and Debbie went along at midnight to pick up her younger brother who was
in Katy Bennett’s year at school…’

Seeing the puzzled look on
Sobers’ face she added –

‘Katy Bennett was the girl having
the party.’

Sobers nodded in acknowledgement;
Jane had a habit of assuming people knew everyone she mentioned.

‘When Debbie got there everyone
was having a good laugh at this couple snogging in the dunes. Well everyone was
laughing except Katy, she was furious about being upstaged by her younger
sister who was one half of the couple making out in the sand. Katy made quite a
scene when she dragged the drunken boy off her little sister and then frog
marched her sibling home. It was only when Debbie was interviewing Jez the
other day, that she realised he was the boy who Katy had been screaming at. And
so there’s no way he could have set the fire at Littleham Cross which killed
George Kellow.’

‘The Lord sure does work in
mysterious ways… ’ remarked Sobers.

‘It’s far too cold to stay and
listen to your cryptic musing. I’m sure the pub must be open by now, you can
tell me over a mulled wine.’

‘Nothing to tell, ‘smiled Sobers
getting up ‘it’s just she took her plan from one Agatha Christie novel, only to
become the title of another one.’

 ‘The Body in the Library!’
smiled Jane.

‘I’d say the good Lord has a very
dry sense of humour.’

The
End

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to my family for all
their help and support. Also many thanks to Glenn for reading the manuscript
and Tim for creating the front cover; all that time in The Bicton now seems so
far away! Thanks to Michael and my colleagues for answering endless questions
on a host of topics and in particular: Neetendra, Simon, Mary and Gill! Finally,
my thanks to Phil and Jools for their help and advice on e-publishing. As ever,
any errors are mine and mine alone!