The Reluctant Detective (Faith Morgan Mysteries) (15 page)

“Thank you.” Faith took the box, her brain whirring. How to handle this? Alistair Ingram’s son was clearly in an odd mood, and she didn’t know him well.

“I think a gin and tonic would be an excellent thing,” she said brightly.

They sipped their drinks in silence, facing one another across the kitchen table. Her drink was long on gin and short on tonic. She felt the liquid seep in, relaxing her muscles. Don was watching her. She had a cartoon vision of him as a big sleek cat and herself as a small brown mouse. He was going to sit her out.

He didn’t know how stubborn she could be.

“So, what are your plans?” she asked.

“Plans?”

“After all this. Where will you go?” This vicarage was tied to his father’s job. Not much mercy for the orphans of serving clergy. Lose your home and parent in one package. She would be angry if she were him.

He glanced around the spacious kitchen.

“Getting ready to move in?” he asked flatly.

“It does look like a nice house.” That took him aback. He almost smiled. “But no. I was actually asking about you.”

Don got up to freshen his drink. He took a long swallow.

“I’ll be all right. Dad’s left me well provided for.” He watched her reaction. “He was quite wealthy – but you know that.”

He came back to the table and sat down again.

“I’ve found a flat in Southampton. Convenient for the university. It’ll do me for now.” He seemed to be challenging her somehow. “Sean’s going to be my lodger.”

Lucky Sean, she thought. He’s fallen on his feet. Don’s standards of living were much higher than the normal student could expect.

She examined the handsome, half-formed face across the table. Don sat, his long limbs sprawled, one arm draped along the back of his chair, his free hand rocking his glass on the tabletop. He seemed to be waiting for something. The moment passed.

“So my father’s dead and I’ve come in to a nice inheritance.” His eyes fixed hers aggressively.

“Oh! I’m sure you have an alibi,” said Faith calmly, and sipped her drink.

He blinked.

“Brilliant!” A grin transformed his face. “Welcome back, Nancy Drew!” He raised his glass to her. “Actually, I don’t have one,” he resumed. “An alibi. I was here on my own that morning.” His eyes defied her to challenge him. “Which fact, as I am sure you will recognize as a student of crime, indicates that I did not poison my father. For being, as I hope you will allow, intelligent,” he bowed self-mockingly from the waist, “had I murdered him, I would have provided myself with one – an alibi, that is.”

What was he? Nineteen, maybe twenty years old? There he was, utterly alone, his mother long dead, facing eviction from his home and the funeral of his murdered father, and yet he still had the guts to put on this performance. Faith wanted to applaud and cry at the same time.

“But then I suppose,” Don struck an exaggeratedly thoughtful pose, “you might say I lost my temper and struck out on a whim. After all, they do say I hated my father.”

Faith grimaced. “Not precisely. What I understood was that you quarrelled over certain things.”

He pouted, as if he were considering the point. “And sons have been known to dispute things with their fathers,” he pointed out.

Peter Gray had said much the same thing.

“How did you feel about your father’s engagement to Jessica?” she asked.

“His engagement?”

“Jessica told me your father was going to tell you about it that morning.” She didn’t need to add which morning. They both knew.

“I saw you,” she forestalled his denial, “coming out of the vestry. You looked upset. Your father called after you, but you didn’t turn back.”

“Don’t you get around,” he said sulkily. Faith kept her eyes on his – the connection seemed almost physical. To her surprise, he capitulated.

“Yes. He told me.”

“And it made you angry?”

“Not really.”

It was tiring maintaining this intensity. She hoped she wouldn’t lose him.

“You looked angry. So what was the quarrel about?”

“Not that – he was a grown-up. He could marry again if he wanted. I wasn’t going to be around much longer anyway.”

“If not that, then what?”

He drew air in through his nose with a sharp sniff and folded his arms across his chest.

“Lifestyle choices,” he said. “Another drink?”

“Thanks, but that’s my limit.” She tossed back the last of her drink and stood up.

Oops! That gin and tonic was strong. She steadied herself surreptitiously on the tabletop as she picked up the parcel of palm crosses.

“I should drop these off at the church.” She looked at him directly. “Why don’t you come with me?”

She glimpsed anxiety flicker across his face. He really wasn’t very old.

“Come on, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said quietly. “It’s just a place.”

He seemed to be listening to something a long way off. Then he pushed back his chair, the legs scraping the floor with a harsh sound. He took the parcel out of her hands.

“OK.” He led the way. “But if you’re afraid of the dark, why don’t you just admit it?” He stepped down into the shadowy garden.

Following him out, Faith’s eyes rested on the Georgian satinwood salt box by the door. She remembered the keys hanging inside.

“How are you about locking up when you’re not around?” she asked.

“The front door locks itself. Dad was always forgetting his keys.”

“So you often leave the back door unlocked?”

She caught the movement of his shoulders as he shrugged in the gloom.

“Crime isn’t rife round here. Don’t know that anyone locks their back door – unless they’re going away.”

It was really quite dark under the trees. She didn’t remember the ground being this rough.

“We should have brought a torch.”

“Wait a minute, your eyes will adjust.” His voice was surprisingly close. “The sky’s clear tonight.”

They’d stopped. All of a sudden, she was conscious of his breathing. His presence was an outline in the dark.

“I can’t prove I loved Dad,” he said, “but I did.”

St James’s Church loomed on the other side of the trees, a solid presence between them and the night sky.

“Why should I go tomorrow?” Don seemed to be talking to himself. “It’s their funeral.”

“It’s your father’s funeral.”

“He’s not there any more.”

He was crying in the dark. She could feel his struggle to regain control. She took a step towards him. He flung out a hand.

“Don’t! I’m OK.” He sniffed. “Just angry.” She saw the line of his shoulders rise as he straightened up. “Let them take him. They took him away a long time ago.”

“Is that really how you feel about it?”

He shifted restlessly.

“He was a perfectly normal guy and then Mum died and he got sucked in. They got him when he was vulnerable.”

“He changed from the man you knew?”

“Not exactly. Well, sort of. It was like he had discovered this great secret. Overnight he changed everything, and I had to tag along. We left London. And I’m suddenly the
vicar’s son
,” he put savage quotes around the phrase, “in the back-end of nowhere…And now he’s dead and he had to die in there,” he ended despairingly.

Faith was angry with herself. She knew she should have fought harder to make Canon Matthews and the bishop pay more attention to Ingram’s son. Instead, she’d let them take over the funeral with hardly a protest. She hadn’t given Don the support he deserved.

“They’re the ones burying Dad tomorrow. It doesn’t matter if I’m there or not,” Don muttered.

“Yes it does. It matters for you.” She thought of Bishop Anthony and the rural dean. They would be appalled if they knew how Alistair’s son felt. She reached out and rubbed his arm. Half a second later, she realized what she was doing and that Don hadn’t pulled away. Perhaps she was making progress.

“I might as well be invisible,” she heard him mumble.

“Jessica feels the same way,” Faith murmured. Damn! Did I say that aloud?

“What?”

His tone was outraged. She kicked herself for being so unguarded. Of course, at this stage of grief he would see it as a contest.

“I know Jessica was new to your father’s life,” she said, loading her voice with as much sympathy as she could without sounding too sickly and false. “But they loved one another – she is mourning his loss too. Maybe,” she suggested tentatively, “if you give it time, you will find a bit of comfort in one another.”

She could feel the tension in him.

“It is not the same,” she added hurriedly, “but there is a way in which you both have your father in common.”

He grunted. She couldn’t read his face; it was in shadow. She’d been here before. Ever since she’d committed herself to spreading the word that God’s love was for all, she seemed destined to run up against non-believers to whom church represented only bitter exclusion. She stumbled on.

“Bishop Beech and the rest, they’re trying to express their respect for your father. Whatever your personal perspective, he was very popular here. He did good work and was appreciated as a good man. You should be proud of that. And you need to be there tomorrow,” she said earnestly. She thought of her own father’s funeral – what she could remember of it, which wasn’t much. “You’ll feel better for it afterwards.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she nodded emphatically.

They’d reached the vestry door. She took out her keys, squinting at them in the poor light to find the right one.

“When did you last go inside? Not just the vestry, the church itself?” she asked.

“I don’t remember.”

She opened the vestry door and turned on the lights. “Come on then, deep breath.”

They crossed the vestry and entered the nave.

“I hate this place,” he said passionately. “I can’t breathe in here.”

“Why?” She thought she knew the answer, but he needed to talk about it.

“Everything,” he swept his hand out. “All this brass and dark wood and coloured glass; they’re nothing but magic props – staging to sustain a delusion.”

A woman past thirty falling for this delusion – for what?
Faith gave herself a little shake. She wished Ben would get out of her head.

“Did your father seem deluded? Was he unhappy?” she asked.

Don glanced down at her. His expression was vivid with intelligence.

“Many deluded people are deliriously happy. That’s a sign of delusion, isn’t it?”

She acknowledged the point.

“And that’s how your father struck you?”

He stood staring at the altar and the cross above it a moment.

“No,” he said finally. “He seemed at peace with himself.”

She showed him the place where his father died, and talked about the good things she had learned about Alistair Ingram in the last week. Don seemed to listen. After a while, he struck her as calmer; a little less tense.

They walked past the stained-glass panel and its smiling Lamb of God.

“I thought that had gone,” he commented idly.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I let a man in the other day – I thought he was from the glass company.”

Faith felt a sudden shot of adrenaline. “What day was that?”

Don thought about it. “Saturday.”

“Last Saturday?”

“Yes, I was listening to the match on the radio and he interrupted. I gave him the key to get rid of him.” He walked on towards the door.

“Did he say he was from the glass company?”

“I’m not sure he did. I just assumed.”

“Did you often give the key out like that?”

“If I was in and Dad was out and they had a good reason to be there. The glass guys had been around for weeks. Restoration works.”

“So you would know them by sight?”

He glanced down at her, amused. He shook his head. “I paid as little attention as possible.”

“What can you remember about that particular man last Saturday? What did he look like?”

“Middling – middle-aged, middle height.”

She gave him a severe look. Don rolled his eyes. He ran his fingers through his thick hair.

“Not much on top,” he elaborated, “brownish to fair; not bald but close-cropped like guys do when the hair’s going. Tanned, like he worked outdoors.” He shrugged.

“Anything else?” she insisted.

“Not really.”

“Nothing else? Just middling, light brown cropped hair and tanned?” she said, trying to keep the frustration from her voice.

“He rocked,” Don said as an afterthought. “When he moved. It wasn’t that pronounced, but he had a limp.”

Her initial excitement gradually subsided. She turned off the lights and locked up. They were talking about the Saturday. It had already been proved that the poison was put in the cruet on the day Ingram drank the wine: the next day, the Sunday. On the other hand, Don’s revelations did suggest that the security at St James’s wasn’t the best. She thought of the satinwood key box and the unlocked back door.

“A man with a limp!” Don looked sideways at her. Even in the dim light she caught his cynical expression. “There! We have a suspect. Doesn’t that sound like a murderer?”

T
HE ALARM BEEPED INSISTENTLY
in the darkness. The radio clicked on.

This is the seven o’clock news
…

She’d better wake up, then. But it was warm in bed and her eyelids just didn’t want to open.

A British aid worker is missing…Rift Valley Province…

What? Faith sat up, staring at the radio as if the sight of it would make her ears sharper. She waited impatiently as the announcer completed the headlines. Her fingers played with the sheet of paper by the bed, where she’d been going over her wording for the funeral later.

Concern is rising for a British aid worker missing in Tanzania. The alarm was raised when the woman, employed as a health worker at the Stonefree Refugee Camp, failed to return from a two-week leave. Tensions in the area are high after a series of clashes between the local population and refugees over accusations of illegal hunting…

Celia Beech! Faith thought of the bishop’s wife sitting alone at the café table by the fogged window. Poor Alison! She had the uneasy feeling this day wasn’t going to get any better. She swung her legs out of bed.

Downstairs, Ruth was already up and dressed. She was ironing clothes from a loaded laundry basket at her feet. She refused Faith’s offer of coffee.

“Had breakfast already,” she said. Her words were clipped. “I’ve decided to drive up to Birmingham to spend the weekend with Mum. It’s Auntie Jean’s birthday. You know how she’s been after to me to visit.”

She was ironing a blouse as if she would like to rub it out. Auntie Jean was Ruth’s godmother, one of their mother’s oldest friends and a principal reason for Marianne’s move back to the city of her birth. Faith took a sip of coffee. Ruth had a special bond with her godmother, but why the sudden decision? And on a Friday?

“What about work?”

“I’ve told them I’m taking one of my days. I’ve plenty stacked up.” Ruth ground the iron into a cuff. “That ‘vision’ woman is getting right up my nose and she’s running a workshop today.”

Faith hugged the warm coffee mug to her chest.

“So you’ve decided to get out of it for a while.”

“Mmm.” Ruth put the blouse on a hanger and hung it up. She took a skirt from the mound in the laundry basket and gave the fabric a savage tug, straightening it on the board. “Sean’s not come to visit,” she sniffed.

“He’s staying with a friend – with Don,” Faith said.

“I bet he’s seen his father though,” said Ruth.

Faith put the mug down, and walked behind her sister. She put a hand against her lower back and kissed her on the cheek. “He’s a good boy,” she said. “And he loves you.”

Ruth turned her face away to look at the clock behind her.

“You’d better get going,” she said. “You’ve got that funeral this morning, haven’t you?”

It was close to nine, Faith saw. George Casey, the diocesan press officer, had left her two voicemails already warning her to get to the church early. The press were gathering and he wanted her there for a “briefing”. Ruth was right; she needed to get a move on.

The green was crowded with vehicles. She turned into Shoesmith’s lane. Her phone rang. It was the bishop’s press officer.

“Where are you?” Casey demanded. His voice was charged with excitement.

“Just parking.”

“Don’t come in round the front of the vicarage. Come in the back way.”

“Journalists?”

“Haven’t you seen the papers?”

“Haven’t had time this morning.”

“We’re all across the tabloids,” he said impatiently, and rang off.

Faith looked at the phone. Oops! Her battery was on its last two bars. She made a mental note: must charge phone tonight.

She made her way past the church and through the lime trees. There was a uniformed constable posted in the vicarage garden. They acknowledged one another with a nod of the head.

“Watch out for the snappers,” he said.

“Journos in the shrubbery?”

“We’re trying to hold them at the front, but I’ve chased three out already,” he shrugged, resigned. “Mr Ingram’s been advised he’d do best to stay away from windows as much as possible.”

“This is going to be fun,” she quipped. The constable responded with a lugubrious grin.

George Casey was hovering in the kitchen as she climbed the steps. He barely waited for the customary exchange of greetings.

“Just wanted to catch you before I went out front.” His eyes never rested on her face but darted about the room, words pattering out of his mouth at speed. “If you get cornered, don’t mention murder. We’re calling it heart failure…Great loss to the diocese. Condolences to the family; don’t wish to comment further on an ongoing investigation – that sort of thing. If we’re not careful, this story is going to run for weeks. All we’ve got coming up is the bishop’s Easter sermon…” His gaze paused thoughtfully mid-air. “Of course, that’ll have to be revised…”

He spun round on his heel and left her. She heard him open the front door and a burst of sound as he stepped outside into bright light and a clamour of questions. The door slammed shut.

In the front room, the curtains were closed and the lights were on. Don sat with his back to her in a stylish modern recliner. Sean was looking in the mirror, straightening his tie. They were both correctly dressed in dark suits. She felt a rush of warmth: he was coming, then.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Aunt Faith.” Sean came over and gave her a hug.

“How’s he doing?” she murmured.

“Holding up.”

“No need to whisper,” Don said, coming over to join them. He surprised her by leaning in and kissing her on the cheek. “Why don’t we make a move while that annoying little man is feeding the news hounds?”

“I’ll get the others,” Sean said, taking out his mobile phone.

“Others?” she queried.

“Some friends have come down from Southampton – to give support. I thought if we all walked round Don, we could give him some cover from all that lot.” He jerked his head in the direction of the front door and the press beyond it.

“Good thinking, Batman.” Faith brushed a piece of lint off his collar, feeling particularly proud of her nephew. He was such a caring, sensible lad.

“I’m Robin,” he shot back, twinkling at her.

The Southampton friends proved to be a varied group. Sean introduced Faith to a chunky middle-aged woman with a weather-beaten face and wistful eyes.

“This is Wendy. She runs our favourite bar.” They shook hands. Wendy had a powerful grip. “Alice and Mike,” Sean continued, indicating a jolly-looking girl whose rosy cheeks suggested an outdoor life, and a willowy boy in cords. “That’s Jude,” he went on. A dab of a girl with spiky hair dyed black and wearing aggressive eyeliner dug her hands in her pockets, shrinking deeper inside the over-large black coat she wore; she seemed faintly worried. “And this is Sol.”

Sol was small and sleek and olive-skinned. He wore a beautifully cut black suit that might have been Armani, and a silver stud in one ear.

“I am pleased to meet you,” he addressed Faith formally. His accent sounded Spanish or possibly Argentinian. “I am Cath-o-lic,” he informed her solemnly.

The front door opened and Peter Gray slipped in.

“Hearse is on its way,” he said. He leaned in to Faith and murmured, “The rural dean was asking after you.”

She looked at her watch. She still had plenty of time to get into full service rig.

“I should be going,” she said.

“We’ll look after him,” Sean assured her. “See you out front.”

They formed a phalanx around Don. Peter Gray opened the door. Faith sensed as much as saw the scrum of journalists and photographers beyond. Then they were swallowed up.

She found Canon Matthews and the bishop already robed in the vestry. Mrs Beech stood by the door in a tweed suit that made her look a generation out of place.

“Forgive me. I was checking on Don Ingram,” Faith pulled the surplice over her cassock. She adjusted the black funeral stole, making sure it lay flat around her neck. She looked around for her hymnal and order of service.

“How is he?” asked Canon Matthews, handing them to her.

“He’ll do. Police say the hearse is on its way.”

“I shall go and find a seat,” Alison told her husband.

Faith detained the older woman with a hand on her sleeve.

“I am so sorry to hear the news this morning,” she said. Alison looked over her shoulder and nodded. Her eyes were red-rimmed. “You are all in my prayers. And your son – how’s Simon holding up?”

“He’s still down in Lymington.” Alison almost sounded cross. “With all the press – we don’t want them to bother him.”

Alison’s mouth was tense. Faith wondered if she regretted their café encounter. Perhaps she felt she had been too unguarded. Bishop Beech intervened.

“You’ll understand, unfortunately with everything going on, Alison and I will have to slip away smart-ish after the service. I hope you can explain to young Donald.”

“Of course.” Faith watched Alison disappear into the body of the church. She caught a glimpse of Pat directing mourners, and then the door shut.

There was quite a crowd outside the church gate. Don stood with Sean beside him and their friends to either side. The hearse advanced slowly towards them, the funeral director walking before it in his traditional garb, the top hat with weepers, and mourning gloves covering his hands.

“Very moving,” said a voice.

She turned to find a bland-faced young man with the compact body of a footballer standing at her shoulder.

“Excuse me?”

“Andy Baine, Grundy Agency,” he said, and bent one arm from the elbow as if offering to shake hands. She noticed he had a reporter’s notebook palmed in the other hand. “Reporter. Perhaps we could have a word…”

They were getting ready to bring the coffin out.

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to excuse me. I need to be inside to receive the coffin.”

Andy gestured with a little flick of his hand. A photographer pushed forward, his camera snapping in Don’s face. Before she could react, a small determined figure interposed itself. Pat waved her plump hands before the lens, ruining the shot.

“What
do
you think you’re doing?” she exclaimed, her voice vibrant with disgust.

Inside the church, every pew was filled. Faith took her place before the altar beside Bishop Anthony and Canon Matthews, ready to receive the coffin. Bishop Anthony was wearing his mitre and robes and carrying his crook. The vestments were embroidered in vivid modern designs. A mitre really doesn’t suit the human head, Faith reflected. Brass and coloured glass. What if they were right – Ben and Don; what if it was a delusion and all this just set-dressing?

Her eyes alighted on Jessica sitting beside Fred. They were surrounded by Clarisse and Timothy, Sue and a man who must be her husband, and the Lively sisters. Pat slipped into the seat behind Fred. The coffin was at the door. Every head turned back to watch. Such disparate people sitting together, and each one watching Don walk behind his father’s coffin. The compassion on their faces gave them a fleeting family resemblance. There is more to this than mere delusion, Faith thought.

The coffin was getting nearer. Something was wrong. Don had paused yards from the front pew. Faith’s breath froze in her lungs. He wouldn’t…He had seemed fine half an hour ago. She glimpsed Sean in perplexed profile.

Don Ingram turned on his heel and headed back against the flow of mourners behind him. He couldn’t leave; not now!

He took a couple of strides and stopped. He was looking down at Jessica Rose. Time stood still. He stretched out an arm, his hand open towards her. Jessica got to her feet. Arm in arm in silence they walked together to the front pew. Don waited for Jessica to take her seat and then sat down beside her, Sean and his friends falling into place around them.

Breath whispered between her lips and her shoulders relaxed. Faith was overtaken by a rush of hope.

That didn’t go too badly. Faith stripped off her cassock and packed it away. She was glad to have the vestry to herself. She needed a moment to catch her breath. Bishop Anthony and his wife had already left. Alistair Ingram’s body was on its way to the crematorium where Canon Matthews was to hold a small private ceremony for Don and a few friends later in the day. She straightened her hair in the fly-spotted mirror on the vestry wall. She should find Jessica and take her home.

She went out by the vestry door. The clematis draped across the wall was past its best. Petals scattered the gravel. Her feet followed the path as if they had trod it for years. But she’d been here less than a week. She had a dizzying moment of awareness, and then her reality steadied again. Jessica. She needed to care for Jessica.

The woman Alistair Ingram had loved was standing by Fred, her eyes cast down, in a world of her own. She looked utterly defeated.

Andy Baine detached himself from a knot of mourners by a yew tree and stepped into Faith’s path.

“Is that the dead man’s intended, Mrs Rose?” he said, nodding in Jessica’s direction.

“Please, not now.” Faith gestured towards George Casey doing a stand-up for the local TV station by the gate. “You need to speak to the diocesan press officer; he’s handling all press enquiries.”

Peter Gray’s comforting shape seemed to appear out of nowhere. Faith wondered if he had been keeping an eye on her.

“My hero,” she murmured as he took charge of the journalist. He responded with a sheepish grin.

“Mr Baine,” Peter said jauntily. “Let me show you the way.”

If the press were onto Jessica, it was definitely time to get her away. Faith considered where she had parked her car. The press pack was thick at the church gate. Perhaps the best thing would be to drive round to the front of the vicarage and have Fred bring Jessica through that way.

She retrieved her car without incident and positioned it facing down the drive before the house. The front door was unlocked. She opened it and went in. As she passed the front room, she glanced in. The curtains were still drawn. In the dim light she saw Don. He was sitting on the couch, his shoulders shuddering as he sobbed.