The Reluctant Detective (Faith Morgan Mysteries) (17 page)

She felt the pressure of Ben’s arm shifting her weight towards him, beneath him.

She was out of control. The half-glass of wine had gone to her head.

She put both hands up against his chest and pushed him away. This was a bad, bad idea!

She leapt to her feet, banging her shins on the coffee table. He just caught his glass of wine before it fell, then righted it, positioning it carefully on the tabletop.

“I should go,” he said, standing and picking up his jacket.

He stood with his weight on one foot, body turned towards the door. She didn’t know what to say. He looked devastated.

“Well, goodnight.” His mouth clamped shut.

She followed him to the door like a chastised puppy. She could still taste him on her mouth. She wanted to stop him, to say something.

She shut the door against the cold night air, paused for several seconds, then walked back through to the other room. He was gone, leaving most of his pizza uneaten, and his wine untouched. She rubbed her head and caught the scratch on her forehead. It hurt. What a truly awful day!

F
AITH WOKE ON THE SOFA
. What time was it? She drew back the lounge curtains to let in the morning light and looked at the clock. Nearly seven o’clock! She couldn’t bear the idea of getting up again after a couple of hours, so she decided to make do with a bath and coffee.

As she soaked in the bubbles, she dozed. The pieces of the puzzle shifted about in her head. Was the breakin at Jessica’s connected to Ingram’s death?

As Ben had said, nothing but loose ends!

Nothing seemed to connect. She hadn’t come across anyone who didn’t like Alistair Ingram. Why should anyone want to murder such a man?

Because he was too good? That was ridiculous!

The water was cooling. She topped the bath up from the hot tap, agitating the water to refresh the bubbles.

Pat and her mysterious meetings with Alistair Ingram. She really wanted to find out about them.

Why not ask her?

That’s a bit radical.

But then, do you really believe she is a likely poisoner?

When she thought about it, Faith realized that despite the churchwarden’s sometimes unfortunate manner, there was a part of her that was warming to Pat. Perhaps she would give her a ring and see if she would mind her dropping in.

Reinvigorated by her plan, she pulled the plug and reached out for a towel.

The first task of the day was transport, she thought, dressing in her bedroom. She didn’t even know the state of her car. As she was thinking about it, her mobile rang. It was Peter.

“The boss’s asked me to let you know about your car.”

So Ben was keeping his distance after last night. Wasn’t that what she’d wanted?

“It’s been towed in.” Peter gave her the details of the garage and a police incident number for her insurance. Ben might not be talking to her but he had been thorough on her behalf. She asked Peter to convey her thanks; they exchanged a couple of pleasantries and rang off.

She fetched the insurance card from her purse. An hour later she had arranged for a courtesy car to be delivered to her door. She congratulated herself that for once the extra premium on her policy had been worth it.

An oval card table with delicate Georgian legs stood in the window; next to it, a chair was positioned to watch over the green. A bird book and a small pair of binoculars rested on its honey-glazed surface. A large grey cat with dense, fine fur looked up from the sofa.

“That’s Mr Marchbanks,” said Pat briskly. She indicated an overstuffed Victorian chair opposite with a gracious wave of her plump hand.

“How do you do?” said Faith politely to the cat as she sat down. The seat was hard and slippery. Good for the stomach muscles, she thought, bracing herself. Her eye was caught by three little funeral urns lined up on the mantelpiece. They looked too small to contain a human being. Had Pat divided her husband into three? Pat followed her eyeline.

“Mr Marchbanks’ predecessors,” she explained. “I suppose it may seem strange to some but I take comfort in it.” She blinked rapidly.

“Of course,” Faith said.

Pat shifted in her chair. Faith had a sudden association; it was as if Pat were composing her limbs neatly like her cat.

“I am told you are helping the police with their enquiries,” she pronounced.

Faith wasn’t sure what to say.

“I also understand,” the churchwarden continued in her stately manner, “that there have been comments made about Alistair Ingram’s financial past?” The round powdered face was severe.

Who’d told her? And where was Pat going with this? Faith found herself staring into the cup of tea she held. She hadn’t tasted it yet. What if Pat
was
a serial poisoner after all? She felt her throat close.

Pat took a deliberate sip from her own cup.

“My husband, Gordon,” she stated, “was one of the investors caught in the fraud to which Alistair Ingram’s name was linked before he came to Little Worthy. He left me in quite a position.” She looked around the room, her expression detached. “I nearly lost this house.”

Pat inclined her torso stiffly from the hips. Faith wondered if she wore stays.

“I will tell you the truth, Faith,” she confided. “It was a matter of greed. The returns offered were much too good to be true. But then, Gordon always was a fool about money.” She sat with her back ramrod straight.

“But I married him and I stood by my bargain to the end,” she concluded.

Pat’s expression was formidable. Faith considered the departed Gordon and what his life might have been with such a wife.

Pat put her cup down on the saucer dead centre on the coaster on the polished side table.

“That was just about the time Alistair Ingram came here.”

“Alistair Ingram was involved in the fraud?” asked Faith.

Pat shook her head vigorously.

“Oh, dear me, no! He was a consultant of some sort.”

Pat seemed to approve. She probably thought of a consultant as a superior sort of doctor.

“It all happened while his wife was dying. Alistair told me again and again that he blamed himself for his lack of professional care.
I
never blamed him. He was caring for his wife as a husband should. And after he came here and heard of my troubles he did what he could. He gave me good advice and would never take a penny for it. He steered me towards some sound investments. He encouraged my little talent and I turned things around. Women can be quite good with money too, you know.”

Faith looked at Pat’s neat-featured face. In the round eyes she caught a glimpse of the effort it cost Mrs Montesque to keep her public mask in place. The woman had dignity. She felt guilty that it had taken her so long to notice it.

“Alistair was a generous man,” Pat said gruffly. There were tears in her eyes. “He would come and watch the news with me sometimes. Gordon always liked to watch the six o’clock news. A gin and tonic and the news, it ‘settles the appetite’.” She gave a little nod, acknowledging her dead husband’s phrase. “Alistair would come and watch the news with me and we’d have a little chat about finances. He was very knowledgeable.” She gave a tiny, ladylike sniff. Her hands searched around the edges of the cushion of her chair. She came up with a lacy handkerchief and dabbed her button nose. “I shall miss him.”

Mr Marchbanks got up and stretched. He walked delicately along the back of the sofa, then jumped into his mistress’s lap and positioned herself languidly. His amber eyes fixed Faith with a calm, superior stare. His purr reverberated softly in the room. Pat stroked his fur.

“It’s silly getting attached, of course, but they are good companions,” she said with a touch of her old briskness. “And one misses them when they’re gone.”

Faith sat in her courtesy car, thinking about their conversation. Another suspect ruled out. After a week, that’s all she seemed to do – convince herself that suspects were not suspect at all. There was something about cars. It kept nagging at the back of her brain. What
is
it?

The car her insurers had provided was small and shiny and smelt of plastic, with a Sat Nav incorporated in the dashboard. She’d never had one of those before. The steering wheel felt tiny between her hands. The garage mechanic had said her own car could be fixed eventually.

Faith gazed idly across the green. The stretch of grass by the car was mossy. I wonder who maintains the green if it’s open land, she pondered. Is it like a communal garden or…Moss. The colour and texture reminded her of something. Green bouclé. Sitting in that uncomfortable chair in the bishop’s office…

The flying tomato needs a tune-up; it’s making a terrible racket…

She heard her own sharp intake of breath. No. That was a crazy idea. Wasn’t it?

Like a series of slides, fragments came together. She saw Little Worthy green under that grey sky on the day Trevor died and that dash of red – the old model Ford Escort in dull red parked by the grass. Then the same car standing beyond the TV station vehicle in front of the diocesan offices. And Fred’s account of the man crying in his car parked in the dark at the top of Shoesmith’s lane. And little Richard Shelley’s face as he told them about the sound of the car engine driving away after Jessica’s breakin.

She concentrated, recalling the stifling sense of being trapped in that green bouclé chair in the bishop’s office.
My wife’s old car
, Bishop Anthony had said.
It’s always developing some rattle or other.

How to check? Pat was the one-woman neighbourhood watch. She might know. Faith snatched up her bag and fumbled for her phone. Pat answered on the third ring.

“Pat – it’s me again, Faith. I’ve just thought of something – you haven’t by any chance noticed a strange car around the green recently?” She recalled Fred’s account. “Dark blue or maybe red?”

“No. That doesn’t ring a bell,” Pat said.

The effervescent excitement ebbed. It was a long shot after all. “Thanks Pat. Sorry to have disturbed you. I just thought I’d ask.”

“Not dark blue, but red…” Pat cut across her. “Well, there’s that car the bishop’s son drives, of course. I’ve seen him about the village once or twice lately sitting in his old red – Escort or some such, don’t they call them? Rather downmarket for a man of his background, but then, some charity workers do like to make a point. And I suppose one should make allowances – it’s never easy growing up with a limp. Children can be so cruel. Polio as a child.”

The rush of adrenaline made Faith feel dizzy. She hardly knew what she said to Pat. She rang off.

The pieces came together like a kaleidoscope pattern. Jessica’s failed romance with the married charity worker. Fred had told her how Jessica had volunteered at a diocesan sponsored project in Tanzania that day in the church hall. Then there was Mrs Beech’s concern about the state of her son’s marriage – dear Lord! It was right under her nose.

But how could it be true? The bishop’s son!

Simon Beech limped, Pat said.

A man with a limp…

Doesn’t that sound like a murderer?

Don’s glass man; the stranger he gave the key to on that Saturday before Alistair Ingram died, the stranger who rocked when he walked.

Alison had told her of her son’s illness when he was young. He’d caught something upcountry. She hadn’t said what had made her son so ill that they’d had to fly him home from Africa, had she? Faith frowned, trying to remember the conversation with Mrs Beech at the hospital the day Alistair Ingram died. She didn’t think she had mentioned polio, but that must have been it.

Jessica. She had to talk to Jessica. Faith started the car up and drove off at speed, her heart pumping.

T
HE STREET WAS QUIET
. Everyone seemed to be out on their Saturday errands. Jessica’s silver car was gone from her driveway. Faith listened to the doorbell chiming inside. There was no answer. She pressed her face against the front window, peering in. The living room was show-home neat. She went round the side of the house to the back door. Just on the off-chance, she tried the door knob. It wasn’t locked.

That was worrying, given the recent breakin and Jessica’s declared determination to be more security conscious. Faith stood still, listening, every nerve on edge. Silence. Nothing. Except an odour.

The house smelled of bleach. She checked around her. Just inside the door there was one of those plastic sacks charities pushed through the letter box soliciting for donations. Its top flopped open. It was filled with folded bedding, white with a narrow stripe of soft jade. A tall silver pedal bin stood by the fridge. Its lid was held ajar a few inches. In the gap she glimpsed flower stems. She crossed over and pressed the pedal with her foot. A bunch of irises, the blooms still fresh, had been crammed in. Among the leaves twinkled a silver chain. Faith lifted it out – the fish pendant swung between her fingers. She stared at it for a moment.

A man in his thirties to forties, with short brown to fair hair. That was Di’s description – and it matched Don’s glass man.

Her foot was still on the pedal holding the lid open. There was a torn section of postcard poking up between the stems. She fished it out and found another and another. A minute later she had retrieved seven fragments of card. She reassembled them on the countertop, moving them about to form a picture.

It was a view of Lymington, separated into four quarters showing different aspects of the town. She turned the pieces over. The message on the back was stained and smudged but quite clear:
I’m waiting for you by the sea
.

There was no signature or date or address. Just the Christian symbol of a stylized fish. The postmark was barely legible. It had been posted, first class, from Winchester the day before.

The phone was on the wall by the fridge. Next to it was pinned a whitewashed wooden board and on it, a neatly typed list of telephone numbers. One was helpfully labelled “Diana”. Faith picked up the receiver and dialled.

“Di – Faith Morgan. Hi! I’m glad I’ve caught you. I wonder, have you seen Jessica today? Only I’ve just come to call on her and the back door’s open but no sign of her.”

“Bad girl! I swear she is so vague some times,” Di responded playfully. “She’s gone shopping, I think. I saw her drive out – maybe half an hour ago?”

“Thanks.”

She broke the connection and got out her mobile. She couldn’t remember; did she have it?

Yes. There it was: “Jessica”. She waited as the phone rang. On the sixth ring it picked up.

“
The person you’ve called is unable to come to the phone
,” intoned the irritating electronic lady. Faith waited impatiently for the beep.

“Jessica, it’s Faith. Please call me when you have a moment. It’s important.”

She stood by the phone, thinking. Now where had she seen them? Of course. She made a beeline for the study and found Jessica’s set of telephone directories neatly aligned on a blond wood bookcase.

It was a long shot. Many bishops were ex-directory, especially their retirement homes, but it was worth a try. Bee…Beeby…Beech. There it was. Blossom Cottage, Lymington. She jotted down the address.

Jessica’s laptop was on the desk. She flipped it open and turned it on. It looked as though she had wireless connection. The box was up on the bookcase by the window. She waited impatiently for the thing to load. A message flag popped at the bottom of the screen.
Wireless Network Connection Connected
. Good.

She Googled the Royal Mail site and entered the address. Like magic the postcode came up. She noted it down beside the address. She never could trust her memory on such things; she always second-guessed herself.

Back in the kitchen, she made a quick search of drawers and got lucky. A spare set of keys. She was glad to be able to lock the door behind her. Jessica had had too many uninvited visitors of late.

She entered the postcode in the Sat Nav on the dashboard, and started up the engine.

Turn right at…
said a woman’s disembodied and slightly patronizing voice. This just might work.

The route from Jessica’s to Lymington seemed to involve an awful lot of directions; turn here, look out for approaching junction there. It took all of Faith’s concentration to follow the instructions enunciated by the implacable digital voice. She had been driving for some time when it occurred to her that she hadn’t told anyone where she was going. She should ring Ben. The thought of last night’s incident made her shy away from the thought. She would take the coward’s way out and ring Peter.

She spotted a lay-by and pulled over. The phone seemed to ring for ever, and then at last he picked up.

“
You have reached the message service for Sergeant Peter Gray…
”

“Peter, it’s Faith. I’m pretty sure it’s Simon Beech. I think he may have Jessica at the cottage in Lymington…” Her phone was dead.

She stared at it disbelievingly. What was going on? Then she remembered the battery. The display bar was empty. She’d forgotten to charge it. How could she be such an idiot! She had meant to do it, but what with the car crash and Ben…

It was all Ben’s fault. He had to barge in and distract her.

Calm down. She looked about. She was in a country lane. There was no pub or shop in sight. She should find a phone but she was haunted by a sense of urgency. Jessica had more than half an hour’s start on her. If she was right, Jessica had gone to face a killer. She had to catch up with her.

She put the car in gear and set off. She’d be bound to pass a phone box or pub soon, she reasoned to herself; she could ring from there. She wasn’t absolutely sure when the phone had cut out. She
thought
she’d recorded the key information before the battery died.

She glimpsed the sea twinkling on the horizon.
A cottage by the sea…

“Turn right at the next junction by the golf course,” intoned the Sat Nav. Faith noted the golf course rolling out to her right. She thought of those stories about hapless humans driving into lakes, mesmerized by the authority of their Sat Navs. Was this really going to work?

She almost missed it. There was a rustic oak sign set in a hedge with “Blossom Cottage” burned into it in hot poker work. She slammed on the brakes. A car hooted indignantly behind her, and accelerated past with a furious roar of its engine. She checked the road guiltily. It was clear. She found a safe spot and made a careful U-turn.

Blossom Cottage was a late nineteenth-century brick cottage with a half-moon gravel drive. Roses spilled out from a wild-looking bush beside the narrow porch.
An aphid problem.
Jessica’s silver car was parked at an angle in front of the door. Its boot stood open.

Faith glanced into the boot. The bright beach bag gleamed out of the shadows. It was hardly four days ago that I caught her with that, she thought. So much had happened so fast.

There was something else in the boot. A long, flat green canvas case. Trevor Shoesmith’s missing shotgun. Faith leaned in and poked it. It was empty.

She should have known. If Jessica was going to take the pesticide that morning to stop Trevor hurting himself, why wouldn’t she take the gun?

She caught a glimpse of movement through the window. She went up to the front door. It was slightly ajar. She thought she heard a voice inside, its tone insistent. She pushed the cool wood cautiously. There was a narrow hall and an open doorway to the left. She saw a shadow move on the wall. She stepped into the doorway.

“Hello. Where did you get that gun?” she heard herself ask conversationally.