Part 2

CHAPTER 16

    Out of the mouth of very babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies: that thou mightest still the enemy, and the avenger.

Psalm 8.2

Few people in London truly mourned for Rachel Nightingale, but of those who did, Ruth Kingsley was inconsolable.

From the beginning – from the first shattering moment – she’d insisted that it had been no accident; nothing that anyone said could convince her to the contrary.

‘But darling,’ said Lucy in her most reasonable voice, one which she’d been called upon to employ consciously with increasing frequency since Ruth’s arrival. It was a raw March Sunday afternoon, the day after they’d learned about Rachel’s death; with no real will to do anything else, the three of them were in the sitting room of Lucy’s house, waiting for the day to end. ‘Darling, the police know about these things. They say that it was a hit-and-run driver who killed her. Another person was badly hurt in almost the same spot, just a few weeks earlier. By young kids, probably in a stolen car. It happens more often than you’d think in London.’ David had checked with a policeman he knew, and he’d been quite definite.

‘That’s what they say.’ Ruth’s tear-stained face had a mulish expression. ‘Maybe they believe that, or maybe they’re just saying it. But I know. I know that someone at that church – at St Margaret’s – did it, on purpose. They wanted to get rid of her, and they did. They ran her down in cold blood.’

‘Aren’t you being just a wee bit melodramatic?’ David’s patience with Ruth, always tenuous, had worn a bit thin of late.

The girl seemed even more gawky than usual, wrapping her thin arms around her body as she glared at him with undisguised hostility. ‘I don’t care what you say. I don’t care what the police say. I know that they did her in, one of them.’

They’d been through it all before, endlessly, but Lucy, who was keeping a firm lid on her own emotional reaction, hoped that there might be something cathartic for Ruth in the process, and that it was better for the girl to talk about it than to bottle it up inside. ‘But why, darling? They’re church people. Church people don’t go round murdering one another just because they don’t like them.’

‘Because she was a woman, of course. They were horrible to her. She told me so.’

Lucy lifted the lid of the teapot and peered inside. They’d been through a great deal of tea, but it looked like this pot might stretch to one more cup for someone, before she had to get up and boil the kettle again. Unselfishly she offered it to Ruth. ‘More tea, darling?’

The girl shook her head in a listless negative, but Lucy poured the remaining tea into her cup anyway, then took the empty pot to the kitchen. Not touching the tea, Ruth sat very still, tears trickling down her cheeks. After a moment, she gulped, wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, and said in a bitter voice, ‘The police won’t do anything, will they?’

David sighed. ‘They’ll try to find the hit-and-run driver, if they can. After all, it was more than the usual hit-and-run – someone was killed. The driver could be charged with causing death by reckless driving, and that’s a criminal offence, with a prison sentence involved.’

‘But how could they find them?’

He picked up his teacup and looked at the dregs in the bottom. ‘Oh, the police have ways. If the car was stolen, it may be abandoned later, and it might have prints in it. And they check body shops for cars that have been brought in for repairs to damaged wings. I mean, unless someone was driving a tank, that sort of impact would have to do some sort of damage to their car,’ he explained, with a feeble smile at the mental picture of a tank on the streets of Pimlico.

‘If that’s supposed to be funny,’ snapped Ruth, ‘I don’t think much of your sense of humour.’

Deciding that defending himself would be counterproductive, David lapsed into silence. He wished that Lucy would come back with more tea; he wished that it weren’t too early for something stronger. In his opinion it was by no means too early, but he was sure that the enfant terrible would disagree. Enfant terrible: that was how he had come to think of Ruth. Once or twice it had slipped out when talking to Lucy, who didn’t appear to find it very amusing.

The intrusive chirp of the telephone interrupted his reverie, as it rang just once; obviously Lucy had been near enough to pick it up right away. It meant, though, that she might be a while in returning. Clearing his throat, he tried again with Ruth, who had withdrawn into a bleak stillness. ‘I know that you’re upset about Rachel, but . . .’

‘Upset?’ She startled David with the intensity of her reply. ‘Of course I’m upset! She was the most wonderful person I’ve ever known, and now she’s dead, and the person who murdered her is going to get away with it, because no one believes me!’

‘Murder is an easy word to throw around,’ he said carefully. ‘But I think you’ll find that people don’t very often murder each other because of their gender. There are plenty of reasons I’ve heard for murder, but that’s not one of them.’

In spite of herself, Ruth was interested. ‘Like what?’ she demanded. ‘What sort of reasons?’

‘Money, for a start. If there were someone who was going to benefit financially from Rachel’s death, I’d want to take a closer look at it myself. Or sometimes people commit murder to conceal a secret, something that they wouldn’t want anyone else to find out. If Rachel had found out something like that . . .’

‘Maybe that’s it,’ Ruth interrupted him excitedly. ‘People confided in her, you know – she was that kind of person. Maybe someone told her something, and later regretted it. And then they murdered her so she wouldn’t tell anyone else. I’m going to find out what it was,’ she added with resolution. ‘If the police won’t do it, I’ll have to investigate myself. I’ll find out who murdered her.’

The vehemence of David’s reaction surprised him almost as much as it did Ruth. ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid,’ he said with quiet force. ‘You can’t just go round asking people questions, as though it were a game of Cluedo! You’re not dealing with Mrs Peacock or the Reverend Green here – we’re talking about real people, with real lives and real secrets. You could get yourself into a hell of a lot of trouble prying into things that aren’t your business, murder or no murder.’

Shocked but stubborn, Ruth didn’t deign to answer, pulling her lips over her mouthful of metal and withdrawing back into herself. She turned away from David and bit her lip as the trickle of tears started again.

Why did I do that? David asked himself. I’ve only antagonised her, and she’s going to go ahead and do whatever she damn well pleases anyway.

He was comforted when, a moment later, Sophie appeared and jumped on his lap. And so Lucy found them – sitting in silence, Ruth with her tears and David with the cat – when she returned, bearing a fresh pot of tea and looking thoughtful.

‘Who was on the phone, love?’ David held his cup out.

‘Emily.’ She took the cup, filled it and handed it back to him.

He sniffed the steaming liquid gratefully, waiting a moment for it to cool. ‘Anything important?’

She shook her head, but gave him a look which he rightly interpreted to mean that she’d tell him about it later.

Although David and Lucy generally favoured a rather leisurely approach to lovemaking, that night they made love with an unaccustomed urgency, fuelled by the inevitable sense of mortality in the aftermath of the death of someone they knew, someone younger than either of them. Afterwards, too keyed up to sleep, they talked for a long time.

‘You don’t think that Ruth could be right – that Rachel’s death wasn’t really an accident?’ Lucy suggested tentatively.

David laughed. ‘I know that our recent experiences have suggested otherwise, love, but sometimes people really do die by accident. Just because your charming niece has a fixation about Rachel Nightingale . . .’

‘That’s not really being fair to Ruth,’ she protested. ‘There were people who hated Rachel, who wanted to get rid of her. If it weren’t Ruth who was saying it, you’d be the first one to agree that her death is a little too convenient.’

He thought about that for a moment, then admitted with a self-deprecating chuckle, ‘Well, you may be right about that. I am inclined to take a contrary position where the enfant terrible is concerned. But that aside, Lucy love, I just can’t see that anyone had a strong enough motive to . . . well, you know. Just because she was a woman who wanted to be a priest, I mean. I’d have to be convinced that there was some other motive before I even considered the possibility seriously. Like money, as I said to Ruth earlier.’

‘According to what Emily told me,’ Lucy thought aloud, ‘Rachel must have had a lot of money. From the settlement after the accident, you know.’

‘Not necessarily,’ he cautioned. ‘In the first place, the money might only just be enough to pay for her husband’s personal care, assuming he lives for a good many years yet. And secondly, who would benefit financially from Rachel’s death? Presumably only her husband, so that doesn’t really lead us anywhere.’

The heat generated by their lovemaking had begun to dissipate; Lucy shivered slightly and pulled the duvet up under her chin. ‘Colin has a brother, Emily tells me. Couldn’t he benefit somehow?’

‘I don’t see how, as long as Colin is alive. Why – what does he have to do with anything?’

‘Well,’ Lucy explained, ‘when Emily rang me this afternoon she told me that she talked to Rachel on the phone on Friday, just a few hours before . . . you know.’

‘And?’ he prompted.

‘Rachel told her that Colin had a kidney infection, and that somehow his brother had got involved. Emily said that she made a little joke that she hoped nothing happened to her, or Colin’s brother might decide to pull the plug. And a few hours later . . .’

‘Hmm. Just a coincidence, I’m sure,’ David stated as he drifted off to sleep. ‘And not a very funny joke, as it turned out.’

But two days later, when he opened his morning paper to the obituary page, David read that Colin Nightingale had died at the age of thirty-five, of complications from a kidney infection.

CHAPTER 17

    Thou hast turned my heaviness into joy: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness.

Psalm 30.12

David read the obituary out to Lucy over their after-breakfast coffee, while Ruth was taking her customary extended shower. ‘“The young scientist, whose brilliant career was cut so tragically short by a road accident nearly four years ago, had survived in a vegetative state since then. By sad coincidence, his wife Rachel, a Deacon in the Church of England, was killed in another accident just last week in London.” And then it goes on about his career, and the research he was involved in before the accident. Don’t ask me to read it – I can’t even pronounce most of the words.’

Lucy, still in shock at the news but fully aware of the implications, put her finger on the cogent point. ‘But it doesn’t say anything about the money? Or about any survivors or other family members?’

‘Nothing. These things usually don’t.’

‘Is there any way you can find out?’

He shook his head, still unwilling to admit that there was anything in it. ‘Not really. Why don’t you ring Emily and see if she knows? If you’re really that curious, that is.’

Lucy gave him a warning look as Ruth came into the kitchen, her face almost as white as her towelling dressing gown, the freckles standing out in sharp relief and her short, damp, copper curls providing a shocking contrast to her pallor; two days and nights of crying had taken their toll. ‘I don’t really feel like going to work today,’ she announced. ‘I think I’ll just stay here.’

David was quick to agree. ‘If you don’t feel well, then you must stay home. Your Aunt Lucy will take good care of you.’

The look Lucy gave him this time mingled understanding with annoyance – now she was the one whose work would suffer – though her voice betrayed nothing but concern. ‘Of course you must stay home, darling. I’m sure that David will manage without you somehow.’

He smiled wryly. ‘Yes, I’ll manage.’

‘You’ll just have to find some other flunky to make your tea,’ the girl muttered, sitting down at the table in expectation of being waited on by her aunt.

Lucy did what was expected. ‘Would you like some tea now, darling?’ She got up and went to fill the kettle.

‘Yes, please.’

‘And how about something to eat?’

Ruth considered the options. ‘I think I might be able to eat a poached egg. And some dry toast, perhaps.’

‘And I’d better be off,’ David stated, anxious now to escape in spite of feeling vaguely guilty about lumbering Lucy with the burden of Ruth for the day. But it was Lucy’s own fault that the girl was here in the first place, he justified to himself.

Lucy walked him to the front door. ‘Have a good day, David darling, and if you have a chance to find out anything about Colin Nightingale . . .’

‘Not likely, my love.’ He kissed her lightly. ‘And you take good care of the enfant terrible for me.’

In spite of his scepticism, though, David found himself, during the course of the morning, thinking about Colin Nightingale and the unlikely coincidence of his demise just a few days after his wife’s untimely death. Once again he remembered the feeling that had nagged him when Lucy had first told him about Rachel: there was something about that settlement that had been important.

Restlessly he left his desk in the late morning and wandered downstairs to the firm’s library. From the shelves he pulled a few volumes of cases and precedents; based on the date of the accident, he could judge with a fair degree of accuracy when the legal aftermath was likely to have occurred. He settled down at a table with the weighty books and began flipping through them.

It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. He read through it twice, just to make sure that he hadn’t misunderstood; his eyebrows went up and his mouth rounded in a soundless whistle.

Lucy had been right about one thing: there was a great deal of money involved. Although the settlement that Rachel had been given in compensation for her own rather minor injuries was not large, nor was the amount awarded for the death of her daughter, that was only the beginning. She had also been awarded a generous settlement – much more generous than was usual – in compensation for the loss of companionship and financial support of her husband. That was in addition to the even larger sum bestowed on Colin, based on the curtailment of his brilliant future as a scientist and the likely cost of his medical care over his expected lifetime. All told it added up to an astronomical sum, in excess of a million pounds.

It sounded like a lot of money, but David realised that it was not over-generous: private medical care for brain-damaged people was cripplingly expensive, and over a number of years the money would be eaten away, even if the capital was carefully invested. But the settlement had been made less than a year ago, so little of the money would have been spent. That meant, thought David, that at the time of her death Rachel Nightingale had been in possession of a tidy fortune. On her death it would have gone to Colin, but now Colin was dead as well. Someone, he thought, has done very well indeed out of the two deaths, occurring as they had in that particular order and with such convenient proximity in time.

It was nearly time for lunch. During the past week, David had been encumbered with Ruth at lunchtime; in spite of his contention that the girl was perfectly capable of going round the corner for a sandwich on her own, Lucy had been firm. It was a part of her overcautious reaction to her position in loco parentis that had led Lucy to insist that Ruth was not to travel anywhere in London on her own, a restriction that Ruth resented every bit as much as David did. And so David had been reduced to eating his lunch in Ruth’s company at a sandwich bar in High Holborn, thus missing out on the legal gossip on offer at the various pubs and wine bars clustered around the Inns of Court which catered to members of the bar, solicitors, and assorted hangers-on in the profession. Indulging in a bit of professional gossip over a drink at lunch was one of the things he most enjoyed about working in London, and after a week of bland sandwiches and even blander conversation – if you could call Ruth’s peevish and non-communicative noises that – he felt out of touch; today, without her, he could catch up. He headed for El Vino’s, perhaps the most venerable of the establishments frequented by lawyers, vowing to treat himself to a smoked salmon sandwich and a half-bottle of the house champagne in celebration of his unexpected freedom from the enfant terrible.

In the five or so months that he’d been in London, David had made quite a few contacts over lunchtime drinks. Entering El Vino’s, he scanned the crowd for a likely source of gossip; to his disappointment, the only familiar face he saw belonged to none other than Henry Thymme. That was one person he definitely didn’t want to talk to, he decided. He found a seat at a table with a view of the bar, ordered the champagne and sandwich, and retreated behind his newspaper, noting with interest an item about a forthcoming sale at Christie’s, featuring ecclesiastical silver and other bits and pieces. It would be worth stopping by one day when he was in that area and picking up a catalogue – not because he was likely to buy anything, but just from general interest.

When his lunch arrived he put his paper down and glanced in the direction of Henry Thymme, curious to see what he was up to. Thymme seemed to be enjoying an uproarious drinking session with another man at the bar; his face was even redder than usual, and his voice boomed out across the room. ‘Time for another, dear chap?’

His companion nodded, turning to the bar. He didn’t look familiar to David; in fact, there was something about him – about the cut of his suit, perhaps, or the cut of his hair – that seemed to indicate that he wasn’t a lawyer. Not that there weren’t impeccably dressed and coiffured barristers and even solicitors, especially in this part of Fleet Street, but somehow David didn’t think that this man was one of them. He was tall and thin, sharp-featured, with an artistic swoop of grey hair and a trim grey moustache to match, though he didn’t look much over forty.

His curiosity satisfied, David returned to his newspaper as he sipped his champagne and ate his sandwich, becoming engrossed in an article about a church treasurer who had managed to embezzle a mind-boggling sum of money over a period of some twenty-three years before being found out when the new incumbent decided to have a look at the books. ‘Ah, the good old C of E,’ he muttered, shaking his head. But his cynical ruminations were interrupted by a cry of delighted recognition at his elbow.

‘Middleton-Brown, my good man!’ Henry Thymme hailed him. ‘Why are you hiding behind your newspaper? Come and join me for a drink!’

‘But . . .’ David protested feebly.

‘No buts, my friend. You’re all alone, and that’s not a good thing to be. In fact, it’s not allowed at El Vino’s, is it?’ he insisted, addressing the last query to the waitress, who shook her head obligingly, mindful of a good customer. ‘What are you drinking, my boy?’ he went on, pulling up a chair across from David.

David swiftly calculated his intake. He’d finished off a half-bottle of champagne; he could safely have another glass or two and still be able to function in the afternoon. Realising that there was no escape, he capitulated. ‘Well, I was having champagne.’

Thymme snapped his fingers at the waitress; he seemed to have trouble making them work properly. ‘A bottle of your best champagne,’ he ordered.

It arrived promptly, on ice, and was poured out with ceremony. David, whose budget didn’t usually run to that particular brand, took an appreciative sip. ‘Lovely stuff. Thanks.’

‘I like a man who knows his champagne.’ Leaning across the table, Thymme confided loudly, ‘That’s one of my disappointments with the lad. Young Justin. Never has developed a taste for good wine. Says he prefers lager, like some football lout. Or sweet sherry – even worse. A great disappointment.’

The subject of Justin Thymme was one to be avoided at all costs. Casting about wildly for a neutral topic of conversation, David observed, ‘Are you alone? I thought you were with someone else.’

‘Was, dear boy. He’s gone now. Client of mine, just had some good news. Wanted to buy me a drink.’

‘Yes?’ David wasn’t particularly interested, but any alternative subject was to be encouraged.

Thymme shook his head ruminatively. ‘Just goes to show you how quickly things can change. You know what I mean?’ David nodded his encouragement, and Thymme lowered his voice to a volume more appropriate for the delivery of confidential information. ‘When I saw him a week ago, he was ready to cut his throat. Not literally, of course, but the man was pretty damn low. Lost a packet with Lloyd’s. Not the only one, of course – hell, plenty have. But that wasn’t all, poor sod. Rich wife. American. She’s just left him. Left him or chucked him out, I’m not sure which. Found out he’s been screwing his secretary. Found out how much money he’d lost. Can’t really blame him about Lloyd’s, of course. But between you and me, my friend, he’s got a weakness for the ponies, as well. He’s in rather deep to a few unsavoury types. When his wife left him, he didn’t know how he was going to raise the cash.’ He shook his head again. ‘Life’s funny, isn’t it?’

David was fascinated in spite of himself. ‘What happened?’

‘Oh, didn’t I tell you?’ Thymme’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘He’s come into an absolute fortune. A million at least. His brother died, and he’ll get everything. Even after death duties, it’s a hell of a lot of money. Now it’s up to me to get the divorce settlement pushed through before the will is settled, so his bitch of a wife can’t get her filthy little hands on any of the dosh.’

‘Francis Nightingale?’ whispered Lucy in amazement; they had to keep their voices low so that Ruth, languishing in the sitting room, wouldn’t hear them. ‘But how clever of you, darling!’

‘Not clever at all,’ David replied with a self-deprecating but pleased smile. ‘You might say that it was handed to me on a plate – or more accurately, in a glass. Thymme was so legless by that point that he didn’t care how indiscreet he was being. He told me everything I ever wanted to know about Francis Nightingale, including the fact that he’s due to get all of his brother’s money. And that he needed it pretty badly.’

They were in the kitchen, preparing supper. David related the gist of Thymme’s revelations under the cover of running water as he washed the lettuce.

Lucy’s verdict was swift and succinct. ‘He sounds like a complete sod.’

‘Absolutely,’ he agreed. ‘Just like his solicitor. But the point is, Lucy love, that I should have trusted your instincts. Francis Nightingale had a hell of a motive to run his sister-in-law down and make it look like a random hit-and-run. Rachel dying when she did, before Colin, saved his bacon – if Colin had died first, Francis would presumably not have seen a penny of all that money.’

‘But how could he have known that Colin was going to die? If, like Emily said, he’d had these infections before, why should anyone think that this one would kill him?’

David turned the water off and shook the lettuce vigorously. ‘You’re forgetting the other thing that Emily said. That after Rachel was dead, it was up to Francis whether he pulled the plug or not – whether Colin received treatment for the infection.’

‘And you think . . . ?’

‘I think,’ said David, ‘that if the police aren’t going to take a closer look at Francis Nightingale, someone else is going to have to do it.’

CHAPTER 18

    Plead thou my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me: and fight thou against them that fight against me.

Psalm 35.1

The next morning, David sat unproductively at his desk, trying to think through the puzzle of Rachel Nightingale’s death. He was by no means convinced, even yet, that it had been anything but accidental, but he admitted to himself that there were some circumstantial grounds for suspicion. It certainly would have been possible, in any case, for her brother-in-law to have been involved. Rachel went to see her husband every night, presumably at a regular time. From that supposition it took only a small leap for David to arrive at the conclusion that anyone who knew of her routine, and that surely included her brother-in-law, would have been able to lie in wait for her to cycle past. It really had nothing to do with him, he acknowledged, though he was curious nonetheless. Would it be possible to make some discreet enquiries, just to satisfy himself? If so, how might he go about it? Before he’d had time to formulate a plan, a call came through from Henry Thymme. It was an occurrence that David had come to dread, heralding as it always did some further problem with ‘young Justin’, so he picked up the phone with trepidation.

Thymme sounded unusually subdued; perhaps, thought David, he was just hung over. He certainly deserved to be, given the quantity of alcohol he’d consumed in the early part of the previous day, let alone what he’d probably drunk later. ‘I’ve realised, my dear boy, that I might have been just a touch . . . ah . . . indiscreet in our conversation yesterday. From what I can remember, anyway,’ he added with a more characteristic chuckle.

‘Think nothing of it,’ David assured him.

‘The thing is, old chap, I could use your help.’

‘Oh?’ He tried to keep his voice noncommittal, but he was afraid that it sounded as dismayed as he felt. Here it comes, he thought. The latest escapade of Justin Thymme. The immigration office’s investigation into the validity of the younger Thymme’s marriage was still in progress; had the fool done something idiotic to jeopardise that? Surely he hadn’t been back to Hampstead Heath . . .

‘I think I mentioned that I was handling my client’s divorce, and that I wanted to expedite it as much as possible.’

‘Yes, you did mention that.’

Thymme cleared his throat thoughtfully. ‘Well, I’ve remembered that the wife’s solicitor is a partner at your firm – Russell Galloway.’

‘One of the senior partners,’ David amplified.

‘Yes, of course. The thing is, I was rather hoping that you might do me a great favour and have a word with him.’

‘Oh, yes? About what, exactly?’

Thymme’s voice took on a wheedling tone. ‘About this divorce settlement. Try to get him to speed it up at his end. Without telling him what I mentioned to you yesterday about the money, needless to say.’

David was astonished at the man’s effrontery. ‘And why should I do that? Why should I want to do something against the best interests of a client of one of the partners in my firm?’

There was a pause on the other end of the phone as Thymme chose his words carefully. ‘I like you, my boy. You’ve done well by me and the lad so far, and I think you’re a damned good solicitor. And with all due respect to Sir Crispin and Fosdyke, Fosdyke and Galloway, I also think that you could do better for yourself. I could use a smart chap like you in my firm. I could offer you a partnership straightaway, with a substantial financial incentive, and unlimited potential for advancement. What do you say, Middleton-Brown?’

‘I say,’ David stated quietly, ‘that I’m going to forget that we ever had this conversation, and I suggest that you do likewise. And that I wouldn’t work for you, Mr Thymme, if you were the last solicitor in London.’ Before Thymme could reply or even react, he put the phone down, gently but with great satisfaction.

Mastering his fury, after a few minutes he was able to think coherently about what Thymme had said to him, and about its implications. Mrs Francis Nightingale, a client of his own firm: this might be an avenue to explore. Perhaps he should have a word with Russell Galloway.

It was Russell Galloway who had been instrumental in David’s move to Fosdyke, Fosdyke & Galloway. David had met the senior partner the previous year when acting in a volunteer capacity on behalf of a London church, in a successful effort to save it from redundancy and possible demolition; Galloway had been impressed with David and the job offer had resulted. David liked and respected Russell Galloway, finding him more approachable and less intimidating than Sir Crispin.

Now he went through the corridors to Galloway’s office, pondering how best to handle the matter. If he told Russell Galloway what he’d learned, Thymme would certainly know where the information had come from, and would undoubtedly be prepared to make David’s life difficult in future. Since ‘young Justin’ was still his client, whether he wanted him or not, and was currently under investigation by the immigration office, that could be awkward. But his first loyalty was to his firm; he’d have to find a subtle way to let Galloway know about Thymme’s interest in the case.

Russell Galloway was behind his desk, which as usual looked as though it had a life of its own, piled high with papers, briefs, files, empty crockery and other assorted items. David had learned, though, that the impression of chaos was illusory: Galloway knew exactly where everything was, and could instantly put his hands on anything required. Russell Galloway’s own appearance was equally deceptive. He had none of Sir Crispin’s polished elegance, instead possessing a distinct resemblance to an unmade bed: his suit was always rumpled, and his tie was always askew. With his lack of sartorial style and his broken nose he looked more like a prize fighter than a highly-paid solicitor, and though he also lacked Sir Crispin’s underlying ruthlessness, he was a pragmatic man with a great deal of integrity; David had learned early on that it would be a mistake to underestimate him.

Looking up to see David hovering at the door, Russell Galloway grinned. ‘Come in, my friend.’ He returned David’s liking and esteem, perhaps recognising in him some of his own qualities of gentleness underlaid with strength and integrity.

‘Are you busy?’

Galloway laughed and ran his fingers through his greying hair, short and as crisply waved as corrugated cardboard. ‘I’m always busy. But always ready for an excuse for a break. Pull up a chair and tell me something I don’t know.’

Deciding that the direct approach was best with a forthright man such as Galloway, David plunged straight in. ‘The grapevine tells me that you’re handling a divorce for a Mrs Nightingale.’

Galloway groaned. ‘Yes, for my sins.’

‘Difficult?’ David probed.

‘God, yes,’ was the heartfelt reply. ‘She’s a twenty-two carat bitch, that one, and she knows exactly what she wants.’

‘What does she want?’

‘She wants to get shot of her worthless philandering spendthrift husband as quickly as possible, before he can spend any more of her money,’ he said succinctly.

‘But won’t he be entitled to some of it when they divorce?’ asked David.

Galloway shook his head. ‘She’s been far too clever for that. Or rather Daddy’s smart American lawyers have been. It’s her father’s money, really – he owns a chain of supermarkets in the southern United States. So he’s got the money all tied up for her in neat little legal knots. Prenuptial agreements and all that. The husband can’t touch it.’

‘Interesting,’ David commented. ‘So where do you come in?’

‘My job, pure and simple, is to produce the divorce. Nothing more, nothing less. Fortunately it shouldn’t be too complicated – no kids involved, and clear evidence of his adultery. His wife found letters from the secretary, and they didn’t leave much doubt, or much to the imagination. I don’t think he’s contesting – he’d like to get his hands on some of Daddy’s American bucks, I’m sure, but if he’s got any sense he’ll realise that there’s no hope – so it should go through on the nod.’ He turned curious eyes on David. ‘Why do you ask?’

David shrugged. ‘I just wondered.’

Galloway scratched his head with an elaborate display of nonchalance, then said casually, ‘I don’t suppose I could talk you into standing in for me at a meeting with her?’

This was better than David could have hoped for, but he matched Galloway’s casual disinterest in the tone of his reply. ‘Why?’

‘Oh, it’s nothing really. But I’m supposed to see her on Friday morning, and the wife is giving me hell about missing some school play that I promised a long time ago that I’d go to. The kid has a starring role, apparently.’ Russell Galloway produced the half-embarrassed smile of a proud father. Though he was some years older than David, with grown children, he was in a second marriage to a younger woman and was raising a young family, with the generally successful intention of doing a better job of it than the first time around; complications like this one caused him more mental anguish than he’d care to admit.

‘Why can’t you just see her another time, then?’

‘Not that simple, I’m afraid. She’s been in Paris for the last few weeks, and is only stopping over in London on Friday, on her way back to the States, and presumably the comfort of Daddy’s loving arms. Not to mention his bank account.’ Galloway rummaged around on his desk and came up with his diary, then checked the entry for Friday. ‘Here it is. I’m supposed to meet her in the Concorde lounge at Terminal 4, Heathrow. Friday morning at half-past nine.’

David had no intention of missing out on this opportunity, but he didn’t want to appear too eager. ‘Well, Russell, I don’t know. What is the meeting supposed to be about? Won’t she mind if you don’t come yourself?’

‘It’s really just to get her to sign some papers – nothing more complicated than that. And believe me – as long as she gets her divorce, Cindy Lou Nightingale won’t give a damn who turns up! If you could see your way clear to helping me out, I’d be more than grateful.’

There was such pleading in his eyes that David could hold out no longer. ‘Well, all right. After all, I wouldn’t want to disappoint your wife.’

Russell Galloway sighed gratefully. ‘Thanks, David. You’re a real friend.’

CHAPTER 19

    Or ever your pots be made hot with thorns: so let indignation vex him, even as a thing that is raw.

Psalm 58.8

Rachel Nightingale’s funeral was to be held at St Jude’s Church on Friday morning. Incongruously, the day had dawned clear and sunny and almost warm, after nearly a month of chill grey skies. David thought about the irony of it as he drove along the A4 at the end of the morning rush hour. He had expected Lucy to be disappointed that he couldn’t go with her to the funeral, but she had taken altogether a more pragmatic view. ‘It’s more important for you to take advantage of this opportunity,’ she’d said. ‘Besides, you didn’t know Rachel as well as I did, so it won’t really matter if you miss it. Ruth will go with me. And maybe it’s even better this way,’ she’d reflected. ‘The people at St Margaret’s still don’t know that there’s a connection between us, and perhaps it’s not a bad thing to keep it that way. Some of them may well be at the funeral.’

So while Lucy was putting on her best black dress, he was on his way to Heathrow Airport. Perhaps it was just as well, he reflected. Ruth had shown signs of incipient hysteria before he’d left, and he felt unequal to dealing with her.

In his briefcase were the papers for Cindy Lou Nightingale to sign, papers that would set into motion the machinery of law that would ultimately result in her divorce. Signing the papers wouldn’t take long, but David hoped that the soon-to-be-former Mrs Nightingale would be inclined to chat with him, in spite of the impression he had formed of her as being difficult and temperamental. His plans hadn’t been formulated beyond that: meeting Mrs Nightingale, and encouraging her to talk. Anything that she might add to the picture he was building up of her husband could be helpful.

He’d never been to Terminal 4 before, so he followed the signs carefully to the multi-storey car park. There was plenty of time, he noted on his watch. But it took more time than he’d planned to find the Concorde lounge, tucked away discreetly in a corner of the terminal, and he had to do some fast talking – and to submit to repeated and thorough inspections of his briefcase – to get through the security checks without a ticket or a boarding pass in order to gain entry to an area of the terminal which was intended for departing passengers only. That he hadn’t anticipated, so it was just about half-past nine when he finally arrived at his destination.

David sank nearly up to his ankles in thick carpet as he looked round the lounge for Mrs Nightingale. It wasn’t difficult to spot her; most of the passengers were businessmen, in a hurry to get to New York for morning meetings, beavering away on their lap-top computers or reading the Financial Times, and there were one or two wealthy dowager-types, be-ringed and bejewelled. Only one inhabitant of the lounge looked a possible candidate. She sat alone in the centre of a luxuriously upholstered blue sofa, sipping a glass of champagne: a stunning brunette clad in a flame-red and lime-green ensemble that had obviously just come out of the door of one of the more famous Paris fashion houses, tailored to fit her statuesque form to perfection. Her jewellery was not, like that of the dowagers, flashy or ostentatious, but instead was discreet in the extreme: gold button earrings and a thin gold chain. No wedding ring, David noted with interest – not even for the purpose of discouraging unwanted attention from her travelling companions. Then he realised that such help was scarcely needed; her demeanour was such that not even the dimmest businessman could fail to get the message that she was not available, and not to be approached.

It was all he could do to approach her himself. She looked up as he neared and frowned, a small crease of displeasure between her perfectly plucked brows. ‘Mrs Nightingale?’ he said in a voice that sounded more confident than he felt. ‘I’m David Middleton-Brown from Fosdyke, Fosdyke and Galloway. Mr Galloway sent me to see you.’

‘Why didn’t he come himself? I’ve always dealt with Mr Galloway in the past.’ Her southern drawl was as thick as a slab of shoo-fly pie and as viscous as blackstrap molasses.

Good Lord, David thought. She thinks she’s Scarlett O’Hara. ‘I’m afraid that Mr Galloway had a . . . family emergency,’ he exaggerated, summoning up his most appealing smile. ‘He’s briefed me on your case, and I’ll do my best to look after you as well as he would have done.’

Cindy Lou took in his appearance with practised rapidity: not exactly a heart-stopper, but more than presentable, and an improvement on the unprepossessing Russell Galloway in any case. She decided that there was nothing to be gained by being difficult, so she may as well be as charming as only the flower of southern womanhood could be. She dimpled fetchingly and indicated the chair across from her. ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll do just fine, Mr Middleton-Brown. Why don’t you sit down over there?’ (She pronounced it ‘ovah theyah’.) He sat, and she added, ‘Wouldn’t you like some champagne?’

Having prepared himself for at least some degree of hostility, David was taken aback. Oh, why not, he decided. It was never really too early for champagne, and the enfant terrible wasn’t around to disapprove. ‘Yes, please.’

As another glass materialised, he took the papers from his briefcase. ‘Do you want to go ahead and sign these papers now?’ he asked. ‘Get it out of the way? Or is there anything you’d like to discuss first?’

She waved a languid hand in the air. ‘All in good time. There’s no hurry, is there? My plane doesn’t leave for another hour.’

‘Fine.’ Uneasily David settled back in his chair and took a sip of champagne. Now that he was here with Francis Nightingale’s wife – and she was behaving much more pleasantly than he’d expected – he hardly knew where to begin. ‘You’ve been in Paris, I understand?’ he ventured.

‘Yes. Buying a few new clothes, trying to cheer myself up.’ She assumed a tragic expression and sighed deeply. ‘But I think it was a mistake. Paris is no place to be on your own, Mr Middleton-Brown. Don’t you agree?’ She didn’t really expect an answer, continuing with the trembling lower lip of an ill-done-by faithful wife, ‘Frankie and I went to Paris on our honeymoon. It’s full of such bittersweet memories for me.’

David, whose only trip to Paris had been on his own but who now entertained fantasies of taking Lucy there one day, nodded sympathetically. ‘If you feel that way,’ he said, ‘perhaps you ought not to rush into this divorce. Give it a little more time, perhaps. You might be able to work things out between you.’ That sort of advice would infuriate Henry Thymme, he realised with satisfaction.

Abruptly her mood and her demeanour shifted. ‘Frankie is a worthless, no-good piece of shit,’ she snapped. ‘A dog turd. Lower than a rattlesnake’s belly. I wouldn’t have him back if he were the last man on earth, and came crawling to me on his hands and knees. The way that man treated me . . .’ Then the tears welled up in her luminous dark eyes, demanding more sympathy. At a loss for words, David produced a clean handkerchief and leaned across to put it in her hand.

Cindy Lou’s manicured fingers lingered on his for a moment as she took it from him; she dabbed at her eyes in a delicate way so as not to smudge her make-up, and gave him a watery smile of gratitude. ‘Oh, you’re very kind,’ she murmured. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s come over me. But Frankie hurt me so bad that sometimes I just can’t help myself.’

‘He did?’

‘I gave that man everything. Everything I had! And how did he repay me?’

David shook his head.

‘By sleeping with his slut of a secretary.’ Her anger flashed again for an instant as she thought about it, her Frankie and that unspeakable girl who, apart from her youth, could surely have nothing to offer a man like Frankie, who was used to the better things of life. The letters that she’d found had been written in a childish scrawl and were badly spelled, if sexually explicit; it was an unforgiveable insult to her, his wife, that he should have transgressed with someone so unworthy. This time a tear actually did spill over; she let it roll down her cheek for effect and said in a piteous voice, ‘And she’s not even pretty! I just don’t understand how Frankie could do it. It wasn’t a gentlemanly thing to do. Oh, Mr Middleton-Brown – you’d never do anything like that to your wife, would you?’ She regarded him searchingly.

Disconcerted, he tried to pass it off as a joke. ‘My secretary is sixty-two,’ he mumbled with an unconvincing smile.

She looked hurt, as if she had expected a more gallant reply. ‘You know what I mean, Mr Middleton-Brown.’

He gazed into his champagne, hoping to be forgiven for his gaucherie. He had expected Mrs Nightingale to be indifferent towards her husband, or possibly even vindictive, but from what Russell Galloway had said he hadn’t anticipated this combination of outrage and misery.

‘I gave that man everything,’ Cindy Lou repeated bitterly. ‘Frankie was happy enough to have my money – my daddy’s money – to spend. And he was glad enough for the lifestyle that money gave him, and the doors it opened. Do you think he ever would have made it as far as he has in business without my money behind him?’

‘But I thought that the money wasn’t at issue,’ said David, glad to be back on firm ground. ‘Mr Galloway said that your husband wasn’t seeking any sort of financial settlement . . .’

She gave a scathing laugh. ‘He’d better not even try it, the rat. My daddy’s got lawyers who can run circles around Frankie’s lawyers. Daddy never did like Frankie. He made sure before we got married that there was no way Frankie would ever be able to touch my money if we split up, or if I didn’t want him to have it.’ Downing the rest of her champagne in one gulp, she held out her glass for David to refill it, adding, ‘Now let’s see how he likes being poor again, like he was before he met me.’

At last the conversation was beginning to go the way David had hoped. ‘You mean he doesn’t have any money of his own?’ he probed.

‘Hardly a red cent,’ she declared with satisfaction. ‘In fact, between his gambling debts, and all the money he’s lost with Lloyd’s, he’s so far in the hole that he’ll never dig himself out. Not unless he manages to figure out a way to kill off his sister-in-law and his brother, in that order, and get away with it!’ she added facetiously. ‘Not that I’d put it past him, mind you!’

David was stunned; he stared at Cindy Lou Nightingale for a moment as he realised that she’d been abroad and wouldn’t have known about the two deaths. She misunderstood his reaction, and went on to explain, ‘His brother has millions, but it’s not doing him any good, poor guy. He was in an accident, and will be a vegetable for the rest of his life. But even if he dies, Frankie won’t get any of his money unless the wife dies first – otherwise she’ll get it all. Poor old Frankie – two inconvenient people in between him and all that money.’

‘But it’s been in all the papers,’ David blurted out. ‘You wouldn’t have seen it. They’re both dead. Rachel Nightingale was killed in a traffic accident last week – a hit-and-run driver. And her husband died a few days later.’

Cindy Lou’s laughter was tinged with hysteria. ‘Then he’s done it, the greedy little bastard. He’s finished them off somehow. I know him, better than anyone, and I know what he’s capable of, especially when that much money is involved. Mark my words – those deaths may have looked accidental, but Frankie was behind them.’ She raised her glass with a smile of grudging admiration. ‘Here’s to Frankie. May all that money bring him nothing but misery. And I hope he gets caught.’

CHAPTER 20

    Their throat is an open sepulchre: they flatter with their tongue.

Psalm 5.10

St Jude’s Church was full for Rachel Nightingale’s funeral, as two congregations of parishioners turned out to pay tribute to their curate; now that she was no longer a threat to them in any way, they were prepared to be generous to her in death as they never would have been in her life, and to mourn her with every evidence of sincerity.

Father Keble Smythe delivered an eulogy that was both stirring and profoundly touching in its evocation of a Godly life cut short by cruel fate. That, combined with the beautiful singing of the choir and the heart-rending words of the Order for the Burial of the Dead from the Book of Common Prayer, ensured that Ruth Kingsley was not the only person in the congregation to shed tears that morning.

Ruth wept noisily; beside her, Lucy’s tears trickled in silence as she clutched Ruth’s hand. In her own quiet way, Lucy mourned as deeply as Ruth: in the short time she’d known Rachel, the other woman had made a great impression on her, chiefly for the manner in which she had managed to transcend unspeakable tragedy and rebuild her life so positively. Lucy had looked forward to getting to know her better, to discovering the secret of her inner strength. Now she would never have that opportunity.

After the funeral there was no interment, or even a committal; in due time there would be another service in Cambridge, in the church where Rachel had begun her clerical career, and afterwards she and Colin would both be laid to rest beside their young daughter, in a Cambridge churchyard. So the proceedings rather fizzled out at the end, and the mourners adjourned to the vicarage, where, in the absence of a close family to do the honours, Mrs Goode had surpassed herself in providing a plentiful cold feast for anyone who chose to come. Needless to say, no one stayed away, and soon the vicarage was crammed full of those who had come to mourn, to eat, or to gossip – or any combination of the three. They filled the sitting room, then spilled over into the dining room, where the food and drink were on offer, and even eventually took over the kitchen and the Vicar’s study.

In a remarkably short time, and by virtue of her untimely death, Rachel Nightingale had seemingly achieved the status of sainthood. So Lucy surmised from the conversation in the kitchen, where Dolly Topping and her cadre of women gathered. ‘I, for one, won’t hear a thing said against her,’ Dolly pontificated. ‘We may not have always seen eye to eye, Rachel and I, but she was a lovely young woman. And so devoted to her poor husband.’

‘Oh, she was,’ Joan Everitt agreed. ‘You remember, Dolly? – I always did say so. Last week, when the meeting was at my house – you didn’t come, Dolly, remember? – I was so impressed with the way she spoke. Afterwards I asked her about her husband, and it nearly made me cry, the way she talked about him.’

‘Terribly sad,’ confirmed Dolly, who insisted on having the last word on all matters. ‘And I’m so sorry that I had to miss that meeting. I heard that her talk was fascinating.’

Sickened, Lucy turned away. Ruth had already disappeared; Lucy was very much afraid that the girl, who held doggedly to her belief that Rachel had been murdered, might be engaged on a misguided fact-finding mission. Before she found her niece, though, she ran into Emily. ‘Oh, there you are, Luce. I’ve been looking for you,’ Emily greeted her.

Lucy looked around for Emily’s husband. ‘Gabriel’s not here?’ The Archdeacon had assisted with the funeral service and might have been expected to attend the post-funeral reception.

‘He’s around somewhere,’ confirmed Emily. ‘The last time I saw him, that creepy Administrator was dragging him off into a corner for a chat about something. That’s when I decided to leave him to his own devices and find you instead.’

‘Have you seen Ruth?’

‘I did, a little while ago. She seemed to be coping all right.’

‘Poor kid.’ Lucy sighed. ‘She’s taken it very hard, you know. She didn’t know Rachel long, but she really got attached to her. How are you coping, Em?’ she added.

Emily shook her head reflectively. ‘I thought I was doing all right, until today. But I just can’t deal with all these endless eulogies by people who would have gone a mile out of their way to avoid her a fortnight ago.’

‘Horrible, isn’t it?’

‘Obscene,’ Emily stated with force. ‘Apparently there was a huge row at St Margaret’s, everyone ganging up on Rachel, last Friday evening just before her . . . accident. And now no one will admit that they took part in it – just innocent bystanders, they all claim.’ Her voice sounded bitter.

‘Well,’ said Lucy, who hadn’t heard about the row before, ‘at least it may explain some of what’s going on now – all the denial and so forth. Though no one would ever say it, I’m sure they feel guilty about it. I mean, it’s possible that she was so badly upset about the row that she wasn’t being as careful as she might have been on her bicycle – and in that case, all the people who were involved might feel a little bit responsible for her death. Does that make sense?’

‘There might be more to it than that.’ Emily lowered her voice cautiously. ‘Listen, Luce. Gabriel thinks that there’s something funny going on. I can’t really explain it now, but he has reason for thinking it. And we wondered . . . well, you and David have had experience with this sort of thing before. I know it’s short notice, but could the two of you come to supper tomorrow night, just to talk about it?’

Lucy hesitated. She was reluctant to speak for David, especially given the situation. And she wasn’t particularly keen on an evening with Gabriel herself; in the best of circumstances it would be awkward, and this was far from the best of circumstances. But Emily’s dark eyes were fixed on her with a pleading look, and the demands of friendship prohibited a negative answer. Besides, she said to herself, they owed it to Rachel. David might not be very happy about it, but he would agree that it had to be done. ‘Yes, all right,’ she said. ‘What time would you like us to come?’

In an effort to redirect her grief over Rachel’s death, Ruth resolved to carry through with her intention to do a bit of investigation. To that end she had slipped away from her aunt, and tried to make herself inconspicuous on the edges of various groups of people, eavesdropping on conversations. But she heard little more than the sort of valedictory comments about the dead curate that had so upset Lucy.

‘Oh, hello,’ said a tentative voice at Ruth’s shoulder; she turned to find Vera Bright, her face splotchy and her eyelids swollen. Recognising the signs of a fellow sufferer from genuine bereavement, Ruth gave the older woman a quick, impulsive hug.

‘Hello, Miss Bright. I was looking for you at the church, but I didn’t see you.’

Vera Bright clutched Ruth’s hand. ‘How nice. We were a little late, I’m afraid.’

‘Your father came too?’

‘Yes. He’s gone off into the other room to talk to the men, and I just didn’t feel like being on my own, so I thought I’d have a word with you.’ She fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief, which she produced to dab ineffectually at her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. I can’t help myself. This has been such a shock.’

‘Oh, I know.’ Ruth looked around and spotted a pair of vacant chairs against the wall of the sitting room. ‘Why don’t we go over there and sit down?’ she suggested.

Vera complied readily. ‘This is very nice, my dear. And it’s most kind of you to keep an old lady company.’

‘Not at all,’ Ruth protested. ‘Can I get you anything? A cup of tea, or something to eat?’

‘Oh, no. I don’t feel that I could eat a thing. I haven’t really eaten properly since . . . well, you know. Since it happened,’ she confided.

‘Me neither,’ admitted Ruth. ‘I haven’t had any appetite at all. I just can’t believe it. I can’t believe that she’s really . . . gone. It’s too horrible to contemplate.’

Vera sighed. ‘You’re the first person I’ve talked to who really understands. There are a lot of people here saying nice things about Rachel, but somehow they don’t sound as if they really mean it. I believe that you do.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Ruth declared passionately. ‘I loved her – she was the most wonderful person. I’ve been devastated. Shattered. And I just can’t stand listening to all those hypocrites who were so horrible to her when she was alive.’

‘There was one other person who cared about Rachel,’ said Vera. ‘But I haven’t seen her here today. Nicola Topping – do you know her? She was very fond of Rachel – I can’t imagine why she’s not here.’

‘Topping? Is she related to Dolly Topping?’ demanded Ruth with an incredulous look.

‘Her daughter. She’s a few years older than you, my dear. But you can take my word for it that she never shared her mother’s opinion of Rachel. In fact, I don’t think her mother ever knew how much she relied on Rachel’s advice, or how much time she spent with her.’

Ruth was still suspicious. ‘How do you know?’

For the first time in their conversation, Vera looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m not really at liberty to say. But I promise you that it’s true. I hope her mother didn’t find out and keep Nicola away today.’

‘Is Dolly Topping around?’ asked Ruth. ‘I’ve never met her. I’d like to know who she is.’

‘I think she’s in the kitchen. I’ll let you know if I see her.’

Ruth folded her arms across her chest and regarded the room full of chattering people with something approaching loathing. ‘I wish I knew which one of them killed her,’ she muttered, almost to herself.

‘What did you say?’ Vera turned a startled face on the girl.

‘I said I wish I knew which one of them killed her,’ Ruth repeated defiantly. ‘One of them did, you know. I’m sure of it. They said it was an accident, but I don’t believe that for a minute.’

‘Oh, my dear!’ Her voice fluttered with dismay.

‘Don’t you believe me? There’s no reason why you should, I suppose – no one else does. Not my aunt, or anyone else.’

‘Oh, if it were true . . .’ Vera faltered, looking down at her hands.

Standing near the food table in the dining room, Emily introduced Lucy to the churchwarden Martin Bairstow. ‘A sad occasion to bring us all together today,’ Bairstow said with lugubrious gravity. ‘And a great loss for us at St Margaret’s.’

Father Keble Smythe chimed in, ‘She gave of herself so unstintingly to all of us. Rachel Nightingale was a rare young woman. Not that the principle of women clergy is one we can all subscribe to, of course. But Rachel was different.’

‘Different,’ echoed Norman Topping. ‘Even Dolly always said so.’

Stanley Everitt wrung his hands. ‘The Church of England is the poorer for the loss of such a one.’

‘And she was a pretty little thing, as well,’ twinkled old Dr Bright, drawing horrified looks from the others. ‘Well, she was,’ he insisted, unrepentant. ‘Pretty as a little rose. And always as charming as could be to me, when she came to bring me the Sacrament or to see my Vera.’

Lucy edged away from them and over towards the food table, where she contemplated the array on offer. As a vegetarian, her choices were necessarily limited, but there were cocktail sticks with cheese and pineapple, and what looked like a cheese and onion quiche, as well as a number of salads. She had just picked up a plate and begun to help herself, giving the sausage rolls a wide berth, when Ruth flew up to her in a state of high excitement. ‘Aunt Lucy!’ she hailed her in a shrill voice that carried much more penetratingly than she realised. ‘I’m not the only one who thinks that Rachel was murdered! Miss Bright thinks so too, but that’s not all! She won’t tell me, but I’m sure she knows who did it!’

CHAPTER 21

    I am wiser than the aged: because I keep thy commandments.

Psalm 119.100

‘But I don’t see why I can’t go!’ Ruth whined. ‘It’s not fair for you to go off and leave me by myself – you’re supposed to be looking after me, Aunt Lucy. I don’t think my parents would be very happy if they knew that you were abandoning me.’

‘Ruth, darling.’ Lucy struggled to keep her voice even. ‘You’re continually telling us how grown-up you are, and keep reminding us that you’re not a baby. This is your chance to prove it. It’s only for a few hours – I think you’re quite capable of amusing yourself for one evening. Surely you can read a book, or watch the telly.’

‘But I don’t want to stay here by myself! You’re going to talk about Rachel, and I should be there! After all, I’ve said all along that someone did her in, but no one believed me.’

Lucy looked at David, hoping for moral and verbal support, but he was too busy counting to ten – repeatedly – to notice her unspoken plea for help. Going to Emily and Gabriel’s for supper was the last thing he wanted to do that evening; Ruth’s intractable whingeing only deepened his gloom.

In the end the grown-ups prevailed and Ruth, protesting to the end, was left behind. They were able to talk more freely in the car en route than they had at home. ‘I still don’t see what this is all about,’ David stated. ‘I can’t see that it has anything to do with the church. If Rachel’s death was something other than an accident, I think it’s fairly clear that her brother-in-law was behind it. He was the one who had everything to gain.’

‘You’re being as stubborn about this as Ruth,’ Lucy pointed out. ‘Don’t you think you should keep an open mind until you hear what Gabriel has to say?’

David bristled at the comparison, while acknowledging to himself that there might be truth in it. ‘I’ll listen to what he has to say,’ he conceded grudgingly.

His underlying apprehension about the evening was dispelled somewhat by the spontaneous warmth of Emily’s greeting, as she embraced him unreservedly. He had always got on well with Emily, in spite of factors that should have made them adversaries; the fact that he hadn’t seen much of her during the course of his relationship with Lucy didn’t seem to make any practical difference, and she seemed willing to pick up their friendship where they’d left off.

Gabriel’s greeting was slightly less enthusiastic, if only in comparison. He kissed Lucy’s cheek and shook David’s hand, masking any discomfort in a way that a clergyman well practised in such social niceties should find well within his powers. He asked the time-honoured question for smoothing over social awkwardnesses. ‘What can I get you to drink?’

‘I’ll have a glass of white wine, if that’s on offer,’ said Lucy, taking a seat in their handsome sitting room.

‘Gin and tonic, I think,’ David replied, perching next to her on the sofa.

Gabriel poured generous measures of gin into two glasses while Emily went to the kitchen for the wine. There was a fractional moment of silence, then the three of them began talking at once.

‘My niece wasn’t very happy about being left at home tonight,’ said Lucy.

‘Have you had this room redecorated?’ was David’s contribution.

Gabriel said, ‘We missed you at the funeral yesterday, David.’

They all laughed, the ice was broken, and Emily returned a moment later to find the atmosphere considerably eased. Over their drinks they settled down to inconsequential small talk about the weather (improving), the twins (thriving, though the vexed topic of their schooling was assiduously avoided), Lucy’s paintings (selling well), David’s new job (challenging) and Ruth’s visit (trying).

It wasn’t until they had moved to the dining room and were into the first course that Gabriel broached the subject on all of their minds. ‘I apologise for having brought you here at such short notice,’ he said, ‘but I thought that it might be a good idea for us to put our heads together.’ He flashed an ingratiating smile at Lucy, then at David. ‘The two of you have had some experience at this sort of thing, I believe.’

‘What sort of thing?’ David asked with deliberate obtuseness.

‘Informal investigation, if you’d like to call it that.’

‘Gabriel thinks that Rachel’s death might not have been as accidental as it’s been made out to be,’ Emily intervened. ‘And from what Ruth said yesterday at the vicarage, he’s not the only one to feel that way.’

Mentioning Ruth was not a good move in trying to enlist David’s support. ‘And why should I believe the fantasies of a hysterical, hero-worshipping teenager?’ he snapped. ‘Why should you, Archdeacon? I would have thought you’d have more common sense.’

Gabriel took it with a smile, including the almost insulting use of his title. ‘I was about to tell you that,’ he said gently.

David, unwilling to admit or to share the basis of his own suspicions of the dead woman’s brother-in-law, subsided into silence.

‘Rachel talked to Emily on the phone just a few hours before she died,’ Gabriel began.

‘Yes, Emily told me,’ said Lucy. ‘Rachel was telling her about Colin’s illness.’

‘But that wasn’t the reason why Rachel rang. She didn’t ring to talk to Emily – she wanted to talk to me.’

That announcement took David by surprise; he raised his head from contemplation of his avocado vinaigrette.

‘To me,’ Gabriel repeated for emphasis. ‘Not personally, but in my official capacity. She said that she wanted to discuss something with me. What were her exact words, darling?’

Emily’s brow furrowed as she called on her excellent memory. ‘She said that she wanted a word with Gabriel – the Archdeacon, she said. I asked her if it was urgent, since he wasn’t at home, and she said something like, “No, not urgent, but it’s important, I think. I’m not even sure that he’s the person I need to talk to, but there’s something that’s bothering me, something not quite right, and I thought perhaps I should tell him about it.’

‘“Something not quite right’’,’ echoed Gabriel. ‘And a few hours later she was dead.’

‘What are you implying?’ David asked slowly.

‘That she might have uncovered some funny business at St Margaret’s – something she wanted to discuss with me – and that someone was sufficiently concerned about the consequences of discovery to want to stop her. With a convenient accident.’

‘It could have happened, quite easily,’ Emily added earnestly; evidently the two of them had discussed the possibility at some length. ‘David, did you hear about the row at St Margaret’s just before the accident? I mentioned it to Lucy yesterday.’

‘What row?’ He took a fortifying gulp of wine and tried to concentrate on what was being said. ‘I don’t know about any row. What happened?’

Concisely, Emily described the circumstances of the unfortunate encounter in St Margaret’s, as gleaned from the accounts of several who had been present. ‘And so Rachel left early, and apparently was on her way to see Colin when the accident happened. Anyone who’d been at the church that night could have followed her by car and knocked her off her bike.’

‘She went early?’ David picked out the relevant fact and caught Lucy’s eye with a slight grimace; his de facto case against Francis Nightingale was based entirely on the supposition that Rachel’s nightly visit to her husband took place every night at a regular and verifiable time. This new piece of information seemed to make that impossible: her brother-in-law couldn’t conceivably have known that she’d go early that night.

But anyone who had been at St Margaret’s would have known. David pressed his fingers to his temples and admitted to himself that he’d been on the wrong track all along.

‘Quite early, as a matter of fact. The service didn’t take place, so she was probably an hour and a half earlier than usual,’ said Emily, demonstrating that she had thought it through.

David made one last attempt to preserve his neutrality. ‘But perhaps you’re overreacting to what she said on the phone, in the light of what happened afterwards. It might have been just some small incident – Dolly Topping being rude to her or something else minor. Archdeacons must get curates complaining to them all the time about trivial things like that.’

‘Rachel wasn’t like that,’ Emily defended her friend. ‘She was sensible, and she was used to being badly treated. I’m sure she wouldn’t have even thought of bothering Gabriel unless it was something really important.’

Lucy, who had been absorbing the unfolding story in silence, nodded her agreement. ‘Emily’s right. I’m sure it’s relevant. It’s certainly consistent with what we know about Rachel.’

‘And about St Margaret’s,’ added Gabriel.

‘What do you mean?’ queried David.

‘I was concerned about that church well before Rachel died. As I said, there are some rather peculiar things going on there.’

‘Do you mean Dolly Topping and her opposition to women priests?’ David challenged. ‘It’s not the only church in the diocese to have outspoken opponents of the ordination of women in the congregation. I really don’t see how that can be turned into a motive for murder.’

‘That’s not really what I meant.’ Gabriel looked thoughtful as he framed his words carefully. ‘You’ve been involved with them – with the churchwardens and the Vicar – on this proposed selling of the silver.’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, you must admit that it doesn’t add up. All that holy claptrap about providing housing for homeless people. Does that square with what you know about those two churchwardens? Or the Vicar either, for that matter?’

For the first time that evening, David laughed. ‘Not at all,’ he admitted. ‘I never believed that that was their true intent – in fact, the Vicar hinted as much, the first time I met him.’

‘He didn’t happen to say what they were really up to?’

‘No.’ David picked up his wine glass and twirled it by the stem. ‘He wasn’t in on it, that much I know. It was the churchwardens who were scheming, and he was trying to out-guess them.’

‘A nice little setup.’ The Archdeacon gave an unamused laugh.

Emily hopped up. ‘Just a minute. The casserole will be all dried out if we don’t eat it soon.’ There was a pause while she cleared the plates and served the main course.

‘So,’ said David as they resumed eating. ‘The churchwardens were playing a little game with the Vicar and the diocese, and had something to hide. But they’d given up on the plan to sell the silver, once the DAC ruled against them.’

‘That doesn’t mean that they didn’t have something else up their sleeves,’ Gabriel pointed out.

‘No . . .’

‘And then there’s the Vicar, our friend Father Keble Smythe himself,’ Gabriel went on. ‘I don’t think he’s exactly as pure as the driven snow, either.’ Automatically he lowered his voice. ‘This isn’t to go beyond these four walls, of course, but he’s written me a most peculiar letter. When he came to see me a while ago, absolutely desperate to have a replacement for his curate, I told him that there was no one available but Rachel. A woman. I expected him to refuse outright, given the presence of people like Dolly in his congregation. And the fact that he likes to be known in the diocese as a Catholic, albeit a fairly moderate one.’

‘But he didn’t refuse?’ Lucy put in.

‘No, he didn’t. He was desperate, of course, but he actually seemed rather keen to give it a try. Don’t ask me why. I was surprised at his position – I even tried to talk him out of it. I pointed out that a parish like St Margaret’s would probably not take very kindly to a woman curate, that it wouldn’t be fair on her. But he insisted.’

‘What about this letter?’ David prompted.

‘Yes. The letter. It came last week, just about the time that Rachel died. In it he said that the appointment I’d insisted on had been a mistake, and he wondered if anything could be done to rectify it.’

‘Don’t you see?’ Emily interrupted her husband. ‘In the first place, he must have known that nothing could be done to un-appoint Rachel at that point. And Gabriel hadn’t insisted on their having her.’

‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ said Lucy, pushing her hair back from her face.

David added a comment in a somewhat flippant tone. ‘I don’t understand why he was so desperate in the first place. Didn’t he know that he was going to lose his previous curate? Why hadn’t he made arrangements for a replacement before the old curate left? That doesn’t sound like our friend Father Keble Smythe at all!’

Gabriel looked at him as though he’d just told a joke in rather bad taste. ‘That’s not really very funny.’

‘Why? What happened to him?’ David asked idly.

‘You don’t know?’

‘Don’t know what?’

‘You don’t know what happened to Father Julian? Honestly?’

David was baffled at his tone. ‘I’d rather supposed he’d got his own parish somewhere. Not that I’d given it all that much thought.’

‘Father Julian was killed in the burglary at St Margaret’s last December,’ Gabriel said with appropriate gravity. ‘The burglary in the sacristy. Surely you’ve heard about that.’

‘Killed?’ David stared at him for a moment, trying to absorb it. ‘Good Lord.’

Lucy stopped with a forkful of food halfway to her mouth. ‘You mean he was murdered?’

Gabriel shrugged. ‘Accidentally. It would seem that he was unlucky enough to surprise the burglars, and had his head smashed in for his pains.’

That horrific fact, so casually delivered, made Lucy wince. ‘But have they caught the people who did it? Surely the police have tracked them down somehow.’

‘No, they haven’t, as a matter of fact. He was under my jurisdiction, of course, so they’ve kept me informed. And so far they haven’t managed to find anything – no prints at the scene of the crime, so they didn’t really have much to go on.’ He shrugged again. ‘I think that after a few weeks they just gave up and shoved it into the files. A sad thing, but I’m sure it happens all the time.’

While he was speaking, David was engaged in serious re-evaluation of the situation, in the light of this second death. ‘It just doesn’t wash, you know,’ he interjected suddenly. ‘Two curates at the same church, dead within four months. Accidentally. It’s statistically impossible.’

‘Oscar Wilde might have said that to lose one curate could be counted as unfortunate . . .’ said Gabriel, waiting for David to complete his thought as he had done so many times in the past.

‘But to lose two is careless,’ David finished. ‘I think that in this case it’s gone a bit beyond careless. Don’t you agree?’

It was the previously undisclosed fact of Father Julian’s murder – for surely it could be called nothing short of murder – that finally turned the tide in David’s mind, and convinced him, in spite of his prejudice against Ruth and her intuition, that Rachel Nightingale’s death could not have been an accident. Nothing else would have persuaded him to agree to Gabriel’s request for his – and Lucy’s – help with a discreet investigation into the circumstances of a death on which the police had closed the book, apart from a desultory search for the driver of the hit-and-run car.

Once that agreement had been obtained, they proceeded to make more detailed plans. ‘It must have been someone who was at St Margaret’s that night, when they had the row,’ David thought aloud. ‘No one else would have known that she would be going at that particular time.’

‘That doesn’t really narrow things down too much,’ Emily pointed out. ‘From what I’ve heard, everyone was there.’

‘Except Father Keble Smythe,’ Gabriel added slowly.

‘Well, that lets the Vicar out, then,’ David stated. ‘The one person with an alibi.’

‘But it leaves us with quite a few others as possibilities,’ said Lucy. ‘I should think that the churchwardens would have to come top of the list.’

‘Martin Bairstow, yes,’ David agreed. ‘But not Norman Topping. He wouldn’t have the bottle.’

Lucy smiled. ‘Unless Dolly told him to.’

‘Lady Macbeth, handing her wimpy husband the dagger,’ said Emily the English scholar. ‘Or Dolly might have done it herself,’ she added. ‘Let’s not be sexist here – a woman could have done it just as easily as a man.’

By this time they had moved back to the sitting room for their coffee; Gabriel added a dollop of cream to his and stirred it thoughtfully. ‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that the first thing you need to do, David, is to talk to the churchwardens. With or without the Vicar – I don’t think it makes much difference, unless you think he might be able to shed any light.’

‘But how can I do that?’ David protested. ‘I don’t have a credible excuse. As far as they’re concerned, my usefulness is over. I discovered that their silver was valuable, but I wasn’t able to persuade the diocese to let them sell it. I can’t just ring them up . . .’

‘Oh, but you can,’ Gabriel interrupted smoothly. ‘What if you were to ring Martin Bairstow and tell him that your old friend the Archdeacon – and you made a point of our long-standing friendship, if you’ll remember – has had a change of heart about the silver? That he’s willing to consider recommending to the DAC that since there are two ciboria, one of them might be sold to the V & A?’

David sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose that would work. I could ask them to come to my office to see me, to talk about the details.’

‘It would be better to see them at the church, surely?’

‘Yes, all right,’ David gave in. ‘I’ll talk to them.’

Gabriel got up and went to the drinks tray. ‘Can I offer you a drink with your coffee? Cognac, or a liqueur, Lucy?’

‘I’ll have a Cointreau, thanks.’

He dispensed it, then lifted a bottle of single-malt whisky. ‘And is this still your favourite tipple, David?’

‘Yes, thanks. How kind of you to remember.’

No one in the room, least of all Gabriel, could have been unaware of the irony in his tone, but he poured the drink and passed it to David without further comment.

Lucy put down her coffee cup with an abrupt movement and a clatter of spoon and saucer. ‘I think there’s something we’re overlooking,’ she stated. ‘You may be disinclined to believe anything that Ruth says, David darling, but don’t forget what she said about Vera Bright.’

Gabriel turned towards her. ‘Oh, yes. That business at the vicarage yesterday. What was that all about? Who is Vera Bright?’

‘Vera Bright is a member of the congregation at St Margaret’s,’ Lucy explained. ‘Ruth met her through Rachel. Yesterday at the vicarage Ruth was talking to her, and she said something that made Ruth think that she not only believed Rachel had been murdered, but that she knew who was behind it. Based on something that Rachel had said to her, apparently – though she wouldn’t tell Ruth what it was, or whom she suspects.’

‘Just another of Ruth’s fantasies, I expect.’ David waved his hand dismissively.

Gabriel, however, got up and paced across the room. ‘I don’t think we can afford to ignore it out of hand, David. There may be something in it. Does anyone know this Vera Bright? Besides Ruth, that is?’

Lucy nodded. ‘Well, I’ve met her, anyway, though I don’t really know her. Do you think I should have a word with her?’

‘If you would,’ said Gabriel. ‘At least you might be able to get some feeling about whether she really knows anything, or if it’s all in Ruth’s mind.’

‘All right. I’ll go on Monday.’

‘Shouldn’t someone talk to the churchwardens’ wives?’ suggested Emily. ‘To Dolly Topping, anyway?’

‘I’ve got a good excuse to see Vanessa,’ Lucy admitted. ‘The painting she commissioned is just about finished, and I could deliver it to her this week. But I can’t really think of any plausible way that I could talk to Dolly.’

Emily sighed. ‘I suppose it’s my turn to be noble. Much as I loathe the woman, I’ll invite her round for a cup of tea this week, and get her talking about Rachel.’

‘Will she come?’ David wanted to know.

‘Oh, she’ll come.’ Emily smiled smugly. ‘In her circle, one doesn’t turn down invitations from the Archdeacon’s wife. If you understand me.’

‘Yes, of course.’ David lifted his glass and squinted through the pale straw-coloured liquid. ‘I’m thinking,’ he said slowly, ‘that it might be a mistake to concentrate on Rachel, without considering this Father Julian as well. Perhaps the two deaths are actually connected in some way.’

Gabriel gave him a sharp look. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, maybe they both died because of something they had in common. And as far as I can tell, that’s only one thing.’

‘Yes?’ With one raised eyebrow, Gabriel invited him to continue.

‘I mean, it doesn’t seem that there was much commonality there. He was a man and she was a woman. She was married, and he was . . . ?’

‘Not.’ Gabriel’s voice might have conveyed a trace of disapproval or even distaste.

‘She was a deacon, and he was a priest. But . . .’ David looked around at the three of them. ‘They were both curates of St Jude’s and St Margaret’s. That’s the link, and that may be important.’

‘So what are you implying?’

David continued with some reluctance. ‘That we won’t really be doing everything we can to discover the truth about Rachel’s death unless we find out something about Father Julian as well. About who he was, first of all, and then about how he died, and why. And there’s only one person I can think of who could almost certainly tell us the answer to at least the first of those questions.’ He paused, and forced himself to say it. ‘Robin West. The sacristan at St Margaret’s.’

‘Ah.’ Gabriel’s mouth twitched in what might have been a suppressed smile; clearly he had run across him in the course of his official duties. ‘I think that talking to him is just the job for you, David.’

‘Can’t someone else do it?’ he pleaded without much hope. ‘Gabriel, how about you?’

‘Oh, no. That wouldn’t be the done thing at all. I’m afraid it’s got to be you, David.’ He smirked. ‘Pull up your socks and take your medicine like a man.’

‘That’s the whole problem,’ David muttered miserably.

‘Well, then.’ Gabriel rubbed his hands together in a brisk manner. ‘We all know what we have to do within the next week or so. I suggest that we meet again next weekend to compare notes and see where we’ve got. Emily, you’re to chat with Dolly Topping. Lucy, you’ve got Vera Bright and Mrs Bairstow to talk to. And David, you need to see the churchwardens and the sacristan.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said David. ‘What about you?’

‘Oh, I’m the Archdeacon. It wouldn’t be proper for me to get involved directly. But,’ Gabriel added, ‘let me know if there’s anything at all that I can do to back you up. That’s what I’m here for.’

CHAPTER 22

    Let his posterity be destroyed: and in the next generation let his name be clean put out.

Psalm 109.12

Lucy rang Vera Bright on Monday morning, reminding the older woman that she was Ruth’s aunt, and asking if it might be convenient for her to call and see her a bit later. Vera agreed readily; any visitor was a welcome change from her father’s sole company.

‘What time would be best for you?’ Lucy asked, mindful of the intrusion.

‘Any time. Any time at all. It’s such a nice morning that I thought I might venture out into the garden for a bit, but I’d be happy to see you whenever you can make it. For coffee, perhaps? Around eleven?’

‘If that’s not putting you out.’

‘Not at all. I’ll look forward to seeing you later, Miss Kingsley. And may I say,’ she added shyly, ‘that I find your niece a delightful young lady. Absolutely delightful. A credit to you and your family.’

‘Oh. Thank you.’ Nonplussed, Lucy put the phone down; it was the first time since Ruth’s arrival that anyone other than Rachel had said a good word about her.

It was indeed a beautiful morning, the air mild and fresh and promising real warmth as the day progressed. So spring has come at long last, Lucy reflected as she walked the short distance to Vera’s house. On a day like this she could almost believe that somehow, one day soon when Ruth had gone, things would return to normal, in spite of the trauma of Rachel’s death.

She found the Brights’ house without difficulty. It was in a street that was respectable rather than prestigious, but it was freshly painted and beautifully maintained on the outside. Lucy rang the bell. There was no reply, so after a few minutes she pushed it again, holding it in for a rather longer time; Vera might be in the garden, she realised, and might not have heard the bell.

After a delay, Lucy heard sounds from inside the house: heavy footsteps and a querulous old voice. ‘Vera!’ said an old man’s scratchy grumble. ‘Are you deaf, girl? Can’t you hear the bell?’ Then, as he got nearer, ‘Hold your horses, out there. I’m coming.’ The door flew open, and the old man from the post-funeral gathering peered out at Lucy. Ever susceptible to a pretty face, Walter Bright transformed his scowl into an approximation of a smile, baring a mouth full of surprisingly sound teeth. ‘Oh, it’s you! I saw you at the vicarage, didn’t I?’

‘That’s right. I’m so sorry to bother you, Dr Bright. I’m Lucy Kingsley, and Vera is expecting me.’

‘Well, you’d better come in then, hadn’t you?’ The old man stepped aside to let her in. ‘I don’t know where the damnfool girl has got to, though.’

‘She said that she was going to do some gardening,’ Lucy suggested. ‘Perhaps she’s out in the back and didn’t hear the bell.’

‘I was taking my nap. I always have a nap in the mornings, and then Vera brings me my coffee.’

‘I’m so sorry to have disturbed your nap,’ Lucy apologised again.

The old man grinned. ‘I don’t mind being disturbed by someone as pretty as you.’ Walter Bright’s eyes dropped to Lucy’s chest and seemed fixated there. Embarrassed, Lucy spared a moment of empathetic pity for generations of his women patients. She was not to know that during his many years of practice, Dr Bright had been the model of rectitude and upright behaviour; it was only in his dotage that he had begun to ogle young women, to his daughter’s immense mortification.

‘Should we look for her in the garden?’ Lucy suggested.

‘I’ll go. You stay here.’ He tore his eyes away from her chest and shuffled off towards the back of the house.

His shriek, a moment later, was unearthly in quality, a banshee’s wail that struck Lucy to the bone with intuitive terror. Without any volition or conscious thought she followed the sound, and found herself standing next to the old man in the kitchen. Out of some primitive instinct of self-preservation, her eyes looked everywhere but in the direction of the old man’s trembling finger. In some corner of her brain she took in the cheery sprigged wallpaper, the angle of the sun streaming through the window on to the counter, the serviceable brown coffee mugs – three in number – set on a tray near the old-fashioned metallic electric kettle along with a plate of biscuits, the two identical brown mugs on the draining board, the muddy-fingered gardening gloves thrown carelessly on the table, the open door into the garden. Then she could avoid it no longer; her eyes followed his finger.

It was a strangely peaceful sight, with no blood and no signs of violence, but it was all the more horrible for that. Vera Bright was sitting in a chair, slumped over the table. One thin arm was flung across the table, palm up, in a beseeching gesture. And over her head was a green plastic bag with an unmistakeable gold logo, tied round her neck with a piece of garden twine.

Somehow Lucy managed to do the right things. She removed the old man from the kitchen, rang the police, told them the facts in a concise manner, then calmed Dr Bright down with a mug of strong, sweet tea, being careful while making it not to touch anything that might be important.

Ensconced in his customary armchair in the sitting room with his tea, the old man talked incessantly and seemingly at random as they waited for the police to arrive. ‘It’s the bag I don’t understand,’ he said over and over. ‘My Vera didn’t give herself airs. She never set foot in a shop like that in her life. She wasn’t that kind of girl. But who would have done such a thing? To my Vera? She may have been useless, that girl, but she never hurt a fly. Who would want to harm her?’ He wrapped his arms around himself and rocked back and forth. ‘And what am I going to do without her? I’m not going into some home, where they’ll tie me down and leave me to die. I don’t understand about the bag. Why would anyone want to hurt Vera?’ He repeated it over and over, in various permutations, like some kind of litany of misery. Lucy let him talk, realising that he wasn’t really asking for answers.

The police arrived, a uniformed PC first and then a number of plainclothes officers and the police doctor. Lucy could hear them in the kitchen, going about their choreographed routine, but she blocked out any conscious speculation about what they were doing. For some little while they left her alone with the old man, who continued to ramble in the same vein. After a time, though, a neatly-dressed man with kind dark eyes and a large square jaw joined them in the sitting room and introduced himself. ‘I’m Inspector Shepherd.’ He looked at Lucy expectantly.

In a few words she told him who she was and why she was there, then indicated Dr Bright. ‘This is Miss Bright’s father. I’m afraid he’s a bit incoherent at the moment – as you can imagine, Inspector, this has been a great shock for him.’

The policeman leaned over and addressed the old man. ‘I’m very sorry about your daughter, sir.’

‘Oh, my poor Vera. She was a good girl. Careful with her money. Not like some of these young things who go off shopping all the time. She never was like that, my Vera. Never been inside that shop in her life. And why should she be?’ The last was said on a belligerent note.

‘No reason at all, sir,’ said the policeman soothingly; he was used to dealing with people in shock, and the irrelevant things they often said. He turned back to Lucy. ‘He found her, did he?’

She nodded. ‘But I was right behind him. I’m sure he didn’t touch anything. And I tried not to disturb anything either, though I didn’t think it would hurt if I made a pot of tea. I thought he could use it.’

‘No problem. We’ll need to take your fingerprints, of course. And his as well, just for purposes of elimination.’ He took out his notebook. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a few questions, Miss Kingsley?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Did anything in the kitchen look out of place, or unusual?’

Regretfully she shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I can’t really help you. This is the first time I’ve been here, so I wouldn’t know.’

‘So you also wouldn’t know if anything in the house were missing?’

‘No. Sorry. You’ll have to ask Dr Bright.’

The policeman looked at the old man without much hope. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘it looks like your daughter might have surprised a burglar. At some point, when you’re feeling like it, I’d like you to have a look round and tell me if anything is missing. Silver, jewellery, appliances like video recorders or tellies.’

Walter Bright gestured scornfully at the box across from him. ‘There’s the television. Still there. No modern do-dads like video recorders in this house. And none of that other rot – I told you, my Vera was a simple girl.’ He fixed the policeman with a belligerent glare. ‘Don’t you dare say otherwise. She might have been useless, but at least she was no spendthrift.’

Hastily Inspector Shepherd turned back to Lucy. ‘You’ll be wanting to get on, I expect. I don’t think there’s anything else we need from you at the moment. If you’ll just let me know how we can get in touch with you, if necessary . . .’

‘Dr Bright shouldn’t be left alone,’ she protested. ‘He’s very upset.’

‘Don’t worry about him – I’ll get a WPC to sit with him,’ the policeman assured her.

‘Yes, just go off and leave me. Just like my Vera,’ moaned the old man. ‘How could she desert me like this? All alone. I’m all alone.’

Suddenly the horror of the situation – and the reality of it – descended on Lucy like a black curtain; she put her hands over her face and sobbed. ‘I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t be like this. But it’s just so . . . awful. Poor Vera.’

The policeman, who had seen far too many scenes like this, let her cry for a moment. ‘Do you have a car, Miss Kingsley, or can we take you somewhere? I know that this has been upsetting for you.’

After a time Lucy regained control and lifted her chin. ‘I’ll be all right. If I could just use the phone and ring someone to collect me . . . ?’

‘Yes, of course.’

Fortunately the phone was in the hall rather than in the kitchen. It was the old-fashioned sort with a dial; somehow she forced her fingers to push the dial around.

‘Fosdyke, Fosdyke and Galloway,’ announced a solemn female voice. ‘May I help you?’

Lucy’s voice sounded remarkably calm. ‘Mr Middleton-Brown, please.’

‘I’m sorry, but Mr Middleton-Brown is not in his office. Would you like to speak to his secretary, or can someone else help you?’

She took a deep breath as she felt the panic rising again. ‘No, thank you. But if you could tell him that Lucy rang . . .’

The receptionist did not feel that conveying personal messages was part of her job. ‘Very well,’ she said repressively. ‘I’ll tell him.’

Putting the phone down, Lucy leaned her head against the wall and thought about what to do next. Emily, she decided gratefully. Emily would come for her. She dialled again.

‘I’ll be there in a few minutes,’ Emily promised, when she’d had a brief outline of what had happened. ‘Just hang on, Luce.’

‘Thanks, Em.’

Before she left, Lucy had her fingerprints taken, efficiently and without fuss, then returned to the sitting room to say goodbye to the old man. She took his hand and leaned over him. ‘I’m going soon, Dr Bright. But I’m sure they’ll take good care of you.’

He raised his eyes, glanced over at the placid form of the WPC on the sofa, then beckoned Lucy closer. She bent down, and he cupped his hand over her ear to whisper, ‘Those damned police don’t believe me. They think I’m daft. But I know it was no burglar that killed my Vera. She would never go to that shop. And what about those two cups on the draining board? How do they explain those, hey?’ For an instant the belligerence left him and his eyes were those of a vulnerable, pleading old man. ‘Please,’ he said softly. ‘You’re a good girl. Please find out who killed my Vera. Don’t let them get away with it.’

CHAPTER 23

    Their priests were slain with the sword: and there were no widows to make lamentation.

Psalm 78.65

Monday morning seemed to go very slowly for David. Ruth was being more than usually stroppy with him, causing him to reflect that five days was after all a very long time – time enough for God to create a fair chunk of the world. And hanging over the sunny morning like a black cloud was the prospect of his visit to Robin West. Having made up his mind of the necessity to interview the sacristan, he had determined to do it straightaway – that very lunchtime, in fact. It would be less suspicious – and undoubtedly safer – to meet him at his restaurant, as if by accident, and to have an informal chat. After all, he had been invited to stop by for a drink. He was sure that West would take his visit at face value, and that with the sacristan’s penchant for gossip, there would be no difficulty in getting him to talk.

First, though, he wanted to ring Martin Bairstow. The younger churchwarden, ruthless in his business dealings and temperamentally suited to eliminating his opponents, seemed to David to be the most logical suspect, though a clear-cut motive eluded him. Perhaps it was as Gabriel had suggested, and Rachel had found out what the wardens had hoped to accomplish by the sale of the church’s silver. Was there any way that the two of them could collude to skim off some of the money? But Bairstow didn’t seem in any need of money, so there must be something else in the equation that David didn’t know about.

Consulting his files for the number, he rang Bairstow’s office. ‘I’m sorry,’ said his secretary, ‘but Mr Bairstow isn’t in at the moment. I expect him back at any time – can I have him return your call?’

‘It’s not urgent,’ David said, but he gave his name and number to the secretary, and towards the end of the morning Mrs Simmons put through a call from the churchwarden.

‘How can I help you, Mr Middleton-Brown?’ Bairstow sounded slightly more brusque than usual.

David adopted an apologetic tone. ‘I don’t know how you feel about this,’ he said, ‘but if you’re still interested in selling some of your silver, the Archdeacon has indicated to me that he would support the sale of one of the ciboria to the V and A. A privately negotiated sale, to keep it in the national collection. I realise that’s far short of what you originally had in mind, but it would still bring in a tidy sum. Fifteen or twenty thousand, at a guess.’

There was a pause on the other end. ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ was the eventual cautious reply. ‘And speak to Norman Topping and Father Keble Smythe, of course. Can I get back to you in a few days?’

‘I thought that perhaps we might meet to discuss it. At St Margaret’s, if that’s more convenient for you.’

Bairstow, who had seen his share of inflated solicitors’ bills, wasn’t so easily convinced. ‘I’ll get back to you as soon as I can,’ he repeated. ‘By the end of the week, if possible.’

David had to be satisfied with that. ‘Very well, Mr Bairstow. I’ll look forward to hearing from you.’

He looked at his watch; it was getting on for lunchtime. Realising that there was at least one advantage to his visit to La Reine Dorée, he went out to Mrs Simmons’s desk to ask her if she’d mind very much taking Ruth to lunch with her, as he had an urgent lunchtime meeting.

Having been subjected to Ruth for the last fortnight, Mrs Simmons inevitably did mind very much, but she couldn’t very well say so. ‘No problem at all, Mr Middleton-Brown,’ she replied bravely.

Good woman, he said to himself, resolving to pick up some flowers for her on his way back from lunch.

La Reine Dorée was located in South Kensington, not far from the tube station but in the opposite direction from Lucy’s house. It was much as David had expected it to be: rather dimly lit, its walls adorned with a mixture of old French cigarette posters and framed black-and-white glossy photos of 1930s’ screen goddesses, and patronised by a glittering array of decorative young people exemplifying various permutations of sexual preference but with a predominance of men.

Robin West, who was leaning in a cultivatedly insouciant pose near the door, stood to attention when he spotted David’s entrance. ‘My dear chap!’ he beamed, putting out both hands. ‘So you’ve finally come! I knew that you wouldn’t be able to stay away for ever.’ He gave David an exaggerated wink. ‘Where’s the girlfriend?’

‘Oh, she . . . couldn’t come today,’ David said lamely.

West turned down the corners of his mouth. ‘Quel dommage!’

Overcoming his distaste, David forced a smile. ‘Yes, well. How about that drink you promised me?’

‘Absolutely, my dear. What will you have?’

For a split second David considered whether he would be better off staying sober and keeping his wits about him, or blotting out the pain of this ordeal with as much alcohol as possible. Prudence prevailed, and he chose the first option. ‘Just mineral water, thanks. With ice and lemon.’

‘How boring. Wouldn’t you rather have a G and T? Or even champagne? It’s on the house, remember?’

It was tempting, but not tempting enough. ‘Sorry, no. I’ve got to go back to work this afternoon,’ David explained, adding, ‘I’ll have to come back another time for the champagne.’

‘Promise that you’ll leave the girlfriend behind again and it’s a deal,’ West smirked, going behind the bar for the mineral water. He poured it out with a flourish, added an artistic twist of lemon, then concocted a gin and tonic for himself, before leading the way to a corner table. ‘Are you having some lunch?’ he asked.

‘I thought I might.’

West went off for a moment and returned with a menu. ‘The breast of poussin in cream and Kirsch sauce is quite nice,’ he advised. ‘Or if that’s too rich for you, I recommend the warm salad with goujons of duck and rocket in balsamic vinaigrette.’

David studied the menu. ‘Actually, I fancy the steak sandwich,’ he said firmly. And he wouldn’t tell Lucy about it afterwards, either; although he of course ate no meat at home, her attempts to woo him into committed vegetarianism had thus far failed, but he didn’t go out of his way to confess to her his occasional and enjoyable lapses into meat eating. ‘And some chips, if you do anything so plebeian,’ he added in a defiant tone.

West looked shocked, but refrained from voicing his disillusionment with David’s taste. ‘If that’s what you want, then that’s what you shall have.’ He flagged down a waiter and gave the order, choosing the poussin for himself, then settled back and grinned at David. ‘I suppose you’ve heard about all the excitement at St Margaret’s,’ he said with relish.

‘You mean about your curate’s death?’

‘That woman, yes. I never acknowledged her as the curate, as you know. Her orders were invalid.’

‘You’re not one of the people who’s praising her to the heavens now that she’s dead?’

West snorted in derision. ‘Not I. I didn’t want her at St Margaret’s, and I’m not sorry that she’s gone, though I might have settled for a less drastic method of removal. I wasn’t alone in either of those sentiments, as I’m sure you’re aware, but you’d never know it from the way people are talking now. Even Dolly Topping. That particular brand of hypocrisy doesn’t appeal to me, my dear. No, I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m glad she’s gone.’

‘Still, it must have come as rather a shock, so soon after Father Julian’s death,’ David ventured.

‘Father Julian.’ Robin West sighed gustily and shook his head. ‘Now that was a great loss to the church. Not just to St Margaret’s, but to the Holy Catholic Church. He was a true Catholic. With a brilliant feel for liturgy, as well.’

‘Did you know him well, then?’

‘Oh, quite well. He used to come in here often in the evenings with Alistair. I’d usually have a drink with them if we weren’t too busy.’

‘Alistair?’

‘He always called Alistair his “lodger”, of course.’ West gave him a knowing wink.

‘You’re telling me that this Alistair was Father Julian’s . . . lover?’

‘Of course. What else? You know and I know that it goes on all over this diocese. I think that there are more priests with “lodgers” than without, my dear. But our blessed Archdeacon takes a dim view of such things,’ West said cuttingly. ‘A good family man, our Archdeacon. So it has to be “lodgers” and “friends”.’

Gabriel? thought David in astonishment. That was rich. To cover his confusion, he asked quickly, ‘This Alistair chap. He lived with Father Julian in . . . what’s it called? Magdalen House?’

‘That’s right. They’d been together for quite a while – he came to London with Julian.’ If Robin West thought David’s questions were odd, he gave no indication. Obviously David had not misjudged his voracious appetite for gossip.

‘And where is he now? I mean, surely he had to move out of the house? Does he still come in here?’

Robin West shook his head. ‘He’s left London, I’m afraid. Gone to Brighton. Gone off with one of my other regular customers, as a matter of fact. Father Gilbert, who was at St Benedict’s, Earl’s Court – he’s just moved to a church in Brighton. St Dunstan’s – do you know it?’

‘Yes,’ said David. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘It’s supposed to be a real spike shop,’ West declared with a certain amount of envy. ‘No nonsense about women in a place like that.’

Suddenly David knew that he had to go to Brighton, to talk to this Alistair. He needed to find out as much as he could about Father Julian, and Alistair was the obvious person to talk to. ‘But St Dunstan’s has a clergy house,’ he thought aloud. ‘Father Gilbert can’t have a lodger there.’

‘Why not, dear?’ West waved a careless hand and giggled. ‘He’s turfed the curate out, I hear. But the curate didn’t mind. Now he can go into digs with his boyfriend.’

The food arrived, and David ate his sandwich with enjoyment. The sacristan chattered on through the meal, mainly about Father Keble Smythe and the ludicrous charade of his fiancée Miss Morag McKenzie, but David was no longer interested in the gossip. He had found out about the existence and the whereabouts of Alistair; that was enough.

Refusing a sweet, he made his escape with as much speed as was possible – with promises to return in the near future for that champagne. There was still time to get to Brighton that afternoon, if he hurried. He stopped at a call box and rang Lucy’s house to let her know his plans, but there was no reply; knowing that she’d planned to visit Vera Bright that day, he wasn’t unduly worried at her absence. He could ring her again later, he decided, hurrying to the tube station to catch the Circle Line to Blackfriars, where he transferred to the Thameslink train to Brighton.

It was a relatively quick journey; David arrived in Brighton by mid-afternoon. From the station he made another unsuccessful attempt to reach Lucy, then hailed a taxi; ‘St Dunstan’s clergy house,’ he instructed. In the taxi he reflected upon the possible folly of his precipitate journey: there was no guarantee that this Alistair would be there. In fact, given that it was a Monday afternoon, the chances were good that Alistair would be elsewhere, most likely at his place of employment.

This line of thought, distressing as it was, kept him from brooding on the irony of returning to St Dunstan’s clergy house in these circumstances. He hadn’t been back there since Gabriel’s days as curate of St Dunstan’s, years ago. It was inevitable that there should be memories associated with the place, even now. Not that he had ever lived there with Gabe – there had never been any question of that. They had always been painstakingly discreet about their relationship. And in those long-ago days, neither curates nor incumbents seemed to flaunt their ‘lodgers’ more or less openly, as they clearly did now.

Arriving at the clergy house, he paid the cab driver, then took a deep breath, went to the door, and rang the bell.

In the old days, it would have been the dragon of a housekeeper who answered the door. Now it was a thin young man in his late twenties, casually dressed, with fine straight sandy hair which hung nearly to his shoulders and grazed his eyebrows in a sideswept fringe. ‘Hello?’ he said questioningly, his open face displaying no suspicion.

‘Are you by any chance called Alistair?’

‘That’s right. Alistair Duncan.’ His voice had a heavy but pleasing Scots burr.

David produced the story he’d decided upon during his train journey – one that was very nearly the truth. ‘My name is David Middleton-Brown. I’m a solicitor, acting for St Margaret’s Church in London. I understand that you . . . knew . . . Father Julian, their former curate, and I wondered if you’d mind my asking you a few questions.’

A guarded, tense expression clamped down on his face. ‘Have they caught the bastards that killed him yet?’

‘No,’ said David seriously. ‘That’s why I’m here, really. There are several people who are interested in finding out the truth about what happened to Father Julian, and they don’t think that the police are doing enough. They’ve asked me to come along and see you – if you’re prepared to talk to me, of course. You might be able to tell us something important, something that we don’t know, that will help us find the killer.’

The young man relaxed, shrugged, and smiled an attractive lopsided smile. ‘Why not?’ He waved his arm. ‘Come on in, why don’t you?’

They went into the drawing room. Amazingly, it had altered hardly at all in the years since David had last been there; the ancient and massive furniture was a bit more frayed around the edges, and the oriental carpet was rather more threadbare. But the gloomy wallpaper, of indeterminate pattern and colour, was the same, with its even darker rectangles hinting at long-departed pictures that once must have occupied the walls. Those walls sported the same dreary engravings that David remembered: ugly continental churches, and the odd simpering saint. He couldn’t understand why someone hadn’t got rid of them years ago.

The drawing room was definitely dustier than it had been in the regime of the dragon-housekeeper (whatever had her name been?), the windows admitted the light through a film of grime, and the vast fireplace showed signs of a recent fire. She would never have allowed such a thing, he was sure, not even in the dead of winter – let alone on the cusp of spring.

‘Could I get you a cup of tea?’ Alistair offered hospitably.

That sounded wonderful, but David made the polite response. ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

‘No trouble. I was about to have one myself.’

‘Then I’d love a cup.’

Tea was produced in short order, and properly: on a tray with a cloth, poured from a silver teapot into bone china cups, and served with thin triangles of bread and butter. David, having expected somehow to be presented with a mug of tea, was glad to see that standards at the clergy house had not entirely slipped. ‘How nice,’ he said.

The young man grinned engagingly. ‘It’s the one thing I’ve been well trained to do. Jules wasn’t particularly bothered, but Gil likes his tea done properly.’ He waved his hand around at the room. ‘I may not be much of a housekeeper, but at least I can serve up a proper tea.’

‘You’re the housekeeper, then?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’ He grinned again. ‘As you can see.’

David found himself liking this open and honest young man very much. ‘That doesn’t seem like a very exciting career,’ he remarked, smiling.

‘It’s all I’ve got at the moment,’ Alistair explained. ‘Since I came to Brighton, I haven’t been very successful in finding work in my own profession.’

‘Which is . . . ?’

‘I’m a hairdresser. And if you know anything at all about Brighton, you’ll realise that hairdressers are quite thick on the ground here.’

David laughed: yes, they would be.

‘So until something comes up, Gil has said I can be his housekeeper. The patience of a saint, that man has, to put up with me and my slovenly ways.’

‘You weren’t Father Julian’s housekeeper, then?’

‘Oh, Lord, no.’ Alistair laughed at the idea. ‘Jules had a woman who came in twice a week. He was a bit fussier than Gil. And I was just the lodger. In a manner of speaking.’

David leaned forward. ‘I hope you don’t mind talking about Father Julian. After all, it must be rather painful for you.’

The young man looked out of the window and brushed the fringe from his forehead absently. ‘A wee bit,’ he confessed. ‘Jules and I were together for a long time, you know. He was my first real love, and that’s always special.’

‘Yes,’ said David.

‘And of course I never had any official status in his life, which made it more difficult. His lodger, that’s all I was.’ His voice had become bitter.

‘You weren’t a member of the congregation, then?’

‘Me? You’ve got to be joking! I have no use for the bloody Church of England.’ His face was as congested with pain as his voice. ‘A church that put up so many barriers between me and the man I loved, that forced us to live a lie just so a load of old biddies wouldn’t have their delicate sensibilities offended! It’s mad – a church that would rather turn a blind eye to its priests cottaging in public loos than encourage them to form stable, loving relationships like the one that Jules and I had.’ He shook his head. ‘Most of the people in Jules’s churches didn’t know that I existed. And it had to be that way. Not because I wanted it to be a secret, but because of their own bloody hypocrisy.’

David was stunned; he framed his next question carefully. ‘If you feel so strongly about the Church, then why have you become involved with another priest?’ And so soon, was the unspoken corollary.

Alistair pressed his lips together, then twisted them into a semblance of a smile. ‘It must seem hardhearted to you, and even calculating. After what I’ve told you about what Jules and I meant to each other. That I could take up with Gil so quickly, I mean. But I didn’t really have much choice.’ He ran his long fingers through his fringe. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,’ he confessed, ‘but somehow it seems like you understand. And I haven’t really had anyone to talk to about Jules. Gil doesn’t like it when I go on about him all the time.’

‘What did you mean, that you didn’t have much choice?’

The young man shrugged, and answered baldly. ‘I had to move out of Magdalen House after Jules died, didn’t I? I was having trouble finding new digs that I could afford. Gil had been offered this new post here in Brighton. He’d always fancied me, even when I was with Jules, so he said I could come along and be his housekeeper.’ He shrugged again, looking down into his tea cup. ‘It’s not so bad. Gil’s all right. We rub along well together. But it’s not like it was with Jules . . .’

‘Why don’t you tell me about Jules, if you feel that you can,’ David suggested gently.

Alistair’s voice changed as he talked about him. ‘Oh, Jules was special, he was. Ask anyone at that bloody church and they’ll tell you the same. A caring man – he got involved with people. He really cared about them, and their problems. And he was good at his job. Conscientious. All that bloody paperwork that some priests can’t be bothered with – he did all that, too. It seemed like he spent half his time doing things that that useless bugger of a vicar didn’t want to deal with.’

‘Father Keble Smythe?’ asked David, smiling at the description.

‘Him.’ His dismissively scornful tone indicated what he thought of the Vicar of St Jude’s and St Margaret’s. ‘Jules wouldn’t hear a word against him, but I thought he was a waste of space. And I know a few things about him, through the Scottish grapevine, that I don’t think he’d want his precious congregation to know. They think he’s some bloody saint or something.’

‘Did Father Julian get on with the churchwardens?’ David probed, mindful of his mission.

‘Oh, aye. Jules got on with everyone. There wasn’t a soul who didn’t like Jules.’ A small smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. ‘And I know what you’re thinking – that I’m just saying that because I loved him. But it’s true. Jules was a grand lad, with a heart as big as a house. Or a church. He loved all those people, just like they loved him.’

And one of them had killed him. The thought popped unbidden into David’s head, but as he articulated it to himself he knew that it was true. One of them had killed him, and made it look like a bungled burglary. The same person who had cut Rachel Nightingale’s life short. What dangerous knowledge had the two curates of St Margaret’s shared? Knowledge so deadly that it had cost both of those loving and gentle people their lives . . .

‘Do you by any chance have a photo of Father Julian that you could show me?’ requested David.

‘Oh, aye. I have to keep them well hidden from Gil, you understand.’ The young man left the room for a minute or two, after providing David with a fresh cup of tea; he returned bearing a heavy photograph album. ‘This goes back a long time,’ he explained, sitting next to David on the sofa. He opened it to the first page and pointed. ‘Here’s Jules. Years ago, when we first met.’ A fresh-faced, happy young man, little more than a youth, grinned at the camera. He had straight dark hair, worn rather long, and honest blue eyes. ‘And here I am.’ A younger version of Alistair, with the same lopsided smile, inhabited the next photo, equally young and equally happy as his friend.

Alistair flipped through the pages of the album, lingering over some pages with nostalgic melancholy, providing occasional explanations or commentary for David when it seemed called for. Most of the photos were of the two young men, separately as they turned the camera on each other, formally posed or candid, and sometimes together when they found a third party to press the shutter. Some of the most hilarious were, Alistair explained, experiments with the camera’s self-timer: the two young men together in absurd and antic poses, with various humorous props. ‘Oh, we did have a grand time,’ he said, and David could believe it.

As the pages progressed, the young men matured. Julian’s face lost some of its fresh innocence, but none of its gentle good humour. Premature threads of grey emerged in his dark hair even before the dog collar appeared. Eventually the grey replaced the dark in almost equal measure, adding a certain air of gravitas that was not at all unattractive.

Then, suddenly, they were at the last page, or at least the last page with pictures on it; a number of blank sheets followed, poignant testimony to holidays never to be taken and occasions never to be shared. ‘Last summer, on our holiday in Scotland,’ Alistair said, his voice bleak. ‘There may be a few more in the camera, as a matter of fact. I haven’t used it since . . . since Jules died.’ No antic snapshot sessions with Father Gilbert, then, David thought. He was moved: Julian Piper looked like a man who would have been worth knowing.

‘Your Jules looks like a lovely man,’ he offered inadequately, but it was enough.

‘I have some other things I could show you, if you were interested,’ Alistair suggested in a tentative way.

David turned to him with eagerness. ‘Yes, of course. I’d like to see anything you’ve got.’

‘Actually, I’ve got all of his things. Most, anyway. His family took a few things, but the house had to be cleared, so I took what was left.’

‘And you have it? Here?’ He tried to control his excitement.

‘In a chest in the loft.’ Father Gilbert again. ‘Most of it wouldn’t mean much to anyone but me, but there are a few bits you might find of interest.’

He disappeared for a few more minutes, returning with an armload of scrapbooks and other ephemera of a life, left behind like a butterfly’s discarded cocoon. Perched on top was an item of even less use than most in the next life, but one upon which David’s attention was immediately fixed. ‘Can I see that?’ he asked eagerly.

‘Oh, aye. I thought you might like to look at his diary.’ Alistair put down his burden and handed David the diary, the date of the previous year stamped in gold on the cover.

As David took it, the clock chimed six. ‘Good Lord, is that really the time?’ he said with a start.

‘I’m afraid so. Gil will be back from saying Evensong soon, so we don’t have long to look at Jules’s bits and pieces. Would you like to join us for supper?’ he added diffidently but sincerely. ‘It won’t be much, but you’re welcome to stay.’

‘Thanks, but I really can’t.’ David checked his watch in disbelief. ‘Listen, would you mind awfully if I used your phone to make an important call? It’s to London, I’m afraid. But my girlfriend doesn’t know where I am.’ It was amazing how easily the word tripped from his tongue once he was used to it.

‘No problem.’ Alistair grinned. ‘Talk as long as you like. The diocese pays the phone bill.’ He led David to the phone in the hall, then withdrew discreetly.

Whatever would Lucy be thinking? David worried as he dialled the number. She would be expecting him home by now. He prepared his apologies as it started to ring. The phone was picked up on the third ring, but it wasn’t Lucy’s voice which answered.

‘Hello?’ said Ruth.

Ruth. Good Lord, thought David, stricken. He’d forgotten all about the enfant terrible. ‘Oh, hello,’ he said casually, deciding to bluff it out. ‘Can I have a word with Lucy?’

‘She’s not here.’ Ruth’s voice was outraged. ‘And I don’t know where she is, either. What’s going on around here? What’s happened to everybody? First you go off and leave me without a word, and then Aunt Lucy disappears. It’s just a good thing that I’ve got a key to this place. My parents aren’t going to be very impressed when I tell them how you’ve neglected me. I waited for you,’ she added accusingly. ‘I waited until half-past five at the office, and then I had to come back here by myself. Anything could have happened to me. I could have been mugged on the Underground, or even murdered, and you wouldn’t have cared.’

No, I wouldn’t have cared, he thought savagely. All he cared about at the moment was Lucy. Where the hell was she?

‘And the cat is starving as well,’ she went on in an excess of gratuitous malice. ‘I’m sure that the RSPCA would like to hear about that.’

‘Just stay there,’ he told her with as much civility as he could muster, which wasn’t a great deal. ‘Fix yourself something to eat. I’ll be home eventually.’

He took a deep breath and tried to apply logic to the situation. Who would know where Lucy was? Emily, he apprehended in a flash of inspiration. If anyone knew where Lucy was, it would be Emily.

Of course he didn’t have the number. But that was one advantage to being in a clergy house: on the desk in the hall, sticking out from under the Brighton phone directory, was a copy of the Church of England Year Book. He pulled it out, opened it to the section on the London diocese, and found the number for the Archdeacon of Kensington.

Emily answered the phone on the second ring. ‘David, thank God,’ she said in a heartfelt voice when he’d identified himself.

His heart rose to his throat. ‘Lucy?’ he choked.

‘Oh, she’ll be all right. But we’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon. Something terrible has happened. I won’t go into it on the phone – I’ll tell you all about it when you get here. But hurry, David. Lucy needs you.’

CHAPTER 24

    Why art thou so heavy, O my soul: and why art thou so disquieted within me?

Psalm 43.5

The trip between Brighton and London had never seemed longer, as David’s fevered imagination ran riot over all the lurid possibilities. Lucy injured, or ill. Perhaps she’d been attacked by someone who knew that she was getting close to the truth about Rachel’s death. That possibility couldn’t be underestimated, he realised: after all, two people had already died to protect whatever secret someone was hiding. Emily had said that it was something terrible. Oh God, what could it be?

He didn’t have much recollection of getting from the clergy house to the station, or indeed of anything after the phone call, but after a time he became aware, sitting on the train, that Father Julian Piper’s diary was still clutched in his hand. Either Alistair had given him permission to take it, or hadn’t realised that he still had it – David couldn’t remember which.

To take his mind off his painful but ultimately fruitless speculations, he opened the diary and flipped through it. It was the sort with a week to a page, so there was little space for detailed annotation. Father Julian, with the busy life that he had obviously led, had developed a kind of shorthand to squeeze as much information as possible into each daily square. David applied his brain to cracking the code.

Some of it was easy. A single ‘M’ quite clearly stood for Mass, as there was one noted for each day, with a time and either ‘SJ’ or ‘SM’: St Jude’s and St Margaret’s, and far more of the latter than the former. A single ‘S’, usually on a Sunday, most likely indicated a sermon. On Saturdays there often appeared a ‘W’ – weddings, thought David. And there were ‘F’s as well, sprinkled throughout. Funerals, both at SJ and SM. Other double letters were probably initials, indicating people with whom he was meeting for pastoral counselling or various other reasons.

Interested in spite of himself, David turned through the months to December. What had Father Julian been doing around the time of his death? He tried to remember the exact day that the priest had died, deciding that perhaps Gabriel hadn’t told him more than that it had been at the beginning of December.

Advent, the start of the Church’s year. The season of penitence as much as of anticipation. ‘Lo, he comes with clouds descending’, but also ‘deeply wailing’, and ‘That day of wrath, that dreadful day’. In the diary, the usual daily ‘M’, an ‘AP’ on the first Sunday – Advent Procession, translated David – and a ‘W’ on the following Saturday. Unusual to have a wedding during Advent, since flowers were not normally allowed in the church, but it wasn’t unknown.

Then his attention was truly caught by a notation on the Friday of that week. ‘VB, 2’, it said, and right under it, ‘NT, 4’. ‘Vera Bright,’ he said aloud, drawing a dubious look from the woman across from him. Father Julian had seen Vera Bright right around the time he had been killed, as Rachel Nightingale had done just before her death. And then, seemingly, he had seen Norman Topping on the same day, before Solemn Evensong.

If he hadn’t been so worried about Lucy, he would have been jubilant. He wondered, though, if Lucy had managed to talk to Vera Bright, and if so what she had found out. This was convincing evidence, if such had been necessary, that Vera Bright might well hold the key to the two curates’ deaths. Galling as it was to admit it, Ruth might have been right in her belief that Vera knew who had killed Rachel. And Father Julian, David added to himself, tucking the diary into his pocket for safekeeping.

Emily met him at the door. ‘She’s all right, really she is,’ she assured him. ‘Just a bit shaken up. But she was in no fit state to be on her own, so I brought her here.’

‘But what happened? Has she been hurt? You said something terrible . . .’

‘Nothing like that. Vera Bright is dead, and Lucy found her body,’ Emily told him bluntly.

David experienced a jumble of conflicting emotions: relief that Lucy wasn’t hurt, dismay about Vera Bright, and a great sense of powerlessness and frustration. ‘Dead?!’

‘Murdered.’

‘Oh, God. Where’s Lucy?’

‘In the drawing room.’

With two strides he was at the door to the room. In the back of his mind David registered the fact that Gabriel was there, and somehow Ruth had appeared as well – presumably Lucy had remembered her and someone had fetched her. But Lucy was the only one he saw. She rose from the sofa as he appeared at the door, her eyes huge in a white face. ‘David,’ she said as he crossed the room to her and crushed her against his chest.

‘Oh, my love,’ he murmured with great tenderness. ‘Lucy, my poor love.’ He didn’t care what Gabriel thought; he didn’t care what Ruth thought. Lucy was all that mattered.

‘Vera’s dead.’

‘Emily said.’

‘Oh, David. It was so horrible. I can’t tell you how awful it was.’ Her body trembled in a convulsive spasm as she remembered the scene vividly once again in every dreadful detail.

He held her tighter. ‘Oh, love. Don’t think about it.’

‘How can I forget it?’ Lucy raised her eyes to his face. ‘I’ll never forget it.’

Emily had held the meal until David’s arrival, so after a while, the twins tucked into bed, they adjourned to the dining room for a simple, subdued meal.

It was inevitable that there should be one primary topic of conversation: Vera Bright’s murder, and the light that it cast on the previous deaths.

There was no question this time of excluding Ruth. She was very much a part of the discussion; in fact, wallowing in guilt, she very nearly stole the limelight from Lucy.

She’d been very quiet for a few minutes before her initial outburst. ‘It’s all my fault,’ she wailed suddenly. ‘I practically killed her myself!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ David snapped, being in no mood for her histrionics.

‘But don’t you see? She’d still be alive now if I hadn’t said what I did after the funeral!’

‘What do you mean?’ Gabriel asked slowly.

‘You were there – you heard me. I told Aunt Lucy that Miss Bright knew who killed Rachel.’

Lucy nodded. ‘I’m afraid that nearly everyone heard you.’

‘That’s just the point! I was so excited that I didn’t realise how loud my voice was, and everyone heard me. Including the murderer, and then he knew that he had to kill her, too. To stop her telling anyone what she knew.’

There was an appalled silence around the table, as everyone acknowledged the probable truth of her reasoning.

‘How could I have been so stupid?’ Ruth said shrilly. ‘I should have known that the murderer would have been there, and would have heard what I said. But I thought it was Dolly Topping, and she wasn’t in the dining room.’

‘Her husband was,’ Emily pointed out. ‘He could have told her quite easily, or so could a number of other people. As you said, you didn’t exactly lower your voice.’

‘Oh, I’ll never forgive myself. Poor Miss Bright – she didn’t deserve to die. She didn’t deserve what I did to her.’

David looked across the table and saw Lucy’s expression of distress. ‘Stop it!’ he said sharply to Ruth. ‘Can’t you see that you’re upsetting your aunt?’

Ruth wasn’t about to let up. ‘At least now everyone will believe that Rachel was murdered,’ she stated. ‘I mean, Miss Bright’s death wasn’t exactly an accident, and no one could say that it was. Now maybe the police will start looking for the murderer.’

Lucy shook her head suddenly. ‘No,’ she said. ‘The police think that Vera Bright was killed by a burglar who’d broken into her house. That’s all they’ll be looking for – a burglar like the one who supposedly killed Father Julian.’

‘Father Julian?’ Ruth hadn’t yet heard about the previous curate. Between them, they explained.

The girl was incensed. ‘You mean that three people have been murdered, and the police still aren’t doing anything?’

‘That’s about the extent of it,’ said Emily.

David stood up. ‘I’m going to ring my contact on the police,’ he announced. ‘I want to see what they have to say about what happened today. Surely they can’t think that it was a burglar.’

He returned a few minutes later. ‘You were right,’ he told Lucy. ‘Her father, the old doctor, insists that it couldn’t have been a burglar, but they’ve dismissed him as a senile old man. The way they reckon it, the burglar came through the back door into the kitchen. Either she was there when he came in, or else she came in from the garden a few minutes later and caught him red-handed. He panicked, grabbed a plastic bag that was lying in the kitchen, popped it over her head, and, as he so colourfully said, “Bob’s your uncle”. Sorry, love,’ he added contritely at the look on her face.

‘It’s all right.’ She gave a brave smile. ‘We have to talk about it, don’t we? It’s clear that the police aren’t going to do anything.’

‘No, they’re not,’ he confirmed. ‘No more than they did for Father Julian.’

‘Or Rachel,’ put in a loyal Ruth.

‘They didn’t really listen to Dr Bright, but what he said made perfect sense,’ Lucy said. ‘He told me – just like he told the police – that Vera never shopped at any of those smart Knightsbridge shops. That may have sounded like an old man’s nonsensical ramblings, but what he was trying to say was that whoever killed her came into the house armed with that carrier bag.’

‘What do you mean?’ Emily asked.

Lucy gulped as she visualised the green bag. ‘The bag that suffocated her came from a shop she never went to, so the murderer must have brought the bag with him.’

‘Or her,’ David amended.

‘Or her. And there was other evidence that she knew the murderer, and probably let him, or her, in herself.’

She had their undivided attention.

‘Her father was taking a nap, so someone might have even rung the bell and come in through the front. Apparently he takes a nap every morning, and probably everyone at the church knows that, so it wouldn’t really be taking any chances to come quite openly while he was asleep. And I believe he’s a bit deaf as well.’

‘But what’s the other evidence?’ demanded Ruth impatiently.

‘The mugs. There were three mugs on a tray, ready for morning coffee – one for me as well, since she was expecting me. But there were also two mugs on the draining board, rinsed out but recently used. I saw them myself, and Dr Bright mentioned it to me later.’

‘Couldn’t they have been left over from their breakfast?’Gabriel asked.

‘Apparently not, according to Dr Bright. He told me that she always washed up and put away the breakfast dishes straightaway. He’d watched her do it this morning, as usual, so those mugs had been used since then.’

‘By Vera and the murderer,’ said Emily slowly. ‘But didn’t he tell the police about the mugs?’

‘Yes, of course he did. More than once, probably. But again, they didn’t understand the significance. They thought that he was just rambling.’

‘So,’ David summed up. ‘It looks as though it’s down to us.’

* * *

It was odd that no one had thought to ask before, but in the drama surrounding Vera’s death it scarcely seemed to matter. Not until they were eating the fresh fruit that served for a dessert did Gabriel enquire, ‘And where were you today, David, by the way?’

‘Brighton,’ David said deliberately, watching Gabriel’s face.

With an effort Gabriel controlled his expression, betraying emotion only with a flicker of his eyelids. ‘Oh?’

‘But that’s the end of the story, really, rather than the beginning,’ David went on. ‘I had lunch at Robin West’s restaurant, and had a little chat with him about Father Julian. He told me, with great relish, that Father Julian had had a lodger at Magdalen House.’

‘Oh?’ This time it was Lucy, giving David a warning look as she kicked him under the table and indicated Ruth with a slight inclination of her head.

But Ruth, peeling a banana, was oblivious both to her aunt’s concern and to the subtext of David’s statement. David looked at Ruth and the banana with equal distaste, but resolved to couch his story in terms that would not offend or corrupt innocent young ears. ‘It turns out that this lodger, a chap by the name of Alistair Duncan, is an unemployed hairdresser, currently living in Brighton and acting as housekeeper for the new Vicar of St Dunstan’s.’

‘A man housekeeper – that’s funny,’ Ruth said scornfully. ‘I don’t suppose he’s very good at it.’

Her comment covered the sound of Gabriel dropping his fruit knife. He picked it up again, hoping that no one had noticed. ‘St Dunstan’s? What a coincidence,’ he remarked in a hearty voice. Turning to Ruth, he explained genially, ‘I was a curate at St Dunstan’s, a long time ago.’

‘Oh, yes?’ She didn’t try very hard to sound interested. It must have been a very long time ago, she thought, since the Archdeacon was now so elderly. Forty, at least. As old as her father.

‘And your Uncle David was there at the same time, as a server.’

‘Don’t call him my uncle,’ she muttered fiercely. ‘He’s not my uncle. He’s living in sin with my aunt, not married to her!’

There was a long, embarrassed silence, then Gabriel turned back to David. ‘So you actually went to St Dunstan’s, then?’

‘To the clergy house.’

‘And how was it?’ Gabriel would have given anything at that moment if he and David could have been alone having this conversation, launching into a reminiscence of old times, reaffirming the ties that had never completely disappeared. As it was, he fought to keep the yearning and the enthusiasm from his voice.

‘Very much the same.’ David’s tone was dry. ‘Though Ruth is right – Alistair Duncan isn’t a very good housekeeper. Everything was a bit dusty and grimy.’

Gabriel produced a chuckle. ‘Wouldn’t old Mrs Ellison turn over in her grave, then?’

That was her name, thought David. ‘I dare say she’s spinning even as we speak.’

Emily was growing impatient with all this nostalgic chat, from which she rightly felt excluded. ‘So what about this Alistair Duncan? Did he tell you anything useful about Father Julian?’

‘Oh, yes. He gave me a great deal of background information, which I won’t go into now,’ he said; the flick of his eyes in Ruth’s direction was immediately understood by the others. ‘And,’ he went on, ‘he gave me Father Julian’s diary for last year.’ With a flourish he produced it from his pocket.

‘His diary!’ Lucy looked up at last from the extended examination of some satsuma peel to which Gabriel and David’s exchange had driven her.

He opened it up to the first week in December. ‘Did you ever tell us, Gabriel, exactly what day he was killed?’

‘It was on a Friday night or Saturday morning at the beginning of December, that first week. He was found in the sacristy on Saturday morning, but they’re not sure exactly what time he died, because of the effect of the cold temperature of the church in delaying rigor mortis,’ the Archdeacon explained with technical precision.

‘Well, that makes it the fourth or the fifth. And look,’ David stated triumphantly, pointing to the entry in the diary. ‘This is what I think is significant. On Friday the fourth of December, Father Julian had an appointment with VB at 2 o’clock. That must be Vera Bright! Don’t you see? Rachel talked to Vera Bright the day before she died, and so did Father Julian!’

Ruth practically bounced up and down in her seat with excitement. ‘So I was right! They both told her something, didn’t they? She did know who killed them!’

‘It certainly looks that way,’ David agreed. ‘And look what else I think is interesting. Right after he saw Vera Bright, he had a meeting with NT. Norman Topping – what do you think of that?’

* * *

Not surprisingly, Lucy didn’t sleep very well that night. Vera’s death, and the circumstances surrounding it, had hit her hard, intensifying the distress that Rachel’s death had aroused in her. She tossed and turned, dozing intermittently, but every time she dropped off it was to a gut-wrenching dream of that outstretched, pathetic hand, a slumped body with a green bag where a head should be, or alternatively the pleading eyes of an old man who begged her, ‘Find out who killed my Vera.’

Vera Bright. Vera Bright. Vera Bright. The name pounded in her head like an unwelcome mantra, impossible to exorcise. In a desperate effort to counteract it, she tried to project her thoughts into the future rather than the past. After all, they were a long way from knowing who had murdered Vera Bright, even if they did know why. And the motive for the other two deaths was still unclear.

What could they do – she do – to find out? She had failed signally, it must be admitted, in the task assigned to her, to talk to Vera Bright. She had been just a little too late, and because of that, Vera had died, and her knowledge with her.

Was there anything else she could do? She had intended, she remembered, to deliver the finished painting to Vanessa Bairstow, and have a chat with her. Vanessa Bairstow, as different as could be imagined from Vera Bright, beautifully coiffed and elegant. Vanessa Bairstow. Vera Bright.

She sat up in bed and shook David’s shoulder urgently. ‘David darling, wake up!’

He had been sleeping rather better than she – he, after all, had not found a dead body that day, but had done some fairly tiring travelling – so it was surprising how quickly he came to life. ‘What’s wrong, love?’

‘Vanessa Bairstow. It might have been Vanessa Bairstow.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Listen, darling. It was natural that you should have thought that Father Julian went to see Vera Bright on the day before he died, since we know that Rachel did. But it could have been Vanessa Bairstow. VB – don’t you see?’

He grasped her point. ‘Oh. But I don’t . . .’

‘And that’s not all. I just remembered something that she said, the first time I met her. She said that she had a new hairdresser, because her old one had just moved to Brighton.’

‘But . . .’

‘We’ve thought about her husband as someone who might be involved in the deaths. But what if she has something to do with it, directly or indirectly?’

‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ David admitted sleepily.

‘I’m not sure how it all fits together, but there could be some connection. I’ll go and see her tomorrow.’ She thought for a moment, then added, ‘But there’s something you can do, as well – you can ring your friend Alistair, and see if he knows anything about Vanessa Bairstow.’

‘All right,’ he agreed, yawning. ‘If you’ll promise to stop worrying about it for now, and try to get some sleep. On second thoughts,’ he amended as she lay back down beside him, ‘I think we could both use a cuddle. Come here, Lucy love.’

She allowed him to take her in his arms, and didn’t resist when his caresses became more insistent, but for the first time in the history of their lovemaking she was just going through the motions; though her body was engaged most pleasurably, her mind was elsewhere, and her heart was gripped in a chill ache that was beyond comfort.

CHAPTER 25

    There is no health in my flesh, because of thy displeasure: neither is there any rest in my bones, by reason of my sin.

    For my wickednesses are gone over my head: and are like a sore burden, too heavy for me to bear.

Psalm 38.3–4

After seeing David and Ruth off to work on Tuesday morning, Lucy washed up the breakfast dishes, fed Sophie, then moved about the house restlessly, feeling that she should be doing something of a constructive nature. The sitting room was a mess: Ruth had left the sofa bed unfolded, so Lucy removed the bedding, folded it up and stashed it in the cupboard under the stairs, then restored the innards to their hidden state inside the sofa. Her niece had also left an assortment of sweet wrappers and empty crisp packets on the table and even the floor. With an unconscious sigh she collected them all up and transported them to the bin in the kitchen, then took a cookery book off the shelf and located a recipe for that evening’s meal.

She went upstairs, took a leisurely hot bubble bath, washed her hair and dried it, got dressed, then went into her studio. Vanessa’s painting was on the easel, completed and ready to be wrapped up and delivered. Lucy was pleased with the painting, and thought that Vanessa would be as well; in keeping with the importance of the occasion which it was to mark, it had been executed on an ambitious scale, and it had worked. She had used Christian motifs, including a variety of crosses, repeated and combined in innovative ways, and the result was pleasing to the eye, devotional without being in any way sentimental.

Lucy looked at her watch. It was late enough to ring Vanessa, so she went into the bedroom to use the phone there.

Vanessa answered promptly, and seemed eager to see both Lucy and the painting. ‘Do you want me to come and fetch it?’ she offered.

‘Oh, no. That’s not necessary. I’ll bring it to you. I can come by taxi.’

‘I can’t wait to see it. And I can’t wait to give it to Martin.’

‘Your anniversary is this weekend?’

‘That’s right. Twenty years.’ Vanessa sighed. ‘It doesn’t seem possible that it’s been that long.’

‘Well, I hope that you’ll both like the painting. Is this afternoon convenient for you?’

‘Of course. Do you want to come around teatime?’

‘That would be nice,’ agreed Lucy. ‘I’ll see you then.’

David rang a short time later, his voice conveying suppressed excitement. ‘You may well be on to something with this Vanessa Bairstow business, love,’ he informed her. ‘I’ve just had a chat with Alistair, and Vanessa was one of his hairdressing clients.’

‘And where does that take us?’

‘He told me something very interesting. He said that women tell their hairdressers things that they’d never tell anyone else, except maybe a psychiatrist or a priest. Do you think that’s true?’

‘Yes,’ said Lucy thoughtfully. ‘Yes, it’s true, in a sense. There’s something impersonal about a hairdresser – they just listen, and don’t really engage with you like a priest would, or a psychiatrist. But I suppose that’s the attraction for a lot of women. A nonjudgemental, listening ear. Something they don’t get anywhere else.’

‘Especially not from their husbands,’ David added with a dry chuckle.

‘Well, exactly. That’s just the point. I’ve heard women sitting in the next chair to me, and whilst the scissors are snipping away they’re chatting on in the most astonishingly intimate detail. The hairdressers never bat an eye. They’ll just say, once in a while, in a bored voice, “Oh, yes, dear? And what did he do then?” It’s amazing. Don’t men do that too, at the barbers’?’

‘You’ve got to be joking, love. The barbers are the ones who do all the talking – every one of them is a self-proclaimed expert on cricket, football, and politics. In fact,’ he said, ‘I think that this country would be in much better shape if we sacked the government and put the barbers in charge.’

Lucy laughed, then recalled the purpose of the call. ‘But what about Vanessa? Does she have a deep dark secret that she confided to her hairdresser?’

‘You’ve got it in one, you clever girl. Did I ever tell you that I adore you?’

‘Once or twice. But what was it?’ she demanded. ‘Did he tell you what it was?’

‘No,’ David admitted. ‘He said that as far as he’s concerned, he’s in the same position as a priest. The sacredness of the confessional, you know. He listens, but he won’t repeat anything that a client tells him. He’d like to help us, he said, but if we want to know, we’ll have to find out some other way. You’ve got to admire his integrity, though it’s as annoying as hell.’

Thoughtfully Lucy twisted a red-gold curl around her finger. ‘But what about Father Julian?’ she asked after a moment. ‘Did he know Vanessa’s secret?’

‘It would seem so,’ David confirmed. ‘Alistair admitted that she’d been to talk to Father Julian – she’d actually come to the house to see him. That’s how Alistair knew the connection, that one of his clients was also one of Julian’s parishioners.’

‘Ah,’ said Lucy. ‘It’s all beginning to make some sense, I think. Anyway,’ she continued briskly, ‘I’m going to deliver her painting this afternoon. So we’ll see what I can find out.’

‘You’re good at getting people to tell you things,’ David encouraged her, adding with a chuckle, ‘And if all other methods fail, can’t you offer to cut her hair?’

Later that afternoon, Lucy balanced the unwieldy painting on the top step and pushed Vanessa’s bell, with a terrible sense of déjà vu from the day before.

Vanessa opened the door a little way, then swung it wide. ‘Oh, hello, Lucy. Come in,’ Her voice, normally deep-pitched and rich, sounded flat.

‘Where would you like me to put the painting? Somewhere in the light, where you can look at it properly?’

She gave an indifferent shrug. ‘It doesn’t matter. Put it anywhere. I’ll look at it later.’ Vanessa turned and walked towards the drawing room, moving woodenly.

Puzzled, Lucy followed her. There was something wrong, she realised quickly: gone was the enthusiasm that Vanessa had shown on the phone that morning. And though Vanessa was dressed as elegantly as always, her face, under its layer of perfect make-up, seemed almost too perfectly arranged.

But whatever was wrong, she remembered her manners, gesturing to a chair. ‘Please, sit down, Lucy. Can I offer you some tea?’

‘If you’re having some.’

Without another word, Vanessa went off to the kitchen, coming back a few minutes later with a tea tray. She set it down carefully on the table, her movements controlled in an unnatural way. ‘Lemon or milk?’ she asked.

Concerned, Lucy stood up and went to her, putting a hand on her arm. ‘Listen, Vanessa. Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Can’t you tell me what it is?’

The other woman tensed, then consciously relaxed. ‘I’ll show you,’ she said in a lifeless voice. Again she turned, and, moving almost like an automaton, led Lucy up the stairs and into a beautifully appointed bedroom – the sort of bedroom that she would have expected Vanessa to have, with lovely Georgian furniture, Colefax and Fowler wallpaper, and coordinating quilted spreads on the twin beds.

‘There,’ said Vanessa, pointing to one of the beds.

Again Lucy experienced a painful sense of déjà vu at the pointing finger, but she forced herself to look. There, stretched on the bed, was a large yellow cat, with no apparent injuries but unmistakeably dead, its limbs extended stiffly and its mouth slightly open. As unmistakeably dead as Vera Bright, thought Lucy with an involuntary shudder.

Vanessa sensed the shudder, and turned to face her. ‘It’s Augustine,’ she said unnecessarily and with studied calm. ‘I found him a little while ago. He’s dead. It looks like poison.’

‘Oh, Vanessa, I’m so sorry!’ With impulsive but genuine empathy and pity, Lucy put her arms around the other woman, feeling her as rigid as the dead cat in her embrace.

This unexpected evidence of human warmth was all it took; in an instant Vanessa was wracked with tearing dry sobs of agony. ‘Oh,’ she gasped. ‘Oh, he’s dead! My baby – he’s dead!’

Lucy knew that it was better for her to cry, healthier to express her grief than to suppress it. ‘Yes, yes,’ she murmured.

Vanessa cried for a long time, clinging to Lucy, the dry sobs giving way to tears which thoroughly soaked Lucy’s shoulder and wrecked her own perfect make-up. Eventually, with an effort, she controlled her sobs and pulled away from Lucy, revealing a face all the more human for the runnels of mascara and the smears of iridescent eye shadow. She reached for a tissue from the bedside table, then sat abruptly on the edge of the other bed, dabbing at her eyes.

‘Who could have done such a thing?’ she said almost to herself.

‘Do you think that someone did it on purpose?’ Lucy asked, horrified. ‘Put down poison?’

‘Oh, yes, I’m sure of it. The neighbours didn’t like Augustine much, you know. They didn’t like the way he killed birds, or . . . you know . . . in their gardens.’ Vanessa wrapped her arms around her body and began rocking, forward and back, on the edge of the bed. ‘But how could they have done it?’ she said softly. ‘The neighbours all have children. But he was all that I had. My darling Augustine, my beautiful cat. He was all that I had to love.’

Lucy knelt beside her. ‘That’s not true,’ she protested. ‘You might not have any children, but you have Martin.’

‘Martin.’ Her laugh was low and without humour as she continued her rhythmic rocking. After a moment she began speaking, softly and quickly, almost as if to herself. ‘He’s never loved me, you know. Not even at the beginning. If he had, surely he would have wanted me to be a true wife to him. It didn’t matter so much to me at first – I loved him so much, and thought that the other would come in time. But later I wanted it – not just because I wanted children, but because I needed to know that he loved me. I wanted to be held, I wanted to be loved.’ She bit her lip, choked, and went on. ‘He never even wanted to try. Whenever I suggested it, he would turn away from me, as if I were something . . . filthy. Unclean. Sometimes I was so desperate that I even got into his bed with him. Usually he just pushed me out. Once or twice he . . . tried. That was the worst.’ She squeezed her eyes shut; tears trickled from their corners. ‘He just couldn’t do it. He didn’t find me attractive, he said. It was my fault.’ Lowering her head, she whispered, ‘I’ve tried so hard to be attractive for him, to make him proud of me, to make him love me, to make him . . . want me. But it’s no good. Now he can’t even bear to touch me.’

Lucy took her hand and pressed it comfortingly; there was nothing she could say.

‘They all think he’s the ideal husband, of course,’ Vanessa went on in a noticeably more bitter tone. ‘All those old women at St Margaret’s. They all envy me – can you believe it? But why shouldn’t they? In public he always treats me like a cherished possession. And why shouldn’t they think he’s wonderful? There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for them – he gives them lifts to church, wires their plugs, prunes their hedges, helps them balance their chequebooks. He has more time for them than he’s ever had for me. Sometimes I wonder what they’d say if they knew what he was really like.’ Her mouth twisted in a sour smile. ‘Sometimes I just feel like standing up in the middle of church and shouting it out: “This man is a fraud – twenty years of marriage and he can scarcely bring himself to touch his wife, or even look at her, let alone make love to her!” What a fine churchwarden he is.’

Then she raised her head and looked at Lucy as though she were seeing her for the first time. ‘Oh, God, what have I done?’ she breathed in an appalled whisper. ‘Please, you mustn’t say anything, and you must never let Martin know that I’ve told you. There’s no telling what he’d do if he found out.’

‘But this isn’t something that you should have to deal with alone. Haven’t you ever talked about it with anyone before?’ Lucy asked, knowing the answer even as the question was spoken.

Vanessa sighed and looked down at her clasped hands. ‘Sometimes I feel desperate, as though I have to tell someone or I’ll burst. Once I tried to say something to Father Keble Smythe, but he didn’t want to know. So I talked to Father Julian. He was wonderful. He made me realise for the first time that Martin is the one with the problem, and that I’m not really as repulsive and . . . unnatural . . . as he always tells me I am, just because I want a normal married life. But then he died. And Rachel. She stopped by to see me a couple of weeks ago. Augustine had disappeared, and I was so upset. I said more than I should, and Martin came home in the middle of it and went mad. He loves playing the part of the perfect husband in front of everyone at St Margaret’s – it would kill him if people knew the truth. Please,’ she repeated with unmistakeable urgency. ‘Please forget that this ever happened. Promise me that you’ll never tell a soul!’

Lucy hadn’t been home long when David and Ruth returned from work. ‘Hello, my love,’ David greeted her, and was pleasantly surprised at the warmth of her welcoming kiss; she’d been more shaken by the day’s events than she was willing to admit.

‘Ugh – gross,’ gagged Ruth, but they’d learned by now to ignore her.

He lifted the lid of the casserole on the hob, sniffed and nodded in approval, then said, ‘How about a drink while you tell us what happened at Vanessa’s this afternoon?’

‘Alcoholic,’ muttered Ruth, but this too they’d learned to ignore.

‘The drink sounds good – supper won’t be ready for a bit. But I’m afraid that I don’t have anything to tell you.’ She flicked her eyes in Ruth’s direction.

‘You mean that you don’t want me to know, don’t you?’ the girl challenged her in a shrill voice. ‘Well, I think that stinks. I’m not a baby – there’s no reason why I shouldn’t know what’s going on! Emily would tell me – I know she would. You’re just being horrible to me on purpose, Aunt Lucy.’

Lucy sighed but said nothing. There was no way that she was going to be bullied into telling Ruth, and by now she’d discovered that arguing with the girl didn’t work – a dignified silence was by far the best approach. At first David had automatically jumped to Lucy’s defence in these encounters, but he too had finally realised that it only made matters worse.

So David had to contain his curiosity throughout supper, and afterwards, when he would have expected Ruth to disappear and leave him to help Lucy with the washing up, the girl stubbornly refused to leave.

While they were washing up – David washing, Lucy drying, Ruth spectating – the phone rang. ‘I’ll get it,’ offered Ruth in a moment of unusual helpfulness.

She was only gone for a few seconds, afraid that they’d say something important in her absence. ‘It’s Emily,’ she announced. ‘She wants to talk to you, Aunt Lucy.’

‘Thanks, Ruth darling.’ Lucy went to the phone in the hall, leaving Ruth looking thoughtful.

With studied nonchalance she said, ‘I think I’m going to go up and take a bath now. Is that all right?’

‘Fine,’ David responded in amazement; it was the first time that he could remember her asking his permission for anything. ‘But there won’t be much hot water at the moment, while we’re washing up.’

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. I like cold baths,’ she said over her shoulder. Her progress up the stairs was stately, but once out of Lucy’s vision she made a dash for the bedroom and lifted the receiver of the extension phone silently, with the expertise born of long practice.

She was in luck: they were still exchanging pleasantries. ‘Well, I’m glad that you’re feeling better today, at any rate,’ said Emily in a concerned voice. ‘That really was a dreadful shock for you, Luce.’

‘I didn’t sleep very well last night,’ Lucy admitted. ‘But the person I really feel sorry for is her father. He’s a bit of a selfish old man, but that’s what makes it so difficult for him. He’ll miss having a live-in slave, I expect.’

They chatted in that vein for a few minutes. ‘Have you made any progress today?’ Emily asked at last.

‘As a matter of fact I have. I realised last night that David was jumping to conclusions when he assumed that “VB” had to be Vera Bright – it might have been Vanessa Bairstow instead.’

‘That was clever of you,’ Emily said approvingly.

‘So today I went to see her – Vanessa. It was pretty horrific. Not on the same scale as yesterday, of course, but I got more than I bargained for.’

‘Well, tell me!’

Lucy paused and Ruth held her breath. ‘I can’t, Em. Not on the phone. It’s not the sort of thing you can talk about on the phone. I’ll see you later in the week and tell you about it.’

‘All right, then.’ Emily accepted it equably. ‘I’m afraid that I don’t have much to report from this end. I decided to get the martyrdom bit out of the way as quickly as possible, so I had Dolly over for coffee, but she didn’t tell me anything that I hadn’t heard from her a dozen times before.’

‘Such as?’

‘Oh, just all the usual twaddle about women priests, and about poor dear Father Keble Smythe, and what a saint he is. Somehow, though, it almost seemed as if she were just going through the motions, as if her heart wasn’t really in it. She seemed almost distracted.’

‘That doesn’t sound like Dolly.’

‘I think,’ said Emily, ‘that she may have family problems of some sort. She said that she couldn’t stay long as she had to get home to her daughter.’

‘I didn’t know that Dolly had a daughter.’

‘Just the one – she’s a teenager, I think.’

‘Oh, well,’ Lucy said with heartfelt conviction. ‘Say no more. Family problems is probably putting it mildly, if that’s the case.’

Ruth scowled and put her tongue out at the phone. But as she scurried to the bathroom to run the taps, she was already beginning to make plans of her own.

It wasn’t until they were in bed that Lucy was able to tell David about her visit to Vanessa. He listened in silence and a large measure of disbelief as she outlined the nub of the Bairstows’ problem.

‘You’re telling me, love,’ he said at last, when she’d finished, ‘that they’ve been married for twenty years, and have never consummated their marriage?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Vanessa Bairstow is a virgin – her husband has never laid a finger on her. Won’t, can’t – I don’t know. I don’t really understand the psychology of it. All I know is that it’s ruined her life.’

‘But surely such a thing isn’t possible!’

Lucy shook her head. ‘It seems almost impossible to believe, but I’ve heard about such cases before. Apparently it’s a lot more common than you’d ever think.’

David put his arm around her and drew her head on to his shoulder, stroking her hair absently. ‘The poor woman.’

‘From what she said, I think that the worst part of it is the damage it’s done to her ego, to her self-esteem. I mean, people can live without sex, even without plain simple human contact. But to have a person – the person that you loved – telling you for years that you weren’t attractive, that you repulsed them, and that there was something wrong with you for wanting a normal sex life – it’s a wonder that she’s managed to keep her sanity.’

David’s mind leapt to the next conclusion before Lucy could tell him. ‘She talked to Father Julian and Rachel about it, didn’t she?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. And now she’s in a real state. Not just because her cat is dead. Not just because her husband won’t touch her.’ Lucy paused to give her next words their full impact. ‘Darling, I’m sure that Vanessa Bairstow is terrified because she thinks that her husband killed them. So that they’d never be able to tell.’

‘Good Lord,’ said David, stunned.

CHAPTER 26

    Behold, I was shapen in wickedness: and in sin hath my mother conceived me.

Psalm 51.5

Ruth worked her plan out carefully, taking into account all variables. The first problem, of course, was getting away from work without arousing anyone’s suspicions. That meant acting in character, so it wouldn’t very well do to try to appear helpful – to offer to run an errand for David’s secretary, for instance. Nor could she pretend to feel ill – they would never send her back to Aunt Lucy’s on her own. In the end she decided that the simplest solution was probably the best: she would just walk out and hope that no one would miss her or raise the alarm.

The second problem was finding Nicola Topping. That proved to be not at all difficult. While Mrs Simmons was away from her desk for a few minutes, Ruth borrowed her phone; ringing Directory Enquiries, she asked for a number for Norman Topping, which was readily supplied. All that was then required was to ring the number, and when Dolly answered, to ask for Nicola. For effect, and to be on the safe side, Ruth altered her voice by lowering it to what she reckoned to be an unrecognisable pitch.

In the event, Dolly was a more formidable obstacle than she’d anticipated, protecting her daughter from unwanted attentions. ‘I’m afraid that Nicola’s not very well. It’s not convenient for her to come to the phone just now,’ she asserted.

‘It’s very important,’ Ruth insisted. ‘I’m in her form at school,’ she added in a burst of inspiration. ‘I know that she’s missed a few days lately, and I need to tell her something about . . . exams. Something she needs to know.’

Dolly paused. ‘What did you say your name was?’

‘It’s . . . Sophie. Sophie King,’ she improvised, thinking of Aunt Lucy’s cat.

‘I don’t remember hearing Nicola mention your name before. You haven’t been to the house with her, have you?’

‘I don’t really know Nicola very well, Mrs Topping,’ Ruth replied ingratiatingly. ‘But I admire her very much.’

‘I’ll call her to the phone, then,’ Dolly relented.

Ruth was elated. This was easy – and fun.

‘Hello?’ came a cautious, expectant voice a moment later.

‘Can your mother hear you? Is she right there?’

‘Yes . . .’

‘Then pretend that you know me. My name is Sophie. I’ll explain as much as I can, if you’ll just go along with me.’

Nicola was a natural. ‘Oh, thanks for ringing, Sophie.’

‘I need to see you. You don’t know me, but it’s about somebody important to you.’

‘I’m not sure. When I’ll be back to school, that is.’

‘When can I see you? Some time today? It’s important,’ Ruth stressed.

‘This afternoon? You’re sure that there’s an exam this afternoon?’

‘I don’t suppose it’s any good me coming to your house, is it? With your mum there?’

‘Well, if you’d like to stop by after school for a few minutes with the revision notes, I’m sure that it would be all right.’

Ruth looked over her shoulder to make sure that Mrs Simmons wasn’t coming back; this was taking longer than she’d expected. ‘And we can talk in private? Would three o’clock be all right?’

‘No problem.’ Displaying considerable ingenuity herself, Nicola went on, ‘You’ve never been to my house before, have you, Sophie? Do you know the address?’ She proceeded to give it. ‘Just a little way along from St Margaret’s Church,’ she added for good measure. ‘I’ll see you later, Sophie. Thanks for thinking about me.’

Nicola was smiling as she put the phone down. ‘Why haven’t you ever mentioned this girl Sophie before?’ Dolly interrogated her suspiciously.

‘Oh, she’s rather new. But she’s really nice, Mum. You’ll like her.’

‘Is she coming round, then?’

‘She offered to bring me some notes that I need for revision, after school this afternoon.’ Nicola said it innocently, as though her mother hadn’t been listening to every word.

‘Well, then. You’d better go and lie down for a while, hadn’t you? Before your friend gets here.’

‘All right, Mum.’ Docilely she went back to her room, hugging her secret knowledge to herself. This time she scarcely minded the sound of the key in the lock as she pulled the covers up to her chin. In a few hours Sophie would be here, bringing a message from Ben. She’d known all along that Ben hadn’t forgotten her, and would manage somehow to get a message through to her, even though she was a virtual prisoner in her own house. The ingenuity of his method, using a girl who pretended to be from her school, surprised and delighted her. She couldn’t wait to meet this Sophie, and to hear Ben’s message of continuing love and support.

At half-past two, Ruth left her pile of documents for photocopying on the machine, extracting a few to serve as dummy revision notes, and calmly walked out of Fosdyke, Fosdyke & Galloway into Lincoln’s Inn, and in a matter of minutes she was on the Piccadilly Line en route to South Kensington. After a short walk from the Tube at the other end, she rang the bell at three precisely, composing her face into an ingratiating smile for Dolly Topping. ‘Hello, Mrs Topping,’ she said sweetly. ‘I’m Sophie King. Nicola is expecting me.’

Dolly looked her up and down. ‘Haven’t you just come from school? Why aren’t you wearing a uniform?’

Ruth’s dismay didn’t register on her face, and she thought quickly. ‘We don’t have to wear uniforms on the days that we have exams. Didn’t Nicola tell you?’

‘I’ve never heard that rule before, I must say.’

Waving the papers in her hand – Dolly would have been surprised, had she inspected them, to discover that they were the middle section of a conveyancing document – Ruth gave a bright, perky smile. ‘Here are the revision notes that I promised to bring for Nicola.’ She held on to them tightly, lest Dolly should offer to take them.

‘Well, all right,’ Dolly capitulated. ‘Nicola is in her room. I suppose you can go and see her there for a few minutes.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Topping. I’ll try not to tire her out.’ Neither Lucy nor David would have recognised this mannerly and considerate child.

Dolly led the way upstairs to Nicola’s room, tapped on the door, and turned the key in the lock on the outside. ‘Your friend Sophie is here,’ she announced. ‘Not too long, now,’ she cautioned Ruth. ‘Remember, Nicola isn’t very well.’

Then she was in the room, and she could hear the key turning in the lock on the other side.

The room was dark, with the curtains pulled and the lights out; it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. She could just make out the bed, with a large form under the duvet.

‘Come over here,’ Nicola whispered in a state of high excitement, heaving herself up in bed.

Ruth moved closer. She could see Nicola now, and was surprised at her size, though perhaps she shouldn’t have been, having met her mother.

Nicola seized her hands and pulled her down to her level. ‘Tell me what he said,’ she said urgently but quietly. ‘Give me the message.’

The other girl’s intensity startled Ruth as much as the unexpected demand. ‘What message?’ she blurted out stupidly.

‘Ben’s message, of course.’

‘Who is Ben?’

‘You don’t have to pretend,’ Nicola assured her. ‘She can’t hear, even if she presses her ear against the door. But if this will make you feel better . . .’ She switched on her bedside radio, which was tuned to Radio 1, and turned the volume up. ‘Now we can talk. Tell me what Ben said.’

‘But I don’t know any Ben,’ insisted Ruth.

‘If you don’t know Ben,’ Nicola said slowly, fixing her with feverish and rather beautiful eyes, ‘then who are you? And what are you doing here?’

Ruth knelt down beside the bed; her voice matched the other girl’s in intensity. ‘I’m here because of Rachel – Rachel Nightingale. Miss Bright told me that you cared about Rachel.’

Nicola’s eyes grew wider, and her mouth opened in a soundless ‘O’. ‘But she’s dead,’ she whispered. ‘Rachel is dead.’

‘Yes, and I’m trying to find out who killed her!’ Ruth blurted out passionately. ‘Rachel was wonderful, and I don’t want them to get away with it! The police don’t care. She didn’t die by accident. I’ve got to find out who killed her!’

Nicola flung herself down on the bed and turned her back to Ruth. ‘No,’ she said, her voice muffled in her pillow. ‘Just leave it.’

‘I can’t leave it, and neither can you. Not if you cared about Rachel.’ There was no response, so Ruth leaned over the recumbent girl and added a little more loudly, ‘And there was Father Julian, as well. Did you know Father Julian? Did you know that someone murdered him?’

Covering her ears with her hands, Nicola spoke stonily. ‘Just go away. I won’t listen to you.’

Roughly Ruth pulled a hand away and spoke close to the other girl’s ear. ‘And now someone has killed Miss Bright.’

‘No!’ Nicola turned to face her, her eyes huge in her paper-white face. ‘You’re making that up!’

‘On Monday morning,’ Ruth said deliberately. ‘Someone went to her house, and killed her. So that she wouldn’t tell what she knew about who murdered Rachel and Father Julian.’

‘Oh my God.’ Tears brimmed in the luminous eyes, spilling over and running down the full cheeks. ‘It’s true, isn’t it? Mum didn’t tell me.’

‘It’s true, all right.’ For emphasis, or out of wilful cruelty, she told her, ‘They went into her house and smothered her with a carrier bag.’

‘Oh God.’ Nicola covered her face with her hands. ‘I liked Miss Bright.’

‘So did I. Don’t you see, then, that you’ve got to help me? You’ve got to tell me what you know!’

‘Don’t you see – you’ve got to get out of here, and don’t ever come back.’ Nicola’s voice dropped to a whisper in volume but lost none of its vehemence. ‘I’m cursed,’ she said, with the extraordinary egocentricity of the young. ‘All the people I talk to end up dead. Don’t you see – it’s all my fault! They’d all still be alive if it weren’t for me!’

Ruth tried to take it in. ‘What on earth are you saying?’

‘It’s God’s punishment on me for disobeying my parents.’ The tears trickled faster; she reached for a tissue.

‘What a load of rubbish!’ declared Ruth in a robust whisper.

‘No – I promise you it’s true! I talked to Father Julian, and he died. Then I talked to Rachel and she died. And now Miss Bright!’

‘They didn’t just die – they were murdered!’

Nicola gave her head a hopeless shake. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Of course it matters!’ Ruth leaned down so that her face was only an inch or two from the other girl’s. ‘You’ve got to tell me what you know – you’ve got to. You owe it to Rachel.’

For a moment it hung in the balance, as Nicola stared into Ruth’s eyes. Then she made up her mind. ‘Yes, all right,’ she said quietly. ‘If you really want to know, I’ll tell you.’

She did just that, concisely and unemotionally, over the next quarter of an hour, until the sound of the key turning cut her off in mid-sentence. Instantly she composed her face into a smile, which she turned towards the door as her mother entered.

‘Don’t you think that this gossip session has gone on long enough?’ Dolly Topping said in a jolly voice. ‘I, for one, think that it has.’

‘Sophie’s just been telling me about everything that’s been happening at school while I’ve been . . . sick,’ Nicola explained lightly. ‘You wouldn’t believe some of her stories.’

‘Would you girls like a cup of tea?’

Ruth looked at her watch. ‘Thanks awfully, Mrs Topping, but I really must be going. My mum will be expecting me.’

Dolly saw her to the door, then returned to Nicola’s room with her daughter’s tea. ‘What a nice, polite girl,’ she commented. ‘You must have her round again, when you’re feeling better.’

Bursting with her news, Ruth went straight to Lucy’s house. She let herself in with her key, to find her aunt in the sitting room curled up on the sofa, feet up, sipping a cup of tea.

Lucy, who had been listening to Choral Evensong on Radio 3, looked up, startled at the girl’s precipitate arrival. ‘Ruth! Whatever are you doing here? What’s wrong? Where’s David?’

‘Oh, never mind him,’ the girl said impatiently. ‘He’s still at work, for all I know. Or care. But, Aunt Lucy – wait till you hear what I’ve found out!’

‘Does he know that you’ve come home by yourself?’ Lucy persisted.

‘No, I just walked out. But that doesn’t matter. I’ve just been—’

‘He’ll be worried sick, then. I’d better ring him and tell him that you’re home safely.’

‘All you care about is him.’ Ruth’s voice lost its excitement, became shrill and aggrieved. ‘I’ve got something important to tell you, and you won’t even listen to me.’

For once Lucy was firm. ‘Whatever it is, it can wait until David gets home. I’m going to ring him now. And you’d better have a jolly good reason for doing what you’ve done, young lady!’ she added with unaccustomed severity.

Unchastened and unrepentant, Ruth helped herself to Lucy’s biscuits while her aunt went out to use the phone.

David hadn’t missed her, he was chagrined to admit – to himself if not to Lucy. If he had been aware of the unusual tranquillity around the offices, he had accepted it gratefully – after all, if you went looking for trouble, you usually found it. So he’d stayed at his desk and enjoyed the brief if unexplained respite from Ruth’s astringent presence.

After Lucy’s call he came home straightaway, though; partly to propitiate his guilt and partly to assuage his curiosity. She had said that Ruth had found out something important: what on earth could it be?

The girl was in a fever of impatience by the time they’d all gathered in the sitting room. ‘I’ve been to see Nicola Topping,’ she burst out.

‘Nicola Topping? Who on earth is she?’ demanded David.

‘Dolly Topping’s daughter, of course.’ She glared at him scornfully. If she’d dared, she would have added ‘stupid’, as she would have done with her brothers.

‘How did you know that Dolly Topping had a daughter?’ Lucy asked.

‘Miss Bright told me. And she told me that she’d been close to Rachel, though her mum didn’t know it. So when you said that Father Julian had had an appointment with someone called NT, I thought that it might have been Nicola instead of her father.’

David, though secretly impressed by her deductive powers, was not amused. ‘Why on earth didn’t you say?’

‘Because,’ she muttered rebelliously, ‘you were keeping things from me. So I decided to investigate it on my own. Then you’d be sorry that you didn’t tell me everything. And,’ she went on, her level of excitement rising again, ‘I managed to see her. I was really clever – I pretended that I was a friend from school, so that her mother would let me in the house to see her. And she talked to me! She told me everything!’ Ruth paused momentously. ‘So now I know who killed Rachel. And Father Julian, and Miss Bright.’

It was a poignant story, all the more heartrending for being narrated by someone who was still almost a child, as told to her by another who was very little older. Lucy and David listened, appalled yet fascinated, as Ruth related Nicola’s tale.

In love with a boy of another race, against her mother’s implacable – though not unexpected – opposition, Nicola Topping had confided in Father Julian Piper. Father Julian had been sympathetic, even to the extent of promising to marry the two young people when they reached eighteen and no longer needed their parents’ consent. But after Father Julian’s death, the girl had been without a confidante until the new curate had arrived at St Margaret’s.

She’d lost no time in baring her soul to Rachel Nightingale. Rachel, too, had been sympathetic but cautious of becoming involved, given the virulence of Dolly’s hatred for her. ‘Wait until you’re eighteen,’ she had advised with prudence.

Desperate to take some sort of action, to seize the initiative from her mother, Nicola had deliberately become pregnant, believing that her parents would then have to allow her marriage. She had underestimated her mother. ‘You’re not marrying that wog,’ Dolly had declared implacably. ‘And you’re not presenting me with a half-breed grandchild. It’s out of the question.’

On the last afternoon of Rachel’s life, a frantic Nicola had gone straight from school to see her, pouring out her fearful dilemma. Her parents hadn’t relented, the marriage would not be allowed, and now there was the added complication of the baby to consider. What should she do? Her mother – that highly principled woman whose latest ideological involvement was with an anti-abortion group – was insisting that the pregnancy be terminated, secretly and at once. Nicola was resisting, and seeking support for her resistance. Rachel, feeling that her support would be counterproductive as far as the girl’s parents were concerned, advised her to talk to Vera Bright, a woman to whom the senior Toppings might listen. On Nicola’s return home from Rachel’s there had been a terrible scene – the worst yet. She’d admitted her visit to Rachel; her mother had been livid.

And then Rachel was dead. Nicola, overcome with grief and guilt, had taken Rachel’s final advice and had gone to see Vera Bright a few days later. There, in an emotional encounter, she had discovered why Rachel had sent her to that particular person.

She’d poured out her dilemma to the older woman, and had begged her to tell her what to do. ‘Don’t let them bully you,’ Vera had insisted forcefully. ‘Don’t let them ruin your life.’ Then, amidst tears on both sides, she had revealed her own story.

The Romeo to Vera’s Juliet had been an American airman, in those long-ago wartime years. They had wanted to be married; her parents had been adamant in their opposition. ‘No daughter of ours is going to marry a foreigner and go off to some foreign country to live,’ Dr Bright had stated immovably. Like Nicola, young Vera had seen pregnancy as an escape route. It had seemed foolproof: in those days, unwed motherhood was a stigma too terrible to contemplate, and abortion was illegal. Her parents would have to consent to the marriage, or face public shame.

Vera had underestimated her father, as Nicola had underestimated her mother. Fate had played a role, as well: tragically, Gerry Hansen had been shot out of the sky before he even knew that he was to become a father. And Dr Bright had performed the abortion himself.

In the long years following, he had never let his daughter forget how she had disgraced him, or missed an opportunity to remind her of her indebtedness to him. ‘You’ve made your bed, girl, and now you’ll lie in it,’ he’d been fond of saying, whenever making some particularly unreasonable demand. But the life had gone out of Vera with Gerry Hansen’s death, and the loss of her baby. Her mother had died not long after – of shame, Dr Bright had insisted – and Vera had almost willingly embraced the life of servitude to a selfish old man’s whims.

But she hadn’t wanted to see Nicola take the same path; it was almost as if, in Nicola, she was being given a second chance to redeem her own folly. ‘I’ve ruined my life. You mustn’t ruin yours,’ she’d insisted, adding, ‘And that baby’s.’

Galvanised into strength by Vera’s support, Nicola had returned home to do battle for her baby’s life. But over the nightmarish days that followed, locked in her room and on starvation rations, she’d been gradually worn down until, at last, crushed into submission by her mother’s iron will, she’d had the abortion. Quickly, quietly. In a private clinic in the country, where the Toppings weren’t known. Then back to her locked room for recuperation, insulated by her mother from the outside world, from news of Vera’s death, from Ben. From everything, until a persistent girl who called herself Sophie had managed to penetrate the fortress and reach her in her misery and her guilt. Guilt upon guilt. Guilt about the baby, about Father Julian, about Rachel. And now about Vera Bright as well.

As Ruth drew near the end of the story, Lucy found that she’d been holding her breath. She let it out consciously in a sigh, then bowed her head, her hands still clenched.

‘So did she actually tell you that her mother had killed them?’ David demanded when she’d finished. ‘Rachel, Father Julian, and Vera Bright?’

‘Well, no,’ Ruth admitted. ‘She didn’t have a chance to tell me – her mother came in the room before we got that far. She was just telling me that she’d heard her mother go out on Monday morning, when Miss Bright was murdered. And that her mother shops in Knightsbridge. But I’m sure that it was Dolly Topping who killed them, because they’d tried to help Nicola. And I know that Nicola thinks so, too – otherwise why would she feel so guilty?’

There were dimensions of guilt and variations of guilt that Ruth, in her youth and arrogance, couldn’t begin to comprehend, David realised, feeling tremendously old. He took Lucy’s hand and squeezed it, then addressed himself to her rather than to Ruth. ‘Well, love. What do we do now?’

Ruth was furious. ‘What about me? I’m the one who’s done all the work! Why are you always trying to leave me out?’

CHAPTER 27

    I will receive the cup of salvation: and call upon the Name of the Lord.

Psalm 116.12

‘Two more days,’ was the first thing that David said on Thursday morning, even before he’d opened his eyes. ‘I think we’re going to make it, love.’

Lucy wasn’t quite awake yet. ‘Hm?’

‘I said that I think we’re going to make it. We only have two days in which to restrain ourselves from wringing her neck. Forty-eight hours and a bit.’

‘What a lovely thought.’ She turned over and burrowed her face into her pillow, then remembered the day before and was suddenly wide awake. ‘Seriously, darling,’ she said in a completely different tone of voice. ‘What are we going to do now? About the things that we’ve found out?’

‘I’m not sure,’ David confessed. ‘We’ve never been in quite this position before, have we? We can’t just go marching up to the police and tell them that we’ve solved three murders for them.’

‘We haven’t exactly solved them,’ she protested. ‘And anyway, I think that we should take it slowly and carefully, don’t you?’

‘There’s no hurry, as far as I can see,’ he agreed. ‘I think we should definitely wait until Ruth is gone before we do anything at all.’

‘That will make her furious.’

He smiled. ‘I know.’

‘You’re terrible,’ she giggled.

‘I know that too, and you love me for it.’

‘Or in spite of it.’ There followed a few undignified moments in which tickling played a prominent part, but after they settled down and stopped laughing David returned to the subject again.

‘At any rate, Lucy love, we’re meant to be seeing Gabriel and Emily again on Saturday. Ruth will be safely out of the way by then, so that should be time enough to decide where we take it from here. After all, it was Gabriel who got us into this in the first place. So I think we’d be justified in throwing it back into his lap. Just tell him what we’ve learned, and let him deal with it. He’s the Archdeacon, as he’s so fond of reminding us.’

‘Yes . . .’ Lucy turned her back to him. ‘Do we have to go?’ she said quietly into her pillow. ‘To see them on Saturday, I mean?’

‘But why ever not, love?’

He had to strain to hear her answer. ‘I hated it the other night. I hated the way that you were flirting with Gabriel.’

David was astonished. ‘Me? Flirting with Gabriel? That’s absurd!’

‘All right, then. He was flirting with you, and you let him.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ He wasn’t defensive, only puzzled. ‘Why on earth would you think such a thing?’

‘All that talk about old times, about Brighton and St Dunstan’s. How was I supposed to feel, David?’

He leaned over so that he could see her face. ‘I honestly don’t know what you’re going on about, my love. There was absolutely nothing in it, as far as I was concerned. And as far as Gabriel was concerned as well, I’m quite sure. He’s a happily married man, and I’m a . . . well, what would you call me? Since you refuse to make an honest man of me?’ He put on such a comically mournful expression that Lucy couldn’t help giggling, and it soon degenerated into further tickling and other forms of intimate activity.

David had an idea over breakfast; he broached it to Lucy while Ruth was still in the shower. ‘Were you doing anything special this afternoon?’ he asked as a preliminary.

‘Nothing in particular. I’ve got a commission that I should be getting on with, for Joan Everitt, but it’s not pressing. Why? Did you have something in mind?’

‘Well, I thought that it might be nice for you to take the enfant terrible out to lunch, on her nearly-last day.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Lucy sounded sceptical. ‘In other words, you want to get rid of her.’

He gave her a shamefaced grin. ‘Well, that is part of it, of course. And I’ve got an important client to see at lunchtime, which means that I’ll have to lumber my secretary with her again, otherwise. But I did think that it would be a good idea – after all, love, you and Ruth haven’t had much time together, just the two of you, since she’s been here.’

‘That’s true,’ Lucy admitted. ‘She’d probably like to have me to herself for an hour or two.’

The idea developed further. ‘You could take her shopping afterwards, if you liked.’

‘So you’d be rid of her for even longer.’

‘Well, yes. But she’d enjoy it, more than what she’d be doing at the office. Take her to Covent Garden and buy her something. I’ll give you some money.’

‘Oh, so now you’re offering me bribes to take my niece off your hands.’ Lucy tried to look cross, but a smile twitched at the corner of her mouth.

David was beginning to get enthusiastic about the plan. ‘She should really buy something to take home to her parents,’ he went on, developing it further. ‘Something from F and M would be nice. Some special tea, or perhaps chocolates. I could meet you there at teatime, give the two of you a nice Fortnum’s tea.’

‘You’ve talked me into it,’ Lucy laughed. ‘I can never resist a Fortnum’s tea.’

Lucy came by Fosdyke, Fosdyke & Galloway to collect Ruth as arranged, at about half-past twelve, stopping in only long enough to say hello to David. Things augured well for a less stressful afternoon than might have been expected: Ruth had actually expressed enthusiasm for the plan, and seemed to be looking forward to an afternoon of having her aunt to herself, at least until teatime. She had been almost pleasant that morning, perhaps still savouring her clever triumphs of the previous day.

Still, David wasn’t sorry to see her go. His afternoon passed quickly, with two important meetings and a great deal of paperwork to be got through.

He took the Central Line to Bond Street and walked down towards Piccadilly; having allowed plenty of time to get through the early rush-hour traffic, he found himself in Old Bond Street with several minutes to spare. Suddenly he remembered his intention to call into Christie’s to look at the catalogue for their sale of ecclesiastical items; it seemed a good time to do that.

There was only time to flick through it cursorily, but it looked interesting, so David bought a copy for a later, more detailed perusal, then progressed on towards Fortnum & Mason.

Lucy and her niece, laden down with carrier bags, were already waiting for him in the tearoom. They both seemed in high good humour; evidently their afternoon together had been a great success, and had gone a long way towards re-establishing the bond between them.

They were seated; David said grandly, ‘I think we’ll have the lot, don’t you? Sandwiches, scones, and cakes.’

‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Ruth.

‘Of course.’ Lucy nodded. ‘Now this is what I call civilised,’ she added, indicating the string quartet.

‘We’ve had such fun,’ Ruth told him. ‘We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch – it was brilliant.’

‘Oh, was it?’ David glanced at Lucy; she resolutely refused to catch his eye. ‘Had hamburgers, did you?’

Oblivious, Ruth rattled on. ‘I did. Aunt Lucy had a salad. And then we went to Covent Garden. That was super. There was a bloke there who was walking on his hands. And another one who was standing like a statue, dead still, and people tried to get him to move.’

‘Did you buy anything?’

‘Oh, yes. Aunt Lucy bought me some earrings, and then I found this wonderful hat. Didn’t you notice?’ She indicated the floppy black velvet which was perched atop her red curls.

‘Very nice,’ David acknowledged, realising to his shock that she was almost pretty when she smiled, in spite of the flashing hardware; it wasn’t a phenomenon that he’d had very much chance to observe.

‘And there was a cute teddy bear, but I decided against it. I thought that it was probably too babyish. But I bought some things for my brothers – some wooden toys. And in one of the shops I got some pipe tobacco for my father. And when we got here, I bought some special tea for my mum.’

The food arrived, and Ruth tucked in happily – appropriating all of the smoked salmon sandwiches, to David’s secret sorrow.

‘Aunt Lucy,’ she said, ‘I want your opinion about this hat. Now honestly, does it look better with the flower in the front, like this, or on the side, like that? What do you think?’

While Lucy gave careful consideration to the question and its ramifications, David picked up the Christie’s catalogue and leafed through it casually. He turned a page, stopped, and went back. ‘Good Lord,’ he said. His voice was calm, but his mind was racing nearly as fast as his heart.

‘What is it?’ Lucy looked across the table.

‘Here.’ He held it up for her to see. ‘For sale at Christie’s. It’s the chalice from St Margaret’s.’

* * *

It was the one thing that they’d forgotten, David admitted to Gabriel later: the missing chalice. That it was no small omission he also admitted, with some chagrin. The chalice, it was to be assumed, had been taken at the time of Father Julian’s murder to give the appearance of a burglary; it followed that the person who had taken the chalice had also killed Father Julian. And two other people as well. The chalice was the evidence they needed to catch the murderer – suspicions were all very well and good, but they needed something more concrete than suspicions to take to the police. They needed the chalice, or at least the name of the person who had taken it.

Admittedly, the police hadn’t looked very hard for the chalice either. They had checked the usual outlets for stolen goods, Bermondsey Market and Portobello Road; they had circulated a vague description which might have applied just as well to a thousand other chalices.

Who would have thought that it would have turned up at Christie’s? The catalogue description was admirably accurate. ‘Silver gilt. Hallmarked John Hardman and Co., 1850. Thought to be a very early design by A. W. Pugin,’ it said. The reserve price was £15,000.

Of course David raced back to Christie’s as soon as they’d finished their tea. Not surprisingly, at the end of the day, there was no one there who could give him any information about the person who had put the chalice into the sale. ‘I’m very sorry, sir, but you’ll have to come back in the morning,’ said a very junior functionary. ‘You can check with our sales desk at that time. They may be able to help you.’ He didn’t sound very hopeful about the prospect.

CHAPTER 28

    With the holy thou shalt be holy: and with a perfect man thou shalt be perfect.

    With the clean thou shalt be clean: and with the froward thou shalt learn frowardness.

Psalm 18.25–26

‘I’m going with you,’ Lucy said at breakfast on Friday morning, in a tone that would admit no argument. ‘You’re not leaving me behind.’

‘Me, too.’ Ruth’s jaw stuck out at a pugnacious angle.

David wasn’t sure that it was a good idea, but he could tell when he was outnumbered, and surrendered gracefully. ‘Suit yourselves.’

They arrived at Christie’s shortly after its opening, and went straight to the sales desk. An officious-mannered young man with more teeth than chin came forward to peer down his nose at them through hornrimmed spectacles. ‘Can I be of help?’ he enunciated in the most exaggeratedly self-conscious public school accent that David had ever heard.

David produced the catalogue along with his most imperious manner; this was not the time or the place for diffidence, he’d decided instantly. ‘I do hope so. I’d like to know the name of the person who placed this item – the chalice – into your sale, please.’

‘Out of the question,’ the young man said with satisfaction. Saying no, and finding pretentious ways of saying it, afforded him his greatest pleasure in life. ‘That information is of course classified.’

Briefly and fancifully considering whether he might not invite Ruth to sink her armoured teeth into the young man’s tweedy leg, like the red-headed Rottweiler that she was, he decided to pull rank instead. ‘We’ll see what Sir Crispin Fosdyke has to say about that,’ David stated, matching supercilious with supercilious. ‘He is on your Board of Directors, I believe?’ From his pocket he produced a business card and extended it with the ‘Fosdyke, Fosdyke & Galloway’ logo in prominent view.

It was the right thing to say. Instantly the young man’s manner changed; he became almost fawningly obsequious. ‘Oh, well of course if it’s for Sir Crispin, that puts an entirely different light on things. I’m so sorry. You should have said.’ He nearly bowed, backing off into the nether regions. ‘I won’t be a moment, sir.’

And indeed he was back quickly, with a card. ‘Here’s the information you require, sir. I’ve written it down for you.’

He’d been thorough. It was the name of an antique dealer, along with the address of his shop in Kensington Church Street. David knew the shop, though he didn’t think he’d ever been inside: it was small but reputable, and not given, so far as he knew, to dealing in items of stolen church plate.

‘Thank you very much indeed,’ he said magnanimously. ‘Sir Crispin will be pleased to hear that you’ve been so helpful. And so cooperative.’

‘My pleasure, sir. And do convey my very warmest regards to Sir Crispin.’ He ducked his head.

In a moment they were back in Bond Street; David thought hard as he hailed a taxi. ‘Lincoln’s Inn,’ he told the taxi driver.

Ruth insisted on sitting backwards on the little fold-down seat. ‘Why are we going to the office?’

‘You are going to the office,’ he stated firmly. ‘Out of harm’s way.’

Her face became a thundercloud. ‘But I don’t want to. I want to go with you and Aunt Lucy. You can’t leave me out of this now. Now that it’s getting exciting!’

David refused to discuss it. He folded his arms and leaned back, ignoring her tirade. When they reached Lincoln’s Inn, he instructed the taxi driver to wait. ‘You stay here,’ he told Lucy. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

‘You can’t do this to me!’ Ruth howled as he seized her arm and marched her into the offices.

‘Don’t make a scene,’ he ordered; perhaps the rarefied atmosphere of Fosdyke, Fosdyke & Galloway had something to do with it, but for once she obeyed him. She clamped her lips together to suppress an outraged sob, pulled her arm away from his grasp, and stalked in front of him with her head held high.

‘Keep an eye on her,’ he instructed Mrs Simmons, who quailed inwardly at the assignment. ‘Give her something to do. I’ve been called away on a matter of urgent business, but I’ll be back as soon as possible.’

‘You don’t need to worry about me,’ Ruth called after him with bitter dignity. ‘I’ll be just fine.’

At the tail end of the morning rush hour their progress was reasonable, but in David’s impatient state it seemed to take an age to get to Kensington Church Street. Watching the meter, he had the money ready, paid the driver quickly, grabbed Lucy’s hand and hurried to the shop.

He pushed the buzzer and the door opened in response by some remote-controlled magic, but it was some time before anyone appeared. Lucy inspected a tray of Victorian jewellery in a case, while David tapped his foot by the small desk in the corner. It was an old-fashioned sort of shop, with none of the appurtenances of modern commerce such as fax machines and cash tills – computerised or otherwise – and it contained an amazing quantity of items in a very small space. The shop specialised in decorative items, silver and jewellery rather than furniture. But everything in the shop, David apprehended quickly, was of the very highest quality, with prices to match. No junk, no knick-knacks, no jumble of dusty white elephants. Just a great many beautiful things displayed lovingly, if cheek-by-jowl. It told him something about the proprietor of the shop, and he realised even before the man appeared that the approach he’d taken with the young man at Christie’s would not work here. Nor would the alternative approach that he’d considered during the taxi journey: veiled threats to report him for dealing in stolen goods if he refused to cooperate. A far more subtle touch would be required here. He slipped the Christie’s catalogue back into his briefcase.

The William Morris tapestry curtains at the back of the shop parted and a face peered out, followed by a body. David expected it to be one of the dimwitted young twits usually employed in such places, seemingly with the sole function of screening out and dealing with casual browsers so that the proprietor could concentrate on the serious customers. But the man who appeared was on the verge of – though not quite – being elderly, small with a trim grey beard, and dragged one leg with a pronounced stiff-legged limp: clearly the proprietor himself. ‘Oh, good morning. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but I was on the phone, and my assistant isn’t in today.’ His voice was courteous and precise, and he sized them up expertly without seeming to do so. ‘Are you looking for something in particular? Some jewellery for the lady, perhaps?’

‘Yes,’ said David, inspired. Just the thing, he thought. ‘I’d like to buy something special for her.’

‘I can see that she’s a very special lady,’ the man said with a gallant little bow. He moved towards the case that Lucy was inspecting. ‘I’m Mr Atkins, by the way. I like to be on a personal basis with my customers. And you’re . . . ?’

‘Mr Middleton-Brown, and this is Miss Kingsley.’

‘Ah. Perhaps you were looking for a ring, Mr Middleton-Brown?’ He raised his eyebrows in a significant way.

David looked at Lucy questioningly: not daring to ask, not daring to hope.

She didn’t meet his eyes, but gave her head an infinitesimal shake.

‘No, not this time,’ he told Mr Atkins, unable to keep the disappointment from his voice. ‘Could you suggest something else?’

The little man put his head to one side and gave Lucy the benefit of his professional consideration. ‘With her beautiful colouring, and that lovely hair, I think that a nice cameo would be just the ticket.’

She smiled. ‘I love cameos.’

‘Then you shall have one, my love. Do you see any here that you fancy?’

Mr Atkins leaned forward and spoke in a confidential tone. ‘I have something quite special in the back. Would you like to see it?’

David assented, and with painful slowness the man limped off to his curtained hideaway; he was away for several minutes, during which David had leisure to reflect on the advantages of cultivating patience. ‘I can see that this is going to take all morning,’ he muttered to Lucy.

‘Here it is. I’ve found it.’ The cultured voice preceded the corporal being in issuing from behind the curtain. ‘I think, Mr Middleton-Brown, that you’ll agree this was worth waiting for. I had it tucked away, waiting for just the right person to come along.’ Eventually he reached the case, spread out a black velvet cloth, and arranged the cameo on it so that David and Lucy could see it to full effect. ‘What do you think? Isn’t it exquisite?’

It wasn’t large or ostentatious, but it was beautifully carved, and surrounded by an intricate filigree of fine gold wires, suspended from a delicate gold chain. ‘Oh, yes,’ said Lucy. ‘It’s lovely.’

‘Would you like to try it on?’ Mr Atkins limped off in pursuit of a mirror, Lucy lifted her hair out of the way, and David carefully fastened the clasp at the back of her neck. ‘Oh, it suits you very well,’ Mr Atkins declared, nodding his approval. ‘Just the thing, with your long neck, and that beautiful hair.’ He held the mirror up for her.

Lucy smiled her pleasure, and David caught the other man’s eye. ‘Thank you, Mr Atkins. It’s perfect.’

With admirable discretion Mr Atkins presented him with a slip of paper on which he’d written the price. David nodded and reached in his pocket for his chequebook.

‘Is there anything else I can do for you today, Mr Middleton-Brown? Something for yourself, perhaps? I have a very nice set of cuff links that came in just yesterday.’

Uncapping his pen, David said casually, ‘Actually, I’m rather interested in ecclesiastical silver. Do you have anything like that, perhaps in the back room? I don’t see any pieces on display.’

Mr Atkins scratched his head and gave the matter some thought. ‘I don’t think I do have anything at the moment, actually. It’s a rather specialised market, you know. There’s never any problem selling candlesticks, of course – they walk out of the door as soon as I put them on display. And occasionally people buy incense boats to use as sugar bowls, if you can believe it. But things like thuribles and chalices have a very limited appeal to the average man in the street. I don’t very often buy that sort of thing.’ He lowered his voice to a confidential tone, though there was no one else in the shop. ‘I did have a beautiful piece, not long ago. A Pugin chalice. Very rare. Quite early. Silver gilt.’

David effected to look just a bit more than politely interested. ‘I would have liked to have seen that.’

‘Actually,’ said Mr Atkins, ‘I’ve put it into Christie’s. Perhaps you’ve seen the catalogue – the sale is coming up soon.’

‘No, I haven’t been into Christie’s for a while.’

‘I’ve got a copy of the catalogue here somewhere.’ There followed another frustratingly extended interval wherein Mr Atkins disappeared behind the curtains and conducted a search. ‘Yes, here it is.’ Slowly he returned and held it open for David to see the photograph.

All of David’s acting skills were called upon now. He looked, then started and moved in for a closer look. ‘Do you mind?’ he said, taking the catalogue from Mr Atkins and carrying it to the light.

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ the shop’s proprietor asked rhetorically.

‘Mr Atkins.’ David looked up at the other man, a puzzled frown creasing his brow. ‘Might I ask you where you obtained this chalice?’

Mr Atkins cleared his throat. ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. My business depends on my absolute discretion in matters like this – I’m sure you understand.’

‘What would you say,’ David pressed him, ‘if I told you that this chalice was stolen property?’

The other man choked; his voice came out in an uncharacteristic squeak. ‘Stolen? But that’s impossible.’ He drew himself up to his full height. ‘I can assure you, Mr Middleton-Brown, that this is not that sort of a shop!’

‘Nevertheless, I’m afraid that this chalice is stolen property. It was stolen from St Margaret’s Church, Pimlico, last December.’ He paused to allow the full impact of his words. ‘I know that you’re an honest man, Mr Atkins, and I’m sure that you acquired this chalice in good faith. But I’m afraid that the police may not take that view.’

‘Police!’ It was the most feared word in Mr Atkins’s vocabulary. ‘This isn’t that sort of a shop,’ he repeated, but less forcefully, and beads of sweat had appeared on his forehead.

‘Perhaps I might be of some help,’ offered David. ‘I’m a solicitor, and I’ve done some work for the Vicar and churchwardens of St Margaret’s. That’s how I happen to know about the stolen chalice. Perhaps this could be managed discreetly.’

He seized on the hope of reprieve with touching eagerness. ‘You mean that the police might be kept out of it?’

‘I’m afraid that the police will have to be told. But if I had a word with them, it could be done with no discredit to you. And no publicity,’ he added.

‘Oh, Mr Middleton-Brown! If you could!’ He almost trembled in his relief. ‘I’d be so very grateful if you could manage it. I can’t have the police coming in here, with their great feet, knocking things about. This is a respectable shop – above reproach. I’ve never had any trouble before. I don’t . . .’ He was descending into incoherence.

‘I’ll deal with the police,’ promised David. ‘But you must tell me everything. How did you obtain the chalice, Mr Atkins?’

He pressed his fingers to his temples to calm himself; after a moment he spoke. ‘A chap brought it in to the shop one day,’ he said. ‘A respectable chap – I can tell the other sort a mile off.’

‘I’m sure you can.’

‘He said that the chalice was a family heirloom – his grandfather had been a bishop, he said, and it had belonged to him.’

‘Did he have any idea how valuable the chalice was?’

‘Oh, yes. He knew that it was Pugin, and worth a great deal of money. I didn’t try to cheat him,’ Mr Atkins insisted, defending his professional integrity. ‘I told him, quite honestly, that he’d do better putting it in the sale room himself. But he was in a hurry for a sale.’

‘A hurry?’

‘Yes, he said that his wife needed an operation, and he had to have the money right away. He couldn’t wait to put it through Christie’s himself. I felt sorry for the chap. It was hard luck for him, having to sell a family treasure for a reason like that. I was more generous with him than I might have been.’

‘I’ll need to tell the police how much you paid him.’

‘I gave him seven thousand pounds,’ Mr Atkins said reluctantly. ‘In cash. It was rather a lot of cash, I know. I don’t usually have that much right to hand, but I’d just had an American – a Texan – in that morning who bought several things. Pulled a roll of notes out of his pocket and paid in cash.’

‘That doesn’t happen very often, I imagine.’

‘Not often enough! It was one of those lucky coincidences,’ the man reflected. ‘The American said that he wouldn’t have even come down Kensington Church Street that morning, but an IRA bomb scare had closed the tube station – someone had been killed by a bomb at Victoria, I seem to remember. He walked past and saw something in the window that caught his eye. So he popped in, and ended up spending nearly ten thousand pounds.’

‘What is it they say about an ill wind?’ David remarked idly.

‘Exactly. And so when the gentleman brought in the chalice, I was glad to be able to get rid of the cash – saved me closing the shop to go and bank it.’

It was time for the crucial question. ‘You did get this man’s name, I assume?’

‘Of course,’ said Mr Atkins indignantly. ‘I always do things properly. I had him sign the book, just as the tax man requires me to do.’

‘And may I see the book?’

David held his breath as the retreat behind the curtain was repeated for a third time. ‘Yes, here it is.’ He made his slow return, carrying a large book. He opened it on the desk, fumbled in his pocket for a pair of spectacles, which he settled on his nose with care, then flipped through the pages of the book. ‘June, September, December. That’s last year. I’m sure it was early this year. Yes, here. February. The eighth of February, this year.’ He peered at the entry. ‘That’s right, I remember that he was a clergyman. So of course I dealt with him in good faith.’ He paused to decipher the writing, then read it aloud. ‘The Reverend William Keble Smythe, St Jude’s Vicarage, Pimlico, SW1.’

‘But what does it mean?’ Lucy shook her head, baffled, as they took yet another taxi ride to Pimlico. ‘I was expecting him to say Martin Bairstow, or Norman Topping. Not William Keble Smythe.’

‘The Vicar.’ David was rapidly readjusting his conceptions about their investigation. ‘I can’t believe that it was the Vicar all along.’

‘We eliminated him because he had an alibi,’ Lucy pointed out. ‘Remember? He was the one person who wasn’t at the church that night, when they had the row.’

‘That’s not really an alibi, if you think about it. We know where he wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean that we know where he was. If you understand me.’

‘You mean that he could have been in his car, waiting for her to ride past?’

‘Well,’ David thought aloud, ‘after all, he had asked her to take the service. He must have known what a kerfuffle it would cause.’

‘He might have done it on purpose,’ Lucy concluded slowly, touching her new cameo in an absent gesture. ‘Asked her to take the service, knowing that there would be a row. And then waited for her to ride past. But why? Why would he want to kill Rachel?’

‘The same reason that anyone else would, I reckon. What if she’d found out something about him that was a threat to him in some way?’

‘But I thought that Father Keble Smythe led a blameless life. That’s what Dolly says, anyway.’

Something niggled at the corner of David’s mind. ‘I’m not so sure. I’ve heard hints that he may not be all that he seems. I wish I could remember.’

‘Or maybe she found out somehow that he’d killed Father Julian,’ Lucy suggested. ‘That would be reason enough, I’d think.’

The taxi pulled up in front of the vicarage. ‘Here you are, mate,’ said the driver.

David paid him. ‘I hope he’s in,’ he remarked as they marched up to the door.

Mrs Goode answered; she recognised David from his first visit, though to her chagrin she couldn’t remember his name, and Lucy looked vaguely familiar to her as well. She looked back and forth between them, hoping for some clue.

‘Hello, Mrs Goode,’ David said smilingly, thereby endearing himself. ‘I don’t expect you to remember me, but I’m David Middleton-Brown. This is Miss Kingsley. I wondered if we might have a word with Father Keble Smythe.’

She returned his smile. ‘Is Father expecting you?’

‘No, but we’d be most awfully grateful if you could persuade him to spare us a few minutes. It’s important.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she promised, and withdrew in the direction of the Vicar’s study, chuckling to herself. How romantic, she thought. They’ve just decided to get married, and they can’t wait to talk to Father to set the date. What a lovely couple they make.

Mrs Goode returned more speedily than Mr Atkins had managed. ‘Father is very busy,’ she said, ‘but I’ve persuaded him to see you.’ She gave them a conspiratorial wink. ‘I told him it was important.’

Father Keble Smythe was seated at his desk; he rose as they entered. ‘Do come in,’ he said courteously.

Lucy looked around with interest; it was her first visit to the Vicar’s study. In a glance she took in the discreetly expensive furniture, the thick carpet, the silver-framed photo of the famed Miss Morag McKenzie.

‘I apologise for the intrusion, Father,’ David began, ‘but it really is rather important.’

‘So Mrs Goode said.’ He gave them a genial smile. ‘How much did you have to bribe her?’ A modest chuckle at his own wit, then, ‘Please, do sit down.’

David remained standing and wasted no time with preliminary chit-chat. ‘I’ve located your stolen chalice,’ he announced, watching carefully for the other man’s response.

‘My dear chap! How very splendid of you!’ It was either genuine, or the man was a very good actor indeed. But Lucy remembered his star performance at Rachel’s funeral, and determined to keep an open mind on the matter. ‘But where is it? How did you find it? And when can we have it back?’

‘At the moment,’ said David, ‘it’s in Christie’s sale room. But I expect you know that.’

The Vicar looked puzzled. ‘I don’t know what you mean. This is the first I’ve heard of it.’

‘Or perhaps you thought that it was still in Mr Atkins’s shop in Kensington Church Street.’

‘What are you talking about?’ The puzzlement was beginning to transmute into annoyance.

The room was still. For a long moment David sized up William Keble Smythe, then spoke deliberately into the silence, his words falling like stones between them. ‘I’m talking about theft, Father. And murder. How else can you explain your signature in Mr Atkins’s sales book?’

CHAPTER 29

    As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me: but the strange children shall dissemble with me.

    The strange children shall fail: and be afraid out of their prisons.

Psalm 18.45–46

David sat at his desk, staring at without seeing the rather splendid view from his window. Spring was truly upon them, the yellow trumpets of the daffodils playing a symphony of their own in the newly verdant grass of Lincoln’s Inn. For all that David appreciated it, though, it might still have been the dead of winter.

Father Keble Smythe had denied everything. All knowledge, all involvement. He had professed himself as baffled as they as to how his signature had appeared in Mr Atkins’s book. And to say that he had not been amused at the accusation that David had levelled against him was something of an understatement. To call a man in holy orders – and the incumbent of a prestigious London parish to boot – a triple murderer was no small thing.

The worst of it was, David still wasn’t sure whether the Vicar was telling the truth or not. If he had committed three murders to protect some secret, he certainly wouldn’t admit it just because some solicitor strolled into his study and suggested that he might have done it. And he was a good actor, demonstrably so, with Rachel’s funeral eulogy as an example.

In retrospect, David realised that their action in rushing straight to the vicarage to confront Father Keble Smythe might have been considered foolhardy. But at the time it hadn’t crossed his mind, trusting instinctively in the proximity of the excellent Mrs Goode.

He’d realised, as well, that in their haste to get to the vicarage, they’d failed to ask Mr Atkins for a description of the man who had sold him the chalice – that might have gone a long way towards establishing Father Keble Smythe’s guilt or innocence. An attempt to rectify their omission had failed: on their return to the shop, they’d been greeted with a notice on the door that the proprietor had gone for the weekend.

Frustrated, David put his mind to the problem. What could the Vicar be hiding? Ambition was one thing, and it was clear that Father Keble Smythe had that in abundance, but was there something else? What secret could he have that was worth killing to keep?

Suddenly he recalled the memory that had been on the edge of his consciousness: Alistair Duncan, in the musty, dusty sitting room of the clergy house in Brighton, suggesting that perhaps Father Keble Smythe might have one or two skeletons in his cupboard. At the time it had scarcely registered, but now it seemed overwhelmingly important.

He found the number quickly and dialled, holding his breath until the distinctive Scots burr said, ‘Hello?’

‘Oh, hello. This is David Middleton-Brown.’ His mind worked rapidly. ‘I’ve just realised that I walked off with Father Julian’s diary when I saw you the other day, and wondered how desperate you were to have it back.’

‘Not desperate.’ Alistair’s laugh was bittersweet. ‘I don’t think I’ve got much use for it at the moment. Keep it if you think it will help.’

‘It just might.’

‘You haven’t found out yet who killed Jules?’ The young man’s voice held little hope.

‘Not yet,’ David admitted, ‘but I may be getting close. And you might be able to get me a little further along, if you wouldn’t mind telling me something.’

‘Anything,’ Alistair said promptly and without reservation. ‘Anything that will help you catch the sodding bastard.’

David hesitated as he framed his next statement. ‘When I saw you on Monday you mentioned Father Keble Smythe. You said that you knew a few things about him that you didn’t think he would want his congregation to know.’

‘Oh, aye.’ Alistair laughed again, but without a great deal of amusement. ‘He spent some time in Scotland, you see. At St Andrews, where he did his degree. He had rather a reputation north of the border.’

‘What sort of a reputation?’ David was afraid that he knew the answer already.

‘Oh, you know. Wild parties. Men. There was a chap called Hamish Douglas that he was involved with for a while. But he put all that behind him when he came down south, or so it would seem.’ He chuckled. ‘Jules said that he was even claiming a fiancée nowadays. That’s a pretty good one, given some of the stories I’ve heard about William Keble Smythe. Or Wendy, as he was known in those days. Wendy Smythe – he seems to have picked up the “Keble” somewhere along the line.’

‘So you mean,’ David said slowly, ‘that Father Julian knew about Father Keble Smythe’s past.’

‘Of course he did. There wasn’t any reason for me not to tell him, was there?’ Alistair sounded slightly defensive.

David couldn’t say what he was thinking: that perhaps that knowledge had led to Julian Piper’s death. He adopted a reassuring tone, hoping that Alistair wouldn’t make the connection. ‘No. Of course not. But thanks for telling me, and for all your help. And,’ he added before ringing off, ‘I’ll let you know as soon as there’s anything to tell. I promise.’

It could have been, David said to himself, looking blankly at the phone. Father Keble Smythe. He could have done it – he certainly had motive enough, at least to kill Father Julian. And Rachel could have found out as well about his unsavoury past. If only he’d remembered to get the description from Mr Atkins. Nothing could be proved until they had that.

So much had happened in just a few hours – it was now only early afternoon. So much, but had it accomplished anything? They were still no closer to knowing the truth of the chalice than they’d been the day before.

The chalice. David was certain that its importance, ignored until so recently, could not be overestimated. For, as he had postulated earlier, the person who had taken the chalice had also killed three people.

The chalice. It had all begun with the chalice, and now it had come full circle. One chalice, three lives. David picked up a pencil and began doodling, sketching a chalice. One chalice, and then one more. And another.

He realised with a start that he was defacing a letter that he hadn’t even read yet, part of the morning’s post which had been opened by his efficient secretary and stacked on his desk for his attention.

A letter from the immigration office. Damn, he thought. Justin Thymme. Am I to be plagued forever by Justin Thymme?

The letter, from Mrs Hartman the immigration officer, was straightforward: a formal interview of his client, Mr Justin Thymme, had been scheduled for a date a fortnight hence, and he was being notified as a matter of course, since it was assumed that he would want to be in attendance. That was all, but it sparked something in his brain, something that had been there all along lying dormant. Something that Pamela Hartman had said to him on the occasion of their initial interview.

Suddenly the pieces came together, like bits of coloured glass in a stained glass window: Pamela Hartman’s offhand remark; something that Rachel Nightingale had said to Ruth after Evensong at Westminster Abbey; an entry in Father Julian’s diary. In the space of time no longer than it took to draw breath, David knew why three people had died. There was only one piece missing: he didn’t know who had killed them. Thinking rapidly, he reckoned that it almost certainly must have been one of two people. Two possibilities.

When Gabriel had told him about Father Julian, the death that had started it all, David had theorised that he and Rachel had both died because of the one thing that they had in common: the fact that they were both curates at St Margaret’s Church. Now he realised how true that assumption had been, and how easily he and Lucy had been sidetracked – with Ruth’s help – into quite the wrong conclusion, based on that assumption. They had thought that the significant thing about curates was that, as counsellors and recipients of confidences, they knew people’s secrets – secrets that people would kill to keep that way. The truth was both simpler and more complicated than that.

The answer lay where the whole thing had begun: in the sacristy of St Margaret’s Church. David was convinced of that. All he had to do was to get into that sacristy, on his own, and he would find the answer. The proof he needed was certainly there, and, with any luck, a pointer to the guilty person.

He thought for a moment more, then picked up the phone. But before he could dial the number, Ruth popped her head round the door. ‘Would you like some tea?’ she offered sullenly; she still hadn’t forgiven him for excluding her that morning, but this was her own way of offering an olive branch.

‘Yes, thanks. In a minute. I need to make an important phone call now – if you wouldn’t mind shutting the door, please.’

Ruth didn’t like being dismissed so peremptorily, especially when she’d been prepared to be nice to him. Then, with rising excitement, she realised that he’d said an important phone call. She was in luck – Mrs Simmons was still at lunch, so Ruth picked up the phone on her desk in time to hear Emily calling the Archdeacon to the phone.

‘Gabriel,’ said David after a moment, ‘I’ve got a favour to ask you.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Remember the other night, when you said that you would be available if we needed you to do something? Feel free to call on you, is what you said.’ David paused. ‘Well, you’re about to be called upon.’

‘What can I do for you, then?’

‘I need the keys to the sacristy of St Margaret’s. And to the safe.’

‘You need what?’ He sounded incredulous.

‘Yes, I know that it’s a strange request. But you’ll have to trust me – it’s important. And I need them as soon as possible,’ he added.

There was a long pause. ‘And how do you expect me to produce these keys?’

‘I’ve thought it all out,’ David explained. ‘You’re the Archdeacon. You have the right to make a visitation to any church at any time, don’t you? Just ring the Vicar, or the Administrator, or one of the churchwardens, and say that you’re coming this afternoon, to inspect the terrier. It’s within your rights, Gabriel. They may think it’s odd, but they can’t really say no.’

‘That’s true,’ Gabriel admitted cautiously. ‘And then what am I supposed to do?’

‘Pocket the keys somehow, when they’re not looking. I know that you can do it,’ he wheedled. ‘And if you can get me those keys this afternoon – and a key to the church itself would be a great help, by the way – by tomorrow I ought to be able to tell you who killed the two curates and Vera Bright, and why.’

‘Can’t you tell me now?’

‘I’m afraid that I won’t know until I’ve been able to get into that sacristy. That’s where the answer is to be found.’

‘Well,’ Gabriel capitulated. ‘If it’s that important, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll ring you later.’

‘I won’t leave my desk until I hear from you.’ He gave Gabriel the number, adding, ‘You promised, remember?’

As soon as she heard the click to show that the connection had been broken, Ruth put down the phone. Her mind worked furiously as she made the promised tea for David; she tapped on his closed door and, when he invited her to enter, delivered the tea with a smile.

‘Thanks, Ruth,’ he said abstractedly, then looked up at her. ‘Do you have anything to do? I know that it’s your last afternoon here – you could leave early, if you wanted. I could ring and ask your Aunt Lucy to come for you. I may have to stay a bit late today.’

‘Oh, no. That’s all right,’ she assured him. ‘Since it’s my last day, everyone has come up with plenty of photocopying for me to do. Next week there won’t be anyone here to do it!’

She was taking it in remarkably good spirit, he grudgingly admitted to himself. ‘Well, if you’ll be all right . . .’

‘Yes. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be in the photocopier room.’

She went back to Mrs Simmons’s desk, picked up the phone, and rang Directory Enquiries, asking for the number for St Margaret’s Church. She wasn’t sure whether there would even be a phone, and if there was, who might be there to answer it, but in due course it was answered. ‘St Margaret’s Church,’ came a voice down the phone.

‘Is this the Vicar?’ she asked.

‘No, this is the Administrator.’

‘Oh, well, you’ll do just as well,’ she said sweetly. ‘My name is Ruth Kingsley – I think that you know my aunt, Lucy Kingsley. You see, I’m doing a project at school for RE. We have to visit a church, and write something about it. And I’m afraid I’ve left it rather late. It has to be handed in next week. So I was wondering if it would be all right if I came to your church this afternoon.’

‘Well, I don’t know. I’m awfully busy. Isn’t there any other church you could visit instead?’

‘But your church is so beautiful,’ Ruth said, though she’d never been inside it. ‘I can’t think of any other church that I like nearly so well as yours.’

The flattery was not without effect. ‘What, in particular, would you like to see?’

She tried to think what was kept in the sacristy. ‘The . . . um . . . silver,’ she said. ‘I’m sure that you could tell me some interesting things about it. My aunt says that you know ever so much about everything in the church.’

He sighed heavily. ‘I’m a very busy man, young lady. The Archdeacon has just rung to say that he’s coming by later to inspect the silver.’

‘But if you have to get it out for him anyway,’ she coaxed, ‘it won’t be any trouble for me to have a look at it as well.’

‘All right, then,’ he gave in. ‘Perhaps the sacristan will be in a bit later, to change the frontals for the weekend, and he might be able to spare rather more time than I can. Will you be coming soon?’

‘Oh, yes. Right away. I’ll see you in a little while, then.’

Ruth put the phone down and turned to find Mrs Simmons looking at her, hands on ample hips. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded.

‘Oh, I was just talking to Aunt Lucy.’ Ruth gave her an innocent smile. ‘Uncle David has said that I can go home early, as it’s my last day, and I just wanted to tell her that I was coming.’

‘By yourself?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Ruth waved her hand dismissively. ‘He doesn’t mind. He knows that I’m not a baby. I’m perfectly capable of getting to South Kensington by myself.’

‘Well, if you’re sure . . .’

She was already on her way. ‘It’s been nice knowing you,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘And remember – he’s busy. Don’t bother him.’

Half an hour later, Lucy rang David. As Mrs Simmons put the call through, she asked, ‘Has Ruth made it home safely, then?’

Lucy was puzzled. ‘Ruth? Why, no. She wouldn’t come home on her own.’

‘But she set off about thirty minutes ago. She said that Mr Middleton-Brown had told her to go home early. And she rang you to tell you that she was coming – I heard the end of the conversation.’

‘No,’ said Lucy, beginning to be alarmed. ‘She didn’t ring me. You’d better put me through to David right away.’

He sent for Mrs Simmons a minute later. ‘Would you mind telling me what this is all about?’ he asked. ‘Where is Ruth?’

‘She’s gone home,’ she repeated. ‘She said that you told her to go.’

David frowned. ‘Can you remember her exact words?’

‘She said, “Uncle David said that I can go home early, as it’s my last day.” Or something quite close to that.’

He groaned. ‘Are you sure that she said “Uncle David”?’

‘Oh, yes. I remember that, because I’ve never heard her call you that before.’

Into the phone he said, ‘Now I know that she’s up to something, love.’

‘You mean that you didn’t tell her to go home?’ queried Mrs Simmons, only beginning to understand.

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Then perhaps I should tell you that I thought it was a little strange. She said that she was talking to her Aunt Lucy on the phone, but part of the conversation was about churches and silver. She mentioned St Margaret’s Church.’

‘Good Lord.’ David spoke into the phone again. ‘I think that she’s gone to St Margaret’s. I’ll go after her, Lucy. She’ll be all right.’

‘I’ll meet you there,’ she said immediately.

‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ he protested, knowing that it would make no difference.

It should be all right, he thought as he walked rapidly to High Holborn and the tube station. Ruth wouldn’t really be in danger, no matter how idiotically she had behaved. She didn’t really know anything, and surely no one would harm her in a church, in daylight. There would be people around. Then he remembered who those people might be, and he quickened his pace. For a moment he considered whether it might not be faster to take a taxi, but decided that afternoon traffic in London would make the Underground the wiser choice, if speed were important. It wasn’t just Ruth – Lucy was on her way as well, and no matter how quickly he managed to travel she would get there before he did. And he hadn’t had the opportunity to tell her of his conclusions about the murderer. She’d be arriving at St Margaret’s with only slightly more knowledge, and more wariness, than Ruth.

Would the Vicar be going to St Margaret’s later to say Evensong? Or would he go to St Jude’s, which was nearer the vicarage? And what time was Evensong, anyway? It could be important. David thought about the notation in Father Julian’s diary, and he went suddenly cold as the last piece fell into place. He knew with a grim certainty who had killed three people – Father Julian had told him.

Would it be enough to convict? Probably not: they would need the evidence from the sacristy as well. And of course the testimony of Mr Atkins, who should be able to identify the seller of the chalice. As he hurried down the steps into the tube station, he remembered something that Mr Atkins had told him only that morning. It hadn’t registered as significant at the time, but now it provided all the confirmation he needed to be sure that the information in Father Julian’s diary was relevant. And that he didn’t have any time to lose.

After her visit to the Toppings, Ruth had no difficulty in locating the neighbouring St Margaret’s Church. The church was unlocked and seemingly empty, but after a brief exploration of the building Ruth found Stanley Everitt waiting for her in the sacristy. She had never met Stanley Everitt, though she’d seen him at Rachel’s funeral – his death’s head face was unmistakeable – but she wasn’t sure whether he remembered her or not. ‘Hello, Mr Everitt. I’m Ruth Kingsley,’ she said with the ingratiating smile that she’d used to such good effect on Dolly Topping. ‘I really do appreciate you taking the time to show me your silver.’

His peeved expression softened a fraction, and he unbent sufficiently to say, ‘You’re very fortunate that you came today. Friday is the only day I’m at St Margaret’s – the rest of the week I’m at St Jude’s.’

‘Oh, what a lucky coincidence,’ she gushed.

Everitt cleared his throat. ‘Yes. Well.’

She saw that he had already taken the silver from the safe and set it out on the top of a vestment chest. That was a disappointment; she’d hoped to get a peek inside the safe when he opened it, but he had forestalled her. But she injected great eagerness into her voice as she said, ‘So is this your silver, then?’

‘Yes. I assume that what you’re interested in for your school project is its liturgical use rather than its artistic qualities.’ His tone was schoolmasterish, and indeed he had been an RE teacher himself before being made redundant and taking on the Administrator’s job. ‘This, of course, is a chalice. It is used to hold the wine during the Mass, referring to Our Lord’s last supper.’

‘Oh, so you have another chalice,’ Ruth blurted out without thinking.

Everitt looked at her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, um,’ she faltered. ‘I just meant that of course everyone knows that the chalice was stolen in a robbery, when Father Julian was killed.’

‘That was a terrible thing,’ he intoned, furrowing his brow and wringing his hands. ‘I was the one who found his body, you know. On the Saturday morning when I came in to prepare for a wedding. A great shock, it was.’

‘Oh, it must have been.’ She gained confidence in her information-gathering techniques. ‘And an even greater shock to have another curate killed so soon after,’ she added boldly.

The Administrator put the chalice down and took a closer look at Ruth. ‘You were at the funeral.’

‘Yes.’

‘And at the vicarage after.’ He leaned down and brought his face close to hers. ‘You were a friend of Miss Bright, were you?’

‘That’s right.’

His voice was soft; it had lost its customary pedantic, self-important edge. ‘You said that she knew who had killed Rachel. She didn’t happen to tell you who it was, did she?’

Ruth decided to be cagey. ‘Maybe she did, and maybe she didn’t.’

He stared at her for a moment, as if weighing up her words, and she returned his stare coolly. It was at that moment that she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a green and gold carrier bag on the table in the corner, and she knew that she was confronting a murderer. ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ she said slowly. ‘You killed Miss Bright. You killed them all.’

Things happened very quickly after that. Stanley Everitt reached for a penknife, left carelessly behind by the sacristan after cleaning the lumps of melted incense out of the thurible. Lucy appeared at the door, and Ruth screamed. ‘Run, Aunt Lucy,’ she shrilled. ‘He killed them. Go and tell David. Tell him—’

Her shout was cut off by a hand over her mouth, and the knife blade was pressed to her throat. ‘I don’t think you’ll want to do that, Miss Kingsley. Not unless you relish seeing your niece’s throat cut.’ His voice was chillingly calm; Lucy was transfixed with horror just inside the door.

It was only a few seconds later that David arrived, winded, having run from the tube station. He took in the situation instantly, pushing Lucy behind him and bursting into the sacristy.

‘Stop right there,’ Everitt warned. ‘Don’t come any closer, or I promise you that I’ll kill her.’

All other circumstances aside, David was at a physical disadvantage, his heart pounding as he gasped for breath.

They were at an impasse. Everitt and his hostage, frozen in terror, faced David across the sacristy. ‘Come inside away from the door,’ Everitt commanded. ‘You and the girl’s aunt both. I don’t want either one of you thinking that you’re going to go for help. Over there.’ He gestured with his head to the corner farthest from the door.

David knew that they had to obey. He took Lucy’s hand and moved slowly around the circumference of the sacristy; Everitt backed round towards the door, continuing to watch them warily. ‘Don’t try anything, or I’ll kill her,’ he repeated.

‘You would, too, wouldn’t you?’ David spoke at last. ‘Just like you killed the others.’

Ruth gasped in pain as he nicked her throat with the knife. ‘What do you know about that?’ Everitt asked softly.

‘I know that you killed them, and I know why.’ David’s voice sounded calm. ‘But I’d like to know one thing. Why did you steal the marriage certificates? Was it just for the money?’

‘Just for the money?’ Everitt laughed. ‘It was a great deal of money. More money than you’ll ever see.’

‘How did you get involved in it, then?’

‘Do you really want to know?’

‘Why don’t you tell me,’ David invited.

Everitt decided that there was nothing to lose; it was obvious that David knew something about it already, and he was actually quite proud of his own cleverness, welcoming a chance to share it. ‘I was approached,’ he said. ‘The first time, it was just one that they wanted. One marriage certificate. A chap approached me and asked if I could get it for them. They offered me a thousand pounds for it. So I said yes.’

‘They asked you because you were the Administrator?’

‘Yes, of course. They knew that I’d have access to the certificates. It was no problem,’ he boasted. ‘Father Keble Smythe never checks the registers. He’s always allowed me to fill them out and to do the reports for the registrar, so it couldn’t have been simpler.’

‘Then they wanted more?’

‘As many as I could get for them, they said. They’d pay me a thousand pounds apiece for as many blank marriage certificates as I could supply.’

David knew that he had to keep him talking as long as possible. ‘Then Father Julian stumbled on to your little . . . sideline?’

Everitt laughed. ‘He was too conscientious by half. He decided that he wanted to fill out the register for the weddings he took, and he discovered that the numbers didn’t match up. Fortunately he came to me instead of going to Father Keble Smythe.’

‘So you killed him.’

‘I had no choice – he would have exposed me. And there was an added benefit. Two, actually.’ He chuckled softly to himself. ‘I was able to take a whole book of certificates, as though it were part of the burglary. Later I reported them as stolen to the registrar, and was sent a whole new book. And of course there was the chalice.’

‘But you didn’t know how valuable it was when you took it, did you?’

‘No, of course not. No one knew that the silver was worth anything. I took it just to add authenticity to the burglary, and put it at the back of my wardrobe at home. And then you came along and told me that it was worth thousands. I couldn’t resist selling it.’

Lucy spoke for the first time. ‘What about Rachel? Why did you have to kill her?’

Everitt frowned. ‘They came back to me later, and wanted more certificates, only a few this time. She had weddings two Saturdays in a row. I’d taken the certificates during that week, and she noticed that the numbers were off. She was going to tell the Vicar – I was with him when she rang to say that she wanted to talk to him. I knew that she’d found out, so I took my chance.’

‘And Miss Bright,’ Lucy said. ‘Did she really know that you’d killed them?’

His laugh was unpleasant. ‘I don’t know if she knew anything or not. But I couldn’t chance it, could I? I don’t think that she did know anything – she let me into her house quite happily, and made me a cup of coffee.’

Lucy shuddered; David squeezed her hand.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ The authoritative and outraged tones of the Archdeacon were heard at the sacristy door, triggering another rapid sequence of events.

Everitt turned his head sharply towards the door, for an instant slackening the pressure of the knife on Ruth’s throat. She sensed her opportunity and sank her metal-encrusted teeth into the hand that covered her mouth; he shrieked in agony. And David, with a well-judged movement of his foot, kicked the silver choir cross which leaned against the wall, unbalancing it and causing it to topple over on to Everitt. It was over six feet tall and extremely heavy; the top of the cross caught him on the side of the head as it fell and sent him sprawling, unconscious. Ruth sprang clear, to be grabbed by Lucy with fierce protectiveness.

It had all happened so quickly, in a matter of seconds. Gabriel stood at the door, astonished.

Weak with relief, David grinned. ‘Hello, Archdeacon,’ he drawled. ‘Well timed, though I confess I was beginning to think that you’d never get here. Why don’t you make yourself useful and go ring 999?’

‘Let me do it,’ Ruth demanded, resilient as ever. ‘Let me ring 999 – after all, I’m the one who discovered him.’

A few hours later they were all in the Archdeacon’s drawing room. The ambulance had been and gone, and of course the police as well, who had taken their statements, collected certain evidence from the sacristy in consequence, and sent them home.

The shock was beginning to wear off, though Lucy still looked pale and was unusually subdued. Emily, the only one who had missed out on the excitement first hand, cosseted her with cups of strong tea and, when that didn’t seem to have the desired effect, with brandy instead.

Of course David had to relate to Emily and to Gabriel the substance of Everitt’s admissions of guilt, aided ably by Ruth’s interjections. ‘I still don’t understand why he did it,’ Emily said at the end, shaking her head in bafflement. ‘Was there some reason that he needed the money?’

‘I was just about to ask him, when your husband got round to rescuing us,’ David put in with a wry grin.

Gabriel, who had been on the phone with the police, ignored David’s jibe. ‘He made a full statement to the police after he regained consciousness. They didn’t want to tell me what he said, of course, but I threw my weight around a bit. Said that as Archdeacon I had a right to know, so they told me. It seems that his wife’s a bit of a social climber. Keeping up with the Bairstows seems to be the chief concern – and that’s where the problems began. Martin Bairstow is a successful businessman with more money than he and his wife between them know what to do with, and Stanley Everitt is – was – a Parish Administrator, making barely enough to survive. His wife doesn’t work, and they have no additional income. So he thought that this would give him a little extra cash so that his wife would stop nagging him.’

‘Everything she served at that meeting at her house a few weeks back came from Knightsbridge,’ recalled Emily. ‘I thought at the time that she seemed to be trying to out-do Vanessa.’

‘And hence the carrier bag,’ David added with a grim smile.

Lucy nodded. ‘When she found out that Vanessa had commissioned a painting from me, she said that she wanted one as well. I wondered how on earth she could afford it, but at that meeting she said that she definitely wanted to go ahead with it.’

‘Presumably,’ David deduced, ‘that was about the time that her husband went back to the well again, and stole the last few marriage certificates – the ones that made Rachel suspicious.’

‘I think,’ said Emily slowly, ‘that there was more to it than that. More than just his wife, I mean. I think that, if anything, that was just an excuse for what he did.’

‘What do you mean?’ queried Gabriel.

‘I think that it was his way of getting revenge on the Church. He was turned down by the Board of Ministry, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ Gabriel confirmed. ‘Three times.’

‘He wanted to be a priest,’ remembered David. ‘He told me so – and he was really bitter that the Church didn’t want him, didn’t value his talents.’

Emily nodded. ‘That’s what I mean. He had to be satisfied with being Administrator, always telling people how important he was. And surely it’s significant that two of the people that he killed were curates. Something he’d never be, no matter how much he wanted it.’

‘But what about Miss Bright?’ Ruth put in. ‘Why did he have to kill her too? When he wasn’t even sure that she knew anything?’

‘I think that by that time he’d got to like killing people,’ Emily analysed shrewdly. ‘I think he enjoyed the feeling of power that it gave him.’ She shook her head. ‘I think he’s a real psychopath.’

Gabriel sighed. ‘If only I’d been here that day when Rachel phoned. It was too late for Julian Piper, but two other deaths might have been prevented.’

‘You mustn’t think that.’ Emily went to him, perching on the edge of his chair and putting a protective arm around his shoulders.

‘Yes, well,’ David put in quickly, in an attempt to forestall Ruth’s breastbeating routine over Vera Bright. ‘For a while I had the wrong end of the stick altogether. I was running round after Francis Nightingale.’

True to form, Ruth favoured him with an accusing glare. ‘You never said.’

‘Francis Nightingale?’ Emily turned to him blankly. ‘Colin’s brother, you mean?’

‘Yes.’ David ignored Ruth. ‘I don’t think I ever told you about him. I was convinced that if anyone had killed Rachel, it had been him, because he was the one who benefited financially from her death. He needed money badly, I found out.’

‘And after what Rachel said to me about him pulling the plug on Colin . . .’ Emily surmised.

‘Exactly. I think that he did pull the plug on Colin in the end, as it happens, but that’s neither here nor there.’

Emily looked thoughtful. ‘David, you still haven’t told us how you figured it out about the marriage certificates. And how you knew that Stanley Everitt was the one who’d taken them.’

His mouth twisted in a self-deprecating smile. ‘I should have known much sooner, actually. All of the evidence about the marriage certificates had been staring me in the face all along.’

‘What do you mean?’ Emily pressed him.

‘I have a client called Justin Thymme,’ he began, then paused at Emily and Gabriel’s disbelieving looks to assure them, ‘Yes, that’s really his name. He’s run into some trouble with the immigration office because he’s married a Hong Kong Chinese woman. I won’t bore you with the details, but for various reasons the immigration officer in charge of the case feels that the marriage might be a fraudulent one, entered into so that the wife can claim residency in this country, and eventually be eligible for a British passport, so that she can then bring all of her family in.’ He took a sip of his whisky and went on. ‘I happen to believe that she’s right, but that’s also neither here nor there. When I met the immigration officer, she was quite frank with me. She explained that some people will stop at nothing to get a British passport, and mentioned that there was a thriving trade in stolen marriage certificates going on. And where else would one steal marriage certificates, if not from a church? But I didn’t make the connection, not then, and not till much later.’

Emily tried to make him feel better. ‘But why should you have made the connection?’

‘I knew about the burglary at St Margaret’s, but as far as I was aware, nothing but the chalice had been stolen,’ he acknowledged. ‘I didn’t even know, until you told me less than a week ago, that Father Julian had been killed in the burglary. But I did know that Rachel Nightingale performed a wedding on the Saturday before her death, because she told us so when we ran into her later that day at Westminster Abbey, and she mentioned that she had one the following week as well. And when I obtained Father Julian’s diary, I also knew that he was to have performed a wedding on the Saturday after his death. But when I was looking for links, for connections, the weddings never occurred to me. And after Rachel had made a point of telling us that weddings were something that even deacons could perform!’ He shook his head. ‘I had a feeling all along that those two deaths had something to do with the fact that both of them were curates, but I was on completely the wrong track.’

Gabriel leaned forward. ‘But once you’d figured out about the marriage certificates, how did you know that it was Stanley Everitt who had taken them?’

‘Before I tell you that, why don’t you explain to Lucy how the whole business of marriage certificates works?’ David suggested, aware of her silence and mindful that she might be confused.

The Archdeacon nodded. ‘Ordinarily,’ he explained, ‘the vicar is the one who fills out the register when a marriage takes place. Or the curate, of course. There are very strict rules about it, and it has to be done very carefully. Each entry is numbered, and the numbers in the register correspond to the numbers on the certificate which is given to the couple. Every quarter, each incumbent is required to fill out a form for the registrar, copying the information from the registers and supplying the numbers. A bit of a fiddle, because it has to be done just right, but one of those things that most clergy just get on with as part of the job. Apparently, though, Father Keble Smythe thought that it was a job which could safely be left to his Administrator.’

David took up the tale. ‘So it seemed to me that it almost certainly had to be either the Administrator or the Vicar, as they were the only two people, apart from the curates, who would have had access to the marriage registers and the certificates. An inside job, in the vernacular,’ he grinned. ‘But which one? I had reason to suspect Father Keble Smythe, but I had no proof in either direction. And then, as I was on my way to St Margaret’s, I remembered two things. I remembered that I’d run into Stanley Everitt in South Ken tube station, the day that there’d been an IRA bomb scare. And that, according to Mr Atkins the antique dealer, was the day that a man purporting to be Father William Keble Smythe had sold him a valuable chalice. Someone had been killed by a bomb – Mr Atkins and I both recalled it. And that was the day after I told the churchwardens and Everitt that the silver was worth a small fortune.’

‘Hardly conclusive evidence,’ Gabriel commented neutrally. ‘But you said two things?’

‘Oh, yes. The other thing that I remembered was Father Julian’s diary.’

‘You already mentioned that,’ Emily pointed out. ‘About the weddings.’

David shook his head. ‘Not the weddings. Something else. You know that Father Julian’s diary was in a sort of shorthand, so that he could fit everything in? Initials, and so forth?’ He gave a dry laugh. ‘That shorthand misled us more than once already, when we jumped to certain conclusions – remember VB and NT? Well, the mistake I made was even more unforgivable than that, for one who professes to know something about churches.’

Gabriel looked intrigued. ‘What on earth are you getting at?’

Again David laughed. ‘SE,’ he said succinctly. ‘The diary said SE on that last evening of his life. It meant Stanley Everitt, of course – he had planned to see him, to confront him with the discrepancies in the registers. Everitt always spent Fridays at St Margaret’s, apparently. But – fool that I was – I just assumed that it meant Solemn Evensong!’

‘Solemn Evensong – on a Friday evening in Advent?’ Gabriel’s laugh was rich and genuine. ‘You must be joking! David, you do disappoint me!’

David shared in the general laughter at his own expense, knowing that he deserved it. But one voice that should have been the first to condemn his folly was strangely silent. He looked towards the chair which Ruth had appropriated – the most comfortable in the room, by virtue of her great ordeal. The girl’s head had fallen to one side, her mouth was slightly open, and her eyes were closed. In sleep she looked peaceful, almost angelic, her red hair forming a halo around her serene face. Appearances can be deceiving, David said to himself.

CHAPTER 30

    For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red: it is full mixed, and he poureth out of the same.

    As for the dregs thereof: all the ungodly of the earth shall drink them, and suck them out.

Psalm 75.9–10

‘Well, I suppose this is it.’ They were all thinking it, but it was Ruth who spoke the words as they stood on the platform at Euston Station. It hardly seemed possible, reflected David, that it had only been three weeks since the three of them had come together in this spot. Three of the longest weeks of his life – just as he had predicted that first night, he thought with a wry smile.

The train to Northampton would be leaving in just a few minutes. Ruth had allowed David to carry her case – now even heavier than it had been three weeks ago, with the addition of her Covent Garden purchases – and to heft it on to the train for her. Now it only remained to say goodbye.

Ruth stood squarely in front of David and thrust her hand out. ‘Thank you for helping me with my work experience,’ she said formally, almost as if on remembered instructions from her parents. ‘And for everything else, too,’ she added with a near-smile.

He took her hand and shook it. ‘Have a safe journey.’

Lucy held out her arms to her niece; the girl went into them and hugged her aunt with an affection that even she couldn’t hide. And she whispered something in her ear that made Lucy smile.

Then she clambered on to the train. Her face appeared by the window for a last wave and a moment later the train pulled out.

They stood for a moment as it receded into the distance. ‘The poor kid,’ said Lucy on a sigh.

‘What do you mean, poor kid? Her parents are the ones to feel sorry for now, getting her back.’

Lucy shook her head. ‘The other day when we had lunch together, she told me that her parents are having real problems with their marriage. That’s why they packed her off here, instead of arranging for her to do her work experience in Northampton. She said that they row all the time, that life at home is pretty grim. It’s no wonder she’s mixed up, David. Being fourteen is quite bad enough without having to deal with hell at home.’

‘Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe she’s the reason they’re having problems.’

‘Give the kid a break, David.’ Lucy smiled. ‘Don’t you want to know what she whispered before she left?’

‘I wait with bated breath.’

‘She said that you’re not too bad.’

‘High praise indeed from the enfant terrible.’ But he was touched in spite of himself. ‘Just do me a favour,’ he added.

‘What’s that?’

‘If I ever suggest, in a moment of insanity, that we should have a child, just say “Ruth” to me. Or better yet, put a bullet through my head and put me out of my misery.’

Laughing, Lucy turned to him and put both hands over her abdomen. ‘David,’ she said, ‘I’m afraid I have something to tell you.’ For an instant she watched the welter of conflicting emotions struggling for supremacy on his face before she relented. ‘Only joking, darling.’

David clutched his heart and gasped. ‘Don’t ever do that to me again.’

They walked back down the platform and into the station. ‘Should we have coffee?’ Lucy suggested, indicating the station café.

‘Here? Surely we can do better than Travellers’ Fare, love. Why don’t we just go home?’

She turned her head away. ‘There’s something I need to say to you, and I’d rather do it here, on neutral territory.’

David had no presentiment of approaching disaster; he was merely puzzled. ‘All right,’ he agreed.

They went in and ordered coffee; it came in polystyrene cups, and they drank it sitting on red plastic chairs.

‘So what did you want to say?’ David prompted her.

Lucy took a deep breath. ‘Something came in the post for you this morning. I opened it by mistake.’

‘And what was it?’ he grinned. ‘Something terrible out of my past that’s finally caught up with me?’

‘Well, in a way it was. It was about Lady Constance’s house. The will has been proved, and you can take possession at the beginning of April.’ She added, ‘The letter said that they’d sent some correspondence to you at the office but you hadn’t replied, so they were writing to you at your home address instead.’

So the evil moment had come. ‘Well?’ he said cautiously. ‘Does it have to make any difference?’

‘I think that you should move into the house.’ Lucy spoke rapidly in a voice that didn’t sound anything like her. ‘I think that perhaps it’s time for us to live apart.’

It hit him like a painful blow to the solar plexus; for a moment he couldn’t speak – couldn’t even breathe. ‘What are you saying?’ he gulped finally.

Lucy cupped her hands round the polystyrene cup and looked down. ‘I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘Please don’t interrupt me, or try to argue – this is hard enough already. I just want to tell you and have done with it.’

‘Go on.’ David couldn’t believe how calm he sounded, but now that the initial blow had fallen, he felt almost detached, as though this were happening to someone else.

She said it all quickly, without looking at him. ‘I don’t like what’s been happening to us lately. It has nothing to do with Ruth – it has to do with me. And it’s not that I don’t love you, David – quite the contrary. Recently I’ve come to realise how much I do love you – much more than I’ve ever loved anyone before.’

He couldn’t help himself. ‘Surely that’s good?’

‘No, it’s not. I don’t like what it’s doing to me. The other night at Emily and Gabriel’s, I suddenly realised that I was jealous – jealous of you and Gabriel. I’ve never been a jealous person. I’ve never minded before – about what happened between you. But now I do mind – not because he’s a man, but because you loved him – and I don’t like that. And the other morning when I nagged you about it, I just couldn’t help myself. I hated myself for it, but I couldn’t stop.’ She swirled the murky dregs around in the cup. ‘I suppose what I’m saying is that I’m afraid of loving you too much.’

‘But what is there to be afraid of?’

Lucy bit her lip. ‘I suppose it’s a sort of superstitious fear,’ she confessed. ‘That if I love you too much – invest too much of myself in you – you’ll be taken away from me somehow. And I’d rather have that happen on my own terms.’

‘You’re going to try to stop loving me, then?’ David’s voice seemed to him to come from a long distance.

She replied obliquely. ‘All of the things that have happened over the past few weeks, all of the misery that we’ve encountered, all of the unhappy people; when you think about it, it’s all been about love. Casualties of love, every one of them. People who have loved too much, and look what it’s done to them. Alistair Duncan loving Father Julian. Nicola Topping and her Ben. Vera Bright and her American. Vanessa. Rachel, too, in her way. And Ruth – damaged in the second generation by love that’s gone wrong. And of course there was you and Gabriel.’ She sighed softly. ‘I don’t want to be one of those casualties, David.’

David realised that what he said next could well determine the course of the rest of his life, and he’d better get it right. He fought the desire to reach across and touch her. Instinctively he knew that this was not the time for tears or impassioned argument, or for any sort of emotional blackmail; when he spoke his voice was calm and reasonable. ‘Lucy, my own dear love, don’t you realise that it’s not possible to love too much – only too little? It’s true that we’ve seen a lot of pain in other people, caused by love. Casualties of love, you called them, and that may be true. But I think that our love is something different from that – something strong and good, not constricting or limiting.’

He tore a piece of polystyrene from his cup. ‘I’d rather think of it in terms of redemption, to use a Christian term. Redemption of the past. What we feel for each other doesn’t cancel out what happened to either one of us before. But it can redeem it, if we let it. And in a sense it can redeem what’s happened to all of those other unhappy people, if we can make it work. Our love is the only thing that makes it all worthwhile.’ Unconsciously he was shredding the cup, reducing it to bits of polystyrene all over the table. ‘I remember what it was like to be alone, before I met you,’ he said. ‘And nothing could be worse than that. I don’t want to go back to that, and I don’t really think that you do either. It seems to me that taking the risk of loving – loving too much, as you call it – is far better than not loving at all.’

At last she lifted her eyes to meet his; hers were swimming with unshed tears. That unnerved him at last. ‘Please don’t cry,’ he said brokenly. ‘I can’t bear to see you cry, my love.’

She reached across the table and took his hand. ‘Well,’ she said, with a watery smile, ‘it’s still over a week until the first of April. It looks as though you’ve got a week to convince me.’

David grasped her hand and pulled her to her feet, leaving a mess of polystyrene behind. ‘Come on, then,’ he urged. ‘A week isn’t much time, and the clock is running. Let’s go home, love.’