The Advent of Murder (A Faith Morgan Mystery) Read online

  “Come on, Ruthie, you know you can be over-solicitous sometimes.” There! That sounded perfectly rational and kind. “Has Mum asked for help?”

  “You don’t see because you are never here to see; I am. I know what is going on,” her sister argued stubbornly. “I think we need to take her to the GP to be tested.”

  “Surely you’re overreacting? Let’s just hold fire before taking drastic action. Look – we’ll be together at Christmas. We can discuss it then. OK?”

  A young woman with bleached hair approached them, carrying a pile of manila folders.

  “Hey, Ruth. These are for you. Peter says he needs them processed as soon as you can.”

  The woman eyed Faith’s dog collar with open curiosity. Ruth dismissed her with a firm: “Thank you, Kim.”

  In the space of the distraction, Faith made up her mind. While part of her wilted at the thought of the extra pressure, it was beyond time she paid attention to her family. There seemed to be a lot of catching up to do.

  “Before I let you get on,” she began, “I’ve been thinking of what you said about Christmas. How about you bring Sean and Mum to me for Christmas Day this time? I’ll be tied up with the service until one-ish, but then, it’s traditional for Christmas lunch to be late, isn’t it? We can eat at three or so. That front room at the vicarage is made for Christmas. We can give the Aga a run…”

  She knew Ruth had been yearning after the Aga that came with her vicarage ever since Faith had given her the tour and she’d laid eyes on the glossy, four-door beast. It was one of life’s little ironies that Faith, who considered food just something you needed to consume to live, had ended up with a country kitchen and an Aga, while Ruth, the great hostess, was stuck with her doll’s house kitchen in her modern semi. Ruth’s expression reflected the conflict between irritation and the possibilities of the vicarage kitchen. The Aga won the day.

  “Sean and Mum and I can have everything ready for you for when you’re free,” she agreed thoughtfully. The decision was made. “You don’t have to worry about the food,” she added. “You can email me what you want and I can bring all that. We can settle up later. Just give me a set of keys.”

  Faith winced internally at the thought of her space being invaded. She could see the plans bubbling up in Ruth’s brain. Would she ever get her keys back? But Ruth looked happy.

  Her job was done. After swearing that, however busy she got, she would not forget to have another set of house keys cut and would drop them off with Ruth just as soon as possible, she left her sister making lists at her desk.

  She had almost all her Christmas presents. Just one more purchase to make – an overpriced and nicely presented box of soap for Aunt Hilda. She headed down Great Minster Street toward a shop that stocked Crabtree & Evelyn, when she spotted George Casey hurrying toward her on the opposite pavement. She tried to turn her face away, but he’d already seen her.

  “Ms Morgan! I thought it was you.” The diocesan press officer fussed toward her, his pink mouth full of news. “Something’s come up – that fellow who ran the youth choir, Postlethwaite? He was coming to you with the choir in a few days, I believe?”

  “Was?” She felt a shot of adrenalin peak through her heart.

  “He’s gone. Resigned this morning.” Casey’s eyes goggled with anticipation and excitement. “I’ve just been with the dean. Such a crisis! We’ve been composing the press release. It’s embargoed until noon, but I thought you should know, what with your church being on the tour. Need to know and all that.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you, it was a shock. Not that, as I told you from the first, I didn’t have my doubts about the diocese hosting a choir of urban youth – especially at this time of year – but I didn’t dream of anything like this.”

  “Like what?” Faith prompted irritably. Why wouldn’t he just spit it out?

  “Drugs!” Casey announced dramatically, then lowered his voice. “The fellow had a criminal record. And him running a choir with vulnerable young people! It could hardly be worse.” His voice lifted suddenly, eyes sparkling. “But I think we’ve got it under control. Swift action just as soon as the deception was revealed; culprit dismissed within hours, et cetera.”

  “Deception? What sort of deception? That Mr Postlethwaite had once used drugs himself?” Jim Postlethwaite had been a heroin user, she knew that already; but he had recovered and straightened his life out. It was foolish and wrong of Jim to have lied on his application form, but his reasons were perhaps understandable. Many people were loath to give a reformed addict a second chance.

  “Oh, it’s much worse than that.” George Casey’s little mouth pursed up, savouring the revelation. “Prison sentence,” he confided.

  “I don’t believe you!” Faith was horrified. A custodial sentence. Jim had been in prison for a drugs offence? “I am a sinner; I am no saint.”

  “So the dean called Postlethwaite in first thing this morning and he didn’t deny it,” Casey exclaimed. “Just tendered his resignation. An hour later he had cleared out of his lodgings. I checked with the cleaning staff.” He seemed pleased with his own diligence. “I knew that choir would bring the cathedral grief, but the dean would have his social engagement…”

  “His lodgings are cleared out?” Faith repeated, stunned. “Already? Where has Jim gone?”

  Casey responded with an indifferent shrug. “No idea. Good riddance, I say. The dean’s secretary and I are contacting the members of the choir to notify them of the disbandment. The tour will have to be cancelled.” Belatedly, he registered her expression. “The dean was as shocked as you,” he sympathized. “He thought it all a mistake at first – but then the dean is a very holy man.” Casey seemed to think the quality akin to adorable foolishness.

  “When did all this happen?”

  “This morning,” Casey answered, as if she were stupid.

  “No. I meant, when was this offence supposed to have taken place?”

  “I have no idea.” The press officer didn’t seem to think it mattered. But Jim might have been in his teens at the time – just a foolish, misguided boy.

  “How come the dean found out about this just now? Mr Postlethwaite has been working in the diocese since the summer.”

  And then she knew the answer before he gave it.

  “The dean got a call from the inspector heading up the enquiry into the murder of Lucas Bagshaw. It must have come to light while they were investigating his association with the youth choir.” George Casey adjusted his long woollen scarf. “Must dash. Too much to do – but I thought you should know as soon as possible about the choir tour being cancelled. Very difficult at this short notice, I am afraid. But you can see – force majeure!” The press officer took his leave with a flourish and hurried off on his busy path of destruction.

  Faith stared after him.

  “Ben,” she muttered. “What have you done?”

  CHAPTER

  17

  Faith abandoned her list. She would have to pick up the gift soap another time. She fought her way through the crowds of Christmas shoppers, her overstuffed bags catching and bumping all the way to the car park. She stowed the bags in the boot of her car, her head full of what had happened to Jim Postlethwaite. Now she was ashamed of her own suspicions. She, personally, knew nothing but good of him. Those scars on his arms had healed long ago. His choir seemed to trust him. And what about his kindness to her – going to the trouble of finding that donkey contact when she was a complete stranger? Even the landlord at the Lion’s Heart had said that Jim hadn’t encouraged Sebastian Keep. And as for the confrontation she witnessed outside his lodgings, Keepie was just the kind to blackmail Jim if he had discovered his secret. Maybe one day Keepie had seen the scars on Jim’s arms and drawn his conclusions, as she had. Perhaps he’d found out about the time Jim served behind bars.

  Her anger focused on Ben. The bottom line was that Ben Shorter had hounded a man out of his job and lodgings, not
because he had discovered a lie in his job application but because of his ridiculous bulldog attitude toward her. Ben just couldn’t let go of a woman he had once thought of as his. Fuming, she got into the car and turned the ignition. She had a couple of hours before her appointment with Ms Whittle and Banjo the donkey. She was going to have it out with him.

  She found a parking spot not too far from the public entrance to the central police station. After several tries she squeezed in between a Range Rover and a Volvo. Her first flush of anger cooled in the concentration of parking. Was she being self-indulgent? It would relieve her feelings if she could just give Ben a piece of her mind, but was this about her guilt, not his?

  No. There was no sound reason for Ben to make that call to the dean. Not right now. An active murder investigation gave the DI in charge many more important things to do with his time.

  She got out of her car and was surprised to see Vernon Granger. He stood between her and the police station. In contrast to her last sight of him, with his mother at the Civic Service, he had dressed today in his teenage persona, wearing a baggy jumper over jeans and engineer boots, his curly hair untamed. He was arguing with a man a little shorter than himself; a middle-aged man dressed in a fashion-conscious, double-breasted pale fawn wool jacket embellished with exaggerated lapels studded with overlarge buttons. The man’s hands, gloved in smooth brown leather, were on Vernon’s chest. At first glance, Faith couldn’t judge whether he was assaulting the youth or pleading with him.

  “Your mother wants you home,” she heard the man say.

  “I am not coming with you! Anna’s here.”

  “They won’t let you stay with her. She’s being interviewed.”

  “Then I’ll wait until they’re done.”

  “Come on, son, think of your mother – she’s worried about you.”

  Son? Mavis’s husband – Neil, wasn’t it?

  “I’m thinking of Anna.”

  “She’s not your family; we are.”

  “Oh yeah? How do you figure that?” The boy gave a bitter laugh. “Anna and Luke, they’re the nearest thing I ever had to family.”

  “You’re upset. Don’t say that. We’re your parents; we love you.”

  “Is that what you call it? Just leave me alone.” Vernon wrenched open the glass door and disappeared into the police station.

  Neil Granger turned. Faith saw him face to face. He had that well-groomed sheen of a prosperous CEO. He doesn’t know how to deal with this situation, Faith thought, and he’s used to being in charge. She tried nodding politely to him and walking on past, but he stopped her.

  “You’re the new vicar at St James’s, aren’t you? My wife says you’ve been mixed up in this from the start.”

  His aggressive tone took her by surprise. “I don’t know that I would put it like that. I happened to be visiting the Markhams’ farm on the day the body of Lucas Bagshaw was found. Your wife came by with her dogs and that’s how we met.” Maybe he would find the detail calming.

  Neil Granger stared at her for a moment, grinding his back teeth, as if he wanted to draw something out of her by sheer attention. Abruptly he turned on his heel and marched away. Interesting family dynamic, Faith thought. She watched Neil Granger get into the Range Rover across the street. He swept out into the road, missing her Yaris by inches.

  Faith couldn’t see Vernon inside.

  “The DI’s interviewing, ma’am,” the sergeant on the desk confirmed as he put the phone down, “but Sergeant Gray says you can go up. Room 315 on the third floor.”

  Room 315 proved to be the case HQ. Peter was the only one in. The rest of the team must be out on assignment. Whiteboards stood against the wall covered with timelines and notes in different coloured markers and, on a large table, pieces of evidence were spread out in plastic bags. Peter was typing on a laptop. He looked up.

  “Hi, Faith. Come to see the boss?”

  “I was hoping to. I hear he’s interviewing Anna Hope. What’s brought that on?”

  “We finally got Lucas’s phone records in. There’s a text unaccounted for.”

  “From Anna to Lucas?”

  Peter nodded and shifted his weight. Faith recognized the signs. Ben must have warned him against telling her too much. She had caused Peter enough trouble over the Thursday night dinner. She stifled her curiosity.

  “OK if I wait?”

  “Of course.” Peter glanced down at the laptop. “You don’t mind if I get on?”

  “Not at all! Don’t let me disturb you.”

  The room was peaceful with just the soft, plastic sound of Peter tapping away at his laptop. Faith examined the murder boards for clues as to why Anna had been called in. A piece of paper Blu-Tacked to one side carried a forensic sketch of the wounds on Lucas’s head and the likely shape of the weapon that made them – a shaft about an inch in diameter. Alongside, a forensic report was circled in yellow highlighter pen at a paragraph that drew attention to traces of cellulose embedded in the second, deeper wound on the crown of Lucas’s head.

  She moved on to the large table, where a collection of debris gathered from the fingertip search of the attack site was laid out in evidence bags. It looked like a lot of old rubbish – cigarette butts, an old mealworm pot, a tangle of fishing line and the rubber heel of a shoe, each with meticulous details attached, including a sketch map marking where the item had been found. It was the litter of a dozen lives that had happened to pass over that spot for half a day, an hour, or just a moment; walkers and fishermen and tourists and lovers – and a murderer, perhaps. It seemed such an impossible task to sift through all that debris and strike lucky, identifying the one elusive piece that fitted into the puzzle they were trying to solve.

  There was a piece of twisted and curled plate metal, maybe an inch and a half wide and four long, with two holes from what must have been screws. The label said it had been found under the hedgerow along the road leading away from the bridge.

  “Have you seen this?” she asked Peter.

  He came over to join her. “Yes, we’re not completely sure what it is, to be honest. No prints.”

  He opened the bag and tipped it into Faith’s hand. The metal was light, one side completely smooth, the other marked with letters and numbers, but it was badly scratched at one side and hard to make out the full inscription. The tagger had labelled it “metal plaque, partial engraving: ‘WRS, 987’”.

  “We resorted to Google,” said Peter. “No matches that make any sense.”

  As Faith put it back and zipped the bag, her eye snagged on another group of bags, set out at the far side of the table. Not litter, but Lucas’s personal effects. The glint of silver from a key ring caught her attention. The bunch of keys was labelled “Lucas Bagshaw/house & misc”. There was a silver shape attached to them, like a fob. She admired the platinum disc appliquéd with a sinuous shape in contrasting silver.

  “This is Jensen,” she said.

  “Meaning?” Ben was standing in the doorway, and his voice made her start.

  “Georg Jensen, the Danish designer. Very sought-after.”

  “And expensive?”

  “Yes.” Faith shifted the keys around within the bag to have a better look. “This isn’t a key fob. It’s a pendant – a woman’s pendant.”

  “Maybe it belonged to his mother.”

  “Could be – it’s an expensive piece of jewellery for a cleaner.”

  “Another gift from the absent father?” Ben suggested.

  “How did it go?” asked Peter.

  Ben shrugged. “Inconclusive. The transcripts are being typed up now. You can read them later.”

  The windows of the investigation room overlooked the public entrance. Down below, Faith saw little Anna Hope leaving under the shelter of Vernon Granger’s lanky frame. Ben was contemplating her cynically from afar. Suddenly she remembered the reason she had come here.

  “I need to talk to you – in private,” she said.

  “So?” Ben waved her out with
an arm. “We’ll be in Exam 2,” he said to Peter.

  He opened the door for her to pass into the bare little interview room with the hose-down floor and utilitarian chairs, and table with the recording machines. He drew out one of the chairs for her and sat down beside her. She noticed that at least he had the decency not to put her on the opposite side of the table like some suspect.

  “Shoot,” he said.

  “I have just been told that Jim Postlethwaite resigned his job and left his lodgings this morning.” She was pleased with her self-composure. Her voice came out measured and controlled. “Why did you phone the dean to tell him about his drug use? There’s no evidence he’s been using recently.”

  Ben’s eyes narrowed. It had been some time since she had seen him look so hawkish. “How long have you known?”

  “That Jim once used heroin?” She felt embarrassed, as if she had deliberately concealed something pertinent from an investigating officer; well, she had. But she hadn’t judged it pertinent… “Only a couple of days.”

  “He told you?”

  “No. I saw the scars on his arms.’

  “And what were you two doing?”

  “Don’t be childish! It was nothing like that.”

  Ben shifted. He reached out an arm. She felt the pressure on the back of her chair. He leaned toward her, crowding her space.

  “It wasn’t just drug use. Did your pet choirmaster tell you he did time with Sebastian Keep at Her Majesty’s pleasure?”

  She tensed. She knew something was coming; something she wouldn’t like. “Of course he didn’t.”

  The control in Ben’s voice hinted at the force of held-back emotion. “Do you know what he was in for?” His expression held no triumph at all, only sympathy. “Eight years ago, James Richard Postlethwaite, Cambridge graduate and middle-class waster, was shooting heroin, but he was married with a kid. A little girl. And like many an addict, Jim was too busy getting high to look after her. His two-year-old got into his stash. She nearly died. His wife left him and took the kid, and he served eighteen months for possession and child endangerment.”