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

  “How are you, Mrs Granger?”

  Mavis barely looked at her. She was as immaculately turned out as ever. “They haven’t arrested him, you know,” she said.

  “Vernon?” said Faith.

  Mavis glared at her. “Of course Vernon! It’s all a mistake.” She braced her back, her head held high.

  “I am sorry. This can’t be easy for you.”

  “This is one of the highlights of the Christmas season in this community,” Mavis answered, as if she were instructing a stranger. “The WI president always attends.”

  “Is your husband, Neil, here with you?”

  “Yes, he’s with Vernon somewhere.”

  Faith glimpsed Peter walking into the church hall. And there was Ben, moving toward them through the carolling crowd. Faith’s mouth felt suddenly dry. Ben stopped in front of them, his eyes on Mavis.

  “Mrs Granger – will you come with me, please? We need to have a word.” In the flickering light of the lanterns, Mavis Granger’s face was a perfectly painted mask. Only her lips moved.

  “Vernon?”

  Ben led them across the Green to the church hall. Behind them, the congregation, clustered in the churchyard, was singing “Silent Night”. In the main hall the folding tables were laid out with food and drink. The helpers were at the carol singing – all except Pat. She stood, like a statue in the far corner, inconspicuous for once. Ben waved them on into the meeting room at the back.

  It was an odd rerun of that first time, when Pat had brought Mavis Granger to the pageant planning meeting. Peter Gray sat where Sue had sat, a notebook open before him. Neil Granger sat near the door and, under the escort of two police constables, on the far side of the table, Vernon sat beside Anna, holding her hand. Ben drew out a chair for Mavis. Her eyes were on her son.

  “Mrs Granger, there are some things we need to clear up,” Ben began. “Now that we are all here, I want to discuss the burglary at the Old Mill this last June.”

  Mavis blinked. “Our burglary? What about it?” Peter slid a file toward Ben across the table. He opened it and ran his finger down the list. Faith knew him well enough to know he had it off by heart.

  “I was interested in the items that were taken,” Ben said. “A gold Rolex man’s watch.”

  “My father’s,” Mavis said. Ben nodded.

  “… an eighteenth-century snuff box with German enamelling; a gold half hunter watch with a nineteen carat Albert.”

  “Vernon’s grandfather’s watch.”

  “Family treasures?”

  “Yes,” said Mavis.

  Ben looked at her for a moment. He folded his hands over the file. “Earlier today we executed a search warrant…”

  “Where? By what right?” demanded Neil Granger. Ben held up a hand.

  “In a moment, sir.” He signalled to one of the constables standing against the wall, who brought him an open cardboard box. Ben dipped his hand in, bringing out plastic evidence bags which he laid out on the table one by one. “My team discovered this enamelled snuff box, and this gold Rolex and this… I believe this is what they call a half hunter pocket watch?”

  “The items that were stolen!” Neil Granger said. “Where did you find them?”

  Ben was watching Vernon. The boy’s face had drained of colour, his lips clamped together. He gripped Anna’s hand in his.

  “Can you tell your father where we found these, Vernon?” Ben asked.

  Mavis looked at her son in horror. Vernon said nothing.

  “That Bagshaw boy stole these things,” Mavis interrupted. “It was nothing to do with Vernon.”

  Ben picked another bag from the box. This time the plastic was weighted down with a small white statue. Faith happened to be watching Neil. She saw his face close down, almost as if she were watching a piece of film that had been paused.

  “Where did you find that?” Mavis demanded, her brow creasing.

  “On Trisha Bagshaw’s mantelpiece. Her brother kindly let us have it for a while.”

  Mavis’s frown deepened. She moistened her lips. “I told you Lucas was a thief.”

  Ben’s hand entered the dark mouth of the box. He lifted up another bag. They all leaned forward to see it. It contained a second, identical statue. He laid them side by side.

  “Mr Granger, I believe this one is yours?”

  Neil cleared his throat. “It’s from my study.” His wife was staring at him.

  Ben poked one of the statues with a finger. “They are not entirely identical. This one – from the Bagshaw home – has an inscription chip in the base. An ‘N’ and a ‘T’.” His blue eyes met Neil Granger’s brown ones, in casual enquiry. “Can you explain this?” Neil lifted his chin a fraction, either in defiance or to avoid looking at his wife.

  “It was a gift.”

  “To…?”

  “Trisha Bagshaw, Lucas’s mother. She looked after my mother for many years. Mother was always very fond of her.”

  “So, just a thank-you gift?”

  Mavis’s eyes burned.

  “Yes,” said Neil, as he brushed a couple of the bags containing the gold items on the table with one hand. “But these things – they’re different. You found them at the Bagshaw house, you said?”

  “No. I didn’t. The search warrant wasn’t for the Bagshaw home; it was for the Old Mill.”

  “My home!” Mavis gasped. Ben sat forward, his forearm on the table. Faith noted idly that the hand resting on the table was pointing toward Vernon.

  “Do you know where they were found?” he asked the boy.

  “In my sock drawer,” he answered blankly. Mavis’s mouth dropped open.

  “Vernon – don’t say a word,” his father pronounced. He brought out his phone. “I’m calling you a solicitor.”

  “You just keep out of it!” Vernon’s words exploded from his mouth. “You started this – let’s just see it finished!” His father was buffeted back by the words; he sat silenced and baffled.

  “Vernon!” breathed his mother.

  “It’s not what you think.” Anna spoke up, her curls quivering. “It’s not Vernon’s fault. You don’t understand.”

  “Then why don’t you explain it to us?” Ben invited. Vernon sat up. Anna dropped her head. “Let me get you started,” Ben continued calmly. “You were in your room the day of the burglary, Vernon? Your mother had gone for a walk with the dogs…”

  “No.” The denial was uttered quietly, but all the more shocking for it.

  “You weren’t in your room?”

  “Yes. But she didn’t take the dogs for a walk.” He swallowed as if the words were blocked in his throat. Anna hugged his arm and spoke up for him.

  “We – we were there in V’s room that day,” she said. “The dogs have their kennel in sight of his window. They were there the whole time.” She looked to Mavis. “We thought you were out, but you didn’t have the dogs with you. They were there, and when you said there was the break-in – the dogs never barked once.”

  “When did you find these things?” Faith asked Vernon. She’d said the words before she remembered she was only supposed to be observing; she couldn’t reel them back now. His eyes were soft and sad as he looked back at her.

  “Last Wednesday. I went looking in her wardrobe for a jumper. Anna was cold. I found them at the back.” Faith thought of his anger toward his mother when she saw him at the Civic Service that night.

  “What did you think?”

  “I didn’t know what to think.” Vernon was holding back the tears, his eyes red. He addressed his mother. “Then I thought maybe you’d done it so you could blame Lucas – but you never did that – not really.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked.

  He looked straight at her. “I thought we kept secrets in this family, Mother – isn’t that what we do?” He hung his head, staring at the tabletop, blinking back the tears.

  “Lucas was a thief,” Mavis said stubbornly.

  “No. He wasn’t,” Ben contradic
ted her. “At least, he didn’t take these things.”

  “He took so much more!” Mavis whispered through gritted teeth. She spoke so softly, maybe only Faith, sitting beside her, heard her.

  “What did he take from you, Mavis?” she asked gently. Mavis shook her head, and kept the shake going as if she couldn’t stop it.

  “Miss Hope,” Ben’s authoritative voice startled them all. “This last Saturday I believe you sold a particular bunch of flowers.” He consulted his notes. “Twisted willow, white narcissus, heather sprigs, pussy willow and red amaryllis. Do you remember it?”

  Anna’s eyes were huge in her small face. She nodded.

  “And do you remember who you sold it to?” Anna looked desperately at Vernon. He sighed and squeezed her hand.

  “Yes,” she said. “Him.” She pointed across the table. “Vernon’s dad.”

  Neil Granger lifted both his hands and ran his fingers over his head in a shocked gesture. He wore old-fashioned cufflinks. Sitting at an angle to him, Faith saw them clearly for the first time: globular silver cufflinks with a familiar infinity twist. She looked over at Ben. He caught her recognition and lifted an eyebrow.

  “Do you have Lucas’s keys there?” she asked. Silently he looked in the box and brought them out, offering them to her in their plastic wrappings. She spread them out in the bag, separating the pendant fob and stretching the plastic around it so it could be seen. She held it out toward Vernon and Anna.

  “Do you recognize this?”

  “That was Lucas’s mother’s pendant,” Anna told her.

  Vernon barely glanced at it. “And the pattern on it is just like Dad’s cufflinks,” Vernon interjected, his voice hard and sarcastic. “What could that mean, Mother?”

  The wisp of thought that had eluded Faith when she had been talking to Anna in the pig pen rooted and blossomed. Anna didn’t work at Mavis’s florist shop on Mondays – and it was on a Monday that Lucas’s body had been discovered. She had been surprised that evening at the meeting in the church hall that Mavis and Pat had known the identity of the victim at the river. She had assumed, she supposed, that somehow news had spread through Jim and the choir, through Anna, to Mavis. But Monday was Anna’s day off.

  “You faked the burglary. You trod on the silver cup, because it was his,” Faith said. “But you couldn’t bear to get rid of the heirlooms. They were family items. So you kept them.”

  Mavis looked only at her.

  “I can’t. Please,” she whispered. “Not in front of Vernon.”

  Faith looked over at Ben. “Might he and Anna be escorted to the other room?”

  Ben laid out a sheet of A4 paper like a card in a game. He looked over at Faith.

  “This is a photocopy of a page from the Hampshire Chronicle,” he said.

  Faith leaned over and saw the date at the top: “September 4th, 1987.”

  The top half of the photocopy was a photo of an old man with a white beard holding up a certificate and a walking stick. In the grainy photo, the metal collar was indistinct. A young woman stood beside him, fresh-faced and smiling.

  When Faith had first seen the page at the library that afternoon, just after closing time, the face had meant nothing to her. The librarian had been about to go home, but Faith knew her in passing from the genealogy club, of which Pat was an avid member. Faith had persuaded her to give ten minutes of her time.

  Looking at the photo now, she realized it was the expression that misled her, more than the actual features. But the caption confirmed it. It was a younger, more hopeful version of Mavis Granger. The article featured Henry Jenner, seventy-nine, victor in the prize ram competition for a record-winning sixth time. Faith turned the photograph over. There was a legend on the back written in a neat, well-formed hand – Henry Jenner with his granddaughter, Mavis, listed the winners of the Little Worthy Rural Show.

  “Mavis,” she began conversationally. “Your grandfather was a record-winning sheep breeder.”

  Mavis looked temporarily pleased, a little imperious even. “We were all very proud of him and that stick.” Her expression darkened. “It’s gone now. Sadly it broke.”

  “When – do you remember?”

  “I can’t think.”

  “This year?” Faith pressed.

  “Yes – earlier this year. Spring sometime.”

  “What happened to it?”

  Mavis shot Ben a puzzled look under her lashes as if to say, why are you allowing this woman to waste our time?

  “Please answer the vicar, Mrs Granger,” said Ben.

  “I threw the bits away,” she said, addressing him pointedly.

  “In the rubbish bin?” said Faith. Mavis wrinkled up her face as if this was an absurd line of questioning. For a moment, Faith wondered if they’d got this wrong, but then she remembered all the interrogations she’d sat in on, in the olden days. They fell into two categories, with rarely anything in between: the instant confessions, or the stubborn denials, even in the face of the evidence. Sometimes, she’d thought, they even convinced themselves they were innocent.

  “I suppose I gave the bits to the dogs to play with,” she answered Faith carelessly. “They enjoy chewing sticks.” Faith frowned at the photograph.

  “But isn’t that a metal presentation collar? I can’t imagine that would be good for your dogs’ teeth.”

  “I must have thrown it away,” Mavis said, giving her a sour look.

  “Seems odd,” said Faith. “Didn’t it have sentimental value?”

  “I’m not a sentimental person,” said Mavis, biting off each word.

  “Do you often walk down by the river?” Ben asked.

  Mavis fluttered her eyelashes. “We walk all over. The boys like a lot of exercise. It keeps me slim.”

  Ben reached into the box again.

  “The reason I ask is because we recovered this by the river.” He showed her the twisted metal plaque.

  Mavis swallowed, her eyes impassive.

  The door to the hall opened and Pat stood in the gap. She was carrying a tray full of mugs of tea and a plate of homemade biscuits.

  “So sorry to intrude,” she said cheerily, “but I thought you could do with some tea.” Peter leaped up from the table to take the tray from her, shooting a panicked look at Faith. Ben was lowering and ominously still.

  “Thank you, Mrs Montesque,” Peter said hurriedly.

  “Pat – if you don’t mind…” Faith intervened. But Pat wasn’t listening. Her eyes were on the photograph on the table.

  “Why Mavis – that’s not you, is it? I mean, you look… oh, yes, that’s your walking stick!”

  Ben’s look of anger passed suddenly. “Have you seen Mrs Granger with this stick recently?” he asked, relatively mildly.

  “Well, yes. Mavis always walks with it when she has her dogs with her – that’s how she controls the big beasts.”

  “Yes, of course,” Mavis responded irritably. “I was just telling Inspector Shorter how I broke it in the spring and I had to throw the pieces away.”

  “That’s not right,” Pat said. “You had that stick at the Red Cross fair just at the beginning of this month. I was on the bric-a-brac stall and we were talking about Christmas gifts – don’t you remember? You were holding your grandfather’s stick then – the one you’re so proud of.”

  “You’re mixing things up, Pat,” Mavis said tersely.

  “I don’t mistake things like that,” replied Pat stubbornly. “I am very good with dates. I remember, clear as day. You were standing by my stall when one of those brutes growled at me and you tapped him with that stick. You had that stick with you then. I am certain of it.”

  “You just have to insert yourself centre stage, don’t you! I am sorry, inspector, the stick I have been using for months is blond wood. You saw me with it down by the river, the day we met.” Mrs Granger threw a glance across to Faith as well, then refocused her charm on Ben. “Mrs Montesque is just making things up. There is a certain rivalry between us.”
/>
  “No, Mavis. Pat Montesque doesn’t make things up.” Faith’s voice was calm. “If she says she remembers seeing you with that stick at the Red Cross fair, then I believe her.” Pat was bristling with offence. Faith got up and piloted her to the door. “Thank you so much for the tea, Pat. It’s most welcome. But they’ll be coming in from the carol singing any moment. We need you out there.”

  “You can count on me,” Pat said, and closed the door behind her.

  Mavis’s eyes had once reminded Faith of flat pieces of sky. Now, she thought, they just look blank. In contrast, sitting there in his fashionable clothes with his well-groomed hands, Neil’s face was gaunt and his eyes bewildered. He hardly seemed to comprehend the scene unfolding before him.

  “I think you took Anna’s phone when she left it on the counter at your florist shop that Saturday,” Faith said quietly. “You texted Lucas to come and meet you at the bridge.”

  A ghost of a smile sketched itself on Mavis’s smooth face. She seemed pleased at her own cleverness. Then even that expression faded.

  “What were you trying to do?” As she asked the question, Faith remembered that other time in this very room; Pat was exclaiming over Mavis’s burglary – I remember how it upset you. Some stranger coming in, trampling through your home and touching your private things. It’s a violation.

  “It must have been so hard to know that your husband had fathered another son with Trisha,” Faith said softly. Mavis jerked her head toward her.

  “I say!” said Neil Granger. “Is this really—”

  “With that cleaner!” said Mavis.

  “Why did you have to stage the burglary?” Faith read the flicker in Mavis’s face. “You wanted to go through your husband’s desk?”

  “The drawers were locked.” She threw a disdainful glance at her husband. “I wanted to know the truth. You never let me look at the accounts and I am a businesswoman. I am not some ignorant housewife. I tried to pick the locks, but one of them broke so I had to make it look like burglary.”

  “How long had you known about Lucas?” Neil’s voice croaked.

  “Since the summer, when Vernon started bringing him to the house. He had your eyes,” she told her husband casually. “And then there was that pendant on his keys. He did that deliberately to taunt me!”