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

  Faith was conscious of the stares examining her as the group passed – especially from the girls. She rose from her seat and saw the conductor for the first time. Neither short nor bald – mid-thirties, Faith guessed. He rose a comfortable two or three inches taller than her, with close cropped fair-ish hair. He hailed her.

  “You must be Faith?” He had guarded, worldly, hazel eyes. “Jim Postlethwaite.”

  “Faith Morgan,” she responded. His hand gripped hers.

  Without warning, Faith suddenly felt a little faint. She reached for the support of the nearest pew-back. The choirmaster slipped a steadying hand under her elbow. He bore her weight easily.

  “You all right?”

  “So sorry! Festive stress. I’ve been running on empty since first thing.”

  “Really? I thought this time of year was supposed to be joyous,” he said ironically. She was grateful for the lack of fuss. His tone made her feel a little less of a fool.

  “And it is,” she replied, “but less so when you are short of a donkey for the nativity pageant. You try booking a donkey this close to Christmas.” The dizziness passed and she straightened up.

  “It’s freezing in here,” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m gasping for a cuppa. How about we transfer to my lodgings? I might even have a stale mince pie sitting around.”

  “Now you’re talking,” said Faith. “Lead on.”

  They left the cathedral by the south door. The snow had ceased, leaving a glimmering in the dusk.

  “So tell me about your choir,” Faith said. “How many should I expect for our Midnight Mass?”

  “Probably fifteen or so. They won’t all turn up, but I’ll bring those that do in the minibus, so you’ll be sure of a quorum.”

  They made their way cautiously down the icy paths crossing the Close toward the ancient King’s Gate.

  “How did you come to be here?” asked Faith.

  “You think I don’t look the part?” Jim gestured back at the historic magnificence of the Close behind them. He grimaced self-deprecatingly. “You’re probably right. I came to Winchester on an Arts grant this summer – Bringing harmony to troubled lives…” Faith looked at him sideways.

  “Really?”

  He grinned – an endearingly open and boyish grin.

  “Well, that was the pitch. The dean came to one of the concerts. He thought it might be something we could replicate with the cathedral’s backing. I help out with the main choir as well, of course.” Jim stopped before a painted mews house. “Here we are.”

  They climbed a polished oak staircase and he unlocked the door to a suite. What had once been gracious proportions had been divided into more modern spaces by plasterboard partitions – a bedroom, bathroom and a truncated sitting room dominated by a startlingly lofty window. The space was furnished with chairs and a sofa bed covered in an easy-clean fabric in a dull red. On the short wall, a drinks fridge and a mini microwave gave the appearance of a galley kitchen. An electric kettle sat on a narrow worktop beneath a cupboard too small to hold much more than a few mugs.

  “Take a seat,” he said. She peeled off her outer layers and sat on the uncomfortably geometric sofa while Jim flicked the kettle on.

  “They’re a good bunch,” he was saying, as he deposited three mince pies on a chipped floral plate. “The numbers fluctuate, but we have maybe twenty to thirty regulars, aged between sixteen and twenty-one.” He nodded over his shoulder to a pile of leaflets lying on the coffee table. “Some of the kids came from the summer choir; others are newbies. You might be interested in those. Publicity leaflets. St James’s is in the list. Take a bunch to hand out at your pageant. Might pull in a few more punters for Midnight Mass – you never know.”

  The flyers were eye-catching – candid shots of choir members against lozenges of colour. Faith’s eyes stopped on a youth with his head tilted to one side against the weight of a fringe like a black wing.

  The dead boy’s eyes were striking – they looked straight out at her.

  “You don’t take sugar?” Jim was leaning in front of her, placing the mince pies on the table. She shook her head in a rapid negative, startled by the warmth spreading over her skin as he looked down at her. She dropped his flyer on the table and took a mince pie.

  “That boy with the black fringe down the bottom there…” she said. “The picture against the yellow…”

  He leaned over her to look and then converted the movement, twisting his body gracefully to sit down, lounging, relaxed, opposite her. The flyer lay on the table between them.

  “Lucas Bagshaw. Pity,” he grimaced, regretfully. “He had a really good voice.”

  “Had?”

  “He walked out on me,” Jim said wryly. He smiled at her, unguarded, as if they were old friends. “These kids aren’t always reliable. Lucas left us in the lurch; didn’t turn up for Sunday’s performance.” For a moment his hazel eyes reflected annoyance. “Didn’t even bother to text to give me the heads-up. He had a solo, too – you heard us trying his replacement. He is a good lad, but like most of them, he lacks confidence.”

  “Lucas?” Faith asked, confused. Jim frowned, puzzled a moment. Then his face cleared.

  “I meant the substitute. No. Now you mention it, Lucas is pretty mature for his age.”

  He got up, and poured boiling water into two mugs. Faith let her teeth sink into the pastry of the mince pie. She couldn’t be sure – could she? She swallowed without chewing properly.

  “I don’t suppose I could use your facilities?”

  “Feel free,” he replied. “It’s just down the hall. First on the right.”

  She locked the bathroom door behind her and fumbled in the depths of her bag for her phone. It barely rang twice before Ben picked up.

  “Shorter.” He’s in a mood, she thought. There was no use beating about the bush when he was like that. Faith took a deep breath.

  “Lucas Bagshaw – he could be the…”

  “The victim at the river?” Ben cut across her. No small talk. No preamble. Just straight in, the way it always used to be.

  “His face is on a flyer for a choir. I think. He is – was – a member of a youth choir performing around the diocese.” There was a pause at the other end of the line.

  “Where are you calling from?” She had a sudden vision of herself sitting on the covered toilet in the bathroom of an attractive man she had only just met. She felt the heat rise up her cheeks.

  “The cathedral,” she answered. Bother! That sounded defensive. What was she – sixteen? Faith screwed up her face, waiting.

  “Whereabouts in the cathedral?” Ben’s voice asked in her ear.

  There was a gentle tap at the door.

  “Are you all right in there?” Jim asked.

  Faith muffled the phone in the towel hanging by the sink.

  “Fine!” she called out, cheerily. “Be out in a minute.” She heard him retreat down the corridor.

  “Got to go,” she said hurriedly in to the phone, and rang off. She depressed the toilet handle and washed her hands, drying them carefully to buy herself some time. Until Ben confirmed the ID, she’d keep this to herself. “Bluff,” she told her reflection. “Just bluff.”

  “Anything wrong?” Jim asked as she reappeared. There was a steaming mug beside the mince pies.

  “Had to take a phone call,” she said breezily. “Mobiles are convenient, but so inconvenient sometimes – don’t you think?” She smiled at him, picking up her tea and taking a sip while she sat back down. “Tell me more about your choir,” she resumed. “Where do you draw the kids from?”

  “They come from all sorts of places.”

  “But all from Winchester and hereabouts?” She paused to drink more tea. “Do you not worry about them, these kids, when they fail to turn up or drop out all of a sudden?”

  “I’m not a social worker. If they join my choir, they do so as individuals, not children. I don’t need them to account for their lives or their families. It’
s the secret of my success,” he said, with a lopsided smile. “So long as they show commitment to the choir – that’s good enough for me.” He apparently read the doubt in her face. A pulse of energy bent him toward her, his forearms on his knees. “Some of these kids – they don’t have good relationships with adults.” She liked the conviction in the way he spoke. “If I want their trust, I don’t pry. They talk to me about non-choir stuff only if and when they want to.”

  “But you care about them.”

  He sat back in his chair. “What I do is about building their confidence. But I can’t pretend to take responsibility for them,” he stated with unexpected emphasis, as if he held a long-running argument with himself. “That would be a lie. They’ve had enough people letting them down.”

  Faith looked down at the flyer lying on the table between them. She remembered this feeling from the interrogation rooms, back in the old days – the feigned ignorance, playing the innocent. She shouldn’t be using the ploy now, but she couldn’t help it. She told herself it was wrong to tell Jim until she could confirm her suspicions. She pointed to the black-haired boy.

  “This boy, he looks familiar – Lucas, you said? Is he local? I wondered if I’d seen him somewhere…”

  “Lucas Bagshaw. You might have seen him about town. He’s a Winchester lad.”

  “He’s not sleeping rough?” Her question caught Jim mid-swallow. He gulped down his tea and shook his head.

  “No. Lucas has a home. I think someone said his parents are dead. He lives with a relative. He joined the choir with a couple of friends.”

  If Lucas had a home and friends, Faith thought to herself, why would no one report him missing; especially when he failed to turn up for a performance over the weekend?

  “Is there some trouble with Lucas?” Jim’s steady gaze challenged her. She took a deep breath.

  “No,” she said, guilt sitting heavily in her gut. “Just curious.”

  CHAPTER

  4

  Faith tried to maintain her concentration on the Midnight Mass, but in truth the boy’s face on the flyer was distracting. She gulped her tea too fast and left in something of a hurry. As she reached her car her phone trilled, shrill and urgent from its nest in the top of her open bag.

  Perhaps it was Ben with confirmation.

  “Faith Morgan?” A familiar voice, and unwelcome. George Casey, the bishop’s press officer. Not one of her favourite people. “Thank goodness I’ve found you!” The exclamation had an accusatory edge. “What is this about another body you’ve turned up? After the mess last time, you could have had the decency to ring me to warn me. I’ve had the police on to me. Apparently the victim was a member of the wretched youth choir.”

  The wretched youth choir! Faith struggled to find suitable words. George Casey hardly paused to draw breath.

  “It would be connected to the youth choir,” he lamented. “I always thought it a risk bringing in urban youth. And in the run-up to Christmas! The time of the year when we are most in the public eye.”

  Faith wondered if there might be steam coming out of her ears.

  “I realize that tragedy is inconvenient…” she began icily. She heard an intake of breath at the other end of the line and then a brief pause.

  “Of course, of course, it is a tragedy,” Casey fussed impatiently in her ear. “But a death of a boy like this – well, sudden death, press-wise, takes a lot of handling, as you well know,” he ended, resentfully.

  Faith bristled at the injustice. It wasn’t her fault that her arrival in the diocese had coincided with the notorious case of the murdered vicar. She’d grown increasingly sure that George Casey blamed her personally for those weeks of lurid headlines in the papers.

  “I am not sure what I can do for you, apart from sympathize,” she said, keeping her voice level.

  “That is why I am ringing. Apparently the police need to interview the youth choir. They are calling people in tomorrow morning at the cathedral.”

  Faith frowned. What did this have to do with her? “As it happens, I was just with Mr Postlethwaite, the choir director – you should let him know.”

  “Oh!” At least she’d startled him. “Yes. Of course. But as I was saying. The dean asks if you can be present at the interviews tomorrow.”

  “Me?” Her first thought – an uncharitable one, she quickly acknowledged – was that she simply didn’t have the time. “I’m not sure how I can—”

  “10:30 start in the Lady Chapel,’ interrupted George. “We think there should be a female on hand, as chaperone, you know. Underaged girls, and all that.”

  “Really?” Faith could feel her sixth sense tingling. “This was the dean’s idea?”

  “Well, not entirely. The police suggested it.”

  “They did?”

  “Yes. The fellow in charge – Detective Inspector Shorter,” said Casey, pompously. “An old friend of yours, isn’t he?”

  It was a clear, icy night. In a bundle of winter clothing, warmed in the middle by the glow of the microwaved pasta bake she had just consumed, Faith crunched down the path to the church hall. Someone had gritted it, bless them! The phone in her pocket beeped. On time to the very minute. Not bad.

  Between Ben and George Casey, she had felt powerless to refuse tomorrow’s appointment at the cathedral.

  The porch light illuminated the iron-banded door. Her mittened hands gripped the ring. It gave way, protesting. Fresh muddy traces on the tiled floor inside told her the others had already arrived. The lobby still felt cold and a bit dank, but they had got rid of the unfortunate pea-green colour that had covered the walls when she first arrived. It had been replaced by a delicate lilac in a flurry of communal hard work that summer – a cold shade for winter, but it made the space lighter. A chilly draught touched her face. The door ahead stood open, the hall in darkness beyond. The stars offered distant radiance through the high windows. Beyond, the door leading to the back room spilled warm light.

  “Rice Krispie stars…” It was Sue’s voice, loaded with humour as she exaggerated her tale. “I had to use so much sugar to keep their shape, I tell you – they set like iron. The edges were sharp enough to put someone’s eye out.”

  “Did you spray them with gold paint? Then you could keep them as tree ornaments,” Clarisse’s calm voice responded.

  “I found Benji trying to use them as martial arts throwing stars; they ended up in the bin.”

  Faith entered the room. Four familiar faces were laughing at Sue who was holding up her thumb and finger an inch apart, her dark eyes full of life. “Honest! He missed the neighbour’s cat by so much…”

  Clarisse Johnston, Sue’s best friend, was by the tea tray handing round mugs. She wore a simple roll-neck over a mid-length skirt and still managed to look like an off-duty model. Delicate, grey-haired Elsie Lively sat at the table with her sister, Grace, and their friend Marjorie Davis.

  “We’ve been discussing Christmas crafts,” said Clarisse, handing Faith a steaming mug.

  “Hello, vicar,” Sue greeted Faith with a twinkle. “Have one of Elsie’s festive lemon curd tarts – they’re fab.” She loaded a piece into her wide mouth.

  “Please do,” Elsie contributed in her breathy voice; she pushed the plate toward Faith. “Grace and I have never got on with mince pies.” Faith helped herself.

  “Fred sends his apologies,” Sue said. “The Hare and Hounds’ darts team needed him tonight, but you’ll notice he gritted the paths before he left.”

  “Dear Fred.” The tart spread lemony gorgeousness in her mouth. Faith reflected just how lucky she’d been with her churchwarden; Fred Partridge was one in a million. She realized the other churchwarden, Pat Montesque, was missing. And it was Pat who had called the meeting. Clarisse saw her look at the clock.

  “Pat’s not here yet,” she said, with an impish look in her dark eyes.

  “I think it is a poorr show,” said Sue in a fair imitation of Pat, “when she called the meeting herself. After all, we are
but here at her command.”

  “The Christmas pageant and carol service is very dear to Pat’s heart,” Faith said diplomatically.

  “Then why isn’t she on time? She always makes a frightful fuss when one of us is late,” Sue complained.

  “Pat rang me to say she would be a few minutes late,” Elsie said quickly. “I believe she is bringing someone else to join us.” Elsie hated dissent. Sue was immediately contrite at the old lady’s concern.

  “Don’t worry, Elsie, I was only joking.”

  “How are things on the pageant front?” Faith asked. Sue and Clarisse were managing that part of the grand Christmas event. Sue had been directing the local amateur dramatics for years.

  “All on schedule,” replied Sue.

  “Fingers crossed…” said Clarisse, with a fond look at her optimistic friend. “Amanda Knight got into a stew because her boys told her they were cast as a camel and she doesn’t sew; she thought she had to produce the costume, poor girl. She was too shy to say anything. We only worked out what was up when she cut Sue dead in the supermarket.”

  “Silly sausage! Believing those boys of hers,” Sue said, reaching for another tart. “She’s the only one they take in. They’re a handful, those Knight boys. I told her – never mind how Lucy Taylor goes on about the magical life-sized puppets in The Lion King, the only animals in the Little Worthy Christmas pageant are real ones. By the way, you do have the donkey booked, Faith, don’t you?”

  Businesslike heels clicked across the wooden floor of the hall. The door swung open. Pat stood there, holding an old leather zipped folder to her chest, her eyes like bright buttons. There was another woman standing in her wake.

  “Ladies, vicar! Thank you all for waiting,” she greeted them as she swept into the room. “We are very fortunate that Mrs Neil Granger has agreed to join us. Some of you will know Mavis already as chair of our Women’s Institute.” Pat surveyed the older ladies present with a benign look. Clarisse looked a little uncomfortable. She and Sue had avoided joining the WI. Sue licked lemon curd off her forefinger, immune to Pat’s hints. Pat continued: “She’s most kindly agreed to help us out with the carol service catering and flower arrangements – welcome to our little group, Mavis.”