The Advent of Murder (A Faith Morgan Mystery) Page 5

  The robin paused, head up, alert, then flew off in a blur of brown and red. She stood up and saw the Beast, a handsome silver and grey shorthaired tabby with a charming face and a gift for murdering small mammals and birds. He looked up and opened his pink mouth to mew silently at her through the glass.

  “Oh, very well,” she told him and went into the kitchen, carrying her laptop with her. She opened the door to the garden a couple of inches, and took a sachet of cat food from the stash she kept in the cupboard by the sink. The door opened a fraction more and the Beast padded in. He chirruped at her with an expectant look. She put the dish of cat food down for him.

  “Here you are. Eat this and keep away from my birds,” she told him, crouching down to stroke his thick fur. The Beast had excellent manners. He expected conversation before he dined. He rubbed his head against her knee before focusing his full attention on the jellied meat in his bowl. She made herself a mug of tea and sat at the kitchen table to check her emails.

  Another donkey potential ruled out. Heather at the RSPCA sanctuary regretted to inform Ms Morgan that the one possible donkey they had in their charge was otherwise engaged. Things were getting serious.

  “I’ve prayed for guidance on this one,” she informed the Beast. “The good Lord must have better things to worry about.” The Beast sprang gracefully onto the table beside her. He sat, curled his tail around his feet, and gazed at her. Inspiration struck and she set to her sermon again.

  The next time she looked up, it was nearly twenty past nine. She had to be at the cathedral by 10:30. The tabby mewed indignantly as she showed him the door. She rushed around making the bed, brushing her teeth and collecting her bag. A yard from the front door, the house phone rang. She hesitated. She was still officially in, standing there in the hall. She debated for a second whether to let the answer-phone get it, then picked up the receiver on the hall table under the mirror.

  “There you are!” It was her sister. She saw the brief annoyance in her face reflected in the mirror and then felt the rush of accompanying shame. She looked down at the table: Repeat after me: Family is important.

  “Good morning, Ruth – I am just on my way out…”

  “Of course you are, but I need to talk to you.”

  “Right now?”

  “It’s about Mother. And Christmas.” Despite the studied pause, Faith understood this was not simply a topic of conversation. Ruth was worked up about something.

  “Of course – I’d love to talk about that, but I am running late…” She grimaced as she heard herself. The face in the mirror blushed. She could feel the phone glowing hot in her hand. She turned her back on the mirror and took a short step toward the door. “Really – I have to be at the cathedral in thirty minutes,” she pleaded. “And you know what the traffic’s like this time of day.”

  “Of course, your life is important,” her sister said. She didn’t have to say the rest out loud; they both knew Ruth believed she carried the burden of the family alone. “And I’m pretty busy, too.” Ruth worked for the council. Faith visualized her sitting at her desk, everything neat and in order, with a fresh cup of coffee to hand. “But I need to know what we are going to do Christmas Day.”

  We… Faith felt an inner surge of rebellion. Why did Ruth have to assume her little sister had no life and commitments of her own? Instead, she said tentatively, “I sort of assumed it would be at yours…?”

  “Of course you did,” Ruth said coldly. Faith was confused. She always thought Ruth liked to have Christmas on her territory. She heard her sister’s intake of breath down the line. “Well, I think we need to discuss it.”

  A pause stretched its electricity between them. Ruth’s voice came back on, charged with a false sweetness. “So could we book in a time to talk?”

  It was past ten o’clock. She had to go. Why did family have to be so unreasonable? Faith became aware of childish echoes infiltrating her reply.

  “I am so sorry, sis, but I just have to go. I’m sooo late! I’ll ring you tonight – promise.”

  A sign taped to the stanchion read “Interviews” with a square black arrow pointing authoritatively toward the Lady Chapel. The PC took her details and waved her in. Members of the youth choir clustered in the front pews, and beyond them Faith could see Ben’s team interviewing one-on-one. Her entrance attracted attention from a trio of girls sitting between two boys, four rows from the front. They gave her hostile up and down stares then firmly turned their backs. She had been prepared for that: what young girl wanted a chaperone of any sort, these days?

  The sounds of voices were hushed. No one seemed upset. Everything seemed calm and businesslike. Faith felt rather redundant. She slipped into a pew a few rows back to be on hand if needed.

  Her mind drifted to Oliver Markham. Ben had seemed pretty interested in him, and Ben’s instincts were usually good. She couldn’t see Inspector Shorter from where she sat. She wondered whether he was elsewhere, interviewing Markham and building up a case against him.

  Of course, Lucas’s death could have been an accident. Or it could have been suicide. She turned the speculation around in her mind. An accident was terrible, but not as bad as murder. The barrier of her rational thought gave way to a wave of sadness. Lucas’s life had been marked by such awful tragedy; not knowing his father and losing his mother so suddenly like that. At the meeting last night, Pat had referred to Lucas dropping out of school after his mother’s death. Maybe he had given up hope and decided to end his misery. A verdict of suicide would be awful enough, but marginally better than having to accept Oliver Markham as a murderer… She wished she knew how the investigation was going.

  Her eyes searched out the familiar profile and gingery hair of Peter Gray. She would rather pass what she’d learned to him than Ben. She had a feeling that Peter would hear her out rather than barking questions. But Ben’s sergeant was collecting up another subject for interview. A young man wearing a long black coat and a woolly hat pulled down over curly brown hair stood up. He had been sitting by a girl with an abundance of golden hair. Her hand reached out toward him. He turned away and followed Peter over to a pair of chairs overlooked by a life-sized recumbent figure, carved in marble, of some ancient patron of the cathedral.

  Something struck the panelled back of her pew, jolting her. She smelt soap and turned to find herself facing the freshly shaven cheek of George Casey, the press officer. She caught him leaning in to address her; their foreheads almost collided. They both recoiled.

  George Casey blinked his pale blue eyes rapidly behind the round lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses. He pushed the frame more firmly onto his nose.

  “Ah yes! Ms Morgan – Faith. Glad to see you could make it. I’ve just stopped by to say hello. Can’t stay, I fear – very busy time.”

  “Yes. Advent is rather a busy time for all of us in the church,” she agreed, solemnly.

  Casey looked at her blankly. He went on, “Bishop Rodney, our suffragan, he’s recording the Christmas message with the local BBC chaps in ten minutes. He’s got a real way with him. You’ll have heard him on Thought for Today on Radio 4?” He hardly gave her a chance to murmur a response. “Of course; a natural communicator.” He agreed with himself. Then he ran out of words and goggled at her.

  Faith felt sorry for him. He could be a bit obtuse, but the only time they’d had much to do with each other was over the business that led to the diocesan bishop, Anthony Beech – the bishop who brought her to Winchester – taking early retirement. The press officer had avoided Faith as much as possible after that. Her presence forced him to struggle with the correct way of referring to his previous employer. Not that Bishop Anthony had been anything other than a good man, but George Casey seemed to find the murder connection unspeakable. It was one of the reasons Faith didn’t entirely approve of him.

  “Do you think Bishop Rodney might be promoted?” she asked, trying to fill the silence and turn her train of thought into something less controversial. They were still waiting
for Anthony Beech’s successor to be appointed to the bishopric. George Casey grimaced, relieved to be on safer ground.

  “Not here, I think,” he said regretfully. “They rarely promote suffragans in their own diocese; it’s just not the way things are done.”

  Faith thought it would be kind to keep the thread going. “Have you heard anything?” she asked conspiratorially. The press officer seemed to fill out as his confidence returned.

  “Maybe a whisper,” he said, with an arched eyebrow, “but nothing I could talk about just now.” He smiled, letting her absorb his superiority. “I must be off. We have to get something in the can by midday.”

  The press officer hurried off with a slight frown, head held high and his leather folder clasped to his left breast. As she watched him leave, she realized that he probably wanted her here as much as Ben did. She was a spy in both camps.

  As if summoned by thought, she felt the air shift beside her. Ben towered above her, wrapped in a heavy wool overcoat, his hands in his pockets and his collar turned up. He stepped over her and dropped into the seat beside her.

  “It’s damn freezing,” he said.

  “Don’t swear in the house of God,” she said, with a straight face.

  He leaned his head back and gazed up into the stone vaults of heaven above them.

  “Sorry,” he said, unconvincingly.

  The girls squirmed around in their pew. They were whispering to one another, throwing glances toward Ben. He tended to draw admiring looks from teenage girls. Probably due to the height, the intense blue eyes and dark hair. Faith glanced at his profile. His nose was a bit big and sharp, though, once you knew him. She wondered how she could distil the previous night’s gossip into what Ben would term “intelligence”.

  “So where were you, precisely, yesterday, when you called?” Ben was looking at his team and their interviews. “You hung up in a hurry.”

  Faith struggled to subdue the memory of blushing on Jim’s toilet seat the day before.

  “What’s it to you?” she said. “I’m not under caution, am I?”

  Ben snorted, but he was smiling.

  Time to take control of the conversation. “How’s the investigation going?” she asked. “Have you charged Markham?”

  Ben sank further into his upstanding collar. He flicked a glance at her, his eyes crinkling at the side. “What’s it to you?”

  “I am a curious person,” Faith replied.

  “Ain’t that the truth.”

  She smiled. “So – you must have some prelims from the post-mortem?”

  “Maybe.”

  Over by the marble statue, Peter had finished with his current interviewee. The young man in the beanie hat joined the blonde girl. Peter spotted Faith and came down the aisle toward them. He sat down in the row in front of them and, with a welcoming smile, stretched his hand over the pew back.

  “Hello, Faith.” They shook hands. “Has the boss been bringing you up to date?”

  “He’s was about to tell me about the PM,” she replied, reflecting Peter’s warmth in her own smile. “What’s the latest news?”

  Peter looked to Ben, and Ben shrugged. “May as well tell her.”

  “Death occurred more than twenty-four hours before the body was discovered,” said Peter.

  “And we know this because…?” she queried. For a moment she was back in the force, speaking as if Peter were her trainee. He didn’t seem to mind.

  “Condition of stomach contents – digested pepperoni pizza and black coffee,” he responded, pleased with himself. Peter was still fresh enough to the investigating team to betray his excitement with his trade. “Probably died sometime in the afternoon or later on Saturday. Pathologist said it was hard to tell.”

  “Taking into account the frost affecting decomp?” Faith asked.

  Peter nodded. “So that takes Oliver Markham out of the running,” Faith commented, just resisting slipping a pleased glance in Ben’s direction.

  “Could be.” Peter’s expression didn’t have the force of agreement she was looking for. “Markham says he drove his family down to London on Friday night, and stayed with the family at their hotel through the weekend before driving back Sunday night.”

  “And you don’t believe him?” Faith addressed her query to Ben. His face gave nothing away.

  “We’re checking.” Peter’s response seemed more intended to placate her than give the answer she wanted. She tried another tack.

  “I suppose it could have been suicide,” she mused.

  “Bruise on the hip and two knocks to the head,” countered Peter. Faith examined Ben’s profile, trying to read him. He ignored her.

  Inebriation made you reckless and clumsy. If the boy had been drunk or high… Lots of the young seemed to deal with emotion that way these days. Lucas might have had an accident. His phone had been in his hip pocket, and it had been hit hard enough to break the casing. She tried to imagine a scenario to explain such a bruise and the wounded head. She was conscious of Ben waiting for something – for what? For her to make a fool of herself?

  “Two knocks to the head?” she repeated, slowly.

  Peter nodded. Holding his palms flat, fingers stretched out, he pantomimed a blow with the flat of his hand up the right side of his face, bisecting the temple and then, with the opposite hand, tapped the front part of the crown of his head.

  “Here and here.”

  Ben was watching her, his expression sober.

  “So he was facing his attacker,” she stated. Ben looked away again. He grunted, and she recognized it as his way of agreeing. Faith turned to Peter.

  “Could either of the knocks have been post-mortem?” She knew as she said the words she was being silly.

  “Official cause of death is drowning, but the pathologist is taking a second look – the theory is that the blows got him in the water.”

  Faith closed her eyes briefly. That poor boy, dazed and hurt, falling, and the water closing over him, pulling him down. He’d been falling most of his life, she reflected. Peter was still speaking. “Being carried down in flood water with all that debris knocked the body about a bit.” Had she ever been used to this? “He was carried downstream.” Peter concluded as if giving her a brownie point, “You were right. He didn’t die where he was found.”

  Faith felt the thrill of vindication. Markham was looking more unlikely by the second. She tried not to let her voice betray her sense of triumph. “Any idea where he went in?”

  Ben crooked an eyebrow at her. “Give us a chance,” he said.

  So they were still looking. Faith thought of Oliver Markham as she had last seen him, his fists clenched at his side.

  “What about under the fingernails – was there anything?” If there had been a fight, the river water might not have washed all evidence away.

  “No evidence of defensive wounds,” Peter said. “Traces of his own blood around the nail beds on the right hand.”

  “Just his own blood.” Faith saw Lucas, disorientated and putting his hand to his bloodied head…

  “Any drugs in his system? Was he drunk?” she asked.

  “Nothing in the blood tests. Clean and sober,” Ben answered her, curtly.

  “Really? Nothing?”

  “Not a trace. And no signs of regular use. It seems Lucas was a good boy.” Ben’s expression was grim. Faith winced internally in sympathy. Ben had his faults, but what had first drawn her to him was his fierce feeling for the victims; she knew it was the reason he did the job, even if he would never admit it, even to himself.

  Faith thought about the chronology. If Lucas died on Saturday… She considered the Sunday just past. Advent II. As she remembered, it had felt like a really long day – six times she had hurried down the muddy back way between the vicarage and church, as heavy rain swept across the county. The main service had been joyous, though. It was the yearly Toy Service. Her congregation had turned out in their wellington boots and umbrellas, clasping wrapped gifts for the Salvation Ar
my collection. The slightly damp parcels with their garish paper covers still occupied her vestry. (The volunteer who was due to collect them had been felled by a bout of flu. She made a mental note – she really must work out a time to deliver those to the drop-in centre this week.)

  So Lucas Bagshaw might already have been lying dead in the rain while her congregation praised God and brought their gifts for the poor and needy. That afternoon – Jim, the dishy choirmaster had said – Lucas had missed the Sunday concert in which he was due to sing a solo.

  “Why on earth didn’t his uncle report Lucas missing?” she asked. “For goodness’ sake, the boy was due to sing a solo with the youth choir at the cathedral on Sunday. Why did no one respond when he failed to turn up?”

  “Yes, the choir chap told us about the concert no-show,” said Ben. “You might have mentioned it.”

  Faith felt herself blushing. She should have, really, but with everything else going on it had slipped her mind. “Actually, last night, I learned a few other things about Lucas’s background. The lad had a hard time.”

  “We’re up on the absent father bit,” said Ben. He nodded toward where the girls in the fourth row were being invited up for interview. They were refusing to move without one another, tossing their heads and giving the PC lip. “Maybe you should go and do your thing,” Ben continued.

  At that moment, the girls seemed to acquiesce and one broke from the others, accompanying the officer. Faith was rather glad – she didn’t think her presence would have been particularly welcome.

  Peter stepped into the silence.

  “The uncle’s a piece of work. Adam Bagshaw. We tracked him down at the family home in The Hollies – after you’d given the boss the lead on Lucas’s ID,” Ben’s sergeant mentioned, helpfully. “We called soon after 6 p.m. and, according to him, we’d just woken him up. Said he wasn’t aware that his nephew had been missing for two days. Been unwell, he says.”

  “He’s a drinker.” Contempt dripped from Ben’s words, and Faith’s antennae quivered. Ben considered himself an impartial investigator, but she knew how he could be when a case summoned ghosts from his past. Ben hated addicts who neglected their kids. Lucas’s uncle Adam had better watch out. He would get no breaks from Ben Shorter. But the fact he wasn’t in custody suggested they had no lead to follow.