Murder at the Old Vicarage Read online

  ‘You did,’ said Mrs Anthony sharply.

  It gave Lloyd just a little perverse pleasure to see the efficient Sergeant Hill so firmly on the carpet.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Judy said.

  ‘And now that we have established that I can remember all the way back to the day before yesterday, what did you want to know?’

  ‘We’d like to know what time she got here,’ Lloyd asked.

  ‘Eight twenty-five. Between then and half past, that is,’ said Mrs Anthony, without hesitation.

  ‘Can you be sure about that?’ Judy asked.

  ‘What was the point of asking me if you don’t think I can tell the time?’ demanded Mrs Anthony.

  Judy looked uncomfortable. ‘I just wondered how you could be so precise,’ she said.

  ‘Because the programme I was watching had just got to the end of part one,’ said Mrs Anthony, relenting slightly. ‘The advertisements were on when the doorbell rang, and I hoped that whoever it was wouldn’t stay. She did, though,’ she added.

  ‘How did she seem?’ Lloyd asked.

  ‘Not her usual self,’ said Mrs Anthony.

  ‘You know her quite well?’ asked Judy.

  ‘If I didn’t I wouldn’t know what her usual self was, would I?’ snapped the old lady. ‘I’ve known her all her life.’

  Lloyd decided that he didn’t really like witnessing Judy being eaten for breakfast after all. ‘And what was her usual self?’ he asked.

  The world-weary eyes regarded him. ‘She was always a very determined girl,’ she said, thoughtfully.

  ‘Oh?’ Lloyd, who had been standing by the radiator, came over and sat near to Mrs Anthony. ‘What makes you say that?’ he asked.

  ‘Poor George Wheeler,’ she said, smiling softly, as though at some memory, ‘I don’t imagine he’d still be a vicar if he hadn’t married Marian.’

  A silence fell, and Judy jotted something down. She looked up, frowning slightly. ‘What do you mean, Mrs Anthony?’ she asked. ‘Why wouldn’t he still be a vicar?’

  Mrs Anthony smiled her soft smile again, but the eyes remained lack-lustre. ‘Lack of faith,’ she said. ‘But Marian thought it was right to encourage George’s scepticism; she thought it made him more accessible. One of the boys. And Marian always thinks she’s right,’ she added.

  ‘And you don’t think she was right?’

  Mrs Anthony raised her eyebrows, ‘I think a leaning toward religion is preferable in a vicar,’ she said, ‘I think if George had married someone else, he would have realised that a lot sooner than he has.’

  ‘You think he has realised now?’ asked Lloyd.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘His sermon at the midnight service made that obvious. To me, at any rate.’

  ‘And what was his sermon?’

  ‘Being true to yourself,’ she said.

  Judy and Lloyd exchanged glances as Mrs Anthony wheeled herself closer to the radiator. ‘Marian just wants people to be true to her,’ she said. ‘That’s all she asks. But she couldn’t protect George from his own thoughts,’ she said, turning up the temperature control. ‘She had a damn good try, though. I’ll give her that.’

  Judy, perhaps a little apprehensively, looked up. ‘Do you think this has got something to do with what happened at the vicarage?’ she asked.

  ‘Let’s just say it doesn’t surprise me that you’re asking about Marian Wheeler,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t surprise me in the least.’

  She wheeled herself back to where Lloyd and Judy sat. ‘And I’ll tell you how she seemed,’ she said to Lloyd. ‘She seemed upset. Nervous.’

  Judy’s face assumed an expression Lloyd knew well. ‘How did this manifest itself?’ she asked, her tone matching the disbelieving look.

  ‘For one thing,’ said Mrs Anthony, her eyes suddenly alive, ‘her hands were shaking so much that she spilled coffee on her dress.’

  And Judy, overmatched, took refuge in her note-taking.

  ‘Fortunately,’ continued Mrs Anthony, ‘most of it went in the saucer.’

  ‘Did she say what was upsetting her?’ asked Lloyd.

  ‘She’d hardly do that, would she, Mr Lloyd?’

  It wasn’t a crime to be upset, as Lloyd pointed out to Judy on their way up to the vicarage.

  Marian Wheeler opened the door, and gave a short sigh when she saw them.

  ‘Joanna’s resting,’ she said. ‘Unless it’s really important, I’d rather you didn’t talk to her just now.’

  Lloyd smiled. ‘I quite understand,’ he said. ‘But it’s you we’ve really come to see, Mrs Wheeler.’

  ‘Oh.’ There was a strange mixture of apprehension and relief on her face. ‘You’d better come in.’

  They followed her through to the kitchen, where George Wheeler was drying dishes.

  ‘It’s the police,’ said Mrs Wheeler.

  ‘Any further forward?’ asked Wheeler, turning round.

  ‘Things are moving,’ said Lloyd smoothly. ‘Slowly, I’m afraid. But they are moving.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Why we’re here, Mrs Wheeler, is to clear up a small . . . inconsistency, I suppose.’

  He explained the nature of the small inconsistency, while Wheeler dried the cup that he held in his hand until he had almost worn it away.

  ‘Are you certain that you left the house at ten to eight?’ Lloyd concluded.

  Marian Wheeler frowned. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I must have missed someone off the list.’

  Judy handed her a copy of the list, and Mrs Wheeler took glasses from her handbag. ‘I can’t think who,’ she said as she looked at it. ‘But I was a bit shaken up when I wrote it out. I can’t honestly remember.’

  ‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind thinking about it?’ asked Lloyd. ‘Let me know if you remember.’

  ‘Certainly I will.’ She handed the list back.

  ‘Mrs Anthony said you seemed upset,’ said Judy.

  ‘Did she?’ Marian Wheeler took off her glasses. ‘Yes – yes, I suppose I was. Of course I was, after what had happened to Joanna.’

  Wheeler at last put down the cup. ‘What are you suggesting?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ said Lloyd. ‘But we have to try to account for half an hour that has somehow got itself lost.’ He turned to Marian Wheeler. ‘I’m sure it’ll come back to you,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the number to reach me, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Well – thank you for your time. Don’t worry – we’ll see ourselves out.’

  They didn’t stay long at the station, and Judy left before Lloyd did. He decided that now was as good a time as any to make his duty visit to Barbara and the kids.

  Two hours later, he went back to his flat, none the better for seeing his family, who had merely added to his worries and irritations. He consoled himself with a large glass of the Woodfords’ present, and a few chapters of Judy’s.

  And by the next morning, the things that had been moving slowly started moving fast, now that the world had got itself over the twin difficulties of snow and holidays. Late Saturday afternoon found him reading the first detailed forensic report.

  The fingerprints on the poker were Marian Wheeler’s; another set of her prints had been found beside an attempt to clean a blood-stain off the landing floor. One of her shoes bore traces of blood. Lloyd looked up thoughtfully from the report.

  He wondered about Freddie’s belief that a woman would have had to hold the poker in both hands. Any woman, according to him. So – what would he think of Marian Wheeler, small and slim, wielding the poker one-handed? Not a lot. Much more likely that she had interfered with the scene once she’d found Elstow. She had run into the room, picked up the poker – got blood on her shoe. Then what? Why not just say that that was what she had done?

  And yet, Lloyd knew, people reacted oddly under stress. TV and books had done a wonderful job in instilling into the public the vital importance of leaving murder scenes untouched; if only they could direct thi
s talent to pointing out the beneficial effects of not murdering anyone in the first place, he thought irrelevantly.

  But it was possible that she thought she shouldn’t have touched anything, and so denied going into the room at all. But she’d hardly have given Elstow a couple of thumps with the poker, he thought, and shrugged, giving his attention once more to the report.

  No traces of an intruder, inside or out. No fingerprints other than those of the deceased, Mrs Elstow, and Mr and Mrs Wheeler. Nothing disturbed, nothing taken, nothing vandalised. Just one dead body.

  The clothing. Forensic said it was a woman’s dress, probably size 12, in a pink or peach-coloured unpatterned material, judging by the reinforced collar and cuffs which had failed to burn up as well as the rest of it had. There were traces of blood on one cuff. Type B, similar to the deceased’s.

  Size 12. Judy was a 14; so was Barbara, and so, if he was any judge, was young Mrs Elstow. Mrs Wheeler would be a 12. Things did not look good for Marian Wheeler.

  He felt that there was probably something a little suspect about a man who could sum up a woman’s dress size at a glance, but there it was. Gigolos and detectives were supposed to notice things like that.

  Marian Wheeler would have to be brought in.

  He dialled Judy’s number, which barely rang out at all before she picked it up.

  ‘We’ve got work to do,’ he said.

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  He smiled at the dialling tone, and replaced the receiver.

  ‘A man-made material,’ the inspector said. ‘Plain – probably pink or peach-coloured.’ He looked from Joanna to Marian. ‘Do either of you own such a dress?’

  Marian saw George’s head turn involuntarily towards her as the inspector spoke. She heard Joanna try to smother the confirmation that had escaped, despite her efforts.

  Christmas was over; the waiting was over. The police, suspicious from the start, had taken away clothes and shoes, had come every day, politely and courteously making them tell their stories over and over again. They had been all over the village, asking questions.

  ‘If it was an intruder’ – slight accent on the ‘was’ – ‘then someone must have seen him. He would be badly blood-stained.’

  That had been the explanation offered for their checking-up on the comings and goings from the vicarage, when Marian had demanded one. It had been given to her by the crisp, concise Sergeant Hill.

  Now she was here again, with the inspector. They looked a little stern, a little sad. And they were looking at her.

  ‘Was it your dress, Mrs Wheeler?’ The sergeant.

  They had taken away the ashes from the fires in Joanna’s bedroom and the kitchen, and Marian had endured Christmas somehow. Though it wasn’t really Christmas, not with all that had happened. The house always seemed to have some figure of authority in it. If it wasn’t police, it was clergy. There had been a lot of work to take her mind off it.

  ‘Mrs Wheeler?’ The sergeant again, not impatiently.

  She took almost as much on herself as Chief Inspector Lloyd. Marian found herself inconsequentially wondering if that annoyed him. She decided it couldn’t, or presumably he would have stopped her doing it. Whereas often he would almost melt into the background while she did the asking.

  The sergeant came over to her. ‘Mrs Wheeler,’ she said. ‘Was it your, dress?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Inspector Lloyd cleared his throat. ‘Mrs Wheeler, I’d be grateful if you could come with us to the police station,’ he said. ‘There are questions we would like to put to you concerning the murder of Graham Elstow.’

  ‘This is outrageous!’ George roared.

  ‘George,’ said Marian. ‘It’s their job – they’re only doing their job.’

  George gaped at her, then shook his head.

  ‘Mrs Wheeler,’ said the sergeant briskly, ‘if you could get your coat—’

  ‘No!’ Joanna shouted. ‘I don’t understand – what are you doing?’

  Inspector Lloyd looked far from happy. ‘Mrs Wheeler has simply agreed to help us with our—’

  ‘Agreed?’ George said. ‘I didn’t hear her agree.’

  Lloyd glanced at Marian. ‘Mrs Wheeler?’ he said.

  ‘George is right,’ she said. ‘I haven’t actually agreed to come.’

  ‘Are you going to force me to arrest you?’ asked Lloyd.

  ‘Yes!’ shouted George. ‘If you want my wife to go with you, you’re going to have to arrest her.’ He took a step towards the inspector. ‘So you had better be very sure of your ground, Chief Inspector Lloyd,’ he said.

  Marian saw the inspector shrug slightly at the sergeant, and she was being arrested.

  They were telling her she didn’t have to say anything. She knew that. She knew the wording of the caution. She wondered when the British police would feel obliged to alter their simple, direct sentence into whole paragraphs of statutory advice, like the Americans. Or was that just New York? America was funny, with all the states having different laws.

  They were taking her out to their car. George was white, and Joanna walked with her arm round his waist, holding on to him like a child. George was saying something about a solicitor. The sergeant got into the back of the car with her, the leather coat she wore creaking slightly, smelling new. There was a constable at the wheel of the car, and he closed the passenger door as George kept the inspector talking.

  Joanna had gone back into the house, obviously on George’s instructions, and re-emerged, carrying coats. She got into her car as George at last walked away from the inspector, turning twice on his way to call something angrily over his shoulder.

  The inspector got in then, slamming the door. Marian could see the tension in the back of his neck, as the car moved off through the new fall of snow. Five days of it, Marian thought, and it still hadn’t given up. Not constant, or the vicarage would have disappeared under it. But snow, every day, and the driveway was deep again now. The incessant cars had churned it up into slush, and it might freeze. Someone could break their neck. They said you were responsible, if someone did. If they were there for a reasonable purpose. Postmen, newspaper boys. Policemen.

  The sergeant was speaking to her, but she hadn’t been listening.

  ‘Mrs Wheeler?’

  Marian turned to face her. She had a nice face, Marian realised. Not just nice-looking – which she was – but something more. People could have beautiful faces that weren’t attractive. Sergeant Hill wasn’t beautiful; she had a good face, the kind photographers like. Warm brown eyes, and an open friendliness that was there even when she was briskly arresting you.

  ‘Are you all right, Mrs Wheeler?’

  ‘Oh – yes. Thank you.’

  On, through white-banked roads, into Stansfield, with no one speaking at all. Skirting round the now pedestrianised centre of the town to the police station at the other side. Marian had sat on the Young Offenders Committee in there, in her time. It had folded, not through any lack of young offenders, but because it hadn’t really helped.

  The sergeant was opening the door as the driver pulled round to park. She was out of the car as it stopped moving, her hand held out to assist Marian, who was then taken – no doubt about it – taken, the sergeant’s hand lightly holding her elbow, into the building. She was taken to the desk, where another sergeant began filling in forms. He repeated that she didn’t have to say anything, but if she did . . . She signed a form. Then she was taken into a room with a formica table and chairs, like the one the YO committee had used. A woman police officer came in, and the sergeant told Marian to sit down. Told her.

  It was odd, for someone who was used to being shown and asked, to be taken and told.

  ‘Just leave it here,’ said George, as Joanna pulled up at the police station.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘It’s double yellow lines.’

  Double yellow lines. Marian had just been arrested, and she was worrying about double yellow lines. But that was just like Mar
ian would have been, George thought, if the positions had been reversed.

  ‘You go in. I’ll take it round to the car park,’ she said.

  George strode into the station, and saw Inspector Lloyd talking to Sergeant Hill. Ignoring the desk sergeant, he walked purposefully up to them. ‘Where’s my wife?’ he demanded.

  Lloyd broke off his conversation and turned. ‘Mr Wheeler, you can’t see your wife at the moment. I’m sorry.’

  ‘She has the right to have a solicitor present,’ George said.

  ‘Of course she has,’ said Lloyd.

  ‘But how do I get hold of one?’ George found himself asking. Pleading. ‘It’s Saturday afternoon!’

  Lloyd pointed back down towards the entrance. ‘Go to the desk sergeant,’ he said. ‘He’ll help you.’

  ‘Will he?’ George felt bewildered. In the last few days, the police had altered their image for George. They had gone from being symbols of security and order to being invaders of privacy. Now, they just seemed like the enemy. Why would they help?

  But help they did, and the solicitor said he would come right away. George looked round helplessly as he finished his call, but he couldn’t see the inspector. He went out the front door, and walked round to the back, where he found the car park, and Joanna’s car.

  ‘Why would she burn her dress?’ Joanna asked, as he got in.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But why?’ she said again. ‘What possible reason could she have for doing something like that?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ George shouted, but he wasn’t angry with Joanna. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I do.’

  ‘What?’

  Eleanor. It had to be Eleanor. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, hitting the flat of his hand against the dashboard as he spoke. ‘Perhaps I do. She could have burned it because she was angry with me.’

  Joanna turned, her eyes wide. ‘What have you done that would have made her angry enough to burn your Christmas present?’ she asked.

  George closed his eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘A misunderstanding. It’s possible, that’s all.’

  Joanna frowned, but she didn’t ask again.

  They waited in the police station car park, not knowing what to say or do. The solicitor was taking his time, thought George. He’d said he’d come right away.