Murder at the Old Vicarage Read online

  ‘She,’ Mr Barrington said. ‘She may have some. It’s what she’s paid for. It does rather depend on your mother.’

  ‘My mother didn’t kill Graham.’ There was no response to her words, and she looked up to find Mr Barrington watching her closely.

  ‘Then someone else did,’ he said. ‘So she must be protecting someone.’

  Of course she was, thought Joanna, as she shredded the paper towel. ‘It was someone who came in,’ she said obstinately. ‘A burglar.’

  ‘There’s no evidence of a burglar,’ he said gently. ‘And your mother – if she is protecting someone – doesn’t believe it was a burglar.’ He looked away from her. ‘Mrs Elstow,’ he said. ‘It is a very serious situation.’

  Joanna frowned. ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ she asked, and then her brow cleared. ‘You think she’s protecting me, don’t you?’

  ‘Is she?’

  ‘Probably,’ said Joanna. ‘But she’s wrong.’

  He wasn’t convinced. Or perhaps he just believed her mother’s confession. Joanna didn’t know, but she wished her father had found someone older, more experienced.

  ‘Mrs Elstow – is there anyone else who might have felt that violently about your husband?’

  Joanna didn’t answer.

  ‘I mean someone he might have admitted to the house.’

  Joanna shook her head. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

  ‘You see—’ He cleared his throat, a little embarrassed. ‘It’s possible that – in view of the fact that you had left him – your husband took up with someone else. It’s just possible, since there is no evidence of an actual intruder, that someone was invited into the house, and subsequently—’ He opened and shut his mouth a few times.

  ‘Up to my bedroom?’ Joanna supplied.

  ‘That’s where it happened,’ he said, almost defensively. ‘Whoever did it was in the bedroom with him.’

  Joanna wiped the tears away. ‘You think Graham could have had another woman? But why should she be here?’

  Mr Barrington sighed. ‘It isn’t at all likely,’ he said. ‘But I understand that he may have met someone here – at the pub, I think your father said.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Joanna doubtfully.

  ‘It’s worth investigation,’ he said. ‘If there was someone else, she may be the person he met in the pub. It’s a very long shot,’ he stressed. ‘But I’ll put an enquiry agent on to it, if you think it’s worth it. In my experience, men who show violence towards their wives do so towards other women with whom they have relationships. If someone else was here, it could have turned violent.’

  ‘But he didn’t have anyone else here, did he?’ said Joanna. ‘The police didn’t find any other fingerprints, or anything. And Graham wouldn’t have done that anyway,’ she added.

  ‘It’s . . . well, I won’t pretend I’m not clutching at straws, because unless your mother co-operates, that’s all I can do, other than to set out the mitigating circumstances. And I gather your father doesn’t want that. Not yet.’ He began to put away the papers that Joanna hadn’t even looked at. ‘I could wait, and talk to him,’ he said. ‘When will he be back?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, then – I’ll ring later. Do you think he’ll agree to an enquiry agent?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  Eleanor finished her story, and glanced at George, who sat tight-lipped, not looking at her. She looked back at the inspector.

  He ran his hand over his hair, and drew in a slow breath. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘An alibi.’

  Eleanor frowned.

  ‘Well, I mean,’ he said, and he sounded much more Welsh than he had to start with. ‘Convenient, isn’t it?’

  ‘Do you think I’m making it up?’ she asked, startled.

  He picked up the file that he had brought in with him, stood up and walked to the window.

  Eleanor exchanged glances with George, but all George’s bluster seemed to have gone. He looked almost furtively away again.

  ‘Langton, Langton,’ the inspector said, consulting the file, murmuring her name. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No Langton on Mrs Wheeler’s list of visits.’ He looked out of the window, his back to her.

  ‘Mrs Wheeler was at my house at five past eight on Christmas Eve,’ Eleanor repeated, her voice firm.

  ‘Was anyone else there?’ He didn’t turn round.

  ‘Only my daughter. She’s two and a half years old, and she was sound asleep.’

  ‘Not much good, then,’ he said.

  He still hadn’t turned round, which was beginning to irritate Eleanor.

  ‘Friend of the family, are you?’ he asked.

  She said no, just as George said yes.

  Then Lloyd turned. Of course he turned. ‘Shall I go out?’ he asked. ‘Give you a bit more rehearsal time?’

  ‘I help out with the church play-group,’ Eleanor said, aware that she was going pink, as she did with unsophisticated ease. ‘I know Mr Wheeler. I’ve only met Mrs Wheeler a couple of times.’

  ‘One of those times being five past eight on Christmas Eve?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The door opened and Eleanor turned to see a young woman come in, glancing over at George, who just looked through her.

  ‘Well, then, let’s see,’ said the inspector. ‘If you saw her, perhaps you can give me some sort of proof. What was she wearing, for instance?’

  ‘I never notice what people are wearing.’

  Eleanor had only been aware of what she herself had been wearing. George’s tie.

  Inspector Lloyd sat down again. ‘Definitely under-rehearsed,’ he said.

  Eleanor refused to take the bait. ‘Someone like him could have had enemies,’ she tried. ‘Why don’t you look for them?’

  ‘Someone like what?’

  ‘Like Graham Elstow. Someone who beats up women, for a start.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that make his wife’s mother an enemy?’

  ‘She was with me.’

  He leant forward. ‘And why do you suppose Mrs Wheeler didn’t tell us that?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Lloyd, ‘it’s because she doesn’t know that that’s suddenly where she was. She was out making certain that old people were keeping warm enough, according to her original story. Where do you fit in?’

  ‘That isn’t why she came to see me,’ Eleanor said. ‘She wanted to confirm Mr Wheeler’s invitation for Christmas lunch. And I’m not on the phone,’ she added. ‘So she had to call personally.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Lloyd. ‘It was hardly necessary.’

  Eleanor frowned. She had never thought about it.

  ‘Going out on a night like that just to repeat an invitation?’ He shook his head. ‘That sounds very weak, Mrs Langton.’ He leaned forward. ‘Even weaker, if I may say so, with Mrs Wheeler’s husband sitting beside you,’ he added.

  He thought they’d made it up. Or he wanted them to think that was what he thought.

  ‘That’s why she came,’ she repeated stubbornly.

  ‘How long would it take her to get from the vicarage to the castle?’ Lloyd asked.

  ‘About fifteen minutes,’ Eleanor said. ‘By road.’

  ‘By road?’

  ‘There’s a shortcut,’ she said. ‘Across the fields. But Mrs Wheeler was in the car.’

  ‘Quarter of an hour,’ Lloyd said, and sat back tipping his chair up. ‘Imagine you are Mrs Wheeler,’ he said, then flicked his eyes at George and back to her. He raised an eyebrow.

  Eleanor wished that George would at least react.

  ‘And you are going to call on about half a dozen people in the village,’ Lloyd went on. ‘Would you start with someone who lived . . . what? Three miles away? Then go on to someone who lived at the bottom of the drive? Then off somewhere else altogether?’ He opened the file again. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’d start or finish with the person closest, wouldn’t you? Which i
s what Mrs Wheeler did, Mrs Langton.’ He tapped the list of names. ‘She started with Mrs Anthony. And she didn’t call on you.’

  ‘Why would I make it up?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Lloyd said. ‘Misguided loyalty.’ He looked at George again. ‘Or perhaps it’s just women sticking together. Women against this, that and the other. Especially the other. Wife-batterers deserve all they get.’

  Eleanor refused to let him get to her. She stood up. ‘Look, Inspector. I don’t know what she was wearing, and I don’t know why she didn’t tell you, but Mrs Wheeler was at my house at five past eight. I put Tessa to bed at seven. I decided to wait an hour before doing her stocking. I checked on her at eight, and I started to assemble the pedal car. About five minutes after that, Mrs Wheeler arrived. I want to make a formal statement to that effect.’

  He sighed.

  ‘If George—’ She stopped, then decided that to amend it to Mr Wheeler would make things worse. ‘If George and I had cooked it up, would we have come here together?’

  ‘You’d have been better going to Mrs Wheeler’s solicitor,’ Lloyd said. ‘But you can make a statement if you want.’ He stood up. ‘I notice George hasn’t had much to say for himself,’ he said.

  George had gone pale, and Eleanor could see beads of sweat on his forehead. Lloyd had been deliberately trying to provoke him, all the time, and he still didn’t say anything.

  ‘And I must warn you,’ Lloyd went on, ‘that if you make a statement you can be prosecuted if you say anything knowing it to be false.’ He opened his office door. ‘Still want to make it?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  He brought in a young man who took it down and read it back. Eleanor signed it with an angry flourish and handed it to Lloyd.

  ‘Thank you for coming in,’ he said.

  She left, with George following behind her like a large dog. Outside, he sat down on the wall.

  ‘You only said one word, and that made me look a liar,’ Eleanor said angrily, then saw how he looked. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  ‘I will be,’ he muttered. ‘Once Marian’s out of there.’

  Eleanor sat down with him. ‘Why didn’t you ask to see her?’ she said.

  He shook his head, and they walked round to her car.

  ‘He didn’t believe a word,’ George said. ‘Not a word.’

  ‘Oh – that was just theatre,’ Eleanor said. ‘I told him she had the car – someone’s bound to have seen it.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  She looked at the pale, defeated face. ‘Look, George, she was there! They can’t make out in court that I’ve got some daft female solidarity reason for saying so.’

  ‘What if she doesn’t want you to give evidence?’ he asked.

  Eleanor’s hand stopped in the act of unlocking the car door. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, after a moment. ‘She’s bound to. You saw what he was like – no wonder she confessed. He was making me feel as if I was lying, and I’m not being accused of anything.’

  They got into the car. ‘Let’s go and see the solicitor,’ said Eleanor. ‘He’ll know what to do. Where does he live?’

  George took a card from his wallet, and handed it to her in silence. She had to stop twice on the way to let him out to be sick.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ she said, arriving at the house. She squeezed his hand. ‘You’ll see. It’ll be all right.’

  ‘Do you really think she’s making it up?’ Judy asked, picking up Eleanor Langton’s statement.

  Lloyd shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to make of it,’ he said. ‘It sounds a bit unlikely. And George Wheeler didn’t seem too keen on it himself.’

  ‘No,’ said Judy. George hadn’t acknowledged her presence at all; she could have understood if he’d been resentful, like Joanna, and simply hadn’t spoken to her. But it hadn’t been like that. It was as though she hadn’t been there. No, she amended. It was as if he hadn’t been there.

  ‘And there’s this,’ said Lloyd, putting a handwritten statement on her desk.

  Judy read Marian Wheeler’s new statement and looked up at Lloyd. So that was why he’d called her in.

  ‘Now it makes a bit more sense,’ she said.

  But something didn’t; she knew that even as she said it. She frowned at the statement. It seemed all right – it confirmed Freddie’s findings.

  ‘More sense,’ Lloyd agreed. ‘But we told her he was on the bed, didn’t we? And she knows he ended up on the floor.’

  Judy nodded. ‘What does Freddie think?’

  ‘Would you believe I haven’t been able to get hold of him? He must take the last Sunday in the year off.’

  ‘I kept on hitting him,’ Judy quoted. ‘Could that account for the blows after he was dead?’

  Lloyd shrugged. ‘Probably,’ he said. ‘That’s what I wanted to ask Freddie. That, and—’ He smiled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Forget it.’

  Judy flicked through her already thick notes. It all seemed to fit, but there was something that wasn’t right.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Lloyd.

  ‘I’m not sure. Something doesn’t fit.’

  Lloyd came over, picking up the statement, and sitting on the corner of her desk. It usually irritated her, but this time she was glad.

  ‘About this?’ he asked, reading it through.

  ‘No. I don’t think so. It makes sense. It fits in with the forensic evidence – it maybe even explains the two extra whacks.’

  ‘Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her . . .’ mused Lloyd. ‘But you don’t believe it,’ he said.

  ‘I might,’ said Judy. ‘If I could find what I’m looking for.’ She looked up at him. ‘Because if you’ve got a piece left over after you’ve finished the jigsaw, it must belong to another puzzle – right?’

  ‘There are quite a lot of puzzles,’ Lloyd said. ‘Little puzzles. What was Mrs Anthony hinting about George Wheeler, for instance?’

  ‘What was Marian Wheeler angry with George about?’ asked Judy.

  ‘If she was,’ said Lloyd. ‘I’m inclined to think he made that up, like today’s little pantomime.’

  But Lloyd wasn’t really dismissing Mrs Langton’s statement just like that, Judy thought. It had set him thinking; he was going to ask Freddie something, and he wouldn’t say what. So he had to be back on his frame-up theory. No point in asking; he’d tell her when he felt like it.

  ‘And why didn’t Joanna go up to talk to Graham in all that time, if she’d made it up with him?’ she asked. ‘Eight hours, Lloyd.’

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘If this statement’s true, none of that is any of our business.’

  There was a knock, and Jack Woodford came in. ‘Just going to the machine,’ he said. ‘Anyone want anything?’

  ‘Coffee,’ Lloyd said, digging in his pocket for a coin. He threw it. ‘Thanks, Jack,’ he said, as his phone rang, and he slid off Judy’s desk. ‘We’d better talk to Mrs W. again,’ he said, as he picked up the phone. ‘Lloyd.’

  He listened.

  ‘Right. Thanks. Tell them to wait – I want a word with them before they go.’

  He hung up and turned to Judy a little sheepishly. ‘Just something I have to talk to Bob Sandwell about,’ he said.

  Judy gave him one of her looks for good measure, for whatever he was up to, he clearly deserved one. She watched the door close behind him, and uncharacteristically put down her notes, thinking about Lloyd, and Michael, and the dreadful mess her life was in.

  Next door, two typewriters clattered, one expertly, one inexpertly. There were voices, laughter, as someone was being teased. Outside, a bus churned through the slush to the bus-station. Someone walking past was whistling Plaisir d’Amour. She wished she could be in Lloyd’s flat, quiet and peaceful. Their few snatched moments on Christmas morning had been shattered, and she was afraid that her life might be going the same way.

  The last time she’d been there – really been there – had been how long ago? She looked at
the calendar on the wall. Almost three months ago. My God, was it that long? No wonder Lloyd had had enough. She had known then about Michael’s promotion, and she had wondered, as she and Lloyd had made love, what she was going to do. She had pushed the thought away, told herself that it would all resolve itself somehow. But it wouldn’t. It couldn’t. She had to resolve it.

  The door opened suddenly, jerking Judy back to her surroundings with a heart-stopping jump.

  ‘Lloyd’s coffee,’ Jack said. ‘He’s gone off somewhere – he said just to give it to you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Judy, taking the paper cup. Her hand trembled slightly from the start she had been given, making coffee spill over on to her desk.

  ‘Don’t worry – I’ve got it,’ said Jack, mopping it up with blotting paper.

  Judy stared as the brown stain spread over the paper.

  ‘All right?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said absently. ‘Yes. Thanks, Jack.’

  He went out, and she picked up her notebook, leafing through to find the right page.

  Her hand shook. Spilled coffee on dress.

  Well, fancy that, Judy thought. She sat back, looking at the sentence for a moment. Then she put on her coat, scribbled a note to Lloyd, and left.

  The phone was picked up this time.

  ‘Freddie? Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘Out,’ said Freddie. ‘Playing Trivial Pursuit, if you must know.’

  ‘I didn’t know dead bodies could play Trivial Pursuit,’ said Lloyd.

  ‘Neither did I, until my wife took it up.’

  Lloyd smiled. ‘How does your wife put up with you?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s a saint, Lloyd, a veritable saint. What can I do for you?’

  Lloyd read him Marian Wheeler’s second statement.

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘It fits.’

  ‘But?’

  There was a pause. ‘Same buts as before, really. Still, she’s admitted it, so that’s that. Though—’

  ‘Though – what?’ Lloyd said eagerly.

  ‘Two confessions seems like one too many to me,’ he said. ‘It’s a funny one, Lloyd.’

  ‘I know,’ said Lloyd. ‘And what I wanted to know was – does her second statement account for the two post-mortem thumps?’ he asked.