Murder at the Old Vicarage Read online

  He came out of the gents, and stopped at the door of the lounge bar, as he saw Judy. She looked a little sad, sitting there on her own, he thought, and he wished that things were different.

  It still looked odd to him, a woman alone in a pub, but he was doubtless a male chauvinist. He breezed in. ‘Right?’ he said.

  ‘Right.’ She finished her drink and stood up.

  ‘I’ve a good mind to charge the lot of them,’ he said, as they left.

  ‘You don’t have enough evidence.’

  ‘We know they’ve all lied to us.’ He unlocked the car angrily, dropping the keys in the snow. He swore, and picked them up. ‘We know Marian Wheeler interfered with the scene of the crime.’

  ‘All that proves is that they’ve protected Joanna from the cradle,’ said Judy briskly.

  He opened her door, and she got in beside him. ‘I think that’s why Elstow got so violent,’ she added.

  Lloyd grunted.

  ‘Did you look at those photographs of Joanna on the kitchen wall?’ she asked. ‘Joanna crawling, Joanna walking, Joanna’s first tooth, first day at school – no wedding photographs. No photograph of Graham Elstow at all.’

  ‘Are you surprised?’ asked Lloyd.

  Judy nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Well,’ said Lloyd, reversing gingerly on to Castle Road. ‘They’d hardly have Joanna’s first black eye, would they?’

  ‘But there’s never been any,’ Judy persisted. ‘They’re all written up – there haven’t been any removed. They’re in date order,’ she said. ‘And her wedding’s been ignored.’

  Lloyd got the car pointing the right way, and stopped.

  ‘And George Wheeler was angry with her,’ Judy went on. ‘About Elstow. He wasn’t frightened for her, like her mother. Joanna makes him angry.’

  ‘What does that prove? She makes me angry too. Why the hell did she put up with it?’

  Judy sighed, ‘I think,’ she said slowly, ‘because she knew, really, why Elstow behaved like that. Imagine it, Lloyd. Coming up against all that jealousy. It was as if he didn’t exist.’ She turned to him. ‘Elstow was frustrated,’ she said. ‘And no wonder. How would you feel?’

  He smiled at the worried brown eyes that looked into his. ‘Well, I wouldn’t start knocking you about,’ he said. ‘I’d probably buy a twelve-year-old malt, sit down, and have a long heart to heart with your father.’

  ‘Not everyone has your way with words, Inspector Lloyd,’ Judy said, smiling. ‘And not everyone is a push-over for expensive whisky.’

  ‘Your father is,’ said Lloyd.

  Her face grew serious again. ‘My father isn’t in love with me.’

  Lloyd started the engine again. ‘Wheeler and his daughter?’ he said. ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ said Judy.

  Lloyd pulled out on to the main road, and headed for the vicarage. ‘Spiritual or physical?’ he asked.

  ‘Who knows? Behind closed doors, and all that.’

  Lloyd settled in behind a lorry. ‘Reciprocated?’ He glanced at her.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’m not even sure I really believe that. But why didn’t she go up to Graham?’

  ‘I asked you that,’ said Lloyd.

  ‘I’m not sure she knew what she wanted,’ Judy said.

  ‘I think she did,’ said Lloyd grimly. ‘She wanted rid of Elstow.’

  ‘I don’t think she had anything to do with killing him,’ Judy said. ‘It’s Wheeler who left the pub, remember.’

  So Wheeler killed him? It was possible, Lloyd thought, in theory. But there was a practical side to murder, particularly this murder, where the Wheeler solution just didn’t fit. Clothes. They’d found nothing. No clothing of any sort. And Wheeler was wearing the clothes he’d worn in the pub when he and Judy arrived at the vicarage on Christmas morning. He smiled at his next thought. Surely the congregation would have noticed if his clerical robes had been covered in blood? His smile vanished. Had anyone checked the vestry?

  ‘We are dealing with a family of pathological liars,’ he reminded her.

  ‘I think Joanna’s telling the truth,’ she said.

  ‘The whole truth?’ he asked, and she didn’t answer.

  He did trust Judy’s instincts. But perhaps Elstow had trusted his, and look how he ended up.

  For the next few minutes, he formulated several ways of telling Judy that he was quite prepared to share her with Michael. He didn’t utter any of them, partly because they were in working hours, and he ought to obey his own rule, partly because it wasn’t really true, and partly because she might tell him the offer was closed.

  The castle’s pale stone walls were just visible through the naked trees as they drove up to the Wheelers’ drive. It was no more than a ten-minute walk over the fields, sharing the hilltop with the vicarage. Lloyd could even see the stables, but only because they had cleared the land for fanning. In the Civil War, the castle had been totally camouflaged; it had commanded views of all comers from all sides, and couldn’t be seen itself. It had succumbed to the Roundheads’ gunpowder in the end, but as Eleanor had pointed out, it had survived. In daylight, it looked settled, peaceful. Pretty, even, in the winter light. But at night. . . He shivered again.

  George Wheeler was waving a dustbin about. Lloyd frowned, but as they got closer, he could see what he was doing. They got out of the car.

  ‘Good morning,’ Lloyd said.

  Wheeler scattered more ash. ‘Doesn’t look very pretty,’ he said. ‘But it works. This is something you can’t do in centrally heated houses, now I come to think of it. Perhaps we’re not so badly off, after all.’

  ‘I’d like a word, Mr Wheeler.’

  ‘Oh?’ he said, shaking out dark gritty ash as he walked along. ‘What about? Have you come to arrest my wife for cleaning her own landing? She tells me you intend to prosecute. Don’t you think you’d be better employed looking for who really did it?’

  Lloyd, who had never had the least desire to use his fists, knew how Elstow must have felt. But he recognised bravado when he heard it. This was George fighting his desire to throw up. This was George thinking that attack was the best method of defence.

  Wheeler had stopped blustering, and stood waiting for a reply. So Lloyd didn’t speak at all. And he could stand there in silence all day, if he had to. Judy affected a deep interest in her notebook. For a long time, all three of them stood, saying nothing at all.

  The disintegration of George, thought Lloyd, as he watched Wheeler’s eyes begin to move furtively from him to Judy, and back. He wiped his upper lip. ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘Well what, Mr Wheeler?’ asked Lloyd, politely.

  Wheeler didn’t speak, and Lloyd looked down at the grey ash on the white snow, a fair approximation of Wheeler’s complexion.

  ‘Look,’ said Wheeler. ‘Marian went out, someone came in – and you haven’t lifted a finger to find out who, or why. You’re tearing this family apart, do you know that?’

  Lloyd looked up from his contemplation of the black-speckled ash at his feet, stung into a reaction.

  ‘We have carried out extensive enquiries in the village,’ he said. ‘We have been searching for days for any trace at all of someone gaining entry to your house. We’re looking in six-foot high snow-drifts for abandoned clothing.’ His feet crunched on the ash as he moved toward Wheeler, having to look up at the taller man. ‘Your wife destroyed evidence, and misled us quite deliberately,’ he said. ‘So don’t blame me for what’s happening to your family, Mr Wheeler!’

  George Wheeler looked down for a moment, then picked up the dustbin again.

  ‘If you really want to help,’ Judy said, stepping out of the way of a cloud of dust, ‘you’ll tell us where you were on Christmas Eve.’

  ‘I was at the pub with my daughter,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you a dozen times.’ He tapped the last of the gritty ash from the bin, and put it down.

  ‘Let’s go somewhere we can
talk,’ said Lloyd quietly.

  Wheeler hesitated. ‘My study,’ he said, in the end, and led the way to the house, where Marian Wheeler and Joanna met them in the hallway.

  ‘Joanna,’ said Judy. ‘Could we have a word, do you think?’

  The girl looked apprehensively at her mother.

  ‘You can come into the kitchen,’ said Mrs Wheeler.

  ‘Oh, I don’t want to put you out of your own kitchen, Mrs Wheeler,’ said Judy.

  Marian Wheeler, tight-lipped at being thus dismissed, turned and went back into the kitchen by herself.

  ‘We can use the back bedroom,’ Joanna volunteered.

  ‘What’s going on. Inspector?’ asked Wheeler.

  Lloyd held out a hand, ushering Wheeler into his own study. ‘I’ll tell you, Mr Wheeler,’ he said, looking at Joanna as he spoke. ‘We don’t like being lied to. That’s what’s going on.’

  Joanna closed the bedroom door. ‘What does he mean?’ she asked.

  Sergeant Hill raised her eyebrows. ‘I think you know what he means,’ she replied, turning to look out of the window.

  ‘No,’ Joanna said warily, sitting down on the bed.

  The sergeant turned, sunlight suddenly breaking through the grey clouds, lighting her as though she were on stage. Dramatic light and shade; Joanna felt as if she were an actor in a drama. Guiltily, she was finding that she rather enjoyed it. Like long ago, when the room they were in had been the sick-bay. She had been the centre of attention then, too.

  ‘I thought we had a bit more trust going for us than this,’ the sergeant said.

  ‘Trust?’ repeated Joanna. ‘You arrested my mother, and you expect me to trust you?’

  Sergeant Hill gave a short sigh, and looked at her reflectively. After a moment, she turned away, looking out into the strong sunlight. ‘People pay taxes,’ she said slowly. ‘Good money. For a police force. Who are supposed to prevent crime, and investigate the ones they’ve failed to prevent.’

  You never knew where you were with her, Joanna thought worriedly. Now, she was to be given a lecture on police-work? She sat back, her elbow on the pillow, in a studied attitude of detached interest.

  ‘The thing is,’ the sergeant said, turning back again. ‘The bobby on the beat might prevent ten shops being broken into, but nobody knows that. All they know about is the eleventh shop, which does get broken into. And they want results.’

  Joanna looked back at her. ‘So?’ she said.

  ‘So that’s where I come in,’ she said. ‘I have to find out who broke in to the shop – and prove it.’ She came over to the foot of the bed, and sat down. ‘And the only way I can do that is if people trust me enough to tell me the truth.’

  ‘Why should they?’ Joanna sat up. ‘You hear all the time about policemen on the take, planting evidence—’

  She nodded. ‘Just like you hear about the eleventh shop,’ she said. ‘But the rest of us are just doing our jobs. And the whole system depends on people telling the truth. On both sides.’

  Joanna looked away from her.

  ‘Where were you on Christmas Eve?’ she asked.

  ‘At the pub,’ Joanna said. ‘With my father.’

  ‘And did you stay there after he’d left?’ she asked.

  Joanna froze. ‘What?’ she said, when she could say anything at all. But the sergeant didn’t speak, and Joanna turned her head slowly to look at her.

  ‘Your father left the pub alone at eight-thirty,’ she said. ‘And I want to know what you did. Did you stay there? What did you do, Joanna?’

  ‘You think I killed Graham,’ she said, almost inaudibly.

  ‘I don’t.’

  Joanna’s eyes widened with surprise.

  ‘But your lies make it hard for me to justify my position,’ she went on. ‘What did you do after your father left the pub?’

  Joanna’s mind raced. ‘I went to see Dr Lomax,’ she said truthfully.

  The sergeant opened her inevitable notebook.

  ‘She’s our doctor,’ Joanna said. ‘A friend of the family.’

  Our doctor, she thought. Her doctor, her parents’ doctor. Poor Graham.

  ‘Were you seeing her as a friend or a patient?’

  ‘I was worried about the baby. I told you I’d seen a doctor. I stayed there for a while. We talked about Graham – she told me where he could get help. And then I came home, but I couldn’t get in because the house was locked up.’ The words were coming fast now. ‘I knocked and knocked, and I thought Graham was just being stupid.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘I got here at about half past nine, I suppose. I sat in the car to keep warm. And then my father came home.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Half an hour after that,’ she said.

  ‘Did he have his car?’

  ‘No. Mummy had it. He was on foot – he came over the field.’

  ‘The field?’ queried the sergeant.

  ‘It’s a short cut to Castle Road,’ said Joanna, and with the words, she realised where her father had been. ‘He waited with me until my mother came home. She was only a few minutes after that.’

  ‘Why did you lie to us, Joanna?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she said indignantly, before she could stop herself.

  The sergeant slowly turned back the pages. ‘No,’ she said quietly, looking up. ‘I’m sorry. You just went along with a lie.’

  And if she hadn’t initiated the lie, then her father had, and the implication was obvious. Joanna could have bitten her tongue off.

  ‘Joanna,’ said the sergeant, apparently unconcerned about that. ‘You told me you’d made it up with Graham – you’d decided to go home with him.’

  ‘I had,’ she said, puzzled.

  ‘Didn’t you want to talk to him?’

  This was getting worse and worse. Joanna shook her head.

  ‘All that time,’ said Sergeant Hill. ‘From five o’clock. Didn’t you want to see him?’

  ‘Yes! Yes, of course I did,’ Joanna said. ‘But it would have caused trouble, and that would have upset my mother.’

  The sergeant nodded, looking a little baffled.

  ‘When I did say I was going up to see him, it caused a row,’ she said. ‘Just before Mummy found him.’ The tears threatened again.

  Sergeant Hill closed her notebook. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘The solicitor that my father got for my mother,’ Joanna said. ‘He said that Graham might have been seeing someone else – she might have come here that night.’

  Her heart sank when she saw the look in Sergeant Hill’s eye. But she had to try. Try to get them to look somewhere else for the murderer.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘He was going to check up – get a private detective. But he won’t now, and I can’t afford to – please.’

  ‘We already are looking into it,’ said the sergeant. ‘Graham said he’d met someone at the pub, didn’t he? We’re trying to find out about that.’ She stood up. ‘You didn’t go to the house when our people checked it, did you?’

  Joanna shook her head.

  ‘You should,’ she said. ‘You’re more likely to spot any indication of another woman than we are.’

  Joanna hadn’t thought of that.

  ‘But Joanna,’ she said, in the warning voice that Joanna had come to recognise. ‘We have found nothing to suggest another woman, and there is simply no evidence at all that anyone else was in here that night. You do understand that, don’t you?’

  Yes, Joanna understood.

  ‘And I hope you do think you can trust me,’ she said. ‘Because you can, you know.’

  As she made to leave, Joanna made up her mind. Because she did trust her. ‘Sergeant Hill,’ she said. ‘There’s – there’s something else. Something you ought to know.’

  George had reiterated that he’d been in the pub with Joanna all evening, and said that the barmaid must have been mistaken. Then the inspector had chosen to take him through the whole evening again, and George
was beginning to feel sick.

  ‘Look, I’ve told you this three times! Why aren’t you out looking for whoever came in here? I’ll tell you why! Because you’re convinced that my daughter killed him, that’s why!’

  Lloyd looked faintly surprised at the sudden outburst. ‘We’re not convinced,’ he said. ‘I don’t know so much about you.’

  ‘You have already suggested that I am somehow covering up for my daughter, Inspector.’

  ‘Her mother did,’ Lloyd said imperturbably.

  ‘I am not her mother! What her mother did was—’

  ‘Extremely foolish,’ said Lloyd. ‘If there ever was an intruder, she carefully wiped away any traces of the fact.’ He stood up, and toured the room. ‘But she wouldn’t have been that thorough,’ he said. ‘There would have been something. Fingerprints we couldn’t identify. He came in from all that snow – there would have been footprints. Someone would have seen something. How could he have left here in that state without someone noticing him?’

  George clamped his teeth together. He had to see this through; he couldn’t let his stomach be the boss. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, releasing his breath, and turning to look out of the study window at the frozen, still landscape. There was ice on the inside again. ‘You know what I keep thinking?’ he said.

  ‘What’s that, Mr Wheeler?’

  ‘That if we’d had central heating, it would never have happened,’ George said slowly, touching the ice, watching it melt and dribble down the glass. ‘Silly, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not really,’ Lloyd said. ‘You get more shotgun murders in farmhouses than you do in penthouse flats, for instance. You can’t pick something up if it isn’t there to be picked up. And not too many people get bludgeoned to death with thermostats.’

  A shotgun, George thought. He had a shotgun. His father’s shotgun. He put the back of his hand to his mouth. The fields. Look at the fields. White, clean, fresh. Cold. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. He turned, his stomach lurching. ‘If that’s all you wanted, Inspector,’ he said, as civilly as he could, ‘I do have some things to be getting on with.’