Murder at the Old Vicarage Read online

  ‘Will we?’ he said dubiously.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and get changed.’

  ‘Upstairs?’ The thought embarrassed him. Joanna’s bedroom was at the other end of the landing from theirs, but he still felt as if he would be intruding.

  ‘Well, that’s where our clothes are,’ said Marian. ‘George, I am not going to let him spoil things. It’s my house, and I’ll go wherever I like.’

  He changed, keeping his fingers crossed that the tie wouldn’t come into the reckoning, and it didn’t. She just told him to take what she called his work shirt down with him when he went, because she would be washing.

  ‘On Christmas Eve?’ he asked.

  ‘Why not?’ she demanded, a little on the defensive.

  Marian always found something useful to do when life got complicated. He held up his hands in surrender. ‘Just asking,’ he said.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked, holding up a dress he hadn’t seen before.

  ‘When did you get that?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s your Christmas present to me.’

  ‘I’ve got very good taste,’ he said. ‘It’s lovely.’

  ‘Joanna found it. She said you’d approve.’

  George sat down to put on his shoes. ‘Why should you need my approval?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’ Marian came over to him. ‘You’re still in a funny mood, aren’t you?’ she said, her arm round his shoulders. ‘What is it?’ she asked, kissing the top of his head. ‘Joanna?’

  He patted the hand that rested on his shoulder. ‘Partly.’

  ‘And partly what else?’

  He looked up at her. She believed in him. She believed he was what he said he was. And she didn’t think for a moment that he visited Eleanor Langton because she had good legs and long blonde hair.

  ‘Male menopause,’ he said, as she sat beside him, her head touching his. He put his arm round her. ‘I wanted to make love to you this morning,’ he said.

  ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

  ‘You were awake,’ he said. ‘But I thought it might embarrass Jeremy.’

  She laughed.

  ‘Is this place important to you?’ he asked.

  Marian frowned slightly. ‘The house?’ she said. ‘Or the village?’

  ‘Either. Both.’

  ‘On a scale of one to ten,’ she said, ‘I’d give it seven, I think.’ She looked concerned. ‘Are they trying to make you move to Brixton?’ she asked.

  He laughed. ‘No. Nothing like that.’

  Living here was important to her, he thought, tying his laces. Which just made things more difficult. Marian, you’re married to a fraud, but I’m an honourable fraud, so I have to resign. He picked up his shirt, and they went downstairs.

  ‘Someone’s left the light on in the sitting room,’ he said.

  ‘I think it was Easter when we used it last,’ said Marian. ‘Let’s hope it hasn’t been on ever since.’

  George saw Joanna when he opened the door. She looked up, her face streaked with tears, her eyes already bruising, her mouth swollen.

  ‘My God,’ he said.

  ‘George?’ Marian came in behind him, and ran to Joanna.

  George watched, his brain numb. Joanna burst into tears again, and Marian took her into the kitchen, where she bathed the bruises, her face pale and set. Joanna was mumbling something, rendered incoherent by the sobs. And he just watched, feeling a creeping coldness in his limbs. Then he remembered the closing bedroom door.

  ‘He’s upstairs,’ he said, making for the door.

  ‘No!’ Joanna shouted suddenly. ‘Leave him, please. Leave him. He’s drunk. He’ll be sleeping it off—’

  George was out of the kitchen before she’d finished the sentence, but Marian was behind him, her hand on his arm, as he reached the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘George, do as she says.’

  ‘I told him what would happen if he laid a finger on her again,’ he said, starting up the stairs, but with a strength that he hadn’t suspected, Marian hung on to him.

  ‘It wouldn’t do any good,’ she said.

  ‘It would do me some good!’

  ‘It would get you into trouble! You’d upset Joanna – and what for? It wouldn’t undo anything, would it?’ Her face, still grimly sensible, looked up into his. ‘Come back, George,’ she said. ‘Let him sleep it off.’

  ‘In my house? He’s leaving. Now.’

  ‘He can’t,’ Joanna said, appearing in the hall.

  George looked at her, bruised and battered, and felt tears of rage prick his eyes. She’d even got dressed up for him.

  ‘He can’t drive anywhere,’ Joanna said. ‘He took your whisky up with him. He’s had far too much to drink.’

  ‘I’ll put him in a taxi when I’ve finished with him,’ George roared, but he still couldn’t make any progress on the stair, with Marian clinging to his arm.

  ‘The road’s blocked,’ Marian reminded him. ‘He can’t get back to Stansfield anyway.’

  ‘I don’t care where he goes, as long as he leaves my house!’ George shook Marian off at last.

  ‘Please leave him!’ Joanna cried, and there was real fear in her voice.

  He stopped, and turned, but Joanna had gone back into the kitchen. He sat down heavily on the stairs.

  ‘What’s the point in causing more trouble?’ Marian asked, joining him. ‘If you hit him, that’s all you’ll be doing.’

  ‘Here,’ he said, pushing his laundry into her hands. ‘You wear it.’

  ‘George—’

  ‘I mean it. I’m not fit for it. Not if you’re meant to turn the other cheek. Not if you’re meant to love someone like him.’

  ‘I’m not being particularly Christian,’ Marian said. ‘Just sensible. Joanna’s had enough – she doesn’t need you and Graham brawling into the bargain. She needs us to be with her.’ She stood up, and held out her hand.

  George looked up at her, and took her hand, heaving himself off the step. ‘He’s loving all this, isn’t he?’ he said, with a malevolent look at the closed bedroom door.

  ‘Talk to him when you’ve calmed down and he’s sobered up,’ Marian said, leading him downstairs. She stopped at the bottom. ‘I’d better make up the bed in the back bedroom,’ she said. ‘For Joanna.’

  ‘Of all the—’ George spluttered. ‘If anyone had told me that I’d be offering hospitality to—’

  ‘And I think you should take Joanna out,’ she said firmly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If he gets up, I don’t want Joanna here. Or you, come to that,’ she added.

  ‘She won’t come,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, she will – you can persuade her. You know you can.’ She patted him. ‘Go on. Go and talk to her.’

  George sighed, and went into the kitchen, where Joanna was sitting by the fire, ineffectually raking the coals.

  ‘Your mother thinks you should come out for a drink with me,’ he said.

  She shook her head. ‘Like this?’ she said.

  ‘Well, that’s what I thought.’ He pulled a chair from the table and sat down beside her. ‘But unless you’re thinking of keeping yourself prisoner, you’ll have to go out sooner or later.’

  ‘Later,’ she said.

  ‘And then they’ll see you in ones and twos,’ he said. ‘Why not come out with me and let them all see you at once?’

  She smiled, still tearfully.

  ‘I’ll go along with whatever you want to tell them,’ he said. ‘Will you come?’

  She didn’t reply.

  ‘It’ll look worse tomorrow,’ he said, in a matter-of-fact way that was entirely manufactured. He wanted to break down and cry. He wanted to go and ram Elstow’s own medicine down his throat. He wanted to run naked through the snow and get into the News of the World.

  ‘Is this so as you can talk to me?’ she asked.

  ‘I rather hoped you might talk to me,’ he said. ‘But I don’t care if you talk or not.’

 
‘Do you really want me to come?’

  He nodded.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I might be telling a lot of lies,’ she warned him.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ve been telling a lot of lies for years.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh – I’ll tell you some time.’ He smiled. ‘When you’re older.’

  Marian watched Joanna’s car move off slowly down the driveway. Perhaps spending the evening together would bring them closer; they had grown apart recently.

  She glanced at the bedroom door as she got the bedding for Joanna, then walked quickly downstairs to the back bedroom, frowning in concentration. Had they had this chimney swept? They had had discussions about whether or not to include it, since the room wasn’t really used now. Yes, she remembered. She had sensibly decided to get it done, just in case.

  Just in case they had to accommodate her daughter’s vicious husband.

  Eighteen months, Marian thought, as she quickly and efficiently spread the sheets on the bed. Married eighteen months, and already an old hand at being knocked about. It wasn’t too bad this time, she had said. Not compared to last time. Marian shook her head, and smoothed out the blanket. Perhaps you got grateful when he only blacked your eyes.

  She sat on the bed, remembering the first eighteen months of her own marriage. Discovering George, realising that she wasn’t obliged to be his right arm, and finding that she wanted to be, anyway. They hadn’t had many rows – they’d been lucky. She’d become aware of his temper, of course, but it was usually aroused by something beyond their domestic boundaries.

  The first time he’d actually been angry with her was when they’d been married about six months. She remembered the occasion; where they were when the row blew up. They were in the garden shed, of all the unlikely places for her to find herself. It was something to do with the garden – she had interfered with one of his precious plants, or something. He told her she’d killed it. He was furious. She tried to imagine how she would have felt if he’d attacked her physically, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t begin to imagine being frightened of George.

  She finished making the bed, and set about the fire-building process with rather less efficiency. Twenty-six years of coping with the vicarage fires had done nothing to make her any more expert, but she thought that if it was lit now, it would be just right when she got back.

  As Marian scrubbed the coal-dust from her hands, she could hear again what Joanna had said while she was bathing her eyes. Quietly; so quietly that George, still shocked, hadn’t even heard her.

  But Marian had.

  Joanna was getting used to the stares; she had told those who’d asked that she had been to the dentist. She had once seen someone come back from the dentist with black eyes. The swollen mouth added to the effect, but even so, there were one or two polite but old-fashioned looks.

  They were in a corner, where they could speak without being overheard. She looked at her father, whose face was still dark with brooding anger.

  ‘He needs help,’ she said.

  He sipped his beer. ‘He needs something.’

  ‘He’s going to see someone.’

  ‘Not before time.’

  ‘I’m going back with him,’ she said carefully. She paused. ‘We’re going to get help.’

  Her father stared at her, slowly putting down his mug. ‘You’re not serious,’ he said.

  She knew what she was doing to him, but she had to go through with it. ‘It isn’t his fault,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t care whose fault it is,’ he whispered fiercely. ‘I don’t care, Joanna. It’s you I care about!’

  ‘He doesn’t—’ She stopped as the barmaid came along, picking up empty glasses.

  ‘You’ve been in the wars,’ said the barmaid cheerfully.

  Joanna smiled weakly.

  ‘Dentist, Bill said. Eye-tooth, was it? I know they can do that to you.’ She laughed. ‘Your husband must be getting some funny looks,’ she said, and went off to pass a few cheery words with someone else.

  ‘He doesn’t know what he’s doing,’ Joanna carried on.

  ‘He knows well enough to stop doing it when he hears someone coming,’ her father said. He leant closer. ‘What would have happened if we hadn’t come back, Jo? It would have been like last time, wouldn’t it? Maybe even worse.’

  Joanna stared into her barely touched cider.

  ‘He’s dangerous, Jo. You must see that. You can’t go back to him! It’s—’

  ‘He doesn’t understand you,’ she said, interrupting him.

  George drank some beer. ‘I should hate to think that he did,’ he said coldly.

  ‘He doesn’t understand why you’re so against us trying to work it out,’ she said. She was hurting her father more than she’d ever hurt anyone, and she loved him. ‘He thinks you should be stronger on letting no man put asunder,’ she said.

  ‘I think he should be stronger on cherishing,’ said her father.

  ‘But you’re supposed to believe in all that,’ she persisted. ‘If I was a stranger, you’d be helping me. You’d be helping Graham.’

  He looked shocked; she wished she hadn’t said it. But it was true.

  ‘Do you love him?’ he asked suddenly.

  Joanna looked away. ‘He isn’t like that all the time,’ she said.

  ‘Do you love him?’ he repeated.

  ‘I did! When I married him.’

  ‘And do you still?’

  Joanna looked round the little pub, full of people in various stages of Christmas cheer. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s hard to separate one thing from the other. It’s not his fault. Yes. Yes, I do.’

  ‘But you didn’t make any attempt to get in touch with him, did you? Why not?’

  Joanna’s eyes were throbbing. She sipped her cider.

  ‘Why not, Joanna?’ he asked again.

  ‘I was afraid,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have left. It’s only made things worse.’

  ‘How can you love someone you’re afraid of?’ he asked.

  Joanna looked over her glass. ‘You should know,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you supposed to fear God and love him at the same time?’

  Her father sat back. ‘I can’t help you, Jo,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how, because I don’t understand. All I can do is tell you how to fight back. Don’t drop your guard – learn how to punch. Learn how to put your weight behind a blow, how to duck and weave—’

  ‘Stop it.’ She had never heard him so bitter about anything. ‘We’re just making one another unhappy,’ she said. ‘This wasn’t a good idea.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t.’ He finished his half pint. ‘How can you talk about going back to him when he’s just done that to you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve got reasons,’ Joanna said. One reason. One that she wasn’t going to share with anyone.

  Eleanor was attempting to assemble the first toy. Didn’t people used to buy toys already made? She stared at the instructions for the pedal car. What on earth was a . . . ? She screwed her eyes up to read the small, smudged print, but she still didn’t know what it was, never mind which one of the parts at her disposal it was likely to be.

  She had finally located the thread of a plastic bolt when the doorbell rang, and the nut slipped backwards and off. Eleanor glared at the door. Trust someone to come just when it seemed she had got the hang of something. She flicked the curtain back, and smiled. George’s car – he must have come for his tie. He’d know how to get the car together.

  What was it he wanted from her, she wondered. Was this the harmless flirtation that one read about in problem pages? She picked up the tie and, on an impulse, draped it round her neck. Maybe she could get her own back.

  She opened the door, and froze.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Marian Wheeler.

  She couldn’t take it off; she’d notice. ‘Oh, hello,’ she replied, certain that her face had betrayed her if the tie hadn’t.

&nb
sp; ‘I’m calling to confirm George’s invitation,’ she said. ‘You’d be very welcome.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Eleanor said, still transfixed.

  ‘Please don’t hesitate to come over,’ Marian went on. ‘Any time. Don’t worry if there’s no one in when you get there – the door won’t be locked. Just make yourself at home.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Eleanor said again, as her wits slowly returned.

  Ask her to come in, she told herself. You’ll have to – she’s just invited you for Christmas. ‘Would you like to come in?’ she asked, but it really didn’t sound convincing.

  ‘No, thank you – I’ve got some other calls to make.’

  ‘Well – thank you for coming.’

  ‘Not at all. Oh – and if you did want to contact anyone tonight . . .’ She paused, just for an instant. ‘Your mother-in-law, is it, that you’re expecting? I’ll be pleased to pass on a message – I know you can’t leave your little girl.’

  Had she seen the tie? Was that why she stopped speaking for a moment? Oh, God, had she? ‘It’s very kind of you,’ Eleanor said. ‘But I – no. No, thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome. And do bring Tessa over to see us some time over Christmas anyway. It’s a long time since there was a little girl at the vicarage.’ She turned to go. ‘A long time,’ she said again.

  Lloyd drained his glass and set it down on the bar.

  ‘Another?’

  ‘No, thanks, Jack.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I think I’ll get off now,’ he said. ‘Get an early night.’

  ‘It’s only ten o’clock,’ Jack said. ‘I thought you never went to bed the same day you got up?’

  Lloyd slid off the stool.

  ‘Got a date, have you?’ said Jack.

  Lloyd looked at him quickly. Jack had his Dutch uncle voice on. ‘I just don’t want to miss Santa,’ he assured him.

  ‘Judy rang in,’ Jack went on. ‘She said to say she’s sorry she missed you, and happy Christmas.’

  That was something, Lloyd supposed. ‘I hope she’s having fun with her in-laws,’ he said.

  ‘In-laws are obligatory at Christmas,’ Jack said, and finished his pint. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t stay out too long on Christmas Eve. I’ll go home and surprise the wife. Any chance of a lift?’

  ‘Sure.’ Lloyd smiled. Jack Woodford was the most complete family man he had ever met, but he liked to give the impression that he wasn’t. Lloyd had been a family man too, once. Before the rows, which weren’t so bad because you could always kiss and make up. Before the long silences, which were awful, because the air never cleared, and it got hard to breathe. Before the complaints about the hours he worked, and the accusations of neglect. Now, Barbara seemed almost like a stranger. Perhaps she always had been.