Murder at the Old Vicarage Read online

  ‘What’s wrong, Judy?’ Lloyd asked.

  ‘Oh, nothing. Everything. I don’t know.’

  ‘Michael’s parents getting you down?’

  ‘Yes. And Michael’s getting me down. And the weather. It took almost an hour just to get here from Byford.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I was driving.’

  ‘Sorry I fell asleep on you.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, squeezing her. ‘It was better than being ignored.’ He looked at her. ‘Have you had a row with Michael?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘No – it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It might help if you get it off your chest.’

  She sighed. ‘He said he wanted us to have a baby,’ she said, her eyes closed. She felt Lloyd pull away from her.

  ‘What did you say to him?’ he demanded.

  ‘Oh, Lloyd! What do you think I said?’

  He sat for a long time without speaking. Just looking at her.

  ‘Lloyd – I’ve got no intention—’

  ‘Judy,’ he said, talking through her. ‘Judy, I don’t think I can go on sharing you.’

  Oh, God. She felt like one of those rubber dolls that bounced back to get knocked over again. ‘Not now, Lloyd,’ she said. ‘Please, not now.’

  ‘It’s how I feel now,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve already had one row with Michael,’ she said, running a hand through her hair. ‘I’ve been up all night, I’ve had to look at a man with his brains bashed in. I’ve got my in-laws expecting Christmas dinner – I don’t need this, Lloyd!’

  ‘No,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘And it’s what you need that matters, isn’t it? Always.’

  ‘I don’t want a row,’ she said, wearily.

  ‘It’s not a row. It’s just the truth. I can’t bear thinking of you and him—’

  ‘Then don’t think about it!’ she shouted.

  ‘I can’t ignore it any longer – don’t you see? That’s the whole problem!’

  She stared at him. ‘I’ve been straight with you from the start,’ she said, almost in tears. ‘I’ve never pretended it would be any other way.’

  Lloyd poured brandy into his empty cup. ‘Things change,’ he said. ‘I don’t want it to be like that. Not now.’

  ‘If you’re driving me home, you can leave that until you come back,’ she said hotly.

  He put the cup down. ‘You’re afraid to leave him,’ he said. ‘Because he asks nothing of you, and I would.’

  Judy’s head was spinning. ‘This isn’t fair,’ she said. ‘It isn’t how this is meant to be.’

  ‘No. You were meant to carry on with your nice safe marriage, and I was meant to sit around like a bottle of bloody aspirin, waiting for you to have a headache.’

  Judy didn’t know if this was an unprovoked attack, or simple home-truths. She’d have to sort it out later, when she’d had some sleep. It seemed like an unprovoked attack.

  ‘I don’t want that any more,’ Lloyd said.

  ‘Will you take me home, please?’

  He drove her home in silence, and this time she didn’t enjoy it. She had always been aware that she was walking a tightrope between triumph and disaster. And now she had fallen off.

  ‘You’d better stop here,’ she said, as she saw the side road, worse than it had been when they left. She got out of the car, and took a deep breath of sharp, cold air before looking back in. ‘Is it all over?’ she asked.

  Lloyd reached over to the open door. ‘No, you silly bitch! I want to marry you!’ And he slammed the door and drove off, his back wheel spinning in the deep snow at the edge of the road.

  She’d fallen off the tightrope all right. But she was damned if she knew which way.

  Chapter Four

  Eleanor opened the door, and let out a sigh. ‘Thank God,’ she said. ‘The radio just said—’ She stepped out into the frosty courtyard.

  ‘You’ve heard, then,’ said George.

  ‘My mother-in-law did. I didn’t know what to do – thank God you’re all right.’

  ‘It’s Elstow,’ George said. ‘Elstow’s dead.’

  She nodded. ‘How? What on earth happened?’

  George licked dry lips. ‘Someone battered him to death,’ he said.

  ‘Someone?’ The wind that had once again begun to bluster across the fields suddenly swirled round the courtyard, lifting a stinging flurry of hard snow. Eleanor stood like a statue, just staring at him, blinking as her hair blew across her eyes.

  ‘Eleanor?’ Her mother-in-law, George presumed, appeared at the door, an Instamatic in her hand. ‘Is it all right if I take photographs? The castle looks lovely with the snow.’ Mrs Langton senior smiled at George expectantly, but Eleanor was too preoccupied to satisfy the curiosity that had prompted the photographic urge.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Help yourself.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness.’ Mrs Langton shivered. ‘Don’t stay out here too long, will you? You’ll catch your death.’ Then, perhaps just a little reluctant to begin her quest, she set off with her camera.

  Eleanor waited until she had disappeared round the thick castle wall. ‘Come in,’ she said.

  He followed her into the living room, and saw Tessa, engrossed in a cartoon.

  ‘Is it good?’ he asked, crouching down beside her.

  She nodded, laughing delightedly as Bugs Bunny emerged unscathed from a crippling fall.

  George smiled, ‘At least that’s all she’s got to worry about,’ he said.

  ‘Look!’ Tessa demanded. ‘Look, Mummy, look!’

  ‘I can see,’ Eleanor said.

  George stood up straight. ‘I thought you ought to know,’ he said, plunging in at the deep end. ‘I’ve told the police that I was with Joanna all evening.’

  Eleanor, still obediently watching Bugs Bunny, looked slowly away from the screen, towards him. ‘Was that wise?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said wearily. ‘Wisdom didn’t seem to come into it.’ He looked away from her. ‘It’s entirely up to you what you do about it,’ he said.

  ‘Watch, look! He’s flat!’

  ‘Do about it?’ Eleanor asked. ‘Why should I do anything about it?’

  George sat down. ‘We think it was an intruder,’ he said. ‘But the police aren’t inclined to believe us.’

  Eleanor sank down on to the sofa, her worried eyes not leaving his. ‘What are they doing?’ she asked. ‘The police?’

  ‘The usual things,’ he said. ‘They’re asking questions. All over the place – checking up on where we were, what we were doing. Even what we were wearing.’

  Tessa’s laughter made George look at the screen. It was easy there. If you got bent out of shape you just shook yourself, and everything was all right again.

  ‘They’ll find out,’ Eleanor said. ‘If they’re asking questions they’ll find out that you—’ She glanced at Tessa, obviously trying to think of words that would mean nothing to her, but she clearly wasn’t listening anyway. ‘That you weren’t entirely straight with them,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ George said. ‘The pub was very busy – they wouldn’t necessarily know how long we were there. But yes,’ he sighed. ‘They’ll probably find out.’

  ‘More?’ Tessa enquired as the credits came up.

  ‘I don’t know, Tess,’ said Eleanor. ‘Wait and see.’

  There was more, and Tessa turned her attention once more to the television.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘Whatever you think is right,’ he said. ‘I had no right to lie. So if you want to tell them the truth, then you must.’

  Eleanor shook her head. ‘I won’t go to them,’ she said. ‘But if they ask – I don’t know, George. Why did you lie?’

  ‘Are they going to ask you?’ he said. He hadn’t answered her question, and she didn’t answer his.
/>   There were good reasons for his lie, but he didn’t offer them to Eleanor.

  ‘George,’ she said quietly, ‘do you know what really happened?’

  Judy was having Christmas dinner with the Hills. That’s what it felt like – not like her own house at all. She hadn’t even produced the meal.

  She had arrived home, tip-toeing upstairs to find Michael getting dressed.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he had said.

  Judy, cross and confused, had tried hard not to take it out on Michael, whose fault it certainly wasn’t. The realisation that the whole mess was entirely her own fault had made her slightly less confused, but even more cross. So when Michael had touched on the subject of Christmas dinner, she had bitten his head off.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Michael! Everything’s done – you’ve only got to put it on. I’m sure your mother wouldn’t mind doing it anyway.’

  He had listened, maddeningly patient, until she’d finished.

  ‘I just meant should we leave it until evening so that you can get some sleep?’ Mild, solicitous, and calculated to make her feel guilty for jumping down his throat.

  ‘Sorry,’ she had said. ‘No – no, I’ll just need a couple of hours. I’m sorry, Michael,’ she had said again, but there had still been an edge of irritation in her voice. Unwarranted. Unfair. Unkind. ‘I’ve had a bad night,’ she had said. ‘I’m sorry. I really am.’

  Michael had looked a little puzzled at her reaction to what had been an entirely routine skirmish. ‘Was it a nasty one?’ he asked.

  A brief nod of confirmation, and he hadn’t asked any more questions. ‘And I have to go out again this afternoon,’ she had warned him.

  ‘Oh.’ He had turned to leave, then turned back. ‘I take it that it is really necessary?’ he had said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well. You’d better get some sleep, then.’

  ‘I want a bath. You haven’t used all the hot water, have you?’

  A cool bath, and an uneasy sleep punctuated by the sounds of the neighbours’ children having a snowball fight, doubtless having abandoned all the batteries-not-included goodies laid before them in favour of playing with the weather, were to be her lot. And it seemed she had barely closed her eyes when it was time to get up again, time to drink a sherry and open presents with the Hills. Time to eat with the Hills.

  She tried to enjoy the meal, which was, of course, delicious. Mrs Hill never forgot to warm the plates, or allowed the vegetables to overcook. Her turkey was never too dry. Michael must have sorely missed his mother’s cooking, but he had never said so. Lloyd would have done, she thought. But then Lloyd didn’t automatically assume that women did the cooking.

  There was no point in weighing up advantages and disadvantages; there was no comparison between Lloyd and Michael.

  Mr and Mrs Hill and their son Michael spoke a language that Judy didn’t understand. They spoke about things in which she had no interest. She watched Michael, so engrossed in his conversation with his father that he was quite unaware of her scrutiny.

  The sound of their voices faded and merged, just a confused background jumble, as she studied Michael as though he were a close-up on a cinema screen. His thin face was animated, even when he was listening rather than talking. His eyes went from his father to his mother when she spoke. He drank some wine, and poured more for everyone, including Judy. But he was in a world where she didn’t really exist; a world of property chains and loft conversions, of the mileage you could get from Austin Princesses compared to Rovers, neither of which any of them owned. A world of small investments, of tax concessions and pension funds.

  She had seen a man who had been battered to death.

  What sort of masochism was it that she was so intent on practising? Why cling to something alien, instead of to someone who understood? Someone she could understand? What was it that Michael got from this fake marriage that he was prepared to introduce a baby to it? She knew the answer. Independence. The mere fact that they were married to one another meant that no one else could own them. It was why they had thought it would work. It hadn’t, but they wouldn’t let go.

  She got through the rest of the meal, as she always had before, on these rare family occasions. Michael must feel like this when they visited her family. Making no contribution, not expecting to be included.

  After lunch, she went to see Joanna again.

  Joanna didn’t want to speak to Sergeant Hill, but she didn’t seem to have much option. They were in the back bedroom, with the fire burning brightly, reminding Joanna of childhood ailments, when the bed in here would be made up so that her mother didn’t have to run up and down stairs all day. No matter how itchy the spots, how sore the throat, being ill had been almost fun, in this cosy little room, with the fire going. It made her feel secure, and she wasn’t at all sure that she should, with Sergeant Hill’s watchful brown eyes on her. She had been aware of the danger with Graham, when she had relegated her interview with him to the sitting room. She must still be aware of it now, she reminded herself, as the sergeant waited for an answer with infinite, unbearable patience.

  ‘I tried to protect myself,’ Joanna said, when she couldn’t stand it any longer, and looked away. ‘Not defend myself.’

  ‘All right,’ said Sergeant Hill. ‘I’ll ask you something else.’

  Joanna’s eyes slid unwillingly back.

  ‘You said that the row with your husband—’

  ‘It wasn’t a row,’ Joanna said stubbornly. A row. That was twice she’d called it that. She had simply no idea. No idea at all.

  ‘You said that your husband became violent at about five o’clock,’ she said.

  Joanna nodded, hearing the chimes, seeing Graham’s face.

  ‘And that he stopped when he heard your parents’ car,’ said the sergeant.

  Joanna stiffened. She’d thought that this bit was over. ‘You’ve asked me all this,’ she said. ‘It’s in your notebook.’

  Sergeant Hill nodded, and pointed to the notebook. ‘It says that your parents came home at half-past five,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  Sergeant Hill looked at her for a moment without speaking, then carefully turned to a clean page in her notebook.

  ‘That wasn’t going on for half an hour,’ she said, pointing to the bruises. ‘Or you’d have been in hospital again.’

  Joanna blushed. She didn’t know they knew about that.

  ‘So let’s start again,’ said Sergeant Hill.

  ‘I don’t see what it’s got to do with it,’ Joanna said. ‘It’s private.’

  ‘He stopped long before your parents got here,’ she said, as if Joanna hadn’t spoken. ‘Why?’

  Joanna didn’t answer.

  ‘Were you upstairs with him, Joanna?’

  ‘No.’

  The sergeant looked thoughtful. ‘Something stopped him hitting you,’ she said. ‘And it wasn’t your parents’ car driving up, was it?’

  Joanna didn’t speak, didn’t look at her. It was no one else’s business. No one’s.

  ‘People will understand,’ Sergeant Hill was saying. ‘If you picked up something to defend yourself.’

  ‘I didn’t. I’ve told you what happened.’

  ‘But you haven’t told me the truth.’ She reached over and touched her hand. ‘You said yesterday that it made you feel ashamed when he hit you,’ she said.

  Joanna looked down.

  ‘I know you think I don’t understand any of this,’ she went on. ‘But I can understand that.’ She sat back again. ‘Now, something made him stop hitting you,’ she said. ‘At the moment, it looks as though you fought back.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘I don’t think you did,’ said the sergeant. ‘So what did happen? You’ve nothing to be ashamed of, Joanna.’

  ‘Ashamed?’ Joanna repeated, puzzled. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Sex? Is that what you’re talking about?’

  ‘It’s not an unusual pattern,’ said the sergeant. ‘Some m
en get—’

  ‘Get turned on by it? Perhaps they do, but that isn’t how it was.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.’

  ‘It would help if you called a spade a spade!’ Joanna said angrily.

  Sergeant Hill smiled. ‘I expect it would,’ she said. ‘All right. Something stopped him, Joanna. And if it wasn’t being battered to death, then what was it?’

  Joanna’s eyes filled with tears. ‘The baby,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘I’m going to have a baby. I thought Graham had hurt it, and that’s why he stopped.’

  ‘Did he know you were pregnant?’

  Joanna shook her head. ‘Not until then,’ she said. ‘I was so frightened – I screamed at him, and he stopped.’

  ‘Why in God’s name didn’t you tell me that in the first place?’ the sergeant shouted, angry with her.

  ‘Because I didn’t want anyone to—’ But she had suddenly and uncontrollably burst into tears. ‘I didn’t want to tell them,’ she sobbed, as Sergeant Hill put her arms round her. ‘That’s why I stayed in the sitting room. I didn’t want to see them.’ But the words were incoherent. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t even breathe, for the convulsive sobs. She tried desperately to control them.

  ‘It’s just reaction,’ said the sergeant. ‘You cry.’

  But it wasn’t reaction. Joanna knew what it was, and it would be so easy to tell her, just tell her and get it over with. But she couldn’t. She gulped in air with the sobs, her face buried in the sergeant’s shoulder, until the shuddering stopped.

  And then she tried to explain. She wanted Sergeant Hill to understand. But the words she could find didn’t really describe her near-hysteria, and Graham’s remorse; the tears, the gentleness, the closeness. The common fear that the baby had been hurt in a battle that Joanna was only just beginning to understand.

  She looked up, expecting scepticism, but not finding it. ‘I wanted to go home,’ she said. ‘I wanted to go home, and start again. With Graham and the baby. I wanted to do it right. But we heard the car, and I made him go upstairs and stay there, or my father would have killed him.’

  Sergeant Hill’s arms were still round her; Joanna felt the slight reaction to her words, and pulled away. ‘It’s an expression,’ she said. ‘It’s just an expression.’ But oh God, why had she used it?