Late of This Parish

by Marjorie Eccles

  She was wearing a pink towelling bathrobe and slippers which backed up her assertion that she’d been preparing for bed and he assured her again that he wouldn’t keep her long. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’ She came round from the back of the screen, still holding what remained of her drink, and opened a door off the hall. ‘My husband’s study,’ she explained. ‘He won’t be in until very late tonight.’

  Watched with what he sensed was silent hostility from the girl Philly, he followed Mrs Thorne towards a small room on the other side of the staircase, where the windows were of old lattice curtained in a cheerful chintz and the low beams black with age. Before stepping inside he looked around for the daughter but she’d disappeared.

  The room was so small there was no room in it for anything else other than a set of bookshelves wedged between two of the upright beams, an oak desk and chair and a small chintz-covered easy chair close to the fireplace. It struck him as perverse for a woman of Mrs Thorne’s size to choose a house of such miniature proportions, emphasizing the ludicrous contrast with her own, though on reflection he doubted whether that would bother Miriam Thorne overmuch, or even enter her head. She had a humorous face, indicative of good sense but not much imagination. He saw that the preoccupied air she’d worn earlier had been replaced by a purposeful look. She’d made up her mind what she was going to tell him. He pulled out the upright chair before the desk when she asked him to be seated and after kneeling to switch on the electric fire and heaving herself to her feet she subsided into the armchair, watching him with a slightly wary expression.

  ‘I suppose you want to know what I was doing at the time of the murder?’ she asked with a wryly lifted eyebrow.

  ‘It’s the question we shall be asking everyone, so it’ll do to begin with.’

  ‘Well, that’s easy. I was here with my feet up and a drink in my hand, if it happened at six-fifteen as Lionel says it did. I teach languages at Uplands House, you know, and we’ve had an open day today. I stayed on to help with the clearing up in the kitchen. That sort of thing doesn’t normally form part of my duties, you understand, but we’re very short-staffed at the moment and Richard – Richard Holden, the Headmaster – asked me if I’d help out. I said I didn’t mind, all hands to the pump, you know. I was there until ten to six.’

  ‘How long did it take you to get home? Ten minutes?’

  ‘A bit longer than that. I cycled home, no use for a car here.’ The vision of Miriam Thorne on a bicycle was too much to dwell on and keep a straight face; he concentrated on getting the facts down. ‘As soon as I got home, I had a very dry martini,’ she went on. ‘And did I need it after four undiluted hours with parents!’ Her smile faded and she added soberly, ‘God, how awful to think he was being killed while I was here, knocking it back ... He was killed, wasn’t he? It wasn’t another stroke?’

  ‘We can’t know for certain yet,’ he replied cautiously, ‘but yes, it does look that way.’

  ‘Poor soul. He didn’t deserve that, even though he was –’ She broke off and finished her drink at one gulp. ‘I’m talking too much, probably too many of these,’ she said, putting the empty glass down on the floor beside her.

  He didn’t think she was over the top, just a little loosened up, though the martini probably wasn’t her first, or even her second.

  ‘He was what, Mrs Thorne?’

  ‘He was a very dominating man, Laura’s father. She should’ve broken loose, years ago, but Laura’s like that, she’s too soft. He was making her life a misery – using the fact that he was an invalid as emotional blackmail, being obstructive about her marrying a man who’s been divorced – even though it’s a wonderful chance for her. David may even be the next Headmaster, there’s a fifty-fifty chance, though he wouldn’t have been if old Willard had had anything to say about it. But with all his faults Laura loved the old devil. I mean, she was deeply attached to him.’

  ‘Did you see anybody or anything unusual as you came in?’

  ‘Nothing at all. Not a soul, in fact, except Laura coming home in the taxi. Spoke to no one until the Rector brought her here and told me what had happened. Poor darling, her stars can’t have been very auspicious today, what with this, and the accident and all.’

  ‘What accident?’ he asked sharply.

  She darted him a swift, sidelong glance. ‘Oh yes, of course, you wouldn’t know. She’d been in Lavenstock all day and on the way home she bumped the car. She’d called in at a filling station for petrol and coming out she pulled out into the traffic too soon ... Another car caught her wing and spun her across to the other side of the road.’

  ‘Where was this?’

  When she gave him the name of the filling station, which was just on the outskirts of Lavenstock, one familiar to him, situated on a stretch of fast dual carriageway, he thought Laura Willard had been very lucky indeed to escape without a serious accident.

  ‘She was very shaken up,’ Mrs Thorne agreed. ‘Someone might easily have been hurt – even killed I suppose. She blames herself, says it was all her fault but I suppose she’d have her mind on other things.’

  ‘What other things?’

  ‘Oh, nothing special,’ she said vaguely. ‘I dare say she’s right, really. I have to say she’s not a very good driver.’

  ‘What time did it happen?’

  ‘Late this afternoon, I gather. Apparently it’s made a mess of both cars and, as you must know, anything like that takes ages to sort out so she had to get a taxi home because the steering on hers was a bit suspect. That’s why she was so much later home than she intended.’

  He knew why she was telling him all this. If true – and only a fool would have used such an easily verifiable story as an alibi if it were false – then Laura Willard was likely to be in the clear as far as killing her father was concerned. The timing was too tight, for it was surely stretching credibility to bizarre lengths to believe that she would immediately have rushed headlong to the church after such a grim couple of hours to find her father, and then for some reason have done away with him. Even after a sudden flare-up between them about, say, her damaging the car. All things, however, were possible.

  He stood up, and thanked Mrs Thorne, apologizing for keeping her from her bed. ‘That’s all right. They go to bed early in Wyvering and I’ve adopted the same habit.’

  ‘Have you lived here long?’

  ‘Twelve years. Since my husband’s job brought him to these parts.’

  ‘He’s Director of the Fricker Institute, I’m told.’

  ‘My, you have been doing your homework! The Fricker, yes. Where they experiment on animals, not to test cosmetics, but in order to alleviate human suffering. And in case you think otherwise, I wholeheartedly support that.’

  ‘Why not? I’d have thought it a very worthwhile job.’

  ‘Not everyone thinks so. He only just escaped that bomb last month.’

  ‘He was a lucky man, then. I wasn’t concerned in the investigation – Hurstfield’s not in my bailiwick – but I heard about it,’ he told her, and then had to listen while she told him in a forthright and not very complimentary manner what she thought of the police attempts to find the bombers and her opinion of the bombers themselves –’

  She stopped abruptly and apologized. ‘I’m sorry. I get rather carried away.’

  ‘That’s understandable. I suppose it must always be a fear at the back of your mind, but your husband must be used to it, getting threats and so on?’

  She looked suddenly rather pinched. ‘In his position it’s inevitable, isn’t it? But there’s been nothing lately, that I know of.’ And paused. ‘I think he would’ve told me if there had been.’

  So there had been something at one time. But what, he saw by the sudden closed look on her face, she wasn’t apparently prepared to say. He stood up, ready to leave. ‘I’d like to talk to your daughter some time.’

  ‘Philly? She’s probably gone to bed by now. She’s been out to dinner with Sebastian Oliver and she came back
very tired.’

  ‘I didn’t mean now, later will do. I’ve just been talking to him – he’s a particular friend of hers, I gather?’

  ‘Yes,’ Miriam said, with so little enthusiasm he raised his eyebrows. ‘Yes,’ she repeated, and sighed. ‘Oh, he’s all right, I suppose. He’s certainly redeemed himself by now but –’

  ‘Redeemed himself?’

  ‘Well, you know, he was expelled from Halsingbury – at least, that’s what it amounted to, though his parents – no, you mustn’t take any notice. I’m not being fair. He’s really quite different now.’

  He didn’t waste his time trying to make her say any more at this juncture. He could see that she already felt she had said too much.

  CHAPTER 8

  Mayo finally put his key into the lock of his front door in the early hours of Sunday morning, gritty-eyed and ready only to zonk out. Having reached a point where he’d decided nothing more useful could be accomplished that night except calling a halt and sending everyone off to snatch a few hours’ sleep, Cherry had put in an appearance, ready to go through the case so far with his usual thoroughness and not averse to Mayo going through it with him – but then, he hadn’t been without sleep for nearly forty-eight hours. Mayo had drunk another mugful of the tongue-stripping coffee that was Spalding’s forte, and summoned up a second wind. It wasn’t until an hour later that he’d been free to shut up shop.

  Moses, the grey cat belonging to Miss Vickers, was sitting as usual on his doormat, waiting for the chance to insinuate himself inside. The familiar moment’s struggle for supremacy ensued when Mayo tried to open the door wide enough to get in while at the same time endeavouring to hold the cat back with his foot. He wasn’t over-enamoured of this particular feline, which had a wall eye and a frustrated determination to be loved by him. Its plaintive miaouing could be heard through the closed door of the flat, which had its usual desolate look when he came back to it tired and hungry. The daffodils Julie had bought were dying. There was a note from Alex saying the pork chops were in the fridge with the rest of their abandoned meal and they’d better be eaten up a.s.a.p. She reminded him what duty she was on next week and ended with love and kisses, Alex.

  Somehow he’d missed out on the eggs and bacon at the Drum and Monkey and he felt ravenous but the thought of cooking the chops was too much. He wondered if the cat might eat them or whether in view of his name he wouldn’t consider them kosher. He settled for a corned beef sandwich which he ate propped up at the kitchen counter before dropping into bed.

  Once there, he found himself maddeningly wide awake, the events of the case chasing themselves around in his mind. Finally, he gave up the attempt at sleep and began to try to gather up the threads, counting them out as if he were counting sheep:

  One, Cecil Willard had been killed for no apparent reason. He hadn’t been an altogether pleasant personality but the arguments he had had with people hardly seemed to constitute sufficient grounds for murder.

  Two, he was objecting to his daughter’s marriage, which was disagreeable for her but hardly insurmountable – killing him to avoid the unpleasantness of opposing him was taking a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

  Three, there had been trouble with Mrs Oliver over the shooting of some badgers. It had upset her very much but unless the affair had, without anyone being aware, blown up to epic proportions – as admittedly such trifling incidents had been known to do – it didn’t at the moment seem to be of such paramount importance that he was prepared to give it much credence.

  Four, what seemed more important was that Willard’s death had come at a time when he might have been troubled in his conscience about some unspecified moral issue he had come across, very likely to do with someone called Sara. Was it coincidence that the name had appeared in close conjunction with that of Sebastian Oliver, the smooth young man with the sharp edge who had visited Willard the day before his death but claimed to know nothing about any Sara? He was adamant that his relations with the old man had been friendly. There was no reason to believe otherwise and he had an alibi for the time of death. This depended upon Phyllida Thorne – and hers upon him for that matter. Mayo was not easy in his mind about either of them, though he’d yet to speak to her – and to Laura Willard, if it came to that.

  Five, six, seven and so on ... there was more than enough to occupy him before he need start reaching for conclusions.

  Having decided this, he turned over and fell dreamlessly asleep until he woke at seven, fully awake to the exigencies of the day before him which included, first thing because of Timpson-Ludgate’s golf commitments, attendance at the post-mortem. For reasons not too far to seek, he decided to skip breakfast.

  The events of Saturday night produced on the following morning an interest in the church at Wyvering normally not granted to it. Half the village seemed to have found urgent and compelling reasons to be out and about in the direction of Parson’s Place and a great deal of confusion was occasioned in the narrow confines of Dobbs Lane, owing to cars being refused entry into the square and having to reverse out.

  Lionel Oliver, dismayed at the unwonted intrusion but unable to do anything about it, finally gave up and went back into the Rectory, looking decidedly upset at such distasteful behaviour, envisaging the quiet decorum of his church disappearing in a welter of chocolate wrappers and Coke tins. ‘I hesitate to believe such ghouls can be our own village people, gawping and staring at the scene of a murder! Not that there’s anything to see, as I have repeatedly told them. I explained, in so far as I could, why it had been necessary to cordon off the churchyard and to limit vehicle access into the square and I endeavoured to suggest – quite reasonably in my opinion – that they were being no help at all to the police in hanging around. But I don’t think they were really listening.’

  Catherine wasn’t surprised. Lionel’s orotund utterances frequently had that effect on people. ‘Well, at least it meant we had a good turn out at eight o’clock,’ she reminded him briskly.

  He had pinned up a notice from the vicar of St Peter’s in the neighbouring village of Stapley, inviting the faithful to join his own Sunday flock for Matins and Evensong, but Holy Communion had been celebrated here in the parish rooms. There had been twice the usual number of communicants but this evidently hadn’t pleased Lionel.

  ‘Hardly a matter for congratulation, having them to do the right thing for the wrong reason,’ he answered Catherine’s cheerful remark with pained reproof, yet feeling for some reason – and not for the first time lately – that it was he who was in the wrong.

  This unusual state of affairs was very unsettling to him. In fact, he was feeling thoroughly upset – and much of this, he was sorry to have to admit, was due to his wife. He was seeing her with new eyes, ever since she had blurted out her confession to him. Which she had done with trepidation, obviously afraid he would be disturbed by what she had to tell him, as well she might be, after having been so secretive.

  Well, he certainly was disturbed, not only by the fact that she had deemed it necessary to keep from him that she had written a book, but also that it was about to be published.

  Was he then such an ogre? he asked himself. Would he not have been delighted to hear of it? The answer was no, in both cases. No, he was not an ogre – he was a very approachable man, as everyone knew, and he rarely lost his temper, though that did not mean he wasn’t entitled to show his displeasure when the occasion warranted it. And no, he was certainly not delighted to hear about her book. The idea of his wife seeking notoriety was repugnant to him.

  ‘Notoriety? What rubbish, Lionel! It’ll be a nine days’ wonder, if it’s noticed at all – which I doubt very much indeed.’

  ‘Not when you’re sponsoring an organization which supports violence for its own ends.’

  ‘You know me better than that,’ she said, but avoiding his eyes. He had the feeling she wanted to tell him something else but didn’t know how to begin. He waited but when nothing happened he sighed and turned away.


  Yes, he was upset. For the first time in nearly thirty years of what he had always regarded as mutually supportive work and marriage, he felt he didn’t know how to deal with Catherine. He was shattered, as his son would have put it. Oh dear, Sebastian! Another worry. That business rearing its ugly head again, after all these years! Lionel was very much afraid that, much as he disliked the idea, he was going to have to try again to resolve that situation, this time once and for all.

  Lionel Oliver was God-fearing, upright, and would never knowingly hurt anyone, but these were attributes which came naturally to him, without effort. He had never had to fight any tendency to personal sin. Nor felt any great need for introspection or self-examination. But now he had to ask himself why there were things going on in his own house, within his own family, about which he had been told nothing. That he would most certainly have put a stop to them was one reason, he admitted that. But were his loved ones, in fact, also afraid of him?

  After the PM, and the essential briefing of his team at Milford Road station, a session with Atkins who would from now on be in charge of the incident room at Lavenstock, and a quick run through the papers and documents which continually piled up on his desk as inexorably as sand round the Pyramids, Mayo had a senior level discussion with Cherry and the ACC, concentrating mainly on what information should be released to the media and how to keep it as low-key as possible. By the time he was clear, it was mid-morning. Kite had already left for Wyvering and Mayo followed, driving himself. Leaving his car in the Drum and Monkey car park, he walked up Dobbs Lane. By the time he reached Parson’s Place there was no sign of the house-to-house inquiries so presumably they had finished knocking on doors there and moved on elsewhere to find out the whereabouts of everyone in the village on the previous day.

  ‘The posh school included?’ DC Deeley had asked at the briefing.

  ‘Everyone,’ repeated Kite. ‘And if any strangers were noticed anywhere in the village. Which shouldn’t stretch you too much. Village like this, they won’t have missed a thing – casual comings and goings by outsiders, unusual behaviour, anything.’