The Bad Samaritan

by Robert Barnard

  “You know everything, Stephen. Is Dorothy here?”

  “I expect she will be later, if the cat turns up. It went missing this afternoon, and she insists she’s staying at home until it reappears.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “She worries more about that cat than she does about me. It’s not having children . . . .”

  He said it resentfully, blamingly. Coming to the defence of a woman she hardly knew, Rosemary said, “If she’d had children she would worry about them more than about you. And quite right too, though you’re probably the sort of husband who would resent it. Excuse me—I must go and get the plates and cutlery ready.”

  The long table had plates with serviettes at one end and knives and forks at the other. Rosemary had always resisted disposable plates and cutlery—the latter would have been even more than usually useless with pizza, and Rosemary expected that most people would use their fingers. She had three or four helpers already waiting behind the table, Violet Gumbold among them, and she chatted with them while observing how things were going in the hall. The party was filling up, with quite a lot of people paying at the door: as with the fete, the party had a reputation for offering good value. The congregation was actually outnumbered by nonworshippers, which suited Stephen Mills, who was standing by the table talking to local businessmen. Rosemary heard words like “cash flow,” “liquidity” and “reserves.” It occurred to her that she had only the vaguest idea what Stephen did, but she certainly associated him with expressions like “cash flow.” She noticed how much more at ease he was with men of his own kind: with women, and with men like Paul, he tended to be actorish, conscious of being on display, with something of the difficult temperament of the peacock. With businessmen he shed all this and got down to brass tacks in a completely normal way. She decided he was a very old-fashioned kind of man.

  Her nose twitched. Through the main door, where people were still strolling in and paying, Stanko had arrived, almost obscured by a great pile of large cartons from his hands to his chin. How good pizzas always smelt! Someone directed him to Rosemary’s table, and he staggered over, smiling at her with his eyes. It was with relief that he lowered them on to the table.

  “Thank you, Silvio,” said Rosemary. “Can you help for a bit with cutting and handing out?”

  She summoned her helpers round, and they began opening boxes. She noticed Paul approaching for his display of friendliness to Stanko for the parishioners’ benefit. Stanko had grinned at her, nodded, and started round to her side of the table. He was passing Stephen Mills and his group when he realised he was being watched, and stopped. Rosemary looked up from her work of slicing pizza and saw too. Mills had broken off from his conversation and had his eyes fixed on the new arrival.

  “Hello, Stanko,” he said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  An End and a Beginning

  There were many accounts given subsequently of what happened next. There was no great disagreement about the facts, which were unexciting. What happened was that there was a moment or two’s silence, in which Stanko seemed to be struggling to find something to say. Then he turned to Rosemary.

  “I cannot stay to help. I sorry. Is many customers back at Pizza Pronto.”

  And he turned and hurried out.

  Rosemary told the police (conscious that she was on the very outer verges of the truth, but without any guilty feelings about it) that Stanko had delivered the pizzas and left because they were busy back at the takeaway. Others recounted the encounter between him and Stephen Mills; but there were various versions of what Mills actually said, and the descriptions of Stanko’s demeanour varied enormously: dumbfounded, guilty, outraged, angry, embarrassed were among the words used, and many suggested that Stanko was surprised to meet someone from his past whom he had betrayed or double-crossed, or by whom he himself had been betrayed or double-crossed. The encounter was so brief, it involved so few words, that there were as many accounts of it as there were witnesses. Rosemary, if she could have heard them, would have been surprised at the parish’s holding so much imaginative energy.

  She found it impossible to put the encounter out of her mind as she went through the mechanical business of slicing and distributing pizzas, but this did not prevent her from absorbing other things as well: how the party was going, how people were behaving. She noticed that her rebuke to her son had not significantly altered his manner: it was avuncular—avuncular at twenty-two!—and orotund. A certain tolerance was extended to him as the vicar’s son, but she noticed that the people he talked at quickly found that there was something else it was imperative they do, or someone they simply had to talk to. Whereas her husband always had a crowd around him, her son mostly had a space.

  When there was a lull in the work, when everyone was eating and before the washing up started, Rosemary was surprised to find herself bearded by Derek Meadowes. She had smiled at him, greeted him, often enough before, but this was the first time she could recall having anything approaching a conversation with him. He always reminded her of a minor public schoolboy, quite useful with a bat lower down in the batting order, with a mind the consistency of well-boiled cabbage.

  “It’s all going very well,” he said.

  “Yes, isn’t it?”

  “Everyone’s worked very hard,” he continued, dipping into his ragbag of clichés.

  “It’s a good parish for workers,” Rosemary agreed.

  “You seem to have been reinvigorated since your break in Scarborough.”

  “It was good to get away,” said Rosemary, dipping into her own conversational ragbag but wondering all the time where all this was leading.

  “Yes, Selena found that. It was nice of you to call on her the other day. You must have found a lot to chat about.”

  “Yes, we did.” Rosemary, having found out where the conversation was leading, had no intention of obliging him with further information. For something to say she asked: “Did your mother-in-law feel the benefit of Scarborough too? I believe she’s failing.”

  “Mum? Failing? Good Lord, no. Plays golf three times a week and as strong-minded as they come. She’s only sixty-one, you know. Prime of life.”

  “I must be thinking of someone else,” said Rosemary meekly, but smiling to herself. “It’s easy to get people mixed up in a large parish like this one.”

  “Good heavens, yes. I’d be doing it all the time if I was in your position. Er . . .”

  Derek looked as if he was going to probe further, but then shut his mouth, obviously unable to find a suitably anodyne question that might lead Rosemary to tell him what had passed between his wife and her when she had called.

  Pizzas had been eaten, quite a lot of wine drunk, and the washing-up beckoned. It was something she felt she did quite enough of at home. St Saviour’s was a very forward-looking parish, but somehow this had never resulted in any males being part of the washing-up team. Rosemary took a deep breath, summoned her helpers and they went through to the kitchen and got stuck into it. Even working full out, with the efficiency born of long practice, it took them more than half an hour.

  By the time they had finished, the party was thinning out a little but still had plenty of life left in it. There was a healthy queue at the wine table (did Britons drink more than when she was young, Rosemary wondered, or just drink more white wine?), and at the table where the pizzas had been served, there were a couple of students eating discarded fragments.

  Her son Mark, Rosemary saw, had exhausted his store of other people’s patience and was now talking to Janet and Kevin. His manner to them was much the same as his manner with other parishioners. She saw Kevin on occasion move back a step, to get a better look at his stance and his gestures. Sometimes she saw his eye flicker, as if he had heard something he wanted to remember.

  It was cruel—both Kevin’s using him for caricature and her own delight in it. And yet . . . Rosemary thought again about the cliché parents used, particularly when their children were going through
“a certain stage”: that they loved them but didn’t like them very much. Was that possible? And if in fact she didn’t love Mark, how had that come about?

  Then she saw something that really put her on the alert. Janet was standing a little apart from her brother and her boyfriend, sipping at a glass of wine. Stephen Mills detached himself from a little knot of businessmen, came over to her and bent his face close to hers. She fixed him with a stare of outrage and revulsion, then conspicuously turned away from him and went to stand closer to Mark and Kevin. Mills shrugged, smiling, and went off to find other people to talk money with.

  The encounter troubled Rosemary. She had never before had reason to associate Janet with Stephen Mills in any sort of relationship at all. She had shared—she thought she had shared—the family’s skepticism, that was all. But to account for that look, there must have been something else. It was worrying. She looked around her: her job was over. The party was going with a self-generating force towards its close. She decided to do what she often did when her parish duties were over: slip away home without any fuss. Paul was near the door, talking to Florrie Harridance. As she passed she winked at him and then passed out into the night.

  She enjoyed the cool air and the quiet. She stuck to the road rather than crossing the dark park—these days an elementary precaution even for a far from nervous woman such as herself. As she walked on, her mind was going through the monotonous round of a single preoccupation: Janet and Stephen Mills. Stephen Mills and Janet. Why did the idea disturb her so much, she wondered? Because she so disliked and distrusted Dark Satanic Mills, of course.

  All was quiet at home. She poured herself a glass of milk from the fridge, then went straight up to bed. She felt totally exhausted and knew she would go straight to sleep and not wake up even when Paul joined her.

  Nor did she. She slept right through until after eight. Paul, who presumably had been a lot later, was still fast asleep beside her. She slipped out of bed, put on a dressing gown, and started downstairs to get the morning tea. At the turn of the stairs she paused. Through the little window there she could see out to the park. At the wooded, hilly part to her left she could see police cars. There was a large area cordoned off, and a couple of uniformed men were keeping early-morning joggers and dog-walkers away. As she watched, another police car sped along the road beneath her on its way to the scene.

  Rosemary shivered and went on down to the kitchen to make the tea.

  PART II

  CHARLIE

  CHAPTER TEN

  Local Body

  Charlie Peace had been called on duty an hour before his shift was due to start. He lived with his girlfriend in a small flat about ten minutes from where the body was found. When he arrived there he found the area already cordoned off, with a small knot of uniformed men urging sightseers to move on, which they did with the unabashed reluctance of natural ghouls. The photographers and other scene of the crime men were hard at work in the immediate vicinity of the body. Charlie looked around for anyone from CID and saw on the other side of the fenced-off area his preferred boss, Mike Oddie, who was being approached by one of the S.O.C.O. men. Charlie went over to his side and surveyed the scene.

  “You’ve cordoned off a big area,” he said.

  “Blood,” said Oddie briefly, looking at the things he had just been handed. “There was a trail of it.”

  “Long time dying? Long-running fight?”

  “Maybe the latter. But it seems to have ended with his throat being cut.”

  “Unusual.”

  “Distinctly odd.”

  Charlie stood quietly, his eyes still fixed on the body and its surroundings. He was in a part of Leeds that in theory he ought to know well: it was close to home and he ran there three or four times a week—not obsessively, merely keeping fit for his job. But running does not encourage you to survey the scene. Mostly you keep your eyes on the ground, watching for muddy patches, glass or dog dirt. The body was on the rising ground at the far end of Herrick Park, where tended grassland shaded off into woodland. The body was on grass, but the cordoned-off area included the wide pathway between the trees. All this was no great way from the road, but if the killing took place at night the darkness made it unlikely that any passing motorist would have seen anything. Or indeed would have done anything if he had. Charlie looked over the expanse of green towards tennis courts and the rather fine old buildings of Herrick College beyond. He knew that few students went through the park area after dark—almost no female ones.

  “Who is he?” he asked.

  “According to his wallet someone called Stephen Mills. Ring any bells?”

  “None.”

  “His business card is for European Opportunities Ltd. Private address and office address given. Know anything about the firm?”

  “Never heard of them.”

  “Me neither. Look at this.” He showed him a printed ticket for the St Saviour’s spring party, for Saturday, May 15. Admit one. “Last night. Presumably that’s where he’d been. Hardly the sort of rave-up you might expect to lead to this.”

  Charlie shook his head vigorously.

  “Don’t you believe it. Religious people are the biggest bearers of grudges around. Don’t you know any churchgoers?”

  Oddie thought.

  “As a matter of fact, I don’t. No regular ones, anyway. Sign of the times, I suppose.”

  “Well, they are. And they’re very good at justifying themselves in their grudges.” Having delivered himself of this wisdom with some relish, Charlie thought for a little. “Well now, we’re getting to know our body: Stephen Mills, assaulted and killed on the way back from the St Saviour’s spring party. I know about that party. My girlfriend told me that some of her friends were going.”

  “Oh? Religious? I didn’t know Felicity was a churchgoer.”

  “She’s not. The St Saviour’s party is cheap, with lots of grub. There’d been a fete earlier on. It’s known as a place where you can get good things at knockdown prices—jams, cakes and that sort of thing. Students are always on the lookout for cheap food. Any idea when this chap was killed?”

  “Doc is cagey, as ever, but he says he’s been there hours. I could have told him that. He’s been rained on.”

  “The vicar of St Saviour’s lives over there,” said Charlie pointing to a part of the road a few hundred yards away. “I think his name is Sheffield. I could find the house easily enough. Want me to go and have a word?”

  But as he spoke a figure in clericals came out of one of the houses, with a woman beside him. As they watched he kissed her, got into his car and waited for a moment. Two young people came out of the house in a hurry, got into the car, and it drove away, leaving the woman on the pavement.

  “That’s his wife,” said Charlie, not afraid to state the obvious. “She sometimes comes out on to the park when she’s seen him off to church.” They watched as she crossed the road and walked towards the tennis courts, casting occasional glances in the direction of the police presence, as if she would like to join the curious public if it weren’t for the fact that it was not the done thing. “Want me to go and have a word with her?”

  “Do you know her?”

  “Nodding acquaintances.”

  “Well, why not? Can’t do any harm.” Oddie thought for a moment. “I’ll send someone now to this address to see if there’s a wife and break it to her. Be a bit careful what you say to the vicar’s lady, but see what you can find out about the church bash last night.”

  Charlie headed towards her, and when he saw her turn and start back towards her defiantly ordinary vicarage, he broke into a run. She heard him, looked around and, when she saw who it was, smiled.

  “Hello. We sort of know each other, don’t we?” she said.

  “To nod and smile to.”

  “Were you wanting my husband?”

  “Well, I may have to speak to him later.”

  “Births, marriages or deaths?”

  “None of those at the momen
t, thank you. Actually it was you I wanted to speak to.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m from up there.” He turned and pointed towards the impressive police presence on the knoll. Comprehension dawned in Rosemary’s face.

  “Oh, you’re a policeman!”

  “Detective Constable Peace.”

  She frowned.

  “I don’t know that I can help, I’m afraid. I slept well, didn’t see or hear a thing.”

  “I thought you might have been at the St Saviour’s party last night.”

  Rosemary raised her eyebrows.

  “I was. I was helping with the food. What on earth can that have to do with anything?” She looked him in the eye. “What are you investigating up there?”

  “I . . . can’t be too specific—” Charlie began.

  Light dawned on Rosemary.

  “Of course. There are so many of you. It couldn’t be anything but a body, could it?”

  He returned her look guilelessly.

  “If you could just tell me a bit about the party, Mrs . . . Sheffield, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. Of course you have to be careful, I can see that. Well, there’s not a great deal to tell. It went off very well, as usual. I slipped away early.”

  “How early?”

  “I don’t remember exactly. A bit before ten, I think.”

  “Did you notice a Stephen Mills at the party?”

  “Oh yes, I—oh dear. Is it him? But I suppose I’m not allowed to ask.”

  “You did notice him?”

  “Yes, he was there. He was close by the table when I was going to serve the food. Then I saw him again later. Both times he was with a little group of men—businessmen.”

  “They were close to you at the table, were they? Did you hear what they were talking about?”

  “Oh, the usual things I imagine when business people get together: the dire state of the economy, whether there are any signs of things picking up. I caught some phrases suggesting that. It wasn’t the sort of talk that interests me.”