by Rachel Green
Chapter 33
Meinwen stood at the door to say goodbye to the residents of The Larches. Inside, Jennifer began to tidy and Simon helped with coats. Susan had chauffeured Jean while the rest had come in Nicole’s car, a fortunate circumstance since they were taking back two extra people.
She smiled to see Richard walking arm in arm with Catherine and getting into the back of Robert’s Jaguar. Mary squeezed into the back of the Vauxhall, sandwiched between Peter and Amanda, with Nicole driving. How would Peter choose between Mary and Nicole? Nicole had deemed it a relationship of mutual convenience, but Meinwen was certain there was more to it than that.
“Will they survive the events of the last week or shatter like crystal?” Jennifer stood behind her with a glass of apple wine.
“It’s all politics.” Meinwen watched the two cars head off up the road. “They’ll adjust in time.” She turned to go inside.
Simon paused from piling empty bowls and cups on a tray. “How do you mean? Will they still all live with Richard once he becomes master of the house, do you think? That’s assuming he’s cleared of the murder charge, of course.”
“I think they’ll polarize between Jean and Richard.” Meinwen carried a pair of Royal Doulton cups through to the kitchen. “My guess is that there’ll be two camps and divided loyalties until Richard is mature enough to take over the master’s position.”
“At least he’s married.” Simon wiped his hands on a tea towel. “He won’t be running a harem like Robert. To think that I knew him for ten years and never realized what was going on in that house. It’s disgusting.”
“Why?” Meinwen began filling up the washing bowl with hot water. “You just said you never knew. What harm were they doing to anyone? The only unhappiness was caused by Robert insisting Richard marry Mary.”
“That’s when all the trouble started.” Simon started putting on his coat, although it was a clear night and hardly seemed worth it for the twenty-yard walk up the drive to the rectory.
“The trouble started with the blackmail.” Meinwen looked up at the gibbous moon.
Jennifer, already wearing her fur-trimmed cape, lightly touched her arm. “I’m heading back. It’s been an eventful day and I could do with a cocoa and bed.”
Meinwen pulled her into a hug. “Goodnight then. Thanks for all your help tonight.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” Jennifer relaxed under the hug. “Thanks for not telling the police about Richard.”
“Dim problem, cariad.” Meinwen reached out and took her hands. “Just don’t tell Inspector White or he’ll have my guts for garters.”
Jennifer smiled and nodded. “I promise. On my mother’s grave.”
Meinwen leaned forward and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay. Coming, Simon?”
The priest nodded. “I’ll be along in a minute.”
Meinwen saw her out then turned back to Simon “Would you like a tea or coffee before you go? Or a hot chocolate if you like. I’m going to have one.”
Simon looked through the kitchen window at his own house where several lights came on. “All right. Any chance of an Irish coffee?”
“Only if you have the whiskey. I’ve no alcohol in the house at all other than a bottle or two of homemade wine, and that’s only for sabbats and esbats.”
“You observe the Sabbath, do you?” said Simon. “Which day?”
Meinwen smiled. “Every three months. Midsummer, midwinter and the spring and autumn equinoxes. The esbats are the four festivals that fall between them.”
“Oh, I see. Dancing naked around stone circles and the like.”
Meinwen laughed. “Sometimes. It’s not a requirement, though, and in the middle of winter I don’t take my clothes off for anybody.” She winked. “Not outside, anyway.”
Simon grinned. “I shouldn’t be listening to this heathen talk.”
“I’m sure you have equally odd rituals, when there are no parishioners to see. “Now how about that coffee?”
“Please.” Simon sat on a pine chair while she boiled a kettle and washed up.
* * * *
“Come to bed, Richard.”
Catherine tugged at her husband’s arm. “I’ve never been able to sleep with you here before and certainly not as lady of the house.”
Richard smiled. “Soon, love.” He stroked her cheek with his finger. “I want to show you something first.”
He led her upstairs to his stepfather’s bedroom. “Have you ever been in here before?”
She nodded. “Once or twice last year. After we fell in love I was careful to avoid Robert’s attention and he never asked for me to join him in here.”
“Good.” Richard led her inside and kissed her on the neck, drawing a moan from her lips as she surrendered to his touch. He slipped the buttons of her blouse and dropped it to the floor, then released her breasts and let them stand free, pert from the desire flowing through her. Her skirt soon joined the blouse. “Soon all this will be mine…”
Catherine nodded and her eyes closed, floating on his touch. His tongue across her nipples took her to the edge of bliss.
“…but you already belong to me.”
* * * *
Simon stirred chocolate powder into the froth on his coffee. “What did you mean when you said the only unhappiness at The Larches was when Robert arranged the marriage?”
“Exactly that,” Meinwen said. “The dynamics of the household was arranged around a tribal system with Robert at the top as the lord and the others all had a predefined niche in the microcosm of the house. He was the chief and the rest, apart from Richard and perhaps Mary, were his subjects.” She finished washing up and dried her hands, leaving the dishes to dry naturally. Picking up her hot chocolate, she returned to the living room and sat on her computer chair. Simon followed and settled into the armchair Jean had used.
Meinwen took a sip and yawned. “Robert’s sudden death changed the dynamics of the family. In one night it became a houseful of subjects with no one in charge. They carried on as normal as best they could but it was like a spinning top with nobody to wind it up again. Eventually it would have just tipped over on its side and stopped.”
“So Jean took over?”
“Apparently.” Meinwen nodded and sipped her coffee. “She was the eldest and most experienced. It’s hardly surprising they looked to her for direction. Had Richard been there they would probably have looked to him instead.”
“So will he have his own harem?”
Meinwen nodded. “Probably. Either they’ll sort themselves out into a single unit again or they’ll splinter into smaller groups, like part of a tribe breaking away to start another.”
“Oh God!” Simon put his head in his hands. “The rot will spread.”
“Don’t be silly.” Meinwen snorted and put her cup down at the side of her keyboard, hitting a few keys as she turned back. “They’re a stable, polyamorous community. They do no harm to anyone. Some of your Christian groups would do well to emulate them.”
“Rubbish. One man, one woman. That’s the natural way of things.”
“Not according to the Mormons.” Meinwen raised an eyebrow. “And what of love? Even your Jesus said to love one another. “
“In matrimony.” Simon waved away the argument. “It’ll all change when one of them is declared the murderer.”
“If you say so.” Meinwen smiled and picked up her coffee again. The computer bleeped but she ignored it.
Simon leaned forward, nursing his coffee. “Why did you give the killer until the morning to confess? Surely you’re putting yourself in danger.”
“Why? Why do you think? Why would I give a killer another twelve hours freedom?”
“To let him get away?” Simon shook his head. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? One of these poly-wotsit subjects. You know Richard is the killer and you want him to get away so you can join him afterward.”
Meinwe
n laughed. “Certainly not. Think again, but be reasonable this time.”
Simon looked at her, his mouth open. “You don’t know who the killer is! That’s clever. You want him to think you know and confess so that you look good when you say you ‘knew all along.’”
Meinwen rocked her office chair. “That’s a good theory but you’re quite wrong. I know exactly who the killer is. I’ve set it all out in an email to the police which will be sent off in the morning.”
“You haven’t sent it yet?”
She shook her head. “Not yet, no, though it will go automatically whether I’m here or not.” She smiled. “Third and final guess.”
“All right.” Simon closed his eyes. “You’re setting a trap for him to try to come after you. That would force his hand and prove without doubt who the killer is.”
Meinwen leaned back and half-closed her eyes. “I’ve no need to do that. I have all the evidence I need to send the killer to prison.”
Simon sat waved a hand dismissively. “All right. I give up. Who is the killer?”
Meinwen smiled. “Let me tell you how I worked through the clues. See if you can come to the same conclusion as I did.”
Simon put his cup on the coffee table and sat up, brushing away the lock of hair that habitually fell over his eye. “Go on then. This is exciting.”
Meinwen raised an eyebrow. “The first clue is the telephone call. Richard had no motive to make it. If he was the killer, he would have wanted to get as far away as possible before anyone found the body and if he wasn’t the killer he wouldn’t have made it anyway.”
“That makes sense, I suppose. So you’ve eliminated Richard purely on the phone call I received?”
“Not quite, no, though it gave me the impetus to believe he didn’t do it. Who else would make that call, and why would they say they were Amanda? At eleven-fifteen all the residents except Richard were at the house, so it couldn’t have been one of them at the station. That means that it must have been an accomplice of the murderer.”
“Why tell me of the murder, though? Why not just leave the body to be discovered later?”
Meinwen shook her head. “All in good time. The effect of the call was that the murder was discovered at night rather than in the morning. This could mean one of two things. Either the killer wanted the body found before it began to deteriorate, which indicates they cared for him, or else the killer wanted to be present when the body was found.”
“But only Amanda, Nicole, Peter and I were present,” said Simon, “unless someone else was watching that we didn’t know about. Jennifer stayed in the hall.”
“Someone watching?” Meinwen smiled. “Hold that thought.”
“Okay.” Simon grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Go on.”
“My next clue was the chair. Do you remember Amanda said it had been moved?”
“That was the day I was giving Mass. You told me afterward, though. It could easily have been moved by the police when they investigated the scene.”
“I thought so too. So I checked with Inspector White, or rather his sergeant, since it seems that the police have an internal server for all this information and the inspector doesn’t like computers. The police make it a policy not to disturb anything at a crime scene, and he sent me a picture of the room taken that night. The chair is exactly where we found it.”
“Perhaps Robert moved it then, or one of the people he argued with. Catherine, say, or the killer.”
“Amanda didn’t think so. She was surprised it was out of place. There were deep tread patterns in the carpet that suggested it was always on the same spot. She wouldn’t have noticed the discrepancy otherwise. That’s one of the reasons I eliminated her. She wouldn’t have brought our attention to a detail like that if she was the killer. Combined with the fact she had no reason to make the telephone call and she’s no longer a suspect.”
“What if she wanted the body found because she cared for him?”
Meinwen shook her head. “Her loyalties are firmly with Jean. That much is clear from watching her. She may have liked Robert or even loved him, but she didn’t kill him.”
Simon sat back again, rubbing his eyes. “What was the significance of the chair, then?”
“In its new position it hid Robert’s laptop from the doorway. The killer had to be there to switch off the dictation program, leaving us to think the murder was committed later than it was. Whoever made the phone call wanted to be at the scene when the body was found so they could shut down the software which also means that they were conversant with using a computer.”
“Clever. That eliminates Richard, doesn’t it? It could still be Amanda though. Who doesn’t know how to use a computer in this day and age?”
“No.” Meinwen drained her cup and twisted to put it down on the coffee table. “Amanda would be at the scene whenever the body was found because she’d be the one answering the door.” She laughed. “You’ve fixated on the poor girl, now. Have you got a grudge against her? Trust me, she didn’t do it.”
Simon sighed. “If you insist, but there’s something not quite right about her.”
“This from a man in a dress.” Meinwen grinned.
Simon wagged his finger at her. “That was a cheap shot and an old one. No points.”
She laughed and stretched her legs out. “Fair enough.”
“Is there anything else or is that the extent of your deductions?”
“There’s more.” Meinwen began to massage her calves. “Given that we’ve established Richard wasn’t the killer, why was his cellphone and footprints found outside the window?”
“They were left there to frame him?”
“Exactly. If we believe Richard’s story, he lost his Nokia at the pub. Who had the opportunity to steal it from him? To my knowledge, only you and Peter were at the pub on the night of the murder.”
“There’s still this mysterious watcher you mentioned.”
“Indeed.” Meinwen pointed at him. “That’s right. The watcher saw everything.”
Simon leaned forward again, his voice catching in his throat. “So who is the watcher?”
Chapter 34
Meinwen smiled, though it never reached her eyes. “I am the watcher, though I watch in hindsight through all the clues you left me.”
“The clues I left you?” Simon laughed. “You think I’m the murderer?”
“Of course. Do you deny it?” Meinwen reached into the printer tray and took out a sheaf of papers. She sorted through them and pulled one out.
“You may have forgotten, but I’m a priest.”
“A priest is not immune to committing offences before God.”
Simon leaned back and scratched his ear, his blue eyes twinkling. “And how would a simple heathen know that?”
“I’ve studied you over the past week,” Meinwen said. “You are not who your parishioners think you are. You have secrets, just like the rest of them, but I found them out.”
“I was hiding Richard, big deal.” Simon leaned over to the coffee table where a bowl of salted peanuts lay untouched after the meeting. He sorted through them, looking for unbroken ones. “It may have been foolish but it was hardly a sin.”
“That’s not your only secret, though, is it?” Meinwen stood. “Would you like another coffee?”
Simon looked at the dregs in his cup. “I’d better not. It might keep me awake.”
“I’m surprised you manage to sleep at all,” Meinwen said on her way to the kitchen. “I know I wouldn’t with such a tarnished spirit.”
“The state of my soul is between me and God and none of your concern.”
“True.” Meinwen sat again, fresh coffee instead of carob steaming in her mug. “It’s your mortal deeds that concern me. It was only the discrepancy in time that drew my attention away from you as the killer in the first place.”
“Why would I have killed Robert? He was a good friend and Richard’s stepfather. What reason would I have had to kill him?”
/> “Because the letter he received from Grace Peters named you as the blackmailer.” Meinwen sipped her coffee. “Oh, I know it was you blackmailing her. Who better to know her darkest secrets than her priest and confessor? You threatened her with exposure to the police and she kept you quiet with a payment of a thousand pounds a month.”
Simon laughed. “You’re talking out of your hat. You have no proof of any of this.”
“Circumstantial, perhaps, but I can prove the withdrawals from Grace Peters’ account match the deposits into yours.”
“Donations to the church. I have a private source of income.”
“Stocks and shares? A legacy?” Meinwen shook her head. “I think not. Only two people visited Grace Peters on a regular basis–you and her daughter.”
Simon’s face creased as he stood. “I don’t need to listen to any more of this rubbish. Needless to say, you are no longer welcome in my home.”
“Nor will you be after tomorrow,” said Meinwen. “What will Jennifer do when the church reclaims its property? Where will she go when she discovers that her dear brother is a murderer?”
“You leave her out of this.” Simon leaned over Meinwen, his face contorted in fury. “It’s bad enough that you bandy about accusations about me without you going after her as well. What harm has she done to you?”
“Nothing.” Meinwen sat back to give herself a little space from the snarling priest. “I quite like her, actually. She even helped me with the case. I just feel sorry for her. She’ll be gutted to find out that you were the murderer.”
“I’m going to sue you for slander. I know a good solicitor.”
“Gillian du Pointe?” Meinwen smiled. “I know her too. Lovely woman. She was very helpful when I made enquiries about the services she offered.”
Simon shook his head. “I have other friends I was at college with. I shall look forward to seeing your business close and you sent packing back to Aberdovey.”
“If so I shall send you a postcard,” said Meinwen. “Of course, I’ll have to address it to Wandsworth Prison.”
