The Reaper

by Peter Lovesey

  "Nonsense. You're top priority. If I were you, I'd bake some cakes and have a bottle of vino ready. But he won't be round today. I was up early. Saw him drive past about six-thirty. He's taking the day off, I reckon. Generally it's Tuesday when he goes missing, but he had the funeral yesterday, so he took today instead. Where he goes in that old banger of his I couldn't tell you. But we've been over that before, haven't we? He's a man of mystery, our rector."

  "He's entitled to some life of his own. Who are these enemies you mentioned? Burton Sands, I suppose?"

  "Him, yes. And Owen."

  "Owen who?"

  "Miss Cumberbatch's brother."

  "The fat man? I don't think I've ever spoken to him."

  "Well, don't. He spreads the most hair-raising gossip about poor Otis being a serial murderer."

  Rachel spilled tea into her saucer. "That's horrible."

  "Of course it's horrible and quite impossible, but Owen Witters on about it to anyone daft enough to j listen. He's a prize bullshitter, pardon my French. You mention a place and Owen Cumberbatch has been there. Name some famous person and he knows them personally. No, to be accurate, he usually names them first."

  "Why is he spreading lies about the rector?"

  "Says he knew him in his previous parish. Where was it? St. Saviour's at Old Mordern."

  "Where's that?"

  "Near Chippenham, I think."

  "What's he got against Otis?"

  "Apart from being a serial killer?" Cynthia shook with laughter. "I wouldn't know, darling."

  They both laughed, since the notion of Otis killing anyone was so preposterous.

  "Next he'll be claiming Otis murdered your Gary."

  Rachel caught her breath and felt a spasm through her body. "He'd better not." Her cheeks were burning and her heart pumped harder. To hear it suggested that Gary could have died of anything except natural causes was deeply alarming and had to be dealt with immediately. "Listen, Cynthia. If anyone in this village-Owen or anyone else-spreads a vicious rumour like that, I'll sue them."

  "Otis would have to sue him, poppet," Cynthia pointed out. "It wouldn't be you he was defaming."

  IN SPITE of aching all over from the gardening, Rachel couldn't get to sleep that night. Cynthia's casual linking of Gary's name with murder had devastated her. Where had the woman got such an idea? There was no reason for any suspicion about the death. Everything was watertight. Gary had been treated for a heart problem only days before he died. The doctor was satisfied, the medical certificate written, the death certificate collected, the curry disposed of, the monkshood eradicated and the corpse buried. She'd given Gary the best funeral anyone ever had in Foxford. She ought to be untouchable.

  How infuriating, then, how bloody unfair, if rumours started just through Owen Cumberbatch's malicious gossip. No, get this straight, she thought. Owen hadn't said anything. It was Cynthia anticipating things that might conceivably enter Owen's head. It was Cynthia who had hit the button-good-hearted, ever-cheerful, yappy Cynthia. And this time she wasn't even trying to make mischief. She'd come out mindlessly with the truth-or at least a half-truth. Gary was a victim of murder.

  Rumour was so insidious. Mud sticks. If this came to the ears of old Dr. Perkins, he could start thinking back and questioning his diagnosis.

  Am I panicking? she thought.

  Maybe this was the reaction kicking in, the depression everyone was warning her about. The numbness of the first shock was passing, and she was becoming prey to her own nerves.

  She mustn't let it get to her. She'd done everything right up to now. All she had to do was hold her nerve and make sure Cynthia held her tongue.

  She sat up, put on the light and took one of the sleeping pills Dr. Perkins had prescribed for her. Sensibly, she forced her thoughts onto another track: her future life with Otis after they married. Some drastic updating would be necessary in the rectory and she hoped Otis was generous with money-one aspect of his character she knew nothing about. Starting with the kitchen, which was hopelessly old-fashioned, she began planning the changes she would make.

  When she finally drifted into sleep, she had totally reorganised the kitchen and was mulling over colour schemes for the main reception room.;

  At lunchtime the next day a stranger walked into the Three Golden Cups in the North Wiltshire village of Old Mordern and asked for a lemonade. The five or six local men in the bar turned and stared. Sometimes a driver would ask for low alcohol lager or a shandy, but lemonade, for a man, was pretty unusual. Yet this stranger had the look of a lemonade drinker, a humourless, freckled face, a rigid don't-even-ask stance and carroty hair out of the nineteen fifties, short back and sides with a parting. He was in a blue pinstripe with waistcoat and striped tie. A doorstep evangelist, maybe.

  He was Burton Sands, taking a day from his annual holiday allowance in the hope of discovering more about Otis Joy's relations with women. He was confident that a history of philandering was behind the appointment of Rachel Jansen as PCC treasurer. So the visit wasn't about evangelism, but it was a mission. His grudge against the rector of Foxford filled his mind. He had no clear idea at this stage how he would use any information he acquired. He just needed it like some people need affection.

  "Nice day," he said to no one in particular.

  "Anything to eat, sir?" asked Ben, the landlord. "The specials are on the board."

  "Eat? 1 don't think so."

  "Pies are good," said a bearded man known locally as Nelson through some small seafaring experience he'd once unwisely revealed to this sarcastic bunch. "Mary in the kitchen is famous for her pies."

  "Just the lemonade, thank you."

  It was becoming clear that this stranger to the pub was good value. Nelson said, "You shouldn't drink on an empty stomach." He could be just as sarcastic as the rest. "Got far to go, have you?"

  "I'm from Foxford."

  "Foxford down Warminster way?" said Ben. "Our last vicar went there, didn't he?"

  Someone confirmed it.

  "Popular young chap," added Ben. "Name of Joy."

  Burton couldn't have wished for a better lead-in. "The Reverend Joy. Yes, I know him. He's quite popular in Foxford," he said as if he couldn't fully understand the reason.

  "Church was full here when he were vicar," said Nelson. "Are you a church-goer, young man?"

  "Yes, I am."

  "I thought so. You'll pardon me for saying so, but you have the look of one of the faithful."

  "I don't know how you tell," said Burton naively, ignoring the sly smiles and wanting to get the conversation back to Otis Joy. "He's an excellent preacher."

  "Helped my business on a Sunday lunchtime," said Ben the landlord. "They came here after the service, thirsty from singing all they hymns."

  "Different story now," said Nelson. "The new bloke is a dead loss."

  "Your loss is our gain, then," Burton commented, keeping them on the subject, and wittily, he thought. Then he dangled some tasty bait. "He's well liked, specially by the ladies."

  Disappointingly, no one was interested.

  He was compelled to add, "I suppose he would be, with his good looks."

  No response.

  "And his lively personality, of course."

  He was not good at this. They started talking among themselves about last night's football on the television. Personally, he knew nothing about football. He tried to get the landlord back on track. "Of course, you'd have seen another side of the man. He was married while he was here, was he not?"

  A nod.

  "She died, I heard. His wife."

  "Correct." There was a guarded note in the voice that told Burton he wasn't going to get much more from this source.

  "How very sad."

  "Yes."

  "She must have been quite young."

  "True," said the landlord. Then, addressing the others: "That was never a goal, that third one. It should never have been allowed."

  Burton Sands picked up his lemonade and took
it to a table. After ten minutes he got up and left.

  He walked up the street in the thin October sunshine and paused to watch a squirrel tightroping across a power cable with a nut in its teeth. Halfway over, it spotted Sands and froze for a second before completing the crossing, when it transferred to a tree and streaked upwards and out of sight. That squirrel seemed to sum up Old Mordern. Burton already disliked the place. It had darker stonework and less thatch than Foxford. The church at the top of the street was obviously Victorian, the tower topped by an ugly saddleback roof and a square stair-turret.

  He strolled as far as the church gate. Nobody should object if he wandered among the gravestones; in these days when so many people were researching their family histories it was nothing unusual for strangers to walk up and down churchyards studying every inscription.

  The stone that interested him didn't take long to find. It was close to the church building on the west side, a simple memorial:

  Claudine Joy

  1975–1998

  Beloved wife of Rev. Otis Joy

  Vicar of this Parish

  He did the mental arithmetic, worked out that she had been younger than he was now, and moved on, into St. Saviour's.

  His first impression was of the cold interior. Then of another sort of bleakness, a sense of neglect, or at least austerity. The velvet curtains that were meant to act as a draught excluder over the door had lost the nap in patches where hands had drawn them across. He was standing on a strip of plain cord matting worn thin by years of use and fraying in places. It linked with another strip along the length of the aisle. He was puzzled. Lively, well supported churches replace fabrics when they get shabby. Even the altar cloth wanted replacing. The linen looked clean, yet it had obviously been laundered a few times too many. In structure this was a fine church with some strikingly beautiful stained windows. All it wanted was some redecoration and some money spent on the soft fabrics. True, there were some nicely worked kneelers hanging under the pews, but they would have been donated by the women who made them. The things that were the responsibility of the parish council were crying out for replacement.

  He heard a movement. A woman was at work arranging white and yellow chrysanthemums in a large, chipped vase below the pulpit.

  She spoke a greeting and Burton responded and offered to turn on the lights. The chance of a civilised conversation about the former vicar was surely better here than in the pub. He wished he'd thought of it earlier. Of course he couldn't have relied on anyone being inside.

  "You should have seen it last weekend when we had the Harvest Festival," the woman said. "It looked a lot more homely then." She was tall and slim, in her sixties, and wearing a green apron and gardening gloves. "Do you know the church?"

  "My first time," answered Burton.

  "It doesn't have much of a history compared to some in the area, but we like it to be seen at its best."

  "You've lived here some time?"

  "Over twenty years. We came from London originally. You can probably tell I'm not local."

  "Seen some vicars come and go, then?" This was the height of subtlety by Burton's standards.

  "That's for sure. They're listed on the board by the door. I've known four different ones in my time here."

  He walked over to the board and said aloud, "Otis Joy. There's a fine name." This time, he was going to pretend he hadn't even heard of the man. He would learn more that way. The people in the pub might have said more if he hadn't revealed that he was from Joy's present parish.

  "A fine man, too," said the flower-arranger. "He had charisma in abundance. Like that President Kennedy."

  Another notorious womaniser, thought Burton. Was that significant? "I happened to notice the name Joy outside on one of the headstones."

  "That would be his wife's grave, poor soul. She was French, a charming young lady with a kind word for everyone, and always beautifully turned out."

  "What happened?"

  "It was dreadful. One of those chance events that bring tragedy when you least expect it. She was stung by a bee."

  "And it killed her?"

  "Very quickly. Some people are allergic to bee-stings, apparently, and she was one of them. The rector found her dead in the shower. When they did the post mortem they found this bee-sting. The pathologist said a bee must have got into the shower-compartment and been trapped somehow and attacked Mrs. Joy when she stepped inside."

  "Strange."

  "Not really. You see, there was a lavender hedge all round the rectory, close to the walls, and the bees are really drawn to lavender, if you've ever noticed. They come to it in hundreds on a sunny day. It was hot and the shower room window was open. A combination of things."

  "Why would a bee go in the shower?" said Burton, deeply suspicious.

  "I don't know. Perhaps she had some scented soap in there."

  "I never heard of bees being interested in soap."

  "Lavender soap."

  "When did this thing happen?"

  "Shortly before Otis moved away. We were sorry to see him go, but we all said it was a good thing he went. Too many unhappy associations in that vicarage for him."

  "Yes, it's understandable." Burton made a huge effort to sound sympathetic.

  "The Church of England put in another shower for the new vicar. There was nothing wrong with the old one, but they changed it, just the same."

  "Very considerate."

  "Speaking for myself," she said, "I wouldn't take a shower there now, knowing what happened. Showers frighten me, anyway, ever since I saw that Hitchcock film. Oh, what was it called?"

  "Why would you take a shower in the vicarage?"

  She frowned, thrown by his way of taking every statement literally. "I'm not speaking personally. I don't visit there. I was just putting myself in the position of the new vicar or his wife."

  "You said it happened shortly before he left. Was he due to leave anyway?"

  "No, he could have stayed on for years. We liked him. It was his wife's death that caused him to ask the Church for a move. The people here did their best to help him through the bereavement, cooking for him, and so forth, but it's difficult."

  "Why?

  "I mean for ladies wanting to help out. Tongues wag, you know."

  "Why?" asked Burton, interested.

  "If you're seen calling top often at the vicarage."

  "What do you mean?"

  "It's obvious, isn't it? The young, good-lopking vicar suddenly alone in the world. There's always the suspicion that someone who bakes him a pie has an ulterior motive,"

  "Flirting?"

  "Or something like it."

  "Was Otis Joy a flirt?"

  She looked uncomfortable with the word. "I'm sure he wasn't. He was always open-hearted and outgoing and ready with a joke and that could be mistaken for encouragement, 1 suppose. But no, he never overstepped the mark, and I'm sure it never crossed his mind. Certain women hover around vicars, buttering them up, always have and always will."

  "Even married vicars?"

  "You must have seen it going on. It means nothing usually."

  This was becoming frustrating for Burton Sands. He said with some impatience, "Is he a ladies' man, or isn't he? You said he was charismatic, like Kennedy."

  "Oh I see." She blushed. "No, I didn't mean anything like that."

  This was not so productive as he had hoped. "What did you mean, then? Good-looking?"

  "I meant charming and friendly, but that doesn't imply that he misbehaved. I never heard a whisper of anything like that."

  "But if women found him attractive …"

  "I can't answer for other women." She blushed deeply. "This is becoming rather distasteful."

  "It's not meant to be."

  She went back to her flower-arranging. "I don't like talking this way about the poor man. It's unfair. He moved to another parish after his wife died and I hope he's happy there. I really do."

  If her little speech was meant to draw a line und
er the conversation, it failed. Doggedly, Burton pressed his case. "Let's suppose he found someone else. You wouldn't mind?"

  "That's his business entirely. He's still young. Why shouldn't he marry again in time? I think a vicar should have a wife supporting him if possible."

  "Some don't," said Burton. He moved towards the altar, his hand curving over the padding on the communion rail. "This wants replacing."

  "So does everything else if you look closely," she said, pleased to change the subject. "Unfortunately the funds won't run to it. We're rather a poor parish."

  "I can't think why. You said it was well-supported when the Reverend Joy was here."

  "Yes, but the upkeep is too much for a small community like ours. We never had any left over for jobs like that, and we lost our sexton, Mr. Skidmore. He was very good at keeping the church in good order."

  "Lost him?"

  "Quite literally. It's a mystery. He disappeared one day and nothing has been heard of him since."

  Burton felt a prickling of excitement. "When did this happen?"

  "About two years ago."

  "In the Reverend Joy's time?"

  "It was. He was a crusty old character, Fred, a bit sharp with visitors. He dug the graves and polished the communion vessels and cut the grass and brushed the path. He's officially a missing person, but most of us think he must be dead. He had no life outside the village. His cottage is still just as he left it, boarded up now. I suppose they'll do something about it in time."

  "How does someone disappear?" said Burton.

  "That's the mystery. Time goes on, and no one does anything about it. They ought to look in the reservoir, in my opinion. He could have drowned."

  "He'd come to the surface."

  "Well, I can't think where else he could be. Perhaps his mind went, and he wandered off. He was a bit strange at times."

  "You won't be paying his wages any more," Burton pointed out. "You could get someone else."

  "I don't think we could afford it any more. I know, because my husband is on the PCC. We had such a shortfall-is that the word? — that the bishop took a personal interest in our finances earlier this year."

  "Really? The bishop?"