The Reaper

by Peter Lovesey

  "Come again?"

  " 'Arripay.' Round here, he was just Harry Page."

  She giggled at that. "Wouldn't you like to be a pirate? All girls dream of being captured by one."

  "Pirates weren't romantic at all."

  "Doesn't matter. You could be one and get away with it. No one knows who you really are-well, no one except me, and I'm your prisoner now. At your mercy, on your pirate vessel."

  "What am I supposed to do? Make you walk the plank?"

  "Lord, no. I can't swim. But you could have your wicked way with me. A Jolly Roger."

  "That's a flag."

  "Not in my phrasebook, darling." Quickly, she added, "Pure fantasy, of course."

  "1 hope so."

  "That's not very gallant, Otis."

  He concentrated on his helmsmanship. The streams can be strong at the harbour exit between Sandbanks and South Haven Point. Lining up the beacon at the end of the training bank, he took them into Poole Bay by the route known as Swash Channel. "We'll open up a bit now."

  "Us-or the engines?" asked Cynthia, laughing. She was steadily knocking back cognac.

  "She'll do thirty-five knots."

  "What's that to a landlubber like me?"

  "About forty. Doesn't sound much, but on water…"

  "Go on, then. Scare me."

  He gave the pair of 660 horsepower engines more power and the five-bladed propellors fairly whipped the big boat over the water. It was reasonably calm today and he could motor into the waves without too much of a pounding.

  "Brilliant!" shouted Cynthia.

  He knew these waters well, the overfalls from Handfast Point down to Anvil, and the tide race off Old Harry on the ebb. Often he would steer a challenging course along the coast and test the boat in onshore winds. Today, he headed resolutely out to sea. After a while he eased the throttle imperceptibly- enough for easier conversation.

  "Keep a look out for dolphins."

  "Really?" she said. "I've never seen one outside an aquarium."

  "You could get lucky."

  Over to the east, they got a clear view of the Needles in sunlight off the Isle of Wight. He pointed them put. "I'd like to take you closer, but this is a south-west wind and it can be tricky."

  "Better safe than sorry," she said. "Can we stop?"

  "Heave to, you mean. If you like."

  "It's not as if we're in anyone's way. I'd like to enjoy the scenery."

  Suits me, he thought as he cut to dead-slow.

  She offered the hipflask again. He shook his head.

  "So what do you think of me?" she asked. "1 know I shouldn't have been so nosy, following you this morning, but can I be forgiven? I won't tell a soul. Promise."

  "You'll tell anyone who wants to know," he said. He was in a candid what-the-hell frame of mind. "I don't blame you. I thought I was safe using another name all this way from the village."

  "Does it matter if they find out?"

  "Yes. It matters. Come on, you know the score. They'll ask how I can afford a motor cruiser. They're suspicious of me already, some of them."

  "How do you afford it?"

  "By diverting church funds."

  A gasp. "Oh, my God-you're kidding."

  "No. As you said, my stipend wouldn't pay for it."

  She stared at him, saucer-eyed. "Let me get this clear. Are you telling me you're a crooked vicar?"

  "That's a bit harsh, but yes. I take a cut of the parish income."

  "In expenses?"

  He laughed. "This is some expense."

  "Jesus. How do you square it with your conscience?"

  "No problem. It's money we'd pay the diocese to keep the bishop's wine cellar stocked."

  "How do you square it with God, then?"

  "He hasn't raised it with me, so I don't trouble him."

  Cynthia stared at him for a moment and then shook her head. "Half the time I don't know whether to believe you. Isn't it one of the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not steal?"

  He gazed out to sea. "Yes, I'm not too strong on the Commandments. I can truly say I've never coveted my neighbour's ox, but as for the rest…"

  She wagged a finger. "Otis, you're a wicked boy. Someone ought to teach you a lesson."

  She couldn't have picked a worse thing to say. Muscles were twitching in his face.

  Her hand grabbed his wrist. "Well, if you don't fancy playing the pirate chief, maybe I should. After what you just told me, sailor, I think you should feel the cat o'nine tails across your flanks."

  "Leave it, Cynthia." He turned to glare at her and twisted his arm free.

  "Cyn, if you like, since we're on the subject." She must have used that joke before. Her mouth was curved into a seductive smile. "If you can't take the cat, you'll have to settle for a spanking."

  "I'll pass on that."

  "I thought that was why men bought these huge boats, to have fun with their girlfriends. I wouldn't hurt you-much."

  She was giving enough openings for an orgy, only he had a different agenda.

  "Why don't you put it on autopilot?" she suggested.

  At last he sounded more enthusiastic. "Top idea. Would you like to come up to the flybridge?"

  "Naughty. What are you suggesting?"

  "The deck above. Out in the open. Better view."

  "All right."

  "You'll need your coat." He could have added, "And a life jacket," but he didn't.

  Eighteen

  After the build-up he'd given the carol singing, there was puzzlement when the rector failed to appear on Tuesday evening. Almost everyone else was there in warm clothes, some carrying lanterns, some their musical instruments. For twenty minutes they waited in the crisp evening air outside the church door. "Happen he's not well," somebody suggested, so Peggy Winner offered to knock at the rectory door. She got no reply. The place was in darkness. Then George Mitchell remembered that this was normally the rector's day off.

  "I expect he's gone off for the day and forgotten," said Peggy.

  "Not our rector," said George, who had become a staunch supporter through the Scrabble sessions. "He's not the forgetful sort. 1 reckon he's held up somewhere. Trouble with the car, most like." People tended to believe George because he was a policeman.

  "Where would he have gone?" a woman asked.

  Nobody could say.

  "He gets up very early on his days off," Burton Sands said as if early rising was suspicious behaviour. "He could be miles away."

  "Disposing of another one," murmured Owen Cumberbatch.

  "What did you say?" said George Mitchell.

  "Nothing at all, old boy. Not a word."

  They decided to start without the rector. If he turned up late, he would hear the singing and know where to look for them. They walked to the first group of houses and started with a good rallying carol, "O Come, all ye faithful."

  "Knowing Otis and his flare for the dramatic, this is all set up for a huge surprise," Peggy confided to Rachel after the last chorus was sung and the boxes rattled at the doorsteps. "He's going to come up the street in a minute dressed as Santa Claus."

  "I doubt it," said Rachel. "Santa isn't part of the real Christmas story."

  "The Angel of the Lord, then," said Peggy, laughing. "With plastic wings and a ruddy great halo."

  Rachel didn't smile. Otis's absence worried her. And she was also puzzled as to why Cynthia hadn't turned out. She'd promised to be there.

  During the walk from the first carol-stop to the second, and aided by the hipflasks being passed around, a subtle change took place. The singers, representing at least three-quarters of those who filled the church on Sundays, started to chat with a frankness they never managed after service, and much of the chat was critical of the rector.

  "It's bad of him to let us, down," Peggy remarked to Rachel. "He's such a card normally. We need him to keep us cheerful."

  "I expect he'll turn up," Rachel said. "He never misses church events."

  "Well, he shouldn't, should he?" P
eggy said. "It's his job. Where does he go on his days off?"

  "Don't ask me," said Rachel.

  "Do you think he's got a woman tucked away somewhere?"

  The question was beneath contempt. Rachel clicked her tongue and looked away.

  "No offence, love. It's just that you've seen a little more of him than some of us-through doing the accounts, I mean- and I wondered if he gave any clues."

  "We don't talk about personal matters."

  Norman Gregor, the churchwarden, at the head of the group with Geoff Elliott, was saying, "This isn't very good. He should have phoned."

  "It's no disaster, Norman," said Elliott. "It's not like a service. We can cope."

  And Burton Sands said in confidence to Mitchell, "When there's an opportunity, I'd like to talk to you about the rector. I think he ought to be investigated."

  "Have you been talking to Owen by any chance?" said George.

  They had reached one of the farms along the route. Picking their way with the help of torches, they trudged along the track to the house. The dim shapes of silent, seated sheep could just be seen over the drystone walls.

  "We get a mince pie here," Norman Gregor reminded the others.

  "What do you think-'While shepherds watched'?" suggested Geoff Elliott, who had assumed the role of choirmaster.

  It seemed appropriate, so the brass section played the opening bars.

  After five minutes of lusty singing and fifteen consuming the farmer's wife's heated mince pies, they moved on. Owen Cum-berbatch had a fresh theory about the rector's absence, and was happy to tell anyone who would listen except George Mitchell. "Detained by the police, 'helping them with their inquiries,' as they charmingly put it. They had to catch up with him eventually, didn't they? You can't go on eliminating innocent people and expect to get away with it."

  Peggy would have none of it. "He's a man of God, Owen. They don't go in for murder."

  "Plenty of it in the Bible, dear," said Owen.

  Rachel wished someone would murder Owen.

  They moved on steadily through their repertoire, stopping at all the traditional points, and still the rector hadn't joined them. Almost two hours after the start they ended up at the Foxford Arms.

  "He's probably sitting inside with a smile on his face," said Peggy.

  "He'll owe us a drink if he is," said Norman Gregor.

  But he was not in the pub. Unkind things might have been said at this end of the evening if Joe Jackson had not been standing just inside the door behind a steaming punchbowl. Normally a solemn figure, he was wearing reindeer horns and an apron made to look as if he was wearing a corset. He ladled generous glasses for everyone except the children, who were given their own non-alcoholic concoction. And there were more mince pies that most people passed by.

  The singing started up again. Not carols. "Nellie Dean," because everyone knew the words. Then Joe Jackson, who had a good bass voice and hadn't used it singing carols, gave them an old gallows song, "Salisbury Plain," followed by "Barbara Allen," the ballad of the fair maid who ignored the man who died of love for her, and then, full of remorse, died herself.

  "Lovely tunes, but such morbid songs," said Peggy Winner. "Can't you give us something more cheerful? Rachel's slipped off home already. I'm sure it was the singing put her off."

  Joe said in a huff, "If it's something cheerful you want, ask George for 'The Laughing Policeman.' "

  Sarcasm often misses the mark. Peggy took Joe at his word. "Would you, George?"

  George Mitchell pretended to need persuading, but everyone knew that once asked he would get up and give his party piece. Nobody minded that he wasn't much of a singer. It was a treat to hear the law making an ass of itself.

  It wasn't Joe Jackson's choice of songs that drove Rachel away. She'd left feeling strangely dissatisfied because the evening had lacked the two people who had urged her to join in. She was mystified why Cynthia hadn't turned out, and decided to call on her before it got too late. But when she got to Primrose Cottage the place was in darkness. Cynthia couldn't have gone to bed ill because the bedroom curtains weren't drawn. Odd. The silly woman had been so gung-ho and joky about going around in the dark with Otis Joy. What could have cropped up that was more of an attraction?

  Feeling let down, she returned up the street to her own cottage.

  Just before reaching the village shop she was dazzled by headlights. She stepped aside in case the driver hadn't seen her. The car was coming at a speed that was downright dangerous at night in a village. She thought it was going straight through, but the brakes screeched and it came to a halt outside the pub. A male figure got out and went inside as if desperate for a drink before the place closed. He need not have hurried. On the carol-singing night the Foxford Arms always remained open long after the official closing time.

  When she got closer she saw that the car was Otis's Cortina. So he'd only just got back.

  Curious as she was to know where he'd been, she didn't go back into the pub.

  She would have heard Otis Joy telling the carollers, "I don't know how to face you all. I let you down badly. One of those things you can't possibly predict. A woman dropped dead in front of me. You can't walk away from that, can you, whoever you are? And if you happen to be a minister of the church, well… It was very sudden. Mercifully she didn't know much about it, poor soul, but the sight of her could have been upsetting for others. You do what you can to cope with an emergency like that, and of course it takes longer than you can spare. And I wasn't near a phone. I suppose I ought to get one of those mobiles, and you can bet if I do I won't find another occasion to use it. Anyway, I do apologise to you all. How did it go?"

  They told him the singing had been well received and people had been generous all round the village. Geoff Elliott had just counted the money and bagged it up-over two hundred pounds.

  "I'd like to put in a fiver myself," said Otis at once. "Where's Geoff?"

  Elliott waved from across the room. Otis went over, produced a five pound note and offered to take care of the money overnight. "I don't see our treasurer here."

  "Rachel? She left earlier. She was with us for the carols."

  "Good. I'm glad she's getting involved in village life again."

  He left soon after, cashbags in hand. It had been a harrowing day, he said, and he was due at the school to take class six for scripture in the morning.

  The story of the woman who had dropped dead put a premature end to the singsong. It would have been insensitive to start again. Many of the carol party were getting, up to leave, among them PC George Mitchell. I s "So when can we talk?" Burton Sands pressed him.

  "What about?" said George as if he hadn't heard Burton's earlier approach.

  "You know …" Burton's eyes shifted to the door. The rector was outside starting his car.

  George said slowly, spacing his words, "If it's anything more than tittle-tattle, come and see me at the station tomorrow. If not, I suggest you forget about the whole thing."

  Burton reddened and reached for his coat.

  Before daylight Rachel took a walk to the other end of the village and saw that Cynthia's curtains were still pulled back as if she hadn't slept there. No lights showed in Primrose Cot- tage. The morning paper had been delivered and was half sticking out of the letterbox.

  She went back and tried phoning. Cynthia's voice on the answerphone told her to wait for the signal and then leave a message.

  "It's not like her to go off without telling anyone," she said later in the shop.

  "Some family crisis, I expect," said Davy Todd in his unflustered way. When the Day of Judgement arrived, Davy would still open the shop and put out the newspapers.

  "She could have gone away for Christmas," said the girl who helped in the mornings.

  "She'd have cancelled the papers," Davy pointed out. "She's very well organised, is Mrs. Haydenhall. I reckon she'll be back some time today. We thought the rector was missing yesterday, and he came back."

&nb
sp; Quick to follow up, Rachel asked what explanation Otis had given and was told about the woman dropping dead and throwing his plans into confusion. It was such an original excuse that it had to be true.

  "Did he say where this happened?"

  "No one asked him," said Davy. "So we still don't know where he goes on Tuesdays. He's entitled to some privacy, I say, same as the rest of us."

  "Of course," said Rachel.

  Her concern about Cynthia increased after hearing about the woman who dropped dead. Suppose she'd collapsed in the house and nobody knew. Poor Stanley Burrows had lain dead in his cottage for at least two days before anyone thought to look inside.

  "Burton," said George Mitchell after listening impassively to the list of appalling crimes laid at the door of the rectory, "this is not respectful."

  He was with Burton Sands in one of the interview rooms at Warminster Police Station. Sometimes people called at George's cottage in Foxford to report things, but this was the official place, and Burton was determined to do things by the book.

  "He's not entitled to respect if he did these things," the dour young man insisted.

  "Ah, but he is until proved guilty, and we're a long, long way from that. What's your motive?"

  "Mine? It's not my motive you should be questioning. I'm doing what a responsible citizen should, informing you what I know."

  George gave it to him straight. "Nothing. That's what you know. There's plenty you suspect, but I can't arrest a man on suspicions alone. A man of the cloth."

  "That's the real objection, isn't it?" said Burton, flushing all over his freckled skin. "He's a clergyman, so he must be innocent."

  "I never heard of one who murdered people."

  "So he gets away with it, time and again."

  "You're just repeating yourself," said George. "Where's the evidence? The Crown Prosecution Service would fall about laughing at what you've told me so far."

  "The evidence is in the parish accounts," said Burton obdurately. "If I could get hold of the books and do an audit I'd prove he's an embezzler. He robbed the last parish he was in, and he's robbing this one."

  "You don't know that."