The Reaper

by Peter Lovesey

  He'd reached the landing halfway up when the doorbell went once more and Joy came out into the hall. Burton backed out of sight and waited.

  Peggy Winner, downstairs, said, "Am I the last?"

  Joy told her, "Don't worry, Peggy. We're still missing someone, but I can't think who it is."

  He took her coat and hung it in the hall and they went back to the others.

  Burton climbed the rest of the stairs. He'd have to be quick now. Tiptoed along the upstairs passage, opening doors. Found the bathroom and a guest room bare of everything except the bed and a wardrobe.

  The next room had to be Joy's.

  It wasn't how he imagined a rector's bedroom might be. No crucifix, Bible or embroidered text. A music centre, portable TV and double bed with a quilt covered in a Mondrian design. Two shelves of fat paperbacks. Every sea story Patrick O'Brian had written. Quite a few Hornblowers.

  He looked around for the kind of box or briefcase that might contain personal papers. Nothing. Looked into the wardrobe, the chest of drawers and the bedside cupboard. Felt on top of the wardrobe and among the shoes at the bottom.

  Then the bedroom door opened and a voice said, "What the fuck are you doing?"

  He swung around guiltily.

  It wasn't Joy, thank God. It was John Neary.

  "Poking around," he answered.

  "What for?"

  "You'll find out soon enough."

  "Bloody hell. I was sent to collect you from the study. He thinks you're overcome with shyness, or something. I heard you moving about up here, so I came up."

  "You don't have to tell anyone," said Burton.

  "What's up with you-creeping around up here?" demanded Neary.

  "Just don't say anything to him please. I'll come down."

  "Bloody weirdo."

  Sheepishly, Burton followed him downstairs. In the room where the party was, Ann said loudly, "Here he is. Where were you all this time?"

  "Bit of a headache," was the best Burton could think to answer.

  "Do you want something for it?" Joy asked.

  Burton shook his head.

  Neary rolled his eyes upwards and said nothing, and the talk started up again. Peggy Winner was asking if the rector minded sleeping alone in this old building.

  "Is that an offer, Peg?" said Geoff Elliott, chuckling over his fourth gin and tonic.

  "No problem. The rectory has a good atmosphere," said Joy.

  "Everyone said it was haunted when I was a kiddie," said Peggy.

  "If it is, the ghost has got to be one of my predecessors in the job," said Joy, "so it doesn't bother me. A blue lady or a knight in armour might give me the jitters, but not a humble cleric. There are some I'd definitely like to meet."

  "Waldo Wallace?" suggested Norman Gregor.

  "Top of the list."

  "And what would you ask him?"

  Joy held out his hands expansively. "There'd be no need to ask him anything. The man was unstoppable, full of good stories, like the one about Archbishop Tait at a dinner party. The old Archbishop was sitting next to the Duchess of Sutherland and suddenly went white as a sheet, turned to her and said confidentially, 'It's come to pass as I feared. I dreaded this. I think I'm having a stroke.' The Duchess said without even looking his way, 'Relax, your Grace, it's my leg you're pinching, not your own.'"

  Everyone liked the story. "He sounds like a man after your own heart," Gregor said. "Some of your stories aren't so bad, Rector."

  "The best ones I borrowed from Waldo. He threw better parties than me, too. His home brew was a legend in the parish."

  "Where was it brewed?"

  "Underneath us, in the cellar. Unfortunately some tee-total rector removed it all early this century, but you can still see traces of the kegs on the floor."

  "What do you use it for?"

  "The cellar? All the furniture I don't want. Someone who comes after me may find a need for a Victorian commode or a wind-up gramophone, but I get by without them."

  "Things like that could be valuable," said Peggy.

  "Oh, I sold the Chippendale chairs."

  "I never know when you're serious," she said.

  Burton stood with Ann Porter near the door, saying little, listening to the man in his element, the centre of attention, charming an audience. Inwardly Burton was fuming that for all the risk he'd taken, no evidence had come to light. But the mention of a cellar had not escaped him. "Which way is the cloakroom?" he asked Ann.

  After she'd told him, he nodded, as if asking her to cover for him, and stepped outside again. Surely that cellar was worth looking into.

  He guessed there might be access somewhere towards the rear of the house, through the kitchen, and he was right. There was a door in the scullery, to the left of the old leaded sink. The key was in the lock. He let himself in, located a light-switch and went down some whitewashed steps.

  The cellar was in a respectable state, as if some effort had been made to keep it free from dust and cobwebs. Plenty of old furniture was stored down here, just as Joy had claimed. Otherwise all he could see were newspapers and magazines in tidy stacks. He stepped around an old coat-stand, checking the furniture, trying to miss nothing, hopeful of locating another filing cabinet. You can tell when a place has been untouched for years, and this was not it. j

  Then he saw the display cabinet, an unappealing mid-Victorian piece in some dark wood, without legs, and with three glass doors. What caught his eye was the array of white boxes and small brown bottles, an unlikely collection to be housed here. He opened one of the doors. The interior was in use as a medicine cabinet.

  Odd, he thought. Why keep your medicines down here when most people want them handy in the bathroom, or at least in the house? He looked more closely. These weren't the sorts of medicines you keep for emergencies. There were no Band-Aids, aspirins, Alka-Seltzers or Vaseline. Neither were they prescription drugs. They had labels, certainly, but they were handwritten, with just the names of the contents, and nothing about dosage. Burton was not well up on pharmacy, but he was intrigued by this lot. Insulin, hyoscine, morphine, dextromoramide, aconite, digoxin, antimony. Even with his limited knowledge he could tell there were poisons here, lethal poisons. What was a village rector doing with a collection like this hidden in his cellar?

  It shocked Burton to the core. He'd harboured suspicions of malpractice, impersonation, even the taking of life. None of it had prepared him for this. For all the evidence to the contrary, he couldn't shake off the thought of Joy as a man of God.

  What now? Here was the proof that the man was evil. He hesitated, dry-mouthed with stress, raking his fingers through his hair and tugging at it.

  Twenty-one

  Frustration for Burton Sands: PC George Mitchell wasn't at home. "You'd be better off waiting till tomorrow, my dear," said Mrs. Mitchell, echoing her husband's laid-back style of speech and raising Burton's blood pressure by several points. "He won't be back till late. He had to drive all the way to Lymington to look at a body they took from the sea at Milford. I'm not supposed to say, but they think it could be poor Mrs. Haydenhall."

  Burton didn't fully take this in. He hadn't extricated his thoughts from that cellar. "What time do you expect him?"

  "Well, he didn't leave till six, and 'tis a two-hour drive, easy. He'll need a bite to eat, if he can stomach anything after a gruesome duty like that. Corpses don't look nice after some days in the water. I'll be surprised to see him before midnight. Why don't you come back in the morning, dear?"

  "Did you say the body in the water is Mrs. Haydenhall?"

  Dorothy Mitchell pressed a finger to her lips as if she'd said too much already. " 'Tis not certain yet. That's why George has gone."

  "What was she doing in the sea?"

  "Who could possibly say, my dear? Keep it to yourself, won't you?"

  Burton looked at his watch. "This can't wait till tomorrow."

  "My George won't be wanting to talk."

  "I haven't come for a chat. I've
got evidence of a major crime. I'd better phone Warminster."

  "If 'tis village, I wouldn't," she said mildly, but with a look that was not mild. "George always deals with Foxford matters. They'll give the job to him anyway."

  "Does he have a mobile?"

  "George?" She smiled at the notion.

  "Can you get him to phone me when he gets in, whatever time it is?"

  "I can ask him. If he's not of a mind to pick up the phone, he won't."

  "It's very urgent."

  Burton returned to his cottage. He'd left the party at the rectory before it looked like coming to an end, saying his headache wouldn't shift. Joy had professed concern and again offered a painkiller. The audacity of the man! Knowing what was in that cellar, Burton wouldn't accept a glass of water from Otis Joy, let alone a pill.

  He sat close to the phone, primed. On the table in front of him was a small brown pill-bottle labelled Atropine. He'd taken the risk of removing it from the cellar knowing he wouldn't be believed otherwise. With any luck, Joy wouldn't notice it was gone.

  How could anyone have acquired such a collection of poisons without working in a pharmacy? Burton was lost for an explanation. It would be up to the police to find out. All he could do was tell them what he'd seen, show them the bottle and his copy of the newspaper report linking the rector with the college in Canada. They could get a search warrant and raid the rectory. Then maybe they'd find the personal papers that his own search had failed to turn up-and discover the real identity of "Otis Joy."

  He kept looking at the time. He had his front room curtain pulled back in case he saw the police car drive up the street. Several went by at eleven, when the pub closed. George would come from the opposite direction.

  It was ten to midnight when he spotted the white Renault with the police stripes along the side. He snatched up the bottle and was out of the cottage and across the street before George Mitchell opened his car door.

  "Bugger off, Burton, I haven't got time for you."

  It wasn't the reception Burton felt he was entitled to.

  "It's important. It's about the rector. I've been waiting hours for you."

  "Is he dead?"

  "No."

  "Standing on the church tower and about to jump off?"

  "No."

  "Wait some more, then. I'll see you in the morning."

  Burton said in a hard, tight voice, "No, that isn't good enough. If you don't take this seriously, I'll go straight home and dial nine-nine-nine."

  "Come in, then," George said wearily. And to his wife, as he entered, "Yes, it was her."

  "Poor creature, God rest her soul," said Mrs. Mitchell.

  Next morning at Warminster Police Station, George outlined the case against the rector to Chief Inspector Doug Somerville, the senior CID man, one of the new breed of detectives, brash, unbelievably young and with a low opinion of village bobbies.

  "Fantastic," was Somerville's first comment, and it was said without admiration.

  "That's been my feeling all along," George admitted, "but the evidence is stacking up."

  "What evidence? This?" Somerville tapped the pill-bottle with his finger, knocking it over.

  "It says atropine. That's a poison, isn't it?"

  "It's a medicine."

  "What for?"

  "Bellyache." Somerville took a textbook from the shelf behind him, leafed through the pages, and started reading. " 'Medicinal uses: the relief of gastrointestinal spasm and biliary and renal colic. Prescribed orally in doses of five hundred micrograms three times a day, increasing if required to up to two milligrams daily.'"

  "I reckon if you take enough, it's poison," George said.

  "Take enough of anything and it's poison. It depends on the dose."

  "What about the hyoscine? There was hyoscine there. That's a killer, I know. Crippen killed his wife with it."

  Somerville turned a few more pages and read out," 'Hyoscine, also known as scopolamine. Widely used in the treatment of travel sickness.' " He shut the book. "Your Mr. Sands found the rector's medical supplies."

  George shot him a rebellious look. "I don't think so."

  Somerville sighed and glanced up at the clock. "Listen. What have we got on this jerk? He calls himself Otis Joy, and it may not be his real name. So what? People are allowed to change their names."

  "But the real Otis Joy died in a car accident in Canada and the rector claims he was at the same college, Milton Davidson Memorial. It's here." George picked up the copy of the Wiltshire Times report.

  "So he borrowed the name to buff up his image. He's a cool clergyman."

  "The point is, they don't recognise his picture at Milton Davidson."

  "So?"

  "I don't think he studied there. He's a fraud. He took over the identity of a theological student who died and used his papers to get into a British college."

  "To become a vicar?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "Who can say?" said George. "Something in his past? They wouldn't take someone with a prison record, would they?"

  "You're guessing now, George."

  "If he really wanted to enter the church, and if he had a … what's the word?"

  "Vocation?"

  "Right. It's not like other jobs. It's a call from God, or that's what they believe. Nothing is going to stand in his way."

  "You can't have it both ways. If he's that committed to religion, he's not going to murder people."

  "I thought the same as you until I found out these things," said George. "I've had time to think about him. I reckon I know what makes him tick, and it isn't faith in God. It's the attraction of being a priest. He gets his, kick from stanqing up in the pulpit telling us hdw to live our lives. Doesn't mattfer if he doesn't practise what he preaches. It's power. Respect. It's the best job in the world to him, and he's going to keep it. He got it by trickery and he's going to hang on to it, come what may."

  Somerville was still unmoved. "It's not the profile of your average serial killer."

  "He's not average in any way."

  "I don't buy it, George."

  "Are you saying we just ignore all these deaths?"

  "They're unrelated."

  George was stung by this sweeping dismissal of everything he'd said. Personally he bore no malice against Joy; in fact, he got on well with the man. With a sense of duty he'd put friendship aside and tipped off CID, and now he was being treated like a time-waster. "When they mount up like this, they ought to be taken seriously," he said. "I know I haven't got a lot of evidence, but the man hasn't been investigated. We could easily turn something up."

  "Where's the link?" demanded Somerville.

  "It's him. He's the link."

  "What's the MO, then? You've got a sexton who disappeared into thin air, a Frenchwoman stung by a bee, a bishop who jumps, or was pushed, into a quarry, a church treasurer who swallows amylobarbitone and a jazz freak with a heart attack. Serial killers don't keep changing their MO."

  "Maybe this one is the exception. He's clever."

  "He'd need to be."

  "When every murder is different, you don't connect them."

  "You're telling me. And even if you could link Otis Joy to each of them-"

  "Which I can," put in George.

  "Even if these were unlawful killings with his fingerprints all over them, you've still got to work out why. What's his motive?"

  "I couldn't tell you that." admitted George, and added sarcastically. "I'm not in CID."

  Somerville's eyes narrowed.

  George added rapidly, "But if I was, I'd also be interested in Cynthia Haydenhall's death." It was his last card and not a trump, but worth playing. "She's the woman I identified last night. Missing since a week before Christmas. Went off without telling anyone and didn't turn up for the carol-singing round the village, which she'd told people she'd do. This was Joy's day off. He missed the carol-singing, too. Got back to the village late."

  "And her body turns up in the s
ea?"

  "Washed up at Milford early yesterday."

  "Signs of violence?"

  "Nothing obvious."

  "Who was she? A church-goer?"

  "Very much so. A regular. Organised the harvest supper. Divorced, with money. Nice cottage. Bit of a busybody, but not unpopular."

  "Suicidal?"

  "Not the type."

  For the first time, Somerville seemed to be wavering. He picked up the little bottle of tablets and stood it where it had been on the desk. "It's another sudden death, I grant you. We'll get nowhere with this woman if no marks are showing."

  George remained silent, willing to let the process happen in its own time.

  Somerville rubbed the side of his face as if checking whether he'd shaved. "Joy got back late on the day the woman disappeared, you say?"

  "Between ten and eleven. It's his day off from his church duties."

  "That's all you've got on him? I don't buy it."

  "Her car was abandoned in Bournemouth. We can check it for prints."

  "His prints? If he's as smart as you say, he won't have left any."

  Even George's patience was over-stretched. "Basically, sir, are you saying don't bother?"

  "I'm saying if we want to make a case against Joy, we pick a stronger one than this. Is she the only body we have?"

  "Most of them disappeared, or were disposed of."

  "Cremated?"

  "There's the jazz man, Gary Jansen. He was buried."

  "The heart case?"

  "Supposedly heart. It was diagnosed by a GP who should have retired five years ago."

  "What was the link with Joy?"

  "Gary Jansen was the husband of the new treasurer, the one who replaced Stanley Burrows-after he died suddenly. Gary visited the rectory on the afternoon of his death. It's possible Joy slipped him something that induced the heart attack."

  "Why?"

  George held out his hands in appeal. "I can't answer that. Jansen may have found something out. I told you there are suspicions that Joy fiddles the books."

  "It's a big jump from embezzlement to murder."

  "His living was at stake. He wouldn't survive in the church if he was caught."

  "I thought you said Jansen was just back from New Orleans. Have you ever flown the Atlantic, George? On your first day back you're in no shape to check account books."