Murdering Ministers

by Alan Beechey

  “When you went with DC Belfry to break the news to Heather, did she tell you why she left the service before the Communion?”

  “The Tapsters had planned to have some of the young people round for lunch. I know Billy was going. I suppose the service was running a little long and Heather went home to start the meal.”

  “Have you seen her since Sunday?”

  Patience shook her head. “I believe the young people in her group have rallied round.”

  “Billy, too?”

  There was a pause. “Not yet,” she said. She couldn’t avoid the hint of triumph and relief.

  “How is Billy?” Oliver asked. “His experience the other day must have been quite terrifying. And I know Nigel Tapster was fond of him. Has he talked to you about his feelings?”

  “He’s a boy, Mr. Swithin,” Patience answered ruefully. “Rapidly becoming a man. These days, he wouldn’t dream of talking to his mother about his feelings. I’ve made it clear that I’m here whenever he needs me, but he’s been in his room playing that guitar almost constantly since Sunday. He’s strong, though. With no father for many years, he’s had to be.”

  Strong enough to see through the wiles of father figure Nigel Tapster, eventually? Or did ceding his credulity to Tapster relieve him from the pressure of being the premature man of the house? If so, how was he handling the murder?

  T’Pau was now planted firmly on Geoffrey’s sternum, staring into his face with her dark, fish-like eyes and dribbling onto his tie. He looked around in mild panic, not wishing to touch the panting beast.

  “Oh, she really likes you!” exclaimed Patience. “They can sense the animal lovers, don’t you think?”

  Oliver didn’t respond, remembering Geoffrey’s acute phobia of horses and wondering if it would migrate to smaller animals. Geoffrey had already had one painful encounter with a frightened ferret, which Oliver had rescued from an animal rights activist, and his subsequent refusal to share a house with the mild and affectionate beast had forced Oliver to give up several days of writing while he found a good home for it with a ferret enthusiast.

  “So it’s going to be an electric guitar and pipe organ duet for Barry’s Nativity play?” Oliver mused. “That’s a long cry from Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, which the choir used to perform at my family’s church every Christmas.”

  Patience shifted in her chair slightly and tugged at the hem of her skirt. “Yes, that’s a lovely piece, but we couldn’t possibly perform it at a Diaconalist Church.”

  “Hard to find a Diaconalist harpist? Heaven must be full of them. Or is it the bits sung in Latin? Hitting a little too close to Rome?”

  “It’s not that,” she said uncomfortably. “It’s a shame, but, you know, Britten being the way he was…”

  What? A pacifist? A conscientious objector? Tonal? The penny dropped. “Gay?” Oliver ventured.

  “Well…homosexual, yes.”

  “Surely that’s no reason to disapprove of the man or his music, not in this day and age?”

  “The Bible is quite clear on this,” muttered Patience primly. “‘Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination.’”

  Oliver turned to Geoffrey, who was slumped almost horizontally in his armchair and seemed to be frozen in a stare-down contest with the drooling animal on his chest. He shrugged slightly, signaling his unfamiliarity with the reference. T’Pau didn’t seem to think the worse of him for this admission of ignorance, even when Geoffrey repeated the shrug several times in a vain attempt to dislodge her.

  Oliver decided this was not an appropriate occasion to discuss how fundamentalism became oddly selective as it navigated the less-traveled byways of the Pentateuch. But he was disappointed that of all the church members, it was this pleasant and intelligent woman who had voiced a streak of official intolerance. He hoped Paul was as prudent as he’d implied. Oliver glanced again at the questions scribbled in his notebook.

  “A young woman with long red hair was seen in the area of the church after the murder. Any idea who she might be?”

  Patience shook her head.

  “I wonder if Billy knows,” Oliver continued, half rising from his chair. “May I ask him?”

  “I don’t see why not. But I don’t imagine he’ll tell you anything you don’t already know.”

  “I’ll come too,” Geoffrey called weakly. The dog, sensing the competition for his attention, licked his chin wetly.

  “No, no, you stay here and keep Ms. Coppersmith company,” Oliver replied from the doorway. “We don’t want to disturb little T’Pau.”

  The sound of the guitar led him to a door decorated with pictures of rock groups torn from magazines. Knowing that a knock would not be heard, Oliver pushed the door open gently. Billy was sitting on his small bed, an untidy island rising from the discarded clothes, electric cables, and other debris of youth scattered over the bedroom floor. As he leaned over his guitar, his vest hung loose on his thin body, revealing pimpled shoulders. Watching the teenager’s fingers moving rapidly over the fretboard confirmed Oliver’s suspicion. Although the cheap amplifier distorted the sound, Billy was simply practicing pentatonic scales, repeating the same patterns mechanistically and leaving too much of his mind available for other thoughts. He saw Oliver and stopped playing.

  “I thought you said you weren’t a copper,” he muttered.

  “I’m not.”

  “Then why are you here asking my mother all those questions?”

  Oliver chose not to ask how Billy could know what had been going on in the living room. He noted that the tangle of wires at the boy’s feet included a sustain pedal for the guitar, which could probably keep the sound going for half a minute.

  “Among other things, I want to know who killed Nigel.”

  Billy snorted. “She doesn’t know.”

  He played a soft, major-seventh chord, unresolved but inherently rich and haunting. Oliver did not attempt to engage him by pretending to be interested in posters of rock groups he hadn’t heard of or the fleet of poorly painted model ships scattered across the chest of drawers.

  “What does it matter, anyway?” Billy continued, filling the silence that Oliver had deliberately left. “Can’t bring him back.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry about Nigel. You have my condolences.”

  The teenager looked up testily. “I didn’t think you even liked Nigel.”

  “I only met him that one time. But I can still be sorry that you lost something special.”

  “Who says it’s lost?” Billy riposted, but only as a sad, petulant gut reaction. Oliver moved into the room and sat on a corner of the bed, mirroring Billy’s posture.

  “Perhaps you can help me with something. The police are looking for a woman—a girl perhaps—with long red hair. Ring any bells? Someone who came to Nigel’s meetings, perhaps, even if she didn’t join you at the church on Sundays?”

  Billy waved his head slowly from side to side, but didn’t answer.

  “Did you know Tina was at the church on Sunday?”

  “I told you and that policewoman—me and Chrissie hadn’t been seeing each other for a while. The last time I saw her…Well, I haven’t spoken to her for weeks.”

  “Chrissie?” Oliver echoed. “I was asking about Tina Quarterboy.”

  “Yeah, that’s Chrissie. That’s what she’d decided she wanted to be called. Short for Christina. She thought the name Tina was too old-fashioned, too little-girlish. It was what her mum and dad called her.”

  No doubt it would be Krissi or the more intellectual Chrissee before she had finished exploring exotic new identities. But this eruption of private individuality seemed out of character for the girl. “She seems to respect her parents,” Oliver said guardedly.

  “Too much if you ask me. Chrissie really wanted to be part of Nigel’s group—she really loved him. But her
parents stopped her coming to our meetings.”

  “Why do you think they did that?”

  “She said they were afraid of Nigel’s influence on us. But I think they were afraid of Chrissie experiencing something that they were dead to themselves. Nigel said some people were scared of giving themselves up to the power of God’s spirit. I think my mum’s the same. They all want to get to God with their brains, while he wants to come in through the heart.”

  That was the quest that had brought Paul Piltdown to the Diaconalist Church, Oliver remembered. Billy played another brief scale on the guitar and let the sound ring out.

  “You said you haven’t spoken to Tina, to Chrissie,” Oliver said eventually. “But when did you last see her? It’s very important that we find her.”

  Billy took off the guitar and leaned it against the amplifier. Even the movement provoked a faint electric reaction from the built-in loudspeaker.

  “You telling me the truth about not being a policeman?” he asked, after a pause.

  “Yes.”

  “What about that policewoman you were hanging around with? The one who was there on Sunday when Nigel was killed.”

  “She’s my girlfriend.”

  Billy looked surprised. “Good for you, Slick. Nice hair. Nice…So if you’re not a cop, what do you do?”

  “I write books. I was writing an article about your church when all this happened.”

  “Oh, books. Then you must be pretty clever.” Billy swallowed. “Can I ask you something? Something that’s been bothering me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Suppose you promise somebody that you’d never mention something. And then that person dies. Do you have to keep your promise?”

  Oliver took a deep breath, noticing for the first time the slight, lingering aroma of joss sticks. He hoped they hadn’t been lit by the fourteen-year-old to disguise more incriminating smells.

  “That’s a tough one,” he said, trying not to sound patronizing. “I’d say yes, you have to keep a secret. Unless the death changes the circumstances. For example, if you promised Nigel something before he died, you should generally keep it to yourself. But if that information could help track down his killer, then I think you ought to give it to the police.”

  “It’s nothing like that.”

  But it was a promise to Nigel, clearly. Who else had died? Billy’s father, or was that too long ago? And Billy could barely keep the secret from exploding out of his mouth.

  “Do you think revealing the secret could help someone?”

  “That’s just it, I don’t know. I don’t know if it would hurt someone either.”

  Oliver took off his glasses and wiped them on his sweater.

  “Look, let’s try something. Why don’t you let me guess your secret? You don’t have to say anything unless I’m right. That way, you haven’t betrayed anybody’s trust. And if I am right, I promise I won’t pass the information on to anybody unless we both agree it could help.”

  Billy’s intrigue pushed aside the last shreds of reluctance. He turned toward Oliver for the first time, his eyes alive. Oliver shifted to reflect his posture, bookending him across the bed.

  “All right,” Billy breathed. Oliver replaced his glasses.

  “It’s about Tina. Sorry, Chrissie.” Process of elimination—Billy had already ruled out Tapster’s murder, and the girl’s disappearance was the only other matter that would have weighed on his conscience. Besides, it was Oliver’s question about Tina that had started this thread.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s about when you saw her last.” Billy had already stumbled over that point earlier in the conversation.

  “Yes.”

  “You saw her since she left school on Thursday evening?” That was easy—an earlier spotting would hardly have been made the subject of a confidence.

  “Yes, go on.”

  Now came the challenge. Did Billy see her before or after her departure from the Quarterboys’ home in the early hours of Friday morning? If Tapster was involved, it had to be before Sunday morning, for obvious reasons. The young people had gathered at his home on Saturday night. Had Tina turned up then? Or was the sighting earlier? Oliver knew Billy and Tapster had been together that Thursday evening, during Tina’s missing hours. And Billy had reacted more strongly to the last prediction, containing the word “Thursday.” Yet logic cried out that girl had been at the manse on Thursday evening, not at the Tapsters’. Oliver took another deep breath and let his gut defy his brain.

  “She was at Nigel’s house on Thursday evening.”

  “That’s it,” Billy exclaimed, grinning broadly. “Wow, Mr. Swithin, you must be a mind-reader!”

  “Call me Oliver. No, I’m not a mind-reader.” Just playing detective. Effie would have to restore the pat on the head, he reflected.

  “I suppose now you know the secret, I might as well tell you everything,” Billy went on. The logic was debatable, but Oliver was not going to stop him. “You see, I went to Nigel’s house after school on Thursday to rehearse with Heather for the carol service. I got there at about half past four, and just as I was going to ring the doorbell, the front door opened and Chrissie came out, crying. She didn’t stop when she saw me, but just ran off down the street.”

  It all made sense. Tina discovered from the school doctor that she was pregnant. The moment school ended, she ran immediately to the man responsible. Then, for some so-far unexplained reason, she ran away from this man to the minister she trusted. Finally, she went home, while Piltdown rushed straight to Tapster to berate him for impregnating the girl. Oliver could cover the route easily in the two hours, allowing for conversations with Tapster and Piltdown. A thirteen-year-old in an adrenalin-fueled state of near panic would take less time.

  “Were both Nigel and Heather at home?”

  “No, just Nigel. Heather hadn’t got home from work yet. I was early.”

  “Did Nigel seem upset too?”

  “Not really. Actually, he seemed amused.”

  Amused? Unfeeling bastard! Was that how he reacted to the news of his impending fatherhood? No wonder the girl had headed for the sanctity of the Reverend Paul Piltdown. And no wonder Paul was angry enough to confront Tapster immediately. When Oliver had met with Tapster shortly after that encounter, he had seemed calm and in control. Had Paul witnessed the same demeanor, or was Tapster a damn good actor?

  “Nigel didn’t tell you why Chrissie had been to see him?”

  “He said she was upset about her parents’ attitude. She didn’t know if she should defy them and come to the meetings. Nigel said he had counseled her to obey them and go home. He said he didn’t want Heather to know Chrissie had been to the house, because it might have made her angry at the Quarterboys, and he had no desire to sow any conflict within the church. So he asked me to keep Chrissie’s visit to myself, as a personal favor. And I told him a secret in return, to show that he could trust me.”

  A secret Tapster had literally taken to the grave.

  “Now that I’ve told you, does it help?” Billy asked anxiously.

  “I’m not sure. But if you don’t mind, I may pass it on to my favorite police officer.” Oliver winked at Billy. “She’s very discreet.”

  Although he couldn’t imagine what Effie would do with the information. The police could now plot Tina’s zigzag path through Plumley that Thursday afternoon—school to Tapster, say fifteen minutes; Tapster to manse, ten minutes at the most, he had walked it with Paul; manse to the Quarterboy’s home, no more than fifteen minutes for a child in a hurry—but it hardly changed what they already believed, except to confirm Oliver’s assumption that Tapster was the father of her child. If anything, it gave Piltdown an even stronger motivation for doing away with Tapster, casual and callous despoiler of underage virgins.

  “Billy, do you have any idea where Chrissie might be no
w?”

  The teenager shrugged. Oliver touched him gently on the arm and stood up. He spotted a Railway Mice book on the floor—featuring Finsbury the Ferret, no doubt, or it would have no place in an adolescent’s bedroom—but resisted the temptation to pick it up and sign it.

  “You’d better go back to practicing,” he said after a pause, realizing soberly that after a morning as a private detective, he was no closer to finding an alternative candidate for Tapster’s murderer. “Make your mother proud of you.”

  “Yeah,” Billy grunted. “Hey, thanks for the advice, Oliver.”

  “No problem. Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas, mate.”

  ***

  Only twenty-seven people in Britain can explain why the day after Christmas Day is called Boxing Day, but that doesn’t stop millions of workers from celebrating it by not going to work. An intriguing side-effect of thus having two consecutive public holidays for Christmas is that no matter what days of the week they fall on, the British can easily justify taking the whole week off.

  Suppose Christmas Day falls on a Tuesday, with Boxing Day on the Wednesday. Well then, what is the point, the contemporary Bob Cratchet cries, of bothering to open up the office or factory on Monday, when we all plan to knock off work by lunchtime because it’s Christmas Eve? And it’s hardly worth cranking up the heat for a working week that’s now been whittled down to just two days. By the time we finish complaining about our ingrate in-laws and the cheesy Christmas television programs and the blatant materialism of our kids, it’s time to go home for the weekend. Isn’t it simpler for Mr. Scrooge to close the counting house until the New Year? (He can still pay us, of course.)

  This creative logic is a little more challenging when Christmas Day is a Thursday, but several Plumley residents had pulled it off, and so Effie found more people at home than she expected for a Tuesday morning, when she finally and single-handedly conducted her house-to-house inquiries near the church. These idle residents’ excitement at finding a young, attractive, and increasingly moist detective on the doorstep was quickly dashed when they realized she was not brimming over with juicy details about Sunday’s murder, but merely looking for a missing teenager who was last seen in the area.