Manna from Hades

by Carola Dunn

  The Reverend Timothy Stearns, tall and thin and swathed in yellow oilskins, awaited them on the vicarage’s front step. In front of him in the street stood his tan Vespa motor scooter, polished to a gleam. He raised a hand in greeting as he caught sight of them.

  “Good morning, Mrs Trewynn,” he called out with punctilious courtesy, coming to meet them, then asked anxiously, “Jocelyn, can this be true? Three parishioners have telephoned to say a body has been found at the LonStar shop. Surely they must be mistaken?”

  “I’m afraid not,” his wife said grimly. “Eleanor found him in the stockroom.”

  “Who . . . who is it?”

  “A stranger, dear.”

  “Oh dear! Should I . . . I wonder . . . last rites, do you think?”

  “It’s much too late for that. He was dead when he was found, and for some time before that. Besides, they’ve already taken him away.”

  “My dear Mrs Trewynn, what a terrible shock.” He held out both hands to Eleanor, dropping his sou’wester. “May I offer . . . That is, do you feel a need for the consolations of religion?”

  She took his hands, gave them a gentle squeeze, and released them. “That’s very kind of you, Vicar.” Though she attended Christmas and Easter services at the little grey stone church because she liked the hymns, Eleanor was not a communicant. In fact, after a Congregationalist upbringing, a Quaker school, and her world-wide travels, she leant towards Buddhism, if anything. “But, truly, I’m over the worst effects of the shock, thank you. I’ll be all right.”

  He nodded gravely. “Jocelyn, do you suppose there’s a family in need of support?”

  “He hasn’t been identified yet, dear. I think you’d do best to get on with your regular rounds. It’s your day for St Endellion, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I was about to leave when I heard . . . Don’t you think I ought to . . . ? But old Mrs Lockhart is expecting me . . .”

  “You mustn’t disappoint her, Timothy. Off you go, now.” Jocelyn picked up the sou’wester. She kissed his cheek, plonked the hat on his head, and tightened the strap under his chin. “Ride carefully, and if it gets very foggy, wait till it clears.”

  “Yes, my dear. A little medicinal brandy, perhaps, Mrs Trewynn . . . ?”

  “I’ll take care of Eleanor, dear. Goodbye.”

  At last the vicar seated himself on his Vespa and started its tiny motor. Teazle backed away, barking her head off. He buzzed away, crouched over the handlebars, like a giant yellow grasshopper as Nick Gresham had once remarked. A benevolent but indecisive grasshopper, he had three parishes in his charge. Without Jocelyn, Eleanor thought, he wouldn’t be able to cope even with one.

  They went into the vicarage, a cosy, comparatively modern bungalow that had replaced a huge, hideous, draughty Victorian house. The sitting room was furnished in eclectic style, a few good inherited pieces and some cheap odds and ends from the Stearns’ early married days, filled in with once good but slightly shabby charity-shop finds. Two of Nick Gresham’s paintings graced the sitting-room walls. One was of Mevagissey; the other of Rough Tor—unless it was Brown Willy, Eleanor was never sure which was which—in sunshine, with a shaggy pony in the foreground. A Welsh dresser displayed a Royal Doulton dinner service, inherited from Jocelyn’s parents. The blue-grey broadloom carpet was courtesy of the Church Commissioners.

  Jocelyn had somehow woven these disparate elements into an attractive whole. To Eleanor, who had sat on cushioned divans with turbanned sheiks and on mats on mud floors with loin-clothed Africans, it all seemed very comfortable.

  In the depths of one chair, a grey-and-black-striped cat dozed. When Teazle went over to sniff, he opened yellow eyes in an unblinking stare. Samson and Teazle were old acquaintances, if not friends. Much the same size, they tolerated and generally ignored each other.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a drop of brandy, Eleanor?”

  “No, thanks. And no more tea. I’m awash.”

  “You know where the loo is.”

  Eleanor retired. One could never be too grateful for modern plumbing.

  Returning to the sitting room, she found Jocelyn gazing out of the window. “The mist’s getting thicker,” she said. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have encouraged Timothy to go out.”

  “His little put-put doesn’t do much over thirty, does it? I doubt he’ll come to grief, even if he hits a sheep. Anyway, St Endellion is inland. It’s probably clear there.”

  “Yes.” She turned away and they both sat down. “I suppose I’ve just got the wind up because of that poor boy. Death can come so suddenly and unexpectedly. It’s something we need reminding of now and then.”

  Eleanor didn’t want to talk about the murder. Soon enough the police would reappear and it would be unavoidable. “That reminds me, Joce, can’t you persuade him to call me Eleanor, so that I can call him Timothy? I’ve asked him, but he just murmurs vaguely. I do feel awkward calling him ‘Vicar,’ when I’m not, strictly speaking, one of his flock. We’ve known each other for nearly two years now. Isn’t that long enough?”

  “It’s not a matter of time. If you live in his parish, he counts you one of his flock, whatever your beliefs or unbeliefs. More to the point, he has to consider his parishioners—the actual members of the church, I mean. If he called you Eleanor, you wouldn’t credit the petty jealousies that would arise. Many of the older people would be offended to be called by their Christian names, yet they’d regard it as a sort of favouritism if he used yours, or anyone’s over the age of twenty.”

  “There are places in the world where people only have one name. They seem to manage quite well.”

  “I daresay, but you’re in England now.”

  Eleanor sighed. “I suppose I’ve lived out of the country too long. All right, ‘Vicar’ it is, and evermore shall be so.”

  “There’s no need to feel awkward about it. Think of it as a sort of nickname.” Joce smiled. “If you can call your car the Incorruptible, I don’t see why you can’t call Timothy ‘Vicar.’ ”

  “Maybe I’ll shorten it to Vic,” Eleanor said with a laugh.

  “Don’t you dare! The ructions—Well, I can’t begin to imagine! Now, let’s be practical. We don’t know when the police will let you back into your flat, whatever the inspector said, so you’d better reckon on staying here tonight. And as long as you like, of course, if you don’t feel comfortable there.”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “Certainly not! Do you?”

  “No. So why should I avoid going home as soon as the police let me?”

  “My dear Eleanor, I suppose—” She stopped as a piercing shriek came from the kitchen. “Ah, the kettle. That’s the water for the peas. You don’t mind frozen, do you? I hadn’t anything planned for lunch as I was to be at the shop and Timothy’s out for the day—Mrs Lockhart always gives him a pasty or a sandwich—so I thought we’d just have an omelette.”

  “I’m not very hungry.”

  “You must eat to keep up your strength, my dear. An omelette will be just the thing.”

  Eleanor abandoned useless protest. Offering to help, she was sent out into the back garden, dripping now, to pick some mint for the peas and parsley for the omelette. Teazle accompanied her hopefully but failed to find a single rabbit hole.

  Since Jocelyn cooked as competently as she did everything else, the omelette was delicious. They were sitting over coffee and slices of home-made Bakewell tart when the doorbell rang.

  “That will be the police, I imagine.” Jocelyn went to open the front door.

  Eleanor could hear but not see what followed.

  “Mrs Stearns?” enquired a cocky young voice with a touch of West Country in it. “David Skan, North Cornwall Times. I understand you were—”

  “A reporter! You people are shameless! How dare you come bothering—”

  “Joce, let me speak to him.” Eleanor came up beside her friend. Obviously Jocelyn had no idea how to handle the press, whereas an important part of Eleanor�
��s job had involved trying to persuade reporters that the efforts of LonStar were worthy of as many column inches as she could squeeze out of them.

  She could not ignore the opportunity to do just that, cold-blooded as it might appear to anyone who had never held a child dying of starvation. The boy was dead. Perhaps some good could come from his untimely death.

  “Mr Skan, I’m Mrs Eleanor Trewynn. I live above the LonStar shop where this terrible event occurred. I can’t tell you any more about it than the police have, or will, but I can tell you this: Horrified as we are by what has happened, we shall not be deterred from our vital mission for a moment longer than absolutely necessary. The plight of the hungry children of the world demands that we put aside our own feelings to continue our work for the London Save the Starving Council.” Enough? Too much?

  He gave her a considering look, followed by a nod. She could read his thoughts: Yes, he’d buy it. This was a story he could run with. He was young, working for a minor local rag, and ambitious. LonStar was an international charity. Add murder to the mix and it just might be his ticket to the national press.

  She spelt her name for him and saw him wondering whether he dared ask her age—he didn’t quite. “Elderly,” he’d write, or OAP, though her state Old Age Pension was minimal because she had lived so much abroad. She didn’t mind, as long as he got the details about LonStar right.

  “Trewynn. That’s Cornish, right?”

  “Yes, my late husband and I were both born in the Duchy, though we met in India, before the war. We both worked for Lon-Star then and continued to do so. Peter was . . . was killed in Indonesia, a couple of years ago.” The precise date and time were engraved on her heart, but David Skan didn’t need to know that. “I came home and started the LonStar shop here in Port Mabyn.”

  “So you run the shop, as well as living above it?”

  “Mrs Stearns runs it,” Eleanor said firmly. Jocelyn had retreated to the kitchen, whence came sounds of vigorous washing up. “I’m merely an assistant. Local people have been very generous with donations and with their time, and many visitors to the area support us with their purchases. We’ve been able to send worthwhile contributions to LonStar headquarters in London, but we can always do with more help.”

  He grinned. “Don’t worry, Mrs Trewynn, I’ll make sure you get your plug, if I have to set the type myself.”

  “Thank you, Mr Skan.”

  “And when things are back to normal—” He turned to look downhill and gestured in the direction of the shop. “—maybe I’ll get my editor to let me write a feature about your adventures. Ah, here come the cops. Thank you for your time, and please tell Mrs Stearns we’re really not all ghouls and bullies. Just wait till the lads from London descend on you.”

  He went off jauntily down the hill, his thick, Scandinavian-blond hair sticking up like a shock of wheat. Eleanor saw him accost the approaching detectives. Inspector Scumble brushed him off and forged ahead. Megan stopped, presumably on her boss’s orders.

  Leaving the door open, Eleanor went into the house to warn Jocelyn that the police were about to turn up again.

  SEVEN

  In a whirlwind of activity, the vicar’s wife had washed, dried, and put away every sign of their lunch. “I hope they’ve already eaten,” she said. “Not that I mind feeding your niece, of course, but the inspector looks as if he’d eat us out of house and home.”

  “I’m sure they won’t expect you to give them lunch. That reporter was a nice young man, by the way.”

  Joce looked conscience-stricken. “I was very rude to him, wasn’t I? And he was only doing his job. I’ll apologise if he comes my way again, but I can’t help hoping he won’t.”

  “Not him, perhaps, but he warned me—we’ll probably have London reporters to deal with sooner or later.”

  Before Joce could express her horror with more than a look, Scumble knocked on the door and called out, “Hello, ladies. Expecting burglars, are you?”

  Eleanor went out to the hall. “I saw you coming,” she explained as Megan caught up with him, slightly out of breath, “and left the door open for you.”

  “Glad to hear you had a reason.”

  Coming up behind Eleanor, Jocelyn enquired, “Have you lunched, Inspector?” Her tone was uninviting.

  “Yes, thank you, madam. Your bakery does a good pasty, I must say.”

  “Don’t they?” said Eleanor. “So convenient when I don’t feel like cooking and don’t want to go out to eat.”

  “I suppose you have more questions for us. You’d better come in here.” Jocelyn led the way into the sitting room.

  Scumble handed her a list. “This is everything my chaps have found in the stockroom, barring going through a few pockets they haven’t got to yet. I’d like you to check it and see if anything’s missing.” He turned to Eleanor. “And this is the contents of your flat, Mrs Trewynn. I did it myself, and I don’t think you’ll find anything out of place when you get back.”

  “Thank you, Inspector.” Eleanor recognised the kindly intent of not letting a horde of policemen paw through her undies drawer, though a horde of English policemen was infinitely preferable to some of the Third World customs officers who had emptied out her suitcases for the world to view. She took the list. “Good heavens, I never dreamt I owned so many things!”

  He hadn’t listed every individual pair of socks or knickers, presumably assuming no thief would want to pinch them. But he’d counted every book in her shelves, every cup and saucer, two salt-and-pepper sets (why did she have two? who could possibly need more than one?), pots and pans, jars of home-made jam (from the village fête; settling down after her peripatetic life, she had intended to cultivate the domestic virtues, but had never found the time), mop and carpet-sweeper. Surely she had nothing worth stealing! Even her few personal ornaments were cheap bangles and bead necklaces given by grateful clients, pretty but not valuable, except that each reminded her of the giver.

  All in all, anyone who considered her belongings worth stealing must be in desperate straits and she didn’t begrudge them a thing.

  “I don’t think anything’s missing,” she said doubtfully, handing back the list.

  He took it without a word, but his look spoke volumes. Victims of burglary were supposed to assess their possible losses with proper concern.

  “You don’t own a television?” he asked after a moment.

  “No, I prefer the wireless. And books. I never had time for much reading till I retired.”

  “Hmm.”

  Jocelyn was doing a far more thorough job of studying her list. She was ticking off items, apparently against a list in her head. When at last she handed the papers back to Scumble, she said, “Not only is nothing missing, a good deal of this stuff doesn’t ring a bell. I assume it’s the donations Eleanor collected yesterday.”

  Scumble looked at Eleanor.

  “I had a good haul,” she said. “Woolly animals and detective stories and—”

  “Thank you, madam.” He made a move as if to hand her the stockroom list, then changed his mind, clearly deciding there was no point, given the state of her memory. “I’m afraid we’ll probably have to come back to you with further questions, but that will be all for the present. I appreciate your cooperation.”

  DI Scumble was frowning as he and Megan started back down the hill.

  Megan felt compelled to defend Aunt Nell. “It’s not that my aunt’s memory is failing, sir. It’s just that she’s not very interested in possessions.”

  “So I gathered,” he said dryly. “It’s a pity the people we’re after aren’t equally uninterested.”

  “You’re pretty sure this murder was a quarrel between burglars, sir?”

  “I was speaking generally. Most villains are greedy. But yes, I reckon a couple of delinquents walked down that path behind the shops, trying doors. They found that one unlocked and walked in. Like as not, they didn’t even realise it was a charity shop.”

  “What do you think t
hey quarrelled about?”

  “Who knows? The victim had been smoking cannabis, so it’s good bet the murderer had been too.”

  “But, sir—”

  Scumble held up his hand. “Before you tell me addicts are rarely violent, let me tell you that I’ve been in this game a lot longer than you, and this generation did not discover marijuana. What it does is reduce the ability to foresee consequences. A couple of students smoking in their flat are not likely to go out and bash an old lady on the head, I’ll give you that. But a pair of sneak-thieves on the prowl, that’s another matter altogether. Don’t tell me your years with the Met have left you with any rubbishy romantic fantasies about honour among thieves.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good. Then let’s get moving. We’ve got a couple of dozen volunteers to be talked into giving their fingerprints for elimination. You get on with that.” He shuffled through a fistful of papers. “Here’s the list Mrs Stearns gave me. And don’t forget to talk to the kids who helped last night, when they get out of school. No need for the younger ones’ prints. They’re easily distinguished.”

  Another list! So far, Megan thought, this murder investigation seemed to consist largely of lists.

  “I take it you’ve no great desire to attend the autopsy with me.”

  She gulped. “If you think I ought to, sir . . .”

  “You ought, but there’s far too much else that needs doing. You can skip it this time.”

  Megan breathed again.

  That afternoon, an amazing number of people developed a sudden interest in helping in the LonStar shop. Jocelyn took the telephone off the hook, but the vicarage doorbell rang constantly with a stream of would-be volunteers. Though she wrote down all their names, she avoided inviting anyone in by saying in hushed tones, “It’s been a terrible shock to poor Mrs Trewynn, you know.”