The Mother's Day Mystery

by Peter Bartram

  After he’d left, I'd spent a bit of time just leaning back on the headstone. It was a pleasant spring day with the world coming alive again after a long winter. A squirrel foraged in some leaf litter looking for cobnuts. A blackbird pecked up a strand of straw and flew off. By the church wall, a couple of jackdaws squabbled over a worm. Life in a country churchyard. All I needed was for Thomas Gray to stroll by and compose another elegy.

  Not that it would have helped my predicament. Now that Snitcher had scarpered, I began to realise the implications of what I'd decided. I'd placed myself in the hands of someone who had the trust profile of a cornered rat. If Snitcher smuggled me into the school in the dead of night and we were caught, I'd end up as the mug in the firing line. After all, I was the supposedly responsible adult. And being fired from the Chronicle would only be the start of it. There'd be a police investigation and I could end up in court.

  Perhaps in jail.

  And all for a story which Figgis would run and forget about a week later.

  But I was overlooking the most important fact. This was about more than a story. The cops had decided Hooke's death was down to a hit-and-run driver. A serious crime, certainly. But not in the same league as murder. Besides, Holdsworth had written off the chances of ever catching the driver. So, if it were murder, a killer would walk free. Perhaps to murder again.

  That was wrong. I couldn't allow it to happen. Even if the victim was someone like Spencer Hooke who didn't sound like a shining example of humanity. In my book, that made this caper a risk worth taking. And if I ended up in court, I'd plead that I was doing the work the cops had flunked.

  The squirrel cautiously crept closer, uncertain whether I had any food to offer. Decided I looked like a lost cause and scrambled up a beech tree. Wise decision.

  I shifted uncomfortably against the headstone and looked up at the church's bell tower. I stood up and strolled around the outside of the church deep in thought.

  Owen Griffiths had mentioned that Hooke had been allowed to join the bell-ringers. Perhaps one of them was Hooke's blackmail victim. Perhaps more than one. I needed to know more about those for whom the bells tolled. The person to ask would be the vicar. But I couldn't barge in and tell the reverend I thought one of his ringers might be a murderer. I needed a cover story.

  And Hooke's untimely death provided one.

  ***

  I found the name of the vicar - the Reverend Simon Purslowe MA - on a noticeboard inside the church porch.

  The noticeboard presented a slice of village life. There was news about a book club (they were reading Ernest Hemmingway’s A Moveable Feast), a gardening society talk (Trouble with Artichokes) and a meeting about road safety. A sombre poster from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents showed a sad-looking woman in a wheelchair.

  There was also a photograph of the Reverend Purslowe. He had a domed forehead covered with a few strands of dark hair. He had bushy eyebrows over a pair of dark eyes that peered loftily into the middle distance. His thin lips were parted in what may have been a smile - or a prayer. I'd put his age at about forty-five.

  The noticeboard helpfully provided the address of the vicarage. It was a couple of hundred yards away, connected to the church by a gravel path.

  The vicarage was a double-fronted Queen Anne-style house built in red brick. It would have been put up in the eighteenth century when vicars were often the fourth son of minor aristocrats. (The first inherited the title, the second was elected to parliament, the third went into the army, which only left the church for the runt of the litter.)

  The house was certainly not your humble hovel, but it wasn't a stately mansion either. It had two floors with a garret level let into the roof where the servants of the fourth son would have slept. These days the garrets were probably stuffed with old hymn books and unsold junk from church jumble sales. There was a sturdy front door painted deep red and fitted with a handsome brass knocker.

  I raised the knocker and gave three imperious raps, like the bishop had come to call.

  Heavy steps hurried up the hall and Purslowe opened the door.

  His wire-rimmed spectacles were balanced on the end of his nose. He was wearing a light grey cable-knit sweater with brown leather elbow patches and blue corduroy trousers. Evidently not all the jumble sale stuff was in the garret.

  Purslowe looked at me with sad eyes and said: "Oh dear. I can always tell when someone's suffered a sad loss."

  I said: "Very perceptive, vicar. I haven't been able to find my Beatles' Hard Day's Night album since before Christmas."

  Purslowe's bushy eyebrows knitted together like a pair of mating caterpillars.

  "You're not here about a funeral?" he said.

  "In a manner of speaking. But at the moment, it's just an unexplained death."

  "You'll have to tell me more than that."

  I reached into my jacket pocket, fished out a card, and handed it to him.

  "Colin Crampton, Evening Chronicle," I said.

  Purslowe shook his head. "I suppose you've called about that unfortunate Spencer Hooke."

  "You could describe being knocked down by a car and left for dead as unfortunate. I'd call it a crime. Perhaps you'd prefer to think of it as a sin."

  Purslowe rubbed his chin. "I might call it the hand of fate. But that would be too mystical for a man of the cloth."

  I said: "I'd like to ask you a few questions. It will be completely off the record at the moment."

  Purslowe shrugged. "I suppose if I don't ask you in, you'll hang around outside like those door-stepping reporters from the tabloid newspapers one reads about."

  I grinned. "Won't look good if the rural dean comes to call."

  Purslowe frowned but he waved me inside.

  We walked up a long thin hall with a dark parquet floor covered with a worn Persian carpet runner. Purslowe led the way into a room that was obviously his study. It had French windows that looked out across a garden where the daffodils and crocuses were in bloom. There was an ancient desk with green leather inlay set at an angle to the window. No doubt Purslowe contemplated his garden while considering his next sermon. The desk was covered with a large writing pad and a litter of pages full of notes written in a spidery hand. There was a Bible open at one of the earlier pages - something from the Old Testament.

  The wall behind the desk held an embroidered sampler which read: "In God we Trust".

  I suppressed a smile. It reminded me of a similar sign I'd once seen in a rough boozer down by the docks in Newhaven. Underneath the publican had written: "All others pay cash".

  Purslowe took the seat behind his desk and waved me towards the guest chair.

  He gathered together the scattered papers on his desk.

  "Notes for my sermon for the Mother’s Day service," he said. "Always difficult to choose a text. This year I'm drawing on Exodus chapter two, verses one to ten."

  I put my mind into gear and tried to remember lessons from school-day Bible classes. "Something about Moses?" I asked.

  "How the Pharaoh's daughter found the baby Moses in a basket among bulrushes by the river Nile."

  "Didn't the daughter give the baby back to the mother to nurse - thinking she was just a slave who did that kind of work?"

  "You have the gist of the passage," Purslowe said in a snooty way.

  I gave a small cough and sat up straighter, like I'd just been reprimanded by the headmaster.

  I said: "These days, mothers are more likely to leave their infants in a supermarket trolley at the Co-op."

  Purslowe frowned. "That is not a parallel I planned to draw. But can we get to the purpose of your visit?"

  I said: "I believe Spencer Hooke was a member of your bell-ringers' group."

  "He was introduced about four months ago after old Mr Deacon fell down the steps to the bell loft and broke his neck."

  "And Hooke was introduced by Owen Griffiths."

  Purslowe's caterpillar eyebrows wriggled a bit at that.

&n
bsp; "You know Mr Griffiths?" he asked.

  "I met him briefly. He seemed the teacher most likely to have known Hooke best - given that Hooke spent most of his time in the stinks lab."

  "Yes, I believe Hooke was something of chemistry savant," Purslowe said stiffly.

  "With a keen interest in bell-ringing. What did the other members of your merry band think about having a schoolboy savant amongst them?"

  Purslowe cleared his throat nervously. "Whenever a new ringer joins there is always a period of adjustment. But Hooke seemed to have two keen supporters who won the others over."

  Did he indeed? I knew that Griffiths had proposed Hooke as a member, but I didn't realise he'd had a second backer.

  "Apart from Griffiths, who was the other Hooke fan?" I asked.

  "Georgina Staples."

  "Do you mean the young woman who runs the tuck shop?"

  Purslowe raised an eyebrow. "You know Miss Staples?"

  "And her cream buns," I said. "But I hadn't realised that she obviously knew Hooke well enough to support him as a member of the bell-ringing team."

  "I'm sure the lad had met her when he bought sweets at her shop."

  I'd already worked that out for myself. But Hooke would have needed a very sweet tooth to make him stand out from the other boys who visited the shop. Unless, I wondered, Georgina's interest in Hooke went beyond toffees and gum drops. But I wasn't going to make the vicar blush by pursuing that line of questioning. At least, not yet.

  Instead, I said: "Who didn't want Hooke in the group?"

  "There are six bell-ringers - five now Hooke has passed on. As I've mentioned Mr Griffiths and Miss Staples were supporters, but the other three were less keen - initially."

  "They were hostile to him joining?" I asked.

  "I wouldn't say any of the other members were actively opposed to the boy. Charles Fox, the leader wasn't keen, but Miss Staples persuaded him."

  "He's a Fox with a sweet tooth, then?" Or a roving eye, I didn't add.

  "He's a Fox who's a merchant banker," Purslowe said.

  "From the family which owns Fox's Bank?" I'd heard Susan Wheatcroft, the Chronicle's business reporter, mention it. She sometimes wrote a piece about a new deal the bank had pulled off.

  "The Fox family has supported the church for several generations. Charles is just the latest. So very generous with their time - and especially their money. I don't think the church would still have a roof without their magnificent benevolence. And Charles Fox takes a great interest in bell-ringing. Once he'd accepted Hooke, the remaining two fell into line, as it were."

  "Who are they?"

  Purslowe lounged back in his chair with his hands together as though he were praying.

  He said: "One is Tom Hobson. He's a fisherman who lives locally in Mouse Lane, but runs a small trawler out of Shoreham harbour. Inshore mackerel mostly, I think. I'd heard that times were hard for fishermen but Tom seems to do well from it. There'll always be a pound note in the collection plate from him on a Sunday morning. But to get to the point, Owen Griffiths is friendly with Tom. He had a word with him about Hooke and that seemed to seal the matter."

  "You mentioned two," I reminded Purslowe.

  "The final member of the group is a maiden lady of mature years," Purslowe said pompously.

  "Does this mature maiden lady have a name?"

  "Of course. Clothilde Tench-Hardie."

  "That's not a name, it's a fanfare."

  Purslowe frowned. "Miss Tench-Hardie is a long-standing and widely respected resident of the village. Although perhaps not so much for the way she races around the streets in her Morris Minor. In any event, she was already a member of the bell-ringing team when I was appointed to this living. And she's always taken a keen interest in the church."

  "Always down on her knees, is she?"

  "Not at all," Purslowe said. "In fact, her interest in the church is more historical than religious. I believe she has a modest private income and has made herself something of the local historian. You'll find her always delving into books in the library or visiting the County Records Office in Chichester to dig through some dusty old documents. She has a fascination with aristocracy. She's always asking Mr Fox about his wife, Lady Evangelina."

  "With a name like that I'll bet she's a real lady," I said.

  "It's a courtesy title," Purslowe said. "Lady Evangelina is the daughter of the Earl and Countess of Herstmonceux. I should say the late Earl and Countess. His lordship died a year ago and the Countess a few months before that. In any event, Miss Tench-Hardie has always admired Lady Evangelina."

  "Miss Tench-Hardie sounds like a real ferreter out of village secrets," I said.

  Purslowe looked down his nose at me. "Steyning is not a village that has secrets," he said.

  I didn't shatter Purslowe's illusion and tell him that the most shocking secrets are found in the least likely places.

  Instead, I said: "You'll need a replacement for the bell-ringers, now that Hooke is dead."

  Purslowe ran a weary hand over his forehead. "Yes. We don't seem to be having a great deal of luck with our bell-ringers lately.

  "What with Mr Deacon's fall and Spencer Hooke's accident, being a bell-ringer seems like a death sentence."

  Chapter 7

  Three hours later I walked into Prinny's Pleasure, a run-down boozer in the North Laine district of Brighton.

  I used the place when I wanted to meet someone on the QT. In this case, I'd called Detective Inspector Ted Wilson, my main contact in Brighton's police force. Correction, my only contact in Brighton police. I wanted to find out what he thought about the Spencer Hooke killing.

  Prinny's Pleasure occupied a corner site where two streets of tiny terraced houses met. The pub had frosted glass windows, flaking brown paint, and a set of double doors which failed to meet in the middle.

  A pub signboard hung from a rusting bracket above the doors. The board featured a portrait of Mrs Maria Fitzherbert, the eighteenth century courtesan who'd been the Prince Regent's top squeeze. She had a bouffant hair style, piercing blue eyes, fulsome red lips, and a tea-strainer moustache on her upper lip. Although that last could have been the kind of furry mould you sometimes see on rotten fruit.

  Inside, the green flock wallpaper had turned grey. The carpet was marinated in a generation of beer slops. It made little squelchy sounds as you walked over it. The place smelt like a weasel had peed in the corner. Not surprisingly, few patrons made a second visit. But that suited me. When you're meeting a contact who's a cop or a crook, you don't want snoopers earwigging your talk.

  Jeff Purkiss, the landlord, was behind the bar. He was sitting on a barstool. He was wearing a tee-shirt with a green stain around one armpit and a pair of jeans with a busted zip-fastener. So, sartorially, one of his better days.

  He rested his elbows on the bar and held his head in his hands. He looked like a man contemplating the end of the world. Or perhaps he was just thinking about the cost of a new pair of jeans.

  I walked up to the bar and said: "Snap out of that brown study and pour me a gin and tonic. One ice cube and two slices of lemon."

  Jeff slid off the stool, grabbed a glass, and turned to the optics. He poured the gin and put it down on the bar beside a bottle of tonic water.

  I said: "What's up? You look like a man who'd give depression a bad name."

  He said: "Things couldn't be worse. It's the same every year at this time."

  I said: "What time?"

  "Mother’s Day. It's this coming Sunday."

  I reached over the bar and placed a consoling hand on Jeff's shoulder.

  "Is it because you don't have a mother anymore?"

  "Worse than that. I've got seven mothers. And they'll all be expecting a greetings card and a bunch of daffs."

  I reached for the G and T and took a sip. "Nobody has seven mothers," I said.

  "I blame my Dad."

  "Just the one?"

  "More than enough. He was a deckhand on merchant
ships. You know what they say about sailors?"

  "A girl in every port."

  Jeff turned to the optics and poured himself a large Scotch. He took a generous pull at the drink.

  He said: "It seems Dad arrived back in Liverpool after a long voyage from Argentina feeling a bit frisky. Well, you would, wouldn't you - cooped up in an old rust bucket with nothing but twenty tons of frozen beef for company? But he had a few bob in his pocket - his pay from the voyage. And he didn't see why the Liverpool lasses shouldn't benefit. My old Pop knew how to play the field when he had a couple of pounds to spend. From the Liver Building to the Anfield Stadium, no girl was safe. Anyway, a couple of days later, he was off on a boat heading for Valparaiso with a cargo of pig iron. And nine months later, I was born."

  "But not to seven mothers."

  "No. Just one. She left me wrapped in a blanket outside the tradesmen's entrance to the Royal Liverpool hospital. She'd tied a card round my left foot. It read: 'Return to sender'. I think she must've been an Elvis fan."

  I suppressed a smile and said: "That's tragic, Jeff. But where did the other six mothers come into the picture?"

  "That happened a few years later. Dad was back in Liverpool on a two-week layover. A Littlewood’s collector gave him a football pools coupon and he filled it in. That Saturday, he was the only man in Britain with eight score draws and an invitation to Littlewood's head office to pick up a cheque for £75,000 from John Moores himself."

  "He was rich," I said.

  "What he hadn't bargained for was that there'd be a reporter and a photographer from the Liverpool Echo at the handover. His picture was on the front page of the paper that day. The reporter had done some digging and come up with the story of the baby left outside the hospital. Suddenly, Dad found himself being chased by seven women all claiming to be the mother and demanding back maintenance payments, lump sum compensation, and monthly shopping allowances."

  "But surely he knew which one was the real mother?"

  "I heard later it was none of them. They were all chancers. But after a few days being pursued by seven determined women, he couldn't stand it anymore. Although he was rich enough never to work again, he packed the money in fivers in a rucksack and signed on for another voyage to get away from them. Surgical appliances to Zanzibar. It was his last voyage. There was a typhoon in the Indian Ocean and the ship went down with all hands."