The Reluctant Detective (Faith Morgan Mysteries)

by Ockley, Martha

  Ruth’s words stung. What was it, again, about family? Why was it family was supposed to be such a good thing?

  Because they know you.

  There were five wizened mushrooms rolling around in the vegetable drawer. “A ham and mushroom omelette?” Faith suggested.

  Ruth gave up in disgust. “You know, it’s time you grew up,” she said, heading for the phone. “I’m going to order pizza.”

  Faith gazed at the bare fridge, the light reflecting off its white space. Would it were big enough to climb inside and close the door. Oh, to step out of the world for a spell and put oneself on ice – it sounded restful.

  But Ruth was right. She should grow up. She closed the door. She would put Ben and his case out of her mind and concentrate on her true calling: to be the best pastor she could be to the people of St James’s, Little Worthy. Fred might be at the deanery meeting tomorrow. She would talk to him about gathering people for her church cleansing ceremony. She’d already pinned up a notice on the church gate, but it couldn’t hurt for a local to spread the word.

  She felt better. Then an unwelcome thought intruded.

  How did she know she wouldn’t be talking to Alistair Ingram’s murderer?

  CHAPTER

  12

  STEADY RAIN BLURRED THE GLASS. It transformed the neat confines of her blue car into a cosy private world, lulled by the sibilant hush of the water spray thrown up by the tyres outside. The traffic was slow into town. Bishop Anthony was expected to drop into the deanery meeting that morning. Faith hoped she might catch a word with him. The logical part of her brain asked what she could expect from him, but the rest of her longed for some authoritative advice: This is how a priest behaves when the law is seeking a murderer among their congregation…

  As she tucked her car into one of the parking slots by Church House, she noticed an estate car bearing the logo of the local TV station. Beyond it stood the battered red Escort she had seen before on the green in Little Worthy. Journalists. Damn.

  She unfurled the big black umbrella she kept on the back seat. Through a window she saw the diocesan press officer, George Casey, caught in the glare of a camera light. Fortunately the deanery meeting was being held across the way. There was no need for her to be spotted. It seemed, so far, that she hadn’t been identified as Alistair Ingram’s successor. Keeping her head down under the violet light of the umbrella’s deep bell, she picked her way across the rain-glossed tarmac, trying not to get her shoes too wet. There was nothing worse than spending a morning in a poorly heated hall with soggy feet.

  She’d arrived half an hour early. There was no one in the hall apart from a couple of caterers setting out cups for the welcome coffee. They glanced at her impatiently as if she were harrying them. She decided to take a stroll.

  The Close felt peaceful. The rain had eased to a light drizzle. Moisture dripped off the trees onto empty paths, hitting her umbrella with the occasional satisfying pop. Across the expanse of grass, a solitary couple shrouded in bright plastic macs consulted a guidebook. Few visitors were so eager as to venture out first thing on a wet Wednesday morning in April.

  The Close made a patchwork of the church’s past. The thirteenth-century porch from the medieval St Swithun’s priory sewn into the fabric of the deanery; the medieval half-hipped roof and timbered frame of the Pilgrims’ Hall, and the Georgian façade of The Judges’ Lodging – the encrustation of the centuries accumulated in the shadow of the great cathedral, that magnificent expression of medieval technology and faith.

  Bones and relics…of what? she pondered. Did this survival tell of the authority of the church, or the endurance of faith?

  Her eyes roamed over the bricks and mortar. She had known this place all her life. She felt proud of its beauty and history, but it wasn’t this that had drawn her to the ministry. She had first found faith in faces; in people transformed by faith. She thought of the bereaved mother of a teenage knife victim she had met in her third year in the police force. She remembered the woman’s sorrow, her flashes of wit; her extraordinary forgiveness and hope. That encounter ultimately led her to Canon Jonathan. Then he had caught her up with his engagement, his humanity – his purpose: and that had drawn her in.

  Trevor Shoesmith’s mottled face flashed before her, and she felt a moment of despair. Did her faith – did she herself – measure up to all this?

  She heard running steps behind her and swung round. Beyond the bell of her umbrella, Fred Partridge came into view.

  “I thought it was you!” he said, puffing a little. “I called from back there, but you can’t have heard me. I am glad you were able to come today.” He wore a waterproof jacket, but his head was bare. Drops of moisture beaded in the lamb curls that fringed his bald pate.

  “I have read the papers,” Faith assured him, “but I shall have to rely on you if anything needs to be said. I’m still finding my feet.”

  “You have been dumped in at the deep end!” he sympathized. “But you’re doing a gallant job.”

  Gallant. Faith smiled. It was an appropriately “Fred word”, she decided. She looked into his guileless, open face, and felt a surge of warmth towards him. Fred Partridge was a good man, she was sure of it. She noticed he was looking tired. He lacked his usual bounce.

  “You found Trevor Shoesmith,” he said abruptly. His plump forehead creased in worried lines.

  “Yes.”

  “I feel terrible,” he exclaimed. “I was the one who put the police onto him.” His voice quavered and his eyes misted. Faith tucked a hand under his arm.

  “Come over here. Let’s sit for a moment.” She steered him to a secluded bench off the line of the path.

  They sat on the bench side by side. The rain had stopped. She collapsed her umbrella. Fred looked at the ground, struggling to compose himself. She reached over and took his hand. He squeezed back, hard.

  “A shocking thing!” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Gossiping about that pesticide sale. I shouldn’t have done it!” He shook his head furiously at himself. He was getting quite distressed.

  “Fred,” she spoke firmly. He looked at her. “Did you speak the truth? About the pesticide, I mean?”

  Fred widened his eyes in surprise. “Yes,” he replied. “I did.”

  “And we know pesticide was used to kill Alistair Ingram,” she continued. “So I don’t see what else you could have done.”

  “Are you sure?”

  In a dim corner of her brain she was astonished by his trust in her authority. She considered his query. Yes. Funnily enough she felt sure of Fred’s innocence: but less sure of her own.

  “Besides, it was I who took the information to the police,” she said out loud.

  “Oh!” Fred’s exclamation was reassuring. He patted their clasped hands with his free one. “You had to do that. And I am grateful. I am ashamed to have put it on you.”

  They looked out across the lush, damp grass. Fred still held her hand. Gently, she tried to extricate her fingers. He held on.

  “There’s something else,” he said.

  What now?

  He looked down and released her hand suddenly, breaking the connection. His eyes searched the far reaches of the Close.

  “Trevor Shoesmith wasn’t the only one I supplied that pesticide to.”

  Good old Fred, pointing the finger again, Ben’s voice said in her head.

  “Oh?”

  “He came to mind because it was that one time – he wasn’t a regular customer.”

  “But now there is a regular customer that comes to mind?”

  Fred gave a tortured grimace. He beat his hands against his thighs twice. “I don’t know if I should mention it now…” He appealed to her. “Should I?”

  It’s not as if we’ve had a good track record so far, ran the commentary in her head. Who’s he been selling to? Pat Montesque? Perhaps Pat uses it on her roses. She almost smiled openly at the thought.

  “Perhaps if you just tell me,” sh
e suggested.

  “The bishop’s farm,” he said in a burst. He paused, watching her reaction anxiously.

  “The bishop’s farm,” she repeated slowly.

  “It’s just down the road. Bishop Anthony visits there often – but that’s ridiculous; isn’t it?” he queried.

  She was confused. Then she remembered the tomatoes served at the bishop’s lunch and light dawned. “The farm run by that charity – some acronym.” She thought of squirrels. “ACORN? But I thought they were organic?”

  Fred scratched his cheek. “They’re having a bit of a tussle with young McIvor over that.”

  “McIvor?”

  “Luke McIvor,” Fred explained. “He’s the land agent – in charge of all the diocesan properties. He won’t let the ACORN lot go fully organic. There’s been a pest problem in the area.”

  “So they’ve bought pesticide from you.”

  Fred nodded.

  “And the same brand?”

  He nodded again, his face a parody of solemnity.

  But you’re an agricultural supplier, she thought. You must sell loads of the stuff. She contemplated Fred’s body language. Why mention that farm and the bishop himself? He seemed concerned but she couldn’t discern anything else. “Well, I am sure you sell that pesticide to all sorts,” she said.

  “But not to anyone else connected with St James’s,” responded Fred. “The police asked me for a list, but I realized I hadn’t put ACORN on it. It was very informal. But now it’ll look like I…well, like they’ve…got something to hide.”

  A thick fall of wisteria behind them shook, making her start. A pigeon flapped away in flurry of wings.

  “Should I mention it, do you think?” Fred’s eyes widened with childlike trust. “To the police, I mean.”

  She watched the pigeon fly up into a tree across the Close. She knew she wasn’t responsible for Trevor Shoesmith’s suicide, but her repeating of that piece of gossip to Ben had had consequences. If she had held her tongue, perhaps she might have had the opportunity to visit the farmer. He would have been her new neighbour, after all. She liked to think that she would have realized just how deep Trevor Shoesmith’s desperation ran. She imagined herself sitting talking to him in his kitchen, helping him…but she was fantasizing. The daydream shattered. There was no changing the past, but she could be more responsible in her actions this time. If she told Fred to keep the information to himself, then Ben would call that withholding evidence, and he’d have a pretty good point.

  “I think,” she began slowly, “you should let them know.” She straightened up, speaking more decisively. “Yes, tell them, and be honest about your oversight. I’d like to go and see this farm. Have a bit of a nose around.”

  Fred liked her plan. He even offered to introduce her to the diocesan agent, Luke McIvor. “He’ll be at the funeral, Friday,” he said. He shook his big head sadly. “Poor Trevor. He was a lonely man,”.

  “Did you know him well?”

  “Oh no! I knew him by sight, of course, but he kept himself to himself. We’d nod – you know,” Fred illustrated his words with the reserved nod of the English country acquaintance, “if we passed in the lane. I walk the dog there – in that lane by his farm. I keep him in the car. He likes it better than being left alone at home.”

  Faith’s comprehension lagged a step behind. He was talking of his dog. She imagined him with a cocker spaniel or maybe a terrier. It struck her how little she knew of Fred. They sat here talking like old friends, and yet she had never asked about the details of his life.

  “So you’re not married, then?” she enquired.

  “Widowed.” Fred took a breath as if gathering himself up. “My Joan passed away five years ago this August,” he said poignantly. He almost seemed to shrink a little.

  “I am so sorry for your loss,” she said.

  “Thank you. It near broke my heart to lose her.” He rallied. “But there’s my sister lives just over the way. Five nieces and a nephew,” he said with pride. “Joan and I weren’t blessed, but I am a fortunate man.”

  “Mr Partridge, oh, Mr Partridge!” the voice was coy and coquettishly feminine. A sixty-something woman, with trailing clothes and improbably yellow hair, approached them down the path. Fred stood up, and Faith copied him. He looked faintly guilty as he stepped away from her side.

  “Mrs May.”

  “There you are!” Mrs May sized Faith up with a sidelong glance. She didn’t seem to like making eye contact with strangers. Whenever her gaze wandered in the direction of Faith’s face, her eyes squeezed shut. “I’ve been looking all over. They said you’d arrived, but no sign of you.”

  “Faith, Miss Morgan, may I introduce Mrs Tilda May, one of our leading ladies – from St Peter’s, down the road.”

  Mrs May was looking at their feet. It would seem she regarded Faith’s presence as an intrusion. Faith had the unworthy desire to slip her hand under Fred’s arm, just to see her reaction.

  Fred was chattering. “The bishop has arranged for the Reverend Morgan to support us at St James’s you see,” he was saying. “We’re very blessed. Very grateful.”

  Mrs May interposed herself between them. To Faith’s amusement, she linked her arm in Fred’s and steered him away.

  “Now, Fred, you know I was hoping to have a word with you about the Christian Aid fund-raiser next month, and now there’s hardly ten minutes before the meeting starts.” She flicked Faith a lightning look, a false smile contorting her face. “So pleased to have met you.”

  Faith watched them go. Bother! She’d meant to talk to Fred about her idea for a church cleansing ceremony – she’d have to catch him later. If Mrs May would let her…

  There were some thirty people gathered for the meeting – mostly clergy, and some laity. Faith found herself a chair at the back with a good view of the company. Mrs May adhered firmly to Fred, and she preferred her solitude.

  The deanery incorporated both town and country parishes. The younger family men from the suburban parishes had a busy greyhound look, contrasting with the rural clergy from the villages, older men in traditional black and a sprinkling of tough, motherly-looking women in sensible shoes. Faith felt a bit overdressed. Fashion didn’t seem to have penetrated the deanery. At least there was more variety about the gathering than there would have been ten years ago, she reflected. Several of the clergy wore their dog collars with casual dress like jeans or cords, and every now and then coloured clerical shirts broke the monotony of the traditional black or grey. One jolly deaconess was sporting a clerical blouse in racing green. Faith wondered where she had got it. Probably a website – the Americans were far more adventurous than the English.

  The rural dean called the meeting to order. After referring briefly and euphemistically to the “troubles” at St James’s, and urging members to keep the parishioners in their prayers, he went on to pay tribute to Alistair Ingram and the many years of good service he had brought to his flock. Faith found that several pairs of eyes naturally drifted towards her, and she nodded in gratitude as the rural dean concluded his eulogy.

  For the next couple of hours, Faith applied herself to following the agenda of budgets, parish quotas, mission statements, and opportunities for continuing education. A discussion of a Mothers’ Union paper on prostitution grew quite heated. One of the laity, a plump, middle-aged man with round red cheeks and a businessman’s blue striped suit, was on the point of storming out when the rural dean skilfully brought the meeting to a close, and everyone left their chairs to gather around the tea urns.

  “So, how do you find us?” asked her neighbour, a neat-featured clergyman with gold wire-rimmed spectacles. He was dressed in full high-church black. “Neil Steppins – St Jude’s. And you’re the new girl – Faith Morgan, parachuted in all the way from Birmingham to help out the stricken folk of St James’s.” He pursed his lips and twinkled at her slyly.

  “How do you do?” She shook hands. His nails were beautifully manicured.

  “So
, not too dull?” he chirped.

  “Not all. That last discussion was rather lively,” Faith answered, watching the irate businessman who had been cornered by the jolly deaconess, with a cup of coffee and a biscuit.

  “Mr Prudhoe?” Neil followed her gaze. “Oh, he’s always working himself up into a lather about something. It’s traditional at these affairs. Highlight of my morning. But tell me the gossip. What about Alistair Ingram!”

  His delivery was amusing, but Faith wasn’t certain what to make of his frank curiosity. She smiled and didn’t respond.

  “A murder at Little Worthy. I suppose it looks the part.” He nibbled the edge of a ginger nut, his eyes wandering over the company. “Village green, cottages and flowery gardens – that Miss Marple look.” He sighed, glancing at her sideways. “Poor Alistair. Murdered. Who knows, maybe Mammon caught up with him.”

  What did he mean? She wouldn’t have cast Neil Steppins as a Puritan.

  “Because he used to be a money man in the City? That’s a bit severe.”

  “Oh! Not that! We all like a bit of money – don’t we – if we’re honest? No. I heard he’d left the City under a cloud all those moons ago. One might think it all forgotten, but when something like this happens…” He brought his cup to his lips. “One does wonder.” He sipped his coffee.

  What’s his game? Faith wondered. Neil was eyeing her quizzically, waiting for her to lob his conversational tennis ball back.

  “What happened?” she asked, slightly annoyed that her curiosity had been piqued by what was likely hearsay, and at worse, scurrilous gossip.

  “The partnership Alistair worked for got caught out in embezzlement or fraud or something; one of those cases where the investors lost everything.”

  “And Ingram was prosecuted?”

  “Not that I heard, but I seem to remember his partners were.”

  “That sounds as if he wasn’t involved.” The impression was forming that Neil Steppins got pleasure out of stirring things up.