Strict and Peculiar (The Falconer Files Book 7)

by Andrea Frazer

  ‘I do, indeed. I shan’t sleep sound in my bed again until whoever is doing this is in police custody,’ she declared, two spots of red appearing on her cheeks as her anger at the situation over-rode her shock. ‘I’ve got to be brave and tell you everything, so, here goes!

  ‘I hadn’t been to the chapel for days. I was waiting for the site manager and the electrician to make a call to confirm that everything was safe to be used, and sign off the job. What with this cold weather, I haven’t been out much, except for work and a trip to the Ox and Plough recently, and I realised that it was time to check the building if they weren’t going to come until next week.

  ‘I had initial fears that there might be a third lot of writing on the wall to be painted over, and my first glance inside told me that this was indeed so. And how are they getting in there, to plant all those dead bodies, and paint nonsensical religious messages on the wall? That’s what I’d like to know. To my knowledge, there are only three keys. I’ve got one, the vicar’s got one, and the builders had the third, and it hasn’t been returned yet either, I might tell you!

  ‘Then, when I looked towards the altar, I could see there was something on it, but, before I turned on the lights, I assumed it was a pile of decorator’s sheets, and just tutted a bit at how they had been so carelessly discarded.

  ‘That was my only thought as I walked down the aisle, because lightning’s not supposed to strike twice, is it? Then, as I got closer, I realised I had been mistaken, and I slowed my pace, fearing what I would find there. I wanted to close my eyes and run out screaming, but I was brought up to be strong, and to face reality, so I walked on until I was right in front of it.

  ‘Oh, that poor man! The pain he must have suffered! He was almost unrecognisable. I must admit that, at that moment, I rather lost my nerve. I was going to run straight home and telephone the police from there, but when I got to Vernon’s door, just a couple away from mine, I cracked, and hammered on his door as if all the hounds of hell were after me.

  ‘I needed some company, and I knew I could trust Vernon not to treat me like a silly old biddy. He’d wait until I was ready to talk, then treat me sympathetically.

  ‘Well, I blurted out the bare bones of what I’d found, and Vernon, dear man that he can be sometimes, sat me down in front of the fire, covered me with a rug, and rang you immediately. Then he made me a hot toddy, and just let me ramble, until you arrived. There isn’t any more I can tell you, I’m afraid. I haven’t seen anyone suspicious in the area, because I simply haven’t been out much.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Miss Pryor. That was most succinct. And now, we’d better be off. You make sure that Mr Warlock takes good care of you,’ Falconer instructed her.

  ‘I will,’ a voice floated out from the kitchen and, turning, Falconer could just discern that the door to this room was just, ever so slightly, ajar again.

  The visit just next door to Monica Raynor was considerably more distressing. No one, not even the runners of the village grapevine, had had sufficient courage to break the news to Monica, and she was totally unaware of Quentin’s fate until she opened the door to Falconer and Carmichael and saw their faces.

  ‘Oh, nooo!’ she wailed, her eyes widening, her hands flying up to her open mouth.

  ‘May we come in, please?’, requested Falconer, and took her by the elbow and steered her into the cottage so that they could all be shielded from public view. He led her to the kitchen, where he knew she spent a lot of time, and lowered her into a wooden chair at the table.

  Monica immediately reaching for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, said in a very quiet monotone, ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

  Not wishing to prevaricate, Falconer’s answer was curt, and to the point. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘How?’ asked Monica, her hands shaking so much as she tried to light her cigarette that Carmichael had to take charge of the lighter and hold it for her. ‘Where? When?’ she continued, drawing in a deep inhalation of smoke.

  ‘There’s no nice way of saying this, so I’ll just give you the facts. Beaten to death, as far as we can see for now. The chapel is where we found him. Sometime last night, is the preliminary estimate of time of death. We can give you no more accurate information than that until after the post mortem. There was another phrase painted on the wall – be sure your sins will find you out, it reads. Does that phrase have any particular meaning to you?’

  ‘Absolutely none, except that I obviously recognise it,’ she replied.

  This was one call where cold rationality and facts were called for, thought Falconer. If she cracked up later in the visit, he’d let Carmichael take over.

  She had two more questions to ask. ‘Who did it?’ was the first.

  ‘We’re working on that one. This is the third attack, to our knowledge, and that should narrow things down considerably. We just need a little more time,’ he answered, watching, fascinated, as she blew smoke rings without even being aware that she was doing so.

  Her final enquiry was, ‘Will I have to identify his body?’

  ‘That would be in line with normal procedure, Mrs Raynor. We’ll make it as easy for you as possible, and he’ll be tidied up and covered to the neck with a white sheet. There’s nothing to be afraid of.’

  And that’s when her veneer of control cracked, and she began to scream at them at the top of her voice. ‘Nothing to be afraid of? Nothing to be afraid of? There’s a mad killer out there who’s killed my husband and left me a widow. What if he comes for me? I don’t know why all this is happening, and I’m frightened. And how am I going to manage as a widow? Oh, what a filthy word that is! Oh, Quentin, whatever did you get yourself into? This isn’t real! It can’t be real! I want to wake up and find it’s all just a ghastly nightmare!’

  Carmichael looked at Falconer in mute appeal. This wasn’t something he knew how to deal with, but Falconer did. Filling a glass from the draining board with cold water, he threw it in her face. That silenced her!

  ‘How dare you,’ she began to yell at him, then fell absolutely silent. ‘Thank you,’ she said, in a more normal voice. ‘I needed that. I was a bit hysterical.’

  ‘Is there someone we can call for you?’ asked Carmichael, now recovered from his shock at the violence of her reaction.

  ‘Perhaps you could get in touch with Roma Kerr. She runs the ladies’ dress shop in the High Street, if you remember. Maybe she could sit with me for an hour or so, while I digest this. Her home and work numbers are on the pad by the telephone,’ she said in a quiet, pleading voice.

  She may have had a fling with Roma’s husband, Rodney, but Roma knew nothing about it, but she knew that she had had her ups-and-downs with Quentin, just as she had had with Rodney. A man’s woman, suddenly she felt in need of some sisterly support.

  Carmichael managed to track Roma Kerr down at his second attempt, and she promised to closes the shop for a couple of hours while she came to Monica’s aid.

  Back in the car once more, Falconer confessed himself beaten, for the moment. ‘We’ve still got no idea if this is something to do with that bunch of revivalists from the college, or whether it’s a purely village affair, and tied up with old beliefs of desecration and goodness knows what.

  ‘I’ll tell you what we’re going to do now. I know it’s cold, but you’d better get your mittens on, because we’re going to go right round that graveyard, and take down all the family names we can find, and check them out, to see if there are any descendants locally. That Strict and Particular lot had some very strong views about morality and punishment, and I want to make sure that it’s nothing to do with lingering beliefs along those lines that are responsible for what’s been happening.’

  ‘In this light, sir? It’s a very dark day,’ asked Carmichael. ‘I bet that’ll be another dead end.’

  ‘Ha ha! Very witty, Carmichael! But we’ve got torches, and we might be able to cadge the lights from the SOCO team, if they haven’t already packed up and left.’

  �
�It’ll cost you a double hot chocolate in the canteen when we get back, sir. I’m already chilled to the marrow. That last place wasn’t very warm, and if I’m going to spend goodness knows how long creeping round a cemetery, then I think I should be rewarded for it.’

  ‘You’re on!’ replied Falconer. ‘And the same for me; with double marshmallows, too!’

  It didn’t take long for Roma Kerr to shut up shop and arrive on Monica’s doorstep. Roma may have a useless husband herself, and knew that Monica hadn’t held Quentin in high esteem, but the shock must have been awful, and she wanted to show her support.

  Monica opened the door, her eyes red and swollen, the tears having arrived just after Falconer and Carmichael left. She held the door with one hand, while in the other was a crumpled bundle of paper handkerchiefs. Without a word, Roma opened her arms, and Monica fell into them. What she really craved right now was a mother’s love, but as that was not possible, so maybe she could be a bit mothered by a friend.

  She would normally have called Tilly Gifford, who was her closest friend in Steynham St Michael, but Tilly was also the most accomplished gossip of her generation, in Monica’s opinion, and she didn’t want the way she was feeling now all over the village, with whistles and bells added to it. Besides, she remembered, Tilly was away on holiday. Roma was at least discreet, and would only let on what she had been given permission to discuss.

  They sat in the kitchen for an hour and a half, Monica talking and chain-smoking, Roma just listening, interjecting with a short question now and again. At the end of their session, Monica felt much better; it was if she had cleansed herself of something, but there was one other thing that she had to lay on the table, to give this meeting of support any integrity.

  ‘There’s something I want to tell you, but before I do, I also want you to know how very sorry I am that it ever happened,’ she said, her voice low and serious.

  ‘Go on,’ Roma urged her, though she thought she knew what was coming.

  ‘I’m very much afraid that I had a fling with your Rodney,’ Monica almost whispered, and then was sent totally off-balance, as Roma burst out into peals and peals of amused laughter.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, worried. ‘What have I said? I thought you’d be furious.’

  ‘Didn’t you think at the time that it was rather easy to get Quentin out of the way when you slunk off to meet Rodney?’ asked Roma, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. It must be the intense emotion surrounding this latest murder that had inspired her to such heights of hysterical laughter. Normally she wouldn’t be so easily amused.

  ‘I hadn’t really thought about it,’ Monica replied, waiting for enlightenment, and then she saw the light. ‘What? You and Quentin?’

  ‘Yes!’ yelled Roma. ‘All the time you thought you were getting Quentin out of the way, you were actually giving him leave to see me. So, you see, we’re both as guilty as one another.’

  The forensic team had already left when they got there. In the churchyard, Carmichael had produced a penknife from the depths of one of his coat pockets, and he and Falconer were taking it in turns to scrape away the lichen from the worn names on the simple headstones, while the other held a torch.

  There were no Victorian Gothic offerings here. Each soul had for a grave marker simply a plain oblong of stone, engraved with the name of the occupant, the date of birth, and the date of death. There was no pomp or sentimentality in pious inscriptions here, just a bare statement of facts. The work was painstaking, but easier than it might have been because there had already been an initial clean-up of the burial ground by the volunteers.

  It was still cold, however, and although it was still early in the season, there was now sleet in the air. This was definitely not the weather to be working out in the open air.

  ‘Come on, Carmichael,’ said Falconer, ‘I think we’ve had enough of the great outdoors for one day. It is Saturday. Let’s quit, and come back here on Monday. Maybe the Doc will have some information for us by then, or forensics, and perhaps Roberts will have regained consciousness enough to tell us why he was so badly beaten. He must have learnt far too much for his own good to be treated like that.’

  ‘Good idea, sir. I’m looking forward to my hot chocolate even more, after this.’

  ‘I’m just wondering …’ Falconer said, and drifted off into silence.

  ‘What’s that, sir?’

  ‘Well, we’ve had two murders and an attempted murder so far, and Chivers has called in a psychological profiler. Do you think we ought to get the Regional Serious Crimes Squad involved?’

  ‘Oh, no: Mrs Frazer wouldn’t like that at all!’

  ‘What was that?’ snapped Falconer, wondering how a complete stranger had made their way into the conversation.

  ‘I said that Chivers wouldn’t like that at all, sir.’

  ‘No you didn’t!’ stated Falconer, accusingly.

  ‘I did, sir! It must be the cold wind, affecting your ears.’

  ‘It isn’t!’

  ‘Oh, I think it is!’

  ‘Isn’t!’

  ‘Is!’

  ‘Isn’t! Oh, let’s just drop it. I’m too cold to argue. Come on! Let’s just get back in the car, and try to thaw out on the way back.’

  Very quietly, ‘Is!’

  [4] See Choked Off

  Chapter Twelve

  Monday 8th November

  By Monday morning, Falconer had drawn up a list of those he wished to interview at the college and in the village, and announced that they would soon be on their way out as Carmichael arrived.

  The inspector had already been in touch with the college to extract the information he needed to contact those on his list, and had spent some time going through the records of the inhabitants of Steynham St Michael to see if he could round up any ‘hidden’ suspects within their ranks, but with little success.

  He’d decided to start with the students actually on the comparative religion course, who would have known Chris better than any of the others, then move on to the course tutor, finishing up with the three students who were in the ‘inner circle’ discussion group, but studying other subjects. Chris had left a quick character assessment of them all, along with a note of which courses they were registered on, and these might prove helpful to give him a tiny insight into their characters before he actually met them.

  Jocasta Gray had considerably eased this job by promising to have the three students from her course available at the mid-morning break in the empty home room, and to attend herself, so that he could tackle all four of them without wasting too much time. It had seemed kind of her, but later reflection caused him to reconsider this, and decide that it was more of a ‘we’ve got nothing to hide’ attitude, meant to lull him into a false sense of security.

  The college itself was a sixties monstrosity, constructed in concrete and already beginning to crumble away. Finding a space in the car park proved difficult, and made him reflect on how much more disposable money students had these days if so many of them could afford cars to get to and from college.

  At reception he and Carmichael were directed to room 101 and, now five minutes late because of the difficulty in finding a parking place, they found all three students waiting patiently with their tutor.

  Having introduced themselves to those foregathered, Falconer asked if the other three could wait in the corridor while he interviewed each one, and announced his intention to begin with Elspeth Martin, the one whom Chris seemed to have spent the most time with.

  Oh, but she was a plain girl; not easy on the eye, and difficult to feel any affinity with. Although she was close to twenty, she seemed more like a girl of thirteen or fourteen. and it was clear to see why Chris had suspected her of having a bit of a ‘pash’ on her tutor. She denied any knowledge of what had been found in Steynham St Michael, and said it was nothing to do with her, or with anyone she knew. She had not, though, heard about Chris’ beating, and this really threw her into an unexpected show of emotion.<
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  ‘No!’ she cried, her face crumpling. ‘No, that can’t be right! He can’t be in hospital!’

  ‘I’m afraid he is, Miss Martin,’ replied Falconer, calmly.

  ‘When did it happen?’ she asked, her eyes filling with unshed tears.

  ‘Either late last Wednesday evening, or in the early hours of Thursday morning,’ he informed her.

  ‘But that’s not possible. I saw him on …’ She stopped speaking abruptly, evidently searching to change what she had being going to say. ‘I saw him on Wednesday, at college,’ she finally offered, lamely.

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t see him on Wednesday evening, too?’ probed Falconer.

  ‘No, of course not. I’d have said if I had, wouldn’t I?’ she asked, acting the innocent, but openly displaying her discomfiture at lying by blushing and twisting her fingers round and round each other.

  ‘You may like to revise that claim, when the investigation is further advanced, Miss Martin,’ he warned her, then proceeded to ask, ‘And where exactly were you on Wednesday evening?’

  ‘I was at home – in my room in the Halls,’ she replied tersely.

  ‘Do you have any witnesses to that?’

  ‘I was alone.’

  ‘The whole evening?’

  ‘The whole evening,’ she replied to this last, trying to meet his eye, but not quite managing it.

  ‘What was your relationship with Chris Roberts?’

  ‘We were friends, that’s all.’

  ‘Are you sure that was all it was?’

  ‘Of course!’ She was now slightly cross, and explained the beliefs of purity and strong moral principles that she held so dearly.

  ‘And are there others who also harbour these ideals?’ he asked, chancing his arm with this rather shy and immature gargoyle of a girl. If she’d had any more spots, you could’ve ordered extra garlic bread to go with them.

  ‘A few of us,’ was her curt answer, but at least she had given one.

  ‘May I ask who these are?’

  ‘You know jolly well who they are, because you’ve got them all waiting outside in the corridor, so that you can interrogate them, too.’