An Unholy Mess

by Joyce Cato

  ‘No, thank you,’ Jason said, glancing up as Graham stuck his head out of his study door.

  ‘Do you need me, Chief Inspector?’ Graham asked mildly.

  ‘No, sir. I’ve come to ask your wife a few more questions about finding Mrs Franklyn’s body.’

  He saw the vicar’s eyes turn to those of his wife, asking silently if she needed him. It was an intimate, touching gesture that was only possible between two people who knew each other very well indeed. That sort of silent communication only came with people who were on the same wavelength, and Jason hastily looked away, feeling absurdly a bit like a peeping tom.

  ‘This way then, Chief Inspector,’ Monica said, and Graham, getting the message that she was OK, withdrew back into the study and the writing of his Sunday morning sermon that awaited him.

  Jason followed Monica into a pretty little living room, decorated in shades of green, cream and pale orange, and sat down in a huge comfortable armchair. He got out his notebook.

  Monica took the armchair opposite him, and Jason glanced across at her just as she was in the process of crossing her long, slim legs. He quickly looked back down into his notebook.

  ‘Now, Mrs Noble. How well did you know Margaret?’

  ‘Not at all well, really. She and Sean only moved in about three weeks ago. I don’t think Margaret was really happy about it.’

  ‘Oh? Why do you say that?’

  Briefly, Monica told him about the spat she’d overhead, careful not to mention that she’d also heard Margaret practically accuse Carol-Ann of pinching her diamond earrings.

  ‘So it was Mr Franklyn who chose their apartment?’

  ‘Yes. I think Margaret would have preferred to stay in Bath.’

  Jason nodded. This was interesting. Just because Sean Franklyn couldn’t have pulled the trigger on his wife himself, didn’t mean that he couldn’t have set it up for somebody else to do so. Although it was extremely rare for people to hire a hit man, it wasn’t unheard of.

  But why buy a place that his wife didn’t like? It sounded very odd to him.

  ‘Mind you, Margaret picked fault with everything,’ Monica carried on. ‘She was the sort of woman who seemed dissatisfied with almost everything and everyone.’

  ‘A discontented woman, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ Monica nodded. Then, feeling guilty about talking badly of a woman who had just been so brutally killed, added hastily, ‘but as I say, I’d only known her for a short time. She might only have been going through a bad patch.’

  Jason smiled. ‘Mrs Noble, please. I’d rather you were honest and straightforward with me. Whatever you say can’t hurt Mrs Franklyn now, but it might just lead me to whoever killed her.’

  Monica felt a cold shiver run down her spine. Her killer – could that really be someone who was in this house, right at this very moment? For a second, she wanted to cry. This vicarage had always been a place of peace and sanity. Of, well, decency, as corny as that might sound. But now someone had brought evil into it.

  ‘Mrs Noble?’

  Monica blinked and the urge to burst into tears slowly faded.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just that it’s all so horrible.’

  Jason abruptly felt guilty. Finding a body, he knew, could badly affect some people for years afterwards. Some never really got over it.

  ‘Do you want someone to come and sit with you, Mrs Noble?’ he asked anxiously. Her husband, he thought, would literally be a rock for her, right about now.

  But Monica was already shaking her head and taking a deep calming breath.

  ‘No, thank you. I’ll be all right. Just ask your questions and I’ll answer them all as honestly as I can.’

  Jason admired her pluck. ‘Right. Well then, how did Mrs Franklyn get on with her neighbours here at the vicarage? Did she make friends with anyone in particular?’

  Monica had to smile. ‘No,’ she said succinctly, and Jason caught on instantly.

  ‘Did she make anyone particularly angry?’

  ‘Well, there was Pauline Weeks,’ Monica said reluctantly. ‘Oh, it was nothing serious! It’s just that Pauline is rather fond of Paul, and Margaret liked to tease.’

  Jason wrote something down, and Monica wished she’d kept her big mouth shut. This was awful. Truly awful. She could feel her words being distorted even as she spoke, and she felt absurdly traitorous. Then she wondered what Pauline might be saying about her, right now. What, in fact, all the others might be saying, and she felt a little better. At least they were all in the same boat!

  ‘So Mrs Franklyn was flirting with Paul?’

  Monica flushed. ‘That was just her way. She was also giving Julie Dix a hard time but that …’ she trailed off miserably. Now she was dropping poor Julie in it! Jason looked at her and waited. ‘It was just the way she was,’ Monica finished lamely.

  ‘I see. And how did Julie react? Or her mother, for that matter?’

  But this time Monica wasn’t going to be drawn. ‘I don’t know, I wasn’t really watching them. But Joan is rather protective of Julie.’ Surely there was no harm in saying that? Besides, they’d quickly discover as much for themselves. ‘I think she’s an only child, and Joan is a widow, so Julie’s all she’s got,’ she added pointedly.

  Jason nodded. But it was not Joan Dix he was interested in. She had an alibi. Her daughter, however, didn’t.

  ‘Right. I want you to go over today with me. From the time you woke up till the time you heard the shot. Tell me what happened, as clearly as you can.’

  Monica did her best. She had a good memory, and recalled every incident in detail, but to her own ears she sounded as if she was rambling. To Jason however, she was a clear-headed witness, who also seemed to be totally unbiased and inherently honest.

  Unless she was one hell of an actress, and he was being a mug. A possibility he was determined to keep firmly in mind.

  ‘And then you heard the shot?’ Jason said, about half an hour later, as her dialogue came to a stumbling halt.

  Monica tensed. Because now, she knew, he was going to ask her to relive that awful moment again when she first saw Margaret’s body. But, all things considered, she handled it well. She was careful to keep calm, to speak slowly, to try and describe every detail.

  ‘And then I tripped, and put my hand out onto the floor to stop myself falling, but instead of touching the hard flat ground, I touched something rounded and softer,’ she finished, swallowing back a sudden urge to be sick. ‘I pulled the tarpaulin away and – well, there she was.’ She took another harsh swallow, and then said suddenly, as if making a discovery, ‘whoever killed her didn’t really do a good job of hiding her, did they?’

  That observation wasn’t an exact echo of what Jason had been thinking, however. Rather, Jason had been thinking, why did the killer cover her up at all? He must have known people would hear the shot and come to investigate. Realistically, how much time would covering up Margaret’s body have given him? As Monica Noble had pointed out, she’d discovered the body almost immediately on entering the room.

  ‘Something doesn’t fit,’ he said, unaware that he’d spoken out loud until Monica looked at him questioningly. He shook his head impatiently. ‘Never mind. And then you called for your husband?’

  ‘I think so. Yes. He carried me outside. I was feeling unwell.’

  ‘I understand,’ Jason said quickly, the image of Monica being carried possessively and protectively by her husband suddenly flashing into and out of his mind. ‘Well, I think that’s all.’ As he spoke, the front doorbell rang.

  Jason frowned. He’d left orders that no one was to be allowed into the grounds. As Monica rose to answer it, he quickly followed. In the corridor they both saw Graham open the door, and then a veritable flood of twittering, anxious, middle-aged and elderly ladies fluttered in, all talking at once.

  ‘Oh, Reverend, you’re all right!’

  ‘We heard you were dead!’

  ‘Have you seen a doctor? The shock, you kno
w… .’

  Monica watched Graham quickly and expertly handle the sea of anxious ladies as he quickly ushered them all into his study.

  ‘That disappearing act was for your benefit,’ Monica explained to Jason, grinning for the first time since finding Margaret. ‘If they’d spotted you, you’d have been given a more gruelling third degree than any that you give down at the police station.’

  Jason smiled back ruefully.

  ‘I can well believe it!’ Then he looked down at her. ‘Your husband has a devoted parish, it seems,’ he said, with just the hint of question in his voice.

  Monica grinned again. ‘His fan club, Carol-Ann and I call them. And of course they’re devoted. Graham has a way of making everyone love him.’ She said it so simply and naturally, and without any covert overtones, that Jason, once again, felt a little stab of something perilously close to jealousy lance through his chest. He snapped his notebook shut with a little more force than was strictly necessary.

  ‘Right. Well, that’s all for the moment. I will ask that you remain in your flat for the rest of the night. I’ll be asking the same of all the other residents,’ he added, as she turned to him quickly, her mouth open and ready to protest. ‘It’s just a precaution.’

  Besides, he wanted the grounds thoroughly inspected, and just on the off-chance that he got his search warrants today, he didn’t want anybody else leaving the building.

  CHAPTER 8

  Evening came slowly, and the blackbirds continued to sing in the silver birches. With golden light bathing the flowers, and bumblebees gathering in their last cache of nectar and pollen, the evening was so beautiful that Monica, looking out from her living room window, sighed gratefully. Then, in the bushes, something stirred and she could just make out the dark blue outline of a police uniform, and her mood instantly darkened.

  She wasn’t to know it, but Jason’s WPC had failed to get a search warrant for the individual flats. Mainly because the judge had decided that they had no real evidence that any of the vicarage residents had been involved in the killing. But he wasn’t taking the setback lying down. Not only did the police continue to watch the house, but tomorrow, he’d have forensics go over the public access areas in the building, for which he had been granted a warrant.

  For Monica, the beauty of the golden evening was now ruined, and Graham, seated on the sofa, looked up as she drew the curtains together with an angry tug.

  ‘Something wrong?’ he asked mildly.

  ‘Depends on how you look at it,’ Monica said wryly, picking up the television remote control as she sat beside him. ‘We’re being watched.’ She told him about the continuing police presence.

  ‘Well, think of them as being there for our protection,’ Graham said, reasonably. ‘There might be someone disturbed hanging around, and they’re here to come to our rescue if we should need them.’

  Monica sighed softly and leaned across to kiss him, and felt him stir with that mixture of surprise and near-guilty delight that had punctuated their entire courtship. She ran a hand lightly along his arm, and he trembled, just a little, at her touch. It always gave her such a delicious feeling of power and protectiveness when he did that!

  ‘Monica,’ Graham said huskily.

  Just then the door flew open. ‘Come on, Mum, turn on the telly! Daniel Craig’s on, and he’s gorgeous.’

  Carol-Ann, oblivious to the atmosphere, leapt so hard onto the last available sofa-seat that the other two actually bounced.

  ‘Early night, I think,’ Graham murmured dryly.

  ‘Hmm, good idea,’ Monica muttered, eyes gleaming, as she held out her hand and let him pull her to her feet.

  John Lerwick shut and locked the shed door, pausing for a moment to look up at the first evening stars appearing in the sky. Since he was almost completely hidden by the shadows, the woman opening the back door and stepping out didn’t see him, but in the twilight, John had no trouble at all in recognizing her. He was about to call out a greeting when she hurried over to a car and slid inside.

  John felt himself tense. Since when had Julie owned a car? For a long moment he hesitated, an uneasy sensation creeping over him. He’d just decided to go inside and make himself a mug of cocoa, when the door opened again, and Sean appeared. He walked straight to the same car, got in and drove away. Although the moon had yet to rise, John could plainly see Julie turn her head to look at him as they pulled out of the parking lot.

  John, thoughtfully, went indoors.

  As soon as the village was left behind, and they were on the main road heading towards Cheltenham, Sean pulled into a lay-by and switched off the engine. He was pale, and his hands trembled as they rested on the steering wheel. Julie, who had yet to say a word, finally turned and looked at him. A nameless dread as heavy as iron, seemed to have taken up residence in her abdomen. His profile, she noticed, had a hard edge to it that she’d never noticed before.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m going to a pub to get drunk,’ Sean said flatly. ‘I think you should go and see some friends or something. I’ll drop you off.’

  ‘Sean!’ her voice rose in protest.

  ‘No,’ Sean said sharply, raising a hand to ward off any argument. ‘It’s best we’re not seen together now. Surely you can understand that?’

  Julie felt bitter tears sting her eyes, and looked away. When he’d called her to ask her to meet him in the car park, she’d felt her heart leap with joy. All day long she’d been aching to see him and tell him how much she loved him, and that she’d do anything for him now.

  ‘Sean,’ she began again, tentatively, but once more he held up hand to silence her.

  ‘It all went wrong, didn’t it?’ he said flatly.

  And Julie could only nod miserably. And now that wonderful, marvellous, careful plan of theirs lay in ruins.

  The church clock had just struck two in the morning when Constable Brian Bradley thought he heard the crunch of gravel coming from the direction of the car park. He’d been bored witless all night, but now his adrenaline rate shot up. Crouching, he moved parallel to the rear of the house, pulling aside a lilac branch to peer across the car park.

  A few cars were visible in the full moonlight, but nothing else. No sinister dark figures or shadows where they shouldn’t be. And yet, he could have sworn he’d heard a crunch, like an injudicious footstep on the gravel. PC Bradley surveyed the vast area of garden. Go left or right? Not that it mattered much now – there was just too much garden for someone to hide in, if they put their mind to it. Nevertheless, he set off on a scout of the gardens, and, as he’d expected, discovered nothing.

  But someone had left the building. And, nearly an hour later, someone would sneak back in. Unfortunately, by that time, PC Bradley would be on the east side of the house, having a crafty fag.

  The next morning being a Sunday, Graham was already up when Monica walked sleepy-eyed into the kitchen. He knew that he was the luckiest man alive to have found her – and at his age, too, when a long, quiet and essentially lonely slide into old age had seemed to beckon.

  ‘Monica, I love you,’ he said softly.

  Monica glanced up from filling the kettle, read him like a sentence from a book, and smiled.

  ‘I love you, too. But don’t let Carol-Ann hear us! It’ll put her right off her cornflakes.’

  Graham grinned. Sometimes he worried that he’d been wrong to take this lovely woman from London and her well-paid job to bring her here, where she was simply labelled ‘the Vicar’s Wife’, and was watched avidly, to see whether she would sink or swim. Then, at other times, she seemed so confident of her place here, and really understood that his work was a vocation as well as a career, an essential part of himself that was indistinguishable from his personality. And at times like these, he felt humble and incredibly lucky.

  Now he turned back to his toast and said dolefully, ‘I expect, all things considered, we’re going to have a full church today. Human nature being what it is.
’

  Monica grimaced, knowing he was right. The whole village would probably turn up to take their cue from their vicar, and see what new tidbit could be learned. She was about to say something encouraging, when, glancing up, she spotted Jason Dury striding across the lawn. He had a pair of uniformed policemen with him, and one of them was talking to him earnestly. Whatever he was saying, Jason didn’t seem to like it, for, even from this distance, she could see that he was frowning ferociously.

  He was dressed in a dark blue suit and red tie, and the morning sunlight turned his hair to silver. As he glanced across the grounds towards the Nobles’ flat, she quickly reared back from the window, not wanting him to see her watching him.

  Her heart was beating just a shade faster than she’d have liked. Feeling absurdly guilty, she took her coffee to the table, sat down across from her husband, and lightly laid her hand on his. He looked up, smiled, squeezed her hand, and returned to his Sunday morning paper.

  Monica sighed. And began to worry.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock when Trisha Lancer pulled up at the entrance to Church Lane and slammed on the brakes. Everyone was just coming out of church, and she could hear the evocative and cheerful church bells pealing out across the countryside.

  But the sight of the two police cars parked at the entrance to the vicarage gate made her panic. She’d not had the morning radio on, or seen the local papers yet, making her one of the few people who hadn’t yet heard about the murder in Heyford Bassett. Now she chewed on her lower lip in despair. She’d desperately wanted to speak to Graham today, especially after what she’d discovered last night, but the warning blue and white police cars filled her with the urge to run.

  Graham noticed a car in the lane begin to reverse, and although he couldn’t be sure, he thought he recognized the driver as Trisha Lancer. He took an instinctive step in her direction, then realized it was hardly the time or the place, with the whole village watching everything that moved, and checked himself.

  ‘I’m sure the police will make an arrest soon, Gareth, so there’s no need to keep Keith out of school,’ he heard himself say reassuringly. Then he turned to smile and shake hands with a timid man who worked as the head gardener up at the Manor. Now a big conference centre, the Manor was the main source of employment for the locals.