“Is that where you met Colin? I ask because he seemed to be an awfully bright and talented man. He was absent so much for his work, I’m sorry to say I didn’t know him that well.”
“That, apparently, makes two of us.” Again the smile, not bitter as might be expected under the circumstances. Max gained the impression of a woman reeling, a woman struggling mightily to cope with too much bad news coming at her at once. Humor, even of the dark kind, was a sign of a successful coper. Perhaps she was someone accustomed to bad news.
“You didn’t want to go to Saudi Arabia with him?” Max was probing, but as discreetly as he could. Speaking of diplomacy, any service he conducted for Colin would have to be a masterpiece of understatement and misdirection.
“No, but not for the reasons you may be thinking. I thought our marriage was solid enough to sustain such a separation. I would have sworn to it, in fact. But Saudi—I quickly decided it was not the place for me. I also foresaw a lifetime of postings to similar places, and I’ll be honest, it worried me. I wondered if I was failing him as a wife for not having the can-do, adventurous spirit of the other wives. Perhaps we were a mismatch from the start.” She hesitated, and Max could see her draw back from the brink of saying something more. Instead she added, “But the fact is I hated everything I learned about it, and Colin—Colin could see how wretched I was, trying to talk myself into going. So he raised no objections to my staying here. About that time, anyway, it was becoming evident that Colin’s grandmother, who raised him, would be needing more help as she got feebler. So my being here while he went away was useful and seemed to be much the best solution.”
“And of course, there was Poppy.”
A brief laugh. “And yes, there was Poppy. Not that she needs anyone’s help—just ask her! Especially now, when she really does need someone to lean on, she’s completely shut down. I suppose Stanley is a comfort but I wish she weren’t so—so proud, I guess it is. She thinks it’s a sign of weakness to cry but honestly, I don’t think it can be normal not to cry, do you? She hasn’t shed a tear over her father. She just seems angry all the time. At me.”
“Does she really have no one but Stanley? I could talk with her, or Awena is awfully good with young people.” Destiny was good with the very young ones of the parish, quite willing, as was Max, to surrender majesty by kneeling down to their level and talking in silly voices and playing whatever daft games they suggested, but somehow he thought Awena might have a special affinity for a teenage girl so suddenly alone in the world, being thrown much too early into adulthood.
“Thank you. But if I suggest it, you know, she won’t…”
“I understand. She has to think it’s her idea. I’ll see if there isn’t something that can be arranged. Seemingly by accident. You know. We men of the cloth have our devious ways.”
Jane nodded gratefully. “You really are very kind, very understanding. Her mother died some time ago and, well, it’s really not been working out between us. She resents my standing where her mother should be standing. And I know this—I can’t pretend not to know this. I’m at my own wits’ end and I feel so at a loss, I can’t cope, I can’t even help myself, much less help a sixteen-year-old who h-h-hates me.” This unleashed a flow of tears, and the flood of emotion that the distraction of work had kept tapped up finally escaped. She nearly doubled over, as if in pain, reaching out blindly to steady herself against a shelf. Max put out a hand to help balance her, but she either didn’t see it or she ignored it. When she recovered herself it was to talk of mundane matters, her eyes blurry and unfocused. Such was the way of grief, Max knew: it was a seesaw of emotion that would go on for months or even years.
She said, “Colin and I talked briefly of sending her away to school, she was so obviously wretched with us, with me, but to be honest, our finances couldn’t sustain such an idea. After a few months in Saudi, Colin was starting to get us on our feet again. Paying down some outstanding creditors. Soon, it might have been possible. Things were looking up. Just a few more months.” She sighed. “I really think a few months would have made all the difference.”
Max thought that Colin’s fidelity to his wife might also have helped matters but he was wise enough to know his opinion on this didn’t matter. She would let that tape unspool at the rate she had to in order to survive. There might come a day when she hated Colin for his lies but right now the mourning for the loss of him by her side overtook anything else.
She seemed almost to be reading his mind. Surely something of his concern must have shown in his expression, for she said, “It will come. That day when I can forgive him. What difference does it make now he’s gone? I’m just not there yet.”
Max decided to take a slight risk, to try to reach her. She could always tell him to back off into his own business. A vicar soon learned to fashion a carapace of steel from constant embroilment in the troubles of others. “Tell me,” he said gently. “How did you meet Colin?”
“How did we meet?” She paused, as if this were a question she was seldom asked. “We met in London. He’d once dated one of my sisters, actually, until she moved on to greener pastures. Anyway, he used to visit the library where I worked. I started to notice he was always there when I was on duty and it dawned on me slowly that Colin was there for me. To be around me. It was rather sweet, actually. Until it got to be completely annoying, but that came later. He would ask me to help him find something on the shelves and it became obvious he could have found it himself. It was just an excuse to spend time with me. Anyway, after a rather rocky courtship, we got married. The rocky part should have alerted me. We quarreled all the time, it seemed. To be honest, I think it was Poppy I fell in love with first, in a manner of speaking. She was beautiful and she could be so sweet, so trusting. Then … well. Anyway. Colin. He was handsome and I wasn’t used to handsome men falling for me. I came to think of him as stolidly handsome—does that make sense? That cliché about the strong, silent type made manifest. And he was awfully bright. Just, well, a bit of a dork.”
Apparently Lady Duxter didn’t think he was a dork, but Max also kept this thought to himself.
“Did anything happen, in his last days … I mean, was there any sign of what was to come? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“Yes. Yes, there was, but I don’t see how it could … Anyway, I’ve been remembering. Colin was with me in the archives, waiting, about to give me a ride home and idly leafing through the things on the shelves that I hadn’t sorted yet. I saw him slip something in his knapsack and I sort of, you know, berated him. Nothing is supposed to be removed from this room without my approval, although it’s a tough rule to enforce.”
“What was it, do you know?”
She shook her head. “I asked him, later that night. He got very mysterious—oh, it was maddening, Colin in mysterious mode. Colin the magician. He wouldn’t tell me. He would only say he’d found something he thought was dynamite. I’ve no idea what it could have been. I have to confess, I went through his kit after he’d gone to bed. I found nothing.”
“You’ve really no idea?”
“He’d been looking through some of the old household account books, as far as I could tell. There are very few exciting mysteries to be found in there, let me tell you. Suddenly, he got all excited and worried looking but he wouldn’t tell me what he’d found. He just got very nervous—happy nervous, you understand. Wound-up nervous. I don’t think it was the account book itself—those things are of monstrous size. It was something tucked inside.”
“Is that book still around?” Max asked.
She nodded. “I’m still going through those books and other papers that were in the box with them. Come, I’ll show you.”
They walked to a table laid out with aged, leather-bound books, all in various stages of decrepitude. Scattered around them were bits of paper—bills and receipts, the odd letter. But nothing that Max could see at a cursory glance was of a personal nature. No hidden treasure maps, no birth certificates, nothing t
o excite the casual observer.
“These are the household accounts dated from 1454 to 1664,” she was saying. “The book for 1460 is the one he was looking at. Believe me, I’ve been through it page by page. But again, I don’t think the book itself was the issue. It was something tucked inside the pages.”
“And this never turned up? Not in his knapsack, or somewhere at home?”
“No. I can’t say I looked every single place it could be. It may still turn up.”
He would get Cotton to send someone to have a look. It might be a wild-goose chase but he couldn’t ignore anything that might have been a motive for murder.
* * *
Max took his leave of her half an hour later, with a promise to see to Poppy.
He walked the priory grounds for a while, taking in the leafy scent of the air and relishing a small escape before he must return to his duties at the vicarage. He had hoped for a word with Lord Duxter but Jane had informed him the lord, after yet another talk with the police, had retreated to his rooms and was not seeing visitors. Max decided it was best to respect those boundaries for now.
As Max neared Prior’s Wood he saw he’d wandered unawares near the priory’s turret—a small round tower stuck onto a corner of the main building. The wooden door that led inside proved to be unlocked. Wanting a better view of his surroundings, he quickly ran up the narrow circular stairway—probably a hundred steps in all to the top. Max was in good shape but he was winded by the time he reached the parapet. He was reminded he needed to get back into his running routine.
From the top he could look far out over the woods to the pond. He had, in fact, a bird’s-eye view of everything. The trees and bushes were still wearing traces of their summer foliage, faded leaves clinging stubbornly to branches until the winter winds would shake them off, leaving stark black outlines against the sky. It was a lovely view and Max beheld it in something like wonder at its simple beauty. He found himself wishing he could paint but he knew he could never entirely capture the scene.
Because of its location, the turret appeared not to be a watchtower for approaching enemies but simply there to offer a view of nature at its finest. Even in medieval times when each day must have seemed a struggle for survival, full of surprise visits from unexpected armies, there must also have been a need for undiluted beauty. As great a need as there was now. A set of binoculars rested on a ledge sheltered from the elements, but they weren’t really necessary on such a clear day as this.
Max was turning away when a movement caught his eye. A splash of color moving through the trees, sunlight glinting off what appeared to be a decorated sleeve or hem. There it was again, the flow of bright cloth showing between branches still decked with foliage. Then a dark head came into view, thick hair braided with gold thread and coiled at the back of a beautiful neck. It was Awena. She was carrying a straw basket, and looking much like a character in a fairy tale. An enchanted Snow White come to life. She was evidently foraging mushrooms for that night’s meal. As he watched, she set down the basket and, taking a small scarf from her pocket, dipped it in water at the pond’s edge, wrung it out, and wrapped it round her neck, presumably to cool herself off. As the deer longs for the water-brooks, thought Max, so longs my soul for you. Still oblivious to his gaze she resumed her task. Max felt like a spy, an interloper on this little domestic scene, but he stood watching until she moved out of his sight under another thick canopy of trees. He could have called out but it was doubtful she could have heard him, given the distance, and it was likely to startle her if he did.
Chapter 13
THE MAGICIAN
Max returned to the vicarage to follow up on a few telephone calls awaiting his attention, matters he didn’t feel he could delegate. He had a noon service to offer at St. Edwold’s, and planned after that to go and talk with Colin’s daughter if he could find her.
Before Cotton left him earlier that day he had extracted a promise from Max that he would talk with a few people, ask a few questions around the village. “Work your magic,” as Cotton put it. Max thought it was difficult to see what he might achieve but reminded himself that even journeys in the dark begin with a single step.
Noticing the weather had started to drizzle, he was putting on his overcoat and fedora when there came a knock at the front door, followed by the door to his study being flung open. Mrs. Hooser announced: “It’s Poppy, the poor wee lamb,” and, without waiting for his reply: “I’ll be sending her in, then.”
Max, who was used to villagers dropping by the vicarage unannounced for advice, for a shoulder to cry on, or simply for a chat, was not surprised to see Poppy there, wearing a red dress to match her name, and a distractingly glittery eye shadow. While the tie-dye dress fell conventionally below the knee, she’d offset the conventionality by wearing a black leather jacket and purple-and-black striped knee socks over white-lace hosiery. At her wrist was a gray digital activity tracker. It was an odd ensemble for a girl in mourning—for anyone, for that matter—but Max rather thought a mindfully uncurated style was Poppy’s go-to presentation.
On the one hand, he found he couldn’t tear his eyes from that makeup of hers, but later he would be hard-pressed to recall precisely what color eyes she had, other than that they were a shade of blue. She had exaggerated this oddly mesmerizing effect by lining both eyes completely in black. He wondered that she’d taken the time for this elaborate toilette but then realized the makeup acted as a barrier to the world, and perhaps that was what she needed most at the moment: a wall to keep people away. She’d also done something to the tips of her hair, which were a fire-engine red, and she wore long earrings that dangled to her collarbone. Max learned later over dinner with Awena that these were called chandelier earrings.
“The child looked as if she were starring in a cabaret,” he said.
“Sixteen is not the age of a child,” she reminded him. “Not anymore. I was out on my own and making my way at about that age.”
“I would bet you had a lighter hand with makeup than she has. It’s a wonder her mother lets her go to school looking like that.”
“Stepmother,” Awena corrected him. “And I’d be willing to bet Jane doesn’t know. And as likely she doesn’t care, but that’s to her credit, as far as I’m concerned. More wars with teenagers are lost over makeup and hairstyling than over drugs or anything really important. Certainly Netta would not have approved if she’d known, however. Girls often wait until they’re at the school to make costume and makeup changes. And then of course, they undo it all before they go home. Honestly, I’d say it’s harmless. Makeup wears off; hair grows back in. As long as she’s not into drugs—and I’d swear she was smarter than that—the rest is just a phase.” She paused and looked at him. “Did you never have phases, Max?”
“I went through a rather horrible phase where I wore a lot of black.”
“You still wear a lot of black.”
He laughed. “Yes, but this was a sort of tragically glamorous and chic black wardrobe as opposed to a—well, a subdued priestly garb. I also wrote some stupendously pretentious poetry. I am sorry to have to tell you I read some of it out loud in this sort of cellar dive near my house. I did not, however, strum a guitar as I warned my audience of the end of the world as we know it. And before you ask, I consigned all my poetry to the flames when I reached the age of reason. Which was about when I turned twenty-one. I was afraid my mother would unearth it one day and have it bound into little booklets to hand out to her friends.”
“I’m sure the girls all thought you were wonderful,” she said. “Dressed all in black, with your dark hair and piercing eyes. Or were your eyes flashing?”
“I think I rather hoped they smoldered with banked passion. I’m not sure I believed the girls could possibly be in their right minds if they did think me wonderful. If there is a more self-conscious age than sixteen I’d like to know what it is.” He paused, remembering. “I also wore these awful boots, with brass buckles on the sides. I can’t ima
gine what I was thinking. I must have looked like some sort of musketeer out of a school play.”
She laughed at this image of the young Max, who she knew must have been as kind-hearted and earnest and well-intentioned as the current Max.
“Actually, I think I’d rather you didn’t know all this,” he said. “I would rather you always thought of me as being the suave, dashing hero of legend that you married, as having skipped right over the awkward, trying-out phases of adolescence.”
“I do, and I always will,” she assured him. “Anyway, what did Poppy have to say for herself?”
“She mostly talked about how butter suddenly wouldn’t melt in Jane’s mouth when she was around Colin on his return from Saudi. How she flattered him and ‘sucked up’ to him, even cooking for him, which she never had done before. Poppy implied rather than said outright she thought Jane was planning to poison him.”
“Oh, dear. It’s worse than I thought.”
“Exactly. We can put that last bit down to a bit of teen drama, I think, and too much time spent watching true crime shows on the telly. But something else she told me I tend to believe. And it makes everything a bit worse, and certainly more complicated, than we imagined.”
* * *
He came to look back on the conversation he’d had that day with Poppy as pivotal to solving the case. If he hadn’t needed to rush off for the noon service, she’d have had his fuller attention.
There were few people her age in the village, and fewer still who came to St. Edwold’s Church, so someone like Poppy was a bit beyond his usual experience. At least, that was the story he told himself at the time—he was simply out of his depth with a sixteen-year-old girl. He came to wish most of all that Awena with her level head had been there to ask the questions he never thought to ask Poppy that day.
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