Death After Evensong

by Douglas Clark

  DEATH AFTER EVENSONG

  Douglas Clark

  © Douglas Clark 1969

  Douglas Clark has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1969 by Cassell & Company Ltd.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  For Patsy

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter One

  Big Ben struck eleven. Detective Sergeant Brant finished stowing the four murder bags. He leaned against the force of the north-east gale as he went the few steps to the driving seat. His oppo, Detective Sergeant Hill, sitting in the passenger seat, shivered as the door opened. He said: ‘For God’s sake start her up and switch the heater on.’ Brant did as he was told. He revved gently to get the warm air circulating and said: ‘Where’re we going?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue. But I do know my missus was upset when I phoned to tell her I’d likely be away for a day or two. If she hasn’t got me in bed with her in weather like this her beef gets chilled.’

  ‘And you get the cold shoulder! I know. But I’m more interested in how the Chief’s pulse is beating than in your old woman’s frozen limits.’

  Hill was sergeant to Detective Chief Inspector George Masters. There was a lot of loyalty between them. He didn’t want to say straight out that Masters had been making his life a little hell for weeks past. And in any case Brant knew it already. That’s why he’d mentioned the Chief’s blood pressure. So Hill said: ‘His temper’s not too bad. He’s got a new suit on. That usually makes him feel better.’

  ‘You should know.’

  Masters and Detective Inspector Green came out of the new Yard building together, not talking. They never talked much. Not to each other. There was no love lost. They felt too uncomfortable in each other’s presence to communicate either readily or unnecessarily. It was their misfortune—typical of the contrariness of life—always to be officially paired for murder enquiries. Green was cursing himself for not having put in the request for a transfer he’d been contemplating—and putting off—ever since he’d started to work with Masters. He was cursing Masters, too. For making him feel inferior and awkward. For being—in Green’s opinion—one of those officers who do more than their fair share of creeping to fiddle promotion above older and better coppers—such as Green himself.

  Masters towered above Green who, though well up to minimum height requirements, looked dumpy and squat beside him. Masters was thinking about Green. Thinking it was time the Inspector quickened his step to get to the car first. He guessed Green thought nobody had noticed this habit of his. But Masters had rumbled that Green was nervous in traffic: had a phobia about getting chopped from behind by an overtaking vehicle if he sat in the offside seat. So he made sure he always got the nearside. With a mental surge of cynical pleasure at being proved right, Masters watched Green forge ahead. He thought Green a fool. Not for being afraid—Masters could well understand and have sympathy with that—but because he hadn’t cottoned on that when Brant drove a police car nothing ever did overtake it.

  Masters took off his Crombie coat. He folded and carefully built it into a symbolic barrier between himself and Green on the bench seat. He said to Brant: ‘Take the A1 and make sure you’re near a decent pub at one o’clock.’ After that nobody said a word till they’d cleared Apex corner. Then, because the traffic was a little less frightening for him, Green asked: ‘Can we know where we’re going and what for? Or would that be telling?’

  Masters waited just long enough to let Green think he wasn’t going to get a reply and then said: ‘The Soke Division has asked for help. They’ve had a parson murdered. The vicar of Rooksby-le-Soken.’

  Surprisingly, Green said: ‘Like Becket? In his own church?’

  Masters thought Green sounded hopeful. Knew he would be. If anything, Green was a chapel-goer. He’d been brought up that way because his parents had once heard and ever thereafter believed that the established church was the Conservative Party at prayer. And the Greens were more than left inclined.

  Masters said: ‘In a schoolroom.’

  Hill had a road map open on his knees. ‘Where is this Rooksby something or other? I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘Neither had I until an hour ago. It’s in the middle of a peat bog, miles from anywhere . . .’

  ‘Got it. We’ve over a hundred miles to go. Just our luck to have to go north in February.’ His words jerked a mutual response. As if by consent they all peered through the misty windows at the cold greyness outside. The wind moaned as it whipped past the speeding car. Green wiped a clear patch with his sleeve, and without looking at Masters, said: ‘Anything else? Or is this a blind date?’

  ‘Very little. He was killed before midnight and not found until eight this morning.’

  ‘A bit quick in calling us in, weren’t they?’

  Masters said, trying to needle Green: ‘P’raps they were frightened of the Establishment—the Established Church.’

  He got his response. ‘Why have a bishop biting your ear if you can offload on to somebody else? I’ll bet they haven’t got as much as one suspect.’

  Masters said: ‘No suspect, no weapon, and no motive. All they know is he was shot. Nothing more. And I’ll bet that’s the reason for calling us in straight away.’

  ‘I can’t see it’s any excuse for dodging the job,’ Green said grumpily. ‘It should have been a challenge for them. No suspect? No idea is more like it! Real N.A.A.F.I. characters if you ask me.’

  Hill acted as straight man. ‘N.A.A.F.I. characters?’

  ‘No aim, ambition, and flog-all initiative.’ The petty triumph pleased Green. He turned to Masters. ‘How many characters in this Rooksby dump?’

  ‘According to the Gazetteer, just over two thousand.’

  ‘I knew it. They couldn’t find one suspect. We’ll have two thousand, not counting the big wide world outside.’

  Masters was getting bored with grumbles. He didn’t answer. He’d told them all he knew. He took the pipe from his breast pocket where it was wedged upright by a white silk handkerchief and filled it from a new, brassy tin of Warlock Flake. Irritably he brushed a few scattered fragments of tobacco from the trousers of the new suit—a dark Keith and Henderson cloth his tailor had said would be kind to the figure. Not that Masters had to worry about his figure. He was as lithe and fit as any man in his early thirties: no belly or incipient paunch. But he was built so physically big that sheer bulk dictated care. He’d appreciated this when, reluctantly playing Santa Claus at a Police Children’s Party, he found his great size frightening more than delighting the small guests.

  Masters dressed well. As a bachelor he could afford to spend more money on clothes than his colleagues. And there was no doubt in his own mind—or that of anybody at the Yard—that he was vain. Not only about clothes, but about his successes and resultant reputation. Even about his fine, slim hands that seemed as though they should have belonged to a man of infinitely sensitive, slender build—a virtuoso pianist or precision craftsman. Masters consciously cultivated vanity. As a way of flying a personal flag among a group of conformists. But, contrary to Hill’s earlier statement, he was not getting his usual pleasure from the slightly stiff, unworn feeling of the new suit. Masters was feeling peeved.

  It was a sensation that had been building up for nearly four months. Ever since he’d insisted on charging Joan Parker with manslaughter instead of murder. He’d known she’d be found not guilty of murder, and he’d want
ed a charge that would stick. Joan Parker had got three years, but because she was an above average good looker, the buzz was that Masters had protected her because he wanted her for himself. His colleagues appreciated this. But with a sexually invigorated understanding that manifested itself in mawkish pity. Pity because no policeman is allowed to have any form of relationship with a prisoner. And here—or so they thought—was Masters growing daily more bad-tempered from frustrated lust.

  They were wrong. It was the pity that was peeving Masters. He resented being treated like an idiot child. And he suspected Green of originating the rumours. But they were right in thinking he wanted Joan Parker. Wanted her as he had wanted no other woman in his life. But they hadn’t the mental penetration to see through the situation as it really was. He hadn’t wanted to spare Joan Parker. Just the reverse. He’d wanted to make sure, without the slightest doubt, that she paid for killing a man. He believed in punishment for crime as passionately as he wanted Joan Parker. But he couldn’t hammer his reasons home without baring his soul. Vanity wouldn’t let him do it: and Green was the last man on earth to fathom motives like this unaided. An iron ring of misunderstanding was being forged. Masters grew peeved. It was taken as a sign that he really had forced the hand of justice to favour a girl he fancied a tumble with. This image hurt his vanity. He grew more peeved. Rancour swelled like a malignant growth clutching at his guts.

  As the car headed into the screaming wind he sat silent and glowered. His attitude affected the others. Hill was thinking the atmosphere inside was as icy as outside. Brant drove with more than usual care, not daring to risk a single hairy moment with Masters in his present mood. Green was damning Joan Parker’s eyes. He guessed she must be haunting Masters day and night. He could visualize her by day—in a cell. He wondered what she would look like by night—out of prison. His imagination was not up to it. Joan Parker was not like any woman he’d ever known. A hell of a figure! So slim that he thought she would break in two if she tangled good and proper with a man the size of Masters.

  *

  Before three o’clock they were nearing Rooksby. Cutting across flat countryside unrelieved except where rows of windswept trees showed the courses of lodes, canals, dykes and drains. All running straight as arrows for miles. Sluggish, dull water, lapping a few inches below the tops of banks. Whipped by the wind into fan-shaped ripples. The earth as dark and heavy as treacle where it had been winter dug. Grass growing tuftily: red near the roots as grass on fitties always is. The dead remains of samphire and bobbly sea pinks standing up from smooth bare mud. A rare patch of early aconite or snowdrop showing up golden or livid in the gloom. Farm labourers’ cottages clinging in lonely pairs, stark, unlovely and seemingly as lifeless as the bare trees planted as windbreaks.

  Green said: ‘This place would drive anybody to murder.’

  Masters said nothing for a moment. Just as Green was beginning to think him an offensive big-head he said: ‘German doctors are investigating the effects of weather on the human psyche. They’ve established that more people suffer coronaries in hot weather than cold. More people get headaches in close, oppressive weather . . .’

  Green interrupted. ‘I could have told them that. And how wind affects people. Look how the Wogs are driven mad by khamseens.’

  Masters knocked his pipe out in the ashtray. ‘Suggesting that Englishmen may be driven to murdering parsons by cold nor’easters?’

  ‘Why not? They’re depressing, aren’t they?’

  ‘Parsons?’

  ‘Cold winds. And murderers are manic depressives—or some of them are.’

  The car bumped over a level crossing outside a deserted station. The sign said it was Rooksby-le-Soken Halt. Apart from the station house and a few tumbledown coalsheds there was no sign of habitation. They came to the outskirts of the village three-quarters of a mile on. First a couple of dozen new council houses, characterless in immature gardens: monuments to poor taste and bad siting. The road jinked to avoid them. Brant cursed all planners. ‘They couldn’t have straightened out this death trap while they were at it, could they?’

  Hill said: ‘And look what they’ve built just round the corner!’

  They went on slowly. Masters gazed across an asphalt playground at a new school. Through the boundary palings he saw single-storied, glass-walled classrooms strung out in great wings from a brick-built nucleus. Lights were burning, illuminating an end-on view of rows of children, listening to teachers, with their hands in the air, reading. He got the impression the kids were miserable. There seemed to be no vivacity in the fish tank. Probably the weather. And because it was nearly the end of a long day.

  ‘If the parson was knocked off in one of those showcases it must have been a public performance,’ Green said.

  ‘The footlights would be off on Sunday night.’

  There was a gap of two hundred yards before the start of the older part of Rooksby. Half-way along it, cornerwise on to the road, was a tall factory building. The brickwork had a whitish, dusty coating. The small, square windows showed dim, rounded patches of light as though snow had piled up inside the frames. Green said: ‘It’s a flour mill. The dust gets everywhere.’

  As they went past, a second side came into view: the front elevation. The sign showed Green had been near the mark: Rooks by Instant Potato. Green said—probably for the first time in his life—‘My mistake. Spud flour. My missus uses it for cottage pies.’

  Hill said: ‘Cottage? Or Shepherd’s?’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘One’s got slices of spud on top. The other’s got mash. I can never remember which.’

  The road narrowed between old buildings. Only the pavement on their left survived. There was no room for the other. The Road Narrows and Extreme Care signs had to be on overhead arms sticking out from the walls. No space for posts. Masters said: ‘Keep your eyes open for the station. It must be about here somewhere and it won’t have room outside for as much as a blue lamp.’

  So far they had passed no shops. There was just enough variety in the shape, size and age of the houses to give Rooksby its first hint of character. Then came near-disaster. A barrow—a modern seesaw of tubular alloy on pneumatic tyres—was the cause. The crossroads—a little lane hidden by high walls came in at right angles—was unexpected. So was the barrow. It shot out at a trot. A middle-aged man the motive power. Dressed in a shopkeeper’s coat of pale brown drill. His scrubby hair peaked at the top and his ears stood out like red jug handles. His load was a pyramid of multi-coloured buckets and bowls in plastic. Brant swore. The force of his foot on the brake lifted him from his seat. There was the bray of a ratchet as Hill dragged on the handbrake. The Vauxhall responded humpily. Its bows dipped to a stop less than a foot from the barrow.

  The man appeared to be unaffected. He backed his trolley and brought it and himself alongside Brant. He said: ‘You want to watch it, mate.’

  Brant, red and angry, said through his teeth: ‘You crossed without warning. I’m on the main road. I’ve got the right of way.’

  ‘Not in Rooksby you ain’t. People that live here have the right of way—always. Not outners.’

  Brant said: ‘Careful. Or I’ll have you for not being in proper control of that contraption.’

  The man cackled with laughter. ‘You’ll what? You just try it, mate. Go on. Try it. You’ll have another think coming.’

  Brant glanced round at Masters for instructions. Masters growled: ‘Drive on. And keep a look out for the police station.’

  The man neighed even louder, and edged the corner of his trolley across Brant’s offside front wheel. ‘Police station? What police station?’

  Green said: ‘Are you trying to say there are no police in Rooksby?’

  ‘Oh, aye. There’s two on ’em. But they haven’t got a police station. Only a front bedroom. And I wouldn’t go there if you know what’s good for you. They’re too busy with parson’s murder to do with outners. But if you do go, I’ll go as well.’ />
  ‘What for?’

  ‘To say how you came speeding through here and nearly killed me.’ He grinned in triumph. ‘They’ll believe me against all outners. They allus do. Speeding through here’s the only cases they get to show they’re earning their money.’

  Masters growled angrily. What he said was drowned in the hissing of heavy brakes and a blast on a horn behind them. Green jumped in his seat. The shopkeeper cupped his hand and shouted, shrill above the pounding of the heavy engine, to the driver of the ten-tonner: ‘Shan’t keep you more’n a sec, Ted. These outners was speeding through and nearly killed me. Just warning them.’ Ted was thick set and florid, and muffled against the cold. He leaned half out of his cab and roared: ‘Get the perishers out of the way, Perce. Quick! I’ve got to get to Barrett’s and back with a load before knocking off.’

  Perce did as he was told. Hastily. He pulled his trolley clear and said derisively: ‘Shove off! And don’t come by here again in a hurry.’ Ted honked behind. Masters grunted. Brant set the car in motion and Green said to Perce: ‘I’ll get you, loop lugs. See if I don’t.’

  The road widened out into a square. Brant pulled to the left. Ted accelerated past him to storm out of sight on the far side. Hill said: ‘This is it.’ Brant stopped level with a board where a notice warning about the dangers of the Colorado Beetle flapped in the wind. Masters got out and looked over the car roof at the two cement-rendered police houses. Semi-detached at the upper storey, with a broad tunnel between them at ground level. A face appeared momentarily at the window above the tunnel. A few seconds later a door half-way down the side of the tunnel opened and a plain-clothes man hurried out to them at a muscle-bound half-run. He introduced himself: ‘Nicholson. Detective Superintendent.’

  They trooped down the tunnel and up a flight of uncarpeted stairs with a rope balustrade. Nicholson said: ‘This is the office. Part of both houses, but belonging to neither, if you see what I mean.’