by Kate Charles
‘No, of course not. The police have closed the investigation. They’re quite satisfied that it was suicide.’
‘But why should he care? He scarcely knew her. Why is he so upset?’
‘God knows. David’s a funny chap. I stopped trying to understand what makes him tick a long time ago.’ He said the words lightly, but there was something in his voice that set off an alarm in her brain.
‘He was shouting something about . . . blackmail,’ she said slowly. ‘Won’t you tell me what it’s all about, Gabriel? I’m your wife. If you’re in any sort of trouble . . .’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he snapped. ‘You’re overwrought. He didn’t say anything of the kind. Why should I be blackmailed?’
Emily turned and left the room in a kind of daze. Why, indeed? She went back into the kitchen and gripped the counter edge, taking a deep breath. She knew her husband well enough to know quite clearly that he was not telling the truth. What was Gabriel hiding? Why was he lying to her? What was the terrible secret he felt he had to protect her from?
It was something that had started a long time before today, she was sure. David. How was he involved?
If Gabriel wouldn’t tell her, maybe David would. She had to know.
CHAPTER 25
Then thought I to understand this: but it was too hard for me,
Until I went into the sanctuary of God: then understood I the end of these men . . .
Psalm 73.15–16
The way Gabriel had said David’s name, just now; the look on his face . . . Emily thought of it again, as she walked across the road from the vicarage to the church. Suddenly her conscious mind apprehended, with an icy shock, something that her unconscious must surely have known or suspected for a very long time. Gabriel . . . and David.
She knew, somehow, that she would find David in the crypt chapel. He turned to her light step as she came down the stairs. Still trembling with anger, he tried to calm himself as he saw the haunted, strained look on Emily’s face.
‘David, can we take a walk in the park? I need to talk to you.’
‘Of course,’ was all he said.
They walked in silence for a long time as Emily tried to summon the courage to frame the question that must be asked. Her need to know was now greater than her overwhelming desire not to know. When they’d passed Peter Pan, Emily abruptly pulled him down on to a bench and looked searchingly into his face.
‘David, we’re friends, aren’t we?’
‘You know that we are.’
‘If I ask you a question – a difficult question – will you promise to answer it?’
A trickle of fear reached his heart. ‘If I possibly can.’
‘David . . . were you and Gabriel . . . lovers?’
He caught his breath sharply, but managed to maintain eye contact with her. ‘Don’t you think you ought to ask Gabriel that?’
She looked away suddenly, biting her lip. ‘You’ve just answered my question.’
He looked at her mute misery for a long moment. ‘Emily, I . . . that is, what do you want to know?’
Her voice was almost inaudible. ‘When? Where? For how long? Please, David. I have to know.’
‘Let’s walk,’ he suggested. She walked deliberately, head down and hands in her pockets. At her side, David matched his pace to hers and kept his eyes straight ahead.
After a moment he began. ‘It was in Brighton. He was the curate at St Dunstan’s, and I was a server. We got to know each other. We . . . fell in love.’ He sensed rather than saw her flinch. ‘I didn’t know what was happening at first. I was very innocent.’ He rushed on, thinking of Gabriel’s lack of innocence. ‘I was twenty-eight years old. Gabriel was a little younger. It lasted . . . for about three years. We were very discreet. No one else ever knew. It ended . . . when he came to London, to St Anne’s. I never saw him again.’
She touched his arm gently; he stopped and faced her. ‘I’m glad, if it had to be somebody . . . that it was you, David,’ she said awkwardly. He waited, hoping and praying that she wouldn’t ask him if he’d been the only one; he didn’t know how he would answer. Above all, he didn’t want to tell her about Peter Maitland. Misunderstanding his silence, a look of painful comprehension crossed her face. ‘You still love him, don’t you?’ she whispered.
‘I’ve never loved anyone else.’ It was said simply, without self-pity.
Her quick mind, stunned as it was, reached the next inevitable conclusion with a surge of sympathy for him, sympathy that showed on her face as she said softly, ‘How you must have hated me.’
He managed a smile. ‘For ten years. Silly, wasn’t it?’
‘Oh, David.’ They resumed walking, in silence.
Eventually they arrived back at the church, and went down to the chapel together. ‘What are you going to do now?’ David asked. ‘You really should talk to Gabriel.’
Emily couldn’t bear the thought of facing Gabriel now, while this knowledge was so new to her. ‘Not now,’ she said swiftly. ‘I need time . . . to think. To try to understand, to make sense of it all. I thought I knew him . . .’ Her voice broke. She hadn’t cried till now, but the realisation of her short-term dilemma was too much for her. She wept, and David, who was unused to women’s tears, held her gently, stroking her hair, reflecting bitterly on the irony of the situation.
When her tears were spent, she raised her eyes to him. ‘Will you help me?’ she appealed.
‘Anything that’s in my power,’ he promised.
‘I need to get away for a few days. I just can’t face him now.’ Her voice trembled again.
He understood her need to escape. ‘Where will you go? To your parents’?’
‘No, not there. I need to be alone, where I can think.’
‘What about the children?’
She bit her lip. ‘They’ll be fine with my parents for a few more days. I just can’t . . .’
‘No, of course not,’ he said, thinking quickly. ‘I could take you to a place I know – a community of Anglican sisters, just outside London. They’d look after you, and you wouldn’t have to talk to anyone.’
‘Oh, David, would you?’ She looked at him with gratitude.
‘Of course. I think that would be best. You can stay as long as you like, and when you’re ready . . . well, when you want to come back, I’ll come and get you.’
‘And you won’t tell Gabriel . . .’
‘Not if you don’t want me to.’ I don’t think I’ll have the chance, he added to himself. Not after the way we parted.
‘I must write him a note – so he won’t worry,’ she said. David found her a piece of paper, and she wrote, ‘Dear Gabriel, I have a lot of thinking to do, and am going away for a few days. Please ring my mother and ask her if she will keep the children for several days longer.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘Don’t worry about me, and don’t try to find me.’
Emily sat quietly beside him in the car. After a while David spoke. ‘How did you . . . I mean, what made you . . . why now?’
She smiled ironically. ‘After all these years, you mean? Yes, I must seem pretty stupid to you.’
‘I didn’t mean that.’
She thought for a moment, then explained, ‘I heard you shouting. I was concerned to hear the two of you rowing. So I asked Gabriel what it was all about. He wouldn’t tell me anything. It was nothing, really. Just something in the way he talked about you. Suddenly everything . . . well, it all made sense.’
‘And you never suspected anything before?’
‘Never. I was so naive when I met him. And from the very beginning, our relationship was so . . . so physical. I just never dreamed.’ It was David’s turn to flinch. ‘I suppose I didn’t want to know, really,’ she went on, clinically. ‘He was the first man I ever loved, and he told me I was the first woman he’d ever loved.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘I just didn’t ask the right questions. I wanted to believe it. It’s silly now, when I think about it. To imagine a man as . . . beautiful, as . . .
passionate as Gabriel, could reach the age of thirty . . . That he was waiting around for me, all that time . . .’ She sighed. ‘I wanted to believe it. That was my only excuse.’
‘Don’t blame yourself.’
She closed her eyes. ‘How very foolish you must think me.’
It seemed like something from another world, the rambling house set on the edge of rolling green hills. Emily felt enveloped by its tranquillity even before they were in the door. Perhaps it was just that shock was setting in, she realised; she was drained of emotion now, and just wanted to rest.
David was so kind. He took care of the technicalities: he spoke to the head of the community, who was apparently a long-time acquaintance, and arranged for an open-ended stay for her in one of the rooms set aside for retreatants. Emily sat by numbly while he did all the talking. Finally it was time for him to take his leave of her.
‘You’ll be all right here, Emily,’ he said awkwardly. ‘They’ll take care of you. And you can stay as long as you need to.’ She nodded. ‘When you’re ready to . . . come back, just ring me at Daphne’s and I’ll come for you.’
‘You won’t tell him?’
‘No, of course not.’ He took her hand; it was like ice. He squeezed it. ‘Listen, Emily. If there’s ever anything you need, anything I can do for you . . . you know where to find me. I’ll come in a minute if you need me.’
She looked up at him with gratitude. ‘I’ll be all right, David. Don’t worry about me. And – thank you. For everything.’
A sweet-faced nun came forward. ‘I’ll take you to your room now, Mrs Neville.’ Emily was silent as they passed down the corridor. ‘I’m Sister Mary Grace.’ She opened the door to a small, plainly furnished room. ‘If you ever need to talk to someone, just ask anyone to find me for you. Any time.’ With a sympathetic smile, she left Emily alone in the room.
Emily sat on the bed. That was all she wanted right now – to be alone.
CHAPTER 26
Who will rise up with me against the wicked: or who will take my part against the evil-doers?
Psalm 94.16
Having left Emily in the capable hands of the good sisters, David set off on the return journey into London. He very quickly became entangled in traffic, but his thoughts were in such turmoil that he scarcely noticed his lack of progress on the road.
He was more than ever determined to follow through on his threat to Gabriel to investigate Mavis’s murder. He hadn’t much liked the woman, but it went against his lawyer’s instincts to let a murderer go scot-free, just because the police were too incompetent to recognise a murder when they saw one. To be fair, he reasoned, it wasn’t entirely the police’s fault – they didn’t know about the blackmail. Damn Gabriel.
He felt an enormous need to talk to someone about it. It was clear that he could no longer talk to Gabriel, and even if Emily were available it would hardly be fair to burden her with it. Lucy? He considered the possibility carefully. He’d like to tell Lucy. She would be a good listener, and would probably be able to offer some helpful insights. But she was entirely too close to the situation. Her protective feelings for Emily would get in the way, and her dislike for Gabriel would predispose her to think the worst of him. And how could David explain to her his own place in the scheme of things? No, it would never do.
Daphne. That was the only possible answer. Daphne would listen, and not pass judgement. With her incisive understanding of people and her vast experience of crime novels, she could be of real help in puzzling things out. She knew all the people involved, and could probably shed some light on them in a concrete way. And he could trust Daphne. Of that he was sure. He could trust her completely with his innermost secrets. And he’d have to begin with his innermost secrets, or she’d never understand what was at stake.
Once that decision was made, he became impatient with the traffic. He wanted to talk to her now. He hoped she’d be home when he arrived.
He was in luck. She was in the kitchen, boiling the kettle for tea. ‘Just in time,’ she greeted him with a smile. ‘I wasn’t expecting you for tea.’
‘I suppose you’d think it was too early for something . . . stronger?’
‘Whatever you like,’ she agreed, switching off the kettle and reaching for the whisky. ‘Has it been that sort of day?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Do you want to tell me about it?’
‘I’d like nothing better,’ he confessed, leading the way to the sitting room.
Daphne made herself comfortable and looked at him over the tops of her glasses. ‘Fire away,’ she urged.
David sat awkwardly on the edge of his chair, twisting the glass in his hands. ‘I don’t know where to begin.’
‘The beginning is generally as good a place as any,’ Daphne suggested with an encouraging smile.
‘The beginning. Well.’ He took a gulp of whisky and tried to relax in the chair. ‘We’ve known each other a long time,’ he started, self-consciously. ‘Oh, hell, Daphne! I just don’t know how to tell you this. I’ve never told anyone before in my life.’
‘Told anyone what?’
‘Well, it’s just that . . . that is to say, there’s something about me that you don’t know. I don’t . . .’
‘Do you want me to make it easier for you?’ she drawled. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you’re gay?’
His body sagged in relief and amazement. ‘Daphne! How long have you known?’ he gasped.
‘Probably a lot longer than you have, if you must know. I always had a feeling you were . . . that way inclined.’
‘My God. And you never said a word.’
‘It was none of my business, was it?’ she said imperturbably. ‘The question is, why are you telling me this now?’
‘That’s another difficult thing to explain. It has to do with Gabriel.’
‘I thought it might.’
‘You know about . . . me and Gabriel?’ He stared at her.
She smiled calmly. ‘I guessed. As soon as I met Gabriel. There was something about the way he talked about you, and about the way you talked about him. It was obvious there’d been something between you. Obvious to me, anyway,’ she added quickly, to forestall alarm. ‘I don’t think anyone else has guessed. No one else around here knows you as well as I do. Anyway, I didn’t see you very often during those years you were in Brighton. I had a feeling you might have . . . met someone special.’
David felt limp. ‘I’m speechless. Daphne . . .’
‘Well, go on. What’s the problem?’
‘When you wrote and asked me to come, to see about the chapel . . .’
‘Yes.’
‘Gabriel wrote at the same time. He said he needed my help.’
‘I rather thought it might be something like that,’ she mused. ‘He came round here to see me one night, the night we decided to invite you to come and help with the chapel. I wondered what was up. He jumped at my suggestion so eagerly, and he was most anxious to conceal from the parish that you knew each other. So what was it all about? And does he know that you’re telling me now?’
‘No, he doesn’t. I’ll get to that. The day after I’d arrived, after early Mass, he showed me a letter he’d received. I suppose you’d call it a blackmail letter.’
Daphne raised her eyebrows. ‘Blackmail?’
‘Yes. It didn’t ask for money, but there were . . . certain demands. I can’t really tell you what it was about, but suffice to say that it was written by someone who’d found out . . . something . . . about Gabriel’s past. Nothing to do with me,’ he added quickly. ‘But he thought I might be able to help him find out who’d written the letter.’
‘And did you?’
‘I thought I had, a few days ago. But since then . . . well, I think it’s quite clear that it was Mavis Conwell.’
She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Certainly that would be right up her street, if the subject matter was what I think it was.’
‘Yes. When you said, last night, that blackmail was
a motive for murder – well, everything fell into place. I realised that she’d probably been killed by someone she had blackmailed.’
‘Surely you’re not suggesting that Gabriel . . .’
‘Good Lord, no!’ he denied too quickly. ‘That’s unthinkable, as well as being impossible – he was at the vicarage helping with teas when she was murdered.’
‘Then who . . .’
‘I believe that she was blackmailing someone else, as well as Gabriel.’
‘What do the police say?’
He sighed. ‘That’s the problem. The police believe she committed suicide! They’ve closed the case.’
‘But they don’t know about the blackmail, presumably?’
‘No. Gabriel didn’t tell them, naturally enough.’ David poured himself another drink. ‘This morning he and I . . . we had a terrific row.’ He closed his eyes for a moment at the memory. ‘I’m sure he believes that she was the blackmailer – he was so relieved, so cheerful. But he’s convinced himself that she wasn’t murdered.’
‘How does he reckon that?’
‘Well, apparently she’s been pinching money from the church.’
Daphne gave a low whistle. ‘Is that so?’
‘Yes. That’s mainly why the police think it was suicide. Remorse, fear of exposure, all that. And Gabriel’s buying it. At least he says so.’
‘And you think . . .’
‘That she was murdered. By another blackmail victim. After all, if she was blackmailing one person, why not more than one?’
‘Why don’t you go to the police?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ve thought about it. But it really would be damned awkward, without any evidence, now that they’ve closed the case.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I want to make a few discreet inquiries, like I was doing before, about the blackmail.’
‘To what end?’
‘I’d like to find out, if I can, who murdered Mavis Conwell. What I’m looking for is someone with a secret – a secret worth killing to protect. I’m not pretending it will be easy . . .’
‘It could be dangerous, David,’ she warned. ‘If this person has killed once . . .’
