Pagan Spring: A Mystery (A Max Tudor Novel)

by Malliet, G. M.

  Her fine clear eyes flashed, as she searched his face. “You don’t suspect Gabby! That’s too wild. What motive could she have?”

  “None that I know of. And until we know the motive in this case…”

  In her soft voice, Awena continued: “She is someone to confide in, Gabby. That is the quality she exudes. A good trait for a hairdresser. She might know quite a lot about what goes on around here that she isn’t telling.”

  “Do you know,” said Max, “I have never felt compelled to confide anything in my barber.”

  Awena smiled. “You just don’t understand. Women go to the hairdresser’s to focus just on themselves, even if just for an hour every few weeks or months. Men don’t need that sort of outlet.”

  “Yes, they do. It’s called a pub.”

  She smiled. “Okay. You win.”

  Max held her hand lightly in his own, then said, “You say Melinda seemed to be getting on?”

  “Yes,” replied Awena. “Too well, if you know what I mean. It is hard to imagine how those two ended up together, Thaddeus and Melinda.”

  “Isn’t it just.”

  “I mean, do you feel overall that Melinda has or has ever had a great interest in the theater? In playwriting?”

  “No. No, I shouldn’t have said so. The trappings of theater, perhaps. The clothing and the costumes and the opening nights.”

  “And the drama,” said Awena.

  “Perhaps a bit of that, as well.” Max paused, then said, “I keep wondering: Could Thaddeus have known something he wasn’t supposed to know? Is that why he was killed?”

  “It’s possible. By that criterion, half the village would be dead by now, though.”

  “True.”

  “Starting with Miss Pitchford.”

  “I’m afraid that’s also true,” said Max. “Thaddeus was ‘from away,’ so whatever anyone knows is probably from that time and place.” A sudden thought occurred to him. There had been a time he himself had posed as a barber, helping MI5 collect DNA from hair cuttings to ensure they were following the right man, a double agent.

  “Thaddeus had that glorious mane of hair,” said Max. “Hair that had never turned gray. Was he a customer at the shop?”

  Was he going off on complete tangents now? Max wondered. The image of Gabby collecting hair samples for MI5 was a nonstarter. But again, she might just be the perfect agent—the undetectable kind.

  “His hair never was allowed to turn gray, perhaps,” Awena said. “I’ve no idea if he was a customer. His hair color looked completely natural to me, but it can’t have been—can it?”

  “That goes with the actor’s territory, that sort of vanity,” said Max. “And with some politician’s. They rely on their looks. It’s only natural.”

  Still, Awena’s comment gave Max pause to think. Most crimes could be traced back to the victim’s disposition or character. Could Thaddeus’s vanity have been a factor contributing to his death? And what sort of motive was that? His vanity had been annoying, nothing more.… Unless over time it had become the sand in the oyster. Max’s thoughts kept coming back to Melinda, a woman living with such an irritant, day by day—and seeing a way out, in the shape of Farley.

  Awena looked around the snug little room, then said, “It’s so much quieter around the vicarage without Luther.”

  “I assume you mean the cat.”

  “The Bad Seed. Yes.”

  Luther, the church mouser, was back on the job after a temporary hiatus over the Christmas holidays. He was meant to be locked away in the vestry during services, but more often than not he was nowhere to be found when the time came for his incarceration. Max, glancing up toward the choir loft, would catch a glimpse of him through the railings, sitting quietly with his tail curled around his front paws, his green eyes following every movement of the service.

  “He shows no sign of wanting to return to the vicarage. Mercifully, for Thea’s sake. And mine.”

  “Ye-e-ess,” said Awena slowly. “Not entirely domesticated is Luther.”

  An hour had passed without either of them realizing it. Looking at her watch, Awena sat up and said, “I need to get to the shops—I’m out of fresh food after being gone a week. Also…” She hesitated. “Also, I thought I’d pick up what bits of information I can. I doubt anyone will be in the Cavalier for a while yet. They’re still under the dryer, most of them.”

  “Awena…” It was said with a warning note, the same sort of note he was used to hearing from Cotton, who both encouraged Max’s contributions to investigations and worried about the consequences for Max, in equal measure.

  “There are things the police will never hear,” she said with quiet assurance. “Trust me on this. If you want to find out what is going on—and you do want to find that out, don’t you?”

  “Not at such a cost—”

  “Then leave it to me. I am anxious to get home, though. I hope my herb garden wasn’t completely destroyed by rain.” She stood to go. He might not have spoken. At the door, she turned and said, “Whom do you suspect?”

  Max answered indirectly. It was a trait of his that, she knew, drove Cotton quite mad. Awena was more accepting that all would be revealed in time.

  “I suspect everyone,” Max said. “But I have a question for you: What do you know about poisonous plants that grow in this area? What’s locally available, in a poisoning sense?”

  “Well, foxglove, to name one. It’s a poison, of course, but it also has homeopathic uses: Digitalis can be a lifesaver, and it also can be deadly. That is true of many things, of course. The dosage is what makes the difference, and the way it’s administered.”

  “What about mushrooms?”

  “What comes to mind first is the death’s cap mushroom. I’ve seen it in Raven’s Wood quite often. There is no real homeopathic use for the death’s cap. Best not to go near it.”

  “I wasn’t planning to.” Max looked at his watch. The time change was still playing havoc with him.

  “Lucie is coming over in a minute,” he told Awena. “She wanted to talk about something. She seemed a bit upset.”

  “That’s not like Lucie. Ironic and detached, yes. Upset, no.” Awena paused. “I missed you, Max. Maybe you could come over tomorrow evening? I’ll have some groceries in and I’ll have caught up on the laundry and things by then. We can have a quiet evening in, with all the time in the world.”

  He kissed her. “All the time in the world sounds wonderful.”

  They left it that he would be at her house by eight the next evening. They stood apart at the vicarage door, saying their goodbyes and husbanding their body language on the chance they were being observed—a very good chance in a village as tightly woven as Nether Monkslip. Max leaned casually against the doorpost with arms crossed, watching her. Nothing could hide the contentment on his face from the most casual observer.

  Awena left, and he went inside to keep watch as she passed by the vicarage window. He felt his heart expand at the sight of her, although she’d just left his side, stepping smartly out with her basket swinging from her arm.

  CHAPTER 20

  All That Glitters

  A few minutes later Max again picked up his thriller, and once again put it down. Halfway through the telling, the author began to describe the torture and killing of innocents, and Max realized he’d never get through this particular book. He had, after all, had to live among maniacs, and had come to understand the twisted rationalizations that guided their choices. That reality had been enough for several lifetimes.

  Beyond that, he suspected he’d have trouble focusing on any sort of story right now, being in the midst of his own. Nether Monkslip seemed to be being tested at every turn lately. Why here? wondered Max. Of all the blameless, innocuous places on the planet, why Nether Monkslip?

  Mrs. Hooser knocked, opened the study door, and shouted through that Lucie Cuthbert was here to see him.

  And Lucie came in carrying a dripping umbrella. This could only mean Mrs. Hooser had
again repurposed the stand by the door. Sometimes she used it as a vase, sometimes to hold her mop and broom as she worked in the kitchen. Max, taking the umbrella from Lucie to set it near the hearth, looked out the window and saw it had started to rain. Umbrellas in bright primary colors bobbed everywhere he looked.

  “Have a seat, please, Lucie,” he said, waving to one of the leather chairs flanking the skirted sofa by the fireplace. “And tell me what this is about.”

  For a visit from Lucie Cuthbert was unprecedented. Lucie kept her own counsel and made her own decisions, as a rule. And as a rule, they were wise decisions.

  “Something happened. I don’t know what to do. I thought maybe you…”

  “Go on,” said Max. It must be important, for her to bring him into it. Just not important enough to go to DCI Cotton with.

  “It happened the night of the dinner party. As all of you were leaving, there was the usual fuss and confusion in the hallway over coats and umbrellas and things. So I almost didn’t notice, and the chances were against my noticing. And I think he knew that very well, the sneak.”

  Max waited. Lucie would tell the story in her own way. He didn’t need to ask who “he” was, either, although he supposed it might have been Dr. Bruce Winship who had aroused this little fit of passion.

  “It was Thaddeus, you see. Quick as a flash, he reached out his hand; all our backs were turned, and, well I’m almost certain, you see…”

  “Yes?”

  “He stole it.”

  An encouraging nod here.

  “He stole a vase.”

  “A vase?”

  “Yes, a little vase, big enough only for one bud. It is not a valuable vase, but it has sentimental value for me, as it belonged to my mother. I keep it—kept it—on top of the little table in the hallway. You may have noticed it there when you came in?”

  He hadn’t particularly noticed it. The little table she mentioned contained a hazardous collection of little breakables, most of them crystal or porcelain. His only reason for looking at it had been to avoid accidentally knocking into it.

  “You’re certain it was he?”

  She nodded, allowing herself a single dramatic gesture, waving her arms about to demonstrate her outrage. “But of course! As certain as I can be. He was the only one near enough. It couldn’t have been anyone else.”

  He considered what she had told him, and the word kleptomania emerged. Thaddeus was a kleptomaniac? Max turned the idea over in his mind. From what little he knew about the disorder, kleptomaniacs stole items they didn’t need or even want. Both valuable and useless things. It was an impulsive act; the thrill of stealing was what mattered.

  Max felt there was a stray bit of precious metal in what she had said and he struggled to glean what it was.

  Then he remembered Melinda’s telling him her earrings had been stolen. Did that fit into what Lucie was reporting, somehow—a little puzzle piece that not only matched the color of another piece but slotted in beside it? But—would a man steal earrings from his own wife? It didn’t fit any definition of kleptomania he had ever heard of, but he supposed it was possible.

  “And you’re wondering what to do,” said Max.

  Lucie nodded. “It’s awkward; you do see? Melinda has just lost her husband. I can’t think of a way to say that he stole something from me just before he died and ‘Can I have it back now, please?’ And now she’s talking about moving away. I’m afraid the vase might go with her. She won’t realize it’s stolen. You do see…”

  Max did. She didn’t know how to ask for it back from Melinda—and clearly she wanted Max to ask for her.

  But he was more taken by what she’d said about Melinda’s leaving.

  “Did she tell you herself she was leaving?”

  “Yes,” she said, nodding as she pushed back the glossy wave of hair that fell over one eye. “Well, it’s all over the Cut and Dried—and I did panic a bit when I heard. It meant that asking her couldn’t wait forever.”

  “Yes, I see,” said Max. “I’m not certain I could intervene right now. But I can assure you she will officially be dissuaded by DCI Cotton from going anywhere until this matter is cleared up. I shouldn’t worry too much in the meantime, if I were you. If there is any way to introduce the topic to her, I will.”

  Actually, knowing what he knew of Melinda’s blossoming relationship with Farley, he doubted she would be too cut up by news of her husband’s weakness for taking what didn’t belong to him. Odd as the whole conversation was, he wasn’t inclined to dismiss it out of hand. The problem was, it didn’t go much further toward explaining the motive for the crime. The last thing he would expect from Lucie would be that she’d kill someone over a minor theft such as this. There were dozens of motives that could lead to murder: lust, anger, envy. Even love could be a motive. But these were strong impulses, the unhealthiest of which often were the result of a long, festering process.

  Not long afterward, Lucie left the vicarage, looking more relieved and grateful than perhaps the situation warranted. A burden shared being a burden halved, thought Max. Clearly she felt the ball was now in his court.

  He was turning toward his desk when Mrs. Hooser, in her abrupt, aggrieved way, announced Bernadina Steed. Max always wondered at this tone she adopted; it wasn’t as if Mrs. Hooser were doing much of anything important, yet she treated each interruption as if she had just been on the verge of a major scientific breakthrough.

  Bernadina strode in, hand outstretched in the exuberant sort of greeting perfected by the successful estate agent. She wore designer jeans that defeated the original practical purpose of jeans, since they carried a famous logo that priced them in the three-figure range. She also wore the top half of a bright yellow suit over her open-necked shirt, the jacket boxy in style and with black piping and an inviting nubby texture. Even Max knew it was Chanel.

  “Hello, Father Max. I was just driving by and I saw Lucie leaving the vicarage. I worried…”

  “Yes?” prompted Max. “Worried about what?”

  “About something Lucie may have told you. Something she may have caught wind of. If so, I’d rather it came from me. I didn’t want you to get the wrong impression.”

  “Lucie isn’t really a gossip,” said Max. It was true: Lucie was generally too busy running her shop to be caught up in the village gossip stream.

  “I know. I meant … Lucie wouldn’t see it as gossip, you realize. To her, it’s just part of life. She is very, well, French, you know. They see these things differently. But in these circumstances … when there’s been a murder…”

  She sat very still, blushing but unbowed.

  “It’s best to come clean.” This had to be about her affair with Thaddeus. Max was grappling with whether to tell her he’d already heard all this from Cotton. Or would she be aware of that? Max’s involvement in anything that looked like a murder investigation in or around Nether Monkslip was getting to be common knowledge. Her coming here might all be part of an elaborate double bluff. It was precisely what an innocent person would do—as would a guilty person pretending innocence.

  In the end, after a bit of hemming and hawing, she admitted to the affair in a gush of reminiscence tinged with remorse.

  “It was over ages ago,” she told him. “I am not particularly proud of it, I must say. Particularly since he turned out to be the most frightful little creep: It was like he was kissing a mirror the whole time. But it seemed better to be open and aboveboard with DCI Cotton when I spoke with him.”

  Max, for his part, was having the strongest sense of déjà vu. Both Kayla Prince and Bernadina Steed. Who else? Thaddeus, despite his years, certainly got around.

  Max hoped it would prove to be no one else he knew, someone even more unlikely than Bernadina—for it was starting to look as if Thaddeus had had quite the checkered past, with women from all walks of life.

  She added, “Awena would say I was dishonoring my ancestors by my behavior. I have come to believe she is right about that.�
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  Max almost missed the import of what she was saying.

  “Awena knew about the affair?”

  “Yes, I confided in her. It worried me when he came to live here, you understand. I was afraid of the awkward meeting. You know the kind of thing. I needn’t have worried. He didn’t care anymore and nor did I. Melinda, if she guessed, certainly didn’t care.”

  Max was still struggling with the concept of Awena’s withholding this information from him, when surely she knew it was relevant to the investigation. Bernadina seemed to sense the problem.

  “It was women’s business, Max. Something told to Awena in confidence. She would never break a confidence, but she would encourage me to tell the truth. Which she did. Which I did—just now.”

  Max was slightly taken aback. It was the first sense he’d had of an Awena operating on her own, out of step with him.

  * * *

  Bernadina left soon afterward. Max remained in his seat, staring at the trainers on his feet, and thinking. This made two women who’d been involved in some manner of affair with Thaddeus. What were the chances there were more abandoned women in his past? Whoever did the abandoning, breakups were always painful and difficult, and no one’s idea of fun.

  Who would be likely to know more? Max wondered. He logged on to the Internet, with its agonizingly slow vicarage connection, did a search or two, and came up with the name of Thaddeus’s agent, and his phone number. A young woman, the agent’s secretary, came on the line on the third ring. Max invoked Cotton’s name and learned the name of the director with whom Thaddeus had most recently had dealings: one Henry Cork. No doubt DCI Cotton’s people had gotten there first, but one never knew.… People talking to the police often left things out—either from nervousness or out of an abundance of caution.

  So Max dialed the offices of Henry Cork, where he exchanged words with Cork’s answering machine. The machine assured him that its human checked messages from its mobile phone regularly and would get back to him shortly.