Killer at the Cult

by Alison Golden

  “I thought that we should follow this angle up, but the Chief discounted it. ‘Bit of a hobby’ was how Ainslie put it.” Jim sniffed and pursed his lips. “I tried to get Sergeant Lawrence interested, but she too wasn’t concerned. What do you think, Reverend?”

  Annabelle continued to look around the room. On a dresser stood a mirror alongside a small box marked with Nazi symbols. Inside were seven ivory-handled razors all engraved for a day of the week. She took one out and opened it. She held it up to the light. It was shiny, bright, and sharp. The sunlight piercing the room from between the gap in the curtains caught the edge of the blade, blinding her momentarily. She shuddered and gently closed it before placing it back in the box and closing the lid.

  She turned to face Jim, finally giving him all her attention.

  “I think, Constable Raven, that I am very thirsty and that I should go and seek a cup of hot tea. I will go downstairs to the kitchen to see if I can find someone who will join me and over our tea, we can have a nice little chat about…things, if you get my drift.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I mean, Reverend,” Jim said puffing out his chest. He almost saluted, delighted to have his concerns validated. “But now we should leave, Reverend. It’s more than my job’s worth for you to be found here. Allow me.” He raised the caution tape again. Annabelle slipped back under and with a quick look around, Constable Raven did likewise and secured the room.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Annabelle looked up as she rose from bobbing under the caution tape, her eyes shifting to the end of the landing. She got the distinct impression that someone was there, ducking out of sight. She ran to the corner but saw nothing down the long corridor that led away from her.

  “Are you alright, Vicar? Would you like me to wait for you?” Jim Raven asked her, running up.

  “No Jim, you be on your way. I’ll get a lift into the village from someone or I’ll walk. I’ve no idea how long this will take. No need to make you wait. And it’ll be better if I’m on my own. I’ll be less conspicuous.”

  Jim looked at Annabelle, several inches taller than he, with her flowing cassock and dog collar, her brown, chin-length hair and bright, blue eyes that sparkled with intelligence. “I don’t think you could be inconspicuous if you tried, Reverend. Are you sure? If we’re right and there’s more to this murder than meets the eye, you could be sharing your tea with a killer!” He whispered his last few words.

  Annabelle waved his concerns away. “Nonsense, I’ll be fine. I can’t be putting people at ease with a uniformed bodyguard at my shoulder, can I? I’ll call you if I get stuck.”

  “Well, if you’re sure,” Jim said, concern flooding his face.

  “I’m sure, off you go.” Annabelle made her way back through the house into the courtyard. It was early afternoon, and the sun was just past its peak. She could feel the heat on her back as she walked over to the doors that led into the kitchen. Before she opened them, she peered through.

  Barnaby was hopping around the table, and behind him, Julia was at the sink filling the kettle. Annabelle knocked on the windowpane. Julia turned and waved her in. She seemed quite cheery.

  “Hello, Vicar. Would you like a cup of tea? I was just going to make one.”

  “I’d love one, Julia. Thank you. How are things with you? Have you recovered from last night?”

  “I was sorry to hear about Theo even though I wasn’t his biggest fan. The idea that he was murdered is terrible. I spent the morning sitting with the others. Suki and Sally are in a dreadful state. I sent them outside to pick berries to distract them, keep them busy. Sally’s father is in custody down at the police station, did you hear?”

  “I did. Seems plausible, but very sad for Sally. What do you think? Do you think it was he who was responsible? That he was the murderer?”

  “I don’t know, but he had good reason to be angry with Theo.”

  “How so?”

  Julia came over and put two mugs and a teapot on the table. She poured the tea. “We don’t do milk here, sorry. Do you take sugar?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Julia passed a mug over to Annabelle and took a sip of the scalding liquid in her own. Annabelle sipped her milk-less tea and tried not to wince.

  “Sally was in love with Theo,” Julia said.

  “Yes, she told me last night.”

  “She never said as much, not to us anyway, but you could tell from the way she looked at him. I’m pretty sure he played on it too. He didn’t reciprocate, but he led her on. Let her believe there might be a chance. Theo wasn’t a very nice person at times.”

  “And you think her father knew this? That Theo was leading her on?”

  “I suspect so. He was young once, wasn’t he? He probably recognized the signs. Sally’s infatuation made her vulnerable, and I think her father’s fears were very real and justified. Sally would have done whatever Theo wanted. She, of course, can’t see any of this. I tried to tell her, but you saw how she was with him. Completely infatuated, I tell you.”

  “Having your father show up unannounced and demand you return home with him is hardly the way to win the heart and mind of a grown woman. She was in a no-win situation.”

  Julia acknowledged Annabelle’s point over the rim of her mug. They heard the sounds of female voices float down the hall outside the kitchen. Suki and Sally talked in low voices before appearing at the door, both of them carrying a basket of fruit. Suki had strawberries, Sally a basket of gooseberries.

  “Hi Vicar,” Suki said, softly pressing her lips together.

  “Hello,” Annabelle said. “How are you today?” Both women looked exhausted, their youth and beauty hidden behind clouds of grief. Purple half-moons lay beneath their eyes, and their hair was disheveled. Sally’s eyes were red and swollen. Her nose, too.

  “Would you like some tea?” Julia asked them. “I can make you chamomile or peppermint. They will help.”

  Suki’s reply was negative, but Sally responded, “Mint would be lovely. Thanks, Julia.”

  Sally slumped in a chair at the table and put her hands to her face, sitting silently as Julia bustled around filling the kettle again and taking a teabag from a tin in a cupboard. Suki took the berries to the sink and started to wash them under a running tap. A heavy, brooding, sorrowful atmosphere emanated from them and hung over the room like a toxic mushroom cloud.

  Annabelle leaned over and rubbed Sally’s back, and beneath her hands, Sally’s face crumpled as she started to sob silently.

  “There, there,” Annabelle cooed. Julia brought over the tea and returned to the sink where Suki had abandoned the berries to go sit on the steps outside in the sun.

  “How am I going to go on without him?” Sally moaned.

  “You’ll find a way,” Annabelle said. “One always does, in time.”

  Sally reached over and pulled a tissue out of a box. She wiped her face and blew her nose.

  “He didn’t love me, you know. Theo. He said so. He was beautiful and charming and kind and loving. But he could be very cruel. He treated me as though I was some kind of irritant after I told him my feelings for him. Once, he…he actually pushed me! I couldn’t understand it. He was so nice at first. I thought there was the possibility of a future between us. But he just turned cold. Then, that scene with my dad.” Sally rolled her eyes and looked up at the ceiling. “Dad always was a hothead. He loves me but just doesn’t know when to stop. He’s always interfered in my life, telling me what to do, who to hang with. I have never seemed to be able to cut the ties completely. One of the reasons I joined the Brotherhood was to get away from his overbearing ways. But he just followed me, didn’t he?”

  Annabelle patted her arm. “Fathers sometimes take a long time to accept that their little girls are all grown up.”

  “It was certainly a struggle for my dad. And now look where that’s got him.”

  “Had he turned up here before?”

  “Last night was the first time, but he’s been harassing me and o
thers in the group for a few months now with letters and phone calls. He started soon after I joined. I hoped after we moved from up north, he’d leave me alone.” She looked wildly at Annabelle, fear in her eyes. “I should have done something! Stopped him somehow. Perhaps Theo would still be alive if I had. Oh, it’s all my fault!” She started to cry again.

  “Shush, shush, now,” Annabelle said. “Theo and your father were on a collision course, and nothing you did or said would have changed the outcome.”

  Sally sobbed a little longer, finally wiping her eyes as she took big, shuddering breaths. Julia handed her tea over, and she sipped loudly.

  “Why don’t you go to bed for a nap?” Julia said. “You look beside yourself.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Annabelle said. “You look all in. I think even if you go now, you’ll sleep all the way until morning.”

  Sally put the warm mug to her forehead and closed her eyes. “It does sound like a good idea.” Annabelle helped Sally up.

  When they got to her bedroom, Sally detached herself from Annabelle and walked over to run water into the sink in the corner of her room. She stared at herself in the mirror until steam began to rise. After soaking a washcloth, she held the hot towel to her red, puffy face, pressing it gently into her eye sockets.

  “Sally, did you ever go in Theo’s room?” Annabelle was sitting on Sally’s bed.

  Sally dragged the cloth down her face, wiping her cheeks as she looked at Annabelle’s reflection in the mirror above the sink. “No, he didn’t allow anyone in there. Not even Suki. He got sick once, and she tried to take him some soup. He screamed and yelled at her to get out. I think he threw something at her.”

  “You’re sure no one went in there?”

  “Hmm, I don’t think so… Perhaps his mother? I’m sure no one else.” She finished wiping her face and dried her hands.

  She sat on the bed next to Annabelle and bent to take off her shoes. When she straightened, she said, “You know, now I come to think about it, Theo could be a bully. He had some strange ways. Secretive.”

  “How so?”

  “He would go off for hours on end. He never told us where he went and would refuse to answer if we asked. And he really didn’t pull his weight in the Brotherhood.”

  “And you didn’t complain? There were no arguments?”

  “I think some were a little resentful.”

  “Who, Sally? Who was resentful?”

  “Well,” Sally hesitated. “Julia and Scott. They used to moan about him a bit, but I suppose after a while we just got used to it, to him.” She let out a long sigh. “I’m exhausted.”

  Annabelle helped Sally into bed and drew the curtains. “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  “Don’t joke, Reverend. There’s a very real possibility of bedbugs in a place like this.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Annabelle made her way back to the kitchen. As she walked down the hallway to the former servants’ quarters, she met Thomas going in the opposite direction. He stopped by the door. He was carrying a tripod and had a camera slung over his shoulder.

  “Hello, Thomas, how are you today? Headed out?”

  “H-hello Vicar. Yes, thought I’d get away for a b-bit. It’s like a graveyard in here. The policeman said we could go outside if we stay inside the grounds.”

  “Well, it’s a lovely day for it. Have you seen Margaret at all? I‘m wondering how she’s doing?”

  “I h–haven’t seen her today, but then I rarely see her, to be honest. She stays in her room most of the time. I wouldn’t expect t–today to be any different.”

  “She must have been close to Theo. Not every mother and adult son could live together like this.”

  “P–possibly, but they didn’t seem so particularly. I mean, she isn’t exactly the w–warm and fuzzy type, is she?”

  “But still, she has to be devastated. Her only son dead.” Thomas shifted, anxious to be away, but his face softened. “P–perhaps she’s holding it all in, Vicar?”

  “Perhaps. Well, have a good time on your shoot, Thomas.”

  “B-bye, Vicar.” Thomas pulled the round, black door knob toward him and went outside, strolling across the courtyard, gripping his tripod easily in one hand and holding his camera in the other.

  Annabelle followed the windowless passageway to the kitchen and found Julia still pottering about. She was rolling out pastry, her strong, veined arms working the dough with a heavy marble rolling pin.

  “How’s she doing?” Julia asked.

  “I think she’ll be better after a good sleep. What are you making?

  “Pie, chickpeas and veggies. I’m just going to freeze it though, no one feels much like eating. Would you like some tofu ice cream? I made some earlier. Should be just about ready.”

  Annabelle was pretty sure her efforts at being “good” were going to be secure for the length of time she stayed at this particular house. “Were you vegan before you came here?”

  “Oh yes! I became a vegetarian when I was a girl after I learned that my Sunday roast was formerly one of the gorgeous cows that lived in the field behind our house. I haven’t eaten meat since. I stopped eating anything that came from an animal when I was at uni, so it has been years now.” Julia gave Annabelle the determined look of one who has had to defend her choices many times. “I’ve seen how people treat animals. It is disgusting.”

  Julia carefully picked up the round of pastry with her rolling pin and draped it over the pie dish. She gently pushed the dough into the corners with her fingertips and then reached into a drawer to fish out a fork, pricking the pie base to prevent it from rising in the oven. “When I moved in with the Brotherhood, they still ate meat. I was horrified and made a commitment to veganism a condition of my joining them. Theo was game, and I soon converted the others. It helped that I did all the cooking.”

  “Who was in the Brotherhood when you joined?” Annabelle had reclaimed her mug of now-cold tea and cradled it between her hands as she sat at the table across from Julia.

  “Theo and a couple of blokes who have since left. It was just the two of us for a while.”

  “Did you get to know him well?”

  Julia paused pricking out her pastry crust and looked up. “Oh no. I know he was abroad for a bit. Asia, Australia, I think. And he went to university somewhere, but on the whole, he didn’t talk about himself much. After a few weeks of just me and him, Thomas arrived, then Sally, and finally, Scott. Of course, Suki and Margaret came along for the ride once we moved in here.”

  “So you’re the longest serving member now?”

  “I suppose I am.” Julia bent over to place the pie in the oven. In its day, the large kitchen would have contained a big iron range, but now there was only a small white freestanding stove that wobbled when Julia opened the door.

  She stood up, pink from the rush of heat that had escaped from the oven, and she wiped her hands on her apron. “Not that it means anything. We are a fluid community. People will come, people will go.”

  “What do you think will happen to the group now?”

  “I really couldn’t say. Theo was the key to having this house to live in, but I don’t know who owns it. An uncle, I think. Without Theo here to fight for us, we may be cast out on our ear.”

  “It isn’t Margaret’s house then?”

  “No. After her husband lost everything in the crash, I believe they went from being very well off to almost destitute. Serves them right, those sort. Then he died, and she really was up a creek without a paddle. There’s some rumors floating around that she has a wealthy brother, but he refused to help her, and she had to throw herself on Theo’s mercy. She was here as Theo’s guest. He extended the invitation for her to live here as a courtesy. What exactly Theo’s arrangement was with the owner, I can’t imagine.”

  “So what will you do? If you can’t stay here, I mean.”

  “Roll on, I guess. Something will work out. I don’t need very much, just somewhere to
lay my head, a small job, and Barnaby, of course. I can’t forget him. He goes everywhere with me.” Annabelle looked at the rabbit who had fetched up next to the warm teapot on the table and was dozing. Julia wiped her hands on a tea towel featuring the faded faces of a royal wedding couple. “Cooking in a vegan café might be fun. More tea, Vicar?”

  “No, thank you. I should be going. I’m glad to see you’re doing so well, and I hope Sally feels better after her sleep. I’ll come back in a couple of days and see how you’re all doing.” Annabelle opened the doors to the courtyard and squeezed past Suki who was still sitting on the steps.

  “Are you off, Reverend?”

  “Yes, I’m going to walk back to the village. It’s a lovely day, and it shouldn’t take me too long if I cut through Lolly Lane.”

  “I’ll walk with you a way. I could do with the exercise. It’s no fun being cooped up in the house, especially under the circumstances,” Suki pushed herself up, wearily.

  “Of course. How is your mother holding up?” They started to walk across the courtyard and out beyond an archway into the grounds.

  “I haven’t seen her today. She didn’t answer when I knocked on her door, but that isn’t unusual. She’s a funny old bird, my mother.”

  “She seemed shocked last night, understandably. She was very composed, but stunned, I thought.”

  “I think you’re being kind. She was distant and aloof. Worse. She’s jaded and cynical. She’s been like that since Dad died. Actually, she’s always been like it but more so since he passed away.”

  “Does she have any support? Any family to help her? Besides you?”

  “Nope. It’s just Mother and me now. All my grandparents are dead. Mum has a brother, but they don’t speak. There’s been lots of trouble in her family.

  “Will you stay here, do you think?”

  “I don’t know. My uncle inherited all my grandparents’ money and cut Mum out of his will, making Theo his beneficiary. He has no children of his own and is in a care home. This is his house. Theo persuaded him to let us use it. I’ve never met him, but Theo knew him well. Goodness knows what will happen now.”