The Vicarage Murder

by Faith Martin

  ‘Jag?’ Graham mused thoughtfully. He knew several people who drove Jaguars.

  ‘Yeah, a big blue one. One minute we was walking down the path, moaning about not being at the fair, and the next minute, this mouth-watering car comes cruising past us and disappears up the road.’ And she pointed vaguely towards the road behind her. ‘All right for some, ain’t it?’ she added with a sigh.

  Graham, however, was still looking up the road she’d indicated, a puzzled look on his face. The Marshes had a little house in the square, and the road Linsey indicated petered out onto a dirt track that led to nowhere except to Chandler’s Spinney. But why on earth would a car go up there?

  * * *

  Once he left the Marsh household, and still in blissful ignorance of the grim discovery that had just been made back at his vicarage, he drove instead to a town not too far away.

  Trisha Lancer answered the door quickly, unaware of how worn-down she looked.

  ‘Hello, Vicar. Thanks for coming,’ she said listlessly. She’d called him first thing that morning, asking him if he might call round, but such was her state of gloom she’d been half-expecting him to either put her off or simply not show up at all.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Graham said, successfully hiding how shocked he felt at her haggard appearance. ‘You know I’m always only a telephone call away.’

  He stepped inside, and followed her through to a neat and cosy lounge, done out in pale oranges and blues. He noticed, with a pang, that there was a large square dent in the carpet, probably where a cabinet had once stood. Were things so financially dire for the Lancers that they were reduced to selling off bits of furniture? Graham rather thought that they might be.

  Once he was settled comfortably in an armchair, he tentatively broached the subject they both knew he’d come to discuss.

  ‘I’ve had a chat with that therapist friend of mine I told you about,’ Graham began, and pulled out several leaflets issued by self-help groups from his pockets. ‘I was surprised how common this problem is,’ he continued gently. ‘Your husband isn’t alone in his addiction, I promise you.’ Trisha took a deep breath and reached for the leaflets.

  ‘He’s an insurance agent if I remember rightly?’ he asked conversationally.

  ‘Yes, Wilkins & White.’

  The name of the big insurance company rang a bell, but Graham couldn’t quite place it.

  ‘You have a nice place here,’ he said softly, looking around, and realized at once that it had been the wrong thing to say. Trisha shot him an agonized look and her lower lip began to wobble alarmingly.

  ‘Yes, if we can keep it,’ she said, her voice cracking.

  ‘Trisha,’ Graham said gently, leaning forwards and looking her levelly in the eye. ‘If you can persuade your husband to come to the six-a-side football and fête at Middleton Barrow tomorrow, I can arrange to be there too. I can start a conversation with him, apparently purely by chance, and—’

  But Trisha was already shaking her head.

  ‘It’s too late for all that now, Vicar,’ she said, and let the leaflets fall back onto the table. ‘And for these,’ she nodded down at them. ‘He wouldn’t listen to you, no matter who you are. Or what you said. He’s too far gone.’

  ‘I know sometimes it’s hard to—’ Graham began patiently, but Trisha once again shook her head.

  ‘No, Vicar,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ve found something else out. Something that makes it all so hopeless and so much worse.’ She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them again. ‘Would you come with me?’ she asked, her voice strangely calm now. ‘I need to show you something.’

  Getting up, she walked into the hall then up the stairs, her slow movements reminding Graham of someone who was sleepwalking. She had an air about her of hopeless fatalism that sent chills through him.

  Graham, without hesitation, followed her. She led him to what was obviously the main bedroom, where she ignored the unmade bed and took him straight to a big wardrobe. There she bent down, retrieved a shoebox, and put it on the bed. Then she lifted the lid.

  ‘Look,’ she said flatly. And Graham looked.

  * * *

  Monica glanced at her watch, wondered when her husband would be home, then decided she had time for a few hours’ sunbathing. She got a towel, some sun block and a raunchy paperback blockbuster that she’d have to hide double-quick if any of Graham’s fan club came a-calling, and headed for the garden on the far side from her flat.

  There seemed to be a lot of activity at the back of the house all of a sudden, but this bit of the garden was the least used, and it didn’t take her long to set herself up. With her skin gleaming from the oil, and her elbows dug contentedly into the grass as she read from her book, the rest of the morning looked set to idle along nicely. Until she became slowly aware of the sound of voices. They weren’t loud, or particularly intrusive, but once her ears had picked them up, she simply couldn’t tune them out again. Especially when one of the voices belonged to Jason Dury.

  She didn’t know it, but they’d just left Pauline’s flat to the SOCO team, and were waiting for reinforcements to come in order to start a whole new round of interviews. The residents of the vicarage were about to be put through the wringer once more. In the meantime, however, Jim had been too restless to sit and wait and had pounced with alacrity on a new report just in.

  ‘The lab report about the ashes has come back, sir.’ Jim, standing by the open window of the incident room, had no idea that he was being overheard.

  ‘Oh? Any help?’

  ‘Not on the button, sir. Could have come from anything — from a man’s pair of shorts or a woman’s blouse. But there was something else they picked up that’s interesting. It seems that our killer didn’t just burn his clothes. Look.’

  In the garden, Monica turned over on her towel and sighed.

  ‘Cassette tape,’ Jason said. ‘A bit low-tech, isn’t it?’

  ‘It certainly is,’ Jim confirmed. ‘What do you make of it?’

  ‘It’s got to be what the killer came for, Jim.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘We know that Margaret went into that room to meet someone. We know that she was blackmailing Maurice, and probably several others. We know that she’d paid a visit to her safety deposit box the previous day.’

  ‘So you think she took a cassette tape out?’

  ‘Why not? You can blackmail people with cassette tapes just as easily as with the written word or photographs. Perhaps she recorded someone’s private conversation?’

  ‘But what could have been on it that was so important that she was killed for it?’ Jim asked rhetorically.

  ‘I don’t know. Two people discussing a crooked financial deal perhaps? Something damning anyway. And, if a tape was used, it was probably done some years ago now. So she may have been blackmailing this particular victim for a long, long time.’

  Jim whistled.

  ‘That’s pretty cold-blooded stuff, sir,’ Jim said. ‘I wonder how many people she had her claws into? And how long she’d been making a living from it?’

  Monica gathered her things together, her peace shattered, and stepped into the central garden. So Margaret had been a blackmailer? Somehow, she wasn’t surprised. She looked up and saw a man in white overalls go into the house, and felt gooseflesh ripple up her arms. The last time she’d seen a man dressed like that had been on the day of the murder. A forensics officer. But she thought the SOCO team had finally finished with the building. What was another one doing coming back now? What were they hoping to find?

  Monica was so stunned she found herself staring into the darker interior of the house. The door to flat 2 opened, and she saw Jason come out. ‘Phelps. What have you got?’

  He glanced over the SOCO’s shoulder as he spoke and noticed Monica Noble, barefoot, lightly tanned and looking stunning in a modest one-piece peach swimming suit. In the sunlight, her hair gleamed, and her startled eyes met his in a clash of blue-on-blue that he could feel r
eaching right down to his toenails.

  Suddenly Monica blushed and quickly walked on. Jason listened as the SOCO officer told him that the police surgeon had arrived, and had given preliminary cause of death as being due to strangulation.

  He and Jim headed straight back to Pauline’s flat.

  * * *

  Back in her own flat, Monica headed for the shower, her mind churning over the latest bits of the puzzle. She knew that Julie and Sean had been taken in for questioning, but had no idea why. And what did a burnt bit of cassette tape actually mean? Was it really more of Margaret’s blackmail evidence, or could it be down to something else entirely?

  She didn’t know it, but as she stood under the spray, on the brink of a revelation, her husband was returning home with two very big pieces of the jigsaw puzzle in his possession.

  And once they put all the pieces together, they’d know exactly who had killed Margaret Franklyn. And how and why.

  CHAPTER 17

  Jason Dury knocked impatiently on the Nobles’ front door and was instantly confronted by a vision in high-heeled spikes and tight-fitting leather. Carol-Ann, on her way out, stepped obligingly to one side and gestured vaguely towards her stepfather’s study.

  ‘They’re in there, and I have to warn you, looking unbearably smug,’ she drawled disgustedly.

  Jason raised an eyebrow. ‘Does your mother know you’re dressed like that?’ he asked quizzically.

  ‘Not yet, but she will,’ Carol-Ann said ominously, and left, slamming the door behind her.

  Jason grinned and made his way to the study, where Graham and Monica were waiting for him.

  ‘You wanted to see me?’ Jason asked mildly, shutting the door behind him and sitting down in the large armchair that Graham ushered him to. ‘I have to tell you, I don’t have much time.’

  Since they obviously didn’t know yet about the second murder, Jason was not about to tell them. He looked at them curiously, wondering what could be so urgent. The married couple were sitting side by side on the sofa opposite him, holding hands tightly.

  ‘You two look very serious,’ he added. Monica glanced at Graham, then cleared her throat.

  ‘We think we know who killed Margaret,’ she said boldly.

  When Graham had returned just over an hour ago, and told her what he’d learned from Trisha Lancer, it had sparked off a brainstorming session between them that had left them both bewildered and totally out of their depth. But their conclusions seemed solid, no matter how hard they tried to pick their newly constructed theories apart. Consequently, they’d decided that the only thing they could do was to lay all their suppositions at Jason’s feet and hope he could tell them how daft they were. Or arrest a killer. Neither Graham nor Monica was quite sure which they hoped it would turn out to be.

  Jason blinked at her words. He looked neither amused nor angry, but merely watchful. At least he wasn’t laughing them off out of hand, Monica thought with relief. But she wondered what he, a professional, must think of amateurs trying to tell him his business.

  ‘Oh?’ He turned to Monica first. ‘Perhaps you can start by telling me who you think did it?’ he asked, his voice flat.

  ‘Paul Waring,’ she said. Then she took a deep breath at having said it out loud.

  ‘And why him, in particular?’ Jason asked, with genuine curiosity. Deep down, he didn’t think the Nobles could have solved the case. The vicar seemed almost too innocent to be able to understand such evil, let alone track down and solve the root cause of it. And as for Monica Noble — to Jason at least — she was the last woman in the world who should ever have to worry about such things.

  ‘Please, can I just tell it my way?’ Monica asked. ‘I’ll get confused if I don’t.’

  Jason smiled briefly and nodded. ‘Oh, by all means. But I should just like to point out that you yourself told me that Waring was standing right in front of you when the gun went off,’ he felt obliged to remind her.

  Monica nodded. ‘I know, I know.’ She waved a hand helplessly in her lap. ‘On the face of it, it sounds so absurd doesn’t it?’ Then she gave her husband a quick look, and turned her attention back once more to the policeman. ‘All right. Here’s how I think it happened,’ she said, beyond caring now how ridiculous she might sound.

  ‘I think Paul has been planning this murder for quite some time,’ she ventured. ‘And it all began with Paul helping Maurice Keating to get a flat here. And then, later, with him persuading Sean Franklyn that he should also buy a flat here.’

  Jason began to lean forwards in his chair, for the first time feeling truly hopeful that the Nobles might, at the very least, provide him with some useful information. Because this was something new. Although how it could possibly relate to Pauline’s killing was another matter. But first things first.

  ‘Go on,’ he encouraged.

  ‘You see, a man called Jim Lancer runs the estate agents’ office that was in charge of selling these flats,’ Monica explained. ‘And we’ve just learned that he’s also an avid, even obsessive member of Paul Waring’s gyms.’

  ‘Wait a minute, how do you know all this?’ Jason cut across ruthlessly.

  Graham cleared his throat, attracting Jason’s attention back to himself.

  ‘Several days ago, Mrs Lancer came to me to ask for my help. She told me that her husband was obsessed with bodybuilding, to the point where she was afraid they were going to lose the house, her husband was spending so much money on feeding his obsession. On exercise equipment, gym fees, and other . . . er . . . things,’ he trailed off, still not happy about telling this policeman confidences that should have remained between himself and his parishioner alone.

  ‘And I overheard Pauline talking to Paul,’ Monica quickly came to her husband’s rescue, ‘just after you’d taken Maurice away for questioning. John was with me, and he heard her too. Pauline said that she bet Paul was sorry now for helping Maurice get a flat here. And Paul was so angry with her! Until then, I had no idea that Paul was such a great friend of Maurice’s.’

  ‘No, neither did I,’ Jason said softly, his eyes glittering.

  So Pauline had been making waves even then, had she? But surely that wouldn’t have been enough for someone to feel threatened enough to kill her. Would it?

  ‘If you talk to Pauline,’ Monica carried on, still blissfully unaware of just how impossible that would be, ‘she’ll tell you all about it. And I bet if you ask Sean how he came to buy the flat here, he’ll tell you that it was Paul who put him on to it as well. And don’t forget, it was Sean’s insurance company that handled all the business on the flats. You know, covered the insurance for the building work, and so on. I think Paul was probably the one who tipped Sean Franklyn the wink that his company could be on to a good thing here. You see how it all ties in?’

  ‘Also, Chief Inspector,’ Graham said, ‘if you look into the sale of these flats, I suspect you’ll find that Jim Lancer gave both Maurice Keating and the Franklyns a far better deal than any of us others received.’

  ‘Either that,’ Monica chipped in, ‘or Paul put in some money of his own, to make up any deficit.’

  ‘And just why would he do that?’ Jason asked, thinking of Paul’s unnecessarily fiddly books. Was it possible that these two unlikely sleuths had actually stumbled onto something with real potential?

  ‘Because he needed both the Franklyns and Maurice Keating right here, where he could both keep an eye on them and set them up,’ Monica explained. ‘Maurice to take the fall for the murder, or at the very least to become a chief suspect, and Margaret to, well, be killed.’

  The room was strangely silent for a few seconds after that stark pronouncement. Then Jason slowly scratched his cheek, and looked from Graham to his wife, then back again to Graham.

  ‘And why did he want to kill Margaret?’ he asked softly.

  Graham looked down at his hands. ‘Because, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed, Chief Inspector, she was blackmailing him.’

  ‘About
what?’ Jason demanded.

  Monica shifted uneasily in her seat. This was the worst part.

  She knew Graham hated divulging Trisha Lancer’s confidences. But there was nothing else they could do. Besides, the shock of what he’d done — albeit unknowingly — might just be enough to shake Jim Lancer free from his obsession.

  ‘I went to see Mrs Lancer a few hours ago, Chief Inspector,’ Graham admitted softly. ‘And she showed me a stash of drugs she’d found in her husband’s wardrobe. Steroids, to be exact.’

  ‘Ah.’ Jason’s eyes narrowed. So, Waring was into supplying his clients with chemical help. And had probably been responsible for the death of a man several years ago — a crime for which another man had then been convicted. If so, that old case would have to be reopened and re-examined. Which would not go down well with the brass, Jason mused with an inner wince. Still, it had to be done. With grim satisfaction, he added, ‘Well, we’ll be able to get him for supplying steroids, provided Mr Lancer can be persuaded to testify. But we’re still a long way from proving a murder conviction.’

  Actually, two murder convictions, he reminded himself. He wasn’t, by any means, forgetting about Pauline Weeks.

  Monica nodded. ‘We don’t know very much about Maurice, I’ll admit,’ she said. ‘We’re guessing, though, that you found some kind of evidence that Margaret was blackmailing him too?’ Her voice rose at the end, making it a question, and Jason smiled grimly.

  ‘Let’s just suppose that for a moment,’ he said agreeably.

  Monica took a deep breath. ‘So, it goes like this. Margaret has something on both Maurice and Paul. Both are paying up, but Paul decides he’s had enough. He sees these flats for sale, and hits upon an idea. First he buys his own flat — and remember, he was the first one to do so. Then he helps Maurice get his. He knows Margaret is blackmailing him too.’ She quickly held up a hand as Jason was about to interrupt. ‘I know, that’s only guesswork. But it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Margaret let it slip that she had another victim on her hook, or maybe Paul even found evidence that she was getting money from somewhere else and tracked it back to Maurice. Whatever, he wants an obvious suspect right on hand. And Maurice, with his vanity and his liking for the good life, isn’t about to turn down one of the best flats going, and at such a reasonable price, is he?’