The Killer in the Choir

by Simon Brett

  To the acquisitive minds of Fethering, this was definitely a bad thing. But perhaps not such a bad thing for Bob Hinkley as it might have been for most people. Because Bob Hinkley was rumoured to have ‘a rich wife’. It was here that the contents of the Fethering gossip dossier became rather sketchy. Because nobody had actually met his rich wife.

  Since this largely invented person was not sharing the vicarage with her husband, the locals, once again going for the obvious explanation, deduced that there was ‘something wrong with the marriage’. The sages of the Crown & Anchor even speculated further that his wife wanted a divorce, but Bob wouldn’t entertain the idea because it didn’t fit his image as a man of the cloth, particularly one recently arrived in a new parish. Speculation in Fethering, as ever, had only a nodding acquaintance with the truth. When the village residents got better acquainted with the new vicar, no doubt his dossier would grow bigger and, hopefully, more accurate. They would even find out that he didn’t have a wife, rich or otherwise.

  ‘So,’ the droning encomium continued, ‘as our brother Leonard moves on from this world to a better one, it is with the comforting knowledge that he lived a fulfilling and useful life …’

  Carole’s cynicism struck again. How could Bob Hinkley possibly know that? How could anyone ever be sure what actually went on in another person’s life? From what she’d seen of Leonard Mallett, he gave the impression of being a complete bastard.

  She knew the All Saints church hall quite well. There were few rentable public spaces in Fethering, so it was impossible to live in the village for long without having to attend some function at the venue. And though it was regularly maintained by the local council, the space never felt welcoming. Each repainting of the interior favoured the same cream and pale green paint and, even when bunting was hung out for wedding receptions, or lametta for Christmas parties, the hall remained resolutely institutional. Appropriate, perhaps, for the wake after a funeral of someone you hadn’t known well, or particularly liked.

  It was not natural sociability that prompted Carole to go to the church hall. Her instinct would have been to head straight from All Saints back to her house, High Tor, but her curiosity proved stronger. There was something about the Mallett family set-up that intrigued her. Maybe it was just Heather’s glasses and longer hair, a suggestion that the invisible woman of Fethering was about to become more conspicuous.

  If that was happening, the process was clearly continuing at her husband’s wake. By the time Carole arrived in the hall, Heather was already quaffing champagne and laughing extravagantly in the centre of a group of her church choir cronies. Perhaps it was sheer relief at the end of the ceremony, or a complex reaction to the grief of bereavement, but Heather Mallett seemed to have slipped very easily into Merry Widow mode.

  One of the group Carole recognized was the church organist, who had so vigorously played and sung throughout the ceremony. On the authority of Fethering gossip, Jonny Virgo had relatively recently retired as Head of Music at some local school, where he had, as throughout his own education and subsequent career, suffered many jokes at the expense of his surname. He lived with his mother, now well into her nineties, in one of the old fishermen’s cottages down near Fethering Yacht Club. Whenever this fact was mentioned by Fethering gossips, it was done with a raised eyebrow, an implicit comment on his likely sexuality. But Jonny Virgo was believed never to have had a partner, of any gender. Nor had any scandal ever attached to his name.

  Carole noticed that he stood rather awkwardly, as though he were in pain, on the fringe of Heather Mallett’s entourage. He wore a dull brown suit, and at the neck of his white shirt a cravat of a maroon paisley design, a slightly dated gesture to leisurewear. But the choirmaster seemed very much part of the communal jollity. Carole felt the instinctive recoil she did from any kind of hearty group dynamic. She never felt relaxed in the company of more than one person – and very rarely even then.

  There hadn’t been anyone with filled glasses on trays to greet the guests arriving from the church, and Carole didn’t yet want to join the throng at the drinks table over by the serving hatch to the kitchen. She really felt like a glass of wine, but knew she’d probably end up with a cup of coffee. It wasn’t even twelve o’clock yet. She didn’t want to get a reputation. And reputations were easily acquired in Fethering.

  Carole checked out the crowd for other familiar faces. It was a local routine that she knew well. All that was needed at an occasion like this was one person with whom you had previously exchanged dialogue. Although everyone in the village knew to the last detail exactly who everyone else in the village was, to introduce yourself directly was not considered good form. The correct procedure was to start talking to someone you’d talked to before, in the hope that they would then introduce you to people you hadn’t talked to before. And then, at the next awkward village event, you would have a wider acquaintance with whom you could initiate conversation. And so, in theory, your social circle expanded.

  Carole looked round desperately for any fellow members of the Preservation of Fethering’s Seafront committee, apart from Ruskin Dewitt, who had looked straight through her, as if they’d never met before. She couldn’t see any others. Maybe they all felt that they’d done their bit by turning up at the church, and that attending the wake too was beyond the call of duty.

  Rather than standing there, exposed as someone who didn’t know anybody, Carole was about to slip away back to High Tor when she was greeted by a bonhomous cry of, ‘Hello. Bloody good service, wasn’t it?’

  The voice came from the tall young man, dressed in a pin-striped suit and wearing an appropriate black tie, who had accompanied Alice Mallett in the church. He had the red face of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors, and the figure of a fit young man who was just starting to go to fat.

  Carole was faced by another social dilemma. She was sure she knew who the speaker was, but she hadn’t been properly introduced and only had Fethering gossip as her guide. ‘Yes, very good service,’ she said clumsily. ‘I’m sorry? Do we know each other?’

  ‘No, but since I know hardly anyone here, I thought I should jolly well take the initiative.’

  ‘Very good idea.’ There was a silence. ‘I’m sorry. I still don’t know who you are.’

  ‘Ah. Right. Roddy Skelton.’

  ‘Oh.’ But still Fethering etiquette did not allow her to say, ‘You’re Alice Mallett’s fiancé.’

  Fortunately, he supplied the deficiency by saying, ‘I’m Alice Mallett’s fiancé. Had her old man waited a bit longer before he kicked the bucket, I’d be able to say I was his son-in-law.’

  ‘Ah yes. Well, nice to meet you. I’m Carole Seddon.’

  ‘Old friend of the family?’

  ‘Hardly. That is to say, I met your father-in – your prospective father-in-law – through a committee he set up.’

  ‘Ah.’ After the initial burst, the conversation seemed to have become becalmed.

  ‘About the Preservation of Fethering’s Seafront,’ Carole volunteered.

  ‘Oh yes, good stuff. All have a responsibility for the countryside, don’t we?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Mustn’t forget it.’ Then he said randomly, as people always did in this kind of conversation, ‘Global warming, eh?’

  ‘So …’ Carole picked up after a long pause, ‘when are you and Alice actually getting married?’

  ‘Seventeenth of May.’

  ‘Ah. Here?’

  ‘Yes. Traditional stuff. We’re both locals, well, we were. Alice, of course, hoped her old man would be able to walk her up the aisle, but … well, there you go …’

  ‘Mm.’

  The next silence that threatened was interrupted by the approach of Roddy’s fiancée. Alice Mallett was holding a flute into which she was pouring from a bottle of champagne. ‘Hello,’ she said in a voice that suggested she’d downed an unfeasible number of drinks since the wake started or, more likely, had got some in before the ceremo
ny.

  ‘Steady on, old thing,’ said Roddy, indicating the glass. ‘You’re meant to be one of the hostesses here, you know. Pouring drinks and things.’

  ‘I am pouring drinks.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re meant to be pouring drinks for other people, not just yourself.’ He guffawed, somewhat unnaturally, trying to sound as if he was making a joke. But the look he gave his fiancée suggested genuine concern.

  Alice Mallett stared at their empty hands. ‘You haven’t got glasses. I can’t pour for you if you haven’t got glasses.’

  ‘But maybe you could—’

  ‘Shut up, Roddy! I’m being more of a bloody hostess than she is.’ She jutted a contemptuous shoulder towards her stepmother.

  ‘Now come on, sweetie,’ said Roddy in a conciliatory tone which Carole felt might get used a lot in the course of his upcoming marriage, ‘today’s about your old man, not about Heather.’

  ‘Is it?’ demanded his fiancée combatively. She turned suddenly to Carole. ‘Do you like her?’

  ‘Sorry? Who?’ She knew the answer, was merely playing for time.

  ‘Her. Heather. My stepmother.’

  ‘I’ve never really met her properly.’

  ‘Very sensible. Keep it that way, if you’ve got any sense.’

  ‘Oh?’ Carole was bemused by this sudden aggression.

  ‘Well, I’ve met her properly,’ Alice continued. ‘I’ve spent much longer with her than I would ever wish to have done. And I don’t like her.’

  ‘No, I rather got that impression,’ said Carole.

  ‘As a general rule,’ came the acid response, ‘people don’t tend to like the woman who’s killed their father.’

  TWO

  Carole left the wake without having a drink, either coffee or champagne. After making her astonishing statement, the bereaved – and very drunk – stepdaughter had moved away, with her fiancé fussing at her side, trying to get her to behave more appropriately. Carole had another quick look around to see if there was anyone she wanted to talk to, and finding with no great surprise that there wasn’t, slipped unobtrusively out of the hall and returned to High Tor.

  As she entered the kitchen, her Labrador Gulliver looked up from his station in front of the Aga. His expression was, as ever, hopeful, though he knew he had already had his morning outing on Fethering Beach, and no other walks would be on offer until early evening.

  Carole was in a dilemma. She desperately wanted to share what Alice Mallett had said with her neighbour, Jude, but she never went the easy way around any social interaction. Had she lived in the North of England – or indeed had she been a less uptight Southerner – she would have gone straight next door to Woodside Cottage to see if her friend was in. But Carole, being Carole, phoned instead.

  Jude was in. ‘How did the funeral go?’ she asked.

  ‘Very interesting.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’d love to talk to you about it.’

  ‘Talk away. I am in listening mode.’

  ‘Well, I wondered if we could meet …?’

  Jude couldn’t entirely keep a giggle out of her voice as she said, ‘Given our proximity, I’d say that was quite possible.’

  ‘Yes. Well … you wouldn’t fancy joining me for lunch at the Crown & Anchor, would you?’ This was unusual. It was rare for Carole to suggest a pub visit in the middle of the day.

  Jude’s response was unusual too. She said, ‘No.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Sorry, I’ve got a client booked in at two.’

  ‘Ah.’ The monosyllable managed to convey all of Carole’s reservations about her neighbour’s work as a healer.

  ‘Trouble is, it seems a bit pointless going to the pub and not having a drink, but I do need my concentration to be …’

  ‘Of course. Well, how about you coming round here? I could assemble a salad …’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Jude, when Carole had finished her report on the wake. She pushed aside her empty plate and shook her bird’s nest of blonde hair. ‘Emotions tend to run high at that kind of occasion.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And if, as you say, there was already a legacy of bad blood between stepdaughter and stepmother …’

  ‘So Fethering gossip has it.’

  ‘Never underestimate Fethering gossip, Carole. It’s almost always hopelessly wrong on detail, but it often gets the main outlines right.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The daughter … Alice did you say?’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘She doesn’t live down here?’

  ‘No. London, I think.’

  ‘I’ve never met her. Nor the mother … Heather … I don’t think I’d even recognize her.’

  ‘She’s very rarely seen around the village.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Just church on Sundays and church choir rehearsals on Fridays.’

  ‘Ah. Where do they – well, where does she – live?’

  ‘Shorelands Estate.’

  ‘Say no more. That lot are always a bit up themselves, aren’t they?’

  It was true. Shorelands was one of those private estates, not quite gated, but with controlled access. The houses were overlarge, trumpeting their owners’ wealth, and each one built in a different architectural style. The Shorelands Estate was the kind of place where there were regulations about which days you could put your washing out. And where you could walk your dogs. And when you could mow your lawns.

  ‘Of course, “killing” …’ Carole began.

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Well, I was just going to say … “killing” could mean a lot of things.’

  ‘As in Heather Mallett’s having “killed” her husband?’

  ‘Exactly. From an aggrieved – and bereaved – stepdaughter … it could be kind of metaphorical.’

  ‘“You killed my father by making his life a misery” … that kind of thing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘“You killed my father by feeding him lots of fatty food” … or by “stopping him from going to the doctor when he felt ill” …?’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘Infinite possibilities.’

  ‘It could also, of course mean …’ began Carole cautiously, ‘that Alice was actually accusing Heather of murdering her stepfather …?’

  Jude grinned wryly. ‘I wondered how long it would take you to get there.’

  ‘Well, it’s possible.’

  ‘Undoubtedly. Unlikely, but possible. And do we know how Leonard Mallett was supposed to have died?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because information about that might help us to establish the viability of the murder hypothesis.’

  ‘Yes.’ Carole looked at her neighbour suspiciously. Lacking a robust sense of humour, she was never quite sure when she was being sent up.

  ‘Well, Carole,’ said Jude with a grin, ‘if you hear any more about the murder of Leonard Mallett, you will keep me up to speed about it, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course. And you’ll do the same?’

  ‘I will share every last piece of incriminating evidence with you,’ promised Jude. She looked at her watch. It had a large round face and was tied to her wrist with a kind of ribbon. This idiosyncrasy always irked Carole. She thought watches ought to be discreetly small, with proper straps. ‘Better be going,’ said Jude. ‘As I said, client coming at two.’

  ‘Oh yes. Of course,’ said Carole, her scepticism once again evident about the whole business of healing.

  It was not the first time Jude had treated Jonny Virgo. She hadn’t mentioned the name of her two o’clock booking to her neighbour. She had strict rules about client confidentiality.

  She knew about Jonny’s past career as Head of Music at a school called Ravenhall, but he’d never before mentioned that he played the organ at All Saints. As soon as he said he’d just come from post-funeral drinks, though, she made the connection.

  ‘I went to the Seaview Café to get some lunch,’ he confided. ‘There were o
nly nibbles in the church hall after the ceremony. And, you know, I have to have regular meals. Because of my blood sugar.’

  Jonny Virgo’s ‘blood sugar’ was a much-discussed topic. From an early age, his mother had made him aware of the importance of keeping up the right level of blood sugar in his body, and from this he had developed a paranoia about the dangers of missing meals. He had a good few other paranoias about his health, mostly related to digestion. The easy diagnosis of Jonny Virgo’s condition would be hypochondria.

  But Jude looked deeper than that. She knew, from what he had said to her, that Jonny had tried all kinds of conventional medicines and alternative therapies for his many ailments before he had approached her. She found him a challenge, and one that she wanted to prove equal to. Yes, a lot of the symptoms he described were psychosomatic, but there was some genuine malaise at the centre of it all. Jude did not believe in separating physical and mental illness. She knew how inextricably intertwined they were, and her aim was always to heal the whole person.

  The one unarguably genuine ailment that Jonny Virgo suffered from was a bad back. Her practice had taught Jude that a lot of bad backs were more in the head than in the muscles, but Jonny’s was the real thing. It had been caused, he admitted, by a lifetime of piano playing, both practising by himself and teaching. All those long hours of sitting on a stool with no back support had taken their toll. Jude could tell from the tightness of his muscles, particularly in the lower back area, how much concentration he put into his work at the keyboard, channelling the works of the world’s great composers. She knew that the only prospect of a cure for his pain was for him to give up playing, but she also knew that that was the one solution she could not suggest. Playing the piano was what defined Jonny Virgo to himself. It was not only the work that had always been at the centre of his life; it was also his favoured means of release. Playing piano relaxed him.

  And he needed some form of relaxation. Jude had gathered, in previous sessions, that caring for his elderly mother was very stressful. Though he didn’t mention the word, the old lady was clearly on the slide towards dementia. ‘She can’t remember what she said two minutes ago, but she still loves hearing me play the piano,’ he kept saying. ‘She says hearing me play makes her very peaceful. I can’t stop playing because of Mother, apart from anything else. It wouldn’t be fair on her.’