Souvenirs of Murder (17 page)

‘Business quiet then?' I asked.

‘Like a grave. But even if I was up to my eyes in sawdust Cindy wouldn't tolerate the bathroom door not closing. She says the dog shoves it open when she's on the throne and reveals her in all her glory.' He sniggered. ‘What can I do for you?'

‘Any vibes and gossip in the Ring o'Bells about the break-in at the church?'

‘Oh, that. A pile of old lumber got bashed around a bit. What's new?'

‘The rector had already been bashed around a bit.'

‘Well, perhaps he should live and let live.'

‘You condone that kind of thing then?' I said, hearing the sharpness of my tone.

‘No, look, I wasn't saying I did. And the man's getting on in years. But if people want to have a bit of fun dancing round bonfires and having a drink it's not up to him to stop them.'

‘Children too,' I murmured. ‘Watching chickens and people's pets being slaughtered. Is that part of life's rich pattern too?'

‘It's up to parents to control what their kids get up to.'

‘Do you have any children, Mr Macdonald?'

‘A couple of teenage lads by my previous marriage. They live with their mother in Bath.'

‘I understand that Melvyn Blanche wanted to take over from you as stage manager for the Hinton Littlemoor Players latest production.'

MacDonald was rummaging around in a stack of wood offcuts. ‘Well, the silly old sod wanted to take over everything, didn't he? I have to say I hadn't been too keen on doing it again this year but rather than see the whole thing go to hell I told Ann I'd do it.'

‘Everyone's glad this man's dead, aren't they?'

‘How could it be anyhow else? He was like having a plague in your midst – you never knew where he was going to strike next.'

‘D'you know where the key to the vestry's kept?'

He gave me an incredulous stare. ‘Hardly. Do I sound like a churchgoer?'

‘Is your partner?'

‘Not a chance. She doesn't do all this God stuff either.'

‘So it goes without saying that if the rector asks you to give him an estimate for replacing the damaged pulpit and altar rails you'll turn him down flat.'

‘That's business,' Macdonald replied coldly. He grabbed a chunk of wood and went over to a workbench where he switched on some kind of large overhead drill thus rendering further conversation impossible.

I turned to leave and as I did so noticed a small axe propped in one corner by the doors. It was old, the blade notched, the handle shiny with use, probably for firewood, and in one of the notches was a tiny chip of wood. Purely on impulse I bent swiftly, pulled it out and hurried away fully expecting him to have seen me and shout. But nothing happened.

At home, half an hour later, I looked at the piece of wood through a magnifying glass. There was not a lot to see although it was fairly obvious that the wood was old: it looked like oak, and a hint of shine on one surface suggested polish. I resolved to give it to James Carrick even though aware that by touching it I had contaminated possible evidence.
And
might be confusing his investigation into the break-in.

The phone rang and it was Michael Greenway.

‘I've tried to get hold of Patrick but his mobile appears to be switched off,' he said. ‘Is he with you?'

I told him that he was not, adding that he might be at a location where mobile reception was bad, fairly common in this part of Somerset.

‘Can you ask him to get in contact?' the SOCA man went on. ‘I really could do with him at this end and despite what he said I've a nasty feeling that he might go off and try and grab Hulton himself if I don't keep him right under my nose.'

I made no comment, mainly because I was not at all sure what Patrick did intend to do.

‘Is his father OK?' he went on to ask.

‘Thank you, he'll be all right,' I told him. ‘They're both out of the same pot.'

I tried Patrick's mobile but it seemed dead.

There was no choice but to return Elspeth's car as she needed it directly after lunch. Mark was recovering from his collywobbles so I left, promising Carrie that she could have the evening off to visit her mother. She was due at least a week's leave so I would either have to stay at home for the duration or get another nanny from an agency, which was not my first choice by any means.

I would just have to solve all the crimes then, I told myself grimly. ASAP.

In this somewhat bloody-minded mood I went back to the rectory, collected in passing a filled roll that Elspeth handed to me on my way out and prepared to walk home.

‘You can have John's car if you want it,' Elspeth called after me. ‘I've actually managed to persuade him to have the day off.'

This was an elderly Volvo estate. Elspeth hates driving it as it tends to be very difficult to get into reverse and is only kept as it is so useful for collecting items for jumble sales. I returned and gratefully accepted – the rain was torrential by this time – and then said, ‘Have the police sealed the church or can I have a look at the damage?'

‘Well, I think bits are still cordoned off but James did say we could have it back soon. It'll have to be reconsecrated, of course. D'you mind having a look on your own? I'm afraid I find it just too awful for words, especially after the murder.' She hastened to add, ‘But I'll come with you if you want me to.'

I assured her that I would be fine on my own, collected the key from John's study and then drove his car round to the front of the church, thus giving myself a shorter dash through the rain than walking the length of the graveyard from the gate in the rectory garden.

First impressions are vital but I found it impossible to remain detached as this was literally an assault on those I held dear. The huge and historic lock on the door had somehow been forced. I walked slowly down the main aisle. There was silence but for the rain pounding on the roof high above. Before me, the area around the altar was draped with incident tape, most of the rails around it reduced to matchwood. To the left of this the more substantial carved pulpit had also been savagely attacked, a good third of the structure lying in pieces at the bottom of the short flight of steps up to it. Chips of wood were everywhere and I picked up a small one and pocketed it to compare with the one I had found in the axe-blade.

The marble flooring between the choir stalls that faced each other on either side of the chancel had been spray-painted in bright red with a clumsy pentacle and there were other, presumably occult signs on the walls, some partly covering memorial tablets. Feathers were everywhere and, in a corner by the altar was a sad little blooded bundle, the remains of a chicken by the look of it. And, as John had said, most of the kneelers had been piled in a heap and some kind of alcoholic drink poured over them; I could smell it. Leaning over the tape I sniffed closer; brandy, probably. Had whoever it was hoped to set fire to them and because everything was damp, as most old churches are, they had failed to ignite?

Brandy? A rather expensive firelighter surely.

This was nothing to do with so-called black magic: it was criminal damage.

‘Yes, Patrick called in quite early this morning,' James Carrick said.

I had come face to face with him in the reception area, where he had been in receipt of some paperwork from the constable on duty at the desk. The DCI gave every impression of having been undertaking in-flight refuelling and about to jet off somewhere else.

‘And?' I prompted.

‘I had nothing useful to tell him: no clues at all really. As I expect you must realize, there are hundreds of fingerprints everywhere – it's a public building.'

He was all ready to go.

‘Are you the smallest bit interested in what I have to say on the subject?' I enquired bullishly.

He glanced at his watch. ‘Two minutes.'

In his office Carrick said, ‘I'm really sorry to be so brusque, Ingrid but I'm up to my ears in work.'

‘OK,' I said. ‘A precis then. First and foremost: I don't believe the latest incident in Hinton Littlemoor church is the work of self-styled satanists. It's vandalism with a purpose. Either as a direct attack on John Gillard for some personal reason, or because someone wants the job of making good the damage. The local woodcarver, Stewart MacDonald, has an empty order book and a handy axe with a chip of seasoned wood in a nick in the blade – which, incidentally, I've handled – and is, in my view, a suspect and the fact that he has a couple of teenage sons by a previous marriage who live with their mother in Bath probably has no connection at all with the two who roughed up the rector previously.'

Here I handed over a small evidence bag, which I had labelled, containing the piece of wood together with another holding the sliver I had picked up in the church.

‘But why would he get his sons to attack the rector?' Carrick asked.

‘He's of the view that what people and their children do is none of a clergyman's business. He might be a member of the sect, or whatever the hell it is.'

‘I rather thought that kind of thing was the whole point of a clergyman's business,' Carrick murmured. ‘D'you reckon this character might be involved in the Blanche murder?'

‘I understand the Wing Commander was trying to take over his job of stage-managing the local dramatic society's play.'

‘Yes, the play. That was mentioned a few times by those we questioned. Oh, and that hammer you found
was
the murder weapon, Blanche's DNA on crannies between the head and the helve. But someone must have quickly rinsed it off before chucking it in the shrubs of the rectory garden.' Carrick scribbled down a few notes on a pad and then looked up at me. ‘I didn't like the look of Patrick. The man's not got over being doped.'

‘He's under huge pressure. Greenway wants him in London but can't get hold of him and his phone appears to be switched off, which is odd. He's promised his father he'll find the people who damaged the church and attacked him.
And
promised Katie he'll clear his name over the London murders.'

‘D'you not know where he is?'

‘No. I rang home again just now and he's not there.'

‘Are you worried about him?'

‘I am rather.'

Carrick went to the door and yelled, ‘Lynn! Are you there?'

I heard running footsteps and a somewhat flustered Lynn Outhwaite, Carrick's sergeant, appeared in the doorway.

‘My apologies for shouting,' said the DCI, ‘I'll buy you lunch, but will you please take my place at this wretched Crime Solutions for the Twenty-First Century presentation at HQ this afternoon? I've gone down with the pox, anything catching, just use your imagination.'

‘Suspected,' I chipped in with. ‘That'll explain why he's perfectly all right tomorrow.'

Lynn – petite, dark-haired, brainy – eyed her boss narrowly. ‘A car and driver to take me there and bring me back?'

‘That's fine, he'll be waiting outside for me now.'

‘Lunch at The Moon and Sixpence?'

‘OK,' agreed Carrick after the briefest of pauses.

‘I thought you said you were interviewing a witness to a jewellery shop raid on the way back.'

Carrick snatched a file from his desk. ‘Mrs Martha Timmings, Flat 4, Landsdown Parade. I hope you like cats.'

‘Yes, I do actually,' Lynn replied and hurried away.

‘She's a great girl,' Carrick said, turning to me. ‘So where's this man of yours likely to be?'

‘I don't want you to clear your diary just because—' I began.

‘That's only the top layer. But I'm worried too now.'

‘He might merely have stopped for forty winks in a lay-by somewhere. We didn't get much sleep last night after the drive down from London.'

‘That doesn't explain why his phone's turned off. I suggest we cover the ground from here back to Hinton Littlemoor. Is he in the Range Rover?'

‘Yes, I've borrowed John's car.'

‘We'll go in that then.'

I rather thought that I would have seen our vehicle on the way in but did not argue, annoyed with myself for not having asked Patrick what he planned to do after talking to Carrick. I was fully expecting to find him comfortably ensconced in his mother's kitchen, having a late lunch.

‘I'll make a few calls before we set off,' I said when we were in the car park at the rear of the Manvers Street police station. ‘Otherwise I might be completely wasting your time.'

But Patrick was still not at home, at the rectory or answering his mobile, the latter being completely against our personal set of rules. I even contacted Greenway and he had not heard from him either.

Leaving suburban areas behind I drove at a steady pace while Carrick acted as lookout. It proved that there were no lay-bys until we dropped down into the dip before Dunkerton Hill. We stopped and spoke to an elderly couple eating sandwiches in their Ford and a lorry driver frowning at a Page 3 girl but neither had seen anyone answering Patrick's description.

‘So d'you reckon he's gone off on his own to get hold of Hulton?' Carrick asked as we got back in the car.

I had forgotten that James knew about this. ‘He did rather agree to stick by what Greenway wanted him to do,' was all I could say.

‘Try the rural route,' Carrick suggested.

This entailed going back the way we had come for a short distance and then turning right. The lanes here were narrow with sharp bends, wending through unkempt woodland at the bottom of a steep-sided valley but not that much of a tight squeeze to necessitate passing places. There was hardly any traffic so it was possible to drive slowly. One needed to: there were any number of little tracks, driveways and entrances to fields, some with the gates wide open. We stopped and investigated a few of these on foot but found nothing.