A Dead Man Out of Mind (35 page)

‘That's not really an alibi, if you think about it. We know where he
wasn't
, but that doesn't mean that we know where he
was
. If you understand me.'

‘You mean that he could have been in his car, waiting for her to ride past?'

‘Well,' David thought aloud, ‘after all, he had asked her to take the service. He must have known what a kerfuffle it would cause.'

‘He might have done it on purpose,' Lucy concluded slowly, touching her new cameo in an absent gesture. ‘Asked her to take the service, knowing that there would be a row. And then waited for her to ride past. But why? Why would he want to kill Rachel?'

‘The same reason that anyone else would, I reckon. What if she'd found out something about him that was a threat to him in some way?'

‘But I thought that Father Keble Smythe led a blameless life. That's what Dolly says, anyway.'

Something niggled at the corner of David's mind. ‘I'm not so sure. I've heard hints that he may not be all that he seems. I wish I could remember.'

‘Or maybe she found out somehow that he'd killed Father Julian,' Lucy suggested. ‘That would be reason enough, I'd think.'

The taxi pulled up in front of the vicarage. ‘Here you are, mate,' said the driver.

David paid him. ‘I hope he's in,' he remarked as they marched up to the door.

Mrs Goode answered; she recognised David from his first visit, though to her chagrin she couldn't remember his name, and Lucy looked vaguely familiar to her as well. She looked back and forth between them, hoping for some clue.

‘Hello, Mrs Goode,' David said smilingly, thereby endearing himself. ‘I don't expect you to remember me, but I'm David Middleton-Brown. This is Miss Kingsley. I wondered if we might have a word with Father Keble Smythe.'

She returned his smile. ‘Is Father expecting you?'

‘No, but we'd be most awfully grateful if you could persuade him to spare us a few minutes. It's important.'

‘I'll see what I can do,' she promised, and withdrew in the direction of the Vicar's study, chuckling to herself. How romantic, she thought. They've just decided to get married, and they can't wait to talk to Father to set the date. What a lovely couple they make.

Mrs Goode returned more speedily than Mr Atkins had managed. ‘Father is very busy,' she said, ‘but I've persuaded him to see you.' She gave them a conspiratorial wink. ‘I told him it was important.'

Father Keble Smythe was seated at his desk; he rose as they entered. ‘Do come in,' he said courteously.

Lucy looked around with interest; it was her first visit to the Vicar's study. In a glance she took in the discreetly expensive furniture, the thick carpet, the silver-framed photo of the famed Miss Morag McKenzie.

‘I apologise for the intrusion, Father,' David began, ‘but it really is rather important.'

‘So Mrs Goode said.' He gave them a genial smile. ‘How much did you have to bribe her?' A modest chuckle at his own wit, then, ‘Please, do sit down.'

David remained standing and wasted no time with preliminary chit-chat. ‘I've located your stolen chalice,' he announced, watching carefully for the other man's response.

‘My dear chap! How very splendid of you!' It was either genuine, or the man was a very good actor indeed. But Lucy remembered his star performance at Rachel's funeral, and determined to keep an open mind on the matter. ‘But where is it? How did you find it? And when can we have it back?'

‘At the moment,' said David, ‘it's in Christie's sale room. But I expect you know that.'

The Vicar looked puzzled. ‘I don't know what you mean. This is the first I've heard of it.'

‘Or perhaps you thought that it was still in Mr Atkins's shop in Kensington Church Street.'

‘What are you talking about?' The puzzlement was beginning to transmute into annoyance.

The room was still. For a long moment David sized up William Keble Smythe, then spoke deliberately into the silence, his words falling like stones between them. ‘I'm talking about theft, Father. And murder. How else can you explain your signature in Mr Atkins's sales book?'

CHAPTER 29

    
As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me: but the strange children shall dissemble with me.

    
The strange children shall fail: and be afraid out of their prisons.

Psalm 18.45–46

David sat at his desk, staring at without seeing the rather splendid view from his window. Spring was truly upon them, the yellow trumpets of the daffodils playing a symphony of their own in the newly verdant grass of Lincoln's Inn. For all that David appreciated it, though, it might still have been the dead of winter.

Father Keble Smythe had denied everything. All knowledge, all involvement. He had professed himself as baffled as they as to how his signature had appeared in Mr Atkins's book. And to say that he had not been amused at the accusation that David had levelled against him was something of an understatement. To call a man in holy orders – and the incumbent of a prestigious London parish to boot – a triple murderer was no small thing.

The worst of it was, David still wasn't sure whether the Vicar was telling the truth or not. If he
had
committed three murders to protect some secret, he certainly wouldn't admit it just because some solicitor strolled into his study and suggested that he might have done it. And he
was
a good actor, demonstrably so, with Rachel's funeral eulogy as an example.

In retrospect, David realised that their action in rushing straight to the vicarage to confront Father Keble Smythe might have been considered foolhardy. But at the time it hadn't crossed his mind, trusting instinctively in the proximity of the excellent Mrs Goode.

He'd realised, as well, that in their haste to get to the vicarage, they'd failed to ask Mr Atkins for a description of the man who had sold him the chalice – that might have gone a long way towards establishing Father Keble Smythe's guilt or innocence. An attempt to rectify their omission had failed: on their return to the shop, they'd been greeted with a notice on the door that the proprietor had gone for the weekend.

Frustrated, David put his mind to the problem. What could the Vicar be hiding? Ambition was one thing, and it was clear that Father Keble Smythe had that in abundance, but was there something else? What secret could he have that was worth killing to keep?

Suddenly he recalled the memory that had been on the edge of his consciousness: Alistair Duncan, in the musty, dusty sitting room of the clergy house in Brighton, suggesting that perhaps Father Keble Smythe might have one or two skeletons in his cupboard. At the time it had scarcely registered, but now it seemed overwhelmingly important.

He found the number quickly and dialled, holding his breath until the distinctive Scots burr said, ‘Hello?'

‘Oh, hello. This is David Middleton-Brown.' His mind worked rapidly. ‘I've just realised that I walked off with Father Julian's diary when I saw you the other day, and wondered how desperate you were to have it back.'

‘Not desperate.' Alistair's laugh was bittersweet. ‘I don't think I've got much use for it at the moment. Keep it if you think it will help.'

‘It just might.'

‘You haven't found out yet who killed Jules?' The young man's voice held little hope.

‘Not yet,' David admitted, ‘but I may be getting close. And you might be able to get me a little further along, if you wouldn't mind telling me something.'

‘Anything,' Alistair said promptly and without reservation. ‘Anything that will help you catch the sodding bastard.'

David hesitated as he framed his next statement. ‘When I saw you on Monday you mentioned Father Keble Smythe. You said that you knew a few things about him that you didn't think he would want his congregation to know.'

‘Oh, aye.' Alistair laughed again, but without a great deal of amusement. ‘He spent some time in Scotland, you see. At St Andrews, where he did his degree. He had rather a reputation north of the border.'

‘What sort of a reputation?' David was afraid that he knew the answer already.

‘Oh, you know. Wild parties. Men. There was a chap called Hamish Douglas that he was involved with for a while. But he put all that behind him when he came down south, or so it would seem.' He chuckled. ‘Jules said that he was even claiming a fiancée nowadays. That's a pretty good one, given some of the stories I've heard about William Keble Smythe. Or Wendy, as he was known in those days. Wendy Smythe – he seems to have picked up the “Keble” somewhere along the line.'

‘So you mean,' David said slowly, ‘that Father Julian knew about Father Keble Smythe's past.'

‘Of course he did. There wasn't any reason for me not to tell him, was there?' Alistair sounded slightly defensive.

David couldn't say what he was thinking: that perhaps that knowledge had led to Julian Piper's death. He adopted a reassuring tone, hoping that Alistair wouldn't make the connection. ‘No. Of course not. But thanks for telling me, and for all your help. And,' he added before ringing off, ‘I'll let you know as soon as there's anything to tell. I promise.'

It could have been, David said to himself, looking blankly at the phone. Father Keble Smythe. He could have done it – he certainly had motive enough, at least to kill Father Julian. And Rachel could have found out as well about his unsavoury past. If only he'd remembered to get the description from Mr Atkins. Nothing could be proved until they had that.

So much had happened in just a few hours – it was now only early afternoon. So much, but had it accomplished anything? They were still no closer to knowing the truth of the chalice than they'd been the day before.

The chalice. David was certain that its importance, ignored until so recently, could not be overestimated. For, as he had postulated earlier, the person who had taken the chalice had also killed three people.

The chalice. It had all begun with the chalice, and now it had come full circle. One chalice, three lives. David picked up a pencil and began doodling, sketching a chalice. One chalice, and then one more. And another.

He realised with a start that he was defacing a letter that he hadn't even read yet, part of the morning's post which had been opened by his efficient secretary and stacked on his desk for his attention.

A letter from the immigration office. Damn, he thought. Justin Thymme. Am I to be plagued forever by Justin Thymme?

The letter, from Mrs Hartman the immigration officer, was straightforward: a formal interview of his client, Mr Justin Thymme, had been scheduled for a date a fortnight hence, and he was being notified as a matter of course, since it was assumed that he would want to be in attendance. That was all, but it sparked something in his brain, something that had been there all along lying dormant. Something that Pamela Hartman had said to him on the occasion of their initial interview.

Suddenly the pieces came together, like bits of coloured glass in a stained glass window: Pamela Hartman's offhand remark; something that Rachel Nightingale had said to Ruth after Evensong at Westminster Abbey; an entry in Father Julian's diary. In the space of time no longer than it took to draw breath, David knew why three people had died. There was only one piece missing: he didn't know who had killed them. Thinking rapidly, he reckoned that it almost certainly must have been one of two people. Two possibilities.

When Gabriel had told him about Father Julian, the death that had started it all, David had theorised that he and Rachel had both died because of the one thing that they had in common: the fact that they were both curates at St Margaret's Church. Now he realised how true that assumption had been, and how easily he and Lucy had been sidetracked – with Ruth's help – into quite the wrong conclusion, based on that assumption. They had thought that the significant thing about curates was that, as counsellors and recipients of confidences, they knew people's secrets – secrets that people would kill to keep that way. The truth was both simpler and more complicated than that.

The answer lay where the whole thing had begun: in the sacristy of St Margaret's Church. David was convinced of that. All he had to do was to get into that sacristy, on his own, and he would find the answer. The proof he needed was certainly there, and, with any luck, a pointer to the guilty person.

He thought for a moment more, then picked up the phone. But before he could dial the number, Ruth popped her head round the door. ‘Would you like some tea?' she offered sullenly; she still hadn't forgiven him for excluding her that morning, but this was her own way of offering an olive branch.

‘Yes, thanks. In a minute. I need to make an important phone call now – if you wouldn't mind shutting the door, please.'

Ruth didn't like being dismissed so peremptorily, especially when she'd been prepared to be nice to him. Then, with rising excitement, she realised that he'd said an important phone call. She was in luck – Mrs Simmons was still at lunch, so Ruth picked up the phone on her desk in time to hear Emily calling the Archdeacon to the phone.

‘Gabriel,' said David after a moment, ‘I've got a favour to ask you.'

‘What's that?'

‘Remember the other night, when you said that you would be available if we needed you to do something? Feel free to call on you, is what you said.' David paused. ‘Well, you're about to be called upon.'

‘What can I do for you, then?'

‘I need the keys to the sacristy of St Margaret's. And to the safe.'

‘You need what?' He sounded incredulous.

‘Yes, I know that it's a strange request. But you'll have to trust me – it's important. And I need them as soon as possible,' he added.