The Advent of Murder (A Faith Morgan Mystery) (12 page)

“I didn’t find him. I happened by soon after he was found. Lucas Bagshaw – did you know him?”

“He came in a few times with his mates. Not that I serve underage drinkers or anything,” Rick added. “I run things strictly legit here. They only get alcohol if they’ve got the ID.”

“Of course. So Lucas came in with his mates – you mean Vernon Granger and Anna Hope?”

Rick looked at her curiously. “Yeah. Those three were always together. The Goth and the Good Boy – odd couple; and then him tall and her short. They kinda stood out.” Like Jim had said, Lucas and Vernon were unlikely mates.

“Were they always tight?”

Rick brought a tray to the bar, with a small knife and a handful of lemons. “Well, the two lads, they got into it once. Had to transfer them to the car park. But then lads can be like that, can’t they? All pals one minute, pounding on each other the next. They made it up. Only happened once.”

“Any idea what they were quarrelling about?”

Rick shrugged his meaty shoulders. “Not interested.”

Could it have been over the Dot? Faith wondered.

“When was this?”

“Earlier this year – summer, I suppose.”

“You can’t be more precise?”

Rick looked into mid-air, knife poised. “You ask a lot of questions for a vicar.”

“I’m naturally curious,” said Faith blithely. “I suppose a death, at this time of year… it makes you wonder if you could have done something.”

Rick began chopping again, and nodded. “They knocked over one of the flower tubs by the door; got the last of the tulips. I had to replant the whole thing…” He focused on the memory. “It must have been late May – no; it was a mix of Flaming Parrot and Queen of the Night and they were late this year. Early June.”

Rick didn’t look like a gardener, Faith thought. Just goes to show, you never know with people. She could feel the landlord’s interest fading. Her eye fell on a computer printout of a picture stuck to one of the pillars holding up the bar shelves. It was of a fit young man grinning in bright sunshine beside a baby elephant taking a shower. Beside him was an Asian man with a wooden switch, presumably a local. Someone had scribbled in the margin: “Latest from Stewie!”

“Nice elephant.”

Rick followed her gaze. “One of the bar staff. Gone travelling for a couple of months. Only left a few days ago and now look at him.” Rick jerked his head to the frosted windows and the winter light beyond. “All right for some!” A couple of days ago, Faith thought. Today was Friday. Lucas’s body had been found on Monday.

“Stewie – he wasn’t working here last Saturday, was he?”

Rick’s eyes narrowed, focusing on her. “Yeah, his last night,” he said slowly. “I’d forgotten that. Karen was off sick and Stewie came in to help clear up after the lunchtime crowd. Gave him some extra travelling money for the favour. He flew out on Sunday night gone.”

Faith wondered if Ben’s team knew about the absent Stewie. They would have found out at the cathedral interviews
about the plans of Lucas and his mates to meet at the Lion’s Heart that Saturday afternoon. Ben was bound to have sent someone in to look for witnesses, but the picture might not have been up if the interviews had been done earlier in the week. She wondered what they had found out. Had Adam Bagshaw been drinking here that day?

“So was it just Lucas and the other boy and the girl who hung out together?”

“Normally, yeah. Well, not all the time. There was an older guy they talked to; seemed to know him.”

“One of your regulars? Lucas’s uncle, maybe?” The bar manager looked blank. “About forty, ex-soldier, drinks a lot.”

“Oh no, not him. Another guy.”

“And who’s this?” It was a man’s voice and not a pleasant one. Faith turned to face a lean man about her height with leathery skin and sandy hair. He looked dirty.

“Who’s asking?” she quipped, trying to go for light. The newcomer had dead eyes.

“This lady knew Lucas Bagshaw,” said the landlord. “The kid that died.” His manner had shifted to distant, drawing the line between his side of the bar and theirs. “What are you having?”

“Pint of the House.”

If Rick’s intention had been to distract the newcomer, he failed. The man didn’t move his eyes from Faith’s face. He was standing too close. He stank of stale cigarettes and some sweeter, more chemical smell. She steeled herself.

“So what are you? Po-lice?”

“No,” she replied calmly. “Clergy.” That puzzled him for a moment. The vicious expression returned. He reached out a sinewy hand for the pint Rick had poured him, and dropped coins on the bar with the other.

“No good comes of sticking your nose where it don’t belong,” he said, “and you don’t belong here.” With that he slouched off.

Faith watched him go to the far end of the room and slip into a booth, out of sight. She reached out for her glass, propping her elbow on the bar to steady herself.

“How unpleasant.”

“That was Keepie. Best stay away from him.”

“Drug dealer?”

Rick held her gaze. She heard the distant sound of a truck drawing up outside. He looked over his shoulder toward the back. “Like I said, best stay away,” he repeated.

“Did Lucas?”

Rick ignored her question. “Delivery’s just come. I need to deal with it.” He went out the back.

She was down to the last inch of orange juice. She twisted the glass between her fingers. This place meant something in the Lucas story, she was certain of it. They all drank here – Lucas, V, the Dot, Adam Bagshaw. And now this fellow, Keepie. Faith recognized the type. Not one of the more careful drug dealers; he had all the marks of someone who used his own product. A short fuse, probably, reliant on aggression rather than brains. She wondered what the local police had on him.

Anna – the Dot – had been so sure that Lucas didn’t use or drink.
He wouldn’t do that.
That’s what she’d said. Maybe the connection wasn’t that Lucas took drugs, but that he didn’t. But Lucas had money. He had dropped out of school; he didn’t have a job Ben and the police could find. Where was he getting it from?

Had one of the oddball trio stuck their nose in, as the fragrant Keepie put it, and Lucas had been the one to pay?
She ran through the possibilities in her head. Lucas wasn’t using, but dealing for Keepie, and Vernon found out and they fought… But then they reconciled. And if they’d fought over that, and Lucas’s death had somehow been a consequence of changing his mind, why the delay? They had fought in June. He was killed in December. She knew she was grasping at straws, looking for neat cause and effect in a world that rarely followed those rules.

Maybe Vernon had got involved with drugs and that was what the fight was about? But that didn’t explain the money. Could Lucas have been blackmailing Keepie? Taking money to keep quiet about what he knew? Unlikely. Keepie struck her as too unstable, not the sort who responded rationally to being threatened. His kind didn’t have the patience for strategy. Men like Keepie were more likely to turn to violence or flight as the first option.

Vernon Granger was the blank piece in this puzzle. She wished she had a better sense of him. From her glimpse of him at the service on Wednesday night, Vernon had struck her as a wary, possibly angry boy. That on its own was nothing, but she also knew that Anna Hope was fiercely loyal to him. She liked what she had seen of Anna. The Dot was a strong young woman – the kind of young woman Trisha, Lucas’s mother, might have been once. If only she could gain Anna’s trust somehow. Between them, V and the Dot held the key to what had happened to Lucas – she was almost certain of it. Faith finished the last of her orange juice and picked up her bag.

She took a detour home along the river. The country lane ran between hedges. Occasionally, through a gap, she could see the river flowing toward Winchester, wild watercress beds floating at its margins. Her phone buzzed from the bag on the passenger seat. She found a convenient lay-by and drew
up. She’d missed a call. The churchwarden’s Scottish accent was more pronounced than usual in the voicemail, the tone softly conspiratorial.

“Vicar – I thought you should know as soon as possible. I’ve just run in to young Alice Peabody on the Green. She tells me she’s off to Wales for Christmas. Her young man’s proposed and he’s taking her to meet his parents…” Pat had the grace to stop short of “I told you so,” but it was implied. Faith put the phone back in her bag. Well, that was lovely for Alice, of course. She wished the engaged pair mental congratulations but, as far as pageant was concerned, flighty Alice from the Hare and Hounds had proved Pat right – again. Faith put the car in gear. Just as she secured her Joseph, she was down a Mary.

As she prepared to pull out, she saw a police van in her mirror. It sped past and she glimpsed uniformed officers. She followed in its wake with a sense of urgency. They rounded a couple of bends and then the van slowed. It drew up among a group of vehicles parked by an old wooden bridge spanning the river. The van door slid open and a pack of uniformed officers disembarked. A forensic team hovered around the bridge and there, tucked up against the hedge, was Ben’s metallic green Astra.

Whiteness sprang up from the bridge. Someone had turned on an arc light. Getting out of her car, Faith could hear the generator chugging. The river here was deeper, the water faster flowing than further down by the Markham place. Ben stood at the end of the bridge. Harriet Sims had just moved beyond him onto the walkway carrying a metal forensic case.

Ben’s gaze fell on Faith. He didn’t seem surprised to see her. He strode toward her, his eyes, his whole posture, crackling with energy.

“We’re in business,” he said.

“You’ve found the attack site.”

Ben grinned. He did love it when investigations started moving.

“It was obvious, really. Even with the recent flooding, the currents in this stretch of the river aren’t strong enough to carry a body more than a few yards, unless…”

Faith glanced down at the water running under the bridge. “It falls into mid-stream,” she concluded for him.

“And since this isn’t the time of year for boats…” He
flipped out a hand toward her, palm up, inviting her to supply the answer.

“Bridges,” she answered, to indulge him.

“So I sent out a couple of teams to check bridges and points overlooking the faster currents upstream from Markham’s place, and…”

“Routine police work and the hard graft of others found you your attack site,” she teased.

“Only took them a day and a half,” complained Ben.

The old bridge was made of roughly shaped pillars of weathered wood in rustic style. This must be private land. It looked as if it had been neglected for years. A technician was examining the downriver rail.

“I see the logic, but why this bridge? There’s nothing obvious that I can see…”

“No,” Ben leaned over the rail and pointed diagonally back toward the bank, “but that is easier to spot.” Down below in the mud and reeds, a scene of crime officer was taking pictures of an expensive-looking bicycle.

Peter Gray struggled up the steep bank, his wellington boots slipping on the frosty mud. He made a final long-legged stride and came up to join them.

“We’re lucky it wasn’t nicked.” His smooth cheeks were flushed from the cold. “It’s a good machine. Custom-built. Italian hand-crafted carbon frame with FAR 240 tubular carbon wheels – nice. Very sleek. I asked Santa for one of those…” Faith couldn’t help smiling at his enthusiasm.

“I had no idea you were a bike man, Peter. How much would something like that cost?”

“Two to three thousand.”

“Pounds? Wow! Where would Lucas get that sort of money?”

“That’s a good question,” said Ben. He looked over at the uniformed search officers being briefed by one of his team, a soberly dressed young woman with hair scraped back in a severe bun. She finished her speech and the officers fanned out along the bank.

Ben and Peter walked across to consult with their team member. Faith’s curiosity drew her onto the bridge.

Harriet crouched down near the further end, beyond the forensic technician concentrating on a warped join at a roughly midway point on the downriver handrail. It was six days on and there had been rain and frost and snow between. Faith wondered what they could hope to find.

Harriet glanced up at her sideways. Ben and Peter might be sufficiently distracted by the discoveries at hand to overlook the last time they’d met at that disastrous dinner but, given the way she’d been eyeing her on Thursday night, Harriet Sims seemed unlikely to. Faith was trespassing on her crime scene, and she had every right to ask her to leave. Crouching down there in her overalls, with her hair held back in a ponytail, the pathologist suddenly seemed vulnerable. It was a desperately awkward situation for her. Harriet Sims had fallen for Ben Shorter’s charms without realizing what came with the package, whereas she, Faith, was a veteran. Faith found herself smiling reassuringly as she approached, and was met with a baffled look in return.

“Faith.”

“Harriet.”

Harriet straightened up. “Ben tells me your insights can be useful,” she said, with her eyes lowered. “I understand the victim was connected to your church?”

“Loosely, yes,” she said. Harriet nodded, and seemed uncertain what to say next, so Faith spoke instead. “This can’t
be an easy surface to work, especially six days on with all the rain and frost.”

“I don’t have high hopes of much in the way of viable traces – but if the victim went over here, we may get lucky.”

“You’re not sure he did?”

“The chances are this is the place. See…” Harriet bent her face to just above rail height, indicating along the surface down to where the technician was working. At that angle Faith could see a distinct split in the rail.

“There’s a recent break there – it gives at least four or five inches if you push against it.”

“How tall was Lucas?”

“Five feet eight, and a bit.”

“Just a touch taller than me.” Faith measured herself against the height of the wooden rail. It was relatively low. “Someone five feet eight and a bit falling against this rail – they’d be struck about here, would you think?” Faith marked the place on her body with her hand, allowing for an inch or so.

“That would explain the bruise on his hip,” said Harriet.

“And the broken phone,” Faith added. Harriet nodded slowly.

“Yes. So…” She moved to face Faith, who turned instinctively to keep her in sight. She felt the rail in her lower back. “Lucas had a contusion on the upper right temple. Say someone hits him with the proverbial…” Faith recoiled as Harriet’s pantomime swipe passed uncomfortably close. The movement unbalanced her and she turned with it, catching herself on the rail. It was so low, for a second she thought she might go over. She froze, clutching the rail. The water swirled and eddied glassily beneath.

She turned back to Harriet and looked her in the eye. “You think this is the place?”

Harriet nodded, and gave the broken rail one more experimental push before crouching again to resume her search for any missed evidence.

Faith’s winter coat and city boots weren’t enough against this cold. She really should get in her car and leave them to it. The rest would be painstaking, boring graft. She had work of her own to do.

Just wait a
little
longer, whispered her old self. Ben’s junior, the young woman with the scraped back hair and sensible shoes, was approaching him to report from the search team.

“Nothing of interest so far, sir. Just litter, looks like – but it’s being bagged anyway.”

“Keep at it,” Ben instructed.

“Want a look?” the junior asked.

“Pete,” Ben detailed Sergeant Gray off with a jerk of his head. He turned to Faith. “You look like you need to warm up. I owe you a coffee. I’ve a Thermos in the car – join me?”

“That would be welcome,” she admitted. “Just for a few minutes…”

As they turned toward the cars she noticed a right of way sign and a footpath running alongside the river back upstream.

“Where does this go?” Faith asked.

“It’s a short cut,” said one of the uniformed constables, looking up. “It ends up in the car park of a pub just up the road.”

“The Lion’s Heart?”

“That’s right. Five minutes’ walk or so.”

They sat in Ben’s Astra with the engine running and the heater on full blast. The coffee tasted of Thermos and was way too strong. Faith wrinkled her nose.

“Pete keeps some packs of sugar in there,” Ben nodded toward the glove compartment. “He doesn’t appreciate my coffee, either.” His eyes scanned the operation of his team outside. “By the way, Oliver Markham’s in the clear.” Ben took a swig of coffee. “Hotel housekeeping confirms seeing him over the weekend. There’s CCTV footage of the whole family in the lobby leaving for the theatre just before 18:30 on Saturday night.”

Around the time Lucas was going into the river sixty miles away. So Oliver could get back to his life.

“And that’s it?” she asked.

Ben looked at her, nonplussed. “Well, we have several lines of—”

“No, I mean, with Oliver. You put the man through hell and—”

“Just a moment,” said Ben. “You’re hardly the person I thought would misuse
that
word. We treated him fairly.”

Faith’s blood was boiling. “We must have different ideas of fair.”

“Didn’t we always?” said Ben, rolling his eyes. “You know we have to pursue the lead. The bloke waved a firearm at a bunch of nuisance kids a couple of months back.”

Faith simmered. She knew there was truth in his words, but did he have to be so… so… complacent about it?

They sat in silence for at least a minute. Faith swirled her cup in an effort to dissolve the sugar. There was no spoon, and the coffee was too hot to stir with her finger. Her black mood passed.

“What did the Markhams go to see?” she asked irrelevantly.

“
Wicked
”. According to his wife, he fell asleep.” Ben looked at her sideways, his eyes twinkling. “That’s one you never dragged me to.”

“I knew you better than to try,” she said. “As I recall you, too, had the tendency to sleep in theatre seats.” Ben had never shared her love of musicals. But he had taken her to them once or twice when they were together. She focused on him in her peripheral vision, looking ostensibly into her coffee. Was he the same still? Those odd little chinks in his armour.

He chuckled to himself. “I’ve told you a hundred times, there’s no street cred left to a DI caught humming show-tunes over a corpse.” He shifted in his seat, leaning against the driver’s door, adjusting his legs. Now he could watch her face as she drank his abominable coffee.

“So what’s the Saturday timeline so far?” she asked.

“Lucas left his home in The Hollies around 12:30 or soon after – we have him on traffic cams on his bike at a couple of junctions. Looks like he was heading into town. After that, we lose him – too much CCTV footage to go through without some clue as to direction. According to Vernon Granger and Anna Hope, the victim was due at the Lion’s Heart at 3 p.m. or thereabouts. But he never showed. Said Vernon has a text timed at 14:46 sent from Lucas’s phone to the effect that something had come up and he’d catch up with him later, but no more than that.”

“You’ve canvassed the Lion’s Heart?” Ben gave her a patronizing look. “Of course you have,” she amended quickly.

“According to staff, Lucas never showed, but Vernon and the girl were there for an hour and a bit. Landlord is certain they had gone by 4 p.m.”

“The time of death?” Faith asked.

“After five and before 7 p.m. – as near as we can figure. The immersion in freezing water confuses things a bit.”

“And the attack site is just a few minutes’ walk from the Lion’s Heart,” she pondered. Ben grunted. “Was Adam
Bagshaw seen at the pub that afternoon? I understand the Lion’s Heart was a favourite watering hole of his.”

“Not that anyone has reported. Bagshaw had been in on Friday lunchtime. The landlord said he was doing some serious drinking, in for the long haul… He got into enough of a state to be asked to leave. According to bar staff, Bagshaw senior wasn’t seen back after that.”

“Isn’t there any CCTV in a big pub like that?”

Ben grimaced. “Only in the car park. Inside the pub, the system is down for repairs – has been for
some
time.”

Faith picked up on his emphasis.

“Deliberate, d’you think?” Her mind shifted to Keepie. No dealer wanted electronic eyes on his place of business. “Do you know a man they call Keepie?”

Ben flashed a look on her. “Sebastian Keep? Local drug dealer – low level, but known to carry knives. You’re very up to speed, vicar.”

Faith shrugged. “I just met him this lunchtime – when I went in for a drink. He saw me chatting to the landlord. He told me to keep my nose out of where it doesn’t belong.”

Ben sat up. “He threatened you?” His jaw set.

“No need to get all protective. I can look out for myself.”

Ben’s face was a picture of scepticism. “You know addicts. They’re unpredictable and Keepie’s a skunk. You’re a woman and you haven’t kept up your training – have you? You’re bound to be at a disadvantage, and as a vicar you’re easy to find. Try to stay out of his way, will you?”

“I have no plans to get acquainted,” she reassured him. “But Keepie’s stage warning did make me wonder. It could just have been routine territorial stuff, but could Lucas have run across him? According to Anna, he was quite anti booze and drugs, and they both were regulars at the Lion’s Heart.”

“A teenager, in this day and age?”

“You’re too cynical. You can’t assume things about real, live individuals – not even teenagers. Remember the context. Lucas had been a carer for an alcoholic uncle from an early age.” Jim had told her Lucas was mature for his age, but then, Thursday night being such a tender subject, it probably wasn’t diplomatic to mention the choirmaster by name. She edited her words. “Lucas was said to be mature for his years – it’s possible, isn’t it?”

Ben’s attention had wandered. He checked his watch.

“It is strange that no one saw Lucas at the pub…” she mused, thinking of the elephant picture on the bar. “Did you know about Stewie?”

Ben swung his full attention back to her. If she hadn’t been familiar with his intensity, she might have found it intimidating.

“Who’s this?”

“A barman at the Lion’s Heart who left to go round the world just this Sunday, but he was filling in for a sick colleague on Saturday afternoon.”

Ben frowned.

“Says who?”

“The landlord – Rick Williams. There’s a picture up on the bar – I saw it this lunchtime. Stewie must have posted it on Facebook or something – the picture is a computer printout. It looked to me like he was in Thailand, I think.”

“Oh, great! Tracing a backpacker on the opposite side of the world; that’s going to be fun. I suppose I’ll have to get someone onto it.”

“If Uncle Adam was drinking heavily…” Faith remembered Adam’s tearful guilt and his admission of a blackout. “What if Adam went on a bender; you don’t know
if he came back home on the Friday night – do you? What if Lucas went out looking for him on Saturday?” Ben was wearing his “you and your imagination” expression. She pressed on. “Anna Hope – the Dot? She told me that…”