Murder at the Monastery, page 7
part #3 of A Canon Clement Mystery Series
Once he’d sat down, he looked at the news without really looking, his eye falling only on an article about the demonstrations in East Germany, people on the streets in terrible clothes and haircuts, shaking the unshakeable regime of the German Democratic Republic. Another anticipated the rather less momentous debate about the ordination of women scheduled for the General Synod of the Church of England the next day. Less momentous but rancorous and divisive in Daniel’s world. Whatever the Synod decided it would not settle the matter, and he feared that the Church’s sad divisions, far from ceasing, would only deepen. What would that mean for him, with friends and loyalties on both sides of the argument? The thought of his no-longer-steady world being shaken again was too much and he put the paper down.
‘Crispin? It is Crispin?’
A woman was looking at him from another table. She was in her seventies, he thought, but her hair was blonder than nature allowed and she was dressed in a lilac shell suit, which looked unusually athletic considering the rasp of her voice. It was the voice he recognised.
‘Alma?’
‘Hello, love,’ she said. ‘I knew it were you. You’re famous now. I should ask for your autograph.’
‘Alma, how lovely to see you.’
‘What brings you back to Ravenspurn, my lad? Sorry, I should call you Father.’
‘Call me anything you like, Alma, but Daniel is my name now. Can I join you?’
‘I’ll join you. On the naughty table.’ She gathered her packet of cigarettes and lighter and house keys and dropped them on the little table Daniel had chosen at the back so they spread like tokens thrown by a witch doctor divining the future.
‘So, why?’ Alma asked.
‘I’m just visiting.’
‘Trying to get away from all the hoo-hah in your parish? Poor little lad. I hear his throat were cut from ear to ear.’ She drew her finger across her own, which had grown more wattled, Daniel noticed, than when she had worked as a cleaner at the monastery when he was a novice. But he could think of nothing to say.
‘Horrible, horrible thing. Are you OK, love?’
He started to cry.
‘Oh, now I’ve gone and made you cry. I’m sorry, love, I should have thought.’
‘Please don’t be kind to me,’ he said and waved his hand as if he were batting away the surge of sadness that had enveloped him.
‘I’m getting you another tea.’
She went up to the counter and Daniel tried to compose himself, but he could not stop. Tears came and his shoulders shook and there was nothing he could do about it, except to jam himself into the corner and turn away from the embarrassed glances of the ladies of Ravenspurn, distracted for a moment from their vanilla slices and fat rascals.
‘Are we to have cake?’ said Alma, reappearing with two mugs of tea. ‘Yes, I think we are. Nellie’s parkin could raise Lazarus.’
He took the mug of tea and slurped it like an accident victim being treated for shock. It was so sweet he almost choked, and that was enough to stop the sobbing by the time Alma returned with a plate and two slices of parkin.
‘Butter or as it comes, love?’
‘As it comes.’
The parkin, a sturdy sort of gingerbread, came apart in Daniel’s fingers. He thought for a moment of breaking the consecrated bread of the Eucharist and it made him start to cry again.
Alma said nothing until the wave of sadness subsided. ‘What’s going on, love?’
Daniel started to say something but could not find the words, so he stuffed a piece of parkin in his mouth instead.
‘Oh, I know what’s wrong with you. Someone’s gone and broken your heart, haven’t they?’
‘I don’t know, Alma.’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘I feel so ridiculous.’
She sat back in her chair. ‘You’re not looking your normal unruffled self.’ She took a cigarette from the packet, lit it, and squinted at him through the curl of smoke. ‘But there was always something about you that needed a bit of ruffling up.’
‘Was there?’
‘You could be a right pompous twat sometimes, Crispin. Most of the novices were until it wore off. If it wore off. Are you going to have the rest of that?’ She jabbed her cigarette towards his leftover parkin.
‘Yes. No. I’m not really hungry.’
‘That’s because you’re heartsick. Is it the first time?’
‘Yes. There was . . . a crush . . . when I was at university. But nothing like this.’
‘Who is he?’
Daniel flushed. ‘I . . . I . . .’
‘Do I look daft? I’ve been cleaning at Ravenspurn abbey for forty years. It’s not Hull Kingston Rovers.’
Daniel nodded and took a few seconds to compose himself. ‘It’s someone I met because of work. We became friends. Just friends. And then something changed. I didn’t notice it at first. And then I found I was thinking about him. And we started seeing each other outside work, but it was all perfectly innocent and then it . . .’ He felt another surge of sadness and waved his hand again in a pointless gesture of defence.
Alma suddenly looked alert. ‘Not the one who murdered his lad?’
‘No! No, no, no . . . It’s the policeman who arrested him. We met when the first murders happened. He was the investigating officer and we had this unusual affinity . . . we solved the murders. And then he started giving me driving lessons.’
‘And it were all accelerator and no brake?’
‘Somewhere along the way it changed. I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t mean it to happen.’
‘That’s nothing new. Copper and a parson, though. Interesting new line-up for the Village People.’
‘No, nothing has happened. My feelings for him are not reciprocated. I only just found out. Last night.’ His mouth twitched again. ‘I’m such a fool. I thought he felt the same way. And he did. Only not for me, for someone else. I made a terrible mistake. And now I’m . . .’
He started to cry again.
‘And now you’ve been ruffled up a bit. Welcome to the world, Crispin.’
‘I can’t pray, Alma. I can’t think. I can’t read.’
Alma took a piece of his parkin and chewed it thoughtfully.
‘I’m from Hull, did you know that? I worked in a factory in the war and met a Yank. Ken, a GI. From Providence, Rhode Island. Like the hens. He were lovely, looked like Gary Cooper. Then he had to go away to fight the Germans and so I gave him a night to remember. Next to the water chute in East Park. There were an air raid that night and they dropped a bomb on the Savoy picture house while we were going at it. He pledged his undying love to me, went off to liberate the Rhineland and I never saw him again. He left me in the family way. I had a baby in a home for unwed mothers in Batley. Couldn’t go back to Hull after that – the shame – and the brethren took me in here and gave me a job.’
‘I’m so sorry, Alma.’
‘I’m telling you this for two reasons, love. Well, it’s the same reason. In the long run it’s not what causes your heart to flutter that matters, it’s doing right by people. And not judging them.’
He started to cry again.
‘You’ve just barked up the wrong tree, love. Sort yourself out. Move on, and don’t give yourself a hard time. You should know that better than anyone. But it’s so often the way with you lot. I could never understand why you were so hard on yourselves. Chapter of Faults and all that.’
‘I’m so sorry to inflict this on you,’ Daniel said through his sobs. ‘You only came in for a cup of tea.’
‘Don’t be silly. And get a nice boyfriend. Our Donna, maiden of the parish, answered an ad in the Reporter and joined the lesbians. Moved to Hebden. Now she and Trish run the library.’
Daniel laughed.
‘See,’ said Alma, ‘I’ve made you laugh, you’re on the mend!’ She flicked open her cigarette packet and tore off a strip of white card from the inside of the lid and scrawled a number on it. ‘Here’s my number, Crispin. If you’re down, love, give me a ring and come round. Skip Compline and come t’pub, have a laugh. OK?’
‘OK.’
6
Audrey was quite breathless when she got to the post office. It was a longer route than she was accustomed to, through the park from the big house rather than the rectory, and in her haste she had set off at more of a lick than was wise. She paused for a restorative moment in front of the door, painted in the puttyish shade the Champton Estate preferred, before pushing it open and making the little bell over it ding to alert Mrs Braines to the arrival of a customer.
No need, for Mrs Braines was already at the counter – shop, rather than post office, for she could lean on that when confidence required it. She was leaning sympathetically towards Anne Dollinger, who was sitting on a high stool pressing a sodden tissue to her cheeks, which were flushed from crying.
‘Morning, ladies!’ said Audrey, pretending nothing was out of the ordinary.
‘Mrs Clement,’ said Mrs Braines with a nod. ‘Shop or post office?’
‘Post office, please.’
Mrs Braines moved from one counter to the other.
‘A first-class stamp for a letter. It absolutely MUST get there as soon as possible.’
‘There’s a collection at noon. Where does it need to go?’
Audrey paused a moment and said, ‘Inland, dear. When will it get there?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Not today?’
‘We’re the GPO, Audrey, not Concorde. But you could always send a Telemessage.’
‘A wire?’
‘No, we haven’t done those for twenty years, but it’s like one. You phone up British Telecom and dictate it. They deliver it.’
‘I don’t want to dictate it to anyone.’
‘You’d better post that then. First class.’
‘How much?’
‘Twenty pence.’
‘Four bob! For a stamp?’
‘Haven’t you got any left over? From your little business? Not so little, mind – the postie was bent double going up and down Church Lane.’
Audrey flinched. News had evidently arrived at the post office, and therefore all Champton, of her exposure as the correspondence medium Caduceus, whose mantle she had taken on with the death of the foundress of that particular cult, Mrs Hawkins of Upper Badsaddle Manor.
‘That’s quite different, Mrs Braines. A business expense connected with my duties as executrix of the late Mrs Hawkins’s estate.’
‘So I heard. Will you be continuing in that line?’
Audrey gave Mrs Braines one of her stoniest smiles.
‘With you here cranking the parish pump so reliably, dear, the Oracle at Delphi would soon be out of business.’
Mrs Braines gave her stoniest smile in return and fetched the thick, battered stamp folder from a shelf. ‘Your stamp,’ she said and produced a single red.
Audrey licked it with a deliberation that made Mrs Braines think of Dora Sharman’s Scamper anticipating a chew.
‘Shall I take it for you, Audrey?’ she said, slightly craning to see if she could make out the address on the front.
‘No need. I’ll pop it in the box myself. Peace of mind. Oh, and a poppy, please. Two poppies.’ She put some coins into the collecting tin next to the little tray of poppies for Remembrance Day.
‘Do you want pins for those, Audrey?’
‘No need, dear.’
She turned to go before Mrs Braines could reply but Anne’s mysterious distress made her pause, and in an instant she had to weigh the benefit of making a magnificent exit against the benefit of discovering its cause. It was not a difficult calculation to make.
‘Anne, whatever is the matter?’
Anne shook her head and turned away.
‘Will that be all, Mrs Clement?’ said Mrs Braines, looking pointedly at the door.
Audrey put a consoling hand on Anne’s shoulder, which caused her to flinch. ‘Anne . . .?’
‘I’m fine, thank you, Audrey.’
Audrey withdrew her hand and gave a little sigh, as if this were a mildly irritating lapse of Anne’s, rather than a righteous rebuff, and left with a shake of her head.
She thrust the stamped envelope into the post box, almost ran over the zebra crossing, and went directly to Elite Fashions. The door dinged its own peculiar peal and Miss March emerged from the curtained section at the back of the shop.
‘Mrs Clement? What may I do for you?’
This rather threw Audrey, for she had called in only to see if she could find out why Anne was in tears in the post office. ‘Um, now, there WAS something . . . oh, yes, can you recommend somewhere where I may get my winter coat reproofed?’
‘Yes, we could look after that for you. Or perhaps I could interest you in something new?’ She went to a rail and took out a coat of restrained splendour. ‘This is lovely, midi-length tweed by Jaeger. Very smart, very you.’
‘I’m afraid, Miss March, my funds are suddenly rather depleted.’
‘I see. In that case let us see what we can do with your old coat. I’m sorry to say it may take some time, for I find myself suddenly rather depleted too – of staff.’
‘Oh, I just saw Anne Dollinger in the post office in floods of tears. Isn’t she meant to be with you?’
‘Not any more. I’m afraid I have had to let her go. Just now as a matter of fact.’
‘No?! Not fingers in the till?’
Audrey instantly regretted asking so nosey a question, but it couldn’t be helped, and as it happened Miss March, who had after all rescued her from an arsonist’s deadly enterprise on Bonfire Night, was in an unusually receptive mood.
‘I could have forgiven that.’
‘Then whatever has she done?’
‘She was . . . overfamiliar.’ She pressed the palms of her hands against her skirt as if to smooth away a crease.
‘Goodness! How so?’
Miss March shook her head.
‘Anne may be clumsy sometimes,’ Audrey went on, ‘but overfamiliar?’
‘She . . . she addressed me by my Christian name. I did not entrust it to her. I barely knew her and she is – was – my employee . . . and . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I never use it. I don’t like it. It is not a Christian name at all.’
‘Whatever is it? Jezebel?’ Audrey knew perfectly well what her name was because she had seen it written in Miss March’s own hand on a wreath at Mrs Hawkins’s funeral, but she now wanted Miss March to reveal it and be condemned from her own mouth.
‘It is . . . it is Kimberley.’
There was silence for a moment.
‘Oh, my dear,’ said Audrey, ‘I am so sorry.’
‘It was not my wish to be named after a South African diamond mine.’
‘No.’
‘But my father’s uncle died during the battle to lift the siege of Kimberley in the Boer War.’
‘I see. How very sad.’
‘My father held him in high regard and always wanted his sacrifice commemorated in some way. Years and years later I came along and the opportunity presented itself.’
Audrey winced. ‘Thank goodness it wasn’t Mafeking.’
Miss March looked at her sharply, but Audrey did not notice.
‘Miss Mafeking March . . . Sounds like something from the Light Programme—’
‘But you see,’ Miss March interrupted, ‘without staff I may not be able to expedite orders as swiftly as I would like. It is only right that I should tell you.’
Audrey had a flash of inspiration. ‘I wonder if I might make a suggestion.’
‘By all means.’
‘You are suddenly short-staffed. I am suddenly short of funds. Perhaps a mutually beneficial opportunity presents itself?’
Miss March thought for a moment. ‘Are you familiar with shop work?’
‘No. But I am familiar with shops. And this shop especially. And if Anne Dollinger can do it, I’m sure I can.’
Miss March said nothing.
‘And I can absolutely assure you there will be no risk of overfamiliarity with me.’
Miss March thought for a moment longer, then said, ‘Mrs Clement, this may indeed be to our mutual advantage. May I think it over? Perhaps I could telephone you later?’
‘Of course. I shall be waiting by the instrument!’
The shop bell gave what sounded like a tinkle of triumph to Audrey as she left. She crossed the road again and paused outside the post office to enjoy, in anticipation, her double victory: discovering the cause of Anne’s misfortune and, by it, adding to her own good fortune. She made her way down Main Street towards the rectory, forgetting in her exalted mood that it was uninhabitable, and that her temporary billet lay in the opposite direction.
Miss March stood in the window, motionless between two mannequins, looking like a mannequin herself were it not for the appearance of a slow, thin smile.
Crestfallen, Honoria thought to herself; such an apt expression. Neil, whom she had summoned to the warrener’s cottage at what he called ‘dinnertime’, was still in the kitchen but half out of his trousers before she made it absolutely clear that the only lunchtime quickie happening that day would be a Penguin and a cup of tea. The disappointment this caused appeared instantly on his face; elsewhere, the effects of anticipation took a little longer to wilt, but wilt he did.
‘To be honest, I was hoping for more than tea and a biscuit. We are finishing up a murder inquiry.’
She frowned. ‘It’s important. Daniel’s gone missing.’
‘Missing?’
‘Not exactly missing; AWOL. Left in the middle of the night – called away according to the note he left for Daddy – and no one knows where or why.’
‘Could be an emergency. Something confidential?’
‘Maybe so, but it’s not like him, is it? He left a note for Audrey too, but no address, no telephone number. Do you think it might be because of the murder?’
‘That he’s gone off somewhere? No. Did he not leave a note for me?’
‘No, not that I know of. Do you think he might be in shock, or something?’
‘Daniel? In shock?’
