A Little Learning (17 page)

‘Yes, sir, I think I would.’

Tom found the two pairs of eyes which studied his face and his every reaction, steadily and without embarrassment, more disconcerting than he could ever have imagined they would be. He said, ‘I could hardly be expected to know what was going to be —’

‘Definitely amounts to lying, I should say. Not very nice, in a clergyman. Not the sort of thing to inspire confidence in a congregation, young or old.’ Peach shook his head sadly.

‘Look, perhaps I should tell you that I’ve spoken to Ruth Carter this morning and I now feel that I can —’

‘Thought you would have. Need to put your heads together, when you’re compiling a new alibi for a murder.’

‘Not compiling, Inspector Peach. The facts Ruth gave you earlier today were entirely accurate. We were at Mrs Jackson’s guest house in Kettlewell for the whole of Saturday night.’

‘That remains to be seen, Tom. When someone lies to us as Mrs Carter did, we regard everything she subsequently tells us with a healthy scepticism. When a clergyman chooses to withhold information he knows to be central to a murder investigation, we do the same with him. Not that I can remember that happening before.’

Tom Matthews was rattled and discomfited, but he did not make the mistake of losing his temper. ‘I can see what it looks like, from the police standpoint. Ruth wanted to protect me from exposure to the media: she knew what they’d make of her relationship with a clergyman. People may have stopped going to church, may even have ceased believing in God, but they’re more prurient than ever when a clergyman is caught out, whatever his Church.’ There was a flash of genuine resentment in the last sentence.

Peach said evenly, ‘I can see all that. But let us be quite clear about what has happened. This isn’t a matter of the
News
of
the
World
catching a vicar with his trousers down. It’s a murder inquiry, in which the wife of the victim chose to lie to the police about her whereabouts at the time of the killing, and her lover chose to collude in that deception.’

Tom Matthews listened carefully to each phrase, as if trying to find a flaw in the logic and failing to do so. He could see no room for bluster here, and bluster was in any case not his style. He said, ‘All right. I’m sorry. Ruth was trying to protect me, and I didn’t feel I could let her down, once she’d told you her original story about being at her mother’s. For what it’s worth, I can confirm that the facts she gave you earlier this morning about our two nights in the Yorkshire Dales are accurate.’

Peach’s eyes had never left his face, observing his distress as well as his sturdy support for Ruth Carter. He said, ‘That would be worth considerably more if there was an independent witness to support it, Mr Matthews.’

‘I’m sorry. Both Ruth and I have thought hard about that, as you might imagine, but we have no suggestions. We went to the Dales not just because it was near enough for me to get back here early on a Sunday morning, but because there are vast open areas where you can walk and get away from people. We chose Mrs Jackson’s guest house because it was small and very quiet, reducing the chances of anyone seeing us together. That very quietness seems now to be a factor against us.’

Peach nodded. If the man was telling the truth, he was right. If he was lying, the absence of witnesses was in his favour. ‘How long has your affair with Mrs Carter been going on?’

Matthews gave them a wan smile. ‘If you mean how long have we been lovers, five months. We’ve known each other for just over a year. Ruth came across to help me set up the University Chaplaincy, once I’d been allotted that wooden terrapin building. She was kind and helpful with furnishings and so on, and I suppose we were both lonely. In my case, I was free of any encumbrances, but both of us knew that Ruth’s position as wife of the Director could land us in a public scandal. As Ruth said, a lot of people in the UEL would have delighted in seeing Claptrap Carter cuckolded, and we’ve already spoken of the tabloid reaction.’

‘But nevertheless you chose to become involved with each other.’

‘Yes. We agonized for a few awful weeks, but it was obvious that Ruth’s marriage was over. She was very clear that she was going to institute proceedings for a divorce, whether I was around or not.’

‘Did Dr Carter know what was going on?’

‘No. Ruth was sure he didn’t, and she’d have known. George was more concerned with what he could get for himself than with watching his wife.’ He allowed himself an acerbic and uncharitable smile.

‘Do you know any names? I should emphasize that we should regard it very seriously if you again chose to withhold information from us.’

‘No. Ruth had given up bothering, and I didn’t want to know. As a matter of fact, his philanderings were useful to us. It was when he announced that he was going to be away usually at some non-existent higher educational conference that we had our weekends together. I didn’t need much notice, you see: unless I have a wedding on, my Saturdays are normally fairly quiet. But of course, I had to make sure I was back here early on Sunday morning for the services.’

‘And you’ve no idea who George Carter was with on any of these occasions?’

He looked troubled. ‘There is one woman. But it’s hearsay rather than any definite knowledge. West Indian girl I think, with an American accent. Tutor in the Psychology Department, I think. Very striking, very confident.’

‘Carmen Campbell.’

‘That’s her! She came over to the chaplaincy a couple of times in the early days, with students. We had a lively discussion on one occasion, but she said eventually that formal religion wasn’t for her, and I haven’t seen her for months.’

‘So how did you know about her meetings with Dr Carter?’

‘I didn’t, at the time. She discussed George Carter with me once, when there were just the two of us in the chaplaincy, after the students had gone. But only as a Director. What we made of him from the little we’d seen, that sort of thing. It must have been Ruth who mentioned that George was spending the night with her, much later on.’ He grinned, a male grin which overrode the clerical garb. ‘I remember thinking he was doing rather well for himself with Carmen Campbell!’

Peach grinned back; that had been his very sentiment, when he had first heard of the liaison. Power was definitely a better aphrodisiac than a dog collar. Tom Matthews had had to settle for Ruth Carter, an attractive enough woman, but one who brought with her dangerous baggage for a clergyman, as events were now demonstrating.

Peach said, ‘We’ve interviewed Miss Campbell. It seems that she was forty miles away from the UEL at the time of Carter’s death.’

‘I’m pleased about that.’

He looked as though he genuinely was pleased, but perhaps that was the professional clergyman coming out, thought Percy. He said, ‘Mr Matthews, you withheld information from us at the beginning of our investigation. I hardly need to say that you must now keep absolutely nothing back from us if you wish to be treated with any sympathy. Have you any information which you think might be significant in relation to the murder of George Andrew Carter?’

The Reverend Matthews looked very troubled: like a man struggling with his conscience, thought Peach as he waited. Very appropriate, for a clergyman — so long as conscience won the struggle. It did. Tom Matthews said, ‘Walter Culpepper came round to the University Chaplaincy to see me last night. He’s the Senior Tutor, lives on the —’

‘We know Dr Culpepper.’

‘Yes. Well, he came to ask me to help him.’

‘To lie for him, no doubt.’

Tom Matthews looked thoroughly uncomfortable. ‘Yes, I suppose so. He wanted me to say that we’d been together late last Saturday night, that he’d come to the vicarage here to talk to me about something.’

‘But, being a pillar of rectitude, you told him you couldn’t do it.’

‘I wasn’t here at that time, as I’ve told you. So I couldn’t help him.’

Peach frowned. ‘What time did he want to cover?’

‘He said he’d been up to his son’s house at Settle for the day. But he was back on the campus by about eleven thirty. He wanted me to say we were together for the hours after that. I never found out for precisely how long, because I wasn’t able to help Walter, and I told him so.’

‘Do you know precisely what he was doing at the time when he tried to arrange an alibi with you?’

Matthews hesitated, seemingly having to persuade himself again to let down the older man. ‘He said that his wife went straight to bed when they got back to their house on the campus. He went out for a walk round the site. He didn’t say how long he was out for, but it was that time that he wanted to cover.’

So that highly strung little intellectual gnome might yet be their man. Culpepper, who was not a churchgoer, must be frightened or desperate, to see the Reverend Thomas Matthews as a possible salvation. Peach looked forward to hearing what that entertaining and unpredictable man would have to say for himself.

But there was still work to be done here first. It was time to play his ace of trumps. He said, in the same calm tones he had used for the last few minutes, ‘I believe you have a Smith and Wesson .357 revolver.’

Tom Matthews’s open, fresh face paled visibly. ‘How on earth do you know about my —’

‘But no licence for that devastating instrument.’ Peach carried on as if the clergyman had never spoken.

‘I — I always meant to get a licence for it. No one has ever asked me about it. I kept it when I left the army, because it was my own weapon. Most of the army officers were rather tickled by the idea that a padre could be an expert shot. I only owned it because I was interested in firearms, and I had a certain expertise. The Smith and Wesson is a wonderful revolver, as you say, and —’

‘Why no licence, Mr Matthews?’

‘I always meant to get one. But then I found the licensing laws had changed and all the firearms I was interested in had to be kept at gun clubs. I belong to a gun club, but I’ve scarcely been there: it’s not quite the image expected of a clergyman, in a conservative parish.’

‘So where do you keep the Smith and Wesson?’

‘In the chaplaincy at the university. I’ve nowhere here where I could keep it hidden, nowhere I could lock it away.’ He glanced at the wall to their right, and they knew immediately that he was thinking of his resident housekeeper. ‘At least I could lock it away in my desk in the chaplaincy.’

Peach nodded. ‘You’ll have to hand it over, Mr Matthews. And we shall have to check it against the bullet which killed George Carter.’

Tom Matthews’s eyes widened with alarm. ‘I can’t. It went missing. A month and more ago. I can’t be precise, because there was no sign of a break-in. The desk drawer had been opened with a key, as far as I could see. I don’t suppose those locks are very individual.’

Peach regarded him steadily. ‘Let’s be clear about this. You’ve admitted that a weapon of exactly the type which killed George Carter was held illegally by you. You’re now claiming that the revolver was stolen from your desk in the University Chaplaincy, at least a month ago, and that the theft was not reported.’

‘I know. It doesn’t sound convincing. But it’s the truth.’ Peach stared at him for a moment. ‘It might sound more convincing if you’d reported the theft at the time.’

‘I couldn’t. I hadn’t got a licence for the Smith and Wesson, had I?’

‘So you let a dangerous weapon disappear without any report of it.’

‘I know. But I didn’t want to confess I’d even held a revolver without a licence. It doesn’t look good, for the vicar of a church like this. I thought it was probably a harmless student theft, that someone wanted it as a sort of trophy. And there are a hell of a lot of unlicensed firearms in the country. You know that.’

That was true enough: it was easy enough to get your hands on revolvers and guns, if you moved in certain circles. But Peach wasn’t going to admit that. ‘I’ll tell you what I know, Mr Matthews. I know that Dr Carter was killed by a Smith and Wesson .357. I know that you held such a weapon. I know that you concealed a connection with the wife of the deceased, and supported her in a lie about her whereabouts at the time of his death. All now established facts. And now you tell me that the weapon was stolen from your University Chaplaincy, some weeks ago. Not an established fact; on the contrary, something I only have your word for. All in all, it doesn’t look too good for you, Mr Matthews, does it?’

Tom Matthews ran a finger round the inside of his dog collar. ‘I should have reported the disappearance of that revolver. I see that now, of course. But as far as you were concerned, it didn’t exist, did it? I would have been opening a whole can of worms for myself if I’d come in and told you it had gone missing.’

‘You seem to have opened an even bigger can by concealing its disappearance. If that is what you did, of course. We weren’t expecting to find the murder weapon. It’s a fair bet that it’s safely at the bottom of some river by now.’

Peach never took his eyes off his man, looking for some disturbance in the vicar’s troubled face which would tell him that this had struck home. But all Matthews did was to lift and drop his shoulders hopelessly and say, ‘I’ve told you the truth. I’m not proud of it, but you now have everything I know about the murder of George Carter.’

Peach and Lucy Blake agreed as they got into their car beneath the towering black spire of the church that clergymen were in some respects exactly the same as ordinary mortals. You didn’t know whether to believe them or not when they came up with something which was possible, but preposterous.