A Talent For Destruction (6 page)

‘Well then, did you see a stranger about here last summer?' Wigby began to describe the dead man, but the verger held up a mildly reproachful hand.

‘Come, come, that's asking the impossible. We get no end of strangers visiting the church in the summer – we're a tourist attraction here at St Botolph's, you know. There's no time to take notice of what they look like.'

‘What about what they sound like?' said Wigby. ‘This man might have been Australian.'

‘Australia, America, Scandinavia – they come from all over. No, I'm sorry Mr Wigby but I can't help you.' He rinsed out his cup, put it upside down on the drainer and looked at his watch. ‘You must excuse me, but we've got a funeral at twelve. I must go and set out the bier.'

He moved away, and then remembered something. ‘Wait a minute, though. There was an Australian
girl
about here last summer. A friend of Mrs Ainger. Spent a lot of time at the Rectory. Not that I saw her myself, except once in church, but my wife saw her several times. Mrs Blore helps at the Rectory two mornings a week, and she said that the girl lived there for most of July, before she went off on her travels again. Perhaps she had some connection with this man you're talking about.'

‘It's worth following up. Thanks for the information, Mr Blore. We'll talk to Mrs Ainger, then.'

The verger looked worried, in a protective way. ‘She'll be over in the new town today, at the community centre. It's one of her busiest days – but I think it would be more considerate if you were to see her there rather than at the Rectory. Mrs Blore and I often say that Mr and Mrs Ainger get no peace at home. There's always somebody bothering them about something, wanting them to witness wills or sign passport applications or give character references, and ninety per cent of them aren't even churchgoers.'

DC Wigby, one of the ninety per cent, went away well satisfied with the progress of his enquiries. He knew that the Chief Inspector was in touch with the Aingers, and would want to do the follow-up himself; but with a skeleton as subject, there was no need to report back in a hurry. The DCI had told him to find out what was being said in the town, and it was a pity to waste good drinking time. Wigby moved across the road to the Coney and Thistle, and ordered the other half of his Guinness.

The customers at the Coney had several improbable and ribald theories about the origin of the skeleton, but no one seemed to know anything about the tall man with the ring, the red Datsun or the tent in Parson's Close. Wigby congratulated himself on his strategy. He'd certainly ferreted out as much information as that jumped-up Sergeant Tait – an Inspector now, dammit – could have done, for all Tait's university and police college background. Experience was worth ten times more than paper qualifications and he, Wigby, had been a detective while Master Tait was still at school.

He finished his drink and returned to the station, anticipating Chief Inspector Quantrill's approval. But he was too late.

‘The Rector's already been to see me,' said Quantrill. ‘He came soon after you left this morning. He thinks the skeleton may belong to an Australian who camped on and off last summer in Parson's Close.'

‘I've been wasting me time, then,' complained Wigby, crestfallen.

‘Not the way it smells from here. Besides, you've told me a couple of interesting things the Rector didn't mention. We won't make any more enquiries until I've cleared them up with him, so you'll be free to brief Sergeant Tuckswood on the church hall incident as soon as he arrives from Yarchester. Give him whatever help he needs – short of driving for him. I don't want him going back to HQ saying that Breckham CID needs breathalyzing.'

The February sun was low and watery but at least it was doing its best, and for the first time since the snow had begun Chief Inspector Quantrill went out voluntarily, just before twelve, for an hour's walk through the town. It was something he always enjoyed: an opportunity to get away from his desk, to clear his head and to keep in touch with the everyday life of Breckham.

It was market day, and the town was busier than usual; certainly busier than it had been during the weeks of snow and ice, when the shoppers had been unable to come in from the surrounding villages. Cold as it still was, the contrast with the preceding weeks was so great that people paused in the streets to chat as though it were spring. The main roads and pavements were clear, although wet and dirty, but the grey remains of the snow still blocked the gutters.

The funeral bell was tolling as Quantrill passed the church, its muffled clang sounding out high above the market place while the buying and selling and talking and chaffing, and the frying and munching at the fish-and-chip van, went on exactly as usual. This higgledy-piggledy juxtaposition of church and market was a part of country town living that he particularly valued: the in-the-midstof-death-we-are-in-life factor that reminded people of their own mortality but prevented them from being permanently overawed by the inevitability of it.

He edged across the market place through a narrow passage between crates of cabbage and a rail of outsize crimplene dresses in pastel colours, and then stood for a few moments with his back to the massive oak corner post of the medieval Coney and Thistle, observing the scene. The church was just across the road, rising high from its walled churchyard in which the ground had been lifted by generations of unmarked burials. A cemetery had been established on the outskirts of the town in the late nineteenth century, and so St Botolph's churchyard, no longer used, was still white with untouched snow.

The clock in the Victorian Italianate tower of the town hall on the other side of the market place struck twelve, and the Rector emerged from the south porch of St Botolph's and strode down the well-swept path to the gate to await the arrival of the hearse. Robin Ainger looked almost improperly youthful and handsome in his vestments. There was something about him that worried the Chief Inspector considerably. Not his appearance: Quantrill was not so intemperately Nonconformist by upbringing that he imagined that real-life Anglican parsons ought to be, like television comedy stereotypes, either amiably absent-minded elderly men or well-meaning young buffoons. What bothered him about Ainger was the probability that he had failed to admit the true extent of his knowledge of the corpse in Parson's Close.

What Ainger had told him was extremely helpful, and apparently complete. Quantrill would have accepted it – had, at first, accepted it – without hesitation. But then DC Wigby had turned up with further information that was surely relevant, although the Rector had not mentioned it. Quantrill had given him ample opportunity.
Is there anything else you can tell me, Mr Ainger
? he had asked.
Anything at all that you think might help us to find out how the man came to die
? And the Rector had looked at him with blank eyes and had said, No.

The volume of market noise lessened slightly and the Chief Inspector turned his head to see the town's traffic warden, magisterial in dark uniform and yellow cap-band, stopping both traffic and pedestrians to allow the funeral cortège along the narrow street that separated the market stalls from the churchyard. Quantrill took off his hat and stood for a moment with his head bared while the hearse passed. He saw it stop at the churchyard gate. The Rector stepped forward.

From across the road, the Chief Inspector stared speculatively at the Reverend Robin Ainger. A priest, and a pillar of the community; but for all that, a man like any other.

The savoury smell of fish fried in batter drifted across from the busy van. ‘And the next?' shouted the man behind the serving hatch as he slapped a steaming parcel in front of a customer. Quantrill turned and made his way into the Coney and Thistle for a pint of Adnams bitter and an early lunch.

It was ridiculous that he missed Martin Tait so much. There had been so many occasions, during the year they'd worked together, when he had longed to see the back of the cocksure young detective sergeant. But although the two men had often disagreed, their discussions had served to keep Quantrill mentally at full stretch. They had often met for a working lunch at the Coney, and the Chief Inspector wished that Tait were there now.

Ian Wigby could never be an adequate substitute. He had done a very useful piece of enquiry work that morning, and Quantrill intended to bear in mind that he deserved a Guinness for it; but the detective constable's limitations were those of the Chief Inspector himself.

Like Quantrill, Wigby was a Suffolk man by birth and upbringing. He could go about the division extracting information from local people without arousing either suspicion or resentment – something that Martin Tait, with his sharply elegant clothes and his expensively educated voice, had never been able to do. But Quantrill knew that neither he himself nor Wigby would be able to get into sufficiently close conversation with the Reverend Robin Ainger to find out what motivated him. Martin Tait would have been the ideal man for that particular job.

The bar at the Coney was busy. Quantrill ordered and paid for the hot dish of the day, exchanged a word with some acquaintances, and then carried his mug of beer up two worn stone steps and into the heavily beamed snug, where he found an empty table by one of the windows.

A girl with a dark pony-tail of hair and a striped butcher's apron over her jeans brought in a knife and fork rolled in a paper napkin, and a plate of home-made steak and mushroom pie. Quantrill began the meal with a good appetite, tempted by the smell of the gravy that oozed out as he cut into the golden crust, but his intake soon slackened as he went over in his mind the conversation he had had that morning with Robin Ainger.

The Rector's unexpected arrival in the front office had been announced by the desk sergeant, who assumed that the visit was in connection with young Peter Quantrill's alleged misdeeds and tried to convey over the intercom that he was ready, if required, to close ranks in sympathy. The Chief Inspector, making the same assumption, had suppressed a sigh and gone to the top of the stairs to meet the Rector, sending the escorting police cadet down again to fetch some coffee. But Robin Ainger was clutching a copy of the local newspaper, and he began to say what was on his mind before Quantrill could invite him to take off his duffle coat and sit down.

‘This body – the skeleton in the Close. Gillian and I have read the report and talked it over, and we think we now know who it might be.'

‘You do? Good, that'll be a great help.'

Ainger had looked anxiously determined as he came in, but the determination seemed to slide off with his coat, leaving only the anxiety. Quantrill had to say, ‘Yes, Mr Ainger?' encouragingly to persuade him to continue.

‘I don't
know
, of course,' Ainger said. ‘I may be completely wrong, and wasting your time. But a young man camped in Parson's Close for some weeks last summer – an Australian. His name was Athol Garrity, and I think he said that he came from Brisbane. We didn't see him often, and he didn't let us know that he was leaving, but we definitely didn't see him after the beginning of August.'

Quantrill took from the drawer of his desk the plastic envelope containing the big silver ring. ‘Do you happen to recognize this?'

Ainger glanced at it. The whites of his eyes were dull, the blue irises so pale above his clerical grey that they looked almost drained. ‘Ah yes – you mentioned a ring when you came to see us. My wife remembered, after you'd gone, that Garrity wore one on his left hand. That was what made us think that the body could be his. I can't, of course, be positive that this is the same ring –'

‘No, no. But your information is extremely helpful. We'll pass it on to the Australian authorities and ask them to have Garrity's dental records sent over. If the skeleton is his, it can be identified by the teeth. I'm much obliged to you for coming forward so quickly, Mr Ainger. It'll save my men from tramping about the town making enquiries.'

‘That's what I thought.' Robin Ainger rose to go, just as a policewoman brought in a tray of coffee. WPC Patsy Hopkins, who had a requited admiration for Douglas Quantrill, had heard from the desk sergeant that he was being grilled by the Rector about his son's behaviour. She had intercepted the cadet who was about to carry two slopped-over cups of canteen coffee into the Chief Inspector's office, and in an act of loyalty and affection had substituted one cup made from her own private jar of freeze-dried coffee granules. She carried in the tray herself to ensure that Quantrill got the right cup. Breckham Market police believed in looking after their own.

‘Don't go, please, Mr Ainger,' said Quantrill. ‘That is, if you can spare me a few more minutes. I'd like to know as much as I can – many thanks, Patsy – about this Australian.'

‘There's not much I can tell you,' said Ainger, sitting down again with some reluctance. ‘He said that he was backpacking round the world, and spending six months in England. When he disappeared, we naturally assumed that he'd moved on.'

‘What brought him to Breckham in the first place?'

‘Apparently he'd been staying with a student friend at Yarchester, and he came over to look at the monumental brasses in St Botolph's. They're famous, as you probably know. I happened to see him in the church one day last May, and he asked me whether he could take some rubbings of the brasses. He also mentioned that he was looking for somewhere to pitch his tent for the summer – a base camp from which he could make a few assaults on London, as he put it – and I said that he could use Parson's Close.'

Quantrill scratched his chin. ‘You mentioned yesterday that there were cattle there. Cattle and campers don't usually mix.'

Ainger hesitated. ‘Ah, yes. Well, actually, there weren't any cattle there last summer. The farmer decided that it was anachronistic to drive them through the town twice a year, and gave up the tenancy. But there's water for the cattle – a standpipe and trough at the lower end of the meadow – so it's ideal for camping.'