Appointed to Die (24 page)

About an hour later he ushered them into his study. It was a high-ceilinged, old-fashioned room, dimly lit and crammed with books: books filling the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, spilling over on to the threadbare Persian carpet and covering the desk in untidy piles. There were even books on the ancient leather sofa; the Subdean removed them to the floor before inviting the other two men to sit down. They did so reluctantly – dark rectangles in the dust on the sofa showed where the books had been, and demonstrated how long they had been there. Philip Thetford ostentatiously took out his handkerchief and flicked the dust from one cushion before sitting down on it.

The Subdean unearthed a box of crème de menthe Turkish Delight from his desk and offered it around; both Canons waved it away with expressions of distaste. Shamefacedly he popped a sticky green sweet in his own mouth before offering, ‘Would you like a sherry?'

‘Not on a week night.' The Canon Missioner pursed his thin lips self-righteously.

‘Perhaps I will,' said the Precentor. ‘A small one, though. Dry, please.'

The cut glass decanter was as dusty as the sofa, but the sherry inside was excellent; Arthur Brydges-ffrench was well known for keeping a good cellar, though since his mother's death he rarely entertained. He poured one for Rupert Greenwood and one for himself, then took a seat in his shabbily comfortable leather chair. This chair was where he spent much of his time, so it, at least, was free of books.

‘What is this all about, Arthur?' demanded Canon Thetford. ‘Couldn't it wait till some other time? This is not convenient for me – Claire will be expecting me to have dinner ready when she gets home from the clinic tonight. And I haven't soaked the lentils yet.'

The Subdean leaned forward nervously. ‘I don't think it can wait,' he said, then paused. ‘The Dean has asked to see the accounts for the music festival.'

Philip Thetford gave an impatient shrug. ‘Yes, I heard him say it at the Chapter meeting. So what? Give them to him, then.'

There was a soft hiss of indrawn breath from Rupert Greenwood. ‘He's asked for them again, Arthur?'

‘Yes. He asked me on Sunday, and then again this morning, after Communion. He said that he wants to see them right away, before next week's Chapter meeting. And if the accounts aren't available, he'll settle for the books.'

‘Ah.' The Precentor leaned back thoughtfully and sipped at his sherry, avoiding the Subdean's eyes.

‘So what's the problem?' The Canon Missioner's voice took on a hectoring note. ‘As I said, just go ahead and give them to him. I don't see why you had to drag us all the way here to ask our permission for that! I know that you're under stress, Arthur, but surely it's within your capabilities,' he added with a sarcastic sneer.

‘You don't understand, Philip.' The Subdean's brow was beaded with sweat.

‘No, I don't! I'm waiting for you to explain it to me!' he exploded truculently. ‘And preferably before the Last Trumpet!'

Canon Brydges-ffrench found his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. ‘Philip,' he said quietly, ‘I can't give him the books. There are certain . . . ahem . . . irregularities . . . in the books, and I don't think that the Dean would be particularly . . . um . . . sympathetic.'

‘Irregularities? What are you talking about?'

‘We lost so much money,' the older man said, almost in a whisper. ‘We had to do
something . . .
'

‘Let's just say,' Rupert Greenwood put in, ‘that certain . . . creative accounting . . . was used that wouldn't stand up to very close scrutiny. If it was ever made public . . .'

‘There would be Hell to pay,' finished the Subdean on a groan. ‘Oh, what are we going to do?'

‘
We
?' Canon Thetford demanded, visibly drawing away from Rupert Greenwood on the sofa. ‘This has nothing to do with
me
! You two may have got yourselves in deep water, but
I
am not involved! I had nothing to do with your blasted music festival, and nothing to do with the books!' He stood up, as if to go.

Canon Greenwood laughed, a dry unamused laugh. ‘That's where you're wrong, my friend. I'm afraid, Philip, that you're very much involved.'

The Canon Missioner's pale eyes bulged even more than usual, his invisible eyebrows stood out on a suddenly red face, and he sat back down with a thump. ‘But that's absurd! Impossible!'

‘The cheques,' the Precentor explained succinctly. ‘You were a signatory on the music festival account. Three signatures required, remember? Arthur's, mine . . . and yours, Philip.' He paused for emphasis. ‘You signed blank cheques, Philip. I asked you to sign them, and you didn't even ask me what they were for.' Rupert Greenwood smiled with a certain grim pleasure. ‘So you see, Philip, you're in it as deep as we are. If we go down, you go down with us.'

Canon Greenwood strode back home through the Close, past the vacant organist's house, humming a phrase from the evening's Psalm, 109, as he thought appositely of the Dean: ‘Let his days be few: and let another take his office.' As he put his key in the lock, his thoughts moved ahead to dinner. Tuesday, he calculated. Curry. Tuesday was the night to finish up the final remnants of Sunday's joint, so tonight it was bound to be chicken curry. Rupert liked chicken curry; his mouth began to water in anticipation.

But no spicy smell of garam masala and cumin and coriander greeted him. In fact, there was no smell of anything, and the house felt cold, as though the central heating had not been on for some time. ‘Judith?' he called tentatively. There was no reply.

There was, however, a note, in Judith's fluid handwriting, placed neatly on the kitchen counter. Rupert picked it up, disbelieving: Judith was
never
away when he got home, not even when she got roped into baby-sitting that revolting Crabtree infant while its parents were off ringing bells or drinking at the pub or whatever they did to give them an excuse to get away from their progeny. No, she always insisted on bringing the child here, letting it toddle around the house and get into his things, bang on the piano and slobber on his music.

‘Dear Rupert,' said the note. ‘I have been trying for days to talk to you, but you just won't listen. You don't even seem to know that I am around. Perhaps if I am not here for a while you will notice.' It was signed, ‘With love, Judith.'

Rupert stared at the note, stunned.

CHAPTER 23

    
The sorrows of my heart are enlarged: O bring thou me out of my troubles.

Psalm 25.16

By the time that Rupert received her note, Judith Greenwood was many miles distant from Malbury. Earlier that afternoon she had packed her bag and walked to the station, catching the 3.32 to London. So as Rupert stood, gaping at her note, she was well on her way to Paddington Station, clutching the paper napkin with Lucy's address in her hand like a talisman.

The nights were drawing in quickly now, and already it was quite dark. But Judith stared out into the blankness, watching the pinpoints of light that marked scattered houses and villages, the evenly-spaced topaz lights dotting the dual carriageways, and the eerie pinky-yellow glow which spread through the sky as they approached a major town. Swindon, Reading, and then it would be London Paddington.

It was only as the train drew nearer to London that Judith Greenwood realised, her stomach muscles contracting with excitement, how much she had missed the capital city. It had been literally years since she'd been there – all those wasted years in Malbury, she thought.

Judith paid off the taxi driver at the entrance to the mews – not knowing this part of London very well, and uneasy to be wandering around on her own after dark, she had splashed out on a taxi. She found the house and rang the bell nervously. Now that she was here standing on the doorstep, she belatedly began to have second thoughts about the wisdom of this enterprise: would Lucy be glad to see her? Would she even be there?

After a short delay the door opened, and the surprise on Lucy's face must have rivalled that on Rupert's earlier. ‘Good heavens! Judith!'

‘Hello, Lucy,' she said timidly. ‘You said that I could come . . .'

‘Well, come in, then!' Lucy beckoned her inside, taking in the case with a quick glance. ‘Rupert isn't with you?'

‘No, he's not.' Judith suddenly felt terribly awkward. ‘I had to get away from him – away from Malbury – for a few days. I'm really sorry – I didn't know where else to go. I remembered that you said I could come any time, and—'

‘Yes, of course,' Lucy cut across her stammered explanations. ‘Have you had anything to eat?' she asked practically.

Judith thought back; in her haste to get away, and her excitement at the journey, food had been the farthest thing from her mind. ‘No,' she said. ‘Not since breakfast.'

‘Then you must be starving. Come on through to the dining room – we were just eating. Don't worry, there's plenty.'

Judith trailed behind her in an excess of embarrassment. ‘Oh, you have company, then? I don't want to interrupt anything. I'm so sorry – I really should have rung. I shouldn't have come at all, really, only—' She stopped at the dining room door as David turned. ‘Oh!' she said, recognising him. ‘Oh, hello, Mr . . .'

‘David,' he stated with a smile.

‘Judith has come to stay for a few days,' Lucy explained to him.

‘I'm so sorry to interrupt, Lucy. I should have realised that you might be entertaining,' she began again, looking as if she might turn and flee at any instant.

‘Oh, no, it's not like that,' said Lucy matter-of-factly. ‘David is living here.'

David frowned involuntarily, partly out of embarrassment and partly because of Lucy's choice of words: ‘is living here' sounded so much more temporary than ‘lives here' would have done. Seeing his frown, Judith grew even more embarrassed. ‘I . . . I didn't know,' she floundered, blushing.

Lucy had the grace to look slightly abashed. ‘Well, no, there's no reason why you should have known. I haven't exactly publicised the fact in Malbury,' she said wryly, adding, ‘My father doesn't know. And I'd just as soon . . .'

‘Oh, I won't tell him,' Judith assured her. ‘That is, if I ever go back to Malbury.' Her voice was wistful, yet tinged with bitterness.

* * *

After Judith had eaten, ravenously, they began to discuss her situation in a roundabout way. David, who realised early on that his presence was not required, and might even be counter-productive, made diplomatic excuses: ‘Would you mind awfully, Lucy, if I disappeared and left you two to do the washing up? I really must have a look at a few papers before tomorrow.' Lucy nodded, smiling, and Judith rewarded him with a grateful look.

He retreated into the sitting room with his briefcase; there really were papers that he needed to look at, but his mind kept wandering to another matter which was troubling him. His vague suspicions that Jeremy Bartlett was not precisely the genial, witty man he presented to the world – and more especially to Lucy – had continued to nag at David's awareness, and at last he had taken some action. That afternoon he had made a few discreet telephone calls to people who might be in a position to know something about Jeremy, and the evasion with which his questions had been answered was not reassuring. In one sense he felt justified: perhaps there really was some basis in fact for his distrust of the man. But it was also worrying, in that he scarcely knew what to do next. There was no concrete evidence that Jeremy had ever been involved, in his years of practice in London, in anything strictly illegal or even unethical. But the hints were there: should he follow them up further? He knew that he couldn't mention it to Lucy; anything that he said about Jeremy would be interpreted by her as a manifestation of jealousy. In a sense, of course, it was that as well, for Jeremy was clearly interested in Lucy, and David had never managed to completely overcome his own insecurities about their relationship. But the sound instincts that made him a good lawyer convinced him that, all personal feelings aside, Jeremy Bartlett was not a nice person.

As he turned these things over in his mind, reaching no conclusions, David ceased to hear the voices – and the clatter of washing up – in the kitchen. Sophie, the marmalade cat, made herself comfortable on his lap, as she often did in the evenings; with his mind occupied and the inert animal warmth, he was unaware of time passing. When the mantelpiece clock struck midnight he looked up, surprised that it was so late, and realised that Lucy and Judith were still in the kitchen, and still talking. Reluctantly, for since he'd been in this house it had never happened before, David went upstairs and went to bed alone.

After a time he slept fitfully, waking when Lucy crawled in beside him at last. ‘What time is it, love?' he murmured.

‘After three. I'm sorry – I tried not to wake you.'

‘I don't sleep very well when you're not with me.' He turned over and reached for her. ‘Come here.'

‘Mm, you're nice and warm. And my feet are cold,' she warned him, snuggling close.

He flinched only slightly. ‘So are your hands. Did you get Judith settled in for the night?'

‘Yes, downstairs on the sofa bed. She ought to sleep well – she's exhausted, poor thing.'

‘And did you get her sorted out?'

‘It will take more than my advice – and more than one night – to get her sorted out.'

‘Tell me about it,' David urged. ‘She's left Rupert?'

‘Not exactly left
him
. I think it's really more that she's left Malbury, and he happens to be there.' Lucy sighed. ‘To make a long story – and it's a very long story, believe me – short, Judith is one very frustrated woman. She met Rupert at the Royal College of Music, before he had any thoughts of ordination. They married, she went on to have a very promising career as a singer, and he went ahead and got ordained. After a curacy in London, he got the post in Malbury. They've been there about six years, and she's absolutely miserable. There are no professional outlets for her in Malbury – no women in the cathedral choir, and no decent amateur choral societies. She has no friends, no peers, no one she's felt she could talk to, and Rupert seems to neglect her shamefully. He lives for his music, and for “his boys”, as he calls the choir, and doesn't seem to have much energy left over to make his marriage work.'