Appointed to Die (39 page)

‘The keys!' Todd's eyes shone with excitement. ‘Jeremy had Canon Brydges-ffrench's keys!' He took the large ring out of the pocket of his jeans and deposited it on the table with a satisfying clunk. ‘I just got them back from him this afternoon! The Canon had given them to him on Sunday so that he could take down his display in the library. I was supposed to get them back on Monday, but of course with everything that happened I forgot about it entirely until this afternoon.' He picked them back up and jingled them with a triumphant flourish. ‘It's a complete set,' he explained. ‘Here is the key to the Deanery – the Subdean had it because he was the Acting Dean in the interregnum. And this is the key to the Dean's door, and here's the one to the south transept door. So Jeremy could have gone into the cathedral through the south transept – the entrance is through the cloister right by his house – and come out through the Dean's door, right across from the Deanery.'

‘Lucy's found out something that sheds a bit more light on Jeremy's motivation,' said Pat; Lucy shot her a warning look but Pat went on calmly. ‘She happened to see Jeremy today, and he admitted something quite astonishing about the Becket window.'

Twisting a curl around her finger and averting her face from David, Lucy told him about Jeremy's scheme to cover the music festival's deficit.

‘And Jeremy actually
told
you this?' The incredulity in David's voice mirrored that on his face.

Lucy raised her eyes to his at last. ‘Yes, he told me. But I'd guessed most of it already. I remembered what you'd said about the bell-ringers and the scaffolding, and then I remembered a few other things as well, and I realised that nothing had been done to the window. So I asked him about it, and he admitted it, then told me why – that it wasn't for his own personal gain, but to help out Arthur Brydges-ffrench.'

David couldn't suppress a momentary feeling of triumph that his assessment of Jeremy's character had been borne out. ‘I
told
you that Jeremy wasn't a trustworthy person,' he stated smugly. But Lucy's reaction surprised him; she merely nodded and looked away.

‘You were right,' she said in a quiet voice.

Thoughtfully, David chewed on his thumbnail. ‘But what does this mean in terms of his motive for murder? If he wasn't actually lining his own pockets with cathedral funds, and if Brydges-ffrench knew about it all along . . .'

‘But don't you see,' Lucy interrupted him. ‘That doesn't really make any difference. It was still fraud, after all. The important thing isn't that Arthur Brydges-ffrench knew about it, but that the Dean
didn't
. Jeremy had a great deal to lose if the Dean found out.'

‘Yeah, what if Canon Brydges-ffrench was threatening to tell the Dean?' Todd hypothesised. ‘He'd had to give him the books, so maybe he thought that the Dean was bound to figure out that something was fishy, and that he'd get off more lightly if he told him it was all Jeremy's idea?'

‘The Dean would
not
have been amused, and Jeremy would have lost his position as blue-eyed boy,' Pat stated. ‘And probably the commission to design the Cathedral Centre as well.'

‘Not to mention the matter of public scandal,' added Lucy.

‘As motives go,' said David, ‘that's not a bad one.' He smiled around the table at the others. ‘I think, my friends, that we may be on to something.'

But as Lucy drifted off to sleep that night she found that, despite the revulsion she now felt at the thought of Jeremy, she still couldn't quite believe him to be a murderer: something still didn't entirely fit, though she couldn't decide what it was. And there was still the question of Rowena, who, as far as Lucy was concerned, had a motive at least as good as Jeremy's, with the added factor of a lack of alibi, and an unwillingness to discuss it. She remembered, suddenly, something that Jeremy had said: that Rowena had kicked in ten thousand pounds from the Friends' funds for the phoney window repair. Had she been a willing partner in the fraud and the cover-up? Lucy decided that she would have to confront Rowena about it all, the next day. David might not see the necessity, and probably wouldn't approve, but David wouldn't need to know until she'd done it. After all, if she didn't tell him what she intended to do, he wouldn't be able to stop her.

CHAPTER 40

    
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man: and are at their wit's end.

Psalm 107.27

The next morning, while David was in the kitchen chatting with Pat and Todd, Lucy quietly let herself out of the house and slipped into the cathedral, going straight to the Friends' stall in the south aisle. She felt guilty that she was taking such a step without consulting David, but had told herself that, convinced as he was of Jeremy's guilt, he would dismiss her concerns about Rowena.

To Lucy's surprise, Rowena wasn't at the Friends' stall; it was inhabited instead by an elderly volunteer who regarded her with suspicion when she asked for Mrs Hunt. ‘She's not here,' said the woman.

‘Yes, I can see that. Is she at home, do you know? I'm Canon Kingsley's daughter,' she added with what she hoped was a winning smile, counting on her father's popularity with everyone at the cathedral to enhance her standing by association.

The ploy was successful; the woman unbent at once. ‘Oh, the Canon! He's a lovely man.' She went on beneficently, ‘I believe that Mrs Hunt is at home. She rang me earlier this morning and said that she wasn't feeling well, and would I mind keeping an eye on the stall until lunch time?'

‘Oh, dear. Well, thank you very much for your help.'

Lucy left the cathedral and continued around the Close towards Rowena's house; now that she'd made up her mind to tackle her, not even her reluctance to disturb a sick woman would stop her. As she passed the Cathedral Shop, though, she decided to see if they had some little thing that she could take to Rowena as a get-well offering.

Victor and Bert both professed themselves delighted to see her. ‘My dear!' effused Victor. ‘We haven't seen you for days!'

‘Though of course it seems more like weeks,' Bert added with an attempt at gallantry.

‘What can we do for you, Lucy darling? Or have you just called in to see us?'

‘I heard that Mrs Hunt was under the weather, and thought I'd take her a little something.'

Victor threw up his hands melodramatically. ‘Oh, you
are
an angel of mercy! The next time I'm feeling poorly, will you come and stroke
my
fevered brow?'

‘I'm sure that Bert can take care of you very well. But Mrs Hunt lives alone,' she reminded him.

Bert rewarded her with a grateful grin as Victor produced an extended version of his gurgling laugh. ‘That one may live alone, my dear,' he said archly when he'd calmed down, ‘but I don't think she's very often lonely, if you understand me.'

They brought forth a few items for her inspection; at last she settled on a bunch of dried flowers as being potentially less offensive to Rowena's taste than anything else.

‘Don't be a stranger, Lucy dear,' Victor called after her as she left the shop.

She rang Rowena's bell, expecting a lengthy pause for the other woman to come downstairs from her sickbed. But Rowena appeared almost immediately, the hopeful look with which she opened the door replaced instantly with an expression of guarded dislike. Lucy wasn't surprised that Rowena's greeting was less enthusiastic than Victor's and Bert's had been; she'd never had the feeling that Rowena liked her very much. Perhaps, she thought, her errand would be a waste of time – would Rowena tell her anything? If she hadn't been forthcoming with David, what made Lucy think that Rowena would be honest with
her
?

Lucy smiled, extending the dried flowers. ‘The woman at the Friends' stall said that you weren't feeling well, so I brought you these.'

Rowena took them from her hand, and hesitated a moment. ‘Come in, won't you?'

As she entered, Lucy had the opportunity for a closer look at Rowena. She didn't look at all well: her eyes were red and puffy, with mascara smudges under them, and her nose was likewise scarlet. But there was an unmistakable whiff of gin about her, and the first thing she said was, ‘Would you care to join me in a drink?'

The table in the sitting room on which Rowena carelessly dropped the dried flowers contained a half-empty gin bottle. Unwilling to antagonise her hostess by refusing and thus implying that she was censorious of her morning drinking habits, Lucy nodded. ‘Plenty of tonic for me, please.' She settled down in the chair indicated and took a very tiny sip of the drink which Rowena had poured out with an unsteady hand. At that point she was uncertain how to proceed; Rowena's manner as well as her appearance were far removed from Lucy's previous experiences with her.

After a few minutes of uneasy silence, Lucy decided to carry on with her plans. ‘If you don't mind, Mrs Hunt, I have one or two questions I'd like to ask you,' she said with a smile.

‘Whether I mind or not may depend on the questions, Miss Kingsley.' Rowena's voice was testy; she didn't bother to return the smile. ‘And if it's about last Monday night, you may as well save your breath. I've said everything I intend to say on the subject to your friend Mr Middleton-Brown.'

‘No, it wasn't about that. It's about the repairs to the Becket window – I understand that the Friends contributed a substantial sum towards the project.'

Rowena relaxed slightly. ‘Yes, that's right. Given the importance of the window, we felt that it was something we ought to support. And we did do rather well financially out of the flower festival in August, so we were in a position to be generous.'

‘When you say “we”, Mrs Hunt, does that really translate to “I”?' Lucy asked without malice, seeking clarification.

Frowning, Rowena snapped, ‘If you insist on being pedantic, I was the one who made the decision, though of course I consulted my committee. As you said, it was a substantial sum of money.'

‘Ten thousand pounds, I believe?'

Rowena took a large gulp of gin before replying. ‘I don't know who told you, or in fact what business it is of yours, but that is correct.' She emptied her glass, and to Lucy it seemed that the belligerence drained out of Rowena as rapidly and as completely as the gin from her glass. With a sigh, she leaned over to refill her glass with neat gin.

Lucy realised then that it would be impossible to ask Rowena about her knowledge of Jeremy's fraud without compromising David's, or indeed the police's, investigations. Rowena was in no fit state to answer questions, in any case. She had verified one fact, anyway; perhaps, Lucy thought, she ought to depart at that point and leave Rowena to her gin.

She set her still-full glass down and rose. ‘Thank you very much for your cooperation, and for the drink. I'll go now.'

‘No!' Rowena's involuntary exclamation caught them both by surprise. ‘I mean,' she added almost pleadingly, ‘I'd like you to stay. I'd be glad of the company.'

Lucy hardly knew what to say; she resumed her seat. ‘Are you sure you're feeling all right?' she asked with a tentative smile.

Rowena didn't reply, but after a moment a tear rolled down her cheek, to be followed by others in increasingly rapid succession. She raised an ineffectual hand to wipe them away; the gesture seemed uncharacteristic and somehow pathetic.

As she had done with Evelyn Marsden a few days earlier, Lucy rose impulsively and went to her, putting an arm around her drooping shoulders. ‘Is there something you'd like to talk about?'

Rowena shook her head, and her voice came out on a sob. ‘No. I couldn't.' She fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief. Lucy reached for a box of tissues and offered them to her. Soon the trickle became a flood. ‘I'm sorry,' she wept. ‘I didn't mean to . . . I can't help it.'

‘Would you like me to help you upstairs? Perhaps a little rest would do you good.' Lucy had expected a refusal, but unexpectedly Rowena nodded in assent. Getting her upstairs was harder than Lucy had anticipated; Rowena's limbs seemed to have lost the will or the ability to move, so Lucy more or less propelled her up the stairs and into what she judged must be her bedroom.

It was a room quite unlike the one she'd been in the day before: this one was as feminine as Jeremy's had been masculine, with delicate furniture, a lacy spread on the bed, and floral watercolours adorning the walls. The pervasive scent of tea rose was even stronger than the smell of gin; there were photos in small wrought silver frames on the chest of drawers, and various pots of cosmetics, ointments and esoteric beauty preparations covered the dressing table. But as Lucy guided Rowena towards a chair, her attention was caught by something hanging from the dressing table mirror: unmistakably a pair of police epaulettes, identical to the ones worn by Inspector Michael Drewitt when Lucy had last seen him. In a flash of intuition she knew what was wrong.

It would do Rowena good to talk about it, Lucy told herself. Less admirable, perhaps, was the unacknowledged thought at the back of her mind that in her current state of inebriation and emotional distress, Rowena might inadvertently give away some vital clue. ‘Why don't you tell me what's upsetting you?' she suggested soothingly. ‘It's something to do with Inspector Drewitt, isn't it?'

Rowena recoiled. ‘You know . . . about me and Mike?'

Not sure whether that made things worse or better, Lucy nodded. ‘You mean that everyone in the Close is talking about me?' Rowena gave a bitter laugh. ‘That's all I need.'

‘No, of course not,' Lucy hastened to assure her. ‘I just sort of . . . guessed, that's all. But why don't you tell me about it? It will make you feel better to talk.'