Country Pursuits (24 page)

‘What happened?' asked Camilla.

‘Oh, I just knew it was
wrong
. Felt wrong, looked wrong,' Lola explained. ‘Of course, I just assumed I was with the wrong guy, not the wrong sex.' She laughed ruefully. ‘Caused an awful rumpus at the time, but I got there. We're even friends again, now.'

‘I don't think I'm into women,' said Camilla hurriedly.

Lola glanced across at her. ‘I know, you don't have to explain.' She clinked her glass against Camilla's. ‘Just remember to follow your heart, babe.' She shot Camilla a flirty look. ‘Still, it's a shame.'

Lola's face swam in and out of Camilla's line of vision. Her inhibitions had gone out of the window
hours ago. I wonder what it would be like to kiss a girl? she asked herself hazily. Her sister's words came back to haunt her: ‘You don't have enough fun!' Suddenly, feeling like it was happening to someone else, Camilla launched forward and locked her lips on to Lola's. Lola tasted of bubblegum and strawberry lip-gloss. After a moment her soft tongue found its way into Camilla's mouth, and they started necking like a pair of randy teenagers.

Everyone whooped and cheered around the table until a giggling Calypso eventually prised them apart. ‘Bills! You don't know what you're doing. Leave my sister alone, you,' she said to Lola. ‘She's getting married!'

‘
She
kissed
me
!' protested Lola.

‘Yes, I did!' slurred Camilla proudly. ‘And very nice it was too. Hic!' She stood up unsteadily. ‘Right. Who's for a boogie?'

When the club shut at three, it took two bouncers, Calypso and one of the bar staff to drag Camilla off the dance floor. She'd lost a shoe along the way and her mascara was running down her face, but she was in a buoyant mood. ‘I just wanna dance with somebody,' she sang drunkenly as Calypso and Sam dragged her up the stairs. The others had left an hour earlier, but only after Camilla had typed her number into Lola's phone and ordered her to call her.

By the time they got back to Chelsea and met up with Tizzy, Camilla had passed out face-down in Sam's lap. She didn't wake up all the way back to the Cotswolds, even when Sam gave her a fireman's lift up to bed. She did have a funny dream about a beaver that night, though.

When the phone rang at No. 5 The Green at nine in the morning, it entered Camilla's consciousness like a sledgehammer. She peeled open one eye and winced at the sunlight filtering into her bedroom. What had happened last night? She couldn't remember much past the fifth tequila slammer.

The phone continued ringing. ‘All right, I'm coming,' she groaned, forcing herself to sit up. Her head was pounding and a wave of nausea washed over her. She leaned across to pick up the receiver. ‘Hello?' she croaked.

‘Camilla? Darling, is that you?' Her grandmother's voice sounded distant and shaky. Camilla tried to focus. In the back of her consciousness, warning bells were chiming. ‘Granny Clem, is something wrong?'

A sob sounded down the phone. Camilla was wide awake now; a cold, sick pit of fear spreading through her stomach. ‘Is it Caro, or Milo?' she whispered. ‘Or Mummy and Daddy?'

Another choked sob as Clementine tried to compose herself. ‘Oh, Camilla, something
dreadful
has happened,' she finally said. ‘The Reverend Goody has been murdered!'

DI RANCE LOOKED
at the body and quickly turned away. Throughout his time in the force he had learned not to be shocked when confronted with death, but that didn't mean he'd ever get used to it.

The Revd Goody was lying on his back in the middle of his large double bed. His flabby white body was completely naked, arms splayed out to the sides and legs crumpled and curled up underneath him. It looked like there had been some kind of struggle: the flowery covers and bedspread were scrunched up in disarray. His neck was disturbingly red and mottled, and tied around it – so tightly it was cutting into the soft folds of his flesh – was a white silk scarf. Above this, the Reverend's bespectacled face was purple; unseeing eyes staring at the ceiling, and a bloated tongue lolling obscenely out of his mouth. It was horrible, but the most shocking thing of all was his expression – lips curled back and teeth bared as if in a silent scream. Rance let out an involuntary shudder. Poor sod – what a way to go.

‘Looks like he was strangled, Guv!' PC Penny materialized beside him in the bedroom doorway. ‘I
reckon the perpetrator broke in while he was sleeping, crept upstairs and POW!' Penny slammed his fist into the other open palm. ‘Throttled the Reverend good and proper!'

Rance looked disdainfully at the young officer. He was positively beside himself with excitement, bulbous eyes almost popping out of his head. ‘Penny,' he said grimly. ‘May I remind you that a very serious offence has been committed here, so can you stop going round looking like a dog with two tails? The last thing these villagers need to see is you slavering in a frenzy over the death of their beloved vicar.'

Penny looked suitably chastened. ‘Sorry, sir,' he said meekly. His eyes lit up again. ‘But he
has
been bumped off, hasn't he?' he asked eagerly. ‘My mates from training college are going to be pig sick when they hear about this! Most they've had so far are shoplifters and flashers!'

‘Until we've done the post-mortem, I don't want to say one way or another,' replied Rance. ‘Now get downstairs and set a cordon up outside the front door. There's a crowd forming outside and we don't want anyone coming in who's not with us or the crime scene lot.'

As Penny scampered off down the stairs Rance turned and looked back at the body. Even though he had just put his constable in his place, Rance had to agree with Penny. He was 99 per cent certain he was looking at a murder victim.

‘Time of death was between two and three o'clock this morning,' the duty doctor informed Rance when he returned to the kitchen. ‘The body is
showing signs of early rigor mortis.' The doctor was a small, efficient man with an immaculate pencil moustache. Rance looked around the kitchen. The SOCO officers were painstakingly moving down the corridor now, dusting for fingerprints and any other trace evidence. Another PC from the station was blithely going through a biscuit tin next to the kettle, his mouth full of ginger snaps. Rance frowned at him, and lowered his voice. ‘In your opinion, Doc, what do you make of it?'

The doctor snapped off his rubber gloves and started packing away his medicine bag. ‘Not for me to say, Inspector, but it does look rather suspicious.'

The next morning Rance paid a visit to the morgue at Bedlington. The pathologist, Bernard Trump, was one year away from retirement, but looked like he had been in a nursing home for decades already. A raging alcoholic, it was a long-running joke amongst the local police that if a corpse wasn't dead before it entered his morgue, the fumes from the pathologist's breath would finish it off for good. Bernard was ponderous and portly, with a permanently red nose and watery, rheumy eyes. Eyes that were now surveying Rance over the stainless steel trolley the Reverend's body lay on. Loud retching could be heard coming from the toilet next door. Penny's orgasmic excitement at having a possible murder on his hands had been tempered slightly by having to witness his first autopsy.

‘Death was caused by compression to the trachea, leading to loss of consciousness due to suffocation,' Trump intoned, leaning over to show Rance. ‘The
carotid arteries in the neck would also have been severely compressed, stopping the supply of blood to the brain and making it bell, I mean, er, swell,' Trump slurred. He stared off into space and burped gently. Rance surveyed him in disgust.

‘So basically, you're telling me he was strangled?'

‘Mmm,' replied Trump distractedly. Rance noticed his hands shaking. Probably got the DTs, the silly old sod. The pathologist peered at Rance. ‘I would say the Reverend here would have been unconscious in seconds, but it could have taken up to twenty minutes for him to die. You can tell by the livid bruise marks on both sides of his neck.'

Trump pulled the sheet over the Revd Goody's ghostly white face. ‘Was there anything else? Only I've got a lunch meeting.'

With a bloke called Jack Daniels, thought Rance disparagingly.

Penny came back into the room, looking decidedly corpse-like himself. ‘All right, Penny?' his boss asked wickedly. ‘Fancy a bit of lunch, maybe a nice rare steak? Just imagine, all that blood oozing out when you cut into it. Mmm.' He watched as Penny clapped a hand over his mouth and fled the room again. Moments later, violent retching could be heard as Penny dry-heaved the last of his bile into the toilet bowl.

Rance looked back at the pathologist to share the joke, but Trump was surreptitiously taking a swig out of a small silver hip flask. Jesus, he couldn't even wait for other people to leave the room! No wonder afternoon autopsies were unheard of in here.

Minutes later, Rance was getting his come-uppance for playing a joke on Penny. The PC stank of sick and sweat, and even with all the windows open the patrol car reeked all the way back to the station. Penny was too ill to drive, so Rance had to take over while he sat slumped against the passenger door, head hanging out the window. Rance hoped none of their superiors would see them as they pulled into the car park. It was hardly a good advert for the police force.

Rance had already set up an incident room at the station. Photos of the Reverend – dead and alive – were stuck on one of the walls. On another wall, a large white board covered in red marker pen indicated the victim's last movements. In the centre of the board Rance had written the word ‘motive' and underlined it several times. So far they had none. In the middle of the room, surrounded by empty Ginsters pasty wrappers and cans of Red Bull, sat a mixture of grey-faced detectives in crumpled suits, moaning about being drafted in to work over the weekend, and a few young, shiny-eyed uniforms. Even with the grumbling of the more seasoned detectives, there was a certain frisson in the room. Bedlington CID had never seen such a thing before and it was causing quite a kerfuffle.

‘You've had calls from the
Bedlington Bugle
, the
News of the World
and the
Sunday Mirror
, sir,' Rance was informed by the only female police officer, a small, squat, blonde woman typing away furiously on a laptop in the corner of the room.

Rance rolled his eyes. ‘Not the bloody nationals as well! It'll be front-page news all over the country
tomorrow. The last thing we need are hordes of reporters descending like locusts and getting their facts wrong.'

‘Bound to be something to do with devil-worshippers, Guv. You know these religious types,' remarked one of the detectives, a ravaged chain-smoking forty-something called Powers. He dragged on his cigarette and blew smoke rings expertly up towards the yellowing, nicotine-stained ceiling.

Rance coughed. ‘Yes, well, we don't know that yet, so I don't want any of you making assumptions from the off. We've got a hell of a job in front of us. We need someone to put out a press release, get on to the press bureau.'

‘Sir,' said another detective, reaching for the phone.

‘DS Powers. After the staff cuts in this area we're short on manpower. I know it's not normal procedure, but you're pairing up with PC Penny. Give him the benefit of your expertise.' Rance allowed himself a sardonic smile. Penny looked like he might pass out with excitement but Powers was outraged; detectives worked a murder case, not some pimply faced young uniform!

Rance carried on. ‘I want you two to be in charge of all the house-to-house calls in the village. Talk to everyone, find out what they know, how they got along with the Reverend.' Penny jumped up like a jack-in-the-box and started fishing for his pocket book, while Powers groaned and muttered under his breath.

‘Anything from CCTV?' Rance asked the room.

‘Only camera in the village is in the shop, Guv,'
said Penny. ‘I don't think we're going to get much.'

Rance sighed. ‘What about next of kin?' he asked wearily.

‘Victim's unmarried. Parents both deceased, one sister who's a missionary in Africa,' chirped Penny.

‘Track her down, will you?' Rance said. ‘One word to remember – sensitivity.' Penny nodded vigorously. ‘Guv!' He'd got his colour and enthusiasm back.

‘Right,' said Rance, sounding more decisive than he felt. ‘Let's get started.'

THAT AFTERNOON POWERS
and Penny found themselves over at Fairoaks, interviewing Brenda Briggs. Brenda had been the one to discover the body, when she'd popped over to the rectory to pick up the latest copy of the parish newsletter. On finding the back door slightly ajar, her curiosity had got the better of her and she'd entered the house, calling out the Reverend's name. Five minutes later, Freddie Fox-Titt had been driving past when a hysterical Brenda had rushed into the middle of the road and flagged him down. Freddie had immediately called 999.

Brenda was still in a dreadful state. She was clasping a glass of single malt whisky in one hand, trembling as she took the occasional sip. Her husband Ted was sitting silently beside her, his huge calloused hand occasionally patting hers. Brenda hadn't been able to face going back to her cottage because she could see the rectory from her kitchen window, so Clementine had insisted they both get away from the scene – and the hordes of camera crews – to the relative serenity of her house.

‘Had you seen anyone suspicious hanging
around the victim's property recently?' asked Powers, while Penny took down copious notes.

‘No one!' replied Brenda tearfully. ‘Oh, why would anyone want to kill him? He was such a nice man. Seeing him lying there . . .' She dissolved into floods of tears again.

‘We don't know of anyone who would have wanted to hurt the Reverend,' Clementine told the officers. ‘Churchminster is an extremely close-knit village and he was a very popular man.' A memory rustled distantly in her brain as she said it, like leaves blowing in a gentle autumn wind. Was there something she should remember? Oh, her mind was all over the place!