Evil Intent (18 page)

Cowley made an expansive gesture with his cigarette. ‘I met a very nice young lady in one of the clubs.’

‘She recognised the photo? She knew Jonah Adimola?’ Neville’s voice was eager with hope.

‘Well, no,’ Cowley admitted. ‘But she seemed to take a fancy to me, and when this business is all over, we’re going to meet up for a drink.’

Neville stared at him, biting back a string of expletives. When he had
himself under sufficient control to speak, he said, ‘Bloody hell, man! We’re in the middle of a murder investigation, and you’re out there chatting up girls?’

‘Just following instructions, Guv.’ Cowley didn’t look or sound in the least bit repentant. ‘You said to talk to as many people as possible.’ His smirk conveyed a clear message: you’re just jealous, Guv.

He wasn’t going to win this one, Neville could see, and if it put Cowley in a good mood, he supposed he shouldn’t knock it. He gave an
ostentatious
sigh. ‘Point taken.’

Cowley took a last long drag on his cigarette, then stubbed it out in an empty coffee mug. ‘At any rate, Guv, I’ve been through the papers. Have you seen them yet?’

‘No.’

‘I didn’t think so.’

It was difficult for Neville to tell whether he was being smug, or
something
else. He dumped his armload of papers on the desk. ‘Why? What’s up?’

‘Do you want the good news or the bad news first?’

Oh, God, Neville thought. ‘Give me the bad news.’

The sergeant waved a copy of the
Globe.
‘That Lilith Noone woman. She’s sniffed out Frances Cherry.’

This time Neville made no effort to check the single sturdy
Anglo-Saxon
expletive which rose to his lips, adding ‘How the hell did she find her?’

‘Beats me, Guv. She’s talked to her husband, she claims. And she’s
written
all about her background as a campaigner for women priests. ‘The Militant Woman at the Centre of Murdered Priest Mystery’.

Neville snatched the paper and scanned the story.

‘The kicker is at the end,’ Cowley pointed out.

“‘Frances Cherry has been interviewed twice by the police, her husband has confirmed. No arrests have yet been made.” Oh, great,’ Neville said
bitterly.
‘Talk about setting an agenda for us. If we don’t arrest the woman, everyone will want to know why. Not least the Chief Superintendent.’ He threw the paper down on his desk. ‘After that, what could possibly be the
good news?’

‘She didn’t mention the murder weapon. Either she didn’t know, or …’

‘Or she’ll drop the other shoe later. I wouldn’t put it past her.’ Neville shook his head. ‘Well, Sid, I suppose we should be grateful for small favours.’

The door of the Christ Church vicarage was opened by a motherly looking woman with short grey hair.

‘Is the vicar in?’ Lilith asked. She hoped that she had allowed enough time for him to complete his run.

‘Do you have an appointment, dear?’

‘Well, no.’ She assumed a beseeching expression. ‘But I need to see him. It’s important.’

The woman seemed to be sizing her up, then nodded. ‘Come in. I believe he’s just out of the shower. I’m sure he can spare you a few
minutes.’
She ushered her into a study a few feet from the front door.

Lilith had only a brief wait before Richard Grant joined her – barely enough time to scan the book shelves and glance at the photos on display. The former contained a prodigious number of Bible commentaries, and the latter were uninteresting, showing several well-scrubbed and
interchangeably
smiling young people.

In place of his running gear, he was now dressed in an electric blue shirt with a very wide plastic dog collar, emphasising his long neck and
prominent
Adam’s apple. ‘My wife said you needed to see me,’ he said, smiling at her in an encouraging way; his teeth were even and white.

‘Mr Grant?’

‘Please. Call me Richard.’

Lilith rejoiced inwardly: clearly he did not recognise her at all, and he was going to be a piece of cake. He hadn’t even asked her who she was or why she wanted to talk to him. The women – Frances Cherry, Callie Anson – had given her a bit of trouble, but Graham Cherry, and now Richard Grant, proved that she hadn’t lost her touch with the opposite sex. Men, especially clergymen, were so trusting …

He indicated that she should take a seat, and he sat across from her.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘How can I help you?’

‘I’ve been very upset by what happened…to that priest. Father Jonah.’

A small frown appeared between his brows. ‘Jesus said that you should call no man “Father”, save our Father in Heaven.’

This was going to be even easier than she’d thought. ‘You didn’t approve of him, then?’

‘Well.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It’s not for me to judge. But that “Father” business is just an indication of how far he was from following the true path. The Biblical path.’

‘He was a priest, though. In the Church of England.’

‘The Church of England? You would never have known it.’ Richard Grant tented his fingers together and studied them. ‘Jonah Adimola was part of that section of the Church – a small and shrinking segment, I’m happy to say – which happily flouts not just the Bible, but also Canon Law.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Romanisers.’ He almost spat the word. ‘If you went into their
churches
, you’d never guess you weren’t amongst the papists. Candles. Incense. And statues! We’re forbidden by God’s Word – by the Ten Commandments, no less – to worship idols, yet their churches are full of them. “Their idols are silver and gold, even the work of men’s hands.” They pray to them, and I find that disgusting. An affront to God.’

‘In the Church of England?’ Lilith said again. It was certainly not the way she remembered the church of her childhood, which had involved long and tedious sermons and endless singing of the Te Deum. Parish Matins, dry and dusty, with not a statue in sight …

‘Oh, certainly. As I say, though, you wouldn’t know it. They – some of the Anglo-Catholics – even use the Roman Missal instead of the Prayer Book or Common Worship. And that is expressly forbidden.’

Lilith was beginning to understand why Richard Grant, with his own peculiar slant on things, had spoken of God’s judgement on the murdered priest. ‘Is that what they do at St Mary the Virgin, then?’

‘I’m not sure about that,’ he admitted – the first time he had expressed uncertainty to her about anything. ‘You wouldn’t catch me in that church. Nor any of my congregation, either.’

‘You
did
know Fa…umm, Jonah, though?’

He sniffed. ‘Yes, I knew him. We were in the same Deanery.’

‘But you weren’t friends or anything.’

Richard Grant leaned forward and addressed her earnestly. ‘We didn’t see eye-to-eye about most things. But I wouldn’t want you to think that there were no points of agreement. In fact, there were two things on which we most definitely agreed.’

Lilith could scarcely imagine what they might be. She waited.

‘Women priests, for one.’

Startled, she blurted, ‘You don’t approve of women priests, either?’

‘Certainly not. It is not right for women to have authority over men. St Paul is very clear on that point.’

Words of protest sprang to her lips, quickly suppressed, and she found herself feeling a sudden and unexpected sisterhood with Frances Cherry. It was that sort of attitude which had kept women in all walks of life in their place for hundreds of years, and had prevented able women from achieving equality with their male colleagues.

Better to change the subject before she lost her temper with him. ‘You said there were two things,’ she stated. ‘What was the other one?’

‘The sin of homosexuality,’ Richard Grant said immediately. ‘Jonah and I were of one mind on that. Holy Scripture condemns it, and all
right-thinking
people can see how abhorrent it is.’

Welcome, thought Lilith ironically, to the Church in the twenty-first century.

Neville was at his desk on Saturday afternoon, sifting through a pile of
witness
statements and interview notes. Either there was something he’d missed, or the right questions had not been asked, because he felt no
closer
to finding Jonah Adimola’s killer than he had three days ago.

A welcome interruption was provided when Mark Lombardi put his head round the door. ‘Sorry to bother you, Nev,’ Mark apologised.

‘No problem.’ He dropped the piece of paper he’d been reading. ‘I’m starting to go cross-eyed.’

Mark hesitated. ‘Could I ask you something?’

‘Ask away.’

‘Have you interviewed someone called Callie – or Caroline – Anson?’

The woman who had been with Frances Cherry during the famous row, Neville remembered. Quite an attractive woman, in an understated sort of way. He wondered why Mark wanted to know. ‘Yes, we have,’ he
confirmed.
‘A couple of days ago – early on. Why – is she a friend of yours or something?’

‘I know her a bit,’ Mark confessed, seemingly embarrassed.

‘She’s not a suspect, if that’s what you’re wondering,’ Neville
volunteered.
‘At least, not at the moment. I’m not really at a point where I can rule anybody out, quite frankly, but she doesn’t seem to be in the picture.’

‘Thanks,’ said Mark, looking relieved. ‘So the investigation isn’t going well?’

‘You could say that.’ Neville sighed and placed his palm on the stack of papers. ‘I’ve never known a case like it.’ He put on a thick Irish brogue and added, ‘It almost makes me wish I was back in the ould country, digging peat.’

In spite of the knowledge that he was to be a bishop, Leo was feeling
restless
and unhappy. Not only had he not seen Oliver, he had not even spoken to him on the phone for two days, his attempts to reach him thwarted by an ever-present voicemail message. He hadn’t wanted to impart the news of his appointment in such an impersonal way, so had just left messages
asking
Oliver to get in touch. So far, Oliver had not rung him back.

According to the letter he’d received, the appointment was due to be announced by Downing Street in just three days. He needed to talk to Oliver before that, and preferably face-to-face.

Even if it hadn’t been imprudent to contemplate going to Oliver’s digs to see him, it wasn’t an option: he didn’t know where Oliver lived. They’d always made contact on Oliver’s mobile, and met up in neutral places or Leo’s rectory. So he could only try again on the phone.

This time he was more importunate than ever. ‘I love you,’ he said to the impersonal voice-mail announcement. ‘I miss you like hell. I really need to see you. It’s urgent. Please ring me, darling.’

A few minutes later, the phone in his study rang; Leo pounced on it.
‘Yes?’ he said eagerly.

‘Hi.’ Oliver’s voice was casual, offering no apologies. ‘You said you needed to talk to me?’

‘I do.’ Leo took a deep breath to still the pounding of his heart. ‘I know it’s not possible for you to come here right now, but can we meet
somewhere?’

There was a long pause. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. We agreed, remember?’

‘I know we agreed not to meet. But something…well, there’s
something
I need to talk to you about.’

‘Why can’t you talk to me now?’

‘I need to see you,’ Leo insisted.

‘You’re not…it’s not over, is it?’ For a moment Oliver sounded like a forlorn little boy rather than the self-assured young man Leo had known him to be.

Astonished that Oliver could even contemplate such a possibility, Leo was emphatic in his denial, overflowing in a flood of words. ‘Good God, no! Is that what you thought? I love you so much, Oliver. You know that. You’re everything to me. I adore you. You’ve made me the happiest man in the world, and I couldn’t imagine living without you. Nothing’s changed. Not between us.’

‘Then what …?’

‘Meet me tomorrow,’ Leo said. ‘Tomorrow afternoon, three o’clock. At the Albert Memorial.’

Callie’s mother rang her on Saturday afternoon. ‘It’s not that I read the
Globe,
of course,’ Laura Anson said. ‘But my cleaning lady does. There was an article this morning. Isn’t that Frances Cherry a friend of yours?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, it sounds to me like she murdered that black man. Did she?’

‘Of course not,’ Callie said stoutly.

‘I knew that no good would come of you getting involved with the Church,’ her mother continued. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’

She had told her, over and over again: Callie was mad to give up a good
job in the Civil Service for the poor pay and reduced social status of the Church. It wasn’t worth having the argument again. ‘Yes, Mum,’ she said.

‘And why should I have to find out about this from my cleaning lady? You haven’t been round in over a week. You haven’t even rung me.’

Callie cringed guiltily. It was true: her mother had been just about the last thing on her mind this week. ‘Sorry, Mum,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a busy week.’

‘I thought vicars only worked on Sunday. Surely you could have found time to call round to see your mother.’

‘In the first place, I’m not a vicar. And the clergy work hard, all week,’ she defended herself, then added, with sudden inspiration, ‘Why don’t you come here tomorrow? You could see my flat. And I’m preaching my first sermon in the morning. You could come and hear me.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Laura Anson said. ‘I like my lie-in on a Sunday. You know that.’

Callie resisted the urge to slam the phone down. ‘Well, I’ll try to see you in the week, then.’

‘Ring before you come,’ her mother instructed. ‘I do have quite a few things on.’

‘All right.’

‘You couldn’t come this evening, could you? I’m having a little bridge party, and someone’s had to drop out.’

‘No,’ said Callie. ‘No, I can’t come this evening.’ Her stomach gave a little lurch.

With everything that had happened in the week, Callie had managed to put her date with Mark Lombardi almost entirely out of her mind. Now, though, the moment was drawing near.