Evil Intent (31 page)

Then Neville’s glance shifted to the solicitor. She was smiling at him: a knowing, intimate smile. ‘Hello, Neville,’ she said softly. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’

Triona O’Neil. He couldn’t believe it. After all these years.

‘You know each other?’ Cowley asked, visibly curious.

Neville sensed rather than saw Cowley’s curiosity, nor did he reply; he seemed to have been struck dumb, and his eyes hadn’t left Triona O’Neil’s face.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said. ‘“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”’

Neville found his tongue. ‘Something like that.’

For a long moment her eyes locked with his, then she looked down at her papers. ‘Let’s get on with it.’ Her voice was brisk, businesslike.

‘Yes.’ Neville spoke into the tape recorder with the necessary
preliminaries
to the interview: the time, the place, the names of the people
present,
and a reminder to Frances Cherry that she was not obliged to answer their questions. He looked away from Triona O’Neil for only a split
second,
as he confirmed the time from the clock on the wall.

The interview began with a few standard questions, most of which they had asked Frances Cherry before. Neville handled those with half of his brain engaged, then he nodded at Cowley to take over and sat back, quite unable to continue.

Memories crowded in on him – vivid, immediate, insistent – too strong to be submerged by an act of will. All of his senses were engaged, not just his eyes: he remembered the musical sound of her laughter, the clean scent of her, the feel of her springy curls between his fingers, the taste of her lips. And other memories on which he dared not allow himself to dwell …

It had been nine years, but it seemed like yesterday.

Neville hated the ‘L’ word. In his observation, even in these enlightened and hedonistic times, it all too often led to the even more dreaded ‘M’ word. Commitment with a capital C. Life over.

As far back as he could remember, he had never said the ‘L’ word to
anyone
– not even his mother. He had always avoided even thinking about it.

But if Neville Stewart had ever loved anyone, he had loved Triona O’Neil.

They had met the first time in similar circumstances: Neville was a Detective Sergeant, having recently achieved that rank, and Triona was a newly-qualified solicitor. The attraction had been immediate and mutual.

On that occasion, her client had been clearly guilty; in fact, he had
confessed
to his crime within twenty minutes. That left Triona free – and
ethically
able – to accept Neville’s invitation to dinner that same night.

It was the middle of a long, hot summer. He took her to a romantic restaurant where they dined in a courtyard, sitting there and talking as
others
came and went, as the scorching day faded into warm twilight and the stars came out.

Within a week she had moved into his flat.

It had lasted just over three months.

During that brief time, though, Neville had felt more alive, had
experienced
more intense highs and lows, than ever before or since.

Triona was a creature of passions: exciting, invigorating, and often
infuriating.
There was nothing lukewarm about her; living with her with was like being on a non-stop roller coaster ride.

The good times were fantastic. They shared a wild, ironic sense of humour and of fun; she made him laugh. She made him happy.

But they also shared a deep streak of Celtic melancholy, and they were both quite capable of wounding each other deliberately. Their rows were incendiary. Triona had a very short fuse; while it took Neville longer to get wound up, when he did his temper was equal to hers.

Yet it had ended with a whimper rather than a bang. On a day just like this, Neville remembered, glancing out of the window at the dripping trees. On a miserable, wet October day.

Even before the numbness set in, before he’d really taken in what he had read, Leo knew that there was one thing he had to do.

Still sitting at his computer, staring at the screen, he opened his email programme and clicked on the pencil icon to compose a new message.

Leo had never stood on ceremony, and he did not do so now.

‘Effective immediately, and with deep regret, I withdraw my acceptance of my appointment as Bishop of Brixton.’ That was enough. He signed it ‘Leo Jackson, Area Dean of Bayswater.’

At the top he filled in the email address of the Bishop of Southwark, with copies to the Bishop of London, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prime Minister’s Appointments Secretary.

Then he clicked the ‘send’ icon.

It was done.

Leo sighed and closed his eyes.

Callie was getting ready to go to the vicarage for her staff meeting with Brian when the phone rang. She’d postponed her departure till the very last minute, hoping to hear something from Mark or Graham.

It was Mark. ‘Listen, I don’t really have that much to tell you,’ he said. ‘She’s being interviewed right now. They’ll break at lunchtime. I’ll see what
I can find out then, and I’ll give you a ring.’

She experienced a surge of gratitude, if not relief. ‘I really do appreciate it, Marco,’ she said. ‘I hope you’re not getting yourself into any trouble over this.’

‘Don’t worry.’

Callie wasn’t sure, when she’d said goodbye, whether he meant she shouldn’t worry about him, or about Frances.

Making certain she had her mobile phone and that it was switched on, she ran down the stairs to the street.

Only then did she discover that the rains had started in earnest. She
wasn’t
about to make herself even later by going back upstairs in search of an umbrella, so she pulled her coat over her head and sprinted to the vicarage.

Jane Stanford met her at the door, viewing her dripping figure with
disfavour.
She made no move to step aside and let Callie in.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Jane, ‘but Brian isn’t here. He’s had an emergency
call-out.
He said to tell you he’s sorry to have brought you out unnecessarily, and he’ll be in touch later.’

Callie’s heart was pounding, both from the run and from the alarming message. ‘An emergency? What about?’

‘I’m sure if he wants you to know, he’ll tell you himself.’ A small,
mean-spirited
smile curved the ends of her mouth. Then she shut the door in Callie’s face.

Callie made the return dash to her flat. What, she wondered, was going on? And what had she ever done to Jane Stanford in their brief
acquaintance
to make Jane dislike her so?

As Mark had predicted, Sergeant Pratt stopped the interview at lunchtime, taking Frances away to have something to eat.

Neville and Sid Cowley went back to the station canteen.

‘What’s got into you, Guv?’ Cowley asked bluntly as soon as they had their food. During the two hours of the interview, Neville had said scarcely a word. Cowley had had ample opportunity to exercise his ‘bad cop’
persona,
but there was no counterbalancing ‘good cop’. The Inspector had
virtually
opted out of the interview, and the things he’d said had not
contributed
 
substantially to the questioning.

Neville contemplated his lunch: sausages and mash. He found that he had no recollection of having chosen it, and no appetite for eating it. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he prevaricated.

‘You left me on my own in there! You hardly said a thing!’

‘I thought you’d like that. It gave you a chance to flex your muscles.’

‘Bollocks.’ Cowley peered at him closely across the table. ‘It was that woman, wasn’t it? The solicitor? You couldn’t keep your eyes off her.’

Looking down at his plate, Neville prodded the potatoes with his fork. ‘I knew her once, a long time ago. End of story.’

‘The hell it is.’

‘Anyway,’ said Neville, ‘I think we’re on to a loser. We haven’t got any further with Frances Cherry. We keep asking the same questions, and she keeps giving the same answers. It’s a waste of everyone’s time.’

‘What do you suggest, Guv?’ Cowley’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘A bit of input from you would make a welcome change.’

Neville spoke quietly, not rising to the bait. ‘I think we should let her go.’

‘Oh, give me strength!’ Cowley threw his fork down on his tray.

‘Then you could get back to your American,’ Neville pointed out. ‘Frances Cherry could get back to writing her sermon, or whatever it is she does with her time. We could all get on with our lives.’

‘Except that we still don’t know who killed Jonah Adimola. If it wasn’t Frances Cherry, who the hell was it?’

Her experiences – both with the bag-snatcher and with Richard Grant – had shaken Marigold Underwood deeply. She’d been grateful that Vincent wasn’t yet home when she arrived back at the house, and had gone to the phone to set about doing what she needed to do: cancelling her credit cards and notifying the police about the crime. She didn’t expect that she would ever hear another word from the police; it was unlikely that they would put a high priority on catching a mere opportunistic mugger, or that they would find him even if they did. Still, if by chance her handbag turned up in a bin somewhere, it was good to have the theft on record. It had been an expensive leather bag; she would like to have it back, even empty.

At least she hadn’t been badly hurt, though there were a few aches which might be felt later on, might even keep her awake at night. Close examination of her clothing revealed that her stockings were torn, and her new coat had a rip on the side, as well as mud stains.

She was supposed to be meeting Beatrice for lunch; suddenly she just didn’t feel up to it. All she wanted was a long soak in the bath and a quiet afternoon by the fire in the drawing room with a pot of herbal tea.

‘But how utterly frightful!’ Beatrice exclaimed gratifyingly when she rang her to cancel. ‘If you’re not safe on the streets of Mayfair, then where
are
you safe?’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘It wasn’t your Gucci bag, was it? Tell me it wasn’t your Gucci bag.’

‘No. It was the Mulberry one.’

Beatrice groaned. ‘That’s bad enough.’

‘I’m quite done in,’ Marigold confessed.

‘I should think so, too. Take care of yourself, darling. And get that
husband
of yours to pamper you a bit.’

That, thought Marigold, would be the day.

Then she began to wonder where Vincent was. He was usually home fairly promptly after Morning Prayer, and spent the rest of the morning at his desk.

It wasn’t until she was having a solitary lunch – solitary, that is, apart from her cat Jezebel, who waited with ill concealed impatience for titbits – that she heard his key in the front door.

‘Vincent?’ she called.

He came through to the dining room, beaming. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to be at home,’ he said. ‘Though I don’t blame you for not going out. It’s a foul day.’

Marigold opened her mouth to tell him what had happened to her, but changed her mind before the words were formed. How could she explain what she’d been doing out on the streets at that hour of the morning? ‘I didn’t fancy braving the rain,’ she concurred. ‘I cancelled my lunch with Beatrice.’

Vincent had left his umbrella in the hall stand, but was still wearing his coat. He reached inside it and pulled out a tabloid – the
Globe,
Marigold
saw with a sick lurch of her stomach – and waved it at her with a jubilant grin. ‘Look at this!’ he boomed, slapping it down on the table in front of her. ‘Just look!’

She could hardly imagine what might be in the
Globe
to arouse such glee in Vincent; he hadn’t even shown her the issue in which he had been interviewed.

The headline screamed at her: ‘Randy Reverend in Raunchy Rectory Romps’.

‘Oh, dear God,’ she said faintly, her hand to her mouth to hold back the nausea. Then she saw Leo Jackson’s photo. ‘Oh, the poor man.’

Vincent had clearly expected a different reaction from his wife. ‘Don’t you see?’ he demanded, impatient and disappointed with her. ‘His sins have caught up with him. Now he’ll have to resign. He can’t be a bishop now. Not after this.’

‘But why should you care?’

‘You know why. Because Leo Jackson is everything that’s wrong with the Church of England today,’ Vincent declared venomously. ‘A liberal.’ The word was uttered as a curse. ‘Women priests and sodomites at the altar. It’s disgraceful. He and his kind have taken this Church down the road to ruin. And now he has to face the music for that. He might even have to resign his orders.’ At that he gave a satisfied smile.

Marigold stared at him. It occurred to her that in some ways he was no different than Richard Grant – so sure of himself, so sure that he knew what God wanted. So very, very smug.

She lowered her eyes again to the photo of Leo Jackson. The poor man: this time she said it silently. At least, she thought, he didn’t have a wife who would have to bear this disgrace.

By lunchtime Callie had heard no more from Mark, neither had Brian rung her. Unsettled and upset, she put on her rain gear, found her umbrella, and took Bella out to the park for a quick walk. Then she turned towards the Harringtons’ flat; in spite of everything, she had not forgotten her
promise
to them to bring Bella back this afternoon. Not that they would want a wet and muddy cocker spaniel in their spotless lounge, but at least she
could stop by and say hello.

To her surprise, though, there was no answer to the bell. She waited a few minutes and tried again. Then she got out her mobile and rang their number. She could hear it ringing inside the flat, again and again, until she pushed the button to end the call.

Well, there was nothing for it. She’d have to go home and try to ring them later.

The first thing she would need to do when she got home, Callie realised, was to get Bella into the bath and clean her paws. She’d been spoiled up till now by the good weather; now the more demanding aspects of dog ownership were becoming evident. She looked down at Bella,
happily
slopping along through the puddles on the pavement, and as she raised her head she caught the headline of a newspaper on a corner news-stand. ‘Raunchy Reverend …’