The Judgement of Strangers (14 page)

‘What have you done with Lord Peter?’ she asked me.

‘He’s in the garage.’

‘I shall bury him in the garden. After the postmortem.’

‘I’m not sure the police –’

‘I’ll pay to have it done. Then they’ll see I’m right. Why are the police so
stupid
?’ She put her hand to her temple. ‘My head hurts.’

Vanessa and I walked back to the Vicarage. Laughter and music poured through the open doors of the Queen’s Head, and the river of traffic still flowed on the main road.

‘Do you think she’s serious about the postmortem idea?’ Vanessa asked.

‘Audrey’s always serious.’

A light shone in the window of the spare bedroom. Michael was still awake. We found Rosemary in the sitting room, still reading
Nausea
.

‘How is she?’

‘Audrey?’ Vanessa said. ‘Still in a state. Understandably.’

‘It’s horrible.’ Rosemary looked at me. ‘I just don’t understand why people do things like that.’

I touched her shoulder. ‘None of us does. Not really.’

While Vanessa was making tea, I went up to see Michael. He was already in bed, sitting in blue-and-white striped pyjamas, with his hair neatly brushed, reading a book. He glanced up at me but said nothing. I thought he looked worried.

‘What are you reading?’

He held up the book, a paperback in the green-and-white Penguin crime livery. ‘
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
. It was in the bookcase.’

‘You must be finding it rather dull here.’

Michael smiled at me and shook his head.

‘And I’m afraid this evening can’t have been much fun. Did you manage to get something to eat?’

‘Aunt Vanessa made me a sandwich.’

‘Good. This business with the cat – you mustn’t let it upset you.’

‘It’s not upsetting,’ Michael said. ‘It’s interesting.’

Vanessa and I did not get a chance to talk privately until we were in bed.

‘So what do you think?’ Vanessa whispered. ‘Is it personal?’

‘The police seem to think it’s most likely someone mentally unbalanced. Probably any church would have done. St Mary Magdalene just happened to be the first they noticed.’

‘And any cat? It’s perfectly possible that Audrey’s right. She’s really upset some of those kids from the council estate.’

‘I hope you’re wrong.’

She snorted in exasperation. ‘You have to at least consider the possibility that I’m not. And there’s two other things you ought to think about. The first one is Francis Youlgreave.’

I picked a feather out of the eiderdown. ‘Surely what he did isn’t common knowledge?’

‘You’d be surprised. It’s the sort of thing that people remember if they remember nothing else about a person. After all, you remembered it.’

‘But it doesn’t really narrow the field much,’ I pointed out. ‘And I don’t think it’s enough to establish a connection.’

‘And then there’s the other thing. Do you remember I told you about the crows pecking something on Lady Youlgreave’s bird table?’

I stared at her. ‘Surely not. You’re not implying –?’

‘Why not? The cat’s head had to go somewhere. What if someone put it on the bird table? It would be one way of ramming home a connection with Francis Youlgreave.’

‘But why?’

‘How should I know?’ Vanessa picked up her book. ‘Isn’t that more your province than mine?’

I glanced at her, trying to tell if she was being serious. Her sense of humour could be so very dry. She settled her glasses on her nose and opened the book, her own copy of Youlgreave’s
The Four Last Things
. It struck me that I was only beginning to discover the real Vanessa. I was like one of those nineteenth-century explorers travelling up a river into the heart of an unknown continent and glimpsing a vast, uncharted interior, more mysterious with every passing mile.

‘I don’t follow,’ I said at last. ‘What’s my province?’

‘Evil, of course, what did you think I meant?’

The next problem came from an unexpected direction. I was working in the study the following afternoon when the telephone rang.

‘David, it’s Ronald Trask.’ The voice was abrupt to the point of rudeness. ‘What’s this Cynthia tells me about an outbreak of Satanism at St Mary Magdalene?’

He used the word
Satanism
like a cudgel. I took a deep breath and tried to persuade myself that Ronald was only doing his duty. An archdeacon used to be known as the bishop’s eye. Such matters came within his province.

‘We don’t know it’s Satanism. I think it’s unwise to jump to conclusions. It may just have been a teenage prank which got out of hand.’

‘A prank? A cat beheaded in your own parish church?’

‘It wasn’t beheaded in the church. We found the body hanging from a hook in the porch.’

‘That’s not the point, in any case.’

‘Then what is?’

‘That this could be a public relations disaster.’ Ronald lowered his voice, as if he were afraid of being overheard. ‘Not just for the church. For you personally.’

There was a pause. Vanessa had gone into the office this morning. She must have mentioned the events of last night to Cynthia, who had evidently lost no time in relaying the news to her brother. Anger stirred inside me. Ronald might have a right to interfere, but not in this heavy-handed way.

‘There’s just a chance we can nip this in the bud,’ he went on. ‘I think the best thing to do is to ring Victor Thurston.’

‘I don’t see any need to bring Thurston into this. It’s nothing to do with him. In any case, I think I’d prefer to handle it in my own way.’

Ronald sighed, expressing irritation rather than recording sorrow. ‘Let me spell it out for you. This is just the sort of story that the more sensational elements of the press will leap at. First, it’s August, the silly season. They’re hungry for material. Secondly, anything that smacks of devil worship sells newspapers. It’s regrettable, but it’s a fact of life. Third, Cynthia tells me there’s local colour in the shape of that damned poet, the priest who dabbled in Satanism. Youlgreave – the one Vanessa’s so keen on. And finally, once the hacks start digging, heaven knows what they might come up with. How will you feel if they connect you with that business in Rosington? How will Vanessa feel?’

I was so surprised that for an instant I forgot to breathe. I sucked in a mouthful of air. I had not even realized that Ronald knew about Rosington. He had never mentioned it. In that same instant there rushed over me the crushing knowledge of my own naivety. Of course he knew. Probably every active Christian in this part of the diocese fancied that they knew all about it. One of the less desirable qualities of the Church of England is that it is a nest of gossip.

‘Listen to me, David.’ His voice was gentler now, almost pleading. ‘You’ll get an army of journalists on your doorstep. You’ll probably have coachloads of sightseers coming to gawp at the church. You may even get copycat incidents.’

I said nothing. It was true that devil-worshippers tended to be unimaginative. By and large, evil is banal; imagination is not a quality it nurtures, so repetition is common. Into my mind came an image of grey mudflats, silver streaks of water and a grey sky; and far above me I heard the sound of wings. The hand holding the telephone receiver was slippery with sweat, and my armpits prickled. Evil causes led to evil effects which themselves became causes of further evil. Could you ever hope to end the consequences, or would they stretch through the centuries from past and future?

I tried to focus on Ronald, sensible and safe. I imagined him sitting at his polished desk, surrounded by serried ranks of dusted books; I gave him a silver vase full of white rosebuds; no clutter on the desk, just a blotter, a notepad and perhaps a file containing letters to be answered. And there was Ronald, impeccable in his suit and clerical collar, the very picture of a senior clergyman in waiting for a bishopric.

It wasn’t good enough. The beating of the wings was growing gradually louder. My mouth was parched.

The wall, I thought, the wall beside his desk. No bookshelves there. A crucifix. A plain wooden crucifix. No body on it, but there would be a rush cross, left over from Palm Sunday, tucked behind the crossbar. I thought so hard about the crucifix that I could visualize the colour of the varnish and the grain of the wood.

‘David? I’m trying to
help
.’

Ronald was sane, I told myself. Ronald was good. Recognizing that was hard, too. He was doing his best to do his Christian duty, according to his lights. I had stolen the woman he had thought of as his future wife. He had every reason to dislike me, even hate me. Yet he was going out of his way to help me – or perhaps Vanessa. I might not enjoy his assumption of authority and superior knowledge, but that was a relatively minor matter.

‘Are you still there, David?’

‘Yes. I was thinking. Why should all this reach the papers in the first place?’

‘Through the local rag, of course. They’ll be in regular contact with the police. Fortunately, Victor Thurston’s on the board of the
Courier
group. I’ll have a word with him tonight.’ Ronald sounded cheerful now, delighted to have his hands on the reins. ‘He has some useful contacts with the police, too, through the Masons. Don’t worry. We’ll do our best to smooth things over.’

There was another pause in our conversation. There was only one thing to say and in the end I made myself say it. ‘Thank you.’

The trick with Lady Youlgreave was to catch her at her lucid times. Her body was a battlefield: old age, pain, decay, a cocktail of medicines and an almost wilful reluctance to die fought each other, changing sides frequently, forming shifting alliances.

The morphine encouraged her mind to drift. Often she was confused about the day of the week, occasionally the year and, on at least one occasion, the century. Time is a slippery notion, a set of assumptions she found it increasingly difficult to grasp.

She was at her best in the late mornings and the early evenings. I left the Vicarage at 5 p.m. on Friday, shortly after the phone call from Ronald Trask. I was restless, tired of my own company. Doing anything was better than doing nothing.

I called upstairs to Rosemary but there was no answer. I went into the garden. Michael was playing patience on the grass in the shade of an old apple tree that had survived Ronald’s restless desire to modernize my house and garden. There was a deckchair on the lawn, with
Nausea
on the seat. The afternoon had been sunny, but now the sky was beginning to cloud over, and there was a clinging dampness in the air that presaged rain.

‘I’m just going out for a while,’ I told Michael. ‘I shouldn’t be more than half an hour. Will you be all right on your own? I’m sure the Vintners wouldn’t mind if –’

‘No. I’ll be fine.’

‘I’ll be at the Old Manor House if anyone needs me.’

‘OK.’

‘Is Rosemary upstairs?’

‘I think she went for a walk. She was here until about five minutes ago.’

‘Aunt Vanessa should be home between half past five and six.’

‘OK.’

He smiled at me and returned to his game. I walked down the road, over the bridge and turned into the forecourt in front of the Old Manor House. The bird table stood at a slight angle from the perpendicular at the centre of the scrubby lawn. I went over to it. It was a simple affair – a small wooden tray nailed to a stake, obviously home-made. The surface of the wood was cracked and covered with a patina of dirt from the weather and traffic. I found no trace of the blood and bone which Vanessa had seen, and which had so excited the crows.

I bent down and looked at the grass below the table. I felt ridiculous, like a schoolboy looking for clues, for cigarette ash or strands of hair. I abandoned the search, walked on to the door and rang the bell. The dogs barked. Doris answered the door.

‘Hello, Vicar.’

‘Is Lady Youlgreave well enough for visitors?’

‘She’ll be glad to see you. Just had her tea and that always gives her a bit of a lift. Which means she wants to talk. And I just don’t have time to listen.’

I followed her into the gloom of the hall. Beauty was tethered to the newel post and did not bother to get up. She thumped her tail on the floor. Beast, trailing her tumour, waddled towards me and sniffed my shoes.

‘You should have more help,’ I said to Doris. ‘Either that or Lady Youlgreave should go into a home.’

Doris shook her head. ‘She doesn’t like strangers in the house. And if you talk to her about going into a home, she starts crying.’

‘It’s not fair to you.’

‘I cope. Dr Vintner is in and out, and that helps. And then there’s the nurse from the Fishguard Agency at weekends. Not that they’re much use.’

‘Even so –’

‘She wants to die in her own home,’ Doris interrupted. ‘So why shouldn’t she?’

There wasn’t any answer to that, or rather, none that Doris would accept. I wondered how much Lady Youlgreave paid her.

‘I hear your husband has a new job.’ I wished I could remember the man’s name.

‘About time, too,’ she said. ‘If there was an Olympic gold medal for sitting on your backside in front of the telly, Ted would be in the running for it.’

Beast slobbered over my shoe. She looked up at me with imploring eyes. What did she want? Everything to be all right again? For herself and Beauty and her mistress to be young?

‘You go and see her, then,’ Doris said, deciding it was time to dismiss me. ‘I’ll go and make her bed again. Can you find your own way? Otherwise I’ll get caught as well.’

Lady Youlgreave was nodding over a book when I went in. She looked up with a start.

‘David? Is that you?’

‘Yes. How are you today?’

‘The same as always. Where’s the girl? It’s time for my medicine.’

‘Soon. Doris will be here soon.’

I wasn’t sure if she had heard me. She closed the book slowly – a thin volume bound in green leather with gilt lettering on the spine. Then she said, ‘She’s late. She’s always late. If she doesn’t get her skates on, I’ll sack her.’

I knew better than to argue. ‘Doris is making your bed.’

‘How odd.’

‘Why?’

‘Beds are made in the morning. Everyone knows that. Is it the morning?’

‘No.’ I looked at my watch. ‘It’s a quarter past five in the evening. Friday evening.’ I noticed that Lady Youlgreave was still looking expectantly at me, a worried frown on her face. ‘Friday, August the fourteenth.’ She was still frowning, so I added, ‘Nineteen-seventy.’

‘Oh. Where’s your wife? Not been in today. Or has she?’

‘No. Vanessa’s at work.’

‘Never thought you’d get married again. Poor old Oliphant. Bet it made her squirm.’ Lady Youlgreave paused, and her lips moved as though she were chewing something. A thread of saliva ran from the corner of her mouth, as though marking the passage of a tiny snail. ‘Could have liked you myself, once. Silly business, don’t you think?’

‘What is?’

‘Sex. Best thing about growing old: not having to worry about sex.’ The little eyes peered at me and looked away. ‘You should stop Vanessa wasting her time on Uncle Francis.’

‘I can’t do that. I’m not her master.’

‘You should put your foot down.’

I could imagine Vanessa’s response if I tried to do such a foolish thing. ‘What’s wrong with Francis, anyway? I thought you wanted Vanessa to go through the papers.’

‘I didn’t realize what he was like. Not then.’ Lady Youlgreave tapped the book on her lap. ‘Nasty mind. And getting worse. Do you know why he started killing those animals?’

I said nothing.

‘I think you do.’ She sighed. ‘This was his last book.’

‘
The Voice of Angels
?’

‘More like devils. There’s one poem called “The Children of Heracles”. Disgusting. He must have had an evil mind to make up something like that.’

I would have liked to take the book and glance at the poem, but her fingers had locked themselves around the covers. ‘It’s part of a Greek myth.’

‘So Heracles really did kill his children? He really chopped them up?’