The Wages of Desire (5 page)

Vera didn't want to say anything that might encourage Miss Wheatley to linger. To her relief, Miss Wheatley bade them goodbye and set off down the High Street in the direction of the village.

When Miss Wheatley was out of earshot, Julia said, “You must forgive her, Miss Lamb. She's harmless, really.”

“No, she's not,” Lilly said. “She's a windbag and a terrible gossip.
And
she's loony.”

“That's no way to speak in front of someone we've only just met,” Julia scolded Lilly. “And it's not fair to Flora.”

“But she
is
, Mother.”

“Nonetheless.” Julia shot Lilly a stern look. “Apologize to Miss Lamb, please.”

“Sorry,” Lilly said. She shrugged slightly.

“It's all right,” Vera said. Miss Wheatley clearly
was
a windbag, she thought.

“Well, I'm afraid that we also must be going,” Julia said. “It was wonderful meeting you, Miss Lamb. It's terrible, what's happened here—this sudden killing—and I think it's shocked us all a bit more than we are quite yet willing to admit.” She smiled again. “Good luck to you.”

“Thank you,” Vera said. She sensed a kind of sadness in Julia Martin and, as she watched Julia and Lilly leave, spent a moment guessing at its source. Something to do with the war, she concluded. After all, wasn't that the primary source of everyone's sorrow these days?

SIX

THE VICARAGE OF SAINT MICHAEL'S CHURCH WAS A MEDIUM-
sized, white-shingled cottage with a green door and slate roof. Lamb had not much liked the majority of country vicars with whom he'd been acquainted; nearly to a man, he'd found them possessed of mediocre intellects and an unmerited self-regard. They tended to be plump, red-cheeked, self-satisfied men who ate and drank very well and often seemed entranced by the sound of their own voices.

He therefore found himself surprised by the man who answered his knock on the door. Gerald Wimberly was at least six feet tall, slender, and fit looking. Lamb judged him to be somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty. He had a full head of tousled gray-at-the-edges brown hair, blue eyes, and a strong, squared-off chin. He was a handsome man. He wore a gray shirt and white clerical collar, along with a pair of dark blue corduroy trousers that were stained slightly with mud at the cuffs and a pair of stout brown leather government-issued military boots that Lamb recognized as identical to those he'd worn during his time in the trenches of the Somme.

“The Reverend Gerald Wimberly?” Lamb asked.

“Yes.”

Lamb showed Wimberly his warrant card. “I'm Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Lamb of the Hampshire Constabulary. I'd like to speak with you, please.”

Wimberly stepped back from the door. “Yes, of course, Chief Inspector,” he said. “I've been expecting you.”

Wimberly led Lamb into a cozily furnished study that contained a large wooden desk that faced the door and stood in front of a wall that was full of shelved books. A pair of red-upholstered chairs situated on opposite sides of a small, round, polished cherry table faced the desk. The left wall also contained tall, brimming bookshelves, while the right was dominated by a large window that looked onto a well-tended flower and vegetable garden at the rear of the vicarage.

Wimberly sat behind the desk and gestured for Lamb to take one of the chairs. He was conscious of the impression of authority and control the large desk afforded him, and hoped it would work on Lamb.

“I understand that you found the body, sir,” Lamb said.

“Yes, yes,” Wimberly said. “A terrible thing. Terrible. It's given my poor wife the shock of her life, I'm sorry to say. I had to give her a sedative; she's upstairs sleeping now.” He paused for few seconds, then added, “But I'm rambling, Chief Inspector. I'm sorry. I don't mean to say that my wife's condition is the only thing that matters in this business.”

“Did you know the dead woman? We have reason to believe that she was employed as one of the workers who are building the prisoner camp just outside the village.”

“No, I'm afraid I didn't know her, though with the prison construction we've had more than the usual number of strangers about the village in recent weeks.”

“You've never seen her in the cemetery, then?”

“No, I'd never seen her until this morning.”

“Can you tell me how you came upon the body?”

“I was returning from a walk—I always take an early morning constitutional—when I heard a gunshot. I could tell that it came from the direction of the cemetery, so I went there and found the girl. Unfortunately, my wife, who had been in the house, followed me, though I hadn't realized at first that she'd done so. She must have heard the shot, too. I'm afraid she went right to pieces. She's never seen anyone in that state before. I took her back to the house and got her into bed and mixed her a sedative. Then I called the Home Guardsman who acts as our law enforcement hereabouts. I understood that we could not have people from the village gawking at the poor woman; it would have become a mess, and I was worried that it might frighten some of the children and elderly people. So I left Mr. Built, the guardsman, at the gate and came in and called the constabulary.”

As Wimberly spoke, Lamb pulled a notebook from his pocket and scribbled a few lines in it with the stub of a pencil. “And how long did it take you, sir, to get your wife calmed down?” he asked.

“A good fifteen minutes or so.”

“So what time was it, then, when you heard the shot?”

“It must have been just before seven, perhaps quarter till. I usually go out to walk at about six and am gone three-quarters of an hour or so.”

“Did anyone see you while you were walking?”

“No.”

“And what was your wife doing when you heard the shot?”

“She was in bed, sleeping. She doesn't rise as early as I.”

“You don't seem to have been much affected by the incident, sir,” Lamb said. “You seem rather calm, given the circumstances. And you seem to have acted rather calmly. Most people who suddenly come upon a dead body—particularly one that has been shot—would find themselves at least a bit stunned and confused.”

“Well, I daresay you're right. But I suppose I lost my shock at seeing the dead in the last war.” He looked toward the window for an instant.

“Yes,” Lamb said. “I noticed your boots.”

“Yes, well, I've kept them. I've often wondered why. And yet they've served me quite well. All these years later and they continue to hang together. I suppose you were part of it, too, then?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, well it was all a terrible business. I've often asked God why it was necessary, why any of it is necessary, including this war. And I've never received an answer.”

“You were in the infantry?” Lamb asked.

“Yes, captain of infantry.”

“Did you keep your service pistol, then, sir?”

“I did, as a matter of fact. There was a time when I used it to shoot the occasional rat about the place. But I'm afraid it was stolen about a week or so ago.”

Wimberly already had calculated that it would be a mistake to claim that he had not owned a Webley Mark VI revolver; for years he'd displayed the gun in an open box on the bookshelf in his study, a fact Lamb could easily ascertain by asking anyone in the village. Indeed, Wimberly had met Lamb wearing his old combat boots on the chance that Lamb was of a certain age and would recognize the boots for what they were and quiz him about his service, thereby providing him with a plausible explanation of why he, a country vicar, had owned such a weapon.

“Stolen?”

“Yes, someone broke into the house.” He nodded at the window. “They came in through that window, as far as I can tell. I left it unlocked, I'm afraid. But then, I always have done. They took the pistol, which I kept in a wooden box there on the bookshelf”—he nodded toward the shelf to Lamb's left—“and some coins I'd left lying on my desk.”

“Nothing else?” Lamb asked.

“No, nothing else.”

“Did you report this burglary?”

“Well, I didn't see the need; I didn't care much about the pistol, really.” He glanced at the window again. “I probably should not have kept it in any case.” He looked back at Lamb. “And the coins amounted to almost nothing—less than a shilling. Whoever broke in almost surely was from Winstead. I suppose I was hoping they might come to me and confess without the prod of the police being involved. Then we might have turned a sin into something redemptive, you see.”

Wimberly purposely paused for a second, as if thinking, then added, “If you do find the gun you'll know it for certain. The thing has a small nick in the right side of the barrel.” The vicar had concluded that should Lamb inquire in the village about the pistol, this bit of information also would come out and he therefore should not seek to hide it. Indeed, in telling Lamb about the pistol's eccentric defect, he would be seen to be cooperating fully. He knew that he must play the angle with the pistol straight ahead or not at all.

“I see,” Lamb said. “Yes, that's helpful.”

Lamb abruptly stood and walked to the window, turning his back on Wimberly as he stared out at the flower garden. “Is your wife the gardener, then?” he asked.

“Yes. She has a bit of a green thumb.”

“What sort of shoes does your wife wear, sir?”

“Shoes?”

Lamb turned to face Wimberly. “Yes.”

“Well, the normal shoes, I suppose. Women's shoes.”

“I wonder if I might see them. I assume, from what you told me, that you must have helped her off with her shoes when you put her to bed and sedated her, so you would know which pair she was wearing when the two of you were in the cemetery.”

Wimberly hesitated again before answering. He calculated that he had nothing to fear from giving Lamb Wilhemina's shoes. Her shoe prints would be in the cemetery, as would his. He'd said that she had followed him there. Even so, the fact that Lamb seemed to have at least slightly outmaneuvered him—taken him a bit by surprise—made him secretly angry.

Wimberly stood. “Well, yes, you're right, Chief Inspector, I do know the pair,” he said evenly. He was skillful at hiding his ire. Even so, he found himself unable to merely surrender the shoes without hinting to Lamb that he would not be easily cowed or outdone again. “I wonder if you wouldn't mind my asking why you need them.”

“It's just routine, sir. My men will check the cemetery for footprints, of course. And we'll want to know whose are whose, so we can eliminate the innocent from our inquiries.”

Wimberly managed a brief smile. “Yes, of course. If you'll wait here, then, I'll be right back.”

Lamb nodded. “Thank you.”

With Wimberly gone, Lamb tried the window—it opened easily; someone
might
have come through it. He walked to the bookshelf on which Wimberly claimed he'd kept his Webley in a wooden box. He found a spot on which such a box might have lain.

Wimberly returned to the room carrying a pair of brown women's shoes with slightly raised, one-inch square heels. Lamb thought they looked like the shoes that had made the impression he'd found in the cemetery.

“Thank you,” Lamb said. “I wonder if you wouldn't mind my taking these out to my assistant so that he can make a plaster impression of them.” He could have sent Larkin to Wimberly, but he wanted to inconvenience Wimberly and to see how Wimberly reacted to this. Someone who had something to hide might not quite be able to hide their concern or, perhaps, even their irritation, at the request. But Wimberly seemed unperturbed.

“Yes, of course,” he said.

“I wonder, too, sir, if you wouldn't mind giving me
your
boots as well.” Lamb smiled again. “My man will bring them back to you as soon as he's finished with them.”

Wimberly returned the smile. “Yes, of course. However, I'm afraid I wasn't wearing these on my walk. Too bulky, you understand.”

“Of course,” Lamb said. “Can I have the shoes you were wearing then?”

Wimberly briefly left the room and returned holding a pair of well-worn, mud-stained black brogues. “Here you are,” he said.

“Thank you,” Lamb said. He held a pair of shoes in each hand. “Just a few more questions, sir. Do you have a maid or some other domestic help about the place? Someone who cleans up or works on the grounds?”

“Well, there is Miss White—Doris White—who lives in the village. My wife normally handles the arrangements with her. But when Miss White heard about all of the trouble up here this morning she called me and I told her not to come in today, for obvious reasons.”

“Yes, I see,” Lamb said. “And I will want to speak with your wife, too, of course.”

“I'm afraid that she's not up to answering questions at the moment. Indeed, she's sleeping. I'm sorry.”