Death in Holy Orders (29 page)

Father John, distressed, said, “But he couldn’t, Agatha. He hadn’t the power.”

“That’s what Raphael said when I told him about it. We were
talking about it the last time he was here for supper. I said to Raphael if he could get my brother put in prison he can do anything. Raphael said, ‘Oh no he can’t. I’ll stop him.’ ”

Father John, in despair at the way the interview was going, had moved over to the window. He said, “There’s a motorcycle coming along the coast road. How very odd. I don’t think we’re expecting anyone this morning. Perhaps it’s a visitor for you, Commander.”

Dalgliesh moved beside him. He said, “I shall have to leave you now, Miss Betterton. Thank you for your co-operation. I may have some other questions, and if so I will ask what time would be convenient for you to see me. And now, Father, could I please see your bunch of keys?”

Father John disappeared and returned almost immediately holding his key-ring. Dalgliesh compared the two church keys with the ones on Father Martin’s ring. He said, “Where did you leave these keys last night, Father?”

“In the usual place, on my bedside table. I always put the keys there at night.”

As he left, leaving Father John with his sister, he glanced at the golf clubs. The heads were uncovered, the metal of the irons shone clean. The mental picture was uncomfortably clear and convincing. It would need someone with a good eye, and there would be the difficulty of concealing the club until the moment had come to strike, the moment when the Archdeacon’s attention was fixed on the vandalized
Doom
. But was that a problem? It could have been propped against the rear of a pillar. And with a weapon of that length there would be much less risk of bloodstains. He had a sudden and vivid picture of a fair-haired young man waiting motionless in the shadows, club in hand. The Archdeacon would not have left his bed and gone to the church if summoned by Raphael, but here was a young man who, on Miss Betterton’s evidence, could mimic anyone’s voice.

D
r. Mark Ayling’s arrival was as surprising as it was unexpectedly early. Dalgliesh was moving down the stairs from the Bettertons’ flat when he heard the motorcycle roaring into the courtyard. Pilbeam had unlocked the great door as he did each morning, and Dalgliesh stepped out into the half-light of a fresh-smelling day which, after the tumult of the night, held an exhausted calm. Even the thud of the sea was muted. The powerful machine circled the courtyard, then came to a stop immediately in front of the main entrance. The rider removed his helmet, unstrapped a case from the pannier and, carrying his helmet under his left arm, came bounding up the steps with the insouciance of a motorbike courier delivering a routine package.

He said, “Mark Ayling. Body in the church, is it?”

“Adam Dalgliesh. Yes, it’s this way. We’ll go through the house and out by the south door. I’ve secured the door from the house into the north cloister.”

The hall was empty, and it seemed to Dalgliesh that Dr. Ayling’s feet rang unnaturally heavily on the tessellated floor. The pathologist could not be expected to sneak in, but this was hardly a tactful arrival. He wondered whether he ought to have found Father Sebastian and effected an introduction, but decided against it. This wasn’t, after all, a social call, and the less delay the better. But he had no doubt that the pathologist’s arrival had been noticed, and as they paced down the passageway past the cellar steps to the south-cloister door he had an uncomfortable if irrational feeling that he was guilty of a breach of good manners. To carry out a murder investigation in an atmosphere of barely suppressed non-co-operation and antagonism
was, he reflected, less complicated than coping with the social and theological nuances of this present scene of crime.

They crossed the courtyard beneath the half-denuded boughs of the great horse-chestnut and came to the sacristy door without speaking.

As Dalgliesh unlocked it, Ayling asked, “Where can I change my gear?”

“In here. It’s part vestry, part office.”

Changing “gear” apparently meant divesting himself of his leathers, putting on a brown three-quarter-length overall and exchanging his boots for soft slippers, over which he drew white cotton socks.

As he locked the sacristy door behind them, Dalgliesh said, “It’s likely that the murderer came in by this door. I’m securing the church until the SOCOs arrive from London.”

Ayling disposed of his leathers tidily on the swivel chair in front of the desk and placed his boots neatly side by side. He asked, “Why the Met? It’s a Suffolk case.”

“There’s a Suffolk DI staying in college at present. It makes a complication. I was here on another matter, so it seemed sensible for me to take over for the present.”

The explanation appeared to satisfy Ayling.

They passed into the body of the church. The nave lights were dim, but sufficient, presumably, for a congregation who knew the liturgy by heart. They moved down to the
Doom
. Dalgliesh put up his hand to the spotlight. In the surrounding incense-laden gloom, which seemed in imagination to stretch beyond the church walls into an infinity of blackness, the beam blazed down with a shocking brilliance, brighter even than Dalgliesh remembered. Perhaps, he thought, it was the presence of another person that transformed the scene into an act of Grand Guignol: the actor’s carefully arranged body lying still with practised art, the inspired touch of the two candlesticks placed at its head, himself a silent watcher in the shadow of the pillar, waiting for his cue.

Ayling, frozen momentarily into stillness by the unexpected glare, could have been assessing the effectiveness of the theatrical tableau. When he began his soft-footed prowl around the body he looked like a director assessing the camera angles,
satisfying himself that the death pose was both realistic and artistically pleasing. Dalgliesh noticed details with greater clarity: the scuffed toe of the black leather slipper which had fallen from Crampton’s right foot, how large and peculiar the naked foot now seemed, how ugly and elongated the big toe. With the face partly invisible, that single foot, now forever stilled, assumed a potency greater than if the body had been naked, provoking an upsurge of both pity and outrage.

Dalgliesh had met Crampton only briefly and had felt in his presence no more than a mild resentment at an unexpected and not particularly congenial guest. But now he felt as strong an anger as he had ever experienced at a murder scene. He found himself echoing words which were familiar although their precise source eluded him: “Who hath done this thing?” He would discover the answer, and when he did, this time he would also find the proof, this time he would not close the file knowing the identity of the culprit, the motive and the means, but powerless to make an arrest. The burden of that past failure was still heavy upon him, but with this case it would at last be lifted.

Ayling was still prowling cautiously round the body, never lifting his eyes from it, as if he had encountered some interesting but unusual phenomenon and was uncertain how it might react to scrutiny. Then he squatted by the head, sniffed delicately at the wound and said, “Who is he?”

“I’m sorry. I hadn’t realized that you hadn’t been told. Archdeacon Crampton. He’s a recently appointed trustee of this college and arrived Saturday morning.”

“Someone didn’t like him, unless he surprised an intruder and this wasn’t personal. Is there anything worth stealing?”

“The altar-piece is valuable but would be difficult to remove. There’s no evidence that anyone has tried. There’s valuable silver in the sacristy safe. The safe hasn’t been tampered with.”

Ayling said, “And the candlesticks are still here. Brass, though—hardly worth stealing. Not much doubt about the weapon or the cause of death. A blow to the right of the cranium, above the ear, made by a heavy implement with a sharp edge. I don’t know whether the first blow killed him, but it
would certainly have felled him. Then the assailant struck again. Something like frenzy in the attack, I’d say.”

He straightened up, then lifted the unbloodied candlestick with his gloved hand. “Heavy. It’d take some strength. A woman could do it, or an older man, if they used both hands. Needed a bit of an eye though, and he’s not going to stand there with his back obligingly turned to a stranger—or to anyone he didn’t trust, come to that. How did he get in—Crampton, I mean?”

Dalgliesh realized that here he had a pathologist not over-concerned about the precise extent of his responsibilities.

“As far as I know he hadn’t a key. He was either let in by someone already here or he found the door open. The
Doom
has been vandalized. He could have been enticed in.”

“That looks like an inside job. Cuts down on the number of your suspects very conveniently. When was he found?”

“At five-thirty. I was here about four minutes later. Judging by the appearance of the blood and the beginning of rigor in the side of the face, I guessed that he had been dead about five hours.”

“I’ll take his temperature, but I doubt I can be more accurate. He died about midnight, give or take an hour.”

Dalgliesh asked, “What about the blood? Would there have been much spurting?”

“Not with the first blow. You know how it is with head wounds at this site. You get bleeding into the cranial cavity. But he didn’t stick at one blow, did he? For the second and subsequent strikes you’d get spurting. Could be more of a spatter than a strong stream. Depends how close he was to the victim when he struck the subsequent blows. If the assailant were right-handed I’d expect the right arm to be bloodied, perhaps even the chest.” He added, “He’d expect that, of course. Could have come in his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. Could have worn a T-shirt, better still been naked. It’s been known.”

Dalgliesh had heard nothing he hadn’t thought out for himself. He said, “Wouldn’t the victim have found that a little surprising?”

Ayling ignored the interruption. “He’d have to be quick
though. He couldn’t rely on the victim turning away from him for more than a second or two. Not much time to roll up a sleeve, get hold of a candlestick from where he’d placed it ready.”

“Where do you suppose that was?”

“Inside the box pew? A bit too far, perhaps. Why not just stand it up behind the pillar. He’d only need to hide one stick, of course. He could fetch the other from the altar afterwards to set up his little tableau. I wonder why he bothered to do that. Somehow I can’t see it as an act of reverence.”

Finding Dalgliesh unresponsive, he said, “I’ll take his temperature and see if that helps to fix the time of death, but I doubt whether I can put it closer than your original estimate. I’ll be able to tell you more when I’ve had him on the table.”

Dalgliesh didn’t wait to watch this first violation of the body’s privacy, but walked slowly up and down the central aisle until, looking back, he saw that Ayling had finished and had got to his feet.

Together they returned to the sacristy. As the pathologist took off his working gown and zipped himself into his leathers, Dalgliesh said, “Would you care for some coffee? I dare say it could be arranged.”

“No thanks. Pressure of time, and they won’t want to see me. I should be able to do the PM tomorrow morning and I’ll ring you, although I’m not expecting any surprises. The Coroner will want the forensics done. He’s careful like that. So will you, of course. I suppose I could use the Met lab if Huntingdon is busy. You won’t want him moved until the photographer and SOCOs have finished, but give me a ring when you’re ready. I expect the people here will be glad to see the last of him.”

When Mark Ayling was ready to go, Dalgliesh locked the sacristy door and reset the alarm. For some reason he found difficult to define he was reluctant to take his companion through the house again.

He said, “We can leave by the gate onto the headland. It’ll save you being waylaid.”

They skirted the courtyard on the path of trodden grass. Across the scrubland Dalgliesh could see lights in the three occupied cottages. They looked like the lonely outposts of some
beleaguered garrison. There was a light, too, in St. Matthew’s Cottage, and he guessed that Mrs. Pilbeam, probably with duster and vacuum cleaner, was making sure that it was clean and ready for occupation by the police. He thought again of Margaret Munroe and of that lonely dying which could have been so opportune, and there came to him a conviction that was as powerful as it was seemingly irrational: that the three deaths were connected. The apparent suicide, the certified natural death, the brutal murder—there was a cord which connected them. Its strength might be tenuous and its path convoluted, but when he had traced it, it would lead him to the heart of the mystery.

In the front courtyard he waited until Ayling had mounted and roared away. He was turning to go back inside the house when he caught sight of the sidelights of a car. It had just turned from the approach road and was coming fast along the path. Within seconds he had identified Piers Tarrant’s Alfa Romeo. The first two members of his team had arrived.

T
he call came through to Detective Inspector Piers Tarrant at six-fifteen. Within ten minutes he was ready to leave. He had been instructed to call for Kate Miskin on the way and reflected that this was unlikely to cause delay: Kate’s flat on the Thames, just beyond Wapping, was on the route out of London he proposed to take. Detective Sergeant Robbins lived on the Essex border and would drive his own car to the scene. With luck, Piers hoped to overtake him. He let himself out of his flat and into the early-Sunday-morning quiet of the deserted streets. He collected his Alfa Romeo from the garage space which was his by courtesy of the City of London Police, slung his murder bag in the back and set off eastward on the same route along which Dalgliesh had travelled two days before.

Kate was waiting for him at the entrance to the block where she had a flat overlooking the river. He had never been invited inside, nor had she ever seen the interior of his flat in the City. The river, with its ever-changing light and shade, its dark surging tides and busy commercial life, was her passion as the City was his. His flat comprised only three rooms above a delicatessen in a back street near St. Paul’s Cathedral. The camaraderie of the Met and his sexual life had no part in this private world. Nothing in the flat was superfluous, and everything was carefully chosen and as expensive as he could afford. The City, its churches and alleys, its cobbled passages and seldom-visited courts, was both a hobby and a relief from his professional world. Like Kate, he was fascinated by the river, but as part of the City’s life and history. He cycled each day to work and used his car only when he left London, but when he drove, it had to be a car he was happy to own.