Embroidering Shrouds (27 page)

‘Solved it?'

‘Not quite', she said, but we're getting there, Mike. We are getting there.'

‘I'm really glad you included me in that,' he drawled sarcastically.

She didn't answer him but led the way towards the steps and the front door of Brushton Grange. And this time Arnold was waiting there to meet them. He straightened up to stare deep into Joanna's eyes, saying nothing. But there was a line of communication far more effective than any which had yet been established between them. She read pain, shame, deep, deep regret. After a brief pause he nodded as though satisfied.

They followed him into the high-ceilinged living room, both sensing that this would be a long, sad, slowly told story.

‘So,' he said at last, ‘she had her way. She said I would pay.' He peered from one to the other. ‘It's what you're here for, isn't it?'

Joanna nodded.

He picked up his walking stick. ‘Do I have to come with you?'

‘Not now, not yet. But you will eventually.'

Patterson leaned heavily forward on his stick, his rheumy eyes focused on his hands, knobbled with arthritis, after a while he stopped looking even at them. ‘I nearly got away with it, didn't I? Old age almost had you beat, I can't have long to go now.'

Joanna nodded.

‘Happen I was ...' He seemed to be having difficulty saying the next word.

‘Sorry?' She tried to supply the word.

He shook his head very slightly. ‘Wrong. All I know is it didn't feel so at the time. I couldn't bear ...' He stared beyond Joanna's shoulder. ‘It's right that she lived there,' he said softly. ‘Camped on my doorstep, never letting me forget.'

‘You killed. ..?' Korpanski was staring at the old man in amazement.

Both Joanna and Patterson swivelled round to look at him.

‘Not, Nan.' Joanna answered Korpanski's mute question. ‘He didn't kill Nan.'

‘No, not my own sister. Times I wished I had, but I didn't, young sir. It weren't me. Though I hated her for what she'd done to –'

Joanna supplied the words. ‘To David, to her husband. And what she did to you.'

‘How much do you know?'

‘I
think
I know it all. I could be wrong.'

Patterson tossed his head in an age-old gesture of defiance. ‘They've clever words for it now,' he said. ‘They would excuse me, saying how the things I'd seen at war was reason enough to kill.' He tossed his head. ‘Post-traumatic something or other.'

Mike turned to Joanna for explanation. ‘Nan?' he said again.

Again she shook her head. ‘Nan's child,' Joanna said. ‘It was in the post-mortem report but I didn't understand the phrase.
Gravid.
She'd borne a child. But whose was it? Where was it? Where
is
it?' The second query was addressed to Nan's brother.

For answer he continued to stare beyond her shoulder.

‘Christian?' Mike ventured.

‘Far too young. We're talking about fifty years ago, aren't we, Mr Patterson? The end of the war, a soldier about to return home to find his adored wife was already pregnant.'

Arnold nodded. ‘It would have finished him off; he didn't deserve that.'

And Joanna knew now. It
had
to be there, buried in the foundations of the house. ‘You killed it, didn't you?'

‘I didn't want David Lawrence returning from war to that. He'd suffered enough.'

Joanna waited until Patterson continued.

‘It were such a little thing ...' There was something evasive in his old eyes, some secret he still believed he could conceal. ‘It were nothing, really.'

‘We must exhume,' Joanna said. ‘Let the courts decide.'

Patterson bowed his head.

‘Can you tell me any more?'

‘You know enough.'

Joanna stood up. ‘We'll let ourselves out, thank you, Mr Patterson. And you do understand, we
will
be back.'

This time the old man didn't respond.

She closed the door behind the old man, leaving him with his memories, staring, unfocused, straight ahead, in shock.

They found Cecily Marlowe in her tiny kitchen, watching a cling-film smothered dish revolving in the microwave. She didn't move as Joanna and Mike walked in. When the bell pinged she removed the dish, uncovered some cauliflower cheese and walked back into the sitting room. ‘You weren't going to give up, were you? I thought you would. That was my mistake, thinking anybody would give up.'

They watched her munching the cauliflower cheese, the scarred face puckering grotesquely as she ate. ‘They don't like me eating with the others,' she said quietly. ‘They say it puts them off their food.' She gave a cynical laugh. “To think I was the Rose Queen of Leek once, long ago.'

She carried on eating, seemingly uncurious about the reason for their visit. But Joanna realized much of the hysteria had vanished from her manner.

As soon as she had formed the thought she knew the reason why. Because Nan Lawrence was dead and word might have reached her that Christian Patterson was in custody.

‘I think', Joanna said slowly, ‘that it's about time you started telling us the truth, right from the beginning.'

Cecily's hand flew up to her face. ‘He won't be back,' Joanna assured her. ‘We've finally charged him with your assault.'

Cecily nodded. ‘It took time.'

‘Yes.'

Mike was sitting in the chair opposite, his face serious. For once he was not showing aggression but frank pity for the old woman. Joanna smiled inwardly; Korpanski was learning her methods. Over the last few years he was changing – slowly. He always would be Korpanski. But he was a different Korpanski from the one she had encountered when she had first come to Leek, he was acquiring a heart.

As if to manifest her thoughts he spoke. ‘We won't let that villain come within a mile of you again, Mrs Marlowe.'

The old woman gave a watery smile of thin confidence. She turned to Joanna. ‘So where do I start?'

‘At the very beginning.'

She was still cautious. ‘And what is the beginning?'

‘The war.'

‘The war.' She gave a cynical laugh. ‘Perhaps we can blame it all on the war.'

‘Perhaps.'

‘We was friends through it, me and Nan. Flighty young things I suppose you'd call us, teenagers for nearly all the war years. Life was hard, no men to speak of except farmers, imbeciles, soldiers home on leave, and that was short and uncertain. Pushed us into things too quick. Made us reckless, made us not want to wait. ‘Cos wait and you might be dead, that was what me and Nan used to say, might not get another chance. She and David Lawrence, we-ell, he'd always had a soft spot for her and she liked having the ring. Vicars was always ready to tie the knot double quick, cheered everyone up, a wedding. Good for morale. Forty-four, Nan did tie the knot. But it wasn't five minutes before he was off back to the front. Germany.' She paused for a moment, seemingly reluctant to continue. Yet neither Joanna nor Mike prompted her. ‘We felt life was slipping us by. No fun. Husbands away fighting, while for those of us here life was mundane, boring. We just wanted something – anything. Anyway, young bride or not Nan took up with a man. He was kind to her. I don't suppose either of them
wanted
it to go so far but it did, and Nan got pregnant.

Then Arnie came home. He went mad. He'd seen action, real action – friends of his blown up, dying horribly. It made him hard, not human, different from the Arnie who'd gone away.'

‘Go on,' Joanna prompted softly.

‘Summer was coming. Nan had the baby early. We could see the war was nearly over. David would be home. The ...' She looked desperately at the two police. ‘He ...' She swallowed. And suddenly the horror of the situation touched Joanna.

‘What happened to the baby?'

‘He was a tiny thing,' Cecily said, her eyes dark with horror. ‘A tiny thing. He hardly cried. But he was born alive.'

Joanna waited.

Cecily bowed her head, her evening meal hardly tasted, left on the plate. Arnie killed him with a shovel,' she whispered. ‘I saw him do it,' she looked up, ‘so did Nan.'

And now Joanna understood.

‘Nan never forgave him or me. The baby was buried and Nan built her house. That's the real reason it's called Spite House. People always thought it was because of where it was. She put it there as a reminder to Arnie, so he'd never forget. Nothing to do with her father's will at all.'

‘She hid him in the house for a while, and when they put in the concrete for the foundations she put the baby there. When David came home there was no baby, he never knew about the child.'

‘There's only one thing to add,' Joanna said. ‘Who was the man?'

The little church was shrouded in heavy, damp mist as she and Mike approached. They opened the wicket gate and walked along the wet path, running the gauntlet of dripping trees. Yews, a holly bright with berries. She had known she would find him here, kneeling in front of the stained-glass window, praying to Madonna and Child. What were his prayers, she wondered. For forgiveness? Or for the truth never to be discovered? From somewhere in her own past an ancient hymn swam through her mind.
The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended.
It was ended.

By a stiffening of his shoulders, a tautness in the set of his head, a jerk of his large hands she sensed he was aware of their arrival at the top of the nave.

Mike gave her a swift glance. It was impossible not to be affected by the cold silence.

Joanna's shoes were low-heeled, rubber-soled. Even so her footsteps echoed loudly on the stone flags. Korpanski was close to tip-toeing. Neither of them spoke a word.

They had almost reached him when he stood up, quite suddenly, and turned to face them.

And now, at last, Joanna caught a glimpse of the killer beneath. She should have read his face before.

She had witnessed this wildness without seeing where it could lead. But being a man of the cloth she had discounted him, trusted him without question, believed him innocent, beyond suspicion. She should have peered behind his eyes and perceived other characteristics. His relationship with Nan Lawrence had not developed from pastoral kindness or consideration for a young woman in difficult circumstances but simple lust.

‘Inspector,' he said quietly.

She motioned him to sit on the front pew, she and Mike either side of him. Leon Gardiner appeared unable to meet her eyes. His searched the walls of the old church, reading, it seemed, the rolls of honourable dead, victims of the two wars. Finally he focused only on her, ignoring Korpanski. He was making the mistake other suspects made, that her sex would be kinder on a felon.

‘I've led a long life,' he said, ‘a very long life. I am a man of the church, Inspector, someone who should have spent the last fifty years close to God. After all I claim, by reason of my profession, to be His mouthpiece.' He looked away, a tired, defeated old man, his energy finally depleted. ‘Him, I could not deceive. But everyone else ...' He dropped his face into his hands. ‘My parishioners, my flock. I...' Joanna had the feeling he would like to have cried. But any emotion must have been drained out of him over the years, the final drop squeezed out as he had killed her. All that came now were dry, cracked sobs.

‘She was a malicious woman. I don't believe any other person could have made me pay as she did. Every Sunday for years she would sit here and watch me fumble through my sermon. She always spoke to me at the end, asked me questions anyone who heard might have believed to be innocent. But she read all my deepest fears and played on them, never telling me the complete truth. For years she told me the child was alive, looked after by another family. She asked me for money for its clothes, its food. I lived in fear that one day someone would arrive on my doorstep. Oh yes. Nan Lawrence played with me like a spiteful child pulling the legs off a spider. Even after I retired full time from the church she still plagued me so I dreaded the Sundays I would have to take the sermons. She loved to see me squirm.'

‘Why didn't you give up the church?' Korpanski's voice was rough. Maybe Gardiner's judgement had been astute. There was no trace of sympathy from DS Korpanski.

Gardiner took the comment on the chin but still kept his gaze on Joanna. ‘Because she would have won, beaten me. Because I –' He stared ahead, back to the stained-glass window. ‘You're right. I should have resigned, or at the very least confessed and let the authorities judge me. But –' He stopped, glanced shrewdly at Korpanski. ‘Other people were involved.'

Joanna nodded.

‘In the early years I told myself it would have been cruel to David Lawrence to tell him what had happened when he had been suffering for his country. She held that over me that it would have destroyed him, he was left so weakened by his war experiences. After he died I told myself I had left it too long, that there was no point in confessing. It's a lame excuse. The truth is I simply couldn't face up to it. The years passed. She had her hold.'

‘Until,' Joanna prompted.

‘Something snapped,' Gardiner said simply. ‘It started earlier this year. I was suspicious that the assault on old Mrs Marlowe was in some way connected with Nan. I was aware that Cecily had known about us. Nan had told me the child had been born early and dead and that she had buried the body in the grounds of Brushton Grange. For all I knew it was another lie but it was what I
wanted
to believe. And then one day Cecily finally came to me and told me the real truth.' Gardiner's eyes were full of anguished pain. ‘I confronted Nan and she flew into a rage. She was absolutely furious with Cecily for telling me and she paid the price for her honesty.' Gardiner's gaze appeared transfixed by the stained-glass image of a gentle woman with a plump, healthy child that seemed to dominate the church. ‘Last Sunday Nan spoke to me, as usual, after the service. She began by asking me about the judgement of Solomon, a favourite topic of hers, the wisdom connected with the decision of the mother to let her child live, even though he would be brought up by another woman – better than to watch him slaughtered. Her eyes never left that window. Then she told me she was embroidering a cover for a prayer stool for the church depicting the massacre of the innocent. I corrected her, told her she should use the plural. Oh no, she said, I'm talking about the one, just the one. And when it is finished I shall donate it to the church so it will sit here, on a prayer stool, into perpetuity.' He dropped his head into his hands. ‘She asked me to call on her that evening, and when I arrived she told me the entire story in all its ugliest detail. Things she had not said before but must have kept, waiting for her moment, savouring her final revenge. I had this terrible picture of Arnie.' He shuddered. ‘She told me he used a shovel to murder my child, my very own flesh and blood. She blamed
me,
my lust and my weakness for that hideously cowardly attack on Cecily Marlowe. She told me how Christian had taken a knife to her face, again, in the ugliest of detail. It was horrible, you have no idea. And all the time I was there she wouldn't stop stitching, and I knew she had been planning this moment for years. She looked up and smiled at me, then told me that it was time for the whole story to finally be laid open. Can you imagine?' Leon Gardiner wrapped his arms around himself. ‘She invited me to admire her handiwork. And then as she was calmly threading her needle with silks she quite casually mentioned I was probably standing on the bones of our dead child. She was smiling. The hatred inside me was like a rush of air. I picked up her stick. I just wanted to obliterate that smile.' He was silent, his hands clasped together.