Evil Angels Among Them (2 page)

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank everyone at Marylebone House, especially editor Alison Barr, for giving this book a new lease of life. Retrospectively, I offer my deep gratitude to my incomparable editor, the late Sara Ann Freed of Mysterious Press/Warner Books. I would also like to thank MJO; my debt to him is beyond words.

Dramatis personae

PROLOGUE

    
Their throat is an open sepulchre, with their tongues have they deceived: the poison of asps is under their lips.

Psalm 14.5

The first phone call came just a few days after the Rector and his wife returned from their honeymoon. It was the first evening since their marriage that Stephen had to go out, to a Deanery Synod meeting in a nearby village.

At a loose end, Becca occupied herself with the newly arrived honeymoon photos, slipping them into the clear pockets of an album – a wedding present from one of his parishioners. Stephen had suggested that she write on the backs of the photos, for future reference, but Becca knew that there was no danger of her ever forgetting their honeymoon.

It hadn't been a grand honeymoon, by most standards – on a clergyman's stipend it wasn't really an option to go abroad, to the romance of Paris or Venice or even to some warmer clime than England in midwinter. But the cottage they'd rented in Somerset had been snugly cosy, and the surrounding countryside picturesque even in bleakest January. At off-season rates, they'd been able to afford two weeks, and in the slow time after Christmas it had been possible for Stephen to get away from the parish for that long.

Two blissful weeks. Becca smiled as she flipped through the photos they'd snapped with their rather posh autofocus camera, another wedding present. They'd taken quite a few photos of each other, out of doors on their daily walks over rolling hillsides, and in the cottage in the evenings, in the glow of the log fire. That was one disadvantage of a solitary honeymoon, she reflected wryly – there was no one else to wield the camera so they could both be in the pictures. One day they'd driven into Bath, where they'd found various sympathetic strangers to press the shutter release, so there were a few photos of the newlyweds together in front of the Royal Crescent, viewing the Roman Baths and feasting in a chintzy teashop. And on another day they'd visited Wells, where they'd toured the cathedral, and later they'd climbed Glastonbury Tor. Becca looked at a picture, snapped, she recalled, by a friendly American, of the two of them, arm in arm, at the top of the tor, the countryside spread out beneath them like the map of some wintry fantasy land. Modest as Becca was, she had to admit that they made a handsome couple: both tall and slender and fair-haired, though her hair was a silvery blonde while Stephen's was more golden in colour.

Happy days, exploring the countryside. And if the days were happy, the nights, spent exploring each other, were sheer bliss. Upstairs at the cottage, in the tiny bedroom under the eaves, together they'd discovered joys neither of them had ever even imagined. And that, thought Becca happily, was not going to stop now that the honeymoon had ended. The pleasure of discovery, and the discovery of pleasure, would continue for weeks and months and years to come.

There were no photos of those nights upstairs – taking pictures had been the last thing on either of their minds. But there was one photo that she'd always treasure. One rainy morning Becca had awakened early and slipped downstairs to surprise Stephen with breakfast in bed, delivered on a tray. She'd remembered to bring the camera up with her as well, and had captured his surprise at the unexpected feast. In the photo he looked so young – vulnerable, almost – without his glasses and with his tousled hair flopping on to his forehead so boyishly, in the middle of the rumpled bed. The breakfast, she recalled, had been less than a culinary triumph, the egg yolks broken and the toast burnt, but Stephen had pronounced it the most delicious meal he'd ever eaten. Afterwards they'd made love yet again, as the rain beat steadily on the slanting roof just above their heads. But the bed was so deliciously cosy . . .

Her happy reminiscences were interrupted by the chirp of the telephone in the hall. Becca tucked the precious photo of Stephen into its polythene pocket and went to answer it.

‘Hello?' she ventured.

There was a brief pause, then a slightly muffled male voice responded. ‘Hello, my dear. How are you?'

Clearly, thought Becca, the man expected his voice to be recognised – it was something she'd grown used to when acting as secretary to her clergyman father. The voice
did
sound vaguely familiar, but she'd been in the parish such a short time that she was not yet adept at recognising the voices of her husband's parishioners. Embarrassed by her failure, and unwilling to admit it, she played for time, hoping for a clue to the caller's identity. ‘Oh, I'm very well, thank you. And you?'

There was a chuckle. ‘All the better for talking to you, my dear.'

Still no enlightenment. ‘I'm afraid Stephen isn't here,' she offered, certain that the man must be phoning on parish business of some sort. ‘He's gone to a Deanery Synod meeting. Would you like me to have him ring you when he gets home?' With sudden inspiration she added, ‘Perhaps you'd better give me your number, just to be sure.'

Another soft chuckle. ‘Oh, it's you I wanted to talk to. Tell me, how was your honeymoon?'

Becca smiled spontaneously at the introduction of her favourite subject. ‘Wonderful! We went to Somerset, and had such a lovely time. We went to Bath, and to Wells Cathedral, and spent a lot of time just walking in the countryside and having meals in pubs.'

‘The weather was good?'

‘Most of the time, though it rained one or two days.'

The chuckle again. ‘I don't imagine that bothered you, though, did it? Honeymooners can always find things to do, even when it's raining.'

The first shadow of unease made Becca pause before answering. ‘Oh, yes, we didn't have any trouble filling the time.'

‘I'm sure you didn't. Would you like to tell me about it?'

Becca found that her mouth was suddenly dry, and her heart gave an uncomfortable thud. ‘Well, um, we . . .' she began, moistening her lips with her tongue. ‘We found things to do.'

‘Don't be so shy,' the unemphatic voice urged her. ‘Tell me all about it. I want to know all the details. How many times did you do it? Did you do it on the floor, or only on the bed?'

‘Please . . .' Becca whispered, appalled.

Inexorably the voice continued. ‘I'll bet the parson loves to touch your pretty titties, doesn't he? I'd like to touch them myself.' Another chuckle. ‘Do you want to know what else I'd like to do to you?' He proceeded to tell her, unemotionally and at length.

Becca felt as if she'd been turned to stone, her hand clenching the phone to her ear as the stream of filth poured out unchecked, asking for and receiving no response. Eventually she dropped the receiver, forcing herself to take deep breaths, and covered her face with her hands. The voice went on. She snatched the receiver up again and slammed it into its cradle, then stood staring at it until it began ringing again.

This couldn't be happening, Becca told herself, swallowing hard to control her nausea. She was a married woman, married to the village Rector. Things like this didn't happen to rectors' wives in small Norfolk villages.

Unclean. She felt soiled by the words she'd heard, horrible words made all the more shocking by the calm way in which they were delivered. So many words, all about something filthy that seemed to have nothing to do with the wonderful things that she and Stephen had done in bed.

The phone gave its double chirp a dozen times, stopped, then started again. Rebecca Thorncroft turned and ran up the stairs to the bathroom, slammed the door, stripped off her clothes, got under the shower, and turned on the hot water full blast, drowning the insistent sound of the phone. Perhaps if she stayed in the shower long enough, the phone would stop ringing. And perhaps if she scrubbed herself hard enough, she would be able to feel clean again.

Part 1

CHAPTER 1

    
Ye that stand in the house of the Lord: in the courts of the house of our God.

Psalm 135.2

There was nothing about the woman's appearance that gave any cause for alarm: she was quite an ordinary-looking young woman of an age approaching thirty, neatly dressed, tallish and large-boned with a wide-cheekboned face and honey-coloured hair pulled back in a simple pony tail. And, of course, the child was with her, a smartly turned-out and extremely well-behaved little girl.

Old Harry Gaze was the first one in Walston to meet her, or even to see her. That fact was undeniable, much as it grieved Enid Bletsoe. Enid made up for it later, of course, and claimed that it didn't really count.

Harry was the verger at St Michael and All Angels, an honorary position carrying no remuneration save the use of a cottage, but one which he took quite seriously, and thus he was as usual in the church when the woman and the child came in on a Saturday afternoon at the end of February.

The woman paused just inside the west door of the church, catching her breath at its soaring magnificence. St Michael and All Angels was not the sort of church one might have expected to find in a small, rather undistinguished Norfolk village like Walston; its size bespoke past glories of which scarcely a trace remained. Built in the Perpendicular style, its exterior, crowned by a massive square tower, was a marvel of flushwork in Norfolk flint, and the interior, with its vast expanses of clear glass in the side aisles and the deep clerestory, was irradiated with the sort of light that is found only in East Anglia, as if the sky had somehow found a way to invade the church. The double hammer-beam roof, high above the nave, was the home for a veritable choir of angels, gilded wooden wings outspread and mouths open in eternal song.

The little girl, too, was transfixed. ‘Mummy,' she whispered at last, pointing roofwards. ‘Look at the angels!'

‘It's beautiful,' responded the woman spontaneously, squeezing her daughter's hand.

‘Wholly fine work, that,' said a broad Norfolk voice from the shadows, and the woman turned, startled, to see an elderly man coming towards them.

He was quite tall and erect, with a distinguished cast to his features and an impressive head of silvery white hair, and he wore a cassock with an official-looking badge on his chest. ‘Harry Gaze,' he introduced himself. ‘I'm the verger here.' The woman nodded acknowledgement, and he went on without pause. ‘My father was verger here before me, and his father before him, and so on back through the years. I reckon there's been Gazes here as long as this church has been standing, and that's a long time, I can tell you.'

‘Do you live here in the church?' asked the little girl, wide-eyed.

Harry chuckled appreciatively. ‘That's a good one, bless you. No, my ducks, I live in a little cottage just down the lane.' He gestured vaguely towards the north aisle. ‘Between the Rectory and the church, it is. Wholly convenient it is, too – two minutes away. And now that I'm retired – now that my son, young Harry, has taken over the garage – I can spend most of my time here.' The verger lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Can't be too careful, you understand. There's wicked people in this world – people as wouldn't think anything of stealing a church's treasures and flogging them to rich people to decorate their fancy houses. Young tearaways on motorbikes, looking for something to pocket, or even bad 'uns come up all the way from London. You wouldn't feature it, but it's true.'

‘I'm sure it is,' said the woman, shaking her head sympathetically. ‘And you must have a great many treasures here.'

Harry gave a vigorous nod. ‘Aye, that we do. You'll be wanting me to show you round, I reckon.' Without waiting for a reply, he marched up the wide centre aisle, between the majestic arcades of lofty slender pillars and pointed Gothic arches, past the monuments and effigied tomb chests, through the carved screen with its painted panels, and into the chancel. The woman and child followed more slowly, looking around them at the manifold beauties of the church. ‘Cromwell's men – Dowsing and that rum lot – busted up all the stained-glass windows,' Harry explained over his shoulder. ‘All excepting for the east window. One of the Lovelidge family, them as was lords of the manor, took that out before the Civil War and hid it away, up at Walston Hall, and it didn't get put back till Queen Victoria's time. Here.' He gestured at the magnificent medieval window, the richness of its jewel-like colours belying its age.

‘More angels,' said the little girl, pointing to the ranks of winged creatures who ranged along the top of the window.

‘Nine orders of angels,' amplified her mother.

‘Right you are, my ducks,' Harry nodded. ‘There's angels everywhere in this church.' He turned and flourished his arm towards a chair standing by itself against the north wall of the chancel, roped off rather grandly with red cords. ‘And this,' he announced, ‘is our greatest treasure. King John's chair.'

The woman studied it with interest. The chair was made of age-darkened oak, simple and sturdy in design and carved with Elizabethan strap-work patterns. ‘King John?' she said quizzically.

Drawing himself up to his full height, Harry launched into a practised patter. ‘Bad King John he was known as. Managed to get everyone's backs up – the Pope, foreigners like the Frogs, and even his own true English people. If he wasn't fighting with one, he was fighting with another. Well, you must know the story of how he lost his jewels in the Wash when he was running away from the Frogs.' He glanced at the little girl, who shook her head. ‘Don't know what they teach them in school nowadays,' he grumbled to himself. ‘In my day, we learned all about history in school – not the sort of nonsense they fill young heads with these days.' Sniffing, he addressed himself to her in a didactic voice. ‘King John was running away from the Frogs. He reckoned as he'd take a short cut across the Wash at low tide, and he made it to the other side, but the wagons got bogged down in the mud, and the tide rushed in and swept everything away. Including all of his jewels, and even his crown. It was a wholly bad day for bad King John, I can tell you. Never found none of it again, neither. Not a sausage.'

‘Poor King John,' said the little girl, wide-eyed.

‘Not a bit of it,' Harry reproved with another sniff. ‘He deserved it. I told you, he was a bad king. But the thing about it is, the very day before he lost his jewels, he stopped here in this very church, and he sat himself in that very chair. To pray that he would escape from the Frogs. And he did, too, not forgetting that he lost his jewels as God's punishment for his wicked ways. And that chair has been here in this church ever since, to remind people of the way God answers prayers.' With a decisive nod, the verger went on, ‘And King John was by no means the only king to visit this church. Practically every king there ever was, back in the Middle Ages, stopped in Walston on the way to Walsingham, to the Shrine of Our Lady. Right on the way from London it was, a regular stopping-off place for pilgrims, kings included.' He stopped at last and looked the woman up and down, sizing her up. ‘These days we get people from all over come just to look at the church. Even folks up from London, who've read or heard about this church. I expect you're from London?' His voice lifted at the end in enquiry.

‘Well, sort of.' She smiled, an attractive slow smile that matched her deliberate way of speaking. ‘Actually, we're moving to Walston. Today. To Foxglove Cottage. But we got here ahead of the removal van, so we thought we'd have a look round the village. I wanted to see the church – I
have
heard about it.'

For a moment Harry stared at her, his mouth open. ‘Foxglove Cottage?' he said at last. ‘Old Miss Ivey's place? But that's been empty for months – no one told me that it had been sold!'

‘It all happened quite quickly,' she explained. ‘It was just what we'd been looking for, and since it offered vacant possession there wasn't any reason to wait – not for me and Bryony, anyway.' Putting out her hand, she added, ‘I'm Mrs English, by the way. Gillian English. And my daughter Bryony.'

Harry had regained his composure; he took her hand and shook it with solemn ceremony. ‘Very pleased to meet you, Mrs English. Welcome to Walston. This is quite an event – we don't get many newcomers here.' All thoughts of church treasures fled as, with a grin, he went on, ‘And you'll be wanting to know all about the village. Well, you've come to the right place, I can tell you. I've been here all my life, bred and born in this village, and there's nothing about Walston that Harry Gaze doesn't know! And about the people in it, I might add.'

‘How convenient.' Her tone might have been ironic, but the old man took her words at face value.

‘I suppose you've met Enid Bletsoe, across the road from you at The Pines?'

She shook her head. ‘No, I haven't met anyone yet.'

‘Well, I expect it won't be long before you meet Enid,' Harry predicted with a sage nod. ‘Enid doesn't let much get past her. Especially these days, since the young doctor's made her retire as his receptionist. She don't have anything better to do than look out her window and mind other folks' business for them.'

Gillian, not by nature a curious person, nonetheless saw the value in gleaning a bit of information about her nearest neighbour. ‘She lives alone, then?'

‘Most of the time. There's a grandson, young Jamie, as she brought up herself from a tiny thing, but he's away at university these days. Oxford or Cambridge or some such – I can't remember. His parents was killed when he was a baby,' Harry added. ‘Enid's son and his wife, killed dead in a car crash out on the old Norwich road. Jamie's the apple of Enid's eye, I don't need to tell you.'

‘She's a widow, then?'

Harry chuckled, and lowered his voice so that Bryony couldn't hear. ‘That's what she'd like you to believe, any road. But there's some of us in this village as remember as clear as yesterday the day when Jack Bletsoe up sticks and left. Years ago, it was – young Jamie's father wasn't more than a baby himself. Jack up sticks and left her to bring up that baby wholly on her own. No one in Walston's seen Jack Bletsoe since – he might be dead for all I know. I suppose that would make her a widow, wouldn't it?' He winked roguishly. ‘Not that it makes any difference, mind you – there's not a man in Walston, bachelor or widower, as would take that one on, with or without young Jamie.'

Gillian gave a bemused smile which the verger took as encouragement to continue. ‘And her sister, Doris Wrightman. She's not much better, I can tell you. Two of a kind, they are.'

Her expression grew even more bemused as he went on to deliver a succinct and sometimes scurrilous overview of the people she was likely to encounter in her first days in Walston: churchwarden Fred Purdy, proprietor of the village shop, whose wife was suffering from terminal cancer and whose unmarried daughter had presented him with a grandchild, scandalising the village; Roger Staines, the other churchwarden, dismissed as ‘an egghead'; Marjorie Talbot-Shaw, clergy widow and the secretary of the PCC; former churchwarden Ernest Wrightman, who still seemed to have his finger in any number of pies; young Doctor McNair, a non-churchgoer who was nevertheless an important and respected member of the village community; Quentin and Diana Mansfield, relative newcomers to the village, who owned Walston Hall; Cyprian Lawrence, the reclusive and unpopular organist. The rapid-fire barrage of unfamiliar names and information was imperfectly absorbed by its recipient, who nonetheless managed to nod her head in the right places.

‘So.' Harry paused for breath. ‘That's just about everyone who's important. Excepting, of course, for the Rector. I expect as you'd like to know about him.'

‘Father Fuller?' said Gillian. ‘I saw his name on the notice board outside.'

Harry chuckled. ‘Oh, no. Father Fuller was the last rector. Retired near on to two years ago and died last year. We just haven't got round to changing the notice board. New Rector's been here well under a year – name of Stephen Thorncroft. Young fellow, with good solid high churchmanship. But it's always difficult to break in a new rector. Mind you, we haven't had to do it for quite a while – Father Fuller was here near on to thirty years.' He laughed. ‘I reckon Father Thorncroft will be all right once we've knocked the corners off him. These young fellows always have wholly grand ideas – takes them a while to learn the facts of life. And,' he added, grinning, ‘he's got other things on his mind – like a pretty new wife. Just married, and she's a right corker. No red-blooded young man wants to be worrying about a church and its problems when he's got a pretty new wife to occupy him.'

Gillian thought about the riches of information that Harry Gaze had so freely proffered as she and Bryony walked back through Walston village towards Foxglove Cottage, trying to remember what he'd said about various individuals. It had all come too soon, she reflected ruefully: before she had any faces to attach to the multitude of names that he'd fired at her.

Walston consisted to a large extent of one main street sloping down from the gentle rise on which St Michael's Church had reigned for centuries, past school and almshouses to what passed for the village centre. Gillian looked about her with interest. There, across from the war memorial and the shabby Village Hall, was the village shop. Alfred Purdy, Proprietor, it announced on the cheerful striped awning. Fred Purdy. Yes, she remembered: he was one of the churchwardens. And next to it was Gaze's Garage, clearly once a livery stable, with one petrol pump and a forecourt where middle-aged ‘young Harry' sold a few second-hand cars.

The pub beyond, the Queen's Head, featured on its sign the disembodied but otherwise serene face of Anne Boleyn; Gillian recalled from her history books that the Boleyn family had come from Norfolk, not far from Walston. The Queen's Head showed signs of having been smartened up considerably in recent years, probably to its detriment; its former rustic charms had given way to double-glazed windows and other appurtenances of twentieth-century life, including a satellite dish sprouting incongruously from its tile roof.