Past Praying For (18 page)

With
Ben safely asleep, Patrick came downstairs and brought out the brandy. Suzanne, face the colour of putty and with reddened eyes, sat shaking at the table as he clamped her hands round the glass and forced her to take a sip.

‘
I killed him,’ she kept repeating. ‘I killed him. I locked the door last night, I locked him in, and I killed him.’

‘
You always lock the door,’ Patrick said flatly. ‘You do it every day. It’s not an unreasonable thing for you to do. It’s not your fault that some poor stupid bastard chose to doss down in our garage the night it went on fire.’

Margaret
looked up. ‘Do they know yet what started it?’ she asked the policewoman. ‘Could it have been an accident?’

The
girl’s face was sombre. ‘I don’t think they know yet. But I have to say it seems unlikely.’

‘
Kids doing it for some sort of stupid lark?’

At
Patrick’s suggestion, Jackie shrugged. ‘Could be. Have you had problems with vandals lately?’

‘
Not that I’ve heard of,’ Margaret said. ‘And usually the church and the churchyard are seen as easy targets. The youngsters round here don’t seem the type.’

She
got an old-fashioned look in reply.

‘
There’s no such thing. Come down to the station on a Saturday night – the place is stiff with parents explaining that their child isn’t the type. You never know when perfectly normal kids are going to break out, but usually they leave pretty clear traces.’

As
she spoke, the door opened and a tall man with greying fair hair came in. He was wearing a shirt and tie and a Barbour jacket; his neatness seemed incongruous in the circumstances, and the smear of soot on his face added a further touch of unreality.

‘
Detective Inspector Vezey.’ He spoke without any other attempt at social overture. ‘I gather that someone here thinks they know the victim?’

‘
Yes, I do,’ Margaret said, then felt obliged to qualify the statement. ‘At least, I recognized the burnt umbrella – it has a very distinctive handle – as one I gave this afternoon to a down-and-out called Tom. He was a regular at the church where I used to work, and – and he came here because he knew this was where I was.’ Her voice wobbled and she stopped, biting her lip.

The
detective’s eyes were light brown and cold, and under their momentary sharp focus she felt that he could read the pain and the sense of responsibility she was struggling with as if it were written across her forehead.

But
he made no comment, simply saying, ‘I’ll take a brief statement from you then. Constable!’

He
snapped his fingers; the look Jackie gave him was wary, but a notebook and pencil appeared in her hands as if by magic.

When
Margaret gave her name, he eyed her keenly once more. She had never been the sort of woman men undressed with their eyes, but under his gaze she felt stripped to bone rather than flesh. She did not enjoy the experience; she raised her chin and met his eyes robustly.

‘
Moon,’ he said. ‘An unusual name. Are you related to Robert Moon? You’re physically very like him.’

I
’ve never heard of him in my life before: the tempting response rose to her lips.

‘
My brother,’ she said.

He
evinced no surprise. ‘I’ve worked with him. He’s a useful man. Still in Bath, is he?’

‘
Oh no, in bed by now, I should think.’

With
horrified embarrassment, she heard her own voice make the puerile joke. What could have possessed her? It must be shock, and if she allowed herself to laugh she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop.

Determinedly
not looking at anyone, she hurried on, overriding the quiver in her voice.

‘
I’m sorry, I was confused for a moment. What I meant was, he’s staying with me at the moment in the Vicarage.’

‘
The Vicarage?’ That surprised him into reaction. ‘Right. I’ll make time to see him tomorrow. Warn him to expect me. Now, if you can just tell me...’

It
didn’t take long. Vezey processed Margaret’s meagre information in a matter of minutes; in not much more, he established that Suzanne had parked her car shortly after four, that she had left the garage door open in case she might want to go out again, and that she had locked the door at nine o’clock, when she had let the dog out. He remained impassive when she said, her voice trembling once more, that she wondered if it might have been a cry for help that wakened her.

His
manner gave her no encouragement to elaborate or to dwell upon events. When he had finished, he said, ‘We won’t need you again before the morning. I suggest you get some sleep. Jackie, you can come with me.’

Jackie
had been clearing mugs and glasses; with an apologetic glance she abandoned her task and followed him out.

Patrick
got to his feet. ‘Do you suppose he’ll lock us up if we don’t do as we’re told? I’m certainly much too cowed to argue. Margaret, do you want me to walk you home?’

‘
Good gracious, no. The place is alive with policemen. I’ll be safer than I would be on any normal night.’

At
the door, Patrick said good-night and headed upstairs, while Suzanne, looking worn and fragile, held it open.

‘
Taking the blame,’ Margaret said with what conviction she could muster, ‘is an indulgence you simply must not permit yourself. I’m saying this to myself as much as you, because if he hadn’t come to see me, this wouldn’t have happened. But we might just as logically blame a stone if he’d fallen and cracked his skull on it. Or Tom himself, for that matter; he chose to trespass in your garage. He wasn’t to know there would be a fire, but then neither were you. Try to sleep.’

‘
You’ve been very kind,’ Suzanne said. ‘I’ll try.’

She
shut the door, but through the uncurtained window at the side of the front door Margaret saw her stand motionless, her hands covering her face.

***

With fingers that were shaking and clumsy, Hayley Cutler fumbled the brass bolts, fitted only that day, into place on her back door, as if she could keep out by these physical means the darkness she felt surrounded her.

She
had not immediately followed Piers out to see the fire. She had taken a bath first, running it as hot as she could stand and tipping in lavish quantities of the costly bath oil which had been her Christmas present to herself.

So
she had arrived late on the scene, after the crowd had dispersed. A young policeman, looking shaken himself, told her the gruesome story.

Hayley
had fled home, driven by irrational terror: irrational, because she knew how many police were within earshot of even a muffled scream.

Fear
was stalking her close. When Suzanne had asked for the return of her key, Hayley realized instantly what lay behind the request; it had seemed, at the time, comforting that she herself was not the only target.

Yet
someone had struck again at Suzanne – at her garage, like a warning – and an innocent dosser had been, they seemed to think, an accidental fatality of vandalism.

Perhaps
he was. But in her heart she did not think so.

The
walls of the cottage were thick and the windows had shutters which she had never used. Now she went to unfold them; thick with dust, they creaked and loose plaster fell out, but she felt safer once the bars were swung across.

She
had forgotten to switch off the coffee machine, and the red light glowed invitingly. She poured some into a mug, wrapping her hands round its comforting warmth. It might keep her awake, but then she wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.

The
conclusion seemed inescapable. Denied entry to Suzanne’s house, someone had reacted in this hideous way. Might her bolts and bars attract similar revenge?

Most
horribly of all, that gave the stalking monster a human face. Only four people had keys; she was one and Suzanne, the present victim, was the other. There were only two people left; Laura Ferrars and Elizabeth McEvoy.

She
had known them for years. She had talked with them, laughed with them, looked into their eyes and seen no shadow of the insane malevolence this suggested. Their husbands, of course, might have used the keys they held, but who knew better than she that Piers had had nothing to do with it? And James – well, it was impossible to imagine James creeping around at night – it would ruffle his hair! She smiled at the thought, but the smile was short-lived.

She
even considered Patrick, briefly. He was a tough, cold sort of character – at least, he never came on to her the way other men did – and if it had been her garage he’d be right up there on her list. There had been an added chill factor lately, notably towards Piers as well. Maybe he had figured they had a thing going, and he obviously had a weakness for sweet St Lizzie...But it was hardly a reason for starting a fire which might have killed him as well as his wife and child.

No,
the case against the men just didn’t hold up.

The
letter and the apple she had found impaled had alerted her to the existence of hatred, and tonight, alone in the house, she was very, very frightened. At best, the fire had been the work of someone supremely indifferent to the safety of others. At worst...

She
took another gulp of her coffee and shivered. For who could tell whether or not the malignity who had done this had known that the old man was there?

7

‘I will turn their mourning to joy: I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.’

Holy
Innocents Day: this was the prescribed introductory sentence. It was undeniably apposite, but in the light of last night’s events seemed offensively pat. This morning Margaret found herself seriously out of tune with God, and she had always had problems with the Book of Jeremiah anyway, with its suggestion that a new set of wives and children could painlessly replace those so arbitrarily removed.

Tom
had been an innocent, in his way, stripped by his addiction of all the sophisticated cushioning that protects prosperous mankind from the rawness of existence. The latter part of his life, at least, had been spent in what previous ages had seen as the beggar’s office: that of offering others occasion for the exercise of charity. He had been harmless, as harmless as the sparrow to which you might flick crumbs out of your plenty. Could she really believe, today, that not one fell outside the Creator’s knowledge and design?

Perhaps
it was a lesson about eternal values set against temporal ones, but this morning she didn’t feel philosophical, she felt flayed and tired and headachy, and for all the point there was in this service, she might just as well have stayed in bed with an aspirin.

Generally,
she liked the morning services on Saints’ Days. There might be two or three devout souls; on occasions, she had read the service for herself with the sense of acting for others as the link which kept unbroken a chain of prayer stretching back across the centuries.

Today,
she could not rise above a theologically childish resentment that an all-powerful God could not have seen to it that poor old Tom had chosen the garage next door instead.

Still,
she had a job to do, and this was one of the mornings when she did it because that was how she earned her living. She hadn’t always enjoyed going to the bank either.

She
found and marked the readings, being only further irritated to discover her own rebellion echoed in the first one, about Rachel who had also refused to be comforted.

Her
preparations made, she went as usual to kneel in prayer, but finding it impossible to open her mind to God, relieved her feelings with a tirade about waste and futility – spiritually immature, perhaps, but satisfying.

There
were three people there this morning. Clearly, last night’s accident was not yet common knowledge, or there would have been a larger congregation, some in genuine prayer for the tragedy and some to discover whatever gossip might be going. It was a tradition which, if not officially sanctioned, was certainly time-hallowed.

Elizabeth
McEvoy was there, unusually. She was a faithful Sunday worshipper, but Margaret had never seen her there on a weekday. Presumably Suzanne had phoned to tell her what had happened.

Elizabeth
spent a little time after the service kneeling in prayer, and was the last to leave the church. Looking at her drawn face, Margaret said, ‘I’m so glad you came this morning. I hope it helped.’

Elizabeth
looked confused, as if the remark were unexpected. ‘Well…’

‘
I know. Nothing helps much, does it? Something like last night just leaves you feeling sick.’