The Corpse's Tale (Trevor Joseph Detective series) (5 page)

He had seen photographs of the churchyard taken on the day of Anna’s murder. They had shown gleaming, scrubbed gravestones, neatly trimmed shrubs and bushes and cut grass. Now, the grass was higher in places than the ancient Celtic crosses and Victorian monuments and the shrubs were unkempt and covered in dead flower heads. The stalks of the spring bulbs had dried to straw. Weeds poked through the gravel on the paths and the older tombs were covered in moss.

The churchyard reminded him of so many other cemeteries he had seen in England and Wales. Forlorn, neglected, it was the reason he had added a clause to his will requesting that his body be cremated and his ashes scattered from the nearest cliff top to his parents’ farm in Cornwall.

He spotted the shed he had seen in the scene of crime photographs. It, too, was dilapidated. The wood was rotting at the base of both the shed and the door and the roof felt was torn. If David Morgan had left any tools in it, they’d be useless. He tested the lock on the

door. It was sealed solid with rust.

‘Can I help you?’

Trevor eyed the man who had walked out of the back door of the church. The police habit of outlining a description was ingrained. Height, five feet ten inches, age, 40-ish, slim, athletic build, dark hair flecked with grey, styled to disguise the fact that it was thinning, grey eyes. He was wearing a dog collar on his lightweight grey summer shirt, grey slacks, black socks and slip-on loafers. He also looked familiar. Trevor was certain he had seen him before.

Trevor held out his hand. ‘Inspector Trevor Joseph. I’m with the police team who are reexamining the David Morgan case.’

‘Tony Oliver, vicar of St David’s.’ He shook Trevor’s hand. ‘Poor Anna Harris. That was a bad business.’

‘Murders generally are.’ Trevor looked at the shed. ‘Is this where David Morgan kept his tools?’

‘Yes, but the police took them when they arrested him.’

‘They weren’t returned?’

‘To be truthful, Inspector Joseph, I didn’t ask for them. I couldn’t have brought myself to use them and I doubt anyone else in the village could have either.’

‘Who has looked after the churchyard since David Morgan was arrested?’

‘We set up a volunteer committee. It worked well for a few years but lately,’ Tony shrugged his shoulders, ‘no one’s heart seems to be in it. My wife and I do what we can. It’s not easy trying to run a parish and look after the fabric of the building and the graves.’

‘It is a lot of work, given the size of the place,’ Trevor agreed.

‘Have you come to any conclusions yet?’

‘Hardly, we only arrived in the village a couple of hours ago, Reverend Oliver.’

‘I don’t envy you, Inspector. Sergeant George investigated every possibility at the time. Everyone, including me, is absolutely sure he charged the right man.’

‘You found Anna, didn’t you?’ Trevor knew the vicar had.

‘Yes.’

‘And David was standing over the body?’

‘Crouched next to her.’ Tony shook his head as though he wanted to be rid of the memory.

‘Did David Morgan say anything to you?’

‘I gave a full statement at the time, which will be more accurate than anything I can say now. Time has a habit of blurring conversations and events. But should there be anything that you think I, or my wife, can do to help you with your enquiries, please don’t hesitate to call. You’re staying at the pub?’

‘Yes.’

‘Rita has my telephone number. Parish business often keeps us from home. We live in the vicarage.’ He indicated an imposing Georgian house that overlooked the churchyard.

‘Very nice,’ Trevor said.

‘From the outside. The plumbing’s a nightmare. It has twenty rooms, every one of them too large to heat to a comfortable level, which means we freeze in winter. But,’ he made a wry face, ‘as you said, it does look impressive.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I hope you weren’t coming to see me, Inspector. I’m due to administer communion in the local hospital in ten minutes.’

‘I’m on my way to visit David Morgan.’

‘I’ve just come from there.’

‘How is he, Reverend Oliver?’ Trevor asked.

‘Call me Tony, everyone does, except David. He is as well as can be expected, considering what happened this morning.’

‘There’s been an incident?’

‘Of course, if you’ve only been here a couple of hours you wouldn’t have heard. Stones were thrown through his mother’s window. There was a note on one of them.’

‘What did it say?’

‘Something unpleasant, Inspector. Sergeant Thomas was there when I left. If you’re quick you might catch him.’

Trevor suddenly realized where he’d seen Tony Oliver before. ‘You used to be To n y Jordan the singer. You had four number one hits.’

‘Fifteen years ago in another more shallow life, Inspector,’ Tony smiled. ‘I will pray for you but I don’t envy you your task. Much as I would like to think otherwise, given the years I’ve known him and his mother, Dai Helpful killed Anna Harris.’

‘Because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate?’ Trevor suggested.

‘What is the alternative, Inspector?’

‘That a murderer has been walking free among you for the last ten years while an innocent man has been locked up.’

Tony fell silent for  a while. ‘It’s been nice to meet you, Inspector, but I must go. God speed.’

Tony walked off quickly.  Trevor remained and studied his surroundings.

Llan church had been built on a low rise on the floor of the valley. The church itself blocked the view on one side. Trevor walked past the shed and stood in front of it. He had an uninterrupted view of the pub and row of shops on one side of the village and the cottages and their gardens on the other. Behind the shed was a large, high flat tomb, hidden from view by the church on one side, the shed on the other and an enormous yew tree on the third. He recalled what Patrick had said about Anna having sex before she died.

The spot certainly provided privacy for lovers who had nowhere else to go. And Anna had been found behind the shed, just two or three feet from the tomb. Had it been a meeting placed for her and one of her many “boyfriends”? But why risk meeting here that night? Her parents were away and their cottage was less than five minutes’ walk. Were the neighbours watching her? Even if they were narrow-minded enough to monitor the movements of an eighteen-year-old girl about to leave home, Anna could have smuggled him through the back door.

Perhaps he was someone she dare not be seen with, especially late at night. Not a classmate or even a young man. But a married man. That’s if he even existed. Trevor knew he was building a case on the flimsiest supposition. He could almost hear Collins and Mulcahy laughing at him.

He sat on the edge of the tomb to test his t h e o ry that he couldn’t be seen from the village. The yew tree would have grown in ten years. He made a note to check how much. Even in daylight all he could see was a small triangle of churchyard between the tree and the shed.

He listened to the small noises of the village. A van with an old and, judging by the noise, tired diesel engine drove up the road. A tractor droned in a distant field. A child cried in one of the cottage gardens. Women’s voices echoed from the covered market place, which according to the information in the pub, was only used on a Wednesday. Then he heard the tread of feet crunching over gravel.

He left his hiding place. Two women, their arms full of flowers, were tottering towards the church on high heels. Both were attractive and, he guessed, in their late thirties. One had dark h a i r, the other blonde, and both had the posture of trained dancers. He went to meet them.

‘Hello, ladies, I’m Inspector Trevor Joseph.’

‘We know who you are. It’s all over the village.’ The blonde bundled the flowers she was carrying into one arm, and shook the hand Trevor offered her. ‘I’m Judy Oliver, the vicar’s wife.’

‘And I’m Angela George.’

‘Any relation to Stephen George?’ Trevor recalled the name of the officer who had investigated Anna Harris’s murder.

‘I was. I’m his ex-wife.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Trevor said.

‘I’m not, Inspector Joseph; ten years of being married to a police officer were ten too many. Are you married?’ she enquired bluntly.

‘Yes.’

‘Give your wife my sympathy. Checking the crime scene?’

‘Going over the ground covered in the photographs. Both of you ladies knew Anna Harris, didn’t you?’

‘Everyone knows everyone in Llan, but yes, we knew her and knew her well. We were all in the local amateur dramatic group,’ Angela George replied.

‘Anna was a lovely girl. Pretty, talented, friendly and thoroughly nice,’ Judy Oliver added mechanically as if she were repeating a well-learned lesson. ‘Which is rare in someone with her ability. So many would-be actresses think only of themselves.’

‘She was just starting out, wasn’t she?’ Trevor opened the church door for them.

‘She’d had a fair bit of experience, nothing big, but we all knew she was going to make it. My husband and I were both in show business, Inspector Joseph.’

‘I recognized him.’

‘I trained as an actress and dancer, but I was in one of the first girl bands, Boudicca’s Babes.’

‘I remember them,’ Trevor lied.

‘And I never made it out of a panto chorus. Would you like to see Anna Harris’s memorial?’ Angela George kicked a wedge beneath the inner door.

‘She’s buried inside the church?’ Trevor was surprised.

‘Everyone in the village felt it was fitting.  It was the only thing we could do for her. We organized a collection for a memorial and commissioned a sculptress.’ Angela dropped her flowers onto a table and walked down the aisle. To the left of the altar was a raised plinth that held an exquisite marble angel. 

Angela gently stroked the cheek. ‘The face is Anna’s. The sculptress knew her and, of course, Anna’s parents had hundreds of photographs.’

Trevor read the inscription.

ANNA LOUISE HARRIS

CRUELLY TAKEN

IN HER EIGHTEENTH YEAR

‘THE DAYS OF OUR YOUTH

ARE THE DAYS OF OUR GLORY’ ‘Byron, Anna’s favourite poet, it’s taken from…’ ‘Stanzas written in the road between Florence and Pisa,’ Trevor interrupted.

‘ Wonders will never cease,’ Angela muttered. ‘I never thought I’d see the day when I’d meet a police officer who reads poetry.’

‘Some of us do, Mrs George.’ Like Angela, Trevor stroked the angel. Caught up in gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses, it was easy to lose sight of a victim in a murder case. He recalled the beautiful, vibrant girl in the photograph he had shown Peter. He looked down at the angel.

He was disturbed by the thought that Anna’s corpse was lying beneath it. He owed it to her, her family and everything she might have been, to find out exactly who had planted David Morgan’s axe in her skull.

C H A P T E R S I X

T
REVOR LEFT THE CHURCHYARD
and crossed the road to Church Row. The dozen cottages were detached, thick-walled, each set in its own large garden. They had been built in an age when landowners gave their tenant farm labourers enough land to grow their own food. The Morgans’ cottage was the first in the row. Trevor walked up the path and knocked at a wooden door badly in need of a coat of paint. He stepped back and saw that it wasn’t only the door that needed painting. The window frames were down to the bare wood in places and half of one of the downstairs frames was boarded up.

The garden had been well planted. Among the weeds he saw mature rose bushes in need of pruning, clumps of lavender, carnations and peonies. It had obviously once been well tended, but like the churchyard it had been neglected. David Morgan’s services as gardener and handyman must have been missed by his mother.

When Trevor raised his hand to knock on the door a second time, it was opened. Not by the elderly woman he had expected but a uniformed police sergeant.

‘Inspector Joseph,’ he introduced himself. ‘Is David Morgan at home?’

‘Yes, sir. I’m Sergeant Thomas – Mike, with the local force. We’re more informal in the country.’ He held the door open and Trevor walked directly into a sitting room.

David and his mother were sitting side by side on a flower-patterned sofa. The wallpaper, curtains and upholstery were faded but spotlessly clean, and there were fresh flowers in a vase. The windows were small but they looked out over the back and side as well as the front garden. Given how small they were, the room was surprisingly light.

David jumped up when Trevor entered. But his mother continued to sit, slumped on the sofa, clutching a handkerchief.

‘Hello, Mrs Morgan. David, I’m Inspector Trevor Joseph, and I’m here to re-examine the evidence in the murder of Anna Harris.’

‘See, Mam, I told you,’ David said proudly. ‘Mr Smith said the police would send a new officer to prove I didn’t kill Anna. He said…’

‘David,’ Mike broke in. ‘I think your mam would like a cup of tea.’