Crime in the Choir Read online

  ‘I’m sorry, did we schedule a meeting?’ The principal sounded confused. That was all he needed, he told himself savagely, some interminable committee convened to appease Sir Philip’s seigniorial sensibilities!

  ‘Nothing for you to worry about, O’Keefe.’ The patron was very suave. ‘Preston is going to describe developments at the grottoes since,’ he gestured eloquently with his cane, ‘I cannot visit the site in person. If the mountain will not come to Mahomet…’

  ‘Quite.’

  O’Keefe wondered irritably why Preston could not have called on Sir Philip, but then it occurred to him that the latter no doubt wanted to flex the muscles of his power to be sure that they – unlike his rapidly atrophying physique – were still in working order.

  ‘I daresay Mr Sharpe may even condescend to share his plans for this year’s Christmas programme.’

  Abashed, Sharpe emerged from behind the Gazette and shambled over to join the other two.

  ‘Good evening, gentlemen, Sir Philip. Ah, tea!’ Canon Woodcourt came in rubbing his hands.

  He looks absolutely flattened, thought O’Keefe. What a change since this morning!

  Conscious of the principal’s concern, Woodcourt pulled a tragi-comic face. ‘I know, I know. I’m a superannuated old crock fit for nothing but the knacker’s yard!’

  ‘I apologize, sir. I didn’t mean to suggest…’ The principal was embarrassed to have been caught out.

  The canon laughed. ‘Your face is an open book, O’Keefe. In my world of church diplomatists, that’s actually quite refreshing!’

  He settled himself in a chair next to the chesterfield and looked attentively at Sir Philip.

  Just like a medieval court, thought O’Keefe in amusement, wondering how soon he could slip away.

  ‘No need for you to stay, O’Keefe.’ Sir Philip had an uncanny ability to read his thoughts. ‘Unless you want to, that is.’

  O’Keefe needed no second prompting. Rising to his feet with alacrity, he made his farewells.

  Some forty minutes later, with the main business of the evening completed, St Mary’s common room was winding down. Preston and Sharpe had left together, but Sir Philip and Canon Woodcourt lingered a few moments longer. The weary night cleaner, passing her hoover desultorily across the deep pile carpet, heard nothing more enlivening than the following exchange.

  ‘Good to know you’ve pre-empted that difficulty for us, Canon.’ Sir Philip’s deep tones expressed satisfaction. ‘Sharpe obviously requires monitoring,’ he continued, ‘but it’s all a question of developing some backbone. Between us I am sure we can supply the necessary resolve. Preston certainly seems sound enough.’

  The canon’s response was drowned by the hoover.

  ‘Right, I believe we can call it a day. Forgive me, Canon, necessity compels me to make use of you, so I’ll ask for your arm to my car. My factotum will be growing anxious by now.’

  Slowly, they moved towards the door. ‘Would you like me to keep the Friends of St Mary’s advised of developments, Sir Philip?’

  ‘Oh, I think so, don’t you?’

  The swing doors, swooshing shut behind them, let in a draught of ice cold air. Shivering, the cleaner’s pace quickened. Five minutes later, silence reigned once more.

  9

  Quiet Consummation

  As she walked up the front path of Cathedral Mansions the following morning, Joan looked approvingly at the beautifully landscaped communal gardens lying under a sun-spangled frost. Even on a winter day, their meticulously clipped herbaceous borders, pergolas and flower beds neatly stocked with bedding plants offered a pleasing prospect. Joan knew that Georgina missed The Old Rectory’s wildflower meadow, but at least her move to the assisted living complex – just off St Mary’s Lane and a stone’s throw from the cathedral – had not robbed her of year-round vibrancy and interest. Her green-fingered friend also delighted in the apartment’s tiny balcony, where she tenderly nurtured dwarf orange trees and coaxed an amazing variety of plants into a profusion of beauty.

  It had been good to see a return of the old decisive Georgina the previous evening. After Geoffrey’s death, she had seemed somehow adrift and strangely wistful, as though all the old familiar landmarks had disappeared and she was groping in the dark. Which was only right and proper for a widow, Joan supposed, but she missed the familiar confident bossiness. That business with the police had been a bit of a godsend. There has been a definite glint in Georgina’s eye when they were discussing the police investigation, and Joan could tell she had taken a shine to Inspector Markham.

  Joan waited outside the ground floor foyer. She had a swipe card and her own set of keys, at Georgina’s insistence, though the apartment was so small that it only required a fortnightly clean. Pressing the intercom, she waited to be buzzed up.

  No response. Joan tried again. Nothing.

  She felt the first stirrings of unease. Georgina was such a creature of habit that you could set your watch by her. Saturdays, she was at home until twelve o’clock then off to the cathedral to join the ladies’ church workers group. After that, it was the Bridge Circle and home for tea by three.

  Joan hesitated, uncertain. She and Georgina had the greatest respect for each other’s privacy – one reason why their friendship had endured for so many years – but she had never known such a deviation from routine. What if Georgina had been taken ill and was lying helpless upstairs? She decided to risk her friend’s displeasure and let herself through to the ground floor using her swipe card.

  The little lift whisked her up to the second-floor apartments in a jiffy. Nothing looked awry or out of place, two tropical potted plants standing sturdily as usual like sentinels on either side of the landing window. The strains of Classic FM came softly from the flat opposite.

  And yet, for all the well-carpeted warmth, Joan felt a sliver of ice cold apprehension stiffen her spine.

  Something was wrong. A subtle change in the chemistry of the place. A sense that someone else had recently stood where she was standing now. Someone who should not have been there.

  Joan knocked hard at Georgina’s door. Not a well-bred knock, more like a pounding. She called her friend’s name again and again.

  The Classic FM halted and Derek Hart, the retiree from across the way, emerged onto the landing, his kindly face anxious.

  ‘Morning, Joan. Can I help?’

  ‘I’m worried about Georgina.’ Her voice, even to her own ears, sounded oddly remote and quavery. ‘There’s no answer and it’s not like her. She’s normally at home this time of day. I’m going to let myself in.’

  The apartment was very quiet. Joan turned left, making straight for Georgina’s living room with her favourite armchair. Almost as though she knew what she would find.

  Georgina was sitting there. She looked very peaceful, eyes shut tight, hands folded neatly in her lap and lips curved gently upwards in a strange secret smile. She wore the same ensemble as the previous evening when she had visited Joan at St Mary’s. The antique rosewood writing desk on one side of the armchair was open, though no writing paraphernalia was visible and the little drawers and dockets appeared undisturbed. The glass-topped side table on the other side held a half full whisky tumbler. What made Joan catch her breath was the empty bottle of Diazepam next to it.

  Oh no, Georgina, no!

  She became aware of Derek gently guiding her to a chair before quietly going back out into the hallway and telephoning the police.

  Joan did not know how long she sat there dejectedly contemplating her friend’s body. Through the half-open curtains, she saw the little orange trees standing jauntily to attention on the balcony, haloed by the nimbus of the morning sun. Suddenly, she was flooded by the conviction that Georgina would never have taken her own life. However lonely the furrow she ploughed, however much she missed Geoffrey, such a staunch believer would never have taken the easy way out. ‘Plenty of time for rest later when the recording angel says “Time no longer”!’ she was wont to dec
lare at any shirking of duty. Tears brimmed in Joan’s eyes at the realization that she would never hear those forthright tones again.

  ‘Come on, Joan, drink this.’ Derek Hart was at her elbow with a well-sugared cup of tea. Looking at the still figure in the armchair, his face was sad. ‘She was a real lady and a good neighbour.’ He hesitated delicately before adding, ‘I would never have thought she was the kind to kill herself. Just goes to show we never really know what’s going on in someone else’s life.’

  Joan drank the tea and kept her counsel. She would speak to Inspector Markham. Georgina trusted him and he would know what to do for the best. In the meantime, sitting in the flat opposite the tranquil corpse, she made a silent pledge to her dead friend to help the police trap whoever had staged this cruel charade.

  A short time later, Markham stood in the doorway of Georgina’s living room watching silently as white boiler-suited SOCOs flitted like ghosts in the background.

  Thoughtfully, he contemplated the tableau.

  Yes, tableau. There was something too perfect and contrived about it, right down to Georgina Hamilton’s legs, crossed modestly at the ankle as though the proprieties had to be observed even in death.

  Joan had been dry-eyed and composed when Markham got there, adamant that her friend would never have taken her life. Listening to her in Georgina Hamilton’s living room, with an uncanny sense that the dead woman’s soul was hovering a little way above their heads, Markham acknowledged her logic. The two women had enjoyed a happy evening, swapping recipes and gossip. Joan felt that Georgina had begun to haul herself out of the bereavement pit at last.

  ‘She liked feeling useful, Inspector. Talking to you made her feel she was back in the thick of things, that she could do some good. It was the cheeriest she’d been in ages. She was a very religious woman too. I remember watching a documentary with her – about that Dignitas place where people go to kill themselves when they’re terminally ill. Georgina didn’t hold with it at all. She said suicide was a great sin. Kept quoting from the Bible. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away” – those were her very words. She would never have ended it all, Inspector, no matter how bad things got. She was a fighter, you know.’

  Markham did know and felt a sharp sense of personal loss. Having summoned a uniformed officer to take Joan home, he continued to study the scene.

  Questions raced through his mind in dizzying procession. Who could it have been?

  Someone who had followed Georgina home from St Mary’s that night? Someone known to her? An unexpected visitor whom she had nonetheless admitted to the apartment?

  What was the motive? Markham remembered Georgina’s keen, terrier-like gaze. Had she come upon another piece of information about St Mary’s? Something of a scandalous or incriminating nature? Had she been weighing what to do when the power to decide was taken out of her hands forever?

  Noakes appeared, his boots creaking, treading gingerly as though conscious of the incongruity between his bear-like frame and this doll’s house with its dainty furnishings.

  ‘All neat and tidy, Guv. Well, she wasn’t the sort to do anything messy. Always very considerate according to the neighbour.’ He coughed uncomfortably. ‘Although I think it gave him a bit of a turn seeing her propped up there like a dummy.’ He stopped short at the expression on Markham’s face. ‘What?’

  ‘That’s just it, Noakes,’ the inspector said intently, ‘don’t you see, she was propped up – positioned for us to find.’ He moved closer to the armchair and looked down meditatively at the shuttered face. ‘I think whoever did this felt bad about it, regretted it. Maybe even felt protective towards Georgina. It’s almost genteel. Nothing sordid, nothing ugly.’

  ‘What makes you think someone offed her, Guv?’ Noakes sounded genuinely bewildered but then launched into his usual verbal shorthand, ticking off bullet points one by one. ‘Widowed not that long ago. Finding it difficult to cope. Counselling for bereavement, leaflets in the kitchen drawer. Sleeping pills in the bathroom cabinet. Decided she’d had enough. Finito.’

  Markham pointed at the bottle of Diazepam. ‘If you look closely, Noakes, you’ll see that has a label from the chemist in Wellgrove.’

  ‘What of it?’ Noakes sounded mutinous.

  ‘Think, man! Why would Georgina go all that way to pick up medication? It’s a fair hike.’

  Noakes was not going to concede without a fight. ‘Maybe she happened to be out that way – a day’s shopping or some such. Or maybe she didn’t want folk seeing her at the chemist here. She was the private type, so she might not have wanted people knowing her business.’

  ‘No.’ Markham’s voice held an obstinate note that Noakes knew all too well. ‘No, I’m not buying it. I think the murderer was cautious and collected those tablets out of town. No chance of being recognized that way.’

  The inspector walked over to the French windows and looked out at the balcony garden that had been the dead woman’s pride and joy. There was something so gallant and hopeful about the winter pansies and violas bobbing in their large white tubs and the enticing citrus trees with their succulent fruit. He wondered who would look after them now.

  ‘I think Georgina was over the worst.’ Markham spoke with conviction. ‘That’s what Joan says and I agree. It didn’t make sense for her to have come home from a happy evening of tea and chat and then kill herself. I mean, how could she have been so upbeat if she was planning something like that?’

  ‘Maybe the calm kicked in cos she knew that next day there wouldn’t be any more pain.’ But Noakes sounded less confident now and Markham knew he had won the day.

  ‘I want a post-mortem on this one,’ rapped the DI. ‘Too many unanswered questions. It’s not just the bottle. How come the tumbler’s still half full? She’d have needed a full glass to knock back that many tablets. And another thing … why’s the writing desk open? Was she writing something yesterday evening when she was interrupted? Could mean nothing, but she was an organized woman and I don’t like loose ends.’ He shook his head. ‘I think we were meant to take this at face value. Lonely widow coming apart at the seams so took her own life. Case closed. But what about when she came to see us, Noakes? That wasn’t some pathetic attention-seeker. She was totally on the ball and keen as mustard to help her friend.’ The inspector spoke with a sudden fierceness which make his subordinate jump. ‘Trying to make us think Georgina took the coward’s way out was downright evil. I don’t think it happened that way at all.’ He gestured at the armchair. ‘I’m willing to bet she was forced back in her seat and smothered with one of those cushions – wouldn’t have been difficult if she’d had a drink, been slipped something, or lulled into a false sense of security. There’s no sign of a struggle, so she must have been taken by surprise.’

  ‘Not much flesh on her neither,’ said Noakes, ‘so likely she wouldn’t have been able to put up a fight.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Markham jammed his hands into his pockets. He took one last look at Georgina Hamilton’s serene face, wordlessly vowing that he would call her killer to account. Passing into the tiny hallway, he suddenly noticed an old-fashioned framed sampler on the wall. Beautifully stitched in embroidered silks and threads, mythical birds and beasts roamed its borders while the central panel bore a single verse: On that day, the secrets of all hearts shall be laid bare. Oh yes, he told himself, I am going to drag all the hidden malignity into the light. Then he and Noakes quietly left the SOCOs to their work.

  Back at Bromgrove station, Markham viciously jerked down the blinds on the glass partition wall which formed one side of his office. CID was largely deserted, but he craved freedom from prying eyes.

  Sighing deeply, he slumped behind his desk. Events were moving faster than he could control them, as though he was being drawn inexorably into the centre of a whirling vortex.

  Calm.

  He reached listlessly for a stack of papers. Staff interviews at St Mary’s had so far yielded nothing new about the matron. But Markham fel
t convinced Irene Hummles had been killed for what she knew, and that somewhere in the bundle of statements lay the key to her murder.

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come!’ He was half grateful for the interruption.

  It was Desmond O’Keefe. Markham could see what Olivia meant about the man. Slight, spare, almost Spanish-looking, he had a Jesuitical aura all right. But for all that, Markham instinctively liked his lack of ecclesiastical priggishness – the total absence of those airs and graces which might have been expected to form part of his job description.

  ‘What can I do for you, Dr O’Keefe? As you know, there’s been another tragic incident, possibly unrelated to events at St Mary’s, though we’re not currently able to say.’

  ‘I heard, Inspector, and I’m truly sorry. I didn’t know Mrs Hamilton, but I believe she was a good friend of Joan, our cook.’

  That was it. No fishing for information or details.

  Markham felt some of his tension ebb away.

  O’Keefe cleared his throat. ‘In the circumstances, I’m reluctant to bother you with this. Something and nothing, really.’

  Markham somehow mustered an encouraging smile. ‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?’

  ‘There’s a society connected to St Mary’s. Called Blavatskya or some such. Named after the woman who founded the theosophy movement, apparently. I don’t pretend to understand the half of it, but the idea is to explore connections between different mystical traditions.’

  ‘Very worthy, I’m sure. However, I must say you look sceptical.’

  ‘It’s Sir Philip’s baby, Inspector.’ Markham suppressed a groan. ‘Between you and me, I think he’s a bit of a crank. But the canon rates him, and he’s been incredibly generous to St Mary’s over the years. So, it seems mean-spirited to begrudge him his pet project…

  ‘But—’

  ‘I received an anonymous letter the other day accusing the society of “unwholesome practices”.’