Pagan Spring: A Mystery (A Max Tudor Novel) (16 page)

Max had no answer for that. Did she really care what Thaddeus had thought? Farley’s being in the next room spoke to the opposite reaction.

“I should tell you something,” said Melinda. “Those earrings I told you about when you were here with Inspector Cotton … those engagement earrings I lost?”

“Yes?”

“I think I may have been with Farley when I lost them. But I couldn’t—you do see, don’t you? I couldn’t tell the detective that.”

Max sighed.

“You’re going to have to tell him now. You’re going to have to tell him everything.”

She just looked at Max.

“But this couldn’t have anything to do with what happened to Thaddeus,” she insisted.

“That doesn’t matter.
Every
thing. Do you understand, Melinda? No matter what happens, the only thing that can save you here is the truth.” And that, thought Max, applies whether she’s guilty of this crime or not. The lies piled upon lies would only hurt her case, if it came to pass there was a case built against her. And against Farley, for that matter.

There was the trace of a sulk, and Max made as if to leave, as if to wash his hands of her.

“Oh, all right,” she said. She held up her hands in surrender, and she sighed. “It’s been so lonely for me here,” she said, as if to explain her behavior. “Even though people have been kind—invitations to join the book club and so on.”

Ah, the book club, thought Max. The Nether Monkslip Book Club—not to be confused with its offshoot, the Writers’ Square, with which it ran somewhat in tandem—recently had selected
Sister Carrie
for discussion, in the mistaken impression it concerned the travails of an Anglican nun rather than the arguably more interesting travails of a kept woman, chorus girl, and, ultimately, theater star. The Reverend Max Tudor suspected Suzanna Winship might have been behind the choice, but that could not be proven. Nonetheless, it did have, for Suzanna, the happy, if unintended, effect of offending old Mrs. Clark to such an extent she had resigned “forthwith,” in writing, from the club. (“Does anyone but a solicitor say ‘forthwith’ anymore?” Suzanna had asked the group, reading aloud the note in the spidery handwriting, her eyes aglow with delight.) Max had spent many frustrating hours drinking gallons of tea and trying to woo Mrs. Clark back, for in truth she was a lonely old soul, a condition no doubt owing to her general prickliness, and the book club had been one of her few social outlets. Believing Max when he repeatedly assured her the selection of
Sister Carrie
had been an innocent mistake, she had finally been won over, “but with grave reservations,” all of which were iterated in another open letter to the book club. Suzanna had been sternly forbidden by Max to read aloud from this letter. Meekly, she had agreed to Mrs. Clark’s return, but could not help adding that Mrs. Clark could return “forthwith.”

The book club next had tried reading
Beowolf,
a tale most of them got a third of the way through, exhibiting all the careless pleasure of mourners at a funeral, before abandoning the effort. It was an experiment with Great Books quickly discarded in favor of the new bio of a prime minister’s wife. Mrs. Clark had been outvoted this time.

Farley returned to the room just then, and Melinda turned instantly to him, as though he had come with a fire ax to rescue her. Their attraction seemed to be mutual; Farley, putting down the replenished teapot, sat down and solicitously took her hands in his.

Max felt any useful information from Melinda would dry up in the face of her waning attention. She only had eyes for Farley.

Max said his good-byes to the spellbound pair.

Tuesday, March 27

The next day, DCI Cotton left a message for Max with Mrs. Hooser, saying that the preliminary test results had come back. Would Max have a moment to meet him for a ploughman’s lunch at the Horseshoe? The police had set up temporary quarters in upstairs rooms there to conduct their investigation. This message Mrs. Hooser had delivered, heart pulsing with curiosity beneath her old-fashioned housedress: What test results? Swearing her to secrecy about Cotton’s message, but with faint hope she could live up to her promise for even an hour (she was already untying her apron, no doubt preparing to head out to purchase some “forgotten” item like a bottle of Fairy washing-up liquid from the little shop attached to the post office), Max dialed the DCI’s mobile number and arranged a time to meet.

Before he left, Max pulled a gray jumper over his head. It was warm against his skin and carried a faint trace of Awena’s scent. He straightened the clerical collar that showed above the crew neckline, checking his appearance in the mirror. His dark hair remained stubbornly wayward, but hair products only seemed to make it worse. Besides, Awena claimed that tousled look was all the rage now.

He ran downstairs and gave a shout-out to Mrs. Hooser, on the million-in-one chance she was still in the kitchen. He was just pulling open the front door when he spotted another page of A4 paper on the rug beneath the mail slot. This time, he picked up the missive with gloved hands.

He read, “We are orphanes and fatherlesse, our mothers are as widowes.” This was followed by a different quote, also from the Bible: “They slay the widowe and the stranger: and murder the fatherlesse.”

From the antiquated spelling, Max surmised someone was copying from the 1611 King James version. He repeated the steps he’d taken with the previous message, retrieving from the kitchen a clean plastic bag to slide the page inside. He set out again to meet Cotton, turning the quotations over in his mind, and making a slight detour up Church Street to the High, sweeping a proprietary glance over St. Edwold’s. The stone church might have been there since the dawn of mankind, so ancient and immovable did it appear, as if held together not by mortar but by some magic Nano glue. There was comfort in thinking that long after he himself had gone, St. Edwold’s would stand. As he passed beneath the tower, the church bell announced the hour in its jubilant way.

Good. Maurice had finally brought Nether Monkslip into line with British Summer Time.

Max at times worried his church might become redundant—repurposed or abandoned, as so many churches in the UK had been. St. Edwold’s was a jewel in a perfect setting, and Max felt it had to be preserved, and not just as a beautiful and historic structure. He wanted to make St. Edwold’s as vital to village life as it had been in centuries past, and for people of all faiths. St. Edwold’s could once again be the place where the community came together for support in times of joy and sorrow.

Several trees in the churchyard were budding in a crayon-y shade of green, impossibly neon bright against a blue sky—but it was a sky graying at the temples. For a storm was churning, carried in on the waves of the Channel a few miles away, and the preview of coming attractions was this gray-sheen backdrop in the distance. Fallen raindrops from the last cloudburst sparkled like fairy lights in the trees and bushes. It was still what he thought of as “hot-water bottle” weather: The bottles may have been put away in preparation for spring, but many were now being brought out again, just in case.

Max spotted a car parked on Church Street that he hadn’t seen in the village before. On closer inspection, he decided the car might belong to a journalist, for it was a scruffy-looking conveyance, missing a hubcap or two, its seats brimming with a hodgepodge of clippings and papers stuffed every which way, and spilling out of boxes. His heart sank, and just then a BBC News broadcast van with a satellite dish on top drove by. This could only be in honor of the murder. Wouldn’t Thaddeus have loved the attention?

Nether Monkslip, Max realized, would have to endure another season of being the media’s latest darling—not so much because of Thaddeus’s fame, which was already a dying star in the ever-expanding Kardashian-style celebrity firmament, but because the idyllic village already had a recent murder to its name. Fortunately, most of the more elderly members of the press chose not to report, but to hang out at the Hidden Fox or the Horseshoe, waiting over a pint for the news to reach them. It was the aggressive, ambitious young whippersnappers, as Miss Pitchford called them, who provoked the most outrage. One had followed Sandy Sechrest down Beggar’s Alley at the time of the “Unpleasantness at the Harvest Fayre,” as it had come to be known, shouting questions, practically stepping over the threshold into her cottage, until the normally agreeable woman turned and threatened to call his editor if he didn’t leave her alone. “Like he’d care,” the reporter had replied.

Fortunately, Max knew he could rely on the proprietor of the Horseshoe to allow Cotton and himself to have a private conversation in the snug, away from prying eyes and recording devices.

Several of the villagers were out and about. There was Elka Garth, struggling with an awkward tray of baked bread for delivery. Her son was, as usual, nowhere in sight, so Max stopped to help her as she opened the boot of her car. A man Max recognized as one of the owners of a nearby farm went by with a large wooden tray of lettuces. Max saw Gabby Crew approaching, dressed warmly for the day, heading in the direction of the ancient alleyway that housed the Cut and Dried salon. She delayed him with a smile.

“This weather!” she said, dabbing at her forehead with a handkerchief. “You don’t know what to wear, do you? I start out dressed for winter and then by the afternoon I’m roasting.”

Max smiled, nodded, and started to move on, but quite evidently Gabby had something more on her mind than the weather. Finally, she asked, rather shyly, if she could stop by the vicarage for a chat sometime in the coming days.

“I’m not an Anglican,” she said. “But I’d like your advice. Does it matter that I’m not a member of St. Edwold’s?”

“Of course it doesn’t matter,” said Max. “Anytime—I’m glad to help if I can. And I think you’ll find the entire village is part of St. Edwold’s, regardless. It’s just part of the fabric of the place.”

He was struck by the memory of Gabby’s odd behavior in changing the seating arrangements at Lucie’s dinner party. But, running late, he didn’t ask what was bothering her, afraid she might launch into the whole story there and then. It was a dodge he would later come to rue. She didn’t look particularly worried, just hesitant, squinting as she looked up at him, as if deciding how far she could trust him with her secrets. It was always like this in Nether Monkslip—Max couldn’t walk down the High without being asked several times for his opinion or advice, although there were those kind souls who assumed he must be deeply contemplating his next sermon, and thus was not to be bothered. In the case of those who did approach him, it was nearly always on a matter so minor, he couldn’t believe people couldn’t figure it out for themselves. In fact, they could; he had come to realize they often just wanted him to confirm what they’d already decided.

And so Max explained to Gabrielle “Gabby” Crew that he was late for his luncheon appointment and began to pull away, with every outward sign of reluctance.

“Why don’t you ring the vicarage when you’re ready?” he said. “It will save you a trip if I’m not there.”

She smiled and nodded, and stood beaming after him, adjusting her gloves. The vicar was
such
a kind young man.

Max, now walking faster to keep to his appointment, thought that Gabby, despite her friendly nickname, and underneath her surface amiability, was rather a thoughtful and observant woman. There was something fixed in that upright posture of hers that might reflect her thinking. He had worked with many such people in MI5. They were invaluable because they were unwavering in their commitment: Unflappable human beings were rare. Max thought he might like a word with her privately about Melinda and the situation in the Bottle household, for he doubted Gabby would have missed anything … well, anything
amiss
there.

He passed the Cavalier Tea Room at the foot of Martyr’s Bridge, where the water ran fast beneath, a ripple of silver in the sunshine. Elka Garth must be baking hot cross buns for Easter, he thought. The aroma was so powerful, he found his steps slowing momentarily. It was an aroma that evoked for him powerful memories of childhood, like Proust’s madeleine.

Easter always fell on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox—as Awena loved reminding him, it was yet another Church celebration inextricably tied to the ancient, often astrologically based rituals of long-vanished religions and civilizations. Even the colored Easter eggs in the annual children’s hunt were pagan symbols of fertility. Very few, least of all the children, thought it strange or macabre these “pagan” eggs were always hidden in the ancient St. Edwold’s cemetery, with its moss-covered headstones and tilting Celtic crosses. It was simply a place full of good hiding spots. He remembered Thaddeus had agreed with him on that.

Across from the Horseshoe, a few cars were parked with haphazard abandon near the railway station, as if their owners had been abducted by aliens rather than been in a hurry to catch the next train. Given the oftentimes-erratic departures and arrivals at the whim of the conductor, this haste was probably not unseemly. There was Easter shopping to be done in Staincross Minster, which put extra demand on the renovated old train, a train that had featured largely in what DCI Cotton had taken to calling “Max’s last case.”

Max now came upon Suzanna talking with Elka, who had stopped and rolled down the window of her car for a chat. Suzanna had binoculars slung around her neck and seemed to be aiming them down the High Street.

“Why are you wearing a trench coat?” Elka was asking as he approached. “It’s not raining.”

“I’m on the case,” said Suzanna. As Elka looked puzzled, she added, “It helps me think like a detective. You know, get in the mood. Play the part.”

“And what has your role-playing brought you?”

“Well, nothing so far. I saw Miss Pitchford go into the post office, so she must be on the mend, even though she was hobbling a bit. Mrs. Barrow had trouble using the Cashpoint machine again—you know how she is; she won’t let anyone help, thinking they’re trying to rob her, so a vast and seething queue always collects behind her. Other than that, it’s been really quiet around here. People are sticking close to home.”