The Advent of Murder (A Faith Morgan Mystery) (18 page)

“So what have we got?” she asked.

Ben flicked up the edge of a page to remind himself, but he seemed to have the pertinent details in his head.

“According to her statement, Mrs Mavis Granger returned home from a walk with her dogs to find the French windows leading to her husband’s study broken. The study sticks out in a sort of extension,” he explained. “It’s a private corner in relation to the rest of the house, not overlooked.”

“Mavis Granger called it a crime of opportunity – she said the thief was an amateur who took his chance. Did he get into the rest of the house?”

“No. Just the study. The inner door was locked. Superficial damage, apart from the desk drawers being forced.” Ben drew out a photograph of the scene. Papers were scattered on the floor. “Whoever it was didn’t take a high-end laptop
computer. And there were a couple of expensive pictures on the walls – also untouched.”

“Fingerprints?” asked Faith.

“Only household, but most people know to wear gloves.”

“Surely not if it was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

Ben shrugged, and she saw a flicker of irritation.

“So, what was taken?” she asked. He handed her a list. Much as Mavis had said; small portable items in silver and gold; a gold Rolex watch; a few heirlooms.

“Did anything ever turn up?”

“No. Apparently Robbery checked the usual pawn and resale sites – but you know that’s all just a shot in the dark.”

Faith leaned over and picked up the sheaf of crime scene photos. She shuffled through them and stopped at a wider shot of the study showing the floor running up to the French doors.

“What’s that on the floor – a silver cup?” She looked more closely. “It’s been crushed.” She checked the list. There was notation at the bottom. “But it wasn’t before. Looks like the thief stamped on it. Why do that?”

“Maybe he got scared and did it in the hurry to get out.”

“Makes you wonder.”

Ben bent over the pictures on her lap. She could smell the shampoo he used.

“‘Chased silver christening cup,’” she read to distract herself, “‘circa 1765; engraved to Neil Edward Granger.’ The insurance value was £1,000. Looks expensive too – it’s the first thing I’d take.”

“Good point,” said Ben.

From her perch she was looking down on him. He leaned back in his chair, a smile on his face. She looked down at the papers.

“Where was Neil Granger at this time?”

“On a business trip in Norway and Denmark.”

“Confirmed?”

“Confirmed.”

“Any witnesses?”

“The neighbours are too far away to hear anything. The domestic help had left for the day. The son, Vernon, was up in his room at the opposite end of the house and didn’t hear anything.”

“Is that feasible?”

Ben nodded. “You should see the house. Mansions of the rich and famous… What?”

Faith stared at the picture in her hands. It showed Neil Granger’s trashed desk and behind it, a section of bookshelf. On the shelf, just to the left of where Neil Granger’s head would be, were he sitting at that desk, sat a small white sculpture maybe six inches high, a stylized mother and child in flowing lines.

“I’ve seen this piece before.”

“Where?”

She looked into his bright, intelligent eyes, frowning as she tried to make sense of it.

“On the Bagshaw’s mantelpiece in The Hollies.” She heard a noise in the corridor behind her and looked over her shoulder. Peter had returned with a subdued Sue in tow.

“All done?” asked Faith.

“Yes.” Sue wasn’t her usual self at all. “Do you mind if we go, Faith?”

“No problem.” She got up from her corner of Ben’s desk. “I have to get back too. I am due at church.”

“I know I am a coward,” Sue confessed, as they walked out of the station together. “But I don’t want to be here to see them bring Vernon in. He’s only a boy. I’ve known him most of his life.”

Oliver Markham and Fred Partridge had put up the church Christmas tree, lacing it with lights. When they switched it on, it glowed and sparkled to magnificent effect. To one side, Pat and Faith spread straw and set out the great nativity figures around the manger, stringing the star on its web of fine wires.

The others had gone to get their dinner: only Pat and Faith remained in the quiet dimness of the waiting church. Outside in the dusk, a few flakes of snow drifted through the orange glow of the street lamps. Inside the sanctuary breathed contentment and peace.

Pat laid the baby Jesus gently in his crib.

“To be honest, Christmas is not my favourite festival,” she admitted.

Faith looked up from tweaking a Wise Man’s stiffened robes. “No?”

“Well, it’s for families, isn’t it? And since Gordon passed…” Pat’s deft hands tidied the straw around the baby Jesus. Faith took a risk.

“Pat – what happened with your sister?”

The churchwarden closed her eyes. She swallowed and turned to lift Mary carefully out of the tissue paper packing in her box. “It happened a long time ago. She was… we were very different from one another. We were never close.” Pat met Faith’s eyes, her expression defensive and sad. “You have to remember, it was the fifties. We had different standards then.”

“So what happened?”

“Valerie broke up a perfectly good marriage and she ran off with a married man.” Pat’s words were bitter. “We never spoke again.”

“How sad,” said Faith, reaching out to touch the older woman’s arm. “Did you ever try?”

Pat saw the hand approaching and flinched. She sniffed, plonking Mary firmly into her spot by the crib, adjusting the figure’s position with a jerk. “Her so-called husband tried to get in touch when she fell ill.” Pat glanced over. Faith saw the tears in her eyes. “Cancer. Just like Gordon. I was nursing him at the time…”

“So you didn’t have a chance to respond.”

Pat shook her head. She got up and rummaged in the boxes. “I know there’s another shepherd in here somewhere.”

“Pat. I am so sorry.”

“Yes, well… We make our choices and we must live with the consequences.”

“And I hear your sister’s son has been in touch?”

Pat bent over one of the boxes. Faith couldn’t see her face. “He was going to come and see you?”

Pat turned to her, clasping the shepherd tightly. She controlled her expression into complete composure, but her eyes – her eyes were pure sorrow. Faith felt the sadness rise in her own throat.

“He didn’t come,” Pat said brusquely, “and I can’t blame him.” She looked down at the figure in her arms. “Here it is.” She knelt down and manoeuvred the figure into place.

The display was complete. The holy family, the kings, the shepherds, the ox and the sheep and a few miscellaneous villagers gathered around the crib where the baby Jesus stretched out his arms to welcome them.

“It is so very hard when the chance to say sorry has gone.” Faith spoke quietly. “But this Christmas story, it isn’t just about families; it’s about every kind of love – a thread of hope that joins us all together. Nothing that has happened – even the bad stuff – is lost or wasted. It all comes in handy in the end, because the chances to express
love come again and again. The things we got wrong, things we missed – well, we can grieve about it shut away all alone, or we can keep on trying again; we can go out and put it right again by loving.
And death shall have no dominion
. There is always hope, Pat – there’s always another chance. There is. I’m certain of it.”

It wasn’t a sight she would quickly forget: Pat on her knees, framed against the tableau of the manger, looking straight out at her without defences.

The churchwarden sniffed. She rolled over onto all fours to push herself up. Faith leaned down to give her a hand.

“Joseph has a chip on his nose,” said Pat. “I should fetch a tea bag and touch him up.”

“What are you doing for Christmas lunch, Pat?”

Pat stiffened. “Mr Marchbanks and I will share a turkey breast. He’s very partial to white meat and we never miss the Queen.”

Faith hesitated a second, wondering how the Beast might feel about Pat’s lordly Blue Persian, Mr Marchbanks. They would just have to manage.

“Come to the vicarage instead. Mr Marchbanks is welcome too. He can have his white meat with us.”

Pat looked offended and embarrassed all at once. “I had absolutely no intention of fishing for an invitation,” she bristled. “Mr Marchbanks is excellent company. We are both very fond of our routines.”

“I know you are. But please come and join us. My sister Ruth is cooking and she’s very good at it. Christmas lunch isn’t Christmas lunch without loved ones to eat it with.”

Pat averted her face. She clasped Faith’s arm and squeezed it hard. “Thank you,” she whispered, adding graciously as she recovered her equilibrium, “Mr Marchbanks and I accept
with pleasure. I shall bring some of my brandy mince pies. They are very good. A family recipe from Gordon’s side.”

Faith saw Pat safely home across the Green. The snow had stopped falling and the stars shone clear. She returned to the church for one last look before turning off the lights and locking up. The pine smell from the tree permeated the air, reviving that childish thrill of expectation. Faith straightened a prayer cushion or two, and stripped one of its cover when she saw an unsightly muddy stain. She wanted everything perfect for the Mass. On her way toward the vestry, she noticed some of the leaflets for the church book group scattered on the flags and felt a momentary pang of guilt as she stooped to gather them up. She really should read January’s novel properly – Marilynne Robinson, wasn’t it? – because she’d rather bluffed her way through November’s meeting.

As she was stacking the leaflets, she realized that others were hopelessly out of date. The bakery fair was long past, and the Little Worthy Rural Show too.

She scooped them up, then paused.

It might be nothing, of course, but…

The Little Worthy Rural Show.

LWRS.

She cast her mind back to the police station. She couldn’t remember exactly, but hadn’t that metal plaque, bagged up, battered and inconsequential, read “WRS, 987”?

LWRS, 1987
.

She felt the thrill run from her neck down her arms to her fingertips. She fumbled for her phone and located Ben’s number.

The following evening, they gathered in the dusk at the bottom of the Green, people from Little Worthy and the surrounding villages, with their lanterns and scarves and excited children. Banjo the donkey was the star of the show. How fortunate that Oliver’s wife was small-boned. Ms Whittle gave her permission to ride and, after a wobbly start, Julie Markham looked perfect in Mary’s blue robes, sitting rather demurely side saddle with her belly padded and her Joseph hovering solicitously at her side. And how fitting, though surely few people knew, that she carried a new life inside her. Banjo paraded, his ears perked up, with Ms Whittle in a shepherd’s cloak following behind.

The procession wound its way in stages around the Green toward the ancient Saxon church. Timothy, Clari’s barrister husband, did them proud as Wise Man and narrator, his height and presence and dark skin carrying off the purple and blue onion turban regally. The angels and shepherds, for the most part, remembered their cues, and Timothy’s sonorous voice held the crowd spellbound.

It was all going so well, and yet Faith remained distracted. How was Ben getting on? Faith had spoken to him for almost an hour the evening before. His tough façade had vanished when he realized the significance of what she told him. The excitement in his voice, the thrill of the chase nearing its conclusion, had been unmistakeable. But had the search warrant come through? Had they found what they were looking for?

She saw Mavis Granger cross from the church hall where Pat presided over assembling the traditional feast to be offered after the carol singing in the churchyard. The procession straggled through the wicket gate, leading the spectators with their bobbing lanterns. The musicians struck up “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”. Mavis was watching alone. Faith went over to stand beside her.

“How are you, Mrs Granger?”

Mavis barely looked at her. She was as immaculately turned out as ever. “They haven’t arrested him, you know,” she said.

“Vernon?” said Faith.

Mavis glared at her. “Of course
Vernon
! It’s all a mistake.” She braced her back, her head held high.

“I am sorry. This can’t be easy for you.”

“This is one of the highlights of the Christmas season in this community,” Mavis answered, as if she were instructing a stranger. “The WI president always attends.”

“Is your husband, Neil, here with you?”

“Yes, he’s with Vernon somewhere.”

Faith glimpsed Peter walking into the church hall. And there was Ben, moving toward them through the carolling crowd. Faith’s mouth felt suddenly dry. Ben stopped in front of them, his eyes on Mavis.

“Mrs Granger – will you come with me, please? We need to have a word.” In the flickering light of the lanterns, Mavis Granger’s face was a perfectly painted mask. Only her lips moved.

“Vernon?”

Ben led them across the Green to the church hall. Behind them, the congregation, clustered in the churchyard, was singing “Silent Night”. In the main hall the folding tables were laid out with food and drink. The helpers were at the carol singing – all except Pat. She stood, like a statue in the far corner, inconspicuous for once. Ben waved them on into the meeting room at the back.

It was an odd rerun of that first time, when Pat had brought Mavis Granger to the pageant planning meeting. Peter Gray sat where Sue had sat, a notebook open before him. Neil Granger sat near the door and, under the escort of two police constables, on the far side of the table, Vernon sat beside Anna, holding her hand. Ben drew out a chair for Mavis. Her eyes were on her son.

“Mrs Granger, there are some things we need to clear up,” Ben began. “Now that we are all here, I want to discuss the burglary at the Old Mill this last June.”

Mavis blinked. “Our burglary? What about it?” Peter slid a file toward Ben across the table. He opened it and ran his finger down the list. Faith knew him well enough to know he had it off by heart.

“I was interested in the items that were taken,” Ben said. “A gold Rolex man’s watch.”

“My father’s,” Mavis said. Ben nodded.

“… an eighteenth-century snuff box with German enamelling; a gold half hunter watch with a nineteen carat Albert.”

“Vernon’s grandfather’s watch.”

“Family treasures?”

“Yes,” said Mavis.

Ben looked at her for a moment. He folded his hands over the file. “Earlier today we executed a search warrant…”

“Where? By what right?” demanded Neil Granger. Ben held up a hand.

“In a moment, sir.” He signalled to one of the constables standing against the wall, who brought him an open cardboard box. Ben dipped his hand in, bringing out plastic evidence bags which he laid out on the table one by one. “My team discovered this enamelled snuff box, and this gold Rolex and this… I believe this is what they call a half hunter pocket watch?”

“The items that were stolen!” Neil Granger said. “Where did you find them?”

Ben was watching Vernon. The boy’s face had drained of colour, his lips clamped together. He gripped Anna’s hand in his.

“Can you tell your father where we found these, Vernon?” Ben asked.

Mavis looked at her son in horror. Vernon said nothing.

“That Bagshaw boy stole these things,” Mavis interrupted. “It was nothing to do with Vernon.”

Ben picked another bag from the box. This time the plastic was weighted down with a small white statue. Faith happened to be watching Neil. She saw his face close down, almost as if she were watching a piece of film that had been paused.

“Where did you find that?” Mavis demanded, her brow creasing.

“On Trisha Bagshaw’s mantelpiece. Her brother kindly let us have it for a while.”

Mavis’s frown deepened. She moistened her lips. “I told you Lucas was a thief.”

Ben’s hand entered the dark mouth of the box. He lifted up another bag. They all leaned forward to see it. It contained a second, identical statue. He laid them side by side.

“Mr Granger, I believe this one is yours?”

Neil cleared his throat. “It’s from my study.” His wife was staring at him.

Ben poked one of the statues with a finger. “They are not entirely identical. This one – from the Bagshaw home – has an inscription chip in the base. An ‘N’ and a ‘T’.” His blue eyes met Neil Granger’s brown ones, in casual enquiry. “Can you explain this?” Neil lifted his chin a fraction, either in defiance or to avoid looking at his wife.

“It was a gift.”

“To…?”

“Trisha Bagshaw, Lucas’s mother. She looked after my mother for many years. Mother was always very fond of her.”

“So, just a thank-you gift?”

Mavis’s eyes burned.

“Yes,” said Neil, as he brushed a couple of the bags containing the gold items on the table with one hand. “But these things – they’re different. You found them at the Bagshaw house, you said?”

“No. I didn’t. The search warrant wasn’t for the Bagshaw home; it was for the Old Mill.”

“My home!” Mavis gasped. Ben sat forward, his forearm on the table. Faith noted idly that the hand resting on the table was pointing toward Vernon.

“Do you know where they were found?” he asked the boy.

“In my sock drawer,” he answered blankly. Mavis’s mouth dropped open.

“Vernon – don’t say a word,” his father pronounced. He brought out his phone. “I’m calling you a solicitor.”

“You just keep out of it!” Vernon’s words exploded from his mouth. “You started this – let’s just see it finished!” His father was buffeted back by the words; he sat silenced and baffled.

“Vernon!” breathed his mother.

“It’s not what you think.” Anna spoke up, her curls quivering. “It’s not Vernon’s fault. You don’t understand.”

“Then why don’t you explain it to us?” Ben invited. Vernon sat up. Anna dropped her head. “Let me get you started,” Ben continued calmly. “You were in your room the day of the burglary, Vernon? Your mother had gone for a walk with the dogs…”

“No.” The denial was uttered quietly, but all the more shocking for it.

“You weren’t in your room?”

“Yes. But she didn’t take the dogs for a walk.” He swallowed as if the words were blocked in his throat. Anna hugged his arm and spoke up for him.

“We – we were there in V’s room that day,” she said. “The dogs have their kennel in sight of his window. They were there the whole time.” She looked to Mavis. “We thought you were out, but you didn’t have the dogs with you. They were there, and when you said there was the break-in – the dogs never barked once.”

“When did you find these things?” Faith asked Vernon. She’d said the words before she remembered she was only supposed to be observing; she couldn’t reel them back now. His eyes were soft and sad as he looked back at her.

“Last Wednesday. I went looking in her wardrobe for a jumper. Anna was cold. I found them at the back.” Faith
thought of his anger toward his mother when she saw him at the Civic Service that night.

“What did you think?”

“I didn’t know what to think.” Vernon was holding back the tears, his eyes red. He addressed his mother. “Then I thought maybe you’d done it so you could blame Lucas – but you never did that – not really.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked.

He looked straight at her. “I thought we kept secrets in this family, Mother – isn’t that what we do?” He hung his head, staring at the tabletop, blinking back the tears.

“Lucas was a thief,” Mavis said stubbornly.

“No. He wasn’t,” Ben contradicted her. “At least, he didn’t take these things.”

“He took so much more!” Mavis whispered through gritted teeth. She spoke so softly, maybe only Faith, sitting beside her, heard her.

“What did he take from you, Mavis?” she asked gently. Mavis shook her head, and kept the shake going as if she couldn’t stop it.

“Miss Hope,” Ben’s authoritative voice startled them all. “This last Saturday I believe you sold a particular bunch of flowers.” He consulted his notes. “Twisted willow, white narcissus, heather sprigs, pussy willow and red amaryllis. Do you remember it?”

Anna’s eyes were huge in her small face. She nodded.

“And do you remember who you sold it to?” Anna looked desperately at Vernon. He sighed and squeezed her hand.

“Yes,” she said. “Him.” She pointed across the table. “Vernon’s dad.”

Neil Granger lifted both his hands and ran his fingers over his head in a shocked gesture. He wore old-fashioned
cufflinks. Sitting at an angle to him, Faith saw them clearly for the first time: globular silver cufflinks with a familiar infinity twist. She looked over at Ben. He caught her recognition and lifted an eyebrow.

“Do you have Lucas’s keys there?” she asked. Silently he looked in the box and brought them out, offering them to her in their plastic wrappings. She spread them out in the bag, separating the pendant fob and stretching the plastic around it so it could be seen. She held it out toward Vernon and Anna.

“Do you recognize this?”

“That was Lucas’s mother’s pendant,” Anna told her.

Vernon barely glanced at it. “And the pattern on it is just like Dad’s cufflinks,” Vernon interjected, his voice hard and sarcastic. “What could that mean, Mother?”

The wisp of thought that had eluded Faith when she had been talking to Anna in the pig pen rooted and blossomed. Anna didn’t work at Mavis’s florist shop on Mondays – and it was on a Monday that Lucas’s body had been discovered. She had been surprised that evening at the meeting in the church hall that Mavis and Pat had known the identity of the victim at the river. She had assumed, she supposed, that somehow news had spread through Jim and the choir, through Anna, to Mavis. But Monday was Anna’s day off.

“You faked the burglary. You trod on the silver cup, because it was his,” Faith said. “But you couldn’t bear to get rid of the heirlooms. They were family items. So you kept them.”

Mavis looked only at her.

“I can’t. Please,” she whispered. “Not in front of Vernon.”

Faith looked over at Ben. “Might he and Anna be escorted to the other room?”

Ben laid out a sheet of A4 paper like a card in a game. He looked over at Faith.

“This is a photocopy of a page from the
Hampshire Chronicle
,” he said.

Faith leaned over and saw the date at the top: “September 4th, 1987.”

The top half of the photocopy was a photo of an old man with a white beard holding up a certificate and a walking stick. In the grainy photo, the metal collar was indistinct. A young woman stood beside him, fresh-faced and smiling.

When Faith had first seen the page at the library that afternoon, just after closing time, the face had meant nothing to her. The librarian had been about to go home, but Faith knew her in passing from the genealogy club, of which Pat was an avid member. Faith had persuaded her to give ten minutes of her time.

Looking at the photo now, she realized it was the expression that misled her, more than the actual features. But the caption confirmed it. It was a younger, more hopeful version of Mavis Granger. The article featured Henry Jenner, seventy-nine, victor in the prize ram competition for a record-winning sixth time. Faith turned the photograph over. There was a legend on the back written in a neat, well-formed hand –
Henry Jenner with his granddaughter, Mavis
, listed the winners of the Little Worthy Rural Show.