Wicked Autumn (10 page)

A local wag at the Horseshoe immediately christened it “the Bobby Pod.” It was a name that stuck.

*   *   *

The news updates continued to spread through Nether Monkslip as only unexpected and shocking news could in a small village—rapidly and with mule-headed inaccuracy. For some reason, it became established fact that Wanda had been bludgeoned to death, once the likelihood of her having been stabbed to death had been dismissed as a possibility. It took several hours of effort by the postmistress, the fountain of most avid conjecture in the village, to help everyone sort through the speculation, summarize what little was known, and render a popular verdict of probable suicide while the balance of her mind was disturbed—a phrase many of them had come across in their reading of the newspapers.

Max had gone back to the vicarage to try (with little hope) to work on his sermon, but he had rejoined the crowd as news of the pod’s arrival reached him (via the simple expedient of someone’s sticking their head in the study window to announce the news in passing). Again he stood on the fringes of the crowd, watching, but in truth there was little to see. He was turning away—the sermon was going to have to be completely rewritten, after all; how could he ignore this particular elephant in the room?—when he heard a familiar voice call his name.

Max had crossed paths with DCI Cotton of the Monkslip-super-Mare police in the past. He and the policeman were at times working on opposite sides of the coin, with DCI Cotton trying to pin a crime on a miscreant, and Max presenting the reasons why leniency should be shown, especially in the case of a young offender. But neither of their devil’s advocate roles struck Max as being at odds in their aims. Cotton was too professional, and too competent, for that.

Max gave him a solemn smile and stuck out a hand in greeting. DCI Cotton was a slight, wiry man who seemed to vibrate with unexpended energy, like a tuning fork just struck. He had a thatch of thick blond hair springing back from a widow’s peak and the glint of a devil in his gray-blue eyes. They reminded Max of a cat’s eyes in their focused concentration.

Max Tudor on first meeting had liked and trusted him.

“I say, we sh—” began Cotton.

But he was interrupted.

It was Constable Musteile—a weasel of a man. In direct contrast with Cotton, Musteile instantly had provoked Max’s instinctive dislike. Not because he was dishonest—well, not precisely dishonest. He was probably incorruptible, in fact: a Mr. Law-and-Order of the type frequently drawn to the armed forces or law enforcement. He was ramrod straight, unyielding, unimaginative. Profoundly stupid, in fact. A man who followed the rules, and asked no questions as to whether each rule really applied in every situation. Respectable, moral—indeed, holier-than-thou. A bit of a bully, especially when cornered. A dangerous man in every way.

“Hello,” Max greeted him, civilly.

Musteile seemed to enjoy cementing his reputation as a bit of an ass. He ignored the Vicar and spoke directly to his superior.

“Clearly it will be Travelers responsible. I’ll get right on it.”

Cotton regarded him. “Travelers?”

“You know. Gypsies.”

“You’ve spotted a caravan site of Gypsies, have you?”

They were joined briefly by Detective Sergeant Essex, who handed Cotton a report of some type, then walked on. Max had briefly seen her, as well, outside a courtroom in Monkslip-super-Mare. Tiny and extremely fit, with her multicolored strands of hair she reminded Max of a small terrier. A blind man could see she held Musteile in the lowest possible esteem.

“’Course not,” Musteile was saying. “Sir. Only stands to reason, though.” Musteile had caught some of the
Zeitgeist
in the village, and expanded on it, seasoning it with a bit of his own brand of bigotry.

Over his head, Max and Cotton looked at each other.

“Thank you, Constable. That will be all for now.”

Musteile nodded, all but clicking his heels and saluting. He turned sharply and left them.

As the constable departed, DCI Cotton seemed to reconsider. He called him back: “Actually … I say…” he began. Musteile spun on his heels and stepped smartly back toward them. “Do you know what would be useful? If you could get a statement from the local postmistress. In my experience, that’s the person in a village who always knows where the bodies are buried. So to speak.” Having sent Constable Musteile on this spurious mission, he turned to Max. Relief was reflected on both their faces.

Cotton said, “I’ve taken a room at the Horseshoe for tonight, perhaps longer. I’ll be putting in some long days and I don’t relish that drive home after dark.”

“That sounds a sensible plan,” said Max.

“Mind if I drop by the vicarage this evening? It probably will be late.”

“Certainly, if you think I can be of help.”

The look Cotton gave him was quirky.

“Help? You started this ball rolling. I’d like to hear your reasons,” he said, adding: “Not that I disagree with you.”

CHAPTER 11

Baptizing the Teddy Bear

The cold descended like a sheer curtain that Harvest Fayre night. The autumn sun had quickly dimmed, and the smell of burning firewood now floated over the village in a pine-scented cloud.

Max also had a fire burning in his study, shedding its light on the gilt-framed painting over the mantel. There was a crackling noise as a log collapsed. He grabbed a poker and pushed the log back to safety.

Mrs. Hooser had long since left for home. At the rap of the knocker he went to answer the door himself, Thea close at his heels.

DCI Cotton strode in, in what was apparently his habitual mode of alertness: tightly wound and ready to strike. Apart from a jacket swinging from his shoulders that looked like it might be Armani, he reminded Max of countless men—and women—he had worked with in the past. He somehow felt in Cotton’s brisk presence the push-pull of that past, and was sure that if you were teamed with a man like Cotton, he’d always have your back. Max thought fleetingly of a former colleague, and pushed the thought aside.

“We’ve sent Constable Musteile on a search of Raven’s Wood.”

Max parted the curtains and looked out the window.

“In the pitch dark? Why? Do you expect to find anything there?” asked Max.

Cotton answered him with a wry grin.

Max, catching on: “You wanted him out of your hair.”

“If we’ve a hope of finding out what happened to Wanda, that man is best kept as far away from the scene as possible. We’ll make a fuller search of the woods in daylight hours, of course. It’s not completely a spurious assignment.”

Cotton arranged the razor-like pleats in his immaculate trousers and sat on a chair by the fire. Max joined him opposite.

“Wanda?” he asked delicately.

“They’ve taken her to the police mortuary at Monkslip-super-Mare.”

Max gently persisted. “Is there anything you can tell me? It goes without saying, but it will go no further than this room.”

Cotton readily replied, “She does not appear to have been sexually molested in any way. And she had her handbag with her, with a few pound coins inside, her cashpoint card, and so on. Cause of death appears to be anaphylactic shock.”

Max said, “I thought it must be. She was famously allergic to peanuts. So much for the passing crazed madman theory then. Sex and theft ruled out. So we’re left with—what?”

“That remains to be seen,” said Cotton—rather complacently, Max thought, wishing he were as sanguine. With the obvious motives ruled out, what was there left?

“The Village Hall was unlocked when Guy Nicholls and I went there,” he told Cotton. “It was left unlocked all day, I would imagine.”

“Probably. At least, we are going for now on the assumption that the building was kept unlocked for the day, since access would be needed by so many people—yourself included. Even had it not been unlocked, prying open a window would be easy as winking.”

“No sign of that, though?”

“None whatsoever. But of course Wanda, in the normal course of events, would have a key. Whatever she was there for—to pick up some forgotten or left-behind item, perhaps—it also seems unlikely in the extreme that she would bolt herself inside, doesn’t it? Whatever for? So anyone could walk in while she was there, surprise her … Anyone at all.”

The fireplace made another crackling sound, loud as a bullet in the cozy room. There must be a lot of tar on the wood, Max thought. He rose again to adjust the logs.

“Why was she there?” Cotton, watching him, mused aloud. “Dressing down a volunteer? Surely it was too late or too early for that, and she would be needed elsewhere—or she would believe her presence essential elsewhere.”

Max could only shrug. There was no telling what went on in the windmills of Wanda’s mind. Again seated, he said, “I gather you’ve been talking with people about her. You’ve certainly summed up the essence of the woman.”

“Yes. Rather a self-important type, they tell me. She headed up the Women’s Institute, is that right? That’s a relict of a bygone era, I would have thought … rather dying out.”

“Not really,” answered Max. “In fact, it’s experienced a nationwide revival in recent years, vamping up its image quite a bit. That movie with Helen Mirren only helped, one would have thought.
Calendar Girls.
Here in Nether Monkslip certainly the WI has grown in influence, and in value given.”

Cotton mused, “A remote village like this … It’s unusual, isn’t it, that a village this size would have a Women’s Institute?”

“Not at all,” said Max. “The WI has an enthusiastic membership here for that very reason—Nether Monkslip has little nightlife or other entertainment to recommend it. You could say the lack of other options ensures its continued success. They do much good work for charity. And as a whole, the national federation has gone to great lengths to modernize its image.”

“Not all ‘jam and Jerusalem,’ as the saying goes.”

“Correct. Also, things like the Poppy Day collections and the children’s party at Christmas, which might in the past have fallen to the Royal British Legion Women’s Section, now tend to come under the sway of the Nether Monkslip WI. Everything does, now that I come to think of it. Even many things that would have been in the church’s domain at one time. We simply don’t have the resources we once had. And Nether Monkslip may be unusual—and blessed—in having so many businesslike, astute women in the population.”

“And men, presumably.”

“And men. But the power, behind-the-scenes and otherwise—my impression has always been that it belongs to the women. That was certainly my impression in Wanda’s case.”

“A lot of money involved, is there, in all this charitable work?”

Max looked at him with sharp appreciation. “Yes. Not in the millions of pounds, but enough to be tempting. It’s one motive that occurred to me, too. Money changing hands; Wanda in an oversight position.”

Cotton went on to tell him that the police had had little luck in pinning down exactly when Wanda had disappeared (it was more like an
absence
of noise and strife, noted Cotton, and thus hard to pinpoint), although when she was found was not open to question.

“A priest backed up by a witness,” Cotton said. “You couldn’t ask for more unless the witness was a judge.”

“Not everyone would agree with that assessment these days, but thanks for the vote of confidence,” Max replied.

“However, the Fayre volunteers all seemed to agree they were too busy to notice—and in some cases, it was said, just happy Wanda was leaving them alone,” Cotton went on. “No one exactly sought out her company, I gather. Some kid claims to have heard a commotion around noon, coming from the Village Hall. We’ll put out a general appeal to the public, asking for witnesses to come forward, but I’m not counting on much to come from that effort. The usual crackpots will waste police time claiming to have seen Wanda, looking either wild-eyed, despondent, or deliriously happy—or all three at once—in her last moments on earth.”

“No doubt,” said Max, who had his own experiences of a too-helpful public in his past.

“Just for the record,” Cotton asked, “who had keys to the place? Was it normally kept locked?”

Max made a seesawing motion with one hand:
sort of.

“Things tended to operate on a basis of either trust or carelessness, I’m afraid.”

But who had the keys? Max thought: Wanda; her second-in-command, Suzanna Winship; and the maintenance man/cleanup crew/gardener in the person of Maurice, an amiable and rather slow-witted man who did odd jobs around the village. Aloud Max listed them, adding, “These people for a start. Of course, as there was little in the building worth stealing, unless you count that ancient, erratically functioning slide projector, custody of the keys over the years was a haphazard venture at best. She could have been killed by anyone, in fact, if it were a question of someone getting in and waiting there for her—I gather that is the drift of your questions?”

Cotton countered with a question of his own: “Killed? We are talking about murder then, Father?”

“Call me Max, please. ‘Father’ never sat right with me. Yes, to answer you, almost certainly we are, I’m afraid. Unless she snuck off with a peanut biscuit to do away with herself in private in the middle of the Fayre, which is not at all likely, given her personality, for a start. Not at all. No one, in my estimation, was less given to suicidal thought or action than Wanda.”

Cotton said, “An accidental poisoning, while possible, does not explain her excited demeanor when talking with Suzanna Winship at the Fayre.”

Max leaned forward. “Really? Suzanna said that?”

“What Ms. Winship said was that if she didn’t know better, she’d say Wanda looked and acted like a woman headed to an assignation.”

Wanda?
Max could not get his mind around the concept. Beneath all the bombast, the corgi-walking ensembles, the scarves, he supposed there did beat the heart of a red-blooded female. Still …

“Accidents do happen,” Cotton was saying.

“So does ‘malice aforethought,’” said Max. “And that’s what I think you’re dealing with here.”