As Cleo turned out of the vicarage drive into the road, a
white limousine appeared as if from nowhere and came straight at her.
Frederick, who had heard a door slam and come to see what was going on, realized
that he could not possibly cope with the two women left looking perplexed at
the suddenness of Cleo’s departure.
"Did you get the registration, Frederick?" Cleo
asked as she disentangled herself from the rhododendron.
"No. I was too busy rescuing you."
“Describe the car, then!”
“White.”
“I saw that,” said Cleo.
The Nortons drove white cars. Cleo had seen them in the
courtyard behind her office. Gary would have
to follow up the incident immediately. Were the Nortons mixed up in Laura’s killing?
What could their motive have been? Cleo was shaken, but also angry with herself
that she had not heeded Robert’s warning. There was a leak somewhere. Was her
phone bugged? Had the Nortons found a way of knowing what she was investigating?
She would get an IT expert to check all her electronics.
"Thanks, Frederick, but what are you doing here?”
"I wanted to ask you not to upset Edith again."
Cleo thought he was finding an excuse for his own behaviour.
He had been running away from the rebukes Edith and Dorothy would not spare him.
He probably also wanted to tell her something, she mused.
"I don't think you should tell anyone about this
incident," said Cleo. “We can make a bargain, Frederick. I won’t bother
Edith with all this crime stuff and you won’t tell Robert about the white car.”
"I think we should tell someone about the car,” said
the vicar, avoiding calling Cleo by her first name because he could not remember
if they had exchanged first names, though she used his. “That hit and run
driver could try again and next time I might not be there to save you."
Was the vicar hoping to be a hero?
"Well, leave it to me, Frederick."
"Who was it, Miss Hartley err Cleo err?"
Cleo did not want to voice her suspicions.
"How should I know? Some drunken lout, I expect. But thanks
to you, Frederick, I survived it, though it was a near squeak, so stop worrying.
Things like that don't happen twice a day."
"Maybe they do if someone is after you. I'll accompany
you to Robert's shop."
"No need, and call me Cleo all the time, Frederick.“
The vicar was obviously still struggling with something.
"I'm not risking another incident… err Cleo. You'd
better walk on the inside."
Cleo resigned herself to this selfless arrangement.
“Did you want to tell me something confidentially?” Cleo
could not resist asking.
“But just I want you to know that I cared about Mrs Finch
when no one else seemed to.”
“I know that, Frederick. It is a big loss to you, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said. “You see, I thought all prostitutes were
wicked, but Laura Finch was good inside.”
“Even though she deserted her son?”
“I’m not good at children either,” said Mr Parsnip.
Five minutes later and much to Cleo's annoyance the vicar
was relating the white car incident to Gary and Robert despite their deal.
"Things are moving faster than I expected," was
Gary Hurley's immediate reaction. "Can you give me any information at all
to help us find that car?"
"Well, it was big and white and it burst a tyre with
quite a big bang."
"Did you see the number plate, Vicar?"
"Mr Hurley, the whole incident was over in a few
seconds. All I saw was the tail end of the car speeding off."
"As we were extricating me from the hedge," added Cleo.
"Why did you go to the vicarage in the first place
after I'd warned you, Cleo?" Robert wanted to know.
"To tell Edith about Laura's past after I’d collected
Dorothy. She had popped home despite all the drama with her mirror. She said
she just needed some more clothes, Gary. She’s back at the vicarage now."
"You could have phoned."
"Firstly, I didn’t know Dorothy had gone home, and
secondly, that's not the sort of information you pass on in a phone call."
"You should have kept me informed," said Gary. “Someone
knew where you were, Cleo. Have you thought about that? Are you being stalked?”
"Nobody knew that I knew about Mrs Finch's past," said
the vicar.
Gary wondered what he had missed. These village people were
incorrigible.
“That is not relevant at the moment,” said Gary. Did you
know something and not tell the police, Vicar?"
"Young man," said the vicar, who was only a few
years older than Gary, but weighed down by the responsibilities of being a
churchman and most of all by his own shortcomings, "when someone tells me
something in confidence, I don't go round talking about it to all and sundry."
Cleo thought that was rich since he had not even kept the
white car incident to himself for five minutes.
"Not even if that person has been murdered?" said
Gary.
"Now Edith knows, it doesn't really count as a
confidence any longer," the vicar said in a small, sad voice. It sounded
as if he had been keeping his meetings a secret and messing around with Laura. Even
Robert wondered if she had seduced him. He felt empathy with Edith, saddled as
she was with such a husband.
"So you are going to tell me now, aren't you?"
said Gary. "I seem to be the only person still in the dark. And Cleo, I
asked you to call me if you had any information."
"I only heard stuff from Jessica that was connected to
her childhood," said Cleo, not liking Gary’s dressing-down tone of voice.
He was really frustrated.
"It might be relevant if it gives us a clue to her more
recent activities," Gary continued.
"And I don't know more about anything than anyone else,"
said the vicar. "We’ve just compared notes at the vicarage."
Gary groaned.
“Shouldn’t I have been invited to the meeting?” he said.
“It was impromptu, Gary,” said Cleo.
He had warned her off the case, but she hadn't taken any
notice. The hit and run incident had confirmed the wisdom of his warning. It
was unlikely that the Nortons would be pinned down. They had a fleet of white
BMWs and mechanics on hand who would do anything for a fistful of banknotes.
"There’s interesting stuff on Dorothy’s list of suspicious
chorus women," said Cleo, feeling obliged to tell Gary about something
they had not actually discussed. "But the more I think about it, the less
likely I think it is that one of them committed murder. The women had achieved
what they wanted. Laura Finch had been booted out. Why should they pursue the
matter further?"
"And yet…." Gary said, leaving his statement
unfinished.
“You’d have to investigate the women on Dorothy’s list and
find out if any of them had a partner who was willing and able to exterminate Laura,” said
Cleo.
***
Gary paid no further attention to the vicar who was standing
around looking guilty. Surely he had not really succumbed to Laura Finch’s
dubious charms.
Gary was considering what Cleo had just said.
Robert accused Cleo of hiding something. He entirely disapproved
of Cleo's mission in life, especially as he had witnessed how fast it could
become risky. Reading the Miss Marple books – and that village busybody only
got out of her self-engendered scrapes because the police were there in numbers
at the crucial moment – was not reading an instruction manual for solving
crimes.
But Cleo was too conspicuous a figure in a small community.
She could not possibly work incognito. Robert wondered if she had secured Dorothy
Price's help to make up for that deficit. Of course she had, and he had not put
a stop to it. Why not? He now felt guilty about his own role. Had he been waiting
for the inevitable to happen so that he could step in and say ’I told you so’?
***
"As soon as we've
finished here, I'll drive you and the vicar back to the vicarage and we can
talk about what’s on Miss Price's list," said Gary, who was annoyed about
being kept in the dark.
"I'll walk," said vicar. "See you later then."
To everyone's astonishment, he turned tail and sped off. He
had remembered that he wanted to give Laura Finch a good send-off, though he
was aware that he must avoid dramatic, even heart-rending comments, if he
wasn't to alienate Edith for all time. Mr Parsnip had often wondered what it
would be like to spend a day, or preferably a night, with a woman like Laura. He
was shocked at himself for having such base thoughts because he shunned them in
his marriage He was also shocked that Laura Finch’s death might constitute a
lucky escape for him from his immoral thoughts. Up to now he had only been
surmising that her colourful past might have had something to do with her
death. But now that his repressed fascination of Laura had probably been revealed
to all he felt that anything he said about her would smack of hypocrisy, and
that's the last thing you would want in a memorial service.
***
Fortunately, once the vicar got over his own misery he thought
of a way round the dilemma. He would ditch the whole original concept and talk
about friendship instead. Friendship is timeless and independent of past,
present or future. Laura Finch had become a friend, after all. She had
entrusted him with her guilt about her past (which he would not mention) and he
had seen the goodness beyond her misdeeds (which he would narrow down to a
tendency to impatience). As he marched home, the rhythm of his steps beat out
his intention to give an address that would leave him emotionally unscathed. He
thought he could even fit his favourite hymn "Onward Christian
soldiers" into it. Singing had put him in quite good spirits by the time
he reached the vicarage.
***
Apart from commenting that only someone playing games would
go to the trouble of defacing a butcher’s shop window and that Robert would do
well to think who might be getting at him, since that person had not seen fit
to scrawl paint on her office window, Cleo was not bothered about the graffiti.
Gary’s presence at Robert’s shop became superfluous when a
forensic team had arrived. He held the passenger door of his car open for Cleo
to get in and then went round to the driver’s side. Robert looked on as Gary
prepared to leave with Cleo, but he did not say anything
Phillis stared out of the shop window from behind the
counter and wondered if Gary and Mr Jones’s fiancée were ‘having it off.’ She
would have liked to be chauffeured round in that cop’s car and enjoy a little
hanky-panky with him, but she had made it a rule never to get involved with
coppers. Phillis thought she had a choice in the matter.
***
Gary could not resist using the short drive to the vicarage
to ask Cleo again if she would marry him instead of Robert, and again Cleo told
him that although she was in love with him, Robert was the man in her life.
Gary told her he would wait till she came to her senses and Cleo told him that
she could not compete with the young women with whom he amused himself. He
again told her they were substitutes and he was not interested in an intimate
relationship with any of them.
“Gary, let’s make a deal.”
“Gladly. Where?”
“Here. I want you to stop making life difficult for me.”
“No deal, Cleo, and you know why.”
***
At the vicarage, Gary got out of the car and ran round to
Cleo’s side. The embrace that followed fell into line with Cleo’s ideas on the
undeniable truth of body language, though she had to admit that she was responding
to Gary and enjoying it.
“Don’t do that again, Gary. Someone might have seen us.”
“Does that matter if you finally got the message, Cleo?”
Someone had seen them.
“I don’t want Dorothy thinking I’m unfaithful.”
“Unfaithful to whom, Cleo? I got the feeling you enjoined
our little hug.”
“That’s just the problem. I did.”
Dorothy wondered how long things could go well between Cleo
and Robert if that long embrace she had just witnessed was what she thought it
was.
It hadn’t taken long for the forensic team consisting of one
individual sticky-taping finger-prints and the other stabilizing the ladder
against the frame of the wide shop window to declare that they had seen enough.
Forensics had had long experience of smirches on walls. The only way real graffiti
could be identified was by their style or when they had actually been signed by
the perpetrators. But this wasn't a graffito by any stretch of the imagination.
This was a mess of white paint smeared across a shop front by someone vindictive.
The rest of Saturday had been as usual for Robert. Cleo had
spent the afternoon at the vicarage discussing Laura and the funeral.
Then, while Dorothy went to the bathroom, Edith whispered to
Cleo that if she and Gary wanted to meet alone, she would be glad to let them
have her utility room. They could be alone there for as long as they wanted.
“Is it that obvious?” Cleo had said.
“I’m happy for you,” Edith had said. “I wish a nice man
would hold me that tightly.”
“I should not meet him, Edith, but I really want to be with
him. Apart from being a truly nice guy he is a wonderful lover.”
“Why don’t you leave Robert?” said Edith.
“It would hurt him too much.”
“But staying with him and loving a different man is also
hurtful,” said Edith.
“I’m torn between love and loyalty,” said Cleo.
“I know what you mean,” said Edith looking wistful.
Dorothy came in and that put an end to the conversation
between Cleo and Edith, but it stayed with Cleo for the rest of the day.
***
"The worst kind of criminal is the inconsistent one,"
Cleo told Robert at breakfast next morning. "At least a serial murderer does
the same thing over and over again, usually using the same method, but in
Laura’s case we have a stabbing followed by attempted hit and run probably
aimed at me, and two cases of wall smirches, one aimed at Dorothy and one aimed
presumably at you."
"It doesn’t all have to be the work of one person,
Cleo.”
"All the more reason for finding out who it is. No one
who does anything like that stuff should running around scot free."
"Do you realize that if the hit and run was deliberate,
you are really in danger?” said Robert.
"I can't rule that out. It goes with the job. You know
that Gary thinks that someone wanted me out of that office, Robert. The stunt
with the corpse was a convenient mechanism, but a temporary one. I think it
could indicate that something happens in that yard that I can see from my
utility room window. The Norton brothers know how good a view there is from
that window, and they park white limousines in the garages behind my office."
“Mr Morgan parks in my garage,” added Robert. “Someone
should be looking at what goes on in that yard. He might be getting silence
money, or someone else might."
Cleo nodded approvingly and phoned Gary to pass on these
ideas, especially Robert’s.
Can we meet. I hate these phone-calls, Cleo.”
Cleo explained that there was new evidence. She also said “Yes”
when Gay suggested Romano’s. Robert was quite glad to have time for his accounts,
he told Cleo, and drove her to Middlethumpton HQ.
“I’ll get the bus home,” she told him.
“Or get Gary Hurley to drive you,” said Robert.
“He may not have time,” said Cleo. “He has a family, you
know.”
“Does he? I never realized….”
Meanwhile Gary was annoyed at the idea that the butcher guy was
also one step ahead. Gary had not yet had time to give the yard a thought.
Robert sped off and Cleo hurried to her meeting with Gary.
Romano was glad to see them.
“Do you want the key?” he asked.
“No,” said Cleo.
“Yes,” said Gary.
“Make up your minds, children,” said Romano, dropping his
apartment key on the table.
“There’s no escape, Miss Hartley,” said Gary.
“I don’t want to escape, Mr Hurley,” said Cleo.
“What are you going to tell the butcher?” Gary asked two
hours later.
“I’ll tell him you are a cover for my lover,” said Cleo. “He
does not believe me when I say things like that.”
“I’ll drive you home, shall I?”
“Please.“
After some minutes deep in thought, Cleo said “Do you know what I really want?”
“Go on!”
“I want you both.”
“That might be difficult logistically.”
“That’s why it should not happen at all!”
“I agree,” said Gary.
“That’s also why we should not meet except for business,”
said Cleo.
“You mean a tick beyond platonic? Is that all our affair
means to you? Friendship. Love. Devotion. Call it what you will, it was just a
bit of fun, was it?”
“No it wasn’t. I’m ashamed of how I feel about you.”
“How stupid, Cleo. Lovers don’t talk like this. Get Robert
out of your hair and we’ll go on from there.”
“Edith has offered us her utility room so she has noticed
what is going on. Dorothy has not yet said anything, but it would not surprise
me if she had guessed.”
“So what’s the real problem, Cleo?”
“I told Edith that it was a choice between love and
loyalty.”
“And what did she say?”
“That she had the same dilemma.”
“How come?”
“Love of her kids and loyalty to the vicar, Gary.”
“We’ll take her up on that offer of her room,” said Gary.
“Tomorrow. Every day.”
“It will only prolong the agony.”
“What agony? I never noticed any, Cleo.”
Cleo was silent.
“OK,” said Gary finally. “I won’t bother you anymore. Let’s
get moving.”
“It’s not a bother, Gary, but we have to solve crime now,
not make love to seal our friendship.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“It’s the way I have to think about it just now.”
“But please not for ever.”
“I don’t think I’d have the strength of character for that,”
said Cleo.
***
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