The Distant Dead by Lesley Thomson (books for students to read TXT) 📕

Sitting down again, Cotton was distracted by Ethel’s blurry outline through the chicken-wire glass partition. He heard muffled clacks as she typed up his interim report on the murder. Cotton took refuge in a small dose of normal life. This jolted his memory that he hadn’t booked tickets for Aladdin up in town. Ethel had offered but, unlike the chief super, Cotton would not have his secretary manage his family as well as his office.

‘Temple Bar 3161 please,’ he told the operator.

Cotton bagged three seats in the stalls, two rows from the stage. Since the Blitz, theatre performances ended before 9.30 p.m. If there was a raid, Agnes would make them find the nearest shelter. Were it up to him and June they’d stay in their seats.

Afterwards they’d have a bite to eat at that fancy Lyons’ on Oxford Street. Cotton smiled; he liked splashing out on his family.

Chapter Thirteen

2019

Stella

‘…why did you come to the abbey after you left the Death Café?’

So, there it was. Stella was a suspect. Every detective keeps in their mind that the witness who finds the body is the murderer.

‘I heard the organ.’ Not the reason. If Stella had said that since living in Tewkesbury, the abbey was home, Janet’s suspicions would sky-rocket. She well knew neither Terry nor Stella believed in God. Stella couldn’t admit she felt soothed by stained glass images of the Passion, the trefoil arcade, the spandrels depicting intricate foliage, the glow of the votive candles and the hum of the two gigantic stoves which kept the abbey warm. Best not to admit she liked to think murmuring voices in the vaulted space echoed from across centuries.

Stella had not followed Roddy to the abbey, but she couldn’t prove it.

‘My colleague said you saw someone in here.’ Janet wouldn’t seriously suspect Terry’s daughter of murder. Would she?

If Stella were Janet, she’d suspect Stella.

‘I didn’t actually see a person, just a shadow. Over there, on that wall.’ Stella pointed across the nave to the north ambulatory. ‘I assumed it was Roddy when I saw his beanie on the chair.’

‘Show me which chair.’ Janet was up and striding away. Her foil blanket flapping, Stella went after her.

‘I was here.’ Too weak to stand, Stella sat down on the chair. ‘The shadow was there.’

‘You didn’t speak to March?’

‘I didn’t know it was him.’

‘You’re sure the beanie was his?’ Janet was merely doing her job, but it was making Stella nervous, as if she had something to hide.

‘I’m not sure, it’s just that Roddy wore one.’ Detectives took a witness’s nerves into account. Her dad had said the police could make the angels feel guilty. ‘It was like the one Roddy wore at the Death Café and yesterday in the abbey. The shadow looked like a head and shoulders.’ The more you say, the more you incriminate yourself. Stella crossed the flagstones and swept her hand over the sandstone to show where the shadow had been.

‘You weren’t afraid of being here on your own?’ Janet cast about. ‘This place is giving me the heebie-jeebies and that’s with half of Gloucestershire police here. But what am I saying? Stella Darnell has faced down cold-blooded killers. This is a walk in the park.’

‘I like it here alone.’ Stella couldn’t tell if Janet was being sarcastic. She stopped herself mentioning the Three Kings. Then Janet would think she’d lost it.

‘You weren’t tempted to see who it was?’

‘No.’

‘Since that door to the right of the nave is the only exit, anyone leaving would have had to pass you.’ Janet nodded towards the north door off the ambulatory.

‘I assumed they’d gone towards the organ, perhaps to speak to Joy.’

‘If you go that way,’ Janet was looking at a folded tourist map, ‘and keep going, you reach the chapel where March was murdered. Keep going, you’ll pass round the back of the altar and then find yourself over there. Since you were on the same route, did it occur to you that you might meet March, or whoever, coming towards you clockwise?’

‘No.’ It had.

While Janet had Forensics fingerprint the chair, the hymn book and the Bible tucked in the slot of the chair in front, Stella cast about for a raptor-like observation to toss at Janet, like meat to a lion, but the cupboard was bare.

‘If March went this side to the monk’s tomb, he’d have seen the organist. Name of Joy.’ Janet shifted a stack of plastic barriers leaning against the pillar. ‘Yet Joy says no one passed her.’

‘The music stopped before I got up. It was why I got up – I was going to leave.’ Stella had changed her story, earlier she’d said she didn’t know when she got up.

‘What made you go that way? Sorry to go on but I need to get spatials straight.’ Janet began annotating her map of the abbey. ‘You bypassed Joy.’

‘I wasn’t keen to chat.’

‘That figures, she’s a sharp body. No tears for March, just cross I was keeping her. I suppose it’s feasible: deep in her organ, she missed March, if he did go that way.’ Holding the map, Janet marked an X by the organ. ‘You were leaving yet you went the opposite way to the exit.’

‘I went to give Roddy the beanie.’ Stella felt dizzy.

‘You didn’t take it with you.’ Janet smiled pleasantly, as if the question was of no consequence.

‘I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure it was his.’

‘Unless he had left his hat earlier and it wasn’t him listening to the music. You don’t sound a hundred per cent certain about the shadow.’

‘Not all the lights were on so no, I’m not.’ Stella caught the lifeline.

‘No matter, we can return to that tomorrow. You’ll be in shock. You did good tonight.’ Janet touched Stella’s elbow. ‘Listen, Stella, you did your best to save March, but you had no chance. Even if the paramedics had arrived, he’d have died. The knife went through his ribcage at the back and into his heart.’

‘Right.’ Dwelling on this