One of Otis Joy's strengths was speed of action. Burton Sands as treasurer? No way.
There had to be a better candidate, someone more approachable, more co-operative and who saw the sense in not rocking the boat. Numerate, of course, but they didn't need to be a maths professor. The rector's candidate. No parish council would dare veto the rector's choice.
But who?
None of those deadbeats on the PCC wanted the responsibility. The nominee had to come from the congregation at large. A number of treasurer-like faces came to mind as Joy mentally scanned the line-up he saw every Sunday from his pulpit. There was no shortage of people who had worked in offices and probably on committees as well. Unfortunately not one of them struck him as suitable. He couldn't predict how they would react to the contingency fund.
Stanley-God rest his soul-had never asked to see a statement from the building society. Even Stanley might have been perturbed to know that the deposits were never less than a hundred pounds a week and the withdrawals about the same. A steady sixty from the hire of the church hall for bingo, bridge, boy scouts, table-tennis and line- dancing. Thirty to fifty for a wedding, baptism or funeral. Extra from the coffee mornings, the fete, the safari suppers and whatever. Bits and bobs from the 'upkeep of the church' boxes and the sale of pamphlets. It all came in the form of notes and coins that went straight into the building society. You don't want loose change lying about the rectory or you run the risk of theft, as Stanley Burrows had discovered.
The right choice was crucial.
The Coroner's officer in his police uniform called at the rectory about four in the afternoon. A civilised time. It was a golden September day and Otis Joy brought tea and cake into the garden. Not coconut pyramids, but a fine three-layer chocolate cake, a gift to the rector (with twenty-four pounds and a few pence in extra takings) from the recent coffee morning.
'It's about Stanley, of course?' he said striking the right note between chirpiness and respect for the dead;
'Only a few questions, Rector.' PC George Mitchell was a Wiltshireman through and through, in his fifties now, calm, slow of speech, with a faint smile that rarely left him. The rector had long since learned to respect the intelligence behind soft West Country accents. 'He was quite well known to you, I expect?'
'As one of the Church Council? Naturally.'
'Treasurer.'
'And a good one. He held the office for many years, didn't he? Long before I came.'
'A demanding job, would you say?'
Otis Joy smiled and pointed to the piece of cake on PC Mitchell's plate.
Mitchell took a moment to see the point, then let his mouth relax into the start of a smile.
'It never depressed him, so far as I know,' said Joy. 'Is that what you're wondering?'
'The books appear to be in order. Up to date.'
'They would be. Stanley was methodical, as a treasurer should be.' He signalled a shift in tone by putting down his cup and saucer. 'Nobody informed me you were taking away the church accounts. I have to say I take a dim view of that.'
'I was acting for the coroner,' said PC Mitchell without apologising. 'We don't upset people for the sake of it, but when all's said and done, we have the job to do and the power to carry it out.'
'When will we get them back?'
'Today, if you like. We've finished with them.'
'Barking up the wrong tree, then?'
'We bark up all the trees, Rector.'
A wasp was hovering over Otis Joy's cake. 'The cause of Stanley's death is obvious, isn't it?'
'Not so much as you'd think. He didn't leave a note. That's unusual, him being so methodical.'
'Surely the burglary …'
'In my job, you learn not to make assumptions. I just assemble the facts for the coroner. When did you last see Stanley?'
The wasp had settled on the cake. It wouldn't move, even when a paper napkin was waved over it. 'Now you're asking. I'm hopeless at remembering.'
'But I expect you keep a diary. You'd need to, with all the things you have to do.'
'Good thought. Did Stanley keep one?' Joy suggested as a diversion.
'None that we found.' PC Mitchell leaned across and flicked the wasp off Joy's piece of cake with his fingernail, killing it outright. 'I'd like to see yours.'
'1 could fetch it if you like.' The offer was half-hearted.
Mitchell gave a nod.
'But I can't let you take it away. I depend on it.'
There was no reaction from the coroner's officer.
In the security of his study, Otis Joy turned to the relevant page of the diary. He was ninety-nine per cent sure he hadn't made a note of Stanley's visit on the day of his death. Stanley had not made an appointment. He had come at lunchtime, fretting over the burglary. The chance of anyone having seen him was slight. Mercifully the rectory was not overlooked. It stood at the end of a lane behind the church.
As he thought, there was no record of the visit in the diary.
Back in the garden, George Mitchell had finished his slice of cake, and was biting into a plum he had picked.
'It's just an appointments book,' Joy explained. 'Baptisms, weddings and funerals and the odd Parish Council meeting.'
Mitchell licked his sticky fingers and wiped them on a paper napkin before handling the diary.
'This is the ninth, the day of the burglary.'
'Is it? I wouldn't remember.'
'You had a day off by the looks of things.';
'That's right. I'm busy on!the Sabbath, you see. I take my day off some time in the week.'
'What do you do? Potter about the house?'
'No, I need to get out of the village. There are interruptions if I stay in.'
'So you wouldn't have had a visit from Stanley?'
'I wasn't here.'
'You're certain?'
Otis Joy hesitated. Did Mitchell have some information? 'I told you I went out for the day. What's this about?'
Mitchell turned over the page and looked at the innocuous entries for the 10th: a visit to the church school for scripture lesson; two home calls on recently bereaved families; a wedding preparation meeting; an ecumenical meeting with the Methodist and Catholic clergy at Warminster.
'It's about money,' Mitchell said, and Otis Joy twitched.
'Damned flies,' he said, rubbing his face.
'On the day of the burglary, Mr. Burrows visited the bank and took out a hundred pounds in cash from his personal account. When he was found, he had less than twenty in his wallet.'
'Wasn't some cash stolen from the cottage?'
'Ninety-two pounds. But that was in the morning. He drew out this money in the afternoon.'
'And spent about eighty apparently,' said the rector, trying to sound uninterested. 'Perhaps he had a bill to pay.'
'According to the parish account book, he paid a hundred and sixty-two pounds into the church account the same afternoon. Seventy of that was the takings from the bring-and-buy morning. I think the other ninety-two was his own money.'
