'Yeah. Specially with sex maniacs like you around.'
He resumed his fondling and Vicky rotated her buttocks against his loins. The Mother of God gazed serenely just above their heads as his fingers flicked open the buttons of Vicky's blouse and slid her bra up, revealing nipples as brown and hard as the carved acorns that decorated the oak lectern.
'Stay there,' he ordered, suddenly letting go of her. He sprinted to the church door, slid the big bolt across, and was back with her in seconds. Vicky stood pulling the front of her blouse together.
Lee grabbed her hand. 'C'mon,' he ordered.
'Where?' whimpered Vicky.
'In here,' he replied, dragging her towards the vestry. The only furniture in there was the vicar's ancient writing desk and a chair. On the floor in front of the desk was a thick woollen rug, woven in a pattern representing scarab beetles. It was from Morocco, and had been presented to the church by the local Bible-Koran Society, in a gesture of conciliation.
Lee closed the door behind them. The key was in the lock, so he turned it. He kissed Vicky roughly, fondling her and fumbling with her clothing, then forced her down on to the rug.
After the absolute minimum of preliminaries he hooked his fingers into her pants and pulled them off. This time she eased her buttocks off the ground to facilitate their passage.
Lee was kneeling between her legs. He undid his jeans and was on to and into her with a speed that would have impressed a Wensleydale sheep farmer.
Their lovemaking depended on enthusiasm and athleticism rather than tenderness and concern. The aim was to achieve a fleeting moment of intense pleasure as rapidly as possible, which would immediately be followed by a feeling of wondering what all the fuss had been about until the urge to do it again slowly returned.
Sex in unusual places has its own eroticism, but it does sometimes fall down on practicality. Vicky was lying entirely within the borders of the woven pattern, but Lee's feet projected beyond it, on to the parquet floor, which the ladies of the congregation polished, with assiduity and Johnson's wax, every Tuesday morning.
He was wearing Reebok basketball boots, famed for their grip on slippery surfaces. Every thrust of his loins pushed Vicky and the rug across the floor, and every three or four thrusts his toes stuttered forwards to bring him back into the optimum position. Slowly they progressed across the vestry, like some Gothic, ratchet-propelled animal.
It was unsatisfactory for Vicky, too. She flailed her arms around, trying to find a fixture to cling to. There was nothing at all within the arc of her right arm, but the left was underneath the big wooden desk.
She groped about in vain for several seconds, then she thought her fingertips brushed something. The next thrust confirmed her thoughts and the one after that brought it within her grasp.
Vicky grabbed hold and braced herself. It wasn't the solid anchorage she was hoping for. It was soft and yielding, as well as wet and sticky.
It was another hand.
Vicky gasped with terror and yanked her own hand back.
She held it above her and blood dripped from it onto her face.
Her scream echoed around the high roof and set the starlings flying from the tower. With a mighty convulsion she threw Lee off and jumped to her feet. The locked door delayed her progress slightly, but within seconds she was running barefoot out into the night, still screaming.
Lee had just reached the good bit. Vicky's first recoil action made him think that for once his timing was perfect. He was on the backstroke, on the verge of the big finale, when she shot out from under him. He impregnated a woven scarab beetle with half a billion of his healthy, if genetically undistinguished, spermatozoa.
Exhausted and frustrated, he collapsed on the rug. He was facing the underside of the desk, but his right arm was obscuring his vision.
Beyond his arm, in the shadows under the desk, Lee could make out what looked like somebody's shoulder, wearing a tweed jacket. His hand was trembling uncontrollably as he drew it back, and he found himself staring into the sightless gaze of the late Reverend Ronald Conway.
Lee caught Vicky at the reproduction lich-gate. She was sobbing and screaming and cursing because she'd hurt her feet in her panic. He grabbed her arm and manhandled her into the car, before shaking her until her teeth rattled. It was an effective treatment for hysteria.
When she quietened down they drove off. Parked in a farm gateway a couple of miles away, they reviewed the situation: they'd had an appointment with the vicar; his wife knew their names; Vicky had left her shoes and knickers behind and Lee had deposited a sample of his body fluids that would have provided for the nation's in vitro fertilisation programme into the next century.
'They'd find us,' Lee concluded.
So, for the second time that day, he voluntarily walked into a building that he would normally have avoided like a crocodile avoids sticky toffee. They went to the police station and reported finding a body.
Detective Inspector 'Oscar' Peterson had seen it all before. He didn't like churches and the last thing he'd been hoping for was another murder. Especially one like this. A nice juicy domestic would have been OK, but the murder of a vicar didn't fall into the normal pattern of crime. It jarred, like a satellite dish on a Georgian terrace.
Peterson could have retired on full pension three months ago; so he was now working, as he constantly reminded anyone who'd listen, for one-third pay. He needed this like Salman Rushdie needs a season ticket at Bradford Park Avenue.
He was standing in the doorway of the vestry, trying to build a mental picture of what had happened. He'd already set the wheels of a murder enquiry into motion, and was waiting for the SOCO and the superintendent from regional HQ to appear. At his elbow was the young PC who had made the initial response to the report.
'One thing I did notice, sir,' said the PC, eager to please, 'was the smell. It was quite strong then, but you can still smell it.' He sniffed audibly, as if to suggest how.
DI Peterson inhaled through his nicotine-wrecked nasal passages. What lingered of the heady mixture of gun smoke, sex and Vicky's cheap perfume stirred his few remaining receptors into life. He looked thoughtful.
The PC sniffed again. 'Mean anything to you, sir?' he asked.
'Yes,' replied Peterson. 'Shithouse on a French destroyer.'
It was nearly midnight when the coroner gave his permission for the body to be removed to the Princess Royal Hospital for a post-mortem. DI Peterson had done all he could at this late hour organised his team, set up an incident room and taken steps to protect the scene of the offence so he went home. He wanted to know the results of the PM as soon as they were available, but he'd no desire to witness the whole gory spectacle. He'd sat through plenty and knew he wouldn't faint or be sick, but didn't feel the need to prove it.
His wife, Dilys, was waiting up for him. The DI said he would be going out again and she made him a sandwich. He told her all about the murder at the vicarage.
They had a good marriage, based on love and, above all, an enduring friendship. Unlike most policemen he always told her about all his cases, especially the difficult or more spectacular ones. The Job was the only thing he could talk about. That was what worried him. Could their happiness survive twenty-four hours per day of each other's company if he retired? Could he survive it? Three months was supposedly the average pension-drawing span of ex-police officers. He shuddered at the thought.
Professor Alan Tuke, the pathologist, raised his head from his grisly work as Peterson entered the mortuary lab. He winked at the DI and mischievously said: 'DI Peterson enters room at… two ten a.m.' for the benefit of the video sound recorder. Peterson picked up a swivel stool and took it to the furthest corner of the lab, where he could hear but not see. The Professor was nearing the end of his immediate investigation. He was removing various organs and putting them in glass jars for later analysis. Not that it would be necessary the cause of death had been fairly obvious. Nobody poisons a victim, then cuts them in half with a shotgun to hide the evidence. The DI listened to him intoning his progress into the microphone and admired his thoroughness.
The final act was to stitch up the cadaver and make it reasonably presentable for the grieving widow to mourn over. Tuke allowed his assistant to do this. He peeled off his gloves, discarded his plastic apron and white overall and was immediately transformed from slaughterhouse worker into university professor. After he'd scrubbed his hands up to his elbows he walked over to Peterson and offered him something.
'Little present for your Black Museum, Oscar. Don't deny it; I know you have one somewhere in that desirable
