Rainbow's End

‘Interesting!’ said George. ‘It looks as if you’ve got yourself a job this afternoon.’

Dr Goodwin bounded up from his knees, and scrubbed his hands vigorously. ‘So it seems! Right now I wouldn’t give you a precise cause of death, obvious though it may seem. Can I have him now?’

So that was that. A post-mortem was essential, and the shadow of murder was already looming as the shadow of the tower crept round to mark the passing of noon. A man falling by accident may certainly claw at the stones to try to arrest his fall. Even a suicide may change his mind at the last moment, and try to cling to the world he has set out to abandon. But in neither case is he likely to end up with his head the most intact part of him after the fall, cushioned in vegetation, and yet with an indented wound at the back of his skull.

They hoisted the rag-doll remains of Rainbow into a plastic sheet, packed him into a shell, and stowed him away in Reece Goodwin’s van for his journey to the hospital mortuary in Comerbourne. The vicar, hovering unhappily in the background, was almost relieved when he was asked if the police might borrow the parish hall as an incident room, and was left there with Sergeant Moon to make a formal statement, while Detective Sergeant Brice and Constables Reynolds and Collins began a methodical examination of the church from nave to tower, layer by layer, and George, ruefully shouldering the most distasteful duty left, went in person to break the news to Barbara Rainbow.

He was halfway up the drive, among the calculated spaces and tastefully positioned statuary, when it dawned on him that while the widow might be badly shaken by this death, possibly no one in the world would be really sorry. In his own business circles Rainbow appeared to have been watched, respected, envied and copied, but never actually liked. In this valley he had made himself not so much detested as dangerous, and not to be tolerated, like a disease. Middlehope would breathe more freely now that he was gone. And the spectacular Barbara?

She opened the door to him herself, in grey slacks and a silk shirt, her hair down round her shoulders; and her black brows, drawn together over eyes focused somewhere far beyond him, suddenly smoothed out in relief. She recognised him gladly. Recalling the party intimacy, she said: ‘George…!’ and even launched upon a genuine, if anxious, smile, and then she looked more closely, and grew cool and still, and certain of a thunderbolt. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry! That was presumptuous. It’s Superintendent Felse isn’t it? This is official.’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said George.

‘Come in! As a matter of fact,’ she said, closing the door upon the world and leading the way into the small drawing-room where Rainbow’s grand piano stood, ‘I’ve just called the police down the valley. Do sit down! But you… you’re C.I.D, aren’t you? How could you be involved?’ The dark eyes were intent and guarded, and she was pale. Hardly any make-up, he realised, and as beautiful as ever. ‘I’ve been calling his shops, and his dealers, and everybody I could think of who might know his movements, ever since I called the vicar, early this morning. Nobody knows anything. So finally I called the police. But just the police. That wouldn’t come straight to you. You must have come into it some other way. And you do know something, don’t you?’

‘The vicar called Sergeant Moon,’ said George, ‘who called me. For sufficient reason.’

‘Yours is the criminal division,’ she said deliberately. ‘Are you suggesting there’s something criminal involved?’

It was an eventuality which had never occurred to him, though all too clearly it had to her. He could not believe that she was acting or prevaricating. The first thing that had occurred to her, when her husband vanished without trace, was that he had excellent reason for doing so. What she dreaded was something that would involve her loyalty. Not her integrity. Not her affection. George was suddenly sure that the news he was actually bringing would be very much easier to bear.

‘Not as you mean. No question of any criminal act on your husband’s part. After your morning call the vicar was naturally worried, and went to see if there was any suggestion to be found in the church. He found a situation which made him call our department at once. Your husband is dead, Mrs Rainbow. It looks as if he fell to his death from the church tower last night. I’m sorry to be the bearer of such news.’

He’d been right to go ahead bluntly with the fact. And the first thing he saw in her, or was almost certain he saw, was that she had never for a moment considered this possibility. Either that, or she was an actress right out of his experience. Her eyes flared wide open, her face blanched with shock, her hands, which had been bunched into doubled fists a moment before, lay loose in her lap. The second thing he saw, as she stirred slowly out of her stillness, was that she had glimpsed a marvellous light at the end of a long and still suspect tunnel. So that was all! He was dead, and she hadn’t killed him, or even willed his death. Simply, he wasn’t there any more!

‘Are you sure?’ she said in a muted, wary voice, letting the syllables slide out one by one as if they had to carry passports. ‘Arthur’s dead? But how could it happen? Why should he fall from the tower? Why should he even climb the tower? All he wanted was the organ, and the choir to go with it.’ The single virtue Rainbow had possessed hit her suddenly, she knotted her hands again, and rocked like a genuine widow. ‘He did care for music, you know! Only he never really felt it in his bones.’

His bones were in splinters from the waist down, and he was almost excessively dead. George experienced her brief, guilty, unloving pity, and understood it. She didn’t really owe very much.

‘You’ll want to ask me questions,’ she said reasonably. ‘Where is he? Do you need me to – to identify him, or anything?’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ said George. ‘But you’ll understand that his death presents something of a problem, and we shall have to collect all the information possible that can shed any light on it. For instance, it seems hardly likely that he set out to take his own life.’

‘No, he never would,’ said Barbara positively.

‘The idea of an accidental fall presents difficulties, too.’

‘I understand,’ she said bluntly. ‘You can’t rule out the possibility that someone else had a hand in it. It’s all right, I know where I stand now. The marriage partner is normally the first suspect. You’ll want access to all his papers and accounts. You’d better have the key of his office now, everything in it is just as he left it. And you’ll want a statement from me, about his movements yesterday, and mine.’

‘I’ll send someone later to get a formal statement. Now just tell me. Things were as usual yesterday? He went to choir practice at the usual time? There was nothing out of the way in his manner?’

‘Everything was just the same as ever. He always walked to the church, it’s not far by the side gate. He went out at the usual time, and he told me he’d be late back, because he wanted to get in some practice after the choir left. That’s why I wasn’t worried until around midnight. He could easily have stopped in at the vicar’s afterwards, and sat talking about his plans for the season’s music. He intended some drastic changes. They weren’t too popular with the choir. Some modern music is very ungrateful stuff for voices. I was here alone all the evening, and went to bed without waiting for him. Even when I woke up later, and found he still hadn’t come in, I can’t say I was really worried. He didn’t invariably consult me, or even warn me, before taking off on business at a moment’s notice. And