“In fi ts and starts.”
“You need a change of scenery to take your mind off things.”
“Could be. But why do I think this is heading in a direction I might learn to regret?”
“If the direction’s Cornwall?”
“That doesn’t sound half bad. Who’s buying?”
“I am.”
“You’re on, Inspector. When do I leave?”
IT WAS A QUARTER TO FIVE when Lynley and St. James walked up the short drive to the vicarage. No car was parked there, but a light burned in what appeared to be the kitchen. Another shone behind the curtains from a fi rst-fl oor room, making a tawny glow against which they could see a figure moving in silhouette, distorted Quasimodo-like from the way the material hung behind the glass. Next to the front door, a collection of rubbish waited to be carted away. It seemed to consist mostly of newspapers, empty containers for household cleaning agents, and dirty rags. These last gave off the distinct and eye-watering smell of ammonia, as if testifying to the victory of antisepsis in whatever war of cleanliness had been waged inside the house.
Lynley rang the bell. St. James looked across the street and frowned thoughtfully at the church. He said, “My guess is that she’ll probably have to dig through the local newspapers to get some sort of account of the death, Tommy. I can’t think the Bishop of Truro will tell Barbara anything more than his secretary told me. And that’s counting on her ability to get in to see him in the first place. He could put her off for days, especially if there
“Havers’ll deal with it in one fashion or another. I certainly wouldn’t put strong-arming a bishop past her. That sort of thing is her stock in trade.” Lynley rang the bell again.
“But as to Truro’s admitting to any nasty proclivities on the part of Sage…”
“That’s a problem. But nasty proclivities are only one possibility. We’ve already seen there are dozens of others, some applying to Sage, some to Mrs. Spence. If Havers uncovers anything questionable, no matter what it is, at least we’ll have more to work with than we have at the moment.” Lynley peered through the kitchen window. The light that was on came from a small bulb above the cooker. The room was empty. “Ben Wragg said there was a housekeeper at work here, didn’t he?” He rang the bell a third time.
A voice finally responded from behind the door, hesitant and low. “Who’s there, please?”
“Scotland Yard CID,” Lynley replied. “I’ve identification if you’d like to see it.”
The door cracked open, then closed quickly once Lynley had passed the warrant card through. Nearly a minute passed. A tractor rumbled by in the street. A school bus disgorged six uniformed pupils at the edge of the car park in front of St. John the Baptist Church before trundling up the incline with its indicator flashing for the Trough of Bowland.
The door opened again. A woman stood in the entry. She was holding the warrant card mostly enclosed in one fist while her other hand grabbed at the crew neck of her pullover and bunched it up as if she were concerned that it might not be covering her suffi ciently. Her hair — a long crinkly mass that looked electrically charged — hid more than half of her face. The shadows hid the rest.
“Vicar’s dead, you know,” she said in not much more than a mumble. “Died last month. Constable found him on the footpath. He ate something bad. It was an accident.”
She was stating what she must have known they’d already been told, as if she had no idea at all that New Scotland Yard had been prowling round the village for the last twenty-four hours on the trail of this death. It was diffi cult to believe that she wouldn’t have heard of their presence before this, especially, Lynley realised as he studied her, since she certainly had been sitting in the pub with a male companion on the previous night when St. John Townley-Young had paid his call. Townley-Young had accosted the man with her, in fact.
She didn’t move away from the doorway to let them in. But she shivered from the cold, and Lynley looked down to see that her feet were bare. He also saw that she was wearing trousers, fine grey herring bone.
“May we come in?”
“It was an accident,” she said. “Everyone knows that.”
“We won’t stay long. And you ought to get out of the cold.”
She gripped her pullover’s neck more tightly. She looked from him to St. James and back to him before she stepped away from the door and admitted them into the house.
“You’re the housekeeper?” Lynley asked.
“Polly Yarkin,” she said.
Lynley introduced St. James and went on to say, “May we talk to you?” He felt the curious need to be gentle with her, and he couldn’t determine exactly why. There was something both frightened and defeated in her air, like a horse that’s been broken by an ill-tempered hand. She seemed ready to bolt in an instant.
She led them into the sitting room where she turned the switch on a floor lamp to no effect. She said, “Bulb’s gone, isn’t it,” and left them alone.
In the diminishing light of dusk, they could see that whatever personal possessions the vicar had owned, they were gone. What was left was a sofa, an ottoman, and two chairs arranged round a coffee table. Across from them a bookshelf reached from floor to ceiling, empty of books. Something glittered on the floor next to this, and Lynley went to investigate. St. James strolled to the window and pushed the curtains to one side, saying, “Nothing much out there. The shrubs look bad. There’re plants on the step,” mostly to himself.
Lynley picked up a small globe of silver that lay, unhinged and open, on the carpet. Scattered round it were the desiccated remains of triangular fleshy bits that appeared to be fruit. He picked up one of these as well. It had no scent. Its texture was like a dried sponge. The globe was connected to a matching silver chain. Its clasp was broken.
“That’s mine.” Polly Yarkin had returned, lightbulb in hand. “I wondered where it got itself off to.”
“What is it?”
“Amulet. For health. Mum likes me to wear it. Silly. Like garlic. But you can’t tell Mum that. She’s ever one to believe in charms.”
Lynley handed it to her. She returned his warrant card. Her fingers felt feverish. She went to the floor lamp, changed the bulb, switched it on, and retreated to one of the chairs which she stood behind, her hands curved round its back.
Lynley went to the sofa. St. James joined him. She nodded at them to sit, although it seemed clear that she had no intention of sitting herself. Lynley gestured to the chair, said, “This won’t take long,” and waited for her to move.
She did so reluctantly, one hand holding on to the back of the chair as if she would pull herself behind it again. Sitting, she was more fully in the light, and it appeared that light and not their company was what she wished to avoid.
He saw for the first time that the trousers she wore belonged to a man’s suit. They were far too long. She’d rolled the bottoms into bulky cuffs.
“Vicar’s,” she said in hesitant explanation. “I don’t think anyone will mind, do you? I tripped on the back step just a bit ago. Ripped my skirt up proper. Clumsy as an old cow, I am.”
He raised his eyes to her face. An angry red welt curved from under the protective curtain of her hair, marking a path that ended at the corner of her mouth.
“Clumsy,” she said again, and she gave a little laugh. “I’m always running into things.
Mum should’ve gave me an amulet to keep me steady on my feet.”
She pushed her hair forward a bit more. Lynley wondered what else she was trying to hide on her face. Her skin was shiny across what he could see of her forehead, perspiration either from nerves or from illness. It wasn’t warm enough in the house for the sheen of sweat to be realistically from anything else. He said, “Are you quite all right? May we phone a doctor for you?”
She rolled the trouser cuffs down to cover her feet and tucked the extra material round them. “I never seen a doctor these past ten years. I just fell. I’m all right.”
