Lynley watched her, frowning, noting the odd manner in which she held her pullover bunched in front of her with both hands. She didn’t stand up straight. When she walked she favoured her right leg.
He said abruptly, “Who’s been to see you today, Polly?”
Just as abruptly she stopped. “No one. Least no one that I recall.” She made a show of thinking the question over, creasing her brow and concentrating on the carpet as if she would see the answer there. “Nope. No one at all.”
“I don’t believe you. You didn’t fall, did you?”
“I did. Out back.”
“Who was it? Has Mr. Townley-Young been to see you? Did he want to talk to you about the pranks at Cotes Hall?”
She seemed genuinely surprised. “The Hall? No.”
“About last night in the pub, then? About the man you were with? That was his son-inlaw, wasn’t it?”
“No. I mean it was. It was Brendan, true. But Mr. Townley-Young hasn’t been here.”
“Then who—”
“I fell. I got banged up. It’ll teach me to be more careful.” She left the room.
Lynley pushed himself to his feet and walked to the window. From there he paced to the bookcase. Then back to the window. A wall radiator was hissing beneath it, insistent and irritating. He tried to turn the knob. It seemed permanently stuck. He clenched it, fought with it, burnt his hand, and cursed.
“Tommy.”
He swung round to St. James, who hadn’t moved from the sofa. “
“Perhaps more importantly, why?”
“
St. James’ voice was low and perfectly calm. “Consider the situation. Scotland Yard arrives and begins asking questions. Everyone’s meant to toe the already established line. Perhaps Polly doesn’t want to. Perhaps someone knows that.”
“Christ, that’s not even the point, St. James. Someone beat her up. Someone out there. Someone—”
“Your hands are full and she doesn’t want to talk. She could be afraid. She could be merely protective. We don’t know. The larger issue at the moment is whether what happened to her is connected to what happened to Robin Sage.”
“You sound like Barbara Havers.”
“Someone has to.”
Polly returned, a slip of paper in her hand. “Hamilton House,” she said. “Here’s the phone as well.”
Lynley put the slip of paper into his pocket. “How many times did Mr. Sage go to London?”
“Four. Perhaps five. I can look in his diary if you want to know for certain.”
“His diary’s still here?”
“All his things’s here. His will said to give all his belongings to charity, but it didn’t say which. The church council said to pack everything up until they decide where to send them. Would you like to look through it?”
“If we may.”
“In the study.”
She led them back along the corridor, past the stairway. She’d apparently been cleaning spots in the carpet sometime that day because Lynley noticed patches of damp that he hadn’t seen when they first entered the house: near the door and in an uneven trail to the stairs where one of the walls had been washed as well. Beneath a bare urn stand opposite the stairway, a strip of multicoloured material curled. As Polly walked on, oblivious, Lynley picked it up. It was flimsy, he discovered, similar to gauze, with threads of metallic gold running through it. It reminded him of the Indian dresses and skirts he’d often seen for sale in outdoor markets. Thoughtfully, he twisted it round his finger, felt an unusual stiffness to it, and held it up to the ceiling light which Polly had turned on in their progress towards the front of the house. The material was heavily blotched with a rusty stain. It was frayed on the edges, ripped from a larger piece, not cut with scissors. Lynley examined it with little surprise. He put it into his pocket and followed St. James into the vicar’s study.
Polly stood next to the desk. She’d lit the lamp on it, but positioned herself so that her hair cast an oblique shadow across her face.
The room was crowded with cartons, all of them labelled, one of them open. This contained clothes, obviously the source of Polly’s trousers.
Lynley said, “He had a lot of possessions.”
“Not a lot of important stuff. It’s just that he was a bit of a hoarder. When I wanted to throw something away, I had to put it in his work tray on the desk and let him decide. Mostly he kept things, especially London things. Tickets to museums, a day pass for the underground. Like they were souvenirs. He just collected odd bits, did the vicar. Some people are like that, aren’t they.”
Lynley wandered among the cartons, reading the labels.
“Things from his pockets, scraps. Theatre programmes. That sort of thing.”
“And the diary? Where would we fi nd it?”
She pointed to the cartons marked
“No one,” she said. “The church council told me to pack everything up and seal it and mark it, but they haven’t looked things over yet. I expect they’ll want to keep the parish business carton, won’t they, and they might want to offer his sermons to the new vicar as well. The clothes can go to—”
“And prior to your packing things into cartons?” Lynley asked. “Who went through his things then?”
She hesitated. She was standing near him. He could smell the odour of her perspiration soaking into the wool of her pullover.
“After the vicar died,” Lynley clarified, “during the investigation, did anyone look through his belongings?”
“Constable,” she said.
“Did he go through the vicar’s things alone? Were you with him? Was his father?”
Her tongue darted out to dampen her upper lip. “I brought him tea. Every day. I was in and out.”
“So he worked alone?” When she nodded, he said, “I see,” and unsealed the fi rst carton as St. James did the same to another. He said, “Maggie Spence was a frequent visitor to the vicarage, as I understand. She was a great
favourite of the vicar.”
“I suppose.”
“Did they meet alone?”
“Alone?” Polly picked at a rough spot on the side of her thumb.
“The vicar and Maggie. Did they meet alone? In here? In the sitting room? Somewhere else? Upstairs?”
Polly surveyed the room as if looking for the memory. “In here mostly, I’d say.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Was the door open or shut?”
She began to unseal one of the cartons. “Shut. Mostly.” Before Lynley could ask another question, she went on. “They liked to talk. Bible stuff. They loved the Bible. I’d bring them their tea. He’d be sitting in that chair”—she pointed to an overstuffed chair on which three more cartons were piled—“and Maggie’d be on the stool. There. In front of the desk.”
A discreet four feet away, Lynley noted. He wondered who placed it there: Sage, Maggie, or Polly herself. He said, “Did the vicar meet with other young people from the
parish?”
“No. Just Maggie.”
“Did you think that unusual? After all, there was a social club for the teenagers, as I understand. He never
