Andrea had told them that no way would March go near the police, men like him handled the world alone. Felicity had made a feeble attempt to get them back on track, but no one seemed keen to discuss modes of body disposal or coffin choices so she wound the Café to a close and everyone left. Stella had stayed to clear up, but as she had the previous evening, Felicity, doubtless dejected at the failed Death Café, said she’d prefer to do it alone.
Stella had gone to the Death Café to face the subject of death and put grief for her dad finally to rest. Instead she was back in familiar territory. Murder.
A strip of light slanted over the flagstones. The south door to the abbey was ajar and from within came the deep strains of the organ. Joy must have gone straight to the abbey after the Death Café. Stella didn’t blame her; it must be Joy’s version of deep cleaning. Drawn by the grand tones, she crept inside.
On Stella’s first day in Tewksbury two months ago, she had discovered that the abbey allowed dogs. It had been raining so, Stanley in her arms, she’d dashed inside. She’d hoped that Stanley, who barked his head off at the drop of a hat, would stay quiet. Evensong had been beginning – Stella now knew Joy was on the organ – and seeing Stanley lulled to sleep by the prayers – like baby Jesus, an elderly woman had whispered – Stella had stayed.
After that Stella was a regular at evensong. Reliant on facts and evidence, she was sceptical about God, but she liked the music.
Now, keen to avoid Joy and guessing it would be mutual, Stella chose a chair behind one of the giant pillars nearest the north ambulatory. She let her gaze rest on the screen with, she’d read somewhere, its delicate foliated tracery. Not a classical music fan – that was Jack – yet Stella had no trouble recognizing Chopin’s Funeral March. Was Joy practising for a service or had she been influenced by the Death Café?
The triforium walk high up near the ceiling was not lit but, craning up, Stella could still distinguish the bosses carved above the piers, ill-tempered faces leering down at her. It was said they had been carved by a monk, who took out the teasing and insults he received from fellow craftsmen on his work. Was he the starved monk? Generally, the grotesque creatures amused her; tonight their expressions appeared terrible. She felt afraid.
Stella liked being alone and over the weeks the abbey had become another home, but now she knew Joy, Stella had forfeited anonymity, she felt hunted, like a rabbit on one of Joy’s colourful garments.
Stella caught a movement. In the gleam of a lamp a shadow was etched on the wall. Someone was on the other side of the column.
The music from the north transept ceased. Whoever it was would shortly leave. Joy must appear at any moment. Stella was about to inch along the row of chairs and cross the nave, away from the Grove organ, when she stopped.
Three figures lurked in the gloom of the south ambulatory. Stella shrank back into her seat, pointlessly – they must have been watching her for some minutes. Clustered outside the door to the vestry, they waited patiently. Although he would have been no help, Stella wished she had Stanley. Heart thudding against her chest, she told herself she was not afraid.
As she stared, the trio resolved into life-size effigies of the Three Kings. It was beyond paranoid to suspect the kings had been placed there to frighten her. It hadn’t worked, she would not be afraid.
The shadow of the person beyond the column had gone.
He or she had left silently, as if they didn’t want to be seen. So what? Stella would have done the same herself. She got up and, stepping into the north ambulatory, walked around the column. No one was there. All the chairs were unoccupied. Had there ever been anyone there? She looked at the wall. The low-angled lamps highlighted indentations in the stone, but nothing resembled the profile of a human face. Her mind was playing tricks. She had imagined the shadow.
A shoe scraped. Joy. In trying to avoid an imaginary person, Stella had forgotten Joy whose nature, if she found Stella there, would be far from joyful.
The organ struck up again and Stella let herself relax. Not music this time, but a series of jarring chords that did nothing for Stella’s jangled state. She moved to the north aisle; she wanted to regain a semblance of calm before she left. The abbey always improved her mood. There was something on one of the chairs, a prayer book or a Bible. It wasn’t a book. A peaked cap lay on the chair where she had imagined the shadow. She had not imagined it.
Stepping out into the darkness, talking in a low voice to Felicity who was obviously trying to stop him going on and on. Stella’s last sight of Roddy March had been of him cramming this peaked cap on his head.
Andrea had got March right: he hadn’t gone to the police, he had come to the abbey. That he had been listening to Joy on the organ faintly warmed Stella to him. She hadn’t associated his brash, thrusting personality with enjoying church music. After he’d gone, Joy maintained March was exploiting the fiction that Giles Northcote was innocent of killing his father in order to drum up interest in his podcast. Thinking this, Stella felt obscurely cheated. She’d have a word with him for ruining Felicity’s Death Café. He’d ruined it for her too.
Discordant notes reverberated around the abbey as Stella made her way past silent kings, towards the choir. Passing the vestry, she trod carefully past the presbytery on her left. In the apse she was closer to
