“Yes. Any reports come in?”
“Nothing, sir. No joy anywhere.”
“Southampton? The stationer’s shop?”
“Nothing.”
“Thank God.”
“I beg pardon, Mr. Alleyn?”
“Never mind. It’s, to coin a phrase, a case of no news being good news. Keep going, though. Until you get orders to the contrary and if any sign or sniff of Carter comes up let me know at once. At once. This is of great importance. Understood?”
“Understood, Mr. Alleyn.”
Alleyn hung up and looked at his watch. Four-thirty.
“We give it an hour and then go over,” he said.
The hour passed slowly. Rain streamed down the blinded window pane. Small occupational noises could be heard in the front office and the intermittent sounds of passing vehicles.
At twenty past five the constable on duty brought in that panacea against anxiety that the Force has unfailingly on tap: strong tea in heavy cups and two recalcitrant biscuits.
Alleyn, with difficulty, swallowed the tea. He carried his cup into the front office where Sergeant McGuiness, with an affectation of nonchalance, said it wouldn’t be long now, would it?
“No,” said Alleyn, “you can gird up your loins, such as they are,” and returned to his own room. He and Fox exchanged a nod and put on heavy mackintoshes, sou’westers and gum boots. He looked at his watch. Half-past five.
“Give it three minutes,” he said. They waited.
The telephone rang in the front office but not for them. They went through. Sergeant McGuiness was attired in oilskin and sou’wester.
Alleyn said to P.C. Dance: “If there’s a call for me from Missing Persons, ring Upper Quintern Rectory. Have the number under your nose.”
He and Fox and McGuiness went out into the rain and drove to Upper Quintern village. The interior of the car smelt of stale smoke, rubber and petrol. The wind-screen wipers jerked to and fro, surface water fanned up from under their wheels and sloshed against the windows. The sky was so blackened with rainclouds that a premature dusk seemed to have fallen on the village. Not a soul was abroad in Long Lane. The red window curtains in the bar of the Passcoigne Arms glowed dimly.
“This is not going to let up,” said Fox.
Alleyn led the way up a steep and slippery path to the vicarage. They were expected and the door was opened before they reached it.
The Vicar, white-faced and anxious, welcomed them and took them to his study, which was like all parsonic studies with its framed photographs of ordinands and steel engravings of’classic monuments, its high fender, its worn chairs and its rows of predictable literature.
“This is a shocking business,” said the Vicar. “I can’t tell you how distressing I find it. Is it — I mean I suppose it must be — absolutely necessary?”
“I’m afraid it is,” said Alleyn.
“Inspector Fox,” said the Vicar, looking wistfully at him, “was very discreet.”
Fox modestly contemplated the far wall of the study.
“He said he thought he should leave it to you to explain.”
“Indeed,” Alleyn rejoined with a long hard stare at his subordinate.
“And I do hope you will. I think I should know. You see, it is consecrated ground.”
“Yes.”
“So — may I, if you please, be told?” asked the Vicar with what Alleyn thought, rather touching simplicity.
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll tell you why we are doing it and what we think we may find. In honesty I should add that we may find nothing and the operation therefore may prove to have been quite fruitless. But this is the theory.”
The Vicar listened.
“I think,” he said when Alleyn had finished, “that I’ve never heard anything more dreadful. And I have heard some very dreadful things. We do, you know.”
“I’m sure.”
“Even in quiet little parishes like this. You’d be surprised, wouldn’t he, Sergeant McGuiness?” asked the Vicar. He waited for a moment and then said: “I must ask you to allow me to be present. I would rather not, of course, because I am a squeamish man. But — I don’t want to sound pompous — I think it’s my duty.”
Alleyn said: “We’ll be glad to have you there. As far as possible we’ll try to avoid attracting notice. I’ve been wondering if by any chance there’s a less public way of going to the church than up those steps.”
“There is our path. Through the shrubbery and thicket. It will be rather damp but it’s short and inconspicuous. I would have to guide you.”
“If you will. I think,” Alleyn said, “our men have arrived. They’re coming here first, I hope you don’t mind?”
He went to the window and the others followed. Down below on the “green” a small delivery van had pulled up. Three men in mackintoshes and wet hats got out. They opened the rear door and took out a large carpenter’s kit-bag and a corded bundle of considerable size that required two men to carry it.
“In the eye of a beholder,” Alleyn grunted, “this would look like sheer lunacy.”
“Not to the village,” said the Vicar. “It they notice. They’ll only think it’s the boiler again.”
“The boiler?”
“Yes. It has become unsafe and is always threatening to explode. Just look at those poor fellows,” said the Vicar. “Should I ask my wife to make tea? Or coffee?”
Alleyn declined this offer. “Perhaps later,” he said.
The men climbed the path in single file, carrying their gear. Rain bounced off their shoulders and streamed from their hat brims. Alleyn opened the door to them.
“We’re in no shape to come into the house, sir,” one of them said. He removed his hat and Bailey was revealed. Thompson stood behind him hung about with well-protected cameras.
“No, no, no. Not a bit of it,” bustled the Vicar. “We’ve people in and out all day. Haven’t we, McGuiness? Come in. Come in.”
They waited, dripping, in the little hall. The Vicar kilted up his cassock, found himself a waterproof cape and pulled on a pair of galoshes.
“I’ll just get my brolly,” he said and sought it in the porch.
Alleyn asked the men: “Is that a tent or an enclosure?” A framed tent, they said. It wouldn’t take long to erect: there was no wind.
“We go out by the back,” said the Vicar. “Shall I lead the way?”
The passage reeked of wetness and of its own house-smelclass="underline" something suggestive of economy and floor polish. From behind one door came the sound of children’s voices and from the kitchen the whirr of an egg-beater. They arrived at a side door that opened on to the all-pervading sound and sight of rain.
“I’m afraid,” said the Vicar, “it will be rather heavy going. Especially with—” he paused and glanced unhappily at their gear, “—your burden,” he said.
It was indeed heavy going. The shrubbery, a dense untended thicket, came to within a yard of the house and the path plunged directly into it. Water-laden branches slurred across their shoulders and slapped their faces, runnels of water gushed about their feet. They slithered, manoeuvred, fell about and shambled on again. The Vicar’s umbrella came in for a deal of punishment
“Not far now,” he said at last and sure enough they were out of the wood and within a few yards of the church door.
The Vicar went first. It was already twilight in the church and he switched on lights, one in the nave and one in the south transept, which was furnished as a lady chapel. The men followed him self-consciously down the aisle and Bailey only just fetched up in time to avoid falling over the Vicar when he abruptly genuflected before turning right. The margin between tragedy and hysteria is a narrow one and Alleyn suppressed an impulse, as actors say, to “corpse”; an only too apposite synonym in this context.