Colbeck smiled inwardly. The vicar’s earlier comment had some truth in it.
‘So nobody else would have access to the keys?’
‘Nobody,’ she insisted, ‘nobody at all.’
Victor Leeming was asking the same question of the other warden, Adam Revill, an emaciated man in his sixties with a few tufts of hair on a balding head. He was patently unwell and sat in a chair with a blanket around his shoulders. Every so often, he had a fit of coughing.
‘No, Sergeant,’ he asserted. ‘I never lend the key to the church to anybody. If I’m not using it, it stays on a hook in the kitchen. Maria will tell you the same.’
‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘Uncle Adam takes his duties seriously. It grieves him that he’s been unable to carry them out for a while. The doctor told him to stay indoors and rest.’
‘I’d be lost without Maria,’ said Revill, giving her arm an affectionate squeeze. ‘She’s been a godsend. Since my wife died, I’ve had to fend for myself. The moment I was taken ill, Maria began popping in to look after me.’
‘I only live four doors away,’ she said.
Maria Vine was an attractive woman in her thirties with a soft voice and a kind smile. Fond of her uncle, she wanted no thanks for keeping an eye on him.
‘I take it that you both knew Claude Exton,’ said Leeming.
‘Yes, we did,’ replied Revill, curling a lip. ‘We knew and disliked him.’
‘That’s not entirely true,’ said his niece.
‘He was a good-for-nothing, Maria.’
‘I know — and he was a nuisance to everybody. But he wasn’t that bad when his wife was alive.’ She turned to Leeming. ‘She was killed in a railway accident, Sergeant. It preyed on Mr Exton. That’s when he took to drink.’
‘He seems to have had a lot of enemies,’ observed Leeming.
‘I’m one of them,’ said Revill.
‘Yes, but you didn’t hate him enough to kill him, sir. And even if you did, you’d hardly do it inside a church.’
‘That’s true, Sergeant. A church is sacred.’
‘I feel sorry for Mr Gillard,’ said Maria. ‘He actually found the body.’
‘Yes,’ croaked Revill, ‘I pity Simon. But don’t ask me to shed any tears for Claude Exton. He’s gone and I’m glad.’
‘That’s a terrible thing to say,’ chided Maria. ‘Don’t speak ill of the dead.’
The rebuke set Revill off into a fit of coughing that went on for a full minute. Leeming waited patiently. Maria was embarrassed on her uncle’s behalf.
‘I’ll make a cup of tea,’ she announced. ‘Would you like one, Sergeant?’
‘Yes, please,’ said Leeming.
As soon as she went out of the room, Revill stopped coughing. He crooked a finger to beckon Leeming closer.
‘Don’t listen to Maria,’ he said. ‘She always tries to think the best of people.’
‘That’s a good attitude to take, sir.’
‘What she told you about Exton’s wife is not true. It may have looked like an accident but we know the truth.’ He lowered his voice. ‘She committed suicide.’
When they met up outside the church, the detectives were pleased to see that the body had been removed, the crowd had vanished and the door was locked. As a result of their interviews, both had acquired the names of people with a particular reason to detest Claude Exton. They compared their notes.
‘Let’s start with the people who appear on both lists,’ suggested Colbeck.
‘The man that Mr Revill kept on about was George Huxtable. He and Exton came to blows once,’ said Leeming. ‘Exton was bothering Mrs Huxtable.’
‘She wasn’t the only woman who caught his eye.’
‘He seems to have been a menace.’
‘What would you do if someone made a nuisance of himself to Estelle?’
‘Oh, I can tell you that,’ said Leeming, forcefully. ‘I’d have a quiet word with him and, if that didn’t work, I’d punch some sense into him.’
‘That might render you liable to arrest.’
‘I wouldn’t care, sir. Whatever it took, I’d protect my wife.’
‘And I’d do the same for my wife,’ said Colbeck. ‘Yet neither of us would go to the lengths of killing the person inside a church. The very idea would revolt us.’
‘It didn’t revolt the man who murdered Exton.’
‘How can you be sure it was a man, Victor?’
‘No woman would be able to carry his weight, sir.’
‘Two women might,’ argued Colbeck. ‘And one woman might move him on her own if she used a wheelbarrow. I’m not claiming that that’s what happened. I just think we should keep an open mind. A woman would have been capable of luring Exton into a position where he was off guard. No man could do that.’
‘Could any woman hate him enough to smash his head open?’
‘Why don’t you put that question to Mrs Huxtable?’
‘What will you be doing, sir?’
‘I’ll be talking to Harry Blacker. He’s the gravedigger.’
Anthony Vine more or less carried him up the narrow staircase. Revill protested but he knew that they were right. He was better off in bed where he could drift in and out of sleep. Maria was waiting in the bedroom to help her husband lift the older man into position. She plumped the pillows to make him comfortable and drew the bedclothes over him. After stifling a cough, Revill managed a smile of gratitude.
‘You’re both Good Samaritans — you really are.’
‘We’re family,’ said Vine, ‘and this is what families do for each other.’
‘But it’s so much trouble for you.’
‘Don’t be silly, Uncle Adam,’ said Maria. ‘It’s no trouble at all. I haven’t forgotten how good Aunt Rachel was to me when I was ill as a child. You used to come with her sometimes and tell me those wonderful ghost stories.’
‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it,’ said Vine with a grin. ‘I didn’t know that he enjoyed scaring the daylights out of my wife.’
‘I was only six at the time, Anthony,’ she reminded him.
‘All that I heard at that age were Bible stories.’
A few years older than his wife, Vine was a wiry individual of middle height with conventional good looks. Six days a week, he worked in the standard garb of a fireman but he now wore his suit. There was no sign of the routine dirt he picked up during his time on the footplate.
‘I still think it could be George Huxtable,’ whispered Revill.
‘Speak up, Uncle Adam,’ said Maria.
‘He and Exton were always snarling at each other.’
‘That doesn’t mean George killed him,’ reasoned Vine. ‘And if he did, he’d be more likely to dump him in the river than leave him in a church. George Huxtable only ever came near the church at Easter and Christmas.’
‘He and his wife are not the only ones,’ said Revill, darkly. ‘We have too many occasional Christians in Wolverton.’
‘Don’t worry about that now,’ said Maria, moving to the door. ‘We’re off now, Uncle Adam. One of us will pop in from time to time to see if you need anything. Anthony will bring you something to read, if you like.’
‘The only thing I read on the Sabbath is a Bible. And I still say it was George Huxtable,’ he added. ‘I’ve seen it coming for months.’
As soon as he laid eyes on the man, Victor Leeming could see that he’d have no trouble carrying a body over his shoulder. George Huxtable was a hulking man in his forties with a pair of angry eyes staring out of an unprepossessing face. His wife, May, by contrast, was a dainty woman with a fading prettiness. Side by side, they were an incongruous couple. When the sergeant introduced himself, Huxtable dismissed his wife with a flick of the hand and she fled to the kitchen.
‘I know why you’ve come,’ he said, arms folded. ‘People have been talking. Well, you’re wasting your time, Sergeant. I didn’t kill that bastard. Somebody got there before me.’
‘Show some respect, sir. The man is dead.’
‘It’s the best news I’ve had in years.’
‘You spent the night here, presumably,’ said Leeming.
‘Yes, I did. I worked the late shift at the factory,’ explained Huxtable. ‘While everyone else was back home for the evening, I was putting rivets into a locomotive that came in for repair.’