Suddenly solemn again, she waited.
“No one we’ve mentioned so far,” said Purbright. “He’s promised to make a statement this afternoon and I don’t doubt he will. He’s a joker. Rather a carnal young man. Somebody put him up to it.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me who?”
“I don’t think I should, if you don’t mind. Not for the moment.”
For the first time, Zoe looked agitated.
“All right, if you can’t tell me who, tell me why... Why, for Christ’s sake? Why should some goon want to—“
Before she could say more, there came two interruptions. One was the approach of Mrs Claypole, pushing a tea trolley; the other, a peal on the front door bell.
They heard the trolley halt outside the room. Mrs Claypole, mumbling protests, went on to answer the door. There reached them the voice of Sergeant Love. A few moments later, he was in the room. He carried something loosely wrapped in newspaper.
“I’m not promising anything,” the inspector said to Zoe, “but this may be the answer to your last question.”
Chapter Fourteen
Eunice Tiverton heard the firm stride of her husband upon the path and peeped out of the window to see if what she termed his “raise thine eyes” humour were still upon him. It obviously was not. He was scowling at the gravel as though the devil had planted it with weeds overnight.
The door of the vicarage was not slammed exactly, but its closure was unequivocal. What, Eunice asked herself, could possibly have gone wrong?
By the time he entered the room, Alan Tiverton had composed his features into a smile (his “masterful martyrdom” one, reflected his wife). He sat, his legs stretched out before him, and pityingly regarded his shoes.
Without being asked, she poured and handed him a large, sweet sherry.
He thanked her and downed half of it in one. She awaited revelation, knowing it would be something to do with the lovely Pagetter christening.
“Can’t understand the man. I really can’t.” Half the remaining sherry was disposed of.
“What man, dear?”
“Cork-Bradden. Absolutely illogical. I really wonder if he hasn’t gone a bit odd.”
She waited, not prompting, one eye on his nearly empty glass. An excellent wife, the bishop once had called her.
“It’s the baptism,” Mr Tiverton began. “Cork-Bradden has got it into his noddle that we ought to stick to the ‘ordinary drill’ as he calls it. He says he thinks the full-scale ceremonial would be ‘inappropriate in all the circumstances’.”
“What circumstances?”
The vicar slapped the arm of his chair. “Precisely. I don’t know what he’s on about. He may be Vicar’s Warden, but this is the first time I’ve had my judgment questioned on matters of ritual.”
“What does he object to?”
“He says the village would be upset if it were thought I was going back to Romish practices, and had I worked out how many gallons of holy water it would take to make any sort of decent level in the font.”
“I suppose,” his wife suggested delicately, “that that could be argued to be a realistic point...”
“Not the rubbish about Romish practices, though.”
“Of course not. One would think the man was a Methodist or something.”
An unamused laugh from Mr Tiverton. “Not a Baptist, anyway. Or one of those Jehovah people. They’re all for total immersion.”
“Oh, God, and with everyone wearing macks...”
Eunice took her husband’s glass. “The Pagetters,” she remarked quietly, “are much more nicely connected than the Cork-Braddens.”
Her husband regarded her with kindly concern, touched with surprise. “My dear, you did not suppose that I might allow a churchwarden to abrogate my authority?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, and gave him a kiss and a refill of sherry.
“Dear me, no,” declared Mr Tiverton. “Whether or not Cork-Bradden approves, it is all systems go. If you will see some of your good ladies about the flowers, I’ll go over now and check on the font.”
Which is where Purbright, making a check for very different reasons, encountered him.
They exchanged light remarks. The vicars were perhaps, brisker, with hand-rubbing accompaniment: he was wondering how long this rather persistent though otherwise pleasant policeman would keep him talking. Purbright’s were cover for more serious speculation: how far dare he take into his confidence a man who might well, considering the special advantages of his position, be implicated in what by now was very clearly a village conspiracy?
He decided to take a risk (surely they couldn’t all be in it, for God’s sake?).
“Do you recall a little conversation we had, vicar, on the subject of relics?”
Tiverton tossed his head in good-natured derision. “Oh, good gracious, yes. The lump of firewood, eh? Yes, of course I do.”
“I rather think”—the inspector displayed the big, new-looking manilla envelope he was carrying—“that this could be it.”
The vicar looked blank. Then, suddenly, “Ah, of course—that shocking business at Loughbury’s—the connection’s just occurred to me.” He pointed. “Don’t tell me your chaps were doing all their sifting for that?”
Purbright opened the envelope and slid forward into the light a piece of wood three or four inches long. Two faces were relatively plain; a third uneven, as if it had been split away.
The vicar reached out.
“I don’t think we ought to handle it,” Purbright warned.
Ah, fingerprints, Mr Tiverton told himself, quite erroneously. He peered reverently at the exhibit and said: “Mmmm...”
Purbright knew this signified merely polite interest, not recognition of the nature of a brown stain with its appended fragments, perhaps of hair and skin.
He left the piece of wood displayed on the flap of the envelope.
“I don’t want you to read too much into this question, vicar, but can you call to mind any article in the church—anything commonly kept or used here—from which this piece of wood might have been broken?”
Tiverton looked puzzled. “I don’t quite follow. What sort of article?”
“Something a man could lift fairly easily. Does one have wooden lecterns? A small table, perhaps. A stool.”
“The only table is in the vestry, but that’s quite a heavy fellow. And the lectern’s brass. Stools, now...” Tiverton gazed about him, whistling soundlessly.
Suddenly, he turned and stared, wide-eyed, at Purbright.