34

16 October

THE KNOCK ON THE DOOR STARTLED HIM, EVEN THOUGH he’d been expecting it. Harry got up and turned down the music. As he stepped into the hallway he could see two tall figures behind the glass of his front door.

Mike Pickup, Jenny’s husband and Sinclair Renshaw’s son-in-law, was dressed in a tweed jacket and cap in muted colours, brown corduroy trousers and a knitted green tie. The man at his side wore a dark-grey pin-stripe suit that looked as though it had been handmade. Neither was smiling.

‘Good evening, Vicar,’ said Mike Pickup. ‘This is Detective Chief Superintendent Rushton.’

The detective gave Harry a brief nod. ‘Brian Rushton,’ he said, ‘Lancashire Constabulary. Pennine Division.’

‘Good to meet you,’ said Harry. ‘Please, come in.’

His visitors followed him into the study. Harry bent to remove the slumbering ball of ginger fur from one of the armchairs and then waited until both his guests had taken seats. The study was the largest room in his house. It was where he worked, received visitors, and sometimes held small prayer meetings. Thanks to the presence of two large Edwardian radiators, it was also the warmest room in the house; and invariably, where he found the cat.

He put the animal on the floor and gave it a shove under the desk. ‘Can I get you both a drink?’ he offered. ‘I have Irish whiskey,’ he went on, indicating the bottle already open on his desk. ‘There’s beer in the fridge. Or I can put the kettle on.’

‘Thank you, no,’ said Pickup, answering for both. ‘But don’t let us stop you. We won’t take up too much of your time.’ He stopped, clearly waiting for Harry to sit down. The detective chief superintendent, who was in his late fifties and whose dominant features were his narrow, slate-coloured eyes and heavy dark eyebrows, was slowly looking around the room.

Harry took the chair nearest the desk. He wasn’t entirely surprised to see the cat reappear and leap on to the arm of the detective’s chair.

He started to get up again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll get rid of him.’

‘No, you’re fine, lad. I’m used to cats.’ Rushton held up one hand to keep Harry in his seat. ‘Wife has two at home,’ he said, switching his attention to the cat. ‘Siamese. Noisy little buggers.’ He reached up to stroke the cat behind its ears. The responding purr sounded like an engine being fired up.

‘I, on the other hand, am not used to cats,’ said Harry. ‘That one seems to have adopted me.’

Rushton raised his enormous eyebrows. Harry shrugged.

‘Maybe it’s part of the fixtures and fittings of the vicarage,’ he explained. ‘Or just an opportunist stray. Either way, it was waiting for me when I arrived and has been refusing to leave ever since. I haven’t fed it, not once, it just won’t go away.’

‘Does it have a name?’ asked Rushton.

‘That bloody cat,’ answered Harry truthfully.

Rushton’s lips twitched. Mike Pickup cleared his throat. ‘Vicar, thank you for seeing us at short notice,’ he said.

Harry inclined his head in his churchwarden’s direction.

‘The truth is I only heard from Brian less than an hour ago myself,’ Pickup continued. A glance was exchanged between the two men, then Pickup turned back to Harry. ‘Brian and I are old friends,’ he said, as Harry hid a smile. The tomcat was curled up on the officer’s lap, purring like a traction engine as Rushton’s large hand ran the length of his body.

‘Mike came to see me last Sunday evening,’ Rushton said. ‘After the incident during the harvest service.’

‘Jenny and I had lunch at her father’s house after the service,’ explained Mike. ‘I’m afraid we were curious about what happened during Communion. Sinclair obviously didn’t want to discuss it, but Jenny pressed and in the end he gave in and told us. He seemed to think it was just a stupid practical joke that we could all forget about, but after what nearly happened with the Fletcher child a couple of weeks ago, I really wasn’t happy. After lunch I went back to the vestry. Sinclair had poured the contents of the chalice away and washed it, but he’d forgotten about the decanter. I took it to Brian. He promised to have his lab look at it. Discreetly.’

‘I see,’ said Harry.

‘Brian phoned me this evening to tell me the results,’ continued Mike. ‘It was pig’s blood, which is pretty much what we expected. We slaughtered a number of animals on the Saturday and, as you may know, when a pig is killed the blood is drained and saved. It’s used for making black pudding. Someone must have got hold of some – it wouldn’t have been hard – and then found their way into the church.’

Rushton leaned forward in his seat. ‘Reverend Laycock,’ he said. ‘I understand you got everything ready for the harvest service late on Saturday afternoon. Who could have had access to the church between the time of your leaving it and the Sunday-morning service?’

Harry looked at Mike, reluctant to mention Jenny in front of her husband. Mike opened his mouth to speak.

‘My wife was in the church for about a quarter of an hour after Reverend Laycock left,’ he said. ‘Sinclair lent her his keys. I joined her at around four thirty and we both had a good look round the building. She told me you’d suspected children or someone of hiding in the church, Vicar. Is that right?’

‘It is,’ admitted Harry. ‘Someone was messing around in there. I probably shouldn’t have left Jenny on her own, but she did insist.’

‘Jenny was fine,’ said Mike. ‘It was good of you to allow her some time. And the church was empty when we left. We made sure of it.’

‘Who else has keys to the church?’ asked Rushton.

‘Normally, only the vicar and the churchwardens, possibly the cleaner, would have keys to a church building,’ replied Mike. ‘At present we don’t have a cleaner. To my knowledge, only the vicar, Sinclair and I have keys now.’

‘Reverend, I’m not a churchgoer myself,’ began Rushton.

‘Nobody’s perfect,’ said Harry automatically.

‘Quite,’ said Rushton. ‘But Michael here tells me it’s customary for the priest to take Communion first, is that right?’

Harry nodded. ‘Yes, always. The idea is I’m in a state of grace myself before I administer the bread and wine to the other communicants.’

‘Would most people know that, do you think?’

‘I guess so. People who attend Communion regularly, anyway.’

‘What’s on your mind, Brian?’ asked Mike.

‘Well, it seems to me we have two possibilities. Either someone has a personal grudge against the vicar, and he was the one meant to be upset by the incident. Or the culprit didn’t realize the Communion wine would be tasted by the vicar first. Because if you’d taken that cup straight to the congregation, I bet you’d have got to around half a dozen before the first two or three realized what was going on. Then you would have had a problem on your hands. Can you think of anyone who might have a reason to play this sort of trick?’

Harry thought for a moment, because he knew it was expected of him. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve been wondering if maybe someone didn’t want the church to be opened again. Or perhaps I’ve upset someone since I’ve been here without realizing it.’

‘You haven’t,’ said Mike. ‘Actually, people are rather taken with you.’

‘What we’d like you to do, Reverend,’ said Rushton, ‘is to let us take your fingerprints so that we can check the decanter for any that don’t match yours.’

‘I’m happy to do the same, if it helps,’ said Mike, before turning to Harry. ‘Vicar, we need to think about church security. I’ll arrange to have the locks changed first thing in the morning. Make sure there are just the three sets of keys available.’

‘Fair enough,’ agreed Harry.

‘Good. I can have the new keys ready for you the day after tomorrow. Come and have some lunch in the White Lion with me. Shall we say one o’clock?’

Taking fingerprints was the work of a few minutes and then the two men said goodnight and left. Harry returned to his study. He looked at the drinks cabinet. He’d had enough. He felt something warm moving between his ankles and looked down. The cat was rubbing its body against his jeans.

‘I hate cats,’ grumbled Harry. He bent to pick it up. It lay in his arms, purring, comfortingly warm.

Half an hour later the cat was fast asleep. Harry hadn’t moved.