Sunday morning, I woke up way too early for someone who had neither bells to ring nor a boyfriend to shag. Granted, it hadn’t been a particularly late night, but this was my chance to have a decent lie-in, and I hated to waste it. Still, once you’re properly awake, there’s no point fighting it. It was either get up or lie in bed having a lonely, maudlin wank over Phil Morrison. I got up.
I had some part-baked croissants in the freezer, so I bunged them in the oven, made a cafetière of coffee, and sat down on the sofa with the cats, warbling a little Édith Piaf as I went. A perfect lazy Sunday morning. At least, that was the intention, but the cats buggered off because they hate my singing and the words didn’t fit anyway, seeing as I was regretting a bloody sight more than rien. I thought, sod this for a lark, so I had a shave, put on something respectable, and went to church.
No, I hadn’t suddenly got religion. It’d just occurred to me that everyone mixed up with Melanie’s case was also mixed up with Brock’s Hollow parish church. Apart from Graham, obviously, but I was trying not to treat him as a suspect. And all right, Robin East and his wife probably weren’t much into the God-bothering business either, but the rest of them were. I didn’t really have a plan in mind, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to see them all together, watch how they acted with one another.
I felt a bit bad about turning up on the Rev’s doorstep like the proverbial bad penny, but then again, maybe it’d reassure him if I went along and didn’t do anything to out him?
When they built St. Anthony’s Church, Brock’s Hollow, which, according to the signs was sometime in the thirteenth century, for some reason they didn’t think to put in a car park. I ended up parking next to the Four Candles and hurrying breathlessly into church just after the service had started. My shoes clattered like hob-nailed boots on the flagstones, and the Rev faltered in the notices he was reading out. I mouthed, Sorry, in his general direction, hoping the rest of the congregation would get the message too, and looked around for a spare pew. It wasn’t as easy as you’d think. For all the talk in the papers about declining church attendances, this place was pretty well stocked with worshippers. Looked like the better schools in the area still had a church-attendance requirement to get your kids a place.
“This way—there are some seats in the Lady Chapel,” a reedy voice whispered in my ear, and I turned to find a wiry old dear, so bent over with age she had to peer up sideways at me, offering me a chirpy smile and a hymn book.
I beamed back at her, relieved to see a friendly face. “Thanks,” I whispered, following her doll-like steps around the side of the main pews and up towards the front. The church was built in the shape of a cross, and I ended up in one of the arms, staring at the side of the Rev’s head. A family of four obligingly shuffled their bums over to make room for me on the end of their pew, and I sat down as quickly and as quietly as I could. “Thanks,” I whispered again. The old lady beamed and toddled off.
Across the way, I was surprised to see Robin East was here after all. No sign of Samantha. Maybe Sunday morning was her time for bathing in the blood of freshly squeezed virgins.
The Rev finished droning on—something about an extension project, and the forthcoming Advent Carol service—and announced a hymn. Everyone opened their hymn books, and I flicked around frantically in mine trying to find the right page as the organist started up.
“Tom, how lovely to see you here.”
I looked up, startled, into Patricia Treadgood’s face. She was in the pew in front, next to her husband. The glare Lionel shot me over a ramrod-straight shoulder left me in no doubt how lovely he thought it was to see me. I smiled at Patricia, mostly because I was glad to see her, but also because it’d annoy him. “Hey, you too. I didn’t see you there. Thanks for your email.”
“My pleasure.” She turned back to the front just as the organ intro finished and everyone launched into the first verse. Everyone except me, of course, as I was still trying to find the bloody thing. Maybe this was what I’d missed out on after they’d kicked me out of Sunday school: advanced hymn-finding. I hunted on, trying not to curse, until a small hand tugged at my sleeve. The little girl next to me shoved her hymnbook under my nose, one grubby, nail-bitten finger pointing out the place they’d got to.
“Thanks,” I whispered yet again, and did my best to join in the tune. By the time we’d got through seven verses, I had an aching back and a crick in my neck from leaning down awkwardly to share the book with her. I’d also remembered I was tone-deaf, and by the appalled and/or amused faces around me, quite a few people were now in on that little secret. Maybe I’d just lip-sync from now on.
Then again, the row in front had shifted slightly and Lionel Treadgood was right in front of me. I couldn’t think of anyone else I’d rather torture with my off-key attempt at religious worship. I needed something to amuse me, because frankly, I was disappointed. I’d come here for a game of spot-the-suspect, and I’d clocked half of them in the first five minutes. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to keep my eyes peeled and check out the rest of the congregation.
As the Rev droned on some more, I let my gaze wander around the church. It was pretty big, and all bare, pale greyish stone—no interior paint to brighten the place up, although someone had got their sewing kit out and made some bright felt banners to hang here and there. Nice flowers too. Hefty pillars blocked the sight lines in several directions, but I was able to spot Pip sitting between a tired, worried-looking woman and a scowling Mr. Pip. I was fairly sure he wasn’t thinking pious thoughts as he glared at me. Pip herself kept her eyes fixed on her knees.
Everyone seemed very white, although I suppose most places in Hertfordshire would be a bit like that after Fleetville. There were quite a lot of old dears, most of them in hats, but then it was a bit nippy. There seemed to be some kind of under-pew heating system, which meant my bum was nice and warm but the rest of me was shivering even in my padded jacket. I couldn’t see half as many men as women, and most of them were old too, their liver-spotted heads peeking through wisps of white hair. There were just a few young, male heads—and oh shit. One of them was Phil’s. He glanced up just at the wrong time too, and I got a jolt in my chest as our eyes met.
The pillar he was sitting next to looked soft and insubstantial next to his granite glare. Bugger. For some stupid reason, it hadn’t even occurred to me he might have had the same idea I had and rolled up here. Although the fact I’d been trying to avoid thinking about him all morning might have had something to do with my lack of getting a clue. I wished I could work out what that look he was giving me was all about. Then I wondered what he could see in my face, and if he’d tell me if I asked, because I was buggered if I knew how I felt about him and his little obsession. Was it an obsession? It had only been a couple of photos, for God’s sake. And a newspaper article . . .
I dropped my gaze hurriedly, just as everyone around me shuffled a bit and bowed their heads. Time for the serious God-bothering, I guessed. I tried to pretend I was as into it as they all were. At least it gave me an excuse not to look at Phil anymore.
We didn’t have to kneel, which was a relief. There were hassocks or cassocks or whatever it is you call those cross-stitched kneelers hanging from hooks on the back of the pew in front, but nobody seemed to be using them. Unless you counted the little girl who’d shared her hymn book with me, who was playing a game with them with her brother, swinging them together like conkers.
I felt like a right fraud, pretending to pray. Luckily, they gave you all the words, rather than make you sit there like a lemon and think up your own. There was a bit where they prayed for people who’d died, and I thought of poor Melanie Porter. It felt weird to think she might be up in heaven now, gazing down on all this. If you believed all that stuff, anyway. Then I started thinking, if there was a God, why didn’t he just send down a thunderbolt on the bastard who’d killed her, and save me and Phil the trouble?
It occurred to me about then, though, that depending on your views about the whole thing, God (if he was there) might not look too kindly on blokes like me and Phil, and might think we were pretty good candidates for the thunderbolt treatment ourselves, so I decided maybe I’d just keep my head down in here and not draw attention to myself.
When the service was finally over, Patricia turned round to me again. “Are you staying for coffee, Tom?”
“Er . . .” Actually, I’d been planning on making a quick getaway before Phil had a chance to ask me what the bloody hell I thought I was doing here.
“Oh, do stay. It’s all fair trade, you know.”
I wasn’t sure how that was supposed to persuade me, but I found myself nodding. Lionel looked pretty pissed off about the whole thing, which was a plus. “Well, seeing as it’s you asking,” I told her with a smile, and she glowed a bit in response. So after the organist had played the retreat for the blokes in frocks—with the choir as well, there were quite a lot of them—I joined the queue for the coffee urn, which was handily set up just inside the area I’d been sitting in.
The coffee was all right, but the fair-trade biscuits turned out to be not a patch on Patricia’s shortbread. I turned to tell her so, but while I’d been exchanging a few words with the ladies serving coffee, it seemed Lionel had whisked her away. Instead, I found myself face-to-face with Phil. Well, all right, given the height difference I was face to throat with Phil, but that didn’t make things any easier. Neither of us spoke. Then both of us spoke at once.
“You all right—”
“Sorry about last—”
We fell silent again. Set into the floor by my feet was a stone slab like a tired gravestone; I could just make out the words, Here lyeth ye virtvovs body of . . . The name had been worn away by generations of Christian feet, but whoever it was, I envied them briefly.
“Hello, again. You’re new, aren’t you? Welcome to St. Anthony’s.” I looked up from my feet and into the wrinkled face of the old dear from earlier. “Are you two together?”
I was momentarily floored. Did she mean together together, or just together?
“Um, we’re, um . . .” I managed.
“No,” Phil said flatly and walked away. It felt like he’d slapped me in the face.
“Well, he wasn’t very friendly, was he?” It was delivered in high, ringing old-lady tones, which had to have been heard by half the congregation and must have left Phil’s ears burning. I was glad he couldn’t see my smile.
“Maybe he’s just not a morning person,” I suggested. “Thanks for the welcome. I’m Tom, by the way, and yeah, it’s my first time here. Nice church—those flowers are lovely.” I nodded at a big, fancy spray of red and white blooms and greenery that’d almost taken my eye out a couple of minutes ago.
Her crepey cheeks bloomed with a rosy glow. “Thank you! I do my best with them, but of course, it isn’t easy in the winter. I’m Edith Penrose, but please, call me Edie.”
“Lovely to meet you, Edie. Would that be Miss or Mrs.?”
“Mrs., you cheeky young man, although I lost my dear Albert twenty years ago. He’s out by the lychgate. I’ll be paying him a visit after I’ve finished my coffee.”
Just as I was wondering if she was going to invite me along to say hi to the late Mr. P., and if she’d be expecting him to say hi back, a familiar voice battered my eardrums from around three inches away. “Tom! Darling, what on earth are you doing here?”
I turned to see Gary beaming at me. “Came to hear the church-bell concerto, didn’t I?”
“I hope you haven’t been leading our Edie astray. Watch him, Edie, he’s a total heathen. And the worst flirt.”
She gave me a roguish smile. “I might have known you’d turn out to be a friend of Gary’s.” She made it sound like a euphemism. “Well, it was lovely meeting you—I do hope we’ll see you here again soon.” As she twittered off, I could just make out a sigh, and the words, “Such a waste.”
“Hey, I’m not a flirt,” I protested.
“And I’m the Pope, sweetie. Now, why are you really here?”
I sighed. “It’s complicated. Phil’s here too, by the way.”
As I’d thought, that got Gary’s attention off difficult questions right away. “Ooh, where? Where is he? Tall, blond . . .” He scanned the coffee crowd feverishly.
“By the door, about to bugger off.”
Gary looked, just as Phil half turned, displaying a firm-jawed (some might say gittishly stubborn) profile. “Oh, my God! Is that him? He is gorgeous! No wonder you’re such a mess about the whole thing.”
“I’m not a mess!” Anyone would think I was a love-sick schoolgirl, the way Gary was going on about it.
“Don’t argue with your uncle Gary. Now, have you finished your coffee? Good. Let’s get out of this crush before Merry signs you up for choir practice.”
“Not much chance of that,” I muttered darkly.
“Why do I get the feeling there’s a lot you’re not telling me?” Gary asked, shepherding me past the milling faithful like a little lost lamb. We emerged blinking into the sunlight, which gave me a good excuse to pretend I hadn’t seen the Rev. He was waiting at the door to moisten everyone’s palms, a sort of final baptism before they headed out into the wicked world again. “Now, I wonder . . . Ooh, there he is!” He waved frantically, and I saw, with a sinking feeling, that Darren was here. He was leaning on a tombstone, but as I watched, he pushed himself off it and started ambling towards us. “He said he might come, if he wasn’t too tired after last night.”
“Thought you and him were getting an early night?” I said, a bit distracted. I should have known, really I should.
Gary’s elbow impacted sharply with my ribs. “Oh, but we did. Very early. And very exhausting!” He giggled.
Darren caught up with us. “Oi. I thought I told you to stay away from my bloke,” he said, but he was smiling, so it looked like my nadgers would live to nadge another day.
“Want to tell me exactly what you think we might have got up to in church?”
He gave me a look. “Ah, but how do I know you were in church? You can get up to all sorts in that belfry of Gary’s.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I told him.
“Of course he wouldn’t, Sweetie Pie,” Gary put in. “I’ve never had Tom up in my belfry.”
“You’ve had me up there, though, haven’t you, Pumpkin?” Darren gave a filthy laugh. “Several times, now.”
I might not be religious, but I was a bit scandalised, all the same. “Gary! You can’t do that kind of stuff in a church!” I hissed.
They burst out laughing.
“What?” I said, miffed.
“Darren was speaking, ah, euphemistically. We weren’t talking about the actual belfry.”
Thank God for that. “Right. Fine. But keep it down, yeah? The volume, I mean, in case you thought I meant that euphemistically too. There are people still coming out of church.” I turned to indicate the open door, just as the Rev poked his head out.
He saw our little group, and for a moment, I thought he was having a heart attack. His face, pale to begin with, turned grey, and he literally staggered where he stood. A group of die-hard churchgoers surrounded him then, and he was lost to view.
I felt sick. Christ, what had I done to the poor bloke?
“Well, well, well,” Darren said. “Who’d have thought it?”
I wrenched my attention back from the concerned knot in the church porch. “Thought what?”
“I’d never have reckoned I’d see that face above a dog collar.” He laughed. “Not that sort, anyhow.”
“Ooh, do you know our Merry?” Gary trilled.
“Darren,” I said carefully. “If you’re about to tell me you used to work with the bloke, I think my head’s going to explode. Fair warning and all.” Bloody hell. The Rev’s little episode hadn’t been about me at all. It’d been about Darren.
Darren laughed. “Nah—but he was a fair old goer in his day. Years ago, it was, back in London, when I met him. There was this party, see—we was celebrating, ’cause we’d just finished filming . . .” He frowned. “Sod it, which film was it? Might have been A Taste of Mud Honey—or hang on, was it Hope and Glory Holes? You’d have liked that one; it had a plumber in it. Goes to fix a public lav in Clapham, and when he bends over to shove in his plunger, he gets—”
“And the Rev?” I whispered, impatient.
“Yeah, he was— Oh, I know which one it was we’d just done. The Horniness of the Long-Dicked Cummer. Good film, that was. I had some great reviews for that one.”
I looked around nervously, but luckily all the old dears from church were already doddering off to their Sunday lunches or their online bingo or whatever it was they did with their time, not listening in to Darren’s potted history of British gay porn. “So this party, what happened?”
“Well. Me and the lads turn up at this place—it was at the director’s house, nice place it was too, very nice—and we was still in costume, so we was in a fair bit of demand. I had on this leather harness—”
Gary’s face lit up. “Ooh, Sweetie Pie, have you still got it?”
“Nah, sorry, Pumpkin. Weren’t mine to start with—I had to give it back after the party. Tell you what, though, I know a bloke with a garage in Camden—”
“Can we get back to the bit about the Rev, here?” I interrupted. “You can sort out your kinky love lives later.”
“Bit of a prude, are we?” Darren asked in an Ooh, get him! kind of voice.
“Just think of me as the saddo who isn’t getting any, so doesn’t want to hear about people who are,” I muttered.
“You won’t want to hear about the Rev, then. When I saw him, he was sucking off Wayne—he was the long-dicked cummer—and getting his arse pounded by Rudy. Course, Rudy just had a small part in the film.” Darren cackled with laughter. “Had a big part in your Rev, though, din’t he?”
My gob was well and truly smacked. I stared at him, open-mouthed. Then I closed it quickly, because the mental image of a spit-roasted Merry wasn’t doing wonders for my stomach.
“I don’t believe it!” Gary actually sounded genuinely shocked, which is not an easy feat to accomplish. “Merry?”
“He was that night, anyhow. Totally off his head. Anyone’s and everyone’s, he was.”
“You didn’t!” Gary gasped, his hands to his mouth.
“What, me personally? I’m wounded, Pumpkin. I thought you knew I’ve got taste.” He winked. “I know a few more who did, though.”
God, Merry must have been easy prey for that lot, with all his pent-up desires and his repressions wiped out by the alcohol and whatever else he was on. Maybe Darren read my expression. “What? He was old enough to look after himself, wasn’t he?”
Gary made a sort of apologetic face.
“Course,” Darren carried on thoughtfully, “now I come to think about it, maybe it ain’t so surprising. I used to live near Lambeth Palace, and you wouldn’t believe what a load of randy buggers some of them was. They never admitted they was church, mind, but you can tell.”
I didn’t need to hear any more. “Listen, I’ve got to go, all right?” I said. “I’ll catch you later.” I half ran out of the churchyard. I had to tell Phil about it. This was just what he’d been talking about, wasn’t it? Blackmail—at least, the possibility of blackmail.
It didn’t make sense, though. Even if Melanie had somehow found out about the Rev’s wild youth, would she really have blackmailed him? I didn’t want to believe her capable of something so, well, heartless. And it was an even bigger leap of faith to imagine the Rev killing her. After all, when he’d found me poking around his stuff, he hadn’t gone ballistic with the fire irons, had he?
I shivered a little, though, as it finally sunk in what a risk I’d been taking, going there on my own. Phil was right. I’d been a twat.
I got in my Fiesta, made sure my seat belt was nice and tight, and drove back to St. Albans, bypassing my house and heading straight for London Road.