A Crowded Coffin(59)

Harriet had her mobile in her hand. ‘We need to call the cops,’ she said, her tone decisive, the momentary weakness vanished.

‘No, wait, I’ve just remembered something else.’ He caught at her arm. ‘I had a call from the Canadian lady who was in the chapel. You know, she took Edith to lunch after we found Sam’s friend in the chapel. She rang about half-past nine last night and I’d forgotten all about it till now. She said she noticed the party of German tourists who were milling about in the chapel but it had only just occurred to her that there was another man in there too. Mrs Mackenzie didn’t think it could be important but as I’d asked her to let me know anything at all, she decided to call me. I asked her if she could describe him, and she said it was only a clergyman who was praying beside the old chap, Dr Sutherland.’

‘What?’

‘I know.’ He hunched his shoulders, looking perturbed. ‘I asked her about this clergyman and she said she hadn’t taken much notice of him; she was busy with her own memories of her late husband and in any case, several of the tourists knelt to pray briefly. Mrs Mackenzie said she hadn’t even thought about him till I asked, after all, a vicar in a cathedral is a bit like wallpaper, so much what you expect to be there that you don’t even see it after a while. But when she thought about it, it seemed a bit odd. She’d seen Dr Sutherland enter the chapel and sit down but she was lost in her own thoughts so she didn’t see the other man come in, or leave, come to that. She couldn’t describe him but she did tell me she thought he was probably in his thirties with reddish-brown hair.’

Silence hung between them until Harriet brushed a hand across her eyes. ‘I can’t make head or tail of it,’ she said irritably and moved over towards the window again. ‘They’ve gone,’ she gasped, and pointed as Rory joined her. ‘Here, see if you can make out anything.’

‘There’s no sign of movement,’ he agreed, after a moment. ‘I’m going to take a look – and before you say anything,’ he forestalled her protest, ‘I’ll take precautions, I’m not an idiot.’

Harriet still held her mobile phone in her hand. Sam, she breathed as Rory disappeared downstairs. I know I promised him I wouldn’t do anything stupid but there’s no way I’m leaving Rory by himself. Let me think…. Inspiration struck and she sent Sam a text. ‘Checking activity in BField. Rory with me. Not stupid. H.’

Tucking her phone into the back pocket of her jeans, she was at the head of the stairs when a thought intruded. Better spend a penny, she muttered to herself. I can just imagine Rory’s face if I say I need to nip behind a tree.

What with attending to the call of nature, she was some minutes behind her fellow conspirator but she could just glimpse him as he circled the Burial Field, using the old stone wall as both guideline and shelter. Harriet took a deep breath and followed suit, her mind racing madly. Why did the image of John Forrester praying beside the old clergyman make her shudder in distaste? John was a cleric himself, after all, and the old man had died of a heart attack, hadn’t he? Or if he hadn’t, how in the world could John have killed him undetected and, what was even more to the point, why in the world should John, or anyone else, have killed him? Oliver Sutherland was a cheerful old man who did nobody any harm and was popular and well respected among his former colleagues and parishioners.

Perhaps it was a heart attack. Or a stroke and maybe John had found him already dead? But no, surely in that case the natural thing to do would be to summon help, as Sam and Rory and Edith had done. I don’t like the vicar, Harriet admitted to herself, in a moment of honesty, but no, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t – to somehow murder an old man in a cathedral, of all blasphemous things to do.

It must be a mistake, but Rory was insistent. Mrs Mackenzie was a calm, rational witness who was adamant that she had noticed a youngish man of the cloth quietly praying beside an older colleague. It was a kind and thoughtful act but if that were all, Harriet wondered with a heavy heart, why had John not raised the alarm himself? Why had he not even mentioned the circumstance?

The snatched conversation she’d had with Rory a few minutes earlier made it clear that the subject of the sad death in the cathedral had not been raised at the drinks party, probably because most of the guests were in ignorance. But even allowing for John to be showing consideration to his elderly hosts, who most probably had been acquaintances, if not friends, of the elderly Dr Sutherland, surely the normal thing for him to have done was at least to sympathize in private with Edith and Rory?