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A Crowded Coffin(71)

By:Nicola Slade


Harriet gritted her teeth and raised a hand to her eyes. Let him think this was grief, anything but the incandescent rage that was bubbling up inside her at his casual dismissal of a valuable life. She kept her cool, though; the vicar’s mental balance seemed less stable somehow, now he believed he was on the brink of finding the fabled jewel. Rory clearly felt the same, because he spoke nervously but calmly.

‘What had Canon Hathaway discovered that was so important to you that you had to – to silence him?’

John’s brow furrowed and he looked increasingly irritated. ‘He’d been poking about in the archives, asking questions about Colin Price, and I couldn’t have that. Besides that, he’d been asking questions about Gillian, about her health. And her death.’

‘Why did that matter?’ Harriet was very impressed by Rory. His quiet voice and calm, non-threatening manner, were just right. He was trying to keep things evenly balanced and not give a loaded significance to any question. Poor lad, she thought, he learned diplomacy in a hard school in that prison.

The vicar’s assurance that he didn’t want to hurt them began increasingly to ring hollow, she realized with a shiver, in view of the confidences that were beginning to spill out.

‘Did it matter what Sam found out?’ Rory repeated the question evenly. ‘You don’t mean Gillian really did kill herself, do you? That she jumped?’

John Forrester stared at him in astonishment then threw back his head and laughed out loud in what appeared to be genuine amusement.

‘Jump? Gillian? Of course she didn’t jump. I pushed her!’

‘You – you pushed her?’ Harriet’s head came up with a jerk as she choked out the question. John gazed at her, looking mildly surprised.

‘Of course, didn’t you realize? Oh dear, you disappoint me, Harriet. I thought you were clever. Oh yes, all that distraught husband business, I did do it well, didn’t I? I was a distraught husband all right, but that was before she died, when she decided to stop my allowance and started threatening to alter her will. Plus, she found out about my handy little arrangement with Colin Price, among other things. Besides….’

He paused, staring at the wall, a frown furrowing his brow.

‘She was viciously possessive. She bought me with the promise of keeping me in decent comfort and ultimately leaving me her money and she never let me forget it. But as I said, when she started talking about changing her will, I knew I had to do something. It wasn’t hard to get drugs and I took it steadily at first, so that her behaviour became erratic, particularly when we were out, at dinners or public events. Just enough for people to start to wonder. Was she menopausal? A drunk? Was it drugs?

‘I played the anxious, supportive husband to the hilt, in denial when anyone broached the difficult subject, but soon it was common knowledge: Gillian Forrester was an addict and her poor husband such a kind, patient man.’

Harriet was still sitting quietly, Rory the same, she noticed, anxious not to disturb John’s train of thought or provoke any violent reaction. Memory surfaced as she recalled a teacher at her previous school, whose short-lived appointment had made life extremely difficult for the staff. At first sight the woman had been charming, an inspirational teacher, warm and friendly, but gradually it was borne in on Harriet and her senior staff that Miss Crawford was a liar of a high order.

Avril, Sam’s wife, had been alive then, head of the English department. Harriet recalled her bursting into the staffroom one morning. ‘I’ve been doing some research,’ she’d exulted. ‘There’s something called a charismatic psychopath, just listen to the symptoms: charming, attractive liars, usually gifted and manipulative. Often leaders of religious cults, they can be irresistible and surrounded by friends, talking their way out of difficulties and taking as their due the praise of others.’

Harriet’s eyes widened and she slid a speculative glance at the vicar, remembering how struck she and the rest of the staff had been by this. Avril had continued reading from her notes: ‘There’s no empathy, they don’t feel sorry for anyone or anything and when they’ve got what they want, they move on to another victim.’

Was this John? It certainly sounded like him and it had fitted that long-ago member of staff. In that case though, the woman had moved on after only two terms, blithely accepting a more enticing offer and not caring twopence for the inconvenience this might have caused. As it was they heaved a collective sigh of relief and Harriet made a note to take more care in future. Now, today, at this moment, things were a good deal more complicated.