A Crowded Coffin(79)

For once Harriet tightened her lips, merely looking at him reproachfully. Sam carried on, ‘I knew there was an old bike in the shed, left behind by the previous owner, so I wheeled it out and belted off up to the farm. I had to decide whether to check out the fields first but in the end I thought I’d better see if you were back at the house. I hoped it was all a storm in a teacup.’ He looked sternly over his glasses at his cousin, but his glance was affectionate.

‘I was just about to park the bike round in the yard when all hell broke out and, as you know, I managed to throw myself off and into the open doorway.’ He winced and made a face. ‘I’m black and blue but that’s a small price to pay.’ His expression sobered suddenly. ‘I’m never going to forget what I saw when I managed to peer round the door jamb. Harriet clinging to the roof and screaming like a demented banshee; Rory – even at that distance – looking like something the cat dragged in and John Forrester falling, his arms outstretched, almost flying, in a kind of horrible mimicry of the heron that distracted him. The police arrived about then, thank God.’ He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. ‘It goes against everything I believe in to rejoice at the death of a fellow human being,’ he said gravely, ‘but it’s hard not to be grateful to that heron for startling the vicar as it did.’

Harriet looked up sharply and slid a questioning glance at Rory, who was also looking thoughtful. ‘A heron?’ he said slowly.

‘I don’t remember seeing one so close to a house with those huge wings flapping like that,’ Sam went on. ‘But I don’t know, you might call it providential, I suppose. It gave John Forrester a way out, and saved everyone a lot of unpleasantness.’

They digested this in silence, then Edith spoke up. ‘I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive any of you for leaving me to sleep through it all,’ she pouted. ‘The first I knew about it all was when I ambled down to breakfast and found the place crawling with police, Grandpa packed off to bed with Gran playing Florence Nightingale, and Rory and Harriet, both bandaged and bruised, also shipped off to rest for twenty-four hours.’ She was sitting next to Rory and with a shiver she reached out to take his hand. Harriet, observing, was pleased to note that their misunderstanding seemed to have been cleared up.

‘I can understand, in a way, why John did the things he did.’ Edith frowned as she spoke. ‘At least, I kind-of understand. He wanted money and there’s a certain logic in his actions – if you haven’t a conscience, that is. First ransacking the archive, then getting rid of his wife because divorce would be a death knell to his ambitions in the Church. And I can see where Harriet’s idea might be true, about him being a psychopath. But I do wonder what dirt Brendan Whittaker had on him.’

‘Probably saw him sneaking out of somebody’s wife’s bedroom,’ interposed Sam to everyone’s surprise. ‘It wasn’t till I started investigating last week that I learned that Forrester was known to have a mistress, the wife of a big name at Westminster with a country place north of here. And no, I’m not telling you who, Harriet; very risky business altogether but it didn’t seem to have any relevance to the matter in hand so I kept quiet. Would have scuppered his chances anyway as it was known in high places and didn’t go down at all well. Her Majesty prefers her bishops to have at least some notion of morality.’

‘Hmm.’ Edith’s face was burning as she remembered John’s sincere brown eyes gazing into hers. ‘All right, but what about you, Harriet? Who do you think pushed you into the quarry?’

Harriet took a deep breath and felt a spasm of shame. She was enjoying this too much, she told herself, being placed centre stage. ‘Your news about the vicar’s lady friend, Sam, makes me wonder if he nipped out to see her after dropping Edith off at the farm that night. I’m pretty certain it was John Forrester who hit me. I had an impression of a long, low-shaped car, which fitted with his. It might have been Brendan’s, of course, but I believe the police have run checks and that night his car was up on ramps in the repair shop having some work done on the sump. The garage people will swear to it that they were actually working on it late that night.’

Walter looked grave. ‘That does rather narrow it down,’ he agreed. ‘But what about the American chap? Did he have a hire car?’

‘He did,’ Harriet nodded. ‘But it was a red Mazda from Hertz, wrong shape altogether. I don’t know why John did it. Serendipity, probably. He must have been coming south down the Stockbridge Road and recognized the Mini when I turned off across the fields. I suspect he just took a chance and made certain I wouldn’t recognize him because he switched off his lights. I bullied my mole at the police station about it and he rang this morning.’ She grinned. ‘It’s always who you know.’ There were flakes of paint from the Mini embedded in the wing of John’s car.’