Peter Robinson: Innocent Graves

Stott nodded. “Yes. St. Cuthbert’s, though, not St. Mary’s.”

Banks nodded towards the vicarage. “Do you know who the vicar is here?”

“Father Daniel Charters.”

Banks raised his eyebrows. “I thought so. I don’t know all the details, but isn’t he the one who’s been in the news a bit lately?”

“He is,” Stott said through gritted teeth.

“Interesting,” said Banks “Very interesting.” And he wandered off towards the vicarage.

The woman who answered Banks’s knock at the back door was in her mid-thirties, he guessed, with a lustrous cascade of auburn hair spilling over her shoulders, an olive complexion, large hazel eyes and the fullest, most sensuous lips he had ever seen. She also had a stunned, unfocused look on her face.

“I’m Rebecca Charters,” she said, shaking his hand. “Please come through.”

Banks followed her down the hall. A tall woman, she was wearing a heavy black shawl draped over her shoulders and a loose, long blue skirt that flowed over the swell of her hips almost down to the stone flags of the hallway. Her feet were bare and dirty, with blades of grass stuck to her ankles and instep. There was also a fresh cut by the Achilles tendon of her right foot. As she walked, her hips swayed just a little more than he would have expected in a vicar’s wife. And was it his imagination, or did she seem a little unsteady on her pins?

She led him into a living-room with a high ceiling and dull, striped wallpaper. WPC Kemp stood by the door, and Banks told her she could leave now.

Bottle-green velour curtains were drawn across the bay window against the fog. An empty tiled fireplace stood directly across from the door, and in front of it lay a huge bundle of brown-and-white fur that Banks took to be a large dog of some kind. Whatever it was, he hoped it stayed there. Not that he disliked dogs, but he couldn’t stand the way they slobbered and fussed over him. Cats were much more Banks’s kind of animal. He liked their arrogance, their independence and their sense of mischief, and would have one for a pet were it not that Sandra, his wife, was violently allergic.

The only heat was provided by a small white radiator against the far wall. Banks was glad he hadn’t taken off his raincoat yet; he was thankful for the extra layer of warmth.

A three-piece suite upholstered in worn brown corduroy ranged around the coffee-table, and in one of the armchairs sat a man with thick black eyebrows that almost met in the middle, a furrowed brow, a long, pale face and prominent cheekbones. He had the haunted look of a troubled young priest from an old movie.

As Banks came in, the man stood up, a maneuver that resembled some large, long-limbed animal uncurling from its lair, and reached out his slender hand.

“Daniel Charters. Would you like some coffee?”

Shaking his hand, Banks noticed the carafe on the table and nodded. “Love some,” he said. “Black, no sugar.”

Banks sat on the sofa, Rebecca Charters next to him. Also on the coffee-table stood an empty bottle of Sainsbury’s Romanian Pinot Noir.

As Daniel Charters poured the coffee, Rebecca walked over to a glass-fronted cabinet, brought out a bottle and a brandy balloon and poured herself a large one. Banks noticed her husband gave her an angry look, which she ignored. The coffee was good. Almost as soon as he sipped it Banks felt the scratchiness in his throat ease up a little.

“I realize you’ve had a terrible shock,” Banks said, “but do you think you could answer a few questions?”

Rebecca nodded.

“Good. Did you report finding the body immediately?”

“Almost. When I saw the shape, what it was, I…I was sick first. Then I ran back here and telephoned the police.”

“What were you doing in the graveyard at that time, on such a miserable night?”

“I went to see the angel.”

Her voice was such a low whisper, Banks didn’t believe he could have heard right. “You what?” he asked.

“I said I went to see the angel.” Her large, moist eyes held his defiantly. They were red-rimmed with crying. “What’s wrong with that? I like graveyards. At least I did.”

“What about the glass?”

“I had a glass of wine. I dropped it, then I fell. Look.” She lifted her skirt as far as her knees. Both of them were bandaged, but the blood was already seeping through.

“Perhaps you should see a doctor?” Banks suggested.

Rebecca shook her head. “I’m all right.”

“Did you disturb the body in any way?” Banks asked.

“No. I didn’t touch anything. I didn’t go near her.”

“Did you recognize her?”

“Just that she was a St. Mary’s girl.”

“Did you know a girl called Deborah Catherine Harrison?”

Rebecca put her hand to her mouth and nodded. For a moment, Banks thought she was going to be sick again. Her husband didn’t make a move, but Banks could tell from his expression that he recognized the name, too.

“Is that who it was?” Rebecca asked.

“We think so. I’ll have to ask you not to say anything to anyone until the identity has been confirmed.”

“Of course not. Poor Deborah.”

“So you knew her?”

“She sang in the choir,” Daniel Charters said. “The school and the church are very closely linked. They don’t have a chapel of their own, so they come here for services. A number of them also sing in the choir.”

“Have you any idea what she might have been doing in the graveyard around five or six o’clock?”

“It’s a short cut,” Rebecca said. “From the school to her house.”

“But school finishes at half past three.”

Rebecca shrugged. “They have clubs, societies, activities. You’d have to ask Dr. Green, the head.” She took another gulp of brandy. The dog on the hearth hadn’t moved. For a moment Banks thought it might have died, then he noticed the fur moving slowly as it breathed. Just old, most likely. The way he was feeling.

“Did either of you see or hear anything outside earlier this evening?” he asked.

Daniel shook his head, and Rebecca said, “I thought I did. When I was in the kitchen opening the wine. It sounded like a stifled cry or something.”

“What did you do?”

“I went over to the window. Of course, I couldn’t see a damn thing in this fog, and when I didn’t hear anything else for a couple of minutes I decided it must have been a bird or a small animal.”

“Can you remember what time that was?”

“Around six o’clock, maybe a few minutes after. The local news was just starting on television.”

“And even though you thought you heard a cry, you still went out into the dark, foggy graveyard alone forty minutes later?”

Rebecca cast her eyes on the empty wine bottle. “I’d forgotten all about it by then,” she said. “Besides, I told you, I assumed it was an animal.”

Banks turned to Daniel Charters. “Did you hear anything?”

“He was in his study until I came back screaming about the body,” Rebecca answered. “That’s the other room at the front, the far side. He couldn’t have heard a thing from there.”

“Mr. Charters?”

Daniel Charters nodded. “That’s right. I was working on a sermon. I’m afraid my wife is correct. I didn’t hear anything.”

“Have either of you seen any strangers hanging around the area recently?”

They both shook their heads.

“Has anyone been inside the Inchcliffe Mausoleum lately?”

Charters frowned. “No. As far as I know no-one’s been in there for fifty years. I just gave the key to one of your men.”

“Where do you usually keep it?”

“In the church. On a hook in the vestry.”

“So it’s accessible to anyone?”