Peter Lovesey - The Reaper

George Mitchell and three officers from Warminster made house-to-house inquiries. It was difficult. Normally ten days is not an over-long period in people's memories, but with Christmas intervening it was like asking about some event that happened six weeks before.

"I wish you'd listened to me," Rachel reminded George when he knocked on her door. "I knew something was wrong when she didn't turn up for the carol evening. She told me she'd be there. She really looked forward to it."

George noticed how pale Rachel was looking, worse, he thought, than when her husband died. He supposed she and Mrs. Haydenhall were closer friends than he'd imagined. "We've got a lot of men and women working on this in Bournemouth," he told her. "Don't give up hope."

Burton Sands had tried repeatedly to get through to Milton Davidson College, Toronto. All over the world everything stopped for Christmas, it seemed. And then for the New Year. It was not until January 3rd that someone picked up a phone.

Usefully for Burton, the most senior staff have to come into college during holidays to deal with urgent business. He was put through to the Deputy Principal. This time he dropped the This is Your Life ploy for something simpler. "I'm checking the records of clergy who came to Britain from abroad," he said as if this was part of a larger project. "I have a name here and I wonder if you'd confirm that he was with you until nineteen ninety-three. Otis Joy."

"I'll bet it is," said the voice on the line. "I don't envy you."

Burton was forced to explain that Otis Joy was someone's name, not a cynical aside.

"You say he came to Britain?"

"Right."

"Wrong-if you mean our guy. We had a student of that name, but he didn't go to England. He didn't go anywhere."

"Why?"

"He died."

Burton gripped the phone and pressed it harder to his ear. "Did you say 'died'!"

"Sure. In ninety-three, the year you mentioned. He drove his car off a mountain road when he was on vacation in Vancouver. A sheer drop. No chance."

"This is Otis Joy?"

"It's not a name you forget, specially in a theological college. He was the only student of that name we had on our books, or ever had."

"Did you know him personally?"

"Otis? Sure. I've been here fifteen years. He was in my tutor group. Nice guy."

"Would you mind describing him? There's obviously some confusion in our records."

"Sounds like it. Let's see. He was short, Afro-Caribbean, rather overweight-"

Burton blurted out his reaction. "A black man?"

"Are we at cross purposes here?"

"We must be. The man I know is white."

"We're wasting our time then. These are two different guys."

"But he claims to have been at your college. It's on his file."

"I don't think so."

"I'm telling you," insisted Burton. "He finished his training at Brighton. Their records show he attended Milton Davidson College. There is only one college of that name in Toronto, 1 suppose?"

"In the world."

As if by consent, they let a moment of hard thinking go by.

"If you had a picture of your Mr. Joy," said the Deputy Principal with a new, suspicious tone, "I'd be interested to see it."

"I can supply one."

"OK. Do you have access to a scanner and e-mail? We could do this today. I'm here until six, our time."

Burton said he would see to it, and they exchanged e-mail addresses.

That head and shoulders shot in the Wiltshire Times would do if he could get hold of a sharper print. They sometimes had the originals on file at the newspaper office in Trowbridge and sold copies. He left work early and drove over there. They had a brown envelope stuffed with pictures of the man from various functions they'd covered. Burton went through it and found the print he wanted. A nice glossy postcard-size mugshot.

On his own computer at home, he scanned the photo and sent it with a short e-mail message to Toronto. Within a couple of minutes his phone rang.

"I don't know this man," said the Deputy Principal. "He never attended this college."

"Did the picture come over cleanly?" Burton asked.

"It's very clear. I know my students, and, this man was never one of them. I also rechecked at our alumni office and there was only one Otis Joy in attendance here in the past twenty years. If someone of that name is claiming affiliation with our college, he's an impostor."

Burton put down the phone and experienced a pleasurable sensation of power amounting almost to rapture. "Got you, you bastard," he said aloud.

He looked at his watch. Twenty minutes to get showered and dressed for the last confirmation class, followed by the rector's party.

Watching the man behind his great desk in the rectory, with the books of sermons behind him and The Light of the World to his left, listening to his confident and lucid interpretation of the Order of Confirmation, Burton still found it difficult to credit that this was a bogus priest.

"And when the moment comes and the bishop lays his hand on your head, you will hear some of the most comforting words in our liturgy: 'Defend, O Lord, this thy Servant, with thy heavenly grace, that he may continue thine for ever.' Defend -it's a word we find throughout the Book of Common Prayer. 'Defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies.' " Joy curved his hand over the glass paperweight of St. Paul's Cathedral. " '. . and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night.' Some people have told me they felt strengthened by God at this moment, and of course they are."

Burton had spoken to nobody of his sensational discovery. This evening he felt detached from the confirmation candidates, watching them listen respectfully to the man he would soon expose. They were in for a shock, but not yet. He would choose his moment. This evening gave him the chance to settle the business beyond reasonable doubt. This was a high-risk plan, but he had right on his side, and if you can't rely on God's protection in a Church of England property, it's a poor lookout for mankind. There was another "defend" in the Prayer Book that Joy had not chosen to mention: Psalm 42. "Give sentence with me, O God, and defend my cause against the ungodly people: O deliver me from the deceitful and wicked man."

The spiel was coming to an end. "And then, of course, there follows a communion, your first, and we went through the service last time. Simple, beautiful, comforting." Joy's eyebrows formed the shape of a Norman arch as he closed his prayer book. "If any of you have last-minute questions, or concerns, I'm here to help. I'll be with you at the service, and should you feel nervous just imagine how the new bishop will be feeling. Let's not forget that it may be your confirmation, but it's his baptism."

The doorbell rang and Joy got up. "I asked the parish council to join us and all of them are coming except Rachel Jansen, who sends her regrets. This kind of get-together is difficult for her so soon after Gary's death." He went off to receive his first guests.

"Where's it happening?" asked John Neary.

"In that big room, for sure," said Ann Porter. "Shall we go through?"

"You carry on," said Burton casually. "I'll join you presently."

"Didn't know you were a smoker," said Neary.

"I'm not. I need a few minutes to myself."

"Says you."

The minute the others were out of the room Burton crossed to the filing cabinet by the door. Joy would be busy with his guests for some time, a perfect opportunity.

It wasn't locked. The top drawer was stuffed with bulging files that turned out to be circulars from the diocesan office at Glastonbury. He tried the next. Letters, hundreds of them. Local societies wanting a speaker. People researching their family history. And quite a batch about brass-rubbing. Useless. With hope ebbing away he pulled out the third and last drawer. Agendas and minutes of parish council meetings. Orders of service from years back. Sermons. But no personal papers^.