Peter Lovesey - The Reaper

"Where's the link?" demanded Somerville.

"It's him. He's the link."

"What's the MO, then? You've got a sexton who disappeared into thin air, a Frenchwoman stung by a bee, a bishop who jumps, or was pushed, into a quarry, a church treasurer who swallows amylobarbitone and a jazz freak with a heart attack. Serial killers don't keep changing their MO."

"Maybe this one is the exception. He's clever."

"He'd need to be."

"When every murder is different, you don't connect them."

"You're telling me. And even if you could link Otis Joy to each of them-"

"Which I can," put in George.

"Even if these were unlawful killings with his fingerprints all over them, you've still got to work out why. What's his motive?"

"I couldn't tell you that." admitted George, and added sarcastically. "I'm not in CID."

Somerville's eyes narrowed.

George added rapidly, "But if I was, I'd also be interested in Cynthia Haydenhall's death." It was his last card and not a trump, but worth playing. "She's the woman I identified last night. Missing since a week before Christmas. Went off without telling anyone and didn't turn up for the carol-singing round the village, which she'd told people she'd do. This was Joy's day off. He missed the carol-singing, too. Got back to the village late."

"And her body turns up in the sea?"

"Washed up at Milford early yesterday."

"Signs of violence?"

"Nothing obvious."

"Who was she? A church-goer?"

"Very much so. A regular. Organised the harvest supper. Divorced, with money. Nice cottage. Bit of a busybody, but not unpopular."

"Suicidal?"

"Not the type."

For the first time, Somerville seemed to be wavering. He picked up the little bottle of tablets and stood it where it had been on the desk. "It's another sudden death, I grant you. We'll get nowhere with this woman if no marks are showing."

George remained silent, willing to let the process happen in its own time.

Somerville rubbed the side of his face as if checking whether he'd shaved. "Joy got back late on the day the woman disappeared, you say?"

"Between ten and eleven. It's his day off from his church duties."

"That's all you've got on him? I don't buy it."

"Her car was abandoned in Bournemouth. We can check it for prints."

"His prints? If he's as smart as you say, he won't have left any."

Even George's patience was over-stretched. "Basically, sir, are you saying don't bother?"

"I'm saying if we want to make a case against Joy, we pick a stronger one than this. Is she the only body we have?"

"Most of them disappeared, or were disposed of."

"Cremated?"

"There's the jazz man, Gary Jansen. He was buried."

"The heart case?"

"Supposedly heart. It was diagnosed by a GP who should have retired five years ago."

"What was the link with Joy?"

"Gary Jansen was the husband of the new treasurer, the one who replaced Stanley Burrows-after he died suddenly. Gary visited the rectory on the afternoon of his death. It's possible Joy slipped him something that induced the heart attack."

"Why?"

George held out his hands in appeal. "I can't answer that. Jansen may have found something out. I told you there are suspicions that Joy fiddles the books."

"It's a big jump from embezzlement to murder."

"His living was at stake. He wouldn't survive in the church if he was caught."

"I thought you said Jansen was just back from New Orleans. Have you ever flown the Atlantic, George? On your first day back you're in no shape to check account books."

"Some other thing triggered it, then. He could have heard the rumours that Joy slept with his wife."

"For crying out loud. So this rector is a fornicator, as well as an embezzler and a killer?" Sarcasm returned, with interest.

"Rumours, I said. Jansen comes back from the States to find his wife is treasurer when she hasn't any experience of bookkeeping." George could almost hear Burton prompting him.

"So Jansen goes up to the rectory to sort out Joy and dies of a heart attack the same night?"

George leaned back in his chair, sensing that this could be a turning point. Appearing to take an interest in the veins on the back of his left hand he said without looking directly at Somerville, "If he was given a poisonous substance, there's a way of finding out."

"An exhumation?"

"Of all these suspicious deaths, it's the only one where Joy could have made a mistake," said George. "He should have made sure Jansen was cremated."

"What stopped him? Had Jansen left instructions?"

"No."

"Joy could have persuaded the widow, if he was having her."

"Lost his nerve, I reckon," said George. "You need a second doctor's opinion before a cremation can take place. It was a risk. Some other doctor might have asked the questions old Dr. Perkins didn't."

"Joy doesn't strike me as a man who loses his nerve," said Somerville. "If he really is a serial killer, he's very cool indeed."

George nodded, willing to concede the point. He was making headway at last, the way Somerville was talking.

"It's more likely he took a calculated risk," Somerville went on. "He weighed up the odds and decided it was simpler and safer to go for a burial. You're the coroner's officer, George. Do you think you can swing an exhumation order on the case we have?"

"I can try."

The finding of Cynthia's body devastated Rachel. You can tell yourself a thousand times that a missing person must be gone for ever, but no amount of reasoning can spare you from cold certainty. The thought of poor Cyn being washed up on the tide with the driftwood was horrible. She kept picturing her, mauled by the sea, lying at the water's edge with seaweed clinging to her and little white crabs crawling over her dead flesh. She couldn't understand how such a tragedy had happened. Cyn never mentioned the sea. And she wasn't suicidal; there were few people Rachel knew with a stronger grip on life. She was always positive, always planning her next project. She'd even convinced herself she stood a chance with Otis.

An accident, then? It had to be, but how? Surely she hadn't fallen off a boat. She had no connection with boats that Rachel knew of. Anyway, why would anyone except a deep sea fisherman want to go on a boat in freezing December?

People were saying the inquest would provide some answers. Maybe clues had been found. Maybe someone remembered seeing Cynthia at Milford on Sea. It was a long way from home, so she may have been staying at a guesthouse, wanting some quiet days alone (though that didn't sound like Cynthia). And it would have been a swift turn-about from her promise to be at the carol-singing.

These thoughts were still tormenting her when PC George Mitchell opened her garden gate and marched up to her front door in businesslike fashion. He wants me as a witness for the inquest, she thought.

"I don't know how best to say this, Rachel," he began when he had lowered himself, far from relaxed, deep into the cushions of her vast settee. "There's no way I can put it without giving you a shock."

"If it's about Cynthia, I know already."

"Cynthia?"

"Mrs. Haydenhall."

"Er, no. I've not come about that." He flattened his palms against the upholstery as if he felt it might swallow him altogether.

"What is it, then?"

"You probably know I have another job on top of my police duties. I'm the coroner's officer, and that's why I'm here."

"Something to do with the coroner?"

"A problem-a complication, let's say-has come up. New information. The possibility that things may not have been so straightforward as they appeared at the time."

She tensed. "What are you trying to tell me?"

"We've applied for an exhumation order for Gary. When I say 'we,' I mean the police."