Mark Pearson - The Killing Season

‘How may we be of assistance?’

‘The Reverend Holdsworth is missing.’

‘What do you mean, “missing”?’

‘What do you think I mean?’ she replied angrily. ‘There is not much confusion about the word, is there? He is not at his church, nor at his house, and his bed has not been slept in. He is missing and I want to know what you are going to do about it.’

The sergeant bit back a remark that he was going to make about the reverend’s sleeping arrangements being nothing to do with him. ‘He was out with a group of friends at a stag party last night,’ he said instead.

The woman’s lips curled a little. She was the priest’s cook and house manager at the rectory but, as in all other areas, she liked to think that her duties lay beyond those that were merely stated on her contract of employment.

‘Do you mean to imply that the vicar, a man of God. . that Reverend Holdsworth would have become embroiled in some kind of activity that. . that. .’ The woman seemed unable even to contemplate the very thought of whatever it was that the sergeant might be implying.

The sergeant held his hands up in a soothing manner. ‘Not at all, Miss Skipton. Just that the group of friends might have retired to one of their houses. Maybe the groom’s. Maybe they made a bit of a night of it and he crashed over.’

‘Crashed over!’

‘Stayed over.’

The sergeant had grown up in Sheringham. They had gone to different schools but he knew Nigel Holdsworth well. And he knew his friends. He might have a dog collar round his neck but Harry knew he was just following in the family tradition and was far from what you might call a saintly man. He wouldn’t be at all surprised if they had all ended up in a nightclub in Norwich, or hired escorts to visit a hotel and send Len Wright off to wedded bliss in fine carnal style.

He said none of this to Emily Skipton, however. When it came to her blessed Reverend Holdsworth she was the three wise monkeys all rolled into one.

‘So what are you going to do about it?’ she asked again, picking up her brolly.

The sergeant eyed the instrument suspiciously but somehow managed to summon up a reassuring smile that also indicated how seriously he was taking the matter. ‘I shall make enquiries immediately, madam,’ he said. ‘Round up some troops if necessary. Rest assured that if the Reverend Holdsworth has come to any harm we will find him.’

‘Young men do foolish things on stag nights, silly pranks. Maybe he is tied to a lamp-post somewhere.’

‘He’s not the groom.’

‘What?’

‘Well, it’s the groom they usually tie to lamp-posts or suchlike.’

‘When alcohol and young men get together, sergeant, there is always a danger of foolhardiness and I should expect you to realise that better than most.’

Emily Skipton turned and walked out, a galleon in full sail. The sergeant wondered whether she had been referring to him personally in her remark about alcohol and foolishness or had simply meant that he as a policeman had witnessed the behaviour concerned. He didn’t consider it for longer than it took for the door to close, however. He had an appointment with a hot bacon roll or two that he didn’t intend to miss. He waited for a minute or so then headed for the door himself.

The Reverend Holdsworth would turn up shortly, he had no doubt, with lipstick on his dog collar and a smile on his public-school-educated, smug and shiny face.

I was just loading the last of my office paraphernalia into the boot of my much maligned Saab when the sound of sirens approached once more.

Technically it was just one siren and one police car. The siren mercifully stopped as the car pulled alongside my own. Sergeant Harry Coker got out on the passenger side and a tall young uniform with ears like jug handles got out on the driver’s side.

‘Sorry about the twos, Jack,’ said the sergeant. ‘Young Gary here wanted to have a play with them.’

The young uniform, somewhere in his twenties, smiled. He had large teeth that, unlike the rest of him, weren’t entirely uniform.

‘Got to give the locals something to gossip about, haven’t you?’ he said.

‘What can I help you with?’

‘The super wants you cuffed and brought down to the nick,’ said Harry Coker, shrugging apologetically.

‘Again?’

‘Seems that way.’

‘Do you reckon she’s got the hots for me?’ I asked the constable who surprised me by blushing a little.

‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ he said.

‘I think Gary here has got the hots himself for the boss, Jack,’ said Coker. ‘Woman in power, wouldn’t be the first time.’

‘Rubbish!’ said Gary, blushing even more and laughing far from convincingly.

‘So what have I done now?’ I asked. ‘Speeding, parking on a kerb, walking up the street in the wrong direction?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘That guy Len Wright. I guess he’s laid a complaint against me?’ I asked. In truth I had been half-expecting it. I was surprised that he hadn’t come after me with his fists later that night. He seemed the type.

‘No, Jack. The Reverend Holdsworth has gone missing.’

‘What’s that got to do with me?’

‘And so has Len Wright, the bridegroom.’

‘And. .?’

‘And it has become known to Superintendent Susan Dean that you were involved in a fracas last night.’

‘A fracas?’

‘Her vocabulary. She also knows that Len Wright threatened to see you some other time and sort you out.’

‘And so she assumes what?’

‘She thinks they might have ended up meeting you again and found that they were boxing below their weight as it were.’

‘I left you and went home, put the kids to bed and stayed up for a couple of hours reading before going to bed.’

‘Kate with you?’

‘Kate was with the hen party. The lucky lady who is getting to marry Len Wright works as a nurse at their practice.’

‘I know. Poor cow. Anyway, the super wants you in, official statement and all that. I am sure that Holdsworth and Wright will turn up soon enough. They’re probably down the clap clinic, getting a shot.’

I held up my hands. ‘OK, I’ll come quietly,’ I said.

‘Sod that for a game of coconuts,’ said Sergeant Coker. ‘Bring your car. I hear you’re moving your office into town anyway.’

It seemed that only the big secrets stayed hidden around here.

I was heading up to the roundabout at the bottom of Holway Road, following the police car ahead, when my mobile phone trilled.

‘Jack Delaney,’ I said answering it and steering with one hand.

‘You do know it’s an offence to drive and speak on a mobile phone, Jack?’

‘Is it going to be added to the charge sheet, then, sergeant?’

‘Slight detour. Follow us down to the beach.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘I guess we’ll see.’

I followed the police car as it swung down Beeston Road, then Beach Road, which led down to the sea. We turned slowly onto the promenade and made our way at a very sedate pace. We parked up behind another couple of police cars and walked down to the beach. The tide was coming in as the sergeant led me up to the site where the dead man’s body had been found.

‘What we got?’ Sergeant Coker asked a man in a hard hat, behind whom was some earth-moving equipment and some other men in hard hats and hi-vis vests. After the forensic team had finished, these guys had been called in to clear the fallen cliff from the beach.

‘Hi, Harry. What we got is something we didn’t expect.’

He gestured us all forward. ‘See here?’ he asked, pointing to the remains of some chalk blocks at the base of the cliff.