‘That’s different, sir.’
‘Are they?’
‘Yes,’ said Leeming, reluctantly. ‘They play with nothing else.’
‘So the railway does have a useful purpose, after all.’
‘They’re too young to understand.’
‘And you’re far too old not to understand its value to us.’ He became serious. ‘A man has been slaughtered in a church — and on a Sunday. Doesn’t that make you want to track down the killer?’
‘It does, sir,’ said Leeming, roused. ‘What he did was unforgivable.’
When a brutal murder took place, there was, as a rule, universal sympathy for the victim. That was not the case with Claude Exton. Staff on duty at Wolverton station all knew and loathed the man. More than one of them seemed pleased at the news that he was dead. What they did do was to provide useful background details for the detectives. Leeming recorded them in his notepad. Exton was an unpopular member of the community, a shiftless man of middle years who lurched from one job to another. He’d been banned from one pub for causing an affray and was thrown out of another for trying to molest the landlord’s wife. Other outrages could be laid at Exton’s door.
‘In other words,’ said Leeming, ‘he was a real reprobate.’
‘That’s putting it kindly,’ muttered the stationmaster.
‘Was he a churchgoer?’ asked Colbeck.
‘No, Inspector. He always boasted that the only time they’d get him across the threshold of a church was for his funeral. It seems he was right about that.’
The collective portrait of the deceased was unflattering but it gave them a starting point. Colbeck and Leeming walked swiftly to the church. Everyone had heard the news. People were standing outside their houses discussing the murder with their neighbours. A noisy debate was taking place on a street corner. There was a small crowd outside the church itself and a uniformed policeman was blocking entry to the building. When he saw them approach, the vicar guessed that they must be the detectives and he rushed across to introduce himself. In the circumstances, the Reverend John Odell was surprisingly composed. He was a short, tubby man in his fifties whose normally pleasant features were distorted by concern.
‘This is an appalling crime,’ he said. ‘A church is supposed to be a place of sanctuary against the evils of the world. I thank God that I got here early enough to stop any of my parishioners seeing that hideous sight.’
‘Were you the first to discover the body?’ asked Colbeck.
‘No, Inspector. That gruesome task fell to the warden, Simon Gillard. When I arrived here with the sacristan, we found the poor fellow prostrate in the aisle. He’d fainted and injured his head as he hit the floor.’
‘We’ll need to speak to him.’
‘Then you’ll have to go to his house. As soon as he’d recovered, I had him taken straight home. Then I sent for the police.’
‘Is the body still inside the church?’ wondered Leeming.
‘Yes, it is,’ replied Odell. ‘I want it moved as soon as possible, obviously, but I thought you might prefer to see it exactly as it was found. Claude Exton was not a churchgoer but he nevertheless deserves to be mourned. Since we couldn’t use the church, I conducted a very short, impromptu service out here and we prayed for the salvation of his soul. Then I urged the congregation to disperse to their homes but, as you see, the news has attracted people of a more ghoulish disposition.’
‘Human vultures,’ murmured Leeming. ‘We always get those.’
‘I’m assuming that the warden unlocked the church this morning,’ said Colbeck. ‘Who else has a key?’
‘Well, I do, naturally,’ said Odell, ‘and so does the other warden but he’s ill at the moment. Between us, we hold the only three keys.’
‘So how did the killer and his victim get inside the church?’
‘That’s what puzzles me, Inspector. It was locked overnight.’
‘Is it conceivable that any of the keys went missing?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Odell, firmly. ‘The other warden and I are extremely careful with our keys and Simon Gillard is so dutiful that I wouldn’t be surprised if he takes his to bed with him. How two people got inside the church is a mystery. Only one, alas, came out alive.’
After plying the vicar with some more questions, the detectives asked the policeman to let them into the church. He stood aside so that they could open the door. Some of those lingering nearby edged forward to take a peek but Colbeck shut the door firmly behind him. The atmosphere inside the church was eerie. It was quite warm outside but both of them shivered involuntarily. Consecrated ground had been violated by a foul murder. There was a strange sense of unease. They walked down the nave and into the chancel to view the body. Though both of them had seen many murder victims, they were shocked. Colbeck was also curious.
‘What does it remind you of, Victor?’ he asked.
‘That man in Norwich, sir,’ said Leeming. ‘He’d been battered to death with a sledgehammer. His head was just like pulp.’
‘Look at the way the body has been arranged in front of the altar.’
‘That’s just the way he fell.’
‘I don’t think so. There’s something almost … artistic about it.’
Leeming frowned. ‘Is there?’
‘It’s reminiscent of those medieval paintings that depict the slaughter of Thomas Becket. He was hacked down in front of the altar by four knights who thought they were doing the king’s bidding.’
‘It doesn’t look like that to me, sir. And if what they say is true, he’s certainly no saint like Becket. Exton was a real sinner.’
‘Then we could be looking at the punishment for his sins.’
Colbeck knelt down to examine the corpse. Around the mouth were traces of vomit. He searched the man’s pockets but they were empty. He then gently pulled back the sleeves of Exton’s jacket.
Leeming was perplexed. ‘What are you looking for, Inspector?’
‘Something I expected to find,’ said Colbeck, ‘and you can still see traces of the marks on his wrists. As we’ve heard, Exton abhorred churches. He’d never have come in here and stood obligingly in front of the altar so that someone could bludgeon him to death. I think that he was knocked unconscious elsewhere, tied up and gagged, then brought here to be killed.’
‘Then we’re looking for a strong man, sir. Exton was heavy.’
‘Let’s get him out of here,’ said Colbeck, standing up. ‘He’s defiling the church. Tell the vicar to summon the undertaker and ask that constable to frighten the crowd away. We don’t want an audience when we move him. However much of a rascal he was, Exton is entitled to some dignity.’
Simon Gillard was propped up in his armchair with bandaging around his head. Still shocked by the ghastly discovery in the church, he was in a complete daze. When his wife admitted Colbeck to the house and took him into the parlour, her husband was staring blankly in front of him.
‘This is Inspector Colbeck from Scotland Yard,’ she explained. ‘He needs to talk to you, Simon.’ There was no response. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector,’ she went on. ‘He’s been like this for hours.’
‘That’s understandable,’ said Colbeck. ‘Perhaps you can help me instead.’
‘It was my husband who found the body.’
‘Does he enjoy being a warden?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘he loves it. Since he retired, the church has taken over his life — both our lives, in fact. I’m one of the cleaners and I organise the flower rota.’
Winifred Gillard was a short, roly-poly woman with grey hair framing an oval face that still had traces of her youthful appeal. She talked fondly of her husband’s commitment to the church since his retirement from the railway, and she spoke with great respect of the vicar.
‘Does your husband ever lend the key to the church to anybody?’
‘Only to me,’ she replied. ‘Simon guards his bunch of keys like the family jewels — not that we have any, mind you. When he first became warden, he used to sleep with them under his pillow.’