“I’m not married,” he announced, as if he had to get that out of the way before they moved on to anything else. “I mean, I don’t mean that I’m…I never have been married. I’m not married.”
“No.”
“Could I get you a cup of tea?”
He seemed relieved when Carole declined the offer. Her refusal was instinctive. The vicarage was not exactly dirty; it just had the feeling of being unused andunvisited. If she had agreed to tea, the Rev Trigwell might have taken some time to find a second cup.
“So…” They were sitting opposite each other in anonymous armchairs. He rubbed his hands together in a manner that anyone else would have made breezy. “Poor old Roddy Hargreaves, eh? Sad business.”
“But presumably the Lord giveth…”
“Sorry?” He looked genuinely puzzled by the words. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Isn’t that how we should think about death?”
The Rev Trigwell nodded his head slowly up and down as though considering a novel idea. “Well, it’s an approach, certainly. I didn’t know you knew Roddy Hargreaves well.”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh.”
“Only met him for the first time last week.”
“Ah. Well, he was a…He had his faults…” Suddenly this sounded too definitive a statement. “That is, not very serious faults. I mean, he was unreliable, and he certainly drank too much…but I like to think his heart was in the right place.”
The vicar sat back, relieved to have achieved a perfect balance, venturing no opinion that hadn’t been cancelled out by its opposite.
Carole was silent, which she somehow knew would make him uncomfortable.
It did. “So if you didn’t know him well…” Philip Trigwell went on awkwardly, “presumably you’re not really here for grief counselling.”
“No.”
“People do come to me for that.” He spoke doubtfully.
“I like to think I give some kind of help, some comfort…but I’m not really sure.”
“Presumably you can recommend the consolations of religion?”
“Oh yes.” He sounded unconvinced by the efficacy of the cure. “I can do that.”
Carole decided it was time to move on. “At the Listers’ on Friday James said that Roddy Hargreaves had talked to you during the time when everything was going wrong for him, when his plans for the marina weren’t working out…”
“Yes, yes. James did say that, yes.”
“Did Roddy come to you…sort of voluntarily…in search of help? I mean, was he a church-goer?”
“No. No, he wasn’t. I’ve never seen him in All Souls. He was a Catholic, as we said. No, he just, erm…”
“So you went to see him?”
“Um…well…I suppose, in a way, yes. That’s sort of how it happened.”
“You just recognized that he was in trouble…? Here was someone who needed help…so you did your Good Samaritan act and went to see him?”
“Well, it wasn’t quite like that, really, because the Good Samaritan actually found the man who fell among thieves injured by the roadside, and Roddy wasn’t really injured in that way…he was just, erm…things weren’t going very well for him…”
Carole began to wonder whether Philip Trigwell was deeply stupid, or whether sounding stupid was just a by-product of his embarrassment.
“But you did decide, off your own bat, that you should go and see him?”
“Well, erm…It was suggested to me that, erm, Ishould perhaps have a word…I wasn’t sure it would do any good, but…”
“Who suggested that to you?”
“Fiona Lister.”
That figured. The Queen Bee of Fedborough, trying to ensure that nothing happened outside her control. It would have been totally in character for her to order the Rev Trigwell to go and see Roddy Hargreaves, regardless of the man’s religion and of how little either would have welcomed the encounter.
“She’s a strong character,” Carole observed.
“Yes, yes, she is. Very strong.” Thinking ‘strong’ might be too strong a word, he immediately counterbalanced the statement. “That is, she’s a very good person, very thoughtful, very concerned for everyone’s welfare, but perhaps she does sometimes…rather impose her views on…I mean, I’m not using ‘impose’ in the sense of putting any pressure on people…Fiona’s a very public-spirited person, and does a lot for charity, but she’s…she’s…well…As you say, she is a strong character,” he finished lamely.
“So when you went to see Roddy Hargreaves, was he receptive?”
“Receptive?”
“Did he take notice of the religious consolations that you offered him?”
“Oh, I didn’t mention religion.” The Rev Trigwell was slightly appalled by the idea. “I didn’t want to cram that down his throat. Wouldn’t do that to a Catholic, anyway. They can get funny about things like that. They seem to have such certainty about their religion.” He sighed wistfully. “No, I just told Roddy I gathered he was in a spot of bother…was there anything I could do to help?”
“And was there?”
“Well, yes. I mean, it wasn’t a…sort of therapeutic or counselling service. It was a purely practical thing he asked me to do for him.”
“What?”
“Give him a lift.”
“Sorry?”
“He wanted to get away. Things had been bad for a while. I think Roddy’d just had enough and he kept saying he wanted to go to France for a few days. And he knew he’d been drinking too much for too long to be safe driving, so would I give him a lift to Newhaven?”
“And did you?”
“Yes.” Even after such a length of time, the Rev Trigwell still sounded relieved. Giving someone a lift was so much easier than giving someone the consolations of religion.
“You took him to the ferry terminal?”
“Yes. He was very pleased, I remember, because he just got there in time to catch one. He hadn’t got any luggage with him, so he bought his ticket and rushed on just before they pulled up the gangplanks.”
“Have the police asked you about this?”
“No.” He was genuinely puzzled by the question. “Why should they?”
“Well, it’s just…Roddy’s dead. The torso that was found in Pelling House has been identified as belonging to his wife. There are a lot of people in Fedborough who’re saying he must’ve killed her.”
“Are they?” His surprise still seemed authentic. “Oh, but I can’t imagine that.”
“Why not?”
“Roddy didn’t seem that kind of person. I mean, as I said, he wasn’t perfect. He certainly drank too much, andhe was rather irresponsible, but I don’t think there was any evil in him.”
“No.” The vicar’s gut instinct was exactly the same as hers and Jude’s. But she needed more than gut instinct. “Did you tell anyone that you’d taken Roddy to Newhaven?”
“No, I didn’t. He’d asked me not to…which I did find potentially a bit awkward. I try to avoid lying as a general rule. But nobody asked me anything about his movements, so it turned out all right. Mind you…” He coloured. “I did have an awkward moment that very afternoon…”
“The afternoon you’d taken him to Newhaven?”
“Yes.”
“This would have been a Friday?” He nodded. “And we’re talking about…what? Late February three years ago?”
“It would have been around then, yes. I suppose I could check, see if I can be more specific about the precise date…” He sounded dubious about the prospects for success in any such search.
“Don’t bother about that. You said you had an awkward moment that Friday afternoon…?”