Wycliffe and the Quiet Virgin

by W.J. Burley

Genres: Mystery; Cozy Mystery; Hard-Boiled; Police Procedurals; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Wycliffe investigates the disappearance of a young girl - and becomes involved in a major criminal investigation . . . Chief Superintendent Wycliffe doubted whether he would enjoy his Christmas. With his wife away, he rashly accepted an invitation to stay with a Penzance lawyer and his family, but when he arrives the weather is awful, the house miles from anywhere, and the family less than welcoming. Then a young girl goes missing. Wycliffe had seen her playing the part of the Virgin in the local nativity play, but when he asks around he discovers the girl was difficult and unpopular in the neighbourhood. Even her parents seem indifferent to their daughter's disappearance. So Wycliffe instigates a search - and soon finds himself caught up in a major criminal investigation . . . Why readers love W.J. Burley: 'First-class, old-time, hyper-ingenious whodunit.' Observer 'You can always count on Wycliffe ... he inevitably guarantees a good story, convincing characters and appealing landscape ' Financial Times 'Wycliffe teases out the truth with delicate skill that leaves the reader intrigued and convinced.' Mail on Sunday 'Gripping.' The Times Fans of Ruth Rendell, Val McDermid and Peter Robinson will love W.J. Burley: 1. Wycliffe and the Three-Toed Pussy 2. Wycliffe and How to Kill a Cat 3. Wycliffe and the Guilt Edged Alibi 4. Wycliffe and Death in a Salubrious Place 5. Wycliffe and Death in Stanley Street 6. Wycliffe and the Pea-Green Boat 7. Wycliffe and the School Bullies 8. Wycliffe and the Scapegoat 9. Wycliffe in Paul's Court 10. Wycliffe's Wild Goose Chase 11. Wycliffe and the Beales 12. Wycliffe and the Four Jacks 13. Wycliffe and the Quiet Virgin 14. Wycliffe and the Winsor Blue 15. Wycliffe and the Tangled Web 16. Wycliffe and the Cycle of Death 17. Wycliffe and the Dead Flautist 18. Wycliffe and the Last Rites 19. Wycliffe and the Dunes Mystery 20. Wycliffe and the House of Fear 21. Wycliffe and the Redhead 22. Wycliffe and the Guild of Nine * Each Inspector Wycliffe novel can be read as part of a series or as a standalone*

Release date: December 16, 2010

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 212

Sample

Marsden opened his eyes; the plaster between the rafters was greyish white, the rafters themselves cobalt blue, painted by Emma; spiders’ webs in the corners. The light from the little window was grey and cold, the air damp; even the sheets felt clammy. He could hear Emma downstairs in the kitchen, running water, the only place in the house where there was water and that came from an overhead tank, pumped from a well.

Marsden scratched himself.

Twenty-five minutes to nine by the alarm clock on the little cast-iron mantelpiece which was also cobalt blue. Marsden raised himself on his elbow so that he could see out of the window. Fine rain out of a leaden sky.

‘Bloody hell!’

The front door slammed, then the car door; the starter of Emma’s M-registered Mini whined a couple of times, seemed to give up, then in its last gasp, set the little engine puttering. An uncertain cough or two, a spluttering in the exhaust, and Emma was away.

Marsden got out of bed; a large man, fleshy without being fat, powerful; built like a gorilla. A mop of black hair, and a generous moustache; good features, eyes wide apart, and a broad, high forehead. He thought he looked like Balzac and cultivated the resemblance. The locals said that he had Romany blood and that pleased him too. He was forty-six.

He stood by the window, stooping to clear the sloping roof. Down the narrow valley mist blotted out the sea. Brown smoke came from the Lemarques’ chimney, the only house he could see, perched some way up the opposite hill, white against the sludge-green heather. A mail van picked a cautious way along the old mine track which led there. He pulled on a paint-stained dressing-gown, fished his slippers from under the bed with his toes, and wriggled his feet into them without stooping. He slouched across the room to the landing, the floorboards creaked under his weight and the jars and bottles on Emma’s dressing table clinked together. He negotiated the narrow, twisted stairs down to the living-room.

A large, square table covered with a plastic cloth and on it, a battered blue enamelled coffee pot and a mug inscribed ‘Hugh’ (from the days when Emma still believed that he could be domesticated). There was a note in Emma’s writing propped against the milk jug: ‘I’ve shut that blasted cat out because he messed in the kitchen again. If it’s still there when I come home this evening you’ll be doing the cooking, not me.’

‘Bitch!’ Mechanical, without venom.

Marsden opened the front door; the cat, a complacent tabby, was asleep in the shelter of the porch. Marsden picked him up, made soothing noises, and carried him indoors. He poured milk into a saucer and put it on the floor. ‘There, Percy, old boy! She’s gone now.’ The cat lapped up the milk, purring away like a Rolls Royce.

Marsden felt the coffee pot then went to the kitchen to warm it on the stove. While he was in the kitchen he splashed cold water over his face and groped for the towel. The flow from the tap was a there trickle. ‘The bloody tank’s empty again!’

With his mug full of black coffee he came back through the living-room and into his studio, followed by the cat. The studio was a lean-to built on to the end of the house in times past, as stabling for mules. With his own hands he had removed the roof and replaced it with corrugated perspex which gave a diffused north light when it was not covered with moss and gull shit.

He ferreted about, looking for matches, and when he found them he lit the paraffin stove. There was an electric heater but he used that only when he had a model. A canvas stood on one of the two easels: a landscape, blocked in. Although Marsden was best known for his landscapes and marines he was a studio painter. ‘None of that muffler and hot-water bottle crap for me; I find my plein air in the studio next to the oil-stove; “Emotion recollected in tranquility” – in comfort anyway.’ He reached for a brush from the pot, changed his mind and drank his coffee instead, in two or three great gulps. Then he lit a cigarette. Marsden was coming to life, the skin round his eyes seemed less taut and his mouth had lost its sour taste. He moved to the second easel where there was another canvas, this one covered by a cloth; he removed the cloth and stood looking at the painting: Portrait of a Young Girl. She wore a flowered wrap which had slipped to expose one breast, and she regarded herself in a large mirror with an ornately carved frame; her expression intent, frowning. Red-gold hair reached to her shoulders, her cheeks were lightly flushed. Marsden had caught the fine delicacy of the girl’s brows, of her lashes, of her lips but mostly he had captured her total self-absorption.

He stood back. ‘Marsden, my boy, you’re a painter!’

The mirror and the padded seat were still set up in one corner of the studio.

He had told Emma nothing of the sittings which had taken place while she was at work and his studio was sacrosanct, but yesterday he had shown her the painting. He could have written the script in advance:

‘That’s the Lemarque girl.’

‘Full marks for observation.’

‘She’s jail-bait in any language. How did you manage it? At that age they want more than sweeties. Really, Hugh, you must be out of your mind!’

‘I painted the girl, I didn’t screw her.’

‘Even if I believed you it wouldn’t make any difference; she’s quite capable of saying that you did.’

‘If it came to that I’d prefer her mother; there’s a dark little mystery package that needs working on! Unfortunately, now that her husband’s out of clink, there’s a sitting tenant.’

‘You’re vile!’

His palette for the painting, covered with cling-film, stood on a table by the easel. He couldn’t make up his mind whether or not he had finished with it. He replaced the cloth and started to sing in a croaking baritone: ‘The rich get richer and the poor get children’.

The cat, couchant by the oil-stove, tucked in his paws and prepared for sleep.

Marsden said: ‘I wonder what she would do if somebody locked her in without a loo,’ and chuckled at the thought. ‘I tell you what, Percy, I’ll make you a cat-flap. I know I’ve said it before but this time I really will!’

The letter-box in the front door rattled and he went back to the living-room.

A small shower of mail on the mat. Marsden gathered it up and shuffled through the envelopes with a certain urgency, then he seemed to relax: Christmas cards for Emma, a couple of circulars, an electricity bill, a letter from a West End gallery: ‘… We regret that we cannot offer you a one-man show in the coming year but if you will consider joining with—’ Marsden screwed up the letter and aimed it at the fireplace. ‘No, sir! Not with that bloody ponce. We haven’t got quite there yet.’

The final envelope was also for Emma. He recognized brother Tim’s prissy italic script and he knew those letters by heart as Emma always left them lying about. There would be the usual news of successful-accountant brother Tim, of his pasty-faced wife, and of their two brats – with snapshots thrown in to highlight the attractions of conjugal felicity. Then the brotherly advice: variations on a theme – ‘I’ve heard from mum and dad again. Really, Em, I can’t understand why you throw yourself away on that man. Apart from being an absolute scoundrel, he’s nearly old enough to be your father …’

‘I am old enough to be her bloody father,’ Marsden had said. ‘I started early.’ He propped Emma’s mail on the mantelpiece, against a vase in the form of a fish standing on its tail.

‘He’s right though, Marsden, you scum! Give the gentleman his sister back.’

The time had come to allow her family to entice Emma away. She was taking over and, in any case, life had grown too complicated.

He opened the front door to stand in his little porch, looking up at the sky. Fine rain still drizzled out of low cloud. ‘Gloom! Damp, grey, dreary, bloodless gloom!’ Eight hours between sunrise and sunset, the twenty-third of December, two days to Christmas, the very nadir of the year.

Jane Lemarque was in her living-room; a smoky fire burned in the grate, the room was furnished with unmatched and incongruous pieces which looked what they were, random discards from a more affluent home. She stood by the window, looking out on a familiar scene; mist hid the sea and inland she could just distinguish the grey rectangular bulk of the church tower. This, and the hill opposite, scarred by old mine-workings and capped by a great cairn of boulders, set the limits of her world for days at a time.

Jane had dark hair and deep blue eyes, an oval face, rather pale; and an expression of madonna-like serenity. Only people who knew her well (and few did) realized that though she might seem passive she was anything but serene. Even now as she stood gazing out of the window her lips moved and she murmured a barely articulate form of words, half prayer, half incantation: ‘Please God make it all come right … Oh, Lord, don’t let it happen … Dear Lord I promise … Don’t let Francine … Don’t let Alain …’

She looked across at the painter’s cottage, crouched at the foot of the hill, last of the struggling outliers of the village. Marsden, in his dressing-gown, was standing in his porch, staring up at the sky. The sight of the man increased her disquiet. Recently she had tried to avoid coming face to face with him but sometimes on her way to or from the village they would meet. He was always polite but he looked at her in such an intimate and knowing way that she felt vulnerable, naked, so that her flesh trembled and her face burned.

Now he was taking an interest in Francine, encouraging and helping her with her painting; he had given her colours and brushes which she believed were expensive to buy. ‘Please don’t let …’

Her attention was distracted from the painter by a figure in an anorak trudging along the narrow road which led from the cove, past the painter’s cottage and on to the village. Paul Bateman, youngest of the Bishop clan. The Bishops, Penzance lawyers for generations, lived at Mynhager House down by the cove. Paul was seventeen and for the past six months he had pursued Francine with earnest solicitude. Either he was on his way to the village or he was coming to see her now and she was still in bed. Jane watched the boy. He had reached the painter’s cottage and he would continue along the road or he would turn off down a steep footpath to the bridge over the stream. Jane watched him. ‘Please God he doesn’t come here … Please God …’ But God wasn’t listening, the boy turned down the footpath to the bridge.

Agitated, Jane went to the bottom of the stairs and called to her daughter. She could hear the radio playing, the eternal Radio One.

‘Francine!’ She called twice before she was answered by a voice that sounded petulant rather than sleepy.

‘What is it?’

‘Paul is on his way here.’

Silence.

‘It’s nearly half-past nine, don’t you think it’s time you got up?’ Pleading.

‘Tell him I’m sick.’

‘I can’t tell him a deliberate lie.’

‘Why not? You want to stop me seeing him.’

‘I didn’t say that, Francine! I said it wouldn’t be a good idea to let your friendship with Paul grow into something more. That doesn’t mean—’

‘I wish you’d make up your mind what you do mean.’ But the radio was switched off. ‘All right, I’m coming down.’

Jane felt tears of misery and frustration smarting in her eyes. She returned to the window. Paul was climbing the flight of steps which led up to the front door. She opened the door before he knocked but did not invite him in. The boy stood there, long and lean, droplets of moisture dripping from his hair and running down his face.

‘I wondered if Francine would come with me to St Ives this afternoon. John Falls is putting on an exhibition of those crazy models of his. He thinks he might sell one or two as Christmas presents and I said I would come.’

‘I can’t. I’ve got the play at the church this evening.’ Francine had come downstairs silently; she was wearing a track suit, her hair uncombed about her shoulders.

‘I know, but we shall go in the car and be back long before then.’ Paul had just passed his driving test.

‘I’ve got to finish learning my lines.’

Jane said, ‘So Paul has wasted his trip over here. Why didn’t you phone, Paul?’

The boy looked embarrassed. ‘I didn’t mind the walk.’ He lingered. ‘If Francine can’t come this afternoon perhaps I could pick you both up this evening and take you to the church – unless Mr Lemarque is going …’

Jane felt trapped, she didn’t dare refuse. ‘That is kind of you, Paul. I don’t think he will be going.’

‘Half-past seven, then … Will that do? Earlier if you want.’

‘Half-past seven will be all right,’ Francine said.

Paul smiled uncertainly and took himself off.

Jane looked sorrowfully at her daughter. ‘Really, Francine!’

‘What have I done now?’

At Mynhager House, down by the cove, Virginia Bishop was perched on a tall step-ladder in a corner of the big drawing-room, pinning up the last of the Christmas decorations. Elaborate though faded paper-chains festooned from the central chandelier and there was a Christmas tree, draped with tinsel and hung with shiny balls and coloured lights. Seen from this unfamiliar angle the room seemed more shabby than ever; the colours of wallpaper, upholstery, carpet and curtains had merged to the same drab fawn; the gilt-framed oil paintings might have been hanging in a saleroom and the sprigs of holly tucked behind their frames seemed absurdly incongruous. Even the grand piano, Carrie’s pride and joy, had a bluish bloom on its polished lid.

Virginia looked down at her sister, kneeling on the floor, putting away unwanted decorations for another year, putting them back into a box which had held them for a lifetime. Virginia thought: Caroline is putting on weight, and slacks do nothing for her figure. At least I’ve kept slim. Of course, she drinks too much. There was a time when people used to take us for twins. They couldn’t now.

She came down the steps and brushed her hands together. ‘That cornice is thick with dust.’

‘You say that every year, Vee.’

Virginia stood by the window. ‘This damned mist, you can’t see a thing.’

‘What do you expect in December? If it’s not fog it’s wind.’ Caroline got to her feet and stooped to massage her knees. ‘Well, that’s done for another year, thank God! Why do we bother? Christmas! I feel worn out already and it hasn’t even started.’

‘We’ve got Ernest’s friend, Wycliffe, coming this afternoon.’

‘I can do without reminding. I wish Ernest wouldn’t invite people here to stay. Poor old Ada is getting beyond it and the extra work falls on us.’

‘Mother used to cope with a houseful.’

‘Mother was a marvel but don’t let’s start getting all sentimental or I shall howl. I need a drink.’

‘Where’s Paul?’

‘I’m not sure but I think he’s gone to see Francine.’

‘He’s been seeing a lot of her recently.’

‘Yes, I’d rather he wasn’t.’

‘Why?’

‘For one thing I think she’s got all the makings of a little whore.’

‘And?’

‘Isn’t that enough?’

‘Yes, but I don’t think it’s true. I think we see the worst side of Francine. Jenny Eggerton is her form mistress and she was saying Francine’s main trouble is that she keeps herself too much to herself. She holds everybody at arm’s length – other girls, staff, and boys. Incidentally, Jenny was at a rehearsal for the vicar’s nativity play and she was really impressed by Francine’s performance as the Virgin.’

‘I don’t doubt she puts on a good act but she would need to in that role.’

‘She’s got a wonderful voice for a girl of her age.’

‘I know, but that doesn’t stop me wishing she would keep away from Paul. Not that what I think will make any difference; I’m only his mother.’ Caroline moved towards the door. ‘I’m going to fetch that drink; are you sure you won’t have something?’

‘All right, a small sherry, just to celebrate.’

Virginia was left alone. Thirty-five, a spinster, a teacher of biology in a comprehensive school; at nineteen it would have seemed a fate worse than death, now she thought there were compensations. The mist had thinned and through the mullioned window she could see the lichen-covered balustrade at the end of the terrace and the grey sea beyond. To her left she glimpsed the hump of Gurnard’s Head only to lose it again almost at once. Mynhager House, built on the rock platform of an ancient landslip, facing four-square to the Atlantic and backing on a steep boulder-strewn slope.

‘Here we are, then!’ Caroline with a whisky and a dry sherry on a tray.

They sat on one of the massive settees.

Virginia said: ‘Are you meeting Gerald off the train this evening?’

‘No, he’s driving down, thank goodness!’

‘How long is he down for?’

Caroline sipped her whisky. ‘I’ve no idea. The House reassembles on the seventh or eighth but with luck he should have gone back before then. There’s a cabinet reshuffle in the wind and they’re all running round in circles with their little pink tongues hanging out. It seems Sir James is almost certain to be kicked upstairs to the. . .