An Unholy Shame Read online

  Graham reached for her raised hand and curled his fingers around it, pulling it back down onto his lap.

  Jason went white and took a shuddering breath. ‘I’m sorry. I forget sometimes ….’ He took a sip of his tea and ran a tired hand across his forehead.

  ‘Did Jessica and Chloe know each other?’ Monica asked, more to break the sudden awkwardness than anything else.

  ‘No,’ Jason said, ‘Chloe had no real idea who Jessica Taylor was until the first night of the conference. That was when Jessica began talking about her friend, who’d gone to Portugal, and seemed to have disappeared. A rather big coincidence for Chloe to swallow.’ Jason leaned forward tiredly on the chair. ‘You have to remember that there was no reason for Jessica and Chloe ever to have met. Jessica didn’t approve of her friend’s affair, and saw Chloe as the wronged wife. Although she’d learned a lot about her, second-hand, from both Arthur and Debbie.’

  ‘So Arthur knew Jessica?’ Graham put in.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Jason confirmed. ‘Debbie had introduced them. Of course, Arthur wasn’t keen on his mistress being best friends with a female vicar, you can be sure of that!’ Jason snorted. ‘And he told us that on the first night at the conference, he’d tried to talk to Jessica in her room. He wanted to be sure she was going to keep quiet about everything. Chloe admitted she’d seen him knocking on her door, which was all the confirmation she’d needed that the Jessica Taylor who was at the conference was the same Jessica Taylor that she’d sent Debbie’s forged letter to. But Chloe would have had no reason to fear for her safety, even then, if Jessica hadn’t made it clear that she wasn’t going to let Debbie’s disappearance rest. It must have come as quite a shock to her that first night to find someone so dangerous right on her doorstep. Given the state of her mind, it was no wonder Chloe tried to kill her.’

  ‘And poisoned Celia Gordon by mistake instead,’ Monica said. ‘What a waste. What a pointless, stupid waste …’

  Jason said nothing. There was nothing to say. ‘Well,’ he finished his tea and pushed the mug to one side. ‘I just thought you’d want to know the details. Oh, and we’ve released Sir Andrew of course,’ he added with a smile, wanting to leave them on a much happier note.

  What he didn’t tell them was what Sir Andrew had confessed to before all this had broken about Chloe Bryce. Namely that he and Matthew Pierrepont had hatched up a scheme between them, not to kill Celia Gordon, but to ruin her.

  Sir Andrew had purchased a small amount of heroin and was going to plant it in Celia’s room. He’d then given an anonymous tip off to the police. Meanwhile, Sir Matthew was going to get his journalistic buddies to record the story. It would have been, Sir Andrew had told them bitterly, poetic justice.

  They could have charged him for various offences for this scheme, but had decided not to. For one thing, Sir Andrew had sworn that he’d tossed the drugs into the river, so they’d never find them. So it would be hard to prove anything. And since they hadn’t carried through with their scheme …

  Still, Jason knew that his superiors were going to have a strong word with Sir Matthew Pierrepont’s bishop, and that soon the archdeacon was going to find himself living in a nursing home, and not before very long. Which was the best place for him, as far as Jason was concerned.

  As for Sir Andrew … It was agreed that nothing would be accomplished by trying to make any charges against him stick. And for that, Jason was rather grateful. The man had surely suffered enough.

  He let Monica and Graham walk him to the door. There was an awkward moment as he stepped outside and turned to look at them, nobody quite sure what to say. Then he nodded briefly at Graham, who had become one of the few men that he truly respected. And finally, he turned to look at Monica. His lips twisted in a wry smile. ‘Well, yet again, you’ve come up trumps,’ he said, his voice perhaps more annoyed than he’d meant it to sound. ‘I hope …’ he tried again, but then trailed off.

  He shrugged instead and smiled. ‘Well, so long,’ he finally said briskly, nodded once, then turned and forced himself to walk away.

  Monica watched him go, a tall, blond, handsome man who belonged in another world.

  Then she looked up at Graham and smiled gently. ‘Are you tired?’ she asked softly. And when he nodded ruefully, she reached up and kissed him lovingly. ‘Then let’s go to bed,’ she said softly.

  By the same author

  Birthdays Can Be Murder

  A Fatal Fall of Snow

  Dying for a Cruise

  An Invisible Murder

  Deadly Stuff

  An Unholy Mess

  Just Not Cricket

  An Unholy Whiff of Death

  © Joyce Cato

  First published in 2016 by

  Robert Hale an imprint of

  The Crowood Press Ltd,

  Ramsbury, Marlborough

  Wiltshire SN8 2HR

  www.crowood.com

  www.halebooks.com

  ISBN 978 0 7198 2094 6 (epub)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 2095 3 (mobi)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 2096 0 (pdf)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1892 9 (print)

  The right of Joyce Cato to be identified as

  author of this work has been asserted by her

  in accordance with the Copyright, Designs

  and Patents Act 1988.