Lies and Misdemeanours

“I cannot just sit here and wait for Meldrew to call. I am with men who have fought on battlefields. We know what we are doing. This is what we do. Meldrew’s men aside, we are working with authority. Meldrew wouldn’t dare hang me with Sir Hugo here. He won’t allow anything to happen to any of us.”

“I won’t, I promise,” Hugo assured her as he approached them. “I need Charlie with me because he will recognise his friend’s writing on the church’s paperwork. We need to take a look at the contents of the study to see what the verger has gotten himself involved in. Charlie needs to be the one to challenge Meldrew, if the man does appear, because he was the one Meldrew tried to hang. I hope it doesn’t come to that until we have the evidence need but if it does, it does.” He shrugged unconcernedly. “We will deal with it. It just makes life easier for us once Meldrew is behind bars if we have evidence already gathered that will convict him.”

“We don’t fail, Hetty,” Charlie added confidently. “We never have before.”

“Quite,” Hugo added with a nod.

“Before,” he said quietly. “I was by myself. I had no idea just how desperate Meldrew was, and what danger I was in. It won’t happen again.”

His voice hardened at the last, and it was enough to make her study him closely. She shivered at what she saw in the depths of his eyes. In that moment, he looked so much like Hugo that Hetty knew he wouldn’t stop until Meldrew was behind bars – or dead.

“We leave in an hour,” Hugo said quietly, and nodded to his men.

“Just stay here where it is safe. I can work better if I know that you are not in any danger.” Charlie tipped her chin up, and smiled reassuringly at her, but it didn’t erase the danger in his eyes. “We can then start to get on with our future.”

She was unsure what to say, so nodded hesitantly. She wasn’t sure exactly what she could say at a time like this, and so lapsed into thoughtful silence.

It was just past midnight when Charlie peered into the back room of the rectory. A dark scowl settled over his face as he watched the verger move confidently around the room. It was evident that the short, dour man had made himself quite at home in the vicar’s old residence.

Had he been so blatant as to move in?

Charlie crept through the bushes with the stealth of a cougar, and appeared at the side of Hugo so silently that his boss jumped. In all of his years with the Star Elite, Hugo had never met any man who could move around so quietly, and had a new respect for his colleague’s capabilities. So much so that he looked at his friend, and shook his head chidingly.

“Do you have to do that?” he mouthed almost silently.

Charlie grinned at him. His straight white teeth gleamed in the darkness, but flashed so quickly that Hugo could have imagined it.

“Just doing my job,” Charlie drawled conversationally.

“Well, go and do it somewhere else. I don’t want to end up a bloody permanent resident in the graveyard.”

“Snetterton’s in there,” Charlie reported. “We can take a look at his house while he is out of the way.”

When Hugo nodded, Charlie turned and led the way to a small, rather nondescript cottage that was two doors down from the rectory.

“Is there a wife or family here?” Hugo asked with one hand on the window beside the back door.

Charlie shook his head, and watched Hugo wriggle a small knife along the window-frame. While his boss worked to get the window open, Charlie tried the back door. He stood back to study the rear of the house before he glanced down at the stone beneath his boots. When it rocked side to side, he bent down to study it more carefully. Seconds later, he hissed at his boss and showed him the key he had found.

Given that they were so close to the church, they couldn’t light any candles, and had to make do nothing more than moonlight.

“Well, will you look at this?” Charlie murmured aloud as he studied the empty front room.

“What?” Barnaby asked as he moved into the kitchen doorway.

“Snetterton doesn’t plan to come back for a while,” Charlie replied. “The furniture has gone.”

“See if you can find any hiding places where he would keep paperwork,” Hugo sighed. “I suspect they will be empty, but it is worth checking anyway.”

Unfortunately, it quickly became evident that Snetterton had left no trace of his presence in the property at all.

“Is he planning to move on, do you think?” Barnaby asked as he entered room as empty-handed as everyone else. “Everything is stripped bare.”

“Nothing upstairs either,” Luke reported.

“Looks like he has moved into the rectory,” Hugo drawled.

Charlie looked at him. “He can’t be expecting a new vicar for a while then.”