Dead in the Water

* * *

In the end Mullen decided he had had enough and made his way into the garden. He thought he’d check the tomato plants for water, weed the vegetable patch and tidy up generally. It would help him to switch his brain off for a while and when he had finished he would take a few photographs so that the professor could see that he was looking after the place. But he had barely got his hoe out before he heard a car pull into the drive. There was a wild attention-grabbing hooting. So whoever it was, it wasn’t the police again. He straightened up and walked round the side path, carrying his hoe. It wouldn’t hurt to show he was in the middle of something.

It was Becca Baines. She grinned. “Ah, it’s the hired gardener.” She held up two bags. “Lunch! Nice and healthy: salad and fresh rolls, plus strawberries for pudding.”

Mullen realised with a start that he was pleased to see her — and also hungry. But he was puzzled that she hadn’t rung first. “I might have been out,” he said.

“In that case I would have eaten solo in your lovely garden and then sunbathed until it was time to go to work.” She smiled. “I’m on the night shift today.”

They ate at the teak garden table, half in the shade and half out. They talked easily. Or rather Becca talked while Mullen listened. Not that he minded. She was good, lively company. Eventually they finished and he went inside to make them coffee. She followed with the debris of lunch.

“You seem distracted,” she said as she put the leftovers in the fridge.

“Sorry.”

“Well are you going to tell me about it or do I have to apply Chinese burns to extract the information?”

So Mullen started to talk. About Chris, about Janice, about the police’s questioning that morning and about what he had seen on Facebook. The only thing he didn’t mention was the anonymous caller.

“Show me,” she said. So he did.

He took her through each photograph, telling her who he knew in each one. She was silent now, murmuring occasionally, sipping her coffee, taking it all in. When he got to the end, he turned and looked at her. “Any thoughts?”

“There are more shots of your glamorous vicar friend than anyone,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And no wedding ring on her finger.”

“No.”

“Is she gay?”

“I don’t know.”

“I bet she isn’t.” Becca had taken over the laptop. She moved back to one of the photographs of Diana Downey, mouth open, laughing, surrounded by punters. “Look at her. She likes to be the centre of male attention. A bit of a prick-teaser, if you ask me. Hiding behind her clerical robes.”

Mullen almost pointed out that she didn’t seem to wear ‘clerical’ clothes even in church, but managed not to.

“Who took the photos?” Becca said.

“Sorry?” Mullen was taken off guard by the change of direction. “I don’t know.”

“A man, I bet. Probably fancies her something rotten.”

It was a light bulb in the brain moment for Mullen. Of course! It was so obvious. Kevin Branston! It all made sense. Branston was conspicuously absent from the photographs, so the chances were that it was him taking the photos. And it was Branston who had been leaving Diana Downey’s house in something of a hurry before Mullen’s own appointment with her. He was probably in charge of the Facebook account too, making sure there were plenty of photos of their open evening on display — not to mention Reverend Downey in all her glamour. He was besotted with her. The question was: did she feel the same way about him?

“Well?” Becca was looking at him impatiently. “What’s going on in that tiny little brain of yours? Because I can hear the cogs clicking, albeit rather slowly.”

Mullen explained. Becca listened with a brow so furrowed it might have been a freshly ploughed field. He thought he found her even more attractive when she was in serious mode. When he had finished, he waited for her to respond. He needed help and he reckoned that she — being a woman and detached — might be the person to provide it.

“I suppose the question is: does the vicar getting up to a bit of hanky-panky with your boss have any relevance to the two deaths?”

“It’s possible, I suppose. If someone was trying to blackmail them, maybe . . .” Mullen dribbled to a halt. Just putting his thinking into words seemed to highlight how flimsy it was.

Becca was looking at him inscrutably. “You don’t seem very certain.”

“No.” He scratched his head. “Well, these days it wouldn’t be the end of the world if such a relationship came to light would it?”