Free Murder in House by Veronica Heley Page B

all knew, but Ellie smiled forgivingly as he retrieved coat and briefcase and made his way out of the kitchen door into the night.
    â€˜Feed a cold, and starve a fever. Comfort food coming right up!’ Thomas pierced sausages to make sure they were cooked all through. ‘Shed your coat, Ellie. I’m cooking tonight. Oh, and this is my friend Peters from St Mary’s.’
    â€˜It’s good to meet you at last,’ said the dog collar. ‘I rang to thank Thomas for taking the service yesterday, and he invited me round. He said you’d want to ask me about Lloyd.’
    She did, indeed. So after a fairly raucous high tea, which finished up with lashings of Rose’s Bakewell tart and cream, they adjourned to the peace and quiet of the sitting room.
    The Reverend Peters swallowed pills. ‘The antibiotics are kicking in at last, thank the Lord. Pleurisy’s no joke, especially at my age. Forgive me if I leave soon. I still tire easily.’
    â€˜I’ll run you home,’ said Thomas, patting his frontage as a signal to the cat Midge to make himself at home there.
    â€˜Of course you mustn’t overdo it,’ said Ellie, handing them both a cup of good coffee. How many cups had she had that day, and would she be able to sleep on them? ‘Can you tell me about Lloyd before you go?’
    â€˜A bright mind. Old for his years. Thought for himself. He’d been brought up a strict Methodist by Welsh parents. In their late teens, some youngsters slough off whatever religion they’ve learned at their parents’ knee, in favour of experimentation. Sometimes they turn their backs on religion altogether. Lloyd had gone through such a phase and come out the other side. He approached me after a morning service about a year ago and started asking questions. I run a discussion group for young people on Wednesday evenings and he joined that. He knew his parents would have preferred him to go to a Methodist church, but he felt at home with us. Just before Christmas he asked me to prepare him to take communion, and he was thinking – I don’t know whether he’d have gone through with it – but he was thinking that one day he might train for the ministry.’
    â€˜Did he drink at all?’ asked Ellie.
    The Reverend Peters shook his head. ‘A half pint occasionally. He said he’d tried getting drunk and it hadn’t done anything for him, so he didn’t bother nowadays. As for drugs: never. And, of course, as he was a student he had to be careful with his money.’
    â€˜Sex?’
    Again, a shake of the head. ‘I don’t think so. He said there was a girl in the group he went around with – something to do with his digs? Anyway, he said he really fancied her, but she was already spoken for. He said there’d be plenty of time later to find someone he really liked, someone he could commit to. He had – not tunnel vision exactly – but I would say he was a remarkably single-minded young man. He had two goals: to get a good degree and teach, and to find out what God wanted him to do in life. He said everything else could wait.’
    â€˜What did you think when you heard he’d got drunk and dived off a high roof?’
    He looked anguished. ‘When I saw the paragraph in the local paper, I thought it must be some other person of that name. I rang his digs and was told that yes, it was him, that he was being cremated. We couldn’t even have a service for him at our church. Human nature never fails to surprise me. He’s the last person I would have thought . . . well, it’s all over. I suppose I misread his character, that the front he put on for me was a false one.’
    â€˜Ursula didn’t believe the official version, either. Was she the girl he liked so much, do you know?’
    He shook his head. ‘He didn’t give me a name. Old-fashioned in some ways. I liked him all the better for