Vera Stanhope 06 - Harbour Street by Ann Cleeves Read Free Book Online Page B

if Margaret Krukowski had cleaned in here too. If so, they’d need to look for another member of the congregation to take on the domestic chores. Here there was no Christmas decoration, and the only colour came from a stained-glass window over the altar.
    ‘Hello! Anybody home?’ Churches always made her feel irreverent.
    There was a scuffling noise ahead of them and a dark figure emerged from a door to their left. Vera thought this was probably the ugliest man she’d ever met. He was younger than she’d been expecting, perhaps in his early thirties. Black hair, black caterpillar eyebrows, thick lips that moved, even when he wasn’t speaking, and narrow eyes. A large and shambling Mr Bean. He should be a stand-up comedian. He’d just have to walk onstage and there would be horrified, rather nervous laughter.
    ‘Yes?’ He was wearing a black cassock with a black cloak over the top. A man who liked his uniform. There was nothing welcoming about the way he approached them.
    ‘Father Gruskin?’ She didn’t wait for him to answer, but flashed her warrant card in front of him. He squinted at it as if he was short-sighted. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news about one of your parishioners.’
    He took them into the vestry, where it was warmer. A Calor gas heater hissed and the fumes from it caught in the back of her throat.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Perhaps you’ll have heard already,’ Vera said. ‘There was a murder on the Metro early this evening. The victim was Margaret Krukowski. I believe she was one of your regulars.’
    He stared at them with horror, before collapsing into a chair at a plain wooden table and putting his face in his hands. ‘I can’t believe it.’ It seemed to Vera that he was genuinely distressed and she felt a brief moment of sympathy for him. ‘What have we come to, when a fine old lady is murdered in public?’ He was posh, but local. Brought up in the city, Vera decided. Coddled. He looked as if he could do with a walk in fresh air.
    ‘You knew her well?’ Holly was sticking her oar in, but at least the priest looked up and answered, and he hadn’t responded to Vera’s comments.
    ‘She attended regularly and she was always willing to get involved,’ he said. ‘These days most churches only keep going because of the efforts of elderly women. My father was a clergyman and I grew up in a parish in the city. It was much the same even then.’ So there was a family tradition of dressing up in frocks.
    ‘We’re trying to trace her family.’ At least Holly wasn’t fidgeting with the electric gadget, but was giving the man her full concentration. ‘Can you help with that at all?’
    ‘I don’t think I can. She lived over the road in the Harbour Guest House. Perhaps Mrs Dewar would know. They were almost like family. Margaret used to bring the children to Sunday School.’
    They sat for a moment in silence.
    ‘Margaret worked as a volunteer with you?’
    ‘Yes.’ He seemed preoccupied. Vera wondered if he was trying to rearrange the cleaning rota, to think of another old woman to take Margaret’s place. At last he gave his full attention to the matter. ‘Yes, at the Haven.’
    Vera decided it was time for her to take over. ‘The Haven is a refuge for battered women?’
    Again, it seemed that a simple answer was beyond him. ‘No, not really. It’s a hostel for homeless women. Some of them might have left home because of domestic abuse, but we care for any woman in trouble who needs accommodation. Some have been in prison, some have been in care.’
    ‘And it’s run by the church?’
    ‘It’s run by a charitable trust. I’m one of the trustees, along with a senior social worker and a local accountant. But, as a church, we support the project. Financially, practically and with our prayers. Margaret worked miracles with some of the women. She became a surrogate mother to them, I think. They’ll miss her very much.’
    ‘Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt