by William Paul
‘I would like to but it’s rather short notice,’ Fyfe said, seizing the let out she had given him. ‘What brought this invitation on, Sylvia? Am I an afterthought?’
‘Never, Dave. I just suddenly thought how nice it would be to see you again.’
‘It would be, wouldn’t it?’
‘Well, I hope you can make it, Dave. Just knock on the door and say the password.’
‘What’s that?’
‘My name.’
‘What’s your name again?’
‘Think about it. It’ll come back to you. I’ll maybe see you then?’
‘Maybe. But let’s keep in touch anyway, even if you are going to be a married woman.’
‘You used to be a married man when we were in touch before.’
‘What are we now?’ Fyfe asked.
‘Just good friends.’
‘See you then.’
‘Yes. See you.’
Fyfe replaced the receiver and sat back in his chair, turning to look out the window, drying his hand with a piece of scrap paper and mopping up the mess of coffee on the desk. He was on his own. That meant he could go to Sylvia’s party and Sally would never know. What she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. It was the first time Sally had been away from home since they had got back together again. Strange how the invitation should come just as he found himself in a position to accept it. He wanted to go, wanted to see Sylvia face to face and find out what she was playing at. Circumstances were conspiring to permit him to do just that.
Fyfe narrowed his eyes and a stand of out-of-focus trees in the near distance waved in a sudden explosive downdraught of wind. The bare branches splayed out and sprang back into shape.
He was definitely uneasy. Things were happening out there, he thought. Things had already happened. Soon all those things would combine in a pattern that would make sense. The real trick would be to make sense of it while the pattern was still taking shape. No chance of that.
11
The car nosed carefully round the rain-filled holes of the car-park and manoeuvred into an empty space. The engine spluttered a couple of times after the ignition was turned off and finally died with a sudden cough.
‘Your timing’s off,’ Adamson said.
‘Yes. She needs tuning,’ Byrne replied. ‘I know a mechanic who will do it but he hasn’t been to confession for a while. Now, if you’ll just wait a moment I’ll have this collar off and I’ll treat you to a drink in your first hour of freedom.’
‘Why take off the collar?’
‘It upsets some people to see a priest doing the normal things that normal people do, like going into a pub for a drink. For some reason it makes them feel guilty and there’s enough guilt in this world without me adding to it needlessly. So I’ll go incognito. There. I could pass for a real person now, couldn’t I? Don’t I look normal.’
‘Definitely, Father.’
‘And not so much of the Father. I’m hardly old enough to be your big brother. Call me Donald if you will.’
‘Okay, Donald.’
They got out of the car and walked together to the pub door. Inside the place was hung with horse brasses and hunting pictures. There were two men on high stools and two women at a corner table, one wearing a hat. The unsmiling barmaid, a young girl with dirty blonde hair, a painted face and tight T-shirt, unfolded her arms as they entered and leaned on her hands on the bar, arching her eyebrows by way of silent inquiry.
‘What will you have then, Jad?’ Byrne asked.
Adamson had avoided pubs on his training-for-freedom days and weekends. The only alcohol that he had drunk in nine years had been the occasional cupful of highly acidic home brew produced in a forgotten corner of a prison store from rotting pears and oranges and sold at fifty pence a go by an enterprising inmate doing time for tax fraud. It caused terrible stomach cramps, scoured your brain like a Brillo pad, but each new bucketful sold within hours. Once a week he allowed himself to smoke some expensively obtained cannabis as a relaxant and a reward for getting closer to getting out. Otherwise, the sight and the smell of the junkies who jagged themselves with all sorts of inventive solutions and powders were more than enough to deter him from following that path. He preferred to watch old black and white films. Hitchcock was his hero and the flickering celluloid a strong drug that ate up the hours of enforced idleness. All thoughts of women were consigned to a mental backwater in his brain from where they emerged at irregular intervals, despite the nightly films, the weekly dope, and the occasional alcohol, to frustrate him intensely.
But now he was free and out on his own. There were no limiting factors any more, no restraints. He could drink as much as he liked and have as many women as he liked. He realised he was staring at the barmaid’s substantial breasts pushing against the stretched yellow material of the T-shirt and jerked his eyes away to the well-stocked gantry and its rows of spirit bottles. Freedom made him feel dizzy.
The barmaid turned, displaying a backside stacked up by jeans tighter than her T-shirt. In that instant, all his fears for the future fell away and the idea that he had once coveted the three-meals-a-day and warm-bed-at-night security of prison life shrivelled like a piece of burning paper. As soon as he dumped the guilt-inducing Father Donald he would start to enjoy himself properly.
He accepted a pint and declined the offer of something to eat. Byrne took a gin and tonic and they found a table to sit facing each other. Adamson was embarrassed, not knowing what to say. His mother had been the holy one, going to Mass every day and keeping little plaster saints on window ledges all over the house. Adamson had never known Byrne. He had come into the picture only after her death, claiming in prison visits that she had made him vow to look after her only son. He had not harassed Adamson, had not demanded he attend church services or study the scriptures or anything like that. He had simply visited him a couple of times for casual, time-killing chats. And he had organised a flat normally devoted to his parish’s drug rehabilitation programme, and a coming-out job stocking shelves in a supermarket.
Adamson should have been grateful for his time and trouble, but there was something about the man he was not sure of, something about his manner and his attitude. Byrne acted like a prison officer whose assumption that he controlled all aspects of your life was instinctive and unthinking. That was the priest in him. It would be good, Adamson thought, sipping his cold beer, to get away from him at the earliest opportunity.
‘Your mother would have been a happy woman this day,’ Byrne said.
Adamson nodded and looked around. He was always reluctant to talk about his mother.
‘She was a proud woman. Proud of her son, she was. I remember her telling me how much she was looking forward to you being released and going back to live with her. “He’ll take good care of me, will my son,” she said. “I won’t have anything to worry about when he gets back. No money worries ever again.”’
Adamson twitched at the mention of money. He glanced across the table to see Byrne staring straight at him and looked away hurriedly. But he could not keep his gaze averted. His head slowly turned back again as if an invisible hand was guiding his chin. It moved round until the eyes of the two men locked together.
He thinks he knows about the cash, Adamson thought. She must have told him my secret. A sense of desperate amusement made Adamson bite the inside of his lip. Jesus Christ, he thinks he knows.
‘It is a tremendous thing, the love of a mother for her son,’ Byrne was saying, the pattern of his speech falling into hypnotic rhythm. ‘One of God’s most precious gifts on this earth. It is the closest bond between two people that can exist. A mother and her son should have no secrets. Wouldn’t you agree, Jad? The bond between a mother and her son?’
Adamson felt disorientated. He lifted his pint glass but did not attempt to drink any of it.
‘Your mother is dead now, may God have mercy on her soul, but before she died she asked me to take on the responsibility for you, Jad. I agreed. I hope I can take
her place in your life, Jad. It may not be a mother’s love I have to offer but it is a genuine form of love. If I am to help you, Jad, we should have no secrets from each other. No secrets at all.’
‘No secrets.’ Adamson shook his head. ‘What do you want me to tell you?’
‘I don’t want you to tell me anything, Jad.’ He patted the back of Adamson’s hand where it lay on the table. ‘I just want you to be able to trust me. That is what your mother would have wanted.’
The barmaid passed by collecting empty glasses. Adamson was disconcerted by the leer he detected in the priest’s sideways glance. Something was wrong here. Badly wrong.
‘Now, now, Jad,’ Byrne said. ‘I think a few thousand Hail Marys are in order to compensate for the impure thoughts you are harbouring about that young lady.’
Adamson’s mouth fell open in amazement that a priest should make such a comment. He shifted nervously in his seat. Byrne chuckled and finger-stirred the ice cubes in his gin.
‘Don’t be shocked, Jad. I wasn’t born a priest. I grew up to become one and before I took my vows I knew all about the urges young men like yourself are prone to. You more than most at the moment, having been locked up for the last nine years. I’m not embarrassing you, am I?’
‘A little bit.’
‘You’ll get used to me.’ Byrne leaned forward to speak more quietly. ‘I tend to say what I think and what I’m thinking right now is that given half a chance you would have the knickers off that young lady and her arse spread-eagled over the bar there.’
Adamson choked on a mouthful of beer. Byrne leaned still closer and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘The things I hear, Jad. The secrets people tell me. Priests are party to knowledge of the weirdest desires and vices. The depths to which human beings can sink. The sins that are committed. We know it all.’
There was a bad taste in Adamson’s mouth. Anxiety made his hands tremble and he clumsily folded his arms. He became super-sensitive to the thumping of his heartbeat and the flow of blood circulating round his body. Byrne had him frozen in his vision, like a rabbit in the glaring headlights of an approaching car. He thinks he knows, Adamson thought, and a mild tremor of laughter made him fidget. He thinks he knows.
‘Do you trust me, Jad?’
‘Of course I trust you, Donald,’ Adamson lied.
‘Do you? Do you really? Would you tell me your most precious secret?’
Adamson felt himself shrinking under the intensity of Byrne’s stare. He had told his mother about the fabulous hidden fortune because he had wanted to put her mind at rest about how he would survive once she was dead. She must have told Byrne in the sanctity of the confessional. He might be a lapsed Catholic but he was well aware that no genuine priest would ever break that sanctity. It was a mortal sin. Wasn’t that the way it was supposed to work? But then was Father Byrne a genuine priest? Who was he? What was he? What did Byrne want from him?
‘I know about the money, Jad,’ Byrne said.
Adamson seemed to be floating in the air with no sensation of any part of his body touching anything solid. Another tremor of laughter rose through his body like hiccups but he managed to resist it. He wished himself back inside the familiar little prison cell where no one could get at him. The interior of the pub began to compress around him. He wanted to get up and walk away but could not move.
‘I know what you’re thinking, Jad,’ Byrne said softly. His nostrils widened when he smiled. He looked like somebody posing for his picture to be taken. He looked incredibly pleased with himself. A cat about to get the cream. ‘Don’t worry, Jad. I want to help you. The money is yours. You’ve served your time for it. I just want to keep my promise to your mother, that’s all. I want to make sure you’re all right. I’m not going to hand you over to the police or anything like that. Besides, you can’t be punished twice for the same crime.’
‘You’re right, Donald,’ Adamson said, suppressing the anxiety and enjoying a delicious wave of calmness. ‘Why don’t we go and get the money?’
It was Byrne’s turn to be surprised. ‘When?’ he asked eagerly.
‘No time like the present.’ He held out his empty glass. ‘First I’ll have another drink. I’m beginning to get the taste for it.’
12
The gatehouse was hidden behind a high wall and a stand of poplar trees at the entrance to the half-mile long driveway to Gus Barrie’s home. In Victorian times it had been the estate gamekeeper’s house but no one had actually lived in it for more than fifty years. The stonework was in poor condition and slates were missing from the roof. The wooden beams forming the eaves were badly eroded. Every window was sealed with an ancient plywood panel and a more recently installed black-painted grid of closely spaced iron bars. The padlocks linking the grids to metal tabs cemented into the walls were still bright and shiny. The arched doorway had a similar grid and padlock arrangement on hinges.
Barrie walked briskly down the drive, swinging a bunch of keys on a finger. He hadn’t slept at all but he wasn’t tired. The excitement of anticipation was making his heart race alarmingly fast. His mind was hyperactive. All night he had prowled the house, cocooned in the bubble of light created by the fancy electronic circuitry, the music trailing behind him. He refused to take any sleeping pills because he hated the idea of drugs contaminating his body. He still had a muscular frame, not an ounce of spare flesh on him. Every nerve bristled with energy and vigour. He was proud of his body. He had taken great care of it. He wanted Angie to be proud of it too.
His beloved Angie would soon be on her way to him and he had ensured that everything was prepared, everything perfect down to the last detail. The decks were cleared. Ross Sorley and Georgie Boy were among the last pieces of untidiness to be swept under the carpet. Now his house and his life were in order. The final detail would be slotted into place in front of Angie’s beautiful eyes. Until that was over he could not relax. He had an obsessive need to check the gatehouse. Every day for the last week he had done it at least once, sometimes three times morning, afternoon and night.
Barrie opened two padlocks to free the exterior iron grid. A big old-fashioned key and two smaller ones at top and bottom opened the house’s original iron bolt-studded door.
Barrie entered and locked the door shut behind him. Inside it was dark and very cold. He felt his way along the corridor and turned into the first room on the left, groping for the light switch and flicking it on. The single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling was hardly enough to dispel the gloom. Dust particles drifted lazily in the murky air. It was like being underwater. The room was empty apart from a large steel chest against one wall. Another much larger padlock secured it. Barrie looked up at the sound of scraping above his head. It came from the pigeons nesting in the attic space, disturbed by his presence.
Barrie knelt down beside the steel chest and inserted a key in the padlock. It clicked loudly and fell to the floor with a thud. He raised the lid as he stood up and smiled coldly. There were three bulging black sacks. One was open at the top. Ten-pound notes spilled from it like foam over the rim of a beer glass. Barrie spoke softly to himself, smiling at the image of himself as an old miser crouched over his hoard rubbing his hands with glee. But it wasn’t his money. It belonged to someone else. Barrie’s pleasure would be in handing it back to its rightful owner.
‘One million, three hundred and seventy-five thousand, two hundred and forty-eight pounds,’ he said. ‘The bank’s officially recorded loss. And it’s all yours, Angela darling. Your inheritance.’
13
The freckle-faced, red-haired girl behind the reception desk of the diocesan office ticked off Fyfe’s name on a list and signalled for him to have a seat while she phoned upstairs to inform the Archbishop. She pointed at the ceiling as she punched the extension number and reported his arrival.
‘Someone will be down to collect you in a moment,’ she said.
Fyfe sat cross-legged with his coat across his knees. A stream of warm air from a wall-moun
ted radiator made him glad he had dropped the dogs off at Catriona’s on his way rather than have to leave them in the cold car any longer. The sun sparkled on the glass of the windows without adding to the heat.
The low table in front of Fyfe was covered with newspapers and religious magazines. Fie picked up the Catholic Observer and flicked through it without taking much notice of the contents until he came to a photograph of Archbishop Delaney on one of the pages shaking hands with a self-conscious nun. He had a fat, heavy-jowled face. His small eyes were deep-set and Fyfe thought he had a strange monk-style haircut before realising it was a skullcap and not a bald patch.
A sudden feeling of hostility, like a bad smell, affected him as he looked at the photograph. It wasn’t religious prejudice, just that he had never felt comfortable around people like Catholic Bishops and Protestant ministers who claimed to have all the answers and would share them with anyone who pledged allegiance. It was a view shaped by his reluctant attendance as a young child at Sunday school in the local church, split up into small groups and dispersed widely among the creaking wooden pews so they could not distract each other. Sweet-smelling, teenage Miss Saunders guarded the only way in and out of the pew and when she read from the bible she always placed one hand gently on her hat as if she expected it to be blown away at any second. The clothes she wore crackled with starch and when she sat down she had a habit of wiggling her bum and pulling at the hem of her skirt while the boys stared at her legs. The bible stories were always boring and the hymn-singing off key. The moon-faced minister used to get dreadfully angry when no one volunteered answers to his questions. Fyfe had never admitted knowing any answer and rebellion went further when he and the other boys secretly carved symbols on to the underside of the polished wood with the edge of a threepenny bit. Nothing that would identify them, of course, just random scratchings, obscenities and hieroglyphics, pagan symbols to show the Church that here were tiny souls slipping through its grasping fingers.
