Clerical Errors

by D M Greenwood

  As he stared into the gloom he thought how the sacrilege would have appealed to Geoffrey. The top of the candle burning on the altar to symbolise the illumination afforded the world by the Christian gospel and the hidden base concealing that element which could most easily destroy a man. It was the same cast of mind which would not merely have killed someone but severed his head and put it in a font and then replaced the weapon in its ceremonial position. How very typical of Geoffrey.

  He recalled him at Cambridge. Small, dark, impish or devilish, according to whether one loved or hated him. He had spent a lot of his time mixing with actors and producing the odd play, Ian remembered. Not unlike his father in figure, his tone and accent he had modified in the modern manner to imitate the fashionable glottal stop. He’d enjoyed being the reputed Geoffrey Markham, Cumbermound’s son, who speaks like a navvy. He was attractive enough, to both men and women and quite unscrupulous in using both to further his ends, although sexually he’d stuck to the latter. The last occasion he’d seen him in Cambridge had been at the party which had ended with Thomas Newcome’s death. Suicide, perhaps, or perhaps not. Ian had retained the memory of Geoffrey’s face bending over the pale features of the Bishop’s son as he lay on the bed with the lethal mixture of alcohol and drugs inside him. Geoffrey’s own features had registered something which, on reflection, Ian could only interpret as triumph, even glee. He’d put his arm round Ian’s shoulder and drawn him down to look at the dead boy. He had put his finger to his lips and said, ‘Look, Ian, our brother doth but sleep.’

  Ian felt his stomach heave at the memory. Could he have saved Thomas? he wondered. What sort of perversity inspired Geoffrey? At that moment, certainly, he’d seen him as devilish. He’d known him a long time. They’d been at the same prep school. In those days he’d shown a talent for making the lives of certain sorts of fellow pupil hellish. The characters he’d particularly been drawn to were very straightforward, unsuspecting boys. His ploy was to befriend them, lead them into some sort of scrape and then betray them to the authorities. He liked, he really loved, he’d once boasted, to see the look of bewilderment on their faces when they realised what had been done to them. ‘I have a very important place in the scheme of things,’ he’d said once. ‘I’m here to show them the roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. In other words, what the world is really like.’

  Was that what he’d done to Thomas? He’d known Thomas was taking drugs at school and in quite heavy quantities. He suspected his father, the Bishop, did not know. There was no confidence between the Bishop and his son. The sensible thing for Ian to have done would have been to tell the Bishop. The plain fact was, however, that Ian had been afraid to do that. Afraid for himself, irrationally, but afraid also for Thomas, perhaps with more reason. The Bishop was, after all, formidable. And because of that quality, the quality which prevented people from facing him, the Bishop had lost his son. My fault, wondered Ian, my most grievous fault? Or his?

  Three years later, Ian remembered, he and Geoffrey had met again in London. He’d suspected that Geoffrey was pushing drugs. He couldn’t quite believe that anyone he knew would actually do that. But the memory of Thomas’s face as he lay dying and of Geoffrey’s glee had haunted him. There’d been a fight at that London party. Ian remembered what he’d said to Geoffrey, words which had caused Geoffrey to throw his wine in Ian’s face and had resulted in Ian hitting him hard enough on the side of the head to knock him down. Oddly enough, Ian thought with surprise, what he’d read on Geoffrey’s face as he lay on the floor, was that same look of gleeful triumph he’d had when he’d viewed Thomas’s body, almost as though he’d successfully achieved what he wanted. But Ian had had no regrets about the blow. It wouldn’t restore young Thomas but it had been some sort of just retribution.

  Ian stirred as the clock struck the hour. Midnight. If his intuition was right and if the various bits of the puzzle which he’d been manoeuvring every which way over the past forty-eight hours were correct, Geoffrey would surely make some attempt to clear the scene of evidence – quite apart from the monetary aspect involved. Then, thought Ian grimly, he could clear one or two things out of the way before letting the police in.

  Ian leant his forehead against the cool pane of the window to keep himself awake. In the remains of the moonlight he remarked a slim, black cat emerge from Canon Wheeler’s garden. With elaborate theatricality, freezing every five yards and then streaking forward, it gained the top of the garden wall. There it stopped suddenly and swished its tail once. Ian looked to see the cause of its immobility. At the other end of the wall, with its back to the black cat but nevertheless managing to convey that it perceived its presence, was a heftier, long-haired version. Ian was about to immerse himself in what he knew might be a prolonged, silent contest of wills, when, without warning, both cats plopped down from the wall and shot off in different directions. Ian peered about to see what had disturbed them. From round the corner of the Cathedral, a figure could be seen making its way towards the entrance to the St Manicus chapel.

  Ian held his breath and then let it out again. It was the figure of a woman. Damnation. No woman had entered his calculation with regard to Geoffrey and his outfit. He felt unreasonable resentment that he was to be confronted with some new piece of the game at this juncture. Moreover the woman was making for the St Manicus chapel entrance. On Ian’s reckoning she, or better he, should have been entering Canon Hardnut’s front or back door. However, anyone entering the St Manicus chapel at midnight, apparently with their own key, could not be your normal tourist. Ian wondered whether the police might have left anyone on guard in the Cathedral. He rather thought not. There really could be no reason for doing so and he expected they were undermanned.

  He picked up his jacket from beside his chair and moved quickly and quietly down the elegant stairs. In the hall he paused. If he made for the back door he’d lose minutes whilst he went round the back of Canons’ Court. If he let himself out through the front door, he might be seen. He chanced it. The large, well-balanced door opened silently and he slipped through and down the garden path to the iron gate at the end. The gate had been oiled recently and gave no sound.

  Ian sprinted across to the St Manicus chapel door. Cautiously he felt the cold iron handle. He turned it experimentally. It did not open. He had no Cathedral keys with him: he had not expected any business there. What now? He could, of course, wait until whoever it was came out and collar them then. But since whoever it was appeared to have a key to the St Manicus chapel, why shouldn’t they have keys to the other doors? They might exit by any one of them. Including, thought Ian, the joker in the pack: the Bishop’s door. But if she, why not he? Ian turned swiftly towards the east end, rounded the apse and arrived at the north side beside the small undecorated stonework of the Bishop’s door. He tried the latch both ways. No movement. Good for his lordship, or rather, on this occasion, bad for his lordship. Ian thought again. He’d try the Vergers’ entrance on the north side on the off chance. If that wasn’t open he’d take his station again by the St Manicus chapel entrance and hope.

  The Vergers’ entrance, with its clutter of mops and washing line, was darker than the other side. Cautiously, Ian decided to use his torch. His neat, powerful rubber flashlight showed him his path between the detritus. Down two steps to the first door. He tried the handle. It opened easily. Lazy, careless bastards. The passage smelt stale and dusty. He pressed on towards the second door which led into the crypt vestry office. It occurred to him that even if he gained the crypt, the door from the crypt to the Cathedral might well, jolly well ought to, be locked. Sufficient unto the day, however. He tried the second door. It too opened easily. Ian pointed the flashlight round the room. His eye was caught by an object on the table next to the inevitable copy of The Sun. He crossed to examine it. He took the object gingerly in his hand. It was familiar to him. A whetstone, used by carpenters for sharpening chisels or knives or swords. It had recently been oiled and so was in use. Ian wondered, giv
en this latest discovery, whether he really wanted to proceed to the body of the Cathedral.

  Whilst he was hesitating, he heard a slight noise apparently from overhead. Ian stepped swiftly through the office door, out in to the crypt. He thought of First World War troops taught to shout as they charged with fixed bayonets towards other human beings. He thought of Dhani, ‘breathe it out, shout it out.’ He allowed all his own anger at the murder and mutilation of a young man and the desecration of places of worship to flow through him and leapt from the crypt stairs and through the door. It hardly surprised him that it was open. The crypt entrance into the Cathedral emerged beside the choir screen and the organ loft. He made for the central entrance to the choir through the door behind the nave altar. He had pocketed his torch and relied on the light of the building but as he came through the choir entrance, he saw that there were lights kindled.

  Twenty yards away from him and directly in front of the high altar were two candles held aloft by human hands. He could just make out a small huddle of people in a circle. As he raced towards them, there was an appalling sound midway between a scream and a crow. Ian bellowed his own battle cry at the group as he launched himself towards one of the candle-holding hands. A woman’s voice shrieked and a man’s could be heard shouting, ‘Out, out’.

  Ian held on to the hand and one of the candles rolled away and extinguished itself on the stone floor. The other candle the man forced into Ian’s face making him shout with pain as it burnt his cheek. With more presence of mind than he would have credited himself he held on to the man and blew out the candle. In utter darkness they continued to wrestle together, the thought of how ill-trained he was flashing helplessly through Ian’s mind. All he’d ever undergone had been a modest programme of martial arts with Dhani, designed far more to help him release aggression than actually capture or hurt anyone.

  The figure broke away from him and shot off down the choir aisle towards the nave. The one physical pursuit which Ian had any skill in was rugby and his schoolboy instincts didn’t fail him now. He lunged forward in an excellent imitation of an under-fifteen eager to secure his place in the team and was rewarded by a pleasing thud as the other hit the ground. But he too appeared to have the rudiments of the game at his command. He struggled manfully to his feet with Ian still hanging on to his knees and then kicked back into his face. Ian tasted the blood in his mouth and atavistic anger coursed through him. He had more weight than the other man. He heaved himself up the other’s body and leant his knee into the small of the man’s back. Then he crooked his left arm round the man’s neck, wrenched it back and then knocked it forward again on to the stone floor. There was a choking gasp and the man went limp. Ian took his knee out of the man’s back and rolled him over. He took out his flashlight and allowed it to play over the recumbent form. The man’s head was encased in a hood which had partly come off. Ian jerked at it and surveyed the familiar face beneath.

  ‘You Welsh bastards always did play a dirty game,’ he murmured.

  Julia found the parcel with Ian’s neat handwriting on it on the floor of the entrance hall when she returned to her attic lodgings at about quarter to twelve. The protracted police questioning had exhausted her utterly. They’d called her back for a second go about six o’clock. After that, in the absence of Theodora who had an engagement at a training session out in the fens, she’d lingered over a sandwich at the ‘Adam and Eve’ on the waterfront before walking up through the town to her lodgings. But when she saw the clear hand on the re-used brown paper her energy returned. She took up the note propped against it.

  J: Here is the number plate and Theodora’s candle. If I’m not back in the office by 9 a.m. tomorrow take them to the police and suggest they talk to Geoffrey Markham. Get them to look at the base and analyse chemically any traces they find there. Don’t be frightened. Bless you, I. H. C.

  Julia stared at the parcel. She began to be frightened. What was Ian going to do? He’d not revealed his intentions to her and Theodora when they had met earlier that day, before the police moved in. The last she had seen of him was when he’d shot off, murmuring something about testing theories. For a moment it had looked as though Theodora had wanted to stop him but in the end she’d said nothing. The parcel had the stamp ‘Hermes’ on its back, the device of the local special messengers sometimes used by the diocesan office. She had no idea how long it had been there. Where was Ian? Had he then gone on to confront Markham? What exactly was Markham’s connection with her cousin’s murder? The little Ian had told them about Markham had convinced her that he was a dangerous man. Was he capable of murder? And had he killed not only Paul but Canon Wheeler as well? And if so, why? She took the parcel and extracted the candlestick. On its base was the familiar pattern of the St Manicus arms. She turned it up and looked closely at its base. There was a sort of plug in it which her fingers couldn’t shift. Chemical analysis, had Ian written?

  Even as her fear mounted, she heard, two storeys below her, the sound of a fist pounding on the front door of the house. If her landlord, Mr Docherty, was out, as he currently appeared to be, her usual way of dealing with callers was to open the casement window and lean out. It was much too dark to follow this course now. The banging came again, aggressive and prolonged. Such knocking so late re-echoing through the empty house terrified her. On an impulse she gathered up Ian’s note and the parcel and slipped them into the pocket of her Barbour. She grabbed her purse and pushed it into her cords’ pocket and hurried downstairs.

  As she reached the ground floor she heard someone trying the front door. She stepped swiftly forward and as quietly as possible shot the bolt beneath the latch. Then she turned and fled downstairs to the basement kitchen, quietly opened the back door and hurried out into the overgrown back garden. Two ancient pear trees overshadowed it, making it darker than the large full moon warranted. The long matted grass of the lawn concealed many hazards: ancient sinks and the forgotten parts of a children’s tricycle. Once in the open, however, Julia felt calmer. She made her way to the end of the garden and wrestled with the rotten garden gate. A moment or two later, she got it open far enough to allow her to squeeze through into the lane which ran the length of the backs of the two rows of terrace houses.

  She unhooked her jacket from the rusty catch and started off down the hill towards the end of the lane which ran into the main road a hundred yards away. She glanced down and thought she caught sight of a bulky figure just appearing at the end. Without hesitation she swung off in the opposite direction which was in fact the shorter way but was uphill. Before she reached the end of the lane she heard the sound of running feet. Without looking back she broke into a run. She was fast and she ran at full speed, making no attempt to disguise the fact that she was running away. She rounded the end of the lane and plunged into the main road. There were two or three people in sight but none near at hand. What there was, however, was a bus just gliding up to the stop twenty yards down the road. Julia spurted towards it and swung herself through the closing door. Once inside she looked back. There still appeared to be about the same number of people in the road. It was difficult to tell if the man in the army surplus flak-jacket caught in the light of a street lamp had been there all the time or whether he had just emerged from the end of the lane.

  Gratefully she fumbled for a fare and panted her way to a back seat. Once flopped down on the bench, she reviewed her position. The sensible thing, surely, would be to go to the police with her parcel now and tell them all she knew about Ian and the car number plate and the candle. But, first, she didn’t know very much and second, she might be endangering Ian. She shrank too from informing the police about anything which might reflect discreditably on her cousin. She wished fervently she believed in prayer, that she knew how to pray. She thought of Theodora and the thought brought relief. She knew that Theodora had rooms in the Archdeaconry. She knew she kept late hours. She longed for her steady, sane presence. Might it not be worth dropping in there and, if there was no joy
there, going across to the Amy Roy?

  Having made this resolution, Julia felt calmer. At the bottom of Market Street she got off the bus and walked through the market square. She paused at the butter cross and looked back. Just parking a powerful looking motorbike on the park the other side of the square was a man in a combat jacket. Julia had no idea if it was the same man she had seen half a mile away or whether he was following her and if so whether his intent was hostile or not. But she felt her breathing becoming faster again and broke into a brisk walk in the direction of the Archdeaconry to the south of the Cathedral. There were still a few people about, tourists and townpeople, near the west door, but as she made her way round Canons’ Court, they lessened in number. Julia glanced back over her shoulder. There was no sign of flak-jacket.

  She swung open the iron gate to the short stone path to the front door and hastened up the front steps. She pressed the old-fashioned, beautifully cleaned brass bell stop on the door case and waited. Midnight. She pressed again. Surely they couldn’t both be out. Then she remembered Theodora had told her that her flat was entered by an iron staircase at the back of the Archdeaconry. Julia peered back into Canons’ Court. She could not be sure but she thought she saw the figure of a man rounding the south door by St Manicus chapel. She slipped down the narrow gravel passage at the side of the house which separated the Archdeaconry from Canons’ Court and made her way via the dustbins to the rear of the house. With relief she started up the iron staircase. Julia could just make out a bell with Theodora’s name under it. She pushed it and tried the door handle. The door, a modern affair of flimsy wood with glass panels in it, opened easily inward and Julia stumbled inside.