Clerical Errors

by D M Greenwood

  Then she stopped. The room, clearly a sitting room, was a shambles. Books had been thrown off the shelves, rugs pulled up. Drawers in the dresser lay open and in turmoil. Of Theodora there was no sign. Once again Julia felt panic rising in her. Clearly someone had been here looking for something. Was it candles or number plates or something else?

  Julia turned to look back at the door through which she had just entered. She closed it behind her and pushed the bolt to. Then she moved quietly through to the landing. She listened intently. There was no sound. Then she thought she detected a crunch of gravel. Swiftly she descended the staircase which changed from the utilitarian one up to Theodora’s flat into the much grander one leading into the main body of the house. Very little moonlight came through the lantern above her or from the fanlight over the front door below her. She felt trapped in an encroaching gloom. She didn’t think there was anyone at home. She crossed the stone-flagged floor of the Archdeaconry hall and stood listening at the front door. Then she turned the handle, opened it a crack and looked towards the iron gate through which she had passed a few minutes ago. She had closed it. Now it stood open.

  Julia ceased to hesitate. She flung herself down the path and out through the gate. Instead of turning left, back the way she had come in the direction of the market square and the west end of the Cathedral, she turned right and pelted down towards the footbridge; a quicker way over the river to the Amy Roy but, she realised as she ran, one which was much less frequented.

  In the increasing darkness, Julia hurtled towards the bridge, the heavy car number plate in her Barbour pocket flapping clumsily against her ribs. As she neared the bridge, she looked back and saw flak-jacket sprinting in a business-like manner down the length of Canons’ Court. She’d made a mistake. She should never have come this way. Panting now with panic as much as physical effort, Julia cleared the bridge, turned right along the tow path and leaped down on to the deck of the Amy Roy.

  ‘Dhani?’ she gasped. ‘Dhani, where are you?’

  There was no reply. Julia had a vision of herself floating downstream with her neck at an odd angle. She looked back along the tow path. Flak-jacket had not yet appeared. She made her way aft.

  Dhani appeared up the companion way. He looked at Julia.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked in a low steady voice.

  ‘Oh, Dhani, thank God.’

  Dhani took her hand in both of his and drew her down into the cabin. Before she could sit down, however, there was a clatter and the wherry jerked at her moorings.

  ‘Dhani,’ Julia found herself whispering, ‘it’s them. It’s Paul’s killers. I’m certain of it. I don’t know who they are or why they did it but I’m sure it’s them.’

  Dhani replied by putting his finger to his lips and motioning her to move down the cabin. Then he stationed himself on the other side nearer the door. The cabin was almost dark and the moonlight outside practically gone.

  Julia had never seen anything like it. From the minute he burst through the door, it was clear the figure in the flak-jacket knew all about combat techniques. On the other hand Dhani had spent four hours a day for five years practising martial arts. It was quite clear to her that flak-jacket intended to kill Dhani and that he was much heavier and more powerful than him. On the other hand Dhani gave a feeling of a kind of dancing vitality, almost of enjoyment. In another context he would have been beautiful to watch. If he killed, thought Julia, rigid with horror, it would be beautifully, ritually, like a ballet. But she didn’t think Dhani was out to kill. Pressed against the wooden sides of the cabin she watched him use every part of his body in complete harmony, employing every inch of the confined space. Flak-jacket would have done better, thought Julia in a moment of detached appraisal, if he’d had more room: though he looked lethal, really his style was based on boxing or at most wrestling, so it was well suited for attack and for opponents who resisted him. Dhani, on the other hand, never made an aggressive move. His style was based on evasion and on letting the heavier man exhaust himself. Time after time, what looked like a movement which would result in his being cornered and destroyed ended in the heavier man frustrated and wrong-footed. And finally, youth and technique prevailed. The big man, less nimble than Dhani, missed his footing, Dhani chopped neatly downwards on the back of his neck with his left hand and the man slumped to the ground.

  Dhani stood panting slightly, the pupils of his eyes, Julia noticed, dilated like an animal’s. For a moment he looked almost unrecognisable. As the tension of her fear unwound itself it flashed across her mind to wonder whether he had used his physical skill in another context recently. Suddenly there was sound of voices on the deck above.

  ‘Hello,’ said an English voice. ‘Anyone there? Everything all right?’

  Dhani didn’t reply for a moment. Then he lifted his head. Two inquiring faces could just be made out peering down the companionway.

  ‘Yes,’ said Dhani. ‘All right now, come down.’

  There was a clatter of footsteps as two men descended. They seemed immediately to take possession of the situation. One addressed a remark in Dutch to the other and pointed to the recumbent body of flakjacket. He turned him over with his foot and exclaimed. The other man bent to look closer, then he straightened up. He put his right hand in the pocket of his trousers and smiled at Julia.

  ‘We’ve come over from the boat next door,’ he said. ‘We thought we heard voices. My name, by the way, is Geoffrey Markham.’

  At two in the morning Ian had rung the police from the Archdeaconry. The Archdeacon had agreed that there was no hope of keeping the desecration quiet. He’d rung the Bishop and got no answer; so he’d rung the Dean and they’d agreed to call the police. Williams was under arrest on the rather dubious charge of trespass on Church property until the lawyers could look up something suitably esoteric about sacrilege.

  The Archdeacon and Mrs Baggley had been kindness itself to Ian. He had pounded on their door at one o’clock and collapsed through it when the Archdeacon, muffled in a threadbare towelling robe and but lately returned with his wife from an engagement in Narborough, had at last opened it. Mrs Baggley had appeared seconds later at the top of the stairs dramatically swathed in a purple and green watered silk peignoir. Her splendid array had not prevented her being extremely efficient with hot water, lint and whisky for Ian. Theodora, clad in a green tartan dressing gown that looked as though it might be bulletproof, had assisted unflappably.

  Mrs Baggley had enjoyed herself hugely. It was the second disturbance they had had that evening. Theodora, returning at a little after midnight from a confirmation training, had been unable to get into her flat, finding the door bolted against her. When she had come up through the main entrance she had found the place in disarray. At first she had thought of not mentioning it or making a fuss. Nothing had been taken as far as she could tell. Then she remembered Paul Gray and Canon Wheeler and had asked the Archdeacon to get the police. Almost at once two tired-looking men in a squad car had appeared and spent ten minutes making nothing of it. They had advised her not to touch anything and promised to return in the morning when they could find a man to deal with the fingerprints, if there were any. Theodora wondered whether they were inefficient or short of manpower and bedded down in the Archdeacon’s spare room for the night. Fifteen minutes later they had all risen to welcome Ian.

  When the police had arrived, the Archdeacon, Ian and the Dean had accompanied them to the Cathedral to pick up Williams whom Ian had locked in the vestry office. He was only just coming to, Ian noticed with satisfaction and was clearly in great pain. The police had hustled him out and taken the candles and the pathetic body of a cockerel with them.

  The Dean had looked mournfully at the high altar and murmured about holy water and reconsecration. Really, Ian had thought for a moment, there is no difference between us and them: devil worshippers use blood, the Church water. But he looked at the Archdeacon’s tired face and remembered Mrs Baggley’s kindness and acquitted them of magic
practices.

  Afterwards, the three of them with Theodora and Mrs Baggley sipped whisky in the Archdeacon’s underfurnished library. The caryatids supporting the fireplace gazed back at them non-committally. Too many paperbacks, thought Ian, snobbishly reviewing the Archdeacon’s book stock, but there was nothing wrong with the single malt.

  ‘I’m so glad,’ said the Archdeacon as he raised his eyes from the heavy glass tumbler and gazed at the younger man. ‘I’m so enormously grateful to you. It’s a tremendous weight off my mind. You’ve no idea. I knew, that is, I felt something was amiss. You know how one does.’

  ‘In that case,’ said the Dean severely, ‘why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I was afraid, I suppose, to voice my fears. What if I were wrong? What if I were fanciful? It is fantastic. It seems to reflect on one’s sanity. But actually, I’ve had a series of phone calls recently which were very disturbing and which I suppose may have been connected with this business. I really blame myself for not doing something about them.’

  ‘What sort of calls?’ asked the Dean.

  ‘All very odd and all the same. I suppose they were a sort of curse.’

  ‘What sort of curse?’

  ‘Well, there you have it. They simply cursed me. Not casually, you understand, as people sometimes do in ordinary speech. But ritually, if you get my meaning, as though they really wanted my death or damnation. I think it may, on reflection, have been a woman’s voice.’

  Mrs Baggley put out her hand. ‘Dick, love, I wish you’d told me.’

  ‘I didn’t want to worry you,’ said the Archdeacon apologetically.

  ‘Had the Bishop any inkling?’ asked the Dean.

  ‘I rather think he may have done. I’ve remarked his walking at night in the environs of the Cathedral over the past year or so. Of course there is no reason why he shouldn’t use the Cathedral for prayer or meditation. Though he has his private chapel in the Palace.’

  ‘He never mentioned anything to you?’

  ‘No. I wonder if he didn’t mention it to me for the same reason I didn’t mention it to him.’

  ‘You mean, out of fear,’ said the Dean thoughtfully. ‘He’s been frightened about his mental health since his wife died and that business about his son which,’ he glanced at Ian, ‘I gather you know something about.’

  Ian flushed and moved uncomfortably in his chair.

  ‘He feared madness perhaps,’ said Theodora. ‘Like Lear?’ she added, glancing at Mrs Baggley.

  ‘I think perhaps,’ said the Dean, ‘he began to mistrust his own judgement and for that reason has withdrawn from the business of the diocese. I think too, that about the use of the Cathedral, he may not have been able to be quite straightforward. You see, I happen to know that Williams supplies him with some sort of homeopathic medicine for his arthritis. There is no reason to suppose the Bishop couldn’t have got adequate drugs from a regular doctor or have gone on his own account to a homeopath if he’d wanted. But the medicine Williams supplied him with seemed to work and he’d come to rely on it. I think he couldn’t, for that reason, bear either to change or to look too closely into Cathedral matters for fear of what he should find out about Williams.’

  There was silence as all of them contemplated the Bishop. Well, that’s the Bishop’s phone call to Williams explained, Ian reflected. Poor old man. How appalling it must have been to have to be grateful to Williams.

  The Dean cleared his throat. ‘I gather you think, Ian, that Mrs Thrigg, our cleaner, may have been one of the participants in these horrid rites?’

  Ian mentally shook himself. ‘Yes, I think I recognised her going in and I got a shot of her before the candles went out. I rather wonder too if she and Williams might have been involved in transactions with holy water and perhaps candles?’

  The Archdeacon flung up his hand and groaned. ‘Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear.’

  ‘Have you any evidence?’ asked the Dean grimly. Ian told them about his experience with Julia in the asylum out-building. ‘You mean you think the asylum incident had something to do with the black magic people in the Cathedral?’

  Ian nodded, ‘It’s too much of a coincidence to have Cathedral candles up there. There can’t be two sets of magicians, surely.’

  ‘I suppose it’s something the police will have to look into,’ said the Archdeacon wearily.

  The Dean nodded agreement and then turned toward Ian.

  ‘And does all this have any connection with the murder of Paul Gray and Canon Wheeler, Ian?’ Ian looked at his boots unhappily.

  ‘Ian,’ said the Dean sharply, ‘answer my question.’

  Ian drew in his breath. The Dean had all the authority which he acknowledged to be present in the Church. He was a priest, an elderly, honourable, intelligent and goodwilled man. He would have liked to tell him all the truth he knew and all that he surmised. But he was inhibited by the fear that his huge hatred of Wheeler would show and make the Dean discount what he said, and perhaps lose him his good opinion.

  ‘About Canon Wheeler,’ he compromised at last. ‘I’m not sure at the moment how or if he fits into the pattern.’

  Ian glanced covertly at Theodora to see if she was going to let him get away with this. He wasn’t at all sure how much Theodora surmised about his last meeting with Wheeler on the morning of his death. ‘As for a connection with Gray, I think not. I went tonight to watch, as I told you, from Canon Hardnut’s house in the expectation that someone would come to collect some candles which had been left there. These candles look like Cathedral candles in that they have the St Manicus arms on them. That they are really Cathedral candles now seems to me to be rather unlikely. If you look at them closely the arms, though accurate, are nowhere near as finely moulded as the ones we’ve had from Farris’s. Moreover if you look closely, the bottom of them is hollow.’ Ian produced the St Saviour’s candle from his jacket pocket and held it out for the two clerics to see. He went on, ‘In the bottom of these candles are hidden quantities of heroin.’ He looked at the Dean. ‘The person who I think is running the distribution of this drug is Geoffrey Markham.’ As he met the Dean’s gaze he wondered whether he should add ‘your kinsman’, and decided not to.

  The Dean was silent. In the end the Archdeacon spoke. ‘How does Paul Gray fit into this?’

  ‘The possibilities are that he was being used, either wittingly or not, as a distributor through his youth club. If he found out and objected that might be motive enough to,’ he paused to select his phrase, ‘sever his head from his body.’

  The Dean flushed. ‘Have you any evidence at all for implicating Markham in this?’ Caretaker glanced at the unhappy Dean, then looked at Theodora, who nodded. He told him about the part he suspected Geoffrey had played in the death of the Bishop’s son. Then he mentioned the number plate of Gray’s car which he and Julia had found at Cumbermound’s stables. The Dean and the Archdeacon listened in silence. Finally Ian said formally, ‘I would like you to believe that I wish all this were mere fabrication. But I don’t feel it is. Moreover, there is the ritual aspect of the severing of a head and the placing of it in a font and returning the sword to the chapel afterwards. None of these actions is that of a sane man. It’s flamboyant, actorly stuff, which’ – he leaned forward and sought the Dean’s eye – ‘you know is in Geoffrey’s character as it is in his father’s.’

  The Dean joined his hands together as though in prayer. ‘I hope you’re wrong. I fear you may not be. Are you going to inform the police or his father or have you indeed already done so?’

  ‘No. I haven’t yet. I hoped, as I said, to meet Geoffrey last night. I had some sort of plan of confronting him and’ – Ian looked uncomfortable – ‘perhaps punishing him if he were doing what I think he is. But now I think I haven’t any alternative to letting the police know. His father, I’d rather not do anything about.’

  ‘Do you know where Geoffrey is at the moment?’

  ‘No. I don’t. I know he’s not at Cumbermound and he’s not
been seen at his London flat for some weeks. I did check up on both those so, since I’ve no lead, I think I’d better pass the car number plate over to the police and let them cope.’

  ‘Where is the plate now?’

  Theodora bestirred herself. ‘Where it is not,’ she said, ‘is with me. Though it may be that the person who ransacked my room thought I might have it.’

  Ian nodded. ‘Or he may have been looking for the candles – either the St Saviour’s one or the asylum one. They’d be worth a pretty penny. I left the plate, by the way, and the other candle, the one we found in the asylum out-building, with Julia for safe-keeping.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At her lodgings. Quite safe, I think.’

  Julia gazed with dawning terror at the small, neat figure of Geoffrey Markham. It so closely resembled his father. Markham smiled complacently at Dhani and Julia.

  ‘Don’t move,’ he said softly. ‘My bulging pocket is not mere decoration. Jacob,’ he spoke to the Dutchman, ‘take friend Jefferson over to the Merlin and then come back here with some rope.’

  Julia looked at Dhani who was looking at Markham. There were about three yards between them. ‘I wouldn’t rush it, coon,’ Markham said. ‘I’d just love to kill you.’

  Julia was appalled at the venom of his tone. He couldn’t be sane and feel like that, could he?

  Twenty minutes later Julia and Dhani found themselves blinking in the surprisingly bright light of the modern saloon of the Dutch yacht next to the Amy Roy. It looked more like the bar parlour of a modernised pub than anything nautical. Chrome, plastic and pink glass predominated. The Dutchman stood by the door and Markham surveyed them across the cabin table. Since their hands and feet were both tied they sat awkwardly perched on the bunk edge. Suddenly Markham leant across and with a single finger pushed the unbalanced Dhani sideways from his precarious seat. Dhani crashed helplessly to the floor. Markham yelped with laughter.