‘Raymond!’ Father Vincent exclaimed, distraught, staring at the woman in disbelief.
Startled at his reaction, she said, ‘It was in the papers. That’s all I’m saying – it was in the papers.’
‘It wasn’t him,’ the priest said firmly, as if speaking to himself, ‘not him.’
Holding out a receipt, she said, ‘You’ve two hundred and seventy-nine pounds and forty-five pence, Father. Look in the Courier. It was on the front page. I’m sorry, I thought you knew.’
As he crossed the bank’s car park, his mind buzzing with the news that he’d just received, he failed to notice a car reversing and walked right behind it. He did not hear the driver’s angry hooting, or feel the light drizzle that had begun to fall. One thought dominated his mind. It had not been Raymond Meehan’s voice that he had heard in the confessional. The accent had sounded English, Geordie if he had to guess, and there had been no speech impediment of any kind, no honking sounds. In his head he replayed Raymond’s strange, goose-like voice with its odd emphases and breathless endings. It was as unique to him as his own fingerprints, a sound characteristic of him and him alone. And one that would be heard no more, with the poor boy dead.
Still deep in thought he moved on, walking downhill past Sands, the grocers, and John & J.H. Sands, the ironmongers, oblivious to a lady in a headscarf hovering between the two, who held out a copy of The Big Issue to him, beseeching him with her coal-black eyes to buy it. Only her startling gold incisors registered, and then for no more than a second. Dodging a pedestrian, he strode onwards, head down, apparently hurrying to get somewhere.
Things were spinning out of control, moving too fast. He needed help, needed advice. The Bishop’s office was, obviously, the place to get it. Where better to find out the part, if any, that Raymond Meehan was supposed to have played in the assault on the Bishop? But why would Raymond confess, in a note or anywhere else? It had not been Raymond’s confession that he had listened to, Raymond’s triumphant boast that he had killed a man. Maybe the papers had got their facts wrong, that was commonplace enough, and it was only a local rag after all. While he was there, he could tell them about the boy’s allegations about Father Bell, gauge their reaction to all of that too. Find out whether anything should be done in response to it. Alert them to his visit from the police as well.
Finally resolved on his course of action, Vincent sighed to himself, and for the first time since he had left the bank, took in his surroundings. Finding himself in Parliament Square, standing by the red sandstone steeple of the town hall, he moved towards the octagonal gothic fountain, almost tripping over a board advertising ‘Eye Lash Tints – While You Wait.’ Beyond the beauty salon, he saw the red-and-white awning of Hunter’s, the butcher’s shop. He peered into their window. A family-sized steak pie caught his eye, and already visualising its filling and smelling the sweet scent of warm pastry, he fetched his wallet from his pocket and took out a five-pound note. It would be the perfect accompaniment to his left-over red.
Slightly ill at ease, he sat on his own in the overheated side-room, listening to the low hum of conversation from the two middle-aged typists who guarded the reception area. He could make out scraps of their talk, their doubts over the authenticity of Father Theo’s explanation for a black eye mingling with their concern for his liver. Vincent had cleared his diary for the morning, determined to resolve matters as soon as possible. When asked the nature of his business earlier by one of the women, he had swithered for a moment or two, trying to think what best to say. He knew both of them well, and didn’t want to offend them, but wanted to keep his business to himself.
‘Yes, Father?’ Alison had prompted, trying to hurry him up. Chatter had eaten away the morning, and she had an important call to make before one-thirty.
‘It’s about the Bishop. Well, not just him but …’
‘Shall we just say personal?’ her colleague interjected, looking up from her computer and beaming at him, sure she had solved the problem.
‘That’s right, Alison. Personal.’
‘Urgent?’ Maureen enquired.
‘Yes. Urgent too.’
‘OK. Monsignor Drew will see you shortly. You just wait over there, please, Father.’
As seemed so often to be the case nowadays, Vincent was not feeling his best. He had suffered another disturbed night and now had an ache behind his eyes and the beginnings of a headache. Earlier that morning, at 3 a.m., he had turned on the World Service only to hear yet another programme about the global financial crisis. It all seemed rather remote from Kinross, he thought. Money could only be lost if it had been there in the first place. Few of his parishioners had much in the way of savings, most living from week to week on their wages, or month to month on their salaries, if they were lucky.
The call made, Alison was eating her sandwich and gazing at him through the open door. He, lost in his own thoughts, was quite oblivious to her scrutiny.
‘He’s oddly attractive – nicely put together,’ she murmured, wiping a bit of tuna from the side of her mouth.
‘Who? Ol’ Blue Eyes in there?’ Maureen replied, taking the lid off her plastic salad box and looking in his direction.
‘Yeah.’
‘But they’re not blue, they’re brown,’ Monsignor Drew said, catching the women unawares and pointing to his own eyes as he passed by them, embarrassing the secretaries and making Maureen, despite her years, blush.
With his usual hurried little steps, he continued into the side-room, closing the door noisily behind him. He was a busy man, small-featured and with quick squirrel-like movements. He assumed that everyone knew just how busy he was, and could not understand, or accommodate, those used to a more leisurely tempo. Sitting down opposite Father Vincent, and linking his chubby hands across his rounded belly, he came immediately to the point.
‘Vincent, I understand that you have a problem – a personal problem?’
Sensing the man’s impatience both from his manner and his tone, Father Vincent determined to be equally businesslike and replied: ‘I have, Dominic. As you may know, I was the one to alert the police to the assault on the Bishop.’
‘Did you now? I had no idea,’ the Monsignor replied, drawing his chair closer to his visitor and, after only a few seconds of silence, signalling impatiently for him to continue speaking.
‘Yes. I heard about the Bishop’s predicament and dialled 999.’
‘You heard?’ The man sounded surprised. ‘How could you have done? You weren’t here then. How could you have heard? Did someone contact you about it or something?’
‘All I can say, is that I heard,’ Father Vincent said, fixing his inquisitor in the eye.
‘Heard?’
‘Heard whilst attending to my duties.’
‘Aaah …’ The Monsignor hesitated for a moment, and then, nodding, he said, ‘I see.’
‘Do you? Thank goodness for that.’
‘I do. How can I help, Vincent?’
‘I heard, and having heard I don’t believe that Raymond Meehan was responsible for the attack. I know him. I know him well, including his voice.’
The Monsignor nodded again, as if taking in this new information, paused, and then said, ‘The police, the professionals in these matters, however, are sure that he was responsible, they’re entirely confident of that. He confessed to as much in his note. The matter’s closed as far as they’re concerned.’
‘I read about the note – but surely that isn’t all there is? There must be more than just that. Didn’t the Bishop see his attacker?’
‘No, that is not all,’ the Monsignor said, correcting him and sounding vaguely affronted, as if the version of events known by him to be true was being challenged,.‘Everything points towards Meehan. The attack happened late at night and there was no break-in. He had a key to the place. In his note he apologised for “doing it”. What else could he have meant? Q.E.D., I say. And, yes, James, the Bishop, probably did see what happened but, unfortunately, he can
not remember. As a result of the concussion he suffered, he’s got both pre-trauma and post-trauma amnesia. He’ll be off recuperating for months and months. Furthermore, and this is, as far as I’m concerned, the clincher, the police are entirely satisfied that Raymond Meehan was responsible.’
‘But what possible motive would Raymond have?’
‘Vincent,’ the Monsignor said, the edge in his voice warning that he had little patience for any more of this time-consuming question-and-answer session, ‘It is no concern of yours, but a couple of days before the attack, Raymond was sacked. He was working out a week’s notice.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘I’m not sure that that concerns you either …’
‘In these circumstances, it does.’
‘Since you ask, then, for theft.’
‘Of what?’ Father Vincent said in disbelief. ‘Raymond might be all sorts of things – backward, learning-impaired or whatever it’s called. But he’s not a thief. I don’t believe that.’
‘You seem to be forgetting that I know Raymond every bit as well as you. Quite possibly better, since he’s worked here for over two years. Anyway,’ the Monsignor said, his severe expression indicating that further argument would not be tolerated, ‘I’m not sure that your belief has anything to do with it. I believe it, the Bishop believes it, the police believe it. That is belief enough. Now I’m due at a school prize-giving in Scone at three o’clock. Was there anything else?’
‘One other matter, Dominic,’ Father Vincent said, looking into the man’s deep-set eyes, ‘it’s about Father Bell. You know, Connor Bell. He’s at Scotlandwell.’
‘What about him?’ The man sounded impatient, eager to get on with his packed schedule. Making no attempt to hide it, he glanced at his watch.
‘He’s been accused – not by me, obviously – by others, he’s been accused of paedophilia.’
Hearing the word, the Monsignor’s expression changed instantly, his brow furrowed and he covered his mouth with his hand.
‘No! Who exactly accused him of such a thing?’
‘A boy. Well, a couple of boys actually. I met them by accident one evening and they …’ Vincent breathed out loudly, hesitating as if summoning the strength to carry on, ‘They … in fact they called me a paedophile too. I was on my own. He wasn’t with me. They said he was one and that I would be one too.’
‘And are you?’
‘What?’
‘A paedophile?’
‘No. I am not! Of course I’m not!’
‘So,’ the Monsignor said, sounding slightly less tense and leaning back again in his chair, ‘just so that I understand you properly, Vincent, boys in the street called you and Father Bell, both of you, paedophiles?’
‘Yes. But he wasn’t there.’
‘That’s all? That’s all there was to it? They were name-calling, in a word?’
‘Yes, but it went further than that. The boy, Father Bell’s accuser, seemed to know things about Father Bell’s house – the colour of his sitting-room walls, the sort of pictures in it …’
‘How many people in Kinross know the colour of your walls – the pictures on your sitting-room wall? Hundreds, I imagine, maybe thousands, over time.’
‘Yes, but …’
‘Should I take that as evidence that you are a paedophile?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Vincent,’ the Monsignor said patronisingly, ‘we live in the twenty-first century now, don’t we? As priests we have to accept insults in whatever form they may be thrown at us. The current favourite, in Kinross evidently, and elsewhere, is paedophile, isn’t it? It’s almost an occupational hazard to be so slandered nowadays. That horrid Greek word is the slur of choice for every malcontent. If Connor really was a paedophile, don’t you think, in this day and age, that complaints about him would have been made by the boy’s parents to this very office? Such complaints are being made up and down the country, without compunction – although not here, to date, thankfully.’
‘I know all of that. I’m not completely naïve. Probably, the parents would, yes, but …’
‘Where are they then? No such complaints have been made. If they had been made, then, naturally, we would take them very seriously indeed. We would investigate them. We have protocols, procedures in place, even an appointed safe-guarder nowadays. It’s not like the bad old days before Cumberlidge, I can assure you. But, on the basis of a few catcalls, a few street insults – I don’t think so, do you? That would be the equivalent of a Salem witch-hunt, wouldn’t it? I’m not sure, in these circumstances, what precisely you expect me to do? Are you suggesting that I investigate you? You were accused too, after all?’
‘No, that’s ridiculous,’ Vincent said, running out of steam, aware of the man’s impatience to leave and unable to find fault with his logic.
‘I thought not. And do try to develop a thicker skin, eh? I’m all for vigilance, of course I am. But there has to be some evidence, doesn’t there? A proper complaint, even. More than simply name-calling from a few drunken – and I bet they were drunken – youths.’
Three weeks later, peeling a potato in his kitchen, Father Vincent was pondering obsessively over a small and apparently inconsequential event. He had been standing behind Jimmy McCrae in the queue at the Milnathort post office and had, in an idle fashion, tried to start a conversation with him. The queue was moving slowly, and along its length people were gossiping with each other, to pass the time. Suddenly, and saying nothing in response, the man had abandoned his place in the queue. At the time Vincent thought little of it, assuming that he had remembered some errand or other. Before long he found himself looking into Elaine’s dark features at the counter. Her manner, he thought, had been a little peremptory, almost unfriendly, but she was very busy and her superior was drinking a cup of coffee within sight. Perhaps he was monitoring her performance?
On his way out of the post office he had noticed Jimmy standing at the tail-end of the queue and had gone to commiserate with him for losing his place. But Jimmy had stared straight ahead as if he was invisible, ignoring him. Baffled by the man’s behaviour, he had lightly patted him on the arm to get his attention and try to find out what was going on. As if incensed at being touched, Jimmy had whirled round to face him and shouted angrily, ‘Do that again, you … you … Just don’t do that, OK?’
Vincent’s startled apologies met silence and no further explanation was offered.
Thinking about things, some kind of pattern seemed to be emerging. On Thursday the prayer group had, without explanation, failed to turn up, and the attendance at Mass on Sunday had been derisory. Twice, when he had rung to check on the health of a parishioner, the phone had gone dead and when he tried again his calls received no answer. Although Jean Fleming must, by now, be on the very edge of death, or dead, the messages he had left on Helen’s answerphone had elicited no response. Even Satan seemed a bit remote.
Gouging an eye out of one of the potatoes with the point of his peeler, he muttered out loud, ‘If only Hugh would get a mobile!’
Out of desperation, having got a continuous tone every time he tried to contact Hugh, he had eventually spoken to another friend, Damian Malloy, a priest ministering to a parish in Dunfermline. But Malloy had had little to say and most of his replies were monosyllabic. In the course of their brief discussion, Father Vincent had conceded that an innocent explanation could be provided for each apparent rebuff. It was undeniable that people lived hectic lives, had bad days, failed to answer their phones and overlooked messages. He knew that, had always known that; but, he explained, he was also aware of a definite change, something he could feel in his bones. His greetings in the street were no longer being returned, people avoided catching his eye. It was not, as Father Damian would have it, ‘just a bad day’ – in other words, all in his head.
‘Sorry, Vincent, must dash,’ his colleague had said, ending the discussion after less than a couple of minutes. ‘I’ve a first Holy Communio
n class to take. Can’t be late or they’ll pull the place apart. I’m rushing. I’ll have to go now.’
He poured boiling water from the kettle over the potatoes, put the lid on the pan and then gave the beef casserole a stir. It looked dry and unappetising. A little red wine would perk it up, give it a better colour too.
As he was extracting the cork, he heard a loud rapping on his front door. Hurriedly putting the bottle down he went to answer it. Two large men were standing on the doorstep.
‘Come in, come in,’ he said in a welcoming tone, waving them inside. He was delighted, despite the hour and his imminent meal, to have the company. One of them, he was sure, looked vaguely familiar. It would not be anything to do with marriage or baptism, as there was no woman with them. A funeral, possibly. With luck, once they’d got all the practicalities out of the way, they would accept a consoling glass of wine, perhaps finish off the bottle with him. No doubt Father Damian had been right after all; the cold-shouldering had all been in his head.
With the two bulky men in it, his sitting-room seemed to have shrunk. Although he gestured for them to sit down they remained standing side by side, shoulders touching, looking awkward and uncomfortable.
‘Can I help?’
As he spoke, he suddenly realised that both men were glaring at him aggressively. The bigger of the two, a man whose pendulous beer-belly overflowed his belt, moved towards him, coming so close that Vincent stopped breathing momentarily to avoid the fumes of garlic on the stranger’s breath. On the man’s head was a coal-black wig, tilted at a slight angle, and minute beads of sweat were visible on his brow.
‘Know who I am, Father?’ he demanded.
‘No, I can’t say I do,’ Vincent replied, shaking his head, ‘but please take a seat.’ He gestured once more towards the chairs, trying to set the men at their ease and lighten the atmosphere in the room.
‘I’m Mark Houston and this is my pal, Norman.’
‘Right,’ the priest said, feeling the blood rushing instantly to his neck and cheeks. His face felt hot and he knew he had gone red. He held out a hand as if to shake Houston’s, but the man ignored his gesture.
The Good Priest Page 7
