An Unholy Shame

by Joyce Cato

  ‘Well, you’ve been very helpful. I think that’ll be all,’ he said, standing up and watching the other man rise wearily to his feet. ‘Just one thing more, Sir Andrew, if you don’t mind,’ he added, before the squire could start for the door. ‘Did you know that the Reverend Gordon had a fatal allergy to peanuts?’

  Sir Andrew looked at him blankly. ‘No,’ he said dully.

  Jason nodded and watched him go. At the door, he passed through without looking back.

  Flora let loose a long, tremulous sigh. ‘Poor sod,’ she said succinctly.

  Jason nodded and slowly sat down again. ‘Where was he when you found him?’

  ‘In his study, sir. He’d been there since about eight this morning, according to the under-manager. Funny, you’d have though he’d have come to see what all the fuss was about,’ she echoed his thoughts of earlier.

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t know,’ Jason mused. ‘Perhaps Geoff Banks didn’t even tell him that the police were here. The chef didn’t. I think his staff have been shielding him from unpleasantness for some time now.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Flora mused. ‘You can see why they want to protect him though, can’t you?’ she agreed grimly. ‘That chap needs a good grief counsellor if you ask me.’

  A knock came at the door and a constable stuck his head around. ‘Forensics are finished in the kitchen, sir. They said it was more or less hopeless. Too much stuff, too many staff.’

  Jason nodded. He hadn’t expected anything else really. ‘OK, get a list of the conference-goers from Geoff Banks,’ Jason ordered, ‘and then get Harrington to set up a roster of interviews.’

  ‘Sir,’ the man said smartly. ‘Oh, and Dr Carew is outside, wonders if he could have a quick word.’

  Jason nodded. ‘He’s just the man I want next anyway,’ and to Flora, added, ‘Perhaps he can shed some light on how the guest list was set up. We need to try and find out if this crime was premeditated, or if someone was just winging it.’

  Dr David Carew, Graham Noble’s boss, entered just then. A lean man with dark hair and eyes, he looked a bit like you’d expect a country solicitor to look. He was dressed in a simple black suit and dog collar. And in the following ten minutes he told Jason all that he would ever want to know about how an ecclesiastical conference was arranged.

  ‘So, apart from some certain set invitations, it was more or less a free-for-all,’ Jason concluded when the cleric had finished speaking.

  ‘Yes,’ the bishop acknowledged, ‘Archdeacon Pierrepont was invited because of his Oxbridge connection. Bishop Bryce was invited because he was the organizer of last year’s conference in York. Apart from those two, the conference was simply advertized in all the usual channels, and anybody wanting to come, came.’

  ‘And is forty-five a high number of acceptances?’

  ‘About average, I’d say.’

  Jason sighed. ‘So there was nothing significantly different about this year’s conference in any way?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Dr Carew said firmly.

  ‘You didn’t get any strange requests or letters from candidates that mentioned Reverend Gordon specifically? Say, wanting to know if she’d be here?’

  ‘No. Nothing of that kind.’

  ‘And Graham Noble is here because it’s in his back yard, so to speak?’ Jason persisted.

  The bishop smiled and nodded, ‘As you say.’

  ‘Did you know he and Celia Gordon were old friends?’ Jason asked sharply, hoping to catch him out, and indeed surprising a look of astonishment on the bishop’s face.

  ‘No. No, I didn’t know that,’ Dr Carew said quietly. ‘I’ll have to talk to him after he’s finished giving the Sunday service.’

  But what he had to talk to him about, the bishop didn’t say.

  Jason nodded and looked at his watch. The other guests should be back soon. As clerics, every single one of the conference-goers had gone to church services of course, and he’d bet Graham Noble had never had his church so full before.

  ‘Now, Dr Carew, if you can just tell me your own impressions of dinner last night.’

  It took about twenty minutes for Dr Carew to go through his own eye-witness account, by which time the conference-goers were back and wondering why they’d been banned from the lounge. The bar was open however, although not serving alcoholic drinks yet, and several large groups had taken to the grounds. Jason wasn’t worried. His next task was to get the rounds of interviews started. As Flora showed the bishop out, he could only hope that someone would be able to give them a lead. So far, they had spectacularly little to go on.

  ‘We’d better take all the big-wigs ourselves, I suppose,’ Jason said, knowing his Chief Constable would expect him to proceed with tact with a capital ‘T’.

  Flora smiled in sympathy.

  ‘Dr Carew seemed to pick out several names as “worthies”,’ he noted, marking them out on the list. ‘Find Harrington and tell him we’ll take those I’ve ticked.’ He handed the list to his sergeant. ‘And let’s start with Bishop Arthur Bryce.’

  Never had Jason met a man who could talk so much and say so little.

  Arthur Bryce came in, conservatively dressed in grey slacks, white shirt and maroon cardigan. His hair was neatly combed and Jason didn’t need Flora’s gaze of open admiration to realise that here was a man who was very attractive to the opposite sex and one who possessed more than his fair share of charm. But, a quarter of an hour later, the Chief Inspector had come to the conclusion that, for all his smooth and expansive talk, Bishop Arthur Bryce was doing a remarkably good impression of the three wise monkeys.

  ‘So you don’t remember any incident involving the Reverend Gordon that struck you as at all unusual?’ Jason persisted, going over the same ground again and again in a bid to get the man to say something, anything useful. He simply couldn’t believe that things had been as normal and nondescript as this man would have him believe. After all, a woman was dead.

  ‘No, Chief Inspector, I’m afraid not.’

  Jason looked the man in the eye – a pair of very level, green eyes, and sighed. He consulted the floor plan that Geoff Banks had given him, with all the delegates names clearly marked. ‘And you were staying in the east wing, and Dr Gordon …’ he sighed, ‘was in the opposite wing?’

  For some strange reason, the man’s confident smile seemed to waver for just an instant. ‘I can’t quite see what that has to do with anything, Chief Inspector,’ Arthur murmured, his voice still pleasant and amiable, but at last sounding something other than well rehearsed.

  Jason’s eyes narrowed. He hadn’t, in fact, meant anything by it at all, but had merely consulted the room allocations for another angle to try. But he’d obviously hit some kind of nerve in the man – at last – but what? Celia Gordon hadn’t died in her room, but at dinner (well, in the hospital, to be strictly accurate). But she’d taken the fatal bite of gateau in full view of everyone. So why had Jason’s interest in room allocations given Arthur Bryce such sudden cause for concern?

  ‘Did you know the Reverend Gordon before coming here, sir?’ Jason had a vague idea that a bishop, according to the rules of protocol, should be referred to as ‘Your Grace’ or some such nonsense, but he was damned if he was going to do that. Especially with this man.

  Arthur spread his hands in a fulsome gesture. ‘I knew of her, a little,’ he admitted. ‘I understood that she’d just been offered a deacon’s position, which would have been a considerable step up the ladder for her.’

  Jason’s eyes glittered. Something at last? ‘I see. And was anybody else in line for this promotion?’

  Was it his imagination, or were Arthur’s cat-green eyes suddenly laughing at him? ‘Well, no one who’s here now at the conference, Chief Inspector, at any rate. Her diocese is … was, in Bath. I don’t think there’s anyone here from there. Though the Reverend Fortescue is from Bristol, I believe,’ he added. ‘Which is quite close.’

  And there it was again. He was saying a lot, but telling him nothing. �
�I see,’ Jason gritted, determined to keep his temper. ‘Was there any ill-feeling surrounding the Reverend Gordon at all?’ he asked.

  Arthur hesitated for the first time since entering the room. He saw the two police officers fasten their gaze on him, and smiled reluctantly.

  ‘Well, I don’t think it’s any secret that Sir Matthew Pierrepont was not a Celia Gordon fan,’ he said dryly. ‘But really, is all this … fuss, quite necessary? Surely, Celia’s death was an accident?’

  Jason’s eyes sharpened. ‘Accident?’ he repeated coolly. ‘Why do you say that? I was under the impression everyone here thought that she’d died of a heart attack.’

  Arthur flushed in obvious chagrin at having made such a basic mistake, then smiled ruefully. ‘But there are two things against that, aren’t there?’ the bishop from Yorkshire said softly, and again spread his hands in a we’re-all-friends-together gesture. ‘I’ve seen someone suffer a heart attack before, Chief Inspector, and it was nothing like … what Celia endured. A heart attack means chest pains, mainly. But Celia was having fits. And her breathing …’ Arthur shuddered. ‘No, I was always sure that it wasn’t a heart attack.’

  ‘And the other thing, sir?’ Jason asked silkily. And seeing the bishop frown in puzzlement, prompted, ‘You said there were two things against it being a heart attack.’

  Arthur shrugged. ‘Well, obviously Chief Inspector, your presence here and the presence of all the other officers, would indicate …’ he trailed off and shrugged eloquently.

  It was like trying to pin down a snake, Jason thought, with a real sense of distaste.

  ‘And what, exactly, had the archdeacon against Celia Gordon?’ he asked crisply.

  But Arthur shook his head. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t know, specifically,’ he demurred. ‘You’d have to ask Matthew that.’

  Jason sighed. This was getting him nowhere. ‘Well, thank you for all your help,’ he lied, smiling like a crocodile. It didn’t improve his temper to see Flora leap eagerly to her feet to see him out. When she looked back at her superior from the door, her face became instantly serious.

  ‘Remember he’s a bishop,’ Jason said laconically. ‘And married, I believe.’

  Flora flushed, then smiled reluctantly. ‘Well, he is very attractive, sir,’ she pointed out.

  Jason smiled back. Then frowned. ‘Did you notice how he reacted when I mentioned the sleeping arrangements?’

  Flora nodded, a shade reluctantly, Jason thought. ‘The archdeacon next, sir?’ she hazarded, and Jason nodded.

  ‘Oh yes. I think we want to see the archdeacon next. So far he’s the only person we know of who seems to have had any kind of feeling for our departed reverend one way or another.’

  And that feeling was one of intense hatred, as they soon found out.

  The man Flora returned with was so nearly a perfect caricature of an aged cleric, that for a moment as he watched the old, incredibly thin and stooped figure shuffle in, Jason wondered if some cosmic force wasn’t taking the mickey out of him.

  Sir Matthew was wearing an extremely old black suit that was also incredibly wrinkled and stained. He had a mass of messy white hair and vast white caterpillars for eyebrows. As he sat down, he withdrew a pipe from one pocket and without asking, lit it up. Flora silently got up and opened a window. The archdeacon shot her a dirty look. It was surprisingly malevolent, and took both Jason and Flora by surprise. Apart from really hardened criminals, hardly anyone ever looked at a police officer like that.

  ‘You’re Sir Matthew Pierrepont?’ Jason snapped, bringing the old man’s head swivelling his way. Her boss’s obvious anger on her behalf made Flora glow, just a little.

  ‘That’s right,’ Sir Matthew assented, puffing on the pipe which gave out a rather nice, mellow scent of tobacco. To Flora’s intense annoyance, she found she rather liked the smell.

  ‘What can you tell me about the Reverend Celia Gordon’s death?’ Jason shot out, deciding that tact was going to be lost on this man.

  ‘Apart from the fact that it couldn’t have happened to a better wench, nothing,’ Sir Matthew shot back.

  Flora’s pencil flew abruptly across the page. For a long moment, Jason stared at the man in disbelief, then slowly relaxed. Well, they were going to get something at last, although quite what, he had no idea.

  ‘Oh? How so?’ he asked mildly.

  Sir Matthew smiled, a singularly nasty smile. ‘Celia Gordon was a menace,’ Sir Matthew said succinctly. ‘Like all females in the church.’

  Flora bit her lip. Hard. She kept her eyes on the notepad, but Jason noticed her knuckles turning white. She knew better than to interrupt, of course, but he knew what the effort was costing her.

  ‘Is that all?’ Jason drawled, sounding so bored that it goaded the old man perfectly.

  Beautifully, like a trout to the fly, Sir Matthew rose to the bait. ‘No sir, damn it, it isn’t. She was ambitious.’ He said the word as if it had been a dirty one. ‘How she got that position in Bath I’ll never know.’

  ‘It was a good appointment, was it?’ Jason kept his voice mildly polite and barely interested, knowing that it would only serve to egg the old man on. Not that it would need much, Jason understood. Never had he met someone so keen to vent their spleen as this man.

  ‘A plum!’ Sir Matthew snorted. ‘There were at least five good men who’d been in the calling far longer than that upstart in skirts, who should have got that position. I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t …’ Sir Matthew suddenly broke off, and then snorted. ‘Oh well.’ He took a long drag on his pipe.

  Flora almost laughed. She had no difficulty in guessing what Sir Matthew had been about to say. It was the same thing that most men of his type said about women who got on in life. Namely – that she must have slept her way to the top. Except, in this case, he hadn’t been able to say so in so many words, because it would have meant that the Reverend Gordon would have had to have seduced members of the Church of England’s synod!

  Jason too, let it pass. ‘I understand from Bishop Bryce that she was about to get a deaconship,’ he said instead.

  Sir Matthew went alarmingly white. He shot upright in his chair. ‘The devil she was!’ he all but roared. It was a strange sound, since his voice was an old man’s voice, cracked and raspy. Rage didn’t suit it.

  ‘You didn’t know?’ Jason smiled charmingly.

  Matthew subsided, his mind working so furiously they could almost hear the wheels turning in his brain. Jason shot his sergeant an amused look. ‘No,’ Sir Matthew finally admitted, grudgingly. ‘I hadn’t heard that yet.’

  In other words, nobody had told him, Jason correctly interpreted. And with a man like this, he could understand how that would rankle.

  ‘Do you know of anyone else with a grudge against the Reverend Gordon?’ Jason asked, and saw a crafty, knowing look, creep plainly across the old man’s face. It couldn’t have been more obvious if he’d written his knowledge on his forehead in felt-tip pen.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Sir Matthew said quickly.

  ‘You’re lying,’ Jason shot back.

  Sir Matthew’s eyes flared. ‘Don’t you dare call me a liar, young man,’ he roared, again in that cracked voice. His old face flushed with humiliated anger. He wasn’t used to being spoken to like this, and it showed.

  Jason, not impressed, slowly scratched his chin. And Sir Matthew was about to learn what many other people had already learned, and much to their cost – namely that Jason Dury was a man of infinite craft.

  ‘Don’t they call the devil the father of all lies, archdeacon?’ he asked mildly. ‘I’ve always wondered why that was. After all, there are such bigger sins, aren’t there? Murder, theft, adultery. Why don’t they call him the father of all murderers, or thieves? Why does your church single out lies as the worst of all things to call Satan?’ he asked mildly.

  Sir Matthew’s eyes were bulging by now and Jason, in a sudden flash of understanding, realised what had been niggling away at him about the old
man for some few minutes now.

  He was going senile.

  ‘You want to talk about sins?’ he hissed, leaning forward, the parchment-dry skin of his face and hands giving him an eerie, reptilian look. ‘You ought to find out about her,’ he spat. His eyes were glittering now, and a slight trail of saliva slid from one corner of his mouth. Flora looked hastily away, a grimace of distaste contorting her pretty features.

  ‘You mean the Reverend Gordon?’ Jason prompted.

  Sir Matthew laughed. It was a hate-filled cackle that sent the hackles on Flora’s back standing to attention. ‘Who else? You found out what she died of yet?’ he suddenly barked.

  Jason instantly became cautious. ‘And what if we had?’

  ‘Whatever you found out, you’re wrong,’ he said, confusing them utterly. ‘She died because she deserved to,’ he stated, nodding his head vigorously. ‘It was retribution for her sins. You see if I’m not right,’ and with that the old man stood up and marched to the door.

  ‘Sir Matthew, I’ve not finished with you yet,’ Jason said sharply, getting to his feet.

  ‘No young man, but I’ve finished with you,’ Sir Matthew tossed magnificently over his shoulder. ‘Anything else you want to say to me from now on, you can say with my solicitor present.’

  And with that he yanked open the door and strode through. He’d probably not moved so fast, or so fluidly, for years.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Flora said, on a half-whispered, awe-struck breath as the door slammed shut behind him. Jason burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. And Flora also, after a surprised moment, began to chuckle. ‘But, seriously sir, the old man’s as nutty as a Toblerone,’ she finally said.

  ‘I rather think it’s more a case of senile dementia,’ Jason corrected her mildly.

  ‘You think he did it?’ she asked him, watching him closely. She had a great deal of respect for Jason’s opinions.

  ‘Oh I think he was capable of doing it, certainly,’ Jason said slowly. In his own mind, he was sure that the old man was capable of almost anything. The question was, had he done it?