by J M Gregson
Daniel wasn’t going to show them embarrassment, still less temper. Rage made you lose control, and he needed control more than he had ever needed it in his life. ‘I had a good police career. I enjoyed most of it. As I said, I got out a year or two earlier than I might have done, because I was being buggered about by silly cunts who were still wet behind the ears and I wasn’t prepared to put up with that.’
Lambert too was not going to lose his temper, though he felt himself on the verge of doing just that. He hated bent coppers, who brought contempt not just upon themselves but upon the police service itself. ‘Was it not the police who got rid of you, Danny Boy?’
Steele started at the name he had not heard for years, then lapsed without thinking into an automatic denial. ‘I had a completely unblemished record during my police career.’
‘Not what the grapevine says, Danny Boy.’ Lambert let his dislike of the man come out in his taunting use of the name.
Steele told himself again that he must not descend into anger. He forced a smile. ‘Prove it, Lambert. There’s bugger- all on the records.’
‘There’s a damned good copper says you took bribes, Danny Boy. That’s good enough for me. If it had been left to him, there’d have been charges at the time.’
‘I don’t believe that. Jack North was my DI at the time. Vindictive sod he was, too. He’s in the funny farm with his brain gone now, and I can’t say I’m sorry.’
‘Correction, Steele. Jack North is in a retirement home with mild Alzheimers. The drugs are working well. I spoke to him yesterday. His recall of you and your character was gratify- ingly accurate.’
‘You can prove nothing.’
‘Darren Chivers must have thought he could. Or had he some other facts with which to blackmail you?’
‘I told you, I never knew the sod. If he was a blackmailer, the world is better without him.’
‘As it would be without bent coppers. But if someone murdered you. I’d still hunt him down.’
‘Thanks for nothing. And I hope whoever killed a blackmailing drug dealer gets away with it.’
‘Where were you last Friday night?’
‘Is that when the sod was killed? Well, I’m in the clear then. I was at the works last Friday night -1 work one weekend in four. Sorry to disappoint you. Better make a note of that, DS Hook. I don’t want you fitting me up with anything, do I?’
‘And where were you on the night of June twenty-fifth?’ He paused for a moment, appearing to give the matter thought before his face brightened. ‘I was on nights that week, so I was at work again, Lambert. Ten p.m. to six a.m. I do. Sorry to disappoint you!’ He smirked at Hook as the DS noted this reply. ‘What happened then, anyway?’
‘Mr Chivers was badly beaten up and put in hospital.’
‘What a shame! From what you tell me, he had it coming to him.’
* * *
‘And no doubt you know nothing about an illicit entry to Mr Chivers’s home on Saturday last.’
‘Certainly don’t, squire. If it was at night. I’d be working again, wouldn’t I?’
Lambert rose abruptly. ‘Don’t leave the area without informing us of any new address, Mr Steele.’
‘I’ve no intention of going anywhere, Chief Superintendent Lambert. I’ve nothing to be ashamed of, you see.’
The middle of the day was the quietest time at St Mary’s hostel. Father Ryan was grateful for Karen Lynch’s assistance in making up three beds with newly washed sheets.
‘You shouldn’t be doing this,’ she said to him.
‘Needs must. Two of my voluntary ladies who come in on a Friday have sick children.’
‘Couldn’t you have left the sheets another day?’
He gave her a wry smile. ‘Not really. When addicts piss their beds, there isn’t much room for manoeuvre. I’d have got them to help me with this, but they were too far gone. Thank heavens for washing machines.’ He folded his side of the sheet into a hospital comer with an expertise which came from much practice.
‘How’s Lisa getting on?’
‘She’s doing well. She found the first week in rehab very hard, but she’s still there. I think she’ll make it. Which will be in no small measure thanks to you, Karen. 1 don’t think she’d even have gone there without you.’
She shook her head. ‘I told it like it was. Told her as one who’d been through it. I told Lisa she’d scream her way through the first days, but that she must stick with it. I’ll try to visit her again tomorrow.’
‘Do, if you can. She appreciated your visit last week.’ They continued working in companionable silence for a full two minutes, the rhythms of mindless physical movement an escape from the anxieties of their lives. Then Karen said suddenly, ‘Do you still hear confessions, Father?’
He glanced at her sharply, then went back to studious contemplation of the fraying sheets in the big linen cupboard. ‘I don’t nowadays, no. My work here has taken over from any parish work.’
‘But you still believe in it?’
Father Ryan smiled fondly at her. ‘What kind of question is that to ask a Catholic priest? Do you want me to get into trouble with my bishop?’
She grinned at him. ‘You’d never do that. They’d never get anyone to take on what you do here. But I’ve never been a Catholic, never even known one closely. Telling all your thoughts to a person you may not even know, even with a screen between you, always struck me as quite horrific. I don’t think I could ever do it.’
‘Ah, sure you weren’t brought up in the Faith, my child!’ He mimicked the kind of Irish priest he had grown up with. ‘You’re right, in most ways. People do find it difficult. Perhaps that’s part of the idea. You’re supposed to remember that the priest is just an intermediary in the confessional, enabling you to say you’re sorry to God. It’s God who really forgives you, so long as you are genuinely penitent.’
‘Then why not let people speak directly to God? Why is there the need for anyone in between?’
He laughed, finding he was enjoying this need to justify his position as a priest, to conduct the kind of theological debate he had not done for years. ‘This is like being back in the seminary! You make a good point. The sacrament of penance has probably come under the spotlight most of all, in the ecumenical debates. Curiously enough, the psychologists, most of whom are probably atheists, have come up with some incidental benefits. They think confession is often good for the soul, whatever their doubts about Catholic dogma. People feel better when they’ve got something off their chests, and tend to behave better as well.’ She nodded thoughtfully, earnest as the young girls he remembered making their first confessions and first communions when he had been a curate. How long ago that seemed to him now, how much part of a different and more innocent world! He wondered how many of those earnest young eight- year-old girls and boys eventually ended up as addicts, stealing to support the habit, with all clear ideas of right and wrong forsaken as they scratched for the money for their next fix.
And Father Ryan wondered also about something more specific, as he saw this sturdy young woman who gave her time so selflessly limp away from him. He wondered quite what it was that she would like to confess to him.
Robert Beckford had known that they would be back. As three days stretched themselves out after his Tuesday night meeting with the CID without any further contact, he had tried to persuade himself that his replies had satisfied them. But in his heart he had always expected that that tall, gaunt man whose face he could not erase from his mind would be back.
Late on Friday afternoon, his fears were justified. The bad news was brought by the worst herald he could imagine. Robert was sweeping the cloisters, marvelling as he always did that the delicate tracery of the fan-vaulting above him had been carved with such pride and expertise by masons almost seven centuries earlier, when Edwina Clarkson materialized unseen behind him. Her voice sounded louder and clearer than usual as she announced with satisfaction, 'Those senior police officers are here to question you
again, Mr Beckford.’
She allowed herself an impressive sniff of disapproval towards the ancient stones above her. 'I expect this will be in connection with their murder investigation. In view of the seriousness of this matter, I have offered them the use of my office for their interrogation. It’s inconvenient, but perhaps you will be able to convince them of your innocence and send them on their way quickly.’
As Robert turned to face her, it was apparent that this was the last outcome she wished for. Her sour face was full of righteous disapproval, her small eyes studied him eagerly for any admission of discomfort, her prim mouth turned down even more steeply than usual at its comers.
He said coolly, ‘That is most considerate of you, Miss Clarkson. Perhaps I should make it clear that I have not been accused of any crime. As you say, I can’t imagine that this will take very long.’ It was like some dusty verbal minuet, with the formal steps of surface politeness used to conceal the real dislike of each other beneath their movements.
She followed him to the entrance to the cathedral, watched his every action as he made formal acknowledgement of his visitors and took them into her office. He shut the door quietly but firmly upon Miss Clarkson, looking her boldly in the face as he did so.
Robert discovered that the civilian administrator, as the notice on the door designated her, appeared to have set out the room for this interview. She had placed chairs for the detectives behind her big desk, with a slightly lower one for him in front of it, so that they had their backs to the morning light from the window and he was facing it. It seemed that she had been given more notice of this meeting than she had volunteered to him.
Lambert studied his man without speaking for a moment. Then he said, ‘We now know a lot more about Mr Chivers’s activities than when we spoke to you on Tuesday evening, Mr Beckford. We wondered if on reflection you might wish to modify your statement to us then, or even to change it completely and begin again from scratch.’
Robert had not expected anything so direct. He kept his face as impassive as he could as he said, ‘And what is it that you have now discovered about Darren Chivers which makes you think that?’
Without any apparent consultation between the two men, DS Hook took over the dialogue. ‘We’re here to ask questions rather than to answer them, Mr Beckford. But it might help you towards more honest replies to be aware that we now know that Mr Chivers was building up quite a network of blackmail victims. It seems to us that his visit here to see you was almost certainly in connection with these activities rather than with the sale of drugs.’
‘His connection with me was very tenuous. I feel that the relationship has been exaggerated by the person who has volunteered this office to us today. Frankly, Miss Clarkson and I just do not get on. I’m afraid that when she mentioned your murder victim’s visit to the cathedral, she was more interested in embarrassing me than in anything else.’
‘It may interest you to know that Mr Chivers was also seen in the cathedral on that day by a teacher accompanying a school party on a visit. Mr Beckford, I think we should now warn you formally that concealing information in the course of a murder inquiry is a very serious offence.’ Hook’s weatherbeaten, countryman’s features were unusually grave.
Robert’s natural inclination was to defer to authority. He had spent over twenty years in army life, where rank had been supreme, when the key theme in your training was to defer unthinkingly to orders from above. Now a very senior policeman and his aide were pressing him to divulge what he wanted to hide and he felt them wearing down his resistance.
He put on what he now thought of as his parade face, staring straight ahead of him and freezing his features into an emotionless mask. Yet in this more intimate context, he sensed that his attitude was neither appropriate nor convincing. He said through lips which barely moved, ‘I’d like to help you. It’s just that I’m not able to do it.’
Lambert’s calm, unemotional tone now took him back through the years to that of the presiding officer at the court martial. ‘Then how do you explain the presence of your name on a list found in the pocket of the dead man’s anorak?’
‘I can’t.’ Rob felt his head swimming, his brain drowning beneath the tide of evidence rising against him.
‘I think you can and you will, Mr Beckford. Before you issue any further denials, I will tell you that we are now confident that the names on this scrap of paper are those of people being blackmailed by Darren Chivers.’
Robert realized now that he wasn’t going to get away with this. He couldn’t continue to deny any connection with Chivers, not when they had his name on a list of blackmail victims. He said dully, in a voice which seemed to belong to some other pathetic, defeated person, ‘All right. He was blackmailing me. I’m sorry I denied it. I - I have a lot at stake.’
Lambert let the admission hang in the air for a moment, allowing the knowledge that he was beaten to seep into the man’s consciousness. ‘How much did Chivers have from you?’
‘A thousand pounds. Two separate five hundreds. I told him that was the end of it, but he’d have been back for more, wouldn’t he?’
‘He almost certainly would, yes, if someone hadn’t removed him from the scene. Was that someone you, Mr Beckford?’
‘No.’ He wanted to offer them a more convincing rebuttal, but the words would not come. He moved his hands vaguely, hopelessly in front of him dnd then dropped them back into his lap. He had the feeling that he should be standing stiffly to attention, staring straight ahead of him, taking the inevitable condemnation of his dishonesty like a soldier, instead of sitting limply in a chair.
‘When did you last see Darren Chivers?’
‘When I handed over the second five hundred pounds. A fortnight last Tuesday morning. In Kenyon’s coffee bar in the city centre.’ He piled detail upon detail, trying to offer some compensation for his earlier dishonesty. Hook made a note of them. Beckford watched his round, unhurried hand moving over the page and wondered what was coming next.
It was what he most feared. The DS looked up at him, sympathetically now, and said, ‘What information was Chivers using to extract these payments from you, Mr Beckford?’ Robert felt uneasy with Hook’s use of the title. They should be reviling him, flinging his earlier lies back in his face, bespattering him with contempt for wasting their time. ‘Mister’ was for officers, not for the likes of him. He would have been happier with the ritual obscenities of military life, which he had once used so freely and unthinkingly himself. ‘I killed a man once, a man I should not have killed, a prisoner. Well, the men under my command did - it’s the same thing, in military law.’
‘In the Falklands?’
‘No, in the Gulf War. The first one. 1991.’ The familiar details he had struggled and failed to forget came out as if from an automaton.
‘There was a military inquiry into this, no doubt.’
‘There was a full army court martial. I was found guilty, but with mitigating circumstances. The prisoner was causing trouble in a theatre of war. We were being fired upon by the enemy, and we couldn’t afford to turn our backs on this man. It all happened in a flash. He got hold of one of my men by the hair and he turned and shot him.’ It seemed easy, almost a relief, to spit out the awful, familiar details to this concerned, sympathetic, village-bobby face.
Hook nodded. ‘And what did “Guilty but with mitigating circumstances” mean, in a military context?’
‘My previous unblemished record of service was taken into account. I was given a severe reprimand and reduced from Staff Sergeant to Sergeant.’
Surely the lightest sentence which could have been given once a man had been found guilty. Hook felt a surge of sympathy for this man who had had the bad luck to be placed in an impossible military situation and paid the penalty for it. Who, in a bizarre and unforeseen extension of that relatively light penalty, might now have committed murder. ‘No doubt you concealed this incident when you were applying for the post of verger at the Cathedral.’
<
br /> ‘Yes. I’d been promoted to staff sergeant again by then.
The people who advised us when we were leaving the service to go back into civilian life said that what had happened nine years earlier was over and done with, that I’d paid the penalty at the time in terms of military rank.’
‘But Chivers found out about it.’
‘Yes. He got the story from a soldier who was buying drugs from him. A lot of ex-military men get the drugs habit, in the years after they’ve left the service.’
‘And Chivers threatened you with exposure to the bishop?’
‘Yes.’ Robert allowed himself a wan smile and looked round the office. ‘He wouldn’t have needed to go as high as the bishop. The woman who works from this office would have made sure that I lost my job and my house in the Close, once the secret was out. I know blackmail victims are supposed to have protection, but Miss Edwina bloody Clarkson would have made it her business to find the skeleton in my cupboard. Still will, I expect.’
‘She won’t find out from us, Mr Beckford. If it becomes evidence in a prosecution for murder, we will then have no control over court reporting.’
‘I didn’t kill Chivers. I’m glad he’s dead. I suppose that gives me a motive.’
Lambert had studied the man’s reactions intently throughout this exchange with Hook. He now said calmly, ‘Where were you last Friday night, Mr Beckford?’
Beckford appeared to give the question some thought. ‘I was at home. In the house in the cathedral close, where you talked to me on Tuesday. I’m sorry I lied to you then.’ Lambert ignored the belated apology. ‘Can anyone confirm this for us?’
‘No. My wife was babysitting for our daughter in Newent. She wasn’t back here until just before midnight.’
‘Did anyone speak to you on the phone in the later part of the evening?’
‘No. Not that I can recall. That’s when he was killed, isn’t it?’
‘It is. Where were you on Saturday night?’
Again the appearance of innocent thought. ‘At home. My wife’s sister came over and had tea with us - her marriage broke up and she lives alone.’ His face clouded. ‘I ran her home in the car - she doesn’t drive. She lives in Ross-on-Wye.
