A Vicar, Crucified

by Simon Parke

  ‘And that’s exactly what we want. In fact, perhaps that’s the name of the column. ‘Plain and Simple - Your Bishop speaks in the Soaraway Silt.’

  ‘I’d have to be able to speak freely, of course.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want it any other way. This is not Martin Channing’s column - this is your column.’

  The Bishop was warming to the idea.

  ‘Well, there are certainly some issues I believe must be addressed in society.’

  ‘Then here is your forum - though obviously your readers will want you to start with recent events at St Michael’s.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, I think that would be a marvellous way to introduce yourself to your new congregation, if I may use that term.’

  ‘Is that wise?’

  ‘Is what wise?’

  ‘Me talking about recent events at St Michael’s? I mean, I have my opinions of course!’

  ‘Don’t worry, we’d want nothing controversial, Bishop.’

  ‘No, that makes sense.’

  Bishop Stephen was reassured.

  ‘Nothing of a sensationalist nature.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Every editor knows when respect is due to a situation and indeed to a community. Marvellous people at St Michael’s.’

  ‘Quite, quite.’

  ‘No, we just want your thoughts on the rather ineffective investigation so far, some background on the crucified vicar, your feelings about him and his inadequate leadership - in other words, the plain and simple truth. Start as we mean to go on!’

  The Bishop could not pretend he wasn’t enthralled by this opening. To be given a public platform like this from which to speak of Christ was, well, a godsend surely? The Sussex Silt had its detractors, but many read it and they couldn’t all be wrong, surely? Here indeed was a new congregation for the Bishop - weekly sales of 150,000 copies, so a readership of perhaps four or five times that number. This was a congregation who needed him. How could he walk away from them?

  ‘And you feel this might be a weekly column?’ he asked, like a man seeking confirmation of the full value of a famous painting discovered in his attic.

  ‘I’m certainly thinking along those lines, Bishop, I’d be a fool not to be. We need you out there on a regular basis.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘But let’s get the first column home and hosed and then make plans - exciting plans.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘No rush of course, but we’d need copy by eleven o’clock this evening. Might there be a window in your diary for that?’

  The Bishop thought there might be.

  Fifty Seven

  ‘So what brought my Russian grandfather to the West?’

  ‘Train, mainly.’ Tamsin smiled.

  ‘He must have had a reason.’

  ‘My father had his reasons, yes.’

  ‘Oh, so he’s your father now!’

  ‘I think he always was. The grandfather bit came later.’

  ‘So tell me about him.’

  ‘Why this sudden interest in your family tree? Things must be bad if you’re now trawling the past for an identity.’

  Tamsin remained aloof to the mockery.

  ‘He ended up in Paris, didn’t he?’ she asked.

  The truth was, things were bad. Drained by the day’s events, Tamsin sat drinking tea beside the fire in the Abbot’s front room. No one in the church had seen anything of the murderer. The darkness outside, the Christmas lights inside and the universal sense of shock all proved to be the distraction and cover the killer required to leave the vestry by the outside door and merge quietly again into the stunned crowd inside the church. No one was quite sure who was by them at what particular time after the raffle. There’d been an issue over the whereabouts of Jennifer until she returned from the toilet, at some personal embarrassment. And Ginger came in from having a smoke to find faces turned towards him. He soon turned them away.

  ‘Can a man not have a cigarette?’

  So what had they learned this afternoon? Nothing. They were four days into the case and from Tamsin’s perspective, as far from home as when they started and neither did tomorrow offer relief. It may be the Sabbath but there’d be no rest for her, with the press conference she could no longer postpone in the morning followed by a meeting with Chief Inspector Wonder, no doubt tapping his fingers on the desk with impatience.

  So tonight, the hunter wanted to forget the chase and sit by the fire. She wanted to hear stories from another land, a distant land - things cosy, reassuring and safe. And so her question to the Abbot about her grandfather, not that there appeared anything very safe or cosy about him.

  ‘He spoke privately of being sent to Europe,’ said Peter.

  ‘Sent by whom?’

  ‘Well, this is where things get a little hazy. He claims to have been sent by the Sarmoun Brotherhood, a mysterious community somewhere in Afghanistan.’

  ‘Not everyone believes him?’

  ‘He just didn’t say very much about it.’

  ‘Perhaps he was sworn to secrecy.’

  ‘Possibly. And sometimes things are simply too sacred to talk about. Something dies in the telling.’

  ‘They call it the sermon.’

  ‘Very amusing,’ said Peter with a weary smile. He could do with being alone tonight.

  ‘But whatever impelled him to come he came with a strong sense of calling: “Unless the wisdom of the East and the energy of the West can be harnessed and used harmoniously, the world will be destroyed”, he said.’

  ‘Radical words.’

  ‘And all the more so for the fact that such thinking - thinking that took the teaching of the east seriously - though familiar now was unheard of at the beginning of the twentieth century. The west had Freud, what else did it need?’

  ‘Quite a lot.’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s another discussion.’

  ‘And so George Ivanovich Gurdjieff left Afghanistan and got on the train to Paris, end of story?’

  Peter laughed.

  ‘Why do you laugh?’

  ‘Even when you don’t want to hurry, you still want to hurry.’

  ‘I always want to get to the end.’

  ‘Fair enough, but the journey matters as well. You’ll have to put up with one or two delays before his arrival in Paris - because my father had to.’

  ‘So what held him up?’

  ‘Well, after some time with the community, he left Afghanistan with my mother Yorii. They soon parted, though. I was the result of a later union between them apparently.’

  ‘We’ll not go there.’

  ‘But he was in action straight away. He first taught the Enneagram in Petrograd in 1916. But the Russian Revolution forced him out.’

  ‘They weren’t converts?’

  ‘Revolutions place their hope in external reform and pay little heed to the inner workings of the human psyche. They foolishly imagine that if you change the government, you change the people.’

  ‘Not so?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s like an alcoholic buying a new set of clothes. Flash new appearance, same old drunk.’

  ‘So your father moved on.’

  ‘Yes, he travelled through Istanbul, Berlin, and Dresden before finally settling in Fontainebleau outside Paris. They nearly settled in Hampstead in London but it didn’t work out.’

  ‘So it was in Fontainebleau that he set up that strange school. My mother spoke of it.’

  ‘He founded “The Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man”.’

  ‘Interesting name.’

  ‘Especially since nothing he ever did was remotely harmonious.’

  There was a companionable silence as the flicker
ing flames crackled in the hearth. Both knew the storm was about to break, that from here on, if the killer was to be found, there must be daring and danger. Abbot Peter put another log on the fire, discarded wood from the boat builders, collected that morning from the beach.

  ‘And so that’s my grandfather?’

  ‘An interesting man.’

  ‘There speaks the proud son.’

  ‘Proud? Maybe, I’m not sure. Writer, Russian intelligence officer, entrepreneur, bully, psychologist, choreographer -.’

  ‘Choreographer?’

  ‘Yes, he turned his teachings into dance because mind, body and spirit are one. He was a great spiritual teacher alongside everything else.’

  ‘And it was him who taught you about the Enneagram?’

  ‘He learned it from the Sarmoun Community and held the symbol in very high regard.’

  ‘The odd drawing you showed me?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘The circle and the nine points?’

  ‘It may not look much. But he believed that symbol held all the secrets of the universe. He called it “the fundamental hieroglyphic of a universal language”. If you understand that symbol, Peter, he said to me, then libraries become useless! Through that symbol, you can read the world.’

  Silence descended again.

  ‘And you think that through that symbol you can read the people of Stormhaven?’

  ‘I can read them in a way.’

  ‘Then I’ll race you to the murderer.’

  ‘It’s not a competition, Tamsin.’

  ‘It’s always a competition.’

  ‘But we’re a team.’

  ‘No such thing.’

  ‘And members of a team can’t compete without risking serious dysfunction.’

  ‘Welcome to the police force. As the saying goes, “Trust a criminal but never a colleague”.’

  ‘Well, that’s sad.’

  ‘It’s life.’

  ‘Not my life.’

  ‘Okay, so we’ll pretend it isn’t a race; but we’ll both know it is one really.’

  Peter sighed; and stirred a little.

  Fifty Eight

  Sunday, 21 December

  London had finally decided to come south.

  Until this point, the nationals had been relying on stringers from Brighton’s Evening Argus and the Lewes-based Sussex Silt to keep the gossip pot stirred. Martin Channing had earned a pleasurable amount of money writing pot-boiling pieces for former friends in the trade. But in the end, the lure of nakedness, a crucified vicar and some bracing sea air proved too much and London journalists could no longer resist truth’s cry for help.

  They stayed mainly in Eastbourne or Brighton where expense accounts could be more enjoyably exercised. Stormhaven did have a hotel but it was not one where any Londoner would wish to stay. As an estate agent told Peter when he arrived: ‘We don’t want to encourage tourists here. Let them ruin Brighton.’

  Such an isolationist policy, when brought to Tamsin’s attention, was not easily understood. ‘The people here have no vision,’ she’d said.

  ‘Perhaps it’s just a different vision,’ Peter replied, feeling one hotel was more than enough.

  ‘But hotels bring income.’

  ‘And they also bring stag weekends with their special brand of late-night hilarity, vandalism and vomit on the pavements. Budapest may be up for that sort of thing but it doesn’t mean Stormhaven has to be.’

  ‘The march of progress always has a price.’

  ‘And the other thing about the march of progress is that it doesn’t exist.’

  But there wasn’t much talk this morning. It had been a hasty breakfast at Sandy View with Tamsin gone by 8.30 a.m. to prepare for the press conference.

  ‘Wish me luck,’ she’d said, like a daughter going off for an exam.

  ‘Imagine them all with no clothes on and you’ll be fine.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It takes away the fear and the fearless are free.’

  Tamsin ignored him, gathered her things, closed the door behind her and set her face to the activity of the day.

  As she drove away, Peter stood at the window, watched her go and felt a frisson of pleasure. The house was his again, like reclaimed land and it was time for a coffee alone, the best sort of coffee, with perhaps a slice of toast with butter and marmalade. He’d bought butter after Tamsin winced at the margarine, and thick cut marmalade would top things off nicely, the majesty of bitter chunks of orange. He’d sit in his study, settle into solitude and perhaps work on the jigsaw, so neglected of late. These were the things he was looking forward to when he heard the knock on the door. Had Tamsin forgotten her keys?

  ‘Peter!’

  ‘Hello, Martin.’

  ‘May I come in?’

  ‘Yes of course.’

  ‘I know you get lonely sometimes.’

  ‘Not knowingly.’

  Peter ushered Martin Channing into the room.

  ‘It’s been too long.’

  ‘You must want something.’

  ‘Yes I want quality.’

  ‘Please sit down.’

  ‘The comfy chair?’ queried Martin.

  Peter only had one comfy chair.

  ‘Why not? I can always sit on it later. Coffee?’

  ‘That would be very fine.’

  Martin contemplated the quiet Christmas tree.

  ‘He looks a rather sad little fellow.’

  ‘I don’t think of him as sad.’

  ‘Are the lights not working?’

  ‘They did work briefly.’

  ‘That’s a shame. I mean, if an Abbot can’t put on a decent Christmas-.’

  ‘They’ll be back. So why aren’t you at the press conference, Martin? You’re an editor, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t attend press conferences.’

  Peter went into the kitchen and put the kettle on, reluctantly adding another cup to the one sitting ready. He returned to the front room.

  ‘I would have thought a press conference might be a good place for the press to be, or am I being naïve?’

  ‘The latter.’

  Peter returned to the kitchen.

  ‘How do you like your coffee?’

  ‘Not too strong.’

  ‘One spoon?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  Some digestives and chocolate bars appeared with the coffee and then Peter settled on the wooden box, which once held herring. It had been a while before the smell finally left the house, like a drawn-out exorcism. But the container had its own charm, gradually succumbing to furniture polish and proved both occasional table and bench depending on need.

  ‘And the press conference is dull because?’

  ‘Because I want the story not the platitudes and you my dear Abbot have the story.’

  Peter had once heard Martin Channing referred to as the only reptile on the planet to wear a bow tie. He was charming, camp in a non-sexual way and entirely amoral.

  ‘People still talk of the lovely piece you did for us on the desert, Peter.’

  The discreet laying of flattery’s trap did not go unnoticed.

  ‘You have a gift, Peter,’ he continued.

  ‘You should tell the publishing world.’

  ‘Perhaps I will. It’s only a matter of time before you’re discovered. And one thing leads to another in my experience.’

  ‘My desert piece in the Silt didn’t lead to a great deal.’

  On his return from Egypt, he’d met Martin Channing at a charity event and the editor had suggested he write about his time in the desert. Peter’s title had been: ‘Desert Learning.’

  The paper’s title had bee
n, ‘Why 25 years in the desert drove me mad!’

  ‘Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey, as I’m sure Jesus said,’ observed Martin, passing on the digestives.

  ‘It was well-edited piece, as I remember,’ said Peter.

  ‘I’m glad you like the job we did on it. I took a particular interest in its progress.’

  ‘I think I mean ‘‘much edited’’.’ Martin smiled.

  ‘Well, no offence, but while you’re a fine writer of course, Peter, very fine, reminiscent of Balzac in so many ways, you’re still learning the journalistic craft.’

  ‘There was hardly a sentence of mine left standing.’

  ‘You musn’t take these things personally, Abbot! The desert may make you a saint but it doesn’t make you a columnist. So yes, a little surgery was necessary.’

  ‘A heart transplant, as I remember.’

  ‘No, no, no. Minor surgery only! Nip and tuck really. We just shortened the rather long and opaque sentences, freshened up the vocabulary and removed the cloudy bits.’

  ‘The cloudy bits?’

  ‘When a writer doesn’t quite know what they want to say, they get cloudy; they imagine that if they go on for long enough it will all eventually become clear.’

  ‘But it doesn’t?’

  ‘You can get away with it in books, Peter, but not in newspapers. We can’t have a reader drifting for even a moment or putting the paper down. We must be instant, pressing and urgent. You see how insecure we are!’

  ‘So what do you want from me now? You’ve used the only story I have.’

  Martin sipped his coffee and smiled.

  ‘That so isn’t true, Peter.’ Martin Channing leant forward, as the real reason for his visit became clear. ‘Here we are in the midst of an intriguing murder investigation - and believe me, it doesn’t get much more intriguing than a naked vicar crucified, unless we could somehow get the royal family into it.’

  ‘There’s still time.’

  ‘And in the middle of it all, Peter, as Special Witness I’m told, is your good self! I think you have another story to tell the readers of the Sussex Silt.’

  Fifty Nine

  ‘We’ve run out of hymn books,’ said Jennifer to Sally, as she put on her robes in the vestry, in preparation for the morning service.