A Turbulent Priest

by J M Gregson

  “Irish origins, though, most of ‘em. Should be grateful for what they’ve got. But that’s between the two of us, between these four walls.” Percy, who would stand for no hint of racism within his team, now tapped the side of his nose and gave Tucker the grossest of winks.

  Tucker refused to be drawn further into his web. “So you think you’ve got all you can from the diocesan Bishop. In that case, don’t visit him again without my express permission. You should be pursuing your enquiries on the ground round here. And I shouldn’t need to tell you that.” Tucker produced his stern look over the gold-rimmed glasses he wore when at his desk; it usually curbed lesser, more promotion-conscious men than Peach.

  “Oh, but we are, sir.” For a moment Percy was tempted towards genuine outrage at the suggestion that he would know so little of his duties. Then he decided Tommy Bloody Tucker was not worth his anger. “The house to house is almost complete. By the end of today, one or both parents of every member of the Sacred Heart Youth Club will have been interviewed. This morning, DS Blake and I visited Mrs MacMullen, the headmistress of the Sacred Heart Primary School, adjacent to the church. She was able to give us another name to add to those we had collected from the Bishop.”

  “Ah! Just one more name? You’re sure she’s not holding anything back? They can be clever creatures, you know, these professional women.” Tucker found the workings of all female minds a foreign country, and professional women were the least accessible terrain of all.

  Percy considered his chief’s admonition, then allowed himself to look worried as the implications sank in. “You may be right, sir. I could bring her in here, if you like. Let you have a go at her yourself. Put her in an interview room with you and—”

  “You’ll do no such thing, Peach. Just be wary, that’s all I’m saying.” The delicious fantasy Percy had entertained for a moment of the splendidly efficient Mrs MacMullen chewing up Tommy Tucker and spitting out the pieces vanished into the air. Tucker rustled both hands through the papers on his desk and said, “Well, I’ve plenty to be busy with, if you haven’t. Off you go and push things forward.”

  As he went back down the stairs, Percy reflected happily that in his agitation Tucker had omitted to force him to pass over the fifth name the headteacher had given them, which was that of a prominent local figure. He was happy about that. Keep the bugger in the ignorance he deserved, he thought.

  ***

  In early September, it was dark by half-past seven. So seven o’clock was a good time to have a bonfire at the bottom of the garden. You could still see what you were about, but most people were already indoors, lamenting the summer that was almost gone and preparing for a night’s television.

  On this quiet evening, there was very little breeze. The plume of smoke from the tightly rolled newspapers rose almost perpendicular into the still twilight. There was not a lot of garden rubbish to burn at this time of year, but the man made a pyramid from the unplaned wood he had collected from a dismembered box. As this cone of fire crackled into life, he added the dead branches from the shrubs he had pruned after their flowering in the spring — long before he had known about any of this, he reflected grimly. That glorious spring, when the trees had dazzled with their brilliant colours and life had seemed so uncomplicated, was scarcely four months behind them. It seemed now to belong to another world.

  The blaze crackled, reared up, made him leap back for a moment with the fierceness of its heat, and then burned more steadily. He saw the bed of dull red ashes that he wanted beginning to accumulate beneath the flames, as the wooden struts he had piled on end collapsed into a steady blaze. His fire was hot enough and established enough now to burn the things he wanted to destroy without leaving any trace. He turned to the plastic bag at his heels and began to extract the contents.

  The handkerchief went on first, curling quickly in the heat, dissolving with a tiny flash of blue into the body of his fire. Then two cheap ball-point pens. You surely couldn’t identify anyone from these, for they were far too common, but they might as well go, since there was no point in taking needless risks. He hesitated over the money. There was thirty pounds in notes, which would burn easily enough. But there was no point surely in burning anything as anonymous as money? And in any case, you couldn’t burn coins. Might as well keep the notes too, then, and dispose of the lot at once; it would be a small, supplementary appendix to his revenge. But some superstition made him put this money in a separate pocket from his own, so that the two should not mix. He would get rid of it tomorrow, and have done with it. That would remove his last link with the dead man.

  The three letters curled quickly in the breeze. He threw the watch in too, watching the strap writhe and burn like a live thing as the flames licked it greedily. The case might survive the flames, but there would surely be nothing identifiable left after this heat; he’d rake through and check tomorrow, to be on the safe side. He used the little diary as a test for the most important thing he had to burn. It made quite a cheerful blaze, but it did not last long. He poked a stick through the charred remnant of it, watching it flame anew, then disintegrate to nothing in the crimson heart of his fire.

  He drew the last item out of the plastic bag with extreme, almost superstitious, care. It was a small, thick book with a gold cross on its black leather cover. A breviary containing the Holy Office, extracts of which every Roman Catholic priest has to read each day, to remind him of his calling and provoke private meditation. The man held the book in both hands for a moment, then consigned it reverently to the flames, as though this was the culminating action of some religious ceremony.

  It took much longer to burn than any other item and the man watched it for minutes on end without a flicker of movement, with a fascination bordering on superstition. It was not until what was left of the book dropped into the base of the embers that he made any move. The pages had now been reduced to a solid, unrecognisable black square which threatened to deaden the fire which had all but consumed them. The man chopped at this with a spade, suddenly and savagely, and watched the small back cubes he created flare again into life. Not until the last vestige of the breviary had disappeared completely and his fire was reduced to a smouldering cairn of glowing charcoal did he turn away.

  It was dark now. He took a single glance back before he went into the house; all he could see of his work were faintly glowing embers through the early night. His last connections with Father John Bickerstaffe had been destroyed.

  Seven

  Peach, driving out alone into the lush green countryside of the Ribble Valley on a beautiful September morning, would have liked to have had Lucy Blake at his side to chat to; he felt easier with her now than he had felt for a long time with any woman. But she could be better employed elsewhere. Besides, he was going to a place designed for men and run by men; they might just feel it easier to be completely open with him if he didn’t have a sparky young woman at his side.

  Downton Hall, the place where he now presumed John Bickerstaffe had spent his last troubled nights on this earth, was beautifully set at the head of a gently sloping valley, in the foothills of the northern Pennines. Pendle Hill, with its abrupt Western profile and its associations with the Lancashire witches, was a few miles to the south of it, its greater bulk cutting off the mansion from the last of the sizeable Lancashire industrial towns, Burnley, Preston and his own base, Brunton.

  The Hall was a solid stone building, built towards the end of the nineteenth century, when King Cotton ruled the back-to-back streets of brick houses in the Lancashire towns and his courtiers built themselves places like this for weekends and holidays. It had been a legacy to the church when death duties threatened in the days after the 1939-45 war. It had become a place for older priests to live out their last days and younger ones to enjoy a holiday away from the demands of their insistent parishes. And a place for those who transgressed to be hidden, whilst the hierarchy of the church decided what should be done with them, Percy Peach thought, as he drove between the
high gateposts and up the long drive.

  He had got here more quickly than he expected on the A59, a faster and very different road from the one he had cycled during his youth to reach the Yorkshire Dales. It was barely twenty past nine when he found himself sitting in the cool and rather musty room by the front door which was used for the reception of all visitors. Through the wide stone-framed bay window, he could see the broad swathes of pink-cerise heather on the fells, clear in the morning sun as the land climbed away towards the Trough of Bowland. It wasn’t more than three miles from this place to the spot where the body had been discovered, Peach computed. Bickerstaffe could have walked there, probably had. No chance of significant detail about times and his state of mind from a helpful driver, then. Still less of any clue as to whom he might have met. But you couldn’t anticipate what you would find in places like this; you had to keep alert, keep trying, and hope for the unexpected.

  His doleful thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Monsignor Eaton, a silver-haired, urbane cleric who had himself been put out to grass in this place when he reached the age of seventy. He was still lean and erect as he hurried into the room and apologised for keeping his visitor waiting. “Been down to our little church in Downton to say Mass,” he explained. “First Friday, you know. Country people are busy at this time of the year, but we still get quite a little gathering on First Fridays.”

  Peach was at a loss for a moment. Then he remembered from his youth that there was some custom that if you made a good Communion (whatever that was) on the first Friday of nine successive months, you could be assured that your immortal soul would not go to hell. Some saint had told people it was so, on the strength of a vision or something equally unlikely — Percy couldn’t remember the details. He smiled weakly and said, “It’s not your fault, Father. I was early.” ‘Monsignor’ was too much of a mouthful for him, and the cultivated figure before him didn’t register any annoyance at the lower title.

  With commendable directness, the old priest said, “I understand you want to talk to me about poor Father Bickerstaffe. I shan’t be able to tell you much. I think you know the circumstances under which he came here.”

  “I do. Had the Church decided what it was going to do with him?”

  Monsignor Eaton smiled. “In two thousand years, the church has had to learn to deal with the weaknesses, even the vices, of its servants. In the context of medieval popes, Father Bickerstaffe’s sins would hardly have rated a headline. That does not mean they were not serious, especially for those who suffered at his hands. But people like him are sent here first and foremost to remove them from the places where they have erred. After that, the problem is not so much what the church will do with them so much as what they will do with themselves. They come here to contemplate what they have done, to see it from a distance, and then to decide what they should do with the rest of their lives.”

  “But they are offered guidance about that, surely?”

  “They are. But as far as possible, we prefer that they ask for that guidance, rather than having it compelled upon them.”

  “I see. And did Father Bickerstaffe ask for such guidance?”

  “He did not. But he was only here for a few days before — before he disappeared. I had a few words with him on the first day he came here, because he was in a highly emotional state. He seemed very near to what for us is the worst sin of all, Despair, and I told him that we were here to offer help, not to judge him.”

  “And what was his reaction?”

  There was a slight shrug of Monsignor Eaton’s aged but still elegant shoulders. “John knew as well as I do that one can’t deny the infinite mercy of God. He quietened down a little and agreed to speak to me when he had been here for a while. He was quiet on. the following days, but I think he was coming to terms with himself. He walked a lot on the fells. This is an ideal place for fresh air and contemplation, Inspector.”

  That’s true. Perhaps I should try it myself, thought Percy, instead of just meaning to. I could walk these hills and valleys with Lucy; I’d enjoy that. He said, “Could you show me the room which Father Bickerstaffe occupied when he was here?”

  It was a cell-like room in the upper part of the house. Comfortable enough, but simple. It was long and narrow, confirming Peach’s view that it was a larger room which had been divided since the days when this was a private residence. A small crucifix and a view of St Peter’s in Rome were the only things adorning the blue-emulsioned walls. The room had a striking view through its single window, looking north towards the distant heights of Ingleborough and Pen-Y-Ghent. The only habitation he could see was a distant farmhouse, the only moving life visible that of a few sheep on the hillside beyond it. A good place for contemplation, this.

  Without looking back from this view, Peach said quietly, “How many people knew he had come here, Father?”

  “Impossible to say. We don’t make any public announcement, as you’d expect. But Father Bickerstaffe could have told people — I don’t know whether he did or not. Probably his housekeeper would know, if he wanted his mail forwarded.”

  “But it wouldn’t have been too difficult for anyone who wanted to know where he’d gone to find out he was here?”

  “No, I’m sure it wouldn’t. People gossip around a parish, as they do anywhere else, and I’m afraid there’s more interest once there’s a breath of scandal. People could even have guessed where he’d gone. Most Catholics in the diocese know of the existence of this place; it wouldn’t take a lot of intelligence to make an informed guess that this is where he was.”

  “You haven’t touched anything here?”

  “No. The room hasn’t been needed, so in view of the circumstances we didn’t disturb things. It was cleaned on the day after he disappeared and the sheets were changed —we didn’t know then that anything had happened to him, of course.”

  Those old enemies of forensic science, the cleaners and the launderers. In this case, Peach doubted whether they had destroyed anything of value. He looked through the room’s sparse furnishings. There was a single clean shirt in the top drawer of the chest, two pairs of socks and a pair of underpants in the one beneath it. A cassock depended from a hanger in the wardrobe, looking at once sinister and pathetic. He wondered if the dead man had considered whether he would ever put it on again. An electric shaver and a brush and comb were on the shelf over the washbasin beyond the bed. No letters; no books, save for a copy of a thriller with a bookmark at page 197.

  Peach said, “Help me, Father. Is there anything missing which you would expect to be here?”

  “I think he received at least one letter whilst he was here. He could have discarded that, of course. But there is one thing a priest is never without: his breviary. Every priest has to read the appropriate section of the Holy Office every day.”

  “Forgive me for the suggestion, but is it possible that Father Bickerstaffe had discarded his breviary? He was clearly severely disturbed, and we don’t know how he thought of his future.”

  Monsignor Eaton shook his grey, experienced head. “I don’t think so. Reading the Holy Office daily is a habit bred into us over the years. He’d have needed to be very disturbed to break that habit — from what little I saw of him I judge it would have been one of his few consolations. Even if I’m wrong about that, I’m sure he’d never have destroyed or discarded the book itself. But he probably took it out on his walks with him — I’d like to think it was a source of comfort for him in his desolation.”

  Peach nodded. “There was nothing at all in his pockets when his body was found. That means they were almost certainly emptied by whoever killed him. If we could find that book, we might find his killer with it. But I doubt whether we ever shall. Is there anyone at the house whom Father Bickerstaffe talked to whilst he was staying with you?”

  “Just one person. I know they talked together two or three times in the days before he disappeared. I’ve asked him to stand by to meet you. It’s a Father Irwin. He should be wait
ing for you in my office downstairs.”

  Monsignor Eaton took him down the wide mahogany staircase, showed him the room and discreetly withdrew. A man in his mid-thirties, short and stocky in an open-necked shirt and a well-worn tweed jacket, sprang up swiftly when Peach went into the room, and Percy divined that he had been waiting nervously within it for some time. When he introduced himself, the man said, “No ‘Father’ any more for me, please. I’m to be plain Denis Irwin from now on, so I might as well get used to it sooner rather than later.”

  “Very well. Denis it is. I gather that you chatted a little with Father Bickerstaffe before he disappeared. You know he’s been murdered?”

  “Yes. I heard it on the radio in my room. It was a tremendous shock, I can tell you.”

  “It must have been. When did you last see him?”

  “On the afternoon of the day he disappeared. That was Thursday the twentieth of August — a fortnight ago yesterday.” Irwin had the intense air of a man who had been over this many times in his own mind.

  “Do you remember the time?”

  “Yes. It was late in the afternoon, almost five o’clock, I think.”

  “And did he give you any indication where he was going?”

  “I didn’t speak to him, I’m afraid. I just saw him going off down the drive. You can see it from the window of my room. I remember thinking it was late for him to be starting one of his walks. He went for long walks on the fells, you know, tramped for miles and miles on his own.”

  “Perhaps he was going out to meet someone.”

  “Yes. I’ve thought of that since, in view of what’s happened. It didn’t strike me as a possibility at the time, but it would explain why he was going out so late in the day.”

  “If he was going to meet someone, have you any idea who it might have been?”

  “No. We talked a bit, but you couldn’t call us intimates. We were partners in distress, if you like. We exchanged notes about our problems. John told me what he’d done. It helped me, because it made my problems seem manageable. I’m leaving the priesthood, Mr Peach: I realise now that I should never have been a celibate. I shall be marrying a lady from my parish, once I find out how I’m going to make a living.”