A Turbulent Priest

by J M Gregson

  Pat knelt with head bowed before the cheap plaster image, with its hands gesturing towards the exposed heart, surrounded by flames. It would have been a curious and startling image for those not bred in the faith, but Pat Hanlon had known the image of the Sacred Heart for as long as she could remember. A symbol of Christ’s love for humanity, it was, an invitation to bring one’s troubles to God and be comforted.

  But tonight she could gain no comfort in this silent place. Eventually she spoke aloud, through the flickering light of her candle to the impassive statue beyond it. “God forgive me, but I’m glad he’s dead! He deserved it, for what he did to my boy. I’m a mother, and he deserved it, for what he did to my boy!”

  The blue eyes of the handsome Gentile Christ gazed immovably back at her, and she wished in that moment that she had gone to the other side-altar, where the Mother of Christ in her sky-blue mantle would surely have understood a mother’s agony, would surely have condoned a mother’s exultation in the death of that agent of the devil’s work. She spoke no more words aloud, though she poured forth her heart in explanation of her emotions to the invisible God who lurked behind the plastic figure. Then she retreated into the familiar words of an Our Father and a Hail Mary, recited with great fervour before she stole away, uncomforted.

  She knew that she should pray for the quality of forgiveness in herself, so that within her own breast she might forgive the priest Bickerstaffe for what he had done, but she could not yet bring herself to do so. Perhaps forgiveness would be possible, in the days to come. From the rear of the church, she looked back. The other two candles had burnt out now, and her own flame burned its silent worship alone in darkness that was now absolute. She let herself out, locked the church carefully, and walked slowly home, keeping the image of that silent flame in her mind as she went.

  It must have been another half-hour before Keith came into the house. She could see from his tortured face that he had found nothing, but for form’s sake she had to ask him, “Did you find it?”

  “No. It was hopeless, as you said it would be. A needle in a haystack. And I wasn’t even sure where I might have dropped it.”

  She didn’t want to voice the thought she knew they both had, but it forced itself out. “If you’d dropped it anywhere obvious, the police might have found it by now. They do searches, I think.”

  He nodded. “I’m sure they do. But they haven’t been back to us. All the signs are that they believe our story. Perhaps they’ve even arrested someone, by now.” But he didn’t look as though he believed that.

  A few minutes later, their youngest daughter, Rosie, came in to say goodnight, tripping with an eight-year-old’s clumsy charm into the quiet room. She threw her arms round her father’s neck, kissed him with the extravagance of a child who knew that for some reason her bed-time had been forgotten, and said mischievously, “I’ve got your pen, Daddy.”

  For a moment Pat thought that Keith was going to hit her, for the first time in her life. Then holding her at arm’s length, he said harshly, “Where did you find it, Rosie?”

  The girl knew from his voice that something was wrong. “I borrowed it from your desk.” She held out her chubby arm with the gold ball-point. “It’s got your name on it, Daddy.”

  He had control of himself now. “That’s right. It’s a special pen, isn’t it? ‘Presented to Keith Hanlon’. That’s Daddy. When did you borrow it, sweetheart?”

  “When I wrote to Aunty Beth.”

  To thank her for her birthday present: he remembered the note in her round, eight-year-old hand, the words wide apart, the letters carefully joined. Six weeks and more ago. “Where did you find it now?”

  “In my toy box. Under Little Teddy. He’d been hiding it from me, you see.”

  “Yes. You run along to bed now, there’s a good girl. It’s long past your time.”

  There was silence for a long time after the child had gone. They listened to the familiar signs of her undressing in the room over their heads. Pat said, “I’ll go and see her down,” and Keith knew she was pleased to get out of the room.

  When she returned he tried a smile. “I needn’t have worried at all. The dratted pen was here all the time.”

  “Yes. Flipping kids!” It was a saying they had from their own childhood, its origin in Tony Hancock now all but forgotten. She smiled bravely back at him, feeling as drained and relieved as he looked.

  In her last thoughts of the evening, just before she fell asleep, Pat Hanlon found herself at last able to regret the death of Father John Bickerstaffe, to pray for mercy upon his immortal soul.

  Fifteen

  There is something Dickensian about the high-towered entry to Wormwood Scrubs Prison. The whole place has the look of a house of punishment, with its lofty, windowless brick walls and its total concealment of those who are locked into its crowded cells.

  Despite the incessant noise of London traffic, the nineteenth century ambience was enhanced by the light mist which hung above the entrance gates when Peach and Blake arrived there, early on the windless morning of the ninth of September. Percy looked at the forbidding entrance appreciatively before they moved to the small pedestrian door to present their credentials. “Should have softened the bugger up nicely, this place,” he said. “Wonder if they asked him to slop out this morning.”

  As they moved towards the room where they would interview Charles Courcey, a series of security gates clanged behind them. Lucy Blake felt her first pang of sympathy for the man they had journeyed two hundred and twenty miles to interview. Paedophiles were the worst of criminals for her, as for most police personnel. But a convicted paedophile had the very worst of the prison system. His life in a place like this would be one of twenty-four hour apprehension about the intentions of his fellow prisoners, who would take as dim a view of his offences as the police and be ruthless in meting out their own kangaroo-court justice.

  Courcey presented an abject figure when the warder brought him into the interview room and pointed to the chair opposite Peach and Blake. He wore his own clothes still, but standard prison procedure had deprived him of tie and belt, so that his expensive suit hung loose and ill-fitting about a frame which seemed to have been deprived of its sleekness since they had last seen him only four days earlier, in his constituency rooms in Brunton. There, he had presented himself as an exotic bird moving in a mundane environment; here, he looked like a trussed animal which has already given up all hope of liberty.

  If he felt any sympathy for one who had fallen so far, Percy Peach certainly hid it perfectly. “So, Charlie, we meet again. Under very different circumstances, though, eh?”

  The former MP winced a fraction at the familiarity with his name, but otherwise continued to look like a beaten cur. “What do you want?” he said wearily.

  “A few words about a major crime. We’ve come a long way to see you, Charlie. All the way from Brunton, which you might just remember.”

  “I don’t know why you’ve come here. I’ve nothing more to tell; I’ve seen enough policemen to last me for the rest of my life in the last thirty-six hours. You’ve got me stitched up, with the phone tapes, the videos, the letters. I’ve been very foolish, I admit that. And a few people have let me down. But I’ve said everything I have to say.”

  “Don’t be too sure about that, Charlie. You and your friends might have tied yourself in knots and presented the Paedophile Squad with an open and shut case for all I know, but I’m not here to talk about that.”

  Courcey looked up hopelessly at this latest of his tormentors. “What do you want, Peach? You set this in motion, as far as I can see. Isn’t it enough for you, all of this?” He lifted his flabby arms six inches and let them flap back hopelessly to his sides, a gesture which took in his environment, his predicament, and his own wretched despondency.

  “Afraid not. We’re here in connection with a murder investigation,” said Peach evenly.

  The word had its impact, even here. Courcey looked up at the round face, met the ke
en black eyes for the first time since he had been led into the room. “I’m not a murderer,” he said limply.

  “Maybe not. Not personally, that is. But we have reason to think you may have been involved in the murder of Father John Bickerstaffe, Parish Priest of the Sacred Heart Church in Brunton.”

  “I knew Bickerstaffe. You know all about that. I wrote a foolish letter to him, more’s the pity. But I didn’t kill him, or cause him to be killed.”

  “He was going to blow the gaffe on you and your hard-porn circle. You wanted him silenced.”

  Courcey’s haggard face told it all. He wanted to deny the charge, but his will had been broken by the humiliations he had already endured. “All right, I did. We did, not just me. But that doesn’t mean I wanted him killed.”

  Peach pursed his lips. “A fine distinction, that, Charlie, for people with as much at stake as you and your chums. You’ll need to convince me.”

  Courcey’s bloodshot, hunted eyes looked from one to the other. He said hopelessly, “And how do I do that? You’ll fit me up for whatever you want, now that I’ve admitted hardcore child pornography. It’s not going to matter what I say, is it?”

  Lucy Blake spoke for the first time. “It might, if you speak honestly and convince us. But you can’t deny that what evidence there is doesn’t favour you, Mr Courcey. You dispatched a man to the presbytery at the Sacred Heart to try to recover a letter you’d sent to Father Bickerstaffe, a man who wasn’t afraid to hint at violence to get what he wanted, a man who would have got past a less courageous housekeeper than Miss Hargreaves.”

  Courcey’s shoulders lifted and fell with a hopeless resignation. “I don’t dispute that. I’ve already admitted that and a lot of other things. I’ve even told you we wanted to shut Bickerstaffe up, once we realised that he was planning to talk to the police. But I didn’t want him killed. I can’t prove that, I can only state it.”

  Peach shook his head sadly. He said quietly, “I wouldn’t be in your shoes, Charlie. Not for all the tea in China and a few Japanese geisha girls as well. You’re going down for paedophilia. I know what that conviction means for a prisoner, better than you.” Yet even now, Percy wasn’t sure this broken hulk of a man would go down. He’d hire the best lawyers. He was ,.as guilty as hell, but the law would maintain he had a right to be defended; it was curious how much more stoutly maintained that right was when there was big money around. There’d be psychiatric reports on Courcey’s state of mind; he would state his willingness to undergo treatment with the earnestness of an experienced politician and a public schoolboy’s contrition.

  Courcey said bitterly, “Thanks for your background information, Peach. I had heard, you know, what happens in prison to — to people like me.”

  “I’m sure. What I’m getting at, Charlie, is that it might almost be better to go down for murder. Especially if you were not alone in giving the orders to a hitman. Plead mitigating circumstances, nasty company leading you astray, pressure of maintaining a public position; get the headshrinkers in on your side. Throw in the fact that the victim had been abusing lads himself in a minor way and you might get away with five years, with the counsel you’re going to employ. Could be out in thirty months, with good conduct, and not a finger laid upon you by the naughty lads in stir with you, as a respectable murderer. It’s worth considering, surely?”

  For a moment, Courcey looked tempted. Then he said, “That would be all very well, if I’d given any orders for Bickerstaffe to be eliminated like that. But I didn’t. I told you, I didn’t. I wanted him to keep his mouth shut, because I realised he could do us a lot of damage. But I didn’t want him killed.”

  “So how did you think he was going to be silenced? A priest, even a flawed priest, isn’t going to be easy to shut up when he’s in the grip of his conscience.”

  Again that hopeless dropping of the heavy shoulders. “I don’t know. I’ve no experience of these things. I hoped money might do it. I suppose I thought we might be able to bribe him, or perhaps threaten him to frighten him. I know I’m naive in these—”

  “Spare us your naivety, Charlie. Keep that for the court: you’ll need it. There’ll be a statement for you to sign, in due course.” Peach was on his feet, ending the interview as harshly and abruptly as he had begun it, nodding to the warder in the corner of the room, watching Courcey intently for any hint of a final revelation. There was none.

  Other agencies were at work, however, on the task of illuminating the activities of Charles Courcey, sometime MP and Junior Minister. The charges being compiled against him and his paedophile friends were serious enough for that most British of taboos, the one on a man’s financial dealings, to be breached. This revealed a murky picture, with clarity obscured by a group of accounts in different banks and fundholders, some of them offshore. Money had been transferred into and out of these institutions with the deliberate intention of disguising the real purpose and direction of various payments. Money had passed at bewildering speed between London and Jersey, Spain and Edinburgh.

  But by the time DI Peach and DS Blake were back in Brunton that afternoon, it had become clear that a banker’s draft of 18th August had transferred five thousand pounds by a roundabout’ route from the funds of Charles Courcey to the account of a known hitman and contract killer. That was two days before the murder of John Bickerstaffe.

  A hunt for the hitman was under way, but he had so far not been located.

  ***

  Superintendent Tucker checked the immaculate cut of his uniform, ran his comb for the last time through his silvering but still plentiful hair, and took a deep breath.

  He was, as the Chief Constable had once told him after a television appearance on the North-West News, the acceptable face of the police. Elegant and calm, conveying the impression of an effortless competence to support the confidence he always exuded in public. His mission was to soothe those who sought reassurance, and to exercise a modicum of control over that most volatile of elements, public opinion.

  It was an act, of course, but a good one. Public relations were an ever more important factor as the public perception of the police became more critical, and PR, as Tucker would tell any senior officer who was prepared to listen, was very much his forte. The Tucker act might have been more difficult to perform under the piercing scrutiny of Percy Peach, but Peach was at this moment safely incarcerated within the moving walls of the inter-city special speeding north from London. It was a thought which gave his chief an extra assurance as he went at midday into the room set up for his media conference.

  The questions were what he had expected, and Tucker fielded them with aplomb. Indeed, he had managed to agree the lines of the television interview with the young girl presenter, who had just moved up to Granada from local radio and was considerably more nervous than he was. He now took her with an avuncular kindness through the main stages of the investigation into the murder of Father John Bickerstaffe, whom she had started by referring to as ‘a much-loved local parish priest’.

  His interrogator concluded with what she thought was a rather daring question as to whether the Superintendent in charge of the case thought the police were now near to an arrest. Thomas Bulstrode Tucker gave her his blandest smile. “You wouldn’t expect me to answer that, Sally, would you? As the man directing this enquiry, I can tell you that my team has been working round the clock to bring the killer of Father Bickerstaffe to justice. We have turned up a lot of interesting information. Without wishing to appear sanguine, I can tell you that I am very happy with the progress of our work.”

  Tucker then sat back in his seat and contrived to look very sanguine indeed, while Sally Etherington said, “That is good for the public to hear. It seems that it won’t be too long before the man who perpetrated this murder will be under lock and key.”

  “Or the woman. In these enlightened times, we mustn’t let any question of gender cloud our sights. I’m sure that those excellent female officers who are employed on my team would wish me to say tha
t.” Tucker gave the camera what he considered his most winning smile as the videotape ceased rolling.

  The crime reporters at this media conference were rather less accommodating than the television presenter, but Tucker handled them with practised emollience, avoiding the confrontations which DI Peach would have relished with these hardened and cynical professionals. They were naturally interested in the involvement of a local MP, and most of the questions were aimed at establishing the place in the enquiry of Charles Courcey. Alf Houldsworth, the reporter on the local Evening Dispatch, hinted mischievously that Tucker had personal acquaintance with the disgraced MP, through what he called ‘a social organisation with a national network’.

  Tucker ignored this reference to his Masonic activities and said stiffly, “I had spoken to Mr Courcey a few times on previous occasions, yes. You would expect that a high-profile MP and a senior policeman concerned with what was going on in this part of Lancashire would come into occasional contact.”

  Houldsworth yawned ostentatiously during this bromide, then said, “I understand your former friend has now been charged with serious offences against children under the Child Pornography Acts.”

  “I believe your information is correct. The matter is not a local one. Mr Courcey, who has never been a personal friend of mine, is under arrest in London. Charges of the sort you described have already been formally laid or are pending, but they are not of course the concern of the Brunton police.”

  “But I understand that there is some possibility that the late MP for the Hodder Valley is also involved in the investigations you are conducting into the murder of Father Bickerstaffe. That would be your concern, wouldn’t it, Superintendent Tucker?”

  Tucker couldn’t believe his luck. “It would indeed, Mr… Mr Houldsworth, isn’t it? And I can tell you that I yesterday despatched two of my senior officers to London to interview Charles Courcey in that connection.” He glanced dramatically at his watch. “In fact, they should be speaking to Mr Courcey in Wormwood Scrubs Prison at this very moment.” It wasn’t strictly true: Peach and Blake should have concluded their enquiries some time ago and be well on the way back to Brunton by now. But he didn’t see why he should let a mere fact get in the way of a fine phrase; after all, the journalists he was addressing never did that.