The Coldest Blood

by Jim Kelly

  Dryden thought about the electricity meter stuffed with cash, and the malt whisky.

  ‘There was a friend in particular, wasn’t there – Joe, was it?’

  Several heads nodded. ‘I’d really like to talk to him – you know, some more background, Perhaps he visited him?’

  ‘Joe likes his privacy,’ said John Sley. ‘We could pass a message.’

  Dryden jotted his mobile number down on his card. ‘He can ring any time. What did you say his surname was?’

  ‘We didn’t,’ said Sley, seeing them to the door, where he called the dog to heel.

  ‘Thanks for the beers,’ said Dryden as they edged out. ‘Security’s good round here. Kids nick the veg, do they?’

  ‘If they do, they don’t do it twice,’ he said, shutting the door in Dryden’s face. Beyond the frosted glass he saw Sley’s back retreat towards the convivial glow of the fire; but for them the Gardeners’ Arms was closed.

  6

  Charlie, The Crow’s lightly soused news editor, rang Dryden before they’d got off the Jubilee Estate.

  ‘That you?’ Dryden noted the edge of panic and the subtle background noise that could only be the bar of the Fenman. He heard glasses kiss in a toast and the sickly notes of the Christmas number one.

  It sounded warm and friendly – but he wasn’t going there.

  ‘Henry’s read the piece on the child-abuse claims – it’s all fine,’ said Charlie, taking a slurp. ‘But the lawyers sent him an e-mail. They wanted to know – you did put this stuff to the priest, yeah? You said no comment in the copy – but was that no comment after he’d heard what we were going to say or no comment because you couldn’t get to him?’

  ‘The latter,’ said Dryden, as Garry danced on his toes, eager to join the ritual Fenman session.

  ‘Shit,’ said Charlie, aware that he should have asked the question sooner.

  ‘But we didn’t name him,’ said Dryden.

  ‘The lawyers say that might not be good enough. Anyone who knew the set-up at St Vincent’s knows who we are talking about. Henry says can you get round there and have another go – if you can’t get through, drop in a note with the details on it and tell him to get back asap if he wants to make a comment. That way we’re covered. Well, we’re better off than if we don’t do it, anyway. OK?’

  Dryden felt the beginnings of a headache, and the cold was penetrating between his shoulder blades, inserting a sharp pain like a knife wound.

  ‘It’s pointless,’ he said, clicking the phone off. ‘Arse coverer.’

  Dryden rang Humph and set Garry free, the junior reporter heading off towards town. The cabbie picked Dryden up at the bottom of the steps that led to Declan McIlroy’s flat. The Capri’s interior was now heated to Humph’s preferred temperature: 82°F. There was a smell of warm plastic, bacon and dog. Boudicca lay on the back seat, the greyhound’s great head the only part of her body on the tartan rug.

  ‘She was sleeping,’ said Humph, reproaching Dryden for the call.

  ‘Sorry. It may have escaped your notice, but I have to work for a living. Lane End. Chop-chop.’ Dryden ran a hand through his thick black hair, letting the fingers stick like a comb. This was the kind of useless errand he’d become a journalist to avoid. If the priest objected to anything in the story it was entirely academic as the paper had already gone. The presses were turning, there was no going back.

  He looked at his face in the rear-view mirror: the green eyes dimmed, the immobile medieval face set on precisely geometric lines beneath the shock of black hair: he ran a hand through it again and tried to relax.

  Humph edged the cab through the Jubilee and out down a long drove which turned regularly at right-angles to zigzag out of town into the Fen. They passed a derelict pumping station and a clay pit before reaching a hamlet of discarded council houses, now owned by a local housing association. Entertainment consisted of a telephone box and a bus stop, both of which had been vandalized. Just beyond stood St Vincent’s, another stunning example of the modern Catholic Church’s inability to build an inspiring place for worship. It looked like the living quarters from Noah’s Ark, a brick shed, the only decoration a life-size copper figure of Christ on the cross over the door which now bled green blood down the façade and over the doors.

  Next door was the presbytery: a Victorian house, not unlike a seaside B&B, with bay windows and some stone decoration at the pinnacle where another simple cross was hung. The garden was over-neat and stone flagged and if it had been a B&B it would have had a sign in the window saying ‘No Vacancies’. A young priest, a gold and purple football scarf covering his dog collar, was hurrying towards the church. ‘Excuse me, Father,’ said Dryden, stepping out of the Capri. He felt an overwhelming memory of guilt, the legacy of that Catholic childhood.

  ‘Father,’ he said again, catching the young man up. He was in his mid-twenties, his face blank and devoid of charity, but a wave of well-cut blond hair hinted at vanity.

  ‘I’m looking for Father Martin. Is he in?’

  ‘He is here for those that need him,’ said the young man, and Dryden imagined a thunderbolt delivering instant retribution for the odious piety.

  ‘At home?’ he asked, nodding towards the presbytery.

  The young priest’s eyes flickered towards the church.

  ‘I’ll be brief,’ said Dryden, walking on.

  The young man dogged his steps: ‘He’s praying… I really think…’

  But Dryden was through the padded door and into the body of the church. A single candle burnt in the gloom by a side altar and the crucifix which hung over the main altar was brutally bare: an oak cross without decoration. A Christmas tree stood in a side chapel, unlit. A crib of cardboard stood in the nave, but most of the two-dimensional figures had fallen over. Father Martin was sitting alone on one of the plastic chairs close to the confessional boxes. Glancing in the stone dish which held the holy water, Dryden noted that it was frozen.

  He let his shoes slap against the polished parquet flooring and Father Martin stiffened as he took the seat behind: the priest’s hair was cut cruelly short at the back, the exposed neck red and sore.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Dryden, trying to take his eyes off the flickering red light beside the altar.

  Father Martin didn’t acknowledge him.

  ‘I’m from The Crow. There have been further allegations about St Vincent’s during your time as principal. I did call yesterday – at the house – but there was no answer. I should put these allegations to you in case you wish to make a statement.’

  The priest turned. Dryden tried not to react to the birthmark, a livid red scar which covered one cheek and encircled the left eye. In compensation for this disfigurement the rest of Father Martin’s appearance was immaculate: the still-black hair combed flat, any grey obscured by Brylcreem, the dark cassock dust free. He smelt of coal-tar soap, and Dryden saw that his fingernails, where his hand rested on the chair-back, were white and trimmed, the skin underneath a baby-pink.

  ‘I am told by the lawyers employed by my diocese that I should not talk of these things.’ Dryden’s eye caught a shadow moving by the altar.

  The priest stood and left by a side door on the far side of the church from the presbytery. Outside there was a memorial garden, some battered roses frozen against their sticks. Beyond the Black Fen stretched, scorched by the overnight frost. Where the ice was gone the grass on the peat was a deep green, like seaweed.

  Father Martin buttoned up a heavy coat and raised a finger to point north. ‘The Catholic Orphanage of St Vincent de Barfleur,’ he said. A mile distant, on a slight rise, stood the ruins of a house. The building’s shadow in the low winter light was as substantial as the house itself.

  Dryden nodded. ‘But you’re not saying anything on the record at this time. That’s the case?’

  Father Martin nodded. ‘I’m sorry. Those are my instructions.’

  Dryden flipped open the mobile and rang Charlie. The call was answered, but for a
few seconds Dryden could hear only the sound of festivities in the Fenman; Garry’s voice, excited by alcohol, shouted for a drink.

  ‘It’s me,’ said Dryden. ‘It’s no comment. That’s official.’ He cut Charlie dead before he repeated an invitation to join them at the bar.

  Father Martin extracted a silver cigarette case from his overcoat and offered one. Dryden sensed a moment of communion and took it, and a light from the priest’s hand, noting the acrid scent of menthol.

  ‘I walk at this time…’ said Father Martin, about to excuse himself.

  ‘Why St Vincent de Barfleur?’ said Dryden, trying to keep his witness talking.

  ‘He is one of the most admirable of the martyrs.’ Father Martin smiled. ‘Would you like to know how he died?’

  Dryden nodded, avoiding the priest’s eyes.

  ‘He was crucified upside-down. A lingering death, but he never cried out to denounce his faith.’

  Dryden felt the old antagonisms rise. ‘Which is admirable, is it?’

  Martin nodded, not hearing. ‘Do you want to know why they crucified him?’

  ‘I suspect you are about to tell me, Father.’

  ‘They crucified him because he refused to let them twist his words. They were actually anxious to avoid the spectacle of a crucifixion, so they offered him a way out – a form of words. He wouldn’t take it, he said the words of Christ were sacred.’

  Dryden swallowed hard. ‘I’m doing my job.’

  Father Martin shrugged, happy to have hit his mark. Dryden drew heavily on the cigarette and let it drop to the grass, where the sizzle was audible. ‘I could walk with you,’ he said.

  Father Martin smiled. ‘As you are so interested, Mr Dryden, perhaps we should visit the ruins of St Vincent’s?’ Dryden returned the smile but felt manipulated, beaten, and in a curious way, as he followed Father Martin across the Fen, a victim too.

  7

  Out on the peat the soil was silent, the usual trickling of water petrified by the permafrost. Dryden’s battered brown leather shoes were still dry when they got to the ruins, a lonely landmark it took them ten minutes to reach. A single snow flurry came and went, leaving the peat peppered with unmelted flakes of ice.

  The orphanage had stood on a low island of clay in the Black Fen reached by a one-track drove which ran beside a deep drain. The building itself had been surrounded by a wall topped by iron spikes, now punctuated by falls of rubble. The entrance gates had long gone but over them a wrought-iron frieze held the name still.

  The Catholic Orphanage of St Vincent de Barfleur.

  Dryden nodded, unnerved by Father Martin’s brief excursion into Catholic history, and wondered out loud why it had been closed down.

  ‘Orphanages were out of fashion, and the Church’s reputation was hardly pristine. Numbers fell, too far in the end. The diocese tried to sell the building, it’s still trying to sell the building, but it’s been closed for a decade, more.’

  Dryden looked at the priest’s profile, the jutting Gaelic brow in contrast to the weak nose. He’d guessed he was close to retirement age – perhaps sixty or more. The black cassock beneath the heavy overcoat made him look more substantial than he was.

  They skirted an outer fence of wooden stakes and barbed wire which had been thrown up to provide some security. One of the fenceposts had taken root, a tree now the height of two men.

  ‘Good God,’ said Dryden, stopping and running a finger along the sapling’s bark, regardless of the blasphemy.

  ‘Yes,’ said Martin, the face brightening for the first time, the birthmark less visible now the priest’s skin had reddened with the cold. ‘A poplar. The posts must have been very green; it’s taken root. A little miracle…’

  Dryden returned the gaze and the smile vanished.

  They were in the shadow of the building now and, out of the blinding low-slung rays of the sun, Dryden could see it clearly for the first time. The floorplan was a letter H, and only the forward two wings were, in fact, in ruin. The rest of the house had been secured with corrugated iron over the downstairs windows and doors. It looked like a workhouse: functional architecture with the single flourish of the grand doorway over which stood a marble canopy on two pillars, one of which was bending outwards alarmingly. Ivy, now white with ice, had colonized the façade.

  ‘I didn’t realize it was so big,’ said Dryden. ‘How many boys?’

  Martin crunched out a cigarette on the flagstoned courtyard. ‘Twisted words, Mr Dryden – our lawyers were quite specific. I should say nothing.’

  Dryden held up his hands. ‘No notebook. I’m just trying to understand.’

  Martin nodded. ‘I’ve read your stories, Mr Dryden. I detect a marked sympathy with the alleged victims.’

  ‘A Catholic education, I’m afraid. It leaves scars,’ said Dryden, struggling to keep the conversation uncharged.

  The priest nodded, classing himself effortlessly as a victim too. He retrieved another cigarette and Dryden recalled the priests of his childhood and the acrid stench of nicotine; the jaundiced fingers.

  ‘Just over two hundred in 1970,’ said Martin. ‘That was the centenary. It had been there, or thereabouts, for years. There was a great need, you see – especially amongst the urban poor. Our boys came from many places, sent by their churches.’

  ‘And the priests?’

  ‘Numbers? It varied. When I was principal we never managed more than a dozen. Class sizes were on the large side – but then the education was on the poor side.’

  They laughed, and the space echoed like an empty room.

  ‘I will deny this conversation, Mr Dryden – if anything ever appears.’

  Dryden nodded. ‘It won’t.’

  Martin stiffened, a palm at the base of his spine. ‘There was never any sexual abuse – you do know that? The allegations all refer to what – these days – can only be described as inappropriate attempts at imposing discipline.’

  ‘That’s a plus point, is it? A badge of honour? It’s certainly a novel brand image. St Vincent’s – we beat them but we never fuck them.’

  Dryden was pleased he’d said it. Martin coloured, the birthmark almost disappearing, the hand holding the cigarette vibrating slightly. Dryden felt he’d reclaimed a little bit of his own childhood, if nobody else’s.

  The priest produced a set of keys and wrestled briefly with a large padlock on the corrugated-iron sheet covering the front door. He swung it back, almost violently, as if airing the place, and then unlocked the door behind, which was studded with nails in mock medieval grandeur. Then he was gone, swallowed by the shadows, without looking back.

  By the time Dryden had edged over the threshold the priest had thrown open a shutter, the light revealing in the gloom of the entrance hall an ugly ironwork candelabra suffocated in cobwebs.

  ‘I was thirty-one when I arrived here as principal in 1970,’ said Martin, shivering despite himself. ‘I think the diocese knew something was wrong and I was supposed to put things straight. The outsider. And that’s how they treated me.’

  Dryden climbed halfway up the stairs to look back down on the priest, noticing the neat natural tonsure of scalp surrounded by the short, oiled hair. The floor was cold stone in a chessboard black and white design. Despite the dereliction two smells still tussled for supremacy, both remembered from Dryden’s childhood: beeswax polish and rotting carpet. The walls too were horribly reminiscent: split by a dado rail between purple below and lemon yellow above.

  ‘The winter of 1970,’ said Martin, lost now in his own memories.

  Dryden nodded, climbing further despite the creaking wood. A bird fluttered somewhere in a loft and some leaves around an open fireplace blew themselves into a tiny whirlwind. On the landing a threadbare carpet ran off into the darkness in both directions: ahead a large stained-glass window looked out into the rear courtyard. Martin overtook him, turned left, and opened a door into one of the rear wings. It was a dormitory, and here the windows were without curtains or blinds and
largely intact, bathing the long gallery in a flat, institutional light. Bedsteads had stood here in two lines against both walls, the linoleum still bearing faded stripes where the sunlight had fallen between them.

  Martin stood, his large frame twisted slightly. ‘I didn’t know,’ he bowed his head. ‘Not for many years. The teachers had mostly been here for a lifetime – the youngest for twenty years. Several had been boys here. It had been a brutal place, and I often think the only real mark of their guilt was that they felt they had to hide it from me.’

  ‘You don’t mind if I find that hard to believe,’ said Dryden, walking the length of the empty room to a shoulder-height wooden partition. Beyond was another bare room, the floor tiled this time, and the walls showing the scars of a row of urinals. ‘It’s medieval,’ he said to no one.

  ‘Yes,’ said Martin. ‘Yes, it was. There were four dormitories – each a separate school house. Leo, Pius, John, and Paul. A priest ruled each – tiny kingdoms, really. The tradition, I was informed, was that the principal was expected to enter only at the invitation of the priest in charge. I never challenged it. I was expected to live apart, to preserve the authority of the office.’

  ‘Where?’ said Dryden, running a hand along the ice-cold tiles.

  ‘In one of the forward wings. There’s a flat. The rest of the staff lived in the other – except those with house responsibilities who lived here.’ He nodded to a single door in the far wall. Dryden tried the handle but it was locked; he rattled it, listening to the echo.

  They retraced their steps to the hallway outside, down the half-lit stairs to the tiled lobby and into what had been an office to the side of the main doors.

  ‘My kingdom,’ said Martin, switching on another bare lightbulb. There was a desk in the middle, grotesquely decorated and on a grand scale, while above it a great picture had hung, its shadow still visible on the scarlet and gold wallpaper.

  ‘They can’t get the desk out. It was probably made in this very room.’