Death on Lindisfarne

by Fay Sampson

  Aidan was drinking coffee in the lounge when he was called.

  Mrs Batley had moved the large television screen into the corner. In its place she had set a table with a wooden Celtic cross and a bowl of spring flowers. DC Chappell had moved these to one side and was using the table for a writing desk.

  Peter had been in before Aidan, and had presumably already told the constable the details of finding Rachel’s body.

  But Chappell wanted to take him further back.

  “So, you saw Rachel in the priory this morning.”

  “We all did. It was part of Lucy’s course. First we had a service, then she told us the story of St Aidan coming to Lindisfarne.”

  “And you didn’t see Rachel leave?”

  “No. I was listening to Lucy. And Rachel was… well, an unpredictable sort of person. The first time I saw her, she looked bright and bouncy. But only a short time afterwards she turned into this shadowy sort of figure. From then on, she crept about with her head down, not saying very much. Almost as though…”

  “Yes?”

  “She was frightened.”

  “Frightened of what?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  He gave a careful account of his and Melangell’s movements. Of Lucy’s concern for the missing girl. Of his own offer to keep his eyes open for her. Their visit to the castle. He hesitated for a moment, then decided it was no time to keep information back.

  “Just as we were about to come away, we heard voices from below us. Sue and James. They were quarrelling.”

  “Oh, yes? About what?” The policeman’s hand gripped his pen, poised over his notebook.

  “I got the impression that James has something of a track record with impressionable young females. Did you know he was the pastor of a church? Sue was accusing him of taking some of them off to the vestry for – I think she was being ironic – ‘personal counselling’. She seemed to think he had his eye on Rachel.”

  Had Sue told DC Chappell this? Aidan wondered.

  The constable gave nothing away.

  “And that was it? No struggle? Nothing physical?”

  “We couldn’t actually see them. We were on the roof. There wasn’t a sight line down to that slope below the wall. Sue seems to have stormed off, but James was still OK then. At least, he sounded as if he was. He called after her. Ordered her to come back.”

  “And did she?”

  “No. When we got down to the foot of the castle we saw her walking away. She was heading for where she said she went: towards Emmanuel Head.”

  “And what about James?”

  Aidan shrugged. “We never saw him. I suppose he went to the garden. That’s where he said he came round.”

  “What time would this be?”

  “Mm. About four? It looked as though there was heavy rain on its way, so Melangell and I legged it back to the house. Probably a bit before four, come to think of it. Mrs Batley was setting out afternoon tea in the lounge, and we were the first.”

  “And then?”

  “Lucy and Peter came back really concerned. They’d been out looking for Rachel, and hadn’t found her. Lucy had rung the police, and they’d tried to reassure her that Rachel was an adult and it was a bit early to start panicking. Anyway, we split up into pairs to search the rest of the island And then James came in.”

  “Thank you. Yes, I’ve got what happened then. Once the Reverend Pargeter had called the ambulance, you set off with Peter,” he checked the surname, “Fathers, to search the dunes and the North Shore.”

  “That’s right. It was Peter who found her. He was on the beach and I was up on the dunes. He phoned Lucy and the police. You know the rest.”

  “And at no time did you see this young woman with Mr Denholme?”

  “James? No.”

  “Thank you. Would you send Miss Haccombe in?”

  Aidan walked out into the hall. Did this policeman really think there was some connection between James’s wound and Rachel’s death?

  He was making for the lounge when the front door opened. A man Aidan had never seen before strode in. He wore jeans, a black sweatshirt and a dog collar.

  He held out a ready hand to Aidan.

  “I’m terribly sorry to hear what happened. It’s awful. Brother Simon. Fellowship of St Ebba and St Oswald. Could you tell me where I can find Lucy?”

  Aidan showed Brother Simon into the lounge. He just had time to see the relieved delight that crossed Lucy’s face before the newcomer strode across to her, arms wide, and crushed her to him in a hug.

  “Lucy! Poor lamb! What a dreadful thing to happen.” His wavy black hair overshadowed her lighter curls.

  Aidan felt an unexpected jar. It had not occurred to him that Lucy would already know people on the island. Of course, now that he came to think of it, she had made it clear that Lindisfarne was one of her favourite places. She must have come here on many occasions. It was natural she would know some of its people too.

  But not necessarily as well as this. There was no mistaking the note of intimacy in Brother Simon’s voice. He and Lucy must go back some way.

  As they separated, he caught the pleasure in Lucy’s face. The priest’s ready sympathy was sparking tears from her eyes, and yet his warmth was drawing a smile from her, even on a day like today.

  A startling thought pierced the surface of Aidan’s mind. He couldn’t be jealous, could he?

  He was shocked by the treachery that idea implied. Jenny had been dead less than six months. And he had shouted at Lucy when he thought she was invading his privacy. He turned away and discovered that his fist was curled in a tight ball. To calm himself, he stepped past Melangell, who had been playing Ludo with Peter on the floor, and retrieved his half-empty coffee cup. He took it to the table to see if the thermos jug was still hot.

  “Look, this is a rotten business,” Brother Simon was saying. “I gather the police are involved. Well, they would be, wouldn’t they? A sudden, unexplained death. No, I’m not going to ask you what you think happened. You’ll have had enough of that. I’m just offering a shoulder to cry on. Someone to talk to. Even,” he swung his youthful smile around the rest of the group, “if these delightful people will let me, a share of this course you’re running. I don’t imagine you’re feeling up to Celtic history just at the moment.”

  Lucy gave him a wan smile. “It’s been a shock for all of us. Peter and Aidan found her. And the police still have to question Valerie and the Cavendishes. Not to mention James, who’s in hospital.”

  The clergyman’s eyebrows rose. “My! You have been having a difficult time. Tell me about it when you feel stronger.”

  Valerie Grayson and David and Frances were sitting rather stiffly in their chairs, still awaiting their turn. Peter was watching Lucy and her unexpected friend with a surprised look on his face. Sue was not in the room. Aidan guessed she would have followed Valerie’s suggestion and gone to telephone the hospital for news of James.

  Brother Simon now had his arm round Lucy’s shoulders, possessively. He swung her to face the rest of the room.

  “Look, this can’t have been what any of you expected when you signed up for a holiday here. We can only pray for the poor girl. Rachel, isn’t it? But I promise we’ll make it up to you as best we can. If you don’t mind, I’m going to take Lucy off on our own for a while. She’s in need of some TLC. But if you stay around, I’ll be back to talk to the rest of you.”

  He steered Lucy out of the room. When the door closed behind them, it was as though a boisterous wind had fallen silent.

  After several moments, David Cavendish spoke, almost belligerently. “Who was that?”

  “A clergyman, dear.” Frances put a hand on his knee. “Didn’t you see his dog collar?”

  “He told me he was from the Fellowship of St Ebba and St Oswald,” Aidan supplied. “I imagine that’s some sort of religious community on the island.”

  “Yes,” Peter agreed. “Lucy said she’d invite him over one day to talk to us.
He and Lucy go back years. They were at theological college together.”

  “Well, it’s all very well for him to talk about making it up to us,” David protested. “He’s not in our shoes. A thing like this can’t help but spoil your holiday. No disrespect to the poor girl, of course. Don’t want to speak ill of the dead. But it’s not what we bargained for when we booked a week here. I’m thinking of asking for our money back. The balance, anyway. And take off somewhere else tomorrow. Put all this unpleasantness behind us.”

  There was stillness in the room.

  Valerie steepled her fingertips together and said in a quiet voice, “That’s understandable. It’s been a shock for all of us. But personally, I shall stay and support Lucy. If it was just Rachel’s death, it might have been kinder to leave her alone. Or at least with Peter, whom she knows. But there’s all this business with James to be sorted out. I just hope it was a simple accident. I don’t think we can just walk out on Lucy and leave her to cope.”

  Aidan felt a sense of gratitude for her calm good sense.

  Elspeth strode into the room, filling it as usual with her larger-than-life personality.

  “It’s an old cliché, but really, that detective’s still wet behind the ears. I’ve seen boys coming out of the school gates who look older. He wants you next, Val.”

  Valerie rose with a small smile. “I’m sorry, but you’ve just missed the latest drama. It appears Lucy has a… shall we say a very good friend here. A fellow clergyman. He’s just swept her off for some tender loving care. Not that she doesn’t need it, poor soul. But he says if we hang around he’ll be back to talk to us.”

  “Hrmmph! Any more coffee in that jug?”

  Frances had taken her turn with DC Chappell before Brother Simon returned. Sue had not reappeared. Aidan wondered what the news of the injured James was.

  When Brother Simon came back, Lucy was not with him. Now that his first surprise had subsided, Aidan’s keen eye assessed the priest more levelly. Younger than him, he guessed. A thick head of wavy black hair that fell forward over his brow. Keen blue eyes, quick and intelligent. It was not a handsome face, but the lively play of emotions over it caught the attention. He would probably be a hit with women.

  In his presence, Aidan was conscious of his own smaller stature, his foxy red hair and beard. Not every woman’s choice.

  But Jenny had loved him. Jenny had borne his child.

  Jenny was no longer here to affirm him.

  What was it about clergymen and their relations with women? Sue had been jealous of James and his female congregation.

  Aidan had not the slightest reason in the world to be jealous about Simon and Lucy.

  The priest threw the warmth of his smile around them like an embrace. He looked about him and chose an armchair facing them.

  “I’m Brother Simon. Call me Simon, if you like. Technically, ordination makes me Father, but that sounds a bit too patriarchal.

  “Would it embarrass you if I led a prayer for Rachel? Feel free to tune out if it’s not your thing. But I feel that for some of you it’s the right and proper expression of our love. Rachel got up this morning, with most of her life in front of her. Now she’s with her Maker. We ought to honour that rite of passage and sing her on her way into the arms of the angels.”

  Aidan put his arm around Melangell and drew her close. She sat curled up at his feet, resting her curly head on his knee.

  Brother Simon had no book, but the words flowed from him. Simple words that were like a gentle closing of Rachel’s eyes against a troubled world. Then the same Celtic cadences of blessing that Lucy had used in her prayers with them:

  “Thou Father of the waifs,

  Thou Father of the naked,

  Draw me to the shelter-house

  Of the saviour of the poor,

  The saviour of the poor.”

  Aidan saw again the still pale face of Rachel, its blemishes shadowed by her wet dark hood. Her hair lank as seaweed.

  He prayed for her peace.

  Even Elspeth sat quietly, either hiding or softening her antagonism to organized worship. Perhaps for Valerie’s sake. Perhaps for Rachel’s.

  Chapter Seventeen

  FRANCES TIPTOED BACK INTO THE ROOM. “You next,” she mouthed at her husband.

  Her attempt at discretion was caught in the dazzling sunshine of Brother Simon’s smile.

  “Welcome back! And you’re…?”

  “Frances.”

  “Well, Frances, sit down. We’ve said a prayer for Rachel, God rest her soul. The police will take it from here. But I thought this might be an appropriate moment to tell you how Aidan died.”

  For a moment, Aidan, the saint’s modern namesake, felt the shudder of his own mortality. Others, too, were looking his way. He wondered if Simon had picked up on Lucy’s brief mention of his name.

  “Not here on Holy Island,” the young priest was saying, “but in sight of it.”

  “Sounds a bit ghoulish to me. Haven’t we had enough of death for one day?” Elspeth objected.

  “Believe me, it’s relevant.” Simon’s smile was still steady as he turned it on the Oxford don, but Aidan sensed something steely behind it. As though he was not intimidated by her intellect, or her forthright manner.

  “So, are we sitting comfortably?” He let his gaze play over the rest of them.

  Aidan felt Melangell settle back, relaxed, against his legs.

  “You’ve all passed the statue to St Aidan outside the church. I think it gives a good indication of the kind of man he was: lean, disciplined, idealistic.

  “Put out of your mind all thoughts of fat, greedy monks of the later Middle Ages. The men of Iona and Holy Island were never like that. Money and gifts of jewels and gold flowed into the abbey here at Lindisfarne, but under Aidan, it flowed out just as readily, feeding the poor, ransoming slaves. Aidan beautified the altars to God’s glory. But that was it. The church here was made of wood, with planks for the roof. It was such a poor affair that the rain came in. But Aidan didn’t think that was the slightest bit important.

  “As bishop of all Northumbria, he travelled huge distances over the hills to visit his people. And always on foot. He wanted to be down at the level of his flock, walking and talking with them, side by side.

  “His first patron, King Oswald, who had called him from Iona, was killed by the Mercians at Oswestry, and his dismembered corpse hung on a cross. The Mercians split Northumbria in two. The north was ruled by Oswald’s brother Oswy, the south by a cousin, Oswin… Sorry, Melangell. The Anglo-Saxons had this annoying habit of giving their children names that all began in the same way.”

  “I know.”

  Brother Simon’s black eyebrows rose. “Young King Oswin in the south was a good man. He gave Aidan a splendid horse out of his own stable, trapped out in the finest jewel-trimmed leather suitable for a king or a great bishop. Aidan tried to back away. He didn’t want to ride lifted up above the heads of his congregation. The king had to hoist him into the saddle himself.

  “Well, anyone who knew Aidan could have told him what would happen.”

  “He gave it away!” cried Melangell.

  “Dead right, he did.” Simon beamed at her. “He’d hardly got round the first corner before he came across a beggar. So what does Aidan do? Give him a jewel out of his horse’s harness, which would have fed him for months? No. He hands over the whole caboodle: horse, saddle, bridle, the lot. And he’s back in his sandalled feet, walking the dirty roads and wading across rivers, just like always.

  “But sooner or later he had to come back to the royal palace. And when King Oswin saw him come walking up the hill without the horse, he made him confess what he’d done. The king flew into a terrible temper. ‘If I’d known you were going to give it away to a beggar, I’d have found you some broken-down nag, not the finest horse in my stable.’

  “Aidan looked at him reproachfully. ‘Sire, do you care more about a horse than about a child of God?’

  “The
king strode over to the fireplace. He stood there in a silent rage. The tables were laid, but the servants were too scared to serve dinner. After a terrible silence, they were even more scared when Oswin reached for his sword.

  “He walked over to Aidan and laid the weapon at the saint’s feet. He knelt before him. ‘God forgive me if I ever question anything you do again.’ And he led them all to the dinner table.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, the present-day Aidan saw David creep back into the room and join Frances. Simon threw him a quiet smile of greeting.

  “But as Aidan sat eating little, a tear crept down his cheek. One of his monks whispered to him, ‘What’s wrong?’ Aidan told him, ‘He’s too good a king for this world. He’s not going to live long.’

  “And sure enough, his cousin King Oswy, who ruled the north of Northumbria, got jealous of Oswin’s rule in the south. He wanted the whole of Northumbria for himself, the way his dead brother King Oswald had reigned. So he went to war against him. Oswin would have surrendered, but Oswy’s men chased him to the house where he was hiding and murdered him.

  “When the news got back to Aidan on Holy Island, he was appalled. And remember, he was an Irishman. It was the custom there that if you committed a heinous crime, a holy man might turn up on your doorstep and begin a fast against you. It was supposed to be a public reproach until you repented of your crime and did penance.

  “The Venerable Bede, when he writes the history of these times, doesn’t tell us why Aidan camped out at Bamburgh church, in plain sight of the rock that bore Bamburgh Castle. But it’s obvious to me. He was fasting against the murderer King Oswy. Bede tells us that Aidan fell sick. His monks wanted to take him back to Holy Island, but he wouldn’t go. He was still sitting outside Bamburgh church, leaning against a buttress, when he died.”

  “They’ve got that blackened beam inside the church today!” Valerie exclaimed. “They say it’s the wood he was leaning against. And when the church burned down, that beam alone was saved.”

  “Load of nonsense!” snorted Elspeth. “Just to rake in gifts off gullible pilgrims.”