The Atwelle Confession

by Joel Gordonson

  Walking toward the altar, Margeaux saw that the scaffolding had been moved down the right wall of the church below the next unexamined roof beam. She was relieved after driving the distance from Cambridge that Don had managed to see to the reassembly of the structure in Nigel Green’s absence. As if out of nowhere, Father Lanham appeared from behind the altar and approached her.

  “Have you seen Don?” asked Margeaux. “I’m supposed to meet him to look at the final gargoyle.”

  “I don’t believe he’s here yet,” the young man answered.

  “And Father Adams?” she inquired.

  “He’s gone to Cambridge again.”

  “Has he been going there a lot?” she asked warily.

  “A fair amount.”

  Margeaux looked around the church.

  “Where’s Miss Daunting?”

  “Tending to her duties, I assume,” replied Father Lanham. “Oh, there’s Don now.”

  They watched Don march down the center aisle of the nave, cut through a random row of pews to the right wall, and turn again to approach them.

  “Hello,” Don greeted them both without much zest. Grabbing the corner pipe of the scaffold, he tested it to see that the assembly was solid.

  “I see you were able to have Nigel’s workers move the scaffolding,” Margeaux noted.

  Don nodded.

  “Any news about the baby?” she asked.

  Don sadly shook his head and looked at Father Lanham.

  “None, I’m afraid.” Father Lanham looked up at the entire height of the scaffold. “Well, I’ll leave you two to it. Let me know what you find,” he said as he headed off.

  Though they appeared to be at the last of their discoveries, there was not much enthusiasm shared between Margeaux and Don before beginning the slow climb up the ladder to see the final gargoyle.

  “Margeaux, you must be concerned about all the terrible things going on around here. We didn’t sign up for all of this, after all.”

  She looked unhappy at the reminder of all that was going on. “What I want to know is where are Father Adams and the police.” Her voice was agitated. “They should be doing something to get to the bottom of all this.”

  “Father Adams?” Don asked, a bit surprised at her statement.

  “Well somebody should be doing something to stop what’s been happening,” she snapped back at him. “They haven’t said much publicly about the murders or even asked people to report suspects.”

  “Detective Steele did say he had leads and might be making an arrest,” suggested Don.

  Margeaux had already turned her back to him and taken an angry first heave up the ladder, her small rucksack bouncing violently on her back. Don followed slowly. At the top, they started their usual routine with their flashlights.

  The gargoyle was noticeably happy once again. Its somber countenance had been replaced by the grin filled with crooked teeth between its two fangs. But it crouched there among the spider webs without company. The second carved figure was gone. Instead of the carved figure resting its hands on the hilt of the sword, the gargoyle alone firmly gripped the sword’s handle in both its claws.

  Neither Don nor Margeaux said anything for some time, until Margeaux pulled a pad of paper from her rucksack and started making notes.

  “What do you make of it?” Don finally asked.

  “Not sure,” was her curt reply. “The knight, or whatever the armed authority figure was, is gone and his sword is still there in the grasp of the demonic figure.”

  Don decided to leave her obvious observation alone to avoid irritating her further, but then changed his mind.

  “We have to come up with its explanation—to find what it’s saying. It’s too important,” he insisted. “The other gargoyles have been predictors of two murders and the baby’s disappearance. We’ve got to figure out what this one means and what could happen next.”

  For some time, they stared at the gargoyle in frustration. Its nasty grin seemed to grow with their increasing vexation. It was as if the creature enjoyed warning them without revealing the threat.

  Don grew more fearful as he silently named all the people he could think of who could be at risk. “But how? And why?” he kept asking himself. He looked over at Margeaux, who had turned the beam of her flashlight on the upper right-hand corner of the large stained glass window.

  “See anything?” he asked as his flashlight joined her search.

  “No,” she shook her head. “Too grimy.”

  Margeaux and Don stared at the gargoyle for a few more minutes until they could no longer tolerate the irritation of his secretive smile. They began climbing down the ladder. Suddenly, flashing lights started sweeping repeatedly through the windows and across the walls of the church.

  When they reached the floor of the church, they saw the figure of Inspector Russell in his khaki raincoat striding toward them down the center aisle with a constable in tow. Two other policemen fanned out behind him to converge from the side aisles next to the walls. Another stood at the church door. They were surprised when Inspector Russell held up his police identification when he approached them.

  “Mr. Whitby, Miss Wood, I need to ask you some questions. Would you please come with us?”

  “I’d be happy to answer your questions, Inspector,” answered Margeaux, “but I have to be off to Cambridge in a minute.”

  “I’m afraid you don’t understand,” Inspector Russell replied with a stern look.

  “I’m taking you both into custody.”

  TWENTY

  1532 The message was delivered to Father Regis just after sunset by the young son of Martin Dankwood who had sold him apples in the market earlier that day. The farmer’s elderly father lay dying. Father Regis was asked to come to their farmhouse to administer extreme unction to the old man.

  Grabbing a vial of holy oil, he hurriedly followed the boy down the spiral staircase from his room. At the bottom, the boy stopped suddenly. Father Regis almost stumbled into him. With a frightened look, the boy stepped back, squeezing next to the priest on the tight stairway. Father Regis looked past the boy into the back of the church where beams of wood and blocks of stone were scattered about.

  A woman crouched in the shadows rose to her feet. There was a wild look on her face framed by her disheveled hair. She pointed menacingly at the priest.

  “You!” she screamed. “You are evil!”

  The accusation echoed back and forth between the tall walls of bare stone. Startled, Father Regis felt the farmer’s son slip behind him to hide. He tensed as a man ran up behind her. The man put his arms around her shoulders to control and comfort the distraught woman. When the man finally looked up at the priest, Father Regis recognized Bittergreen, the wood-carver.

  Bittergreen tried to calm his shaking wife for another moment until her anger melted into deep sobs. Holding her to keep her from collapsing, Bittergreen turned on Father Regis.

  “I work for you here and my family goes hungry. And then I lose my son to the devil!”

  At these words, Bittergreen’s wife began to wail with grief. Father Regis could feel the hatred coming from the workman.

  “There is evil in this place!” Bittergreen hissed.

  The man’s words stung Father Regis like the cut of a sword. Even in the growing darkness he could see the anger in the wood-carver’s eyes. Behind him, Father Regis heard the farm boy start to whimper as Bittergreen half carried his wife out the door in the church wall. Father Regis tried to calm his own rattled nerves before moving toward the door. He was startled again as the boy sprinted past him in the direction of Martin Dankwood’s home.

  When Father Regis arrived at the farmer’s house, Dankwood cautiously opened the door part way.

  “I’ve come to help your father, Martin,” Father Regis said, breathing heavily from his haste.

  The farmer glanced over at the elderly man lying on a bed pulled up next to the fireplace, and then looked uncertainly back at the priest. When a groan came f
rom the old man, Dankwood finally opened the door to the priest.

  Father Regis hurried over to the bed. As he gave the sign of the cross over the man, he saw out of the corner of his eye the Dankwood’s son hiding in the shadows of a corner. Although Father Regis anointed the old man with the holy oil and continued to pray over him, the priest knew from the gurgling sound of his labored breaths that only God could save the man now. Father Regis continued praying over the man long after he stopped breathing.

  “I do not know when the soul enters the body,” he reminded himself, “nor do I know when it leaves.”

  Yet he recognized there was another reason that he continued to pray for Martin Dankwood’s father. It seemed as though death had surrounded him in Atwelle. He wanted it to stop. He wanted to do something to stop it. Father Regis kept praying until he conceded from the tears and grief of the family around him that no comfort was coming from his prayers. He rose from his knees.

  “We can bury him on All Hallows’ Eve when souls are moving freely between earth and heaven,” he said trying to comfort the farmer and his wife. “And the soulers in the parish will be praying for his soul even as it rises to heaven.”

  Before he left, he looked about for Dankwood’s son, but was saddened that the boy was nowhere to be seen. He felt a great weight on his shoulders as he walked through the darkness on the road back towards the town. He had failed.

  He had failed Martin Dankwood whose father had died. He had failed the farmer’s son who saw him as evil. He had failed Bittergreen and his wife. He had failed their baby. He had failed the workmen and the Bishop. He had failed the townspeople of Atwelle by not building their church. The unrelenting thoughts kept repeating in his head like an unending confession until he trudged through the door of the church and looked up into the sky where the roof should have arched above the stone walls.

  “I have failed the Holy Church,” he sighed as he turned toward where the altar was to have been constructed above the entrance to the crypt.

  “I have failed God.” His voice broke as he muttered out loud his final soul-crushing admission.

  Through his tears, Father Regis saw a glint of metal where the altar was meant to stand. Not knowing what it was or from where the reflected light had come, he moved wearily down the length of the dark church under the clouds above. He squinted at something on the ground as he grew nearer to the entrance to the crypt.

  The black clouds gathered above him enveloped the whole church in complete darkness. Father Regis kneeled down and reached out to feel for what lay there. He knew immediately the feel of the cold metal under his touch.

  The sky lightened slightly. Father Regis could barely make out the sword resting on the chest of the large figure lying on the entrance to the crypt. He reached over to grab for a gloved hand but could not find it. With growing horror, he realized the lifeless body lying before him had no arms. Suppressing his fear, he reached over to feel the hair of a thick moustache along with something like smooth cloth.

  As if to signal the midnight arrival of All Hallows’ Eve, the clouds parted momentarily to let a shaft of moonlight fall on the figure lying before Father Regis. Next to his shaking hand he saw a rosette made of ribbon wrapped over the face of the sergeant.

  2017 The cup of coffee sitting on the table in front of Inspector Russell had grown cold long ago. Tired from hours of questioning, Don sat opposite him at the table, looking around at the bare cement walls of the small interrogation room in the bowels of the Norfolk police headquarters in Norwich, waiting for the next question.

  “If I had to design a room that would make me feel guilty of a crime so that I would confess, this would be the room,” thought Don. “Then again,” he reconsidered when another question did not immediately come at him, “if I thought I might be spending the rest of my life in a place like this, I’d never confess.”

  Inspector Russell studied the notes scribbled on a pad of paper on the table in front of him. The two of them had spent hours repeatedly tracing all of Don’s activities and movements over the previous several days. Don summoned every ounce of patience to wait quietly for each question, no matter how often it was asked or the delays in asking it. He was on his best behavior. The police were deadly serious.

  Between Inspector Russell’s long absences from the room, he asked for exhaustive details of what Don knew about Margeaux. Don wondered how she would be answering the same questions and tried not to reveal how worried he was about her. They had been driven to Norwich in separate police cars and had not seen each other since leaving the church.

  Next, Inspector Russell went through the list of victims.

  Father Charleton. Don told the Inspector he had met the vicar briefly in a couple of interviews with the church committee before they decided to hire him. He had been looking forward to working with the older man, but then the vicar disappeared.

  Squeaky. Don had only known him a few weeks, saw him working occasionally around the church, and used to joke about inviting him to climb up the scaffolding to see the roof beams.

  “You mean to see the gargoyles?” asked Inspector Russell.

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “Did he see the gargoyles?”

  “I’d be surprised if he did. I don’t think so.”

  Brandi. Don had met her only briefly on the day they found Squeaky. She was on vacation most of the time he was there, before her death, that is. He didn’t really get to know her.

  “Did you socialize with Miss Knowleton?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know where she lived?”

  “No.”

  “Do you remember having any conversations with Miss Knowleton?”

  “Not really. If I did, they were very casual.”

  “What do you mean by ‘casual’?”

  “I guess I mean I don’t even remember what we talked about.”

  Nigel Green. Don had known him for years in the building trade, a good man. He’d done Don a favor by making the scaffolding available at a low cost for the project at St. Clement’s.

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “I believe he has a place in the country about ten or fifteen miles from Atwelle.”

  “Have you ever been there?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know his family?”

  “Not really. I know he was a proud new father.”

  “Have you met his wife?”

  “No.”

  “Would she recognize you?”

  “As I said, I’ve never met her. Inspector?”

  “Yes, Mr. Whitby?”

  “I know you’re supposed to be asking the questions. But if you don’t mind my asking, is there any news on Nigel’s baby boy?”

  “You’re right, Mr. Whitby. I’m supposed to ask the questions. How did you know Mr. Green’s baby was a boy?”

  “He told me the day after the baby was born—several times.”

  “What was the child’s name?”

  Maybe it was the stress of the day. Maybe the fatigue. Don’s mind came up blank.

  “I don’t recall. I’m sorry.”

  “He told you about his new baby several times the day after it was born, and you don’t recall his name?”

  “Yes. It’s silly I know. But I just can’t recall the name.”

  Don was mentally kicking himself, trying to remember the name of the baby. Inspector Russell looked at Don a few moments without speaking.

  “Mr. Whitby, tell me about your famous gargoyles.”

  “Well, first off, they’re not mine and they’re not famous,” Don snapped at him and regretted it immediately.

  “I’m sorry, Inspector. Just getting a bit tired. What would you like to know?”

  “Is it true that you ‘discovered’ them?”

  “Sort of. Margeaux and I noticed them when we were looking at the ceiling through binoculars. I’m sure someone at some time must have known they were up there in the roof beams. But no one now seems to rememb
er them, and because it’s so dark, you can’t see them unless you’re right up there next to them.”

  Inspector Russell’s questions led him through a description of the discovery of each of the ten gargoyles, which resulted in several pages of detailed notes.

  “Besides you and Miss Wood, who else has seen the gargoyles, Mr. Whitby?”

  “No one that I know of. Oh, I suppose Nigel or his workmen might have seen them when they finished assembling the scaffold next to each of them.”

  “Did anyone say anything to you about seeing them?”

  “No.”

  “Did you tell anyone about the gargoyles, Mr. Whitby?”

  Don paused.

  “Well, the two vicars, Father Adams and Father Lanham, and I suppose Miss Daunting. She’s a volunteer staff person at the church.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “No.”

  Don watched Inspector Russell’s pen touch down on the paper without writing for a moment.

  “Detective Steele reported that you predicted from the gargoyles there would be more murders. Did you tell Detective Steele about the gargoyles?”

  “Oh, right. Yes, we did. Or Margeaux did, actually.”

  “When was that?”

  After all that had happened, Don struggled for a moment to remember his conversations with Margeaux.

  “I believe Margeaux first had suspicions about the gargoyles after Brandi’s death.”

  “What did you do about her suspicions?”

  “Nothing at first. I didn’t put much stock in them.”

  “When did you change your mind?”

  “After Nigel’s baby went missing and we saw the gargoyles on each side of the church holding a baby.”

  “Did you tell Detective Steele about your suspicions then?”

  “Yes, when he questioned me in connection with the baby’s disappearance. He questioned all of us at the church,” Don added hastily.

  “Tell me exactly what you told Detective Steele.”

  “I don’t remember exactly. Just the general similarities between the figures in the carvings and the murders. I still couldn’t figure out how the gargoyles could be connected to anything or who could be doing anything suggested by the carvings.”