Death in Holy Orders

by P. D. James

  You will wonder perhaps about the unfortunate death of Agatha Betterton, another unhappy woman. But that was merely taking advantage of an unexpected opportunity. You were wrong if you thought that she was at the top of the stairs when I made that telephone call to Mrs. Crampton. She didn’t see me then. She did, however, see me on the night of the murder when I was returning the key. I could, I suppose, have killed her then, but I decided to wait. She was, after all, regarded as mad. Even if she accused me of being in the house after midnight, I doubt whether her word would have stood up against mine. As it was, she came Sunday evening to tell me that my secret was perfectly safe. She was never a coherent woman but she gave me to understand that no one who had killed Archdeacon Crampton had anything to fear from her. It wasn’t a risk I could take. You do realize that you wouldn’t be able to prove either of those deaths 1 Motive isn’t enough. If this confession is used against me I shall repudiate it.

  I have learned something surprising about murder, about violence generally. It’s probably known to you, Dalgliesh; you are after all an expert in these matters. Personally I find it interesting. The first blow was deliberate, not without a natural squeamishness and some repugnance, but a matter of summoning the will. My mental process was unambiguous: I need this man dead; this is the most effective way to kill him. I had intended a single blow, two at most, but it’s after the first strike that the adrenalin surges. The lust for violence takes over. I went on striking without conscious will. Even if you had appeared at that moment I doubt whether I could have stopped. It is not when we contemplate violence that the primitive instinct to kill takes over, it is only when we strike the first blow.

  I have not seen my son since my arrest. He has no wish to meet me and no doubt it’s just as well. I have lived all my life without human affection and it would be awkward to indulge in it now.

  And there the letter ended. Folding it away, Dalgliesh wondered how Gregory would endure imprisonment which might well last for ten years. Provided he had his books he would probably survive. But was he even now looking out from his barred window and wishing that he, too, could smell the sweetness of this spring day?

  He started the car and drove straight to the college. The front door stood wide open to the sunlight and he stepped into the emptiness of the hall. The lamp still burned at the foot of the statue of the Virgin and there still lingered on the air the faint ecclesiastical smell compounded of incense, furniture polish and old books. But it seemed to him that the house had already been partly stripped and that it now waited with a quiet resignation for the inevitable end.

  There was no sound of footfalls, but suddenly he was aware of a presence and, looking up, saw Father Sebastian standing at the head of the stairs. He called, “Good morning, Adam, please come up.” It was the first time, thought Dalgliesh, that the Warden had used his Christian name.

  Following him into his office, Dalgliesh saw that there had been changes. The Burne-Jones picture no longer hung above the fireplace and the sideboard had also gone. There was a subtle change, too, in Father Sebastian. The cassock had been put aside and he now wore a suit with a clerical collar. And he looked older; the murder had taken its toll. But the austere and handsome features had lost none of their authority or confidence, and something had been added: the controlled euphoria of success. The university Chair he had gained was prestigious and it was one he must have coveted. Dalgliesh congratulated him.

  Morell said, “Thank you. It is said to be a mistake to go back, but I hope that for me and for the university it will prove otherwise.”

  They sat and talked for a few minutes, a necessary concession to politeness. It was not in Morell’s nature to feel ill at ease but Dalgliesh sensed that he was still irked by the distasteful thought that the man now sitting opposite him had once regarded him as a possible murder suspect, and he doubted whether Morell would ever forget or forgive the indignity of his fingerprinting. Now, as if feeling under an obligation, he brought Dalgliesh up to date with the changes in the college.

  “The students have all been found places at other theological colleges. The four ordinands you met when the Archdeacon was murdered have been accepted at Cuddesdon or St. Stephen’s House, Oxford.”

  Dalgliesh said, “So Raphael is going ahead with his ordination?”

  “Of course. Did you think he wouldn’t?” He paused, then added, “Raphael has been generous, but he will still be a rich man.”

  He went on to speak briefly about the priests but with more openness than Dalgliesh had expected. Father Peregrine had accepted a post as archivist in a library in Rome, a city to which he had always been anxious to return. Father John had been offered the job of chaplain to a convent near Scarborough. Since, as a convicted paedophile, he was required to register any change of address, it was felt that the convent would offer as safe a refuge as had St. Anselm’s. Dalgliesh, suppressing a smile, privately agreed that no more suitable post could have been found. Father Martin was buying a house in Norwich and the Pilbeams would move in to look after him, inheriting the house when he died. Although Raphael’s right to his inheritance had been confirmed, the legal position was complicated and there was much to be decided, including whether the church would be taken into the local group ministry or de consecrated Raphael was anxious that the van der Weyden should be used as an altar-piece and an appropriate place was being sought. The picture was at present safely locked in a bank security vault, as was the silver. Raphael had also decided to give the Pilbeams their cottage and Eric Surtees his. The main building had been sold as a residential centre for meditation and alternative medicine. Father Sebastian’s tone conveyed a nicely judged distaste, but Dalgliesh guessed that he thought it could have been worse. In the mean time the four priests and the staff were temporarily staying on at the request of the trustees until the building was handed over.

  When it was apparent that the interview was over, Dalgliesh handed Father Sebastian Gregory’s letter. He said, “I think you have a right to see this.”

  Father Sebastian read in silence. At the end, folding it and returning it to Dalgliesh, he said, “Thank you. It is extraordinary that a man who loved the language and literature of one of the world’s greatest civilizations should be reduced to this tawdry self-justification. I have been told that murderers are invariably arrogant, but this is arrogance on the scale of Milton’s Satan.

  “Evil be thou my Good.” I wonder when he last read Paradise Lost. Archdeacon Crampton was right in one criticism of me. I should have taken more trouble in choosing the people I invited to work here. You’re staying the night, I believe.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “That will be pleasant for us all. I hope you will be comfortable.”

  Father Sebastian didn’t accompany Dalgliesh to his old apartment in Jerome, but summoned Mrs. Pilbeam and handed over the key. Mrs. Pilbeam was unusually talkative, checking carefully in Jerome that Dalgliesh had all that was necessary. She seemed almost reluctant to depart.

  “Father Sebastian will have told you about the changes. I can’t say Reg and I much like the idea of alternative medicine. Still, the people who came round seemed harmless enough. They wanted us to stay on in our present jobs, and Eric Surtees too. I think he’s happy enough, but Reg and I are too old for change. We’ve been with the Fathers a good many years now and we don’t fancy getting used to strangers. Mr. Raphael says we are free to sell the cottage, so we may do that and put a bit by for our old age. Father Martin probably told you that we’re thinking of moving to Norwich with him. He’s found a very nice house with a good study for himself and plenty of room for the three of us. Well, you can’t really see Father Martin looking after himself, can you, not at over eighty? And it will be nice for him to see a bit of life for us too. Have you got everything you want now, Mr. Dalgliesh? Father Martin will be pleased to see you. You’ll find him on the beach. Mr. Raphael’s back for the weekend and Miss Lavenham is here too.”

  Dalgliesh moved his Jaguar to t
he back of the college and set out to walk to the mere. In the distance he saw that the pigs at St. John’s Cottage were now roaming freely on the headland. They seemed, too, to have increased in number. Even the pigs, apparently, seemed to know that things were different now. As he watched, Eric Surtees came out of his cottage, bucket in hand. , He walked along the cliff path to the mere. From the top of the steps he could at last see the whole stretch of the beach. The three figures seemed almost wilfully to have distanced themselves. To the north he could see Emma sitting high among the pebbles, her head bent over a book. On one of the nearer groynes Raphael was sitting, dangling his legs in the water and looking out to sea. Close to him on a sandy patch Father Martin seemed to be constructing a fire.

  Hearing the scrunch of Dalgliesh’s shoes on the shingle, he levered himself up with difficulty and smiled his transforming smile.

  “Adam. I’m glad you could come. You’ve seen Father Sebastian?”

  “Yes, and congratulated him on the Chair.”

  Father Martin said, “It’s the one he’s always wanted, and he knew it would become vacant in the autumn. But of course he wouldn’t have considered accepting the offer if St. Anselm’s had remained open.”

  He crouched again to his task. Dalgliesh saw that he had scooped a shallow hollow in the sand and was now building a small wall of stones round it. Beside it there was a canvas bag and a box of matches. Dalgliesh sat down, leaning back on his arms and thrusting his feet into the sand.

  Without ceasing his work, Father Martin said, “Are you happy, Adam?”

  “I have health, a job I enjoy, enough food, comfort, occasional luxuries if I feel the need of them, my poetry. Given the state of three-quarters of the world’s poor, wouldn’t you say that unhappiness would be a perverse indulgence?”

  “I might even say that it would be a sin, something to be striven against anyway. If we can’t praise God as he deserves, we can at least thank Him. But are those things enough?”

  “Is this going to be a sermon, Father?”

  “Not even a homily. I’d like to see you marry, Adam, or at least sharing your life with someone. I know that your wife died in childbirth. That must be a continuing shadow. But we can’t set aside love, nor should we wish to. Forgive me if I’m being insensitive and impertinent, but grief can be an indulgence.”

  “Oh it isn’t grief, Father, that’s kept me single. Nothing as simple, natural and admirable. It’s egotism. Love of my privacy, reluctance to be hurt or to be responsible again for another’s happiness. And don’t say that pain would be good for my verse. I know that. I see enough of it in my job.” He paused, then said, “You’re a bad matchmaker. She wouldn’t have me, you know. Too old, too private, far too uncommitted, perhaps with hands too bloodstained.”

  Father Martin selected a smooth round stone and placed it with precision. He looked as happily occupied as a small child.

  Dalgliesh added, “And there’s probably someone at Cambridge.”

  “Oh, with such a woman there probably is. At Cambridge or elsewhere. That means you will have to take trouble and risk failure. That at least would be a change for you. Well, good luck, Adam.”

  The words sounded like a dismissal. Dalgliesh got to his feet and looked towards Emma. Then he saw that she too had got to her feet and was walking towards the sea. They were only fifty yards apart. He thought, I’ll wait, and if she comes to me, that at least will mean something, even if it’s only to say goodbye. And then the thought struck him as cowardly and ungallant. He had to make the first move. He moved to the edge of the sea. The small sheet of paper with the six lines of verse was still in his wallet. He took it out and, tearing it into small pieces, dropped them into the next advancing wave and watched them slowly disappear in the creeping line of foam. He turned again towards Emma, but when he began moving he saw that she too had turned and was already walking towards him on the strip of dry sand between the bank of pebbles and the receding tide. She drew close and, without speaking, they stood shoulder to shoulder looking out over the sea.

  When she spoke her words surprised him.

  “Who is Sadie?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “When you were coming round you seemed to expect that she was waiting for you.”

  God, he thought, I must have looked a mess, dragged half-naked up the shingle, bleeding, covered with sand, spewing water and blood, spluttering and retching. He said, “Sadie was very sweet. She taught me that, although poetry was a passion, it needn’t be the whole of life. Sadie was very wise for fifteen and a half.”

  He thought he heard a low satisfied laugh but it was caught in a sudden breeze. It was ridiculous at his age to feel this uncertainty. He was torn between resentment at the adolescent indignity of it, and a perverse pleasure that he was capable of so violent an emotion. And now the words had to be said. Even as they fell dully upon the breeze he judged them in all their banality, their inadequacy.

  He said, “I would very much like to see you again if the idea doesn’t repel you. I thought1 hoped that we might get to know each other.”

  He told himself, I must sound like a dentist making the next appointment. And then he turned to look at her and what he saw in her face made him want to shout aloud.

  She said gravely, “There’s a very good train service between London and Cambridge now. In both directions.”

  And she held out her hand.

  Father Martin had finished preparing his fireplace. Now he took from the canvas bag a sheet of newspaper and bunched it into the hollow. Then he laid the Anselm papyrus above it and, crouching, struck a match. The paper caught fire immediately and it seemed that the flames leapt at the papyrus as if it were prey. The heat for a moment was intense and he stepped back. He saw that Raphael had come beside him and was silently watching. Then he said, “What are you burning, Father ?”

  “Some writing which has already tempted someone to sin and may tempt others. It’s time for it to go.”

  There was a silence, then Raphael said, “I shan’t make a bad priest, Father.”

  Father Martin, the least demonstrative of men, laid a hand briefly on his shoulder and said, “No, my son. I think you may make a good one.”

  Then they watched together in silence as the fire died down and the last frail wisp of white smoke drifted over the sea.

  ****

  Contents

  BOOK ONE THE KILLING SAND

  BOOK TWO DEATH OF AN ARCHDEACON

  BOOK THREE VOICES FROM THE PAST

  BOOK FOUR AN END AND A BEGINNING