“I can tell you that I know him very well as a parishioner and had already thought of consulting him about Tane before this discovery. In fact, David, you met him last Sunday.”
“The tall chap who collected the books, the one we met here in the vicarage afterwards – in the hallway. The talkback shrink?”
“Randall Richardson is my vicar’s warden and a personal friend.”
“Why didn’t he say anything about Tane then?”
The vicar sighed. “I don’t think you appreciate the situation, David. He is obliged to respect patient confidentiality.”
“Have you any suggestion, Vicar?” said Kate brightly.
“I have suggested that I was happy to work with him in the case of this patient using a team ministry model.”
“Did he agree?” asked Kate.
He shook his head.
“That’s a shame, isn’t it?”
“He has no professional obligation to accept my offer.”
Though she appeared to keep her cool, Kate was furious. Patient confidentiality, team ministry, professional obligations – it’s all bureaucratic gobbledegook!
Just like the Alpine Sports Club meeting about the huia when all the people were so excited about a bird discovery that they forgot the people who were lost. Something didn’t ring true.
A mischievous impulse seized her .
“Vicar, we greatly appreciate your offer to work with Dr Richardson,” she said. “I’m sure Tane is in good hands with him. As a matter of fact, he happens to be a great favourite of mine, and I often listen to him on the Radio Waitemata talkback late at night. He talks about stress and the way you can handle it. In fact I was thinking of ringing in myself once and asking him his advice on one particular question, but couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“I’m afraid I don’t listen to talkbacks.”
She sensed that he was relieved at the change of subject. “Of course you get a lot of cranks ringing in. But my question was going to be about the racial situation in New Zealand. He gives such good advice on other problems. As he is such a close friend, I thought you might know his views about how we can handle this kind of stress.”
“It’s one of those matters that we don’t discuss.”
“Really?”
“I suppose we are afraid we might disagree. You see there was an argument at a vestry meeting – can I trust you to keep this confidential? Two months ago after the highway assault on the Desert Road, the marae near Turangi was deliberately burned down. Stan McTaggart proposed a motion expressing our support for the Tuwharetoa people. The vestry seemed sympathetic until Randall spoke. He claimed the motion was supporting Maori terrorists and threatened to leave not only the vestry but also the church if the discussion went on any further.”
“What happened?”
“The motion was withdrawn. I had never known Randall so angry.”
“Angry?” she repeated. Then she said slowly, “It’s curious how anger affects people. Makes them act out of character.”
David couldn’t understand why Kate had suddenly switched to discussing talkbacks with the vicar. But the word “anger” resonated with him. He remembered with shame how he has allowed anger to destroy his friendship with Tane.
The psychiatrist seemed to have acted strangely at the vestry meeting. But was there not something out of character in his actions at the vicarage that night? He found himself looking back to their meeting in the dark hallway. Then it came to him.
It was the grandfather clock.
“I’m sorry, Vicar, but I don’t trust your churchwarden,” he said.
The vicar looked at him tolerantly. “I think you’ll have to give me a reason.”
“He’s an eavesdropper.”
Harry Mountjoy shook his head sadly.
“He was at the door that night I first came here. He came to the vicarage to leave the keys after locking the church. The service finished at eight-thirty. We met him in the hallway here just as the grandfather clock in the hall chimed ten o’clock. How long does it take to count the money and to lock the church?”
“But you don’t go to church,” observed the vicar.
“Even a six-year-old wouldn’t take one and a half hours because there were about twenty in the congregation and most of them didn’t put money in the plate,” he went on. “The real reason was that he heard my name and my position at the University when you talked to me at the door after the service. At that moment he was standing in front of you collecting the books. He knew at that point that I had been a colleague of Tane’s. So he stayed on after he had left the key – and eavesdropped. When you mentioned my search for Tane to him in the hall after we came out, does he admit to being his psychiatrist? Not at all. Instead he asks me if I thought Tane had made a geological discovery in the Waitoa. This was the one subject that wasn’t covered in our conversation in the lounge and one he wanted to know about particularly. The question is now: why doesn’t he disclose? It’s not because of confidentiality at all. It’s because he doesn’t want me to know where Tane is.”
“David, that statement is totally unwarranted!”
“You and your warden aren’t going to make me into a case too. That’s what you think Tane is. You think he’s mad. That’s why you lock him away and give him treatments. Yet he’s not mad. He’s the only sane one among us. He sees clearly, but people don’t want to listen to him. I know because I didn’t listen to him once. So what does he do? It’s all bottled up inside him, and he can’t get it out. He’s in that place, and they’ve got him and drugged him and made him into a vegetable so that he can’t talk to anyone.”
Harry Mountjoy looked towards Kate. “David is under a lot of stress, I fear.”
“I don’t think he is, Vicar. Keep going, David.”
“Now why don’t they want him to talk? It’s something to do with what he discovered on that last trip.”
“In which he probably visited the Waitoa,” inserted Kate.
“Exactly. You see he’s the only one who really knows about the Waitoa.”
“Particularly if the huia story is a blind.”
Harry Mountjoy drummed with his fingers on the table. His face was pale and drawn. He said nothing but got up, went to the window and looked out over the garden. Finally, he fidgeted with his watch, mumbled “Five o’clock – Evensong,” and disappeared from the room.
Kate gave a hollow laugh. “Typical Rip Van Winkle Anglican. Evensong indeed!”
David did not hear her. His heart was throbbing. Thoughts kept racing round in his mind, fearful, angry thoughts which he could not control. At last he could bear it no longer and plunged out of the room.
“I’ve got to get Tane out of there!”
CHAPTER 28
“Where’s he got to?”
David glanced behind the oak trees as he ran down the driveway towards the church. He half expected to find the psychiatrist waiting there as he had waited in the hallway. The vicar said he had gone to say Evensong. But what was he really up to? He had obviously been shielding Richardson all the time during their talk at the vicarage. They shouldn’t have told him so much because he was obviously going to be loyal to someone who was his close friend and churchwarden.
Now that the vicar realised how much they knew, he would go straight to his warden and tell him. Perhaps the church was the rendez-vous. Tane was in terrible danger.
He slipped quietly into the church. Not a sound. The light from the late afternoon sun was coming through the stained glass window at the west end, staining the carpet with deep red. There was a smell of Brasso, of candle grease, of furniture polish and old wine.
He saw him – a shining bald head in the front pew. Just sitting there. Waiting for Richardson? He listened for footfalls, or the sound of a car. “We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep” rose in a low monotone from the front pew. How hypocritical can you get? “We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts…”
&
nbsp; How many entrances? Two. He would guard the main one just in case Richardson came in. He would also make sure Mountjoy didn’t get away.
“And there is no health in us….” He crouched down in a pew so that he wouldn’t be seen.
***
Harry Mountjoy said Evensong on Saturday and every weekday at five o’clock. Today he was especially relieved to have some time in the church on his own. The verbal attack on his churchwarden had hurt him deeply and personally.
The problem with his warden now threatened to develop into a major crisis in his own ministry and parish. This was because of his own actions. Not only had he visited the hospital without permission, but now he had told David about Tane before asking permission from Randall. His very desire to help people had led him into a situation where he was forced to be devious. The only way he could get out was to wash his hands of the whole affair and leave David to do as he wished. However, he couldn’t do that. He had given Eleanor a promise.
There was also a personal reason why he couldn’t draw back. Strange as it might have seemed to the young people, he didn’t understand and wasn’t interested in geological discoveries, racist plots and huia which did or did not exist in remote mountain valleys.
Ever since he had seen Tane on the bench looking towards the Waitakeres at Glenfern Hospital, there was something in his mind as a priest which would not go away. He had not been allowed to explain this to Randall in their last phone conversation, and now sadly in their strained relationship he could not raise the matter again.
David stood up in the middle of the aisle as the vicar, having finished his prayers, came towards him. “You’re not going to tell him,” he said firmly.
The vicar smiled. “Hallo,” he said, “Who am I not meant to tell?”
“Dr Richardson.”
“Why are you so anxious that I shouldn’t tell him?”
“Because he’s got Tane imprisoned there at his hospital. If he realises we know his secret, he’ll kill him.”
Mountjoy took off his glasses. His eyes were surprisingly piercing. “Why are you so angry, David?”
“I’m not angry.”
“Sit down!”
David obeyed. For the first time he realised how flushed and hot he was. There were hammers pounding in his head.
“You don’t understand me, David. Do you realise that I have already lied to my churchwarden about Tane?”
“What do you mean? “
“He is not aware that I know who his patient is. Nor does he know that I have told you of his identity.”
Suddenly David realised that he was sitting next to an entirely different person. The unctuous smile, the superior clerical voice had gone.
“There’s something about Tane that you don’t know.”
“I’ve got to get him out of there.”
“Then what will you do with him?”
“I’ve got to save him,” he said, but not so confidently.
“You don’t know his mental state. You aren’t able to save him.”
He looked intently at Harry Mountjoy’s face. There were lines he had not seen before. “What do you mean?”
“You thought Tane was like Cain. But do you know what the illness of Cain was?”
“Wasn’t it guilt?”
“No, Cain was not sorry. He murdered Abel out of jealous anger, then he told God that he didn’t care about his brother, he wasn’t his keeper. For him there was no way back.”
“No way back…” David repeated numbly.
“Do you know how I recognised Tane on the hill at Glenfern?”
“By the photo.”
“No. It was because of his tears.”
“The same as at Waitehaia?”
“Exactly. I remembered your story. The action told me everything.”
“Why?”
“With Cain there were no tears.”
“You mean Tane is different?”
“I don’t know what he has done, but he is sorry for it. He wants to find a way back.”
“Is there a way back?”
There was no reply. The red on the carpet was fading as the sun went down. The birds were starting to sing in the trees outside. He looked towards the front of the church. Above the altar there was something which held his gaze.
It was the figure of a man of about his own age dying in agony. He heard again the terrible cry from behind the logs at Waitehaia. Here in front of him was the same tortured face and body. The same trusting, upturned, child-like look.
“Tane, I’m sorry,” he murmured again and again.
And as he did so, the hot anger went and the hammering. In their place came tears, of sorrow, of relief, of remorse, all rolled in together. He was aware of a weight being lifted from him, a weight which he had carried but which was now being shared.
His eyes were moist as he turned to the vicar. “So there is a way?”
Again there was no reply. The lined face which was also moist was fixed on the tortured figure on the cross.
“I’m afraid I don’t believe.”
“But you already understand.”
“How can I?”
“You know that you are your brother’s keeper.”
The conversation in the church carried on after the vicar noticed Kate praying quietly at the back of the church and asked her to join them. It was long after Evensong on Saturday night when the vicar said goodbye to them both at the church door.
He started to walk back to the vicarage. The moon had risen, and was softly silvering the shingled spire. He stood for a moment. It was for him such a peaceful, such a comfortable place.
It was too late to change his decision now. He had befriended a young man whose story, in spite of Eleanor’s encouragement, most people would regard as nonsensical. He, an experienced parish priest, after wrestling in his own mind, had chosen to support this man in direct opposition to his trusted vicar’s warden whom he had known for over twenty years. He had not even consulted his wife who had been gardening for most of the afternoon, knowing that this decision was likely to affect them both very seriously. Nor had he consulted his vestry or his bishop.
Why?
At rare times in his ministry he had taken sudden, intuitive decisions, decisions which defied rational explanation, yet in the end he felt sure that they had been right. Nevertheless, his decision tonight left him with no peace.
He walked very slowly back towards the vicarage.
CHAPTER 29
Nurse Patel had not long been employed at Glenfern Private Hospital. She was on duty on her own in the annexe late in the afternoon of Sunday 23rd January, and she was nervous.
“ Dr Richardson, I don’t know whether I ought to mention it, but that long-term patient of yours has been hanging round the drug cupboard again. Is he likely to do anything?”
“Just make sure you don’t leave the drug cupboard open, and call if you need my help at any time.”
“So you’ve had a bad day?”
Though Randall spoke as warmly as he could, the man at the window didn’t turn around, but ran his hands through his long, dark, curly hair in nervous movements.
“Didn’t you see the mountains?”
“Can’t see them anymore.”
“Do you want to go to sleep?”
“I can’t sleep – I only see bad things.” The young man threw himself on the bed and buried his face in his hands.
“If you take the pills, you won’t see any bad things. The nurse has got the pills. Won’t she let you have them? Did you ask her again?”
The face looked up, deeply lined, sweat in beads on the brow and round the sunken eyes, eyes in which the fire was burning inwards. “I only see bad things.”
“Don’t let the nurse stop you.”
“Sleep!” The man mouthed the word, then buried his face in the pillow.
“Would you like to sleep for a long time?”
Randall needed to work quickly now. He had acquired the pills and the solution on Fri
day. He locked the door, opened the packets, and in the process strewed the little green pills about the floor. “Sorry! How careless of me!” He filled a glass with water, dissolved some pills in it, and placed it by his patient’s bed. Now he took the syringe out of his pocket and placed the needle in the bottle, drawing the solution up into the syringe.
“Just drink this and you’ll really sleep.” He placed the glass in the young man’s right hand. Then he took up the left arm, and looked for the plaster where the last blood test had been done. “And I’ll give you a little prick so that you will see the mountains instead of the bad things.”
He paused. It was all so simple. Nurse Patel was new and inexperienced. In a moment, he would arrange for her to be called away. Then he would open the cupboard, extract the tablets which were exactly the same as the ones he had left in the room. After this he would return to the room and put the key in his patient’s hand, while he was asleep.
He would sleep on, and on, and on.
The verdict would be suicide by means of an overdose of sleeping pills which he had stolen. No one would detect the little prick in the same place as the last blood test, the prick where he had injected the same drug that was contained in the sleeping pills.
Perhaps a little prayer was appropriate.
He was putting the syringe into the crook of the patient’s elbow when there was a loud knock at the door. “I’m busy,” he called out.
“Doctor, I’m sorry to disturb you, but Room 2 is having a fit. It looks serious. Could you come straight away?” Nurse Patel sounded desperate.
He quickly concealed the syringe under his coat. “I’ll be right along.”
“I’m so sorry, Doctor.”
“All right! All right!” He turned to his patient. “Drink it up, and I’ll be back in a moment.” He put the syringe in his front pocket, unlocked the door, carefully opened it just as much as was necessary, and locked it again after he went out.
***
Randall Richardson swore.
It had not taken long to deal with the man in Room 2. Within five minutes he had returned and unlocked his patient’s door.
The bed was unoccupied and the window open. The glass stood untouched on the table. He leapt to the window. Outside on the grass were two skid marks where a car had been driven off at speed.
Show Me a Huia! Page 15