Holy Terrors

by D M Greenwood

  Dame Alicia’s time in the civil service had marked her prose style. She treated God like a dim head of department who needed constant memoranda to keep him on task. She had an ancient Roman attitude to religion. It was God’s task to make things better for the creation in fairly concrete ways and not undermine the best efforts of human beings. She worked on the celestial fruit-machine principle of prayer: one put in the token of requests and out popped the prizes of worldly goodies. It said much for the inherited strength of the school that Dame Alicia’s prayers had not corrupted it utterly.

  Prayers at St Veep’s were held daily at nine-fifteen in the hall. It was a highly ritualised occasion, a visual depiction of hierarchy. Those who knew were separated from and seated three feet above those who were still learning. Girls filed in silence into the body of the hall; staff followed at a decent interval and took their places on the platform behind the first mistress. Rank gathered on rank like a tide flooding, until all were gathered. The lower school filled the galleries round three sides. Hymn books and bibles were carried. It had hardly changed as a performance over the one hundred and twenty years of the school’s existence. Theodora was surprised to find how it still went on. She was surprised too to find how calming, how comforting the predictable theatre was. It affirmed the community. It was not just a demonstration of authority, not totally risible, and therefore not, in the opinion of those who maintained the ethos of the institution – that set of leathery, determined academic women in senior posts – to be lightly discarded.

  When Dame Alicia had first come into the post, Barbara Brighouse had told Theodora, she’d had some crackbrained scheme to ‘brighten it up a bit, make it relevant.’

  ‘Can you imagine,’ Miss Brighouse had said, ‘modern translations of the Bible.’

  ‘The authorised version has a structure of words which has nourished our best minds for four hundred years,’ Miss Aldriche had intoned.

  ‘Guitars,’ Miss King had murmured.

  ‘Surely not,’ Theodora had said, joining in the game.

  ‘Well, perhaps not actually guitars, but certainly taped orchestral.’

  ‘We have, as you may have noticed,’ Miss King said kindly to Theodora, ‘a perfectly serviceable organ.’ She alluded to the nine-hundred-pipe Gloucester and Purvis which would not have disgraced a small cathedral. ‘I’ll admit some of our organ scholars can be a bit impressionistic at times in their rendering of the hymns, but that doesn’t justify …’

  ‘A dissonant modernity,’ Oenone Troutbeck finished with a flourish.

  Doris King shuddered, ‘One doesn’t want anything too exciting first thing.’

  They had all agreed. And in the end they had managed to head Dame Alicia off. They had returned to the tremendously unexciting format of a hymn, a reading, and a prayer chased down by notices about room changes and lacrosse results. It was all very reassuring. Only, no one had yet worked out a way of stopping Dame Alicia from praying.

  On this Wednesday morning, two days after the abduction of Jessica Stephanopoulos, the high girlish voices made a good noise. The school’s musical tradition was strong. There had been a vigorous rendition of ‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind, Forgive our foolish ways’ to offset the disappointing results of the first, second, third and fourth lacrosse teams. Sport was one of the few things St Veep’s wasn’t good at.

  Theodora ran her eye along the ranks of her fellow staff. She noticed a little way to her left the small figure of the Reverend Robert Mere. Evidently they hadn’t found a place for his talents in the act of worship. The institution’s hierarchy was academic, not ecclesiastical. He might be allowed to prepare the confirmation candidates and teach the lower school scripture; more he was not encouraged to offer. However, Theodora reflected, since Jessica was one of his candidates, she would have to have a word with him. Then there was Cromwell, the art master, who was not in prayers, whom she would need to speak to in the light of Clarissa Bennet’s remarks about Jessica’s interest in religious art. Finally, there was Kallistos Bury in his church across the square who, Gilbert Racy had averred, might know about icons. Given she had a couple of teaching periods to put in, she was going to be busy.

  The organ scholar played a marvellous C-major chord to bring everyone to their feet, and started off at breakneck speed with an organ version of the ‘Marche Militaire’, guaranteed to empty the hall of five hundred girls and staff in under four minutes. The staff avoided the insistent rhythms of the march to show they were not to be dictated to and strolled, ambled or tottered towards their classrooms.

  Theodora caught up with the chaplain as he reached the marble entrance hall at the bottom of the stairs. As she approached him, he looked up the flight of steps toward the life-sized cast of the Nike of Samothrace which guarded the top landing. He seemed to feel it barred his way. Theodora had not meant to make him feel as though he was cornered but that was clearly what he did feel. Theodora had no wish to terrify him. But terrified is what he looked as she approached. She wondered whether that was what he normally felt, beset by Valkyries. If that were the case, why did he stay? Was it social snobbery? Was it his wish to be able to say, ‘I’m chaplain to St Veep’s Girls’ School, the best girls’ school in England’, and did the licence to say that outweigh the discomfort of being intellectually and socially out of his depth most of the time? What an uncomfortable way to live.

  ‘Hello,’ he said as Theodora came abreast. He placed his foot on the bottom step. ‘Kept meaning to have a word with you but absolutely up to my eyes this term. Finding your way about OK? You’ll soon get the hang of things. We’re a pretty close community,’ he grinned without mirth. ‘It’s one of our strengths.’ He mounted another step.

  Theodora was perfectly content to allow herself to be patronised. She took in his tiny head with its thin hair brushed moistly down over his ears, and felt a momentary pity for the man. His eyes were light blue, rather unfocused. With two steps advantage of her he came up to her shoulder.

  ‘I wondered if I might have a word with you about Jessica Stephanopoulos?’

  He looked startled; then, Theodora thought, apprehensive.

  ‘Poor little girl! Where is she now, I wonder? These political kidnappings. They’re just barbarians, these Greek fellows.’

  ‘You think her disappearance could be political?’

  ‘Not much doubt is there? I mean, her family are foreign. Greek in fact.’

  Theodora nodded. ‘Did you know her well?’

  ‘Oh no. Well, she was in my confirmation class.’ He seemed desperate neither to have his cake nor to eat it. Why was the man so uneasy?

  ‘I understand you taught her on Monday, on the day she disappeared?’

  ‘Did I? Oh, yes, yes, of course. It’s difficult to remember everyone I teach. Once wrote a report on someone who’d never been in my class. Left the previous term and no one had taken her name off my list.’ He laughed uneasily and hitched himself up another step.

  These were not the sorts of mistakes that Theodora made. She repressed her growing dislike of the man.

  ‘What time did you leave school on that day?’

  ‘What?’ He looked startled. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. Well, yes. To be honest, I had to leave a bit before the bell. I had a very important appointment. Pastoral need. A funeral,’ he concluded desperately, taking refuge in the unassailable clerical excuse. ‘I told the police.’

  ‘Can you remember anything about the cars waiting outside the school?’

  Bob Mere contracted his inconsiderable brow. ‘Well, yes. There were the usual ones.’

  ‘Which were?’

  ‘There were the regulars. A couple of Volvos for the Jewish contingent. Then one or two big Fords with drivers or chauffeurs.’ He suddenly became confidential.‘The new money have chauffeurs, the old money have drivers like the army. The difference is in the caps. Chauffeurs have caps, drivers don’t.’ He was delighted to show off his social knowledge. ‘Then there were the Mercedes.’
<
br />   ‘How many?’

  ‘Um. One, I assume. I mean, I didn’t look too closely. It’s always there for the Stephanopolous girl. It has a …’ He stopped and considered. ‘I see’ what you mean. The one I saw didn’t have a …’

  ‘What?’ Theodora asked with exasperation.

  ‘The Greek one has a sort of badge on the windscreen where the tax disc would be. This one didn’t have that.’

  ‘Did you notice the driver?’

  ‘Middle aged. Lot of strong-looking black hair brushed straight back without a parting. No cap,’ he grinned in triumph. ‘A driver. Obviously foreign. I suppose Greek.

  ‘But if it wasn’t the embassy Mercedes, I mean, didn’t have the badge, would the driver have been Greek?’

  ‘It never occurred to me that he wasn’t.’

  ‘But you were expecting him to be.’

  Mere sounded even more doubtful than normal. Then his little face lit up. ‘I’m certain he was Greek. He had a Greek newspaper on the seat beside him.’

  ‘Which one?’ Theodora inquired relentlessly.

  Kupriakos Alethinos, said Mere, working his New Testament Greek to its limits.

  ‘Cypriot?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Theodora let him be. ‘Jessica,’ she resumed, ‘how well did you know her?’

  ‘Well, not that well. She was new here. I hadn’t taught her from a tot.’ He had a rush of confidingness. ‘I don’t think she liked me, actually.’

  Theodora had to repress asking how unusual that was. ‘But you were preparing her for confirmation?’

  ‘They don’t have to like me to go through that. The parents mostly decide it for them.’

  Theodora almost liked the man for his honesty. ‘Was she going through a religious phase, would you say?’

  ‘She comes from a Greek background. That’s different from your average Home Counties Anglican. More extreme.’

  ‘How did it show itself?’

  ‘She used religious things, gew-gaws. I had to set her right about idolatory.’

  Theodora was startled.

  ‘I mean,’ Mere said with distaste, ‘she kept an icon in her bedroom.’ He made it sound like an exotic pet.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘She showed me a copy. She was artistic. She’d done a copy of her icon, the one her grandad had given her. She told us all about it.’

  ‘Did you see it?’

  ‘Oh, yes. She showed it to the class, the confirmation class, that is. It was an annunciation, the Virgin, you know, and all that. Look,’ his hunted expression returned, ‘I’m terribly sorry, I’ve got a class waiting. I’ve got to go.’ He glanced up towards the Nike on the landing, took his courage in both hands, and bolted past Theodora up the remaining stairs.

  Theodora watched him go. Then she turned briskly towards her own class. She was startled by the slight figure of Miss Whinney, the first mistress’s servile secretary, scampering across the marble towards her and obviously bent on conversation.

  ‘Miss Braithwaite, I wonder if you could take a telephone call? It’s from the Reverend Geoffrey Brighouse. He’s hanging on. You could take it in my room.’

  Theodora took the phone from the secretary and heard Geoffrey’s familiar clipped tone.

  ‘Theo, this is just to let you know the police took Troutbeck in this morning for questioning and they’ve charged him with the manslaughter of Paul Kostas.’ There was a pause. ‘Are you still there?’

  Theodora cleared her throat. ‘Yes. Yes. What would you like me to do?’

  ‘I’ve been down to see him. He’s in a bad way. He says he’s got a cousin, Oenone, at St Veep’s. He’d like her to know. Apparently they were close. Can you do that?

  ‘Yes,’ Theodora answered, ‘yes, I’ll see to it.’

  Geoffrey looked round McGrath’s living room. He recognised the décor of a lower-deck messroom. It was a bachelor’s room with a career behind it. Every available spare inch of wall had photographs, posters, tidetables or maps on it.There were pictures of naval groups in Malta, Gibraltar, Cyprus and Portsmouth. On the mantelshelf was an array of pottery objects with coats-of-arms on them. From this setting, McGrath emerged every day to face – indeed, Geoffrey thought, to contribute to – a different, a civilian world.

  Geoffrey had been in the house twenty minutes. He’d come on immediately after his painful interview with Troutbeck at the police station, in response to a note from McGrath left for him at the school. He’d made his way across the playing field to the back door of the large terraced house, in the basement of which McGrath lodged. It wasn’t easy of access. Geoffrey had had to edge his way past an enormous skip parked in the garden, and then descend an iron staircase to the area. A large black and white cat, which reminded Geoffrey of McGrath in build, glared at him before jumping in slow motion up the area wall.

  Over the door into the living room, Geoffrey noticed a small wooden crucifix of the sort found in many an Irish household.

  ‘It was my ma’s,’ said McGrath as he caught Geoffrey’s glance. ‘She never left Ireland. There were eight of us in a village outside Waterford. When she died that was all she had to leave me.’

  McGrath had had something with lunch to sustain him. Conversationally they had beaten about the bush; no progress had been made. Geoffrey shifted uneasily in his bentwood chair. When would they get to the point? He hesitated to rush it but he had a lot to do.

  ‘What’s up, McGrath?’ For all his efforts, Geoffrey found it hard to keep his tone from becoming that of an officer to an NCO. He was a priest, he had to remind himself, not a naval officer.

  McGrath did not appear to resent this at all. If Geoffrey had but known it, his manner gave him confidence. Geoffrey had been summoned because McGrath reckoned he knew where he was with him. He wouldn’t have to explain or justify.

  ‘It’s about young Troutbeck. They’ve got him down the nick, right?’

  Geoffrey nodded.

  McGrath leaned forward. ‘I was twenty-seven years in the service.’ The whiskey increased the Irish in his voice.

  Geoffrey did not make the mistake of following up the Troutbeck reference. There was no point in doing anything else but letting the man talk.

  ‘Gib, Malta, the States twice. I got around.’

  Geoffrey glanced at the map of the world just behind McGrath’s head.

  ‘Ship’s not unlike schools, wouldn’t you say, sir?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  “They teach you.You’ve got to give and take. There’s rituals. Places you can go, places you can’t. Things some can do that others can’t. You were an officer. You could do things a CPO couldn’t do. On the other hand,’ McGrath grinned,’ there were things POs could do that it wouldn’t be right for an officer to do. Right?’

  Get on with it, Geoffrey thought. McGrath gazed back at him, his eyes momentarily focused and keen. His plentiful iron-grey hair was brushed back without a parting, so that it looked like a skull-cap or a helmet.

  ‘Troutbeck and Kostas now, there’s a connection.’

  Geoffrey didn’t move a muscle.

  ‘But they’re not a killer and a victim. That’s not it. Not in this generation. No, not by a long chalk.’ He paused and then went on. ‘Young Kostas, both the young Kostases, they had something with them that day. That Monday morning.’

  ‘What?’

  McGrath got to his feet and went over to a chest in the corner. He opened the top drawer. There was a powerful smell of camphor. McGrath rummaged for a moment and then brought back a small package which might have been a tobacco pouch. This he laid on the table between them. From it he drew out with great care a photograph, yellow at the edges and cracked from left to right as though often folded. He pushed it under Geoffrey’s nose.

  ‘D’you recognise him?’ he asked almost belligerently.

  Geoffrey studied the faded likenesses. The picture had been taken against a tree and showed two seamen in Royal Navy uniform and a soldier, an
officer with insignia not clear enough to recognise. Flanking them, in civilian dress, were two short, strong-looking men with a lot of dark hair who resembled each other. One of the seamen could have been a younger, slimmer version of McGrath. The naval officer next to him Geoffrey did not know, but the young soldier smiling into the camera had a familiar look. Geoffrey raised his eyes from the print and looked inquiringly at McGrath.

  McGrath nodded in confirmation. ‘My good self, two stone lighter, Commander Dick Pound, my CO, and Captain Jeremy Troutbeck in Cyprus just before the Turks moved in. July ’74. Kyrenia harbour.’

  ‘Troutbeck?’

  ‘Building roads with the sappers. Good roads, good blokes. Very different.’

  ‘Related to Ralph?’

  ‘His dad.’

  ‘Where’s all this leading, Mike?’ Geoffrey never used a Christian name without thought. Theodora would have said he knew what he was doing.

  ‘Got to stick together,’ intoned McGrath. ‘All Her Majesty’s forces. “All arms combined magnificently together”. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.’

  Geoffrey thought: he’s further gone in drink than I reckoned. He’d never seen McGrath the worse before.

  ‘Who were the civilians?’

  McGrath chewed his false teeth a bit. ‘The Kostas twins. Father and uncle of our lot.

  ‘What?’ Geoffrey had no trouble in giving McGrath his reward of astonishment.

  ‘Big shots in Kyrenia, the Kostases. Very influential. You wanted something, they got it for you. Half legit, half mafia. We all knew them. There are things any military or naval establishment needs that can’t be got any other way except from the natives. Officers want some things, men want others, like I said. Well, whatever anyone wanted, the Kostases would get.’