A small nun hurried towards him, the blonde curls peeking out from beneath her short veil designating her one of the younger members of the community.
‘Good evening, Inspector,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I’m Sister Martha. Mother Ursula’s asked me to take you to the parlour. Bishop McGettrick’s with her.’
‘Oh well,’ Markham smiled down kindly at her, ‘we mustn’t keep His Lordship waiting, Sister. After you.’
He had hoped to see Mother Ursula without any prelates in attendance, but perhaps it was no bad thing to get the courtesies and salaaming out of the way. Hopefully it would ensure he could carry the bishop with him if the investigation entered deep waters.
He supposed it was only natural that McGettrick wanted to keep a hand on the tiller, not least given the appalling press that the Catholic church had attracted in recent years. The possibility that the spectre of the St Columba scandal might be resurrected was no doubt his worst nightmare.
The parlour was considerably less cheerful than the visitors’ common room, being the chamber where superiors held state when visited by senior clergy. Simultaneously spacious and stuffy, it smelled of leather and faded potpourri. One wall was filled floor to ceiling with polished oak bookshelves containing mostly religious books and directories. On the facing wall there was a framed painting of what Markham presumed was meant to be a saintly-looking woman communing with her Maker, though he imagined Noakes would call her gormless. Beside her, a chubby naked cherub floated through the ether, his modesty protected by a trailing pennant of silk that appeared to serve no other purpose. (God, what was it about such smugly, smirking nudities that made him want to put his fist through the canvas?) The floor was covered with a sludge-coloured carpet, while the stained-glass fanlight over the door shed a lurid ecclesiastical light over the scene. Heavy burgundy curtains hung limply at the bay window, the drab hue picked up in fleur de lys wallpaper. Stacks of newspapers and magazines rested stiffly on a couple of occasional tables. A statuette on a plinth (presumably St Cecilia judging by the way she was gesturing histrionically at her neck) reposed on a third. A hard-backed uncomfortable looking green suede couch was marooned in the centre of the room along with two straightbacked armchairs incongruously upholstered in chintz.
Altogether not a prepossessing room, with an unreal, padded sort of hush-hush and airless atmosphere, though it was redeemed by two deep embrasures whose pretty, leaded windows surrounded by flowering creeper and green leaves struck a cottagey note.
Smiling demurely, Sister Martha announced him before bowing and bobbing herself out of the room.
‘Ah, Inspector, this is fortuitous.’ Bishop Thomas Percy McGettrick’s voice was shaded with just the right note of compassionate concern as he rose to greet Markham. ‘The mindless attack on Sister Felicity … a shocking business.’
With his sleek and prosperous appearance, the bishop gave the appearance of being well marinated in the juices of ecclesiastical privilege. As though years of the celibate life had acted as a kind of aspic. Somewhat purple around the gills, his complexion had a bloom of silky plumpness while the silver hair, styled in a fussy quiff, lent him a venerable air. He wore clerical uniform with a snowy-white linen collar and handsome episcopal cross, heavy gold cufflinks glinting as he extended a manicured hand. The voice, Markham reflected, was perfect for the pulpit with its beautifully modulated diapason.
This was the first time the DI had seen the clergyman at close quarters. There was no doubting that McGettrick felt himself to be master of the occasion. Reseating himself in one of the chintz armchairs, he waved Markham to the other before flashing a reassuring smile at Mother Ursula who was perched like a schoolgirl on the edge of the couch.
Markham noticed a crystal decanter and wine glass with some amber liquid on the spindly three-legged side-table at the bishop’s elbow. Of course, the nuns would set forth their best when His Lordship came calling.
‘Mother Ursula is naturally anxious that Sister Felicity’s body should be released to the community as soon as possible.’
Markham recognized his cue.
‘Hopefully, you won’t be kept in limbo for too long, Mother,’ he said gently. ‘I’m just waiting for the forensic pathologist’s report.’
‘I suppose there’s no doubt about how she died, Inspector …’
McGettrick spoke out of the corner of his mouth as though to spare the superior.
‘None whatsoever, my Lord. Sister Felicity was strangled.’
The bishop winced, one pale hand hovering uncertainly above his pectoral cross. Then he took charge again.
‘Another dreadful casualty of the drugs subculture.’ The prominent glaucous-grey eyes were apparently free of guile.
‘We’re not ruling anything out at the moment.’ Markham kept his tone even. It wouldn’t do to antagonize Slimy Sid’s pet cleric.
‘But Sister Felicity bore an irreproachable character, Inspector.’ The prissy mouth tightened. ‘You surely don’t imagine…. It’s inconceivable that anyone could have wished her harm … simply inconceivable.’
A little whimper came from the couch.
‘Don’t distress yourself, Mother Ursula. The deluded and deranged cannot be held accountable for their actions.’ The bishop shot Markham an unmistakeably hostile glance before casting his eyes to heaven. ‘“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,”’ he recited with an air of pious resignation.
Markham got down to brass tacks.
‘Obviously, the police must investigate the chance that Sister Felicity’s murder may have some connection with the St Columba investigation.’
The bishop gave the slightest possible nod of acknowledgement.
‘Equally, we have a responsibility to see if there is a link with anyone whom she was counselling.’
Another frigid nod.
‘Her work as a nurse and membership of the pro-life movement is another line of enquiry.’
Satisfied that this had sunk in, Markham looked the bishop straight in the eye.
‘All our enquiries will be conducted with the utmost circumspection and respect for the church. However, we will go where the evidence leads us. Without fear or favour.’
McGettrick seemed to be measuring Markham from head to foot. Finally, he gave a mirthless laugh.
‘Well, you certainly don’t mince your words, Inspector.’
‘I find it saves difficulties in the long run.’
There seemed nothing left to say.
With a certain petulance, the bishop made his farewells, somehow managing to push Markham away at the same time as shaking his hand.
Sister Martha appeared so promptly as to raise a suspicion that she might have been listening at the door.
‘I’ll call a taxi for you, my Lord,’ she twittered.
McGettrick twinkled at her with such arch benevolence, that Markham felt queasy.
‘No need, my dear Sister. It looks like there’ll be a beautiful sunset, so I think I’ll walk. As the good book says, “The skies proclaim the work of His hands.”’
A whiff of expensive aftershave, and he was gone. At least he hadn’t offered to give them a blessing.
Mother Ursula sat as though poleaxed. It occurred to Markham that the bishop’s visit was more than purely pastoral. No doubt McGettrick had been keen to ensure she followed an appropriately prescriptive script in her dealings with the police. ‘No Entry’ signs all over the shop, he shouldn’t wonder.
He dredged up a sympathetic smile.
‘You look tired, Mother Ursula. I’ll leave you in peace.’
The superior rose unsteadily to her feet, flapping her hands distractedly.
‘So sorry, Inspector, I didn’t even offer you coffee … or perhaps something stronger … but of course, you’re on duty.’
‘It’s just a flying visit, Mother. I’m fine.’
‘I believe you were going to advise about security, Inspector … extra lighting …’ Her voice trailed off.
&nbs
p; ‘It can wait, Mother,’ Markham said easily. He was struck by a happy inspiration. ‘How about we make it a joint affair with the monastery. Kill two birds.’
He had touched the right chord. An excellent idea. Father Hassett had always been wonderful to the convent. Nothing too much trouble. Had the inspector ever heard him preach? Simply inspirational. Wore himself out on the missions, of course, but didn’t like anyone drawing attention to it. Fearless in his service of the Faith. Had the inspector ever heard of Don Orione, the priest they called God’s Bandit? No? Well, Father Hassett was just like him. On fire for souls … would beg, borrow and steal, if he had to.
Markham listened with half an ear, amused and touched by the nun’s artless hero-worship which made the rector sound like a candidate for canonization. From his own observation of Father Hassett, the priest was the exact antithesis of the clericalism embodied by Bishop McGettrick, and none the worse for being so.
Mother Ursula herself was clearly an unworldly woman. He could see why Olivia enjoyed her contact with the nuns. In this rarefied world of the convent, the nagging persistence of human weakness, wickedness and folly seemed somehow less acute, as though submerged by supernatural yearnings.
Our hearts are restless till they rest in You.
Outside, he savoured the evening calm, trying to shake himself clear of the cobwebs that festooned his mind.
Who could have hated Sister Felicity enough to kill her? A religious maniac? A relative of one of the St Columba victims? A pro-choice fanatic? One of the university anarchists?
Sunset hues of copper-rose and dusky violet were stealing over the forecourt.
Markham looked up at the convent, dappled here and there with pools of gold. No doubt His Lordship was going back to thick pale carpets, luxurious fittings and a gourmet supper prepared by his housekeeper, while these good women agonized over every penny. Well, hopefully Father Thomas’s legacy would make a difference.
A dragonfly fluttered past, gauzy as a diamond wafer.
Olivia had told him it was a symbol of the resurrection.
As he watched the setting sun streaking the sky, he found himself hoping passionately that Sister Felicity had reached a safe haven. ‘Death is only an horizon, and an horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.’ The words of a long-forgotten prayer fell upon his soul like a soothing benediction.
Markham got into his car. Suddenly, an image of St Cecilia’s church came into his mind. Once darkness fell, its stained glass windows would show nothing at all, just the lines around the panes of glass, a leaden tracery against the night.
For some reason, it made him shiver.
Tuesday morning saw a less than satisfactory interview with Leo Wolfitt and his ‘Deputy Chair’ Ted Kelleher.
Perfectly at their ease, the two denied that the League of Atheists had been responsible for any of the recent attacks on church buildings.
‘Obviously, we can’t help it if hotheads take matters into their own hands, Inspector,’ Wolfitt pointed out in a tone of condescending hauteur which set Markham’s teeth on edge.
‘We advocate non-violent direct action, you see.’ Ted Kelleher gazed earnestly at the DI through donnish horn-rimmed glasses, enunciating his words as though confronted with a particularly dim-witted child. ‘For us, it’s all about highlighting the dangers of indoctrination.’
‘Indeed.’
Kelleher took Markham’s deadly politeness as an invitation to develop his thesis.
‘Oh yes. It’s like Marx says, religion is the opium of the people because it’s an illusion designed to keep them enslaved by society.’ He beamed at Markham with self-forgetful ardour. ‘“Man born free is everywhere in chains.”’
Wolfitt looked pityingly at his chum as though to say ‘pearls before swine’.
‘At best, it discourages rational enquiry – a comfort blanket, if you will.’ Kelleher was now ventriloquizing Richard Dawkins. ‘At worst, it leads to intolerance, violence and bigotry.’
The DI felt unutterably depressed at the thought that Wolfitt and Kelleher would no doubt in due course evolve into pillars of that very society they purported to disdain. In the meantime, he had to decide whether they were mad, bad and dangerous to know.
If he was honest with himself, Markham knew his instinctive dislike of Wolfitt was due as much to the student’s overt appreciation of Olivia as to the supercilious sneer that curled his lips as he sat across the table in the DI’s office contemplating the widening stains beneath Noakes’s armpits. Having abandoned his jacket, it wouldn’t be long before the damp circles spread across the DS’s chest to meet beneath his horrible spotted tie.
Markham guessed that inwardly the DS was performing a dance of rage, mouthing imprecations and flicking V signs at the two university activists with their lazy, privileged eyes. Outwardly, he offered a creditable impersonation of a plank of wood.
‘Well done for not losing your rag, Noakesy,’ he said after the visitors had left (‘I take it we’re not under arrest, Inspector?’ Wolfitt had enquired with thinly veiled insolence).
‘Like Teflon, those smarmy gits,’ came the grumpy rejoinder. ‘Nothing sticks.’
The DI smiled at the analogy.
‘True.’ Thoughtfully, he tapped the file in front of him. ‘We’ve got nothing concrete on them, and their “oratory” stops short of hate crime.’ Observing Noakes’s dispirited expression, he added, ‘Which isn’t to say that they or their “splinter cells” won’t slip up, and then,’ his voice hardened, ‘we’ll have them.’
‘There was something shifty about the pair of ’em,’ the DS grouched.
‘Hmmm.’ Markham was non-committal, agreeing however that there was something deeply unsettling about Wolfitt.
By their fruits shall you know them.
Were these two, with their cod philosophy, just harmless enthusiasts? Or was it an act masking something more sinister, something twisted and deformed? Was the recent vandalism a warm-up act for something much worse?
Noakes broke into his thoughts. ‘D’you think they had anything to do with Sister Felicity’s death? She worked for the Student Counselling Service, didn’t she?’
‘Well, at least they didn’t have the hypocrisy to express empty condolences. That would have been too much.’
‘Would have given me an excuse to smack that Wolfitt one right in the kisser.’
‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Sergeant.’
There was a rap at the door.
DC Doyle, looking fresh and clean-cut.
‘Sorry to interrupt, sir, but there’s a misper you might want to check out.’
Markham looked at him interrogatively.
‘Organist from St Cecilia’s. Nicholas Saddington. The wife reported it.’
‘How long has he been missing, Doyle?’
‘Well, he never came home last night apparently. Mrs Saddington didn’t realize because she’d already gone to bed.’
‘Could it be a tiff?’
‘Not from the look of it, sir. She’s in quite a state. Says he would definitely have let her know if he was going to be out all night.’
‘Does she have any idea where he might have gone?’
‘She thought he might have gone to the church for some late night practice.’
‘With a nutter on the loose?’ Noakes was incredulous. Doyle shrugged his shoulders.
‘P’raps he thought he was hard enough.’
Markham thought back to his initial impression of Saddington. The man had certainly seemed sure of himself.
‘Right, Noakes and I will head down there,’ he said. ‘Midday Mass is over by now, so there won’t be any gawkers and we can keep it discreet. Doyle, you look after Mrs Saddington and get what you can.’
The church was so serene, it seemed almost sacrilegious to suppose that anything could have disturbed its mysterious depths and unclothed heights. St Cecilia rested, inscrutable, in her reliquary and beyond her lay realms of sombre shadow pierced by shafts o
f light from the stained glass windows. Markham recalled his image of dead-eyed panes from the night before and experienced a lurching sense of dread. He could almost feel the presence of those long-gone priests buried in the vault beneath the shrine, their souls brushing past him, whispered memories hanging like incense in the still air.
There above the shrine was the celestial young man atop his rocky catafalque, having clambered free from Death’s stiff embrace.
Clambering out of a coffin.
A thought tugged at the edges of Markham’s brain.
Retracing his steps, he passed through the front door of the church, Noakes following patiently in his wake. The DS knew better than to interrupt the guvnor when he was in the grip of an idea.
There it was!
The sarcophagus in the far corner of the little community cemetery.
He had noticed it on Sunday and admired its smooth symmetry, the clean white lines.
But now something jarred. The lid did not sit straight.
He plunged forward, Noakes right behind him.
Without a word, Markham bent his shoulder to the lid and began to heave. After a startled glance at his boss, Noakes did likewise.
Finally, they could see inside.
Looking up at them was Nicholas Saddington, his features frozen in a ghastly expression of terror.
Death had settled the organist’s account.
7. Death Is Their Shepherd
‘WHY DO I HAVE a feeling of déjà vu?’ Markham muttered grimly to Noakes as they stood in the forecourt of St Cecilia’s church where preparations were underway for the removal of Nicholas Saddington. Moving with such studied calm that it looked like slow motion, two soberly attired undertakers gently zipped up the plastic grey body bag and reverently stretchered the remains to a waiting hearse.
It had been some years since the DI gave up smoking, but at that moment he felt he could have emptied a packet of Rothmans onto a plate and eaten them with a knife and fork.
Noakes too was looking extremely shaken, as though he could still hear the hysterical screams of Saddington’s wife – peal upon peal echoing around the forecourt like the sound made by an animal come to slaughter.
Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set Page 48