As she toiled up the steep gradient, Monika found herself thinking about her past in general, and her mother in particular – and with these thoughts came an involuntary physical reaction which made her feel as though her bowels were slowly turning to water.
Her mother had been a devout Roman Catholic. It had been Agnieszka Paniatowski’s faith that had sustained her during those long, terrible, years while she and her daughter had criss-crossed war-torn Europe as refugees on the run. Never once – despite all the hardship they had endured, despite all the horrors they had seen – had that faith of Agnieszka’s wavered.
And neither had her little daughter’s. Even as a small child, Monika had understood that she was both a Pole and Roman Catholic – and that the two things were so intertwined that she could no more separate the one from other than she could separate her mind from her body, or her heart from her soul.
It was only later, in the supposed safety of this English mill town where they had come to live, that she had finally lost her faith – and even then she had not so much lost it as had it torn from her by what was said from the other side of the confessional grill.
Monika is thirteen years old. Her body is beginning to fill out, and the boys at school have started to notice her.
And not just the boys.
Not just at school.
She is sitting in the confessional of St Mary’s Church. Her church. On the other side of the grille sits her priest.
‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,’ she says. ‘It has been a week since my last confession.’
For a moment, she can say no more, but when she does speak again, the words spill out of her and feel like they will never stop. She tells how her stepfather came to her room, late at night and smelling of drink, and put his hand on her shoulder. She describes how that hand – that big, beefy, demanding, hand – burrowed its way under the blankets and found its way to her young breasts. With tears streaming down her face, she recounts what happened next – how he climbed into her bed, how he forced her legs apart, how he … how he …
‘Do you think perhaps you led him on, my child?’ the priest, Father O’Brien, asks.
She is not even sure she knows what that means.
‘Led him on?’ she repeats.
‘Man is but an imperfect being, prone to temptation,’ the priest intones. ‘Did you tempt him, Monika? Did you cause him to think that his attentions would be welcomed?’
‘No. I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.’
‘But did you, deep within yourself, want him to do it to you, my child?’ the priest persists.
She feels like yelling at the top of her voice that of course she didn’t want him to do all those terrible things to her.
She wants to scream out that the priest must be a bloody fool for even thinking to ask that.
But she is in a confessional, talking to a holy man who represents Mother Church, and all she says is, ‘No, Father, I didn’t want him to do it.’
There is a long silence from the other side of the grill, then the priest says, ‘But did you enjoy it, my child?’
Enjoy it! Did she enjoy it? Can’t he even begin to imagine how soiled she felt when it was all over?
‘No, Father,’ she says, almost in a whisper. ‘I didn’t enjoy it all.’
‘Then you have done nothing wrong, my child, and there will be no penance to pay. You may continue with your confession.’
‘Is that it?’ she asks herself. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong? And that’s the end of the matter?’
She leaves the confessional with her faith sorely tested – but still intact. And then, a week later, as she is walking past the Catholic Club, she looks through the window and sees Father O’Brien and her stepfather drinking pints of Guinness together.
And, fool that she is, she takes comfort from that!
She actually believes that the priest is telling her stepfather that he must stop molesting her.
But later that night she wakes up to find the familiar hands making their familiar demands of her body, and knows that nothing has changed – that, despite the priest talking to her stepfather, no change has even been suggested.
She has been to her last confession. She has lost her belief in the priesthood, and with it, her belief in God.
Monika had reached the level of the church. She was finding it hard to breathe, though it was her memories, rather than the steep climb, which were the source of her difficulties.
She studied the main doorway, with its vaulted Gothic arch and its stone statue of the Madonna and Child.
She did not want to walk through the heavy oak door – did not want to hear it slam closed behind her, like a baited trap.
This is stupid! she told herself angrily.
She wasn’t a frightened little girl any more. She was a police officer. Other people were frightened of her. And since she had a job to do, she’d better start bloody-well doing it.
Her breathing was more regular now. She took a resolute step forward, turned the handle, and pushed the door open. Then, after only the slightest of hesitations, she stepped through the gap and allowed the church to swallow her up.
Woodend hated the morgue. Not because it was full of dead people – that was, after all, why it was there – but because of the chemicals.
For days after he had made a visit to it, he was convinced that he stank of formaldehyde. It wasn’t a rational conviction – he accepted that, just as he accepted the fact that when he met Dr Shastri outside her grisly kingdom, he could detect no odour of death clinging to her. Yet still he would scrub and scrub at his flesh, and still the all-pervading smell would not go away.
He could almost taste the chemicals that morning – swooping down on him through the air like kamikaze swallows, mingling with the acrid smoke from his Capstan Full Strength and being drawn into his lungs – but, as usual, the delightful Dr Shastri seemed blissfully unaware of them.
‘I have cut up our little friend in accordance with your wishes, Oh Master,’ the doctor said, bowing like the pantomime genie in Aladdin. ‘Even so, I am afraid that I’m unable to tell you much more than I told you last night. The blow to his head was inflicted with considerable force, as is fairly obvious from the extent of the injuries sustained. Death would have been almost instantaneous.’
‘Do you think that a woman could have delivered the blow?’ Woodend asked.
‘A strong woman, most certainly,’ Dr Shastri replied. ‘A very angry woman, quite possibly. What would have caused a woman more problems would have been moving the body. Dead weight, for that is what he had become: our little friend would have been quite heavy.’
‘An’ you’re certain he was moved?’
‘Oh, yes. Wherever it was that he was killed, it was certainly not in the lay-by.’
‘Any idea what weapon was used?’ Woodend asked.
‘The proverbial blunt instrument,’ Dr Shastri told him.
‘No more than that?’
‘I found tiny slivers of metal in the wound, but certainly no single piece large enough for me to be able to tell you with any confidence that they came from a set of eighteenth century candlesticks which can be found only in Doomlock Manor, the home of the mad and dangerous Lord Homicide.’
Woodend grinned. ‘What can you tell me about the post-mortem injuries?’ he asked.
‘Again, not much more than you have seen for yourself. His mouth was smashed in, his stomach was slashed open.’
‘But was the mutilation to the stomach done with any kind of medical precision?’
‘Now why would you ask that?’ Dr Shastri wondered. ‘Could it be that you have already decided, Chief Inspector, to “fit up” one of my esteemed colleagues for the murder?’
‘As a matter of fact, I was thinkin’ of pinnin’ the whole business on you,’ Woodend said.
‘A good choice,’ Dr Shastri told him. ‘I would certainly be a more colourful and interesting defendant than most of the drab, sad men you usually bring to tri
al. But in answer to your question, I would have to reply that this particular murderer was not in any way precise. I would almost say that our little friend was butchered, but that would be being unfair to butchers, many of whom know more about anatomy than half the surgeons currently operating in our great hospitals.’
‘Now that is a cheerful thought,’ Woodend said. ‘Why did he make such a bloody mess of the mutilation? Was it simply because he had no idea what he was doing?’
‘Perhaps,’ Doctor Shastri said cautiously. ‘But it is equally possible that the killer wanted to make a bloody mess.’
‘Why would he have wanted to do that?’
‘I am no psychologist, but it seems to me that the attack which ended the victim’s life – and the mutilation which followed it – were both spurred on by very deep emotion. The aim of mutilation, I think, was to humiliate Bradley Pine – even in death.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ the doctor confessed.
‘But you could make a guess?’
‘Perhaps. Did you know that when the British pulled out of India, and my poor country was partitioned, I was living there myself?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ Woodend admitted.
‘The sectarian violence which broke out, once your soldiers and policemen had withdrawn, was terrible to behold. Moslems massacred Hindus, and Hindus massacred Moslems. No one was spared – not the old, not the young, not the crippled and infirm. And in some cases, the massacres were followed by mutilation of the corpses. I saw some of those mutilated bodies. The outrages committed on them were not a perfect match with what was done to Mr Pine, but I sensed the same kind of rage at work.’
‘So our killer was a very angry man?’
‘Our killer, I believe, felt an anger such as you and I have never experienced – and hopefully never will.’
Seven
Her mind and emotions firmly back in the present – though still deeply scarred by the events of the past – Monika Paniatowski took up a strategic position next to the font and – even though she knew that Father O’Brien was long dead – found herself scanning the church for signs of the old enemy.
Not a member of the clergy in sight, she noted. In fact, the only people in the church at that particular moment were several old ladies – and one old man – who were knelt stiffly in prayer in the pews in front of the high altar.
She felt the urge to smoke – partly to calm her nerves, partly as an act of defiance – but then she remembered something that Charlie Woodend had told her early on in their working relationship.
‘Whatever you do, don’t go rubbin’ up potential witnesses the wrong way, Monika,’ Woodend had said.
‘Never?’
‘Never!’ Woodend had confirmed sternly. Then he’d chuckled, and continued. ‘Unless, of course, you think you can squeeze some advantage out of makin’ them lose their rag.’
But there was no advantage to be gained from rubbing up the priests of this church the wrong way.
At least, not yet!
She found herself wondering how Woodend would have reacted if he’d been the priest sitting on the other side of that confessional grill of her childhood.
Would he have sat back, and done nothing to save her?
Would he have gone out and drunk a few friendly pints of Guinness with her abuser?
Of course he wouldn’t. He’d have been more likely to take the man round the back of the church for a few quiet words, and when they returned, the abuser would have both a black eye and a pronounced limp.
Yes, that was how Charlie Woodend would have handled it if he’d been that priest. But then, Charlie would never have contemplated becoming a priest in the first place.
She heard a set of heavy footsteps approaching from her left, and turning, saw that a youngish priest – certainly not more than thirty or thirty-one years old – was walking towards her.
He smiled warmly. ‘I am Father Taylor,’ he said. ‘And who might you be, my child?’
‘I’m far too old to be your child,’ Monika said, thinking, even as she spoke, that she was certainly sounding childish.
‘I didn’t mean to offend you,’ the priest told her, his smile still firmly in place.
‘And, as regards your question, I might be any number of people,’ Monika continued, trying to sound more adult – trying to sound more sophisticated. ‘But, as it happens, I’m a detective sergeant from Whitebridge CID.’
The priest did not even look at the warrant card she was holding out to him, nor did he seem the least put off by her deliberate rudeness.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked gently.
‘It’s on the card.’
‘I’m sure it is, but I haven’t got my reading glasses with me.’
‘I’m Sergeant Paniatowski.’
‘Do you have a Christian name?’
‘Not being a Christian, I’d have to say that I don’t. But I do have a first name.’
Why was she acting like this, she asked herself. Father O’Brien had been an ugly old man with bad teeth, a squint and a wart on the end of his nose. Father Taylor had fine white teeth, and the nose and eyes of a Hollywood leading man. They had nothing in common – except, of course, that once you’d learned to detest one priest, it was very easy to learn to detest all of them.
‘So what’s this first name of yours?’ Father Taylor asked.
‘It’s “Sergeant”!’ Paniatowski said, still refusing to soften to this man of the distrusted cloth.
The young priest laughed easily. ‘Now that is an unusual name, whether you’re a Christian or a heathen,’ he said. ‘So let me see if I’ve got this straight – you’re Sergeant Sergeant Paniatowski, are you?’
Paniatowski laughed too, despite herself. ‘No, not really,’ she said. ‘I’m Monika.’
‘And my Christian name is Fred,’ the priest told her. ‘You may call me Father Fred, if you wish.’
‘How about if we forget the “Father” business and I simply call you Fred?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘That would be fine,’ the priest conceded. ‘Though most Catholics do normally put a “Father” in front of it.’
‘I’ve already told you I’m not a Catholic,’ Paniatowski said.
The priest laughed again. ‘Of course you are,’ he insisted. ‘I spotted you as belonging to the True Faith the moment you walked through the door. And I’m never wrong.’
‘You are this time,’ Paniatowski insisted.
The priest slowly shook his head from side to side. ‘You may deny it – you may not even know it to be true – but you’re tied to Mother Church by bonds of faith as strong as steel.’
‘I’m investigating a murder,’ Paniatowski said.
The smile drained from Father Taylor’s face, and was replaced by a troubled expression.
‘Ah yes, poor Mr Pine,’ he said. ‘But I’ve already told the other policemen everything I know.’
‘What other policemen?’
‘The ones your Inspector Rutter sent to talk to me, after I’d phoned the police station and told him Mr Pine had been here last night.’
Oh God, with everything that had been going on, she’d almost forgotten that Bob was back, Paniatowski thought.
But he was back, and she’d have to see him later – however much she might dread the prospect.
‘Is something wrong?’ Father Taylor asked.
‘No. Why should there be?’
‘You’ve suddenly gone rather pale.’
‘Maybe that’s because I don’t like churches,’ Paniatowski said aggressively. ‘Would you mind going over the same ground with me that you probably went over with them?’ she continued, a little less harshly.
‘Not in the slightest,’ Father Taylor replied. ‘I want to do everything I can to help.’
‘Did you notice anything odd about Mr Pine last night?’
‘We’re all odd in our own ways. It’s the way God made us. But I certainly wouldn’t say that Bradley Pine was a
ny more than his “normal” odd – which is to say, just about as odd as you or I.’
‘How well did you know him?’
‘Not well at all, I’m afraid.’
‘Because he’s not a regular church-goer? Because he didn’t start putting in appearances at this church until he’d clinched the Conservative nomination and worked out he’d need the Catholic vote?’
‘I wonder if you can really be as cynical as you seem?’ Father Taylor asked, looking pained. ‘I pray that you aren’t.’
‘You still haven’t answered my question, Fred,’ Monika Paniatowski said flatly.
‘You’re right, of course. The answer that you’re looking for is that I didn’t know him well because he chose not to know me well.’
‘I understand every word in that last sentence, but put them all together and I’m still not sure you’ve actually told me anything I wanted to know,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Then I’ll explain it in another way, which hopefully you’ll find clearer,’ Father Taylor said. ‘Most of our parishioners have one particular priest with whom they feel especially comfortable, and Mr Pine felt especially comfortable with Father Kenyon.’
‘Why is that? Don’t you have much pull with the older parishioners? Are you here mainly to attract the younger set?’
Father Taylor laughed good-naturedly again.
‘It’s nothing like as simple as that, Monika,’ he said. ‘As you can plainly see for yourself, I’m a priest, not a pop star. Some of the older parishioners prefer to talk to me, and some of the younger ones are much happier with Father Kenyon. I like to think that each makes his or her own choice, although, of course, we are all guided by God.’
‘So how long would you say Bradley Pine was here?’ Paniatowski asked briskly.
‘I wasn’t keeping a record, but I would guess it was a little more than half an hour.’
‘That’s an awful lot of praying,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Do you think so?’ Father Taylor asked, with just a hint of reproach in his voice. ‘It seems to me that since we’re all such miserable sinners, we can never have too much prayer.’
‘After he’d prayed, did he go to confess his sins?’ asked Paniatowski, who was starting to feel uneasy – and was not quite sure why.
Sins of the Fathers Page 5