Sins of the Fathers

by Sally Spencer

  He stood up and walked towards the door.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Marlowe asked, with a strong hint of panic in his voice.

  ‘Do?’ Woodend repeated. ‘I’m goin’ to do what I get paid to do – which is to try my hardest to find Bradley Pine’s murderer.’

  ‘That isn’t what I meant, and you know it,’ Marlowe said.

  ‘Oh, you mean, am I goin’ to tell anybody else what Pierson told me?’ Woodend said.

  ‘Listen, Charlie, I’ll still have considerable influence in the Central Lancs Constabulary once I’m elected, you know.’

  ‘I’m sure you will.’

  ‘I’ll still have a say in who gets promoted and who doesn’t. Would you like to be a superintendent? Or even a chief superintendent? That can be arranged – as long as you’re prepared to keep quiet.’

  ‘There’s no need to offer me a bribe,’ Woodend told him. ‘I won’t tell anybody your nasty little secret.’

  Marlowe mopped his sweating brow with his handkerchief.

  ‘Thank you, Chief Inspector,’ he said. ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘But whether or not it leaks out from some other source will depend, I would imagine, on who killed Pine, an’ why he killed him.’

  Thirty-Three

  Since his mother appeared to be having one of her more lucid mornings, Colin Beresford had decided to take off a couple of the hours that his recent spate of overtime entitled him to, and spend them with her.

  Why bother going into work anyway, he asked himself, when – despite Woodend’s pep talk the previous evening – he was far from convinced he was contributing anything of importance to the investigation.

  It was true, he argued, putting the case from the other side – as Woodend had done the previous evening – that the chief inspector would probably not have realized, had it not been for him, that Bradley Pine’s body had been dumped on the site of what had once been ‘Tara’ – the old Hawtrey family house.

  But how did that particular piece of knowledge help them advance the investigation?

  Even if it were more than a coincidence – and that was a long way from being firmly established – neither he nor Woodend had any real idea of what it signified.

  The inside of his poor mother’s head must be a little like this case, he thought. There was so much information – so many memories – floating around in there.

  But no structure at all.

  No system.

  No coherent whole.

  ‘Why don’t we look at the old photograph albums, Colin?’ his mother suggested.

  Why not, Beresford agreed.

  Leave it a couple of hours, and all the faces smiling up at her would mean nothing to his mother. So why not grab the opportunity to have her live in the real world while she still could?

  She even remembered where they kept the albums, he thought, as he watched her open the drawer.

  But he shouldn’t let that fool him, even for a moment, into thinking she was getting any better. She would never get any better. All he had left to hope for was that her decline would not be too rapid.

  His mother placed one of the albums on the table, and opened it.

  ‘This was the holiday we all spent in Blackpool, when you were just a little boy,’ she said. ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘There’s your dad in front of the Tower …’ Mrs Beresford paused and looked around the room. ‘Where is your dad, by the way? Has he gone out?’

  ‘Dad’s dead, Mum,’ Beresford said.

  Mrs Beresford blinked, then tried to pretend that she hadn’t.

  ‘Of course he’s dead, I knew that,’ she agreed. ‘And there’s you, on the sands,’ she continued, hastily. ‘Weren’t you a lovely little boy?’

  Beresford examined the faded photograph. The boy in it looked serious – almost brooding.

  Had he sensed, even then, what lay ahead of him, he wondered. Could he already see into a future in which his father was dead and his mother was slowly going gaga?

  The picture began to remind him of another photograph – though it was not one of him.

  And suddenly, he realized why the priest had seemed so familiar!

  Woodend had only just got back to his office when the phone on his desk began to ring.

  He picked it up, and heard the operator say, ‘I have a long-distance phone call from Australia for you. I’m connecting you now.’

  Australia?

  ‘Chief Inspector Woodend?’ asked a cheery voice down the crackling line. ‘G’day! It’s Sergeant Archie Boon of the Western Australia Police here. I’m told you’ve been making inquiries about Jeremy Tully.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Woodend agreed.

  ‘Then I’m the bloke you need to speak to. He works on one of the farms on my patch.’

  ‘He works on a farm!’

  ‘That’s what I said. He’s a sheep-shearer. An’ for a beginner, he’s a damn good one.’

  ‘Are you quite sure that we’re talkin’ about the same man?’ Woodend wondered.

  ‘Jeremy Nathan Tully?’ Boon asked. ‘Moved here from Whitebridge, Lancashire? Used to be an accountant?’

  ‘That’s him. What’s he doin’ shearin’ sheep?’

  ‘There’s not much choice in the matter, since the sheep can’t shear themselves,’ Boon pointed out. ‘An’ old Jerry tells me he quite likes the work. Says he’s found peace at last – whatever that means.’

  ‘D’you mean to say you’ve already talked to him?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘Talked to him? I’ve done more than that. I’ve interrogated him.’

  ‘You done what?’

  ‘Interrogated him. But not like you might have done over there in the Old Country – shining bright lights into his face and tapping your truncheon menacingly against your trouser leg.’

  Woodend grinned. ‘You’ve been watchin’ too many old films, Sergeant,’ he said.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Boon agreed. ‘Anyway, since he’s one of my closest neighbours – which means he only lives a couple of hours drive from where I live – I thought I’d better leave the lamp and truncheon at home, and interrogate him the Ozzie way.’

  ‘An’ what way’s that?’ Woodend wondered.

  ‘I turned up at his place with a case of beer, and suggested he light up the barbie and throw a few thick juicy steaks on it. We had a real good chin-wag once he’d done that – especially after we’d drained a few tinnies of the amber nectar.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘Mainly about why he came to Oz. Seems he had a bit of a rough time up a mountainside in old England. Must admit, I didn’t know you even had mountains over there.’

  ‘They probably don’t look much in comparison to yours, but we’re used to them,’ Woodend said. ‘And I know what happened on the mountainside, so you can skip that bit.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ Boon agreed easily. ‘Well, after he came down from the mountain, he was having trouble sleeping, and when he did fall asleep he had these terrible nightmares. He’s a Catholic. Did you know that?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Anyway, he went to his priest, and confessed. I don’t understand how these things work – not got much time for religion myself – but I think that was supposed to make everything all right again. Only it didn’t work out like that. He was still getting the sweats and the trembles. So he went to see the priest again, and the priest suggested that he moved to Oz.’

  ‘The priest did?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right. He told Jerry he should put his past behind him – get as far away from England as he could, and make a new start. And you can’t get further away from England than Oz. Turns out it was a real beaut of an idea, because he has no trouble at all sleepin’ now.’ The sergeant chuckled. ‘Course, that could have something to do with the fact that he’s shearing sheep from dawn till dusk.’

  ‘Did he happen to tell you the name of the priest who gave him this advi
ce?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘Can’t say that he did. But he did tell me that it was a very young priest.’

  Paniatowski crossed herself awkwardly and self-consciously. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,’ she said.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come here, Monika,’ the voice hissed from the other side of the grille.

  ‘Isn’t this the right place to talk about what happened last night?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Well, that’s why I’m here.’

  ‘—but not with me.’

  ‘I want to know if I did wrong,’ Paniatowski said firmly.

  ‘We both did wrong,’ Father Taylor said. ‘But though I know there are no degrees of difference within mortal sin, I still believe that I did more wrong than you – and that I will burn in hellfire for eternity as a result.’

  ‘Not if you confess! Not if you get some other priest to absolve you from your sins!’

  ‘I can’t confess,’ Father Taylor said, agonized.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there can be no forgiveness without true repentance – and I cannot bring myself to repent.’

  ‘So what will happen to us?’

  ‘That is in God’s hands.’

  ‘Don’t give me all that crap!’ Paniatowski said angrily. ‘You still have your free will, don’t you? You can still go where you want to, and be with who you want to be with.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right about that – for the moment,’ Father Taylor said. ‘But I don’t think it will be the case for very much longer.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because events – circumstances – are closing in on me.’

  ‘And just what’s that supposed to mean?’

  There was the sound of two sets of men’s footsteps, crossing the floor of the church and approaching the confessional.

  ‘In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I absolve you of your sins,’ Father Taylor said.

  Though he spoke hurriedly, it was not with the uncertain voice of the man she had been with the previous evening, but with the authority of an ordained priest of the Holy Catholic Church.

  ‘But I can’t be forgiven, because I don’t repent either!’ Paniatowski said angrily.

  ‘You will repent,’ Father Taylor told her, sadly. ‘And perhaps sooner than you think. You have to go now.’

  ‘I don’t want to go!’

  ‘You must,’ Father Taylor insisted.

  There were tears in Paniatowski’s eyes as she stepped out of the confessional, but through those tears she still managed to see Charlie Woodend and Bob Rutter standing there.

  And suddenly, everything Father Taylor had said to her started to make sense.

  Thirty-Four

  ‘This is all a complete waste of time, you know,’ Father Taylor said, quite calmly, as he looked at Woodend across the table in Whitebridge Police Headquarters’ Interview Room B.

  ‘Why is it a complete waste of time?’ Woodend asked. ‘Because you’re innocent of the crime with which you’re charged?’

  ‘No. Quite the contrary. Because I’m guilty of it. I killed Bradley Pine, and I’ll willingly sign any confession that you care to put in front of me. Isn’t that enough for you?’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Woodend told him. ‘The Crown Prosecution Service will want a comprehensive report, which means that I need you to flesh out some of the details for me.’

  Father Taylor laughed. ‘Flesh out some of the details!’ he repeated. ‘Is that really what you said? Don’t you think that’s a rather macabre use of the word under the circumstances?’

  ‘Possibly it is,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But then I’ve found this whole investigation a little macabre, because we don’t get a great many cases of mutilation in Whitebridge.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Would you like to give me a full statement now?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t. I’ve said all I intend to say.’

  ‘Come on, help me out a bit here,’ Woodend cajoled.

  Father Taylor folded his arms across his chest, and kept his mouth tightly closed.

  ‘Then how about this as an alternative suggestion?’ Woodend said. ‘I’ll tell you everything that I think happened, an’ if I’m goin’ wrong at any point, you’ll let me know.’

  Father Taylor considered the suggestion for what seemed to Woodend like a long time. ‘You do understand that there are some things I can neither confirm nor deny,’ he said finally.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then if what you propose will bring about an end to all this in the shortest possible time, please go ahead.’

  ‘An hour or so before Bradley Pine was murdered, he paid a visit to St Mary’s Church,’ Woodend said. ‘He knelt down in one of the pews an’ prayed for a while, and then he took confession with Father Kenyon. By the time he left the church, you’d already gone yourself.’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘You cycled up over to Thelma Hawtrey’s house in Upper Bankside – which is a good two miles from your church. Once you got there, you hid your bicycle, and waited in the bushes for Pine to arrive. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did you use as your murder weapon?’

  ‘A large spanner.’

  ‘Where did you get it from?’

  ‘The church boiler room.’

  ‘When did you get it?’

  ‘Just before I cycled to that woman’s house.’

  ‘So, if you took it with you, you must already have been planning to kill Pine when you left the church?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did you know where to lie in wait for him?’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand the question.’

  ‘Yes, you do. Bradley Pine could have gone off in any direction once he’d left the church – so what made you so certain that he would be going to see Thelma Hawtrey?’

  ‘That is one of the things that I cannot say.’

  ‘Ah, I see! You knew where he’d probably be going because you learned of his affair with Thelma in the confessional. Was it Thelma herself who told you? Or was it Jeremy Tully?’

  Father Taylor said nothing.

  ‘You killed him in the driveway of Thelma’s house, then you put your bicycle in the boot of his car. You might have been planning to put his body in there as well – I don’t know about that – but anyway, there was no room. So you squeezed the corpse on to the back seat, instead.’ Woodend paused to take a drag on his cigarette. ‘What happened to the bike, by the way?’

  ‘I threw it into the canal.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I thought there might be some forensic evidence on it which would link me with the crime.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And once I’d safely disposed of it, I told Monika that it had been stolen from outside the church, so I’d be covered if there were any questions about it later. Isn’t it terrible?’

  ‘Isn’t what terrible?’

  ‘The way that we use other people – even the people that we love?’

  ‘We’re gettin’ off the point,’ Woodend said awkwardly. ‘You killed him, and then you put his body in the boot—’

  ‘And drove out to the lay-by on the dual carriageway,’ Father Taylor supplied.

  ‘And drove out to the exact spot where your home had once stood, Mr Hawtrey,’ Woodend corrected him.

  ‘Taylor,’ the other man said firmly. ‘My name is Taylor.’

  ‘But you were born—’

  ‘When my mother changed her name back to what it had once been, she changed mine and my sister’s as well.’

  ‘Mr Taylor, then,’ Woodend agreed.

  ‘And I would be grateful if you call me Father. Whatever I might have done, I was anointed as a priest. The hands were laid upon me, and I will be a priest until the day I die, whether I wish it or not.’

  ‘All right, Father Taylor it is,’ Woodend agreed. ‘When he was making his confessions to you, Jeremy Tully didn’t know you were Alec Hawtrey’s
son, did he, Father Taylor?’

  ‘Nobody knew, except for Father Kenyon. I went away from here as a boy, and came back as an adult. Besides, when people look at a priest, it is only the cassock they see, not the man inside it. Except for Monika. She saw the man.’

  ‘Why take the body to the lay-by?’

  ‘I’m truly not sure,’ Taylor admitted.

  ‘But you have your suspicions?’

  ‘Perhaps, in some strange, unexplainable way, I thought I was doing it for my father.’

  ‘Because it was Bradley Pine – using Thelma as his instrument – who broke up your family? You did know all about that, didn’t you, even if your mother didn’t? It’s another one of those things you learned in the confessional.’

  ‘I have nothing to say on the matter,’ Father Taylor told him.

  ‘Pine destroyed the father you’d known as a child, and turned him into someone else entirely. So it somehow seemed appropriate to place Pine’s body on the spot where that other man – that other father – had lived before the Fall?’

  ‘Again, my lips are sealed.’

  ‘You didn’t blame Thelma, in any way, for what happened?’

  ‘Mother said we shouldn’t, and Mother was right.’

  ‘Because Thelma was no more than Pine’s creature?’

  ‘My father must bear a part of the blame,’ Father Taylor said, side-stepping the question. ‘And so … and so must I!’

  ‘You think it was partly your fault?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I wouldn’t listen to him.’

  Young Fred is sitting in the garden of the house which has always represented a picture of true happiness in his mother’s mind, but is now a reality – because his father has had it built out of love for her.

  He is thinking about how confusing life is for most people, and how – even at his age – they seem to want to confide their confusion in him.

  Why should that happen, he wonders.

  Perhaps it is because he’s more of a listener than a talker. Perhaps it is because of something else entirely – something he doesn’t even understand, yet feels himself in the grip of.

  But whatever the reason, it is beyond doubt that he has the gift of being able to help guide these unhappy people through all the complexities of their earthly existence.