Sins of the Fathers

by Sally Spencer

  He looks up to see his father standing there. They have never spoken much – it is hard to overcome your own shyness with someone who is also very shy – but Alec plainly wants to speak now.

  ‘It’s a horrible thing,’ he says.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Getting old.’

  ‘You’re not old, Father!’ Fred tells him.

  ‘But I’m older than I once was,’ Alec says. ‘My body aches in places it never used to. I don’t have anything like the same amount of energy I had ten years ago.’

  ‘Of course, you don’t. That’s the way that—’

  ‘There are things I can no longer do – and other things which are starting to slip away. I feel the urge to reach out for some of those things that are still within my grasp – while I still can.’

  ‘You shouldn’t worry yourself about such matters,’ Fred says. ‘A gradual decline, as we get closer to our graves, is no more than the human condition as God intended it to be. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’

  His father looks at him strangely, as if seeing him as he really is for the first time. ‘Don’t you ever worry about anything, Fred?’

  ‘Of course I do. Everybody does.’

  ‘And how do you deal with it?’

  ‘I go to church, and pray for guidance.’

  His father nods. ‘I used to think I was a good Catholic myself,’ he says, ‘but I seem so unworthy when I compare my faith to yours.’

  ‘We’re all unworthy,’ Fred tells him.

  Alec pulls up a chair, and sits down next to him. ‘I want to talk about love,’ he says.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Love is a very strange thing. I love your mother with all my heart—’

  ‘I know you do.’

  ‘—but I no longer feel the same passion for her that I used to.’

  ‘As you said yourself, you’re getting older.’

  ‘But the passion’s still there within me, Fred, even if your mother can’t arouse it! I can feel it whenever I—’

  Fred gets to his feet so quickly that the chair he has been sitting on goes flying off behind him.

  ‘I have to go,’ he says, in a complete panic. ‘There are matters I must attend to. Now!’

  ‘Please, son, I need to explain,’ his father says, with an agonized expression filling his face.

  But Fred is already striding back to the house.

  ‘You mustn’t blame yourself for that!’ Woodend said, horrified.

  ‘Why mustn’t I? If I’d stopped and listened to him, our lives might have turned out quite differently. Through me – through my words and encouragement – he might have found the strength to resist temptation.’

  ‘You were just a kid at the time!’ Woodend protested. ‘You can’t possibly be held responsible.’

  ‘When I first came back to Whitebridge as a priest, I used to dream that one day my father would walk into my church and ask for forgiveness,’ Father Taylor said wistfully.

  ‘Ask forgiveness from whom?’ Woodend wondered. ‘From his confessor? Or from his son?’

  ‘It wouldn’t have mattered which of those two he chose to talk to. He would have said he was sorry for what he had done, and I would have said I was sorry for what I had not done. But he never came. And then he died, and so I knew he never would. But I still loved him. And I still wanted his forgiveness.’

  ‘What about Pine? Did you hope he’d confess to you, too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘About how he’d used Thelma to get what he wanted? Or about what happened on that mountainside?’

  ‘Once more, I cannot say.’

  ‘But if he had chosen to confess to you, do you think he might still have been alive today?’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘What was it that finally drove you to kill him?’ Woodend wondered. ‘What was the straw that broke the camel’s back? Was it seein’ his face in the paper nearly every day – bein’ constantly reminded that the man who’d committed so much evil was goin’ on from triumph to triumph?’

  Father Taylor maintained his silence.

  ‘An’ which of his evils did you most hold against him?’ Woodend continued. ‘Was it destroying your parents’ marriage? Or was it what he did to your father on the mountain?’

  ‘I killed him. That is all you need to know.’

  ‘Given that you smashed in his mouth, an’ slit open his stomach, I’m inclined to believe it was the latter.’

  ‘There is nothing I can do about what you choose to believe.’

  ‘Bradley Pine didn’t kill your father, as I once thought he must have done,’ Woodend said, ‘but it’s more than possible that he lived on because of your father. It must have been very hard for you, seeing him leading a full and happy life, sleeping with the woman who he’d used to break up your parents’ marriage – and knowing all the time about the pain and misery he must have caused your father in his dying moments.’

  ‘Do you still expect me to break the seal of confession? Even now?’ Father Taylor asked.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Woodend replied. ‘You’ve given me ample proof that you’d never do that.’ He paused to light up a fresh cigarette. ‘My chief constable, Mr Marlowe, doesn’t really see the harm in what Bradley Pine did,’ he continued. ‘As far as he’s concerned, the man needed food to stay alive, and if that involved cutting the flesh off a dead man’s arm and eating it, then that was what he should have done, however repugnant it might sound to other people.’

  Father Taylor had fallen silent again, though now tears were beginning to appear in his eyes.

  ‘But Mr Marlowe’s not bein’ entirely honest about the matter, is he?’ Woodend asked. ‘He’s deliberately overlookin’ certain important facts – because that way he can avoid facin’ the truth. But we’ve both faced the truth, haven’t we, Father Taylor?’

  Tears had begun to stream down the young priest’s cheeks, but still he said nothing.

  ‘You know it because of what Jeremy Tully told you in the confessional,’ Woodend continued, ‘an’ I know it because my sergeant questioned the witnesses who were at the scene. An’ what do we know? We know that when Pine took his knife an’ sliced into your father’s arm, the blood spurted everywhere. Because his heart was still pumpin’ it round! Because your father might have been dyin’ – but he certainly wasn’t dead.’

  Thirty-Five

  Woodend and Beresford sat at the team’s usual table in the public bar of the Drum and Monkey.

  ‘Now do you see what I mean about stirrin’ up the pot an’ seein’ what floats to the top, lad?’ Woodend asked. ‘Most of the stuff you learned at the factory was a waste of time, as you suspected it might be, but if you’d never gone there, you’d never have seen a photograph of young Fred Hawtrey – on holiday with his mum an’ dad – on the wall of the boiler room. An’ if you’d never seen the photograph, you’d never have realized that Hawtrey an’ Taylor were the same man.’

  ‘Inspector Rutter came up with exactly the same information from talking to the first Mrs Hawtrey,’ Beresford pointed out.

  ‘That’s true,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But he might not have done. We could have decided we didn’t need to talk to her at all. Or she might never have mentioned her maiden name to Inspector Rutter. That’s why we need as many spoons in the pot as possible – as long as they’re good, solid spoons. An’ that’s what you are – a good solid spoon.’

  ‘You’re very kind, sir,’ Beresford said.

  ‘I’m very practical,’ Woodend replied. ‘I need men I can rely on, an’ once I’ve got them, I try not to let go of them.’

  Beresford checked his watch, and then drained his pint. ‘I think I’d better be going,’ he said.

  ‘It’s my round,’ Woodend said. ‘Why not let me buy you one for the road before you go?’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, sir,’ Beresford replied, ‘but I’d better not.’

  ‘If it’s your mam you’re thinking of, I don’t imagine sh
e’d begrudge you an extra half-hour in the pub, tonight of all nights,’ Woodend said.

  The second the words were out of his mouth he realized he’d made a mistake. And from the black look Beresford was giving him, it was clear the remark had not gone unnoticed by him, either.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Beresford demanded. ‘That you think I’m tied to my mother’s apron strings?’

  ‘No,’ Woodend said heavily. ‘It means I know about your mam’s condition – an’ I know that you’re doin’ your best to try an’ look after her.’

  ‘Who told you?’ Beresford asked.

  ‘That doesn’t really matter, does it?’ Woodend said soothingly. ‘The important thing is that you didn’t want me to know – an’ you’re far from chuffed to learn that I do.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Why didn’t you want me to find out, lad? It can’t be because you’re ashamed of her, can it?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Beresford said angrily. ‘She can’t help it, any more than she could help having cancer.’

  ‘So what is the problem?’ Woodend wondered.

  ‘I don’t want you making excuses for me!’ Beresford told him.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘If I do something wrong, I want you to give me a first-class bollocking for it. I don’t want you holding back, because of what I have to put up with at home. I don’t want you making allowances for me!’

  ‘What you really mean is, you don’t want me to start pityin’ you,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Maybe that is what I mean,’ Beresford agreed.

  ‘You’re doin’ neither me nor yourself justice, lad,’ Woodend told him. ‘Pity’s somethin’ that’s reserved for people who can’t handle what life throws at them, an’ from what I’ve seen of you, you’re not one of them. You’ll cope with your mam’s deterioration – probably better than I would have done in your place.’

  ‘And if I start to screw up the job, because of the pressures at home?’

  ‘I tell you, just as I’ve had to tell Bob an’ Monika in their time.’

  ‘Honestly?’

  ‘Honestly. I’ll have no choice in the matter, because the job’s got to be done, an’ if you can’t do it, somebody else will just have to take your place. But there’s no point in worryin’ about somethin’ that hasn’t happened yet, now is there?’

  Beresford was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘We seem to have spent so much time talking over my problems that I could have had that pint you offered me after all. But now it really is time I went.’

  Woodend nodded, sympathetically. ‘I can’t do anythin’ to make what goes on at home any easier,’ he said, as Beresford stood up and turned towards the door, ‘but what I can do is offer you a job that’ll at least distract you while you’re at work. Think about that, when you’re making up your mind whether you’d rather direct traffic or track down murderers.’

  On the previous occasions when Monika Paniatowski had walked through the main door of St Mary’s Church, she had done so warily, and perhaps a little deferentially. There was no evidence of deference this time – she strode in as if the church counted for nothing, and she was all that mattered.

  ‘I’ve come to collect a few things that Fred Taylor might need,’ she told Father Kenyon.

  ‘Things?’ the old priest repeated. ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Toiletries. Tooth brush, nail brush, electric razor … all the stuff a well-groomed man will need when he’s banged up in gaol.’

  ‘Did they have to sent you, of all people, on this errand, my child?’ Father Kenyon asked, pityingly.

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ Paniatowski told him. ‘Nobody sent me. I’m here because I wanted to do it.’

  And to prove to myself that I could, she added silently.

  The priest nodded, almost as if she’d spoken those last words aloud, and he’d heard them.

  ‘Give me a moment to deal with matters here, and then we’ll go together and get whatever you think Father Fred will need,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t seem the least surprised that he’s been arrested,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘Don’t I?’ Father Kenyon asked.

  ‘You haven’t even asked me why he’s in gaol.’

  ‘That’s true,’ the priest agreed. ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘But then you don’t need to ask, do you? He’ll have told you all about it when he made his confession. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘What a man says in the confessional is between him and his God,’ Father Kenyon said.

  ‘What about what Pine said when he was in that holy box of yours?’ Monika demanded. ‘Did he confess to you that he’d eaten living flesh in order to save his own miserable life?’

  ‘I must answer as before,’ the priest said calmly.

  ‘Mind you, that probably didn’t shock you half as much as it would have shocked most people, did it?’ Paniatowski said. ‘Eating living flesh is what you’re supposed to be doing every time you take Communion.’

  ‘You are very bitter, my child, and I can understand that,’ the priest said gently. ‘But I hope and pray that what has happened will not turn you against the Church.’

  ‘You are joking, aren’t you?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘I never joke where matters of faith are concerned.’

  ‘I’ve tried your religion twice, and it hasn’t worked out for me either time,’ Paniatowski said. ‘It doesn’t get another chance.’

  ‘My child—’

  ‘Listen, I really don’t need any of this,’ Paniatowski said. ‘In fact, there’s only one thing I really need – and that’s a bloody drink. So if you want to make sure that Fred gets his stuff, you’d better take it to the station yourself.’

  She turned, and began to walk towards the door.

  ‘However you may feel about Him, God will always give you another chance,’ the priest called after her. ‘And another. And another. That, above all else, is what makes Him God.’

  ‘Well, the next time you talk to Him, tell Him I don’t need another chance,’ Paniatowski called over her shoulder. ‘Tell Him I’ve decided to go it alone from now on.’

  When Paniatowski arrived at the Drum and Monkey, she found her boss sitting there alone.

  ‘Bob’s just rung to say he’s still got a bit of private business to wrap up, but that he should be here shortly,’ Woodend said.

  There was a vodka already waiting for her on the table, and Paniatowski downed it in one.

  ‘So that’s what he calls it, is it?’ she snorted, as the alcohol hit her nervous system. ‘A bit of private business!’

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘Why should anything be wrong?’ Paniatowski demanded. ‘Does something always have to be wrong?’

  ‘No, but you sound a little—’

  ‘Can’t we forget Bob Rutter for a while? Can’t we talk about something else for a change?’

  ‘I wasn’t aware we did normally spend that much time talkin’ about Bob,’ Woodend said mildly. ‘But if you want to change the subject, that’s fine with me. What shall we talk about?’

  ‘I don’t know. Anything at all, as long as it’s not Bob-bloody-Rutter! How’s the election going?’

  ‘Not all that well – at least for Henry Marlowe,’ Woodend said. ‘He’s withdrawn his candidature, which was probably very wise, considerin’ that what he did on that mountainside will soon be public knowledge.’

  ‘So who’ll blow the whistle on him? You?’

  ‘No, not me.’

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘Father Taylor’s defence lawyer. When it comes to the sentencin’, he’ll put forward what Bradley Pine did to Taylor’s dad up that mountain as a mitigatin’ factor.’

  ‘Fred will never allow that. He can’t – because it was told him under the seal of confession.’

  ‘But the man who made the confession can say what he likes, and I’d be very surprised if I don’t see Jeremy Tully – the reborn Australian sheep-shearer – u
p there in the witness box.’

  ‘Do you think Marlowe will go to gaol?’

  Woodend shook his head. ‘Not unless the age of miracles has finally come to pass. He’s got too many friends in high places – friends who follow the same code as he does, an’ will understand that he only did what was necessary to protect one of their own. They won’t exactly pin a medal on him – that would be too much, even for them – but if you ask me, all that’s likely to happen is that he’ll get a slap on the wrist an’ then be given his old job back.’

  ‘Which won’t be good news for you,’ Paniatowski said. ‘He’s bound to hold you responsible for his having to withdraw from the election.’

  ‘Of course he’ll hold me responsible,’ Woodend agreed. ‘He holds me responsible when a stray dog craps on his front lawn. But I’ll get by.’ He lit up a cigarette. ‘Now we’ve exhausted the subject of local politics, do you want to tell me what’s been on your mind ever since you walked in here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I really think you better had, Monika. It’s doin’ you absolutely no good at all keepin’ it bottled up inside.’

  Paniatowski sighed wearily. ‘I stopped on the way here to buy a packet of cigarettes. There’s a café just next to the off licence I went to. I just happened to look in through the window and I saw Bob. He was sitting at one of the tables – with Elizabeth Driver.’

  ‘Was he, now?’ Woodend said, thoughtfully. ‘Still, it probably doesn’t mean anythin’.’

  ‘Yes it does. They seemed very … close.’

  ‘What are you sayin’ exactly? Did he have his hand up her skirt or somethin’?’

  ‘No, he didn’t.’

  ‘Well, then—’

  ‘But it’s only a matter of time before he does.’

  ‘This investigation’s been a big strain on you, lass, an’ I think you’re overreactin’ a bit,’ Woodend said.

  ‘Am I?’ Paniatowski demanded. ‘Why do you think she changed her hair colour from black to blonde?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Because Maria’s hair was black!’