“I was up at hospital seeing Colonel Northmore this afternoon,” Tom said, aware of the thinness of the cushion as he lowered himself into it. He set his eyes on Sebastian’s and got straight to the point. “He claims responsibility for Peter Kinsey’s death.”
If he expected a response, none came. Sebastian’s eyes flickered momentarily, but he said nothing, and did nothing other than let his palms knead the oak surface of the chair’s arm.
Tom continued, “He says that on the eve of Ned Skynner’s funeral last year, he confronted Kinsey in the vestry over … various financial anomalies with St. Nicholas’s, and was so infuriated at Kinsey’s blasé response that he struck him a blow with the verge, which happened to be sitting on the vestry table. The assault hadn’t been intentional, the colonel says, but the effect was the same.”
He paused, giving Sebastian a chance for response. Again, none came. “Naturally, I find all this troubling. The colonel was very keen that I should believe he ended Kinsey’s life, but I don’t. The colonel is—or has been until recently—a robust man, remarkable, considering his age. And I understand that he had to do terrible things in the war. I know he is impatient, that he can be imperious, stubborn, and quite intolerant. I can—almost—picture him striking Kinsey in a moment of rage. What I cannot picture is his skulking away from such a misdeed. Whatever his deficits, the colonel is forthright. And, furthermore, on a practical level, I cannot picture him somehow removing Kinsey’s body from the vestry and managing to bury it in Ned’s grave. Yes”—Tom held up his hand as if deflecting contradiction—“I understand that Kinsey was not a big man, but shifting a dead weight, even if it’s only ten stone, is not a trifle. It would take the strength of a younger man.”
Sebastian lowered his eyes to his lap, and let Tom continue:
“There’s only one reason I can think of to explain the colonel’s behaviour, other than the brain-scrambling side effects of painkillers.”
He paused to take a cleansing breath, half waiting for even a monosyllabic reaction from Sebastian. Again, nothing.
“He believes,” Tom persisted, “that he is shielding someone. Under normal circumstances, he would, I think, encourage anyone he thought had committed such a crime to own up to his responsibility and turn himself over to authorities. But …” Tom let the word hang in the air. “But,” he repeated, “the circumstances aren’t normal, are they?”
Sebastian looked up from his lap. His face was a mask.
“You’re a sort of prodigal,” Tom carried on with growing irritation. “Though not the prodigal son. More prodigal grandson, if you count Colonel Northmore as a kind of honorary grandfather.”
“Then I can only assume you know about me.” Sebastian spoke for the first time.
“Yes.”
“That reporter?”
“He gave me the key. After that, it wasn’t awfully difficult. Anyone given that key—a name, ‘Kinross’—would have learned what I learned with a little diligence. Colonel Northmore, of course, knew. He fought with your grandfather in the war. He must have maintained contact with you throughout your … ordeal. He arranged for your sanctuary here in this village when it was over, yes? And Peter, of course, knew. You were at school together, at Shrewsbury, were you not? The sources say that’s where you went, and Julia had a notion that the two of you went to the same school. Peter must have recognised you instantly.
“And,” Tom continued, “there was one other in the village—who either knew or suspected—wasn’t there?”
Tom thought back to what he had read online. More than a decade before, James Allan, the middle of three Allan brothers, married a Canadian woman named Jane Bee, at Crathie Kirk in the Scottish Highlands. Sebastian—or, as he was more properly named and titled, the Honourable John Sebastian Hamilton Allan—committed a heinous crime the day after they were wed. And the victim was none other than the eldest of the three brothers, the best man at the wedding, William, Viscount Kirkbride. The trial in Aberdeen was a sensation, in no small part because Sebastian refused to explain himself or speak in his own defence. He was sentenced to eleven years in prison. Two details in the entries had caught Tom’s eye: the manner of Kirkbride’s death—head trauma—and press and public speculation that nineteen-year-old Sebastian was protecting someone with his stubborn silence. The horror of fratricide—the sin of Cain—and Sebastian’s reticence shattered the Allan family and divided its loyalties. His father and his sister shunned him, while his mother, his brother, and his new sister-in-law stood by.
“Sybella arranged to meet with you at the village hall last Sunday night, sometime after you’d closed the church, am I correct?”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened. Then he nodded. “But I didn’t go.”
“So you say. But the afternoon of the fayre, after we found Sybella’s body, the look on your face when you burst into the village hall suggested you knew something about her death the rest of us didn’t.”
“I knew nothing. Truly,” he added as Tom’s brows ascended his forehead. “It was … something … nothing … I was mistaken. It doesn’t matter now. The point is, I was nowhere near the village hall Sunday night.”
“Charlie Pike says he heard someone come in.”
“And why was Charlie at the village hall Sunday night?”
Tom twisted his lips. “I think we both know Sybella liked to be provocative. Particularly with males.”
“I wasn’t about to let her provoke me. She was a child.”
“But one with explosive information, possibly.”
Sebastian looked away, towards the cold, empty grate. “I don’t really know precisely what she knew, Tom. But she would drop hints. Had I ever met the Queen? for instance. My father’s land is very near Balmoral. And ‘aren’t brothers awful creatures’ and the like—all spoken with a certain tone.”
Tom shifted in the uncomfortable chair. “Sebastian, in my ministry, I’ve met with others like you, men who have committed a crime and are trying to reintegrate themselves into society. One of the approaches—the preferred approach, I think—is truthfulness. People are generally forgiving, once they know you’ve paid your debt. But you’ve gone to some considerable length to hide your identity. I’m not sure why. And I suppose I have to say that I wonder how far you would go to keep your identity hidden.”
Sebastian’s expression had hardened. “Shall we take a walk?”
Startled, Tom replied, “Where? There’s a lot of people about the village this afternoon.”
“Along Knighton. Tourists don’t know it, and Bumble wants walking. I left him at Phillip’s for a few hours.”
Tom hesitated. A few of the village’s larger and better appointed homes clustered where Orchard Hill met Knighton Lane, but the homes soon gave way to hedgerowed meadows as the lane narrowed and then shrank to a trail invading thick stands of hazel, ash, and fir, before ending at a steep headland that dropped to a cove in the winding estuary. It was one of his own favourite walks because, at its farther reaches, it was so little used, so perfect for contemplation and prayer. He glanced at Sebastian, who was rising from his chair, at the torso stretched in a plain white T-shirt. The Sebastian he’d seen in pictures on the Internet had been a true toff—rail thin, lean faced, floppy haired, a boy really, with a vacant expression on his face. The Sebastian before him now was a solid presence, surely three stone heavier than the lad in the pictures, the product, he expected, of prison gyms and years spent outdoors, learning his gardening trade at open prison in the last years of his incarceration, then working daily for the Parrys and elsewhere in the village. Sebastian was fit, very fit, and he would forever bear the epithet “murderer.” Unthinkingly, Tom pressed his forefinger into his own belly and found it bounced back all too readily, like a jelly. Pastoral work, endless meetings, and the responsibilities of a husband and father had devoured any private time he might have had for exercise. And then, more lately, there was Madrun stuffing him like an Eponymous goose. He was not fat—yet—but he was not f
it. And he was being invited to consort between the hedgerows by a—
“Tom?”
The sound of his name snapped him from his reverie.
“Are you coming?”
Tom glanced up at his verger and met eyes cool with challenge. “Valley” and “shadow” invaded his mind, warning him away. But he paid no heed. The psalm contained promise of a strength greater than any man could have.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
In silence, Tom and Sebastian walked up Poachers Passage into The Square. There they glimpsed DS Blessing ushering his superior through the door of the Blackbird Gallery. The detectives didn’t see them.
“Have you had any further conversation with either of them?” Tom asked Sebastian, glancing at a few of the other villagers windowshopping Mitsuko’s display of local artists’ paintings.
“No” was the curt reply.
“I happened to meet the detective sergeant in the hospital waiting room earlier this afternoon. He asked about you.”
“What did you say?”
“I kept my counsel—”
“Thank you.”
“—for the time being.”
In renewed silence, they passed the post office and Pattimore’s, then travelled up Orchard Hill, turning west through the shadows of lofty oaks demarcating the entrance to Knighton Lane, to Farthings, Colonel Northmore’s home. As Sebastian opened the picket gate piercing the privet hedge and they passed under an arched trellis heavy with red climbing roses, Tom thought about his few parting words with the old gentleman. Alastair had absented himself, and the colonel seemed to sink into torpor, his face grey. Despite this, obliquely, before he himself left, Tom wished the colonel to know he understood the sacrifice he believed he was making.
“I understand Lord Kinross—the late Lord Kinross—was cited for his heroism in the war and for his sacrifices in the prison camp. His intercessions saved many Allied lives.”
The colonel turned his face back from the wall to stare at Tom. He said nothing, but his rheumy eyes filled with incipient tears.
“And, Colonel,” Tom added gently, “I believe I know one of his descendants.”
The older man didn’t respond immediately, but an intelligence passed between them. Tom could see a new worry disturb the colonel’s features.
“What will you do?” he croaked.
Tom replied, “I don’t know.”
“Wrong,” the colonel groaned, before the lids sank over his eyes and he made a feeble dismissive gesture at Tom, who said a quick and silent prayer and left.
Now, standing on the polished parquet floor of Farthings’s hallway, watching Sebastian attach a leather lead to the excited Jack Russell’s collar, he wondered—as he had on the drive back from hospital—what the colonel meant. If only the old man wasn’t so parsimonious about starting a sentence with a subject. What was wrong? Who was wrong? He? I?
“As I see it,” Tom told Sebastian, stepping first back into the lane and holding the gate open for Sebastian and Bumble to pass, “Colonel Northmore must have it in his head that you might be responsible for Peter Kinsey’s death or he wouldn’t go so far as to say that he was.”
“Phillip has been more than kind to me.”
“The question is: Why would he think—?”
“Because,” Sebastian cut in, “according to a court of law, I’ve killed a man before. I suppose it’s not unreasonable to think that having done it once, I might do it again.”
Tom flicked a glance at him, at the strong hands holding the straining lead as Bumble snuffled deliriously along the hedgerows. “But the colonel has been your sponsor, your patron, your friend, the keeper of your secret. He must be one of those who believe you didn’t kill your brother, despite the findings of the court.”
“We’ve never discussed it.”
“What?”
“We’ve never discussed the circumstances of my brother’s death, Phillip and I.”
Astounded, Tom could only grope for words. “But …?”
“You think he’s taken an awful chance …”
“Well … I …”
“He was devoted to my grandfather, and to my grandfather’s memory. I believe Phillip feels he owes my grandfather a boon. In a way, helping me find sanctuary here is part of that payment, though, of course, he’s never said.”
“The colonel told me this afternoon he had killed a man—a Japanese—in prison camp. Do you know this story?”
Sebastian shook his head.
“I’m not sure I believe it,” Tom continued. “I think the colonel’s had time to ruminate while he’s been in hospital. He may have concocted this tale to support the notion that he would be capable of killing someone again, namely Peter Kinsey.”
Sebastian flashed him a look of doubt.
“I asked him if he wanted to make a formal confession, ask for God’s forgiveness and take absolution. He more or less waved me off. Do you understand? The colonel may be prepared to lie to protect a man, but I don’t think he would be prepared to offend God.”
Sebastian received this without comment, looking upward momentarily as if seeking some answer from the sky, a warmer, deeper blue in the late afternoon. They walked on, past meadows that glinted through glimpses into gaps in the hedgerows, only their footfalls on the stony path and the occasional remonstration from unseen sheep breaching the silence.
“Why,” Tom asked finally, pulling at one of the tall grasses poking through the soil, “are you pottered away down here in the Devon countryside anyway?”
“Why are you?” Sebastian responded mildly.
“You know perfectly well. A safe haven for my daughter—though perhaps I should rethink that notion after this week’s events. But you haven’t answered my question.”
“Well, why not live here?”
“I think, Sebastian, if I wanted to create a new identity or live in anonymity, I’d slip into London’s teeming masses. Or move to another country. I don’t think I’d pick a gossipy little village, however out-of-the-way it is. Thornford has visitors. There are a number of holiday cottages for hire. We don’t live in isolation. I know you look quite different than you did a dozen years ago, but you’re still taking a chance.”
“I’m up at Thornridge House with Colm most days. Few go there.”
“There’s the pub.”
“I usually have my face in a magazine or newspaper.”
“The church.”
Sebastian smiled for the first time. “Tom, you know how meagre the attendance figures are for the Church of England.”
Tom grunted, twisting the grass in his fingers. “You really haven’t answered my question: Why are you living in Thornford under a false identity?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“I simply can’t. That’s all.”
“I’m your priest.”
“Leave it alone.”
Tom watched Bumble tear after a sparrow that had flitted onto the path. The lead pulled taut. “That Sun reporter knows who you are, though he doesn’t seem to have done anything with the knowledge—yet.”
“I glanced at the papers in the post office.”
“And what about your father? This stroke the reporter mentioned?”
Sebastian didn’t respond; instead he said, “Did you know there is a ghost that walks this lane?”
“Have you seen it?”
“No.”
“Mrs. P. knows all the lore. I shall have to ask her.”
“Little to tell. It was a curate who murdered his vicar. Sometime in the seventeenth century. They would take contemplative walks this way, apparently.”
Tom shot a glance at Sebastian. “And ought I to take a warning from this?”
“I merely mention it, as a point of interest. I did say ‘curate.’ Sorry.”
Was he? Ahead Tom could see the path narrow, the trees grown closer to its edge, their black boughs knitting into a canopy. Soon he and Sebastian would be well away
from the village, from its homes and cottages, and not far from the headland that tumbled down to the water below. He glanced at Sebastian’s strong back—the straining dog had pulled the man slightly ahead—and felt for the first time a stab of anxiety, perhaps as some antediluvian might have felt if he had happened upon Cain who killed his brother Abel. He could turn back—his thoughts were for Miranda—but then his mind passed over a certain posture of Sebastian in the vicarage garden only two days before and he took a little heart. He tossed aside the grass stem he had been torturing.
“I’m told,” he said, “that you weren’t your usual self—or the usual self everyone’s come to know—on the evening before Ned Skynner’s funeral last year.”
“Who told you that?”
“I think you can guess if I tell you that you went into the pub well before your usual time and that you appeared to be somewhat … agitated.” Tom refrained from using Eric’s exact phrasing—“like he’d been handed a death sentence and National Lottery winnings at the same moment.”
Sebastian tugged at the lead to bring Bumble back from his inspection of some olfactory offering by a crumbled stone wall that marked the end of the civilising hedgerows. “I was agitated. I’d gone into the church to help Mitsuko back down from the tower. You recall that I told you the quinquennial inspection had been that Monday, the day before Ned’s funeral, and that Mitsuko had asked if she might go up the tower? She wanted up around the supper hour—something about the quality of the light for photographs, with the sun low in the sky—and said she’d be half an hour or so, so I left her on the roof of the tower and went back to my cottage. I said I’d come and help her back down. Have you been up yourself?”
“No.”
“There’re some tricky bits climbing around the bells, for one thing. And I didn’t want Mitsuko to injure herself. In a way, I shouldn’t really have let her up. I doubt the church’s insurance would cover an accident in such circumstances, but Peter wasn’t around that day to ask, and Mitsuko can be quite persuasive. So at some point, I left my cottage and went back to the church.”
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