The Priest at Puddle's End

by Jason Blacker

  “I know, we’ll find out, Flo.”

  Hume walked back into the office carrying a big black ledger. It had a tassel halfway through it. He opened it up on the table in front of him and dragged his finger from the middle towards the end.

  “They’re of different amounts,” he said. “Baudin has a current balance of,” he looked up at Lady Marmalade. “Do you want the exact amount…”

  “Just round it to the nearest pound,” said Frances.

  He nodded his head.

  “Baudin’s balance is three thousand one hundred and five pounds. Ainsworth Meats is roughly six thousand pounds and Hollin’s Cabinetmakers has a balance of roughly seventy-three hundred pounds.”

  He looked up at Florence and Frances. Florence looked over at Frances.

  “Those are substantial sums of money,” she said.

  Frances nodded.

  “It’s blood money, Florence.” She turned towards Hume. “If you could be so kind as to put a freeze on those accounts. That money has been obtained from the commission of a crime, namely blackmail. It would also seem that it might have been obtained in collusion with child abuse.”

  “I can promise you I knew nothing of the sort,” said Hume. “We assure our clients the highest privacy here.”

  Frances just looked at him.

  “How is the money usually deposited?” she asked.

  “On a weekly basis, one of the Teels comes in with the checks to deposit. They’ve all given each other depositing authority for the accounts.”

  “Does this include Lottie?” asked Florence.

  Hume shook his head.

  “No actually, I’ve never seen her here inquiring about those accounts, only the pub’s or the account she shares with her husband.”

  Florence nodded.

  “I see,” she said. “I wonder if she knew then?”

  The question was directed at Frances, though she was looking at Hume.

  “I don’t wish to speculate,” he said.

  “I would be surprised, Flo,” said Frances, “if she had no idea. Nonetheless, that’s not primarily our concern at the moment.”

  There was a knock on the door to Hume’s office. The door opened as Frances and Florence looked behind them to see Sergeant Noble entering the room.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Hume,” he said.

  “Good afternoon, Sergeant,” said Hume.

  Noble looked at Frances and Florence.

  “Chief Inspector Pearce has arrived with the prisoner. He’s been asking for you.”

  “Wonderful,” said Frances. She stood up and then looked over at Hume. “I hope your business continues to flourish.”

  He wasn’t sure if that was a gibe or genuine wish. He chose to believe the latter.

  “Thank you, my Lady,” he said, standing. He watched them walk out of his office, and he stood standing until they had left the Society. Then he sat down and looked at his ledger.

  “Bugger it all,” he said, and closed the book.

  SEVENTEEN

  A Turn Towards Truth

  THE police station was close to the Building Society but Florence and Frances drove, following Sergeant Noble in his police car. The sun was warm through the windows in the car, but not enough to have the top down.

  “That was awfully courageous of you in the Society to threaten, Thane,” said Florence, grinning at her friend. “Did you really mean it?”

  “I did, Flo. I may seek justice for murderers and thieves but in a case like this, where little children have suffered, I will not rest upon empty threats and cajoling. If it had meant shutting down the only bank in town, I’m afraid, my dear Flo, that I would have been willing to do that. This town of yours needs to come to terms with this awful tragedy and in order to do that and heal, it needs to be open and transparent about the abuse that was heaped upon its most vulnerable.”

  Frances clutched her handbag in both hands on her lap and she sat straight and rigid with her scarf wrapped around her head, looking regal. Though her façade belied the heaviness of her heart.

  She didn’t notice a Scotland Yard police vehicle outside the station, but she wasn’t necessarily expecting one. She was sure that Pearce would have taken the train up to Puddle’s End. Pearce was waiting outside on the main steps for them. He waved and came over to Florence’s red Alvis. He opened the door for Frances and took her hand to help her out.

  “Thank you, Devlin. I’m delighted to see you. So good of you to come up all the way from London.”

  “Not at all, not at all. Your chap, Turnbull wasn’t very talkative until I told him that you thought he was innocent. Then we couldn’t shut him up. Awful things have been done to the poor man, and I gather, to many children here. But I’ll let him tell you himself.”

  Pearce’s handlebar mustache was twirled perfectly without a hair out of place. His monocle dangled from a chain on his lapel until it disappeared into the breast pocket of his suit.

  “Yes, I am especially glad to see you for this town needs help in coming to terms with this enormous tragedy, especially as word gets out.”

  “Quite,” said Pearce. “I’ve already telephoned Scotland Yard and Blackpool will be sending up social workers and people from child protection services who should be arriving tomorrow. I’ll stay on as long as needed.”

  “Thank you, Devlin. I fear there are still many children here who have up until perhaps last week been ill treated.”

  “Terrible tragedy. I am appalled that it had gone on so long undetected.”

  “I suppose that is the power men of God have over children especially,” she said.

  They walked into the police building and behind the main reception area and down the hall to the room where Frances had interviewed Colin Lewis not long ago. Inside was Carbry Turnbull. Pearce, Noble, Florence and Frances entered the room. Carbry was smoking a cigarette. He was not handcuffed and he sat on the chair slightly further away from the table, leaning his elbows on his knees. His hair was jet black and messy. His clothes were clean but not his own, they seemed a little big. His hands were clean except for under the nails. He looked up at them and he was not a handsome man.

  He was thick and stocky in frame though average of height, and when he grinned he showed missing teeth. For a man in his late forties he looked to be coming on in age towards sixty.

  “Carbry,” said Pearce, “this is Lady Frances Marmalade, and her friend Mrs. Florence Hudnall. Lady Marmalade is the one who has uncovered the truth about what’s been going on here for these past two decades.”

  “Ma’am,” he said, looking at both of them.

  “You can call me Frances,” she said.

  The men offered the two seats that were in front of the desk to Frances and Florence. They sat down. Chief Inspector Devlin Pearce stood to Frances’ left and Sergeant Noble stood to Florence’s right.

  “The Inspector tells me you figured it out,” said Turnbull, squashing out his cigarette in the ashtray on the table and leaning back in his chair.

  “Yes, though that didn’t stop the murders,” she said.

  “I’m glad for that,” he said.

  “As are several others so it would seem,” said Frances.

  “They was evil men the two of them. Evil like I’d never known,” said Turnbull.

  “Colin Lewis said that you had suffered abuse yourself. Is that true?” asked Frances. “He also said you’d be the only one willing to talk about it.”

  “I told little Colin back in twenty-nine not to come to church, didn’t I? Told him it was the devil’s house. But I was too late.”

  “Not too late,” said Frances. “Seems he left the church before they had their teeth in him.”

  Turnbull uncrossed his arms from his chest and scooted his chair up towards the table. He leaned on it, and looked at Frances with a stare as deep as the heavens above them, and perhaps just as knowing.

  “That I’m glad for. I’m also glad Father Fannon’s dead and that bitch Walmsley. She was an ev
il woman if there ever was one.”

  “Will you tell me your story, Mr. Turnbull?” asked Frances. “I’d like to hear how you came to Puddle’s End back in twenty-nine. I don’t think it was coincidence, was it?”

  “Carbry, you can call me Carbry, or Carby. My friends call me Carby.”

  “Thank you, Carbry,” said Frances.

  He looked down at the table where his hands were. He fiddled with his fingers for a bit. Then he started to speak, keeping his eyes down.

  “It started when I was six, in Blairgowrie. Nineteen oh five it was. It was that man Deacon Millar. He’d been at St. Nicholas’ Church since nineteen hundred I think. I wasn’t the first. He’d been doing it within the first few years he got there. I wanted to kill him, believe me I did. But I was just a young ‘un then, wasn’t I?”

  He looked up and away towards the door. Frances could see the pain in his eyes, those same eyes that would have lived in a six year old boy. Full of awe and wonder at the world until the devil blinded them with hate and violence.

  “I know this is hard,” said Frances, “but your statement will help us reach the other children in this town who have been hurt like you have.”

  He looked back at her, picking at the quick on his thumb. It was starting to bleed. He looked down at it and then brought it up to his mouth where he tore it off. He dabbed the injury against his clean clothes to absorb the blood. He didn’t seem much bothered by it.

  “Would you like another cigarette?” asked Frances, hoping that might give him something to do other than to continue to injure himself.

  “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

  Noble left the room and came back moments later with a cigarette and a box of matches. Turnbull lit up his cigarette and as he went to pull it out of his mouth with his left hand Frances noticed the bubble of blood sitting in the crease of his thumb and the nail. It looked like it might slide off at any moment. And it did that, as he brought his hand down to rest on the table the blood trickled round the knuckle of the thumb and tossed a bit of itself onto the table. Turnbull noticed.

  “Sorry about that,” he said as he used the sleeve of that same hand to wipe the small drop of blood off. “This isn’t easy to talk about.”

  “I know,” said Frances, “but it will help others. I promise you that.”

  He glanced back up at her briefly before looking back down at his hands. The blood was slowly bubbling back. He brought that hand back to his chest and dabbed it against the white shirt that wasn’t his. He dropped ash on his lap too. The shirt was smudged ever so slightly with little strokes of reddish pink. He had dabbed his thumb just under his right chest. It reminded Frances of Jesus’ final wound from the Roman soldier. Turnbull leaned back and crossed his arms. He looked at the table and took a drag on his cigarette.

  “He raped me is what he did,” he said. He blew out the cigarette smoke and pinched his mouth off to the side and then to the other side. “Not at first, no, them bastards is smarter than that. They knew I didn’t have a dad, right? I was poorer than dirt I was. He used to buy me small little treats, yeah? Little lollipop or a candy and he’d sit with me after Sunday School and put his hand around me shoulder, yeah? All innocent. Like he really cared. And I thought he did.”

  He took another drag on the cigarette, looked at his thumb and sucked on the injury gently. He didn’t look at anyone.

  “He would ask me how I was doing at school. Sometimes he’d help me with my homework. My ma never thought nothing of it ‘cos I’d tell her what he was doing, right? The good stuff. How he was helping. She was a God-fearing woman, the Deacon might as well have been Jesus Christ himself the way my ma worshipped him and the priest.”

  “And the priest,” said Frances. “How was he?”

  Turnbull shrugged.

  “I dunno. He was an old man. Don’t think he ever did nothing to any of the kids, but I dunno if he knew or he was just too senile, yeah? But slowly, once I really get to like him then the expectations start. You see, all this time he’s been helping me ma too, yeah? Giving her a little bit of money here and there to help with food or shelter, yeah? And slowly, over the months or years I find I’m the one paying him back, ‘cos that’s what he says. He says it’s also the way people show each other love and other shit like that, yeah?”

  “And when did the abuse start?” asked Frances.

  Turnbull glanced a look at her before looking back down at his feet.

  “Just before my seventh birthday. It starts with touching, yeah? He starts to touch me where he shouldn’t and then he gets me to touch him where I shouldn’t. He uses his own hand on mine to do it, yeah? And I don’t want to, right? You understand that, yeah? I don’t want to, but he speaks like the devil. He tells me it’s the way friends help each other to feel good, yeah? And soon he’s got me putting things in my mouth I shouldn’t and from there he’s raping me.”

  Turnbull looked over at the door. His face was a mask of pain. Emotional pain and he looked at the door as if it was an escape hatch.

  “You’re very brave to be telling us all of this, Carbry, and I’m not judging you when I ask my questions, I’m just trying to understand so that we might help more children escape this awful, vile abuse that you had to go through.”

  He didn’t look at her. He took a drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke out slowly in a stream.

  “Did you ever think of telling your mother or the police?”

  He glanced over at Frances and gave her the briefest look that suggested she was an idiot. Then he looked away.

  “I’m seven years old, eight years old, yeah? I’m maybe this high,” he says and he holds his left hand out, with the cigarette between index and second finger, just higher than the top of the table. “This man is twice my size, more ‘an twice my size, yeah? And I want to tell me ma, but he makes sure I won’t, right? ‘Cos he tells me if I tell anyone, they’ll never believe me ‘cos everyone knows children tell lies, especially poor children like me. He tells me that God is on his side and says what we’re doing is alright. He tells me if I tell anyone, that bad things could happen to me ma. He tells me that she might have to give me up to the state ‘cos she’ll lose our house, which isn’t much, but it’s something, yeah? So you tell me what a little boy’s gonna do?” And Turnbull’s voice was getting raised and choked. “He’s gonna take it, isn’t he, yeah? He’s gonna keep getting raped, ‘cos as bad as it is he doesn’t want those worse things to happen. Not to his ma who’s the only thing he’s got in the world, right? And this man tells him that God’s on his side, not mine, yeah? And this boy thinks of his ma and how she practically worships this man of God. How the hell is anyone gonna believe him, yeah? They won’t. So he shuts up and he suffers abuse until by an act of, I dunno, the devil, ‘cos God sure as hell in’t helping, this evil man leaves.”

  A tear had rolled down Turnbull’s cheek. He dabbed at it with the sleeve of his left hand. The cigarette was almost finished, ash fell onto his pants again.

  “I’m sorry, Carbry,” said Frances. “I’m very sorry this ever happened to you.”

  He looked at her and she held his gaze, and in that brief moment she saw the pain of a small boy, an ocean of pain that could swallow a man whole.

  “Yeah, well it be done now, innit? So when I say I’m glad he be dead, I mean I’m glad he be dead. The both of them.”

  “When did Deacon Millar leave St. Nicholas’?” asked Frances.

  “Same year I left. I left Blairgowrie in nineteen twelve. He left just before me. I reckon it was ‘cos they found out and needed to move him out someplace different. But what they shoulda done was take him to the police.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “The Bishop, yeah? He came to St. Nicholas’ lots during that year, meeting with the Deacon and the priest. He always left not looking very happy. So he must’ve known, right?”

  “And all this time Deacon Millar is abusing you?”

  “Well me, no, but the other kids,
yeah? He’s doing it to other kids. But I’m not going to church anymore, haven’t for the past year. I’m not going to school much neither ‘cos I’m all messed up in me head, right?”

  “Why had Deacon Millar stopped abusing you?” asked Frances.

  “‘Cos he’s a sick bastard, yeah? Around twelve I start to become a man. I start to get hair and I don’t think that bastard goes for that. I think he just likes the kids, yeah?”

  “And did he just abuse boys?”

  Turnbull took the last drag on his cigarette and then put it out in the ashtray. His sore had started to scab ever so slightly. He looked at it and let it be.

  “No, he did girls too. Whoever he could abuse he did. Wasn’t all the kids, I s’pose there were too many of them, and some of them had dads and didn’t feel as vulnerable.”

  Turnbull looked up at Frances.

  “Look, I’m just a kid, yeah? I dunno why he did some kids and not others. Some kids would stay after, maybe that’s it. But me, I didn’t have a dad, did I? And me ma was working all the time and the Deacon, well he was good to me at first, yeah? Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I wanted it…”

  The last part of his sentence trailed off and he went to picking at his fingers again, looking down at them.

  “It’s never your fault,” said Frances, looking at him. “I can assure you of that. It was abuse plain and simple and abuse of his power and privilege in the community.”

  Turnbull didn’t look up at her for a while. Frances dug into her purse and looked into her bag and brought out the notebook that was Father Fannon’s.

  “Take a look at this, Devlin,” she said, handing it to him. Chief Inspector Pearce put on his monocle and flipped through the pages.

  “What’s that?” asked Turnbull.

  “It’s a notebook,” said Frances, “that belonged to Kane Fannon.” She couldn’t come to give him his salutation any longer. He had sullied that when he’d abused those children. He was no more than a vile and unrepenting criminal to her now. “I believe it contains code about his abuse of the children here.”

  “Has it got plants or herbs in it as nicknames for the children?” asked Turnbull.