‘And then, of course, there is the guilt,’ Mrs Lemming was saying. ‘The clergy seem to live in a sort of miasma of it. It’s deadly. Norman plays a perpetual blame game to keep at bay the panic he feels. He’s an absolute past master at making me feel guilty and half the time I don’t know what I’m supposed to be guilty of. I must say there have been times when I’ve had murder in my heart.’
Mrs Lemming stopped and looked at Theodora. Had she gone too far? What could this young woman know of such poison, forking and lifting onion sets with that easy regular strength born of healthy body and quiet conscience?
‘I knew him, you know,’ said Mrs Lemming suddenly changing tack.
‘Who?’
‘Tusk. Ben Tussock.’
‘I thought you hadn’t been here before.’
‘No, no not here. Before here. Look.’ Mrs Lemming scrabbled in her satchel. After a moment she brought out an enormous walletpurse. Carefully she pulled out a photograph and handed it to Theodora.
Theodora wiped her hands on her denims, gingerly took the portrait and scrutinised it. It showed a man in his fifties, round-headed, cherubic about the eyes and chin, a generous mouth laughing and gleaming with life, a wide clerical collar finishing off, ruling a line under the confident features. It was Tussock all right, a lot younger than when she had seen him at school but unmistakably the same person. He was standing with a group of youngsters holding various gardening tools. The children’s clothes dated it to the 1960s. The background was the front of the old kitchen.
‘He could be great fun,’ said Mrs Lemming unexpectedly. ‘I met him once at a do at Cambridge with Norman. So, you see, I simply had to come to his own haunts when I heard he’d died.’
‘I hope I make myself absolutely clear,’ said the Bishop.
Martha Broad allowed her Biro to slide through her fingers. The fingers were large and white. They hung from her hands like a collection of parsnips. The hands finished off arms like hams which showed below sleeves rolled up in the warmth of the day. She wore a blue shirt with clerical collar, from which her round face emerged to hint at earlier prettiness. Her hair was cut short and brushed forward to form a thick grey cap. The room, the library of the guesthouse, was hot. Outside Tom Bough’s lawn-mowing activities could be heard as he brought the tractor up time after time to just outside the window and then like a cavalry charge wheeled it away at the last moment.
‘I do think,’ said Miss Broad, ‘we ought to consider all alternatives before we take such an irrevocable step as closing St Sylvan’s. Surely diocesan policy should try and take a long-term view not a short-term one based on—’
Bishop Peake leaned forward and cut across her before she had completed her sentence. The events earlier in his morning had rendered the Bishop less willing than normal to consider views different from his own. Now he said rapidly, ‘Just two points, if I may. There can’t be more than one alternative. That is what the word “alternative” means. As for diocesan policy, I think I may be allowed to be a little more knowledgeable than you in that area. I can assure you, I have the diocesan’s confidence.’
He leaned back in his chair pleased with his performance. That one about ‘alternative’ was a good touch. It showed how sensitive he was to niceties of language. He’d had it pulled on him in youth and found it useful for cutting up the obstreperous.
Miss Broad flushed. ‘Your remarks do not address the issues,’ she said tartly. ‘There are solid arguments which need to be looked at to do with what the Church takes to be its relation to the modern world. St Sylvan’s is unique. If we are not to be driven mad by the world’s evils, we desperately need special places to withdraw to, to find God in. It is the Church’s function to provide such places. If the Church doesn’t, no other institution can.’
She stopped. It was all so obvious to her. Why didn’t the Bishop see it? The senior clergy had only enough nous to cling to their privileges. Their thinking was leavened by no sliver of common sense, their necks were stiffened with bigotry, and the empty space of their imaginations was populated only by visions of the House of Lords. She felt choked by her collar. There were times when she almost wished she hadn’t taken orders. As a laywoman and a member of the most prominent family in the county, she had enjoyed a certain amount of influence. Now that she had taken orders she had become nothing more than a very junior member of a male hierarchy. All this rank-pulling sapped her energy.
The Bishop snapped shut his new leather notebook and reached for his smart leather document case. He saw no reason to answer the woman. He glanced at his watch and prepared to depart.
Angus looked at his agenda. He had written it on the back of an envelope of recycled paper. It read: 1. Prayers; 2. The function of pilgrimage centres; 3. The resources of St Sylvan’s; 4. Identification of key issues; 5. Possible solutions. So far none of these items had been addressed. The Bishop had not worked to an agenda; he was against agendas. They seemed to him to be hostages to fortune, promises which it might be inconvenient for him to keep.
‘I wonder if we aren’t being too hasty?’ Angus said cautiously, his Edinburgh accent sounding in every vowel. ‘Many people have felt over a very long period of time that this is a place of great numinous power. It’s not merely Christians in the orthodox sense who have benefited from the unique qualities of this place.’
The Bishop cut in and leaned forwards. ‘I’m glad you take my point, Mr, er, Bootle. This place attracts the very worst elements in our society. New Agers, hippies, gypsies. I’m sure you realise from your own parish experience, on a smaller scale, that the Church has, above all, to be responsible and relevant. Those are the words I’d like you to take away from this meeting. Responsible and relevant. Hard decisions have to be made. We at the grass roots, at the centre of things, have to take the very widest view. It’s a matter of stewardship and so on, you know.’
The Archdeacon cleared his throat. He felt he really ought to say something. He hated rows. He liked young people and simple music. In more adult contexts he was lost. His usual method in such cases was to wait until someone said something which he understood and then repeat it more loudly. He was less a speaker, more an amplifier. This economical technique had served him well in the Church. He tried it now.
‘Relevance and responsibility,’ he repeated. ‘I think that puts it very well. Thank you for that, Bishop. What I feel we need to discern is, what is relevant? Where is the Spirit calling us on this one? Shouldn’t the Church be helping people to practise the spiritual life? Recharge batteries and that. After all, if it’s only a matter of money.’
The Bishop had had enough. It had been a long day. It had not started well. His ankle throbbed from the Jack Russell. He’d been very late. There hadn’t been much in the way of lunch. Nothing to drink. He pushed the glass of springwater away from him petulantly.
‘Money,’ he said quietly to the Archdeacon, ‘is very important. I don’t think I should have to spell this out to you. The state of the Church’s finances, the state of the country, Synod baying at our heels. All these make it absolutely imperative that we should shut up backwaters like this. The real world, the coalface is out there.’
‘If money is so important,’ said Martha Broad, ‘why have the Board of Finance spent thirty thousand rebuilding the Dean’s kitchen?’ She could read a balance sheet and she reckoned she’d had more finance meetings than the Bishop had had hot dinners.
The Bishop reached for his briefcase from beside his chair. ‘I am not at liberty to discuss a colleague’s private affairs. I’m surprised you should not see the impropriety of such a remark. The site here will sell for half a million. Modern Heritage will be putting up a centre for Tudor arts and crafts. That will be a perfectly proper use which will maintain the spirit of the place. There’ll be nature trails, tea towels, the lot. It could be an excellent asset to the diocese.’
The Archdeacon was not a courageous man. He lacked both information and principle. His mind,
an infuriated junior cleric had said after failing to lodge new information in it, is so open it gapes. Nevertheless, he didn’t care to be bullied.
‘We’ve got an asset with the place as it is,’ he protested bravely. He’d once been told that the secular world had skills the clergy needed but rejected because they were not of their devising. The Archdeacon wondered if it was these skills which he needed now. Words like ‘planning’, ‘prioritising’, ‘monitoring’ trailed slowly through his mind. But he knew his limitations: such concepts were not for him. Better keep to the tried and trusted. ‘And I understood that the terms of the trust meant we couldn’t sell up whilst there was income enough from capital to keep it going. I thought Tusk’s money was coming here to swell the endowment.’
‘You have been misinformed.’ The Bishop was crisp and cheerful. He’d checked this one. ‘Canon Tussock’s money, quite properly, goes to the family.’ He smiled at his adversaries. Early in his career the Bishop had learned to synthesise a smile out of the physical elements of smiling. The muscles round the eyes crinkled, the cheeks widened. Some unwary souls were lured by these purely physical manifestations into smiling back. Then the Bishop would dissolve the elements leaving them stranded. ‘I think that concludes our business.’ He switched off the smile.
‘Would you care to stay for supper and compline?’ Angus felt that, though the outcome of the meeting was so bitter, hospitality must not fail.
The Bishop looked at the springwater. ‘I very much regret that is quite impossible. I am already engaged to dine with the diocesan.’ He turned to the Archdeacon. ‘The heritage people want to be in by September. I take it I can entrust the clearing up to you Jon.’
The Bishop was always magnanimous in victory. He signalled this by the use of the startled Archdeacon’s first name. Before the latter could reply, however, the door opened without ceremony. The small figure of Guy Tussock dressed in black bathing-suit and trainers appeared on the threshold. He looked shyly round the clerical group and then said, ‘I think you ought to come. There’s someone dead.’
The woman’s body lay beneath the deer’s-head plaque beside the holy well of St Sylvan’s. Water dripped from her denims and white shirt on to the stone flags. Her clothes were stained with mud and moss. One foot still retained a sandal, the other was bare. Her head was turned to one side and at the base of the scalp could be seen a long deep wound. Ruth Swallow’s dark hair was heavy with water and a trail of water led back to the pool.
The Bishop, Angus, the Archdeacon and Martha Broad grouped round her.
Guy said, ‘I pulled her out.’
The Bishop looked at the body with distaste. ‘I think you see now how impossible it is for this to continue as part of the diocesan structures.’
The inappropriateness of his response was allowed to hang in the air. Martha Broad looked up at the low cliff as though seeking comfort.
‘An accident of this kind is very regrettable indeed.’
It was clear to all, except apparently the Bishop, that this was no accident.
Angus looked at the Bishop and the Archdeacon and then took charge. ‘Would you be so kind, Mr Tussock, as to take your bicycle down to the village and phone for the police and an ambulance? And if you were to meet Miss Braithwaite and ask her to bring a blanket, it would be most seemly.’
The police came with exemplary speed. A sergeant and a constable scrambled up the narrow path and after one look raised mobile radios to mouths for reinforcements to cope with the event of death. The sergeant was young and efficient. He was not impressed by the Bishop or the clerical setting. He requested them to go to the guesthouse and remain there until his superior officer could come and take statements.
The Bishop tried to set him right. ‘I’m very much afraid it is quite impossible for me to delay my departure, Officer. I have a very important engagement this evening. I am dining with the diocesan Bishop. I really do have to get away pretty promptly.’
The Bishop’s assumption that he was an exception to anyone else’s systems was met with incomprehension by the sergeant. He was short with close-cropped ginger hair and long sideburns. His white nylon short-sleeved shirt was immaculate. He looked at the Bishop almost with pity. ‘This is probably going to be a murder inquiry. No one can leave until the Inspector’s done a preliminary. Now if you will kindly vacate the area immediately.’ He spoke as though he were addressing a crowd through a megaphone. There was no sirring or pleasing.
The Bishop cleared his throat. ‘I think I should tell you I know the Chief Constable very well indeed.’
Theodora, newly arrived with a blanket for the corpse, felt the tension of the party. Gently she placed the blanket over the body of the woman. The sergeant appeared not to have heard the Bishop. He set about putting white tape round the area. His constable, an older man with surprising grey hair visible beneath his cap, was more impressed by the row of clerical collars. Certainly he knew Martha Broad. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, Miss,’ he said in fatherly fashion, ‘I’m sure it won’t be too long before the Inspector gets here and they’ll make you right comfortable at the guest-house.’
Miss Broad stared down at the wet figure on the stones. ‘Poor girl,’ she said. ‘Poor woman. Why on earth should anyone …?’ She turned away and started heavily down the path.
Social and indeed religious skills to cope with murder are not often called upon. The gathering of pilgrims in the library was fraught. Theodora took a swift inventory. Mrs Lemming whom one might have supposed would be tearful looked alert, almost animated. Canon Beagle took out an office-book. Mr Clutton Brock sat in an armchair blowing his nose and mopping his brow, Mrs Clutton Brock stared out of the window which someone had closed as a sort of drawing down of blinds. Of Guy there was no sign. It was like a wake at which no one knew anyone. The four male clergy looked at each other. Since it had not apparently occurred to the Bishop, after a moment Canon Beagle, acting on his seniority, put down his officebook, cleared his throat and said, ‘I think we need to pray for Mrs Swallow, for her family and her murderer, as well as for ourselves. Bishop would you care to lead us?’
The Bishop was loath to give up a leadership role but he had just enough instinct to know when he was outclassed. He did not know who Canon Beagle was but he recognised quality. The Archdeacon was invisible, Angus had the air of one swelling a progress. The women were not thought of.
Theodora admired Canon Beagle’s liturgical range. They prayed for eternal rest, light and peace for the dead woman. They petitioned for the comfort of her family and friends. Nor did Canon Beagle duck the need for justice and repentence for evil-doers. They affirmed their sure and certain hope of the resurrection and demonstrated their unity in the faith by saying together the Lord’s Prayer and the grace. St Sylvan might have been proud of him, Theodora thought, reflecting that fifteen hundred years ago the saint might have made the same prayers. As they prayed, so they bonded. At the finish they looked more kindly upon each other.
‘Tea,’ murmured Theodora and threading her way round the assembled knees, made for the kitchen.
The kitchen was cool from its stone floor. Light slanted in from the low windows and the open back door. The paraphernalia of cooking for the evening meal was laid out, clean and ready for the cook who would not now return to it. On the table was a newspaper and a thick black-and-red notebook which looked as though it might contain accounts or receipts. Theodora saw the room for a moment as perhaps Ruth had seen it, as a domain, an important space where orderly, intelligent work was perfectly performed. It is no small matter to feed a dozen people excellently for week after week without fuss or waste. Why was it so despised, so taken for granted? Running a parish or a diocese, those more obvious manifestations of power, required no greater talent. She felt a sudden kinship with the dead woman and an anger that she should be untimely snatched away. But then she realised she knew very little of Ruth Swallow. She’d spoken no more than a few words to her. Did she live in or co
me up from the village? Was she married or was her title of Mrs an honorific one from her job?
Methodically Theodora set about drawing water and assembling cups. The kettle, she noticed, was on a low light. As she was finishing, the door from the hall opened and Mrs Clutton Brock stood irresolutely in the frame. She gazed round the room before meeting Theodora’s eye.
‘I thought … I wondered if you … Victor likes camomile,’ she brought out in a rush.
Theodora who had not forgotten this fact indicated the separate arrangements she had made for the Clutton Brocks.
‘Also,’ Mrs Clutton Brock continued, ‘I wondered if anyone had told Tom, Mr Bough. He would need to know.’
She hesitated and lingered. ‘I think I might know where to …’
Even as she spoke, the light from the back door was obscured. Bough’s figure, featureless with the sunlight behind him, seemed to tower above the two tall women. His presence, his emotion, flooded the room. In his hand he held a piece of oily rag and an adjustable spanner.
‘Tom,’ Theodora brought out, ‘Mr Bough, Ruth, Mrs Swallow …’
‘Where’ve they put her?’ His voice was husky and furred. Theodora wasn’t sure that she’d made out his words correctly.
‘The well … the police …’
But the man turned and his footsteps could be heard gathering speed up the stone path. From the hallway behind them, came the noise of doors banging and a northern voice saying, ‘Now then, Sergeant, look sharp. Where’ve you put them? I’ll start with the top brass and work down the ranks.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Let Him in Constancy
Every Deadly Sin Page 8