Every Deadly Sin

by D M Greenwood

  Once in situ, Canon Beagle reviewed his knowledge. That skull business, had it anything to do with the girl’s death? One thing was certain, Bough hadn’t been involved in that. That sort of jokiness didn’t fit in with what he’d seen of Bough at all. He thought again about the words he had heard through his window. He’d talk it over with Angus and see what the lad thought. He folded his hands on his chest. After a moment or two he tipped his panama over his eyes, released his teeth and let his jaw drop. Mrs Lemming, who had likewise dipped under the tape clutching her easel, threw him a glance and then set to work, surprised at how much the excitement of the last twenty-four hours had improved her style. At a quarter past eleven, Mrs Clutton Brock, parasol in hand, sauntered round the rocks, stepped up on to the terrace, paused when she saw the others but then came on and took her place on the bench. Theodora striding from her meeting with Mrs Turk and clasping a copy of Mowinkel on the Psalms took them all in but stayed in spite of the press. The well was, after all, a good deal quieter than the retreat house. She made herself comfortable on the terrace below the deer plaque.

  Angus arrived at twelve. He glanced round the pool, located Canon Beagle and stood beside him. The old man was snoring. Theodora watched the vignette. Angus seemed to be torn between wanting to wake the Canon up and thinking that that would be unkind. He looked at his watch, caught Theodora’s eye, hesitated and then came over to her.

  ‘They’ve taken Bough in for questioning,’ he said.

  ‘I heard. Would he be capable of so terrible an act?’

  ‘I suppose we’re all capable given enough pressure.’

  ‘What would that amount to in Bough’s case?’

  Angus shrugged. ‘The police theory is that Ruth was wanting to keep his child and he was not. I cannot myself think they are right. If everyone left them alone, my impression was they might have married in a wee while.’ Angus’s Scottish accent, Theodora noticed, had strengthened as his emotion increased. Perhaps the effort of broaching more intimate matters, speaking openly when it was his pastoral habit to suggest or imply, imposed a strain on Angus which showed itself in his retreat to his native tongue.

  ‘So you don’t think he killed her?’

  ‘He can be a mite uncouth on occasion but I doubt he’s mad or that he’d kill someone he loved.’

  ‘So who did, and why?’

  Angus looked consideringly at her. ‘Women are a great trial to the Church.’

  Theodora was startled. This was a new and unlooked-for aspect of the case. What was Angus driving at? ‘Ruth wasn’t a professional member of the Church, only a layman. How could that affront anyone?’

  Angus hesitated and then he said ‘There’s a long, ignoble tradition in the western Church of making women either whores or saints with nothing in between. Both Ruth and, I suppose, her mother were technically the first but in their actions, the quality of their lives, their very great kindness, they came near to the second. So men found it difficult to know how to treat them. Father Bellaire now, never felt entirely at home with them. It was a great change when Canon Tussock took over.’

  Theodora failed to see where this was leading. ‘Isn’t that just history? Why should such attitudes have anything to do with a murder now?’

  Angus sighed. ‘Tradition’s a grand thing. It keeps us all upright and performing, gives us a measure to measure ourselves by, if you understand me. But if you look into our Lord’s own words, He Himself wasn’t a deal keen on it, if you ken the gospel.’

  ‘And Bellaire represented tradition, Tussock change?’ If Angus wanted to chat about ancient history, she wouldn’t stop him. ‘How come Bellaire let Tussock in in the first place?’

  ‘They were broke. Not a bawbee. Bellaire’d built the chapel and laid out the holy well with his own money. He was in hock to a rare penny. There were creditors asking.’ Angus’s tone well conveyed his Scottish lowland horror at the notion of importunate creditors.

  ‘When did Tussock take over?’

  ‘Sixty-two.’

  ‘And the changes?’

  ‘Oh immeasurable.’

  Theodora could not detect whether he approved of them or not.

  ‘We had mixed groups and many more of them – and merrier. I myself benefited. I first came here in Bellaire’s time as a lad in my teens. Then a decade later when I was training for a teacher, I came back. It was an entirely different feel. Tusk spanned ages, sexes, classes. He was good at including. He actually liked people. It wasn’t false at all. There was a lot of bonhomie.’

  ‘And Bellaire?’

  ‘Felt left out when Tussock’s groups were here, threatened almost. He kept his little fellowship of laddies but they looked in at different, separate times.’ Angus glanced up at Theodora. ‘His focus of attention was different from Tussock’s. Less on people, more, if you like to put it this way, more on God or the mystery of God, the sacramental, the seeing of God in nature. The pool, the celebration of the mass, even the beauty of the countryside around.’

  ‘The deer-hounds.’ Theodora grinned. She perfectly understood the tension Angus was trying to pin down. The Church needed both but each party tended to deride the other.

  ‘Aye, the deer-hounds too.’

  ‘I don’t see how all that leads to this.’ Theodora spread her hands to encompass the murder.’

  ‘They both, both Bellaire and Tussock, left their residue, their spiritual successors, the consequences of which we have to deal with. Can you not sense it even with our present little group?’

  ‘How many of them have been here before in Bellaire’s time or Tussock’s? Theodora was suddenly alert.

  ‘I think all except yourself and Mrs Lemming?’

  ‘Guy?’

  ‘I do not think he had made a formal visit. And yet … it was reported in the village he came here a wee while ago. Reconnoitring maybe. He has friends amongst the travellers, I believe.’

  ‘Angus, would Bellaire have kept any records of the pilgrims or the groups which visited here, do you suppose?’

  ‘I have often wondered, Miss Braithwaite, but I have never put my hand on anything of the kind. Father Augustine was not that way inclined. Indeed his monetary troubles stemmed from his lack of orderliness in such matters.’ Angus was stern.

  ‘So the only way of finding out who was here at a given time, say 1962, would be to find someone who was and get them to remember as much as possible?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Were you here in ’62, Angus?’

  ‘I very much regret I was not.’

  The forest which covered the hills round the valley of St Sylvan’s had always been there. Horse chestnuts had come with the Romans and taken over from the older oak. Some English sycamore and a little pine had seeped in over the centuries. The descendants of the deer that St Sylvan had hunted remained still. The cycle of the day had not changed. The social hours were dawn and dusk, when voles and small mammals ventured out and slithered cannily through the undergrowth, foxes trotted through their territories, owls spent long minutes in concentration and then swooped. Only kestrels hunted hopefully by daylight.

  Guy, aware of his predators, felt safe as houses under the canopy of summer growth in the late evening. He decided against pitching his visible orange tent and chose instead to wrap himself in his sleeping bag. He had chained his bike to a tree, checked his compass and watch and laid his plans. His friends would help him and hide him and they could only be a day or two away now. They would all come for the festival, they would all be together. Guy felt that an army was gathering to help him. The pagans, like the ungodly, the free and unrestrained would prevail and he would be in their ranks.

  The only thing was, to prove his point he really ought to get someone to get hold of the will or at least to know what was in it. Whom could he trust? ‘Who will go for me?’ he shouted into the trees. His final thought before pushing his head into the warm bracken was, I’ll phone her tomorrow.

 
CHAPTER NINE

  Rural Retreats

  Everyone had made an effort to keep Tuesday, the day following Bough’s being taken in for questioning, normal. They had all, or all except Guy, turned up punctually at the eight o’clock Eucharist. Angus had celebrated, Canon Beagle read the New Testament lesson, Theodora served. Guy’s absence was felt, Ruth and Tom were remembered in prayer. Mr Clutton Brock coughed and hawked his way through the responses, Mrs Clutton Brock’s eyes rarely lowered themselves from the ceiling. Mrs Lemming found herself in good voice for the hymn. At the end Angus stood on the chancel steps to say his few words.

  ‘The events of the last few days may have made us feel that we are in danger, that we live in dangerous times just as St Sylvan did. Our temptation may be to put those events away from us, to tell ourselves that they are no more than an untypical episode which disrupts our time here. In doing that we may bring ourselves some relief. A false relief. For if we suppose there is such a thing as normal life which does not include violence, then we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Death, violence, illicit passion, every deadly sin are the very stuff of normal life, there is no other, and we are not exceptions to it. For if we look into our own hearts, shall we not find those passions there? Our life’s work, our pilgrimage is to grapple with such things, not to ignore, evade or secrete them, but to bring them to the full light of day, each supporting the other as best he may in that noble task.’

  In the absence of Ruth, it had fallen to Theodora to prepare breakfast. No one had thought of making alternative domestic arrangements. Angus, having pronounced his grace for the fruits of the earth and work of human hands, had looked with some embarrassment towards Theodora and assured her he’d try to find someone from the village to take over the cooking. Whereupon the spirit of Anglican womanhood, that backbone of parish life, had risen to the surface and both Mrs Clutton Brock and Mrs Lemming had hurried to offer their help with lunch.

  Mrs Clutton Brock settled herself at one end of the kitchen table and began shelling peas with immense dexterity, her long musician’s fingers working at twice the rate of the unskilled. Mrs Lemming swerved towards the sink full of washing-up.

  ‘We must all pull together in adversity, as Angus so truly said, or we shan’t get any lunch,’ Mrs Lemming opined, flinging Fairy Liquid about with apparent enjoyment.

  Theodora, who had had experience of more than one cook in a kitchen and knew it to be a recipe for disaster, was rather taken aback by her optimism.

  ‘I’ve decided to stay, after all,’ Mrs Lemming went on, ‘so I shall need to make the best of things. At all events it’s better than Tunbridge Wells and Norman.’

  ‘I’d no idea you were thinking of leaving,’ Mrs Clutton Brock looked across at her.

  ‘Well, it’s not quite what one thinks of as a retreat, this, is it? Not with violence and sudden death.’

  Theodora marvelled, as she often did, at the selective hearing of those who listened to sermons. Had she not heard what Angus had said?

  ‘I’ve always thought of a retreat as normal life slowed down to a pace that one could get a grip on it,’ said Mrs Clutton Brock, ‘like the slow movement or an andante.’

  ‘Whereas, in fact, everything has hotted up considerably,’ Mrs Lemming continued, rinsing and stacking at full steam.

  Theodora didn’t know whether she was glad Mrs Lemming had cheered up and was enjoying herself or whether she felt there was a degree of impropriety in her buoyancy in the face of a still unresolved murder.

  ‘And then, of course, there are the sideshows of the skull and Father Bellaire’s walking cope,’ Mrs Lemming pressed on shamelessly. ‘It’s as though someone were trying to communicate in symbols, isn’t it?’ she went on, suddenly acute. ‘Don’t you think?’ She dried her hands and turned to her two companions.

  ‘What is being communicated?’ Theodora enquired.

  ‘I’d say the skull with the nail in it comes from someone who didn’t care for Augustine Bellaire, wouldn’t you? I mean it would hardly count as a friendly token.’

  ‘“Your grisley token, my mind had broken, from worldly lust”,’ Mrs Clutton Brock quoted.

  ‘How well you put things,’ said Mrs Lemming with genuine admiration.

  ‘But he’s been dead seven years,’ Theodora objected.

  ‘Hatreds go on though, don’t they?’ Mrs Clutton Brock said. ‘And accumulate and fester.’ She finished her peas and turned to Theodora. ‘Can I make bread?’ she asked. ‘If we’re all staying, we shall run out tomorrow and it’ll need to prove overnight to be any good.’

  Theodora didn’t know whether she was more surprised that Mrs Clutton Brock should ask her advice or that she should know how to make bread.

  ‘Wholemeal in the bin, strong plain in the sack,’ she answered. ‘I saw yeast in the larder to your left.’

  So they worked together, produced food which was more than edible and at one o’clock gathered to consume it.

  The oddity of the meal was the presence of Inspector Bottomley. Early in the morning the Inspector had returned to clear up the library and marshal the remains of her incident room. She had been closeted with Angus for half an hour and then at his invitation appeared at luncheon. The sense of a mission accomplished and that being a relief was not prominent. She took little part in the conversation. While being perfectly civil, she had a watchful air as though trying to crack a secret, though whether this was to do with the crime or whether it was an attempt to fathom the religious life, Theodora could not decide. No one attempted to draw her into conversation which was, in any case, spasmodic.

  When the telephone rang the entire table jumped. Inspector Bottomley reached down beside her chair into her immense briefcase, took out her mobile phone and clamped it without embarrassment to her ear. After a moment she handed it to Theodora. ‘For you. A man’s voice. Strong Welsh accent. Won’t give a name.’

  Theodora, who had a highly developed sense of etiquette, was momentarily at a loss. What were the conventions, governing mobile phones, other people’s mobile phones? By her code phone calls were best received in some privacy. She looked round the table and saw a circle of expectant faces. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she murmured and, clasping the novel instrument, marched from the room.

  Guy’s voice was unmistakable. ‘Theo,’ he said, ‘I haven’t long. Can you check the will for me and then tell the rest, or at least Angus?’

  ‘The will?’

  ‘My grandad’s. Whoever killed Ruth has me next in mind, so you’ll have to get your skates on.’

  ‘Guy, the police have got Ruth’s killer. They think Tom Bough was responsible.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Bough.’

  ‘The silly beggars. That nail in the skull. It meant what it said. Death to those who oppose Bellaire, if I’m not mistaken. And Father Augustine was not my grandad’s friend.’

  ‘Guy, there’s another possible interpretation.’

  ‘No there isn’t. Look, my grandad’s solicitors are in Harrogate, Broadbent and Helliwell. Senior partner died just before grandad, but someone must be dealing with it. Get in touch, could you? Verify the details of the last – got that? – the last will. Can’t be more than eighteen months old. Grandad told me. Believe me, I know what I’m saying.’

  ‘Guy, come back. Come and deal with it yourself, tell the police what you know.’

  ‘Nope. I’m going to keep out of the way until they’ve got it sorted.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  The line had gone dead. Theodora stood for a moment in the corridor not knowing which way to turn. Finally she went back into the diningroom. Six pairs of eyes looked expectant.

  ‘Guy,’ she said as nonchalantly as possible. ‘Just phoning to say he’s well. We’re not to worry about him.’ She looked at Inspector Bottomley.

  The latter was not pleased. ‘You might have passed him across,’ she said bitterly. ‘The little tyke. I need his stat
ement, as well he must know. Where is he?’

  Theodora was apologetic. ‘I’m afraid he didn’t say.’

  ‘Can’t you trace the call?’ Mrs Lemming asked. She’d read detective novels in which this was regularly and easily done.

  ‘Not with a mobile unless we know they’re coming and not always then. The only certain thing we can say is that it can’t be more than twenty miles away because it wouldn’t come through if it were. I dare say we’ll pick him up soon enough. I’ve got a call out for him and the travellers’ van.’

  Angus cleared his throat. ‘I don’t know if you have any particular van in mind, Inspector, but at this time of year there tend to be a number of travellers coming down to the well. They come to the St Sylvan’s Day celebrations which fall this year on this coming Friday.’

  ‘If need be we’ll question the lot,’ said Inspector Bottomley grimly. ‘I don’t mind telling you, Mr Bootle, as I said this morning, there are aspects of this case with which I am far from happy.’

  Mr Clutton Brock leaned forward and looked Inspector Bottomley in the face. ‘I suppose all you liberal women are the same, soft on crimes of passion.’

  ‘I am not a liberal woman, Mr Clutton Brock, if you mean anything by that phrase. I am a police inspector and I like nice tidy cases with all the evidence laid out so that the Crown Prosecution Service can’t make a pig’s ear of it. We all want justice, I imagine?’ She glared round the table. ‘Well then. Justice depends on having got at the truth.’ With that she reached down for her bag and departed.

  Angus felt grace was called for and several of the older pilgrims realised an urge for an afternoon nap.

  Theodora, stretched out under the mulberry tree in the garden, reflected on the place, time and problems which confronted her. She allowed her eye to wander round the space. The espaliered apple and pear trees cast a net over the stone wall. Their shadows were starting to creep over the beds towards the lawn. The mulberry’s fruit was beginning to fall in the final heat of summer. Away by the back door she could make out the earthenware pots of herbs. Ruth had known and loved, planted and cherished the garden. A virgin in a garden – an image of a complete world. A tree the leaves of which drop to form its own self-sustaining compost, another such. The kitchen was a domain, a serene and ordered kingdom, and beyond it lay the round pool, a cosmic centre in which Ruth had perished. We are made by places, we cannot remain indifferent to them, Theodora thought. The Church knows that, or used to. Certainly Bellaire had known it, that was his genius, his contribution to the Kingdom. Tussock recognised it and jumped in to populate it, to spread its benefits more widely. But in the course of that had come some flaw, some fault or fall in the Eden.