The Woodcutter

by Reginald Hill

  Hadda, who was pouring hot water into the coffee jug, paused and said slowly, ‘Now why should you imagine that bit of information holds the slightest interest for me?’

  ‘Well, she did used to be your wife, didn’t she? And I thought I’d mention it just to give you a forewarning against a potentially distressing and embarrassing chance encounter . . .’

  He was waffling, he realized, and he brought himself to a halt.

  Hadda stirred the coffee vigorously.

  Then he smiled.

  ‘That shows Christian foresight, Padre. Lead me not into temptation, eh? Talking of which, is that a bottle of Shiraz I see sticking out of that box? I don’t recollect putting that on my list.’

  ‘Sorry . . . I mean it’s a gift, it was on offer and I thought you might like it.’

  The addition of a packet of chews to the order had come to be accepted, and though Hollins would not have cared to put his relationship with Sneck to the test, the dog’s growl when he arrived was now anticipatory rather than minatory.

  For a moment the scowl on Hadda’s face made him fear the wine was going to be a gift too far.

  Then his features cleared and he said, ‘Thank you kindly. Much appreciated. But I really must ask you not to repeat the generosity. On the pittance the State allows me, I can’t afford to develop expensive habits.’

  ‘Come on, it only cost four quid,’ protested Hollins.

  ‘Nevertheless . . .’

  He poured the coffee and they drank in silence for a while.

  ‘So what are you doing for Christmas?’ asked Hollins.

  Hadda let out a snort of laughter.

  ‘Ask me again after I’ve had time to sort through all my many invitations. But, like I say, definitely no more gifts, eh? I’ll save the Shiraz for Christmas Day. As for a Christmas tree, well, I’ve got several thousand of those just over the wall in the estate.’

  The vicar looked at him in alarm and he said, ‘Relax. Only joking. Now look at the time. Got to dash off to see my PO, it’s have-you-been-a-good-boy? time again. Stick the rest of this stuff in the cupboard, will you?’

  He was on his feet and limping towards the door as he spoke. His parting request was tossed almost casually over his shoulder and suddenly Hollins felt himself greatly irritated. What he wanted to say was, ‘I’m not your bloody valet!’ but what he heard himself asking somewhat aggressively was, ‘Is that really how you feel about these sessions with your probation officer?’

  Hadda paused and looked back at him in surprise.

  ‘To coin a phrase . . . sorry?’

  ‘You always seem to refer to your meetings frivolously, as though they were nothing more than a necessary chore.’

  ‘Didn’t realize I did. Though, come to think about it, what else should they be?’

  ‘I don’t know. A time for self-assessment, perhaps. A time to quantify progress.’

  ‘Progress? From what? To what?’

  Hollins hesitated before replying. He hadn’t planned to go down this road at this stage in their relationship, but now he’d started, it would be cowardly to turn back.

  He said slowly, ‘From what and to what isn’t for me to say. But I do know what I’d call the actual journey. Repentance.’

  ‘Re-pen-tance,’ said Hadda, as though trying to commit to memory a new word in a foreign language he was learning.

  ‘Yes. I’m sure your prison psychiatrist, Dr whatsername . . .’

  ‘Ozigbo.’

  ‘. . . Ozigbo would have other terms for it, but that’s what the Church calls it. I should have thought it was an essential element in whatever process you went through to get here – outside, I mean, back in the community. To be honest, there are a lot of things I’ve seen in you during our short acquaintance. Fortitude, self-control, temperance, resolution. But I can’t say I’ve detected much evidence of repentance.’

  ‘So how would it show itself then?’ asked Hadda. ‘Hair shirts? Self-flagellation? Prayer and fasting? I think I could put my hand up for the fasting. Some nights I can’t be bothered to make myself anything more than a mug of coffee and a hunk of cheese. Does that count, Holy Father?’

  ‘You see, there you go,’ said Hollins wearily. ‘Putting up a front’s fine, but do it too much and the front becomes a fixture that no one, not even yourself, can look behind.’

  ‘Let me guess, that must be New Testament,’ said Hadda. ‘Nothing like that in the OT among all the smiting and begatting. I’m a bit disappointed, Padre. I was almost beginning to think you were a real post-modern priest – you know, to hell with old-fashioned preaching, let’s treat people like people. But if you’re going to revert to type, then you can sod off out of here and take your cut-price Shiraz with you! Think about it while you’re stacking my shelves.’

  He left the kitchen. Sneck, with what seemed almost like an apologetic glance back, followed him. A few minutes later, Hollins heard the Defender start up.

  After its clatter had faded down the lonning, he began to put the groceries away. Eventually only the wine bottle remained. If he left it, Hadda would think he’d caved in. But if he took it, then that could be the end of their regular contact. He half regretted his outburst, but only half. He’d found himself coming to like the man but he felt the danger in that, especially when the relationship was developing very much on Hadda’s terms. He recalled a seminar on the paedophile threat to the Church given by an elderly priest during his training course.

  ‘Never forget,’ the tutor had said, ‘paedophiles are among the most cunning creatures on God’s earth.’

  The man had spoken with the voice of experience. Currently he was serving two years for indecent assault on an altar boy.

  So he’d been right to confront Hadda, even if it was only to draw a line in the sand.

  But every particle of reason and judgment in him said that the man was OK, that his past was a closed book that would never be opened again. In fact, come to think of it, those medieval manifestations of repentance that Hadda had mockingly cited, weren’t they all around him? Living in this cold damp cheerless house, bathing each morning in the icy beck, surviving on the pathetic groceries that Hollins brought every couple of weeks, and which Hadda always paid for in full out of his social security pittance, weren’t these the modern forms of hair shirt and self-flagellation?

  Somewhere a mobile rang.

  His own was in his pocket. This had to be in the house. Upstairs, he worked out. Hadda must have forgotten it. Would be furious if it turned out to be his probation officer, cancelling their meeting.

  He started up the stairs to answer it but the ringing stopped before he was halfway up. It seemed as easy to continue as turn on the narrow staircase and he carried on up to the landing. Through a half-open door he saw the mobile lying on an unmade bed.

  After a moment’s hesitation, he went into the room and picked it up. The display said 1 message.

  He pressed the call button without thinking. Or without letting himself think.

  Listen to message?

  If it was his PO cancelling, he thought, maybe I can think of a way to intercept the Defender.

  He didn’t give himself time to deconstruct this piece of irrationality, but pressed again.

  The voice that spoke had a strong Scots accent.

  Hi. I’m at the villa! Dinner invite turned to ‘Stay as long as you like’. Christ. He’s done well for himself. All mod cons, swimming pool, jacuzzi. Very security conscious, big gate, high fence with what looks like razor wire on the top. All windows and doors fitted with metal security shutters that come down sharp when he presses the button. Could do with them to keep his wife at bay! She’s a nice little package of simmering hormones. After the second bottle of Rioja, she started eyeing me up like she was contemplating inviting me to share her paella. Wish I’d got one of them shutters on my bedroom door! I’m out of here soon as I can! I’ll stop off in London, see if there are any developments on the home front. It’ll be good to get back somew
here with a bit of life. You can keep the Costa Geriatica for me. I’m glad you’re paying for it. I’ll be in touch. Maybe I’ll even beard the Wolf in his lair on my way home. Cheers!

  What was that all about? wondered Hollins.

  He switched the phone off and laid it on the bed.

  Then he looked around the room.

  Not much furniture but maybe that was all there’d ever been. A bedside table, an ancient Lloyd Loom chair, a picture of what looked like a lumberjack on the wall, a wardrobe that looked as old as the rough-plastered wall it stood against.

  The door was ajar.

  Peering inside without opening it any further wasn’t poking around, was it?

  You should have been a Jesuit! he told himself pulling the door wide.

  Couple of rough shirts and two pairs of heavy trousers. And on the floor a cardboard wine box.

  He checked its contents.

  Half a dozen of Gevrey-Chambertin plus a couple of bottles of fifteen-year-old Glen Morangie.

  He thought of his four-quid bottle of Shiraz on the kitchen table. The cheeky sod had said he’d save it for Christmas! So where had this lot come from? Perhaps with the economy soaring to record levels once more, social security were being unusually generous with the Christmas bonuses.

  He looked round the room for other signs of unexplained affluence.

  Nothing obvious, but the blankets draped over the bed had been caught by something pushed underneath.

  He knelt down and pulled out an old metal chest, rusting at the corners, painted in flaking black enamel, with the initials W.H. stencilled on the lid in white.

  It felt quite heavy.

  There was a key in the lock.

  So, nothing to hide there, not with the key left in the lock . . .

  Why am I still looking for excuses? he asked himself.

  Surely that wine box is justification enough?

  He was still debating the point mentally as he turned the key and opened the box.

  It was full of money. Bundles of fifty-pound notes, neatly laid out four times six, and at least five layers of them, with a couple of bundles missing from the top layer.

  Oh hell! thought Luke Hollins, sitting heavily on the bed.

  Now at last he had something to take his mind off the vicarage boiler.

  7

  Wolf Hadda realized he’d forgotten his phone when he was halfway to Carlisle.

  Old age, he thought. Not that it mattered. The call he wanted to make was perhaps better made from the anonymous security of a landline rather as part of the babbling traffic of the air.

  Public boxes were thin on the ground these days and he was on the edge of the city before he spotted one. It occurred to him that in the years since he’d rung this number, it might well have changed. In fact it was answered almost immediately.

  ‘Chapel Domestic Agency, how can I help you?’ said a bright young voice.

  He said, ‘I’m looking for a woodcutter.’

  ‘Hold on.’

  There was a long silence then a man’s voice said, ‘Good day.’

  ‘And a good day to you too, JC.’

  ‘How nice to hear your voice. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I need something.’

  ‘Really? And what makes you imagine I may be in a giving mood?’

  ‘The fact that I’ve not been pestered by hordes of journalists lurking in the undergrowth. Only reason I can think of for that is editors have had their arms twisted. Only one old twister with that kind of strength I can think of.’

  ‘I’m almost flattered. But if I have already done so much for you, why do you think I should want to do more?’

  ‘Because having done so much suggests there’s a bit of guilt there, JC. How much, I’m not sure. Eventually I’ll find out, but till then you might feel the need to establish a bit more goodwill.’

  ‘Have you never heard of simple altruism?’

  Hadda replied with a silence more telling than laughter.

  ‘All right. What do you want?’

  ‘A couple of kilos of coke.’

  ‘I see. Any chance of giving a reason?’

  ‘Call it necessity.’

  ‘In that case, give me a moment.’

  ‘I’m in Cumbria, on the western outskirts of Carlisle, if you’re running a trace.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ said the man. ‘Which may in fact be pertinent. So, let me see . . . Ah, yes. Here we are. Now I think a couple of kilos might be difficult.’

  ‘A kilo might do, at a pinch.’

  ‘No, the problem is in the other direction. If you could make do with a hundred kilos, I might be able to help. In fact, geographically speaking, you are particularly well placed. Interested? If so, ring off and I’ll get back to you in a few minutes.’

  Hadda rang off and went to sit in the Defender. Three minutes later the phone rang.

  He answered it, listened, made a note, and said, ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Be careful. These are professional people. And you are not as young as you were.’

  ‘I’m not as anything as I was,’ said Hadda harshly and rang off.

  He got back into the Land Rover and drove away.

  As he negotiated the increasing traffic into the heart of the ancient city, he said to himself, ‘Now that was very easy. Just how guilty do you feel, JC?’

  8

  With her parentage, Alva Ozigbo felt she ought to be able to switch seasonally from a stoic indifference to the chills of winter to a sensuous enjoyment of summer heat.

  The truth was her slim Scandinavian mother hated to be cold and enjoyed nothing more than luxuriating in the scorching rays of a southern sun, while her bulky Nigerian father strode around in sub-zero temperatures wearing a short-sleeved shirt and at the first sign of milder weather started mopping his perspiring brow and turning up the air conditioning.

  Alva felt she’d got the worst of both worlds. She was no sunworshipper and she hated the pervasive chill of the wintry city.

  This evening as she returned home from work, the east wind that had been pursuing her like a determined stalker ever since she got out of her car managed to squeeze enough of its presence into the entrance hall of her apartment block to keep her shivering as she paused to check her mail box. It contained only one letter and as she saw the postmark, she shivered again.

  Cumbria.

  As far as she knew, she had only one connection with Cumbria.

  But she didn’t recognize this handwriting.

  Quickly she ran up the stairs to her second-floor flat. The central heating had already switched itself on and she turned her electric fire up high to give herself the thermal boost she needed.

  Then she sat down and opened the envelope.

  St Swithin’s Vicarage

  Mireton

  Cumbria

  Dear Dr Ozigbo

  I am sorry to trouble you but I need advice and, so far as I can judge at the moment, you are the best person to give it to me. I am vicar of St Swithin’s here in West Cumbria and since last November Wilfred Hadda has been one of my parishioners. Let me say at once I know that as he is a former, perhaps indeed a current, patient of yours, the usual strict rules of medical confidentiality will apply and I’m not about to ask you to do anything that may break them. All I can do is provide you with some information and ask for your expert guidance on what, if anything, I should do about it.

  I visit Mr Hadda every couple of weeks or so. While I can’t say his return was welcomed locally, after some initial violent reaction things have settled down considerably, helped by both the relative remoteness of Birkstane, his house, and also by Mr Hadda’s own self-prescribed remoteness. So far as I know, he has made no attempt to communicate with anyone in the parish. My own conversations with him have, on the whole, been at a fairly social level, but I haven’t evaded the subject of his offence and its consequences. While I’ve got the impression of a pretty calm and well-ordered personality (and to my surprise a rather engaging on
e, too), I am very aware that the baggage he carries must at times weigh heavy. One thing I didn’t spot, however, was any overt sign of remorse or repentance. When I put this to him he more or less told me to mind my own business.

  Now, in a very real sense, this is my business, and I cannot let my generally good impression of Mr Hadda and my respect for his rights come before my responsibilities to the rest of my parishioners. I want to be able to assure them with no reservation that I’ve found nothing in Mr Hadda’s attitude or behaviour to suggest he could ever be a threat to their families. I suppose it could be argued that the fact that he doesn’t wear remorse on his sleeve is a good sign. I mean, a paedophile still seeking the opportunity to offend would be at pains to advertise his change of heart, wouldn’t he? I’d be interested to hear what you have to say about that. But the reason I’m writing to you is that, whatever the state of his libido, I’ve come across something that suggests in his other sphere of crime, financial fraud, he may still be adept at concealment.

  Mr Hadda claims to be surviving on state benefit alone. But by chance when I was alone in his house yesterday I came across a crate of expensive wine and a box full of money. A lot of money. I didn’t count it, but it must have amounted to several hundred thousand pounds, in bundles of forty £50 notes, two of which seemed to be missing (= £4,000).

  I’ve thought about this and a possible explanation seems to be that when he was in business, knowing the risks he was running, he put aside an emergency fund, and hid it so well that the Fraud Squad investigation didn’t manage to turn it up. This implies a level of foreplanning and powers of deception that trouble me. I don’t know what to do. To talk to the authorities opens up the possibility that this has been a breach of his probation conditions, which would mean an instant return to jail. I don’t want that on my conscience. But if it is symptomatic of a naturally deceitful character, and if at some stage it turned out he was also concealing his old urges, and these burst out and resulted in damage to any of my parishioners, I could not easily forgive myself.