The Good Priest

by Gillian Galbraith

  ‘’Lo, Father,’ the man repeated brightly.

  ‘Fancy seeing you here,’ the priest whispered.

  Michael Templeton kept his eyes downcast when the priest took the seat opposite him. He was pale, but no paler then when living at home, and his upper lip sprouted fine, fair hair like the cobwebby down on a half-fledged squab. He drummed his fingers silently on the table, the nails bitten to the quick, dried blood visible where his nibbling had gone too far. An old Tourette’s symptom had returned, and every few seconds he raised his chin and cleared his throat energetically. For a second, the priest caught a glimpse of the little boy he had first met, brow furrowed in concentration, sucking on his paintbrush as he completed his mother’s birthday card.

  ‘Is my mum OK?’ he asked, peering upwards slightly but not meeting Father Vincent’s eyes.

  ‘She’s fine, managing well. You’ve no need to worry about her, Michael. How are you getting on yourself, in here?’

  ‘All right,’ he replied, eyes back on the table.

  ‘Are they feeding you OK?’

  ‘I get by.’

  ‘Sleeping all right?’

  ‘No – but I’ll get used to it. I miss my own bed.’

  ‘You’ll be pleased to hear that the boy’s out of hospital, the one you hit. He’s got a cast but otherwise he’s fine.’

  ‘OK. Good.’

  Despite the priest’s continued attempts, the conversation, more or less stillborn, died in minutes. Throughout, the boy’s fingers continued drumming, their rhythm broken only by extended bouts of throat-clearing. Looking at him, Father Vincent was reminded of a penitent puppy, tail down, glancing up every so often to ensure that no hand was raised against it. Suddenly, a toddler careered into their table, letting out a loud wail on impact. Apologising as she did so, his granny scooped him up into her arms and carried him, wriggling like a worm, back to the play-area.

  ‘Father,’ the youth said, finally raising his eyes, ‘will you tell me something?’

  ‘Of course, if I can.’

  ‘My mum will be all right, without me, won’t she? You’ll look after her?’

  ‘I will, I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  The boy smiled his gratitude, scratched the back of his head self-consciously, and then asked, with a spark of genuine vitality in his voice for the first time, ‘How’s Satan, prince of cats? I remember him when you first got him, when he was just a wee kitten.’

  As Father Vincent made his way out of the hall, working his way between the tables, he felt someone tug the hem of his anorak. Surprised, he wheeled round and found himself staring into a pair of pale eyes. They protruded from their owner’s face like those of a rabbit suffering from myxomatosis. Gazing at the man, he was sure he had encountered him before. A face like his would not be easily forgotten. Holding his gaze, the prisoner mouthed silently, ‘Visit me, Vincent.’

  On his table, he put both his hands together as if praying for the favour, then moving them upwards in supplication until they were opposite his chin.

  Still unsure who the man was, the priest nodded and carried on walking towards the exit. He tried to place the face, put it in its normal context. If he could do that, with luck a name would emerge from the mist. The prisoner was not one of his parishioners, not from Kinross, he was pretty certain of that. Had he met him on holiday, or at a conference somewhere, or on a retreat? Sparse, grey hair crowned a sloping forehead, above eyes as rounded and protruding as a couple of poached eggs and an unexceptional mouth merged into a receding chin. To whom did those features belong? He ought to know, because their owner had recognised him, called him by name.

  Standing outside on the pavement by the Edinburgh road, deliberately exhaling the stale air of the prison from his lungs as the traffic whizzed past, he cudgelled his brain for an answer. The information was, undoubtedly, in there somewhere. Frowning hard, he conjured the image of the man’s face in his mind’s eye again, trying to associate those features with something, anything that would give him a clue to the man’s identity. He sighed out loud when it came to him.

  ‘Penny for them,’ a beaming lady said in passing, wheeling her tartan shopping bag behind her. He neither saw nor heard her.

  Fig rolls, the man is associated with, of all disgusting things. Fig rolls. But with something else too. Something bleary and strangely unsettling, something disturbing. Anxiety, acute anxiety. Deep in thought, he set off northwards, heading along the Inch to his parked car. A chill wind had risen and his fellow pedestrians, muffled in their hats, scarves and gloves, rushed by, sensing that rain was in the air. Dark clouds were gathering in the sky above, preparing to unburden themselves, obscuring the sun and ready to turn day to night.

  ‘Mine’s a pint,’ Bertie said, clambering up his cage to get closer to the priest’s face. Fixing him with his intelligent little yellow eyes, he waited until Vincent had taken a seat and was apparently relaxed, then shrieked at him, as if he had been thwarted, ‘I said mine’s a bloody pint! Mine’s a bloody pint!’

  ‘Bertie!’ Sister Monica said, looking up from her copy of the Times Literary Supplement and frowning at the bird. Blinking at her, and as if responding to her shocked tone, the parrot closed his beak around one of the bars of his cage and began to twirl himself down it, eventually coming to rest on a perch less than a foot from the ground. From his new vantage point, he looked up at her as if genuinely cowed.

  ‘Anything interesting?’ the nun enquired, seeing the priest returning his letter to its envelope. They were seated opposite one another at a table in the communal sitting-room. Sister Clare, her Dyson temporarily parked by the TV, was doing her morning dusting. Two of the oldest members of the community, Sisters Frances and Jane, were sitting together in armchairs, whiling away their time before the first relaxation session of the day by playing a game.

  ‘If this person was a food, what sort would they be?’ Sister Jane asked.

  ‘A meringue. No, no, an Arctic Roll.’

  ‘And weather?’

  Sister Frances hesitated. ‘Mmm. Clear blue sky, and icy.’

  ‘Do you know of someone called Nicholas Rowe?’ the priest asked Sister Monica.

  ‘Author of the She-Tragedies, friend of Pope and Poet Laureate?

  ‘Doubtful. This one’s currently in prison. He saw me there a week ago, when I was looking in on someone else. He’s got permission for me to visit him. Got it all arranged for today, in fact.’

  ‘Are you going to go, then?’

  ‘I’ll have to, I think. He used to work for James, before …’

  ‘If they were a piece of music?’ Sister Jane persevered, looking baffled, sufficiently intrigued to neglect her crossword.

  ‘Elgar – “Pomp and Circumstance”.’

  ‘I’ve got it,’ Sister Jane said, rising from her seat, then turning round to smooth its creased loose covers, ‘it’s Prince Charles, isn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ Sister Monica interjected, unable to resist, ‘it’s Margaret Hilda Roberts or Thatcher – obviously.’

  As Sister Frances was now bent double with a coughing fit, all Sister Monica got by way of a reply was a fleeting thumbs-up.

  ‘You weren’t even supposed to be playing,’ said Sister Jane peevishly.

  ‘Mine’s a fuckin’ pint, boyo! A fuckin’ pint, you drongo!’ Bertie squawked, clambering up his bars again to glare at the priest again, as a passing nun flicked an orange duster at his head.

  ‘Where do you go from there, my feathered friend?’ Sister Monica enquired pertly of the bird, and added, by way of explanation to Father Vincent, ‘He is, fortunately, unacquainted with the C-word – the one derived from coney.’

  ‘C-word, C-word!’ the parrot trilled, before getting his revenge on Sister Clare, making her jump by producing a perfect facsimile of the sound of her Dyson roaring into life.

  Had Vincent Ross no sense of duty he would not have visited Nicholas Rowe. On the rare occas
ions they had met he had instinctively disliked him, never understood him. But he could not plead lack of time or even an alternative engagement, because in his new, slow-motion life, he had almost nothing to do. Why the man might want a visit from him, he could not fathom. They hardly knew each other, and apart from the priesthood had little in common. From their few past encounters in the Bishop’s office, he was almost sure that his own lack of friendly feeling was reciprocated. In character, Rowe had the reputation of being the administrator’s administrator; someone whose eyes lit up at the thought of well-kept files, efficient data storage and information retrieval systems; a mind happy devising new and improved protocols and processes, revelling in the world of audit and regulation and worshipping at the altar of health and safety. Faced, however, with a living, breathing person, he would recoil like a hermit crab from a probing finger.

  For decades he had been employed in the diocesan office, and he had become so indispensable that the Bishop’s own ability to read a spreadsheet, draw conclusions from a financial report or reconcile accounts had withered away, shrivelled from disuse. In the diocesan office Nicholas Rowe had reigned supreme, was deferred to by all, and, unthinkingly, had intimidated most of the parish priests in the diocese, including Vincent. He had, long ago, classified, and dismissed, the little priest as just another ‘people person’, a damning epithet in his view.

  His own particular strength, in his mind, was his skill at information-gathering, something fundamental to all efficient operations. For that reason, and that reason alone, he knew everything there was to know about everybody. He did not gather the information himself, his lack of charm making him incapable of doing so, but relied instead on his secretary, Miss Boyars. A middle-aged, devout spinster in thrall to her boss, she had a deep interest in people, and was described by him to others as an ‘inveterate gossip’. But, ruthlessly, and on a daily basis, like a dairy farmer with an old Friesian cow, he milked her for information.

  Routinely they had elevenses together. Beaming at her over the instant coffees and fig rolls, he watched as she blossomed in the warmth of his smile. Sipping from his cup, he would invite her to share any particularly exciting titbits with him. Eager to please, she never failed, handing over her little store of tittle-tattle in exchange for his approval, and considering it a very fair return. Unlike him, the minute the gossip left her mouth she had forgotten it. Later, she would be surprised herself by the extent of his knowledge about Father X or Father Y. How did he do it, she wondered, looking at him with renewed respect. The answer, for a man like him, was of course, simple. He had created a large database he called ‘Gold Dust’ to which she did not have access. All her offerings had been meticulously tabulated, with details of the original source, the content, the date on which it had been imparted. Then, a single letter had been allocated to each item. ‘A’ signified ‘reliable’, ‘B’ signified ‘probably reliable’ and ‘C’ signified ‘possibly unreliable’.

  The administrator’s career had ended, dramatically, with his conviction for paedophilia. The offences for which he had been imprisoned had occurred in the 1980s during a brief period spent as a teacher of maths at a private school. On hearing the charges against him he had immediately responded by admitting his guilt. He had, he knew, no defence.

  In prison, he whiled away his waking hours as a librarian, attempting to improve the cataloguing system and compiling, for his own amusement, a chart correlating types of offenders with types of books. The ‘beasties’, those like him imprisoned for sexual crimes, had an unexpected penchant for Catherine Cookson, he was delighted to discover. The embezzlers tended to go for Jeffrey Archer, and the thieves for Danielle Steel. Everyone inside, without exception, liked Jeremy Clarkson. Most of the time he was either bored or afraid but, to date, he had managed to avoid assault by the simple expedient of allying himself to the biggest bruiser that he could find. His letter-reading and letter-writing skills functioned as a currency in the prison, and after one of his letters resulted in a lawyer reconsidering the prospects of an appeal, he was looked upon with awe by his fellow inmates. That feat had earned him the nickname ‘Judge Rowe’.

  ‘I saw you, Vincent,’ he said, sounding excited, eyes round as golf balls, ‘and I couldn’t resist, just couldn’t resist, getting you back. I can’t tell you how dull it is in here.’

  ‘Yes, I expect it is a bit lonely,’ Father Vincent began, already unsure where this conversation was going.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m bored, not lonely! Why would I be lonely?’

  ‘I imagine it takes time to find friends …’

  ‘I don’t need friends, Vincent. I never have. I need interest, stimulation, neuronal activity – news. Have you any news for me?’ Rowe fingered his ear lobe intently as if to check that it had not disappeared.

  ‘Mmm …’ Father Vincent Ross said. Then, remembering Dennis May’s murder and considering it likely that Rowe might know him too, he added, ‘Dennis May’s dead – murdered. It was in the Scotsman.’

  ‘My, my,’ Rowe replied. ‘Him too. I’d heard about Callum Taylor, Lizzie Boyars told me in her last letter, but not him. Of course, the bad boys are all in the book. Mind, so am I by now, I expect. You too, probably, come to think of it. We might be next to each other, back to back, with “R” for Ross and “R” for Rowe.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Father Vincent asked, not following this thread at all.

  ‘In the book, the Secret Archive,’ he replied. ‘May was in it for … let me think … no, easy. Same as me, but he was compulsive. He’d had psychotherapy, been counselled, in treatment with the Servants of the Paraclete, the works, but … he was, as I say, unstoppable. As he was never laicised they kept tabs on him forever. They had to, of course. Callum Taylor was different – he “fell in love” with a sixth-year pupil and they moved him on, obviously, but it didn’t work. Eventually the pair of them lived together for a bit – not in Bo’ness, I think, but somewhere up north.’

  ‘You’re in this book too?

  ‘Certainly. I expect so. Not that I made the entry this time, another hand will have attended to that.’

  ‘And I’ll be in it too?’

  ‘Well, after your misdemeanours … we get the papers in here – well, all the tabloids, anyway. Frankly, Vincent, the way you have been behaving! I don’t know how you managed to keep it all under wraps for so long. Word usually gets out, doesn’t it? Almost always! But I had no idea, no idea at all, and Lizzie was as good as useless.’

  ‘Lizzie?’

  ‘Busy Lizzie, my secretary. You goat! Come to think of it, you’ll not be in that book. Another one, maybe, but not the green leather-bound tome I’ll be in with May, Taylor and the rest of them.’

  ‘Why will I be in a different one?’

  ‘Because it was taken, stolen from the office, from James’s office when he was attacked. Your misdemeanours came after that, didn’t they? Well, the exposure of them, anyway. So you’ll be in a brand-new volume, I expect. A red one, instead of the old green one, perhaps? You might be the first entry on the otherwise white pages.’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘Now, I’d like some chocolate, please.’ He held out both hands, cupping them like a beggar. ‘From the vending machine. You’ll have money on you, eh?’

  ‘Not a bean. Cocoa or otherwise,’ Vincent replied, rising, getting ready to leave.

  That evening, in his room at the Retreat, Father Vincent dragged the cardboard box out from under his bed. The first bottle which came to hand was a Chilean Merlot with a screw-top. He filled the glass to the brim, feeling he had earned it after his meeting with Nicholas Rowe. The man was corrupt, unclean and completely unrepentant. No spoon was long enough to sup with him, and he felt tainted by the meeting, having to listen to his excited words, seeing his unconcealed glee at Vincent’s own fall. But, perhaps, thanks to him, the puzzle had been solved. The man in the confessional, whoever he was, had crowed about two things. His first boast had been o
f killing the Bishop. But his second, at the time, had gone quickly from the priest’s mind, because it had not appeared to make any sense.

  ‘I got it. I got it – and that’s what really matters.’

  Now, it did. But only if Rowe’s tale could be relied upon, and that sick imp enjoyed power, gloried in his ability to manipulate others and would cackle with laughter at the very thought of sending a blind man into a labyrinth to stumble, trip and circle about for all eternity. Vincent would be that blind man. Hard facts alone could be counted on. There were three facts in this case. The Bishop had been attacked. Whoever had attacked him remained free and had boasted about getting, taking, something. Two men, both former priests and, allegedly, listed in the Secret Archive as paedophiles, had recently been murdered. But were those three facts connected?

  Looking out of his window, he took another swig. Briefly, his attention was caught by the sound of geese flying overhead, their liquid cries faint against the noise of the wind. A fraying skein was travelling northwards, a couple of stragglers hundreds of feet behind the main flock. Thinking about things, it was inconceivable that the Church would not have such a record. All that then needed to be confirmed was whether anything had been stolen from the Bishop’s office. Rowe’s word was not enough. Allan was the man to talk to; he would know, or, if not, he would find out.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Allan Ross was a sociable individual, extrovert and easy-going. He had many and varied allegiances and enthusiasms and, despite his hectic life, was rarely conscious of any conflict between them. In any event, living in the moment as he invariably did precluded any deep consideration of such matters. A good goal by Ryan Gauld or Gary Mackay-Steven at Tannadice Park could draw the sting from any marital argument, however heated it might have been. Returning home, exhilarated, belly replete with five cans of Tennent’s Special and a Chinese carry-out, his memories of the game kept him warm, oblivious to his wife’s habitual post-match frostiness.