Black Light

by Bedford, K. A.

“So, Mrs Black,” the inspector opened, once he’d made himself as comfortable as he could on the nasty folding chairs, “why don’t you tell me about your relationship with Father William?”

  I sighed, and said, “We had no relationship!” Campbell shot me a look indicating I should await permission before speaking. He made me feel like a child, but I supposed his caution served a useful purpose.

  Carmody and Sills were exchanging glances. Sills showed Carmody typed documents from the folder; he had quite a bundle of them, as well as another folder containing what looked — and smelled — like burnt paper. I guessed that these were witness statements, and so forth. The inspector looked at Campbell. “Mind if I ask her another?”

  “Let’s hear it first.”

  “Mrs Black — do you know one Mrs Eileen Rioli?”

  Campbell nodded slightly. I said, “I do, of course. She’s Father William’s housekeeper. Everybody knows her.”

  Carmody was reading through Mrs Rioli’s statement. “She tells us that the late Father William often spoke of you.”

  Campbell said, “He was the town priest. He would have spoken of just about everyone — ”

  The inspector revealed his teeth. “I’m prepared to concede that point, Mr Campbell. Fair cop. However … ”

  Campbell asked, “My client does not have all day. She has other commitments.”

  The policemen once again exchanged looks. Carmody said, “Mrs Rioli tells us that Father William had, shall we say, strong views about you, Mrs Black. Were you aware of these views?”

  Campbell gave me permission. I said, “He and I did not get on well, no.”

  “Mrs Rioli quotes Father William in her statement. She says that he said — ”

  “A learned policeman such as you would surely be aware of the rules governing hearsay testimony …?”

  Carmody shot my lawyer a glance that would have cut bricks. He went on. “Let’s just say, the deceased spoke of you often, and never kindly. He believed you were an ‘abomination’ — ”

  “That’s lovely,” I commented.

  “ — and indeed a ‘disgrace to your father’s good name, and a disgrace to English womanhood!’ ”

  I did not know quite what to say to this; I could not entirely suppress an embarrassed laugh. I knew the old bugger didn’t like me, but I did not know his feelings ran this deep. Though perhaps, I thought, I should have, based on everything I’d learned so far.

  “You find these proceedings amusing, Mrs Black?”

  “Not at all, I’m sorry. I just … Oh dear. That poor man.”

  “Pity from the lofty Mrs Black, Sergeant,” Carmody said. “Do make a note of that.”

  Sills nodded and scribbled in his notebook.

  So it went.

  Later, Carmody was hammering at me: “You did hate Father William, did you not, Mrs Black?”

  “No, Inspector. I did not. I am, however, learning to hate you.”

  “You hated this helpless old man, pillar of the community, a man who was poor by choice, who led a good and kind life — ”

  Campbell made a point of yawning. “Do get to the point, Inspector.”

  “He was helpless and he was old — and he was a living example of everything about the traditional Establishment that you have always rejected — isn’t that right?”

  Stunned, I hesitated a moment.

  “Isn’t it, Mrs Black? Isn’t that why you left England in the first place? Isn’t that why you live the way you do, flouting every convention, every standard, every shred of decency — ”

  I was on my feet before Campbell could stop me. “I did not kill that sad old man!”

  And as soon as I said it, I knew I’d blundered. Campbell sighed. Carmody grinned up at me.

  “Sergeant …?”

  “Already recording the statement, sir.”

  I sat, feeling at once furious and worried.

  “Turning back to the testimony of Mrs Rioli for a moment,” Carmody said quietly, looking as if he felt good about how things were going, “she remembers that that Father William was so upset by your physical assault on his person that, later that night, she had to call in Doctor Munz. He was that upset. We spoke to Dr Munz yesterday, too, since you were not forthcoming. He had to check back through his records, but he was able to verify that he had indeed seen the deceased that night, and said that the patient exhibited … ” He rummaged for another handful of paper. “Here we are. The patient exhibited signs of ‘extreme panic and anxiety’. Were you aware of this, Mrs Black?”

  “I was not … That all happened years ago,” I said, voice small.

  “Did you get that, Sergeant? She says she was not aware that she had almost killed the poor old bugger.”

  Campbell interrupted. “Inspector, I do not believe that you can draw that conclusion.”

  Sergeant Sills looked across at him. “Don’t get your silk knickers in a knot, mate. I’m not writing that.”

  “Moving right along, Mrs Black,” Carmody said. “Mrs Rioli, who sat up with Father William all that night, she said that at one point Father William said he held deep fears for his life.”

  “Pardon my French, Inspector, but bollocks!” I said, perhaps incautiously.

  “Sergeant?”

  “Bollocks, sir. Yes, sir.” He made a little show of spelling out the word in his very careful handwriting.

  Campbell murmured, “Is there a reason for me to be here today, or not, Mrs Black?”

  “I beg your pardon,” I murmured back.

  Carmody went on. He revealed that Father William, fearing for his life, confided to his housekeeper that night that he was worried that I, a mere novelist, would “do something” by way of “sorting him out”, in retaliation for my being banned from his church. It seemed Father William could not conceive of anyone taking such a banning in their stride. To him it was only one step below excommunication. It was about as grave a development as one could face. Banning was serious business. No truly pious person could take such a catastrophic shame and go on about the business of her life. The fact that I did, more or less, continue to go about my life, and for many years, not greatly troubled by the whole matter, only proved to Father William what he had said of me all along.

  “‘In his mind,’ Mrs Rioli continues, ‘it was only a matter of time before she’ — that would be you, Mrs Black — ‘struck back at him. And he swore he would be ready, even if it killed him!’ ” Carmody put the papers down and looked at me. He said, “You do seem to have quite an effect on people, Mrs Black.”

  “All my previous comments about hearsay evidence,” Campbell said, again, “continue to apply.”

  Carmody smiled at him, saying, “Hearsay evidence, Mr Campbell? I think not. Sergeant?” He glanced at Sills, who reached for the folder of burned pages, and passed it to Carmody, who opened it with the glee of a hungry man sitting down to a huge Christmas dinner. “Well, look what we have here, well well well … Just look at this!”

  “Anything you’d care to share with the rest of the class, Inspector?” Campbell said, eyebrow arched at Carmody’s nonsense.

  Meanwhile, it was hard to see, from where I sat, what the inspector found so exciting. As far as I could tell, that folder appeared to contain perhaps two dozen sheets of paper, all of them burned to some degree, and some of them almost completely. The smell was extraordinary. The pages I could see appeared to contain very bad single-spaced typing, from one edge of the paper to the other. Carmody sat there very carefully leafing through the pages, still very pleased with himself, and from time to time pointing out what must have been “good bits” to Sills, who smirked at me.

  “Very stimulating, yes, sir,” Sills said, allowing himself the smallest of smiles.

  Carmody went on. “What we have here, Mrs Black, is something of a miracle. In fact I think it’s fair to say that God was smiling down on us that night.”

  “Inspector? In your own time.”

  Carmody confected an apologetic manner. “Oh, I
am sorry. Yes, do make a note of my unprofessional manner, Sills. Now. What we have here is fragments from something we believe was called ‘The Book of William’.”

  “Indeed?” Campbell said. “And you are planning to give me a chance to examine this document exactly when?”

  “In due course, mate. In due bloody course. Now. It turns out Father William had something in common with you, Mrs Black. He fancied himself an author!”

  This did indeed surprise me. I turned to Campbell, who nodded. I said, “May I inquire as to what he wrote?”

  “Ah. Well. That’s a little bit hard to sort out, exactly. What we have here is all Mrs Rioli was able to retrieve from Father William’s incinerator on the night he died. We believe there once was a great deal more. Mrs Rioli tells us that the deceased was — ” He turned to a document in the file with all the transcripts. “‘He was always at it, for hours and hours, tapping away like a bloody maniac.’ Sound familiar, Mrs Black?” He leered.

  It did, I had to admit, sound only too familiar. But that meant that Father William had another typewriter besides the one he kept in his demon-trapping cellar. I looked at Campbell, who was making notes. I said to Carmody, “Yes, but what was he actually writing?”

  “We think it was a sort of memoir. Perhaps even a confession. I think you’ll find that that document tells you everything you need to know about Father William and his state of mind. I’m sure even a reasonably competent Crown Prosecutor could make something of all this lot.”

  “There’s only one small problem,” I said, trying to brazen it out. “I did not actually hate him enough to want to kill him. His banning did not bother me overmuch. I went up to Rockingham to attend Mass on those occasions when I felt the need. It … ” I felt Campbell staring at me.

  “Mrs Black?” he said, quietly.

  I had been doing it again, I knew. “Bad habit,” I said.

  We continued. My backside ached; my shoulders burned with pain.

  Campbell said, “Why, Inspector, if Father William felt so terrified of my client, did he then set about trying to inflict emotional torment upon her, and then even to extort money from her? Why would a terrified man do that?”

  Carmody leaned back. He said, not concerned in the least, “He wanted her to suffer as he was suffering. He was fighting back. It’s all there in the diary. It’s all there.”

  “Very well,” Campbell said, nodding, “Pass it over. Let’s have a look.” Carmody handed him the folder. As Campbell started leafing through the burnt pages with the greatest of care, I became aware of a familiar odour. The smell of Variel. Campbell looked up from his reading. He said, “But the extortion notes — ”

  Carmody reached across for the document. Campbell handed it back, and the inspector flicked to a certain page. “There you go, sunshine. Cop that!” He pointed at a lengthy passage, thick with overstrikes and corrections. Campbell squinted and read. After a moment, a little more pale than before, he looked at me. “I see,” he said, talking to Carmody but looking at me. He showed me the passage. It was all there. It made little sense, and was, from what I could tell, the ravings of a mind long past the last lights of sanity and out in the darkness of pure madness, but there was, nonetheless, a certain unhinged coherence to it. The salient point was that he described his extortion plan, and agonised about the notes and what to say in them. He talked about consulting Variel for suggestions.

  He tried to show Carmody, but Carmody swept it aside. “It shows enough, Campbell. It shows enough. It shows his state of mind. It shows he was mad with fury. It shows that your client was the cause of his madness. Your client and her deviant practices offended — ”

  I wanted to hit him. Campbell somehow sensed this and leaned across the desk. “There is no suggestion, Carmody, none whatsoever, that my client is anything but a decent, God-fearing War widow.”

  Carmody smiled, very pleased with himself. “Perhaps we should take a short break to allow the suspect and her brief to regain their composure, Sergeant?”

  “Sounds good to me, sir. I’d love a cuppa.”

  We took a short break. Campbell and I spent that break arguing, trying very hard not to shout, with each other. Campbell’s patience with me was wearing thin. He cautioned me again to not speak until he told me to. “Why am I even here?” he said. I told him I could defend myself against outrageous bullying swine like Carmody, and had been doing so all my life. We both talked about the surprise revelation of Father William’s “Book”.

  “How done for are we?” I asked.

  “All depends on what the magistrate thinks about it.”

  “Talking with a demon? Asking for style advice?”

  “Detailed, coherent planning. I would say, Mrs Black, that it could go either way.”

  “Why would he keep such a thing, though?” I said. “Why implicate himself?”

  Campbell said, “I didn’t get long to look through it. I think he might have been sick.”

  “Good God! What a bloody mess.”

  The interrogation continued in due course. The issue of my father’s death years earlier, and Father William’s surprisingly complete knowledge about my intimate family history, featured prominently. “How could the deceased possibly know all this?” Campbell asked. “Does it say anything about that in his book there? Does it say the ‘demon’ told him, perchance?”

  “As it happens, Campbell, no. It doesn’t talk about that. Clearly, he had a confederate either back in England or in France. This confederate could easily have located bits of information and sent it across by telegram, or even by post. Be dead easy.”

  Campbell raised his eyebrows at this scenario. He said, “So Father William used the business with the notes and the extortion bid to strike back at my client, of whom he was terrified?”

  “That’s the way we see it. And the evidence is right there, in his own words. Then again,” Carmody went on, “even if the magistrate throws out the the deceased’s own testimony, we’ve still got your client’s fingerprints all over the scene of the crime, showing she was definitely there, had her hand on the murder weapon, and clearly killed that dear old man in cold blood.”

  “Until such time as the print evidence arrives, Inspector … ”

  “We’ve got her dead to rights, mate. Say what you like. Theorise what you like. The fact is, she went to the priest’s cottage that night and she killed him.”

  “Why?” I said, furious again, but trying to keep from raising my voice. “Why would I? What could I possibly gain from killing this helpless old man?”

  “Put an end to the notes and the extortion, for one thing. Strike back at him for banning you. Those sound good to me. Murder’s been done for less than that, mark my words.”

  “But I didn’t care about the banning! And why would I wait all this time?”

  Campbell said, “I believe, Inspector, that you obtained testimony from Mrs Black’s staff on the night in question.”

  Carmody shifted in his seat and looked at Campbell. “And?”

  “Surely, Mrs Black’s own staff would remember how she felt about the banning. Would they not?”

  The inspector glared at Campbell. “They said, to the best of their recollection, considering it was some time back, she was upset and agitated afterwards. They said she stopped working on her precious bloody books, and slept poorly.”

  “They did?” Campbell said, sounding doubtful. “Which ones?”

  “Sergeant?”

  Sills pulled out another notebook from a coat pocket and started flicking through pages. “We asked each of them if they remembered anything about this from that time. Had there been any changes in Mrs Black’s behaviour? That kind of thing. Mr Rutherford said that Mrs Black was moody, slept poorly, ate poorly, and so forth. Miss Tool said, ‘Mrs Black’s like that all the time.’ Miss Hall said, ‘She works herself too bloody hard, that’s for sure, doesn’t look after herself properly, and doesn’t eat a proper diet and I’m always at her to make sure she gets her proper sl
eep, and she won’t listen to reason …’ It goes on like that at some length, I’m afraid.”

  “You omitted to report on my cook and her assistant, Sergeant.”

  “Er, what they said agrees with what the others said. I can read it back …?”

  Carmody frowned. “Thank you, Sergeant. I think we can skip that for the time being.”

  The interview went on. It made me think of trench warfare. There was my side and their side, and a deadly no-man’s-land stretched between us. Carmody fired his withering, repetitive questions at me; I shot back terse refusals; Campbell only sometimes interrupted to “prevent you hanging yourself!” We were making no progress. The truth was not unfolding. The truth, of course, from my perspective, could not unfold in this environment. Carmody knew there was something fishy about my relationship with the priest, and my movements that night, but he could not quite make his case fit together. He was getting even more agitated than I was, which surprised me. If the fingerprint evidence, once it arrived, was as solid as he seemed to believe, it would almost certainly convict me, regardless of all the extraneous business. Yet he did not look like a man who would soon win. I wondered, idly, during a moment when he and Campbell were shouting at each other, did Carmody really want to know all the occult business, as well? Just how seriously did he take the business in Father William’s diary about the demon and all of that? It would not be admissible, but it would make everything make a certain bizarre sense. Or almost so: there was still the question of why Father William changed the game that night. He had started out planning to milk money out of me by feeding me intimate details about my husband and father. But then he had chosen to have Variel kill him, hoping to implicate me. What changed his mind that night? Was it that he must have realised, after sending the note demanding the sum of one thousand pounds, that I had no chance of putting my hands on such a sum in the time allowed, but by then it was too late? Any why did he try to burn his precious book? To conceal his motives?

  Carmody, meanwhile, who really did look like a furious man stuck in a small box made of his preconceptions and biases, plainly wanted to see me convicted. I had the impression his motivation was not to serve justice, but to remove me from his tidy and ordered and conservative world. I was an aberration, and he had an opportunity to remove me from society. He and Father William, I saw, had very similar views when it came to people like me.