Last Rights

by James Green

  Jimmy thought about it and what he thought he didn’t like. Then Philomena’s voice came back: ‘Just get on with it.’

  He tried his best to make his smile look genuine, he was better at it than he used to be, but it wasn’t easy.

  ‘Of course. It’s why I’m here.’

  Whether it was the words or the smile he didn’t know but she seemed to relax. Maybe the Scotch had kicked in. Whatever it was, she was herself for the first time since she had arrived.

  ‘I run an Outreach Programme and a chaplaincy. I operate from an office at St Nicodemus church. The funding comes from my order, the diocese and the government.’ She paused. ‘Not that any of that matters, I suppose.’

  She stopped and looked at her handbag for support.

  This is going to be an uphill struggle, thought Jimmy. He tried to get her back on track.

  ‘Don’t worry about how it comes out. Just talk it through, we’ll put it together in the right way later on, just talk and let yourself get where you’re going. And don’t worry about me, I have nothing but time.’ He tried to lighten things up. He beefed up the smile into a grin and hoped it didn’t look like a leer. ‘I have nothing in my diary until Wednesday of next week, when I have to meet a nun,’ he nodded to the bottle, ‘and we still have your whiskey, so take all the time you need.’

  There was nothing weak about the smile this time. She seemed to pull herself together and suddenly looked a little more confident and almost in control.

  ‘As I told you, I run an Outreach Programme and a chaplaincy. There was a young man who came to the chaplaincy, a third-year student at the university. He was studying Art History. He wasn’t a Catholic but he came anyway,’ she paused, ‘not that you have to be a Catholic, there’s no…’ Jimmy could see she was in danger of conking out again. He heaved a mental sigh.

  ‘Go on, you’re doing fine.’

  ‘I’m not, I’m doing dreadfully. Now you can see why I was nervous, why I needed the Scotch.’ She glanced at the bottle. ‘Not that it seems to have done any good. I’m sitting here telling a complete stranger who I’ve made travel all the way from Rome that I think someone’s been murdered and I’m making an awful mess of doing it. I don’t know what you must think of me.’

  Just as well you don’t know, if it wasn’t for Philomena I’d probably have thrown you out by now, was what Jimmy thought. What he said was, ‘Do you want another drink?’

  ‘God, no, if one won’t help, more would probably make me worse.’

  Jimmy got things going again.

  ‘What sort of bloke was he, this student?’

  ‘He was a happy sort and a good mixer, and he seemed well adjusted not in the least neurotic, not in any sense uncomfortable with who he was. Then he committed suicide. At least that’s what the police said, suicide. But they’re wrong, Mr Costello. Marvin didn’t commit suicide, he wasn’t the sort.’

  ‘How can you be sure, are you an expert?’

  ‘No.’ She paused to think about it. ‘Or maybe I am. I might be, if being an expert means having to be able to make judgements about the emotional and mental state of others, others who can have had stressful experiences and suffer from emotional conflicts. I have no clinical training but I have my Outreach and chaplaincy training and I have my experience. Regrettably, in my line of work I am not a complete stranger to suicide and those who exhibit suicidal tendencies. Marvin Brinkmeyer certainly wasn’t suicidal.’

  ‘Maybe something happened, ditched by a girlfriend, money problems? These things happen and young people respond in ways you and I might find hard to understand or explain.’

  ‘Marvin didn’t have a girlfriend, he wasn’t in any kind of relationship - not a sexual one anyway. And he had no money problems. His parents were wealthy and as far as Marvin was concerned, generous.’

  ‘Maybe it was drugs…’

  ‘Mr Costello, I wouldn’t have brought you all this way if I wasn’t certain Marvin Brinkmeyer was murdered.’

  ‘OK, you’re convinced. Convince me.’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Marvin Brinkmeyer didn’t commit suicide because he was about to become a Catholic. He had been receiving instruction from a priest friend of mine and was due to be baptised the week after he died. He was excited and happy about it. And if that isn’t enough then I can tell you that the reason he wanted to be a Catholic was because he wanted to apply for training for the priesthood. We talked about it a lot. He wanted to become a Dominican, he had actually stayed at a Dominican priory a few times. He had been told that there was a very good chance he would be accepted if he applied for training. He was a happy, well-adjusted young man who knew what he wanted to do with his life. I talked to him the day before he died and he was full of the future, he was looking forward to it. He was definitely not suicidal.’

  She stopped and looked at him. Jimmy waited then realised that was it.

  Jimmy turned it over in his head. A student tops himself, a nun doesn’t want to accept it, so he gets dragged halfway round the world. It wasn’t his idea of a sensible use of his time but he pressed on.

  ‘Have you spoken to the police?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They’re sticking to suicide.’

  ‘Has anyone else questioned the suicide that you know of? The university authorities, friends?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I don’t see what I can do. I have no status of any kind so I can’t just pop up in Vancouver and start my own investigation. Why would anyone co-operate even if I did? I can’t talk to the police, because you say, other than your own judgement of him and his state of mind, you have no evidence. I don’t see what you think I can do.’

  ‘I’ve thought of that, I discussed it with Sr Philomena. Whoever killed Marvin must be connected with the university or the chaplaincy.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because who else is there? Marvin had his studies at the university and his social life was bound up with the chaplaincy. There was nothing else. There has to be a connection.’

  ‘Only because you say so.’

  ‘I knew Marvin very well, believe me, there was nothing else.’

  ‘What about his family?’

  ‘He never spoke of them and stayed in Vancouver during vacations.’

  ‘You said they were wealthy.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yes, wealthy and generous.’

  ‘I must have assumed that. Marvin seemed to have plenty of money. He didn’t have a part-time job like some students. He dressed well, owned a car, travelled. I assumed his parents gave him an allowance, a generous one.’

  ‘But he never spoke of them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Doesn’t that seem odd to you? Wealthy parents who are generous to him yet he never mentions them and doesn’t go home to visit during the vacations?’

  ‘Yes, now you’ve pointed it out I suppose it is odd.’

  ‘Maybe that was the reason. If he’d rejected his parents or they’d rejected him that might have been what it was all about.’ That stopped her dead in her tracks. ‘On the outside he’s a normal, happy kid but inside there’s something eating away at him which he’s buried deep down and won’t confront. One day it surfaces and, bingo, he’s dead.’

  ‘No, you’re wrong.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he didn’t own a gun. They say he shot himself but he had no gun.’

  ‘Are guns so hard to get in Canada? And if they are, he only had to pop across to America. The way I hear it over there they give them away with breakfast cereal.’

  ‘It wasn’t a handgun, it was a shotgun. It was fired while the barrel was in his mouth and blew part of his head off.’

  They both sat in silence for a second, Sr Gray unable to imagine what that must have looked like and Jimmy able to picture it all too easily. He’d seen shotgun deaths in his detective days and they were never pretty.

  ‘Look, Sister, he puts the gun into
his mouth and blows his head off. It has to be suicide, it can’t be anything else if that’s how it happened.’

  ‘That’s what the police said.’

  ‘And they were right.’

  ‘No, they were wrong and you’re wrong. Sr Philomena believed me, why won’t you?’

  ‘Because I’m not Philomena.’

  She just sat and looked at him. Inside his head the voice still said, ‘Get on and give her the help she needs.’

  ‘Why did Philomena believe you?’

  ‘I don’t know, but she did.’

  Shit, thought Jimmy, there’s nothing in this, just a bit of wishful thinking. It’s a waste of my time. Then he suddenly changed his mind.

  ‘OK, I agree with you. There’s something to look into, there’s more to this than a tragic suicide.’

  The surprise showed on her face. ‘What made you change your mind?’

  ‘I haven’t. I still think it’s suicide but now I think it’s not just suicide.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t follow you.’

  ‘Philomena didn’t send me, she got someone else to send me and if I’m here it’s for a reason. I’m here to look into something and it must be connected to your student’s death.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She looked puzzled for a second then she brightened.

  ‘Actually I don’t care, so long as you look into it and find out what really happened.’

  ‘We still have a problem. How do I get to talk to people? Like I say, I can’t just pop up and start asking questions.’

  ‘Philomena and I worked that out, you’ll be on a placement with me. You’ll be training to run a lay chaplaincy and you came here to work alongside me.’

  ‘That’s no good, I wouldn’t know how to do that. People would see through it in a second.’

  ‘Why? You worked in the refuge Sr Philomena runs. That was social care.’

  ‘I was a cleaner and handyman.’

  ‘Not according to Sr Philomena.’

  ‘Anyway, don’t you have to be a nun or a priest to be a chaplain?’

  ‘There are lay chaplains these days and you did go to Rome to train for the priesthood, Sr Philomena told me you did.’

  ‘Yes, but it turned out to be a mistake.’

  ‘But you went to Rome, you even came here from Rome. We could say that you found you didn’t have a vocation for the priesthood so you decided to do Church social work and become a chaplain.’

  Jimmy didn’t like it but he could see it made some sort of sense. It would stand up as long as no one looked too closely, and it would put him alongside the people who knew the student, it was somewhere to start.

  ‘OK, I’m your assistant learning the ropes. How many students come to the chaplaincy?’

  ‘Not many, just a few.’

  ‘A few? You run a full-time chaplaincy for just a few students?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. It’s not a student chaplaincy. Weren’t you told what I do?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I run an Outreach Programme and chaplaincy to the gay community, to people who are homosexual, bisexual or transsexual.’

  Jimmy was too stunned to say anything or even think anything for a second. Then his brain kicked in and the penny dropped.

  That was why McBride had kept him in the dark and fucked him about on the journey. She knew damn well that if he had been told he was going to work alongside a load of queers, fairies and bloody sexual perverts he would have told her where to stuff the job. She’d made sure he was drawn into the whole thing in such a way that he couldn’t back out. God, she was a devious bitch.

  Then he calmed down. Well, she’d got her way as usual. Here he was. The question now was, what did he do about it?

  Chapter Nine

  The following day they had arranged to meet at ten thirty, when Sr Gray would drive him to the chaplaincy. Jimmy was in his suite waiting and on the phone to Rome.

  ‘If I had told you, Mr Costello, would you have gone?’

  ‘Not bloody likely.’

  ‘And if Sr Lucy Gray had met you at the airport and explained…’

  ‘I would have been on the next flight home.’

  Professor McBride laid on the shocked indignation with a trowel.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re homophobic, Mr Costello, that you’re prejudiced against people just because their sexual orientation is different from your own?’

  Jimmy took the mobile away from his ear and looked at it for a second then put it back. Somehow he could never get angry over the phone.

  ‘Look, I don’t like sexual deviants. If that makes me homophobic then, yes, I am homo-bloody-phobic. And the reason I didn’t tell you how I felt about that sort of thing was because I never got the chance, did I?’

  She couldn’t keep the smug satisfaction out of her voice.

  ‘Well, now you’re there you must work to overcome your bigoted and un-Christian attitude. Think of it as an opportunity to grow spiritually and morally, an opportunity to mature areas of your social development which are still rooted in the Catholicism of your London-Irish childhood.’

  ‘Leave Kilburn out of it.’ McBride waited while he thought about things. ‘It’s important, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it has to be me?’

  ‘It has to be you.’

  ‘And working with this Gray woman is the only way in?’

  ‘You working with Sr Gray is the only way that I could see, and believe me, I looked. I guessed how you’d react and if I could have got you on the inside of this in any other way I’d have done so.’

  Jimmy believed her, up to a point. She never told an outright lie, but she could and did bend the truth to get the same result.

  ‘When did Philomena get in touch?’

  ‘She began looking for you about three months ago immediately after she had attended a conference in Dublin, Catholic Care in the Wider Community. On that conference she shared accommodation with Sr Gray. Sr Philomena was to give a paper on her work in Paddington and Sr Gray one on her work in Vancouver. They were from the same Order and had mutual friends so sharing a room seemed the sensible thing. They obviously talked about their work and Sr Gray’s problem with the young man must have come up. Sr Gray needed help and Sr Philomena thought of you and after she went back to London she began to make enquiries. I, of course, followed up on why someone was looking for you. When I found out who it was I contacted Sr Philomena. She explained and I agreed to get you to go to Vancouver and meet with Sr Gray.’

  ‘That’s a lot of effort just because an old friend of mine makes enquiries about me. There must have been something else, something to make it worth your while shoving your oar in.’

  ‘I already knew about the young man.’

  ‘That he’d committed suicide?’

  ‘Yes, and that Sr Gray had been to the police claiming it was murder.’

  Jimmy lined it all up and the light came on.

  ‘It was all a bloody set-up.’

  ‘Of course it was.’

  ‘You wangled them both onto that thing in Dublin and saw to it that they shared a room because you guessed they’d talk about the suicide and wanted Philomena to contact me to help.’

  ‘Good heavens no, I couldn’t leave it to chance. They might have talked about anything.’

  ‘Then how did you make sure that…’ The light grew brighter and Jimmy saw it all. ‘Of course, you were there, you wore your college professor’s hat and made sure you got invited. You stage-managed the whole thing. It must be very bloody important if you set up a whole ruddy conference.’

  ‘No, I merely adapted an existing one so that it would suit my purpose. I arranged to be invited to give a workshop on the Social Manipulation of Poverty by Government Agencies in the Developed World. It actually is rather a pet subject of mine. I also arranged for two places to suddenly become available and Sr Philomen
a and Sr Gray to be offered them. All expenses were paid and qualified relief staff supplied to cover for them so they were happy to come at short notice. I spent quite a lot of time with them both and we spoke a great deal about the tragic death of the young man and what Sr Gray might do.’

  ‘How come you knew about the student?’

  ‘About a month before he died he stayed for the weekend at a Dominican priory.’

  ‘Sr Gray told me he was thinking about becoming a priest.’

  ‘A friar, Dominicans are friars.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘He asked one of the friars what would happen if it turned out that the Church owned stolen art treasures. He said it was for a book he was thinking of writing, a crime-thriller with an art background.’

  ‘But the friar didn’t believe him.’

  ‘He had his doubts.’

  ‘Which he shared with someone else, and finally you were told to sort it out.’

  ‘I was asked to look into it. Maybe there won’t be anything to sort out. Who knows, perhaps he really was writing a novel.’

  ‘What about the suicide?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘According to the Gray woman he blew his head off with a shotgun. It has to be suicide.’

  ‘Does it?’

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t go all fey on me. Did he kill himself or was he murdered?’

  ‘Mr Costello, why do you think you’re in Vancouver? If I could answer your question with any certainty I wouldn’t need you there. Just get on with it, get the job done.’

  ‘What job?’

  ‘Find out what the student knew, if anything. See if there’s any truth at all in it. If there is, try to find a way to…’

  Jimmy waited but the phone remained silent.