‘They sacrificed unto devils, not to God…’
‘Is that our man?’ I whispered to Surrender-not.
‘I don’t know, sir, though the officer at the local thana said the minister generally gives the Sunday-morning sermon.’
‘… I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.
‘They shall be burned with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction!’
You had to hand it to the Scots. They did fire and brimstone particularly well. Indeed, many of their clergy seemed fixated by the subject of hell. Maybe it was envy? After all, hell was a lot warmer than Scotland.
He came to the end of the reading and after a theatrical pause, started on his sermon, his voice rumbling like waves crashing on a beach. It grew louder, and if anything, deeper. Stewing in the torrid heat, my mind wandered back to countless other Sunday sermons. I had little time for God these days. If He couldn’t be bothered to turn up at my wife’s bedside when she needed Him, I didn’t see any reason why I should have to turn up at His house every Sunday.
I stopped listening but the gist was clear. We were fallen creatures, saved only from the fires of hell by a merciful God.
There was no breeze from the windows and the congregation wilted in their buttoned-down Sunday best. Finally, the sermon drew to a close and a palpable wave of relief passed over the congregation as the minister called on them to stand in prayer. He ended with a final, ‘Go in peace,’ as most of his flock turned and headed straight for the exit. He descended from his pulpit to bid them farewell and I waited until the pews had cleared before walking over to him.
‘Ah, a new face,’ he said as he broke out in a broad smile. ‘It’s always a pleasure to see new folk in the congregation.’
I introduced myself.
‘A pleasure to meet you, laddie,’ he said, taking my hand. ‘The name’s Gunn. I hope ye enjoyed this morning’s sermon.’
‘It made quite an impression.’
‘Good, good,’ he mused. ‘I expect you’ve just been posted to Calcutta, Captain. Well, we’re a small kirk but I’m sure you’ll be very happy here.’
He sensed my confusion.
‘The congregation,’ he explained. ‘It’s no’ large, but we’re very welcoming of newcomers.’
‘I’m sorry, Reverend,’ I said, ‘I’m here on official business.’
‘I see,’ he said, his expression sobering. ‘That’s a pity. We can always do with new blood.’ He gestured to Surrender-not. ‘I don’t suppose your native friend there would care to join?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Aye, that’s generally the case with the natives. It’s always the Catholics that get them,’ he said ruefully. ‘I expect it’s the theatricality of Catholicism that appeals to them. That and the incense. How am I supposed to save superstitious heathen souls for the true church, armed only with “Amazing Grace” and the King James Bible when the Catholics keep trotting out the bones of St Francis Xavier and new sightings of the Virgin Mary every other week?’
The true church. I wondered whether he meant all protestants or just the Church of Scotland? Judging by his sermon, it was probably the latter. If true, it raised the possibility that ninety-nine per cent of the people in heaven would be Scots. Suddenly hell didn’t seem such a bad option.
‘If I may, Reverend…’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, son,’ he said. ‘Tell me, what can I do for you?’
‘We have a few questions we’d like to ask you.’
‘Of course. You don’t mind if we continue this conversation while we walk? I’m needed at the orphanage in half an hour. It’s just down the road.’
I’d no objection.
‘I need to help out with the children’s tiffin,’ he said, striding towards the rear of the churchyard. He led the way across a dusty courtyard and into a small scrubby garden of yellow grass and a few tinder-dry shrubs.
‘So how can I help you, Captain?’
‘It concerns Mr Alexander MacAuley,’ I said. ‘I understand he was a friend of yours.’
‘That’s right,’ he said, moving briskly, ‘a good friend.’
‘When did you see him last?’
‘A few weeks ago, I think. Why? Is something wrong?’
‘Mr MacAuley was murdered five nights ago.’
Gunn stopped in his tracks.
‘I didn’t know.’ He stared at the ground. ‘May the Lord have mercy on his soul.’
TWENTY–FIVE
ORPHANAGES COME IN many shapes and sizes, all of them grim. This one was a rain-washed and tired-looking building exuding an aura of institutional neglect. It looked like it might once have been painted pink – depressing buildings such as these are often painted in bright colours – but that was a long time ago.
Gunn led the way up a flight of steps and into an unlit hallway. The sound of children’s voices emanated from behind closed doors somewhere nearby. Opening a door he ushered us into a tiny office that smelled of mildew and good intentions and afforded a view over the garden. An oversized mahogany cross hung from one wall and dominated a room barely large enough for the desk, chairs and bookcase that had been crammed in.
Gunn threaded his way past the desk to the window beyond. For some moments, he simply stood there staring at the grass.
‘Reverend?’
He snapped out of his reverie. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and made to take his seat behind the desk before suddenly stopping short. ‘We seem to be one chair short.’
Surrender-not offered to stand, but Gunn would have none of it.
‘Nonsense, laddie,’ he said with a wave of an arm. ‘Either we all sit or none of us do.’
He left the room and returned holding a small battered wooden chair, the kind made for schoolchildren. He placed it on the floor and sat down on it, leaving the full-sized chairs for Banerjee and me. He was a big man and shifted on the tiny seat, reminding me of a circus elephant balancing precariously on top of a brightly coloured ball. The sensible thing would have been to offer the chair to Banerjee, who was only slightly too big for it, but then religious men often have a streak of the martyr in them.
‘So how can I help you?’ he said eventually.
‘How did you come to know Mr MacAuley?’ I asked.
‘Now that, Captain, is a long story.’ He steepled his fingers and raised them to his mouth. ‘I first met him in Glasgow, it must be about twenty-five years ago now. We were young men then. He was a clerk in one o’ the shipping companies. I met him through Isobel, his wife, not that they were married then. She was a friend of mine. A beautiful lassie she was. I’d known her for years.’ He paused, smiling to himself. ‘I was keen on her mysel’ but she never saw me in that light. Aye, she liked them tall did Isobel, and I was wee bit short for her. One day she introduced me to this new beau of hers, a fellow named MacAuley. I don’t mind telling ye, at first I thought he was an arse. But as I got to know him, I have to say, I developed a grudging respect for him. He was smart as a whip, and idealistic too.’
‘Idealistic?’
Gunn looked wistful.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Idealistic, but godless. He’d bang on about the rights of the working classes, and quote Keir Hardie’s speeches verbatim. Glasgow’s a radical place and Alec was in his element. As for Isobel, well, she worshipped him. He was tall and not bad lookin’, and of course there was that brain of his. And he doted on her. They were married within a year. Isobel fell pregnant soon after and Alec was cock-a-hoop. He didnae earn much in those days, and life was hard for them, but they were happy. The problem was, he’d strayed from the Lord. When it came to his politics, sure he could pack in two or three meetings a week, but he’d no time for Church on a Sunday.
‘Worse, he’d openly attack the Kirk, accusing it of being a mere tool to keep the working classes in their place. I warned him to change his ways. As the Good Book says, For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own s
oul? I told him that if he carried on like that, the Lord would have His vengeance. And so it turned out.
‘About two months before the baby was due, Isobel took ill. The doctor diagnosed typhus but there was nothin’ to be done. Both she and the baby died. Alec was devastated. He shut himself off frae the world and things went from bad to worse. He took to the bottle, lost his job and fell behind with the rent. Eventually they kicked him out onto the street.’ He stared out of the window. ‘The Lord can be furious in His anger.’
From outside came the distant rumble of thunder.
‘A storm’s comin’,’ he said. ‘Hopefully it’ll break this oppressive heat.’
‘What happened to MacAuley?’
‘Well, Captain, God can also be merciful. I took Alec in. Over time he sobered up, but he became a different man. The deaths of Isobel and the bairn broke his spirit. He’d no more interest in politics – or anything else, for that matter. He’d just sit there brooding. Eventually I told him to leave Scotland for his own good, make a new start somewhere else. At the time, the Indian Civil Service was recruiting bachelors to come out and serve in Bengal. He applied and was taken on. We corresponded for a while but then lost touch. I eventually left Scotland myself, to do the Lord’s work among the heathens, first in Natal, and then, six months ago, here.’
‘And that’s when you contacted him?’
‘Almost,’ he said. ‘When I divined that it was the Lord’s will that I come to Bengal, I wrote to a colleague here, a Reverend Mitchell, and asked him to look up my old friend Alec. Well, you can imagine my surprise when he replied telling me Alec was now a high heid yin in the ICS. The Lord works in mysterious ways. Anyway, I wrote to Alec, telling him of my arrival, and when I got to Calcutta, he was waiting on the pier-side.’
‘How did MacAuley seem when you met him?’
Gunn smiled. ‘It felt like old times,’ he said. ‘We hadn’t seen each other in over twenty years but Alec was still a recalcitrant, ungodly old bastard. He offered to help me settle in and find my feet in Calcutta, and seemed put out when I told him Reverend Mitchell had already sorted out my accommodation. I think he wanted to show me what he’d made of his life. The first few weeks after my arrival, he took me round Calcutta, took me to that club of his, introduced me to the great and the good, but…’ Gunn paused. ‘It was all a wee bit hollow. It was difficult watching him toady up to the likes of the Lieutenant Governor. That’s one fellow who’s going straight to hell, you mark my words. The man acts like he’s some modern-day satrap, and he treated Alec like a lackey.’
‘What about his friend, James Buchan?’
‘That snake?’ he snorted. ‘He was no friend of Alec’s. A man like him doesn’t have real friends. He measures folk in terms of what they can do for him. Just simple commodities to be bought and sold, like so much of his jute or rubber. The best that can be said of Mr James Buchan is that he’s not particularly prejudiced against the natives. He treats them no more shamefully than he does his workers in Scotland.’
‘He told us he was very close to MacAuley,’ I said. ‘He seemed upset at the news of his death.’
Gunn’s face contorted. ‘And did you believe him, Captain?’ he spat. ‘He was no more a friend of Alec’s than the wolf is friends wi’ the lamb! Both he and the Lieutenant Governor used Alec for their own purposes. Buchan was just a wee bit more pleasant to his face.’
‘And what did Buchan use him for?’
He raked the fingers of one hand through his hair. ‘That, Captain, is what it took me three months to find out.’
Gunn stood up and walked over to the window. Whatever he was about to say, it seemed to have been weighing on his mind for some time. He looked grave, as though about to administer the last rites, or at least he would have done had he been Catholic. He turned and leaned against the window sill.
‘Maybe I should start from the beginning,’ he sighed. ‘As I said, Alec spent a lot of time with me during the fortnight after I arrived, but after that I didnae see him for about a month. I got stuck into my work here and no doubt he was busy too. Then out o’ the blue, he turns up at my lodgings one night. He looked a mess, agitated and not making much sense. Kept mumbling something about them going too far. He’d been drinkin’ pretty hard. Lord knows how he made it here in that state.
‘I took him in and tried to calm him down, but he passed out almost at once, so I made up a bed for him. Next morning, once he’d sobered up, I asked him what he’d meant, but he just clammed up. Told me it was all drunken nonsense and to forget it. He was embarrassed by the whole thing. Before he left, I reminded him that I’d been his friend once and was a friend to his wife her whole life. I told him that I was there if he wanted to talk. It may have been underhand of me, bringing up Isobel like that, but it was in a good cause.’
‘How did he respond?’
‘He didn’t. He just looked at me for a moment and then took my hand. About a week later, though, he turned up for the Sunday-morning service and afterwards we went for a walk to the park down the road. He told me he’d been thinking; that there were things he’d done that he wasn’t best proud of, things that were an affront to Isobel’s memory.
‘I didn’t press him. I told him I wasnae there to judge him and that he could make things right by Isobel by returning to the Lord and seeking His forgiveness. After that he started coming to church more regularly and I was certainly happy having such a high-profile addition to the congregation. Alec even started helping out here at the orphanage once in a while. All the time, I felt he was building up to something. Then, about a fortnight ago, he finally came out with it.
‘It was a Tuesday night. Alec had come over to the orphanage to help wi’ the children’s dinner. After they’d been fed, we went out tae the veranda for a smoke. He seemed distracted. I remember his hands shaking when he lit his cigarette. I knew he wanted to unburden himself, so I came out and asked him what was troubling him so. And that’s when he confessed.’
Gunn paused. He turned his back to us and once again looked out of the window. The first fat drops of rain had begun to fall, pockmarking the dusty garden as they landed. I pressed him, gently.
‘What did he tell you?’
‘He admitted he’d been procuring whores for that bastard, Buchan. Whenever Buchan needed to grease the wheels of a deal or had clients in town that he wanted to show a good time, he’d have Alec get hold of some high-class native courtesans for the evening.’
‘MacAuley was running prostitutes for Buchan?’
Gunn’s face turned as dark as the clouds outside. ‘I’m afraid so.’
That made no sense to me.
‘Why would a man in his position do it? Surely he’d have balked at such a thing?’
‘I asked the same question,’ said Gunn ruefully. ‘He told me it wasnae a new thing. It had been goin’ on for many years, from when Alec was a mere clerk. In the beginning he needed the money, and I dare say havin’ an ally as powerful as Buchan probably did his career no harm either. It was Buchan’s backing that helped him rise so quickly up the ranks. Eventually, Alec felt there was no way out. If he stopped, he’d lose Buchan’s patronage. And if he came clean, he had more to lose than Buchan did. Buchan’s a millionaire, after all. He could survive the scandal, but Alec would lose everything: his career, his reputation, everything.’
‘So what made him decide he’d had enough?’
Gunn held up his hands. ‘That I don’t know. I got the impression, that first night he turned up drunk, that something had pushed him over the edge. And when he later confessed, I couldn’t help but feel there was something else, something darker that he still wasn’t telling me. I decided not to push him, hoping he’d confide in me when he felt ready.’ Gunn paused. ‘Well, that’s no’ gonnae happen now.’
‘Did he say anything else about his relationship with Buchan?’ asked Surrender-not.
‘Not much. He seemed torn, though. There were obviously things he’d done for Buchan that h
e regretted. At the same time, he’d walked a long road beside Buchan all these years and he couldnae just cut him off.’
A bell rang in the hallway outside. Gunn checked his watch. The rain was starting to fall heavily now. The metallic smell of freshly moist soil hung in the air and a wild peacock called out forlornly somewhere.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid I have to help wi’ the children’s meal. Would you mind if we continued this later?’
For the first time since finding MacAuley’s body, I thought I was on to something. I wasn’t about to end this conversation until I’d extracted every scrap of information the good reverend had. Indeed, I’d happily help cook the children’s lunch if it meant Gunn volunteered anything more of use.
‘A few more questions please, Reverend,’ I said. ‘Your friend’s murder is a top priority.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I suppose I can give you another ten minutes – for Alec’s sake.’
‘You said there might be something else weighing on MacAuley’s mind? Something he was keeping back?’
He nodded. ‘Aye.’
‘Any idea what it might have been?’
Gunn swallowed. ‘I’m afraid not, but you can bet it’s linked to Buchan in some way. Maybe you should ask him? All I can tell you is that the Alec MacAuley I found here was a profoundly bitter man. I think he was ashamed of what he’d become.’
‘And what was that?’ I asked.
Gunn smiled thinly. ‘A hypocrite, Captain.’
He let the word hang in the air before continuing. ‘Here was a man who’d once worked tirelessly to improve the lot of the poorest in society, and who now owed his position to doing the bidding of rich bloodsuckers. Still, if there’s one thing I’ve learned since arrivin’ here, it’s that India makes hypocrites of us all. The Lord, in His wisdom, gave us dominion over this land so that we might do His bidding and bring the natives into the true faith; but what have we done? We’ve taken this bounty and used it for our own wicked ends. We’ve bled dry the land and stuffed our coffers in the process. We’ve sinned against the Lord, for it’s not Him we’ve served but Mammon, and then we have the gall to lie to ourselves that we are here as protectors and not parasites.’
A Rising Man Page 26