by Simon Parke
‘We’re ready for that,’ said Gurdjieff.
‘And are you ready for that?’ asked the host, looking directly at Soloviev. ‘Are you ready to be disturbed? You would be unusual if you were.’
Soloviev paused.
‘You seem to make everything your business,’ said Gurdjieff.
‘Of course.’
‘But we’re a team.’
‘Indeed, and much to be applauded - you cling together with admirable determination. But sometimes teams are not all they appear,’ said the thin-fingered man. ‘There is hidden dissonance in the chemistry, discerned quickly by those with eyes to see.’
‘I too am ready,’ said Soloviev quickly.
‘Ah, he speaks!’ said the man. ‘Marvellous. And believe me, I admire your courage despite its close acquaintance with stupidity. Goodbye, my friends. Go and seek the truth! It is an honourable pursuit. I suspect you will not be long in this city.’
Three
Stormhaven,
Wednesday, 17 December
‘What strange and disturbing flotsam the tide of life brings to our shore lines,’ thought Abbot Peter as he put down the phone.
As far as he knew, of all the world’s nations, only Sudan currently employed crucifixion as a method of punishment. But his thoughts were only briefly with the people of Sudan, formerly his neighbours in the desert but never close. Instead of North African reflections, he dressed quickly and opened windows to let the eager sea breeze through. He would make fresh coffee for the Detective Inspector and open the packet of shortcake left over from his birthday tea. This was an unexpected adventure and not one to miss. But should he be feeling more devastated?
Clearly the death of Anton was tragic and shocking and awful and many other newspaper headline words. But tragic and shocking and awful passed through Peter almost unnoticed at times. Life only made sense in the moment which was a brief and unattached affair. To burden it with further significance, with the gradual coming of heaven, led only to hysteria or unhelpful feelings of self-importance.
But while these were his private thoughts, his public persona would play a different game. In public, he would stay with the tragic and shocking and awful as he shook his head in appropriate disbelief.
‘A tragedy and a profound shock,’ he would say.
He’d even pretend the surprise demanded in the face of murder. People may have been killing each other since the dawn of time yet still it demanded incredulity.
‘You don’t imagine it happening in a place like this!’ they’d say.
‘Why not?’ Peter would wonder.
What sort of a place is it where you don’t expect murder? Mars, perhaps, due to the absence of humans. But wherever there are humans, as on Planet Earth of late, murder remains a frequent guest and as surprising as a cloud in November.
‘And I mean, of all the people it could happen to!’ people would then add, wading deeper into stupidity.
As if one type of person is better suited than another to the random assault of the temporarily insane, which murder always turned out to be.
But what Abbot Peter presently noted was his excitement. He was more excited than shocked and more wondering than incredulous, for while he’d seen much death in his life, and some of it messy, he’d never as yet met a Detective Inspector. And suddenly, despite the seagull cries, he was back in the monastery library.
***
As an Abbot in the desert, it had been his idea for the monastery library to develop its own crime section. ‘There’s more to life than the theology of St Basil,’ he’d say.
And so, east of Cairo, there was now no finer record of murder and deceit than in the monastery of St James-the-Less, even boasting Series 4 of Columbo on DVD, though without the requisite screen on which to view it.
‘Perhaps you should have been a detective, Abbot,’ they’d joke as they washed plates in the pantry after the evening meal.
‘When my investigation into the murder of the human soul is over, I may be free for other cases,’ he’d say.
It was possible he’d only ever wanted to be a detective and that the role of Abbot was a time-filler before the real thing. But the real thing is what we do, not what we dream of and they’d been good days in the desert wilderness. The desk and chair where he now sat in his small study were the only physical reminders of the place where he’d spent so many years of his life. But what was done was done. Others had made their decisions and he’d exchanged the Sinai Peninsula for a pebble beach on the south coast of England.
It hadn’t been his choice, but the surprising gift of a relation he’d never known, in a will he never saw, communicated by a solicitor he never met. He was called Mr Tumbly, which suggested part-time work in children’s TV.
‘You’ve been left a house, Sir,’ he’d said in a legal manner over the phone.
‘A house ?’
‘It’s not a large house. And there’s no garden to speak of.’
‘Then I’ll need to sell my racehorses.’
There was an awkward pause; it was a joke too early in the relationship.
‘A two-up, two-down really, with an extension room at the back that until now has been used to house a remarkable collection of porcelain figurines, dancing.’
A small vision of hell passed through the Abbot’s mind.
‘And am I, er, expected to maintain the collection?’ he asked. So much hung on the question.
‘Oh no Sir, no, I’m afraid they’ve been left to another relation.’
Profound relief flooded his body.
‘So without the figurines, now sadly departed, that room could become a study perhaps?’ he asked.
‘Its usage would be entirely up to you, Sir.’
‘Well I can’t pretend this isn’t exquisite timing, Mr Tumbly. I’m standing in the Egyptian desert, bags packed and nowhere to go.’
‘Then I can tell you that you have a home, Sir.’
‘Wonderful. It’s good to have a home.’
‘Indeed, Sir.’
Mr Tumbly probably had a very nice home.
‘And would you like to know the country where you’ll be living?’ asked the solicitor, with his habitual attention to detail.
‘Oh yes, that might be helpful.’
‘England, Sir.’
‘England. Well, why not?’
‘On the south coast.’
‘The south coast? Tell me it’s Brighton. I’ve always been drawn to that place. Or Lyme Regis, I’d - .’
‘Stormhaven, Sir.’
‘Stormhaven? Ah. Something of an unknown for me.’
‘There are those who like it.’
It was the solicitor’s final line that had stayed with him, one of those failed positives, which loudly said, ‘But most people think it’s the saddest place on earth.’
***
And so here he was: retired, alone and an alien figure in the high street throng in his monk’s habit; yet on the bright side, fifty yards from the sea, a friend of the beachcombers and about to meet a real Detective Inspector. Each day had its glory.
Four
Chief Inspector Wonder, balding, ageing, widening, drifting, had heard all the jokes; or at least he hoped he had. There’s only one thing worse than hearing a joke against you and that’s not hearing a joke against you.
‘Chief Inspector Wonder is not one of the Seven,’ they’d say. ‘In fact the only wonder is how he’s got where he has!’
He was familiar with several variations on that theme.
And after one briefing he’d heard two PCs in the corridor.
‘Are you all right, Mick? You look ill.’
‘Just a bit full of wonder,’ came the reply and then they started laughing.
The nickname ‘
Chinless’ was cruel but probably inevitable, strengthened by both its physical and psychological accuracy.
He played the bluff, tough Chief Inspector but still feared knowing what people thought and feared even more the dark mutterings which never reached his ears, conversations hastily aborted on his arrival in the room. He sensed such things in the air and they left him unhelpfully cautious.
‘So who will be handling this case, Chief Inspector?’
And now he had the Bishop on the phone demanding answers. A vicar in his area had been crucified, which was pretty damn weird but really, what had it to do with the Bishop? I mean pray about it, send flowers, do Thought for the Day, but why ring the Chief Inspector? A murder is a murder and a secular matter from start to finish. He had no time for an interfering cleric right now.
***
He’d be civil to the Bishop. After all, he’d shared council-funded sherry with him in the Town Hall, which didn’t denote friendship or anything close but remained a bond of sorts. They’d met and they’d spoken, exchanged pleasantries of one sort or another so politeness now, certainly. But this was still not any Bishop’s territory.
‘I hope you don’t imagine I’m interfering, Richard,’ said the Bishop.
Richard? Since when had the Bishop called him Richard?
‘Not at all, Stephen, not at all.’
Stephen? He’d never called the Bishop of Lewes, Stephen.
‘It’s just a very sensitive case, obviously.’
‘A complete nightmare for the church, I can see, Bishop. I mean, a naked vicar crucified in the vestry, no one wants that.’
‘Naked?’
The Bishop hadn’t heard anything about a lack of clothes.
‘Oh, didn’t I mention that? Yes, it’s an image that’s going to disturb a lot of church goers and probably titillate everyone else - sadly. I mean, what the Sussex Silt will make of it I don’t know!’
The Chief Inspector hadn’t wanted to mention the press, but knew the Silt - a local paper bucking the trend of declining circulations - would just love this story. He also enjoyed the fear he now heard in the Bishop’s voice.
‘Well, that’s just the sort of thing I’m worried about, Richard. We both know what a despicable rag it is.’
‘But popular.’
Another twist of the knife.
‘It’s probably a random killing perpetrated by some drifter,’ said the Bishop.
‘I doubt that.’
‘Attacks on priests are regrettably common, Chief Inspector, usually by the mentally unwell, the homeless, those sorts of people.’
‘That may be so, Bishop, and I’ve handled one or two in my time. But those killings tend to be stabbing or battering, not crucifixions. Crucifixion requires time, planning and supreme confidence. I’d be very surprised if the vicar wasn’t killed by one of his flock.’
‘A rather large assumption!’
‘Common sense.’
‘Well, all I ask is that the matter is investigated in an appropriate manner.’
‘Oh, you can be sure it will be, Stephen.’
Sensing the battle well won, Wonder was happy to offer familiarity to the loser.
‘Investigated by someone aware of the religious sensitivities involved.’
‘Of course, Bishop.’
‘I mean, there’s a fine Christian Detective Inspector near us, a faithful worshipper at the cathedral who could be just the one for the job.’
What was this? The church trying to choose their own detective? He’d be firm:
‘I’ve already appointed the investigating DI, Bishop. They’ve just arrived from West Sussex on secondment with us.’
‘Oh, I see. Sympathetic to our cause, I trust?’
‘Ruthless, certainly.’
Five
Age had crept up on Abbot Peter in surreptitious fashion, like a ballet dancer moving silently towards him while he looked the other way.
‘You’re much too young to be sixty!’ people would say with kindness and perhaps truth. But even so, though the spirit is free to dance the body is tied to decay, and he cherished each season that came to his shore, spring time and summer, misty autumn and bleak midwinter when ‘frosty wind made moan’. Though last night there must have been another moan on the wind, the cries of Anton to heaven as the nails were hammered home.
Abbot Peter pondered the policeman he’d be meeting. They were all university types these days with more experience of management courses than crime, weren’t they? Or was that a cheap stereotype? And how would the banter go? Peter struggled with male banter. He knew a little about cars, particularly the four wheel drives of the desert but cared little for share prices, golf or pornography which could make extended conversation with any man difficult. But on the plus side, Peter listened, which usually sufficed. More than conversation, men seek someone interested in what they have to say, whatever the nonsense, someone to hear them out and sometimes to laugh. Peter could be that man.
And the surly sergeant had been right: Peter had known the vicar well. On arrival from the big sand, he’d been quick to introduce himself to the church and they in turn had taken to him warmly. An Abbot from the desert was something of a trophy for a community struggling amid the cold winds of secular indifference and economic slide. He sat on one or two committees, floated amiably through the Summer Fayre and walked out on sermons only when he could absolutely take no more.
But what did Peter really know of the freshly crucified Anton Fontaine? Well, he was the first black vicar of St Michael’s, something of a landmark and had been in the parish for nearly two years. Previously a curate in London, he’d spent his twenties trying to make it as a dancer or actor but neither had paid the rent. It was then, at the age of twenty-nine, that he felt his calling. As he told Peter:
‘I was walking down the street one day when I suddenly thought, “Why the hell not?”’
‘And that was your calling to the priesthood?’ Peter had tried to sound calm.
‘I saw this old priest tottering down the road, looking completely out of touch and I thought, “I could do a hell of a lot better than him!”’
Peter wondered if Anton still thought similar things as he walked down the street.
‘It was the answer to my frustration,’ continued Anton. ‘No one was listening to my opinions as an out-of-work actor - but as a priest?’
‘So you began to dream of a pulpit.’
‘I knew I could sort out people’s lives, they just needed some good ideas and I have loads of those. I have ten ideas a minute! So enter Me, stage right! Don’t know why I didn’t think of it before really.’
Peter had been unconvinced.
‘There’s a thin line between compulsion and calling,’ he’d once said to a novice monk whose disdain for people was nudging him towards the hermit’s way. ‘They’re easily mistaken.’
But then who was Peter to say what constituted a true calling? Thinking ‘Why the hell not?’ was hardly a Damascus Road experience of light and love but perhaps it’s whatever gets you over the line and that did it for Anton. And then again, isn’t all talk of a ‘calling’ rather pompous anyway? Did a priest need more of a calling than a florist, a carpet layer or a second hand car salesman? Isn’t every job holy?
Anton had no doubt been helped in the church selection process by the colour of his skin. As a bastion of white middle-England the church needed a few different skin tones in the team photo to boost its fading credibility. So no one had asked any deep or challenging questions in the interviews. After all, deep and challenging questions would appear racist, the new unforgiveable sin. So no one, for instance, had asked Anton why he was terrified by all talk of pain? Peter might have raised that one - it seemed important somehow. Instead, however, the interview panel had all said ‘Great!’ and now here h
e was, early thirties, single, charming, shallow and cracking on in Stormhaven. He knew that he wouldn’t stay long in this backwater, but while he was here, he’d have some fun. And he’d be listened to!
Anton’s first year in the parish had seen a flood of new ventures, salvation by initiatives, but more of them started than completed. He loved a new idea until it became an old one and then he was bored. And if he was careless with people’s feelings, then perhaps they should just ‘get over it’ as he liked to say. ‘We’ll change this world together!’ he’d once said to the Abbot, playfully punching him in the abdomen. It hurt a great deal but what hurt more was the fact that the vicar had barely spoken to him since.
‘We must have lunch!’ Anton would sometimes declare. Peter would duly offer some dates and then hear nothing back.
Press him on the matter and Peter would tell you Anton was an idealist for the future because he was running from his past. A future fantasy was essential for him, a positive sense of things to come, of everyone moving forward to something better:
‘We’re moving into better times!’ he would often say in church.
But few nodded in agreement.
Mrs Edwina Pipe was not slow to offer an opinion and she had one about the vicar. She was a bitter woman, but she sometimes stumbled upon the truth, and Abbot Peter enjoyed their encounters.
‘That vicar’s all piss and wind,’ she’d once said while arranging the lilies.
Edwina Pipe, in her solid fifties but not beyond a few daring shots of colour in her hair, was a persistent flower arranger at St Michael’s. Otherwise, however, she held the church, its members, its rules and probably its God, in deep disdain and was therefore a valuable source for the darker information, the sort that went beyond the acceptable spite of community gossip.
‘You do know that Malcolm Flight is mad, don’t you?’ she once said. ‘He stood watching me for an hour the other day without moving! Who knows what’s going through that mind? Probably a pervert, I wouldn’t be surprised. Nothing surprises me!’
‘Nothing surprises me’ was Mrs Pipe’s hook line, her depressed, self-aggrandizing signature remark; but Abbot Peter reckoned a crucified vicar in her vestry might at least raise an eyebrow.