by J M Gregson
Peach nodded almost imperceptibly at his Detective Sergeant, and Lucy Blake resumed the questioning. “You liked Father Bickerstaffe, Martha. We can tell that.”
“He was a lovely man. Very considerate. He even tried to wash up for me, when we were busy, but I didn’t let him, of course.” A tear sprang from her left eye and ran slow and unchecked down her cheek at the memory, whilst the sodden handkerchief turned in her hands.
“Then you’ll be anxious that we find whoever was responsible for his death.” Even now, Lucy shied away from the brutality of the word ‘murder’, though they knew that it was surely that. “If you want us to find out who killed him, it means answering our questions, as fully and as frankly as you can.”
“Yes. I know that.”
“Do you know anyone who might have wanted to kill Father Bickerstaffe, Martha?”
“No. No, I don’t.” It was inconceivable to Martha Hargreaves that anyone could ever contemplate the enormous sin of killing a priest, and least of all kind and gentle Father Bickerstaffe.
“But someone did, Martha. In all probability, someone he knew. Perhaps someone who had come here in the weeks before he was killed.”
A little shudder ran right through the shapeless frame beneath the black weeds. “I don’t see how I can help you.”
“Did Father Bickerstaffe have a diary or a list of his engagements? We need to know both the people who came here and those he went out to meet, you see.”
“Yes. He had a red book with ‘Engagement Diary’ on the front of it. He kept it on his desk, but I never looked inside it.”
“No, of course you didn’t. But we need to take it away with us now, you see.”
“You can’t. Father took it with him when — when he went away.” She was beset by a series of sobs and dabbed almost angrily with the handkerchief at her blotched face. “Sorry.”
Peach waited until she regained a measure of composure before he said softly, “How long is it since he was here, Martha?”
“Two weeks. Two weeks ago today, he went away. Father Lloyd has been coming in from St Mary’s to say Mass, but he doesn’t have any meals here, or stay around to see anyone.”
“Why did Father Bickerstaffe go away, Martha? Was it a holiday?”
“I don’t know. Yes, I think it was a holiday. He hadn’t had a holiday for a long time.” But she sounded as if she was trying to convince herself that it was so by her repetition of the word.
“And where did he go to?”
“I don’t know. The clergy arrange these things among themselves. Perhaps he was staying in another presbytery, with one of his friends.”
“I see. He had a lot of friends among his fellow priests, did he?”
“Quite a few. They played golf sometimes, over at Pleasington or Preston. He didn’t play all that often, but he enjoyed it. I think he was quite good.” A stubborn pride stole over her face as she said it, as if she spoke again of the child she had never had.
“We shall need a list of all these people, Martha. It’s a pity his desk diary isn’t here: we’ll have to ask you to remember all the names you can, and tell us everything you know about them. I know it’s going to be—”
Peach broke off as the phone shrilled loudly in the lofty hall beyond the heavy door. Martha Hargreaves said immediately, “I must answer that,” and started up from her chair in undisguised relief.
She shut the door carefully behind her. They could just hear her muffled tones beyond the thick mahogany panels. She came back full of awe at the status of her caller. “It’s the bishop,” she said in a tone which others might have reserved for royalty. “I told him I was talking with the police about what had happened to Father. He says he wants to speak to you himself.”
Peach went to the phone and gave his name and rank briskly, refusing to submit to the aura a bishop had carried in his childhood — hadn’t he been the only man who could sanction mixed marriages? Bishop Hogan had no trace of the Irish brogue Percy subconsciously expected in Roman Catholic clergy. His quiet, educated, English voice said, “I believe you’re investigating the death of Father John Bickerstaffe. As his spiritual director, I should like to speak to you as soon as possible. I think you will find what I have to say useful. And I would rather you heard it from me than from anyone else.”
Five
“Ah, good morning, sir. We’ve seen the housekeeper. We’re off to see the Bishop now. Sounds like a joke, doesn’t it?” DI Peach beamed his cheerful energy full into the face of Superintendent Tucker, Head of Brunton CID.
Tucker shuddered inwardly at the thought of this modern Attila trampling over the hierarchy of the oldest church in Christendom. “Come into my office for a moment, will you, Percy?”
Peach followed him dutifully. Tucker didn’t often use his Christian name, and the false bonhomie invariably indicated nervousness, a failing Peach was happy to detect in friend or foe. This time Tucker actually asked him to sit down, as if he felt obscurely that this might slow the headlong pace of the Inspector’s advance upon the world outside. “Just a friendly word of warning, Percy,” he said uneasily.
“Yes, sir. Much appreciated, I’m sure. Your overview always is. I always say to the lads when the going gets tough, ‘You might think that while you’re out here with the water coming over your wellies and the shit seeping into your socks that Mr Tucker is sitting in the station doing fuck all, but what we’re getting is his overview of things, and that’s very important to us. You may not see it right now,’ I say, ‘but—’”
“Peach!”
“Yes, sir?”
“Shut up and listen, will you.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” Peach’s round face shone with a mixture of remorse and rapt attention. Tommy Bloody Tucker might know he was insolent, but he also knew he couldn’t do without him, if he wanted to preserve the clear-up rate on which his reputation depended.
Tucker found it difficult to concentrate with that round moon of devotion on the other side of his desk. “I don’t want to impede the pace of your investigation; I’ve always given you a free rein, and I shall continue to do so. That’s the way I operate my teams. But if there is a problem, it’s my job to spot it and advise you of it.”
He’s losing his thread, thought Percy delightedly. He doesn’t like my interruptions, but he can’t go on without them. Thank you, God, if you are up there after all. DI Peach allowed a degree of puzzlement to creep into the intensity of his expression, then leaned forward two inches more, as if endeavouring to correct his own crassness by the extra effort to understand.
Tucker shut his eyes desperately. “And in this case the thing is, Percy, er…”
“Yes, sir? The thing is, sir?”
“Bishop!” said Tucker, desperately and vehemently, as if the word had relieved a blockage in his throat in the nick of time.
“Ah, yes, sir.” Percy seized upon the word triumphantly. “The Bishop. You want me to rough him up a bit? Show him he can’t trifle with Brunton CID just because he has a purple uniform? You can rely on me, sir. If he doesn’t give us every cooperation, I’ll stick him in a cell for an hour or two, let him kick his heels until he comes to his senses. He might think he’s some kind of VIP, but with your authority behind me I’ll soon show him which way the—”
“No, Peach, no!” The appalled Tucker held up both hands to stem the flow of this mistaken torrent. “You misunderstand me. What I wanted to say is that we must go easy on the Bishop. Handle him with kid gloves.”
Percy’s face looked baffled, as if he had never heard these tired clichés before. “Go easy on him, sir,” he repeated slowly. “Handle him with kid gloves.” His brow furrowed with the effort. Then his expression lightened. “You mean lure him into indiscretions? That’s a good idea, sir. I’m sure they’re easy meat for that, these celibate clergy. I’ll get DS Blake to wear a mini-skirt and black nylons. Flash him a bit of the old gusset when she crosses her legs, like Sharon Stone. She’s a bit sensitive about these gender thin
gs, but I’m sure she’ll do it, if I tell her the order’s come from you. Bet he falls for it, too. There’s lots of jokes about actresses and bishops — I can never remember them, but I expect you pass lots of them around within the Lodge. Well, I must say, it’s another of your original ideas, and I expect it will work. Well worth a try, anyway, and—”
“Peach! I didn’t mean that!” In the big CID room below them, where lesser mortals operated without their own offices, male and female officers looked at each other, and understood that Peach was winding up the governor again. Tucker felt the pulse in his temple and made himself speak quietly. “That’s the very point I’m trying to make. You go charging in, treading on all kinds of sensitive toes, and it’s me who has to pick up the pieces!” Percy tried looking puzzled anew at this crashing mix of metaphors, but Tucker was well beyond such linguistic niceties. “The Catholic Church is an important institution, Peach, and we must treat it accordingly.”
“You don’t mean they’re to have special privileges, sir?” Peach tried out the very whited sepulchre expression he had deplored in Tucker on public occasions, and beamed it full upon his chief. “In my book, murder is murder, and I couldn’t be a party to any cover-ups for the sake of race, rank or religion.” He enunciated the three R-words with the fervour of a politician.
“I don’t want cover-ups,” said Tucker desperately. “All I want is a little diplomacy.”
“Diplomacy, sir?”
“Yes, Peach, diplomacy. The Catholic church is very big in this area. One in seven people round here are Catholics, the highest proportion in Great Britain. We don’t want to be accused of prejudice, do we? Now, the fact that you may not understand this religion and its adherents should make you tread very carefully. You’ve no idea what you’re dealing with, and therefore it behoves you to—”
“Ah, but I have, sir. I was born a papist, you see. I was a left-footer with the best of them until about the time I joined the force. I know all about the corruptions and the scandals of what we used to call Holy Mother Church. I could tell you things about the Irish Christian Brothers that would—”
“Don’t! For God’s sake, Peach, go carefully.”
“For God’s sake? Yes, I see, sir.”
“But you don’t, Peach, do you? You don’t seem to understand that we have to tread cautiously in the community nowadays. Whether you like it or not, we have an image to preserve.”
“An image, yes, sir.” Peach allowed the troubled look to creep back into his earnest features. “But wouldn’t that be best served by finding the murderer and arresting him? I can’t quite see how hushing things up is going to help our image, especially when the Press find out that we’ve been told to go easy on the clergy in case we upset the left-footers. Of course, you’re in charge, as always, but—”
“I didn’t say hush things up, did I?” Tucker found himself shouting again in his frustration. People were always telling him how acute this man Peach was, and yet here he was threatening to destroy the police image his Superintendent had so carefully fostered in the higher echelons of the local community. Tucker controlled his voice with difficulty, made himself speak slowly. “I said proceed with care, that’s all. We don’t want the Catholic community saying we have a particular prejudice against them. I’m asking you to bear that in mind when you talk to people like bishops, that’s all.”
“No third degree then, sir?”
“No. Certainly not.”
“And no waving knickers at him?”
“No.” Tucker closed his eyes and tried to control the shudder this picture gave him.
“Not even a quick flash of gusset to—”
“Nothing of that sort at all, please.”
Peach wondered for a moment whether to go on to nuns, then decided that he had already wasted enough time on this humourless windbag. “You wouldn’t like to interview the bishop yourself, sir?”
For a moment, Tucker was tempted, in the light of the awful things Peach had been threatening. But it was too long since he had been at the crime face for him to start working at it again now. He bridled as always at the suggestion of real work on the case of which he was nominally in charge, as Percy had known he would. “No. You know my policy is not to interfere, and I shall stick to it. I’m just giving you guidance as to how you are to proceed.”
“Yes, sir. Valuable guidance, as I’m sure we’ll see, when this is all over and our killer is behind bars. I’ll convey your overview to the team, when we meet next.”
And Percy Peach, who lived in the real world and had always planned to treat the bishop with proper deference, went happily downstairs.
***
The murderer of Father John Bickerstaffe watched the one o’clock television news and was shaken.
Events were moving quickly. When you weren’t used to these things, when you knew nothing about police procedures, you weren’t prepared for such efficiency, such rapid deployment of resources. The body had already been identified. There was a still photograph of the church where the priest had worked, then a sequence of the children going into the little Catholic junior school next door to it. That wasn’t fair: it connected this man with innocence, gave the impression that he had been quietly going about his work as a pastor when he was brutally interrupted in the pursuit of his duties.
Of course, it made a good story for the Press, and that was all they were interested in. They didn’t know what had caused Bickerstaffe’s death yet. When they did, they’d sing a different tune.
But it was worrying, all the same, when you had expected that months or years might have passed before all this attention began. You thought you’d been careful enough, but you could never be quite sure. Thirty officers on the case, they said; it seemed a huge number, when you were only one. You thought you’d covered your traces, been cool and diligent, but it was disturbing, none the less, to find the hunt under way so soon, and being pursued so vigorously.
The murderer went over what had been done for the hundredth time, without finding a flaw which could lead to discovery. Nothing there to incriminate you, if you kept your nerve. That was going to be tested soon now — much sooner than anticipated. But there would be other suspects, plenty of others, and there was no reason why this crime should not go down as unsolved, if you kept your nerve.
The police would be coming now, within days — perhaps even within hours. The interview would be an ordeal, but there was no way they could be certain it was you, if you didn’t make a mistake. By the end of the afternoon, the murderer was almost impatient to have it over with.
***
The killer would have been interested, very interested, in the information which was being delivered to the police while the television showed its pictures of church and school. Despite new headquarters which were only three years old, the Brunton police were already short of space. The murder room had been set up in a Portacabin at one end of the station car park. It was here that a Detective Sergeant was collating information on his computer when he took the call from the forensic laboratory at Chorley.
“Interesting chaps, maggots,” said the cheerful voice after it had introduced itself. “Develop at a uniform rate. Very useful for men like us who poke about inside dead bodies. And the weather in the two weeks before Monday’s downpour was nicely consistent for us. Warm and dry; low seventies by day, mid-fifties by night. Means we can be reasonably certain about the rate of maturing of this particular collection of busy little chaps. I’d say your man was killed a minimum of ten days before you found him. In fact, I’d be prepared to say between ten and twelve days under oath in court — not as a fact of course,
but as informed scientific opinion. I don’t think I’d have many arguments about it from my colleagues.”
DS Jackson made a careful note of it. Probable date of death, Thursday 20th or Friday 21st August, according to specialist forensic entomologist at Chorley. A day either way, at most. Two or three days after the priest had left his church, then. Knowing how
Peach would react if he didn’t get everything he could out of the scientists, the DS said hastily, “Anything else you can give us yet?”
The forensic entomologist refused to go beyond his specialist area, but passed him on to another, more proletarian, but equally cheerful voice. “Very little, I’m afraid. People think water is hygienic, and I suppose it is, in the ordinary way of things, but it’s a bloody nuisance for us forensic chaps. We haven’t finished the examination of the clothes and hair yet, but I doubt if we’re are going to find any useful fibres. There’s a smear of grease on the back of the sweater — how recent and what the source is we don’t know, but we’re working on it. You’ll have the full report in a couple of days.”
DS Jackson thanked them for the prompt service. He knew there was a six to eight week backlog of work at the Home Office laboratory. But other things were put aside for murder.
***
Percy Peach drove over the moors towards Manchester with lively expectations. In his multifarious criminal investigations, it had never fallen to him before to visit a Bishop.
But the Bishop’s residence was a disappointment to him. In the Church of England he knew they called them Bishops’ Palaces, and this had led him to expect an altogether grander and more interesting building than this. More like a doctor’s surgery in one of those group practices, he thought, as he parked his car carefully in the only available space outside it.
Bishop Hogan’s residence was a modern red-brick building, rectangular and without external decorations. True, it was large enough to whet the appetite of critics who detected opulence among the princes of the church whilst their flocks starved in the third world, but even that proved an illusion on entry through the blue double doors. This was plainly a working building, the bureaucratic centre of a busy diocese — Tucker had been right when he said that they were in the most Catholic part of England. Word-processors hummed in the room with an open door on his right, and he even caught a glimpse of women at work in what he had anticipated would be an all-male environment.