Death of a Pilgrim

by David Dickinson

  Half an hour later the pilgrim company assembled at the far end of the hotel dining room. Already Powerscourt, as he told Lady Lucy later, was beginning to feel that he could happily go to his grave without any further assemblies in the dining rooms of French hotels. Delaney sat at the centre of a table to the front, flanked by Father Kennedy – always happy to be in hotel dining rooms – on his right with Powerscourt on his left and then Lady Lucy. Alex Bentley basked in the sunshine on the far side of Lady Lucy. The pilgrims sat in two semicircular rows in front of Michael Delaney.

  A black hotel cat shot across the floor as Delaney rose to speak. ‘My friends, fellow pilgrims,’ he began, ‘I have to tell you that another of our number has passed away. First there was John Delaney in Le Puy. This morning the body of Patrick MacLoughlin was found in Entraygues-sur-Truyère, the next town on the banks of the Lot, lying in the bottom of a rowing boat that had been dispatched downstream from this hotel. The authorities believe he had been strangled before his last journey. We have to stay here in Estaing to speak to an inspector from the French police. We are here tonight to consider what we should do next. I believe Lord Powerscourt has some thoughts he would like to share with you.’

  Maggie Delaney was torn between a delicious mixture of joy and sorrow, joy that further affliction had come on her hated cousin, Michael Delaney, sorrow that a young man of God with so much life in front of him should have been taken away. She began to pray for the dead man’s soul. Powerscourt had told Lady Lucy beforehand that he wasn’t going to mince his words. He felt very strongly indeed about this question.

  ‘Pilgrims, friends,’ he began, ‘I was called here to look into the death of John Delaney on the rock of St Michel. Now we have a second death. I have to say that I have no idea who is responsible for these murders. They are linked by one small thread. On both bodies was found a scallop shell, symbol and guide to the pilgrims to Compostela through the ages. And Alex Bentley tells me that the body sent in a boat to Entraygues may echo the arrival of St James the Great in northern Spain, where his body was discovered in a stone boat near a place on the coast called Padron. Be that as it may, both of these young men died horrible deaths. People have asked me earlier this evening if I think there will be any further murders on the route. I have to tell you I think it is very likely, that it is almost certain.’

  Powerscourt paused. There was a murmur from the pilgrims. He glanced briefly at Lady Lucy for reassurance.

  ‘One of you in this room here tonight is a murderer.’ He spoke very quietly. ‘It might be you,’ his finger shot out towards the middle of the second row, ‘or you or you or you or you.’ His finger travelled along the entire length of the front row and continued across the top table to take in Father Kennedy and Michael Delaney himself. ‘Only one person can feel safe in this company and that is the killer himself. Only he knows who he intends to murder next. Only he knows where he intends to do it. Only he knows when he intends to carry out his next murder. Do not console yourself with the thought that there may only be one more victim. We do not know. There could be two or three or four. The most dangerous place in any battle is in the heart of the front line waiting for an enemy attack. Tonight you are all in the heart of that front line. All of your lives are in danger.’

  Powerscourt wondered if he had said enough. He carried on. It was a long time since he had felt so strongly about one of his cases.

  ‘So what would my advice be? My advice is very simple. Call off your pilgrimage. Go home, separately I should advise, once the police have completed their inquiries. Go home and see your loved ones. Go home to safety for this gathering is currently one of the most dangerous places in Europe. Go home while you can. Go home while you are still alive. Go home before you are thrown off some huge volcanic rock or sent strangled in a rowing boat down the Lot. In this case discretion is not merely the better part of valour. Discretion is the only way to stay alive.’

  Powerscourt sat down. Lady Lucy squeezed his hand. There was a long silence. Then Michael Delaney rose to his feet once more. ‘Does anybody wish to speak?’ he asked. Powerscourt wondered cynically if this was the first time in his life that Michael Delaney had asked for contributions from the floor. There was a rustling among the pilgrims.

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir.’ Shane Delaney from Swindon, the man with a dying wife, had risen from his chair, shuffling nervously from foot to foot. ‘I think Lord Powerscourt forgets something. We’re not here on some walking holiday, we’re here on pilgrimage. Christian didn’t turn back, sir, because of his troubles and temptations on the way to the Celestial City. He went on. I promised my Sinead, so I did, that I would carry out this pilgrimage on her behalf. I’m here because she’s too sick to do it. It might save her life, so the priests told me, not a great chance but it might. I can’t go back, sir. I’d be letting her down. I couldn’t look her in the eye if I ran away. We have all these difficulties, like Christian. But I for one have got to go on. Like him.’

  Powerscourt spoke from his chair. ‘You don’t think, Shane, that your Sinead would rather have you back in Swindon alive than dead in the south of France?’ Even as he finished he wondered if his comment had been unwise. These were not rational people after all, no rational person would set out to walk the thousand miles from Le Puy to Santiago de Compostela and think it might save his wife’s life. Forces other than reason and logic, so close to Powerscourt’s heart, were at work here.

  ‘I’m with Shane, so I am,’ said Willie John Delaney, the man dying from an incurable disease. ‘Forgive me for mentioning it, but my number is up in a couple of months or so whether I’m on pilgrimage or not. It’s been a great comfort to me so far, this pilgrimage, sir, so it has. As the priests might put it, I think I’d make a better death as a pilgrim travelling with all these good people here, than I would if I ran away.’

  There was a muttering of approval. Powerscourt felt he was going to lose the argument.

  ‘I think we should carry on too.’ Jack O’Driscoll, the young newspaperman from Dublin was on his feet now. ‘You see, as most of you know, I work for a newspaper in Dublin. Before I left my editor told me the pilgrimage would make me a better person. I didn’t know what he meant then. I think I do now. I think that as we’ve made our way here we’ve stopped being a collection of individuals. We’re becoming a little community. In a perverse way the murders make that feeling stronger. I feel so close now to the other young people I’ve been walking with, closer than I do to my friends back home. I’m sure that these feelings will only get stronger.’ Maybe it’s like people who have fought together in battle, Powerscourt thought, it’s like Johnny Fitzgerald and I, bonded for life. ‘I’m only young,’ Jack went on, ‘and I don’t have that many sins. But some of us must have great burdens we wish to lay down, sins we want forgiveness for, and we won’t achieve any of that by running away.’

  There was one last contribution from the pilgrims. Waldo Mulligan, the man who worked for a senator in Washington, the man running from a passionate affair with a friend’s wife, rose to his feet. He was a more accomplished speaker than the others.

  ‘I am not yet old,’ he began, ‘but I am one of those of whom Jack spoke a moment ago when he talked of people burdened with sins. I don’t wish to advertise my sins here this evening but as the days have passed I have come to realize that it is not all despair and guilt, that the process of pilgrimage itself, the rhythm of the days, the aching feet at the end of the journey, the deep sleep that comes with so much exercise, is helping me towards some kind of understanding. There is a long way to go. I may never be forgiven my sins but I may learn to come to an accommodation with them. I do not believe that process would continue if I ran away, as the others put it. Lord Powerscourt was eloquent, very eloquent, in making the case for our quitting. But I believe the good that may come from continuing outweighs the bad. By quite a long way. I thank Lord Powerscourt for his views but I think we should carry on.’

  There was a short silence. The
waiters were laying the tables for supper at the other end of the room. Michael Delaney looked quizzically at Powerscourt as if asking him whether he wished to speak again. Powerscourt shook his head. ‘Very well, gentlemen,’ said Delaney, venturing into new democratic territory, ‘I think we should put it to the vote. Would all those who think we should continue please raise their right hands.’

  The vote was unanimous. Powerscourt had lost. The pilgrims had won. Later that evening he sat in a chair by the window in their bedroom and stared moodily at the Lot, gurgling and dancing on its way to the distant sea. ‘We’re on a Cavalcade of Death now, Lucy,’ he said sadly, ‘a caravan trail with murder at our side and death stalking behind us. I’ll tell you what it reminds me of. You know those stories of great expeditions into remote parts of Africa or the interior of Australia. The explorers set off in high spirits, laden down with supplies that will last for years and the very best clothing and equipment that modern science can provide. They appear in happy photographs in the magazines before they go, assuring the readers that modernity will always conquer the wilderness or the outback or wherever it is they’re going. Early reports reach the world they’ve left behind that progress is better than expected. The huskies or the sherpas or the native bearers or whoever is carrying all their stuff are doing well. Then nothing. And a further nothing. After a couple of years another expedition is sent out to find the first one. They come across a couple of bleached bones and a tin or two of food lying in the desert or the snow or the ice. All gone. All dead in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘You’d better come to bed, Francis,’ said Lady Lucy practically. ‘It’s not as bad as that and you know it.’

  ‘Wait and see,’ said her husband morosely, temporarily locked into the role of prophet of doom.

  ‘Francis,’ Lady Lucy was sitting up on her pillows now, ‘you’re not doing yourself justice, you know. You were right down there, of course you were. But the pilgrims didn’t agree with you. So why don’t you think of something else, my love, and stop being so miserable.’

  ‘Like what?’ asked Powerscourt.

  ‘How about this,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘why don’t you start thinking about how you are going to keep them all alive?’

  11

  The police inspector from Figeac arrived very early the next morning. Powerscourt came across him having a quick cup of coffee with Jacques the hotel owner. Nicolas Léger was small for a policeman. Powerscourt wondered briefly if he had stood on tiptoe when they measured the height of aspirant police recruits. He was about thirty-five years old, Nicolas, with a cheerful face, quizzical brown eyes and hair that was beginning to recede inexorably up his forehead. This seemed to be a matter of considerable regret to the Inspector for he sent a hand up to the top of his head at regular intervals as if checking on the damage.

  ‘Lord Powerscourt,’ he said, ‘what a pleasure to meet you. I heard about your adventures in St Petersburg from a colleague who spent some time attached to our secret service in the Place des Vosges in Paris.’

  Powerscourt bowed. ‘I apologize, monsieur, for the trouble we are all causing the French authorities here. I wish it were not so.’

  ‘Do not trouble yourself, my lord. As long as people are living together they will go round killing each other at one time or another. That is what they told us in the police college. Murder is as much a part of life as love. Look what happened in the Garden of Eden after all. Whole thing started with Cain and Abel. Now then, what can you tell me about these pilgrims? Do you have any suspicions? In half an hour or so when they are taking their breakfast I am going to search their rooms. Just a quick look, you understand. I have a couple of men coming shortly who can turn them inside out during the morning. After they have had their coffee I should like to talk to them all. Perhaps you would do me the honour of translating?’

  Powerscourt said that he and Lady Lucy would take it in turns for the translating. It was tiring work. He told the Inspector the little he knew about the pilgrims and their different motives for making the journey to Compostela, ranging from a love of architecture to adventure and a quest for forgiveness of sins or a cure for terminal illness.

  ‘Come, Lord Powerscourt, while the pilgrims rouse themselves perhaps you could show me the place where the boat was taken? I am most curious to look at one aspect of that.’

  Powerscourt led him to the little jetty where the boats were moored. He had to walk as fast as he could for Inspector Léger seemed to be in a great hurry. Perhaps, Powerscourt thought, he was one of those who are always in a great hurry.

  ‘These little rowing boats,’ said the Inspector, making a lightning check on his hair, ‘I spent far too much time in them on the river of Figeac called the Celé when I should have been at my studies when I was young. Now then.’ He bent down to peer at the cut rope.

  ‘That knife must have been very sharp, the cut is so clean,’ said Powerscourt, anxious to show that he too had taken note of the rope.

  ‘How did he do it, I wonder?’ Inspector Léger picked up the end in his left hand and made a quick cutting movement with the index finger of his right. ‘Like that perhaps. Pity we cannot tell if our killer used his left or his right hand. Our work would be nearly over if he was left handed, but no. God is not that kind to us today. But tell me, Lord Powerscourt, what did he do with the knife? Would these pilgrims be carrying round knives this sharp? Would he have pinched it from the hotel kitchen? Perhaps I should ask our friend the hotelkeeper who likes his red wine so early in the morning that his breath smells of it even before breakfast. Would you take such a knife back to the kitchens? Or back to your room? We shall see.’

  ‘If our murderer was a careful murderer,’ said Powerscourt, looking at the Lot flowing past them, ‘he would have thrown it into the river. Even if it was found, there would be nothing to prove that it was the murderer who put it there.’

  Inspector Léger too stared at the river. No sharp knives could be seen glinting on the bottom. ‘Maybe I shall get my men to search the river after they have finished with the rooms. But come, Lord Powerscourt, you can tell from the noise that they are now sat down to breakfast. A quick search of their rooms, I think.’

  The Inspector shot through the rooms like a man possessed. Drawers were opened, rucksacks searched, clothes felt and shaken. Powerscourt thought he was hoping to find the knife. In Jack O’Driscoll’s little cell, he found a notebook which he thrust into Powerscourt’s hand. ‘What do we have here? Is this the great novel perhaps? A love letter, a very long love letter?’

  ‘It’s a diary,’ said Powerscourt, riffling through the entries. ‘There’s an entry for every single day of the pilgrimage, some much longer than others.’

  ‘Really,’ said the Inspector, staring at the impenetrable English that filled the pages. ‘I think we should ask if we can borrow it, Lord Powerscourt. Maybe you or your good wife would be so kind as to translate it for us.’

  Then the Inspector found a knife. It was in a leather case placed beneath an exquisite carving of a model ship. Beside it was a new work, not yet finished, that looked as if was going to be a crucifix of elegant proportions when it was completed.

  ‘The knife and the carving belong to a young American called Charlie Flanagan,’ Powerscourt told the Inspector. ‘He spent the Atlantic crossing carving a model ship. I believe he has a commission to make another one.’

  ‘Feel how sharp this knife is, my friend,’ said the Inspector, staring intently at the blade. ‘I cannot see any shards of rope on it, mind you. But then the murderer would probably have wiped it afterwards.’ He began riffling through Charlie Flanagan’s clothes but found nothing of interest. In the Flanagan pack he found a large notebook with pages and pages of sketches. Powerscourt found himself transported back to the cathedral steps of Le Puy, to the bridge at Espalion and the great castle at Estaing. There were drawings too of pillars and stone coffins and the view along the Lot from just outside the hotel. Powerscourt remembered Charlie telling him that
his real interest was architecture rather than carpentry.

  ‘What a good eye the young man has,’ the Inspector murmured, leafing through the notebook and checking on his bald patch once more. ‘There’s nothing incriminating here.’

  Powerscourt was relieved to find that all Charlie’s possessions were innocent. He rather liked the young man from Baltimore.

  ‘Now then,’ said Léger, ‘before I speak to the pilgrims, I must speak to the man in charge in private, I think. M. Delaney, he is the man?’

  Powerscourt led the way to a small office behind the dining room and brought in the American millionaire. Delaney looked as though he had passed a troubled night.

  ‘Inspector,’ he began, ‘our apologies for causing you so much trouble. Rest assured that we will do everything in our power to assist you. Do we need to contact any of the other authorities round here?’

  He’s trying to find out if we have to start bribing people again, Powerscourt said to himself. He wondered briefly what it must be like to have unlimited amounts of money to spend. The Inspector’s reply astonished them both.

  ‘Do not think that we wish to detain you here any longer than is necessary, Mr Delaney. The local priest will be here soon to arrange for the funeral and burial of the unfortunate young man. I believe you have your own curé with you who can liaise with Father Cavagnac. He plans to hold the service tomorrow afternoon. After that you will be free to leave, to continue with your pilgrimage. I and my men will come with you, for I am based in Figeac which is on your route.’

  Suddenly Powerscourt thought he could see it all. The Mayor of Entraygues, unwilling to enter into negotiations about a fountain or a series of seats for the elderly and the footsore on the banks of the Lot, saying to the police that he wanted these wretched pilgrims out of his town as fast as possible before there were any more murders. Father Cavagnac, keen to bury one as fast as he could before he had to bury any more. The local police force, unhappy with one murder, unwilling to wait for the next one, handing the responsibility over to the larger force in Figeac. Nobody wanted them. They were pariahs, modern lepers shunned by society, doomed to continue their bloody journey across southern France until they passed into the lands of the Spanish.