by Anne Coates
“Curiouser and curiouser. Shall we open another bottle?”
Hannah smiled. “Some things never change. It’s so good to have you back in London Jane.”
“Sounds as though I’ve come at the right time.”
With their glasses replenished, they smiled at one another. Each wondering how much they could or should actually say.
Something restrained Hannah. She’d known Jane forever but there was always a but these days. Last year she had wondered how much Chris had actually known about Gerry Lacon when he’d accused him of buying kidneys from improverished immigrants for transplants. A claim Lacon hadn’t denied. That question left her feeling more vulnerable than she’d care to admit.
“So how’s Tom faring in the States?” Jane’s words broke into Hannah’s thoughts. “How long is he away for?”
“Think the answer to both those questions is that I don’t know. And if you’re going to ask about him and me the answer’s the same.”
“Oh Hannah –” Jane leaned over to envelope her in a hug. “Nothing’s ever simple in your life is it?”
“So who needs simple.” Hannah swallowed the anguish rising in her throat and raised her glass. “To complicated friends.” She smiled and wondered what sort of complications Jane might have in her life just now. Especially as Chris hadn’t returned to London with her.
THIRTY
When is not telling the truth an outright lie? Hannah had been a journalist long enough to know how you sometimes had to manipulate the truth for a good story. She tried to maintain her intergrity but you could never control the way the subs attacked your story or the headlines they used. It was her let-out clause when interviewing. Her folow-up article including the interview with Michael Dresdon was a case in point. Although she’d tried to show the charity in a positive light, mentioning low resources but honorable commitment, someone else had dug up some dirt and added it to the article. In a not so suble way, the article now implied that the charity was remiss in the way it sent workers out to a country which was effectively in the midst of a civil war or at least one prey to ever more frequent terrorist attacks.
“While we applaud the philanthropic motives of our countrymen and women, should we encourage them to work in war zones, putting their lives and maybe the lives of others at risk” was not in her original copy.
Nor was “maybe these charity workers are naïve and too trusting or perhaps have an inflated sense of their own capabilities? Who knows?” Who indeed. Certainly not desk-bound subs, that’s for sure.
Hannah threw the newspaper onto the floor. She was coming up against dead ends all the way. She was no nearer finding out who had killed or had arranged to have Liz killed which seemed a more likely scenario. The Cardboard City dwellers were an easy target for the press in general. They were an amorphous group. People came and went. Some died as Jacob Gurnstein had. In death, at least, he had been reunited with his family. She wondered who he really was. Everything on the police front seemed to have gone quiet. A cold case before it was ever a case. Another silent judgement. But by whom?
Hannah remembered his voice as he had called out to her on the night of Liz’s murder. And his face on the photograph Liz had had. There was something commanding about him. Idly she wondered what had led him to leave his family and friends and live as he had done. The journalist in her would have loved to write his story…
THIRTY-ONE
What infuriated Hannah was that there was nothing she could do to help Father Patrick. Although the police – mainly DI Turner – thought she would be useful to him, Hannah was only too aware that this was no two-way street. DI Turner had given her minimal information and there was no way she could even enter his home, let alone search it.
Almost reiterating the threat from the bishop who had conducted Liz’s funeral, the archdeacon had made it perfectly clear to her that the church resented her intrusion as they saw it into matters that were no concern of hers when he had invited her to his office.
His invitation had been phrased in terms that made it seem like an offer she couldn’t refuse when he had telephoned her. Hannah had thought about refusing or at least on insisting the meeting was at a place of her choosing. But where? She certainly didn’t want him in her home. However she was curious as to what they might know about Patrick’s situation.
“They’re political animals these archdeacons,” Reverend Daniels had told Hannah when she phoned him for advice. “They concentrate on canonical law and overseeing the clergy.
“The best thing is to say as little as possible. Use your journalistic skills. They will protect Father Patrick if they can – if not they might throw him to the wolves.”
Hannah was surprised by the office they met in. The Venerable Andrew Fawshore’s invitation may have been more like a royal command, but where he conducted his business was far from palatial. The room was small and, as one would imagine, lined with books on two walls. The third was covered with religious icons and a huge wooden cross. The fourth wall, behind the desk, had a window that appeared to look out on only the backs of buildings, and was covered with a venetian blind with the slats angled away from the view.
“So Miss Weybridge…” He was a thin man, dressed in black apart from his clerical collar. His hair matched his clothes and was neatly parted to one side. There seemed little joy in him. But if John Daniel’s was right, perhaps dealing with the miscreants might had drained that from him.
“It’s Ms Weybridge.”
“Ms.” The archdeacon’s monobrow rose. “Indeed Ms Weybridge. First let me offer my sincere condolences about the loss of your friend. Most unfortunate.”
He made it seem as though Liz’s death was an inconvenience. That somehow she had brought it upon herself and had the temerity to meet her murderer in one of the churches he was responsible for. Hannah cursed him silently but kept what she hoped was a neutral expression on her face and said nothing.
“I don’t know how much you are aware of the arrangements between Father Patrick and Miss – Ms – Rayman. The rooms below St John’s are used by a number of organisations – some from Lambeth Council – to help those in need. We have social workers, mental health workers…”
“And a dentist.” Hannah finished the list for him.
“Quite.”
“And she was there at Father Patrick’s request.” The archdeacon’s monobrow made an upward journey again. “She met him at a charity fundraiser.” Hannah wanted to distance Liz’s contribution from the others who were paid to work there. “She gave her services for free and wasn’t part of any council initiative.”
The archdeacon’s double chin – incongruous with his thin frame – wobbled slightly as he swallowed this information. Clearly he wasn’t used to being questioned or interrupted. His eyes behind a pair of wire-framed glasses narrowed slightly.
“Do you think they had a close relationship?” He leaned back in the chair in a way that made his torso concave, like a snake.
“I have no idea,” Hannah could answer this question truthfully. “When I found Liz it was the first time I had been to St John’s and I’d only heard her mention Father Patrick in passing, as the one who had inveighled her into running her surgery there.”
“Why do you say ‘inveighled’?” the archdeacon’s smile betrayed his condescension.
“Well I can’t think it was her idea. She has – had – a private practice in the Barbican for a start.”
“But had not long returned from volunteering overseas, Somalia, I think.” He let that thought rest. That was common knowledge and had been included in her own article for The News.
“Archdeacon, you invited me here to talk about Father Patrick, I assume. I really can’t help you. If you think there’s a link between Liz’s murder and his assault…”
The eyebrow did its thing again. “An interesting choice of word.”
“What would you call it then?”
The archdeacon spread his hands. “I only know what the police
have chosen to tell me. As yet I haven’t been permitted to see Father Patrick.” The question “have you?” was implicit but Hannah answered with a question of her own.
“What were the police looking for in the church?”
The archdeacon shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I suppose it was connected to your friend’s murder.”
“But they were turning the vicarage upside down as well. I heard they’d even been digging up the garden.” Once again she saw the leering face of that horrid sergeant as she’d walked past.
“A complete waste of police time and resources, I think. Father Patrick may have been misguided in his choice of company but I cannot image for one moment that he has any real skeletons buried under his patio. Anyway from what I understand from the police it was a tip-off from a member of the public. Probably a malicious member of the congregation whom he upset in some way.”
Hannah bristled at the reference to “his choice of company”. Is that how the church viewed Liz. An unfortunate choice? For Patrick maybe and maybe not. She wondered how much the archdeacon knew about this malicious person. Was he – or she – the same one who was blackmailing him? And then she remembered what Patrick had told her, that just before Liz was murdered he’d been called out to the hospital – on a wild goose chase as it happened.
“Does that happen often, then?” she asked.
“Does what happen often?”
“Members of a church congregation casting aspersions on their vicar out of pure malice?”
“More often than you’d think, I suspect,” the archdeacon replied. “But I wonder at your role in all this is, Ms Weybridge? Why are you so involved?”
“Liz was my friend…”
“Yes but not Father Patrick as far as I am aware?”
Hannah wondered just how much he was aware of. “No we only met after Liz’s death.” Hannah decided to play a wild card. “Did you know he’d been called away from St John’s to the hospital just before Liz’s murder. That’s why she was alone in the church.”
“That’s not unusual if a member of the congregation has asked for their vicar…”
“Yes but when he arrived there was no parishioner. No one had asked for him. By the time he got back it was too late.” Hannah could hear the frustated anger in her own voice.
“No I didn’t know that. I assume Father Patrick told you that?”
Hannah nodded. “Rather casts a different light on the tip-off to the police as well, doesn’t it?”
The archdeacon made a note on a pad he had with him. “Yes and no. But this is a matter for the diocese and the police, Ms Weybridge. Not for some salacious story in The News.”
“I am also acting for Lady Rayman who obviously wants to find out why her daughter died that night. Anyway you can’t stop me writing about whatever I uncover.”
“Mm have to check that out with our legal department… However I would advise you to act with caution. Sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.”
“Or even comatose priests?” Hannah couldn’t resist the jibe. She couldn’t see that anything else could be gained from continuing the conversation. She looked at her watch. “I’m sorry but I have another meeting…”
“And I have been remiss, taking up your time and not even offering you some refreshment… Thank you for coming, Ms Weybridge. I hope your friend’s murder will be solved soon.”
“So do I.”
Hannah shook his outstretched hand as he said, “Peace be with you,” then left.
She hadn’t told him everything. Especially not the fact that Patrick had said he was being blackmailed. Let them find that out for themselves. Little good it would do them, she thought. Pompous prig!
She wondered not for the first time if Patrick was the father of Liz’s child. Surely he wasn’t being blackmailed for that? Still a man of God having a child “out of wedlock”. It had been bad enough for her. So many people pitied her or told her in no uncertain terms what they thought of single mothers sponging on the state. They ignored the fact that she had her own home and supported herself financially. The government blamed everything on single mothers rarely acknowleding how many women had had to bring up children on their own after two wars – and made a good job of it.
She thought of Elizabeth and felt a warmth suffuse her body. Worth every ounce of disapproval. Then the image of Paul intruded on her joy. What the hell was he playing at? Had he made the connection between Judy and her? That he was deliberately seeing the staff journalist to get at her seemed too far-fetched. Coincidences do happen, she thought, as she made her way down to Borough High Street.
THIRTY-TWO
Coincidences. Life was full of them. But most of them were insignificant. Hannah didn’t think the assault on Father Patrick was connected to Liz’s murder. On the other hand, it might have been to do with what he was being blackmailed about. But it seemed more than a coincidence that he had been called away from St John’s so that Liz had been there on her own.
Hannah took a taxi to The News offices and went to the cuttings library. She’d decided to run a search on Father Patrick, Church of England politics and anything else that this led her to. She’d never thought about Patrick’s sexuality but supposing he had nothing to do with Liz’s pregnancy? What if he was gay and had been caught out? She thought of her friend Joe Rawlington and how careful he was. Joe had no reason to hide his homosexuality but to all intents and purposes he did.
Being gay had been decriminalised for over twenty-five years. But still, her researches revealed, gays and bisexuals were convicted for acts that would not have been a crime with a woman. The figures were sickening. In 1989, during the Conservative campaign for family values, more than 2,000 men were prosecuted for gross indecency, as many as during the 1950s and nearly three times the numbers in the mid-sixties.
But still Hannah couldn’t understand Joe. After all the MP Chris Smith had come out ten years ago… If Joe was reticent, how much more difficult for a member of the clergy. The church of England seemed uncompromising in their “homosexuality is a sin” stance. Plus the age of consent for homosexuals was twenty-one.
Perhaps Father Patrick had had a liaison with someone younger than twenty-one? It was all pure speculation and likely to remain so. She couldn’t see the archdeacon being willing to discuss this with her and poor Patrick was in no fit state.
Why else would he have been blackmailed? Hannah wondered what the blackmailer would do now? Had he – or she – been responsible for what had happened to Patrick? But that didn’t make sense. If he’d died he certainly wouldn’t have been able to pay up. So if not the blackmailer then who?
Hannah felt gripped by a cold terror which chilled her to the bone. Surely people in the church would not do such a thing? But what if it were linked to Liz? Had she told Patrick something that he would be able to use against the people behind whatever was going on in that village in Somalia? Maybe the blackmail was a ruse and when that didn’t work…
Father Patrick’s name came up in none of the searches she’d tried. She’d even tried “gay priests”. Several names – surprisingly more that she would have thought – came up. Evidently some were prepared to stand up and be counted. She wondered how that would affect their careers. Did one have a career structure in the church? Archdeacon to bishop or were there other avenues they could pursue? Well Patrick wouldn’t be doing much pursuing now, she supposed.
Hannah’s mind was going round in circles. She needed a break. And she knew just the thing.
Hannah made her way carefully down the stairs into the gloom of the City Golf Club, near St Brides, the journalists’ church off Fleet Street. It was busy with afternoon drinkers as it most often was. Joe was sitting in a corner and waved. He already had a bottle of white and two glasses on the table. He stood up and kissed her. “This is a lovely surprise – thought you didn’t emerge during daylight hours these days.”
Hannah laughed. “Or night time if the truth be told. But I was over at
The News and I suddenly thought I hadn’t seen you in ages and I could do with some friendly company.”
“As bad as that eh?” He poured the wine. Running his own PR company meant his hours were never fixed and he often worked evenings and weekends so Hannah knew he felt justified in taking a late lunch now and again and had rung to see if he were free.
“Well put it this way, I met an archdeacon today who makes Cruella look like an an animal lover. I never realised Christians could be so grim. Did you see that bishop at the funeral?”
“I’d have been hard put not to, he did conduct the service. What about him?”
“He told me not to meddle in things and he… seemed to know a lot about me.”
“Maybe he had asked Lady Rayman about you. He may have just been interested in who was going to speak during the service.”
“Perhaps.” Hannah look a long gulp of wine. “But there was something in the way he spoke to me. I felt I was being threatened.”
Joe was quiet for a moment. “You don’t think you’re reading too much into it? Remember you’re still raw from that girl Caroline’s death.”
Why does everyone call her “that girl”? Hannah wondered not for the first time. She had promised herself she was not going to be defined by what happened last year.
“I’m trying to put all that behind me.” Hannah smiled. “Anyway how are you?”
“Fine. Well, more than fine, actually. I’m thinking of standing for the local council. There’s a by-election as someone resigned.” A long time member of the Labour party, Jack had previously resisted all invitations to stand for office.
“I think that’s a great idea. What made you change your mind? You were always so adamant about not standing.”
Joe actually looked bashful – amazing for a hardened PR man. “I’ve met someone. And I think it’s time to stand up and be counted.”
Hannah raised her glass. “I’ll drink to that. When am I going to meet him? He must be very special.”