Black December

by Scott Hunter

  “You take my meaning correctly, Inspector.”

  The gentle cadences of the Ave Maria filtered into the room, filling Moran’s head with images of Blackrock: morning prayers, shoe polish . . .

  Oswald tapped his thumbs together. “I need to know – how did you guess?”

  “I don’t guess,” Moran croaked. “Never guess.” Was that his voice? The sound came to his ears through a long tunnel, distorted and harsh.

  “Can I fetch you a glass of water? You look pale.” Oswald studied him through his thick glasses.

  “What have you done with Neads?”

  “Neads? Your rather self-absorbed sergeant? Nothing – for my part, that is. Of course, I cannot guarantee his safety– but I am overreaching myself, Inspector. Plenty of time for revelations later.” Oswald consulted his watch. “Compline isn’t due to finish for at least another hour.”

  “Well then.” Moran took a pained breath. “I’ll go first, shall I?”

  “If you feel able.” Oswald flashed a brief, sympathetic smile.

  “It’s only right to start with Father Horgan.” Moran spoke with a huge effort. “A clever man. I understand he was appointed over you as librarian?”

  Oswald’s face darkened, but his smile prompted Moran to continue.

  “Perhaps I could take you up on your offer of a drink?” Moran waited, conserving his strength as Oswald poured water from a decanter and pushed the glass across the desk towards him. It was too far away. If he leaned over to pick it up he would fall. And then his time would be up. No good. Dry lips it was then.

  “Thanks.” He tried to raise his arm in a casual gesture, but even this small movement was apparently beyond the motor ability of his brain. Odd that his thinking was crystal clear. Moran gunned the mental accelerator. “Horgan was holding two items, you may recall.”

  “I do.” Oswald’s face was bright with concentration. “A length of shin bone in one hand and Charnford’s famous relic in the other.”

  “Exactly. And I suppose you thought that was coincidental? After you’d crept up behind him and slashed his throat?”

  Oswald inclined his head. “A grasping reflex, the coroner’s man said.”

  Moran nodded. “That’s probably what Horgan wanted you to think. Because if you’d worked it out, you’d have confiscated his props pronto.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No. I don’t expect you do. Horgan taught languages, didn’t he?”

  The frown on Oswald’s face deepened. “He did.”

  “French and German being his specialities?”

  “Yes.” Now Oswald was intrigued. He was leaning across the desk. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

  “Good. Well, let’s dissect your chosen name, shall we?” Moran paused, the effort of speech draining his strength. In a movie the cavalry would arrive any time now, just as he passed out.

  “My name? – Ahhhh…” Understanding broke over Oswald’s face.

  “Easy, really.” Moran forced himself to continue. While he was talking he was still alive. “Think about it: two hands. One word per hand.”

  “Os. The bone en Français.” Oswald’s face shone.

  “Spot on. And in the right?”

  A rich chuckle escaped from Oswald’s lips. “The Titulus. Which is made of wood. Or wald in German.”

  Moran nodded. It was about all he could do physically. “Not bad for a man with only seconds to live.”

  “Indeed. Indeed.” Oswald nodded vigorously.

  Ave Maria . . . The assembled monks’ voices reprised and died away.

  “Worthy of a little respect, I’d say.” Wrong, Moran. That was a wrong turning. A cul-de-sac. A mood breaker . . .

  “Respect?” Oswald hissed. “Respect? He might have known his subjunctive from his ablative, but he had no idea about technology. About taking the abbey into the twenty-first century. Lord–” Oswald held his head in his hands briefly, and then opened his arms wide in a gesture of hopelessness. “Between the two of them they’d have run the abbey to rock bottom in no time – just like–”

  “Just like the school,” Moran offered.

  “Yes. Just like the school,” Oswald spat. “It’s draining the abbey’s resources. We simply can’t go on propping it up with abbey funds.”

  “I’ll come back to that presently,” Moran said. “So, anyway, you killed Horgan and tried to spook Boniface, to push him over the edge. The skull, the message – that was you, wasn’t it? The abbot doesn’t keep too well – mentally – am I right?”

  “The skull was a tad theatrical, I admit,” Oswald replied. “As for Boniface,” he laughed harshly. “He’s never been the same since it happened. A clever man, but yes, you’re right, he’s a card or two short of a full pack.”

  “And I suppose, unless he does the decent thing and breaks down completely, he’s your next potential target? Since he’s the only other person who knows of the chamber’s existence?”

  Oswald nodded.

  “So, you were planning to bury them both in the chamber, first Horgan, and then Boniface, seal it up and pray that you could persuade the authorities that they had absconded together? But Vernon came along at the wrong time, and ruined it all.” Moran concentrated on his breathing, the look on Oswald’s face answering his question. Moran let his breath out slowly. Perhaps what he was experiencing was only a blip in his recovery, not some catastrophic collapse. He’d seen enough stroke victims in his time, spoon fed and helpless, eyes pleading for release. That wasn’t for him. Better to go down fighting. “And there was something else, as if Horgan hadn’t given me enough.”

  “Please. Go on.”

  Moran wet his dry lips. “When you met me in the car park that first morning – you weren’t wearing your scapular. What happened to it? Bloodstains, I’m guessing.”

  “Very good, Inspector. You’re right. I had to remove it. I was prepared for Horgan’s despatch you see, but Mr Vernon caught me unawares. Fortunately for him we were interrupted by Father Benedict. As you know, Mr Vernon got away, but not before he’d made rather a mess of my clothing.”

  Moran nodded. “Now tell me about you and Maria.”

  A pained expression passed briefly across Oswald’s face. “Ah. Poor Maria.”

  “She liked you, didn’t she? Confided in you? Good old Ozzy, always the sympathetic ear . . .”

  “No crime in that, Inspector.”

  “But that’s exactly what she had in mind, wasn’t it? A crime. A crazy plot to save the school and keep her job.”

  “She didn’t exactly tell me about that,” Oswald said with a pained expression, shaking his head.

  “But I’ll bet that she implied she was up to no good, didn’t she? Or at least that she was considering some desperate idea.”

  Oswald’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses.

  “You spied on them, didn’t you?” Moran said. “You heard them talking. Were you listening at Maria’s door? Or through a glass in the toilet next door?”

  Oswald snorted, looked down at the papers on the desk.

  “My God – you were. That’s why you moved them from the lodge, wasn’t it? And you knew their crackpot plan was likely to go pear-shaped and reflect badly on the school. So you sat on it. What parent would send their child to a school for bank robbers? When the press get hold of it – and trust me, they will – next year’s intake won’t give the accommodation staff many sleepless nights.”

  Oswald shrugged. “The school has been struggling for years. I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to imagine that I could bring it down on my own.”

  “But anything to help the possibility along, right?” Moran went on. “And there was something else, too.” The office lights flickered on briefly, and then went out again. Maybe someone was attending to the fuses somewhere in the labyrinth beneath the cloisters.

  “Well, don’t keep me guessing, Inspector.” Oswald began a casual inspection of the abbot’s papers, shuffling them into distinct piles as if prepari
ng for some administrative audit. “Your summary is fascinating.”

  “Jealousy. You knew about Maria and her boyfriend – Montgomery, was it? And you didn’t like the idea of her being interested in anyone else. I’ll bet you laid it on really thick about the school’s financial difficulties and the threat to their jobs. You wanted them to go ahead with their lunatic plan, didn’t you? Two over-excited boys, a comely girlfriend, a bank robbery. It couldn’t have ended well, could it? And it didn’t.”

  Oswald paused in his task. His hand disappeared beneath the folds of his tunic and reappeared holding a long kitchen knife. He placed it carefully on the desk, folded his arms and sat back attentively.

  “You knew all this and didn’t raise a hand to stop it. Because it suited your purposes – your ambitions.” Steady, Moran. Don’t push it too far . . .

  Oswald was playing with the knife, running his finger up and down the blade.

  Moran tried to flex his arm muscles. Pins and needles ran up and down his spine. “And then old Horgan gets the librarian’s job. Was that the decider for you? Is that why you slit his throat?”

  Oswald shook his head slowly. “You don’t understand. Can’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  The monk drew a long breath. “They were as thick as thieves, those two. Excuse the expression, Chief Inspector.”

  “Horgan and Boniface?”

  Oswald nodded. “Of course I knew the background. We all did. It was never spoken of.”

  “The abbot’s past, you mean? His attempted suicide, his guilt?”

  “Exactly. Horgan put him up for abbot, you know? After he’d rescued him from the brink and welcomed him into the brotherhood.”

  “I thought it had to be something like that.”

  “Well, I must say, Chief Inspector, I am very impressed by your intuition.” Oswald rotated the tip of the knife against the desktop, moving the handle with a wide, circular motion.

  “I’ve been at it a long time.” Too long, Moran thought. And maybe not for much longer . . . “It makes sense that Boniface – or Hugh Phillips, to use his original name – returned to his crime scene. He felt comfortable here in familiar surroundings, and he could repent at leisure under Horgan’s watchful eye. Right?”

  “Quite so. They ran the abbey and the school between them. Aloysius – well, he’s a puppet head, really. Personable and chatty with the parents, that sort of thing. No backbone, though.”

  Moran issued another instruction to his brain to move his legs. Nothing stirred. “There is a gap you can help with, actually.” Moran kept his tone even and low. “How much did you know about the unhappy accident in the chapel vault? 1967, I believe?”

  Oswald smiled. “One of the elderly brethren. He knew. He’d seen a boy fetching something from Horgan’s room in the middle of the night. He followed him and saw what was going on.”

  “What? He witnessed an illegal burial and never told a soul?”

  “We’re a close-knit community, Inspector. We keep ourselves to ourselves. I know that the brother in question offered up prayers regularly for Father Horgan and his guilty secret.”

  “Is this monk still alive?”

  “Sadly not. He passed away last year.”

  “But not before you found out what had happened?”

  “As infirmarian one has certain powers of persuasion at one’s disposal.”

  Moran felt nauseous. He could well imagine what persuasive powers a sick mind like Oswald’s might have employed upon an elderly, dying monk. “You know the identity of the victim?”

  “His name was Fergus Dalton. A simple lad, but I’m told he would always answer back when provoked. That, apparently, was his downfall.”

  The elation Moran might have felt at having his suppositions confirmed was quashed, not by any fear for himself, but by fear for Holly, alone and vulnerable and under the same roof as not one, but three potentially homicidal men. “Father Oswald – I have to tell you that you are in grave danger. You and the rest of the community.”

  For a moment Oswald looked puzzled. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “From Boniface? I don’t think so. He’s unhinged but harmless.”

  Moran shook his head. “No, not Boniface. From the same person who finished off John Vernon for you.”

  For the first time Oswald looked puzzled. “Finished? I assumed that–”

  “You assumed that Vernon died of the wounds you inflicted in the chapel?” Moran shook his head. “Very sloppy.”

  “Then who–?” Oswald had begun to rise from the abbot’s chair. He was holding the knife in a loose but workmanlike grip.

  There was a click and creak as the abbot’s office door swung open. Moran still couldn’t move. Only eyes and tongue were functioning. Neither could he turn his head to see who had just entered the room. But he recognised the voice all right. He’d know that brogue anywhere, even though only two words had been uttered.

  “Abbot Boniface?” Rory Dalton enquired as he stepped into Moran’s line of vision.

  “I certainly am not,” Oswald replied. “And you are?”

  “Rory Dalton’s the name. You murdered my brother. You and your buddies.”

  Moran could see the black muzzle of the silencer in Dalton’s fist.

  Oswald held up both hands and backed away from the desk, as if trying to disassociate himself from it. “No! You’re quite wrong. I’m not the abbot, I’m just–”

  “Liar,” Dalton said, and shot Oswald through the head.

  Chapter 15

  At least it had stopped snowing, Phelps reflected grimly as the dark mass of the abbey loomed ahead. But the wind was relentless, slicing through his raincoat and jacket like a rapier. Phelps set his legs to work in a final push up the steepest gradient of Charnford Hill. The full moon broke briefly through the cloud cover, lighting his way so that he was able to discern the outline of the school frontage ahead. What should he do? Ring the bell? Walk to the abbey church entrance? Was it his imagination or could he hear singing over the howl of the wind? What was it Moran had called it? Plainchant, that was it. Not even a blizzard could deter the Charnford monks from their devotions, it seemed.

  As he approached the tower he saw the van parked at the roadside. He took a short detour, and, keeping his distance, he circled the vehicle cautiously. Satisfied that it was unoccupied Phelps went for the driver’s door and jerked it open. His nose twitched. Perfume. And on the passenger seat, a well-thumbed copy of Hello! magazine half obscuring a tube of cheap lipgloss. Phelps rummaged a bit more and uncovered a plastic makeup box, two packets of cigarettes, a wad of £50 notes and a small semi-automatic. He checked the chamber. Full. Phelps put the gun in his pocket. The keys were in the ignition; he removed them and crunched his way across the road.

  The front door of the school was ajar. He went in, fumbling on either side for a light switch. He found one, clicked it up and down. The darkness remained. Power cut? Poor housekeeping? Phelps wiped his boots on the rough bristle of the doormat and entered the school building, wondering where on God’s earth a woman had learned to drive a van like Michael Schumacher on crack cocaine.

  Rory Dalton settled his bulk against Abbot Boniface’s desk and examined his pistol in mock surprise. “Well now, if it didn’t go off by accident, Brendan. Old age must be making me careless.”

  Moran had long since given up trying to stir his tendons and muscles into action so he stayed put, expression unchanged, simply because he was incapable of doing anything else. Dalton watched him with interest.

  “I’ve seen somethin’ like this before, Brendan. It’s not good.” He shook his head ruefully, as if mourning the passing of a long-suffering friend. The black shoulder-length hair Moran remembered from the early seventies was now greying at the temples and cut in a more contemporary style. The face had filled out, almost softening Dalton’s features, but the eyes were the same: deep, dark pits of evil. “Could be a mini-stroke – at your age very likely, Chief Inspector Moran.”

>   Dalton looked him up and down appraisingly. “Gone up in the world since I last saw you, eh Brendan? A high flyer, is that it? Bit like your old girlfriend. She took off up to the heights well enough, didn’t she? Reminds me of your two buddies earlier today. Sorry about that, Brendan – my wee surprise for you didn’t go quite according to plan.”

  Moran gripped the chair, his forearms shaking with effort. Had he been able-bodied he would have killed Dalton with his bare hands. But his vision was blurring, Dalton’s voice floating as if on thick water.

  “It was just unlucky, Brendan. How was I supposed to know you’d lent them your motor, eh? You always were a generous soul, though.”

  Moran clung to the chair and consciousness. He could feel himself losing the struggle.

  “Still, let bygones be bygones, that’s what I say. Forgive and forget. Tell you what, Brendan; if you just hold onto this for me, we’ll agree to forget our differences, how’s that?”

  Moran felt something cold in his hand, his useless fingers being curled around the gun. He made a sound in his throat, an internalised scream of aggression.

  “What’s that you’re sayin’, Brendan? Now don’t be gettin’ agitated. Look what you’ve done to the poor Father Abbot. Or Mr Phillips, should I say? They’ll not be thankin’ you for that, come the mornin’. Not a bit.”

  Dalton’s breath was in his nostrils, rank and tinged with cigar smoke. “Nice seein’ you again, Brendan. Enjoy your time inside.” He stuck his nose against Moran’s. “You don’t give a toss about what happened here, do you? About my big brother?” Dalton looked into Moran’s eyes, searching for some gleam of empathy. “He was an innocent, and what did these stuck-up bastards do to him, eh?” He spat the question. “They fookin’ killed him, that’s what.” Dalton had begun to pace up and down, emphasising each question with a stab of his finger. “And why? For what purpose?”