A Taste for Death (68 page)

and saw her face flushed and primand. He looked up

� qmost bloated with em barrassment, then she said gruffi

'Thank you for choosing me fa]: ,

lot.' The words came out withv the squad. Ive learnt a

which made him realize what it ha harsh ungraciousness

He said gently: qad cost her to say them.

'One always does. That's what

ful.' so often makes it pain She nodded as if it were she di

and walked stiffly to the door. S(tnissing him, then turned

and cried: ttdenly she swung round

'I shall never know whether I �

that. Her death. Whether I caus.anted it to happen like I shall never know. You heard w it. Whether I meant it. me. "Aren't you going to thank rQa,S.wa.yne cled .out to, him. How shall I ever be sure?' . He enew. You neara

He said what it was possible t

'Of course you didn't want it say:

think about it calmly and sensibl, to happen. When you

bound to feel partly responsable. � you know that. You ro

someone we love. It's a natural aWe all do when we lose

You did what ,ou thou,,ht was rhilt, but it isn't rational.

any of us do more. You didn'tht at the tame. We can t

Swayne did, his final victim.' kill your grandmother.

But with murder there never

, ts a final WCtlm No one

touched by Berowne s death wt ' ' �

himself, Massingham, Father Bld remain unchanged,

pathetic spinster, Miss Wharton. nes, Darren, even that

well. Why should she suppose thKate knew that perfectly

w I eass 'it she was different9 Th

e 1-worn r urine phrases sou, �

as he spoke them. And some thingded false and glib even

, were be ond has reassur

ance. Berowne s foot, hard on Y '

dangerous corner; her bl��dstaiteh;handsaccelerat�rthrust atoutthato

5O9

the killer. There was action and there was consequence. But she was tough, she would cope. Unlike Berowne, she would learn to accept and carry her personal load of guilt, as he himself had learnt to carry his.

3

Miss Wharton's only experience of a children's hospital was fifty years ago when she had been admitted to her local cottage hospital to have her tonsils out. Great Ormond Street could hardly have been more different from her traumatic memories of that ordeal. It was like walking into a children's party, the ward so full of light, of toys, of mothers and happy activity that it was difficult to believe that this was a hospital until she saw the pale faces and the thin limbs of the children. Then she told herselfi But they're ill, they're all ill, and some of them will die. Nothing can prevent it.

Darren was one of those in bed but sitting up, lively and occupied with a jigsaw on a tray. He said with happy self-importance:

'You can die with what I've got. One of the kids told

me.'

Miss Wharton almost cried out her protest.

'Oh Darren, no, no! You aren't going to die!'

'I reckon I won't. But I could. I've gone to foster parents now. Did they tell you?'

'Yes, Darren; that's lovely. I'm so glad for you. Are you happy with them?'

'They're all right. Uncle's going to take me fishing when I get out of here. They're coming in later on. And I got a bicycle - a Chopper.'

Already his eyes were on the door. He had hardly looked at her since she had arrived and when she had walked up to the bed she had glimpsed in his face a curiously adult embarrassment and had suddenly seen herself as he saw

510

her, as all the children must see her, a pathetic, rather silly old woman carrying her gift of an African violet in a small pot. She said:

'I miss you at St Matthew's, Darren.'

'Yeah. Well I reckon ! won't have time for that now.'

'Of course not. You'll be with your foster family. I quite understand.'

She wanted to add: But we did have happy times together, didn't we? Then stopped herself. It was too like a humiliating plea for something she knew he couldn't give.

She had brought him the violet because it had seemed more manageable than a bunch of flowers. But he had seemed hardly to look at it and now gazing round the toy-filled ward, she wondered how she could possibly have imagined that it was a suitable gift. He didn't need it, and he didn't need her. She thought: He's ashamed of me. He wants to get rid of me before this new Uncle arrives. He hardly seemed to notice when she said goodbye and slipped away, handing the violet to one of the nurses on her way out.

She took the bus to the Harrow Road and walked to the church. There was plenty for her to do. Father Barnes, refusing a period of convalescence, had only been back two days but the number of services, and the size of the congregations, had increased since that article in the paper about a miracle and there would be a long line of peni-tents waiting for confession after this afternoon's Evensong. St Matthew's would never be the same again. She wondered how long there would be a place in it for her.

This was the first time she had gone alone to the church since the murder, but in her misery and loneliness she was hardly aware of apprehension until she tried to fit her key in the lock and found, as she had on that dreadful morning, that she couldn't get it in. The door, as then, was unlocked.

She pushed it open, her heart pounding, and called: 'Father, are you there? Father?'

A young woman came out of the Little Vestry. She was an ordinary, respectable, unfrightening girl, wearing a

511

jacket and a blue headscarf. Seeing Miss Wharton's white face, she said:

'I'm sorry. Did I startle you?'

Miss Wharton managed a faint smile:

'It's all right. It's just that I wasn't expecting anyone. Was there anything you wanted? Father Barnes won't be

here for another half hour.'

The girl said:

'No, there's nothing. I was a friend of Paul Berowne. It's just that I wanted to visit the Little Vestry, to be alone here. I wanted to see wtiere it happened, where he died. I'm going now. Father Barnes said to return the key to the vicarage but perhaps I could leave it with you as you're here.'

She held it out and Miss Wharton took it. Then she watched as the girl went to the door. When she reached it, she turned and said:

'He was right, Commander Dalgliesh. It's just a room, a perfectly ordinary room. There was nothing there, nothing to see.'

And then she was gone. Miss Wharton, still trembling, locked the outside door, went along the passage to the grille and gazed up through the church to the red glow of the sanctuary lamp. She thought: and that, too, is only an ordinary lamp made of polished brass with a red glass. You can take it apart, clean it, fill it with ordinary oil. And the consecrated wafers behind the drawn curtain, what are they? Only thin transparent discs of flour and water which come neatly packed in little boxes, ready for Father Barnes to take them in his hands and say the words over them which will change them into God. But they weren't really changed. God wasn't there in that small recess behind the brass lamp. He wasn't any longer in the church. Like Darren, he had gone away. Then she re-membered what Father Collins had once said in a sermon when she first came to St Matthew's: 'If you find that you no longer believe, act as if you still do. If you feel that you can't pray, go on saying the words.' She knelt down on the hard floor, supporting herself with her hands grasping

512

the iron grille and said the words with which she always began her private prayers: 'Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, but speak but the word and my soul shall be healed.'

L

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