A Taste for Death (8 page)

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'Naw, I told yer. I was behind 'er all the time.' But the question had been unwelcome and for the first time some of his cockiness seemed to have drained from him. He slumped back in his seat and stared resentfully through the windscreen.

Dalgliesh went back into the church and found Massing-ham.

'I want you to go home with Darren. I've a feeling there's something he's keeping back. It might not be important but it would be helpful to have you there when he talks to his parents. You've got brothers, you know about small boys.'

Massingham said, 'You want me to go now, sir?' 'Obviously.'

Dalgliesh knew that the order was unwelcome. Massing-ham hated to leave a scene of crime even temporarily while the body was still there, and he would go the more unwill-ingly because Kate Miskin, back now from Campden Hill Square, was to stay. But if he had to go he would go alone. He ordered the police driver out of the car with unusual curtness and drove off at a speed which suggested that Darren was about to enjoy a gratifyingly exciting ride.

Dalgliesh passed through the grille door into the body of the church, turning to close it gently behind him. But even so the soft clang rang sharply in the silence and echoed around him as he made his way down the nave. Behind him out of sight, but always present to the mind, was the apparatus of his trade; lights, cameras, equipment, a busy silence broken only by voices unhushed and con-fident in the presence of death. But here, guarded by the elegant whorls and bars of wrought iron, was another world as yet uncontaminated. The smell of incense strength-ened and he saw ahead a haze of gold where the gleaming mosaics of the apse stained the air and the great figure of Christ in glory, his wounded hands stretched out, glared down the nave with cavernous eyes. Two more of the nave lights had been switched on but the church was still dim compared with the harsh glare of the arc lights trained on the scene and it took him a minute to locate Father Barnes,

a dark shape at the end of the first row of chairs under the pulpit. He walked up to him, aware of the ring of his feet on the tiled floor, wondering whether they sounded as portentous to the priest as they did to him.

Father Barnes was sitting bolt upright on his chair, his eyes staring ahead at the gleaming curve of the apse, his body taut and contracted, like that of a patient expecting pain, willing himself to endure. He didn't turn his head as Dalgliesh approached. He had obviously been summoned in a hurry. His face was unshaved and the hands, rigidly damped together in his lap, were grubby, as if he hffd gone to bed unwashed. The cassock, whose long black lines etiolated still further his lean body, was old and stained with what looked like gravy. One spot he had tried in-effectively to rub away. His black shoes were unpolished, the leather cracked at the sides, the toes scruffed into greyness. There came from him a smell, half-musty, half disagreeably sweet, of old clothes and incense, overlaid with stale sweat, a smell which was a pitiable amalgam of failure and fear. As Dalgliesh eased his long limbs in the adjoining chair and rested his arm along its back, it seemed to him that his body encompassed and, by its own calm presence, gently eased a core of fear and tension in his companion, so strong that it was almost palpable. He felt a sudden compunction. The man would, of course, have come fasting to the first Mass of the day. He would be craving hot coffee and food. Normally someone at or near the scene would be brewing tea but Dalgliesh had no in-tention of using the wahshroom even to boil a kettle until

the scene of crime officer had done his work.

He said:

'I won't keep you long, Father. There are just a few questions and we'll let you go back to the Vicarage. This must have been a horrible shock to you.' Father Barnes still didn't look at him. He said in a low voice:

'A shock. Yes, it was a shock. I shouldn't have let him have the key. I don't know really why I did. It isn't easy to explain.' The voice was unexpected. It was low with an agreeable trace of huskiness and with a hint of more power

than the frail body would suggest; not an educated voice but one on which education had imposed a discipline which hadn't quite obliterated the provincial, probably East Anglian, accent of childhood. He turned now to Dalgliesh and said again:

'They'll say I'm responsible. I shouldn't have let him

have the key. I'm to blame.'

Dalgliesh said:

'You aren't responsible. You know that perfectly well and so will they.' The ubiquitous, frightening, judgemental 'they'. He thought, but did not say, that murder provided its own dreadful excitement for those who neither mourned nor were directly concerned and that people were commonly indulgent to those who helped provide the entertainment. Father Barnes would be surprised - agree-able or otherwise - by the size of next Sunday's congrega-tion. He said:

'Could we start at the beginning? When did you first meet Sir Paul Berowne?'

'Last Monday, just over a week ago. He called at the Vicarage at about half past two and asked if he could see the church. He'd come here first and found he couldn't get in. We'd like to keep the church open all the time but you know how it is today. Vandals, people trying to break open the offertory box, stealing the candles. There's a note in the north porch saying that the key is at the Vicarage.'

'I suppose he didn't say what he was doing in Pad-dington?'

'Yes, he did, actually. He said that an old friend was in St Mary's Hospital and he'd been to see him. But the patient was having treatment and couldn't see visitors so he had an hour to spare. He said he'd always wanted to see St Matthew's.'

So that was how it had started. Berowne's life, like that of all busy men, was dominated by the clock. He had set aside an hour to visit an old friend. The hour had become unexpectedly available for a private indulgence. He was known to be interested in Victorian architecture. How-ever fantastic the labyrinth into which that impulse had

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led him, his first visit to St Matthew's at least had had the

comforting stamp of normality and reason.

Dalgliesh said:

'Did you offer to accompany him?'

'Yes, I offered but he said not to trouble. I didn't press

it. I thought he might want to be alone.' So, Father Barnes

was not without sensitivity. Dalgliesh said:

'So you gave him the key. Which key?'

'The spare one. There are only three to the south porch.

Miss Wharton has one and I keep the other two at the

Vicarage. There are two keys on each ring, one to the

south door and a smaller key which opens the door in the

grille. If Mr Capstick or Mr Pool want a key - they're our

two churchwardens - they come to the Vicarage. It's quite

close, you see. There's only one key to the main north

door. I always keep that in my study. I never lend it out

in case it gets lost. It's too heavy, anyway, for general use.

I told Sir Paul that he would find a booklet describing the

church in the bookstand. It was written by Father Collins

and we've always meant to revise it. It's over there on the

table by the north porch. We only charge three pence.'

He turned his head painfully, like an arthritic patient, as

if inviting Dalgliesh to buy a copy. The gesture was pa thetic and rather appealing. He went on:

'I think he must have taken one because two days later

I found a five pound note in the box.Most people just put

in three pence.'

'Did he tell you who he was?'

'He said his name was Paul Berowne. I'm afraid it didn't mean anything to me at the time. He didn't say he was an MP or a baronet, nothing like that. Of course, after he'd resigned I knew who he was. It was in the papers and on the television.'

Again there was a pause. Dalgliesh waited. After a few seconds the voice began again, stronger now and more resolute.

'I suppose he was away about an hour, perhaps less. Then he returned the key. He said he would like to sleep that night in the Little Vestry. Of course he didn't know it

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was called that. He said in the small room with the bed. The bed has been there since Father (3ollins's time, in the war. He used to sleep in the church during air raids so that he could put out the fire bombs. We've never taken it away. It's useful if people feel ill during services or if I want to rest before midnight Mass. It doesn't take up much room. It's only a narrow collapsible bed. Well, you've seen it.'

'Yes. Did he give any reason?'

'No. He made it sound quite an ordinary request and I didn't like to ask why. He wasn't a man you could cross-question. I did ask what about sheets, a pillowcase. He said he'd bring anything he needed.'

He had brought one double sheet and had slept between it, doubled over. Otherwise he had used the existing old army blanket folded beneath him and on top the blanket of multicoloured woollen squares. The pillowcase on what

was obviously a chair cushion was also presumably his. Dalgliesh asked:

'Did he take the key away with him then or call back for it that night?'

'He called back for it. That must have been about eight o'clock or a little earlier. He was standing at the door of the Vicarage carrying a grip. ! don't think he came by car. I didn't see one. I gave him the key. I didn't see him again until next morning.'

'Tell me about the next morning.'

'I used the south door as usual. It was locked. The door to the Little Vestry was open and I could see that he wasn't there. The bed was made up very tidily. Everything was tidy. There was a sheet and a pillowcase folded on top. I looked through the grille into the church. The fights weren't on but I could just see him. He was sitting in this row, a little further along. I went into the vestry and robed for the Mass, then through the grille door into the church. When he saw that Mass was to be in the Lady Chapel he moved across and sat in the back row. He didn't speak. No one else was there. It wasn't Miss Wharton's morning and Mr Capstick, who likes to come to the nine thirty

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Mass, had influenza. There were just the two of us. When I'd finished the first prayer and turned to face him, I saw that he was kneeling. He took Communion. Afterwards, we walked together to the Little Vestry. He handed me

back the key, thanked me, picked up his grip and left.' 'And that was all on that first occasion?'

Father Barnes turned and looked at him. In the dimness of the church his face looked lifeless. Dalgliesh saw in his eyes a mixture of entreaty, resolution, and pain. There was something he feared to say yet needed to confide. Dalgliesh waited. He was used to waiting. At last Father Barnes spoke.

'No, there is something. When he lifted his hands and I placed the wafer in his palms- I thought I saw -' he paused then went on, 'there were marks, wounds. I thought I saw stigmata.'

Dalgliesh fixed his eyes on the pulpit. The painted figure of a Pre-Raphaelite angel carrying a single lily, its yellow hair crimped under the wide halo, looked back at him

with its bland, uncurious gaze. He asked:

'On his palms?'

'No. On his wrists. He was wearing a shirt and a pull-over. The cuffs were a little loose. They slipped)back. That's when I saw.'

'Have you told anyone else about this?'

'No, only you.'

For a full minute neither of them spoke. In all his career as a detective Dalgliesh couldn't remember a piece of in-formation from a witness more unwelcome and - there was no other word - more shocking. His mind busied itself with images of what this news could do to his investigation if it ever became public; the newspaper headlines; the half-amused speculation of the cynics; the crowds of sightseers, the superstitious, the credulous, the genuine believers, thronging the church in search of... what? A thrill, a new cult, hope, certainty? But his distaste went deeper than irritation at an unwelcome complication to his in-quiry, at the bizarre intrusion of irrationality into a job so firmly rooted in the search for evidence which would stand

up in court, documented, demonstrable, real. He was shaken, almost physically, by an emotion far stronger than distaste and one of which he was half-ashamed; it seemed to him both ignoble and in itself hardly more rational than the event itself. What he was feeling was a revulsion amounting almost to outrage. He said:

'I think you should continue to say nothing. It isn't relevant to Sir Paul's death. It isn't even necessary to in-clude it in your statement. If you do feel the need to

confide in anyone, tell your bishop.'

Father Barnes said simply:

'I shan't tell anyone else. I think I did have a need to

speak about it, to share it. I've told you.'

Dalgliesh said:

'The church was dimly lit. You said the lights weren't on. You were fasting. You could have imagined it. Or it could have been a trick of the light. And you saw the marks only for a couple of seconds when he lifted his palms to receive the Host. You could have been mistaken.'

He thought: Who am I trying to reassure, him or me?

And then came the question which against reason he had to ask:

'How did he look? Different? Changed?'

The priest shook his head then said, with great sad-ness:

'You don't understand. I wouldn't have recognized it, the difference, even if it had been there.' Then he seemed to recover himself. He went on resolutely:

'Whatever it was I saw, if it was there, it didn't last long. And it's not so very unusual. It has been known before. The mind works on the body in strange ways; an intense experience, a powerful dream. And as you say the light was very dim.'

So Father Barnes didn't want to believe it either. He 'was arguing it away. Well that, thought Dalgliesh wryly, was better than a note in the parish magazine, a telephon call to the daily papers or a sermon next Sunday on the phenomenon of stigmata and the inscrutable wisdom of providence. He was interested to find that they shared the

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same distrust, perhaps the same revulsion. Later there would be a time and a place to consider why this was so. But now there were more immediate concerns. Whatever had brought Berowne again to that vestry it had been a human hand, his or another's, which had wielded that razor. He said: