The Redeemed (18 page)

Brian Chilcott had been confined to the nursing home in
Weston-super-Mare for nearly five years. When Alzheimer's struck in his late
sixties, his second wife left even more quickly than she had arrived. 'What
would I be staying /or?' she said to Jenny. 'He's not my Brian any more, but
he'll always be your father.'

It was the time of the evening when the elderly residents of
the home were being given their night-time sedatives and hoisted into bed. With
Steve in tow, Jenny passed along the carpeted corridor that smelled of urine,
disinfectant and cold tea, catching nightmarish glimpses of decrepitude through
semi-open doors.

Her father's door was shut. Jenny paused to gather strength.

Steve put a hand on her shoulder. 'You don't have to do
this.'

'I do.' She reached up to touch his fingers. 'Come in with
me.'

'You're sure?'

'For me. He won't know who you are.'

She pushed open the door and found her father propped up in
bed, wearing bright blue pyjamas buttoned all the way up to the neck. For once
the television was silent. A magazine lay open but untouched on his lap.

'Hello, Dad,' Jenny said quietly.

The old man, seventy-four years old and as strong as a
carthorse, turned to look at them, but said nothing.

'Dad, you know me, don't you? It's Jenny?'

He stared at her blankly, seeming to focus on the wall behind
her.

Steve sat on the arm of the stiff-backed armchair in which
Brian spent most of his waking hours. 'Hello, Mr Chilcott. I'm Steve. Pleased
to meet you.'

Brian appeared to respond. His eyes moved briefly to Steve's
face before travelling to Jenny. She thought she detected a faint hint of
recognition.

'I'm sorry it's been such a long time. I've been busy,' Jenny
said, adding the lie: 'Ross sends his love.'

Brian turned his gaze back to Steve.

'That's not Ross. That's my friend, Steve. There's Ross.' She
pointed to one of the few framed family photographs arranged on the shelf at
the far end of the bed: Ross aged fourteen, posing with a surfboard on a
Cornish beach.

There was a long moment of silence. Brian seemed to lose
concentration and drift back to wherever he had come from.

'Dad—'

No answer.

Jenny was beginning to abandon hope, when her father said,
'He's the spit of me, that boy, and trouble with it.' He smiled.

It was a phrase he'd coined long ago, but at least it was
something. The nurses had told her there were days, even weeks, during which he
said nothing at all. But on some days he would bellow obscenities and hurl his
belongings around the room without provocation. There was no pattern to his
behaviour. His ex-wife was right, Jenny thought, he wasn't himself any more, so
much so that she scarcely connected him with the man who, after her mother had
left, had brought her up single-handedly from the age of twelve.

She reached into her handbag. 'Dad, I want to show you
something.'

Steve shot her a look, losing his nerve now that he was
confronted with the reality.

Ignoring him, she produced the crumpled photocopies and
smoothed them out on the blankets.

'You remember last time I was here I asked you about Katy -
Jim and Penny's little girl? I want to know what happened to her.'

She held the first article in front of him. 'The newspapers
said she died falling down the stairs. You must remember that.'

'He's got a man's shoulders, that boy. He'll be a strong 'un.
We worked on the trawlers when we were lads.'

'Please,' Jenny said. 'I need to know. Look.' She held up the
article bearing his picture. 'The police took you in. They came to get you from
our house, I remember. I was outside in the street and they took you away in
their car.'

Brian appeared to look at the article and study it. There was
nothing wrong with his eyes. He'd never had glasses, not even for reading.

'They thought you'd hurt her. You were at Jim and Penny's
house before the ambulance came. There was a row, the neighbours heard it.
Please, Dad. Try.'

The dim lights in his eyes went out. He yawned and tugged
awkwardly at the pillow that was keeping him upright.

'Dad, wake up,' Jenny said urgently, and thrust the third
article under his nose. 'They said it was an accident. She fell down the stairs
and hit her head. Why didn't you ever talk about it? Why didn't anyone ever
tell me about her?'

The old man batted her hand away. Sensing that she was
getting through to him, Jenny persisted. 'You called me Smiler - do you
remember? Do you remember the swing in the garden? You used to push me. I
remember that.'

Her father grabbed a handful of blankets and brought them
tight up under his chin.

'I think maybe that's enough,' Steve said.

'You can understand, can't you, Dad? I know you can. You
wouldn't forget a thing like that.'

He closed his eyes, a sound somewhere between a sigh and a
groan escaping from his depths.

Jenny shook him by the shoulder. 'Dad, tell me.'

Steve got up from his chair. 'Jenny—'

Suddenly her father snapped out a hand and seized Jenny's
wrist with an iron grip that her made her cry out in pain.

'Stop that.' She tried to prise his fingers away. 'Steve,
help me.'

'You know the deal, Smiler. You keep my secret, I'll keep
yours.'

'What do you mean? Dad?'

He slackened his grip, a lost, bewildered expression taking
the place of the anger that had briefly contorted his face. Sucked back into
the void, he was an empty shell again. If there was a fate worse than death,
Jenny thought, it had come to her father.

Jenny's call was answered by an elderly, austere-sounding
priest. She could hear several male voices in the background and footsteps on
wooden floors. Father Starr took a long time to come to the phone and spoke to
her curtly. Could she please meet him at Clifton Cathedral, he asked.

'Can you tell me what this is about?'

'I'm afraid not.'

'I see. Don't you think some indication would be courteous?'

'Please grant me this one interview, Mrs Cooper. I would be
most grateful.'

Each year, as summer reached its zenith, there were a handful
of days during which the Wye valley radiated such transcendent beauty that it
was impossible not to be inspired to a vision of a clear and uncomplicated
future. Meandering through the graceful corridors of beeches that reached out
and touched each other over the five miles of road between the villages of
Tintern and St Arvans, Jenny felt her spirits lift. The sun spiking through the
branches brought a simple, brilliant thought: she could rise above the
tribulations of her past, and set her own parameters. It didn't need prayer or
divine intervention; she could choose, right here and now, to take control.

She could begin with Starr. He was an obsessive who couldn't
believe one of his converts capable of murder. He was manipulative, too,
taunting her with mention of Alec McAvoy. It wasn't hard to understand his
motive. And who but an egotist with fragile self-esteem could spend his life
ministering to a captive audience of prisoners for whom the Church offered the
only viable prospect of hope? A multitude of inadequacies could hide behind
the priestly mask. She resolved to leave him in no doubt about what she thought
- that he was wrong about Craven.

Father Starr was waiting impatiently on the steps of the
brutally arresting modern cathedral. Built in the early 1970s largely of
concrete, its three-pronged spire seemed to jab accusingly at the sky: a
monument to the hubristic century that had created it, demanding rather than
inspiring awe. Jacketless, a short-sleeved clerical shirt hugged his lean
frame.

'Good morning, Mrs Cooper.' He didn't offer his hand. 'It's a
little too hot to talk out here, don't you think?'

Without waiting for her answer, he turned and led the way
through the cathedral's glass doors into an interior which, if it hadn't been
for the abstract mosaics of stained glass, struck Jenny as having all the magic
of an airport terminal. Vast concrete beams welded the building's precast
sections together. The altar stood beneath a hexagonal concrete dome of which
even Calvin might have approved.

'You don't appreciate the modernist architecture?' Starr
said, reading her thoughts.

'No,' Jenny said, determined to follow through on her
resolve.

'I try,' Starr said, with a suggestion of a smile. 'And invariably
fail.'

He nodded to the altar, crossed himself, and directed her to
the end of one of the many rows of chairs that substituted for pews.

'I think the architect's idea was to allow for purity of
thought,' he said. 'In that, at least, I feel he succeeded.'

Jenny was about to ask him what was so urgent that couldn't
wait, when she realized his small talk was veiling a silent prayer. His eyes
were focused inwards, his folded hands perfectly still.

After a moment's meditation he said, 'I would usually be
performing my duties at the prison on a weekday, but apparently I have been the
cause of complaints. I have been asked to hand over my responsibilities to
another priest.'

'Complaints from whom?'

'Two prisoners is all I have been told. Their identities have
not been disclosed to me, of course. That would allow me to defend myself,
which would never do.'

His sudden bitter tone surprised her. It was that of a man
unused to rejection.

'Have you been told the substance of the complaints?'

'The governor informs me that I have exerted "indecent
ideological pressure" on certain prisoners, thereby offending their
freedom of conscience.'

'Have you?'

Starr shook his head. 'Never. I offer myself to prisoners to
talk, that's all. To force myself on them would be anathema. My order's way is
always to lead by example. If others see you have something they wish to
possess, they will make the approach. In truth, Mrs Cooper, I am bewildered.
Five years in La Modela, every day in the presence of evil, and not a single
word of complaint.'

'You must have some clue what prompted this.'

'I have a suspicion, but I'm afraid you'll accuse me of being
paranoid.' He turned to look at her, the first time she had seen genuine
humility in him. 'Believe me, I'm not prone to conspiracy theories, but these
complaints mean I can no longer contact Paul Craven. I fear for him. His
behaviour has become erratic, his thoughts disjointed. I had become the one
person whom he could trust.'

'You think the complaints against you were manufactured?'

'I hesitate to believe that—' He checked himself and gazed at
the altar.

'But you do?' Jenny said. 'Who does this benefit? I thought
priests were welcomed by prisons.'

'It may be a perfectly valid grievance,' Starr said, in an
effort to convince himself, 'but I suppose there may be some who would like to
see me discredited. A priest suspended from his post for browbeating doesn't
make the most compelling witness at an inquest, for example.'

'I wouldn't pay it much attention,' Jenny said. 'Besides, any
evidence you gave would hardly be critical.'

'But the allegations can be put, and repeated in the press. I
will be called a zealot and my belief in Craven dismissed as delusional.'

Jenny thought of Ed Prince's parting words at the Mission
Church the previous afternoon: his sly allusion to those Christians who didn't
like the way his clients conducted themselves. She'd guessed he was referring
to Starr, but in the turmoil of the evening she had left her thoughts half-
formed. Was Prince implying that the priest had an agenda beyond exonerating
Craven? She had come intending to tell Starr she couldn't help him, but he had
headed her off and was dragging her into the mire.

Be direct, that was the only way. Hit him with the hard
questions now and gauge his response. A would-be Jesuit couldn't deny the power
of logic. If all he had to offer was blind faith in Craven with no facts to
back it up, she could let him down with a clear conscience.

'Let me ask you something, Father,' Jenny said. 'What do you
make of Eva Donaldson?'

'In what sense?'

'Her life story. Her conversion. What she represented in a
spiritual sense.'

He gave her a sideways glance, reading her with eyes from
which there was no hiding place. 'Are you asking me if I believe God was
working through her?'

'If you like.'

'And whether I approve of her church?'

'You couldn't be much further apart,' Jenny said.

'Protestants forget we have "phenomena", too. But
we subject them to scrutiny. The Catholic Church treats the experience of a
solitary individual with caution. Doctrine, scripture and the accumulated
wisdom of two thousand years must all play their part in discerning truth.'

'You're sceptical about her.'

'What would you expect?' He smiled. 'But just as for you
there is only truth and untruth, for me there is only that which is from God,
and that which is not. I am touched by Miss Donaldson's story, but I am also
aware that human beings can generate a level of collective emotion that apes
the action of the Holy Spirit. You can experience it in a football crowd - the
collective surge of passion that physically lifts the exhausted player.'

'Football crowds don't reform young criminals or eradicate
pornography.'

'I don't believe anyone has ever asked them to.'

'Have you been to the Mission Church? What they're achieving
with children is very moving.'

'God isn't sentimental, Mrs Cooper: consider what happened
to his son. We all enjoy interludes of happiness, but it's through our
suffering that we progress.'

'All I have to offer is unrelenting pain and hardship — '

'I beg your pardon.'

'Captain Bligh. You must have seen
The Bounty?'

'I don't believe I have.'

'It's the line he uses to entice loyal men to join him when
the mutineers cast him adrift.'

'And does he prevail?'

'Yes. He survives and the mutineers become marooned in a
paradise that turns into a hell.'

Starr nodded in amused approval. 'I must watch it. But I can
assure you, no matter what you may have heard, I've no desire to persecute a
crew of mutineers. My concern is purely for Paul Craven, and of course the
truth.'

'What makes you so certain he's innocent? It must be
something more than what he tells you.'

Starr said, 'You're impatient with me, Mrs Cooper.'

'Do you blame me?'

'What if I were to tell you that I had had a
"word"?'

'God spoke to you?' Jenny said.

'If you wish.'

'And that's why I should put my neck on the line? The
Ministry of Justice are already piling the pressure on me to steer clear.'

'You've rowed against the tide before. Alec McAvoy told me
himself.'

'Can you please not mention him again?'

Father Starr persisted. 'I'm appealing to your conscience,
Mrs Cooper. Something is not right.'

Jenny shot up from her chair and turned to face him. 'Do you
know what I think? I think you're reading all sorts of things into this that
don't exist. You're dramatizing, casting yourself in the middle of some
imaginary struggle between good and evil, when the simple truth is Craven
killed her.'

She started off across the stone floor, the click of her
heels ricocheting like bullets off the cathedral's unadorned walls.

Starr jumped up and pursued her. 'Mrs Cooper—'

She kept on walking. 'I'm sorry, but I can't be used this
way.'

He came alongside and reached into his shirt pocket. 'Please.
I didn't know whether to show you this.' He brought out a folded piece of
paper. 'I still don't.' There was anguish in his voice. 'Really, I've prayed,
but I've no idea what's right.'

Jenny came to a reluctant halt. Avoiding her gaze, Starr
handed her the single sheet.

'I've heard Eva Donaldson was friendly with a boy,' Starr
said. He swallowed a guilty lump in his throat. 'His name's Frederick Reardon.'

'I've met him,' Jenny said. 'What of it?'

'He's got a violent past.'

She looked at the unfolded document. It was a standard
printout from the Criminal Records Bureau. Two convictions were listed beneath
Freddy Reardon's name. Both were on the same date a little over two years ago:
possession of an offensive weapon and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

'Where did you get this?' Jenny said.

'That I can't say,' Starr said.

'How did you know about Freddy?'

Starr shook his head. 'I didn't. This was given to me.'

'What's going on? Who's doing this?' Jenny demanded.

'I've told you all I can,' Starr said. 'Make of it what you
will.'

With a look that told her his loyalties lay to a far higher
authority than hers, he said a hurried goodbye and walked quickly away.