Unholy Dying (28 page)

“Certainly this was the first time I'd done any such thing. I decided the proper procedure was to establish the truth first, then decide on a course of action.”

Instead, thought Oddie, of assuming Pardoe's guilt and moving him swiftly to another parish. That was probably what would have happened ten years before. His purpose in talking more freely than he usually would was partly to undermine this domineering man's faith in his own judgments. Oddie felt the Bishop was already showing signs of being rattled.

“But the reason I wanted to talk to you was not the sexual side of the allegations against Father Pardoe,” he said, “which I suppose you have no more special knowledge of than anybody else. It was the matter of the Father Riley Fund, which is also the subject of the committee's inquiries.”

“Ye-e-es.” The fingers triangularized themselves again. “The two matters were of course closely connected. The charge is that he used the Fund for the benefit of this young woman that he's been—that he may be involved with. That I can discuss. Otherwise, it's a question of diocesan finances, and those must remain confidential.”

Oddie allowed a few seconds' pause.

“I'm afraid it's not as simple as that.”

“Oh?” He spoke magisterially.

“I gather from the article in the
Telegraph and Argus
that the Fund was set up by a will, and was to be administered by the priest of the day at St. Catherine's for the benefit of the poor of
that parish.” The Bishop cautiously nodded his head. “That brings the Fund and its administration within the orbit of the law. Now, I gather that there was a decision to use the Fund not just for individuals in need, but for wider projects of general benefit and usefulness.”

“Yes. That is the case.”

“Two things occur to me about that. I gather Father Pardoe felt that larger projects were rather outside his competence, and he preferred to leave decisions on them to you and the two lay trustees. But was any legal effect given to this decision, or does Father Pardoe still technically have responsibility for the Fund?”

This time it was the Bishop who allowed a long pause.

“I suppose technically he remains responsible.”

“No legal steps taken to alter the terms of the will.” Oddie looked steadily at the Bishop. “Yet Father Pardoe in the interview in the
Telegraph and Argus
seems vague about any uses the Fund has been put to, which suggests he was not only not consulted but not kept informed. He was technically responsible for a large sum of money but was kept totally ignorant of any uses it was put to. That could put you in a very difficult position, particularly if he were relieved of his parish and decided to take civil action against you.”

“An absurd speculation. It would never happen.”

“He seems to feel strongly that he has not had natural justice. Then there is the matter of the will. It apparently specifies the beneficiaries are to be parishioners of St. Catherine's—in other words, basically, Catholics in Shipley. Either the money should be used for Shipley people or, with the extension you have made, probably justifiably, for projects in Shipley. So the question arises, has the Fund been used exclusively within the parish?”

The silence from the Bishop seemed endless.

 • • • 

Charlie stuck rigidly to his role as observer when he accompanied two uniformed officers from the Shipley force to the Norris home. He admired the approach of the young sergeant, who seemed to have the sort of dogged, unfazed tenacity that any good policeman should have. He listened through all the “Lennie would never forgive us”s and the “He's been a wonderful son to us”s that the bemused and genuinely distressed Norrises could produce. Charlie wondered how in the world they had become such terrible parents.

His own situation struck him forcibly. He and Felicity were about to produce a child. He refused to believe that they could treat any child the way the Norrises had treated Julie—as if they had a grudge against her rather than a duty to her. Nor could he see himself and Felicity spoiling the child rotten, as the Norrises had their son.

But, nevertheless, policemen's children, like clergymen's, were notoriously prone to go off the rails. The fact that their fathers were never there at the points in their lives—high points as well as low points—when they were needed was an obvious factor, as was the fact that, like clergymen, policemen had a sort of aura of probity that acted as a challenge and was something any child of spirit felt he or she had to react against. Pillars of the community ask to be pulled down by their offspring.

But how could he bear it? What if the child started showing signs that he or she was going off the rails, and
still
he was not there at the crisis moments? Then, if serious trouble began, and he still wasn't there? How could he bring a young life into the world but have such a nebulous responsibility for what happened to it? Rather than that, he'd leave the job he loved, was good at, felt committed to.

Sergeant Bingle had got his way. Professing their total confidence
that they would find nothing in Lennie's room, the Norrises led the little party upstairs. Simon Norris, who had already told them he had no key, gestured to a door, and Bingle cast an expert eye on the lock. Then he took out a formidable bunch of keys and selected a few. The third one he tried turned, and he swung open the door. The parents held back, as if nervous even then of their son and how he would react. The two Shipley policemen and Charlie went in.

It was not a small room, but with the three of them inside it felt cramped. Their first impression was of a modern-day Aladdin's cave. The walls of the room were piled high with boxes, cassettes, and videos. When Bingle went over and swung open the wardrobe door it was packed full to bursting with the teenage equivalent of designer clothes, including athletic shoes, block-soled shoes, tracksuits, and the latest Leeds United and England strips. Charlie, out of the corner of his eye, saw the parents' eyes widen: they'd known he had a lot of good clothes, but not so many. What could he do with them all? Bingle went over to the videos and took one out. He flashed it in the direction of his fellow constable and Charlie: a blonde who was all breast and heavy makeup with her legs outstretched left nothing to the imagination.

“Here—” began Mr. Norris, then spluttered into nothing.

Bingle muttered, “Seems to cater to all tastes,” then settled down on his haunches. He pulled out two boxes from the bottom of the stack.

“This'll be the Andraol,” he said.

Charlie, meanwhile, had gone over to the window. On the sill he found two files. The top one was marked BUSINESS in uneven childish capitals. He took it up and flicked through it. Just a glance told him the sums involved were enormous for a child. Then he took up the other. It was marked in the same
hand: PERSONAL. And when he began to examine that one he really drew in his breath.

 • • • 

Eventually the Bishop made a feeble attempt to regain ground.

“I really do not see why we should be discussing this matter.”

“Don't you?” asked Oddie, hardly bothering to disguise his skepticism. “I grant that normally I don't suppose we would consider that this is a matter we should investigate—unless someone, for example a Shipley parishioner, was insistent that we should. But the Horrocks story was two-pronged: there was the sexual side, which was the main thing that made it of interest to the national tabloids; linked to that, though, was the financial side, the alleged misuse of the Father Riley Fund. We've touched on the sexual side outside. It's not for me to give an opinion, but I expect you registered that I was surprised you gave such a strong response to what was after all nothing but a single muckraking letter.”

“You don't realize how
careful
—”

“Of course you're right. You have to think of the Church. But let's leave that and come to the financial side. It occurs to me that if the provisions of the will had been followed unchanged, Father Pardoe could hardly have got in any trouble. In order to provide this girl—who had been cast off by her own family—with a washing machine, a stove, or whatever, he would simply have consulted the two trustees, told them what he wanted, who he wanted it for, and he would have got the go-ahead.”

“You seem very knowledgeable about what he used the trust for.”

“That, and to provide free heating for a very old lady, he told the
Bradford Telegraph and Argus
. Nothing very exciting. It could hardly have been much more, certainly not cash for Julie Norris to live riotously, because he would have had to go to the
trustees to get permission to give cash, and I pay you the compliment of saying you're not a fool. You would not have given it.”

“I fail to see where this questioning is leading.”

“I'm not questioning, I'm theorizing. Let's continue with that. It's fairly well known that the finances of the Catholic diocese are in pretty poor shape. Land has been sold; school playing fields and disused orphanages and nunneries have been sold off as soon as they have outlived their usefulness, to be used for speculative building and so on. I wonder whether, just possibly, the Father Riley Fund hasn't somehow disappeared—not through any dishonesty, in the usual meaning of the word—but into the general morass of diocesan funds. And with the consent, tacit or explicit, of the two other trustees. So that when Father Pardoe started using it again, feeling that Shipley had got very little out of the new dispensation, and it was time to reassert its original purpose, there was a degree of panic, which was probably not caused by the relatively small sums involved, but by the prospect of his resuming control of the fund, which he had every legal right to do.”

“You are accusing me of something very base,” said the Bishop, slowly and softly. “Of using accusations against Pardoe to cover my own misdeeds.”

“I am not accusing you, I am speculating. And ‘misdeeds' is too strong a word. The Church has many obligations, many charitable concerns, many pressing and legitimate calls on its funds. A will that was itself charitable in intent may have seemed a legitimate means of funding these activities.”

The Bishop shook his head as if in sadness.

“I wonder where these speculations are leading and when they will end.”

“I may say,” said Oddie, ignoring him, “that I think it was unwise to bring the Fund into the accusations against Father
Pardoe, because it drew attention to it. But the Catholic Church is not yet used to scrutiny of its doings or questioning of its hierarchy, is it? I can bring these speculations quite speedily to an end.”

“Please do.”

“I think there are two options open to you, if my theories bear any relation to the truth. One is that after the committee has put in its report—which on the financial side, at least, must surely be in Pardoe's favor—you call the man in and tell him what happened to the Fund, and invite his understanding of how it came about.”

It will never happen, he thought, not in a million years. The man doesn't have the humility in him, and apart from that he would have to face Pardoe's suspicion, or near certainty, that his ordeal had been part of a ploy to cover-up the Bishop's misuse of the fund. Even if the suspicion remained unspoken, both men would know it was there.

The Bishop's expression remained studiedly blank.

“The other course would be effectively to re-create the Fund. I don't need to use terms like ‘creative accounting': in complicated financial organisms, money can always be shifted here and there, a bit lopped off this area of expenditure, a bit shifted from that contingency fund. It doesn't even need to happen all at once, because Father Pardoe is unlikely suddenly to have a need to draw on the fund. But when he did have small charitable uses for it, and when perhaps he made inquiries about the Fund, its extent and the uses it had been put to, he would find at least it was
there
. Reassuring for him—reassuring for you too.”

Oddie got up from his chair. Rather uncertainly, the Bishop got up too and put out his hand.

“Thank you for talking to me, My Lord,” said Oddie, his voice unshaded by any emotion.

“Er . . . can I assume your interest in this matter is now at an end?”

Oddie paused, with a reluctance unusual in him to let this particular big fish off the hook.

“I never believed in the Fund as a motive for murder, you know. It just isn't a big enough thing. And policemen don't go around looking for least likely suspects in murder cases, not in real life. Most such cases are simply a matter of a killing and an arrest, but where there is doubt and mystery, much of our time is spent clearing away side issues so that we can concentrate on what turns out to be the central question. That, I suspect, is what it will turn out I've been doing with you today.”

“Quite.”

“As to whether our interest in the matter is at an end, I think that is mainly up to you.”

He turned and left the room, walked swiftly down the corridor, ignoring all attempts by the Bishop to usher him out, through the main office, where Mrs. Cullen rose and started to make noises that almost immediately she suppressed, and out into the bright spring sunshine.

 • • • 

“I wonder why I did it,” he said to Charlie later, back in the Shipley station, where Lennie Norris had been processed and was now waiting (and shouting) in the cells while the custody officer put in calls to satisfy his demands for a lawyer. “I went way over the borderline. We'd normally regard what happened to church funds as out of our field, unless there was evidence of someone with their hands in the till for their own benefit.”

“Which there wasn't here?”

“No way. Unless the man and the church had become indistinguishably mixed up in his mind.”

“You probably put the fear of—well, not God, I suppose,
since he ought to have that already, but of the law into him,” said Charlie. “These people who value their own dignity highly can be very vulnerable. That will put a stop to any further shenanigans of a financial nature he may have had in mind.”