The Good Priest Read online

  ‘Lovely, Dominic. It is a lovely day,’ Vincent began, ‘and thanks for seeing me. You’ll be in a rush, Alison told me. I just came to let you know that I saw the police again, earlier today.’

  ‘Mother of God! What have you done now?’ Monsignor Drew exclaimed, blinking hard and looking at the man beside him with horror.

  ‘Nothing. I’ve done nothing,’ Vincent replied, antagonised, catching a glimpse of his superior’s real opinion of him. ‘I went there of my own accord. I went because Nicholas Rowe told me that when the Bishop was assaulted, a book was taken by his attacker.’

  ‘You went to the police about that! How did you come to be seeing Nick in the first place?’

  ‘It’s a long story. Too long, trust me; you’ll not have the time. I know you’re due to leave for St Andrews, Alison made a point of telling me. Suffice it to say, I visited him, at his request, in Perth Prison.’

  ‘He’s a blessed troublemaker, that one,’ the Monsignor said, shaking his head. ‘A bad apple – ready to infect the whole barrel with his horrible brown mould.’

  ‘He told me about the book, the record which detailed the misdeeds of the priests of the diocese. He said that it had been stolen.’

  ‘Rubbish. It’s all complete rubbish, Vincent. You should know better. He’s a troublemaker. I told you he simply wants to blacken the Church, besmirch it.’

  ‘So it hasn’t been stolen?’

  ‘He’s a bad one, him. He’ll say anything …’

  ‘The book wasn’t stolen?’

  ‘There is,’ the Monsignor snapped, rising to his feet and looking down at his colleague, ‘no such book!’

  ‘But,’ Vincent said, genuinely taken aback by the response, ‘there’s bound to be, surely? You employ these people, us … apart from anything else, you’d need a record of such things. You decide where they go, when they go, whether they go …’

  ‘Vincent!’ Monsignor Drew retorted, ‘I’ve heard enough, really, enough! You misbehave – do wrong, in short, and then harry me, and there’s no other word for it – demanding, yes, you did, you demanded to be reinstated. I’m finding this intolerable, quite intolerable …’

  ‘Monsignor Drew,’ Vincent replied hotly, rising to his feet and facing his colleague, ‘I didn’t come here to “harry” you about anything. I never even mentioned my own case.’

  ‘Your case, your case,’ the Monsignor muttered, ‘all you can think about is your case. You’re obsessed. You did wrong and you simply have to accept the consequences.’

  ‘As I said,’ Father Vincent continued, ‘I haven’t come about my case. I’ve come about the theft of the book. The police say …’

  ‘There is,’ Monsignor Drew said, his face now flushed with temper, ‘no such book. No such record. How dare you, you of all people, set yourself up in this way? Out of good manners, I agreed to see you. You have made no appointment but, nonetheless, I see you. I’m supposed to be somewhere else already, but for you I made an exception And here you are harrying me about yourself, about some non-existent book …’

  ‘You have no record of the misdemeanours of any priests in the diocese then? Let’s see, shall we? Suppose in 2006 Father … Father Christmas, a known alcoholic, abuses a child in his parish of Gateside, a complaint is received and dealt with. The man goes to prison. When he comes out, after counselling and whatever else you give them, he applies to you for another job in the diocese. Are you telling me that you, his employers, have kept no records about him?’

  ‘How dare you attempt to cross-examine me!’

  ‘No,’ Vincent retorted, ‘how dare you hide things, after all that has happened …’

  In his cold fury, he could not bring himself to finish his sentence, or even look at the other priest.

  The Monsignor suddenly sat back down on the bench, eyes closed and head bowed. He put his hands together as if in prayer, but hooked his thumbs under his chin, breathing slowly in and out between his fingers, as if to calm himself.

  ‘Vincent,’ he said quietly, the sound of his voice muffled by his hands, ‘sit down.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who did you see at the police station?’

  ‘A Detective Chief Inspector Keegan.’

  ‘Fine. Good. I repeat – no such book was stolen. It was not removed.’

  ‘That,’ Father Vincent replied, turning his back and walking away in disgust, ‘is not what you said.’

  Sister Monica, giving way to Vincent’s pressure, and taking his sorry state into account, had finally relented and accepted a glass of his best South African Cabernet Sauvignon. They were sitting, side by side, in the communal lounge with only Bertie for company. The bird was scuttling up and down its cage continuously, patrolling it as if annoyed that nobody was paying any attention to it and intent upon remedying the situation.

  ‘What d’you taste?’ Father Vincent asked, swirling the wine around his glass, putting his nose to the rim to catch its full bouquet. He would make a connoisseur of her yet.

  ‘Sweetness, earthiness, fruitiness, nothing very unexpected.’

  ‘No hint of cherries – no undertone of violets? No breath of damp grass?’

  ‘Have you had anything to eat tonight, Vincent?’

  ‘No. No trace of vanilla oak spice? Not a smidgeon of tobacco?’

  The parrot came to a halt at the level of the nun’s ear and bellowed, ‘Not a smidgeon of tobacco?’

  ‘Sssh, Bertie!’

  ‘It’s full-bodied like a … medieval kitchen maid, or an aged …’

  ‘Scottish nun? I thought I’d better get it in first!’

  ‘Get it in first, get it in first, get it …’

  ‘Sssh, Bertie.’

  ‘Sssh, Bertie!’ the bird repeated, his head cocked to one side, fixing the woman with his unblinking stare, his pupils like pinpricks, his beak opening and closing silently as if struck dumb.

  ‘Bertie,’ she said returning his gaze, ‘I’ll only say this to you once, only once, mind. Any more of your antics and I’ll get the cloth cover. The cloth cover, OK?’

  Father Vincent’s phone chimed, letting him know he had a text. As he read it, he laughed out loud.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said, putting the phone back in his pocket, ‘there’s a thing. That’s Fergus McClaverty, the solicitor, the one investigating me, the whole mess. He’s arrived here now. He’d like to see me this very minute.’

  ‘Good luck,’ Sister Monica said, finishing her wine and adding, ‘take the Sophie Barrat room. It’s not been used today because the reiki session was cancelled, but it was cleaned this morning in readiness for it. We’ll put your supper in the oven.’

  In his traineeship with Elliott & Elliott, Vincent had taken hundreds of precognitions. The skill in taking them, he had learned over time, was to know as much as possible about the subject matter before the first question was asked, but to keep an open mind. With even a little knowledge, conflicting versions of events could more quickly be recognised and, sometimes, even reconciled. Differing perceptions could be properly explained, inconsistencies checked out and illogicality exposed. It was a sifting process. Sometimes there genuinely was more than one version of the truth. Fergus McClaverty, a bluff young fellow with a fashionably large-knotted tie and hair brushed flat over one side of his forehead, did an adequate job. But he did not attempt to hide his own complete ignorance of the facts, and asked, ‘The woman, was she married?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Surprised that he had not known at least this, Father Vincent enquired quite mildly whether he had been given any information from on high about the situation he was supposed to be investigating. No, he replied artlessly, there had been a letter of instruction but in the afternoon rush he had not had a chance to go back to the office and reread it. Hector Alexander, his senior partner, had waylaid him on his way back from an employment tribunal and redirected him here.

  ‘So, this morning, you had no idea that we’d be speaking together?’

  ‘This mo
rning,’ the young man smiled, patting his smooth hair to check that it was still in place, ‘I thought I’d be taking my girlfriend to Nando’s in Perth tonight. So someone on high must have fairly yanked old Hector’s tail. Suddenly, this report has become quam primum!’

  Three of the nuns were watching the television. Curled up like a dormouse, Sister Agnes had fallen asleep in a large armchair, her spindly legs in their oversized slippers dangling an inch or two above the fawn-coloured carpet. Gentle snores emanated from her open mouth.

  ‘It’s the news,’ Sister Monica said, as he took the chair beside her, ‘it’s nearly over. We’re on the regional bit. Have you had a bite to eat yet?’

  ‘Yes, and I’ve washed up my plate …’

  ‘Murder, murder and more murder – in Glasgow,’ Sister Frances chipped in, ‘or murder, football, more murder and more football – in Glasgow.’

  ‘The police were called today …’ the newsreader began, batting her long eyelashes at her viewers, ‘to a house in the village of Cleish, Kinross-shire …’

  ‘My! An east coast murder?’ Sister Frances murmured. ‘By a Glaswegian, no doubt.’

  ‘Sssh!’ Sister Monica hissed, determined for once to hear the whole report.

  ‘… where an elderly gentleman, Mr Patrick Yule, aged eighty-two …’

  ‘Patrick Yule!’

  ‘Sssh!’

  ‘… was found dead. His death is being treated by the police as suspicious. And now to the football …’

  ‘Patrick Yule! Of all people – how dreadful! I thought he was already dead,’ Sister Monica said, switching the sound down and turning to her colleague in amazement.

  ‘Yes, Patrick! Murdered. It’s hard to take in.’

  ‘Who’s Patrick Yule?’ Father Vincent asked, picking up his half bottle of wine and recorking it. He put it under his arm and switched off the standard lamp next to him. From under his cover the parrot drawled sleepily ‘Hail Mary, full of … rum ’n’ Coke.’

  ‘It was when the convent was still going. That would be in the seventies, I suppose?’ Sister Monica asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Sister Frances replied, nodding her head, ‘the early seventies, I’d say. The girls were clumping about in those ridiculous platforms.’

  ‘In the early seventies Father Patrick was with us for, I don’t know, about five months or something like that. He left unceremoniously. We learned years later that he’d become “too fond”, as the powers that be put it, of Joseph, one of the local altar boys. Before he left he asked me to say a prayer for a special intention of his. I never heard what happened to him.’

  ‘You didn’t hear,’ Sister Frances interrupted, ‘in those days. It was all different then, it was all swept under the carpet then. Whoosh! All we knew was that one day he was there to celebrate the Mass and the next he wasn’t. He was replaced by Father … Father … it’s no use, it’s gone. That great big, freckly redhead. Anyway, he was replaced tout suite.’

  ‘MacLeod. Father Robert MacLeod. You should take your Vitamin B6, Sister, it would help your memory. I got you a bottle only a couple of months ago.’

  ‘I forgot to take it. Anyway you are my B6, dear,’ Sister Frances replied. Adjusting the cover over the parrot’s cage to make sure he got enough air, she added, ‘And a little nicer than a pill. So, as long as you’re around, I’ll know who I am.’

  No one in the village of Cleish was aware that the elderly resident of Crabtree Cottage had ever worn a dog-collar. He kept himself to himself. They knew that he had once owned a garage, regularly enjoyed a game of bowls and was more than partial to Bell’s whisky. At the Kinross Show, he regularly won the Fisher Bowl for his dahlias. The police questioned many of his neighbours and discovered those few fragments of biography. But no connection between the three murders was made by the different forces investigating them in Edinburgh, Bo’ness and Kinross-shire respectively.

  This was not surprising. Neither fingerprints nor DNA were found in Colinton. Carla had, inadvertently, destroyed any traces left by her master’s attacker, and the forensic evidence from Crabtree Cottage had not yet reached the lab. But, with the report of Yule’s death, Father Vincent was almost certain what bound them together. Their offences would be detailed in the same leather-bound volume. One, he mused as he climbed into his bed that night, which did not exist; and which had not been reported as stolen. Or so his masters maintained. And if his suspicion was correct, in the confessional he had been inches away from the murderer.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The first call came at 7 a.m. Hurriedly, wiping away the shaving foam from his cheek with a towel, he put his mobile to his ear. It was Barbara Duncan and she was apologetic for ringing so early, explaining in a breathless gabble that she was booked on the nine o’clock London train but thought that she ought to speak to him before leaving.

  ‘I got the impression,’ she continued, ‘from our last conversation that you were interested in Father Bell’s parish work for some reason or other. Of course, with him in hospital at that point you couldn’t talk to him, could you?’

  ‘No, that’s right. He was in I.C.U.’

  ‘Well, if you are still interested, I think I can help. He’s back, apparently. I haven’t seen him myself, but Flora said that Ashley said that she’d seen lights on in the presbytery. So, he must be back, mustn’t he? Unless, of course, you know differently. Incidentally, I wondered if you’d heard anything about Christopher Avery? Or about his partner, for that matter? Sonia thinks they’re arranging a petition about you. Someone who arranges the models for the art club told her.’

  ‘Is it for or against?’

  ‘For, silly.’

  ‘No, I’ve never heard of him or his partner. But thanks for the tip, Barbara.’

  ‘I just thought I’d let you know. In case … you know, it helps.’

  ‘Are you seeing family in London, or is it a little holiday or what?’

  ‘Joan’s been summoned there, back to the Department. I’ll stay in the Royal Overseas League with her. We’re planning to go to the Hockney and the Freud exhibitions, although I gather tickets are like hen’s teeth. But I have my ways, as you know. I’ll arrange it through a “Friend”, they can get into everything. Any news on when you’ll be getting back to Kinross?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘There was something else I wanted to tell you,’ she hesitated, trying to remember what it had been, ‘but … it can’t have been important. Never mind. Father Roderick’s been complaining, he says that he had never expected to be in the parish for such a long haul. He’s over seventy-five, Mamie says, did you know that?’

  ‘I didn’t either. Is he …’

  ‘He started life as a naval officer, attended Dartmouth and everything. Anyway, must dash. The parking’s diabolical in Inverkeithing nowadays and I’ve still to lock up the house.’

  He finished shaving but, now preoccupied with the thought that a paedophile might be back in circulation, made a poor fist of it. Blood poured from a nick on his lip and another by his ear. Looking in the mirror as he was applying pressure with a twist of tissue, he noticed that he had missed a clump of bristles to one side of his Adam’s apple. Just as he had the skin taut and the blade of the razor against them, his mobile rang again. It would be Barbara, having suddenly remembered the bit of gossip that had escaped her, and desperate to impart it before she headed south. With his left hand he fished his mobile from his trouser pocket.

  ‘Hello, Barbara.’

  ‘Is that you, Father Vincent?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s not Barbara. Do you know who I am?’

  He had no idea. On balance, he reckoned that the voice was probably female, but it was hard to tell. It had a low, gravelly quality, as if its owner’s vocal cords were as rough as sandpaper, and chafed against each other as she spoke.

  ‘No, I’m afraid not. I’m sorry, but should I?’

  ‘I’m just another Mary Magdalene – another loving woman who fell for a
priest.’

  ‘Right …’ he began guardedly, unsure what to expect next but bracing himself in case she suddenly turned on him, began spitting a froth of abuse into his ear.

  ‘Like women, do you?’

  He said nothing, conscious that for him there could be no right answer. Yes, and he would be a sex maniac. No, and he would be a misogynist.

  ‘Don’t be shy now. Any idea what I think you are?’

  Now, whatever he replied, however emollient he tried to be, he knew that she was going to tell him. And that it would not be pleasant. In the silence between them he could sense the tension in the woman rising, her breathing becoming faster as she prepared herself to let rip.

  ‘No?’ she said, unable to contain herself any longer, her voice loud with suppressed excitement.

  ‘No,’ he replied, aware that his answer would be the cue for her to release her spume of bile, all her misdirected rage. But, until she started her diatribe, he could not put the phone down on her. Not while there was a chance, however remote, that he might be wrong. She might be phoning him, needing him, hoping for help from him in some way.

  ‘I don’t know how to love him …’ she sang, every slurred word extended unnaturally, the extra syllables caressed by her tremulous vibrato. ‘He’s a man, he’s just a man …’

  ‘I’m not sure what you want from me,’ Vincent said.

  ‘Yeah, you do, pal. You’re a fucking, molesting …’

  He dropped his phone onto the hard, tiled floor, careless whether it broke or not. In the mirror in front of him, he saw reflected a gaunt, pale face with a haunted expression. He hardly recognised himself.

  His head hurt. A pulse seemed to have started up at the base of his skull, pounding it, beating him, hammering his skull, as if his own flesh had turned against him and wanted to batter him, punish him.

  Making a deliberate effort to relax, to breathe, he looked out of the window, a pair of buzzards catching his eye. They were no more than dots in the sky, circling slowly together, ascending into the pale blue nothingness, moving clockwise above the dark crowns of some Scots pines. In the silence, he watched them, hypnotised, calming himself, as they revolved, moving ever upwards in the cold morning air. Eventually, they disappeared altogether and he looked again at the pine trees. Those trees, he thought, although battered and misshapen by the elements, had somehow managed to keep their shallow roots anchored in that hard and stony soil. Generations of birds had flown above them or roosted in their branches and, after he had gone, more would do so. World wars must have been declared, and fought, as they added ring to ring. Man’s footsteps on the moon had not altered the rhythm of the seasons for them. In the face of everything, they remained utterly and monumentally impassive, oblivious to mankind and all its petty concerns. Contemplation of them restored a proper sense of proportion.