She looked guileless, she thought, in the photograph. Guileless, like the simpering Georgian girls in their silks, who of course had more to come in their lives than their portraits anticipated. Audrey had quite a lot more going on in her life now too.

  She had a plan. In fact, she had two plans.

  Her eyes glittered.

  This time there was no tap on the door. ‘Father Aelred,’ said Anselm, red-faced and breathless from running. ‘You need to come!’ He was holding a torch, its beam flickering around the room.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘There’s been an accident!’

  ‘How bad?’

  ‘Very bad. Someone’s . . .’

  Aelred held up a restraining hand. ‘I shall have that conversation with the infirmarian, I think, Anselm. Has someone sent for him?’

  ‘Yes, Father Aelred.’

  Aelred fetched a little pouch and a prayer book from his desk drawer. ‘You’d better come too, Daniel, if you don’t mind?’

  Anselm set off too quickly for the older men to keep up, so he kept having to slow down, but then speeded up again. Occasionally he would stop if they came to a rough section of path and guide them through it with his torch like a cinema usher. As they approached the turbine house more torch beams could be seen through the trees. It made Daniel think of a son et lumière.

  When they arrived the infirmarian, Father Cuthbert, was waiting for them.

  ‘What’s happened, Cuthbert?’ said Aelred.

  ‘Someone’s . . . gone in.’

  ‘In the river?’

  ‘No, the turbine.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I can’t tell.’

  ‘Get everyone to go back to the monastery. Daniel, come with me.’

  The door to the turbine house stood open. Aelred took a torch from Anselm, gave it to Daniel, and they went in.

  In the torch beams it looked even more like Dr Frankenstein’s laboratory, but the horror the turbine house contained was not of that kind. The torchlight played over the control panel, but the dials were at zero, though the switches were down, and hanging on a peg Daniel saw the tool belt with its dangling array. The cogs and gears threw giant shadows onto the whitewashed walls, but they were still, not turning, because they had become jammed, jammed solid, and the system had shut down. But what was causing it? Aelred peered into the stilled machinery with his torch and flinched. In the jerk of torchlight Daniel saw something on the floor flash.

  ‘Aelred, over there,’ he said, pointing, and there in the torch’s beam were a pair of spectacles, round and horn-rimmed, like Billy Bunter’s.

  8

  ‘I will telephone his parents. And the police must be notified, and the brethren – that can wait if they don’t all know already. I won’t be attending the conference after all. And then there is the question, the problem, of retrieval.’

  ‘And then, Father Aelred, what do we do with him?’

  ‘Not much we can do, I am afraid, Cuthbert.’

  ‘No, I meant his funeral, his burial.’

  ‘I will discuss that with his parents. I know he would want to be buried here. We’ve buried novices in the Calvary before, you know. There’s half a row from the Spanish flu, 1918. They may want to take him home, I don’t know.’

  They were sitting with Daniel in front of the fire in the abbot’s parlour. A third glass of whisky had been poured for Cuthbert.

  ‘We must phone 999,’ said Daniel.

  ‘So you said, dear . . .’

  ‘We have to. Now.’

  ‘Oh, yes, it’s your area of expertise . . .’

  ‘Should we perhaps wait until the morning?’ said Cuthbert. ‘I mean, what can they do? Except make an unnecessary fuss.’

  ‘It’s an unexpected death,’ said Daniel, ‘and they will need to send an ambulance and the police—’

  ‘An ambulance?’ said Cuthbert. ‘I don’t think even Elijah could do much for poor Bede.’

  ‘. . . and it may, of course, be a crime scene.’

  Aelred and Cuthbert exchanged a look. ‘A crime scene, Daniel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you suggesting, Father, that this may not be an accident?’

  ‘We don’t know. And until we do know, one way or another, it is the police’s business.’

  Cuthbert put his glass down. ‘You don’t think . . .’ He was silent.

  ‘Think what?’

  ‘You don’t think . . . that perhaps recent expedience has coloured your view of this?’

  ‘It’s what you have to do, not what I want you to do,’ said Daniel.

  Cuthbert shrugged his shoulders. Aelred said, ‘Can I just call the police station? Sergeant Bainbridge comes to Mass here. We’ll feel better if it were him.’

  ‘He won’t appreciate having to come out after News at Ten,’ muttered Cuthbert.

  ‘You could, but it won’t make any difference, he’ll have to call an ambulance. Until death has been certified, Bede is a casualty.’

  ‘It’s hardly a flesh wound, Daniel.’

  ‘Not the point. It’s procedural. And let us not forget, please, that we are dealing with a young man’s sudden death.’

  ‘Yes, Father. We know,’ said Cuthbert. ‘We have our procedures too.’

  Daniel said nothing.

  Aelred finished his drink. ‘While we’ve been talking, Daniel, the novice master has been praying with the novices for his immortal soul in the crypt chapel. Father Cuthbert, would you please dial 999 and notify the authorities? From the office? And then please call Sergeant Bainbridge and ask if he is able to help us. Daniel, I have to telephone Bede’s parents, if you will allow me?’

  ‘I’ll go to the chapel, I think.’

  ‘And then would you come back? In a few minutes?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Daniel followed Cuthbert out into the cloister, light enough in clear moonlight for them to make their way without a torch.

  ‘Do you really think it might not be an accident, Father?’

  ‘Might not.’

  ‘So someone contrived to get him into the machinery? Why would they do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nobody knows. Unless a person or persons had a hand in his death, then they would know.’

  Cuthbert said nothing for a moment. ‘Why would anyone want to kill Bede?’

  ‘You know Aelred’s line about there being forty suspects if there were a murder here?’

  ‘It doesn’t seem so amusing now,’ said Cuthbert. ‘And it’s ridiculous. One of his witticisms. Such a fund of them.’

  They walked in silence. Then Cuthbert said, ‘But really, it makes no sense.’

  ‘Father, it is most likely an accident. But it could be murder, it could be suicide, and until we can establish the facts, we cannot make a judgement.’

  ‘Suicide. A horrible thought.’

  ‘It happens.’

  ‘Oh, it’s happened here. Father Hilary walked into the river. Like Virginia Woolf. Though there the resemblance ends. And several have drunk themselves to death. I don’t think Bede was that type. But what goes on in the novitiate has always been a mystery to me.’ He stopped. ‘I’ll leave you here. I have to telephone 999, like someone in Casualty. You seek refuge from the world behind the monastery wall, but the world just follows you in.’

  ‘It was already there.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ And Cuthbert turned and walked away.

  Daniel went through the double doors into the church, dipping his fingers in the bowl of holy water to sign himself with the cross. He made his way to the west end and then down the stairs, which led to the crypt chapel. He let himself in and sat at the back on a bench against the wall. The novices and some of the brethren were kneeling in front of the altar, on which the tabernacle now stood open, the Blessed Sacrament within it exposed and lit by half a dozen tea lights. Kneeling in front of it was Father Paulinus, he assumed, though could not tell for certain as he had his back to him.

  There was silence, interrupted by a sigh, a cough, the rustle of someone shifting on their knees, the click of tiny beads, a sniff. Daniel noticed again the absence he had unconsciously noticed at Compline, the missing rhythm of the turbine house. But when had it stopped? It must have been after dinner, for the lights came on as usual between four and five, and were in use at Vespers and at supper. It must have been at Compline, or just before it, because the loss of power was only noticed when the brethren left the dark church and tried to put the lights on. But why would Bede, the most diligent of novices, miss Compline to go to the turbine house? And how had he come by his terrible end?

  A voice suddenly spoke into the silence. ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus . . .’

  It sounded like Noël Coward, only the ‘thou’ came out as ‘theow’ – such a tricky sound to get right if you are trying to disguise your accent.

  There was a frisson, a frisson Daniel remembered from his own novitiate. It came with a distinctive sound, the faint rustle of individually imperceptible flinching. It happened when someone did or said something especially controversial during worship. In his day a fellow novice, intoxicated with the spirit of the age, invited representatives of local churches to a Solemn Vespers for Christian Unity. It began with him running down the darkened nave to the altar where he turned to face the startled congregation and shouted, ‘Come, Lord Jesus, look on Batley!’

  After the frisson a small chorus responded to the Hail Mary in unison. ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.’

  The single voice repeated: ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is—’

  Then another voice said, ‘For God’s sake, Darren, shut up. This is not the time or the place.’

  ‘. . . THE LORD IS WITH THEE. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.’

  ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death,’ came the uncertain response.

  ‘Hail Mary, full of grace . . .’

  One of the figures stood, then approached the kneeling novice who was leading the rosary.

  ‘. . . the Lord is with thee, blessed art— Ow! Did you just kick me?’

  ‘Shut up, Darren, shut up, shut up, shut up.’

  ‘We’re saying the rosary . . .’

  ‘We’re trying to pray for Bede. How dare you turn his death into a partisan protest?’

  ‘It’s the rosary! A prayer of the Church Catholic!’

  ‘And we’re the Church of England. Can’t you give it a rest? For one moment? Someone has died. And I wonder if you . . .’ He mumbled something.

  ‘Wonder if I what?’

  ‘I wonder if your gesture of mourning is as affected as your accent.’

  Father Paulinus stood. ‘Stop. Get out. Both of you. To your rooms. Stay there until I send for you.’

  They were both silent for a moment. ‘Yes, Father,’ said the kneeling novice eventually.

  ‘And shame on you both.’

  The kneeler got up and Daniel thought for a moment he was squaring up to his enemy, but then, in a detente born of habit rather than goodwill, they both turned and genuflected together to the altar.

  It was Darren the postulant who had been leading the rosary and Brother Placid who had complained. Not for the first time, Daniel noted that the name chosen by a monk could be dissonant with his nature. Placid pushed ahead and then, detente done, went through the door without holding it open for Darren, a glaring breach of the rules of performative hospitality, whereby you were expected to make gestures of consideration to those you especially disliked. Daniel saw Aelred on the other side, who stood by to let the postulant past, then saw Daniel and signalled for him to come.

  Daniel turned back to face the altar, genuflected, and left, feeling behind him the silent buzz of discord so familiar to vicars, who pass through rooms where the darkest impulses of humanity have flared up and disarranged everything, like poltergeists throwing ornaments around.

  ‘What was that about?’ asked Aelred.

  ‘An eruption of differing churchmanship.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Darren started saying the rosary and Brother Placid lost his temper. I think he might have kicked him.’

  ‘The Virgin Mary would have kicked Darren,’ said Aelred, ‘and he’s on the same side.’

  ‘We had our differences when I was here – west facing rather than east facing, prayer book or Roman Rite – but nothing like this.’

  ‘It’s because of the ladies,’ sighed Aelred.

  ‘The ordination of women?’

  ‘It’s divided the whole community. Some are resolutely in favour, others are no less resolutely against. It has got especially bitter in the novitiate. You know how febrile it can be.’

  ‘But why so bitter?’

  ‘I think it may be because some of them are rather scared of ladies, though they would not say so. Officially it is a theological disagreement, of course, an obstacle, perhaps an insurmountable obstacle, to the unity of the Church.’

  ‘What unity?’

  ‘Some of us, Daniel, have devoted our lives to working to restore communion with the Bishop of Rome.’

  Daniel nodded. ‘I think there are more obstacles to reuniting the Church of England with the Church of Rome than whether or not we ordain women to the priesthood.’

  ‘But you see my point?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but what I just saw was not simply an ecclesiological disagreement.’

  ‘Blood has been spilled for less.’ Aelred seemed to check himself. ‘But would you fetch Paulinus? I need you both.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Counsel.’

  At the north lodge to Champton park Alex and Nathan were hosting a kitchen supper. Theo had decided to postpone his return to London and was still dossing down with them. If required to give an explanation, he would say it was because he wished to make sure his mother was recovering from her scare in the burning rectory, especially now his brother had gone missing. Also, he had no urgent reason to return to London, for he was between jobs. Also, he was feeling ropey after the weekend and Alex had obtained from his sources in Braunstonbury a quantity of cocaine. It would have been bad manners to leave him and Nathan to snort it alone and so he had stayed, or rather not gone, in the endless midnight chimes of habitual drug use.

  Alex, too, was between jobs, if what he did could be so described. He was on the fringe of a new movement, Long Pig, which had started at his art school, and faithful to its doctrines he had rejected the formalities of technique and tradition and created work that was to the Courtauld what Anarchy in the UK was to the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Violent, chaotic and infrequent, his ‘performance pieces’ had generated some interest and even some income, but like most who have never had to earn a living, he only worked when he wanted to.

  It was the same for Honoria, whose ‘job’ was little more than persuading her smart friends to have their wedding receptions at the Motcombe Hotel and ensure that the most splendid were covered by Tatler and the Daily Mail.

  Their mother’s riches, acquired before Bernard, and intact despite his attempted raids on them in the short years of their marriage, provided them with an allowance of a generosity in inverse proportion to her maternal affection. Her distance was cash in the bank, a deal they had no choice but to accept, and better solvent and loveless than insolvent and loveless, or so thought Honoria. Alex was less content.

  Their fortune had provided for this evening’s engagement, a kitchen supper for Honoria. It was a kitchen supper in name rather than location, for the kitchen was too small for such a gathering, so they had been sitting as usual at the lovely Georgian dining table, which was too big for its space, which had to do double duty as dining room and drawing room. It was laid with china and cutlery too big for the table, overlooked by portraits too big for the wall. The lodge was only slightly larger, Theo thought, than one of those aristocratic dolls’ houses he had seen at the V&A, only the furniture in them was to scale, unlike here.

  Nathan was in the kitchen clearing away. He had made a sort of pheasant chasseur – ‘Pheasant poacheur, rather,’ said Alex – with red cabbage and pommes dauphine, then they’d had a Viennetta, for Nathan had not really mastered patisserie – two Viennettas actually, for he thought a single box of the frilly confection, while suitably festive, insufficient for four. They had drunk a Bardolino and a Moscato, items from the rattling dowry their stepmother, the present Lady de Floures, had brought with her in a truck but left behind when she retreated to Siena.

  The three were sitting in front of the fire smoking purple Silk Cuts and drinking a Calvados Alex had stolen, like the red and white, from Bernard’s cellar on one of his smash-and-grab raids while Mrs Shorely was on her afternoon off.

  ‘I don’t know why everyone’s making such a fuss,’ said Theo, trying to stretch out. ‘It’s not as if he walked out into an Antarctic blizzard.’

  ‘Something to talk about. We love having something to talk about,’ said Alex. ‘And a disappearing rector is a novelty.’

  ‘Not for much longer,’ said Honoria. ‘He’ll be back before we know it.’

  ‘And then we can all get back to talking about our favourite topic, which is you, Hon, and your lusty sergeant.’

  ‘He’s certainly that,’ said Honoria. ‘Came round for lunch and went off in a huff when I offered him nothing more exciting than a Penguin.’

  ‘He’s like a puppy when he’s around you.’

  ‘Yes. So sweet.’ She was silent. ‘Do you think they may be connected?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The strapping sergeant and the case of the absent parson?’

  Alex looked at her. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Oh? How?’ asked Theo.

  ‘Hasn’t the thought ever crossed your mind that Daniel’s attachment to Neil might be about more than solving mysteries?’

  ‘You mean . . . Daniel has . . . special feelings for Neil?’

  ‘It solves a BIG mystery about Daniel.’

  ‘Doesn’t it?’ said Honoria.

 

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