Murder at the Monastery, page 28
part #3 of A Canon Clement Mystery Series
Darren went to kneel and Aelred lifted his hand in blessing, but before he could make the sign of the cross a voice came out of the dark.
‘Bede did not kill himself,’ said Daniel.
‘Why do you say this, Father?’ said Paulinus, peering into the darkness at the back of the chapel.
Daniel walked out of the gloom and into the light. ‘Because he was murdered.’
Aelred gave a tut of irritation.
‘I didn’t murder him,’ said Darren, in an understandably unguarded way, pronouncing ‘murdered’ in his original Scouse accent.
‘I know you didn’t. I am not the only one who knows you didn’t.’
‘Oh, Daniel, really,’ said Aelred.
‘As our Holy Father Benedict says, “We must speak the truth with heart and tongue.” So now is the time,’ said Daniel. ‘An offence against the community must be made good within the community. Father Paulinus?’
‘Yes. That is so, but why are you so insistent that the poor boy’s death is murder? It was an accident. The police say so, the paramedics say so, the coroner will say so.’
‘What do you say?’
‘Me? An accident. Why would I doubt the police or the medical people? Why do you see murder everywhere?’
‘Because this is a monastery,’ said Daniel.
‘Light and shade, Father. Sometimes deep shadow, but murder?’
Then Daniel said loudly, ‘Colin!’
Aelred winced. ‘This is a Chapter of Faults for the novitiate, Daniel. Could you keep that in mind.’
‘Colin! I know you’re there.’
The door behind the altar opened and there he was, rubbing his hands on his trousers, with a look of contrived surprise. ‘I was just . . . I wanted a prayer book.’
‘Really?’
He shrugged.
‘You and Bede had a row. I heard you,’ said Darren.
‘More than one,’ said Augustine.
‘We had our disagreements,’ said Colin. ‘He was a very irritating man. You shouldn’t need telling.’
‘Was the argument about Austria-Hungary?’ asked Daniel.
‘Oh dear,’ said Aelred, ‘the cause of many a row.’
‘Arguments!’ said Placid.
‘He . . . interfered with my research. It was intolerable.’
‘How?’ asked Daniel.
‘We were both interested in the same period, as you say, Father, and he was always in the library. And whenever I looked for a book he got there first. You know he kept them on a separate shelf, as if they were his, and when he wasn’t there, if I took one, he would lose his temper?’
‘He’s not the only one to have a temper,’ said Augustine. ‘I heard you shout at him.’
‘We all have limits,’ said Colin.
‘And we know what happens if someone crosses yours,’ said Placid.
Colin looked startled. ‘Whatever do you mean by that?’
‘We all know where you came from, Colin. Your alma mater. The one with bars on the windows. Not a lot of competition for the A. J. P. Taylors in Dartmoor.’
Aelred snapped, ‘Placid. Remember yourself.’
‘We all know,’ said Placid. ‘Why pretend we don’t?’
‘We do not hold people to the past,’ said Aelred. ‘What’s done is done. The consequences were faced. It is over. Which is why we observe the strictest discretion about where our visitors come from.’
‘Fat chance of that,’ said Placid, ‘this place is gossipier than a Sultan’s harem.’
‘An impulse we must learn to bridle,’ said Aelred. ‘Far worse is the impulse to judge. If we judge, we come under that same judgement ourselves. Do you need reminding?’
‘I was not at Dartmoor,’ said Colin, in rather a disparaging tone, which made Daniel wonder if some prisons had an academic cachet that others did not. ‘And I am not a murderer,’ he said. ‘Manslaughter. Diminished responsibility.’
‘No one is accusing you of murder,’ said Aelred.
No one said anything.
‘My research is everything to me,’ said Colin. ‘Everything. It’s all I have. But I would not kill Bede over it.’
‘I know,’ said Daniel.
‘How do you know?’ said Placid.
‘Because Colin cannot have killed Bede. He can’t have been in two places at the same time. At Compline and at the turbine house.’
‘You saw him at Compline?’ said Placid.
‘No. It was far too dark.’
‘Even if you had, wouldn’t it have been easy to slip out from the back without anyone noticing?’
‘I didn’t see him,’ said Daniel. ‘I heard him. He has this rather noticeable habit of joining in the congregational sections a fraction of a second after everyone else.’
‘Oh, that’s Colin, is it?’ said Aelred. ‘It is, as you say, noticeable. As is your tiresome repetition of the word murder, Father. I wish you wouldn’t . . .’
‘I would rather not, Father Aelred, but you did say that we are to speak the truth with heart and tongue.’
‘Sometimes, Daniel, you make me think of a clever chorister trying to catch out the chaplain,’ said Aelred.
‘But he is right,’ said Paulinus, ‘we are under an unusually firm obligation here to speak the truth.’
‘With heart and tongue,’ said Daniel.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Aelred.
‘Where were you when Bede died, Paulinus?’
Paulinus, suddenly on the spot, stumbled. ‘I was . . . I was in church. With you, and everyone. At Compline.’
‘I remember. In the precentor’s stall, in the darkness, in your hood. “Keep me, O Lord, as the apple of your eye.”’
‘As usual.’
‘As usual. We did not overlap here when I was a novice, and I don’t know your voice – but when you sang, I heard something that wasn’t right. You learnt your chant elsewhere, I realised that, and each tradition is different – but it was not just that. It sounded like . . . a copy. A caricature almost, as if you were not doing it seriously. But I was in deep distress and thought perhaps it was me. Then I realised the sound of the turbine, that perpetual background to everything we hear, always in the background, always, had stopped and I thought perhaps that was making the chant sound different. But now I think there is a more obvious explanation. It was not your voice at all.’
‘Father,’ said Paulinus, ‘are you quite well?’
‘No, not really, but . . .’
‘Of course you are not well, Father. We all saw it. We thought it must have been the pressure of the last few days, your curate, the murder. A child too. Your personal life. Everything must have seemed strange. But it was me singing, of course it was. If not, then who?’
‘Father Dominic.’
‘Me?’ said Dominic. ‘What have I got to do with this?’
‘I think it was you,’ said Daniel. ‘You are the succentor, deputy to Father Paulinus; you know how he sings better than anyone. You sit in for him when he’s away.’
‘I sound nothing like Paulinus.’
‘But you could if you wanted to. Your impersonation of Aelred is exemplary. Quite the gift for mimicry . . .’ A thought came to him. He turned to Paulinus. ‘So that’s why you asked me to deputise for you. So I would not hear you singing and perhaps notice the difference?’
Paulinus snorted. ‘This is ridiculous! Even if Dominic could, why would he?’
‘Because you forced him. And he knew that if he didn’t do what you wanted him to do, there would be consequences.’
‘Consequences?’
‘You know his past,’ said Daniel.
Aelred suddenly snapped, ‘Stop!’
Daniel did not stop. ‘What did you do before you came to Ravenspurn, Father Dominic?’
‘I was a schoolmaster.’
‘And why did you leave that profession?’
Dominic looked desperately at Aelred.
‘This is not something for this chapter,’ said Aelred, ‘and we will hear no more of it. Let us pray . . .’
Before anyone could, Daniel interrupted. ‘Speak the truth with heart and tongue. Dominic?’
‘I had a breakdown. Do you have to be so cruel?’
‘Rather, before you were Dominic. When you were Neville Banks. Housemaster at Calcott Prep until you moved on, and agreed to come here and live quietly, away from children.’
There was silence and then Dominic said, ‘I never hurt anyone. My offences . . . such as they are . . . are not as great as some. We all sin, do we not? I repented and was absolved of mine. And now all I want is a quiet and holy life. But I have a tormentor who would deny me that unless I do what he says.’
‘Repented and absolved,’ said Paulinus, ‘and yet the old Adam is difficult to entirely subdue. Yes? Your private habits, I mean. Your continuing fascination with youth culture? Your interest in pop music? The repertoire of Bros, for example, so very different from plainsong. But perhaps it is pop singers you are interested in?’
‘I can see why you use such things to your advantage, Father, but do you really have to torment me with them?’ said Dominic.
‘How apt, that you come here to escape your past but find yourself now not the tormentor but the tormented,’ said Paulinus. ‘And are forced to do things you do not want to do.’
Dominic suddenly turned towards Aelred and kneeled. ‘Father Aelred, forgive me, for I have sinned. I have behaved . . . unchastely . . .’
Aelred winced. ‘Yes, yes, yes . . .’ he said before Dominic could continue, and made the sign of the cross. ‘Perhaps you could . . .?’ He made a little patting gesture, as if to restore calm. Dominic stood up, went to sit down, but then stopped, turned, and walked out. There was, if not a sigh of relief, a sense of tension relaxing slightly; but not for long.
‘Dominic is not the only person to seek escape from the past in the cloister,’ said Daniel, ‘and not the only one to find himself in danger of exposure.’
Aelred could not contain his impatience. ‘This is beginning to get very irritating, Daniel. May I remind you that we are at Ravenspurn abbey, not St Mary Mead, and you are not Miss Marple.’
‘It’s why Bede died,’ said Daniel. ‘Why he was murdered. By you, Paulinus. Bede uncovered your past too. He knew what you are pretending to be.’
‘I am not pretending to be anyone,’ said Paulinus.
‘It would be better phrased “who you are pretending not to be”. What is the first line of the Rule of St Benedict?’
‘“Hearken continually within thine heart, O son, giving attentive ear to the precepts of thy master.”’
‘Előírásai,’ said Daniel.
‘What?’
‘You were quoting from the Rule in our Greek class and could not remember the English word for precepts, and I remember you said – correct me if I misheard – előírásai.’
‘I don’t remember, but you are right about the word. It means precepts.’
‘In Hungarian.’
‘The community when I was first a novice was Hungarian speaking,’ said Paulinus.
‘Bede noticed too. He spoke Hungarian,’ said Daniel.
‘I am aware of his field of study, so I suppose he knew a little.’
‘Expert, I think, as you would have to be if you were reading primary sources of that era. Hungarian is your first language?’
‘German. I am Schwowe. Ungarndeutsche, a German-Hungarian. Danube Swabians in the history books – they emigrated from Swabia to the Danube Valley after the Ottomans retreated. So I grew up in Hungary. And, of course, I speak Hungarian.’
‘Romanian too,’ said Daniel. ‘You recognised Nicolai’s quotation from the Gospel.’
‘We crossed borders along the Danube Valley – there are Schwowe in Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia. So Romanian, a bit of Serbo-Croat too. It is not unusual for someone with my background. And so what? I speak Hungarian, Bede understood Hungarian.’
‘I knew finally when I found your rosary.’
‘The cross barby.’
‘The Arrow Cross. With the cipher.’
‘The fisherman’s cross,’ said Paulinus. ‘An I for ichthys.’
‘But it was not an I for ichthys,’ said Daniel. ‘It is an H. For hungarizmus.’
Paulinus sighed, then nodded. ‘Yes. A relic of my youth. Sentimental of me.’
‘You were a member of the Arrow Cross.’
‘You make it sound like the SS. It was more like the Scouts. All of us youngsters joined – we had to.’
‘It was nothing like the Scouts,’ said Aelred in a low voice. ‘It was a vicious, murderous gang of thugs.’
‘What do you know of the Arrow Cross?’ Paulinus snapped.
‘I served with the army, Paulinus, in the war. No. 2 Commando. I know that sounds unlikely, but I was a padre. After the invasion of Italy, we went to Yugoslavia. And there I heard about the Arrow Cross Party. And its units.’
‘Heard about it from the Communists.’
‘And from our own intelligence,’ said Aelred.
‘You would know, Father, if you served in the war, what it was like. And what was at stake.’
‘Yes, I think so. I saw how it reduced men to beasts. How men reduced other men to beasts. The terrible things they did. I don’t mean in combat. I mean in domestic operations. Jews, gypsies. It is what brought me here.’
‘It is what brought me here also.’
‘But for different reasons,’ said Daniel.
‘Not to look at Christ on the cross,’ said Aelred, ‘but to hide from him.’
‘To hide from him?’ shouted Paulinus. ‘I fought for him. To save him and his flock from the terror that would extinguish his light forever. The wolf bearing down on the fold. What would you do to protect those you love? What would you do to protect the Gospel of Christ from . . . nihilism? What would you do? You cannot know.’
‘What did you do?’ said Daniel.
‘I joined the party. I fought. For family, for Volk, for Christ.’
‘In the gendarmerie.’
Paulinus looked at him. He blinked twice.
‘Interior Ministry Gendarme?’ said Daniel. ‘Csendőrség, is that how you say it?’
‘Your pronunciation is terrible.’
‘In February 1945 you were at Várpalota, I think,’ Daniel continued. ‘Where the gypsies were rounded up. A hundred and twenty? You made them dig their own graves and then you shot them. Were you the gendarme who shouted “For Christ!” before you murdered them?’
‘Where did you hear this?’
‘From Bede’s supervisor at Oxford. A Dr Keschner.’
‘I know his work.’
‘Bede was working on the collapse of Horthy’s government, the Nazi occupation, the aftermath. Dr Keschner says the atrocities perpetrated by the Arrow Cross were so appalling the SS refused to have anything to do with them.’
‘You cannot know what it was like. The Bolsheviks were far worse than anything on our side. We killed them, but they would kill God. The Bolsheviks, and behind them their hordes, the Jews and the Slavs. And the gypsies.’
‘The gypsies weren’t Bolsheviks,’ said Daniel.
‘They were the same. A threat to stability and order. An impure people, a pollutant, is as dangerous in its way as those who set out to destroy us quite deliberately. And the opportunity came to deal with both at the same time. If you could save civilisation from its enemies, if you could cure it of a fatal disease, what would you do?’
‘I wouldn’t round people up and gun them down in the name of Jesus.’
‘What can you know?’
‘Bede knew. He suspected you. And after more than forty years hiding from the consequences of your crimes, the thought of facing them was too much. You told him to meet you at the turbine house to check the generator. And once he was there you pushed him into the machine . . .’
‘His scapular was caught in the gears, it pulled him in.’
‘He would never have done work on the turbine without his tool belt. I don’t think his scapular would have got caught if he was wearing it.’
There was another silence as Paulinus thought. Then he let out a sigh and turned to the abbot. ‘Father, I killed Bede.’ He genuflected.
Aelred seemed bewildered for a moment, then made the sign of the cross over him.
Paulinus stood up. ‘“You are not to kill”, and I did, so that is done. Are we to go to the police?’
‘Yes,’ said Daniel, ‘but it is not quite done. Aelred, you knew about Father Dominic’s history?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you do about it?’
‘Offer him a life. A way to grace and holiness. In a place where he cannot be a danger to little boys anymore.’
‘But no calling to account, no reckoning for their sins in front of the whole community?’
‘You are actually beginning to sound vindictive, Daniel. Perhaps you have become distracted from your true vocation?’
‘What about the boys – men now – he treated so wickedly?’
‘That was the responsibility of others,’ said Aelred. ‘My responsibility is to give Dominic his best chance of heaven.’
‘Salvation.’
‘God’s salvation.’
‘Repent, make right what you have done wrong, and remedy will follow,’ said Daniel.
‘Yes,’ said Aelred.
‘Do you think you are better at repenting than remedying?’
‘I can’t say I’ve ever really thought about it.’
‘Do you find it easier to admit a fault than correct a fault?’ Daniel asked.
‘The two are indivisible,’ said Aelred.
‘You knew Paulinus was not at Compline when Bede was killed.’
‘Did I?’
‘I think so,’ said Daniel.
‘Why?’
‘You did not look up when Dominic started to sing instead of him.’
‘I’m not sure I understand your point.’
‘You always do when something is wrong – a misstep in a procession, if someone mispronounces something. You’d look up if somebody ate a boiled egg with a teaspoon. You looked up when I was playing the voluntary, the Fugue à la Gigue, after Vespers and I altered a triplet in the pedal part. No one else would notice that.’
