Death of a Pilgrim Page 14

  ‘He’d have used a cat-o’-nine-tails if the school would have let him, those things they had in the Navy years ago,’ Patrick continued.

  ‘Bastard,’ said Robert. ‘Somebody should have flogged him good and proper.’

  ‘He’d probably have enjoyed that,’ said his friend. ‘Some fellow who left last year said he’d seen White coming out of a classy prostitute place where they beat you for as long as you want.’

  ‘Did nobody ever complain?’ asked Johnny, returning from the bar with fresh drinks.

  ‘Some American Ambassador complained years ago, a chap told me,’ said Patrick, taking a great draught of his second beer. ‘His son got flogged in the usual White fashion. Next day Ambassador and Mrs Ambassador turn up at the headmaster’s door. Complaint not accepted. Running of the school a matter for the school authorities, not for outsiders, however distinguished.’

  After four rounds of drinks Johnny thought he had the general drift of Brother White’s activities, the boys bent over chairs or leant up against the wall or stretched out over some piece of equipment in the gym where the Brother could have a good run up towards his victims. The old boys were astonished to learn that their former teacher had gone on pilgrimage.

  ‘Maybe he’s gone to ask forgiveness for his sins,’ said Robert.

  ‘Let’s hope God’s gone deaf,’ said his friend.

  Johnny let a couple of days go by before he moved on to the case of the dead John Delaney, one-time resident of Acton in west London. He began his campaign in the Crown and Sceptre at the bottom of Church Street, a short distance from the Delaney residence. They knew him only slightly in there, they said, crossing themselves vigorously at the mention of the dead man, he would drop in occasionally on a Saturday afternoon. The King’s Head in the High Street had heard neither of Delaneys nor of corpses. But the Fox and Hounds, hard by the underground station, was a fountain of information. Here Johnny learnt the name of his wife, the number of his children, the amount he drank on his regular visits, never more than two pints of beer, why, the man was virtually teetotal according to informed opinion in the Fox and Hounds. He was building up a steady business in the little community, Johnny was told, always offering slightly lower rates than his competitors and giving discounts for regular clients. John Delaney and his family were all devout, attending Mass and sending the children to classes for their first communion. There was, the regulars told him, nothing about Delaney which could make anybody want to kill him. Johnny thought it interesting that nobody was surprised John Delaney had gone on pilgrimage. But as to why he might have been killed on his journey they had no idea. It was a mystery to the youngest and the eldest habitués of the Fox and Hounds.

  When Johnny had heard what John Delaney’s job was he had to force himself to keep a straight face. And as he hastened towards the City to send a telegram from a Delaney outpost in Gracechurch Street he wondered how his friend would react when he heard of the collapse of one of his theories. Johnny decided to keep the bad news till the end.

  ‘Don’t worry about the number of words in your message,’ the young telegraph operator in the Delaney offices told him. ‘If Mr Delaney thought it would help, he’d send the whole bloody Bible down the wires.’

  ‘Brother White known as Flogger White. Likes beating boys. Wide variety of horrible canes. Don’t make any mistakes, Francis, when he’s hearing your amo amas amat. John Delaney v. respectable citizen. Wife, two children. Churchgoer. Suggest you ask Croesus Delaney for contribution for widow and orphans. Not likely to be suffering from vertigo. Man was a window cleaner. Regards Johnny.’

  The scenery changed when the pilgrims set out from St-Chély-d’Aubrac. They left behind the vast plateau with the wide open skies and the cattle and entered a softer world of French agriculture, great woods of beech and chestnut beside the road, the occasional vineyard. After four hours or so the advance guard could see the Lot, known here as the Olt, the name for the river in the ancient French language of Occitan, and the little fortified town of St-Come d’Olt. Powerscourt admired the three former gateways in the old wall that led into pretty streets with houses dating back to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Some of the buildings still had the covered balconies installed centuries before. The sun was sparkling on the river, arrived here from St-Geniez-d’Olt, Ste-Eulalie-d’Olt and St-Laurent-d’Olt and twisting its way through the high cliffs towards Espalion, Estaing and Entraygues-sur-Truyère en route to its marriage with the Garonne many miles away.

  There was a bizarre theological argument in St-Côme-d’Olt in front of the twisted spire of St Come and St Damien. Jack O’Driscoll, displaying the curiosity for which newspapermen are famous, had bought himself a guidebook. He didn’t understand most of it but odd words made sense.

  ‘That’s a Flamboyant Spire,’ he said proudly, pointing to the crooked structure on top of the church.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ said Patrick MacLoughlin, the trainee priest from Boston, who did not have the benefit of a guidebook, ‘it’s crooked.’

  ‘I think you’ll find it’s called a twisted spire,’ said Father Kennedy, munching on an enormous pastry he had just picked up from the boulangerie.

  ‘You couldn’t worship God in a church with a twisted spire.’ Patrick MacLoughlin stuck to his guns. ‘It’s like having a crooked nave or a crooked altar. It’s not right. When did you last see one of these things in America?’

  ‘America doesn’t count in matters like this,’ said Jack O’Driscoll, peering at his Baedeker for guidance, ‘place hasn’t been there five minutes. Not like round here.’

  ‘Boston’s jolly old, very old indeed. There aren’t any twisted spires there.’

  ‘See here,’ said Jack, pointing triumphantly to a date in his book, ‘1552, it says here for the construction date of our Flamboyant friend, the only people running round near Boston then were those Red Indian fellows covered in war paint and living in funny wigwams and sending smoke signals to each other.’

  ‘What do you say, Father? Could you worship God properly in a church with a crooked spire?’

  Father Kennedy was reluctant to take on the role of arbiter in the matter. He was staring sadly at his hand. Only a minute ago there had been a pastry there. Now it seemed to have disappeared.

  ‘I think you will find, young Patrick,’ he replied, licking his fingers for the memory of what had gone, ‘that you can worship wherever you wish. It is the mind of the congregation that is important, not the nature of the surroundings.’

  Patrick MacLoughlin snorted and went off to inspect the river. Father Kennedy thought he had just enough time for a return visit to the boulangerie. There might not be another establishment like it for miles.

  They marched on, the river dancing and sparkling through the rocks, to another ancient site of pilgrimage, the town of Espalion, graced with an ancient bridge the pilgrims of centuries before had crossed on their long march to Compostela. And here Alex Bentley’s organizational powers came into their own. For he had corresponded with the local boatyard, asking if they could make some rowing boats available to his party, liable to arrive in a given ten-day period. They were to leave the boats at Entraygues further down the river. And so ten pilgrims, the Powerscourts, Alex Bentley and Father Kennedy divided themselves among four boats, three crews of four and two in the last. Maggie Delaney, Stephen Lewis and Delaney himself were travelling by carriage and were due to meet up with them in the hotel at Estaing that evening.

  Alex Bentley, his rowing days at Princeton and Yale coming back to him, was in charge of one boat with Lady Lucy sitting opposite him in the front and Christy Delaney and Waldo Mulligan at the stern. Bringing up the rear were Father Kennedy and Patrick MacLoughlin, two in a boat meant for four. At first all went well. They rowed past the tanners’ houses with stones sticking out of them at various levels so that hides could be scrubbed whatever the height of the river. They went by an old palace perched on a rock with a couple of pepper-pot towers. Then trouble came at
the rear. Patrick MacLoughlin had protested his complete incompetence at any known form of sporting activity, so Father Kennedy, very reluctantly, took the oars. The only time Father Kennedy used his two hands together was in raising the chalice at Mass. This proved inadequate training for rowing down the Lot. The clerical figure, still dressed in black, was incapable of synchronizing the two oars together. One would drop feebly into the water and the Father sometimes forgot to stroke it through the water. The other oar, nominally under the control of Father Kennedy’s left hand, usually failed to make contact with the Lot altogether. The result was that his rowing boat, far from following the others in a straight line, careered off towards the right and began going round in circles. The river at this point had fields above it rather than the vertiginous rocks that tower over it near Entraygues, but there were still plenty of large rocks lining the banks. Patrick MacLoughlin at least had the presence of mind to call ‘Help’ as loudly as he could.

  ‘Bloody fool, can’t even row straight,’ said Charlie Flanagan in the third boat.

  ‘Christ, he’s going to crash into that great boulder in a minute,’ said Wee Jimmy Delaney, resting on his oars.

  Alex Bentley felt responsible. Why hadn’t he made sure that a responsible person was in charge of that boat? He aimed his craft at a point where he should intercept the stricken religious and be able to tow them to safety. Father Kennedy’s craft continued its progress, lurching this way and that like a drunk on his way home. He made to dip his left oar in once more and missed completely. The impetus almost carried him out of the boat. Patrick MacLoughlin steadied his superior and settled him back on the thwarts. A couple of locals got off their bicycles on the path and stared at the scene, roaring with laughter.

  ‘Don’t do anything now! Don’t try to row whatever you do!’ Alex Bentley was drawing close now. ‘I’m going to throw you a rope. Hang on to it, for heaven’s sake. I’ll pull you back to the middle.’

  It took four unsuccessful throws before Father Kennedy managed to grasp the rope thrown from Alex Bentley’s boat. At last, the tow line secured, the rowing party were able to proceed. The gaping locals abandoned their mirth and their sightseeing and proceeded on their way. Overhead the birds still whirled, swooping down to perch on the sides of the river. The water, Powerscourt noticed, trailing his hand in the Lot, was very cold. Soon they could see the medieval bridge of Estaing and the mighty castle of the lords of the manor of the same name. On the slopes high above the river the Estaing vines were slowly growing back to full health and maturity after the ravages of phylloxera a generation before. Alex Bentley’s hotel, the Lion d’Or, sat beside the bridge, flanked by two wings that had once been part of a monastery. That night each pilgrim was able to sleep in his own cell.

  ‘It’s so peaceful here, Francis, don’t you think?’ Lady Lucy was leaning over the ancient bridge and staring into the water. A couple of fish passed slowly by beneath her. ‘You don’t think anything else is going to happen, do you? Any more murders, I mean?’

  ‘I wish I knew,’ said Powerscourt, staring intently at a heron on the opposite bank. ‘If there is a killer in this party, my love, he won’t care if he’s in the Doubting Castle of Giant Despair or the Delectable Mountains. All the other pilgrims are marching towards their final destination and resolution of their sins in that cathedral at Santiago de Compostela. The killer, if there is one, is marching towards the elimination of his enemies.’

  Any pilgrim still awake in the small hours of the morning after an enormous supper of beef stew and almond tart, washed down with carafes of the local red wine, would have seen a strange sight by the side of the hotel. A hooded figure was pushing some package in a wheelbarrow towards the banks of the river. When the figure reached the pontoon where the rowing boats were tied up, he took his parcel out of the wheelbarrow and placed it carefully in the bottom of one of the boats. He borrowed a rough tarpaulin from another vessel and placed it over his package. Then the hooded figure took a knife from his pocket and cut the rope that secured the rowing boat to the bank. He waded out towards the centre of the river, pulling his stolen rowing boat behind him. When he thought he had found the point where the current was strongest, he steadied his craft in the centre of it. He reached into his pocket again and took out two objects. One he placed at the very front of the boat. The other he slipped under the tarpaulin. Then he gave the rowing boat a firm push to send it on its way towards Entraygues, Cajarc and Cahors. The hooded figure watched as the boat twisted its way along the currents of the Lot until it had passed out of sight. Then he waded slowly back to the bank and removed his trousers. He sent these too into the middle of the river with a great heave. Then he walked slowly back towards the hotel. The stars were bright above the water. An owl was hooting from further up the river in the direction of Golinhac on the other bank. There were still three hours before dawn.

  10

  A frantic hammering on his bedroom door woke Powerscourt shortly after half past six the next morning.

  ‘Monsieur milord,’ panted Jacques the hotel owner, ‘you must come at once! At once, I say. There has been a catastrophe here, in my hotel!’

  Powerscourt noticed a slight glow in the man’s cheeks as if he had already been taking comfort from the local red. God in heaven, he said to himself, it’s not yet seven o’clock.

  ‘Whatever is the matter, monsieur?’ said Powerscourt, buttoning his shirt and wondering if half the pilgrims in their cells had been visited by the Exterminating Angel.

  ‘You must come, monsieur milord. I will show you. It is terrible!’

  Powerscourt could hear Lady Lucy asking sleepy questions about where was he going so early in the morning as he sped down the stairs and out into the fresh air of Estaing. Jacques led him to the pontoon where the rowing boats were tied up.

  ‘See, monsieur milord!’ he said, pointing dramatically to the cut rope where a rowing boat had been tethered the evening before. ‘One of these boats has been stolen! I gave my word that they would be safe in my keeping to that villainous fellow Berthier who keeps the yard at Espalion. I signed a piece of paper promising to pay a great deal of money if any of them was lost. It is more than all my life savings, monsieur! But what was I to do? I was not to suppose that any of these pilgrims here would turn into rowing boat thieves in the night!’ Jacques stared angrily at the cut rope. Then another terrible thought struck him, possibly even more serious than the loss of the boat. ‘And what will Charlotte say? What indeed! I am ruined, monsieur milord, ruined! What a way to start the day!’

  Powerscourt remembered the innkeeper’s wife, Charlotte, shouting at her husband the evening before to tear himself away from the bottle and supervise the serving of the supper. She was a formidable woman, he thought, round of figure, round of face, fierce of countenance, obviously the true mistress of the hotel. On one point at least Powerscourt could offer instant reassurance.

  ‘Calm yourself, monsieur, calm yourself. The missing boat may be found. It may turn up later today. But if it does not, Mr Delaney will recompense you for its loss. I’m certain he will contribute enough to pay off Mr Berthier from Espalion.’

  ‘Mr Delaney, the elderly American gentleman? Not one of the younger Mr Delaneys, but the old one? He has enough money to pay off Berthier?’ Jacques the hotelkeeper sounded suspicious, as if men of such improbable wealth were not to be found on the banks of the Lot. Powerscourt assured him that Delaney could probably buy most of southern France if the mood took him. Relieved that his money troubles appeared to be over and another onslaught from Charlotte postponed, Jacques took his leave of Powerscourt, saying he had hotel business to attend to. He did not tell his guest that his business lay in a back pantry off the kitchen where he had a secret supply of vin rouge hidden at the back of a broom cupboard.

  Powerscourt bent down and took the rope in his hand. The cut was very clean. This was no hacking job with a blunt instrument. Whoever came down here in the middle of the night came fully prepared with a shar
p knife to hand. What else had the thief brought with him? Had he simply climbed into the boat and floated off downstream like the Lady of Shallott? Powerscourt cursed himself for his folly and his delay and ran at full speed towards the pilgrims’ bedrooms. Were they all there? Or had a single pilgrim abandoned the party to make his own way on the next stage of the journey?

  The six cells to the left of the main hotel building were all occupied, pilgrims complaining at being woken or greeting him cheerfully as they dressed. Powerscourt stopped in the fourth cell on the other side. This had been the temporary home of Patrick MacLoughlin from Boston, just twenty-two years old and training for the priesthood. Powerscourt felt sick as he remembered the young man saying the day before that he was completely useless at any known form of sporting activity. Maybe that had been a lie, a preparation for this flight down the river in the middle of the night, but Powerscourt didn’t think so. Patrick MacLoughlin was gone. There was only one set of circumstances, Powerscourt thought, which could unite the departure of MacLoughlin and the departure of the boat. Powerscourt raced into the Lion d’Or. He told Delaney to make sure nobody moved out of Estaing. He borrowed the innkeeper’s horse and sped down the road by the side of the Lot. He prayed to God that he was wrong.

  M. Berthier of Espalion’s rowing boat had a fairly uneventful career after its unexpected departure from the hotel in the middle of the night. The river glided along in the middle of its gorge, the water almost black, the cliffs rising steeply on either side, the tall trees standing firm and upright against the night sky, the local wildlife peering curiously at a boat travelling down their river without any visible means of human propulsion. It stayed in the centre of the current for a long time, twisting its way past tiny beaches and the occasional small island. Shortly before dawn a breeze arose and this was enough to nudge the boat off course. It wandered off to the right and stopped by a group of rocks, close to a tiny bay much favoured by the local fishermen, a couple of miles from Entraygues-sur-Truyère. As Powerscourt was fastening his shirt buttons in the hotel an elderly angler called Maurice Vernais was settling himself into his usual position by the riverside. He had a couple of rods, a large basket to hold his fish, for Maurice was ever an optimist, and a smaller basket containing his breakfast, his lunch and an enormous bottle of wine. Maurice had long believed that the best way to achieve domestic harmony was to be out of the domestic environment for as long as possible. Had he but known it, his wife, Marinette, shared his opinion, only wishing that her husband could fish all night as well as all day.