Day of Vengeance: Dorothy Martin investigates murder in the cathedral (A Dorothy Martin Mystery) (30 page)

‘Eggs and bacon coming right up,’ said my resident cook. ‘And I popped bread in the toaster when I heard you open the door. I must keep my American happy with hot toast.’

‘You bet. So, have you all reported in, or did you save any tidbits for me?’

‘We saved it all for you,’ said Walter, ‘though I’ve really nothing to tell. There were only three people in the whole village who remembered their long-ago curate at all, and their memories were vague in the extreme. It was thirty years ago, after all, and he didn’t seem to have made much of an impression. One old cove said he didn’t like him, couldn’t understand a word of his sermons, and his wife thought she remembered him being cross with some of the children. No details at all, I’m sorry to say.’

‘Then I suppose I’m going to be the star of this show,’ said Jonathan, ‘because I did find out something at the school. Something that’s not nice at all, I’m afraid.’

Alan had just set a plate of perfectly scrambled eggs in front of me, with a lovely slice of sizzling bacon. ‘Jonathan, do you mind if I eat while you talk? I’m sorry, but I’m starving.’

‘You may not be hungry when you’ve heard what I have to say,’ he said grimly. ‘Jane and Alan gave us a rough summary of what you all had learned. I have a story to tell that’s something like your worst one, Dorothy.’

‘It concerns a child, doesn’t it?’ I said with foreboding, putting down my fork.

‘Yes, a child at the school Brading headed. I have to say that no one wanted to talk about it, and it took all my skills – the skills you taught me, Alan – to dig it out. I couldn’t get a name. Everyone claimed they didn’t remember.’

‘They remembered,’ said Alan. ‘But you can’t get behind that excuse. It’s the one lie you can’t dislodge except with scare tactics. You can use those with suspects, but not with witnesses. Go ahead, Jonathan.’

‘He was just ten, the boy. He was small and slender, no good at games. A nerd, we’d call him now, and I suppose the boys did then. That, and worse. He was bullied, at first emotionally and then physically. He went to the headmaster.’

‘Stop,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I need to hear any more. Brading did nothing about it.’

‘I’m afraid I have to go on, Dorothy, because it’s worse than that. Brading, according to reports from the other boys, told the boy he needed to stand up for himself, give as good as he got, start acting like a man instead of – well, I gathered he used some pretty strong language.

‘Those boys are grown now, many of them with children of their own. The one who told me the most was the abused boy’s one friend at the school. He tried his best to comfort him, to make the others stop, but he was only ten himself, and outnumbered.’

Jonathan took a deep breath. ‘The boy hanged himself. Bedsheets tied to a window frame.’

W
e sat and listened to the kitchen clock ticking merrily away. Watson whined and came to sit on my feet. I gave him my almost untouched plate.

Alan cleared his throat. ‘It was hushed up, of course.’

‘Of course. The other parents, the school governors, Brading – all of them conspired to pretend nothing had happened. The police were never called in. Brading told the boy’s parents there had been a terrible accident, the boy choked to death. The mother, who had never been strong, had a complete breakdown. The boy was their only child.’

‘And Brading?’

‘Brading,’ said Jonathan, speaking the word as though it left a bad taste in his mouth, ‘Brading was then calling himself Stephen Owen. It was part of his name, so technically it wasn’t a lie. I suppose he thought the role of schoolmaster beneath his dignity, or unsuitable for a priest, or something. When he started making it known that he was interested in a position in a church, he reverted back to Andrew Brading, so that, just in case word somehow got out about the school disaster, he could further distance himself from it.

‘The boys had done very well for themselves in their further education. The parents were well pleased with the excellent discipline they had acquired, and the sound doctrine they had been taught. Someone influential recommended him for the position at Upper Longwood.’ Jonathan shrugged.

‘The Teflon priest,’ I said. I got blank stares. ‘An American president, years ago, became known as the Teflon president, because nothing seemed to stick to him.’

‘Yes, well, in the end something stuck to Brading.’ Alan sighed deeply. ‘You and I will have to go to the authorities with this, Jonathan. You got no hint of a name?’

‘None. Nor of where the parents are now, though I gathered the mother never recovered and had to be institutionalized.’

‘The father will have to be found. There’s your hatred motive, Dorothy. Almost exactly the same as the poor man in Chelton. And if this one hasn’t turned to drugs or alcohol to numb the pain, he may be our murderer. Dorothy, what is it?’

‘I … excuse me, everyone. I’m not feeling very well.’

I went to our bedroom and closed the door.

I lay on the bed, remembering fragments. Something Jane had said about a member of the commission. An encounter in Birmingham. Jonathan’s story.

I thought about what had started this train of events, the search for a bishop, for a holy man to lead his people, and the horrors that had ensued.

But no, that wasn’t the beginning. It all began long ago, probably with a boy deprived of love, a boy who grew up to be a rigid, unforgiving clergyman, a man who knew everything about the law and nothing about mercy or grace.

Alan came into the room. ‘Headache, love?’

‘Heartache.’ I sat up on one elbow. ‘Where are the rest?’

‘They went back to Jane’s. They’re worried about you, and so am I.’

I nodded and licked my dry lips. ‘Alan, will you go with me to Birmingham? As soon as we can?’

He looked at me searchingly. ‘You’re on to something, aren’t you?’

‘I think so. Will you go with me?’

‘To the ends of the earth, darling. When shall we go?’

‘Now. This minute.’

‘Why in such a hurry?’

‘I don’t know. I just feel – oh, Alan, please would you just call Mr Robinson and ask if we can come to see him, right away?’

I had to work to keep my voice steady. Alan gave me another close look and pulled out his phone.

I washed my face and ran a comb through my hair and was ready to go. Alan ended the call. ‘His wife says he was called out to an emergency, but should be home by the time we get there. I’ll get the car out and tell Jane we’re leaving.’

‘Why?’

‘The animals, darling.’

‘Oh, of course. I’m sorry, I’m …’ I waved my hand vaguely.

The traffic was no worse than usual, I suppose, but I pushed the car every inch of the way. My shoulders grew stiff with anxiety; the headache Alan had suspected began to develop in earnest.

‘Do you want to tell me about it, love?’ he asked once.

‘Not till I’m sure. Well, I am sure, really, but …’

He didn’t press me. We said very little for the rest of the trip.

Alan found the Robinsons’ house without difficulty, and I inwardly cursed the stiffness that kept me from running to the door. Alan helped me out of the car and held my elbow firmly as we went up the path. My head was pounding.

Mr Robinson answered the door, and the look on his face brought my tears to the surface. ‘We’re too late, aren’t we?’

‘I never suspected a thing,’ said Mr Robinson. ‘Brian was so distraught for so long, I saw no change. I blame myself greatly, and I shall have no qualms at all about declaring this a suicide while of unsound mind.’

‘I should have worked it out earlier, too. All the clues were there. I just didn’t put it together.’

‘I still haven’t,’ said Alan. ‘Why don’t you tell us, Dorothy?’

Mrs Robinson had slipped out to make tea. She put a cup in front of me as I assembled my thoughts.

‘All right,’ I said at last. ‘I’m Brian Rawles. I’ve just opened the morning paper. Maybe I’m sitting at my wife’s bedside, my wife who will never be sane and whole again. I read, idly, about some priests who have been named as candidates for a bishopric in some obscure diocese. A name jumps out at me. Andrew Stephen Owen Brading.

‘I’m still a churchgoer, despite everything. My rector, Mr Robinson, has been a great help to me, but nothing can penetrate my despair. I’ve heard of Andrew Brading, dean of a cathedral not far away. I had never, until now, seen his full name. Is it possible that this is the Stephen Owen who caused my son’s suicide, who destroyed my life?

‘I kiss my wife, though she doesn’t know it, and go hurriedly to get a day off work. I take a train to Chelton. The trains are slow, the schedules awkward. With every delay I become more impatient, more frenzied. I get out of the train at Chelton and walk to the cathedral, with no thought in my mind but to find the dean and find out for sure if it’s the same man.’

My mouth was dry. I sipped some tea.

‘I go to the church. I find the dean. He’s just leaving. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else around. He doesn’t want to talk to me; says he’s been away all day and is eager to get home; I should make an appointment. I think I recognize him, but I’m not sure, so I ask him straight out: was he ever headmaster at Stony Estcott? Yes, he says, and tries to push past me. I lose it. I yell at him, tell him I’m the father of the boy who killed himself. I can see he barely remembers the matter! I don’t know what happens next – I’m so full of anger and hate – but then I see that he’s lying there on the floor. He’s hit his head on the desk. He’s unconscious. I’m still furious. I leave him to his own devices and go to the railway station to go home. And the next day I learn that he has died.’

Mrs Robinson filled my cup with fresh tea and pushed it toward me. I picked it up with shaking hands and drank.

‘I didn’t want to tell you, Alan. I really, really didn’t want to tell you.’

He covered my hand with his own.

‘He will meet justice now, Mrs Martin,’ said Mr Robinson. ‘Perfect justice tempered with perfect mercy. I think he truly didn’t want to live, hasn’t wanted to for quite a time. It was his wife’s death yesterday that tipped the balance. I had barely heard about it when I heard of his suicide. He left a note, you know, and you’re quite right. It was an accident, but it was he who struck the blow that proved fatal in the end.’

‘Did he say anything about Mr Lovelace?’ asked Alan.

‘Not a word.’

‘Then perhaps Lovelace really did kill himself. We may never know for sure.’

‘So many deaths, so many tragedies, and all so unnecessary.’ I fished in my purse for two more ibuprofen, with little hope that they’d take away the pain in my head, or in my soul.

Kenneth Allenby came to see me a day or two later. I was sitting petting the cats and staring into space when Alan showed him into the parlour. He sat down opposite me. ‘How are you, Dorothy?’

‘I’m all right. I’m fine.’

‘Now, you wouldn’t lie to a priest, would you?’ He handed me the box of tissues.

‘It’s just … I keep thinking I should have figured it out much sooner. There were so many things I overlooked, so many things I missed, looking in the wrong direction. Maybe he’d still be alive if I …’ I blew my nose.

‘If you were superhuman? If you knew everything? There’s only One who knows everything, and He’s sorted it all by now. It’s not your responsibility. It’s his.’

‘But I’m supposed to be able to solve puzzles. I’m good at it.’

‘Yes. But not perfect. And you weren’t meant to be. Humility is a virtue, you know.’

‘I keep trying to learn that. But, oh, Dean, I keep thinking of the damage that man did! And to think that he might have been our bishop! I get cold every time I think of it.’

‘But God didn’t let it happen, did he? And before you ask me if I think a murderer can be an instrument of God, don’t. I don’t know the answer to that any more than you do. I only know that things do, ultimately, work out for the best, even if “ultimately” may not be in this life.’

A year passed. It was a time of reflection, a time of healing. The Crown Appointments Commission got itself back together, recovered its equanimity, and proceeded to its business with a good deal less disharmony. They had, I liked to think, taken a lesson from seeing what unbridled strife could bring to pass.

One fine July day, Alan, Jane, and I made the trip to London. The Allenbys had gone ahead, since Kenneth had a role to play in the ceremony. The tourists were gawking, wondering if some royal occasion was going on at Westminster Abbey. We made our way through the crowd, presented our tickets at the west door, and were shown to our seats. Glorious music began, the stately procession entered, and we sat enthralled to watch the consecration of the new Bishop of Sherebury.