David Dickinson - Death of a Pilgrim

Christy Delaney and Jack O’Driscoll had been making good progress in their French language lessons at the other end of the bar. They could now order glasses of red or white wine, cognac or pastis. They had advanced to Thank You and Good Afternoon and Good Morning and Good Evening. In his spare time Jack had begun writing his account of recent events for his newspaper. He kept it factual. Jack always remembered the grizzled chief sub-editor on his first paper, the Wicklow Times , telling him, as he struck his red pencil through the offending words, ‘We don’t want any of your bloody adjectives here, and we don’t want any of your bloody adverbs either.’

Brother White, the Christian Brother who taught at one of the leading Catholic public schools for boys in England, seemed to all who looked at him or spoke with him to be a man at peace with himself. Inside he was in turmoil. He had a secret, a rather terrible secret. Brother James White liked beating boys. He enjoyed it very much. He could still remember the very first caning he had administered years before. It had been on a Saturday afternoon in the summer term and the boy had failed to hand in his maths homework three days in a row. Outside he could hear the shouts of the cricketers as they appealed for leg before wicket or caught behind. Before the first stroke, the boy’s body stretched taut leaning over a chair, Brother White felt a small frisson passing through him. His first three blows, he remembered, had been wide of the mark, landing on the top of the legs or the very bottom of the back. The last three had struck home, the whish of the cane alternating with the whimper of the victim. From then on, Brother White beat as many boys as he could. He had a wide selection of instruments now, hidden in his cupboard, the thinnest cane reserved for the occasions when he wanted to inflict the maximum pain. He had tried to stop. He had prayed for guidance. It was no good. Once he had beaten an entire class in the course of an afternoon as they failed to own up to breaking a window. On very rare occasions, he beat boys he really disliked with their trousers down and with his thinnest cane. That always gave him special pleasure. He was always careful not to draw blood. It was now fifteen days since he had last beaten anybody. That last victim had left his room with tears running down his face, only turning at the door to catch the look of guilty pleasure that had spread all over Brother White’s features. I’m like an alcoholic now, he said to himself sadly, all I can think of is the next beating. Alone in his spartan room in the Hotel St Jacques in Le Puy-en-Velay, Brother James White found himself remembering his favourite beatings as others would remember favourite evenings at the theatre or visits to the National Gallery.

The chef, Michael Delaney would have been the first to admit, had been a major contributor to the bonhomie of his pilgrims. A succession of delicious dinners had been served with delicate tomato soup or coarse local pate, roast guinea fowl or navarin of lamb, tarte tatin , which the chef felt sure his visitors would never have tasted in their places of culinary darkness. Father Kennedy rather wished he could stay for ever, or at least until the chef had exhausted his repertoire. Even then, the Father felt, he could have happily gone back to the beginning and started all over again. The head waiter had been varying the seating plan, tables of four alternating with tables of six or eight. They were all working their way through a tarte aux myrtilles when the doors were flung open by the proprietor, and a tall man with curly brown hair in a dark blue travelling cape and a woman with a very elaborate hat strode into the dining room.

‘Please don’t get up,’ said the man with a smile, as chairs began edging backwards amid a rustling of feet. ‘My name is Powerscourt, Francis Powerscourt, and this is my wife Lucy.’ He offered her forward as one might offer a trophy to the winner of the Derby.

‘Why,’ said Michael Delaney, ‘welcome, Lord Powerscourt, Lady Powerscourt! Welcome indeed! I have had these two spaces on either side of mine ready for you for the past two days.’ He pointed to two empty chairs, places set, as a single place had been set for John Delaney days before. ‘Do you need food? Are you hungry?’

Powerscourt assured him that they were in no need of food and asked for introductions. When he asked Lady Lucy later that evening how many names she could remember from this first encounter, she managed twelve. Powerscourt had got stuck on nine. Lucy was always better at remembering names than he was. He claimed it was because she belonged to such a large family and would be cast into outer darkness if she could not recall the name of some distant cousin from the depths of Shropshire. As Powerscourt shook hands with the pilgrims he was saying to himself, One of you is a murderer. Is it you? But answers came there none. Maggie Delaney simpered over Lady Lucy for some time, delighted to have another woman on the premises. When the pilgrims returned to their tarte aux myrtilles , Powerscourt and Lady Lucy joined Delaney and Alex Bentley and Father Kennedy at a table set back from the others.

‘Tell me, Mr Delaney, what has happened since you sent your telegram?’

Delaney grimaced. ‘Not a lot, if I’m honest with you, Lord Powerscourt. We’re still locked up here. We’re not allowed out at all. Nine people have been interviewed so far. Alex here does his best but it’s very slow work.’

Alex Bentley explained the bizarre method of translating they had been forced to adopt.

‘A book, do you say, Mr Bentley? Are the questions and the answers written down in the same book?’

‘Yes, they are,’ said the young man.

‘And where is the book now? Does the Sergeant take it away with him when he leaves?’

‘He does, usually. But he left it behind today. I think he was in a hurry. He said something, I think, about his wife’s mother coming over.’

‘So do you have this book in your room, or the room where the interviews take place?’

‘I do.’

‘Could you copy it before morning, before the Sergeant comes back?’

‘Of course,’ said Alex Bentley, and rose to begin the process of turning himself into the scribe of Le Puy.

‘Don’t go yet,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Having access to that information could make my life easier, Mr Delaney,’ he added. He didn’t say that he would have access through the book to what nine of the pilgrims had told the authorities about where they were on the day John Delaney died. He leant forward and helped himself to the last slice of the tarte aux myrtilles . Lady Lucy declined. Father Kennedy watched it go rather wistfully. He thought he had enough room for one more helping.

‘Let me tell you, gentlemen, my current thoughts. I have been thinking about this situation on the train. In one sense, there is a paradox at the centre of affairs. You have employed me, Mr Delaney, to find out who killed your cousin John. If you are an investigator, what could be better than to have all the suspects cooped up in one place? They can’t go out. They’re in a sort of sealed box where the investigator can have access to them whenever he wants. But that doesn’t suit your particular circumstances. You are here on pilgrimage. You want to move on, all of you.’

‘Of course we want to move on,’ said Michael Delaney with feeling. ‘The question is, how do we do it?’

‘Well,’ said Powerscourt, ‘the first thing is to speed up the process of translation. Lady Lucy or I will translate tomorrow for the Sergeant for a start. You see, I don’t think these people can be persuaded to let you go until the due processes have been completed. I’m not familiar enough with French police procedure to know what is meant to happen next. But I think the time has come to take the initiative.’