David Dickinson - Death of a Pilgrim

‘But you implied that there were times when prayer was helpful, Willie John,’ said Powerscourt.

Willie John Delaney stopped and leant on his staff for a moment. He pointed his arm in the general direction of the sky. Way over to their right, dots on the landscape, a herd of Aubrac cows were making their way slowly into fresh pasture.

‘I’ve never seen anywhere like this in my entire life,’ said Willie John. ‘I’ve seen most of the great barren spaces, littered with mountains and lakes and sodden peat, in the west of Ireland, but nothing like this here.’

He pointed up at the great canopy of sky, stretching away to impossibly distant horizons. ‘God’s here,’ he said, ‘I’m sure of it. It’s so quiet here He doesn’t need the telephone. I thank Him for allowing me to see Him in this landscape of His majesty, God’s own country.’

Powerscourt asked if there were any details of Delaney family history which might help him in his inquiries.

‘There’s enough stories about the past of the Delaneys to fill an entire library,’ said Willie John. ‘I don’t think it would be helpful to you, Lord Powerscourt, if I regaled you with the family gossip. Most of it is almost certainly wrong.’

They passed La Roche and Chabanes-Planes, la Chapelle de Bastide and les Quatres Chemins, they passed Nasbinals and its eleventh-century church with the basalt walls. Outside Nasbinals they climbed up over five thousand feet on the road to Aubrac itself, a little town almost as high as the high point on the road. This was bandit country, famous in the past for marauding wolves and wild boar and brigands. Over the next four miles the path dropped fifteen hundred feet to St-Chely-d’Aubrac.

Johnny Fitzgerald had been busy on Powerscourt’s behalf in London. He had to find information about Brother White and the dead man John Delaney. Johnny had smiled when he read Powerscourt’s request to find out if the man suffered from vertigo. He had helped his friend down from innumerable high places in his time. Johnny’s only surprise was that Francis was still foolish enough to try once again to reach some lofty and isolated place. Surely, Johnny said to himself, he must know himself better by now than to try again. It was bound to end in failure.

He picked up the trail of Brother White by asking Powerscourt’s brother-in-law William Burke, a mighty power in the City of London, if there were any banking or counting houses likely to employ old boys of the school where Brother White taught. Burke had been astonished when he learnt of Michael Delaney and his pilgrimage, for Delaney’s fame and his fortune had spread to London many years before.

‘If you’d told me that the great Michael Delaney was going on a pilgrimage halfway across France and Spain, Johnny, I’d have said it was about as likely as the Pope coming here and taking a post as a junior clerk in some insurance business. Never mind. I’m sure I can find a couple of Brother White’s old boys for you, that shouldn’t be any problem at all.’

The following evening, shortly after six o’clock, Johnny had bought the first round of drinks in a pub called the City Arms, just off Lombard Street, close to the Bank of England.

‘I gather you’re looking for information about that bastard Brother White,’ said the First Old Boy, whose name was Robert. ‘He’s not dead by any chance, is he?’

‘Not yet,’ said Johnny.

‘Pity, that,’ said the Second Old Boy, whose name was Patrick. ‘He should have been dead years ago.’

‘What was the trouble with the Christian Brother?’ said Johnny.

‘Flogger White?’ said Robert. ‘Just that, he loved beating people, the bastard.’

‘Trousers up, trousers down,’ said Patrick, ‘it made no difference. He once beat an entire class in an afternoon. Think about it. Any normal person would have been exhausted by the end of that. Not Brother White, oh no. He was as fresh at the end as he was at the beginning. He enjoyed it, you see. You could tell by looking at his face afterwards. The bastard was always smiling, as if he’d just scored a goal.’

‘They say he has a special collection of canes, about fifty of the things,’ Robert went on, warming to his theme. ‘He’d ordered up some pretty evil specimens from the Far East where they go in for beatings and that sort of stuff.’

‘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 habitues 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.’