David Dickinson - Death of a Pilgrim

‘Forgive me this question, Mr Daniel: are you or were you a military gentleman?’

‘Yes, I was, but I don’t see what it has to do with this book.’

‘It’s just easier speaking to a fellow soldier, if you see what I mean. You know the rules. I’m going to tell you a story, Mr Daniel, if you have the time to listen. I was going to tell you a pack of lies about this book, but I think you deserve better than that. The book in question came out in the last decade of the last century. It’s called Michael Delaney, Robber Baron . Can I ask you first of all, have you the read the thing?’

‘The book?’ Ralph Daniel smiled. ‘I don’t think I have. It was my father who ordered it, you see.’

Johnny was relieved to hear that this father did not come with God rest his soul attached.

‘We’d better make sure, first of all,’ said Daniel, ‘that I still have the book in the house. No point in you telling me a story if I don’t have it. I’m not sure where it is, now I come to think of it. I know I have seen it somewhere. It came with a dark green cover. I do hope my wife hasn’t tidied it away. She’s a terrible one for tidying things. Then, of course, she can’t remember where she put them. If you wait here, I’ll see what I can do. There’s a book about the British Army in India that’s just come out on that little table by the window which might interest you.’

A couple of minutes later Daniel was back, grinning, with a book in his hand. ‘This is it here,’ he said, ‘ Michael Delaney, Robber Baron . Your journey hasn’t been in vain. The wife had tidied it away, as a matter of fact. She’d transferred it and a whole lot more she didn’t like the look of out of the main library up to the reserves in the attic.’

He looked inside the book. ‘I don’t think anybody has ever read it,’ Daniel said. ‘The pages haven’t been cut. Now then, tell me the story behind it.’

Johnny explained about the fate of the original work in America, pulped on Delaney’s orders. He stressed that all his information came second-hand. He told Daniel about the murders in the south of France. He told him what he knew about the progress of the investigation, that Powerscourt was working on the theory that the reason for the murders might lie deep in Delaney’s past.

Ralph Daniel was fascinated. ‘So, if I understand you correctly, the reason Delaney wanted the book destroyed was that it contained shameful secrets about his behaviour in the past? And that one of those secrets might explain this horror story on the pilgrim trail today?’

‘Exactly,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald.

‘Well, then,’ Ralph Daniel handed the book over, ‘you’d better have Michael Delaney, Robber Baron right now. Do with it what you will. I would be pleased if I could feel that a book from my house had helped to solve a murder mystery.’

‘Can I pay you for it?’ asked Johnny.

‘Don’t be silly. Of course you can’t. Do get in touch when the investigation is over and we can work out what to do with it. May I ask what you propose doing with it now?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Johnny thoughtfully. ‘You see, if I read it and tell Francis what I think are the most important bits, I may miss something. I don’t know as much as he does. I suppose I could post it to him, or I could take it over to France myself.’

‘Well,’ said Ralph Daniel, ‘you found out about the book yesterday, you came here today. Why not keep moving? I don’t think I’d rest easy in my bed putting a Robber Baron in the post. Of course ninety-nine times out of a hundred the book would get there safely. But there’s always the one that didn’t. And it sounds as if your friend is moving about a great deal. You don’t want the book mouldering away at some hotel or poste restante in Auch when your friend has moved off to Burgos or somewhere.’

‘You’ve convinced me. I’ll go today. I’ll travel through the night if I have to. Thank you so much for your assistance and your advice, Mr Daniel, I am most grateful.’

‘Think nothing of it,’ Daniel replied, escorting Johnny to the front door and the full sweep of the Royal Crescent, ‘and God speed on your journey. I hope it contains what you are looking for, Michael Delaney, Robber Baron .’

‘It says here, Francis, that there’s a tympanum, one of those arched doorways with statues and things, at the Abbey of St Peter, the place with the cloisters.’ Lady Lucy Powerscourt was reading from a little guide to Moissac she had borrowed from their hotel. It was two days since the pilgrims had been locked away in the Black Marias on the journey to their special train. Powerscourt and Lady Lucy were due to meet them in a couple of hours’ time.

‘Another tympanum, Lucy? I think I could become quite attached to tympanums, you know. Maybe I should write a book on them one day to go with that cathedral volume. I wonder if this one has as many horrible sinners as the one at Conques. I rather hope not.’

Powerscourt and Lady Lucy were walking up the slope above the river Tarn. The river, Lady Lucy had remarked, was probably as wide as the Thames going through London. ‘It’s another Last Judgement, Francis.’ Lady Lucy stopped about fifteen feet away from the church door. ‘Based on the Book of Revelation. This is pretty dramatic stuff, my love: “Behold. A throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper, and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment, and they had on their heads crowns of gold.”’

Lady Lucy paused for a moment. ‘Here we go, Francis: “And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne which are the seven Spirits of God.”’

‘Don’t think the sculptor bothered with the fire and the weather bit, Lucy.’ Powerscourt was now standing by the south door of the abbey. It was set in a deep splay rather like a jaw, with the sides serrated like the central sections of human back teeth. In the centre was a pillar wreathed with lions. Above that was a lintel of rosettes. Two rows of fleurs-de-lis ran right round the central section, which was dominated by Christ, the largest figure in the group with his right hand raised in blessing. He sat, holding a scroll in his left hand, surrounded by a lion and an eagle and other beasts symbolizing the four evangelists. The twenty-four elders mentioned in the Book of Revelation were all seated, holding medieval musical instruments that looked like primitive violins, or goblets symbolizing the prayers of the saints, a medieval chamber orchestra come to Moissac with their own refreshments. They sat in three tiers, with fourteen on the bottom row, six in the middle and four in the top. All were looking up and across at the figure of Christ, and the sculptor had demonstrated his abilities by giving each head a different angle, a different tilt across and upwards.

‘Look at their legs, Francis.’ It was Lady Lucy who noticed it first. Each pair of elders’ legs, like each head, was different. Some were held close together, some were wide apart, some were folded one on top of another, some were twisted away from the body almost at right angles. But it was the face of Christ that fascinated Powerscourt. This Christ was lord and master of all he surveyed. He was bathed in majesty. His gaze travelled out of the tympanum, out over the valley of the Tarn, out over France and the known world towards the eternal and the infinite. He might have been placed on earth, carved in stone, but his kingdom stretched out into the next world.