David Dickinson: Death of a Pilgrim

‘That is all very clear, Lord Powerscourt,’ he said, ‘but could you answer me a question? You’ve been here all the time. Yet you were also making inquiries in Ireland and America. How did you manage that?’

Powerscourt smiled. ‘Good question,’ he said. ‘Johnny here did all the work in England and Ireland before he joined us. He actually brought the book Michael Delaney, Robber Baron with him. And I had a very intelligent young man working for us in America but I didn’t like to mention it in Michael Delaney’s presence in case he decided to make life awkward for our man when he returns to the States. It was Alex Bentley’s brother Franklin, who works for a law firm with offices in New York and Washington. He did the devilling over there, he found out about Delaney’s first marriage in Pittsburgh.’

‘Lord Powerscourt.’ This time it was Charlie Flanagan from Baltimore. ‘This is a lot to take in all at once. We’re going to have to consider whether we carry on with the pilgrimage or not. But could we ask you one more favour? Would you and Lady Powerscourt and Johnny Fitzgerald be the pilgrims’ guests at dinner this evening? No Father Kennedy, no Michael Delaney, just Alex Bentley and ourselves?’

Powerscourt assured them that he and Lady Lucy would be delighted. He would be most interested to hear what they decided about the pilgrimage. Johnny Fitzgerald headed a delegation towards the latest Fiesta celebrations and the nearest bar.

‘That all went well enough, Francis,’ said Lady Lucy as she led her husband off to their room. ‘But tell me this, my love, what do you think Michael Delaney is going to do?’

‘I really don’t know, Lucy. Maybe they go through emotional upheavals like that every day on Wall Street, I don’t know. I don’t know enough about his religion, but I should think he’s going to make his confession. He’s got quite a lot of sins to get through, more than most people I should think. But if I know Michael Delaney, there’ll be more to it than absolution. He’ll be offering to hand over more money for schools in poor areas, more funds for more medical research, more support for priests and nuns, that sort of thing.’

‘Do you mean that he’s going to buy his way out of trouble, Francis?’

‘Of course I do. All that stuff about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God is for the innocent and the naive, if you ask me. If you’re rich enough, you buy up all the camels, you buy up all the needles and you’ve already put down a deposit for buying heaven.’

Dinner with the pilgrims that evening was a boisterous affair. Maggie Delaney was not there. Thirty years of dislike of her cousin Michael had been washed away by the day’s revelations. She was going, she told Lady Lucy, to see what comfort she could bring him in his time of trouble. Families should stick together after all. So it was the young men who set the tone for the occasion, behaving like children just let out of school on the last day of the summer term. They had ordered up a great round table in the upstairs room where Powerscourt had addressed them that morning. Powerscourt and Lady Lucy were at opposite sides of the circle with Johnny Fitzgerald halfway between them. As they made their way through stuffed red peppers and salt cod, suckling pig and sheep’s cheese from the mountains, the pilgrims plied them with questions about their past investigations, about their children, about their houses in London and Ireland, about their plans for the future. Shortly before midnight the pilgrims exchanged glances. There was a sudden banging of forks on the table and loud cries for silence. Christy Delaney, now wearing the white shirt and red neckerchief of the festival of San Fermin, rose to his feet. He looked, Lady Lucy thought, absurdly young.

‘Lady Powerscourt, Lord Powerscourt, let me welcome you to this dinner here tonight. And why I should have been chosen to speak for the pilgrims I do not know. These other characters are older, and possibly wiser, than me and they should all be making this speech instead of me.’ Christy stared in mock severity at his colleagues. Lady Lucy thought they had chosen well. Christy had charm, he had grace and he had a voice that some women would have happily listened to all day long.

‘My first duty’, he carried on, ‘is to thank you for keeping us alive. It has been a very difficult time for everybody, but we’re still here, you’re still here and the pilgrimage is still out there.’ He waved in the direction of the street where the noise of revelry was reaching new heights. ‘We have spent most of the day talking about the pilgrimage, about whether we should go on or not. I am instructed to let you know what we have decided. I think I can speak for everybody here when I say that pilgrimage takes hold of you in ways you never expected. It becomes a part of you, or you become a part of it. I know I speak for everyone here when I say that it has played and continues to play a central part in our lives. So we are not going to turn round and go home. That would devalue the meaning it has come to acquire in our hearts. So we go on, we go on to Santiago itself where the pilgrim trail ends. And, Lord Powerscourt, Lady Powersourt, Johnny Fitzgerald, we ask you to join us on our journey. Come with us across northern Spain through Burgos and Leon and Rabanal del Camino to Santiago itself. Walk with us through the heat and the dust and the flies. Lend us your company on the last stages of our journey.’

The young man stopped suddenly and looked at Powerscourt and Lady Lucy.

‘Please come,’ he concluded. ‘You’d make us all very happy.’

Powerscourt rose and had a whispered conversation with his wife.

‘Thank you, Christy,’ he said finally, ‘thank you all so much for your kind and generous offer. I’m going to have to say no, I’m afraid, though there could be a consolation prize. Lucy and I would be coming with you on false pretences, you see. From the moment you set forth from Le Puy you were on pilgrimage, a spiritual mission for many no doubt, layered perhaps with faith and thoughts of penance and absolution and forgiveness. No doubt you have found other things as well on your journeys. You are looking for spiritual sustenance of some sort. I came here looking for a murderer. Our motives are completely different. And we have young children back in London that we do not like to leave for too long. But I make you an offer, an offer of friendship if you like, of companionship. One of the great occasions in the pilgrim route happens in the cathedral in Santiago on the fifteenth of August, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. I believe there are special rituals to welcome the pilgrims who arrive on that day. Lucy and I will see you there. We will return to England and come back to meet you all again. What do you say?’

The pilgrims cheered. ‘Santiago!’ they shouted. ‘August the fifteenth!’ ‘Feast of the Assumption!’ ‘Santiago!’

Several hours later, as Powerscourt and Lady Lucy were making their way to bed, they were intercepted by an excited Alex Bentley. ‘I thought you’d like this,’ he grinned. ‘Father Kennedy is overjoyed, saying it is one of the greatest days of his life!’

‘Why is that?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘Simply this. You’re going to enjoy the news. Michael Delaney has agreed to pay for two new foundations to be run by the Church.’

‘What’s so special about that?’ said Powerscourt, ‘I thought Michael Delaney sprinkles his money about like holy water all the time.’

‘This time it’s for a home for abandoned mothers, deserted by their husbands. And a new orphanage to be run by nuns, large enough to cope with most of the orphans on the eastern seaboard of the United States.’ Alex Bentley paused for effect. ‘And they’re both going to be in Pittsburgh.’