Charles Todd - Watchers of Time

Was it that responsibility that had kept the priest pacing the rectory floor at night? Surely he might have felt he owed some duty there.

If it was a Confession, Father James wouldn’t have spoken of it to Monsignor Holston. He was bound by his vows not to tell anyone, even another priest. Or even to seek comfort in his own quandary. But Monsignor Holston might have been aware of some distraction, of a heavy burden that was never brought into the open…

It was an interesting dilemma, what to do about a Confessed sin.

And where there was a Will, there was a solicitor who had drawn it up. If there were dark secrets in the Baker family, perhaps he would also have a few of the answers. If there were none to be found…

“We’re back again to the War,” Hamish said without enthusiasm. “You ken, better than most, what secrets soldiers bring home with them. Or what secrets a man might confess before battle, no’ expecting to survive it!”

And how to find such a needle in a haystack of returned veterans?

Yet that same needle might have found Father James, nearly a year after the War had ended…

Because he’d come to a bazaar?

The next morning Rutledge left the Norwich hotel and drove back to Osterley, Hamish battering at the back of his mind.

Rutledge hadn’t slept deeply the night before, unable to find a comfortable position. His chest had throbbed relentlessly, torn muscle overtired from fighting the wheel (Frances would have had his head if she’d known) and refusing to be eased.

Consequently he’d been subjected to a long and unpleasant interlude every time he’d roused enough to turn over. Hamish, for one reason or another, had taken a dislike to the damp, dreary weather and was in full form.

If he wasn’t comparing the rounded green land of this part of Norfolk to the great barren mountains and long glens of Scotland, he was reviewing the circumstances surrounding the death of Father James or mulling over the conversation with Monsignor Holston or Inspector Blevins. Awake, Rutledge was unable to let down his guard. Asleep, pain found him again in an endless, restive circle.

Hamish, Rutledge discovered he was thinking at some point, was a malevolent spirit with no need for sleep.

This morning, fighting a headache from the unpredictable shifts in subjects, some of them seeming to lie in wait for him and aimed with a deadly accuracy, others following the unsettled state of his own thoughts, Rutledge was glad to see a modicum of sunlight sifting through the overcast. It seemed to foretell a lifting of the clouds in his mind.

Hamish seemed to find it more to his liking as well. As the land changed a little, announcing their approach to the sea, Hamish unexpectedly said, “It isna’ a verra’ pleasant thought, returning to London. I canna’ ken why people live in cities, jammed cheek by jowl like so many sheep off to market!”

Rutledge agreed. His cluttered office was claustrophobic when rain ran down the soot-blackened windows, shutting him in with the lamplight and the musty smell of cigar smoke and wet wool. When it rained, Old Bowels’s moods were as unpredictable as the shifts in Hamish’s trains of thought.

Nor was he eager to return to Frances’s watchful care. His sister was a master at concealing her worry behind a light facade of humor, but he knew her too well to be taken in by it. He said aloud, in the silence of the motorcar-a habit he found nearly impossible to break“I’ll be here at least one more day. It will do no harm.”

A lorry, bound from King’s Lynn to Norwich, sent an arc of muddy water across Rutledge’s bonnet as it passed in the southbound lane. He blinked as the spray washed the windscreen and left behind a dark and odiferous residue that slowly vanished in the drizzle that had resumed, swallowing up the sun.

As he drove into the town, Rutledge saw people hurrying toward Holy Trinity, bound for the service. He recognized a few of the faces from his brief visit on Saturday- the farmer and his sons who had successfully purchased the prize ram, the young woman he’d seen earlier in the churchyard, the barmaid at The Pelican, and two of the children who had been playing in Water Street. The familiar habit of Sunday worship comfortably being followed: occasionally greeting a friend, often looking up at the great tower that marked their destination as if already focused on the service. There was something very English about it.

He had the odd feeling that he had come home.

The constable on duty in the police station informed him that Inspector Blevins was at Mass, and had left word that he would expect his London counterpart after lunch.

“If there’s a Mass, there’s a priest,” Hamish told Rutledge as he walked back to the motorcar.

“Yes. I’d like to see who has been sent to conduct it.”

He turned the car and drove to St. Anne’s. The watery sunlight brightened.

Stopping in the drive beside the rectory, Rutledge sat back in his seat, trying to ease the tense muscles in his chest, massaging his upper arm near the shoulder, commanding it to relax. He’d nearly succeeded by the time the first of the parishioners came out of the service and walked away down the street.

Watching them, he wondered which had been under suspicion before Walsh had been taken into custody. Surely Blevins had considered a good many of them, before the investigation had widened.

In a few moments, Monsignor Holston stepped out of St. Anne’s and stood by the door, speaking to each family as they left the service. Rutledge, watching, could see that Monsignor Holston knew a number of them, and found a brief word even for those he didn’t. For a scholarly man, the priest had a remarkably affable manner with people. Inspector Blevins, in the middle of a group, stopped to make several remarks, and the priest’s face lighted a little. But there was doubt in his expression as he turned his head to follow Blevins and his family as they walked on. A trio of elderly women, dressed in black and very eager to take Monsignor Holston’s hand in their turn, brought up the rear of the procession of people. He reassured each woman, bending to hear what the eldest, stooped and leaning on a cane, had to say. But in the end he shook his head.

Hamish said, “He doesna’ know who will replace Father James.”

“I have a feeling the Bishop may wait until the police have finished their job.”

As the women moved off down the path, Monsignor Holston turned to go back into the sanctuary, and then saw Rutledge for the first time, hailing him.

Rutledge got out of the car and strode toward the church.

“Well met,” the priest said. “Come and talk to me while I change out of my robes.”

Rutledge joined him at the door. “I see you were sent here to conduct the service. Does this mean the Bishop has made no decision about Father James’s successor? Or are you taking up residence now?”

“The Bishop’s biding his time. I think he prefers to wait until there’s some news about the killer. Not wanting to be seen to be filling Father James’s shoes with unwarranted haste. But he can’t leave it much longer. There are needs here that I can’t meet, coming only for a day. And most of all it’s a need for continuity, a sense of order having been restored.”

They went into the sanctuary together and down an aisle. “This is a very lovely church, you know.” Monsignor Holston gestured to the stark simplicity surrounding them. “Father James used to say that it was stripped of all pretension, down to the bare bones of faith. Architecturally, that’s quite true. And I think he carried that message through into his pastoring here. But this is a dying parish; there’s no work for the young people here along the coast. The Bishop should find a young priest with energy and ideals to fill Father James’s shoes. One who might reach them before they wander off to work in Norwich or King’s Lynn or Peterborough. You could see for yourself how many of those present this morning were over forty.”