Alex Gray - A small weeping

Lorimer was looking at him keenly as if to weigh each of the DC’s words carefully. Niall Cameron returned his gaze with apparent coolness. There was no longer any telltale flush warming that Celtic pallor.

He wanted to believe the younger man. Experience told him he was hearing the truth, but there was someone who had inside knowledge of the first case, someone who had used it to copy the killer’s signature. And Niall Cameron had known the girl from Lewis. It had been his call, too, that had alerted Lorimer that night, he remembered. He picked up the whisky and drained the glass in one grateful swallow, suddenly needing the burning liquor to take away a taste he didn’t like.

The vibration from his mobile made him put down the glass with a bang. ‘Lorimer?’

Cameron’s eyes were on him as he listened to the voice on the other end. He was vaguely aware of the younger man picking up his jacket and giving him a wave. He nodded in return, watching the Lewisman walk out of the pub and into the Glasgow night.

‘Who is this Father Ambrose?’ Lorimer asked, listening as the duty sergeant told him of the priest’s telephone call.

‘And he’s coming up to see us?’ Lorimer bit his lip. This was news indeed. A priest from the Borders who had information about Deirdre McCann’s murder, or so he claimed. As he pressed the cancel button, his thoughts drifted back to Lewis and to the house called Failte where he’d met the nun. Where was she, now? And had she anything to do with this sudden need for an elderly priest to speak to Strathclyde

Father Ambrose was a small rotund gentleman dressed in clerical black. His thinning hair showed a well-scrubbed scalp that shone pinkly through wisps of white curls. A cherubic face smiled up at Lorimer’s.

‘Chief Inspector. I’m so glad to meet you,’ Father Ambrose said in a voice as gentle as a girl’s. But the hand that grasped Lorimer’s was firm and strong.

‘Father Ambrose. You rang last night, I believe?’

The priest ducked his head as they walked towards the stairs. ‘Yes. Though I should have contacted you sooner.’

Lorimer raised his eyebrows. Ideas of confessionals sprang to his mind. But weren’t those secrets told during the confessional sacrosanct? As he pulled open his door and ushered the little man inside, his head was buzzing with speculation.

‘Some tea, Father?’

‘No thank you. I will be seeing an old friend later this morning. She will be filling me with pots of the stuff, I assure you,’ he smiled, a dimple appearing on his cheek.

‘Well, what can we do for you, sir?’

‘Ah. Now, it’s what I can do for you, Chief Inspector. What I should have done for you months ago, when that poor young woman was killed.’

‘Deirdre McCann?’

The priest nodded sadly. ‘I read about it in the papers. It troubled me greatly at the time but it was not until this latest death that I made myself face some unpleasant facts.’

‘Oh?’ Lorimer leant back slightly, appraising the man. Father Ambrose had folded his hands in front of him as if to begin a discourse. Lorimer waited to hear what he had to say.

‘There was something that happened several years ago, something that I had wished to forget. It’s no excuse, of course, for procrastinating. Indeed, had I acted sooner perhaps these other women might not have been murdered.’ Father Ambrose’s voice dropped to a whisper. He gave a short, resigned sigh and continued. ‘I became a priest and was trained by the Jesuits. I have probably had one of the finest educations in the land, you know,’ he remarked. ‘Anyway, my work took me into teaching for a time and I was responsible for the young men in a novitiate in the Borders.’

‘A novitiate? Is that like a seminary?’

‘No, Chief Inspector. A seminary exists to educate those who wish to become diocesan priests. Rather like students for the Ministry in other denominations.’

‘So what does a novitiate do, exactly?’

‘Well, we have a year of discernment where men, usually young men, learn about the Order. The novices study but also do many tasks around the Parish House.’ Father Ambrose smiled wryly. ‘We like to give them quite menial jobs as a way of testing their resolve.’

Lorimer nodded, encouraging the priest to continue.

‘This is not something we take lightly, Chief Inspector. It is the highest of callings and any novitiate must be suitable as well as serious in their intentions. About fifteen years ago we had a young man who had come from a farming family in Lanarkshire. He was a huge chap, great shoulders on him, hands like hams. He had the physique of a farmer. But Malcolm wanted to join our Order and I was appointed to be his novice master. He was so eager and willing to help and I admit he was of great use around the Parish House when anything of a practical nature was required. That was how he came to help us with the funerals.’ He paused and stared at Lorimer.

‘We were part of a large Parish at that time and our own church was shared with the local parishioners during massive renovation work. Malcolm began by doing the heavy work, lifting coffins, packing away hurdles, that sort of thing. But then he began to take an interest in the laying out of the deceased.’ Father Ambrose tightened his lips in a moue of disapproval. ‘Normally there would be vigil prayers the evening before a funeral and the coffin would be kept overnight in church. One evening, just before leaving, we caught sight of Malcolm placing a flower in the hands of a young woman who had passed away. It was a red carnation.’

Lorimer sat up smartly.

‘It was a nice idea, we thought, and the relatives rather liked it, so it became a habit of Malcolm’s to select a flower for the coffin thereafter. Of course that stopped when he went away.’

‘He left the Order?’

Father Ambrose sighed once more. ‘Not exactly. He was asked to leave. There was an incident,’ he hesitated, his pearly skin flushing. ‘Malcolm was found interfering with a corpse, Chief Inspector.’

‘What exactly do you mean, Father? Interfering in what way?’

‘Normally the coffins were screwed down after vigil prayers and somehow that job always fell to Malcolm.’ The old man wiped a hand across his eyes as if trying to erase a memory. ‘One of the other novices had left something in church and went back for it. That’s when he saw Malcolm.’

‘What was he doing?’

‘He was trying to make love to the corpse.’ The priest’s voice had sunk to a whisper again as if the memory of that shame was too much to bear. ‘We realised then what we had suspected for some time, that he was not quite right. Academically Malcolm was fairly poor and his progress towards the priesthood would always have been in question, but there was more to it than that. I think there may have been some problem. There was talk of behavioural difficulties when he was little. Perhaps I’m trying to find an excuse for what happened, I don’t really know. Anyway, it was a terrible time. We managed to keep it out of the papers but it rocked the whole novitiate. Malcolm was sent home and I left shortly afterwards.’

‘But it wasn’t your fault, surely?’

‘I was responsible for the boys and their welfare, Chief Inspector. My integrity was in question. There was no way I could continue as a novice master,’ the priest replied firmly.

‘So,’ Lorimer began, ‘you think this Malcolm may have had something to do with the murder of Deirdre McCann and the other women?’

‘I do. Although,’ the man hesitated again, ‘I worried about the nurses. I couldn’t see him murdering good people like that. Still, the mind does odd things, isn’t that so? No, it was the killing of the two prostitutes that concerned me.’