Susan Howatch - Absolute Truths

I drew myself up to my full height and allowed a blistering pause to develop before announcing in my grandest episcopal manner: ‘Father Wilton is called to celibacy.’

In the silence that followed I reflected how far removed the scene was from that popular television series about the policeman with the heart of gold, Dixon of Dock Green. The oafish sergeant was bright-eyed, his lips moist where he had licked them in his excitement; he reminded me of one of the more disagreeable carnivores – a rhinoceros, perhaps – who had just scented food. In contrast Parker was as cool and still as steel in ice. Refusing to be intimidated by my grand manner he said levelly: ‘I’m sure you understand, my lord, that since there was no robbery or vandalism, the likelihood is that he was attacked by someone he knew. May I ask your permission to search the vicarage? A desk-diary, for instance, would reveal if he had an appointment to see someone at the church this afternoon.’

I was still trying to conceal my horror at this potentially ruinous request when deliverance arrived in the form of my henchman, the Archdeacon of Starbridge. No detachment of the United States cavalry could have been greeted with more relief in the final reel of a Hollywood western than Malcolm Lindsay was greeted by his bishop as he swept into the hall of Starbridge General Hospital that afternoon.

‘Ah, there you are, Bishop!’ he exclaimed, deceptively jovial. ‘I thought I’d better look in here as soon as I’d finished my visitation – good heavens, it’s Inspector Parker! And Sergeant Locke! Nice to know the police have their best men on the trail. Now, Bishop, off you go to pray for poor Desmond – I’m sure Inspector Parker will quite understand that you shouldn’t be detained from your spiritual duties a moment longer.’

Parker allowed himself to look baffled by the concept of spiritual duties, but recovered himself sufficiently to say: ‘I’ve no wish to detain the Bishop, Mr Lindsay, but there are one or two questions –’

‘Address them to me!’ said Malcolm, still relentlessly exuding bonhomie. ‘I’m the one who has direct supervision of Father Wilton, so I know much more about him than the Bishop does.’

‘But I need the Bishop’s permission to search the vicarage. In my opinion –’

‘Oh, the Bishop couldn’t possibly give such a permission! I see you’re unfamiliar with the concept of the “parson’s freehold”, Inspector – that house is at the moment, to all intents and purposes, Father Wilton’s, and in the absence of his permission I’m afraid you must obtain a search-warrant, but that won’t be difficult, will it? In the circumstances I’m sure it’ll be just a formality … Off you go, Bishop.’

I escaped, bathed in cold sweat.

Outside the sleet was still falling from that heavy, yellowish sky and the gloom had thickened. Scrambling into my black Rover I switched on the headlights and drove straight to Desmond’s vicarage in the working-class city parish of Langley Bottom.

There were two police cars parked outside the church and a young constable was on guard in the porch, but the adjacent vicarage was not yet besieged by either the police or the hound from the Starbridge Evening News. Parking my car in the forecourt of the bleak Victorian house I rang the front doorbell and waited, eyeing with dismay the state of the woodwork, which needed a coat of paint, and the windows, which were caked in grime. Eventually I was admitted by the daily housekeeper, a dour woman who conceded with unprecedented animation that the news had given her ‘ever such a turn’. Also present in the hall was the elderly parishioner who had found Desmond lying in a pool of blood when she had entered the church to perform her weekly chore of dusting the pews. Various other members of the small, ageing congregation were twittering in the front reception room as I looked in.

I was unsure how quickly the police would be able to pick up a search-warrant, but knowing Malcolm would delay them as long as possible I thought I had at least an hour in which to prove or disprove the worst. Willing myself to betray no trace of impatience, I singled out the one male in the group and asked him to escort home the woman who had found the body; luckily the woman lived across the street so I was not obliged to waste time giving them a lift in my car. Then I dismissed the remainder of the gathering by assuring them that there was no need for anyone to linger at the vicarage for news; the churchwardens would be issued with regular bulletins which would be posted in the church porch. As the front door closed after the last parishioner I got rid of the housekeeper by requesting some tea and finally invaded Desmond’s study, a large dim dusty hole where the temperature hovered uncertainly above freezing.

I need hardly say that by this time I was exceedingly worried. Of course there might still be an innocent explanation for the attack: a parishioner might have had a brainstorm or a passing tramp might have succumbed to psychosis, but Desmond’s past did mean the attack was capable of a seamy explanation. After the attack upon him in the public lavatory in London he had been arrested for soliciting. The charge had later been dropped but the Bishop of London’s archdeacon, taking charge at the vicarage as Desmond languished overnight in hospital, had to his horror discovered a cache of pornographic magazines in the study. Homosexual behaviour combined with a taste for pornography could well have led to imprisonment. Desmond had been lucky to escape and had no doubt been spurred on by gratitude when he had made the best of his rehabilitation, but if he were now in the midst of a second breakdown, the possibility that his old weaknesses had resurfaced was strong.

I knew I had to search his study. I had no wish to impede the police in the execution of their duty but what drove me on was the dread that the police might uncover material which was irrelevant to their enquiry but of immense interest to the press. I thought it unlikely that Desmond would have managed to acquire the kind of hard-core pornography which would render him liable to prosecution on a pornography charge alone, but even a soft-core collection could prove disastrous if Sergeant Locke chose to make a caustic comment to the hound from the Starbridge Evening News. The hound’s scoop would tip off Fleet Street and then all hell would break loose.

I glanced around the study. At once I noticed that the desk was in chaos, a sinister sign indicating a disorganised mind unable to cope with the daily routine, but the upper layers of paper contained nothing more sensational than unpaid bills and copies of the Church Gazette. I looked at the desk-diary. The page for the day contained – to my relief – only two morning appointments, but it did occur to me that an afternoon appointment might still have existed even though Desmond had chosen not to write it down. Opening the drawers of the desk I found that although they were crammed with an extraordinary variety of rubbish ranging from candle-stubs to undamed socks, no pornography lay waiting to be revealed. The cupboards below the bookshelves were similarly innocent, and the books themselves were unimpeachable, displaying a respectable, orthodox, old-fashioned taste in both English literature and theology. The fact that the volumes were so neatly arranged on their shelves, however, suggested that they had not been read for some time.

I concluded that although I had discovered evidence of a priest fraying at the seams, there was nothing to suggest that he had actually fallen apart. Sitting down in the chair behind me desk I reached for the telephone and dialled the South Canonry.

‘It would take a week to go through the study properly,’ I said to Lyle after I had given her a rapid resume of events, ‘but at least there’s nothing frightful lying around.’