Blood Brotherhood (15 page)

The whole operation went very smoothly, and would have impressed the delegates very favourably with the efficiency of the British police force, if they could have forgotten that it was they who had employed and sent Plunkett in the first place.

Inspector Croft was a very different type from his former superior. He was not hysterical, he was not obsessed, he was not incompetent. What he
was,
positively, was more difficult to pin down. He was rather larger than Plunkett, and certainly better looking, but further than that one would be cautious of going. There was something indefinite about his features — they merged into each other, they made no gestures, they were far from easy to describe. Even his eyes were bluey, greyish, almost light brown, and his hair
was not quite blond and not quite brown. His manner was a perfect match for his appearance. He asked questions deliberately, listened carefully to the replies, and watched the subject of his interrogation from under rather heavy eyelids.

The conclusion was irresistible: a real investigation was going on. The reactions of the principal suspects were interesting to observe. All of them, naturally, had to express relief that something intelligent and intelligible was being done at last, after the Keystone Cops antics of Chief Inspector Plunkett. But there were, Ernest Clayton felt, degrees of relief. And degrees of apprehension as well. Interesting, too, were the consequences for the cohesion of the group. In their contempt for and dislike of Plunkett they had all been more or less united (though Randi Paulsen had stood somewhat outside the group on this); but now that they were under a real investigation, this unity seemed to crumble, and the tensions and incipient animosities which had been a feature of the first two days of the symposium seemed bubbling once more under the surface, and about to erupt.

Inspector Croft began, as was logical, with the murder, and had from the Bishop of Peckham and Father Anselm an account of the circumstances, and of the nature of the symposium which had brought the diverse people to sleep in the guest-rooms of the Community. The Bishop, in his interview, was direct, detailed, and (so far as it went) frank. If he concealed some of his emotions on the fateful night, that was only human. He was, thought Croft, a good witness on facts, and an intelligent if superficial judge of character. Father Anselm was excellent on the bare facts, but he was not sure he would trust him on character. He was, throughout the interview, dry and formal, not given to expansive detail or explanation. And when Inspector Croft, who was no fool, asked the inevitable question, he got a direct reply, cool and as short as the subject allowed:

‘You went to his room at ten to two,' said Croft matter-of-factly,
and looking at him from under his hooded lids. ‘What was the reason for that?'

Father Anselm gazed directly at him, with his unrevealing eyes.

‘We have a tradition at St Botolph's that we are always available to any of our brothers in spiritual distress,' he said. ‘Since the coming of the women within our walls, I have been in a state of considerable doubt and perturbation. I went to Brother Dominic so that we might discuss the matter, and eventually pray for guidance together.'

‘I see,' said Inspector Croft, and went on to the circumstances of the finding of the body.

• • •

In the flurry caused by the change-over in investigator, Ernest Clayton slipped up to the guest wing to have a few words with the Bishop of Mitabezi. Mitabezi was no longer in bed: he had resumed his normal dress (canonicals), and when Clayton knocked he was prowling round the limited confines of his room. He did not know what Clayton had been quick to observe — that the policeman who had been stationed outside his door during the brief reign of Plunkett was now occupied in conveying that deposed monarch into exile, or, to be more precise, to the safe keeping of a nursing home well known to the police force. The Bishop did not quite know how to receive his visitor. He had, in fact, hoped that when the investigations were completed he would be allowed to have himself conveyed from the Community without the need to meet any of his fellow delegates again. Ernest Clayton, too, was somewhat at a loss, so the interview was a prickly one.

‘I need hardly say how frightfully sorry we all are about this,' he said, sitting down on the bed in obedience to a reluctant gesture from the Bishop. ‘I thought you'd like to know that the maniac who's been running the case has been taken off it — he went completely off his head. No doubt that will be some relief to you.'

The Bishop of Mitabezi looked at him doubtfully. ‘I
suppose that means I shall be interrogated again?'

‘Perhaps,' said Clayton. ‘Very unpleasant for you, no doubt. But no doubt you are as anxious as the rest of us, or more so, that the truth should be established — and at least there is some hope of that now. In any case, so far as I can see you are the one of us least under suspicion.'

There was a pained silence. ‘Perhaps,' said the Bishop of Mitabezi, ‘but I should greatly prefer not to talk about it again.'

Ernest Clayton (who was fond of animals) nearly said that he would doubtless also prefer not to have done what he had done, but glancing up at the Bishop he thought better of it. There was something about that fleshy bulk that spelt power, and a refusal to brook opposition. A man not lightly to be disagreed with, certainly not lightly to be crossed. In his own environment a man whom high position was not likely to make humble, but increasingly arrogant. Nevertheless, he was not now in his own environment, and he was at something of a disadvantage, and Ernest Clayton decided he would nevertheless ask his question. He did it with a degree of awkwardness, and without looking at his man.

‘One thing I'd like to know,' he said. ‘It's rather important, all things considered, when you went out to — when you went out. The point is, you see, the door was left unlocked, and anyone could have got into the main building. This would widen the field of suspicion considerably from the members of the symposium — it could even mean an outsider might be involved. I suppose you wouldn't remember — '

‘No,' said the Bishop of Mitabezi.

‘You wouldn't be able to guess, then? From — from the usual practice of your — people?' There was silence.

‘I think it probable,' said the Bishop, slowly and with some dignity, ‘that I may have gone out some time shortly before midnight. But I don't know exactly.'

‘I see,' said Ernest Clayton.

‘I would be obliged if you would spare me further questions on the subject,' said the Bishop, bowing, clearly in farewell, to Clayton, who rather against his will rose to go. The interview was at an end. Clayton decided that the person the Bishop of Mitabezi most reminded him of was not his fellow bishop, of Peckham, but Father Anselm. They both had the power, in the most adverse circumstances, of making one feel very worm-like indeed. Clayton wondered if this was how Pontius Pilate was made to feel.

• • •

Dinner was a meal less fraught with heavy silences than lunch had been. Father Anselm was absent, and High Table speculated rather daringly on the substance of his interview with the new investigator. The Bishop reported on his session with the new man, and judiciously summed up his impressions of him. Clayton noticed that, now the crisis was over, the Bishop was beginning once again to assume a natural air of dignity and authority. Soon, he guessed, he would begin avoiding those who, like himself, had seen him at his worst moments and had the chance to spy out his weaknesses. His report on his interview was delivered not as to fellow-suspects, but as to the lesser clergy of the diocese. He ate well.

So did Simeon P. Fleishman. But then he always did: he ate copiously, with the air of a man who wished he'd thought to bring along a supply of cream biscuits to the Community; he eyed other people's plates and did not scruple to ask for their leavings. He was also talking more expansively today, and was much taken up in his mind with the abrupt departure of Chief Inspector Plunkett.

‘Naturally I haven't liked to say anything in any way derogatory,' he said, ‘being a visitor to these shores, but he wasn't how we in the States conceptualize a typical British policeman.'

He shovelled into his mouth a whole roast potato and masticated it massively.

‘Thank goodness for that,' said Philip Lambton. ‘We have some shreds of reputation left, then.'

‘Some case,' said Fleishman reflectively, through his potato, ‘when the cop goes off his head and starts heaving altar plate around! I'd sure like to have seen that!'

It seemed an odd sentiment, even from a non-denominational clergyman. Philip Lambton felt obliged to say, ‘Not my idea of an entertaining show,' and Bente Frøystad agreed: ‘Hardly. Quite apart from anything else, they might have been damaged. And they must be priceless!'

Simeon Fleishman forked a thick slice of beef into his mouth, and slowly shook his head.

‘Oh, no,' he said, without the slightest sign of embarrassment. ‘They weren't of any great value. I gave them the once-over. They were all silver plate, and reproductions of a relatively inexpensive variety. The insurance company won't go broke over that little lot.'

‘Popped the silver, eh?' said the Bishop, delighted. Then he realized that this was hardly a dignified reaction. and he twisted his mouth back into a serious shape. ‘Of course this is a fairly recent foundation,' he said. ‘Very likely they have no great stock of plate.'

The table considered this.

‘I have every sympathy with the parishes who are selling their plate and using it for pastoral purposes,' said Stewart Phipps, who, given half a chance, would have sold off any valuables his parish might possess and sent the proceeds to striking Cowley car-workers. ‘The idea of a rich church is a hideous contradiction in terms.'

‘Very likely that is what has happened here,' said the Bishop authoritatively. He caught the eye of Ernest Clayton, and both of them were thinking the same thing: ‘Very likely, my foot!'

And the Bishop was also wondering: ‘Wouldn't it be better if the police were told nothing of this?'

• • •

Detective-Inspector Croft had been on several murder cases,
and in his experience they divided themselves into three kinds: murders that sprang from an atmosphere of violence in which the victim lived or had strayed — the Belfast or Glasgow type of murder; murder for money; and murder where the victim was asking to be murdered. Since the Community of St Botolph's presumably bore no resemblance whatever to the Gorbals or the Crumlin Road, and since money played little or no part in the lives of the brothers, it was to be presumed that this murder was of the third type. In some way or other — possibly quite unconsciously — Brother Dominic was asking to be murdered. Croft therefore considered it a vital preliminary to any more detailed investigation that he should get some idea of the character of the dead man.

It was not altogether easy. We get our impressions of other people's characters from their behaviour to their wives and families, to their superiors and inferiors at work, to people they meet on trains and in pubs. In the Community of St Botolph's much of this everyday side of human nature had been wiped from the slate. Much of the day was spent in prayer, contemplation and silent work, apparently, and though in these activities the brothers may have laid themselves bare to their Lord, they did not make things easy for a mere mortal police inspector. Croft had got very little from Father Anselm beyond that Brother Dominic was dedicated to his vocation — as presumably all the brothers were — and a highly efficient administrative assistant. The Bishop had said almost nothing, though Croft's sensitive nose had caught a slight whiff of
de mortuis
. . . Now, once again, he was getting very little of any use from Brother Hamish.

Brother Hamish sat in the chair, his hands clasped together, his eyes sometimes in his lap, sometimes at the far wall, never for more than two seconds together looking straight at Croft. He found it difficult to sit still, and in his posture there seemed perpetually to lurk an incipient wriggle. Was it this that reminded Croft of Uriah Heep?
He found it difficult to think of Brother Hamish as a man with a vocation. On the other hand, his daughter went to the local Catholic school, and he had met among the teachers some fearsome nuns whom it was extremely difficult imagining having any vocation other than for the prison service (force feeding branch). Not that Brother Hamish was in any way formidable, as they were. In fact, he wondered if Brother Hamish's vocation to retire from the world arose from an inability to live successfully in it.

‘Of course he was enormously dedicated,' said Brother Hamish, looking momentarily at Croft, then down to the carpet. ‘You might call him an ascetic. He had no doubts about his vocation, and he was totally satisfied with his life here.'

‘Does that mark him off from the other brothers?' asked Croft, curious.

‘We're only human,' said Brother Hamish. ‘It's only natural to have doubts now and then. Or regrets.'

But not, apparently, Brother Dominic.

‘Was he popular with the other brothers?' asked Croft. Brother Hamish's excessively mobile eyes seemed to cloud over.

‘Forgive me — I find it difficult to think in those terms,' he said after a pause. ‘That is rather a worldly way of looking at things: he wouldn't have thought in those terms himself, and therefore I too would rather not.'

Croft decided it was intended he feel rebuked. He amended his question. ‘Were his relations with the rest of you perfectly friendly?' he asked.

‘Certainly. Of course.'

‘He spoke freely with you?'

‘Yes, indeed. Though you must remember that we speak very little here,' said Brother Hamish.

‘Naturally, I quite understand that. What do you know about his past life, before he entered the Community?'