Death on Lindisfarne (7 page)

“And one of the first things Oswald did was to ask the chaplain he had brought from Iona to preach the gospel to his Northumbrian army.

“But he picked the wrong man for the job. Corman was a bitter preacher. Instead of telling them about the love of God, he ranted at them for being wicked sinners.” Lucy's eyes settled on James. “They wouldn't listen to him. In disgust, he packed his bags and stormed back to Iona.

“He told his story to the brothers in the abbey. ‘You'll never convert those English heathens. They've hearts of stone. I was wasting my breath on them.'

“A quiet voice came from the back of the room. ‘Maybe you were going about it the wrong way, brother. They're like babies. And you were giving them tough meat. It would be better to feed them the bread and milk of the gospel, the love of God. When they've digested that, and grown a bit stronger, they'll be ready for the harder stuff.'

“All eyes swung round to the speaker. It was Aidan, a scholar from Ireland…”

Melangell tugged her father's arm in delight.

“Well, you know what it's like if you come up with a good suggestion in a meeting. Everybody jumped to the same conclusion. ‘That's right, Aidan! And you'd be the best man for the job.'

“So Aidan packed his satchel and came here to Northumbria. He was an Irishman who couldn't speak the Anglo-Saxon language at first. The king himself stood beside him and translated his words to the troops. And this time, the Northumbrian soldiers saw that here was a man who loved them, just as they were.”

In the few moments' silence, Lucy's eyes ranged round her troop.

James stirred restively. “What about sin?” he said, aggressively enough for Lucy to hear.

Elspeth snorted loudly. “I thought I'd skipped the sermon.”

A smile teased Lucy's lips. “I'm sorry. It's difficult to talk about Celtic saints without bringing in Christianity. Anyway, the Roman bishop Paulinus fled before the Mercians. Corman went back to Iona in a huff. But Aidan stayed. He worked here until he died.

“King Oswald had fallen in love with Iona, the island that had given him shelter and taught him the faith. He wanted to give Aidan the nearest thing in Northumbria to Iona. And this was Lindisfarne. Almost an island.” She let her eyes roam round this little sea-girt world. “Imagine it without the sand dunes. They came later.

“And of course, Aidan's abbey wasn't the Norman priory you see today. Think wood and thatch. Paulinus had lived at court. Aidan kept a sacred distance. Look, you can see the fortress of Bamburgh from here. Aidan could visit the king, but he never stayed the night. And the king would come to this island, bringing only a small retinue, when he needed to get away from the cares of his kingdom and seek Aidan's wisdom.

“Aidan and his monks travelled far and wide, along the coast and into the hills, taking the gospel. They didn't baptize people in thousands, but as month followed month the heathen Northumbrians came to love and trust him. They saw the monks rolling up their sleeves and helping with the harvest. They saw them giving away the treasure and money people gave them to feed the poor. They watched them
living
the gospel. And when times turned bitter again for Northumbria, they had a faith this time that lasted.”

Now her eyes challenged James directly.

He was on his feet. “Is that all you think the gospel is? Doing good and telling people that God loves them? What about the wrath of God? What about sin? You rubbished Paulinus because he baptized thousands. At my church, yes, we have people streaming through the doors. Because I tell them the truth about sin and hellfire.”

Lucy's eyebrows rose. “I didn't rubbish Paulinus's preaching. I just pointed out that when things went pear-shaped for Northumbria, and the Mercians invaded, Paulinus did a runner and his conversions melted away. Aidan's was a gospel that put down roots. Like him, it stayed.”

“And that's what you're telling Rachel here, is it? That it doesn't matter what she's done in the past? She's not a sinner?”

“
James!
” There was real outrage in Lucy's protest. But her expression turned to dismay.

Aidan, like everyone else, was turning round to look for the unfortunate girl who had become a battleground between these two.

Rachel was not there. Nowhere on the wide expanse of green that was the priory's outer court. No dark shadow flitting between the sandstone walls and pillars. No solitary figure on the slope down to the beach. Other visitors were beginning to arrive, spreading out among the ruins. Nowhere was there anyone who looked like Rachel.

L
UCY LOOKED AROUND IN CONSTERNATION
. How could she have been so wrapped up in her storytelling that she had not noticed Rachel's absence for so long?

She felt a rush of unchristian fury against James. Why was he always putting her on the defensive, challenging her? What had he said to Rachel? How much harm had he already done? Rachel was too often overwhelmed by the sense of her own worthlessness. Wasn't that what had driven her into the arms of the drug dealers? Lucy had struggled so hard to convince the unhappy teenager that, underneath, she was better than that. That God loved her just as she was, whatever she had done, whatever had been done to her. Nothing could ever make her so soiled, so untouchable, that Christ would turn his back on her. Hope, like a tiny seed, was what Lucy had tried to sow.

What could happen to Rachel if James smashed down that fragile growth?

She was aware that Valerie was intervening, trying with her gentle voice to steer the session into calmer waters.

“I expect that Rachel's gone away to find some peace on her own. Didn't I read somewhere that that's what Aidan used to do? Even on Lindisfarne?”

Lucy took her eyes away from the contempt on James's face. She tried to bring her shaken thoughts under control.

She threw Valerie a grateful smile. “Yes, you're right. It's something you read a lot about Celtic abbots. Columba on Iona, Kevin on Glendalough in Ireland, Aidan here. They needed a place where they could be alone
with God and lay the cares of the monastery at his feet. To become a spiritual child again, seeking help from their Father.

“For Aidan, in the great fast of Lent, it was one of the Farne Islands. Out there. You can hardly see them, they lie so flat against the sea. But you can make out the lighthouse, where Grace Darling and her father later rescued shipwrecked sailors in a rowing boat in a storm. We'll talk more about Inner Farne when we get to St Cuthbert.

“But Aidan had a little sanctuary closer than Farne. Hobthrush Island, or St Cuthbert's. Just a pile of rocks, and a bit of grass, cut off from Lindisfarne at high tide, just as Lindisfarne itself is cut off from the mainland. I can show you, if you like. It's not far.”

She felt an urgent need to be moving. To do something. She sensed that many of the group, too, were glad to lift themselves from wherever they had found dry stones to sit on. But it made everything so much more real to tell these stories where they actually happened. To fill your eyes with the same meadows and waves and beaches they had seen. To feel the same wind sharp against your skin and the spatter of rain that had been part of their daily life.

But she knew that Fran Cavendish, at least, would have preferred the comfort of an armchair in the lounge. And David was probably looking forward to Mrs Batley's Sunday roast.

Elspeth must have had something of the same feeling. She hoisted her bulk off the shooting stick. “Lead on, then. Might as well work up an appetite for lunch.”

As they walked down over the grass to the narrow beach, Lucy's eyes were flitting from side to side, longing for a sighting of the elusive Rachel. The tide was falling. Could anything have made her so desperate that she would try to leave the island when the causeway opened?

Peter shambled alongside her. “Do you want me to go and look for her?”

Lucy badly wanted to say yes. But she shook her head and smiled bravely. “Let's not start panicking yet. If I'm right, and James has been getting at her, she may need some time on her own. I try to help, but she doesn't always want to talk to me.”

“Let's face it, Rachel doesn't often want to talk to anyone.” His hands were in his pockets, head thrust against the breeze.

“Cheer up.” Lucy smiled. “You've been wonderful with her. Yesterday you had her singing in the car half the way up the motorway. I've rarely seen her look so happy. I thought we were getting somewhere. Then, once we got here, everything changed.”

She remembered uneasily that there had been a different brightness about Rachel last night. Lucy had come back from the lounge to find her brilliant-eyed and defiant, refusing to say where she had been.

“There!” she called to the others. “That's Hobthrush Island. The building you can see is Saxon, but it's later than Aidan and Cuthbert.”

A simple wooden cross marked the low spit of rock. Stone walls stood not far from it. The tide still ran between the litter of stones and seaweed that separated the islet from the beach where they were standing. A much wider strait cut it off from the mainland beyond.

“I bet I could get over there. If I jumped across the stones.” Melangell was looking speculatively at the receding shallows and the emerging mud.

“You'll do better waiting till this afternoon. Keep your feet dry,” Aidan said.

Lucy watched him warily. She had felt shaken by his anger last night. But she saw how his eyes strayed past his daughter, as though he was searching along the shore for another girl. Could she count him as an ally, after all?

She caught up with her thoughts so sharply it was as if she had slapped herself. This wasn't about her. This wasn't about who was or was not on her side. All that mattered at that moment was Rachel. Could something, someone, have pushed her over the edge of what she would find bearable?

There was an empty chair at the dining table between Aidan and Lucy.

Mrs Batley swept in, bearing steaming plates of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

“Will she be coming?” she said sharply to Lucy. “I hate to see good food going to waste.”

“I'm sorry, Mrs Batley. I know it's difficult for you, but I really don't know where she is.”

A spatter of rain threw itself against the windows.

Lucy's knife rang against her glass. The conversation stilled.

“Today, you've got a free afternoon to explore the island. Some of you may want to go across to Hobthrush while the tide's out. You should be safe for the afternoon. The forecast is for scattered showers, so go prepared. Or you could spend time in the Priory Museum. Or you might just want to sleep off Mrs Batley's excellent lunch.”

The kitchen door was partly open. Their hostess must have heard.

“It's a good job I brought plenty of knitting, if we're going to get rained on,” Frances said.

“We'll meet again this evening at eight o'clock in the lounge. I want to tell you more about the kind of man St Aidan was, and how he died.”

When conversation resumed, the living Aidan leaned across the gap and spoke in a low voice. “I know you and Peter are worried about Rachel. I would be. If it's any help, Melangell and I will keep an eye out for her. Is there any part of the island you'd particularly like us to check?”

He could see the relief in the minister's eyes.

“She could be anywhere. As I said yesterday, she's officially a grown woman. She came back last night before too long. She's only been gone a couple of hours. A bit early to call out the Coastguard and Rescue Service.” She gave him a wry smile.

He could imagine the arguments going on within her. The worried pastor against the practical policewoman she had once been. She could only have been in the force a few years. What had compelled her to make the life-changing decision to leave that and train for the ministry? It was not the sort of question he could ask her at the lunch table.

Did he have the right to ask her at all? He had fiercely resented any attempt from her to question his own private life.

“Well, partner.” Aidan turned to Melangell with a brighter smile. “What do you fancy? Going across to Hobthrush Island?”

“The castle.” The reply was eager and determined.

“It's only a small castle. And not all that old. Just a few hundred years.”

“This is a small island. So its castle ought to be small, oughtn't it?”

“Whatever you say.”

He looked up and caught Valerie's amused smile.

“Don't forget your waterproofs,” she said.

He raised his eyes to Lucy again. “We'll keep our eyes open for Rachel.”

Aidan was surprised to see the number of people setting out. In view of the weather, he had thought the Cavendishes at least might have settled for the comfort of the armchairs in the lounge. But Fran was there with David. She had changed her heels for more sensible shoes, with a green raincoat and a headscarf. He watched them heading for the car park in front of the guesthouse. To his surprise, they climbed into a red Honda CR-V. It had not occurred to him that such a suburban-seeming couple would drive a 4x4.

Nearly everyone seemed to be setting out for the village or the shore. Only Peter and Lucy were missing. Aidan guessed they might already be out looking for Rachel.

As he and Melangell turned their faces towards the castle there was rain on the wind. But the sky showed bright blue in the gaps between the clouds. Light danced across puddles. The walk to the castle took them out of the village. The path past the curve of the harbour was less than a mile. They could have covered the ground quickly if Aidan had not kept lifting his camera to catch the bright reflections in standing water. Along the sandy ridge beside them, upturned boats, converted to sheds, were irresistibly photogenic. Their keels made sharp-edged roof ridges against the sky. They passed the blue-painted doors of the Coastguard Service hut.

The Castle Rock reared ahead of them. Turrets rose above the curtain wall, which ran diagonally down its ridge like a dragon's back.
The house within was almost hidden.

A storm of rain caught them when they were out in the open, on the grassy flat between the village and the rock. They pulled up their hoods and ran to shelter in the lee of the boatsheds. As they stood panting, with their backs against the planks, Aidan wondered where Rachel was now. Lindisfarne was almost treeless, except for the avenue planted along the road from the car park to the village. Buildings elsewhere were few. Most of the island was either fields or the long spit of sand dunes to the east that stretched towards the causeway and beyond. There was little shelter.

The shower swept over and the sun broke through again.

“We're in luck,” Aidan said. “They're flying the National Trust flag from the castle. That means it's open for visitors.”

“Isn't it always?”

“Depends on the tide. Everything does on Holy Island. They open when visitors can get across the causeway.”

“Or the sands. Like us.”

“Of course.”

They climbed the ramp to the gate and bought their tickets. From the lower battery they stepped down into the massively pillared entrance hall. Aidan knew that, to Melangell, Lutyens' Edwardian renovation must look satisfyingly medieval.

He followed her eager steps through successive rooms, letting her choose which displays to linger over. But he couldn't let her miss the little scullery, which still had the pulleys and weights to raise the portcullis.

“So it
is
a real castle, isn't it?”

She ran down the long shallow steps to the Ship Room, where a model of a three-masted merchantman hung from the ceiling. They climbed the stairs to the Long Gallery and found the bedroom whose painted door revealed that it had once been used as a gunpowder store.

At last they came out onto the roof and the upper battery. High up, the wind caught them and blew Melangell several steps backwards. Light hit them. Brilliant sun illuminated the North Sea. It made the
approaching bank of cloud even blacker. Once more, Aidan had his camera out, trying to capture that dramatic contrast.

At last he put it away reluctantly. “I don't know about you, but I think it's time we were heading back, or we'll get a soaking.”

“It's a good job Lucy's doing her next story indoors, isn't it?”

Aidan paused to look over the parapet. Not far away, he could see the walled garden Gertrude Jekyll had designed. It seemed to be deserted.

They had turned to begin their descent when a voice Aidan recognized rose from the steep grassy slopes immediately below them.