She was praying that he was, that he would come up with some brilliant suggestion that would save her. If anyone could work miracles, Otis was the one. But for the moment he was locked in thoughts of his own.
The entire dialogue had taken place in the hall. Now he pushed open his office door and gestured to her to go in. It was warmer in there and smelt reassuringly of him. She sat down in the chair in front of the desk. "What am I going to do, Otis? I'm terrified."
He perched himself on the edge of the desk and asked, "How much have you admitted to George Mitchell?"
"Nothing. You're the only one I told."
"You're certain?"
"I swear."
"Then say nothing."
"You don't think 1 should confess?"
He pulled a face at the suggestion, then thought better of it. "To God, yes."
"But not to the police?"
Firmly he told her, "Not to anyone else. We don't know what they'll find when they exhume Gary. You're assuming they'll find traces of aconite, but it may not be so simple. I know a little about—em—chemistry, and I can tell you that you picked a beauty."
She looked at him in amazement.
He said quickly, "I'm speaking scientifically now. Alkaloid poisons like aconite are not easy to detect, even with spectrometry and so on, particularly so long after death as this. Unless you tell the police yourself, they won't know what they're looking for. He died of cardiac failure, and that will be confirmed, but the cause is far less obvious. It's not so simple as looking for arsenic."
"I thought if I confessed I might get a lighter sentence."
He shook his head. "Rachel, you're making all kinds of assumptions. Can you be sure you poisoned Gary?"
"Positive. I wouldn't lie about it."
"You cut up monkshood root and added it to the curry?"
"Yes."
"But you can't be totally sure it killed him."
"Oh, but I can."
His eyes closed and he raised his palm to cut off her flow of self-recrimination. "Listen, Rachel. I'm trying to help you; In the week before your husband died, he saw the doctor because of a heart problem, is that right?"
"Angina."
"That's what old Dr. Perkins believed, but he may have misread the symptoms. Gary had a chest pain, you say?"
"Yes."
"That could have been more serious, a mild heart attack. And he had a second attack, the one that killed him, on the night he died. Was it caused by what he ate, or was it always going to happen? You don't know for sure."
Without fully believing, she stared ahead) at the unexpected escape route he was showing her. "I'd never thought of that."
"It's time you did. Do you know the fatal dose for aconite?"
"No. I just chopped some up and put it in the pot."
"Well, then."
"Quite a lot, actually," she admitted.
"But did he eat it all?"
"Most of it. I threw some away."
"And he had a history of heart problems?"
"Yes!" The exit opened wider. Only Otis could have thought of it. The man was a genius. She stood up and embraced him.
He allowed her to hold him without returning the embrace. He was deep in his own thoughts again. In a moment he said, "It would be sensible if you got away from the village while this is going on. People are going to comment on it. You know how sensitive you are to village opinion. You don't want to be goaded into saying anything the police could use against you."
"Won't that look suspicious?"
"It's understandable to want to be somewhere else when they're digging up your husband."
She had to make a mental effort to grasp her new role as the innocent widow. He was right. She was in such emotional turmoil that she could easily give herself away with an unguarded remark. And she didn't want more questions from the police, either. "But I don't know where to go."
"I do. Can you be ready to leave early tomorrow, say around six:?"
"With you?" Her eyes moistened. She
was
emotional.
"I'll drive you there. It's my day off. Pack for a holiday. Clothes, money, cards, chequebook. Have you got anything in a building society?"
"A bit."
"Bring your passbook, then. Don't leave anything of value in the house. You'd better bring the parish books as well."
"Where are we going?"
"A secret. If you're going into retreat, it's better nobody knows."
She trusted him totally.
THEY WERE at sea by nine next morning. A green, choppy sea with flecks of foam catching the light under a white January sky. Amazed that Otis owned a boat, and at a loss to account for the size and luxury of the
Revelation,
Rachel sat beside him in the cockpit waiting to see what other surprises this wonderman had in store. "It's my indulgence," he said as if that explained everything.
"Isn't that a religious word?"
He laughed. "I hadn't thought of that."
"What exactly is an indulgence?"
"Remission of punishment for our sins. It's Roman Catholic doctrine. You confess to the good father and he acts as God's spokesman and decides if the offence can be pardoned."
"Nothing to do with expensive boats, then?"
"No, bribing the priest with a motor-cruiser is definitely discouraged. Anyway, we Protestants are dead against indulgences. It was the sale of them that led to the Reformation."
"So you bought this yourself?"
He nodded and looked ahead, tacitly inviting her to drop the subject.
She didn't. "How do you answer someone who says a priest shouldn't live like this?"
"With Ecclesiast.es, Seven, Fourteen: 'In the day of prosperity, be joyful.' Tuesday is my day of prosperity."
"I'm not going to get a serious answer, then."
"All right. I'll try and explain. There's this restless part of me that needs to break out sometimes."
"Snap," said Rachel. "I'm like that, except I do the most appalling things in moments of madness. Well, you know."
"Giddy Girl."
"Exactly."
"So do I."
"Do wicked things?"
He turned and their eyes met briefly and for the first time since that evening he had brought the account books to her cottage she basked in his warmth. She
knew
he was over the awkwardness that had blighted their friendship. He told her, "You shared your secret with me. I appreciate that."
"Unloaded my fear, you mean."
"It took courage to do what you did."
"Poisoning my husband? Nine parts fear to one part courage."
He laughed. "You improve with practice."
"I hope not." She smiled back.
"You do. I've got better at it."
She heard him, failed to understand, played his words over in her brain, looked ahead for some time, and finally said, "Got better at what?"
"Murder." He gazed out at the ocean while her thoughts went through a series of convulsions. "We're two of a kind, Rachel."
The hackneyed phrase did nothing to lessen the shock.
He went on, "You were honest with me, so I'll come clean with you. The stories doing the rounds are slightly exaggerated. I didn't murder my wife. She died by a tragic accident, from a bee-sting. But I own up to four others."
Inside, she was rigid. "Please say you made that up."
"Wish I could."
Their dialogue stopped as suddenly as if someone had switched off a radio.
She thought she was going to pass out.
Finally, after searching his face for a vestige of amusement and finding none, she asked, "How could you?"
"But you know. Desperation drives us to it. Each of them threatened my living. I could have been found out."
She hesitated. "What was there to find out?"
"That I misuse parish funds. You suspected as much, didn't you, but you kept quiet?"
"The contingency fund?"
"Right." He patted the steering wheel with something between pride and affection. "This is the contingency."
"And you killed people for this? You—a priest?"
"People who found out."
"I can't believe this."
"It isn't just the boat. It's my whole existence."
She waited. They were down to the wire now.
"Underneath it all, I'm a coward," he said, "frightened to face the world. I think I do a good job as a priest. It's the only job I can do. I was raised in religion, force-fed it morning, noon and night when I was a kid."
"In the children's home?"
"Yes. From the nuns, and later, at school, the Jesuits. I'm very well grounded in the Bible. Through it I've achieved the outward signs of self-respect, status, confidence. The church is the obvious life for me. Second nature. But deep inside there's a stunted creature who couldn't cope with any other way of life."
"Never. You're so confident. You inspire people. You speak with such sincerity."
"Echoing the stuff I've heard a million times. In this game, Rachel, you're lost if you admit to anyone that you have doubts, or committed a sin. I learned about survival the hard way. Stealing from the kitchen in the orphanage when I was hungry and being naive enough to own up. The so-called Sisters of Mercy had me on my knees in the chapel for three hours asking God to punish me and then bared my butt in front of everyone at supper-time and answered my prayers. And no supper. I was eight years old. It didn't stop me stealing, only I got smart and avoided the canings-—except when I was stupid enough to boast to other kids about it and they grassed me up. Another hard lesson. Another beating. And Sister Carmel had a strong right arm. Good preparation for my secondary education with the Jesuits except they used the strap and had even stronger arms. Taught me the Bible, I must say—and turned me right off the Roman Church."
In spite of the shock he'd given her, she was moved by the story. "It would have put me off religion altogether."
"No, at the end of my schooling when they threw me overboard I clung to it—as the only thing I was any good at. Too scared to let go. The bravest thing I could manage was a sideways move, to the Church of England. Joining them was a huge act of rebellion for me—revenge on the Pope and his minions. I knew my Bible so well that I swanned through theological college. Did three years' training in one. I love it, being a priest, doing everything a priest does and doing it with energy and imagination."
"But not behaving like one."
He sighed.
"I understand what you've told me about your childhood," Rachel said. "Anyone would sympathise, but it can't excuse what you told me a moment ago."
"About the killings? I wasn't justifying them. I'm simply saying it's the way I am, Rachel. I act as I always have. I steal from the church, and I cover my tracks."
"But you stole from the orphanage because you were hungry."
"Fair point," he admitted with a faint smile. "Once a thief..." He stopped himself. "No, that's too flip by half. It runs deep, this need to have an escape route. As a kid, I couldn't run away. I tried, more than once, and got dragged back and punished. If I'd had the boat then ..."
"Four, you said." Her voice shook as she spoke.
"A man you wouldn't know called Fred Skidmore, the sexton at my last parish, a full-time snoop who threatened me with blackmail. He's down a mineshaft on Exmoor now. Then Marcus Glastonbury."
"The bishop!"
"Left me no option. Told me I had to resign the living."
"But he jumped off—"
"Was dropped," he corrected her gently. "I killed him in my study, cracked him over the head with a glass paperweight and disposed of him later in the quarry." Some seconds elapsed while he concentrated on steering a true course through a choppy stretch. "You want to know who else, but don't like to ask? Stanley Burrows, of course. Nice man, but a stubborn old cuss. He was going to hand over anyway, only he wanted to do it on his terms, showing everything to the new treasurer, including my building society accounts. He wouldn't be budged. I couldn't allow that. Slipped him a powder with his whisky."
She hesitated. It seemed only fitting to allow a moment's silence out of respect for Stanley before asking the question she could scarcely bring herself to speak. "Who was ... ?"
"The fourth?" He pointed out of the window. "Do you see the headland with Hurst Castle out there? The beach further round to port is Milford on Sea, where she was washed up."
She could only whisper, "Cynthia?"
"She ambushed me. Caught me right off guard. She turned up at the marirta one morning having trailed me all the way from Foxford. You know what Cynthia was like. There was no way she would keep a secret."
After another long silence, Rachel said, "Cynthia was very good to me."
"I know. I could have told you she slipped over the side by accident, but I want to be as honest with you as you were with me.
"She was on this boat?"
"I think she enjoyed her last hour alive. She was terrific company, as you know."
A defining moment had come in Rachel's dealings with Otis. Outraged for poor Cyn, she said, "How you can be so unfeeling?"
"Haven't you been listening?"
"But Cynthia—of all people."
He assessed her with a look. Something new crept into his voice, a tone he had not used before. "She expected me to have sex with her."
She dismissed it as mischievous, a blatant attempt to turn her against her friend. "That was Cynthia. All bluster. She'd have run a mile."
"In this cabin? She wasn't fooling, Rachel, believe me."
With a casual air that didn't hide her true concern, she asked, "So did you?"
"What?"
"Do it with her?"
"Come on! We had nothing in common except a laugh or two."
"But that isn't why you killed her? Because she made a pass, and you weren't interested?"
"I told you the reason she had to go. I couldn't trust her to keep her mouth shut. If she'd lived, it would have been all over Wiltshire and all over for me."
She stared ahead at the sea. "I didn't know you were so cold-blooded."
"Of course you didn't. Nobody knows until it's too late."
If that was a veiled threat, it passed Rachel by. The grief she felt for Cynthia blotted out everything. She could picture her sitting beside him in this cockpit flirting in her cheerful, outrageous way without dreaming what was on his mind. How could he live with the knowledge of what he had done?