The Chorister at the Abbey (29 page)

From the deep pockets of his robe Wilson took out a sheaf of documents. Suzy could see letters, pieces of music, and the Quaile Woods psalter, plus a loose leaf which was the original title page and dedication.

‘They were all here, locked in a drawer upstairs. They’ll all be purified in the fire.’ Wilson laughed. He waved the candle madly.

Suzy took a deep breath. And she found herself praying with a pure, deep, desperate fierceness she had never experienced before. Dear God, she said, please, please let Chloe give me eye contact. She could be my own child. Please save her. Anyone could be used and abused by a man like Wilson. Just let me have one glance from Chloe . . .

She looked at Chloe and the girl looked back. And Suzy nodded.

With one movement Chloe brought the candlestick down into Wilson’s shoulders and he fell to the floor.

45

Therefore shall every good man sing of thy praise without ceasing; O my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever.
Psalm 30:13

The front door of the convent opened and the night air rushed in, cold on the clothes of the men. Alex was bent double by the door, desperate for breath, but as the clear atmosphere filled the chapel she felt herself straighten.

‘Edwin,’ she said, and he held her closely to him.

Suzy staggered to the front pew and put her arms round Chloe. ‘You were wonderful, Chloe. It’s over now.’ Chloe looked up and her face cleared. Suzy let her go and she ran towards the back of the chapel.

‘Dad!’ she called, and Neil Clifford held out his arms to her.

‘Is he OK?’ Alex came over and looked at the supine Wilson.

‘I think so. She got him between the shoulder blades, but the real damage was done when he hit his head on the front pew. Edwin should tie up his hands with that red velvet scarf thing.’

‘He seemed to be using them as stoles. Trophies as part of the vestments. Ugh!’

‘Every woman in the district had one of those things from McCrea’s,’ Suzy said. She walked over to Robert, who was helping Jenny Whinfell.

‘He’s told us a lot, Robert,’ she said. ‘But not everything. The psalter is here. Plus other documents, the originals. Is Jenny OK?’

Alex and Robert were supporting her. Jenny Whinfell looked wild-eyed and bruised. ‘Where’s Paul?’ she asked, before she passed out.

Good Friday dawned, the penultimate day of Lent. Suzy and Chloe had spent much of the night at the police station before being allowed home. Then Chloe was taken off by her parents. Jenny Whinfell was in hospital.

Wilson, though that was not his real name, was in custody, but the police hinted to Suzy that he might be unfit to plead. His criminal record included robbing and attacking elderly women and at one stage seriously assaulting a Roman Catholic priest. He had been a Catholic altar boy in his youth. He wasn’t an accountant, and he had been in prison for fraud and deception, where his religious obsession had developed – along with his housebreaking skills. He had been on prescription drugs for depression, some of which he had been feeding to his two female followers in their ‘communion wine’.

From the police hints, and from Neil and Lynn who spent hours overnight talking to their daughter, Robert and Suzy pieced together the jigsaw. When David Johnstone knew he was dying he had wanted to confess, openly. He told Neil and the police that he had attacked Morris in a fit of rage at the college. They had met by chance in the corridor and Morris had taunted him, flapping his photocopy of Quaile Woods’ handwritten dedication, saying he knew who the real owner of the convent might be, and that it would soon be out of his clutches. The taunting was enough to make the alcoholic and irascible Johnstone see red.

And all the time Wilson had been listening round the corner in the Music Department, where Morris had planned to meet Paul – on his way to what he hoped would be a conclusive encounter with Wanda Wisley, music expert. She would, Morris believed, confirm that the psalter was genuine and that Quaile Woods was an important musician.

Wilson was maddened to think that the convent, which appealed to him on some deep subconscious level, might go to the man he already thought of as a rival – Paul Whinfell. That would ruin the scam he had already in mind. But only Morris could supply the missing link between Quaile Woods and Paul Whinfell, through the dedication and the draft will! Once Morris was dead, Mark thought he was safe from any claim of Paul’s. He still had to deal with other people who were after the convent like David Johnstone and Freddie. But once they were out of the way, he hoped that he could run a real religious order, centred on himself. There seemed an endless supply of silly, needy women in the world.

By chance, he had been carrying a CD of carols after a Fellside Fellowship Christmas lunch, and had put it on a computer in the empty office. Then he had set about beating Morris’s jaw with the length of wood to fit in with his own mad idea of righteousness as he interpreted Psalm 58. When the Frosts coincidentally fused the lights, Mark had waited, and watched Alex and Tom find the body. When they had gone, he had stolen the psalter just in case there was any other evidence in it, and left through the Music Department entrance, flinging the wood where the Frosts found it.

At some point during one of his many visits to the convent, Mark Wilson had found the original documents which Morris had photocopied. Morris, with the respect of the local historian, had taken his photocopies and replaced the originals in the locked drawer of the vestment wardrobe where they had been left by Quaile Woods over a century earlier. Poor Quaile Woods had obviously never summoned the courage to give the psalter to his son!

Later, Wilson had let the bullocks out of a shed to chase Freddie when he started to snoop around, after Freddie had betrayed that he had overheard Mark and Chloe in the Abbey talking of virgins. The attack on Freddie had been unplanned, but prompted by Jenny’s explanation of Psalm 22. But that had given Wilson more ideas. He had trapped both David and Pat Johnstone with the defences based on the Psalms, which he boasted about creating around the convent.

Suzy and Robert arrived home in the early hours of Good Friday morning; then they stayed up talking all night with Edwin and Alex. Between them, they found things slowly fitted into place.

‘And the Stainer concert?’ Suzy had asked as dawn rose.

‘It goes ahead,’ Edwin said firmly. ‘There is no way I’m scrapping the concert or missing being there, after all this work.’

‘Hey! That’s great!’ Alex touched him on the arm, and he turned and kissed her.

On Good Friday evening, weak from lack of sleep, Suzy sat in the congregation at the Abbey. Above her the vaulted ceiling soared, and in front of her the stark wooden altar symbolized the bleakness of a world which for three days believed God to be dead. But I don’t, Suzy thought to herself. Not any more. When she had felt that only she herself could bring about the triumph of good over evil, she had prayed with a desperation she didn’t know was possible. And she knew that something had happened in reply. Alex, and Robert, and even Chloe, might think it was her own strength of character which had made Chloe meet her eyes. But Suzy knew it was something more.

She waited for the organist to come in and the choir to take their seats. Edwin was on a high, she knew. But he was still worried about his soprano line.

And then as the choir filed in she saw them. Three very buxom, large, fair-haired women aged forty-plus, taking their places on the front row. They were ushered to their seats by a tottering but walking Freddie Fabrikant.

Die Jungfrauen
, Suzy realized. So that was what Freddie had been so pent up about! He had brought his backing group to sing
The Crucifixion
!

The music swelled with Tom’s amazingly confident yet poignant tenor solo leading to Freddie’s answering bass, and then the melodic chorus where Freddie’s Virgins took up the words with pure, strong voices
. Jesu, Lord Jesu, bowed
in bitter anguish and bearing all the evil we have done . . .

Suzy felt the tears of relief prickle behind her eyes. Despite everything, the concert was beautiful. And as it progressed, it seemed to be completely uplifting. When the choir reached the famous
God so loved the world
, Suzy felt an overwhelming sense of peace. Surely she too could face the world now, with more strength than ever? Last night, her actions had saved other people – with help from some agency beyond mere humanity.

She would never think of herself as vulnerable again. At last, she had moved on.

46

Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.
Psalm 150:6

On Easter Saturday, Paul Whinfell got his little boy out of the cot and played with him before changing and dressing him. It was true, as Jenny had said, that it was something he hadn’t done too much of. But she hadn’t given him much chance. Jenny herself had become completely pro-prietorial about Joseph after deciding to give up work. It was as if she had to prove she was the perfect mother, just as she had proved she was a great teacher and a potentially able deputy head.

Paul had spent much of the night in turmoil. Jenny was still in hospital with severe shock, plus bruising and lacerations from Wilson’s kicking. But as well as that, Paul now realized that his wife had been suffering from serious postnatal depression. He should have guessed. Success as a career woman meant nothing when it came to having a baby, except perhaps that you tortured yourself with impossible standards. And became very lonely. That was why Wilson had been able to get to her.

And Paul was still shocked about that himself. How could he have been so stupid and blind? He consoled himself with the fact that the police had said to him several times that Wilson was an accomplished con man with a predilection for the Church.

But what did this mean for his faith? Paul had prayed in the night with a new urgency. He wanted Jenny to be well again and Joseph to be OK. He wanted it to be like it had been, before Mark had come along and wormed his way into their lives.

‘Come on, son, eat it up,’ he said, spooning slushy cereal into Joseph’s tight little mouth. The baby spat it out and said something which sounded to Paul like ‘Mummy’. This was going to be tough, he thought. But his Big Idea was still there. And in the night, his prayers had told him that he was still Rev Paul of Fellside Fellowship, and he had to go on.

But a phrase Jenny had used came back to him: ‘the beauty of holiness’. Wilson was mad of course, but a germ of his thinking had taken root somewhere in Jenny’s mind and she was a very intelligent woman. Maybe there was room for more than one way of worship at Fellside? Maybe the St Luke’s side should reassert itself again? Perhaps he could start services with a few more traditional elements. Matins maybe, and evensong. Jenny could take those services, because you didn’t need to be ordained. That was the brilliant thing about the Church of England. With just a little bit of effort you could suit everyone.

And it all fitted with the big idea. He had wanted to persuade Jenny to become a reader or a deacon first, and then ultimately a priest. There was no reason at all why Fellside Fellowship at St Luke’s shouldn’t be a job-share. He would need to persuade the Bishop and it would take time. But it was worth a try. After all, his useless obsession with genealogy had meant he was practically doing that with the charlatan Wilson. How much better to do it with his own wife!

And he would forget the Whinfells and Quaile Woods and the past. He had learnt the hard way that it was
now
that mattered.

Lynn and Neil Clifford had a sleepless night too, the second on the run. Chloe had been questioned by the police at length, but when Wilson had been examined it was clear that his principal injury had come from hitting his head on the pews. And Suzy Spencer and Alex Gibson had both explained that Wilson was threatening to set them alight before Chloe took action.

‘You were so brave!’ Lynn said.

‘I was so
stupid
!’ Chloe replied angrily. ‘But no one told me that people who go to church and do all the right things could be con men like that. What was I supposed to think? Neither of you were that bothered anyway . . .’

‘That’s not true, Chloe,’ Lynn said. ‘We had no idea either. Mark Wilson was utterly plausible.’

‘You’re supposed to be my
parents
!’ Chloe said accusingly.

‘Take one of these tablets, sweetheart. You need to rest. It will all seem better when you wake up.’

Like a child, Chloe had allowed herself to be put to bed and had slowly drifted into sleep. The doctor called again while she was dead to the world, and looked down at her. ‘They’re terrifically resilient at that age,’ he said. ‘And Chloe has come out of this with her self-respect restored, if what I hear is true. She averted a major tragedy.’

Thanks to Suzy Spencer, Lynn thought gratefully. When the doctor had gone, Lynn sat by her daughter’s bed. Since the nightmare of Maundy Thursday, she had not had a single hot flush. Could a major horror drive out a minor one? Would they come back? Or was the misery of the menopause finally over?

She leant forward and stroked her daughter’s head.

‘It’s hard for me, Chloe,’ she whispered. ‘I never had a mother and sometimes I thought I was the only person in the world who felt such extreme devotion. I would have cut my arms and legs off for you. Yet at the same time you could drive me mad. But I guess everyone is like that. I just didn’t know and I was frightened of it. But I love you so much, Chloe. And from now on, I know that mother love means standing up
to
you as well as standing up
for
you. But we’ll sort things out as we go along.’

Her daughter’s eyes shot open.

‘Bloody right we will,’ she said grumpily. But she grasped her mother’s hand. The old Chloe was back.

On Easter Saturday, Robert and Suzy had their last meeting with Alex and Edwin to discuss the case.

‘So it’s wrapped up,’ Edwin said, drinking his coffee at the kitchen table at The Briars. ‘But there are a couple of other things we’ve got to report on!’

‘Wait till you hear this,’ Alex added.

‘Wanda Wisley called me this morning,’ Edwin went on.

‘To congratulate you on last night’s Stainer concert and to thank you for making Freddie a local star?’ Suzy asked.

‘Wanda? You must be joking. No, she was far more involved with her own situation.’ Edwin laughed. ‘Actually, it looks as if I might be head of department after all, for a little while anyway. Wanda’s tummy bug has turned out to be rather long-term. She’s pregnant!’

‘And Freddie’s now striding round like a prize stallion,’ Alex added. ‘His legs are better as if by magic! We called on them on the way here.’

‘Hey! Let’s open a bottle of champagne!’ Robert said.

‘And there’s more,’ Edwin went on. ‘One of my mates from Durham University was in the audience last night and he thinks Tom might be able to get in there to read music next year. It means changing his courses and taking extra tuition, but I think his dad might see the light now, after the concert. Tom really was wonderful. And he’ll be near Poppy in Newcastle.’

‘And,’ Suzy said, raising her glass, ‘it’s two years to the day since I met the gorgeous widower Robert Clark. I have to say, it’s been the most incredible two years of my life!’

On Easter Sunday, Suzy went to church with Robert. She wanted to say thank you and to rest her body and soul in the familiar words and music. As she was leaving the church the vicar, Linda Finch, stopped her.

‘How are you, Suzy? I heard about it all . . .’

‘I’m fine, Linda. Quite a dramatic week, though. Look, I’d like to talk to you sometime soon. I think I’d like to get a bit more involved at All Saints.’

‘That would be great. Call me!’

Suzy and Robert walked slowly back to The Briars. Molly ran ahead of them with her friend. It was a soft, blue April morning. In the pure fresh sunlight, the sandstone of the house glowed, but as they walked up the lane, Suzy could see the peeling paint and the sad splits in the woodwork.

‘The old house certainly needs a makeover,’ Robert said.

He made mugs of coffee for them both and they sat outside on the garden bench. The daffodils were all out, and a few tulips lolled at the edge of the flower beds. Jake had been in bed when they left but he was up now, wearing disreputable jeans and a horribly scruffy shirt. He came into the garden carrying a screaming Molly upside down, the racket ruining the peace.

‘Can we get our Easter eggs now?’ he said truculently. He was half aware of what had been happening over the last few days but, like Chloe, he was entering that phase when his real interest focused on himself. He would be sixteen this year, Suzy thought with a slight shock. He was half child, half man, and suddenly the child was uppermost, racing round the garden, pushing Molly over on the damp grass so Suzy knew there would be green marks all over her daughter’s new mauve jeans. They searched frantically for the eggs.

‘Found it!’ Jake said in a voice that still astonished her by its depth. ‘Thanks.’

He stood awkwardly in front of them. ‘I’ve heard from Dad,’ he said. ‘He’s not coming for us next week.’

‘Oh,’ said Suzy neutrally.

‘I think he’s got a new girlfriend.’

‘Well, that’s Dad for you.’ Her hand found Robert’s. ‘That will be fun for him.’

‘You are coming tonight, aren’t you?’ Jake asked, with just a trace of anxiety.

‘To the surprise session of the Fellside Big Band? Yes, of course, if Paul’s still doing it!’ Suzy said.

‘It’s still going ahead. Definitely. Mark Wilson wasn’t that good, and a lot of work has gone into it. And there are guest stars . . .’

‘This wouldn’t be Freddie Fabrikant and
Die Jungfrauen
by any chance?’ Robert asked.

‘How did you know?’ Jake looked impressed. ‘But you will be there, Mum, won’t you? And I know it’s not your thing, but you’ll come too, won’t you, Robert?’ Molly had come to stand by her brother, aware of the minor drama. Robert looked at the expectant faces of his family.

‘Of course I’ll be there, Jake.’

The boy grinned and lolloped away, his sister behind him squawking about her Easter eggs.

‘Thanks,’ Suzy said, putting her head on his shoulder. ‘I know it means a lot to him.’

She looked round the big, untidy garden. ‘Robert, this is the children’s home now. It’s not just an emergency measure any more. I want to stay at The Briars. And we could use my money to do it up. Properly, I mean. Make it ours. And theirs.’ She nodded at the two figures walking up the path, one tall and ungainly, the other skipping and waving her arms.

‘Are you sure, Suzy? I once said I would go wherever you wanted to go!’

‘I want to be here. With you.’ She paused. ‘Robert, will you marry me?’

He stared at her, deadpan. ‘So it’s all right if you ask me, is it?’ he said. ‘I’m not sure.’ She looked back at him for a moment of exquisite doubt, and then he started to laugh.

‘I’ll give you a whole night to persuade me!’