The Snares of Death (35 page)

‘I see.'

‘And you're on your own, Lucy?' the girl asked with friendly curiosity. ‘Not with a parish?'

‘I live in London,' she explained, ‘and I'm here on my own.'

‘Was that your husband?'

‘No. We're not married.'

‘Your boyfriend, then?'

Lucy smiled. ‘I suppose you could say that.'

‘He's not a priest, is he?'

‘No.'

The girl shrugged philosophically. ‘Oh, well, you can't have everything. He looked nice, anyway.'

‘He
is
nice. And I wouldn't want him to be a priest. My father is a priest, and . . .'

‘Golly! Your father's a priest!' Monica looked impressed. ‘Aren't you lucky!' She began rummaging through the carrier bags and dumping their contents into the top drawer of the chest. ‘Mind if I have the top drawer, Lucy? I'm too fat to bend down very far,' she explained unselfconsciously.

‘That's fine.'

‘Is this your first time at the National Pilgrimage?'

‘Yes. How about you?'

‘Me, too. In fact, it's my first time at Walsingham! I'm jolly excited about it! Are you going out now? To look around?'

As nice as Monica was, Lucy didn't look forward to an afternoon of non-stop chatter. She wanted to be on her own, to drink in the atmosphere of this extraordinary place in solitude. ‘I'm not sure what I'm going to do,' she evaded, then added, ‘Shall we meet for tea later?'

‘Oh, yes! That would be smashing!'

Lucy went through the hospice into the Shrine gardens. It seemed an age since that first day that she'd been here – the day after she and David had become lovers, the day that they'd met Stephen. The day that David had asked her to marry him. Eight weeks, she reckoned quickly. Nearly two months. So much had happened in that time. And now it was nearly summer, the roses in bud twining greenly on the trellises and the elder bushes a froth of white blossom. A few pilgrims made their way around the perimeter, stopping to perform their devotions at the Stations of the Cross.

Lucy decided that it was, at long last, time to go into the Shrine church. She was glad to be alone, without even David, so that she could form her own impressions of the place free from his influence. That wasn't really possible, though, she realised as she stepped through the glass doors that led from the gardens into the Shrine church. His contemptuous description of ‘hacienda gothic' had stuck in her mind, and it made her smile at its aptness; the building was low-slung, featuring red brick pillars and pointed gothic arches relieved by stuccoed walls.

It really was a most extraordinary place, she thought. Her first impression was a jumble of sensations, for a jumble it truly was: a collection of minute chapels, each decorated in an entirely different style, stuck out at crazy angles everywhere she looked. She walked around looking at each one. An austerely furnished altar with a sumptuous fifteenth-century Flemish reredos jostled next to one that was almost flagrant in its campiness; yet another had the blue and white porcelain decor of an old-fashioned bathroom. Each chapel seemed to have a unique theme in addition to a unique style of decoration, she discovered: they commemorated the Mysteries of the rosary. At the back of the Shrine church she marvelled at the Chapel of the Ascension, where a pair of brightly painted plaster feet, gory with stigmata but trailing clouds of glory and gilt stars, hovered jauntily overhead. Turning another corner, she gasped at the sight of a plaster representation of Our Lady, transfixed to a pillar with a sword through her heart, arms outstretched in agony, but a look of rapture on her painted face. Nearby was the Holy Well, its gates now padlocked; examination of the little sign affixed to the gates revealed that sprinklings would take place daily at certain times. Lucy peered through the gates down the steps into the well; it seemed to her an almost sinister spot.

The high altar, Lucy remembered David telling her, had been designed by Sir Ninian Comper. It was resplendent with gold leaf, boasting six very tall candlesticks. Before she went into the Holy House, she paused at the bookstall to buy a pale green Pilgrim Manual, a postcard or two, and a small card that proclaimed, ‘A prayer was said for you at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham'. She'd give that to David on Monday, she decided with a little smile.

Built in the centre of the Shrine church and dominating it was the actual Shrine, the replica of the Holy House. Lucy went through the narrow door, pausing momentarily as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

Darkness wasn't quite accurate: rank upon rank of candles burned in blue and red glass holders. Their flickering imparted an air of unreality to the scene, as at least a dozen people – as many as could be comfortably accommodated in the small space – knelt at the feet of the ornate statue of Our Lady of Walsingham, murmuring their prayers.

A most extraordinary place. Lucy escaped into the sunshine of the garden, where she sat for a long time beneath a flowering pink horse chestnut tree, watching people, browsing through the Pilgrim Manual, and enjoying the earthy smell of the grass after the rarefied incense-and-candlewax scent of the Shrine church.

Monica was waiting for her outside the Sue Ryder café at tea-time, her round face suffused pink with excitement. ‘Lucy! Oh, Lucy!' she waved. ‘Here I am!'

The café was self-service; as they moved along with their trays, Monica gazed greedily at the array of homemade cakes. ‘I know I shouldn't,' she wavered. ‘But . . . well, you only live once.' She helped herself to a thick slab of chocolate cake, decorated with hundreds and thousands, then, after a fractional hesitation, added a fat currant scone to her tray. Somehow Lucy knew that she'd also take sugar in her tea.

She was right. They found an empty table and settled down; Monica poured out her tea and ladled sugar into it, nibbling a few stray crumbs of the cake with her fingers before tucking into the butter-slathered scone. ‘I'm going to start slimming after the weekend,' she explained defensively. ‘So I may as well enjoy myself while I can.'

Lucy wondered how many times that excuse had been used. ‘Have you enjoyed your afternoon?' she asked.

‘Oh, yes!' Monica's eyes shone. ‘It's wonderful, isn't it? I've never seen so many priests in my life! Every place I look, there are cassocks and dog collars!'

‘There's a priest with your parish party, you said?'

‘Oh, yes – Father Clive. He's wonderful. He's not our parish priest, though. He has a regular job during the week. He's a chiropodist. You know – a foot doctor.'

‘And the others who are with you? What about them?'

Monica took a large bite of her scone before replying. ‘Mrs Phillips and Miss Whittaker. Mrs Phillips – well, she's a bit bossy. She used to be a nurse. She's a bit hard to take sometimes. Sort of a know-it-all.'

‘Is there a Mr Phillips?'

‘Yes, but she never lets him come along on these things. She likes to go off on her own, she says.'

‘And Miss Whittaker?'

‘She's jolly old. She was a librarian, I think. Miss Whittaker – well,' Monica explained frankly, ‘she just likes to go along for the ride. Wherever anyone is going, she signs up to go along. She never says much, but she's always there. I'm so glad I don't have to share a room with her. Or with Mrs Phillips, either.'

Lucy poured herself a second cup of tea. ‘Tell me about yourself, Monica.'

With her customary ability to draw people out, combined with Monica's willingness to be drawn, Lucy soon knew Monica's life story. The girl was twenty – the same age as Becca Dexter, Lucy thought wryly – and had worked full time at the checkout of the local Tesco since she'd left school. Her parents were divorced, and she lived with her mother and her younger sister, a girl whom Monica described without envy as ‘much prettier than me, and thinner, too'. Her family had never been church-goers, but somehow within the last year Monica had discovered the local Anglican church, and had become involved with all the passion of a convert. This trip to Walsingham seemed to be a milestone in her young life, anticipated for months. ‘And it's everything I'd thought it would be!' she finished enthusiastically, cramming the last few chocolate crumbs into her mouth. ‘So, Lucy, I've told you about me. Now tell me about you. What do you do?'

‘I'm an artist.'

‘Golly!' said Monica ingenuously. ‘Are you famous?'

Modest as ever, Lucy smiled. ‘No, not really.'

‘Well, if you're not now, I'm sure that you will be one day.' Monica's face shone with sincerity.

Monica seemed to assume that Lucy was now an unofficial member of their parish party, and it was easier at this point for Lucy to go along with that than to fight it. She managed to avoid the Shrine Prayers at six o'clock, but at dinner on the Saturday night she met the other members of the group.

Characteristically, at least as far as Monica was concerned, they were the first to arrive in the refectory. Monica went straight to the table where they'd all agreed to meet. ‘You see,' she said, ‘there's plenty of room for you at our table. It would be terrible for you to be on your own, when you could be with us.' Sitting down, she speculated hopefully, ‘I wonder what's for dinner?'

Lucy was less hopeful, and thought longingly of her well-stocked kitchen, then of David, on his own. She was beginning to wonder if perhaps he hadn't been right after all about the futility of this exercise. What, to be honest, had she learned so far that could be of any possible use in discovering Bob Dexter's murderer?

Her self-doubts were interrupted by the arrival at the table of a woman who announced herself as Rose Phillips, and who regarded Lucy with uncomfortably intense scrutiny. ‘This is my room-mate, Lucy Kingsley,' Monica said.

Rose Phillips's smile was a mere formality that never reached her eyes, a token baring of her prominent teeth. She was a woman in her late sixties, with a strong, bony face, a high-bridged nose, and pale hooded eyes with tiny pupils which nevertheless missed very little. ‘Where are the others?' she demanded. ‘I haven't seen Father Clive since we arrived.'

Monica craned her neck. ‘Miss Whittaker is coming now.'

It took a long while for the woman to reach them, moving laboriously with her walking frame. She must have been well over eighty, Lucy estimated – Monica had said ‘jolly old'. She looked as though the life had gradually drained out of her, leaving nothing but a tough, desiccated old shell behind; she was as small as Monica was large, and her face was as brown and wrinkled as a walnut, topped with sparse white hair. When she arrived, at long last, the introductions were repeated, and it was immediately evident that Miss Whittaker was extremely hard of hearing. ‘Tinsley?' she demanded loudly. ‘I knew a Tinsley once! Gladys Tinsley – I was at school with her! Any relation?'

Lucy shook her head. ‘Afraid not.'

‘Eh?'

‘No, I'm afraid not,' Lucy repeated, raising her voice.

‘Well, never mind. I never liked Gladys Tinsley much anyway. Always one for the boys, was Gladys. I shouldn't doubt that she met a Bad End.' With that statement, which had heads at other tables turning, Florence Whittaker sat down with a thump. ‘I'm ready for my dinner,' she announced.

‘We're waiting for Father Clive,' Rose Phillips said into her ear.

‘There he is!' exclaimed Monica. ‘Just coming in the door!'

In contrast to Miss Whittaker, Father Clive's movements were sprightly, and he was with them in a moment. ‘Good evening, ladies,' he beamed genially, rubbing his hands together. ‘And who is this lovely stranger in our midst?'

‘Lucy Kingsley, my room-mate.' Monica introduced her with pride, as though credit for Lucy's beauty were somehow due to her.

Father Clive gave a funny little half-bow. ‘How nice to have you with us, Miss? – Mrs? – Kingsley.'

‘Miss,' she supplied.

‘How extraordinary that one so beautiful should be unclaimed,' he declared in an attempt at chivalry that was sincere if awkward. Lucy took it in the spirit in which it was meant, and smiled. ‘And I,' he added, ‘am Father Clive Sparrow.'

An apt name, Lucy thought – there was something birdlike about him, in his small, wiry frame and his lively way of moving, and even in the bright black eyes that regarded her beneath his greying crew cut. When he smiled, there was a large gap between his front teeth.

‘Have you met Miss Tinsley?' Florence Whittaker boomed. ‘No relation to Gladys, though.'

Father Clive sat down across from Lucy. ‘Monica tells me that you're a chiropodist,' she offered as a conversational gambit.

‘That's right! Monday till Friday, that is! During the week, I look after people's feet, and on Sunday I look after their souls. A small step, wouldn't you say?' He chuckled delightedly at his wit; Lucy had a sneaking suspicion that he'd used that one before.

During the meal, Lucy found that she wasn't required to say much. Although Miss Whittaker's contributions to the conversation were brief and loud, Father Clive had plenty to say. And Mrs Phillips was more than a match for Monica in volubility, her conversation exhibiting a curious and seemingly incompatible combination of nosiness and self-absorption.

The food was even worse than Lucy had expected. On the whole, she thought, as a vegetarian, she had fared rather better than her companions: she, at least, was spared the unidentifiable, leathery meat smothered in glutinous gravy, and had instead a full plate of limply over-cooked vegetables. What was David eating tonight? she wondered.

‘Is there anyone who doesn't want their bread roll?' Monica asked hopefully, sopping up the gluey gravy with the last of her own roll.

Much later that night, lying in the dark before they went to sleep in their respective hard, narrow beds, Monica and Lucy talked for a while.