The Woman In Blue: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 8 (21 page)

*

Justin Fitzroy-Jones greets Nelson politely, with just a hint of a raised eyebrow.

‘How can I help you, Inspector?’

‘Could I have a few minutes of your time?’ says Nelson. ‘There’s something I’d like to clear up.’

‘Of course.’ Justin stands back to let Nelson in. He has to duck under the low beam. ‘I warn you, I haven’t got long. I’ve got a meeting at three. We’re protesting about the plan to build new houses on Badger’s Copse.’

‘This won’t take long,’ says Nelson.

He takes a seat in the low-ceilinged sitting room. The room exudes order and comfort. Like Bella Hendred, Justin obviously enjoys collecting
objets d’art
, but his are minimalist and tasteful: a china vase on a low table, a collection of watercolours, a single orchid on the mantelpiece. Chesterton, the black cat lying on the white brocade sofa, seems to be placed there purely for aesthetic impact. A bowl of white hyacinths on the coffee table fills the room with a subtle yet heady fragrance. An ornate clock ticks above the fireplace.

Justin offers tea or coffee, both of which Nelson declines. Justin sits beside Chesterton on the sofa. Without looking at his owner, the cat gets up and moves away.

‘Mr Fitzroy-Jones,’ says Nelson, ‘Can I ask your whereabouts on the 19th February?’

Justin raises both eyebrows now. ‘I was in Ireland. I’m surprised you ask. Cathbad was house-sitting for me and I know you two are friends.’

The word ‘friends’ is said slightly maliciously.

‘The thing is,’ says Nelson, ‘I have CCTV footage that places you at the Slipper Chapel that evening.’

He keeps his eyes on Justin and is rewarded by a tiny flicker of fear on the neatly whiskered face. Eventually Justin says, ‘What do you mean, CCTV footage?’

‘As part of our investigations we looked at the CCTV from the chapel. We’ve got a picture of you leaving a service with Stanley Greenway, the man charged with the murder of Chloe Jenkins.’

Justin looks from left to right, a cornered woodland animal now.

‘I don’t know the man.’

‘Oh, come on,’ says Nelson, ‘you can do better than that.’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’ More nervous eye movement.

‘Try me.’

Justin adjusts a coaster on the spindly table beside him. ‘It’s a brotherhood,’ he says. ‘The Brotherhood of the Madonna Lactans. We meet at the Slipper Chapel because there used to be a statue there which belongs to the brotherhood. Father Bill has hidden it in his office now. He’s suspicious of us, thinks we’re a dangerous cult. He doesn’t understand our deep love for the Madonna. When you lose your mother as a child, like I did, you turn to the Holy Mother. She nourishes us, she cares for us.’

‘What is the Madonna Lactans?’

‘The nursing Madonna,’ says Justin. ‘The brotherhood started in the twelfth century. There’s a fresco showing the breastfeeding Virgin in Santa Maria Trastevere in Rome and on several Greek and Russian icons. It was revived by the Cistercians in this country. There was a phial containing Mary’s milk above the high altar at Walsingham. Women would pray to the relic for help with conception or childbirth.’

This account seems to have given Justin confidence. He even over-pronounces the Italian in a way that strikes Nelson as deeply pretentious. Nelson himself is still trying to get over the fact that Ruth’s ridiculous idea about the phial of breast milk seems to have some basis in reality.

‘Who else is a member of this . . . brotherhood?’ he asks.

‘I can’t tell you. I swore a vow.’

‘You’d better, unless you want to be arrested for obstructing a police enquiry.’

Justin rolls his eyes heavenward. ‘Stanley Greenway is a member and Larry Westmondham, the vicar here. Also Robin Rainsford, a theologian.’

‘Why did you pretend to be in Ireland that week?’

‘I wanted to go on retreat. There’s a retreat house near the Slipper Chapel. I couldn’t tell Cathbad, though I think he’d understand. We’re sworn to secrecy, you see. I gave Cathbad a glow-in-the-dark statue and told him it came from Ireland. In fact I bought it at the Shrine Shop.’

‘There’s a piece of glass missing from the museum,’ says Nelson. ‘Is that anything to do with you?’

Now Justin looks really amazed. ‘How did you know about that?’

‘I have my methods,’ says Nelson.

‘I volunteer at the museum,’ says Justin, ‘and I found the glass in the basement, just stored in a box with bits of old stone and pottery. I thought it was possible that it was from a phial that had contained the Virgin’s milk. Perhaps it was even the very phial that had sat on the high altar at the priory. And to see it kept in such a way, with no reverence, no respect! I took custody of it. We worship it as a holy relic.’

Nelson thinks ‘I took custody of it’ sounds a lot better than ‘I stole it’. It never ceases to amaze him, the way people find comfortable language for uncomfortable actions. Justin has relaxed slightly, but he and the cat are both still looking at Nelson warily. As far as Nelson is concerned, Justin still has some explaining to do.

‘What did you do after you left the service at the chapel?’ he says.

‘I went back to the retreat house,’ says Justin. ‘I had a simple meal and went to bed early.’

‘And did you see Stanley Greenway during that time?’

‘I said goodbye to him at the Slipper Chapel. I think he was going to walk through the fields back to the Sanctuary.’

Stanley Greenway certainly likes walking through fields, thinks Nelson. Was he walking home when he saw Chloe and attacked her? The material found on the hedge suggests that, at some point, Chloe was brought back to the chapel. Did Stanley bring her there to commune with the Madonna Lactans? He remembers Stanley saying that there was a statue that he liked at the Slipper Chapel. Justin had mentioned a statue too. He asks Justin.

‘Yes,’ says Justin. ‘It’s a beautiful work of art. It shows the Virgin Mary with blonde hair. I don’t hold with all those modern depictions of her looking swarthy and dark. She was golden-haired, like an angel.’

And like Chloe Jenkins too, thinks Nelson. And Paula Moncrieff. He thinks of Stanley saying that Chloe used to meet her guardian angel at St Simeon’s. But, of course, on that night, she had met someone else entirely.

It’s just that he’s still not sure who it was.

*

Nelson drives straight from St Simeon’s Cottage to the Slipper Chapel. In contrast to his last visit, the place is absolutely heaving. The car park is jammed with tour buses, and there’s an open-air mass going on. Nelson stands at the back, remembering bits of it: the sitting and the standing, the responses, the incense, the readings, the odd little ritual before the gospel reading when you are meant to trace a cross on your forehead, lips and chest. Nelson has to stop himself doing it with the rest of the congregation. He spots Father Bill at the altar. He’s not the main priest, but seems to be assisting. In fact the altar is as crowded as the car park. Nelson counts five priests and ten altar servers (a job he once did, earning himself a bronze Guild of St Stephen medal). He wants to talk to Father Bill, so decides to stay for the rest of the service. It’s quite soothing, standing there amongst the swaying crowd, feeling the soft early evening breeze as it ripples the altar clothes and the white robes of the priests.

After the homily, there is a movement amongst the congregation and several men rise and make their way to the altar. A vague memory starts to take shape in Nelson’s mind and, as the men sit on a bench in front of the altar table and start to take off their shoes and socks, the memory crystallises and hardens. The Washing of the Feet. Before the Last Supper, Jesus is meant to have washed the disciples’ feet. Peter, who gets everything wrong, protests, and Jesus promises him: ‘One day you will understand . . . I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.’ It’s in the words of the reading that they have just heard. And, on Maundy Thursday masses, the priest washes the feet of twelve members of the congregation, in remembrance of this act of humility. Nelson remembers the ritual as embarrassing; the men with their callused, often dirty, feet, Father O’Brien fastidiously patting at them with a snowy white towel. The altar servers had to carry the bowl of water, not that any real washing was done. Pope Francis apparently went into a prison and washed the inmates’ feet. He washed women prisoners’ feet too. No women on the altar today, just as there are no women in the Brotherhood of the Madonna Lactans.

Finally the mass is over and the participants surge towards the car park. Nelson manages to catch Father Bill as he processes out.

‘Can I have a word, Father?’

The priest looks round at the crowds, at the new pilgrims now taking their places at the benches in front of the altar.

‘It won’t take a minute,’ says Nelson, ‘but it could be important.’

‘All right, but we’ve got another mass in twenty minutes. I’m concelebrating.’

‘I’ll be quick,’ promises Nelson.

In Father Bill’s office, under the gaze of the plaster Madonna, Nelson explains about the brotherhood that meets at the Slipper Chapel. Father Bill doesn’t look surprised, and Nelson remembers that Justin implied that the priest knew about the group and didn’t approve.

‘I did know about it,’ Father Bill confirms. ‘You do often get things like this. Odd little devotions and so on. But this seemed a bit . . .’ He pauses, looking up at the dusty ceiling.

‘A bit what?’

‘A bit extreme, I suppose. It’s dangerous to make Our Lady into a living and breathing woman. It’s dangerous to see her as our actual mother.’

‘Dangerous?’ says Nelson. ‘That’s an odd word to choose.’

‘A woman is dead.’ Father Bill looks at him steadily. ‘Two women. I’d say it was dangerous.’

‘Justin Fitzroy-Jones and Stanley Greenway were both here on the 19th February,’ says Nelson. ‘Did you see them?’

‘I can’t be sure, but it’s fairly likely. They often come to early evening mass.’

‘We’ve got footage of them leaving the service at five past six. Did you see them leave?’

‘No. Sometimes, after mass, they go into one of the smaller chapels to pray.’

‘And you don’t go with them?’

‘No.’

‘You know that Stanley Greenway is under arrest for the murder of Chloe Jenkins?’

‘Yes, I’m praying for him.’

‘Did he ever say or do anything that made you feel that he could be a danger to women?’

‘No. I knew that he was troubled, but I thought that he was a dreamer, a fantasist. I never would have thought that he could be violent.’

Fantasists can kill, thinks Nelson. In fact, they often kill when real life disappoints them by not living up to their fantasies. Was this the case with Stanley and Chloe?

‘What about Justin Fitzroy-Jones?’

‘He’s an odd man, but I believe that he has a sincere faith.’

‘He says he was at a retreat on the 19th.’ Nelson will have to get this checked.

‘It’s possible. There is a retreat house near here.’

‘What about the other men in the so-called brotherhood? Larry Westmondham and Robin Rainsford?’

‘Larry I know slightly. He’s a traditionalist, but his heart’s in the right place. His wife is a very pleasant woman. She invited me to Sunday lunch once. Roast lamb and all the trimmings.’

Father Bill’s voice is wistful as he says this. Is he regretting the absence of Sunday roasts in his life or something fundamentally more substantial, the right to a wife of his own?

‘And Robin Rainsford?’

‘He’s a layman, a moderniser. Very committed to the cause of women priests.’

‘Seems an unlikely person to be obsessed with the Madonna.’

‘When you’ve been a priest for as long as I have, you cease to be surprised by people’s obsessions.’

‘You said that too much devotion to Our Lady was dangerous. Do you think that one of these men killed Chloe Jenkins?’ Nelson notices himself using the title ‘Our Lady’. Half an hour in the Slipper Chapel and he’s turning back into a Catholic.

Father Bill looks up at the statue. ‘I can’t say,’ he says slowly. ‘But I do think that the Madonna is at the heart of it somehow.’

Nelson is looking at the statue too. ‘Justin and Stanley both mentioned a statue that was important to them. Was it this one?’

‘Yes,’ says Father Bill. ‘It’s a fairly undistinguished Victorian work, but they fixated on it for some reason. Maybe because Mary has golden hair. Of course, most depictions of Mary nowadays show her with dark hair, which is ethnically more convincing. There was a real outcry when they put up a modern statue of a fair-haired Mary in Ely Cathedral recently.’

But the brotherhood liked the blonde Mary. Was this covert racism or something even more sinister? Nelson doesn’t think that Father Bill can answer this question. The bells are ringing and mass is starting again. Nelson leaves Father Bill to prepare. But, instead of going straight back to the car park, he takes a detour to the Slipper Chapel. It’s empty, perhaps because everyone is at the open-air mass. But Father Bill was right; the tiny room is blazing with light from hundreds of candles, some of them newly lit, some burnt almost to their wicks. Nelson takes a piece of paper from the pile by the door. After a second’s thought, he writes the names of his daughters. Laura. Rebecca. Katie. Then he puts the paper in the box in front of the altar, offering up his intentions.

*

When he gets back to his car, his phone is still plugged in and he has a missed call from Ruth.

‘Ruth. It’s Nelson. You called me.’

‘What’s that noise in the background?’

‘Just some hymns.’

‘Some
hymns
?’

‘I’m at the Slipper Chapel in Walsingham.’

‘Oh.’ He hears Ruth digest this. ‘I hope this isn’t a bad time. It’s just that something’s come up.’

‘Is it about that letter sent to Hilary Smithson? Cathbad already told me about it.’

‘No. It’s about another letter actually.’

‘Hilary’s had another letter?’

‘No. This one was sent to Freya Drew-Hayes. Another one of the women priests who was on the course at St Catherine’s.’

‘Freya . . . The miserable-looking one I met yesterday?’