Twelve Drummers Drumming (45 page)

“This is an outrage. You simply happened to walk in at the moment of his death.”

“You were administering something—”

“I was not!”

“—an
overdose
of something into his IV. Potassium, I’ll wager. I learned a thing or two from Lisbeth.”

“Again, you’re outrageous. I was merely checking his IV out of professional habit. His death was merely coincidental.”

“Bollocks! His death is the direct result of your actions.”

“He’s ‘Do Not Resuscitate.’ ”

“I’m aware of that. It makes no difference. You’re the agent of his death, and there’s a test that can prove it. I know that from Lisbeth, too.”

Alastair shrugged. “Well, I suppose electrolyte measurement might indicate high levels of potassium in the colonel’s bloodstream, but such a test will never be ordered.”

“Not if I don’t go to the police, it won’t.”

“Tom, after all your years with Lisbeth, surely you’ve picked up that the medical profession is a club, and the club would quickly close around and resist any intrusion in this area. The dirty little secret of the health care system is that elderly and frail patients with numbered days are often eased painlessly into death. It’s a great kindness to them and to their families. That you happened to arrive
in the room when Colonel Northmore was—perhaps, maybe, who’s to say?—being eased into his, is little more than—as I suggested earlier—interesting timing.”

“Then you admit it.”

Alastair shook his head, as if the misunderstanding of laypersons was unfathomable.

“Colonel Northmore may have been elderly, but he was
not that
frail.” Tom gestured towards the corpse.

“He was very old. His hip was broken. The orthopaedic consultant would be telling him tomorrow that he was not a candidate for a hip replacement. I can say that for certain because I asked him about it. Phillip would have had to go into some form of care or assisted living. His wife has been dead for years. His daughter in America ignores him. Lacking opposable thumbs, Bumble would have been quite useless. Phillip would have had absolutely no quality of life. And,” he paused to take a breath, “as it happens, we had a conversation yesterday—he and I—in which he signalled his wish not to carry on should he not be able to carry on, as usual, at Farthings, stiff upper lip and all.”

“You left this room before I did yesterday.”

“I came back.”

“I don’t believe you had this conversation with the colonel, Alastair. And I don’t believe you
eased
him into death. You killed him to
silence him
.”

The air in the room seemed to condense and crackle with electricity. Tom could sense tiny shocks tripping along his skin; his heart raced. It was out. He had said it. Alastair reddened. He stared at Tom, nostrils flared. He snapped:

“Silence him over
what
, for fuck’s sake?”

Tom pushed the trolley aside. “Over Peter Kinsey. The colonel and I were discussing his death yesterday. You trailed in at the end of it. I think he became conscious, when we were all talking, of something he hadn’t put together before. I could see it in his face, though it didn’t seem important at the time.”

“How mystical.”

Tom continued, “The colonel sought your corroboration yesterday about seeing him in the road the evening before Ned Skynner’s funeral. You said you’d been up to see Enid Pattimore and you were on your way out of her and Roger’s flat when you bumped into him.”

“And so I was.”

“You left Westways at around six-thirty—I remember that because Miranda and I were staying with you and Julia, and the news had just come on—”

“Yes,” Alastair said impatiently.

“And the colonel said he met you in the road shortly after seven—”

“Yes, yes, what of it? There’s not much to attend to with Enid Pattimore. The woman’s neurotic. Give her a pill, stuff some cotton wool up her nose, pat her little hand, and she’s happy as Larry.”

“But there’s nothing wrong with her brain. She told Mrs. Prowse, who told me barely an hour ago that you didn’t arrive that evening until
Coronation Street
was more than half over, which would be about seven forty-five—an hour and a quarter after you left Westways. And I’m sure Roger was at home with his mother and could confirm. Just after seven o’clock, you weren’t coming
out
of the Pattimores’. But you weren’t going in either. What
were
you doing between six-thirty and seven forty-five other than loitering outside the Pattimores’ for a few moments?”

“Christ!” Alastair exploded. “I was probably having a bloody drink in the bloody pub!”

“No, you weren’t. I think you’ll find Eric has a decent memory of that evening.”

“Then I have no idea what I was doing on an evening more than a year ago.”

“And yet yesterday you managed to recall meeting the colonel in the road when he prompted you.”

“I was indulging him. I repeat: What are you on about? What does Kinsey’s death have to do with
me
?”

Tom studied his sister-in-law’s husband, the man who had once courted his wife, who had been thrown over for a mere theological student and all the promise of a parson’s stipend … and who he now believed to be a murderer. But the anguish Julia had poured out on the lawn at Thornridge House—about her affair with Kinsey and the termination—was not his to reveal. Alastair, Julia had said, knew nothing of either.

She was wrong. He was sure of it.

“You couldn’t,” he said slowly, “go up to the Pattimores’ flat that evening, the time you bumped into the colonel, because”—the truth now burst forth like a diamond in his mind’s eye, unearthed by the colonel’s ramblings—“because you didn’t have your black bag with you. Your medical case. The one …” His eyes searched the room. “… you usually carry, at least when you’re doing house calls. Your Gladstone bag, as the colonel would call it.”

“You’re insane.”

“Of course!” Tom persisted, oblivious. “You had left it in the church somewhere, hadn’t you? Probably in the vestry. It was only yesterday, when the colonel was fretting about that evening, that he realised what he had seen. As with any good magic trick, the eye doesn’t see what it doesn’t expect to see. The vestry is a tip, as everyone says. You wouldn’t expect to see a Gladstone bag amid all the rubbish. And the colonel didn’t. He was only there for a moment—long enough to witness Peter sprawled on the floor, but his unconscious mind took in the whole room.

“You said you were seeing a patient—Enid Pattimore—and yet you weren’t carrying your bag. And then yesterday the colonel not only remembered that, he remembered where he
had
seen your bag that evening.

“Because,” Tom’s mind leapt ahead, “when the colonel saw you outside the Pattimores’, you hadn’t buried Peter yet, had you? It was only just seven when the colonel ran into you in the road. Your house call to Enid wasn’t until some forty-five minutes later.”

Alastair glared at him, his arms folded tightly across his chest. “I’m afraid,” he said, jerking his head towards the colonel’s body, “you’ve got no one to corroborate this nonsense now, do you?”

“I suppose Enid might also recall, if prompted by the police, the state of your clothing or your hands,” Tom countered. “It can’t be the tidiest work burying someone at twilight, even if the grave’s largely been dug for you. At any rate, all this will give those detectives something they might work with.”

Alastair’s face was now flushed. In the half light, Tom could see the marvellous working of the jaw muscles in that heavy face. The door opened before either could speak again.

“I really must—” the ward sister began but Alastair cut her off. He thrust his arm towards the door.

“You haven’t got Dr. Vikram, have you? Leave! We’re not done here.”

The nurse recoiled, as if slapped. She glanced with misplaced fury at Tom, who said, to mollify her, “If you wouldn’t mind, Sister. Another moment or two.”

“And that’s all you’ll get,” she warned, departing. “I won’t have this on my ward.”

Alastair stared after her, then looked at Tom, warily this time.

“It’s interesting,” Tom added, “that when Julia called you to attend the colonel after his fall, you didn’t bring your Gladstone bag. Have you spent the last year making sure the colonel didn’t see it? You should have bought a new—and different-looking—one.”

“It was a gift from my parents,” Alastair murmured. He appeared lost in thought. His eyes roamed the room, falling last on the colonel’s body. His mouth sagged a little. When he spoke again, it was in the tone of one brought to the brink of a new understanding.

“I should like to make a confession.”

Startled, Tom asked: “A confession or an admission?”

“A confession.”

“I see.”

“A proper confession.”

“A
formal
confession, you mean? Under the seal of the confessional?”

“Yes, that.”

“I can’t say I’ve seen you in church, Alastair.”

“I did attend when Giles was priest.”

Tom’s heart and mind seethed. Private confession was a rare request, and he had taken none so burdened with corruption as this one. His impulse was to simply shop Alastair to the police and be done with him. He could now barely look the man in the face, a face now watchful with beseeching eyes.

But the ward sister’s vouchsafed moment or two drew nigh. He decided. He was a priest. The office subsumed the man. He could do no other. But there was a caveat. He spoke quickly:

“Confession is part of contrition, Alastair. And contrition means facing up to the responsibility of what you’ve done. I cannot—I
will not
absolve you unless you agree to go to the police with me afterwards. Do you understand?”

Alastair folded his arms behind his back and bowed his head. His expression passed into shadow. “Of course.”

“A
re you locking me in?”

Tom turned the ancient key in the lock of the north door and then slipped it back into his trousers pocket. He had pulled the great bolt across the south door. The outside door to the vestry he knew was locked. He had made sure when he’d gone into the vestry to fetch a copy of the
Common Worship
text appropriate to private confession.

“No, Alastair, I’m locking everyone else out. Given the gravity of this … occasion, I don’t want folk wandering in. I suggest the Lady chapel.” He moved purposefully down the north aisle.

Inside the chapel, a single votive candle burned on a pricket stand. Tom pulled two straight-backed chairs forwards and beckoned Alastair to sit. Battling a visceral repugnance, he remained standing and regarded the man who had been his wife’s lover, who might have been her husband, had not he, Tom, fallen into the Cam that day and thus changed the course of four lives. In the car, returning to Thornford, he had wondered again if he could bear this, bear hearing Alastair’s confession, bear being an instrument of
God’s clemency in this instance. He had heard not many formal private confessions during his years of ministry. A few divorced men and women had confessed past wrongdoings—their “manifold sins and wickedness”—seeking to wipe the slate clean before remarrying. He had had two instances of men confessing to abusing children, but each in sorting out his life had reached the end of a road and knew and accepted that police involvement was inevitable. The details had been grim, their remorse grievous and pitiable in expression, and Tom had absolved them. But he had never heard, nor had he expected to ever hear, a confession to murder. Reconciliation lay at the foundation of his vocation, but he felt his heart cold and barren as he faced Alastair. Summoning what fortitude he could he sat down and spoke.

“Before we begin, we must have a conversation. I need to know that your desire to unburden your conscience is sincere. Then we’ll go to the Old School Room and meet with Bliss and Blessing. If they’ll permit, we’ll return here and perform the rite together at the font. If not, wherever the police designate will be fine.”

Alastair’s hands were folded in his lap. “And you will keep my confidence?”

“To the grave, Alastair, unless you permit me otherwise.”

“Then it’s true. I confess it. I did kill Peter Kinsey. I didn’t intend to. I didn’t plan it.” His eyes darted towards the mullioned window over the altar and he affected a sorrowful little shrug. “It … simply happened.”

“Are you suggesting you’re not responsible?”

“No, Tom, I’m saying it wasn’t done in cold blood … though I was bloody-minded, I don’t mind saying. I didn’t plan it—that’s all.”

“You’d better explain.”

Alastair paused. “Your visit last year came at the very wrong moment. I had had some … shocking—I suppose you could say—information on the Friday before your arrival.”

“Yes …?”

Alastair’s mouth twisted. “Julia, I learned, had had a termination.” He glanced at Tom and raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seem at all bothered. You know about it, I suppose. You two are thick as thieves now, aren’t you? After all the years of indifference.”

“Your wife is the assistant organist and choirmaster of this church, Alastair,” Tom responded with some exasperation. “Of course I see more of her than I see of you.”