Unholy Dying (11 page)

But she had been overtaken by late-twentieth-century morality. The facades of life had broken down. Everyone seemed to be sleeping around, from dole recipients to government ministers and members of the royal family. If everyone was doing it, it was difficult to work up the outrage that was an essential ingredient of her brand of gossip. Departure from an accepted norm was interesting, conformity to it was not. She remained a chronicler, but her function as moralist had slipped away from her. The tabloid press faced the same sad falling-away.

That was why the story of Julie and Father Pardoe had been such a godsend to her, as it was to prove also to Cosmo Horrocks. Amid the wreck of sexual morality, when even Anglican vicars divorced and remarried and kept their parishes, the Catholic priesthood remained, in theory and by their vows, inviolately chaste. The pope was extremely hot, if that was the word, on celibacy. The falls from grace of individual priests kept the power to shock.

It had pleased her in the past few days that Julie, whenever she had gone into the back garden to hang out washing, had seen her standing as she habitually did at her window and had
raised two fingers in her direction. It was a sort of acknowledgment of her influence, and confirmed in her mind her conviction that Julie was a young woman of no morals, no shame.

“You're getting your comeuppance, my girl,” she had said to herself, with a satisfied smile.

It had been a story that she had realized from the beginning was too big for the estate. Talk there had been there—she had made sure of that, and had had some foul words shouted at her for her pains by some of the younger women housed there, girls of Julie's type. But the talk was a mere means to an end, and the end had been the letter—
signed
, for she knew from experience that anonymous letters were usually ignored—that she had written to the office of the Bishop, with dates and durations of the visits to Julie, the detail of the drawn curtains, and the fact of the second pregnancy. Writing the letter had been a matter of trial and error over a week, and had given her great satisfaction in a life not rich in such feelings.

On the Monday the story broke she heard the familiar sound of Mrs. Mortlake's bang on the door. When she opened it on her avid face, Florrie pushed a paper into her hands.

“It's come out at last!”

Florrie was Doris Crabtree's Goebbels: the spreader of her word, her closest rival in the thirst for information, the one who most nearly approached her in understanding that knowledge is power.

“No! Already?” Doris said, appropriately delighted. “What page?”

“Page three.”

Doris pulled Florrie inside her kitchen, and they both sat at the table while Doris folded the paper open, laid it on the table, then began a voracious read of the article, which was followed by a close scanning of the picture.

“Well, I never!”

She had sat back in her chair, looking in the direction of the ceiling.

“They've done you proud, Doris,” said her friend, who knew Doris needed her meed of worship.

“I never expected anything quite like this. Though the reporter did say it was a wonderful story.”

“It's a public service you've done, Doris. There'll be two people will be ashamed of themselves today, thanks to you.”

“If they've any shame left. . . . You know, Florrie, I feel quite proud. Like it's my finest hour.”

“It is, Doris. Enjoy it now. You'll never do a better piece of work than you have with those two.”

 • • • 

Peter Frencham, headmaster of Bingley Road Comprehensive, walked through the playground to fetch the packet of sandwiches for his lunch that he'd left in the car, through the roar of the usual recess rumpus. Out of habit he noticed all the pupils who were trouble, and any who were problems of a different sort. Ben Hayman, a new boy, might have been one of those, but obviously he wasn't. He was playing an improvised game of some sort with five or six of his classmates, making a great deal of noise but causing no trouble. He had given him a “minder” for his first few weeks of his new school—because it was usual to, not because Ben was black—but it obviously had not been necessary. Ben had made his own group right from the start, and Mark Leary, his minder, was nowhere to be seen.

Frencham still recalled with amusement his interview with Ben on the boy's first day. His parents had just moved to Shipley, and Ben was starting, without any obvious nervousness, three weeks into summer term.

“And what does your father do?” he had asked the boy.

“He's a drug pusher, sir, but I'm aiming at something a bit more legit myself.” When his own jaw had dropped Ben had waited a second or two, then burst out laughing. “Got you there, sir.”

Now, suddenly, there was Ben's cheerful face looking down at him from the great height of a very gangling fifteen-year-old.

“Sir. Could I ask you something?”

“Of course, Ben. Things going all right?”

“They're going fine, sir. It's a good school; I like it. I just wondered: Have you heard of Andraol?”

“No, I don't think so. Should I have? Or is this another of your leg pulls?”

“Would I do that, sir? Well, maybe I would, but it's not. Andraol is a performance drug used by sportsmen, banned by the AAA and all other sporting authorities. Not just because it's like cheating, but because of potential side effects.”

“I see. So why are you telling me about it?”

“Just thought you ought to know, sir.”

And Ben dashed off back to his unidentifiable game with his mates. Peter Frencham resumed his trudge back to his office. One more problem to add to his worries about Cassie Daltrey. And when his secretary came in with the just-arrived copy of the
Chronicle
folded to page 3, put it in front of him, and tapped with her finger the name on the byline, he realized as soon as he read it that she was not only pointing out that this was a story that centered on one of the school's ex-pupils; she was reminding him that one of the pieces in the Cassie Daltrey problem had a father who was a determined and ruthless muckraker.

 • • • 

On Monday morning Father Pardoe wrote once more to his bishop. He decided to make this letter respectful but not obsequious,
but as he worked at it he found that even respect was hard to achieve. He had to tell himself that he respected the office, if not any longer the man. He tried also to stick to fact, and to put into the letter as little as possible of argument or pleading for himself.

I think if you ask yourself who has most to lose by the case becoming a cause célèbre, who will be most grievously hurt by newspaper publicity, you will see that your charges yesterday were unjust. All I was hoping to achieve by writing to you were two things: first that I be kept fully informed about what is going on in my case; and second that at some point in the committee's deliberations my side of the story will be heard. I think these are modest and reasonable requests, and I beg that you will reconsider your position as a mere observer in this matter and try to ensure that they are met. I believe—it could hardly be otherwise—that we both have the reputation and well-being of the Church at heart, even if we may differ in minor details as to how that is best maintained and strengthened.

He was at this point in the letter when Margaret came in with the
West Yorkshire Chronicle
.

He had half expected it, had steeled himself against it, but the sight of himself on page 3, the teasing headline (not actually
saying
very much), and the tone of the report when he started to read seemed to him to spell a sort of death. How was he ever to be the simple parish priest of St. Catherine's again? How was his name ever to come up without the identifying addition of “You know, the priest there that all the publicity was about”—or, worse, a wink or leer? He had been skewered, he
was wriggling on a pin, and the pin was something that had never happened, something he had never done.

But he had wanted to.

He put the thought behind him. The fact that he had wanted to represented a victory, not a defeat. If he had not wanted to, the story would have had no moral significance at all.

He read through to the end, went back to check one or two details, then threw the paper on his desk and turned to talk to Margaret.

“It's bad,” he said.

“Very,” she agreed. “Quite horrible.”

“The question is, how do we respond to it?”

Margaret did not blink at the word “we,” but stood beside him, considering.

“Could you issue some kind of statement?” she asked.

“Then you think there ought to be some kind of reply?”

“I don't see there's any alternative.”

“Not dignified silence?”

“How can you make sure the silence is seen to be dignified, and not taken as an admission of guilt?”

He thought about this, then sighed.

“You're right, I suppose. I hate the thought of dancing to this man's tune. My instinct as a rule is to turn the other cheek. It's the most effective countermeasure I know, and hardly anybody ever tries it. But if it could be taken as an admission of guilt . . . There's another thing. I'm not the only one here to consider. There's Julie, the slur is on her as well. I wonder how they'll take it on the Kingsmill estate.”

“From what you've told me, I should think they'll take it very much in their stride,” said Margaret with a touch of grimness. “They might turn her into some kind of local heroine.”

“You've got a point there. Quite rightly they might see her as
a victim. But there are other people to consider too—her family, for example. I always found them antipathetic, but they are Catholics, and slightly more than nominal ones. . . . But so be it: some kind of reply will have to be made.” He happened to glance out the window as he spoke. In the road outside, unusually, there were people loitering, watching the house. He made up his mind at once. “Yes, definitely it will. I wonder if there is anyone sympathetic in local journalism whom I could arrange an interview with. And I could put him or her in touch with some of the more open-minded members of the St. Catherine's congregation, if that would help, and not get them into trouble.”

It was the beginning of an hour of fairly hectic activity—a great relief after his weeks of passivity and waiting. By chance he knew Brian Marris, the very man Cosmo Horrocks had first consulted. He was a worshiper at the nearby Greengates church, but had been brought up in Shipley. When he telephoned him as an ex-newspaperman who probably still had contacts, he caught him already rather shamefaced, having discovered that the story he had been consulted about had broken. He told Pardoe of his minor role in Cosmo's news gathering, and put him on to a probably sympathetic soul at the
Bradford Telegraph and Argus
.

“The fact that it's a woman probably won't do any harm,” he said. “Look, would you like me to ring her and arrange it?”

“I'd be very grateful.”

“What time would suit?”

“Anytime suits these days. I'm not going anywhere.”

While he waited for her Pardoe rang one or two of the St. Catherine's congregation. He spoke in particular to Miss Preece-Dembleby, and after her to Mrs. Jessel. He was glad to find both staunch supporters, but he said little about the case, and merely asked them if they would be willing to talk to a well-disposed
reporter. That in itself would be sufficient to arouse the Bishop's ire. He impressed on both of them the need for caution and tact. “We want the whole thing dampened down, not stirred up further,” he said. “I've no desire to start a war.”

The reporter who finally arrived was the sixth to ring the doorbell, not to mention attempts at telephone contact. She, of course, was the only one to be admitted. Her name was Jenny Snell, and she was thirtyish, attractive, and forceful. She said she didn't want to take sides, thought her piece would be more effective if she didn't, but she was willing to put his side as cogently as possible. Pardoe sat with her for well over an hour, laying all the facts of his connection with Julie Norris before her, and keeping well away from his sense of grievance over the Bishop's handling of the case. At the end of the time Jenny Snell sat back in her chair in Margaret's sunny sitting room and looked at her pad, considering the story in all its aspects.

“Money,” she said at last. “The Father Riley Fund.”

“Yes. What about it?”

“Is that your Achilles' heel? Did you hand over vast sums to Julie Norris?”

“I handed over no sums at all. I bought her a secondhand washing machine (since broken down), and a secondhand stove, and also several bits of furniture, usually from charity shops. It can't have come to more than two hundred pounds in all.”

“Why the fuss, then? Why does it come into the investigation?”

Father Pardoe shifted uneasily in his chair.

“Maybe because the Fund was used at all. I'd been under pressure over it for some time, because the use it was—is—put to is at my discretion. The Bishop wanted the Fund to be used for more general charitable projects, not to be channeled toward individuals, because he said that sort of need ought to be met by
the Social Security system. ‘Ought to be, but isn't' was my reaction to that. But the Bishop got the two trustees on his side, and I thought it was politic to go along with it for a while.”

“So what sort of charitable project did the fund get used for?”

Pardoe shifted uneasily once again.

“I simply don't know. Virtually nothing in the Shipley area, and it was in Shipley that the fund was supposed to be used.”

“I see. Did you bring this up with the Bishop or the trustees?”

“Well, eventually I did. . . . You probably think me slack, remiss, but the truth is the Fund didn't loom particularly large in my parish work. I had a little bit of money to play about with when there were cases of need, and then for a time I didn't—or didn't use it. There are other ways of relieving poverty and distress. But when I applied for a sum to buy equipment for the youth club and was turned down, I started to get the feeling that the Fund had simply sunk into disuse.”