A Demon Summer (7 page)

“Apparently. It's set to blow sky-high once Lord Lislelivet hears someone's tampered with his food in a meaningful way. I would agree with your bishop that it all needs to be contained—cleared up as quickly as possible. Quietly, if it can be. If the situation called for discretion before, it now calls for the highest diplomatic finessing we can bring to bear.”

“The press—”

“The press and media have not been informed,” Cotton told him. “Yet. Of course they'll learn of it in time, but right now they've no idea. Even Lord Lislelivet seems not to have told them. If he had, it would be all over the news by now.”

“Oh, but surely…” Max trailed off, tried again. “You must—”

“Surely nothing. Must nothing. There is no clause in my oath of office that requires me to broadcast every detail of every case to the media immediately I become aware of it—or before I'm even certain there is a case. Quite the opposite. I spend more of my time than I care to fending off people with notebooks and microphones so they don't bugger up every investigation, for me and for whoever might be a suspect. The media find out about things in the usual ways, using their usual methods—some of them, like bribery or wiretapping, not particularly attractive methods. But so far we've got a window of opportunity before they come swooping in, shirttails untucked, ties untied, swearing to high heaven and trailing cigarette ash all over the place. And that's just the women.”

“The women are much better behaved,” objected Max. “As a rule.”

“Generally smarter, too. They run rings around the men.”

“All the more reason, you'll have to play it straight with any reporters. If and when they find out you kept this quiet they'll have your guts for garters.”

“Of course I'll be straight with them. It's just a question of when I'll get around to it.”

Max, after taking a brief survey of his conscience, found he wasn't overly concerned about the ethics of keeping details from the media. There were centuries of precedent, after all. As a theological conundrum, he thought it was in the category of wondering how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. If justice or reputation were at stake, certainly then concealment would be out of the question. But delaying media inquiries into the investigation? A gray area. Dark gray, but gray. He mostly wondered how on earth Cotton thought he would get away with it for longer than a few hours. A day at best. A week? Never.

As if reading his mind, Cotton said, “We won't get away with it for long, of course. But Monkbury Abbey is its own little world, isolated from the outside, undisturbed by modern inconveniences. And therefore completely unable to withstand any sort of media onslaught. I shudder to think of it, Max—when it happens, and it is bound to, it's going to be awful. Simply a bloodbath. As always, the innocent will suffer along with whoever is responsible. And these women—these nuns—are true innocents.”

“Except perhaps for one of them.”

“Well, yes. It doesn't bear thinking about.”

“What makes you think the BBC isn't at this very moment rolling up to the front gate of the abbey in one of its vans?”

“The abbess has told no one but the bishop about what's happened. And Lord Lislelivet is being the soul of discretion. Totally unlike his usual self.”

“But the financial irregularities … surely there is a connection?”

“That is why I need you, Max. I have to say I don't see the connection.”

“The bishop said much the same cast of characters as were at the abbey in the fall with Lord Lislelivet are there now.”

Max heard the rattle of a sheet of paper being unfolded.

“We have a family group: Clement Gorey, Oona Gorey, and their daughter, Xanda Gorey. The Goreys have donated a king's ransom to Monkbury Abbey over the years. An amount nicely calculated to ensure they are remembered in perpetuity. Clement seems to be the ringleader in this financial investigation.

“Then we have Paloma Green. She owns an art gallery and was apparently responsible for holding a big fund-raiser for the abbey at her gallery. You know the sort of thing, where people who know nothing about art show up and eat little canapé things wrapped in bacon and drink white wine until they've bid an insane amount on some photo or painting that's captured their fancy because blue is their favorite color. Anyway, this shindig raised a lot of money to expand and improve the existing abbey guesthouse. To blend the medieval with something that can be heated in winter. Paloma's boyfriend, Piers Montague, is with her at the abbey now, although he was not among the guests when Lord Lislelivet carried off the tainted fruitcake. The boyfriend is a photographer specializing in gloomy portraits of ruined monasteries.”

“Is there any other kind?” asked Max.

“No, I see your point. Not in England, at any rate. They always look so depressing, don't they, those images? But in a beautiful way.

“And then there is himself, Ralph Perceval, the Fifteenth Earl of Lislelivet. A walking advertisement for the sound thinking behind the French Revolution, if you ask me, however much we may despair of their extreme methods. He does not appear to have the same investment of money or reputation in the situation as do the others. What reputation? I hear you ask. But still, what his wife thinks is that he is there on a treasure hunt.”

“Come again?”

“A treasure hunt. It has been rumored that something is buried in the abbey precincts, something of incalculable value. Something Holy Grail-ish. There's some book just come out that's sparked a renewed interest. The nuns will have their hands full as it is, dealing with the fortune hunters flocking to their gates. Combine that with poisoned fruitcake and missing charitable donations, and they've got a perfect storm of trouble.”

“Holy Grail?” Max repeated. “You are kidding me, right?” It was so—what? So feudal, so archaic. Max could almost feel the centuries begin to dissolve around him. The electric candles in the vicarage seemed to shape-shift into rushlights as he stood incongruously clutching a telephone, his spare modern garb transformed into the long folds of a cleric of the middle ages.

Cotton had the grace to keep silent while Max turned everything over in his mind. Or perhaps Cotton was busy reading a report on his computer. He was the ultimate multitasker.

Finally Cotton said, “So, when can you get there? Time really is of the essence, Max.”

Max Tudor sighed. He supposed the peace and quiet of the abbey might at least give him an idea for his sermon.

“As soon as I can pack a few things and find someone to cover for me here. I really do need to work on my sermon. More importantly, there's someone I must visit in hospital. It can't be put off.”

His parishioner Chrissa Baker, who had resisted all sane advice and stayed with her abusive husband, had finally fulfilled one of the predictions as to her likely fate and landed in hospital with a broken jaw. Injuries suffered at her husband's hands, of course. Max was going to bring all his persuasiveness to bear to get her to leave him. He'd already arranged a flat for her to stay for a month and was working on finding her a job in Staincross Minster.

“All right,” said Cotton. “Bring enough clothing for about three days. You can leave the laptop behind, assuming you have one. This lot is strictly of the parchment-and-quill school of sermon writing.”

As the “Zed” key on the vicarage computer was currently stuck, Max thought there might be compensations. The malfunction had played havoc with last week's sermon, which in keeping with the Law of Sod had been about the prophets Ezekiel and Zechariah.

“Oh, and Max?”

“Hmm?”

“Thanks. I owe you a beer.”

“You owe me a hefty donation to the widows-and-orphans fund.”

“Done. Gladly. I'll write a cheque tonight.” This was what Cotton liked about Max. He wasn't above a dab of genteel extortion in a good cause.

“And you could come to Morning Prayer once in a while. It wouldn't kill you.”

“It might, when the roof of St. Edwold's caved in on me,” said Cotton.

 

Chapter 5

THE PORTRESS

The portress should be a wise old woman not given to roaming about.

—The Rule of the Order of the Handmaids of St. Lucy

At the top of the hill, his headlamps picked out painted wooden signs that politely directed him to the abbey gatehouse and firmly away from the restricted area of the nun's cloister.

Max parked and walked over to a wooden door set deep within the stone wall of the gatehouse. He lifted the large brass knocker, shaped like a cross, and pounded it against the massive studded door of a type most often found guarding the entries to ancient Oxbridge colleges. After waiting what seemed an unreasonable amount of time he knocked and waited again. Well, there must be someone at home, he thought. It's not as if the sisters would have taken it into their heads to go see a movie together. Just as he was lifting the knocker to try again, an eye appeared at the peephole. “Thanks be to God!” warbled a thin, high voice from inside. Sounds of an almighty struggle reached his ears. A scraping and clanging of metal and a creaking of wood as the door opened inward, inch by slow inch. Tempted as Max was to help, he feared he might frighten whoever it was on the other side if he started pushing against the wood. Instead he waited.

And waited. To be greeted at last by a nun of prodigious, Old Testament–like age—an ancient woman, shriveled by weather and time, with a pointed nose and large, compassionate eyes, a bit like Dobby the Elf in
Harry Potter
. If she had Dobby's ears, too, that fact was hidden by her white coif and black veil surmounted by a woven circlet.

Calling on all her remaining resources, the woman gave the door a final tug and then, to Max's amazement, stood on tiptoe to kiss him, once on each cheek. She looked as delighted to see him as if he were a long-lost relative—the good sort of mislaid relative one does hope to see again. She seemed to take his arrival in her stride—probably the abbey had been alerted by someone on the bishop's staff. But Max sensed there was more to it than that: it was as if she saw his visit as somehow inevitable. It was only fanciful thinking on his part, he knew that, but it really was as if she'd waited a lifetime for Max Tudor to appear.

She had lost a few teeth with the passing years but still she could offer a good and welcoming smile, the soft folds of her face settling comfortably around her eyes and mouth. Her grip on his hands was firm. Indeed it could be said she clung fiercely to him in her struggle to remain upright. Now she inched back and peered up into his face, making a study of him. She smelled of soap—lavender and another flowery scent he could only guess at—and of sunlight and starch. There was also the pleasant but faint odor of honey that he decided came from the beeswax candles that were dotted around the room behind her to the right. A hand-lettered wooden sign identified it as the portress's lodge.

Max bore the scrutiny patiently, without flinching. It was her job, after all, to assure the safety and security of the abbey by not allowing in random strangers, although he began to think her age and various evident infirmities might make her the worst possible candidate for the job. Indeed, he thought he detected behind the thick lenses of her glasses a film over the eyes that might be the beginning of cataracts.

Finally she seemed satisfied by what she could make out of his appearance. “You'll be wanting the guest-mistress,” she shouted. “I'll go and fetch her, presently.” Slowly she turned, as good as her word, and began a measured shuffle toward her desk in the lodge's reception area, behind which some sort of primitive call system anchored her to the rest of the building. Max, who had followed her through the large wooden door, shutting it behind him and slotting all the barriers back in place, watched her wobble slowly to behind the counter where she apparently spent much of her day reading and praying, for surely there were few visitors to occupy her time up here. A little prayer book lay open at the page where Max by his appearance had interrupted her contemplations.

As she continued the long walk back to her station, Max assayed a friendly greeting and a trial question or two, and it soon became apparent she was quite deaf, replying in a nonsensical way to anything Max said. He did manage to establish that her name was Dame Hephzibah. When he asked her how long she had been at Monkbury Abbey, she replied that she felt fine and thanked him kindly for asking. “And God willing, I'll live to be a hundred,” she added. He imagined that inability to hear might come in handy during the Great Silence, but right now it only added a wrinkle to his investigation. Finally, pulling out the notebook he always carried with him, Max wrote down in large block letters his most pressing question.

HAS DCI COTTON LEFT A MESSAGE FOR ME—FATHER MAX TUDOR?

The DCI had promised to keep Max updated with anything breaking in the case. What Max most wished to hear was that it was solved and he could return home to Awena.

She took the notebook from him and holding it up to her eyes, studied it closely. Finally she removed her glasses and looked closer still. The glasses caught on the edges of her coif, complicating their removal.

“Good heavens, no!” she yelled at him. Like many people who were hard of hearing, Dame Hephzibah compensated for the loss by shouting. Max felt his pulse quicken slightly as her response reverberated off the stone walls. For an elderly, small woman she had tremendous vocal power.

“And to have a detective inspector need to call here at all,” she added. “Bless my soul, I never thought to live to see the like!”

Turning away, she continued her penguin-like progress, and Max at last realized her destination.

There was a bell pull hanging from the ceiling, and much like Lady Grantham in Downton Abbey, Dame Hephzibah apparently used it to communicate that she needed assistance. Grabbing the rope, she clung swaying to it for dear life, much as she had clung to Max, and by using her meager body weight as a force of gravity, managed to yank the bell three times as three times her feet left the ground. The three-bell ring probably was a sort of code for “Visitor at the Gate.” Max walked further inside the lodge and stood with his arms held slightly out from his body in order to catch and break her fall if need be. It was a very near thing that she might not be able to return to earth and could sway up there forever like a woman ascending a rope version of Jacob's ladder.