Death of a Pilgrim (32 page)

‘Not quite sure how the first one gets here, if you see what I mean, Lucy. No mention of Delaneys in the Garden of Eden as far as I know, Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Delaney doesn’t sound
quite right, does it, so there must have been a time when there were no Delaneys in existence at all. But I have no idea how the first one arrived. The only thing we can be sure of is that there
are now three less of them in this world than there were a month ago. And, unless we sort ourselves out, their numbers may shrink even further before we’re through.’

Early next morning Powerscourt and Lady Lucy were wakened by a frantic knocking on the door just after seven. Alex Bentley had borrowed a bike from the hotel and was panting
slightly from his exertions.

‘You’re to come at once,’ he said, ‘please. It’s chaos down there at the hotel.’

‘There hasn’t been another murder?’ said Powerscourt, pulling a shirt over his head.

‘No, no,’ said Bentley, ‘it’s not as bad as that. The Inspector is there and about half a dozen of his men. They’ve brought four police wagons that look as though
they take prisoners to jail or to court or something like that. The Inspector says, I think, that we are all to leave in half an hour, bags packed, that sort of thing, stuffed inside these wagons
like criminals!’

‘And how is Mr Delaney taking all this?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘Not well, sir, not well at all. I couldn’t have translated most of what he shouted at the Inspector and that’s a fact. I didn’t know he could swear like that. He wants
you, sir, now if not sooner. If you care to take the bicycle down the road I’ll escort Lady Powerscourt when she’s ready.’

‘But I am ready, Mr Bentley.’ Lady Lucy smiled at her young admirer. ‘Men are always surprised when women can dress themselves in the morning as fast as their husbands.
I’m sure we won’t be packed away in one of these carriages. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.’

Powerscourt set off at full speed towards the Auberge des Montagnes. From well over a hundred yards away he could hear shouting. The Inspector sounded as if he was replying in kind to the
American.

‘I’m going to telegraph to the American Ambassador!’ Delaney yelled. ‘I’m going to get word to our President – God knows the man owes me a favour or two . . .
’ Powerscourt could hear every word as he entered the village. There followed a sound that might have been a table being thumped.

‘Powerscourt!’ shouted Delaney, as the investigator strode into the dining room. The pilgrims were huddled together by the door into the kitchens, whispering to each other. Maggie
Delaney was fingering her rosary beads at Olympic speed. Father Kennedy had obviously decided that the only prudent course of action was to eat as much breakfast as possible in the shortest time.
He seemed, Powerscourt noticed, to have opened negotiations with the waitress for fresh supplies of bread and jam. Inspector Léger shook him by the hand in the manner of French morning
greetings. Perhaps he had shaken hands with them all.

‘Good morning, Lord Powerscourt. Communication has been difficult this morning. The young man, Bentley, he tries hard, but I do not think he understands everything. Let me explain to you
what is to happen. Then perhaps you could translate it for the pilgrims.’

Inspector Léger spoke for a couple of minutes. Powerscourt could feel the wrath of Michael Delaney surround them all, like a lion’s breath. Powerscourt grabbed a cup of coffee and
looked round at his audience.

‘I do not know how much you have gathered of what the Inspector has told you. I would ask you to remain calm, however difficult the circumstances. Our French friends can be very stubborn
when they feel like it. Hostility and complaint can only make things worse for the present. The position is this. This is what the authorities, temporal and spiritual, have decided to do. You are
to leave here in twenty minutes, with your bags packed. The four carriages outside will take you to the railway station at Figeac. Each carriage will have a policeman in it to secure your safety.
From Figeac a special train, open only to people in this room, will take you on your way. Your train will take you along the route traversed by the pilgrims all those years ago. As a gesture of
goodwill, you will be allowed to stop and visit a couple of places of special historic or religious interest on the route.’

There was a muttering among the pilgrims. They seemed to be asking Jack O’Driscoll to speak for them. Powerscourt held up his hand. ‘I haven’t quite finished,’ he said.
‘The train will take you to the Spanish border where you will be placed under the care of the authorities in the province of Navarre. The Inspector here does not know what they will
decide.’

There was a brief moment of silence as Powerscourt sat down. Lady Lucy and Alex Bentley slipped into the room and went to stand by Michael Delaney. Powerscourt thought you could feel the
temperature rise as the tycoon got to his feet.

‘I am an American citizen,’ he began. ‘Five of us here are American citizens. We are a free people under the law. Our ancestors crossed the Atlantic to enjoy freedom, democracy
and free enterprise. These others are citizens of the British Empire, subjects of King Edward, people who believe in fair play and natural justice.’ Powerscourt felt this was boardroom
Delaney, maybe businessman advocate Delaney making his case before some vast concourse of investors, politician Delaney. ‘You have no rights at all to carry out these actions, to treat us as
if we were criminals. I said before and I will say it again, I intend to let the American authorities at the very highest level know what is going on. You may have precipitated an international
incident here this morning, Inspector. Neither the American public nor the British public like to hear of their fellow citizens being ill treated by Johnny Foreigner. You may have packed your
finest off to the guillotine in covered carts in days gone by, Inspector, but you cannot do it to us here today. I refuse to go along with this plan. Now, let others speak.’

The Inspector whispered something to Powerscourt.

‘The Inspector wishes me to inform you,’ he said mildly, ‘that the authorities in the Revolution did not send people to meet Madame Guillotine in covered carts. The carts were
open so the people could see and rejoice at their oppressors’ fate.’

Delaney grunted. Jack O’Driscoll rose to speak. ‘Like Mr Delaney, I do not like your plan, Inspector. But I suspect we may, in the end, have little choice but to accept it. Could you
tell us where we are to sleep on our journey? Or are we to be locked up in this special train for days at a time?’

Once more the Inspector spoke rapidly to Powerscourt. ‘You will be locked up all right, my young friend,’ Powerscourt translated, ‘but not in the train. Accommodation has been
arranged for you in the police stations and the jails of France along the way. Insalubrious perhaps, but safe. Nobody will be murdered in them. Single cells for all. Accommodation for Miss Delaney
in the local hospital.’

There was uproar in the dining room. Even Father Kennedy stopped eating at the thought of being locked up for the night with a bucket for company.

‘I’m not going to put up with this!’

‘I’m going home!’

‘Damn the French!’

‘This is monstrous!’

Once more the Inspector whispered to Powerscourt. He pointed at a large bag at his feet, though the gesture did not reveal what was inside. Towards the end Gallic gestures punctuated his words,
a shrug of the shoulders here, a wave to the right with one hand, a wave to the left with the other, regular checkings on the vanished hair. Now Powerscourt understood. He rose to his feet once
more.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘the Inspector left out one very important part of his message. You seem to think you have a choice. I’m afraid, after what the Inspector
has just said, that you do not. Three people have been murdered so far on this pilgrimage. In his bag the Inspector has warrants from an investigating magistrate to arrest everyone in this room on
suspicion of murder. If those warrants are served, it would be up to the magistrate to decide whether or not to grant bail. He could decide against it. In that case, everybody is marooned here,
possibly in the county jail, until the case comes to court. That could take months. They still have another option, to put everybody on the special train, but send the train to Bordeaux and put you
on the first boat out of France. The French authorities have given you, in effect, three choices. Continue by train to the Spanish border. Continue by train to Bordeaux. Or stay here as murder
suspects until the killer is apprehended and the case heard in the French courts. I don’t think it is a very difficult choice, but it is yours. And I feel the Inspector is in earnest with his
time limits. If you fail to meet them he will open his bag and bring out the warrants.’

Michael Delaney resumed his unusual role as tribune of the people. ‘Let us put it to the vote, ladies and gentlemen, as we did before. All those in favour of staying here.’

No hands rose.

‘All those in favour of Bordeaux.’

No hands rose.

‘All those in favour of the Spanish border.’

The bull fight and the prospect of Rioja drove them on. All voted for the Spanish option. Powerscourt and Lady Lucy watched them go, the younger ones dispatched to different carriages in case of
rebellion on the way.

‘Moissac, Lord Powerscourt, Moissac, the most beautiful cloisters in the world,’ said the Inspector. ‘For the time being the authorities have provided me with an interpreter. I
do not know how long he will be able to stay. The Cardinal Archbishop of Toulouse was particularly anxious that the pilgrims should take spiritual refreshment there. We shall see you there at
eleven o’clock in the morning in two days’ time. Obviously we shall watch over the pilgrims’ visit to one of the special places on the route to Compostela.’

‘I take my hat off to the French authorities, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt to his wife as they breakfasted in a deserted dining room, ‘they’ve really been very
clever.’

‘What makes you say that, my love?’ asked Lady Lucy.

‘Well,’ said Powerscourt, ‘think about it. They’ve virtually deported the pilgrims for a start. You couldn’t get them out of the country quicker from here than by
the Spanish border or Bordeaux. And they’ve washed their hands of the murder too. Just think of the headaches if they had served those warrants. Pilgrims to accommodate for a start. How long
would it take to find the killer at Conques? Heaven knows. They’ve simply passed the parcel, certainly out of here, probably out of France. And they’re allowing the pilgrims little
treats, like a morning out at Moissac. It’s all very smart.’

‘Have you been to Moissac, Francis?’

‘I have not, Lucy. I look forward to it. I’ve always adored cloisters. Such quiet peaceful places.’

My Sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my Pilgrimage, and my Courage and Skill, to him that can get it. My Marks and Scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me, that
I have fought his Battles, who will now be my Rewarder . . . As he went, he said, Death, where is thy Sting? And as he went down deeper he said, Grave, where is thy Victory? So he passed over and
the Trumpets sounded for him on the other side.

Mr Valiant-for-Glory,
The Pilgrim’s Progress

The city of Bath is graced with some of the most beautiful architecture in Britain. Georgian streets, Georgian squares, Georgian terraces rise in elegant and restrained
splendour up the hill above the river Avon and the railway station. There is even an astonishing creation called The Circus, a perfect circle of grand town houses ranged round a garden in the
centre. Johnny Fitzgerald tried to remember what he could about the place as he set off from his train up to Mr Daniel’s house. Regency bucks, he thought, dressed in those gorgeous long coats
with a stock at the neck. A man called Nash who had been the arbiter of taste in late eighteenth-century Bath, and had lived openly with a woman who was not his wife. Balls. Assignations in the
Roman baths or the Assembly Rooms. A marriage market discreetly carried out behind the shuttered windows of Gay Street or Golden Square. Whores by the score drawn to the place by the needs and the
purses of the fashionable, the twin magnets of men and money. Johnny thought he would have rather liked it here in Bath in those times.

The door of 4 Royal Crescent, the most elegant street in an elegant city, was opened by a young butler who showed him into an enormous drawing room. Portraits of earlier Daniels lined the walls.
Johnny was staring at a spectacular eighteenth-century beauty in a pale blue dress when he heard a door close behind him.

‘That one’s a Gainsborough,’ said the man. ‘Everybody gets transfixed by that painting. Allow me to introduce myself, Ralph Daniel.’

‘Johnny Fitzgerald.’

‘She came to a bad end, I’m afraid,’ Daniel went on.

‘Bad end?’ said Johnny.

‘Sorry, the Gainsborough girl. She married into a very respectable family here in Bath, then she eloped with some American playboy. He abandoned her out in the wilds of Indiana or some
other place in favour of a younger woman. Nobody knows what happened to her in the end. Forgive me, I gather you have come to see me about a book. Macdonald didn’t say which one, he’s
always very cagey about things like that. How can I help?’