Death of a Pilgrim (34 page)

Across the grass Powerscourt saw that Inspector Léger might have been making similar calculations. He was wriggling free from a scrum about four deep. There was a certain amount of
pushing and shoving and then he was lost to sight. Powerscourt wondered if he should join him. After a couple of minutes the resurrection of Lazarus at pillar number nine was on the menu.
Powerscourt thought that if Lazarus knew he was going to be brought back to life here and now with this interminable lecture in these cloisters he might decide to stay where he was. He saw the
Inspector again making his way across the opposite gallery. He was looking worried. After a couple more minutes the professor was pointing to an inscription on pillar number twelve which referred
to the construction of the buildings in 1100 when Dom Ansquitil was abbot. The Inspector was making frantic gestures to Powerscourt to join him. Then, paying no attention to the senior clergy in
the centre, he hopped inside the cloisters and made his way very slowly along the four galleries. Powerscourt decided to join him.

‘Count the pilgrims,’ the Inspector whispered.

Michael Delaney and Alex Bentley were sandwiched in between a couple of very tall ordinands. Jack O’Driscoll and Christy Delaney were squashed against a pillar. Maggie Delaney was closer
to Father Kennedy than she would have thought proper. The rest were scattered around the cloisters in various degrees of discomfort. Inspector Léger and Powerscourt did their rounds twice.
The professor had reached murder with the story of Cain and Abel at pillar number nineteen. The Frenchman drew Powerscourt into the street outside. The church bells were tolling the Angelus. There
was a small crowd in front of the tympanum.

‘How many did you make it?’ asked Léger.

‘Twelve,’ said Powerscourt, beginning to feel rather sick.

‘So did I.’

‘How many do you think there should be?’

‘Thirteen,’ said the Inspector. ‘God knows I’ve counted the buggers often enough these last two days, on and off the train, in and out of the cells.’

‘Could he have escaped? Run away in all the confusion with the priests?’

‘No, he couldn’t. One of my men is on guard just outside.’

‘Could he be in one of those rooms off the cloisters?’

‘We’d better go and see.’

By the end of the north gallery they came to what had been the refectory. It was completely empty. Next door was the Chapelle St Ferréol with some ancient sculptures but
no living pilgrims. The professor had reached the story of David and Goliath from the first Book of Samuel at pillar number twenty-two. Along the east gallery was a series of empty chambers, full
of dust with cobwebs circling out from the walls. Powerscourt began to wonder if they hadn’t just miscounted the pilgrims. One of them could have been hemmed in by the taller men in black
till he was virtually invisible. The south gallery backed directly on to the side of the church but at the corner where it met the west gallery there was a set of stairs leading upwards.

‘Come on,’ said the Inspector, ‘if he’s not up here we can’t count. We’ll have to go back to school.’

The steps led them into the upper chamber, an extremely tall room with great slim arches. Strips of light were flooding in through a series of openings on an upper level. One side of the room
looked directly into the church. Anybody up here could eavesdrop on weddings or baptisms down below without being seen. The vaulting was supported on twelve square ribs radiating out from a central
keystone. The room was deserted. Powerscourt and the Inspector tiptoed round it in opposite directions. Then there was a muffled cry from Inspector Léger.

‘My God!’ he said. ‘After all the precautions we’ve taken, there’s been another murder!’

Powerscourt turned round and joined him. At the bottom of a little flight of steps there was a huddled shape. It looked as though somebody had taken all their clothes off and dropped them on the
floor. Even in the shadows they could see drops of dark blood oozing from the back of what had once been his head. Lumps of grey matter that might have been brains, Powerscourt thought, were lying
on the floor. One hand was still at the back of his head, as if trying to ward off the vicious blows that killed him.

‘Look,’ said the Inspector, pointing to dark marks on the pillar above them, ‘it seems somebody smashed the victim’s head repeatedly into the stone. He might have been
gone after a few blows. It must have been like a pummelling from a giant hammer, poor soul. Do you know who he was, Powerscourt?’

Powerscourt peered down at the remains of a human being dumped on the floor of St Peter’s Abbey. ‘Connolly,’ he said quietly, ‘Girvan Connolly, related to Michael Delaney
on his mother’s side. He was on the run from his creditors, Inspector, but I don’t suppose they found him here. Whatever his misdemeanours, however large his debts, he hadn’t
deserved to die like this.’

‘Could you wait here till I send one of my men up? I’m going to put a man at the bottom of the steps too. All too late, of course, but at least nobody’s going to see him till
the doctor gets here. And I’ll tell the priest in charge of all those young men to get them out of here. That’ll be a relief.’

Powerscourt stared sadly into the body of the church. The technique, he realized, was the same in all four murders. God, he thought, there have been four of them and my presence here has been a
complete waste of time. Come with me, my friend, up the steps to the Chapel of St Michel in Le Puy, or to the river bank on the Lot, or to the back of the church in Conques, or to this upper
chamber, come and I’ll tell you a secret. You’re going to like the secret very much. There was indeed a secret waiting for the person who went with the killer; their own death, always
surprising even in more peaceful surroundings. And what was the secret, or the bait? Was it blackmail perhaps, or the promise of some rich pickings from Michael Delaney?

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of one of Inspector Léger’s policemen who crossed himself vigorously when he saw the bloodied bundle that had been Girvan Connolly and
began saying a series of Hail Marys.

Something in the Inspector’s face must have alerted Monsignor Michelack, the priest in charge.

‘It is something serious up there, Inspector, is it not so?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid it is,’ Léger replied.

‘It is not a sudden illness or you would be running for the doctor. Am I right?’

The Inspector wondered briefly if the Monsignor was not in the wrong profession.

‘It is a dead man?’ Michelack whispered. ‘Another of these murders?’

The Inspector realized that most of the clergy of southern France must know about the chequered progress of the Delaney pilgrims, their passage marked by blood and sudden death. The Church after
all had been deeply involved in the discussions about what to do with them.

The Inspector nodded sadly. The priest crossed himself very slowly and deliberately. He closed his eyes and said a brief prayer. Then he turned to address his students.

‘Gentlemen,’ he began, ‘I have a sad announcement to make. In the midst of life there is death. Death came this afternoon for one of these pilgrims in the upper chamber here
behind me. Murder strikes in one of the most beautiful buildings in France. Before we go I want us to say the prayers for the dead. I want you to form up in ranks of four abreast. We shall progress
round the cloisters in the manner of the monks of old, saying the same prayers they would have said for one of their own, fallen asleep in his cell perhaps, or passing away from old age as he
worked in the fields.’

The young men were very solemn as they fell into their ranks. The Monsignor placed himself at the head of the column. He walked slowly, his hands joined together and pointing to the ground. He
spoke quietly as he led the young men in their devotions.

‘Hail Mary full of grace, blessed art thou among women, pray for us now and in the hour of our death, Amen.’

Two hundred young voices joined him in the Hail Mary. The pilgrims had prostrated themselves against the walls. Powerscourt and Lady Lucy watched from the entrance to what had once been the
monks’ refectory, a place of physical rather than spiritual sustenance.

‘Absolve, Lord, we entreat you, the soul of your servant from every bond of sin . . .’

Only those near the front of the procession could hear the words of the Monsignor. For the rest the seminarians’ voices took over.

‘. . . that he may be raised up in the glory of the resurrection and live among your saints and elect, through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

Powerscourt thought this must be a profound experience for these young men. They will have read in their history books all about the daily life of the monks of centuries past, the seven
services, the prescribed ordering of each day in God’s service. Now they were living out one part of it. Surely they would never think about monastic life in the same way again. Today, for
them, the past had, quite literally, come to life, walking in order round the four galleries of the Moissac cloisters.

‘Incline your ear, oh Lord,’ the Monsignor went on, ‘to our prayers in which we humbly entreat your mercy, and bring to a place of peace and light the soul of your servant . .
. ’

Maggie Delaney, standing very still against a wall near the Pillar of Cain and Abel, was weeping for the beauty of the procession and the soul of Girvan Connolly, sinner and corpse.

‘. . . which you have summoned to go forth from this world,’ the young men carried on, ‘bidding him to be numbered in the fellowship of your saints through Jesus Christ our
Lord.’

Powerscourt remembered his earlier conversation with Connolly as they walked the pilgrim trail, the pots and pans that wouldn’t sell, the sheets that collapsed after the first use, the
debts that closed around him as death had enveloped him this afternoon. He didn’t think Connolly would have much in common with the saints.

‘Hear us, oh Lord,’ the Monsignor looked as though he could go on praying for ever, ‘and let the soul of your servant profit by this sacrifice, by the offering of which you
granted that the sins of the whole world should be forgiven, through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

Half of the cloisters were in shadow now. Shafts of sunlight sent bands of brilliant light across the black of the seminarians. The bricks were glowing pink or almost white. Powerscourt watched
in astonishment as the pilgrims began to join the rear of the procession. Brother White, Christy Delaney, Charlie Flanagan and Jack O’Driscoll formed themselves into a line of four and joined
the seminarians at the end of their column.

‘Our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name . . .’

Now the rest of the pilgrims fell into line and progressed round the cloisters with the men in black, with only Maggie Delaney left on the sidelines.

‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done . . .’

Lady Lucy was whispering to Powerscourt. ‘Should we join in too, Francis? What do you think?’

Powerscourt shook his head. ‘I think not, my love. Not our cloisters, not our religion, not even our pilgrimage.’

‘On earth as it is in heaven . . .’

The sound rose above the cloisters and into the blue skies above. Christy Delaney was crying now. So was Wee Jimmy Delaney, his huge frame racked by sobs.

‘Give us each day our daily bread . . .’

Lady Lucy was holding her husband’s hand very tightly. Inspector Léger in the corner was now flanked by a man with a bag who might be a doctor and a couple of orderlies with a
makeshift stretcher.

‘And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them who trespass against us . . .’

Beads of sweat were forming on the Monsignor’s upper lip as he processed round the cloisters for the last time. Behind him the young men kept their places, eyes down, hands still.

‘And deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever, amen.’

Monsignor Michelack led his men right out of the cloisters, still keeping their ranks of four apiece, and into the square to wait for their transport. Inspector Léger marched the
remaining pilgrims out too, pausing for a quick word with Powerscourt.

‘I’m sorry,’ he began, ‘I meant to ask you before but I forgot. I have lost my interpreter. I would be very grateful if you could accompany me on the train. I’ve
ordered a couple of extra carriages. Maybe these pilgrims will talk to you more easily than they would to me, my lord. We won’t be asking you to spend the night in the cells with them, mind
you.’

Powerscourt said they would be delighted. The doctor and his assistants, the melancholy apparatus of death, hurried off to the upper chamber to remove the body. Lady Lucy went to see if she
could offer comfort to the pilgrims. Silence returned to the cloisters of Moissac.

Powerscourt watched as two burly French policemen carried Girvan Connolly’s body down the steps at the northeast corner of the cloisters. At the bottom they placed the corpse on a
makeshift stretcher and carried it away to the cathedral square where a Moissac ambulance would take it to the Moissac morgue and into the care of the doctors. Beyond the wall he could still hear
sounds of weeping and lament as the remaining pilgrims mourned the loss of yet another of their number.

Powerscourt was now completely alone. Eternal silence had returned. And he had seen this afternoon something approaching a miracle. No monks had walked round these four galleries since the
revolutionary upheavals of 1793. But today, he had seen with his own eyes a great column of religious, processing round as their predecessors would have done eight hundred years before, saying the
prayers for the dead. The cloisters, Powerscourt thought, were unmoved by murder and violent death. Built in their original form about 1100, they had survived the Black Death, the Crusades against
the Cathars, the Hundred Years War, the Wars of Religion, the Revolution and the Terror. One more death would not affect them. As he looked at the four great arcades flanking the central garth
– the grass space in the middle where a fountain or a spring had been centuries before – he tried to remember what the fussy little local historian had struggled to tell his party
earlier that day. Twenty pillars each in the east and west sides and eighteen on the north and south. So the cloisters were nearly square. The pillars alternating between single and double columns.
The great cedar towards the north arcade that would have given shade in the summer. And up here – the chubby Frenchman had grown quite animated at this point – ‘gentlemen, the
glory of Moissac! What makes it most unique! The capitals at the top of the pillars! In these middle times, they had the sculptures on the top of the pillars, seventy and six of them, no, showing
leaves and foliage and all the different scenes from the Old and New Testaments. For the monks this would have been like a book to read as they went about their work, a book to inspire them and
keep them to their callings. And the pilgrims, my friends, the pilgrims would have read them as we read newspapers today!’