Ritual Murder (30 page)

“That's to assume the boy's dead. We haven't any proof of that.”

“We haven't any proof he's alive either. Until we can figure out some way of getting up high enough for a proper look—”

Jurnet shook his head. “We know Harbridge brought some food with him. Why should he come up here at all, and risk being followed, if the boy was dead all the time?”

The Superintendent thought this over, and then capitulated, with the grace that, as ever, put all to rights between the two of them.

“I pray you're right, Ben. Only, if murder's not in the man's mind this time, liké it was the last, why doesn't he let us at least get a glimpse of the boy—let him say a word or two, so we'll know?” The Superintendent finished, “Though why one should expect reasonable behaviour from a maniac heaven knows.”

“He once told me that the spire was the holiest place in the cathedral. Something about parallel lines converging, and the point where they met was God.” Jurnet paused, considering what he had just said. “Odd thing. It sounded OK at the time. Churchy, but not mad.”

“Not mad now, either.” The Superintendent brightened up. “A very powerful metaphor—and, perhaps, an insight into the medieval mind that has never occurred to our students of ecclesiastical architecture. Our murderous verger is a bit of a mystic, it seems.”

“That's why I don't understand—” Jurnet pulled himself up. “Sorry! What I mean is, if the spire is Harbridge's Holy of Holies you wouldn't think he'd want to profane it with murder. Unless—” casting about for the truth like one who knows where the river is, but not the pool where the trout lurk—“he caught the kid painting a moustache on the Bishop and writing ‘Sod God' on the wall, and brought him up here to punish him. Or, maybe, to make him ask God for forgiveness in the holiest place in the whole cathedral.”

“More than he did for Arthur Cossey! Let's hope he doesn't see a Holy of Holies as the right place for a blood sacrifice.” The Superintendent beckoned to Sergeant Ellers, hovering at a respectful distance. “Get on to Inspector Batterby. He's parked in the Deanery Yard with Mrs Drue. I've lost count of how long she's been sitting there, poor woman, while I've been deluding myself we don't have to subject her to this ordeal.” With a sigh, “I was mistaken. Sergeant, let Mrs Drue know that we need her up here.”

Mrs Drue came into the spire with an eager step, her eyes bright with hope and desperation. Where Jurnet, earlier, had been overwhelmed by the darkness within, she now flinched in the glare. Powerful lamps, their reflectors tilted, had been deployed round the octagonal floor. Others had been balanced on horizontal beams, and upon several of the lower platforms, loops of flex festooning the ladders that led up to them. Above a certain level, about half-way to the top of the spire, at a point where the eye was more conscious of the walls leaning towards each other than of the space between them, there were no more lamps. Everything above was Harbridge the verger's territory. On the platform where he kept guard nothing could be seen by the watchers below but the profile of his stocky frame, and just occasionally, when he moved forward to peer over the edge, a glimpse behind him of what might, or might not, be the body of the missing boy.

All colours were bleached out by the merciless light. There was only white and black—white walls punctuated by the black louvred window recesses, black shadows thrown by the angular framework, black-painted ladders angled alternately to right and left, to left and right, as if across some vast three-dimensional board game from which someone had removed the snakes. The woman confronted by the surreal scene shuddered momentarily; then braced her shoulders and, pushing aside the loud-hailer proffered by an anxious young police-constable, called out in a sweet, clear voice that seemed to soar straight towards the apex, “Christopher darling, can you hear me?”

There was no answer, and after a moment she called again, no less clear, but with a kind of agonized pity replacing the sweetness, “Mr Harbridge—this is Mrs Drue. What have you done with my son?”

There was a silence in which those below waited with indrawn breath. Then, far above, a head appeared over the edge of the platform, and the verger called back sulkily, as if resenting the imputation, “I haven't done nothing with him. What he's done, he's done of himself.”

“He's all right, then!” the woman positively sang. “Oh, thank you! Thank you!” Tears ran down her cheeks, but her voice remained steady. “God bless you, Mr Harbridge! Knowing you, I was sure you could do Christopher no harm. But why are you keeping him up there? Why won't you let him come down?”

The head withdrew from sight, leaving the question unanswered. Jurnet came close, and spoke urgently. “Tell him you're very sorry for what Christopher did, and you'll make sure he never does it again.”

Even in her extremity she stared at him angrily.

“And what is Christopher supposed to have done?”

“We think he wrote ‘Sod God' on the wall of the FitzAlain chapel,” the detective explained apologetically, as if the fault were as much his as the child's, for even mentioning it.

“Christopher!” The disbelief in her voice was like a knife.

“For Christ's sake!” Under the silently approving eye of the Superintendent, Jurnet lost his patience and his temper, not entirely without guile. The world being what it was, there was always the occasion when principle had to give way to expediency. “What the hell does it matter what you say, so long as you get the boy back in one piece?”

Mrs Drue capitulated instantly; but her voice, when she cried out again to the unseen presence high in the spire, was pierced through with shame for her betrayal of her child's trust.

She called, parrot-fashion, “Mr Harbridge—I'm very sorry for what Christopher did. I'll make sure he never does it again.”

The response from above took the waiting listeners by surprise. Something between a bray and a jangle of keys assaulted their ears. It took a full minute for Jurnet to realize that the verger was laughing.

“You'll see he doesn't do it again! That's a good one! And if he does, what'll you do, eh? Send him to bed without his supper?”

Lost once she had been untrue to herself, the woman looked to Jurnet for instruction. Dr Carver moved forward and whispered to the Superintendent, who nodded assent.

“Harbridge!” called the Dean, his splendid voice, well-used to directing petitions towards heaven, rolling upward without effort. “You are a servant in this House of God, even as I am myself. For many years we have worked here together, joyfully serving the risen Lord. How, after all your time in the cathedral, can you, in Christian conscience, so disturb its holy peace?”

“Beggin' your pardon, Dean—” the words, so normal, so respectful, were all the more shocking—“'tain't me that's doing the disturbing.”

“The Lord knows the hearts of all men,” the Dean reminded his unseen listener. “Only think, man—what must our gentle Saviour, He who suffered little children to come unto Him and forbade them not, think of a man who seizes by force one of His precious lambs and holds it prisoner against its will and the will of its parents?”

The answer came back robustly, “Jesus knows what I'm doing, never fear.” There was a pause, and then, “I'm that sorry for his Ma, I am, really.”

Mrs Drue, come to the end of her tether, screamed, “Let him go, then! Let Christopher go!”

“I'm really sorry,” the verger repeated, ignoring the interruption. “You're a very nice lady, Mrs Drue. Beautiful way you do the flowers. Beats the other ladies into a cocked hat. Why, only this morning, in the cavea, I give the big brass vase—the one you had the lilies in, an' the flowering currant—a special go-over. Mrs Drue'll be wanting that one, I said to myself—”

Mrs Drue whispered, “Please!”

Jurnet took the tall, trembling figure by the arm and put her gently aside. It was not the moment to explain that enlightenment had suddenly flooded in upon him like the morning sun shafting gloriously through the crimsons, blues and golds of the cathedral's East Window. Unbidden, unanswerable, everything fell into place, came together like the walls of the spire at its apex. Complete. Remembering what he had thought forgotten, making sense of what he knew, the detective had a momentary fantasy of himself suddenly transported outside the gigantic cone, perched on top of the golden weathercock, crowing triumphantly to the stars.

His elation was succeeded by a great sadness.

He called, “Mr Harbridge! If you don't let Christopher speak, how can he say what you want him to?”

The answer came back angrily, “Don't accuse me of putting words into his mouth! All I want is for him to say the truth.”

“He can't say either truth or lies with a gag in his mouth.”

“No answer.”

Jurnet said placatingly, “Sooner or later you'll have to come down from there, even if the boy hasn't said a word.”

“Oh, he'll say more'n that, all right! If he don't, I'll push him over the edge.”

Behind the detective, Mrs Drue moaned. Someone was importuning the Superintendent, “Let me have a go, sir!”

Jurnet made a gesture for quiet. He shouted through the megaphone, “Can Christopher hear me?”

“Little nippers have big ears.”

“Then, Christopher—listen to me! This is Inspector Jurnet. You know me—we've spoken together. I and my friends are trying to help you, but we can only do that if you help us too. You know what you have to do, don't you? Tell the truth when Mr Harbridge takes your gag off, and he'll let you come down safe and sound. Otherwise he's going to kill you, do you understand? And there's nothing we can do to stop him.”

“Hold on!” the verger shouted down. “I weren't born yesterday! He's as artful as a cartload of monkeys, you know that! You tip him the wink, he'll say anything to save his skin!”

“Just as you will to save your soul.” There was no reply to this and Jurnet hammered the point home. “Does there really have to be one more child murdered in the cathedral before justice can be said to be done?”

There seemed to be some movement up on the platform; exactly what, those waiting below could not be sure. At his back, as the seconds ticked away, the detective could sense fear mounting, hope draining away. Possessed himself of a calm certainty, his voice rang out, “Mr Harbridge! How can you call yourself a Christian and have no faith in God?”

There was a long silence, and then Christopher Drue's childish treble wavered down the air.

“It was me killed Arthur Cossey.”

After Jurnet had exchanged a few words with him, brief but to the point, and received into his hand that which the man now proffered willingly enough, Hale and Batterby took the verger away, less gently than Jurnet could have wished. Constables and electricians and the men called in from the Fire Brigade were immediately busy clearing up the mess. One by one the big lamps were disconnected, until only enough remained to light the octagonal floor of the spire. The upper reaches returned to their original mystery; a structure without a purpose, to be accepted on faith. Which perhaps, in the context, was purpose enough.

In the Close below, an ambulance waited to take Christopher Drue to hospital.

Sergeant Ellers, his face unusually pale, murmured in Jurnet's ear, “Looks like his mum needs it more than he does.”

Mrs Drue did indeed look ill. Her eyes, which she seemed unable to take off her son, were sunk deep in her waxen face. The boy, by contrast, was amazing; unless, thought Jurnet, suddenly feeling his age, the resilience of youth was something he had underestimated. His clothes filthy, his face streaked with dirt, the tumbling curls grey with dust, the terrified child who had needed to be carried down the iron ladders to safety was, with safety achieved, transformed almost instantly; shrugging off the blanket in which a solicitous police officer had enfolded him, jumping up and down with excitement, overflowing with high spirits and a naive pride in his own cleverness.

“He's mad, isn't he? Batty, wacky, off his rocker! I knew he was the minute he made me go up into the spire. He said he'd kill me if I cried out, so of course I didn't dare, in case he meant it. And then, what do you think, he tied me up and said he wouldn't untie me till I said I'd killed Arthur. Well, I couldn't say that, could I, it would have been a lie, so every time he said it I just shook my head to mean no, because by then he'd tied a hankie over my mouth and I couldn't speak.” The young eyes opened with remembered fright. “It was horrible! I could hardly breathe, and he only took it off to let me eat—”

“Hush, my darling—” The child's mother, emotionally drained, could hardly speak. “There'll be plenty of time to talk later.”

Surprisingly, the Superintendent, who had been standing in quiet conversation with the Dean, heard her. He looked up, and said, “Yes. Later.”

The boy looked round at them all, with his bright, mischievous smile wonderfully attractive. He burst into a peal of laughter.

“Did you think, just for a moment, when I said that, up there, that I really
had
killed Arthur, instead of just saying it? As if children killed people! Did
you
think that?” The child wheeled round to face Jurnet directly. “Wasn't I good to cotton on so quickly? I knew I
had
to say it. Anything to get away—”

“Except—” said Jurnet, finding it difficult to speak, now that the time had come at last. He opened his hand, and disclosed what Harbridge the verger had consigned to his keeping. “Except that it's true.”

The child looked at the glass eye nestled in the detective's palm. The eye seemed to be looking back at him.

He said shrilly, “That's my eye! Did Harby give it to you?” He held out his hand. “I'd like it back, please.”