The Trinity (18 page)

“Well, it’s no crime to own a swastika… Very, very odd for a priest, I must say, but not a crime. However, I doubt your little American was capable of pulling off these acts by himself; it took some sort of an effort. The letters were signed by the Eastern Scotland Trinity of the Great White Brotherhood. Trinity means three, you know—the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.”

“True,” says Robertson, “but this priest seems to be a pleasant bloke, and I would have thought nothing ill of him if I hadn’t seen that swastika.”

“Did it seem to be a suicide, a genuine suicide?” the inspector asks.

“Yes, as near as I could tell. I’ve never seen something so gruesome in my life. But yes, I saw the gun in his hand, and the hole where his temple used to be.”

“Where in the bloody fucking hell did he get a gun? I hate to imagine there are several hundred Americans walking around up there with bleeding fucking guns like in the Wild bloody West. That is a separate matter I want the Americans to answer for, but as far as the question of suicide, an autopsy will tell us more—powder on the fingers, the trajectory of the bullet—it will give us evidence one way or the other. We won’t close the book on this one yet, won’t call it a suicide just yet. The body should be in our morgue directly. I’ll have a look.” The inspector coughs a phlegmy cough into the receiver and Robertson hears him light a cigarette and inhale deeply, the cigarette burning audibly across the thirty miles from Dundee to Lutherkirk.

“Did you contact the Americans yet?” Robertson hears the inspector wheeze.

“No, I wanted to give you a ring first. I will, shortly.”

“Good, but don’t mention the swastika. Don’t mention any sort of suspicion of the priest. Give them the impression that we don’t doubt the suicide, and that we have no doubt that the question of the murders in Dundee has been laid to rest. Let the priest explain himself to the Americans. If they think we suspect him of something irregular, he may be suddenly ‘transferred’ back to the States. If he is guilty of something—and my gut tells me he is—then we want first crack at him. I don’t need those damn Yanks spoiling it.”

Robertson has seen Americans suddenly sent away when they have gotten in too much trouble outside the base, where they would be in grave trouble with the Scottish police, transgressions such as domestic assault, more than one drunk driving offense, and shoplifting. They tended to disappear just as the British courts had their cases built against them. The Navy would whisk them back to Norfolk or San Diego and assure the British judicial system that their crimes were not ignored in the Navy’s eyes.

The Americans have never wanted the embarrassment of one of their servicemen sitting in a foreign jail.

“I’ll drive up tomorrow evening, and we will come and visit the priest. I’ll meet you at your office at about half past six; I suspect he will be home then. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

“You as well,” says Robertson, and he hangs up the phone. He calls the base and reaches the duty officer. He tells him just the basic facts; he tells him of the apparent suicide in the priest’s home and that the recently deceased left a note implicating himself in the murders in Dundee. The young American officer patronizes the constable.

“Isn’t it our say, where the body goes? Maybe we don’t want it autopsied. I think it should be sent to Washington. After all, the body is property of the U.S. government.”

“Regretfully, you have no jurisdiction outside that wee little base of yours, regardless of the citizenship of the victim. We are sure it is a suicide, but there are procedures we must take, and we are concerned that he had a gun. We don’t allow handguns in this country… I don’t suppose you can explain how he came to possess one?”

There is silence on the other end. Robertson continues. “Tell your security department that we’ll be in touch. I’ll alert the Ministry of Defence Police myself. Have a good evening. Cheers.”

Robertson hangs up the phone, props his feet on his desk and waits for the teapot to whistle. He notes that every passing year, the freshest of the crop of Americans becomes more arrogant. Not like in the old days, when they smiled politely in the street, had you over for supper, would buy you pints in the pub. Now, they’ve become clannish and boorish, as if their life of large television sets and hi-fis and washing machines and refrigerators and large cars make them feel like giants in this country. Wee-minded giants, the constable thinks. He makes a cup of tea and leaves the bag in the mug as he types his report of the trip to Crowley’s cottage on his old and comfortable typewriter.

An empty heart and a lack of anything better to do causes Chris to rise early on Sunday. It is his first day off. He breakfasts and then heads to the chapel for the nine o’clock Mass.

He is dressed in one of the two pairs of civilian pants he brought with him to Scotland, a pair of gray jeans and a white button-down shirt with long sleeves that he purchased in a mall in Pensacola.

He lacks a decent pair of shoes. He dons the same grubby high-top tennis shoes that have been with him since the start of his senior year in high school.

He finds himself alone in a pew. The chapel is more empty than full. Some older sailors who are married and have children are in attendance, the children bored and wandering in the pews, and there are a few solitary faces that Chris has seen around the barracks and the galley and the exchange. He knows virtually no one on the base, so he doesn’t feel awkward in this situation, unlike the crowded galley, where no one eats alone. The chapel is still and quiet and empty. No one speaks.

Based on his amicable conversation with the priest, Chris expects the atmosphere inside the chapel to be more buoyant and relaxed. He assumed those in attendance would be smiling, as people did in his memories of church as a child, but there is a tension in the air that he can’t define. The chapel seems gloomy.

A recording of an organ plays from behind the altar as the priest walks down the center aisle of the chapel. He is wearing a robe with a large cross on its back. Chris thinks he looks much less comfortable than he did sitting in his office in his khaki uniform.

As the priest starts to speak, Chris watches the other members of the congregation. He imitates their behavior. He kneels as they kneel, he stands as they stand, and he crosses himself a step behind the other members as they cross themselves.

The sermon is brief. The priest talks about the gift of life, how each day is numbered, and he uses the passing of the sailor in Dundee and the suicide of the other sailor as examples. Chris had just heard about the suicide from Karen the evening before, and learned that it occurred in the priest’s home.

The priest tells the passive devotees that they should treat each day as if it’s their last, because it could be, and they may never get the chance to do the things they need to do. The words ring true enough for Chris, though he feels miles away from mortality. He just realizes it’s yet another day in a string of lonely days. He hasn’t met a girl, he’s still a virgin, and he feels as desolate as ever.

The homily concludes and the priest prepares the Eucharist. He invites everyone to sing a hymn accompanied by the tape recording. Chris finds the words in the hymnal and mouths along: “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us.” He wonders what God was doing with a lamb.

Chris stands in line for communion, which is something that he’s never been prepared for or invited to do. Every member of the forty-strong congregation stands in line, so Chris does too. He watches those ahead of him in line carefully, so he can imitate their actions. He finally stands in front of the priest. Crowley recognizes him and smiles. Chris notices the priest’s hand shaking as he deposits the wafer on his tongue. “Take and eat,” the priest says, “the body of Christ.”

January 27, 1986

Dear Wife,

I have just gone to church for the first time since I was very small. It was about how I remembered it, but I remember people being happier. A lot of it I didn’t and still don’t understand. It seems as if there is a lot of emphasis on certain types of ceremony, rather than any sort of message. It was quiet like I remember, and I wondered while I was sitting there how different my life would be if my parents brought me to church, and how different their marriage would have been. I think, if it helps, that you and I should take our kids to church. It can’t hurt. I remember kids’ parents getting divorced all the time while I was in school, but I don’t remember any of them talking about going to church. I wonder if there is a connection. Maybe you have a different religion, you could be Jewish or Muslim for all I know and I don’t care. I don’t understand Jesus well enough and I was baptized as a Christian. I think we should be something. I’ve already figured out that life is too crazy to do things by ourselves. We need help.

                                                                         Love,

                                                                         Chris     

Robertson is waiting for the inspector. He has heard of him, has known him for his work, but they’ve never met. They’ve both been in the force for years. Both are nearing the age of being put out to pasture, but their careers have taken different paths. Holliday is a man with the keenest sense of intuition and vengeance for the victims of crimes, be they petty or large. He always wants to be challenged, and he longs to be recognized for meeting those challenges. He was promoted through the ranks very quickly when he was younger and slimmer.

Robertson is a man with honor but no ambition; he is exactly where he wants to be, doing his job perfectly to the letter, but having no desire to leave his piece of the world, to leave his village in the valley that is surrounded by rolling hills that in the spring and summer look like a massive and wavy green carpet that rises above the clouds and stretches past the horizon.

Robertson stands in the storefront window of his station, drinking a cup of tea. He has his coat and his hat on, and he is ready to go. His heart races; never has he gone to question someone with the intent of implicating him in something as sinister as murder.

The inspector pulls up in front of the station in a car that Robertson doesn’t expect, a 1970-something white four-door Ford Cortina. When the inspector steps out of the car and into the empty street, Robertson sees why he needs such a large car. He is a massive man, average height but thick in the legs, thick in the chest, broad in the back and shoulders, with a gut of tremendous size. Robertson wonders how he chases the thinnest of thieves through the alleys and neighborhoods of Dundee.

They shake hands without introducing each other. Silently they step into the inspector’s car and Robertson gives him directions as they drive past the dark and stony ruin of Lutherkirk Castle to the priest’s cottage.

There is a light in the window, and they can hear music pouring out of the house.

They tap softly on the front door, and there is no answer. They knock louder and the music stops. The priest answers the door in his bathrobe. Robertson fears he is naked underneath.

One fact is obvious to both men of the law: the priest is drunk. They can smell it on his breath, can smell it coming from his pores.

The priest smiles his best disarming smile. Crowley recognizes the constable, and though he is smiling, Robertson can see irritation in his eyes, the same drunken anger he has seen in the eyes of husbands whose wives have called because they’ve taken to knocking her around a bit after a night out with the lads. Eyes that say they’re being bothered and you are a nuisance, Mr. Policeman.

Robertson introduces the priest to the inspector. As promised, he says, someone from Dundee would like to have a word.

“Hello, hello,” Crowley says. He invites the two men in. He offers them a drink, wine, beer or sherry. Robertson declines because he is on duty and he’s not much for drinking on Sunday. Holliday takes a glass of sherry.

The living room is cluttered, as it was when Robertson came on Friday. A thin and worn sheet with a pattern of flowers in between stripes is thrown over the couch. “To cover the blood,” Robertson says to Holliday as the inspector’s gaze lingers on the couch.

The priest opens cupboard doors, searching for the sherry and an appropriate glass. Peering into the lighted kitchen, Holliday sees stacks of dishes in the sink and others strewn across the counter. The garbage can in the kitchen is also overflowing, and the old and yellow tiled floor is dirty.