Troubled Waters (22 page)

Less than two metres from the house’s western gable lay the pond. A thin film of ice coated its surface, reflecting the moonlight, and as she walked towards it, her eyes scanning its far boundary, she made out the silhouette of a heron. It was standing on a single leg, in a bed of dry and broken reeds. On her approach it took flight, flapping its great wings in slow motion as it rose, majestically, above the roof, its long legs trailing behind it. When summer came there would be frogs, diving beetles and dragonflies, she thought, and for the first time since Ian had died she felt joy, pure, unadulterated joy, and
recognising it, tears came to her eyes. Even if the roof of the cottage leaked, its plumbing failed and the place was overrun by a plague of rats, as some of her friends had predicted, he would have understood exactly why she had bought it. He would have seen all that she could see, and more.

The first thing that struck her on meeting Father Vincent Ross was the blueness of his eyes; the second, that he did not look like any priest she had ever encountered before. Her convent education had prepared her for a number of possible archetypes, but he fitted none of them. He was not Irish, for a start, had no pot belly, and did not exhibit the slightly self-satisfied and unctuous air that she had prepared herself for. Few clerics ministering to a convent of nuns, never mind the pubescent girls in their care, did not have their heads turned, whatever they looked like, believing themselves to be a peacock amongst eager peahens. Instead, she thought, looking at him across his own sitting room, he resembled a slightly dishevelled former pugilist, with his nose unmistakeably broken, and his profuse sandy hair falling untidily all over his face. In boxing terms a featherweight, possibly, to her welterweight.

True to form, he had immediately offered her a drink, unable to stop himself from recommending a 2012 Sauvignon Blanc Grande Reserve. Seeing him fussing about the place in search of a suitable glass, she was reminded of Ian’s amusement at the fellow’s notorious uneasiness over his hobby. Golf might be uncontroversial for a priest, but fine wines? And how many times had she heard him being teased over the phone, called Jancis or Gilly, being lambasted for his ‘poncy’, ‘pseudish’ winespeak. From
the guffaws that usually followed such abuse he seemed to be able to hold his own.

Sitting opposite her in his armchair, he was so short that his feet hardly touched the floor, she noticed. A Siamese cat lay on his lap, purring, and sometimes, she thought, he seemed to be addressing his comments to it as much as to her. Despite the fact that she hardly knew him, she found his company restful, the few silences between them neither heavy nor oppressive. With the ease of an old friend he asked her what she had been doing that day, before she came up to see the cottage.

‘I was looking something up . . . on one of your rivals, you might say. Another church. I needed to learn something about it for my work, for an investigation I’m involved in.’

‘What church?’ he asked, sitting back in his armchair with his nose hovering over his wine glass like a kestrel over its prey.

‘The Elect.’

‘Rivals? They’re rivals to the Catholic Church in much the same way a mosquito rivals the National Blood Transfusion Service – or a lollipop lady the traffic division of the Met.’

‘You’ve heard of them?’

‘Certainly. There are a fair number in Kincardine, and no doubt others around the place. They are an offshoot of the Plymouth Brethren. They prospered in Scotland for a while, particularly in fishing and mining communities, until their leader was exposed as a “speaker with two mouths”. That cut their numbers.’

‘Sounds intriguing.’

‘I thought so too. Do you want to hear about it? Have you time?’

‘Plenty of time.’

While he talked she looked around the room in which they sat. It had been furnished sparsely, practically, without fripperies of any kind. No cushions or curtains, but there was a computer, a TV and books everywhere, overflowing their shelves, stacked on the floor. Photographs, all in a straight line, had been stuck along the entire length of a cream-coloured wall. One she recognised. It was of Ian, laughing, looking astonishingly young and holding a tankard up as if making a toast. Seeing it, she felt her heart turn over and looked away quickly, determined that her face should not give her away. A cardboard box caught her eye. It was filled with wine bottles, and had been shoved out of sight, or out of the way, below a desk. Three coffee cups, unwashed, were stacked by the side of his armchair. The place bore all the signs of someone living on his own, attending to the essentials and pleasing only himself. She should know.

‘Well,’ he continued, looking at her, apparently pleased that she was interested, ‘it happened in about 1945. Their then leader, Timothy Cornell, was staying with a devout family, the Flemings, on some ministry matter. Unfortunately, Mr Fleming discovered the Chosen One naked in the marital bed with a naked Mrs Fleming. The pair of them were completely blootered – on an early Napa Valley white, apparently, if you can believe it. At that date, it will hardly have been drinkable pre-Robert Mondavi – if oak-smoked barrels . . .’

‘What happened?’

‘Well, the Chosen One explained that, despite appearances, he had simply been teaching theology to Mrs Fleming, and when challenged on their unlikely classroom and lack of school uniform, he added that the whole thing
had been, in fact, a test, something designed to weed out the faithless from the flock. Mr Fleming, unconvinced, threw him out of the house, a semi in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, without clothes. A passing newsman took a photograph and it got into the local newspaper and from there into the national and international media.’

‘Did any of the faithful remain?’

‘You’d be surprised at the numbers who stayed on. Thinking about it, we are all, I suppose, credulous in our own ways.’

‘Water to wine?’

‘Rising from the dead sticks in the craw of many.’

‘But not you?’

‘If he was the son of God, why should it? Either he was what he said, the son of God, or he was a lunatic. “Love thy neighbour as thyself” doesn’t sound to me like the sentiment, the words, of a lunatic. But we’re straying from the point.’

‘My fault. Are there any of them here, in Kinross?’

‘Of the Elect?’

‘Yes.’

‘A few, probably, but I don’t know for sure. Last year one of their oversized meeting halls sprang up between here and Stirling. They’re unmistakable. More like a cash-and-carry than a church. They’ve got no windows, a huge car-parking space, high-security fencing, air-conditioning . . .’

‘Air conditioning? Why on earth . . .’

‘Because it’s all centralised. They have to build them in accordance with a blueprint devised in Wisconsin, the home of their current “Chosen One”. And it’s always a Him. Hence the air-conditioning, obviously something largely superfluous in our lovely weather.’

‘What else do you know about them?’ she asked, impressed, amused by his enthusiasm for such relative arcana.

He sipped his wine, meeting her eye, then smiling widely as if at a private joke, ‘Well, for a start, that you’d find them pretty difficult. In fact, I’d hazard you wouldn’t last a day. Half a day even.’

‘Why?’

‘They’re not keen on women in any form of power.’

‘Oh, unlike the Catholic Church with its unbroken succession of female popes, not to mention all the she-cardinals and priestesses, you mean?’ she retorted, sounding more heated than she felt.

‘Satan!’ he said, placing his hand over his cat’s ears.

‘Satan?’ she repeated, bemused.

‘I thought we were speaking about the Elect? My cat, Satan, probably shocked by your jibes, dug his claws into me. Anyway, what are you complaining about – wasn’t one Pope Joan enough for you, an unforgettable double first, pregnant and papal?’

‘We are talking about them, the Elect. Tell me more. Please,’ she said, watching as the Siamese yawned, rose on the man’s lap, arched his back, slid sinuously to the floor and then padded out of the open doorway.

‘That cat’s so easily bored! One of their tenets is that a woman mustn’t put herself in “a position of authority” over a man, any man. Once married she can’t look for paid work, and while working and unmarried she can’t, for reasons obvious to them, rise to anything much above a receptionist or secretary. All in all, it’s like life in the fifties, only worse. Madmen plus. You, I’m sorry to say, would probably be classified by them, using their terminology, as a “Loudmouth”. As a Catholic, I’m one of the
Slaves of Satan – the Lord of the Flies, incidentally, not my cat. Although I am, of course, his slave too.’

‘Thanks. And the “Chosen One”, is he their Pope or what?’

‘A sort of Mega-Pope. He’s more like a cross between Jesus and the Holy Father, I’d say. His edicts have to be obeyed because, according to them, the Holy Spirit speaks through him. His word is law, whether forbidding the keeping of pets – creatures are to be eaten or used only – or banning mobile phones, TVs, computers and faxes, as “transmitters of filth”. Thinking about it, maybe he has a point? Anyway, failure to obey his edicts can lead to excommunication.’

‘Surely that’s almost impossible nowadays, living without technology? Who would give them a job? No mobiles, no computers . . .’

‘It did present them with a problem, although, luckily, most of them run their own small businesses. They’re a highly commercial sect. You see, they aren’t allowed to work for “worldlies”. It must have been maddening for them, like running the marathon on one leg or knitting with one needle. Fortunately, in about 2005 things improved because, as their Chosen One put it, “the Lord saw things anew”. Or, as you and I might put it, He changed His mind.’

‘What happened to all of the faithful who had been excommunicated for sending a fax or whatever?’

‘Sadly, they are still languishing in the outer darkness, on the grounds that God may move on but no one can “second-guess the Lord”. Early enlightenment is not on, apparently.’

‘The woman I’m interested in is no longer in the Elect,’ Alice said, taking another sip of the Bergerac, noticing
that his glass remained all but full. His nose still hovered above his wine, assessing it, but he did not drink.

‘Do you like this white?’ he asked.

‘Very much, thank you.’

‘Good, it has a lovely bouquet, I think. This woman, did she leave or was she pushed?’

‘I don’t know. I plan to go back and speak to her parents again.’

‘Well, there’s one thing you should know about them, Alice, for the purposes of your job. Their founding principle, their charter, to use business jargon, is the doctrine of separation. Hence no eating with “worldlies” like us, no sharing even of a common wall and all of that. As far as they are concerned, we live in a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah. Contact with us leads to contamination. We’re iniquity, you and me; and me, obviously, more than most. So, when you’re speaking to them, don’t assume that you’re both on the same side. Their loyalties are always to each other, their fellow “holies”, not to any “worldly”. Whatever crime she, perish the thought, might be investigating and whoever is under suspicion. Now, why not stay to supper?’

‘I must get back to work, find out more about them. The ones in Edinburgh. Find out more about her,’ she said, swallowing the last of her wine and putting her glass down on the table beside her chair.

‘Stay. Please,’ he said, and seeing her rise to her feet he rose to his own and added, ‘if Ian was still alive you wouldn’t be working non-stop, would you? Everyone has to eat. It’s past nine. I’ll lend you my book about them, that’ll save you bags of time. There’s a stew in the oven, ready now. There’s more than enough for two. Please – you’d be doing me a favour.’

Looking into his anxious blue eyes, she saw he meant it. At that instant his cat returned, weaving itself lithely between his legs. Bending down to stroke it he smiled, saying, ‘Slave that I am, there’s only so much of Satan’s exalted company I can take.’

13

On Sundays, as on every other day of the week, the Co-op in Pitt Street remained open. Mr Wilson, overworked, short-staffed and with the greenish hue of a man suffering from a bad hangover, accompanied the policewoman in the direction of the cheese counter, assuring her that she would find Sam Inglis there, somewhere among the stock.

‘Please be as quick as you can,’ he said, trotting beside her on his thick little legs, his nostrils flaring wide as they neared the fish counter, the air around it heavy with the aroma of smoked haddock. Unexpectedly, he stopped dead for a moment, a wave of bile rising in his throat, steadying himself and breathing laboriously. Who was it last night who had said that vodka acted like a tonic? Six, mixed with Coke, seemed to have had the opposite effect on him. Could heads explode? He leant against the end of the counter, closed his eyes and hoped to die quickly.

‘Are you OK?’ Alice asked.

‘I must have eaten something last night that doesn’t agree with me,’ he replied, forcing himself onwards, but feeling desperate, on the verge of tears.