Blood Brotherhood (18 page)

‘Perhaps it's time we went to look for Father Anselm,' said Clayton taking his arm.

‘Oh — do you think so? Isn't it rather early?'

‘No — it's ten o'clock.'

‘I suppose not, no. Where will he be, do you think? Now he no longer has an office.'

‘We'll find him,' said Ernest Clayton determinedly.

• • •

Oddly enough the first background report to get through to Inspector Croft was one of the foreign ones. Dictated to the Leeds police from the police station in Bergen, it was the report on Randi Paulsen. It was written by the local
lensman,
the sheriff of her little parish, and had been translated in Bergen.

‘Randi Paulsen has been at Svartøy now during one and a half year,' the report ran. ‘At first was many unwilling to have woman priest, and it was much opposition. However, since coming has such opinions changed. Miss Paulsen is a very active and enthusiastic leader of Christian activity in the community. She has undertaken many new projects, and her preachings and her
teachings are very popular. She also does much visiting with the sick and the older peoples. She has fought strongly against the looser element in the community and has in this way done much good works particularly against alcohol misuses and sexual things. Speaking as a practising Christian I would say that Miss Paulsen has transformed Svartøy in her time here, and it is impossible to think of her in connection with police investigation.'

Croft got on the phone to Leeds.

‘Get on to Norway again,' he said, ‘and tell them I'd like a report on Randi Paulsen written by someone who is
not
a practising Christian.'

• • •

Father Anselm was not too difficult to find. He had been informed of the all-too-obvious inspection by Clayton and the Bishop of Peckham of the brothers at their breakfast. He was therefore half expecting a visit. The two found him in the chapel at prayer. Unwilling, of course, to interrupt him, they stood by the door. Though he was kneeling in the back row of seats, Father Anselm was quite oblivious of their presence. He went on praying for a very, very long time. Finally, after several sessions of extra time, he rose, saw Clayton and the Bishop in the doorway, raised his eyebrows and came forward.

‘Is there anything I can do?' he asked, fixing his keen, intimidating gaze on one after the other.

‘Yes — we should rather like to have a few words with you,' said Ernest Clayton. Father Anselm gestured to him, as if to say, ‘Go right ahead.' But Clayton was not having that. ‘Somewhere more private would be better — if there
is
anywhere.' Suppressing a spasm of irritation which flitted over his mouth revealingly, Father Anselm led the way through the murky corridors to the conference room. Once inside, he turned, drew a bunch of keys from a rope around his waist, and locked the door. He turned, gave the two another piercing look, as if to say, ‘Is this private enough
for you?', and gestured them towards the easy chairs. What surprised Clayton was that, unusually for him, he consented to sit down in one himself. He sat, in fact, in a perfectly relaxed manner, obviously aware that his height gave him a perceptible advantage over the other two. He looked full of calm confidence.

‘Now, again, what can I do for you?' he asked.

Ernest Clayton had already decided that it would be he who did the talking.

‘I'll come to the point at once,' he said. ‘Yesterday I saw a young man within the walls here, dressed as one of your brothers. He was a young man — boy, perhaps, would be a better description — whom I'd met before. I gave him a lift in my car up here, and he impressed me very disagreeably. In fact, I was forced to turn him out. He was obsessed with sex, ill-mannered, and foul in his language. To my mind he was very obviously the delinquent type, and he seemed to be making an effort to disgust me and shock me. You will see, I think, why I was disturbed to find him among your brothers here.'

Father Anselm had been regarding him with something close to an amiable smile on his face. Clayton wondered what that unprecedented aspect could portend. When he finished speaking, Father Anselm left a couple of seconds' silence, and then said: ‘Yes, I can see why you were disturbed.' There was a slight stress on the ‘you'. Father Anselm said no more, merely continuing to look blandly on his inquisitor.

‘Could you explain, then,' said Ernest Clayton, rather put off his stride, ‘how this young man came to be here?'

‘No, I could not,' said Father Anselm equably. ‘Even if I knew who you were referring to, and even if I knew why he was here, I would not do so. It is my invariable custom never to discuss the private affairs of either the brothers who have taken their vows, or the occasional guests here. To do so would be an unforgivable breach of trust.'

‘I see,' said Ernest Clayton. ‘I should explain that both
times I have seen him within the Community's walls he has avoided me, disappeared suddenly — on one occasion running very fast to avoid being questioned. You can hardly wonder if I am suspicious.'

‘No, no,' said Father Anselm genially, ‘I am not in the least surprised at your being suspicious.' He left another long pause, which Ernest Clayton realized was designed to give him time to realize what a silly little boy he was being. ‘On the other hand,' went on Father Anselm, ‘an intelligent mind would, I think, remember that our brothers come here to get away from the world. Many are most loath to come into contact with people from outside the walls — particularly brothers who have recently joined the Community, and particularly if the person from the outside world was known to them in their private life. Such behaviour is quite normal, I assure you.'

‘Not
running away,
surely?'

‘Yes, surely. You have an image in your mind of a monk: a serious, pious, grave young man. Running does not fit neatly into your image, and therefore you can't imagine a monk running away. But that is only one kind — perhaps quite a small number. There are many other kinds: frightened men, disturbed men, and they will act in many different ways that you would find quite impossible to make conform to your stereotype, and you will be surprised. But you must not expect
me
to be surprised. I know all the kinds.'

Thus far, Ernest Clayton had to admit, Father Anselm was doing rather well. He himself was in the unfortunate position that the more he brought his suspicions and the reasons for them out in the open, the more flimsy they appeared. But once he had waded in, there seemed no alternative but to swim out to sea.

‘That isn't quite the only thing that has worried me,' he went on, looking straight into Father Anselm's bland but cold blue eyes. ‘When the murder was discovered, you tried to persuade the Bishop here that the murderer must
be one of our group in the guest wing, one of the delegates to the symposium, even though on a factual level the argument wouldn't hold water for a moment.'

Father Anselm shrugged, and his eyes looked straight back at Ernest Clayton without the slightest degree of embarrassment. ‘It was an opinion. It is still my opinion. I am not a detective, and therefore my opinions are quite open to correction or disagreement.'

‘You are not a detective, of course. On the other hand, you are not a fool either.'

‘I am grateful for your excellent opinion.' Father Anselm stirred a little in his chair, as he prepared to shift his stance and go on to the attack. ‘And not being a fool I am of course quite aware of the direction in which all these questions are leading. How is one to put it? I gather you find something “fishy” in our little Community. I do not know what you suspect, or even whether you have got as far as to suspect anything specific. But I must say that your reasons for suspicion seem extraordinarily flimsy, or else based on sheer ignorance of such a community as this and the kind of people who join it. That being so, your suspicions are of no interest to me. Until you give me some concrete reason for them, I do not feel called upon to give you any further explanations.'

He had shown no anger: on the contrary, no equanimity could be more complete than his. Ernest Clayton decided he must be even more brutal, in an attempt to flush him out.

‘You tried to suggest to the Bishop after the murder that the whole thing could be hushed up,' he said baldly.

Father Anselm looked benevolently astonished. ‘Is that the impression you gained?' he said, turning to the Bishop. ‘How very extraordinary. And what exactly was it I said that made you think I was suggesting such a very improper course?'

The Bishop gulped and flapped his hands nervously. He had been pessimistic about this meeting to start with, and
it was very clear to him by now which way it was going. ‘Well, it wasn't exactly what you
said,'
he muttered feebly, ‘it was more that this was . . . this seemed . . . seemed to be an idea that was in the air.'

Father Anselm managed an exquisitely timed pause. ‘I see,' he said. Then after another pause for meditation, and turning towards Ernest Clayton, he said: ‘And what else am I to be accountable for?'

Ernest Clayton had a general feeling of having been badly routed. ‘I'm quite willing to admit,' he said, ‘that many of the things that have given me the idea that — that things are not quite as they should be, are very small things, insignificant in themselves. Nevertheless, a murder is not insignificant. Inevitably I can't quite divorce in my mind these small things from this one big thing, and I suppose the police would feel the same way. I'm quite sure, for instance, that they would be anxious to follow up all possible causes of suspicion, simply because they could be relevant to the murder.'

Father Anselm raised his eyebrows and said nothing.

‘Now the thing that really worries me,' went on Clayton, ‘is the young man appearing here. And if you are not willing to explain how that could come about, I am quite willing to turn the matter over to them, and trust to their judgement of how far it is significant.'

There was a fluttering gesture of protest from the Bishop of Peckham, and it was not lost on Father Anselm. It occurred to him that the Bishop was more of an ally than an opponent, and that a degree of compromise might well be on the cards.

‘Of course, that is as you decide, Mr Clayton,' he said courteously, ‘since the whole notion is apparently yours. I need hardly say that everything in the Community is open to inspection, whether by our regular visitor, by the Church authorities or by the police. My only reason for preferring the Church to the police is the sort of publicity which inevitably seems to attend on police enquiries these days. It
is bad enough to have the murder investigation on our hands, but if it can be contained to that, not too much harm need be done. But a general investigation, by the police, of the Community as a whole could hardly be good for the Church generally. Perhaps you, My Lord, might agree with me on that point, at any rate.'

‘Oh — er — absolutely, quite. Very regrettable, absolutely to be avoided,' stammered the Bishop with an agonized expression on his face. ‘The very last thing we want.'

‘I wonder if I may say a few things about the people who come here,' said Father Anselm, still as benign and inscrutable as he had been throughout the interview, ‘talking, please understand, in general and not in particular. I emphasize this, because the one thing which I can not tolerate is the suggestion that I could betray the trust of anyone who has come here in distress. Would you allow me?'

‘Do, do — please,' burbled the Bishop.

‘As I implied, there are many types who come here with the notion that they may have a vocation for the religious life. Many of them are young people. You are no doubt as aware as any of the thirst for religion — almost
any
religion, it sometimes seems — among the young today. It has, I believe, formed the subject for many a sermon and homily among my brothers in the clergy.'

He looked at Ernest Clayton, who nodded — not to agree with the existence of such a thirst, merely to agree that it was a frequent topic for sermonizing.

‘This thirst leads many people to us. Many, most, are quite unsuited to the life. Some are leading lives in the world that are, to the Church's thinking, misguided, even scandalous. I don't know if you feel that we should reject sinners?' He smiled benignly at Clayton. ‘Turn them out of our car, so to speak. We feel we cannot. We feel that to reject them would be a negation of the whole Christian message, which was a message to sinners. So if, when we have talked to them, and explained to them what the life
here entails, they still feel they want to join us for a short time, as an experiment, then we allow them to do so. And in more than one case this short time has become a longer time, and the man has finally taken his vows, joined us, to devote his life to our ideals. To me, with I hope pardonable pride, this seems something of a triumph. But if, as very frequently happens, the person is quite unsuited to our life, he finds it out very soon, and leaves us. No harm has been done. Perhaps, in the long run, some good has been, a grain has been sown: who can tell? But that is our policy, and I hope it explains some of the things that have bewildered you.'

He sat back, with a degree of benevolent self-satisfaction. He was rewarded by the Bishop saying: ‘Yes, indeed. A most interesting statement. A very commendable policy.'

‘I am still not really happy in my mind about why the young man should be so scared of me as to run away,' said Ernest Clayton.

‘I have suggested one possible reason. That you represent in his mind the world he is trying to run away from. Another presents itself: if he had behaved badly to you, he may well have been overcome by feelings of shame. You smile, but I cannot think that quite so improbable as you seem to. I have seen the spiritual atmosphere of the Community work great changes on people in a very short space of time.'