The Chorister at the Abbey (28 page)

Alex waited a second, took a deep breath and followed her.

‘Great!’ Chloe said again, and shut the door behind them. ‘Follow me. It’s lovely upstairs.’ She almost skipped ahead of them.

‘Go on,’ Alex said. Suzy followed Chloe up to the main building.

She was right: the convent was beautiful. The hall was large and square with a lavish mosaic floor and a big oak staircase rising up under a domed ceiling with a fine stained glass lantern. How could anyone want to demolish this? Alex thought. David Johnstone must have been mad. Or so greedy he couldn’t see how fabulous it was. However weird the meeting would turn out to be, it was a privilege to be inside the convent.

‘Look at this,’ she whispered to Suzy. ‘Gorgeous, isn’t it!’

Suzy nodded. She had already smelt the faint acrid smell of incense. Chloe was behind them now, urging them towards a wide polished oak door.

‘In there,’ she said, and for an awful moment Suzy thought she heard a note of glee in the girl’s voice.

Edwin had to blow his nose. I think he might be going to cry, Robert thought.

‘Look at it!’ he said. ‘It’s wonderful!’

‘But it will fade, Edwin. These photocopies made on flimsy fax paper always do.’

They had made their excuses and left Norma’s as quickly as possible. Edwin had wanted to look at the photocopies at his cottage, where he had Anglepoise lamps, a keyboard and a better quality photocopier. His copies of copies would have to be reductions but they’d be better than nothing.

In the carrier bag there were letters, documents and scraps of music. All had been copied on curly paper on Morris’s old fax machine. They were already starting to fade slightly.

Now at his desk, Edwin was overwhelmed by the find. There was another copy of the original of the front page of Quaile Woods’ psalter. There were letters from John Stainer, pieces of music the two men had worked on together, and more correspondence. But there was no full psalter.

While Edwin pored over the musical stuff, Robert looked at the letters. There was one which transfixed him. It was nothing to do with Stainer or music. It was a short note to Quaile Woods from Lord Cleaverthorpe. And it referred to his gift of the convent to Quaile Woods on behalf of the sisters of Fellside.

Rustling through the other documents, Robert found what looked like a rough draft of a will. In it, Cecil Quaile Woods had left all his worldly goods to his son, who was unnamed.

So that was it, Robert thought. Morris had found proof that the old convent had been given to the sisters’ chaplain, presumably on their behalf. And then in his old age Cecil Quaile Woods had acknowledged that he had a son in his will. But the only evidence of the son’s identity was that handwritten extra dedication on the title page of his psalter. He had written in his copperplate writing
and my
son Henry Whinfell
. It was as if the priest had gone so far towards confessing – and then pulled back. Maybe in the full will he had been more explicit. But without that, it was only the psalter dedication that provided the missing link.

And if Quaile Woods had left everything to his son, and his son was Henry Whinfell, then would Whinfell’s descendants be entitled to the convent? Is that what Morris had been about to tell people? Using his tatty photocopies?

At the back of his mind Robert had been wondering why a dedicated local historian like Morris would tear out a page from an original Victorian book. But now he understood. Morris used the fax copier because it would take long documents; these were the wrong shape to reproduce exactly on a modern compact machine that would only take A4 paper. But if he had wanted to photocopy the psalter’s title page in a hurry, the only way to feed it into his machine would have been to remove it. Robert was willing to bet that Morris had intended to restore the page lovingly to the psalter once he had used the photocopy to prove his point. Maybe he had felt that taking the original of the title page over to the college was too great a risk.

So how had David Johnstone got hold of it? And where were the originals now? In fact, where were the originals of all these documents?

‘Look at this, Edwin . . .’

But Edwin was absorbed by a scrap of paper with a particularly interesting setting of the Nunc Dimittis scrawled on it. Was it by Stainer or by Quaile Woods? If the two worked together that closely, was it possible that Quaile Woods had even contributed to
The Crucifixion
? Stainer had condemned his own work later as too populist. Was it possible that Quaile Woods, with his simple faith and his terrible remorse over an illegitimate child, was the real inspiration behind the moving, accessible oratorio? Edwin’s head was spinning. But he needed the originals.

Robert put the documents carefully to one side while he went on probing in the bag to make sure there was nothing they’d missed. Loose at the bottom was a set of big unwieldy keys. To the convent? he wondered. Morris must have got them from the nuns, or Lord Cleaverthorpe, perhaps in his role of local historian. He must have been able to come and go pretty freely in order to find all this stuff.

Then the phone rang.

‘Bugger,’ said Edwin. ‘Just when we don’t want to be interrupted.’ He reached for it and Robert heard him say, ‘What?’ Edwin put his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to him. ‘It’s Neil. He says David Johnstone died this afternoon. And Neil wants to talk to us tonight. He says it doesn’t matter how late it is – he’ll be a while getting back from the hospital.’

‘We should go over there and see him,’ Robert said. ‘But look at this . . .’

Robert was just about to tell him about the documents when there was a tremendous banging at Edwin’s door. Edwin got up and went downstairs. He opened the front door of the cottage and looked at the hooded creature in front of him.

44

Yea, even mine own familiar friend, whom I trusted, who did also eat of my bread, hath laid great wait for me.
Psalm 42:9

Alex and Suzy went in through the oak doors; they both gasped. They were in the convent’s original chapel. It was rectangular with a few oak pews, and ahead of them was a cast iron grille with a door beyond to the left. The altar was behind the grille. The walls were covered with beautiful linenfold panelling and the floor yet again was in mosaics of all different colours. Above them, a vaulted ceiling was painted blue with golden stars and silver moons.

‘Sit down,’ Chloe said, shutting the oak doors behind her.

‘It’s fabulous,’ Alex breathed.

‘Yes,’ said Suzy. ‘But there’s no one else here. Where’s Lynn, Chloe?’ Suzy knew her voice sounded slightly shrill. This wasn’t right.

‘Just a little white lie, like about the Bishop,’ Chloe said softly. ‘Mum isn’t here. But Jenny is. Look!’

Suddenly, music from a CD player filled the chapel. It was some sort of plainsong, and after a moment Suzy recognized it as Psalm 22, traditionally sung on Maundy Thursday while the altar was stripped. Now it was sung in a girlish voice. I bet that’s a recording of Chloe, she thought. And then from the left, a small figure in a long white vestment came from the left-hand door. She was followed by much larger figure, hooded and in white, who immediately turned to the altar.

‘Oh God,’ said Alex. ‘This is downright creepy.’

‘Shush,’ said Chloe. She went past them to the side aisle where she too slipped a white hooded cassock alb over her head.

‘Who’s the man?’ Suzy said.

‘It’s Paul. It must be, because the woman is Jenny Whinfell.’

The three people, the large one flanked by the two smaller ones, genuflected, and the two women turned to face Alex and Suzy.

‘What is it, Tom?’

The boy stood there in his fleecy parka jacket, hood still up, swaying slightly, and looking awkward. ‘I feel like a right plonker now.’

‘That doesn’t matter. What do you want to tell us? Look, Mr Clark and I are really busy. Is this important?’

‘I don’t know!’ Tom growled.

‘Tom,’ Robert said, ‘sit down, just here on the sofa. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?’

‘Nah. I’m OK.’

‘So tell us why you’re here. You’ve got a big day tomorrow with the concert. You should be practising and resting, surely!’

‘But that’s it!’ Tom spluttered. ‘I couldn’t rest. I’m all on edge. This concert is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me. Almost . . .’ he added, in loyalty to Poppy.

‘So why did you come to see Mr Armstrong? Is it a problem with the music?’

‘Nah!’ Tom said, contemptuously. ‘Of course not! No, It’s Chloe. She’s my girlfriend’s best mate and I promised Pops that I’d keep an eye on her. When I couldn’t settle tonight – that’s excitement,
not
nerves –’ he said sternly to Edwin, ‘I decided to go up to Fellside. You see, it’s Maundy Thursday.’

‘Yes, Tom, we know that,’ said Robert patiently.

‘Well, it’s obvious.’ Tom was resuming his usual pitying tone to adults. ‘Chloe was at Fellside on Ash Wednesday with a big dirty smear on her head. Ash! I looked it up on the internet. They do that sometimes at communion services, but not round here. So I thought there must be something funny going on. And then I thought, maybe she’d be lurking around Fellside tonight too, Maundy Thursday, because there might be more weird services going on up there. And I was right.’

‘What do you mean, Tom?’ Robert said softly.

‘I saw Chloe coming in and out of the convent by a door down on the Workhaven Road. A couple of other people went in. One was that nice woman.’

‘Which nice woman?’

‘You know! Miss Gibson. And another woman. I couldn’t see properly who it was. They went in after Chloe. And then someone came round and locked that door after them. A man . . .’

Edwin looked at Robert. ‘The Anglican Innovative Women’s Group!’

‘But at the convent?’

‘Yes!’ Tom was shouting now. ‘I’m telling you there’s something funny going on there!’

‘But it’s all boarded up,’ Edwin said. ‘We can’t get in’

In answer, Robert held up the keys from the bottom of Morris Little’s carrier bag.

‘I think we can,’ he said.

‘Welcome,’ the man said sonorously. The plainsong chant filled the chapel and the smell of incense wafted towards them. Alex was looking faint. Claustrophobia, Suzy thought. She tried to make her voice sound normal, conversational, which was hard against the wailing plainsong. But this crazy pseudo-churchy environment was all wrong. She stood up.

‘Turn that music off!’ she called. ‘This isn’t a service. What on earth is going on here?’ She heard Chloe’s horrified gasp, which gave her more confidence. ‘Are we supposed to be having communion? Do you really have permission to be here?’

‘You should be seated,’ the man in the robes said in his chanting voice, his arms raised, facing the altar.

Suzy fought the atmosphere. ‘This is a travesty. What are you doing?’

Jenny Whinfell came down to stand at her side. ‘You’re supposed to be reverent,’ she hissed. ‘We’re the New Puseyites for the twenty-first century. Now is the time for a new discipline and an end to the decadence of the Western world. We’re starting a new religious order. It’s a brilliant idea. It’s for women to be both in the world and under the Rule. We identified you both as unhappy and unfulfilled women. We were too, Chloe and I. Now we have something to live for. I will be a good wife, and Chloe will be a virgin bride!’

‘That’s right,’ Chloe said. ‘It’s wonderful.’

‘And how long have you been involved in this, Chloe? Doing up the convent?’

‘Three months,’ Chloe said. ‘Since December.’

So that explained it, Suzy thought. She felt anger like a red tide. This man was a religious maniac. He must be obsessed. Religion was so often the spur to madness; she had seen it before. But in his case it was also linked to greed. This man was taking advantage of women at their weakest. But she wasn’t going to be one of them. She wondered what was in the chalice he had placed on the altar? Just alcohol? Or something designed to help lull their responses?

Still standing, Suzy said calmly, ‘This is all rubbish, Jenny and Chloe. I can see the attraction. But you’re wrong. A religious order isn’t a place to hide. Quite the opposite. Real orders are much tougher than this nonsense.’

She thought of Marilyn and her down-to-earth practical help for the needy from all classes of society. Those sisters were women who knew the world as well as anyone who was living in it, swamped by the day-to-day. They had the faith which meant they were prepared to face the worst criminals and hate the sin not the sinner. Jenny and Chloe’s dressing-up act seemed pathetic by comparison.

Suzy felt her brain gearing up. She needed time to think but she also needed to act. Somewhere in all this, she suddenly knew that Marilyn had the key. Marilyn had said she had seen someone she remembered in Fellside, someone she couldn’t quite place. And Marilyn worked with men who had committed crimes against women. Not just rape, but men who robbed old ladies or took advantage of teenagers. And where was she based? Derby. In the Midlands. Who else had told Suzy he was from the Midlands?

‘I know who you are,’ Suzy said to the big man in the hood. ‘And you’re a shabby con man.’

Jenny Whinfell made a noise between a scream and a shout of outrage.

Robert hurried towards the car, with Edwin and Tom behind him. ‘Just what did you see, Tom?’

‘I told you. Chloe came across the road with two women. One was Miss Gibson. Chloe opened the door to the convent cellars with a key. I could see beyond her to where the underground rooms were, all painted up white. They went in and then a man in a hooded jacket came.’

‘Where did he go then?’

‘He went in after them and slammed the door.’

‘But it’s just an old building, Tom. He might simply have been closing the door after them. Why were you so spooked?’

‘You don’t understand. He was all dressed in black with a red scarf round his face and a hood. I heard him locking the door from the inside. It’s the only way into the convent, and the door creaked and I heard the bolts thud. It was like a horror film. And now they’re in there with him.’

‘Were there any other people?’

‘Chloe and this man. And Miss Gibson and the other woman. They were the only ones I saw . . .’

‘It doesn’t sound like a normal church group meeting,’ Robert said. ‘I think we should call Neil Clifford and ask him to meet us there. He can tell us about David Johnstone later. But right now I think we might need the services of a real priest to find out what this is all about.’

‘Bloody right,’ said Edwin, and started to accelerate through the darkness of the deep-set country lanes towards Fellside.

‘Are we supposed to fall at your feet and take part in some ludicrous pseudo-service?’ Suzy was shouting.

Chloe looked edgy. Her eyes flickered from Suzy to the man in the hood.

‘So that’s it, is it?’ she called out. ‘For goodness’ sake, Chloe, how stupid do you think we are?’

Pretty stupid was the answer, she thought. She and Alex had been marked out. The pathetically grateful single parent and the middle-aged drunk, along with the confused teenager and the mother suffering post-natal depression.

‘Jenny, listen to me,’ she shouted. ‘Jesus died to take away our sins, not our brains! Religious orders are a good thing. But not for adolescents, and women just months after childbirth. You were at your most vulnerable. Think about it! You might wish to be weak, but we don’t. You’ve picked the wrong people. We’re going now,’ she said.

‘No! Don’t go!’ Chloe sounded desperate. ‘You must take communion!’

Suzy felt a new reserve of courage. She wasn’t going to let this cheap crook make fools of herself and her friend any longer. Or Chloe. Or even Jenny. He was sick, she was sure, and dangerous too, but she wouldn’t let him win.

‘How much money have you given him, Jenny? Where’s your student loan been going, Chloe?’

‘He’s our chaplain,’ Chloe said.

‘Oh, bollocks. He’s not even ordained,’ Suzy said. ‘I know who he is.’

Suzy walked towards the altar; then she stopped. She needed to get the man away from his position of power at the east end of the chapel. He needed to be brought into the body of the church and made to talk.

‘Face me!’ she yelled at the hooded figure. ‘Face me, Mark!’

Mark Wilson spun round and his hood tumbled off.

‘Oh God!’ Alex said, gasping and wheezing for breath. ‘I need to get out. Suzy, I can’t take this.’ She began to stumble towards the door.

Wilson calmly watched her. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘She can’t leave. The cellar door is locked and bolted.’

‘What’s this all really about, Mark?’ Suzy shouted, keeping a row of pews between her and Mark Wilson’s robed figure. She noticed that his cassock was crudely stitched, Chloe’s handiwork no doubt, and that his stole was a red velvet scarf. ‘How many people have you attacked to keep this crazy scam to yourself? Morris Little? Freddie Fabrikant? David Johnstone? Pat?’

For the first time, Wilson looked at her properly. ‘Not Morris,’ he said in his normal voice. ‘Just the others.’

Jenny Whinfell gasped. ‘Mark!’ she said in horror.

Almost casually, Wilson lashed out with his left hand and caught her on the side of the face. He didn’t even look at her. Then as she staggered, he kicked her expertly several times with a flick of his foot and she went sprawling into the nave, where she lay still. Chloe watched him, her face blank at first but then registering confusion. She still thinks he’s right, Suzy thought. Chloe has been brainwashed. But she has to realize . . .

Casually, Mark Wilson strolled towards Suzy.

‘Seeing you want to spoil our Maundy Thursday service and go straight to the homily, I’ll tell you. I didn’t kill Morris Little. But I knew he was going to spill the beans about who could inherit the convent. He called the Fellowship before Christmas to ask Paul to meet him. I took the message. He told me it was about this place. I already had my eye on it, so I went to the meeting instead of Paul, easy-peasy. Paul had told me all about his genealogical searches. He couldn’t talk to his stupid wife. She was too wrapped up in herself, until I got to her and made her see the light, selfish bitch!’

He kicked Jenny again, in passing. Chloe gasped. Now crouching on the floor, Jenny Whinfell whimpered.

‘So who killed Morris?’

Wilson laughed. ‘Not me! Someone else. I bet you’d like to know who! He met Morris first in the corridor. No one else was there and Morris told him all about how he’d discovered who really owned the convent. Morris showed him a photocopy of something. He said it proved Quaile Woods had a son and that his descendant should be the rightful owner! Your murderer asked if Morris had told anyone else and the fool sniggered and said, no, not yet. Your man went berserk. I saw him thwack Morris on the head with a handy bit of timber before taking the photocopy and legging it. Then I came out of the Music Department office and gave Morris an extra smash in the teeth – Psalm 58 – for his interference, and took the psalter just in case.’

‘Who was it, Mark? Who killed Morris?’

‘Wouldn’t you like to know? I needed to get rid of him too, of course. But God took care of that for me. I just bided my time and he came to me. Psalm 55. And the other nosy bastard too. Psalm 22 again – a good ’un. Bingo!’

‘So what are you going to do now, Mark?’ Suzy said almost conversationally. In the corner of her eye she could see, as Mark confidently walked down the nave to talk to her, that Chloe was behind him.

‘Oh, that’s easy!’ Wilson suddenly thrust out his left hand and took a burning candle from a tall candlestick at the side. ‘I’m going to deal with you and your tubby mate for a start. I know you’ve been on to me . . .’

Oh God, Alex thought as she gasped for breath by the locked door. Of course, Edwin had told Chloe all about their research and Chloe must have told Mark.

Wilson said, ‘You should know your Psalms, Mrs Spencer. Oops, sorry – Ms, isn’t it? Such a pity a lonely old cow like you didn’t join the order. It would have done you the world of good! We might even have had a little one-to-one study! Now listen. Do you know this one? Psalm 39:
My heart was hot within me and while I was thus musing, the
fire kindled . . .
Good one, eh? When the chapel burns down, and you lot in it, I’ll be the man who nearly, but not quite, got you out. I’ll be a hero round here and made for life. You’ll burn – and all this stuff too.’