The Discourtesy of Death (Father Anselm Novels) (22 page)

Anselm studied the sympathetic smile, drawn by her natural grace. This was a website photo. Bring your animals to me, she was saying. I’ll tend their wounds with loving care.

‘Doctor Ingleby thinks she resented everyone,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘Peter, Helen, Nigel, Ingleby himself … even Michael.’

‘Why?’ asked Mitch very interested.

‘Because she felt displaced in Jenny’s suffering,’ recalled Anselm. ‘She’d liked to have been the bringer of deliverance in her daughter’s life but she’d ballsed up by loving wrongly. She was the wrong kind of doctor, too. Found herself on the far end of the settee with the cushion slipping off. She’s full of bitterness while everyone thinks she’s the cheeky joker at the party … according to Doctor Ingleby.’

Mitch turned around.

‘She’s your author, Anselm,’ he said, confidently. ‘She hasn’t even told her husband. She’s already got Timothy in her own home. She wants to keep him there. Save the boy when she couldn’t save his mother. She can’t put his father down with a quick injection, but she sure as hell can get him banged away. She hopes to break the link between Timothy and his father. She wants you to do it for her.’

Mitch reached over to the coat stand and shrugged on his sheepskin jacket.

‘Why not tell Michael?’ asked Anselm, surprised again by Mitch’s peculiar improvisations. ‘Why not write together, even anonymously?’

‘Because she’s moving him around like a pawn on the board.’ Mitch tugged at a scarf. ‘Michael served the coffee to keep the peace. He’s kept quiet about his daughter’s death for the same reason. Someone’s raking up the leaves at Polstead while Peter’s in prison. Did you see the neat lawns? I bet you it’s him, swallowing his rage. Keeping things tidy, while Emma … Emma wants one hell of a mess. She’s waiting for you to accuse him of murder. C’mon. It’s time to let her read her own words.’

Mitch drove past the Spinning Mule and along the lane that led to the main road. Well back from the quiet junction, he slowed. A white net curtain was raised in a small, charming gate house, a cottage that had once belonged to the wool merchant by the Lark. A woman’s aged, smiling face was pressed to the glass. A thin hand waved and Mitch returned the gesture, striking his horn for added effect. He was in high spirits. Within the hour Emma would be exposed and the significance of the letter would be shattered. At the junction, Anselm spoke.

‘Turn right please.’

‘Her surgery’s to the left. Sudbury.’

‘I know. But I want to go to a village near the sea.’

‘Which one?’

‘Hollesley. There’s a prison nearby.’

‘What? Now … before you’ve found out if Emma is trying to use you?’

‘Yes, because Peter Henderson is expecting me today and I don’t want to disappoint him.’

Mitch pushed the gear lever into neutral and slumped back. ‘What else did Doctor Ingleby say?’

‘Nothing,’ replied Anselm. ‘But after he left me, I wondered where he might go if I was to think the worst of him. So I drove to Hollesley Bay prison on the coast. And, sure enough, there in the car park was the doctor’s Singer Chamois.’ Anselm reached over and pressed the right indicator down. ‘A prisoner has to book a visit in advance. But the doctor just turned up and used his influence. Whatever he had to say couldn’t wait. He had to bend a rule. And do you know what? He drove there in a classic car that made me think of Vincent Cooper. They’re all in this together, Mitch. Now, Peter’s had the weekend to think over what he wants to say and I’m ready to listen. As for Emma, she can wait. I don’t want to be harsh, but she’s had years to handle this crisis sensibly and sensitively. Fact is, she got cold feet.’

Michael tiptoed around the Killing House towards the rear door. That, too, had been padlocked but the bolt housing had been detached earlier that morning, to recreate the garden entrance back in Polstead. Leaning against the outside wall, he withdrew the Browning from behind his belt at the base of his back. With one hand he removed the silencer from his pocket. Slowly, quietly, head against the crack of the door, listening, he screwed the silencer onto the pistol. With his thumb he knocked off the safety catch. Arm cocked, the gun pointing upwards, he gently opened the door. He walked two steps to the imagined fuse box with the clip door. Going through the motions, his left hand slicing the air, he flicked up the trip switch, cutting the electricity to the house that Jenny had loved, the ideal home in which she’d hoped to die. Michael was already in darkness. There were twelve steps to the centre of the sitting room and the chair where Peter read his books on right and wrong.

‘Just think of Jenny,’ came Emma’s torn voice from Lavenham on the day he’d left for Holland.

‘I will.’

‘Keep her face in mind.’

‘Yes.’

‘She deserves to see him when … when you put him down.’

‘I know.’

‘She deserved someone much better. She deserved a happier life. She deserved the dancing career that she’d dreamed about and lost.’

Michael’s eyes had already adjusted to the loss of the light. There was no time to lose. Like anyone else plunged into sudden darkness, Peter would freeze for a moment. He would have the alert confusion of a man waiting for the light to come back on … as inexplicably as it had abruptly gone out. Michael had already counted to four…

You can’t hesitate. You turn out his light
.

Liam had listened at the door to an IRA veteran breaking in a new recruit. He’d learned what had to be done to advance a cause, once you’d accepted that violence was necessary. He’d shared the unpalatable truth with Michael; and Michael had listened for the sake of Eugene. A few days later he’d looked Néall Ó Mórdha in the eye. He’d never forgotten the moment. It had given him a glimpse of eternity. Which is why, this time, Michael had planned to cut the power. He didn’t want to see Peter’s raised face and the light of false hope. Ultimately, it was distracting. He’d tried to step around the memory of Ó Mórdha by rehearsing with the trader in Southwold but in the end he couldn’t face the man down. His childlike incomprehension, so like Ó Mórdha’s, had kept a lingering tremor in Michael’s hand; and it had to go.

…five, six…

‘People bring dogs to the surgery,’ explained Emma, close to his ear. ‘They’ve bitten someone and I put them down, quickly and painlessly. I have to. Because they might bite again. The thing has to go down. And, you know, when it’s lying there on the table, no longer dangerous, it looks peaceful; simply asleep. Grateful that it’s all over.’

…seven, eight…

The memories were rushing through Michael’s mind faster than he was moving down the corridor; their sound and texture ahead and behind, giving a push, drawing him on.

‘Peter is not a good man, Michael,’ murmured Emma, crushing Michael’s hands in hers.

‘I know.’

‘Before they locked him up he was mouthing off on the radio about morality.’

‘Darling, I remember.’

‘He went to prison for the wrong reason.’

…nine, ten. Michael was in the sitting room now, driven by the voices of an Irish gunman and an English vet, people who knew a thing or two about killing. He raised the Browning, striding towards the shape in the chair. He imagined Peter, book in hand, frozen by confusion.

…eleven…

‘He never cared for her.’ Emma was angling her head, coming closer to Michael. ‘And yet he got all the sympathy and praise.’

Twelve.

‘If you want peace,’ whispered Liam, ‘you’ll have to pull the trigger.’

BAM-BAM.

Michael had heard a mingling of detonations and screaming in his mind. But most important of all, against his fearful expectation, there’d been no hint of a still, small voice with something new to say. Not a whimper. Not a cough. Not a stutter. Which was a relief … as much as a strangely disappointing revelation. For such, in the end, was human conscience. When faced with the extreme crises that will haunt a man for the rest of his life, it had nothing to say, other than repeat his name.

What, then, had happened on the marshes by the Denes? Why had Michael felt the terrifying immanence of a fresh message? He’d got worked up, that’s all. With the memory of Jenny still vivid to his mind and the gulls screeching overhead, his imagination had got carried away. There was nothing else to it. That voice in his soul had simply been a distraction. A temptation for a coward who fears what has to be done. With daring and contempt, Michael put himself back in front of Néall Ó Mórdha. He stared provocatively at the candlelight flickering behind the black, wide pupils.

Michael, Michael, Michael.

Three times, like the three gates. Michael waited and then he laughed. There was nothing more to come.

BAM-BAM.

Forgetting the Donegal operation, Michael unhooked a mouldering curtain from a rusted nail. Light splashed into the dirty room. Standing over the chair, he checked the target. Dissatisfied, he began an appraisal of the operation.

His hands had been still. There’d been no wavering. Good.

He’d only hit Peter once, though, ripping a trough through the top right-hand side of the head. Not good.

What had gone wrong?

He’d been distracted by those voices. They’d come to help, but in the end they’d got in the way, making him a fraction too rushed, a hair too keen, a breath too angry. Now that his conscience was out of the way, he had to deal with these others.

‘I need to think of nothing and no one,’ said Michael, quietly. ‘Not about Peter or what he did. Not about Jenny. Or Eugene or Liam. I must bring the quiet of nothing. The quiet that doesn’t listen any more. The silence of death itself; so I can bring death.’

There were eight rounds left: one up the spout and seven ready to go. Michael retraced his steps, counting down from twelve. At the door to the sitting room of the Killing House he turned around. Peter was no longer in the chair. All he could see was a torn plastic bag holding a split cabbage and two sprouts. He felt nothing.

Anselm was familiar with HM Prison Hollesley Bay. He’d been there in his other life. Originally a training college for those intending to emigrate throughout the empire it had, after a spell as a labour colony for London’s unemployed, become a borstal and then a prison complex for Category D men and young offenders, counting Brendan Behan and Jeffrey Archer among its more distinguished alumni. Peter Henderson, being a Cambridge don, had brought a sort of silk trim to the club’s standard gown of ignominy. The opportunities of the old world had slowly given way to the problems of the new.

A word with the governor secured not only a visit at short notice but Peter Henderson’s temporary release. He would, after all, be freed in two days anyway.

‘You’ll have to wait an hour or so,’ explained the governor. ‘He’s giving a literacy class.’

The delay presented Anselm with a last-minute opportunity to reflect. Turning to Mitch, he said, ‘Bring him to Shingle Street please.’

Anselm walked onto the deserted beach of smooth pebbles. He’d passed a sign saying:

‘Shingle Street is Special. Only you can keep it that way’

And another which made the often ignored link between the special and the dangerous:

‘WARNING. Strong Currents. Unsuitable for Bathing’

The sky was completely swept of cloud. A misty pale blue swung down to the cold, slate grey of the sea and a thin string of houses, closed up for the season. The beach itself was wide and long with vegetation sprouting here and there among the shingle. It looked more like scrubland or desert. A place for Clint Eastwood to appear bringing rough justice. The terrain of
Unforgiven
. But the wind was wet and cold. This was Suffolk. No one was going to kick a door down, swear and send the damned flying from their chairs. Shivering, Anselm thrust his hands into his habit pockets. There were two competing narratives about the death of Jenny Henderson. Only one of them could be right.

As a matter of logic – thought Anselm – Jenny Henderson could simply have been brutally murdered. Peter Henderson might have snapped under the strain of caring. He might have got drunk and lost his head. He might have wanted his life back in London sooner rather than later. All manner of scenarios presented themselves. And Anselm excluded them all. Just as he’d now excluded the possibility that Peter Henderson had faked his kindness after the accident. Such vistas were inconsistent with what he’d learned about Peter Henderson’s character. And it was unlikely that Doctor Ingleby would have agreed to conceal any such conduct. The most compelling picture – which Anselm took very seriously – was that Peter Henderson had effectively forced Jenny to consent to her own dying through a seductive but ultimately sinister compassion. Why? Because he thought it was for the best.

It would be very easy to do. All it would take was honesty when no one else was around. The weighed-down look. The tired voice. The anxiety for Timothy. Troubled glances. Always trying one’s best. Strained fussing. False cheerfulness. A sigh in the kitchen. They would all add up to an incredible weight that would easily crush the spirit of an already crushed woman. Peter Henderson could have built up that weight, without even realising what he was doing. Or through wilful blindness. Or by hardening himself to what was happening … because he thought it was right.

For Jenny.

For Timothy.

And, yes, for himself.

And if his conscience began to speak, then he’d have shut it out or turned the other way: this can be done. Anselm had seen it many times, in good men and bad. And everyone else, those watching, will have seen his genuine kindness; because it was genuine. He was helping her down a very difficult road. His compassion couldn’t have been deeper.

In those circumstances – in effect pressure – Jenny could easily have
wanted
to end her life. Vincent Cooper had evoked the most damning and terrible scene … Peter being kind, and Jenny constantly saying sorry. So she’d made a choice. And afterwards – this was Anselm’s fear – Peter had done nothing to dissuade her. He’d given her his
support
. He’d backed
her
wishes. And by so doing he’d nudged her towards a calm that no one had properly understood. It was the calm of surrender. And having surrendered, it would have been very difficult for Jenny to tell Peter she wasn’t so sure … that she’d even changed her mind. To the extent that if she did … if she tried … even Peter Henderson wouldn’t have listened. Because bowel cancer when you’re paralysed isn’t very nice. Not for the patient. Not for those watching. The momentum towards a controlled, quick and merciful death was under way and he wouldn’t want to consider the alternative … the undignified, drawn-out suffering, watched by a boy who still loved Spiderman. Had he used the Exit Mask? Not if Jenny didn’t ask for it. Not if she was lingering a bit too long through lack of courage. Perhaps Peter Henderson had found another way when Jenny wasn’t looking. Perhaps Doctor Ingleby had helped him.