The South Lawn Plot (9 page)

T
HE TAXI HAD BEEN RATTLING
its way across London for twenty minutes before Henderson said a word.

“Needs new shocks.”

The reference to the vehicle's sorry state was not directed at Bailey. Henderson was merely thinking aloud. He continued to look out the window. Occasionally, he would name a street. At one intersection he relayed a grim history. Just down the lane to the right was the scene of a stabbing murder. He mentioned a name. It didn't ring a bell with Bailey. Probably years ago, he thought. But Henderson sure knew his London.

The city had fallen into a fallow period between the time that night revelers finally headed home and the first business of the new day started up. It was a diminishing span, but London was not quite yet Bangkok.

The relative calm allowed the taxi to cover the distance from Bailey's flat to Downing Street in short order, despite its condition. The driver said nothing. He too sensed that the heavy-set man who occasionally talked to himself wasn't up for chit-chat.

The driver had reggae music playing at low volume on his radio and from time to time he barked something to his dispatcher. Each man was working his own patch. Bailey knew what his was, and what the driver's was. Henderson right now was a complete mystery.

“We're nearly there,” Henderson said, this time clearly directing his words at Bailey.

“Yeah, things have been getting familiar the last mile,” Bailey replied.

He wanted to go on, ask Henderson what the hell they were doing out in the wee hours. But he opted for a less direct approach.

“I take it the paper was gone by the time you got the news.”

Henderson said nothing for a moment. “No, it wasn't,” he replied.

Bailey, who had been slouched in his seat, pulled himself up. He waited.

“I got the call, but the deal was I couldn't run with the story. Nobody else
will have it in this morning's editions. Television and radio will get it later and so will the
Evening Standard
.”

“But we'll get something extra,” Bailey said.

“We'll see in just a few moments, won't we?” said Henderson. “Just in here, pull in behind that parked car across the street if you can.”

The driver appeared to jump slightly in his seat. He pulled his cab across the opposite lane which was free of traffic, and in behind a dark colored car. The Downing Street security gate was visible just a few yards farther on.

Henderson paid the driver and by the reaction from the man Bailey reckoned that a generous tip had been proffered.

Bailey moved to get out of the cab but a strong hand grabbed him by the arm.

“Wait a minute,” Henderson said. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and began hitting numbers. Somebody answered, and Henderson began to speak. After identifying himself he said “yes,” “okay” and “yeah” for about thirty seconds before turning off his phone.

“Sit tight for another minute,” he said.

The driver said nothing, evidently happy to absorb the extent of Henderson's largesse.

Henderson said nothing, and Bailey tried to restrain himself. His self-discipline didn't last.

“Eh, I don't suppose there's any place around here where a working man can get curried chips?”

Henderson was silent.

The driver wasn't. “Maybe we can order some by phone and charge it to the prime minister,” he said.

“Now, there's an idea. A kind of tax rebate,” Bailey said.

Henderson turned his eyes towards Bailey and glared. “Put a sock in it. I'm working on something.”

Bailey shrugged, and the driver shifted again in his seat. The tip was beginning to wear off. Before it finally expired, Henderson opened the door and stepped onto the pavement. Bailey didn't need an order, or an invitation. With a quick good night to the driver he was standing on the street.

Henderson was already half way to the parked car. Bailey set out in his wake. He had figured out that the occupants of the car were coppers. It was Henderson's exact role in whatever all this was about that he couldn't put a precise finger on.

Bailey shivered. He remembered some line about the coldest hour being just before the dawn. It clearly also applied to the second, third or whatever it was.

He hesitated for a moment, not quite certain what to do. Henderson had slipped into the parked car. The taxi pulled past him and headed down past the Downing Street entrance and into the night. There was only one place to go. Bailey covered the last few steps to the car and opened the rear passenger door.

He caught the whiff of perfume as he sat inside.

Henderson, his head leaning back on the seat, had his eyes closed. He appeared to be sleeping, though Bailey knew that to be impossible. Henderson, so far as he could tell, didn't need sleep like other mortals and probably managed with less than the reputed three hours, give or take, that sufficed for Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill.

Bailey recognized Plaice at once even though the detective superintendent was only showing the back of his head. The car's driver was the source of the perfume, but he could only make out the back of a head adorned with short hair that appeared fair, though not blonde. The car was turned off, and there was not even a glow from the dashboard.

“Good morning, Mr. Bailey,” said Plaice. “Sorry to have you up and out at such an ungodly hour, but you can thank Bob for that.

Henderson did not respond.

“No bother at all,” said Bailey. “In my next life I'm going to be a night watchman. Nice and peaceful job.”

“Well,” said Plaice, “you could be a policeman. That's how we started out you know, being the night watch.”

Henderson stirred and coughed. “Nick isn't interested in history, just the next story,” he said.

It was actually an attempt at humor, but it missed the mark.

“Then we should move on,” said Plaice sternly. “Oh, excuse me, Mr. Bailey, this is Detective Sergeant Samantha Walsh.”

“Top of the mornin',” said Bailey in a bad imitation of an Irish accent.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Bailey,” said Walsh in an accent that was as London as his own. She half turned, and Bailey could make out the face of a woman of about thirty, attractive though no bombshell, with a strong chin and slightly coquettish, perked up nose.

Not bad for the plod, Bailey thought.

Henderson shattered the moment.

“We definitely have something. But just what is it?”

He was throwing the question out generally. Bailey shrugged, Walsh looked at her superior.

“What we have,” Plaice said slowly and deliberately, “is a series of unusual deaths with a common, though as yet unpublicized thread that is seemingly linking them together.”

Plaice paused for a moment. He was, Bailey thought, assembling a jumble of half-baked theories and ideas into a sequence, of sorts at any rate.

“First of all we have a priest dangling from Blackfriars in an apparent suicide. No matter what the truth of the matter, that will likely be the view of the coroner's hearing. Second, we have another priest from the same obscure order who apparently tumbled over a cliff to his untimely demise. That will likely result in an official verdict of accidental death.”

“We have two deaths. The first seems highly suspicious for the simple reason that instances of clergy killing themselves are extremely rare. The second, well, I'll allow DS Walsh to throw in her sixpence worth on that one.”

Walsh turned around almost completely, and Bailey could make just about out her full face by the glow of a nearby streetlight. She was better looking full frontal, Bailey thought. He smiled, but it was a wasted effort. Walsh was working.

“The spot where the priest went over the cliff is only yards from another part of the cliff walk where anyone intent on suicide would more likely choose. It's a sheer drop from there almost a hundred feet to a cluster of jagged rocks.”

“But of course the local police are not thinking in terms of suicide. They have been working on the basis of an accident given that there were no signs of foul play, the priest had no known enemies, had lived in the area for several years without incident, and appeared completely happy in his life and work. In addition, there hasn't been a murder in the area since the 1950s. The local constabulary has only had to deal with accidents so far as anyone can remember.”

Walsh paused, allowing the three men to absorb to ponder the conclusions of their faraway colleagues. She didn't buy them, and she was certain that she would not be alone long in the view that the locals had got it all wrong.

“By the way,” she said, this time directly to Bailey, “I'm talking about a place in Cornwall called Little Polden. The dead priest's name was Father Jeffrey Dean.”

Bailey had a vague recollection, a couple of paragraphs in one of the other papers.

“Sure, okay,” he said.

“Well,” Walsh continued, “Father Dean knew the area well. He would have known the ideal lover's leap, and he would have known the place where he fell over the edge was not particularly dangerous.”

“But he fell over anyway,” said Bailey.

“Had he just stumbled over while standing or walking by, he would not have come to any harm,” said Walsh.

“The rocks below the cliff at that point are even more deadly looking than the lover's leap ones, but there's a grassy ledge just out of sight of the cliff's edge.”

“Ah,” said Bailey.

“Father Dean, being familiar with the area, would have known about it. Of course, if he was intent on killing himself he could simply have stepped onto the ledge and then off it. The end result would have been the same as at lover's leap.”

“But you don't buy two priestly suicides,” said Bailey. He was conscious of Henderson's eyes boring into him.

“We're not convinced there was even one,” said Plaice, “but please continue, Sam.”

Sam, Bailey thought; very cute.

“What I, we, believe might have happened is that Father Dean was not alone. That he might have been helped on his way, but by someone who might not have been so familiar with the locality. To fall over where Father Dean went over, you would have to jump twice. Or be pushed very strongly once.”

“That's okay as a theory goes, but that's all it is. The best you can expect with that is an open verdict.”

Walsh looked at Plaice. Bailey noticed the nod from the detective superintendent.

“There was someone in the area about a week before the, well, incident, who visited Father Dean at his rectory. Dean was attached to a small parish about two miles outside Little Polden and used to ride a bike to church services.”

“He was a fit enough man then,” said Bailey.

“Yes,” he was, quite the fitness fanatic in fact,” Walsh replied.

“We went through all his stuff, his books, family knick knacks and his wardrobe.”

“As you would do,” said Bailey.

“Funny thing was, he had no coats with any buttons in them. In addition to his working outfits he had lots of wooly sweaters, a couple of windbreakers and tracksuits. He did not have any coats with buttons, not even a long black one, the kind that priests use.”

“Hardly reason for excommunicating the man,” said Bailey.

He was conscious all of a sudden that he and Walsh were dealing back and forth between themselves. Their superiors were just listening, letting the two of them work through the muddle of supposition and conjecture to some, as yet undisclosed, final conclusion.

“No,” said Walsh. “But when I looked around the spot where he went over the edge I found this.”

Walsh had reached into her pocket and had pulled out a plastic baggie.

Bailey couldn't quite make out the small object inside.

“What is it?”

“It's a button,” she said. “A button with a piece of thread still attached and also a tiny swatch of material. It was well down in a tussock of grass on the ledge, very easy to miss.”

“Unless you were down on your hands and knees feeling every inch of the ledge,” said Bailey.

“Precisely,” Walsh replied with some emphasis.

“Somebody, or more than one other body, helped our poor priest over the edge,” said Bailey. “The good father, fit as he was, put up a bit of a fight and managed to get his hand around a button and rip it off the killer's coat.”

“That is exactly what I think happened, Mr. Bailey,” said Walsh. “But as you know, it's a long way from thinking something to proving it.”

“Not if you write for a tabloid, Detective Sergeant,” Bailey replied.

He wondered if she had noticed his wink.

But she had turned around and had started the car.

“Which one of you gentlemen lives closest? Number Ten is booked for the night so it will have to be home sweet home.”

Bailey stared at Walsh's illuminated frame. He didn't want the moment to end too soon.

“He does,” he said pointing at Henderson, who, by his silence, allowed his subordinate's little lie to pass.

D
OES THE PRIEST SAY HIS MASS HERE
?”

“No, it is not safe to do so. It is offered in the house. Perhaps you would like to attend during your stay.”

“Perhaps.”

“I detect a little uncertainty, John. Are you unsure of our faith, our principles and our designs?”

“No,” Falsham replied with emphasis. “But I am unsure of priests. They are hunted and though some might possess a strength that is divine, I find most of them all too human and inclined to babbling beyond what is their preserve.”

“Let me tell you of a priest, John. He was once inclined to great conversation, and his faith was matched only by his wit in all manner of things. He was also given to being outspoken, and some would say to a fault; but he was fearless in defense of our faith, and similarly erudite in condemning the heresy that is a sad fact of our modern times.”

Cole, as if in sympathy with his subject, let out a long, rasping cough.

“As you know, our plot to see off this king and his fellow usurpers at Westminster was thwarted. I had this friend who was taken to the tower for what, happily, was just a brief interlude. In time, it became known to me that he would face what the king apparently believed to be the gentler tortures. He was ready to make his peace with God and, pray heaven, be borne to him on the wings of whatever angel might still be watching over him.”

Cole seemed to smile and for a moment is seemed to Falsham that his friend was in ascendance over his body's pain.

“Well, there my friend sat in his cold dungeon awaiting his fate. But God's hand was at work beyond his door. One of the jailers, a large fellow with few teeth, seemed to take pity on him.

“And it was more than that. It was the case that his wife was of our faith and about to deliver another in a long line of very hungry children. This jailer, though by no means entirely supportive of our cause, had spoken to someone else about my friend's situation, at the urging of his good woman. In turn, he
began to speak to my friend of a man who desired to see his plight reduced. He merely hinted at first; or tried to. He was rather a simple soul, and clearly not given to great deceit.

“The jailed man, my friend, had suffered through some of those preliminary gentler tortures, which, John, I can assure you were anything but gentle. At this time, and it was timely for sure, mere speech from the jailer began to take the form of action.

“The jailer told my friend of a man who had come to him, a man of some wealth, it seemed. This mysterious person had offered a mad, yet compelling proposal. For a sum of money, one apparently large enough to feed all the jailer's children until they were as fat and grown as he, the man would take my friend's place in the tower and submit himself to the fate that had been so cruelly prescribed for him.”

Falsham's brows were furrowed and he began to kick the ground with the toe of a boot. Cole sensed that Falsham was both impatient and having difficulty in believing his story.

“Before I go any further, John, look at me. I am here, not in another place of God's choosing, and there is a reason for this.” Cole waited a few moments until he was sure he not only had Falsham's full attention, but that his friend appreciated the importance of his account.

“The money, or part of it,” said Cole, “was quickly handed over. My friend's as yet unknown benefactor was quick enough in the head to draw the jailer into his little plot before he could take flight from it. Once money had been exchanged he was like a fish in this mysterious stranger's net.

“The jailer came to my friend late one night and explained how it would all transpire. Unluckily for my friend, the jailer also explained, he would have to suffer the evils of the rack and other instruments up to the eve of his anticipated execution. This was unavoidable and necessary and indeed he did suffer these things, and the evidence will be with him until the end of his days.

“The night before the man was to be roped, drawn and quartered, the jailer came to his cell. It was late. He told the man that he was going to beat him about the face to the point where he would be all bloodied and bruised.

“He would explain later to the warden of the tower that the man had attempted to attack him and had denounced his majesty with such low words that he could not hold back. What the man was unaware of was that his benefactor had already suffered at the hands of this seemingly brutish jailer, though as part of the plan.”

“So what happened next?” said Falsham.

Cole took a breath, one as deep as his body would allow.

“The jailer carried my friend to another, empty cell where his benefactor was waiting in an equally sorry state. They exchanged no words, John. My friend could barely move his lips anyway, but he later told me that he would never forget the look in the other man's eyes. It was not love, John. It was something far beyond that, something he had never seen before except in his imaginings of our savior Jesus. The man had the look of Jesus in his eyes, John; this I swear to you on what remains of my life.” Cole took another breath.

“What happened next?” said Falsham once more. He was leaning closer to his friend, not wanting to miss a single detail.

“As it was told to me the mysterious man was put in my friend's clothes and moved to his cell.”

“Did he resemble your friend in any physical way?”

“After that ham-fist of a jailer had done his worst John, neither man resembled any person. Only the benefactor's eyes seemed to have survived the beating, and even then my friend could see they were swollen. His beard was identical to my friend's, and his hair of similar hue.

“In total length and circumference both men were the same, and I suppose in similar clothes they could have passed for each other, unless a careful study was made.”

“And it was he who was executed the following day?” said Falsham

“Yes. The jailer took my friend through the more foul and stench-ridden passages in the tower and to a door leading into a street. His wife was waiting. My friend was told to behave as if he had too much ale, as if he had spent the night in some Southwark brothel. He managed with little effort because he was drunk with pain. The woman was almost as strong as her husband, but she had a virtuous voice. She prayed quietly as they made their way to a safe house, not hers and her husband's as it turned out, but of an accomplice to the man now spending his last night alive in my friend's cell.”

“He was not recognized the following morning?”

“He was not. The jailer made sure he was assigned to lead the escort party. My friend's original inquisitors were not present as much of the torture had been carried out at night, and this was now dawn. They were in their beds, warm and undisturbed by thoughts of execution. Their damnable work was done.

“I have no doubt that some eyes closely regarded the man being taken to
his death, but to those eyes there was nothing strange in the sight of a broken and mutilated body, especially when that of a condemned man.”

“And this savior. His identity?”

“My friend, now blessedly free, had been instructed not to ask too many questions. But, and as you might now suspect, he was a brave and holy man. He was smitten with the deepest consumption and an even deeper rooted desire to be a martyr for God, our blessed mother and our church.”

“He died on the scaffold? By rope or by the axe?”

“I do not know for sure. But he did not take his own life. Others did. He is in heaven, John, where soon, I hope, I will get to know him better. He might well be a saint by now. I shall look out for his halo.”

Falsham smiled. Humor yet lived in his friend though his better humors had deserted him.

“An extraordinary tale,” he said. And if I'm not mistaken the friend who was freed in such unlikely circumstances is not too far distant. He is that priest perhaps, the one so outspoken and the one now hidden in a cavity in your house?”

“It is an extraordinary tale, one of such luck,” replied Cole. “If it had been me in that dungeon, I am certain I would have died without a saint so much as sparing me a
pater noster
.

“But you are correct in your assumption. My friend is close, and, indeed, he is that priest. But the point of my story was not so much to inspire as to impress that, if we are to carry out our task, we will be required to display a selfless devotion to match both this priest and the man who martyred himself for him. Any life can be forfeit, and my life will soon end, and possibly even before God intends. But there can be a purpose in death than can change the course of events. It was so with my friend the priest and his God-sent benefactor, and it will be so with me, and you, my God-sent benefactor.

“We struck at the king, John, and we failed. I have considered the reasons for that failure very closely and know now how me must, and will, succeed in our next attempt.”

“And who exactly are we?” replied Falsham.

“Fewer in number than before, but we will match numbers with cunning,” said Cole.

“What is fewer?”

“Fewer, for the present, John, is but two. You and me.”

“But what of our friends in London?” Falsham said, the tone of his voice rising.

“Perhaps they explained to you, John, that they have a plan to kidnap the king and replace him on the throne with some relative. It is a foolish and capricious scheme, one I believe is doomed before it unfolds. Our friends mean well, but they will miss their mark. Besides, London is awash with spies. I would be surprised if even now they are not compromised. I assume that they merely know you as John?”

Falsham, nodding, said nothing.

Cole was staring intently at him. Falsham closed his eyes and drew in the sweet smell of the forest and the new growth of spring. Somewhere, from the direction of the great house, a jackdaw cackled.

The rain, which had been light, was steadier now and Falsham stretched his right hand with open palm to catch drops. After a minute he drew his hand back and rubbed the rainwater into his eyes. He had forgotten how restorative English rain could be.

“How do we kill a king?”

Cole did not immediately reply, not until Falsham noticed a faint smile taking hold of his friend's otherwise pained countenance.

“To kill a king, we must first save him,” he said.