Unholy Dying (27 page)

“Good point. And if there
is
anything more”—Oddie shrugged—“the girl is about to go to Oxford, it seems.”

“Where anything goes, you mean?”

“That wasn't
quite
what I meant,” protested Oddie. “But at least she'll be away from this particular influence, and she'll be prepared for anything. I wasn't quite convinced by the lady's protestations that she'd been supercareful: they didn't jell with being unable to avoid special tutorials at home.”

They were interrupted by the headmaster coming back into his study. He was keeping his face studiedly neutral, being the complete professional.

“Got all you want?”

“For the moment,” said Oddie, collecting his things together and getting up. “It's not over till someone's in handcuffs.”

“May that be soon. I'm thinking of Samantha Horrocks. She needs to settle down if she's to get the grades she needs for Oxford.”

Oddie nodded.

“Yes, so Miss Daltrey said. Just one small thing before we go: when we were talking about your taking this matter up with Miss Daltrey, you said that ‘another business' came up so it got put to one side.”

“And when we were talking about the Leary family earlier,” said Charlie, “you seemed about to say something, then changed your mind.”

Peter Frencham thought, then seemed to decide he had no choice.

“You're too sharp for me,” he said. “I had very much hoped to
keep this within the school. Hoped too that it was on the sort of small scale that would allow me to do that with a clear conscience. . . . We have this new boy, Ben Hayman, whose father, I've just found out, is the new sports coach at our equivalent school in Bingley, which explains a lot. Didn't want his son going to the same school, which is very wise. Ben is a nice lad, with a wicked sense of humor, but I took him seriously when he tipped me off about drugs.”

“The usual drugs?”

“Not what you mean by that, I suspect,” said Frencham, marshaling his thoughts. “I'm talking about performance-related drugs for athletes. It's a new problem for me, though obviously a big one in the professional sports field. This has always been a strong school for sports. I haven't tried to change that, though I have tried to strengthen the academic side. But sports have altered, haven't they? In the past sports were a bit glamorous in a schoolboy's mind, made you popular with the girls—though I don't think it ever worked in the opposite direction for girls. But now it's also money. The sporty kids dream of being top athletes and raking in the sort of sums you read about Beckham and Christie and Henman making. Ben mentioned a drug called Andraol. It's banned, and it's just about affordable at street prices to a schoolkid, and apparently it's circulating here.”

“And the finger is pointing at Mark Leary and Lennie Norris.”

“Yes. Leary has always been rather a charismatic figure: good-looking, multitalented at sports. Likes the girls and they like him. Norris worries me greatly, because drugs getting around among the thirteen-year-olds is a serious business, and it seems likely he's being used as the pusher. I need a lot more evidence, but that figures. Lennie has always been a bit of a smartarse. Now he's going around with the sort of clothes and gear and appendages that I know his parents can't afford—though,
as you may have gathered, they'd be silly enough to give them to him if they
could
afford them.”

“Mark's parents, on the other hand, have money.”

“They do. Mark has always been under strong pressure from his father. The man's an achiever, and he expects his son to do well in sports, and academically too. It may be that Mark started taking the drugs for the usual reasons, then started supplying them to get himself a lot more pocket money. . . . But I don't think this can have anything to do with the Horrocks murder, can it?”

“It's hard to see how,” said Oddie. “But I think you'd be well advised to put this in the hands of the local police. . . . OK, OK, I would say that. But think of the sort of stink there's going to be if this drug—and heaven knows what else—is being passed around in your lower forms, and you've tried to keep it an internal matter.”

Frencham looked worried, then nodded. He ushered them out of his office and they began the walk back to their car.

“This boy Ben Hayman, is he around?” asked Charlie as they emerged into the playground. Frencham stood scanning the noisy, crowded space, then altered his course slightly. They ended up eventually by a gangling black teenager doing brilliant rolls and jerks and handstands on the bare tarmac, more circus acrobatics than gymnastics.

“Hi, Ben,” said Peter Frencham. The boy did a brilliant jump to right himself and land on his feet in front of them. His eyes immediately showed he knew who he was talking to.

“Hi, Mr. Frencham.”

“How are things? You never told me your father was a teacher at Bingley Morton Road.”

“I couldn't stand the shame, sir.”

“Oh, being a coach is a lot less shameful than any other kind.”

“Well, that's true. And incredibly less than being a headmaster. . . . We're living in temporary accommodations at the moment.”

“Oh,” said Frencham, obviously wondering what was coming.

“Awfully cramped. I mean, sharing a room with my kid sister! I'll be glad when we get something bigger. Lennie Norris has a room all to himself at home.”

“Quite a lot of children have that these days, with smaller families.”

“And his parents are never, ever allowed over the threshold,” the boy said, looking straight at Oddie and Charlie. “Wow!”

And Ben scurried off to join his friends.

“We've been given a tip-off,” said Charlie.

“We all have,” said Peter Frencham, and he took them to their car and said good-bye.

“I'd be willing to bet he's going straight back to his office to ring the Shipley station,” said Charlie.

“Let's go back there and find out. They'll need to search the Leary boy's home as well, but it sounds as though he's using Lennie Norris's place as his store, and the boy as his fall guy. Probably his own hands are kept lily-white.”

“I suppose this is hardly our business, and we ought to leave it up to them,” said Charlie. Oddie detected a wistful note in his voice.

“I can't see any connection with the Horrocks murder that might give us an in. On the other hand, both boys belong to families that are in our investigation. What's your interest?”

“I'm just remembering what you said about the nervousness of the boy's mother, Mary Leary. I don't suppose that was connected with this, but on the other hand, this could be a catalyst to bring it all out. What
is
griping her?”

“Maybe we could get you permission to sit in with the Shipley
force while I go and talk to the Bishop—if His Lordship is willing to talk to me. I can't see him being enthusiastic,” said Oddie.

But when he rang the Bishop's office, on their return to the Shipley station, he encountered a cool courtesy on the part of his secretary, something obviously laid down from above. The Bishop was not sure how he could help, but if the chief inspector was sure it was important, the Bishop would alter his schedule for a brief talk.

Oddie said it was important.

The woman in reception at the Bishop's office was sweetness itself, though it was the sweetness of honed steel.

“You must be Superintendent Oddie,” she said, coming forward to shake his hand. “I'm Bernadette Cullen. I'll tell the Bishop you're here. He'll want to see you as soon as possible, because he has a lot on.”

The manner was much warmer than the guarded, cool response on the phone an hour before. Again, decision from above, presumably. Her boss had, on reflection, decided on a policy of delighted cooperation. An authoritarian bishop who made PR-based decisions on the grounds of expediency had the hackles of Oddie's neck twitching from the start. They began rising in earnest a minute or two later when the man emerged from an inner room with two priests and one wispy, gingery little layman of middle age and middle stature. Oddie had been briefed by Charlie about Julie Norris's account of the investigating committee she had been interviewed by. This was it.

The Bishop was tall, lean, and fit, with fair hair and assertive
features—a figure that commanded respect, with the accent on “command.” He kept people in their place by expecting, even assuming, that they knew it. The fact that he was currently exhibiting geniality and openness did not change Oddie's assessment that he was not likely to brook opposition, and not likely to suffer fools at all.

“Father Maclise, Father Donovan, and Gerald Beany. This is Superintendent Oddie. These three gentlemen are the committee investigating the allegations against Father Pardoe. Since they were meeting here today anyway—quite independently of me; I have nothing to do with the process—I thought I'd interrupt them and bring them along in case you had any questions for them.”

Oddie made a gesture of denial. He had no wish to be associated with the disciplinary process initiated by the Bishop.

“No, no. Your procedures are entirely your affair. Horrocks was—well, let's call him an investigative journalist. No doubt he had been involved in probing into all sorts of people and situations recently. The story about Father Pardoe was simply the one he happened to be running at the time he was murdered. It may be entirely irrelevant.”

“I'm sure that will turn out to be the case,” said the Bishop.

“I have spoken to the woman who wrote to you,” said Oddie, making it clear he was choosing his words with care and addressing the Bishop alone. “It's a type that's dying out, though it's one that when I joined the force was well known to the police. We had dealings with many such. I imagine you have some stronger evidence than hers.”

“You have the advantage of us in having met her,” said the younger of the two priests, Father Donovan. “We made the decision that our job was simply to look into the truth of the allegations.”

It was as close as he could come in the Bishop's presence to
an admission that they had no stronger evidence than Doris Crabtree's. Oddie raised his eyebrows.

“I'm told by my sergeant that the young woman—Julie Norris, is living in very straitened circumstances. Out-and-out poverty, to put it bluntly. I'm sure she told you this herself, but his observations back her up.” He turned to the Bishop. “But the Fund is something I should talk to you about, isn't it, My Lord?”

The geniality was perceptibly decreased in the Bishop by now, and, tight-lipped, he nodded and said, “If you've no questions to ask the committee, perhaps you'll come through to my office. Mrs. Cullen will bring us coffee.”

He led the way, his back unbending, down a passageway and into a comfortable but not lavishly furnished office, large enough to allow medium-size meetings or impromptu gatherings to take place there. He waved Oddie to an armchair and took his place at the desk, where he loomed even larger over the just-regulation-height policeman. Mrs. Cullen fussed around for a minute or two with coffee and cream and sugar, then she tactfully withdrew without a word.

“Just to wind up the matter of the committee,” said the Bishop. “Father Pardoe is talking to them early next week, then they will be sieving the evidence and coming to their conclusions. I have no idea what those will be.”

Oddie nodded a kind of acceptance of this. He had noticed the older priest, who had said nothing during their encounter, and he had concluded that Julie was right, that the Bishop worked through him. What was not so clear was what made the Bishop tick. Or rather, in a man who clearly loved power, what had made him exercise it so emphatically in this particular case, then claim to be no part of the process.

“As I said, the committee is not really my business,” Oddie resumed, “but what they are investigating is, or may be. When
what they call ‘human interest' stories are blazoned throughout the popular press, people get hurt. It's not too far-fetched to wonder whether one of the people involved may have wanted to hit back.”

The Bishop considered, his fingers forming a pensive triangle.

“I'd be the last person to try to teach you your business, Superintendent, but wouldn't something closer to home be more likely?”

“His family, you mean? His colleagues at work? A great many people are suggesting that. I've just come from a matter connected to his family, and my sergeant was in the Midlands yesterday on a matter relating to his work. In a case like this, you have to juggle a lot of balls, keep them all in the air.”

“Of course, of course.”

“When you suspended Father Pardoe, did you anticipate the sort of press interest in the matter that in fact there has been?”

A slight touch of the turkey cock appeared in the Bishop's face.

“Not at all! I tried to combine discretion with a proper investigation of the allegations. I take it very badly that Pardoe has seen fit to go public. We have an obligation to be careful not to bring scandal on the Church itself.”

“Just to correct you for a moment,” said Oddie, holding up a hand to stem the flow. “I feel pretty sure that Pardoe never spoke to Horrocks at all, only to the
Telegraph and Argus
after the scandal broke. All indications are that Horrocks got on to the story by listening to two St. Catherine's parishioners scan-dalmongering about it in the dining car of an intercity train from London.”

“Oh.” The turkey cock exhaled and looked deflated.

“And, of course, for all the discretion of the authorities, there have been several cases recently when scandal has been
brought on the Church, has there not? The Scottish bishop with the illegitimate children. Many really disgraceful matters coming to light in Ireland. Those cases probably whetted the press's appetite. But I suppose it was precisely scandals such as those that made you careful in the Pardoe matter to set up a committee of inquiry.”