Unholy Dying (32 page)

Janette Jessel's life also changed dramatically. She moved into the guest bedroom, and when her husband asked her why said she was fed up with being married to an adultery addict. It might suit the American First Lady, she said, but after twenty-five years she had decided it didn't suit her. She added that she was contemplating a more decisive break, particularly if she could get a job. When Derek made feeble (and rather ignorant) remarks about her faith, she said her faith was not such an ass as to condone the sinner and condemn the victim of the sins. She hoped she was right.

Other lives resumed the course that the Father Pardoe case had interrupted. Miss Preece-Dembleby swelled with gratitude that family disgrace was not about to overwhelm her, and that the murder had been found to have had nothing to do with her brother and the Father Riley Fund. She reflected, though, that men, as exemplified in her brother, seemed to need all kinds of inducements to stay on the straight and narrow, and that even so, all kinds of precautions needed to be taken to ensure that they did so. They were, she concluded, undoubtedly the weaker sex morally. She had, in fact, decided this in her late teens, and recent events only strengthened her attitude and her thankfulness
at her escape from the closest kind of involvement with them.

Mary Leary spent the days in feverish activity on behalf of her son. Donna regarded her—initially distraught, but then determined and effective—with an amused exasperation. Both women knew she would never change; that she would go on—knowingly, regretfully, reluctantly—in the path she had been trained in, ministering to a man's world, accepting all it threw at her. Her brief days of militancy had been not an advance but an aberration.

Father Pardoe, when he attended the interview at the Bishop's office the following Monday, was surprised at the perfunctoriness of the questioning, astounded when, at the end of the session, he was told by the chairman that his account of the matters under investigation was entirely consistent with everything else the examining committee had been told, and that he was free to take up his duties in Shipley at once. In the outer office he had his hand shaken by the Bishop, who said they would need to have a chat in the near future. Pardoe responded gravely and with few words.

He packed his few possessions, said good-bye to Margaret, and was close to tears when he kissed her inside her front door. There were so many things that both of them could have said, but absolutely no need to say them. Pardoe felt he had never known any woman so well. And if Margaret felt for the first time that there was cruelty in a system that kept apart two people as well suited to each other as they were, her upbringing and her natural discretion ensured she remained silent. They arranged to have a meal together every few weeks.

Some days later, when he had seen Father Greenshaw off to a small and undemanding parish in superrural North Yorkshire,
he went in his old way to visit Julie Norris in the early afternoon. He cherished her smile as she opened her front door. She put Gary down on his little bed but said, “Better not draw the curtains.”

“Of course you must draw the curtains,” said Father Pardoe. “He'll sleep better. And not drawing them would be like an admission of guilt in the past.”

Then they went into the kitchen, and over endless cups of tea talked and laughed about the Bishop's committee, about people's reactions to the newspaper stories, about Julie's parents and her prospects in the world. Doris Crabtree, going a very long way around on a visit to her friend Florrie Mortlake, saw them through the kitchen window and curled up her lip in a gesture of contempt. They didn't fool her!

Cora Horrocks was relieved at the arrest, though she was unwilling to admit that it lifted from her mind a burden of doubt and uncertainty. She had already become aware of the paradox that Cosmo's death made her and her daughters more of a family, not less. One night, after Adelaide had gone to bed, Samantha confided in her the truth about herself and Cassie Daltrey, and her determination not to be hurried into a relationship that might be contrary to her nature and spring from a sort of adolescent hero worship. Cora, with her past, was fairly unshockable in sexual matters, but warmly seconded her daughter's decision. She too began wondering what jobs might be available to a woman of her age and lack of training.

And one night, when all the case's paperwork was done, Charlie and Felicity sat over a bottle of wine after a good meal cooked by her and talked about the future.

“It frightened me, that case,” said Charlie. “That terrible boy: How did he get like that? All those parents cut off from their
children, knowing nothing about them. How did that situation develop? How can I make sure it doesn't happen to me and him or her?”

“It won't. You're not that kind of person.”

“But they're perfectly normal people. Not the Norrises—they're weird—but Mary Leary, for example. Typical old-fashioned mother, but she produces this narcissistic prat of a son.”

“There are a hundred ways of being a bad parent, but I'd guess that there are a hundred ways of being a good one too. Tolstoy got it all wrong, as he usually did. There are infinite varieties of happy families, as well as infinite varieties of unhappy ones.”

“I just hope you're right.”

“I'm going to be here for him or her, but I'm not going to be a smothering, overwhelming parent either.”

“We both come from pretty odd home backgrounds,” Charlie said. “Who knows: that may be an advantage.”

“It's something to cling to, as a hope.”

“And, no, you mustn't be overwhelming, mustn't be too much around, when what he or she needs is space. It's a good thing that you'll have a bit of academic work to do, if things work out.”

“Maybe. Actually, I'm reconsidering that. I'm thinking of writing a book.”

“Oh, good. But no money in that.”

“A novel.”

Charlie's mouth fell open.

“A
novel!
For Christ's sake! Hasn't your father put you off that?”

“My father writes rotten novels. Crap. Mine is going to be a good one. Maybe there will be more than one. There certainly
will be more than one child. Now, getting down to the actual wedding . . .”

Later that night Charlie awoke from a very strange dream indeed, in which he and Felicity and the several children she had foreseen were out on a picnic and the whole thing was like a cozy advertisement of pretty people in Pre-Raphaelite green fields being gooily happy together with cows looking benevolently on. Sleepily Charlie felt across the bed and settled his hand on Felicity's stomach, wondering if he could feel the little one's presence yet. He decided he couldn't, but was pleased in the knowledge that it was there.

“You're going to have to get used to more reality than that,” he said. “Life's not going to be all green fields and cows, little him or her.”

Also from Robert Barnard

A Murder in Mayfair

The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori

No Place of Safety

The Habit of Widowhood

The Bad Samaritan

The Masters of the House

A Hovering of Vultures

A Fatal Attachment

A Scandal in Belgravia

A City of Strangers

Death of a Salesperson

Death and the Chaste Apprentice

At Death's Door

The Skeleton in the Grass

The Cherry Blossom Corpse

Bodies

Political Suicide

Fête Fatale

Out of the Blackout

Corpse in a Gilded Cage

School for Murder

The Case of the Missing Brontë

A Little Local Murder

Death and the Princess

Death by Sheer Torture

Death in a Cold Climate

Death of a Perfect Mother

Death of a Literary Widow

Death of a Mystery Writer

Blood Brotherhood

Death on the High C's

Death of an Old Goat

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2001 by Robert Barnard

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barnard, Robert.

Unholy dying/Robert Barnard.

p. cm.

1. England, Northern—Fiction. 2. Leeds (England)—Fiction. I. Title.

PR6052.A665 U54 2001

823'.914—dc21

00–047101

ISBN 13: 978-1-4391-5736-7 ISBN 10: 1-4391-5736-7

ISBN 13: 978-1-4767-3790-4 (eBook)