The Snares of Death (40 page)

Monica hesitated. ‘I saw her a while ago. I thought that she was on her way in here, but she hasn't showed up. Maybe she just couldn't find us.'

‘I've been saving her a place to sit,' Rose Phillips said truculently, pointing to the spot where she'd rested her handbag. ‘Not very good manners, if you ask me.'

‘Are you talking about that Miss Tinsley?' Florence Whittaker spoke up suddenly and loudly. ‘I'm sure she was mistaken – she must be related to Gladys Tinsley. Gladys couldn't leave the boys alone either.'

‘What are you talking about?' demanded Mrs Phillips.

‘When I went to the toilet. I saw her, out there in the street. Miss Tinsley. Following a man, as brazen as you please.'

‘A man?' David's voice came out in a croak, but somehow Miss Whittaker understood him.

‘She was following a man, all right. What's more, it was a man from the television. Might have been that weatherman – what's-his-name . . .' With a claw-like hand she patted her thin white hair in agitation.

Rose Phillips rolled her eyes scornfully. ‘I think she's been out in the sun too long,' she said.

‘I know what I saw,' muttered the old woman.

‘Thank you, ladies,' he said hastily, moving away as the brass band began to play the first hymn.

David stood at the back of the crowd as the Procession entered the grounds. The congregation sang fervently, ‘Every generation, Mary, calls thee blest,' and sighed collectively in anticipation. First came the processional cross and then, borne high under a canopy and wreathed in clouds of incense, came the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham, surrounded by a phalanx of Guardians in their blackout-curtain vestments. Rank on rank of priests – probably two hundred of them – in albs and white stoles, followed, and finally the bishops. Everyone was standing at that point, so it was difficult to see over all the heads, but the bishops' mitres, tall and gold-encrusted, made them eminently visible. There were eight or ten bishops, David estimated, though only the celebrant wielded his ring at the congregation in an episcopal blessing.

The Mass seemed to take for ever. There was a long sermon delivered by one of the bishops, and a number of Marian hymns, accompanied by the brass band. Administering the Sacrament to a crowd of over ten thousand was no small feat; it was accomplished efficiently by the priests who fanned out and stood around the perimeter as the pilgrims made their way to the nearest station. David watched the crowd closely as they moved: still no sign of Lucy.

At the conclusion of the Mass the Procession began to re-form and David made a quick decision: if Lucy were there, which he was beginning to doubt, he could spot her more easily if he got ahead of the Procession, found a spot to stand, and waited for them to pass by. The Procession would go out the far end of the Abbey grounds, snake around past the parish church, then go up the High Street and around to the Shrine, where everyone would gather in the garden for Benediction. David slipped out through the gate where they'd all entered. He could see the pump from there; the protesters, after their inactivity during the Mass, were mobilising for action. Noah Gates passed among them, exhorting them all and exciting their fervour. A number of police had taken their places between the pump and the street, but David didn't see John Spring among them.

Over the loudspeaker, which was set at high volume to blast the Mass to the Evangelicals, he could hear the first verses of the pilgrim hymn: that meant that the Procession had begun. When the first ‘Ave, ave, ave Maria' was sung by ten thousand voices, a howl arose from the protesters. Noah Gates waved a few of them into formation and they began an unaccompanied chorus of ‘A Mighty Fortress is Our God', notable more for enthusiasm than for musicality.

David moved towards the BARC van. This would be a good vantage-point, he decided – the road was at its widest between the pump and the Bull. The BARC contingent was also at the ready; several of them had put on fox masks.

It didn't take too long for the beginning of the Procession to reach the top of the High Street, singing ‘Ave, ave,' as loudly as they could. It was like a river of humanity, David thought, looking down the street at them, a solid snaking mass of devotion, six or eight abreast, carrying the signs and banners which identified them by parish. On and on they came, singing fervently, verses of the pilgrim hymn interspersed with the spoken ‘Hail Marys' of the rosary.

The protesters were no longer a group of mild-mannered, clean-cut men. They sang, they shouted, they waved their posters and shook their Bibles. The row of stolid policemen, arms folded across their chests, ensured that there was no physical contact with the pilgrims, but occasionally a protester would lean over and come dangerously close. David saw one earnest young man waving his Bible under the noses of two devout blue-rinsed Anglo-Catholic matrons, shouting, ‘Ladies, where are your Bibles?'; they smiled serenely and clutched their rosaries all the more tightly.

The pilgrims on the other side of the street from the pump were bombarded instead with shouted slogans. ‘Ban blood sports!' ‘Stop battery farming now!' ‘No more fur!' ‘Meat is murder for animals, suicide for you!'

And the human tide flowed on, inexorably. ‘Ave, ave,' they sang, and ‘Hail, Mary,' they chanted. Men and women, young and old.

But there was no Lucy. David scanned each face as it passed him. It was like a nightmare: ten thousand pilgrims, but no Lucy. At the end came the thurifers and the candles and the canopied statue, borne aloft by pious young men. The protesters vented their final and most virulent fury on this detested image, their faces twisted with hate, their voices hoarse with shouting. ‘The Whore of Babylon,' they screamed.

Around the corner and into the Shrine grounds went the end of the Procession. David followed them into the garden, where everyone would receive Benediction at the outdoor altar.

He wouldn't have thought that it was possible to get ten thousand people into the gardens, but somehow they were all crammed in, filling every inch of space. David edged along the back of the crowd towards the sepulchre. Everyone faced the altar in anticipation; there wasn't long to wait. A bishop came from the church, sumptuously robed and flanked by two beautiful young men in gold vestments. The crowd parted just enough to let them through. As the monstrance was brought to the altar the pilgrims sang, ‘O Saving Victim, opening wide the gate of heaven to man below . . .'

David stood at the back and watched the faithful sink to their knees, bowing their heads in adoration and reverence as the monstrance was flourished at them. ‘Therefore we before Him bending,' they sang.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught movement. He should not have been looking, he knew: all eyes should be down at the moment of Benediction. But what he saw, when he turned his head and looked, banished all thoughts of the spiritual implications of the moment. He saw Geoffrey Pickering entering the Shrine church via the door from the garden; an instant later he was followed by Mark Judd.

David couldn't move until Benediction was over; he was hemmed in by far too many people. There was nothing he could do but wait, and pray that Lucy was all right.

‘Come on, Gary,' Maggie hissed. ‘I'm telling you, you've got to see this for yourself.'

‘But Rhys –'

‘The hell with Rhys! Come on!'

Gary allowed himself to be dragged around the corner. ‘A picture?' he asked.

‘Yes – a great huge picture. It's absolutely obscene! A hunting scene, with a stag being ripped apart by dogs.'

‘Sounds pretty gross.'

‘Obscene!' she insisted. ‘Have you got a knife?'

‘Just my pocket knife.'

‘That will do.'

The door to the College was once again unguarded, and its pious inhabitants all in the Shrine gardens receiving Benediction. ‘It's a piece of cake!' exulted Maggie. ‘Come on, Gary. Give me your knife.' She led him into the dining room. ‘Take a look at that picture!'

‘Maybe it's worth a lot of money,' he demurred as she clambered up on the sideboard and flipped out the knife blade.

‘I don't give a shit.' And with a quick movement she slashed the painting from top to bottom; within moments it was hanging in ribbons. ‘Now,' she said, jumping down, ‘for the chicken thighs. Come on, Gary – the kitchen is this way.'

CHAPTER 50

    
Yea, the waters had drowned us: and the stream had gone over our soul.

Psalm 124.3

It was Monica who found him. She wanted to be the first in the queue when sprinklings resumed at the Holy Well after Benediction, and was surprised to find the gates unlocked.

Her screams cut through the devout murmurs of the pilgrims who once again circulated in the Shrine church. She screamed repeatedly, for it is not every day that one finds a dead body, and the dead body of a priest at that. She didn't know who it was until the police had pulled him out of the Holy Well and turned him over; when she saw that it was Mark Judd her hysteria could not be contained, and a kind middle-aged woman from a parish on the Scottish borders had to take her out into the garden until someone from St John's Ambulance could be summoned to administer sedation.

St John's Ambulance could be of no help to Mark Judd, it was quite clear: he was most definitely dead. Drowned, it looked like, though he had also received some kind of blow on the head. The curious gathered around, and the police were too busy to undertake the tremendous effort of once again clearing the Shrine church.

As David came in from the garden, he saw at a glance what had happened. But where was Geoffrey Pickering? Purposefully, he began searching for him. He could not have gone far.

David found him at last in the dining room of the College. The picture etched itself indelibly on his mind; he knew that he would never forget it. At the far end of the room, above the fanciful altar to food, hung the tattered remnants of the mutilated painting. And beneath it was slumped the figure of Dr Geoffrey Pickering, weeping uncontrollably. Later would come the rage, and the anger, but for now there was only the inconsolable grief, eerily echoing that of the overweight girl in the garden.

‘Where is she, you bastard?' demanded David. ‘Where is Lucy?' Geoffrey lifted his head. Beneath his distinctive swoop of silver hair his face was unrecognisable, distorted with anguish. He flung a key on the floor and indicated the door through to the corridor.

Lucy had heard the commotion and banged feebly on the inside of the cupboard door, leading him quickly to her. He unlocked the door and wrenched it open; she fell out into his arms. ‘I knew that you'd come,' she wept on his shoulder. ‘Oh, David. I knew that you'd come.'

She wasn't hurt, apart from a few bruises inflicted by Geoffrey's rough handling, merely exhausted with her efforts to be heard, and emotionally shattered. David satisfied himself of that. ‘You're all right?' She nodded. ‘He didn't hurt you? You're sure?'

She clung to him. ‘Just hold me, David.'

He tightened his arms around her and stroked her hair, murmuring endearments. She seemed to draw strength from him; after a few minutes she took a deep breath. ‘What about Geoffrey?'

‘He's out there. In the dining room.'

‘You left him?'

‘You were more important.'

‘But . . .'

‘I don't think he's going anywhere,' David assured her.

‘You don't mean . . . ? He's not dead, is he?'

‘No.' He hesitated. ‘Mark Judd is dead.'

A sharp intake of breath from Lucy. ‘Geoffrey . . . ?'

‘I think he'll be ready to talk.'

He was still there, and he was ready to talk. The first incoherent flood of grief was over, and he now had a great need to talk about his feelings.

‘How could anyone do it?' He gestured ferociously at the shredded painting. ‘Barbarians! Goths!'

‘It wasn't a very appealing painting,' David said.

Geoffrey turned on him. ‘You bloody fool! It was priceless!'

‘Priceless?' echoed Lucy.

His laugh was without mirth. ‘It would have made me a very rich man.'

‘You're already a very rich man,' David frowned.

‘All right, then. I would have been a benefactor to the nation – given it to the National Gallery. They would have made me
Sir
Geoffrey Pickering for that.'

‘But it wasn't yours,' Lucy pointed out. ‘How could you . . . ?'

‘You still don't understand, do you?' Anger blazed from him. ‘You stupid, interfering bitch! You come walking in here, getting in the way . . .'

‘I won't have you speak to Lucy like that,' David interrupted furiously.

The anger burned out abruptly and Geoffrey buried his head in his hands. ‘It doesn't matter,' he said in a low voice. ‘None of it matters, now. That's the whole bloody irony of it – it was all for nothing.' He gestured again at the painting. ‘All for bloody nothing.'

‘Mark Judd's death?' said David.

Geoffrey raised his head and looked at him. ‘He's dead, then?' David nodded. ‘Yes, I thought so.'

‘Why did you kill him?'

‘I didn't really mean to. He would have killed
me
if I hadn't. We struggled, at the well. He fell, hit his head on the step. I pushed him into the well. I suppose he drowned.'

‘Yes.'

‘But why?' asked Lucy.

He laughed bitterly. ‘Because of the painting, of course. As I said, it was priceless. It is . . . was . . . a Guido Reni. An original. The Conversion of St Hubert.'

‘I don't understand.'

For a moment he looked like the Geoffrey Pickering that all of England knew; the urbane television presence asserted itself as he explained. ‘Guido Reni, born 1575, died 1642. A Bolognese painter of the Italian Counter-Reformation.'