He took up Father Lambert’s diary, which was in the top drawer of the desk. In it was written only the details of his flights to Tel Aviv and back again. He had not altered it following his precipitate return, and no appointments were entered for that Friday, even though the porter had said that he had been in and out all day. Nor were there any marked down for the days he had spent in Jerusalem: he had clearly left his programme to Dagan.
What interested Andrew was less this diary than Father Lambert’s canvas-covered notebook in which he always wrote down what was passing through his mind – observations from books he had been reading or discoveries made during an excavation. If Dagan had called him to Israel to witness some startling find, then Father Lambert would almost certainly have written something about it in the current volume.
He searched quickly through the drawers, and then in Father Lambert’s briefcase which was beside the desk, but did not find the notebook. Its absence, together with Andrew’s suspicions that someone had been through his things, suddenly made it seem possible that Father Lambert’s death was not as straightforward as it seemed. The idea that perhaps, after all, he had not killed himself filled Andrew with great joy, and feeling that he must immediately share the good news with the Prior, he rose and ran from the room, along the corridor and down the stairs to the study of his superior, where he knocked and waited, puffing for breath. He heard the word ‘Come’ and entered to find Father Godfrey sitting at his desk. Doctor O’Malley had apparently gone, and the Prior looked up with relief on his face as if Andrew had come at an opportune time.
‘Yes, good. Come in.’
‘His notebook’s gone,’ Andrew blurted out.
Father Godfrey frowned. ‘How do you mean?’
‘His notebook, where he wrote everything down – it’s gone.’
The frown deepened. ‘What does that signify?’
‘That someone took it from his room.’
‘Why should someone take it?’
‘I don’t know, but I noticed too that everything has been neatly rearranged …’
‘Rearranged?’
‘Yes. As if someone had been through his papers.’
‘But you are the only one who … or Father Lambert, before he died.’
‘That’s just the point,’ said Andrew, his agitation sounding a little like exasperation. ‘I am almost certain that someone else – some third person – has been through his papers and has stolen his notebook.’
Father Godfrey sighed – a sigh which also had a touch of exasperation. ‘Who would want to do that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And why?’
‘I don’t know that either. But there might have been some clue in the notebook as to why he … he died.’
The Prior looked wearily at the window, then back at Andrew who remained standing in the middle of the room. ‘I can understand,’ he said, ‘that you in particular should be upset by what has happened, and that consciously or unconsciously you will search for some explanation of a rational kind. But you must accept that men act irrationally – even men like Father Lambert – when they suffer inordinately or are tempted to the limits of their endurance.’
‘If someone was there …’ Andrew interrupted as if he had been listening to his own thoughts, not his superior’s advice.
‘No one was there,’ said Father Godfrey.
‘… then we should call the police.’
Now the Prior lost patience. ‘We cannot call the police,’ he said in a weary, irritable tone of voice, ‘because Doctor O’Malley has signed a death certificate giving a stroke as the cause of death.’
‘I’m sure he was killed,’ said Andrew, tears returning to his eyes.
‘Of course,’ said Father Godfrey, his tone of voice kinder as he heard the choking of the younger man. ‘It is natural and noble of you to refuse to accept that Father Lambert succumbed to such a serious sin. But even if you are right – even if he was killed – you must see that the absence of his notebook, which he may well have left at Huntingdon College or in Israel – and your sense that his papers were too neatly arranged – would not constitute evidence worth showing to the police.’
Andrew swallowed to control his tears. ‘No. Of course. I’m sorry.’
Father Godfrey stood and with a paternal hand on Andrew’s shoulder guided him towards the door. ‘If anything else turns up – anything concrete – come to me again. I too would love to be able to believe that Father Lambert did not die by his own hand.’
It was now around ten o’clock, a time when most of the monks went to work in their own rooms. Andrew, however, returned to Father Lambert’s to test his perception a second time. He switched on the light, closed the door and sat on the edge of the bed looking at the desk from a distance, comparing the books and the papers with how he remembered them the week before. They still seemed a fraction too tidy but nothing was out of place. Whether or not someone had been there, Andrew remained calm enough to recognize the force of the Prior’s argument: it would be absurd to suggest that Father Lambert had been murdered simply because he, Andrew, sensed something odd in the arrangement of the papers on his desk, or the absence of his notebook.
The weakness of the evidence led to a collapse of the hypothesis in his own mind, and all at once he was overwhelmed by another, larger wave of sadness. The idea that such a strong and vibrant man had so suddenly and so totally fallen into despair that he had gone out to buy a washing-line, had tied one end to his bedstead and the other around his neck, had moved the bed to the window and had then jumped out – that idea, once admitted to Andrew’s mind, conjured up in him at one and the same time an oppressive sense of the power of evil and an acute feeling of pity. Certainly, since Father Lambert had been a much older man, his feelings for him had been like those of a son; but sons can feel protective towards their fathers – particularly those who care for them in the way that Andrew, as Father Lambert’s secretary, had cared for him – and with a certain bravado he now felt that he could have helped him if only Father Lambert had confided his despair.
Inadvertently he started to pray – not kneeling before the cross but sitting there on the edge of the bed. Before, when he had tried, no words of prayer had come onto his lips and no image of God into his mind. Now, however, when he had not formally intended to address his invisible creator he found himself pleading for the soul of his dead friend, begging Christ to judge him not by the despair of his last moments but by the heroic virtue of his life before.
These pious thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of one of the telephones on his desk. Andrew jumped up, startled not just by the sound itself but by the fact that a dead man’s telephone should be ringing at all. It was the direct line. He watched it for a moment, wondering whether he should answer. Then, realizing that he remained in charge of Father Lambert’s affairs, he picked it up and said: ‘Hello.’
‘John? Is that you?’ asked the soft voice of a woman.
‘This is his secretary, Brother Andrew.’
‘Ah. I had hoped to speak to Father Lambert.’
‘I’m afraid he … he’s not here.’
‘I see.’ She paused, then asked: ‘Is he all right?’
‘He’s … he’s …’ Andrew tried to say that he was dead but felt unable to do so over the line. ‘He’s not well,’ he said.
‘I see.’ She replied as if she had expected him to say something of the kind.
‘May I ask who is speaking?’ asked Andrew.
‘Veronica Dunn. You don’t know me. I am a friend of Father Lambert’s. I saw him this afternoon and … he didn’t seem well.’
‘You saw him today?’
‘Yes. He came to lunch.’ She said this with a nonchalance as if he had been one among other guests.
‘Where?’ Andrew asked. ‘Where did he have lunch?’
‘In my house. Why? Has he got food poisoning?’ She asked this with a trace of humour.
‘No, no,’ he said, ‘but I w
onder …’ He hesitated, uncertain as to how to go on.
‘What?’
‘Could I come and see you?’
‘Tonight?’
‘No. But perhaps tomorrow. I could tell you how he is.’
‘Of course. I live in Edwardes Square.’ She gave the address. ‘I’ll expect you any time after ten.’
Andrew was now exhausted, worn out by the series of shocks he had received in the course of the evening. This call itself was extraordinary because Andrew, having been privy to Father Lambert’s affairs for the last two years, had never heard him mention a woman called Veronica Dunn; yet here she was, ringing him on the line whose number he had kept secret from all but a very few.
Andrew picked up Father Lambert’s address book, which lay next to his diary on the desk, and looked under the letter D for Dunn. It was not there. This suggested either that he had known her very well or that he had known her hardly at all. If well, why had Andrew never heard of her? And if little, why had Father Lambert not only given her the number of his private line but also had lunch with her on a day he had expected to be in Jerusalem?
Tired as he was, Andrew was impatient to see her the next day. However, before he saw her, he wanted to know something about her, so he picked up the same telephone and dialled his brother’s number.
‘Henry?’
‘Yes.’
He could hear Newsnight on the television in the background. ‘Is this a bad moment?’
‘No. Wait a minute.’
There was a clunk as Henry put down the telephone and went to turn down the sound of the television.
‘I thought you’d be out,’ Andrew said when his brother returned.
‘I’ve just got back.’
‘Something dreadful has happened.’
‘What?’
‘Father Lambert is dead.’
There was a pause before Henry said: ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It has come as a most terrible shock and there are various complications …’ He longed to tell his brother how the priest had died, but remembering the command of his superior he let his voice tail off.
‘What kind of complications?’
‘I can’t tell you just now. Perhaps we could meet tomorrow?’
‘Do you want to meet for lunch?’
‘Perhaps in the evening?’
‘I’m out for supper, but come for a drink around six.
‘At six. Yes. Thanks. And there’s another thing …’
‘What?’
‘Have you ever come across a woman called Veronica Dunn?’
‘I’ve met her, yes. She was married to Tom Dunn.’
‘Who was he?’
‘A businessman – chairman of CDT.’
‘And now?’
‘I don’t know. They divorced and I think she took a degree at Birkbeck College.’
‘Is she a Catholic?’
‘Yes. So was he.’
‘Were there children?’
‘I dare say, but they’d be grown up by now.’
‘So she’s not young?’
‘No. Why? Haven’t you met her?’
‘No. I’m going to tomorrow.’
‘I seem to remember she’s fairly dreary.’
‘It’s all very strange.’
‘What is?’
‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’
Four
Andrew was awoken at six the next morning by a knock on the door of his cell, and the shout of ‘Benedicamus Domino’, to which he mumbled ‘Deo Gratias’ in reply. He stumbled out of bed, his head aching after a restless night. He sat, dazed, through matins and mass, and at breakfast was glad of the rule of silence which prevented his fellow friars from discussing the death of Father Lambert. He wondered, as he ate a bowl of cornflakes, whether or not he should tell the Prior about Mrs Dunn, but, remembering his irritability the night before, decided that it would be more charitable to spare him further complications.
He left the monastery at half-past nine carrying his Air France bag, as if to go to Huntingdon College, but instead of taking a bus to Bloomsbury he caught one going to Kensington. He got off at the High Street, and walked from there to Edwardes Square, arriving at the address he had been given at five minutes past ten.
The door was opened by a tall woman of around fifty with shoulder-length grey hair and kind blue eyes. She did not ask who he was or introduce herself, but invited him in, and, as she did so, Andrew recognized her voice as that of the woman he had spoken to the night before.
‘Go upstairs,’ she said, leading him into the narrow hallway. ‘I’ll bring some coffee.’
He went up to the drawing-room on the first floor which had two long windows looking out over the square. There was a deep sofa and two armchairs with clean yellow covers and plump cushions. On the walls there were two eighteenth-century paintings – dark canvases with fat gilt frames – and a Piranesi print. On the well-polished surfaces of the antique cabinets and tables there were little clusters of bric-à-brac – silver snuffboxes, china figurines – and two silver-framed photographs, one of Veronica Dunn as a younger woman, the other of two grinning thirteen- or fourteen-year-old children.
He heard footsteps on the stairs and a moment later she came into the room carrying a silver pot of coffee and two cups on a tray. She placed it on a low table and sat down, perched on the edge of the sofa. Her blue skirt and purple jersey, like the furniture in the room, were elegant and clean; there was a brooch pinned at her throat – a golden swallow on a little diamond-studded branch – and her hair, as he had seen when he entered, was carefully moulded around her melancholy face. Comparing her to the silver-framed photograph of her younger self, Andrew saw how her beauty had faded with age; yet, when she smiled, he recognized the residue of great feminine charm.
‘I’m so glad to meet you,’ she said, handing him a cup of coffee. ‘John has talked about you from time to time.’
Andrew blushed, not from modesty, but to hide the confusion he felt that she should know about him when he knew so little about her. ‘It’s kind of you to let me call on you …’ he mumbled.
She smiled again. ‘How is he this morning?’
It was a sign of Andrew’s confused state of mind that he had not prepared himself for this question, which he knew would be asked almost as soon as he set foot through the door. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid that he’s …’
The smile left her lips. ‘Is he worse?’
‘No. He’s dead.’ The words came out abruptly only because he could think of no others.
The woman turned pale. ‘He’s dead?’ she repeated in a whisper.
‘Yes.’
‘When? What was wrong with him?’
‘I’m afraid that last night … I felt I couldn’t tell you over the telephone. He wasn’t ill. He was already dead. He died … in the afternoon.’
‘Dear God.’ She hid her face in her hands.
‘I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry.’
For a moment they sat in silence. Then, suddenly, Veronica Dunn uncovered her face and looked up at him with an expression of horrified anxiety. ‘But he didn’t kill himself, did he?’ she asked, her voice both pleading and emphatic.
‘Yes, I’m afraid he did. He hanged himself.’
He answered in this way only because he was so taken aback by her question that he forgot both his own suspicions that Father Lambert had been murdered and his promise to his superior that he would tell no one the truth.
Her face, already pale, now became quite grey, and the features which had seemed so bland and expressionless took on a look of alarming desperation. Her lips moved as if she was about to exclaim or whisper, but no word came out. She glanced almost angrily at Andrew, stood up, went to the window and, with one hand clutching the other, looked out over the square.
Andrew, feeling that it was his duty to console her, searched for something appropriate to say; but as he did so he realized that, if she had suggested that Father Lambert mig
ht have killed himself, she might also know what had put him in a suicidal frame of mind.
‘It was a terrible thing to have happened,’ he said awkwardly.
She said nothing but remained looking out of the window.
‘We feel, however – at least, our Prior has decided – that it should not be known that he died in that way.’
Now she turned to face him, her features more composed. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I shall tell no one.’ She came back to the armchair and sat down.
‘I would be grateful,’ said Andrew, ‘because I was told to say that he had died from a stroke.’
She turned to him, hesitated, then asked: ‘Did you find him … hanging?’
‘Yes.’
‘How terrible for you.’ She glanced at him kindly.
‘I loved him very much.’
‘So did I.’
‘May I ask … what made you suspect that he had killed himself?’
She looked grave again. ‘I was afraid that he might …’
‘Why?’
‘He came to lunch and behaved in a quite unusual way.’
‘How do you mean?’
Once again she looked intently at Andrew as if trying to decide how much she should say. ‘I thought that perhaps in Israel the sun had affected him.’
‘You knew that he had been to Israel?’
‘Yes. And something happened there to change him.’
‘To change him? How had he changed?’
‘He no longer believed.’
‘In what?’
‘In God. In Christ. In the Church. I don’t know quite what. But he had changed. He was no longer calm or cheerful. Do you remember how calm and cheerful he always was?’
‘Yes.’