Page 7 of Go Home (Kate Valentine #1)

Though she didn’t like puns, Kate thought that Father Thomas’s home décor style would best have been described as “temporary” rather than “contemporary.” In the living room, alongside the three armchairs and the simple cabinet that doubled up as a stand for the TV, a pair of vintage travel ads in simple frames graced the walls.

Fitting for a guy who seemed to be on the move all the time.

The study was similarly understated: desk, chair, bookcase, and filing cabinet all looked like the sort of thing that could be delivered in twenty-four hours, and assembled in twenty minutes.

She supposed that was how priests lived, and were supposed to, but the spartan nature of the surroundings seemed at odds, somehow, with what she’d heard about Thomas so far.

He sounded like a man who’d enjoyed life, not someone who was indifferent to his surroundings or to his own comfort.

“I give this room a flick-over, once a month,” said Manda, the priest’s cleaner, standing with Kate in the middle of the study. “He doesn’t make any mess. I mean, he didn’t.”

The cabinet rather contradicted that viewpoint, and Kate had spent a long time searching, fruitlessly, though the jumble of screws and packets, folders and Ziplock bags and pouches, without stumbling upon anything of interest. She did, however, chance upon a laptop, which was password-protected.

Marcus would enjoy the opportunity to display his hacking skills.

“And who came in here? Just Tom, or…?”

“I couldn’t say. Obviously, I come in here. And the burglar must have.”

“What burglar?”

“Couple of weeks ago. Maybe three. They left drawers and boxes open, stuff on the floor. Obviously in a hurry. Tweakers probably. Nothing missing, Father said.”

Tweakers. Or someone looking for the key.

Someone who knew there was a key.

“Was that reported?”

Manda shook her head, curls bouncing. “The Father said no point. It’s possible that he didn’t want to call in the cops because…” Manda shrugged. “He said there was no point. Do you want some tea?”

That, Kate thought, was interesting. All of it. Tom’s response. Manda’s brisk diversion. She said yes to the tea, and they went into the little kitchen. It looked out onto a walled yard filled by a low-hanging tree. A target hung off one of the branches.

“Did he carry a gun?”

Manda shook her head. “A little air pistol, in the kitchen drawer. He’d sink a few beers and do target practice.”

Kate sipped the tea and tried not to gag. She should have guessed that “Manda, short for Mandala” might have an alternative view of tea.

“Licorice and fennel,” Manda said. “Boosts fertility, if you’re trying.”

“I’m not,” Kate said.

“Zbigniew complained about it. Not the tea. I mean, Tom getting lit and firing his gun. He thought Tom might hurt someone.”

“And how did Tom take that?”

“Badly. Not because of what he said. The way he did it. Zbigniew wrote a letter to the Bishop. Not about the air pistol, all the other stuff.”

“Like what?

“Father saw that as sneaky,” Manda carried on, as if Kate’s question hadn’t happened.

“He told Zbigniew it wasn’t working. I mean, the job and sharing the house, not…

anyway, he said he wanted him to leave. It was a big thing for Tom.

People doing stuff behind his back. He always said – say it to my face if you’ve got a problem. ”

“ Always ?” Kate echoed. “Did he have occasion to say that more than once?”

Manda had a broad, rather beautiful face, with a sensuous mouth and long-lashed, expressive eyes.

A cloud passed briefly across those features right now, as if she’d talked herself into a corner.

Then she took a breath, as if making a choice.

“One other time. The Douglas Cove Trove . It’s the local newspaper.

It was the local paper. I mean, it still exists, just not on paper. It’s all online.”

Kate smiled tightly. Inwardly, she thought Mandala’s conversational style could have tested the Buddha’s patience.

“The Father wrote a Christmas piece every year. Not just that, I mean, he wrote other pieces, too, right? But this one time… it was a couple of days after that thing in Syria… And in his Christmas piece, he said believing in a fixed idea of God could be as dangerous as not believing in Him at all. Fundamentalists were a threat, whether they were Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or Jiminy Cricket. Didn’t go down too well.

People wrote letters. I think they got the Bishop in then, too. It blew over, but…”

“And how did Zbigniew respond to the Father’s request?”

“He asked the Father to reconsider, but he wouldn’t. I was surprised about that. Then again, I was surprised Zbigniew wanted to stay. It wasn’t like he made friends or got involved in the town.”

“Unlike Tom.”

“I think the Father tried his best with him. Took him down to the square to meet the rest of the p’tonk crew.”

“The what?”

“ Pétanque ,” she enunciated, with a perfect French accent. “French bowling. There’s a gang of guys who meet up in the square, early evenings. Six or seven of them.”

“Do they play every evening?”

“Nah, they used to play two, three times a week.”

“Used to.” When this yielded no further response, Kate asked, “Did they stop because of Tom’s death?”

Manda shook her head. “It stopped middle of last year.” She seemed to be considering what else to say for a moment, but eventually she just shrugged and gave a little smile.

“I’ve got to finish up the kitchen and…” Her voice trailed off.

She seemed to have just realized that she didn’t have to finish anything here, because there was no one to clean for.

Kate gave her a sympathetic look.

“How could I make contact with the Pétanque Crew?”

“Hugh and Remy run the waffle stand on the square – but I warn you, they’re old guys, they ramble on a lot. You need a lot of patience...”

+++++

It took Kate no more than ten minutes to walk to “the square,” which was a circle ringed with benches and trees, and a white bandstand in the dead-center, around which a posse of skater kids was practicing an assortment of flips and trips.

It was an altogether homey scene: small town America, a flag fluttering on what might have been the town hall, a pair of young mothers chatting on the pavement while their babies dozed, the wholesome smells of coffee and waffles and warm sugar.

Taking in such a scene, Kate thought, you could believe there was no evil in the world.

The waffle stand was an old French Citroen van plus an awning, and it was surrounded by a horde of hungry school kids, dollars held out in inky fingers while a pair of harassed-looking patriarchs dished up the goods on paper plates.

Kate had made contact with Marcus, who was going to meet her there and fill her in on what he’d discovered.

Her notebook lay open on her lap, full of question marks.

Was there a reason for Father Tom’s target practice?

Did he think he might need to defend himself?

And why such a strong reaction to Zbigniew, the curate?

Everyone had described Father Tom as affable, friendly, a joiner-in.

He cleaned up after parties. Put his own safety on the line when he saw someone being bullied.

And yet, he’d had this stark, disproportionate response to a complaint.

She looked over at the skaters. All boys, in huge, tent-like jeans and tops.

And watching them, from a nearby bench, a tight huddle of girls.

Ninth or tenth grade, she reckoned, the girls already resembling young women, the boys stuck in a cruel limbo, with some features maturing before others, soft rosy cheeks alongside scrappy moustaches, strong jaws pebble-dashed with zits.

The girls seemed to take the business of being there, on the square, very seriously – muttering to each other, occasionally conveying something in sign language.

The boys were trying to pretend the girls weren’t there.

“Hey skater grrl, buy yous a waffle?”

Kate smiled at Marcus. “Let’s wait till the queue’s a bit shorter.”

“Who put you on to these guys?” Marcus asked, heaving himself onto the bench beside her.

“Mandala, the housekeeper. She said Tom and a bunch of guys used to meet up here and play pétanque .”

“Huh?”

“It’s a French game with bowling balls. I practically had to draw blood to get that out of her.”

“Didn’t want to talk?”

“Not that. Happy to talk but… just going round and round in circles. Maddening. Anyway, what did you get?”

“Okay. You know who was the last person to see the Father alive? Other than the killer, I mean.”

“Someone who went to Confession?”

“Mary Kerrigan. The one whose husband disappeared after Tom had a word in his ear.”

“Did he disappear?”

“Not really. She didn’t hear from him for a couple years, then she got a letter from Honolulu. Says he needs thirty grand or he’s going to jail. Guess the rest.”

“She sent him thirty grand and he vanished.”

“Not quite. She sends him thirty grand, he doesn’t go to jail.

Then , a few months later, he says he’s onto a massive score – something to do with stocks and shares.

If she hands over the remainder of her life-savings, he’ll quadruple it, guaranteed.

So she sends him another thirty grand; that’s all she’s got. Now he’s vanished.”

“Asshole. And poor woman. Poor, stupid woman.”

“She’s still got a picture of him in a little silver frame. Mean-looking bastard.”

Kate sighed. “Did she see if anyone came into the church?”

“She said someone was coming up the path just as she was walking down. Confession is six-thirty to seven-thirty; she was a little bit late getting there, and she ended up leaving the church at about seven-forty.”

“Description?”

“Hood up. ‘All bundled up,’ she said – I asked her what she meant and she said, like wearing a cloak or a shawl on top of a big coat. Strong smell.”

“Of what?”

“Diesel. And he’s a big guy, she said, bigger than me.”