The Reaper

'I'm not going to get a serious answer, then.'

'All right. I'll try and explain. There's this restless part of me that needs to break out sometimes.'

'Snap,' said Rachel. 'I'm like that, except I do the most appalling things in moments of madness. Well, you know.'

'Giddy Girl.'

'Exactly.'

'So do I.'

'Do wicked things?'

He turned and their eyes met briefly and for the first time since that evening he had brought the account books to her cottage she basked in his warmth. She knew he was over the awkwardness that had blighted their friendship. He told her, 'You shared your secret with me. I appreciate that.'

'Unloaded my fear, you mean.'

'It took courage to do what you did.'

'Poisoning my husband? Nine parts fear to one part courage.'

He laughed. 'You improve with practice.'

'I hope not.' She smiled back.

'You do. I've got better at it.'

She heard him, failed to understand, played his words over in her brain, looked ahead for some time, and finally said, 'Got better at what?'

'Murder.' He gazed out at the ocean while her thoughts went through a series of convulsions. 'We're two of a kind, Rachel.'

The hackneyed phrase did nothing to lessen the shock.

He went on, 'You were honest with me, so I'll come clean with you. The stories doing the rounds are slightly exaggerated. I didn't murder my wife. She died by a tragic accident, from a bee-sting. But I own up to four others.'

Inside, she was rigid. 'Please say you made that up.'

'Wish I could.'

Their dialogue stopped as suddenly as if someone had switched off a radio.

She thought she was going to pass out.

Finally, after searching his face for a vestige of amusement and finding none, she asked, 'How could you?'

'But you know. Desperation drives us to it. Each of them threatened my living. I could have been found out.'

She hesitated. 'What was there to find out?'

'That I misuse parish funds. You suspected as much, didn't you, but you kept quiet?'

'The contingency fund?'

'Right.' He patted the steering wheel with something between pride and affection. 'This is the contingency.'

'And you killed people for this? You-a priest?'

'People who found out.'

'I can't believe this.'

'It isn't just the boat. It's my whole existence.'

She waited. They were down to the wire now.

'Underneath it all, I'm a coward,' he said, 'frightened to face the world. I think I do a good job as a priest. It's the only job I can do. I was raised in religion, force-fed it morning, noon and night when I was a kid.'

'In the children's home?'

'Yes. From the nuns, and later, at school, the Jesuits. I'm very well grounded in the Bible. Through it I've achieved the outward signs of self-respect, status, confidence. The church is the obvious life for me. Second nature. But deep inside there's a stunted creature who couldn't cope with any other way of life.'

'Never. You're so confident. You inspire people. You speak with such sincerity.'

'Echoing the stuff I've heard a million times. In this game, Rachel, you're lost if you admit to anyone that you have doubts, or committed a sin. I learned about survival the hard way. Stealing from the kitchen in the orphanage when I was hungry and being naive enough to own up. The so-called Sisters of Mercy had me on my knees in the chapel for three hours asking God to punish me and then bared my butt in front of everyone at supper-time and answered my prayers. And no supper. I was eight years old. It didn't stop me stealing, only I got smart and avoided the canings-except when I was stupid enough to boast to other kids about it and they grassed me up. Another hard lesson. Another beating. And Sister Carmel had a strong right arm. Good preparation for my secondary education with the Jesuits except they used the strap and had even stronger arms. Taught me the Bible, I must say-and turned me right off the Roman Church.'

In spite of the shock he'd given her, she was moved by the story. 'It would have put me off religion altogether.'

'No, at the end of my schooling when they threw me overboard I clung to it-as the only thing I was any good at. Too scared to let go. The bravest thing I could manage was a sideways move, to the Church of England. Joining them was a huge act of rebellion for me-revenge on the Pope and his minions. I knew my Bible so well that I swanned through theological college. Did three years' training in one. I love it, being a priest, doing everything a priest does and doing it with energy and imagination.'

'But not behaving like one.'

He sighed.

'I understand what you've told me about your childhood,' Rachel said. 'Anyone would sympathise, but it can't excuse what you told me a moment ago.'

'About the killings? I wasn't justifying them. I'm simply saying it's the way I am, Rachel. I act as I always have. I steal from the church, and I cover my tracks.'

'But you stole from the orphanage because you were hungry.'

'Fair point,' he admitted with a faint smile. 'Once a thief…' He stopped himself. 'No, that's too flip by half. It runs deep, this need to have an escape route. As a kid, I couldn't run away. I tried, more than once, and got dragged back and punished. If I'd had the boat then …'

'Four, you said.' Her voice shook as she spoke.

'A man you wouldn't know called Fred Skidmore, the sexton at my last parish, a full-time snoop who threatened me with blackmail. He's down a mineshaft on Exmoor now. Then Marcus Glastonbury.'

'The bishop!'

'Left me no option. Told me I had to resign the living.'

'But he jumped off-'

'Was dropped,' he corrected her gently. 'I killed him in my study, cracked him over the head with a glass paperweight and disposed of him later in the quarry.' Some seconds elapsed while he concentrated on steering a true course through a choppy stretch. 'You want to know who else, but don't like to ask? Stanley Burrows, of course. Nice man, but a stubborn old cuss. He was going to hand over anyway, only he wanted to do it on his terms, showing everything to the new treasurer, including my building society accounts. He wouldn't be budged. I couldn't allow that. Slipped him a powder with his whisky.'

She hesitated. It seemed only fitting to allow a moment's silence out of respect for Stanley before asking the question she could scarcely bring herself to speak. 'Who was …?'

'The fourth?' He pointed out of the window. 'Do you see the headland with Hurst Castle out there? The beach further round to port is Milford on Sea, where she was washed up.'

She could only whisper, 'Cynthia?'

'She ambushed me. Caught me right off guard. She turned up at the marirta one morning having trailed me all the way from Foxford. You know what Cynthia was like. There was no way she would keep a secret.'

After another long silence, Rachel said, 'Cynthia was very good to me.'

'I know. I could have told you she slipped over the side by accident, but I want to be as honest with you as you were with me.

'She was on this boat?'