But Dryden was through the padded door and into the body of the church. A single candle burnt in the gloom by a side altar and the crucifix which hung over the main altar was brutally bare: an oak cross without decoration. A Christmas tree stood in a side chapel, unlit. A crib of cardboard stood in the nave, but most of the two-dimensional figures had fallen over. Father Martin was sitting alone on one of the plastic chairs close to the confessional boxes. Glancing in the stone dish which held the holy water, Dryden noted that it was frozen.
He let his shoes slap against the polished parquet flooring and Father Martin stiffened as he took the seat behind: the priest’s hair was cut cruelly short at the back, the exposed neck red and sore.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Dryden, trying to take his eyes off the flickering red light beside the altar.
Father Martin didn’t acknowledge him.
‘I’m from
The priest turned. Dryden tried not to react to the birthmark, a livid red scar which covered one cheek and encircled the left eye. In compensation for this disfigurement the rest of Father Martin’s appearance was immaculate: the still-black hair combed flat, any grey obscured by Brylcreem, the dark cassock dust free. He smelt of coal-tar soap, and Dryden saw that his fingernails, where his hand rested on the chair-back, were white and trimmed, the skin underneath a baby-pink.
‘I am told by the lawyers employed by my diocese that I should not talk of these things.’ Dryden’s eye caught a shadow moving by the altar.
The priest stood and left by a side door on the far side of the church from the presbytery. Outside there was a memorial garden, some battered roses frozen against their sticks. Beyond the Black Fen stretched, scorched by the overnight frost. Where the ice was gone the grass on the peat was a deep green, like seaweed.
Father Martin buttoned up a heavy coat and raised a finger to point north. ‘The Catholic Orphanage of St Vincent de Barfleur,’ he said. A mile distant, on a slight rise, stood the ruins of a house. The building’s shadow in the low winter light was as substantial as the house itself.
Dryden nodded. ‘But you’re not saying anything on the record at this time. That’s the case?’
Father Martin nodded. ‘I’m sorry. Those are my instructions.’
Dryden flipped open the mobile and rang Charlie. The call was answered, but for a few seconds Dryden could hear only the sound of festivities in the Fenman; Garry’s voice, excited by alcohol, shouted for a drink.
‘It’s me,’ said Dryden. ‘It’s no comment. That’s official.’ He cut Charlie dead before he repeated an invitation to join them at the bar.
Father Martin extracted a silver cigarette case from his overcoat and offered one. Dryden sensed a moment of communion and took it, and a light from the priest’s hand, noting the acrid scent of menthol.
‘I walk at this time…’ said Father Martin, about to excuse himself.
‘Why St Vincent de Barfleur?’ said Dryden, trying to keep his witness talking.
‘He is one of the most admirable of the martyrs.’ Father Martin smiled. ‘Would you like to know how he died?’
Dryden nodded, avoiding the priest’s eyes.
‘He was crucified upside-down. A lingering death, but he never cried out to denounce his faith.’
Dryden felt the old antagonisms rise. ‘Which is admirable, is it?’
Martin nodded, not hearing. ‘Do you want to know why they crucified him?’
‘I suspect you are about to tell me, Father.’
‘They crucified him because he refused to let them twist his words. They were actually anxious to avoid the spectacle of a crucifixion, so they offered him a way out – a form of words. He wouldn’t take it, he said the words of Christ were sacred.’
Dryden swallowed hard. ‘I’m doing my job.’
Father Martin shrugged, happy to have hit his mark. Dryden drew heavily on the cigarette and let it drop to the grass, where the sizzle was audible. ‘I could walk with you,’ he said.
Father Martin smiled. ‘As you are so interested, Mr Dryden, perhaps we should visit the ruins of St Vincent’s?’ Dryden returned the smile but felt manipulated, beaten, and in a curious way, as he followed Father Martin across the Fen, a victim too.
7
Out on the peat the soil was silent, the usual trickling of water petrified by the permafrost. Dryden’s battered brown leather shoes were still dry when they got to the ruins, a lonely landmark it took them ten minutes to reach. A single snow flurry came and went, leaving the peat peppered with unmelted flakes of ice.
The orphanage had stood on a low island of clay in the Black Fen reached by a one-track drove which ran beside a deep drain. The building itself had been surrounded by a wall topped by iron spikes, now punctuated by falls of rubble. The entrance gates had long gone but over them a wrought-iron frieze held the name still.
Dryden nodded, unnerved by Father Martin’s brief excursion into Catholic history, and wondered out loud why it had been closed down.
‘Orphanages were out of fashion, and the Church’s reputation was hardly pristine. Numbers fell, too far in the end. The diocese tried to sell the building, it’s still trying to sell the building, but it’s been closed for a decade, more.’
Dryden looked at the priest’s profile, the jutting Gaelic brow in contrast to the weak nose. He’d guessed he was
