'That's if he was telling the truth,' said Calamity.
'What do you mean?' blurted Gretel. 'Of course he's telling the truth. Why wouldn't he?'
Calamity put a mean face on. 'How do I know? Why would anyone ever dream of telling a lie? It beats me. Right from the cradle we're taught to tell the truth, and yet there are all these people out there who don't do it. I don't get it, what about you, eh, Louie?'
I tried again to flash a warning look at her but she deliberately avoided it.
'The Dean never told a lie in his life,' said Gretel.
'Yeah, but what about you?'
'What about me?'
'You haven't exactly been telling us the truth, whole and nothing but, have you?'
'W ... w ... what do you mean?'
I slid down in my chair, trying to get my foot towards Calamity under the table.
'This Bad Girl stuff for instance —'
'I don't talk about her -'
'That's a lie for a start - you never stop!'
I managed to get my foot across and kick Calamity. She jumped slightly and shot me a furious look. Then she eased herself down off the desk and stamped on my foot.
'I ... you ... how dare you?' said Gretel.
'You didn't tell us he made a pass at her one night and tore her blouse, did you?'
'He didn't ... who says ... how did you know?'
'It's my job to know, I'm a detective.' She took out a notebook and read from it. 'She was a hussy and she shouldn't have been there, huh? More interested in drinking and partying than learning about Abraham; and when it came to the Ten Commandments she only knew how to break them. And then there was the incident with the Dean; by rights he was the one who should have been thrown out on his ear but the wives of all the other tutors got together and hey presto! off she goes. Not that she cared of course, it's what she wanted all along ... am I getting warm?'
Gretel stood up angrily. 'I won't stay another second to hear the Dean's good name dragged through the mud like this. Good day to you both.'
After she had slammed the door I held my hand out for the notebook. Calamity snapped it shut and put it in her pocket. I stood up and took a step towards her. She moved round to the other side of the desk. 'Let me see.'
'What for, don't you trust me or something?' 'There's nothing in it, is there? You made it all up.' She shrugged. 'So what if I did? They're in it together, you mark my words.' She walked out.
I took the cowgirl's gun out of my pocket and put it on the table. It was a real beauty. Replica cowboy Colt 45, the 'Peacemaker'. It had been adapted to light cigarettes with a flame that appeared where the hammer hit the pin. Everything worked as on a real one: the chamber spun, the blanks slid in and out, the trigger mechanism worked. You'd need to know a lot about guns to tell it wasn't real. I slid it into my jacket pocket and went out to make my peace with Father Seamus.
The inside of the confessional booth was warm and dark and comforting, like the inside of a womb, and almost as intimate with its air of shared secrets. I leaned my head against the wooden side and said, 'Father I need spiritual guidance.'
'That's why I am here, my son.'
'It's not easy.'
'Take your time.'
'I need to know whether shooting a priest is a mortal or a venial sin.'
The sound of forced, uncertain chuckling came through the grille.
'I suppose it depends which priest,' I added.
'Louie, that's you, isn't it? What are you doing? This is God's house.'
'How come he let you in?'
'This is no place for jokes.'
I stuck the gun through the grille. 'Who's joking?'
'My God! Dear Louie, what on earth has got into you?'
'I could ask you the same question.'
'This is about last night, at the club, isn't it?'
'How was the Vimto?'
He forced a laugh.
'Or did you turn it into wine first?'
'Louie, when the Lord calls upon you to do his work, you cannot quibble at the sort of establishment —'
'Of course not. Jesus was never too proud to enter a house of fallen women.'
'That's what I tell myself.'
'Yeah, I bet you do. I don't remember the bit in the Bible where he drank Vimto from their shoes, though. Must have missed that bit. Still,' I said, slowly twisting the gun chamber and letting the sound of the clicks fill the booth, 'you must get thirsty standing on that battlement all night. Eyes smarting in the frost. Denying the soft pleasures of Mrs Bligh-Jones's palliasse.'
'Mrs Bligh-Jones is a very holy woman,' he said coldly. 'Now I must remind you that this is the House of God. If you've come to make a confession —'
'No,' I said, pulling back the trigger. 'I've come to take one.'
He gasped. 'What do you want!?'
'I want the answer to a question. If you choose not to answer or give me one I don't like I'm going to shoot you. If you don't believe me, I'll shoot you. That makes three ways to end up dead and one that doesn't.'
'Have you gone mad?'
'Yes. I have. Now here is the question. Yesterday morning I showed you a picture of a girl. Just the sort of fallen woman you seem to specialise in. You said you'd never seen her before, but you were lying. Now you're going to tell me the truth. Who was she?'
'Would you really shoot?'
'Yes.'
'But why? Over a girl?'
'I'm just an incurable romantic'
He took a breath. 'If I tell you, it's imperative ... you must promise ... this mustn't go any further.'
'Anything you say is automatically protected by the sanctity of the confessional. You should know that. Now tell me.'
'That girl you showed me. It's true I had seen her before. I know her because I worked with her once.'
'Where?'
'In ... in ... a place.'
'What sort of place?'
'Oh, Louie, don't make me say. A terrible place. A wicked, wicked place where a priest has no business being.'
'And where's that, apart from Mrs Bligh-Jones's bedroom?'
He paused and I could hear the sweat droplets breaking out on his forehead. 'Where does someone go in this town when they've reached the bottom and have nowhere left to go?'
'There are lots of places.'
'For you, yes! For you there are the bars and the girls and the toffee and the bingo and the whelks. For you there is a great choice. But for her. Ah! but for her? You cannot imagine what this girl was like. A filthy, lecherous Jezebel. A girl who oozed iniquity from her every pore. Who came out at night and ensnared the hearts of men with her malevolent scent like a carnivorous flower shining in the tropical moonlight ... where would such a dirty bitch go?'
'I don't know but I'd like to!'
'There is only one place where she would end up. The movies.'
I paused for a second. 'Which ones?'
