Through it all, Mother Benedict sat unsmiling, her fingers moving continuously over the glowing amber beads of a rosary. As the last nun left the room, she rose to her feet. ‘I’m sorry you’ve wasted so much of your time, Sergeant. You really should have taken my word for what the sisters would be able to tell you.’ She finally gave a full smile, her eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘Poverty, chastity and obedience, Sergeant. And the greatest of these is obedience. Nuns don’t lie. We simply train ourselves to forget that which we are not supposed to know.’
35
When we see Freudian analysis portrayed in films and TV, they often make a thing out of the fact that the psychoanalyst seldom speaks. There’s a rationale in that approach. Silence is the interviewer’s friend. Most of us struggle with the overwhelming urge to fill it.
From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL
Paula rested her head on the steering wheel of her car and breathed deeply. She was hungry, tired and late for the evening arrangement she’d been looking forward to. But Martinu’s sudden accusation provoked one of those sudden flurries of activity that descended on major investigations whenever there came an unexpected change of direction.
Paula and Steve had of course promptly steered Martinu and his lawyer back to the table to continue the interview. Initially, Martinu had sat hunched over, his head in his hands, rocking to and fro on his chair. But Paula caught a glimpse of him flicking a glance at her through his fingers and found herself less than convinced by his apparent come-apart.
‘Come on, Jezza,’ she said gently, not letting her doubt show. ‘I know this is hard, but you will feel like a weight’s come off your shoulders when you tell us what you know. You’re not betraying Father Keenan, you’re doing the right thing.’
He looked up, his features squeezed tight in an expression of pain. ‘He was my priest. He said I wouldn’t understand what he was involved in, but it was God’s work.’ He spread his hands, palms upwards. ‘What was I supposed to do?’
‘He had no right to involve you in any of this,’ Paula said. ‘But we need to get to the bottom of it, and you can help us here, Jezza. And you can help yourself too. Things look pretty bad for you right now, I won’t lie. But if you tell us the whole story, explain to us how you got drawn into it, it’ll make a difference for you.’
He rubbed his eyes then looked at his lawyer. ‘I’m going to tell them,’ he said.
Cohen patted his arm. ‘That’s your choice, Mr Martinu. But I will intervene if I think you’re potentially making things worse for yourself.’
Martinu shook his head. ‘She’s right. I’ve been carrying this weight around and I’m tired of it.’
‘What did you do?’
Martinu looked away, twisting his fingers round each other. ‘Same as I did for the nuns. I dug holes when I was asked to. But I never filled them in for the priest. He did that himself.’
‘Talk me through it,’ Paula said.
He was shifting in his seat, uneasy and struggling. His manner was completely different from when he’d told them about digging the graves for the nuns. She reckoned he’d known all along it was wrong but he hadn’t known how to make it right, how to stand up to a priest. ‘He came to me . . . it must have been seven or eight years ago. He said he’d been doing a lot of work with the homeless in Bradfield.’ He gave her an imploring look. ‘It’s the kind of thing a priest’s supposed to do, right? Help people down the bottom of the pile?’
And God knew there were enough of those in Bradfield, Paula thought. The back streets around Temple Fields and behind Bellwether Square crawled with the flotsam and jetsam of the city. Spice, the drug of choice among the destitute, had hollowed out lives, leaving human husks to stumble around in a haze. People complained the police were failing in their job to keep the streets safe, but what were they supposed to do? There was nowhere for them to take the street people where they could start climbing out of the pit they’d collapsed into. ‘Go on,’ Paula said, when Martinu slowed to a halt.
‘So he said that sometimes people died on the streets and there was nobody to claim them. Nobody to give them a decent burial. He said they just got cremated and their ashes scattered like they were rubbish. He said he wanted something better for them. And since the convent was sacred ground, he wanted to bury them here. Only, he’d be breaking the law, taking their bodies away without telling the police or the social services.’ He gnawed at the skin on the side of his thumbnail, his eyes flicking back and forth like a frightened animal.
‘He asked you for help?’
Martinu nodded. ‘He said it wouldn’t happen often. But it does happen, you must know that, in your job. People just die on the streets, and half the time nobody even knows their real name or where they come from. He said when he heard about it happening, there might be times when he’d want to bring them here, so they could have a proper resting place.’
Steve couldn’t contain himself any longer. He leaned forward, getting in Martinu’s space. ‘And you didn’t think there was anything weird about that? Anything wrong?’
Martinu grimaced, as if he was fighting tears.
