The Book of Souls (Inspector McLean #2)(60)

‘I’m an inspector, ma’am. I don’t do shifts anymore.’

‘Well what about all the detective constables and sergeants down in the canteen right now, then? Did they volunteer? And what did you think you were going to achieve, interviewing people on Christmas Day?’

‘I wanted to see them at home, with their families.’ It had made sense at the time. Still made sense, in a mad kind of way.

‘And if any of them complain? You’re not exactly flavour of the month with Professional Standards, you know.’

‘I’m not going to back off just because someone thinks it’s their God-given right to be offended. There’s two dead women in the mortuary and their families are having a much worse Christmas than anyone I interviewed.’

‘I know. But you’re pushing too hard, Tony. Sooner or later something’s got to give.’

McLean looked up to see the chief superintendent smiling at him, but it was a weary, exasperated smile. The sort of smile he remembered getting from his grandmother when he was a child. She’d always known when he was overdoing it. Long before he’d ever admit it to himself.

‘I’ll be fine, ma’am. And thanks.’

‘For what?’

‘For sending those two constables away.’

‘You think that was for your benefit? I just didn’t want them to miss out on the plum pudding.’

Joking helped, McLean found. He could laugh and for a moment that eased away the blackness. ‘I think I might go and see if there’s any left then,’ he said, pushing himself up from his chair. His feet still seemed a very long way away. ‘Would you care to join me?’

‘For lunch? Why not. But then you’re going home, Tony. If I have to drive you there myself.’

McLean was coaxing the fire in the library into life when the doorbell rang. He preferred this space to the more formal drawing room, and the chairs were more comfortable than in the kitchen, though at least the Aga always kept that room warm. For a moment he thought it was the chief superintendent come to check he was really at home and not off surreptitiously solving crimes.

He opened the front door to a person he didn’t at first recognise. An old man with a pale, pinched face, wispy white hair and beard. He wore a long, dark overcoat and heavy black leather gloves

‘Good afternoon, inspector. And a Happy Christmas,’ the man said. And then the penny dropped. He’d been one of the carol singers. The one who had turned down his offer of a dram.

‘Um, Happy Christmas to you, Mr ...’

‘Anton, Father Noam Anton. I’m sorry to bother you, especially on this day. I’ve been staying with Mary. At the manse. She mentioned that you were a detective. May I?’

‘I’m sorry, please. Come in.’ McLean opened the door wide to let the old man pass, not quite sure what else he could do. ‘Here, come through to the kitchen. I’ll put the kettle on.’

‘I noticed you weren’t at church this morning,’ Father Anton said as McLean set about making tea.

‘Actually, I was at work.’ McLean switched on the kettle. ‘But I wouldn’t have been at church anyway.’

‘And yet you welcomed us in as carol singers.’

‘That’s different. Couldn’t really turn you away. And I like the music, even the voices. But I can do that without having to believe in the words.’

‘You believe, in your own way.’ Father Anton’s accent was odd. It sounded foreign, but McLean couldn’t place it anywhere more specific than that.

‘I do?’

‘The things you have seen, the things you have endured. You can’t help but believe.’

‘Have we met before?’ McLean wracked his brain trying to remember if the old man had ever been a guest of his grandmother.

‘I don’t think so, no. But Mary has told me of you. And, of course, I have read Ms Dalgliesh’s book.’

McLean froze in the middle of passing the sugar bowl over. ‘What’s this about?’

Father Anton finally unbuttoned his coat and pulled from its folds a thick wad of papers. Printed across the front page was the familiar name of a prestigious Edinburgh auctioneers and the words ‘Forthcoming Sale of Antiquarian Book Collection – Draft Copy’. Scraps of yellow Post-its marked various places.

‘I first met Donald Anderson in 1970,’ Father Anton said. ‘He came from the city to join our community. He was a nice man, quiet, thoughtful, very intelligent. We welcomed him in, even though he was quite young.’

McLean looked at the old man sitting opposite him. He’d have put him in his seventies, yes, but not a great deal older than Anderson.

‘Our monastery was small,’ Anton continued. ‘Easily overlooked, which is exactly what we wanted. There’s nothing much left of it now, not after the fire. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Do you know anything about the Order of St Herman?’

McLean shrugged. ‘An anchorite sect?’

Father Anton smiled at the joke. ‘Fair enough. You don’t believe yourself a religious man, and there are few enough of faith who know of us. We are a small order, and our retreat was always meant to be hidden. Occasionally new members would come to join our ranks, but we never recruited. Our mission was always to be unnoticed.’

‘Your mission? I thought you lot were all charged with spreading the good word across the world.’ McLean twisted the catalogue around on the tabletop and opened it up at the first marker. Lot 42: an illustrated medieval bestiary. ‘And what’s it got to do with this?’