The thought processes of the Gowders are mazy and hazy, said Melton. They strike me as a throwback to some race which preceded man. They are not brutes, they are not malevolent, but they act and react instinctively, which means that sometimes their actions can appear both brutish and malevolent. I shouldnt care to provoke them.
Which I did by climbing up the ladder? said Sam incredulously.
Hard to credit, but not impossible for a Gowder. I doubt he meant to harm you.
Then he shinned down the ladder and left me for dead? Sounds like harm to me.
All he would see was trouble for himself if he tried to help you or summoned aid. But to return to their evidence: they declared that Mr. Flood stopped when he saw them and told them the class was canceled. They didnt notice anything odd.
Would they, being the Gowders? said Sam.
He said, Oh, theyre sharp enough, believe me. Next witness was Miss Clegg, district nurse. At five past three she passed Flood walking down the main road. They spoke briefly, a conventional exchange, she said, but he seemed rather agitated.
Thats two down, said Sam. Who was it who saw him going up Stanebank?
That was Dunstan Woollass from the Hall. He was driving down the Bank about three-thirty when he spotted Flood. He wound down the window to say hello. The curate just nodded and went on by. He looked very pale, the squire thought. On his return that evening when he learned that Flood was missing, Mr. Woollass contacted the police and thats why they concentrated the search on Mecklin Moss.
Sam ran her eye along a mental blackboard, checking the equations so far and trying to compute where they might lead.
She said, And the verdict was suicide, so something happened early that afternoon to push him off his trolley.
True. Though as I once heard the police trick-cyclist say, we shouldnt forget that an event can take place in the mind with no apparent external cause.
Nothing happens without cause, said Sam with the certainty of one to whom the concept of infinity was a working tool. Any lunch guests? Any visitors after lunch?
No guest. No visitors that came forward.
What about the son, Pete? Hed just be a boy then. Was he at home?
Melton smiled approval, and said, Jacko asked that too. Yes, he was there.
And did Jacko interview the boy?
Ultimately. This was the emergency I mentioned before. Pete was eleven. When he found Bible class was canceled, he bunked off before his dad got back and headed up the valley with the Gowder lads. They were in the same class at school and quite matey. They were scrambling around on some rocks when he slipped. Only fell about six feet or so, but he managed to bruise himself badly, twist an ankle and break his wrist.
Poor kid. No wonder his dad was distracted!
Distracted yes. And probably hopping mad his son had been breaking the Sabbath. The boy had to go to hospital, of course. They kept him in for observation. The Rev. Paul got back just before evening service was due to start. He expected that his curate would have shown up by now and have everything in train, so I daresay he wasnt best pleased to find he had to head straight into church himself and do the business.
So when Jacko got to see the kid, what did he say?
Nothing helpful. Yes, hed spoken briefly with Sam after lunch he called him Sam, Jacko noted. He said hed been in his bedroom getting ready for Bible class when the curate called up the stairs that it was canceled. Then he went out.
Sam thought for a while, then said, So what its all down to is a crisis of faith. Suddenly starts wondering if there really is a God, so kills himself to find out. Is that it?
Balance of mind disturbed, it says here. I think your version sums it up better.
What about DI Jackson? What did he think? You said he had his own ideas.
Maybe. But nothing to bother the coroner with.
I dont reckon youve kept hold of his notebook out of sentiment, Mr. Melton.
Youre right there, said Melton. Get sentimental about the past, you stop seeing it properly. OK. Jacko did have a working hypothesis, nothing he could prove, so it stayed in his head with a few hints in his notebook. It ran something like this. Sam Flood got on well with kids. Both sexes. Maybe too well. When pressed, Greenwood admitted hed heard a rumor about the curate and some underage kid, but no names and nothing substantial enough to make him dust his magnifying glass off. Mind you, Jack the Ripper would have been on his sixth victim before Greenwood began to get suspicious.
But your Jacko found nothing to confirm this?
Not a jot. The more questions he asked, the more they clammed up. Pride themselves on taking care of their own here in Illthwaite. So all Jacko could do was speculate. Suppose Mr. Flood found he had a taste for young flesh? Suppose he even found himself fancying young Pete Swinebank? Jacko got a sense the boy was holding something back. Maybe something happened after lunch when they were alone.
Like?
Like he went to the boys room and saw him naked and was horrified to realize just how much he fancied him. Or maybe it had nothing to do with the boy. Maybe he got a phone call. Or made a call and heard something that really threw him
Sam shifted in her chair. It was time to go. As an exercise in mathematical logic all this might be of some interest, but from a personal point of view all Melton had done was confirm what Winander had told her. But the old cop had been very kind.
She said, Thanks for going to all this bother.
No bother. Its always good to entertain a pretty young stranger. Sorry Ive not been able to help much, but maybe thats not a bad thing.
How do you work that out? asked Sam.
Your gran left England in spring 1960, the Reverend Sam Flood didnt arrive here till summer 1960. Conclusion, theres no connection, which has to be good news because, believe me, Illthwaites the last place on earth you want to be looking for something the locals dont want you to find. Ask them the time of day and theyll likely say theyll let you know as soon as their sundial comes back from the menders.
Sam laughed and said, Does that include everybody? I mean, when the vicar said I couldnt look at the parish records because theyd been stolen in a recent burglary at the church, was he telling the truth or just trying to stop me spotting Sam Floods name?
Melton went to his bureau and produced another folder.
Silver chalice, paten, two collection plates, candlesticks, poor box nothing about records. Would surprise me. Billy was no Einstein, but in his own line of business he knew enough never to steal anything he couldnt sell.
Billy? You mean the police know who did the break-in? Has he been arrested?
Not by the police, said Melton. Didnt even figure on their list of suspects till I told them. Even then they could find no evidence. But everyone round here knew it was Billy, like they knew it was him did the Stranger last summer, and the Post Office too just before it closed down. He probably got fair warning. But kids like Billy dont listen.
He must be really scary if the locals let him get away with robbing their own church, said Sam.
I think most of them felt they could leave it to God to take care of his own business. Which, it would appear, He did. Billy had a motorbike. There was an accident. His full name was William Knipp. Illthwaites teenage tearaway. They buried him yesterday.
9. Interpretations
Mig Madero stood before the Wolf-Head Cross. He felt no impulse to kneel.
Ive seen a lot of Christian antiquities, he said slowly. But never one that felt as alien as this.
You feel that too? said Frek. Usually Viking crosses are interpreted as showing how the new religion took over from the old. This one makes me look at things the other way round, as if the old religion were getting a burst of energy from the new.
So let my lesson begin, said Madero. Tell me what Im looking at.
If you like. Right, lets start at the bottom panel here at the front, said Frek.
She took him through the crosss Viking elements, speaking quickly and not dwelling overlong on any one feature, but this was no mere tour guides rote recitation. Everything she said was shot through with real enthusiasm.
And this panel here is really interesting, she said finally. As you can see, its badly eroded. In fact I think theres more damage here than even ten centuries of Cumbrian weather can account for. Id say at some point someone took a hammer to it.
Madero stared at the panel on which he could scarcely make out anything.
Christian orthodox backlash, you mean? he said. Some pagan linkup that went too far for even the Illthwaiteans to stomach?
Maybe. Ive looked at it very closely over the years. Made rubbings, taken photographs. I think its something to do with Balder. You know the Balder legend?
Yes. Killed by a dart of mistletoe. But why should he attract special attention?
Think about it. The legend is clearly a version of the same nature regeneration myth we see in the cults of figures like Adonis and Thamuz and Attis. Balder, son of Odin, is slain. Later he rises from the dead to take his place in the reconstituted creation that emerges from Ragnarok, the Nordic version of apocalypse. Remind you of anyone?
Yes, yes, he said impatiently. I have read a little.
She seemed amused rather than annoyed by his sharpness.
Sorry to be teaching my grandmother, she murmured. Then youll have no problem seeing that using Balder as an unsophisticated prefiguration of Christ was a pretty obvious move for the clever old priests reworking the ancient myths. But suppose a mason somehow managed to insinuate that Christ was merely a pale imitation of Balder who is the real regenerative spirit?
A movement caught Maderos attention and to his annoyance he saw a figure coming round the corner of the church. It was the strange Australian child, her mane of red hair awash with sunlight. Not child. Woman, he corrected himself. But with a childish indifference to interrupting the adult intimacy he hoped was springing up between himself and Frek.
She made straight for them, responding to his discouraging glance with a mouthed Hi.
Frek, showing no sign of having noticed Sams arrival, went on, In addition, some scholars have detected the presence of two figures on the defaced panel. The other could be Hod, Balders blind brother, who was tricked into throwing the fatal dart. Hod too rises after Ragnarok and takes his place alongside Balder in the new pantheon. That would be like elevating Judas alongside Jesus in Christian terms. You can see how this might be too much for some true believers to swallow, hence the defacement.