“No, just me. Father’s assistant is here usually, but he bin gone all day.”
“What’s his name?” the detective asked her.
“Paolo Favaloro. He’s Italian.” Judging by the look on her face she held a rather dim view of this particular Italian.
“I think I saw him as we arrived,” Luckman told Pollock.
“He not here,” Daisy insisted. “Take a look if you don’t believe me.”
Pollock didn’t seem to care.
“When did you last see Father Clarence alive, Daisy?”
“Last night, when I went to bed. He was alone in his office.”
Luckman could tell Daisy’s responses weren’t to the detective’s liking. Certainly something about the housekeeper wasn’t quite right. She was keeping something to herself.
“What exactly was the nature of your relationship with Father Paulson?” Pollock asked her.
“Cleaning and cooking. That’s all,” she told him flatly.
“I’m going to have a look around if it’s all right with you,” Luckman told Pollock.
The policeman glanced at Luckman and nodded dismissively.
“Stay out of the bedrooms,” he said, his eyes remaining firmly focused on Daisy.
The house was large and very well appointed. Modern red suede couches adorned a spacious living room bedecked with art of all styles and periods. Luckman discovered an adjoining office. It smelt like a church. Thick wooden shelves ran along three of the walls surrounding a large antique cedar desk in the room’s centre. To one side of the desk there was a small, autographed photo of Pope Paul VI in a picture frame. There were more photographs spaced strategically along the bookshelves like trophies. Bishop Desmond Tutu with his arm around a white man, presumably Paulson. Another photo showed the same man with a much older woman. Maybe his mother. There had to be a 20-year gap between the two photographs, but Paulson appeared the same in both. He hadn’t aged.
Behind the desk, thick burgundy velvet curtains hung either side of a broad window that looked out at a lush garden, and then to the house next door. Everything was neat and tidy and there was no sign anything had been disturbed. It might have been too neat.
Luckman scanned the books on the shelves. He skimmed past the rows of tedious Catholic commentaries, his eyes halting momentarily on a copy of Conversations With God – unusual, although not entirely out of place. There was an iterative shelf of Bibles new and old – one or two of them several hundred years old. On another shelf he spotted The Bible Code among rows of fantasy and science fiction novels – Father Paulson had apparently been a particular fan of Robert Heinlein and Stephen Donaldson. But one book in the sci-fi section seemed distinctly out of place. The familiar white leather binding of The Keys of Enoch caught Luckman’s eye immediately.
He only knew of the book’s existence because Seamus had been waving it around for years as a work of genius. Depending on who you believed, it was either divine inspiration or grand self-delusion. The author’s intention had been to provide a book of bold and elusive insights on life, the universe and everything. But the text had no place at all in the home of a Catholic priest. It told Luckman that Father Paulson was no ordinary cleric. To say nothing of his personal assistant’s powers of illusion.
He pulled The Keys off the shelf to confirm it was the same book. Sure enough, it was published by The Academy For Future Science, written (or channeled) by J.J. Hurtak in 1973. The leather-bound hard cover was emblazoned with the golden flaming letters YHWH. Inside were those familiar, but frustratingly impenetrable, “revelations”.
Luckman let the book fall open and found himself reading Key 1-1-4: “We are part of a larger vehicle which evolves into the next order of evolution in a pillar of light which establishes a light zone where life within cannot be absorbed into the ‘destructive anti-universe’.”
Luckman didn’t have a clue what that meant.
Had Paulson known?
He heard footsteps and quickly slid the book back into its slot on the shelf just in time to avoid awkward questions.
“No sign of anyone else,” Pollock informed him. Daisy was beside him. He was holding her by the arm.
“You sure you saw someone?”
“Pretty sure,” Luckman replied honestly, although he was beginning to doubt himself. “Daisy, who is this woman pictured with the Father?”
She looked embarrassed. “They pretended she was just his housekeeper, but she was really his wife.”
Luckman’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Oedipus complex,” Paulson grunted. “S’pose we should be grateful he wasn’t diddling young boys.”
“She doesn’t live here?” Luckman asked Daisy.
“Jean died about 10 years ago. I never met her.”
“Wonder what the Pope would have had to say about that?” said Pollock. “Righto Captain Luckman, I’m ready when you are. Daisy here is coming back to the station for a bit more of a chat.”
Twenty-Eight
Paolo Favaloro was waiting for him at the same table when Luckman returned to the café.
“Hello Captain Luckman.”
He held out his hand and Luckman shook it. “I apologise for my disappearance at Father Paulson’s house but I do not care to reveal myself to the local police.”
The response struck Luckman as disingenuous. “I’d have thought helping the police would be to your advantage. Unless you have something to hide.”
“I am, of course, very concerned about the padre’s death. But, as you may have gathered by now, there is nothing the police can do to help. They cannot begin to understand. I fear most men in authority would mishandle matters such as this because they cannot admit there is a limit to their own competence.”
“I’m interested in this disappearing act of yours. Care to explain?”
Favaloro smiled. “Trust me when I tell you this is not important.”
Luckman recognised a deathly darkness in Favaloro’s gaze, a look he had seen before in the eyes of men who had killed not just for survival but for a cause. “Who are you? What have you and Paulson been doing out here?”
“I was his technical advisor.”
“That tells me less than nothing.”
Favaloro smiled wistfully. “I understand you have many questions. I came to tell you that many of the answers you seek are in Father Paulson’s study. There is a key under a pot plant near the back door – and another more important key in the study. Night time is best. Everyone in this town is asleep by 10 o’clock.”
Favaloro shifted his gaze toward something over Luckman’s shoulder. “I’m sorry but you must excuse me.” He flickered and evaporated like a holographic projection.
Luckman turned around. There was no-one behind him. Whatever caught Favaloro’s eye wasn’t in the café. Luckman sighed and rubbed his hand wearily through his hair. For the second time, the Italian’s vanishing act raised more questions than the man himself had answered. But they had shaken hands. He had felt the warmth of the Italian’s firm grip, and noted the thickness and length of his fingers. Favaloro was no Doobie Brother – he was flesh and blood.
Luckman arrived back at the motel around half past three in the afternoon and immediately felt the onset of an almost irresistible torpor. He had to consciously restrain himself from giving in to the urge to lie down. Mel arrived at the door of his room, dripping wet and wrapped in a towel.
“Eddie’s already passed out next door. That pool’s like a bath but it’s woken me up. You should do the same.”
“We should wake him,” said Luckman.
“I tried. He’s gone for all money. We could throw him in the pool but he’d probably drown.”