Ever since he had seen Tane on the bench looking towards the Waitakeres at Glenfern Hospital, there was something in his mind as a priest which would not go away. He had not been allowed to explain this to Randall in their last phone conversation, and now sadly in their strained relationship he could not raise the matter again.
David stood up in the middle of the aisle as the vicar, having finished his prayers, came towards him. “You’re not going to tell him,” he said firmly.
The vicar smiled. “Hallo,” he said, “Who am I not meant to tell?”
“Dr Richardson.”
“Why are you so anxious that I shouldn’t tell him?”
“Because he’s got Tane imprisoned there at his hospital. If he realises we know his secret, he’ll kill him.”
Mountjoy took off his glasses. His eyes were surprisingly piercing. “Why are you so angry, David?”
“I’m not angry.”
“Sit down!”
David obeyed. For the first time he realised how flushed and hot he was. There were hammers pounding in his head.
“You don’t understand me, David. Do you realise that I have already lied to my churchwarden about Tane?”
“What do you mean? “
“He is not aware that I know who his patient is. Nor does he know that I have told you of his identity.”
Suddenly David realised that he was sitting next to an entirely different person. The unctuous smile, the superior clerical voice had gone.
“There’s something about Tane that you don’t know.”
“I’ve got to get him out of there.”
“Then what will you do with him?”
“I’ve got to save him,” he said, but not so confidently.
“You don’t know his mental state. You aren’t able to save him.”
He looked intently at Harry Mountjoy’s face. There were lines he had not seen before. “What do you mean?”
“You thought Tane was like Cain. But do you know what the illness of Cain was?”
“Wasn’t it guilt?”
“No, Cain was not sorry. He murdered Abel out of jealous anger, then he told God that he didn’t care about his brother, he wasn’t his keeper. For him there was no way back.”
“No way back…” David repeated numbly.
“Do you know how I recognised Tane on the hill at Glenfern?”
“By the photo.”
“No. It was because of his tears.”
“The same as at Waitehaia?”
“Exactly. I remembered your story. The action told me everything.”
“Why?”
“With Cain there were no tears.”
“You mean Tane is different?”
“I don’t know what he has done, but he is sorry for it. He wants to find a way back.”
“Is there a way back?”
There was no reply. The red on the carpet was fading as the sun went down. The birds were starting to sing in the trees outside. He looked towards the front of the church. Above the altar there was something which held his gaze.
It was the figure of a man of about his own age dying in agony. He heard again the terrible cry from behind the logs at Waitehaia. Here in front of him was the same tortured face and body. The same trusting, upturned, child-like look.
“Tane, I’m sorry,” he murmured again and again.
And as he did so, the hot anger went and the hammering. In their place came tears, of sorrow, of relief, of remorse, all rolled in together. He was aware of a weight being lifted from him, a weight which he had carried but which was now being shared.
His eyes were moist as he turned to the vicar. “So there is a way?”
Again there was no reply. The lined face which was also moist was fixed on the tortured figure on the cross.
“I’m afraid I don’t believe.”
“But you already understand.”
“How can I?”
“You know that you are your brother’s keeper.”
The conversation in the church carried on after the vicar noticed Kate praying quietly at the back of the church and asked her to join them. It was long after Evensong on Saturday night when the vicar said goodbye to them both at the church door.
He started to walk back to the vicarage. The moon had risen, and was softly silvering the shingled spire. He stood for a moment. It was for him such a peaceful, such a comfortable place.
It was too late to change his decision now. He had befriended a young man whose story, in spite of Eleanor’s encouragement, most people would regard as nonsensical. He, an experienced parish priest, after wrestling in his own mind, had chosen to support this man in direct opposition to his trusted vicar’s warden whom he had known for over twenty years. He had not even consulted his wife who had been gardening for most of the afternoon, knowing that this decision was likely to affect them both very seriously. Nor had he consulted his vestry or his bishop.
Why?
At rare times in his ministry he had taken sudden, intuitive decisions, decisions which defied rational explanation, yet in the end he felt sure that they had been right. Nevertheless, his decision tonight left him with no peace.
He walked very slowly back towards the vicarage.
CHAPTER 29
Nurse Patel had not long been employed at Glenfern Private Hospital. She was on duty on her own in the annexe late in the afternoon of Sunday 23rd January, and she was nervous.
“Dr Richardson, I don’t know whether I ought to mention it, but that long-term patient of yours has been hanging round the drug cupboard again. Is he likely to do anything?”
“Just make sure you don’t leave the drug cupboard open, and call if you need my help at any time.”
“So you’ve had a bad day?”
Though Randall spoke as warmly as he could, the man at the window didn’t turn around, but ran his hands through his long, dark, curly hair in nervous movements.
“Didn’t you see the mountains?”
“Can’t see them anymore.”
“Do you want to go to sleep?”
“I can’t sleep – I only see bad things.” The young man threw himself on the bed and buried his face in his hands.
“If you take the pills, you won’t see any bad things. The nurse has got the pills. Won’t she let you have them? Did you ask her again?”
The face looked up, deeply lined, sweat in beads on the brow and round the sunken eyes, eyes in which the fire was burning inwards. “I only see bad things.”
“Don’t let the nurse stop you.”
“Sleep!” The man mouthed the word, then buried his face in the pillow.
“Would you like to sleep for a long time?”
Randall needed to work quickly now. He had acquired the pills and the solution on Friday. He locked the door, opened the packets, and in the process strewed the little green pills about the floor. “Sorry! How careless of me!” He filled a glass with water, dissolved some pills in it, and placed it by his patient’s bed. Now he took the syringe out of his pocket and placed the needle in the bottle, drawing the solution up into the syringe.
“Just drink this and you’ll really sleep.” He placed the glass in the young man’s right hand. Then he took up the left arm, and looked for the plaster where the last blood test had been done. “And I’ll give you a little prick so that you will see the mountains instead of the bad things.”
He paused. It was all so simple. Nurse Patel was new and inexperienced. In a moment, he would arrange for her to be called away. Then he would open the cupboard, extract the tablets which were exactly the same as the ones he had left in the room. After this he would return to the room and put the key in his patient’s hand, while he was asleep.
He would sleep on, and on, and on.
The verdict would be suicide by means of an overdose of sleeping pills which he had stolen. No one would detect the little prick in the same place as the last blood test, the prick where he had injected the same drug that was contained in the sleeping pills.