The Anchoress of Shere, page 31
Duval felt the salt taste on the edge of his mouth. Balanced precariously on the cross-spar at the base of the cross, he removed his jacket, shirt and trousers. He was too engrossed in his spiritual dedication to feel the cold, but it would take a supreme act of will to force his wrists and feet through the beckoning nails.
The powerful presence of the saintly anchoress would be appeased by the blood of crucifixion, the ultimate act of worship. But Duval asked himself whether he was strong enough, let alone holy enough, to imitate his Saviour.
Despite the lateness of the hour, Marda’s parents had made her flat warm and inviting. And, despite the presence of the police guard and the lanky American, Marda was smothered with family affection, and the dog was curled up in front of an electric heater. It was a time of joy and concern: a daughter returned, a son recovering in intensive care. Marda’s father and the professor demolished most of a bottle of Scotch, while the two women and the police officer consumed endless cups of tea.
Marda tried to explain her feelings, the complete desperation she had felt while in her prison, her total anguish at the manner of her brother’s treatment by Duval, the lengths to which Mark had gone to save her.
“But I also feel so strong,” she said. “I survived the ordeal and I’m alive! Perhaps God, after all, answered my prayers…”
She stopped, surprised to realise how important these prayers had been to her sanity. She wondered, too, if she could continue to be strong, to survive the coming weeks, especially, God forbid, if Mark did not pull through.
Her mother seemed to read her thoughts. “It might be hard, coming to grips with life again. A new life, for it will never be the same,” she said, putting both her arms around the emaciated girl. Her very last reserves of strength utterly depleted, Marda fell soundly asleep on her mother’s shoulder.
The knock on the flat door came at eight o’clock in the morning, when it was still almost dark outside. The policeman opened the door and was met by his breathless superintendent, who enhanced the drama of his message by trying to underplay it: “We’ve found him,” he said, trying to control his excitement. “In the church. We’ve called off the alert.”
“So you trapped him there?” Gould asked.
Superintendent Woodward led Gould outside to answer him, because he thought the details might upset the already distressed Stewart family. “No, he was already dead. Crucified, it appears.”
Gould looked at the policeman in amazement.
“This is just preliminary, you understand. One of my men saw a police car at the rear of the church and went in. I’ve just taken the message on the car radio. One of my men is missing, too. I’m going straight to the church now, but I wanted to tell the Stewarts first.”
“May I come with you, Superintendent?” asked the professor.
The policeman nodded, and the two men hastened to the nearby church.
Gould had seen thousands of depictions of crucifixions, but nothing could have prepared him for the reality: the head was slumped on the chest and dried, matted smudges of blood and strands of tissue disfigured the body, especially around the wrists and feet.
The three policemen and the academic just stared.
Gould was the first to ask: “Why is his face so smashed up?”
He waited a long moment before adding, “Are you sure it’s Duval? You said one of your men was missing. It must be damned difficult to crucify yourself.”
The policemen looked at him in horror. They did not want to believe it could be one of their own.
Shere’s doctor had had a busy night. Arriving a few minutes after Gould, he cleaned up the face a little and suggested that it was the body of a man in his late fifties or early sixties. Too old, probably, for Duval, but even the sergeant at McGregor’s own station was not sure.
“I’m sorry, Super,” he said, his voice strained. “I’ve never seen old McGregor with no clothes on, and the face is unrecognisable. There are no rings an’ all, but he’s missing and it could be him.”
The body was not positively identified until two hours later. The official alert was renewed, and the sweep of the woods was begun. It had given Duval, however, that extra margin of time. He had used it well: at that very moment, Father Duval was contentedly smoking his pipe on board a small fishing boat en route to Ireland.
The professor walked back to Marda’s flat, alongside the Tillingbourne. The weeping willows, bent in anguish, matched his mood. He did not want to inflict more pain on the Stewarts, so he explained that the police would bring further news shortly.
When, a few minutes later, the superintendent told the assembled Stewart family that the dead man was a policeman who had been guarding Duval’s house, Marda and the professor stared at each other. There was a profound intensity and understanding in that look.
“Why did he go back to the house?” Marda’s father asked.
“It’s amazing how many murderers are drawn back to the scene of their crimes, even when it’s highly dangerous to return,” the superintendent said confidently.
“No, Superintendent.” Marda’s voice sounded suddenly very tired. “He was looking for a book, one he has worked on for years.”
Marda said no more. She knew intuitively that Duval had found his book. A glance at Gould told him not to say anything, not to alarm her parents any more than was necessary; the news that Duval was still loose on a murderous spree was more than enough. Marda wondered whether her long isolation had honed some sixth sense.
“Since I clearly know so little of the psychology of the man,” said the superintendent, barely disguising his emotions, “may I ask why-why-he would have killed my officer in this horrific way, and in a church of all places?”
Gould felt Marda had answered enough police questions already. “He was obsessed by the Anchoress of Shere, Superintendent. It was his consuming passion. I suppose he will burn in hell.”
“After we catch him, Professor. And we will. He’s killed one of my men, and I won’t stop looking for him.” The policeman paused to manage his anger. “But it’s odd that he remained such a cold and calculating criminal for so long, but now seems to have gone berserk.”
“Maybe because Marda stood up to him,” said Gould, tentatively. “Perhaps I played a part, a small one. I uncovered some new data on your Anchoress of Shere. Maybe it finally got to be too much for him. Perhaps the enormity of his crimes affected his conscience, if he had one. I suppose in all senses of the word the game was up.”
“It’s a strange game you historians play,” the superintendent said brusquely.
The phone rang for the superintendent and the room started to buzz with police jargon.
Sensing Gould’s hurt at the policeman’s probably unintended slight, Marda walked over to him and sat on the arm of his chair. She touched his hand gently.
“I haven’t thanked you properly for helping me…and my brother. I don’t lump all you history nuts together, I promise.”
“I should be comforting you, Marda,” Gould said, looking up at her. “I would like to. When all the police stuff is sorted out, when you’ve spent some time with your folks, when your brother’s out of hospital…when you’ve done some grieving for yourself, I guess…would you visit me in the States? I live in a lovely historical part of Georgetown.”
“Yes, I’d like that. Later, I’ll need to talk things through, to try to understand what’s happened to me, and inside me. I know I can talk to you.”
“And when you’re all talked out, no more medieval history, OK?”
“No more history, Professor Irvine Gould. No more history. When I’ve recovered I’ll look forward to the future.”
She squeezed his hand. He responded with the sensitive strength of both his scholar’s soft hands. Marda appreciated a gentle, tactile man. That touch was to prevent Marda hating men and God, and would be her resurrection. After so long in a tomb it was, for her, the most important gesture on earth.
XVIII. The Redemption
Sand lizards scurried from walkers who trespassed on their territory, while at night foxes scavenged among the litter discarded by careless picnickers. The Hurtwood, however, no longer beckoned to Marda, despite the enticingly warm summer of 1968. She had said farewell to Shere forever, but Christine’s ghost remained with her. Perhaps one day, in the hereafter, the shades of both women would together heed the summons of St. James’s church as the bells tolled the Grandsire carillon.
But for now bells meant death; Marda attended the funerals of all her five prison companions. She tried to console the families of the other women, but telling them the whole truth would hurt them, and her, too much. It was enough that the bodies had been recovered and identified, and that the families could begin to grieve, knowing that their loved ones had been properly laid to rest. That was far better than spending a whole life not knowing what had happened to a daughter or a sister. Marda also attended the memorial service for Constable McGregor, and silently thanked him for trying to help her.
After so much sadness, Marda needed time to become herself again. True, she had regained her former weight, and her high cheekbones had lost their gauntness. Her lips were plump once more, and the rosy colour had long since returned to her face. She needed more time, however, for healing the woman inside. Her employers granted her extended leave to recover at her family home, while her job was kept open. She restarted in September, almost a year after her ordeal had begun.
The regiment put on a good show for the returning hero. Captain Mark Stewart was unable to resume active duty for a year, but he could manage a desk job in the interim. Marda had helped him through his convalescence, and now they were as close as any brother and sister could be. Marda had indeed found a new strength in her imprisonment, not least the strength to love unreservedly, unselfishly. She dissuaded Mark from waging a one-man crusade to find Duval, but Superintendent Woodward was true to his word; he never gave up. Despite his efforts, though, an intensive international police search continued to draw a blank. Woodward also tried to trace Duval through his attachment to Catholicism, but the impenetrable labyrinth of the Church was too complex.
Marda spent a lot of time with Jenny, who persuaded her to contact Gerard. The Frenchman did visit the Stewart family home in Woking, but Marda and Gerard had become strangers. They promised to meet regularly for lunch in Bordeaux, but that promise fizzled out into occasional and desultory chats over coffee.
Every day during her recuperation she played in the garden with Bobby, her new and faithful friend; the dog followed her every step. He, too, seemed reluctant to be alone again.
Professor Gould rang her regularly and wrote long amusing letters. She grew to like him more and more.
When a package arrived with an American stamp in mid-June, she rushed to open it. It contained a book entitled “Christine Carpenter: The Anchoress of Shere.”
Her blood turned to ice as she began to read the covering letter.
Dear Marda
In the final analysis, the core of the Christian message is forgiveness. You don’t need a Church for this, because you of all people should know that you can speak to God directly. The springs of sanctity and sadism come from the same source, and I may have inadvertently erred towards the latter. So I have asked God and my confessor to forgive the hurt I have done you, and your brother, and my other guests, but still I hope you learned something from me. And from Christine.
Perhaps you should take your American to France. Get him to re-check those bogus documents on which he bases the false claims of Christine’s alleged sojourn in San Sardos.
I retain little from my time in Shere except my unpublished book, a copy of which I enclose. I realise that it can never, should never, be published. It is perhaps too tragic, like the love story of Tristan and Isolde, but Christine and I are separated by over 600 years. It was impossible, but I did my best to recreate her and her vision. I chose you to do that. You failed me in this, but perhaps it was a noble failure.
I am fortunate in being a member of the universal Church. I did not take up my posting in Bolivia, and I will have left America before you receive this letter. There is much more to see of this world before I go to the next, whether Heaven or Hell. Who knows?
Christian love,
Michael Duval.
PS. Please look after Bobby. One day I may come back for him.
Epilogue
I received that letter thirty years ago. Whether it was a hoax or genuine I cannot know for sure, although the police questioned its authenticity. In my opinion, it may well have been genuine because of its peculiar tone. That Duval should have information about my new life was unsettling, and I wondered to what sort of international network he had access. Nevertheless, I tried to put it all behind me, and I am very pleased to say that I never saw him again. Although Duval was never caught, like Lord Lucan he became a famous untried murderer. Lucan killed one person; Duval was infamous as a serial killer, although serial killing has become more commonplace today.
I did see Professor Gould frequently; we became firm friends, and for a while even more than that. Just before Irvine died, at the tragically young age of forty-seven, he let me have his personal diary of the Shere events and copies of his academic work relating to Christine Carpenter. He explained that he had kept the diary secret for so long because it confessed his love for me. I knew how much he loved me, and I responded as passionately as I was able. We did discuss marriage, but eventually I decided that this was not the right path for me.
Irvine’s papers also gave me further insight into anchoresses in general, and of course Christine in particular. I have spent a lifetime wondering which biographical version was correct. Naturally, I trusted Irvine’s scholarship and integrity, and it is much easier to believe that Christine married Simon and brought up a family in France. This Hollywood version is certainly more acceptable in our modern era. Duval was criminally insane, and his historical gifts were questionable, but the essence of his description of Christine’s search for truth might, after all, be more in tune with the spirit of the medieval age. And the purer dimensions of that quest may also be of relevance today.
I tried to recreate the whole paradoxical story, years later it is true, from what I had read and what I remembered, assisted by Irvine’s scholarship, because it is my story as well as Christine’s. Perhaps I have allowed it to be told now for her sake as much as for my own.
After I wrote a very amateurish account of the Shere events, I locked the manuscript away for many years. Recently I was diagnosed as having a terminal illness; after much heart-searching, I thought again about my story. In 1968 I refused to be interviewed by the newspapers and, in those days, the media would respect such a request. No one, except the police, interviewed me.
Finally, I was persuaded by my cousin to talk to a writer whom she trusted. He has edited and fleshed out the story, partly from his own research and partly from extensive interviews with me, my family, ex-policemen and Church authorities.
It was agreed that, after my death, the book would be published in a popular form, provided I could disassociate myself from any parts that I thought were untrue. Although the core of the story is entirely accurate, I must insist that some of the passages relating to sexuality, as well as sections on the Catholic faith, do not reflect my views today. Most importantly, I do not believe that the Roman Catholic Church protected Duval; the police made extensive enquiries and found no evidence of this. It was on this understanding that I undertook legally to transfer my copyright.
Besides this book, the most evident legacy I have of that period is the small cross Duval branded on my cheek in the last stage of my captivity. When I was younger I intended to have it disguised by cosmetic surgery, but somehow I always managed to put off seeing a surgeon. In my vanity I grew to accept it as my own stigmata.
Duval was a truly evil man, and should stand utterly condemned by Church and state. Someone, such as myself, who actually suffered at his hands could never justify his actions, but I did learn one vital truth from my incarceration: sometimes good can emerge from evil. At the secular level of existence, I am pleased, for example, that Mark and Jenny have given me such charming nephews and nieces. At the more important spiritual level, Christ’s crucifixion was the most abominable event in history, but from it came the promised redemption of the whole world.
I close by giving my thanks to the sisters of the Convent of the Immaculate Conception, who have enabled me for over twenty-five years to devote my love to the glory of Our Lord. When this is published, I shall have died and God will be my judge.
Sister Agnes (Marda Stewart)
Convent of the Immaculate Conception
Ranmore, Sussex
November 1998
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