‘Begging your pardon, sir.’ Shane Delaney from Swindon, the man with a dying wife, had risen from his chair, shuffling nervously from foot to foot. ‘I think Lord Powerscourt forgets something. We’re not here on some walking holiday, we’re here on pilgrimage. Christian didn’t turn back, sir, because of his troubles and temptations on the way to the Celestial City. He went on. I promised my Sinead, so I did, that I would carry out this pilgrimage on her behalf. I’m here because she’s too sick to do it. It might save her life, so the priests told me, not a great chance but it might. I can’t go back, sir. I’d be letting her down. I couldn’t look her in the eye if I ran away. We have all these difficulties, like Christian. But I for one have got to go on. Like him.’
Powerscourt spoke from his chair. ‘You don’t think, Shane, that your Sinead would rather have you back in Swindon alive than dead in the south of France?’ Even as he finished he wondered if his comment had been unwise. These were not rational people after all, no rational person would set out to walk the thousand miles from Le Puy to Santiago de Compostela and think it might save his wife’s life. Forces other than reason and logic, so close to Powerscourt’s heart, were at work here.
‘I’m with Shane, so I am,’ said Willie John Delaney, the man dying from an incurable disease. ‘Forgive me for mentioning it, but my number is up in a couple of months or so whether I’m on pilgrimage or not. It’s been a great comfort to me so far, this pilgrimage, sir, so it has. As the priests might put it, I think I’d make a better death as a pilgrim travelling with all these good people here, than I would if I ran away.’
There was a muttering of approval. Powerscourt felt he was going to lose the argument.
‘I think we should carry on too.’ Jack O’Driscoll, the young newspaperman from Dublin was on his feet now. ‘You see, as most of you know, I work for a newspaper in Dublin. Before I left my editor told me the pilgrimage would make me a better person. I didn’t know what he meant then. I think I do now. I think that as we’ve made our way here we’ve stopped being a collection of individuals. We’re becoming a little community. In a perverse way the murders make that feeling stronger. I feel so close now to the other young people I’ve been walking with, closer than I do to my friends back home. I’m sure that these feelings will only get stronger.’ Maybe it’s like people who have fought together in battle, Powerscourt thought, it’s like Johnny Fitzgerald and I, bonded for life. ‘I’m only young,’ Jack went on, ‘and I don’t have that many sins. But some of us must have great burdens we wish to lay down, sins we want forgiveness for, and we won’t achieve any of that by running away.’
There was one last contribution from the pilgrims. Waldo Mulligan, the man who worked for a senator in Washington, the man running from a passionate affair with a friend’s wife, rose to his feet. He was a more accomplished speaker than the others.
‘I am not yet old,’ he began, ‘but I am one of those of whom Jack spoke a moment ago when he talked of people burdened with sins. I don’t wish to advertise my sins here this evening but as the days have passed I have come to realize that it is not all despair and guilt, that the process of pilgrimage itself, the rhythm of the days, the aching feet at the end of the journey, the deep sleep that comes with so much exercise, is helping me towards some kind of understanding. There is a long way to go. I may never be forgiven my sins but I may learn to come to an accommodation with them. I do not believe that process would continue if I ran away, as the others put it. Lord Powerscourt was eloquent, very eloquent, in making the case for our quitting. But I believe the good that may come from continuing outweighs the bad. By quite a long way. I thank Lord Powerscourt for his views but I think we should carry on.’
There was a short silence. The waiters were laying the tables for supper at the other end of the room. Michael Delaney looked quizzically at Powerscourt as if asking him whether he wished to speak again. Powerscourt shook his head. ‘Very well, gentlemen,’ said Delaney, venturing into new democratic territory, ‘I think we should put it to the vote. Would all those who think we should continue please raise their right hands.’
The vote was unanimous. Powerscourt had lost. The pilgrims had won. Later that evening he sat in a chair by the window in their bedroom and stared moodily at the Lot, gurgling and dancing on its way to the distant sea. ‘We’re on a Cavalcade of Death now, Lucy,’ he said sadly, ‘a caravan trail with murder at our side and death stalking behind us. I’ll tell you what it reminds me of. You know those stories of great expeditions into remote parts of Africa or the interior of Australia. The explorers set off in high spirits, laden down with supplies that will last for years and the very best clothing and equipment that modern science can provide. They appear in happy photographs in the magazines before they go, assuring the readers that modernity will always conquer the wilderness or the outback or wherever it is they’re going. Early reports reach the world they’ve left behind that progress is better than expected. The huskies or the sherpas or the native bearers or whoever is carrying all their stuff are doing well. Then nothing. And a further nothing. After a couple of years another expedition is sent out to find the first one. They come across a couple of bleached bones and a tin or two of food lying in the desert or the snow or the ice. All gone. All dead in the middle of nowhere.’
‘You’d better come to bed, Francis,’ said Lady Lucy practically. ‘It’s not as bad as that and you know it.’
‘Wait and see,’ said her husband morosely, temporarily locked into the role of prophet of doom.
‘Francis,’ Lady Lucy was sitting up on her pillows now, ‘you’re not doing yourself justice, you know. You were right down there, of course you were. But the pilgrims didn’t agree with you. So why don’t you think of something else, my love, and stop being so miserable.’
‘Like what?’ asked Powerscourt.
‘How about this,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘why don’t you start thinking about how you are going to keep them all alive?’
11
The police inspector from Figeac arrived very early the next morning. Powerscourt came across him having a quick cup of coffee with Jacques the hotel owner. Nicolas Leger was small for a policeman. Powerscourt wondered briefly if he had stood on tiptoe when they measured the height of aspirant police recruits. He was about thirty-five years old, Nicolas, with a cheerful face, quizzical brown eyes and hair that was beginning to recede inexorably up his forehead. This seemed to be a matter of considerable regret to the Inspector for he sent a hand up to the top of his head at regular intervals as if checking on the damage.
‘Lord Powerscourt,’ he said, ‘what a pleasure to meet you. I heard about your adventures in St Petersburg from a colleague who spent some time attached to our secret service in the Place des Vosges in Paris.’
Powerscourt bowed. ‘I apologize, monsieur, for the trouble we are all causing the French authorities here. I wish it were not so.’
‘Do not trouble yourself, my lord. As long as people are living together they will go round killing each other at one time or another. That is what they told us in the police college. Murder is as much a part of life as love. Look what happened in the Garden of Eden after all. Whole thing started with Cain and Abel. Now then, what can you tell me about these pilgrims? Do you have any suspicions? In half an hour or so when they are taking their breakfast I am going to search their rooms. Just a quick look, you understand. I have a couple of men coming shortly who can turn them inside out during the morning. After they have had their coffee I should like to talk to them all. Perhaps you would do me the honour of translating?’
Powerscourt said that he and Lady Lucy would take it in turns for the translating. It was tiring work. He told the Inspector the little he knew about the pilgrims and their different motives for making the journey to Compostela, ranging from a love of architecture to adventure and a quest for forgiveness of sins or a cure for terminal illness.