‘ I’m afraid it’s important that I speak with him,’ he said in a tone that suggested he had the authority to back up his request.
Minch gave a heavy sigh before saying grudgingly, ‘So be it. But if Rev Lawson should suffer a relapse over this, I’ll know exactly where to apportion blame.’
Steven guessed that Minch was a man well used to apportioning blame: he had that air about him. Moral rectitude oozed from every pore. Steven nodded acceptance and was taken by Minch to a small back room on the first floor where they found Lawson sitting, reading in an armchair by the window. He was wearing a dark plaid dressing gown and seemed calm when Minch introduced him — perhaps too calm, he thought. He guessed that he was on some kind of medication. The book he was reading was Arthur Grimble’s, A Pattern of Islands.
‘ I’m sorry, Joseph; this chap’s from something called the Sci-Med Inspectorate, whoever they are,’ snapped Minch with a sidelong glance at Steven. ‘I’m afraid he needs to ask you some questions. I told him you weren’t well but he insists,’ said Minch.
Lawson looked up at Steven over his glasses and asked, ‘About the Combe business?’
‘ I’m afraid so,’ said Steven.
‘ I have already told the police and the prison authorities everything I know about that… man,’ said Lawson. ‘There is absolutely nothing more I can tell you or anyone else.’
Steven wondered about the editing process that had left Lawson finally with “man”. He said, ‘I understand your frustration Rev Lawson but there are some more things I must ask you,’ he said.
‘ Would you like me to stay?’ asked Minch but Lawson said not with a resigned wave of his hand. ‘I’m fine, Angus,’ he assured him.
Steven waited until the door had closed behind Minch. ‘I understand that Combe put you through quite an ordeal?’ he said sympathetically.
A vulnerable look appeared on Lawson’s face and he paused as if choosing his words carefully. ‘I thought I understood people, Dr Dunbar: I believed I knew about the darker side of life, as people like to call it. Upgate isn’t exactly Songs of Praise territory. It’s an ugly rash on the landscape with a population more concerned with Orange Order marches than church socials — more social services than social diary, if you take my meaning. Continual poverty breeds its own kind of society over the years and believe me, it isn’t pretty. It’s life at the lowest common denominator. I’m telling you this because I don’t want you thinking that I’m some kind of middle class cleric who’s had an attack of the vapours because he suddenly came face to face with the real world. I was stupid enough to believe that I’d seen it all in my years at Upgate but I was wrong.’ His voice dropped to a whisper as he added, ‘Oh so wrong. Nothing prepared me for Hector Combe.’
‘ I think you can be excused for not having come across someone like Combe before,’ said Steven quietly. ‘That’s a ‘privilege’ afforded to only a very unlucky few.’
Lawson smiled wryly. ‘Do you know,’ he said. ‘I went there feeling
…’ Lawson searched unsuccessfully for the right expression, ‘in charge, if you like. It was my role to hear the confession of a dying man. I was the one with the power to offer comfort and reassurance. He was supposed to be the one on his best behaviour, the one displaying remorse and contrition, only Combe didn’t seem to see it that way. He had some understanding of the situation but it was a perverted one, if you know what I mean? Maybe you don’t; I’m not sure I do myself. He didn’t really seem to comprehend what sinning and forgiveness was all about.’
‘ The games people play,’ said Steven softly. ‘They’re a complete mystery to psychopaths but they’re clever; they observe; they emulate as best they can, but they can never feel the underlying emotions so sometimes it doesn’t quite come off. It’s hard to appear contrite when you don’t know what the word means.’
‘ Yes, that’s it exactly,’ said Lawson, pleased that someone appeared to understand what he was saying but then a darkness came over him.
‘ He insisted on telling me every little detail about what he’d done to that poor girl. Every evil, loathsome thing that he’d made her do and what he’d done to her… And you know, he seemed to enjoy telling me. I could see it was giving him a thrill all over again. He was…’ Lawson’s voice fell to a whisper, ‘touching himself under the blankets as we spoke… enjoying it as if he were reliving the experience.
‘ He didn’t really do these things,’ said Steven. ‘He was making the whole lot up. He was deliberately trying to shock you.’
Lawson turned in his chair and looked at him without blinking. ‘Was he?’ he asked. ‘Was he really?’
Steven found the doubt in Lawson’s eyes so compelling that he did not reply immediately. Instead, he brought a chair over to join him at the window and sat down. ‘Psychopaths feed off other people’s fear and revulsion,’ he said. ‘It’s like a drug to them. They see it as weakness, an affirmation of their own strength and superiority.’
‘ So why ask for absolution for something he hadn’t done? Why make up something like that?’ asked Lawson.
‘ I don’t know,’ admitted Steven.
‘ It doesn’t make any sense,’ said Lawson, gazing out of the window and shaking his head.
‘ The police think he was trying to get at them by attracting press attention to the case all over again. I understand they had a lot of bad publicity over their handling of it the first time around.’
Lawson considered this in silence.
‘ I’m sorry to have to put you through this,’ said Steven, ‘but I need to ask you about the girl’s fingers.’
‘ Julie!’ Lawson suddenly insisted, as if he’d just come out of his valium haze. ‘We must stop referring to her as “the girl”. Her name was Julie, not “the girl”.’
‘ I’m sorry; Julie; can you remember exactly what Combe said about Julie’s fingers?’
‘ He told me he broke them,’ said Lawson, his gaze drifting off into the middle distance.
There was nothing more forthcoming so Steven prompted him. ‘Did he say why?’
‘ She scratched him. She scratched his face so he broke three of her fingers, one for each scratch, he said, one at a time, simple as that. This little piggy went to market… Snap! This little….’ Lawson buried his face in his hands, unable to go on, the shake of his shoulders betraying a silent sob.
‘ Would you like some water?’ Steven asked, seeing there was a carafe sitting on the table by the bed.
Lawson shook his head. When he’d recovered his composure he looked at Steven and said, ‘If he made the whole lot up, how come he still had the scars on his face? He pointed them out to me; three parallel lines on his cheek.’
Steven was taken aback. Eventually, he said, ‘I’m sure a man like Combe was no stranger to scars: he’s probably been collecting them since he was old enough to start beating up the other kids. He probably thought that showing you them would make his story sound more real, keep you on the hook.’
Lawson ignored what Steven had said and continued. ‘He invited me to touch them… He seemed to know instinctively that it would have been like touching the dead girl for me… It was as if he could read my mind… see my weakness — sense my fears. He was an animal, a clever, cunning, evil animal.’
‘ Combe is dead, Mr Lawson,’ said Steven. ‘He’s filling an unmarked council grave in a muddy field. The only visitor he’ll ever have now will be the rain.’
‘ His body is in a grave,’ said Lawson flatly.
Steven’s impulse was to say, ‘that’s good enough for me,’ but, out of compassion, he didn’t. Instead he said, ‘I’ll let you chaps worry about other matters.’
‘ I don’t think I know how to any more,’ said Lawson. ‘I told him that I hoped he would burn in hell.’
‘ A sentiment shared by the rest of the population of this country, I should think,’ said Steven. ‘There’s only so much emotional baggage that one person can carry around in one life, Rev Lawson, even a man of the cloth like yourself. The world is better off without Hector Combe. Period. End of story. Forget him. Concentrate on the living and the people who need you.’