Death of a Pilgrim

7

Michael Delaney finished his interview at half past two. The Sergeant gathered up his papers and prepared to return to his police station. He told Lady Lucy that he would return in the morning to take her and Powerscourt to the St Michel rock. He wanted to show them the site of the incident in person.

Alex Bentley went to his room to write up his notes of the interviews. He wanted to make a good impression on the investigator from London. Princeton men could organize their data just as well as the young gentlemen from Oxford or Cambridge.

Powerscourt’s interview with the Chief of Police was postponed. When he returned to the hotel he found a chess tournament in progress in the dining room. Charlie Flanagan had discovered that the Hotel St Jacques had four sets of chessmen and vigorous battles were being fought all over the room. Willie John Delaney, the Irish pilgrim suffering from an incurable disease, was master of the board, dispatching all who faced him with a checkmate within fifteen or twenty moves. Lady Lucy was deep in conversation with Maggie Delaney in a far corner of the room. Maggie was holding forth on the subject of human wickedness. It made her very happy. If it wasn’t bad enough that all these pilgrims were so burdened with guilt at the crimes they had committed that they had to travel across the Atlantic in a desperate quest for forgiveness, here they were now, virtually encased in the flames of hell. Maggie Delaney was convinced that John Delaney had been murdered. The wrath of God must surely come upon them. Lady Lucy told Powerscourt later that day that Maggie Delaney was a living example of how the contemplation of other people’s sins can make you happy.

‘Any news, Delaney?’ said Powerscourt to Delaney. ‘Did the Sergeant say anything before he left?’

‘He did not,’ said Delaney cheerfully. ‘How about you? Have you given comfort to the enemy?’

‘Well,’ replied Powerscourt, ‘I’ve been trailing my coat. I’ve virtually invited them to come here and help themselves to as much of your money as they can. In exchange for our release, of course. I hope I didn’t overdo it with that Mayor. He’s very shrewd, the Mayor. He’s a butcher by trade, name of Louis Jacquet, and his family have been mayoring here since before the Revolution. I think somebody may be along to see us fairly soon; I could be wrong.’

Powerscourt was not wrong. Shortly after four o’clock a small anonymous-looking middle-aged man in an unremarkable suit presented himself at the hotel reception. He asked to speak with Mr Delaney and Lord Powerscourt. He was led to a table in the corner of the dining room, closed off from the chess players.

‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ Powerscourt translated. ‘I am Pierre Berthon of the firm of notaires of Berthon Berthon and Berthon of Le Puy. We represent the interests of the Bishop and the Cathedral of Notre Dame.’

‘Powerscourt,’ said Powerscourt.

‘Delaney,’ said Delaney, shaking the notaire’s hand very firmly.

M. Berthon took out a large black notebook from his bag and a silver pen from his pocket. Powerscourt saw to his astonishment that the page was not filled with squares. It was ruled. There were lines going across it. He had looked in vain that morning in the Maison de la Presse for such a thing. Did the lawyers of Le Puy have their own secret supplies of proper notebooks, denied to the rest of the citizens?

‘I understand,’ M. Berthon went on, ‘that you gentlemen are anxious to leave Le Puy and continue your pilgrimage?’

‘That is the case,’ Powerscourt nodded.

‘And that you would welcome the support of my lord Bishop in these proceedings?’

‘Such support would be more than welcome, coming from such a distinguished quarter.’ Powerscourt bowed slightly to the lawyer to show his respect for his employers.

‘Tell the little man’, said Delaney, keen to move things on, ‘that it’s not the Bishop who’s holding us up, it’s the damned police.’

‘The Bishop bids me tell you that under certain circumstances he would be happy to assist your cause. I understand, furthermore,’ Berthon pressed on, making an entry on his page with the silver pen, ‘that you wish to make a contribution to the restoration fund of our cathedral here in Le Puy?’

‘We do,’ Powerscourt nodded once more.

‘How much?’ said Berthon.

Powerscourt and Delaney had discussed figures just before the lawyer arrived.

‘Ten thousand francs,’ said Powerscourt.

One of the notaire’s eyebrows arched upwards in a quizzical fashion. He didn’t say a word.

‘Fifteen thousand,’ said Powerscourt. Delaney had been making gestures with his fingers going upwards.

The eyebrow rose a fraction further. The question mark hung in the air. Powerscourt looked at Delaney who made a tiny upward gesture.

‘Seventeen thousand five hundred,’ Powerscourt increased his offer. He wondered flippantly if they could keep going to thirty or even forty thousand so the lawyer’s eyebrow would disappear right off the top of his forehead.

The eyebrow managed yet another upward motion. The man must practise at home in front of a mirror, Powersourt thought.

‘Twenty thousand.’ M. Berthon recalled his eyebrow. He made a note in his book.

‘Done,’ he said with a thin smile. ‘I accept on behalf of the Bishop and the cathedral, gentlemen. Perhaps you could leave a banker’s draft at the reception here in the morning. I must go and tell my lord Bishop. He will be delighted. Those gargoyles have been troubling him for years. I am much obliged to you gentlemen. Rest assured that the Bishop will do all he can to assist your cause. Good afternoon to you both.’ M. Berthon departed. A careful observer would have noticed that he did not seem to be going back in the direction of the Bishop’s Palace or his own offices in the Rue de Consulat. He was going in a different direction altogether, towards the Place du Martouret and the Hotel de Ville, headquarters of the Mayor.

Well, well, Powerscourt thought. God has opened the batting. Who’s coming next? Mammon or the law? ‘What did you make of our friend the Bishop’s man and the Bishop’s move?’ he asked Delaney.

‘Quite remarkable eyebrows the man had,’ said Delaney, ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve found over the years that’s it’s always best to start low on the money side of things on these kind of occasions. Once the other fellow thinks he’s doubled his money, he’ll settle for that. I bet our friend thinks he’s done well. If I was a betting man, Powerscourt, I’d say that the next man up to the plate will be the Mayor or the Mayor’s man of business. If I was playing their hand I’d keep the law till the end.’

Powerscourt and Delaney had already agreed that they would offer the Mayor something other than money. Twenty minutes after the departure of M. Berthon, about the time it would take for a man to walk to and from the Hotel St Jacques to the Hotel de Ville with a five-minute meeting in between, another, younger man in his mid-thirties was escorted to the table in the corner of the dining room. He was wearing a dark grey suit with a plain white shirt and a rather loud tie. Powerscourt didn’t think Lady Lucy would have let him out of the house wearing such a thing.

‘Jean Paul Claude, gentlemen, of the firm of Raffarin and Barre, notaires to the Mayor and the town of Le Puy. At your service.’

‘Powerscourt,’ said Powerscourt.

‘Delaney,’ said Delaney, delivering another of his bone-crushing handshakes.

Jean Paul Claude had a small notebook and a gold pen. ‘I understand you gentlemen are anxious to leave Le Puy and continue your pilgrimage,’ he began.

Powerscourt nodded.

‘And I understand that you are anxious to secure the support of the Mayor in this enterprise?’

Powerscourt nodded again.

‘I am pleased to be able to tell you that under certain circumstances, the Mayor would be willing to back you in this matter.’

Powerscourt wondered if they had all learned their lines together, these lawyers, sitting in the Mayor’s parlour with the crossed French tricolours and the portrait of the President.

‘What circumstances?’ he said amiably.

‘I believe that there has been some discussion about a possible contribution to the Mayor’s office for the good of the town of Le Puy.’ Claude thought things were going well so far.

‘I think you’ll find’, said Powerscourt, ‘that our thinking has changed slightly on that.’

‘In what way?’ said the lawyer, looking anxious.

‘Well,’ said Powerscourt, ‘Mr Delaney here would like to bequeath something permanent to the town, something that would commemorate the name of the Mayor for generations to come.’

‘What is that?’

‘A fountain,’ said Powerscourt, ‘or rather two fountains. One at the north-east part of the town where the pilgrims enter, and one at the south-west end where the pilgrims set off for Compostela. Think how these pilgrims will bless the name of the Mayor in years to come when they can quench their thirst on arrival and have a last drink or fill their water bottles as they leave. It will be a lasting memorial. We envisage that they should be called the Jacquet Fountains with an inscription round the top with the name of the Mayor and the date of construction. Mr Delaney’s name would only be mentioned in much smaller type at the bottom. Is it not a good plan?’

Claude knew in his bones that the Mayor would like such a proposal. He stuck to his script.

‘Et encore?’ he asked.

‘Encore?’ said Powerscourt.

‘Et encore?’ Claude stuck to his guns.

‘Fellow’s turned into Oliver Twist, Delaney. He’s asking for more.’

‘To hell with his encores,’ said Delaney, ‘this is way out of order. Perfectly decent offer, two bloody fountains, if you ask me. Is the cupboard completely bare, my friend? Do we have anything we could throw at them?’

‘We do,’ said Powerscourt.

‘Throw it,’ said Delaney.

‘Mr Claude,’ Powerscourt began, speaking as reasonably as he could. ‘We are all men of the world here. I would remind you that we have in our party of pilgrims a young man who is a journalist on the Irish Times, one of the foremost newspapers in Ireland. Their articles are syndicated all over the world. He has nearly finished his story. He proposes to be highly critical of the police force here in this town. I’m sure you wouldn’t want him writing that the Mayor was greedy as well.’

Silence reigned in the corner of the dining room. The hotel clock chimed in the entrance hall. Outside the rain beat down on the pavements of Le Puy.

Jean Paul Claude turned the same colour as his tie, a rather disagreeable pink.

‘This article,’ he stammered, ‘this article . . . ’

‘This article need never see the light of day, Mr Claude. We have an element of control over its publication. The young man need never hear about our encounter this afternoon. Why don’t you go back to the Mayor and tell him about the fountains. “This fountain was given to the town and the pilgrims of Le Puy by Louis Jacquet, Mayor, in the Year of Our Lord 1906,” the inscription might say. “I was thirsty in the desert and ye gave me drink.” I’m sure we could find some such biblical quotation to give the thing resonance. Perhaps the Bishop would bless them once they’re in place?’

‘Very well, gentlemen,’ said Claude, trying to rescue some of his dignity. ‘I shall go back to the Mayor. Thank you for your time. We shall be in touch shortly.’

Delaney laughed when he heard what Powerscourt had thrown at them. ‘Didn’t know you had a newspaperman in your back pocket, Powerscourt. That should make the bastards sit up for a moment or two. If I want to give the damned place a fountain, why shouldn’t I give the damned place a fountain? Don’t see why I should hand over cash to the Mayor so he can build an extension to his butcher’s shop where he can hang a few more sides of beef and store the local pigs’ trotters.’

The gap between the departure of M. Claude and their next visitor was rather longer than the previous one. Perhaps the Mayor’s party were having a council of war. It was just after half past five when the next visitor arrived. This was Inspector Jean Dutour, who numbered among his many roles that of representative of the police federation for the widows and orphans of serving or retired officers. He too said he understood that Mr Delaney wished to make a contribution to the fund. The conversation followed exactly the same path as that with M. Berthon, except the Inspector did not have a movable eyebrow. He regaled them instead with piteous tales of young police widows with tiny pensions and numerous children, virtually unable to feed their families, of retired constables whose wives had passed away and were scarcely able to look after themselves. He too settled for twenty thousand francs. He had an important announcement to make before he left.

‘I am asked to inform you, gentlemen, that representatives of the police and the public prosecutor’s office wish to see you in the morning. They propose that the meeting should start at nine o’clock. A very good day to you, gentlemen, and thank you again for your contribution.’

Before Inspector Dutour could leave, there was a knock at the door. Stephen Lewis, the solicitor from Frome, poked his head apologetically round the corner.

‘Forgive me, Lord Powerscourt, Mr Delaney, I saw our policeman friend here arrive a few minutes ago. I wonder if we could ask him to clear up a procedural point about the French legal system. I think it has bearing on our particular circumstances. I was taught this years ago in college but I only remembered it this afternoon. Could you ask the Inspector who decides whether to proceed or not in important cases like murder or corruption in France. Is it the police, or is it somebody else?’

‘Inspector,’ said Powerscourt, ‘could we ask you a general question about the working of the law in your country? You are perfectly free to decline, if you so wish. Mr Lewis here is a solicitor from England.’

‘I’ll try,’ said the Inspector, more than happy to sing the superior virtues of the French system to that of the Anglo-Saxons.

‘In important cases like murder or corruption,’ said Powerscourt, ‘who decides whether to proceed with a case or not? In our country it would be a matter for the police.’

‘Not so in France, Lord Powerscourt. Here we have a different system. The lawyers call your system adversarial because two lawyers end up fighting it out in court. The French system is better, I think. It’s called inquisitorial. In such cases as those you mention, the conduct of the case is in the hands of a judge called an investigating judge or an investigating magistrate. His job is to find out the truth. So it is he, not the policemen, who decides whether there is enough evidence to proceed with a case.’

‘Thank you very much,’ said Powerscourt and escorted the Inspector to the door.

Delaney was in belligerent mood when he returned. ‘Do you mean to tell me, my friend, that we have been buttering up the wrong people? That we needn’t have bothered with shelling out for the police widows and orphans as the police won’t decide whether to let us go or not? Should we have gone after this investigating magistrate person instead? How do you fix them, anyway?’

‘Don’t think it would be easy,’ said Powerscourt, ‘fixing one of these characters, as you put it. They’re probably meant to be completely independent like the judges on your Supreme Court, Delaney.’

‘It’s perfectly possible to fix a few members of the Supreme Court,’ said Michael Delaney happily. ‘They say some of the robber barons did it in a case involving a steel cartel back in the 1890s. Two years later relations of the judges who backed the robber barons began getting highly paid jobs in the subsidiaries of the steel companies. Nothing was ever proved, of course.’

‘Was there not a perfectly valid reason why these people should have got jobs in the steel industry?’ Stephen Lewis asked. Frome had seen nothing like this.

‘Sure,’ said Delaney. ‘One of them was a hairdresser in the Bronx. Another taught primary school in South Dakota.’

There was one further development at twenty past seven that evening. A note arrived, addressed to Lord Francis Powerscourt. It informed him that the Mayor was delighted about his fountains.

There was a great air of anticipation in the dining room of the Hotel St Jacques that evening. Powerscourt talked to Michael Delaney about his son James and his progress. Only that afternoon, Delaney informed him, there had been a cable from New York to say that James was almost fully recovered and hoped to join them later in the pilgrimage. The young men were in high spirits, wondering how far they would be able to walk in a day and if they would meet any pretty girls on the pilgrim path. Lady Lucy was doing her duty by Maggie Delaney once again. ‘Look,’ the old lady whispered, her finger travelling round the diners like the beam of a searchlight, ‘one of these men is a murderer. It would have to be a man, wouldn’t it? Oh yes. Now we have a further crime to add to our burden, the bribing of the civil and the religious authorities in this holy town. When we leave, if we leave, we’ll be a travelling charabanc of sin, a mobile circus of iniquity!’ Father Kennedy was making final plans for the funeral. He decided to get Powerscourt to ask the proprietor if it would be appropriate to hold a wake in the dining room.

The men of Le Puy, Michael Delaney thought, arrived for their meeting at nine o’clock in the Hotel St Jacques the next morning looking like a posse from the days of the Wild West. There was The Lawman, a slim man of about forty years wearing the black robes of a French juge d’instruction. There was a priest, the local man who had conferred with Father Kennedy in the past, men of God so often at hand at the time of the final shoot-out in Abilene or Cheyenne. There was The Marshal, Mayor Jacquet himself, looking as though he might have hacked off a few flitches of bacon before breakfast. There was another Lawman, Jean Paul Claude, Deputy to the Mayor, in a lurid green tie.

The proprietor arranged four chairs in an arc in front of the pilgrims.

‘Pelerins, pelerine,’ the Mayor began. ‘Pilgrims, Miss Pilgrim,’ Powerscourt translated, ‘thank you for your patience. I think we should hear first from Mr Toulemont, the juge in charge of the case of the late John Delaney.’

The juge took out a pair of pince-nez and looked down over his nose at his notes. ‘It is for me to decide, gentlemen and lady, if this case should proceed. I have read the details of the interviews you all gave to the police. I have myself visited the site of the unfortunate incident. I cannot see any point in proceeding with this matter under present circumstances. There is no evidence that the laws of France have been broken. I have therefore decided that you may proceed on your pilgrimage.’ A burst of applause rang out from the pilgrims. ‘However,’ the juge held up his hand for quiet, ‘I do not think we should close the case completely. Fresh witnesses may come forward. People could change their minds. I do not think any of you should be allowed to leave France without permission. I have asked and been granted leave to ask for a bond, a form of bail, if you will. If anybody leaves without permission, or if you fail to register with the local police force wherever you may be once a week, the bond will be forfeit.’

‘How much?’ said Delaney from the back of the room.

‘Fifty thousand francs,’ said the juge, frowning at this rude interruption.

‘Done!’ said Delaney. ‘I’ll leave you a banker’s draft at the reception.’

‘Gentlemen, lady.’ The Mayor was back on his feet. ‘The matter is now closed. As of this moment you are free to leave the hotel and enjoy the sights of our town. I am asked to tell you that the funeral of John Delaney will take place at three o’clock this afternoon in the church behind the Hotel de Ville. Tonight the town of Le Puy would like to invite you to a banquet here in this hotel. The Mayor’s office will pay and look after the arrangements. Tomorrow there will be a special pilgrims’ Mass in the cathedral at nine o’clock, the service to be taken by the Bishop himself. Until this evening then. I wish you all a very good day.’

The pilgrims shot out of the room into the fresh air of the town, like children let out of school. Powerscourt saw Lady Lucy out of the corner of his eye, conversing happily with the Sergeant. Delaney was brooding at the back of the room, shaking his head sadly from time to time. ‘It’s not the money,’ he assured Powerscourt, ‘stock dividends and bond interest should clear that before lunchtime. I feel they’ve put one over on us somehow, that we’ve been conned. Me, Michael Delaney, beaten by a bunch of Frenchmen in berets.’

Powerscourt assured the tycoon that they hadn’t lost, they had won. The pilgrims were leaving.

‘Maybe we could have gotten to that judge person earlier. Maybe we were thinking too small.’ The vast possibilities of the New World that had made Delaney so rich seemed to open out before him once more. ‘What do you think it would have taken to fix the man? Flat in Paris? Chateau on the Loire, wherever that is? Women? He looked as though he could do with a woman or two, that judge, now I come to think about it.’

‘I must go now,’ said Powerscourt. ‘The Sergeant is taking Lady Lucy and me to St Michel, the rock where John Delaney died.’

‘Careful now,’ said Michael Delaney. ‘Don’t fall off.’

The volcanic pinnacle of St Michel d’Aiguilhe is some distance from the cathedral and the pink Corneille Rock with its huge statue of the Virgin and Child. It disappears behind other buildings as you approach, reappearing in larger and more menacing form as you draw closer. The day was overcast, with dark clouds scudding across the sky and gusts of wind tearing at their clothes. The summit was some two hundred and sixty feet above ground with a tenth-century chapel at the peak and, as the Sergeant told them at the bottom, there were two hundred and sixty-eight steps to the top.

‘There’s a rail most of the way,’ said the Sergeant, preparing to lead his party upwards. ‘Hold on to that. If you’re worried about heights, don’t look down.’ The Sergeant resolved to take special care of Lady Lucy. She might get blown away in the wind.

Powerscourt was worried about heights. He always had been. He had once been forced to come down the steps that led to the roof of Durham Cathedral sitting down after vertigo struck him at the top. Lady Lucy watched him anxiously as they set off.

‘You will be careful, Francis, won’t you?’ she said to him. ‘Turn back if you feel queasy. I can give you a full report later.’

Powerscourt worked out a plan he thought might take him to the top. It was, he knew, the sight of the drop that would set him off. The path clung to the outside of the rock, snaking its way round the edge of the volcanic outcrop towards the sky. There was always rock to look at on one side or the other. After a hundred steps or so they came to a little clearing. Lady Lucy asked her husband if he wanted to sit down. The drop on the left-hand side was clearly visible from the bench. Powerscourt shook his head. The Sergeant, all fifteen stone of him, was trudging steadily on, a few paces ahead of them. Powerscourt thought he was doing well. Look at the step. Look at the Sergeant’s back. Look at the blessed rock to one side of you. Look at Lady Lucy. Don’t look round. Don’t look down. Don’t look back. The rain was falling heavily now, the steps growing slippery. They passed another resting place with a bench for weary travellers. Again Powerscourt declined. He was panting now, sweat breaking out on his forehead. Just one step at a time. There. Now another one. One more. Don’t look down. Don’t look up. Don’t look across. Keep your eyes on the rock to your left or right. We must be nearly there now. A dark bird shot past just a few feet away. Powerscourt slipped slightly but then regained his bearing. It’s an omen, he said to himself. I’m going to be all right. Don’t look down. Don’t look up. Don’t look sideways. Fix your eyes on the step, on the dark blue uniform of the Sergeant, on Lucy’s feet. One step at a time. You’re wearing brown boots today. The Sergeant’s boots are black. The bottoms of the Sergeant’s trousers are frayed. One foot in front of another. Keep looking at the rock.

He had long ago abandoned the rail and was huddling close to the rock on the left-hand side. In the past vertigo attacks crept up on him very slowly. There was always time to turn back and it would pass in a minute or two. The Sergeant did not look round. He could hear the other two coming up behind him. Lady Lucy was talking to her Francis now, very quietly. ‘You’ve done so well, my love. You’re nearly there. Don’t rush it, we’re nearly there.’ We must have done over two hundred steps now, Powerscourt said to himself, and began counting from two hundred. Two hundred and five. Don’t look down. Two hundred and eight. One step at a time. Two hundred and ten. To his right he saw for a fraction of a second the ground below, pygmies and dwarves moving along matchstick roads. He looked away. Two hundred and thirteen. Nearly there. Don’t look back. Two hundred and fifteen. The sweat was pouring down his face now. There was still rock, blessed rock on his left. Two hundred and eighteen. The pinnacle tapered as it rose to the little chapel on the top. These steps are very worn. How did they carry all the building materials to the top a thousand years ago? One step at a time. Two hundred and twenty-one. Only forty-seven to go. One of my laces is broken. Don’t look round. The rock to his right ran out. Don’t look down. A gust of wind and rain hit him full in the face. Good. Don’t look round. Don’t look up. The Sergeant’s trousers are dark blue. The bottom of Lucy’s dress is grey. Two hundred and twenty-five. There is green moss clinging to the rock. Don’t look down. Two hundred and twenty-eight. Keep your head down. Two hundred and thirty-one. Then he ran out of rock. There wasn’t any rock on his left. There wasn’t any rock on his right. Infinity loomed behind the rail. There was no warning. The vertigo hit him like a typhoon. The sky was spinning round above him. The chapel of St Michel was whirling away in the opposite direction. He felt his legs begin to go. The clouds, those dark grey clouds were accelerating above him, shooting into space. His head was going round faster and faster.

‘Sergeant! Quick!’ For a big man the Sergeant moved remarkably fast. Lady Lucy took one side of her husband, the Sergeant the other. Powerscourt was reeling like a drunken man. He knew what he had to do. He had to throw himself over the side. He had to jump. Then this terrible spinning sensation, this total loss of control, might stop. He had to go. He flung himself desperately towards the edge. The Sergeant took him in a bear hug. For a moment Lady Lucy thought the two of them might plunge into the abyss. Then Powerscourt tried the other side. A really determined man, his wits cascading round his head like the colours in a child’s kaleidoscope, could force his way over the left-hand side of the rock. Again the Sergeant just managed to hold him, Lady Lucy pulling desperately from the other side. Still the tempest in Powerscourt’s brain raged on, people, buildings, rock zooming away from him, swirling round and round and round and round and shooting up and down and up and down. There was another struggle. There was a brief pause. Lady Lucy thought incongruously that if her husband’s brain was stable he would be comparing this with the final conflict between Sherlock Holmes and Dr Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Then the Sergeant whipped out his truncheon. He hit Powerscourt a very firm blow on the head. Powerscourt passed out two hundred and thirty feet above ground with his wife and a police sergeant for company. There were only thirty-seven steps to go.

‘Sergeant!’ said Lady Lucy and then she realized he might have saved her husband’s life. ‘Well done! How very clever of you to think of knocking him out!’

‘I wasn’t sure we could hold him,’ said the Sergeant. ‘This seemed the best thing.’

‘What do we do now?’ asked Lady Lucy. ‘Do we wait for him to come round?’

‘I don’t think so, Lady Powerscourt. I think he might be off again if we leave him up here. I’ll carry him down.’

In ten minutes the Sergeant and Lady Lucy had carried him down. In fifteen the three of them were installed in a little cafe at the bottom, waiting for Powerscourt to come round.

‘I’m still here,’ he said at last. ‘I’ve got a very sore head. I know I had a terrible attack of vertigo up there.’ He shuddered as he looked up at St Michel, dimly visible through the dirty windows of the cafe. ‘I had this irresistible urge to jump off the rock.’

‘The Sergeant knocked you out, Francis. Then he carried you down.’

‘I’m very much obliged to you, Sergeant. I think you may have saved my life.’

As the Sergeant prepared to move off to more normal duties, Powerscourt held him back.

‘I say, Sergeant, I’ve only just thought of this. Do you suppose that poor man John Delaney suffered from vertigo? If he’d gone up there on his own and been sent spinning round, he’d have fallen off or jumped off just like I nearly did.’

‘Don’t suppose we’ll find the answer to that one, Lord Powerscourt. I don’t see how we’ll ever know.’

‘I shall make inquiries in England,’ said Powerscourt, resolving to send a message to Johnny Fitzgerald. ‘If I find the answer, rest assured that you’ll be the first to know.’

Half an hour later Powerscourt and Lady Lucy were in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, staring at the Black Madonna above the high altar. Alex Bentley had given Powerscourt some of the history of this strange artefact over breakfast that morning. The statue itself was small, less than three feet high. A black ebony Virgin with staring eyes was dressed today in a white robe embroidered with fleurs-de-lis and golden roses. Halfway down, a small black Christ, wearing a crown, peeped out from under the robe.

‘Is it very old, Francis?’ whispered Lady Lucy.

‘The original was very old, Lucy. It was brought here by some Louis who was a king and saint in the late 1250s. Le Puy was famous as a Marian shrine long before that but this one up there really put them on the map. They say Louis was given it as a present by some prince in the Middle East. The Black Madonna brought the pilgrims to Le Puy. The Black Madonna was their special attraction. Nobody else had one. The Black Madonna made the town rich.’

‘What happened to the original, Francis?’

‘Ah well,’ said her husband, ‘the original perished in the Revolution. Some say she was burnt at the Feast of Pentecost in 1794, there’s even a story that she was beheaded in the guillotine. You won’t be surprised to hear the church authorities decided to bring her back in the middle of the nineteenth century. Maybe she could make Le Puy rich again. This is a copy of the first one.’

Lady Lucy wandered off to another part of the cathedral. Powerscourt moved forward, as close as he could get to the little ebony statue in her white robes up on the wall above the high altar. It was extraordinary how this tiny figure dominated the entire building, how your eyes were drawn to it from all over the cathedral. Powerscourt wondered what it would have meant to those pilgrims over six hundred years before. A black Madonna and a black Christ. That surely meant a black Joseph, black disciples, a black Peter, a black Mark, a black Matthew and a black Judas. Did it also mean a black God in a black heaven with black angels and black cherubim and black seraphim? And where would thirteenth-century minds have thought this black kingdom was? Did they know where Africa was? Probably not, he thought. No wonder people flocked to Le Puy in their tens of thousands even now to see the Black Madonna carried in glory through the streets of Le Puy on special religious festivals. She came, quite literally, from a different world.

As they were leaving a young priest pressed a note into Powerscourt’s hand. It came from the Bishop. There was a prayer enclosed and a short message. ‘Dear Lord Powerscourt,’ it said. ‘Tomorrow, after Mass, I shall read this, the pilgrim’s prayer, for all making the journey to Compostela. It is very beautiful. I would not like to think that the people who are most meant to hear it will not understand it. Could you therefore stand by the pulpit and translate for the benefit of our English friends?’

Powerscourt nodded to the young priest. ‘Please tell the Bishop that I shall be honoured.’

Shortly before nine o’clock the next morning the pilgrims and the rest of the congregation were in their seats for the Pilgrims’ Mass. The dinner the night before had been a great success with speeches from the Mayor and Mr Delaney and a spectacular creme brulee from the chef. It had been washed down with Chateauneuf du Pape, hidden away in the corner of the hotel cellars for special occasions, which Powerscourt thought was one of the finest wines he had ever tasted.

Alex Bentley had placed the pilgrims in order of their method of transport by the west door of Notre Dame. At the end of the service, he had told them, when the Bishop reached the door they were to file out in pairs, the young ones who were going to walk first, the more sedentary pilgrims behind. On the other side of the nave Powerscourt noticed that there was a good cross section of the citizenry come to see them off. The Mayor and some of his staff were in the front row. Behind them the Sergeant with six of his police colleagues for company. And behind them the staff of the Hotel St Jacques come to say goodbye to the guests they had served so well. Even the chef was there, in plain clothes.

As the Mass flowed on Powerscourt realized that at last the pilgrims and their hosts were speaking the same language. When the service was over the Bishop, clad in his purple robes, made his way slowly into his pulpit and up the steps. Powerscourt, his copy of the prayer in his hand with his own translation underneath, stood to attention at the side.

‘Ici nous avons . . . ’ the Bishop began.

‘Here we have’, Powerscourt spoke slowly so his voice would not sound too hurried, ‘a pilgrim’s prayer that we believe goes back to the Middle Ages. It has been said over countless pilgrims as they leave this cathedral to go to Compostela. This prayer is for all of you today.’ Powerscourt paused. The Bishop carried on.

‘Dieu, vous avez appele Abraham . . . ’

‘Lord, you called your servant Abraham out of Ur of Chaldea and watched over him in all his wanderings; you guided the Jewish people through the desert: we ask you to watch over your servants here who, for love of your name, make the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.’

The pilgrims’ eyes were shooting between the Bishop and his translator at the bottom of the pulpit steps.

‘Be for us, a companion on the journey, direction at our crossroads, strength in our fatigue, a shelter in danger, resource on our travels, shadow in the heat, light in the dark, consolation in our dejection, and the power of our intention; so that with your guidance, safely and unhurt, we may reach the end of our journey and, strengthened with gratitude and power, secure and happy, may return to our homes, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Apostle James, pray for us. Holy Virgin, pray for us.’

The Bishop came down and shuffled slowly towards the west door. One of his acolytes followed, carrying a selection of objects on a silver tray.

Wee Jimmy Delaney and Charlie Flanagan were the first to leave. The Bishop blessed them. The acolyte handed each one a copy of the pilgrim’s prayer and a scallop shell, symbol of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela for a thousand years.

Waldo Mulligan and Patrick MacLoughlin followed, then Shane Delaney and Willie John Delaney, Christy Delaney and Jack O’Driscoll, Girvan Connolly and Brother White, Stephen Lewis and Maggie Delaney, Father Kennedy and Alex Bentley. Michael Delaney on his own brought up the rear. Powerscourt hurried Lady Lucy away to see the pilgrims leave. For the traditional route was down the steps by the west door, along a corridor, through a mighty ornamental gate and then down one hundred and thirty-four steps to the Rue des Tables at the bottom. They stood at the top of the steps and watched the pilgrims, some awkward, some relaxed, set out down the same steps into the same street on to the same route as their predecessors eight centuries before.