In the House of Reason
Part One
There are nights to make you believe in demons, and this was one. Wind howled and rain lashed down as the cab pulled up in front of the little vicarage, and I wasted no time in paying the driver and hurrying, bags in tow, to the front door of the house. My journey from Winchester into the rolling hills and villages of Hampshire was over, and not before time.
I was greeted by a little tonsured man. I could see his dog collar was stained and frayed even in the half-light spilling from the blessedly warm house as I tumbled over the threshold, keeping my hat pulled low to stop it from blowing away. The door closed behind me, I straightened to see a fat hand offered in greeting.
“Father Nichol,” the little priest said. In my rush to get into the house, I had not noticed the way the man’s belly pulled at his black cassock. I took his hand and shook it.
“Doctor Kincaid.”
“I know who you are.” Father Nichol gestured that I should continue into the vicarage’s front room. “I sent the letter. I am so pleased you could come.” He held out a hand again and I looked at it for a moment, puzzled. “Your hat and coat?”
The little priest seemed chaotic. Not just in his appearance, but in his manner. He was rushed, flitting from action to action without completion in each of his activities. As I unbuttoned my coat and handed both it and my hat to Father Nichol I felt dizzy, like a man made to look in several directions at once. Suddenly, I looked forward to sitting down. It was with the same sense of rush and havoc that I was chivvied into the front room, where a roaring fire warmed the chill in my bones almost instantaneously.
The front room was as chaotic as the impression I had been given of its inhabitant. One wall was occupied by a bookcase, filled haphazardly with peeling tomes, their covers absent, faded or otherwise damaged. In front of it, two patched seats sat at odd angles. Behind one, a collection of faded newspapers poked out. The rug on the floor was stained and tattered, and the floor was covered with odd papers and various articles. A cross was knocked on its side, leaning against the stone hearth. As I sat down wearily in the less skewed of the two chairs, I felt something digging into my leg and reached down to extract a set of rosary beads, strung together with string painted in a fraying gold.
“I usually have a housekeeper,” Father Nichol said, sitting in the chair opposite. In the flickering light of the fire, he looked to be around fifty, but tired. What remained of his hair was grey or white. His eyes were shadowed. My coat was still draped over his left arm, with my hat on his hand; he had forgotten to hang them up before coming to join me. I raised an eyebrow, encouraging him to continue. “These recent events seem to have scared God-fearing people away from me.”
“I read your letter asking for a coroner,” I said. I had taken the priest’s statement about not having a housekeeper as a sign that I was not about to be offered a drink after my ordeal travelling down rutted lanes on this wildest of nights. “You were vague about what has happened, other than the need to investigate the death of this man Goodall.”
Father Nichol looked into the fire. For the first time, he seemed to be trying to compose his thoughts. Staring into the pandaemonium of flames, where the devil himself makes a home, did not strike me as a good way. When he looked back, he wore the deadened look of a man who has forgotten what it is to sleep.
“There is madness in this death, Doctor. I have never seen anything like it.” So he had the hope that a man of law and medicine, whose life it was to discover the cause of death and place reason upon it, could answer his questions.
Never taking my eyes from him, I opened my bag and pulled out a pen and paper. “Start at the beginning.”
After a breath, Father Nichol spoke, in a low voice. “I have known - I knew - old Mr Goodall for many years. He had a voice for the Church and he used it at a time when it was not popular or the done thing. It cost him in the election when Gladstone lost Manchester.”
“Papism is not a vote-winner,” I said, before I could stop myself.
Father Nichol’s smile was small and sad “It took a strong man to speak for the Church when it was to his own personal cost. Mr Goodall was ever the friend of St Luke’s, even when his wife departed this world while delivering their second child. That was some twenty years ago. I prayed for him, but those prayers were not heard. Many would blame the Church, I have seen it many times, but Mr Goodall retained his faith and came ever closer to me, until recently. He was a good man, a good father to his two children. His son grew up and left the house many years ago, but his daughter remained to look after her father in his dotage.”
My notes so far were few; there was little on possible causes of death. “Was he a melancholy man?” I asked. From the vague letter I had, there was a chance that the cause of death was self-inflicted, although it would not explain why the priest had contacted the chief coroner of the area and insisted on his attendance.
“Surprisingly not, considering his losses.” Father Nichol brought his hands to his face. “His daughter is melancholy, but I would expect no less. She has sustained losses and blames herself. I have counselled her many times not to blame herself for her mother’s death, but there is a fault in her spirit that leads to her inflicting pain on herself for something she could have no control over. It was she who nursed Mr Goodall through his last weeks. But I jump ahead,” he said, flicking a hand out, as if to dismiss what he had said. “For your investigation you must know of the changes.”
“You referred to them briefly in your letter.” I pulled the letter from my notes and read. “You spoke of ‘changes sudden and violent in character and spirit, with no recognisable cause’.”
“There could have been a cause,” the little priest said. His face was dark. “I did not wish to alarm you or have you judge me mad by writing of them in a letter to a learned man such as yourself. The truth is I believe Mr Goodall to have been possessed. The changes were sudden. He had always been a friend of the Church, but he suddenly distanced himself from both myself and the parish. I heard whispers of a deeper madness that had afflicted him. Ravings and such. When I tried to speak to him or his daughter, I found the door slammed in my face.”
I raised a hand to stop Father Nichol speaking. “I am a man of reason, Father,” I said quietly. “I do not deal with superstition or belief. I deal with the cold facts of a case to establish a cause of death.”
“I understand, and this is why I did not mention it in my letter.” Father Nichol fixed me with his eye and I saw the steel underneath his doubt and worry. “If I had mentioned this you would have dismissed me as a madman. What sane man believes in possession by the devil and his forces? But I needed you here. You are a man of reason and logic. I understand you have no particular faith to cloud your thinking, and you would be able to prove what I have seen and felt. I, a man of a faith dismissed by so many, do not command that respect. Even, it seems, among those who would otherwise believe what I say. Together we can investigate, with my knowledge of scripture and belief and your reason and logic, to discover the truth of what I saw.”
“You said the door was slammed in your face, Father,” I said. Perhaps it was no surprise that the priest had forgotten to offer a cup of tea, if he had forgotten his own story. “How do you see through wood?”
Father Nichol gave another wan smile, shadows flickering across his features and making him look like a ghost. “I was permitted by the daughter to see Mr Goodall when the madness first set in. It has been the return of the son which has cast me out. I have attempted to see them several times, but when Mr Goodall died it became all the harder. I have not been allowed to see Olivia, to comfort her, or Mr Goodall, to perform my duties over him as he would have liked.”
“You say in your letter the funeral took place without further investigations, and in the other church in the village.”
The priest wrung his hands. “A lifelong Catholic should not have their funeral in a non-Catholic church, and nor should they be buried in unconsecrated ground. If I could I would move him from where he lies.”
My hand stopped making its brief notes. I did not trust myself to look at the little man. It was clear that what he felt was right and proper was at the forefront of his mind, and not the family’s wishes. He did the family a disservice that was in no way a credit to his Church. Dogma, when it guided belief beyond reason, was a reason to disbelieve anything being said.
“Burial in line with the family’s wishes is not enough of a reason to make an investigation into the death itself,” I warned. I was already impatient with Father Nichol. “Unless you tell me how an investigation is warranted. It will be especially difficult with Mr Goodall already being buried as I will not, without exceptional reason, be able to order an exhumation. I take it that the family is opposed to an investigation?”
“They are.”
“I do not see how I can investigate properly.”
“For this kind of investigation you will need to keep an open mind and speak with people. I do not think desecrating the body will avail you of anything.”
In a deliberate action I put my pen down on my lap, along with the letter and my notes. I had not taken kindly to Father Nichol telling me my job. “Father, I feel my time has been wasted here. I have travelled many miles on this wild night. I will need to stay here overnight as there is no way to get a cab, and that will affect my work tomorrow. There are families who need me to establish what happened to their kin.” I frowned, unable to conceal my displeasure. In a matter of minutes I had felt more frustration with a case than I had in many years. “My job is in Winchester, not in this small village. I came as you are well-respected, and you claimed real urgency, but from what you tell me there is little urgency other than in your own mind. Old men go mad, Father. There is no possession and no malignant influence from other planes of reality. The mind simply collapses under the weight of worry and years, and from what you tell me Mr Goodall had more worries and pains than many men.”
Father Nichol’s hands kneaded air like a baker kneading invisible dough. “This is what I feared. There is more at play and more at stake here than meets the eye, Doctor. You must believe me. What I saw when I was allowed to see him was the madness of damnation and Hell. I fear it has passed on to his next of kin.”
“His son?” I asked. Keeping my frustration from my voice posed a challenge to me, albeit one I had been well-trained in over my years of dealing with the bereaved and the bereft.
“Olivia. His daughter.”
I shook my head. “My realm is discovering the cause and means of death, not those still alive.”
“You deal with disease in Winchester, do you not? You can trace vectors of disease so those alive are not afflicted by the causes of death of those departed? Is that some part of your job.”
“It is. But for disease. For bacteria. Not for superstition, Father.” I tried to inject some sympathy into my voice, make it seem less that I was frustrated, and more that I had respect for his position but my own responsibilities prevented me from undertaking his request.
“This new scientific knowledge is beyond me.” Father Nichol waved the same dismissive hand. “Whatever causes disease, could it not also be here? If the daughter is afflicted then her life is in danger, and it is your responsibility prevent this demonic affliction from spreading.”
I took a moment to think. As the Winchester coroner, public health did form part of my role. Just the previous year I had traced a measles outbreak to an orphanage and prevented it spreading further. Although some had died from the disease, I had stopped others from meeting the same fate. Add to that, I was already in the parish of St Luke and any journey back could not begin until morning, when I could be making investigations. I felt myself giving in to Father Nichol, despite my misgivings.
“I doubt this is anything other than ordinary elderly dementia,” I said carefully, watching the priest’s face, “but tomorrow I will go to the home of the Goodalls. If, as you say, they are refusing your company, I shall open a formal investigation. I have my materials with me, and I can act as an officer of the law. I shall have to start,” I added, meeting Father Nichol’s eyes, “by taking your statement."
I was greeted by a little tonsured man. I could see his dog collar was stained and frayed even in the half-light spilling from the blessedly warm house as I tumbled over the threshold, keeping my hat pulled low to stop it from blowing away. The door closed behind me, I straightened to see a fat hand offered in greeting.
“Father Nichol,” the little priest said. In my rush to get into the house, I had not noticed the way the man’s belly pulled at his black cassock. I took his hand and shook it.
“Doctor Kincaid.”
“I know who you are.” Father Nichol gestured that I should continue into the vicarage’s front room. “I sent the letter. I am so pleased you could come.” He held out a hand again and I looked at it for a moment, puzzled. “Your hat and coat?”
The little priest seemed chaotic. Not just in his appearance, but in his manner. He was rushed, flitting from action to action without completion in each of his activities. As I unbuttoned my coat and handed both it and my hat to Father Nichol I felt dizzy, like a man made to look in several directions at once. Suddenly, I looked forward to sitting down. It was with the same sense of rush and havoc that I was chivvied into the front room, where a roaring fire warmed the chill in my bones almost instantaneously.
The front room was as chaotic as the impression I had been given of its inhabitant. One wall was occupied by a bookcase, filled haphazardly with peeling tomes, their covers absent, faded or otherwise damaged. In front of it, two patched seats sat at odd angles. Behind one, a collection of faded newspapers poked out. The rug on the floor was stained and tattered, and the floor was covered with odd papers and various articles. A cross was knocked on its side, leaning against the stone hearth. As I sat down wearily in the less skewed of the two chairs, I felt something digging into my leg and reached down to extract a set of rosary beads, strung together with string painted in a fraying gold.
“I usually have a housekeeper,” Father Nichol said, sitting in the chair opposite. In the flickering light of the fire, he looked to be around fifty, but tired. What remained of his hair was grey or white. His eyes were shadowed. My coat was still draped over his left arm, with my hat on his hand; he had forgotten to hang them up before coming to join me. I raised an eyebrow, encouraging him to continue. “These recent events seem to have scared God-fearing people away from me.”
“I read your letter asking for a coroner,” I said. I had taken the priest’s statement about not having a housekeeper as a sign that I was not about to be offered a drink after my ordeal travelling down rutted lanes on this wildest of nights. “You were vague about what has happened, other than the need to investigate the death of this man Goodall.”
Father Nichol looked into the fire. For the first time, he seemed to be trying to compose his thoughts. Staring into the pandaemonium of flames, where the devil himself makes a home, did not strike me as a good way. When he looked back, he wore the deadened look of a man who has forgotten what it is to sleep.
“There is madness in this death, Doctor. I have never seen anything like it.” So he had the hope that a man of law and medicine, whose life it was to discover the cause of death and place reason upon it, could answer his questions.
Never taking my eyes from him, I opened my bag and pulled out a pen and paper. “Start at the beginning.”
After a breath, Father Nichol spoke, in a low voice. “I have known - I knew - old Mr Goodall for many years. He had a voice for the Church and he used it at a time when it was not popular or the done thing. It cost him in the election when Gladstone lost Manchester.”
“Papism is not a vote-winner,” I said, before I could stop myself.
Father Nichol’s smile was small and sad “It took a strong man to speak for the Church when it was to his own personal cost. Mr Goodall was ever the friend of St Luke’s, even when his wife departed this world while delivering their second child. That was some twenty years ago. I prayed for him, but those prayers were not heard. Many would blame the Church, I have seen it many times, but Mr Goodall retained his faith and came ever closer to me, until recently. He was a good man, a good father to his two children. His son grew up and left the house many years ago, but his daughter remained to look after her father in his dotage.”
My notes so far were few; there was little on possible causes of death. “Was he a melancholy man?” I asked. From the vague letter I had, there was a chance that the cause of death was self-inflicted, although it would not explain why the priest had contacted the chief coroner of the area and insisted on his attendance.
“Surprisingly not, considering his losses.” Father Nichol brought his hands to his face. “His daughter is melancholy, but I would expect no less. She has sustained losses and blames herself. I have counselled her many times not to blame herself for her mother’s death, but there is a fault in her spirit that leads to her inflicting pain on herself for something she could have no control over. It was she who nursed Mr Goodall through his last weeks. But I jump ahead,” he said, flicking a hand out, as if to dismiss what he had said. “For your investigation you must know of the changes.”
“You referred to them briefly in your letter.” I pulled the letter from my notes and read. “You spoke of ‘changes sudden and violent in character and spirit, with no recognisable cause’.”
“There could have been a cause,” the little priest said. His face was dark. “I did not wish to alarm you or have you judge me mad by writing of them in a letter to a learned man such as yourself. The truth is I believe Mr Goodall to have been possessed. The changes were sudden. He had always been a friend of the Church, but he suddenly distanced himself from both myself and the parish. I heard whispers of a deeper madness that had afflicted him. Ravings and such. When I tried to speak to him or his daughter, I found the door slammed in my face.”
I raised a hand to stop Father Nichol speaking. “I am a man of reason, Father,” I said quietly. “I do not deal with superstition or belief. I deal with the cold facts of a case to establish a cause of death.”
“I understand, and this is why I did not mention it in my letter.” Father Nichol fixed me with his eye and I saw the steel underneath his doubt and worry. “If I had mentioned this you would have dismissed me as a madman. What sane man believes in possession by the devil and his forces? But I needed you here. You are a man of reason and logic. I understand you have no particular faith to cloud your thinking, and you would be able to prove what I have seen and felt. I, a man of a faith dismissed by so many, do not command that respect. Even, it seems, among those who would otherwise believe what I say. Together we can investigate, with my knowledge of scripture and belief and your reason and logic, to discover the truth of what I saw.”
“You said the door was slammed in your face, Father,” I said. Perhaps it was no surprise that the priest had forgotten to offer a cup of tea, if he had forgotten his own story. “How do you see through wood?”
Father Nichol gave another wan smile, shadows flickering across his features and making him look like a ghost. “I was permitted by the daughter to see Mr Goodall when the madness first set in. It has been the return of the son which has cast me out. I have attempted to see them several times, but when Mr Goodall died it became all the harder. I have not been allowed to see Olivia, to comfort her, or Mr Goodall, to perform my duties over him as he would have liked.”
“You say in your letter the funeral took place without further investigations, and in the other church in the village.”
The priest wrung his hands. “A lifelong Catholic should not have their funeral in a non-Catholic church, and nor should they be buried in unconsecrated ground. If I could I would move him from where he lies.”
My hand stopped making its brief notes. I did not trust myself to look at the little man. It was clear that what he felt was right and proper was at the forefront of his mind, and not the family’s wishes. He did the family a disservice that was in no way a credit to his Church. Dogma, when it guided belief beyond reason, was a reason to disbelieve anything being said.
“Burial in line with the family’s wishes is not enough of a reason to make an investigation into the death itself,” I warned. I was already impatient with Father Nichol. “Unless you tell me how an investigation is warranted. It will be especially difficult with Mr Goodall already being buried as I will not, without exceptional reason, be able to order an exhumation. I take it that the family is opposed to an investigation?”
“They are.”
“I do not see how I can investigate properly.”
“For this kind of investigation you will need to keep an open mind and speak with people. I do not think desecrating the body will avail you of anything.”
In a deliberate action I put my pen down on my lap, along with the letter and my notes. I had not taken kindly to Father Nichol telling me my job. “Father, I feel my time has been wasted here. I have travelled many miles on this wild night. I will need to stay here overnight as there is no way to get a cab, and that will affect my work tomorrow. There are families who need me to establish what happened to their kin.” I frowned, unable to conceal my displeasure. In a matter of minutes I had felt more frustration with a case than I had in many years. “My job is in Winchester, not in this small village. I came as you are well-respected, and you claimed real urgency, but from what you tell me there is little urgency other than in your own mind. Old men go mad, Father. There is no possession and no malignant influence from other planes of reality. The mind simply collapses under the weight of worry and years, and from what you tell me Mr Goodall had more worries and pains than many men.”
Father Nichol’s hands kneaded air like a baker kneading invisible dough. “This is what I feared. There is more at play and more at stake here than meets the eye, Doctor. You must believe me. What I saw when I was allowed to see him was the madness of damnation and Hell. I fear it has passed on to his next of kin.”
“His son?” I asked. Keeping my frustration from my voice posed a challenge to me, albeit one I had been well-trained in over my years of dealing with the bereaved and the bereft.
“Olivia. His daughter.”
I shook my head. “My realm is discovering the cause and means of death, not those still alive.”
“You deal with disease in Winchester, do you not? You can trace vectors of disease so those alive are not afflicted by the causes of death of those departed? Is that some part of your job.”
“It is. But for disease. For bacteria. Not for superstition, Father.” I tried to inject some sympathy into my voice, make it seem less that I was frustrated, and more that I had respect for his position but my own responsibilities prevented me from undertaking his request.
“This new scientific knowledge is beyond me.” Father Nichol waved the same dismissive hand. “Whatever causes disease, could it not also be here? If the daughter is afflicted then her life is in danger, and it is your responsibility prevent this demonic affliction from spreading.”
I took a moment to think. As the Winchester coroner, public health did form part of my role. Just the previous year I had traced a measles outbreak to an orphanage and prevented it spreading further. Although some had died from the disease, I had stopped others from meeting the same fate. Add to that, I was already in the parish of St Luke and any journey back could not begin until morning, when I could be making investigations. I felt myself giving in to Father Nichol, despite my misgivings.
“I doubt this is anything other than ordinary elderly dementia,” I said carefully, watching the priest’s face, “but tomorrow I will go to the home of the Goodalls. If, as you say, they are refusing your company, I shall open a formal investigation. I have my materials with me, and I can act as an officer of the law. I shall have to start,” I added, meeting Father Nichol’s eyes, “by taking your statement."
To be continued...
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