The Unbelievers Read Free Page B

normal position in society, and normal methods may not be appropriate to this inquiry. It is important – for reasons of state as much as for personal reasons – that this inquiry is both discreet and thorough. I am certain, on the Superintendent’s recommendation, that we can rely on you.”
    There was no point in further resistance, even if tracking down a stray husband was going to steal the time he needed for pursuing real criminals.
    â€œVery well, sir.”
    â€œSplendid. I’ll let the Superintendent brief you more fully.” Sir Joseph turned alternately to his companions. “Shall we invite the ladies back in and dine, gentlemen? I think that’s our business done. Oh, and Mr Burgess and Mr Allerdyce, thank you so much for coming. I don’t think we need detain you any longer.”
    The Chief Constable opened the door to show the Superintendent and Allerdyce back into the hall. Instantly, the maid appeared with their coats and hats and they were smoothly ushered back into the night.
    â€œI’m sorry,” said Burgess, pulling on his gloves. “We have to do it. I know you’re the best person for the job.”
    â€œThank you for the compliment, sir.”
    â€œYou probably think it’s a waste of time, but we need to get started. I’ve asked for another sergeant to be assigned to you to replace Baird, and he should be able to help. If the message I sent has got to him successfully he should be up at the Police Office already.”
    â€œThank you sir.”
    â€œSo we’d better get there and get to work. It’s not much of a way to spend Saturday night, is it?”
    â€œNo, but at least we’re not out on the beat all night, sir.”
    â€œTrue enough. But Allerdyce, don’t forget. We’ll be crucified if anything happens to the Chief’s friend. I think I’d rather take my chances on the streets.”

Chapter 3
    The Reverend the Honourable Arthur Bothwell-Scott BD (Ordinary) surveyed his sparse congregation.
    The building had been expanded over the centuries from a simple late-Norman village church to its current magnificence, with a seating capacity of one hundred and fifty on the ground level and a further one hundred in the balconies, easily sufficient for every worker on the estate and their families to be dragooned into for the great festivals of the year. Marble memorials to generations of deceased Bothwell-Scotts lined the walls, which were punctuated by stained-glass windows endowed by his departed mother. When he’d first been given the living of Dalcorn by his eldest brother he’d enjoyed the way the clear light streamed in through the two hundred year-old plain glass of the great rectangular windows. Now, as a result of his departed mother’s late fit of pious generosity (God rest her bitter and manipulative soul), fashionable Gothic arches had been installed and the interior was in perpetual kaleidoscopic twilight from the few sunbeams which struggled through the stained-glass reproductions of ‘The Light of the World’ and ‘The Scapegoat’.
    This Sunday, as every Sunday, only a handful of people sat in the hard pews of the main body of the church. The estate factor, out of professional duty, sat restlessly in his tweeds in a front pew beside his heavy crinolined wife. Behind him, scattered throughout the pews, were a handful of estate labourers and servants from the big house, their faces in varied expressions of leering contempt or vacant stupidity.
    The rousing strains of psalm-singing penetrated the church, reaching it from the Free Presbyterian chapel which had been built two fields away, on a tiny pocket of land not owned by the Duke. Arthur reflected bitterly that anyone with any Christian ardour had left his church when he was appointed, and gone off to build their own chapel and choose their own minister. All that was left to him was the rump of people who were too scared