The Good Priest by Gillian Galbraith Page B

within an inch of his nose, checking the label again as if he could not believe what he had just read.
    â€˜Dalwhinnie,’ he murmured, ‘I’ll certainly take a glass of that.’
    Father Bernard looked like the establishment man that he was. Central casting, had it been searching for someone to play a priest, would likely have rejected him because he was too close to type; he was overly handsome with a well-shaped head, clear brown eyes and fine cheekbones. He would have appeared clichéd, too unimaginative a choice to be true to life. Fortunately, his brethren, those who had elected him Dean, were unconcerned by considerations of dramatic plausibility. They knew him to be competent, ‘a safe pair of hands’ and, invariably, ‘the man for the job’. To be fair to him, he did not thrust himselfforward. He did not need to. People came to him, and thus his ambition remained concealed, hardly recognised even by himself. Wherever he went, whatever he did, he was always the chosen one: the head boy, the chairman, the spokesperson, and he did not have a subversive bone in his body. Any tendency to unorthodoxy in others both mystified and disturbed him. A desire for anarchy was incomprehensible, and he considered disaffection to be the affliction of the bitter, the unsuccessful or the disappointed. To date, life had run smoothly for him, and he was unaware of the large part that luck, including his looks, had played in it. Preferment, he believed, simply followed ability. Everywhere, although he did not examine the reasons, his face fitted.
    Savouring the malt on his tongue, he glanced down at the battered figure opposite him, and, suddenly, felt a great rush of pity for him. He looked so small, so anxious, like a dormouse in shock having just escaped the blades of the combine-harvester. For a second, it crossed his mind to take the tartan rug from the wing of his chair and tuck him up, make sure he was warm and comfortable.
    â€˜Tell me all about it, Vincent,’ he said, sitting down himself and pressing the sides of his tumbler with his long white fingers. As he listened, he nodded sagely, occasionally inserting a shocked ‘Really?’ or an outraged ‘No!’ Hearing about Laura Houston’s request for help, her problems, the frequent meetings and Vincent’s growing fondness for her, he knew already what was coming next. His own view, formed within less than five minutes, and which could be summed up as ‘What an unbelievable mess!’ remainedunspoken. It would be unhelpful. And Father Vincent probably shared it by now. Loneliness, all too often, in his experience, led to a lack of judgement; and everyone knew that women, like tigers, were best admired from afar.
    Seeing his colleague’s empty glass, he gestured at the bottle as if to urge him to get a refill. The interruption, however, stopped Vincent’s story in mid-flow, as the embarrassment of his predicament hit home. Seeing an opportunity to move to other less painful topics, the Dean began to speak. There were, he said, the practicalities to attend to. Masses still had to be said, baptisms and funerals conducted. In short, the life of the parish must continue. As Father Vincent returned, almost involuntarily, to the subject of Sarah Houston, wondering out loud whether she had known about the assault before it happened, Father Bernard was flicking through the card index of his memory in search of a suitable standby.
    â€˜I don’t think she can have,’ Father Vincent repeated, ‘because we were close. Genuinely close. Good friends, I thought. Too close, I now appreciate. But I’m sure she wouldn’t have let that happen.’
    â€˜Father Roderick …’ the Dean interrupted, unaware of his non sequitur, pleased that the parish problem had been resolved. ‘He’s retired. But he’s helped out often enough before. He’s always willing.’
    â€˜Father