Unholy Dying by Robert Barnard Page A

bus journey in. The cameraman was clicking for dear life, the camera shielding his face, but the other man wasstanding by with unconcealed relish in his eyes and the set of his mouth. The Bishop, signally failing to wipe the anger from his face, turned on Pardoe.
    â€œYour doing, I suppose? Your behavior throughout this unfortunate matter has been absolutely deplorable. Whatever the outcome I shall hope never again to have you in a position of trust in this diocese.”

CHAPTER 7
Black Monday
    The West Yorkshire Chronicle hit the streets around midday on Monday. A story involving a Leeds United footballer brawling in one of the town’s nightspots was the page-1 lead story, but Cosmo had got his piece nicely positioned on page 3.
    THE PRIEST AND THE TEENAGE MUM ran the headline. Mothers were always Mums to the Chronicle , even if they had murdered their children or were on the streets. Underneath, the story began.
    A Roman Catholic priest from Shipley is being quizzed by his Church over his relationship with a teenage mother on the notorious Kingsmill estate in the town.
    Julie Norris, nineteen, in an interview with our reporter, said, “He is my spiritual adviser.” However, the Bishop of Leeds has set up a committee to look into the relationship between Father Pardoe, priest at St. Catherine’s Church, and Julie, who is pregnant with her second child. They willalso investigate claims that money from the charitable bequest, the Father Riley Fund, intended for parishioners going through difficult times, has been used to fund Julie Norris’s lifestyle. Father Christopher Pardoe unexpectedly attended Mass at St. Anne’s Cathedral in Leeds yesterday, where a confrontation occurred between him and the Bishop in Cookridge Street.
    Julie’s parents, in an interview with this paper, said there was “nothing new” about their daughter being in trouble, and that she had been “on the slippery slope” since becoming pregnant at seventeen. They had thrown her out of the family home at that time, and now take the view that she has dug her own grave. Mr. Simon Norris, manager of Shipley’s smart Bettaclothes store, said, “Anyone who says it’s our fault doesn’t know their —— from their elbow.” His view was shared by his wife. A neighbor of Julie’s . . .
    And so it went on. The picture was masterly. It showed a snarling Bishop in close proximity to Father Pardoe’s face. Anyone who didn’t know Cosmo Horrocks might have thought he was trying to gain sympathy for the suspected priest.
    â€œIt’s cunning,” said Terry Beale, sitting on Carol Barr’s desk in the early afternoon, holding the early edition. “You’d probably find it was true in its way, except for the description of Mr. Norris’s shop as ‘smart.’ ”
    â€œI didn’t know you knew Shipley.”
    â€œI don’t. But if it was smart it wouldn’t be called Bettaclothes.”
    â€œBut the rest you guess is true?”
    â€œTrueish. I wonder exactly what Julie Norris’s ‘lifestyle’ is. But when a case like this comes up, people tell all sorts of lies and let slip all sorts of things that incriminate them in a minorway, and all you have to do is quote them. Mind you, I’d guess that Julie’s family are a pretty foul bunch, going by this.”
    â€œAren’t you jumping through Cosmo’s hoop, making exactly the judgments he wants you to make?”
    â€œNo, I don’t think so,” said Terry, stung. “After all, they threw her out.”
    â€œMaybe. On the other hand she could be the sort of slut no parent would want living at home.”
    â€œNow who’s jumping through Cosmo’s hoop?”
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    Doris Crabtree gazed out her sitting room window across the neat but sparse expanse of her back garden to the rear view of Julie Norris’s