Luke 4:6
Wednesday 14th November: "This was an appropriate place to meet," said Seb.
They were in the Bishop's study. The marble mantelshelf framed the hearth. To either side a couple of large wing-backed leather armchairs. The other walls book lined to middle height, above which were pictures, well framed and eclectic, of Springfield in the past. A television stood in one corner. Standard lamps occupied the others. A large sofa faced the fire. And everywhere papers covered almost all available flat surface.
The others present were Donna and Alicia White - and the bishop.
"As good a place as any," Donna replied.
Seb nodded. "You brought your mother."
Donna smiled, "She brought me. This meeting was her idea."
Seb smiled in turn. "So what can we do for you, ladies?"
Alicia was the one to answer. "They think Trish Hartnett is guilty."
Seb nodded. "I understand that to be the situation." Seb's words hung in the air, sounding pompous, even to Seb.
"The more I think about this business, the more I think Trish is being framed. Is there anything you haven't told the police, for whatever reason?" Alicia hesitated, "Maybe just something small?"
Seb nodded again. "There was. There were things I withheld from Donna. But I've shared them with her now."
"How come?"
"The circumstances have changed. These were confidential matters. For various reasons the situation has moved on."
"I can't believe Trish Hartnett's guilty. Is there anything you haven't said that might help?"
David Sebastian looked at her again, his dark brown eyes thoughtful. "Not directly. But . . ."
Donna broke in. "If you know anything you must share it."
Seb turned to the bishop. "This relates to a confession."
Bishop O'Malley visibly paled.
Then Seb added, "A confession by someone since deceased."
"Go on," said Dona.
The bishop nodded his encouragement. "If the confessant is dead, normally the rules still apply. However, if a life is at stake, as in the case of a possible miscarriage of justice in a murder investigation, in my view in extremis the normal rules need no longer apply. You have my dispensation to speak."
Seb smiled grimly. "All right then. But I need everyone's agreement. Anything I say now is between us. It goes no further without my permission?"
The others nodded. "Agreed," said Donna.
"Well you'll remember that this all began with Mary Young's suicide?" Seb didn't wait for their acknowledgement but continued. "She confessed to me that Bob, her late husband, was not the father of her child. Jenny."
"What?" Donna and Alicia spoke in unison, both open mouthed in their total astonishment.
Seb ignored them. "She'd had an affair, years ago. It was short lived. Jenny was the consequence."
"You know with whom?" asked Dona.
Seb nodded.
"But you're not saying?"
Again Seb nodded. "The point is that she had got it into her head that the paternity of her child was going to come out."
"Was she being blackmailed?"
Seb shook his head. "Nothing of that kind. She'd had another affair, recently."
Alicia shrieked. The thought of perfect Mary Young having a dark side was incomprehensible. Seb frowned at her and she raised her eyebrows and bit her lower lip, still astonished.
Dona spoke. "And you know with whom and you're not telling?"
But this time Seb shook his head. "No, I don't know. She didn't say. But I do know that she thought she'd contracted some sort of disease and that somehow or other Jenny's paternity would be exposed."
"And you told her that was nonsense I presume," said Bishop O'Malley.
"Exactly. I told her to go to the doctor and get herself checked out."
"Which she did?"
"I presume so."
"But you think that all this preyed on her mind? Drove her to suicide. The guilt perhaps?"
Seb nodded. "It's a possibility." He paused, then added thoughtfully, "Though whether any of that helps establish Trish Hartnett's innocence is, I am sorry to say, debatable."
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