The Blood List by Sarah Naughton Page B

said.
    ‘Yes,’ said Frances. ‘The work of a local lad, I believe.’
    He followed their gazes. The wall on the far side of the church, which previously depicted cracked and flaking biblical scenes from the Norman era, had been whitewashed over, and there were the
beginnings of a new mural. For now only the upper part of the wall had been painted: all billowing pink-edged clouds and vivid azure skies.
    ‘You must talk to Father Nicholas, Mother,’ Abel continued. ‘The wall should be pure and unadorned. Anything else is apostasy.’
    Frances sighed and looked down at her prayer book. Naomi pressed her lips together and turned her face to the lectern.
    Settling in for the usual boring hour and a half, Barnaby glanced around the church, looking for Griff. To his intense discomfort he caught the eye of the furrier’s widow. He looked away
quickly and didn’t turn around again, despite the fact that Flora was squirming and craning into his line of vision.
    Abel was as awful as usual, bellowing out his responses to the prayers so loudly that half the church was staring at them. Eventually Barnaby did manage to catch Griff’s eye and Griff
made a rude gesture in Abel’s direction that made Barnaby snort so loudly that Father Nicholas paused in his oratory to scowl at him.
    It was only then that the plan came back to him: the plan to rid himself of Abel.
    Barnaby lingered at the end, on the pretext of apologising to the old priest, and once the church had emptied made his way down one of the side aisles to the sacristy.
    Father Nicholas was struggling to remove his chasuble. Sometimes his fingers were so stiff with arthritis he could not get the wafers out of the communion cup.
    ‘Father,’ Barnaby said, ‘may I help you?’
    ‘You may, Barnaby,’ sighed the old man.
    Barnaby went over and lifted the heavy garment over the priest’s head, leaving his sparse white hair standing up in wisps, then laid it on the back of a chair and went back to undo the
cassock ties.
    ‘I’m sorry for my rudeness during the service. Is there anything I can do for you to make it up?’
    ‘Certainly you can,’ Father Nicholas smiled. ‘You can tell Barbara Howells that if she cannot keep her child quiet during mass then she must take him outside.’
    ‘Ummm . . . Mistress Howells with the big dog?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘The one she sets on people she doesn’t like?’
    ‘Precisely.’
    Barnaby took a deep breath. ‘Very well, Father. But please be standing by to administer the last rites for me.’
    Father Nicholas chuckled. ‘It’s all right, I’ll accept a helping arm out to the porch.’
    Barnaby linked his arm beneath the priest’s and they began walking slowly down the central aisle of the church. Sunlight lanced through the side windows, throwing bars of light onto the
flagstones.
    ‘Actually, Father, I was hoping I might ask you something.’
    ‘Hmm?’
    ‘As I’m sure you know, Abel and I have not been getting on for some time.’
    ‘Only since the day he was born,’ the priest chuckled.
    ‘Indeed, but recently it has got worse.’
    Father Nicholas leaned conspiratorially into Barnaby’s shoulder, his breath syrupy sweet with the dregs of the communion wine. ‘Yes, well, unfortunately the second child was not as
richly blessed as the first.’
    ‘I feel for him every day, Father,’ Barnaby said. ‘And that’s why I have been giving it some thought.’ He had to work quickly: people were already massing at the
door, waiting for the priest’s attention.
    ‘I don’t know if you have noticed but Abel is extremely devout.’
    ‘I had noticed.’
    ‘He seems to have memorised the new Bible and regularly quotes from it.’
    The priest snorted. ‘His time would have been better spent studying the original Latin.’
    ‘That’s exactly what I thought, Father.’ He slowed his steps even more and the dust motes caught in the shafts of light barely moved as they passed among them.
    ‘He has the