The bishop began to turn the fat silver ring on his finger, an emerald cross fixed into the head. ‘Well, Mr Keaveney – present your case and I’ll see if I can be of assistance in the matter.’

James stared at the man sitting there with his hands clasped together on his desk, waiting for him to hold forth. A sky of deep, even blue filled the windows behind him. A great light seemed to emanate from this small, elderly man. Present your case, James thought, grinding the words together in his head.

‘You know, it’s just occurred to me, Bishop—’

‘Your Grace.’

‘That we have very similar jobs. When I’m at home, I open my constituency office for a few hours every week for people to come in and voice their concerns. Anyone can come in, really. It’s more or less an open-door policy. So maybe that’s where we differ a little bit. Getting an audience with you was like getting an audience with the pope.’

A brief smile passed across the bishop’s face, a lazy lifting of the mouth that was more akin to a yawn.

‘When I tried to look for your phone number, I was told that it was ex-directory and so I called someone that I knew would have it. And do you know who that was, Bishop?’

The man said nothing, just allowed his eyelids to wither in a gesture of irritation.

‘Well,’ James continued, ‘I phoned Dave Mulligan. I’ve known Dave for years—’

‘Mr Mulligan is a good man.’

‘And a good friend of the church, I’m sure – no doubt you’ve had dealings with each other down through the years. I’d say the church owns a great deal of land in this area, and some of that was sold on to Dave when the coffers were empty, ha? But that’s by the by,’ James said. ‘People come to me to present their case, as you put it. It’s often tedious stuff – people complaining that the council aren’t collecting their bins, that sort of thing. But it can be about more complex issues as well. And if a person is honest and straightforward and in need of genuine help, then I will do everything within my power to help them.’

The bishop nodded slowly.

‘But if they are dishonest – and let me tell you, I can smell bullshit from miles – then they get short shrift from me. So I’m not going to bullshit you today. The parish priest you’ve placed in Ardglas is making my life difficult and I want you to have him moved to another parish as soon as possible.’

There was a long silence and something in the bishop’s face unclouded. ‘Could you elaborate a bit more on the nature of this problem, Mr Keaveney?’ He parted his hands then in a gesture of magnanimity that made James want to break his fingers. ‘It is important for me to be aware of the character of my clergymen.’

James had expected there would be some moral posturing of this kind, but was determined not to be drawn out on the details.

‘For them to be able to offer spiritual guidance to their parishioners,’ the bishop continued, ‘I need to be able to offer spiritual guidance to them.’

‘Oh, you don’t need to worry about that, he’s full of guidance and advice and in particular advice about my marriage.’

‘So this is something of a personal nature, Mr Keaveney?’

‘Oh, I would say it’s personal, all right. I would say coming between a man and his wife is a personal matter.’

‘And when you say that he has come between you and your wife—’

‘He’s making a nuisance of himself, there’s nothing more you need to know than that.’

And he was certainly not going to tell him that he had invited this man into his home, shared meals with him, invited him into his marriage to some degree, and how often when he’d returned to his house this man’s car was parked in his drive, and he’d come upon him and his wife in the kitchen, in a cloud of cigarette smoke, laughing.

‘I’m afraid, Mr Keaveney, I’d need to know a great deal more if I am even going to consider transferring one of my priests to another parish. So let me clarify – Father Dempsey has been offering you marriage counselling of a kind—’

‘Yes, and he seems to know a lot about marriage for a priest. But then he’s not like the rest of you, is he? He’s had a whole other life before all of this. Imagine what he got up to? And now he’s in your fold and he’s going around telling people how to conduct their marriages and he has my wife’s head filled with nonsense.’

‘Mr Keaveney, do you have reason to believe that anything untoward has happened between Father Dempsey and your wife?’

‘Not with my wife, no, but if you believed half of what you heard around the town . . . he’s a bit of a ladies’ man, apparently. Big on house calls, if you know what I mean. And he has all sorts of new-fangled ideas. There’s a local woman – ran off with a married man and left her husband and kids behind. Well, now she’s back in the town and he has her reading at mass. You can imagine how that’s going down with the locals, hearing the good word from a woman with that kind of a reputation.’

‘Mr Keaveney, if I was to take action every time idle gossip was—’

‘I don’t care what you do with him, send him on sabbatical – isn’t that one of your words?’

‘I would have to give the matter a lot of thought and look into your claims more—’

‘Look here – this doesn’t have to be complicated. I know this isn’t the first priest you’ve had to move. They get shifted around all the time. If some mother phoned the Guards to say her child had been interfered with you wouldn’t be long moving him on then. I’d say there’s some who are constantly on the move. It’s just been scandal after scandal for you lot at the moment and I don’t think you need any more trouble.’

‘Even if your concerns were enough of a reason to transfer a priest to another parish, these things take time. I would have to find a suitable situation for him.’

‘You know how this works as well as I do. You might need something from me one day and I’m a man who’s in a position to help you. But if you don’t do this then I might find that my hands are tied when you come looking for a favour. And I have a very long memory. Now, I want some indication from you before I leave this room that you are going to move forward with what we’ve discussed.’

The bishop was staring down at his hands, fists unfurled, lying limp on his desk. ‘The issue will be dealt with, Mr Keaveney.’

‘Good,’ James said. ‘Then you’ll sort it. I want him gone by the end of the month.’

James rose from his seat and walked out of the office into the high-ceilinged hallway, where the young smiling priest seemed to have been waiting for him.

‘Ah, Mr Keaveney,’ he said, ‘are you on your way?’

‘I am. I can show myself out.’

James lengthened his stride, trying to keep ahead of the man. Sun shone through the stained-glass panels on the door at the end of the corridor, shedding pools of colour onto the tiles.

‘I’m afraid I have to show you out – house rules,’ the priest said.

‘You don’t have a lot to do up here, do you?’ James said.

‘Ah, we keep busy enough.’

James pushed open the front doors and a shock of cold air hit him. He stood atop the steep stone steps and looked down at the cathedral and the town and over the entire surrounding landscape, to where the hills rolled up to meet the sky. He wanted to run down the steps and jump in his car and drive home as quickly as he could, and then he remembered the silence that would greet him there.

‘Good day to you, Mr Keaveney,’ the priest said.

James turned to him. ‘Tell me this – if you had someone in your life who refused to speak to you, what would you do?’

The smile disappeared from the priest’s face. ‘Well, I suppose I would tell you to pray for them.’

‘Apart from that?’

‘Is this someone you’re close to?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, the irony, Mr Keaveney, is that with people we love these things are even more difficult. We want to be forgiven but only God is capable of that and so we have to focus on what is possible. And what is always possible, even if it can be a great challenge at times, is to show love and kindness and compassion to others.’

‘Kindness?’ James asked, puffing out his lips.