Death of a Pilgrim by David Dickinson Read Free Book Online

pilgrimage at one of the greatest festivals of the Christian year.’ Father Kennedy thought of the amount of prayer power, nun power,
candle power expended on the salvation of young James Delaney. Surely this would be a fitting recompense.
    ‘And would you come with us, Father? To be our spiritual guide? I don’t know very much about pilgrimages, you see. I can dimly remember the garish cover of a book in one of my school
classrooms called The Pilgrim’s Progress . Will we visit the Slough of Despond? The City of Destruction? Will we see those strange places on the way? Would we dally in Vanity
Fair?’
    ‘I think those places are metaphors, if you like, of the mental state of the particular pilgrim at any particular point along the route,’ said Father Kennedy with a smile.
‘There were many reasons for pilgrimage in those earlier times. Some went to seek forgiveness for their sins. Some went as part of a pact with the Lord. Some went seeking spiritual enrichment
in the long journey and the adventures that would surely befall a traveller on such an expedition. Some, no doubt, went partly for fun. It was a holiday, as it were, as well as a quest. Plenty of
different food and wine to sample on the way to Santiago, the city of James after whom your own son is named.’
    Father Kennedy spent a morning in the New York Public Library in the days after Christmas. On New Year’s Eve he was back in his usual seat in the Delaney drawing room
with another glass of John Powers whiskey. He brought various suggestions with him. Their great trek – for Father Kennedy had decided that he would accompany the pilgrims for part of the way
at least – could start from the town of Le Puy-en-Velay in the Auvergne in southern France, one of the traditional setting-off places for the pilgrimage, and proceed down through France to
Spain and the great cathedral in Compostela. Le Puy and the other starting places like Vézelay, he told Delaney, were like medieval railway stations in the busiest times for pilgrimage in
the Middle Ages, a cross-over point for converging pilgrims coming from Germany and the countries of the East who were funnelled down through Le Puy-en-Velay on to the route to Compostela. An
earlier version of Grand Central Station in New York perhaps. Father Kennedy didn’t expect them to walk all the way. Sometimes they would be able to take a train or a boat. Horse lovers would
be able to ride for part of the journey.
    Contemplating the scale of the enterprise, the vast distances, the enormous expense, Father Kennedy wondered, as he had wondered in the hospital, about the scale of Delaney’s response to
the salvation of his son. He didn’t think disproportionate was the right word to describe it – it is not every day after all that a man’s only son is rescued from death’s
embrace. And yet. And yet. Was Delaney trying to buy a clean slate for all the sins of his previous life? Were there hidden crimes, now buried deep in the Delaney past, that he wished to atone for?
Was the pilgrimage a gesture to the past as much as to the present?
    Michael Delaney had evolved a number of maxims for the conduct of his affairs, developed over his many years in business. Always pay your men enough to stop them from striking. In his early days
he had been involved in a lockout, with blackleg labour and picket lines and hired detectives, and it had nearly finished him off. Always try to buy out your competitors – nothing succeeds
like monopoly. Always invest in the latest technology, it will pay for itself in no time. For the management positions at the top of the organization, always look for the very best men in America.
Quality managers, Delaney believed, would never let you down. Even he had never drafted a job advertisement quite like the one inserted for the pilgrimage in the New York Times . Organizer
Required, it said, for pilgrimage to France and Spain, Europe. Duties to include finding as many members of