‘But she had told you she didn’t want you paying so much attention to her?’ Swallow said.

‘That wasn’t Alice’s own thinking; it was her brother’s. As I told you, he’s very religious. But like a lot of these young revolutionary types, he’s hostile to the clergy. They have this notion that we’re supporting English rule and siding with the landlords in the country.’

‘He says you bought her books.’

‘Yes, cookery books. She wanted to be a cook, to work in the kitchen of some big house or a hotel or a restaurant. It was a laudable ambition, wouldn’t you agree? And anything I could do to further it was quite proper. She was very happy to have them. She asked me for money to buy a couple of law books too.’

‘Law books? You mean the ones on the shelf in the kitchen at her home?’

‘I cannot say, Inspector. I was never in that house. So I can only surmise that if you saw books there that they were the ones I paid for. She said she wanted to know her rights. She said it was important for a woman in particular to know her entitlements.’

‘I think, Father, we’re going just a little beyond pastoral care here,’ Swallow said slowly. ‘You were taking more than a general interest in the girl, weren’t you?’

Swallow saw him blushing.

‘Mr Swallow, I wish to be true to my priestly vocation, and I will be. But I won’t deny, I can’t, that there are times when the simple beauty of a young woman, the exquisite formation of such a creature, physically and intellectually, can be a challenge to one’s vows. Sometimes one wonders how it might have been had one chosen a different pathway.’

Swallow answered slowly.

‘Well, we’ve all had choices to make in life, Father Cavendish. And we have to live with those choices and maybe answer to God for it in the end.’

‘I understand that very well, Mr Swallow. I don’t believe a policeman needs to lecture me in moral theology. I studied it for three years in the course of my formation as a priest. So let me assure you that I am fully seized of the relationship between actions and consequences.’

Swallow smiled.

‘Do you know anything about the French writer Balzac?’

‘Honoré de Balzac? Of course.’

‘Well, Father, Balzac writes that the policeman, the priest and the artist have all got to be seized of the same moral values. Now that’s rather compacting his argument but it’s a fair summary. So maybe it’s not entirely inappropriate for a policeman to be able to point out some moral principles to a priest.’

He got to his feet and nodded to Mossop.