Hearing that her friend Bernard Cutler has become a Catholic priest, Jenny Welch goes to a church to seek him out, only to discover that the man hearing confessions is not Bernard at all but the elderly Father Xavier Meldrum. She leaves quickly, but not before telling Meldrum that her on-off boyfriend, Terry Wyatt, recently pressured her into an abortion. The encounter unsettles her, and the encounter with Meldrum’s outwardly kind demeanor will prove to be the beginning of a chilling, controlling arc.
That night, while Jenny is out, Meldrum gains entry to her flat and assaults her friend Robert, mistaking him for Terry. The unconscious Robert is rushed to hospital, setting in motion a sequence of events that reveal Meldrum’s true nature: a priest who believes in “divine justice” and who uses emotional manipulation and fear to punish those he sees as sinners.
The following day, Meldrum invites Jenny to his presbytery, which he shares with his frail, bed-bound mother, Mrs Meldrum, and his housekeeper, Miss Brabazon. During the visit, Jenny discovers that Meldrum kept a taped confession from her and intends to use it as blackmail. The revelation chills her; she contacts Terry to warn him, and Terry tracks Meldrum down, only to be threatened. Meldrum escalates violently, bludgeoning Terry to death with an incense burner and burying him in a freshly dug grave in the churchyard. Later, Meldrum quietly murders Robert in hospital, cementing his role as a dangerous predator.
At first, Jenny’s claims seem hard to believe, but her sister Vanessa Welch answers a threatening call on Jenny’s behalf and begins to see the truth. Vanessa goes to the presbytery and encounters Meldrum’s mother and Miss Brabazon, who both know the priest’s volatile temper and his capacity for cruelty. Mrs Meldrum, aware that her son is unstable, pleads with Vanessa to help. Meldrum arrives, and in a brutal moment, he strangles Vanessa. At Brabazon’s urging, he then murders his own mother under the guise of mercy, driven by a twisted logic that he believes will sustain his sacred life in the church.
Brabazon consoles Meldrum and claims she has always loved him, even though his mother forced him to abandon any wedding plans and embrace celibacy by entering the church. The pair hatch a suicide pact to be together forever, but Brabazon’s self-inflicted wound changes the course of their plan; she fatally stabs herself, leaving Meldrum to contend with the aftermath. Bernard discovers the bodies of Terry and Vanessa and confronts Meldrum, who insists that Brabazon acted out of love for him and tries to persuade Bernard to help cover up the crimes “for the good of the church.” After Bernard leaves, Meldrum silent-calls Jenny to check that she is at home, then slips on a cloak and steps out into the night, leaving the consequences of his actions to echo through the quiet streets.
