A Private Business (19 page)

“Matthias worshipped at the Peace in Jesus Foundation,” Vi said.

“Yes, he did.”

“Do you know the Peace in Jesus Foundation people?”

“I know Pastor Iekanjika,” Manyika said.

“What do you think of him?”

Manyika frowned. “Inspector?”

It wasn't an easy subject to broach but, while Vi couldn't go straight to the subject of witchcraft just on Murderer
Noakes's say so, she did have to attempt to follow up what he had raised. And Pastor Iekanjika had been … difficult.

“Reverend, there's no point my beating about the bush. There's been a suggestion that Jacob may have been killed because of a difference of opinion between your followers here and the people over at Peace in Jesus.”

“But that's ridiculous! We are all Christians! Murder is anathema to us!”

The old lady put two large mugs of tea on the table together with a bowl of sugar and a plate of what looked like cheesecake. As she walked away she muttered something that Vi couldn't hear.

“As I understand it, the boys had a fight,” the reverend said. “I have no idea what it was about but it ended badly. Young men carry knives these days to defend themselves, the streets are not safe. What can I say to make them stop? There are gangs in this city and I preach against such things. What do you do about the gangs, DI Collins?”

Vi had imagined he'd be defensive. And who could blame him? In all likelihood he was a committed Christian and a decent man and he probably felt that she was being racist.

“I do what I can too,” Vi said. “But sir, I'd be negligent if I didn't follow up all and every lead …”

“Who says we are bad people?” He took a piece of cheesecake and nibbled nervously at one side. “We are not bad people.”

“No one is saying …” Vi leaned forward, took a sip from her teacup, bunged a load a sugar in and said, “Because it's said that you practice exorcism—”

“Everyone practices exorcism! The Catholic Church, the Anglicans …”

“Sir—”

“Because we are charismatic, born again, is that the problem? I suppose you think we practice witchcraft too?”

He was furious now and Vi didn't know what to say. She hadn't even directly mentioned the concept of witchcraft—even though Manyika himself had—but then she had no evidence for it. This man, unlike Iekanjika, seemed very reasonable and he would at least, talk. Vi's own antipathy toward religion meant however that she remained suspicious. But taking it any further with this man was pointless. Other more subtle methods would have to be employed to find out what, if anything, was happening in these churches.

“People fear what they do not understand. Inspector, in my eyes it is a good thing that so many people come to the Lord these days. Now we even have more white brothers and sisters too. Churches rising up, thirsty for Christ. Jacob's death had nothing to do with religion, or with any witchcraft. I know what you people think about that! But young men, even good young men, they fight …” He bit into the cheesecake in a robust fashion. “Even if one chooses a certain church over another, that is no cause
for violence or bad feeling.” He looked up at her. “What does Matthias Chibanda say?”

“Nothing. He won't talk to us,” Vi said.

“And Pastor Iekanjika? Have you asked him to talk to the boy?”

“Of course.”

“And?”

“And, nothing. Pastor Iekanjika says that the boy's crime is between him and God. He says he does not recognize secular authority.”

And that was really the nub of the matter. What Murderer Noakes had said had been of interest but it had been Vi's interview with the hostile and unhelpful Iekanjika that had really roused her suspicions. He'd answered nothing, had thrown faithism, racism, everything at her.

Manyika took a deep breath, put his cake down and attempted a small smile. “Well, that is clearly wrong,” he said. “I don't know why Pastor Iekanjika is behaving in that way. In my experience he is a most zealous man of God, not always an easy man, but …” He sighed. “Sometimes, DI Collins, people immersed in the Spirit can be a little bit blind to life …”

“What do you mean?”

He leaned back in his chair. “Knowing, as we do, that God will ultimately judge all souls, we can sometimes forget that man too has a need for justice. We are human
and we feel anger and sorrow and hurt for all sorts of reasons. Myself, I am upset that the Pentecostal Fire Chapel has had to move from this site. For our congregants it was good to have so many mostly white British people close by. We don't seek to live in a ghetto, Inspector. All nations are equal under God. More and more of your people are coming to the Lord.” He smiled. “But in the end of days that is what will happen.”

Vi groaned inside. End-of-the-world shit. Fuck! People had been predicting that for millennia. Didn't any of these happy-clappies ever read history? But she smiled, she hoped, not too indulgently.

“You talk about rivalry between churches?” the reverend said. “DI Collins, we go in and out of each other's churches all the time. We are a brotherhood, a fellowship, we bathe in the Word of the Lord whenever and wherever we can. Churches here on this site, Pastor Nwogu's Divine Light Church, the Nigerian People of the Book, we are all strong in the Lord and so to lose that contact would not be a good thing. Ma'am, I encourage our congregation to take fellowship with others whenever they can.”

But he didn't mention Iekanjika and his Peace in Jesus Foundation.

Vi left having hit what was basically another brick wall. But she did now at least know that the surmised antipathy between the two churches had some basis in the silence that appeared to exist between the Reverend Manyika and
Pastor Iekanjika. Or was that just her interpretation of things? But if it were the case then so much for Christian charity, she thought. Then she wondered what Iekanjika had done to upset Manyika, or vice versa. She walked out onto White Post Lane and saw a man run past her toward Hackney Wick Station. As he passed he looked at her and the sight of his gray, terrified face made her heart jump.

Automatically, Vi shouted, “Hey, stop!” And then she began to run after him. “Oi, you, police!”

The man, though clearly overweight, began to run faster. Whiteish and frightened, he could be the flasher. He could be almost anyone, but Vi had a strong feeling that he wasn't. Over the years she had come to trust such notions. Vi's attempts to run in stilettos came to nothing and so she took them off and then legged it after him, shoes in hand. Thirty-odd years of smoking didn't help as she tried to make a call on her mobile back to the station. But then by the time she actually reached Hackney Wick station the man could not be seen or even heard any more. No footstep noises clattered through the night and Vi was left in the middle of White Post Lane panting, her shoes in her hands, her tights in tatters.

“Marie, what's wrong?”

Betty must have thought she'd lost her mind. But she couldn't go inside, her legs wouldn't move. Slumped against the wall that Dave Delmonte had had built around the car park of his fun pub, Maria fought with sickness as well as with the way everyone kept looking at her. The service was due to start in ten minutes' time and people were clearly conflicted as to whether to help Maria or go inside.

Maria wanted to confess. People did it all the time, they called it “testifying.” But she couldn't. In spite of what she thought about the Pope and Catholicism, she wanted, she needed, formality—a confessional—and she wanted a penance and then punishment that lasted forever. But Pastor Grint didn't do that Catholic stuff. He was a good man and formal confession, as he always said, was just an exercise in futility. God wasn't some sort of simpleton who could be placated by a few Hail Marys. But that didn't stop Maria wanting it.

“Come into church, we can look after you there,” Betty said.

“No!” Her breathing had gone and her mouth had dried up. She thought about a routine she'd done years ago about Victorian women fainting and it made her feel even sicker.
It's said they fainted because their corsets were too tight
, she'd said,
but I reckon they had men up inside those crinolines. Men with mustaches. Licking
.

“What
is
it, Marie?” Betty reiterated. As people she knew and liked looked on, Maria clung to the wall with all of her strength. She couldn't go in there. That was where it had all first come to light.

“Come inside with me,” Betty said. “Come to church.” Her voice took on a sudden hard edge. “It will do you good.”

“No!”

The large crowd of people around her all looked at each other, and that included Pastor Grint. He hadn't actually seen her collapse but he'd come out immediately when some of the others had called. “Whatever is it, Maria?” he said.

“I'm too dirty!” she said, shivering as she spoke. Some congregants were confused by this apparent incongruity. “I can't go in there! I can't go
back
in there!”

“But it's our new church,” Grint said. “For the time being. I know it's not exactly what we want …”

She heard someone whisper, “Maybe she used to get
drunk in there years ago,” and it made the dam inside her crack.

“I got pregnant!” Like liquid spilling out of an overfull mouth.

“In there?” The pastor pointed to his church.

“No.” Her voice was just a whisper now. “I realized in there. That was where I found out. In that building. There.”

Martin bided his time and then he struck. To hell with
in theory
! The headscarfed woman went out to get some shopping, leaving the girl in the garden—alone. He went out into his own mattress-and-dirty-disposable-nappy-filled garden, and he caught her eye.

“Better day today, isn't it?” he called across the fence. “A little bit warmer.”

He couldn't quite make out whether she was afraid of him or just appalled that he, an old man, had spoken to her. She said, “Yeah.”

“Summer coming.”

“Yes.” She turned away.

“You must have your exams coming up soon,” Martin persisted. “What is it? O levels?”

“GCSEs.” She smirked. He was showing his age talking about O levels and she was amused by that. Little cow! She thought he was old, past it, a right coffin-dodger. Martin felt his face darken.

“Studying hard, are you?”

She shrugged.

“Must have a good future in front of you going to a posh school like Bancroft's. Bet they make you work hard, don't they?” Again she didn't respond and so Martin just went for it. “Give you a lot of home-study time do they, your school?”

She looked up at that!

“Noticed that you always seem to have Thursday afternoons off,” he said. “Bit of group study with your mates?”

She was pale for an Asian and so he very clearly saw her face flush. It was good because it unequivocally answered his question about Thursday afternoons. That girl was not supposed to be at home. No sir!

“Well, see you,” he said, smiling. Then he went back inside. He'd leave her to think about that for a while. He'd leave her to wonder whether the old man next door would tell her mother about her Thursday afternoons or not. He suspected that next time they met she might actually instigate the conversation.

Something wasn't right and it went beyond the fact that she was upset. She felt … violated. It was almost as if returning to that terrible place, even if it was now a church, had reactivated the feelings of dread she'd experienced before. But then it would. What she'd felt when she'd engaged Lee Arnold's firm to surveille her house was not what she'd imagined it had been back then. Now she knew
that no one was watching her, that somehow she'd moved Gog and Magog from the fireplace over to the TV, that she'd put the old Clarks shoebox in the corner herself. She had been haunting her own life because finally the guilt had come back and it wasn't going away. She hadn't admitted her crime and so she still wasn't right with Jesus. He was pressing her because she needed to be right with Him. The location of the new church just served to underline it. Soon, she knew, she would have to tell everything. The congregation knew she'd had a child but … She felt it being forced out of her like icing out of a piping bag. She longed to be empty, to fill the space left behind completely with God.

And yet because that old feeling of being observed had returned, Maria couldn't completely convince herself that its perpetrator wasn't either herself or another, human, being. She walked from the hall into the kitchen and took a bottle of whisky out of her drinks cupboard. It could still be a person, couldn't it? Someone who knew her secrets and wished her ill will? She poured a small amount of booze into a glass, put a pill on her tongue and knocked both back while standing up looking into the garden. The sun was out and she could hear the sound of her neighbors mowing their lawns and cutting their hedges. Normal life was still going on. That was all she'd ever really wanted: normal life. Had God not given her that because of what she'd done? And had the subsequent
boozing and drug-taking and all the vile stuff she'd put into her stand-up routines made that impossible?

In the great silence that roared into her life after Len died, a little voice demanding justice had wheedled. She'd tried to silence it with flip jokes about God and sex and all sorts of shit she'd shut it up with years back, but it wouldn't go. It just got louder. It had been then that she'd started to notice things—about God.

A random, tattered poster on a railway arch wall, leaflets through her door, a booklet. It had been as if Jesus was beckoning her. But then she'd always known she'd have to make amends some time. She went to the Chapel of the Holy Pentecostal Fire and there she discovered her old friend Betty and she found Jesus with her.