Fragments (13 page)

Late in the
afternoon she excused herself from the activity and asked Father
Scott to accompany her out to the local shops. There they bought
enough groceries for several days and she and Andy returned to the
parish house and prepared food for everyone. Tea, coffee and what
the British called biscuits and the Americans, cookies, were being
used at a strapping rate by the various Metropolitan personnel.
Father Edwards had been moved to another parish house whilst she
had been in the Church in the morning, and Father Jones was still
in conversation upstairs with Fred. She and Andy sliced, chopped,
peeled and fried, and between them they rustled up a vat of soup
and another of stew. Andy was a more proficient cook than she was,
and between her labours on the chopping board and his with the
meagre spice rack, what they produced was edible. The fridge was
stocked with enough cheese, cold meats and salads to keep everyone
going; there was fresh bread, fresh ground coffee and fruit. She
and Fred sat in the kitchen eating vegetable soup and enjoying the
rest from their labours: physical work did soothe the soul.

In the dark of
the evening, Inspector Barham requested that Father Jones accompany
her down to the police station for questioning. On discovering that
the Sacristy had recently had the locks changed and only two keys
opened it, one kept by Father Jones and one by Father Edwards, the
point had been reached where Father Jones was being treated as a
serious suspect. Maryam watched the squad car drive off with Wyn
and Fred in the back. A lawyer appointed by the Church would meet
them at the station. At least they had managed to get Father
Edwards out to somewhere less painful before this had occurred.

Shahrukh had
come to the kitchen to deliver the keys of the Church and the news
that the crime technicians had released it. He shared bread and
soup with them before going off duty, and they decided a mutual
protocol for keeping the Church safe overnight and for Maryam to
have access to it. Tomorrow, the cleaning firm recommended by the
police would clean the blood out and then restore all areas covered
in forensic powders and liquids, and the Church would be able to be
opened to its parishioners. Father Scott had arranged for a prayer
vigil for the murdered youth and the local Bishop would lead it off
after reconsecrating the altar. For tonight, the police officers on
guard would be stood down as there wasn’t the need, or the manpower
to keep them. The local constabulary would patrol every hour or so,
as they had done during the graffiti attacks. Father Scott had
moved into the parish house that afternoon after Father Edwards had
left, and he’d had contact with the local parishioners who had
helped before. He was going to keep the CCTV working, and keep a
general eye on the house and liaise with the congregation. Maryam
would work in the Church after she’d had a nap: it was going to be
a long night.

Fred returned
from the station at about midnight. She was lying on the bed in a
half asleep, half awake, meditative mode. A gentle tap on her door
served to bring her senses back up to ‘on’ and she joined everyone
in the kitchen for what was, to all intents and purposes, a council
of war. Wyn Jones had not returned to the house; he’d been allowed
to leave the station without charge on condition he did not go
within three miles of his home. He was at Westminster Cathedral.
Gatto had escorted Fred back in to brief Maryam on the outcome of
the interview. He came in intending to stay just long enough to
hand Maryam an updated file, taking her through the evidence that
had been piling up against Wyn, but stayed to eat the large bowl of
stew she’d placed in front of him. Both he and Fred devoured the
food as she sifted through the file. It included a detailed log of
the CCTV footage that had been collated. It revealed that whilst
Wyn had indeed been the only person to enter the Church the morning
he’d found the body, he’d also been the last person to leave it the
night before, which they’d known. What they had not known until the
footage revealed it, was that Jason Briggs had entered the Church
just a few minutes before Wyn had that night and he’d not come
out.

Maryam assessed
the blurred black and white photos that had been printed off the
camera feed. They showed the fight that had taken place between Wyn
and Jason, Wyn going off in one direction being helped by a
parishioner who had heard the scuffle, Jason shouting and
gesticulating after him. Three hours later, Jason Briggs entered
the Church but never exited. Wyn arrived five minutes after Jason,
went in, and came out twenty-five minutes later, locking the
door.

‘Is he still
refusing to say what the fight was about?’

Gatto nodded
and there was a moment of him swallowing food before he replied.
‘Yes. Won’t budge. Just says it was a private matter between them
and he regrets having lost his temper.’

Maryam looked
at Fred and wondered if she should speak up. There was only one
logical conclusion when a priest under threat of being charged of
murder would refuse to speak. What had Fred advised him during all
those hours upstairs? Was it her role to speak of it? She assuaged
her doubts by continuing to ask questions.

‘Was the Church
patrolled that night?’

‘Not by us.’
Gatto looked to Bishop Atkins.

‘Two
parishioners did a walk through the graveyard, at about eleven
thirty, to make sure the emptying of the pubs had cleared through.’
Fred had taken down a lot of information in his own notebook. He
looked grey with both fatigue and worry.

‘No one heard
anything?’

‘No.’

‘Were there any
lights in the Church?’

‘Yes. Some
lights have been kept on all night, since the vandalism started, I
understand.’ Gatto had referred to his notebook. Maryam wondered
whether the officer and the bishop had noticed they were mirroring
each other. Eat, look at notebooks, answer queries in turn.

‘In the
Sacristy?’

‘Yes, I made
special note of that.’ Fred had answered before Gatto. ‘The back of
the Church there has no light, and therefore no camera. So the
Sacristy light was left on for those patrolling, to be able to see
the path as they walked round. It’s the darkest part of the yard
and where there had been a lot of the most obscene pictures. You
can’t see that area easily from any other view point.’

The Sacristy
was the nearest part of the Church to the parish house garden wall.
There were only about four feet of space between the Church ending,
and the wall of the garden beginning. It was the most isolated,
least travelled part of the Church grounds. What Fred described
made sense to her.

‘You can’t see
the outside door to the Sacristy at all, from any angle, can
you?’

‘No, the outer
walls of the East doorway block it from view. In fact...’ Gatto
referred to a typed sheet of information in his file, ‘that door
had to be replaced during the vandalism attacks, as it had images
carved onto it. So someone had been able to take time to work. I
believe that we’d requested a CCTV camera placed there, but there
hadn’t been funds for it?’

Gatto look at
Fred, who rifled in his own papers.

‘I’m not sure.
This isn’t my area, of course. The Southwark office would know.
I’ll ask them in the morning and see if they can assign you one of
our people who helped with the prior incidents.’

Gatto nodded.
‘That would be good, sir. On these notes it says we requested a
camera and the funds were being looked into, but the issues were
solved before one was put in.’

‘But the door
was replaced?’

‘Yes, Miss
Michael, it was.’ Paper rifling. ‘It was a heavy duty security door
with a steel outer cover. Is that relevant?’

‘It may be. But
you are saying that the outside door was replaced and the inner
door to the Sacristy had recently had its locks changed?’

‘Yes, that’s
correct.’

‘Which would
mean both outer and inner keys were replaced at roughly the same
time? Did Father Jones say why he’d had the internal locks
changed?’

Gatto let out a
long exclaim of air, and Fred looked down at the floor. Maryam
carried on observing Fred, as Gatto spoke.

‘He said he’d
felt the place was unsafe, after the attacks. We pushed him, but it
didn’t make sense. We asked him if he’d found anything in there,
graffiti or vandalism, and he said no. Given the evidence of sexual
activity in there, we pushed him hard. He said nothing.’

Fred’s upper
lip was starting to bead over with sweat.

‘Did you ask
Father Jones, Sergeant, if he’d had sex with anyone in the
Sacristy?’

Fred’s face
drained of all colour, and he coughed and stood up, and poured
himself a glass of water. Gatto ignored him as he answered
Maryam.

‘Yes, we did.
He was most indignant and shouted no. He got quite animated. Father
Jones has a bit of a temper.’

Fred had sat
down again and was staring at his notebook.

‘Any priest
accused of murder and sexual impropriety in their own Church is
going to have a bit of a temper. Tell me, Sergeant, did you ask
Father Jones if he knew of anyone else having sex in there?’

Gatto looked at
her. Then he looked back at his notes, puzzled.

‘Actually, I
don’t think so, Miss Michael, I’m not sure anyone did. We asked him
who would be having sex in there, apart from him, and about keys
and stuff. We pushed him hard. But we never said it like that, I’m
pretty sure. But we did push him.’

Maryam was
quite sure they had pushed him. Maryam was quite convinced that the
police had done their utmost to present Wyn with the picture of
him, and his congregation, and his youth club, and his charismatic
beauty and his energy, and had pushed hard on the subject of a
priest having sex in his own church. She’d have lost her temper,
too.

‘Well, I’d
appreciate it if you could do a background check on the place that
replaced the door and the locks, Sergeant.’

‘It was done by
the firm in the High Street. The owner is a member of the
congregation...’ Gatto picked up and rifled through the report on
the table. ‘Here it is, a Mr Vincent Doherty. Did it at a discount
and did a very good job. I know of the man, he’s solid as a rock.
He has a specialist licence to make keys for security firms.’

Gatto was
making it clear that Mr Doherty was above suspicion in terms of
handing out keys to others for work he’d done.

‘I’m sure Mr
Doherty is an honest, upright citizen, Sergeant Gatto. But I’d like
to know if he has a child, or a grandchild, in the choir or as part
of the youth group, or if one of his workers does. Perhaps someone
associated with Mr Doherty is an altar server? Does he have a wife
who helps clean the church or arrange flowers for the
Sanctuary?’

Gatto relayed
Maryam’s request to the station before he went off home to try and
get some sleep. Maryam wondered on the state of his marriage:
police officers gave so much to their communities, and their jobs.
There often wasn’t much left for family.

The silence in
the kitchen was not comfortable and barely sufferable. Maryam had
no desire to deal with Fred and he, in turn, had no desire to deal
with her.

‘You’ll be
going on in now?’ His tone of voice alerted Andy that something was
wrong. He responded in a very British way and got up and put the
kettle on for tea.

‘Yes.’ Maryam
stood up.

‘I can’t come.
I can’t force myself to take part in this...’

‘Chicanery...?’

‘Ritual.’

Maryam sighed
and spoke it out for the benefit of Andrew Scott.

‘Bishop Atkins
is not a supporter of the Congregation or its methods, Andy. He
finds this quite painful. Would you like to accompany me, or am I
going in on my own?’

‘Are you
allowed to do this on your own, Marie?’ She was mildly shocked that
he’d let the sarcasm through in his voice. This really was hurting
him. Of course, it would. He was a dedicated priest and Wyn Jones a
rather wonderful young man.

‘Yes, I am,
Frederick, I am indeed. As you know, or you would have assigned
someone to do it with me.’

At her jab
back, old wounds opened between them. Maryam felt so very drained
and so very tired of it all. Why London, why him?

‘Do you think I
should go with Miss Michael, Bishop, witness her work?’ Andy
somehow managed to make his attempt to placate sound aggressive.
She put her head down in her hands.

The pretence
was what was draining her, the pretence that this had not been
discussed between them before she arrived. That it was somehow
normal protocol for the Bishop of the Curia to be following her
around in someone else’s parish. That no one from Southwark itself
had been near her, that her contact with the London hierarchy had
been restricted to Fred and Andy.

The pretence
that Fred hadn’t informed Andy precisely of what was going on and
they had decided between them who was going to do what.

She checked
herself, then. An inner voice, a truer voice, reminding her that
she had no way of knowing any of that, and she needed to remain
open, flexible and trusting, at all points. The important thing
here was the desecrated Church over there, the young man who had
been killed, and the future of Wyn Jones. It was Wyn Jones who hung
here, in the balance: his future almost gone. His life almost
completely shattered and his faith on trial. She pulled her own
emotions into check.

‘Fred, I know
you are not comfortable with the Arcane. I know you think it is
obsolete. I know you feel we should have been abandoned at Vatican
II. However... it was not. The Holy Church still has room for this
type of... endeavour.’

Fred nodded. He
took the route she had offered, the one of agreeing to disagree and
just get on with it.