Fragments (16 page)

‘Then he’d come
back again and again and say he’d been weak and sinned once more?
Asking for help and forgiveness?

‘Yes.’ Fred’s
words were weighted down by the guilt he felt, by how they’d been
unable to help the young priest.

‘When did you
find out about all this?’

‘Just a few
days ago; about ten days, I think.’ He looked to Father Scott, who
nodded his head in agreement.

‘It took a
while for it to filter over to us. His own bishop at Southwark was
dealing with it, obviously.’

‘When was it
brought to you?’

‘When
permission was sought to enrol the services of a private detective
to try and prove that Jason’s certificate of confirmation was a
forgery.’

‘Was permission
given?’

‘Yes, but the
murder took place before we commissioned anyone.’

‘So you knew
that Wyn was in the pressure cooker, that he was being targeted
this way?’

‘Yes.’ Fred
felt shameful. Maryam wasn’t sure what else they could have done,
given how well Jason Briggs had danced upon the Church’s rules. It
also explained why they’d been keeping her close to them. She’d
misjudged him.

‘At no point
could you persuade anyone that Jason’s confessions were not
genuine? That he had no intention of changing his behaviour, that
he was not a true penitent?’ Her voice betrayed that this was a
forlorn hope... how to do you prove someone’s thoughts?

‘No. We tried.
Wyn offered other priests for the confession. We changed the rota,
we even moved Wyn out for a week, on respite. Briggs kept coming
back, kept turning up in the confessional and kept requesting
forgiveness. He would appear when the Church was locked.’

‘So that’s why
the back door was changed, not the graffiti?’

‘Yes. Briggs
was appearing in the Church when Wyn was doing work on his own,
requesting confession.’

‘No doubt
describing in graphic detail what his sins were and where they had
taken place?’

‘Yes. He spared
nothing.’

‘And not one of
you can breathe a single word about it.’

‘Indeed.’

It was Maryam’s
turn to slap her hand down on the table hard enough to bruise.

‘Damnation!’

She was glad
she had stayed in Peckham and that she’d taken a taxi back. She got
out of the taxi just after it crossed the river and walked the
three miles to the Church. It was two a.m. and the world, even the
South London world, was indoors and asleep. She needed the wind in
her eyes and the cold touching her bones to drive away the
depression that was threatening. Wyn was locked into a terrible
battle, a struggle for his freedom and his innocence, and it very
much looked as if he might lose it. They would lose both a
promising new priest and a soul that lit the room up when he
entered it.

She decided to
switch from the ‘why’ of this investigation and look to the ‘how’.
There had to be some way to save this young man, to defeat the evil
that was attacking him. Rather than going to bed when she got in,
she switched on her laptop and began research into the gang culture
in London.

In the morning,
with the parish house alive around her, she woke and attended to
her Tarot. What she got in the three lays she did, one on the
Church, one on Wyn, one on herself, was the same card; The High
Priestess, card three. She had missed some evidence somewhere.
Something was there to be seen, she’d just not found it. A knock on
the door disturbed her and she placed the wrapping cloth over the
cards that were laid out on the desk. One of the new priests,
Father Jacob, had a mug of coffee for her and the news that
Detective Iqbal was downstairs in the parlour. She thanked him,
drank the almost bearable coffee and dressed quickly. When she’d
made herself a large bowl of actual coffee, she and Iqbal settled
into the only space they could find some peace and quiet; Father
Edward’s greenhouse. It contained no greenery, soil or plants.
There was a huge ashtray and a bottle of brandy hidden under the
single upturned clay pot, and a stack of old newspapers. It was
raining again and the noise was both soothing and meant they could
not be easily overheard. The opening of the Church had sparked more
press interest, but the telephoto lenses could not, as of yet, look
round corners.

Iqbal had come
to invite her to meet the local Imam later that afternoon. She was
happy to do so, glad she would have the opportunity and he phoned
through a time. She then kept his attention by inviting him to go
through the physical evidence they had, something that he was more
than happy to do. As a junior officer brought in for his background
knowledge, he’d not been getting much of a shot at that. They
spread out a layer of old papers on the bare potting boards and
laid out their individual files, collating their knowledge as they
went. There was little to add to what she’d already been furnished
with. Vincent Doherty, the locksmith, was a childless widower.
However, his manager ran the store and did all the fittings. He had
three children. Like his boss, Mr Curtis was a Catholic and
supporter of the Church. Both his younger children were altar boys
and his daughter, Keely, had been a member of the Choir.

‘Any trouble at
home?’

‘Yes. Keely was
brought in drunk and disorderly by the local constabulary about
four weeks ago. Turned out that the perfect daughter had been
skipping school and running wild in the evening when the family
thought she was studying at a friend’s house.’

‘She’s one of
the girls who have been in trouble since the youth group and choir
started?’

‘Yes. Her
father banned her from the choir, took her out of the local school
and she started in a private Catholic school two weeks ago. Her
mother drives her across town to the new school and drives her
home. Father is refusing us access. We’re going through procedures
to interview her.’

‘How old is
she?’

‘Thirteen.’

‘The
brothers?’

‘Ten and
eight.’

‘They in
trouble?’

‘No. Still at
primary school, no problems reported. It’s just Keely that’s gone
off the rails.’

‘Does it make
sense to you, Shahrukh, the gangs targeting these girls through the
Church?’

He thought
about it. ‘No, actually. From what I understand from the briefings
I’ve had, the girls that join gangs are the ones already in
trouble. They come from broken families with histories of abuse.
The girls in the choir don’t tend to follow that pattern. Much more
work for the gang, bringing them in. Gang meat is usually easy
prey. Girls on the edge, already in trouble... they drift towards
the gangs. The gang gives them family and safety. If you are in one
of the stronger gangs, you never have any trouble at school or on
the streets again as long as you are with your pack. If you are
being bullied, the gang will dish out punishment. We had one girl
who was being raped by her step-father: she got into a gang in
order to get them to beat him half to death. She had to put up with
worse than he was doing to her from the rest of the gang, but she
took it. I was always confused by that.’

‘It was on her
own terms.’

‘What?’

‘The gang
treatment, it was on her own terms. She knew what was going to
happen, didn’t want it, but she’d agreed in her mind. You don’t
look convinced.’

He shook his
head.

‘It’s not
something I can make sense of in any way. The women here, on the
streets and the estates, often allow themselves to be treated very
badly.’

Maryam studied
Shahrukh. His expensive suit cut to fit him, the pressed linen
shirt collar and easy clean silk tie. His hands were soft, his
fingernails manicured so discreetly that you had to really look.
He’d worked hard at dressing to conform to his plain clothed
superiors, but quality always shone through. Like his Italian
shoes. Yes, she could see that he would have some problem
understanding Peckham.

‘What brought
you into the police, Shahrukh, if you don’t mind me asking?’

His smile lit
up his face. ‘Somebody’s got to catch the bad guys.’

They set
themselves to catching the bad guys the old fashioned way: hard
slog. They sifted through all the evidence, twice. The coroner had
constructed a timeline on the presumed time of death being at
approximately four a.m. Blood flow would suggest that meant Jason
had been cut for the first time at approximately one a.m.
Toxicology still hadn’t returned results on what drugs, if any, had
kept Jason lying down whilst he bled to death, so times could be
out by a couple of hours, depending on what might have been in his
blood.

‘What time does
the CCTV show him entering the Church ahead of Father Jones?’

‘21.43. Father
Jones went in at 21.55, came out at 22.20. Locked the door as he
left.’

‘So, even if he
had attacked Jason, then the coroner doesn’t think the cutting
started for another two hours, maybe three?’

‘Correct.’

‘So what was he
doing in there?’

‘The timeline
is why Father Jones has not been charged yet. He can’t have
attacked Jason and started the cuts that early, nor did he have
enough time. Equally, no one else went in.’

‘What if there
was someone else in there at the same time?’

‘It is
possible. The cameras are not 24 hour, they come on at
twilight.’

‘If Wyn didn’t
do it before he locked up, what’s the thinking back at the
office?’

‘That Father
Jones knew the cameras didn’t pick up the outer door to the
Sacristy and went in later using his key. Only he and Father
Edwards had keys, and Father Edwards is too old and infirm to be
considered as a suspect.’

She mused on
the two or three hours of ‘dead’ time for Jason Briggs.

‘Didn’t the
coroner’s report say that Jason had eaten and drunk alcohol?’

‘Yes. They
wondered if there was a drug, it might have been given in wine. But
still no tox report as of yet, as I said.’

‘Show me the
bit in the file.’

He handed it to
her and she read out loud. ‘Stomach partially full. Strong smell of
alcohol. Meal of chicken, rice and peas had been ingested but was
not fully digested. Meal probably eaten within two to three hours
of death.’

She looked at
Shahrukh. ‘Where had he eaten chicken, rice and peas if he’d been
in the Church since ten o’clock?’

Shahrukh’s
phone call to Barham about the stomach contents had two immediate
effects. Wyn Jones, who had been en route for more questioning, was
sent back to Westminster with a polite request he stay there for a
few more days. Barham then phoned Keely Curtis’s father and read
the riot act to him in a most convincing manner. Keely could, she
promised, be taken into care if Inspector Barham thought she was in
danger of significant harm; did Mr Curtis want to push that, given
his thirteen year old daughter had been found in the gutter,
unconscious in her own vomit, just four weeks ago? He agreed to her
being interviewed as long as a lawyer was present.

Shahrukh drove
Maryam to the local mosque in his own car, which was gleaming,
small and city-use compact. She marvelled that it had both its wing
mirrors and no dents as he negotiated the tightly packed streets
with the huge buses and trucks and constant double parking in every
nook and cranny. He drove neatly but with just a hint of
aggression. It seemed to work.

Parking down
the street, walking up to the mosque, Maryam observed that it was
an old building that had been bought and made over into a Mosque.
She read the plaque outside as she took a grey Hermes silk scarf
from her coat pocket and covered her hair neatly. The plaque stated
it was six years since the former Anglican Church had been
converted. Maryam studied the arched windows where stained glass
had been stripped out and replaced by plain and then looked up to
the steeple, now used as a minaret, calling the faithful to
prayer.

Imam
Abdhul-Rahemm Malik was a gracious host. Maryam, for her part, was
a gracious and respectful guest. When tea was offered, she accepted
it with appropriate gratitude and she sat neatly to one side of the
Imam, making no attempt to shake his hand. The meeting had been
arranged in the lull between afternoon and evening prayer and
Maryam knew her time was very limited. The Imam had begun by
thanking Maryam for ensuring that the Holy pages of the Qur’an had
been treated with respect, and by offering his aid in any way.
Maryam thanked him, then diverted the conversation to the Mosque in
a way that disconcerted both the men.

‘Imam Malik,
may I ask you if you were part of the organising committee that
oversaw the buying of this property and the conversion?’

‘Yes, I was. We
spent many years raising the funds for it. Why do you ask?’

‘I presume it
had been abandoned and deconsecrated by the Anglican community
before you took over?’

‘Yes. That is
correct. This building had been empty for many years before we
began negotiations to buy it. It came out of a meeting at an
inter-faith council. The Church that was, even abandoned, was
costing the Anglican authorities a fortune to maintain. But they
could not demolish it or have it assigned to any other
purpose.’

‘So a transfer
to your community, whilst maintaining it as a place of worship, was
suggested?’

‘Yes. We paid a
token sum and made a contract that all the Christian elements we
removed would be passed on to the Church, or the profit from their
sale was. The stained glass windows went to a new Church being
built somewhere else, I believe. The font and their altar were
removed before we took possession.’ Malik was starting to look a
little uncomfortable. Shahrukh spoke up.

‘Miss Michael,
are you suggesting the mosque and the events at the Church are
connected after all?’