The Resurrection of the Body (9 page)

T
he Man in the Street

I was walking down Lavender Grove towards the vicarage when I suddenly had the strangest sensation that I was not alone, and that somebody was following me. Was it a shadow that I caught out of the corner of my eye, or the wind in a tree, or some slight sound that my ears had
misinterpreted
? I turned suddenly, as if I were playing a game of grandmother’s footsteps, casting my eyes right down the street. There was no one there. The sun was shining brightly, and it was about midday, so there were no long shadows. The street was completely deserted; not a car, not a person. In fact, for an instant I felt as if time must have stood still, so powerful was this image of the empty street.

A cat emerged from one of the gardens up the road and walked slowly across the street, its tail pointing straight up in the air. A car ran across Malvern Road, heading south, and somebody came into view at the corner of the street, to pop a letter into the post-box.

I went on walking down the road, and, once more, I had the unmistakable feeling that there was someone walking behind me. Again, I looked round, and again, there was nobody there.

I came to the gate of the vicarage. My hand was shaking slightly as I pulled out my key and inserted it in the lock. I went inside, and shut the door firmly behind me. It was very quiet in the house; the children were at school and Harriet was teaching. I walked through into the kitchen and looked hopefully in the fridge.

There was nothing much there. I decided to make myself a sandwich and opened a bottle of beer. I took this through into my study and put the plate and the glass down on my desk.

I was facing the bookshelf, looking for an old copy of the Book of Common Prayer. I felt a shadow cross the room and, as I turned my head, I was sure I caught a glimpse of someone disappearing from the window.

I turned and darted through the hall, flinging open the front door. I glanced all around, but there was no one there. Was I going off my head? I looked down at the flower bed under the window, where the first green shoots of the peonies were emerging like little fingers from the earth. No, I was not imagining it. There were fresh
footprints in the dark soil, not the children’s but large footprints, from a man’s heavy shoes.

I went back inside and returned to my desk. This time, I turned the chair round to face the window.

There was really no need for me to be so alarmed. Burglary rates in our area are very high. Most of the
breakins
occur by day, when people are out working, and are entirely opportunistic. They come up to the house and peer in through the windows, and if there’s no sign of anyone, they break a pane and are in and out in a minute. Of course, it is usual for them to ring the doorbell first. If someone answers, they make some lame excuse. If no one does, they know they are free to break in.

As I sat at my desk, the phone rang. It startled me so much that I jumped and my hand shot out and knocked the glass of beer on to the floor. I floundered, trying to retrieve it, while at the same time picking up the receiver.

‘Hello? Hello?’

It was Kevin Brown, the journalist from the Hackney Gazette. He said that he had read my article in the parish magazine. Was this a true reflection of my views?

I said of course, I had written it, after all.

‘So you think the resurrection is just a myth.’

‘I said what I said in my article,’ I replied, annoyed, dabbing the beer off the carpet with the corner of the
tablecloth
.

‘Please don’t try to misquote me. I said quite clearly at the end of the letter that I was carrying on in faith.’

‘Faith in what?’

Some of the red dye had come off the tablecloth on to
the carpet. I had made things much worse than if I had left the beer to sink in, and I couldn’t help thinking of what Harriet would say to me that evening. The
journalist
sharply repeated his question; and to my dismay I found myself quite unable to answer him.

T
he Fish Restaurant

As I was reading the local paper on Thursday to see if the journalist had written anything uncomplimentary about me, I saw that there had been another stabbing, on
Kingsland
Road, the victim a Kurd who had just left the Kurdish Men’s Club. There is a Turkish football club not far away, and from time to time, as the police are only too aware, violence breaks out between the two groups. We are not very far from Kingsland Road; surely it was not impossible that the murders were connected as Kevin Brown had suggested to me.

Detective Chief Inspector Stone had obviously dismissed this possibility. Perhaps he had drawn a blank. Perhaps no one in that community would tell the police
anything. Might I succeed in finding something out when they had failed?

I left my office early, leaving the answerphone on, and walked down to Kingsland Road. It was getting dark, and the sky was heavy and grey, looking like rain. The Kurdish Men’s Club was near the traffic lights. Strong metal grilles had been secured over the windows and the door too was reinforced. A sign on the door said ‘Members Only’.

I peered through a window and saw, through the metal grating, two tables covered in green cloth and a snooker table. Men sat at the tables reading newspapers and
smoking
, and another stood and played at a games machine.

The atmosphere was so strange and so foreign that I realised at once the futility of hoping that anyone would talk to me. This was so clear that I couldn’t bring myself to enter.

‘Looking for something, love?’

I turned round. Two girls were standing behind me, wearing short skirts, tight boots and layers of thick
make-up
. When one of the tarts saw my dog collar she nudged the other and burst out laughing.

I walked hurriedly down the street, wondering what to do. This thing was eating away at me; I must try to forget it. I should leave the investigation to the police, and try to put my own feelings to one side.

A little further down the road there is a well-known fish restaurant. It was now dark and cold outside, and had begun to rain, slow, feeble drops, as if even the weather were indecisive. My eye was drawn to the bright window, slightly fugged with steam. I felt hungry, and was
wondering
whether to get some fish and chips for supper, to save Harriet cooking. The rain suddenly started to fall in earnest, so without hesitating any longer I pushed the door open and walked into the shop.

The powerful smell of oil and chips assaulted me. I stood in the queue and looked around. And then I saw the man sitting at the table. His face was thin and sallow and there were dark hollows under his eyes. His skin seemed quite pale under the bright fluorescent lights, and I
wondered
why I had remembered it much darker and thought that he might be from the Middle East. I saw him sitting facing me, his mouth half open, and the forkful of white fish raised halfway to his lips.

His eyes fell upon me, and I am sure that he recognised me when our eyes met, otherwise, wouldn’t he have looked away? He didn’t smile, or blink, or nod, or acknowledge me in any way, but simply regarded me with his even, detached gaze. Then, almost as if he were
mocking
me, he popped the white morsel of fish into his mouth.

I saw him chew and then swallow. I turned in
confusion
and rushed out of the shop. I found myself walking down the road, almost stumbling in confusion. My limbs felt heavy and my head felt light. I wondered what on earth was happening to me.

What was the reason for this fear? I was sure this was not a hallucination. There was undoubtedly another man, who looked like the man who had died. There must be some connection between them. Perhaps that was why he was hanging around here, wanting to avenge his death.
There was no doubt that there could be danger; real,
physical
danger, not something imagined, and this could be responsible for the overpowering terror that I felt. If the man recognised me, and knew that I was watching him, then might I not be actually at risk?

As I walked, pulling my jacket collar up to protect me from the driving rain, I saw two policemen walking down the road. I pulled out of my pocket the newspaper
photograph
of the man, the one I had intended to show to the men in the Kurdish Men’s Club. I went up to them and told them I had just seen someone sitting in the fish restaurant who looked exactly like this man. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but couldn’t it be that he was a relative?

The police officers obviously knew about the murder, and I suppose they also knew that Stone was desperate for leads. I realised that my jacket collar was pulled up around my neck, and that they didn’t know who I was, and that perhaps that was a relief. They thanked me and walked off, and I saw them step into the restaurant. I followed them back, and stood outside, looking in through the window. I saw the policemen go up to the man, and I saw his eyes turn to look out of the window, and stare in my direction.

T
he Evening in the Vicarage

Could he see me in the darkness? I couldn’t tell. I turned and walked away at once. Remorse suddenly swept over me, as if I had betrayed him. But this was nonsense. Of course, the police couldn’t harm him. What could they do? They couldn’t arrest him for sitting in a restaurant and looking like someone who had been killed.

When I got home, wet and bedraggled, Harriet was waiting for me. She was angry that I hadn’t told her where I was, and reminded me that it was several nights since I’d been there to eat with them and help her get the children ready for bed.

She put the supper on the table in front of me and turned to face me. We looked at one another for a
moment. From upstairs came the sound of one of the
children
wailing. She gave an impatient gesture and was about to go when I said, ‘I’ll go up.’

‘They’ve been rowing all afternoon. It’s mostly Tom’s fault.’

I ran upstairs and found Joshua howling at the top of the stairs. He said, between sobs, that Tom had hidden his monkey and wouldn’t tell him where it was. Joshua is unable to go to sleep without his monkey. I went into the room and found Tom sitting on the top bunk, grinning all over his face.

‘I hid it this morning but I’ve forgotten where. I just can’t remember.’

I was tired and ill at ease and I have to confess I felt like hitting him. It’s a sad truth, but Thomas has
tormented
Joshua mercilessly from the moment he was born. I see other families who deny that they have any problem with sibling rivalry and I simply can’t believe it. Nothing is more irritating than listening to mothers saying, ‘Oh, she’s not jealous,’ while on the other side of the sofa their toddler is hugging the baby with such ferocity that it has to be rescued.

‘Well, you’d better remember quickly,’ I said, looking around the room, in the drawers and cupboards, under the bed.

‘But I’ve been trying to remember,’ said Tom, still with that infuriating smile on his face. Joshua, standing in the doorway, began to wail with renewed vigour. Copious hot tears trickled down his face.

Suddenly I couldn’t be bothered with the whole
charade
; I didn’t want to waste hours of my time looking for the monkey, I wanted to be downstairs with Harriet, whom I had hardly seen for a week. I walked across to the bed, and my expression must have been so alarming that Thomas gave a shriek and threw himself under the
bed-clothes
. I grabbed him and pulled him out, squealing from the pain of my hand biting into his upper arm. ‘Tell me where you put that monkey,’ I said, still struggling to be calm, ‘or there’ll be no television for a week.’

‘I don’t want to watch television.’

Something in me snapped. It was his insolent,
irritating
expression that did it. ‘Tell me where you hid the
monkey
!’ I took hold of his hair, and pulled and twisted it. ‘Tell me at once!’

Thomas started to wail now, but refused to say
anything
. I pulled his hair harder and then he suddenly said, ‘In the airing cupboard!’ I abruptly let go and went into the airing cupboard, and pulled out the monkey from behind the tank. Joshie grabbed it and immediately stopped crying, but now Thomas was wailing from the room. ‘It’s not fair! Why don’t you hit him! You never hit him!’

I went back into the bedroom, my rage suddenly replaced by an overwhelming feeling of shame. Why did we wonder that people tortured or did violence to one another? If I could hurt my children, whom I loved more than myself, what couldn’t I do to a stranger?

I calmed the children down and said a prayer quickly
with them. Tom had stopped crying and I kissed them both tenderly. I went downstairs, sat back at the table, and put my head in my hands.

Harriet stood and looked at me. She said, ‘Richard, you’re not usually like this. There’s something wrong. Can’t you tell me what’s the matter with you?’

I stared at her, numbly. What could I say? I took a deep breath.

‘Harriet, I saw this man again, the one we saw in
Clissold
Park, in the fish restaurant in Kingsland Road.’

She looked at me, puzzled. ‘So?’ She sat down opposite me, and put her hand on my arm. ‘Richard, I was thinking about the stolen body,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t it be drugs? Perhaps he was carrying drugs, had swallowed them in plastic bags, or something like that.’

I said, ‘I’m sure the police would have thought of that. But if there had been drugs on the body, they would have been found at the post mortem. Surely the police would have said something about it by now?’

‘Would they?’

I stared at Harriet. She had a point. I supposed that the police would only release the information if it suited them. I am not very well versed in the working of the police, what they choose to release, and who controls this. Suddenly I felt I had to know what had happened to the man in the restaurant; I picked up the phone and rang Detective Chief Inspector Stone.

By a stroke of luck he was still there. He listened to me impatiently.

‘Yes, the officers did tell me about the incident. I should have guessed that it was you behind it.’

‘Did they find out who the man was?’

He sighed. ‘Listen. You don’t seem to realise what little power we have. We can ask the man for his identity, but he doesn’t have to tell us, and, for your information, this guy didn’t. We can’t force him to say anything, and we can’t arrest him on suspicion of looking a little bit like someone else, now, can we?’ He paused and exhaled deeply, as if he were smoking a cigarette. ‘Of course, if we had identity cards, it would be different.’

‘So you don’t intend to find out who he is?’

‘No. To be frank with you, I think it would be a
complete
waste of our time.’

I could sense that he was trying very hard to be polite, so I thanked him, and hung up. I thought again of the man in the fish restaurant, and the expression on his face. Harriet was hovering behind me. ‘Richard, you’re shaking. What is it?’ she asked.

But I simply couldn’t explain to her what was
bothering
me most; what the man had been eating. For in Luke when the resurrected Christ appears to the disciples, in order to prove he is not a ghost, he sits down with them, and before their eyes consumes a piece of broiled fish.