Doubting Thomas

by Adam Grinter

  ‘Unchristian.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to believe.’

  They were the same insults that had been posted online after John’s speech. The resentment and anger had fermented overnight and spread like a contagion so people felt compelled to come out from behind their screens and show their faces of hate.

  Maria and I shuffled closer to John to mask him from the mob. We looked for an escape route. The front doors of the Cathedral were closed and looked impenetrable. We backed away and quickly walked down the side of the structure. We came across a small door. I tried the handle; locked. Maria had continued checking our side of the building. She wandered back shaking her head. I took out my phone and called William.

  “Thomas, where are you?” He asked as he answered.

  “Side door on the East side.” I replied.

  What seemed like an hour later, as we waited, exposed to a potential mob, the door opened a crack and William’s head poked out to check the coast was clear. We didn’t wait for his confirmation, we pushed past him into a small side room. He shut the door quickly behind us and I took in the space we’d entered. It was a meeting room. A round table dominated the centre of the room. Six chairs surrounded it. One was pushed out as if someone had just vacated it. There was a pad laid out on the table in front of the vacated chair. There was a tray of cups, saucers, tea pot, milk jug and even a plate of biscuits ready for a meeting. Our meeting.

  William gestured to the empty seats.

  “Take a seat, please.” He told us.

  Gently, reverentially we pulled out three chairs and sat ourselves around the table.

  He fussed with the cups and saucers and poured us all a cup of tea. He passed around the biscuits which Maria and I declined but John eagerly took.

  When we all settled William broke the polite silence.

  “John, I need to tell you that I am genuinely sorry for my actions after your speech. I was wrong and behaved appallingly. I humbly beg your forgiveness.”

  John was caught off-guard that he was going to be spoken to first, he had a mouthful of custard cream.

  “Mmm...hmmh.” He spluttered.

  William took that as an acknowledgement to continue.

  “Your words delivered the message the Catholic church has been looking for. For too long we have been fixated on scripture and our interpretation of it. You cut through all of that and told all of us what God expects. You delivered the message the world needed to hear.”

  John mumbled something undecipherable. He blushed bright red. He obviously wasn’t used to receiving such blatant praise.

  “OK so what’s the plan moving forward?” I asked.

  “We want to tour John round the country delivering his message of hope.” William answered.

  “Like some circus freak.” Maria interrupted.

  “No, no.” William soothed. “Nothing like that. We want John to be the face of the modern Catholic church. We want him to bring people to God and the church through his teachings.” He added reasonably.

  “OK.” Maria said.

  “Charles would look after him and you two could go back to your roles. You have both gone above and beyond what I ever expected. Myself and the church thank you.”

  It was strange to receive such effusive praise and both Maria and I blushed a similar shade to John.

  I realised, although, we were making plans for John we weren’t including him in the discussion.

  “John how do you feel about that?” I asked him.

  “Sounds OK. Could be fun.” He replied simply.

  “Not sure fun’s the right word.” I said.

  “You know what I mean.” He told me, blushing again.

  I didn’t but I let it go.

  “What about the crazies outside?” I asked.

  “That’s what Charles is for.” William smiled. “They add to the publicity John will generate. We’ll never rid ourselves of the old attitudes, the old-believers but with enough time and more beautiful messages from John they will hopefully get less and less.”

  He seemed to have thought of everything.

  “We want John in Liverpool on Wednesday. Martin will put on a special service and John will deliver the sermon. Peter in Norwich would like John to be there on Saturday to do something similar.” William told us.

  Maria and I looked at John who was surreptitiously trying to take another biscuit.

  “All the travel plans are made. Only the best, for our new star.” William continued. “We have booked a five-star hotel for John. Every whim will be catered for.”

  Once again I’d been steamrollered by William but this time I didn’t feel too bad about it. He seemed to have actually considered John in his calculations.

  “Charles will collect John tomorrow and he can begin his new life. A servant of God’s word.”

  “He’ll stay with us tonight and Charles can collect him from there.” I agreed.

  “Sounds good.” William stood to signal that the meeting was over. “Well done you two. John I’m sure we shall see a lot more of each other over the coming months.”

  “OK.” John said.

  I wasn’t sure if John fully comprehended what had just happened. It felt like we had just negotiated his life away. I hoped, into something better than before.

  Maria and I took William’s lead and rose from the table. John was a beat behind us. William warmly shook all our hands and opened the door to let us out into the mid-morning sun.

  We stood briefly outside. I heard the door clunk shut behind us.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here.” Maria said before I could.

  We walked back to the front of the Cathedral. The crowd had grown but the shouts were the same. We ignored them and tried to walk around the edge of the throng.

  I looked behind me to make sure Maria and John were keeping up. It was only then I noticed John hadn’t put his hat and glasses back on from when we’d been inside.

  He was recognised almost immediately.

  ‘He’s here.’

  ‘The freak’s here.’

  ‘Get him.’

  The final comment was the one that put me into survival mode. I grabbed John and started to run. There were too many, we didn’t get far. They surrounded us. There was no escape. The shouts from the baying mob were right in my ears. The hate and vitriol was terrifying.

  Maria was still with us and John was the filling in our protectionist sandwich. Hands and arms flailed in our direction. Maria and I moved to block them off. My hands were slapping grabbing hands away. I could sense Maria doing the same.

  I hadn’t been trained by the police for this type of close protection. Instead instinct cut in and I did what I could to protect my subject.

  I twisted this way and that. Constantly trying to drag us forward, out of the sea of bodies. Our progress was slow, every inch felt hard won.

  A movement caught my eye. It was slower and more deliberate. There was a purpose to it the other hands didn’t have. I had seen that movement before. I focused on the hand while blindly flailing at random grabs.

  It moved straight down and slowly under a jacket. It had a direction, it wasn’t random. There was a destination to it I couldn’t quite pinpoint.

  Where had I seen that movement before?

  Two Years Previously

  It had been a long day. I’d spent most if it fruitlessly on the phone. Tied to my desk. My suspect had gone. I knew the what, the why and the who. I now couldn’t find the where. Every lead had been followed. Every person spoken to. He’d vanished in the wind. Gone.

  I leant back in my chair and put my hands behind my head. I stretched my coiled body. It crackled satisfyingly as air bubbles popped in my joints. I looked at the clock.

  Four forty-five.

  An hour and fifteen minutes till the shift change.

  Tomorrow was another day.

  I’ll track him down then.

  The phone on my desk rang. I sat forward and answered it without think
ing.

  “Tom Benson CID.”

  “DC Benson, it’s Billy.” A familiar voice came through the earpiece.

  Billy was a new recruit in uniform. I’d bumped into him in the corridor on his first day. I could tell he was nervous. Scared of screwing up, he told me later. I threw a few encouraging words towards him as I passed.

  ‘You’ll do fine. Go get ‘em rookie.’ Something like that. I didn’t think any more about it. It was just general camaraderie, just words I wished someone had said to me on my first day.

  Billy didn’t forget and he told me they’d helped. He knew they had been platitudes but, they were what he’d needed.

  He was still in uniform three years later and loved it. I was always his first call when he needed a detective. I appreciated his friendship but sometimes the calls at ten to five when I could have just sorted my paperwork, tidied my desk and had a final cup of coffee were slightly tiresome.

  “Hi Billy. How is it out there on the front line?” I asked not really out of interest, more out of the hope. If I could drag the conversation out, I could pass the call onto the night shift and actually go home.

  “Just responded to a burglary, could really use your help.” Billy barrelled on.

  “What do you need mate?” I asked hoping I could help over the phone instead of leaving the warm office and the promise of a reasonable home time.

  “Could really use a second pair of eyes on this. Something doesn’t feel right. This is going to be punted up to you guys anyway so you might as well come in now while the scene’s still hot.” Billy said.

  So, I needed to leave the office. Typical, rush hour traffic, the elements, people.

  “Where are you?” I resigned myself to going out.

  He gave me the address. It was a two-minute walk, round the corner from the station. I didn’t have to worry about traffic. It was just the cold and other people that would annoy me now.

  I grabbed my jacket from the back of my chair and shrugged it on. I wandered out of the office and took my coat from the hook by the door as I left the office. I put it on as I descended the stairs. I debated about jumping in my car. I thought better of it. I had been sedentary all day so could use the exercise.

  I was standing outside the address Billy had given me three minutes later. Billy stood guard on the doorstep. A locked stable door after the horse has already bolted.

  I shook his hand as I approached.

  “How you been?” I asked.

  “Busy. You?” He returned.

  “You know. Same old, same old.” It was basic small talk we always shared. It meant we kept clear of the deeper, darker thoughts and conversations that might flow between people on the front lines, due to what they had seen and experienced.

  “So, what feels funny about this?” I asked bringing us back to the reason we were here.

  “The atmosphere in the house is strange, oppressive. As if there’s a presence. I never felt anything like it before.” Billy explained. “SOCO are on their way so don’t touch anything. They’ll be here in ten minutes.”

  “OK.” I called back at him as I entered the house. I pulled a pair of blue nitrile gloves out of my coat pocket and struggled into them. I carried gloves in the pockets of all my clothes for this kind of scenario.

  Billy was right, the house didn’t feel normal. A residual aura of invasion lingers after any break in but in this case, it was as if the house was holding its breath. Waiting to exhale after an event yet to come.

  I paced slowly and gently down the hallway taking in the layout of the building. It was the same as mine with the living room on the left, a flight of stairs up to the bedrooms and bathroom on the right. The kitchen was behind the living room opposite the bottom of the stairs and there was a backdoor taking up the remaining space on the rear wall.

  I took a small step into the living room. Everything was broken. Sofa cushions were slashed and spilling their filling onto the floor. The actual sofa base had been cut on the bare seat and the backing. The matching chair had been overturned and I assumed a foot had stomped the material on the back to form the large gaping hole.

  All the sides had been decluttered with a sweeping arm so everything was in a broken pile at the ends of the cabinets. The TV had a hammer still embedded in its screen. Even the pictures on the walls had not escaped the wrath that had engulfed this room. Each one methodically smashed while still hanging proud.

  I stepped back into the hall. There would be a pile of forensic evidence in there, you couldn’t unleash that much destruction without leaving a trace of yourself behind. I didn’t want to contaminate the scene.

  I continued to the kitchen leaving the upstairs till last. The destruction in here was not as thorough. The smashed crockery and broken jars dribbling their contents down cabinets and the fridge made it look worse than it was.

  I climbed the stairs to survey the damage up there. The oppressive feel of the house grew with each step upwards. I reached the summit and I gently pushed the first door open. It was obviously a child’s bedroom. A girl’s bedroom. There was no damage here. Everything was still in one piece. I pulled the door closed and moved onto the bathroom that separated the two bedrooms.

  Destruction reigned again. The hammer which I assumed was sticking out of the downstairs TV had been used on every fitting. The basin had a chunk out of it which was shattered on the floor. The toilet had the bowl and the cistern broken. Water was flowing from the hole in the cistern onto the floor. I was going to need to get that turned off; pretty quickly. The bath, which was not porcelain but plastic, had three punch holes where the hammer had been used on it. Even the bathroom mirror had not escaped the vengeful blows.

  Again, I closed the door and moved onto the final room. The door opened into an adult’s room. I assumed the parents of the girl. The destruction was complete. The mattress was slashed and tipped off its frame. The chest of drawers were overturned. Cosmetics were trampled into the carpet. Clothes had been ripped from hangers in the wardrobe and sleeves had been ripped off and ragged holes cut in them. I took in the scene and closed up. I had seen enough. Just not enough to understand.

  I walked back down the upstairs hall intending to return downstairs and wait for the forensic team. Billy had called it right, there was something not right in this house. I didn’t know what it was, but it made me want to take a shower. The feeling of destruction was almost a tangible thing. It hung in the air.

  The anger.

  The volatility.

  The need for destruction.

  I returned to the child’s room and wondered why this one room had been left untouched. I nudged the door open again with my toe and looked in, seeing if I had missed something, anything, on my first glance.

  Everything looked in its place. Nothing was damaged. Nothing was disturbed.

  My eyes were drawn to the floor to ceiling wardrobe fitted against the right-hand wall. The door was slightly ajar.

  Had it been that way when I looked in before?

  I couldn’t remember. I didn’t think so.

  Stupidly, naively, I walked up to it and pulled the door open.

  A young man in his twenties by my estimation was revealed. He was wearing a tatty green coat that reached his knees. The jumper he wore underneath had holes torn in it. His jeans should have been blue, however the grime was ingrained making them a grey colour. The shoes on his feet were white trainers and the only item he wore that looked clean.

  He looked at me and his thin rat-like face contorted into a grimace. He screamed something indecipherable in my face and rushed out of his hiding space.

  I was caught unawares. He managed to almost knock me over. I recovered quickly and grabbed him. I caught him by the shoulder of his coat. He spun round so he was facing me again. He was trying to shrug his coat off, so he could make his escape. I had him and I wasn’t going to release him now.

  I took a firmer hold, which allowed me to manoeuvrer around him. I pinned him against the second clos
ed wardrobe door. With both hands I grabbed his elbows and pulled them behind his back. I got what I thought was a good grip in one hand and fumbled for my handcuffs with my other.

  He seized his opportunity and wriggled with all his strength. He freed both arms from my grip and turned to face me again. My hand was still scrabbling for the now useless cuffs when his right hand slowly and deliberately in a straight movement withdrew a knife from his waistband. It had been hidden by his coat. I hadn’t seen it.

  My eyes were drawn to it and I took a step back instinctively.

  “Hold on. Calm...” I didn’t get the chance to finish.

  He lunged right-handed and thrust the blade into my side. There was no pain immediately and I initially thought he’d missed. My hand automatically went to where he had touched me. It came away sticky. I looked at it confused.

  Red.

  Bright red.

  Blood.

  My blood.

  I staggered at the realisation I’d been stabbed. He had withdrawn the blade and his hand. He pushed past me, as I flailed limply to stop him. His shoulder knocked me off balance. I fell to a sitting position on the floor. The jarring of the fall started the pain. A searing flash of fire ran into my brain as the nerves sent their signals. The shock stopped me calling out, I was mute, my mouth opening and closing but no sound escaping.

  I lay back on the floor hoping it would be more comfortable than sitting. I was wrong. The pain was causing the discomfort not the position. I pressed my left hand to the wound hoping it would give relief. It felt worse. I could feel the blood seeping between my fingers. My life going with it.

  I closed my eyes and hoped when I woke it would all be over.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The memory came at last. I dredged it up from the depths of things I wanted to forget.

  “Knife.” I shouted without thinking.

  The hand shot forward towards John as the crowd retreated almost as one.

  I moved instinctively, I got in the way of the blade. Protecting John. I grabbed the hand as it withdrew.

  People were scattering and the crowd was clearing. I looked into the eyes of the man whose hand I was gripping onto. They were focused beyond me trying to bore into John standing behind me.