The Pillars of Abraham

by Ian Young

  Mason worked briefly on the door as security, but I needed my time away from him and he found another job. There’s a company north of Prague that provides training courses for close protection officers. One of Mason’s former Army buddies turned up in the bar one night, a guy who kept calling him ‘boss’. He said he was on a course there and that they were short of instructors. The next day Mason went along and came back with a job. It’s great money and we were able to afford a bigger apartment.

  I’ve been to Charles University a few times, asking about work in the lab, even teaching work, but my entire academic résumé is under a different identity. I’m still using the passport Mason’s former employer provided. Mason says we’re not in any danger now, but these are the only passports we have. Casual work in an Irish Pub seems the only option right now.

  I drift off pretty quickly these days, and before I know it I awake in my own bed fully clothed and alone, as usual. Mason leaves early every day, way before I surface. We spend little time together, which suits me fine. I’m usually at the pub by the time he gets home.

  We always go for a walk around Prague on a Sunday, which is— shit! Which is today. When you have an irregular job, the days of the week tend to blur into each other. That means Mason will be around the apartment somewhere.

  I get up and wander into the kitchen. ‘Morning,’ I say, trying to smooth down my hair. ‘Thanks, again.’

  ‘No worries, Andi. You were sleeping like a tired puppy. Coffee?’

  ‘Great … could I just get a shower first?’

  ‘It’ll be ready when you get back.’

  He’s so nice, I don’t know why I can’t relax with him. Perhaps because I saw him bludgeon a man to death. I stare for a moment at his well-defined legs stretching out from beneath sports shorts, bare feet resting on the wooden framework of the stool. Even his toes are lean and macho. He’s wearing a sleeveless vest that shows off his toned frame, angular shoulders almost twice the width of mine. He isn’t muscly like a bodybuilder might be, more like a swimmer. But surprisingly, pleasingly, he doesn’t have any tattoos that I can see. I’ve always thought tattoos were usual for soldiers, regimental emblems or the like. But there’s nothing usual about this soldier.

  I step out of the shower and wrap a dressing gown around me before venturing back into the kitchen. The coffee is still hot, made, probably, when Mason heard the shower stop running. He does things like that. Howie would have waited until I appeared in the kitchen then said, ‘Hey, honey, let me fix you that coffee.’ Mason is altogether more switched on. It freaks me out a little. When he passes me the cup, our hands touch briefly. I often find myself staring at those hands, replaying in my mind how they murdered the guy in my apartment. I imagine them touching me again.

  ‘I needed that,’ I say, swallowing down as much coffee as I can stand, not bothering to wait until it cools.

  ‘Do you think we should try a different church today?’ he says, holding a buttered rohlík close to his mouth.

  ‘We’ve been to all the churches in the city,’ I say. ‘St Vitus is the most well attended. We should keep trying there.’

  ‘I meant a mosque or a synagogue.’ Mason holds his hand across his mouth to spare me the sight of his half-chewed bread.

  ‘Are you kidding me?’

  We traipsed around the Catholic churches for weeks, hoping to overhear some gossip that might allow us to pick up the trail again. But got nowhere. St Vitus was the big tourist church, and there was a vault beneath that housed dead bodies – catacombs, Mason told me. Thanks for that, Mason. Catacombes in Portuguese, I told him, from the Latin catacumbas. Don’t try to out-language me, buster. Anyway, it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s where the Pillars of Abraham meet.

  ‘I don’t mean to worship.’ Mason shakes his head and laughs as though I need some simple joke explained to me.

  ‘I know that, jerk. I mean how the hell am I going blend in? Me in a mosque.’

  ‘I love it when you’re right,’ he says. ‘Of course you’re right. St Vitus it is then. Something’ll turn up.’

  I don’t think Mason could care less anymore. It’s all we’ve done about Howie’s ball since arriving in Prague three months ago. The trail ended when Frank Steiner walked out of Datalabs and wound up dead outside his friend’s apartment. The Professor is still missing and police have no clue as to his whereabouts. Mason said we should just keep our heads down and keep watching the news. That hadn’t really worked at first since we didn’t have cable in our old apartment and neither of us speak Czech. Try as I might, I just can’t get my head around the Slavic languages.

  Since we moved here, the news channel has been on almost all the time; I just think it might be too late. Not a moment goes by when I don’t think of Howie and getting his ball back. Mason never mentions it these days, other to tag along to one church or another every Sunday. I don’t even know why he’s here.

  Police are looking for me too. My landlord turned up at the apartment in Santa Monica wondering why his rent hadn’t been paid, and, well, got an unpleasant surprise. A few days later, after we arrived in Prague, I called my mother and told her I was OK and that the dead body was nothing to do with me. She thinks I’m on an exchange programme in Australia. Mason went crazy. We had to dump our cell phones and get new ones. I screamed at him that I didn’t know about these things, and he calmly told me to check with him first. One day I’m going to kick him in the balls.

  While Mason is getting changed I switch on the TV. I want to see if there’s more news about the scientist that killed himself earlier in the week. He was a professor at a university in Wrocław in Poland, not far from the Czech border. Police found him by the railway track near Praha hlavni nadrazi, Prague’s main railway station.

  I suppose I take an interest in these things in the same way as an actor might mourn the passing of another actor, sad about the great artistic contributions that will no longer come. What makes the Polish professor’s suicide more prominent, though, is that it isn’t the only one. About a month ago, just before we got our new apartment, I’d read in The Prague Post – an English language newspaper – that a physicist from CERN in Geneva had taken an overdose. They found him in his hotel room, not far from here. I keep telling myself I don’t believe in coincidences, but what else could it be? Sometimes the world does throw up some events that seem strangely connected but aren’t. I get that, though I haven’t always.

  There’s nothing about it on the news this morning. Big deal, some guy from smalltown Poland falls off the railway platform; it’s hardly going to take up airtime a week later. Mason’s ready, he stands there watching me while I reach for the remote.

  ‘What’s happening in the world today?’ he asks. Mason dresses differently these days, at least on his days off. He’s wearing knee length shorts and a short-sleeved shirt that hangs outside the waistband. His legs are lightly tanned and end in a pair of leather sandals – thankfully without socks. He could be a footballer (one coming to the end of his career) such is his physique. Perhaps if he had longer hair and a few tattoos … I’m probably the only Brazilian who doesn’t care about football. Motor racing’s my thing. Mason told me he’d met a Formula 1 driver while on a driver training course, but couldn’t remember his name. I reeled off a dozen drivers, past and present, but Mason just shook his head. Apparently, rugby’s his thing.

  I follow him out through the door and on to the church.

  St Vitus is on the hill where Prague Castle is. It’s a bit of a trek, but so worth it when you get there. The view is rich with hypnotic detail you could spend a week gazing at, but the castle grounds themselves are like something from a fairy tale. The whole of central Prague is like something from a fairy tale. Los Angeles could not be further away.

  Halfway up the steps we pass the wine bar where I plan to spend a couple of hours after the service
is over. It’s going to be another scorching day and a few crisp white wines on the terrace seem like a clever idea. Hell, if the priest can glug a cup full of wine in front of everyone, so can I.

  When first you walk through the narrow lanes, passing the Rosenberg Palace, you start to feel as though you’re walking into a time portal. Some of these buildings have been here, in one form or another, since the ninth century. The ninth century! We were still living in the trees back then. I don’t know much about architecture, but I read that all the major architectural styles of the last one thousand years can be found here. The President lives in one of these buildings. The freaking President! Prague Castle makes the White House look like a downtown hotel.

  We pass the Old Royal Palace and there, opposite, is the gothic cathedral of St Vitus. If I creep close enough I can see the catacombs beneath the great building. But I won’t be doing that.

  At first I used to hurry to a seat, head bowed as though I might get contaminated by someone religious. It’s a good job the services are in Czech because I really don’t want to find myself joining in. Mason elbows me every time I shake my head at something, some ritual, or other. I even sniggered once, when the priest held the bread up to the ceiling and shouted out some words of praise or thanks. I remember from my childhood that this was supposed to represent Christ’s body. And they’re going to eat it. Oh, come on! Seriously? I thought Mason was going to drag me out.

  We always sit at the back so Mason can ‘surveille’ the room, and at the aisle end of the row so I can get the hell out of there as soon as the priest leaves the stage.

  As we take our seats on this Sunday, some guy kneels down beside the row (genuflecting, according to Mason) and asks in English if we can shuffle up.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘I really need to be on the end.’

  ‘Oh, OK,’ he says, getting back to his feet. ‘It’s just that I want to watch the service.’

  ‘Why don’t you sit at the front?’ As I glare at the man I notice he’s wearing one of those dog collars. ‘You’re a priest?’

  ‘Uh, yes, for my sins, so to speak.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be up there on the altar?’ I decide to use its formal name; I might not agree with it all, but I don’t want to offend.

  ‘I’m not really that kind of priest,’ he says. He’s still standing in the aisle so I, without thinking, shuffle up to let him sit down.

  ‘I’m freelance, you might say.’ The priest slides on to his knees and knocks out a few prayers, clasping his hands together and mumbling away to himself.

  I nudge Mason and nod at my new neighbour. Mason smiles and continues to check out the congregation. When the priest finishes his prayers he slides back on to the bench and asks my name.

  ‘Andreia,’ I tell him. Mason said it was better to keep my first name and change only the family name. Apparently I might struggle to remember I had a different name, especially in social situations. Not patronising at all.

  ‘Father Sean Unsworth,’ says the priest, holding his hand out. ‘Andreia?’

  ‘Yes, Andreia Martin … originally from Bilbao.’

  ‘Ah, muy bien, he trabajado en Perú!’

  ‘Uh … qué interesante.’ It’s been a while since I spoke Spanish and I hope the slight stutter doesn’t arouse the priest’s suspicions that I might not actually be Spanish.

  ‘Yes,’ the priest continues, ‘I spent many years in Peru working with local charities.’

  I nod and smile, relieved he’d switched back to English, and that he hadn’t spent several years in Bilbao.

  The service lasts its usual one hour. I check my watch every time something different happens: when they sing, when the priest spreads his hands wide apart, when one of his helpers moves; actually I check my watch every few minutes. Two and a half months we’ve been attending one service or another, and nothing has happened. It was a complete waste of time. Papa Sean next to me hasn’t spoken throughout the service, even when the priest switched to English and suggested we all shook each other’s hand in a gesture of peace. Papa Sean just smiled at me then moved on to everyone else within arm’s reach.

  Now, with the service over, everyone begins to file out of the church. The priest turns to me.

  ‘Was this your first time here?’

  ‘No, we come every week.’ I don’t think I need to lie. After all, the point is that we get recognised as regular visitors.

  ‘I’m just here for today, back home tomorrow. It’s a beautiful city, isn’t it?’

  ‘Fantastic, yes, we love it here, don’t we darling?’ I turn to Mason, almost choking on my words.

  ‘What? Oh yes, marvellous city. Spectacular church, yes, we come here every week.’

  The priest offers his hand to Mason. They haven’t met each other, except for a handshake of peace during the service. Besides, Mason, well, Mason did his surveilling the entire time we were in there.

  ‘I’m just visiting,’ says Papa Sean. ‘Something I’ll certainly do again.’

  ‘Perhaps we’ll see you again then,’ says Mason.

  ‘It was nice to meet you.’ Sean bows his head to us both.

  ‘Sure, yeah, take care,’ I say, like you do when you meet people on holiday.

  Whilst we were talking, the crowd herded us outside. I watch the priest stroll away, looking up and down at surrounding buildings, then turning to look at the church as though it would be the last time he sees it. As I follow his gaze I spot a guy taking photos.

  ‘Hey, Mason, look at that guy with the camera.’ I don’t point but do try and direct his vision with my grip on his arm.

  ‘Not your typical tourist,’ says Mason, ‘but I’m sure he’s not interested in us.’

  ‘Well I’m sure I’ve just caught him taking our picture.’

  Chapter 19

  It was three months since Zdeněk Hanzel last saw the Irish priest. Three months since Unsworth and the other eleven religious followers walked out of the old building and went their conspicuously separate ways. The trail went cold and Zdeněk was reassigned. It had all been a wild goose chase anyway. Tipped off by an old KGB spook that some religious terror group was meeting somewhere in Prague, the Bezpečnostní Informační Služba (Security Information Service, BIS) was tasked with investigating. Zdeněk spent six months trailing religious visitors to Prague and, while there did appear to be some kind of gathering in the old building, they seemed as harmless as any other weird religious sect.

  Hanzel was reassigned; all that cloak-and-dagger stuff doesn’t suit him anyway. As his wife reminds him every day, he’s a deskman now, best suited to telling other people to stalk the streets. He’s even given up the cigarettes. No more will Zdeněk Hanzel lurk in doorways coughing through a pack of cigarettes just to spy on someone. If he does, his wife won’t let him back in the apartment his new pay grade affords them in Prague 5.

  He puts his feet up and starts to fill in the empty squares on his crossword puzzle. Somewhere in the apartment his children are playing – it’s not a big apartment, but Zdeněk suspects they’re heads down on a computer game or something. His wife, Krystina, is in the shower, expecting to spend Sunday with all her family for once – or so she told Zdeněk over breakfast. His mind wanders away from the clue for seven across and back to priests.

  When Zdeněk Hanzel left the State Police to pursue a career in the security services, like his father, he hoped to pit himself against serious criminal intent – he hoped to be defending his country against those determined to bring it down, whoever that might be. Fifteen years he spent waiting for the opportunity; fifteen years rising through the hierarchical ranks of the State Police, and all because of his father.

  After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, a law was passed to prevent officials of power during communist times holding positions of power in the new democra
tic era. There must be no data breach across the dividing line of two opposite societies. Although exceptions were made, most notably among politicians, Hanzel was advised that his father’s senior role in the communist State Security, StB, during the seventies and eighties, represented a potential information breach. A year after his father died, Zdeněk applied for a transfer and now holds an investigative role among the Czech Republic’s intelligence gathering agency.

  The Irish priest a terror suspect? It was a joke, mused Zdeněk. Unsworth’s a Catholic for God’s sake; they’re so blasé about their beliefs you couldn’t incite them to terror if you told them the Pope was sleeping with their mothers. At least, that’s Zdeněk’s impression. But then there was the dead priest with a crucifix deep in his ear. Perhaps there’s something more about Unsworth and his friends that he hasn’t spotted.

  Just this week, the State Police asked the BIS for help with their murder investigation, and Hanzel was given a new task: to dig up information that might be of interest. His starting point was to reopen the case that haunted him ten years ago when he served with the State Police: the first dead priest with a crucifix in his ear.

  Yesterday, Hanzel headed down to the State Police regional headquarters on Bartolomějská in Prague 1 and spent the whole of Saturday morning poring over the notes and clues he’d compiled at the time. And something that didn’t seem significant when he first investigated the murder leaped out of the pages ten years later like one of those magic eye pictures suddenly coming into focus. The victim visited Prague on several occasions and used a different identity each time. What was the betting the latest victim also visited Prague under different identities? Hanzel spent Saturday afternoon watching CCTV images from Prague Airport’s arrival hall. He needed only one occasion when the priest arrived in Prague under a different name, and he found it on a day two months before the priest was murdered.