S.O.S

by Will James

  “Yes?” Father Tom began walking towards the figure. “Can I help you?”

  As he approached he saw it was a girl and as he got closer still he recognised the girl he had met on his trip to the Observatory. She stood there nervously, clutching a phone tightly in her hand. Father Tom racked his brains furiously for her name. He had an excellent memory for faces, rarely forgot them, but names... ah, that was a different matter.

  “Hello, do you remember me? I’m Molly. We met at the...”

  “The Royal Observatory at Greenwich! Molly! Of course I remember you!” He smiled, surprised, but pleased to see her. He had no idea what she might want, but that was the nature of his life as a priest – people turning up at all sorts of times for all sorts of reasons.

  “What can I do for you Molly?” he asked.

  Molly was still trying to catch her breath from the run to the church. She had seen some people leaving when she got off the bus and reckoned that Father Tom would be shutting the place up if she didn’t hurry. She wished she hadn’t bothered – the church was open and the run had taken a lot out of her. No breath came so she held up her phone and showed him the photo on the screen, practically thrusting it in front of his face, her arm rising and falling with her pants for air.

  Father Tom peered at the careen. “May I?” he took the phone. “How do I make this bigger so that I can see it properly?”

  Molly enlarged the screen and Tom looked at the picture on the phone, frowning as he realised the significance of it. He turned his gaze back to the girl in front of him who was beginning to recover.

  “Where did this come from?”

  “I don’t know.” Molly had finally found the power of speech again. Goodness, she was so unfit!

  “We should talk about this. Why don’t we go for a coffee?” He dug in the pockets of his cassock for his keys. “Hang on, let me take this off and we’ll go up the road.”

  “OK.”

  Tom hurried away to the sacristy to take off his garments while Molly wandered round the church, looking for the markings.

  “They’re over here,” Father Tom said, as he walked across to join her. He pointed to a place at the end of the wall where she was standing. “Come and have a look.”

  Molly followed him and they both bent down to see the markings on the wall. “They look almost identical to the ones on your phone, don’t they?”

  Molly looked at the picture still on the screen of her phone. She nodded.

  “And you’ve no idea who sent you the picture on your phone?”

  Molly shook her head. She was thinking about Dev and how he would have known what this meant.

  “Come on, let’s go and have a coffee and a chat.”

  Father Tom led the way out of the church and turned to lock the doors before they headed up to the High Street and to a café where he was known and given coffees half price. On the way in Tom took a copy of The Metro from the dispenser on the corner of the street and he passed it to Molly as a little gesture. She accepted it gratefully, skimming through the pages as she walked.

  Inside the coffee shop she went to sit down and opened the paper properly to read while she waited for the coffees. Father Tom stood at the counter and chatted to the owner, a regular in his church. Suddenly Molly jumped up and hurried over to him.

  “Can we make those take away coffees?” she asked.

  Tom looked at her. “Is there a problem?”

  Molly bit her lip. “There’s a story in the paper about a riot over in Tooting.

  “Terrible that was,” the owner said over his shoulder, as he waited for the coffee to filter through the machine. “Read about it this morning. Sounds like a miracle that those two coppers got out alive.”

  Father Tom looked at Molly. Molly held out the paper for him to read.

  “Is it takeaway then, Father?”

  Tom looked up from what he’d read. “I think it had better be please Sanchez. Two sugars in mine.” He handed the paper back to Molly and pulled out some change from his pocket. “We’ll get the bus,” he said.

  The coffees were handed over, Tom paid and they both left, calling out thanks as they went. Still holding the paper they set off, hurrying to the bus stop, suddenly urgent in their pursuit of the truth.

  *

  Jenny had managed to stall Jake last night. He’d arrived at the house to see Sophie and she told him that they were both in bed and hadn’t let him in, but now, from her position by the window on the second floor she knew he had seen her and would insist on coming in. Her heart sank. She had prayed that he wouldn’t act on what her daughter had said but here he was, and now she’d have to deal with him. Steeling herself for the fight to come she went downstairs and waited for the knock on the door.

  When Jenny opened the door she was smiling.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi.” Jake looked at her. She was smartly dressed with make-up on. “I just came to... to see if you’re all right.”

  Jenny didn’t open the door any wider. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’ve just got in from taking Sophie to school.”

  “Great.” That was a good sign, Jake thought, that Jenny was up and about and looking smart to go out of the house. For a month or so after Chris had died she hadn’t even got out of bed. He braced himself for what he had come to say. “Look Jenny, I...” He took a breath. “I’ve been worried about you, after what Sophie said on the phone last night, about you talking to Chris and I wondered if...”

  Jenny gave a small laugh. “Oh Jake!” Jenny had planned this very well. On hearing what her daughter had told her father she had prepared what she was going to say to him, rehearsing the words in her head so that her case would be watertight.

  “Thank you for being so concerned; Sophie can be really silly sometimes. I was talking to Chris, she was right; sometimes I say things like – Oh Chris, if only you could see Sophie now and how big she’s got...” Jenny looked down for a moment and Jake saw the emotion on her face. “I think that’s normal,” she said, “it’s the way we remember people, isn’t it?”

  Jake shuffled from foot to foot, suddenly embarrassed that he had doubted her. “Of course it is,” he said, “sometimes I do the same myself.”

  They smiled at each other.

  “OK, well I’d better be going off to work then.”

  Jenny nodded. “Yes, and thanks for stopping by.”

  Jake turned and walked down the path back to his car; Jenny closed the door firmly behind him.

  She smiled to herself, secretly congratulating herself on her performance. She’d beaten him. She made her way up the stairs towards Chris’s room and went inside. The room was almost untouched, except for the dent in the bed, where Jenny had been sleeping recently. She stood and looked around the room. There were photographs that showed Chris how he had been, a perfect smiling boy, loved by all. His paintings from school were there too, tacked to the wall with his other drawings. She looked around at them all, feeling the misery rise again in her. Half choked she went over to the window and closed the curtains that were decorated with spaceships and settled on his little bed, looking up at the ceiling. She traced the illuminated patterns on the ceiling with a finger and waited for what she knew would come.

  Down in his car, Jake sat and stared blankly out of the windscreen. He couldn’t bring himself to drive just yet; he couldn’t even turn on the engine. He hated coming to the house, seeing where Chris had been, seeing the deep grief in his wife’s eyes; it paralyzed him. He missed his son so much and yet he’d had to get on with it, live his life or he would have gone mad. Chris was gone and no amount of crying was going to bring him back.

  On the verge of welling up, he opened the glove box for the tissues which he always kept in the car. He peered inside for the Kleenex and found instead a bag of Haribo. He pulled it out and looked at it. He had cleaned the car out a week ago and they weren’t there then. In a flash of memory that was almost painful he remembered that the sweets had been Chris’s favo
urite. How odd, he thought, for me to have missed that. He opened the sweets and took one out. It was sharp and sweet at the same time. I must be going mad, he thought, to have forgotten that they were there. He put them back and finally turned on the engine. As he drove away he couldn’t help wondering again how he could possibly have missed them seeing as he’d done such a thorough clean, unless... unless they weren’t there. Jake shook his head. Nah, that really was mad, he thought and he put the idea right out of his head.

  *

  The young man left the hotel room and double locked the door behind him. He had secured an extra lock so that hotel staff weren’t able to enter the room. He would know if there had been any intrusion.

  Carrying a case with all of his equipment and the forged pass, he made his way to the lobby and the waiting taxi. Investigating the church would have to wait; this story was far more immediate and would reap better rewards. That he was certain of.

  *

  Dev poked around the estate, looking for anything unusual. The earlier sunshine had disappeared under a bank of threatening, winter cloud and the light was dim and dingy making it impossible to get a good look at anything. His job was made all the more difficult still by the sectioned off areas all around him. The police were obviously investigating the incident too he thought.

  Wandering the alleys around the estate, he scanned the scene, not exactly sure what he was looking for. He felt sure that the car would yield something, but it was impossible to get close to it because of all the tape cordoning the area off. There were signs up to say that they were waiting for SOCCO. Dev wasn’t deterred by it though and skirted the area for a while, lurking in the shadows of the flats, waiting for the right moment. It came by surprise. There was a commotion by the burnt out car. Someone – the press probably – was insisting that they were allowed to look at the car, seeing as it wasn’t part of the crime scene and several police officers were trying to move them away. Dev didn’t bother to look any closer at what was going on and took his chance. He nipped under the red tape and had a good look at the police car, hurrying round it, his eyes scanning the body work; there was nothing untoward, not from what he could see. He went to duck under the tape again and that was when he saw it. He stopped, his eyes blinked twice and he sealed the image to his memory.

  “Oi! You?!”

  Swivelling fast on his heels, Dev turned, his mind preparing an excuse as fast as his heart was beating. A policeman was heading towards him and what he saw behind him were two figures that he instantly recognised.

  Molly stood there, her dark red hair flowing down past her shoulders, indignantly protesting as a police officer tried to move her away. Next to her was Father Tom. Dev was shocked to see them though he hid it better than Molly whose startled expression quickly turned to a cold mask.

  Oh dear, she possibly hasn’t forgiven me, he thought.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded in an icy tone.

  She definitely hasn’t forgiven me, he confirmed.

  In reply he pointed to the low wall by the car. Molly looked past him and stared at the wall, her eyes widening.

  “Same reason as you by the looks of it,” he said. “I think we need to talk...”

  CHAPTER 11 - London

  Whilst Father Tom had engaged the policemen on duty in conversation, Molly and Dev had catalogued what they had found on the wall, with photos on Molly’s phone. They were all done and as Tom wound up his conversation with the police, Molly and Dev circumnavigated the red tape and began heading out of the estate.

  They appeared to have judged their exit well. Just as they turned the corner to wait for Father Tom, two police cars and a van pulled up and out spilled the SOCCO team, men and women in white coats and masks accompanied by a detective inspector. It was a close call Dev thought, but so was everything recently. As Tom caught them up and they all left the scene, Dev glanced sidelong at Molly who looked odd, shaking her head from side to side as she walked.

  “What’s up?” he asked her. Their relationship had improved significantly in the time spent working together; the common goal working wonders on Molly’s bad humour. “You OK?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” She looked puzzled for a moment and stood still. “It’s just that...”

  “That what?” Dev said, looking at her and smiling.

  “Nothing,” she replied quickly, blushing at his gaze. “I’ll tell you later.”

  *

  As the trio strolled out of sight a black taxi cab pulled up at the estate. A dark haired young man climbed out, paid the driver with a note, not waiting for the change and walked towards the crime scene. He was stopped by an officer.

  “I’m afraid that this area is closed sir, unless you’re a resident here.”

  The young man met the officer’s eye. He lifted his hand and held his fake identity pass in the air. He was an expert forger. The officer looked at it, leaned a little closer to make sure it was what he thought it was and then said,

  “Sorry Sir. Here, let me let you through.” He lifted the tape and the young man passed into the crime scene.

  The forensic examination of the scene was well and truly underway, but the young man remained unimpressed; it was the usual haphazard affair. Sometimes he returned to his own crime scenes, more out of curiosity than anything else and he was always disappointed. Much of the time, just as it was here, the detectives seemed hapless, with no explanations or leads, plodding through the physical evidence without thinking further than their noses.

  The assassin tried not to betray his irritation as he recognised the familiar baffled expressions on the faces of the supposed experts. Opening his briefcase he set to work, his task easier than theirs as he knew what he was looking for.

  *

  The knock on the door distracted Mrs Pathmajaren out of her afternoon daze. My husband will get the door she thought dozily, allowing her eyelids to droop once more as she resettled down. The knock sounded again, this time more insistent. Hearing no answering footsteps from upstairs she realised it was mid-week and her husband was at work. Resentfully she got out of her chair, smoothing a little life and colour back into her face. If it’s Dev and he’s forgotten his keys again I’ll murder him she thought grumpily as she went to the front door. He was brilliant, there was no denying it, but he was hopeless with practical things – had his head in the clouds most of the time.

  She had a quick look through the glass on the front door and sure enough there was the outline of her son, waiting without his key again. Little wonder, she thought, after he left in such a hurry early this morning. With a huff she pulled open the door, ready to berate her son for waking her up but she stopped, her words frozen as she saw the two other people beside him.

  The first person she recognised, the flame haired English girl who her son had brought home yesterday and whose name she didn’t care to remember. Clearly their disapproval of her had gone unheeded. The second, a tall man who stooped to enter the house gave her even more cause for alarm. From the dog collar, she knew that the man was a Christian priest. She pursed her lips as Dev ushered them both into the hall and hurriedly introduced Father Tom.

  “We’ll go straight up to my room,” Dev said, “don’t worry about tea or anything – we’ve got work to do!”

  Father Tom said; “Very nice to meet you Mrs Pathmajaren, thank you for your hospitality...”

  “Come on,” Dev called from half way up the stairs.

  Tom nodded and followed both the teenagers up.

  Mrs Pathmajaren went into the lounge and sat down heavily in her arm chair. She closed her eyes. It wasn’t that she had anything against Christian priests, of course not, and it wasn’t that she had anything against English girls, absolutely not, but why her only son, her only child Dev had to be different, why he had to be so anti-Indian and mix with all sorts of people other than the lovely friends that his parents had carved out for him she simply didn’t understand. And where would it all end? Christian priests with their C
hristian beliefs? She opened her eyes and decided to make tea. She needed to keep an eye on this and taking a tray of tea and cakes upstairs would be one way of doing exactly that.

  Upstairs in Dev’s room the unlikely trio settled in front of Dev’s computer. It was the latest model; with all sorts of programmes on it that Dev had written the code for himself. Molly was amazed at its speed when he sat down and began to input the information.

  To start they uploaded the photos from Molly’s phone, including the one sent by the mysterious number. Dev scanned the number and did some analysis on it.

  “It’s come from Germany,” he said. He tapped in something else. “From Berlin. I’ve got the exact location here – it’s... it’s Grosser Tiergarten,” he said, “Does that make any sense?”

  Molly shrugged.

  Dev brought the pictures up, side by side and they all stood round to look at them. As they scrutinised the symbols Dev thought he saw a pattern emerging. He took a large piece of paper from a drawer under his desk and jotted down the symbols, one set at the top and one at the bottom. With his pencil, he drew an arc and then what looked like the bow of a boat.

  “Hmmmm....” He glanced up and chewed the end of the pencil. “It could be...”

  Moments later he took his glasses off, rubbed his tired eyes and looked at the images again. Immediately he rubbed the arc out and re-drew it, rubbing out the boat shape underneath. He leaned back and looked at it again and then slowly he voiced this opinion to the others.

  “I think these symbols are linked,” he said.

  “How?”

  Dev shook his head. “Now that,” he said, “is what I can’t work out!” The only clear progression he could see was the fact that where the light appeared, the symbols followed. On paper, even though they looked similar, he couldn’t find a link at all.

  “What about the light? The light, unless we believe what the policemen said, about it being a flash of lightning in a freak thunder storm, which I’m not convinced of, is one of the links. It would appear that where the light is seen a set of symbols is found. But...” He leant back in the chair and lifted his hands behind his head. “Apart from that I am at a loss. Do either of you have an idea about what it might mean?” He was hoping that one of them might have seen further than he could.