Crusaders

by Richard T. Kelly

‘Aye.’ Roy sniffed. ‘That, or Fitzy’s had a bright idea. You’d be amazed how some of these pigs get used to your money. Like it was their own. Greed, I tell you – everybody’s after a score.’

  Stevie was sombre, knowing Roy’s hatred of loose talk and disloyalty to be much as virulent as his own.

  ‘I don’t know, Stevie.’ He was shaking his head, clearly genuinely perplexed. ‘Who’s meaning us mischief? There’s maybe a fair old list. Them Codys I thought I was square with. This Skinner boy out of Manchester, he’s maybe throwing money around. It could just as easy be one of ours, but. How are your lads?’

  ‘They’re sound, man. Sound. We have a drink every other week in the Gunnery, I always knaa what’s gannin’ on.’

  ‘Aw, you’re not still drinking in that fucking Gunnery?’

  Stevie shrugged. The venue was hardly the point – rather, that there had in fact been some matters arising between him and the team. Dougie, he suspected, might just have heard by now that Stevie had consoled his estranged wife. Then the few overt trappings of his promotion had nonetheless ruffled some feathers. Shack had been first to bang on to him about wanting the same cut ‘through the till’. But they weren’t getting through the work he was stuck with, not the headwork anyway. Such was the division of labour, as Stevie saw it. He was the chief asset of the business still. Broadly understood, he had done right by them all. And Roy didn’t need to know about a small falling-out between friends.

  ‘Do a sweep, eh? Give everybody just a wee shake. I dunno, could be one of them middling dealer boys. I hear Mickey Ash wants to get married again, the wee git. Some blonde object he met on holiday. Musta give her a ton of free charlie.’

  ‘Doesn’t give up, that one.’

  ‘He doesn’t. So he’s maybe thinking of retiring.’ Caldwell sighed. ‘Not the worst idea.’ He stooped and rough-housed his big drooling dog about its ears. ‘Who’s your pal, eh? Who’s your buddy?’

  Stevie gazed at them without seeing. His agreeable mood was off, away into the long grass. Roy spoke without looking up. ‘I’ve gotta be extra-wary, Stevie. You know that. But I’ve got you. Haven’t I? I’ve got you, Stevie.’

  There was a disconcerting edge to Roy’s tone, or so Stevie thought he detected – a hint of an implied reproach, as bad as an outright slur. Yes, Roy had to take these matters seriously. All the same, he had to know who he was talking to.

  ‘Roy, you’ll never have to worry about us, man.’

  ‘Oh I know, Stevie. I know that, son.’

  Chapter VIII

  INCORRUPTIBLE

  Friday, 4 October 1996

  Back in the saddle, thought Gore as he smoothed out his notes, upstanding in a strange pulpit, another man’s perch. Below him in the pews of St Mark’s was a respectable turnout of forty to fifty bodies. The onus was all upon his shoulders, for Michael Ash would have no eulogist today, no schoolyard mate or kind colleague to tell a benign story or summon up some other felt tribute.

  That no one could be persuaded to speak for the deceased struck Gore as unutterably sad. Had the dead man left so meagre a mark? Or were people just embarrassed – of their own feelings, or the absence of same? He was familiar with a certain poor sensation of sham, imposture, that arose when orating over a stranger’s coffin. But that unease had no claim on him today. He saw this awkward situation as one in which he could do no worse than what would otherwise pertain.

  In the front pew were Clive and Hazel Ash, and a younger sister of Michael’s, Gill, up from Manchester for the day. Earlier he had greeted them solemnly in the vestibule.

  ‘And have the police made any progress? Have there been any arrests?’

  ‘Police, whey, never,’ muttered Clive. In his funeral suit the poor man looked shrunken, anger not quite surpassing some form of shame. His diminutive wife propped up his flank as though the customary duty of bearing up had been exchanged. In the churchyard beyond the vestibule Stevie Coulson’s huge presence was conspicuous as he trundled to and fro among the mourners. Gore took note of just how many greeted Coulson warmly, as ever.

  ‘Ee Stevie, what an awful thing, but …’

  Mr and Mrs Ash were looking at Coulson too, a little oddly, or so it seemed to Gore. The look was not hostile, yet nor was it affable. Perhaps it was just the glassy, non-specific gaze of those who managed acute and incommunicable feelings. Or perhaps they felt as Gore did – that on such a dark day there was something newly stupendous about Stevie’s frame, the rude life of it. Their son was gone, the gathering listless, and yet this man in their midst looked so very much alive. Funerals, Gore knew, were always like that.

  ‘I’ll never understand, but, never understand, or forgive, how a lad could be stabbed in the face.’

  Gore placed a redundant hand on Clive Ash’s shoulder. He badly wanted to give these people something for their unanswerable pain, without stammering or overstating. Face to face was far too intimate.

  In the pulpit he cleared his throat and bade welcome to all, moving hastily from the set text to his own prepared remarks. The resonant echo of the high nave underscored his growing confidence.

  ‘What can we say of a life cut short, so cruelly and inexplicably? We know, for it is written, we have but a short time to live, and like a shadow we flee. The wind passes over the ground and we are gone, and the place we leave behind will know of us no more. All this is true. And yet, there is a very singular painfulness that breaks upon us with the sad news of a death as untimely as Michael’s. It is hopelessly inadequate to say that we live in violent times, for the evil of the violence visited on Michael cannot be tolerated. But when one of our number is taken in such a manner, it is a test of our faith. What comfort can we possibly obtain?’

  Gore looked up and outward, certain he was being heard and heeded.

  ‘For Michael there is the hereafter, the life beyond this life, promised us and won for us by Our Lord Jesus Christ. For ourselves there is this life that remains, and its challenge to us – the challenge to repair the damage wrought by violence, and to renew our oneness. We face that challenge together. The bells that heralded our service today summoned not only I, the preacher, but yourselves, the congregation. Never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.’

  Again he looked up, and detected at least one nodding head.

  ‘Those the famous words of the poet John Donne, who wrote so eloquently of how we are all one in the Church – how all mankind is of one author, and one volume. And for the loss of any one, we are all of us diminished. But when one man dies, a chapter is not torn from the book but, rather, translated into a better language.’

  Gore turned open his Bible and read from Paul’s eminently quotable First Epistle to the Corinthians. It was another strong suit.

  ‘Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed – in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last – for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised, incorruptible.’

  Gore heard weeping from close at hand, and when he raised his gaze he saw Mr Ash, shaking and sputtering, unable to contain his misery, fingers clenched around the arm of his stoic wife.

  ‘Please now let us pray.’

  *

  His work done and an amen put to matters at St Nicholas’s Cemetery, Gore planted himself on the stony pathway bisecting the long graveyard and there accepted handshakes from mourners. Bob Spikings hustled past, Jack Ridley by his side, and offered a thumbs-up. Ridley then detached himself from Spikings and took up an almost proprietary stance a few yards from Gore. As people took turns with limp grips and mumbles into their chests, Gore had no special sense that the rites had signified much to any party, until Steve Coulson drew near – draped in black, shrouded in customary gravity – and took his hand in a vice.

  ‘Father, I want to thank you very much, very much for that. It was true, all what you said. Very appropriate, like.’

  A woman loitered at Stevie’s side – blonde, suntanned, subdued, we
aring a creamy trouser-suit, more of a wedding outfit to Gore’s eye.

  ‘Father, this here’s Ally.’

  ‘Glad to meet you. Can I introduce you to Jack Ridley, my churchwarden?’

  Stevie’s eyelids flickered. ‘Jack I know. How you keeping, sir?’

  ‘I’m well, thank you,’ Ridley muttered. ‘Excuse me, John,’ he added no more happily, and walked off. The breach in manners seemed to Gore compounded by Stevie’s remaining intractably polite before him.

  ‘You and Michael were friends, Stevie? Hazel showed me some photos?’

  ‘Oh aye? Aye, I knew him a good few year.’

  ‘What do you make of this awful business?’

  ‘Well …’ His shaven crown shook slowly. ‘Y’knaa what people are like when they start yackin’, Father. Chinese whispers and that.’ Gore saw that this Ally, too, was watching Stevie with interest. ‘I doubt Michael ever did owt wrong. He was a good lad. You’ll have heard that. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time, y’knaa? When your luck runs out.’

  ‘Worse than bad luck, though. I mean, the violence of it.’

  ‘John, you get people in this life would just as soon murder a fella as take his money. Pure evil. Absolute scum.’

  Stevie’s features had been disfigured fleetingly by a look of such virulence that Gore hastened to close a book in his mind. In the subsequent silence, Stevie clapped him on the back and peered round the sunlit graveyard. Then he fixed Gore anew. ‘Aye, but you were canny back up there.’

  ‘Thank you, Stevie.’

  ‘Like I said. Professional. I do admire that.’

  ‘It’s what we’re here for. What we do.’

  ‘Aye, well, you do it proper. So when do we see your home debut then? Eh? Ally, the Reverend here’s gunna start doing his own church at St Luke’s School.’

  Ally briefly animated her sloe-eyed features. ‘Aw really? Nice.’

  ‘You’ll be full of busy then? When’s the big day?’

  ‘Sunday after next, October thirteen.’

  ‘Well, I tell you what, I know me and some of my lads would like to come along, show you bit support.’

  ‘You’d be very welcome, Stevie.’

  ‘Aye, we’ll be there. Lined up at the altar with wor tongues out, eh?’

  Gore had to laugh. ‘Well, there’ll be a Eucharist, but no altar as such.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Gore mimed the yanking out of empty pockets. ‘Skint. We’ll be lucky if everyone has somewhere to sit.’

  Coulson appeared overcast. Again the big mitt found Gore’s shoulder. ‘You’re not serious, John. How bad is it?’

  ‘We’ll do our best but … We’re bound to be a bit deficient in the decorative department. It’s a poor man’s church. An experiment.’

  ‘We can’t have that, Father.’ The hand stayed on Gore’s shoulder.

  Ridley had drifted back, his eyes near-comically vigilant, as if to rescue Gore from assault. ‘We’re moving on now, John.’

  Stevie persisted. ‘If you need an extra hand, then me and my lads are here, John? You understand us, aye?’

  Once again Gore felt the firm impress of this man’s consideration as something to be fruitlessly resisted. ‘Okay, Stevie. You’re not coming on?’

  ‘No, we won’t, we’ve paid our respects.’

  And with that Steve Coulson and the graceful Ally took their leave. Ridley looked sourly at their retreating backs. ‘“Me and my lads” …’

  *

  The venue for the reception, Gore decided, had not been the wisest choice – allegedly that of Ms Gill Ash. But he padded across the quiet dance floor of this Club Zeus with his slender bottle of Dutch lager, passing various elders who were wandering a little dazedly round the dim-lit and slippery laminate floors. The Ash clan had repaired to one dark corner, as if this were a final indignity from which to hide. Gore left Spikings to wait upon them and sought out Jack Ridley in a corner of his own, peering with suspicion at a pint of bitter with a freakish plug of thick foam. His flat cap was still atop his head, his fleshy face set in high dudgeon. Gore, though, felt he had unfinished business to raise.

  ‘Not a bad day’s work, all things considered.’

  ‘You did canny.’

  ‘Thanks. And I seem to have made a friend.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Steve Coulson.’

  ‘Steve Coulson? Aw, bloody hell.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Don’t try to bully me with silence, thought Gore. ‘Jack?’

  ‘Man alive. Well, for starters, you saw that blonde object he was carting round? Her in virgin white?’

  ‘Ally?’

  ‘Alison Petrie. Who was Alison Ash.’

  ‘Not related to Michael?’

  ‘Married to him. For six months maybe. Then she run off with a mate of Coulson’s.’

  This was information Gore wished he had gleaned in the course of his preparations. Now he did the extra headwork.

  ‘Dougie Petrie?’

  ‘Aye, Dougie Petrie. You know all Coulson’s mob then, do you?’

  ‘No, but I’ve met Dougie. So he and Ally aren’t together any more?’

  ‘Whey, divvint ask me, man. What I’m saying is Coulson helps hi’self.’

  Silence ruled again, Gore a shade less assured than when he had revived the dispute. ‘Is that why you’re so opposed to him?’

  Ridley looked elsewhere, seemingly lost in a mist of disgust. ‘That bugger, he used to knock about with my son. Up to all sorts.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Ridley shook his head. ‘John. You’re an intelligent fella, for God’s sake. What do you think a man like that does for money? What’s the use of all that heft if it’s not for badness?’

  ‘Well, I know it’s his job that he’s got to be a big enough sight to stop people from – misbehaving.’

  ‘“Misbehaving”? Oh, that’s champion, that is.’

  ‘Jack, I’m not stupid, okay. He’ll have seen a bit of bother in his time.’

  ‘Just a bit.’

  So Ridley was on his high horse and would not be dismounted. Gore felt irritation rise, seeing the old man self-appointed as his invigilator once more. ‘Jack, I should say that he made me an offer of help today. A very genuine one, I think. He seems quite committed to being helpful. As committed as anyone I’ve come across – yourself excluded, of course. And, frankly, I’m starting to think you have to take your community-mindedness where you can find it round here. So I’ll not be spurning a hand of help from any man. Including Steve Coulson.’

  Ridley stared stonily at Gore for some moments, then his mouth tightened and he shrugged as to say he had expected no better.

  ‘I’ll see you Sunday morning then, John.’

  And he stood, abandoning his gaseous and mostly full pint to the table. Gore took a vexed swig of his beer, which foamed upward as if in a tetchy lather of its own.

  Book Three

  THE CHURCH OF ST LUKE’S

  Chapter I

  THE INAUGURAL

  Sunday, 13 October 1996

  On the concrete patio outside St Luke’s offices John Gore stood unattended, sentry over precious little, save for the blind windows of the terraces past the gates and the low-hanging blue-black clouds above. It was a shade past eight and the augurs proposed a drab autumnal day in Hoxheath. Gore was quietly sure that rain – just the threat of same – would ward off whole cohorts of his imagined congregation. Thus by the most banal of means would a horde of high hopes and best efforts run to waste.

  A scrap of memory revived in him – Audrey, years younger, chuckling through a tale of Bill’s blunt courtship, how he could only be persuaded to squire her to the cinema if it were chucking down like stair-rods, for it was only when outdoor pursuits were wholly unviable that fancy diversions like movie-shows might – narrowly – be justified. Gore was yet unsure what kind of diversion he offered the public today.

  He heard footfalls in the corridor behin
d him but did not turn until Ridley drew near. For once the old man was not assembling the parts of a contemplative smoke.

  ‘We’d best crack on then, John.’

  ‘Okay. Right. What’s to do?’

  ‘Chairs are all locked up for starters, aren’t they? We need to get in them stores, start shifting.’

  ‘Chairs. Right …’

  Ridley had already turned away, so leaving Gore to chase after the broad back of his olive-green car-coat.

  ‘Weather’s not looking too favourite, is it?’

  ‘Aye, well.’ Said tersely. ‘It’ll do what it’ll do, and we’ll get on with our lot, eh?’

  Gore heard an implied rebuke, understood it was past the time for him to get lively.

  By ten to nine the two men, aided by Monica Bruce and Susan Carrow, had set out a hundred plastic seats in ten rows of ten, cloven by an aisle, Monica’s lectern planted at the head of proceedings. Mrs Carrow, surveying this design, was yet unsatisfied.

  ‘Do we really need that aisle?’

  Gore frowned. ‘I’d have thought so. It opens the space.’

  ‘If we don’t get so many along, it might be better a bit cosier.’

  Monica cut in. ‘We’ve no idea of numbers yet, so let’s see, eh?’

  Gore crouched down to the bulging Nike hold-all he had packed carefully at home, unzipping and beginning to withdraw his sacramental items in turn, each swaddled up in cotton tea towels. Aware that all eyes were observing his pains, he glanced up at Monica.

  ‘Now, we want a table of some sort, to lay these out.’

  ‘What sort of a table?’

  ‘We call it a credence table, but anything you’ve got, really.’

  ‘What size, but, John?’

  ‘Oh – just something from one of the classrooms, maybe?’

  ‘I’ve not got keys to the classrooms, John.’

  ‘What about your caretaker?’

  ‘He’s off. Not due back ’til he thinks you’re done at noon.’