Eleven Days

by Stav Sherez

  Geneva looked up from her notes, trying to make sense of all this new information, to squeeze it into the gaps of what she knew about Mother Angelica and the convent. She could see the faint sparkle in Father Spaulding’s eyes as he talked about the past and she briefly wondered if he’d been there, in South America, but he didn’t look old enough. ‘What did this theology involve? Theology is abstract, in the mind, right?’

  Spaulding smiled. ‘Yes it is, but the priests realised that theology needed a modification, that it was not enough to just stand and witness. Action was necessary. The theologians went back to the Bible and guess what they found? – their own predicament written in the words of the Gospels.

  ‘Jesus himself was concerned with these issues. None of this is new, the world changes but ultimately it is the same, and as they read those familiar words they saw something freshly revealed in them. They realised that the prescription and instruction for what they needed to do was right there in front of them and had been for two thousand years.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m a bit lost. The Bible was never my strong point,’ Geneva confessed.

  Father Spaulding looked at her kindly and smiled. ‘Christ speaks about the preferential option for the poor. The poor and oppressed are preferred by God because they have been done wrong to here on earth. Can you imagine how radical these ideas must have seemed in that context? What followed in the light of this reading was a general move away from contemplation towards action. This was the big break from previous theology. No longer was prayer enough. Action was needed and it was needed right here on earth.’

  ‘Why would the church not approve of that?’

  Spaulding gave a derisive snort. ‘Yes, indeed, this was an attempt to replicate Jesus’ ministry on earth, to help the most unfortunate, so why did they repudiate it? Good question. And the answer is, as always, politics.’

  ‘I thought the church was supposed to be above politics?’

  Father Spaulding laughed loudly. ‘God is above politics but the church is the church of men and men want to sleep in comfortable beds. The liberation priests were a massive thorn in the side of the prevailing governments. They wanted to organise workers, demand better conditions, stop the exploitation. The exploitation was how these governments made their money, how they lured factories and corporations to their shores: cheap labour, no red tape and zero tax. And it saddens me greatly to say that the local hierarchy of the church had very close and unhealthy ties with the regimes. Priests and clergy active in mobilising and organising were swiftly sent elsewhere. Many saw this as their chance at martyrdom and many got their wish.’

  ‘Mother Angelica was one of these liberation theologians, right?’

  ‘She was quite the bright spark in the church’s arsenal. Her death . . .’ For the first time the monk stumbled and Geneva could see him choking back a wave of memories. He picked up a napkin and snuffled into it. ‘She spent her early years studying theodicy, the idea that all evil acts are justified by a greater good that only God can see. She wrote her seminary paper on it, but there were rumours of a breakdown at Oxford, that trying to reconcile the Holocaust and the atom bomb drove her crazy. The next thing we heard she was involved in liberation theology, which made sense – rather than accept evil and exploitation as part of a greater plan, she wanted to fight it. Her first book, Of This World and the Next, was published in 1972, two years after she was sent to Peru.’

  Geneva took only the smallest sip from her glass. The wine was far more powerful than she’d expected and she felt a little light-headed and dizzy. ‘How radical were Mother Angelica’s ideas?’

  ‘The church thought them pretty damn radical. That’s why they went to the extraordinary step of banning her from the continent.’

  Geneva looked up. ‘Banning her? I thought they’d transferred her for her own safety, that there were death threats against her?’

  Spaulding shrugged. ‘Doubtless there were, and it was a long time ago and who’s to say now what really happened and what didn’t? We go where the church sends us. Tomorrow I might be told that I am needed in a remote monastery in Mongolia and I will pack my bags dutifully, leave my fine wine and Swiss beef behind, and get on the first plane. The church wanted Mother Angelica where she could do the least damage and so they banned her from South America and transferred her here where her power would be greatly diminished.’

  Geneva tried but couldn’t begin to imagine this kind of life, the total submission of your desires to a higher power, the utter abnegation of want and need. ‘And she only wrote that one book?’

  Spaulding shook his head. ‘It’s the only book that got published. But she spent the rest of her life, both while in South America and then here in London, writing what she considered her most important work. Unfortunately, not many people have seen it. The church barred its publication.’

  ‘Why?’ Geneva said, thinking back to her conversation with Holden.

  ‘Hard to say,’ Spaulding replied, ‘not having seen it. But there are rumours, stories floating around the edges of the theological world, that she was attempting to construct a moral calculus.’

  Geneva looked up. ‘A moral calculus?’

  ‘Yes, that was how she referred to it. From what I’ve heard it was a totally different book from her first, moving a long way away from the precepts of liberation theology. I’ve heard it spans over six thousand pages and is very mathematical in nature. Allegedly, she was trying to work out a foolproof system whereby one could gauge any moral act as to its validity in the eyes of God.’

  ‘Wow,’ Geneva replied. ‘Big task.’

  Spaulding laughed. ‘Yes, yes it is.’

  ‘And this was the cause of the diocese’s dispute with the convent?’

  ‘Well, you could call it that, I suppose.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t?’

  ‘I’m not sure I should be telling you this,’ Spaulding said, and Geneva could tell this was a phrase he liked using and used often. ‘But . . . since the fire, since what happened . . . well, there have been rumours, more than rumours in fact, that the convent was going to be excommunicated.’

  Geneva thought back to Holden calling the dispute a small disagreement. ‘Excommunication – that’s pretty serious, right?’

  ‘It’s the strongest punishment the church can mete out. It means they can no longer perform their duties as nuns, are not allowed to participate in God’s sacraments – it’s like closing the door on heaven.’

  ‘And all because of this book she was writing?’

  ‘No,’ Spaulding admitted. ‘It would have had to have gone beyond that, something far more serious, if the diocese had taken steps to excommunicate them. We’re talking about the entire convent here, not just Mother Angelica. It’s not something the church does lightly. In that respect, the fire was very convenient for them.’

  There was something about the way he’d said it that made Geneva underline the words in her notebook. She thought about what they’d found out, the nuns’ trips to Peru, to conferences that didn’t exist, the evidence left behind by the fire. ‘What about now? What’s the situation like these days in Peru? Are clergy still involved in politics?’

  Spaulding nodded. ‘Though the church has succeeded in pretending the injustices don’t exist, they’re still there. Peru now has an elected president and parliament. But nothing has really changed – if anything the situation of the poor is even worse. The government has sold off most of the valuable land to foreign corporations. There’s no regulation, entire areas are being deforested, rivers polluted, and the Indians are finding the very land is disappearing from under them.’ Spaulding shook his head and took a sip of his wine. ‘Add drugs to the mix and you have a terrible situation.’

  ‘Drugs?’ Geneva moved her chair a few inches closer to the table.

  ‘Peru is the most productive coca growing region in the world. This is not a good thing for the people who live there, as you can imagine. Men with guns in open-backed trucks. A
rmy incursions. Farmers forced to grow coca by the cartels then punished by the government for the same. It’s a mess that no one has the resolve to do anything about.’

  Geneva shook her head, grateful once again that she lived in a country where things were not so fucked up. ‘Do you know what happened to Sister Rose?’ she asked. ‘The convent sent her to Peru in November of last year but I can’t find any record of her coming back into the country.’

  ‘That’s because she didn’t come back,’ Father Spaulding said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Geneva felt a hot rush tumble through her as she clenched her notebook tightly.

  Father Spaulding steepled his hands. When he spoke his voice was lower and surprisingly grave. ‘A terrible tragedy. Her body was never found. She’s still missing, probably will be until some farmer ploughs his fields and discovers her body.’

  ‘You think she was killed?’ Geneva said, leaning forward. ‘Isn’t it possible she just decided she’d had enough of being a nun and made her own way?’

  ‘Possible? Yes, but not very likely,’ Father Spaulding replied. ‘When she went missing she was on a field trip with a priest from the local parish. Two weeks later they found the priest’s head. Someone had left it in the front yard of the local church.’

  *

  She stopped at a coffee shop on her way back to the station and bolted down two macchiatos, trying to stop her head from spinning. The wine was sitting hot and deep in her belly and her head felt pleasantly light. Father Spaulding’s words streaked through her mind, the worlds he’d conjured up, theology and the plunge into thousands of years of history, lonely old men poring over brittle parchments trying to decipher the meaning of the world hidden in the obscurities of text, and she thought of Mother Angelica and her book and what a challenge and rude shock it would have been to the church to have such ideas put forward, but, more than that, to have them put forward by a woman.

  She entered the station to update the incident log and type up the notes from her interview. It was early afternoon and she was glad everyone was out, her feet still a little unsteady as she walked down the long carpeted corridor towards the incident room.

  She saw him walking towards her and it was too late to pretend she hadn’t.

  DS Karlson nodded curtly as he passed, then she heard him stop and turn. She wanted to disappear into the ladies but it was three doors down.

  ‘Miller? I was just looking for you . . .’ Karlson was wearing a neat three-piece worsted suit and a tang of bitter aftershave. He stood right next to her, leaning into her space, defeating her obvious and pointless attempts to turn away. ‘I need you to sign some of the report sheets,’ he said, hovering over her as she squirmed and tried to answer him without opening her mouth.

  ‘Can’t it wait?’

  ‘No, Branch wants everything up to date.’

  She walked a couple of paces ahead of him. She could hear Karlson trailing behind her. She sat down and started signing off forms, Karlson standing only a foot away, wrinkling his nose and trying very hard not to smile. She gave him the completed sheets and was about to leave when he said, ‘Can you smell something?’

  ‘No,’ she replied, trying to talk down to the table.

  ‘Funny, smells like someone knocked over a bottle of cheap wine.’ Karlson shook his head in a gesture of mock bemusement, winked and walked away.

  28

  Hyde Park was a blaze of white. Fat clumps of dirty snow hanging on the branches of skinny trees. A cold snap in the wind as it came careening down from the pond. Carrigan bunched up his jacket and lowered his face against the stinging air as he made his way towards the Serpentine.

  He was thinking about Emily as he trudged through the snow. How did she fit in? Was her presence at the convent no more than coincidence? A cruel synchronicity to send them spinning off into dead ends? She didn’t fit into the theory that the nuns had irked Duka and garnered his displeasure. She didn’t fit in with Geneva’s ideas on Peru. Either Emily had nothing to do with the case or she had everything to do with it.

  The gallery’s foyer was almost empty, only a grungy student sitting behind a desk, desperately trying to keep his eyes open on the book he was reading. It was too cold to see art, too cold to stand and stare at paint and canvas and the student must have thought Carrigan had wandered in here by mistake, perhaps assuming there was a cafe, somewhere to sit and escape the wind.

  ‘Hi.’

  He turned from the rows of artfully designed magazines and saw her. Donna was standing to the right of the front desk, one leg slightly crooked, her brown leather boots dark with snow. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d come.’ Her hair was loose and kept getting into her eyes and she brushed it away and said, ‘I’m glad you did.’

  They entered the gallery, several interlinked spaces, empty of everything but them and the art on the walls. Square light-boxes filled the first room. Chunky plastic devices, about two feet by two with bulbs blazing behind them, illuminating a set of fast food images. As they shuffled mutely into the room, Carrigan was blinded by luminescent photos of Big Macs, golden fried chicken, anaemic pizzas and glistening kebabs, and he realised that these images were the ones used as menus above the tills of takeaway places. The room was covered in them, sweating light and colour, these everyday images now isolated and reframed and made faintly mystical. Carrigan didn’t know if it was art but it was making him hungry.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind meeting here,’ Donna said. ‘I just needed . . . God . . . I didn’t realise how much I needed to get out of the house until . . .’ She reached for a handkerchief and dropped it on the floor and got to her knees and stumbled as she picked it back up. He could see the broken blood vessels in her eyes that hadn’t been there yesterday, the soft downward curve of her lids chapped and red-rimmed. She smelled of lavender and wine and something else beneath it all – a sharp and lovely citric fragrance, some expensive perfume or moisturiser. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t speak earlier, back at the house . . . it’s like I’m still expecting her to call . . .’ Donna’s lips were stained blood-red and he could tell she’d been drinking before coming here. She turned away from the wall and faced him. ‘I just can’t believe I’ll never see her again.’

  ‘I know,’ he replied, remembering a day twenty years ago when he’d first entered the country of grief and never-again. ‘I could tell you you’ll get over it, that time heals all wounds and all that, but I’m not going to lie to you. Your life will never be the same. You’ll always look back and see a clear demarcation. Everything will take place in reference to before or after. You should maybe think about seeing someone . . .’

  Her sudden laughter surprised him. ‘That’s the last thing I need. I grew up with psychiatrists for parents.’ Her smile collapsed and he saw the years crash up against her. ‘Been there, done that, and it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. Besides, Emily’s dead, there’s nothing that’s going to change that, is there?’

  ‘We’ll find out who did this.’ Carrigan moved closer until he could feel the heat and burn of Donna’s breath against his skin. ‘I know that’s not going to be much of a consolation, that Emily will still be gone, but I promise you she will be avenged.’

  Donna placed a hand on his arm. ‘Thank you for saying that but . . . I still don’t understand it . . . any of it. What was she doing in a convent? That’s just not like Emily at all.’

  He pulled away and turned to face the opposite wall, a succulent burger in pornographic close-up, each sesame seed and bead of moisture visible under the relentless light. ‘The more you can tell us about her, the more likely we are to find out why she was there.’

  ‘I lied to you.’ Donna put out her hand and steadied herself against the wall. ‘When I said I hadn’t talked to her for a couple of years that wasn’t true.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us when we were at the house?’ Carrigan said as gently as possible.

  ‘Because I didn’t want my father to know,’ Donna replied, and she seemed
embarrassed by this somehow. ‘Because Emily swore me to secrecy.’

  ‘When did you last speak to her?’

  Donna looked anyplace but at Carrigan, her eyes restless and heavy. ‘She called me a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘A couple of weeks ago?’ Carrigan tried to control his breathing. ‘What did she want?’

  ‘The usual,’ Donna sighed. ‘She only ever called when she needed help. She was always getting into trouble and we were always getting her out of it.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  Donna shrugged. ‘You name it, Emily . . . well, you probably know by now that Emily had problems. She’d had problems since we were little girls and we all thought that as she got older they would go away but they didn’t, they only got worse.’ Donna reached into her handbag and took out her phone. She pressed several buttons then tilted the screen towards Carrigan. ‘I took this a couple of weeks ago when we met.’ Donna’s eyes shaded as she realised it had been for the last time. ‘You never know, do you?’

  ‘No you don’t.’ Carrigan took the phone and stared at the photo under the flickering fluorescents.

  Emily was sitting in a pub, her arms propped up against the table, a nearly full pint glass cradled in her right hand. She wore heavy powder-blue eyeliner and had a piercing through her left nostril, a small bronze hoop. Her hair was pink and the sudden blush of colour was shocking against her white skin. Her expression was soft, a world away from the bitter scowl of the mugshot, and you could tell she wasn’t looking at the camera but at her sister. ‘Did she say what kind of trouble she was in?’

  Donna put the phone back in her handbag. ‘She sounded really strung out. We met at King’s Cross. She was always calling me when she was in trouble but normally she only needed money. This time was different. She was scared and Emily was never scared and when I said something about how it’d all work out in the end, she laughed and told me that some things cannot be righted no matter how hard you try. She said she’d done something very stupid but she wouldn’t tell me what. I asked her if she needed money. She said money wouldn’t solve this.’ Donna twirled a lock of hair round her finger, her lips tight and pale.