by D C Macey
Archie saw Cassiter pick up the picture, saw the monster’s elation and realised that he had just betrayed his closest friend and the secret they shared. His little moment of triumph and consolation evaporated, lapsing into dark, bitter despair. His spirit finally withered, he was beaten. He watched Cassiter’s look of growing pleasure. Oh God. What hell had he unleashed on his friend?
From his place on the floor all Archie could see was carpet, a sideways angle of the television and Cassiter moving behind it. In a detached way he wondered what Cassiter was doing with the television, but he didn’t really care, nothing mattered now, he had betrayed everything, everyone. Then Cassiter was gone from his view and the front door banged shut. Just the television and carpet left in his life. Could he last until his morning carer arrived? He did not think so.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, little wafts of smoke started to drift from the television. Then flames, small at first but growing: smoke began to curl up above the television and roll overhead as it expanded to fill the ceiling space. He watched flames dancing slowly across the carpet. He knew smoke rises and breathable air gathers at the floor. He was not going to get the quicker option of death by smoke inhalation. Instead, the flames crept steadily towards him and he realised it was going to end badly for him. Very badly.
CHAPTER 2 - THURSDAY 2nd MAY
Old Edinburgh grew up packed tight along the ridge that joined castle and royal palace. Expansion to the north was barred by the ridge’s sheer drop down to the Nor Loch, now drained to create Princes Street Gardens. To the south, the city spread down the ridge and up the next, filling much of the trough between. Properties built across successive ages crowded in on top of each other as they jostled for space; sometimes stretching down to fill the trough below, sometimes just hiding it from view.
Right in the heart stands the National Library of Scotland, a big stone-built building. From its main street level on George IV Bridge, it rises up four or five solid but unremarkable storeys. However, below street level the building drops away unseen, down into the trough beneath; a reflection of the city itself, passers-by see what they see, but there is always more, the unseen, the unknown.
The library’s understated doorway leading out onto George IV Bridge belies what sits behind, a researcher’s paradise. A very big library, a very old library, and specifically not a public lending library. Helen Johnson had access rights and she loved the research opportunities it offered her. Emerging from the cool building into the street, she paused for a moment to let the afternoon sun caress and warm her face.
In her thirties, and loving life, she was exploiting every opportunity her church exchange had brought. Previously an assistant minister in a small New England town, she had landed lucky with the offer to develop her experience in a central Edinburgh parish. She loved her work and thrived on the proximity of so much learning, art and the sometimes controversial culture too. As a twenty-first century female and a church minister too, she considered herself both liberated and enlightened: able to make up her own mind and to make her own way in life. Her father thought her something of a paradox. She could live with that.
Natural confidence and poise complemented her red hair and pretty face. She dressed casually yet still appeared smart, radiating a natural enthusiasm for life without being showy. Happy with herself and her life, Helen Johnson did not dwell too much on what others might think of her.
Helen stepped out along the pavement, heading south for the short walk home. Home was a neat flat in one of the sandstone tenements that lined many of the inner-city’s streets. A church property that came with her job, it was situated in Causewayside, part of the university district and just outside her parish’s boundary. A familiar face emerged from a newsagent’s store and Helen waved, calling out a greeting. ‘Hi Grace! How are you doing?’
Grace McPhee was a good-natured young woman, nearly twenty and with a real sense of fun. She was dating an employee of the city council, though the boy was starting to get too serious so she was getting ready to move him on. Time enough for heavy relationships later. Grace smiled and paused to chat.
‘Helen, have you been in that library again?’ said Grace, teasing with what was only a half-mocking reprimand. Grace loved life today and she could not help but view books as a barrier to living rather than a bridge to a richer life. School had not been a high point for Grace, though she had recently resolved to go to college after the summer. ‘Aren’t you meant to be going away on holiday today, Helen? You should be at home packing and getting ready.’
The two women had met through Grace’s mother, a senior elder at the church Helen was working with. While Grace was not particularly committed to religion, she did help out at the church, partly to keep her mother happy, partly from habit. It seemed to Grace that she had been helping at the church all her life. She would set up chairs for church meetings, sort flowers, and do a bit of cleaning or whatever else might be needed.
Grace had now reached the point in life where she needed to spread her wings and her zest for living was constantly challenged by her mother’s strict views. She was old enough now to be an independent adult, but did still try to please her mother, and certainly tried to shield her from some aspects of how modern girls lived their lives. The pair would bump along, grating, sparking and having the occasional flare up, but love and family, and mothers and daughters always brought them back into some sort of harmony, until the next time.
Helen smiled. ‘I’m heading home right now. It won’t take me long to get things together. Sam’s picking me up about six.’ Helen had met Sam Cameron a few months before, soon after she arrived in Edinburgh. He was an archaeology lecturer at the university and now he was her boyfriend too. They were from very different backgrounds and both had been a little surprised to realise how much they enjoyed each other’s company. They even found it easy to disagree without falling out. Today he was taking a group of students away on a field trip, and Helen had signed up to do the catering. It was an opportunity for the two of them to spend some time together away from the bustle of the city.
‘Well, have a good time,’ said Grace. Smiling, she leant forward a fraction to rest her hand gently on Helen’s forearm. ‘Though I’m not sure digging holes is my idea of a great holiday. I’ll take the Costas any day.’
Helen grinned back. ‘I’m not doing any of the hole digging. I’ll just be sitting out soaking up some sun, cooking barbeques, and watching the world go by for two weeks. Just like Spain!’
‘That sounds more like it, great. You have a good time then and I’ll see you when you get back,’ said Grace.
Grace disappeared into the pavement crowd and Helen set off for home. Living in the university district made for a lively atmosphere and was convenient for just about everything. The great thing about this old city, she thought, was that everything was close by, one thing layered on another.
Helen crossed Lothian Street and moved into the heart of university land. She paced quickly across Bristo Square; the pedestrianised space that spread between the university’s imposing McEwan Hall and the Potter Row Student Union. She spotted John Dearly, the church minister. He was standing on the far side of the square, deep in conversation with Elaine McPhee, Grace’s mother.
Elaine had dark brown hair cut short in a practical style, with no attempt made to mask the streaks of grey that had begun their steady spread. A neat but plainly dressed woman of around fifty, her tweed skirt and jacket made no concessions to the imminent arrival of summer. Helen smiled and waved to them as she passed; they acknowledged her wave warmly but without breaking their conversation.
John Dearly was a worried man. Tall and slim, with cropped grey hair, John was a confirmed bachelor. Now in his sixties, he had devoted more than thirty years’ service to his parish. All those years ago, he had arrived as Archie Buchan’s assistant and following Archie’s retirement he had been selected and called by the parishioners to fill Archie’s place. John planned to retire in three or four
years himself and he had harboured thoughts of joining his old mentor at the retirement complex in Dunbar. Based on today’s news that plan was lost.
Reports had spoken of a dreadful fire, but the church’s bush telegraph was working overtime and throughout the day, darker and darker reports had been seeping out. Elaine had just shocked him with the latest word, and he was struggling to come to terms with it.
‘Are you sure about this? Who could possibly have wanted to hurt the old boy like that? And why? Why?’ he demanded, not expecting a rational answer.
Elaine nodded. ‘No doubt about it, John. The fire investigators haven’t finished yet, but the word is pretty clear. Somebody tampered with his television. Officially, the police want to wait for an autopsy report, but you know we have plenty of members over in Dunbar and the word is filtering out. It’s not been announced yet but it seems like he had some pretty nasty stuff done to him before he died.’ Her normally gruff tone wavered slightly as she grimaced and momentarily averted her gaze.
‘He was such a good man, God rest his soul,’ said John.
‘Amen to that,’ said Elaine.
‘When will the autopsy report be done?’
‘Tomorrow, I think. We’ll need to make arrangements to attend the funeral in Dunbar too, but who knows when that’ll take place? It depends on when the authorities release his body. I’ll keep you posted and we’ll probably need to run a minibus down there for it. I know many of the older parishioners will want to go from here.’ Elaine’s blunt speech pattern had reasserted itself, composed again to mask the pained emotions she was feeling at the loss of an old friend and spiritual guide.
John nodded agreement. ‘I think Archie always wanted me to officiate at his funeral. We’ll need to liaise with the minister in Dunbar about that. I’ll give him a call and talk it through with him.’
‘Right, I’ll leave that to you. I’ll make a start on our own arrangements in the meantime. But John,’ the elder hesitated and looked around, almost conspiratorially or perhaps she really was just a little nervous. Taking the minister by the arm, she turned so they were close together with nobody able to cross their line of speech. ‘I have to say it again; we do need to resolve the parish’s succession issue. You have been putting it off for too long.’
Elaine was concerned about the parish’s future and right now felt John was not addressing it as he should. The Church of Scotland comprises a host of individual parishes. Each has a degree of autonomy and selects its own minister. The minister is in turn supported by the parish’s own administrative court of elders, the Kirk Session. From amongst the elders emerges the session clerk, Elaine, the elder who guides and organises the others, ensuring the parish keeps the records and the rules.
Wider Church rules stress that retiring ministers should never influence the selection of their successors. However, by informal custom long since lost in the church’s past, St Bernard’s operated at slight variance from the rule. It bothered nobody, caused no harm.
At St Bernard’s, the incoming minister served first as an assistant in the parish, building relationships and becoming familiar with those little quirks of parish life that set St Bernard’s apart. As the parish was blessed with a generous trust income, it could afford the cost of an assistant without reference to others and the procedure had just rolled along forever. It seemed an innocent tradition, but a very important one to all John’s predecessors, a process they had maintained and defended with a quiet unswerving determination. Now the responsibility, the burden, all rested on John’s shoulders.
As one of the many local parishes that made up the Edinburgh Presbytery, St Bernard’s was subject to the rulings of the presbytery, and on a day-to-day basis, the scrutiny of the presbytery clerk. It seemed the newly appointed presbytery clerk wanted to make his mark. Elaine had got wind that making his mark meant ensuring John’s parish abandoned its somewhat idiosyncratic local traditions and fell into line with the rest. It seemed he viewed their quirks as aberrations blotting his presbytery’s jotter and he intended to bring the parish into line. That was something she could not allow to happen and she needed John to step up.
John sighed. ‘I know, I know, but is this really the moment to be thinking about it? It’s waited this long, I’m sure it can wait a little longer, can’t it? We have an old friend to bury, let’s at least do that first. Please?’
Elaine was not deflected by his response. ‘The truth is I don’t know how long we can wait. Do you? With Archie gone only you have a full understanding. If you get hit by a bus, we’re sunk. The parish tradition, your tradition, it will all be lost forever.’
On the rare occasions that she made an effort to sound warm it never really worked. Life had not been kind to Elaine and it had made her who she was. Today, she was pained by the loss of Archie Buchan and faced again with John’s seemingly endless procrastination over selection of his successor. She was doubly unhappy and she was making no effort to soften her style. In spite of her gruffness, John knew her, liked her and depended on her. When a much younger Elaine McPhee had found herself suddenly widowed, with a baby daughter to support, all three had seemed to grow naturally into each other’s lives. John trusted her and understood her, though they did not always see eye to eye.
‘You know this can’t wait any longer,’ she said. ‘We’re not like an ordinary parish. We can’t just wait for one minister to go and then appoint another. Succession needs to be assured, needs to be prepared for. Needs to be sorted.’
‘Yes, yes. We… I have responsibilities to fulfil. As soon as we’ve buried Archie we’ll make a start, okay?’ John’s tone sought some reconciliation.
‘I suppose that will have to do,’ grumbled Elaine. She fixed the minister with a stern eye. ‘But we really need somebody strong, with a good sense of place and history. Our history. Somebody rooted here,’ she pointed forcefully down towards their feet. ‘That American girl won’t do. Not at all.’ As she spoke, she jerked her thumb in a short, swift upward hook that could only be seen by the two of them, but clearly pointed in the direction of the now vanished Helen.
John Dearly grimaced. ‘I never thought of her for a moment, she’s only here for a year. It’s our little bit to bolster goodwill and the Church’s international relations.’ He remembered his own exchange more than thirty years before. A planned year assisting abroad that had expanded into two of the happiest years of his life while assisting at a small church in New England. During that time he had made firm friends with another young minister, Peter Johnson. When his old friend had called the previous winter, looking for help with his daughter, he was never going to refuse.
Peter Johnson had explained how he and his wife were worried about their daughter Helen, the youngest of five. Her brothers and sisters had all gone into high earning business and professional posts and were successfully making their way in a material world. Helen, probably the brightest of the brood, had become a nurse, because she wanted to help people and do some good in the world. Having completed her training and built up her practical experience in hospitals near home, she set off to be a volunteer nurse in West Africa. Then, after three years of intense effort, she returned home to announce the best way she could help people was through the ministry.
John knew his old friend had been delighted that one of his children would follow him into the Church. However, following study and her ordination, Helen’s short spells spent assisting at various churches had not gone quite to plan. It became clear to all concerned that she was just too independently minded for an apple pie parish. So John Dearly had been only too happy to offer her a placement where she could experience the challenges and rewards of an urban Christian parish.
Sensing that John Dearly’s thoughts had wandered a little, Elaine sought to drag him back by pushing home her point. ‘She’s not suitable; far too modern in her ways. She’s just not right. Our Kirk Session would never approve of her.’ Elaine certainly did not approve of Helen and was confident of the other elders�
� views. With the exception of one or two of the older lady elders, she pretty well knew the St Bernard’s Kirk Session would vote with her if she expressed a public view, which she would if push came to shove.
In spite of her reservations, Elaine did actually admire much of Helen’s work, though she secretly felt she was a bit on the young side to be a minister. Truth was, the girl worked really hard, seemed popular in the parish and had managed to forge links with hard to reach parts of the community in ways that were very impressive, creative even. But that brought Elaine back to the nub of the problem; she simply disapproved of Helen. The girl was just too liberal in her approach to life. Elaine strived for inconspicuous stability. And Helen, well, Helen was Helen.
John Dearly leapt to Helen’s defence. ‘She’s clever and has an open mind. Giving her an assistant’s post for a year was meant to help her find her way, to develop as a minister. Surely you can see how she’s blossomed?’ He had no intention of letting Helen anywhere near a permanent position in the parish. Not because she would not make a good parish minister, he knew she would, but because he did not want to think of his burden landing on the shoulders of an innocent young woman. It would compromise the duty of care he felt towards her, a trust placed in him by his old friend Peter Johnson.
‘Well, she can blossom all she likes, just so long as it’s not here,’ Elaine remained intractable, without realizing there was no case to argue against. John Dearly agreed with her, albeit for different reasons.
• • •
Helen had received Sam’s text message and was already waiting on the pavement when the university minibus rolled into sight. She stepped forward, waving a hand in response to the flashing headlights and Sam’s cheery wave from behind the wheel. The minibus pulled to a halt, the side panel door slid open and a young man jumped out. Willing hands took Helen’s rucksack and pointed her up to the front passenger’s door. Her rucksack was stowed securely in the trailer while she climbed into the front passenger seat and leant straight across to share just a fleeting kiss of greeting with Sam, the warmth in his smile showing the real feelings of affection.
