Fragments

by Morgan Gallagher

  Maryam assessed the blurred black and white photos that had been printed off the camera feed. They showed the fight that had taken place between Wyn and Jason, Wyn going off in one direction being helped by a parishioner who had heard the scuffle, Jason shouting and gesticulating after him. Three hours later, Jason Briggs entered the Church but never exited. Wyn arrived five minutes after Jason, went in, and came out twenty-five minutes later, locking the door.

  ‘Is he still refusing to say what the fight was about?’

  Gatto nodded and there was a moment of him swallowing food before he replied. ‘Yes. Won’t budge. Just says it was a private matter between them and he regrets having lost his temper.’

  Maryam looked at Fred and wondered if she should speak up. There was only one logical conclusion when a priest under threat of being charged of murder would refuse to speak. What had Fred advised him during all those hours upstairs? Was it her role to speak of it? She assuaged her doubts by continuing to ask questions.

  ‘Was the Church patrolled that night?’

  ‘Not by us.’ Gatto looked to Bishop Atkins.

  ‘Two parishioners did a walk through the graveyard, at about eleven thirty, to make sure the emptying of the pubs had cleared through.’ Fred had taken down a lot of information in his own notebook. He looked grey with both fatigue and worry.

  ‘No one heard anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Were there any lights in the Church?’

  ‘Yes. Some lights have been kept on all night, since the vandalism started, I understand.’ Gatto had referred to his notebook. Maryam wondered whether the officer and the bishop had noticed they were mirroring each other. Eat, look at notebooks, answer queries in turn.

  ‘In the Sacristy?’

  ‘Yes, I made special note of that.’ Fred had answered before Gatto. ‘The back of the Church there has no light, and therefore no camera. So the Sacristy light was left on for those patrolling, to be able to see the path as they walked round. It’s the darkest part of the yard and where there had been a lot of the most obscene pictures. You can’t see that area easily from any other view point.’

  The Sacristy was the nearest part of the Church to the parish house garden wall. There were only about four feet of space between the Church ending, and the wall of the garden beginning. It was the most isolated, least travelled part of the Church grounds. What Fred described made sense to her.

  ‘You can’t see the outside door to the Sacristy at all, from any angle, can you?’

  ‘No, the outer walls of the East doorway block it from view. In fact...’ Gatto referred to a typed sheet of information in his file, ‘that door had to be replaced during the vandalism attacks, as it had images carved onto it. So someone had been able to take time to work. I believe that we’d requested a CCTV camera placed there, but there hadn’t been funds for it?’

  Gatto look at Fred, who rifled in his own papers.

  ‘I’m not sure. This isn’t my area, of course. The Southwark office would know. I’ll ask them in the morning and see if they can assign you one of our people who helped with the prior incidents.’

  Gatto nodded. ‘That would be good, sir. On these notes it says we requested a camera and the funds were being looked into, but the issues were solved before one was put in.’

  ‘But the door was replaced?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Michael, it was.’ Paper rifling. ‘It was a heavy duty security door with a steel outer cover. Is that relevant?’

  ‘It may be. But you are saying that the outside door was replaced and the inner door to the Sacristy had recently had its locks changed?’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct.’

  ‘Which would mean both outer and inner keys were replaced at roughly the same time? Did Father Jones say why he’d had the internal locks changed?’

  Gatto let out a long exclaim of air, and Fred looked down at the floor. Maryam carried on observing Fred, as Gatto spoke.

  ‘He said he’d felt the place was unsafe, after the attacks. We pushed him, but it didn’t make sense. We asked him if he’d found anything in there, graffiti or vandalism, and he said no. Given the evidence of sexual activity in there, we pushed him hard. He said nothing.’

  Fred’s upper lip was starting to bead over with sweat.

  ‘Did you ask Father Jones, Sergeant, if he’d had sex with anyone in the Sacristy?’

  Fred’s face drained of all colour, and he coughed and stood up, and poured himself a glass of water. Gatto ignored him as he answered Maryam.

  ‘Yes, we did. He was most indignant and shouted no. He got quite animated. Father Jones has a bit of a temper.’

  Fred had sat down again and was staring at his notebook.

  ‘Any priest accused of murder and sexual impropriety in their own Church is going to have a bit of a temper. Tell me, Sergeant, did you ask Father Jones if he knew of anyone else having sex in there?’

  Gatto looked at her. Then he looked back at his notes, puzzled.

  ‘Actually, I don’t think so, Miss Michael, I’m not sure anyone did. We asked him who would be having sex in there, apart from him, and about keys and stuff. We pushed him hard. But we never said it like that, I’m pretty sure. But we did push him.’

  Maryam was quite sure they had pushed him. Maryam was quite convinced that the police had done their utmost to present Wyn with the picture of him, and his congregation, and his youth club, and his charismatic beauty and his energy, and had pushed hard on the subject of a priest having sex in his own church. She’d have lost her temper, too.

  ‘Well, I’d appreciate it if you could do a background check on the place that replaced the door and the locks, Sergeant.’

  ‘It was done by the firm in the High Street. The owner is a member of the congregation...’ Gatto picked up and rifled through the report on the table. ‘Here it is, a Mr Vincent Doherty. Did it at a discount and did a very good job. I know of the man, he’s solid as a rock. He has a specialist licence to make keys for security firms.’

  Gatto was making it clear that Mr Doherty was above suspicion in terms of handing out keys to others for work he’d done.

  ‘I’m sure Mr Doherty is an honest, upright citizen, Sergeant Gatto. But I’d like to know if he has a child, or a grandchild, in the choir or as part of the youth group, or if one of his workers does. Perhaps someone associated with Mr Doherty is an altar server? Does he have a wife who helps clean the church or arrange flowers for the Sanctuary?’

  Gatto relayed Maryam’s request to the station before he went off home to try and get some sleep. Maryam wondered on the state of his marriage: police officers gave so much to their communities, and their jobs. There often wasn’t much left for family.

  The silence in the kitchen was not comfortable and barely sufferable. Maryam had no desire to deal with Fred and he, in turn, had no desire to deal with her.

  ‘You’ll be going on in now?’ His tone of voice alerted Andy that something was wrong. He responded in a very British way and got up and put the kettle on for tea.

  ‘Yes.’ Maryam stood up.

  ‘I can’t come. I can’t force myself to take part in this...’

  ‘Chicanery...?’

  ‘Ritual.’

  Maryam sighed and spoke it out for the benefit of Andrew Scott.

  ‘Bishop Atkins is not a supporter of the Congregation or its methods, Andy. He finds this quite painful. Would you like to accompany me, or am I going in on my own?’

  ‘Are you allowed to do this on your own, Marie?’ She was mildly shocked that he’d let the sarcasm through in his voice. This really was hurting him. Of course, it would. He was a dedicated priest and Wyn Jones a rather wonderful young man.

  ‘Yes, I am, Frederick, I am indeed. As you know, or you would have assigned someone to do it with me.’

  At her jab back, old wounds opened between them. Maryam felt so very drained and so very tired of it all. Why London, why him?

  ‘Do you think I should go with Miss Michael
, Bishop, witness her work?’ Andy somehow managed to make his attempt to placate sound aggressive. She put her head down in her hands.

  The pretence was what was draining her, the pretence that this had not been discussed between them before she arrived. That it was somehow normal protocol for the Bishop of the Curia to be following her around in someone else’s parish. That no one from Southwark itself had been near her, that her contact with the London hierarchy had been restricted to Fred and Andy.

  The pretence that Fred hadn’t informed Andy precisely of what was going on and they had decided between them who was going to do what.

  She checked herself, then. An inner voice, a truer voice, reminding her that she had no way of knowing any of that, and she needed to remain open, flexible and trusting, at all points. The important thing here was the desecrated Church over there, the young man who had been killed, and the future of Wyn Jones. It was Wyn Jones who hung here, in the balance: his future almost gone. His life almost completely shattered and his faith on trial. She pulled her own emotions into check.

  ‘Fred, I know you are not comfortable with the Arcane. I know you think it is obsolete. I know you feel we should have been abandoned at Vatican II. However... it was not. The Holy Church still has room for this type of... endeavour.’

  Fred nodded. He took the route she had offered, the one of agreeing to disagree and just get on with it.

  ‘I have discussed my... misgivings with Andrew here. But I assure you, he is free to make up his own mind. I brought no one else in, as we simply don’t have any one gifted enough. The only person I could have recommended to you is the one being accused.’

  He got up and left. The atmosphere in the room did not improve.

  ‘You have to forgive us both, Father Scott. Old wounds, old battles.’

  Scott stoically poured out tea that no one would drink.

  It was just past two a.m. when she and Andy walked across through the graveyard and entered the Church by the main doors. It was odd that this was the longest way from the parish house to the Church, but the one that everyone took. The stone wall that separated the two did push you down midway between the two, but there was a diagonal path up to the Sacristy end, that no one ever used. She’d watched and noted.

  The drizzle was refreshing and she’d dressed for cold, so the wind didn’t bother her. Andy carried her work case as it was important that she unlock the door and open up.

  At the transept, in front of the sanctuary containing the altar, she laid out her work tools. The sight of the dried blood without the police tape made it even more macabre. Andy was so nervous she was tempted to shout ‘Boo!’ in his ear, but she refrained.

  ‘First things first.’ She laid out a dozen or so incense cones. As she lit them, she asked Andy to distribute them about the nave. Smoke curled up and flowed around them.

  ‘Is there any special order to putting them somewhere?’

  ‘No, I just want all areas of the Church to be covered by them.’ She did the altar, the apse, and the side altars, and set Andy to put a couple up in the choir.

  She took her camera out and photographed the smoke as it rose and curled from the cones.

  ‘We’re documenting the air flow.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So we know where the air flow is.’ She smiled. ‘Not everything is more than it seems.’

  He was relaxing, good.

  The smoke did exactly what she thought it would. She talked it through with him.

  ‘The air from windows and doors create a natural air flow. With the main doors at the back and a good tight seal on the stained glass windows, you’d expect the smoke to slowly drift off to the main doors. The choir smoke should go up and then spiral down into the nave and add to the flow to the back doors. At the altar, the smoke will rise and swirl in line with how good the window seals are. It should collect at the dome. At the transept, depending how the doors face the wind and how good the seals and hinges are, it should part; some will go out that way, some will add to the smoke collecting in the ceiling.’

  She photographed the eddies and flows and, in the main, the smoke did exactly as she predicted.

  ‘Wow.’ Andy sounded impressed.

  ‘No, not wow: science.’ Her smile was genuine.

  When they’d documented the entire Church, they moved the cones to the areas where the police tape had been, in tight rows. Thick streams of smoke did exactly as the thinner ones had done earlier. She photographed them, paying close attention to the confessional box that had been taped off. There was nothing unusual about the air flow. When six were placed on the bloodied altar, the smoke billowed up and split, half rolling up to the dome that was somewhat behind the altar and the rest flowing up to the nave roof. It then drifted slowly to the gospel side, towards the side door there.

  Asking Andy to open all the outer doors, she collected all the cones and dampened them. Then they waited for the Church to clear. It took a good half hour and the temperature dropped sharply. They watched the doors that had been opened and managed to get the Church sealed back down again before any of the promised patrols noticed anything.

  ‘We’ve established the normal air flow for the building, now we clean and clear.’

  Maryam took a long thin blade out from the partitioned lining of her case. About nine inches long, double sided.

  ‘It’s steel, and will suffice as a sword, or a dagger, depending on the ritual.’

  She walked over to the altar and started to draw shapes in the air using the blade, also touching her head, chest, heart, and mouth. She started facing East and the transept doorway. Andrew heard her call out to the angel Rafael in Latin. She turned South and spoke out Michael, then West and Gabriel. She turned North, facing the apse and the tabernacle, and spoke the name Uriel. The hairs on the back of Andy’s neck stood up and he turned away. He came to understand Fred’s resistance in a visceral, emotional way. It was one thing to know, intellectually, that the Arcane did things that you wouldn’t do in normal service. That you knew there were exorcism rites in the Church and priests trained to deliver them. It was quite another thing to actually witness a woman on the altar, speaking Latin, drawing pentagrams in the air with a sword, speaking the name of an arch-angel never mentioned in the bible; not part of your faith, your canon. To witness her doing this with an altar stained with blood, someone’s life blood. He felt sick and ran to the back doors.

  He made it to the toilet tucked in the back of the vestibule and threw up. His body shook as he washed his face and hands, rinsed out his mouth. What had been an intellectual understanding that someone had tried to commit sacrilege in a Church was now a fundamental emotional connection for him. He was covered in cold sweat when he returned to Maryam and her work upon the altar, wondering if he had the strength for it.

  She was finishing off the nunc dimittis and he searched his memory for why she might be dismissing a servant of the Lord, encouraging them to pass over.

  ‘Quod parasti ante faciem omnium populorum... Lumen ad revelationem gentium, et gloriam plebis tuae Israel...’

  As she spoke she was sprinkling water, holy water, all over the altar and on any area of dried blood on the stone flags of the floor.

  He sat down on the front pew shaking, his head in his hands. Oh, he was the wrong person for this. In his heart of hearts, he’d been dismissive of the Bishop’s objections and feelings. Not now. Now he was impressed at Atkins’s strength, how he’d accepted the command of his Church despite his personal feelings. Humility: it was a never ending lesson.

  Something odd occurred as the prayer came to an end. He felt a breeze across his face, caught the scent of... roses. Neither rose oil nor rose incense, or even chemical rose scented air freshener; it was the fragrance of real flowers. The delicate scent of tea roses. He raised his head. By the altar, Maryam Michael was standing with her arms outstretched and palms uplifted. Despite the blood, the death, the finger print powder covering everything... there was a sense of deep pea
ce, of acceptance, communion and freedom, emanating from the altar. His mind could not comprehend it but his soul, the core of him that prayed and reached for God, responded. Andrew Scott got down on his knees, blessed himself with the sign of the Holy Cross and prayed for the soul that had just departed: wishing with all the strength of his own soul, that the departed one would find peace, acceptance, forgiveness, and divine love. That it would move into a state of Grace.

  Maryam did not bother the young priest with words or explanations. She accepted his profound need to feel the journey he was upon and not to mar those feelings with words, intellect and questions. She cleared her equipment back into her pack and silently jotted down notes for her report.

  Lesser mark of the pentagram completed: working area protected. Nunc dimittis finished. Distinct sense of a soul both locked into place and then released. Scent of tea roses. She paused, wondering, thinking; filtering. Mother of All Sorrows? Rome would puzzle upon her report and decide on action, if any. She suspected this parish might be receiving more funding, and more priests, to keep its flame alive. What a pity that Wyn Jones would be moved on.

  She opened out her inner case and brought out a crucible and a mortar and pestle. She selected frankincense and ground alfalfa grasses, crushed and blended them together. She then added a single dried rose petal. The mixture was tipped into the crucible and the lid put on. She readied her camera to one side and moved the crucible onto the altar, in the centre, which was free from blood stain as the sheets of the Qur’an had kept it clear. She lit the mixture and put the lid back on. When the smoke was beginning to flow out from under the edges she used crucible tongs and lifted the lid clean off. A cloud of smoke bellowed up. She picked her camera up.