“That seems fairly certain,” I told her. “The notes are in the same sort of type face, and mine seemed too accurate a prediction of what he did to Christopher for it to just be a hoax.”
“But he threatened you in the last letter. What are the police doing about that?”
“Nothing, I suppose. Like I said, they think that I’m the author so there’s not much chance of my being in danger.”
“So he could be planning to attack you, and no-one’s going to take that seriously until it happens?” Katie said, increasingly frantic.
“In his letter, he said that he planned to kill me,” I said, trying to sound very matter of fact about it. “So far he’s been very good at keeping his promises. The difference is that neither Jennifer nor Christopher was aware of the danger. I am. I’m just going to be extra careful for a while.”
“Why don’t you come and stay with me and Rebecca?” Katie suggested suddenly. “If you didn’t want to be in the same room as me, I could move into Rebecca’s room.”
“What, and put the two of you in danger as well?” I answered. “It’s a really nice offer but I don’t think so.”
“Why would anyone want to do this to you?” Katie asked.
“I don’t have any idea,” I said. “Clearly they’re not exactly rational, but it would still have to be someone who felt I’d really crossed them in some way.”
“Perhaps if we could work out who it might be, it might help keep you safe,” Katie mused. “Would you say you have any enemies?”
“Not really. The only thing I wondered about was someone from work. One of the husbands who blamed me for the way things had worked out.”
“What about that man who threatened you when I came into the room because of the noise? He seemed really angry.”
“Ryan?” I said thoughtfully. “He was angry, but I see him as being more direct. The thing he’s desperate to do is find his wife. I could see him exploding and trying to beat me up to get her address, but I don’t really see him as a cold-blooded murderer.”
“Someone else then,” Katie persisted. “Has anyone else threatened you in the last few months?”
“No,” I shook my head, “Ryan’s the only one.”
“There’s got to be something,” she continued, before a thought struck her. “What about the story you told at the dinner? The husband who you helped sent to prison. Is he still inside?”
This was a thought that hadn’t struck me, so I took a few moments to consider it. “No,” I said eventually. “He came out a little while ago. Adam Sutton’s certainly a very nasty piece of work. I could see him wanting revenge on me and on Jill, his ex-wife. But he must literally have only just got out of prison when Jennifer was killed. If it was him, I can’t see how he would have picked on her, or why he’d come at me in such a roundabout way. Why wouldn’t he just come and try and kill me straight away?”
“I don’t know,” said Katie. “But I still think you should tell the police about him, and about Ryan. If nothing else it will give them someone else to investigate, instead of wasting all their time on you.”
I promised I would, and we agreed to stick to more cheerful subjects for the rest of the evening. I cooked some tea for us both, while Katie scanned through my DVD’s trying to find something that she wanted to watch. The rest of the evening was spent cuddled up together on a settee watching a couple of Nicholas Cage action films.
Katie’s company, and some mindless escapist cinema proved to be exactly what I needed. By the time she left I couldn’t exactly claim to be feeling happy, but I was certainly the best I’d been in a couple of days.
Chapter Twenty Two
Yorkshire Evening Post
Thursday January 3rd
ARCHBISHOP TO SNUB FUNERAL OF PERVERT VICAR
In a break from usual tradition, the Archbishop of York has announced that he will not be conducting the funeral of disgraced vicar, Christopher Upton.
The funeral of Rev. Upton is to take place tomorrow at St. Thomas’s church, where he was vicar for three years.
A spokesman for the Archbishop said, “Although the Archbishop usually presides at the funeral of any serving clergy of the Diocese, in the light of the particular circumstances of Rev. Upton’s death it was felt that it was not appropriate for him to be present.”
A junior member of the cathedral staff will take the service. Police continue to investigate the murder, but no arrests are thought to be imminent.
I’ve been to a clergy funeral once before. The church was packed with almost all the clergy of the diocese, the vicar’s current congregation, and crowds of people from churches that he’d worked at previously. Perhaps more than any other funeral I’ve ever been to, it felt like a real celebration of the person’s life and of the hope that death is not the end.
Christopher’s funeral was nothing like that. My first reaction on walking into the church was that I must have got the time wrong. There were odd people scattered about the pews, but very few. The only clue that I was in the right place, was the lady at the door, solemnly handing out service and hymn books. Presented by such a choice of places to sit, I stood for a moment in indecision. A hand from behind clasped my arm, startling me.
I turned around to face Samuel and Ruth Kondo.
“Hello Jack,” Samuel said quietly, glancing around the church. “Not what you’d call a good turn out is it?”
“I don’t think people know how to react,” I said. “It’s all come as such a shock.”
“That poor man,” Ruth said, her eyes filled with tears. “Trying to cope with his troubles all by himself, and then to be killed.”
We decided to go and sit a few rows back from the front, in case there were a lot of people coming with the coffin. In the event, it meant we were the ones closest to the front.
The organ music sounded a loud note, and we stood up. The priest led in four of the staff of the funeral directors, carrying a large coffin on their shoulders. There was no-one else in the procession. I glanced around the church, counting about a dozen people all together. Even Michael Palmer seemed to have decided not to bother.
The priest began. “We come here with a strange mix of emotions. We remember a dedicated priest, who gave a great deal to others. We come in anger and sadness that his life was ended so brutally and prematurely. And we come confused by what we have learned about his personal life, uncertain how it all fits together.”
He looked around the church. “I’m sure that it’s because of that confusion that so many people have stayed away from this service. But those of us who are here remember the whole person, and look to God for some words of comfort.”
He said a few prayers, and then stopped. “I had only met Christopher on a few occasions,” he admitted, “at clergy gatherings where you only get the chance to exchange a few brief words. I will talk later about God and His love, but I don’t feel I am in a position to talk much about Christopher himself. I wonder if anyone here feels able to say a little about him. It doesn’t matter how short it is.”
I was as surprised as anyone to find myself getting to my feet. I walked to the front of the church and turned to look at the expectant faces of Ruth and Samuel.
“I came to this church because of Christopher,” I began. “From the first time I met him, I was impressed by his openness and sincerity. I liked what he was trying to do in the church and I was drawn to the God he talked about with such a clear faith and enthusiasm. He struck me as someone who genuinely tried to live what he preached.”
“In the last month, I was worried about him. He didn’t seem his normal self, as if something unbearably heavy was pressing down on him. Now we know what it was. He knew that someone had discovered the problem that he struggled with each day, and believed that they were going to try and damage him by revealing it. He didn’t realise that they were going to do it in such an evil way.”
“Christopher talked to me on Christmas Day. Although he didn’t tell me what was troubling him, he
was very anxious. The question he kept asking was whether people are judged solely by their worst moment. Now I understand what he meant. He was asking if the public knowledge of his dark secret would invalidate all the good he had done in his life.”
“If you look at the press – the permanent label of “pervert vicar” – or at what the Archbishop said, or at how few people there are today, you might think that the answer to his question was yes. That all Christopher will be remembered for is the manner and circumstances of his death.”
“But I stand by what I said to Christopher then, that the answer is no. That despite the current shock of what we’ve learned, it in no way takes away from all the good that was in him. All the people’s lives who he touched are still just as blessed by him, no matter what was going on in the most hidden parts of his head.”
“Most of all, I hope that if Christopher has now come face to face with the God he tried so hard to serve faithfully, he has learned that the answer to his question was no. That God loves him, weaknesses and all.”
Suddenly there was a lump in my throat, and I couldn’t carry on speaking. I looked apologetically at the minister, and fortunately he took the hint, and stepped forwards to take over. The walk back to my seat seemed an age, but as I squoze past Samuel and Ruth, they each took my hand.
“Good words, Jack,” Samuel whispered. “You really did him proud.”
The rest of the service was a bit hazy. I was glad though that I’d managed to say something. It felt as if it was something I owed him after I hadn’t managed to help him on Christmas Day. Eventually we stood to sing “Thine be the Glory” and followed the coffin out of church.
I accepted the offer of a lift in Samuel and Ruth’s car to the crematorium. Not many of the congregation seemed to be following.
“Are you OK, Jack?” Ruth asked soon after we’d set off.
“I’m not great,” I answered. “But I’m sure that I will be alright.”
“How could anyone be so evil as to do such a thing?” Ruth questioned out loud.
“We saw a great deal of evil when we lived in The Sudan.” Samuel said. “Gangs of soldiers raping, killing and torturing innocent people. But this sort of evil is something else altogether. Evil that lies hidden in someone’s heart until they decide to let it free. It’s almost more frightening somehow. Once someone has let it out, I don’t think that they can ever contain it again.”
There didn’t seem to be any answer to this, so I kept silent. Before long, we had arrived at the Crematorium. Christopher’s coffin was carried and placed on a sort of conveyor belt at the far end of the chapel. The priest said a few short prayers and at the magic words “ashes to ashes”, velvet curtains closed and the coffin disappeared from view. Christopher was gone
A shudder passed through my body. Whether it was the finality of the curtains, or the echo of Samuel’s doom-laden prophecy, I couldn’t be certain.
Chapter Twenty Three
Katie was insistent that I wasn’t going to spend the weekend on my own so, in truth without putting up too much of a fight, I agreed to go around to their house just after lunch. When I got there, the two of them had coats and woolen gloves on.
“Is the heating not working?” I joked.
“Very funny,” Katie replied. “Come on, we’re going out.”
“Where to?” I asked.
“We’re all going ice skating for the afternoon,” Katie announced proudly.
“You are joking aren’t you?” I groaned. I had only been ice skating once in my life, when I was about eighteen. My memories of that was holding on grimly to the wooden rail at the side, and painfully shuffling around for about half an hour, before giving up completely and sitting on the side watching everyone else.
“No,” said Katie. “Come on, it will do you good.”
“It’s more likely to put me in hospital,” I grumbled, but let her lead me out to the car.
The two of them chattered cheerily in the car on the way to the rink. When Katie had gone to pay, and Rebecca and I were queuing up to get a pair of lethal looking boots, Rebecca suddenly took hold of my arm.
“Katie told me what’s been happening,” she said seriously. “I’m so sorry Jack.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m worried about Katie getting caught up in it all though.”
“Are you kidding?” she asked with a laugh. “Not only does Katie currently seem to think that you’re the best thing since sliced bread, now you’re the man of mystery and danger as well. You’ll be having to beat her off with a stick.”
Before I could reply, Katie re-appeared “Get your hands off my man,” she said in mock indignation.
Rebecca laughed and let go of my arm. “Keep your hair on,” she answered. “I’m just warning him about you before it’s too late.”
The ice rink was quite busy, with groups of teenagers gliding and spinning along. Here and there were parents with small children, almost motionless as they tried to help them build up confidence on the ice. Katie and Rebecca quickly laced up their boots, and looked expectantly at me. I was trying to take as long as possible.
“It’s alright, you two go on, and I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said casually.
“I don’t mind waiting for you,” Katie said.
“It’ll probably take a little while to find my feet,” I answered. “So you may as well go and skate while I’m doing that.”
“I’ll just do a couple of laps, and then I’ll come and find you,” she said slightly unwillingly, and she walked over to the gap in the boards with Rebecca, so the two of them could get onto the ice.
Having laced up my boots, there didn’t seem to be any way of further postponing the inevitable, so I hobbled across the floor and, carefully holding onto the side, put one foot tentatively onto the ice. It didn’t immediately slide from under me as I’d feared, so I risked the other foot. Success – I was standing upright on the ice, admittedly still holding onto the rail with my right hand. Still, it was a start.
“Come on, Jack!” Katie and Rebecca called in unison as they flashed past. I slowly moved one foot forwards and then the next. Still no sign of a slip, so I continued along the rail, to the far end of the rink. Katie and Rebecca slid to a halt beside me and watched my progress for a minute.
When they’d finished laughing, they tried to give me some advice.
“You’re walking, not skating,” Rebecca said.
“Try keeping your feet on the ice, and just slide the skates forwards,” Katie suggested. “Point your feet inwards a bit to help you balance.”
“You two carry on skating, and I’ll give it a go,” I suggested.
“Alright,” said Katie. “But later on we’ll take you round with us.”
Once they’d moved off, I tried to put their advice into practice. It was a little easier, and I felt confident enough to let go of the side. I did stay fairly close to it just in case. The problem was, that as soon as I actually began to skate properly, and a foot was sliding smoothly over the ice, I had the sense of not being completely in control and panicked. This resulted in an undignified wobble to grab on desperately to the side. I managed not to fall over completely, but it was a close thing on several occasions.
Before long, Katie returned. “Hold onto me, and I’ll take you for a spin around the rink,” she offered.
I took tight hold of her right arm, and launched away from the side. The problem with this arrangement was that Katie was so nervous about making me fall over, that she began to lose the rhythm of her skating, and the two of us ended up looking something like Bambi when he first encounters ice.
Rebecca arrived on my opposite side. “It looks like the two of you could do with some help,” she laughed, and took hold of my right arm. Being sandwiched between the two of them worked rather better, and we were soon racing around the frozen arena. When I wasn’t desperately trying to stay vertical I had to admire Katie’s insight. Having to concentrate so hard on not falling over made sure that I had no
time to think about Christopher or the writer of the notes.
As the two of them pulled me around, I did get some rather strange looks from the rest of the people on the ice. I have to confess that this was more than offset by the pleasure of having two such beautiful girls on each arm. I even found myself quite enjoying it.
Eventually, I insisted that they go on skating unencumbered by me, and concentrated on trying to skate a little by myself. By the time we were ready to stop, I was fairly proud to have managed three consecutive laps of the circuit without touching the side once. Admittedly, I was going at a pace which would probably have seen me overtaken by a determined snail, but it was a definite improvement!
It was, however, a relief to change back into ordinary shoes.
“We definitely need to bring you for a lot more practice,” Rebecca observed as the three of us thawed out with drinks of hot chocolate.
“Is this something you do a lot?” I asked them.
“At least once a month,” Katie answered. “And then we undo all the good work we’ve done by going and getting a burger!”
“Ah but,” Rebecca added, “we can eat it without feeling guilty, because we’ve already burned off all those calories.”
“On that basis, I’d better stick to a small salad,” I suggested, producing a smile from both of them.
“I’m sure that your right arm got a lot of exercise holding you up all that time,” Katie teased. I tossed my empty polystyrene cup at her in response.
The place that they took me to for the burger looked just like a normal house from the outside. Only the small sign with the words “Captain America’s Diner” gave a clue to what it really was. There were steps at the side of a house which looked at first as if they led to a basement. In fact, it was a comfortably furnished small restaurant with about half a dozen tables. Two couples sat together in the far corner but otherwise it was empty.
Shaping the Ripples Page 17
