‘And you have yet to inform any of the local
Imams about this? Have not made any attempt to involve them?’
‘We wanted to be sure.’
‘You were hoping, no doubt, that this has
nothing to do with religion at all?’
Barham nodded. ‘The deceased, Jason Briggs,
is a gang leader, a violent and aggressive person who has been
involved in criminal activity since he was nine years old. There is
no evidence of either sexual assault, or robbery. He was neither
Muslim nor Catholic, nothing to link him in any way to anything
other than his gang activity. Peckham gangs don’t split neatly into
religious or racial groups. They run according to the ethnic
breakdown of the individual housing estates. Most are black
British, such as Jason, but it’s not exclusive. This Church is in
his area, but he’s not a member of the congregation, although he
had been thrown out of the youth group a few months ago, along with
other gang members who were trying to recruit from there.’
‘You believe that is what was behind the
graffiti and the other desecrations?’
‘Yes. The gang members we prosecuted were
from Brigg’s gang, the RRs, the Rye Runners. They targeted the
local church group to recruit youngsters and were booted out. So
they vandalised the cemetery and the building. None of that had any
religious significance at all.’
Barham looked to Maryam to confirm this.
Maryam nodded her head whilst filing away what Barham’s choice of
words had revealed about her background. Barham continued.
‘It is only the pages of the book that
suggests this has anything to do with Islam and actual religious
faith. That’s not a very strong connection, given whoever did this
is certainly not rational. Anyone could think of pulling the pages
out of a book to muddy the waters. There is no strong evidence to
treat this as anything other than a... secular... manner.’
The word was awkward in her mouth, the
concept new to her brain.
‘I can tell you that the words written on
this young man are neither random nor without meaning. They are
intense and scholarly. No one was copying out of a book. The
formations of the marks are sure and precise. Intellect has been
used here, intellect, discipline, and knowledge; unlike the
graveyard desecrations.’
‘Completely different?’
‘Utterly.’
Barham wasn’t happy with the news: so much
easier to work this as a gang crime.
‘I take it he was drugged?’
Barham nodded. ‘We believe so, what leads
you to ask that?’
‘He lay there and bled to death. There is no
significant arterial spray pattern evident in the surrounding area.
The wounds are shallow and the blood flowed out slowly and evenly,
from what I can tell. He would not have lain there and bled to
death, I imagine, unless he wasn’t able to rise. I can see no
evidence of restraints or serious injury that incapacitated
him.’
Barham paid Maryam the best compliment; she
carried on talking about the details of the case without missing a
beat. ‘We don’t know what, the toxicology results aren’t back.
There was some spray on his chest; it could only be discerned by
using light filters. It suggests the first cut was on his throat
from someone standing behind him.’
‘So there wouldn’t be much spurt on the
murderer?’
‘Nope.’
‘Curious.’
‘What?’
‘If the first cut was at the throat, it was
symbolic. It was a shallow slash, one presumes...’ She picked up
the autopsy photos and looked in more detail. ‘Yes, otherwise he’d
have bled out much more quickly.’
‘Agreed. All the cuts were shallow. He only
bled out as there were so many of them.’
‘Body couldn’t clot the blood fast enough.’
Maryam took a magnifier out of her shoulder bag and studied the
cuts.
‘Is there any suggestion the writing was
done by a different blade, from the slices that ensured the bleed
out occurred?’
‘None. However, as I said, the autopsy and
reports are not yet completed.’
‘And Father Jones remains relatively safe
until then?’
Barham tensed. Maryam listened.
‘We have no reason to suspect it’s anything
but a deliberate ploy to make us look at Father Jones. We have... I
have... no expectation that he’ll be implicated.’
Again, gentle words spoken with care. Maryam
had a sense of the huge wheels moving around them, grinding slow,
grinding small, as the competing politics of the various
authorities sought to ensure the dance did not end on their patch;
that the axe would not fall upon their head.
‘Have you informed the multi-faith agencies
working with the Met and used Bishop Atkins’ contacts in the
various London communities? You have informed the hierarchies, if
not the local mosques?’
Barham shook her head.
‘I see. That’s what bought my ticket, was
it? Everyone agreed to keep all this quiet until after I arrived?
An outsider to help keep balance; to blame, if all else failed...’
Maryam hoped Barham would understand the trust she’d accorded her
by ending that last sentence out loud.
Barham took it on the chin and kept going.
‘Yes, I suppose that would be one way of looking at it. Your
knowledge could have told us firmly this was not religious in
nature, just freakish, like the desecration in the graveyard.’
Maryam nodded. ‘But what do you have hope of
here, in this case...? What outcome are you looking for from the
Congregation? Any religious analyst could have confirmed that
context. Why allow us in, in particular? The Congregation is
rather... unique in its brief.’
Jenny Barham went quiet, taking a moment to
collect her thoughts. Maryam studied her. She was young to be an
operational Detective Inspector, barely in her mid-forties. She was
aging well in the job. She wore a wedding ring and her dress and
figure suggested there was another person somewhere, whom she
loved, who wore the match of it. Maryam doubted this woman believed
in any God, in any religion, and she was a little lost as to how to
respond.
‘We are hoping that we have something ...
concrete, to go on, before we approach the leaders in the various
Islamic communities in the area. That we could rule out certain
things before informing them of the... sacrilege.’
‘Rule out real occult influence? Present it
as vandalism or madness but all of human agency?’
Barham laughed. ‘No! Not quite that. I mean,
not really.’
‘You don’t believe in the occult, Inspector,
in the supernatural?’
Barham looked confused by Maryam’s poise in
asking the question.
‘Of course I don’t. I thought that was the
point of your Congregation, to prove that such things do not exist
and to explain occult events by revealing the human component?’
That she thought such revealed much to
Maryam about how Atkins had presented their involvement. He did
love to polish his words to reflect his own image.
‘We do investigate all reported occult
activity that affects the Church, Inspector, to seek out the human
agency in it. We do reveal the tricksters and the fakes, the
psychotic and obsessed. That is true, but we do so in order to
ascertain when actual occult activity has occurred, as opposed to
human.’
‘You can’t tell me you believe in such
things! Ghosts and ghoulies, demons and magic?’ Barham’s voice had
risen several registers. Her tone had moved from surprise, almost
to mockery.
‘What I believe is not of note, Inspector.
The Church of Rome, whom I represent in this matter, does believe
in spiritual forces beyond human knowledge or understanding.’
The warning was clear. Barham backed down.
This was another example of how the world had changed and it was a
good change. Government officials were no longer free to mock
faith. Sometimes.
‘The issue, Inspector, is not what you or I
believe or do not believe. The issue is the beliefs of those whom
this case will affect. The issue is how communities will respond
and how they may interact. The issue is how we mediate that
response through our work.’
Barham blushed this time, but again took the
blow on the chin.
‘Can you rule out that this crime has
anything to do with the Islamic community?’
‘No. Not at this time. Neither can I confirm
it has. Although it is likely the work of an individual, not any
organised group. My advice would be that the Islamic authorities
that work with the Metropolitan police are informed as a matter of
urgency.’
Barham nodded. ‘Can you rule out...
spiritual forces?’
Maryam smiled. ‘I appreciate your choice of
words, and candour, Inspector. Spiritual forces move people to act
in a way that cannot be defined. However, if you mean, can I rule
out supernatural forces in this affair and assign it wholly to
human action... I cannot do so until I have examined the Church and
spoken to those concerned. But I can tell you it is extremely
unlikely and highly improbable.’
‘Impossible?’
‘It’s impossible that this man was killed by
anything other than a human being. The odds on it being only human
agency involved on all levels are extremely high. The odds that
supernatural forces are involved, miniscule. But I cannot rule such
out until I have examined the Church and then spoken to all
concerned.’
‘I appreciate you putting it like that. Yes,
I have set up a car to take you over there, although I’ll presume
you’ll want to examine the church in the morning, after you’ve had
some sleep?’
‘Not at all, I want to look at it tonight,
preferably in the middle of the night. It is the witching
hour.’
Maryam smile was just enough of a tease for
Inspector Barham to bark back a short laugh. The tension
dissipated.
‘I’ll have a squad car take you down and
send an officer with you. I doubt there is a crime lab person free
just now, so for tonight you can only look, not touch.’ She stood
up.
Maryam stayed seated and engaged the
Inspector past her deliberate moves to signal the interview was
over.
‘Before we go any further, tell me you have
a Muslim police officer assigned to this case? One who can testify
that no one official did anything offensive to his faith whilst
interviewing and looking at the evidence?’
Barham stared at Maryam, then sat down again
with a plonk. Her tiredness was starting to seep out of the edges,
bringing with it her natural personality as opposed to her working
identity. How many hours had she been on duty?
Barham took a deep breath. ‘No, I haven’t.
Not yet.’
‘And you have used a Muslim crime scene
investigator to handle the Holy Pages of the Qur’an? That you have
those pages stored in a respectful and safe manner being guarded as
a precious thing?’
‘Bugger.’
Barham paid her the compliment of picking up
a phone first; delivering orders that she had the name of any
Muslim officers on duty on her desk within the next five minutes.
She then dialled again and demanded to know if they had any Muslim
crime scene technicians on the books
at all
. Given it was
now late at night, Maryam had no idea whom she had called, but the
question didn’t appear to faze them.
Barham escorted Maryam to a nearby posh
office with an en suite to allow her to freshen up, aware she had
come straight from the train station. Maryam took the opportunity
to phone ahead to Peckham and inform Father Scott that she would be
unlikely to arrive at the priest house for several hours. She did
not inform him this was because she’d be next door in the Church
itself.
Before Maryam left in the squad car, an
eager young detective was added to be her main liaison with the
Met. DC Shahrukh Iqbal appeared to have been going off duty when he
was called in to be her escort; he very much looked like he’d not
long finished a hard shift. She wondered if this would be his first
murder case, his sudden appearance caused a few raised eyebrows
with the uniformed officers who were driving them. Maryam
understood why Barham had been promoted so young: she learned
fast.
As they approached the Church of the Mother
of All Sorrows in the dark and the pouring rain, Maryam could see
the police tape around the main door and the police officer
standing guard. Iqbal held the car door open for her as they
sprinted over the path, up the stairs and into the vestibule as
fast as they could. The uniformed officer on the steps had opened
the doors for them as they approached. The Church was probably over
a hundred years old and spoke of Pugin and classic Gothic Revival;
vaulting stone arches and stained glass windows. Highly ornate
carving and roof painting above the altar and a huge Christ
crucified hung central in domed space. The bright light of the
crime scene lanterns and the police tape over the entire sanctuary
were painful to experience, as was the smell. Blood: dead dried
blood. It mingled with the scents of old wood, dust, and incense.
Maryam hesitated looking down on the death at the end of the aisle,
imagining how it had looked with the corpse upon the altar. A
blasphemous mirror image of what hovered above it. How it had
smelled when all that blood was fresh?
‘Have you been here before, Detective
Iqbal?’
‘Actually, I have.’
Maryam looked at him askance. ‘I
thought...?’
‘That I’d just been assigned? I have. I’ve
not been here, at this murder scene, but I’ve been in this Church,
during orientation.’
‘Ah. I see. You did a course on multi-faith
policing in Peckham?’
‘In the Metropolitan area, I visited here
then.’
‘So you know Father Jones?’
‘No. I met with a Father Edwards and a
Bishop Atkins.’
‘Did Inspector Barham know this?’
‘Not ‘till about an hour ago, no. And please
call me Shahrukh.’
‘As-Saamu alaykum, Shahrukh. I am Maryam.’
She did not offer to shake hands.