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 peace, 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.
Andrew watched as the smoke rolled up... and
stopped. How it condensed into itself and hung in the air above the
altar. How it rolled into itself in a delicate swirling ball, until
the heat from below died and it dissipated. How it drifted down,
back towards the altar, gently flowed over it and disappeared on
the stone flags of the floor. He was too astonished to pray.
Altar tested positive for supernatural
interference.
She tested several locations. Both altar and
tabernacle tested positive. The confessional and the choir did not.
The strongest reading was from the Sacristy, as she’d expected.
It was well past dawn by the time she’d
finished and cleared up. Andy had stayed and watched. They walked
back over in the companionable silence that had slowly been
restored to them through the night’s endeavours. Whilst he made
them both some breakfast, Maryam typed up an initial report and
emailed it through to Rome. She requested permission to continue
her investigation by interviewing Wyn Jones, outlining some of her
concerns and in particular, her suspicion about his uncommon
silence with the police.
The day had a lot of chaos in it and they
were both drained. Andrew took the couch in the parlour and Maryam
got two hours sleep lying on the bed in her room. First, the
doorbell started ringing, and then the phone never stopped. The
house began to fill up. The police leaving the scene had allowed
the women of the parish in to take charge of the cleaning and
cooking, and setting everything to rights. Two new priests arrived,
settled in upstairs and then began to prepare rotas for an all
night prayer vigil in the Church. The cleaning company finished the
crime scene clear up and a veritable mob descended on the church to
clean and set up for the ceremony. Maryam watched a local woman
arrange a spray of pink tea roses with white baby’s breath on the
side altar dedicated to Mary. On the other side, dedicated to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus, she set in place a vase of crimson
carnations. She confirmed that those were the flowers that were
always placed there. Sometimes the tea roses were white, sometimes
yellow: they were always tea roses.
‘Father Edwards, he says the Lady likes tea
roses and he often smells them here. So we always try and make sure
there are some fresh ones in. The florist donates them when she
can. Tell me, do you know if the Fathers are well?’
When the email arrived from Rome granting
her full permission to proceed with an occult inquiry, she checked
with Atkins where Wyn Jones was. As she’d thought, he was back at
the police station. Fred assured her that they’d send someone to
pick her up and bring her over to Westminster as soon as Wyn
returned. Would she like to move into a room there now? She almost
said yes, then thought better of it and said she’d stay here but
would it be all right if she came over for dinner that evening? She
and Wyn could eat and talk then. Fred agreed and Maryam took her
weary body back upstairs and slept through the chaos of the various
women of the parish finally having free rein to clear out decades
of Father Edwards’s smoking. They were stripping the covers off the
furniture as she went past the parlour. The sight both made her
smile and her heart ache: what if the old priest could never bear
to return?
The four of them ate together, Fred, Maryam,
Andy and Wyn Jones. The Westminster housekeepers had laid out a set
of cold cuts with salads, there was warm soup in an electric
tureen; breads and cheeses. Wyn had arrived back from the police
station very late and was drained, as were they all. Fred had
opened an excellent bottle of wine, then another, and then had
brought in some port. Wyn had eaten little and drunk less. The case
against him was building momentum. Everyone in the room understood
that if he was called back to the police station again in the
morning, he would be unlikely to return. As soon as he was formally
charged, his life, his ministry, his priesthood, was gone. The
press would descend and devour him whole. Fred, who had been
informed of Maryam’s assessment by his own Cardinal, was on edge.
He tried everything he could to deflect Maryam, defer her
interviewing Wyn. Maryam put up with this until the eating was over
and she felt she had enough of a measure of Wyn to proceed on her
own, and quietly dismissed both Fred and Andy. This she would need
to do on her own.
Wyn Jones watched the tiny woman with the
grey eyes and silver hair send Bishop Atkins out of the room with a
nod of her head. His heart let loose a little of the pain it was
carrying. He was not sure who he’d been expecting, but he had
trusted in His Lord to send him someone to help. He had not
expected a fiery angel or a burning bush, but he’d been praying for
some sign that he was going to get out of the hole he was now in.
Looking at the calm and demure face of the woman in front of him,
he prayed that good things really did come in small packages.
Maryam went straight into it, knowing that
with her, unlike with the police, Wyn had no choice but to answer
when he could. It was when he could not answer she was interested
in, but bided her time.
‘Start from the beginning, Wyn, from when
these events started. What you now realise was the beginning.’
After days of being pummelled by words, Wyn started stiffly,
reciting by rote. However as she left him to it, only asking him
the occasional gentle question, above all showing him her respect
for him and his work, he relaxed into discussing it openly. The
story was not new to her, but it was new to the man sitting in
front of her and his pain, his shame and anger, was displayed
clearly as he took her through the events that had led up to the
murder.
‘Jason Briggs was an enforcer for a gang,
the Rye Runners; enforcer, part-time leader. Depended on who was in
prison at the time. He had no contact with the Church at first, but
his younger brother, Brad, was in the youth group for a while.
Their aunt, whom Brad lives with, isn’t home much and the boy fends
for himself with Jason’s help. Brad came in one evening with
another boy and stayed. He was good at singing, joined the choir,
and wanted to join the football club as soon as we got it running.
After a few weeks he started coming to services.’
‘And Jason objected?’
‘Not at first. At first a lot of the gang
members came in and out of the youth group and the Church. But
after a while, when there was nothing for them...’
‘Nothing for them to steal, or take, or to
have for their own...?’
‘Yes, exactly.’ Wyn looked at her,
surprised.
‘I’ve been around for a few years, Wyn. I’ve
seen this situation once or twice. New priest, new activity, poor
parish: everyone always checks it out to see what they can have. A
few stay on, take what we offer and, in turn, start to give back:
but not all.’
‘No, not all.’ In his voice was his youth
and disappointment, a suggestion of bitterness. ‘Not all.’
‘Was Jason one of the ‘not all’?’
‘Yes. I’d thought... I’d thought we were
getting somewhere and then... then it started to go wrong.’ Wyn had
paled, his throat had caught, his fist had clenched.
‘Tell me about it.’
Initially the youth club had a slow start.
Months had gone by with only a couple of boy and girls, usually
grandchildren of parishioners, attending. Over the months it had
begun to build, then to flourish. The choir had blossomed, bringing
in many who had no contact with any Church, any faith. Older boys
such as Jason had started to come in. Wyn had thought it was a sign
they were reaching into the community, that there was some hope of
breaking the gang cycle.
‘But it wasn’t what was going on. I didn’t
notice it at first, then it became obvious. They weren’t breaking
away from the gangs, they were recruiting into them. Using the
youth club, the choir to gain access to kids that were usually out
of their reach. The kids whose parents took them into the school
yard and then picked them back up from there. The kids whose
parents knew where they were, twenty-four seven. Those kids were
allowed into the Church activities anytime they wanted to
attend.’
‘So the gangs came recruiting for them,
here, in your groups, in the choir?’
‘Yes.’ His voice was as tired as Father
Edwards had looked.
‘What did you do?’
‘Discussed it with everyone, with the local
community leaders, the police, with my Bishop, had a long think and
prayed... and then closed out those we felt were only there to
recruit.’
The pain he was feeling was self-evident.
The sense that he’d failed, that he’d somehow let down those who
had come to him for help. A sharp life lesson had been dealt to Wyn
Jones and he’d not enjoyed it. A bitter taste had been left, a
defeat that had yet to be accepted and moved past.
‘Is that when the graffiti started?’
‘Yes. It all started then. I’d banned Jason
and a few others, told them they were no longer welcome. I’d
expected him to stop Brad from coming, but instead, Brad started to
bring in more and more kids his own age or younger, ten year olds,
eleven, twelve.’
‘Already gang members?’
‘Yes, some of the areas have their own self
running mini gangs. The leaders are eleven, twelve, maybe thirteen
at most. The gang itself can have seven year olds in it!’
Maryam, who had seen machine guns in the
hands of ten year olds, machine guns and machetes with scalp and
hair still stuck to the blade, and the ten year olds who wielded
them stood silent with dead eyes... listened. You could only bear
witness to some pains. Nothing you could say, or do, could make it
more bearable, make it better. Sometimes listening allowed it out.
In her silence, he found his voice.
‘I’ve been in gangs, Miss Michael. I ran
with one back in Cardiff. It used to be called Tiger Bay, where I
grew up. It wasn’t the sweetest area. There were always kids
running wild, even the ones with loving Mums like mine.’ His voice
lost its cultured tones, his accent more pronounced as he
continued. ‘Mam took me off the streets when she lost me, when I
lost myself. She sent me up valley, to my aunts. Her aunts really,
my great aunts, they put me back on the straight. They let me find
myself again. I thought I understood. I thought I knew where these
children were coming from, what their lives were...’ His voice
trailed off in despair. The tears in his eyes were not pity or
sadness: they were rage.