‘I HAD NO IDEA!’ His open palm slapped down
hard on the table, the bruising on his knuckles was clear to see.
He needed to move, jump, to dissipate the energy in him. He stood
up and kicked the chair away from him.
‘How could I have been so STUPID? So naive?
How could I have done this?’
Maryam waited for him to recover, which he
did, picking up the chair and setting it back to rights.
‘When I realised what they were doing, who
they were targeting in the groups, I was so angry. I didn’t just
ban them, I threw them out! When they argued back, I lost it. Like
the money lenders in the Temple, I physically threw them over the
threshold. I told Jason Briggs if he came near the Church again I’d
make sure he couldn’t walk away. I’d break his legs.’
His face was ashen, tears flowing out of his
eyes, his voice knotted in self-loathing.
‘When did this happen?’
‘Shortly after I’d called in the local
police to help me make sense of it all. I hadn’t understood...
understood what they were doing. That it wasn’t the young boys they
were after. That’s why they got away with it at first and got their
claws into some of them. I was blind.’
‘What were they after?’
‘The girls. They were after the girls.
Courting them, buying them gifts, making them feel special.
Recruiting them.’
‘For what?’
‘The gangs. They seek out girls and get them
to join. But the girls aren’t treated the same way as the boys. The
girls are... owned.’
‘Owned? You mean they prostitute them?’
‘Not in that sense. They don’t sell them
out. But they possess them, keep them, use them. When the kids in
the group started to get into trouble at home, started to skip
school, go wild... I hadn’t understood what was happening, what
terrible things were being done to the girls. I hadn’t known.’
‘Known what, Father Jones?’
‘That the girls were a commodity, Miss
Michael. That a girl joining gangs such as the RRs, becomes... a
prize. They are raped by the leader of the gang or one of the
lieutenants. When they’ve had their fill of them, they are passed
on down through the ranks. Sometimes the entire gang will rape
them. The girls are only allowed to stay in the gangs if they
accept this, accept anything being done to them. And once a girl is
truly owned by a gang...’ Wyn’s voice again broke in anger and self
revulsion ‘They recruit other girls in. Before I’d realised it,
half a dozen of the girls coming to my group, good Catholic girls
with families that adored them, protected them... they started
running wild. Ignoring their parents, skipping school, running in
the streets at night. But they kept coming to the group, to the
choir. Their parents would come to me, begging me to help with
them. I counselled them, reassured them. ‘They are still coming to
the House of the Lord,’ I said. ‘They are still singing in the
choir. We will reach them.’ And all the time they were
there....’
‘To recruit more girls?’
‘YES!’ Wyn’s fist drove down on the table
once more. ‘I found out that girls from my group were prized by the
Runners. The Runners actively sought them out...’
‘Because they were virgins?’
Wyn looked shocked that Maryam had spoken
such a thing, knew of such a thing. She placed her hand very gently
on his fist, still held fast on the table.
‘The world has always had bad places and
people in it, Father Jones. Nothing you could say would shock me or
be new to me.’
Wyn pulled his hand free, stood up and
turned away, pacing the room before facing a wall. His shoulders
were crumpled, his heart heavy. She was sure he was praying. His
breathing came under control, his shoulders straightened. Pride
returned to his body, replacing the shame and rage. He returned to
the table, seated himself, and allowed her to continue.
‘And this is why you threw Jason Briggs
out?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that’s when the graffiti started, the
desecrations?’
‘Yes.’
‘But it was stamped out?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why were you and Jason Briggs fighting
on the steps of the Church just four nights ago?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
They were at the nub of it, the rub of it.
The place she had not been able to approach until Rome had given
her permission. The place, if her suspicions were correct, she
could never progress from or break into.
‘If I called Bishop Atkins in, could he tell
me?’
‘No...’ His head dropped down, tears
flooding onto his chest. ‘He could not.’
‘Why would that be?’
‘Because what had been happening between
Jason Briggs and myself was happening under the Seal of the
Confessional.’
Wyn Jones had cried. He had sobbed until his
broken heart had rid itself of much of the poison that had been
poured into it in the previous months. Maryam had sat and born
witness. When his eyes had run dry, he’d risen, thanked her for
trying to save him, and left her. Atkins returned within seconds,
Andy Scott by his side.
Maryam didn’t hesitate in going straight to
the point:
‘Why hasn’t he told the police?’
Fred sat down and poured himself another
port. ‘I advised him not to.’
‘Why?’
‘Because once he tells them that Jason
Briggs has told him secrets in the confessional, nothing will stop
them in their pursuit of what they were. I’m trying to buy him
time.’
‘How?’
‘About six weeks ago, Jason Briggs suddenly
appeared in the confessional box one day and announced to Father
Jones that he was a Catholic, and that he wished to confess.’
‘The police said that he had no
religion.’
‘I know. Wyn didn’t believe him and advised
him to discuss things with another priest or to seek support from
the Archdiocese.’
‘What happened?’
‘Jason turned up back in the confessional
and showed Wyn a confirmation certificate.’
‘Oh, my. How could that be?’
‘Jason’s father is Nigerian. He came and
went in Jason’s life, turning up every now and then, spending time
with him. When Jason was seven years old, his father visited and
took the boy away for the summer, home to meet his family. During
that time he was seemingly both baptised and confirmed. When he
returned, his mother had finally lost parental rights of
three-year-old Brad, her drug use and prostitution had taken over
her life. His father could have gained custody of Jason, but he
would have had to stay and deal with Social Services. His father
abandoned him. Jason was also taken into care, in a different home
from Brad. Jason never left it. Brad was taken in by his mother’s
sister two years ago. She’d been out of the country and returned to
find that not only had her sister died of a drug overdose, but that
she had two nephews. Jason was fifteen and completely feral. The
police had stopped trying to force him back to the care home. He
lived by, and for, the gang. His aunt never had anything to do with
him. It was she that sent Brad to the Church youth group, unaware
that Jason was actually Catholic. She just wanted Brad off the
streets.’
‘And you are sure that he was Catholic?’
‘No, that’s why we’ve been stalling. The
certificates Jason showed Wyn were the right place and the right
time but in a different name. They were also very clean and well
kept, which didn’t speak of a seven year old child saving them all
those years. Jason stated it was his family name in Nigeria and
that his father had him given a Nigerian identity. It was his
father’s surname. He’d claimed he’d written to his father’s family
and had the certificates sent to him’
‘A tad unlikely.’
‘Precisely. We are actively pursuing it. We
have a full investigation within the church, trying to track down
the Bishop who undertook the confirmation. The certificate is real,
we are pretty sure it doesn’t relate in any way to Jason.’
‘But you aren’t certain?’
‘No. And, until we are...’
‘Wyn is trapped in the confessional with
him.’
‘Yes.’
‘Goodness, what a mess.’ Maryam poured
herself a large port and studied the colours in the depths of the
wine.
‘How did he conduct himself in the
confessional, Jason Briggs? Did he know what to do?’
It was Andy who answered his surprise that
Maryam asked the question evident.
‘He conducted himself impeccably. I spoke to
Wyn about it at length. He knew what to do and say and couched
everything he told Wyn under guise of confession, as an actual
confession.’
‘Then he’d come back again and again and say
he’d been weak and sinned once more? Asking for help and
forgiveness?
‘Yes.’ Fred’s words were weighted down by
the guilt he felt, by how they’d been unable to help the young
priest.
‘When did you find out about all this?’
‘Just a few days ago; about ten days, I
think.’ He looked to Father Scott, who nodded his head in
agreement.
‘It took a while for it to filter over to
us. His own bishop at Southwark was dealing with it,
obviously.’
‘When was it brought to you?’
‘When permission was sought to enrol the
services of a private detective to try and prove that Jason’s
certificate of confirmation was a forgery.’
‘Was permission given?’
‘Yes, but the murder took place before we
commissioned anyone.’
‘So you knew that Wyn was in the pressure
cooker, that he was being targeted this way?’
‘Yes.’ Fred felt shameful. Maryam wasn’t
sure what else they could have done, given how well Jason Briggs
had danced upon the Church’s rules. It also explained why they’d
been keeping her close to them. She’d misjudged him.
‘At no point could you persuade anyone that
Jason’s confessions were not genuine? That he had no intention of
changing his behaviour, that he was not a true penitent?’ Her voice
betrayed that this was a forlorn hope... how to do you prove
someone’s thoughts?
‘No. We tried. Wyn offered other priests for
the confession. We changed the rota, we even moved Wyn out for a
week, on respite. Briggs kept coming back, kept turning up in the
confessional and kept requesting forgiveness. He would appear when
the Church was locked.’
‘So that’s why the back door was changed,
not the graffiti?’
‘Yes. Briggs was appearing in the Church
when Wyn was doing work on his own, requesting confession.’
‘No doubt describing in graphic detail what
his sins were and where they had taken place?’
‘Yes. He spared nothing.’
‘And not one of you can breathe a single
word about it.’
‘Indeed.’
It was Maryam’s turn to slap her hand down
on the table hard enough to bruise.
‘Damnation!’
She was glad she had stayed in Peckham and
that she’d taken a taxi back. She got out of the taxi just after it
crossed the river and walked the three miles to the Church. It was
two a.m. and the world, even the South London world, was indoors
and asleep. She needed the wind in her eyes and the cold touching
her bones to drive away the depression that was threatening. Wyn
was locked into a terrible battle, a struggle for his freedom and
his innocence, and it very much looked as if he might lose it. They
would lose both a promising new priest and a soul that lit the room
up when he entered it.
She decided to switch from the ‘why’ of this
investigation and look to the ‘how’. There had to be some way to
save this young man, to defeat the evil that was attacking him.
Rather than going to bed when she got in, she switched on her
laptop and began research into the gang culture in London.
In the morning, with the parish house alive
around her, she woke and attended to her Tarot. What she got in the
three lays she did, one on the Church, one on Wyn, one on herself,
was the same card; The High Priestess, card three. She had missed
some evidence somewhere. Something was there to be seen, she’d just
not found it. A knock on the door disturbed her and she placed the
wrapping cloth over the cards that were laid out on the desk. One
of the new priests, Father Jacob, had a mug of coffee for her and
the news that Detective Iqbal was downstairs in the parlour. She
thanked him, drank the almost bearable coffee and dressed quickly.
When she’d made herself a large bowl of actual coffee, she and
Iqbal settled into the only space they could find some peace and
quiet; Father Edward’s greenhouse. It contained no greenery, soil
or plants. There was a huge ashtray and a bottle of brandy hidden
under the single upturned clay pot, and a stack of old newspapers.
It was raining again and the noise was both soothing and meant they
could not be easily overheard. The opening of the Church had
sparked more press interest, but the telephoto lenses could not, as
of yet, look round corners.
Iqbal had come to invite her to meet the
local Imam later that afternoon. She was happy to do so, glad she
would have the opportunity and he phoned through a time. She then
kept his attention by inviting him to go through the physical
evidence they had, something that he was more than happy to do. As
a junior officer brought in for his background knowledge, he’d not
been getting much of a shot at that. They spread out a layer of old
papers on the bare potting boards and laid out their individual
files, collating their knowledge as they went. There was little to
add to what she’d already been furnished with. Vincent Doherty, the
locksmith, was a childless widower. However, his manager ran the
store and did all the fittings. He had three children. Like his
boss, Mr Curtis was a Catholic and supporter of the Church. Both
his younger children were altar boys and his daughter, Keely, had
been a member of the Choir.
‘Any trouble at home?’
‘Yes. Keely was brought in drunk and
disorderly by the local constabulary about four weeks ago. Turned
out that the perfect daughter had been skipping school and running
wild in the evening when the family thought she was studying at a
friend’s house.’