The Resurrection of the Body (2 page)

T
he Police Ask Questions

My parish is in Hackney, in London Fields, one of the poorest boroughs in the country. The church is a
miserable
-looking building on the outside, dull red brick and all awkward lines and angles, and too many slabs of bare brick wall. But inside it is quiet and pale and cool, smooth cream plaster and a domed white roof, built on the
Byzantine
plan in the late 1950s by Cachemaille-Day.

On two sides of the square interior are six paintings depicting various Biblical scenes showing the intervention of angels. First there are Adam and Eve driven out of Eden and the angel with the flaming sword. Across the nave Jacob wrestles with the angel. Then come the four New Testament scenes; the annunciation, the nativity with
heavenly hosts, the agony in the garden of Gethsemane with the angel keeping watch, and the angel at the empty tomb.

In the centre of this calm space we all stood
bewildered
. How could we carry on the service after this? Even as I hesitated, wondering how best to proceed, one of the policemen took me by the elbow and indicated that we should step outside into the vestibule. He was very calm and polite; even the police seemed to understand that we had all been, as it were, in a trance – that it was not
appropriate
to ask the questions they needed to in the church, in the middle of a service.

I felt very strongly that I couldn’t just abandon the
congregation
at this moment. I asked the others, while we were gone, to carry on, for the choir to sing the next hymn and Chris to do the reading. Then I followed the police sergeant outside into the vestibule.

I was shocked at first by the quantity of blood on the floor. It lay in irregular puddles, smeared here and there by dragging feet, and there was a trail running through into the church; I realised with horror that I had some on my shoes. There were several policemen standing there,
looking
nervous and uncomfortable, and outside, in the pale spring sunlight, I saw several cars parked across the road, their blue lights flashing. Police radios crackled noisily as they relayed incomprehensible messages. A few passers-by had stopped and were staring; the police were already beginning to put tape across the entrance to the church.

I led the sergeant into the room which we used as a crèche and sat down heavily on a chair.

I should say straight away that I do not have much trust in the police. Living where we do, I suppose that I tend to see the worst of them. Recently we had had a great deal of trouble with them, because they had come to the churchwarden Mercy’s house with a warrant to arrest her son, who had been in trouble with the police over some petty crime. When Mercy said he was not there they had roughly pushed her aside and searched the house. In doing so they had broken or damaged some of her things, and in great distress she had left the house and come to see me. The police had followed her and, Mercy said, assaulted her. When she arrived at the vicarage she had broken glasses and a black eye. The police accused her of
assaulting
them and brought a charge against her (which had still to come to court). I had gone to see Detective Chief Inspector Stone at Stoke Newington Police Station and told him what I thought about the incident, that I knew that Mercy would never harm anyone, that she was our representative on the East London Deanery Synod and that people who would speak up for her would include the Bishop himself.

Perhaps this sergeant knew about this case because at first he seemed ill at ease; he wouldn’t look me in the eyes and paid too much attention to his notebook. But
whatever
he may have been thinking initially he soon put to one side, and his manner became entirely businesslike.

He said they wanted to evacuate the church. There were certain things they needed to do, fingerprinting,
looking
for the weapon which might have been discarded, for any traces that might point to the identity of the attacker.
Police cars were out now in force, combing the streets, looking for anyone suspicious, and the police helicopter had been requested. First of all, he wanted to know if
anyone
had seen the man who carried out the assault. At this point one of the police constables put his head round the door and said that one man had run out into the street as soon as the victim had entered the church, but had seen no signs of anyone running away. We all said that we had seen no one. The sergeant made a note of this and said they needed access to the front of the church so that they could begin straight away. Of course it was a bank holiday weekend and this would cause some problems, but they needed to get a police photographer and the forensic
people
to work as soon as possible, though they might not be available until the next day. Meanwhile it was very
important
that the scene of the crime should not be disturbed.

I said that this would not be a problem, but urged them to be as quick as possible. Of course the church had to be prepared for our Easter services, and since the Easter Vigil began before dawn on Sunday, everything had to be ready the night before.

I was wondering if it would be their responsibility or ours to clean away the blood when they had finished.

The sergeant said he was sure everything could be done by then. He asked if there was any way the congregation could leave the church without coming through the vestibule and perhaps disturbing the evidence. I explained that there was another door, at the back, which led to my office and to the church hall. We agreed to evacuate the church and continue the service in the church hall. The
police were happy for the service to continue but they wanted to talk to anyone who had heard anything, or might know the man who had been assaulted, and that it would be helpful if they did this as soon as possible.

I said that I was sure that nobody knew him. I had never seen him before myself. He had certainly never been a member of the congregation.

The sergeant continued his questioning in that
mannered
, precise way that policemen have. First he needed a description of the victim. How old was he?

I told him that it was hard to say. He had thick, dark hair, no trace of balding or greying, but his complexion was slightly battered, as if he had led an outdoor life. I guessed that he was in his early to mid-thirties. He had black eyes, a straight, if not slightly Roman nose and full lips. His skin was not quite white but not dark either, perhaps Middle Eastern, or southern European – Spanish, perhaps. But it was hard to say because of the extreme pallor caused by shock and loss of blood.

He tried to establish whether the assault had actually taken place in the vestibule, which seemed likely from the quantity of blood on the floor. I told him I had heard shouting in the street, only a minute or two before the man entered the church. I couldn’t distinguish any words, but I had the feeling that it was English; yes, undoubtedly one of the men had a rough, East-End accent. The cry that he had given at the moment of the stabbing seemed to come from inside the vestibule. I added that the man
himself
had said nothing, he had tried to speak but no words had been distinguishable, and I couldn’t say what language
he had used. We had taken nothing out of his pockets, hadn’t looked for any identification. I was sorry, there wasn’t much more I could say.

Searching my mind for anything else that might be
relevant
, some little detail that might have escaped me or be of some importance, I mentioned the cut I had seen on the man’s hand. I noticed something cross the sergeant’s face then, a strange kind of expression, not a smile, exactly, nor a sneer. He made a note in his little black book. Mary, sitting behind me, said she had noticed there were cuts on both his hands. Again, he wrote this down, with a little flourish.

I cannot remember how long this questioning went on for; the police seemed to need everything repeated several times and kept asking for information which we didn’t have. They said they would have to come back for formal statements. I tried to be patient. My main concern was for the man; I asked the sergeant where he had been taken and he said to Bart’s. Anne, who had come in and was now standing behind me, said that though the injury was very serious she thought there was a good chance that he would survive if he reached the hospital alive.

The police said that it would make things a great deal easier for them if he was able to talk, and that they would want to talk to everyone again once they began to build up the investigation.

The sergeant suddenly stood up and snapped his
notebook
shut. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘We’ll find whoever is responsible. We’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise.’

I went through to the church hall. The choir were
singing, very simply and plainly, ‘Glory be to Jesus in his bitter pain.’ I tried to look deeply into my mind to
understand
what I was feeling. I felt sickened and repelled.
Contemplating
the suffering of Christ was not the same as contemplating the suffering of that man. Christ, we are told, comes back to life; that somehow renders his
suffering
more bearable. This man would not have the same hope. We are all terrified of death, none more so than myself. It was the look in that man’s eyes which haunted me, that stricken look as if he recognised that this was the end of him and that there was nothing to be done about it. This knowledge struck through me as if I myself had been pierced with a knife. When I thought I had truly entered into a knowledge of suffering in my prayers, something real had stumbled across my path to say: This is a conceit. This is not so.

I sat at the front of the hall and listened to the choir’s intense, quiet singing. Despite my attempts to listen, to return to the prayerful state in which I had begun this service, disturbing thoughts kept running through my head. Only yesterday an intelligent, middle-class woman had come to me saying she was disturbed by the erotic nature of Christ’s passion. I understood at once what she meant; the same thing has from time to time troubled me. There are many erotic images of Christ on the cross, and the combination of art and death has many sexual
overtones
. But there is nothing erotic whatsoever in real
suffering
, only obscenity. Christ’s death is not obscene because we give it meaning. In order to come to terms with death, surely every death must have a meaning.

I had to bring the service to a close. I spoke briefly,
saying
that what had happened today had profoundly shocked us. Words, I said, were inadequate; but we could also express ourselves in silence. We were silent, then, for
perhaps
five minutes. Then I said the blessing, and the
service
ended. We filed slowly out of the hall; nobody said anything to me. The choir followed me into my office, as did Tessa, the deaconess. We said a quick prayer together, and then embraced one another. Tessa in particular seemed dreadfully upset, and I could see tears glittering in her eyes. She put her arms around me and we held one another closely for a moment, giving and receiving comfort.

We went outside. Police vans blocked the road and there were policemen everywhere taping off the area; a small crowd gathered on the pavement. The sun had gone in, the sky darkened and a few drops of chill rain fell.

Above us, roaring in the sky, was the familiar sight and sound of the police helicopter. I stood in the road and watched it circling overhead, the sound of its rotors uncomfortably loud. The police cars were leaving; after a while the helicopter too drifted away towards the East.

A policeman came and asked me to help lock up the church. They asked for the keys so that they could have access when the forensic people came. I said that they could get a set now from one of the churchwardens, but they were free to ask me at any time. I locked up the church, and they left a policeman standing guard at the door.

T
he Accusations Begin

Harriet was waiting for me at the entrance to the vicarage. She had heard what had happened, and her face was tense and anxious. I walked into the kitchen. I could hear the children running round upstairs; their voices sounded very distant and otherwise the house was in silence. My wife put on the kettle. Its hissing and gurgling sounded
unnaturally
loud after the silence of the church; I looked out into the garden and watched the daffodils dancing in the cold wind.

Harriet looked at me and asked, in her quiet,
understanding
way, ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

I said, ‘Later.’ I took the cup of tea that she had made and retreated into the dining room.

Almost immediately the doorbell rang. I closed my eyes; I wasn’t sure that I could face anyone just now.
Harriet
came to the door and said that it was Sidney, a
member
of our congregation, and that he wanted to speak to me urgently. I said that I would see him for ten minutes.

Sidney lives just a few streets away from us in a flat in the house where he was born; as a child he endured the worst of the Blitz, and he had often recounted his
experiences
to me. He looked very awkward and ill at ease in my study in his baggy, crumpled clothes. He looked at the paintings on the walls and the photos on my desk, staring round at this, what must have seemed to him,
extraordinary
luxury. Sidney’s flat, which I had visited, was small and dreary, and he had hardly any possessions. Although we were by no means rich, I was so often made to feel uneasy about my comfortable, middle-class lifestyle when so many of my congregation were so poor.

He said, in a deep voice, ‘I think I know who done it.’

‘What?’ I hadn’t expected this, and was startled out of the feeling of apathy which had overcome me. ‘Who?’

‘That nutter, Jim. You know he did something like this before, don’t you?’

I sighed. Like many inner city churches, mine has in its congregation a fair number of disturbed and inadequate people. Jim came to church on and off, and apparently had done so over many years, when he was not in prison. He once confessed to me that he had stabbed a man in some fight over a woman. I think it was the only woman he had ever loved. Jim had not been in church recently, but I had seen him hovering outside the church once or twice in
recent weeks as if trying to make up his mind whether to come in. Once I had crossed the road to go and speak to him, but he had instantly scurried away.

‘Do you have any reason for saying this, Sid? You haven’t talked to him recently?’

‘Haven’t seen him for months.’ Sidney stared at the floor uncomfortably.

‘Then why do you think …?’

‘It’s just a feeling. He might have done something like this.’

I had a prickling feeling of alarm, a realisation that this event might cause much trouble among the members of our congregation. I said, in a quiet but firm voice, ‘Sidney, it’s for the police to find out who the attacker was and why he did it. At this stage, it could have been anyone. We don’t even know who the poor man is who was stabbed. You must be very, very careful, if you talk to the police, not to indulge in wild accusations.’

‘You mean you don’t think I should tell them?’

‘Not unless you have any proper evidence, no.’

I was suddenly afraid for Jim. If Sidney mentioned him, the police might be after him, and find him guilty of other, minor crimes. They might even arrest him, and who knew what Jim might do then?

Sidney suddenly said, ‘Thank you, Richard. I’ll think about what you’ve said.’ I opened the door for him and he walked out, stumbling over one of the children’s toys in the hall. I went back into my study, tried to clear my mind. I had Jim’s phone number in my book, and for a moment it crossed my mind to give him a call. I dismissed
this instantly. Experience had taught me that it was often better not to interfere, but let things take their natural course, and it was obvious that my motives for calling Jim might be suspected.

I turned back to my desk. Everything was laid out ready for me to complete my sermon for Easter Sunday. Of all things I have to write in the church year, this is the most difficult. As my father had once said to me, by Easter Sunday, it’s all over. Those who come to church only on the Sunday have missed the whole thing. There’s nothing to say but ‘Christ is risen, amen.’