Fragments (12 page)

‘Please, Father
Jones, be seated.’

‘Please call me
Wyn, sis...’ His voice trailed off as he drew back in his mistake.
It was one she was used to hearing from the clergy and she smiled
back at him.

‘Maryam is just
fine, Wyn.’ She held her hand outstretched in his grasp, for just a
moment, to reassure him of the honesty of her response. She then
approached Father Edwards, who was pouring her a mug of coffee. She
extended her hand.

‘Maryam
Michael, Father, from the Office of the Arcane. Sorry to meet you
in such dreadful circumstances.’

Father Edwards
was over eighty years old and his body was carrying the burden of
the murder badly: he looked defeated, wasted in the pain of it all.
Maryam felt his age, his anxiety, his desperate need for the
nightmare to be over. His face was grey and his middle and index
fingers stained tobacco yellow. Priests did not, in general, allow
this to happen as they dispensed the host from those fingers to the
mouths of the faithful. It spoke volumes to her of what was going
on inside. He nodded and avoided her outstretched hand by giving
her the cup of coffee. He turned and sat down at the table. A
tobacco tin sat on it and he played with it. Maryam sat and Wyn
jumped up again to make her a sandwich of white sliced British
bread and fried bacon. She thanked him, cut it in half and made
herself eat half of that. The discussion slowly turned their
attention from her, to the circumstances, and she was able to
dispense with the tiny bites she was taking and concentrate on
coffee. Much more coffee!

By the time
they had introduced themselves to each other and swapped enough
banal pleasantries to get them over not talking about the murder,
Inspector Barham had arrived with Shahrukh and a crime scene team
in tow. On their arrival, Wyn went to his room and Father Edwards,
who had not offered his forename to anyone, although she knew it
was Peter, retired to sit outside in a somewhat dilapidated
greenhouse, and smoke. The rain pouring down on the panes obscured
him from view. Before she and Barham discussed the case, Maryam
asked permission to have Father Edwards moved to a different
address. Barham agreed and Maryam phoned Father Scott on the mobile
number he’d given her. He was en route with Atkins. She requested a
respite place be found for Edwards in another parish house, perhaps
even at Westminster Cathedral. After all, they had the apartment
they had prepared for her?

Barham and she
discussed the case, with Maryam reporting she had no observations,
but requesting that she be allowed to direct the crime team in some
additional tests. Barham was happy with this and they went over to
the Church. Maryam could see Wyn Jones looking down on them from
his bedroom window. She pushed her sympathy to the side and
concentrated on being calm and empty, open and flexible. In her
heart she knew what Barham did, that Wyn had no connection with
this death at all. Her head wasn’t so sure they were going to be
able to prove that.

In the Church,
Maryam asked if the tabernacle interior had been fully checked, not
only for fingerprints, but for fluids. The crime officers stated it
had only been dusted for prints, which she had known, as she’d seen
the dusting powder all over the screen and door. When tested, it
proved positive for blood, a tiny amount on the base of the
interior. Barham asked what had led her to suspect this and they
sat and discussed it with Shahrukh and another detective named
Gatto, as the lab technicians catalogued.

It’s a sacred
space. If the person who committed the murder was also trying to
reinforce the sacrilege within Catholic, or Christian, tradition
the way they had with Islamic, then it made sense to desecrate the
area the sacred host was kept in.’

‘Then why not
make it obvious?’ Barham and Gatto were taking the lead, with Iqbal
listening hard. Maryam addressed Barham who had asked the
question.

‘I’m sure the
secondary intent is to cause problems between the communities.
Being seen to actively defile the tabernacle at the same time as
defiling the Qur’an would put both communities in the same
position. The desecration of the Islamic element is being made more
visible than that of the Christian one.’

‘Why not
desecrate a host?’ This was from Gatto, who shared the same accent
as Barham; both natives of this area of London.

‘These days
there is no sacred host kept in an empty, locked church. There are
usually only unblessed communion wafers.’

Gatto nodded.
‘Of course.’ Barham looked at him, and he continued. ‘The priest
blesses the host at each service, each mass. If there is any left
over, he swallows them himself so none of the sacred host is
wasted.’

‘And the host
is more sacred in a Christian church, than say the pages of a bible
would be?’

‘In a Catholic
church, yes. The host is the physical body of Christ.’

Barham looked
confused. It was Iqbal who spoke up, surprising everyone.

‘In the Roman
Catholic Church, the bread and wine of the communion are changed by
the prayers of the priest into the actual body and blood of their
saviour, our prophet, Jesus. In other Christian communities it
represents such, a symbol of it, not the actual thing. Here, in
this Church, it’s treated as if it is actually his body, his
blood.’

Barham looked
to Maryam, who nodded.

‘Detective
Iqbal has said it succinctly. Ripping up a bible in a Catholic
Church would be annoying, but not outrageous or seen as a severe
attack. Polluting the tabernacle with the blood of a murdered man
is in line with the offence of ripping and bloodying the
Qur’an.’

‘So it confirms
your thoughts that this is a serious attack on both religions?’

‘On this
Church, and its beliefs, there has been a serious attack. I’m still
convinced the attacking of Islamic principle is about making more
of the offences to this one.’

‘The
multi-faith leaders have been informed this morning. Myself and DC
Iqbal have an appointment with the Imam of the local mosque this
afternoon.’

‘I would be
interested in attending that, if you would allow it. But first I
must ask what you’ve done to find the weapon used in this
murder.’

‘The
weapon?’

‘Yes, the
knife, although I suspect, as does your surgeon, that from the
writing and the cuts it is a scalpel. The report says nothing has
been found.’

This time it
was Sergeant Gatto who took the lead, taking out a note pad, a very
old fashioned and reassuring notepad, and read from it.

‘Yesterday, the
entire Church and the graveyard were searched thoroughly, including
with a metal detector. Detectors were quite useless in most of the
Church, given the nails in all the wood, but it was swept through.
The drains were checked and the main sewer is being examined today,
on all the lead points. The street outside, the bins and post
boxes, have been checked and there are ongoing searches in all the
local gardens. The bin collection was the day before the murder, so
most of the bins and skips out there are relatively empty, so
that’s been quite easy. So far, we have nothing.’

‘Have you
searched the parish house?’

Barham took
over again.

‘No, we
haven’t. Father Jones was taken to the police station and processed
after he’d reported finding the body. He stayed with the body and
phoned on his mobile phone and the CCTV evidence confirms this.
After processing, he was returned to the parish house and asked to
stay there. We haven’t had the manpower to search the premises yet,
as the rain has made searching outside areas a priority. The Bishop
has given permission for such a search.’

‘The Sacristy
was completely searched?’

Gatto took that
in his stride, confirming Maryam’s suspicions that he’d seen the
inside of a Catholic Church quite a few times in his childhood; for
all that he wasn’t practising now.

‘Yes, it was
walked through and nothing found, no evidence it had been broken
into. It was locked until we had Father Edwards fetch a key, as
Father Jones was still down the station.’

‘What’s your
point, Miss Michael? What’s so special about this Sacristy room?’
Barham appeared to be intrigued rather than suspicious.

‘It’s just that
if I were going to desecrate a Church and I knew enough about the
Church as this person appears to do, I’d have spent a few moments
in there. Further, if I wanted to desecrate the host without being
noticed, and hide a scalpel where it was unlikely to be found
immediately, it would be in the sink in there down the plug
hole.’

‘But we’ve
explained that we checked the drains.’

‘The sink in
there isn’t connected to the drains, Inspector. It’s a sacrarium.
It’s completely separate from the normal sewage system. It’s only
used to wash anything that a sacred, consecrated host could have
come into contact with. It washes straight down into soil.’

Inspector
Barham’s shock, when the sink hole furnished forth not only a
bloodied scalpel, but the entire sink gave evidence of blood having
being washed off in it, was palpable. The crime scene technician,
who had shone a torch down the open mouth of the plug hole the day
before, was also the one who then checked it for body fluids; she
was very annoyed with herself: Barham was furious with her.

Maryam stayed
in the nave throughout the entire affair, in order to distance
herself from the evidence. Shahrukh talked her through why she’d
suspected the sacrarium in the first place.

‘The wooden lid
was up. Normally, when a priest finishes washing the communion
vessels, and the altar cloth, and anything that may have a tiny
crumb of host on it, in the running water, they would rinse out the
sink and close down the lid. The lid was up, and I presumed the
crime lab had left everything as they found it. I wondered if it
was up, in order to make sure the sink dried before anyone went
back in there. There is no reason for the sink to be used except
after Mass. It’s never used for anything else.’

‘Why does it go
into soil?’

‘To return the
Body of Christ to the earth. Washing the blood from the murder off
in there was a desecration. Any host particles going down in the
weeks or months to come, would be contaminated. And the scalpel
going in there would further deepen the desecration.’

‘It’s not that
it’s a good place to hide it?’

Maryam shook
her head.

‘Only if you
were in a panic. You’d know once it went in there, it would stay
there for... well forever, with surgical steel. Better places in a
church to actually hide it, than there. No, it was symbolic. I’m
sure.’

‘Would the
priests be the only ones to have keys? It was locked when Father
Jones reported the body.’ He was trying to get one step ahead of
his superiors.

‘No, not at
all. The women of the parish, who come in to fix the flowers and
clean, will have a key. There should be a set of master keys for
the entire Church at the parochial headquarters, in a drawer
somewhere. Plenty of people move in and out of the Sacristy. I
doubt the door is locked during Sunday services, where the priests
will be moving in and out with their clean surplices and renewing
altar clothes. Altar boys will be in and out of there, too.’

‘Altar
boys?’

‘Young males of
the parish. Although girls are now accepted in most places. They
help during formal masses, called High Mass. This Church has one
the third Sunday of every month. Go look at the notice board.’

She took the
young officer round to the notice board in the vestibule, where he
examined the rota of services and meetings. He was quiet.

‘This place
must look empty to you.’

He nodded,
looking unsure of commenting whilst on duty.

‘It can be easy
to think Churches such as these have been deserted. Especially if
you see your own place of worship filled five times a day. But
these old Churches live on, despite the lack of numbers, because
the faith of those left burns so strong. Keeping faith when you are
socially isolated is harder than following the crowds who walk past
your door daily.’

Shahrukh took
on board what she said.

‘I suppose so.
It’s not something that has even occurred to me. But it does feel
like a place of worship. I feel as if I should cover my head when I
walk in here. I’m uncomfortable when I don’t.’

Maryam laughed.
‘Me too! But that’s another story. Uncovering your head is the
correct protocol, if you are male. It’s keeping your hat on that is
out of place.’

‘But all the
uniformed officers are wearing hats in there!’ There was a real
touch of panic in his voice.

‘It’s fine. The
crime scene technicians have to have their hair net things. And the
need for it to be a crime scene comes first. Weren’t you asked to
take your hat off when you did the training?’

‘We were in
civvies. It may have been mentioned, I don’t remember.’

‘Well, remember
it now. If you are ever called to a Christian Church, or into this
one after it’s been released, take your hat off if you’re wearing
one’.

‘The women
don’t wear veils, why do you feel as if you should?’

She was saved
from answering by the reappearance of Inspector Barham, who
recalled the group to the back of the nave, to inform them of
something that the more thorough forensic examination of the
Sacristy had revealed: that the wooden floor had liberal amounts of
semen and vaginal fluid scattered across it, as well as blood.

The discovery
was not what Bishop Atkins had wanted to hear. He spent several
hours in private discussion with Wyn Jones, who had taken on the
look of a man condemned out of hand. The discovery also lengthened
the time the Church remained in the hands of the police, as more
detailed swabbing had to be done and the crime techs stayed on
until well after dark, with a shift change seeing a new team
brought in. One advantage to this was that there was finally time
for them to search through the parish house, where they found
nothing useful. Barham, Gatto and Iqbal came and went, but Maryam
stayed, tucked out of the way in the Church, moving between the
parish house and the crime scene when she was in the way in one, or
needed in the other. Several more sites of sexual activity had been
discovered, including inside the sealed off confessional box and on
the benches of the choir. Maryam was not surprised when the main
altar revealed the same.