Fragments (9 page)

Thirty minutes
was tight, but she could make one of the afternoon’s TGVs to Lille
if she hurried. Maryam downloaded the files the Cardinal promised
had been sent through, and packed up her electronics and their all
important leads: laptop, phone, chargers and electricity converters
for the various European voltages. She showered the sweat off,
dressed, and packed her clothing and personal items in under ten
minutes. Her work kit was always full and ready to go; Edith took
the three cases outside whilst she hugged Cullain goodbye. Cullain
whimpered and look sorrowful but was asleep before she left the
kitchen. She picked up her heavy wool coat with its scarves and
gloves in the pockets as she left. The driver was eager, intent on
carving a few minutes off the hour drive; the local drivers loved
to compete on such runs. Edith looked grim as Maryam waved goodbye
to her and Maryam felt that grimness inside: she detested being
called to work on a murder.

She munched on
her luncheon as they drove, sharing it with Alain, the driver.
Edith had packed enough for three. They made the TVG comfortably
and Maryam booked through to London on the train she had aimed for.
Lille was a faster journey and transfer than Paris; she should be
in London by late evening. She set up in the business lounge before
they left and was able to call ahead and give her estimated arrival
time before switching her phone off.

Her slender
frame in the luxurious chairs allowed her to settle diagonally into
her chair, with the laptop screen facing away from the casual eye.
She’d positioned herself at the far end of the carriage, able to
see all who approached in one direction and the opening door to her
side warning her in the other. She closed the screen down at the
stations: nothing of what she was viewing could, or should, be seen
by the casual eye.

What she was
viewing was disturbing enough in print; thankfully there were few
photographs. That there were photographs at all warned her that
some political connection had already been brought into play.

The murder had
occurred in the Church of the Mother of All Sorrows, in Peckham,
London. A young man had been spread out on the altar and his body
slashed. He was naked and had been laid out in the shape of the
crucifixion. A series of long cuts had caused a bleed out. The
photos showed blood running off the altar and pooling on the floor.
From the amount of blood, Maryam was sure the young man had died
from exsanguination: he’d literally bled to death on the altar. He
was seventeen years old.

The slashes
were neither random nor without meaning. They slid in shallow
swoops that had encouraged slow, deliberate, bleeding. They were
also words that had been scrawled onto his flesh. It wasn’t English
or Latin, or even Greek, but Arabic script. The translation she’d
received from Rome suggested that the writing stated that the man
had died as he was a pig and therefore unclean. Not entirely
trusting either the transcription from the wounds, or the
translation, she spent a good hour working through the photos and
sketches made by the police, piecing together what she hoped was a
rather more accurate version. The script claimed that the man had
been cleansed and made mention of a Jinn. There were also random
words on his limbs: swine, defiler, heretic, but the gist was that
he had been killed to cleanse him of his stain. She was unsure if
it was ‘stain’, and hoped she could get a clearer understanding of
the writing at some point.

Feeling both
repulsed, and so terribly sad for the young man and his stolen
life, she switched everything off and sat, her eyes closed, feeling
the rhythm of the train as it shot through the countryside. She’d
learned that when faced with horror, with death and blood and
violence, that meditating was the way to find safety. Once, she’d
have prayed; prayed so hard that she would partially achieve an out
of body feeling, a sense of spiritual release and ecstasy. She’d
found, however, that this could be an emotion just as deceiving as
despair; different edges of the same blade. Calm and lack was a
more fitting home for the troubled spirit. A core of emptiness from
which to observe and record; catalogue and process as opposed to
feel. Prayer was feeling; meditation was absence. In absence, there
was room for logic to examine the horror: to allow deliberation
upon it that could leave her essence untouched.

It was also
useful for alerting her to something she’d missed. When she went
back to the images and the reports, after rising to walk around a
few moments and request some fresh coffee, she noticed that the
corpse lay upon what looked like thin paper sheets. Tiny segments
could be seen, if you looked, lost in the shadow and blood stains.
She magnified the image but could not discern much on a laptop.
After an hour of fiddling with images, she was sure she could make
out one small line of writing. Almost. Her instinct told her what
was probably on the leaves. Her intellect told her what that might
mean: it certainly made sense of why the crime had been passed
straight up to Major Crimes by the local borough unit.

There was no
mention of the sheets of paper anywhere in the reports. She did
some research on the internet, found the phone number she needed,
switched her phone on and sent a text.

She then closed
down all the murder scene details and concentrated on the
background report. The body had been found by a young priest,
Father Wyn Jones. She clicked up a copy of his grainy
passport-sized photo and stared at the face, trying to see what
sort of man he was. Even in this old photo from his application
form he was striking: handsome and virile. He was thirty-one years
old and on his first posting as a fully ordained priest. Born in
Cardiff, Wales, he had studied in London at Allen Hall, the Diocese
of Westminster’s own Seminary. He was, according to the file, a
gifted and passionate priest who had expressed his desire to work
with the disadvantaged youth of the world. He had been delighted
with his placement into the Archdiocese of Southwark and his
posting to the Mother of All Sorrows Church in gang-ridden,
crime-rife Peckham. She stopped work on the people and switched to
the internet to examine the locale. Peckham was an old South London
parish of dereliction and despair. It had been the scene of a
dreadful murder a few years ago; a ten-year-old boy left to bleed
to death in the streets, attacked needlessly by a couple of
slightly older boys. The world was never good when children killed
children.

She explored
further and found that in recent months massive amounts of European
funding had been pumped in to help combat both the violence and the
decay. It was a good placement for a young priest with lots of
drive and a desire to achieve something. Energy and money always
made things happen, for good or ill.

Father Jones
had worked relentlessly for good. He reinstated the Church youth
group and set up a youth choir modelled on the Southern Baptist
style song and dance of USA churches. It had been highly successful
and there had been real connections made with the younger
teenagers, who were in constant danger of being drawn into the gang
infrastructure. There were also plans to set up a Church youth
soccer team and he’d begun fundraising to pay for it. All in all,
Father Jones had made a substantial contribution to his new parish
in the fourteen months since he’d been assigned. The old parish
priest, Father Edwards, who had been retired once and then dragged
back out to keep the church doors open, had no doubt found the
young man to be a blessing. The Bishop had been delighted and the
parish had shown signs of recovery. Services had seen a
congregation where not only was the average age under 60 years old,
but there was talk of a toddler group being viable if the numbers
of families with young children continued to rise. Father Jones was
working on the simple truth that if you gave purpose and hope to
the lives of the children, the parents would follow.

All had been
well until about three months prior when the Mother of All Sorrows
had become the target of a vicious graffiti and vandalism campaign.
Parishioners had taken to nightly patrols round the closed Church
and the graveyard, as no matter how much cleaning and restoration
was done during the day, it would all reappear as soon as it was
dark. Obscenity had been the main feature of the graffiti with
graphic drawings of what was supposed to be Father Jones in sexual
congress with children, animals, and corpses from the graves.
Various classic motifs of defilement and occult paraphernalia had
been left in both the Church, and the graveyard, all no doubt
inspired by horror movies. Cats were found strung up on the
headstones and a chicken was beheaded at the Church door, with its
blood used to draw an inverted pentagram. The Archdiocese and the
police had sealed it down with the help of the outraged
parishioners and a local animal charity. CCTV had been upped and a
couple of the youths from one of the local gangs had been arrested
and charged with defacing Church property.

All had gone
quiet until Father Jones had opened up the Church doors yesterday
morning and found the body upon the altar.

Unfortunately,
the young man who was dead, and spread across the stones, was known
to Father Jones. Just the day before, they had been involved in a
fist fight on the Church steps. They both still wore the bruises
and cuts they had given each other. In fact, Father Jones had been
the last person to see the young man alive.

Maryam finished
her studies and switched her phone back on whilst she ate a good
meal. It was a bit early for a full dinner, but the food wasn’t as
good on the Eurostar, it had no internet signal at all, and phone
calls were almost impossible. Whilst transferring at Lille, her
phone beeped confirmation of the appointment she’d sought for her
arrival. She settled onto the London train and switched everything
off, using the time to reflect and refresh her mind, clearing out
the images of blood and violence upon the altar, preparing herself
to receive more information with an open mind. She itched to lay
out a tarot reading and study what it may give her in the form of
access to her own sub-conscious thoughts. Public attention closed
that avenue down, however, and she put earphones on, pretending to
listen to music. She sat with her eyes closed, grounding herself
fully despite the speed at which she wasn’t touching the ground at
all.

St Pancras,
London was bitterly cold and it was raining: winter cold and dark.
Customs had been dealt with in Lille, and the more relaxed attitude
to train travel as opposed to flight had ensured her work case had
been passed through with the minimum of problems. She alighted onto
the platform and was met immediately by a young priest named Father
Scott. He appeared disconcerted by her appearance; what, or whom,
had he been expecting? He was too well-trained to say anything
however, and he escorted her to the car whilst dutifully asking if
her journey had been bearable. She was quite surprised to find
Bishop Atkins of the Diocese of Westminster and Bishop to the Curia
in England & Wales sitting in the back seat of the car,
awaiting her. Father Scott packed her bags into the boot as she
settled into the seat beside the Bishop.

‘Marie.’ Atkins
nodded hello.

‘Frederick, how
nice to see you.’ He did not extend his hand and she did not kiss
his ring.

‘What
arrangements have been made?’

‘I thought we’d
drive you to Westminster, where an apartment has been prepared for
you. Then we can discuss the matter before speaking to the priests
at the parish concerned. The police will want to speak to you in
the morning, no doubt.’

Father Scott
started up the car and they began to weave their way to the exit
queue to negotiate the ticket barrier.

‘I did not have
time to alert you, but I have an appointment in a few minutes.
Father Scott, could you take us to New Scotland Yard? Thank you.
Also, Fred, I’d prefer to stay at the parish house in Peckham.
After you drop me off, perhaps you and Father Scott can take my
cases there and I’ll join you later?’ She gave Fred her best
smile-of-good-intent: the social lubricant that women must often
use when working with men used to being in charge. ‘Do you have a
folder for me?’

Atkins leaned
down and opened his briefcase, taking out a thin folder stamped
with the mark of the Diocese of Westminster. His jaw was compressed
as he handed the file over without speaking. He had always hated
taking orders from anyone outside the Church: he must have hated
that Rome had sent her.

The drive took
a little over twenty minutes, which she spent examining the photos
with a magnifying glass. Atkins had spoken over her deliberations
several times, to offer more information and impressions, but
nothing he said was important. Of more import was the way Father
Scott looked away from the rear view mirror as Atkins had
spoken.

Atkins was
furious that he’d been dismissed. As she exited the car, he had
tried both to accompany her and to suggest that Father Scott stay
as a driver to assist her when she left. Maryam assured them that
she’d see them later, at Peckham, or perhaps tomorrow if she was
very late. She knew Atkins would remain at Peckham until she
arrived, no matter how long it took her.

She went in and
was invited to sit. She waited out being left to moulder into
nervousness by the desk sergeant. His job was to make sure everyone
was left to stew until they were admitted into the presence of
those too overworked to care that much and who would often hide
their tiredness in cynicism and anger. The ones who wished they
were still desk sergeants and regretted their thirst for promotion.
She doubted that dynamic would be presented to her today and
settled into people watching and enjoying her wait.