The Sun Will Still Shine Tomorrow (34 page)

Ashley took a deep breath, winced. “At least the ancient civilisations who worshipped the sun could actually see it every day. It actually existed. Tell me how many Christians have seen your god.”

Jacob Moor turned to John Markham.”Ignore him, Brother. We have an emergency meeting in an hour’s time in the temple.”

He turned to Ashley and smiled. “The main topic on the agenda is how we’re going to dispose of him.”

John Markham smiled almost hypnotic-like into the eyes of his Worshipful Master and the two Brothers left Ashley alone with his thoughts.

Everyone but everyone attended the most important meeting ever held in the temple of the Island Keepers in the basement of the Ship Inn. No apologies tonight. The thirteen current members of the council sat together quietly with the four Berwick policemen who had coordinated the cover-up.

They were welcomed without hesitation. They belonged to the Berwick and Tweed mouth branch of the Island Keepers and were attending as visitors. Jacob Moor would make a point of welcoming them at the beginning of his address.

The only person missing was Claire Macbeth. Jacob Moor had decided it wasn’t necessary; he’d fill her in later on the decisions arrived at during the meeting.

This would be his most important performance ever. He’d worked on his speech through the long hours of darkness. The door to the Lodge closed quietly, a key turned and Jacob rose to his feet.

The chains biting into Ashley’s wrists were unbearable. He’d convinced himself he’d torn the ligaments in both as he’d desperately tried to break free and stop Sheila Moor from hanging herself. He’d realised his task was hopeless but the adrenalin had kicked in and he’d been unable to stop himself. He gazed down at the bruising beginning to discolour his hands either side of the chain and the congealed blood hardened around his palms and fingers.

A chorus of ‘Things can only get better’ played in his head.

Jacob motioned for Father Thompson to stand alongside him. Father Thompson stood nervously and walked around the perimeter of the floor. He positioned himself on the right-hand side of the Worshipful Master.
Unusual,
thought one or two of the brothers as Father Thompson prepared to deliver his sermon.

“Brethren… I give you our chaplain, Father Thompson. Father Thompson will open the meeting in prayer.”

Jacob Moor sat down and relaxed. It won’t do any harm to warm the Brothers up with a little bit of God, he thought to himself as he concealed a smile behind the back of his steepled hands.

Father Thompson had been summoned to Jacob’s house a little after two in the morning. He’d not long been sleeping but had got up and dressed without question and made the short walk from one side of the village to the other. He’d been honoured that the Worshipful Master had turned to him of all people in his hour of need. They’d prayed for a little while. Jacob had explained what was needed in the emergency meeting later on in the day.

And Father Thompson had taken on board the enormity of what was happening and cherished his role in proceedings. He didn’t let Jacob down. He delivered a passionate fifteen-minute address as instructed, tugging and tearing at the heartstrings of belief of every individual sitting before him.

He was in his element; why couldn’t he feel so passionate in his normal Sunday address, an address that would be delivered almost parrot-fashion from the pulpit in the Priory. What was so different about today?

And as he delivered his final few words it came to him. He was fighting for his religion. If necessary he would be a martyr for the cause.

Jacob Moor had been proud of his chaplain and looked on with a strange respect as the man marched proudly around the perimeter of the room to a carefully orchestrated, dignified round of applause.

“Brothers… a history lesson,” Jacob began.”Let me take you back to when our order was first founded. Founded in honour of a saint very dear to us, a saint sent by the good Lord to look over us and honour us by choosing to reside in our very midst.”

It was a powerful start; Father Thompson had primed them well.

“We have been sent many challenges during our brief life on God’s wonderful planet but none as great as the one we have faced over the last few days. Brothers, the council assembled here today will go down in Island Keepers’ folklore… you will be written about for centuries to come.”

John Markham sat in the temple thinking to himself that perhaps Jacob’s speeches were getting a little repetitive. He’d heard them since his first visit to the temple and never failed to have been stirred by Jacob’s oration, his passion, and remembered many an occasion when the hairs on the back of his neck had stood on end.

“Last night was one of the bleakest I can remember in all the years I have dedicated to the cause.” Jacob paused, took out a handkerchief and wiped at the corner of his eye.

“Last night, Brothers, I helped dig the grave of my very own dear wife.” He pointed to the crypt. “Right there, Brothers, we moved the symbol of our dear saint and dug a hole with our own bare hands.”

Jacob Moor seemed to teeter on the brink. He held out his hands and supported himself against the podium.”I could not shirk my responsibilities, Brethren, it had to be me.” He seemed to steady himself a little. “But with the help of my fellow Brothers, we completed the grisly task.”

He leaned forward. “I thank every one of my Brothers who helped me in the early hours of this morning.” He wiped at another tear. “It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life… but… Brothers… I did not evade my responsibilities. The good Lord sent me a message in his infamous wisdom; he sent me a solution to the problem my dear wife posed.”

He gazed around the room, slowly and deliberately, once more commanding the attention of the assembly.

“Brothers… I must ask you all to prepare to lie in the name of the Island Keepers. You are all aware how my dear wife met her death last night, not a death that can be easily explained away, a death that leaves too many loose ends.”

He turned to the chaplain. They exchanged a smile before he continued.

“The dear Lord came to me last night in a dream. I was in torment, trying to snatch a few hours after...”

Jacob Moor gazed down at the crypt and the disturbed dust and dirt, swallowed hard and wiped at an imaginary tear before continuing.

“I hardly slept at all but, when I did awaken, the solution was clear as a bell. The Lord gave me that solution: the story which we must share with the island and the outside world.”

Another carefully orchestrated, deliberate pause as Jacob Moor reached for a glass of water. He took a mouthful, licked at his lips.

“From this moment in time, as far as everyone here is concerned, my wife has left me. You must spread the word in the village and the mainland.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, held an envelope aloft. “She was good enough to leave me a note, typed it on her very own computer.”

He opened the envelope and pulled out a one-page document, gazed down towards it. “It’s clear enough, Brethren. I’ve met someone else, she explains; do not try to find me, she writes. Brothers, I must live with the shame forever; it’s the Lord’s will for the mistakes I’ve made along life’s path, but I will do so to protect our ancient order.”

The Brothers looked up in awe at their Worshipful Master. He had made the supreme sacrifice. John Markham knew what was coming next.

“I must ask you, Brothers, to do likewise and to be strong at this critical moment. None of us must shirk our responsibilities, grave as they might seem.”

John Roddam was nodding his head; the chaplain’s bottom lip trembled as he looked around meeting the gaze of his fellow Brethren. They were united, united for the cause.

Ashley had heard the faint applause drift into his cell.

He heard a noise, looked up. Father Thompson opened the door to the cell, a personification of confidence. He locked the door behind him and slipped the key into his trouser pocket. He made the sign of the cross, looked upwards and took a step forward.

“How are you, my son?”

“Save your breath, Father. I’m no son of yours.”

Father Thompson pulled out a chair from the far side of the cell and sat down.

“Be it so, friend, but I must do my duty.”

“Your duty?”

“I’ve come to pray for you, Mr Clarke.”

“Like I said, Father, save your breath.”

Father Thompson bowed his head and sat in silence with his eyes closed. Ashley wished his chains could stretch the six-foot gap between him and the key in the chaplain’s pocket. It was useless.

There was no escape from the chains and every time he was left alone the heavy door to the cell was locked too. And he’d bet his last penny a Keepers’ delegation stood guard in the bar upstairs. It was ironic: his only glimmer of hope lay with a Glasgow gangster and it was just that… a glimmer, a long shot. Oh, how he wished he’d confided in Jordan Cameron.

Ashley looked at the chaplain sitting in an almost trance-like state. Ashley smiled.

“FATHER!” he screamed at the top of his voice. Father Thompson almost jumped out of his skin, leapt a foot into the air as his seat spun out sideways and he landed in a heap on the cold floor. Ashley lay in a crumpled heap, laughing for all he was worth. The tears ran down the side of his face at the success of his prank.

“You stupid bastard,” the chaplain sneered from the cell floor.

“Whooooaa… Father, be careful, your big man won’t approve of language like that.”

“You’re not normal, you’re not. Just what do you get out of that, the predicament you’re in? How on earth can you laugh and joke?”

“I always laugh, Father. Remember, the sun will still shine tomorrow.”

Father Thompson raised himself to his feet, dusted down his cassock and looked daggers across the room.

“That may be so, Mr Clarke, but when it does you won’t be seeing it.”

Father Thompson felt in control now as he stood above the prisoner of the Brotherhood. He was surprised but pleased how his words had ended the big joke.

“You’re a condemned man, Mr Clarke, that’s what I’m here to tell you. I’ve come to pray for your soul.” He grinned. “So let’s try and get serious.”

Ashley despised the man of the cloth standing over him.

“Let’s get serious then, Father, shall we?” he growled. “Tell me about Claire Macbeth.”

Father Thompson looked on.”In what way, Mr Clarke?”

“Tell me how she came to you as a fourteen-year-old and confessed that she’d shared in the pleasures of the flesh with Jacob Moor. She begged for help. Tell me, Father, what it was you did to help her.”

Father Thompson counter-attacked quickly. “The confession box isn’t about help, Mr Clarke, you should realise that. We have a duty to our Brothers and Sisters not to disclose anything–”

“Not Brothers and Sisters, Father, a child. A fourteen-year-old child raped by the man she called her uncle, a man she trusted, a man who abused her. Why didn’t you stop it?”

“A priest has no power to stop such things, Mr Clarke, you know that. What’s said in confession cannot be taken outside the church.”

Ashley raised himself to his feet, walked towards Father Thompson and cursed as his chains stopped him two feet from the nervous-looking chaplain.

“You mean to tell me, Father, your own sense of decency wouldn’t allow you to talk to Jacob Moor, tell him you knew what was happening, tell him to stop, remind him of his morals, the code and ethics of your so-called noble organisation.”

“I’ve told you, Mr Clarke, I–”

“A fourteen-year-old child, Father – raped and sodomised and you stood back and condoned it.”

“No! I didn’t, I couldn’t, I–”

“You’re a man of the cloth, Father – you’re all powerful – a law unto yourself, and what about the murders? What did you do when she begged you to help her, begged you to stop what was happening, begged you to help her escape the hell that Jacob Moor and his cronies had imprisoned her in?”

Father Thompson stood motionless shaking his head.”It wasn’t like that.”

“Wasn’t like what, Father? You sat and watched in the temple as they paraded her around naked, re-enacting an event from three hundred years ago. She told me last night right here in the cell as she cried like a baby.”

“I tried… I really did. I tried to tell them it was wrong.”

“Tried, my arse, Father, you sat with your right hand twitching under your cassock while your Worshipful Master used and abused the poor girl.”

Father Thompson fumbled in his pocket for the key to the cell door, desperate for a means of escape.

“I wanted to hold her, Father, but she wouldn’t come near me, couldn’t bear the touch of a man.”

Father Thompson’s hands were sweating.

“Murder, Father. Thou shalt not kill. What happened to that one, eh? Thou shalt not steal. You helped steal a young girl’s innocence. Just how many commandments are you going to break? You use the commandments when it suits you; you’re a bunch of hypocrites, the lot of you.”

“Silence, do you hear? I won’t listen to this.”

“Thou shalt not kill, Father, thou shalt not kill.”