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  ‘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 se
veral 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.

  Late in the afternoon she excused herself from the activity and asked Father Scott to accompany her out to the local shops. There they bought enough groceries for several days and she and Andy returned to the parish house and prepared food for everyone. Tea, coffee and what the British called biscuits and the Americans, cookies, were being used at a strapping rate by the various Metropolitan personnel. Father Edwards had been moved to another parish house whilst she had been in the Church in the morning, and Father Jones was still in conversation upstairs with Fred. She and Andy sliced, chopped, peeled and fried, and between them they rustled up a vat of soup and another of stew. Andy was a more proficient cook than she was, and between her labours on the chopping board and his with the meagre spice rack, what they produced was edible. The fridge was stocked with enough cheese, cold meats and salads to keep everyone going; there was fresh bread, fresh ground coffee and fruit. She and Fred sat in the kitchen eating vegetable soup and enjoying the rest from their labours: physical work did soothe the soul.

  In the dark of the evening, Inspector Barham requested that Father Jones accompany her down to the police station for questioning. On discovering that the Sacristy had recently had the locks changed and only two keys opened it, one kept by Father Jones and one by Father Edwards, the point had been reached where Father Jones was being treated as a serious suspect. Maryam watched the squad car drive off with Wyn and Fred in the back. A lawyer appointed by the Church would meet them at the station. At least they had managed to get Father Edwards out to somewhere less painful before this had occurred.

  Shahrukh had come to the kitchen to deliver the keys of the Church and the news that the crime technicians had released it. He shared bread and soup with them before going off duty, and they decided a mutual protocol for keeping the Church safe overnight and for Maryam to have access to it. Tomorrow, the cleaning firm recommended by the police would clean the blood out and then restore all areas covered in forensic powders and liquids, and the Church would be able to be opened to its parishioners. Father Scott had arranged for a prayer vigil for the murdered youth and the local Bishop would lead it off after reconsecrating the altar. For tonight, the police officers on guard would be stood down as there wasn’t the need, or the manpower to keep them. The local constabulary would patrol every hour or so, as they had done during the graffiti attacks. Father Scott had moved into the parish house that afternoon after Father Edwards had left, and he’d had contact with the local parishioners who had helped before. He was going to keep the CCTV working, and keep a general eye on the house and liaise with the congregation. Maryam would work in the Church after she’d had a nap: it was going to be a long night.

  Fred returned from the station at about midnight. She was lying on the bed in a half asleep, half awake, meditative mode. A gentle tap on her door served to bring her senses back up to ‘on’ and she joined everyone in the kitchen for what was, to all intents and purposes, a council of war. Wyn Jones had not returned to the house; he’d been allowed to leave the station without charge on condition he did not go within three miles of his home. He was at Westminster Cathedral. Gatto had escorted Fred back in to brief Maryam on the outcome of the interview. He came in intending to stay just long enough to hand Maryam an updated file, taking her through the evidence that had been piling up against Wyn, but stayed to eat the large bowl of stew she’d placed in front of him. Both he and Fred devoured the food as she sifted through the file. It included a detailed log of the CCTV footage that had been collated. It revealed that whilst Wyn had indeed been the only person to enter the Church the morning he’d found the body, he’d also been the last person to leave it the night before, which they’d known. What they had not known until the footage revealed it, was that Jason Briggs had entered the Church just a few minutes before Wyn had that night and he’d not come out.

  Maryam assessed the blurred black and white photos that had been printed off the camera feed. They showed the fight that had taken place between Wyn and Jason, Wyn going off in one direction being helped by a parishioner who had heard the scuffle, Jason shouting and gesticulating after him. Three hours later, Jason Briggs entered the Church but never exited. Wyn arrived five minutes after Jason, went in, and came out twenty-five minutes later, locking the door.

  ‘Is he still refusing to say what the fight was about?’

  Gatto nodded and there was a moment of him swallowing food before he replied. ‘Yes. Won’t budge. Just says it was a private matter between them and he regrets having lost his temper.’

  Maryam looked at Fred and wondered if she should speak up. There was only one logical conclusion when a priest under threat of being charged of murder would refuse to speak. What had Fred advised him during all those hours upstairs? Was it her role to speak of it? She assuaged her doubts by continuing to ask questions.

  ‘Was the Church patrolled that night?’

  ‘Not by us.’ Gatto looked to Bishop Atkins.

  ‘Two parishioners did a walk through the graveyard, at about eleven thirty, to make sure the emptying of the pubs had cleared through.’ Fred had taken down a lot of information in his own notebook. He looked grey with both fatigue and worry.

  ‘No one heard anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Were there any lights in the Church?’

  ‘Yes. Some lights have been kept on all night, since the vandalism started, I understand.’ Gatto had referred to his notebook. Maryam wondered whether the officer and the bishop had noticed they were mirroring each other. Eat, look at notebooks, answer queries in turn.

  ‘In the Sacristy?’

  ‘Yes, I made special note of that.’ Fred had answered before Gatto. ‘The back of the Church there has no light, and therefore no camera. So the Sacristy light was left on for those patrolling, to be able to see the path as they walked round. It’s the darkest part of the yard and where there had been a lot of the most obscene pictures. You can’t see that area easily from any other view point.’

  The Sacristy was the nearest part of the Church to the parish house garden wall. There were only about four feet of space between the Church ending, and the wall of the garden beginning. It was the most isolated, least travelled part of the Church grounds. What Fred described made sense to her.

  ‘You can’t see the outside door to the Sacristy at all, from any angle, can you?’

  ‘No, the outer walls of the East doorway block it from view. In fact...’ Gatto referred to a typed sheet of information in his file, ‘that door had to be replaced during the vandalism attacks, as it had images carved onto it. So someone had been able to take time to work. I believe that we’d requested a CCTV camera placed there, but there hadn’t been funds for it?’

  Gatto look at Fred, who rifled in his own papers.

  ‘I’m not sure. This isn’t my area, of course. The Southwark office would know. I’ll ask them in the morning and see if they can assign you one of our people who helped with the prior incidents.’

  Gatto nodded. ‘That would be good, sir. On these notes it says we requested a camera and the funds were being looked into, but the issues were solved before one was put in.’

  ‘But the door was replaced?’

  ‘Yes, Mi
ss Michael, it was.’ Paper rifling. ‘It was a heavy duty security door with a steel outer cover. Is that relevant?’

  ‘It may be. But you are saying that the outside door was replaced and the inner door to the Sacristy had recently had its locks changed?’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct.’

  ‘Which would mean both outer and inner keys were replaced at roughly the same time? Did Father Jones say why he’d had the internal locks changed?’

  Gatto let out a long exclaim of air, and Fred looked down at the floor. Maryam carried on observing Fred, as Gatto spoke.

  ‘He said he’d felt the place was unsafe, after the attacks. We pushed him, but it didn’t make sense. We asked him if he’d found anything in there, graffiti or vandalism, and he said no. Given the evidence of sexual activity in there, we pushed him hard. He said nothing.’

  Fred’s upper lip was starting to bead over with sweat.

  ‘Did you ask Father Jones, Sergeant, if he’d had sex with anyone in the Sacristy?’

  Fred’s face drained of all colour, and he coughed and stood up, and poured himself a glass of water. Gatto ignored him as he answered Maryam.

  ‘Yes, we did. He was most indignant and shouted no. He got quite animated. Father Jones has a bit of a temper.’

  Fred had sat down again and was staring at his notebook.

  ‘Any priest accused of murder and sexual impropriety in their own Church is going to have a bit of a temper. Tell me, Sergeant, did you ask Father Jones if he knew of anyone else having sex in there?’

  Gatto looked at her. Then he looked back at his notes, puzzled.

  ‘Actually, I don’t think so, Miss Michael, I’m not sure anyone did. We asked him who would be having sex in there, apart from him, and about keys and stuff. We pushed him hard. But we never said it like that, I’m pretty sure. But we did push him.’

  Maryam was quite sure they had pushed him. Maryam was quite convinced that the police had done their utmost to present Wyn with the picture of him, and his congregation, and his youth club, and his charismatic beauty and his energy, and had pushed hard on the subject of a priest having sex in his own church. She’d have lost her temper, too.