Trauma (5 page)

'Quite,' interrupted Rothwell. 'Tell me what you saw.'

'The leader . . .'

'The man in the ram's head mask?'

'That's right. He brought out this long knife and he cut open the kid's body.'

'How did he cut it?'

McKirrop shrugged and said, 'He sort of held the knife in front of him with his arms outstretched . . . like this.' McKirrop demonstrated. 'Then he raised it up slowly and plunged it straight down into the kid's body.'

'Then what?'

'He sort of moved it around. I couldn't see exactly from where I was hiding but I think . . .'

'You think what?'

'I think he cut the kid's heart out.' McKirrop looked to Rothwell for a reaction but Rothwell remained as impassive as ever. In fact he showed so little emotion that it was beginning to annoy McKirrop.

'What makes you think that?'

'He held something up above his head as if he was offering it up to someone.'

'And then?'

'What do you mean and then?' snapped McKirrop. 'Isn't that enough for Christ's sake?'

'They took the body away?' asked Rothwell, quietly ignoring McKirrop's comment.

'That's right. They had this big bag and they put the kid into it.'

Rothwell stared silently at McKirrop until McKirrop felt uncomfortable. McKirrop said, 'You're not writing anything down. I thought reporters made notes?'

'I have a very retentive memory Mr McKirrop,' said Rothwell. 'How did our friends leave the cemetery?'

'They had a van.'

'A van,' repeated Rothwell.

'A black van, a black Transit van it was.'

Another silent stare.

'Do I get my money now?' asked McKirrop.

Rothwell brought out his wallet and counted out three hundred pounds in twenty pound notes.

'I don't suppose you have anything smaller?' McKirrop asked.

'No.'

'Oh well then,' grinned McKirrop. 'This will have to do.'

'And if anyone else asks what you saw at the cemetery . . .' began Rothwell.

'I know,' said McKirrop. 'Mum's the word.'

'On the contrary,' said Rothwell. 'You tell them exactly what you've told me. Understood?'

'You're the boss,' said McKirrop shrugging his shoulders.

'I'm glad you understand that,' said Rothwell. 'I'd hate for you to forget.'

McKirrop felt the skin on the back of his neck tighten at the implied threat. He did not like Rothwell at all. 'I'd best be getting back,' he said.

'We'll go back together,' said Rothwell pleasantly.

The group had almost finished their fish and chips by the time McKirrop and Rothwell got back. Bella said to McKirrop, 'I've saved some for you. How about you Mr . . .'

Rothwell held up his hand politely and declined. He turned to McKirrop and said, 'It's been nice doing business with you Mr McKirrop.' The two shook hands and Rothwell turned to start up the steps to the road. As he did so, McKirrop expertly flicked his toe at Rothwell's heels and Rothwell stumbled and fell. Bella and the others expressed their concern loudly and McKirrop went to help him to his feet. 'It's about time the bloody council did something about these bloody steps,' he said as he dusted down Rothwell. 'Are you all right Mr Rothwell? Nothing broken I hope.'

'I'm fine thank you,' said Rothwell, more worried about his loss of dignity than any physical damage. 'Good night.'

'Good night Mr Rothwell.'

As soon as Rothwell was out of earshot, the group gathered round McKirrop. Bella's eyes shone like a child on Christmas morning. 'Well?' she asked excitedly. 'How much did you get?'

'A hundred quid,' lied McKirrop.

'A hundred? A poxy hundred?' exclaimed Bella. 'You story was worth thousands.'

'People like him can treat people like us like shit,' said McKirrop. 'And there's nothing we can do about it.'

There were nods of agreement all round and a moment's silent contemplation.

'At least I got a hundred,' said McKirrop brightening up. 'What do you say we have a bit of a party? Get a few bottles of the good stuff, maybe an Indian take-away later?'

McKirrop was the hero of the hour. The others could not sing his praises enough, with the exception of Flynn who just kept quiet.

'Who's going to go for the stuff?' asked Bella.

'How about you Flynn?' asked McKirrop before anyone else had a chance to say anything.

'Suits me,' said Flynn sourly.

McKirrop handed over two twenty pound notes and Flynn snatched them from his grasp trying to avoid his eye. McKirrop just smiled as he watched Flynn slope off. He knew he was back with the group. Bella came over to join him on the wall as he knew she would. She also took his arm and slid her hand into his pocket as he knew she would - ostensibly to massage his thigh but he knew what she would be looking for. That was why he had made sure to put three twenty pound notes in that pocket - the change he should have left from one hundred pounds. The rest of the money was stuffed down the back of his underpants.

'What's this?' exclaimed Bella, using her girlish voice as she brought out the notes, feigning surprise.

McKirrop took them from her lightly. 'My hard earned cash,' he said.

Bella smiled and McKirrop grinned. He handed one of the notes to Bella and said, 'Why don't you look after this one. After all, we're all part of the same family down here aren't we?'

Bella took the note and slipped it teasingly down the front of her blouse. 'Well,' she said. 'If you want it back, you know where to come.'

McKirrop grinned and got to his feet. 'I'm going to take a leak,' he announced and started to walk along the towpath. He had covered about fifty metres before he veered off into the shrubbery to his right. He cursed as he almost lost his footing in the drop and grabbed hold of some branches until he reached the bottom of the ditch. He had chosen this particular spot because there was some light here from a security lamp in the factory yard on the other side of the wall beyond the shrubbery. He wanted to see what he had managed to extract from Rothwell's pocket while he had been pretending to help him to his feet after tripping him.

It had been his intention to go for Rothwell's wallet - he had reckoned there was still a hundred or so left in it after he had paid out the three hundred - but that had proved too difficult. He had had to make do with whatever had been in Rothwell's right hand overcoat pocket. It had felt like a card at the time and he had high hopes that it might be a Visa or Access card. As he examined it in the bushes he was disappointed. It was neither of these, nor was it a gold Amex card.

The little blue and white card was a University of Edinburgh library borrower's card and the only thing interesting about it, thought McKirrop, was that it had not been issued to a man named Rothwell. This was a staff card and it entitled one, Doctor Ivan K. Sotillo to use the university's medical school library. McKirrop considered for a moment then slipped the card back into his pocket. This needed some thought.

* * * * *

Father Ryan Lafferty noticed the man sitting in a pew near the back of the church. He had avoided his eye when he had purposely looked in his direction so he had decided to leave it at that for the moment. He knelt and crossed himself as he broke the plain of the altar and then continued his journey through the narrow twisting corridor, smelling of dust and incense, to the adjoining church hall to see what the state of affairs was with regard to the jumble collection for Saturday's sale. Two ladies, one elderly the other middle aged were engaged in sorting material into piles of like. The middle aged lady who was working on the clothes pile held up a moth eaten jacket with frayed cuffs and said, 'Some people, Father! They must think we're a rubbish tip down here at St Xavier's. She tossed the offending article to one side.

'Maybe a bit thoughtless Mrs Tanner,' said Lafferty. 'But I'm sure they meant well.'

Lafferty's charitable view about the coat was not typical. It had been forced on him in part by the guilt he was feeling at suspecting the man in the church's motives for being there. His first thought on seeing him had been that he might be after the contents of the offertory box or even the altar silver. For that reason he had been pleased to see that the stranger had been seated at the back, well away from the valuables. This unkind thought was now weighing heavily on his mind.

Lafferty was prone to self criticism these days and he was going through a particularly virulent spell at the moment. Recently his time for reflection - usually around ten in the evening when he would sit alone with a glass of whisky by the fire after the housekeeper had gone home - had been filled with fears that his church no longer represented the community at all. It was more like a club and what was worse, a private club where the members were predominantly old and predominantly female. His discomfort at this thought was not so much due to the fact that it might be true but rather that he actually liked it this way.

When he was honest with himself, and he was in these late night sessions, he had no desire to change things, no wish to go out into the community: he felt no need to evangelise. He felt no need because he suspected that there was no point. The people in his parish didn't give a shit about Jesus Christ or his teachings and nothing he could say or do was going to change that. To imagine any different required a strong belief in the basic goodness of ordinary people and that was where he was terribly afraid he was lacking. He was thirty eight years old. He was a Roman Catholic priest and he was a cynic. He didn't want to be but he was. The word made him afraid when he thought about it. Cynicism was like a cancer eating away at his faith. If only he could believe that it was a cancer, an illness and not as he feared most, a vision of reality.

'So what would you like done with it Father?' asked the woman who had picked the jacket up from the floor and was treating it with exaggerated respect after Lafferty's rebuke.

'Throw it in the bucket Mrs Tanner. I wouldn't wash my car with it,' murmured Lafferty absently. He was thinking about the man next door.

'Very good Father,' said the woman with a shrug. So what was all that nonsense about 'meaning well', she wondered. She made a face at her elderly colleague.

'Will you ladies be all right on your own for a little while?' asked Lafferty. 'I have something to do in the church.'

'Of course Father,' replied the older woman.

The man was still there. Lafferty stood in the shadows behind the altar for a few moments, partly obscured by a pillar, just watching. The man wasn't praying and he wasn't reading but there was something about the way he moved in his seat from time to time that gave Lafferty the impression that he was trying to run away from something while sitting still.

Lafferty coughed to warn the man of his presence and came out from behind the pillar. He pretended to do something at the corner of the transept before walking up the side aisle to approach the stranger. 'I'm Father Lafferty,' he said. 'I don't think we've met before?'

The stranger smiled a little distantly and said, 'No, we haven't Father.'

Lafferty was looking at a man in his early thirties, well dressed although in casual fashion and with an educated tone of voice. He seemed deeply troubled. The lines round his eyes said that he hadn't slept for some time and his fingers were constantly in motion in a nervous wrestling match.

'Something’s troubling you. Can I help?' asked Lafferty. This was a simple enough question but for Lafferty, in his crisis of confidence, it had a much greater significance. He wasn't at all sure that he could really help anyone at all any more, or if he ever had for that matter. He married couples who he would never see again, buried the dead who had been born Catholic and provided 'club leadership' in the automatic group activities of praying and singing hymns. All of these things, he reflected, could be done by a robot wearing the required vestments. He as a person didn't matter at all.

The man shook his head almost apologetically. 'I'm honestly not sure,' he said.

'Would you like to confess?' asked Lafferty.

'Actually . . . I'm not a Catholic, Father.'

'I see,' murmured Lafferty although he didn't.

The stranger looked up and the priest saw the pain in his eyes. 'I really don't know what to do or where to go to make it better . . . I was passing and I saw your church and on the spur of the moment I thought perhaps ... just perhaps I could find what I was looking for here. Does that make any sense?'

Lafferty sat down in the pew in front of the stranger and sat with his left knee up on the seat while he turned round to face him. 'I think you should tell me what's troubling you,' he said. You may not be a Catholic but I'm a stranger and it often helps to talk to a stranger. I won't judge you and I won't discriminate against you when it comes to confidentiality because you're not a Catholic. I won't even ask your name if you don't want to tell me.'

'It's Main, Father John Main.'