Act One

‘The thing is, Sergeant, I know all people well in a manner. It’s a gift I have.’

One

Stormhaven, England

Wednesday, 17 December,

late twentieth century

‘Crucified?’ said the hesitant man in the dressing gown.

‘That’s the nub of it, Sir.’

‘I’m still in my pyjamas, you see.’

At the other end of the telephone line, the police sergeant struggled for a link.

‘I mean I’ve just woken. A rather long night, I’m afraid.’

‘On the razz, eh? Tell me about it.’

‘A church meeting.’

All thoughts of razz died in the sergeant’s mind as old ladies and hard pews came to mind. But he wasn’t happy. He wanted to get away and this hesitant man was an irritation.

It should be said that Sergeant Reiss was easily irritated, a man who allowed a wide variety of people to get on his nerves. In this instance, it was the silences at the other end of the phone. Why the silences? Given the news he’d just delivered, Reiss wanted reaction, some hysteria he could then calm with his ‘man-of-the-world, seen-itall-and-then-some’ manner. He craved that sense of superiority. Instead, he was offered unnerving pause.

***

For the one in pyjamas, fit for his sixty years on earth, it was early for crucifixion. He’d had no coffee, enjoyed no quiet breathing in rhythm with the waves, been given no time to recover his soul from a restless sleep invaded prematurely by the persistent dring-dring-dring of the phone. At the other end was the flat voice of the local constabulary.

‘A vicar has been crucified, Abbot. That’s what I’m saying.’

‘And you’ve said it most clearly, my friend. It’s just not something you hear every day.’ He said this partly out of concern for the sergeant. After all, it was probably his first crucifixion; they can’t be common on the south coast. So he was being kind, allowing for some normal human shock. But Reiss didn’t want kindness; he wanted man-of-the world superiority over this irritating cleric.

‘Some days it’s a burglary, other days it’s crucifixion, get over it, we have to,’ he said.

The Abbot noted the irritation as he noted everything. He’d known within thirty seconds of conversing with Reiss that this unfortunate sergeant suffered low-grade depression and had issues around unacknowledged rage and a poor sense self-worth. Here sadly was someone too brutalised to receive goodness. But now his mind moved on as he wondered whether he knew the victim. It was possible though hardly a given.

‘Are you still there?’ asked the sergeant.

‘Yes, I’m still here, thank you,’ came the reply. ‘As is the tide.’

For Sergeant Reiss, this was going way too slow. He’d been up all night and was weary to the bone. Admittedly, he’d spent much of the shift eating Jaffa Cakes and reading fishing magazines, but still had room for self-pity. He was the self-pitying sort, born to it, always hard done by, always moaning, always grasping, but never quite given enough in an unfair world. And now he wanted to go home. It was time for a bath and a beer and in such circumstances - and not wishing to sound uncaring because the police are a public service as the inspector often reminded them - a freshly crucified vicar is the last thing you need. Especially when you’re then instructed to ring an idiot who imagines silence can somehow advance the conversation.

‘You’re no doubt familiar with the practice of crucifixion, Sir?’ said the sergeant.

‘I am,’ replied Abbot Peter, who’d spent twenty five years of his life in the deserts of Middle Egypt, responsible for the monastery of St James-the-Less. He hadn’t always lived by the sea. ‘But permit me a little surprise, Sergeant .’

‘The world’s a bastard - Sir.’ The ‘Sir’ was a late addition, too late to suggest any respect.

‘So it can appear though crucifixion hasn’t been much used since Roman times,’ observed the Abbot.

‘Then it seems to have made a come-back.’

‘Where exactly?’

‘Last night, in St Michael’s Church.’

‘St Michael’s?’

The Abbot’s focus sharpened.

‘It’s the church by the fish and chip shop.’

‘Yes, I know St Michael’s, I know it very well.’

***

St Michael’s was the parish church of the ancient sea town of Stormhaven. It stood at the top of the cobbled high street with a newsagent, a mini-mart, the chippy, a down-at-heel estate agent and a shop that had opened and closed so many times, in so many guises and under so many owners that Abbot Peter was tired at the mere thought of it. It was currently called ‘Hobby Horse’ and sold children’s toys, but no one anticipated a long stay. Suffice to say that Stormhaven, despite the seagulls and ice cream, was not a retail paradise. The Crown, the town’s main hostelry, had been on the brink of extinction for years, returning every so often with a revamped interior, larger TV and a sign saying ‘Under new Management’. But as Peter’s launderette lady said to him, ‘You have to do more than declare “Under New Management” in Stormhaven. You have to wake the dead.’

But no one, it seemed, would be waking this unfortunate vicar.

***

‘A crucifixion by the sea,’ pondered the Abbot, mainly to himself. ‘And surely the first crucifixion ever on the south coast of England.’

He put things in perspective long before he felt them. His friends called him calm, insightful, lethal; his enemies called him distant, isolated and a fraud.

‘An untimely death,’ said Sergeant Reiss, remembering the phrase from somewhere.

‘As all crucifixions are, Sergeant . There’s really no good time for nailing a human on wood. I’m with Amnesty International there.’

Reiss wearily clocked another do-gooder, busy with other countries, critical of his own.

The do-gooder then had to ask the question. ‘Do you know the identity of the deceased?’

‘We do have a name.’

As the sergeant searched, with unnecessary and deliberate delay, Abbot Peter listened to the sea. The answer would make a difference to his day.

‘Yes, here we are, the crucified vicar was... a Reverend Anton Fontaine.’

Silence.

‘You knew him well, we understand.’

Abbot Peter allowed the truth in, feeling a little.

‘I knew him well in a manner, Sergeant.’

Past tense, knew, when he’d been speaking with Anton not twelve hours ago. Less than twelve hours ago they’d shared words, shared life. I am knowing, I did know, I once knew; time and tide could be most sudden.

‘How did you know him?’

‘A good question.’ Sergeant Reiss dreamed of a straight answer.

‘The thing is, Sergeant, I know all people well in a manner. It’s a gift I have.’

‘I’m sure it is, Sir.’

The new shift was arriving. If Reiss could wind up business with this idiot and effect a quick handover, he’d be home within the hour to his new home in Burgess Hill. He was mocked at the station for choosing a place most famous for its elderly population. But at least no one dropped used condoms in the street, urinated in his garden or smashed in the windows of his Ford Mondeo as they had done in Newhaven. Scum.

‘I have very few gifts, of course,’ added the Abbot, ‘so I notice those I possess.’

Like a giant pretending to be small, a lion claiming to be a fly, it was sometimes best to disappear into the hedgerow of supposed incompetence from where his talents could be more gently revealed. He’d had the words of Emily Dickinson taped to his desk in the desert:

‘As lightning to the children eased

With explanation kind

The truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind.’

He would play the fool if it helped the moment. But for Reiss, it was time to conclude things.

‘The Detective Inspector will be along to see you at about ten, if that’s convenient, Sir.’ They’d be along at ten even if it wasn’t, Reiss wanted to say that. I mean, what was an Abbot doing in Stormhaven anyway? Weren’t Abbots child molesters or was that someone else?

‘A Detective Inspector?’ said the Abbot with genuine enthusiasm. ‘I’ll have some coffee ready. But why me?’

‘You were apparently the last person to see the vicar alive.’

‘Well, not quite the last. Someone else must have gazed on him as they banged in the nails. Crucifixion is rarely suicide.’

‘We must I think keep an open mind, Sir.’ The Abbot was aware there were few minds less open than that of Reiss but he played along.

‘Of course, Sergeant, we must all bow to the god of openmindedness.’

‘You’re in one of those small houses on the seafront?’

Small. It was the sergeant’s passive revenge.

‘That’s right. The last one before the white cliffs rise up in all their English glory from the sea.’

‘Each to their own.’

‘It’s called Sandy View.’

There was a pause as Abbot Peter surveyed the stony shore outside. It had crossed his mind that he must be one of the few people to retire to the seaside yet find himself surrounded by less sand than in his previous home.

‘I’ll pass that information on, Sir,’ said the policeman.

‘And this isn’t a joke?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘The crucified vicar thing.’

‘A joke?’

Reiss nearly swore.

‘I suddenly fear a comic outcome with Anton dancing into my front room overcome with the mirth and hilarity of it all. He does that sort of thing and it would make a very poor start to the day.’

‘It’s unlikely, Sir. His body still hangs in the vestry nailed to the cross on the wall.’

‘A good punch line, Sergeant.’

‘The Detective Inspector will be with you at ten, Abbot Peter.’

‘I’ll be waiting.’

‘And just to confirm the news, because, well, you do seem to be struggling a little: the Reverend Anton Fontaine, vicar of St Michael’s, Stormhaven, has been found in his vestry in a state of crucifixion.’

Two

Hell’s Mouth, Afghanistan,

Late nineteenth century

They had finally stopped and the man was removing their blindfolds. Blinking in the dying sun, Gurdjieff and Soloviev took in the scene.

‘Welcome to Hell’s Mouth!’ said their guide, happy at last to announce some truly bad news.

Before them was a rope bridge over a deep chasm. Their adventure had finally become dangerous, which was reassuring. For how can there be an adventure without danger?

***

Gurdjieff, the taller of the two travellers, reflected on their journey to this point. Bokhara had been a flea pit and one they were well rid of. Like all who passed through that trading town, the two young adventurers had wished themselves elsewhere.

The city had not always been so. For a brief and exhilarating moment in the tenth century, Bokhara had been the centre of all that was civilised and remarkable. Even the stupid were wise in Bokhara, wise by their geography, so clever and inspiring was the climate of the town. The famous doctor, Avicenna, lived there, author of the remarkable ‘Canon of Medicine’, which discerned more about the human body than western medicine could manage even 700 years later.

Yet all had been destroyed and all made stupid in 1219, when Genghis Khan’s Golden Horde - an inaccurate name - left the lecture halls and art galleries full only of skulls. The bearers of enlightenment were dead and so was Bokhara. Ruled in turn by Iranians and Uzbeks, it was now a Russian toy, made drab and dirty with the neglect of strangers. It was a place to make money but not friends. This was the talk on the street.

Certainly they’d found few friends on arrival. Once their desired destination was known, every door slammed in their face. Two lepers would have been more warmly welcomed. Some told them that no such place existed. Others said the community they sought had moved from the region long ago. Others simply bid them ‘Go! Go from my house, go from this city!’

Their most unnerving encounter, however, had been with the thin-fingered man. George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff and his friend Igor Soloviev had been sitting in the market, drinking bitter coffee and looking out for girls. Having been turned down by every guide in the city, they had nowhere to go and nothing to do. A large man had appeared at their table, paid their bill and suggested they go with him and that their search was over. They were intrigued and duly followed.

Leaving the donkeys, sewage and carpet sellers behind, they zigzagged down alley ways and back streets until quite lost. Gurdjieff suspected they were walking in circles until the large man stopped and ushered them through a dirty door. Once inside, however, they stood in a light and spacious space. Offered a glass of cool lemon, they drank and talked together, joking nervously, the large man having disappeared. Gurdjieff saw the effete décor and loudly declared it to be a disreputable House of Pleasure.

‘This is what they’re like!’ he said.

‘You seem to know much about it,’ said Soloviev.

They laughed about sex and then noticed the large mural depicting bees collecting honey. Soloviev said he’d like some honey in his lemon, a little tart for his taste. Tart! Then they were laughing about sex again.

It was only after a few minutes that they became aware of a figure sitting quite still in the far corner. He had been there all the time.

‘Our travelling friends. Greetings!’

The two looked round to see a small wiry man, smoking an aromatic cigarette. He did not get up and neither did he invite them to sit.

‘I have heard so much about you.’

‘How?’

‘The market place is not a good place for secrets I’m afraid. And you do have a secret?’

Gurdjieff was not intimidated by this polite charade. He stood almost a foot taller than his travelling companion, had led since their school days together and he would lead now.

‘It’s no secret. We merely seek a guide,’ he said.

‘A guide?’ said the host. ‘How intriguing! A guide to where?’

‘Is it any of your business?’

‘I’m a great believer in the unity of mankind; that we are all facets of the divine oneness. Perhaps I can help you.’

It was a possibility that Gurdjieff had to consider. They had come to the end of their own resources, after all.

‘We seek the Sarmoun Brotherhood,’ he said. ‘We have business there.’

‘The Sarmoun Brotherhood?’ came the reply. ‘I do not know of them, I’m afraid. Describe them to me.’

‘We believe they have a secret knowledge.’

The thin-fingered man offered a melting smile. He had watery eyes of cold gentleness.

‘A secret knowledge, you say? How we would all like a little secret knowledge. Then we could be gods and lord it over others.’

Gurdjieff said: ‘Perhaps we seek the knowledge not for power over others but for power over ourselves. Perhaps it is only ourselves we seek to transform.’

‘A good answer, my friend but sadly, all else is bad. You are on a futile journey and a worthless adventure. I do so dislike worthless things.’

He swatted a fly and looked concerned.

‘Then we’ll try our luck elsewhere,’ said Gurdjieff. ‘We won’t give up.’

‘My only fear is for your good selves,’ said the host. ‘I would not wish to see you wasting your time.’

‘We seek only the truth,’ said Soloviev, surprising himself.

‘Seek and you shall find,’ said Gurdjieff in support.

‘Find and you may be disturbed,’ said the thin-fingered man.

‘We’re ready for that,’ said Gurdjieff.

‘And are you ready for that?’ asked the host, looking directly at Soloviev. ‘Are you ready to be disturbed? You would be unusual if you were.’

Soloviev paused.

‘You seem to make everything your business,’ said Gurdjieff.

‘Of course.’

‘But we’re a team.’

‘Indeed, and much to be applauded - you cling together with admirable determination. But sometimes teams are not all they appear,’ said the thin-fingered man. ‘There is hidden dissonance in the chemistry, discerned quickly by those with eyes to see.’

‘I too am ready,’ said Soloviev quickly.

‘Ah, he speaks!’ said the man. ‘Marvellous. And believe me, I admire your courage despite its close acquaintance with stupidity. Goodbye, my friends. Go and seek the truth! It is an honourable pursuit. I suspect you will not be long in this city.’

Three

Stormhaven,

Wednesday, 17 December

‘What strange and disturbing flotsam the tide of life brings to our shore lines,’ thought Abbot Peter as he put down the phone.

As far as he knew, of all the world’s nations, only Sudan currently employed crucifixion as a method of punishment. But his thoughts were only briefly with the people of Sudan, formerly his neighbours in the desert but never close. Instead of North African reflections, he dressed quickly and opened windows to let the eager sea breeze through. He would make fresh coffee for the Detective Inspector and open the packet of shortcake left over from his birthday tea. This was an unexpected adventure and not one to miss. But should he be feeling more devastated?

Clearly the death of Anton was tragic and shocking and awful and many other newspaper headline words. But tragic and shocking and awful passed through Peter almost unnoticed at times. Life only made sense in the moment which was a brief and unattached affair. To burden it with further significance, with the gradual coming of heaven, led only to hysteria or unhelpful feelings of self-importance.

But while these were his private thoughts, his public persona would play a different game. In public, he would stay with the tragic and shocking and awful as he shook his head in appropriate disbelief.

‘A tragedy and a profound shock,’ he would say.

He’d even pretend the surprise demanded in the face of murder. People may have been killing each other since the dawn of time yet still it demanded incredulity.

‘You don’t imagine it happening in a place like this!’ they’d say.

‘Why not?’ Peter would wonder.

What sort of a place is it where you don’t expect murder? Mars, perhaps, due to the absence of humans. But wherever there are humans, as on Planet Earth of late, murder remains a frequent guest and as surprising as a cloud in November.

‘And I mean, of all the people it could happen to!’ people would then add, wading deeper into stupidity.

As if one type of person is better suited than another to the random assault of the temporarily insane, which murder always turned out to be.

But what Abbot Peter presently noted was his excitement. He was more excited than shocked and more wondering than incredulous, for while he’d seen much death in his life, and some of it messy, he’d never as yet met a Detective Inspector. And suddenly, despite the seagull cries, he was back in the monastery library.

***

As an Abbot in the desert, it had been his idea for the monastery library to develop its own crime section. ‘There’s more to life than the theology of St Basil,’ he’d say.

And so, east of Cairo, there was now no finer record of murder and deceit than in the monastery of St James-the-Less, even boasting Series 4 of Columbo on DVD, though without the requisite screen on which to view it.

‘Perhaps you should have been a detective, Abbot,’ they’d joke as they washed plates in the pantry after the evening meal.

‘When my investigation into the murder of the human soul is over, I may be free for other cases,’ he’d say.

It was possible he’d only ever wanted to be a detective and that the role of Abbot was a time-filler before the real thing. But the real thing is what we do, not what we dream of and they’d been good days in the desert wilderness. The desk and chair where he now sat in his small study were the only physical reminders of the place where he’d spent so many years of his life. But what was done was done. Others had made their decisions and he’d exchanged the Sinai Peninsula for a pebble beach on the south coast of England.

It hadn’t been his choice, but the surprising gift of a relation he’d never known, in a will he never saw, communicated by a solicitor he never met. He was called Mr Tumbly, which suggested part-time work in children’s TV.

‘You’ve been left a house, Sir,’ he’d said in a legal manner over the phone.

‘A house ?’

‘It’s not a large house. And there’s no garden to speak of.’

‘Then I’ll need to sell my racehorses.’

There was an awkward pause; it was a joke too early in the relationship.

‘A two-up, two-down really, with an extension room at the back that until now has been used to house a remarkable collection of porcelain figurines, dancing.’

A small vision of hell passed through the Abbot’s mind.

‘And am I, er, expected to maintain the collection?’ he asked. So much hung on the question.

‘Oh no Sir, no, I’m afraid they’ve been left to another relation.’

Profound relief flooded his body.

‘So without the figurines, now sadly departed, that room could become a study perhaps?’ he asked.

‘Its usage would be entirely up to you, Sir.’

‘Well I can’t pretend this isn’t exquisite timing, Mr Tumbly. I’m standing in the Egyptian desert, bags packed and nowhere to go.’

‘Then I can tell you that you have a home, Sir.’

‘Wonderful. It’s good to have a home.’

‘Indeed, Sir.’

Mr Tumbly probably had a very nice home.

‘And would you like to know the country where you’ll be living?’ asked the solicitor, with his habitual attention to detail.

‘Oh yes, that might be helpful.’

‘England, Sir.’

‘England. Well, why not?’

‘On the south coast.’

‘The south coast? Tell me it’s Brighton. I’ve always been drawn to that place. Or Lyme Regis, I’d - .’

‘Stormhaven, Sir.’

‘Stormhaven? Ah. Something of an unknown for me.’

‘There are those who like it.’

It was the solicitor’s final line that had stayed with him, one of those failed positives, which loudly said, ‘But most people think it’s the saddest place on earth.’

***

And so here he was: retired, alone and an alien figure in the high street throng in his monk’s habit; yet on the bright side, fifty yards from the sea, a friend of the beachcombers and about to meet a real Detective Inspector. Each day had its glory.

Four

Chief Inspector Wonder, balding, ageing, widening, drifting, had heard all the jokes; or at least he hoped he had. There’s only one thing worse than hearing a joke against you and that’s not hearing a joke against you.

‘Chief Inspector Wonder is not one of the Seven,’ they’d say. ‘In fact the only wonder is how he’s got where he has!’

He was familiar with several variations on that theme.

And after one briefing he’d heard two PCs in the corridor.

‘Are you all right, Mick? You look ill.’

‘Just a bit full of wonder,’ came the reply and then they started laughing.

The nickname ‘Chinless’ was cruel but probably inevitable, strengthened by both its physical and psychological accuracy.

He played the bluff, tough Chief Inspector but still feared knowing what people thought and feared even more the dark mutterings which never reached his ears, conversations hastily aborted on his arrival in the room. He sensed such things in the air and they left him unhelpfully cautious.

‘So who will be handling this case, Chief Inspector?’

And now he had the Bishop on the phone demanding answers. A vicar in his area had been crucified, which was pretty damn weird but really, what had it to do with the Bishop? I mean pray about it, send flowers, do Thought for the Day, but why ring the Chief Inspector? A murder is a murder and a secular matter from start to finish. He had no time for an interfering cleric right now.

***

He’d be civil to the Bishop. After all, he’d shared council-funded sherry with him in the Town Hall, which didn’t denote friendship or anything close but remained a bond of sorts. They’d met and they’d spoken, exchanged pleasantries of one sort or another so politeness now, certainly. But this was still not any Bishop’s territory.

‘I hope you don’t imagine I’m interfering, Richard,’ said the Bishop.

Richard? Since when had the Bishop called him Richard?

‘Not at all, Stephen, not at all.’

Stephen? He’d never called the Bishop of Lewes, Stephen.

‘It’s just a very sensitive case, obviously.’

‘A complete nightmare for the church, I can see, Bishop. I mean, a naked vicar crucified in the vestry, no one wants that.’

‘Naked?’

The Bishop hadn’t heard anything about a lack of clothes.

‘Oh, didn’t I mention that? Yes, it’s an image that’s going to disturb a lot of church goers and probably titillate everyone else - sadly. I mean, what the Sussex Silt will make of it I don’t know!’

The Chief Inspector hadn’t wanted to mention the press, but knew the Silt - a local paper bucking the trend of declining circulations - would just love this story. He also enjoyed the fear he now heard in the Bishop’s voice.

‘Well, that’s just the sort of thing I’m worried about, Richard. We both know what a despicable rag it is.’

‘But popular.’

Another twist of the knife.

‘It’s probably a random killing perpetrated by some drifter,’ said the Bishop.

‘I doubt that.’

‘Attacks on priests are regrettably common, Chief Inspector, usually by the mentally unwell, the homeless, those sorts of people.’

‘That may be so, Bishop, and I’ve handled one or two in my time. But those killings tend to be stabbing or battering, not crucifixions. Crucifixion requires time, planning and supreme confidence. I’d be very surprised if the vicar wasn’t killed by one of his flock.’

‘A rather large assumption!’

‘Common sense.’

‘Well, all I ask is that the matter is investigated in an appropriate manner.’

‘Oh, you can be sure it will be, Stephen.’

Sensing the battle well won, Wonder was happy to offer familiarity to the loser.

‘Investigated by someone aware of the religious sensitivities involved.’

‘Of course, Bishop.’

‘I mean, there’s a fine Christian Detective Inspector near us, a faithful worshipper at the cathedral who could be just the one for the job.’

What was this? The church trying to choose their own detective? He’d be firm:

‘I’ve already appointed the investigating DI, Bishop. They’ve just arrived from West Sussex on secondment with us.’

‘Oh, I see. Sympathetic to our cause, I trust?’

‘Ruthless, certainly.’

Five

Age had crept up on Abbot Peter in surreptitious fashion, like a ballet dancer moving silently towards him while he looked the other way.

‘You’re much too young to be sixty!’ people would say with kindness and perhaps truth. But even so, though the spirit is free to dance the body is tied to decay, and he cherished each season that came to his shore, spring time and summer, misty autumn and bleak midwinter when ‘frosty wind made moan’. Though last night there must have been another moan on the wind, the cries of Anton to heaven as the nails were hammered home.

Abbot Peter pondered the policeman he’d be meeting. They were all university types these days with more experience of management courses than crime, weren’t they? Or was that a cheap stereotype? And how would the banter go? Peter struggled with male banter. He knew a little about cars, particularly the four wheel drives of the desert but cared little for share prices, golf or pornography which could make extended conversation with any man difficult. But on the plus side, Peter listened, which usually sufficed. More than conversation, men seek someone interested in what they have to say, whatever the nonsense, someone to hear them out and sometimes to laugh. Peter could be that man.

And the surly sergeant had been right: Peter had known the vicar well. On arrival from the big sand, he’d been quick to introduce himself to the church and they in turn had taken to him warmly. An Abbot from the desert was something of a trophy for a community struggling amid the cold winds of secular indifference and economic slide. He sat on one or two committees, floated amiably through the Summer Fayre and walked out on sermons only when he could absolutely take no more.

But what did Peter really know of the freshly crucified Anton Fontaine? Well, he was the first black vicar of St Michael’s, something of a landmark and had been in the parish for nearly two years. Previously a curate in London, he’d spent his twenties trying to make it as a dancer or actor but neither had paid the rent. It was then, at the age of twenty-nine, that he felt his calling. As he told Peter:

‘I was walking down the street one day when I suddenly thought, “Why the hell not?”’

‘And that was your calling to the priesthood?’ Peter had tried to sound calm.

‘I saw this old priest tottering down the road, looking completely out of touch and I thought, “I could do a hell of a lot better than him!”’

Peter wondered if Anton still thought similar things as he walked down the street.

‘It was the answer to my frustration,’ continued Anton. ‘No one was listening to my opinions as an out-of-work actor - but as a priest?’

‘So you began to dream of a pulpit.’

‘I knew I could sort out people’s lives, they just needed some good ideas and I have loads of those. I have ten ideas a minute! So enter Me, stage right! Don’t know why I didn’t think of it before really.’

Peter had been unconvinced.

‘There’s a thin line between compulsion and calling,’ he’d once said to a novice monk whose disdain for people was nudging him towards the hermit’s way. ‘They’re easily mistaken.’

But then who was Peter to say what constituted a true calling? Thinking ‘Why the hell not?’ was hardly a Damascus Road experience of light and love but perhaps it’s whatever gets you over the line and that did it for Anton. And then again, isn’t all talk of a ‘calling’ rather pompous anyway? Did a priest need more of a calling than a florist, a carpet layer or a second hand car salesman? Isn’t every job holy?

Anton had no doubt been helped in the church selection process by the colour of his skin. As a bastion of white middle-England the church needed a few different skin tones in the team photo to boost its fading credibility. So no one had asked any deep or challenging questions in the interviews. After all, deep and challenging questions would appear racist, the new unforgiveable sin. So no one, for instance, had asked Anton why he was terrified by all talk of pain? Peter might have raised that one - it seemed important somehow. Instead, however, the interview panel had all said ‘Great!’ and now here he was, early thirties, single, charming, shallow and cracking on in Stormhaven. He knew that he wouldn’t stay long in this backwater, but while he was here, he’d have some fun. And he’d be listened to!

Anton’s first year in the parish had seen a flood of new ventures, salvation by initiatives, but more of them started than completed. He loved a new idea until it became an old one and then he was bored. And if he was careless with people’s feelings, then perhaps they should just ‘get over it’ as he liked to say. ‘We’ll change this world together!’ he’d once said to the Abbot, playfully punching him in the abdomen. It hurt a great deal but what hurt more was the fact that the vicar had barely spoken to him since.

‘We must have lunch!’ Anton would sometimes declare. Peter would duly offer some dates and then hear nothing back.

Press him on the matter and Peter would tell you Anton was an idealist for the future because he was running from his past. A future fantasy was essential for him, a positive sense of things to come, of everyone moving forward to something better:

‘We’re moving into better times!’ he would often say in church.

But few nodded in agreement.

Mrs Edwina Pipe was not slow to offer an opinion and she had one about the vicar. She was a bitter woman, but she sometimes stumbled upon the truth, and Abbot Peter enjoyed their encounters.

‘That vicar’s all piss and wind,’ she’d once said while arranging the lilies.

Edwina Pipe, in her solid fifties but not beyond a few daring shots of colour in her hair, was a persistent flower arranger at St Michael’s. Otherwise, however, she held the church, its members, its rules and probably its God, in deep disdain and was therefore a valuable source for the darker information, the sort that went beyond the acceptable spite of community gossip.

‘You do know that Malcolm Flight is mad, don’t you?’ she once said. ‘He stood watching me for an hour the other day without moving! Who knows what’s going through that mind? Probably a pervert, I wouldn’t be surprised. Nothing surprises me!’

‘Nothing surprises me’ was Mrs Pipe’s hook line, her depressed, self-aggrandizing signature remark; but Abbot Peter reckoned a crucified vicar in her vestry might at least raise an eyebrow.

And if she was uncharitable about Anton, Peter struggled to be more positive, seeing little authentic about him except his fear. He talked about changing the world, as some vicars do. But in Peter’s experience, those who insist on changing the world do so only because they can’t change themselves.

‘The more frustrated we are with ourselves, the more passionately we harass others,’ he’d say.

Whatever the truth, things came to a head in the parish and it was only last night that Abbot Peter had chaired a Parish Meeting called by the Bishop to decide on the vicar’s future.

It had not been a happy last night on earth for Anton, both trial and execution. It was Stephen, the Bishop of Lewes, who had forced the vote through, much against the Abbot’s wishes. Peter had suggested time for reflection. But like one possessed, the Bishop would have none of it; he wanted blood, not reflection.

And this morning, he had it; all over the vestry, apparently.

Six

Like so many Christmas presents, it had simply been waiting for its moment.

So now the murderer took the virgin notebook from the shelf and started to write. The famous, the clever and the enlightened should always record what they do for posterity. This was their thought as they made their first entry in the murder diary.

‘My first day as a fugitive from the law. What do we call it, Day One? Strange feeling and who would have thought it? I am now a murderer, one of “those people” and suddenly beyond the pale. It’s comical in its way. Well, it is! Others look at me and neither know nor suspect. Why should they? I hardly suspect myself. I’m innocent! There’s a sense in which that’s true of course.

And really, I’m no different now. A lot of women wrote to the Yorkshire Ripper in prison and many sent him gifts. I read that somewhere. So it’s not as if murder makes you suddenly bad in a way that others aren’t. The women who sent presents to Peter Sutcliffe knew that, knew he wasn’t suddenly bad. Murder is part of normality, I haven’t stepped outside any circle.

I’ll return here.

It should be all right anyway. I’m still in the circle. It will all blow over, storm in a tea cup.’

Seven

The day before the murder

Tuesday, 16 December

Jennifer Gold was one of those heads who liked to be on the school gate at both the beginning and the end of the day. Here she sensed the undercurrents that swirl beneath the waters in every school community; here she saw people coming in every way possible.

‘My Gary says he’s being picked on again, Mrs Gold.’

Jodie was a poor excuse for a mother who somehow imagined herself a saint.

‘And you believe him?’

‘Why wouldn’t I believe him? He’s a good boy. Not an angel - .’

‘ - not an angel, no.’

Other teachers referred to him as ‘Wasteof’ as in ‘waste of space’, but not all staffroom insight was for sharing.

‘But he says he gets picked on,’ continued his mother.

‘By whom?’

‘By, well, I dunno - that’s for you to find out.’

‘Really?’

‘I’m just registering the complaint, that’s what I’m doing, standing up for my boy.’

Jennifer drew Jodie Daniels away from the milling crowd. ‘Mrs Daniels, Gary is very fortunate not to be excluded at present.’

‘Now you’re picking on him!’

‘Is his father around at the moment?’

‘What business is that of yours?’

‘He’s generally more settled when his dad is around.’

‘What exactly are you allegating?’

‘I want Gary to succeed as much as you do, Mrs Daniels. He has his SATs next year and I don’t want him to be dragging the school averages down. But unless he gets his act together he won’t make next year, do you understand me?’

‘No need to go into one.’

‘And it doesn’t help - are you listening, Mrs Daniels? - it doesn’t help him that you act as his unthinking, unquestioning mouthpiece.’

‘I’m his mother for God’s sake!’

‘Precisely. So act like his mother rather than his teenage sister. I’m on Gary’s side, believe me, but I won’t be on his side forever. Do you understand? And you won’t want to know me when I turn.’

‘I can have a word with him, I suppose.’

‘That would be a good idea, Mrs Daniels.’

Sadly however, this would not be the last confrontation of the day for Jennifer Gold. Tonight, there was an Extraordinary Parish Meeting that had ‘difficult’ written all over it. As one of the two church wardens of St Michael’s, she’d always been Anton’s greatest fan, but knew the forces ranged against him now. At the meeting tonight, the Bishop would be bringing his full armoury and aiming it at both her and the vicar.

***

Bishop Stephen liked his reputation of being firm but fair, even if it was one he’d bestowed upon himself. But the restless Reverend Stevie Wickham was certainly trying his patience.

‘Believe me, Stevie, it’s not a gender issue,’ he said in response to the accusation as they sat together in his study.

‘Really, Bishop? I simply don’t believe that if I was a man, I’d be sitting here having this conversation.’

‘Not true.’

‘I can think of at least five local clergy who enjoy a whisky more than I do.’

‘Let’s not be personal.’

‘Probably six.’

‘Really!’

‘But have any of them been reported for excessive drinking?’

‘I can’t of course comment on individual cases, Stevie. That would be most inappropriate.’

‘I’ll take that as a “No”. It doesn’t happen, you see. In male clergy, it’s an endearing trait, in female clergy, it’s a problem. Men are loveable rascals, women are sad old soaks.’

‘It’s my pastoral responsibility to follow up on these things,’ countered Bishop Stephen, with an overlay of sincerity. ‘The church has a reputation to maintain.’

‘And so do you, Bishop, don’t you? Of all the people to be lecturing me on alcohol, I’m not sure you’re the best choice.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘Well, I think we all read the story in the Sussex Silt.’

‘That rag!’

‘But often surprisingly true. Like the story it ran after you’d attended an event at the Town Hall involving generous servings of sherry. You apparently staggered out into the night rather worse for wear and got into a confrontation with some teenagers on Brighton sea front.’

‘Here we go again. Pure supposition!’

‘Several eye witnesses looked on as you challenged them to a fight after they’d apparently laughed at your briefcase.’

‘Shall we get back to you now, Stevie?’

‘What was the story? Oh yes, you raised your fists like a boxer and were shouting abuse at them, when a member of the public intervened. You then spun round, tried to punch them instead, lost your balance and fell over at which point they saw your purple shirt and said, “Oh my God - it’s a Bishop!”’

‘I have absolutely no recall of such an incident.’

‘Well you wouldn’t would you? For so many reasons. But when they called an ambulance, you were sober enough to realise the danger of appearing in some health service records, and so you got up from the pavement and made your escape.’

‘As I have said many times in response to these allegations, I have no recollection of the events you’ve described and if you think unsubstantiated gossip is going to help you -.’

‘Three adult witnesses, one of them a solicitor as I recall from the Silt. Did you sue the paper?’

‘You’re low-life, Stevie, and overweight: alcohol and weight issues. What is it with you fat people? Look at yourself, really! Do you really think that’s a good witness to Christ in the world?’

There was a tense silence in the room and a short while later the interview was terminated with various warnings. The Bishop hoped he’d made himself clear and it was good that he’d mentioned her weight. Someone needed to say it.

And with one nettle grasped he now anticipated another. The meeting tonight at St Michael’s would finally bring an end to the absurd tenure of the attention-seeking Reverend Anton Fontaine. Bishop Stephen was well aware that a clear-out of clergy was necessary in the area and he’d start tonight, whatever obstacles the irritating Abbot Peter put in his way.

***

‘So how’s Clare today?’

The therapist always started in this way and sometimes she answered and sometimes she just sat and wondered. It wasn’t an easy question to answer.

‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s OK.’

This was the third time she’d seen this therapist, who was called Jonathan and seemed pleasant enough. She’d never tried therapy before, never even thought about it. But she sat here now because there was a sense that life could be better in some indefinable way and a friend had said therapy was helping her. And it wasn’t as if Clare couldn’t afford it. The business left to her by her father, and which she had grown, meant that money was not on her particular worry list.

‘You haven’t asked about my childhood,’ she said.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘Isn’t that what you do with therapists? Blame everyone but yourself?’

‘If the client wishes to speak about their childhood it can be helpful.’

‘Who’d want to talk about their childhood? I want to go forwards not back!’

‘So you want to avoid your childhood?’

‘I’m not avoiding it. I just don’t see the point in going there and digging up old graves. I mean, who really benefits from that?’

‘We all rationalise our evasion in different ways.’

Clare sat quietly, feeling dark forces arising then settling. She didn’t need this, she wouldn’t be back, though who could tell, maybe she would? It just seemed such a long and exhausting walk back to the past.

‘I was offered a rather deficient form of parenting,’ she said in a matter-of-fact sort of a way.

‘How do you mean?’

How did she mean? She wanted to stay in control, no breaking down because what good would that do? She liked to prepare her lines for the therapist but she hadn’t prepared these.

‘My parents were no doubt fairly average human beings but seriously lacking in the parenting department.’

‘OK.’

‘And I’m still limping.’

‘You feel you’re limping?’

‘I wouldn’t be here if I could walk properly.’

‘OK. Most people might look at your life and say that you walk very well.’

‘I’m not interested in most people.’

‘What are you interested in?’

It was then that Clare remembered the meeting that night. It had been the talk of the parish, of course, but Clare was choosy where she got her gossip from, quality above quantity every time. Anton was a little boy really and not someone Clare could relate to with anything but distance. Yes, he made her laugh sometimes. But was that enough in a vicar? Shouldn’t a vicar be more than an entertainments officer? And the way he’d treated the curate, Sally, was hardly acceptable. Perhaps a worse idiot would replace him, but even so, she hoped he’d get the push tonight and she for one would not be sad to see the back of the Reverend Anton Fontaine.

‘What are you thinking?’ asked Jonathan.

***

‘Not a bad day, thank you very much, not a good day but not a bad day,’ said Betty as she led Sally, the parish curate, into the small front room of her sheltered housing flat.

‘That’s good,’ said Sally, glad of the warmth on this cold December day.

Betty was one of those church stalwarts who was easy to overlook. In a desperate attempt to make contact with new people, it was tempting for the church to forget those whose resilience had kept the show on the road down the years. And few had been more resilient than Betty Dodd, now in her eighty-sixth year.

‘You don’t want to worry about Betty!’ Anton had said to Sally in one of their weekly meetings. ‘She’d keep coming through a plague of locusts! It’s the new families we need to visit, the young professionals of Stormhaven. That’s where the action is and let’s be frank, where the money is. Whatever else the church is, it’s a business which needs to wipe its own financial nose.’

But though from a comfortable home, steeped in the mock-Tudor security of the middle-classes, Sally had spent her working life where the money wasn’t, with people who struggled to wipe their own financial nose.

‘So will you become vicar of St Michael’s after being the curate here?’ asked Betty.

‘It doesn’t really work like that,’ said Sally, evicting an unwanted crumb from her lap.

‘A curacy is a training post after which you go elsewhere.’

‘So you make all your mistakes with us and then leave?’

Sally blushed. She didn’t see herself as someone who made mistakes. But Betty was neither attacking Sally nor joking. She was simply stating a fact which was how she spoke.

‘I don’t think much of the new vicar,’ she said.

‘I suppose he’s finding his feet,’ said Sally, trying to stay loyal.

‘Perhaps you should find them before you start.’

It was a fair point.

‘They’re on the end of your legs, it’s not that hard. I’ve seen seven vicars at St Michael’s.’

‘Seven?’

‘You would have thought there’d be one good one.’

‘You seem angry, Betty.’

‘You’d be angry if you were me.’

There was something festering with Betty, but Sally decided to let it go. In ten minutes’ time, she had to be in Boat Street for a funeral visit. It was not the time to encourage emotional spillage.

‘Are you okay for the meeting tonight?’ she asked.

But as she left, the bigger concern for Sally was not whether Betty was okay for the evening’s gathering but whether she herself was. She knew that vicar/curate relationships were often difficult. Clergy friends were full of nightmare stories. As one curate, stuck with a particularly inadequate vicar, recently said to her, ‘How can such a dysfunctional man train anyone? Basil Fawlty would be an improvement.’

But of course her disappointment with Anton went way beyond training. She didn’t know what outcome she wished for from this evening; indeed it could be said she didn’t know very much at all at present.

***

Malcolm Flight sat in the supermarket canteen, sipping his coffee and reading a biography of the painter Lucien Freud. He was irritated by the writer’s style but, having spent all morning on the tills, he was glad to be away from the tense faces in the queue. He was a steady worker but not a fast one, and daily felt the resentment building as each item was passed through the scanner.

‘Can you go a little quicker, mate?’ they’d say, still two away from being served.

Comments such as that only made Malcolm slow down. Once a university graduate and IT expert, he was now a stubborn supermarket worker. If a customer at the till irritated him he’d put everything down, ring his bell and ask a colleague to find the price of an item, there was always something to query. This could all take a while and from Malcolm’s perspective, brought everything to a satisfying standstill. You didn’t have much power on the shop floor so moments like these had to be cherished.

Sometimes customers would throw down their shopping and storm out of the shop in frustration at the delay. The manager got angry but it was no skin off Malcolm’s nose.

‘Here, Malc, what’s the capital of Italy?’ asked one of his younger colleagues sharing the coffee break and doing a quiz.

‘Rome.’

‘Sweet!’

Malcolm was familiar with being a resource for quizzes and if it wasn’t the Prime Minister of Sweden or the last man to walk on the moon it was his colleagues’ problems with their computers.

‘So what are you saying, Malcolm? Is my laptop knackered?’ He didn’t mind. It gave him both a role in the store and a way to relate to people he didn’t really understand.

The coffee breaks were the highlight of his day, particularly so recently with things so tense at church. St Michael’s had once been his oasis but recent developments had ended all that. Anton had provoked Malcolm into a conflict he genuinely hated. Hopefully after the meeting tonight, he’d no longer be vicar; though whether that would assuage Malcolm’s rage was hard to tell.

***

‘And now I discover we have a traitor in our midst!’

‘I’d appreciate a knock.’

‘And I’d appreciate some loyalty!’

The Reverend Anton Fontaine had poked his head round the office door of Ginger Micklewhite, the church youth worker, who swung round menacingly to face the intruder.

‘I presume you’re going to explain yourself?’ said Ginger.

It was a challenge to combat.

Anton started: ‘You’re a member of the Third Order of Franciscans, I understand, a catholic organisation?’

He attempted a smile throughout the question.

‘And?’

‘So you don’t deny it?’

‘Why would I deny it? A catholic conscience is no longer treason in this country.’

‘Well, you may not have noticed, Ginger, but this is an Anglican church!’ said Anton airily. ‘The Roman Catholics are five minutes down the road - and four centuries behind us, ruled by a mad pope!’

‘It’s a Christian church,’ said Ginger. ‘That’s the only label I’m interested in. Now if you don’t mind - .’

‘It’s just something we should consider.’

‘What is?’

‘Not everyone loves the Romans as much as you seem to.’

‘I’ll tell you this once and once only,’ said Ginger moving towards him.

‘Calm down, Ginger!’ said Anton with a chummy squeal. ‘We don’t need to get heavy!’

Ginger was a large balding man in his forties, with staring eyes and a powerful physical frame. People could find him intimidating; even Mrs Pipe trod carefully around him.

‘Just chill out, man!’ said Anton, with an ‘innocent little me’ shrug of his shoulders, but Ginger was going to say his piece:

‘Francis of Assisi saved the church in the thirteenth century, saved it single-handedly. He reminded the church what it was about.’

‘So what is it about?’ said Anton. ‘So hard to know sometimes! Especially here at St Michael’s - it’s like trying to light a fire with wet wood!’

‘Unlike the priests of this time, St Francis showed some humility.’

‘Really? So what happened to yours?’ A look of intense hostility hit Anton.

‘Only joking!’ said the vicar, whose routine attacks were always well-sugared. ‘Why do you take everything so seriously?’

‘The Third Order or Tertiaries,’ continued Ginger, ‘follow the same Rule of Life as those in the enclosed order but work in the world-I do youth work.’

‘For now.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean you have a job for now - who knows about next week?’

‘I think you’d better go. But if you have any problems, Vicar, I suggest you take them up with the Bishop who we’ll all be seeing tonight.’

Fear briefly crossed Anton’s face.

‘Speaking of which, Ginger, I trust I can count on your support?’

‘Get out.’

‘As if I care anyway!’ said Anton, before sweeping out the door.

Eight

Wednesday, 17 December

Abbot Peter walked by the sea, his feet crunching the salty shingle. He had time to kill before the inspector’s arrival and liked this unclaimed space with its cormorant cries, brisk wind and early morning carpet of weed and crab. A late convert to the coast, the shore was now home, neither sea nor land, belonging to everyone and no one. The beach was an in-between place, a place of uncertain identity, which needed its own special by-laws. No dogs between May and October and people climbed on the groynes at their own risk. Rusting chains, set in concrete blocks, sat with overturned boats and discarded deck chairs.

The coast was never still, never yesterday, always today, a moving margin round this strange island, an adjustment of wave and stone, wind and rock. Always young and always old, the pebbles beneath his feet were freshly soaked yet 80 million years old, washed from the chalk, tough flinty survivors of this shifting and eroding landscape. He looked across to the beach huts, more recent arrivals on the scene. Peeling Edwardian sentinels of the crashing waves, all stood in line, doors locked for winter yet portents of summer sun. And rising above them all, above beach hut and briny, shingle and shore, the cream white cliffs, an erect expanse of chalk, which two miles on became the famous Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain. From there, you could look out as far as Dungeness in the east and Selsey Bill in the west. Or you could end it all by jumping the 530 feet onto the rocks and wash below. Beachy Head was one of the most notorious suicide spots in the world and the cliffs of Stormhaven had their stories too. Not everyone who walked up them walked back down again.

But Peter’s mind was with the matter in hand. He knew the deceased and knew him well. But more interesting was this: he also knew the killer. He did not yet know their identity but he’d be most surprised if it was not the work of one present at the meeting last night. The chemistry of relationship had been one of savage dissonance. And he’d heard the opening words of the phone call Anton received when everyone else had gone. He had clearly been talking to his killer; and his killer had clearly attended the meeting. The inspector might be interested to hear of that.

So what of last night? With four of the Parochial Council away on a pilgrimage in the Holy Land, including Roger Stills, the other church warden, there had been nine present in the parish room of St Michael’s, including Anton and himself. This left seven possible suspects: Ginger Micklewhite, the youth worker; Jennifer Gold, head teacher and church warden; Sally Appleby, the curate; Betty Dodd, long-standing member of the congregation; Malcolm Flight, treasurer, supermarket worker and painter; Clare Magnussen, successful businesswoman and Bishop Stephen, the Bishop of Lewes. One of those had wanted Anton dead. Perhaps they’d all wanted Anton dead, but one had acted with hammer and nails. One of them had stepped beyond acceptable spite.

The Abbot slipped on wet seaweed. Suddenly he was falling, tumbling down a pebble ridge; an ankle turned and his face slammed against hard stone. How quickly things change. Standing then falling, fearless then frightened, living then crucified, so much can change in a day, an hour, a moment. He lay still for a while, gathering his breath. He’d be all right, it was just a fall. He looked with a crab’s eye view at the beach huts where the gulls gathered for rest and preening. His lip was bleeding, fresh red blood stained his white handkerchief but not the quantities that this morning stained the vestry. It was time to haul himself up and get back to Sandy View.

An Inspector was coming to call.

Nine

This whole adventure had been an accidental affair and started quite by chance.

Digging last spring in the abandoned Armenian city of Ani, Gurdjieff and Soloviev had stumbled upon an exotic discovery. An underground passage led them down some broken steps to a cell of apparent monastic origin. Amid damp stone and torchlight, they discovered a niche in the wall stuffed with parchments of Armenian origin. Confusing numbers jostled with hieroglyphics and the two adventurers thought only of the price these might fetch in the market. Until Gurdjieff, skim reading one of the oldest sheets, noticed a clear reference to the Sarmoun Brotherhood and the city of Bokhara. All ideas of selling were forgotten.

Rumoured to have existed as far back as 2500BC in Babylonia, the Sarmoun Brotherhood was said to possess knowledge of the most secret human mysteries, expressed in a nine-point symbol. If the parchment revealed the whereabouts of this elusive sect, then was it not the most priceless object on earth? Over the following summer, Gurdjieff and Soloviev had travelled slowly across Central Asia to Bokhara, only to be met on arrival by silence or threat.

‘I suspect you will not be long in this city,’ the thin-fingered man had said as they drank his lemon.

***

After three more days of silence, they’d been on the point of returning west when an old man with no teeth and appalling breath approached them in the market. He made much of the need for discretion and privacy. Having withdrawn to an alleyway by the laundry, he said his name was Mussa and that he would take them to the Sarmouni but that as well as paying him, they must pay also for the services of his son.

‘My son will be most helpful,’ he said. ‘He knows this land like no other.’

‘So why cannot he take us instead of you?’ asked Gurdjieff.

‘He knows the land. But he does not know the donkeys.’

Eager to be on their way, the two young men paid in full and set off from Bokhara. With secrecy still demanded, they left at night to avoid public gaze.

‘Where is your son?’ Gurdjieff had asked, noticing only the one guide. He remembered the financial arrangements; he always remembered financial arrangements.

‘He has gone on ahead to ensure all things are safe. Now hurry, hurry.’

For twelve days they had travelled with the old man who whistled all day long through his scattered teeth. Lying exhausted by brushwood fires beneath big night skies, sleep came easily despite their hunger. The old man said they had not paid for food; had they wanted food, they should have said and it would have been included in the fee. Out of the kindness of his heart, he offered the occasional bleak biscuit and chunk of well-dried fruit, and, in this manner, they travelled until they reached the bridge. For the final two days, he had demanded they wear blindfolds.

‘Welcome to Hell’s Mouth,’ said Mussa, happy at last to announce truly bad news.

Before them was a rope bridge over a deep chasm. The adventure was suddenly dangerous as adventures should be. In his memoirs, Gurdjieff would call it the ‘perilous bridge’ and not far beyond, they were told, lay the Sarmouni settlement.

‘I go no further,’ said the old man.

‘But you promised to take us to the settlement itself. You can’t leave us here!’

‘You are not far away. Truly.’

‘Truly?’

‘It is a short walk only.’

‘You have made this walk yourself?’

‘Not myself. But my son - he says it is a short walk beyond the chasm.’

‘So you will not cross the bridge?’

‘I am old and ugly but not yet a fool.’

‘Yet you are you a liar.’

‘A liar? You call me a liar? My son will defend my honour!’

‘He’ll have to appear before he does,’ said Gurdjieff.

‘He went ahead.’

‘He blends in well with the scenery.’

‘Years of training.’

‘The invisible man. Who wouldn’t pay well to have the invisible man on their side?’

There was a pause in the conversation by the perilous bridge.

‘So you won’t kill me?’ asked the old man.

‘Kill you?’

‘You swear on the grave of your grandmother that you will not kill me?’

‘We will not kill you.’

‘Or hurt me?’

‘Or hurt you.’

‘This is good and honourable, you are good men and I am a liar. I do not have a son.’

And now laughter broke. Hungry, scared and swindled it was all they had the strength for.

‘You laugh because you are better?’ asked the old man, suddenly taking offence.

‘What?’

‘You laugh because you imagine yourselves better than me?’

‘No!’

‘You think I am the excrement and laugh at me like you are not?’

‘You are excrement,’ said Gurdjieff, regaining his seriousness quickly. ‘You lie, cheat and swindle. You let people down. You’re a large pile of it.’

‘Laugh at others but weep for yourselves too,’ said Mussa. ‘You are my brothers in the brown stuff, I think so.’

Soloviev looked uncomfortable.

‘We just seek the truth.’

‘As once did I, my friend, as once did I.’

‘So what happened?’

‘You reach a certain age, yes? And then realise you doing big waste of time.’

On leaving, Mussa took his donkeys with him. As he pointed out, they would be no use on the rope bridge. Gurdjieff and Soloviev watched him disappear. His last words had perhaps possessed a kinder edge.

‘I lie about many things. This I cannot help, learned from my mother. But I am not Mr Lie when I say the Sarmouni community is nearby.’

Gurdjieff felt the thrill again, the call again. It was time to see what they and this rope bridge were made of.

Ten

Anton had his critics but then everyone has their critics from the Buddha onwards.

***

Arch-critic Mrs Edwina Pipe, flower arranger and occasional haircolourer, said he changed everything and did nothing.

‘You watch, Abbot,’ she’d say, as she polished the chalice. ‘He only leaves his large vicarage for things which interest him - or for holidays abroad. And have you been inside? The Reverend Stone was here twenty years and couldn’t even get his door painted but this one? You wouldn’t recognise the place now and all done with the church’s money. He has a new power-shower in the old scullery. All that soaping of his body when he should be out visiting. Imagine it!’

Mrs Pipe appeared to be following her own instructions.

***

Everyone agreed, however, that Anton Fontaine had sorted out the parish finances. His first month in the job had been spent neither in the pulpit nor in pastoral care. Rather, he had settled down at his computer and had the time of his life, sorting out the figures. The change was instant, like dark clouds giving way to sun. For the first time in many years at St Michael’s, people knew how much money there was in the parish account. This was a particular revelation to the Treasurer. Malcolm Flight had been appointed to the role whilst absent from a meeting and much against his wishes. He was a man who so disliked banks that he refused to have a personal account. He seemed the obvious choice to Anton.

And almost everyone liked Anton on their first encounter. He wasn’t stuffy and he made them laugh with his impressions in the pub and his ability to burp at will. He loved hilarity and naughtiness and made jokes about body odour in sermons - which had its own delight after twenty-three years of the depressed Reverend Stone.

Yet like seeping oil on cardboard, unease stained the fabric of parish life. Anton got bored of you very quickly. He now wanted someone new to meet.

***

‘Well of course Ginger and the vicar don’t get on and never will,’ said Mrs Pipe to Abbot Peter one day. (He remembered her hair as being blue that week.)

Ginger Micklewhite, the middle-aged youth worker, had just stormed out of the church in deep fury, after reading a note left by Anton.

‘He won’t have a boss, that one! Ginger does his own thing and God help you if you get in the way. With him, you start as his enemy and make your careful way from there. But the vicar isn’t careful, you see. He isn’t careful at all.’

Ginger had been a youth worker in the parish longer than most could remember. Funded by the Local Authority in an arrangement he handled himself, he ran his own show, free of the church’s prying eyes. No one knew exactly what he did. By the time Ginger was at his desk, most of the parish were in front of the TV or asleep.

Everyone said he was doing a wonderful work with the young people of the area, but no one knew exactly what it was.

‘The vicar wants to flush him out,’ said Mrs Pipe. ‘I heard them talking in the vestry. Ginger said they must be upfront with each other; he likes to see all your cards on the table.’

‘And how did Anton reply?’

‘He says: “I don’t think you want me snooping around your little empire, Ginger. You might find I close it down!” Well! They weren’t the best of words, Abbot!’

***

At a meeting of the Parochial Church Council when Ginger was absent, it was Anton who’d asked the unspoken question:

‘Does anyone here actually know what Ginger does? I mean, really?’

Betty Dodd had said that he was very good with the young people but Betty was eighty-six and the fact remained that no one had seen anything of these young people in church, which was where they were meant to be surely?

‘They need their own space, their own culture in which to grow,’ said Ginger. ‘They won’t want to sing your songs and you wouldn’t want to sing theirs.’ And no one argued because they liked their songs and frankly, there was enough conflict in the world and Ginger could be so aggressive.

Certainly Betty Dodd didn’t argue. At her age, perhaps she was past arguing. She’d seen off six vicars in her time in Stormhaven, Anton was her seventh, and each had been equally disappointing; seven different disappointments. She was one of life’s servants, tucking in behind the leader, there to open up, close up, clear away and wash the toilets. Jennifer said she was loyal to a fault; that she should stand up for herself more. And then came what Edwina Pipe called the ‘Bogbrush’ affair.

‘He called her “Betty Bogbrush”,’ would you believe? Anton called her “Betty Bogbrush”!’

‘To her face?’ asked the Abbot.

‘Oh no. She’d left the room to go to the toilet but she heard him from the corridor. She was mortified.’

‘And Anton? How did he react?’

‘Oh, he thought it was all a great laugh.’

‘He does like a laugh.’

‘Well, she may have lived through two wars but something died in her that day. She never said anything, of course, but then you don’t, do you? You just wait.’

‘You know a lot,’ said Abbot Peter appreciatively as Mrs Pipe continued with the arrangement of dahlias.

‘Now of course she reckons that’s what everyone quietly thinks. Like the vicar, they smile to her face and laugh at her behind her back. Betty Bogbrush!’

Eleven

The Sarkar returned to his cave and washed his bearded face. His physical body was tired but his spiritual body alive to the events of the evening. As their leader, he had today presided over the Ceremony of the Key, an annual enactment of great significance in the Sarmoun community. It was a moving event and one that defined their strange calling in the world.

The community of monks and lay members would wait until the setting of the sun. Under the darkening sky of the Hindu Kush, a procession of men and women holding candles then led the community, intoning a dirge. The Sarkar would greet them and the procession would halt. The ritual then required a dervish to approach him. Arms crossed, and hands on his shoulders, he would kneel before the Sarkar. Upon being handed a large key, the dervish would then make his way to a carved door, set in a large square wooden box. The box itself was a strange and slightly ugly affair, angular, awkward and festooned with flags, swords and maces - the imagery of war, power, coercion and authority. The dervish then placed the key in the ornate lock and slowly turned it.

There was tension in the air. The dirge continued in deep and haunting mantra but the flickering light revealed nervous eyes. Could the key create beauty? Would the miracle happen this year? And then slow change, as the box began to slide apart. Through the guile of clever engineers, pieces of the box rearranged themselves, turning on pivots, mysterious in movement but transforming the scene. What had once been a locked and rectangular structure now became something quite other: a picture of orchards, sailing ships, gardens and birds in flight made from wood and cloth.

For those familiar with the ceremony, it was the visual confirmation of their chosen path. Newcomers, however, needed the allegory explained and the Sarkar’s words rarely changed: ‘It is based on the idea that all teaching, however good and true, curdles into something unnatural, institutionalised, like the box. It becomes locked in structures that deprive it of air. The key of deep truth wisely spoken transforms the situation. The key of the one we call True Human opens up the real joy and meaning of life.’

It was the purpose of the Sarmoun community to be True Human and store this truth, like bees stored honey. Indeed their name, ‘The Sarmouni’ meant ‘The bees’. And as the bees gathered their nectar from many different flowers, so the Sarmoun community gathered their knowledge from many different sources. It was a truth stored carefully, quietly and with little interest in labels, religious or otherwise. Some accused them of being Christians in disguise or Buddhists or Muslim sectarians; others claimed they harboured even more ancient beliefs from Babylonia. Such gossip was of no interest to the Sarkar, however. Let people say what they wished; it was truth rather than label which mattered. His only responsibility was to ensure the continuing quality of knowledge.

And this knowledge was not to be kept entirely secret. At certain points in history, an emissary would be sent into the world and the truth, like a white dove, released to fly. Had that time now come? The Sarkar would make that decision soon. If truth was unused by those with earthly power, it began to leak away and be lost to the world. Imbalance and disharmony followed. Perhaps the visitor was the man to restore balance and harmony. It was the young man’s passion that had impressed him; his refusal to be pushed away by doubting words.

Would he now make it to the settlement? There had apparently been problems with the journey but that was as it should be. Nothing good is gained cheaply. He knew the one called Gurdjieff had at least reached the chasm and the rope bridge but nothing had been heard of him since.

A moth landed on his thin fingers and climbed with difficulty onto his ring. He smiled at the success of the creature’s struggle. The omens were good.

Twelve

In preparation for the Detective Inspector’s visit, Abbot Peter wiped a small stain from his monk’s habit. On leaving the monastery, he’d had no other clothes. The desert doesn’t demand a large wardrobe and he’d found it simplest to continue with the same. The alternative was the outrageous choice of the clothes shop, an invention Peter still struggled with. He didn’t mind the second glances his habit brought and appreciated the simplicity it offered each day:

‘What shall I wear today, Peter?’

‘I shall wear what I wore yesterday.’

‘Is it fashionable?’

‘It covers my nakedness.’

***

He was currently on his knees, not in prayer but cleaning the carpet with dust pan and brush. One day, he would buy a vacuum cleaner but for now his mind was elsewhere. What would the Detective Inspector ask? Would he be treated as a suspect? What did he know that was important? He remembered the look the Bishop gave Jennifer at the end of the meeting and felt deep unease. Would the Detective Inspector wish to know such things or were they best kept to himself? St Augustine called the eye ‘the window on the soul’ but you could hardly condemn a man for a look, particularly when he was a Bishop.

Abbot Peter would have to be cautious. A man who lives alone can be dangerous when offered brief importance, becoming garrulous, too eager, intoxicated by the attention. And there would be a battle for authority, there always was. He would bestow it upon the Inspector as soon as he arrived, this was his way, bestow authority on the other from the off and then take it back slowly but steadily as time went by. In his arrogance, Abbot Peter worked for no one and bowed only to the exceptional.

And perhaps on reflection, as Peter rose from the floor with a well-filled dustpan, the Bishop and Jennifer deserved each other. Both displayed more weaponry than grace. Jennifer was the VWCW - Very Wonderful Church Warden. Head of the local primary school, she still found time to be Church Warden at St Michael’s. People said of her, ‘I don’t know how she does it!’ She’d been particularly wonderful during the interregnum. It literally means ‘between reigns’ and describes the time in a church’s life between one vicar leaving and another arriving. In most businesses, leaders are quickly exchanged, with new feet promptly placed under the desk. Not so in the Church of England. The interregnum at St Michael’s lasted almost a year during which time legal responsibility for the church fell on the shoulders of the church wardens. And the church wardens were the wonderful Jennifer and the vague Roger Stills, presently on pilgrimage in the Holy Land’s West Bank; and if his approach to St Michael’s was anything to go by, probably much exercised there by issues of health and safety.

Anton Fontaine had been the only applicant for the post; the only priest to respond to the advertisement in the Church Times. He had also been Jennifer’s appointment. The Bishop was known to have had reservations as did some members of the parish, if Edwina Pipe was to be believed.

‘The fact is,’ said Mrs Pipe as she removed the altar frontal and lowered her voice, ‘not everyone in Stormhaven wanted a black priest. It wasn’t racial or anything.’

‘Well, it was racial,’ corrected Abbot Peter.

‘It was racial, yes,’ agreed Mrs Pipe. ‘But fair’s fair, you had to ask the question: what could a black priest from London, who did dancing and the like, know about an English seaside town?’

‘What do you need to know?’ Peter had asked, wondering if Mrs Pipe placed him in the same category. After all, what does an Abbot from the desert know about an English seaside town? But she’d ignored him and carried on: ‘It was Jennifer who thought him the right appointment and though the Bishop could have overruled, he chose not to. It was almost like she had something on him!’

‘Perhaps the Bishop didn’t wish to appear racially prejudiced,’ said Abbot Peter. ‘It’s a pie easily thrown and one hard to clear up.’ Mrs Pipe attacked a stain with terrible force.

‘Though in my experience,’ added the Abbot, ‘a decision without some prejudice or other is a rare thing indeed.’

‘But then of course Sally arrived,’ said Mrs Pipe, letting the stain be. ‘So all unease was forgotten.’

‘She was wonderful - and reassuringly white?’

‘It’s Sally who runs the parish.’

***

Sally was the curate at Michael’s. She’d come to the parish after four years as a social worker. An excellent curate who everyone hoped would one day make someone an excellent... wife. People still thought like that in some seaside towns and, despite coming from Marlborough in land-locked Wiltshire, so did Sally, in a way. It was not public knowledge, but she was not unacquainted with dating sites.

‘Just testing the water!’ she’d say. ‘Nothing serious or anything! It’s just a laugh.’

Her most practical gift was remembering everyone’s name. She remembered adults’ names, children’s names, even the names of goldfish and distant relatives in photos on the mantelpiece. ‘And how’s Gerald getting along,’ she would ask Betty, having seen a photo of her great-nephew six months ago on his farm in the Australian outback. No one had asked about Gerald before; no one had even noticed the picture. Betty decided then and there that she would leave everything to Sally.

The children of Stormhaven also loved Sally. She visited their school and made dull lessons fun. One child spoke for many in a ‘Parish questionnaire’ when she said: ‘Sally makes me feel really special.’

Some wished she was their mother. Sally would say: ‘You have a very good mother of your own!’ even though she didn’t believe it.

Less public was the fact that Anton and Sally had shared a brief liaison. How do you describe these things? Mrs Pipe knew because she’d seen them in the vestry when they thought themselves alone. And so Abbot Peter knew because Mrs Pipe had to tell someone and this strange man in a habit was quietly reassuring and the most absorbent of listeners.

‘Locked away together in all that close confiding,’ said Mrs Pipe. ‘I mean, what else can you expect? It must happen all the time. They were certainly close when I saw them! You couldn’t fit a song sheet between them let alone a hymn book.’

Some said it was the reason the Bishop opposed the appointment of Anton. They claimed he feared Anton could not be trusted with his young protégé. Sally would go far. But he didn’t want her going too far with the Reverend Fontaine and thereby messing things up for herself. The Bishop had a paternal eye out for Sally.

And Mrs Pipe was right. The relationship between the two had emerged in the steady practice of professional contact. What exactly it became was not clear. Playful flirting? Excited friendship? Spilling desire? Whatever the answer, the relationship turned out to mean more to curate than vicar. Anton pulled back leaving Sally distraught, and subsequent hours on her knees availed little. And the pain overwhelmed her at the most awkward of times. She’d recently walked out of a wedding she was conducting. Sensing the approach of tears, she claimed her contact lenses were playing up and made for the vestry. She returned a few minutes later, red-eyed but in control.

Sally was aware of her error but then she’d had to know. Her mistake had occurred after Evening Prayer. She’d shared a kiss or two with Anton in the vestry. Sally had then pulled away and asked the question:

‘We need to know where we’re going with this, Anton. Are you thinking of marriage?’

‘You are joking!’ he’d said.

***

It takes a murder to make you realise how much you know, thought Abbot Peter as he laid out the shortbread on a plate bought in the charity shop. He could read the paper; the boy had just dropped it on his door step. But with the Detective Inspector due any moment, it made sense to reflect further on last night’s meeting. Other people and incidents now came to mind.

Take Malcolm Flight, for instance, the Treasurer who seemed to treasure very little. He worked in the supermarket by day and spent the rest of his life painting in the church. Mrs Pipe called him ‘The Ghost’.

‘I call him “The Ghost”,’ she said. ‘There I was, sitting in the church all on my ownsome, when suddenly from behind the pillar, this figure appears! Well - I fair jumped out of my seat in terror! That’s why I call him “The Ghost”. You never know where he is. And you never hear him, he just appears.’

Malcolm had fallen out with Anton when the vicar removed his triptych from the church. Malcolm felt this three-window portrayal of the crucifixion of Christ to be his best work. Anton said it was gloomy and depressing and put it in storage: ‘People do not come to church to hear depressing tales,’ he told Malcolm. ‘They’ve got enough of those at home! We all know you like the dark places, Malcolm, but in that, as in most things, you’re a freak! No offence.’

Anton would not have noticed Malcolm’s rage and it was unlikely Malcolm noticed it either, not being someone who knew how he felt. He did occasionally explode like a latter-day Vesuvius, when the hot lava inside him forced its way to the surface and then everyone ducked. The last occurrence had been in the supermarket when a colleague had taken his freezer gloves for the second time that day.

‘You’ll give them back to me!’ screamed Malcolm, when they met in the meat aisle, bringing the calm retail operation to a dramatic standstill for a moment.

‘It’s OK, mate,’ said the glove thief, shocked by the force of reaction. ‘Here they are, all right, I won’t take them again.’

‘I’ve never seen him like it,’ he later told Eva on the tills. ‘Like a flaming volcano!’

But while that was nine months ago, with a verbal warning from the manager attached, Malcolm’s feelings for Clare were more present. Clare Magnussen ran a van rental business and sometimes played the keyboard in church. (The old organ had been broken a while and no one was working too hard to repair it.) In business, Clare was hard, efficient and cool. In church, she was reliable and distant, restricting herself to particular company.

‘He’s so low-life,’ she sometimes said, explaining her dislike of someone. There were a large number of ‘untouchables’ as far as Clare, who operated her own unofficial ‘caste’ system, was concerned.

She was rumoured to be worth over a million pounds, not common in Stormhaven. But she spoke little of her money. She had money, it was hers, she’d worked for it and frankly, it was no one else’s business. Anton, however, had imagined it his and jokily suggested she give more of it to the church.

‘Your vans are loaded and so are you!’ he’d said. ‘So why don’t you make a large delivery here, you old miser! We need the cash!’

He’d also suggested a cosy trip to the cinema, just before the evening meeting, which Peter had overheard.

‘I’m not just a vicar,’ he’d said. ‘And you’re not just a very successful business lady. Does the ice queen ever thaw a little?’

Clare had been shocked. It was her shoulder Sally had cried on in the face of Anton’s rejection. Now the busy vicar was moving in so quickly on her, Clare was disgusted - if a little flattered.

But you couldn’t treat people like that. He would have to learn.

Thirteen

The first step is the hardest, for the first step is the choice, and all else, mere continuation. The decision is taken, the tone set and the feet follow. Certainly Gurdjieff hoped they would, as he allowed his weight and balance to leave the rock edge. Between him and the beckoning void below was nothing more than an untested old rope bridge.

Was this the only way to the Sarmoun Community? He’d no idea and the only one who did was now gone. He did not waste time in reflection, however; circumstances had their own logic. If the Sarmoun Community wished to stay hidden, they would hardly build wide highways to their door. Make truth difficult. No, impossible!

The other reality to consider as he stepped into the void was his solitude. Soloviev had also left him, unconvinced of the continuing wisdom of their journey.

‘Are we not brothers in the love of truth?’ Gurdjieff had asked on hearing Sol’s doubts.

‘There are limits to my love of truth, George Ivanovitch,’ said Sol. ‘I do not want to die seeking it.’

‘You die by not seeking it. Is it a half-life you wish for?’

‘I’ll do my best. I’ll make my way, do normal things like marry, have children and perhaps discover more in my waking than you will from the grave.’

‘Without truth, there is no waking,’ replied Gurdijieff . ‘You know these things. That is why you came here.’

‘And the Sarmouni will tell us all, I suppose? Everything there is to know - it is written somewhere? A stranger comes to their door, is taken inside and told all things? I don’t think so, George Ivanovitch.’

‘Once you believed in such knowledge, Sol. Once you believed in the existence of the secret symbol.’

‘The journey here,’ said Sol, ‘it’s given me time to think; there is little else to do on the back of an ass. And my question is this: what can any symbol reveal which you and I do not already know? I am thinking that perhaps I am the ass.’

They had both looked at the rope bridge, stretched across the darkness.

‘So it’s not fear that has brought this change of mind, Sol? Not the deep chasm which makes you a sudden convert to sleep?’

Gurdjieff knew it was finished. They’d had many adventures together; he’d led and Sol followed. But now his companion was keen to be gone, the friendship spent. They’d watched the skyline dim as their old guide disappeared into the distance. Soon it would be nightfall in the mountains.

‘I understand, my friend. You must be on your way,’ said Gurdjieff.

‘I must be on my way, yes.’

‘Then you live well and I will die well!’

They clasped each other firmly as they had done many times before. They both then turned, one toward the Silk Road and Bokhara and the other towards the chasm and the mystery beyond.

Neither looked back and George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff now crossed the bridge alone.

Fourteen

The night of the murder,

Tuesday, 16 December

The Bishop had opened the Extraordinary Parish Meeting. A large Episcopal cross dangled in dark wood over his purple shirt. As he always explained, it was from Africa, carved for him by some saint in poverty.

‘It’s his authenticity card,’ Anton would say. ‘Mention Africa and suddenly you’re compassionate, real, uber-spiritual.’

The Bishop’s black shoes were shiny and his briefcase to match. He was an organised fellow and eager to proceed with the business in hand.

‘In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.’ From his manner, he could have been ordering paper for the photocopier.

‘Amen,’ came the mumbled reply.

There was awkwardness in the air for any number of reasons but the email hadn’t helped. Bishop Stephen blamed the missing church warden, Roger Stills, who wisely left the country shortly afterwards on pilgrimage. The Bishop had sent Roger the agenda for the meeting, to be circulated to all members of the PCC. Unfortunately Roger also circulated the Bishop’s covering letter, in which he’d outlined in some detail Anton’s personal and professional deficiencies as well as Jennifer’s misguided and damaging role in his appointment. Once it was public, there was much dismay. The Bishop wouldn’t apologise, saying only that it was a private email, not intended for public view; Anton laughed it off as he always did, Jennifer was furious and Roger left for the relative peace of the West Bank.

‘Well, thank you for coming, my brothers and sisters in Christ!’ said Bishop Stephen, in true episcopal style. ‘We have a difficult evening ahead of us but we grow in faith not by walking round the nettles but by grasping them! Jesus always grasped nettles!’

The Bishop was in young middle age and ripe for advancement. With his gaunt features and greased back hair, Edwina Pipe had not taken to him either in appearance or manner. But she for one wasn’t going to judge him on the basis of how he looked.

‘After all,’ she said, ‘it’s not his fault he looks a Nazi war criminal.’

Despite attempts at bonhomie, which could be overwhelming, there was a purifying edge to Bishop Stephen. He spoke much and often about the need for reform. Nothing in the world was as it should be and however much he fingered his African cross and spoke of the dear Kenyan woman who gave it to him, people felt accused and attacked in his presence. And he was on the attack tonight.

‘It is good that your vicar, Anton, is with us,’ he continued, nodding slightly in his direction, without catching his eye. ‘As you know from the agenda, it’s his ministry at St Michael’s that we are gathered to discuss. I think we all acknowledge that it has been a difficult couple of years for St Michael’s.’

‘You mean a difficult couple of years for you,’ thought Jennifer.

‘And we meet here tonight,’ he continued, ‘to consider how things might be taken forward.’

‘In other words, how you might sack me?’ said Anton in a flippant manner. ‘You’ve been aching to get rid of me since my first day here. And now Roger has kindly circulated your covering email, I think we can all see why.’

‘You should remain calm, Anton, just as everyone else should remain - .’

But the Bishop didn’t finish his sentence. Jennifer intervened.

‘I’ve asked Abbot Peter to chair the meeting tonight,’ said Jennifer. ‘We thought he had the necessary qualifications. He is someone who both loves us and yet stands apart from us. He seemed ideal.’

‘Well, that’s wonderful,’ said the Bishop, his knuckles squeezed a creamy white. ‘I’m sure Abbot Peter will do a very good job in his own inimitable way. And who knows: perhaps we’ll discover why he still calls himself an Abbot when he’s six thousand miles from his monastery and in retirement!’

There was some uncomfortable shifting in seats.

‘I joke, of course,’ added the Bishop. ‘A naughty jester am I!’

‘I think we should move on, Bishop,’ said Jennifer. ‘Abbot Peter?’

***

Everyone later remembered his opening line. Indeed, it became something of a catchphrase in the parish, when something significant happened.

‘It’s all about the chemistry!’ they’d say, for that is how the Abbot had begun on that memorable night.

‘It’s all about the chemistry,’ he said. ‘We are a room of such dear people but the chemistry is uncomfortable. Ingredients react against each other, ingredients react with each other and it’s a dangerous mix. This is what I see.’

‘I see only a problem to be solved,’ said the Bishop, in a throwaway manner, ‘but don’t let me interrupt your desert meanderings!’

‘Managers see only performance, Bishop; love feels the energies beneath. And it’s those energies we need be aware of. A community has a choice. If it’s brave, it becomes a magic potion and rather wonderful. If it’s not brave, it becomes - well, it becomes a sea of poison. We must hope we are brave. I think we shall be; I think tonight we shall be heroes.’

But the heroes struggled that night. Of the nine gathered, three would soon die. The six left alive remembered only an evening they would rather forget. Despite the Abbot’s best efforts, the meeting started with an explosion and then fizzled towards an unconvincing end. It didn’t help that Anton effectively accused Ginger of being a paedophile.

‘Twice Mr Hucknell has complained about Ginger giving his son Tommy what is euphemistically called “refuge”.’

‘You know nothing!’ bawled Ginger, rising from his chair.

Abbot Peter met him on his way to Anton and guided him back to his seat.

‘We can’t be too careful in these matters,’ said Jennifer coolly. ‘This is a legitimate concern, Ginger. You may have been here a long time but no one is above investigation.’

‘Including you!’ hissed Ginger.

‘And what do you mean by that?’

But Ginger just stared.

‘We’ll try and keep listening to one another,’ said Abbot Peter. ‘And questions tend to be more helpful than accusations.’

There was a pause as people put their accusations away; or simply re-framed them. Sally Appleby twisted the knife gently with the observation that perhaps too many changes had taken place too fast under Anton’s leadership, leaving people somewhat breathless: ‘I know from what folk have said to me confidentially, that they have found it all a bit bewildering.’

Malcolm Flight agreed. He strongly felt that there should be more discussion before things were done, particularly with regard to paintings. He did, however, think the parish finances were in better order now. Clare Magnussen concurred, but said that as a general principle, people should not be pressured to give more money.

‘People give in many ways; the church should not obsess about money. I really think this. It does no favours to anyone to try and make them feel guilty!’

Anton said this was all very well and that he was sorry if Clare felt guilty but if there was no money, there was no church. Clare said that she didn’t feel guilty, that she was merely saying, at which point Jennifer intervened and talked generally about the need for good communication in any organisation. Ginger was more direct, saying that Anton did not understand the needs of the young people and that he should involve himself more. Anton said that he had suggested closer involvement but that Ginger had always blocked it:

‘You like to rule your own kingdom, Ginger. Foreign potentates are not welcome!’

Ginger said that simply wasn’t so with the venom of one who knew it simply was. He knew also that Anton had just crossed the line.

Betty remarked that work with children was very important and that there seemed to be more cleaning materials now, which was good but that she didn’t always know what was happening in the church what with all the changes, which made cleaning difficult sometimes - and were there any tables left at the forthcoming Christmas Fayre because a friend of hers, whose husband had died, had a lot of junk to get rid of?

‘And perhaps we have too,’ said the Bishop.

As the meeting regressed, Abbot Peter thought briefly of his father. He always thought of him when he encountered the number nine, though this evening was not the time to explain why. And when he thought of his father, it was not of the weak man with his rulebound wife who’d adopted him as a baby. His true father had been both bully and adventurer, who discovered a great secret in Afghanistan, became a spiritual teacher and fathered various children with his disciples. ‘The guru never sleeps alone,’ as they say. Young Peter was one of those who were given away. He was found another home which had never quite been one.

He’d first encountered his biological father at the age of 22 and met him only twice thereafter, shortly before he died in Paris. They’d met in New York, drunk ouzo together and talked. His father was there organizing groups, giving seminars, looking for publishers and being rude to people, which was one way to attract the wealthy to your cause. Peter had felt fascination rather than warmth towards this man, who treated him more as pupil than son. He found in him a mix of the fanciful and profound. He lied a great deal but lied with insight, which gave it a certain truth. Peter particularly remembered one remark his father had made:

‘Be outwardly courteous to all without distinction. But inwardly, stay free! Never put too much trust in anything.’

His father had never been courteous but he had stayed free.

But it was the ‘miracle of nine’ that evening that particularly brought his father to mind. For tonight, Peter was aware of a remarkable occurrence in the parish room of St Michael’s. The law of averages demanded that occasionally it was so yet he could not remember experiencing it before. This was remarkable! But whom could he tell? No one here would understand the nature of this miracle. Suddenly he wished to speak again with his father, he would understand.

It was, after all, his father who had taught him the strange and remarkable wisdom of the Enneagram and its nine pointed symbol.

Fifteen

The strongest safe is resistant to extreme violence; yet can be opened by a child with the key.

And so it was with the Sarmoun Community. They said nothing, wrote nothing, gave no address, invited no attention and placed dark chasms between themselves and the world. For hundreds of years they had gathered quietly in upper rooms and deep retreat, a brotherhood protecting the nine-pointed secret. Yet if a stranger, against all human odds, turned up at their gate then they were as welcome as the Messiah himself.

George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff arrived barely conscious on the back of a carpet seller’s cart. He’d been found wandering on the slopes, nineteen days after leaving Bokhara. Gurdjieff had lied to the carpet seller, an instinctive skill, claiming he was a member of the Brotherhood who had been attacked. He asked to be returned there for medical attention and the carpet seller believed him.

The rope bridge had proved surprisingly secure. Like a dead snake, it was more fearsome in appearance than reality. Gurdjieff had even paused midway, to contemplate the darkness beneath him. He’d smiled at its terror, in open taunt, daring it to take him now. He took on death as he took on people.

‘Hell’s mouth had no teeth,’ he later said. ‘It was not my time. It was not my time to join the skulls.’

But delight turned to frustration when no path appeared. After two days of wandering, all hope had ebbed, like the tide of the Black Sea where he played as a boy. He’d got water from a passing shepherd but no sense. The herdsman had known nothing of the Sarmouni and what use is the water of the ignorant? It saves the body, but kills the soul. Had Death merely bided his time? He cursed the shepherd but drank his water.

He even wondered if he should have listened to Soloviev, not something he had ever wondered before. His friend was safe in Bokhara, while he was dying like a fool beneath the frowning crags of the Hindu Kush. Was this madness or sanity, wisdom or nonsense? By the time the carpet seller found him, he was hallucinating a city of huge wealth where women were attending to his needs with extravagant care and precision. This was very good, this was better. Perhaps this was heaven, as the sun beat down?

He was brought back to earth lying on a merchant’s cart, cushioned by fine fabric destined for Samarkand. But he himself was destined for the Sarmouni.

Sixteen

Tuesday, 16 December

The weather that night had matched the meeting’s mood, stormy and hell-bent, ‘a right bag of spanners’ as Edwina Pipe would say. The furies had been building as Abbot Peter had approached the church, the water tossed and surly. One day the sea would overwhelm the steeped shingle and assault the land beyond. One day Stormhaven would experience the watery terror, this everyone knew. A fractured deck chair had flown across his path, a thing possessed, and the parish meeting was likewise. What hope for the landscape of the soul amid the surge of such turbulence?

‘I suggest we pause for tonight,’ said Peter. With ammunition exhausted and all spite spent, things had come to a natural end and no meeting should go much over the hour. ‘Perhaps enough has been said for now. It’s hard to be truthful, but we’ve done our best. Beyond the first truth, however, is the second truth. And to reach the second truth can take time.’

The Abbot had spoken of the first and second truth before but it was a new idea for the Bishop.

‘The Abbot will no doubt tell us what on earth he means!’ he said. ‘We should perhaps leave the riddles to Jesus.’

‘The first truth is the obvious pain,’ said Abbot Peter gently. ‘This has been spoken clearly enough. The second truth is pain’s flowering, the emerging resolution and this we have yet to reach. So if it’s acceptable with the Bishop, I suggest we go away and consider our part in this fracturing parish landscape. Perhaps we could then meet a week from now and consider how we might become a landscape reborn. I think our seaside town deserves it.’

‘A nice thought indeed, Abbot, but I’m afraid we are rather beyond such vagaries,’ said the Bishop.

‘Bishop -’ said Jennifer but her intervention was waved aside.

‘I’ve heard and seen enough,’ he continued. ‘It’s time we came to a decision. It is now well known - due to the publication of my private thoughts - that Anton was not my choice but Jennifer was persuasive and so he came. We have lived with that choice for two years now. But is it your wish that he remains? That is the question and it’s simple enough: stay or go? We will vote by hand raised, for as children of the light, we have nothing to hide.’

And so it was the brutal vote took place, each avoiding the glance of the other.

‘If you would like Anton to stay, please raise your hand.’

Eyes remained fixed on the floor as consequences were weighed.

‘Well?’ said the Bishop, tapping his prayer book with impatience.

Jennifer raised her hand and then, with a smile, Anton raised his as well.

‘I do have a vote, I trust?’

‘Thank you,’ said the Bishop, ignoring him entirely. ‘And now raise your hand if you would like the vicar to leave.’

Ginger’s hand was the first to be raised, followed by Clare’s and Malcolm’s. Sally was the next to raise hers with an apologetic glance towards Anton. Betty looked straight ahead as she raised hers.

‘Abstentions - or “Don’t knows” as they should be called?’ Abbot Peter raised his hand.

‘I thank you for your time, ladies and gentlemen, and I’m glad that we’ve been able to reach such a clear decision. My maths says that when five plays against one - the vicar cannot vote - five takes the day.’

‘With one abstention, Bishop,’ said Peter.

‘Don’t knows don’t change the world, Abbot. But thankfully others have had the courage to do that for you. I’ll be speaking with all those involved to effect a speedy end to this unfortunate affair. I declare the meeting concluded. Shall we close with the grace?’

Together they spoke the familiar words: ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, evermore, Amen.’

‘Safe travel home,’ said the Bishop.

‘A journey denied the second truth,’ said the Abbot in the Bishop’s ear. ‘This is sad.’

‘It’s life,’ said the Bishop as he returned his papers to his briefcase.

‘It’s your life,’ replied the Abbot.

‘I sometimes wonder if you really belong here, Peter?’ said the Bishop, placing an episcopal hand on his shoulder. ‘Have you ever thought of going somewhere you matter? Think about it.’

***

People gathered their things and prepared to leave. Peter noticed Jennifer’s look towards the Bishop, one of horror and incomprehension and then a brief exchange:

‘It was a joint decision to give Anton the job, Bishop. You included.’

‘We both know it was your call, Jennifer and it’s been a disaster.’

‘Anton has not been a disaster.’

‘If you think that, then you’re a pretty poor judge of disasters.’

And then Anton spoke up.

‘And what if I do not wish to leave, Bishop? What if my leaving would raise more questions about you than me, Bishop? Questions about your strange favourites, for instance?’

But the meeting had become a parting and there was no one left to hear. In time, Anton would make his way to the vestry. It would be the last walk of his life.

Seventeen

Wednesday, 17 December

The Detective Inspector would be arriving soon. Abbot Peter glanced down the road for signs of his approach. He looked for a car of quiet distinction, but saw only a lone paraglider, freshly launched from the cliffs, heading out towards the horizon. It was a clear, cold day and good for flying free.

He stepped away from the window and turned up his electric fire. He had a slight chill from events of the previous night. Someone usually gave him a lift after parish meetings, but last night, the practice of decency had died. Everyone had departed with their own thoughts and concerns, leaving the Abbot to walk home through dark rain and furious wind. His drenched habit now hung drying over the bath. It would need a visit to the dry cleaners soon, crusty with the salt. In the meantime, he had his second best habit to wear.

He’d remained in church after the meeting, staying with Anton. God knows, he was hardly a fan of the man but there was a way to proceed. Righteousness cannot advance through unrighteousness.

‘What’s done is not good, Anton,’ he’d said.

‘I didn’t get your vote, though, did I?’

‘The present got my vote. I was voting against the process in which we were trapped. The way we go about things is important.’

‘So’s my job and to me, slightly more urgent than the process, whatever that is!’

The Abbot paused. ‘What will you do now?’ he asked.

‘What will I do now? I’ll go to the vestry and make a CD of festive music for the Christmas Fayre. Life goes on. If I don’t get murdered, that is!’

Fear crippled Anton’s smile.

‘I think that’s unlikely,’ said the Abbot.

‘You didn’t see the look, did you? It was like nothing I’ve ever seen.’

‘What look?’

‘Look of a maniac.’

‘Who?’

At that point Anton’s mobile had rung in loud and jangly tones. He got up to answer it.

‘Really?’ he said, surprised at what he was hearing. ‘Well, that’s good, very good! I knew it would be all right, just knew it and thank you for your support... perhaps you should have said that at the meeting!... and then it wouldn’t have... good idea... very good idea... well, I’m alone now if you want to come round to the church.’

Peter heard no more, for Anton had left the room to continue the conversation, walking through the church and into the vestry. It was one of Peter’s memories of Anton, always on the move, particularly on the phone. It was as if he had to walk as he spoke. On this occasion, he left Peter without so much as a nod in his direction and they were the last living words he heard Anton speak, for the vicar of St Michael’s did not return to the parish room. Perhaps he forgot he was talking with the Abbot. Or perhaps it was a just a long call. Abruptly disowned, Peter sat for a while and listened to the storm, crashing against this battered place of worship, built on the site of a Norman church. He wished to be in his secret place but knew it was impossible now. And then he saw the candle.

The parish room was a modern development within the church and linked to the main church space by a glass door. Through this, Peter saw the candle flickering by the altar, a weak light in the dark. He decided to extinguish it before leaving, aware that Anton could be careless about such things. Peter would put it out and then head home. He pushed open the glass door and entered the church. The place was dark and steeped in the smell of hymn books and flowers. He walked up the centre aisle, red carpet beneath his feet. Erratic gusts slammed against the stained glass where saints walked with haloes through the storms of life. Three steps then took him up to the altar area. He climbed them carefully, licked his fingers, squeezed the burning wick into quiet submission and sensed a presence in the side aisle. He stopped still on the steps, peering into the deep shadows beyond the pillars. His heart beat with unfamiliar fear. And then something dropped on the metal grate; he was sure he heard something drop. Or was it the wind? No, something had dropped, something metallic. He stood motionless, awaiting night vision, seconds passed, a minute maybe two. He looked for movement but there was nothing and it was late. He took himself in hand. He walked down the altar steps and back down the centre aisle. The storm was making a fool of him, denying him peace.

He returned to the parish room for his coat, turned out the light and left the church by the main door, locking it after him. He cursed as he stepped into a large puddle forming around the blocked drain, appropriate baptism for the stormy journey home.

‘This didn’t happen in the desert.’

He walked down the old high street. It was sad to see so many shops at the lower end now boarded up and vacant. He crossed over the small roundabout and made his way up the Causeway to the sea front. From here, it was five salty minutes until he reached Sandy View. He turned towards the cliffs, lost to sight in the swirling wet. To the left lay the small homes that lined the front. To the right sat the beach huts, proud on the shingle edge. The sea was ponderous and heavy, troubled by the wind and crashing white wash with random force against the pebble coast. How long would these defences hold?

It was then that Abbot Peter saw the dim shape, a hunched figure appearing from behind the beach huts and now coming towards him. It was a familiar walk but what was she doing here, at this time and in this weather?

‘Good evening, Betty!’

‘Good evening, Abbot.’

And she carried on walking.

Eighteen

‘I am glad you made it,’ said the Sarkar. ‘Really most glad.’

‘It is good to be here,’ replied the young desperado, taking the floor cushion offered.

‘I must say, though, we did have our doubts.’

‘Doubts? Doubts about what?’

‘We began to fear you might not find us, my friend. You quite gave us the slip after the chasm.’

‘You knew I was coming?’

‘Of course we knew you were coming. We brought you here, didn’t we?’

‘No. I was brought here by a man called Mussa.’

‘Precisely.’

‘You mean - Mussa?’

The Sarkar took a sip of water and drew on his cigarette.

‘He works for me.’

‘Then he is a good actor. I never would have guessed he was on the side of light.’

‘Why so?’

‘He played the part of a coward, a swindler and a cheat. And played it most convincingly.’

‘Not everything in life is an act, my friend. If the Messiah were available for employment, I would employ him. Until then, I employ Mussa.’

Gurdjieff was unnerved by a sense of recognition. He had met this man before.

***

Three days had passed since he’d entered the gates of the Sarmoun Brotherhood. On arrival, he’d been taken to the wash house, invited to strip and then left alone to step naked and joyful into one of the large tubs of piping hot water. Gurdjieff had a passion for the scalding and groaned in delight. Clean and renewed, he found his old clothes taken and replaced by a sheepskin coat, belt and cap, familiar dervish garments. He liked his new clothes. Here was the Black Sea boy at one with the Hindu Kush! All life is precious and every day a prize!

Full of questions and ripe for revelation, he’d been given a tour of the settlement by one of the monks. ‘How many live here?’ he asked as they walked.

‘There is a community of around nine hundred souls.’

‘And these round buildings of stone and thatch which we pass: what are they?’

‘They are called Oratories and house members of the community. Each, as you see, is surrounded by vines and herb gardens, for which the oratory community is responsible.’

Gurdjieff could see why people came here. It was a good and peaceful place to live, ordered yet free. Here was movement but not wasted movement. This was his first and abiding impression of the Sarmoun community: movement but not wasted movement.

The monk spoke simply and left gaps between observations. Sometimes, he would walk without saying a word, inviting Gurdjieff to see with his own eyes and ask his own questions.

‘You are a quiet guide,’ said Gurdjieff at one point.

‘People must be taught to see for themselves,’ said the monk. ‘It’s not good to have everything pointed out. It makes people lazy and obese with second hand knowledge.’

Gurdjieff was taken aback. This had not been his understanding of teaching. Wasn’t the teacher meant to tell everything they knew?

‘But when the guide knows more than the guided?’ he probed.

‘Then the guide must restrain themselves.’

They walked on further in silence until Gurdjieff returned to questioning of a more basic sort.

‘How long has this community existed here?’ asked George Ivanovitch.

‘Allowing for one break, when Genghis Khan destroyed the nearby city of Balkh, the brotherhood has been in this place since records began.’

‘And when did records begin.’

‘We don’t know - there is no record of that.’

Guide and follower laughed together. It was the guide’s only joke and one he clearly treasured.

‘And what do you all believe? I have heard different things.’

‘We believe many things,’ said the guide. ‘We contain many approaches to life. But our motto is this: work produces sweet essence. That is the fire around which we gather.’

‘What sort of work?’

‘Work is spiritual, physical and mental.’

‘It’s true. Everyone seems to be doing something.’

‘Each member is a specialist in some sphere of activity: one might be a gardener, another a mathematician, another skilled in falconry. There are many skills. Here also are those skilled in medicine. We approach now a herbalist, for instance.’

An old man ahead was on his knees, tending a thick-leaved plant, rather ugly and small, with little by way of flower.

‘He grows the holy Chungari plant.’

‘A holy plant?’

‘It is called the herb of enlightenment.’

‘It doesn’t look much.’

‘Neither did the Christ. But a beautiful aroma, I think you will agree.’ As they drew close, it was like sweet honey in the air.

‘Literally, Chungari means ‘howness’ and is consumed by Dervishes at special times.’

‘Ah! The fuel of intoxication!’

‘It’s non-narcotic.’

They drew close to the shrub. Gurdjieff reached out to touch but the monk’s hand forbade him.

‘You can neither touch nor taste,’ he said. ‘This is not the time.’

It was to be a familiar and frustrating feature of the Sarmoun Community in these early days. Amid so much explained, so much was not. The visitor here experienced both openness and secrecy. You were made welcome but made also to wait.

‘You seem frustrated,’ said the guide.

‘Everything in this place is hidden!’ exclaimed Gurdjieff.

‘“Dervish” is Persian for “One who waits at the door”. You will not wait for ever.’

***

‘After we met in Bokhara, I decided to help you,’ said the host and in an instant, Gurdjieff realised with whom he spoke. This was the thin-fingered man he and Sol had met in Bokhara, in the room where they drank lemon. ‘Yes, I thought you displayed a grand spirit, determined and desperate. I saw quickly that your friend felt otherwise and I tried to separate you from him. It seems he did that himself later on. But you were different from most who enquire about the community. I felt you might not only want the truth but know also what to do with it.’

‘Hardly the impression you gave,’ said Gurdjieff, flattered but tetchy. ‘We almost gave up after meeting you. Had we not met Mussa we would have left Bokhara the following day. We’d never been so poorly treated as we were there.’

‘We do not encourage visitors yet delight to see them!’ said the Sarkar with a smile, eyes dancing beneath his cobalt-blue turban. ‘We are rather contrary in that way. But as I’m sure you understand, human motives are less than pure and people do not always seek us for the right reason.’

‘And what is the right reason?’

‘To nurture truth at the expense of self.’

‘Who on earth does that?’

‘Precisely. Most use truth to beat others and so lose it in themselves. Here, we use truth to die to ourselves and so keep it alive.’

‘So what truth can you tell me?’

The Sarkar smiled. Would this be the man? Would this be the man to take the teaching to Europe? There was both genius and tyrant sitting before him.

‘I am aware of a symbol,’ continued Gurdjieff with impatience. He was tired of all this waiting. ‘A nine-pointed symbol. That is why I came. But this is a secretive place.’

‘It is an open secret.’

‘An open secret closed to me?’

‘Open secrets closed only to those who will kill them.’

‘And am I such a one? Am I a killer of truth?’

It was time for decision. They had welcomed this young man into the community of the bees. Would they now allow him to taste the honey? Was it time the symbol was explained?

‘I think you are a friend of the truth, George Ivanovitch. An awkward friend and rather uncouth, but a friend nonetheless.’

The young man expanded in pride. He would not be pushed away any more. He would take on this ancient and discover the secrets of the Sarmouni.

‘So to repeat myself, Sir - what truth can you tell me?’ he asked.

‘I can tell you everything.’

‘Everything?’

‘Everything that has significance. If I do not know it, it is not significant.’

‘A big claim.’

‘A simple truth. Would you prefer I lie in self-effacement and pretend a more stupid self, like a giant in the clothing of dwarves or a lion claiming he is nothing but a fly?’

The enquirer thought of a test. He was always testing, he’d tested people all his life, never trusting.

‘So you can tell me if I shall be famous?’

‘Intriguing perhaps but not significant.’

‘Can you tell me how many stars there are in the sky?’

‘Awe inspiring but again, not significant. Numbers do not determine glory.’

‘So what is significant?’

‘That today might be the last day of your life.’

George Ivanovich laughed mockingly.’ But doesn’t everyone know that?! Everyone knows today could be the end of it all!’

The man in the turban paused.

‘Everyone knows it, my friend. But not everyone feels it. Everyone knows it as a theory but it’s only significant if felt in the marrow of your bones. Do you feel it in yours?’

The man in the turban stroked his beard and looked suddenly frail, his face gaunt with mortality. And then he continued:

‘What I offer is a different sort of knowing. I describe what it is to be human, the inner energies that create and destroy. Strangely, these things are not widely known. We know our height and our weight and the size of our shoe, things which dictate nothing in our lives; yet remain ignorant of the inner forces which dictate everything, which daily make us who and what we are.’

‘You claim we are puppets in the hands of these forces, our strings pulled unknowingly by their hands?’

‘You glimpse the truth. Truly, we do not know what we do and neither do we seem too concerned.’

Gurdjieff was not happy with this answer. For the first time since his arrival, he believed he was wasting his time. ‘We do not know what we do,’ said the man. Yet he, Gurdjieff, knew exactly what he did. He’d met charlatans before, claiming some special knowledge, some special way to hide their own sick minds which wanted only power. Or money. Indeed, it was a good deal easier to count those who weren’t fakes than those who were. A list of the former was a short one. His thoughts, though, were interrupted.

‘But in particular, I describe you!’ said the Sarker, with sudden delight, his eyes dancing.

‘Me? But how can you claim that? You do not know me!’

‘On the contrary, I know you better than you know yourself.’

‘Then you know my birthday?’

Testing again, seeking truth. He hadn’t come all this way for nonsense which appealed for a moment and disappointed for a lifetime.

‘I know what gives you birth.’

‘And what is that?’

‘We will not be personal so early. We’ll not grab hastily at the truth plant, for fear of crushing it. Those who are not ready for the truth, they kill it in their rough and stupid handling.’

The enquirer pondered these words in the heat of late afternoon.

‘How do you know these things?’

‘Let me show you something.’

Between host and visitor was a small table covered by a clean white cloth. The host now pulled the cloth from the table. There before the young man was a strange mosaic in polished wood, a mysterious symbol, a circle whose circumference displayed nine points.

‘It looks like the devil’s tool,’ said the visitor.

‘The devil may borrow it but I prefer to think it belongs to God. Indeed, some call it the nine faces of God.’

‘And what do you call it?’

The host covered the symbol with the cloth, hiding it once again from public gaze.

‘Tradition names it The Enneagram,’ he said.

‘And you?’

‘I follow tradition.’

A white dove landed in the cave’s entrance. Peaceful and pure, it paused a while, before flying high into the sky of the Hindu Kush.

Nineteen

The knock on the door found Abbot Peter gargling mouthwash. After twenty five years in the desert, where camel breath was not confined to the camels, dental care and fresh breath had been one of life’s late discoveries and eagerly embraced.

He opened the door to a pretty young girl with black hair and olive skin.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked, at once beguiled and irritated she’d come at a bad time. He might have enjoyed talking with her.

‘Is this Sandy View?’ she asked.

‘It is, my friend, but if you’ve come for the charity bags, I’m going to need another day. I forgot all about them and I’m now waiting for someone, due any minute. Otherwise I’d ask you in.’

‘Then let me confess something too.’

It had been a while since the Abbot heard a confession and this wasn’t the time.

‘You’re very welcome to return -.’

‘I’m the one for whom you wait,’ said the girl.

An edifice of preconception collapsed within Abbot Peter.

‘Oh I see.’

The girl smiled jauntily.

‘To assume makes an ass out of you and me,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that what they say?’

‘Mainly the smug, in my experience,’ replied the Abbot.

The girl’s demeanour suggested that she continued to enjoy her victory.

‘So you are the Detective Inspector?’ he said.

‘The clues were there.’

‘Not many.’

‘But enough perhaps.’

‘Circumstantial evidence maybe.’

‘That’s all you need to build a case.’

‘Something you do very well, no doubt.’

‘Thank you.’

‘No reason on earth why a Detective Inspector should be a man, of course.’

‘That’s true.’

‘Miss Marple was ever-popular in the desert. A sweet old lady but pushy and dangerous. My guess is that you too are pushy and dangerous.’

‘Flattery, flattery.’

Peter noted she took this as a compliment.

‘The surprise does not stop there, however,’ said the girl who was clearly now a woman. ‘There’s something else to be revealed.’

‘Really?’ said Abbot Peter.

‘Oh yes,’ she said, smiling.

Peter paused, allowing their first exchange to pass through him.

‘Isn’t one burning bush enough?’ he said. ‘A second might have left Moses confused.’

‘Who have you never met?’ asked the woman.

‘That would be a long list.’

‘Other people have met theirs.’

‘It’s quite early for riddles.’

‘They’re all around us.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re an angel. I’ve met angels and they generally bring nothing but trouble.’

‘Whether I’m an angel or not, I don’t know - but I am your niece.’ Abbot Peter inhaled deeply, strangely moved. He had not met a family member for over thirty years and had only the vaguest picture of his family tree. Indeed, as he’d once told Mrs Pipe when she’d been fishing for information: ‘From my present knowledge, Mrs Pipe, it’s more of a stick than a tree.’

‘My niece?’ he finally managed.

‘Your niece.’

‘I have a niece?’

‘And one more thing.’

Abbot Peter could not imagine one more thing. His mind was already a flooded valley of broken fence and wall. He held the door frame to steady himself.

‘And what is this one more thing?’

‘We’ll be working together on this case.’

‘The crucified vicar?’

‘The same. We’ll be working together. You’ve been granted Special Witness status. For good or ill, we’re a team. My name’s Tamsin Shah by the way. Now may I come in?’

Twenty

Stormhaven was unusually busy with both gossip and forensics as the facts of the matter emerged. The crucified vicar had been nailed to the cross on the wall of the vestry in St Michael’s. Early reports from the pathologist suggested the nails had been hammered home at midnight and that he died around 2.00am. He’d been taped to the cross and drugged with chloroform, prior to nailing. He was reckoned to have died of a heart attack and was known to have a weak heart.

News travelled fast and Malcolm was later to recount a conversation in the supermarket early that morning.

‘Crucifixion is just the worst thing ever for a weak heart,’ an earnest customer had said to Eva on the till.

‘Is that right?’

‘Terrible.’

‘That’s something to avoid then.’

‘Where possible.’

And then as Eva passed some mushroom soup across the scanner she reflected further on health issues.

‘So it’s like butter then.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Well that’s bad for the heart isn’t it?’

‘It is. But crucifixion’s worse.’

Only insiders, however, would have known why the cross was in the vestry. It had formerly stood in the main body of the church, on a stand above the altar. But Anton had found it too depressing for such public display in services.

‘The church needs to cheer up!’ he’d declared. ‘And move on. We are allowed to be happy, you know!’

Someone said an empty cross spoke of Easter, the human body no longer held by death but the vicar hadn’t seen that at all.

‘We mustn’t get sentimental,’ he said. ‘In the end, like an electric chair or guillotine, a cross is nothing more than an instrument of execution.’

And so it had become once again. His own.

***

Peter had ushered her inside, though whether it was his niece or the Detective Inspector he welcomed, he wasn’t sure. She’d refused the shortbread but seemed pleased at the offer of green tea. He’d bought it in error in the supermarket but it was a good mistake, broadening the horizons of his hospitality. He now had a choice of teas.

‘Builder’s tea or green?’ He liked the sound of that. ‘So what is a Special Witness?’ he asked, once the catering was complete. ‘I may not want to be one. As Socrates said, “There’s so much I have no need of”.’

He suspected he did want to be one. It was a continuing weakness that he was moved when asked to do something, as if some part of him, some unresolved aspect of his abandoned psyche needed this affirmation. And the step from murder fiction to murder for real had its own challenge and allure. He was a hunter, a hunter after truth and as he thought again of the little boy who was Anton Fontaine, he wished to hunt his murderer down.

‘It’s an idea on trial in the area, to promote a more earthed and insightful investigation,’ said Tamsin speaking like the police at a press conference. ‘A member of the public who is recognised as a trusted citizen of the affected community can now be brought in to assist the police. They’re involved in all aspects of the case, kept fully informed of developments and work closely with the officer leading the enquiry.’

‘Which in this case is you?’

‘Which in this case is me, yes. Chief Inspector Wonder has always thought I could go far, and when this came up, he couldn’t second me to the East Sussex force fast enough. He was a little hesitant about the use of a Special Witness for this one - it’s going to be high profile obviously, with a lot of public interest - but I persuaded him.’

Abbot Peter could imagine that, could imagine the persuasion.

‘If the scheme goes well, it could mushroom very quickly. We want it to succeed.’

‘The South Coast police leading the way?’

‘We’re always leading the way. The Met gets the press, but the imaginative work is elsewhere.’

‘The skill, I suppose, is in choosing the right Special Witness.’

‘That is important.’

‘A bad one could do serious damage.’

‘I’m sure that won’t be so with you,’ she said.

Abbot Peter smiled the smile of one who knew his own worth. The idea was ridiculous.

‘Well, will it?’ she asked.

There was both threat and panic in Tamsin’s voice. Abbot Peter responded with silence, returning to the solitude of his breathing as Tamsin became restless. It was time for him to take some of the authority back.

‘Well?’ she asked.

‘Well, what?’

‘Would you like to be a Special Witness?’

‘Why choose me?’

‘You were recommended.’

‘By whom?’

‘I can’t divulge that. They thought you’d be perfect for some reason. They said your whole life is an investigation.’

‘True in a way.’

‘And other soundings seemed positive. There will be certain forms to fill in, confidentiality agreements, that sort of thing. And you’ll have to work hard for your money.’

‘I’m paid?’

‘There is an allowance, yes.’

The Abbot dreamed briefly of a vacuum cleaner.

‘Well?’

‘Do you always fire so much at people in such a short space of time?’

‘We need to move quickly. There’s a vicar’s body hanging in the vestry and the Chief Inspector is already being harassed by the Bishop.’

‘I can sympathise. But why the panic in your voice? Who’s harassing you?’

‘I harass myself.’

‘I understand.’

‘So down to work.’

‘Maybe. But I’m still thinking about what you said earlier.’

Tamsin’s impatience was further inflamed.

‘What did I say?’

‘You said you were my niece.’

‘So?’

‘It’s hardly a casual opening line.’

‘It got me through the door.’

‘And that’s all it meant?’

‘This isn’t really the time, Abbot.’

‘When is the time to find lost family?’

Tamsin resisted.

‘It isn’t pertinent to the case in hand,’ she said.

‘Pertinent? I haven’t heard that word for a while.’

‘And the case is my job right now.’

Abbot Peter waited as the sea heaved, rose and collapsed on the stones. Things come and go, nothing remains and silence holds all. It was Tamsin who relented.

‘I’m the daughter of a half-sister you’ll not even know you have. Okay?’

‘Tell me her name.’

‘Is it important?’

‘It might be polite.’

Abbot Peter was considering another possibility. Was this newcomer a burglar or trickster? A fake phone call earlier and a simple visit now, before clearing him out. He had heard of such things. With her pretty face, many would succumb. Perhaps she had a less winning accomplice waiting outside. He hadn’t heard her car arrive. Perhaps there was a van parked a little down the road. And then he was wondering if she was the murderer herself, now come for him. Why had he let her in? News of a vicar crucified, followed by the arrival at his door of a pretty young Detective Inspector who claimed also to be his niece? The whole thing was unravelling in his mind and in danger of looking absurd. He would test things; he always tested things.

‘Tell me her name,’ he said. ‘The name of your mother,’

‘Do your tree lights not work?’ said Tamsin, noticing the quiet Christmas tree in the corner.

‘They worked briefly, looked rather fine and then gave up.’

‘The tree looks a little sad without them.’

‘They’ll be back. And the name of your mother?’

It was a battle of wills, as outside, gulls swooped in screeching delight. Inside, it was the focused against the devious.

‘My mother’s name is Marguerite,’ she said.

‘Marguerite?’

‘Yes.’

Abbot Peter smiled and blessed the time and tide of life. ‘Then you must remember me to her,’ he said. He was satisfied. He did know of a half-sister called Marguerite, the child of another of his father’s devotees. They’d never met but that was no surprise. He’d not seen his mother Yorii since the adoption and had been in the desert much too long to pursue the loose ends of his father’s other sexual outgoings. But Marguerite had a daughter and here she was now. A stranger is suddenly a relation and something is changed.

‘I will be a Special Witness,’ he said. ‘And I will be a good one. We have detective blood in us, in a way. Did you know that?’

‘I don’t really do families. The wording on my Mother’s Day card is very carefully chosen.’

‘Nothing too congratulatory or grateful? I understand. But did you ever hear about your grandfather?’

‘Not much, no. He was reckoned to be rather odd in my home, referred to with sighs and raised eyebrows. I’m not sure he can help us.’

‘On the contrary, he can help us a great deal.’

‘How?’

‘Well, he was so keen to find the truth he went all the way to Afghanistan. And what he found there might prove useful here.’

‘Whatever,’ said Tamsin managing to sound neither congratulatory nor grateful.

Twenty One

‘The Enneagram is a model of perpetual motion,’ continued the Sarkar. ‘More particularly, it is a model of perpetual creation and destruction.’

Gurdjieff sat motionless as he listened. All things were about to be explained. Would this be enlightenment or disappointment?

‘I will not tire you with the maths of it now, suffice to say the Enneagram symbol came into its present form only recently - in the fifteenth century.’

‘Five hundred years ago is hardly recent.’

‘It is in the truth game, my friend. It was then, of course, that Central Asia founded the modern theory of numbers by giving zero a separate symbol.’

‘We can study the maths another time, perhaps,’ said Gurdjieff. He had not come here for maths. He could count money; that was sufficient learning of numbers. ‘It is the human side of the story which interests me; both the creation and destruction, as you say.’

‘It is a mystery which I reveal to you, George Ivanovich, and mystery cannot be boxed. Those who box mystery, kill it. Do you understand?’

‘I understand.’

‘Yet it is also a mystery easily discerned and the veracity of which is readily perceived, even by the dull of mind.’

‘An open secret.’

‘Indeed, an open secret about you, me and anyone who ever walked the earth.’

‘It’s universal.’

‘And you will not find these things written down in any occult literature. Indeed, so great an importance was assigned to it by the enlightened, that they considered it necessary to keep all knowledge of the work a secret. As you know, we continue that tradition of secrecy here.’

‘I am well aware of that.’

He had not forgotten the disdain shown to Soloviev and himself in the market place of Bokara; his hands still bled from gripping the rope over the chasm and both his face and back bore the stain of heatstroke. He had suffered for their secrecy.

‘The Enneagram excels most obviously in its understanding of Man,’ said the Sarkar.

But suddenly Gurdjieff wished only for an understanding of women and in particular, the pretty girl who had just entered the cave. She approached them both and placed some water on the table. She was thanked by the Sarkar, who appeared a little surprised at her entrance. She glanced at the visitor and found his eyes settled on her. She was neither displeased nor greatly concerned, but having heard of the Russian traveller, she had wished to see for herself. Visitors from the world beyond were not common and the world beyond appealed to her. She wished to be away from the mountains of the Hindu Kush. Her first impression was of a swarthy young man, handsome in his dangerous way. And she knew all about dangerous men.

‘This is Yorii,’ said the Sarkar. ‘She is the daughter of one of our skilled carpenters.’

‘I am honoured to meet you, Yorii,’ said George Ivanovitch standing up to deliver a low bow.

Yorii nodded in appreciation.

‘Are you staying with us long?’ she asked.

‘I’m unsure,’ he said, smiling while looking to the Sarkar for help. ‘I am a guest, so it is not for me to say.’

‘Gurdjieff speaks well,’ said the Sarkar. ‘As he says, he is currently unsure and must remain so for a while. Who knows what patience and learning will bring? No life can ever be fenced in by prediction.’

The Sarkar dismissed the girl with a pause and slight movement of the head. The men were to continue alone. She bowed her head and left.

‘We were talking about creation and destruction,’ said the Sarkar. ‘That which brings life and that which destroys it.’

Gurdjieff was listening again. He knew how hard it was to discern between the two.

Twenty Two

Abbot Peter was subdued as Tamsin drove him along the seafront towards the scene of the crime, previously known as St Michael’s church. Without a car of his own, he usually enjoyed the luxury of a lift but not on this occasion. There was little pleasure for Peter in what lay ahead.

‘And now we must go and meet Anton,’ she’d said.

‘I already have,’ said the Abbot.

‘But only when he was alive, so there’s much you haven’t seen.’

Peter had no desire to see the body but Tamsin said it was necessary to see what was done and how. He’d said he could use his imagination, but she said that police work was not about imagination but facts, the hard facts and, for Peter, they didn’t get much harder than gazing on the crucified.

‘I do know about crucifixion,’ he’d said.

‘You know about a crucifixion two thousand years ago, but we’re not investigating that one. We’re investigating last night’s crucifixion of Anton Fontaine and you haven’t seen that. I’m not religious myself, but I think we’ll find the two bear little relation to one another.’

‘There are only so many things you can do with nails and a cross.’

‘Where are you on the autism continuum?’ she replied, as they drove up the hill towards the church.

***

The church was cordoned off. Formerly a place of worship, it was now mere corridor and passageway for scene of crime officers who cared little for their surroundings. They were here to solve a murder not pray for the world. Abbot Peter walked with Tamsin through the church towards the vestry. Much in demand, she spoke with efficiency to each of the men who waylaid her.

‘We’re not here to tiptoe around religious sensibilities, Sergeant. We’re here to find a murderer.’

‘Yes, Ma’am. And the lady who does the flowers?’

‘Is not allowed in. End of story.’

‘She says the flowers are already bought.’

‘Your point being?’

‘Just seems a wicked waste.’

Tamsin looked at him with dry incredulity.

‘Those were her words, Ma’am. “A wicked waste”, she said.’

‘Sergeant, at this particular moment, that’s you. A wicked waste of my time.’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

‘No flower lady.’

‘That’ll be Edwina Pipe,’ said Abbot Peter.

‘Then tell the Pipe woman to take them to a hospital or funeral parlour.’

‘She won’t be thrilled,’ added Peter.

‘No, but they might be. And isn’t that meant to be enough for Christians?’

The Abbot left her to her business and approached the vestry alone. He had no appetite for what lay ahead and stalled. Behind the door hung the crucified body of the man to whom he’d spoken to last night. Peter was one of life’s observers, but while he had an endless appetite for psychological darkness, the sight of physical pain held a strange terror. So here he was between a rock and a hard place. Behind him was the harridan Tamsin and before him, the vestry door. Which way to turn? His hand moved towards the handle.

Twenty Three

‘The crucified vicar story.’

‘What of it?’

‘Well, I was just wondering how we were going to work together on this one, Chief Inspector.’

The voice on the phone was smooth and compelling.

‘I wasn’t aware we were a partnership, Mr Channing.’

‘A right relationship between press and police is one of the great social partnerships, Chief Inspector, at the very heart of a healthy democracy!’

Wonder was slightly aggrieved that Martin Channing had managed to get through. He’d clearly charmed the switchboard but that would be the extent of his victory this morning: Channing, as editor of the Sussex Silt, was much too dangerous to be allowed near this investigation.

He may have been a newcomer to the south coast, but everyone now knew Channing. He’d just turned fifty when, three years ago, he chose the well-worn path of the rich from London to Brighton. It was the Prince of Wales, later to be King George IV, who’d started this trend in the late eighteenth century and it had never really stopped. London was for work, Brighton was for pleasure but Martin Channing combined the two, bringing his hobby with him. The former editor of a middle-England national - ‘chauffeured to Downing Street on a regular basis, those were the days but semi-retirement now, really, it’s not a proper job!’ - he edited the Sussex Silt and was apparently having the time of his life.

And the Silt? Everyone bad-mouthed the paper, you had to, it was one of the basic tests of human decency. At dinner parties around Brighton, believing in UFOs was entirely your choice; you could even hold a candle for private health care, the amendment of the human rights act and council-assisted places in private schools for the children of white witches. But whatever cause you espoused, you had to hate the Sussex Silt or face the disapproval of the politically righteous.

‘If the devil came back as a newspaper, he’d come back as the Silt!’

‘And so say all of us!’

The only footnote to all this decency and correctness and right thinking was that everyone read it. No one admitted to reading it, no one wanted to read it but everyone did read it. ‘My mother insists I get it for her. Really! But what can you do? And I did flick through a few pages when I visited last Saturday - appalling, of course!’

For a paper no one read, sales were huge which thrilled the advertisers and made it a publication with no little power. The genius of Channing was to bring to its pages just the right balance of moral outrage and despicable sleaze. The paper printed the darkest stories whilst at the same time complaining that decent people should not have to read such things. Readers could at once feel titillated and self-righteous. What more could anyone want?

‘As you know, Chief Inspector, we do like to get to the bottom of things at the Silt.

‘Yes, rock bottom on occasion.’

‘The truth is rarely pleasant.’

‘And the truth is rarely in your paper.’

‘Well, we all work under pressure, Chief Inspector, police and press alike, so let’s make a pact.’

‘A pact?’

‘I won’t mention the numerous miscarriages of justice perpetrated by the police if you’ll look past the occasional error made by the Silt.’

‘You make this sound like a negotiation, Mr Channing.’

‘All life is a negotiation, Richard!’

Richard? There it was again. He’s Richard when someone wants something. With his mother, it was only Richard if he was being told off.

But Channing wasn’t finished: ‘And if we can help the police along the way, then clearly it’s a win/win situation for us both.’

‘The case is under investigation and there’ll be a press conference when we have something to say.’

‘But who’s interested in the manicured revelations of a press conference, Chief Inspector? When with inside information, we could get the public to do your work for you.’

‘And how does that work exactly?’

‘I mean, how was it done, for instance? Put some meat on the bone for me. Is it true the vicar was naked? I’m hearing he may have been naked. Appalling if it’s true, not what anyone wants to read about - a naked vicar involved in some sex game presumably? We do not want our readers having to dwell on those images.’

‘So don’t mention the nakedness.’

‘We’ll have to mention the nakedness, Richard, because facts like these might just jog someone’s memory.’

‘Only the murderer’s I think. Who on reflection is probably one of your keenest readers.’

‘That’s a bit cruel, Richard! But we’re the good guys here and you do know that I’m just a phone call away if there’s any way we can help.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

‘Yes do. I sincerely believe, that at its core, the press, like the police, is a public service.’

‘Quite.’

‘Our motto is the truth; our practice is the fearless advocacy of the truth!’

The Chief Inspector, a history buff, recognised the quotation.

‘Isn’t that from the first edition of the News of the World, when it was founded in1843?’

‘It was a fine vision.’

‘It was, yes,’ said the Chief Inspector, with enough emphasis on the ‘was’ to make his point. Channing took the hit but sought the rainbow in the rain.

‘I’m denigrated by many, and perhaps deservedly so - God knows, I’m no saint, would never pretend to be - but I hope you at least see a little more of me, Chief Inspector, see beyond the cartoon figure to someone who really wants to make a difference here on the south coast. I suspect you do.’

‘I think we understand each other,’ acknowledged Wonder, liking the role he’d just been given.

‘You’re too clever, Richard, you can see through the flannel! Here I am, as one naked before you!’

‘So you won’t stir things, Martin?’ Martin? Now he was doing it.

‘You have my word, Richard.’

Twenty Four

Abbot Peter knew about crucifixion, at least as a religious professional. The crucifixion of Christ was the famous example of this barbaric form of execution but the Romans crucified people in their thousands, leaving their rotting corpses up for as long as they would hang. It was an inefficient form of execution but then that was part of its appeal. Death could take hours or days, depending on the strength and will of the victim. But bodies hanging in such pain and humiliation were reckoned a good deterrent to lawbreakers. No one much wanted to join them there.

It was Jesus, though, who made the cross famous; he alone who ensured that necks across the world would be decorated with crucifixes, silver and gold. How a fashion accessory could emerge from such an event remained a mystery to Peter for it was blood and agony from beginning to end. Prior to execution, Jesus’ back would have been scourged, using the ‘flagrum’ - a whip of leather strands with small pieces of bone and metal attached. Such was the damage done to the spine by this device that unconsciousness and sometimes death occurred through loss of blood.

If the victim survived, they then carried the cross bar to the site of execution, where seven inch nails were driven through the wrists. They would hit the median nerve, sending pain up through the arms, shoulders and neck. The body was then turned slightly, to allow the feet to be nailed to the pole. The cross was then swung up into the air, at which point the body strain was such that dislocation of both shoulder and elbow joints was inevitable. With only shallow breathing possible, loss of blood and lack of oxygen could then cause severe cramps and unconsciousness.

Remarkably, medical opinion still debates what ultimately causes death for the crucified. Archaeological evidence is rare, for the simple reason that crucified bodies were never buried; and the one that was, unhelpfully claimed resurrection. But the death of the crucified was not a complete mystery. Although the fatal blow for one victim might not be that of another, amid loss of blood, collapsed lungs, multiple dislocations, cardiac rupture and unrelenting agony, perhaps heart failure, hypovolemic shock, exhaustion or asphyxia were the most common ends.

But now Abbot Peter must look on the crucified himself and a sense of shame passed through him. He’d always spoken mockingly of Jesus’ weak followers who had made themselves scarce after his arrest. Only four brave souls had the guts to stand by the cross in solidarity with Jesus, three of them women and one of those his mother. ‘Fair weather friends’ Peter called the others in his sermons - ‘friends who disappeared when the Roman heat was on.’ And now he understood why. Who’d want to witness that? They’d been terrified and so was he. Behind the vestry door was the crucified vicar with whom he’d spent many hours. And he too wanted only to run away.

God help you when your dream comes true, thought Abbot Peter. He had so wanted to meet a Detective Inspector. And right now, as he pushed open the vestry door, he was rather wishing he hadn’t.

Twenty Five

The killer took the notebook from the shelf again. It had found a role in life at last. It was now the murder diary. Or the diary of a murderer, was that better? Book titles were so hard. This probably wasn’t the intended use when the notebook was wrapped in festive paper and left below the Christmas tree in church. But we cannot legislate what others will do with our kindness and nor should we try. The murderer started to write:

‘The church is a beehive of activity. Strange how quickly everything is changed. Busy bees in their investigation clothes investigating. Though to me it feels more like a game of snakes and ladders. What a nasty game, I could never play that. But hopefully they will encounter more snakes than ladders.

I saw that pushy woman detective with Abbot Peter traipsing behind. It’s like watching the Queen and Prince Philip. I hate pushy women, really hate them. It’s good to use the word “hate”. That feels good and I think I can use it now I’ve killed. Before you kill someone you imagine yourself too nice to hate. But after killing someone, you’re free of all that self-deception, all that nonsense. Everyone hates; but some of us are honest enough to acknowledge it and blessed are the honest.

My fans may want me as the sole murderer but it takes two to tango. Murder requires teamwork. If you can call it that.’

Twenty Six

Peter gazed on the naked figure of Anton, taped and nailed, head hanging, the shock on his face, blood dry around the wrists, feet taped but not nailed. No nails in the feet. Strange. Had the murderer experienced a failure of nerve? Been disturbed? Or simply lost interest?

Scene of crime tape denied Peter the closeness he desired. Before entering, he had wanted only distance but now longed only to be close. He longed to touch Anton, bless the cold body, kiss it even, but was under strict instructions. And so he stood and gazed at a measured distance like a visitor in an art gallery. It was the saddest of pictures, a black Christ - no Messiah certainly, but still a keeper of the divine spark, and now savagely pierced.

‘I’m sorry they were not better days, Anton,’ he said, looking into the surprised and open eyes.

He wished to speak to him, give body to his thoughts. It’s what talk therapy does, it puts inner things out there, gives them air and visible shape. Abbot Peter needed this now. ‘I’m sorry for the fears you had to run from, my friend, and the abandonment at the end. You were worth more than your last night on earth. You laughed it off, you always laughed it off; you laughed it off and moved on because to feel it would have killed you. But now something else - or rather someone else - has done that. Who was it, my friend? Who killed you, Anton? Do you have anything to say?’

Peter paused, waiting for the dead to speak. Perhaps the body would rip its arm from the wood and write the murderer’s name on the wall.

‘Did you see them, Anton, you must have seen them... you knew they were coming, you spoke to them on the phone... and how was it done and why?... and don’t worry, I won’t judge... how could I ever judge?’

Just then, the door opened and a scene of crime officer popped his head round. If surprised at finding a figure in a monk’s habit talking with a dead man, he didn’t show it.

‘If I could be left alone for a moment,’ said Peter.

‘Of course,’ he said and the door closed again.

Peter looked again on the figure but knew Anton had gone, Anton the person, Anton’s spirit, these things had gone, no longer having need of this carcass. Peter’s time was done, there were more voices outside. This wasn’t an art gallery or even now a church; this was a murder scene, a brutalised space and still an open wound.

‘Goodbye, my friend. And whether you will care, I don’t know - but I will find the one who did this.’