book title

Fiona Mitchell had spent another cold and lonely night in the spare room. The evening before, she'd argued with her partner Ruby about whether or not to contact the police regarding their appeal for kids who’d been in Our Lady and St Patrick's between 1980 and 1985. Ruby had made it clear she should let sleeping dogs lie. Her words echoed in Fiona’s head, rarely did anything good come from digging up the past, especially when dealing with the Catholic Church. The internet was full of historic cases of child abuse in the UK and US.

It seemed that priests had a lot to answer for, the fact the Vatican claimed they’d been dealing with these fallen angels only made things worse. Reports suggested otherwise, and accusations of cover-ups gained attention in the 1980s right the way through to the 90s, up to the present day. The Boston Globe blew the lid off widespread abuse in the US! Leading to a critically acclaimed movie called Spotlight, starring Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton.

Danielle knew Ruby only wanted to protect her from opening up the deeply painful wounds that haunted her even now, thirty years later. On reflection, Ruby was right, but her beloved Rubes had not replied to her grovelling text, probably in a lecture at Leek College, she thought trying to reassure herself. She'd already planned the making-up meal and a 90s chick-flick for that evening in her head.

Danielle slipped on her dressing gown and headed down the narrow stairwell leading onto the second-floor landing. The clanging of the stiff brass letterbox flap signalled the post had been delivered.

Now in the hallway, Danielle scooped up the mail and sifted through it, briefly her eyes skimmed the annoying Able World brochure offering mobility scooters, commodes, lift-up chairs and all manner of aides for the elderly and disabled. She screwed it up and volleyed the offending cold drop mail across the terracotta tiles. The rest of the mail was bills and bank statements apart from a banal looking white envelope with their address hand-written in Black Biro on the envelope.

Someone knows what we did. I’ve discovered old church records that reveal the identity of THE SHEPHERD, and now it’s time for him to face Judgement, we need to talk.