Lives were like drops of water, one of his teachers had told him shortly before his ordination: fragile, precious and so quickly gone.
Patterson wondered how many he would see go in his position as a chaplain, lives taken not by old age or disease but by violence. By explosions, by bullets. By war.
He would see men die, he knew that. But he had no fear for his own life. Why should he?
As he rounded a corner he saw the first splash of colour.
Red. Vivid and almost dazzling.
The colour of blood.
It took him a second to realise that the paint was spattered across a headstone.
Patterson took several hesitant steps towards the stone, his eyes narrowed against the sun which was burning so brightly above him.
He saw that the paint was also on another stone.
He made out letters this time. Words.
GOD IS FUCKED
smeared on a white marble stone.
CHRIST CUNT
scrawled over a plinth.
‘Oh no,’ Patterson whispered.
Another headstone had been smashed, shattered by a heavy instrument. Pieces of stone were scattered over the dark earth.
He saw something else on the ground near by, on a grave.
It was excrement.
More of it was smeared on a white marble headstone close to him.
Patterson shook his head.
Not again.
One of the graves had been dug up.
He hurried across to it and saw that the stone had not been touched but, instead, daubed with something. A symbol. A shape?
Earth was scattered everywhere. The coffin was lying at the graveside, the top smashed in. There was more paint on the polished wood, more writing.
CUNT
Further on, to his left, he saw more earth had been disturbed. Another box had been disinterred, dragged from its resting place so that it stood almost vertically in the dirt.
There was black paint on the lid of that box and, again, no words, just a symbol. The same symbol as had been painted on the gravestone.
It took Patterson a moment to realise what it was. His mind was reeling.
In red on the stone. In black on the casket.
The sign he saw was a pentagram.
Twenty-five
There was a sharp crackle as another wasp flew into the ‘Insectocutor’ mounted on the wall of the cafe.
Catherine Reed looked up and noticed that there were already half a dozen charred shapes displayed on the glowing blue bars, like tiny hunters’ trophies.
Apart from herself and Phillip Cross, there were only five people in the cafe.
A couple was chatting and laughing at a table close to the door. Over to her right a man was poring over a newspaper, one finger constantly pushing his tea cup from side to side on the Formica-topped table.
One of the white-aproned waiters was chatting to a young woman who had a map of London laid out on the table before her. Cath watched as the waiter pointed to the map every now and then.
An older man, rugged and unkempt, sat alone in one of the booths at the far end of the cafe, an overcoat wrapped around him, despite the warmth inside the building. Steam rose in a steady cloud from the top of the tea urn perched behind the counter, where two more members of staff were talking while one buttered bread.
A television set, the sound turned down, sat high in one corner close to the door, the performers speaking and moving silently for those who cared to glance at them.
The air smelled of fried food and coffee.
Phillip Cross took a sip of his tea and looked at Cath. ‘How did your meal go last night?’ he asked, trying to inject some kind of interest into his voice.
‘Your brother, wasn’t it?’
Cath regarded him silently for a moment.
‘He’s got a few problems at the moment,’ she said, quietly.
‘What time did he leave?’
‘About eleven. Why?’
Cross shrugged.
‘Just curious,’ he said, pushing a forkful of chips into his mouth.
‘It was my brother, Phil,’ Cath said, irritably.
‘Well, I’ve only got your word for that, haven’t I?’
‘Are you calling me a liar?’ She leaned forward, lowering her voice slightly.
‘Look, even if it wasn’t my brother, it’s none of your fucking business who I have at my flat.’
‘What about us?’
‘What about us? We’re not married, for Christ’s sake. When are you going to accept that this isn’t some big bloody romance, Phil? We both agreed we didn’t want any ties.’
‘You didn’t want any ties,’ he corrected her.
‘So now what? You want a commitment from me?’ she snapped.
There was another sharp hiss of electricity as one more wasp struck the glowing blue bars.
‘Look, I don’t mean to pressure you, Cath,’ Cross replied. ‘Maybe you’re right. Perhaps I’m coming on a bit too strong. But I think a lot of you.’
She smiled. ‘Thanks.’
‘Why do I get the feeling that it’s not reciprocated?’ Cross added bitterly.
‘I’ve been on my own a long time, Phil’ she told him. ‘I like my own company.
I’ve been in relationships before and they always end up getting too heavy.’
‘It was with the wrong guys’ he offered.
She looked at him over the rim of her cup.
‘And what if you’re the wrong guy too? Where does that leave me?’
‘Me. I. Myself. This conversation is a bit one-sided, isn’t it? Haven’t you ever stopped to think about my bloody feelings?’
‘This isn’t the time or the place, Phil-‘ she began.
‘It never is’ he hissed.
They sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity.
Cath reached into her handbag and pulled out a packet of cigarettes.
‘Do you mind?’ she asked, noticing that he was still eating.
Cross shook his head.
She lit up.
‘So, what sort of morning have you had?’ she asked, a smile hovering on her lips.
Cross shook his head, trying to keep a straight face but failing.
‘I should fucking hate you’ he said, grinning.
‘I wouldn’t blame you if you did.’
‘All I’m asking is that you see things from my point of view. I don’t think you realise how much I think of you.’
She took a drag on her cigarette and nodded slowly.
‘I think I do’ she said quietly.
The face of a newsreader glared out at her from the silent television screen.
Something flashed onto the screen. Uniformed policemen.
A graveyard.
The caption at the bottom of the picture read: Croydon Cemetery.
Cath got to her feet and hurried across to the TV set, curious glances following her sudden movement. She turned up the sound and stood close to the set, staring at it as if hypnotised.
She heard the voice of the priest. The caption told her his name was Colin Patterson.
‘.. . third time this kind of thing has happened here in less than two months.
I find it disgusting and I think the people who did this need help. It’s appalling…’
‘Wasn’t that where you said there’d been desecrations a few days ago?’ Cath called to Cross, who had now turned in his seat to look at the screen.
Other faces, too, were glancing at the set.
‘I’ve still got the pictures at home’ the photographer said.
‘We never ran anything on it, did we?’
‘They stuck a couple of columns inside. I think they used one small photo.’
‘Croydon Cemetery’ Cath murmured to herself.
The picture changed, the story shifted. The newsreader was talking about a new school in Hampstead.
Cath turned the sound back down.
As she sat down at the table she ground out what was left of her cigarette.
‘Didn’t you say there’d been other desecrations there, before you took those photos a couple of days ago?’ she asked, her gaze fixed on Cross.