“Prosze ksiedza… ” said Kazek.
“Nie tak oficjalnie,” said Father Tommy.
“You speak Polish?” I asked him. He was as Irish as a peat bog.
“I was a great fan of his late beloved Holiness,” he said. “I learned a bit in case I ever met him. And no, I never did. Not in this life anyway, plenty time later.”
“Well, thank God for it,” I said. “I’m in serious need of someone who can talk to Kazek and tell me what the-what’s going on.”
“I would dearly love to know what the-what’s going on myself, Jessie,” said Father Tommy. “But these children are out on their feet. Let’s get them settled and then we can talk, eh?”
Which is how it came to pass that Ruby and Dill got the couch and Father Tommy, Kazek, and me sat in a row on my bed like the first line of a dirty joke.
“Absconded from where?” I said.
“JM Barrie House,” said Father Tommy.
“That’s it!” I said. “That’s why he kept saying jamboree.”
“Nie ukradlem zadnych pieniedzy,” said Kazek. “Nie jestem zlodziejem.”
“Well you might not think taking fifty thousand pounds makes you a thief, but we’ll have to agree to differ.”
“He’s right,” I said. “He’s not a thief. Show him, Kazek.”
Kazek stretched over to my nightstand and took out the Morry’s bag. He untied the handles, just as he had before, and shook out the two blocks of notes.
“Well now,” said Father Tommy. “That’s excellent news. That makes things a sight more easy.”
“Don’t be so sure,” I said. “The other one-Wojtek, Kazek’s friend?-it’s him they fished out of the Nith with his throat cut.” Father Tommy crossed himself and asked Kazek a question. Kazek nodded and wiped a tear away.
“And we know who killed him,” I said. “Or at least, I thought we did, until, maybe it was… Okay listen, Father.” I stood and went to my dressing table, got the camera that I’d left there.
“What do you know about this guy?”
“Gary Boyes,” said Father Tommy. “Hey! Is that the Project?”
“He’s a gangster,” I said. “He might have killed Wojtek. Or had him killed anyway. Oh! That’s it. Gary ordered it and Gus did it?”
“What are you talking about, Jessie?” said Father Tommy. “Gary Boyes isn’t a gangster. He couldn’t order a killing.”
“Father, he is.”
“He’s a gang master,” said Father Tommy. “He’s in charge of the boys-including this one-who’re doing the roof.”
I knew my mouth had dropped open. “A gang master,” I said. “Not a master gangster. Bloody Dot!”
“Oh, Dot!” said Father Tommy. “I know about Monsignature Whelan, by the way.”
Kazek spoke again then, and Father Tommy sobered and nodded.
“Quite right, child,” he said. “It’s no time for laughter.” But Kazek wasn’t done. He opened his jacket and took out Wojtek’s rosary and Bible, the broken bracelet too. I caught Ros’s name in the stream and watched Father Tommy’s face grow more and more solemn.
“I can’t believe it,” he said, when Kazek finally stopped talking and flopped back to lie flat on the bed.
“What?” I asked him. “Tell me before I burst.”
“The steering committee were told Gary Boyes was a licensed gang master. Kazek here tells me he took their passports, paid them nothing, made them sleep on the site. So they ran away.” He turned to Kazek. “Why did you take the money?” he said. Kazek answered without opening his eyes and Tommy laughed.
“It certainly got their attention all right,” he said. He fanned the notes out from around their band. “And you haven’t spent a penny of it, eh? A good Catholic boy. The blessings of the church in your early years, Jessie, never depart from you.”
“Yes, okay, okay,” I said. “A teachable moment, I know. But then what happened?”
“They had a lawyer-this Ros?-who was going to fight their case,” Father Tommy said. “But she’s gone, he tells me. So they drew straws to see who would go and confront Boyes. Wojtek lost the draw and arranged to meet him.”
“At Abington services,” I said. “Of course he did. And instead of giving him the passports back in return for the money, Boyes lured him away and killed him.”
“Poor child, poor child. Another good Catholic boy too. And the lawyer? Where’s she? In the Nith, are we thinking?”
“I wish I knew,” I said. “And here’s another thing. Why didn’t Kazek let me call the police? Ask him that.”
“I don’t have to,” said Father Tommy. “Oh, it’s a wicked world. You know Sergeant McDowall? His wife’s name was Boyes before they were married. I married them myself. He’s Gary Boyes’s brother-in-law. Best man at the wedding.”
“Well, he’s as bent as a boomerang,” I told him. “He told Boyes I knew something and that’s when Boyes came to the shop.” I pushed my sleeve back and showed him the bruises, yellow but unmistakable. “No way past a bent copper. Close ranks, bury the bodies, business as usual. If Kazek spends a night in the cells, he’ll be lucky to see morning.”
But I had underestimated the surpliced avenger. Father Tommy’s eyes flared, his nostrils flared. I think maybe even his moustache flared.
“Jessie,” he said. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past decade of pure hell and damnation, it’s this. Bugger the ranks, bugger the organisation. I don’t care who it is-the police force, the Church that I love like my mother, the Boy Scouts-bugger them. It’s not worth one hair on the head of the most miserable sinner born to save a police force or a church that’s gone bad.”
“You’ll go with him to the cops?”
“And stay by his side.”
“Well, thank God for you,” I said. “Only, Father? A Catholic priest shouting ‘bugger the Boy Scouts’ is going to get some funny looks, you know.”
“I forgive you for that, my child,” he said. “I’m in a forgiving mood today.” I flopped back, flopped right back just like Kazek, and stared up at the ceiling. Father Tommy turned and skewered me with one of his looks. “And how did you get yourself mixed up in all of this?” he said.
“‘All of this’ is actually only half the story,” I said. “Their dad,” I nodded through towards the children, “is married to the best friend of Ros the lawyer. Only she killed herself last Tuesday. And Gus had Wojtek’s bracelet. I still don’t see how that could be.”
“But how do you come to know them all, Jessie?” said Father Tommy. “How is it that those children are here? In the state they’re in? If it’s you who joins the two halves together, you must know.”
“I thought it was pure chance, Father. Until I worked it out today.” I sat up, leapt to my feet. “Can I go out for a bit? I’ll take the children, if you want me to. You can’t drag them round where you’re going.”
“Ah, I think we can all spend a quiet hour right here, until your return,” he said. “I can practice my Polish with this fine young man, and it’s been a while since I saw Shrek. I’ll sit on the couch and eat a bag of crisps very happily. On you go, child, on you go.”
How long had it been since I was here? I’d given up coming for Christmas the year my mum told me that my blaspheming was tainting the whole day for everyone, even Penny and Allan’s daughter who was fourteen months old. My blaspheming. All I had done was point out that if God had sacrificed his only son to Herod when he was a toddler instead of waiting till he was in his thirties, it would have saved a lot of other little boys.
“But look on the bright side, eh?” I’d said. “It probably never happened.”