Main followed Lafferty through a small wooden door, painted blue and set in a stone arch to the left of the pillar behind the pulpit. It made Main think of Alice in Wonderland. Once through, they turned left again and entered a small room where Lafferty’s vestments were hung on the back of the door. They were all on a single coat hook and it looked overloaded. Main was careful how he closed the door behind him lest they all fall in a heap.
There were two armchairs in the room, which looked worn and not very comfortable, placed on either side of an ancient gas fire, and mounted along the wall opposite the single window in the room were several laden bookshelves. Below the window, arched and paned with leaded glass, stood a table stacked with hymn books that looked as if they had been withdrawn from service due to their tattered condition. A series of religious paintings were hung on plain walls that were a dull cream in colour, one of the chief colours favoured by institutions, thought Main, the other being green.
Lafferty invited Main to take his coat off and to sit down while he himself knelt down in front of a gas fire and started to feed it matches cautiously as the gas hissed through. On the third attempt the fire popped into life making Lafferty withdraw his hand quickly. Even so, Main could smell singed hair. He noticed that one of the radiants was damaged; it emitted a flickering yellow flame while the others were blue.
“How are you feeling?” asked Lafferty.
“I’m OK. Did you find out anything?”
Lafferty frowned and said, “In a negative sort of way. I’ve spent many hours in the ecclesiastical library and I had a long talk with Father McCandrew down at St Agnes; he’s made a bit of a study of the occult. The bottom line is that no one knows why these people would want your son’s body.”
Main closed his eyes and rubbed his upper lip with his forefinger while he came to terms with the news. “So I’m no further forward.”
“No,” agreed Lafferty. “But on the other hand, it’s as well to know that there is no known formal ceremony in satanic ritual or in the annals of witchcraft that demands the body of a recently deceased child.”
“I suppose,” said Main philosophically.
“But you still have to know?” asked Lafferty, reading the signs.
Main nodded. “I still have to know.”
“Have you been in touch with the police since it happened?”
Main smiled and said, “That’s why I was late. I was down at police headquarters trying to find out what they had come up with.”
“And?”
Main smiled bitterly and said, “They’ve come up with nothing, or as they put it, their ‘enquiries are continuing’.”
“They can’t have much to go on. Unless they are actually aware of any satanic activity going on in the community. Are they?”
“They say not.”
“In that case, they won’t know where to start. These people, however evil they are, probably won’t have criminal records and probably don’t consort with criminals so the police will be starved of information.”
“I’m sure the police will be grateful to you for putting their case so well,” said Main sourly.
Lafferty let the comment pass. “I’ve been wondering whether or not it might be a good idea to have a word with the man who was in the cemetery that night.”
“The wino’s story has been in all the papers. Every lurid detail,” said Main. “What else can there be to learn from him?”
Lafferty shrugged and said, “Well, you never know, there just might be one little useful fact or observation that he overlooked in his efforts to give our noble press the kind of story they were after.”
Main thought for a moment before saying, “Maybe that’s a good idea after all. I apologise for my earlier behaviour. I’m really very grateful to you for the trouble you’ve been going to.”
“No trouble,” Lafferty reassured him, “and there’s nothing to apologise for.”
“I’ll start hunting the man down tomorrow,” said Main.
“No,” said Lafferty firmly. “It’s best if I do it.”
“Why?”
“You’re too... intense. You might scare him off. It’s best if I go. Who knows? He may even be a Catholic and, if he is, he wouldn’t lie to a priest would he?”
Main smiled and thanked him. “This must be taking up an awful lot of your time,” he said.
Lafferty looked rueful. “I could be thinking about the repair of the organ, the state of the roof, how many replacement hymn books we need or how much or how little we have to spend on flowers at Easter but all these things can wait. They can wait until your mind is put at rest about Simon. Christianity is about people not bricks and mortar and budgets.”
Main left the church, saying he would come back in two days’ time if he hadn’t heard from the priest beforehand. Lafferty watched him leave and thought about the upheaval his involvement with Main had caused in the smooth running of the ‘club’. He had already had to go, biretta in hand, to the two ladies he had offended over the jumble sale and beg their forgiveness. He had yet to apologise to the Mothers’ group for not turning up at their afternoon meeting and to the senior Bible class for a similar offence.
He still had to have a word with young Mary O’Donnell, at her mother’s behest, about recent behaviour with regard to the opposite sex. He looked at his watch and decided he had better do that this evening. He stretched his arms in the air and let out a huge yawn. Randy boys were bad enough but randy girls... There was a whole lot of heartbreak still to come from that young madam, he feared.
John Main closed the door to the flat behind him and felt the quiet smother him like a cold, unwelcoming blanket. Noise and laughter, light and bustle had been replaced with silence and darkness. He rested his back on the door for a moment before urging himself not to dwell on this again. He needed light and he needed noise. He switched on the lights — all of them — and then turned on the television. Next, he needed warmth. He lit the gas fire to supplement the central heating until he had warmed up a little.
There were some messages on the answering machine and he played them back as he took off his coat in the hall. The first was from his sister, Anna, suggesting again that he should get in touch with her as soon as possible and wouldn’t he like to stay with her and her husband for a while? He hadn’t been in touch with Anna since Simon’s funeral. He hadn’t been in touch with anyone since the bastards took Simon’s body. He didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. They couldn’t help. They had already burdened him with as much sympathy as he could take over the course of two funerals. More of it wasn’t going to help matters. He already knew how awful it was and how sorry they all were. It might sound ungrateful but enough was enough.
Mary’s mother was next on the machine with much the same message. He should get in touch. She was worried sick about him.
Main poured himself a large gin and noted that he would have to get another bottle tomorrow. Tonic was also getting a bit low. Maybe he would take a trip to the supermarket and get some food as well, instead of working his way through the tins and packets in the kitchen cupboards, rummaging through the freezer and bringing in take-away meals. He smiled at the thought. Was this a step in his rehabilitation? He resolved not to go to the supermarket where Mary had done the family shopping. That would be asking too much.
The third voice on the machine was that of Arthur Close, head of the English department at Merchiston School where he worked. Main was not to worry about anything; the others would be happy to cover his classes. He had their deepest sympathy and that of everyone else at the school, staff and pupils alike. He, Close, and the headmaster were in complete agreement that he should take off as much time as he needed.