The Blood That Stains Your Hands (8 page)

Do I have a pathological fear that she might think I'm contemplating turning to God, or do I have a pathological fear that I am actually turning to God?

Neither, really. I want the silence, that's all. I'm just as happy to share it with Mrs Buttler.

So I walked in through the front door of the church. She turned at my footsteps as I entered the nave, and now we're back in a not dissimilar position to where we were yesterday. Her sitting at the end of a row, me directly across the aisle at the end of the adjacent row. I get the smell of her today, something I didn't notice yesterday. A light fragrance.

Neither of us has spoken. Not sure how long we've been sitting here. Ten minutes? Fifteen?

If God is everywhere, then is this place any closer to God than anywhere else? Does the silence and the art and the Bible and depictions of Jesus make it any closer to God than a forest or a field or a supermarket or a studio basement flat with no windows, rats in the walls and a soiled mattress lying in the middle of the floor?

I lower my eyes from Jesus in blue above the chancel. I'm thinking about God now. Stupid bastard. How many times have I asked the question in the past? If there's a God, why did my dad get killed by a drunk driver when I was two and a half? Why's the bastard who killed my dad still alive today?

How many times? I asked it enough to not need to ask it anymore. To not even consider God.

'You believe all this stuff?' I ask, my voice cutting uneasily into the bright light of early afternoon.

'How do you mean?' she says. Glances round at me.

'Historians these days,' I say, 'they know. They know how it worked out. There were hundreds of religions in the Middle East two thousand years ago, and Christianity was just one of them. St Paul was better organised than everyone else, managed to drag Christianity's head above the parapet, and eventually it flourished. It was like Hitler emerging from the shambles of post-WWI German politics. It wasn't like he was the divine leader or anything, he just played the game better, persevered, played his cards at the right moment...'

'You're comparing Hitler to Jesus?' she says curiously, although she's smiling.

'Actually, I think I was comparing him to Paul.'

'Oh, OK, that's fine.'

We laugh. Together. Like some sort of version of normal conversation. It's been so long.

'I just mean, it's kind of clear how Christianity got started, and how it managed to flourish, and how the books of the Bible were chosen, et cetera. It was all just politics. Which, you know, is why this church merger business wasn't so un-Christian after all. This is how it works. People have self-interest, they work to protect and extend that self-interest. In this way, Jesus was just a product that Paul was selling, and he was good at his job. Nowadays he'd be working for Apple.'

'Unless,' she says, turning away and looking back down the body of the church, 'Jesus is the true son of God, and then he would undoubtedly have risen, regardless of whether or not Paul had been a good salesman. Perhaps, in fact, it was God who made Paul a good salesman on the road to Damascus.'

'A fair point,' I say. 'But that's what I'm asking. In the face of the evidence and the plethora of historians and books and documentaries, which do you believe?'

'Can't you believe both? That God delivered Jesus to us, and then used St Paul to extend His message?'

'But all those Bible stories that are just made up or cribbed from other religions. The virgin birth and the wise men and all that?'

Notice how I'm not swearing in church.

Notice how I'm not mature enough to do that without thinking I should be earning some kudos. From somebody!

'You believe what you choose to believe, Sergeant. One cannot argue with faith. I will say, however, that I have never truly believed. I have prayed and I have come to this church all my life, but I've never truly believed. But that's not what it's about. I would say, in fact, that it doesn't matter one bit. It's community, that's all. About being there for people, having a set of values, sharing those values, helping others, giving of yourself, and hopefully receiving too.'

'Do you need God for that? I mean, do you need the church for that?'

She finally turns and looks at me again.

'People need a focus, that's all. The church gives them a focus. We preach understanding and compassion. It does no harm.'

'The crusades weren't so hot.'

She smiles at that, rather than whacks me over the head with the nearest heavy object.

'What was it you wanted to talk to me about?' she says after a few moments.

I turn away and stare off into the far distance.

'Nothing,' I say. 'Sorry. Just felt like I needed the silence.'

She smiles. I can feel her smile, although I'm not looking at her.

The silence is like a wall, rising up, surrounding us. Slowly melting, folding in at the sides, closing in at the top. Blanking everything else out. Enveloping us.

God, what am I on?

My phone beeps, cutting through the wall.

She glances over as I take it from my pocket, embarrassed.

'You should switch that off when you come in here,' she says, unnecessarily.

'Sorry.'

'I mean, not just during a service. If you're coming in for peace and quiet, you're not going to get it if you leave your phone on.'

I read the text.

21 Burns Street. Now.

Rare for Taylor to invest anything with a note of urgency.

'Got to go,' I say.

She watches me as I get to my feet.

'I come into the church most days at this time,' she says. 'You know, if you think you can find what you're looking for in here.'

'Thank you. When's the next time the church will be used for a service?'

She gives it some thought, lets her eyes express doubt.

'There's a wedding in three or four months. But then, I expect Maureen would have wanted to have a memorial service here, so that might happen shortly. I suppose you'll need to release the body first.'

I don't think that's going to be happening any time soon, unless Connor pulls rank and shuts us all down.

I nod. She smiles and I leave.

––––––––

I
t's a small bathroom, so not a huge amount of room for our lot. Three at a time maybe. I stick my head over the back of one of the SOCOs, catch a quick look at the pasty teenager lying in cold bathwater turned bloody red, then go back through to the lad's bedroom.

Taylor is in here; the mother is downstairs with a couple of constables, if she hasn't already been taken off somewhere else.

Tommy Kane was seventeen and he's not coming back. Dead as a badger.

'You have this guy on your list?' asks Taylor.

'You mean, anything to do with the church business? Maureen and that?'

'Yes,' says Taylor, irritably, as if I ought to know what's going on inside his head.

'No. You think they're related?'

He looks up from where he's been rifling through some music magazines, gives me a glance. His annoyance seems to dissipate, and then he shrugs.

'Fair point, Sergeant. Who knows? But you know as well as I do, this town is a small place. Months go by without anything ever happening. Ever. Two apparent suicides a few days apart, especially when the first is a woman known to have had sex with a young man, possibly a youth, and the second is of a youth...'

'No way,' I say, shaking my head.

'No way what?'

'No way Maureen had sex with this kid.'

'You heard it from Balingol,' says Taylor. 'She had sex with a young man.'

'Yeah, I know, but a twenty-five-year-old or something.'

'For someone who'd have sex with a packet of biscuits, you can be terribly prudish and old-fashioned sometimes, Sergeant.' He lets out a big sigh, as if talking to a child, then he gives a slight wave of the hand. 'We'll know once Balingol's had a look at him.'

'Did he have anything to do with the church?'

'He helped out at the Sunday school down at St Mungo's,' says Taylor, 'so that at least puts them in the same ball park.'

I look round the room at the standard teenage walls. Posters of bands and half-naked women. Hey, nice one of Emily Blunt's breasts, wonder what movie that's from. I'll need to check it out. Iron Maiden. Judas Priest. Natalie Portman, topless but with a conveniently positioned arm. A Green Bay Packers pendant. A Neymar picture. Fucking Neymar, the cheating, diving little cunt. Dylan. Good lad, he's got a poster of Bob, circa 1962. Some concert ticket stubs. Some football ticket stubs. Rangers. So, he's the one.

'He taught at the Sunday school?' I ask.

'Given his age, I don't think he was enrolled as a student,' says Taylor pointedly. As he speaks, he's looking through a drawer, tossing some porn mags onto the bed. I glance over. Commercial, off-the-shelf porn mags. Very mundane, in these internet days. I turn back to the walls.

'The walls don't look like the walls of a Sunday school teacher.'

'Maybe not,' says Taylor, 'but he's a teenager in the third millennium. What would you expect? Posters of Jesus?'

'Suppose.'

Taylor straightens up, gives another quick look around.

'See what you can find. I'm off to speak to people. Try not to spend too much time looking at naked women.'

'I'm on the job,' I say, with irritation.

He looks at me blankly.

'Try not to spend too much time looking at naked women.'

*

A
n hour in the room of a dead teenage boy. One long, depressing hour.

It takes me back to the awfulness of it. The awfulness of being a teenager. Jesus. There's just so much shit. Sure, you might think, I'd love to be a teenager again. There are so many possibilities, the world is your clichéd fucking oyster. But if you do ever think like that, what you're really thinking is, I wish I could be me now, an adult, transported back to my teenage years, before I fucked up my life.

No one really wants to be a teenager again. What you want to be is an adult who happens to be seventeen years old, an adult who hasn't yet committed himself to all the mistakes that he's made (and would inevitably remake, if given the chance).

And yet teenagers grow up. They escape those god-awful years. At least, they should do. They hopefully do. If all goes to plan. If they make sure they don't end up lying in a bath of their own blood. And every life has so much promise. Even the ones that start off shitty and depressing, they still have the opportunity to get out, escape, fly into the world and create something for themselves.

But not this kid. Not Tommy. Tommy is dead. All these higher exam past papers are for nothing. And the football and the girls and the music and the few scattered books on eastern philosophy, and the DVDs of Chinese war epics, and the posters, and Call of Duty. All for nought, because he's dead in a bath.

Almost doesn't matter whether or not he committed suicide. Murder, suicide, accident (it wasn't an accident!), whatever way, it's just sad.

I could look through the room in about ten minutes. I spend much of the hour sitting on the bed staring at the walls. Not looking at anything in particular. Just tired, filled with an unusual melancholy.

There are different types of melancholy, and this isn't one of the good ones. This is one of those that says, I just want to get out of here, I want to go home, I want to drink. I probably also want some female company. Little chance of getting that.

A constable sticks her nose into the room at some point. Webb, maybe, not sure of her name. She's new.

'Everything all right, sir?' she asks, at the sight of her sergeant staring idly into space.

'Yes, thank you. Has the body been removed?'

'Yes, sir,' she says. 'The SOCOs are finished in the bathroom.'

'OK, thanks. I'm nearly done here.'

She waits to see if the lead investigating officer on the premises is going to add anything else, and when I don't, she takes her leave. Thereafter I get on with it and wrap things up quickly, finding nothing of interest to the investigation in the process.

*

I
meet Taylor in the pub. Unusually, it's his suggestion. Pub rather than the office. It is after six, so I suppose that legitimises it in some way. As if, as police officers, we need legitimisation.

A pint each. Just after six seems a little too early for vodka tonic.

'Suicide note?' he asks, as I settle down and push his pint across the table.

'Left under his pillow for the investigating officer? I'm afraid not. How about you?'

'The mother's in bits, getting little out of her for the moment. She was away the last couple of days visiting her sister. Somewhere in the Borders. Moffat, that was it. Left the lad on his own. First time she'd ever gone away overnight and left him. Thought he was ready for it. He seemed happy when she left. She thought he might get some of his friends over, but was sure there'd be nothing bad. Said he was a good kid.'

'Father?'

'Long gone. Hasn't been in touch in ten years or something. We can look at the kid's e-mails, see if he's had contact that she doesn't know about.'

'He went to church on Sunday?' I ask.

'Seems to have done. Nothing unusual. Did his Sunday school gig, came home, ate a sandwich, spent his Sunday afternoon watching football, spent his Sunday evening watching American football. She didn't see him much apart from dinner.'

'Monday? Tuesday?'

'Kid was at school. She saw him last on Wednesday morning. Dropped him at the school gate, which she didn't usually do, and that was that.'

'So she was around for Monday evening, when it's possible that young Tommy and old Maureen got together...'

'And had sex,' says Taylor, finishing the sentence for me.

'And now they're both dead. Did you mention the possibility to the mum, ask if he went out anywhere?'

Taylor actually smiles at that, but I don't join him. There are no smiles from me tonight.

'Too early for that. If we had no other way of finding out, then sure, we'd have to ask. But we've got a guaranteed answer coming from Balingol, so why upset anyone with that kind of question? We'll have the results in the morning, then we can get our shit together and get on with it. If the kid and Maureen did it, we can ask the mum where she thinks he was and who he was with.'