The Resurrection of the Body

‘She wrote a fully thought-out 80-page novel in a day – sure makes you wonder what she might do if she took a couple of weeks … the story has mystery-thriller suspense as well as several intriguing depths … terrifically impressive’
The Independent

‘An assured tone and decidedly bold denouement – a talent to watch’
Financial Times

‘A compelling, impressive tale’
The Times

‘Ingenious and provocative exploration of faith, fact and fantasy. Put it in your suitcase’
Hampstead & Highgate Express

‘A skilful portrait of a man’s inner turmoil’
Good Housekeeping

‘Hamand aims at more than a tricksy re-telling of an old tale … miracle and science, truth and myth, clash and interweave in the raw glare of modernity’
Catholic Herald

‘A whodunnit, a ghost story, an original treatment of the
crisis-of
-faith theme – even, as the tale comes to its uncomfortable close, a full-blooded horror story’
Coventry Evening Telegraph

‘This is just one of those books you don’t want to put down’
Lancashire Evening Telegraph

‘Hamand creates a remarkable tension between the strong sense of place and “ordinary life” and the mystery, the uncertainty of mind and spirit. This is a truly crafty game with the mystery/crime genre – post-modernism meets the Creed’ Sara Maitland

‘Her work is outstanding – taut and tightly structured with a wonderful narrative drive’ Kathy Lette, LBC radio

‘A rattling good read’ Richard Chartres, Bishop of London 

Praise
Title Page
Author’s Note
The Interruption in the Church
The Police Ask Questions
The Accusations Begin
Time in my Study
To St Bartholomew’s Hospital
The Man Dies
The Easter Service
The Body Vanishes
The Encounter with Jim
The Young Journalist
The Gardener
The Police Arrest Jim
The Painting in the Church
The Article Appears
The Incident in the Rose Garden
The Limits of Theology
The Police Call
The PCC
The Scent Goes Cold
The Detective Chief Inspector Accuses
The Man in the Street
The Fish Restaurant
The Evening in the Vicarage
The Discovery in the Vestry
Tessa
To Abney Park Cemetery
The Trouble with Harriet
The House in St Mark’s Rise
The Archdeacon’s Visit
The Article in the Newspaper
The Bishop of Stepney
The Intruder
To Bart’s Again
There Can Be No Doubt
The Brush with Death
The Psychiatrist
The Recovery
The Prostitute’s Flat
The Reckoning
ALSO BY MAGGIE HAMAND
Copyright
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The Resurrection of the Body
was originally written during a competition held in London in March 1994 to write a novel in 24 hours under examination conditions. It was the outright
winner
of the World One-Day Novel Cup, and the original version, just 23,000 words long, was published with the two runners-up by Images Publishing within 48 hours of their receiving the
winning
manuscripts. The novel was then expanded to almost twice that length for publication by Michael Joseph in 1995.

In expanding it, I left alone the existing text, just adding here and there where necessary and correcting any errors. Twenty-one chapters in this book are therefore much as they were written for the competition, while eighteen are completely new. One reason why I chose to expand the book this way was that I was anxious to keep the sparse style and narrative drive which seemed to be a product of the intense pressure under which the original version was written.

While all the locations in this book are real, including the parish church of St Michael and All Angels, London Fields, the characters are purely imaginary. However, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those people who helped me in my researches and generously gave up their time and expertise to make the details in this book as realistic as possible.

Maggie Hamand, 2008

T
he Interruption in the Church

It was Good Friday, shortly after one o’clock, in the middle of the three-hour devotional service. The reading had just ended and the church was in perfect silence as we prayed. It was so still and calm that you could hear the
background
hum of traffic and the distant crying of a child. I looked down at the bowed heads of the diverse
congregation
, both black and white; the smart, middle-class professionals who had moved into the attractive Victorian housing in the area, the old East Enders like Sidney who had been born in the terrace a hundred yards away and still remembered the bomb falling on the house next door when he was only six, the black women from the grim estate round the corner.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of raised voices in the street. At first I took no notice of the
disturbance
. I could hear shouting, rough voices, and then someone starting to yell quite near us, right outside the church. Looking back, it was obvious that there was a great deal of distress in that voice, and had I put my prayers aside and acted then I might have been able to
prevent
what happened. In any case, I took no notice; in fact the sounds did not alarm but only irritated me, breaking as they did into my intense concentration, and I put them firmly to one side and withdrew back into my prayers.

The door at the back of the church banged and there was a scuffling in the vestibule. I looked up and my eye caught that of Chris Shaw, a local author who was one of the churchwardens; once before he had dealt very capably with a drunk who had wandered in from the pub round the corner during the middle of our confirmation service. He nodded to me, as if to say ‘If it gets any worse I will go and deal with it.’ Then came a sound which I shall never forget, a dreadful, powerful, bewildered cry; and through the open door came a man, lurching forward, staggering, holding his hands to his side.

I had never seen the colour of fresh blood before in such profusion, so bright, splashed everywhere, like
scarlet
paint. The man sank to the floor and we all rose to our feet at the same moment, like a wave. Somebody ran to the door and out on to the porch; someone else rushed to my office to use the phone. Chris’s wife Anne, a doctor, was beside the man in an instant, calling out instructions;
I remember seeing all this and feeling paralysed,
powerless
, unable to move.

My reaction shocked me. I have seen many terrible things in my time, people suffering and dying, but this was different, too violent and sudden; I didn’t want to have to look at this. There I had been, in prayer
contemplating
the wounds of Christ on the cross, but presented with real wounds I was shivering with fear and ineptness. I forced myself to cross the floor and kneel beside the man. Anne was in charge; I asked her, ‘Can I help you?’

Anne was pulling away the man’s clothes, already soaked in blood, and asking for something to cover the wound. Someone came from the vestry with the linen and handed it to her; Mercy was cutting into a tablecloth with scissors. Anne told me it was important to sit him upright and turn him to one side, because the lung was punctured and he would have difficulty breathing, and that if he lay flat he would probably choke. In an urgent whisper she told me to support him leaning on one side so that blood didn’t flow from the injured lung into the good one. So I knelt behind him, holding him awkwardly under his shoulders, while they folded squares of linen and tore strips to cover and bind the wound.

After this there was silence, because there was nothing we could do. The ambulance was on its way; Mercy was impatient, muttering, ‘Oh Lord, why do they take so long?’ The man’s face, as I looked down on it, was pale and damp, sticky with sweat. He had an olive complexion, which now took on a greenish tinge, almost the
putty-coloured
look of a newborn baby, and his eyes were very dark. For a moment I couldn’t help thinking of how close are the processes of birth and death. The man tried to say something, but I couldn’t distinguish what it was, and when they asked me about it afterwards I was not even sure that it was English. This effort seemed too much for him; he began to cough up blood and a pale, frothy liquid appeared on his lips. His eyes dimmed and all his being seemed focused on the terrible struggle to draw breath. Anne, with her clinical detachment, was doing everything she could; one of the other women, Mary, patted his hand and talked soothingly to him as you would to a sick child. I blessed her for this. I myself could say nothing; I could only pray silently, and wait for the ambulance to come.

My arms began to ache with the strain of supporting the heavy body. Mary held his limp, pale hand within her own plump, dark ones, massaging it gently as if by doing so she could transfer some of her own warmth and energy into him. As she stroked his hand she turned it over and I saw that the blood which I had thought must have got there when he put his hand to his side came from a deep wound across the palm, as if it had been slashed or pierced with a knife.

Now, with intense relief, I heard the siren in the
distance
, then another out of tune with it, then a third, all steadily growing stronger. The police arrived first. I could hear their voices outside in the porch, and the ambulance came only a few seconds later. A voice behind me said, ‘Please step aside, we’ll deal with this now.’ With relief I eased the man into a paramedic’s arms; when I got to my
feet I could see that my robes were brightly smeared with blood. I stood as if hypnotised, watching what they would do with him.

Their movements were quick, efficient, though they took their time, putting an oxygen mask to his face, inserting a drip into his arm, dressing the wound. They lifted him on to a stretcher and then, with a burst of fuss and movement, he was gone from the church. A shaft of sunlight suddenly pierced the air, shining through the stained glass below the roof and casting dappled patterns on the floor, lighting up the trail of blood. We heard the ambulance start and the siren fading swiftly as it roared away down the road.