The Tower A Novel (Sanctus)

20





Two floors above Shepherd, Franklin sat in a small office, door closed, his face illuminated by a different computer screen.

During his more than twenty years’ service in the bureau he had learned a lot about himself. He knew he wasn’t the most

instinctive of investigators, didn’t have the genius he had seen in some to ask exactly the right question at exactly the right

time and had never been the one in a midnight incident room to make the single connection that pulled everything together. But he

was dogged and he knew people. He could tap them like a tuning fork and listen to the sound they made. He always knew when the

note was wrong and right now, with Shepherd, it was screeching like nails on a blackboard.

On the screen in front of him were Shepherd’s Bureau application forms and resumé. He had been scouring them for the last twenty

minutes, cross-checking the missing two years against social security records, credit-scoring agencies, anything that might give

him a steer on where Shepard was and what he had been doing. So far the only small discrepancy he had found was on the standard

Questionnaire for National Security Positions. There was a new addition to the form, a declaration of faith, added by a Republican

government riding high on the wave of post 9/11 hysteria. The Democrats had fought it, citing it as a dangerous erosion of the

Constitution and its separation of religion and state, but the Republicans maintained that it would help identify Muslim

candidates whose background and cultural knowledge could prove insightful in the war on terror. The bill had just squeaked

through, but only after a compromise had been agreed that the new section should be optional and no candidate could be penalized

for not filling it in. Shepherd had exercised that option and left his blank.

This in itself was unremarkable, but in Franklin’s experience the only people who chose not to fill in the faith section were

atheists. Shepherd’s resumé showed he had spent several years at a hardcore Catholic boarding school and yet he hadn’t ticked

the box declaring himself to be Catholic. It was a small point but it added to Franklin’s distrust of him. There was something

hard-wired into his DNA that could not allow himself to entirely trust anyone who did not, in one way or another, have a healthy

fear of God. It was one of the central tenets of the Irish, whispered down to him on whisky breath by his father and uncles when

they were swaying with patriotism for a country none of them had ever set foot in: never trust a man who does not have God in his

heart, and never trust a man who will not take a drink with you.

He sat back in his chair, reaching for his phone.

Thinking about his da’ had tugged at something inside him. Maybe it was Christmas and the usual guilt that came with that. It was

too late to call so he scrolled down the contacts list to the entry for Marie and opened up a blank text:

Something’s come up. Got to work tomorrow so wont be able to make it home. Will call when I know when I can get away. Say sorry

to Sinead for me.

He pressed Send and watched the message go. It was odd that he still thought of the house as home even though he didn’t live

there any more.

He closed all the files, shut down the terminal and was pulling his jacket off the back of the chair when his phone buzzed. Marie

had got straight back to him.

What about saying sorry to me?

Franklin read the words and felt the ache inside him twist a little more. She was right of course but he’d got tired of

apologizing to her a long time ago. He slipped his jacket on and headed for the nearest exit, swapping the phone for a crumpled

packet of Marlboro. Another bad habit he had been trying for a long time to quit.