Show you what was done to her?’
The church seems to get colder as his horror turns to disgust, almost anger, and my stomach starts to knot. ‘That sort of parlour trick is beyond you, Theo. If I could help you, I would, just as I helped you two years ago when you were lost.’
‘Rachel has nobody to speak for her. I need to do what I can.’
‘She has God.’
‘God let her down.’
‘You must have faith, Theo.’
‘Faith lets everybody down.’
‘People let themselves down.’
I want to argue, but there is no argument a priest hasn’t heard and isn’t ready for. Their answers may not make sense, but they are a doctrine, there to be repeated over and over, as if the very repetition makes their case. I could take a photograph out of my wallet and show him my wife and my daughter, but of course Father Julian remembers them. I could ask him where God
was during their accident, but Father Julian would have some dogmatic answer that God-loving and God-fearing people love to use — most likely the generic ‘God works in mysterious ways’
one that I want to scream at every time I hear it.
‘You’re right,’ I concede, ‘but none of this goes towards helping me find your caretaker. He saw us digging up something that made him run.’
‘I still find that hard to believe,’ Father Julian says, but I’m starting to convince myself that the look on his face suggests it isn’t that hard for him at all. ‘Unfortunately, Theo, as I keep saying, I don’t know where he is.’
‘Start by telling me where he lives.’
‘The police have already been there and, to be honest, I’m not comfortable giving you information. You’re not a cop any more.
This isn’t your investigation.’
‘No, this has become my investigation. Two years ago I had an excuse to raise Henry Martins’ coffin and I never did. That means…’
“I know what that means. You think that if there are other people out there, you could have prevented it. Maybe this is true.’
‘It is true,’ I say, a little shocked at how quickly he has come to this conclusion.
‘Two years ago,’ he repeats. ‘Exactly two years ago?’
“Pretty much.’
‘You can’t blame yourself,’ he says, but his eyes seem to betray his real feelings. ‘The accident — that was two years ago, correct?
Was it the same time?’
‘I still should have done more,’ I say. ‘But I lost my focus.’
‘You lost your family,’ he says. ‘And you lost control. This isn’t your fault, Theo.’
‘There are going to be more girls out there in those coffins, Father. Three of them. I feel it. I can’t make it right, but I also can’t let it go.’
He looks down at the floor as if there is some internal debate warring inside his head. When he looks up he seems to have aged a few years. He thinks this day is hard on him, but if I drove him to Rachel Tyler’s house tomorrow to meet her parents he’d realise his was easy in comparison.
“I suppose you could talk to his father. He may be able to offer you something.’
I recall the article that I read about Sidney Alderman before I left my office for the morgue. The old man’s retirement last year It made the newspaper, but it wasn’t really news, it was just one of those human interest stories that are interesting to the people who knew Alderman and not to anyone else.
‘Does he live nearby?’
‘Closer than you can imagine,’ he says. “Promise me you’ll be careful. Promise me you’re looking for Bruce to question him, not punish him.’
I shrug. ‘Punish him? I don’t follow you.’
Again Father Julian sighs, then slowly shakes his head. ‘Don’t take the law into your own hands, Theo. Vengeance is God’s, not yours, you know that.’
He follows me to the church doors and gives me directions to where I can find Sidney Alderman. I thank him and he wishes me a good night, and again he tells me to be careful. I tell him I’m always careful.
He shakes my hand before he leaves, and when he takes his away I see that he is shaking. Then he disappears back through the doors. God’s working day is still not over.
chapter ten
The rain has disappeared. For now. And the night has set in. I sit in the car with the heater going, trying to collect my thoughts, wondering why I’m chasing down Bruce the caretaker when I ought to be home chasing down some pizza with Jim the
bourbon. I don’t know, maybe it’s just that my life isn’t interesting enough to be at home getting drunk in front of reruns of bad comedies and reruns of bad news that happens every day. That’s the problem with the news. The victims have different names, the presenters wear different outfits, but the stories are the same.