virtually washed the colour away and the entire panel glowed in a white sheen.
It is interesting, she thought, that the people filing through, while they could see it more clearly from across the nave, did not really respond until they were closer. Close up, perhaps, it was less an aesthetic experience. In the dramatic blur, when they could almost reach out and touch the holy apparition, there might be satisfaction of a deeper kind, one she did not fully apprehend.
They heard a shuffling noise in the shadows. Miranda wheeled around. Two of the original pilgrims moved quietly into the light and walked by them, brooms in hand. These were true believers in Saint Marie Celeste, who somehow had access to the building through the sacristy. It did not occur to Miranda or Morgan, or Alexander Pope, or even Peter Singh, to interfere.
Stepping up onto the chancel where the altar would have been, they turned and looked down into the empty church, each of them imagining what it must have been like when Marie Celeste was alive. There was something quite moving about the empty building, restored to meaning by a picture on a wall. Three more acolytes appeared from the shadows and busied themselves cleaning and dusting. It was eerie, Miranda thought. And satisfying, somehow. And strangely affirming.
She was the first to notice. “Do you smell something?” she asked.
“What?” said Peter Singh.
“Fleur de Rocaille,” said Morgan.
“What?” said Miranda.
“It’s a perfume.”
“I know it’s a perfume. Is that what you smell?”
“Lucy used to wear it.”
“Who’s Lucy?” asked Peter.
Morgan ignored him. Miranda answered, “His wife.”
“What is it?” said Alexander. “I’m not sure I smell anything.”
“Oh, you do,” Miranda insisted. “A strong odour of violets.”
“Yeah,” said Morgan. “Violets. Was it here all along or did it just come in with the pilgrims?”
“I think it was here. It was masked by all the people, but it’s here.”
“The smell of saints,” Morgan observed, his voice suggesting he found his own statement at the edge of credulity. “When they’re dead, their bodies exude the odour of violets.”
All five pilgrims had gathered at the edge of the chancel and stood watching them, listening.
“Well, what do you think it is?” Morgan said to the one closest.
“I think it is Saint Marie Celeste,” he responded in a matter-of-fact tone. “We sometimes smell violets when we work here at night. She is buried beneath where you’re standing.”
Miranda instinctively took a step to the side, the way she would in a cemetery when she became aware she was standing over a grave. But here there was no marker. Just slabs of limestone, each big enough to cover a body.
Morgan smiled at the man. It was the first time he had heard one of them speak. “Do you think she is still here?” he asked. “Perhaps the Church removed her body.”
“No,” the man answered. “It was the Church who left.”
Morgan nodded.
“They left; but this is a holy place. You cannot change what the Lord has done, though you speak with the words of the Lord.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Morgan. “So where do you think she is? About here?” he said, indicating a slab at his feet.
“No,” said the man, stepping up. “Under this rock, here.”
“Shall we look?” said Morgan.
“If you wish,” the man responded.
“Morgan!” said Miranda. Turning away from him to address the pilgrim, she asked, “What do you think of the…,” she paused, nodding in the direction of the wall panel, “… the Virgin Mary?”
“It is a picture of Saint Marie Celeste,” the man said in a quiet voice. “It is only a picture. Her remains are beneath this stone — of no use to her, now — and she is with Mary in heaven.”
Alexander spoke up. “Would you have no objections if we took a look?”
“None at all,” said the man. “It is your building. But only what is in it. The unseen… that is ours. Do as you wish.”
Morgan and Alexander exchanged looks. Like boys engaged in a conspiracy, Miranda thought.
“Is it legal?” she said.
“Yes of course,” said Morgan. “Alexander has the authority. If he says it’s okay, it’s okay.”
Alexander stepped down and walked over to his scaffold where he reached underneath and retrieved a crowbar and a smaller pry bar. Together, he and Morgan prodded the cracks between the slabs, relieved to find as they pushed accumulated detritus away that there was no mortar between them.
“We might as well start with this one,” said Morgan, looking at the pilgrim for confirmation.
Miranda breathed deeply, inhaling the odour of violets into her lungs. She exhaled slowly, trying to prevent herself from hyperventilating. She was very uncomfortable with their ghoulish behaviour, and yet oddly curious.
The two men got their bars under a corner of one slab and lifted. It was five to six inches thick. Peter Singh rushed over to the scaffold and retrieved several four-by-fours, one of which he slipped under the raised corner. They moved around the slab, prying and lifting, until it rested on the beams. The odour of violets had become intense, almost sickening. The pilgrims moved close. Everyone except Miranda leaned down without orders being given and grasped the edge of the limestone and simultaneously lifted, walking it off to the side.
Miranda gasped. As the shadow of the stone slid across the opening and light flooded the cavity in a small stone crypt, she could see a woman’s body dressed in sky blue lying on rock, with only a smooth boulder beneath her golden hair to support the head. Her skin was the colour of alabaster and her lips were as bright as blood. Her eyelids curved softly over closed eyes. Her lashes flickered in the bright illumination as if they were going to flash open, and her lips were poised as if she were about to speak. She was full-bodied and lithe in her absolute stillness, sensuous and innocent. All gazed at her in a profound hush, the mystery rendering them silent.
Then Miranda spoke. “It’s Shelagh Hubbard,” she said. chapter thirteen
Yonge Street
The old church took on new life, swarming with Provincial Police. Peter Singh watched closely as they poked and prodded into every corner and shadow, assessing infinitesimal details of forensic interest, from dust motes to cobwebs. They had questioned him and Morgan and Miranda separately, hoping to find some anomaly in their description of events that might yield unexpected insights. They questioned Alexander Pope at length, but he seemed bewildered, as if his sacred trust had been violated. They interviewed the five pilgrims, finding them forthright and elusive, and of little value, it seemed, to the investigation. The pilgrims were told to go home, which they did.
Peter Singh observed all the activity in utter amazement. How did he have the great fortune to witness such an astonishing turn of events? Detectives Morgan and Quin had read the scene at the abandoned car like a novel, but they had been wrong, for their villain was here in a cold, stone crypt and very dead. Yet, inexorably, they had been drawn here — he seemed to have forgotten it was at his suggestion — and the body had been revealed. They had been redeemed, and he marvelled that he had been with them. He was inextricably a part of the plot.
“It must be disappointing for them,” Miranda observed as they left through the sacristy.
“I don’t think so,” said Morgan. “As far as they’re concerned, Shelagh Hubbard never existed. What they have seen tonight is the body of a saint, and it is exactly what they expected: smelling sweetly of violets and un- decomposed. I’d say the evening has been a singular success from their point of view.”
“Do you really think they believe it was her?” said Peter Singh, spreading his hands out to indicate a body lying in state. “We have told them it is not.”
“And who would you believe?” said Morgan. “Us or God?”
“God?”
“Their God has given them the corpse they believed would be there. He has confirmed their faith. Anything we say is irrelevant. Faith overrules facts every time.”
“It’s almost enough to make me a believer,” said Alexander Pope. Miranda looked up at him; he was pale as
