been hundreds, thousands of family tragedies to deal with over the years. He’d found the right words for all of them; they came naturally, with ease. None had ever been in this situation, though. This was new territory for him. He tried to tell himself that he was not alone, that God was with him — the thought did calm him, but there was still the nagging feeling he carried in the pit of his stomach that he couldn’t shake. It was the what if? What if the girl was Carly? The minister found himself squeezing his wife’s hand tighter. She reciprocated, turned.
‘Were you praying?’ she said.
He smiled — not a wide smile, a thin crease. ‘No, not really.’
‘Will we pray together?’
He nodded, closed his eyes. They touched heads and prayed in silence. As he began to relay the familiar words to himself, and God, the minister felt his mind wandering. He couldn’t remember this ever having happened before. Even as a very young child he had always been able to concentrate. What was happening to him?
His wife was first to break off, remove her head. ‘There, that’s done.’
He opened his eyes. ‘Thank you.’
‘Do you feel better?’
‘Yes…’ It was a lie. ‘Much better.’
The journey through the city was slow — traffic clogged up the old streets and stopped the car every fifty to sixty yards. The minister didn’t remember it ever being this bad. There had been bottlenecks on his previous journeys but there seemed to be double the number of cars now. It was apocalyptic, he thought.
‘So many cars,’ he said.
The young policeman agreed, ‘It’s been like this since they decided to bring back the trams.’
He’d seen something about that on the television; trams seemed a step back to him. ‘Why are they bringing them back?’ he said.
‘Search me.’
The reply struck him as strange. After all, if a policeman in the city didn’t know why the entire place was being dug up, who did? ‘Maybe you should investigate it.’
The young man laughed. ‘And I wonder what we’d find!.. The trouble with this city is the people at the top do what they like. The rest of us are treated like mushrooms: kept in the dark and covered in muck!’
The minister and his wife smiled. He was grateful for the release. ‘Yes, that sounds familiar.’ He looked out of the window. The lights had changed and a mass of people were bustling from one side of the road to the other. All so busy, he thought. All rushing, going somewhere. He envied them their uninterrupted routine. He pulled his gaze back, returned to the DC: ‘Not sure about this trams plan, y’know. They couldn’t have been so great if they got rid of them the last time round.’
The officer nodded to the rear-view mirror. ‘Good point.’ He seemed to catch sight of something that forced the look on his face to change — the minister followed the line of his vision and knew it was his wife. She had grown pale and wan. ‘First trip to the city for a while?’ She turned to her husband, didn’t seem to have the vocabulary to answer.
‘No, no… I get down regularly. We have Assembly meetings here.’ He held firmly to his wife’s hand. ‘Frieda’s here less regularly, isn’t that right, my dear?’
She turned away. Her lip started to tremble. She ferreted for something in her sleeve, removed a handkerchief. She was too slow — the tears had begun before she could get the small white handkerchief to dab at them.
‘Come on now,’ said the minister. ‘We’ll be fine. Everything will be fine; put faith in God.’ He reached an arm around her, gripped. It didn’t seem to be enough. Her head lolled back and her mouth widened. He watched the gape open silently and expected to hear sobs, wails, but nothing came. The hurt was trapped inside her. He turned back to the DC — he was looking away, his expression said he felt to blame.
‘I’m sorry, officer,’ said the minister, ‘it’s all a bit fresh… the wound.’
The young man nodded. ‘I understand.’
The minister patted his wife’s back, smiled at her. ‘Come on, now… Let’s not get carried away. Sure, we don’t even know who the poor girl is — it mightn’t be Carly.’ He turned to the policeman. ‘Isn’t that so?’
The officer was engaging the gears, the traffic clearing. ‘That’s right. We have no positive identification yet.’
Chapter 17
The minister knew the girl was some poor mother and father’s child but he hoped, more than ever now, it wasn’t theirs. Frieda couldn’t cope; she wasn’t a strong woman. The minister had seen weak people collapse under far lesser tragedies and he knew his wife wasn’t able to carry such a burden with her. They would all suffer, had suffered already, but if that child was Carly, he knew, then there would be more than one death in the family this day. His wife’s demise would be slower, over years maybe, but no less painful.
‘John… do you ever think about things?’
‘What do you mean?’ He wiped a tear from her cheek with his fingertip.
‘The way we treated Carly when we…’
He knew what she referred to, but they had never spoken about this. They had never questioned the way they had dealt with it. The minister had followed what was in his heart, a good Christian heart; he had never questioned his faith.
‘Frieda, please don’t punish yourself.’
She straightened before him, turned to face the window. She seemed to be about to speak, but held herself in check.
The minister began, ‘Frieda, we did all we could for her… We have nothing to reproach ourselves for. Don’t do this, Frieda, please.’
She kept her neck straight and firm and her eyes level with the crowds passing the car window. ‘But I do.’
The remainder of the journey passed in silence. As they reached the Old Town the occupants of the car were jolted on the cobbled streets. The minister knew they were nearing Holyrood Road, where the morgue was situated. On the Royal Mile he glanced at Knox’s home, and a pub called the World’s End. He knew the name but it took him some time to register why. When it returned to him, he recalled the pub featuring in a lengthy murder investigation that had been in the news for some years. The thought chilled him.
‘Not long now,’ said the policeman.
He was trying to be helpful, but the words only added to the minister’s tension. He gripped his wife’s hand again, patted her wrist. The car turned the corner at the box junction on St Mary’s Street; the road ahead was clear. It seemed like they had hardly travelled any distance at all when the vehicle pulled alongside the kerb. The policeman turned off the engine and swivelled on his seat to face them. ‘I’ll go inside, see if they’re ready. You can take a few moments, maybe stretch your legs.’
‘You’re very kind,’ said the minister.
The young man nodded to them, opened his door and headed for the pavement. He looked back when he reached the gate, then pressed the buzzer. He seemed to be very comfortable in his surroundings and the minister wondered about what he had to block out when he went home at night. No one should have to take home things like death and murder. Of course, in the midst of life, there was death. But there was also evil, and that was what occupied his thoughts as he got out of the car and walked round to open the door for his wife.
This city smelled of evil. Could a city smell of evil? He knew it couldn’t but the familiar smell had come to be associated with the concept in his mind now. Would he ever be able to rid himself of that notion? Would this place forever be the home of all that was unwholesome, unholy?
The minister opened the car door. ‘Come on, my dear, let’s get you out of there.’ Frieda swung her legs over the car’s sill. Her shoes had been polished — they shone. She held on to her husband’s hand as she eased herself towards the pavement. As she tried to stand she made a slight stagger. ‘Everything all right?’
She nodded.
‘Just take it easy. I know it’s been one shock after another these last months…’
