'I felt he was wrong about that. Jacobs was a Catholic, or trying to be. What Emma Derwent had got hold of was some hardcore evangelical tracts from that bloody great place with posters all over town.'
'The Mission Church of God?'
'That's the one. Jacobs said other kids in the unit had brought it in. It was nothing to do with him.'
'Did you believe him?'
'I had no reason not to.'
Not altogether convinced by Rogers's bluff certainty, Jenny sent Alison to talk to Patrick Derwent. Her mind had moved on to Eva Donaldson. She needed Jacobs laid conclusively to rest.
Michael Turnbull's assistant offered Jenny a meeting with him at five p.m., informing her that he was attending a House of Lords committee all morning and had to chair a Decency board meeting back in Bristol during the afternoon. This was intended to impress, perhaps even to intimidate her; Turnbull's staff seemed to relish their connection with a powerful man. Jenny had read that he shuttled around the country in a helicopter, relentlessly spreading the word like some latterday apostle. His campaign was certainly gathering strength: the latest newspaper polls put public support for the Decency Bill at 74 per cent. Not for nearly two hundred years, the leader writer commented, had the country's mood jolted so radically in a puritanical direction. Why it had happened was a source of fevered debate. Some claimed it was a fearful retreat from modernity, others that society was finally striking a sane balance between permissiveness and personal responsibility. Jenny was torn on the issue. The pornography she had seen was crude and brutal, but she had always believed that censorship, too, bred hypocrisy and shame.
She had still reached no clear conclusion by the time she arrived at the Mission Church of God later that afternoon. School kids, some still dressed in their uniforms, mingled in friendly groups. Boys and girls were good-naturedly kicking a football together. There was an atmosphere of reassuring innocence, a sense of sanctuary, like the embrace of a large and loving family.
In the lobby more children were sitting at rows of trestle tables stooped over schoolbooks. A familiar voice called out to her. The red-haired boy jumped up from one of the far tables and bounded over. Along with all the others he was wearing a name badge. His said: Freddy Reardon.
'Hi. How d'you get on with the book?' His fingertips anxiously gripped the cuffs of his school shirt, his freckled face bright with excitement.
Jenny couldn't bear to disappoint him. 'I'm going to start it this evening.'
'You'll be blown away,' Freddy said. 'What happened to her, it's unbelievable. And when you've finished that one, you've got to read Forgiveness. She wrote that one with Lennox. You should hear him talk about it - they finished it in a week. That's not like humanly possible, so it means those words can only have been coming from one place, you know what I'm saying?'
'I'll make sure to give it a go.' Jenny smiled, his enthusiasm was infectious. 'So tell me, what's going on here?'
'Evening service is at five-thirty. You don't get in unless you've finished your homework.'
'Wow.' She looked at the children's faces, pictures of concentration, and recalled her nightly battles with Ross, having to drag him from the computer and stand over him like an ogre. 'Everyone's behaving themselves.'
'It makes you feel good,' Freddy said earnestly. 'Everyone here looks out for each other. No one's giving you any trouble.'
'Are you all like this at school?'
Freddy grinned. 'Not really, there's no Lennox Strong at school. I keep telling him he should set one up here. I'd come. It'd be wicked, man.'
Jenny said, 'He's got your respect, huh?'
Freddy said, 'They're gonna have to invent a new word for it. See that kid over there, the one with the Afro? He's at my school. This time last year he was smoking rocks and mugging, pulled a knife on me one time. Now he's in my study group. You want proof, you're looking at it.'
'I'm impressed,' Jenny said. 'And I'll read the book, I promise.'
Freddy beamed, confident he'd closed the deal. 'It'll change your life. Guaranteed. See you around.'
Joel Nelson greeted Jenny with a warm smile and a soft handshake and brought her tea while she waited for the board meeting to finish. The ten or so staff in the slick church offices could have passed for employees in an advertising agency. Young, stylish