‘Well,’ Father Macarius stared down at the floor. ‘I made a mistake. I was given a second chance and I wanted to do my best.’ He looked up at the church that gleamed before them in the moonlight. ‘It has not been easy, but I think we have achieved something.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘It is a tragedy about Meera. I cannot tell you how sad we all are.’
‘Did she ever talk to you about threats she had received? Some letters?’
‘Meera knew about threats.’ Father Macarius fixed Makana with a stony gaze. ‘We all do.’
‘You mean, because of her husband?’
‘I mean, because of her faith, which I believe prepared her for the difficulties she was to encounter with her husband.’
‘How do you feel about the fact that she married outside her faith?’
‘If a person decides to marry outside their faith it is no business of mine.’ Father Macarius had the even smile of a man to whom such questions were not new. ‘She was a Copt, first and foremost. The rest is’ – a philosophical shrug – ‘formalities.’
There was a commotion by the door behind them and a group of boys burst into sight with Antun at their head.
‘Abouna, Abouna!’
‘What is it Antun?’
The frail boy’s face was flushed. ‘They’ve found another one.’
Chapter Sixteen
By the time they arrived, the alleyway was already choked with people. Makana stuck close to Father Macarius who cut straight through the crowd. But even his authority wasn’t enough in the end. Macarius had to physically throw himself into the fray until people grudgingly stepped aside.
The house was nothing more than a shell. The roof had long gone and the walls were crumbling, doorways and windows only gaping mouths. There was little street lighting in this part of town and the alley was narrow and dark, lit only by a faint lamp fixed to a wall at the far end. Wires looped through the air overhead. People shuffled around in the dark, jostling for a better view. The road itself was narrow and uneven, slick with centuries of mud and waste so that it now resembled the hide of a strange animal that gave off a warm, thick stench.
‘Did someone call the police?’
A large man in a checked shirt laughed. ‘Police? They won’t dirty their shoes round here.’
‘Who is he, Abouna?’ someone else asked, pointing at Makana.
‘He’s an investigator,’ explained Father Macarius. ‘He’s here to help.’
The priest’s authority again seemed to carry weight. Makana found himself in the unusual position of having privileged first access to the victim. It was something of an honour, he reflected. Once upon a time, in what he had come to think of as his previous life, this had been his work. It was ten years now since he had been an inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department. Most of the crimes he had dealt with back then were straightforward batterings. Murderers were not as sophisticated as their fictional counterparts liked to make out. People killed their wives and husbands, their brothers and in-laws, and they did it wildly and without much forethought or planning. Blunt instruments, broken bottles, kitchen knives and rat poison being the weapons of choice. Taking a torch from the man in the checked shirt, Makana stepped closer and leaned in over the body. The man waved people back.
‘Give him room to work!’
Touching a hand to the forearm, Makana estimated that rigor mortis, the stiffness that sets in when oxygen no longer flows through the body, had barely begun. The boy was taller than he had expected and older, perhaps thirteen years old, maybe more. He had been dead less than three or four hours. His face had been bludgeoned with a hammer or some other blunt instrument. Identifying him by his features would be impossible. Makana moved slowly around the body. There was a strong smell of kerosene, the body was doused in the stuff.
‘Who found the body?’ he asked over his shoulder.
The large man in the check shirt seemed to exercise some sort of local authority.
‘My son, Emad, he stepped in here . . . to answer a call of nature.’
‘It’s disgusting!’ someone yelled out. ‘They use this place like a common toilet.’
‘He’s just a boy.’ The man defended his offspring.
‘And who taught him to behave like that?’
‘Where is your son?’ Makana interjected, before it degenerated into a fully fledged brawl.
‘I sent him home. This is no place for a child.’
‘Very thoughtful of you, but I shall need to speak to him.’