Free The Fool by Morgan Gallagher Page A

it. We
have a full investigation within the church, trying to track down
the Bishop who undertook the confirmation. The certificate is real,
we are pretty sure it doesn’t relate in any way to Jason.’
    ‘But you aren’t certain?’
    ‘No. And, until we are...’
    ‘Wyn is trapped in the confessional with
him.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Goodness, what a mess.’ Maryam poured
herself a large port and studied the colours in the depths of the
wine.
     
    ‘How did he conduct himself in the
confessional, Jason Briggs? Did he know what to do?’
    It was Andy who answered his surprise that
Maryam asked the question evident.
    ‘He conducted himself impeccably. I spoke to
Wyn about it at length. He knew what to do and say and couched
everything he told Wyn under guise of confession, as an actual
confession.’
    ‘Then he’d come back again and again and say
he’d been weak and sinned once more? Asking for help and
forgiveness?
    ‘Yes.’ Fred’s words were weighted down by
the guilt he felt, by how they’d been unable to help the young
priest.
    ‘When did you find out about all this?’
    ‘Just a few days ago; about ten days, I
think.’ He looked to Father Scott, who nodded his head in
agreement.
    ‘It took a while for it to filter over to
us. His own bishop at Southwark was dealing with it,
obviously.’
    ‘When was it brought to you?’
    ‘When permission was sought to enrol the
services of a private detective to try and prove that Jason’s
certificate of confirmation was a forgery.’
    ‘Was permission given?’
    ‘Yes, but the murder took place before we
commissioned anyone.’
    ‘So you knew that Wyn was in the pressure
cooker, that he was being targeted this way?’
    ‘Yes.’ Fred felt shameful. Maryam wasn’t
sure what else they could have done, given how well Jason Briggs
had danced upon the Church’s rules. It also explained why they’d
been keeping her close to them. She’d misjudged him.
    ‘At no point could you persuade anyone that
Jason’s confessions were not genuine? That he had no intention of
changing his behaviour, that he was not a true penitent?’ Her voice
betrayed that this was a forlorn hope... how to do you prove
someone’s thoughts?
    ‘No. We tried. Wyn offered other priests for
the confession. We changed the rota, we even moved Wyn out for a
week, on respite. Briggs kept coming back, kept turning up in the
confessional and kept requesting forgiveness. He would appear when
the Church was locked.’
    ‘So that’s why the back door was changed,
not the graffiti?’
    ‘Yes. Briggs was appearing in the Church
when Wyn was doing work on his own, requesting confession.’
    ‘No doubt describing in graphic detail what
his sins were and where they had taken place?’
    ‘Yes. He spared nothing.’
    ‘And not one of you can breathe a single
word about it.’
    ‘Indeed.’
    It was Maryam’s turn to slap her hand down
on the table hard enough to bruise.
    ‘Damnation!’
     
    She was glad she had stayed in Peckham and
that she’d taken a taxi back. She got out of the taxi just after it
crossed the river and walked the three miles to the Church. It was
two a.m. and the world, even the South London world, was indoors
and asleep. She needed the wind in her eyes and the cold touching
her bones to drive away the depression that was threatening. Wyn
was locked into a terrible battle, a struggle for his freedom and
his innocence, and it very much looked as if he might lose it. They
would lose both a promising new priest and a soul that lit the room
up when he entered it.
    She decided to switch from the ‘why’ of this
investigation and look to the ‘how’. There had to be some way to
save this young man, to defeat the evil that was attacking him.
Rather than going to bed when she got in, she switched on her
laptop and began research into the gang culture in London.
     
    In the morning, with the parish house alive
around her, she woke and attended to her Tarot. What she got in the
three