Free Fear of the Fathers by Dominic C. James Page A

and who are you working for?”
    Having regained her composure the girl stayed stubbornly silent.
    â€œI see,” said Kamal. “But silence will not help your cause. You will talk, or you will die.”
    Again the girl said nothing.
    Kamal went to the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face. The girl was not going to talk, and soon someone would come looking for her. He didn’t want to be around when they showed up. His problems were mounting.
    He quickly decided there was only one viable course of action. He gagged the girl again, packed his bag, and retrieved his Browning 9mm from under the mattress. He stood in front her weighing the gun in his hand.
    She looked at him in terror.
    He removed the safety.

Chapter 15
    Jennings ended the call and put his mobile on the desk. He leant back in his chair, stretched his arms, and yawned. It was 10pm and he still had another nine hours on duty. Although ‘duty’ just meant staying awake. The occasional circuit of the house wasn’t really much of a chore.
    It was his first official shift for the PM. The day before, after learning of his new post, he’d gone home to Oxford and packed a suitcase full of clothes and essentials. He’d informed his neighbour below that he would only be home periodically for a while, and asked if she could watch over the place and keep his mail for him. He had been back in London by eight in the evening.
    His quarters were well-appointed and homely. The room was large, about twenty foot square, with a double bed, fitted wardrobes, two chests of drawers, and a writing desk in the corner. There was a 40” plasma TV on the wall, and a DVD player and stereo. There was wireless broadband for his laptop. He also had his own en-suite bathroom and shower. It was like staying in a good hotel.
    His phone call had been from Stella. She had told him about the ‘memorial’ she was planning for the following Sunday. He was glad that she was at last starting to do something positive. In his opinion she’d been moping about for far too long. If he hadn’t been so busy, he would have helped with something like this a lot sooner. It was going to take her a long time to recover fully, if she ever did, but at least this would be a start.
    Pleased as he was with her news, he wasn’t too sure about this priest who’d suddenly entered her life like a whirlwind of salvation. Her conversation had been almost entirely based around this new fixture: Father Cronin this, Father Cronin that – it sounded as if Father Cronin was the second coming. She’d only known him for two days and already it seemed like he’d taken control of her life. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he was out of a job by the end of the week, he thought, due to Father Cronin having single-handedly brought about world peace.
    Realizing his mind was wandering into the realms of greenness, he checked himself and looked at the plus side of this new friendship. For one, Stella was beginning to sound a bit like her old self again. And secondly, it meant that there was not so much onus on him to help her through. It wasn’t that he felt burdened by the situation, it was just that he felt helpless and unable to deal with it properly, or rationally. He cared for Stella a lot, too much in fact, to be able to give her the impartial, unconditional support she needed. As time had gone on, he had become increasingly worried about his motives for assisting in her rehabilitation. His feelings grew more confused each time he saw her. It had got to the point where he felt as if he was dragging her, kicking and screaming, over the threshold of bereavement solely for his own benefit.
    To clear his mind he turned on the TV. He had the complete selection of satellite channels at his disposal, but he still couldn’t find anything he really wanted to watch. After much scrolling he eventually hit upon a documentary about Joe Strummer called The