The Kingdom of Bones

ELEVEN

Before he went for his train, Sebastian Becker went to church. It was his first visit for some time. The doors were unlocked but there was barely any light in the dawn sky outside, and it seemed he would have the place to himself for a while. When he stepped inside and closed the door behind him, the fall of the iron latch echoed like a gunshot all the way up to the vaulted roof.

Perhaps this was a mistake. One look at his surroundings and again he felt some of the deep spiritual terror that he’d known as a small child, making its mark that he knew would never be fully erased. The Catholic Church, the same the world over. Whether it was a cathedral in Cologne or a mission in California, in their essence they never varied. Candles and gilt, darkness and mystery.

And suffering. Always suffering. In every image, in every hymn, and in every prayer; and it was always inflicted by a God who spoke in Latin, and borne by a Christ who resembled no Jew that Sebastian had ever met. As if the real Christ had been insufficient for the Church’s purposes, so they’d manufactured their own.

He knelt briefly in the aisle, and crossed himself. It took no effort to remember the procedure. He wanted to ignore it, but could not see how. The training ran too deep and he knew that he would freeze, unable to continue until the omission had been corrected.

Once that was over, he took a seat at the front of the church. Where the congregation sat, right in the front row. There were oil lamps around the high altar that had been burning all through the night. Behind the altar, in an ornate frame, towered some magnificent Renaissance painting that he could barely see. Before this shone a cross; in gold or brass, from here it was impossible to tell. He stared at it almost in defiance; refusing to pray, refusing even to admit the possibility of prayer.

So why was he here?

Last night’s news had shaken him. Turner-Smith not just dead, but murdered. Sebastian’s insides churned like a bag of snakes when he tried to come to terms with it. He should have been the one to pursue the information. Then Turner-Smith would be alive. But then Sebastian might well have suffered his superior’s fate in his place. Unless, by conducting himself differently, he reached a different outcome.

But perhaps his mentor had died because he had made some discovery that would prove vital to the investigation. In which case, his achievement and his sacrifice were bound together. For Sebastian to have replaced him and survived would be to negate both. While to make the same discovery and die in his place…well, in considering that one, Sebastian found proof that he did not have the makings of a saint.

There would be a funeral. A police funeral, with full honors. The streets of the town would be taken over for the procession, and people would turn out because all those black-plumed horses and men in uniform would be something to see. But Sebastian could never picture a funeral without thinking of the white coffin of his sister, small enough for one undertaker’s man to carry in his arms.

He’d been a few days short of his ninth birthday, and death had meant little to him then. Grief, though…that had been everywhere he turned, terrifying and oppressive. The house draped in black, the downstairs rooms crowded with somber people. He hardly dared speak. Even the appearance of his living self seemed to be taken as an affront, and so he kept out of his mother’s way as much as possible.

He’d dared to wonder if, given time, this turn of events might mean that he’d receive a fuller share of her affections. But as his ninth birthday came and went without notice, and the birthday after that, each overshadowed by the grimmer anniversary that preceded it, he grew to realize that not only was his dead sibling still loved, but loved more than he.

Why had his mother felt the need to write that letter to Turner-Smith? Did it indicate a concern that she’d never otherwise let him see? The experience of a lifetime suggested not. It was merely her way to place her mark on his affairs. She’d always responded to any of his plans or proposals by pointing out their potential for failure. She considered herself entitled to her opinion.

“Praying’s a skill like any other, Sebastian,” said a voice behind him. Sebastian looked back and saw Father Alexander, parish priest for the past eighteen years, in the aisle and moving toward him. He must have been elsewhere in the church, and had come in through one of the side doors. “I can’t say I’ve seen you practice it much, lately.”

Sebastian said, “Turner-Smith was murdered last night.”

“Turner-Smith?”

“My superintendent.”

“God have mercy on his soul. How did it happen?”

“The circumstances are unclear. I am to go there with what I know, and if there is an arrest to be made, I shall make it. If there is a God, may he guide my hand.”

The priest’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “If, Sebastian?”

Sebastian rose to his feet.

“Another time, Father,” he said.