Mercury Rising - part 1

Mary Cummings was pleased that her new parish, St Mark’s, was to all intents and purposes in the inner city. It was some way out of the centre of Manchester, though, in an area where the old Cities of Manchester and Salford had a common border (not that that mattered now that both had been subsumed into something called “Greater Manchester”). Inner city, but with a reasonable number of green spaces, and even green trees now that the old industrial pollution had largely vanished. She particularly liked that it was a mixed area, and looked forward to some stimulating interfaith contact with the local Muslim and Jewish communities. The Church of England already got quite well with most of the other Christian denominations. Poverty and deprivation were still there, of course, but she was aware that the situation was nothing like as bad as it had been fifty years ago, before she was born. But there was plenty of scope for “outreach”, as the current jargon had it.

Mary’s husband, Alan, had died of lung cancer ten years ago, and she had been through a difficult period bringing up their son Alistair on her own. But Alistair was now grown up and independent, living in the Orkney islands, and her subsequent decision to seek ordination had made her feel she had got a new but still useful life of her own back, though the training had been tough. With her recent appointment as Vicar of St Mark’s, her first, things for her were looking up.

St Mark’s church was an unusual building for an Anglican place of worship, though by no means unique in England. Built fairly early on in the nineteenth century, it had just missed being swept up in the Gothic Revival, and was rather classical in style. The churchyard, which had long since fallen out of use as a burial place, consisted of tombstones laid flat and almost contiguous, with virtually no space for grass between. It struck Mary as an eloquent testimony to the population explosion caused

by the Industrial Revolution, and the consequent crisis in the availability of churchyard burial space before the gradual development of public cemeteries in the early decades of the nineteenth century.

Her new congregation was not huge, but represented a mixture of ages, occupations and ethnicities, which was just what she had expected and wanted. They struck her as in the main friendly and communicative, and drinking coffee together after the Sunday service was a rewarding experience.

She already knew the Bishop, of course, having served as curate in another part of his diocese, and told herself she was going to get on well with him if she behaved herself. Even the Archdeacon was not the ogre of Trollopian cliché.

All in all, she felt a warm glow as she looked at the newly painted sign outside the church: “Vicar: the Rev. Mary Cummings, B.A., B.D.”, with of course her telephone number.

And one Sunday evening her telephone rang. She was not expecting any particular news, certainly not any dramatic or disturbing news, though she had felt a vague uneasiness ever since she had spilled a little of the communion wine that morning. As a vicar she was religious, but she was decidedly not superstitious. An incident like that, efficiently and reverently dealt with, should not have perturbed her too much. Nevertheless, something inside her would not be quiet. What followed was a coincidence, of course.

Picking up the telephone, she was immediately aware something was seriously wrong.

“Mrs Cummings?” She recognised the voice of George Hargreaves, one of the churchwardens. “I’m afraid I’ve got bad news. One of the congregation is dead – murdered it seems. Ray Agostini. He was found behind the church. The police are there dealing with it, but I think you had better come round at once.”

Raymond Agostini was a well-respected member of the congregation. He ran a grocery shop on nearby Cheetham Hill Road founded by his grandfather, who had come over from Italy eighty years before. The family, originally Roman Catholic, had subsequently become so naturalised as to join the Church of England. Ray, as he was known to his friends, supplied St Mark’s with coffee and biscuits at a considerable discount.

For a moment Mary was too shocked to move. She felt a tingling spreading up her arms, and it was as if her brain was made of cotton wool. Pulling herself together as best she could, she grabbed a coat and headed for the church. As she approached, she could see the vehicles pulled up outside in the street, police cars, and ambulance and a black van without markings. The gateway to the church yard was already closed off with that blue ribbon police use to indicate the scene of an incident. She waited outside and gesticulated to indicate her presence.

Eventually, a man in plain clothes approached. Mary took in a tall figure, medium build, with light brown hair and blue eyes. He was wearing a check sports jacket and cavalry twill trousers. “A bit behind on the fashion front,” she couldn’t prevent herself thinking. “But otherwise he looks all right.”

“You the vicar?” he said. “I’m Inspector Bailey – Tom Bailey. So sorry about all this, but I know you would want to know at the earliest opportunity. What is your name, by the way? You’re new here, aren’t you?”

“I’m Mary Cummings”, she replied, and they rather awkwardly shook hands. “What happened here? I can’t take it all in. I mean, a murder at the church. And Ray Agostini was a nice, ordinary, inoffensive man. He will be so missed not only in St Marks, but in the whole neighbourhood. He was our friendly local grocer, never harmed a fly as far as know.”

The inspector took out a notebook and made a few jottings. “We’ll want to consult you more closely in due course. Anything you can tell us may be useful. But that will be plenty for now. I’m sure you

are really shaken up, so please take a break and try to relax. Not likely in the circumstances, I know, but I don’t have any better advice.”

“Can I see the body?” Mary asked.

“I’d rather you didn’t. The victim has multiple stab wounds, and is not a pretty sight.”

“Priests have to attend deathbeds and take funerals, and we were deliberately shown some pretty grim sights during our training to prepare us. We have to be the strong ones for the relatives.”

“Well, if you are really sure”, he said.

The policeman led her round the church to where the body lay covered by a blanket. She registered that the blanket was red, probably provided by the paramedics who must keep such things in their ambulances in readiness for any eventuality.

There was no doubt that this was no accident, but a case of murder, and a pretty vicious one at that. The victim was lying on his back, and his body was peppered with stab wounds, from his upper chest down to his groin. His face had been slashed too. As she had surmised, there was blood aplenty. A great deal of it was on his face, concealing features, but there was no doubt that it was Ray Agostini lying there.

“Thank you”, Mary said. “I felt it was my duty to know the full extent of what has happened to my parishioner. I know this is a big city, but I have had no awareness of things like this around here. If I can help the police in any way, you know where to find me.”

“Yes,” said the Inspector. “I’m sure we’ll be in touch.”

The police would already have informed Ray’s wife and two children, of course, but Mary still had to undertake the difficult duty of visiting them herself to try to bring a measure of comfort, personal as much as religious. This she now did, and it was as harrowing an experience as she expected.

 

The next day, back at the station, Tom Bailey received a preliminary telephone report from the pathologist, Dr Feinstein. The doctor – Tony Feinstein –was a personal friend of Tom’s, otherwise he would not have received such a call, since it was not the regular way these things proceeded. The police more usually had to wait for a fuller written account. But there was a good particular reason for the pathologists call on this occasion. It seemed that a detail which might well be very important had not been spotted at the crime scene, due to the blood obscuring it. When the victim’s face has been wiped clear of blood, what appeared to be deliberate incised marks appeared on the forehead. They looked like letters, but not letters Tony or any of his assistants recognised.

When Tom and his Sergeant, Bill McLeod, a blunt-spoken but perceptive Glaswegian, attended the full post-mortem a day later, they had the chance to examine the marks in person. The cause of death was, as was to be expected, uncontroversial – heart failure due to trauma and blood loss caused by multiple puncture wounds. The weapon that had inflicted these was, according to the pathologist’s estimate, a broad-bladed knife six to eight inches long (he gave the length in millimetres, of course, but both Tom and Bill were, like the majority of Brits over a certain age, dinosaurs with respect to the metric system). Other details established by the autopsy, such as age, height and weight of the victim, and facts about his medical history, did not seem relevant to the murder enquiry.

The marks, on the other hand, were almost certainly extremely relevant. Clearly scratched on Ray Agostini’s forehead were what certainly looked like letters of some sort, rather awkwardly crammed together:

 

Tom and Bill had no more idea what they might signify than Tony and his staff, but they asked the photographer to make as clear an image of them as possible, and noted the need for “further enquiries”.

 

On the same day that they had attended the post-mortem, Tom got in touch again, as he had promised, with the Rev. Mary. She would be free at 5.00 pm, and they arranged to meet then at the Vicarage.

As arranged, Mary’s door-bell rang just after five. The inspector was accompanied by his sergeant. As on their first meeting, they shook hands, but less awkwardly, and she felt rather pleased to see Tom again. She invited the two detectives through to the sitting room, offered them tea, and then briefly disappeared to the kitchen to prepare it. She was glad they would not be able to see the chaos in there from where they were sitting. Mary had not been living in the vicarage for all that long, but she had to admit that was really an excuse – she was not by nature someone who was likely to earn praise from Good Housekeeping.

When she returned to the sitting room, she found Tom and Bill poring over a document which looked like an A4 sized photograph. The Inspector looked up and began:

“Er, Mrs Cummings – or should that be Reverend Cummings?”

“Oh, please call me Mary”, she said.

“Oh good – you can call me Tom, too. We’d like you to have a look at this picture. It was taken at Ray Agostini’s post-mortem, so I apologise if it is a bit grisly, but it shows what look to be letters carved, or rather scratched, into his forehead. They couldn’t be seen at the crime scene because of all the blood. We’d like your opinion, as a university educated person, as to what they might mean. I know it’s a long shot, but you may be able to help. Could it have anything to do with the church?”

“You do flatter me about my university expertise, Tom. I actually read English for my first degree, and theology of course for my professional training. It doesn’t seem likely I would be able to help much. But let me have a look.”

Tom handed her the photograph, and she examined it as closely as she could. But no flash of inspiration came to her. She was just about to hand the sheet back, when a distant memory came into her head. She really ought to have thought of it before, but she hadn’t been a very diligent student of the older, philological part of her English course. It was during an illustrated lecture on the Anglo-Saxon period that the lecturer had displayed on the screen some runic inscriptions. Of course, that was what Tom’s letters resembled.

“Wait a minute”, she said. “I’ve had an idea. Those marks look very like some ancient letters that came up on my English course. They might be Anglo-Saxon runes. That sounds crazy, but I think it’s worth looking into.”

“How do we go about it – apart from Google, that is.”

“Well, I think the lecturer who told us about all that is still working at the University. I could get in touch with him, if you like.”

“Why don’t we go together?” Tom suggested. “You give him a ring, as he might remember you, and fix up a time. As a plain clothes man, I can be free to follow any new lead most times. If there is any problem, get back to me and we can re-arrange”.

By now, Mary found she was feeling quite at ease with Tom. Her initial good impression of him was being confirmed. She rather looked forward to visiting the University with him.

“We had better get the routine questioning done with before we go, Sir”, Sergeant Bill interjected at this point.

“Of course, I’d almost forgotten”, his boss replied.

Over the next twenty minutes or so, Mary had to answer a number of rather dull routine questions about where she was when the murder took place, how she learned about it, about George Hargreaves who had told her, and who had apparently been the first to find the body, about her congregation and the local community in general, and so forth. She saw the two policemen off at the front door, and, inevitably feeling rather stressed, retired for a stiff gin and tonic.