Turtle Island: 20th Anniversary Edition (Georgina O'Neil Book 1) Page 19

  ‘You learnt how to use that thing?’

  ‘I read the book.’ Leroy’s self-assuredness never wavered, not over simple things or more complex frustrations. Georgina liked that; she felt that if she needed him in a backup situation he would be there.

  ‘Thought you’d have a digital camera. This thing looks like it was used to catalogue the animals on Noah’s ark.’ Georgina said, lifting the SLR camera and peering through the viewfinder.

  The car tyres bumped over the small ridge that joined the main land to Turtle Island via Independence Bridge.

  ‘Do you think Rick's still alive?’ Leroy glanced sideways, he could see Georgina's face; she was looking tired, only slightly refreshed from the night before. Though the black suit she was wearing did little to add colour to her complexion.

  ‘Yeah, I think they are still alive. I also think that this is what our friend wanted all along. Which is why he wouldn't kill them straight away. Now would be a time for savouring their position, their power, for want of a better word.’

  Leroy looked back. ‘Did you get any sleep last night?’

  Georgina pretended to ignore Leroy's question, choosing to look through the side window at a farmhouse, still lit with electric light, waiting for the sun to burst through the mass of grey that was blotting out its radiance.

  ‘I take it that means no.’

  ‘I got one or two hours.’ Georgina said, ‘Sleep has been something of a recluse of late.’

  Leroy remained silent this time, knowing an interruption would probably stop Georgina in her tracks. He waited.

  Georgina rubbed her face wearily. Her index finger ran along the length of her nose before massaging her temple. She had the impression of the world closing in around her and found the constraint claustrophobic. At times she would have to stop whatever she was doing and just breathe. Breathe deeply, as though she had run out of air while diving under the sea. This was one of those times. She breathed deeply.

  The church appeared, small, almost inconspicuous. The drizzle continued its spray of fine mist. Leroy parked the car in the spacious car park. Georgina stepped from the car into the wet day.

  Rows of untended gravestones sat patiently waiting for loved ones to refresh their plots with flowers, never knowing if they would return at all. Grey slabs slowly turning green and sinking into the ground, as though clawed under by the occupants. The weather eating into the stonework, erasing the names that once resplendently heralded their existence on earth. Slowly their names and faces would disappear from the community they once lived in followed by the passing of time as their names became eroded by the wind, sun and rain, to be forgotten forever.

  Georgina passed the sleeping incumbents, her footsteps barely an audible echo for those below. Leroy followed; camera bag slung casually over his shoulder. The weathered oak door was unlocked. Georgina entered the nineteenth century Catholic Church. The air inside the church smelled of death, the dead’s tangible gift to the living world, a smell of must and decay. A glow from the altar drew her eyes to the eight candles burning as a prayer to the parishes needy. Georgina walked up to the shrine and lifted a candle from a pack lying on a shelf above the two rows of burning hope. She lowered it against the flame of one of the stronger burning candles and lit a candle for Korjca Piekarska. Georgina knelt and said a silent prayer. Not so much because she believed in God anymore but more for Korjca’s peace. She stared at the candle for a moment, watching the flame flicker as a breeze from the side played a song for it to dance to. She looked up to find Father Reagan standing by a closing door. Leroy leaned over her shoulder.

  ‘I'm going to have a word with the priest, see if there's anywhere I can discreetly observe the funeral.’ Leroy rested his hand on her collarbone, his fingers relaxed and warm. Georgina nodded acknowledgement. The priest was not how she had imagined him in her mind. He was young. Early to mid-thirties she guessed. His hair had been stylishly cut and tended to with an amount of care that she immediately envied. Father Reagan was, on first glance of either Irish or European stock. Dark hair and pale skin. His vocation, no doubt the pride of his mother and a waste to the female race. He stood talking with Leroy. The priest's voice soft and reverential, its tone bouncing off the dark crevices around the church. Georgina heard her name mentioned by Leroy and saw him turn and point to her. The priest smiled and gave a slight wave.

  He has a nice smile she thought to herself. She stood and walked over to where the two men were standing.

  Father Reagan held out a welcoming hand to Georgina.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Father.’

  The priest smiled. A smile as welcoming as his warm and hearty handshake.

  ‘Is it possible to see Korjca?’

  ‘Certainly. You do understand that from the nature of her injuries we are not having an open casket before the service.’

  Georgina nodded.

  ‘But we do have a room where you may view in private. If you would care to follow me.’ The priest held out his arm and guided Georgina toward an annex room to the left of the altar. Leroy ambled to the end of the church and out of a door, which led to some steps. He walked up the stone steps to the balcony, where he set up his camera. He checked the light, made sure the film was set to the right speed and became familiar and comfortable with the surroundings.

  The priest opened the door to the small anteroom. The casket was set up on two trestles; dark mauve velvet material tried its best to hide the rough wooden legs of the supports. Georgina followed the priest; two steps behind, slightly hesitant. She didn't want to be there; she had no desire to see another dead body.

  Father Reagan stood over the coffin and pulled the lid open gently, respectfully.

  Georgina steeled herself, briefly closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before stepping forward. She opened her eyes. Korjca's pale skin still had its porcelain perfection, though the shape of her face seemed to have changed subtly. Georgina had seen this many times with corpses. Relaxed facial muscles have a tendency to pull back slightly; gravity taking its effect after rigor mortis passes. Her eyes were closed, her lips painted with a subdued pale red lipstick. A silk chiffon scarf had been tied around her throat covering the deep incision, which finally claimed her life.

  Georgina's hand hovered in front of Korjca’s face. She wanted to touch her and feel the warmth of life searing through her body, shake her awake. She lowered her hand and stroked Korjca's marble cold skin. The touch severed passion. The reality of death transferred through Korjca's skin to Georgina's fingers and much deeper within.

  ‘Had you known Korjca long? I only ask because I know she had no family here and the few times she came to church she always seemed to be alone.’ Father Reagan's voice came from behind Georgina, tearing her from her thoughts.

  ‘No, not long, barely a day.’ Georgina continued looking at Korjca's expressionless face.

  ‘Do you wish me to leave you alone for a minute?’ The priest didn't wait for an answer. He backed out of the room pulling the door gently closed.

  Georgina waited for a few moments until she was certain she would not be disturbed then wiped her own lipstick away with her thumb leaving her lips bare. She then carefully wiped Korjca’s mouth clean. Korjca's face cold and taut. A small amount of foundation transferred on to Georgina's wet thumb. She lowered her head, so that she could feel her own breath returning from Korjca’s face, gently her lips brushed against Korjca’s. She tenderly pulled the edge of Korjca's scarf back, revealing a row of bootlace stitching. No attempt had been made to cosmetically disguise her cause of death other than a small amount of foundation, which had been applied to the edge of the cut. A token effort to blunt the brutality of the attack.

  Georgina wiped her eyes. She leaned forward, close to Korjca's face. Her nose brushed against Korjca's, while her hand caressed her forehead and hair. She felt her fingers entwine around a small lock of Korjca's hair. Georgina whispered Forgive me and pulled four tiny hairs from Korjca's scalp. She
never looked at the hairs but placed them inside an evidence bag and secured the bag deep in her jacket pocket. Georgina wiped her eyes and left the room.

  The priest was sitting on one of the church pews close to the door she had just exited.

  ‘Would you care for a drink or a coffee?’

  Georgina looked drained once more. ‘That would be nice.’

  Father Reagan stood. ‘Follow me.’

  He opened a door, which led outside the church. A tiny path made of stone circled the church and ran to a small lodge fifty metres from the main church building. The drizzle had not stopped, there was a muted grey blanket covering the sky.

  As they walked the priest spoke. ‘I am not in the habit of bringing attractive young women home, much to my father’s disappointment.’

  Georgina’s sense of humour betrayed her feelings of grief and she allowed a smile to spread from the corners of her mouth. ‘Are you hitting on me, Father?’

  ‘You should use that smile a lot; it is very attractive.’

  Georgina could suddenly feel herself blush a little.

  ‘You know, losing a friend or a loved one can be a time when suddenly you realise how vulnerable you are as a human being. You ask yourself lots of searching questions. Sometimes-painful questions. You wonder if there was anything you could have done to prevent a death or whether you had done enough for that person when they were alive. You ask if there is a god, and if there is, what sort of god could allow something like this happen. The one thing I get from nearly every person who mourns is a sense of guilt. It takes its form in many guises but I can see it. It lies in the eyes. A black spot, a deadness. It’s not attractive and it would be such a shame to see it in your eyes.’

  They reached the front door to the lodge. The priest put his hand to the door, and it opened. ‘I always leave it unlocked even during the night, much to my housekeepers alarm.’

  ‘And your insurers?’ Georgina said as she entered.

  The priest looked heaven bound. ‘My only insurer is God. Anyway, anything I have here on earth is but a temporary possession and could probably be put to better use by those more needy…except my computer and my CD player, oh and my DVD.’

  Georgina smiled again; the priest was a man of contradiction; she liked him.

  Father Reagan guided Georgina through to the kitchen. The room was in need of some decoration but only to bring it into the current decade. Other than that, it was clean and meticulously tidy. There were shelves with recipe books, most of which seemed to be in pristine condition, a microwave, a cooker, fridge, freezer, all the usual utensils.

  ‘Don’t ask me to use anything but the kettle, that’s Mrs Kingsley’s domain. My housekeeper. She’s the obsessive tidier. The one sin that I specialise in is sloth.’ Father Reagan filled the kettle from the tap. ‘Coffee?’

  Georgina pulled out a chair from a large oak table and sat. ‘One sugar, white.’

  The gas lit under the kettle and began to send heat through the thin metal surface to the water inside, sending small bubbles of water to the cooler surface.

  ‘Hope you have no objections to instant?’ Reagan unscrewed a large jar of instant coffee.

  She shook her head. ‘Nope, I’m a home girl; fairly down to earth I like to think. No pretensions.’

  ‘You should try confession, I only asked if you wanted instant.’ He stirred milk into the brown powder and added the sugar, the same amount to each cup.

  ‘I have this habit.’ The Priest began. ‘And before you say it, I know it’s the monks who wear habits.’

  He waited to see a smile, a little lightening up on Georgina’s features. She obliged.

  Reagan continued. ‘As I was saying I have this habit. I always take the same amount of sugar as my guest. If they have one, I take one, two, two and so on. Once I had an old Irish builder sitting in the seat you’re sat at. His wife had just died, and he was feeling pretty cut up. He took five sugars in his coffee.’ Father Reagan raised his hand and emphasised with his outstretched fingers. ‘Five! He wanted to know how he was going to survive without her. They had been married for fifty-three years.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  The kettle began to protest as the hot water expanded in its metal prison.

  ‘I told him to wake up tomorrow and the next day and the next and that the pain of her death would never go away but he would grow to love her and her memory more and more.’

  ‘Did that help?’

  The priest reddened slightly. ‘I was young and inexperienced then. He told me that I had no concept of grief. He was right. I used a stock answer not one that came truly from the heart. How do you tell an eighty-five-year-old man living on his own in a foreign country when all that he loved had died, that tomorrow will be better than today? Deep down I knew it wouldn’t. No matter how much he believed in God, tomorrow and all the following days would get tougher until his last breath. I know that sounds bleak but I’m a realist. The one area where I could practically help was with this man’s life after his wife and that’s what we did. If he were forty or fifty years younger my help would have been different.’ The kettle began to boil over spitting hot jets of water onto the work surface.

  ‘Like the amount of sugar, you have in your coffee, different amounts for different people.’

  The priest nodded ‘Something like that.’ and poured the steaming liquid on to the browned milk.

  ‘So, do you believe in God?’ Father Reagan asked.

  ‘I see too much tragedy, too much suffering of the innocent. It kinda makes you cynical, but I respect those that do?’

  ‘Father, mother?’

  ‘Mother’s dead. She died when I was fifteen. She had faith. My father is too much of a pragmatist to believe in anything that isn’t tangible.’

  The priest nodded, handing Georgina a mug of hot coffee.

  ‘My step mom is three years younger than me.’ Georgina continued. ‘She still believes in God, but then again…she still believes in Santa.’

  ‘Don’t get on well?’

  ‘Okay, I guess. I’m happy for dad. I know he wasn’t trying to replace Mom and if I’m honest she’s good for him. As long as she doesn’t kill him in the sack.’ Georgina sipped.

  ‘What about yourself...Korjca? Was she...’

  ‘She was someone I liked, who I never got the chance to know. I rang her on the night she was murdered.’ Georgina breathed in; the memory still painful. ‘I...I don’t make friends easy. Too cynical I guess, but Korjca and I ...I don’t know, we kind of bonded but as usual I nerved out and left it until it was too late.’

  ‘She came here on a few occasions to mass. I always remember a new face at congregation. Such a shame. And the Montoya’s…a dreadful thing.’ Reagan looked heaven bound as though searching for answers from a higher deity.

  The first of the mourners began to arrive, just before ten o’clock. Leroy fiddled with the camera, checking the auto focus by firing off a test shot from his vantage point upstairs. Father Reagan informed Georgina that there was going to be a short service. He didn’t expect many mourners. Korjca’s mother was flying in from Poland and would return with her daughter’s ashes.

  Georgina watched a broken woman as she was helped out of out of a car, flanked by a funeral director and a younger woman. The younger woman was Korjca’s sister, Anna.

  The sight of the television vehicles came as no surprise to Georgina. They appeared an hour before the start of the funeral and set up. Georgina watched from the car.

  ‘Jackals’

  Barbara Dace was there, her cameraman John Keller in tow. There was every chance that the funeral was going to be a big media circus now that Dace had reported Rick Montoya and his family’s abduction. Georgina sat trying to read case notes, trying to concentrate but all the time the word ‘Jackals’ ran through her head as she grew angrier at the infringement on the privacy and grief of Korjca Piekarska family. Georgina watched Anna Piekarska and her mother enter the church, followed
by three cameras from rival television networks.

  Anna Piekarska genuflected in front of the altar, years of conditioning pushing aside personal grief for the briefest of moments. Korjca's coffin, now sealed, was resting on two trestles in front of the altar. Both Anna and her mother had taken time alone with Korjca, just as Georgina had done earlier, now was the formal part of the ceremony. The part Anna dreaded most.

  Korjca's mother, ‘Ditta’, sobbed continually. Ever since the phone call three days earlier. For Anna, her grief was different, it came in waves, unpredictably and uncontrollable when it washed over her, but her mourning was tidal, it ebbed and flowed. At times she felt as though she was in control. Anna looked at her mother knowing that she was not as strong, nor had the youth to comprehend or cope with the tragedy. Her mother had visibly aged in those three long days. Everything was so strange, so alien. There were many faces but neither Anna nor her Mother knew them. People she had never met, sat and cried at the loss of her sister, people who didn't even know who Anna or her mother was. One of them sat in the front row, discretely at the end of the bench by the aisle near the east wall. Soft daylight filtered down through the stained-glass windows some twenty feet above. Anna sat staring at the stranger, who seemed to be using the shadows as a cloak of anonymity. The stranger stared ahead seemingly unaware of the scrutiny being forced on her but glanced sideways briefly to acknowledge Anna's presence. Anna guided her frail mother on to the pew. The older woman collapsed onto the seat, gravity having a wearing effect on her frailty. Anna glanced once more at the young woman at the end of the row. Her pale skin and dark hair were features she was more accustomed to seeing in Europe. She clutched a book in her hand, a bible, prayer book or hymnbook. The ringing of a bell, its short resonance echoing through the air, broke the silence, announcing the beginning of the ceremony.

  Father Reagan entered the church from one of the small rooms at the rear. He led a small group of choirboys, who sang the opening verse of ‘Walk with me, oh my Lord’. They walked slowly to the altar, incense burning and being wafted through the musty dull air. Plumes of blue smoke hung frozen in the quiet stillness of the church, captured by candlelight. The only other sound was the crying wail of grief escaping from Ditta as Anna pulled her close, hugging her and at the same time stifling her own sobs. The procession of choirboys dressed in brilliant white smocks with round red collars continued to sing as they found their seats by the altar. A discreet organ played softly, seeming only to pick out certain notes to keep the choir on key. Father Reagan blessed his bible and kissed the foot of a stone statue of Jesus.