The Trinity (48 page)

Chris and Karen leave the office. An instant later, the blue Austin Allegro of Father Crowley drives slowly by, spying the familiar and formidable figure of Inspector Holliday climbing into his Cortina.

Karen takes Chris back to her flat in Brechin. She knows it is necessary for Chris to go back to the priest and try to come up with something, anything, that can link him to the crimes of the past and the threatened crimes of the future.

But she doesn’t want to force him. She knows he is scared and has been through a lot. Most people in his situation would probably flee as far from the priest as possible.

Gently, she reminds him that he put himself into this situation, and for the sake of others, he should try to do what he can.

They arrive back at her flat, and she offers to make a late lunch. Chris still can’t eat. He sits morosely on her couch, torn between what he knows he should do and what he wants to do. He wants to remain in Karen’s flat forever and not have to face Brad or the priest ever again. He could ride with Karen to work and then exit the base immediately. He could spend the time off with her, traveling around the country visiting castles and towns.

But this isn’t an option. He knows he couldn’t live with himself if he doesn’t do what the police and Karen have asked. He has to reach deep inside and wrestle a certain amount of courage that he has always lacked. Never in his life has he been made to face such fear, other than the fear of walking through hallways and sitting in cafeterias alone, a chronic fear that has plagued him since so very early in his adolescence.

He smokes a cigarette. He watches his hand and studies his fingers as he draws the cigarette to his lips and lets it hang above the ashtray on the coffee table. He wonders how he looks to Karen while smoking, and he wonders if it makes him seem older. He thinks back to the time when he was perhaps fourteen or fifteen, standing in front of his bathroom mirror, watching himself smoke. He smiles at the silliness of the memory and contemplates the change in his life since those days. Those were sad days. His mother had just started dating other men without hiding it. Lord knows what she had been doing in secret. He confronted her, and she told him to mind his own business and that the only reason why she and his father hadn’t divorced was because of him. They might as well have, he thinks now, looking back. They weren’t there for him very much. He brought home his report cards to no one, leaving them exposed on the kitchen table and they would remain there, undisturbed, until he threw them away.

He sighs, finishes his cigarette and immediately lights another. He ponders the consequences of his inaction. The priest will ultimately be caught; he will slip somehow, somewhere, with or without Chris. Chris’s blood is left on the synagogue door in Aberdeen, already gathered in evidence bags in the Grampian Police HQ. The priest won’t go down alone; Chris knows this to be true. The priest will go down kicking and crying and naming all of his associates, as he will need company to share in his misery.

He contemplates the worst-case scenarios of his return to the priest’s fold. He knows he won’t be sodomized again. He won’t allow the priest to do that, and he won’t eat or drink in the priest’s presence ever again. He could die, somehow, during the attack on the synagogue or during the police break-up of such an act. He could be murdered by the priest, if the priest somehow gets wind of his contact with the police. Death is the worst thing that could possibly happen. The best result is that the priest’s plans are thwarted and Chris, due to his cooperation, is absolved of all his earlier participation in the desecration of the synagogue and cemetery.

He thinks only briefly about Brad—his friend, but not really his friend. They were only friends while drinking. He knows Brad is a hateful young man. His heart is full of rage. He is without a conscience. He even hit a girl, Chris recalls. He has been with the priest since early on and has shown no sign of remorse over past murders or the possibility of future murders. He is a willing participant.

Chris finishes his cigarette. Karen is in the kitchen, cleaning up from the morning, the clutter of coffee cups and her own cereal bowl.

“I’ll do it,” he says suddenly. “I’ll do what I have to do.” He puts his head in his hands and he knows his words have just now sealed his fate. He could never go back on his word—not his word to Karen.

She nods slowly while walking to the couch. She sits next to Chris, very closely. The closeness is almost uncomfortable for Chris, but not unwelcome.

Karen is touched. She knows this requires a lot of courage on Chris’s part, a sort of bravery that has never been required of him before at this tender age. She has been somehow attracted to Chris from early on. There is something about his gentle nature that is endearing, and she realizes now that he reminds her of her late husband. He too was gentle and unassuming, not brash and obnoxious like the boys she knew and dated in high school. He was sensitive; he showed his emotions to her often and readily. So has Chris.

“I just want you to know that you won’t do this alone. I’ll be with you and worrying about you while you’re gone.” She kisses him on the cheek and a thought crosses her mind, a thought that she would not have expected in a million years.

She has not been with a man since her husband and children passed away. She hasn’t been interested, not even a little. She has been propositioned probably a thousand times. She is, after all, a not-so-unattractive woman in a mostly male Navy. Adak, Alaska was especially tiresome; the island was military-only. There was no place off base for sailors to go. She dared not show her face in the enlisted club at night. She stayed locked away in her room—her shelves lined with books borrowed from the base library or ordered through the mail.

She has known all along that her celibacy would end. She has, as of late, felt a sort of longing for companionship, and she realized after showing Chris some of Scotland that experiences are better and richer if they can be shared. His youth doesn’t bother her; he hasn’t been alive long enough for the world to harden him.

So she decides to make love to Chris.

Her reasoning is two-fold. The first reason is to satisfy her own needs; the length of mourning has been long enough where she doesn’t feel a sense of guilt. The second reason is that Chris needs to cross the threshold into manhood. He needs to make love to a woman in a genuine way, in a way that will build his confidence. He needs a certain swagger in his step that one can only have when involved with a new love. He will need all the swagger and confidence he can muster when he goes back to the priest.

She kisses him once on the cheek, and she sees his face redden with a probable mix of embarrassment and desire. She kisses him again on the other cheek and then on the lips. She is surprised at her own aggressiveness. He kisses her back gently, and the softness of his kiss enthralls her even more.

She then seduces him completely, there on her couch, removing his clothes before removing her own. It has been a long time, but it is an act she hasn’t forgotten. The sensation of desire fans across her body, a feeling that she realizes she has missed.

Chris, at first, is more than dumbfounded. This is a behavior that he doesn’t expect from Karen, though it is a behavior that he has longed for and has imagined with her. His first inclination, out of shame and decency, is to resist her. He, of course, doesn’t resist her; he surrenders completely and follows her lead with his own instinct.

They make love and the span of time is brief. The event is a less torturous one for him than the night in the George Hotel—he doesn’t think about the procedural things quite so much. He is awkward at first, tumbling on top of her as she lays down on the couch, but he quickly learns the cadence of her body and he orgasms inside her, deep and passionately.

He is now quite sure that he is no longer a virgin.

They sit on the couch naked for a moment in the afterglow. They smoke cigarettes halfway and then get dressed, and decide to walk to a café for supper. The thought of dealing with the priest is nowhere near his mind as Chris walks along High Street with that certain amount of swagger. He is again in love, a lopsided smile set upon his face.

Chris eats heartily, as he is hungry from the act of love and the fast induced by the stress of the previous day.

“You know,” she says, interrupting Chris’s amorous reverie, “we need to call Inspector Holliday and let him know that you’re going to help.”

Chris’s smile fades. Karen reaches for his hand. A trace of a smile returns in answer to her touch. Fear is no longer so visible on his face, as Karen’s overture of affection is effective. He has a sense of confidence that he didn’t possess just an hour before. The look on his face underlines that confidence.

Karen pays the bill and they return to her flat. They call the inspector. It is agreed that Chris will return to the priest as if nothing tragic happened, as if Crowley’s predatory behavior wasn’t so disturbing and that his blackmail was effective. Chris will be a good soldier right up until the attack on the synagogue in Aberdeen. Chris will be asked to alert Holliday of when the priest plans his assault, and Holliday in turn will alert the Grampian Police and Scotland Yard, who will wait as the priest arrives in Aberdeen. They will then pounce, arresting Father Crowley and Brad, as well as Chris, but only for show. He is to be granted a degree of immunity for his cooperation.

Chris agrees to the terms, and Holliday reminds him of the haste that is required.

“You need to head back to the base straightaway,” the inspector tells Chris. “You can’t deviate too much from your normal routine, and you can’t alert them of your contact with Karen. Call us when you know something.”

Chris nods as he hangs up the phone and tells Karen what the inspector said. She drives him back to the base. She kisses him goodbye, and he passionately returns her kiss. He morosely exits her car and walks through the front gate. He approaches his barracks and his room with dread. He hopes Brad isn’t there, but he knows he is.

Chris enters his room. Brad is sprawled out on his rack, listening to Chris’s Walkman radio.

“What’s up, faggot?” he asks. “Where the hell you been?”

Chris says nothing as he thinks of a response. He sits heavily on his bed. “Nowhere. I was just walking around the countryside, trying to think.”

“Oh.” Brad hands the radio back to Chris. “Well… Father wants to know what you’re going to do. He wants us to go out there tonight, if you’re still in. If you’re not in—”

“I’m in.”

“Then let’s get rollin’.”

Crowley lets Chris and Brad into his cottage wordlessly. His mood is more solemn than it has been in the past. Before, he has assumed an air of friendliness, his face always adorned with a smile.

On this night, a Saturday after he has conducted a soulless Mass, he is all business. His deadline is less than a week away, and he has heard nary a mention in the news of any exodus of the Jews in Scotland. He knows their number is small, not even five thousand, but still, he had hoped the fear he has spread would make more of an impact. There was some talk dispensing fear on the radio at first, when the cab driver was murdered and when notes were deposited in Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

The lack of concern is insulting to him. He is irritated that he hasn’t been taken more seriously. His ego is definitely bruised.

“Sit down,” he commands as Chris and Brad walk in. He points to the chair for Brad, and sits himself down on the couch next to Chris, without even allowing an arm’s width to separate them.

Brad makes a detour to the kitchen. He opens the refrigerator, as his body is aching for beer. The refrigerator is empty. Crowley barks, “You’re not here for fun, you damn lush. Sit down. You will drink when I say you’re damn good and ready to drink.”

Morosely, Brad sits down. Crowley sits silently for a moment, satisfied that his Trinity is intact and loyal. He is smug in his role as the Trinity head, as if Chris and Brad are his subjects, mere extensions of his will.

“Now, gentlemen,” Crowley continues. He is still wearing his khaki uniform that he wore under his robe for Mass. “I suggest we get to business first, and if time permits, maybe we will go over to Lutherkirk and grab a drink.” Chris notes Crowley’s selfishness; he is armed with his goblet, and the smell of wine hangs over the couch, mingling with the smell of Crowley himself. Crowley hasn’t showered in the past twenty-four hours. If Chris knew the reason for Crowley’s lack of hygiene, he would be horrified. Crowley is keeping the smell and flesh of Chris on his genitalia as a sort of trophy. It is an attempt to prolong the memory of his intercourse with Chris. Several times throughout the day, he has pulled his pants down and smiled at the sight of Chris’s dried blood and feces on his penis. It is the first fantasy he has ever fulfilled.