Ten minutes later, the canteen was full, the atmosphere charged. The usual bursts of ribald laughter replaced with heated conversations.

“We’ve got a real chance Friday/Saturday. He’ll think he’s God now, he’ll be planning to shoot into the crowd.”

“Jesus, I hope not.” Clive Rowley washed a mouthful of bacon roll down with his tea. “Forecast’s good for the weekend, the fair’ll be heaving.”

“Difficult in the dark though.”

“True. But think of the chaos, think how easy to get away in that lot.”

“I reckon they should call it off.”

“Oh no,” Louise Kelly looked dismayed, “it’s a great thing, the Jug Fair, they can’t. I think he won’t dare. He’s clever, like the Super said, he’ll know there’ll be more police there than at a Hendon passing-out parade. No way will he take a chance then.”

“I agree.” Vicky Hollywell stirred her coffee round and round, round and round. “There’ll be a lull now. He’ll go quiet. Wait till we’ve come down from red alert a few rungs. Then he’ll take another pop somewhere we can’t possibly have anticipated.”

“Mind you,” Clive said, getting up, “keeps us awake. Bet we’re on higher alert than the anti-terrorist squads right now.”

“And that’s what you like, is it, Clive?”

“Better than washing the bloody ARV every morning and there’s only so much target practice you can do. Let’s get out of here.”

Fifty-three

Jane Fitzroy walked onto Saunders Ward late in the afternoon. She had spent the previous hour with the family of a teenager recovering from meningitis, against all the odds. Now she had been asked to see Nancy Lee after her seven-hour brain operation. Early in the morning she had been called to baptise a newborn premature baby who was not expected to live more than a few hours. Nothing had really prepared her, she thought, for being on the edge as a hospital chaplain, time after time.

The ward clerk looked at her strangely. “Can I help?”

“Nancy Lee—is she back from theatre?”

“I’ll check. You’re new, aren’t you?” She did not seem especially pleased to see a chaplain—perhaps she thought they got in the way.

Jane smiled at her. It did not do the trick.

Intensive care was humming and bleeping with the usual machines and lowered voices.

“Bay three.”

“Thanks. Is Sister Wicks on duty?”

“Yes, but she’s very busy.”

“OK, I’ll catch up with her later. Thank you.”

No response.

Bay 3 was off to one side and Sister Wicks was there. Fourteen-year-old Nancy Lee lay attached to the monitors, tubes and drips, eyes closed, head swathed in bandages. Her mother sat beside her, holding one of her hands in both her own. But when Jane went quietly in and she looked up, she smiled, an open and beautiful smile, full of joy and relief.

Sister Wicks said, “Good news,” nodding to Nancy.

“Yes?”

“The tumour wasn’t malignant and they removed all of it. Outlook very good.”

Jane’s eyes filled with tears. That morning, when she had come in to say a prayer before Nancy had gone down to theatre, the prognosis had been grim, the tumour thought to be malignant and difficult to remove.

Nancy’s mother said, “It’s a miracle. It’s just the most wonder ful miracle.”

“It’s certainly good news,” Jane said. She felt uneasy when people claimed miracles, especially too quickly after major surgery or early on in a serious illness. What was a miracle anyway? She thought of Chris Deerbon, for whom there was no good outlook, no surprise, no miracle. She glanced at Nancy’s young face. She looked infinitely distant, infinitely frail.

“Will you say a prayer of thanks? God has been so good, he keeps his promises.” Nancy’s mother was an evangelical Christian, entirely sure of her Bible-based faith, shining with righteousness as she held her daughter’s hand.

It is more difficult than this, Jane wanted to say, it is never so simple, we can never claim an easy answer. But she could say no such thing. She put her hand lightly on Nancy’s head and gave her a blessing.

“I’ll come in tomorrow morning,” she said. “See how she’s doing then. It is early days you know.”

“She’s going to make a full recovery. We can trust in that.”

Jane smiled and slipped away.

On the way back to the college she worried that she had sounded too negative or had seemed to deny the mother’s sure faith. What was she doing being a priest in the Church of England if she did not accept that miracles happened and prayers were answered? She believed in the power of prayer. Miracles, though—what were they? Rareties, that was sure. A medical diagnosis which turned out to have been too pessimistic, with the result being better than everyone had dared to hope or expect—that was explicable and something to be glad and grateful for but not a miracle. The hospital saw good and bad outcomes all the time—she had seen both herself in the course of that day. Yet she had seemed to reject one woman’s faith and she blamed herself for it.

She parked the car and walked thoughtfully across the college quad. It was quiet. The air smelled autumnal though it was quite warm and there were little clouds of midges and gnats dancing here and there. She knew how lucky she was, to have the privilege of a set of rooms in college, a part-time chaplaincy both here and at the hospital, and a doctorate to study for. She had made too many mistakes, taken wrong turns, didn’t believe herself to be cut out for her previous jobs. Now, she had time and space. She hoped she would prove good enough—enough to justify the trust people had placed in her, “yet again” she thought. She wondered why the confidence, which had been so strong when she first determined to be a priest, had weakened so much.

There was a note pinned to the door of her rooms. “ Dear Jane, would you have tea at four thirty with me tomorrow? I hope all is well and you are settling in comfortably. Good wishes, Peter.” The courteous wording, from the senior chaplain, and the “tea at four thirty” made her smile. Some things did not change.

A few people were in to dinner and she stayed talking in the combination room until just before ten. She barely knew anyone but introductions were easy in a college and she felt more cheer ful as she went back to her rooms, planning to work for an hour and also to ring Cat Deerbon. But before that, she switched on the television to catch the news. As the picture came up, Simon Serrailler’s face filled the screen. Jane stood staring at him, startled by the odd mixture of his closeness, here, talking to her, and his complete remoteness.

He looked calm and in control, but grim-faced as he took questions about the Lafferton shootings. It was easy enough to tell that Simon was on the spot and hard not to sympathise with the public outrage that a gunman was on a killing spree while the police appeared to be doing nothing to stop it. But after a moment, Jane saw Serrailler not there, under the television lights, giving a press conference, but outside the bungalow in which she had been held by a man driven mad with grief, Simon talking to him, trying to calm him down, and later, when she had finally been released, waiting for her, reassuring her. She remembered the evening they had spent together. She had cooked a makeshift supper. She had enjoyed his company but, at the last minute, rebuffed him, backed off, uncertain and confused, still in shock after what had happened to her. She had not been able to give Simon a chance and she knew that because he never found closeness easy, he had been both surprised and hurt at her behaviour. He had not understood why, having taken such a risk, he had found himself rejected.

Later, after leaving Lafferton and during the last weekend before going into the abbey, she had written him a long and careful letter in which she had tried to apologise and to explain.