Chapter Forty

‘Terrible, just terrible,' Babcia was saying on the phone. Chrysanthi had been to her flat that morning for coffee and told her all about the funeral.

Cassie was on her way into work when her grandmother called, and could tell from her heartfelt tone that she needed to talk.

‘It must remind you .?.?.' Cassie didn't need to finish the sentence. Babcia had had to face the funeral of her own daughter – Cassie's mother – murdered in her twenties, just like Bronte.

‘It was the worst day of my life.' She paused. ‘But I realise now that I was wrong not to take you to the service. Even though you were so young, it might have been helpful for you to say goodbye to your mama properly.'

‘You were just trying to protect me,' said Cassie staunchly. But her grandmother was right. The way her mum and dad had just disappeared when she was four had cast a lifelong shadow over her life – might even be the root of her difficulty in maintaining relationships, ones with the living at least.

‘Did Chrysanthi say anything more about Bronte's death being a punishment from God?' she asked.

‘Hmmm?' Babcia was off in the past, in her own memories.

‘She told you that Bronte's death was some kind of payment for sin?' prompted Cassie.

‘I don't remember saying anything like that,' she said.

No point contradicting her . ‘I assume that spooky old priest did the funeral service?' No doubt his funeral oration would have had plenty to say about sin. ‘Not much tea and sympathy from him I'll bet.'

‘Oh you non-believers wouldn't understand,' retorted Babcia. ‘We don't want tea and sympathy – the comforts of religion are its rules, its constancy. She relies on Father Michaelides. When she left here she was going straight to church to see him, to make konfesja .'

*

Half an hour later Cassie was pushing at the massive dark-oak door of St Ioannis, her pulse tapping in her throat. She'd just phoned work and told Doug a rare lie – that she'd had to wait in for a workman.

She had to see Chrysanthi, to try to find out if her terrible intuition about her harming her children might be right – for Bronte's sake. Maybe it was flat-out crazy, but she felt if she could just see Chrysanthi's face again, maybe hint at what she knew, it would reveal the truth.

Inside, the air was hazy, and smelled resinous and faintly acrid – like the aftermath of a forest fire. It must be the spent incense burned at Bronte's funeral: she recognised the piney-earthy smell of myrrh, part of funeral rites that went back thousands of years to ancient Greece.

Constancy . She'd never admit it to her grandmother, but she wasn't immune to its appeal.

Raising her eyes to the huge, glowering face of Jesus in his sea of gold she gave him a nod. He wouldn't object to her mission, would he?

Two oldish ladies were sitting in the front pew praying, but otherwise the church was empty. Looking around for the confession box, her gaze fell on an ornate structure topped by four elaborate pinnacles that stood against the wall of a side aisle. As she got closer a low murmuring from inside and the sight of the old priest's robed legs beneath the curtain on the right-hand side confirmed it.

She took a seat in the empty pew set against the wall beside the box, presumably for those awaiting confession, but despite straining her ears she could hear nothing of the conversation within – couldn't tell if the female-sounding murmur belonged to Chrysanthi. As a child she'd gone to confession now and again at her grandmother's gentle urging, but always on the understanding that once she was a teenager she could choose to stop. I came to this country because people are free to follow their own beliefs here, not to impose mine on you . And Babcia had been as good as her word: after the age of thirteen Cassie never went again.

While she was waiting, she got a text from Phyllida Flyte. It said, It looks like Bronte had Crohn's disease. Connected to anaphylaxis? Cassie knew next to nothing about Crohn's, except that it was an inflammatory bowel disease, but before she could text back, someone emerged from the confession box.

It wasn't Chrysanthi but an elderly woman. She smiled approvingly at Cassie and tipped her head towards the box, as if to say, Your turn .

Ah Jeez, had she missed Chrysanthi?

On impulse she went inside, and pulling the curtain closed behind her, settled on the hard bench within. A rectangle of oak in the partition facing her was pulled back by an invisible hand to reveal the granite-hewn profile of Father Michaelides behind a grille. Even partially obscured as he was, the sight of him made her feel jumpy.

He made the sign of the cross towards her before saying, ‘What have you come to tell God before my witness?'

Given how long it had been since she'd been through this malarkey Cassie was surprised to find the words springing easily to her lips. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been .?.?.' she dropped to a mumble ‘.?.?. years since my last confession.'

He raised a bony hand. ‘You are Roman Catholic. And it has been how long ?'

She squirmed: obviously the script was different here. Maybe this wasn't one of her better ideas. ‘Yes, umm, fourteen years? I'm here because .?.?. because I'm marrying a boy from a Greek family and I want to convert. I thought this was a good first step.' Feeling a niggle of guilt at fibbing to a priest.

He tugged at his beard. ‘Hmm. You would have first to go through many months of catechesis.'

‘Of course, Father.' Sounds like fun.

When he fell silent, she realised it was her turn. ‘I have committed venial sins. Impatience with work colleagues. Sins of lust' – seeing him nod sagely at that one. ‘Sometimes I am dishonest but for good reasons .?.?.' It didn't hurt to cover today's transgressions. ‘But most of all I'm worried for my soul because I think I know someone, a woman, who has committed a crime.'

‘A venial or a mortal sin?'

‘Mortal, Father.' Leaving a pause. ‘She is a devout believer, and I believe she will have confessed this sin to her priest but .?.?. I'm concerned. I think she is a very troubled woman but she can't receive the treatment she needs because of the seal of the confessional.'

‘It is not for you to judge.' He sounded testy. ‘It is for the priest and God to rule on such matters.'

‘Even if she killed her own child?'

He became utterly still for a moment, before slamming the oak rectangle shut. Then the curtain to her box was whipped aside to reveal the black-robed figure filling the doorway, his face contorted in fury.