The Bug House by Jim Ford Page A

on his knees, his face as furious as the dog’s.
    ‘Found him hiding under a Datsun,’ the sergeant says. ‘The fat bastard was wedged tight.’
    ‘That’s what they always say about Datsuns,’ Vos says, gingerly getting to his feet out of range of the dog. ‘No gut room.’

TEN
    Father Meagher’s route from the pub to the community centre leads him through the heart of the Benwell council estate. The estate has been his ministry for more than twenty years now, yet still he cannot fathom any logic to its layout. Once, on a visit to the council offices, he saw an aerial photograph and it reminded him of a thumbprint: vaguely concentric but with random whorls, pointless diversions and inexplicable cul-de-sacs. The only constant is the uniformity of the houses, block after block of semi-detached brick squares, each with its postage-stamp garden at the front, each front door with its own concrete porch supported by twin metal uprights. His own house, on the other side of the estate, is exactly the same. He could walk blindfold into any of them and know precisely how many footsteps before the stairs (one), through the front room to the kitchen (another eight), and how many to the back door (three more).
    He crosses the street and cuts the corner through a narrow tarmac playing area consisting of a swing-less iron frame and a defaced sign which once read STRICTLY NO BALL GAMES . Now he can see the church a hundred yards ahead: St Joseph’s, squat and modern with long rectangular windows of frosted glass and a truncated steeple made of asphalt panels. Beside it, across a short expanse of wasteland, is the flat-roofed community centre.
    Pausing in the foyer to check that no one is looking, he unwraps a half Corona from his breast pocket and puts it to his lips. He hastily removes it as a young woman emerges from one of the internal rooms carrying a toddler. An older boy, maybe eight or nine years old, walks beside her, pushing a baby in a buggy.
    ‘Linda Gourlay!’ he exclaims. ‘And how are you?’
    ‘Fine, thanks, Father.’ She is painfully thin and white. The child in her arms has recently been crying and there is a patina of pale green snot between its nostrils and its top lip. Father Meagher pulls a tissue from his trouser pocket and swabs its face.
    ‘And how’s young Kaden?’ he asks, ruffling the older boy’s head. The youngster regards him dumbly. Father Meagher stoops to the other child in the pushchair. ‘And little . . . ?’
    ‘Shannon,’ says Linda.
    ‘Shannon. Yes, of course. How lovely.’ He stands, feeling a twinge in his back. ‘Anyway, nice to see you, Linda. God bless.’
    Hurrying away, Father Meagher sighs with relief as he enters his cubbyhole office at the rear of the community centre. It is a haven from the world, a place he feels increasingly loath to leave these days. He slips the cigar into his mouth and fumbles in his jacket pocket for his lighter.
    ‘Afternoon, Father.’
    Vos is sitting in a canvas-backed chair by the door, flicking through an old edition of
Auto Trader
.
    ‘Jesus, Mr Vos, you scared me,’ the priest says.
    ‘You forgot about our appointment?’
    ‘Not at all. But to be honest I’ve spent all morning avoiding parishioners who might take exception to a man of the cloth enjoying a good Cuban cigar. I feel like a fugitive.’
    ‘Well you’re among friends now,’ Vos says.
    ‘God be praised.’ Meagher goes across to his small, cheap desk and collapses in a chair to light his cigar.
    ‘You said you might have some information for me,’ Vos says.
    ‘Maybe I do. Or maybe it’s nothing. I’ll let you be the judge of that. This fellow you were asking about the other day.’
    ‘Okan Gul.’
    ‘That’s the one. Only I heard a whisper that somebody might have been entertaining friends from across the water, if you see what I mean.’
    ‘Anyone I know?’
    The priest expels a perfectly circular smoke ring. ‘Oh, you know him all right,’ he says. ‘In