him
as a gifted scholar and dedicated postulant. It had helped that the
family had the wealth to support his training in Rome itself. The
report she received back, which included a scan of a faded passport
photo of the young man, was scant. It outlined only that Keith had
had immense difficulty in accepting the changes being deliberated
in the Holy City by the Vatican II council. He left the seminary by
mutual consent in 1967. Rome had no more record of him. The fact
that his true name was Pargiter and not Embleton helped the police
untangle everything.
Keith Pargiter had been arrested and
convicted of arson in 1970 and had spent three years in a secure
psychiatric unit before being deemed ‘cured’ of the religious
obsession that had resulted him in burning an Anglican Church to
the ground. On release, he’d been sent to a private sanatorium in
Switzerland by his family. He’d disappeared off the radar until
turning up in Peckham three years prior, to inherit his maternal
uncle’s book shop. However, his fingerprints were on file, and they
matched the fingerprints of Geoffrey Embleton, which had been taken
in the fuss that had resulted in the ASBO. The 1970 files were from
Surrey police and had never made it into a computer database.
The matching of the fingerprints allowed
Barham to seek a search warrant for Pargiter’s shop and his flat
above. Pargiter himself had flown: no one had seen him since he
encountered Maryam in the Church. The investigation into the shop
accounts revealed an industrial storage unit where he kept the
majority of his stock. Whilst the shop and the house had revealed
nothing out of the ordinary, the storage unit was packed with all
manner of occult and religious texts, including several copies of
the Qur’an. It also contained crates of artefacts: chalices, altar
cloths and a myriad of Catholic altar vessels. One small box had
been locked and bolted into a larger crate and stored out of
sequence with everything else. It contained two items, a communion
chalice and a crucifix. Both bore the fingerprints of Jason Briggs.
The feet of Christ on the base of the Crucifix also had his saliva
and epithelia: he had kissed it at some point, no doubt when Keith
had been tutoring him on Catholic tradition. Maryam could have
returned home at that point, but she chose to stay on and see the
parish settled back down. It was an odd time for all concerned. Wyn
was allowed to return with no problem, and as he’d never been
charged, there was no press coverage on him in connection with the
murder. That was one reason Barham had been so meticulous on his
being taken in and out of the police station on a daily basis. A
dedication to preserving the reputation of those that passed though
her official hands that Maryam appreciated. Not all officers of the
law were so diligent.
The accounts of Geoffrey Embleton revealed
that he’d sent money to a private detective in Nigeria in the past
six months and had received ‘documents’ in return. Whilst the
Metropolitan police could do little, the Curia investigated and
supplied proof that the confirmation certificates shown to Father
Jones by Jason Briggs had been bought by the private detective,
from a young man in the village that Jason’s father had come from.
This freed Father Jones to reveal everything that had been told to
him by Briggs under the Seal of the Confessional. Fred and Maryam
had stayed with him and the Diocese lawyer, as he’d gone through
everything that Briggs had told him. The endless confessions of how
he was repeatedly raping young girls in the Church, how the vows of
priesthood had trapped Wyn into listening.
Maryam had spent a couple of hours with
Barham, Gatto and Iqbal and an individual from the Crown
Prosecution Service, explaining out the nature of the trap that had
been sprung on the young priest. How sophisticated it was and how
grounded in Catholic teaching and belief it had been. Barham was
angry and Iqbal confused.
as a gifted scholar and dedicated postulant. It had helped that the
family had the wealth to support his training in Rome itself. The
report she received back, which included a scan of a faded passport
photo of the young man, was scant. It outlined only that Keith had
had immense difficulty in accepting the changes being deliberated
in the Holy City by the Vatican II council. He left the seminary by
mutual consent in 1967. Rome had no more record of him. The fact
that his true name was Pargiter and not Embleton helped the police
untangle everything.
Keith Pargiter had been arrested and
convicted of arson in 1970 and had spent three years in a secure
psychiatric unit before being deemed ‘cured’ of the religious
obsession that had resulted him in burning an Anglican Church to
the ground. On release, he’d been sent to a private sanatorium in
Switzerland by his family. He’d disappeared off the radar until
turning up in Peckham three years prior, to inherit his maternal
uncle’s book shop. However, his fingerprints were on file, and they
matched the fingerprints of Geoffrey Embleton, which had been taken
in the fuss that had resulted in the ASBO. The 1970 files were from
Surrey police and had never made it into a computer database.
The matching of the fingerprints allowed
Barham to seek a search warrant for Pargiter’s shop and his flat
above. Pargiter himself had flown: no one had seen him since he
encountered Maryam in the Church. The investigation into the shop
accounts revealed an industrial storage unit where he kept the
majority of his stock. Whilst the shop and the house had revealed
nothing out of the ordinary, the storage unit was packed with all
manner of occult and religious texts, including several copies of
the Qur’an. It also contained crates of artefacts: chalices, altar
cloths and a myriad of Catholic altar vessels. One small box had
been locked and bolted into a larger crate and stored out of
sequence with everything else. It contained two items, a communion
chalice and a crucifix. Both bore the fingerprints of Jason Briggs.
The feet of Christ on the base of the Crucifix also had his saliva
and epithelia: he had kissed it at some point, no doubt when Keith
had been tutoring him on Catholic tradition. Maryam could have
returned home at that point, but she chose to stay on and see the
parish settled back down. It was an odd time for all concerned. Wyn
was allowed to return with no problem, and as he’d never been
charged, there was no press coverage on him in connection with the
murder. That was one reason Barham had been so meticulous on his
being taken in and out of the police station on a daily basis. A
dedication to preserving the reputation of those that passed though
her official hands that Maryam appreciated. Not all officers of the
law were so diligent.
The accounts of Geoffrey Embleton revealed
that he’d sent money to a private detective in Nigeria in the past
six months and had received ‘documents’ in return. Whilst the
Metropolitan police could do little, the Curia investigated and
supplied proof that the confirmation certificates shown to Father
Jones by Jason Briggs had been bought by the private detective,
from a young man in the village that Jason’s father had come from.
This freed Father Jones to reveal everything that had been told to
him by Briggs under the Seal of the Confessional. Fred and Maryam
had stayed with him and the Diocese lawyer, as he’d gone through
everything that Briggs had told him. The endless confessions of how
he was repeatedly raping young girls in the Church, how the vows of
priesthood had trapped Wyn into listening.
Maryam had spent a couple of hours with
Barham, Gatto and Iqbal and an individual from the Crown
Prosecution Service, explaining out the nature of the trap that had
been sprung on the young priest. How sophisticated it was and how
grounded in Catholic teaching and belief it had been. Barham was
angry and Iqbal confused.
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