Evensong

“I was going to tell you,” he said, “to let me have an hour privately with the body so I could do things to it. No,” he waved down her reply, “it was only a passing thought. Get forensics to take the body. And get them to do things to it.”

“They already have,” she reminded him. “I told you earlier.”

“And the families of his other victims? They’ve been contacted?”

“Yes, all of them. I told you that earlier too.”

“Thank you.” 

5

Olivia rushed past Anwar to Proskar. She took both his hands—those unusual hands—in hers. “Thank you for coming back.”

“I couldn’t walk out on you, Archbishop.”

She kept his hands in hers. “I missed you. And,” cocking her head back at Anwar, “he has something to say to you.”

“I owe you an apology,” Anwar said. “And however I word it, it’s going to sound inadequate.”

“I’m just glad to be back,” Proskar said awkwardly. “Let’s leave it, we have a lot of work to do.”

Olivia still hadn’t released his hands. They dwarfed hers. “Are you finally sure,” she asked Anwar, “that he isn’t Marek? Maybe Arden what’s-her-name isn’t what she seems. Maybe she switched the bodies. Proskar could be the one getting cut up in Kuala Lumpur while here, before us, we have the real Parvin Marek.”

Laughing, the three of them walked away and left him in the Garden. He heard her call back to him over her shoulder, “You mistimed, Anwar.”

He thought about her sermon. He’d thought of little else. What she said about her meanness of nature. She didn’t do compassion, she preferred to strike at perpetrators rather than comfort victims. Anwar, despite his physical prowess, had never behaved with any particular meanness towards any opponent. He’d just done what was necessary. There, he thought, there’s an example of how we could fit together, how we could become more than the total of our individual parts.

He was still in denial. Before, he told himself, there was nobody. Now, there’s nobody else. He walked over to where she’d dropped his jacket. He picked it up, dusted it carefully down, and put it back on. “Now, there’s nobody else?” he thought. “Now, there’s nobody else?”

When you’re in denial, you tell yourself ridiculous things. When your head’s in the sand, you know what you’re talking through. He started laughing at himself, the way he’d laughed at her. 

ELEVEN: THE SUMMIT, COMMENCING OCTOBER 15, 2060

1

By October 14, all the delegates had arrived. The New Anglicans had, as expected, attended efficiently to all their needs: dietary, religious, administrative, communications, PR, transport. And security. The huge and complicated security network of which Gaetano was the central part had, like some old brass mechanism, juddered into motion, got up to optimum speed, and was now moving smoothly.

The eve-of-summit reception began in the Conference Centre at 9:00 p.m. on October 14. There was a brief opening address by Olivia. She was smart enough not to over-egg it, or to slip in commercials for the New Anglicans. Her remarks amounted to no more than Welcome, glad you could come, we’re just the hosts but we wish you well, enjoy tonight’s gathering.

She wore her usual long velvet dress. This one was dark green. Anwar found it arousing, but he preferred her in dark red, or purple, or dark blue. Green, he thought, doesn’t suit her quite as well. He still caught himself having thoughts like that.

The security regime he’d agreed on with Gaetano was fully operational. It had been so since he last spoke to her in the Garden, a conversation whose aftertaste wouldn’t leave him. At any time she had at least three of Gaetano’s staff with her, chosen by Anwar at random each day from Gaetano’s “trusted” list. Anwar was also around her for at least twelve hours a day—at services, meetings, press conferences, wherever she went. He hardly let her out of his sight. Only when he slept was he not in her immediate vicinity; and even then he primed himself, catlike, to sleep for the minimum time.

And his parameters had narrowed. Not Who, or Why, or even How, but just Where and When. Who and Why no longer concerned him. He’d got all he’d ever get out of her. Only Where and When mattered now. In a society adept at retro replicas and concealed motives and manufactured identities, Who and Why were the most complicated of the five questions. He didn’t have time for them, not anymore.