The Last Good Summer by J. J. Green

Author:J. J. Green
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime Fiction
Publisher: Troubador Publishing
Published: 2023-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

22

Derry, present day

The Long Tower chapel was packed – there wasn’t standing room – for Fionn’s funeral. Nearly two whole weeks since his death, he was finally being laid to rest.

Maeveen was by Belle’s side in a crowded pew in the gallery, silently staring at her hands, which were folded together in her lap, lost in the world of her thoughts. She’d hardly said two words all morning, not even on the drive to Derry, and Belle decided it was best to let her be. This was a hard day for her; it was a hard day for a lot of people.

The Long Tower wasn’t the biggest church in Derry but Belle thought it was the most beautiful. With rows of dark wooden pews on either side of the T-shaped building, it was a riot of vibrant stained-glass windows, spectacular opus sectile panels and Renaissance-style oil paintings. The altar and its surrounds of pillars, floor and altar railings were carved from white marble and decorated with brass candelabra, oil paintings, statues and more stained-glass windows and opus sectile panels.

Just outside the railings, dwarfed by the altar’s magnitude, was Fionn’s coffin, resting on a black metal stand and draped in an Irish flag.

From her bird’s-eye view in the gallery, Belle could see the whole congregation. In the front rows closest to the coffin were the family members, Chrissie and Dermot among them. Elsewhere, she recognised one or two other faces.

The mass drew to a close and the priest recited the prayer after communion. Stillness fell across the congregation like an invisible mist. For a few moments, the priest sat in a chair by the side of the altar, his head bowed in prayer. The people waited, an intermittent cough or sniff echoing through the hush. With the stealth of a prowling cat, dread rose from Belle’s stomach. She knew what was coming next. Memories of every funeral she’d ever attended gatecrashed her mind.

The priest stood up and, along with the altar boys, began preparing for the final commendation. Belle wished with her entire being that she could avert her eyes, the way she might if she was witness to a terrible car crash. But she couldn’t. If anything, she was transfixed. The priest circled the coffin with a holy water pot and sprinkler, splashing it with water as he went and, for a single haunted second, Belle imagined Fionn, sealed in the box, underneath that flag.

One of the altar boys took the pot and sprinkler from the priest’s hand and a second boy gave him a silver thurible, which spewed clouds of smoke from the smouldering frankincense hidden inside. He circled the coffin again, gently swinging the thurible back and forth, clanking the chain off the metal. The smell of the incense crept through the church, filling every corner, reaching all the way to the panelled ceiling. The spicy, woody aroma cloying and overpowering, yet reassuringly familiar. Belle found it impossible to say whether she liked it or loathed it. Her stomach tightened into a hard knot.

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