Benefit of the Doubt_He Fled, Danger Followed by Les Cowan

Author:Les Cowan [Cowan, Les]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Crime
ISBN: 9781782642527
Google: l6IoDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Lion Fiction
Published: 2017-06-23T05:51:39+00:00

Chapter 16

South Clerk Street

“So you’re turning into a God botherer too then?” Gillian’s sister Ros was sitting at the foot of her bed munching on a nectarine, catching the juice in a tissue and reading a copy of Chat. Gillian had texted her to say she was in hospital after an accident but was ok. And she’d told her about David too.

Gillian didn’t answer right away. She had never experienced a week like this last one. New people and new points of view had been challenging prejudices – then to find herself in the middle of drug gang violence and a possible kidnapping. Her head was spinning and she didn’t know what she thought. She knew she was in a process but wasn’t quite sure where it was taking her. And it all came against a background of faith. David, Juan, the church – they didn’t seem to do what they did simply out of social conscience or habit. There was something they believed in – or Someone – and that made the difference. It was what made David take on another kid in trouble when he’d apparently lost his wife through too much of the same in another setting. But after a reluctant start he seemed willing to do it all again, even though she’d picked up that Raúl had been in Madrid himself before Edinburgh. It would be too horrible if he had had something to do with what happened to Rocío. Anyway, this faith thing was something she hadn’t encountered in quite that form before. She wasn’t willing to throw it out as irrelevant till she’d thought it all through.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “Maybe. You make it sound like a disease though.”

“Well isn’t it? I heard this guy on the radio saying it’s just like a virus. He wants everyone inoculated.”

“That’s ridiculous. David’s church got kids off drugs and into jobs. They made them better, not worse.”

She was surprised at the vehemence of her own response and a little embarrassed at how it had come out. She, as much as anyone, would have taken all the same views this time two years ago. Then she and Tony had separated. When they decided to divorce, Tony suggested they opt for unreasonable behaviour and he volunteered to make something up. They were both so sick of one another by that stage that anything that speeded things up seemed worth trying. But that had started her thinking. Here she was approaching middle age – single, no kids, reasonable career but nothing startling. What was it all about? Was there a point or was it just “live while you live and die when you die” and try to enjoy yourself in between? Even before meeting David she was feeling the need to delve a bit deeper.

“No,” she continued, “there can be good reasons for believing or not. But just to say everyone who believes anything is ill really isn’t fair.”

Ros finished the nectarine and lobbed the stone neatly into the rubbish bin in the corner.

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