My cassock’s getting a little tight around the waist. I stress eat, and the weed gummies recommended by the young doctor under a mental health plan do nothing to relieve my anxiety. On the contrary, they made me paranoid. That’s not a bad thing in this job. There’s no getting comfortable. Nothing’s ever what it seems.
‘Was it Theo that gave you my number?’ I said interrupting the agent’s nervous chatter.
He looked guilty and avoided my gaze. Theo knew everyone, but nobody admitted to knowing him. He was a first-class sleazebag and the ultimate fixer. Whatever you needed. Whatever.
‘No luck selling the place?’
‘I’m practically giving it away,’ he said miserably.
It was a beautiful building surrounded by flourishing gardens and a view of the mountain. Perfect for weddings and functions. Should’ve been a piece of cake.
‘Let me guess, it’s built over a massacre site,’ I said without preamble.
‘Jez’ looked queasy, his gelled hair was starting to melt in the tropical heat, and he rubbed at his buttoned-up collar which barely covered his neck tattoo.
The Church always worked through these young agents. They couldn’t believe their luck. They thought these men of the cloth were naïve, but they knew exactly what they were doing. Once they got the listing, that’s when the problems began. If they admitted to knowing anything then that’s when the authorities would have to be called in. It was in everyone’s interests to stay quiet.
‘See that fella, he was shot mid ceremony. This is a bad one.’
Jez gave me a panicked look.
‘I’ll introduce you,’ I invited.
Jez almost wet his pants. My schtick never got old.
‘Relax, I’ll give the place a once over and then draw up a quote.’
Frankly, the church considered me a bit of an embarrassment. A throwback to an earlier age. I didn’t fit into the new world of slick corporate messaging. When I suggested a social media presence there was a panic and I was called in and given a dressing down. I was made to understand that I worked in the shadows, or I didn’t work at all.
‘Tell that to the mistakes you buried,’ I had retorted angrily.
My response was met with an icy silence.
This was going to be a bad one I reflected gloomily. There would be weeks of physiotherapy. It’s like an invisible rugby game. I’m a big man, but I have my limits. The last job left me feeling like I’d gone 10 rounds with Tyson Fury. This is a 12 session job at least I jotted down on the invoice pad I kept for quoting purposes. We tended to avoid digital records.
Let’s see: Holy water from the Russian Orthodox Church. Pricey, especially now with all the sanctions, but worth it. The Catholic stuff just irritated them. It was listed under consumables together with protein, always eaten rare, and lots of it. It shows an angry spirit that you mean business. It gave me the energy I needed, but it also gave me gas.
I presented the quote to Jez and stared beyond him, horrified, like I had seen the Devil himself. It saved any haggling. He approved it without looking at it.
‘I think you better leave now, ‘ I said gravely, ‘I have a lot of work to do.’ A cloud passed over the sun at just the right moment drenching the scene in a sinister shadow. He couldn’t have got out of there fast enough.
I stared at the house. It smouldered with malevolence. A shiver passed through my body and I fingered my cross. It’s that feeling that every exorcist experiences before every job, that maybe this is the Big One.
The door swung open and an elderly lady with varicose veins emerged from the gloom. I recognised her from the church manuals. The Devil’s housekeeper. She was sent ahead to get things ready for her master’ s arrival.
‘Tea?’ she offered, ‘or do you youngsters prefer Red Bull?’
Exorcists are a competitive lot. Always keeping count. You could turn down any job, just walk away, but you hardly ever did. Your ego, that was your real competition. At the back of our head is the fear -and thrill- that maybe the Prince of Darkness, impressed with your work, has come to pay you a courtesy visit. It’s the ultimate acknowledgement and the ultimate vanity, that having banished his generals you could exorcise Evil itself. Nobody had passed that test. The Devil hates a blowhard, and the in-memoriam board was filled with the names of exorcists who had blown too hard.
She sensed my hesitation. ‘Keep an old girl company?’
A cup of tea, just the one. It couldn’t hurt, could it? Get a lay of the land …
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