Resurrectionists by Kim Wilkins Page A

you did this with the utmost discretion?” the Reverend couldn’t help asking nervously.
    “Of course, Rev,” Lester replied, “and anyway she’s just some junkie or teenage runaway. They probably won’t even notice for a week.”
    A young girl. Even worse. The Reverend nodded.
    “Both of you may go now. The next part I have to do alone.”
    Lester blew on his hands and rubbed them together.
    “I’ll gladly get out of this cold. Give me a call when you need me again, yeah?”
    “Yes.” The Reverend watched the crook get into his car and start to back down the laneway. Tony turned to him. “Are you sure you’re okay with that? I’m certain it wouldn’t matter if I helped you get it down the stairs.”
    The Reverend looked at the black girl-shaped bag on the ground. “No. I’m not so infirm that I can’t drag it behind me. She won’t feel a thing now in any case.”
    Tony nodded and hurried off towards his police car. The Reverend waited until he heard the car engine start, then locked the trapdoor behind him. He descended the first few steps, then turned to grab the bag around the feet. He felt a twinge of pain in his left shoulder, and wished he could have asked Tony to stay and help. But that couldn’t be. A certain procedure had been set out by a higher intelligence, and all he could do was obey.
    Two good reasons to go into the village. First, the hallway was too narrow to store all those old clothes, plates, pots and pans. Second, she had eaten nothing but toast and canned soup since she arrived. Maisie dressed carefully and soberly. If what Sacha said was true and the villagers were religious looneys, she didn’t want to cause offence on her first visit. Third reason to go: she was desperately curious to see if he was right. She let Tabby into the garden and locked the door behind her. Small patches of pale blue showed between the clouds above her, and she thought she could spy the sun about forty degrees off the horizon. Today she had remembered a scarf and gloves. Her breath made fog in front of her and the air felt slightly damp and salty on her lips. She followed the road from her grandmother’s house and onto the main street. She glanced at the cemetery from time to time as she walked alongside it, and at the shadowy old abbey looming beyond it – eerie even in daylight. She passed the bus stop and soon found herself in the heart of the village.
    A row of connected brick houses – they looked to be hundreds of years old – lined the cobbled alleys. Crooked drainpipes and wilting windowboxes
    shivered under mossy tiles. Up ahead were some newer places, shoe-box shaped with red roofs. She passed under an archway and into the village proper. A small, family run grocery store stood next to a locked craft shop and picture-framing business. She knew the store was family run because the sign over the front door declared it proudly. She went in, took a small basket and picked up the essentials: fruit and vegetables, herbs, pasta, rice, some frozen fish fingers. It was a sad business shopping for one, knowing the food was going to be split into such small portions. On impulse she bought some fresh chicken breasts, in case she worked up the courage to invite Sacha over for dinner. At worst she could always freeze them. She took her groceries up to the counter.
    “Hi,” she said, “do you deliver?”
    The girl behind the counter – perhaps the teenage daughter of the owners – looked up from the magazine she was reading. “Sure. Dad can run them over to you straightaway,” she said in an almost-indecipherable northern accent. “Where are you staying?”
    “Up in Sybill Hartley’s house on Saint Mary’s Lane.”
    The girl looked surprised. “Have you bought the place?”
    “No, I’ve inherited it. She was my grandmother.”
    “Really?” The girl keyed in the prices and Maisie packed the groceries in plastic bags as they went through. “Will you be staying long?”
    “I don’t