Sensitive New Age Spy by Geoffrey McGeachin

routine, Reverend.’ I ran my eye around Priday’s study and stopped at the signed Chagall etching over the fireplace. ‘I see you don’t buy into that rich man and the camel through the eye of a needle business?’
    ‘I’m just a simple man trying to do the Lord’s bidding, Inspector.’
    ‘Here’s to the simple life,’ I said, raising the glass and finishing my whisky. He didn’t offer me a refill.
    ‘Churches have to move with the times, Inspector. Hopes for a reward in the hereafter might have sufficed once, but life is more complex now and people expect to see a tangible return on the time and effort expended in worship.’
    ‘Isn’t that a bit more Milton Friedman than Jesus of Nazareth?’
    ‘Modern religion is all about niches. There is a particular spiritual need out there and I fill it.’
    ‘And in return you get all this.’
    ‘It’s about inspiration, Inspector, and aspiration. I lead my flock by example.’
    ‘So if Jesus came back tomorrow, your flock would be happier if he was less of a carpenter and more of a property developer in an Italian suit with a Rolex and a Beamer?’
    Priday smiled. ‘These days, I’m afraid, it’s about whatever floats your boat.’
    ‘Which in your case would be a hundred-foot cruiser with a full crew and an indoor swimming pool.’
    ‘The good Lord provides, Inspector.’
    I had a sudden urge to smack the smug bastard. Maybe the Sunday School incident had scarred me for life when it came to organised religion.
    Priday glanced at the Tag Heuer Aquaracer on his wrist. It was a nice watch, but it definitely looked better on Brad Pitt. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’ he asked.
    ‘It doesn’t seem so, Reverend,’ I said. I thanked him for his cooperation and hospitality, shook his hand and took my leave.
    At the front door of Jindivik, the two women in the Reverend’s life were waiting to say goodbye. Louise Priday was now wearing a bikini. It might not have been yellow polka-dot like in that song from the sixties but it sure as hell was itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny. I smiled at the Reverend’s spunky missus and equally spunky daughter and imagined them together in the pool downstairs, Cristobel frolicking like a dolphin while the tanned and toned Mrs Priday swam laps, cutting silently and purposefully through the water like a grey nurse shark.
    On the long trek back up the gravel driveway to normal land, I made a special effort not to yield to residual working-class angst and key the immaculate paintjob on the Maybach. While I might not have found out anything useful about the choir, my visit to Jindivik hadn’t been a complete waste of time. When Cristobel had gone to check on my drink and left me alone on the terrace, I’d come across a beautifully restored antique brass telescope mounted on a set of polished wooden legs. Being the inquisitive type, I naturally took a quick squiz.Bugger me if I wasn’t looking right at a nicely in-focus image of two blokes having an argument on top of the front gas storage dome on the LNG tanker.
    One of the blokes in the shouting match I recognised as Chapman F. Pergo, Special Assistant to the Minister for Defence and a well-known political hard man, fixer and headkicker. The other was the CIA’s Carter Lonergan. You couldn’t miss that bloody shirt at a mile.

NINE
    Back at the D.E.D. office, Julie had been working the phones hard. She updated me on the team’s progress. Lonergan had been out on the LNG tanker, but I already knew that. Peter Sturdee and Lieutenant Kingston had visited the Altoona , picked through the choirboys’ rubbish bins and lockers, questioned every single crew member on board and come up with nothing. Now they were on their way back from the hospital after interviewing the captain and the wounded sailors. The Altoona ’s crew hadn’t given in without a fight, but who in their right mind would have expected the God Squad to pop up from below decks in flak jackets, guns