The Balance of Guilt by Simon Hall

search of part of the Minster had been completed. In a quarter of an hour they would be taken inside to film and photograph where the bomb had exploded. There would also be a news conference to update them on the investigation.
    Dan caught Nigel’s look. A long night was in prospect.
    The smell was everywhere. Of the explosion and of death. The acrid tang lingered in the still air of the wounded Minster.
    There had been the usual banter as the media pack was led towards the main door. But it quietened as they walked inside. Their footsteps echoed in the cavernous space. As one, their eyes were drawn to the shattered window. The last remnants of the evening light were fading outside, casting a jagged silhouette of the surviving shards of glass.
    ‘Half an hour,’ the press officer announced. ‘And that’s it. We’ll do the news conference outside afterwards. Just there, that’s where the explosion happened.’
    He pointed to a corner at the back of the Minster, by the end of the rows of pews. A flare of photographers’ flashes blazed in the dim light. The camera crews began setting up their tripods, filming the spot. All that marked it was a slight shading of the smooth flagstones.
    The real story surrounded it. The dark oak of the nearest pews was further blackened by the blast, and pitted and chipped by flying shrapnel. Dan knelt down and studied the surface. A spray of pock marks had been scored from it, scars of lightness in the smooth wood.
    The nails had been removed by the police forensics team, but there might still be something worth filming here. Dan squinted hard, ran his hand along the ragged edge and found what he was looking for. A fragment of green glass, a tiny icicle protruding from the bench.
    Nigel bent down and filmed a close up. Television always worked best with detail. Dan would write about the shrapnel of broken glass from the bottles, the containers for the chemicals which made up the bomb. If it could cause such damage to the hardy, antique wood, the viewers would be left with no doubt about what it would do to a person.
    None of the rest of the pack had noticed it. Some of the other TV reporters were intent on recording addresses to camera, talking about the exact spot where the bomb exploded. It was a classic error of vanity, so common in a trade filled with bloated egos.
    If there was still shrapnel damage to the pews, the clean up was by no means complete. There would probably be another legacy of the bomb here too. But it wouldn’t be easy to spot in the half light. Dan left Nigel filming the shattered window and paced slowly back and forth. Where else would most visitors congregate?
    To his side was a display, some boards bearing the story of the Minster. Dan pretended to tie his shoelace, bent down, checked the flagstones and quickly found what he was looking for. Nigel followed him over, got down on his knees and began filming the dark, misshapen stains.
    A side door opened and a tall man walked in carrying a broom. He started sweeping up fragments of glass under the remains of the great window. All the cameras followed him. It was Dr Parfitt.
    ‘How are you feeling?’ one of the reporters ventured with the classical clichéd question of the thoughtless hack.
    ‘I’d rather not say,’ came the reply. ‘Not here, not in this place of God. But what I will tell you is this.’
    The Principal waited until he was sure all the cameramen and radio reporters were recording, and the other journalists taking notes. ‘We will be cleaning up the Minster as best we can tonight. And we shall be opening to visitors, as usual, at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. We will never be cowed or intimidated. And we will never submit.’
    He went on with his sweeping, but refused to answer any more questions. ‘That sounded rehearsed to me,’ Nigel whispered.
    ‘No kidding,’ Dan replied. ‘I don’t imagine he’s the one who usually cleans the Minster, either. But it’ll be all over every media