Holy Trinity

Chapter 1

The two men stood side by side as snow fell from a heavy sky. Both were clad in heavy, dark overcoats making the snow that settled on their shoulders glitter in the receding light. A resigned and rather sad voice broke the silence.

‘Dad, it’s time to walk away.’

Without altering his steadfast gaze, the older man responded in a monotone.

‘I’m not leaving.’ It was a statement made with a certain tone of finality.

‘But you have to. It’s time to walk away. You’ve done all you can,’ the first voice pleaded.

‘I will not walk away, Joshua,’ the second man stated firmly, this time gesticulating with arms flailing. ‘Did Joshua walk away when he saw the walls of Jericho? Did he just say, Oh dear these walls, my oh my, so big, so thick already, I think I’ll just walk away? No, he didn’t. And do you think that Moses just wandered off when he saw the Red Sea? Did he say, Oh, I think it’s a bit too windy to part the Red Sea today. I think I’ll just leave the Israelites here and sneak off. Maybe another day? No, he said nothing of the sort, and neither will I.’

‘No, Dad, I mean you really have to walk away from here, and right now.’ Joshua Mannheim spoke with desperation in his voice as he grabbed his father’s arm and started to pull him backwards. The old man stubbornly pulled back, wrenching his arm from his son’s firm grip with little success.

‘I said no, Joshua. Did Abraham—’

The old man was instantly cut short as he was almost pulled off his feet and yanked backwards, just as a huge iron wrecking-ball hurtled a few inches past his head. There was a tremendous crash as the massive object slammed into the front entrance of the old synagogue. The front wall exploded under the tremendous force of the impact as bricks, glass, and concrete flew into the air. Both men were thrown to the ground by the shock wave, which blasted them backwards. The giant ball swung back on its pendulous momentum again ready to unleash its violence.

The two men desperately scrabbled backwards on their hands and knees, trying to escape the carnage around them. A dark cloud of cement, dust and falling debris instantly surrounded them. As they slowly emerged from the dust storm, Joshua grabbed his father’s arm and pulled him upright, dragging him to the safety of the road.

‘I did say walk away, Dad,’ said Joshua, coughing and spluttering from the dust cloud and trying in vain to brush bits of concrete from his raincoat. Joshua’s father, the elderly Rabbi, coughed and sneezed violently as he stood shaking dust from his clothes. He watched helplessly as the destructive wrecking-ball continued to batter the old synagogue to rubble.

‘Look what they’ve done to my synagogue, Joshua. They’ve demolished God’s house. They—’ He coughed again and his voice was drowned out as the air was yet again filled with a deafening crash as the last wall erupted into a storm of bricks, splintered wood, and rubble.

The fist of iron had done its work and the old synagogue lay in ruins. An eerie silence filled the polluted air. Joshua held his father’s arm and pulled him away from the scene of destruction. Just as they began to walk away, a muffled ringing could be heard coming from the pile of rubble.

‘Did you hear that?’ the Rabbi asked.

‘Hear what?’ said Joshua, straining his ears.

‘A ringing sound, like a bell,’ said the Rabbi.

‘I can’t hear anything, Dad,’ said Joshua, holding a cupped hand to his ear.

The ringing began again; it was coming from underneath a pile of bricks nearby. The Rabbi pulled away from Joshua and sank to his knees in the rubble, trying to find the source of the insistent ringing. He then started frantically digging into the broken pile of bricks and masonry, throwing pieces of wood and wreckage over his shoulder as he delved deeper into the rubble. Finally, his hand emerged, covered in dirt and dust, and holding a telephone receiver. He blew a cloud of dust from the phone and held it tentatively to his ear.

‘Dad, come away from there. It’s not safe,’ shouted Joshua.

‘Hello,’ the Rabbi said into the phone, ignoring his son’s pleading.

‘Hello, is that Rabbi Mannheim?’ a voice asked.

‘Yes, this is Rabbi Mannheim. Who is this?’ asked the Rabbi warily.

‘How are you today, sir?’ asked the voice.

‘Errm, actually not my best day. Who is this?’

‘Very good, very good,’ responded the voice, seemingly ignoring the Rabbi’s comment. ‘Sir, do you have a draught problem in your synagogue?’ asked the voice, as if reading from a script.

‘You could say that,’ said Rabbi Mannheim, beginning to realise this was a cold call.

‘I thought so,’ droned the voice. ‘Well, this is a fortuitous day, Rabbi, because I can solve your draught problems for you. My name is David and I am calling from Goliath Windows. We are the biggest window company in Europe and, just for today, we have a very special offer on our replacement windows and—’ David was cut off by the Rabbi’s calm, yet intimidating, interruption.

‘Wait a minute. Are you actually telling me that you are David from Goliath Windows?’ The Rabbi’s voice was brimming with anger.

‘Yes, sir, and today—’

The Rabbi held the phone at a distance, nodding his head at it as if it were alive. He looked at Joshua with raised eyebrows.

‘It’s David and Goliath on the telephone, and he’s asking me whether we have draughty windows.’

Joshua looked perplexed.

‘David and Goliath, Dad? What are you talking about?’

The Rabbi squinted through the dust and spoke calmly into the telephone, ignoring his son’s question.

‘Actually David, from Goliath Windows, I don’t have a draught problem any more.’

‘You don’t?’ said David.

‘Not really,’ said the Rabbi.

‘Oh,’ said David.

‘Actually, we don’t have any windows at all.’

‘You don’t?’

‘No son, we don’t. In fact, we don’t have any doors either, or floors, or ceilings, even a roof for that matter.’ The Rabbi’s voice rose to a crescendo.

‘You don’t?’ repeated David in a somewhat more nervous response.

Joshua was now pulling his father away, but the Rabbi resisted and continued his tirade.

‘No David, we don’t.’ The Rabbi was now screaming into the phone. ‘We don’t have a building because some schmuck just rammed a damn great ball into it. So, go get your sling, stick a big piece of stone into it. Oh yes, and if you’re short on stones, I have a big supply right here. Then go sling your stone at the mighty Goliath and deck the bastard. Understand that, D-A-V-I-D?’

The Rabbi did not wait for a reply and, wielding the receiver high above his head, he slammed the stricken object repeatedly onto a pile of bricks where it smashed into a million pieces. All that remained was the mouthpiece and a dangling bit of curly cord, which he clutched manically in his hand. Then, just to make certain that the phone was completely and utterly destroyed, he began jumping up and down on the splintered plastic remnants as if to pulverise the phone into oblivion. Joshua suppressed a grin and instead moved to his enraged father.

‘I guess you told him, then. Come on Dad, you’re upset. Let’s go home.’ Joshua pulled his father away from the rubble and, after a final jump; the muttering Rabbi walked away with Joshua.

‘Yes, I guess I did give him what for. Now I think I will do what Moses did after he went up the mountain,’ said the Rabbi.

Joshua looked perplexed. ‘What was that, Dad?’

‘Take a tablet,’ quipped the Rabbi. ‘I got a headache.’

Chapter 2

The wrecking-ball truck had left the demolition site, leaving behind a scene of utter destruction. The old synagogue lay in ruins; not a single piece of wood, concrete, or masonry gave even the smallest hint as to the former building’s function. A fine cloud of dust, mixed with swirling snow, settled over the site as two workmen wearing hard hats and yellow vests, with the words ‘Hornfield County Council’ written in black print across the back, stood leaning on their tools. One of the men carried a pickaxe and the other a shovel.

‘I tell you this, mate. There’s sommat not right about wrecking a church,’ announced the man with the shovel to his fellow worker.

‘Nah, it was condemned, weren’t it? Council said it was unfit fer ’uman ’abitation,’ said the man with the pickaxe.

‘Ah well, see. That’s where yer wrong, innit?’ continued shovel. ‘Council ain’t God, is it? A church is a church, and it ain’t right to smash it to bits. Wouldn’t be surprised if we was struck off.’

‘Down,’ said pickaxe.

‘What?’

‘It’s struck down, not off. Doctors get struck off.’

‘Oh, it was a doctor’s house then, was it? Not a church? Guess that’s all right then,’ said shovel, scratching his head.

‘No, stupid. You said we might get struck off. I said struck down, not off. Only doctors get struck off. This was a synagogue anyway, not a church,’ replied pickaxe. Shovel’s eyes looked around the demolition site, still not quite understanding.

‘Oh, right you are then,’ he muttered. ‘My missus doctor got ’iself struck off once.’

‘You mean ’ole doc, Travis? I thought he just died of old age?’ insisted pickaxe.

‘Nah, he was struck off. Caught fiddlin’ with me wife’s bits, he was,’ continued shovel.

‘But doctors are s’posed to fiddle with people’s bits. That’s what they do, innit?’

‘Yeah, but my missus was a receptionist at the time,’ chuckled shovel. ‘Anyway, what I was sayin’ is, that we could get struck off - I mean down - for demolishin’ a church. Funny things ’appen when you tamper wiv’ the cosmos n’stuff.’ Shovel looked around, as if a lightning bolt were about to strike him on the spot.

‘Nah,’ said pickaxe confidently, as he lifted the heavy tool above his head and began swinging it towards the ground. ‘Besides, this was a Jewish place, not our God, see? Different fella than our one. Believe me, we’re safe as ’ouses.’

There was a momentary clang of steel hitting steel, followed by a huge explosion. A yellow flash shot out of the ground, which immediately crumpled inwards to leave a large crater. A mixture of rubble, dirt, and mud was ejected twenty feet into the air as the two workmen were catapulted sideways. They landed flat on their backs six feet from where they had been working. Bits of pipe, mud, and rubble rained down onto the men.

Pickaxe was holding the splintered handle of his tool, while shovel was staring at the gaping hole in the ground. Mud and other unrecognisable goop ran down his dirty face.

‘You were sayin’?’ asked a dazed shovel.

Joshua and the old Rabbi were walking along the road, about half a mile away from the site of the demolished synagogue, when the Rabbi heard the muffled explosion.

‘What the hell was that?’ asked a surprised Joshua, stopping in his tracks to look behind him.

‘God’s sweet retribution, probably,’ replied the Rabbi.

‘Sounded like an explosion of some sort. I think it came from the synagogue,’ said Joshua, shielding his eyes from the rain as he tried to identify the source of the sound. Joshua then nudged his father and pointed to a blue-ish cloud of smoke that rose above the roofs of the houses. ‘Sounded like a gas main or something. I hope no-one was hurt. You think we should call the emergency services?’ He began searching his pocket for his cell phone.

‘It’s a sign that God is displeased, I tell you Joshua. It’s a sign. Mark my words, things will be different. Dangerous times are upon us,’ ranted the old man.

‘Oh Dad, stop with the melodrama,’ said Joshua.

The Rabbi continued. ‘That was just the first sign. You can’t destroy a house of God and expect nothing to happen. There will be more signs, rest assured, Joshua.’

‘Good grief, Dad. It was a gas main, I’m sure. There are no signs—’

Just at that moment, a metal object plummeted from the sky and bounced on the pavement in front of Joshua. The Rabbi stooped to pick it up and waved it in front of Joshua’s face with a look of satisfaction on his lined face. In his hand he held a battered and bent Star of David that had once been attached to the roof of the synagogue.

‘I told you, it’s a sign. You didn’t believe me, but here it is plain and—’

‘Bent,’ laughed Joshua, unable to keep a straight face.

Rabbi Mannheim whacked Joshua on the arm with the battered Star of David. ‘You laugh now, my boy, but did the armies laugh when Joshua brought down the walls of Jericho with a single blow from his trumpet?’

‘Maybe it would have been easier if they’d had that giant wrecking-ball,’ replied Joshua. He laughed even harder as tears began to run down his face.

‘It’s not funny, Joshua. My synagogue has been demolished. That greedy council condemned a perfectly good building. The centre of our faith has been turned to rubble.’ The Rabbi looked down; he looked miserable as he held the battered star in his old hands.

Joshua stopped laughing and put his arm around his father’s shoulders.

‘I know dad,’ he said softly. ‘What they did was wrong. Something stinks about that council and, believe me, I will pursue this. But don’t you worry about that. You are our Rabbi and you must think about what we do next. Your congregation needs a place of worship. So you worry about that and I will concentrate on the council. Now, let’s go home, shall we? It's been a hard day for us both.’ So saying, father and son walked away, arm in arm, down the road.

Chapter 3

The concrete multi-storey car park was a stark and ugly intrusion in the town of Hornfield. Situated at the end of the high street, it stood defiantly as a tribute to functionality. It was a prime example of uninspired and unsympathetic town planning. How it had managed to get through the planning committee, not to mention a mass protest of residents and local business people, no one knew. At the protest meeting, questions about the building of the car park were swatted away by imperious and uncaring officials, who claimed it was a necessity because of the poor parking facilities in the town.

Yet, the building went ahead despite ferocious opposition. Three storeys of utilitarian concrete replaced ten beautiful Victorian, locally-owned shops that had been compulsory purchased at so-called market value, then brutally reduced to rubble within a few hours of the sale completion. Once the old shops had been demolished and the ground levelled; building work on the new car park began.

Local people were outraged by the blight that had appeared on their landscape. However, after a period of time, the fervor eventually subsided and a resigned apathy took its place. Hornfield council was known for its arrogance but, at each election time, the same council members seemed to be voted back into power, despite any opposition.

The ground floor of the car park was reserved for important members of the council. In a parking bay that was marked ‘MAYOR’ in large black letters sat a large, highly-polished black Bentley. In the back of the car, surrounded by luxuriously soft leather, sat an overweight, balding figure. The dark grey pinstriped suit would have looked immaculate on someone of lesser stature, but the obvious strain on the material made it appear as though it was holding back an avalanche of flesh. Cigar smoke filled the interior of the car as a cell phone played ‘Flight of the Valkyrie’.

Jasper Harper, Hornfield’s town mayor and self-professed business mogul and entrepreneur, flicked open his cell phone and blew out a spume of acrid cigar smoke.

‘Harper,’ he rasped into the phone.

‘It’s me,’ came a thin voice that was forcibly whispered.

‘Who the hell is this?’ spat Harper.

The voice whispered a little louder. ‘You know who it is. It’s me!’

‘Look, I have no idea who this is, so bugger off.’ Harper snapped the cell phone shut in disgust. ‘Bloody cranks,’ he muttered as he sucked deeply on his Cuban cigar. The cell phone played the opening bars to the ‘Valkyrie’ once again.

‘Yes!’ boomed Harper. ‘Who the hell is this?’

‘It’s me,’ the quavering voice whispered. He then spelt out the letters. ‘From the C-O-U-N-C-I-L.’

‘Cotteridge, you idiot. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?’ replied Harper impatiently.

‘We said no names on the phone,’ said Cotteridge, who sounded as though he was speaking from underneath a blanket.

‘Oh, righto, C-O-T-T-E-R-I-D-G-E from the C-O-U-N-C-I-L,’ replied Harper sarcastically. ‘You’re an idiot, Cotteridge. An I-D-I-O-T.’

‘The job’s done, as we agreed. Now, when do I get my money?’ whined the blanket-covered voice.

‘Are you underneath a blanket or something, Cotteridge?’ asked Harper. ‘You sound muffled.’

‘I’m trying to disguise my voice.’

‘Hmm, not doing a great job, are you?’ said Harper as he blew another stream of smoke into the air. ‘You sure everything went to plan? I don’t want any hitches. Not like the last time, with that old grocery store.’

‘No loose ends. All went to plan,’ said Cotteridge.

‘You don’t leave loose ends, Cotteridge. You leave bloody great frayed knots.’

‘That grocery store was not my fault. How was I to know there was a gas main and sewer running through the main foundations?’ replied Cotteridge indignantly.

‘Well, I guess half the town found that out when it demolished three council estates and rained shit for an hour,’ retorted Harper. ‘I mean, it’s not as though you could have done anything, was there? Like looking at the blueprints, for instance?’ Harper bristled. ‘Anyway, you’ll get your money when I see the hole where the synagogue used to be.’

‘Actually, there is a slightly bigger hole than we expected,’ simpered Cotteridge.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ replied Harper.

‘Ermm, well, seems there was an old gas pipe—’ Cotteridge was cut off mid sentence.

‘You great pillock!’ shouted Harper. ‘Another gas main? Why didn’t you learn from the first time? I’m working with imbeciles!’

‘No one was hurt. Just a bit of a hole, that’s all. And the synagogue is history,’ said Cotteridge.

‘I suppose that’s something, at least. Okay, meet me here in the multi-storey at three this afternoon. You’ll have your money after another little job I have for you. Park your car in bay 320 and be discreet, Cotteridge. Flash your lights twice, got it?’

‘Another job? I said this was the last, Harper. I can’t afford for this to be found out. My career would be in ruins, not to mention the fact that I’d probably go to prison,’ whimpered Cotteridge.

‘What career, Cotteridge? I know a giraffe at the zoo that has better career prospects than you do. Anyway, you still owe me, and I need this job done. So just be here.’

‘All right, but I’ll meet you on the third level, not the ground floor,’ whined Cotteridge.

‘What on earth for? What’s wrong with the ground floor?’ remarked an annoyed Harper.

‘Someone might see us and I don’t want to be seen with you,’ replied Cotteridge nervously.

‘You wanker! You’re seen with me virtually every day. You work in the same fucking building. Who the hell is going to notice? Anyway, it's Sunday. This place is like a graveyard.’

‘I still want to meet you on the third level,’ replied Cotteridge stubbornly.

‘O fucking K then, you dweeb. Third level, three o’clock sharp. I suppose you’ll be wearing a wig and dark glasses?’ retorted Harper as he snapped off the cell phone. ‘I’m surrounded by idiots,’ he muttered to himself. Throwing his cigar out of the window, he started the Bentley and eased out of the parking space.

Chapter 4

At the end of a small, tree-lined cul-de-sac, on the edge of Hornfield town, stood a small terraced house. Built in the early 1900s, the original Victorian two-up, two-down would have had sash windows and red brickwork.

The Gupta Raj family, who were now the very proud owners of 22 Marsh Street, Hornfield, had replaced the draughty windows with new double-glazed units. The units had been on special offer from a replacement window company called Goliath Windows.

Thus, as a result of a cold call one particularly rain-swept afternoon, Mrs Indira Raj, the lady of the house, who had instantly taken a liking to the polite Mr David, had ordered the new windows. She was very proud the day they were fitted, and frequently stood outside her house with arms folded, occasionally casting her eyes towards the new windows whenever anyone passed her house.

Her husband, Gupta Raj, was not so impressed with the windows. He thought they were garish, expensive, and unnecessary, but Gupta Raj was a peaceful man and adored his wife Indira; he also preferred not to be chastised or screamed at, and so agreed to the transaction with little debate. He also agreed when Indira decided to cover the beautiful red brickwork with equally garish plastic, fake, Cotswold stone.

Inside the terraced house on the first floor was a small room and, on this particular day, the room was shrouded in the smoke of cloying incense. Through the haze of sweet-smelling smoke, the head of a large elephant, mounted onto a human body, could be seen dominating the rear wall. Around its neck hung a garland of flowers. This was a statue of Ganesh, the great Hindu God.

Sitting cross-legged in front of the statue sat Gupta Raj and, sitting behind him, sat a small group of ten faithful worshippers. The small, cramped room did not allow each member of the group much space and so there was considerable shuffling and fidgeting.

The room was filled with soft chanting that bestowed an atmosphere of calm and serenity. This serenity was suddenly shattered as the door crashed open, and into the room