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glanced up from the paki-black he was crumbling over a king-size Rizzla paper, and said Mo Blake often declared the Father had been giving the boys’ choir more than singing lessons, even if nothing ever came of it. Big Pat said Mo Blake had just made that up because Father Fayhee caught him robbing the poor box and told the police. Jackie told Jimmy and Pat to forget about Mo Blake, he wanted to know how I had left it with the Father. I said he got fucked off and sent on his way. But then something happened. Kelly made a suggestion. He said that maybe we should do what the Father had asked us to anyway, due to the fact that what this bloke had been up to was so diabolical.
    “And you have to admit,” I said. “If you did think about it, Kelly was right, it quite choked you up.”
    Harry wanted to know why the Father hadn’t been to the police if it was so diabolical.
    “He’d be wasting his time,” Jimmy King laughed. “There isn’t a police inspector in the country that can’t be found noncing in the potting shed on a Sunday afternoon.”
    “A pocketful of lollipops is part of the uniform,” Pat chimed in.
    “And then there was the other thing,” I added. “The Father only had what had been whispered to him in the confessional as evidence. He said he’d confronted the nonce, and said the stench of wickedness was all over him, but that, of itself, hadn’t been enough to satisfy the police.”
    Jackie sighed. Moments later he stated it was unfortunate that the Father had nowhere else to turn to and everyone nodded.
    “But I suppose that’s indicative of the world in which we all live today,” he said. “No one gives a fuck about anyone anymore.”
    Again everyone nodded.
    “And I’m also sorry the Father has been forced to wrestle with his conscience. I truly am. He doesn’t know which way to turn. But that is the wont of the pious and dutiful, is it not? They get lost in a desert, turn to God for guidance, God plants a seed in their heart, they seek out the fruits of that labour, telling whomever they happen to find what must be done, and expect the doing of it to be carried out, and accepted, with a childlike innocence. But we’re not the pious and dutiful, Ronny. And if the Father wants to have someone aimed out, the Father is going to pay for it just like anyone else.”
    For a few moments I stared at the glass in my hand and thought about what Father Fayhee had said to Kelly and me. The words he spoke kept repeating themselves inside my head, because what he had said—so many things—were simply beyond money. They were beyond money.

    The little girl the Father told us about went to the corner shop clutching fifty pence in her hand, and, twenty minutes later, the nonce had lured her onto the heath and done the deed. She dropped her bag of sweets and started crying when he ripped her knickers off. She tried to struggle as he stuffed them into his pocket for a keepsake. But the nonce had mumbled threats, and made promises, and fumbled with his zipper, and climbed on top of her, and pushed inside her, and wrapped his hands around her neck to cut off the cries. An old man walking his dog found the body. The police were clueless as usual.
    “So what’s it gonna be then?” I asked. “Shall we vote on it?”
    Harry the Syrup was the first to speak. He said no. Big Pat said yes. Frankie said no. Jimmy and Kelly said yes. Jackie said no, for both himself and for the Jew, and no one argued because everyone knew the Jew would have been dead against it. Like that squeak always said, “No money, no honey.” I said yes. The count stood four to four: a stalemate. I tried to think of something to say, some words of wisdom, if you like. I wondered if a particular line of reasoning might sway one of the others to change his vote, but Harry spoke before I could say anything.
    “It don’t make us any richer,” he said.
    “That’s true.” I said back. “But then again, it don’t make us no poorer,