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had to report anything as a miracle – yet.
    The woman who answered the door seemed nice enough, if a little careworn. Her name was Maureen and she was old enough to be his mum. She invited him in. He didn’t have any erotic thoughts, other than to note that he wasn’t having erotic thoughts, which immediately conjured up an image of Joanna Jones in a pair of frilly pants with a pot of jam in her hand, an image he was fortunately able to put aside almost immediately.
    Maureen took him in to the front room and offered him a cup of tea. He said yes, so that she’d have to go away to the kitchen to make it and he could sit quietly and look around. There were no religious artefacts around the place, no pictures of Jesus. It wasn’t against the law to practice religion, although there weren’t many men who wanted to become priests any more. It was often taken as a confession of paedophilia and priests could expect a lot of interest from the authorities. Most took lovers, or pretended to do so, installing attractive female housekeepers to ensure they were not mistaken for paedophiles by the local community.
    ‘Have they told you anything?’ Maureen asked.
    ‘No.’ He always said that, of course. He let them put it into their own words.
    She droned on. He was feeling unerotic now and back on track. Perhaps he had been under some sort of stress that had now gone away. If he had been a woman, he’d have said it was hormonal. There must have been something, some extraneous thing, that had caused him to behave so oddly. Perhaps he had been the subject of a test? Perhaps Jones had come into his office yesterday and sprayed an undetectable hormone around to gauge its effect on him. Jones was a brute, unpredictable and coarse. Lucas could hardly bear being in the same office building some days. He didn’t know how he endured it. He became sentimental. He told himself that he didn’t care what he had to endure, just so long as he could protect Angela. Just so long as she loved him and she didn’t ever betray him or subject him to any kind of test. He loved her and he was going to prove it by taking her away to Cornwall.
    Maureen was looking at him. He looked back at her, calmly.
    ‘So what do you think?’ said Maureen.
    ‘I can’t really say.’
    ‘Well, what should I do?’
    ‘Who else have you told?’
    ‘Well, as I was saying…’
    He had drifted off and she wasn’t impressed. But the thing was, he wasn’t here to impress her. It was she who had to try to impress him.
    ‘Did you want to take notes?’
    ‘No.’
    He had a piece of the lemon drizzle cake she offered him. It was home-made. He sat and thought about his options while he ate it. He wondered, if this was that rare and impossible thing, a real miracle, ought he to take the woman hostage? He wouldn’t hurt her of course. He’d put a gun to her head for the benefit of any security forces who might turn up to rescue her and he’d call for Angela to join him. He’d state his demands: safe passage to Cornwall.
    It would never happen. They’d never let him go. They’d blow him and Maureen and Angela to high heaven, miracle or not. In fact, if it was a real miracle, it would save the authorities the job of deciding what to do about it, if the evidence was destroyed in the process of protecting lives and the safety of the citizens of London.
    What about Australia? If he could get a message to someone in Australia that he had found a miracle, would someone from there come and save him? Probably not. Even if people in Australia believed in miracles, they wouldn’t sanction hostage-taking, wouldn’t care if a person such as he should live or die. They wouldn’t want to give sanctuary to a gun-wielding, adulterous-leaning miracle inspector. Besides, he didn’t have a gun.
    ‘So do you want to see her?’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Christina. Do you want to see her? She’s next door.’
    ‘Might as well.’
    He stood and smiled brightly. Poor old Maureen. What a