Half Broken Things by Morag Joss

piece of information, and that it would be easier than coming up with a lie on the spot.
    â€˜Actually, I looked you up.’
    â€˜Oh?’
    â€˜In Crockford’s. I looked you up in Crockford’s; I like to do my homework, seems only right since I’m imposing on your time and goodwill,’ Michael said in his carefully unplaceable accent, and tried to rest in the fact that this was quite true. Of the books that Michael owned, many were volumes that he had acquired only because he had failed to sell them on the stall. Among them were
Crockford’s Directory of the Clergy 1997,
and Simon Jenkins’
England’s Thousand Best Churches
. It was the combination of these two that had inspired his curate impersonation technique for robbing churches in the first place, but Gordon Brookes would not, of course, be told that. Crockford’s supplied him with his characters: the names, dates, backgrounds and present positions of the earnest churchmen, invariably curates, whom he impersonated. It supplied him with the same details of the incumbents of the churches he selected for his forays, for the rare occasions on which he might meet up with the vicar rather than a ‘parish worker’. The Jenkins book gave him details of church treasures, both fixed and architectural (which were of course irrelevant to the purpose, though Michael had at times been grateful to be able to make an admiring reference to, say, the Norman reredos or the double hammerbeam roof), but also—and more to the point for Michael—Jenkins described the treasures small, easily liftable and saleable: the minor effigies and busts, silver, pictures, chairs, lecterns, embroideries. Over and above these Michael often found a pleasing range of more humble but attractive objects waiting to be opportunistically pilfered, and the beauty of it was he wasn’t taking things that belonged to
people
. He was not depriving anyone of anything personal, and if he did cause upset, then at least church people had one another to turn to for comfort. And if God himself were offended, he hadn’t so far got round to showing it. In the meantime, Michael had done well out of candlesticks, church candles, tooled leather Bibles, altar cloths, small and ancient rugs, even sheet music, all of which were the kind of thing that any number of Bath people would pay money for in order to reinforce their belief that they were complex and creative souls whose originality and flair were revealed in the arrangement of their homes. He now noticed that Gordon Brookes was looking at him with some curiosity.
    â€˜Sorry, where did you say you got my name?’
    Michael swallowed again, and felt a tiny twitch of his face, the kind that might look to anyone watching like a deliberately tight blink of the eyes. The question, never before asked, was now being asked again. Perhaps it was the loss of the wife that was making this one so cagey, though he seemed to Michael more exasperated than bereaved.
    â€˜Crockford’s. Fount of all knowledge! I say, it is all right for me to see the figures, isn’t it? I’ve looked at them behind the glass, of course, but it’ll be just tremendously exciting to get really close to them.’ He beamed again and tried to look eager. Steady, Michael, he told himself.
    In the church Gordon Brookes pulled on a pair of cotton gloves from a drawer at the base of the display cabinet, unlocked the glass door and lifted out one of the two figures. ‘Here’s our St John. Vestry’s the best place, there’s a proper table there,’ he said, making his way to a door at the far end of the church. He could not carry both figures at once, but he seemed prepared to make two trips rather than hand one to Michael to bring. Michael, obedient to some etiquette that suggested it would be unseemly to do so, did not offer to help, but waited patiently by the open case. Gordon came back, took the second figure in