THE JUSTICE OF THE REVEREND DONALD DUCK

An odd little tale that shows that somehow, somewhen, the truth will out.

When the reverend Donald Duck (an unfortunate name but it was his and he didn't want to succumb to the absurd by drawing attention to it via the gift of changing it) hung his vestments up for the last time and walked with a single small suitcase out into the briskly cold November day with the scowling eyes of the bishop boring holes in the beck of his neck he didn't realise what was going to happen next. It might have been something dreadful because the cat on the wall across the road from his old church was baleful and that cat had the kind of wisdom man could only dream of having, or it might have been something wonderful as signified by the little old lady smiling warmly at him from a passing bus, but his lot at the time was to be ignorant.

Then Jodine came into his life. Jodine was pretty and twenty-four, with a mouth-watering figure and the most beautiful brown eyes he'd ever seen. Even though he was a bachelor with a string of anonymous and mercifully unsuspected fantasies behind him he liked talking to the Jodines of this world.

“I know you, reverend,” she squeaked, nervous, timid. “Do you remember me? You're the one who told me to believe in the Almighty and I'd get everything I wanted...”

That stumped him for a moment, and then he remembered years ago, for a term he'd taught religion at the local Primary school and that was easily the kind of thing he might have said to children eager to learn about God. He'd been friendly with the Headmaster for a few months back then, maybe a bit too friendly for a while, but they'd quarrelled over this or that and he'd left the voluntary job with a scholarly flea in his ear and a warning to leave the kids alone or else it would take more than God to save him. He'd got the message and scarpered.

“Were you at school when I … said it?” he asked, slightly apprehensively.

“Dunholme Primary,” she confirmed. “You taught me that if I loved God he would let me have anything I wanted.” She sighed as if the memory was as delicious as Turkish delight, which she loved with the kind of fondness the good Reverend Donald Duck wanted people to think he loved God. She was good at sighing like that.

“Did I?” he asked, nervously.

“And I have such bad dreams … sometimes there's only one thing I want, only one thing that will bring my nightmares to an end...”

“And what did I say exactly? Remind me,” he suggested, hoping it hadn't been one of the indiscretions that had so annoyed the Headmaster.

She sighed. “I've a better idea,” she whispered. “I live in a little flat just across the road and I need a wee. The cold always does that to me! Why don't you come and put the kettle on for me while I go to the loo, and then we'll see what we will see...”

He thought for a moment, but her eyes were lovely and they won out, as did the half-suggestion his mind was putting into her words. “OK,” he said, “I'll come for a quick coffee, and then I'll have to go to my own flat. You see, I just retired and the church wanted the vicarage back so I've had to find a flat of my own. I've never lived in one before. I've lived in the vicarage for so long it seems like a lifetime, and I guess it almost is.”

“I like my flat,” said Jodine quietly. “I didn't know Vicars retired.”

“I had to,” murmured Donald uncomfortably.

“Poor you! Come on, then!” she laughed, and half-dragged him across the road.

She led him to an elderly building and through a small door that led, through an inner porch, into her flat.

“This is cosy,” he said, and it was.

“I like it. It's home,” she said, and pointed. “The kitchen's through there. I won't be a tick.”

He filled the kettle, found how to light the gas stove, and waited.

And waited.

And even waited.

Then he went to the toilet door, knocked it and called out quietly. “Young lady... I don't know your name, but are you all right?”

There was silence. Nervously, he pushed at the door and to his surprise it swung open.

Jodine (though he still didn't know her name) was lying on the floor, quite naked, and surrounded by a tide of blood. Red it was, like a crimson sea with the setting sun lighting it up.

On the mirror, in an equally garish red, was scrawled in thick, dripping letters “God did for me”.

The ex-reverend Donald Duck didn't know what to think or do. He was as lost as a kitten that has accidentally fallen onto a barbecue. In a fever of uncertainty and terror and downright sickness he used the girl's phone and rang the emergency services, and waited, trying not to look at the girl's naked body or all that blood.

He was still waiting when the police arrived, and when he mentioned he had been, until that day, the local vicar they seemed to know more then they should, and arrested him for murder.