Kosovo Resurrection

By Jed Stone

The death of a Serbian monk in the English Lake District begins a search for a medieval Icon that holds the key to modern Kosovo. Spin-doctor Charles Rennie is chased by KLA killers in a fast-paced adventure through the modern Balkans. The trail is spiced with romance, and a spine-tingling final battle at Decani monastery in Kosovo shows that even in death, love triumphs over evil.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jed Stone
• Release date: Jul 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466059443

Jed Stone

I began writing professionally over 40 years ago, when I started work for a traditional English weekly newspaper. The five journalists at the Middleton Guardian sat round a table in the middle of a room no more than 15 metres square. All of life flowed across that table.My first assignment was the Founder’s Day Service for a posh girls’ school in the town. I was 16 years old and surrounded by about 1,000 girls. This is a tough life, I thought, but someone’s got to do it.I’ve lived in over 30 houses in my short life on earth. And I’ve had so many jobs, inside and outisde of journalism, that I’ve lost count. Some of them I’ve been happy to forget. But I’ve always kept coming back to journalism in some form or other, whether its writing, editing, design, photography or spin doctoring.I’ve tried to be serious about making money, but discovered I’m more interested in experiencing life in all its fullness. LIfe’s too important to waste with work that has no meaning.You can get in touch with me at [e-mail] most of the time

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Prologue

Cumberland Star and Times

Saturday 15th August 1981

500-year-old undecayed body discovered at St Bees Priory

Mystery surrounds the perfectly preserved body of a man buried over 500 years ago at St Bees, discovered this week by archaeologists digging at the Priory. The body was wrapped in a linen shroud tied with twine, and sealed in a lead wrapper.

Local volunteers were part of the team who found the body on the site of a ruined aisle adjoining the chancel of the 12th century church. The team was led by Ms Deirdre O’Sullivan, Tutor in Archaeology at the University of Leicester.

‘The body looked like someone who’d just died,’ local archaeologist Sam Miller said: ‘The flesh and organs were hardly decayed at all. It made the hairs stand up on the back of my head. It’s the most extraordinary find I've ever seen.’

‘We knew this burial was different from the other skeletons on the site. They were simply lying in the soil, but this one had been buried in a sandstone-faced vault.’

Leading palaeopathologist Dr Edmund Tapp rushed to the site with a team of helpers from Preston Royal Infirmary to carry out a two-day post-mortem examination.

They found few signs of decay. The man, in his mid forties, had short grey hair and a beard. His jaw had been fractured in two places by blows to the right side of the head. Several broken ribs probably resulted from a fall from a horse.

Pathologist Dr Lilian Bratney said that the injuries were most likely sustained in battle, ‘but the actual cause of death was blood filling the lungs—a haemothorax.’ There was still liquid blood in the chest cavity.

‘It’s remarkable,’ said Dr Bratney, I’ve never seen a body so old in such a well preserved state.’

Another startling detail of the find was the long dark hair of a woman, which had been arranged around his neck like a wreath. None of the experts could give any explanation for this, although they were agreed that it was not the hair of his wife, whose body lay next to him in the vault.

Medieval historian, Professor Septimus Melling, said that the body is likely to be that of a local knight who died fighting in the crusades.

‘It was probably wrapped in lead to preserve it on the long journey home,’ he said. ‘Many English knights fought abroad from the 11th to the 15th century. It was a sacred duty to fight the rising tide of Islam that threatened Christendom in the West.’

Dr Melling said that the knight was probably from one of the prominent families in the area at the time. ‘The militant expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the Western Balkans was a particular concern in the 14th century.’

‘We know that at least one knight from this area, Anthony de Lucy, Lord of Cockermouth, died abroad on crusade in the late 14th century,’ he said. ‘There are at least six major families in the region that are most likely to have sent men to fight in the crusades.’

There was nothing buried with the knight to give any clue to his identity and burial records did not begin to be kept at The Priory until 1538.

Chapter 1

The monk hitched up his cassock and pulled himself over the wall of the monastery. No lights. Good. He hurried across the garden. The full moon climbed over the top of the mountain and bathed the world in a silver light.

He couldn’t miss the body. Stretched out on the slab. Naked. Throat cut.

He bent over till the retching stopped. Then ran for the alarm. The sound of the bell shattered the silence of the lake. Its urgent tolling rolled over the still waters.

Hooded figures gathered inside the walled garden, huddled together in little knots, whispered questions in frightened voices. The whispers were silenced as the Abbott strode through the gate. He nodded at the monk ringing the bell and the noise stopped.

The Abbott spoke and a cloak covered the body. He walked back to his study, picked up the phone on his desk and dialled. The conversation was short and to the point, he gave the facts as he knew them.

‘Yes Bishop, the last thing we want is a scandal.’ He replaced the receiver and turned to the young monk waiting for instructions.

‘Get Charles Rennie,’ he said.

Chapter 2

The call came through just as the sun peeped over the horizon. At first he didn’t register the sound. Fur Elise. It began with a whisper, and grew louder and louder. It wouldn’t be ignored; the world was awake, and someone demanded his attention. The sigh was heartfelt. He put down the book, groped for the brown canvas shoulder bag, and felt inside for the phone.

’Yes?’ He tried to keep the irritation out of his voice.

The voice at the other end was not apologetic. ‘Is that Charles Rennie?’

‘Who else would you expect it to be at the end of this phone?’ His smile softened the words. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘It’s Julie Cameron at BBC Radio Cumbria. I’ve been given your number by the Diocese of Carlisle. We wondered if the bishop had any comment to make about the murder at the Community of the Resurrection last night?’

‘You’ve got me at a disadvantage there, Julie. I don’t know anything about a murder at the Community of the Resurrection. Mind you, that’s not surprising, seeing as I’m sat in a hot tub on the balcony of a hotel in Dubrovnik, watching the sun rise.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry to bother you,’ she sounded sympathetic for a moment, but then the demands of the job kicked back in, ‘we were given your number by the bishop’s office. Are you the press officer?’

‘If they gave you this number, yes. They just haven’t told me yet. I don’t know anything about this story but it’s no problem, give me ten minutes and I’ll get back to you with a statement.’

‘OK. I’ll set up the recorder.’

‘No peeking now while I get out of the hot tub.’

He heard the grin at the other end of the phone. He could imagine Julie telling the journalists from the newsroom about her conversation with a naked press officer. It would be good for a laugh over a drink in the pub at the end of the day.

He wrapped a towel around him and sat down to take in a few more moments of the rising sun. It was a moment he had always savoured, as the red orb flung its golden fingers into the crisp morning air. The promise of a new day—new life, new hope, new adventure. He was thankful every morning just to be alive.

Life was too short to miss moments like this. Too much rushing around. Too many interruptions. Too little time to take in the things that really mattered.

Memories came to mind of the last funeral he’d handled. Five TV satellite vans, twenty reporters, a crowd of photographers corralled in the churchyard.

‘No-one ever got to the end of their life and wished they’d spent more time at the office,’ the vicar had said, although what on earth the context was at the funeral of a priest who’d been stabbed to death by a psycho drug addict he couldn’t recall.

He’d reflected on the words as the coffin was lowered into the ground to the chorus of camera drives. But he hadn’t stopped taking the press calls at all times of the day and night. Always a crisis to manage, a problem to solve, a statement to make, a disaster to avert. He had become an expert at telling a truth and at the same time diverting attention away from the truth, the real truth.

How had Sir Robert Armstrong, Secretary to the Cabinet put it at the Spycatcher Enquiry—‘being economical with the truth’—the difference between a misleading impression and a straight untruth?

Or, as an Archdeacon had once tried to persuade him, ‘Just a little dissembling, Charles. For God’s sake!’ It wasn’t for God’s sake, it was for the Church’s sake, and Charles had refused. His integrity was worth more than his job. For a press officer the boundary between lying and truth was a thin variable line, but there was a point he was not prepared to cross.

Andrea, the bishop’s secretary, answered the phone on the second ring. They were old friends. She’d given him his first piece of advice when he left journalism for the uncharted waters of spin doctoring in the Church of England. ‘Remember they’re just men.’ Wise words that had carried him through the worst of the scandals. She filled him in on the details of the death. He told her about the tub and she laughed. He didn’t tell her he was still naked.

The press officers at Penrith Constabulary were having a busy morning, but they put him through to the media manager when he explained who he was. He was surprised when she picked up the phone. Carole Heswall. They’d stood shoulder to shoulder in the media firing line in Liverpool following the gruesome death of a British contractor in Iraq.

‘There’s not much to tell,’ she said after the initial pleasantries. ‘The SOCOs have been and gone. The body’s at the morgue waiting for the post mortem. The vultures are gathering. I’ll let you know when there’s more.’ It was a cynical metaphor, picking over a corpse, but true that you could spot a nasty death a mile off by the journalists circling round.

There wasn’t a plane from Dubrovnik for two days so he took a taxi up the coast to Split and caught the one o’clock Flybe flight to Manchester.

The hired Mondeo made short work of the trip up the M6 to Carlisle. The Sky News satellite van at the Tebay services near Kendal was a bad omen. If Sky had sent a news team to cover the murder it must mean there was something sensational about the story. Perhaps it was just a quiet news week. Somehow he didn’t think he could be that lucky.

He knew the reporter, Shirley Bentham. As hard as they come, but a damn good reporter. They’d crossed swords a few times but had come to a place of mutual respect. Poacher and gamekeeper. She had a sensitive non-intrusive manner when interviewing victims, which had come in useful for Charles when there was an important message to get across, and somebody’s suffering was the best way to tell the story.

‘Hello Shirley, fancy our paths crossing like this again.’ He sat down at the table, nodding to Steve and Jack, the cameraman and sound engineer who were always with her. They hunted as a pack. The diabiolical menage-a-trois he’d once called them after a difficult time in Birmingham keeping them away from the parents of a boy who’d been shot. It was hard enough coping with tragedy without the media circus camped on your doorstep.

‘Charles. Good to see you.’ Her smile was more than mere politeness. She liked Charles. Most of the journalists did. ‘Now we know there’s a story. When they send for you it’s a sure sign they’ve got something to hide.’

‘Not at all. Not at all,’ Charles did his best imitation of an Irish accent. ‘Sure we’re only tryin’ to help de little people.’

‘Oh God! Not the Irish Jamaican accent.’ She was laughing. Good. It was humour that kept you sane amongst the dead and the dying.

He told them about the call in the hot tub. It was good for the image. Shirley didn’t ask him whether there was anyone in the bath with him, but he could see the question crossed her mind.

‘Tell me what you know,’ he said.

‘Let’s go outside for some fresh air,’ Shirley said. ‘I’m dying for a smoke.’

They walked up the side of the car park towards the Westmorland Hotel. The low sun cast long shadows from the dry stone walls. Sheep dotted the green fells. They leaned against a wall and Shirley lit a cigarette.

‘I thought you’d given up.’ Charles said.

‘I have. This is just an exception.’

‘What’s the story?’

‘The first we heard was that a body had been found at a monastery in Cumbria. Suspicious circumstances. Either the priest killed himself or somebody helped him on his way. The diocese has been pretty tight about it. There’s a whole camp of reporters outside the monastery, as you can imagine. It’s got all the ingredients of a good story—murder, mystery, religion, sex.’

‘Sex?’

Shirley smirked through a cloud of cigarette smoke. There was a flash of mischief in her eyes. ‘Didn’t you know? Apparently the body was naked apart from a pair of black stockings. Some papers are suggesting it might have been a bizarre sexual ritual that went wrong. Kinky little buggers aren’t they?’

He smiled at the pun. ‘Great. That’s a little detail the bishop’s secretary forgot to pass on. Now I can understand why there’s all the interest. How do you know there’s a lot of reporters there?’

‘We were up for the morning bulletin. There was nothing. The place is like a bloody fortress. All we got was police cars coming and going, and your statement from the bishop. Had to nip down to Preston for another story.’ She stubbed out her cigarette on the wall. ‘Anyway must be going. Got to set up for the six o’clock news. See you at the monastery.’

He stood for a while letting the wind blow away the smell of the smoke on his jacket, and watched her walk back towards the satellite van. There was something strangely vulnerable about television journalists. Like nomads they moved around, following the story, never stopping in one place long enough to put down roots. It was a strange life and it bred a strange type of character. Personable and sympathetic on one hand, and hard and distant on the other. Shirley had once told him that you couldn’t afford to get too involved in the stories or you’d never be able to tell them.

Fur Elise had started again. He pulled the phone from his pocket. ‘Charles Rennie. No, I’ve nothing more to say at the moment, but I’ll be issuing another statement later today. I’ll make sure you get a copy of it.’ He put the phone in his pocket and walked to the car.

Chapter 3

Dark clouds were beginning to gather over the Cumbrian Mountains as Charles drove over the summit of Shap Fell. More bad omens for the story, he thought, as he turned off the motorway onto the A66 for Keswick. The rain came down hard, making it difficult to see even with the windscreen wipers on as fast as they would go.

He passed the Keswick turn off and pulled into a lay-by to look at the map. ‘Turn right at the roundabout just before Bassenthwaite. A591 for Carlisle,’ he said to himself. The road was good but the mountains closed in the night. It was dark and wet.

It was the legs he noticed first. Not surprising, because there was a lot of them. Long and shapely like a Vogue advert. Red shoes and a short skirt. She was bending over a car in a lay-by. The bonnet was up.

She turned in the headlights of his car as he drew up in front of the MGB. He hadn’t seen one of those for years. Her coat was draped over her head and she looked very wet.

Charles got out of the car and reached for the umbrella on the back seat.

‘Got a problem?’ It was a stupid question.

‘Yes, but I don’t know what it is. It just conked out.’

She wore a short black dress, which seemed out of place on such a wild night.

‘Can I give you a lift somewhere?’

‘Thanks. I don’t think it’s very far. About another three or four miles down the road. I’ll just get my bag.’

Charles put down the bonnet of the MGB, and took the bag.

He opened the door of the Mondeo and couldn’t resist watching her legs as she sat down. Nice legs. He put her bag into the boot. She threw her wet coat on the back seat.

‘My name’s Charles. What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?’ He fought the temptation to do his Bob Dylan impression, what’s a sweet heart like you doing in a dump like this.

She shivered. Perhaps she was regretting taking a lift from a stranger in the middle of nowhere. He stopped the car, turned up the heater, leaned over onto the back seat, and reached for his bag.

‘Here’s a towel. Dry yourself or you’re going to get pneumonia.’

Fur Elise started again and he picked up the phone. ‘Charles Rennie. Yes, I’m about half an hour away at most. Don’t say anything until I get there. Keep all the journalists out.’

‘You’re going to the monastery?’ She leaned over the heater and rubbed her hair with the towel.

‘Yes, I’m the Press Officer for the Abbey. What do you know about it?’

She sat up, rummaged in the bag at her feet, and began to brush her hair. She seemed a bit more relaxed now he’d told her who he was. He turned down the vanity mirror for her, and the light came on. She grimaced at her image.

‘Thanks. I know there’s been a murder. My name’s Anna. I’m a journalist from Belgrade.’ Her smile reminded him of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. There was a childlike innocence in it that lit up her face.

‘Belgrade? You’re a long way from home. What’s Belgrade got to do with the death of someone in the Lake District?’

‘That’s what I’m here to find out. The dead man’s a Serbian Orthodox priest.’

Charles added the Serbian connection to the information he knew. The devil was in the details. Everybody seemed to know more about the story than he did. Typical. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the lights of the car that was following them.

‘Bloody idiot’s got his headlights on,’ he said. ‘I hate these four by four monsters. They’re so high off the road they end up blinding you. And he’s so close he’s almost touching. What an idiot.’

As the road straightened the car behind flashed its lights and pulled out to overtake. Charles slowed down to let it pass. The big BMW drew alongside and suddenly swerved to the left forcing the Mondeo onto the verge.

‘You stupid bastard,’ shouted Charles as the car came to a stop against a stone wall. ‘What a bloody idiot. We could have been killed.’

He backed the car off the grass. The BMW had disappeared round the bend. He got out to inspect the damage. By the time he got the umbrella up he was already soaked.

‘Just a bit of a dent at the front. The lights are OK. That’s £650 accidental damage excess down the drain. Idiots like that shouldn’t be on the road. The bigger the car the smaller the brain.’

Anna handed him the towel and smiled. ‘I thought it was the bigger the car the smaller the penis.’

Charles laughed, and the anger evaporated as quickly as it had come. She had wit, smouldering eyes, and legs a model would kill for. A potent combination.

He wiped the rain off his head and gave her back the towel.

‘Yes. That’s probably nearer to the truth, although I must say, I do like big cars myself. Are you ok?’

‘Yes. Although it was a bit scary when he pulled into us like that. Good job you weren’t going too fast.’

‘I’m sorry I shouted. I’m not normally like that, but I get angry when fat stupid idiots like that try to take over the road.’

Ahead of them on the right a forestry car park shone like a beacon, with half a dozen satellite vans in a pool of light from TV floodlights. Skiddaw towered overhead, making the night seem darker than ever. Charles could see Shirley, under an umbrella in the teeming rain, making her report for the six o’clock news.

He turned on the radio and scanned the FM frequency for 95.1.

‘Radio Cumbria. Local news,’ he said.

‘Police in Keswick say there’s no further information on the sudden death of a priest at a Bassenthwaite monastery. The Abbey of the Community of the Resurrection has been at the Lake for centuries. Charles Rennie, spokesman for the Abbey said that the death had come as a complete shock.’

‘Bassenthwaite Abbey has been a place of peace for centuries.’ The voice of Charles came over the radio. ‘And so this death has been a shock and also a great sadness. The Bishop of Carlisle has sent a personal message of condolence to the brothers at the monastery and a special prayer will be read in churches throughout the diocese on Sunday. It’s not appropriate to make any further comment until after the inquest takes place.’

Charles switched off the radio.

‘You sounded good,’ Anna said. ‘Especially for someone who hasn’t even got there yet.’

Charles laughed. ‘There’s a formula. The media need something so you give them a soundbite that’s going to sound OK, but doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It only fills a couple of seconds of airtime and it’s gone before people really hear what you say. When I started this job it used to take me half an hour to work out what I was going to say. Now I can make a statement off the top of my head while I’m in the shower.’

‘And I thought that was heavy rain I could hear in the background.’

’Radio’s a great medium. I used to work for Radio Manchester. My producer said she thought I had just the right face for it. What do you know about the story?

‘Not much.’ He detected the caution in her voice. Funny how journalists were always pumping you for information but were so damn good at keeping what they knew to themselves. ‘He was a priest. A Serbian Orthodox priest. He was given political asylum during the war in Kosovo.’

‘I didn’t know that Orthodox priests came here during the war. Why didn’t they go to Serbia?’

‘Some of them did and some were killed. Did you know that over 140 Orthodox monasteries in Kosovo were destroyed during the war?’

‘No, I didn’t. That sounds like a lot. I didn’t realise there was so much damage.’

‘It wasn’t the war. They were destroyed systematically. Often after the fighting had stopped. Blown up most of them. They’re a Christian heritage some of the people of Kosovo don’t want to be part of. It’s a clash of cultures. People in the West don’t understand. This war’s been going on since the Middle Ages.’

‘I suppose I’m as guilty as everyone, for believing what I read in the newspapers. Or what I see on TV. I should know better.’ He wished he was better prepared for handling this death. He knew nothing about Serbia, and not much about the war in Kosovo, although he’d drafted some press statements a long time ago for a bishop complaining about NATO bombing Serbia. A moral outrage, he’d called it.

Anna said nothing. Her head was down and she was brushing her hair again as it dried.

‘Well that’s a lot more information than I had this morning. Curiouser and curiouser. Do you know anything about black stockings?’ He said it without thinking.

‘Black stockings?’ She lifted the towel off her knees. ‘Like these? I don’t understand?’ She had a natural, instinctive way with him that both mocked him and intrigued him.

‘No, not those black stockings.’ She really did have beautiful legs. ‘The priest was supposed to have been wearing black stockings when they found him. Somebody told me about it. I thought you might have heard. The media are speculating his death might have been some bizarre sexual practice. Anything to get sex into the story.’

‘I’ve no idea about that, and I’ve heard nothing about it.’ She sounded offended. ‘I think it’s most unlikely that a priest in the Serbian Orthodox Church would be found wearing black stockings.’

‘Well it certainly wouldn’t be the first time in the Church of England,’ Charles laughed, trying to ease the sudden tension between them. ‘Sometimes I think they’re all loony or a bit kinky. You only have to look at the Archbishop of Canterbury to get the impression that priests are one candle short of a Hail Mary, or something like that. I don’t suppose you saw the news of the Archbishop of York camping in a tent in York Minster? They’re all a bit crazy. I should know, I’ve worked with them long enough. Too long perhaps.’

The car turned into a narrow drive, catching in the headlights the sign ‘Community of the Resurrection. Anglican Abbey. Private property. Please ring the bell for assistance.‘

‘Have you got somewhere to stay?’ Charles asked.

‘No, I left in a hurry. I was going to see if I could get a room in a pub nearby.’

‘It’s a bit late for that. You can stay in the Abbey tonight, if you like. They’ve got a guest house and they’re expecting me. But don’t tell anyone you’re a journalist. And don’t tell any of the journalists or they’ll all be expecting to move in.’

She nodded as though afraid to speak in case her luck ran out. He got out of the car and walked over to the gate. A chain hung from the wall.

He pulled it and heard a bell sound in the distance. The gate swung open and they drove inside.

Chapter 4

Charles drove slowly down the drive, trying to avoid the potholes. Every now and then a hooded figure in a black robe was caught in the headlights. Then there was a file of them. One after another they crossed the drive and bowed their heads under a low stone arch into a building that looked like a chapel. There were lights and somewhere a single bell tolled. It was like a setup for a Hammer Horror movie.

Charles drew the car up in front of what appeared to be the main building. Light spilled from an open door and Charles and Anna made their way up the stone steps and into the light.

‘You must be Charles Rennie. Welcome to the Community of the Resurrection. I’m Brother Luke the Hospitaller.’ The young man was dressed in a black cassock, with a grey tabard. His blond hair was tonsured.

He looked at Anna. Red, muddy high heels. Short black dress. Very wet long red coat with a bedraggled fur collar. Long dark hair frizzy from the rain.

He took hold of Charles’s arm and drew him aside. ‘I didn’t realise you’d be travelling mob-handed,’ he said in a low voice. ‘We don’t normally allow women into the monastery.’

‘That’s not a woman, she’s a colleague.’ It wasn’t actually a lie, but he was being economical with the truth. ‘And I always travel mob-handed because you need a mob to handle a mob. Have you seen the press hounds baying outside the monastery?’

Change the subject. Divert attention away from the original question.

‘Yes, it’s hard to miss them. We’ve had to see a couple of reporters and photographers off the premises. They were wandering around photographing anything and everything. Without permission. And they were very rude when we asked them to leave.’ He sounded offended.

‘Sounds like par for the course. Probably the News of the World,’ said Charles. ‘Well, if that’s all that’s happened you’ve got away lightly. Nobody has spoken to them I gather.’

‘No, we followed your instructions. The bishop’s secretary phoned. She was very insistent.’

He looked again at Anna and compressed his lips as though he was sucking a lemon. Charles thought he detected a slight shudder. ‘Right, I’d better find you some rooms. I really don’t know what the Abbott will say about allowing a woman into the monastery. Oh dear! The last time something like this happened was before the Book of Common Prayer.’

Charles wasn’t sure whether it was meant as a joke or not so he kept his face straight and said nothing.

Brother Luke set off towards the back of the house and Charles and the bedraggled Anna followed. Charles carried both bags. The house was barely furnished, cold and rather gloomy. They went through a door, scrunched across a courtyard and into a smaller building.

‘This is the guest quarters,’ said Brother Luke. ‘You can have the building all to yourself. That way no-one will be surprised by finding a woman in the corridor. Here are your rooms. The bathroom and toilet are at the end of the corridor. Breakfast is in the Refectory at seven. It’s on the other side of the courtyard.’ He scurried away.

The corridor was stone-faced. On one side, windows looked onto the courtyard; six doors were evenly spaced along the wall opposite. Charles opened the first door and walked in.

The room was tall and plain. A single bed stood in the centre and above the bed a