shape
and I realised what I was looking at. The angel!
Even as the frisson of shock tingled across my nerve endings, I instinctively
raised my camera and fired off a couple of shots. Once a hack, always
a hack, and bodies in the snow are a definite step up from Wise Men
in wonky turbans and tongue-tied innkeepers muttering about ‘no
brooms to let’. She was lying in the foetal position, her feet
pointing towards me and her head on one side. The flash turned her
cheek deathly white and highlighted a suspiciously dark patch between
her cardboard wings. Was I genuinely looking at a body here?
Feeling inexplicably guilty, I shot a glance back through the window
of the brightly lit school hall. But the milling people inside were
all too busy lauding their various offsprings’ performances
to worry about what I might be up to. I looked at the animated faces,
so full of Christmas bonhomie. Could one of them have had a hand in
this? Almost any of them could be forgiven for wanting to bring the
tubby diva down a peg or two.
Even if Mary‘s doll did look more like something out of the
horror film Chuckie than the infant Jesus it hadn’t been kind
to point it out quite so vociferously, and if Joseph’s donkey-leading
skills had left a bit to be desired |
going
past the orchestra pit, nearly tipping the Madonna into the lap
of the lead violin, well, the lad was only seven.
I looked back at the girl. If I could only work out what had happened
here. With the right angle the story could maybe secure me the Trib’s
Christmas week front page. My fevered brain began working out headlines.
Gabriel Gets The Message! Fallen Angel! What a Pantomime! Handled
properly, the scoop might even get me back in the nationals. My
editor would love me, my workmates would respect me, my wife might
even start talking to me again… Well, okay, maybe that was
pushing it a bit.
Discarding my cigarette, I hurried down the frost-rimed steps and
put a finger to the girl’s neck. Satisfied that she was, in
fact, alive, I did a quick recce. Three feet away lay the tinsel
halo, crushed to an uneven crescent in the snow. Beside it were
the ominous red spatters I’d noticed earlier. Straightening
up, I raised the camera and took another snap, then crouched back
down to dab at one of the spots. The snow turned wetly pink beneath
my fingers. Curious, I sniffed the moist flakes. Incredibly, there
was the faintest whiff of cranberry! Since orange squash and coffee
were the only refreshments on offer tonight (as I’d discovered
|
