Sam Bourne - The righteous men

So they went together, Will and Beth, to the funerals of Rabbi Freilich and Mrs Jacobson which, following Jewish custom, were held quickly, as soon as the coroner released their bodies. There were huge crowds, perhaps three thousand for Rabbi Freilich, a mighty show of collective grief.

Only then did Will appreciate Freilich's position among the Hassidim: he had been their surrogate father, guiding them ever since they had lost their Rebbe.

A handful of people at the funeral approached Beth, making a small bow of their head as they came close. Will understood they were showing respect not to her or him, but to their unborn child, destined to be one of the lamad vav.

Will saw a familiar face and he headed over immediately.

'Rabbi Mandelbaum, I need to ask you something.'

'I think I know what you want to ask, William. Perhaps you'll allow me to give you some advice. Don't think too deeply about what we discussed that night. It would not be good for you. Or your child.'

'But-'

'It does seem as if the Rebbe understood that your son will have a special responsibility, that he is to be one of the righteous men. That is a great honour. But the other matter we discussed, I think this is best left alone.'

'I'm not sure I understand.'

'I told you that our tradition suggests one of the lamad vav is the candidate to be the Messiah. If the time is right, if mankind is worthy, then that person will be the Messiah. If the time is not right, they will live and die like anyone else.'

'But in the last hours of the Day of Atonement, the child my wife is carrying was the only one left. All the other righteous men had been killed-'

'But now that moment has passed — and the world is still standing. Which means there are thirty-six in the world once more. A new group of tzaddikim. Any one of them could be the candidate.' Rabbi Mandelbaum gazed deeply into Will's eyes. 'Any one of them.'

'You see,' said Beth, drawing her husband away, 'we don't have to dwell on all that. There are other things to think about.' She had been urging Will not to focus on the distant future but on the immediate past — specifically his father. For she knew that Will would be experiencing a triple trauma.

First, he had to cope with the shock of what he had done.

Whatever Freud said about CEdipal fantasies, to kill one's own father was to shake the psyche to its foundations. Beth warned her husband that he would need years to absorb what he had been through. Second, she said, he was experiencing a son's grief. No matter how insane the circumstances, Will had lost a parent and he needed to acknowledge that. But third, and perhaps hardest, he had to mourn the father he thought he had known. That man would have been lost even if William Monroe Sr had lived.

For that man had been a fiction. To the world he had presented a front — the secular judge, the ultimate man of reason — so that no one would ever suspect him of his true beliefs or real intentions. It was a sustained lie, one that was doubtless plotted years in advance. It had cost him dearly, almost certainly denying him the seat on the Supreme Court he coveted so badly. Or, Will thought now, maybe that ambition too was a fraud. Probably such earthly goals meant nothing to his father. He dreamed, it seemed, only of heaven.

In the days that followed that night in Crown Heights, there was a series of arrests across the globe; missionaries and church activists charged from Darfur to Bangkok — all with connections back to the Church of the Reborn Jesus. The suspect in the Howard Macrae case turned out to be a local pastor who had known the victim for years. In Darwin, Australia the chaplain of a hospice was charged with murdering an aboriginal care assistant. In South Africa, police arrested a former glamour model who had joined the sect once she left the industry: she had killed an AIDS researcher she had picked up on the beach.

It turned out that only a relatively small group around the man the newspapers now referred to as the Apostle knew of his plot against the righteous men. The movement's new leadership announced that the doctrine of replacement theology would be 'under review', and that they hoped all their members would soon come into line with the 'majority of the modern Christian family who have only respect and reverence for the validity of Judaism as a path to God'.

Townsend McDougal issued a statement, declaring that he had cut his links with the Church of the Reborn Jesus nearly a quarter of a century earlier — and that he had no idea that Monroe Sr had maintained his secret involvement. He sent Will a note, with condolences, an apology for the suspension — 'a hasty decision' — and a promise that his desk was waiting for him whenever he was ready.

Will looked at the piles of paper in front of him, still unsorted. The light was flashing on his phone: two messages.

'Hi, Will, it's Tova. Looking forward to tonight. Tell me if there's anything you want me to bring.'

He had forgotten; TO was coming over for dinner. Beth had it all mapped out: she had invited some gorgeous, single doctor from the hospital and two other decoy singles. Will had opposed the move: far too blatant, he had said.

He wondered how TO would handle such a set-up. Her life had changed as much as his that week. She had been the first person, after the police, to come to the house in the minutes after Yom Kippur was over. She had been calling and texting Will frantically and when she got no response, she had headed straight for Crown Heights. She followed the flashing lights. Later she told Will: 'I know you were determined to get your wife to meet me, but there must have been an easier way than that.'

Will had told her to go home and get some rest, but she said no. 'There are some things I need to do here,' she said, as they hugged goodbye on the street corner. 'Some people I need to see.' Surrounded by police and flashing red lights, Will wished her luck.

'Oh and Will?'

'Yes?'

'Can I ask you to do something for me? I've been thinking.

I'm not really Tova Chaya any more. And TO doesn't really sound like me either. Too much like a disguise. So. Will you call me Tova?'

Six months ago.

'OK, people, listen up.' It was Harden, snapping the newsroom to attention and Will out of his daydream. 'It's time to boot out of the door one of our number, so please gather round in loving memory of Terence Walton!'

Soon thirty or so people were huddled around the Metro desk as Harden offered a galloped tour of Walton's career on the Times.

'Well, you gotta hand it to this guy for sheer versatility.

He's done just about every job on this paper: police reporter, City Hall reporter, business desk, National editor, Delhi correspondent — you name it, Walton's done it. Would you believe that for two years, this guy edited the puzzle section at the back of the magazine? Even wrote the goddamned crossword clues. Well, now he has decided that he has had enough of our fair city and is going to share his talents with the good people of India. He's off to train journalists there so that they can pick up all his bad habits. But we're grateful to him and so, let's all raise a paper plate laden with cheap cake and say, To Terry!'

'To Terry!' they chorused, followed rapidly by the demand for a speech. Walton obliged with a roll call of former colleagues, many long since gone and unknown to Will, and a few barbed jokes at the management's expense. Finally, he began to wrap it up.

'Well, if my Yale education taught me anything, it's better a short address than a long lecture. And, as the good book says, "brothers, time is short". I fly to Delhi this very night.

So I'll conclude. It's been a pleasure and a privilege…'

The room broke into warm applause; even Amy Woodstein allowed herself a little cheer — though maybe that was just relief to see Walton gone. Will tucked into his cake, shook hands and wished his desk-neighbour all the best.