Michael Morley - The Venice conspiracy

Present Day Compton, Los Angeles Midnight.

A pimped black Buick blasts hip hop from rolled-down windows. Heads turn on a sidewalk still wet from a storm. But Tom Shaman sees and hears nothing. He's in a trance. Lost in thought.

Six-three in his bare feet, Tom has cloudy eyes and thick dark hair. Thanks to a job that lets him train two hours a day in a boxing gym, he also has the body of a heavyweight.

But right now a two-year-old could blow him over.

He's just left a squalid rental in West Alondra Boulevard where he watched an Italian immigrant die from cancer. Just hours ago, Rosanna Romano had reached her hundredth birthday. She didn't get any cards or presents. No friends or visitors. Only the doctor, Tom and now the coroner called on her. No way to end a century on earth.

Across the street, a desperate shout snaps Tom out of his melancholia.

Down an alley by a fried-chicken takeaway, an angry huddle of figures is kicking up more noise than is healthy.

Tom's halfway across the blacktop before he realises it. 'Hey! What's going on down there?'

His shout draws a face into the grey light. A big guy, dressed like an OG – an Original Gangster. 'Keep the fuck away, man! This is none of your business.' He rolls his fingers into a fist to make the point. 'You got any sense, you take a hike and keep the motherfucking hell outta this.'

But that's not the kind of thing Tom Shaman can do.

As the OG spins back into the shadows, he follows him.

A three-on-one beating is in full flow. And the big guy with the big mouth has a blade.

Tom wades in, delivering a well-planted kick to take out the knife.

Shock spreads through the scrum of bodies. Tom only has a second before they pile on him.

He takes a heavy whack to the back of his head. A knee deadlegs his thigh. No matter – he's bouncing on his toes and full of adrenalin. He ducks a meaty right-hander and throws a knockout punch to the knifeman's head. The kind of shot that would stop an eighteen-wheeler and leave its radiator hissing steam.

Tattooed hands grab his neck in a weak choke hold. He pulls the goon up and over his right shoulder and hits him against the alley wall.

The third gangbanger swings a leaden kick. Clumsy and loose. No real power as it slaps his thigh. Tom grabs a boot, steps over the outstretched leg and feels the knee crack.

The kicker's down squealing, but his neck-grabbing buddy is back on his feet, bouncing with adrenalin. And now he has the knife.

Swapping it from side to side, like he's seen movie villains do.

Mistake.

Big Mistake.

Tom steps forward. Shifts his balance. Snaps a hook-kick to the head.

Two down. One left. And the one left isn't staying around.

'Fucker!' He shouts as he slides away, holding his busted knee. 'We know who you are, you crazy motherfucker!' He makes a gun out of one hand and points the barrel-finger. 'We'll find you and fucking cap you for this!'

Tom ignores the insults. He leans over the victim, tries to see how he can help.

The body on the ground is that of a young woman, fifteen, maybe seventeen max. Her clothes have been torn and it's obvious what's happened. In the half-light he can see blood and a head wound that accounts for why she's unconscious.

Tom dials 911 on his cell and asks for an ambulance and squad car. He hangs up and checks her breathing. Shallow and thin. He daren't move her, there might be back or neck injuries. He covers her with his jacket and hopes help arrives soon.

The big gangbanger who attacked her is still prostrate. No surprise. It had been the best punch Tom had ever thrown. A lucky shot. And the guy's homey is still out for the count as well. They're late twenties, veteran OGs, wearing low-slung jeans, football jerseys and red bandanas – the colours of the Bloods, Compton's minority gang.

Tom turns them both over.

They're dead.

Shock washes through him. He doesn't even have to feel for a pulse. The knife is stuck deep in the big guy's gut and half his intestines are out.

His buddy doesn't have a mark on him. But his head is hideously twisted and the eyes are open and glazed.

Tom Shaman – parish priest, Father Thomas Anthony Shaman – has seen a lot of corpses but he's only ever blessed them – not caused them.

In the distance, the wincing squeal of an LAPD cruiser, blue and red lights pulsing, tyres spilling rubber round a corner. An ambulance is just behind it, its horns weaker, wallowing like an elephant around the bend.

Tom feels everything go blurry. No sound. No feelings. He squats on the kerb and throws up.

In the sodium lamplight the blood on his hands looks black. As black as sin.

The cruiser screeches to a halt.

Doors slam. Radios crackle. Patrolmen take in the scene and mutter to each other.

The ambulance finally pulls up and a trolley clatters out on to the sidewalk.

Tom's head's somewhere else. He's messed up with it all. The dead pensioner at Alondra – the girl he couldn't save from being raped – the OGs he's killed – and the one that got away. It's all tumbling in on him.

Now a cop is saying something. Helping him to his feet.

He feels empty.

Alone.

Lost in a personal hell.

Like God just deserted him.

Compton, Los Angeles The morning after the night you've accidentally killed someone is the worst 'morning after' you can imagine.

No hangover, no bad night at the casino, no regrettable sexual indiscretion comes close to how bad you feel.

On the greyest of days Tom Shaman sits in his grey vest and shorts on the edge of his small single bed feeling smaller than he's ever felt.

Can't sleep. Can't eat. Can't pray.

Can't anything.

Downstairs he hears voices. His housekeeper. The two other priests he shares with. A diocesan press officer. A police liaison officer. They're drinking tea and coffee, sharing shock and sympathy, planning his life without him. Seems the only good news is that the girl is alive. Scared to death, but alive. Traumatised and scarred by the rape, but nevertheless alive.

Tom's already been interviewed downtown. Released without charge but warned that, if the news gets out, all hell will break loose.

And it has.

The devil dogs of the nation's press have been unleashed and they're already messing up his lawn. Packs are prowling around the church and vestry. Their trucks line the roads, satellite dishes spinning in search of a signal. Just the noise of them is purgatory. He puts his hands to his ears and tries to blot out the incessant sound of cell phones ringing, walkie-talkies crackling and presenters rehearsing lines.

Foolishly, when he'd left the station house just before dawn, he'd imagined he could come home and try to get a grip on things. Weigh up whether God had scripted the whole night of horror as a personal test. One rape and three deaths – a frail widow and two street kids who came off the rails. Quite a script. Maybe God knows that in LA tragedies have to be Hollywood epics.

Maybe there is no damned God!

Doubt rocks him.

Oh, come on, Tom, you've long had your suspicions. Famine. Earthquakes. Floods. Innocent people starved to death, drowned or buried alive. Don't pretend these 'Acts of God' never shook your faith.

A knock on his bedroom door. It creaks open. Father John O'Hara sticks his bushy red hair and freckly, sixty-year-old face through the gap. 'I wondered if you were asleep. You want company?'

Tom smiles. 'No sleep. Not yet.'

'You want some food sending up? Maybe eggs and fresh coffee?' Father John motions towards a mug that's gone cold near his bed.