“All too much for you?” Cath leaned on an office space partition.
“Yes, and I’m not going to ask you about all the millennium talk. It can wait for another time.”
She smiled. “You got a minute? I want to show you something.”
He stood and looked around the office. Something wasn’t right. “Something is bugging me. The office seems different. There seems to be a lot of officers in and not out. Is that it?”
“Could be. Come look.” She waved him on. “What I’m about to show you may help you clarify your feelings.”
Cath’s sheep pen, as Jack liked to call them, was across the walkway leading to the kitchen. She directed him to the chair behind hers. “Move the seat in so you can see the screen.”
The screen was covered in numbers and charts. Statistics. Cath pointed to a bar chart that resembled a city skyline with groups of bars in three different colours. The last group had only one colour.
“You know I’m into stats,” Cath said.
“You know I’m not.” Jack nodded.
“Each group is a week. The colours represent offences against the person, against property, and other offences.
“Red, amber, and green.”
“Ignore the colours, Jack. Not relevant.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Okay. Then I’m curious. What am I looking at?”
“The only stats that have come in this week have been for other offences.” Cath moved the cursor over the bars. “Some drug and traffic offences, not much more.”
“Is the computer system down or something?”
“I checked that.” Cath moved her head and raised an arm towards their office environment. “Why are there so many officers in the station?”
She had a point there. And that was what was bugging him. “Not unusual to have a quiet week.” He didn’t believe that. Something else was at play, but he had no idea what.
Cath lowered her eyebrows, drew her lower lip between her teeth and shook her head slowly. She moved closer to Jack. “It’s happening elsewhere. Every police station is having a quiet week.” She straightened up. “Here. Across Australia. Overseas.”
Neither said anything.
“I was particularly interested in one statistic. Domestic violence orders. None have been broken this week. Normally we get close to a hundred breaches a day state-wide.”
Jack rubbed his hand over his face. What did this mean?
“Jack. Evil is being restrained.”
Cath’s eyes were serious. Borderline fanatic, but that was his own insecurities coming though. He pondered. No deaths relating to criminal activity. The last death was the incident at the river on Sunday night.
Cath brought up the calendar on the screen. “Adventus first appeared on Monday morning. There were some offences recorded on Monday, but crimes have dropped off since people become aware of Adventus, or since it made its appearance.”
“Like Adventus is casting a spell over the criminally minded.” Jack had intended that as a joke, but Cath’s lips remained tight.
“Jack, I find this hard. Did you want me to talk to you honestly? It’s frustrating, as I’ve mentioned before, but this is a spiritual thing. I’m not sure if you need more proof. You’re my partner, and I always want to be honest with you.”
Jack looked around. There were a couple of officers within earshot. One was Jonas, who particularly didn’t like hearing any religious talk.
He looked over toward the meeting and interview rooms. One was vacant. “Come on, Cath, let’s go have a chat.”
30 - Not seeing but believing
They opened the door of the interviewing room. The AC had kept the sealed room cool, bordering on cold. Jack made himself comfortable and placed his bottled water on the table. He wouldn’t be drinking that. He looked around for the AC settings and realised for the first time what a bland room it was.
Cath sat opposite him. She grabbed a remote from a small table behind her. “This is what you’re after.” She shivered and made some adjustments. “You remember the case on the island? Our mate Churchie—you know the demon seer—and the impact he had on us?”
Jack would be glad to be on that island now. “Yeah. Opened my eyes about the influence of demons on society. I remember him confirming the things crazed drug addicts saw were demons.”
Churchie had opened up the unseen world to him, the dark heavy cover creeping over society, a blanket of evil. But since then he’d been on autopilot, back into the battlefield without much thought. Running away from … from what? He wasn’t sure. He’d never stopped to think about the unseen world, but the addicts had all described the same thing, something unseen, something controlling them, something other than the drug. But he had pushed it all away. What was the relevance now?
Cath was flicking through her notepad. “You may not remember, but we once had a chat about the restraining forces on evil and that was a role we played.”
Jack searched his memory banks. Sin seemed to be the dominant thought. Something about evil living inside flashed through. “I have a vague memory of that man we interviewed—his name has slipped my mind—where he tried to blame his dad for his behaviour. We brought it back to him and what was going on in his head. I think we concluded that both his dad and he were being controlled by evil.”
“Yeah. I think that was just a snapshot of what we already knew. I think Churchie made it more real.”
Jack continued to search his memories.
Cath gave him a prompt. “What would happen if there were no law enforcement officers? Would evil run amok?”
He remembered now. He’d asked what the other restraining forces were. “I think you mentioned that God will one day take away the forces restraining evil, so my understanding is that evil will only get worse. But that’s not what’s happening here.”
“No, it’s the opposite, Jack. God has increased his restraining powers for some reason. Yes, here comes the God talk. In his kingdom there will be no evil.” Cath swallowed.
