The Right Honourable Alan Russell-Hall MP looked up from checking emails on his phone as he heard the DJ speak his name. As soon as Alan realised that he was being spoken about, not to, his mind briefly pondered whether they still called themselves “DJs” anymore. This one probably did. Although wearing cupped headphones and sitting behind a cushioned microphone and a bank of sliders, this chap was about as old as Alan himself and had probably purchased at least one cassette tape in his youth.
     This presenter may have been sitting in for the regular host of the lunchtime talkshow, but Alan observed the level of familiarity with which he flicked a slider and removed his headphones. Music began to play around the studio — the music of the young. Wasn’t BBC Radio 2 supposed to play music from Alan’s youth? It seemed everyone targeted the youth these days.
     The presenter stood and turned towards the heavy glass door of the studio. Alan glanced over to see the door being opened by the show’s producer, who ushered in a familiar face.
     The Bishop of London entered, smiling softly. If Alan hadn’t known otherwise, from the way the bishop was dressed he would have thought him a librarian on a cold day.
     The presenter held out a hand. “Reverend Macgregor? I’m Timothy White.”
     The bishop moved to greet the presenter — but halted abruptly at the sight of Alan.
     “Alan? What… Why are you…?”
     Alan smirked, stood, and adjusted his belt before offering his hand. “I believe they call it ‘balance’, Reverend.”
     The bishop’s handshake was so ginger, Alan could have used it to bake a base for a cheesecake.
     The bishop turned to Timothy, his smile less confident. “I wasn’t aware you needed balance to discuss a sermon.”
    The presenter grinned apologetically. “I guess when you said you’d be putting the case for the death penalty, our team felt it only fair we have someone taking the opposite view.”
     Alan sat.
     The bishop eyed the seats beside Alan, each one positioned by a microphone on the studio’s large central desk. “But I’m not putting the case for—”
     Timothy cut him off with a raised palm and mouthed “Sorry” as he donned his headphones and sat. He then adjusted some sliders, gestured for the bishop to sit, and began reading — or at least being guided by — a page in front of him.
     “So it’s been exactly a fortnight since the devastating bomb attack on a London infant school by 19-year-old Nathan Stold. The attack killed everyone in the building — 235 victims, of which 214 were children.
     “Stold claims the explosion was an accident. After being given community service to decorate the school, he mixed highly combustible fluids in with the paint, then used a mobile phone to trigger a reaction from a distance. He claimed he thought it would only cause a small fire. But the result went beyond dangerous vandalism into what can only be described as a horrific, sickening, devastating act of mass homicide. What made it worse was the fact that Stold live-streamed the whole event — though that ultimately proved to be his undoing, quickly leading to his successful arrest and prosecution.
     “So Stold is now off to a high security prison. But is that enough for the crimes he committed? Joining me now is Right Reverend Theodore Macgregor, the Bishop of London, who delivered the service for the victims last week. In his sermon, he suggested God knows exactly how the victims feel — and how their families feel. But today he’s going further, saying that even God would want a murderer like Stold to be executed for his crime. Theodore… Stold should be hanged, is that right?”
     The bishop cleared his throat twice before beginning. “That’s not… That wasn’t exactly the point I intended to make, but… I guess it’s more that there are plenty of people right now who do feel that, who feel that jail is too good for Stold, and we shouldn’t feel guilty for that.”
     Timothy’s voice was thick with sensitivity. “But the Bible teaches us forgiveness, doesn’t it?”
     The bishop shuffled in his seat. “Yes, but you can’t have forgiveness without an element of loathing. Forgiveness isn’t a case of just ignoring the evils committed by men, especially evils like Stold’s. First you must feel the anger and hate and… and the pain, so the forgiveness has, shall we say, meaning.”
     Timothy nodded. “So you’re saying hate is something we need to feel… on the road to forgiveness?”
     The bishop sounded more confident now. “I suppose so, yes.”
     Timothy mused. “But there are some crimes, aren’t there, that are very difficult to ever forgive. And I suppose there’s a risk that if you forgive someone for committing a very terrible crime, someone else may think, well, they can get away with it too.”
     The bishop seemed to find a response from the corner of the ceiling. “Yes, well… Forgiveness doesn’t mean letting something go unpunished. Let us remember, Christians believe God wants us to live in a world full of love, and men like Stold are against that. That’s why we have a criminal justice system, and St Paul encourages Christians to support their local officers of justice, saying they are servants of God carrying out his wrath.”
     “Ah… So if the law says that a criminal should be tried and killed… That’s OK, is it?”
     The bishop inhaled audibly. “Well… Look, I can’t… As an Anglican bishop, I uphold my institution’s commitment to speak out against use of capital punishment. All I hope to make clear is that the church’s role — my role — is to counsel those stricken with grief. The church can sometimes, if it’s not careful, compound that grief with shame — shame that our abhorrence of evil acts is somehow a sin in itself. But when people see that even Jesus used death as a punishment sometimes, th–”
     Timothy jumped in. “Jesus used death as a punishment…?”
     “Well… yes. For example, in Matthew’s gospel he comes across a fig tree that won’t bear him fruit — so he curses it, and it instantly withers and dies. Now what that story shows is that anger is a natural part of being human — and we should never forget that Jesus was human, like us. So we should not be ashamed of something as natural as the desire for justice.”
     Timothy looked back to his script. “Well we’re also joined by Alan Russell-Hall, the Home Secretary, who is also a known supporter of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty — in fact he used to work for them before he became an MP.
     “Alan… Theodore says it’s natural to want the death penalty for abhorrent men like Nathan Stold. And much of the world seems to agree with him. An international poll in the year 2000 saw just more than half in favour of this form of punishment. Then a Channel 4 survey in 2009 again found 51% of Brits in favour of a death penalty for murder, and 62% were in favour of the penalty for child murder…”
     Here the presenter looked up and directly at Alan.
     “Surely… For people like Stold… We must hang them, mustn’t we? To prevent anything like this ever happening again?”
     Alan could feel the bishop’s gaze shift to him, but he kept his own eyes on the presenter. “Can I start by expressing again my sincerest condolences to the families of all those who fell victim to this appalling act. I fully understand the extent of their grief, and their need to express that grief in this… very difficult time.
     “And can I also say, Timothy, that I welcome the chance to have this discussion, because perhaps it will help those afflicted to receive the support they so desperately need, and that my Right Honourable friend the Minister for Mental Health is ensuring they get.
     “But capital punishment is not the antidote to grief that Reverend Macgregor suggests. We hear many examples from the US where families of victims fall apart after the execution of their loved one’s murderer, because they never feel the sense of closure everyone tells them they will. In fact a 2012 study by the University of Minnesota showed that families of murder victims were better able to move on when the murderer received a sentence of life with no parole.”
     Timothy rubbed his chin. “Fascinating. So… what, the families where the murderer received a life sentence… They were better able to come to terms with what happened, were they?”
     Alan nodded. “Yes — possibly because they didn’t feel themselves turning into the very type of human being they detested, namely one who wants to bring harm to others. Or maybe…”
     Here he looked at Theo.
     “…because they had a chance to practice that forgiveness the church used to promote.”
     The bishop’s body jolted as if it had been shot. But, before he could retort, Timothy interjected: “Theodore, the death penalty can’t really bring closure to victims – can it?”
     The bishop shuffled his shoulders. “Look, this isn’t about closure. This is about allowing people to feel their anger, their rage, their grief, without any sense of shame. No-one can suffer the death of a loved one without—”
     Alan leaned in towards his microphone. “Reverend, I understand, but isn’t there a danger that people get swallowed up by those emotions, and then can’t move on? Look, wanting someone to die for a heinous crime may be natural, true. It may even bring an end to the story. But it’s an end without hope, where the victims’ families don’t have any chance of seeing lessons learnt, people growing, good coming of evil. You must agree, Reverend? Surely that’s why your Bible teaches forgiveness?”
     The bishop responded instantly. “Forgiveness has to bring about change, Alan.”
     Alan gave a wry smile, though he kept it out of his voice. “Did the fig tree refuse to change, then? Look, it’s your religion — it’s not for me to explain the stories in your Bible. But what I get from that story is the danger of impatience. That fig tree would have borne fruit eventually. Look, remember the Birmingham Six. If we executed them for the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974, they wouldn’t have been around to see their convictions overturned fifteen years later.”
     The bishop’s jawline hardened.
     The presenter took up the thread, again guided by papers in front of him. “Yes, but maybe their example would have put off later bombers, and then we wouldn’t have got the Harrods bomb, Brighton Hotel, Lockerbie, maybe even Stold… Wouldn’t their six sacrifices have been worth it to save the lives of so many others?”
     Alan gestured towards the bishop. “I’m sure the Reverend here will tell you of the Parable of the Weeds, where a farmer isn’t prepared to pull them up in case it uproots the good crop. Surely the point is that we can’t let ourselves turn into the monsters we’re trying to discourage?”
     The bishop was no longer hesitant. “No. That parable explains why God won’t send another flood. There are many, many more places in the Bible where Jesus acknowledges the duty of authorities to deal with criminals. He even accepts Pilate’s authority to order the crucifixion. Let’s remember, Jesus lived in a time when they wouldn’t dare give community service to a violent offender just to cut government spending — they wouldn’t risk endangering the lives of others.”
     Alan felt a cold lump in his chest. “If the death penalty was an effective deterrent, Reverend, no state using it would ever have to enforce it. And yet the US puts another three criminals on death row every month.”
     “Quite small compared to the thirty-odd murders we have in this country every month, don’t you think?”
     Alan raised an eyebrow. “Do you actually care about the wellbeing of the victims’ families, Reverend, or is this about you not agreeing with the laws of our country, or indeed the laws of your own church?”
     “It’s not my place to say—”
     “Then why are you saying…”
     Timothy cut them both off with a surprisingly loud voice, though maintaining a tone of calm. “Of course the most important thing in all this is the feelings of the families involved… Wouldn’t you say, Theodore?”
     But Alan managed to get in first. “That’s exactly right, Timothy. This isn’t about politics, or…”
     He looked pointedly into the bishop’s eyes.
     “…playing the media like the reverend here. It’s about—”
     The bishop jolted again. “Playing the media…?”
     Alan nodded. “Yes. Some members of the opposition are, quite distastefully in my opinion, seizing this incident as an opportunity to criticise our social change policy in an attempt to win votes. The bishop here is perhaps being more distasteful by using this incident in an attempt to rebuild his reputation. But the real point here—”
     The bishop was itching to stand up. “Rebuild…? This has nothing to do with my reputation! Look, I can understand you feeling it might affect yours, as Home Secretary at the time of—”
     “And I can understand you wanting to move attention away from your love life. If I caught my wife in bed with another woman, I’d be looking for a way to get the press off my back too.”
     Timothy moved as if to defuse the situation, but was startled by the bishop’s chair being suddenly rammed against the studio door.
     “My nephew!” bellowed the bishop, his distance from the microphone only just preventing his voice from distorting. “My nephew was in that school! So if you think this is personal then yes — it’s personal. But don’t you dare accuse me of vain ulterior motives. If you want to know, then yes: I do believe that Stold should pay for his crime with his life. Yes, convictions can be wrong. Yes, humans make mistakes. But the biggest mistake we made in this country was abolishing the greatest deterrent for murder and mass murder we ever had!”

Next Chapter: Ronan