About the Author

PAUL GITSHAM started his career as a biologist, working in such exotic locales as Manchester and Toronto. After stints as the world’s most over-qualified receptionist and a spell making sure that international terrorists and other ne’er do wells hadn’t opened a Junior Savings Account at a major UK bank (a job even less exciting than being a receptionist) he retrained as a Science teacher. He now spends his time passing on his bad habits and sloppy lab-skills to the next generation of enquiring minds.

Paul has always wanted to be a writer and his final report on leaving primary school predicted he’d be the next Roald Dahl! For the sake of balance it should be pointed out that it also said ‘he’ll never get anywhere in life if his handwriting doesn’t improve’. Over twenty-five years later and his handwriting is worse than ever but millions of children around the world love him.*

You can learn more about Paul’s writing at www.paulgitsham.com or www.facebook.com/dcijones

*This is a lie, just ask any of the pupils he has taught.

Forgive Me Father
PAUL GITSHAM

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Paul Gitsham

Paul Gitsham asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008314385

Version: 2019-11-11

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Saturday 21st February

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Sunday 22nd February

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Monday 23rd February

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Tuesday 24th February

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Wednesday 25th February

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Thursday 26th February

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Friday 27th February

Chapter 25

Saturday 28th February

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Sunday 1st March

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Monday 2nd March

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Tuesday 3rd March

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Wednesday 4th March

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Thursday 5th March

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Friday 6th March

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Saturday 7th March

Chapter 45

Sunday 8th March

Chapter 46

Monday 9th March

Chapter 47

Tuesday 10th March

Chapter 48

Wednesday 11th March

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Thursday 12th March

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Friday 13th March

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Saturday 14th March

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Sunday 15th March

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Monday 16th March

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Tuesday 17th March

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Wednesday 18th March

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Thursday 19th March

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Friday 20th March

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Saturday 21st March

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Wednesday 25th March

Chapter 91

Epilogue

Extract

Also by the Author

Acknowledgements

Dear Reader …

Keep Reading …

About the Publisher

For those who weren’t believed.

Prologue

Scaling the ancient stone wall wasn’t difficult. The metal spikes that lined the crumbling edifice were over three hundred years old and those that hadn’t been lost were rusting to nothingness. The whole wall needed major repair work, but the cost of restoring the medieval brickwork to its former glory would run into hundreds of thousands and the fundraising had barely started. Besides, who would want to break into the ruins of a deserted abbey?

Nathan Adams gallantly laid his coat over the top of the wall in the gap created by two missing spikes, then cupped his hands. The wall was about five feet tall and his companion, Rebecca Hill, easily pushed herself up. Nathan enjoyed the view as her short black skirt briefly rode up, exposing more of the snow-white flesh already tantalisingly revealed by the strategically placed rips in her black tights.

Nathan passed up the plastic carrier bag of cheap cider, before attempting to pull himself over as well. It was harder than it looked, and he wondered if he was going to have to drop back down and take a run-up, when his scrabbling feet found purchase. Rebecca grabbed the handle on the top of his backpack and with her help he finally flopped onto the wall, the rough stone scraping his stomach where his jacket had opened. The drop to the grass on the other side was slightly less, and he rolled clumsily over the wall, landing in an untidy heap.

‘Are you OK?’ hissed Rebecca.

‘Fine.’ he said, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. The weed in his pocket and the booze would take the edge off it, and if all went to plan, he might even get a shoulder rub later. He put that thought quickly to one side, lest he embarrass himself.

Raising his arms and suppressing a wince, he helped her down to the ground – for a brief instant, their faces were bare millimetres apart. He froze. Should he kiss her or should he wait until they were a bit more mellow? His indecision lasted just seconds and then the moment was gone. Was that a flash of disappointment in her eyes?

Rebecca had been here before and she took charge, taking his hand and leading him further into the abbey grounds.

An evening in the graveyard of a ruined abbey, in winter, wouldn’t be Nathan’s first choice for a romantic date, but he was happy to let Rebecca call the shots; he’d spent most of the previous week persuading her to give him a chance tonight and he wasn’t going to ruin it with a bit of squeamishness. An afternoon spent trawling through her Facebook and Instagram posts had revealed her favourite music – death metal bands, all of which sounded the same to him when he’d streamed their albums on Spotify. The T-shirt he’d ordered online had arrived that morning – all shiny and smelling of plastic packaging. He hoped it wasn’t obvious that a week ago he’d never even heard of Flesh Kitchen.

The graveyard was in the centre of the abbey’s grounds. Nathan dimly remembered the layout from school visits, but it looked different in the dark with only a sliver of moon to light their way. The glow of Middlesbury town centre behind them did little to pierce the gloom. He stumbled along behind Rebecca, hoping it wasn’t much further. The weather had been dry and the skies clear, but February was February and the cold was beginning to bite. Rebecca had promised that she knew a cosy spot inside one of the crypts, and that they could light a fire with no one noticing.

His mates were right. She was definitely weird.

But she was also cute and interested in him, and right now, that was all that mattered.

Finally, the low wall that surrounded the graveyard started to emerge out of the gloom. A few more paces and the ghost-like statues adorning the tombs of Middlesbury’s most prominent citizens from centuries past also appeared. Nathan repressed a shudder. Rebecca was marching confidently onwards and he wasn’t going to show any sign of weakness.

To the left, a squat building was black against the night sky. Suddenly, Rebecca stopped dead and Nathan barely avoided knocking her over.

‘Can you smell that?’

He sniffed the air.

‘Smoke.’

He groaned internally. Somebody else had clearly had the same idea as them. He doubted Rebecca would want to get too … cosy … if there were other people about. He started frantically thinking of a plan B, somewhere else they could go. His mum and dad were both in, vegetating in front of the TV, and her place was out of the question – she’d said her parents were really strict.

‘I think the fire is in that building.’

She was right. A faint orange glow was visible through ground-level windows.

‘We should go, before somebody calls the fire brigade.’

If somebody had set the building on fire, it wouldn’t look good for them if they were found trespassing with a bag full of fire-making equipment. Not to mention the weed in his back pocket.

Rebecca ignored him, taking a few more paces towards the building, as if drawn to the light and warmth.

‘I think that’s the old chapel. There’s an undercroft, that’s where the glow is coming from.’

The crackling of the flames was now clearly audible, the glow becoming brighter.

‘We need to go,’ repeated Nathan.

The evening was ruined already. It was too cold to go and sit on the common and the youth club would be packed full of losers this time on a Friday night. Besides, they wouldn’t get in if they were drunk or stoned. The best he could hope for was a slow walk home and a goodnight kiss. The last thing Nathan wanted was for the evening to end in a police cell.

‘Becky?’

She let out a sigh. At least she sounded as disappointed as he did.

They turned to leave the way they had come, before she stopped again.

‘Did you hear that?’

Nathan heard nothing; he shook his head.

‘There it is again.’

He strained his ears.

Still nothing.

No, wait.

They both heard it now.

Louder.

Clearer.

‘Oh my, God, Nathan. There’s somebody in there!’

Chapter 1

The light drizzle had started within minutes of DCI Warren Jones’ arrival at the scene of the fire. He’d almost welcomed the phone call at first, an hour and a half after the alarm had been raised at twenty past nine that night; he was well on his way to yet another comprehensive Scrabble defeat by his wife Susan. Now, even though the precipitation slid off his plastic-coated paper suit, he’d changed his mind.

‘You’re clear to enter the scene, sir.’ The familiar, portly figure of Crime Scene Manager Andy Harrison was easily identifiable, even with his facemask on. ‘Professor Jordan has done his preliminary examination of the body, and it’s ready to be transported.’

‘Tony, do you and Moray want to join us?’

DI Tony Sutton was standing a little way off, also dressed in a paper scene suit. Beside him stood DC Moray Ruskin – whose huge bulk meant he had to bring his own suits to crime scenes in case the CSIs didn’t have his size in the back of their van.

The path between the outer cordon and the doors to the old chapel was shielded from the rain by a hastily erected tent, and the proscribed route to the front entrance was covered by raised plastic boarding to protect any undiscovered shoe prints or other trace evidence.

‘What did the kids who phoned it in have to say for themselves?’ asked Warren as the three police officers carefully picked their way along the walkway. A slip now would not only be undignified, it might also destroy evidence.

‘Not much.’ Ruskin had replaced his facemask. This combined with his thick beard and broad Scottish accent, meant Warren had to listen carefully to the man’s report.

‘They were a bit cagey about why they were here; they’ve admitted that the carrier bag of nasty-looking cider is theirs. They also had some matches and fire-lighters, both still sealed in their original packaging and unused. They’re only fifteen and wearing death metal T-shirts, so I’m guessing tonight’s plan was a bit of drinking in the local graveyard, perhaps a bonfire to keep warm, and if all went well, a bit of hanky panky.’

‘Hanky panky? I’m pretty sure the last time anyone used that phrase was before you were born,’ scoffed Sutton.

‘I was trying to use language that you old folks would understand.’

‘Cheeky sod.’

‘What did they see?’

‘Very little. It was dark and they were trying not to trip over, so they weren’t really paying attention. Neither of them saw anyone or heard anything. The first they knew of the fire was the smell of smoke, then they spotted a glow from the undercroft windows. It wasn’t until they heard the screams from the victim that they realised it was serious. They claim to have phoned the fire brigade immediately.’

The three men were now at the entrance to the chapel. The heavy, wooden door was wide open. More plastic boarding covered the ancient stone floor.

To the left of the doorway was the entrance to chapel proper; to the right, a low archway led to a flight of steep, stone steps that descended into the original, medieval undercroft. Portable lights running off a generator chased away the shadows. Nevertheless, the shiver that ran through Warren wasn’t only due to the late-night chill.

‘Did the witnesses step into the chapel or disturb the scene?’

‘The young man tried to open the chapel door, but it was locked,’ said Ruskin. ‘He walked around trying to find another entrance. His companion stayed back by the tree-line and called 999.’

‘We’ll need their fingerprints and shoeprints to exclude them,’ said Warren. He looked at his watch. ‘It’s getting pretty late. Where are they now? Have their parents been informed?’

‘They’re in the back of a car. I believe there is some debate over whether we should phone their parents or just drop them off outside their homes.’

‘I’ll bet,’ said Sutton.

‘It’s not a pretty sight, officers,’ said the CSI that greeted them at the entrance. ‘The stairs are only wide enough for one person at a time; make sure you don’t trip over the hoses or the power cables. Try not to brush against the walls, or the door, in case there are any loose fibres we haven’t collected yet and mind your head, the folks that built this place were tiny by modern standards.’

The instructions were easier said than followed, especially for Ruskin, who eyed the narrow stairwell dubiously.

Taking the lead, Warren stepped carefully into the space. Despite his facemask, the lingering smoke was starting to make his eyes sting. As he descended, a familiar smell joined the odour of singed wood. Petrol? A few more steps and another aroma entered the mix. The smell of burnt meat. Behind him, he heard Tony Sutton breathing through his face mask.

‘I hate bloody fires,’ he grumbled.

The undercroft was huge, its farthest reaches fading to invisibility beyond the few square metres illuminated by the CSIs working the area closest to the stairwell.

‘Stay inside the marked area, we’re going to need to do a fingertip search of the rest of the room once we’ve removed the body,’ instructed CSM Harrison, who’d joined them.

The figure curled in the foetal position next to the toppled chair was dead. Of that there could be no doubt. Most of the corpse’s clothes had been burnt away, along with much of the skin on the torso and the legs; that which remained was charred and split. The hair on the victim’s head was all but gone.

The sight of the burnt flesh seemed unreal underneath the powerful lamps, yet it wasn’t that sight which Warren knew would dominate his dreams. Warren knew that fire caused the tendons and connective tissue in a body to shrink, but that knowledge failed to make the corpse’s rictus grin and protruding tongue any less haunting.

‘The flames were pretty much out by the time the firefighters broke in. A paramedic first responder confirmed the victim was deceased.’ Warren recognised the American accent of Professor Ryan Jordan, one of Hertfordshire’s registered Home Office pathologists.

‘What else can you tell us, Prof?’ asked Sutton, as he circled the body.

‘Not much until we get him back to the morgue and I do the post-mortem. I can’t tell if he died of burns, smoke inhalation or something else, although I’m told the kids that discovered the body heard screaming, so I suspect he was conscious at some point. Like I said, I’ll know more later.’

‘“He?” Definitely male then?’ asked Ruskin.

‘Almost certainly, although again I’ll be more confident after the PM. The muscles have contracted, which makes it difficult to estimate build; I’d be prepared to go out on a limb and say he’s not a child, but anything more will have to wait.’

Warren looked at the chair lying next to the man; a sturdy affair, the wood looked scorched but not burnt.

‘One of the seats from the chapel, you can see the kneeler fixed to the back,’ offered Harrison.

‘Why didn’t it catch fire?’ asked Ruskin.

‘The fire investigators will tell us for sure, but my nose suggests that the body was doused in petrol before being set alight. You can see that his clothes clearly caught, and then his skin, but the petrol probably vaporised and didn’t soak into the wood sufficiently for it to catch.’

Ruskin’s voice was thick when he spoke.

‘Who would do such a thing?’

Before Warren could answer the young officer’s rhetorical question, Harrison spoke up.

‘Don’t jump to conclusions, son.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Sutton.

‘We found a petrol canister and matches next to the body, alongside some whiskey and a pill container. The container was melted from the heat and only part of the label is visible. I reckon you’ll get the prescription details but not the patient’s name. They’ve been sent off for analysis. And I’ve not seen any sign that the deceased was restrained.’

‘What are you suggesting?’ asked Warren.

‘Well, the door from the chapel to the undercroft was locked; I’m no locksmith, but the large metal key we found next to the chair looks like it matches the only entrance to this place.’

It took a few moments for the importance of the discovery to sink in.

When Ruskin finally spoke, his voice was filled with horror.

‘You mean the victim did this to himself?’

Saturday 21st February

Chapter 2

Warren stifled a yawn. He’d arrived home very late the night before, the adrenaline of the night’s activities soon giving way to a bone-weary exhaustion. He could have handed over the 8 a.m. briefing to DI Sutton, but his second-in-command had been up just as late as his DCI. And what would be the point? Despite his tiredness, sleep had proven elusive. The nightmares that had plagued him since the events of the summer had returned, and he’d eventually given up and driven into work, trying his best not to disturb Susan.

At the back of the room, he spied Moray Ruskin busy regaling another detective constable with a no-holds-barred description of the body from the previous night. He at least looked refreshed – a fact that had more to do with him going straight home than the resilience of youth, Warren told himself.

‘Dunno where the kid gets his energy,’ muttered Sutton. ‘He’s already been for a run and a session in the gym this morning. He’s helping train Mags Richardson for her first half-marathon.’

‘It’s just because he had a good night’s sleep.’

‘Keep telling yourself that, sir.’

Warren chose not to respond, instead bringing the room to order. After briefly summarising the events of the previous night, he projected a photograph of the body onto the briefing room screen.

‘We have yet to identify the victim, however preliminary indications are that the fire was self-inflicted. But until that is confirmed we’ll be treating the death as unexplained.’

Detective Sergeant Mags Richardson beat DS David Hutchinson to the first question.

‘Have we eliminated the kids who called it in? Some folks get a kick out of these things.’

‘That’s underway. Forensics are analysing their clothing and belongings for traces of accelerant and have finger-printed them and taken impressions of their shoes. The locked door is supposedly the only entrance into the undercroft large enough for a person to fit through, although we will be checking the state of the bars on the windows.’ Warren smiled. ‘Moray, they might respond better to someone closer to their own age. Can you do a follow-up interview with them later today?’

Ruskin acknowledged the thinly veiled reference to his own cheeky comments the night before with a grin.

‘Have English Heritage been contacted?’ asked Hutchinson.

‘We managed to get hold of them late last night, Hutch, and they referred us to St Cecil’s Home for Retired Clergy, who are actually responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the abbey,’ said Sutton, referring to his notebook. ‘The retirement home is actually situated within the abbey grounds, but at the far end from the chapel, and shielded by trees, so none of the residents were aware of what was happening until the fire engine turned up. A Deacon Gabriel Baines is in charge of the whole site, and he called the groundsman. The property was secured and I’ve arranged for a meeting with him first thing.’

‘I’ll take that,’ said Warren. ‘I want to get out there again.’

‘Any indications who the victim might be?’ asked DS Rachel Pymm.

‘All we have so far is that it’s an adult male,’ said Warren. ‘When we have a better description, we’ll contact missing persons and homeless shelters. I’m going to visit the abbey immediately after this briefing, and see if they can help. Any further questions?’

When none were forthcoming, Warren started assigning roles to the team.

‘Mags take charge of collecting CCTV; I’m sure they have cameras inside the grounds for security; our victim may have driven or walked, see what’s available from the surrounding area. Hutch, scope out any residential properties nearby and see if there are any witnesses. I’d also like you to arrange a team to interview any of the residents that live on site after I’ve visited.

‘Moray, bring the kids that called it in down to the station and sweat them a bit. At the moment it’s looking like a suicide, but I want us to keep an open mind. Rachel, I’d like you to set up an incident desk and get information inputted into HOLMES; if this does turn out to be something more sinister, I want us ready to react quickly.’ Warren suppressed a grimace as he remembered his early morning meeting with his superior, Detective Superintendent John Grayson. ‘Somebody burning to death in the crypt of Middlesbury’s number one tourist attraction is likely to generate headlines for all the wrong reasons. The sooner we deal with this the better.’

Chapter 3

Deacon Gabriel Baines was a sparsely built man with a full shock of white hair and a ruddy complexion. He’d greeted Warren at the main entrance to the abbey grounds, unlocking the trades’ entrance next to the imposing double doors that served the public. A printed sheet pinned to the door apologised for the abbey’s unexpected closure.

‘These doors date back to the eighteenth century and are pretty much impregnable – it’s just a shame the same can’t be said about the rest of the perimeter walls.’

‘I saw that there have been a number of complaints of trespassing and criminal damage going back several years,’ said Warren.

‘We’ve given up reporting all but the most serious cases. Our groundsman chases people out of here at least once a month; mostly kids like those two last night, but occasionally we find drug paraphernalia in some of the open tombs. Every once in a while, somebody sprays graffiti or damages some of the gravestones.

‘It’s upsetting, but what can we do? We’re raising money to repair the walls, in part to stop this sort of thing, but at the rate we’re going it’ll be another thirty years before we can even make a start.’

‘I thought English Heritage were responsible for the abbey’s upkeep?’ said Warren.

‘Unfortunately, we aren’t, strictly speaking, owned by English Heritage. I’m assuming from your accent that you never had the obligatory primary school visit to the ruins?’

Warren admitted his ignorance; he’d been brought up in Coventry which had too much local history to justify a trip all the way to Middlesbury to see an old church. And somehow, he’d never found time in the three-and-a-half years since he’d moved to Middlesbury to take a tour.

‘Then let me give you a quick tour,’ suggested Baines as they walked into the grounds. ‘The area inside the walls was the original site of the thirteenth-century Middlesbury Abbey. It was founded in 1220, by a group of Andalusian monks from what is now Granada in modern Spain and for three hundred odd years, it served Middlesbury and the surrounding villages. When the plague came to town in the mid-fourteenth century, the brothers expanded their priory to become an infirmary and built a new gatehouse so that sick people could receive medical care without infecting the rest of the abbey and complex – remarkably prescient given that they didn’t have any understanding of germ theory at the time.’ Baines paused and directed Warren to a gap in the tree line.

‘You can see the new gatehouse there.’ He pointed to an imposing set of double wooden gates in the far perimeter wall. ‘It’s on the opposite side of the grounds to the visitors’ entrance we’ve just come from, and is still used by staff and residents. Unfortunately, the old infirmary building was knocked down and built over a couple of hundred years ago.’

Baines continued to lead the two men up a roughly tarmacked path, just wide enough for a single vehicle to drive down without brushing the trees and shrubs either side. A signpost directed visitors to turn right along a narrow pathway for the chapel or left for the education centre. The road continued straight on, but another signpost marked it as ‘Private. Staff only beyond this point.’ Baines continued walking straight ahead.

‘Of course, daily life came to a halt in 1539 during the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. The monks abandoned the abbey and returned, we presume, to Andalusia. The abbey fell into disrepair and was basically the ruins that you see today until 1700 when Sir Howard Langton bought the grounds. He was ostensibly a respectable Anglican landowner and businessman, making his fortune from sourcing locally produced textiles to sell at the market, but we know now that he was really a Roman Catholic. At that time, Catholicism was still a crime, punishable by death, but he was careful to make donations to the right people and didn’t proselytize, so if anyone suspected his true faith, they said nothing.’

Baines pointed towards the chapel where the fire had taken place the previous night. Partially visible through the trees and the lingering mid-morning mist, the building took on a moody, almost sinister appearance. Even during daylight hours, Warren could see the fascination it would hold for some; he suspected that without a major upgrade to the site’s perimeter walls, they were fighting a losing battle against trespassers, with the previous night’s tragedy likely to increase the attraction.

White and blue police tape demarked a cordon twenty metres beyond the chapel’s perimeter. As they watched, a couple of white-suited CSIs emerged from the tent protecting the chapel entrance.

‘Despite its older appearance, the chapel was actually built by Langton in the first years of the eighteenth century, over the top of what had been the original abbey’s undercroft. He took care to preserve the walls that originally formed the abbey’s kitchen and scullery and there is also evidence to suggest that the undercroft was used to hold illegal Catholic services. When Catholicism was no longer a crime, the chapel became Middlesbury’s first public place of worship for Catholics. We still serve a small, but loyal parish.’

‘How do worshippers access the chapel?’

‘We open the main visitors’ gate and let them through.’ Baines smiled tightly. ‘In anticipation of your next question, we take it on trust that they are attending the chapel, not trying to get into the site for free.’

Warren filed the fact away for future reference. Although the policy meant that potentially anyone could have been wandering around the site, it also meant that everyone that entered would be caught by the cameras on the main entrance. He’d make certain to have the CCTV checked thoroughly.

‘So where does English Heritage come into this?’ asked Warren. The organisation’s distinctive red, crenelated square logo was prominently displayed on the signage leading into the abbey grounds.

‘English Heritage, or the Ministry of Works as it was back then, first became interested in the site in the Fifties. Langton and his descendants had lived here from about 1700 to the early years of the 1900s. They built a large house overlapping the ruins of the old infirmary, expanded the graveyard, resurrected the walled vegetable gardens and planted an apple orchard. Much of this was done before the 1791 act effectively decriminalised Catholicism, and so the house has a number of hidden rooms and priest holes. All boarded-up due to health and safety concerns now, of course,’ Baines said ruefully.

‘By the turn of the last century however, a combination of no suitable heirs and bad financial decisions meant the family were all but bankrupt. The house was abandoned, and aside from being requisitioned during the Second World War, was left empty.’

‘Which was when you took it over?’

‘Pretty much. The Catholic Church had always had an interest in the site, as it is part of our heritage and one of the few monasteries and abbeys founded by the Granadians, whose influence has largely disappeared even from their own region of Andalusia. However, the land had been seized during Henry VIII’s power grab and exactly who owned it was a bit of a legal quagmire. English Heritage were interested, but didn’t really want to do anything beyond preserve the ruins as they were. In the end a deal was brokered, whereby English Heritage would manage the upkeep of the actual historic ruins and run it as a visitor attraction, whilst the church would pay a symbolic one-pound annual rent and maintain the rest of the grounds, using proceeds from the gardens and other business ventures.’

‘Which is why all the staff working here are priests?’

‘Not all, but you are right that many of the staff are members of the church.’

He gestured towards a large building just visible in the distance behind a clutch of trees. ‘That was the original family home built by Howard Langton. It was extended several times and was part of the land bought by the church. We didn’t do much with it at first, most of our efforts were focused on the original medieval abbey, and we ignored the later additions. But by the Nineties the church was starting to face a retirement problem. Lots of our clergy were getting old or ill, leading to a shortage in priests, as well as increasing the numbers of our brothers needing care.

‘We’d wanted a dedicated retirement home in the area for some time. Many of our priests have lived in the area for fifty years and don’t want to give up their ties to the community. Renovating the house was the most cost-effective option and it was opened in 2004; the name St Cecil is an anglicised version of Caecilius of Elvira, the patron saint of Elvira, modern day Granada. Now we have up to twenty priests at any time, ranging from those who are still quite fit and healthy, and still say Mass occasionally, to the fully-retired who need some day-to-day assistance. We are also providing hospice care for a couple of our brothers who are soon to receive their eternal reward. Those that are well enough are encouraged to help in the grounds. We also have three sisters who support us.’

‘Are any of the residents likely to have been outside in the grounds at the time of the fire?’

Baines pursed his lips. ‘Unlikely, I’d have thought. I will ask Bishop Fisher of course, but most of our brothers typically rise before six to take part in the breviary and so tend not to stay up late. I don’t live in the house, so I knew nothing of what had happened until I was called at about a quarter to ten. The old warden’s house and orchard block most of the view of the chapel and graveyard so nobody in the house had any idea what was going on.’

‘Who is Bishop Fisher?’

‘Bishop Emeritus Nicholas Fisher was the driving force behind the conversion of the house into a retirement home. When he reached 75 and it came time for him to slow down himself, he opted to live amongst his fellow brothers and attend to their pastoral care, rather than take up residency somewhere more in keeping with his office.’ Baines smiled. ‘His Grace might be elderly, but he’s still very much in charge.’

‘So what is your role?’

‘I am, for want of a better term, our business manager.’

Warren raised an eyebrow.

‘I was called to serve God later than many, after a career in business. Bishop Fisher asked me to make the community and abbey more financially self-sufficient. It’s why all the food in our gift shop and most of our café dishes are made from produce grown on our own grounds. We have an apiary producing honey and we’ve recently resurrected Middlesbury Abbey cider. Quite a kick, if you ever get the chance.’

‘Would I be able to speak to Bishop Fisher? And I’d also like to have a word with the groundsman.’

‘Of course.’ Baines looked at his watch. ‘Bishop Fisher will probably be in his office, I can get Rodney to join us there.’ He pulled out an iPhone, and gave Warren an amused glance. ‘It is the twenty-first century, Chief Inspector. We even have wireless broadband.’

* * *

The house was even bigger up close than it appeared and Baines was clearly very proud of the community he had helped build.

‘We have twenty-eight bedrooms spread over three floors. At present we have nineteen residents, not including Bishop Fisher. We are also fortunate to have Father Boyce, a trained medic, who helps care for our sicker brothers when the care assistants go home for the day, and Sisters Clara, Angela and Isabella who assist Father Boyce and are responsible for cooking and cleaning. The remaining rooms are guest rooms for visiting relatives. The Langton family liked to entertain and so the kitchen and dining room are big enough for us all to eat together as a community.

‘Below us is the basement. The Granadians were well-educated by the standards of the day, and very keen diarists. They recorded everything that happened, no matter how inconsequential. Nobody is really sure why. Howard Langton was very keen to preserve these records and so he made the basement secure and dry. We have been working with a local historian to write a history book, and those original records have been invaluable, providing a remarkable insight into day-to-day life at the abbey.’

The inside of the building reminded Warren of many of the stately homes that he and Susan had toured with her parents, keen members of the National Trust. The ceilings of the entrance hallway were easily fifteen feet high, the walls painted bright red, with gold edging. Wide, south-facing windows filled the room with bright, early morning sunlight.

‘Is this house open to the public?’

‘No. We considered it, but in the end we felt it would be too disruptive for some of our residents.’

The wooden floors creaked as Baines led Warren deeper into the house, pointing out the small room used by the community for their daily worship.

‘Don’t you use the chapel?’

‘No, we attend Mass there on a Sunday and take it in turns to lead the service on weekday mornings, but the local lay congregation is too small for us to justify the cost of opening it up at other times, especially very early in the morning or last thing at night for divine office. Besides which, it’s a bit of a trek for some of our less-mobile brothers, especially in the winter.’

Warren couldn’t blame them. He’d not noticed any lighting on the paths and could only imagine what it would have been like in the dark, with the trees pressing in on all sides and the rustle of unseen animals in the bushes … He pushed away the thought, repressing a shudder.

Bishop Fisher’s office looked much like Warren would expect. The walls that weren’t hidden by six-foot wooden bookcases filled with academic-looking volumes, were the same red as the hallway outside. The faint smell of furniture polish mingled with fresh coffee. The bishop himself sat behind a large wooden desk, opposite a picture of the current pope and a small, porcelain statue of the Virgin Mary. An elderly looking desktop computer and an even older inkjet printer took up only a small proportion of the available desk space.

Portraits of earlier popes covered a wall to his right. Warren recognised Pope Francis, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II. The remaining images probably represented others that had also held the position of Bishop of Rome since Bishop Fisher’s own ordination.

Bishop Nicholas Fisher trembled slightly as he stood, his back stooped. Nevertheless, his handshake was firm and his gaze steady. He wore the first dog collar that Warren had seen since arriving that morning; Deacon Baines’ thick fleece jacket hid his.

‘Welcome to St Cecil’s, DCI Jones. I’m sorry that it is under such sorrowful circumstances. I understand that it is believed to have been a suicide?’

‘Thank you for seeing me, Your Grace. We are keeping an open mind at the moment, however it is looking that way.’

The bishop shook his head. ‘Such a terrible affair. Let us hope that he has found peace from whatever was troubling him. If there is anything we can do to help his loved ones at this time, please don’t hesitate to let us know. We will of course be praying for his soul.’

‘That’s very kind, Your Grace. In the meantime, I wondered if it would be possible to question the residents and staff to see if anyone saw anything?’

‘Of course. I spoke to about half of the residents at breakfast this morning, nobody mentioned seeing anything. I will arrange for anyone who thinks they may be of assistance to speak to you.’

‘What about staff who live off-site, such as the groundsman? Do you know who was present last night, or who may have been in the grounds?’

‘Gabriel can get you a full list, but I believe the volunteers who help in the abbey visitor centre typically go home about five-thirty?’

Baines nodded. ‘And they use the old infirmary gatehouse exit behind the house, rather than the public entrance, so they wouldn’t have gone past the chapel anyway. The same goes for the carers that tend to Fathers Kendrick and Ramsden during the day – they’d have been here until about 8 p.m. – I’ll get their contact details for you.’

A quiet knock on the door signalled the arrival of the groundsman.

Rodney Shaw was a fit-looking middle-aged man, dressed in a grubby green fleece and black corduroy trousers.

‘I’ve been planting bulbs ready for the summer,’ he said, by way of an apology for not shaking Warren’s hand.

He’d finished work at his normal time of 5 p.m. the day before, then headed to his small flat on the other side of Middlesbury. He’d been watching the end of the news, and planning on an early night when his mobile phone had rung.

‘Deacon Baines called me as soon as he was called, and I arranged to meet him here. At first I assumed that it was just kids.’ He shrugged. ‘It wasn’t until I got there and saw the ambulance that I realised that it was a bit more serious. I had no idea that some poor bastard had died in there. Excuse my language, Your Grace.’

‘The doors to the chapel and the undercroft had been locked. These keys were found with the deceased. Do you recognise them?’ Warren showed the man a photo on his phone of the keys retrieved from the scene. Forensics hadn’t finished with them yet, and it was still speculation that they fitted the doors.

‘Yes, they’re the ones. Those locks are over a century old; I must have taken them apart and fixed them a half-dozen times over the last twenty years.’

‘Are these the only copies of the keys?’

The groundsman shook his head. ‘No, those are the ones that hang in the vestry. I have a second set at my house for safekeeping.’

‘Are the keys in the vestry accessible?’

‘Yeah, they’re hidden and you need to know the code to the door, but the brothers take it in turns to open the chapel for morning service, so everyone knows where they are.’

‘What about this key? It was found in the deceased’s trouser pocket.’ Warren flicked to the next image.

Groundsman squinted, then pointed at the screen. ‘That’s the key to the padlock for the main tool shed. I recognise that red blob of emulsion.’

‘Is that also in the vestry?’

‘Yeah, although I use my own copy so I don’t know how long it’s been missing.’

‘One final thing.’ Warren flicked to the next image.

‘Yeah, that’s the petrol can for the lawnmower. It’s kept in the main tool shed.’

‘Dear Lord, it would seem that the victim, whoever he may be, might be one of our community.’

Fisher’s tone suggested that he hadn’t considered that possibility until now.

‘I’m afraid that is quite possible, Your Grace – either one of your residents or a regular volunteer.’

The room fell silent for a moment.

After an appropriate pause, Warren asked if anyone had checked the whereabouts of everyone living in the house. He also requested a full list of volunteers and regular visitors who might have the necessary knowledge to find the keys to the chapel and undercroft. Identifying the victim was his first priority.

Before anyone could reply, there came a soft knock at the door.

Shaw answered it, before announcing the visitor needed to speak to Baines urgently. Warren caught a glimpse of a grey, ankle-length skirt and matching blouse before the door closed behind him.

A few seconds later Baines returned, ashen-faced. ‘I think that list might not be necessary. Father Nolan didn’t come down to breakfast this morning. Sister Clara says his bed hasn’t been slept in.’

Chapter 4

It took less than an hour for CSIs from the Scenes of Crime team working down at the chapel to seal off Father Nolan’s room and do a preliminary sweep for evidence. Tony Sutton supervised the search, whilst Warren continued interviewing Bishop Fisher and Deacon Baines. Until the body found in the chapel was positively identified as Father Nolan and the cause of death determined, it was still regarded as unexplained, and so the room was being treated as a potential crime scene.

The note was written in a spidery script, on lined paper, and had been placed folded on the dresser. A photograph of it was on Sutton’s tablet computer, sitting on the bishop’s antique desk.

‘Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.’

The seven-word opening refrain was familiar to any Catholic who had ever partaken in the sacrament of confession. Warren felt the slightest twinge of guilt – the typical following statement, detailing how long it was since the penitent’s last confession, would be measured in decades, rather than years, for him.

‘Sinned in what way? In a general sense or something more specific?’ asked Sutton.

Fisher shrugged wearily. ‘I have no idea.’

‘Did Father Nolan give any indication that anything may be troubling him?’ asked Warren.

‘I shall ask others if he had said anything in public, but I had not heard him say anything openly.’

‘What about privately?’ asked Sutton, casually.

Fisher fixed him with a stare. ‘If you are referring to the holy sacrament of Penance, then you are no doubt aware that the seal of confession is sacrosanct.’

Sutton looked as though he had more to say, but a glance from Warren stopped him.

‘There was an open, empty container of medication next to the body. The part of the label that we could still read indicates that it originally contained Doxepin, which according to the internet is usually given to patients to combat depression and help with sleep. Was Father Nolan suffering with any mental health issues?’

Fisher paused before answering.

‘Father Nolan had struggled with depression for a number of years. I’m sure that his doctor can furnish you with more details.’

‘Do you know what lay behind the depression?’ asked Sutton.

Fisher shrugged again. ‘As I am sure you aware, clinical depression is a medical condition, it does not necessarily have a “cause”. His doctor may be able to shed more light on his condition.’

‘Deacon Baines tells me that Father Nolan was 76 years old,’ said Warren, ‘you said that he has been a resident here for eight years. That would make him 68 years old when he retired. My understanding is that priests normally retire at 75 or later, especially if they are physically fit and able to continue in their ministry. Was the depression the reason for his moving here?’

‘In part.’

Warren paused, but no more was forthcoming.

‘Thank you for your time, Bishop Fisher. I don’t suppose that you have a sample of Father Nolan’s handwriting?’

‘I am certain that we can find one.’ The elderly bishop hesitated before continuing. ‘Will it be necessary for somebody to identify the body?’

An image of the burnt corpse, with its rictus grin, appeared in Warren’s mind’s eye.

‘Unlikely. We should be able to confirm his identity from his dental records and a DNA match from his toothbrush.’

With nothing more to do until Forensics had completed their search, Warren and Sutton left the bishop’s office and headed outside, into the cool, winter air.

‘Let’s work on the assumption that the body is Father Nolan for the time being. Liaise with Deacon Baines and arrange for statements to be taken from Father Nolan’s acquaintances. Also, chase down his GP and see if we can find out if he was suicidal.’

‘For all the good it will do.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Warren, picking up on the edge in Sutton’s voice.

‘They’re all bloody Catholic priests. You heard what Bishop Fisher said in there. “The seal of confession is sacrosanct” – they’ll use that as an excuse to tell us what they want us to know and hide behind their vows for the rest.’

‘That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think? The seal only applies to what is said in the confessional, and I can’t imagine Father Nolan confessing to suicidal thoughts. Anything said outside of that relationship is open for discussion,’ countered Warren. ‘It’s no different to the privileged status given to clients and their solicitors.’

‘I disagree. Solicitors are duty-bound to report serious crimes to the authorities – Catholic priests think they are above the law.’

Warren eyed his friend with concern.

‘This really bothers you, doesn’t it?’

Sutton let out a puff of air.

‘I just don’t like the implication that the law applies differently to some people.’

Chapter 5

Warren wasn’t a big fan of autopsies. Ordinarily he would just wait for the results to be emailed or phoned to him, or rely on a summary from someone like Tony Sutton. Unfortunately, Sutton was busy and Moray Ruskin hadn’t seen a burn victim up close. With all his detective sergeants otherwise occupied, Warren took it upon himself to oversee this part of the probationary constable’s training. His own mentor, Bob Windermere, had done the same for Warren in the dim and distant past. On the way over he’d grilled the young officer about the interviews he’d conducted with the two teenage witnesses who’d reported the fire; from the sounds of it, Ruskin’s questioning had been thorough, but hadn’t uncovered anything new.

Professor Jordan greeted them at the door to the morgue, situated under the Lister Hospital in Stevenage, where the pathologist’s office was located. The two officers had already slipped protective clothing over their street clothes when Warren’s phone vibrated.

‘Good to see you again, Constable Ruskin. Shall we begin?’ said Jordan.

Warren motioned for them to carry on without him.

The text from Susan was brief and to the point.

Scan fine, everything looking good. Just waiting for blood test. Sxx

Warren responded with a simple ‘Wxx’, before going to re-join Ruskin, who by now was peering eagerly at the body, which lay on its left side in a similar position to how it had been found at the scene. A discreetly placed metal wastepaper bin stood to the left of the table, in case the sight and smell were too much. That didn’t look as if it would be a problem, at least not for Ruskin. Warren had been breathing through his mouth since entering the cooled room.

‘Tell me what you see, Constable,’ invited Jordan.

‘The skin on the upper torso is badly charred, probably third-degree burns. Skin that isn’t charred is swollen and split. The crown of the head is so badly burnt it’s unclear if the victim had hair or was bald.’

Ruskin did a complete circuit of the body, before bending over to look more closely.

‘The skin on the front of the thighs is very badly burnt, with little evidence of the clothes that he was wearing, whereas the clothing on the backs of the thighs is scorched but intact.’

‘Suggesting what?’ asked Jordan.

‘That the deceased was sitting down initially – if an accelerant was used it was probably poured over the top of his head, splashing down to cover his torso and upper thighs.’

‘Good. What about the position of the body? Describe its position.’

‘Classic pugilistic or boxer’s pose, hands up as if defending his face from attack.’

‘Which implies what?’

Ruskin’ eyes crinkled, betraying the smile beneath his mask.

‘Nothing. The positioning is caused by the heat shortening the ligaments and tendons.’

‘Good.’

Lesson over for the time being, Jordan summarised his findings.

‘DC Ruskin is correct; the deceased was likely sat down on the chair when the accelerant – probably petrol – was poured over his head. That could have been self-inflicted or by persons unknown. The deceased remained seated for at least some time, whilst the fire took hold; the accelerant will have burnt off fairly quickly but remained long enough to ignite his clothing. In the final stages the clothing and accelerant had gone, but the deceased’s skin and tissues continued to burn until he was extinguished. At some point he toppled off the chair onto his left side.’

‘Was he alive?’

Jordan nodded. ‘I believe that the witnesses reported screams, which only lasted a few seconds. If accurate, then assuming that they came from the deceased, he was almost certainly alive for at least some time – presumably until the fire took hold. Pathologically, I’ve found traces of soot below the larynx which indicates that he was breathing in the smoke.’

‘Christ,’ muttered Warren. ‘Do you have a cause of death?’

‘Fire is the best I can do at this stage,’ said Jordan flatly.

Ruskin frowned.

‘It’s impossible to be more precise. I measured his carbon monoxide concentration at 42 per cent. That’s on the low end of fatal. Similarly, the intense temperature of the fire did serious damage to his internal organs and ultimately clotted his blood. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you if that killed him, or if he died of other causes before the damage reached a fatal level.’

‘What other causes?’ asked Ruskin.

‘He had moderate cardiovascular disease. It’s possible that the stress of the situation triggered a cardiac event. It’s difficult to tell what damage to the heart was pre-mortem and what was post-mortem – regardless I’d still regard that as being caused by the fire.

‘I’ve sent off for toxicology reports. There was a significant volume of alcohol in his stomach and there was an empty container of medication near to his body. Doxepin has sedative properties, enhanced by alcohol. It’s always possible that he succumbed to their combined toxicity before the fire killed him.’

Ruskin shook his head slowly. ‘All the other evidence suggests that it was suicide. But how is that possible? The burns on his thighs make it look as though he remained sitting for at least some time before falling off his chair. The witnesses I spoke to are clear that they heard screaming, so he must have been conscious at some point. I’ve seen the videos on YouTube of those monks setting themselves on fire. They shrieked and ran around.’

‘Could the alcohol and doxepin have numbed him?’ asked Warren.

‘Possible, and he could have passed out quickly from the initial pain,’ said Jordan. ‘The witnesses did claim that the screams only lasted for a few moments. Much of the burning is also third-degree, full-depth, which destroys the nerve endings. Falling out of the chair may have happened after he died, from the post-mortem muscle contraction caused by the fire.’

‘I assume that asking for a time of death is pointless, Ryan.’

‘I’m afraid so, Inspector. Time of death is a mug’s game at the best of times, but fire messes up everything. I can’t assess rigor mortis since his muscles are already contracted, and the damage to his skin makes it impossible to look for staining due to blood pooling. You’ll have to settle for witness reports.’

‘What about positive identification?’

‘My investigations so far are consistent with a man of Father Nolan’s age and build. I’ve sent off for dental records and taken a DNA sample if you need it.’

Warren looked closely at the man’s hands, the skin was charred and split.

‘I’m not even going to ask about fingerprints.’

Sunday 22nd February

Chapter 6

‘Bad news on the CCTV front, sir.’

Mags Richardson screwed the lid back on her ever-present bottle of water. It was first thing Sunday morning, and most of the team were already hard at work. Richardson was Warren’s first visitor that morning.

‘Broken?’ asked Warren.

‘Worse. Almost all the cameras inside the abbey grounds are fake, just a deterrent. There are cameras above the main entrance, so we have a record of paying visitors, but once you’re in the grounds, there’s pretty much nothing. According to Deacon Baines, they recently installed covert cameras in the gift shop and the café, but they are focused on the tills – they don’t pick up anything outside.’

‘Above the tills? Do they suspect the staff of theft?’

‘He was reluctant to use that word, but he reckons there is a mismatch between the takings recorded at the various till points and the money deposited in the bank. The cameras are there to help them figure out if anyone is “making a mistake”. His words, not mine.’

‘How much?’ asked Warren.

‘Not much. He reckons it’s twenty quid after each daily take, as it’s a hundred and forty on each weekly bank run, but that soon adds up. Deacon Baines figured it was probably some sort of systematic error, since the figure was always exactly one hundred and forty pounds, and made all the till staff undergo fresh training. When that didn’t work, he installed the cameras. So far he hasn’t spotted anything obvious, like people slipping their hand in the till. He still thinks it’s likely to be a mistake. The money is kept in a locked safe, before delivery to the bank, so he thinks it’s at the point of sale.’

‘Have they reported the thefts?’

‘Like I said, he didn’t want to use that word.’

‘Twenty quid every day could be systematic error, I suppose,’ mused Warren. ‘Maybe they are inputting the wrong figure for the daily float? But it sounds like he’s being naïve. If there is a thief, either they’re in every day and stealing from the till, or the money is going missing between cashing up and going to the bank, which is surely a much shorter list of suspects.’

‘I think Baines is in denial. And if there is a thief, I suspect that they will want to deal with it themselves, rather than bring in the police.’

‘What does the missing total stand at now?’

‘Six hundred and eighty pounds.’

Warren let out a whistle, ‘That’s not insignificant. Why haven’t English Heritage called in the police?’

‘I get the impression that the loss is being deducted from the gift shop takings that go to the abbey, not the money deposited into English Heritage’s account from the entry charges.’

‘So they are keeping them in the dark?’

‘Sounds like it.’

‘Well, if they aren’t willing to report it to the police, then there isn’t a lot we can do about it. I’m not sure what the link is to our death, but keep me posted. How much footage have you secured from the wider neighbourhood?’

‘I’ve got teams knocking on doors. There’s a row of shops nearby that looks promising, and it’s a rough neighbourhood, so some of the houses have cameras outside; we’ll seize what we can. There are a number of junctions with ANPR cameras in the vicinity of the abbey and a petrol station.’

‘Stay on it,’ instructed Warren.

He leant back in his chair, and sucked on the tip of his pen, contemplating what Richardson had just told him.

The note in Father Nolan’s room had read, ‘Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.’

Stealing was a sin …

* * *

‘I appreciate that our Scenes of Crime teams can be unsettling, but we will try to keep the disruption to a minimum, Your Grace. Hopefully, it won’t take much longer. We’ll restrict our access to the side entrance, where possible.’

Two days after the fire and dental records had confirmed Father Nolan as the victim. The final cause of death would be determined by the coroner at inquest, but Warren was already under pressure to dismiss it as a suicide. The sooner Warren advised DSI Grayson that the death was non-suspicious, the sooner the priest’s body could be released and arrangements made for his funeral, and the sooner St Cecil’s retirement home could return to its usual, peaceful routine, and Middlesbury’s main tourist attraction could reopen.

Before that happened though, Warren was still treating Father Nolan’s room as a potential crime scene, and he had decided to visit the home in person again to reassure Bishop Fisher that they were progressing as quickly as possible.

Father Nolan’s room had been on the ground floor, furthest from the main entrance. The room next to him was occupied by Father Carlos, a frail, stooped, octogenarian with poor eyesight and poorer hearing. The room directly above was an empty guestroom. Not only did this mean that nobody was likely to have heard anything, it also meant that anyone coming or going via the fire exit at the end of the corridor was unlikely to have been spotted. Nor, for that matter, were the CSIs dusting for prints and looking for other evidence likely to be disturbed.

Father Nolan’s room had been simply furnished, but clean and tidy. He shared a bathroom with the other occupants in his wing of the house, but had his own small sink and mirrored medicine cabinet. A tall bookcase filled with a mixture of weighty academic tomes and fiction paperbacks, was one of the few furnishings that hadn’t been removed by the CSIs. A quick perusal revealed that the late priest’s recreational tastes ran toward classic science fiction, with well-thumbed copies of Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov vying for space with Kurt Vonnegut and Philip K. Dick.

On top of the bookcase, a number of framed pictures were neatly arranged. A faded black and white wedding photo was probably of the late priest’s parents. Next to that, a less faded image contained the same couple; recognisable but significantly older, flanking a younger man dressed as a priest. Father Nolan’s ordination, Warren assumed. A few other photographs, these newer and in colour, depicted Father Nolan surrounded by different groups of people. In one, he was blowing candles from a cake decorated with a ‘25’ pattern. Judging by his age in the photograph, Warren guessed that it was the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination.

The single bed had been neatly made, the pillows plumped up and it had clearly been unslept in when the priest’s disappearance had been discovered. However, a dent at the foot of the bed suggested that somebody may have sat there, facing the room’s single wooden chair, and so the bed had been stripped and the bedding taken away for forensic analysis. A wooden chair had also been removed, after being dusted for fingerprints.

According to Deacon Baines, the rooms were cleaned once a week by one of the sisters that helped at the home and so he was assisting the forensic team in obtaining exclusionary prints. Sister Clara who had reported that Father Nolan was missing had already been questioned by Tony Sutton, but had been unable to give any more details.

The small wooden table underneath the window had been dusted, and two glass tumblers, that appeared to have been recently rinsed out, had been sealed in plastic evidence bags and removed for processing.

Professor Jordan had suggested that the victim had taken prescription drugs and drunk whiskey before the fire. If the pills were dissolved in the drink, that potentially shone a whole different light on things. For completeness, the sink trap was in the process of being dismantled to see if anything had been discarded down there.

Hopefully the findings would come back soon, and Warren could sign the death off as a tragic suicide and everyone could move on.

Chapter 7

‘I’ve completed those PNC checks.’ Pymm drained her glass tea cup. Sutton looked at the dregs with dismay.

‘Are those twigs in there? Comic Relief raises millions so that people in Africa don’t have to drink water that looks like that. Would you like me to email Lenny Henry for you?’

‘Piss off, it’s chamomile and rosehip. Caffeine-free, organic and 50 per cent off this week. It’s a hell of a lot better for you than that over-priced coffee that you and the rest of the team guzzle all day.’

‘Palpitations are a small price to pay for the performance boost,’ sniffed Sutton. ‘Anyway, enough of the backchat, Sergeant, let’s see what you’ve got.’

‘I’ve run the names of the residents, Inspector, and as you’d expect, nothing’s come up. I’ve also done the volunteers and staff. Most of them are in the clear too. Nothing more exciting than a couple of driving offences and one old caution from thirty years back for being drunk and disorderly.’

‘You said “most”.’

‘Well spotted. Rodney Shaw, the groundsman. He was sentenced to twenty-eight months back in 1984 for possession of class A drugs, multiple counts of burglary and wounding with intent.’

Sutton let out a whistle.

‘When did he start working there?’

‘1996. He did casual work in the abbey grounds at first, before becoming groundsman shortly before the home opened in 2004.’

‘Anything since?’

‘Nothing, not so much as a speeding ticket.’

‘Would his employers have known about his convictions?’

‘Not necessarily, they would have been classed as “spent” under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, so they couldn’t ask about it at interview.’

Sutton scratched his chin. ‘A history of violence from decades ago, hidden from his employers – a connection or a coincidence?’

‘If he hadn’t voluntarily disclosed it to his employers and it looked as though it was likely to come out, he could have been worried that he was going to lose his job. Could Father Nolan have got wind of it and tried to blackmail Shaw?’ The look on Pymm’s face showed her own scepticism.

‘Why? What would he have achieved? And how could he have found out? Blackmail’s not exactly priestly behaviour, is it?’

The pair lapsed into silence, before Sutton straightened.

‘Well, good work anyway, Rachel. See if you can find out any more details about his original conviction. I’ll take it to the boss and see what he thinks. It’s our only lead so far.’

* * *

Rodney Shaw officially became a ‘person of interest’ an hour later when DS Hutchinson returned to the office.

‘Father Nolan was generally popular,’ started Hutchinson. ‘Nobody had a bad word to say about him. At least not directly.’

‘Go on,’ Warren blew across his mug of coffee. He’d forgotten to buy milk and was slurping the coffee black; the caffeine hit was good, but Warren had already burnt his tongue that morning.

‘Apparently, Father Nolan had a loud disagreement with Rodney Shaw a couple of weeks ago.’

‘About what?’

‘Well, that’s where we have a problem. It seems the disagreement is common knowledge amongst the staff and residents. A couple of the sisters also mentioned it, but nobody is sure what it was about, or even who overheard them. To be honest, it has the feel of a bit of gossip; I guess small communities are all the same, even those based on holy orders. So much for “thou shalt not bear false witness.”’

‘It depends if it’s false, I suppose,’ said Sutton.

Warren puffed his lips out.

‘It’s still pretty tenuous. It seems a bit far-fetched that Father Nolan would suddenly discover Shaw’s murky past, then threaten to expose him. For what reason? Blackmail? If it was murder it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing so this threat, if it existed, hung over him for at least as long as it took to plan it. Why would Father Nolan hold onto that knowledge?’

‘And if it was blackmail, what did he want in return?’ asked Sutton, playing Devil’s Advocate against his own theory.

‘What does any blackmailer want?’ asked Hutchinson.

‘Most obvious is monetary or material gain,’ answered Sutton.

Warren shook his head slowly. ‘Shaw is two steps up from a gardener. Before then, he was a homeless drug addict, stealing to maintain his habit. He’s hardly going to be rolling in money.’

‘He could be dealing again,’ suggested Hutchinson. ‘Besides, how much money does a Catholic priest need or want? You’ve seen Father Nolan’s room, he was a man of frugal tastes. His food and board is paid for. He has no family to speak of and so far we’ve found no evidence of expensive mistresses.’

‘What about vices? He wouldn’t be the first priest who developed a taste for Communion wine outside of church,’ said Sutton.

‘The autopsy was inconclusive in terms of liver damage, although the fire makes the results unreliable,’ said Warren. ‘Do a bit more discreet poking around, Hutch. Find out if he had any expensive habits.’

‘Will do.’

‘Why else do people blackmail?’ asked Warren.

‘Control? Is there something that Shaw could do for Nolan that he couldn’t do himself?’ said Hutchinson.

‘Again, what does a retired Catholic priest need or want?’ asked Warren.

‘I can’t imagine Father Nolan standing around on street corners buying drugs,’ said Sutton, ‘although you never can tell.’

‘Hopefully the toxicology screen will answer that question,’ said Warren, ‘but if it’s not booze, drugs, money or favours, then that leaves secrets. Keep your mouth shut about my transgressions, or I’ll expose yours.”

‘And what might Nolan’s transgressions be?’ asked Sutton. ‘With all of these ongoing inquiries into abuse and cover-ups in the Catholic Church, you have to wonder …’

The silence stretched as they contemplated the uncomfortable implications of Sutton’s statement.

‘This is all speculation,’ said Warren finally. ‘We need a lot more before we even treat the death as suspicious let alone make Shaw a suspect. Hutch, see what you can find out about Father Nolan’s finances and carry on looking into his background. Keep an eye out for any hints or allegations of inappropriate behaviour. Meanwhile, I think a discreet chat with Bishop Fisher may be in order.’

‘Good luck with that,’ muttered Sutton.

Chapter 8

It was past nine when Warren finally got home. A call to Bishop Fisher had revealed that Shaw’s past problems with drugs were not only well-known to him, but were in fact a source of pride; Shaw was held up as an inspiring example of how someone could successfully overcome challenges within their lives through prayer. He and Deacon Baines worked together to take that message around schools, youth clubs and homeless shelters.

Tony Sutton had pointed out that if Rodney Shaw had started using drugs again, then the shame of letting everyone down might have been enough for him to commit murder, but even he hadn’t sounded convinced.

But something still didn’t feel quite right. In his mind’s eye, Warren could picture the crime scene, the harsh lights bringing the horrifying tableau into sharp relief. What was he missing? What clue was there in front of him that he just couldn’t see?

Or was he missing anything? Perhaps it just his tired, overworked imagination seeing shadows where there were none. Warren knew that proximity to death – especially violent death – tended to make him morose; that had only worsened since the events of the summer. Was that all it was? The counsellor that he’d seen in the immediate aftermath of Gary’s death had warned him to look out for the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Was this one? The dreams that had plagued him the night before were unpleasant, but understandable. Everyone had bad dreams, didn’t they, especially after what he’d just seen? And the frequency of the dreams that had started in the summer had lessened in recent months. He’d mention them at his next meeting with Occupational Health, but he didn’t think it was worth requesting an earlier appointment.

Regardless, a nagging feeling in his gut wasn’t enough to warrant spending any more time on the death and so Warren decided that first thing in the morning, he’d follow Grayson’s instruction to close the case and pass it over to the coroner as a probable suicide. Then he could complete the paperwork so that he was ready for whatever came across his desk next.

With his mind made up, he’d turned off his computer, grabbed his coat and headed into the damp, misty evening. A quick call home revealed that Susan was ploughing through a stack of marking that she wanted to finish that evening, and so Warren had offered to stop off at the local Indian takeaway.

The dining room table was covered with GCSE controlled assessments when he arrived home. As Susan cleared them some space, Warren went into the kitchen and distributed the food. He was midway through pouring a well-deserved beer when the lights went out.

‘Shit,’ came Susan’s surprised voiced from the dining room.

The unexpected transition to pitch black also caught Warren by surprise and he froze. A few seconds later the sound of glugging beer turned into the sound of dripping liquid as the glass frothed and overflowed.

‘Shit,’ echoed Warren as he tried to place the bottle back on the counter without knocking anything off.

When the lights didn’t return after a few more seconds, Warren turned slowly to take stock of the situation; even the ever-present hum from the fridge-freezer was suddenly noticeable by its absence.

‘It looks as though the whole street is out,’ called Susan. ‘Not even the street lights are on.

By now, Warren’s eyes were starting to adjust to the sudden darkness. Faint, grey shadows slowly took form as the dim moonlight seeped through the slats in the still open kitchen blinds.

‘I think I left my mobile in my handbag, can you use yours?’ called Susan from the other room. Feeling foolish for forgetting that his phone was essentially a torch, Warren fumbled in his jacket pocket. Nothing. It must still be in his overcoat, hanging in the hallway.

The faint moonlight didn’t penetrate this far into the house and Warren found himself reaching out with his hands, shuffling slowly like a mummy from a childrens’ cartoon. They’d lived in the house for nearly four years, but he couldn’t for the life of him recall how many steps there were to the coat pegs. The flashing red light on the alarm system did nothing to help him judge the distance.

Or see Susan’s book bag at the bottom of the stairs.

After picking himself up and reassuring Susan that he was OK, Warren finally located his coat, and then his phone.

The light from its screen was dazzling, and Warren had to blink several times before he could focus enough to locate the icon that turned the phone’s camera flash into a powerful torch.

‘It’s a good job I got takeaway or we’d be eating cold baked beans like cavemen,’ joked Warren.

‘Well, unless we want to eat in the dark, we’d better find some candles soon, my phone battery is only on 10 per cent.’

Warren checked his, and found it wasn’t much better.

It took a couple of minutes of fumbling around before Susan located the box of candles left over from Christmas dinner at the back of a cupboard. Fortunately, she kept a box of matches in her school pencil case.

‘I knew there was a reason I married a science teacher, instead of a geography teacher,’ teased Warren.

‘I assumed it was the leather elbow patches that put you off geographers,’ replied Susan as she lit the candles. She reached around the table and gave Warren’s backside a playful squeeze. ‘Eat up quickly before the power comes back on, you know how candlelight makes me feel.’

Warren said nothing as he fumbled for his phone.

‘How could I be so stupid,’ he muttered, ignoring his wife’s flirting.

No signal. The power cut must have been quite extensive to have also taken out the local cell-tower.

Ignoring Susan’s questions, Warren scrolled through his contacts as he made his way to the hall phone. Fortunately, the local telephone exchange still had power and Tony Sutton picked up on the second ring.

‘You OK, boss? Have you lost your mobile or something?’

‘Have you got electricity?’

‘Yeah, course, I live in Middlesbury not Cornwall.’

Warren ignored the man’s attempt at humour.

‘I need you to check your email for Andy Harrison’s scene inventory and read it out for me.’

Still confused, Sutton nevertheless complied.

‘That’s it?’

‘That’s everything that’s listed. Andy’s pretty thorough, you know that. What’s this all about, Chief?’

Warren explained his flash of inspiration. There was a silence at the end of the phone before Sutton spoke again.

‘You’d better call Grayson and let him know. He needs to be the one to escalate the death to murder.’

Monday 23rd February

Chapter 9

Judging from the time displayed by the flashing clock on the oven, the electricity had been restored some hours previously, at about 1 a.m. A statement from the electricity company had been read out on the local radio as Warren drove into the office at 6 a.m., apologising to the thousand or so customers affected by a fault at the local substation.

Warren was half contemplating writing a letter of thanks.

‘Sorry I didn’t spot it sooner,’ said Warren.

Grayson waved a hand. ‘Nobody else did. So either somebody was with him when he set himself on fire, holding a light, or he was set alight by persons unknown? There’s no way he could have done it himself?’

Warren shook his head firmly.

‘The last reliable sighting of Father Nolan was after dark and there was hardly any moonlight. I can just about accept that he could find his way to the chapel, then let himself into the undercroft, but it would have been pitch black down there. There are electric lights, but they were turned off at the switch at the top of the stairs. I can’t believe that he would have gone down there, set up the chair, then gone back up the stairs, locked himself in, switched off the lights, come back downstairs, doused himself in petrol and then set himself alight in the pitch black.’

‘And there were no other sources of light at the scene?’

‘Nothing. No torch, his mobile phone was back in his room and there were no candles.’

‘He had a box of matches, could he have used those?’

‘Doubtful, the box was almost full and Forensics only found a single spent match in the whole area. Besides which, you know how volatile petrol is. It’s doubtful he could have slopped petrol over himself with an open source of ignition in the room, the vapour would have ignited immediately. Forensics didn’t find any burnt paper or rags at the scene to indicate that he made a fire to see by.’

Grayson pulled at his bottom lip. ‘You’re right. I’m not quite ready to publicly declare it a murder, but it should remain an unexplained death for now.’

‘There’s more,’ interjected Sutton. ‘I was thinking about this after last night’s call. There was no sign of any restraint, and I believe that the working hypothesis was that Father Nolan drank enough whiskey and took enough sleeping pills to numb the pain sufficiently not to run around like a mad thing when he set himself alight.’

Warren agreed; he could see where Sutton was headed.

‘Well, is it likely that somebody that far out of it would have the manual dexterity to light a match, apparently first time?’

The three men were silent as they thought through the implications.

‘We need the results of the toxicology,’ said Warren finally.

‘Call the lab and get it fast-tracked, I’ll authorise the cost,’ ordered Grayson.

‘If the bloods come back and show that he was so insensate that he could be covered in petrol and ignited without any signs of restraint or a struggle, then that raises questions about how he got in that state in the first place,’ said Sutton.

‘Go on,’ said Warren.

‘The way I see it, there are two possibilities. First, that he drank the whiskey and potentially took his sleeping pills in situ. That is more believable if it was a suicide, otherwise how would you convince him to do it otherwise? There was no sign of a restraint or struggle. And why on earth would he go down to the undercroft with somebody?’

‘He could have been threatened or coerced in some way?’ suggested Grayson.

‘In which case it’s likely a murder,’ continued Sutton, ‘or he took the whiskey and pills elsewhere, probably his room, as it is private, and was then led down to the undercroft by his killer, who left the bottle and pills there to mislead us.’

‘Or a combination of the two scenarios,’ interjected Grayson.

‘Either way, it implies that he must have known his killer, at least to some degree,’ said Sutton. ‘Not only would they need him to have been comfortable enough to drink with him in his room or to go down to the chapel with him, they would also need to know about his medication.’

‘Which means we need the results back from the forensics in his room, and the likely route he took down to the chapel,’ said Warren. ‘We also need to know the whereabouts of all of the other residents, staff and carers that night.’

‘Then let’s see what Rachel Pymm has for us,’ said Grayson, getting to his feet.

Chapter 10

‘Preliminary results are back in from the forensic examination of Father Nolan’s room,’ said Rachel Pymm as Warren, Sutton and Grayson joined Ruskin around her workspace. In deference to the fact that her job was almost entirely computer-based, her desk was adorned with three large monitors, arranged in a horseshoe.

Warren felt a pang of sadness, quickly repressed. One of his last requisition requests from Gary Hastings had been just such a set-up. He’d largely taken over from DS Pete Kent as the unit’s expert user of the HOLMES2 crime management system and ‘officer in the case’, the person in charge of keeping track of the all the information flowing into a major inquiry, such as a murder. DS Rachel Pymm now did that job full-time.

‘Give me the highlights.’

‘First of all, surfaces that we’d expect to have Father Nolan’s fingerprints on, as well as whoever cleaned his room last, are completely clean,’ said Pymm.

‘What about the glass tumblers?’ asked Warren.

‘Again, suspiciously clean, with no observable fingerprints. Both glasses had also been well-rinsed. Tests are ongoing of the droplets of liquid in the bottom of the glass but early indications are that it was almost entirely tap water, with traces of ethanol and complex aromatic compounds of the type typically found in a grain-based spirit.’

‘Sounds like whiskey,’ suggested Grayson.

‘That’s what they think. More detailed tests should be able to confirm that and possibly identify the brand.’

‘So he shared a drink with his killer?’

‘Perhaps. They are doing their best to isolate any stray DNA from around the rim of the glass, but CSM Harrison says don’t hold your breath.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Nothing much. Just some residue in one of the glasses that may be an anti-depressant.’

Warren choked back a response; Pymm smiled sweetly.

‘They also found tiny polymer fragments in the sink trap that could be from the capsule surrounding a timed-release tablet, again consistent with the anti-depressant prescribed to Father Nolan. Identification has been fast-tracked.’

‘Bloody hell,’ breathed Warren. ‘Anything more?’ His tone suggested that the time for teasing was over.

‘Several different shoe prints have been isolated from the ground outside the fire exit and the corridor immediately adjacent to it. Their orientation suggests that people have walked both in and out of the exit. Some of the prints on the ground outside heading away from the house match examples in the footwear reference database for men’s size ten Clarks of the type Father Nolan was wearing the night he died. Obviously there was too much damage from the fire to make a definitive match between these prints and his shoes.’

‘So, Father Nolan could have exited the house via the fire exit. Is the door not alarmed?’ asked Ruskin.

‘The wires to the contacts that trigger the alarm if the door is opened look as though they may have been tampered with, although it isn’t conclusive. The crash bar on the door is also suspiciously free of prints, but a clear hand-print on the right-hand wall as you look towards the door could be from Father Nolan. They are looking for a better source for comparison prints amongst his belongings before they declare a positive match.’

‘So, Father Nolan walked out of the fire exit, without triggering the alarm. As he did so, he leant against the wall – which might be an indication that he was unsteady on his feet, from having consumed alcohol and prescription drugs,’ suggested Sutton.

‘I’d be interested to know how mobile Father Nolan was,’ said Warren. ‘Assuming these footprints are from when he left the house with his killer, then he was still on his feet at that stage – the drugs and alcohol hadn’t rendered him entirely helpless. What about by the time he made it to the chapel? Was he still upright or did he need carrying? That might indicate if there was more than one killer.’

‘Forensics are still examining the most likely routes between the house and the chapel, but the pathways up by the house are pretty well-trod and weren’t immediately closed off,’ said Pymm.

‘Why aren’t Father Nolan’s footprints inside the hallway?’ asked Ruskin.

Pymm answered, ‘The footprints outside are impressions in the soft earth. The footprints inside are transfer from the dirty soles of somebody’s shoes. They were only visible using electrostatic transfer.’

Ruskin paused, before blushing slightly. ‘Oh, I see. Father Nolan only walked out of the fire exit. The killer entered from outside, tracking mud inside, then walked back out with Father Nolan.’ He paused again. ‘Do any of the unknown footprints head in as well as out?’

Sutton clapped the young constable on the shoulder. ‘Exactly the right question to ask, Moray. Rachel?’

‘Yes, two sets.’ She smirked. ‘We’ll make a detective out of you yet, junior.’

‘Bugger off,’ the Scotsman muttered as everyone chuckled.

‘Bugger off, Sergeant, show some respect,’ responded Pymm primly.

‘What next, Moray?’ asked Warren.

‘We should try and identify who the other shoe prints belong to and find out who has access to the fire exit. Was anyone spotted nearby in the hours before and afterwards?’

‘Anything else?’ prompted Sutton.

‘Who would know about his medication, and who would he be comfortable enough with to let his guard down in their presence, assuming he wasn’t taken against his will?’

‘And what else?’

The young constable thought for a moment, ‘We should also speak to a forensic pharmacologist about the likely effects of the amount of sedatives and alcohol found in his system.’

‘Good,’ said Warren. ‘As luck would have it that’s exactly who we are waiting to get back to us.’ He turned to the rest of the team. ‘You all heard the man, let’s get going.’

Tuesday 24th February

Chapter 11

The report from the forensic pharmacologist was waiting in Warren’s email inbox when he arrived at work that morning. He took one look at it and headed to the coffee urn. He’d slept poorly the night before; suddenly, the journey that he and Susan were about to embark upon seemed real. For months, the couple had undergone endless tests, spoken to numerous specialists and now the time had come. At exactly 8 p.m. the previous night, Susan had injected herself with a shot of hormones, triggering the start of the IVF process. The injection had been over in a matter of seconds, yet Warren couldn’t clear his mind of what was happening inside his wife’s body. All being well, her ovaries should now be gearing up to produce mature eggs, ready for the fertility specialists to harvest.

Amazingly, an hour or so after the injection, Susan had simply gone to bed, falling asleep within moments of her head hitting the pillow. Unfortunately for Warren, sleep wasn’t as forthcoming. He’d lain awake for hours listening to his wife’s breathing, picturing the next nine months with an alternating combination of excitement and fear. When he’d finally dozed off, his dreams had been fractured and muddled, his over-stimulated imagination mixing the investigation with his impending fatherhood. He’d awoken earlier than normal, with a feeling of disquiet.

Even after a second mug of coffee, the report still meant nothing to him and so he was forced to elicit the assistance of Ryan Jordan to interpret it; he called Moray Ruskin in to listen in on the conference call.

‘They measured his blood alcohol level at 152 milligrams per millilitre, although there is some margin for error given the trauma he suffered before he died. That volume of alcohol would have made him a bit unsteady on his feet, but probably wouldn’t have made him insensate.’

‘What about the drugs tests?’ asked Ruskin.

‘The level of doxepin in his system was significantly higher than would have been expected if he had taken his prescribed amount, even allowing for the fact that Father Nolan was in the habit of ignoring medical advice and taking a nightcap to amplify its affects. However, I found fewer fragments of the pill’s capsule in his stomach than I’d expect for such a large amount. I’d even hazard a guess that the fragments represent his prescribed dosage of one tablet.’

‘Suggesting that he took his usual pill, but then additional capsules were opened and the contents poured into his drink?’ suggested Warren.

‘Entirely plausible. Doxepin is soluble in alcohol, and a lot of patients report dysgeusia, an alteration to their sense of taste, so he may not have noticed it. It also means that the drug would be absorbed much faster. That’s why you shouldn’t ever grind up pills unless told that it is safe to do so. Plenty of people have given themselves overdoses that way.’

‘OK Ryan, cards on the table; would this combination of alcohol and drugs have left Father Nolan sufficiently mobile to get down to the chapel, largely under his own power, but rendered him compliant enough not to need restraint?’ Warren held his breath.

Jordan sounded reluctant as he answered.

‘I spoke to the forensic pharmacologist myself. She says that most people would have been on a steady downward spiral towards unconsciousness within thirty minutes to an hour after consuming that mixture. The rate would depend on the person’s individual physiology, how quickly they drank it and how much they had eaten etc.

‘It is possible that Father Nolan could have been confused enough to be led into the chapel, presumably by someone he knew, where he then slumped in the chair. The shock of the fire may have been enough to rouse him temporarily.

‘It is equally possible that the drugs may have rendered him unconscious in just a few minutes, meaning he would have needed to be carried down to the chapel or transported another way.’

‘Could he have taken himself down there, doused himself in petrol and then ignited himself with a box of matches, in the dark?’

The pause was even longer.

‘When it comes to human behaviour, Warren, never say never, but I think it unlikely.’

Chapter 12

The decision the day before to change the cause of death for Father Nolan from suicide to homicide, led to an immediate shift in tempo. Murder investigations didn’t come with a blank cheque – nothing did these days – but requests, in particular for forensics, were more likely to be granted than for suicides. Appeals for support from headquarters in Welwyn Garden City would typically be approved, and more colleagues could be co-opted to help speed up and expand enquiries.

However, Warren had already been assigned as Senior Investigating Officer to Nolan’s suicide and DSI Grayson wasn’t going to change that.

‘Mags, I know that there is precious little CCTV on the site, but I want you to extend the seizure to cover all the cameras available, including internal areas. We have reliable sightings of Father Nolan, apparently alive and well, from after the evening meal that night. At some point he met his killer or killers. Did that happen in his room, or did they meet elsewhere in the grounds? Did he know them? They could have been waiting on site for him, so cross-reference visitors arriving that day with those leaving. There is a camera near the main entrance. It’s unlikely that the murderer came in that way, but let’s not miss the low-hanging fruit.’

‘Could be a big job, sir. Ticket sales were a couple of hundred that day, and the cameras aren’t great,’ warned Richardson. ‘The good news is that most visitors either have English Heritage membership or pay with a card. The regular parishioners coming to worship at the chapel are all known to the staff, and are let in for free. That should make identification of any unknowns a lot easier.’

‘I’ll authorise support from Welwyn. Focus on the day of the murder initially, look for anyone who comes in but doesn’t leave. There’s only one public entrance. The killer may also have visited before to recce the site, so pull in footage from the month preceding the murder, if it’s available – that way we’ve got it if we need it.

‘If they didn’t use the entrance, then the killer had to get on site somehow, so widen the net around the abbey site to a mile, check if any of the nearby residential properties or businesses have CCTV. If the killer accessed the abbey by climbing over the wall, they may have been caught on camera. Prioritise video from immediately adjacent to the abbey and work backwards from the day of the murder. Again, we’ll look at the wider area if needed.

‘Get traffic to pull in ANPR cameras from the previous month and have them cross-reference the plates with locals. If the killer did arrive by car, he or she may have parked a few streets away.’

‘Got it,’ replied Richardson.

‘Hutch, I need you to go back and re-interview all the residents, staff and volunteers from the abbey. It looks as though somebody may have spiked Father Nolan’s drink with his own medication. That person may well have been in his room with him, which suggests that he may have not only known them but will have been comfortable enough with them to have them in his room. I’ll get DSI Grayson to authorise some extra bodies and sign off on any overtime. This murder wasn’t some chancer, or a robbery gone wrong. It took planning and forethought; whoever did it is not only smart, they also had a motive. Nobody is universally loved – not even the Chief Constable – so let’s see who might have had a grievance with our victim.’

‘I agree, sir. But what if the motive has nothing to do with Father Nolan himself?’

Warren could see where the experienced detective was headed.

‘That’s where DS Pymm comes in. Rachel, I want you to trawl the records and see if there is anything beyond Father Nolan. Perhaps a person with a grievance with somebody else at the home, or a wider upset with the church as a whole.’

‘Take a ticket, and join the queue,’ grumbled Sutton. ‘That list grows longer every day.’

Pymm nodded. She already had her notepad out, scribbling down ideas.

‘Have a look at the PNC and see if anyone associated with the abbey has a file on the system. Whilst you’re at it, cross-reference with the probation service and see if anyone interesting has either been released recently or moved to the area. Be creative, contact the Social Media Intelligence Unit for assistance.’

With that, the meeting broke up. Warren watched his officers leave with a touch of envy. Most investigative work was a repetitive, long slog. He knew from experience that the twentieth person he interviewed would become muddled up with the thirtieth, unless he took scrupulous notes. Similarly, a day staring at grainy CCTV footage would leave him with a headache – a week of it and even his dreams would take place in a jerky, faded world.

But there was no denying the sense of purpose that it brought. The feeling that you were at the very heart of the investigation, an essential part of a team and that what you stumbled across might just be the vital clue that moved the case forward.

Warren supposed he should count himself lucky. So many of his peers, upon reaching the rank of inspector or above, retreated into their offices, their time filled with meetings, budget reports and people management. That came with the job, and it was an essential role in modern policing. But he’d seen the wistful looks on his fellow DCIs’ faces as he left the latest management away day, and headed back to his team, whilst they scurried to their next meeting.

This unusual position was a result of Middlesbury CID’s unique history. Tucked away in the very north of the county, about as far from Hertfordshire Constabulary’s headquarters in Welwyn Garden City as it was possible to be and not cross the county borders, Middlesbury CID had remained a local first-response unit dealing with issues as they arose in Middlesbury and the surrounding towns and villages. The unit had survived the consolidation when Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire moved all of their major crime units into a single building in Welwyn Garden City.

Maintaining Middlesbury’s independence had been the personal mission of Warren’s predecessor, DCI Gavin Sheehy. Unfortunately, the man’s uncompromising attitude had won him as many enemies as admirers, and when he was arrested for corruption, many saw that as vindication of the view that Middlesbury needed to be disbanded and absorbed into the main unit in Welwyn.

Whether DSI John Grayson had been appointed to save or bury Middlesbury CID was still unclear four years on. Tony Sutton maintained that the fate of Middlesbury CID was directly related to its usefulness in securing Grayson’s next promotion and corresponding final salary pension; Warren felt that whilst his theory wasn’t entirely without merit, it was a bit unfair to the man.

Of course, none of this was made clear to Warren as he was parachuted in to fill the vacancy left by Sheehy. Warren’s first weeks as a newly promoted DCI had seen him walk unprepared into a maelstrom of politics that he’d been forced to deal with as he headed up his first major murder investigation. Over the next few months, Warren had found himself chasing a serial rapist and murderer, and embroiled in a cold case that had soon become all too personal. That investigation had led to the resolution of many of the issues surrounding the death of Warren’s father when he was a teenager, but had led to new and unexpected betrayals.

When he had been interviewed for the role, Warren had made it clear that he wanted to use his time at Middlesbury to segue from an active Senior Investigating Officer to the more managerial role that a senior officer such as a DCI would typically fulfil. Grayson, it turned out, was more than happy to pass over anything investigative to Warren, assigning him as SIO to everything that came their way. Grayson, for his part, spent much of his time down at Welwyn.

On a good day, Warren was grateful that his Superintendent shielded him and his team from much of the administrative side of policing; on a bad day, Warren wished the man would do a bit less schmoozing, play a little less golf and actually get his hands dirty, instead of simply taking all the credit for the team’s hard work.

That aside, there was one aspect of the job that Grayson could keep to himself. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to be possible today. With a sigh, Warren slipped on his best jacket, checked his hair in the mirror, and headed for the car park.

He hated press conferences.

Chapter 13

‘I’ve been going through all of the past reports on the system that mention the abbey,’ Rachel Pymm had a list in her hand covered in a multitude of different coloured fluorescent markers. For the briefest of moments, Warren had a flashback of Gary Hastings; despite the man’s expertise with a computer, he’d still liked nothing more than a ream of paper covered in coloured pen.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. ‘Take me through what you’ve got, Rachel.’

The press conference had been relatively brief, with little in the way of details. Doubtless the tabloids would focus on the more sensational aspects of the death, but at the moment the team wanted to keep the fact that Father Nolan was likely to have been murdered to themselves.

‘The abbey and its surroundings are a bit of a crime magnet, so I decided to limit my search to the past five years. I can go back further if you want me to.’

‘No, I’ll defer to your judgement for the time being.’

‘Well most of the offences can be classed as low-level vandalism and anti-social behaviour.’

‘From the priests?’

‘Less than you’d expect,’ she said with a smile. ‘It’s mostly kids; reports of graffiti tagging, broken windows, large noisy gatherings etc. They had a spate of damaged headstones about two years ago, and someone tried to nick lead off the chapel roof. They scarpered empty-handed when Rodney Shaw turned up. There’s been no real pattern, other than a general increase after dark in the winter and a bit of a spike around October.’

‘Well, thanks for looking into that, Rachel.’

‘There is one report that might be worth looking at further.’

‘Hit me.’

‘On the ninth of January this year, Deacon Baines called the police after a man climbed over the wall and came into the grounds, shouting and being abusive.’

‘Abusive in what way?’

‘It’s hard to be sure exactly. He was drunk, possibly high, and likely had mental health issues. The officers involved weren’t able to talk him down and he was eventually arrested and stuck in the back of a police van. The report says that by the time he got to the nick he was ready to sleep it off.

‘The next morning, he was fit enough to be charged with being drunk and disorderly, but the abbey declined to press charges over the minor damage done to the wall. It was dealt with by caution.’

‘What do we know about him?’

‘Lucas Furber. 35 years old, of no fixed abode. A couple of historic convictions for drugs, but nothing recent.’ She passed across a headshot, taken in custody. Furber looked younger than his stated age, and poorly nourished. His skin was blotchy with acne, and his dark beard was straggly and matted, as greasy as his long hair. The bags under his bloodshot, blue eyes were like dark, purple bruises. The end of his nose was reddened. Drug use or a cold?

‘Hmm, it could be just what it seems,’ said Warren, ‘but I’d like to know what he was ranting about. Did he know Father Nolan or was it aimed at someone else at the abbey? Was it a general dislike of the church, or had he just read the latest Dan Brown novel? Or was it something else, or nothing at all? We should definitely try to eliminate him. See if you can track him down. In the meantime, Deacon Baines was the one who confronted him. Let’s see if he can tell us a bit more.’

* * *

Deacon Baines did remember the incident, when Warren called him.

‘Ah, yes, that poor young man, clearly a very disturbed individual. Such a shame we couldn’t help him more.’

‘Can you tell me what happened?’

‘Nothing too exciting, as I recall. It was late evening, shortly after we’d finished for the day. The last visitors had gone and the main gates had been locked. One of the sales assistants in the gift shop spotted somebody climbing over the wall as she walked back to her car – close to where those young people climbed over Friday night. We really need to get those spikes replaced, but there isn’t any money.’

‘And then what happened?’

‘She phoned Rodney Shaw, who called me as he went to confront the man.’

Shaw again; it could be a coincidence. Nevertheless, Warren scribbled the man’s name down on his pad.

‘The reports said he was abusive.’

‘Yes, he was being foul-mouthed and shouting at Rodney, who was trying to calm him down. When he saw me, he picked up a stick and started waving it about. That’s when we called the police.’

There had been nothing about violence towards Baines or Shaw in the police report.

‘It wasn’t really worth mentioning; neither of us were in any danger, we just wanted the young man to get the help he needed. He dropped the stick when the police arrived.’

‘Can you tell me what he was shouting about?’

Baines paused. ‘Nothing really. This and that, he was clearly disturbed.’

‘Can you be more specific?’

‘Not really, and I’d rather not repeat the man’s language.’

‘OK. Thanks for your assistance, Deacon Baines. You’re probably right, it was likely nothing.’

Warren hung up.

Baines clearly didn’t want to discuss the incident. Until this point, the man had been open and helpful. Why was he suddenly so vague? It also sounded as though the intruder had become more agitated when Baines had arrived upon the scene. Was that significant, or was the man just feeling an increased threat now that there were two men confronting him?

Warren drummed his fingers on the table, before getting up and heading into the main office.

‘Rachel, any luck tracking down Lucas Furber?’

‘The custody report said that Furber was going to the Middlesbury Outreach Centre when he was released. They might be able to tell us where he is.’

‘We’ll send someone down there, but before they go, can you track down the arresting officers? It’s a long shot, but they may remember what he was shouting about. I’d also like to speak to the person who witnessed him clambering over the wall. Find out who she is and arrange for her to come in.’

‘Will do.’

Warren continued his circuit of the office.

‘Hutch, what have you found out about our victim?’

‘Apparently, Father Nolan was a man of simple tastes,’ stated Hutchinson. ‘He walked into town a couple of times a week to The Cock and Lion, where he liked a pint and caught the footie on Sky. He was also known to have the odd flutter on the horses.’

‘Could he have had a gambling problem?’

‘There’s nothing in his bank accounts to suggest that he had any issues, but he could have been using cash. We don’t know where he placed his bets, so we’ll need to wear out some shoe leather,’ said Sutton. Warren remembered his conversation with Mags Richardson about the missing cash from the gift shop takings. Could there be a link?

Warren pictured his bulging in-tray. The arresting officers for Lucas Furber had clocked off, so he wasn’t expecting a call before the next day.

‘Leave it with me.’ He moved onto the next desk.

‘Moray? Fancy some fresh air?’

Chapter 14

Walk a few minutes from Middlesbury Abbey and the fairly affluent neighbourhood overlooking the historic ruins soon turns into a far less salubrious area. Father Nolan’s favoured pub, The Cock and Lion, occupied the corner of Hanover Street and Tudor Avenue.

Ruskin described it as a typical ‘old man’s pub’; warm beer, cheap food and football on the TV. The sort of place where you could make a pint of bitter and a newspaper last all afternoon and nobody minded. Warren tried not to feel slighted; he rather liked the look of the place.

The landlady, a friendly woman in her mid-thirties with a West Country accent, didn’t need to think twice before confirming that Father Nolan had been a regular. She shook her head. ‘So sad. Suicide, they said in the paper.’

News that they were now investigating a murder had not yet been released to the public; Warren wanted a couple more days before the killer was tipped off that their attempts to cover up the killing had failed.

She shuddered. ‘And what a way to go.’

‘How well did you know Father Nolan?’

‘Not very well, he was pretty quiet.’ She tipped her chin towards a corner table, strategically placed to give the best view of the large TV opposite. ‘He’d usually sit there and either watch the footie or read the newspaper. He’d say hello and make polite conversation, but wasn’t exactly a chatterbox. To be honest, I wouldn’t know what to say. I mean what do you talk about with a priest? I failed GCSE RE and have barely been inside a church since my first Holy Communion.’

‘Did he speak to anyone else?’ asked Warren.

‘Not really. Most of the regulars knew him, and he’d express an opinion on whatever match they were watching, but he mostly sat on his own. Once or twice he came down here with other priests, but not often.’

‘I don’t suppose you noticed any change in his mood, recently?’ asked Ruskin.

‘You mean, like if he was suicidal?’

‘It probably wouldn’t be that obvious,’ cautioned Warren.

She thought for a moment before apologizing. ‘I just didn’t know him well enough.’

‘What did he usually drink?’ said Ruskin.

‘He’d usually have a go of whatever guest beer we had in, otherwise whatever bitter we have on tap.’

‘And was he a big drinker?’

She laughed. ‘I wish. Two pints was about his limit, and a packet of cheese and onion crisps if he was feeling peckish.’

‘Would any of your regulars be likely to have noticed anything?’

She thought for a moment. ‘Hard to say. I can ask around if you like.’

‘We’d appreciate that,’ said Ruskin.

‘Why don’t you come back for a drink in a couple of days and I’ll let you know what I’ve heard?’

Warren hid a smile, as Ruskin politely deflected the offer and passed over a card with his number.

‘Blimey Moray, and you weren’t even in uniform,’ teased Warren as they stepped back out onto the street.

The burly Scot shrugged. ‘Not exactly my type. And I’m spoken for, remember.’

‘Let her down gently.’

* * *

If, as Hutchinson had suggested, Father Nolan liked to place the odd bet before his pint, he didn’t have far to walk.

There was something especially sad about a bookmaker’s on a weekday afternoon, decided Warren, as they left the third shop in a street barely two hundred metres long. The woman behind the reinforced glass partition hadn’t recognised Father Nolan’s photograph. Neither had any of the punters, although most of them – scruffy men of varying ages – had barely been able to tear their eyes away from the galloping horses on the banks of wall-mounted TVs, or shift their attention from the ubiquitous fixed-odds betting terminals gobbling money at a rate far faster than the player could possibly earn it.

‘They’re like a bloody cancer,’ muttered Ruskin, as they walked the twenty paces to the next establishment. According to Google Maps, there were another four within half a mile of their current location.

‘You won’t get any argument from me,’ agreed Warren. ‘They’re just a tax on the poor and desperate.’ He waved his hand vaguely towards the surrounding streets. ‘Most of the folks around here haven’t got a pot to piss in, yet these big companies can set up shops opposite each other and there’s still enough business to go around. Tells you everything you need to know about their ethics and in whose favour the odds are stacked.’

‘What is a bloke of working age doing in a bookie in the middle of the day on a Tuesday anyway?’ asked Ruskin.

‘I think it’s fair to say that if you are in that position, life isn’t going to plan.’

The two officers finally found what they were looking for in the fourth bookie they visited. So far, almost all of the main chains had been represented in a single stretch of road, with the remainder all within easy walking distance.

The inside of the shop was just a variation on the others they’d already been to. The wall to the left was covered in flat-screen TVs, some showing live horse racing, others a constantly updating series of betting odds and news flashes. The wall opposite was papered with pages from the Racing Post, with desk space below for gamblers to complete the pre-printed betting slips using one of the stubby blue biros. Unlike banks, the shop didn’t feel the need to secure the pens to the desk with a chain, simply supplying containers filled with them. Probably a reflection of the profits made by a typical bookie compared to major high-street banks, Warren thought, his cynicism towards the betting industry having risen steadily over the past half hour.

For those unwilling to miss valuable gambling time by hand-delivering their slip to the assistants safely locked away in their reinforced glass cubicles, bets could be placed directly onto a computer terminal. And if studying form and actually awaiting the outcome for a race was too much, then each of the four fixed odds betting terminals would happily swallow money at a rate of £300 per minute. It was clear to see why they placed a chair in front of the machines.

The person behind the till, a man in his early twenties with a name badge saying ‘Martin’, nodded as soon as they passed the glossy photograph to him.

‘Oh yes, I recognise him. He was a regular.’

‘How regular?’ asked Warren.

‘Probably about twice a week. I work here most afternoons, after lectures finish. He used to come in late afternoon, then head off for a pint.’

‘Was he a big gambler?’

The man paused. ‘Look, do you have a warrant or something? I’m not sure I can just give out information about customers without their permission. You know, data protection and all that. My manager is on his lunch break, perhaps you can call back later?’

‘Father Nolan’s dead,’ said Warren, his eyes flicking towards the copy of the Middlesbury Reporter sitting on the desk next to the cashier; a different, but still recognisable, picture of Father Nolan took up half of the front page.

The man followed his gaze, then looked back at the photograph.

‘Oh … shit, that was him? Guess it doesn’t matter, then.’

‘What sort of a punter was he?’ repeated Ruskin.

The teller glanced over his shoulder, as if expecting his manager to suddenly materialise, then lowered his voice.

‘Just a bit of a flutter. He’d spend a while reading the Post and then put a couple of quid either way on the favourite. He’d stay here for three or four races, if that.’

‘So no more than, ten, fifteen quid?’

‘Probably about that.’

‘Did he pay by cash or card?’

‘Cash.’

‘Was he lucky?’

‘No more or less than anyone, I’d say.’

‘When was the last time you saw him?’

‘Probably about a week ago. I had wondered why I hadn’t seen him for a while. I never thought … shit. Burnt himself to death, they said. Poor bastard.’

‘Did you notice anything different about him? A change of mood, perhaps?’

‘Nothing, but he never really said much. He was polite, and he’d enquire after my health, but it was just chit-chat you know? I can’t say I knew him.’

‘Was he friendly with any of the other regulars?’

Martin snorted. ‘It’s not really that sort of place.’ He discreetly pointed towards a man of about twenty, wearing a baseball cap, a rolled-up cigarette behind his ear, loading money into a gambling machine. He lowered his voice even more. ‘Take that guy. Has two kids and still lives at home with his mum. You can tell when he’s had his dole money because he goes and gets his rings back from the pawnbrokers. He won’t be wearing them by the end of the week. I only know about him because his brother’s the same and I overhear them talking sometimes. You try not to judge, but the guy’s a complete failure and he knows it.’ The young bookmaker sighed. ‘To be honest, this place is pretty depressing. I’m only here because the money’s better than stacking shelves and I’m doing an accountancy degree. I can’t wait to leave.

‘Customers like Father Nolan, who just come in for a flutter and know when to stop are pretty rare. “When the fun stops, stop”, the adverts say.’ His laughter was mirthless, as he angled his chin towards another customer. ‘The fun stopped for most of these guys years ago.’

Dressed the same as the youth at the gambling machine, the man could easily have been forty years older. His face was a mass of deep creases, and his half-open mouth, with its tongue stuck out in concentration, had less teeth than his right hand had fingers. At his feet, the thin plastic of a white carrier bag did nothing to hide the two unopened cans of extra-strength lager, or the two others crushed in the bottom.

‘Take that bloke over there. He self-excluded from here for six months last year; broke down in tears as I helped him fill in the form. Reckons he sold his grandkids’ Christmas presents. It took three attempts to get him to bring in a passport photo; he knew he should do it, but his heart wasn’t in it. I tried to get him to do it for the full five years, but he just said he needed to get back on track. Thing is, I’d still see him coming out of the shop across the way, so what was the point? As soon as the ban expired he was straight back in here. Prefers the atmosphere, apparently.’

‘Did Father Nolan try and offer any, I don’t know, pastoral care to customers?’ asked Warren.

‘No, he pretty much kept himself to himself. To be honest, I doubt it would be received very well. I don’t think he ever really spoke to anyone.’ He paused. ‘Actually no, tell a lie, a few weeks ago, he was in here a bit later than usual, and he recognised one of the regular after work crowd. The guy seemed a bit surprised to see him here. A bit embarrassed, actually.’

‘Do you know the man’s name?’

The young man’s face screwed up, ‘No, sorry, I can’t remember. I haven’t seen him since. I think he was a bit ashamed to be seen in here. A pity really, he was one of our regulars. Not a great judge of form, if you get my drift.’

‘Can you be more precise about when you saw him?’

‘After the new year, maybe a month ago?’

‘Can you describe him?’

The man glanced upwards, as if the answers were written on the ceiling.

‘Middle-aged, grey hair, white. Skinny build, I guess. Sorry.’

‘What about his clothing?’

‘Jeans, T-shirt. Sometimes he wore a fleece. Green, I think. Sorry, I’d know him if I saw him, but like I said, he hasn’t been in since.’

‘Well, thank you for your time, Martin. If you remember anything else, please call me on this number.’ This time Warren handed over his card.

As they headed out, Martin suddenly called out, ‘I’ve just remembered, he had a name badge on with the logo from the abbey. That must have been where he knew the priest from.’

‘Can you remember what the name badge said?’ Warren held his breath. If Martin couldn’t recall the name, he’d ask him to come down the station and look at some headshots.

The young teller suddenly clicked his fingers. ‘Got it, I remember now because you don’t see that name very often. I guess it was because of that old comedy, you know, Only Horses …’

‘Only Fools and Horses?’ asked Warren.

‘Yeah, Rodney was his name.’

* * *

‘What are the odds that two different people called Rodney are at the heart of the same investigation?’ asked Warren.

The question was rhetorical, but Ruskin couldn’t resist suggesting that they ask the next bookie that they entered.

According to Google, there were several more bookmakers within walking distance for a reasonably fit older man, including more branches of chains that they had already visited. None of them recognised the photo of Father Nolan.

‘Should we ask if anyone recognises Rodney Shaw?’ asked Ruskin.

‘No, let’s keep it to ourselves for now. If word gets back to Shaw that we’ve been asking questions about him, it may spook him. Besides, I doubt we’ll get much out of them without a warrant and it’s still looking a bit circumstantial at the moment.’

‘It seems a bit strange that Father Nolan was so open about going to the bookmaker’s. Isn’t gambling a sin?’

‘According to what I’ve read on the internet, apparently not. As long as it is a true game of chance, and there’s no cheating, then gambling itself isn’t prohibited. Besides, if they took a blanket approach to banning gambling, church fetes would make a lot less money, and the manufacturers of raffle tickets would go out of business.’

Ruskin smiled politely, but Warren could see the young man was troubled.

‘I can’t believe the government doesn’t regulate the industry more. Surely the taxes aren’t worth the suffering it causes? I mean, fancy selling your grandkids’ Christmas presents.’

‘Like I said before, it’s a tax on the poor and desperate. Cheap business rates aren’t the only reason these places set up shop in the poorer parts of town, rather than the wealthier.’

Wednesday 25th February

Chapter 15

PCs Harper and Ballard had been the officers that arrested Lucas Furber after he’d climbed into the abbey grounds.

‘Yeah, I remember it,’ PC Harper said when Warren called him mid-morning, after dropping Susan back home from their clinic appointment.

The harvesting of Susan’s eggs had been scheduled for 9 a.m. that morning, precisely thirty-seven hours after Susan had injected herself with the triggering hormones. Warren had also supplied a sample. The whole procedure had taken far less time than they anticipated, and before they knew it, the two of them found themselves sitting in the carpark feeling almost shell-shocked.

‘I still can’t believe it,’ said Susan. ‘Somewhere in that building is an incubator where our future child is forming.’

Of course, both of them knew that this was only the latest step in a sequence fraught with uncertainty and doubt. Much could go wrong over the next few days; there was no guarantee of success, even having got this far. The next morning’s phone call might tell them that none of the eggs retrieved that morning had been successfully fertilised.

But now wasn’t the time for such thoughts. Susan took another bite of the sticky pastry Warren had bought from the clinic’s canteen. It was hardly her usual breakfast, but she hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since the previous night and she was ravenous. Besides which, she deserved it. Warren just wished he could do more; could take a bigger role in what they were going through.

Warren forced his attention back to the matter at hand.

‘He was certainly the worse for wear,’ continued Harper. ‘Definitely drink, probably drugs, but he was also clearly mentally ill.’

‘And who was there when you turned up?’

Warren heard the rustling of paper in the background.

‘The complainant was Deacon Gabriel Baines; he was the one who called it in. Furber was there, obviously, and the groundsman, Mr Rodney Shaw. There was also a Miss Bethany Rice who’d originally seen Furber climbing over the wall.’

‘Can you remember what Furber was shouting about?’

There was a silence at the end of the line, before Harper replied.

‘I can’t remember the details exactly, it was mostly stream-of-consciousness. He clearly had something against the church. I remember he called them a bunch of hypocrites at one point.’

‘Any indication why he may have said that?’

‘No, most of what came out of his mouth was just incoherent shouting. I haven’t heard the F-word used so much since I went to see Billy Connelly live. Unfortunately, he lacked the Big Yin’s eloquence or wit. Mind you, I was too busy trying to decide if pulling my baton was necessary or would likely escalate things to pay that much attention. PC Ballard might remember, she’s usually better at engaging them in conversation than me.’ His voice became muffled again as he moved the telephone handset away from his mouth and handed it over.

‘Yes, sir, I remember him. Certainly drunk, probably high and definitely not in touch with reality.’

‘Can you remember what he said?’

‘Mostly a string of F words and C words. And something about them being hypocrites.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘No … oh hang on, he shouted something at Deacon Baines. Something about forgiveness of sins.’

‘You mean he was asking for forgiveness?’

‘No, I don’t think it was for him. I think it was aimed at Deacon Baines.’

* * *

‘The metal petrol can from the scene of the fire has been positively identified as one stored in the groundsman’s tool shed. He used it for the lawn mower,’ said Andy Harrison, his voice echoey over the briefing room’s speakerphone.

‘I’ve sent a sample off for petrol branding, to check that the fuel in the can was the same kind that was used to start the fire. We found three different sets of prints on the can. One set match the head groundsman, Rodney Shaw, who we already had in the system from his previous convictions, another set corresponds to the prints taken from the deceased’s personal belongings.’

‘Suggesting that Father Nolan handled the can at some point, fitting the narrative that he did pour petrol over himself,’ interrupted Warren.

‘Yes. The final set are currently unknown, but we are waiting exclusionary prints from the young lad who is apprenticed to Shaw. He mows the lawn as well, and presumably fills the mower with petrol when needed.’

‘If the scene was staged, that implies that the killer made Father Nolan hold the petrol can, I’m assuming that he didn’t help mow the lawn,’ said Sutton.

‘Father Nolan did work in the abbey gardens,’ interrupted Hutchinson. ‘He helped tend their vegetable patch. The tools are stored in the same shed as the lawnmower.’

‘In that case, he might just have moved the can out of the way of his tools and transferred his prints that way,’ suggested Warren.

‘That might also explain why his fingerprints are on the key to the tool shed padlock found at the scene,’ said Ruskin.

Warren tapped his teeth thoughtfully.

‘We’re pretty certain that it was murder staged as suicide. If the unknown prints match the apprentice groundsman, then he has an alibi. He’s seventeen and he was at home with his parents and siblings in front of the TV. That leaves only Rodney Shaw or an unknown killer who took care not to leave his or her own prints at the scene.’

‘If the killer wasn’t a regular user of the tool shed, he could have left trace evidence behind when collecting the petrol. The shed doesn’t have electricity, so the killer may have been stumbling around in the dark,’ said Harrison.

‘OK, take some prints and do a preliminary search of the premises. We’ll work up a list of everyone who legitimately used the shed and make sure we have prints and DNA. The tool shed is a short walk from the chapel, so look for footprints. Cross-reference anything you find with the findings from Father Nolan’s room. If we can work out the sequence of events that night, we’ll be a step closer to finding who did it.’

‘We’ll do what we can, but I’m not sure what you’re expecting to find, sir. It’s been a few days now, and not all the pathways were locked down immediately.’ Harrison’s tone was cautionary.

‘I know. Give it your best shot, Andy. Aside from the chapel and Father Nolan’s room, the shed’s the one place that we know the killer is likely to have been.’

Chapter 16

‘Moray, fancy a trip to a homeless shelter?’ called Warren.

‘You’ve seen what I earn then?’

‘Funny man. We need to interview the locals at the Middlesbury Outreach Centre, to see what else we can find out about Lucas Furber.’

‘I’ll get my coat.’

Tony Sutton sidled up next to Warren. ‘Can I have a quick word, Boss? In private.’

‘Of course. Moray, I’ll be with you in a moment.’

‘What’s the problem, Tony?’ asked Warren when the door closed.

Sutton looked uncomfortable.

‘It’s about Moray.’

Warren was surprised.

‘Is there a problem? I thought he was doing really well. He’s on track to complete his probationary training well within the two years, and his paperwork is in a far better state than mine was when I was at his stage.’

‘He is. That’s the problem.’

‘You’ve lost me.’

Sutton sighed. ‘Sir, you’re a DCI. Why are you traipsing around bookies and homeless shelters with a DC?’

‘I’ve always been hands-on, Tony, and willing to get out of the office, you know that. It’s what I like about Middlesbury, most officers my rank spend half their time in meetings.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Moray’s a probationer, he’s still learning the ropes. He’ll be a fine officer one day and I want him to get the support he needs. I learnt a lot from my own DCI, as I’m sure you did.’ Warren paused, as he remembered the history of their respective senior officers, but decided the point still stood. ‘Look, this is a fast-moving investigation, with a lot of different threads. If you think Moray would benefit from spending a bit more time working with Hutch or Mags, or even you, then I’ll take your advice, you’ve done a lot more mentoring than I have recently.’

Sutton sighed, he could see that Warren either wasn’t getting the hint, or quite possibly was ignoring the uncomfortable truth.

‘Chief …’ he started, before pausing and starting again, ‘Warren. Moray isn’t Gary.’

Warren felt as if he’d been slapped.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that you can’t keep him wrapped in cotton wool.’

Warren was dumbfounded; Sutton ploughed on quickly.

‘What happened to Gary affected us all, I still miss him every day. I spent twenty minutes comforting Mags after we marked his birthday last month, and Hutch wasn’t much better. I can only imagine how you must feel, sitting next to him as it happened—’

‘That’s right, you can only imagine, and I’d rather you didn’t,’ snapped Warren.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ insisted Sutton. ‘Professional Standards know that. I know that, as does everyone in that office, even Karen knows it.’

‘I think you’ve said enough, DI Sutton.’

Sutton ignored him.

‘You can’t undo what happened to Gary by being overprotective of Moray. He needs room to grow. He may be a probationary DC, but he was a very well-regarded uniform constable before he transferred over.’

‘I said that’s enough!’

‘He’s more than capable of asking a few questions in an outreach centre. And look at the bloody size of him, he can take on two normal people and not break a sweat.’

‘Gary Hastings had a black belt in Jiu-jitsu, and that was fuck all use in the end.’

The moment he said it, Warren wished he could take the words back.

‘I’ll see myself out,’ said Sutton, without waiting to be dismissed.

The thin partitioned wall rattled as the door slammed behind him.

Warren slumped into his chair, anger coursing through him.

How dare Sutton speak to him like that? Not since the two men had butted heads when Warren first transferred to Middlesbury, had the two men argued in such a way. Matters of friendship aside, Warren was still Sutton’s superior officer. He knew that if he’d spoken to Bob Windermere like that back when he was an inspector, he’d not only have ended up with a written warning on his file, he’d have found himself giving crime-prevention presentations to little old ladies at the local community centre.

He stared through the window into the office beyond.

After Gary’s death, they’d rearranged the layout. It was a small gesture, but nobody would have been comfortable taking his old desk, next to his girlfriend Karen Hardwick, on medical leave since his death and now entering the last few weeks of her pregnancy. On the other hand, leaving his desk empty would have been just as bad, not to mention impractical.

And so one evening, when the number of people in the office was at a minimum, Tony Sutton and Warren had rearranged everything. John Grayson, upon hearing the sound of scraping furniture had emerged from his own office. He’d said nothing, just put down his cup of coffee, rolled up his sleeves and given them a hand.

Gary’s death had hit them all hard. In Warren’s opinion, the small, close-knit nature of the team at Middlesbury was one of its biggest strengths, but it also meant that the loss of a team member was perhaps more closely felt than it might be otherwise.

That was the view of the counsellor Warren had been assigned following Gary’s death. The nightmares had decreased in frequency in recent months, but he’d had another the night before – the third since the fire at the abbey. Should he report them? The counselling had been helpful, no question, but did he really have the time? He was already taking personal time out to accompany Susan to the hospital. There was a strict no phones and do not disturb rule at the counsellor’s office. Could he afford to be uncontactable during such a critical and fast-moving period of the case?

He thought back to his last session. He’d been warned not to ignore other signs of PTSD. Was that why he was being overprotective towards Moray Ruskin? It wasn’t hard to see the parallels between Gary and Ruskin, his direct replacement. Was he letting his guilt towards what had happened to Gary Hastings colour his interactions with Ruskin?

It was hardly fair; so far, the man had impressed Warren and everybody else with his competence. He still had plenty to learn, as his sometimes naïve questions indicated, but did he require the level of direct supervision that he’d been receiving? Particularly, did he need the second most senior officer in the building breathing down his neck? Worse, was it compromising the effectiveness of the team? He and Ruskin could have visited all those bookmakers in half the time if they’d split up; that sort of routine enquiry was far more suited to a constable – detective or otherwise – than the Senior Investigating Officer.

When Warren emerged from his office, the rest of the team were busy. He spied Ruskin sitting next to Rachel Pymm, discussing something on her screen.

‘Moray?’

The bearded Scotsman looked up.

‘Something’s come up. Are you OK to go visit the Middlesbury Outreach Centre on your own?’

‘Sure, no problem.’

The eagerness with which the young detective jumped to his feet confirmed everything that Sutton had said. Warren looked over and caught the man’s eye. He gave a small nod. After a pause, Sutton nodded back.

Enough said.

Chapter 17

Moray Ruskin pulled himself out of the tiny Fiat 500, the car lifting slightly as he removed his eighteen-stone bulk. Alex had bought the car before meeting Ruskin and it was definitely not suited for someone of his size. Unfortunately, Ruskin’s own car was having its service and MOT, so he was stuck with his partner’s for the next couple of days.

The Middlesbury Outreach Centre, known also as the Phoenix Centre, had been in its current location for over thirty years, according to the plaque outside. Sandwiched like an ugly duckling between newly completed luxury apartment blocks and prime office space, Ruskin wondered how much money they’d turned down from developers for the land it stood on. He and Alex had looked at buying a so-called ‘affordable’ one-bedroom flat in the new complex and decided to hold off until one of them won the lottery.

Ruskin’s parents never failed to mention how cheap houses were back in Scotland whenever he rang home. However, despite the pair meeting at Dundee University, Alex had always planned to move back to England to take advantage of the increased job opportunities near London. As living in the capital was a complete non-starter financially, they’d compromised on Middlesbury, barely thirty minutes by fast train from central London, and where Ruskin had – in the words of his parents – turned his back on his university education and joined the police. His parents still didn’t believe that these days the police was a largely graduate profession.

The inside of the outreach centre was painted a soothing blue, the walls covered in pin boards advertising services ranging from substance abuse counselling to HIV testing, free adult education classes, and support groups for victims of abusive relationships.

The reception desk was behind reinforced glass, a bank of monitors showing alternating views from cameras situated inside and outside. A sternly worded sign warned that verbal or physical abuse of staff, volunteers or other users would not be tolerated, with the police called if necessary. The caution was repeated in a half-dozen languages. The ubiquitous red and white No Smoking signs had been supplemented with similar prohibitions on alcohol, drugs and weapons.

Despite all this, the door to the reception desk had been propped open with a wastepaper basket and the place had a relaxed, pleasant vibe to it. Music came from a nearby open door, along with the clack of pool balls.

‘Hello officer, how can I help you?’

The young woman behind the reception desk wore a dark-blue headscarf and a badge identifying her as ‘Nadia – counsellor’.

‘That obvious, eh?’

‘Practice. We haven’t reported anything, and there’s only one of you, so I’m guessing you aren’t here to arrest anyone?’

‘No, just a chat about one of your clients, if you don’t mind.’

‘We’re quite strict about what we say without a warrant,’ she warned. ‘We need to be otherwise our clients won’t trust us.’ She paused. ‘I’m due a break. Let’s go somewhere a bit more discreet.’

The staffroom was locked with a mechanical keypad, so Ruskin had to hold both plastic cups of coffee as Nadia let them in.

‘Who can I help you with?’

‘Lucas Furber.’

She frowned slightly. ‘We don’t always know our clients’ full names. Do you have a photo?’

Ruskin passed over a copy.

‘Oh yes, I know him.’

‘He was arrested by Middlesbury Police for being drunk and disorderly back in January. The arresting officers were concerned that there may be mental health issues.’

‘Well, before we go any further, you should know that I’m not prepared to discuss Lucas’ mental or physical health without a court order.’

‘That’s fair enough, I just want to talk to him. Do you know where I can find him?’

‘To be honest, I haven’t seen him for a while.’

‘It’s really important that I speak to him. Can you think of any places that he might be?’

She pulled her lip. ‘The last time I saw him was before Christmas. He said he’d got a room in Purbury Hostel. I’ve no idea if he is still there, they are quite strict about behaviour and have zero tolerance for drugs and alcohol.’

‘And you think that might have been a problem for him?’

‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ she sighed. ‘Like I said, the last time he visited it was at the end of December, and he was clearly full of the Christmas spirit if you get my drift. We don’t allow drinking or drug-taking on site, but we’re realists, especially that time of year, we know that they may have been drinking or using before they arrive here. We usually have a quiet word and if that fails tell them to go home and sleep it off. As long as they aren’t violent or abusive, all is forgiven next time they turn up. It normally works; one of our regulars gets sent home about once a month. He always comes back the next day to apologise. Usually with a bunch of flowers he’s pinched from somebody’s front garden.’

‘But Lucas didn’t come back?’

‘No. To be honest, it wasn’t a big deal at first. He was apparently a bit noisy and kept on trying to start a sing-song, which was annoying everyone. Reverend Billy was upstairs and he came down to have a word and Lucas called him a … well, I’m not going to use that word. It all got a bit heated and in the end we threatened to call the police if he didn’t leave. He hasn’t been here since.’

‘I assume Reverend Billy is a priest?’

‘Baptist minister, actually. I’m told that’s a bit different.’

‘Would I be able to speak to him?’

‘I don’t see why not, I think he’s doing a literacy class.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘Wait here, he’ll probably be down in a few minutes.’

* * *

Reverend Billy was a short man in his fifties with a firm handshake and a ready smile. His sweater, a bright red and green affair, was almost literally eye-watering and clashed horribly with his purple shirt. He wore a white dog collar.

‘I lost a bet with a parishioner, and I have to wear this jumper for a whole week, unless I’m in church.’

Ruskin liked him already.

‘It was a shame about Lucas. He was a troubled young man, but there was a lot of promise beneath all that anger.’

‘Do you know why he was so angry?’

‘Sadly, no. He didn’t speak to me very often. I got the feeling that this—’ he pointed to his collar ‘—made him uncomfortable.’

‘Do you get that a lot?’

‘Hardly ever to be honest. Most of our clients are happy to speak to me, particularly when I make it clear that I’ve no intention of talking about religion to them unless they want me to.’

‘So what happened the day that Lucas was kicked out?’

Reverend Billy winced.

‘That’s not really what happened. Lucas had clearly been drinking before he turned up mid-afternoon. The weather was quite poor, so a few of our regulars were in here sheltering from the rain, watching the TV, reading the paper or using the computers. Lucas was very hyper and he put the radio on really loud and started dancing to it.

‘One of the lads asked him to turn it down as he was trying to watch the news. Lucas turned the volume up. The song was Band Aid’s “Do they know it’s Christmas?”, so he started singing along and then grabbed one of the women on the computers and tried to make her dance with him.

‘By the time I got downstairs, he was standing in the middle of the floor shouting that it was “’effing Christmas” and we should all be celebrating. Another ten seconds and I reckon he was going to get lamped by someone.’

‘So you asked him to leave?’

‘Not immediately, no. I tried to settle him down a bit, but he called me a C U Next Tuesday. You know, I hear a lot of bad language here – I’ve got a bit of a potty mouth myself at times – but nobody has ever called me that before. That’s when I asked him to leave. I told him he could come back the next day if he sobered up and behaved himself.’

‘How did he take that?’

‘He started shouting that “we’re all the same” and that we’d all “burn in hell”. I lied and told him I had called the police, and that was when he finally left, after kicking a couple of chairs over.’

‘Any idea what he meant by that?’

‘I’ve really no idea. I like to think it was the drink and the drugs talking, but you know what they say, “in vino veritas”, so who knows what he was going on about?’

‘Any idea where he went after that?’

‘No idea. If you do find him, detective, can you let him know that there are no hard feelings and that he’s welcome back here?’

Ruskin assured the man that he would, before heading back to the car.

Somebody had keyed a scratch along almost the full length of the left wing. He looked around at the empty street. The arcs of the CCTV cameras above the door didn’t cover the car. He sighed. Alex would not be happy.

Chapter 18

Warren had to wait until Bethany Rice’s father was free, before she was able to attend the station for an interview. A few weeks shy of her eighteenth birthday, Bethany Rice was a sixth-form student who worked at the abbey on weekends. Strictly speaking, she didn’t need an appropriate adult present, since she wasn’t under arrest and was seventeen, but Warren had learnt to choose his battles wisely, and he needed her cooperation.

Apparently her father had been present when she was originally interviewed about Father Nolan’s death. He had reportedly been unhappy about her having her fingerprints taken for exclusionary purposes, and had insisted on going over her witness statement before she signed it, whilst helpfully explaining the rules regarding the retention of biological samples to the twenty-year veteran constable conducting the interview. The man had clearly been on Wikipedia before bringing his daughter in.

‘She’s doing really well, at school,’ her father had told Warren as they’d walked down to the interview suite, clearly flattered on his daughter’s behalf that she was being interviewed by a DCI. For his part, Warren was already wishing he’d passed her off to somebody else, but he had been free and wanted her interviewed sooner rather than later.

By the time they reached the interview suite, Warren was already fully up-to-speed about the medical school interviews that Rice had recently been for, and the work experience at Addenbrooke’s hospital that she’d completed, even though her school hadn’t been as supportive as they could have been and they’d been forced to engage a tutor to help compensate for the poor teaching. Throughout this, Rice had said nothing, mostly looking at her shoes.

Things did not improve when Warren started the interview. Mr Rice had clearly assumed that his daughter had been called in as a vital witness in the death of Father Nolan. It then transpired that Rice hadn’t told her father about the intruder in the abbey grounds.

‘If I’d had any idea that the site was so unsecure, I never would have let my daughter work there.’

This last comment seemed to be aimed squarely at Warren, although quite what the man thought he could do about it was unclear. It also explained why Rice had chosen not to share the incident with her father.

‘I’d just finished my shift in the gift shop and I was walking back to the staff car park,’ said Rice, making eye contact for the first time.

‘We bought her a car after she passed her test first time,’ interjected Mr Rice. ‘Much safer than letting her catch that bus, especially when it’s dark.’

‘Carry on, Bethany,’ said Warren, pointedly ignoring the man’s interruption.

‘I saw somebody climbing over the wall along from the main entrance, in front of the graveyard. He sort of flopped over and hit the ground with a really loud thump, so I went over to see if he was OK.’

Next to her, her father’s eyes bulged.

‘You went over?’

‘Yes, I thought he might have hurt himself.’ Her tone was defiant.

‘But he could have had a knife or anything,’ spluttered her father.

‘Well, he didn’t. I asked him what he was doing and when he didn’t answer, I told him I was going to call security, so he’d better leave now.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He called me an interfering bitch and told me to fuck off.’

Whether her father’s shock was at the words that had been aimed at his daughter, or the matter-of-fact way that she repeated them wasn’t clear. Regardless, Warren had to ask him to let his daughter continue her story uninterrupted.

‘I called Rodney and told him what was happening. It took a couple of minutes for him to get there, so I kept the man talking. He was obviously drunk or on drugs, but I think he was also a bit confused and disturbed.’

Mr Rice looked horrified. Warren was impressed at her peace of mind. She’d do well in a busy A&E department on a Friday night.

‘Anyway, I managed to get him to tell me his name and asked him why he was here.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He was a bit unclear, but he kept on saying he wanted to speak to the priests and ask them why they did it.’

‘Why they did what?’

‘I don’t know. Rodney turned up and he got really agitated. He started shouting, “you all knew about it” and “why didn’t you do anything?”’

‘Then what happened?’

‘Rodney started trying to calm him down, asking him why he was here, but he got really abusive, shouting and calling names. Rodney unlocked the front gate and told him that the police were on the way, so he should leave.

‘The man started to walk up the path towards the house, so Rodney stood in his way. There was a load of fence posts by the gate, and Rodney picked one up and he told the man to “fuck off, or he’d get some”. That was when Gabriel, that’s Deacon Baines, arrived.’

There had been nothing in either the arrest report or Baines’ statement about Shaw brandishing a weapon.

‘What happened when Deacon Baines arrived?’

‘He also tried to cool things down, but the man kept on saying “you’re one of them”. He picked up a branch and I thought Rodney was going to attack him. Then the police arrived, which seemed to quieten things down a bit. Both Rodney and the man threw their weapons away when the police came in the main gate.’

‘What happened when the police came?’

‘They tried to reason with him, but it was obvious he was going to end up in the back of the police van.’

‘Did he say anything else?’

‘Mostly swearing, but when he was being arrested, he did stop and shout specifically at Gabriel and told him to “seek forgiveness for his sins”, which seemed a bit weird.’

‘Do you have any idea why he shouted that?’

‘I don’t know. He was clearly a bit mad and off his face on drugs and booze.’

‘What did Deacon Baines and Mr Shaw say after the police took the intruder away?

‘Not a lot. Gabriel asked if I was OK, and Rodney offered to give me a lift home if I didn’t have my own car. I said “no thanks” because my car was in the staff car park. When I left, Gabriel was telling Rodney how they had to get the wall fixed to stop the nutters getting in and that next time they might not be so lucky.’

‘Have there been other incidents like this?’

Rice glanced at her father, who still looked annoyed that he hadn’t been told about this before. According to the police report, Bethany Rice had been little more than a passive spectator, her name taken as a witness, but never contacted again. But it seemed that they’d underestimated her importance in the drama. Judging from what he’d seen of her father, he got the feeling that a lot of people underestimated Bethany Rice.

‘I don’t know if they’ve had to call the police before, but I heard that somebody was made to leave the abbey grounds a few months ago when he was caught up by the house.’

None of the reports filed previously about trespassers had mentioned anyone getting caught near the house. Was it the same person, or someone else? And why hadn’t Baines mentioned it? Despite the man’s apparent openness, Warren was starting to suspect that he would not offer any information unless asked directly.

After determining that Rice had nothing else to offer, Warren thanked them both for their time. Mr Rice got up quickly, leaving the interview suite. His daughter lingered. It was clear that she had more to say, and would rather her father didn’t hear it.

It wasn’t what he expected.

‘Are you Mrs Jones’ husband?’

Damn. He’d had no idea that she was one of Susan’s pupils. He thought for a second, but couldn’t think of any obvious conflict of interest.

‘Yes. I assume she teaches you biology?’

‘Yes.’ She glanced over at the door and lowered her voice. ‘Ignore what Dad said, Miss is a really good teacher. Even with a tutor, I’m just not, you know—’

‘Come on Beth, I need to get back in time for a conference call to New York,’ her father called from the corridor outside.

‘That’s very kind of you to say.’ Warren could see no harm in passing on that little bit of praise to his wife; he knew she’d be touched.

Rice glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice even more.

‘I’ll be eighteen soon. Do the police offer work experience?’

* * *

Purbury Hostel was on the far side of town to the Phoenix Centre. Ruskin decided to park around the corner and walk. The car was out of his direct sight, but hopefully nobody would realise it belonged to him and add to the petty vandalism.

‘How can I help you officer?’ asked the apparently teenaged security guard in the tiny security cubicle in the lobby of the apartment block. He looked excited; no doubt a visit from the police would be the highlight of his shift.

‘Am I wearing a badge or something?’ asked Ruskin.

The man shrugged.

Ruskin pushed a copy of Furber’s photo under the glass partition.

‘Oh yeah, I know him, Lucas. He was here for a few months before Christmas. Managed to get himself kicked out in January.’ He lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘Between you and me he probably should have been given the boot before then, but I wasn’t going to kick a bloke out before Christmas.’

‘Why was he asked to leave?’

‘The usual, booze and drugs. They’re not supposed to take either in their rooms. Strictly speaking, they shouldn’t even smoke in there, but we gave up that fight long ago. I smelt weed a couple of times and told him to knock it on the head, just friendly like, but he wouldn’t listen. I couldn’t turn a blind eye though when one of the cleaners found a bong in his room.

‘So you told him to leave?’

‘Yeah, no choice really. There’s a waiting list for a room.’

‘Any idea where he went?’

‘No, I don’t usually deal with that side of things, I’m just security, but the manager, Sunil, reckons Lucas got the hump, grabbed his bag and disappeared before we could try and arrange for a place in one of the emergency shelters – not that there are any places these days, but you never know …’

‘So he’s homeless? Sleeping rough?’

‘Probably. You could try one of the homeless shelters, or one of the street teams. Have you tried the Phoenix Centre?’

Ruskin confirmed that he had.

‘Not a lot else, I can suggest, sorry.’

Chapter 19

‘Results are back from traffic about Rodney Shaw’s alibi on the night of the fire.’ Mags Richardson was excited. Warren and Sutton hurried over to her desk.

‘They picked up his licence plate on numerous ANPR cameras, as well as several CCTV cameras that evening.’

On one of her monitors a detailed street map of Middlesbury was marked with the location of the abbey and Shaw’s flat. Blue dots showed the location of junctions with working cameras.

‘This is his journey to the abbey after he was called on his mobile phone.’ A red dotted line appeared on the map, joining up several blue dots, each of which had a time stamp next to it.

‘Well, despite what he claimed when he was interviewed, he clearly wasn’t home in front of the news when his phone went off,’ said Sutton immediately.

Sure enough, the red dotted line started in the south of the town, with the first sighting of the car on an ANPR camera three and a half miles south east of his flat, eight minutes after he received the call about the fire.

Warren squinted at the map. ‘I can’t see any way that he could have got to that part of town from his house without going past at least one camera. What time did his car arrive there?’

‘He drove there immediately after work.’ Richardson clicked the mouse and an irregularly shaped area of the map was shaded in grey. ‘All we can say, location-wise, is that his car stayed somewhere within this area for almost the next five hours, from 5.19 p.m. until seven minutes after he was phoned at five past ten.’

‘It’s a pretty large area,’ said Sutton. ‘We’ll need to narrow it down. Mobile phone records?’

‘He’s clearly lied about his whereabouts that night, I’d say that is enough justification for a warrant,’ said Warren.

‘How far is it from the abbey?’ asked Ruskin, who’d just arrived back in the office.

‘The one-way system increases the journey length, but assuming quiet traffic that time of night, then by car it would take between thirteen and eighteen minutes at normal speed, depending on where he started from within this area. But we know that he didn’t use his own car, as it wasn’t spotted on cameras again until after he was called back because of the fire,’ said Richardson.

‘See if any of the other cars that were in that area are related to Shaw,’ instructed Warren. ‘He could have borrowed a friend’s car. Check if his wife has her own car.’

‘I’ll also get onto the bus companies and cab firms and see if they picked up Shaw,’ said Richardson.

‘That’s if he used public transport,’ cautioned Richardson. ‘It’s only between 1.2 and 1.6 miles as the crow flies and Shaw’s a pretty fit man. He would have been able to easily cover that distance between the fire being set and his car re-appearing on the cameras.’

‘But why did he park his car there?’ asked Ruskin.

‘Presumably he didn’t want to park too near the abbey in case he was spotted, and his flat was too far to walk from,’ said Richardson.

‘Probably, but why here specifically? And what was he doing in the almost five hours between him driving there and going to the abbey?’ asked Sutton.

‘Location data from his mobile phone should help narrow down his exact position. In the meantime, get Rachel to compile a list of local businesses within that area. Knowing his proclivities, he could have spent some time in a local bookie or had some Dutch courage in the pub.’

Thursday 26th February

Chapter 20

It had been over five days since Father Nolan had been set on fire. Unusually, the murder was still being reported as a suicide, with limited information released to the public. The decision to do so had been justified on the grounds that the killer probably assumed that they had got away with it, and would therefore not be on their guard. Hopefully, this would increase the likelihood that they would slip up. How much longer the subterfuge would be allowed to continue was a decision well above Warren’s paygrade.

However, although Warren and Grayson ran a tight ship at Middlesbury, the number of seconded officers involved was rising rapidly, increasing the risk of a leak that the death was suspicious. And if the investigators themselves didn’t let something slip, how long would it be before members of staff and residents at the abbey started to question the ongoing presence of so many police and forensics officers?

In those five days, a lot had been accomplished, but after the first flurry of activity, the team was starting to get into a routine. It would be unfair to say that they were in a slump, but Warren knew that they could end up that way if he wasn’t careful. Fortunately, this morning’s briefing had two new, exciting leads.

Warren passed over to Moray Ruskin.

‘This is Lucas Furber, a new potential suspect. On January the ninth he gained entry to the abbey grounds and threatened both Deacon Baines and Rodney Shaw. He was clearly intoxicated and may have been suffering from mental health problems.

‘Significantly, he seems to have something against religion, specifically Christianity, although we have no evidence either way about his views on other religions. Witnesses reported that he was shouting about them all being “hypocrites”. It is also claimed that he accused them of “knowing about it” and “doing nothing” and telling them to “seek forgiveness”. We don’t know as yet what he was referring to.’

‘Are we sure it’s specific to religion and not just authority generally, or the world at large?’ asked Hutchinson.

‘Priests wearing dog collars seem to be a specific trigger for him. Apparently, the confrontation in the abbey grounds escalated significantly when Baines arrived on the scene – the arresting officers have confirmed that his dog collar was visible. A minister at the Middlesbury Outreach Centre told me that Furber seemed uncomfortable when he wore his collar, and that he too had been abused by Furber when he was under the influence. Again, he said that he would “burn in hell.”’

‘We should look into his past and see if there are any links between him and some of these cases of abuse that are becoming public knowledge,’ said Sutton.

Was it Warren’s imagination, or did he look satisfied that his stated distrust of the church might actually be justified?

Warren gave himself a mental shake, ashamed at even thinking such a thing.

‘Well, he certainly sounds like someone we should be interviewing,’ said Richardson. ‘Any idea where he is?’

‘Unfortunately, no,’ replied Ruskin. ‘The last reported sighting was early January, when he was kicked out of his accommodation. Assuming he’s still in Middlesbury, he’s either sleeping rough or using one of the shelters. I’ve organised a team of community support officers and homeless outreach volunteers to try and track him down.’

‘Excellent work, Moray,’ said Warren. ‘Next up, the groundsman Rodney Shaw. He was already a person of interest given his previous convictions and unconfirmed reports that he was heard arguing with Father Nolan. That wasn’t much more than gossip, however a witness in a bookmaker frequented by both men reported an uncomfortable meeting between the two of them; CCTV footage from the bookie is being processed to confirm this. It’s possible that Shaw was ashamed to be seen there and might have tried to silence Father Nolan.’

Warren looked around the room.

‘So far it’s pretty tenuous, but last night Mags found that he was lying about his whereabouts on the night of the fire. It’s far too soon to pull him in for questioning yet, we don’t want to tip him off, but I want to know what he was doing that night and why he lied about it.’

‘Could he and Furber have been working together?’ asked Pymm.

‘Interesting idea, look into any links between the two men,’ said Warren

‘Shaw has historic drug convictions, perhaps they know each other that way?’ suggested Pymm.

‘Maybe,’ conceded Warren, ‘although witnesses to the confrontation in the abbey grounds gave no indication that they knew each other then. In fact, it seemed to be quite a violent encounter. However, that was nearly two months ago; much can change in that time.’

Chapter 21

‘We’ve been trying to figure out what Rodney Shaw might have been doing during the unaccounted for period between him leaving work on the evening of the fire and his car re-appearing on the ANPR cameras eight minutes after he received the call about the fire and headed back to the abbey.’

Mags Richardson had moved her laptop next to Rachel Pymm’s workstation and there was a substantial pile of printouts on the desk between them.

‘I’m promised the records from his mobile phone any minute,’ interjected Pymm.

‘In the meantime,’ continued Richardson, ‘we’ve looked at the area within that ANPR dead zone, and for a few streets either side of it. It’s not great news, sir. Even in a small town like Middlesbury, there are a lot of homes and businesses in that vicinity that he could have visited. There are twelve public houses, two restaurants, nine fast-food takeaways and two bookmakers. He could even have been getting his car serviced or picking up some dry cleaning. I imagine if he did visit “Nelly’s Nails” it wasn’t for a manicure.’

‘Start canvassing the area if the phone data doesn’t give us any more clues,’ ordered Warren. ‘He lied about his whereabouts in the initial interview, I presume that there was a reason for that, but it doesn’t mean he was doing anything we’re bothered about. Let’s see if anyone can provide an alibi for some of that time so we can discount him.

‘Are there any interesting residents in the area that he could have been meeting?’

‘Define interesting,’ said Pymm, before answering her own question. ‘Thirty-eight addresses within that zone have occupants with at least one recordable offence on the PNC. That’s a bit above the average for an area of that size in Middlesbury, but it’s hardly a den of criminality.

‘The data has its limits, though, as it records addresses at the time of the offence. If we decide to go to town on this, we’ll need to cross-reference the latest electoral roll data with the PNC, and perhaps even benefits and tax records.’

‘File the appropriate requests for that information, but hold off on the analysis unless we get nowhere with the phone records. What type of offences are we talking about?’

‘Mostly low-level, or historic, but two properties have received multiple call-outs for domestic violence, another person served a six-month term for assault occasioning actual bodily harm and another resident has been convicted twice for possession of class B drugs with intent to supply, the last offence being eighteen months ago.’

‘I presume the domestic violence had no link to Mr Shaw?’

‘As far as I can tell. I’ve had a look at the reports filed and there’s no mention of a third party involved.’

‘Put them on the bottom of the list then. What about the dealer? Could Shaw be using again?’

‘Possible, although if she is his supplier, she’s moved up in the world. Both previous convictions were for possessing enough cannabis for several joints. The people she was supplying to were her boyfriend and a couple of friends at university, there was no suggestion that she was earning any money from it, and there’s nothing recent.’

‘Put her to one side and see if she comes back into the picture when we get his mobile phone records. What about the assault?’

‘A drunken brawl in a bar in Brighton back in 2007; the defendant broke the victim’s jaw and then took a few swings at the bouncers and passers-by, before trying to head butt the arresting officer. Nothing recent or before then.’

‘Sounds unlikely, unless Shaw is a friend. What else have you got?’

‘I looked at the ANPR records for the cameras surrounding the area for the previous forty-eight hours. Shaw’s car doesn’t appear during the preceding two days. I’ve requested records going back further to see if he made the trip regularly. In terms of the cars that left or entered the area within that time, no car both exits and re-enters.’

‘So it’s unlikely that he borrowed someone else’s car to go to the abbey without being seen?’

‘Not unless he arranged to leave it somewhere else,’ said Pymm.

‘What about other cars exiting or entering – could they have dropped him off, or picked him up from near the abbey?’

‘Thirty-two cars exited the area within the unaccounted time period. Since he would probably have needed to have arrived at the abbey at least an hour before the fire was set to drug Father Nolan and get him down to the chapel, and assuming he had no accomplice, then we can immediately trim that to twelve cars that would have given enough time to do what he needed to. Ten of those cars travelled away from the abbey; it would make no sense for him to have got in those cars, unless he was performing some sort of elaborate doubling back exercise to build his alibi.’

‘Not impossible,’ commented Warren. ‘But put them to one side. Tell me about the two cars that headed towards the abbey.’

‘One could have passed within a half mile of the abbey, the other just over a mile. The cars are registered to residents within that area.’

‘Put them on the list, they could have given Shaw a lift. We’ll pull them in for questioning if necessary. What about returning cars?’

‘Again, assuming that he needed to leave after we believe the fire was started, and unless he had an accomplice, four cars entered the area in the time before his car exited. None of them came from the direction of the abbey, although it looks as though a minicab may have picked up a fare within a mile of the abbey grounds. I’ve put in a request for their records.’

‘What about buses?’

‘The 562 has a stop right in the centre of the zone of interest, and another stop four streets over from the abbey’s main entrance. Four buses passed through the area between him driving into the zone and the time of the fire, but there were no return journeys between the fire being set and Shaw’s car re-appearing. I’ve already requested the CCTV from Stagecoach.’

‘OK, so no obvious reason for Shaw visiting that area or indications why he may have lied about it. It looks like we need to wait for his mobile phone records then, to see if he called anyone associated with that area or failing that to pinpoint his whereabouts more precisely. Get on with that as soon as the records appear. In the meantime, speak to Hutch about a priority list for door knocking, so we’re ready to hit the ground running as soon as possible.’

‘On it,’ responded both women simultaneously.

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