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***
Miss Wallis was a mature lady, Michael noticed, as she approached him twenty minutes later. She had grey hair which was immaculately kept at shoulder length. She wore a long black skirt with a matching suit jacket. Her glasses sat low on her nose, and she pushed them higher before extending her hand to him.
‘Sergeant Diego? I’m Linda Wallis, what can I do for you?’
Michael rose from his chair and took her hand, noticing how firm her handshake was. He smiled at her but was met with a cold hard stare, her eyes studying him with caution.
Michael released her hand and slid his own back into his trouser pocket.
He grew aware of the receptionist’s eyes on them both.
‘Perhaps we should speak in your office, Mrs Wallis.’
‘It’s Miss.’ Linda paused before extending her arm towards her office. ‘This way, please, Sergeant.’
Linda’s office was small and static. Everything was formal and had its place: a small bookcase filled with educational books, a rather dull-looking print of something Michael recognised as by Henri Matisse, and a very bare-looking desk with only a few essential pieces of stationery.
Linda sat behind her desk but Michael waited until she motioned him to one of the two large blue upholstered chairs in front of her desk.
‘Forgive me if we skip the pleasantries, Sergeant, but I have a school to run, and I don’t take too kindly to people who demand to see me without making an appointment first.’
Linda let the statement rest in the air for a few moments, making Michael stir in his chair before continuing. ‘I’m sure you can appreciate that I’m a very busy woman.’
She pulled her lips into a forced smile. Michael could tell she was the kind of employer to defend her colleagues to the end. In his experience, closing ranks was typical of teachers and quite frankly, he didn’t have a lot of time for them.
‘Miss Wallis, I must apologise for not making an appointment first but this is an urgent…delicate matter. I’m investigating a murder that took place yesterday in St Mary’s church.’
Linda stared at him, her face hardening. ‘I heard about that… I fail to see how I can help you.’
‘It’s not you I’ve come to see. I must speak with one of your teachers, a Mr Jenkins. I believe he teaches RS here.’
‘I’m well aware of his credentials, Sergeant Diego. What concerns me is why you would wish to speak to him.’
Michael knew this wouldn’t be a walk in the park.
‘He’s believed to have been the last person to see the deceased alive.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
Michael’s eyes narrowed slightly. This bitch is stalling…
‘He may be able to offer some crucial information, clues to the identity and whereabouts of the killer.’ He gave her a few moments to take in his words. ‘I need to speak with him now.’
‘Impossible. He’s teaching. I will not interrupt and have the students gossiping about why an officer came into their classroom to question their teacher. Surely you must understand the sensitivity of the situation?’
Michael had anticipated this, but he wasn’t taking no for an answer. He smiled at her. ‘I understand, but nevertheless I must speak with him. Here in your office will do just fine.’
Linda knew arguing would get her nowhere, but had every intention of showing her reluctance. ‘This is unheard of. You could’ve waited until the end of the school day,’ she said before rising from her desk. ‘Follow me.’
***
Michael walked at a reasonable distance behind Linda, looking around at his surroundings, taking note of everything before dismissing it again in a blink of an eye.
He followed her down a corridor, then climbed two flights of stairs, before she turned to him just outside a classroom. Michael saw the small glass window in the classroom door and guessed her intention.
‘Please stay away from the door, Sergeant.’
He tipped his head. ‘Absolutely.’
A deep crease furrowed in the middle of Linda’s brow. She turned and peered into the classroom.
Mark Jenkins stood at the front of the class, reading from a textbook, occasionally looking around the class, picking on anyone who didn’t appear to be paying attention.
Michael stole a quick glance through the window, and guessed the pupils were about fourteen to fifteen years old. A few of them in the front rows caught his gaze.
They stared at him. He then heard Jenkins’s voice rise in anger. The students flinched and returned to their textbooks. Jenkins’s face suddenly turned towards the door and Linda motioned to him.
Michael didn’t miss the hard frown on Jenkins’s face. He turned to the class and barked a command. The students began rummaging in their bags, pulling out notepads. Jenkins waited a moment, making sure they were progressing with his task before heading towards the door.
Once he’d shut the door behind him, he eyed Michael with suspicion. His cold light-green eyes reminded Michael of a fish he’d caught once while fishing with his father when he was seven.
Mark Jenkins was a man of average height, with thinning light-brown hair. He was dressed in a slightly eccentric suit, the colour made up of different chequered shades of brown, complete with tie and waistcoat. He looked ridiculous and Michael could picture the kids ripping the piss behind his back.
Jenkins turned to Linda, his face confused. ‘Who is this?’
Linda looked uncomfortable, trying to find the right words.
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Diego, Haverbridge CID,’ Michael said, cutting in, showing his warrant card. ‘I need to speak with you regarding the murder of Father Malcolm Wainwright at St Mary’s church yesterday afternoon.’ His voice sounded almost robotic, as if the words had been rehearsed a thousand times before.
Jenkins looked stunned. He mouth opened and a small voice from somewhere within him tried to escape.
Michael’s face dropped. ‘You didn’t know?’
Jenkins shook his head in disbelief. ‘I don’t understand. I just spoke to him only yesterday.’
Michael looked apologetic. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had to find out like this.’ Jenkins’s eyes were on his but seemed to be looking through him. ‘As painful as this is, I need to speak with you. You’re believed to be the last person to see him alive.’
Jenkins felt his voice catch in his throat. He raised a tightly curled fist to his mouth and bit it, fighting back tears. ‘Tell me this is a mistake. How can he be dead?’
Linda reached out her hand and placed it on Jenkins’s shoulder. ‘Come, Mark, let us go back to my office and talk.’
She turned to glare at Michael, her eyes narrowed into slits.
***
Jenkins looked like he’d aged ten years in ten minutes. His face was ashen, his eyes appeared translucent and dead to the world. His bony fingers were clasping a steaming cup of tea, but still his skin was like ice.
He sat in a chair in Linda’s office, his shoulders hunched, face lowered, staring at the floor, looking physically diminished in stature and poise.
Linda sat behind her desk, her face visibly saddened by Jenkins’s appearance. She gazed at him sympathetically with her hands clasped as if in a silent prayer.
Michael was sitting back in the same chair as before but had angled it slightly towards Jenkins. He had his notepad resting on his crossed legs, his pen poised, waiting for the right moment to begin asking his questions.
‘I understand that Father Wainwright and you were very close friends, Mr Jenkins. I can’t imagine just how hard this must be for you.’ Jenkins looked up through his eyelashes and glared at Michael.
‘You should be out there locking up whoever did this, not sitting here interrogating me.’
‘This isn’t an interrogation, Mr Jenkins. It’s believed you were the last person, besides the murderer, who saw Father Wainwright alive yesterday. Can you tell me what time this was and the circumstances that surrounded the meeting?’
‘It wasn’t a meeting,’ Jenkins snapped. ‘I was out in town and I happened to bump into him.’
Michael glanced at Linda while making notes. ‘You were not at work yesterday?’
‘Free period.’ Jenkins caught Linda’s disapproving glance. Michael guessed free periods should be spent planning lessons, not shopping.
‘What time was this?’
Jenkins rubbed his forehead with his hand and his eyes narrowed. He looked Michael straight in the eye. ‘I had a free period at ten. I saw Malcolm about half-past. We spoke about the up-and-coming service on Sunday and that was it. I got back here at about eleven-fifteen.’
He turned to Linda.
‘Yes, I was slightly late back to take my next class. That’s my only crime.’
Michael paused, and glanced up at Linda. She looked irritated but it appeared to pass quickly. She leaned over and placed a comforting hand on Jenkins’s shoulder. He gave a hard smile, and looked back at his now empty cup, still clasped firmly in his hands.
Michael was weighing up his explanation.
Wainwright had been murdered at approximately 11:30am on Wednesday morning. His body had been discovered around an hour later by his housekeeper, who had dialled 999 immediately before being taken to hospital herself with shock. They had a witness who saw Jenkins with Wainwright at the times Jenkins had stated.
He had a pretty tight alibi.
‘How did he die, Sergeant? Did he suffer?’ Jenkins’s voice was abrupt.
Michael leaned back in his chair. ‘His suffering was brief. It was over quite quickly, I believe.’
Jenkins sat open-mouthed, his eyes welling up once more. ‘You believe it was quick, but you don’t know for sure, do you?’
‘Nothing is certain until we receive the pathologist’s report. I’m sorry I can’t be more precise.’
Michael looked down at his notepad. There was an awkward silence that seemed to last an eternity before Jenkins wiped his eyes with the back of his hands, and rose from his seat.
‘Are we finished now? I have classes to teach.’ He placed his cup on Linda’s desk.
‘I’m sending you home, Mark. I wouldn’t expect you to stay after hearing this. In fact, take tomorrow off as well. We’ll see you Monday, assuming you feel up to it of course.’
She smiled at him and he nodded, placed his hand on hers and mouthed the words, ‘Thank you.’
Then he turned to face Michael.
‘If it’s all right with you, Sergeant, I’d like to be with my family. Malcolm was a dear friend and my family knew him well. My wife and daughter will be very upset.’
Michael nodded, closing his notepad. Linda helped Jenkins from her office and out to his car.
Michael watched them from the office window. He noted that the receptionist had brought Jenkins’s things from his classroom: a dull brown overcoat and a tan briefcase. Michael wondered what secrets he kept in there. He watched Jenkins tremble as he climbed into his old Volvo.
When Linda returned, Michael was already on his feet. He extended his hand towards her. ‘Thank you for your time, Miss Wallis. I hope I may have your cooperation again should we require any further assistance.’
Taking his hand firmly, Linda narrowed her eyes. ‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary, do you, Sergeant?’
He held on to her hand when she tried to release it from his. ‘All the same…’
Linda stared at her hand in his, and then her eyes rose to meet his stare. She smiled reluctantly. ‘You may rely on me if needed.’
CHAPTER 11
Michael spent the rest of the day feeling disillusioned with everything that had happened in the last few days. He’d returned to the station after his talk with Jenkins, and kept his head down, avoiding Claire and Matthews as much as possible.
That became impossible by late afternoon, when Claire summoned him to her office along with Matthews to discuss the Hargreaves case, and when Michael officially handed everything he’d worked so hard on over to Matthews, he felt the resentment building up inside him.
The only consolation was that he caught the look on Claire’s face when she was less guarded. He saw the sadness in her eyes when he caught her looking at him.
Maybe she wasn’t doing this to him out of some petty personal vendetta after all. In any case, he didn’t wait around to find out. By the time he left her office, he gathered his things from his desk, told Harper he could be contacted on his mobile, ignored the advice to clear it with Claire first, and headed out of the station.
The drive home seemed to pass in a blur.
When Michael parked in the street about four houses from his own, he released the seatbelt and rested his head against the steering wheel.
A loud bang against the windscreen made him jolt upright.
‘Sorry!’
It took him several seconds to register what had happened. Then he saw Robby, the kid from next door, holding a football which had hit his car, with his mates beside him, laughing.
Michael got out from his car and allowed himself a small smile.
‘Sorry,’ Robby said again. ‘I kicked it too hard.’
‘No worries,’ Michael said, and headed towards his house.
Once inside, he glanced out the window. Robby and his friends were moving on, walking in the direction of the local park. They were good kids and in this town, that made a change.
Michael was fond of Robby. He saw a lot of himself in the kid, despite the fact their childhoods couldn’t have been more different.
Robby’s mother was a kind woman who worked every hour God sent to make sure her son had all the things he deserved in life. She kept a clean and tidy house, safe and warm. Michael knew this first hand because she’d invited him in a few times for a coffee. She was around his age and he knew she had a soft spot for him, but he wasn’t attracted to her in a romantic way.
The wonderful childhood Robby had was a stark contrast to his own.
Michael’s mind drifted back to one particular memory.
His mother.
She’d been wearing the same dirty clothes for a week. Her hair was tangled, her lips scabbed and sore, her soul torn.
She’d just kicked out another worthless boyfriend and the house looked ransacked, dirty, unloved.
A sad place to be, to exist.
He remembered that they were facing eviction. At the time he’d had no idea what that meant. He’d just wanted his mother to stop crying, something that rarely happened.
There were always tears in their strained existence.
There were no sweet bedtime stories, no teddy to clutch against his young skin to offer comfort from the monsters that were literal, not something imagined.
He remembered the song she used to sing to him.
A beautiful melody that would quickly dwindle into a sorrowful lament.
‘…My breast is as stone, my breath smells earthly strong; And if you kiss my cold clay lips, your days they won't be long…’
Then his mother would kiss him, a cool caress on his lips. It wasn’t the tender kiss that should come from a mother’s love for her child, nor was it born from passion – a sinister unnatural incestuous longing.
Michael closed his eyes.
He heard his mother’s voice in his head, and for a moment he was back there, in that old house, a mere child. He could feel the gentle vibrations of her breath against soft innocent skin, as she leaned over him.
‘…The stalk is withered and dry, sweetheart, and the flower will never return. And since I lost my own sweetheart, what can I do but mourn?’
There was death in her voice. The nightly ritual for her became something entirely different to him, but it was never something he could accurately explain.
‘…When shall we meet again, sweetheart? When shall we meet again?…’
Later he found out that this was an old English folk song. It was about a man who mourns his true love. When the spirit of his lost love complains she cannot rest, he begs a kiss. She tells him it would kill him and he should be content to be alive.
It took Michael about ten years from the last night she sang it to him to realise this nightly ritual was really about his mother’s loss of his father, who had died suddenly aged thirty, while she still carried Michael in her womb. She’d never recovered from it and longed for a way out.
The melancholy that surrounded his mother had threatened to swallow them both whole, and all of it born from her own tormented mind.
Michael’s eyes flicked open.
His mouth was dry and his eyelids were heavy.
He’d tried to erase this memory altogether, but it was as if it was to be forever etched on his soul.
He gazed from the window again. He watched Robby disappear from view.
The sound of his phone ringing brought him back to the here and now. It was Claire.
He didn’t need her messing with his head any more today.
He killed the call.
CHAPTER 12
Claire stared at the screen of her BlackBerry. The call she’d placed moments before had diverted to voicemail too quickly, not leaving much time to ring, so she knew Michael had hung up on her.
She’d spent the day organising her team, and compiling everything they knew about Father Wainwright, and after the draining experience at Gladstone Court, she was exhausted.
She walked out of her office and surveyed the incident room, eyes landing on the photographs on the opposite wall of the room. Photographs of Wainwright were spread out across it, pinned together like some twisted jigsaw, the pieces yet to match smoothly. It was a gruesome collection showing one of the worst traits that lurked inside the rarest of individuals.
Claire had seen some violent crime scenes before, but she was entering uncharted territory with this one.
She checked her BlackBerry in case there was anything from Michael.
Nothing. No email, no text.
No explanation.
She knew it was handing the Hargreaves case over that’d got him pissed at her, something she expected would be the case. But still she wondered if the underlying issue ran much deeper, more personal than either he or she were comfortable to admit to.
‘Guv,’ DC Harper said, interrupting her thoughts.
‘Gabe,’ she said, trying to shake the sadness from her.
‘CCTV picked Wainwright up in Toralei’s restaurant the night before he was murdered. With his housekeeper.’
Claire exchanged a look with Harper. ‘Do many priests go to dinner with their housekeepers, I wonder?’ she said, voice dry.
‘I’m still getting over the fact priests can afford housekeepers.’
Claire smiled. ‘He’s got no dependants, invested his money well…’
‘I’m still having a hard job seeing it.’
Claire’s BlackBerry pinged from inside her pocket. She reached for it, saw a new text message had come through.
Sorry. Bad time to talk. I’ll email you later.
Claire frowned at the words.
‘You all right?’ Harper said.
‘It’s Diego.’
‘I take it he’s no longer MIA?’ he said, smiling.
The BlackBerry pinged again. Claire flushed.
xxx M xx.
‘Give us five minutes, will you, Gabe?’ She walked away before Harper could answer.
CHAPTER 13
It was around 7:30pm when Claire returned home. She was tired and pissed. Michael couldn’t be reached and she was having a hard job explaining his disappearing act to her superiors let alone to her team.
She was eager to leave the office and forget about him for a few hours if she could.
She pulled up the driveway to her detached house in the sleepy village of Hexton, just outside of Hitchin, approximately a half-hour drive from Haverbridge.
Claire knew how lucky she’d been in working her way to the top. Being fast-tracked to a DCI by the age of thirty-seven was definitely something to be proud of and made others envious. Her success was reflected in her appearance and personality. Her home was no different.
She lived in a four-bedroomed house that looked like something out of a Homes & Gardens magazine, with its bay windows and the old country feel about it.
She had of course added some modern elements over time and had had a large extension and double garage built just a few years ago, even though she didn’t seem to spend much time there of late.
Coming home was just a means for her to freshen up and catch some sleep. There seemed little time in her life for much else.
She stifled a yawn as she turned the key in the door and let herself in. She stepped over the day’s mail, which was sprawled across the mat, and kicked off her shoes and went to the kitchen.
She flicked the light switch and dumped her bag on the kitchen table, as the spotlights came to life above her head. She found the last of the supply of ready-meals in the freezer and put it in the microwave, then retrieved the mail.
She flicked through it: some pizza leaflets, a water bill, a letter from her mother Iris and a small white envelope with just her name, printed by a computer, on the front.
She frowned, inspecting either side of it with suspicion.
It had obviously been hand delivered.
She carefully opened it and pulled out a thin piece of paper, folded in half. Her eyes narrowed as she folded it back and read the contents, which had also been typed on a computer.
What revelation lies within the beauty of a rose? With its thorns sharp yet perfume so bewitching, you must breathe in the scent, be it foul in its reason for being.
Claire frowned as she took in the words. She repeated the whole verse in her head and out loud, trying to make sense of it.
She heard the microwave finish, and headed back to the kitchen. She left the letter on the table and dished up her food, the scent of the shepherd’s pie making her mouth water. She realised then that she hadn’t eaten anything since that morning, which would explain her terrible headache.
She shovelled most of the food into her mouth before returning to the table. She poked at the rest of it with her fork while reading the letter again. Ten minutes passed and she ran out of patience. She slammed her fork down on her plate and screwed the letter up and put it in the bin.
Putting it down to nothing but kids playing a prank, she went upstairs to change.
***
Claire tied her dressing-gown tight around her waist as she returned to the kitchen. She pulled out her BlackBerry, notepad and her personal file she’d already compiled on Wainwright.
She poured herself a glass of wine, then headed for the living room, collapsing on the cream-coloured sofa. She sat for several minutes, sipping from her glass, before checking her BlackBerry for any new emails and found there were three new messages.
There were several missed calls and voicemails relating to what had happened at Gladstone Court the previous day.
She certainly didn’t need the stress of it right now. That visit she’d tried hard to conceal to Michael had zapped her energy. She longed for the day that she could wash her hands of the whole sorry mess.
Claire deleted the call list and the voicemails without listening to them properly.
She drained the last of her wine from the glass in one large mouthful and she looked across at the one photograph of herself with both her parents, which sat on a bookshelf in the corner. It was taken when she was first in uniform. On that day, even her father had managed to behave himself and her mother had managed to curb her bitter tongue.
They were both still married then, although Claire never really understood why.
They hated each other.
But still, it had been all smiles that day.
Claire drew her attention back to her work. She checked through her emails.
The first was from Michael saying he’d spoken with Mark Jenkins, who would be providing a statement, but he’d discuss it with her tomorrow. He’d sent it shortly after he had disconnected her call earlier.