by David Blake
The bookshop owner made no response.
‘Lying within the ruins of St. Benet’s Abbey.’
Still nothing.
‘He was found dead, Mr Birch.’
Birch’s eyes shifted between the two police officers. As his expression changed from resolute non-disclosure to confused concern, he eventually said, ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but you must be mistaken. It must be someone else you found.’
‘So, you do know him then?’
‘Very well, yes. I admit that I do know Martin Isaac, but the person you found at St Benet’s can’t be him.’
‘And what makes you say that?’
‘Because I was with him last night.’
‘I see!’ Tanner’s interest was most definitely aroused. ‘And whereabouts was that, may I ask?’
‘Well, if you must know, we were attending a meeting at St. Benet’s Abbey together. But afterwards, I walked with him back to his boat. And I watched him climb on board, so I’m sure he’s fine.’
‘Is he an old man with a gaunt face and no hair, who’d have been wearing a black robe at the time?’
The bookshop owner fell silent again, the colour draining from his face.
‘Does that sound like him?’
‘But - it can’t be!’
After giving him a moment to accept the news that someone he must have known fairly well, despite what he’d been saying earlier, was dead, Tanner asked, ‘How did he seem, when you left him?’
‘How’d you mean?’
‘Did he seem depressed at all?’
‘You - you don’t think he killed himself, do you?’
Unwilling to comment, Tanner said, ‘If you could just answer the question.’
‘Then, no. I’d have to say he didn’t seem depressed.’
‘So, he was his normal cheerful self?’
‘Well, I can’t say I’d describe Martin as being cheerful, but I wouldn’t say that he was depressed either. He’s always been an extremely serious, focused sort of a chap.’
Glancing over at Jenny, Tanner said, ‘Sounds like he was suffering from depression to me.’
Taking offence at the remark, Alan said, ‘He was a deeply spiritual man!’
‘So you don’t think he’d have killed himself?’
‘I see no reason why he should have done.’
Pleased to see Jenny had taken her notebook out, Tanner decided to move the conversation along. ‘You said you walked down to his boat with him. Was anyone else with you at the time?’
‘No. Just Martin and myself.’
‘So you were the last to see him?’
‘If it is really him you’ve found, then I suppose I must be, yes.’
‘But you said there were other people with you?’
Birch hesitated. ‘There were, but they’d all left by then.’
‘Would you be able to tell us who they were?’
‘The other people?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that would be quite impossible.’
‘And why’s that, may I ask?’
‘Because I can’t.’
‘How about your wife. Was she there?’
‘I’m afraid she’s no longer with us. She passed away.’
After pausing for a brief moment, Tanner said, ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Don’t worry. It was a long time ago.’
Tanner pushed on by saying, ‘I’m afraid we’re still going to need to know who else was with you last night.’
‘And as I said, I’m unable to tell you.’
‘Yes, but you haven’t said why?’
‘Because we're not allowed to divulge the names of other church members.’
It was evident from the stricken look on Birch’s face that he’d said something he hadn’t intended to.
‘Which church is that, and why were you meeting within the ruins of St. Benet’s Abbey in the middle of the night, and not inside a more normal church on a Sunday morning?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t say.’
‘Perhaps you weren’t there for spiritual purposes, but were there to buy drugs instead?’
There was no response to that, forcing Tanner to provoke him further by saying, ‘Or maybe it was the annual general meeting for the Broad’s Paedophile Society?’
The colour surged back into his face, and with a furious snarl the bookshop owner said, ‘How dare you! Of course it wasn’t!’
‘Then what was it about?’
‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t say.’
‘OK, tell you what. How about we arrest you on suspicion of murder, and see how you feel about it then?’
‘Murder!’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘But I thought you said he killed himself?’
Glancing over at Jenny, Tanner asked, ‘Did I say that?’
Referring to her notes, Jenny replied, ‘No, sir. You only asked Mr Birch if Martin Isaac suffered from depression.’
‘Which implies that he took his own life,’ Birch insisted.
‘Put it this way; he was found with his throat sliced open, which would suggest murder. However, a knife was resting in his hand, hence the reason for us thinking more along the lines of suicide. So it could probably go either way.’
Birch stared in wide-eyed horror at Tanner’s face.
‘Consequently, if we’ve been able to identify someone who was, say, at the exact same place where we believe Mr Isaac died, and at a very similar time, who at first denies having ever known the man, and who seems strangely reluctant to tell us what he was doing, wandering about the ruins of St. Benet’s Abbey in the middle of the night, then that would give us sufficient grounds to arrest that man on suspicion of murder.’
‘But - I - I didn’t!’
‘Then you’d better tell us what you were doing there, hadn’t you?’
Despite the threat of being charged with murder, Birch still seemed reluctant to answer, and instead just stood there, exchanging panicked glances between the two detectives.
With a heavy sigh, Tanner said, ‘Alan Birch, you are under arrest for the murder of Martin Isaacs. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm...’
‘All right, all right!’ he blurted out. ‘I’ll tell you!’
They waited in silence for him to begin, before Tanner felt it necessary to give him a prod. ‘Sometime today, if you please; or would it help if we hand-cuffed you first?’
After a furtive glance out of the shop window he leaned forward, and with his voice kept low, eventually came out with, ‘I’m a member of the Ecclesia Diaboli.’
‘I see,’ said Tanner, none the wiser. ‘And what’s that when it’s at home?’
‘It’s a monastic order, a church if you will, of which Reverend Isaac was the founder.’
‘I see, but that still doesn’t explain what you were doing in the ruins of St. Benet’s Abbey in the middle of the night, and not sitting on a pew on a Sunday morning like most normal church goers.’
‘It’s not that sort of a church.’
‘You mean, it’s not a church at all.’
‘I suppose that depends on your definition of “church”.’
‘And what’s yours?’
Birch paused for a moment, before eventually going on to say, ‘Most people consider a church to describe a building, whereas its original meaning was simply a group of people. It’s from the Greek ekklesia, which means to assemble or to be called out.’
‘So you’re basically saying that your church is more of a cult?’
Pulling his shoulders back, the bookshop owner fixed Tanner with an offended look and said, ‘If you say so.’
‘It’s what you have to say that’s of interest to me.’
There was a lull in the conversation, before Birch eventually relaxed his stance a little and began to speak more freely.
‘We’ve always thought of ourselves as being a spiritual religion, just one that differs from a Christian one.
Reverend Isaac helped us to understand that our existence isn’t governed by either God or the Devil, but that they are two sides of the same coin; good and bad, positive and negative, male and female. The law of nature makes it impossible to have one without the other, and anyone who thinks they can is deluding themselves. The two are inextricably linked, and if you choose to embrace one whilst ignoring the other, your life will be in a permanent state of discord and imbalance.’
‘And so, to redress the balance, you spend your lives standing around five-pointed stars in the middle of the night worshipping Satan?’
‘And it’s because of such ignorant, dogmatic prejudice that our religion was forced into secrecy.’
‘Well, fair enough. But am I correct in thinking that’s what you were doing last night, in amongst the ruins of St Benet’s Abbey?’
Silence followed, during which Birch seemed to be considering how much he should be telling the two detectives. Eventually he reached a conclusion. ‘It was our Blood Moon Sacrifice. It’s our most hallowed gathering, and the only time we offer a sacrificial gift.’
‘But I assume Martin Isaacs wasn’t the intended gift, or at least he wasn’t supposed to be?’
Ignoring the question, Birch asked, ‘Are you really sure it’s him?’
‘At this stage we’re about as sure as we can be. We’ve found items belonging to him on board his boat, but we’ve yet to locate the whereabouts of any relatives to help us with a formal ID.’
‘To be honest, I’m not sure he had any. I believe he was an only child, and never married. He used to be a parish priest.’
‘Yes, we know,’ said Tanner, glancing briefly over at Jenny.
Assuming that was an invitation for her to say something, she explained to the bookshop owner, ‘I went to school at St. Andrew’s, in Horning.’
‘So, you’d have heard the stories then?’
‘Only that he was the local priest and that he was accused of murdering one of the pupils from my school.’
‘Claire Judson,’ said Birch, as he stared off with a lost, haunted look.
Seeing his expression, she asked, ‘Did you know her?’
‘Me?’ he asked, shaking his head clear of whatever thoughts had been crowding his mind. ‘Not directly, at least not before she was attacked. I used to be a lawyer, in a former life, or so it feels now. I was a solicitor for the Church, and was on the defence team for Martin’s trial. When he told me afterwards that he’d started to write a book, both I and my wife - fiancée at the time - became curious, and we ended up helping him to write it, my wife acting as the editor and me doing my best at the proofreading.’
‘And then you left the practice of law to open a bookshop?’
‘Something like that, although as you can see, we’re hardly Waterstones.’
‘And the accusation that he’d murdered the girl?’
‘All nonsense, of course.’
‘But someone did murder her?’
‘Yes. Poor girl. She’s actually buried within the church grounds where it all happened. But it had nothing to do with Martin.’
Having first heard about the story when she started school, out of personal as much as professional curiosity, Jenny asked, ‘Did they ever find out who was responsible?’
‘Not that I’m aware of. Martin was eventually cleared of all charges, but not before it had gone on to what became a lengthy and very public trial.’
From experience, Tanner knew that just because someone was acquitted didn’t mean they hadn’t done it. All it meant was that the law had been unable to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he had. ‘The police of the day must have had grounds to think that he was guilty, else it wouldn’t have made it to court.’
‘Perhaps, but having known him for over forty years, I’ve never known a man to be so uninterested in women.’
‘You mean he was gay?’
Birch sent him a look of disgust. ‘No! I meant that he’s never been interested in anything of a carnal nature. He certainly wasn’t the type to rape a fifteen year old school girl.’
‘You may think that, Mr Birch,’ said Tanner, ‘but nobody can ever really know what goes on inside someone’s head.’
‘I know he wasn’t because I never once saw him look at a girl; not in that way. He just wasn’t the type. Up until the time he was accused of attacking Claire Judson, he was devoted to the Catholic Church. All he ever wanted in life was to be a parish priest. The fact that he was accused was bad enough, but when he was excommunicated by the Church after being cleared of all charges, that was a blow he very nearly didn’t recover from.’
‘After he was cleared?’ queried Tanner, in some surprise.
‘That was why he lost his faith, at least in what the Catholic Church preaches.’
‘Don’t you think the whole experience of having been let off a murder charge only to end up being excommunicated would have left him feeling suicidal?’
‘I’ve no idea. He may have done, I suppose.’
‘But you said earlier that he wasn’t the type to take his own life?’
‘Not now, no. But that was over forty years ago.’
As he carefully studied the bookshop owner’s face, Tanner asked, ‘What if he had something else in mind?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘We found a copy of his book on board his boat. It had been left open at a particular page in a chapter called Ritual for Resurrection.’
Birch hesitated for a moment. ‘I believe he included that chapter more as a theoretical proposition than any sort of statement of fact.’
‘That if someone were to sacrifice themselves to Satan, they could be born again, as his son, otherwise known as the Antichrist?’
‘As I said, I’m sure he meant it to be more theoretical than practical.’
‘That’s as maybe, but do you think he believed it enough to have a go?’
‘Well, I - I don’t know. Having immersed himself in the subject for as long as he had, I suppose it’s a possibility.’
‘One more thing, Mr Birch. Can you think of anyone who’d wish Mr Isaac harm?’
‘Nobody in particular, but there were plenty of people who didn’t agree with his views.’
‘Enough to want him dead?’
‘Again, it’s a possibility. I know he received a lot of hate mail when his book first came out.’
‘Any death threats?’
‘I’ve no idea, but it wouldn’t surprise me. It was another reason why he decided to keep such a low public profile.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
AS THEY CROSSED the quiet road to Tanner’s car, Jenny asked, ‘What did you make of all that?’
‘I think it’s looking increasingly likely that Martin Isaac had become so deluded by his own cult religion thing - what was it called again?’
‘The Ecclesia Diaboli,’ she said, without needing to refer to her notes.
‘Yes, that - that he decided to have a go at what he’d written about: a self-sacrifice. And who knows - maybe at this precise moment he’s attempting to raise himself up from the dead to begin wandering the earth as Satan’s son, all set to do his evil bidding.’
‘If he is, then he’ll need to get out of the morgue first. And it will certainly give Dr Johnstone quite a fright, especially as he’s probably about to start cracking open his ribcage.’
‘Quite!’
Reaching the car, deep in thought, Jenny said, ‘Maybe he wanted to give his followers the impression that he’d sacrificed himself as a way to hide his real intention: to commit suicide out of depression. Or maybe he’d been diagnosed with some sort of a terminal illness, and didn’t have long to live anyway.’
‘If it’s the latter, then Johnstone should be able to tell us, but I still think it’s an odd method of doing it. I mean, to cut one’s throat, from ear to ear? My god!’
‘Didn’t the Japanese used to do something similar?’
Tanner shook his head. ‘You’re thinking of Seppuku - suicide by dis
embowelment, which sounds much worse.’
‘But if it’s possible for someone to disembowel themselves, then I suppose it’s equally possible to cut your own throat.’
‘But the question would be, why choose that particular method, when there are so many others that would have given him a far less painful way out?’
‘What about the other alternative?’
‘What - that Alan Birch, the bookshop owner, gave him a helping hand?’
‘Why not? He certainly spent long enough trying to deny that he knew who Martin Isaac was.’
‘I suspect that was more because he’d probably been sworn to secrecy about the Ecclesia Diaboli, and that he doesn’t want people finding out that he spends every other evening attending midnight satanic rituals within the ruins of St. Benet’s Abbey.’
‘What about the others who he claims were there?’
‘It comes down to motive, in both cases. If someone assisted him according to his own will, fair enough; but if not, they’d have to have had a very strong reason for wanting him dead. That level of violence isn’t usual, and speaks of massive anger, or outright hatred. Unless Isaac had a secret hoard of cash stashed away somewhere, it’s difficult at this point to see what other motive there could be.’
‘I suppose it could have been a relative of Claire Judson’s,’ Jenny said. ‘Someone who was convinced Isaac was guilty of her murder, and was out for revenge.’
‘If it was, then they certainly took long enough to do anything about it.’
As he said that, Tanner’s phone began to ring.
‘It’s the boss,’ said Tanner, having dug it out from his pocket. ‘I’d better take it.’
A moment later, the familiar voice said, ‘Tanner, it’s Forrester. How’d you get on with that bookshop owner?’
‘Well, we had an interesting chat, but there’s nothing at this stage to suggest that he had anything to do with it. He only confirmed what we already suspected.’
‘Forensics seem to be suggesting the same thing. The only prints found on the knife were his own, and the same goes for the book we found on his boat. We’ve also had an interim report back from the medical examiner. He’s found no evidence to suggest foul play. He did discover something, though.’