Crime in the Choir

by Catherine Moloney

  At that moment, in his mind’s eye he saw all the lost boys in a tight glowing circle smiling and laughing. No-one can hurt them anymore, he thought. They’re safe now.

  ‘Right, Noakes, we’ve got a job to do. Are you ready?’

  Noakes straightened his shoulders and started the engine.

  * * *

  When they drew up outside St Mary’s, everything looked picture-postcard perfect, snow softening the building’s angles and ornamenting its brackets with delicate fleecy ruffles.

  The week before Christmas when children should be sleepless with excitement, thought Markham with a wrench. Sleepless with dread, more like.

  Grim-faced, he and Noakes walked into the entrance hall where Desmond O’Keefe and a fresh-faced constable were waiting. Everywhere was hushed, almost bereft, the Christmas tree’s silver bells chiming forlornly in the draught created by their arrival.

  The impact of recent events was very apparent on the principal’s face as he ushered them into the visitors’ parlour. He looked haunted, with bags under his eyes and the strain of the police investigation reflected in the withered pallor of his face. Yet he spoke with his usual self-containment.

  ‘The staff are all on site, Inspector. We haven’t been able to locate Miss Mullen and Miss Gibson yet. They were with young Nat earlier, but no-one appears to have seen them after that.’

  Markham’s insides somersaulted. Someone’s slipped up, he thought savagely. He didn’t want Olivia anywhere on her own with Cynthia Gibson or, God forbid, Cynthia’s boyfriend.

  ‘I want these two women found now!’ he barked at the young officer. ‘Get all available uniforms on it.’ With a meaningful glance at Noakes, he added, ‘I want the cathedral architect located as well.’

  His furious tone had the effect of a starting-pistol. Flushing an ugly brick-red, the constable headed for the door, almost colliding with a boiler-suited figure.

  ‘Sir, we’ve found a hidden camera lens—’ the SOCO announced without preamble.

  ‘—in the basement shrine,’ the DI finished the sentence, his voice flat.

  Noakes noticed that his boss’s gaze was fixed on ‘The Forty Martyrs’ painting which dominated the parlour, as though he was answering a challenge by the stiffly ruffed figures who stared intently from across the centuries. Suddenly, Noakes remembered Woodcourt talking about a ‘master illusionist’, the anomalous fustian-clad carpenter responsible for creating numberless hidey-holes. What was it the priest had said? Then he heard it quite clearly. The soft caressing voice which had disarmed them so completely. ‘Rumour has it there may even be one here at St Mary’s.’

  In that instant, Noakes knew the guvnor was right. The airless little museum with its collection of relics, shut off from the world above, would have been the paedophiles’ ‘special place’ where they surreptitiously observed their prey and savoured the delights to come: the sick rituals which led to rape, strangulation and someone’s flesh and blood being laid out on a slab.

  The SOCO was speaking. He sounded disappointed, cheated of the big reveal.

  ‘It’s behind one of the reliquaries, sir. If you’d like to look.’

  ‘Lead the way.’

  The group adjourned to the plain little room which had more the feel of a modest archive than anything specifically religious. At least, that is, until one noticed the walls lined with mementoes of execution and suffering. The cornucopia of grisly exhibits lodged a shard of ice in Markham’s chest.

  At the far end was a hinged oak reredos stretching from floor to ceiling, with carvings of the twelve apostles two-by-two in three tiers on each of the side panels and Christ as the centrepiece. This was no ‘gentle Jesus meek and mild’, however, but rather the stern judge of men’s souls.

  It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.

  Markham turned his attention from the hooded, reproachful eyes and magisterially uplifted a finger to scrutinize a set of red velvet curtains which flanked the screen on either side.

  He lifted a fold of the rich fabric on the side nearest a mahogany credence table intricately decorated with wheatsheaves and grapevines. Behind the curtain was some simple panelling.

  Delicately, as though by a reflex, the DI skimmed the tips of his fingers over its surface.

  ‘Ah, there it is!’ he exclaimed, beckoning Noakes closer to the small raised whorl like the knot he had uncovered in Irene Hummles’s flat. The curlicue concealed a wicked little spy hole.

  He tapped the panel, registering the soft thunk of hollow cladding.

  ‘What’ve we got behind there, then?’

  The SOCO consulted a sheaf of notes then fussily cleared his throat.

  ‘Down here was part of a convent at one time apparently, sir. There were confessional boxes at this end, sealed up at the time of the Reformation.’

  Markham’s gaze dropped to the credence table.

  ‘And underneath that?’ he asked, gesturing at the chest.

  The SOCO’s thin lips compressed.

  ‘Cement manhole cover. But we’ve checked it out. There’s a stone stairway which leads to the confessionals.’ In response to Markham’s raised eyebrows, the other said wryly, ‘Your guess is as good as mine, Guv. Priests and nuns up to all sorts, no doubt.’

  O’Keefe stiffened.

  ‘No offence, I’m sure,’ came the hasty qualification.

  Suddenly Markham badly wanted to breathe clean air, to get away from the chapel and the suffocating malevolence that he sensed all around him. From the queasy look on Noakes’s face, the discomfort was mutual. O’Keefe, meanwhile, looked around the chapel with appalled fascination, vile images flashing before him like pictures from a nightmare magic-lantern show.

  There was a sudden commotion. A distraught Alex Sharpe lurched down the narrow aisle towards them, closely followed by two uniforms.

  ‘Is it true?’ he burst out. ‘About Woodcourt and Julian Forsythe – is it true?’

  At a sign from Markham, the two policemen retreated to the chapel entrance.

  ‘Julian’s safe,’ replied Markham quietly.

  Sharpe collapsed into the nearest pew, his head bowed and his whole body shaking.

  ‘Mr Sharpe, my—.’ The DI recollected himself then continued, ‘Ms Mullen and Miss Gibson are missing. Finding them is my priority. Whatever you know, now is the time to tell us.’ His voice was low and level, the note of personal anguish audible only to Noakes.

  ‘I was just a new teacher at Cedar Hill High School when it started.’ Sharpe’s eyes were beseeching.

  ‘When what started?’ Noakes’s voice was harsh.

  ‘I’d downloaded inappropriate pictures of children on my computer.’

  ‘Kiddiporn,’ amended Markham.

  ‘Yes.’ Sharpe’s voice sank to a whisper. ‘It was a bad time in my life. Kate and I were trying for a baby, but she couldn’t… Work was a nightmare… I couldn’t get a handle on the kids. We both started drinking a lot and our marriage seemed to go down the drain. I’d been surfing the net … it got out of hand.’

  ‘Go on.’ Markham’s expression was inscrutable.

  ‘Woodcourt found the images on my PC. He agreed not to turn me in. At first I thought it was because he really cared – didn’t want to see my life go down the swanee.’ Sharpe’s left knee started juddering uncontrollably and his voice throbbed with bitterness. ‘How wrong can a person be? Once he had me where he wanted me, he dropped the saintly pretence and offered a quid pro quo – he’d keep shtum about my … lapse … provided I sent a steady flow of boys his way under cover of extra-curricular activities. God,’ he exhaled in disgust, ‘the music department at Cedar Hill was a perverts’ carousel.’

  ‘Blackmail.’ At the DI’s succinct verdict, Sharpe’s shoulders drooped even lower.

  ‘Yes, Inspector. You can guess the rest.’

  ‘Why don’t you fill us in?’ Not by so much as a furro
wing of his brow did Markham show how badly he wanted to choke the information out of the wretched specimen in front of them.

  ‘Woodcourt was a millstone round my neck after that.’ It was a self-pitying whine. ‘Where he went, I went.’

  Noakes took a step towards Sharpe. ‘What about when kids went missing?’ he challenged. ‘Why didn’t you say something then? How could you go on keeping Woodcourt’s secrets for so long?’

  Sharpe looked like a prisoner on the rack, white-faced, his weazened features twitching uncontrollably.

  ‘You’ve got to understand, I didn’t know anything for sure,’ he said imploringly. ‘I just oiled the wheels. Anyway, who’d have believed me?’ His tone took on an edge of defiance. ‘Woodcourt had friends in high places. Not just Sir Philip but a whole network… MPs and bishops … maybe even royalty for all I knew.’

  Markham remained impassive.

  ‘Then later…’ Sharpe’s voice trembled. ‘I was scared … the two bodies in the grottoes….’

  ‘Jacob Smith and Colin Saunders,’ put in Noakes, kicking a nearby pew by way of relief to his feelings. ‘They had names, you know.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with that, I swear!’ Despite the chill of the chapel, the Director of Music’s forehead shone with perspiration. ‘All I know is that one of them was going to blow the whistle, so the other got the job of … sorting it.’

  He ground to a halt, his gaze focusing fearfully on some remoteness beyond.

  ‘But the second man was a liability too,’ prompted Markham.

  Sharpe grasped the lifeline.

  ‘Yes. It was too great a risk to keep him in play. That’s what Preston told me. He had to take care of it. Like the matron.’

  The temperature seemed to drop by several degrees. Markham felt goose-pimples forming on his arms. That embarrassingly handsome young man with his easy, engaging manner and laid-back charm. A calculating, clinical murderer.

  ‘You are saying Edward Preston murdered Colin Saunders and Irene Hummles?’

  Sharpe blanched then nodded. Markham reflected that he was a living embodiment of the fear that Woodcourt and Preston inspired.

  ‘Yes,’ he said shuddering, as though something inside him had dissolved with the admission, ‘Preston was one of them. But I didn’t know for sure that he had … done … the workman and Irene until a few days ago.’

  Noakes thrust his face towards the cringing figure.

  ‘For God’s sake, you must have suspected foul play when that poor woman disappeared!’

  Sharpe recoiled.

  ‘See no evil, hear no evil,’ he replied desperately. ‘I couldn’t afford to rock the boat.’

  As Noakes continued to glower, he explained, ‘Look, Irene was a troubled woman and could well have done a bunk. At the time, it felt like a reasonable explanation.’

  ‘Even though two lads went missing from St Mary’s around the same time, and there was talk about a night-time prowler?’ Noakes was scathing.

  It was the last twist of the rack.

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ Sharpe cried despairingly. ‘That I’m a miserable stinking coward? All right, I admit it! I looked the other way … didn’t want to believe it … couldn’t face the truth. You’ve got to understand, Kate was a nervous wreck and I was walking a precipice. One false step and my life would be over. And Woodcourt was always there...’ His face contorted.

  ‘Sir Philip is dead, Mr Sharpe,’ Markham said quietly. ‘Murdered.’

  Sharpe closed his eyes and swayed slightly in his seat.

  ‘My fault,’ he breathed through cracked, desiccated lips.

  Noakes stiffened to attention. Was this a confession? Markham stilled him with a gesture

  ‘What do you mean, Mr Sharpe? How was it your fault?’

  ‘I should have warned him. I could see Woodcourt was losing it. Something about his eyes…’ He gave a strangled groan. ‘I overheard Sir Philip arguing with Woodcourt and Preston. About the situation being out of control and things going too far. I didn’t catch all of it, but Preston laughed and said something about expendable casualties.’

  Georgina Hamilton, thought Markham, his iron self-control on the point of exploding into fragments.

  Then his policeman’s mask was back in place.

  ‘We are almost out of time, Mr Sharpe,’ he said in a voice whose calmness surprised him. ‘Other lives are at stake.’ Ruthlessly, he fought back tears. ‘Olivia Mullen and Cynthia Gibson. Where would Preston have taken them?’

  ‘The grottoes!’ Sharpe and a uniform at the chapel entrance burst out in unison.

  It was the response which, Markham realized with sudden sickening clarity, he had both expected and dreaded to hear.

  Later, Markham could remember little of their route. Only an endless stretch of white shrouded tumuli and tussocks, like little bedsteads each with its quiet sleeper. The winter sun was already in retreat, streaking the sky with strips of flame as louring clouds mottled the skyline. At first, only the crunch of their feet across the snow and the mournful song of a scavenging thrush broke the silence. Ahead, police arc lights illumined the crenelated rock face of the caves, their spectral nimbus adding to the surreal atmosphere.

  It was a desolate place, albeit the jagged caverns from which the site took its name were softened by their ghostly white drapery. At the lowest level the terrain appeared to dip into a hollow, presumably the gully which led underground, surrounded by police officers huddled amidst scaffolding, light stands and all the paraphernalia of a stakeout. The cold struck through to Markham’s very bones, but far more chilling was the sense of an invisible enemy softly stalking him, swirling up towards him like some noxious charnel vapour, steam rising from the arc lights as though in sinister confirmation of hellish secrets. In an instant, he understood what was beneath him.

  The DI turned to Sharpe. ‘This is where they originally stashed the remains, isn’t it? In the grottoes and the little cemetery?’ Suddenly, he remembered Georgina Hamilton’s report of nocturnal digging. ‘But that became too risky when the renovations started up again. The gang had to find another hiding place, and where better than the cathedral graveyard.’

  The Director of Music looked like a soul in torment.

  ‘I never knew for certain,’ he whimpered. ‘Look, Inspector, if I ever said anything, I’d have ended up there as well.’

  ‘You bastard,’ Noakes rumbled. ‘Those perverts dumped the bodies here and you knew it! Then, later, they grubbed about and shoved what was left down a hole … all jumbled together, no respect … skulls, ribs, shoulder blades… Gloat over it, did they?’ He scuffed the ground viciously, sending up a flurry of snowflakes. ‘Keep trophies, did they? Scum!’

  It was the final insult, thought Markham. Leaving those desperate families with nothing to bury. Leaving them hoping and praying that the police would one day find all the bones and put their children back together again. As though those poor victims could be tidily rearranged like skeletons in science classrooms. God!

  ‘That’s enough, Noakes,’ he said urgently. ‘Our priority is to get Olivia and Cynthia out of there in one piece. By now, Preston will know the game is up. The women are his insurance, so he won’t surrender them without a fight.’ Fear gripped the DI’s heart and lengthened his strides. ‘A cornered animal is dangerous,’ he added sombrely. ‘And this one’s got nothing to lose.’ Markham guessed that Woodcourt’s headlong descent into full-fledged insanity had overturned the architect’s plans, sending him scuttling back to the catacombs like a rat to its hole.

  ‘There’s a negotiating team in place, sir.’

  Markham recognized a sergeant from CID.

  ‘Fine, but keep them well back will you, Sarge. We’re going in with this gentleman.’ Alex Sharpe shuffled his feet in an agony of wretchedness. Markham turned to the DS. ‘Same pack drill as before, Noakes, so let’s have a torch and some rope.’

  It was the work of minutes to equip themselves.

  ‘Firear
ms, sir?’ the sergeant quietly enquired.

  Markham met his eyes steadily. ‘Can’t chance a gunfight in such a confined space.’

  ‘Sir, I really think—’

  Markham cut in, his voice suddenly raw with emotion. ‘Look, man, that’s my girlfriend down there.’

  A ripple ran through the ranks. That’s got their attention, he thought with a queer sense of exultation. The encircling band that had bound his heart through all those months of subterfuge and concealment snapped suddenly. For a moment, he felt almost giddy with joy before churning dread surged up to grapple him by the throat.

  ‘Olivia’s down there,’ he muttered hoarsely, ‘and we’ve got to get her out.’

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. Noakes has my back, the DI told himself. Gulping a lungful of frosty air and ignoring the buzz amongst the assembled personnel, he gingerly descended the flank of the gully, his feet sinking into the thickly blanketed steps which led to the tunnels.

  Once at the bottom, the three men looked up to see the wraith-like faces of the police team peering anxiously down at them. As if, thought Markham with a shudder, they were now dead to the world, covered by a pall.

  De profundis.

  Again, he felt the reassuring solidity of Noakes behind him and pressed forward into the mephitic space.

  Markham saw a pinprick of light ahead. Gradually it resolved itself into the steady glow of candles. And then, without warning, they were in the clammy chamber of Noakes’s recollection. The vault with its dreadful shelves glistening blankly. The niches where children’s bodies decomposed in the dark, alone and unmourned.

  Edward Preston stood waiting at the rear of the vault.

  Markham wondered how he could ever have thought him handsome. The merry companion of Nat and Julian was gone as though he had never been, his features twisted into an ugly sneer, his lip curling at the sight of Alex Sharpe.

  This, then, was the face the lost boys saw in their final moments: the implacable countenance of a killer.