by Mark Roberts
‘With respect, I’m not going to answer any more of your questions until I have legal representation. Who’s representing Raymond?
‘John Robson.’
‘Is he good?’
‘I’d employ him if I was in police custody.’
‘Then I’d like Mr Robson to represent me too.’
96
1.30 pm
‘This is very different to the last time we were together in a room such as this, don’t you agree?’ said Father Aaron Bell, sitting across the table from Clay. ‘Do you have to say those words every time you interview someone?’
‘Yes.’
Father Aaron looked at the brown bag on the table between them.
‘What’s this?’ he asked.
‘It’s an evidence bag.’
‘What’s inside it?’
‘Evidence. We’ll come to that later.’
He looked back over his shoulder and up at the video camera high in the corner of the room. Father Aaron smiled as he looked directly at Clay. ‘Is that—’
‘It’s filming the interview and recording the sound. The box on the desk is making an audio recording.’
He nodded. ‘How can I help you?’
‘I want to show you a film that I’ve transferred from my iPhone to this laptop so that you can get a better view.’
‘And what is the film about?’
‘It’s about you, Father Aaron. Watch this, please.’ She turned the laptop round and, pressing play, scrutinised his face.
Father Aaron watched the sequence without any facial expression, not a trace of surprise. ‘It’s all very 1984, all these surveillance cameras.’
‘Keep watching, Father Aaron.’
He leaned in closer to the screen and a smile drifted over his eyes. ‘I’ve just walked onto the ward at Alder Hey. And now I’m leaving the ward.’
A glaze came over his eyes as if something was shutting down in his brain. He blinked slowly, twice, and life came back. ‘It’s finished now, DCI Clay, and I have to say it was rather dull.’
‘Want to see it again?’
‘No, I don’t like looking at pictures of myself, certainly not moving ones.’
‘Would you like to explain to me what was going on in the film?’
‘It’s perfectly clear what was going on. I went to the hospital to give a gift to an extremely unfortunate child. End of story. Don’t you agree?’
‘No, I don’t agree.’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘A child goes missing for over a week. By the laws of statistics, she should be dead. But then her captor, or captors, release her. That never happens. Child abductors don’t set the key witness to their crimes free. We know the abductor has extreme fascist and pro-Nazi views. Your daughter Lucy discovers her in a public park close to your home and church, and promptly abandons her before we can get there. You go to Alder Hey to give my colleague DS Riley a gift to pass on to the child – a set of rosary beads. These are connections, Father Aaron. Connections I’d like to explore with you.’
‘All right, DCI Clay. Let me explain something to you. I’m only telling you this because you’re clearly suspicious about my motives in giving Marta Ondřej a set of rosary beads. I visit Alder Hey on a regular basis to give small gifts to children I read about in the media, children who have been hurt or harmed either accidentally or through the malice of others. Three weeks ago, I went to Alder Hey to see Eden Hart, the little boy with 50 per cent burns and the only surviving member of his family following a colossal house fire. In both cases, I left a set of rosary beads and prayed for them, for their recovery, for their acceptance of what had happened to them, that they would grow strong and move on. Why don’t you check back further and see the CCTV of me visiting the burns unit, when I did exactly the same for little Eden Hart?’
‘Did your daughter call 999 when Eden Hart’s family home went up in flames?’
‘No, she didn’t.’
‘Then, for the purposes of what I’m investigating at the moment, I’m not really interested in your visit to Eden Hart. If Lucy had called 999 and you had then shown up at the burns unit, I would have wanted to talk to you, just as I am doing now. Crimes are solved by either closing down connections or dismissing them as coincidences.’
‘He’s not the only one. There are dozens of children I’ve tried to extend a little hope to. And adults as well, DCI Clay. Both Lucy and I try to do our best to live by the church’s corporal works of mercy, and that includes visiting the sick and the imprisoned. I never imagined in all my years that I would be taken in to a police station for visiting a child in hospital.’
In the silence that followed, Clay and Father Aaron stared each other down.
‘She didn’t like the rosary beads. In fact she became quite agitated when she had them in her hands,’ said Clay, quietly.
She held back the rest of Riley’s email report: how Marta had grown agitated when looking at the corridor outside her room where the priest had recently stood, and the child’s words: Catch the Devil. I want my hair.
‘Are you seriously thinking of charging me with visiting a sick, distressed child and leaving her a gift?’
Behind his bushy grey-black beard, Clay imagined a victorious smile forming.
‘What you’ve done isn’t against the law. But it has forced me to ask a set of questions that only you can answer.’
‘And have I answered these questions to your satisfaction, DCI Clay?’
‘For now.’
‘Can I also tell you, given the sensitivity of Marta’s situation, I tried to do this visit through Father James Dwyer, the senior Catholic priest in Alder Hey’s chaplaincy, but he’s been incommunicado for three days and nights. I believe he’s been at the bedside of a dying infant. James and I have been friends for many years.’
‘Is that how you knew which ward she was on?’ asked Clay.
‘Yes, through the chaplaincy. Sister Agnes gave me the information.’
‘So, in short, Father Aaron, this hospital visiting is regular practice for you?’
‘It’s a corporal work of mercy.’
‘You asked Detective Sergeant Riley if Marta had spoken since she’d been admitted to hospital. Why did you ask that?’
‘Lucy told me that she thought the child was mute. I wanted to find out if that was the case. It was like a thorn in my heart to think that the poor child was unable to communicate. Are we done now?’
‘This isn’t the only matter I want to speak to you about.’
Clay reached into the evidence bag on the table and produced an address book.
She opened it at the C page and showed it to Father Aaron.
‘Do you recognise the handwriting?’
‘No.’
‘Do you recognise the language that the names and addresses are written in?’
He looked and thought about it. ‘Polish.’
‘Do you know any Polish people?’
‘Yes. I know Karl and Václav Adamczak.’
Clay turned the page back to the B section of the address book, then turned the open address book towards him, and pointed to his name and contact details.
‘Why do you have their address book, DCI Clay?’
‘Because they were murdered in their flat on Picton Road.’
He frowned and a look of confusion was overtaken by shock. ‘Say that again please, DCI Clay?’
‘Karl and Václav Adamczak were murdered in their flat on Picton Road. You didn’t hear about it through the media?’ He shook his head. ‘Their address book was found in their flat. The names and addresses are mostly based in Poland, but you’re one of three people in England who they saw fit to detail in their address book. One of them is a mate from the building sites. Do you know Mickey Nolan?’
‘No.’
‘The other is a female friend from back home who lives in Liverpool. Do you know Aneta Kaloza?’
‘I know of her, but I’ve never met her.’
&nbs
p; ‘How do you know them?’
‘I know Václav better than I know Karl. Václav shares the same devotion to the Virgin Mary that I do. We met in the Lady Chapel in the Metropolitan Cathedral, beneath the giant statue of Mary holding the upraised arms of the infant Jesus. I take confession there each week. Václav was so strong in his devotion to the Virgin Mary, it was awe-inspiring. How did they die?’
‘It’s an ongoing investigation. I can’t divulge the details to you.’
Father Aaron’s eyes filled with tears that rolled silently into the jungle of his beard.
‘Did Václav tell you about his feelings towards the Virgin Mary?’
‘No. He had very little English and I have no Polish.’
‘Father Aaron, if he had little English and you had no Polish, how do you know about his devotion to Mary?’
‘Two ways. Faith of Václav’s kind needs no language to communicate its strength and power. I could see it, I could feel it emanating from him as we prayed together in silence. There were times when he was in a state of rapture.’
‘You prayed together?’
‘Many, many times. In the Lady Chapel in the cathedral. Sundays mainly, because he was a working man. The first time I saw him he was on his knees, praying in silence, and the air around him was alive with electrical spiritual fervour. There were times when... when, I don’t admire myself for this but there were times we prayed together when I felt his closeness to the Virgin Mary was such that I envied him. I actually envied another man’s spiritual gift. What kind of a priest does that make me?’
He fell into the kind of silence borne of profound shame.
‘You said there were two ways you understood about Václav’s faith? What was the second?’
‘The second? Mr Zięba, their landlord and the owner of the Polish delicatessen, talked to me about Václav’s lengthy outpourings about his faith in general and the Virgin Mary in particular. Every time I went into Mr Zięba’s shop, he used to update me. I used to go back to buy things I didn’t need just to hear the latest instalment.’
‘So, Václav Adamczak loved the Virgin Mary?’
‘His love was the finest I ever witnessed.’
‘You really had no idea about them being murdered?’
‘I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, with Lucy finding the missing child and then leaving her on her own. The thought of her being abandoned by my daughter keeps coming back to me, and each time I feel a fresh sense of horror. And guilt. What could I have done in raising Lucy that made her act in this manner? She committed a sin of omission but the cause of it was mine. I’ve not watched television for weeks. And the only radio I listen to is Radio Three. They don’t report regional murders.’
‘Then I’m sorry to have broken the news to you, Father Aaron. Is there anything you wish to add?’
‘I can’t think of anything.’
‘So Václav Adamczak truly loved the Virgin Mary?’
‘Truly, he loved her with all his heart and soul.’
Father Aaron shook his head and looked down at the table as Clay formally closed the interview.
‘Thank you for your time, Father Aaron. I appreciate it. You’re free to go now.’
He stood and shook her hand across the table. As she opened the door for him, Clay asked, ‘How old was the Virgin Mary when she conceived Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit?’
‘Her age isn’t stated in the Gospels, but it’s widely accepted, given cultural norms of the place and time she lived in, that she was thirteen years of age.’
‘How times change,’ said Clay, as Father Aaron headed for the doors leading into reception. ‘Oh, Father Aaron, just for your information, I met two of your parishioners.’
He turned. ‘Who?’
‘Kate Thorpe and Mr Rotherham.’
Father Aaron looked perplexed but, fixing his face, asked, ‘How did you meet them?’
‘Miss Thorpe visited Trinity Road Police Station briefly, but couldn’t recall what she came in for. Then Mr Rotherham phoned on her behalf and we arranged to meet in her home in Grant Avenue.’
‘And you have had this meeting?’
‘Yes, we have.’
‘Why did they want to meet you?’
‘He acts as her voice and she’s an incredible artist. For some reason they wanted to show me her paintings. I got the feeling it was a pretext and that there’s more to come. Can you think why they wanted to meet me?’
‘I have no idea at all.’
‘Her pictures, her religious visions? They seem so real. They’re so... vivid. Kate Thorpe and Mr Rotherham, they’re a remarkable pair, don’t you agree?’
97
2.33 pm
Poppy Waters placed two small evidence bags on DC Barney Cole’s desk, one bag marked ‘Raymond Dare’ and one marked Václav Adamczak’.
‘What’s come off their phones, Poppy?’ asked Clay.
‘Robert Baliński, the Polish translator, worked right through Václav’s phone with me technically assisting. Two things stood out on it. One were the pictures of young girls – nothing lurid, just lots of them, and a raft of flirty messages to and from Václav on Messenger. There are hundreds of pictures of teenage girls and a lot of them have clearly been taken without the children’s knowledge or consent.’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Cole.
‘There are pictures taken on the streets and in restaurants, public places in which the girls are going about their daily business, completely unaware that they were being photographed. Some of them were posed, but the majority were taken as life rolled on.’
‘Definitely no pornography?’
‘I couldn’t find anything sinister, nothing from the deep or dark web.’
‘Did he pretend to be a teenage boy to the girls he communicated with on Messenger?’
‘No, he was upfront about his age and identity.’
‘What was the other notable thing on Václav’s phone?’
‘There were hundreds of images of young girls, but there were thousands of the Virgin Mary.’
‘Was there anything racist or political? Anything to suggest he had far-right views?’
‘Absolutely not. According to Robert his politics were minimal, but if you had to give him a political label, it would be green. He was mildly into the environment. There was the odd moan about multinational companies and the harm they were doing to the planet, but that was it. It came across like a haphazard sixth-form rant.’
‘Based on what Robert told you, how would you sum him up in a few words?’
‘Religious donkey. Simpleton. Arrested development.’
‘Can the same be said for Raymond Dare?’ asked Cole.
‘Raymond Dare makes Hitler look like Ghandi. He’s into the English Defence League but he hates the BNP because they’re too soft. I shouldn’t be laughing, but it was the way you kind of compared Raymond Dare’s politics with Václav Adamczak’s hit-and-miss woolly liberalism.’ Poppy took a deep breath as the lightness evaporated from her. ‘He’s in the process of writing a manifesto for the political party he’s setting up with his lieutenants CJ and Buster, the English Truth and Justice Party. I found it on his phone. Once he’s seized power, with the help of the generals, the RAF and the Royal Navy, and the English Truth and Justice Party are firmly lodged in 10 Downing Street, there will be no more elections, nationally or locally. All foreign nationals and those with foreign ancestry will be rounded up by the army and militias and herded into football stadiums. The young women will be separated out to serve as sex slaves in state-sponsored brothels to reward good citizens. The men, boys and women deemed too old or unattractive will be executed on a live television entertainment programme called Killing Time Is Here Embrace It. The ones who are fit and healthy will be organised into slave-labour units. Babies will be bred in laboratories and young people harvested for their bodily organs, to be sold on the global health market, creating a vast economic base for the UK economy. It just goes on and on and o
n. His views on Hitler are astonishing. According to Raymond and his whacked-out friends, Hitler just didn’t go far enough.’
As she processed Poppy’s account, Clay felt despair for the human condition that could envisage such misery.
‘Black Sun – anything about that?’
‘Yes. According to Raymond, Black Sun is the foundation stone for the fascist revolution. He was the captain of his Black Sun organisation and his plan was this: race war. Kidnap, murder, rape, mutilation. Crimes committed by Raymond’s group would be set up to look like, say, the work of Pakistanis targeting Indians. Revenge attacks would follow. Each time the stakes get higher. Blacks against Asians, Jews against Arabs, Chinese against Southeast Asian nations. Etcetera. Get the ethnics to cleanse each other.’
‘Have you got a paper copy of the English Truth and Justice Party manifesto, Poppy?’ asked Clay.
Poppy reached into her bag and handed Clay a two-centimetre thick wad of white A4 paper. She opened it at a random page and marvelled at the writing.
Nigus, tha fynil selushun
‘Niggers, the final solution,’ Clay read out loud before skimming and scanning other pages of phonically plausible insanity. ‘The spelling’s Chaucerian, real old English.’ She stopped and burst out laughing.
‘Does he really believe that Ryanair and easyJet will fly every black British national to the Democratic Republic of Congo in exchange for a 10 per cent cut of all the deportees’ assets?’
The fabric of Raymond Dare’s logic played out swiftly in her mind and the nonsense that had just made her laugh was replaced by sombre questions she kept to herself.
Can I really, she asked herself, believe a single word that comes out of his mouth?
The door of the incident room opened and Hendricks walked in with a smile on his face that promised good news.
‘The DNA report on Dominika Zima’s skirt has come back. Raymond Dare was definitely with her on the night she was murdered. It’s his semen.’
98
2.59 pm
On her way to Interview Suite 1, Clay made a call to Sergeant Harris on the front desk.