by AB Morgan
‘Max, are you on your way home? You’re where? What for? Blimey.’
My husband was more perturbed by our break-in than I had appreciated. When I phoned him, he had been at a local DIY superstore buying bolts and motion sensor lights and I had disturbed him in the aisle containing CCTV security systems.
It was a welcome relief to see him when he marched through the house with his purchases, heading for the garage, albeit that I had misunderstood his intent. I had stupidly assumed the additional security would be for the house. Wrong. It was for his precious sodding motorbikes.
After a hastily cobbled-together dinner at the kitchen table, we held a family security meeting in the dining room. My head was whirring with the probabilities and possibilities of who was after what and why, but I had yet to decide how best to break the news to Max about me being under surveillance.
‘What?’ I asked Max, who was giving me a very grave stare. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘I think you’d better start trying to explain just what it is that we’ve got ourselves into here. Is this down to some rampaging psychopath? No. That much is obvious. The break-in was designed to look like a burglary, but those bloody journals were the actual prize. Who knew you had them? And more importantly, Mon, what was in them that was so vital?’
Max fixed me with his most serious expression. He tapped his fingers impatiently on the table-top.
‘I know you want me to have an answer but I can only hazard a guess in both cases. I haven’t a clue what could be so important about the journals; I only read parts of them. What I do know is that I was being watched when I was at the auction.’
‘Rubbish, you’re being paranoid now. Frank Hughes is a drug dealer and a psychopath, granted, but he’s not clever enough to be involved in stealing journals and making it look like a burglary. Unless of course the journals contain recipes for drugs that can be sold on the street for a profit.’ He knew Frank by reputation. ‘How can you possibly know that you’re being watched? Mon, it’s not a spy story. Get a grip.’ Max was being unnecessarily sarcastic again.
‘I mean it. Look at this …’ That was one way to break the bad news, I suppose. I handed Max the envelope with the evidence and waited for the explosion. This arrived shortly after his eyebrows shot skyward.
‘What the bloody hell is this? Who the hell is following you? Hang on. All the people on the list here bought items at the auction that were being sold by Aitken and Who-jah-ma-flip. Why would a firm of solicitors go to such lengths to identify each of you?’
‘Should we just phone them and ask?’
‘Sleep deprivation is making you stupid, woman. Why would that be a good idea? No, I think we need to contact your detective friend, early-morning-Charlie. But I’m too knackered to think straight, so instead I suggest that we have a good sleep, and call him tomorrow when we’ve calmed down a bit.’
Clean sheets and a hot shower made the whole idea of bed a welcome delight. People often describe dropping off to sleep before their heads touch the pillow and I wish that could happen to me, but it never does. As soon as I had settled down and wriggled about a bit, my memory library alerted me to a missing piece of recall. Not the one I was looking for, but a picture flashed into my mind of the kitchen in Jan Collins’s house the day we discovered her body. I distinctly envisaged four chairs around the kitchen table but only two had remained tucked under as good manners dictated. Two were left as if their recent occupiers had risen and moved away, completely forgetting what their mothers had taught them. Why on earth was that significant? Too dopey to care, I settled down again, only to have another intrusive image flash across my visual memory screen.
It was the kitchen table again, with the contents of her medicine cabinet scattered upon it. There at the front of my image was a box of plasters, behind that some throat lozenges, a bottle of cough mixture, and a bottle containing some liquid Kemadrin. There was the answer to my frustrations. If I were to be brave enough to take my own life, I wouldn’t have bothered with these items when I knew for certain that I had paracetamol and dothiepin to choose from. I wouldn’t have considered getting plasters or cough mixture out of the cupboard, let alone put them in front of me as I sat there, swallowing tablets to kill myself.
Max was commencing his snoring repertoire. This began with heavy breathing and blowhole noises, before progressing to piggy snorts and whoopee cushion exhalations. I didn’t want to disturb him, and I couldn’t think what else to do other than to get out of bed and scribble these two scenes down on a small notepad. I kept one to hand on my dressing table for early morning ideas or to remember items of shopping. Max was very disgruntled. ‘Mon, Jesus, please just shut up and go to sleep.’ I thought I’d been as silent as a ninja. Clearly not.
It is amazing what a few hours of restful, restorative sleep can achieve. I had developed a plan while I was in that semi-dreamlike state between sleep and wakefulness. I realised that the coroner asked for report chronologies because of their practical use. What was the chain of events leading to Jan Collins’s death, Nick Shafer’s demise, and now Father Joseph’s unexplained departure from the mortal world? Was there more than a grain of truth in what Ben Tierney had always asserted when psychotic or drunk? If there was a conspiracy to silence those who disclosed or revealed evidence of organised child abuse, then this implicated the Catholic Church, and the police.
I sent an urgent text to Emma. ‘Watson, we can’t wait until the weekend, we have to meet today. Call me!’
Deciding to show my face at the church hall to ensure that the amnesty was running to plan, I drove there first, totally bypassing the office. Deefer was in the car with me as I was too afraid to leave him home alone, and I was certain that his presence would be unacceptable at work. All was well with the medication amnesty in the safe hands of the volunteers, and I was reassured that I could leave them to manage without my direct input. Fortunately, the initial rush of enthusiasm had dwindled to a trickle of people popping in to dispose of the out of date contents of their medicine cupboards. I left the willing helpers to cope.
When my phone rang as I returned to my car, I assumed that it was Emma.
‘Watson. My place or yours?’
‘Monica? It’s Father Raymond here, at the Rectory,’ came the man’s voice from my phone. I was embarrassed and tried to cover up my foolish error. Fancy not looking to see who was calling me before answering.
‘Oh, sorry, I thought you were someone else.’ It was true.
‘Monica, I know we agreed to meet up for a chat, but I have to delay this for a day or so. Sadly, Father Joseph has passed away unexpectedly and I must attend to the necessary arrangements with the bishop.’
Remembering to sound stunned, I gave a small gasp. ‘Oh, no. That’s terrible news. Is there anything I can do?’ It’s the sort of thing we all say. I had no idea what would be useful for a mental health nurse to do in such circumstances, but it was a genuine offer of help.
‘Could you make yourself available for the people who use the Pathways Project? A lot of them attend St Francis’ Church and they’ll be shocked to hear the news.’
‘Of course, I’d be glad to. Was Father Joseph unwell?’ I ventured.
‘No, not particularly, but it seems he may have had a delicate heart. Father Joseph had food poisoning, and this appears to have caused cardiac failure. He was an old man, and perhaps he couldn’t tolerate being sick.’
‘That’s very likely. Look, don’t worry about our chat. We’ll catch up soon. You have other priorities now,’ I said, grateful for a delay. I needed to be armed with more facts before questioning Father Raymond about Jan, and Nick Shafer, but I couldn’t resist one final question.
‘Before you go, out of interest, what did he eat that made him so unwell?’
‘I’m not certain exactly. The Tierneys called to see him late that afternoon and they had a casserole with them, as a gift for both of us. It smelt delicious, but was definitely a meat dish of some ki
nd. I’m vegetarian, so I didn’t eat any. I didn’t even realise the poor man was ill until I heard a crash as he fell.’
‘Oh dear … I expect the ambulance turned up fairly smartish, though?’
‘I called them straight away but he was dead by the time they arrived. He must have been struggling to breathe because of his heart. It was a desperate situation, to be honest with you. I’m probably only telling you because you’re a nurse. It’s the Tierneys I feel so sorry for. How on earth are they going to react if they find out Father Joseph died after eating their gift of food?’
‘Oh, you’re right. Perhaps we should keep this information to ourselves. I won’t breathe a word to anyone. Sean and Manuela will be distraught if they find out. I’m not sure they can take much more.’ I had to pretend I didn’t know Sean and Manuela were implicated and had already been answering questions from the police. What a tangled web.
‘Listen, please don’t leave it too long before calling me, Father. It sounds as if you could do with talking these things through, otherwise you’ll end up replaying events, endlessly wondering if there was more you could have done.’
‘I already am.’
Noting the sincerity in Father Raymond’s words, I began to doubt my suspicions. Was he a good man? Or was he clever at pretending to be kind natured and caring? Was he implicated in a cover-up of Father Joseph’s abuse of children? Had he killed Father Joseph? Had he killed Jan?
I made my excuses and was about to end the conversation when Father Raymond suddenly cut me off. I looked at the screen on the mobile to confirm the call had ended, and as I did so a man ran past the end of the road. He was looking over his shoulder as he sprinted by. In that brief moment, I recognised Benito. ‘He’s in a hurry to get to the pub before it even opens,’ I commented to Deefer. About to follow Ben out of concern, I had my hand on the ignition when my mobile phone rang. I checked it to see who was calling me. It was Emma.
‘Thank God. Can we meet up? My crapometer readings are increasing,’ I said.
‘Mine too. Look, Mon, I’m at work until three. Can you come over to the farm after you finish? Bring everything with you and ask Max to meet us there. No one else. That is vital. No one else at all.’
‘Can I bring Deefer? I daren’t leave him alone again.’
‘Yes, of course. He’s a dog, not a person, you nellie. Are you keeping him with you today? In the car?’
‘Yes. I know. I know. It’s pathetic. I’ll see you later.’ Sitting in my car in stunned silence, I stared through the windscreen at nothing in particular, which allowed imaginary memory librarian to come up trumps. My car passenger side window was open slightly to ensure Deefer had fresh air, and this reminded me that my car window had been open the day of our break-in. I’d called to Ben Tierney through the open window on the passenger’s side. He had huffed his foul alcohol fumes at me through the gap. This, in effect, meant that anyone passing by earlier that day outside St David’s Church Hall could have heard my arrangements with Emma to visit the farm at seven o’clock that evening. Who passed by?
17
Shaking myself alert, I started the engine and drove out of the car park to look for Ben, but he was nowhere to be seen on the streets. I stopped briefly to phone Max on my personal mobile, and arranged to meet him at Folly Farm after work. He seemed to listen for once.
Having done that, I required an escape from the overstimulation of town noise, to the peace of the open countryside, to ease the pressure building up inside my mind. I knew I should have taken some time off work instead of pretending to be functioning, but I wasn’t really sick. Exhausted, bewildered, disturbed, but not exactly ill; so I carried on with the pretence of coping.
My rounds were taking me to the tiny village of Swandale to see a patient who was doing remarkably well. Eleanor Jones had been a star pupil and had returned to work some weeks previously after a brief psychotic episode, possibly caused by a mountain of personal stress. We all have our breaking points.
Three weeks before, I had been asked for help when her medication had started causing her to feel sedated during the day, whereas before this she had found it helpful.
‘I can’t believe you worked it out so quickly,’ she said as we sat down to talk. It hadn’t taken me long to deduce that her GP had changed the prescription to the cheaper, twice-a-day option. ‘Well, it took me longer to make a phone call, write a letter of explanation and do some diplomatic manoeuvring, than it did to identify the real problem,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I’ve finally secured a promise from your GP to ensure you’re prescribed the modified release version. So, the question is, have we solved the problem?’
‘Yes. I can’t thank you enough. I’m back to sleeping at night and functioning at work during the day. What a relief. I thought I was going to lose my job, but now I’m nearly back to full-time hours.’
The satisfaction of that positive result lifted my mood.
Deefer, who had been patiently sitting in the car, deserved a moment of freedom and I knew exactly how to reward his tolerance. The country park in Swandale was a favourite of his, and he bounded from the back seat immediately, recognising the autumn smells of the lake and woods. Quickly I stuffed a dog poo bag into my pocket, and deliberately switched off both my mobile phones before heading in an anticlockwise direction around the lake, giving myself a break for half an hour.
‘Morning.’
‘Morning …’ I replied to a woman I recognised. Her name escaped me for a while, which only led to me convincing myself that I was heading for senility more rapidly than expected. I’d always had a good memory, but lately it was becoming unreliable, and by default, so was I.
On a bench, ahead of me, were two elderly people caught in a passionate embrace. Blimey, there’s hope for Max and me yet, I thought, but as I neared the bench my heart sank. This was not passion being demonstrated; it was heartbreak. The couple were sobbing into each other’s shoulders. Pure anguish and desolation. The man looked up. It was Sean Tierney.
‘Oh no, Sean, Manuela, what on earth has happened?’ The question caught in my throat. The emotion of the scene had undermined my usual professional approach to such situations. I felt tears stinging my eyes and Deefer had stopped to look up at me, worried by my tone of voice.
Sean managed to speak. ‘We came looking for Ben. We bring the grandchildren sometimes. He’s not allowed to have them on his own, you see, so we bring them to the playground and wildlife pond. We thought he might have come here.’ Ben hadn’t been seen by his parents since before his arrest.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve only just seen him. He was running towards town along Bushmead. I was parked in St David’s Road.’
Having eased much of their worry, I sat with them both for a time, while between snivels and sniffs, crying and shuddering, they recounted their visit to the police station the previous day.
‘The officer thought that Ben might have been telling the truth for all these years.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, hoping that I was wrong in my thinking.
‘The officer asked me if Ben could have been abused when he was a child. He thought that was why our Benito said those dreadful things about Father Joseph. The police think he wanted to kill Father Joseph, and they kept asking if he could have had a chance to poison the chilli we made to take to the Rectory.’
‘Good God, did they really tell you that?’
‘Not exactly, no. They asked us what time we made the chilli, who cooked it, what was in it, where Ben was at the time we made the chilli … you see, don’t cha?’
That sounded to me more like an interrogation than an opportunity to help police with enquiries. Manuela sobbed and squawked, ‘It could be us. We could have poisoned the Father. We killed a holy man of God. They think I killed him …’
Sean stepped in, clasping his wife’s head to his chest. ‘The shame is almost unbearable, you see. Our son tells such lies about the Church that we are being punished for his blasphemous accusations. The off
icer said that either we believe our son when he says he was sexually assaulted and that we have killed Father Joseph in revenge, or that we are covering for our son. Ben would never kill anyone, and neither would we.’
‘Have you been charged with anything?’ I asked with disbelief heavily weighing down my ability to think rationally. How could the police be so thoughtless? Didn’t they realise that Ben’s parents had no acceptance of his abuse accusations?
‘No. Nothing. Ben was released yesterday on bail. He’s supposed to be at home, but we can’t find him. We don’t know what to say to him. Could he have killed Father Joseph, like the officer said?’
‘I doubt it. Wasn’t Ben in custody when you took the chilli to the two Fathers?’
‘We don’t know. We saw Father Raymond and Father Joseph at about six o’clock. Ben had been out drinking all day.’
‘Well, there you are then. Ben couldn’t be accused of anything. He wasn’t at home to poison the chilli. If he was, he would have been too drunk to manage a poisoning.’ I hoped my sound reasoning would help matters, but I hadn’t accounted for Manuela’s assumption that she must be the guilty party.
She wailed.
‘Now calm down a bit, Manuela. You’ve made chilli con carne hundreds of times, so it can’t be you either. Did you boil the kidney beans?’ I asked.
‘No, never.’
Oh, shit.
‘I use the tinned ones. It’s safer. I only had a small tin in stock, so I was embarrassed because it wasn’t as good as my normal standard. Sean told me to stop fussing about how many beans were in the sauce.’
Phew.
‘Well then, it can’t be you either. So perhaps poor old Father Joseph had a heart attack or something similar. Besides, Father Raymond is fit and well. I spoke to him earlier today.’ This was a fine piece of quick thinking on my part. Neither Sean nor Manuela were to know that Father Raymond didn’t eat meat, and had not even tasted the chilli.