It was cold. Even colder than the graveyard he'd just left.
He'd thought, on the way over, that an unwelcome recollection of Alison's funeral would rise up the moment he stepped into the church. But there was nothing. He saw only empty pews, a preacher-less pulpit and a wooden hymn board - a six inch crucifix in its arched top - displaying the numbers of hymns in white writing on black. He recalled being a child (during the short service before Sunday school), fantasising about re-arranging the numbers in some kind of pre-service prank. Perhaps he could spell out BOOBLESS with upside down numbers like everyone did with their calculators at school. The puerile frivolity of the memory made him smile.
He noted that the second hymn to be sung this Sunday (or was it from the Sunday past?) was number 666. He was surprised the number hadn't been skipped on the hymnbook’s publication. As he regarded it, a faint shuffling noise distracted him. It was hard to say where it had come from and he looked all around.
"Reverend Jacobs? is that you? It's DI Sheppard. May I have a word?"
There was no reply. Perhaps the gremlins of his imagination had conjured the sound. He decided to walk down the aisle, to check the annex room to the right of the pulpit, beyond the majestic V of organ pipes.
His walk was halted. The light above the confessional in the church's leftmost corner, had turned from white to green. He spoke more firmly, "Reverend Jacobs, are you there, is that you? I need to speak with you." Nothing.
Feeling like the butt of a joke, he marched up to the confessional and flashed open the same curtain which Charlotte had reverently slipped behind. He stepped inside. With his head resting against the partition, above the grate, he said, "Reverend, would you come out please, I need to speak with you on police business."
Charlotte gripped her cell's bars so tightly, her knuckles turned a yellowy white. "For fuck's sake, can anybody hear me?” She jammed her face against the bars, trying to see to the end of the corridor, but was only able to see the blank, pale lime green wall opposite. "I need to speak with Detective Inspector Daniel Sheppard. It's an emergency!” She'd heard the church bell sound when she'd spoken to him on the phone, and now the memory of that sound came back, more loudly than the clanking of the bars, as she rattled them against their housing. A thickness came to her throat and tears marred her shouting, making them more pitiful than demanding. "Listen to me, please, DI Sheppard is in danger. I remember now, I remember everything. You need to contact him, or get DC Aitken to speak with me. Please, it's important."
She then heard lackadaisical steps, growing louder, accompanied by a tuneless whistle. The desk sergeant appeared behind the cell’s bars. His girth, which had been hidden behind the five foot high booking desk when she’d last seen him, was now prominent. His faded, navy shirt gaped around his belly like the struggling cover of an overly inflated balloon. Wisps of mainly white hair poked through. His thick black moustache was fairing better - clearly dyed. He wiped it with his forearm and Charlotte guessed she'd disturbed his eating of something messy.
He said, "Look miss, you've had your phone call. I'm sure your legal representative will be along shortly. Just settle yourself down."
"You've got to help me. I need you to get an urgent message to DI Sheppard to stay away from St Hughs and Reverend Jacobs until he can talk to me."
The man's shoulders slumped forward in amused nonchalance, and he smiled. “Just when you think you’ve heard it all … Now, you tell me … how am I suppose to take seriously the word of a woman who - less than forty eight hours ago - was chasing after an innocent man with an axe in her hand - and who’s now warning us against a member of the clergy?"
She hung her head and said, "I know how it sounds. But I was drugged, I didn't know what I was doing, but I do now."
"Listen, you just sit tight and I'll check where that lawyer's got to. I'll get you a cup of water too, how about that?"
"No … you're not listening!" She'd not been able to stop her voice rising into a wail. The desk Sergeant walked away, shaking his head.
Charlotte looked down at the bolts through her foot, and Aitken's words drifted back to her, 'you have every right to call for medical assistance should you need it.' She closed her eyes, lifted her leg back, turning her ankle so that the exposed pins faced forward, towards the bars, then swung her foot forward. She didn't have to fake the scream, that came naturally enough as the world went dark and she hit the concrete floor.
"I'm afraid this is time allocated for me to take the confessions of my flock." Daniel squinted at the shadow of the Reverend's profile.
"Well I'm afraid they'll have to confess another day."
“I’m sure you feel like you're doing your duty here, but so am I. And my duty is anointed by God. Is yours?"
The measured voice of the Reverend was starting to irk him. "Tell you what, Reverend. The church is empty, there's no one here looking to confess. I'm going to sit in this chair, with the curtain open a crack, and if anyone else enters the church, I'll relent and pick up our conversation later. How about that?"
There was a long pause, then with less patience, "This is not what this time, or space is for."
“It seems to me like this is exactly what this space is for: honesty. I'm not talking to you under caution, so just consider this as a friendly, frank exchange, with God as our only witness.”
"What do you want to know?"
"You knew Leon Jackson, Anthony Nixon. And you know Charlotte Torrence. Is that correct?”
"You know I know Charlotte. Not as well as yourself, I'm sure."
"You knew Jackson and Nixon too?"
"Yes."
"Well?”
"Quite well."
"Feel free to elaborate at any time."
"Thank you, I will."
"Did either of them come to you, perhaps in this very box, and share with you - shall we say - their discrepancies?"
"Oh Daniel. Everyone has. Mrs Torrence, your Alison." At the mention of Alison's name, Daniel found himself shuffling uncomfortably in his seat. "But I can't talk about that, you know that, don't you?”
"I believe there's a precedent, if what is confessed to is significant enough and the confessor poses a threat to others. Did Jackson or Nixon confess to you about what they were going to do? About their plan to attempt murder?”
There was an enduring silence and Daniel leant forward in his chair, turning to look through the grate. That shadowy profile was still there. He leant back, "Did they?"
"No."
"Did Nixon confess to you that he liked to molest and torture young men?"
The Reverend's voice rose half an octave, and he answered, "No."
“I see … you don’t sound too shocked considering you’ve just found out.” More silence.
Charlotte came to with her left forearm covering her eyes. She was horizontal, lying on something marginally more comfortable than her cell's mattress. She became aware of tightness around her upper arm, and pulled her left from over her eyes to see the room.
A nurse with caramel complexion and tied back dreadlocks, was taking her blood pressure. The medical room was small, no more than ten feet across. Under a tiny sink in the corner was a metallic bin for sterilised equipment, the type you have to open by placing your foot on a wide bar at its base. In the far corner, next to the only exit, was a white cupboard with locking doors.
Charlotte looked down at her foot. Where the pins met her skin a small gap had opened up and blood had pooled there. Then she remembered why she was there.
"How long was I out?"
"Not long. Twenty minutes or so. It was pretty stupid what you did you know."
"I know. What happens now?"
"I give you some painkillers. You rest for an hour and then I assess whether you’re fit to return to your cell."
Charlotte glanced to her right, noticing that the nurse had left her mobile phone behind the sink. She considered asking to borrow it, to share with her why she'd been so desperate to escape, to plea
d for her help. But logic stopped her. This medical practitioner would have been fed untold lies over the years. She wouldn’t buy any of it. Even if she did, helping in that way was likely to get her reprimanded, perhaps fired. Was she really going to take that risk for a complete stranger?
How the hell are you going to warn Daniel, Charlotte? Think.
The lawyer. That's it.
Don't be stupid. Even if Daniel called one immediately, it's not like he'll be round the corner. It'll be an hour at least.
A knock at the door broke her thoughts.
"Wait here,” said the nurse practitioner and went to the door, opening it a few inches. There was hushed, unintelligible murmuring between the nurse and a man. The nurse practitioner turned and said, "I'll be right back." She slipped out and Charlotte heard the door lock.
The lock's clunk acted as a starting pistol, except Charlotte wouldn’t be fast off the blocks. She grabbed the jeans of her bad leg and lowered it onto the floor, stifling a grunt against the pain. With both legs together, she considered trying to walk, but decided she was more likely to land on Mars than reach the phone on foot. She held her breath and fell to the floor on her good side. Her right hand broke her fall, but her hip still connected with the hard, linoleum floor. The desire to cry out was overwhelming, but she contained it. She moved like a mermaid stuck on dry land, dragging her legs behind her until she reached the sink. She stretched an arm up, barely able to get enough height. Her hand searched blindly, until she felt the edge of the phone and grabbed it. It was an iPhone, which worked in her favour, as she was familiar with it. This was little compensation, though; the phone was locked.
The lock screen displayed a deserted beach, perhaps somewhere in the Caribbean. She tilted it in the light, remembering she'd worked out Kerry's password once when there were rumours of cyber bullying at school. Then, she'd looked for fingerprint smudges, found them, noting the numbers which corresponded with the day and month of Kerry's birthday. And bingo, she'd got in.
Charlotte didn't fancy her chances with this woman's phone, though. She knew nothing about her and surely only had a few minutes, probably less, to break it. The light in the room was helpfully clinical, and - tilting the phone one way then the next - she saw two numbers, the six and the nine, which were clearly smudged. She was thankful its owner wasn't an obsessive screen cleaner. She was even more thankful that the nurse had decided on a password with just two digits. She wasn't that great at maths, but instinctively knew this greatly limited the number of possible combinations. Nine nine, six six - nothing. Six six, nine nine - nothing. The screen shimmered and she tried to remember how many attempts she’d have before the phone retreated in suspicion and refused to play ball. Six, nine, six, nine. I'm in. Thank God.
Her hands were working faster than her brain, and she pressed on the wrong app twice, breathing deeply and telling herself to calm down. She heard steps approaching as she mistyped Daniel’s number from memory for a second time. “Come on,” she murmured, finally typing the brief message: Rev Jacobs drugged me. Be careful. Charlotte xx. She pressed send. As she heard the accompanying swoosh, she lay back in relief, her head clunking against the equipment bin. The door opened and she heard the nurse’s voice, “What the hell are you doing.”
She didn’t respond, but smiled as she lay in pain.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Only words. That was the problem. Daniel, encased in the shadowy confessional staring at Charlotte's message on his phone, saw letters assembled into words he recognised, but no more. He should have been processing the meaning, the implications, but something about the impatient silence of the confessional box was squeezing his capacity for thought.
“If that’s all the questions you have for me, I think it’s appropriate we end this conversation now,” said the Reverend through the grate.
Daniel closed his eyes and took fragile, quivering breaths. When he spoke, it was as though the words were not his own.
“Reverend, you’re going to have to come with me.”
Daniel stood up, left the confessional and pulled back the curtain which had kept the Reverend out of sight. Jacobs was leaning forward, at the grate, as though someone was still on the other side, his hand propped his chin, his elbow resting on his knee - almost the position of The Thinker. He broke the pose to look up at Daniel with hurt, innocent eyes. “What have I done?”
“I’m arresting you on suspicion of assault.”
“Assault?”
“Of drugging someone without their knowledge.” As Daniel read Jacobs his rights, the Reverend’s eyes misted, losing focus. Daniel imagined the words of the Miranda rights were a jumbled diatribe for the Reverend. But when Daniel asked, ‘do you understand these rights as they’ve been read to you?’ the reverend nodded.
Less than an hour later at West Parade in Louth Daniel, Aitken and Cliff stood in a room with four CCTV monitors. Two were turned off, the others showed grainy high angled live footage of the interview rooms down the corridor. In one, Charlotte Torrence sat, rubbing her knees with both hands. Her pinned leg was outstretched, her crutches leant against the wall. In the other, Reverend Jacobs, in full surplice, rested his hands on the desk, fingers interlocked, not moving. He rose to meet a brown-suited legal representative, a Mr Farrows, who shook his hand and sat with him at the table.
Cliff said, “DI Sheppard, you know I respect you, don’t you … it’s just I have to say it … this is madness.”
“How so?” Daniel said, not able to take his eyes off the reverend’s monitor.
“You honestly think the reverend of a small village church has been drugging people?”
“Well honestly I don’t know yet, but we’ve got a witness who says he did.”
“A witness under arrest for attempted murder.” At that point, Aitken’s mobile buzzed and she stepped out of the room into the corridor to take a call.
“So, she may be unreliable. But let’s check her story against his and see who’s lying,” said Daniel.
Cliff shook his head as Aitken walked back in, “Sir. They’ve only gone and found that dog. Someone spotted it roaming and they called the dog section. The caller identified the owner. They’re going round there now.”
“Let me guess, you’d like to go with them and have a word with the owner yourself,” said Daniel.
“Am I that transparent?”
He smiled. "Okay, go - Cliff and I can handle Reverend Jacobs and Mrs Torrence. But be quick. I want an update on those missing person’s cases.”
“You’ll barely notice I'm gone.” With that she slipped out and disappeared down the corridor.
“Come on Cliff. There’s only one way to find out if you’re right about him. Let’s start with Mrs Torrence and find out what precisely it is she remembers.
Cliff took Charlotte through the interview formalities, what they would do with the CD recording, her right to a copy if she wished. He also reminded her that she was under caution, that what she said would be admissible as evidence. Lastly, he reminded her of her right for legal representation. She replied that it had been requested, looking at Daniel for some flicker of recognition. He blinked confirmation, barely needing to nod.
Cliff asked, “Would you like to wait until your legal representative is here before we proceed with the interview?”
“No, let’s get this over with. I have nothing to hide.”
Daniel let Cliff lead the questioning. He needed the time to assimilate Charlotte’s responses, and time to think. Cliff reached to his side, and clunked on the recorder.
After introducing those present for the benefit of the tape, Cliff stated, “You’ve alleged that Reverend Jacobs drugged you. Which would constitute a charge of assault.” She nodded. “For the purposes of the tape, could you please articulate your response?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m alleging.”
“Tell us, what do you remember?”
Daniel had his pen paused above a pad on the table.
“
I went to St Hughs after visiting the pharmacy that morning.”
“Why did you go to the pharmacy?”
“I wanted to see River.”
Cliff leafed over a couple of pages, and checked a note.
“River Dilettantes, your colleague. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you need to see him?”
“There was a stock discrepancy, some drugs were missing. I wanted to ask him about it.”
“You thought he’d taken them?”
“It was a possibility, yes.”
“Not according to Mr Dilettantes. In fact, he seems to think that you might have taken them.”
“I didn’t take those drugs. If I had, would I really have consumed them, in the quantities and combination that were found in my blood sample?”
“It’s possible. You’d be surprised what recreational drugs people take in what quantities. Or perhaps you wouldn't be surprised?” There was a long pause as Charlotte sat back. Daniel was on the verge of intervening when cliff said, “So you visited the pharmacy. Anyone see you there?”
“Mrs McCarthy. She was complaining that the place was shut.”
“I see. What time was this?”
“Mid morning, I’d say shortly before eleven perhaps.”
“Did you leave the pharmacy then?”
“Yes. Not all of it’s that clear yet, but I do remember snippets of time from that point on. I headed in the direction of St Hughs from the pharmacy. I was considering going to see River at home, but I thought he’d need his rest if he was sick - and part of me was worried about what might happen if I confronted him alone. I’d already decided to visit St Hughs that day, so I made it the next place to visit. I couldn’t recall if the reverend would be there at that time of day, whether he’d be able to take my confession. I figured if he wasn’t I’d just say my prayers and be on my way.”
“How far is the pharmacy from St Hughs?”
Prepared to Die Page 24