by D C Macey
John gave a wry smile and shrug. ‘No sense to it, Francis,’ he said, letting his arms wave a little and sighing. ‘At least he’s not suffering now.’
Francis nodded. ‘God rest his soul.’ He leant forward a little. ‘In Dunbar of all places! You couldn’t find a nicer little town!’ He stopped to let a pensioner pass him, letting her reach the food.
DCI Wallace drifted slowly round the room, catching snatches of conversation, moving on, eyes everywhere but never consciously connecting with anyone. Having just about completed his circuit, he was nearing the exit when John Dearly spotted him across the hall and nodded a greeting, which DCI Wallace returned discreetly, and then the detective was gone. His presence had probably not registered with anyone else in the hall. John was relieved the man had not come to speak to him. The police had visited the manse twice since Archie’s death. They were searching back through the old man’s life for possible motives or links, and while John wanted to help the police, he had found the interviews difficult and pointless. This had clearly been a random attack.
Another movement at the door caught both Francis and John’s attention at the same moment. ‘It’s Xavier!’ said Francis. They both hurried towards the door to greet the old Sardinian priest. ‘He’s made it after all. Archie would be so pleased.’ Francis waved as they crossed the room.
Xavier smiled when he saw them and the old friends greeted one another with real affection. Closer to Archie’s age than theirs, Xavier was well past any normal retirement age. But he still had a thirst for life that would put many younger men to shame, and clearly, he did not intend to go quietly any time soon. Behind the old priest stood his assistant, Angelo, a much younger priest. As John and Francis untangled from Xavier’s Latin greetings, the younger man shook their hands and expressed condolences in broken English.
They had met the young priest several times before, both in Edinburgh and when visiting Xavier in Sardinia. Angelo felt an unspoken ranking that kept him quiet. John and Francis were not really aware of the distinction, just thought he was a quiet man.
While Angelo went to organise more refreshments, they found some seats at the side of the hall and sat Xavier between them. All three men were pleased to sit and talk, to reminisce and console one another. Both local men pressed Xavier to stay in their homes but he declined. ‘We have accommodation arranged already through the local curia. Anyway, I don’t want to be intruding just now,’ said Xavier.
John objected. ‘How could your being here intrude? Archie and you go way back. We all go way back…’ his protest trailed off as Xavier’s hand waved him down.
‘John, John, it’s been a long day. The flight from Sardinia was long, and I’m old and tired. We were late arriving in Edinburgh. The taxi driver couldn’t get us out to the church in time. We missed the service. Let me get a peaceful night, hmm? Tomorrow we will meet, eat, and put the world to rights. Share our news.’ Xavier had stretched out his right hand and rested it on John’s forearm. ‘Let’s do that, what do you say?’ He turned his head and looked Francis in the eye while his left hand reached out and settled on the Scottish priest’s forearm. ‘Yes? Both of you? Old friends.’ They placed their hands on top of his and nodded.
‘Good, now, just one thing I must know at once. Tell me what caused this? Are we safe?’ said Xavier.
‘John and I think it might have been a random act of madness,’ said Francis.
‘That’s right, though Elaine is not so sure,’ said John.
‘But you know Elaine, she always thinks the worst,’ added Francis.
Xavier looked from one to the other, was silent for a moment, thinking. He leant back a little. Pulling his hands from beneath theirs, he slid them up to grip their upper arms, drawing them a little closer to him. He glanced from one to the other. ‘My friends, Elaine is careful, she is always careful. Let’s find out why she feels so concerned. Tomorrow, yes?’
He looked up and his eyes sparkled as he glanced around the room, speaking with genuine enthusiasm. ‘Is Elaine here? Where is she? Is she hiding from me?’ They all laughed and scanned the room for Elaine, spotting her in earnest conversation with the local minister and a cluster of the Dunbar elders. They would get her over soon enough.
• • •
Cassiter carefully reviewed the photographs. There was nothing remarkable in the shots, no unexpected faces that demanded further investigation. He had felt sure that if there were a chain to be followed the links would have presented at the remembrance service. This was not the outcome he had hoped for. It was always easier when the prey stepped out into the clearing, but that had not happened so he would just need to dig a little deeper.
Having a man on the inside would make things altogether easier now. It would be relatively straightforward to organise some surveillance and find out what, if anything, was going on at Dearly’s church. He reached for his phone and started setting arrangements in place.
CHAPTER 6 - FRIDAY 24th MAY
It was just over a week since Archie’s memorial service and John Dearly continued to struggle over why such cruelty had been visited on the old man. DCI Wallace had visited for a third time but John did not know what to tell him. It was almost beginning to feel as though the detective was searching for inspiration.
John had engaged in some heated discussion with Xavier about what the murder might mean, if anything, and what should be done. Elaine, the senior elder and trusted confidante, had been involved, like Xavier, she too saw shadows where there were none. Eventually, John had won the arguments; the killing must be the act of a madman - and it was decided that for the time being nothing needed to be done. They agreed to meet again in the autumn, at Xavier’s, in Sardinia, to hold a proper review and then decide how to proceed. It would be something to look forward to. If nothing else, a chance to get out of Edinburgh for a few days. Placated, Xavier and Angelo had flown home.
John hoped that later in the year he might at last get his wish and persuade Xavier that it was finally time to bring things to a conclusion. They were investing so much of their lives and lots of money to protect something that had no intrinsic value or relevance today. Other than a few academics and the odd history buff, it was probably of no interest to anyone in the twenty-first century, and certainly did not present any sort of threat. This autumn he would try again to move things into the open, permanently. Perhaps even start a little museum.
In the meantime, John had to focus on what often proved to be the busiest week of his year. Towards the end of May the great and the good from the Church would join the rank and file, the ministers, the elders and the foreign representatives, all coming together in a mass migration to Edinburgh; all gathering for the annual General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Being based in an Edinburgh parish meant John was always in high demand, expected to entertain old friends and acquaintances, participate in the Assembly and be available to support every odd request from out of town visitors.
Friday was his regular day off and this Friday was the lull before the Assembly storm. He left the manse first thing, following his usual Friday morning routine, strolling along in a bubble of calm while so many other people struggled to get to work by pushing their cars and stress levels to the limit. It was a little self-indulgent, drawing pleasure in observing the efforts of others, but he just found everybody else’s rushing only served to accentuate his own quiet time, and he savoured every moment.
John passed the church and the primary school to reach the local general store where he collected his newspaper and then strolled back to the manse, looking forward to a leisurely coffee and read. As he approached the manse, he felt just the slightest of irritations when he noticed somebody standing inside the driveway. Were they waiting for him on his day off? He realised it was Jim Barnett, who seemed to be making a phone call. Putting on a smile, John walked into his driveway. ‘Jim, I wasn’t expecting to see you today. What can I do for you?’
‘Oh, John, I just thought I would come and speak to
you. To see whether I could volunteer for anything,’ said Barnett, clutching at straws. Trustingly, John did not recognise it as just a flimsy excuse.
‘Well that’s great, Jim, we’d certainly welcome your contribution. Could you give me a call at the start of the week, Monday morning? We can arrange a meeting to talk through some of the opportunities,’ said John as he kept walking towards his front door.
Inside the manse’s kitchen, Fiona Sharp was busy replacing the smoke detector cover. Having gained entry directly after the minister left, she had done a little work on the computer in his study and now its camera and microphone were subject to remote access and control. Then she went to the kitchen and stripped out the smoke detector’s insides, repacking it with a camera and microphone. She had just started to replace the cover when her phone had rung with a warning about the minister’s imminent return.
‘Get out of there now. He’s coming up the road,’ Barnett had almost shouted into the phone.
She was furious with him. What sort of lookout was he to manage only a thirty second warning? Anyway, she could not leave the smoke detector with its cover off or that would blow the job in one. She just had to finish and hope she could get out of the kitchen before the minister got in. Barnett had better keep him talking while she wrapped things up.
John opened the front door of the manse. Jim Barnett hovered behind him, hesitated and then almost seemed to shout. ‘I can visit you most times, John, would morning or afternoon suit you better?’ Barnett gripped the knife in his pocket.
John turned towards him. ‘Monday afternoon will be fine, but give me a call in the morning to fix the time…’ he stopped in mid-sentence and turned his head, looking back into the hallway. ‘Did you hear something, Jim?’
‘No, I don’t think so, what did you hear?’ Barnett deadpanned his response while his grip on the knife handle tightened, ready for action.
‘I think I heard somebody in the kitchen. Come on, let’s check it out,’ John headed down the hall towards the kitchen with Barnett close behind. Rushing into the kitchen John found the back window wide open. ‘There! In the garden, there’s someone running for the back wall. They must have done a runner as we came through the front door.’
Barnett relaxed the grip on his knife, letting it rest unseen in his pocket. ‘I’ll go and try to cut them off in the garden, you call the police,’ he said. Then he ran back down the hall, out of the front door, round the side of the house and into the gardens, starting a thorough search while shouting up to the open kitchen window. ‘No sign of anyone here, they must have got away.’
From the window, John waved acknowledgement. ‘The police are on their way, I don’t think the burglar had a chance to take anything. Come on in Jim. Whoever it was, they will be well away by now. We’ll get a cup of tea and wait for the police.’
• • •
Cassiter was weighing up his options. He was not entirely happy with the day’s activity. Yes, his team had installed a listening device in the little office behind the church vestry. That had gone according to plan early on Friday morning, but events had proven to be less satisfactory when they had gone on to the manse.
They had managed to place two information feeds, one in the kitchen and the other in the computer in the study. Those would all be very useful in evaluating the target, but he had wanted a bug in the living room too and was not best pleased that his team had failed to install it. Worse, they had nearly got themselves caught. He could not risk another incursion into the manse for now, so he would have to make do with what was in place.
CHAPTER 7 - WEDNESDAY 29th MAY
Parliament Hall was filled with the universal burble of sounds heard at receptions everywhere; individual words never quite identified as hundreds of voices merged into a single living hum, underscored by the sound of clinking glasses and crockery, and all punctuated by the more distant bangs of catering staff registering restrained disquiet against trays, trolleys and servery doors. This evening’s function was the Moderator’s Reception, one of the key social events of General Assembly week. It was flying along nicely.
Helen did not really enjoy formal social occasions, but now she was in the hall, she was warming to it. Initially she had been reluctant to participate, agreeing only after John pressed her. He’d persuaded her it was a great opportunity to broaden her circle, to mix with church members from around the world. She was certain to find some who were interested in international affairs, and her own experiences in West Africa might just open some unexpected doors for her.
On arrival, she had been a little underwhelmed by the understated doorway. For all the world like a side door, the entrance was almost hidden within a colonnade that traced the length of the Court of Session building. Once through the door she quickly revised her impression. This was not a product of the new build vogue for glass and plastic veneers. Here, just off the Royal Mile and set behind the High Kirk of St Giles, was Scotland’s original Parliament Hall, pre-dating the 1707 union with England. Stone and oak and solid: history alive and working today. Lawyers still met here through the day, pacing up and down the length of the hall as they consulted under the unswerving gaze of long dead luminaries whose portraits ringed the room. The constant pacing and changes of direction ensured that listening ears could never catch anything but fragments of a conversation.
This evening there was no pacing, the hall was thronged and it took determination and focus to manoeuvre around. Guests filtered through the entrance to be greeted by the Moderator and to exchange a few words with his special guests. Then they moved on into the throng, eager to seek out old friends and colleagues, and finally put faces to new email contacts. One particular cluster of people was gathered to one side, about midway along the hall. They seemed to contribute to one conversation, splinter off to another for a little while and then return, effortlessly resuming the chatter. All were clearly friends and John Dearly was at the heart of it. They greeted one another with an easy familiarity and accepted Helen’s place within the group without question. She ended up enjoying herself, for the most part, and found a fascinating couple who had volunteered to serve abroad as mission partners in the Zambian copper belt; they reciprocated with a genuine interest in her own African experiences.
John had moved off into a neighbouring group when, in the midst of a conversation, Helen became aware of a thin faced man in a smart but conventionally cut suit. He had seemed to drift in unnoticed and was suddenly holding onto their every word and laughing at all the right moments.
Helen assumed he was a friend of the Zambian missionaries. He was not. James Curry smiled and nodded enthusiastically, encouraging the conversation. He had neither knowledge of nor interest in the missionaries. However, he was interested in Helen, or rather was interested in anything to do with John Dearly’s parish, and for the moment that included her.
James Curry was a senior cleric, clerk of the Edinburgh Presbytery, and he was taking the opportunity to be seen, to mix with the elite and to observe the one parish within his domain that was a constant source of irritation to him - St Bernard’s. Its financial independence and failure to observe all the rules irked him.
Since taking on his new job, he’d dug as far as he could into the parish accounts. John Dearly’s St Bernard’s and the parish’s accounts fascinated him. Dearly and his parish seemed to delight in breaking the rules. And he needed to know what lay behind the trust that appeared to fund its generous spending power. Here was a trust that paid for all sorts of things, not least supporting the engagement of international assistants, such as this Helen Johnson. He had tried several different approaches to gathering information, each time he failed. He could not get access to the trust, its quirky and ancient set up in what was now a tax haven proved to be an impenetrable barrier. He could get access to only the most basic of information about it and Dearly always played the silly laddie, claiming it sat beyond the parish’s influence - rubbish.
Based on the ludicrously large income tra
nsferred to the parish accounts each year, James Curry knew it was a very substantial fund and he wanted access to information about it. Dearly stood in his way, blocking his every move.
Time and again his mind returned to explore, drawn like a fox to the coop. He was frustrated, he knew there was something big there, something that seemed quite secret, something of interest and he could get no closer. The old urban church with its characteristically small congregation was making large donations to the Kirk’s central funds every year, as well as to a host of other charities. It was a scale of giving that could not really be explained away.
In the Scottish Church, each parish is an independent entity and makes a contribution to the centre according to its means. Then the poorer parishes receive grants back, becoming net beneficiaries, in effect being supported by the richer parishes. Statistically, St Bernard’s should have been one of those net beneficiaries. It wasn’t.
James Curry’s problem was that as the established Church in Scotland, the Kirk was trusted and empowered to self-govern. While the Kirk itself oversaw the running and accounting of every parish and was trusted to keep its own house in order, he couldn’t just bully a particular parish. Well, he shouldn’t. Unless there was a specific irregularity suspected, he had no legitimate grounds to snoop any further. But he wanted to know exactly what was going on. Twice he had chanced his arm and dropped in on Dearly unannounced, tried his luck, given him a little nudge - on both occasions Dearly had been impassive, quite unperturbed, seeming not to notice the veiled pressure being applied. Frustrated, James Curry had withdrawn, unable to press harder without attracting the interest of the Church itself, which he didn’t want to do, just in case there was something lurking that would reflect badly on the presbytery. He needed to know and had no intention of just letting go.
John Dearly moved back through the crowd. He returned to Helen’s little cluster, nodded greetings to old friends and took James Curry by the hand. ‘James, there you are, all well?’ The handshake appeared a friendly gesture to the uninformed, but lacked warmth as John pumped Curry’s dead fish hand up and down. ‘Always on patrol, eh?’ He looked at Helen and the Zambian missionaries and winked. His joke fell on deaf ears.