Slice

by David Hodges

  But for sheer premeditated savagery, the latest atrocity took some beating and it had been left for all to see in the playground of the local Church of England nursery school, a few hundred yards off the ancient paved square.

  Like Herbert Lyall, Cotter’s throat had been slashed open by a sharp blade and his naked corpse – wearing just his clerical collar and mutilated in exactly the same way as the late judge – had been dumped on a swing, the wrists and thighs lashed to it by rope to keep him in a grotesque sitting position.

  Fortunately the police had got to the scene quickly, putting up screens borrowed from the school itself to hide the corpse from public view until the SOCO tent could be erected, and as it was the autumn half-term, the school was closed for the week, sparing the children a sight which would have traumatized them for years to come. Nevertheless, word had got round and the uniformed bobbies present were having a hard time keeping onlookers at bay as the newly arrived scenes-of-crime team unloaded their kit in the playground nearby, closely watched by a stern-faced Barbara Molloy, the crime scene manager.

  ‘Likes his swings, our man, doesn’t he?’ Gilham murmured, coughing discreetly into his handkerchief.

  Fulton ignored the comment, his attention drawn towards the crowd of onlookers beyond the gates and the familiar figure standing at the front, with his camera aimed in their direction. ‘Bloody McGuigan,’ he said. ‘On the ball as usual. Wonder if he got another sealed envelope through his letterbox last night?’

  ‘Got here even before local plods, guv,’ Ben Morrison’s gruff voice commented at his elbow. ‘Skipper had to turf him out of playground.’

  Fulton glared at the pressman, his fists clenching involuntarily when McGuigan waved back. ‘So who found the body?’ he said, turning to face his DI.

  ‘Caretaker, guv,’ Morrison replied. ‘Name of Tom Sykes. Come in to check place at ten. Does it every morning when school’s closed. Saw matey on swing, but from gate he couldn’t see who it was. Thought it might be a nutter or one of local lads stuck there by his mates as a prank after a boozy night out. Went over to him to tell him to clutter off, then saw it was Cotter.’

  Fulton looked back at the knot of spectators in the street outside the iron gates. ‘So which one is this Tom Sykes?’

  ‘None of ’em, guv. Gone home. In a right state he was too.’

  Fulton glared at him. ‘You let him go home?’

  ‘No choice. He was out of it. Anyway, I had a good chat with him before he went and one of team is already on way round to interview him and take a statement.’

  ‘And do we know who the dead man is?’

  ‘Local clergyman – Reverend Andrew Cotter. Well known hereabouts, according to Sykes. Vicar of both St Peter’s in Studley Gorton down the road and St John the Baptist in square here. Tipped for an MBE in New Year’s Honours list.’

  ‘So why dump his body here, I wonder?’

  ‘Dunno, but seems he was a school founder and is – was – chairman of governors.’

  Fulton started. ‘The hell he was!’ he grated. ‘And Lyall was a founder of the recreation ground where he was dumped, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Now that is a bit of a coincidence,’ Gilham commented.

  Fulton snorted. ‘Coincidence? It’s a damned sight more than that, Phil. Both victims castrated, both with their throats cut, both tied to swings in places they were personally associated with and both left bollock naked except for the insignia of their bloody offices? There’s a message here for us and we need to find out what it is.’

  He turned back to Morrison. ‘So where did our vicar live?’

  ‘Rectory, just behind church over there.’

  Fulton stared back along the lane towards the imposing Norman spire. ‘Anyone been over to it yet?’

  ‘Yeah. Got place covered by uniform until we can get inside for a look-see. Cotter’s wife’s away in Bournemouth visiting sister and house is locked up like Fort Knox. Local Bill’s trying to trace her as we speak.’

  ‘So who identified him?’

  ‘Only Tom Sykes so far, though there don’t seem any doubt about it. Sykes doubles as sexton at St John’s and St Peter’s, so he works with Cotter a lot. Mrs Cotter should be able to do a formal ID when we get hold of her to break the news.’

  Fulton grunted. ‘I wouldn’t like to be the poor sod delivering that death message.’

  Morrison shrugged. ‘Know what they say, guv? If you can’t stand a joke, you shouldn’t have joined.’

  Fulton shot him a scathing glance, but ignored the insensitive remark. ‘And when was he last seen?’

  Morrison reddened under his gaze. ‘Er – special service at St Peter’s last night. Seemed a bit jittery, according to Sykes – anxious to finish. Said he would lock up afterwards, which was a bit unusual for him – especially as job is normally done by verger. Also, rectory is in Axton so he’d have had to drive back here anyway when he’d finished.’

  Fulton’s eyes narrowed. ‘Sounds like St Peter’s might be worth a visit when we’re done here.’

  Morrison nodded towards a group of uniformed officers assisting with the assembly of the SOCO tent. ‘Nothing more can be done here now anyway, guv. Babs Molloy has everything under control and Abbey Lee, Home Office pathologist, already en route.’

  ‘Abbey Lee?’ Fulton made a rueful grimace and turned back towards the school gates. ‘Then it’s the church for us, Phil – and the sooner the better, I think.’

  Gilham gave a mischievous grin as he followed his boss from the scene. ‘Don’t you want to hang on for her, Jack?’ he said. ‘She might like to talk to you about your next newspaper feature?’

  Fulton threw a venomous glance at him over his shoulder. ‘Quit while you’re ahead, Phil,’ he warned. ‘Or it could be fatal!’

  St Peter’s was cold and dank, in stark contrast to the fragile sunlight outside, and an atmosphere of hostility was very evident as soon as the heavy porch doors were opened, almost as if the ancient building was a living thinking creature that knew its loyal custodian was now dead.

  Gilham shivered as he closed the door behind him and followed Fulton along the tiled floor to the nave. ‘Exactly what are we looking for, Jack?’ he queried, instinctively lowering his voice to just above a whisper, his uneasiness palpable in this unfamiliar environment.

  ‘How should I know?’ Fulton growled. ‘Sacristy would be a good place to start though, I fancy.’

  Gilham stopped to peer up into the gloom of the vaulted roof. ‘So where is this sacristy then?’

  Fulton glanced about him for a moment, then waved a hand towards a curtained archway in the far corner. ‘Probably in there, behind the choir vestry.’

  Gilham threw him a quizzical look. ‘You seem to know a lot about churches, Jack.’ He grinned. ‘Choirboy once, were you?’

  Fulton ignored the jibe, instead moving on ahead of his companion, tight-lipped and uncommunicative. The last thing he needed was for his past links with the church to get out. He would never live it down and it would certainly put paid to the hard man image he had so carefully cultivated over the years.

  The choir vestry was empty, the sacristy door at the far end closed with the key still in the lock. Fulton tried the heavy iron ring which served as a handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. ‘Locked,’ he declared unnecessarily and turned the key sharply to one side. The door opened easily then and as he stepped into the small room beyond he raised his eyebrows in surprise. A table lamp burned brightly on a small desk opposite and another door behind the desk stood ajar, admitting a trickle of sunlight. ‘Seems someone was working late and forgot to turn off the lamp,’ he added.

  Gilham crossed to the other door and pushed it wide, revealing a gravel path separating the church from the encircling graveyard. ‘Forgot to shut the door after them as well,’ he replied.

  Fulton frowned. ‘This is a funny business,’ he said. ‘I can accept the light being accidentally left on in here, but why would the door to the choir vestry be loc
ked, with the key on the other side? Surely Cotter would have robed up in the sacristy, then gone through the choir vestry to take the service?’

  Gilham nodded, this time failing to pick up on the big man’s apparent familiarity with devotional procedure. ‘If you say so. And I can’t understand why the external door was left open, either. I don’t know a lot about churches, but isn’t the sacristy the room where all the sacred artefacts are kept? Looks like the cupboard for them over there in the corner. It doesn’t make sense for the outside door to be left open, inviting any passing tea leaf to pop in.’

  Fulton dropped into the chair behind the desk, rubbing his face with one large hand, as if trying to wipe his frustration away with his own perspiration. ‘Nothing about this case makes sense. To start with, why the hell is our killer obsessed with swings? What’s the crazy bastard trying to tell us? And why does he snatch his victims, top them and then take the trouble to dump their mutilated bodies in some public place or other like a sodding Turner art exhibit?’

  He jerked open the topmost of the three drawers, absently flicking through the bundles of papers inside. Finding nothing of interest, he turned his attention to the second drawer.

  Gilham watched him a moment from the doorway, a curious expression on his face. ‘What are we looking for, Jack?’ he said for the second time since their arrival.

  Fulton slammed the second drawer shut and went for the third, tugging hard on the brass stud, then swearing when it stayed closed. ‘Blast the thing,’ he snarled. ‘Locked.’

  Gilham closed his eyes in resignation as his boss produced a small penknife and inserted the blade into the top of the drawer. A sharp ‘crack’ and it slid open. ‘Jack!’

  Fulton looked up briefly, then began leafing through the contents. ‘I reckon Cotter may have been meeting someone here,’ he said.

  ‘Where on earth did you get that idea from?’

  ‘Elementary, my dear Watson.’ The big man grinned. There was nothing he liked better than baiting his number two. ‘Think about it, Phil. Our victim was jittery, wanted to get the service over quickly and then volunteered to stay on to close up. Had to be because he had an appointment with someone.’

  Gilham nodded approvingly. ‘Very good, Holmes, but it still doesn’t answer the mystery of the locked door. Why would he lock the sacristy door from the other side, then come all the way round the church to meet someone in here, using the external door?’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t – maybe he was running.’

  ‘Running?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s just possible that he locked the door to prevent someone going after him.’

  ‘But they only had to go round the outside of the church to one of the other doors to head him off.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s just what they did. That’s why Cotter ended up with a slit throat.’

  Fulton slammed drawer number three shut and sat back in his chair with a sullen face. ‘Bills, Bibles and bugger-all else,’ he grated.

  Gilham shrugged. ‘What did you expect to find in a vicar’s desk?’

  Fulton lurched to his feet and stared out into the graveyard. ‘I’m not even sure myself,’ he replied. ‘Maybe a diary, a note – anything to move this bloody inquiry on.’

  Gilham bent down beside him and retrieved a crumpled piece of paper from the carpet. ‘Will this do?’ he queried after studying it for a second. ‘I thought I saw it fall out of one of the Bibles you picked up.’

  ‘Eh?’ Fulton turned quickly and leaned over his shoulder. The note was in block capitals and was unsigned, but the message got Fulton’s heart going in a very big way.

  REMEMBER DREW HOUSE? I SHALL NEVER FORGET IT! MEET ME TONIGHT AFTER THE SERVICE SO WE CAN REMINISCE – UNLESS YOU’D RATHER TALK TO THE POLICE?

  ‘Nice one!’ Fulton breathed and, snatching an envelope from a rack on the desk, opened it wide for Gilham to slip the note inside.

  ‘A nice present for the lab,’ Gilham observed.

  ‘Yeah, and maybe SOCO will find something even better when they give this place the once over – like a few prints on the desk that shouldn’t be there, for instance.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Apart from mine, of course.’

  Gilham stared at him. ‘We can’t turn over a church sacristy.’

  Fulton snorted. ‘Why not? It’s just another room.’

  ‘But you’d have to close off the whole church while the team did their stuff. There’d be an outcry.’

  ‘I’m used to outcries, remember?’

  ‘And you’d need to speak to the church authorities anyway. We can’t just walk in here.’

  Fulton pushed past him through the open door. ‘We did just now,’ he retorted, pausing for a second on the gravel path. ‘Anyway, you’re going to have to stay here for a while to keep people out until I can get SOCO and some uniforms on site to relieve you. Meantime, I’ll get control to dig out a member of the parochial church council – or whatever they’re called round here – so we can make everything all nice and legal.’

  ‘You mean you’re actually going to dump me here without any wheels?’

  Fulton shrugged. ‘Can’t avoid it, Phil. Scene needs preserving.’ He grinned for the first time with something akin to real humour. ‘Anyway, you could always say a prayer while you’re waiting. In fact, you could even try and say one for me.’

  George Oates froze, the cheese-and-pickle sandwich halfway to his mouth. Not again, he thought.

  ‘Morning, George,’ Fulton said curtly, then looked at his watch. ‘Or is it afternoon now?’

  Oates got the message and set the sandwich down on a pile of criminal-record forms on his desk, watching the pickle dribble down between the slices and trail across the topmost report. ‘It’s lunchtime actually, guv,’ he replied.

  Fulton ignored the hint and dumped himself in his usual chair. ‘Drew House?’ he snapped. ‘Heard of it?’

  ‘No. Should I have done?’

  ‘I thought you LIOs knew everything?’

  Oates sighed and pushed himself away from his desk. ‘What is it you want this time, guv?’

  ‘Quite simple really. I want to know about Drew House.’

  Oates thought a second and shook his head. ‘Then I can’t help you. I said I’ve never heard of it.’

  Fulton lit a cigarette, ignoring his grimace. ‘Nothing on your wonder box then? Or do I have to ask someone else to look it up?’

  Oates turned back to his computer, firing it up and playing with the mouse for a few seconds. ‘Told you,’ he said after some moments. He swung back on his swivel-chair towards his visitor. ‘Nothing there.’

  Fulton lurched to his feet and bent over the machine, catching the search name at the top as Oates closed the page down. ‘Spelling never was your strong point, George, was it?’ he growled. ‘The name is spelled D-r-e-w, not B-r-u-e. And it’s Drew House, not Place! Do it again.’

  Oates took a deep breath and tapped the keys, his patience obviously wearing thin, but this time his search did at least produce a result. The name Drew House snapped into place above a black-and-white etching of a sombre-looking Victorian mansion set in extensive grounds.

  Fulton scanned the full page of text beneath, reading selected bits aloud: ‘Drew House … Little Culham … Built 1846 by Sir Henry Havers-Price on site of ‘plague’ hamlet of Drew, which was razed by Cromwell’s troops in 1653 after allegations of witchcraft … Norman church only building left standing and absorbed by estate … House itself home of Havers-Price family for four generations … Bequeathed to Leister Heritage Trust in 1957 after death of Sir Charles Havers-Price, reclusive last in line …’

  He skated over the rest of the text to the penultimate paragraph, then continued reading aloud, but in a much more precise tone. ‘Opened June 1958 as Drew House Academy, an independent school for boys … Closed May 1974 and six years later utilized as a boarding clinic for rehabilitation of young people suffering from drug addiction … Closed after arson destroyed building November 1993 … House and ch
urch earmarked for restoration by Leister Heritage Trust, but project currently suspended due to ongoing legal dispute with church commissioners over ownership of church …’ He straightened up. ‘Is that all the Internet has?’

  ‘Well, it is a site dedicated to English country houses, as you’d see on the other pages – pure National Trust type stuff.’

  ‘OK, so come out of the Internet and try your local box. Place was torched, so there should be a crime report somewhere in there.’

  Oates tapped away again. The screen produced a blue-tinted page this time and after a few minutes’ searching, the relevant report appeared. Fulton leaned over the LIO’s shoulder, his eagerness palpable. ‘Drew House Clinic, Little Culham,’ he recited, picking out the salient points in the crime report. ‘Arson … Between 0005 hrs and 0015 hrs 6 October 1993 … Time of report 0010 hrs … Reported by senior nurse, Angela Grange.’

  He continued to read on: ‘Fire believed to have been started in library by former patient, Edward Heath, who broke into premises whilst under influence of lysergic acid. Both Heath and principal psychologist, Julian Score, perished in blaze.’

  He made a waving motion with one hand. ‘Take it down to the bottom. I want to see who the officer in the case was. Maybe he can put some flesh on the bones.’

  Oates complied and Fulton whistled. ‘Detective Superintendent Nick Halloran? Now there’s a name to get the nose twitching.’

  The LIO nodded. ‘I remember him. Bent, wasn’t he?’

  The big man emitted a grim laugh. ‘You can say that again. Bastard was well on the take. Got five years’ porridge for trying to bury evidence on some tom he was seeing to. They found him hanged in his cell. Alleged suicide, but I was never too sure about that. He had a lot of enemies in the nick.’ He shook his head. ‘Well, that’s one avenue of enquiry we definitely can’t pursue.’

  He stared at the screen for a little longer, as if willing something to appear that wasn’t there, the fingers of one hand tapping out a rhythm on the desk. ‘OK, get me a copy of everything you have anyway.’