SENTINEL: an exciting British detective crime thriller

by JOHN STANLEY

  Rowland turned his coat collar up against the teeming rain which had blown in over the city. The vicar felt once more the familiar knot in the depths of his stomach as he approached St Mark’s; he had grown more wary, less trusting over the months of the campaign. He hesitated as he always did before pushing his way through the large timber door. He had not taken the escalation of threats against him lightly. The incidents had been the final straw for many among a congregation already down to twenty, their desertion leaving the vicar to administer to less than a dozen hardy and determined souls, all of them elderly.

  ‘God be with them all,’ murmured the vicar as he entered the church. ‘And me.’

  God might not have been with him but he quickly realised that someone else was, when he saw, over to his left, a figure standing deep in the shadows thrown by the candles at the altar, silently surveying him. There was something strangely familiar about the man but the vicar could not quite place it as he peered into the faint light. As he watched, the man melted into the darkness.

  The vicar was uneasy but not yet unduly alarmed; despite the threats, he had continued to insist that the church remain open during the day to offer succour to the needy. Despite the warnings from congregation members that he was risking his personal safety, he was not about to abandon the principle now. The policy meant that St Mark’s had long been a regular haunt for homeless people seeking shelter from the wind and the rain, and the vicar assumed that it was one such person now. He had always argued that they were the people to whom the church should be reaching out; besides, the Reverend Rowland had an abiding faith in the power of Christian love and the goodness of human beings.

  It was a couple of moments before the clergyman realised that there was another man in the church, a squat, shaven-headed man with a scar on his cheek who was walking up the aisle towards him and who did not, judging from his appearance, seem to share the clergyman’s faith.

  ‘Well if it isn’t the Reverend Rowland,’ sneered Neil Garvin. ‘About fucking time.’

  ‘Can I be of assistance?’ asked Rowland, his voice tailing off as he caught sight of the baseball bat in the man’s hand. ‘Now hang on a minute, there’s no need for any of that. Whatever your problem is, I am sure we can discuss it amicably.’

  ‘But you’ve already been warned, Reverend,’ said Garvin in a voice laden with menace, ‘and you just would not listen, would you? You just would not fucking listen. Kept opening your damned fool mouth. Well, time to learn how stupid that was.’

  ‘I will not be driven out of the Lord’s house by a thug like you,’ said the vicar, trying to keep his voice steady but feeling the bile rising in his throat. ‘I have told you people before that there is no way that I will allow the forces of evil to triumph over the good in this world and what’s more if you really think…’

  ‘The time for talking is over, you sanctimonious little shit,’ said a voice behind him.

  The clergyman turned round to face Des Cranmer.

  ‘Let the first man who is without sin strike the first…’ began the vicar.

  He was not allowed to finish the sentence as the thought of his clergyman father sparked a familiar rage within Des Cranmer, a man whose sins were more legion than most. Suddenly, he saw not the Reverend Rowland but his father and the crimson mist descended and everything seemed to be happening far away with Cranmer looking down from above.

  ‘Please, no,’ exclaimed the vicar as Cranmer snarled his fury and raised his bat. ‘This is the Lord’s house…’

  It was over in a matter of seconds. Flashing lights. Heavy thuds. Agonised squeals which the vicar assumed were his own as he slipped to his knees under the hail of blows then collapsed across the floor. Then silence. The men looked down at the unconscious clergyman sprawled across the floor of his church in a spreading pool of his own blood.

  ‘Here endeth the first lesson,’ said Neil Garvin, grinning to reveal crooked, nicotine-stained teeth. He looked at Cranmer with an expression of satisfaction on his face. ‘Good work, I hardly touched the twat. So much for not wanting to kill him. Knew you would come through, you mad fucker.’

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Cranmer, back in control again and looking down anxiously as the vicar emitted a strangled gurgling sound and his body twitched. ‘Do you think he’ll die? I can’t do a life stretch.’

  ‘He’ll live. His type always do. Come on.’

  As they reached the door, Des Cranmer crossed himself again and slipped his bat into the folds of his coat. The anger had gone. It always did afterwards. Sometimes it frightened him with its ferocity, how quickly it rose within him. He took a final glance back into the church and wondered if the rattling breathing emanating from the prostrate vicar meant that he had committed his first murder. His first. Cranmer had never asked Garvin if he had killed anyone before, scared of the reply as much as anything, he guessed.

  Looking across the church, Cranmer thought once more that he saw a figure standing over to his left, watching him silently. Cranmer gasped.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Garvin.

  As Cranmer watched, the figure faded from view. If it was ever there.

  ‘Nothing,’ he muttered. ‘Imagination playing tricks. Come on, let’s get the fuck out of here before someone finds him.’

  When they had gone, the church was silent for a few moments then the man emerged from the shadows from where he had witnessed the assault with a rising tide of anger that threatened to overwhelm him as it seemed that the vicar would perish under the force of the assault. The man walked over to the clergyman and looked down. He gave a slight smile – they had not taken away his moment after all. The vicar was alive. Well, not for long.

  For a moment, Rowland’s eyes fluttered open. It seemed to the shocked man that the clergyman was beseeching him for help before his eyes closed again. Had he recognised him? No, surely not. They were the sightless eyes of the dying. But he could not take the risk. No, now had to be the time to finish off the job. Safer that way. The man, moving slowly and deliberately, raised his foot before repeatedly grinding the sole of his shoe into the clergyman’s face, smiling at the feeble groans of pain from his victim.

  Eventually, the man reached into his coat pocket and fished out a Bible. Flicking through the pages, he found what he was seeking and placed the opened book next to the vicar. Then he walked briskly from the building, leaving the clergyman to lie in the silence, nearer to his Lord than he had ever been.

  Chapter three

  ‘What we got then?’ asked Detective Chief Inspector Danny Radford, having parked his car and walked up to the church, where his sergeant stood at the top of the steps, staring gloomily out at the rain being lashed almost horizontally across the darkening wasteland.

  ‘A Bible-basher lucky not to be standing in front of his boss,’ said Michael Gaines, turning and pushing his way through the large timber door leading into the building. ‘Explaining why he should not go to hell, I imagine.’

  ‘Cynic,’ said Radford.

  Aged in his mid-thirties, the DCI was shaven-headed, keen-eyed and broad-chested, his custom-made grey suit tailored to show off the muscular physique that came from a lifetime’s devotion to the gym. Detective Sergeant Gaines had never been to a gym, unless you counted the time he arrested a bodybuilder for trafficking in steroids, and he did not own anything custom-made. Older than his boss by more than a decade, and just a few years from retirement, Gaines’ face was craggy and lined, eyes grey, dark suit sitting uneasily on his paunchy frame with its drooping shoulders.

  The two men began to walk up the aisle.

  ‘You got the ring?’ asked Radford.

  ‘You’re not my type.’ Gaines stopped after a few paces and pointed to a large pool of congealing blood on the floor. ‘Medics reckoned he’d been beaten with something heavy – he’s got serious body and head injuries. Could yet turn out to be a murder.’

  Radford crouched down by the large crimson stain.

  ‘Jesus,’
he murmured.

  ‘Na.’ Gaines glanced up at the crucifix on the wall. ‘He’s got an alibi. Besides, it’s not really his MO.’

  ‘I sense you are not a man of faith,’ said Radford with a slight smile, looking up at the sergeant.

  ‘Actually, I was brought up a Catholic. You?’ Gaines realised how little they knew about each other even though they had worked together for the best part of a year.

  It had not been the best of starts, Gaines initially viewing Radford as a headquarters yes-man, a good old Bramshill Boy parachuted in to clean up a discredited CID department. The DCI had viewed the sergeant with similar distrust, seeing Gaines as someone who, if not on the take, was dead-wood ripe for the felling. Even Gaines himself would have admitted the latter; he had been dead wood, too interested in the prospect of retirement than doing his job properly, disillusioned by the way the corruption scandal had torn CID apart, tired of the taunts from villains and feeling weary deep within his bones. Until something about the inspector’s energy and fierce determination to do the right thing stirred something deep in the sergeant, surprising both of them in the process. Standing in the church, the sergeant was struck by the idea that Danny Radford would make a good vicar.

  ‘My dad was too busy worshipping the bottle to worry about God,’ said Radford, concluding his examination of the blood and moving over to the Bible lying a few feet away. ‘Forensics on their way?’

  ‘Yup. Just got to finish off with that smash and grab at the jewellers then they’ll be here.’

  Radford noticed that a passage on the page of the Bible had been underlined in red pen.

  ‘Very dramatic,’ said Radford, leaning lower to read the words. ‘Luke 19.24. Know it?’

  ‘Oh, aye, know the whole lot backwards, I do. Never without me Bible, me. Go to sleep with the St James on me bedside table.’

  Radford chuckled then turned his attention to the underlined passage.

  ‘How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the Kingdom of God?’ He read and looked up at the sergeant again. ‘What’s that about then?’

  ‘Preparing his sermon? Sounds like his type of thing.’

  ‘Maybe so. He’s certainly had plenty to say about the rich and powerful in recent weeks has our Reverend Rowland and there’s plenty believe that he has been pursuing a personal vendetta against the council. I did hear that a couple of the councillors were considering doing him for slander. Apparently, he all but accused them of corruption.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first.’

  ‘Indeed.’ The DCI straightened up and glanced back at the door. ‘So, how did the attacker get in? That not locked?’

  ‘The Reverend Rowland is one of the happy-clappy brigade, likes to let anyone in to play with the tambourines. I saw the local traffic warden on the way in, she reckons she saw two blokes leaving the church about the time it happened. Could be winos, I guess, they’re always in here.’

  ‘Or it could be someone from the council, paying him a visit.’ Radford sat down on one of the pews.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s plenty in City Hall would rather this place be bulldozed. It’s in the way is St Mark’s and so is the Reverend James Rowland.’

  ‘Maybe he is but surely you are not suggesting that someone from the council could be tied up with something like this?’

  ‘Why not? I heard that if this planning inquiry goes ahead, it’ll cost them half a million. Could force them into cost-cutting, redundancies even. It’s pissing a lot of people off.’ Radford looked up at the stained glass windows. ‘Can’t help thinking it would be criminal to bulldoze it, lovely old building like this.’

  ‘I guess he would agree with you.’

  Gaines nodded at an elderly man kneeling in front of the altar.

  Radford noticed him for the first time. ‘Who he?’ he asked.

  ‘George Roberts. One of the congregation. Steward or something. It was him as found the vicar and called it in. Reckons there’d been threats against the reverend because of the protest campaign.’

  ‘Like I said, City Hall ain’t happy.’

  ‘Come on, guv, you are really not seriously suggesting that someone at the council was responsible for this?’

  ‘Would I suggest something like that?’

  Course I am, Gainesy. Like it or not, everything in life is political.

  ‘Besides,’ continued Radford, ‘even if I was suggesting that they were involved, it’d take them months to hire a hit-man. Think of the paperwork. All those sub-committee meetings. No, I’m just saying that this place is controversial and its vicar has been more outspoken than anyone.’

  ‘In which case, it could mean you having a word with your pal Jason,’ said Gaines, giving his boss a sly look. ‘Over a nice game of golf, perhaps?’

  ‘He’s not my friend.’ The reply was sharp. ‘I’ve told you that before, Michael. Besides, he’s not the type to let himself get linked to something like this. Far too intelligent for that.’

  ‘You can’t keep making excuses for the man.’

  ‘I never make excuses for him, I’ve told you that.’

  There was a few moments of tense silence; growing sense of respect or not, the men disagreed over the inspector’s increasingly close relationship with council leader Jason de Vere. Until recent months, Gaines had assumed, hoped, that Radford was just doing it for appearances, buttering up the council in case they could provide funding for projects, but over recent weeks he had not been so sure and he was not the only one.

  The sergeant had seen where that sort of fraternising could lead. Had seen Radford’s predecessor dig himself in so deep with the city’s crooked businessmen and politicians that when the bribes started coming he was in no position to refuse, eventually ending up standing in the dock next to them. Radford, of all people, should be aware of the dangers, reasoned the sergeant; his predecessor’s five year sentence for corrupt practices was why the new man had been brought in. New broom. Clean sweep. That was what Connor told everyone. It was a new start, the super had said, so if Radford was playing a game, Michael Gaines was struggling to understand the rules.

  The Reverend Charles Garfield was walking along the main hallway at the diocesan offices when his mobile phone rang. Fishing it out of his jacket pocket, he glanced at the illuminated name and ducked into an empty office, making sure it was empty before he took the call.

  ‘Is it done?’ he asked, voice low even though he was alone. He listened for a few moments then grunted his appreciation, ended the call and left the room.

  Sitting in his own office, the bishop was surprised to hear someone whistling in the corridor.

  ‘Mr Roberts!’ shouted Radford, breaking the silence. ‘A word in your shell like, please.’

  The elderly man stopped praying and walked over.

  ‘DCI Radford,’ said the inspector, holding up his warrant card.

  ‘I’ve heard of you,’ nodded Roberts. ‘Took over after that corruption business. Terrible affair, you expect police officers to be beyond the law and yet all the time they had been…’

  ‘You found the vicar, I believe?’

  ‘He was lying there,’ said Roberts, pointing rather unnecessarily to the blood. He looked sadly at them through rheumy eyes. ‘What is the world coming to, Inspector?’

  ‘Indeed so, Mr Roberts. A veritable Sodom and Gomorrah is Leyton. Still, if it didn’t have its wrong ‘uns, me and the good sergeant would be out of work. Anything stolen?’ Radford nodded towards the candlesticks on the altar. ‘Everything accounted for?’

  ‘It’s all there and the police officers told me that the reverend’s wallet was still in his jacket pocket. They were clearly not thieves, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘It would appear not. There had been threats, I think?’

  ‘Do you think that this is about the campaign?’

  ‘What kind of threats?’ said Radford, ignoring the question.

  ‘Vile they were,’ said Roberts with a shake of the head.
‘Phone calls, dog mess on the vicarage doorstep, a bloke came into evensong one night, shouting. He has stirred up a lot of strong feelings, has our Reverend Rowland, but he was only doing what he thought was right, I suppose.’ He did not sound particularly convinced.

  ‘Do I sense you are not sure he is right?’ asked the inspector. ‘I thought the congregation was behind him in wanting to save the church?’

  ‘We’re all old, Chief Inspector, protest is not really our thing. Besides, there comes a time when a more pragmatic approach is required. One way or the other this place will come down eventually, everyone knows that, and they have already offered us the chance to go to St Luke’s. The Reverend Rowland refused to accept it. He can be a remarkably naïve man at times.’

  ‘Comes with the territory, I imagine.’ Radford looked at the blood. ‘Like to hazard a guess about who is behind this then?’

  The old man hesitated.

  ‘Mr Roberts?’ said Radford.

  Still he hesitated.

  ‘Look,’ said Radford, ‘we need to find out who did this to your vicar but we can’t do it if people hold things back. If you know something that might help us, then please tell us. The last thing I want is some lunatic running around doing over clergymen – and we don’t know that he won’t come for members of the congregation, do we?’

  ‘I really wanted to keep out of this,’ said the old man unhappily, ‘but I reckon that it was someone from the council.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ exclaimed Gaines, unable to restrain himself then looking up to the crucifix and raising a hand to his mouth as Roberts shot him a disapproving look. ‘Well, what do you expect? They may be a bunch of good-for-nothings at City Council, but this?’ He gestured to the pool of blood. ‘Hardly democracy in practice, is it?’

  ‘When did democracy ever come into it?’ said Roberts. ‘The council is very angry.’

  ‘I’m sure they are,’ said Gaines, ‘but even angry council officers tend to write reports rather than go round attacking people.’