Coulter sighed. Russell put down his phone and called over to him: “That’s our hillwalkers in now.”
Walking out the incident room Coulter took a call from Maddy. “Where are you?”
“It’s a long story. I’m driving. Listen – I spoke to Casci last night. He should have emailed you.”
“Didn’t check my inbox. I’ll get someone to do it now. What’d he say?”
“Jordan Murdock – he’s the kid who was killed—”
“Maddy! I’m the one working on this case. I know who Murdock is!”
“Murdock told people he had a contact from over here. A “Brit” he called him. But, with an Irish accent. Referred to him as an “old guy”.
Coulter could hear his own groan echoed back to him through the earpiece. “But now it looks unlikely Lennon was over there. And I don’t think he’d appreciate being called a Brit.”
“You’ve got him? Thanks, Alan, for letting me know.” He could hear tyres squealing. She was driving angrily.
“Actually, we haven’t quite got him. But we know he’s here and probably has been since he skipped bail.”
“I think we’re nearly quits, you and me, Coulter, on the cock-up stakes.” A horn blared somewhere near her. 7 AM and already she was causing chaos. “Anyway Murdock wasn’t talking about last week. He’s been talking about this old Irish guy since last year.”
Coulter stopped short of the interview room where Russell was waiting for him at the open door. Inside, the Docherties’ lawyer was already there, and a uniform sergeant. “We’ll get Lennon anyway. Have to go, Maddy.”
“Anything else I should know?” As things stood she had nothing to do with this enquiry now, but she still knew as much about it, if not more, than him or Russell. Best to keep her up to speed. “We’re chasing up Pacchini’s homeschooling guys.”
“They religious by any chance?”
“Yes. Why? Listen, Maddy, where are you?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“An old Irish man?” Father Jamieson was shaking his head in smiling disbelief. “You surely don’t think—” He was squeezed into the back seat beside a glowering Belinda. Much as she had wanted to be rid of them, Maddy had decided at the last minute to take them with her. Jamieson might come in handy. But she was ignoring him just now. Having just put the phone back on its cradle, it rang again. A long number she didn’t recognise.
“Maddy. It’s me.”
Technology was bringing Louis back to her in pieces. First read his words, then saw his face on-screen. Now she was hearing his thick, low voice for the first time in an age. He wasn’t sounding sociable though, so she suppressed her delight.
“Just a quick call – to see if anything chimes with you. I’m on the move, over the bridge right now to the Bronx.”
“Why? What’s there?”
“We’ve followed up some leads. Several of our victims, including Murdock and Braithewaite, might have been mixed up with some religious cranks.”
“Louis? I’m making the exact same journey! Except it’s the Kingston Bridge, not the Brooklyn. And Cathcart, not the Bronx. But I’ve got my fair share of cranks.” In the rear-view mirror she smiled at sullen Belinda and Mike.
“We think Murdock’s Irishman might be a regular visitor. We’ve picked up other references, elsewhere. There’s some kind of chain thing going on. Murdock had connections with Braithewaite. Braithewaite knew people who were connected to Plissard and Goodman Lane…”
Maddy remembered the names but had never quite got who they all were or what they had in common. “Louis, you told Coulter all this?”
“His phone’s off. So’s his sidekick’s.”
“Try asking for Amy Dalgarno.”
“Haven’t got the time right now.”
Somebody was shouting to him in the car. He said his goodbyes and stopped, and Maddy immediately felt lonely.
Within minutes Coulter was convinced he was wasting his time with the Docherties. He had his mobile on to vibrate. He was begining to feel like a perv with it going off every couple of minutes in his trouser pocket.
They were both in tears. They confessed to the photography session with Sy Kennedy. First time they had ever done something like that. Would never do it again. Didn’t realise what age Sy was. They didn’t mean him any harm, and they swore they never saw him again. Were sure he was five years older. He came to them. He made the suggestion. And Martin Whyte set the thing up. Him and the Kennedy boy between them. Maybe Whyte had even done stuff like that before.
“Why did you hand yourselves in?”
“We knew that the minute you tracked Martin down, he’d tell everything,” Jim Docherty said. “He was frightened. He might have tried to blame us more.”
Elaine added, “And that woman lawyer took the files from my desk.”
That was a complication Coulter knew he was going to hate. Inadmissible evidence, acquired without a warrant. Worse, stolen. By a Fiscal.
“We thought we saw police cars,” said Jim Docherty. “On the lookout for us. Did you find Martin?”
Someone with more time on their hands could tell them about their pal’s suicide. Coulter’s phone shivered again in his pocket. “Do you know any Irish people?”
Monsignor Connolly glared at her like she were a vision, an incubus sent to torment him.
“I thought you were a prosecution lawyer.” The question was rhetorical, so she just stared him out. “They don’t normally ask questions like policemen, do they? Not out of court.”
“I can get a policeman here now, if you like. I could get a couple of dozen. Sirens, warrants, guns, the full bhoona.”
“Actually, I’m not sure you could, Miss Shannon. As I recall from the last Delinquency Committee meeting, you’re persona non grata presently.”
“You get told stuff like that at committee meetings?” She comes out of this with any career left and Binnie’s head will roll. She’ll make sure of it. “Have you been in New York in the last few months, Monsignor? You do know about the Potters’ Field murders? “
“You strike me, Miss, to be in some kind of crisis.”
“Don’t you start.”
Mike Jamieson smiled knowingly at the old man, who didn’t return the compliment. Belinda, leaning against the door frame, didn’t react at all. Maddy had expected her to vanish at some point, but she seemed to be hanging in for the ride.
Connolly was right, though – she must look like a woman demented. She’d slept on the sofa, a bottle and a half of cheap red in her; she was uncombed, stilll in yesterday’s clothes, no makeup, wobbly high heels. She was about to ask another question when the old man smiled, and decided to play along with her.
“You want to know if I go to America often? Amongst other places, yes.”
“Do you work with black kids over there?”
Jamieson laughed. “The Monsignor is a very important man, Maddalena.”
“Well, Father,” Connolly said without turning to him, “we all say Mass. And meet our parishioners. So, yes, I come across all shapes and sizes – and ages.” He was keeping his tone light, but with effort. It wasn’t Connolly’s natural medium, lightness. Maddy could feel the man’s intensity, straining beneath the condescending smile.
“Who or what is Sy Knight?”
The old man repeated the words, and they sounded even stranger in his Donegal accent. Like cyanide.
Belinda, Maddy noticed, had gone outside. She could see her through the window, sitting on the top step of the parish house, face tilted to the warm, clear morning sun.
“What about Lennon? Do you know anything about his trips to the States?”
She was flailing around. She could feel Jamieson become smug again, watching her. She had rushed out of the house an hour ago so full of questions and possibilities and hunches. Jamieson and Belinda had got caught up in her frenzy. But it was all melting away under Connolly’s hot stare. Her questions seemed stupid, random. The old haze of the last few days replac
ing the sense of urgency. She tried a few more questions on the old man, but he fielded them expertly.
She walked towards the door, defeated. Jamieson stepped back from it, secure in his home patch, letting her loose, useless, on the world.
“I did try to help,” said Father Mike, a syrupy, sorry smile on his face.
Connolly never took his eyes off her. They were light brown, but felt darker. He gave the impression of a man who knew things ordinary folk didn’t know existed. She opened the door of the little ante-room they were in.
“Sy Knight?” Connolly swirled the words in his mouth like an iffy wine. “Could be mispronounced. Sinite? Possibly. Sinite parvulos.”
“What’s that?”
“Sinite parvulos venire ad me.”
Jamieson stared at him, too. Perhaps they didn’t teach young priests Latin any more.
“‘And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them, and his disciples rebuked those that brought them.’ I’m a devotee of the King James version, you’ll have noticed. ‘But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased and said unto them.’ Sinite parvulos… Suffer the little children to come unto me… Et ne prohibueritis eos talium est enim regnum Dei… and forbid them not for of such is the Kingdom of God.”
There was a moment’s silence. Maddy realised that Belinda had left her doorstep and was now inside. Maddy turned back to Connolly. “You never knew Sy Kennedy or Frances Mullholland, Monsignor, did you?”
“No, Miss Shannon, I did not.”
“Or Paul Pacchini? The son of Mrs Laird here. He was home-schooled by a religious order. His foster parents are Catholic.”
Connolly kept his eyes on her, but he was thinking. Trying to remember something, perhaps, or deciding what to say. Eventually, he said “Faith and Family.”
“What exactly is that?”
“Idiots.” Connolly’s expressions until now had been variations of storminess. But he could sneer, too. “They say that every institution must have its diehards. Its Praetorian Guard. Like animals need backbones.”
“Extreme Catholics. Who are they?”
“Nobodies. Theologically speaking. Businessmen, housewives, maybe a few teachers, lawyers. Aspiring professionals. They’d never admit it, but they use organisations like that as Masonic lodges. You scratch my fanatic back and I’ll scratch yours.”
Belinda stood listening quietly, but Jamieson busied himself tinkering inside a drawer. “Don’t get me wrong. On plenty of issues I’m in agreement with them. On abortion and contraception. It’s their means I dislike, overtly political. Right-wing. Half their members aren’t even Catholics. They’ve either been thrown out of other denominations, or they’ve been excommunicated. Or should be.”
“Who funds them?”
“Rich like-minded individuals. Big companies.”
“Could any of these people have known Paul or Frances or Sy?”
“I’d have thought they’d prefer to stay out of the way of those kinds of kids. But they do have their educational arm. I know nothing about it.”
Maddy looked at Belinda, whose eyes were still full of horror at the Monsignor’s words.
“You’ll have read about Ian Lennon in the papers - could he be a member of this Faith and Family?”
“Isn’t he IRA? Unlikely. Most of them hate the Church more than a Loyalist bandsman does.” Connolly turned his body fully round to face Fr. Mike. Maddy wondered if he had some kind of bone or muscle disease – no part of him seemed capable of independent movement. “You never came across anyone overly zealous out in Drumchapel, Michael, did you?”
Mike immediately glanced over at Maddy.
“You were a priest in Drumchapel?”
“No no. A year or so back the priest there was ill and I filled in for him from time to time. A couple of us did. Paul Hughes over in St. Gregory’s, and Jack Vittesse at St Jude’s.”
“Father Jamieson also does some sterling work in schools.” Maddy somehow got the impression that the Monsignor wasn’t wildly impressed with the curate’s “sterling work”.
“Ah, hardly ever in Drumchapel, Monsignor. Once or twice. Never long enough to know who was who.”
Maddy had to get out of here. Her half-baked theory about Connolly was either way off the mark or the man was clever in ways she couldn’t figure out. She’d arrived with one theory and a suspect in mind and was leaving with a new theory and a new suspect. Between the police and her how many suspects did they have altogether? Must be half a bloody dozen.
She had no idea where to turn now, what the logical next move was. She should leave this to the professionals. Her place was in an office making sense of others’ detective work, or in a courtroom, stringing facts and possibilities into a story whose end she already knew. She headed for the front door, following the thin draught of cool, fresh morning air. She needed to breathe deeply. And she wanted to talk to Alan Coulter.
Lennon had been spotted. An unmistakeable description. Big, stooped, balding, covered in blood, limping, seen from a window ten minutes ago. What’s more, he was walking along by the canal – the very same stretch that Pacchini and Kennedy had been marched over towards their execution.
Coulter should have stayed at the station. Keep up with Amy, still madly chasing down this Faith and Family outfit. They were a key, without a doubt. Could Lennon have any connection with them? He should be in the HOLMES room, waiting for the computers to churn out anything new. Background on Sturgeon, Babbington, Simon Knight. Casci had emailed a couple of times – he was getting new leads that might, or might not, apply to Coulter’s case as well.
But he needed to get out. He’d keep his mobile on him.
For over a month he’d convinced himself more and more of Lennon’s guilt. The vicious old bastard had given him the runaround for too long. He had to be there when he was finally collared. Everyone had got wind that things were happening this morning. Chief Constable Crawford Robertson was upstairs with half the Force’s top brass. Members of the Youth Crime Committee there too, including the Czar himself no doubt. Glasgow’s chair of the Police Committee, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland – who more than likely make up the four ball with Robertson and MacDougall – had been spotted coming in the building with the crime editor of the Daily Record. Cosy or what?
Amy, handling two phones at once, saw him put on his jacket. “You remembering the Kanes are coming back in at ten? Before they disappear back to England.”
“Of course.” He hadn’t. “I’ll be well back then.”
Walking down the corridor he took a call from an agitated Maddy. “Alan, Louis is right. Faith and Family. Connolly knows all about it—”
“You’ve been to see Monsignor Connolly? Christ, Maddy, could you just go home to your bed for a day or so? That old codger’s got connections. You’re in enough trouble. Don’t start throwing around accusations!”
“I’m not accusing him of anything. Yet. It’s Mike Jamieson you need to look into. He’s a priest. Young guy. He’s worked out at Drumchapel and never told us.”
“Ministering to the needy in the Drum might be a thankless task, but it’s not a crime.”
“Just go talk to him.”
“Why don’t you? You’re talking to bloody everybody else!”
“I’m getting mixed messages here, inspector.”
“I was joking. Remember that?”
“Seriously, Alan – find out about him. Go see him.”
“Okay, okay. If you promise. Go home, now.”
“Absolutely.”
She hadn’t even tried to lie with conviction.
She hadn’t managed to shake off Belinda Laird. Either this woman had a serious gap in her life – no place she had to be, no one waiting for her. More likely, she was a mother in pain who didn’t know how to show it. Who needed to find out what really happened to her son.
They were heading for Lochgilvie House. Under a perfect Caledonian sky, Saltire blue and paddling-pool bright. “Some kind of cha
in thing going on.” Casci’s phrase had stuck in her mind. He wasn’t the most eloquent of speakers at the best of times, but she knew what he meant. Sort of. All the New York victims turned out to have connections, and some elderly Irishman was in the centre of them all. Over here Sy Kennedy knew Paul Pacchini, so the chances are one of them had a connection with Frances Mulholland. And the only person she could think of who might shine any light on that was Franny’s big brother Darren.
She didn’t explain any of this to Belinda. Belinda didn’t seem to want explanations. The haze that had surrounded Maddy – that was still lurking somewhere in the back of her head like haar just beyond the shore – had engulfed the woman in the passenger seat. She sat staring straight ahead, silent as the sky.
Ten o’clock. Maddy dialled a number, and let it ring this time over the car’s speakers.
“Mama. It’s me. Any change?”
“Nothing.” Rosa di Rio sounded exhausted. Hopeless. For the first time it flashed through Maddy’s mind that it might be better for everyone if Nonno died.
“How are you?”
“I’m fine,” her mother said, miserably. “I don’t suppose you can…”
“This afternoon. I promise.” This time, she meant it.
She dialled again, to make sure that Darren was still in the Home and that he was going to be around in ten minutes. Janet Bateman wasn’t there. She spoke to David Simons.
“Sorry. Darren checked himself out yesterday. Against our advice, but he’s a free agent.”
Maddy swung the car just in time to get the last exit before the M8 took her onto the A77 and carried her south to Ayrshire. Girvan. Go there, and she might never come back.
Ten in the morning and the sun was already strong. Even the canal looked good, flowing quietly between trees. There was a heron standing on the opposite bank, but no one in the party liked to mention it. Coulter, Russell, Webb, a couple of Uniforms. They were all being serious men on an important mission. Can’t go pointing out cute wildlife.
Lennon’s house was in Westlands – one of the new houses just over the back of the canal and the railway track. They’d had that covered night and day for weeks now. Coulter had sent another group to come down to the track from the murder scene. Webb’s crackling radio was keeping them informed. Coulter wished the frigging heron would fly off. Something unsettling about those birds. They seemed to know something. Something ancient, horrible.
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