by Tia Reed
Ella turned. Brendan was perched on the very edge of his chair.
“I want to pay my debt, Ella, if you’ll let me.” Doer sat. “Not to mention, there’s serious crime going on in this city that I don’t know anything about.”
Ella considered his remark, nodded, and returned to her chair. This was not what she had expected. “What do you know about Genord?”
“That church of his got approved at state level, not council, despite a petition with over five hundred signatures from angry locals.”
“It’s nothing unusual for the government to ignore the populace.”
“A great deal of money changed hands, not all of it above board.”
“How did you come by this information?”
“Trade secret.”
“I might have your trust, but you have to earn mine. I can hardly print second-hand gossip.”
“Let’s just say my form of employment cuts across every position in society. My company had that land targeted for our own little development scheme.”
“Nothing the locals would have approved of, I’m sure.”
“You’re too frank, Ella.”
“It’s the best quality in a journalist.”
“Not in my line of work.” He relaxed into the chair. “Judge Alden has been known to take kickbacks once in a while, but it would take some doing to match that billionaire’s.” Ella gasped. Doer clicked his tongue. “When you next see your ex—”
Taken aback, Ella coughed.
“. . . let him know Judge Alden is on the take from Genord. Judge Radcliff would be more sympathetic to the police and less likely to tip that frog off.”
“What you mean is Radcliff’s never taken one of your bribes.”
Doer winked. “Alden’s not the only one. You might remember a couple of workers died during construction of the church.”
Ella nodded. “The coroner returned a verdict of heart attack in both cases, if I remember rightly.” The details were blurry. It had happened right around the time she’d been sitting in jail for contempt of court.
“Morton was my man. I used a great number of resources to place him covertly. He died one hour before he was due to pass on intelligence. That kind of timing is never coincidental. Take it from a professional.”
Ella slid to the edge of her seat. “Do you have any idea what he’d found out?”
“A month previously, he’d reported that excavation for the crypt went too deep and struck the river. Genord ranted about incompetence until he thought everyone was out of sight. Claimed he’d get another contractor to fix the damage. He told the workers to chill for two weeks. Of course, we had him under surveillance that whole time. Now, the crypt was complete when Morton went back to the job. The only thing is, in those two weeks, there wasn’t another construction company on site.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Oh, there were bulldozers and bobcats all right. But according to Morton, they were working on the workshop, not the crypt, and weren’t operated by any qualified company around town. We never were able to trace the builders. Morton was top dog at what he did, only cut corners when it suited my needs, and he insisted all his excavation work was exactly to Genord’s plans, plans which were altered after the mishap.”
Ella’s mind whirled. “What you’re implying is that a passage to the river exists.”
“Which is not on any plans.”
She nodded, absorbing everything she’d been told. Doer didn’t offer more information so she picked up her bag. “It’s been enlightening, Mr Doer.”
“There’s one more thing you should know. Brodie!” His tone had dropped its cordiality.
A young man in his late teens and dressed in jeans and tee-shirt sauntered into the room. His prominent nose resembled Doer’s. His leer as he ran his eye over her curves to her breasts convinced her he had no respect for the opposite sex. Whereas Ella was comfortable with Doer, if not what he did, she disliked Brodie immediately.
“Tell her.”
“Me mate and I were there the night the first broad disappeared.”
“Cecily Williams,” Ella said, in a vain attempt to dignify the girl.
Brodie shrugged. “Whatever. She went into the church.” He pouted, as though parting with the information was the biggest inconvenience of his life.
“What were you doing there?”
“Hanging out. Watching the bats.” He moved his jaw. His eyes still hadn’t risen.
“Did you see her come out?”
“Nah. But there weren’t nothing happening so we didn’t wait around.”
“Did a man come after her?”
Brodie shrugged again. “We heard someone call, we left.”
Ella bet they had. “Did you tell the police this?”
Brodie scoffed. “Yeah, right,” he said as he pivoted and sauntered out.
Doer watched him leave. “Brodie has a juvenile rap sheet. Assault.”
Ella flattened her lips, sure the word sexual fronted that charge. She imagined the innocent girl wary of two leering youths on bikes. The church would have seemed a safe option. She mulled over the information, watching first Doer, then Brendan, closely.
“Thank you,” she said at last, making up her mind. Whatever trouble Brodie might get into, Doer followed his own code of integrity. If he thought the youth in any way responsible, she would not be here.
“Come and do that interview with the underworld boss one day,” Doer said with a wink.
“Just so long as that boss doesn’t expect any information gathered in the course of unrelated investigations won’t be passed on to police.”
“You’ve got yourself a deal.”
She rose. Brendan had relaxed into his chair but was up with alacrity.
Ella couldn’t help glance at the Jaguar as they left the house.
“It’s a beautiful machine.” Doer had adoration all over his face.
Ella smiled. “I’ll expect a ride when I do that interview.” She was rewarded with a wicked grin.
The silent and brooding Brendan, driving a touch recklessly for her liking, dropped her off in the parking lot behind the Informer. Someone was moving across the large windows on the second floor where the reporters worked, and Ella couldn’t help thinking that Debbie was inventing business at that end of the office so she could spy on Ella’s return. She briefly wondered if she was paranoid, but annoyance quickly set in and she dawdled across the yard, taking an extra few minutes to try and make sense of what she knew before Debbie bombarded her with enough questions and unasked for opinions to make her lose her train of thought.
The truth was Ella didn’t know who to believe, and that left her in the dangerous position of disbelieving everyone. As far as she could tell, Doer gained little from telling her what he had, so she had stopped thinking about him shortly after they descended the winding road to the Adelaide Plains. Adam was a more complex matter, especially since, she had to admit, she liked him. All her instincts told her to trust him, but something niggled at the back of her mind. She rehashed their conversation from that morning for the umpteenth time since she had left Doer’s. Then it clicked, a slip that shredded her fledgling trust. She had not mentioned a previous entanglement with a bat. She had been thinking about it at the church, but she hadn’t spoken about it. How then, had Adam known this afternoon’s encounter was not her first? She did not want to admit he might somehow be involved in this, but her deep feeling of disappointment refused to be quashed.
In order to delay the inevitable, she went to retrieve the notes she had shoved into the glove box of her car last night. She sat in the passenger seat skimming the scribble without really taking in a word.
A tap made her look up. A folded card sat on the windscreen. Her wandering mind back on the here and now, she shoved the notes into her tote along with a sketch she had made of the bracelet on the grotesque. Getting out, she picked up the card, ready to toss whatever advertising material was trying to intrude into her life into the trash. More
out of habit than anything else, she flicked it open. Her name was written at the top in an elegant cursive script. Without realising it, she stopped to read the message.
Dear Ella,
It has come to my attention that you are aware of an underground passage beneath the church. I will be only too happy to reveal its location if you meet me by the canal this afternoon, alone of course. Shall we say at around five?
From a source who wishes to remain nameless.
Ella glanced around. Apart from the face at the window, too far to have landed something this light on her car, the parking lot was deserted. Unable to believe the personal message had appeared out of thin air, she reread the note. The style reminded her very much of Genord. Journalistic instincts firing, she got back into the car, not sure if she was headed to a clandestine rendezvous or afternoon tea but unwilling to pass up an opportunity like this. She located her mobile under the folded papers in her bag and thought about calling Adam to meet her. Instead, she dialled Phil’s extension. Sources could be finicky when they set the terms of a meeting, and the zoologist had yet to prove he was trustworthy. In fact, he had probably just proved the opposite.
“I’m going back to the Church of the Resurrection to meet another source,” Ella said after evading Phil’s demands to know where she had been for the past couple of hours and assuring him she had just been on her way in.
“Great.” She heard a door open. “With all your leads I know you’re gonna write me a scoop, Ella.” It was loud enough for her to suspect he wanted Debbie to hear.
She looked up and saw him standing at the second floor window. “Send the police if you don’t hear back from me.”
There was an uncharacteristic silence on the other end of the line. “Check-in in two hours,” he said softly. “And don’t take any risks.”
“Right. And please don’t tell Debbie where I’m going.”
“The only place I’m telling Debbie to go is back to her desk.”
Ella threw her phone into her bag and pulled out of the car park. A dark shape fluttered around an unlit street lamp. She refused to look at what had to be a bird.
Chapter Eight
24th October. Late Afternoon.
NOT SURE WHAT she hoped to accomplish by coming here, except maybe put her life in danger, Ella stared at the church. All semblance of welcome had disappeared, and approaching the building took a great deal of willpower. She ran her hand over the stone as she walked down the side to the canal. From this angle, the grotesques showed as no more than an occasional imperfection on the roof ledge. No sign of a potential source. No sign of anyone.
A drop of rain hit her cheek. Ella looked skyward and decided to abandon her examination of the canal. The chance of finding an underground passage when police and divers had failed was practically nil. She backtracked, wiping her hand across her rain-splattered cheek. A jolt of fear coursed through her veins as her fingers came away red. Another drop plopped onto her nose. She jumped away from the wall and rubbed the spot with a hastily withdrawn tissue. A blood stain seeped across the white weave. She dropped the tissue, then promptly snatched it up again and stowed it among the mess in her handbag.
Craning her neck, she noticed a grotesque perched on the ledge directly above, its crooked beak arced outward, its wings half spread from its body. A shadow flitted behind the statue. Ella’s yelp was drowned by an eerie howl, a pained cry that pleaded for release. She pressed closer to the wall. Spots of blood were beginning to congeal on a nearby grassy tuft. Another drop fell, bending the green blade beneath it. Before Ella could collect the evidence, thunder cracked overhead, opening the heavens and releasing a deluge that sent her sprinting for the back doors. She barely avoided the stream of water gushing from the dragon-headed gargoyle as she ducked into the foyer and swung the doors against the stinging wind. Frantic, she wiped the drops from her neck, and sighed when they turned out to be nothing more than water.
Ella listened carefully. Quiet pervaded the church. With the heavy doors firmly shut, the storm was a muted rumble. Her irregular breaths were the only disturbance. She shuddered. It would be a lie to blame her wet hair. Flipping her mobile open, she quick-dialled Rob.
“Hamlyn,” the voice at the other end announced.
“Rob, it’s Ella. I’m at the church. I’ve found some blood.” She realised her voice was low and she was firing her words at twice her normal speed even before he told her to slow down. “I heard a scream. I’m going to the roof to investigate. Meet me here.”
She hung up before he could tell her to stay put and wait for him, eliminating one half of the argument they would later have. With a deep breath, she moved into the belly of the church. Unlit, with little light filtering through the stained-glass, the statues appeared menacing. Glad she didn’t need to pass them, Ella climbed the steps to the gallery. Her footsteps, soft in her trainers, nevertheless squelched louder than she liked. The wind moaned through cracks in the masonry, making the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. Creeping over the transept, she noticed a crack in the mural where the door to the roof stood ajar. The damp, musty scent of the belfry assailed her as she eased the panel open.
A missile darted past her face. Throwing her arms up, Ella whirled in time to see a dove flap its way across the church. Its gentle coo only made her muscles tense, her skin crawl. Every sense urged her to retreat. A ground-breaking discovery in the case, she argued with herself, a hostage tortured to death before the police arrived. Then her mind flashed an image of herself in the grasp of a lunatic killer hacking away at her limbs and flinging the mutilated pieces of her body into the river before police cars skidded to a halt in front of the church, sirens blaring, but too late to prevent her murder.
Wild nonsense, she told herself, blocking the knowledge of four disappearances and two murders from her mind. the Informer was having a greater effect on her imagination than she had believed. Armed with a thin veneer of bravado, she climbed to the top of the bell tower, one hand trailing along the damp stone.
She expected a step where there was none and so stumbled onto the platform. Shrouded in darkness, it could have hidden more than one body. Above, the arches designed to show off the mute bell revealed only leaden sky, still awash with the storm. Feeling the way with her toes, Ella shuffled in the direction of the door. Her shoe connected with an object. It grated across the uneven wood. Dropping onto hands and knees, she felt around, ignoring the splinter which pushed into her thumb, until her hand connected with a solid object. A soft, furred object. Stifling a cry, she frantically wiped her hand on her trousers. A bat, she told herself, though she had no way of knowing. One thing was for sure, it was not human. If she didn’t hurry, whatever mishap had occurred on the roof would be long over, hidden before she got there. She continued to the roof door. It was already unlatched, requiring only a gentle push to creak open.
The fresh air bathed her like a tonic, soothing her nerves. The light that spilled into the tower was enough to dispel her theory a body was stashed on the platform. She shuddered as she saw a dead bat, then caught sight of a small object beside it. She smothered her revulsion long enough to pluck the piece of stained wood from under a leathery wing. It had the shape of a guitar pick but was thicker and larger. She supposed it must come from a carving, though she had not seen any woodwork around. On impulse she dropped it into her tote. A gust chose that moment to bang the door shut. She jumped, lurched toward it, and shoved it open, breathing a sigh of relief that it had not left her in the dark with goodness knew how many bats. She clambered down the steps, jogging to the left against the wind and lashing rain, counting the grotesques she passed to find the one that marked the blooded spot. As abruptly as it had started, the rain ceased. Good old Adelaide, Ella thought with a cursory glance at the third wingless statue. The fourth did not look quite right. The fifth one. She was sure by the position of the wings, elbows down, wrists bending into clawed hands raised to the level of the misshapen holes that passed for ears. Except,
its feathered head was angled down and to the left, leaving the impression the creature studied its wing.
Ella looked around in bafflement. The other statues had heads that looked like goblins or lizards or cats. They sat with wings outspread, or tightly furled, or raised in front. No other remotely resembled the figure she had seen from below. But the grotesque she had seen had gazed at the houses. She dismissed her doubts. Quite obviously, no injured girl sat beneath the ledge. She made a quick circuit of the roof, head down as she fought the wind, arms spread for balance when she turned back toward the canal. She was alone.
She was a journalist with the perfect opportunity to investigate further. Determined steps took her back to the fifth grotesque. Some feet from it, she noticed a jagged crack through the left wing. The stone had crumbled, leaving a gouge the width of a pencil running top to bottom. Not something she had noticed yesterday. She crouched to finger the crack, wondering what could have caused such damage in solid stone. Her fingers contacted a sticky dampness. She withdrew them to find the tips covered in blood. Her eyes shot to the ledge. A dark stain spread beneath the crack.
She sprang back, keeping her hand at arm’s length as though her fingers were poison. Don’t be silly, she told herself. Don’t be stupid. Stone can’t bleed. Genord had to be playing a disgusting, sadistic game. She found enough anger to overcome her fear. One-handed, she rummaged in her bag, sweeping keys and a bar of chocolate, which she definitely deserved after this, aside to uncover a half empty packet of tissues. She unfurled one and wiped her hand. Intending to swab the wing, she moved forward. As she bent over the statue, a hand shoved her shoulder. She lost her balance. Her legs slid out from under her. She grabbed the foot of the grotesque as she fell against the ledge. Her head struck the edge. Old church bells chimed as she spun to a hut where a black-haired boy whittled at wood for a monk in a brown robe with a belt of rope.
Ella groaned and opened her eyes. She pressed a hand to her stinging head, befuddled by the strange tableau. She blinked several times before the images of the grotesques sharpened. The hallucination had been uncannily clear. She wondered if it was the result of a concussion.