The Lazarus Prophecy

by F. G. Cottam

‘We looked for someone fitting the profile provided you by Jacob Prior. It’s a bit delicate because some of the information regarding these people is privileged. Where there has been psychiatric assistance, ethics are involved. There’s the right to patient confidentiality.’

  ‘So you can’t tell me anything specific about Peter Chadwick?’

  ‘I can give you the address of the hostel in England at which he is staying. I can tell you that he’s 38 years old. I can tell you that he was a serving soldier before he took Holy Orders in 1999. And I can tell you that he left the priesthood two years ago after a conflict with his superiors it would be unethical to discuss.’

  ‘You really think he might be our man?’

  ‘I never met him, personally. The Archbishop thinks it might be worth your while to interview him.’

  They could play verbal tag for the rest of the morning and Jane knew she wouldn’t get any more hard information over the phone. They would have to ask Peter Chadwick to submit to questioning voluntarily, unless they could find something quick to tie him materially into their investigation.

  ‘Do you have a recent photograph of Chadwick?’

  ‘I’ll email you one as soon as we finish this conversation. He’s not terribly inconspicuous. He’s 6’2″ tall, athletically built and, by general consensus, rather a handsome man.’

  ‘Are you telling me celibacy was a problem for this particular priest?’

  ‘I’m telling you absolutely nothing of the sort.’

  ‘Do you know what he did in the military?’

  ‘He was a Captain in the Parachute Regiment. He had combat experience in Bosnia and in Iraq.’

  Jane took down the address of the hostel. She switched on her computer and opened the newly received email and printed off a copy of the photo she’d been sent. Chadwick was dark haired and dimple-chinned with rather chiseled features and blue eyes that looked secretly amused. It didn’t look like the face of a murderer, but they rarely did, except in movies.

  She went to the incident room and called an impromptu conference. She dispatched two plainclothes officers in an unmarked car to the Finsbury Park address at which their solitary human lead was living. Their orders were to monitor rather than to approach without further specific instructions.

  They’d been monitoring the CCTV footage from each of the murder locations since the first had been carried out eight weeks earlier. Killers sometimes re-visited the scenes of their crimes. Sometimes they were curious to see if anything had changed. Sometimes they did it to gloat secretly, or because it made them feel omnipotent. Jane had thought from the start that the Scholar was a killer of the omnipotent persuasion.

  They had software that would identify Chadwick if he’d been to any of the scenes. She had emailed the Chadwick picture to the programmer already from her office desk.

  She was briefing the DC on the most recent developments 30 minutes later when she got a call on his extension from the incident room.

  ‘Bingo, Ma’am.’

  ‘Good, when?’

  ‘Tuesday afternoon, he went to every single site.’

  ‘Not before?’ Tuesday afternoon was after her press conference, at which the killings had become public knowledge.

  ‘Not before.’

  That was a pity. And Finsbury Park was a long way from Lambeth. But they still had enough to act upon.

  ‘What now, Ma’am?’

  ‘We bring him in,’ she said.

  The cardinal could barely begin to examine the things sent to him from San Sebastian to his retreat at Bayonne. He had loved James Cantrell with the love men generally lavish upon a favourite son. There had been nothing sexual about it and nothing covetous either. It had been a selfless expression of devotion to someone with a promise far greater than his abundant human faults.

  He had tried to comfort himself with the familiar platitude about God working in mysterious ways. He believed more profoundly than most men that our time in this world is but a brief preparation for the reward our lives here earn in the next. But he was human and prey to human feelings and already he missed the bright energy of the young priest’s presence in his company. The cardinal mourned James, feeling a deep and bitter sense of loss.

  James had been born in a district of New York called Queens to which the cardinal had never been. He had been of Irish extraction and his family had been large and poor. He was the sixth of seven sons. His father drank too heavily to maintain a proper job and what scant wages he hustled were spent in the tavern or the bookies.

  His vocation had come calling for the boy when he was 13 years old, doing well at school, a rising star of track and field. He had pictures of Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan taped to the wall next to the bed in the room he shared with two of his brothers. He liked the novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald and was sufficiently gifted at languages to have read Camus in the original French.

  Now the cardinal was looking at the relics of him. The impact of the fatal crash had cracked the crystal of the diver’s watch he’d worn. His iPhone was still bloodied in smears on the brushed metal. His bag had contained neatly folded items of clothing and a wash bag and a prayer book. And something else: an old handwritten journal with a marbled cover and pages edged in gold leaf he must have brought away with him from his mission to the Pyrenean priory built to serve the heretical needs of The Most Holy Order of the Gospel of St. John.

  The cardinal felt even less well disposed towards the order than he had before the death of his protégé. It was irrational to think it, but he couldn’t help thinking that if he had not been sent to ensure their mischief had stopped, James would still be living. He’d been 34. It was no age at all. The athlete he’d almost become would only be considering retirement after years at the pinnacle of his sport. As a priest, he had nowhere near reached his prime.

  A handful of delinquent, desiccated fools had needed to be dealt with. Their morbid practices had needed to be curtailed. Their secrecy had needed to be not just maintained but guaranteed. It had been vital work, hadn’t it? But in the life of James they had paid a terrible price for its completion. And he didn’t even know for absolute certain that the mischief in the priory had really ended. It would have taken James, alive, here now to be debriefed, to properly convince him of that.

  He picked up the volume he supposed the brothers had encouraged James to take away with him. He could not imagine that they would have been disposed to offer him a gift and he did not think James sufficiently enamored of their order to want to bring back with him any sort of souvenir. It was curious, really.

  He opened the volume. He looked at the frontispiece. He flicked cursorily through the pages. The writer had written in English and in a very fine hand. Time had turned what he assumed had once been black ink to bronze. The pages were unsullied and crisp at their edges, suggesting the contents had rarely if ever been read.

  The name Daniel Barry was vaguely familiar to him. He had heard of the man in some connection years earlier but had forgotten the context. He thought it might come back to him. He had an excellent memory. Of course it might be a different Daniel Barry altogether he was reminded of. The name was not particularly uncommon. The location of the story penned by this Daniel Barry was London. The name, though, sounded Irish.

  Daniel Barry of Dublin. There, he’d remembered that much. The rest would surely follow eventually into his conscious mind.

  He dropped the book back onto the table bearing James Cantrell’s possessions with a dusty thump. He was not minded to read an account of events in England’s capital compiled over 130 years ago. There were far more urgent and important matters to occupy his time.

  He needed to write to the boy’s mother. His father had drunk his liver into extinction and died years earlier but he knew James had been in the habit of writing to his mother every week. She had been enormously proud of his vocation and the status his cleverness and dynamism had earned him in Rome. She was over 80 and the cardinal had no doubt that the death of the so
n on whom she doted would kill her too.

  Before that, though, he had another duty to attend to. There was a firm of investigators the Vatican found it expedient to keep on retainer. They were based in Paris. They were exceptionally efficient and discreet and they had offices in every major capital in Europe.

  The cardinal called them. He was Italian, born originally in a fishing village in Sardinia, but he had come a long way from his humble roots over the 68 years he had so far lived and he spoke French as flawlessly as he spoke English and German.

  He explained about what had happened. He told them he would forward them the report from the Spanish police just as soon as they kept their promise to forward him a copy. He said that the driver of the Ferrari had admitted being at fault but that since there was no speed limit on the road and he’d been sober at the wheel, a criminal prosecution was unlikely.

  The cardinal was neutral on the subject of casinos. He had no particular axe to grind with the indulged playboy sons of casino owners. He thought the boy’s mea culpa probably sincerely meant. But he had not risen to the office of a Prince of the Church on gullibility. He didn’t really believe in accidents. Certainly he didn’t believe in them when they were as ill-timed and emphatic as this one had been. It would be costly to establish the truth. But the Church had deep pockets and it was the least James Cantrell deserved.

  ‘I have an alibi for Monday night.’

  ‘You were pretty busy on Tuesday afternoon.’

  ‘What can I tell you, Detective Chief Inspector? I’ve a prurient nature.’

  ‘Like those people who slow down on the motorway to take photos of crash scenes on their smartphones?’

  ‘That’s me all over.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘That’s your privilege, of course. But I still have an alibi for Monday night.’

  ‘When you were doing what?’

  ‘Helping out at a youth club that’s not really a youth club.’

  ‘Priests and children, they’re as indivisible as rain and water.’

  ‘That’s an unworthy generalization that’s also gratuitous and insulting.’

  ‘It’s the first thing I’ve said that’s made an impression on you Mr. Chadwick.’

  ‘Self-possession isn’t a criminal offence.’

  ‘Most people are nervous, interviewed under caution in a police station.’

  ‘That’s probably because they’ve done something wrong.’

  ‘Tell me about the youth club.’

  ‘It’s for violent young offenders, part of a programme they commit to if they want to stay out of penal institutions.’

  ‘You condone violence?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘You don’t think violent young men should be punished?’

  ‘I think we have to find a way to break the cycle.’

  ‘My problem is this, Mr. Chadwick. That kind of socially responsible idealism doesn’t square with murder scene tourism. There’s a cultural clash. If your alibi checks out, it leaves me with a real conundrum, unless you just tell me why you visited the crime scenes.’

  ‘Can I leave now?’

  ‘I’d prefer you wait until we validate your claim concerning Monday evening. Such a waste of petrol and manpower if we discover you’re lying and have to drag you back in.’

  Chadwick turned from where he was sitting and looked into the mirror on the wall to his left. Jane knew that all he could see there was the room and his own reflection, but he winked and waved anyway. She thought of the scenarios he’d likely have been involved in back in the Parachute Regiment in Bosnia and Iraq. This was a walk in the park for him. His Monday nights among the volatile youth of North London were probably more stressful. He was telling the truth about that. It didn’t solve the mystery of his ghoulish Tuesday afternoon tour.

  Behind the glass, Jacob Prior watched and listened. He didn’t think Jane Sullivan’s tactic with this particular subject was going to work. Neither could he think of any other approach that might. The man was hiding something, but had committed no criminal offence. Jacob didn’t think you could make a charge of obstruction or wasting police time stick. Visiting the places where their Scholar had killed was pretty creepy, but it wasn’t against the law.

  Inside the interview room, the phone on the desk between inquisitor and subject rang. Jane picked up the receiver and listened without speaking. After an interval of a few seconds she replaced it and said, ‘You can go, Mr. Chadwick. Thank you for your cooperation.’

  Chadwick stood. He was tall and powerfully built and he moved lithely. In his shabby suit and frayed and faded raincoat, his expression and deportment made him look to Jacob like a man wearing an unconvincing disguise. He’d fool no one, would he?

  ‘Is there anything you’d like to add before you leave?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll leave you with a quote to mull over, Detective Chief Inspector Sullivan. Winston Churchill once said the only thing that history teaches us is that history teaches us nothing.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘He was wrong. Good luck, by the way, with your Scholar investigation.’

  She shared a sandwich lunch with Jacob on a bench in Green Park. The good weather was holding. It was another sunny day Julie Longmuir had not lived to see. Instead she had been butchered and her organs arranged in a display the Scholar had intended to be public. The audience had been limited to the half dozen or so professionals attending the crime scene, but it had been a deliberate and cruel indignity.

  ‘I don’t really buy into your theory that he doesn’t hate women.’

  ‘I meant he doesn’t have a specific grudge. He holds people in contempt by definition if he kills without remorse.’

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘If it tortured his conscience, he wouldn’t keep on doing it. He’s put himself not just apart but above morality. I think the messages make that pretty plain.’

  ‘What did you make of Peter Chadwick?’

  ‘Either he knows or suspects something. He isn’t the killer. But he might have strong suspicions of his own about the Scholar’s identity.’

  ‘That’s my reading too. I’m tempted to carry out surveillance on him.’

  ‘Does your budget run to that?’

  ‘My reservations aren’t budgetary. It’s more that the surveillance would have to be bloody good or he’d spot it. I was half expecting a whisky priest.’

  ‘He’s sober, serious and up to something,’ Jacob said.

  Jane smiled at him. ‘You wouldn’t make a bad copper, you know. How old are you? There’s still time.’

  ‘Couldn’t cope with it, Jane, having to salute you all the time and call you ma’am.’

  ‘You go through a phase, early in the training, where you think every civilian you see is behaving suspiciously and probably planning a crime or at the very least, a misdemeanor.’

  ‘Is that what I’m doing with Peter Chadwick?’

  ‘No. It isn’t. You’re right about Chadwick; he is up to something. It might not be criminal, but until I can square away his contradictions, he’s worth keeping an eye on.’

  After saying goodbye to Jacob in the park, Jane worked for the rest of the afternoon on routine stuff, unable to concentrate on much but the prospect of visiting Julie Longmuir’s apartment in the company of Charlotte Reynard early that evening. She wasn’t looking forward to it. Whether it was productive or it wasn’t, it would be an ordeal for the woman. Charlotte thought she had escaped the Scholar, but even if that was true, he was still influencing what she thought about and did.

  She walked from Bermondsey to Jane Sullivan’s home in Kennington. The specialist who’d examined her ankle had told her that walking was more good than bad, provided she used the metal stick they had given her and restricted the range of movement. Exercise promoted blood flow, which prevented toxins from building up around the injured tissue and encouraged the healing process. She’d known that, but it was good to have it confirmed.

&nb
sp; There’d been no problem concerning Nick and Molly. The time-conscious nanny had become much more amenable over the couple of days since their hasty evacuation from Pimlico. Her boyfriend ran a coffee shop neighbouring Borough Market so she knew and liked the area and it was a locality in which she wanted to be. Charlotte had told her she’d be back by the latest at 9pm but the girl hadn’t seemed remotely deadline conscious.

  ‘Whenever, Mrs. Reynard,’ she’d gaily replied.

  Charlotte hadn’t told anyone where she was going. She had friends she considered faithful and loyal. One of them had lately lent her his house at zero notice. But it wasn’t the sort of thing you discussed, was it? If you sometimes just knew stuff there was no rational reason for you to know, if it just arrived in your mind with the dense weight of certainty, who would you tell? It wasn’t as if the information was always welcome. Mostly it wasn’t. The insights gatecrashed her mind rudely. Nine times out of ten she thought afterwards that ignorance would have been bliss.

  Most of her route was walked along the river. She stopped for a breather at a bench outside the BFI and watched the river traffic go by. She enjoyed the Southbank because most of the pedestrians there were tourists. There’d be glances of recognition sometimes from visitors who’d seen her dance her seasons in New York or her company tours taking marquee productions to Paris or Barcelona. But she didn’t get the television audience hassle a walk along Oxford Street tended to provoke. River people didn’t ask her to kiss babies or wave scraps of paper for her to sign.

  She looked out over the glittering Thames, at the painted craft cleaving paths and trailing white wakes through the water. She looked beyond, at the far bank and the complexity of buildings housing commerce and lives. And she thought of the Scholar, who was out there, lurking darkly and plotting his next atrocity. It teemed behind as well as in front of her, in Southwark and Lambeth and Clapham too.

  London was a city of how many million? She thought Jane Sullivan a clever and resourceful detective. You didn’t rise to her exalted rank as a woman unless you were. But it was a hell of a job.

  She wasn’t confident she would be able to help. Her gift or affliction came and it went. If she’d been anywhere near capable of controlling it, she’d have long ago subdued or banished it completely. But if she’d done that, she’d be dead, she thought, getting not very gracefully up from the bench and back onto her feet. She’d be the subject of the same lurid newspaper stories as poor Julie Longmuir was.