Something Evil Comes

by A. J. Cross

  He nodded, gazing in the direction of the church. ‘I assume that you would deem anyone who claims to hear the divine voice of our Lord to be mentally unhinged.’

  ‘I wouldn’t base any opinion on just one aspect of a person’s behaviour.’ She turned towards the steps. ‘Thank you for your time, Father Delaney.’

  ‘You’re welcome. If you need to speak to Richard Burns he’ll be in the church tomorrow afternoon, carrying out a delayed inventory of our bibles and hymn books.’

  Hanson eyed Maisie’s face in the soft lighting of the restaurant. A devotee of the pizza restaurant and casual self-presentation, Maisie had gone to considerable effort with her appearance this evening and was sitting very straight, hair drawn back and restrained in decorative clips behind her head, no phone in evidence, clearly thrilled by the fine dining experience being provided by her grandpa. As was Hanson herself. She looked around the Brindleyplace restaurant. ‘This was a really good idea, Charlie.’

  ‘I thought we could all benefit from an evening out.’

  She glanced at him, keeping it short, mindful of Maisie’s proximity. ‘You’re OK?’

  ‘Never better.’

  Almost unnoticed, the waiter cleared the table and there followed a short interval as Maisie’s finger hovered over the dessert menu. She gave Hanson a quick glance. ‘The fruit plate is healthy … but I like the sound of the three ice creams ’cos one is pistachio … Wait! The soufflé with chocolate ice cream inside it sounds yummy although I really like pistachio …’

  Charlie leant towards her and the menu. ‘Why don’t you order the soufflé and ask the waiter if you can swap the chocolate ice cream for pistachio?’ When the waiter returned Maisie ordered her dessert with aplomb, grinning at her grandfather as the waiter went away.

  They came out of the restaurant half an hour later into cold, the darkness relieved by the bright windows of other restaurants and tiny white lights strung on leafless trees. Maisie was talking into her phone. Hanson saw her hold it up to her own face, the illuminated trees a backdrop. The ubiquitous selfie.

  Charlie smiled at Hanson. ‘Did you sort out your problem, earlier? The one that had you feeling lost?’

  Her eyes swept the immediate area. It’s so good to be out here and not working. ‘Maybe, but there’s still a lot to do.’

  He placed his hand lightly on her arm. ‘I’ll miss that drive of yours and Maisie’s energy when I go home.’

  ‘Then don’t go.’

  ‘I can’t stay, Kate. My life, my friends are in Worcester and you need your home back.’

  They followed Maisie dancing ahead of them, all notions of sophistication gone.

  TWENTY

  Inside UCU early next morning Hanson recounted her visit to Delaney. ‘I haven’t made up my mind but I know one thing about him. He’s a realist. I wouldn’t be surprised if his own religious beliefs are limited to some degree.’

  Watts looked quizzical. ‘How’s that work for a rev?’

  ‘In recent years some ministers of the church have expressed doubts about some aspects of religion. Even God.’

  ‘Sounds to me like an easy way for the likes of Delaney to talk themselves out of a job. What else was he on about?’

  ‘He brought up the US allegation before I did.’ Watts glanced at Corrigan. ‘Did you hear that?’

  Corrigan nodded, passing an email across the table towards her. ‘Take a look at this. It concerns the eighteen-year-old woman who made the allegation against him.’

  She took it, slowly read it. ‘It says here she had difficulties with managing her moods, that she saw Delaney as a father figure to whom she was drawn when she was emotionally unstable but that following her making the allegation her condition stabilised and she withdrew it.’ She looked up. ‘He didn’t give me much detail about the allegation, other than he didn’t know her well, although he’d taken her confession a few times.’ She passed the email back to Corrigan.

  ‘What do you make of it, doc?’ asked Watts.

  ‘It’s hard to know, given the lack of detail and the distance in time.’

  Watts was unimpressed. ‘Delaney with his hand on a choir boy’s head, remember? I know where I stand on this sex angle.’ For Watts the arrival of the email, had linked smoothly into other events in this case: the choirboy, Alfred Best’s suicide, with what he probably considered a satisfying click. She could see he wanted to talk about it. ‘I’ve been thinking about Alfred Best’s money dwindling away. I raised the blackmail issue, remember? I still think it’s possible he killed himself because he was out of money and worried about a dark secret coming out from years back.’ Hanson’s gaze was on him. ‘I know you don’t like it, doc, but give a thought to the number of historical sex crimes coming out in the last few years. While I’m on the subject, before you rule out Delaney you might think whether his way of coming across to you is just a clever tactic. Sex types are good at that.’

  She glared at him. ‘How would I get through a single day without you telling me the bloody obvious? And while we’re discussing motive, I understood your motive-of-the-moment to be drugs.’

  He busied himself with the papers in front of him. ‘Still is. I’m not closing down any options. We don’t know who killed either Matthew Flynn or Callum Foley or why but we’ve got no time to hang about. The clock’s ticking because the chief’s set it going. He wants answers and he’s not about to give us more time because we’ve got yet another victim. He’s not happy about that, by the way.’

  Hanson was exasperated. ‘So, what would he like us to do about Foley? Re-bury him? That might make it a tidier, less costly case!’ She left the table and went to the board, her eyes moving over the information. ‘I don’t agree with you about Alfred.’ She turned. ‘And twelve months ago, when he was, what, eighty, do you think he would have been capable of murdering two strong, healthy males in their mid-teens? Because I don’t.’ Feeling her colleagues’ eyes on her she moved her index finger over the board’s smooth surface and pointed to the list of names. ‘Delaney, Fellowes the deacon we met at One Day, Richard Burns the other deacon who is back now, by the way. Brad Flynn, Dominic Flynn. Zach Addison. They all had the opportunity to kill Matthew Flynn, Callum Foley and Alfred Best.’ She looked at Watts. ‘What’s happened about Zach Addison?’

  ‘You can strike him for Best’s murder. He was still on remand.’ Watts regarded her. ‘Now you can give me one reason why Flynn would kill his own son.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting he did. I’m identifying the parameters within which we’re working here. The next is motive.’

  ‘We’ve just discussed that,’ said Watts. ‘Sex and/or drugs.’

  She turned back to the board. ‘I just thought of another male. Spencer Albright. We don’t know what’s happened to him. He might have had reasons to “disappear”. And don’t forget Matthew’s other housemate William Graham.’ She added both names to the list as Corrigan stood.

  ‘I’ve arranged to see the manager at Alfred Best’s bank,’ he said. ‘He might know more about Best’s financial arrangements than we’ve got so far.’ Watts reached for the phone. ‘I want another meeting with Addison at the prison. His solicitor is pushing for bail.’ He looked at Hanson. ‘Got any plans?’

  ‘I want to talk to Richard Burns, the other deacon now he’s back. Delaney said he would be at the church this afternoon. I’ll go and see him there.’ She watched Corrigan walk to the door, a quick thought coming into her head. ‘Corrigan. What’s the Combat Zone?’

  He turned to her, surprised. ‘An area of Boston, close to Faneuil Hall in the middle of the city.’

  ‘What’s it like?’

  ‘Sleazy, back in the day. It was cleared in the late seventies, early eighties to make way for new civic buildings. Where’d this come from?’

  She frowned at what was written in her notebook. ‘Father Delaney mentioned it. But, according to what you just said, by the time he was working there it didn’t exist anymore.’

  Cor
rigan shrugged. ‘Sounds like he might be playing mind games with you, Red.’

  Alone in UCU, Hanson studied the listed names, still on a quest for motive. Sex. Secret sex. Illegal sex. Legitimate sex. Matthew Flynn had a girlfriend called Honey who appeared to have been such a well-kept secret that his own father continued to make jibes about Matthew’s sexuality. Honey had been mentioned by only one person during the investigation, Terri Brennan. Was it possible Brennan was mistaken? Another possibility came into Hanson’s head: had Matthew Flynn felt the need to invent a girlfriend?

  She went to the board, tapped an icon. The screen was flooded with the photographs of both victims’ bodies and the forensic artist’s full colour representation of the damage to Matthew Flynn’s neck. Hanson’s eyes drifted over it all. If you do exist, who are you, Honey? What’s your relevance to Matthew in life and in death, if any? Watts thought he knew the motive: ‘Sex and/or drugs’. Where did fear come into it? So much fear that Matthew and Callum needed symbols, talismans to keep it at bay? Drugs was about money. Money hidden in a boot. Money Callum Foley hid at his mother’s house. Money from what? For what?

  The door opened and Gus came in, carrying a hefty file. ‘Investigative info on the Best suicide. It seems pretty open and shut to us but Wattsie has asked for it.’ He put it on the table. He was looking tired. ‘When he’s finished with it, tell him he can add Best’s own papers and take it all to the basement.’

  ‘How are you getting on with your reviews?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know how you investigate these cold cases and stay sane. You’re welcome to them. We’re working on the rapes and abductions and getting nowhere. It’s the time element: witnesses have died, others have moved away and we can’t locate them, there’s alibis we can’t check because people and even one or two places no longer exist. I tell you, it’s all questions and no answers. Like I said, you’re welcome.’

  As Gus left Hanson fetched her coat, mulling over his words. She understood exactly what he was saying. What Gus didn’t know was the pay-off from cold cases: that electrifying moment, that sudden realisation of finally, finally getting the answer when a years-old cold case offered up its solution and gave investigators that dual pay-off: knowledge and justice.

  Hanson drove onto the open area and parked some distance away from a car already there. She glanced at her watch. It was barely twelve thirty. If Burns was already inside the church, she would talk to him then get back to the university. About to get out of her car she was startled by the sudden appearance of a man in paint–spattered overalls coming from the general direction of the church, a large paint tin in one hand. She watched him approach the other car, saw its lights flash and the boot lid flip open. Putting the paint tin inside, he stripped off overalls to reveal jeans and a sweatshirt and dropped them into the boot as Hanson approached.

  ‘Excuse me, I need to talk to you. My name is Kate Hanson. I’m working with the police on the remains found here and the death of Alfred Best.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing to say about that.’ He turned, headed for his driver’s door and got inside. She heard the engine start, watched as he made a quick exit, sending up a shower of gravel. Burns can wait. Rushing back to her car she got inside and followed him at a distance along the main road, down a narrow turn-off and into a pub carpark. She waited until he parked and disappeared inside the pub then slid into a parking space. She’d give him ten minutes, reasoning that even if he was no more pleased to see her than he had been just now, he would be reluctant to leave the lunch he’d ordered and paid for.

  She came into the bar, headed for the table where he was sitting and sat opposite him. Lowering his knife and fork he cast a glance around the quiet lounge. ‘I’ve told you, I don’t want to talk to you. I’ve got nothing to say.’

  ‘You were a friend of Alfred’s.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t. He had fifteen, twenty years on me and I’m sorry he felt he had to do what he did but there’s nothing I can tell you about him. Or that other thing that happened in the crypt.’

  ‘But you knew Alfred?’

  ‘So? There’s a group of us who do what we can in and around the church. We all know each other but we’re not friends. Whatever you want to know about Alfred, you’re asking the wrong person.’

  She gave him a direct look. ‘You knew Alfred. You know what’s happened to him. Come on, I need you to talk to me, Mr …?’

  ‘Bennett. Frank Bennett.’

  ‘OK, Frank, tell me about Alfred. He was financially well-off, wasn’t he?’

  He frowned at her, took a drink from his glass. ‘If you say so. We never discussed that kind of thing.’

  She waited. ‘Tell me what kinds of things you and he did talk about.’

  He put down his glass with a thump and lowered his voice. ‘We weren’t friends. We were both volunteer helpers at the church. I’m retired and I’ve got the time to do it. Alfred’s wife wasn’t well so I’m guessing the work he did around the church was a distraction for him. I felt sorry for him, if you must know.’

  ‘Why, exactly?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Because of his wife. Because he was lonely. He didn’t have that many people to talk to. No wife he could share things with any more and no kids. I’ve still got my wife and we had five kids together and they’ve got kids. The hours I give to St Bartholomew’s are a welcome break, I can tell you.’

  ‘Alfred never mentioned the care home fees he was paying?’

  He shifted uncomfortably. ‘You just don’t let up, do you? Yes, he mentioned them. It was a fortune and a big worry for him. I couldn’t understand that. I got to thinking maybe he wasn’t as well off as everybody thought. He never said as much to me. We didn’t come from the same background, if you get me. Painting and decorating’s been my trade for years but Alfred ran a proper business with premises. He was old school. He wouldn’t have divulged his private details to me.’

  She leant towards him. ‘Father Delaney has told me that the church is organised as a business, that a committee gives time and skills to support it. I want the names of those parishioners who help support the church.’

  ‘If you’re so friendly with Delaney, you can ask him for the names.’

  She changed tack. ‘Was Alfred fairly typical of the church’s retired members in terms of his financial situation …?’

  He was on his feet. ‘Like I said, ask Father Delaney.’

  She watched him go, thinking about churches-as-businesses. Why not? People have given of their own money for centuries to build and support them in return for benefits at times of their own need. Except that nobody had helped Alfred. Glancing at her watch she hurried to her car. She’d get the names from Delaney. She drove out of the pub car park, thinking of the bland, smiling face, the twinkle in his eyes. Was Corrigan right about Delaney’s comment about Boston’s old red light district? That it was game-playing? She put the issue to rest and gave some thought to Richard Burns and the information she wanted from him. Following her meeting with him she’d go straight to the university and attack the work piling up there. She looked through the windscreen at a leaden sky, the afternoon so overcast it was almost dusk-like. Who was it who had mentioned wanting to be away from the church before darkness fell?

  Alfred.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Under tumultuous cloud cover, the dark clad figure came into the church and stood in silence and shadow. A phone call had sent him here. Everything was getting out of control. He was out of his own control, he knew but there was too much at stake to stop now. Taking slow, deep breaths he started down the aisle. Reaching the altar he stared at the items on it. Reaching for a specific one, his attention was caught by a painting of the Virgin Mary and Child on a nearby wall, their faces pious, their eyes focused heavenwards. He knew about people and families. He knew about the church. All a sham. Phony. Fake. A lie, signifying nothing. He closed his eyes against the tightening inside his head. He felt like the boy with his finger in the dam
, stopping water from dribbling out. His dam was falling into holes as fast as he could plug them. He tensed at a small sound from somewhere near the door he’d just come through. Turning, he saw it slowly open. He watched in disbelief as she came inside. Unbelievable luck. Or was it all part of an Almighty’s plan? On a silent laugh he faded further into shadow, hefting the object in his hand, tapping it against his other, three short words replacing the pressure inside his head. Seize the day.

  Hanson came inside the unlocked church, closed the door and listened. Nothing but silence. If she’d missed Deacon Burns she would have to come back another day. She needed answers and he might have some of them. She slow-gazed over rows of pews, the choir stall to one side and beyond it the altar. This was the first time she’d been here alone. The silence was profound, the air around her warm and heavy but not oppressive as it had been at the re-consecration. The atmosphere was soothing today. It felt calm. Eternal.

  She walked slowly down the main aisle. It felt wrong to call out for Deacon Burns. She would find him if he was still here. Raising her head, she looked at vaultings and numerous stone and plaster faces thrusting out from cornices, each in an agony of ecstasy, then down to a huge, dark painting of robed figures, their faces upturned to the crucified figure, their arms stretched in supplication. Delaney wasn’t the only paradox here: the church itself might feel restful but it was also a place of horrific imagery. She thought of Matthew Flynn’s remains, left in the crypt somewhere below her feet, his killer hoping for an eternity of concealment but getting just a year.

  Her eyes drifted sideways at a sound from somewhere behind her. Something soft. Like a footfall. She turned, looked back at the door through which she’d come. It was still closed, the aisle deserted. She walked on to the wide steps leading to the altar, went up them and stood, captivated by the brassware, the lace, recalling what Delaney had said about the theatre of the church. He was right. It was here in all that she was seeing. She gently lifted the lace between her thumb and forefinger and held it, fascinated by its intricacy, her eyes slowly traveling over the arrangement of brasses, stopping at a single space within the array.