So Say the Fallen (Dci Serena Flanagan 2)

by Stuart Neville

  The house had been built at the same time as the church, a century and a half ago, from the sandstone quarried near Armagh. Like all rectories, it was large, with four bedrooms and three receptions. Had he and Maggie ever had children, then they might have made good use of the space. But there were no children, Maggie was ten years in her grave, and McKay couldn’t remember the last time some of those rooms had been opened. Cold and damp, draughts slipped through every closed window and door. He sometimes imagined himself a ghost haunting the dark hallways.

  The church grounds stood behind an iron fence at the south-western end of Morganstown’s main street, the last buildings before the countryside. The Morgan family had paid for the building of the church in order to serve the community that earned its living in its linen mill. The mill had died with the linen industry, but the rows of red-brick two-bedroom houses remained, as did Morgan Demesne, the mansion seated in acres of woodland at the other end of the village, now owned by the National Trust.

  These days, the village was mostly populated by young professionals who took advantage of easy access to the motorway that served Belfast, but few of them ever saw the inside of McKay’s church. His congregation was drawn from the older generations who had stubbornly refused to be bought out of their homes, and the dozens of farms that sprawled across the surrounding countryside.

  Main Street – in truth, Morganstown’s only real street – stretched to just a few hundred yards, a filling station with a small shop at the north-eastern end. Clusters of modern houses, built during the property boom, branched away from Main Street, SUVs and executive saloons parked on their driveways. Apart from a handful of band parades every summer, it was as uneventful a place as could be imagined. Sometimes McKay enjoyed the peace here; sometimes the quiet made him want to scream.

  He unlocked the door and stood aside to let Roberta enter. Still she did not speak, not even to thank him. He followed her into the hallway, watched as she paused at the bottom of the stairs, looked up, then back at him. Then she walked into his living room. He remained in the hall, looking at the stairs. No, not at them, but at the memory of them. That Sunday four months ago.

  She had smiled at him from the second to last pew as all others around her bowed their heads in prayer. He had stood in the pulpit, his stare fixed on her as he recited the words, just shapes in his mouth, no meaning to them whatsoever.

  Roberta sat there, glowing like an ember among the sad, grey, slack faces. Farmers, most of them, scrubbed-up for their weekly duty. Broad-backed wives, thick-fingered children. Boys who could drive tractors before the age of seven; girls who longed for the monthly socials and the chance to spin around in the arms of some pimply lad.

  He’d been dreading this service, just as he dreaded every one. He felt certain they would see the sin on his face, know what he’d done. And they would point and hiss, and call him hypocrite, how dare he preach to them after he’d taken her into his bed, after his weakness had betrayed them all.

  He watched as Roberta stood, sly and silent as a cat, and made her way to the door. She gave him a glance over her shoulder, her eyes meeting his, and he could not help but stumble over the prayer. The door closed silently, and a few seconds later, as he found his place again, he felt the cold wash of displaced air.

  After the service, after he had shaken hands with the departing congregation, after he had listened and laughed and consoled and thanked, he let himself into his cold and lonely house. With a fluttering in his stomach, and a heavy heat beneath that, he went straight to the living room, knowing she waited for him.

  But she did not.

  ‘Not here,’ he said to himself. A mix of relief and disappointment flooded him. He let the air out of his lungs, feeling himself deflate.

  McKay backed out of the room, intending to go upstairs to change. It wasn’t until he put his right foot on the bottom step that he saw the pair of shoes there, two steps above. Two steps higher, her coat. Halfway up, her blouse, slung over the banister.

  He swallowed and began to climb.

  At the top of this flight, at the turn, her skirt. Then tights, underwear, leading to his bedroom, the door open for him like an eager mouth.

  Roberta lay in his bed, the duvet pulled up to her chest, the flame of her hair lying across her bare shoulders. He knew he should tell her to get out, tell her this had gone far enough, tell her this madness had to end.

  But she threw aside the duvet, offered herself to him, and he pulled the white collar from his black shirt and claimed the madness for his own.

  Now, two hours after McKay had driven her away from her home and her dead husband, Roberta stood at the centre of his small living room, glowering where she had once glimmered. He had left her there earlier while he went to the kitchen, where he had remained until now, unable to face the question he needed to ask. He waited in the doorway to the living room, afraid to cross his own threshold. He cleared his throat. She turned her head to him, her eyes still red and brimming.

  ‘What now?’ he asked.

  She stared at him, as if she expected him to answer his own question.

  He cleared his throat again and said, ‘Maybe we should talk.’

  ‘About what?’ she asked.

  McKay opened his mouth and found no words there. He opened his arms, showed her his palms, tried to speak once more, but fear closed his lips.

  Say it now, he thought. Say it now or say it never.

  ‘About us.’

  Roberta held his gaze for a moment, then looked away. She said, ‘I’d like to be alone for a while. If you don’t mind.’

  He wanted to protest, but tightened his jaw to trap the words in his throat. He brought his hands together, balled them into one fist, felt his nails dig at his palm. Somehow, he wrestled a smile onto his lips that at least felt kindly, even if it might have looked more like a grimace. Not that she could see it anyway. She stared at the fireplace, her arms folded across her breasts.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Of course. I’ll be upstairs if you need me.’

  McKay closed the door behind him and climbed the stairs. No trail of clothes to follow now. No sweet insanity waiting for him in his bedroom. Only the cold loneliness that had slept with him for the last ten years. He sat on the edge of his bed, trying not to remember the scent of her there, how, every time she left, he had smelled her on the pillows and the sheets, how he had brought them to his face and breathed deep.

  He covered his eyes with his hands, rested his elbows on his knees.

  Now he recognised the feeling that had crept in on him as he had watched Roberta go to her husband’s corpse: the sensation of the thing he desired slipping through his fingers.

  ‘Dear God,’ he whispered. ‘Please don’t take this from me. Not now. Please don’t.’

  Then he remembered he didn’t believe, hadn’t believed in months, and he despaired.

  7

  Flanagan went to the bedroom threshold, saw the front door open and a slender middle-aged woman enter. She carried a large tote bag strapped over her shoulder.

  ‘Hello?’ the woman called as she closed the door behind her. Unbidden, she walked towards the rear of the hall, out of Flanagan’s view. Flanagan descended the stairs.

  ‘Hello? Mr Garrick, where . . . what’s . . .’

  Flanagan saw the woman standing in the doorway to the dead man’s room, her bag hanging from her hand. She wore a nurse’s tunic and trousers, and the kind of plain black shoes favoured by someone who spends the day on their feet.

  ‘Please don’t go in there,’ Flanagan said.

  The woman gasped and spun around. ‘Jesus!’ She put her free hand to her heart. ‘You scared the life out of me. What’s going on? Where’s Mr Garrick? Who are you?’

  Flanagan took her wallet from her jacket pocket and showed the woman her warrant card as she approached. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Serena Flanagan. Mr Garrick is dead.’

  The woman dropped her bag. ‘What? No. How?’


  ‘We believe suicide. I was just locking up when you came in. And you are?’

  ‘Thelma Stinson. I’m a nurse. I come out every other day to change Mr Garrick’s dressings and help bath him. I’m used to just letting myself in if the door’s not locked. I wondered why all the blinds were drawn. I can’t believe it. He was doing so well. Why would he go and do that? God love him.’

  She reached down for her bag, looked back into the room.

  ‘I suppose there’s no point in me hanging around, then.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Flanagan said.

  The nurse nodded a farewell as she passed on her way to the door.

  ‘Actually,’ Flanagan called after her, ‘maybe we could have a quick chat, if you’ve time for a few questions.’

  ‘Love, I’ve got the next two hours free. But do you mind if I step outside for a smoke? Just to settle my nerves.’

  Flanagan followed Thelma out to the front step where the nurse’s Skoda Fabia sat parked next to her own Volkswagen. Thelma took a ten-pack of Lambert & Butler from her bag, folded back the lid, and removed a cigarette and a disposable lighter. She offered the pack, but Flanagan declined.

  Once she’d sparked up, Thelma said, ‘Ask away.’

  ‘How long have you been coming here?’

  Thelma exhaled a long blue plume that was swiped away by the breeze. ‘Ever since he came home from the hospital. That was, what, four months ago, give or take a week?’

  ‘How was Mr Garrick’s mood in that time?’ Flanagan asked.

  ‘Better than you’d think,’ Thelma said. ‘I mean, he had his ups and downs, of course. He did better than I ever could if that happened to me. But then, I’ve no religion.’

  ‘You think his faith helped him?’

  Another plume of smoke. ‘Oh, yes. He always said to me, if that’s what God intended for him, then there had to be a reason for it. What was it he said? There’s not a leaf falls from a tree without God’s say-so. I don’t know, if God did that to me, I’d tell him to go fuck himself.’

  The nurse turned to Flanagan, open-mouthed, her hand extended in apology. ‘Oh, I didn’t think, you’re not religious, are you?’

  Flanagan smiled and shook her head. ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Thank God for that, I wouldn’t want to offend you. My sister’s all into that, but I could never be bothered with it.’ She winked at Flanagan. ‘I’m always too hung-over on a Sunday morning for church, anyway.’

  ‘How was Mrs Garrick coping?’ Flanagan asked.

  The smile left Thelma’s mouth. ‘God love her, I think she took it worse than he did. I mean, she’s what, thirty-four, thirty-five, something like that? And now she’s got to care for him like he’s a baby for the rest of his days. He didn’t have much of a life after the accident, but Jesus, it was no laugh for her either. No matter how much you love someone, it’s hard to face cleaning up after them day in and day out. And when I say cleaning up, I mean cleaning up. Like, down there.’

  Thelma waved her fingers at her own crotch while her face creased, and Flanagan knew exactly what she meant. She imagined the rituals the Garricks had to go through morning and night, the shame and resentment that would surely take root and grow between them. True love can only stretch so far.

  ‘And nothing changed recently?’ Flanagan asked. ‘No mood swings? Any arguments between Mr and Mrs Garrick?’

  ‘Not that I noticed.’

  ‘All right. Thank you, you’ve been a help.’

  Thelma stubbed the cigarette out on the sole of her shoe, slipped the remains into the packet, and stowed it in her bag. ‘No worries, love. If you need anything else, you can get me through the local trust.’

  She went to her car and paused as she opened the door.

  ‘It’s an awful shame,’ she said. ‘He was a nice man. He’d every right to be bitter about things, but he wasn’t. God love him. God love the both of them.’

  Flanagan closed the front door as the Skoda’s engine hummed away. She went to the hall table and found the two sets of keys there, resting on the open pages of the huge bible. The paper silken and cool against her fingers. In the dimness of the hall, she saw the first page of the New Testament.

  The Book of Matthew.

  Chapter One. Verse One. The genealogy of Christ, who begat who, the names cascading down the page.

  She pulled her gaze away from the words, grabbed the keys, and left.

  8

  McKay froze when he heard the knock on the door. He’d been standing over his kitchen sink, staring out of the window. He almost lost his grip on the handle of the mug, tea long cooled spilling over the rim, over his fingers and into the steel bowl.

  Another knock, and he placed the mug on the draining board before going out to the hall. He saw the form through the rippled glass in the door. Was it Flanagan?

  McKay advanced along the hall until he reached the door to the living room. He looked in and saw Roberta staring back at him.

  ‘It’s that policewoman,’ she said in a voice too angry to be a whisper. ‘I don’t want to talk to her.’

  McKay nodded and went to the door. He paused for a breath before he opened it.

  ‘Yes?’ he said, shocking himself with the force of his own voice.

  A flicker of concern on Flanagan’s face before she said, ‘Reverend McKay.’

  ‘Reverend Peter,’ he said. ‘Or Reverend Mr McKay.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘You corrected me earlier on that. I’ll try to remember.’

  He paused, swallowed, and said, ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude. It’s been a long day.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Flanagan said. ‘How’s Mrs Garrick holding up?’

  ‘She’s resting. She doesn’t want to see anyone.’

  ‘I understand.’ She held out a set of keys. ‘I just came by to drop these off. Mrs Garrick is free to go home any time she wishes. I’d only ask that she stays out of the room Mr Garrick died in and doesn’t allow anyone else to enter. Just in case we need to reopen the scene. If she doesn’t object, I’ll hold on to the other set, to save bothering her if we need access over the next day or two.’

  He took the keys from Flanagan’s hand. ‘That’s fine. I think she might stay here at least a couple of days.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll need to come by tomorrow and ask some more questions. Routine stuff, so no need to worry. I’ll call in advance.’

  ‘All right,’ McKay said. ‘Thank you.’

  He waited for her to leave his doorstep, but she lingered.

  ‘I’d invite you in, but Mrs Garrick . . .’

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ she said. ‘I have to get on, anyway.’

  She turned towards the church on the far side of the grounds.

  ‘It’s a beautiful building,’ she said. ‘How old?’

  ‘Mid nineteenth century,’ he said.

  ‘How often do you have services?’

  ‘The times are on the board at the gate.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, offering him a polite smile. ‘Thank you.’

  Without another word, McKay watched her get into her car, start the engine, and pull out of the gate. She did not pause to look at the board. He closed the door and rested his forehead against the cool glass for a moment. Then he went back to the living room where Roberta waited.

  ‘Well?’ she said. ‘What did she want?’

  ‘To give you these.’ He held the keys out to her. When she did not reach for them, he placed them on the coffee table. ‘She said you could go back home, but I said you’d maybe stay here for a couple of days.’

  ‘I’ll go to a hotel,’ she said.

  McKay took a step closer to her, knocked his shin on the edge of the coffee table, making the keys rattle. ‘No, please, stay here,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘How would it look?’

  ‘You don’t have to sleep with me,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not a question of whose bed I’m in.’

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘S
tay here. With me.’

  Roberta closed her eyes for a moment, then said, ‘All right. But I need to get some things from home. You’ll drive me.’

  It was an instruction, not a request. And he didn’t mind one bit.

  Fifteen minutes later, Roberta unlocked the front door of the house her husband had built for her and stepped inside. McKay followed, sensing that keeping a distance would be best. He closed the door behind him as she walked to the open room in which Mr Garrick had died.

  ‘You’re not to go in there,’ he called. ‘That policewoman said no one’s allowed in.’

  Roberta changed course as if he had said nothing, as if it was purely her own decision. She walked beneath the staircase and towards the kitchen door on the other side. She opened it and peered into the gloom.

  ‘They closed the blinds,’ she said. ‘All of them. All over the house.’

  ‘Did they?’ he said. ‘Out of respect, I suppose.’

  She turned and he saw the hardness in her features. ‘If they’d any respect they’d have left everything alone. I need to get my things.’

  He couldn’t hold her gaze. Instead, he retreated to the front door and waited there with his back against the wood as she walked upstairs to the double doors of her bedroom. She opened them wide and switched on the light. He watched as she went to one side of the room, out of his view, and returned with a leather bag. Then she froze at the foot of the bed, staring at a place he could not see.

  After a while, she said, ‘Someone’s been in here.’

  Her voice resonated in the high-ceilinged hallway, its metallic edge cutting at his senses.

  He swallowed and said, ‘I suppose they had to search the house.’

  If she heard, it did not show. She dropped the bag on the bed and walked towards whatever had caught her attention, disappearing from view once more. A minute later, she reappeared.