A Journal of Sin

by Darryl Donaghue

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘She’s not complaining of any pain, breathing is fine and she’s talking coherently. She mentioned a man being in the house, but can’t give any more details.’

  ‘Did you let anyone in, Sally? Did anyone come to the front door that you recognised?’ asked Dales.

  ‘I remember opening the door. But, I can’t tell you who was there. It was a man. How very strange.’ Sally looked perplexed.

  ‘Try not to worry yourself about it now. The paramedics will be here in a minute.’ Dales left to meet them at the door.

  A few minutes later, a greying paramedic opened the bedroom door with a blonde lady behind him, putting on a pair of blue latex gloves. ‘I’m Fred, this is Steph. Hello there, what’s your name, my love?’ They went straight to work, asking Sally lots of questions and testing for pain. Sarah and Dales stepped outside.

  ‘The books are gone.’

  ‘Damn. It’s my fucking fault for keeping them here. I put Mum in danger.’

  ‘You didn’t have much of a choice.’ He knew how difficult this was for her. It was every police officer’s fear that one day work would follow them home. One day, someone would make it personal.

  ‘Sarge? Sorry to interrupt.’ Fred popped his head out of the bedroom door. ‘We’ll be taking her to St Anthony’s. She hit her head; it’s quite a nasty gash. We’ll need to suture it. She said there was a man in the house? Did she mention that to you?’

  ‘Yes, she’s been burgled,’ said Dales. ‘If you remove her clothing, could you make sure it’s preserved and unwashed.’

  ‘I’m her daughter. Do you think it’s serious?’

  ‘It’s hard to tell. We’ll know more once we get back to the hospital. At her age, any injury has to be treated seriously. We’re going to put her on the stretcher to carry her out. It’s nothing to be alarmed about in itself, it’s just the less she moves the better. Some people panic when they see their loved ones all strapped in like that.’

  They went downstairs to give the paramedics enough space to come through. Old cottages weren’t designed with practicality in mind and the paramedics struggled to turn at the right angle of the tight staircase.

  ‘Now behave yourself for these nice people, Mum. I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘Oh, they’re causing all this fuss for nothing.’ They all smiled and Sarah’s eyes watered.

  ‘We both know who did this. I should get the call in the next half an hour or so, we’ll meet the arrest team and go and round John up.’ He wasn’t sure if she was in the right state of mind to come along. She had worries about her career, her family at home and her mother was being flown to a hospital for scans for a head injury. He wanted to suggest she board the helicopter when it arrived, head home, see her family and get a good night’s sleep, but the look in her eyes told him she wouldn’t entertain the idea for a second. She already had the car keys in her hand.

  ‘Half an hour, my arse.’

  SEVENTEEN

  The door banged open.

  ‘Hello. What? Shit.’ John’s voice came from the kitchen. He fled into the garden as Sarah ran into the room, stumbling as he leapt for the wall. She grabbed his leg a split second before he managed to clamber to the top.

  ‘Fuck off! Get the fuck off me.’ He stank of booze. His boot slammed into her face, the grips grazing her cheeks, but she held on, holding one leg tight and reaching out for the other. She sank her weight down, knowing he didn’t have the strength to pull himself over a wall with her whole body pulling against him. He deliberately fell onto her, his other knee plummeting into her stomach. She let go in pain; he ran for the house. She stretched her hand out, knocking his foot and causing him to fall forward and land face first on the stone slabs. The grazes on his hands drew blood, and although his quick reactions had prevented his head from hitting the stone slabs, he was too exhausted to stand up.

  Sarah’s jaw ached, but she managed to say, ‘You’re under –’

  ‘You’re under arrest on suspicion of burglary and murder.’ Dales gave him the police caution and looked at Sarah’s jaw. ‘That’ll swell up nicely. You okay?’

  ‘Fine. Didn’t think you knew me well enough to be finishing my sentences.’ She dusted off her trousers as she stood up.

  ‘I didn’t think the kick had left any teeth in there. Right you, on your feet.’

  John rolled on the ground breathing hard, too winded to be of any threat. Dales cuffed him and walked him inside.

  Empty cans of air freshener and of beer littered the kitchen. It stank of a foul combination of rot, cheap daffodil-scented spray and Newky Brown ale. Dales stood John next to one of the armchairs in the lounge. He pulled the chair away from the wall, searched around it and under the cushions, before pushing John down onto it. Sarah looked around the kitchen. It was more of a state than the last time she was here. It appeared he’d stopped bothering to use a bin, choosing instead to pile everything up on the worktops. Food-stained plates, empty cans and numerous beer bottles covered the sideboards, window sills and floor. Something caught her eye in the hallway.

  ‘Murder? I didn’t murder Father Michael.’ John caught his breath and his words came out as spluttered whimper. ‘You can’t arrest me for murder. I’ve helped you all the way.’

  ‘Listen mate, you’ve been nicked. You’ll be taken to the nearest police station and more will be explained then.’ Dales checked his watch. The arrest team would be landing any minute. He popped his head into the corridor and saw Sarah on her knees looking through a dark blue duffel bag.

  ‘Found something?’ He kept one eye on John through the crack in the door. He sat perfectly still with his chin on his chest, whimpering to himself.

  ‘Looks like he was planning on going away,’ she said, holding up a wash kit and a handful of clothes.

  ‘He wouldn’t have gotten too far. Never mind searching it properly now, we’ll give the place a good going over once the team get here. Could you watch him for a couple of minutes? I’m going to call the boys and try and guide them in.’ Dales took out his mobile.

  ‘Sure.’ She put the items back. ‘Has he said anything?’

  ‘Denied the murder. Not said a word about the burglary. Give me two minutes.’ Dales scrolled through his contacts as he walked upstairs to make the call.

  John raised his head as Sarah walked in. He was covered in sweat and his striped blue shirt clung to his thin body. He squirmed in the seat trying to find a comfortable position to sit in, one in which the cuffs didn’t burn into his wrists. She wanted to punch him in the face. Punch him in the face so hard it splattered on the back wall. He sat, cuffed and vulnerable, accused of murder, burglary and the serious assault of her mother.

  ‘Could you loosen these cuffs a little?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Jesus. You don’t think I murdered him, too, do you? I helped you out. I kept my friend’s dead body in my own house to help you out. If you’d thought I’d killed him, why’d you ask me to do that?’ He was pissed off, but not aggressive, possibly because he was exhausted, cuffed and knew it was futile, or possibly because he was telling the truth.

  ‘Look, like the Sergeant said, it's best we don’t talk about it until you go through the proper procedure and have access to legal advice.’ It wasn’t the answer she wanted to give. She wanted to slam his head through the coffee table and ask him if he broke into her mother’s house.

  ‘Oh fuck you, we’re both adults. I’ll talk if I want to talk. I’m tired of keeping it all inside. I don’t need a lawyer to tell me what to say and when to say it.’ Everyone had a different reaction to being arrested. Some stayed absolutely quiet, so much so the custody sergeant had trouble getting their name out of them. Others started to gush. Gush about anything from a complete rundown of their current gripes and groans to full and frank confessions of the offence in question, and sometimes of others too. ‘Have you looked in that bag? The one in the hall?’

  ‘I have. Planning on going somewhere?�
�

  ‘You haven’t looked hard enough, have you?’

  ‘It’ll be searched, along with this whole house, once you’ve been taken to the police station.’

  ‘Bring it in here. I want you to see something.’

  Dales appeared at the door and beckoned her into the hall.

  ‘I’ve got to pop out. They’re having trouble finding the place. Our mapping system isn’t too great with these old villages. You’ll be alright with him, won’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s no trouble. A bit of verbals, nothing more.’

  Dales left, leaving her his cuff keys in case she needed them for any medical emergencies. She brought the bag into the living room with her and dropped it on the floor.

  ‘Open the front pocket. Not that one, the zipped one. That’s it, unzip it.’ Sarah did so and looked inside before putting her hand in. It was full of sheets of paper. ‘Go on, read them.’

  She didn’t like being told what to do by a suspect in cuffs. Whatever was in the bag would be found as part of the investigation, but she felt he didn’t want that. He wanted to show her in his own way, to see her reaction, to be in control of the process. There were printouts of emails, online shopping receipts and train ticket itineraries, all in the name of Jenny Horscroft.

  ‘You hacked her accounts.’ She looked at the email address: JH534@hotmail.com. ‘I take it she liked Niagara Falls?’

  ‘I thought that one was a given. You looked straight at that and it didn’t even click.’

  ‘You packed this bag to go and find her? Planning to meet her at the station? Funny idea, seeing as you can’t leave town. The water’s subsided, but you certainly couldn’t do it in that old thing.’ She nodded to his old silver Nissan parked outside. ‘John, this has to stop. It’s all gone too far.’

  ‘I want it to stop. You don’t know what I was going to do. What I was thinking about. She took my child away and I let her do it. That’s the worst part of it all. When it came to it, I walked out like Dad did.’

  ‘We’ve been through this. You told me you’d come so far and now, a few days later, you’re sitting here in cuffs under arrest for some very serious offences, with possibly one more to come.’ She held the emails and train e-tickets in her hand. ‘You planned to meet her on the station?’

  ‘I don’t know her address, do I? I’ll admit to this murder. I want to go away. I need help,’ John cried. For all the years he’d struggled with his past, for all the steps he believed he’d made, he’d always been attached to a piece of elastic, a piece of elastic that had just snapped him from within an inch of emotional freedom right back through a jail cell door.

  ‘Don’t admit to anything you didn’t do.’

  ‘I will. I’ll tell that friend of yours. He’ll take the admission with no questions. He’s not one of you new cops. Jenny needs protecting from me. Josh too.’

  That she agreed with. ‘Josh? Your son? Have you lost all sense of perspective?’ She’d felt sorry for him when they’d met. A nice guy, down on his luck, with no friends or family for support. He sat before her now a dangerous man, obsessed with finding a woman who wanted little to do with him, a suspect for a murder and with the potential to commit another.

  ‘Open the main pocket. Reach in below the towel. Not too far, I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.’ Her welfare was an odd thing for him to care about. She unzipped the main pocket of the bag, moved the wash kit and took out three t-shirts, tossing them on the floor. The folded blue bathing towel was rolled tightly at the bottom of the bag. ‘Unravel it.’

  It was nine inches long with a black handle. It wouldn’t have looked out of place in any kitchen, aside from the name Jenny scratched into one side of the blade and ‘her lover’ into the other.

  ‘See? I was going to kill them both. I need help. I kept some of the books. They’re in there too. They show just what a whore she was, like I said they would. Do you remember me saying that? I was right. I told you.’

  ‘I remember you taking whatever small amount of information you could and twisting it to say what you wanted to hear.’ Sarah pulled out six books from the bag. ‘Where are the rest?’

  ‘Never you mind. Take the first one, that one there and turn to the top of the second page.’

  ‘She’s been cheating on her partner for years. Partner and their son; neither are any the wiser,’ read Sarah.

  ‘Does that sound familiar to you? Last page of that book, halfway down.’

  ‘She simply has no respect for the sanctity of marriage. I can only hope she sees the error of her ways.’

  ‘Now you can’t say that isn’t about Jenny?’ He stood up, teeth clenched and sweat flying from his forehead. She shoved him back down with both her hands.

  ‘Stay where you are.’ He crumpled into the armchair. Her strike was certain to leave a bruise on his flat, bony chest. ‘Calm down.’ He screamed in pain, still suffering from Sean’s beating.

  ‘I’d be on my way there now, bag in the boot and ready to end it all for good. If that blade had three sides, one would have my name on it too.’

  She made sure the knife was well out of reach. ‘You were going to orphan your son? That was your plan?’ Dales needed to get here soon. Being here wasn’t helping John’s mood or his mental health. ‘Those entries could be about anybody. The journals go back nineteen years. Think of all the relationships Father Michael counselled over that time. This paranoia has led you here, sitting in cuffs, and it started before you moved away, didn’t it? You and Father Michael weren’t exactly the friends you say you were, were you?’

  ‘I didn’t kill him,’ he shouted. ‘He stuck his nose in and I went to talk it over. He started arguing with me. I followed her one night, thinking she was having an affair. Turned out she was going to see him.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘What do you think? She wanted to leave me.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘He wouldn’t tell me anything. What else could it have been about? A few months afterwards, she left me. So I was right, wasn’t I?’ He was certain of so many unfounded things. Rather than seek clarity, he’d filled in the gaps himself, using his own mind-set to make assumptions about the actions of others.

  ‘Did you ask her?’

  ‘Said the same thing he did. What wife secretly scurries off to a priest behind her partner’s back?’

  ‘One that doesn’t feel she can talk to her husband. Maybe Father Michael didn’t tell her to leave you; maybe he told her to stick it out. It’s possible he didn’t tell you, because he couldn’t. He’d taken a vow not to. You even considered that?’ He looked at her as if she was talking bullshit, but was too tired to call her on it. Her words wouldn’t convince him, but a long sentence for burglary and assault, stalking, possibly more, would give him ample time to think about it. The knife and his intentions showed he was capable of murder, and the premeditation involved ruled out a crime of passion, casting the man she so easily trusted in a far darker light. ‘How were you planning on leaving town?’

  ‘By car.’

  ‘You’d have drowned trying to drive that old thing through it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be in that old thing. I’d be in Sean’s Land Rover.’

  ‘Sean? Sean who gave you a beating only the other day? I doubt he’d lend you his car and they’re pretty tough to steal, if that’s what you were planning.’ Happy that he wasn’t likely to move in a while, she put everything back in the bag and slung it into the far corner of the room.

  ‘I had something he wanted. He thought the journals would mention something that happened to his brother. Give him some clue as to who’d hurt him or something. Didn’t have the balls to do it himself.’

  ‘So, you did his dirty work?’

  ‘I was going to do it anyway. I’d asked you so many times, if you’d just let me read them, none of this would have happened. I said I’d do it, if he’d lend me his car. I got some money for it too. To be honest, I didn’t think the big dickhead wo
uld go for it, but he wanted them so much, he gave me the keys.’

  ‘Don’t blame anyone else. You made your own choices.’ The idea still stung. Not letting him read them was the right thing to do, but she couldn’t help think that in some way it’d led to her mother currently in the air on her way to hospital. ‘Didn’t you think there was an elderly woman in the house, someone who could have died from the shock of a break-in?’ Sticking to nouns made it less personal; she’d stay calmer that way and was less likely to suffer an emotional outburst or cave his face in with the nearest blunt object. The more time she spent with him, the more the pendulum swung.

  ‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t owe her anything, and I don’t owe you. You think I jumped at the chance to play deputy? To be along for the ride? Was what you did for me a privilege? Allowing me the chance to house a dead fucking body?’

  ‘Settle down. What’s done is done.’ She put her weight on her back foot, ready to deliver another shove.

  ‘You know I didn’t do it, don’t you? You know I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘Everything will be discussed at the station.’

  ‘Drop the formalities. You know it’s bullshit. Just another case of you cunts not being able to find the right person and sticking it on anyone. Your mum’s one thing; she got in the way. I asked you about the books, you could have just given them to me.’

  ‘You broke into an elderly lady’s home and shoved her to the ground pursuing your crazy fantasies.’

  ‘Fuck you. You don’t know what it’s been like.’

  ‘Save it. Nothing justifies this.’ He looked down, still angry, but with nothing to say in reply.

  Dales knocked on the window. She picked up the bag and carried it out into the hallway. He stood on the doorstep with four uniformed and four forensic officers.

  ‘Emmit managed to blag two helicopters. Borrowed one from Essex. Won’t be able to do that when three forces have to share one helicopter, two horses and half a SOCO,’ said Dales. ‘Times they are a-changing. Good news though, the roads look to be clearing. They reckon we’ll be able to get the Rover through one of the access roads.’