Cherringham: A Deadly Confession

by Neil Richards

  And Jack risked another quick glance.

  To see:

  One of the young nuns walking into the room, her light aimed down.

  Jack didn’t know her name; they all looked pretty similar with their habits and veil.

  The nun and her light vanished into the room.

  While Jack waited.

  Then he had a thought … his phone!

  After talking to Sarah he hadn’t put it on mute. What if Sarah found out something, and called back?

  Don’t, he thought.

  No way he’d be allowed to keep the metal box if he was discovered.

  But then, he had to wonder, who was this in Byrne’s room? And what was she looking for?

  Maybe for the same thing I have in my hands?

  Every now and then a small shaft of light escaped the room as Jack heard drawers opening, then being shut. Then some steps, most likely to the closet.

  While Jack waited, breathing steadily, so aware of his phone, afraid to slide the mute button on for fear that even that tiny noise would be tell-tale.

  And then, the nun came out of the room, the penlight slicing left and right, almost hitting the chair that Jack hid behind.

  But just as it seemed one slice would expose the soles of his shoes, or his legs tucked behind the back of the chair, the light clicked off.

  The figure started moving down the hallway.

  Empty-handed?

  Jack waited a good ten minutes, well after he heard the click of the front door, before he finally attempted to uncurl his stiff body from its hiding place and making some creaks of his own, stood up.

  He walked back along the corridor and into Byrne’s room. Switched on his phone light again and he played it around the room. The nun had done a good job — all the closet doors were shut, just as Jack himself had left them.

  He was about to turn and go when something by the bedside cabinet caught his eye.

  Something was different.

  But what?

  He played the light slowly across the top of the bedside cabinet. The drawer was slightly open. Jack knew he’d closed it tight, just as he’d found it.

  He walked over and slid open the drawer.

  There, next to the prayer book was a small bottle of pills.

  It hadn’t been there before.

  He picked up the bottle. The prescription label showed Eamon Byrne’s name. And the drugs, Jack suspected — would be for the priest’s heart.

  Jack knew he would have seen these if they’d been in the bedside drawer when he first looked: the nun must have brought them with her.

  Now what the hell did that mean?

  Jack memorised the name of the drugs, and left the room.

  He had the case. And now he had an unanswered question…

  Not a bad night’s work.

  Now — to let Sarah work her magic on the contents, and the mysterious Antonio Bell.

  13. Wide Web

  It was nearly lunch before Sarah had a free half-hour to get back to the case.

  Being a parent did have its demands as well…

  First, she’d had to give Chloe a lift to school because she was late.

  Then, she’d had to repeat the trip because her daughter had forgotten her guitar.

  The rest of the hectic morning had been taken up reviewing the web design for a new hotel which was opening up in the village.

  Normally Sarah would have left it to her assistant, Grace, but the clients were being incredibly fussy about what they were looking for and — it seemed — needed all of Sarah’s experience to keep them happy.

  Jack had phoned twice already and although he was sympathetic she could tell he was itching to get on with the case.

  So, while Grace popped out to get them both salads, she found her notepad with all the key words from the investigation into Father Eamon Byrne’s death and started to work out exactly what progress she and Jack had made.

  Not much to go on, she realised.

  The three retreaters. The mysterious Antonio Bell. Some betting slips. Liam O’Connor. The disappearing and then reappearing meds. And the name of a hospice — what had Jack called it — St. Elrich’s?

  Then, there was the box of statements and accounts which Jack had brought over to her house last night just before she’d gone to bed.

  She hefted it up onto the desk and took out the piles of paper and old notebooks.

  Where to start?

  “Tuna or chorizo?” said Grace appearing at the door bearing the salads.

  “Tuna,” said Sarah.

  Grace grabbed a couple of plates and came and sat next to her.

  “Want some help?” she said, leafing through the old papers.

  “That’d be brilliant Grace — you sure?”

  “Beats doing brochures for Costco’s,” said Grace, tucking into her salad. “This still the case of the Flying Father?”

  “Yep,” said Sarah. “And it’s not exactly flying.”

  “What’s this lot?” she asked, mouth full, pointing to the box of statements.

  “The good priest’s files.”

  “Uh-huh. So let’s do the money stuff first,” said Grace. “Follow the money, isn’t that what they say?”

  Sarah laughed: “They do, though I’m not sure it always works.”

  “Shame Father Byrne wasn’t better at filing,” said Grace, holding up a stack of random papers. “Looks like we’ll have to do it for him.”

  “While you’re doing that,” said Sarah, turning back to her keyboard. “I’ll see what I can find online.”

  “Get me a cake from Huffington’s at tea-time and it’s a deal,” said Grace, laying out the papers on the floor and starting to sort them.

  *

  It only took five minutes for Sarah to find what she needed on Antonio Bell and she called Jack straight away.

  He answered on first ring: “Sarah.”

  “Hi, Jack, sorry — it’s been chaotic.”

  “Hey, don’t worry — we fit all this round our real lives, not the other way round, huh? And you have a busy one, that’s for sure.”

  “That’s certainly true today,” said Sarah. “Anyway — as you Americans say — I got the skinny on Mr. Bell.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “He’s a trainer — horses, that is. Runs a racing stables over towards Cheltenham.”

  “Hmm, no surprise there. But I wonder why our priest was paying him every month?”

  “Maybe Father Byrne owned a horse, kept it at the stables?”

  “Unlikely. I think he just liked betting on them. Tell me more about Senor Bell?”

  “Not much to say. He’s small-scale but successful. Owners like him, he trains winners. There’ve been hints online of some shady dealings in the past, a few news stories, but nothing people are willing to risk a lawsuit for saying out loud.”

  “Hmm, well keep digging. I’ll see what our friend Liam knows — if he’s prepared to tell me. Like I said last night — he and Eamon go back a long way. I have a hunch he knows things that he hasn’t told us.”

  “Well, you be careful, Jack.”

  “Keep saying that and I’m going to get worried,” Jack said, laughing. “I’m going to head over there now. You got anything else for me?”

  “Oh — I checked out the meds. Standard issue for his heart. Nothing unusual.”“Okay. Text me Bell’s address — and if I don’t come back, promise you’ll look after Riley for me, huh?”

  “Don’t joke,” said Sarah. “One day you’ll over-do that tough cop act and get yourself in trouble, Jack Brennan.”

  “Talk later, partner.”

  Sarah clicked her phone off and got back to her screen.

  She thought about the retreaters — Gustav, Tom and Isabel.

  Something going on there for sure. Was there a connection between them?

  Time to find out.

  She looked across to Grace who was now sitting on the office floor, surrounded by papers, slowly sifting them into ne
at piles.

  A few years ago, when Sarah’s life had collapsed under a very nasty divorce, she’d acquired some … unconventional … computer skills.

  The kind that allowed a hard-working wife and mother to discover that her lying, cheating husband was living the high life with his female boss in Brussels, staying in the Maldives with same, and draining cash from the family savings.

  The results of those skills — in the hands of a cagey divorce lawyer — allowed Sarah to leave the lying cheat and move back to Cherringham where she’d grown up.

  And now those very same skills came in handy when there was a case to crack.

  But Sarah had made it a rule from the first time she and Jack started investigating, not to involve her young assistant in anything potentially illegal.

  So now she kept quiet as she first lifted the travel agent’s name from the St. Francis Convent website, then hacked into their records.

  Handy skills indeed…

  It only took a couple of minutes to find the full names of the three retreaters, their travel arrangements laid bare — including home address, phone number, occupation, date of birth, passport information…

  All of which were the key for Sarah to unlock even more information should she need it.

  So: Tom Porter from Boston. Isabel Allard from Caen. And Gustav Stechman from Hamburg.

  Different cities, different countries.

  But was there a connection between them? Now she threw the names into various search engines to find out.

  Nothing — apart from a few shared links to St. Francis’s Convent. But that wasn’t going to help.

  She tried some family ancestry sites.

  Hmm, still no connection.

  Time to step back and try something else.

  Now she put Liam, Eamon and the old people’s home that Jack mentioned — St. Elrich’s into another search.

  She hadn’t expected to get anything, but the screen filled with hundreds of hits.

  Interesting…

  She dragged some of the promising links onto a separate screen and started to go deeper.

  And soon she had the story — and it wasn’t a pleasant one.

  St. Elrich’s was a Catholic hospice in the North of England that had closed suddenly in the nineties.

  News stories at the time hinted that there had been a high-level investigation by the Church — first locally, then from Rome — into the hospice’s finances.

  And a key trustee of that charity? Father Eamon Byrne.

  Liam O’Connor was one of the priests in a nearby town.

  In digitised copies of the local newspapers of the time, Eamon himself was interviewed. But the priest gave nothing away about the real reason for the demise of the hospice.

  “Disagreements about strategy” were noted by the paper. “Failure to post accounts” and “an alarming lack of financial oversight” were also cited about the charity which was dissolved a year later.

  Even before the hospice was closed, Eamon was transferred overseas “to continue doing God’s work in the places most stricken by poverty” as the Church spokesman diplomatically put it.

  Sounds like Father Byrne was being quietly taken out of the firing line.

  They were covering up and protecting him.

  She couldn’t find any more references to Liam in the local papers — he just seemed to disappear too. Maybe he was transferred to another church? Sarah found a Catholic register of priests and parishes but it was as if Liam O’Connor had never existed.

  Eventually she found a small official note, dated just a month after the closure of the hospice, approving his request to leave the Church.

  Out of interest she kept on Liam’s trail over the next few years.

  A degree in Business Studies.

  An MBA.

  A job in the City with a hedge fund outfit called Faulks Capital.

  She recognised that name: back in London Faulks had been talked about in awe by some of her ex-husband’s friends as the very model of a perfect money-making machine.

  From priest to capitalist in ten easy years. Interesting.

  What had really happened at St. Elrich’s Hospice? And could it have something to do with St. Francis’s Convent?

  Something very fishy here, thought Sarah.

  She stared at the press photo of the hospice on her screen, hoping somehow to find more clues.

  “St. Elrich’s huh?” said Grace, getting up from the floor and standing next to her. “That’s … a coincidence.”

  Sarah felt her pulse quicken — as it always did when she felt that a case might just have moved into another gear.

  “Coincidence?” she said, turning and looking at her assistant. “What do you mean?”

  “Father Byrne had six different bank and building society accounts — and one of them is called ‘The Knights of St. Elrich’.”

  “You don’t say…”

  “And whoever the knights are — they’re loaded. Or at least they were. Up until last week there was nearly a hundred grand in there.”

  “But there’s not now?”

  “All gone — in one withdrawal,” said Grace. “What’s interesting is where it goes to after it leaves the knights.”

  “You going to tell me?” said Sarah.

  “Might do,” said Grace. “You think it’s time for that cake?”

  “Tell me what you know, clever girl — and I promise I’ll not only double the cake ration, I’ll get some of their chocolates too.”

  “Deal,” said Grace.

  “Information first — then chocolate.”

  “Okay,” said Grace. “So, the Knights of St. Elrich Instant Withdrawal Account was first created in 2003, with its main signatory — yes, you guessed it — one Father Eamon Byrne.”

  Sarah sat back with her notepad and started to make notes.

  Whatever Jack found at the racing stables — this was surely going to be part of the jigsaw…

  14. The Gallops

  Jack sped along the main Cheltenham road in his little sports car, letting the Sat-Nav do the work.

  This was a new road to him and he loved the gentle hills and long curves, woodland and broad fields flashing by in the spring sunshine.

  Soon as he was off onto the side-roads however, he knew he was back in an England that still intimidated him: narrow lanes, high walls and hedges, crazy locals who drove at you head on then gave a smile and a wave as they nearly forced you into the ditch…

  At last, he topped the crest of a hill and there was the sign for Bell’s Stables: down in the valley below, the house itself looked modest, but he could see a long line of stables in a courtyard behind it, and on either side stretched paddocks and long sweeping rides for the horses.

  He made his way down the narrow asphalt drive and pulled up in front of the house.

  The place seemed deserted.

  He rang the front doorbell but there was no response. After waiting for a couple of minutes he went round the side of the house to investigate the stables.

  “Anybody home?” he called. Nobody answered.

  The stables girdled a large concreted courtyard. He could see twenty, maybe thirty individual stables, the doors on most of them open.

  Was this where Eamon had been photographed celebrating all those years ago?

  He walked along the line of doors, peering in and calling “hello” but it was like the Marie Celeste…

  He reached the last door — to the largest stable — and saw a horse inside peering at him.

  Jack liked horses, always had.

  “Hey, fella,” said Jack walking in, across the hay-strewn floor and holding his hand out in greeting.

  The horse snorted, as if pleased to see someone. And soon Jack was rubbing him under the ears and chatting away like they were old friends.

  But he didn’t hear the footsteps behind him at all … and the first he knew he was not alone was the hand gripping the back of his jacket and his legs being kicked from under him.<
br />
  He fell back hard, the fall only partly cushioned by the straw on the stable floor.

  There were three of them — young guys in polo shirts and jeans — and before he could say anything they had grabbed him and dragged him out of the stable into the daylight.

  Jack knew better than to struggle — but he also knew that no amount of police training was going to help him with these odds: three fit young guys versus one ex-cop with dodgy knees.

  It was a no-brainer.

  Do nothing.

  For now…

  While two of them gripped his arms and shoulders, the third stood in front of him and grabbed the neck of his shirt.

  “What the bloody hell were you doing?” he said, spit flecking Jack’s face.

  “Cool it, will you?” said Jack as calmly as he could. “I was just being friendly to the horse.”

  Jack watched the young man step back and could see his response hadn’t helped.

  “Search him,” said the man.

  And the other two began the roughest pat-down Jack had seen — or felt — in a long time.

  “I’m looking for Mr. Bell,” said Jack, trying to ignore the rough handling. “And I’m guessing from the welcome that you guys don’t work front of house, huh?”

  “Shut up.”

  “If you want some spare cash, it’s in the wallet in the back pocket.”

  “How long was he in there?” said the interrogator to the searchers.

  “Long enough,” said one of the guys, handing Jack’s wallet over.

  A Land Rover shot round the corner of the house and came to a dusty halt in the yard.

  Jack watched as an older man in a smart tweed suit climbed out of the driving seat and walked over.

  “What’s going on?” said the man.

  “Found this guy messing with Sunspa.”

  “Shit. Have you searched him?”

  “He’s clean, but we won’t know till we get the police I think.”

  “You called them?”

  “About to.”

  “Mind if I say something?” said Jack. “I think I can clear this up, if you’ll let me…”

  The older man stepped closer and inspected Jack.

  “American?”

  “Jack Brennan,” said Jack. “I’m here to see Antonio Bell. It seems maybe I should have made an appointment.”