She disappeared for a moment and came back with a woman who walked in, looked at Pierre hunched up and nervous and from then on, spoke with her head tilted slightly in an attempt at understanding that was only patronising.
“What’s the issue?” she asked.
“I need to confess to someone. Do we have a confessor or whatever?”
“I’m afraid we don’t have a Catholic style system of confessional, but we do have a number of spiritual advisors who can help you on your journey.”
“Yes, yes please.”
“Okay, and what would the subject be?”
“I can’t… I can’t say in public, only private, only in secrecy.”
“Okay, and would one of our spiritual guides be useful?”
“Yes, I’m sure that would do, I need help.”
“Okay,” she kept saying, “I’ll go and put you right on the waiting list.”
“What?”
“We have a three week wait to see a spiritual guide, although if you want to drop into one of our groups and maybe have a meal too, we hold them all week.”
“I need to speak to someone urgently,” he said so fast his point surely can’t have been missed.
“We do our best, but we have a large congregation and our funds only go so far. We will be holding another goodwill week soon to raise our target for this quarter and then we might be able to expand, but tonight we have an Alpha course running; you could pop into that.”
She smiled and Pierre felt utterly abandoned. Couldn’t you just walk into a church and speak to a priest? Wasn’t that how it was meant to work? Why was this happening, or not happening? Why would no one speak to him?
Pierre turned, and the lady said, “shall I put you down then?”
“No, no, it’s a no,” he said as he wandered back into the car park. What could he do now?
“Hey, Pierre!” a friendly voice; a woman’s voice.
He turned to find Karen closing in. “Good to see you, how are you getting on?”
Society would have you believe that as a single man, seeing an attractive woman smiling and waving at you would cheer you up, and maybe it would most people, but when Pierre’s heart moved not a jot, when his mood didn’t lift at all, he knew he was in a bad way.
“What you up to?” she said getting close and using her new-found confidence to give him a hug.
“Just…” his mind raced about deciding what to do. Should he tell her? Should he share what he knew? Would that be a good idea? They say a problem shared is a problem halved, but surely when it’s about murder that’s twice as much guilt and chance for error. “I’m…” he said, to keep the thread going as he considered. He couldn’t tell her about the murder, but could he tell her how depressed he was feeling, how sad and down and on his way out? Maybe; but what had Karen told him? How the church had lifted her up and made her feel happy and her episodes were behind her? Would telling her his problems weigh her down and damage that? Karen was nice, he concluded, much too nice to risk ruining her with his chaos.
He couldn’t even tell her he needed a confessor, couldn’t even get her to help google one with him. All he could do was say “was looking for you, thought you’d be around.”
“Aww, that’s so sweet, they can’t keep me away these days,” she said. “Do you want to get a coffee? I have time for a coffee if you want one?”
“No, I can’t really,” then he realised that didn’t make sense given what he’d just said. Should he make sense and force a coffee meeting through? Could he just get her to talk? Or did he risk looking odd by walking off? Oh hell, he was going to look odd soon enough anyway. “I’ve got something happening, I only remembered it when I got here, but great to see you.” She gave him a hug and told him to come back soon, and they walked away.
Karen went inside, filled with the pleasure of meeting a new friend and rejoicing that they both went to the same church, this church, this marvellous church. Then it was back to work for her, volunteering as many hours as she had in the day to keep them running and help keep their costs down so the money could be forwarded to those who needed it most.
An elder walked past, saw her busy like a bee, and felt proud of his very obedient colony.
Quince’s phone beeped. Nothing unusual in that, except he had configured the device to only make this particular noise for messages from one special person, and when it beeped, Edward nearly leapt out of his seat.
‘Outside in car’ it said.
‘Wait till I open door, then come in,’ was the reply.
Quince rose from his palatial armchair, checked the car was out there and then went to the door. He didn’t want this handover to be seen; the pointlessness of covering up such a deal proving how deeply Quince was operating in the land of paranoia. He had ordered a pizza and was having it delivered there.
The door was opened, and the hacker got out of the car and dashed up and into the elder’s house. In his hands the hacker held a black bag and once the door was shut this was handed safely over. “Thanks,” Edward said, “you’ve got into it?”
“Yes, yes I have.”
“And you reset the password to something I’ll remember?”
“Yep, your name is now the password.”
“Excellent,” Quince said, his ego bigger than his fear of being connected. “You’ve done the church and your Lord a big favour, thank you.”
“Any time sir, any time.”
The hacker stood there awkwardly, so Quince just opened the door till he’d dashed out and back to the car. Then Quince went back into his lounge, into his chair and powered it up.
The new password worked and there was a background home screen image of a still from Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ. Then, using the touchpad, Quince began to browse.
It didn’t take long to find surely what he needed: a diary. Yes, Cribb had kept a fucking diarised account of everything he’d done, not on the cloud but on the hard drive of the laptop and accessible by a link on the home screen. Quince said a prayer to God with thanks that Cribb had kept this offline, and that the laptop was here and not in a police office, and he sat down to read.
Funny thing about a diary which went back years, you weren’t sure where to start or stop. Quince debated reading the diary from the last entry and working back, but he thought he’d try and use technology in a way that reflected modernity, so he pulled out the search box and just did one for ‘murder’.
Maybe bizarrely, this produced results. Now he worked from the newest back and… what did we have here. A week before Cribb died, he wrote at length about an argument he had with a member of the church hierarchy. Not one of the elders, that tight inner circle, but a member of the administration the staff had built up. Quince at first wrote this off, because this person had been DNA tested and found unconnected to the murder, so he went on until he realised, with a cold sobering hand on him. Quince had used an instrument. Might this person, who had threatened to ‘bloody murder you Cribb’, have done exactly the same? Had Quince just solved the case? And if he had, what would he do about it?
Pierre sat in his bathroom. He’d gone home, to the flat he had lived in for the last four years, and he was now sat on a closed toilet seat. His head was in his hands and his mind was blasted into pieces. He could not escape the noise Cribb made as he died, that desperate sound, which now played over and over in Pierre’s head. It wasn’t just the noise of a dying man, but the siren of guilt. Pierre had walked home reading a bible he picked up on the way; reading and muttering and bumping into people who hadn’t given him a wide berth, and he knew, he knew, as his heart had been constantly telling him, he was a killer. A murderer. A sinner. He had done an awful thing and he would pay the price in hell whenever he went, whether it be sooner or later.
Sooner. It was going to be sooner.
He sat upright, decision made, and walked into his kitchen where he took the largest knife from his rack. He looked at the point, took a small orange device from the cupboard of utens
ils that never got used, and sharpened the blade, before he walked back into the bathroom, whereupon he pulled his shaving mirror round. He looked around, tilted his head to one side and put a finger to where the artery was. Not the quickest way to die, bleeding from that, but he was sure he’d read you lost consciousness quickly when the pressure to your brain went. The guillotined died instantly, the beheaded the same if the blade was true, the throat cut quickly if the blade went the right way. He, too, could follow suit. You did not need a gun or even a bridge to jump off if you were determined, and his guilt had pushed him beyond self-preservation.
He took the knife in one hand, placed the tip against his throat, and paused. He’d taken one life, an elder, a man worth something. Now he’d take one more, a killer, a man worth nothing. One good hard thrust pushed the blade into him, cutting into meat, easier than he ever thought, and when he pulled it out blood flowed with it and he felt faint, ever so faint and then collapsed to the ground unconscious where, after a couple of minutes, he had bled out and left this world to meet whatever maker might inhabit the next. He took with him the guilt of a murder that had not been conceived by him, or desired by him, but had been carried out by him. Quite what God would judge the blame to be, he would now find out.
“Hello there, I’m Detective Constable Lindleman from Morthern CID and I…”
“Northern?” said a voice which would have preferred to be elsewhere.
“No, Morthern, it’s right next door to you.”
“Oh right, yeah, what’s up?”
“I am investigating a murder…”
“In our area?” This was said in a manner implying a ‘no’ reply should just fuck off right now and find someone else to bother.
“No, ours. In the course of my investigations we learned you have been, in turn, investigating a credit card theft…”
“Well to be honest you could ring up any day and we’d be doing that, it’s like a pandemic, but I guess that’s what comes of being a huge urban area, unlike Morthern.” Did he just sass me, Lindleman pondered? He sassed me. I’m the one who does that.
“Yes, anyway, I can give you the name and number…”
“Thanks, we’ll add that into our investigation. Email it over, thanks for calling…”
“No, no wait, hang on, who is this?”
“A detective sergeant.”
“Right, sergeant, I’m ringing for my case, not just to help you, spirit of sharing and all that, I’m ringing cos I’m hoping you’ve got information on who stole the credit card that we might be able to use.”
“Oh, right, well we’re pressed for time here you know; we have actual crimes to look into.”
“A man got stabbed to death.”
“Hmm. Right, give me the stuff you have, and I shall look it up. Right, right, okay I am looking at the file and… we have no name, but we did retrieve the card theft from a CCTV camera, and we do have a rough image of the suspect if that would help you?”
“Thanks, please email it all over.”
The phone was put down at the other end and Lindleman exclaimed “fuckers!” You wouldn’t think we were on the same side sometimes. It’s like being at school all the time, except without the shorts.
His computer beeped and an email arrived. On the one hand, efficient. On the other, trying to get rid of him as soon as possible.
A click through, and an image appeared. Grainy, yes, but a man wearing a hoodie that might be blue or grey. Lindleman was drawn forward magnetically. A face which looked harsh despite the fact you couldn’t see much of it. It was, despite the utter vagueness, the same sort of person their ‘witness’ had described running past. So, had this man stolen a card, which he might do often, bought the knife and then stabbed Webb to death? And was this image too grainy and blurry to produce a working face for them to hunt?
“Hey Atkins,” Lindleman called, “come here.”
“Yes?” the DC said bounding over.
“What do you make of that?” Rob said pointing at the photo, the best piece of a video showing the suspect moving about.
“Hmm, so close, just a shame you can’t see the face.”
“Oh bugger.” The face he saw was mostly wishful thinking.
Suitcase open and thrown on a bed, step one. Okay, so it was your sister’s suitcase, but she was part of the problem so that’s fine. Open your wardrobe and see your terribly small collection of clothes, okay that’s for the better because they will pack. Fold them up haphazardly and stuff in your underwear and the small collection of books you’ve acquired, and to be honest this suitcase is looking too large for the post-asylum set of belongings you’ve acquired. A quick trip out to the drinks’ cupboard and a full bottle of vodka retrieved, and that was packed too. Spare pair of shoes and pretty much done. Oh, the bathroom, she realised, so she collected her toiletries and packed them too. Job done. Lid folded down, zipped up, and carried into the kitchen…
The door opened and Susan came in. Caught red handed.
Susan grunted out a hello before realising that not only was Karen stood there, she had a suitcase with her.
“What’s that?” Susan said, “hang on that’s mine.”
“I’m claiming it.”
“Yeah but what for… oh.” The penny dropped. “You’re moving out?”
“Yes, yes I am. I’ve had enough of you being against the church, and they say you’re working with the police against it.”
“I am following the cops around to report! I, I… yunno what, yes, yes I am helping them investigate because that church is rotten to the heart.”
“I knew it, you hate me! I’ve come back and you hate me!”
“I don’t hate you; I hate that church! I think they have their claws in you and you are now banned from attending.”
“I am what?” Karen exclaimed.
“You’re not going back. This is an intervention.” Susan straightened up and held a hand up in the internationally recognised sign of ‘back the fuck up’.
“You are not our fucking mother.”
“You’re not going.” She sounded so certain, but there was one terrible flaw in that which Karen was easily going to expose.
“And what are you going to do to stop me? You going to wrestle me down and restrain me? Cos that happened in the ward and I am a hundred percent ready for you to fucking try.”
Susan stood there, in her kitchen, knowing she could do nothing to prevent this. “Where will you go.”
“A guy at the church has offered me a room.”
“In his bed no doubt.”
“No, no sex before marriage.”
“I assume they have a narrow definition of sex. Look, please, please Karen, don’t go, they are bad for you.”
“Fuck you Susan,” the sister spat, and she walked past her, not nudging her but cutting it awfully close, out of the house and away down the street. Susan watched her go, utterly empty, but unable to think of what to do. Instead she slumped to the ground and started to cry at losing her sister again, this time to something tangible that should be stopped. But how did you even begin to start?
“I feel like I spend half my time wandering about at night looking for things,” Kane said as he walked down the street. He wasn’t sure if he’d been down this one before. It had never occurred to him to mentally tick off places he’d been, even during years as a police officer, but he’d recently bought a racing game for his Xbox which kept score of how many roads you’d driven down and now he really wished he’d done the same. He was tempted to start right now, but so much work had been carried out and lost to memory.
“What are you going on about?” Koralova asked.
Kane decided not to explain as it all sounded a bit off, and Kane was not a man who wanted to look strange. Instead he went with “all I’m saying is we wander about in the dark looking for things an awful lot.”
“We wander about in the day just as much,” she mused, “the amount I’ve been up and down that shopping precinct, I could prob
ably reconstruct the whole thing in clay from memory.”
“Clay?”
“Well, yeah, nothing wrong with a bit of art is there.”
“It’s all CGI now,” Kane said, “I mean look at the superhero movies, do you think they make billions cos of the great writing, or cos we’ve got computers to the point where it looks decent. I’ve seen the shit my dad watched as a kid, it’s horrendous. I can do better with… well coloured clay.”
“Suspension of disbelief,” Koralova noted “is easier, I’ll give you that.”
“You do English lit at school?” he asked.
“Yes. Shakespeare gets everywhere.”
“Still, I have to admit my policing career has made me less worried about the dark.” Kane said it proudly.
“Getting macho, are we?”
“No, no, I’m not a toxic male, I’m just saying I’m used to it, since we spend so much time wandering about in it.”
“Well I’m not afraid of the dark but I’m wearing a stab proof vest, an extendable baton, handcuffs and the legal right to smack someone who’s a problem.” Koralova tapped the body armour to make the point clearer.
“Well, yeah, that’s true, it certainly does boost your confidence. If this was America, we could have guns.”
“Oh yes, of course, because letting you loose with a gun is going to reduce the violence rate.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’d shoot that dog.”
“That dog came at me; I was perfectly entitled to run away.”
“I’ve never seen someone jump a fence so fast, you fucking pussy.”
“I like the way you say pussy.” He put his hands up, “not in a sexual way, in a pure interesting pronunciation way. It’s cool.”
“Weirdo.”
“Damn right.”
Their radios crackled.
“Koralova.”
“We’ve had a landlord call in a murder. Detectives are on the way but you’re closest, if you can hot foot it round.”
Which was why Kane and Koralova found themselves at the door of a dingy flat complex, stepping over the vomit the landlord had left seemingly everywhere.
Power and Control Page 20