by Paul Gitsham
Alone in the kitchen, waiting for the microwave to ding, Warren found himself dwelling on everything his father had missed, both before his death, and after his death. The school nativity play that Warren had sung a solo in at primary school. The sports day where he’d unexpectedly won the hundred metres. His graduation from university. His graduation from police training college. His wedding to Susan. And, God willing, his first grandchild.
Warren vowed to be there for all of those events for his own child, no matter what sacrifices he would have to make professionally. He refused to miss those special, life-changing events the way that his own father had.
And the way that Gary Hastings would.
Friday 6th March
Chapter 41
Over the years, Warren had visited many different hospices and they varied enormously. From dismal places where time stood still as the occupants and their loved ones simply waited for the Grim Reaper to make his appearance so they could free up the bed, to more cheery places, where death was an inevitability, but what life remained was celebrated.
Thankfully, Goldfinch Hospice was of the latter variety, Warren had spent too much time in the former.
The twelve-hour extension to Rodney Shaw’s custody had been authorised and served the night before; Warren and his team had until 5 p.m. that evening to find enough evidence to either charge him, release him on bail, or extend his custody. Warren had swung by Shaw’s cell first thing that morning to see if a night in the station had loosened his tongue. It hadn’t.
Vernon Coombs’ room was on the ground floor, and was spacious and well-lit. The early morning spring sunlight streaming through the windows from the pretty gardens outside complemented the pale, yellow walls and the bright bed spread. Those same walls were covered by family photographs and scenic watercolours from the Lake District.
‘That’s where I’ve asked for my ashes to be scattered,’ said Coombs after the care assistant had shown Warren into the room. ‘My daughter painted those for her GCSE art, would you believe?’ He laughed, a rumbly, chesty rattle. ‘Probably the only time we ever got her to take homework away with her on holiday.’
He pointed to a garish stick figure painted in bright primary colours on the opposite wall, ‘Get well soon Granddad’ had been neatly printed, with a couple of sloppy crosses underneath. ‘That masterpiece was painted by my Lilly, she’s only three – I reckon she’ll take after her mother.’
To Warren’s untrained eye, Rachel Pymm had been correct. Coombs was almost unrecognisable as the smiling journalist featured on the Middlesbury Reporter website, just eighteen months ago.
He’d clearly lost significant weight; everything from his clothes to the wing-backed armchair he was sat in seemed several sizes too large. His skin, an unhealthy yellow colour, hung off him like a limp bedsheet. His neatly combed, full-head of hair was entirely gone.
Clear plastic tubes snaked out of a cannula on the back of his left hand to a machine on the bedside table. A small plastic unit with a red button was clipped to his shirt pocket, a cable running to the machine. Warren recognised it as a patient-administered morphine pump.
‘Prostate cancer,’ explained Coombs. ‘I started having a bit of trouble with the old waterworks a couple of years back. I ignored it obviously; figured it’s just what happens as you get old, besides I was busy and if I’m honest, didn’t fancy some doctor’s index finger up my arsehole.
‘Any way, about twelve months or so after I retired, I finally figured, I’ve got no excuses left and went to the GP. Turns out there’s a fucking blood test, you don’t even need a finger up your bum unless the results are dodgy.
‘’Course, by this point my PSA test is off the scale. They whipped my prostate out immediately and started me on chemo and radiotherapy, but the bastard had already spread. They gave me two months at the outside.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Don’t be, that was last October, so I’m already well into injury time. Didn’t think I’d live to see Lilly’s next birthday, but she turns four this weekend.’
‘You said that you had some information that might help in our investigation.’
Coombs fingered the button on the pump, before clearly thinking better of it.
‘Makes me drowsy,’ he explained.
‘I can come back later, if you are uncomfortable,’ said Warren. He could see the pain shadowing the man’s eyes.
‘No, you’ve come all this way and I need to speak to you.’
Coombs reached over to a small coffee table. A thick, lever arch folder sat upon it. He rested his hand upon it.
‘When you get to this stage in life, there are things you regret. Not going to my GP is obviously top of the list, but other than that it’s not only the things you should have done, but also the things you won’t do.’
Warren said nothing. He’d gone to bed the night before with his late-night musings in the kitchen weighing heavily on his mind. Coombs’ ruminations were a little too close for comfort.
‘I don’t believe in miracles, DCI Jones. I know I’ll never see my Lilly grow up and get married. My next trip to the Lake District will be in an urn, and England will never win the World Cup again in my lifetime. But one of the things I regret the most? I’ll never see this published.’
He slid the folder towards Warren.
‘My complete history of Middlesbury Abbey. It was my retirement project. I had hoped to get it finished in time for the 800th anniversary.’
Warren was nonplussed. He couldn’t see what a partly written history book had to do with the murders of the past few weeks. Nevertheless, he kept quiet, letting the man continue. It was clearly very important to him, and Warren had no intention of denying a dying man one last chance to feel relevant.
‘I’ve been fascinated with the abbey since I was a kid. One of my first memories was my grandparents taking me around there on a summer’s day. We had ice cream and coke – a real treat, my mum and dad didn’t have much money to spare back then.
‘Next time I visited was in primary school and we had a tour of the place by one of the priests. They must have thought I was a right weirdo; all my classmates wanted to do was go and buy a rubber or a leather bookmark from the gift shop, but I kept on asking all these questions, until it was time to go home.’
He coughed and reached for his morphine pump, again stopping himself.
Warren watched with concern.
‘Well, I never stopped finding it interesting. I dragged my own kids around there, and in later years joined the Friends of Middlesbury Abbey. The most frustrating thing though was that unlike some of the more famous abbeys, like Tor Abbey down in Torquay or Bury St Edmunds, nobody ever wrote a book about it. The free guidebook is a stapled collection of black and white sheets written in the late Nineties. I promised myself that when I retired, I would write that book. I’ve been taking photographs there for years, some of them pretty good, and I’ve even travelled to Spain to visit where the founding order of monks originated.
‘There was also a lot of unpublished material that I could use. The monks in the abbey were highly literate and they recorded much of their daily life. Many of them wrote detailed diaries, and included the good, the bad and the ugly. Why they did that, I guess we’ll never know, although they wrote in Latin, which suggested they regarded them as some sort of official record. They were never published or made available to the public, however when they abandoned the abbey in 1539, they left them behind in the old undercroft.
‘Most of the rest of the buildings fell to ruin of course over the next couple of hundred years, but the undercroft was dry and stable, and they were written on high quality paper, and so they survived until the site was taken over by Sir Howard Langton at the start of the eighteenth century.
‘He paid for the diaries to be translated from the original Latin and catalogued. His plan was to one day open a museum, maybe even write a book himself. Unfortunately, when he died the work stopped and so again th
e diaries were left ignored, this time in the basement of the house, rather than the undercroft.’
‘Until you came along?’ filled in Warren. So far, Coombs had confirmed what Deacon Baines had told Warren as he’d shown him around the retirement home. He still had no idea where this was leading, but he decided to let the man continue.
Coombs nodded. ‘I became aware of their existence after a private tour given to the Friends of Middlesbury Abbey back in 2008. I mentioned that one day I would like to write the history of the abbey and Bishop Fisher offered to arrange access to them. I started visiting the archives on a regular basis in about 2010. Other priests in the house became interested in what I was doing and I soon had a couple of regular helpers.
‘I’m hoping that someone may decide to carry on my work and finish the book,’ he sighed. ‘I’d love that to be my legacy.’
‘And you think that may have some relevance to the murders that I’m investigating?’
‘Tell me DCI Jones. This Father Nolan, he was burnt to death in the undercroft?’
‘Yes.’ That much was easily read in the newspapers.
‘And he was doused in something to set him on fire?’
‘Yes.’ That wasn’t public knowledge yet, but was a reasonable guess.
‘He wasn’t restrained, but he was dead drunk, so he didn’t wake up?’ That definitely wasn’t in the public domain.
‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss the exact details of the case,’ said Warren carefully.
Coombs grunted.
‘No mind, although I’m not sure who you think I’m going to tell, and I’m sure the man upstairs knows all the important details.’
Warren said nothing; the man used to be a journalist, the last thing he wanted was for confidential details to become the topic of conversation the next time one of his old colleagues dropped by with a bunch of grapes.
‘Now, the second death – drowning, the papers said. Face first in the river?’
Warren nodded cautiously.
‘But I’ll bet he didn’t drown in the river, did he? I’ll bet he drowned somewhere else and the killer dumped the body in there.’
Despite his best efforts, Warren’s expression must have given him away.
Coombs gave a mirthless smile.
‘Feel free to ask to see my medical notes if you’re considering placing me on the suspect list.’
It was true, the man was in no state to murder the two priests. Warren even doubted he could have been a witness; it didn’t look as though he’d been out of the little room for some time. Nevertheless, he appeared to know intimate details about the case that the team had deliberately kept under wraps. A leak wasn’t inconceivable, but Warren was mystified as to how a terminally ill, bed-ridden, former reporter would have come across them.
‘Now, tell me about the suicide notes. More of a confession than a note, I assume?’
“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned,” recalled Warren silently. The seven words were all that had been written on the notes left on the two priests’ dressing tables. It wasn’t impossible that the person discovering the empty rooms had unfolded the notes and the information had found its way to Coombs. Otherwise, the only other people that were aware of the contents of the supposed suicide notes, aside from the investigative team, were Bishop Fisher and Deacon Baines. Had they told Coombs? And if so, why?
‘Before you start worrying about an information leak, DCI Jones, don’t worry. I didn’t hear it from anyone alive.’
Before Warren could ask what he meant, the sick journalist started coughing.
Warren reached for a glass of water on the bedside table, but the man was spluttering so hard it just sprayed everywhere. Warren noticed a couple of tiny flecks of blood on the tissue Coombs ineffectually used to dab his chin.
When the coughing didn’t subside after a few seconds, Warren jogged quickly to the door, ‘I need assistance, immediately.’
Chapter 42
Warren’s sharp tone brooked no argument and within a few seconds two healthcare assistants were by Coombs’ side. It took all of Warren’s self-control to remain out of the way, knowing that he was more likely to hinder than help matters.
A few worrying moments passed before the coughing subsided and Coombs’ breathing returned to normal. One of the assistants carefully placed an oxygen mask over his face.
‘I’ll give you a dose of morphine, to make you more comfortable,’ he said, reaching for the button clipped to Coombs’ shirt pocket.
To the surprise of everyone in the room, Coombs stopped him. When he spoke, his voice was wheezy and muffled by the mask.
‘No. Not yet. I must talk to DCI Jones.’
‘I’m not sure that’s sensible …’ started the other assistant.
‘No. I need to speak to him.’
Both assistants turned to Warren who shrugged helplessly. There was no question that he wanted to speak to the man more than ever now, but having a witness die on him mid-interview would be awkward to say the least.
‘OK,’ said the first assistant eventually, ‘but if it happens again, pull that cord, it’s what it’s there for.’
With a final glare in his direction, the two assistants left.
When he spoke again, Coombs’ voice was noticeably stronger, although he didn’t remove the mask.
‘Let me tell you a story,’ he started. ‘It’s supposedly a deathbed confession, but I’ve cross-referenced with some of the diaries of the monks living at the abbey at the time and they seem to confirm that the key events happened as described.’
Coombs coughed again, although he waved Warren away before he could summon help. When he continued speaking, his voice was stronger.
‘The story dates back to 1522, when the abbey was in its heyday. By then, the community had grown to almost fifty brothers, led by an Abbot Godwine. Similar to now, the abbey paid for itself through growing produce, some of which they sold at market. In addition to the brothers working in the gardens, they also employed cooks and cleaners and a groundsman from the nearby town.
‘The groundsman was a man by the name of Francis Scrope. He had two sons, and had been widowed during the birth of the younger son. The elder son, Simon Scrope, was apprenticed to his father, whilst the younger son, Matthias, joined the abbey at the age of twelve to begin training for the priesthood.
‘By all accounts, they had a pretty good life, when compared to their contemporaries in the town. Francis Scrope and Simon Scrope earned a good wage by the standards of the day, and they had a house and free food. Both boys were taught to read and write and perform basic arithmetic by the brothers, which they probably wouldn’t have been able to afford if they were simply peasants. Joining the priesthood was also a prestigious occupation for the younger brother.’
‘I’m guessing this isn’t going to be an entirely happy ending,’ said Warren passing over a glass of water.
‘Yeah, it starts to get pretty dark,’ Coombs agreed after a long swallow.
‘It seems that even back then, the church’s instinctive response to any whiff of scandal was a cover-up. The description in the confession and in those diaries that mention the events are typically circumspect, but it seems that the younger son attracted the wrong sort of attention from some of the older brothers.’
‘Abuse?’
‘Of the worst kind, apparently. According to the confession, Matthias wasn’t the first to be attacked in this way. It may even have been tolerated as one of those things that came part and parcel of being accepted into the community.’
‘Christ,’ breathed Warren; even five centuries on, the crime still shocked him.
‘I doubt He had a very high opinion of what had happened,’ stated Coombs. ‘Anyway, Matthias told his father what had happened and Scrope went to see Abbot Godwine. As to what happened next, we only have the word of the older brother to go on, who is himself recounting it secondhand, years after the fact, but it seems that the abbot simply bought the father off.’
‘Five pounds – the equivalent of a year’s salary – plus as much wine as he could drink; an apparently irresistible sweetener for the father. He also supposedly made it clear that if any more was said on the matter, the father would lose his job and with it his home, the older brother, Simon, would lose his apprenticeship and Matthias would be excommunicated.’
‘What happened to the monks involved in the abuse?’
‘Apparently nothing. I suppose if they had been kicked out or disciplined too harshly then there was always the chance that word would get out and the abbey itself would come under the scrutiny of the mother church. The beginning of the sixteenth century was a period of great upheaval and some of the church’s less godly behaviours were being challenged. These events took place when the established church was coming under pressure from Martin Luther on the continent and King Henry VIII in England. The abbot would have wanted to keep his head down.’
‘So what happened?’ The story was fascinating, in a morbid sort of way, but Coombs had yet to link those events to the present day murders, although Warren was starting to have his suspicions as to where it was heading.
‘Well, Matthias was never the same again after that, and neither was his father. He couldn’t accept what had happened, and supposedly ended up blaming his son for bringing it on himself; he couldn’t understand why they chose his son unless he did something to encourage them. Sixteenth-century victim-blaming to use the latest terminology.’
‘It’s an attitude that some still hold five hundred years later,’ noted Warren, thinking back to some of the cases he’d dealt with over the years.
‘All this time, Simon Scrope was apparently ignorant of what had happened, as his brother was too ashamed to tell him. But it all came to head a few months later when Matthias tried to kill himself by throwing himself off the abbey roof.