The Solomon Gray Series Box Set

by Keith Nixon

  “More than I do now.”

  “Which is?”

  “You’re a cop. You’re stressed. You live alone.”

  “I might be married.”

  “You’re not.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “I’m divorced too. We survivors of the broken ring can always tell.”

  “We never divorced.” He paused. “She died.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” Tanya held a hand up to her mouth, her eyes wide.

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “God, I wish I’d never opened my mouth.”

  “How were you to know?”

  “Even so…”

  “Forget about it. What about you? I don’t hear a local accent.”

  “Met a boy, got pregnant too young, moved here because of husband’s job, husband runs off with secretary, single mother raises children, then they bugger off too.”

  “Sounds like life’s been hard.”

  “Not really. I was better off without him. The kids have turned out well and I’ve got a job I love. There’s only one thing I’m missing.”

  “What’s that?”

  Before Tanya could answer, Gray’s phone rang. “Bloody hell, the bloody thing never shuts up.”

  “Answer it.”

  “Solomon, thank God. Thank God. Thank God it’s you!” Gray recognised the panicked voice immediately. Alice Newbold from St Peter’s Church. “Something terrible’s happened, Solomon.”

  “What is it? What’s the matter, Alice?”

  “It’s David. He’s dead.”

  Twenty Three

  Fowler drove while Gray made the call to Forensics. A minute after receiving Alice’s call Fowler had picked Gray up from outside the gallery. Gray was still breathless after the headlong dash.

  “SOCO are moving,” said Gray.

  Hamson nodded from the passenger seat.

  Gray spent the rest of the journey hanging on for dear life as Fowler threw the patrol car around corners, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Ten heart-stopping minutes later Fowler jerked to a halt on the High Street in front of the church. A few commuters stopped to stare at the noise of rubber on tarmac. Fowler appeared to have enjoyed the experience. Gray couldn’t say the same. It was all he could do not to throw up.

  Gray led the way into the church. He noticed the decorations were finished. Simple sprays and wreaths of holly and ivy, one at the end of each pew. A Christmas tree, the lights switched off, was standing near the pulpit. Alice occupied a pew at the very front, the same space she’d had for as long as Gray could remember, closest to the word of God that issued from successive vicars’ mouths. She was staring with reddened eyes at the stained-glass windows, her hands clasped, mumbling prayers beneath her breath. Maybe seeing the nailed deity, maybe not.

  “Alice?” Gray placed a gentle hand on the old woman’s shoulder. Her face was as pallid as one of the statues who guarded the dead outside.

  “We’ll give you a moment,” said Hamson in a low voice. She and Fowler moved off. Gray was keen to follow, but Alice demanded his attention.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “That’s a bit touchy-feely for a policeman, isn’t it?” She attempted a smile, but couldn’t quite pull it off.

  “You know me.”

  “Which is why I asked. I’m trying hard not to be sick.”

  “An entirely normal reaction. I’d be worried if you were full of the joys of Christmas.”

  “Well you can rest assured that I’m feeling anything but festive.” Alice exhaled heavily. “None of this makes any sense. Why would somebody kill David?”

  “I’ve no idea. That’s what I’m here to find out. When did you last see him alive?”

  “Yesterday evening. I stayed behind as usual to tidy up after evensong.”

  “How did he seem?”

  “The same as always. Better, in fact. Full of energy for the challenges ahead.”

  “What challenges?”

  “The usual. Raising money for the tower repairs, growing the congregation. And a new task, one that really had him going.”

  “Which was?”

  “You, Solomon.”

  “What?”

  “You were his newest trial.” Alice nodded to emphasise the point. “He was down after you left the other day, but within twenty-four hours he was back up again, bouncing around like a jackrabbit. He was sure you were here for a reason.”

  “I was sheltering from the rain.”

  “It was more than that. He believed God was calling you home.”

  “I don’t believe in God anymore, Alice.”

  “Kate was my best friend. I miss her too. The Lord tests us all, repeatedly. But we should never stop believing.”

  “I did. A long time before Kate left this world.”

  Alice nodded. “But David never doubted your faith. For him you coming here that day was a sign.”

  “So why is he dead? Is that a sign too?”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth Gray knew he shouldn’t have uttered them. Alice’s face drooped. The colour that had appeared in her cheeks as a result of their discussion melted away. She shifted her eyes forward again.

  “I told him you were beyond redemption, that you were Godless, and that he was wasting his time.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I. Please, why don’t you join your colleagues? Leave me with my Lord. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Sure. Where is…?”

  “David is by the altar.”

  Gray found Fowler and Hamson outside standing on a grass strip opposite the church door. Behind them were a couple of rows of the oldest grave markers, then a high stone wall. Fowler was rolling a cigarette. Hamson had installed uniforms at the main front gate and side entrance from the supermarket. A tape cordon was already strung out as a demarcation.

  Gray motioned Hamson over. He stood in the church doorway, half an eye on Alice. He put a finger up to his lips to indicate quiet was needed.

  “Any luck with the witness?” asked Hamson, speaking softly.

  “Alice says she found him earlier. She hadn’t seen him since last night.”

  “We’ll get a rough time of death from Clough in a bit. Anything else?”

  “Not really. I need you to do me a favour, Von.” Hamson rolled her eyes. “Can you speak with Alice, see if there’s anything else she knows?”

  “What’s the problem? I thought you knew her.”

  “We managed to drift into a theological argument. She tried to bring me back into the fold.”

  “You basically told her God didn’t exist, didn’t you?”

  “That was the gist of it, yes. Apparently I’m beyond redemption.”

  Hamson huffed. “Leave it to me.”

  Gray crossed the path to Fowler who was now sucking on his cigarette. “Have you told your wife about all this yet?”

  “I thought I’d leave that to Alice.”

  “She’ll be beside herself when she finds out.”

  “I know. That’s why someone else can deal with it.”

  ***

  When Forensics arrived, Fowler was on his third cigarette in a row. He and Gray had maintained a stilted silence during the intervening period, Fowler preferring to tap away on his mobile rather than interact. Which was fine with Gray.

  Brian Blake and his men bundled out of their vans and delivered a brief apology about being “tied up.” Fowler smirked. Ben Clough arrived moments later, preventing Fowler from offering up a joke.

  Until now the police presence had been unobtrusive. With the arrival of several bloody great white vehicles with Forensic Team stamped all over the side, that all changed.

  Gray brought the Crime Scene Manager and pathologist up to date with the situation. The officious Blake stalked off to deal with the mundane administration. Only then could Clough access the church and finally make real progress.

  Blake returned moments later. “There’s an old woman inside,�
� he said, huffy and unimpressed.

  “Alice Newbold. She found the body,” said Gray. “And Hamson’s with her. She seems to be suffering a bit of shock.”

  “That’s not the point. It’s a crime scene.”

  “Just leave it, Blake. Have a heart.”

  Blake looked set to argue, even opened his mouth to do so, but caught sight of Hamson emerging from the church. He reconsidered, nodded at Clough to proceed, and took his leave without another word.

  “Well?” Gray asked as Hamson walked towards him.

  “I didn’t get any more out of her than you did,” said Hamson. “She seemed in a kind of fugue state. She won’t budge. Whatever you said to her apparently shut her down.”

  Twenty Four

  Five Years Ago

  “You need to come home,” Alice told Gray on the phone, her voice laced with urgency. “Now.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s Kate.”

  Gray asked what had happened, but Alice was already gone. He rang back immediately to discover she’d left the phone off the hook, the line now engaged.

  He drove like a man with the hounds of Hell snapping at his heels, cutting through the mid-morning traffic with abandon. Alice’s call had been as urgent as it was unsettling. He needed to get home. Now. Not to where he now lived. To what had been theirs.

  An ambulance, both doors wide open, stood at the kerb. Activity was unhurried, which meant they had no one to save.

  The front door to the property yawned open. It was dark in the hall, despite the brightness of the sun. Gray went inside, his sense of dread growing with every new possible discovery. He could not explain why, but he felt drawn upstairs, one creaking step at a time.

  Alice appeared in the entrance to the master bedroom. Somehow her face had lost its structure, as if her bones had melted and the flesh followed suit.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, stepping aside, lifting her hands to her heart.

  Gray entered with the eyes of a cop. Husband and father, guilt and grief roles forgotten for now.

  Upstairs it was lighter, the curtains open. His wife lay in bed, propped up by pillows. She looked asleep, Bible in one hand. A photograph of Tom, the frame pointed towards Kate.

  Margaret Fowler perched in a chair next to her friend, corpse-like herself. She took no notice of Gray; had eyes only for the dead.

  Alice took Gray’s silence for an inability to ask the question, so she filled in the gap: “I came round because we had plans. When she didn't answer, I let myself in. I found her like this and dialled 999. The paramedics think she took pills. A lot of them.”

  “You have keys?” asked Gray.

  Alice nodded. “Of course. Margaret does too.”

  “Did you touch anything?” asked Gray.

  “I checked her pulse and closed her eyelids when it was obvious she was in the hands of God. That was all.”

  “Where’s Hope? Does she know?”

  “No. You should be the one who tells her.”

  Nothing could be done for Kate. Drowning in the all-too-familiar numbness of shock, Gray forced himself to focus on what was left of his family. He spun on his heel, descended the stairs. He walked the half-mile to Hope’s school, Dane Court. Gray wondered what he was going to tell her.

  First her brother, now her mother…

  Twenty Five

  Clough emerged from the church and crooked a finger before ducking back inside. Suitably garbed in forensic suits and overshoes, Gray, Hamson, and Fowler finally had the chance to view the corpse.

  Reverend Hill lay sprawled at the very front of the church, in the chancel before the altar, an area reserved for the clergy. The first sign of death was the blood. It had spread across the stone floor like a gory lagoon. Gray never ceased to be amazed by how much mess ten pints could make.

  In order to access the body without contaminating the scene, metal plates had been placed on the floor which acted like stepping stones. Clough beckoned the trio over.

  “He was shot twice. Head and back,” he said.

  “Which first?”

  “I would guess head, took half his face off. There’s a mark in the wall over there.” Clough pointed. Low down, Gray saw a patch of light stone against dark where a chunk of the brickwork had been taken out. “Then the coup de grâce when prostrate.”

  “Why the second bullet?” asked Gray. “It’s excessive. He’d have been dead before he hit the floor.”

  “Panic?” said Hamson. “One more just to make sure?”

  Gray shook his head. “Possibly. Could be the shooter was angry with Hill over something.”

  “Time of death?” asked Hamson.

  Clough pursed his lips. The question he was always asked, and the one Gray knew was the hardest to answer. Time of death estimates were often problematic. The calculation was based on three key aspects: the process of rigor mortis, the cooling of the body, and the settling of blood which started the moment the heart stopped.

  All three were affected by airflow, temperature and moisture, and each locale varied. Clough repeated his little speech every time a detective asked the inevitable, and he did so again, pointing out the heat-conducting effects of the stone floor and the convection via the draughty windows.

  “What would be your best guess, Doctor?”

  “Some time in the last twelve hours.”

  “Roughly fits with the timescale outlined by Alice,” said Gray. “May we?”

  “Be my guest,” said Clough, stepping aside. Fowler hung back while Gray and Hamson regarded the corpse in silence for a few moments. There was a wooden cross affixed to the wall. Jesus stared down at them from his position of torture.

  “I’d guess he was kneeling here. Praying,” said Gray eventually. His skull shattered by the bullet, limbs unable to break his fall. “The killer was a few paces behind the victim. Close enough not to miss.”

  Hamson nodded. “Went down like a sack of spuds.”

  “What about the shots themselves? Someone must have heard them?” asked Hamson.

  “Not necessarily. The walls are thick and the church is set back from the road.”

  Gray had stood outside several times while a service was being held and nothing had reached his ears.

  “David called me recently, wanting my help,” said Gray.

  “Do you think it’s related?”

  “No idea.”

  “I don’t think there’s much more to see here,” said Hamson. Gray agreed. “He’s all yours, Doctor.”

  Fowler had disappeared somewhere. Probably for a smoke. They found Blake conferring with one of his colleagues and asked him about the bullets

  “We’ve got one so far. The other I expect to find when we move the corpse.” Blake passed over a vial which contained a mangled chunk of metal at the bottom.

  “Hopefully Ballistics can get something from that,” said Hamson.

  Gray examined it briefly. “I wouldn’t bet on it. It’s mashed into a pulp.”

  “Casings?”

  Blake shook his head.

  “Could be a revolver. They’d be retained within the chamber,” said Gray.

  “Or the killer was calm enough to pick them up.” said Hamson.

  “Maybe,” said Blake.

  “Cold.”

  “Calculating.”

  “A woman, then,” predicted Blake.

  “Sexist bastard.”

  “Just experienced.”

  Gray dragged Hamson away before she slapped Blake senseless.

  ***

  Gray stepped aside, allowing Hamson to enter the vicarage ahead of him. Even though his fingers were encased in nitrile gloves, Gray tried not to touch anything.

  Retracing his steps of only a few days ago, Gray entered the living room. It was pretty much the same as before, though Alice had cleared away the tea paraphernalia.

  Gray pointed Hamson towards the kitchen and re-entered the small hallway himself. Beyond was the front door, to his right a further reception room
which doubled as an office. He twisted the handle, went inside. The room was dark, the curtains tightly drawn. He flicked on the light.

  Not much to see. A desk, chair, filing cabinet, and some shelves. On the desk was a paperwork tray. Gray leaned over and drew back the curtains. They’d been obscuring an Internet router. It was on, a single green light shining. Which meant a computer or laptop somewhere.

  He pulled the chair away from the desk and bent down. There was the monitor and keyboard, propped up at the back of the footwell along with an inkjet printer. He moved them to one side, saw loose wires that would connect the desktop to the peripherals. But no computer.

  Gray headed back to the church. Alice was no longer there. Blake must have insisted she be moved. He eventually found her in the back of a police car parked on the street. Margaret Fowler sat beside her. Both had bowed heads, lips moving in sync. They held hands.

  As Gray neared them, Alice lifted her gaze to meet his. Her expression was stoic and she scrutinised every step Gray took. He opened the door, squatted.

  “I have a question,” he said. Alice just glared. “The computer in the Reverend’s office - where is it?”

  “It broke, so he sent it away for repair.”

  “To who?”

  “I have no idea. David dealt with that kind of thing.”

  Alice turned away from him and closed her eyes again.

  He wondered where the computer was and whether its absence was significant. He didn’t have an answer, but perhaps God did.

  Not that he’d be asking…

  Twenty Six

  The Incident Room shifted from a place of relative peace to one of bustle at the flick of a switch. CID bodies filled the space. Fowler began writing the case up onto the whiteboard. When he moved to rub the Buckingham details away, Gray stopped him. “There’s enough space. Leave it up for now.”

  “A vicar shot to death in his own church. The press are going to be all over this one,” said Hamson.

  “Mercifully that’s not something I’ll have to deal with,” said Gray. “You and Carslake can take that one.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Hamson clapped her hands in an effort to bring order. “Right, enough now, you lot!” The tangle of figures ordered themselves at the DI’s call to arms. Faces switched front, discussions and speculation suspended.