[PS & GV #6] Death on Demand

by Jim Kelly

  He didn’t remember the cremation, the smoke or the flames, or the crackle of the expensive wood his father had bought for the occasion.

  Back at the Mukti Bhawan, they packed quickly and left.

  On the train his mother had been forced to chat with other passengers as first class was full. Gokak remembered a brief interchange of conversation in frenetic Hindi.

  ‘It was a good death in the end,’ said his mother, puffed up with success. ‘She said her time had come and it had. It is a gift.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the woman opposite, a child on her knee. ‘A gift. And the name of the dying house?’

  ‘It was excellent, yes. Mukti Bhawan.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  It was not an image Shaw would ever forget; the sticky blood-red stain on the pale stone of the well, the wooden lid slid back to reveal the deep shadowy throat of the bricked shaft, the rising smell of trapped water from the circular surface below, which reflected the flame which burnt in the brass candelabra above. A steel grid prevented a headlong fall, and it too was spotted with blood, not the fluid crimson trickle from a flesh wound, but gouts mixed with crushed tissue and bone. The aromas of High Church, wax and incense and polish, were not enough to obscure that lethal edge of iron and salt, the reek of butchered meat.

  Peering down, he caught the shimmering circle of light in the bottom of the shaft and looked quickly away.

  The Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham had been violated. One of the official guardians had opened the church at six that morning to discover the Holy Well, the source of the shrine’s miraculous waters, broken open and desecrated; blood and gore around its edge and falling into the waters below.

  The church, a functional brick thirties edifice in the neo-Byzantine style, held within it the replica of the Holy House, which in turn protected the icon of the Virgin Mary. The well stood behind the Holy House and had been cordoned off with tape from the rest of the building, where pilgrims milled, waiting their turn to enter the shrine through one of its two doors. Tom Hadden’s SOCO team had been first to arrive and his speed and expertise had saved the pilgrims the grim disappointment of having walked the final mile in bare feet only to be denied access to the idol.

  Hadden had met Shaw at the main door to the shrine with a glass slide, the smear of blood captured beneath a slim evidence plate. ‘My guess is chicken’s blood. The consistency is quite different from human blood and you can see the cellular composition is distinct. A lot of chicken’s blood and some bone, muscle tissue, mucus.’

  He closed his eyes, preparing to give his verdict. ‘But not human, Peter. One hundred per cent not human.’

  Shaw considered the possibility of a link with the Lister Tunnel trainers, spattered with pig’s blood; then dismissed any connection. Blood was a popular medium of protest. Everyone was hard-wired to see red. In this case the effect had been particularly shocking.

  The yellow-and-black tape, the white-suited SOCO at the well-head, the emergency services vehicles in the courtyard outside, had generated a profound sense of desecration, a palpable shock, amongst the pilgrims and clerics. Two priests stood in the nave of the small church in a tableau of comfort, one holding the other by the shoulders and being held by the elbows in return.

  Shaw, circumnavigating the miniature house, saw that a window had been set in the back wall to allow those outside to view the icon and chapel within; the interior walls were covered in narrow shelves holding night-light candles, the pilgrims kneeling, the statue of Mary a blaze of gold and blue, a sunburst of silver. Pilgrims prayed, lips shivering, and one woman silently dabbed a tissue at tears on her cheeks. A young man, in a brutally unstylish haircut, edged forward towards the altar and, as he knelt, Shaw was strangely moved to note his blackened, injured feet, studded with wounds.

  Other worshippers stood watching the SOCOs at work, whispering, surrounding a nun and two priests inveigled into sharing what little they knew of the discovered scandal of the blood. A large hot-water container, like those used to dispense tea at football matches or garden fetes, had been requisitioned to hold uncontaminated holy water, which was being handed out in plastic cups.

  Shaw tried to find a quiet space in which to think. His priority had to be keeping this act of religious vandalism out of the media; the last thing he wanted was to escalate tensions ahead of the pilgrimage itself. Speed was the essence of success; they needed to get the blood cleaned away, the well re-dedicated by one of the guardians, and the SOCO unit back to St James’ – where it was needed for the Lister Tunnel inquiry.

  He’d asked to see a spokesman for the shrine, but checking his watch he saw the so-called ‘guardian’ was already twenty minutes late. Valentine was picking up a key for Beatty Hood’s house on the Springs. Shaw, haunted by the elderly widow’s gravestone epitaph – And this was our day alone – felt certain that if he could understand her death, and the circumstances surrounding it, the rest would fall into place. The murder team were trying to locate Hood’s living relatives. Shaw wanted to see the house in which she’d died. All of which was urgent by comparison to a case of vindictive vandalism. Using his iPhone he sent an irritable text to the missing guardian: Can we meet as planned?

  A mass had begun in the Holy House and the pilgrims had edged inside until there was almost no space left. Outside several wheelchair-bound pilgrims watched through the window. Shaw backed away, around the shrine, to the west wall, where various messages were set in tiles, forming a ceramic noticeboard.

  I was ill but returned home renewed

  – Katherine Carty

  The cancer has weakened thanks to the Holy Water

  – John Maurice Forbes

  My dear wife Anne came seeking an end to pain. God Bless this Holy House

  – Vincent Kelly

  I can live now with the life I have been given

  – Fr Michael Kennedy

  A hand on his shoulder made him jump. ‘Inspector Shaw? I’m Jocelyn Smythe, one of the guardians. Sorry to keep you waiting. As you can imagine …’ He waved his own smartphone. ‘God may be my master, but there are several earthly intermediaries …’

  Smythe steered him expertly towards a small anteroom which held supplies of candles, votive lights and Mass cards. Leaving the door open they were surrounded by the distorted echoes of the service being sung by the priest in the Holy House, that particular reedy tunelessness, which reminded Shaw so poignantly of his own childhood, quite a bit of which, he felt, had been wasted listening to Latin.

  Shaw told Smythe the verdict of the SOCO investigation.

  ‘I’d like you to re-open the well, as soon as the damage has been cleaned up, can you do that, Father?’

  Shaw tried to remind himself that this man, and this shrine, were part of the Church of England – not the Catholic Church – but the sounds and sights were so Roman as to overwhelm the logic. He’d called him ‘Father’ and he hadn’t flinched.

  ‘Yes, of course. You have what you need … I don’t know, fingerprints perhaps?’

  ‘There are prints in the blood, our best lead. But my principal objective is to keep a low profile. I’m sure you’re aware of the tensions building ahead of the pilgrimage. I’d like to keep the press in the dark …’

  ‘If they ring, I can hardly lie …’

  Smythe was very much a physical guardian, rather than an intellectual one. Built like a front-row forward, with scrubbed pale skin and black hair which, Shaw suspected, had been oiled to lie straight back from his high forehead, and matched his starched black cassock. He looked like one of Bunyan’s Christian soldiers, a very muscular Christian.

  ‘No. I understand that. I’m not asking you to lie, or even mislead, if you’re asked for the truth. But we do need to keep this crime in perspective; technically, if I can use that word in this place, we’re dealing with criminal damage. Desecration isn’t on the statute book. I promise you we will try to find the person, or persons, responsible. Publically, I’d like this forgotten for now.
Is that possible?’

  ‘Turn the other cheek?’

  ‘If you will,’ he said, taking a half-step back in what could have been submission. Smythe nodded once, then followed.

  ‘Pilgrims come to the shrine for many reasons …’ said Shaw, moving out through the door into the body of the church, running a hand over the ceramic tiles.

  ‘Yes. To complete the pilgrimage and to take the Holy Water. It’s a form of prayer, a physical prayer if you like. They may seek Our Lady’s intervention for themselves, in illness, or mental distress, or sexual confusion. Or they may seek her help for others, loved ones, friends. Some seek an end to pain, or even life itself. That is a gift in Her power.’

  Shaw turned to go, but again the pale cold hand touched his shoulder. The king’s touch was once enough to cure the disease of scrofula, and Shaw speculated that this priest perhaps felt some of that gift lay within himself. In the modern world, however, touch was a dangerous instrument of power.

  ‘One other thing, Inspector. We’ve just noticed this.’ Smythe had a large book in his hand which he let fall open.

  ‘We invite pilgrims to record their visit and add a line of prayer.’

  Across the page had been scrawled, in blood, the words: The Wolves Have the Scent.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Shaw took a call on his hands-free, edging the Porsche through a tailback on the outskirts of Wells. The caller ID read: FORTIS. He knew instantly from the sonar-like echo that she was outside, on a beach, if not actually in the sea, because she had to shout through the sound of the surf.

  ‘Inspector Shaw? Julia Fortis. Can we meet?’ she said. ‘I’ll be brief, but I need to give you something. We’re on Holme Beach, it’s a barefoot ski club meeting. Just head for the sound of the jet ski. We’ll be here till sunset.’

  Shaw said he’d be twenty minutes. The traffic crawled along the coast road until Holme, where he turned off into the car park down by the dunes and then crossed the golf course to reach the sands.

  The jet ski was a hundred yards off the beach, the engine noise coming in blasts with the onshore wind, a skier behind travelling at – Shaw estimated – thirty-five miles an hour. On the beach wet-suited skiers waited their turn.

  Fortis, in a one-piece costume, was walking towards him, a wetsuit over her shoulder. At Marsh House she seemed stiff and ill-at-ease, although the circumstances had hardly been auspicious. Here, on the sands, she followed a catwalk sinuous path, as elegant as a supermodel. The swimsuit was a vibrant, stand-out green.

  ‘Gardening leave?’ asked Shaw, before she reached him.

  She smiled, collecting her hair in a bunch with a band. ‘I spent the first twenty-four hours at home, thinking I’d done something terribly wrong. I haven’t. So I thought I’d enjoy myself. And I thought I’d clear my conscience too.’

  Her eyes kept flitting over his shoulder, up the long incline of the beach towards the edge of the pinewoods.

  ‘The crime was not telling us about Camera D.’

  ‘I know. My lawyers are dealing with that. I’m told I can expect a custodial sentence, suspended. I don’t know if I should believe them, it’s in their interest, you see, to keep me happy and carefree. The trust has a home in Bude, in Cornwall. I’m told the manager’s job is coming up and I’m a shoe-in. I don’t know what to believe.’

  Shaw was in bare feet and he’d begun to sink his toes into the sand, wishing he could spend the rest of the day with this much space to savour. The thought of the CID room back at St James’ made him feel tired and irritable.

  ‘You had something for me …’

  ‘A moment,’ she said, dropping the suit on the sands, as if discarding a mink coat.

  Shaw watched her walk away, up the beach, until she reached an elderly woman in a folding chair, with what looked like knitting on her lap. The chair had slumped slightly on one side and Fortis expertly levered herself against the frame to set it straight before rummaging through a set of bags and a picnic hamper.

  She ran back with a piece of paper.

  ‘Patient?’ asked Shaw.

  ‘I guess. It’s my mother actually, she’s at Marsh House, upstairs. Staff get a substantial discount, you see. Mum’s been ill for several years. That’s all part of the deal too, of course, that she can move to Bude with me. But it’ll break her heart to leave. Most days she forgets my face, but she likes the view out of her room, the wallpaper in the TV room, the sunflower crockery. It’s all she’s got to hold on to.’

  She handed Shaw the paper. ‘Read this.’

  It was a memo, dated, on Marsh House notepaper, with copies to several Starlight Trust executives, but addressed to Mr John E. Travis, Norfolk Regional Administrator.

  Dear Mr Travis,

  A brief note on Irene Coldshaw, with reference to my earlier notes. Irene is distraught about the situation she finds herself in at Marsh House. To summarize: her assets comprise her pension and a £226,000 trust fund, from which our fees are paid. Due to her condition, an intermittent but severe senile state, her power of attorney lies with her niece, Mrs Sarah Towton, who lives with her family in Scunthorpe.

  Mrs Towton suffers from acute kidney failure and is subject to daily dialysis. They have four children under twelve, a limited income from Mr Towton’s job at the ICI works in Scunthorpe, and are in poor housing. Mrs Coldshaw was, briefly, housed with them after her husband died six years ago.

  The Towtons are in an invidious position. They are, according to Irene, sole beneficiaries of her estate. It also falls to them to decide if she should stay at Marsh House, and incur the fees. Irene has written to them to explain that she would feel better if she were transferred into a council facility. In fact, she is very happy here at Marsh House.

  However, it is obvious that she wishes the Towtons to eventually benefit from her estate, which is being diminished by the monthly payments for Marsh House.

  The Towtons insist that Mrs Coldshaw is confused and they believe she would want to stay at Marsh House if she did not feel a duty to them. Mr Towton has offered to visit Mrs Coldshaw, but the offer was declined. I have to say that Mrs Coldshaw, even if this background is taken into consideration, seems peculiarly anxious. There may be other hidden pressures.

  I wish to propose a possible solution. We could provide Mrs Coldshaw with a nurse for the day, and transport, so that she could visit Sarah Towton. She believes that if she can see her in person she can persuade her to agree to the transfer to council care. After all, the most important thing is that Mrs Coldshaw is happy, and it seems certain that the current situation is making her unhappy.

  Mrs Coldshaw’s condition is deteriorating rapidly, largely due to stress. She feels she is directly responsible for the plight of her niece. I attach an assessment by Dr Flitt, and an additional report from the psychiatric care unit.

  I look forward to your response.

  Julia Fortis

  Administrator

  ‘I’d like you to make me a promise which I know you can’t keep,’ said Fortis, waving up the beach at the woman in the folding chair.

  ‘You can have that, it’s a copy. The coroner at Irene’s inquest did not request access to the documentation and the trust suggested to me that making it public would only distress the relatives. The truth, of course, was that it would put them in the dock, because they declined my suggestion. Three times. I suspect they felt their interests lay with collecting the fees.

  ‘I thought it might help. It explains a lot. Also it exposes what I believe is a significant loophole in the law, which allows beneficiaries to act with the power of attorney – an intolerable clash of interests. I can’t help feeling that in many cases the care homes simply play on the guilt of relatives, telling them that their loved ones deserve the very best care. Or the most expensive, which is not the same thing.

  ‘If the trust knows you have a copy they’ll know I gave it to you. And that will be the end of my Faustian pact. I can live with that – and so can Mum – otherwise I w
ouldn’t have done this. But if you can keep me out of it by not referring directly to the letter, I’d be grateful. We’d be grateful. Perhaps you could suggest that your interviews with staff at Marsh House have uncovered Irene’s story?’

  Shaw looked away, out to sea, reluctant to make promises. A whistle blew and the barefoot ski club members beckoned Fortis to join them.

  ‘My turn; I better go,’ she said. ‘It’s a good sea, glass-like.’

  ‘What do you think Irene was thinking that morning she drove away?’ asked Shaw.

  Fortis picked up her wetsuit. ‘I think she was caught in a dilemma the old have to face, a sharper dilemma in her case, but essentially the same. There comes a point when they know the world would be a happier place if they weren’t there. They’re a burden, an obstacle in the path of the young. She couldn’t live with that, so she decided to act. What was her aim? I think she wanted to talk to her niece and try and make her see that she just wanted some peace of mind. But perhaps she just needed to drive until it was over – one way or another; sometimes the weight of decision is too much, and we give ourselves up to fate.’

  THIRTY

  The keys, two identical for the front door, and a single for the back, had come with a printed key ring label which read: 32 Hartington Street, The Causeway Trust. Valentine, picking them up from a solicitor’s office on the Tuesday Market, had asked about a fourth key on the iron ring – small, slight and gold – and been informed it sprung a padlock on the side gate which led down the tunnel-back alleyway to the yard.

  Now, standing in the street, he saw that couldn’t be right after all, because there was just a bolt on the gate. Shaw peered in the front window where the sunlight glinted off the old silvered mirror and splashed down on a threadbare patterned carpet. The glass in the lattice-work sash had been recently cleaned by a professional, but the sill inside was dusty and held the desiccated remains of a few flower heads. A bottle of Lucozade and what looked like the remains of a Chinese takeaway lay on the table, a spoon sticking out of a livid tray of sweet and sour sauce.