by James Hazel
‘It must be really cool,’ said Georgie.
‘What must?’
‘Having the Attorney General as your godfather.’
‘Why?’
She faltered. ‘Well . . . my godfather’s the local vicar . . .’
Priest watched her fiddle with her hair. If she was wearing any make-up at all, it was understated and applied sparingly. He liked that.
‘Will you read the bloody letter out, Priest,’ Okoro prompted.
Dear Charlie,
I write in haste and with a heavy heart. There are few men to whom I could reasonably turn in this dark hour. Unforgivably, I have turned to you.
Please excuse the brevity of this note. Time is short. Lives are at stake. I make that last statement quite consciously, knowing that my next actions may endanger you. For this, I can do nothing more than offer my apologies, which I do not expect you to accept.
I have dispatched under separate consignment a small parcel containing electronic data to your home. It is my only hope that you will know what to do with it.
For me, all is lost.
I am sorry.
Yours sincerely,
Philip Wren
For a while, no one spoke.
‘But no such consignment was received by you,’ Okoro pointed out, breaking the silence.
‘No. But the electronic data Wren refers to must surely be on the flash drive Miles Ellinder was looking for.’
‘He says he knows he may be putting you in danger?’ said Georgie, bemused.
‘A man tried to drill my eyes out. He was right.’
Priest picked up the phone.
‘Can you just phone the Attorney General?’ Georgie asked.
‘You can phone anyone if you have their number.’ The phone was ringing, but no one was picking up. He tried a different number.
He vaguely registered Georgie saying timidly, ‘I was never sure what the Attorney General actually does.’
It wasn’t a stupid question in Priest’s view. In matters of legal constitution, there was no such thing.
‘Think of him as the government’s main lawyer,’ Okoro explained. ‘The Treasury solicitors act for and represent the government in court. The AG is the head guy, so to speak. Philip Wren has held the position for years now. He must be nearing retirement age.’
‘No, I won’t hold,’ Priest was insisting. ‘I’m trying to reach Philip Wren. It’s urgent . . . tell him Charlie Priest wants to speak to him. Now.’
After a while he threw the phone back down.
‘No one at home,’ he reported indignantly. ‘Office don’t know where he is. Solicitor General isn’t available either.’
‘The Solicitor General is effectively Wren’s deputy,’ Okoro whispered to Georgie. ‘I met him in court once. Don’t remember his name but he had bad taste in ties.’
Priest considered the letter again. A dark hour, Wren had announced in a letter written in haste, but scripted in ink, and with some care, too. Every character painstakingly formed to perfection. No evidence of haste at all. None of it made sense.
And the flash drive that Miles Ellinder was so keen to procure. It is my only hope that you will know what to do with it.
‘This could be a suicide note,’ Priest remarked, examining the letter closely, as if the paper itself might hold the answer.
Okoro opened his mouth but whether it was in agreement or objection Priest would never know. Just then the door was thrown open with such force that it shook a picture off its hook and sent it crashing to the ground.
A familiar figure filled the doorway. Beyond him, Maureen was trying to push her way past.
‘I’m sorry, Charlie,’ she croaked. ‘But this gentleman wouldn’t let me call up for you. He insisted –’
‘It’s all right, Maureen.’ Priest held up his hand. ‘What can we do for you, Detective Inspector McEwen?’
McEwen was agitated. His neck was wrapped in an ugly-looking rash and his forehead was damp with sweat, despite the cold outside. He looked as if he had run all the way.
‘You’d better take a seat, McEwen,’ said Okoro, rising to his feet. ‘I would hate to see you passing out on the rug.’
McEwen ignored Okoro and Georgie and went straight to Priest’s desk. He leant over Priest. His body odour was overpowering.
‘Jessica and Kenneth Ellinder were here yesterday, Priest.’
‘Yes,’ Priest said casually.
‘Well? What did they want?’ McEwen demanded.
‘Why don’t you ask them?’
McEwen whirled away from the desk, insofar as a man of his size could whirl. He grabbed the seat Okoro had offered and threw his fat frame into the plush leather. Okoro held up his hands.
‘Don’t play games with me, Priest. Your involvement in this mess is already attracting considerable attention from higher sources than me. Do yourself a favour and start helping me out.’
Priest assumed McEwen was referring to Assistant Commissioner Auckland. No doubt she was looking for her own form of retribution and his connection to the Ellinder affair must have provided the perfect opportunity.
Not that Priest felt Dee deserved much by way of revenge. It was hardly his fault his brother was a serial killer, but the connection had been extremely inconvenient for his ambitious wife. She’d have never made AC by hanging out with me. Admittedly, the matter was compounded by his social awkwardness and tendency to hallucinate at parties; it was a toxic mixture that eventually detonated in a brutal ending to a short, childless marriage.
Priest said, ‘You know what, McEwen? You’re boring me. There’s a killer out there. A pretty messed-up one. Why don’t you try to find him?’
McEwen ignored him. ‘What did they want, Priest? Did they just happen to pop in to renew their wills or did you invite them?’
‘They’re the family of the victim and they’re powerful people. They have a right to visit whomever they see fit.’
‘But why you? Did they want legal advice?’
‘If they did, I wouldn’t tell you.’
‘Oh!’ McEwen clapped mockingly. He seemed to be having some difficulty keeping all of the spit he was chewing up in his mouth from occasionally dripping down his chin. ‘Client confidentiality. So now the lawyer falls behind his precious rule book.’
‘Nothing to do with client confidentiality, McEwen, because they’re not my clients. I wouldn’t tell you because it’s nothing to do with your investigation and you are, candidly, a tool.’ Priest knew the comment would earn him a whole heap of trouble, but it felt good. He was conscious that Georgie’s jaw had dropped so low it was in danger of detaching.
It turned out that McEwen was able to recognise when he was on a hiding to nothing after all. He got up and glared at Priest unpleasantly through his squinty eyes.
‘This is far from over, Priest. Involved – not involved. I don’t care. Either way, I will find a way to drag your name through so much mud you won’t be recognisable even to your dead parents.’ He pushed past Okoro and turned, just before he got to the door. ‘How’s your brother, by the way? Still a fucked-up serial killer?’
Priest said nothing. Mention of his family had touched a nerve.
‘Maybe you’ll be seeing a lot more of him in the future, Priest.’ McEwen spat as he left.
Nobody spoke for a while. The only sound was that of Priest grinding his teeth.
*
An hour or so after McEwen stormed out, Priest went down to his car. He needed to go home to think undisturbed. He was about to get in when he saw someone approaching him from the far side of the parking area beneath the office. The stride was confident, purposeful. The mid-morning sun was pushing through the mist and casting shafts of yellow light across the concrete through slits at ground level above his head. As the footsteps grew closer, the streaks of light were punctured by the shadow of a figure.
He stopped and waited for her to walk to the other side of the car, where she leant over the roof. He wonde
red how long he would have to stare into her eyes before he turned to stone.
‘Is this really your car?’ Jessica Ellinder asked with a tone of unexpected amusement.
‘Yes’ – Priest looked at the old Volvo and suddenly felt very defensive about it – ‘it’s cheap to run.’
She nodded and even offered him a wry smile. ‘Do they still make parts for these?’
‘It has its charms,’ he said, shrugging. ‘What do you drive?’
She didn’t answer. He felt determined not to feel awkward but it wasn’t easy.
When it was apparent that she wasn’t going to speak, he said, ‘This morning I received this.’ He reached inside his jacket pocket and handed her Wren’s letter, which she read.
‘The parcel Wren sent to your home. The flash drive?’ she queried, returning the paper.
‘Undoubtedly.’
He got in the car and shut the door, then waited a few moments for her to climb in the passenger side. When she was finally seated, she looked at the dashboard curiously. ‘This car has a beige interior,’ she remarked.
He started the engine – which, to his relief, actually fired up first time.
‘Why would the Attorney General send you this letter?’
‘He’s my godfather,’ he explained as he pulled out into the morning traffic.
‘But you haven’t actually received a package, otherwise Miles would have found it.’
‘No.’
‘Curious that he would send you a letter to your office saying he sent a package to your home,’ she mused.
Priest shrugged, but he was also troubled by it. ‘Maybe he just wanted to make sure I was looking out for the package,’ he said, although that sounded unconvincing even to him.
‘When was the last time you saw your godfather?’
‘At William’s trial, I think,’ Priest said softly.
‘Your brother is William Priest. The serial killer.’ It seemed to be a statement rather than a question.
‘Yes, he is.’
‘That must be tough.’
He looked at her sideways. ‘How perceptive of you.’
‘What . . . motivated him?’
Priest sighed. Unlike Sarah, Priest didn’t object in principle to having to explain about his brother when he came up in conversation. However, right now, he couldn’t work out whether or not he was being patronised. Indeed, he couldn’t work Jessica Ellinder out, full stop.
‘He thought that –’ Priest rubbed his chin, trying to find the right words. ‘He thought that he had lost his soul and by taking other people’s lives –’
‘He might take part of their soul to replace his own?’ she suggested.
Priest nodded in surprise. ‘Yes. You seemed to get that – quite quickly.’
She shrugged. ‘It wasn’t hard.’
‘I see. And you? Any murderers in your family?’
They headed south-east through the city until they reached a frost-covered playing field peppered with couples walking their dogs and runners, their breath clearly visible in the chill. On the other side of the street loomed rows of Georgian townhouses. Lines of white sash windows watched their progress like rectangular eyes sunk into the red stucco-finished brickwork.
‘Do you have any other family?’ Jessica asked after a while.
‘Sarah, my sister. My parents died in 2002.’
‘I’m sorry. How?’
He paused. For a moment he wondered why he should tell her but couldn’t think of a good reason not to.
‘It was a plane crash. My father was high up in the police but it was Mum who made the money. They were on business in Germany and flew home in a private jet, with a business partner. They hit a storm and never made it over the Channel. William blamed the pilot – I blamed fate.’
She nodded gravely. They didn’t speak for several minutes.
‘Here we are,’ Priest said, at last. ‘You never asked where we were going, by the way.’
‘The Attorney General’s house. Obviously.’
Eden Park was the kind of place where high brick walls bordered plots of perfectly mown grass around which generously sized homes were placed complete with fake marble pillars at the entranceway. The sort of artificial haven where nobody spoke to each other but everyone knew everyone else’s business. The sort of place Priest hated. The old Volvo had never looked so out of place as it did next to the Maseratis and Range Rovers that lined the streets.
The Volvo crunched over a gravel drive flanked by leafless trees. Wren’s home was like all the rest – oversized and characterless – although it was distinguishable by several salient features; namely, blue-and-white crime-scene tape surrounding the inner perimeter of the garden, four squad cars abandoned haphazardly in the courtyard, lights still whirling, and a SOCO van near the stable block.
A uniformed policeman clutching his cap waved them down. He looked a few months short of eighteen. Priest swore under his breath and pulled over at a gap in the trees where the driveway widened out into the courtyard. He exchanged a glance with Jessica before winding down his window.
‘Sorry, sir,’ said the uniform. ‘You can’t go any further. Can I ask you what you’re doing here?’
‘I was hoping to speak to Sir Philip Wren,’ said Priest.
The sentry scanned the car’s interior. The back seat was covered with files and papers. His eyes lingered over Jessica for a moment.
‘That’s not going to be possible,’ he said eventually. ‘Maybe you should be on your way.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘I’m sorry, sir. Police business. Perhaps you ought to leave.’
Priest opened his mouth but stopped. Jessica suddenly leant across him, her hand on his knee for support.
‘My name is Jessica Ellinder. Who is in charge here?’
Whatever the uniform had by way of response, Priest would never know. Just then the boy’s skinny body was replaced, rather suddenly, by a much larger figure.
‘That’ll do, laddie!’ McEwen’s face filled the window and he glared at Priest. The rash hadn’t improved. Nor had the smell. ‘Well, well. If it isn’t the Scarlet Pimpernel popping up again. How fascinating. Don’t you just turn up everywhere!’
‘The Scarlet Pimpernel was famous for not turning up everywhere but somehow still managing to rescue French aristocrats from the guillotine, you moron,’ said Priest blandly.
‘What are you doing here, Priest?’
‘I’m here to trim the leylandii.’
‘How about you get out of this rust bucket you’re driving and we’ll have a chat under caution, you fucking ponce?’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Jessica told him. She had got out of the car and was standing feet away from McEwen.
Priest raised an eyebrow.
‘Miss Ellinder?’ McEwen was taken aback.
‘Yes. Now what’s happening here, Inspector?’
17
Priest was impressed. It took a tremendous effort, but McEwen was forced not only to escort them up to the house but also to explain what was going on, although every word seemed to cause him excruciating pain.
‘Sir Philip is Mr Priest’s godfather,’ Jessica explained. ‘Perhaps I can call my father and you can explain to him why we aren’t allowed through?’
Evidently, Kenneth Ellinder had friends in high places.
They were taken through a stone-floored kitchen to a luxurious study furnished with a beautifully handcrafted writing desk as its centrepiece. A magnificent circular window looked out on to an orchard leading down to a beck, the trickle of water just visible in the gloomy haze.
Wren was hanging from one of the oak beams that supported the ceiling.
‘His wife was out last night,’ McEwen explained. ‘She came back late but didn’t think anything of the fact that the bed was empty. That wasn’t unusual, apparently. She found him here this morning. Didn’t report it straight away. Quite a shock, I’d imagine, seeing him just hanging around in the stud
y.’
‘Lady Wren is here?’ Priest asked, ignoring McEwen’s attempt at humour.
‘Aye. There’s a family liaison officer with her making tea and handing her tissues so none of your concern, Priest.’
Priest glanced at Jessica. She was staring at the limp body, watching it sway, mesmerised.
‘First time with a corpse?’ he whispered to her. She nodded slowly. He touched her arm. ‘Come on. We don’t need to linger.’
‘No,’ she said. Turning to look at McEwen, she demanded, ‘What is this?’
‘Suicide. Obviously,’ said McEwen.
‘Where’s the note?’ asked Priest. ‘There’s always a note.’
McEwen shrugged.
Wren’s letter was burning a hole in Priest’s pocket. Was that your suicide note, Philip? I think not. I was wrong about that. Things aren’t what they seem here.
‘For me, all is lost,’ the letter had said. Yet there’s something fundamentally wrong with this scene.
‘Suicide. Period.’ McEwen repeated. He was chewing on something. It was beginning to grate on Priest.
Wait, that’s it. ‘How’d he get up there?’ Priest asked McEwen.
McEwen shrugged again. ‘Climbed up on the desk and hooked the rope around the fan unit.’
‘He came in from outside first?’ Priest asked, glancing over at the French windows.
‘How do you know that?’ asked McEwen suspiciously.
‘His shoes have mud on them.’ Priest drew McEwen’s attention to the soles. They were filthy. ‘And the key is in the door leading outside. A man like Philip Wren wouldn’t keep the key in the door when it’s locked because that makes it easier to break in. All a burglar would have to do is smash the glass to get the key. So it stands to reason that the door is unlocked.’
‘That’s just . . .’
‘Try it.’
McEwen hesitated before trying the handle. The door opened without difficulty.
‘So what if he came in from outside?’ grumbled McEwen.
