by D C Macey
If only she could get John to talk to her, perhaps she could help him. He had always been kind to her, treated her so well throughout her stay, and yet all along he had been keeping secrets, holding back information. Did her father know about this trust fund? Surely not. Clearly, the parish could afford to keep her on for longer if it wanted, but it seemed not. Yet nothing was justification for today’s bullying tactics against the older man, her father’s old friend. First, she would put aside her own hurt and see what she could do to help him and then see about this money and its proper use.
• • •
Cassiter was at his favourite spot by the window. He watched the cityscape, the passing traffic and the people while he carefully weighed up the situation. He had received Barnett’s report and reviewed his team’s analysis of the contents of the church office computer. While things were not quite as clear cut as he would like, for the time being he would run with Barnett’s view; in the light of Dearly effectively sacking the girl, clearly, she could not be involved.
But Dearly. Dearly, Dearly, Dearly. He must be involved. His response to learning of the skeleton in the dunes - that was not polite or passing interest; that was almost obsessive fascination, almost Parsolesque. Why did he need to see the dunes dagger so urgently, was he going to try to deprive Eugene Parsol of it? What had he rushed off to check in such a hurry? Dearly demanded further investigation, he needed to be pressed. Dearly was the key, and that little safe Barnett had found in the vestry might prove very interesting.
Cassiter would have liked to wait a while, dig a little more, see how events were related. That was not possible; Parsol was now equally agitated about the dunes dagger. He wanted it, wanted it now, and whatever Archie Buchan and John Dearly had hidden at the church was also to be gathered in without delay.
Cassiter was to redouble his efforts. Everywhere. The move on the university had not produced the desired results and in spite of his earlier concerns about avoiding unnecessary attention, Parsol had now changed his position. Cassiter was to strike where necessary, as quickly as possible and collateral damage was no longer a concern. The prize was in sight and no cost was too high. Get the daggers and destroy any supporting evidence trails, wipe it all away, completely. Cassiter knew that such a brazen push might endanger some of his operatives, but that was just how things were to be.
Before taking any further action, he needed to double check that no trail could lead back to him. Then he would get working on two fronts, would gather in both the daggers. Still, at least the Johnson girl’s loose-tongued chatter in the manse kitchen had told him exactly where the dunes dagger was. MacPherson had it in his home, its acquisition would be about as easy as it gets. He returned to his desk and started running his private security checks, getting the team moving, digging. Preparing for his big push.
CHAPTER 12 - THURSDAY 6th JUNE
DCI Robert Wallace glowered at his phone; he had just finished the most difficult of conversations with the chief constable of Scotland. The man seemed to have less interest in the actuality of events than in ensuring the media was given a positive news story before the weekend. The chief constable certainly projected a great public image, but he hadn’t reached the top by being a nice guy and simply treading the beat for twenty odd years.
It was clear to Wallace that for all the chief constable’s management skills he was a slippery devil and more a politician at heart than a policeman. The media was whipping up a public panic over the killing in Dunbar, the chief constable wanted - no, demanded - progress. Wallace could tell he’d need to be careful. In spite of the meddling and attempted micromanagement from above, if anything hit the fan, Wallace knew he’d be standing alone.
Wallace was tired. It was over five weeks since the old minister had been murdered. Each night he was sleeping less than the one before, his wife was unhappy and his teenage kids were moaning constantly since he’d announced that next month’s family holiday might need to be cancelled if he didn’t get on top of the case soon. He reckoned that his time in the force was probably up. It wasn’t the same police force he’d signed up to. Don’t think, follow orders, fill in forms, carry the can: a rubbish job. Once he’d solved this one, he was thinking of calling it a day.
He stopped dwelling on his own circumstances and turned his thoughts back to the case. It was so unusual, there should have been clues and it should have been wrapped by now, but nothing. Nothing at all. No forensic clues, nothing on CCTV, no patterns, no previous form to trace, and other than the worried and the cranks, no public tip offs. It was as though a ghost had appeared, brutalised the old man and then just vanished.
Wallace allowed his methodical mind to pace steadily through everything they knew and it didn’t take long to cover the lot. The one chink of light was the break-in at the minister’s former manse. Wallace could not accept it as a coincidence. Both crimes were remarkable because they were not in patterns; they were unexpected and unattributed. Yet they were linked: by the victim. It was all he’d got to work on so that’s where he’d focus.
Tactfully, his team had made themselves scarce when the phone call had come through from Scottish Headquarters. Now he needed his sergeant back.
‘DS Brogan. Where are you? Let’s get everyone together. Come on, I want to go over everything again.’ Wallace shouted and people started to appear as if by magic, in less than two minutes his team had reassembled.
‘Could the motive have been gain or profit of some kind? We didn’t think so, he seemed quite well off but nothing was stolen from his home anyway. He had nothing worth killing for. No enemies. Just a quiet old man in a quiet little town. What was the trigger? Sort that and we are on the way to finding the killer. Most victims know their killer. Did he?’ Wallace arched an eyebrow to emphasise the question.
DS Brogan fired back a response. ‘We’ve checked the family. His nephews and nieces weren’t anywhere near Scotland when he was killed,’ Brogan was listing with his fingers as he spoke, ‘none of the other residents were physically up to it, the care workers were all accounted for, that only left the local church congregation and most of them were involved in some midweek meeting or other with the minister. Everyone Archie Buchan knew or had regular contact with has some sort of alibi.’ The sergeant stopped listing; he had nothing more.
Wallace would not accept defeat so easily. ‘Look, Buchan’s circle of acquaintance had narrowed hadn’t it? Eventually that’s what age does to you, to all of us. Now we’ve got his old manse being broken into, in a street where they’ve forgotten how to spell crime. Come on, Christ, there must be a link. It’s always the Church, isn’t it? The Church.’ He paused for a moment and frowned.
‘I want to go over his old church connections again, every bit. Re-do profiles of all the key people, trawl through that congregation, who doesn’t fit? Are there grudges? Mysteries? Things done when he was minister, things left undone. I want to know the lot, got it?’
DCI Wallace looked around his team and could see they were all tired. He knew they had all been burning the candle at both ends. It was a skeleton squad, including himself only a dozen were working on the crime now, though the force’s PR team somehow managed to give a very different impression.
Truth was there were just not enough resources, they were stretched everywhere as the force quietly shifted more and more staff away from operations to the backroom. A growing band of paper police, tasked to check and record the achievements of a dwindling frontline; methodically processing detail of activities to feed plenty of positive statistics and management information up the line and out into the media. Wallace gave a wry smile as the team dispersed to review existing information and trawl again for fresh leads; this just wasn’t his world anymore. He glanced appreciatively at DS Brogan who had not moved away, anxious to support his boss.
‘If there’s some live connection between Buchan and his old parish I want to know what we’ve missed. We need to know, now let’s get back on the trail.’
DS Brogan nodded. ‘The current minister, he’s been helpful every time we’ve spoken to him. You don’t think he’s involved do you?’
DCI Wallace had a thoughtful look on his face as he absently watched the rest of his team filing out of the office. ‘John Dearly? No, I wouldn’t think so, he strikes me as straight up and down,’ he turned back to fix the sergeant with a confident stare, ‘but there is something there, something we don’t know. I can feel it in my bones. If he or somebody else there is hiding something, holding anything back, I want to know. Maybe there’s something of value in the old church or manse, whatever it might be we need to find out. There have been two connected crimes with no obvious gain for anyone. That makes me think the gain is still to be made - the crimes aren’t done yet. We need to wrap this fast before there’s another. Right now things can only get worse.’
Brogan feared his boss was right though he couldn’t imagine any crime being worse than what had happened to Archie Buchan.
• • •
A couple of care assistants pushed wheelchairs out of the dining room while a little cluster of residents sat tight in their chairs waiting for walking frames or supportive arms to get them back into the lounge. Two or three of the more agile ladies were up, shuffling towards Helen, determined to talk to a fresh face.
John regularly took his communion services out into the community, to reach those who couldn’t make the regular church services. The outreach rotated through a list of destinations and today the service was in the Sunnyside Rest Home. Helen knew it was something that John loved to do and she had been happy to join in the visits and support the services. She felt that today it was John who had needed support, he had waivered once or twice and that was just not like him. She watched him reverentially lifting and wiping the old communion set: the little cup and plate, the neat cross. It was a compact set and each part fitted perfectly into the ageing wooden carry case, perfectly made for the job.
As John bent forward to pack the set away, she was suddenly aware of a tear in his eye. Puzzled, she looked again, but John was lost from her view as the elderly ladies finally reached her and clustered around. Smiles and greetings and chatter demanded her attention and by the time she could refocus on John he was composed and the carry case closed. She would need to speak properly to John about how he was feeling. Could she help him? She resolved to set some time aside at the start of next week to sit down with him and clear the air, understand her own future and maybe help him get a grip on his too.
CHAPTER 13 - FRIDAY 7th JUNE
The day opened bright and sunny. A cloudless light blue sky promised a long hot day, but at just after nine in the morning it was still cool and comfortable for brisk walking. Cassiter had left his New Town office and taken a southbound bus out of the city centre. He was heading for the affluent residential district of Morningside.
He travelled unnoticed, anonymous. Leaving the New Town, the bus headed up Lothian Road; passing the green-coppered dome of the Usher Hall to his left, and to his right, Festival Square and the financial quarter. Here the inner city streets were lined on both sides with sandstone tenements, mostly occupied at ground level by pubs, clubs, shops and restaurants, the upper floors a mix of offices and residential.
Driving on, the bus passed through the Tollcross district. Then there was a subtle change in the architecture as it skirted the green of Bruntsfield Links. The tenement flats seemed to be less pressed, less compressed, even the windows of the sandstone buildings seemed just a little larger; the bus had moved into traditional middleclass territory. The route ran on across Holy Corner with its four church buildings, one on each corner, and thence into Morningside; home to the young professionals who had yet to flit to suburban family nests, home to the middle aged returning from the outer suburbs and home to the determinedly affluent singles. A bustling mix of people: minding their own business and paying their own way.
Cassiter got off the bus just after Morningside Station, the CCTV coverage petered out around here and he was safe to take a leisurely and unrecorded stroll. He headed east along Cluny Gardens to Blackford Pond with its ducks and swans and mothers and toddlers. Now the tenements had surrendered to a mix of stone built houses and bungalows, greened with gardens and boundary hedges. Then he turned north, weaving through the mix of suburban residential roads leading back towards the city centre and John Dearly’s manse.
In his shoulder bag he had a white disposable forensic suit, some small tools and a further change of clothing for use on his exit journey. A retreat that would go as unnoticed as the approach.
Cassiter was not far from the manse now. He had a single earphone in place, it was providing a live audio feed from his hidden spying devices in the manse and he had been monitoring the situation since setting off from his office. It was clear that Dearly was following his normal Friday routine. Having returned with his newspaper, the minister was now settling down for a quiet, undisturbed morning.
The walk had been pleasant, giving Cassiter an opportunity to consider events without any disturbances, clearing his thoughts before the action.
All of Dearly’s behaviours made him the key suspect, and his unhealthy interest and frantic questioning about this other dagger that had been found in the Fife dunes just confirmed his guilt.
Having reviewed transcripts of the police visits to the manse, it was clear that the police were at a loss, grasping at straws, and that was heartening, it meant he had more time to complete the mission for Parsol. Dearly had not told the police anything of relevance. To Cassiter, there were only two possible explanations for that. The first, that Dearly knew nothing - Cassiter had deduced that was not the case. The second, that Dearly was hiding something, even from the police. That must be the case and left Dearly an open target.
As a result, Dearly could be dealt with as vigorously as necessary to get the dagger. Eugene Parsol had made it clear that this was the prime task and it was not to be subordinated to any other. Cassiter had taken this job on personally, while delegating collection of the dunes dagger to others from his more than competent team.
Continuing his northerly stroll along the main road, he passed a little side road off to the right, a neat residential road populated by impressive sandstone houses. He glanced right and counted several houses along until he spotted the manse; he marked it in his mind and continued his unbroken journey on up the main road. The stone built garden walls to the rear of the houses combined together to form the southern boundary of a great rectangular cemetery, exactly as Fiona Sharp had described.
From either end of this southern boundary, the walls extended northwards to define the eastern and western cemetery boundaries, and these were eventually linked together by the north wall, and so enclosed the whole cemetery. Cassiter was walking north up the main road, following the course of the western wall, some way ahead he could see Dearly’s church sat near the northern end of the cemetery. Just ahead of him was a small wrought iron gate set into the wall, a little used pedestrian access to the cemetery.
Cassiter ducked through the gate into the stillness beyond. It was an old cemetery, for the most part populated by the long forgotten dead. Very few empty lairs remained, and most of them in older family plots. As a result, there were few visitors now, but the council still maintained it all in good order, helped by regular anonymous donations. He turned hard right, working his way through a confusing series of internal section walls and then found himself heading south along a little path that tracked right round the inner side of the cemetery wall. Unseen, he was now headed back towards the houses he had just passed.
Confident in his seclusion, Cassiter walked quietly along the path, heading for the section of garden wall that backed onto the manse. He had reports of the back garden’s layout from both Fiona Sharp and Jim Barnett. These had been cross-referred with a web accessed satellite picture. He knew exactly how to proceed.
He continued to monitor the sound from inside the manse as he walked. Dearly had just boi
led the kettle so was probably in the process of making a drink. Cassiter stopped at a little wooden gate that was set in the southern cemetery wall. It gave private access between the back garden of the manse and the cemetery. He took a short steel pry bar from his rucksack and wedged it between gate and frame, low down near the ground and close to the locking bolt Barnett had described. One firm heave and the old wooden frame splintered. He moved up to the top of the frame and repeated the action, then carefully put his pry bar back in the rucksack and pulled out a forensic suit. He put it on.
For the next minute or so he needed to know Dearly was away from the kitchen and its rear facing windows while he forced entry. He produced a new pay-as-you-go phone and selected its sole pre-entered number. The phone dialled out. A moment later, his earphone filled with the sound of the study phone ringing in the manse. The overlapping sound feed from the kitchen told him Dearly had now left the kitchen and was heading towards the study.
Without waiting for Dearly to answer, Cassiter gripped the gate handle and twisted it open, then leant his shoulder firmly on the gate. With only the slightest resistance, the bolts parted from the splintered frame and the gate swung open. He entered the garden, pushed the gate shut behind him and sprinted to the back of the house where he grabbed a garden bench and dragged it beneath the kitchen window. From Sharp’s report, he knew this was an easy point for entry and exit, and knew from Barnett that they had done nothing to reinforce it since the break-in. He was through the kitchen window before John Dearly had hung up his study phone on the missed call.
John walked back into the kitchen wondering who the caller was, telling himself they would call back if it was urgent. In the meantime, he had plenty to be getting on with. As he stirred his mug of coffee, he heard a sound behind him. Turning, he was confronted by an average sized man dressed from head to toe in a white forensic suit. John’s mouth dropped in shock. ‘What the? What are you doing in here? Who are you?’ he demanded. His voice started to raise slightly as possible answers filled his mind almost as he voiced the questions.
