“As in Father David Willis, Vera?” Izzie Drake asked her.
Vera nodded her head.
“For the purpose of the recording, the suspect just nodded her head in response to Sergeant Drake's last question,” Ross said, then went on, “Are you confirming that the man who was your partner in the murders of Matthew Remington, Mark Proctor and Lucas Devereux was Father David Willis, of St. Luke's Church, Woolton?”
“Yes,” Vera spoke very quietly, just loud enough to be heard and picked up by the recording machine.
That was it. Vera's barriers had been breached and the floodgates open as she opened up and told the whole, sorry story, beginning with the rape of her sister, Brenda Gillespie. Ross's previous, almost jocular theory surrounding the killings proved to be almost one hundred percent accurate. She told how she and David Willis, then a young engineering student, planned and plotted the theoretical killing of those responsible for Brenda's condition. At the time, they'd never dreamed they'd one day put those plans into effect. It was an exercise, a means of playing out their revenge in a hypothetical scenario. She explained that Helmdale Lodge was neither private or NHS funded, but was a charitable institution, set up by a pair of wealthy philanthropists to care for special cases like Brenda's. Donations helped of course, but the wealthy owners were very much involved in the running of the home which provided the best care possible for Brenda and those like her.
Eventually, David Willis, unable to accept the love of any other woman, decided to enter the Catholic Church and was eventually ordained as a priest, whilst still harbouring his devotion to the woman he could never have, and his hatred for those who had ruined her life. He threw himself into his new life, worked hard and supported many good causes in the community. He found some comfort from working as a councillor at a rape crisis centre, where he first met a young girl by the name of Lisa Kelly. He'd introduced Lisa to Vera, who felt sorry for the girl and tried to take her under her protective wing. When she'd informed him of her pregnancy following her rape by Remington, the old anger rose in his mind again and together with Vera, began to actively plan ways to put their long-laid plans into motion. Despite his advice to Lisa not to abort her child, his Catholicism not allowing him to condone such action, she went ahead anyway, only to be consumed by guilt and eventually committing suicide at Formby Dunes.
Willis had placed no blame for her religious transgressions on young Lisa, instead laying culpability squarely on the shoulders of her rapist. The fact that she'd identified Matthew Remington, only for him to escape prosecution due to lack of corroborating evidence was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back and set Willis and Manvers on their irrevocable course of death and destruction. Willis had indeed used sleeping tablets to ensure the new parish priest, Father Byrne, was safely out of the way on the nights when they needed to be together to carry out the killings. Willis had expressed regret to Manvers as he believed the tablets he'd crushed and administered to Byrne, either in his food or drinks had been the cause of the Father's terrible nightmares, hence his overly solicitous care of the older priest when he was present in the house to care for him after the nightmares. He'd used different medications at different times to experiment in finding an effective way of ensuring Byrne was totally unconscious during the hours he was missing from the manse.
The only regret Vera Manvers expressed was that she and Willis had been exposed before they'd finished their 'work'.
Ross omitted to tell her that John Selden was at that very moment sitting in the next room, relating everything concerning the many years of rape and sexual assault he and the others had been involved in. Derek McLennan and Tony Curtis had purposely not told Selden that the killers of his co-conspirators had been either arrested or identified. His fear of becoming a potential fourth victim of the graveyard killers as they had now become known had encouraged him to tell all. It seemed certain that the information he was providing would help the police to close the cases on a large number of unsolved rapes and sexual assaults. He told the officers that Devereux was the leader of the gang, who expressed his belief that fear was the key to their successful litany of crimes. If a woman felt that any one or more of four rapists was likely to come back and do her further harm, it helped to deter them from reporting the crime in the first place, thus many of their crimes would probably never be identified as they'd never been reported. McLennan and Curtis were satisfied however, that they had enough to put Selden away for many years.
At the end of their interview with Vera Manvers, Ross and Drake had her formally charged with the three murders and saw her safely locked up in the headquarters custody suite before heading out once again, this time to bring in Father David Willis.
Chapter 39
Ross and Drake pulled up in the driveway of St. Luke's manse for the second time that day, closely followed by constables Flynn and Davis in their patrol car. Ross stationed the two constables outside the front door to the manse, while he and Drake hoped to make a quiet arrest once they gained entry to the house. Not far away, in the graveyard, Miles Booker's forensic team were continuing their painstaking examination of the crypt and the grave site.
Iris Redding, surprised as she was to see the two detectives again so soon, nevertheless ushered them into the living room where Father Byrne stood up from his armchair where he was reading the newspaper, to greet them.
“Inspector, Sergeant,” Byrne said, “is there something else you need from me?”
“It's David Willis we need, Father, as a matter of urgency, I'm afraid.”
“You sound troubled, Inspector. When you say, a matter of urgency, what exactly does that signify?”
“Is he here, Father?” Ross spoke bluntly.
“He should be returning any minute now. He's been counselling at the Rape Crisis Centre. Please, can't you tell me what this is about?”
Ross saw no way of sweetening the bad news, and quickly, without going into details, informed the priest that David Willis was wanted for questioning in relation to the three recent murders. Byrne looked aghast as Ross finished delivering the shocking news.
“David? Surely not, inspector. There must be some mistake. Murder? I simply can't believe it.”
“We're so sorry, Father,” Izzie Drake said, softly, trying to cushion the impact of the news, knowing that Father Byrne had a heart condition and not wanting to exacerbate the problem by maybe inducing a heart attack through the shock. “It's true though. We have his collaborator, Vera Manvers in custody already and she's confessed to the crimes and implicated Father Willis.”
Stunned, Gerald Byrne slumped into his armchair. Drake looked at the man and could later swear his face aged ten years in the few seconds it had taken to go from standing to sitting.
“He was even slipping drugs into your food and drink to make sure you were fast sleep so he could sneak out, commit the murders, and be back before you woke up,” Ross added.
“Oh, Lord!” Byrne suddenly caught on. “So I'd fall asleep, knowing he was here, and when I woke up, he was still here as far I was concerned, so I became his perfect alibi.”
“That's right, Father. The pills he was giving you were quite probably the cause of your nightmares, a side effect of the drugs. He was genuinely concerned about your health, which is why he was so solicitous, coming to your help and checking on you when you woke up screaming. If you'd had a heart attack and been admitted to hospital, they'd have likely found the drugs in your system and he'd have had a hard time explaining how they came to be there.”
“Drugging me is one thing, Inspector, but the thought of him, a man of God, sworn to uphold the sanctity of life, beinga cold-blooded murderer is simply appalling and I still find it difficult to believe.”
Before Ross could say anything more, the living room door flew open as P.C Flynn came hustling into the room, unannounced.
“Sir, it's Willis, he's doing a runner.”
“What? Tell me man, quickly.”
“He just pulled int
o the drive, and must have realised the game was up when he saw me and Davis guarding the door. He reversed out, burning rubber I might say and set off in the direction of the city centre.”
“Are you cleared for high speed pursuit, Flynn?”
“Yes sir.”
“Well, don't just stand there man. Get after him. We'll follow you out. Sorry Father, we must go.”
Ross and Drake positively flew out of the house, hot on Flynn's heels. Ross shouted to Flynn as he got into the police Peugeot. “Radio headquarters and report every turn he makes. Did you get his number?”
“No sir, all happened too fast.”
“Alright, now go man, quickly. Get on his tail.”
“He could be a mile away by now, sir,” Drake said as she drove as fast as she could in order to stay on the patrol car's tail.
“It's a straight road into town from here, Izzie, unless he turns into one of the housing estates along the way, and I doubt he's stupid enough to trap himself that way.”
A minute later, the patrol car radioed that they had Willis's blue Escort in sight. The old Ford was no match for the almost brand new police patrol car and with Drake keeping close behind the Focus with its lights and siren scything a way through the city traffic they were soon gaining on the fleeing priest, who suddenly threw his car into a hard left turn.
“He's heading south. I think he's going to try to make it to the M62, sir,” said Drake.
“He's going nowhere,” Ross said determinedly, as he radioed in to headquarters, requesting roadblocks at all strategic entries to the motorway.
“Why is he running, sir? He must know he'll never get away.”
“Simple flight or fight response, I suppose, Izzie. He must know we'll get him in the end, but his instincts have taken over.”
Just ahead of their car, the patrol car driven by Flynn had closed to within a few yards of Willis's vehicle, all other traffic having pulled over at the sound of the police siren and the sight of the flashing lights. With abrupt suddenness, another police patrol car shot out of a side road a hundred yards ahead of Willis's car, the driver swinging his car to block the left hand side of the road, narrowing Willis's path of escape and the priest, not used to having to manoeuvre a car at speed, made a vain attempt to swerve past the parked car and swerved headlong onto the pavement, the few watching pedestrians scattering in panic. Willis's face contorted in horror as he realised he was heading straight for a deadly combination of a lamp post that stood immediately next to a bright red Royal Mail pillar box.
He virtually stood on the brakes, and the Escort began to fishtail as he attempted to bring the car to a halt before striking the immovable obstacles. Flynn slowed the patrol car almost to a stop, Drake doing the same with their unmarked car as they watched the scene unfold.
David Willis almost made it back onto the road, but the rear of the car struck the base of the lamp post as he tried to swerve past it and the effect of the collision caused the escort to slew round almost in a full circle, sliding into the road, losing speed, until it virtually floated into a slow collision with one of a number of cars parked at meters on the opposite side of the street.
The police were on him immediately, and after a quick check to ensure he was unhurt, Constable Davis pulled Willis from the car, and Flynn snapped the handcuffs on the would-be escapee. Ross and Drake walked up to where Willis stood between the two uniformed officers and Ross stood face to face with the second of the graveyard killers.
“Did you really think you were going to get away, Father?” he asked.
“No, of course not, Inspector Ross. To be honest, I just panicked when I saw the constables outside the house. I'll not cause you any more trouble, I promise.”
“I'm pleased to hear it,” said Ross. “You know, you almost got away with it. If Vera hadn't suddenly tossed all your careful planning out of the window and gone crazy with rage, we might never have caught on to you. You were also a bit stupid using your own church to dispose of Devereux.”
“Yes, well, I couldn't find another St. Luke's close enough for us to carry out the job and still allow me to get home again in time to create my alibi.”
“Why did you do it, Father Willis? Couldn't you and Vera have simply gathered sufficient facts and then presented them to the police so we could have prosecuted them?”
“What? And let them walk away like they did all those years ago, after what they did to Brenda, and again the way Remington got away with raping poor Lisa Kelly? There was no way we were going to trust the police to deal with them, no disrespect to yourself intended, Inspector Ross.”
Ross couldn't think of a suitable reply to Willis's statement. In fact, he privately admitted the priest had a point, though he could never openly acknowledge it. Instead, he ordered Flynn and Davis to ferry Willis to headquarters, where he and Drake would conduct their second interview of the day in Interview Room 1.
Over the following two hours, David Willis recounted virtually the identical story to that told earlier by Vera Manvers. Unlike Vera, however, the priest required no persuasion or cajoling to give a full and concise statement of the pair's murderous activities.
Standing in the viewing room, behind the glass of the one-way mirror, Doctor Christine Bland stood with D.C.I. Harry Porteous, listening to the way the priest verbally re-lived the three murders and the long years of planning that had gone into them. Christine felt her profile had been somewhat vindicated, and considered it to have been reasonably accurate, down to the fact that it had taken just one trigger event, the death of Lisa Kelly, to set Manvers and Willis on the eventual path that had led to the deaths of three men. Porteous agreed with her, and despite his many years in the job, he felt a coldness emanating from David Willis he'd never encountered before.
A third person in the viewing room took great interest in David Willis's version of events. He would after all, be replacing Harry Porteous at the end of the month and the forthcoming trials of the two killers would affect what would by then be his squad.
By the time Ross and Drake left David Willis in the care of the custody officer, the pair were both tired and elated at the same time. Stepping into the viewing room, they both looked in surprise at the additional figure in the room.
“Oscar?” said Ross. “Great to see you, but what are you doing here?”
“Perhaps, I'd better answer that,” said Porteous. “D.I. Ross, Sergeant Drake, I'd like you to meet my replacement. I'm aware you two know each other quite well,” he said to Ross.”
“Oscar, you old dark horse,” said Ross, grinning. “You got promoted?”
“I did indeed, Andy. I hope my new elevated rank won't stop us working well together, or affect our friendship outside working hours, of course?”
“Of course not…erm, sir.”
“Cut out the 'sir', Andy. That'll keep for official or formal moments. We'll work better together if we keep things between us much as they are already.”
“That's fine by me, and bloody hell, congratulations,” said Ross who turned to Drake and said, “Izzie, meet Detective Chief Inspector Oscar Agostini. We go back a lot of years, and I know you're going to enjoy working with him.”
“I'm sure I am, sir. Welcome and congratulations on your promotion sir,” she added, speaking to Agostini.
“Thanks,” said the new D.C.I. “That was some case you've just concluded. Must have given you a few nightmares along the way?”
“Well, the odd sleepless night, perhaps,” said Ross. “The nightmares were reserved for someone else.”
At the reference to Father Byrne, both Ross and Drake shared a knowing smile. Agostini noticed it and decided he'd let Andy tell him the full story another time. He could see how tired they both looked.
Christine Bland, having already said her good byes to the rest of the team, now took her leave of Ross and Drake.
“I hope I was some help in the case, Andy,” she said, hoping he'd agree at least to some extent.
“Actually, I was
n't sure about you at first,” he replied, “but your profile was damned good. It prevented us going off on a tangent and looking at every serial sex offender in Liverpool to begin with. Your profile effectively reduced our suspect pool and by concentrating on the events at Speke Hill and its people, we soon had it narrowed down, though we needed a large slice of luck in the end.”
“Aye, well, we all need that luck from time to time, Andy, that's for sure,” said Agostini.
“Thank you, Andy,” Bland replied. “It's been a pleasure working with you on such an interesting case, you too Izzie,” she said as she reached out to shake hands with each in turn.
“Oh, to hell with it,” said Ross as he grabbed her by both arms, pulled her close and gave her a great bear hug, before releasing her to the accompanying mirth of the two D.C.I.s.
“Wow, thanks,” was all Christine could say as she finally took a deep breath and looked at Andy Ross, surprised at his show of emotion.
“Just promise you won't tell Maria,” he laughed at Agostini.
“Oh, I doubt she'd mind anyway, but your secret's safe with me,” said the new head of the murder investigation unit.
Ross and Drake stood on the steps of the headquarters building, watching as Christine Bland climbed into her still pristine Vauxhall Carlton and drove away as the first grey wash of evening began to fall over the buildings of their city.
“You tired, sir?” Izzie asked.
“Bloody knackered, Sergeant. How about you?”
“The same. Fancy a pint before we go home?”
“Why, Sergeant Drake. First a hug with the profiler, and now my sergeant wants to buy me drinks. What is the force coming to?”
Izzie smiled, a devilish grin on her face as she said, “Sorry, sir, I never said anything about me paying.”
Ross laughed, Izzie laughed, the tension that had built up in the two of them through the long day at last released in a moment of humour and camaraderie.
* * *
“What do you think will happen to them?” Maria Ross asked her husband as they lay in bed together later that night.
All Saints- Murder on the Mersey Page 32
