by Robert Innes
“More work for me then I take it?” Sharon said dryly.
Blake sighed, holding his hands up his face and rubbing his eyes. “You better go and tell her Michael.”
Gardiner nodded and went to walk out the room.
“But for the love of God, be sensitive. I mean it, Michael,” Blake said sharply.
“I will, I will!” Gardiner replied, affronted. “I don’t know what you take me for.”
He walked out with his nose in the air.
“Who’s he telling?” Mattison asked.
“Jennifer Greene,” replied Blake. “Turns out she’s his daughter.”
Patil’s eyes widened. “What, you mean she’s -”
“Callum’s mother.” Blake nodded. He rubbed his eyes again and moaned in frustration.
“Why would it have been Timothy?” he asked, turning to the whiteboard and staring at Timothy’s name. “And if all the others have been poisoned, then how do we know he hasn’t been too?”
“The hospital said that his heart had been dodgy for a while,” Mattison said. “They even mentioned his angina attack.”
“That could be a sign of this being a perfectly natural cardiac arrest then,” Sharon nodded. “Especially at his age.”
“And he was standing in that church watching his daughter be accused of murder,” Blake murmured. “I mean, that would put some stress on him, especially if he was the one that’s been doing it, but why? What reason could he possibly have?”
“If Jennifer Greene is his daughter,” Mattison said slowly. “Then, him watching Imelda and Patricia put her through hell could have been enough?”
Blake put his head to the side in agreement. “I guess so. But why Nigel Proctor? Or Daryl Stuarts?”
“Well,” Mattison said, sitting up keenly. “If the rumours about Nigel being sacked from the college are true, you know, after messing about with young students, then maybe he was punishing him for that?”
“Ah,” Patil said, stepping forwards. “Except, Nigel wasn’t sacked from the college.”
“How do you know that?” Blake asked.
“Because, I’ve just come from there,” Patil replied. “And I asked the head of human resources about why Nigel left. He left on his own accord.”
“So all the rumours were just rubbish then?” Mattison said, looking dejected.
“Yes, and no,” Patil said grimly. “Somebody was sacked from the college for messing around with one of the students, but it wasn’t entirely consensual. Apparently, Nigel was the one who walked in and stopped it when he heard cries coming from one of the storerooms, fortunately before it got too far.”
“So, do we know who the sacked member of staff was?”
“Yes,” Patil said seriously. “That was what I came to tell you. It was Callum Croydon.”
Blake turned his head to her, stunned. “What?”
Patil nodded. “Apparently, the girl chose not to press charges, which is why it was never reported to us.”
Blake stared at her, agog. “But Callum’s gay!”
“Not according to who I spoke to at the college, well not entirely anyway. She said that they had a few reports of him acting inappropriately towards some of the students, both male and female, but they never had any proof, not until Nigel Proctor caught him in the act.”
Blake turned to Sharon. “How do you get the poison out of these flowers?”
“It’s not the easiest of tasks, that’s for sure. It’s been a while since I studied this sort of thing, but if memory serves it involves steam distillation and some form of citric acid.”
“But for somebody with a science background?” Blake said, his heart racing.
“It wouldn’t be too much of a challenge, I wouldn’t have thought, no.”
“And he had this growing in his granddad’s garden,” Patil said.
As the pieces of the puzzle slowly started to come together, Blake grabbed his coat.
“We need to get him in. Now.”
They all rushed out of the meeting room. On his way out, Blake opened the door to the interview room Jennifer was sat in and walked in.
“Jennifer, you’re free to go. I’m so sorry about your father. He’ll still be at the hospital if you want to see him.”
Jennifer looked up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Really? I can go?”
“Absolutely.”
As Jennifer hurried past them and out of the room, Gardiner, who had been sitting at the desk opposite her, raised his eyebrows and looked at Blake quizzically.
“We need to go, come on,” Blake said to him. “I’ll explain on the way.”
They hurried outside to the car where Patil and Mattison were waiting. The weather had taken a rapid turn for the worse, and the sky above them was dark and foreboding.
“Go to the church,” Blake told Patil who was driving. “If he’s not there, we’ll check the hospital.”
As the car roared out the station, Blake’s mind continued to whirr, putting all the information together. If they had landed on who had been behind the deaths, then he couldn’t shake the feeling that Harrison was in great danger.
Harrison sat in the front row of the church seats watching Callum. Once Timothy had been taken away, Callum had said nothing. He had just walked back into the church and sat down underneath the altar, staring into space, ignoring Harrison’s insistence that he should go with his granddad in the ambulance.
“Callum?” he said gently. “Don’t you think we should go to the hospital?”
“I can’t,” Callum murmured.
“Why not? He’ll be okay. They’ll make him better again,” Harrison said encouragingly, standing up and coming to sit next to him.
“They won’t,” Callum said dully. “He’s dead. I know he is. You saw him. I can’t see him like that.”
“Those paramedics know what they’re doing,” Harrison told him softly. “They’ll be things they can-“
“He’s dead, Harrison,” Callum said forcefully. “You know that, and I know that.”
Harrison sighed. He couldn’t deny that Timothy had certainly looked beyond help once they had put him in the ambulance. Callum turned to him, a pleading look in his eyes, gripping his hand tightly.
“You’re here for me, aren’t you? You’re not going anywhere? No matter what happens?”
For a brief moment, Harrison’s mind went back to the last time he had this exact conversation with somebody. It had been with Daniel, just after Daniel’s father had been killed after driving in a car, drunk. A few months after having that conversation, Harrison had found himself being beaten black and blue.
But he pushed those thoughts out of his mind. Callum wasn’t like that. He was kind, caring and gentle. He wasn’t anything like Daniel.
“Of course not,” Harrison said firmly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He couldn’t tell if Callum was reassured or not. After a few moments, he let go of Harrison’s hand, and put his head in his own hands. “This is all my fault,” he said quietly. Harrison wasn’t sure whether he was talking to him or himself.
“Don’t say that,” Harrison said. “Of course it isn’t your fault. How could it be?”
“No, it is.” Callum raised his head up again and stood up. “It’s like I’m being punished. After everything that’s happened, he was the only person I had that was close to me.” He turned and smiled warmly at Harrison. “Till I met you.”
Harrison returned his smile, a little cautiously. “He had a heart attack, Callum. There’s nothing you or anyone could have done about that. You can’t blame yourself.”
Callum closed his eyes and took a deep breath, before turning to the altar and looking up at the crucifix. “You don’t believe in all this, do you?”
Harrison looked behind him to the crucifix. “No, you know I don’t. You don’t either, do you?”
“I didn’t think I did,” Callum said quietly. “But, I dunno. Maybe there is something in it. Or fate. Or something like that.
How do we know there isn’t someone looking down on us, sorting everything out and making everything fair again?”
Harrison couldn’t think of anything to say to that.
After a few moments, Callum looked down at him, then said calmly, “I’m going to go upstairs to the tower again. You coming?”
Harrison glanced at the window. The rain, which had looked like it was coming when they were standing on the church roof earlier, had started pelting down, hammering on the church windows.
“It’s chucking it down,” he said.
Callum gave a small smile. “It doesn’t matter. You coming?”
Without waiting for an answer, he turned and started walking down the aisle, slowing for a few moments to look at the confessions booth, which was looking dark and foreboding in the light from the darkness of the clouds outside, then strode purposefully to the steps to the church tower.
Harrison sighed and followed him. “Callum, wait a minute,” he called.
But Callum didn’t seem to hear him. He just opened the wooden door to the tower steps and took them two at a time, with Harrison closely behind.
When they arrived at the top of the tower, the rain was even heavier than it had looked outside, and the clouds above were an angry jet-black colour.
“Callum, there’s a storm,” Harrison called over the sound of the rain. “Come inside, we can come back up here when it’s cleared.”
“We don’t need to, it’s perfect,” Callum said, walking to the edge of one of the parapets and looking over the edge. “It sums it all up, doesn’t it?”
“What does?” Harrison stared at him, confused.
“All the deaths,” Callum said as a rumble of thunder sounded above them. “All the deaths that have happened in this church.”
“We don’t need to talk about that now,” Harrison said, walking up to him. “Let’s go to the hospital and-”
“But people have died, Harrison,” interrupted Callum. “That’s why this is happening, because of people dying!” He turned his head to face him again, and he looked scared and vulnerable.
“They’ve got the person who was doing that though,” Harrison said, unsure of where this was going. “Jennifer Greene, that’s why she went with Blake earlier, it must have been her. All that stuff in the papers…”
“It wasn’t her, Harrison!” Callum exclaimed, looking at him as if he was desperate for Harrison to understand what he was thinking, the heavy rain flattening his hair to his face. “I contacted the paper! I told them that she was responsible!”
Another rumble of thunder, louder this time, sounded from above them. The storm was getting closer.
Harrison stared at him, his eyes wide. “Why?”
Callum shook his head, then, to Harrison’s horror, stood up on the edge of the parapet, looking down at the drop below.
“Callum, what are you doing? You’re going to fall, come down!”
“It was me, Harrison,” Callum said, his voice barely audible above the sound of the rain smacking loudly around them. “I did it, it was me. I killed them all.”
Harrison’s mouth went dry. “What do you mean?” It sounded like such a stupid question, as Callum couldn’t have been much clearer in what he was saying, but the words just weren’t making sense.
Callum looked down at him, sadness in his eyes. He looked so afraid that Harrison couldn’t believe that he was capable of what he claiming.
“I poisoned them. Imelda and Patricia, Nigel – even Daryl. Daryl was an accident though, I didn’t mean it to happen. You have to believe me, I never wanted that to happen! But I had to make sure I wasn’t in the spotlight for it. So I contacted the papers and told them about a fight I’d seen Jennifer and Imelda having. I couldn’t think what else to do.”
Harrison felt numb. The wind was starting to pick up, making the rain, which had tightened his clothes to his skin feel even colder.
“They were found in that confessions booth, Callum. They had heart attacks, you couldn’t have killed them, you’re not making any sense.”
As a stronger gust of wind blew, Callum gripped the side of the wall to steady himself. “I poisoned them. I didn’t have any choice. They were found in that confessions booth because that’s where I wanted them to die. Nigel had been telling lies about me, he’d got me sacked from the college. You have to believe me when I say, I didn’t want any of this to happen, Harrison! Please tell me you believe me.”
Harrison barely registered himself shivering from the cold. “I believe you. But please, Callum, come down from up there, it’s not safe!”
“Hemlock. I made my granddad grow it in his garden,” Callum said, looking more reassured but still not moving. “I told him it was Queen Anne’s lace – they look pretty much the same, and he didn’t seem to know the difference.” Callum laughed softly to himself. “He loved that garden, he thought I was just sharing his interest in horticulture, so he looked after it. I made sure he never touched it, because you can’t touch hemlock.”
Harrison couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’re telling me you poisoned them? How?”
Callum looked up at the sky as an even louder crash of thunder roared above them, and a fork of lightning darted across the sky over the fields in front of them.
“Once I’d gotten the poison out of the flowers, I just kept it in a small bottle. Then, I waited till communion. Both of them were always at church, every Sunday morning and evening. Nigel was first. As I was going round with the goblet with the wine in, just before I got to him, I put the poison in the wine, underneath the cloth that we carry to wipe it. And he drank it. I remember the day it happened, he had this look in his eyes, just smug and glad about the lies he’d told about me.” He gripped the walls and looked down at the drop beneath him again. “And he had that look in his eyes as he was drinking the poison.”
“But how did he end up in the confessions booth?” Harrison asked. Despite everything Callum was saying, he was desperately hoping that it was just the grief of Timothy’s heart attack.
“Oh, that wasn’t meant to happen. Not at first anyway. I thought he’d just keel over after a few minutes,” Callum said, looking at Harrison as if he was searching for some sign that what he was saying was making sense, and that Harrison agreed that it had all had to happen.
“But, I dunno, it didn’t kick in as quickly as I thought it would. I kept watching him. I mean, he didn’t look well, but he lasted throughout the whole service. But he had booked an appointment for a confession with Granddad straight after the service. That’s when it happened. I watched him when he went in, and he really looked ill. I made myself scarce before he-”
He stopped as another huge crash of thunder boomed above them and a huge sheet of lightning flashed in the sky. Once it had subsided, he stared straight ahead and continued, as if now he had started, he was finding it difficult to stop, like it was a relief to finally be able to say it to somebody.
“Then, the same with Patricia Jenkins. She did confession every two weeks. I’d worked out my timings a bit better by then, and I knew that she had an appointment with Granddad for confession straight after the service.”
“But why?” Harrison asked desperately. “What had she done?”
“She reported him to the bishop!” Callum cried, looking at him outraged. “All because of this crap with Jennifer. And she kept reporting him, over and over and over again! He was seventy-four. I could see the effect it was having on his health. And after I’d done it to Nigel, I just – I just thought it would be easier to get her to stop. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t just decide to kill her. I went to her, I spoke to her, I tried to get her to see reason and leave Granddad alone. But she was as horrible as her friend. Her and Imelda were just awful people. She told me I didn’t understand what I was talking about, that I was just a stupid kid who should keep his mouth shut.” He turned his head forwards again, his breath ragged. “So I shut hers for her. Once I’d got another batch of hemlock together, I timed it s
o that she drank it at communion when she was confessing straight after the service.”
Harrison stared at him. The storm above them was getting worse, and the wind was coming in short, frightening bursts. Every time it blew, Callum wobbled precariously on the edge of the parapet.
“Callum, please come down. We can talk about all this downstairs, we’re both soaked.” Harrison wasn’t sure what he was saying, or why he was even saying it after everything that Callum had told him.
“It doesn’t matter, Harrison!” Callum cried, his voice cracking with emotion as another fork of lightning zigzagged through the black clouds. “None of it matters anymore! There’s nothing here for me now!”
“There is!” Harrison shouted back over the roar of the wind, thinking frantically. “I’m here!”
Callum looked down at him, his face shiny from both the rain and the tears. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Harrison said encouragingly. “I said I was, didn’t I?”
He wasn’t sure what his plan was from this point. He thought he might be able to somehow get in touch with Blake when they were both safely downstairs, but all he could think about now was getting Callum off the edge of the tower.
Callum held his hand out slowly to Harrison. Harrison took hold of it, relieved that he had managed to make him see sense. But instead of coming down, Callum stood still.
“Come up here, then.”
“What?” Harrison exclaimed.
“I’ve got you, haven’t I?” Callum cried frantically. “You said you were by my side!”
“I am, but-”
“Then prove it,” he said, his hand continuing to be outstretched. “Show me I’ve got something to live for, show me that you’re here for me!”
Harrison stared at him for a few moments, weighing up the options in his head. Desperate to get him to come down off the ledge, he reluctantly took Callum’s hand and pulled himself up to the edge of the parapet, grasping the wall on the side of him for support. The ground beneath them looked further away than it ever had. He turned, shaking from both the cold and fear. “Alright?”
Callum smiled gratefully and nodded. “Thank you. I love you.”
