So Say the Fallen (Dci Serena Flanagan 2)

by Stuart Neville

Flanagan kept her head upright while the rest of the congregation lowered theirs. And McKay too, his eyes open as he turned to the prayer desk, side on to the congregation.

  ‘Dear Lord, we pray this morning for the soul of our departed friend, Henry Garrick. We pray that he is now at peace, that the depth of his faith in You brought him into Your eternal embrace, that his suffering is at an end, and that he is made whole again through Your grace and compassion.

  ‘And Our Father, we also pray for Roberta Garrick, that she can find strength in us, her friends, and in You, that You can guide her through this difficult time. Lord, guide us in our efforts to provide comfort for the bereaved.’

  McKay looked up from the desk, turned his head. His eyes met Flanagan’s.

  She felt a hot flush of shame, like a child caught stealing. She dropped her gaze to her hands, bowed her head like the others.

  As McKay recommenced the prayer, Flanagan wondered at the power of this place to make a middle-aged woman bow her head even if she didn’t believe. The memories a church roused in her, the little girl she had once been, the ritual of putting on her best Sunday clothes, fidgeting beside her mother as a minister droned on, then the Bible classes led by plain women, and how the stories frightened her.

  When had Flanagan last attended a service? A year ago, she thought, when her friend Penny Walker had been buried along with her husband. And Flanagan had prayed then, just as she prayed an hour ago for Miriam McCreesh.

  Prayed to whom?

  If Flanagan did not believe, then why did she pray so often? She rationalised it as a form of self-talk, an internal therapy session. Wasn’t that it? Or were those Sunday mornings spent in places like this so rooted in the bones of her that deep down she believed this nonsense, even if her higher mind disagreed?

  McKay’s voice dragged her back to herself, the words, ‘Our Father, who art in heaven.’

  With no conscious decision or effort, Flanagan recited the Lord’s Prayer along with the rest, every word floating up from her memories of school assembly halls and windswept gravesides. As the syllables slipped from her tongue she weighed the meaning of each.

  And she thought of her daughter, and the question she’d asked last night: was their marriage over? She had denied it, but truthfully, she didn’t know. And she thought of the cold distance between her and her husband, his anger stoking hers. If it really happened, if they really split, she knew Alistair would fight for the children. And he might win. With a job like hers, with the hours she kept, she couldn’t be sure the court would favour her. There was a real risk she would lose her children because of her job. A job that had once given her days meaning, now a daily mire of futility.

  McKay had asked: without faith, what do we have left?

  Without the job, Flanagan thought, what do I have left?

  Her family should have been the answer. But even that seemed to be slipping beyond her reach.

  The service over, the small congregation left their seats and drifted towards the exit. Flanagan felt the cool draught on the back of her neck as the door opened. McKay did not look at her as he joined his people in the late morning light. She heard snatches of hushed conversation between him and the parishioners.

  Yes, a tragedy. She’s bearing up. Keep her in our prayers.

  The church empty now, Flanagan alone, her thoughts seeming to echo in the hollow space around her. She closed her eyes, leaned forward, her hands on the back of the empty pew in front of her, her forehead resting on them.

  Oh God, what do I have left?

  I am my job. I am my children. What am I without them?

  Flanagan turned her mind away from the question, because she knew the answer was there, waiting to snare her and drag her further down. She opened her eyes, lifted her head, and saw Reverend Peter McKay standing over her, his hands in his pockets, his cassock and white gown draped over the back of another pew. Reflexively, her palm went to her cheek, wiped away a tear that wasn’t there.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt your prayer. Please go on.’

  ‘I wasn’t praying,’ Flanagan said, and immediately wondered why she would lie about such a thing in this of all places. ‘Not really. Just thinking.’

  ‘It’s a good place to think,’ he said, his expression warmed by a soft smile. ‘And to pray. Sometimes they’re the same thing. Anyway, I quite often come here to do both. At night especially, when it’s quiet, when there’s no traffic outside, just silence. We all need a peaceful place to hide in now and then.’

  Flanagan returned his smile, was about to speak, but he took a breath.

  ‘Listen, I’d like to apologise if I was curt yesterday evening when you dropped the keys off. It’d been a stressful day.’

  ‘No need to apologise,’ Flanagan said. ‘I understand.’

  ‘So what can I do for you?’

  Flanagan stared up at him for a moment before she recalled why she had come here. ‘Oh, sorry,’ she said, reaching for her bag beside her on the pew, and the pen and notebook within. ‘Just a few follow-up questions. All right to do it here?’

  ‘Of course,’ McKay said, lowering himself into the pew in front. ‘Has the post-mortem been done?’

  ‘This morning,’ Flanagan said. ‘I’ve just come from the Royal. Dr McCreesh, the pathologist, is going to report suicide to the coroner, who’ll probably issue an interim death certificate in the next day or two. Then the remains will be released to Mrs Garrick.’

  ‘And the inquest?’ McKay asked.

  He clearly knew the procedures, Flanagan thought; this wasn’t the first suicide in his parish, and it wouldn’t be the last.

  ‘At least the spring,’ Flanagan said. ‘Maybe the summer.’

  ‘It takes a long time to decide what everyone already knows,’ McKay said. When Flanagan didn’t respond, he said, ‘You had questions for me.’

  She readied her pen. ‘About the Garricks. How long have you known them?’

  ‘I’ve known Mr Garrick as long as I’ve been here. That’s, what, twenty years? His first wife was still around then.’

  ‘And when did they split?’

  ‘About eleven or twelve years ago, I think.’

  ‘What were the circumstances?’

  ‘It’s no secret,’ McKay said. ‘She was having an affair with one of the salesmen at the dealership. It’d been going on for months, apparently. She lifted £50,000 from one savings account, £70,000 from another, and just disappeared one morning. She and the salesman flew to Greece and bought a villa. The money ran out, of course, and the former Mrs Garrick had to take a job in some tourist bar. Last I heard, the salesman left her for some girl who was passing through on holiday.’

  ‘How did Mr Garrick take it at the time?’ Flanagan asked.

  ‘He was devastated. But his friends in the church gathered to him, so did I, and we helped him through. That’s what people outside don’t tend to appreciate. That a church is not a building.’ He waved his hands at the empty air around him. ‘This is not a church. The stained glass, the altar, the pews, none of this makes a church. A church is a community, a group of human beings brought together by their faith, so close they become a family. And when one of our family is hurt, we help them.’

  He dropped his gaze, smiling, ran his fingertips through his salt-and-pepper hair. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound like a recruitment drive. Anyway, you get the picture.’

  Flanagan smiled and nodded. ‘When did Mr Garrick meet his second wife?’

  ‘About seven, eight years ago,’ McKay said. ‘They met online. I suppose people do that nowadays.’

  ‘So I hear,’ Flanagan said.

  ‘They’d been seeing each other a few months before he brought Mrs Garrick – Roberta Bailey, she was then – before he brought her along one Sunday morning. Everyone was taken with her straight away. She had this glow about her. Like the sun in winter.’

  For a moment, McKay was lost in his memory of her. Flanagan measured the distance
in his eyes, the years they peered through. Then his mind returned to the present and he focused on Flanagan.

  ‘I married them a couple of months after that. I’d never seen Mr Garrick so happy.’

  McKay’s smile broadened to emphasise the point, but somehow it stopped at his lips, the rest of his features untouched.

  ‘What about Mrs Garrick’s life before that?’ Flanagan asked. ‘Who was Roberta Bailey?’

  The smile left McKay’s mouth, his face slackened. ‘I don’t really know. I suppose I never thought to find out. She just seemed to fit right in here, became a part of the community straight away, joined the choir, everything. There never seemed to be anything outside of the church for her, other than her husband.’

  ‘What about the wedding?’ Flanagan asked. ‘She would have had friends and family there.’

  McKay shook his head. ‘She and her parents . . . Listen, does this have to go any further?’

  ‘You’re not under caution,’ Flanagan said. ‘Nothing you say is admissible to the inquest or any other investigation.’

  He sat back, his brow creased. ‘Any other investigation?’

  ‘If a further investigation of Mr Garrick’s death should be required.’

  ‘You said the pathologist was satisfied it was suicide, that he’d made his report.’

  ‘She has reported suicide to the coroner. But I am not bound by that report. If I’m not satisfied with the finding, I’m free to look at other possibilities.’

  ‘Surely there are no other possibilities,’ McKay said.

  ‘There are always possibilities,’ Flanagan said. ‘I’m not disputing the pathologist’s findings, I’m simply not closing any other doors for the time being. Anyway, as I was saying, nothing you say today is admissible in any court.’

  ‘All right,’ McKay said. ‘It’s just I’m getting reports about your officers doorstepping people from this congregation, asking questions.’

  Flanagan opened her mouth to speak, but McKay held up a hand.

  ‘I know, I know, it’s routine, you have to do it. But this is a very close-knit community. Everyone talks. If anything I said to you wound up in a question to somebody else, it’d get back to Mrs Garrick. She’s been through enough. I don’t want to see things get worse for her.’

  Flanagan looked him hard in the eye. ‘I promise you, this investigation will be handled with discretion. You have my word.’

  McKay gave a single nod. ‘All right. What I was going to say is, Mrs Garrick had something of a troubled past. She and Mr Garrick told me about it before they married. There were some issues with addiction, alcohol, drugs – nothing too heavy, you understand, but enough to have caused her some problems. Enough to estrange her from her parents. When she found God she left that life behind, including whatever friends and family she had then. So when she and Mr Garrick were married, the bride’s side of the church was filled by people from this congregation.’

  ‘They had a child,’ Flanagan said.

  McKay’s face darkened. ‘Yes. You know what happened to her?’

  ‘That she drowned. I don’t know the detail.’

  ‘Do you need to?’

  Flanagan wished she could say no, she didn’t need to hear about a child’s death. Instead, she said, ‘Everything helps.’

  McKay’s shoulders fell as he exhaled. ‘They were on a short holiday in Barcelona. Wee Erin wasn’t quite two. They went to the beach, somewhere out of the city centre, I don’t know it, I’ve never been. Anyway, I believe Mr Garrick stayed on the sand while Mrs Garrick took Erin out into the water, paddling at first and then carrying her in her arms. Apparently Mrs Garrick was up to her waist, the water was calm, Erin was giggling, saying the water was cold. Mrs Garrick didn’t see the shelf under the water. It dropped a few feet, I was told. She lost her balance, and both she and the baby went under. In the confusion, the child slipped out of Mrs Garrick’s arms.

  ‘Mr Garrick didn’t know anything was wrong until people started running past him to the water. Mrs Garrick almost drowned trying to save Erin. They were able to revive her. But not the child.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot of detail,’ Flanagan said, ‘considering you weren’t there.’

  ‘Mr and Mrs Garrick told me what happened many times,’ McKay said. ‘Many, many times. So, three years after I married them here, almost to the day, I conducted their little girl’s funeral service. About the worst day of my career, to tell you the truth.’

  As he stared at some faraway place, Flanagan had an urge to touch him, offer comfort. She ignored it.

  ‘How did it affect their relationship? Many marriages don’t survive a loss like that.’

  McKay shrugged. ‘They had a difficult year or two, there’s no denying it. But once again, they had their faith and their church to cling to.’ He turned to Flanagan. ‘There’s nothing God can’t help you survive, if you’ll only open your heart to Him.’

  Had he aimed those words at her? Maybe, she thought.

  ‘What about more recently, before Mr Garrick’s accident? Had there been any problems?’

  ‘None at all,’ McKay said. ‘At least none that I know of. Erin’s death was hard to get past, of course, but they both threw themselves into church life. And community work. Mr Garrick put a lot into the local community. He’d done well in life and he felt he owed something back.’

  ‘And then the accident,’ Flanagan said.

  ‘And then the accident,’ McKay echoed. ‘As if they hadn’t been through enough.’

  ‘Some might ask why a benevolent God would do such a thing to a good Christian family. Why would He heap tragedy upon tragedy like that?’

  ‘Believe me, Mr Garrick and I had that conversation many times over.’

  ‘And did you come up with an answer?’

  Reverend McKay touched his fingertip to his lips while he thought for a moment, then his gaze met hers. ‘May I take a wild guess at something, Inspector Flanagan?’

  Flanagan nodded. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Doing what you do for a living, I assume you have much faith invested in the science of your work. In the crime scene, all that CSI sort of thing you see on the television. I’m sure it’s not terribly accurate, that TV stuff, but I know there’s a science to it. Forensics. Fingerprints, DNA, blood spatter, tests, measurements, readings, numbers, results. Correct?’

  ‘Correct,’ Flanagan said.

  ‘And even presented with all that science, that evidence, all those hard facts, all these tangible things that you can see and touch, do you always get the answers you need?’

  ‘No,’ Flanagan said. ‘Far from it.’

  ‘Well then,’ McKay said, ‘if your faith in science can’t answer all of your questions, why expect my faith in God to answer all of mine?’

  Flanagan exited the church, tucking her notebook and pen away. She had found the small car park full when she arrived, and had left her Volkswagen out on the road, its inside wheels mounted on a grass verge.

  She was halfway to the gate when a voice called, ‘Inspector Flanagan, isn’t it?’

  Flanagan stopped and turned. Jim Allison, MLA, leaning against his Range Rover. She walked back towards him.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We’ve met before, Mr Allison.’

  ‘At the Policing Board meetings,’ Allison said.

  He extended his hand, and Flanagan shook it. She had sat across a table from him on more than one occasion as he questioned her and other senior officers about their work. The Policing Board was largely a bureaucratic exercise, a sop to those in the community who distrusted the police, but Allison always seemed to take his civic duty more seriously than the other public representatives who had been appointed to the board.

  ‘I would say it’s good to see you again, but not under these circumstances. I take it you’re investigating Mr Garrick’s case.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Flanagan said. She resisted the urge to wipe her fingers on her trousers.

  ‘Glad to see it’s in
capable hands,’ Allison said. ‘I hope you’re making progress.’

  Flanagan told him she was, and once more explained the pathologist’s report to the coroner, and the inquest ahead.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Listen, here’s the thing. I know a suicide requires almost as much digging as a murder case, and I know you have a job to do, and I trust you’ll do it thoroughly and diligently. But I’ll also ask that you conduct it sensitively. Mrs Garrick is a close personal friend of mine, just as her husband was, and I don’t want her to suffer any more distress than she has already.’

  ‘Of course,’ Flanagan said, offering only enough deference to satisfy his ego. ‘I always try to tread as gently as I can when I go about my work. This case will be no different. Have a good day.’

  She went to leave, but his fingers closed on her upper arm. She turned back to him, stared down at his hand until he got the message and lifted it away.

  ‘Try won’t be good enough this time, Inspector Flanagan. I’ll be keeping a close eye on things, and if I suspect Mrs Garrick has been caused any more distress than is absolutely necessary I won’t hesitate to go to the Assistant Chief Constable.’

  Flanagan took a step closer. ‘Like I said, I will conduct this investigation with the utmost sensitivity, as I always do, but let me stress, it is my investigation. One other point, Mr Allison.’

  He put his hands in his pockets and leaned back on his car.

  She stepped closer still, inches between them, her eyes hard on his. He blinked, but did not look away.

  ‘Do I have your full attention, Mr Allison? Then listen well.’ Closer now, so close he couldn’t hold her gaze any longer.

  ‘Don’t ever touch me again,’ she said.

  14

  McKay slipped out through the vestry, closed the door behind him, locked it. He crossed the grounds to his house, opened the door. Inside, alone, he called out, ‘Roberta?’

  Not in the living room, he could see from here. Perhaps the bedroom. He hesitated to go up there after what had happened this morning, but he had no choice, he had to talk to her. He took the stairs two at a time, found the bedroom empty.