So Say the Fallen (Dci Serena Flanagan 2)

by Stuart Neville

She saw the bright red ceramic pestle and mortar by the lamp first of all, had only a moment to wonder why such things were sitting there before she looked towards the door leading to the church. Then the smell hit her.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ she said, her hand reflexively going to her mouth and nose.

  She saw McKay there, his head at an unnatural angle, legs splayed in front of him, arms loose at his sides, torso suspended above the floor.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said.

  Flanagan grabbed her phone from her bag and dialled.

  DSI Purdy arrived last, pushing his way through the crowd that had gathered at the church gates. A pair of uniformed constables stayed between the people and the church, but the crowd seemed content to watch, concern on their faces. Members of the congregation, most of them, arriving for their Sunday service to find a police line they could not cross. Flanagan recognised some of the faces, saw tears on many.

  ‘Dr Barr here yet?’ Purdy asked as he approached.

  ‘He’s in there now,’ Flanagan said, nodding towards the vestry. Flashes of light burst from inside as the photographer recorded the scene.

  Light drops of rain spotted Flanagan’s skin, but she still had to shield her eyes against the sun. A rainbow arced above the buildings opposite.

  ‘Tell me what you know so far,’ Purdy said.

  She looked to the ground, felt it drag her down, felt like she wanted to lie there and let the tarmac swallow her whole.

  ‘I found him hanged just after eight-thirty,’ Flanagan said. ‘A black belt over the door. There’s a belt missing from the cassock that’s hanging up in the closet, so that must be it. No immediate sign of anyone else having been here. Everything points to a suicide.’

  ‘Just like last week,’ Purdy said.

  ‘Yes, on the face of it. But there’s something else.’ She indicated the window, the lamp still glowing beyond the glass. ‘There’s a pestle and mortar sitting there, beneath that light.’

  ‘A pestle and mortar?’

  ‘I haven’t touched it – no one has – but I could see a residue of white powder in the bowl.’

  ‘Morphine,’ Purdy said.

  ‘I’m guessing so,’ Flanagan said. ‘Tests will confirm.’

  ‘Jesus. So it was him killed Garrick. He couldn’t hack it, so he leaves the evidence out and does himself in. Is that how you see it?’

  ‘I’d say that’s how I’m supposed to see it,’ she said.

  Purdy kept his gaze hard on Flanagan. ‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s too neat,’ she said. ‘Too easy. A week I’ve been chasing after this, and all of a sudden it’s handed to me on a plate. I don’t buy it.’

  Purdy looked back to the crowd at the gate. He sucked his teeth, tapped his foot, then turned back to Flanagan. ‘Well, maybe you should buy it.’

  She squinted at him, the sun bright behind him. ‘Sir?’

  ‘You’ve had an answer handed to you,’ he said, his voice lowered. ‘Maybe it’s time you just took it and moved on.’

  ‘Sir, no, I—’

  ‘Let me finish,’ he said, raising his hands to quiet her. ‘You’ve been grabbing at threads through this whole case, trying to find something other than what was staring you in the face. I’m not saying your suspicions were wrong, we may never know what the truth is, but just think about how much harder you want to push at this. Look at it this way: you suspected this was murder from the start and it looks like you’ve been proven right. You didn’t get the person you wanted for it, I understand that, but maybe you should accept this as a break and have it over and done with.’

  Flanagan felt heat in her eyes, shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I can’t. I just can’t. I know this is a set-up, and you know it too.’

  ‘I don’t know any such—’

  ‘Sir, with respect, you haven’t been talking with Reverend McKay or Mrs Garrick. You haven’t looked into their eyes like I have. And there’s something else.’

  ‘What?’

  Flanagan hesitated, then said, ‘He called me last night.’

  Purdy raised his eyebrows, pointed his thumb towards the vestry.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Around nine. He asked me to come over, he needed to talk to me. I said I couldn’t. He offered to come to me, and I refused.’

  Purdy sighed. ‘I know where you’re going with this, and you’re wrong.’

  She kept her voice low, but anger pushed the words out – anger at herself, jagged and bitter. ‘I’m not wrong. If I’d gone to him, if I’d let him come to me, he’d still be alive. Whether he killed himself, or somebody else did it, it wouldn’t have happened if I’d listened to whatever it was he needed to tell me.’

  ‘Stop it,’ Purdy said, pointing a finger at her, inches from her face. ‘Fucking stop it. It’s bad enough you’re looking for someone else to blame for that man’s death, let alone yourself. Whatever brought McKay to suicide had nothing to do with you, and I don’t want to hear another word on that. Clear?’

  Flanagan didn’t answer. Cloud obscured the sun, and the rain thickened. Drops gathered on Purdy’s glasses.

  ‘Now, I need you to be careful,’ he said. ‘Something’s brewing elsewhere.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘I got collared by a journalist on the way in, something about allegations made by Jim Allison. Whether it’s to do with what happened yesterday, I don’t know, but he’s been shooting his mouth off to the press. Watch your step.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He pointed to her car, still parked by McKay’s house. ‘Now go on, get out of the rain.’

  Flanagan nodded and turned towards the Volkswagen. She walked with her head down, hearing the murmurs of the crowd.

  ‘Why couldn’t you have left them alone?’ a voice called.

  She stopped, turned her head to the gates. An elderly woman called again. ‘Why did you hound them like that? Now look what you’ve done.’

  Flanagan stared for a moment, confused, then resumed the short walk to her car. Inside, rain sounding on the roof, she put her head in her hands and prayed.

  39

  Roberta Garrick watched the local news bulletin on the small flat screen television in her kitchen, the sound muted, the coffee machine gurgling and hissing. A long shot of the church, taken from the village side, with the rear of Peter’s house closer to the camera. Police officers milling around, some wearing forensic overalls. Then a photograph of her and her husband at a Christmas get-together.

  She reached for the remote control and turned the volume up. The reporter spoke in voiceover as the photograph zoomed in to fill the screen.

  ‘. . . local MLA Jim Allison, a close friend of both the deceased men, had this to say about the police investigation so far.’

  And there was Jim, the church further in the background, the hubbub going on behind him, sunshine making him squint. He wore his Sunday suit and a serious face.

  ‘I have been in touch with the Assistant Chief Constable and expressed my disgust at the treatment meted out to both Mrs Garrick and Reverend Peter McKay over the last week.’

  Strange how his voice became nasal and pinched when he spoke in public, not like when he whispered and moaned into her ear in the back of his Range Rover.

  ‘Specifically, Detective Chief Inspector Serena Flanagan has subjected both of my good friends to a week of abuse since Mr Garrick took his own life. Mrs Garrick has suffered enough tragedy over the last few years without being hounded by a police officer, particularly when the coroner has unequivocally ruled Mr Garrick’s death a suicide. Likewise, Reverend McKay, having just lost a very dear friend, has been constantly intimidated by DCI Flanagan.’

  Cut to a shot, zoomed in from some distance, of Flanagan outside the church, a taller man leaning over her, a heated discussion, the man’s finger in her face.

  Cut back to Jim Allison, nodding to emphasise each point.

  ‘I have absolutely no doubt that this police harassment has played at least some part in dr
iving Reverend McKay to an apparent suicide. The Assistant Chief Constable has assured me he will look into this matter, and believe me, I will hold him to that promise.’

  Cut to the reporter, an earnest young man with shaving rash on his neck, hunched against a shower of rain.

  ‘Detectives have not as yet confirmed the sudden death of Reverend Peter McKay as a suicide, though that is the view of most of the people I’ve spoken to this morning. As for Jim Allison’s allegations of harassment, the PSNI have declined to comment, saying to do so would be unhelpful at this stage of the investigation.’

  Back to the studio, and the news bulletin switched to a story about a factory closure. Roberta turned the television off and waited for the coffee machine to finish. She winced at the pain between her neck and shoulders. Stabbing spasms had been nagging her since she woke, and the muscles of her upper back felt stretched and quivery. She was in excellent shape, made good use of the gym upstairs, but still, dragging Peter across the church floor had been a strain.

  No mention of the pestle and mortar. The police hadn’t let that detail slip yet; Jim Allison still believed her husband’s death to be suicide. Let him go on thinking it, and everyone else, until the police made it known. His railing against Flanagan and the PSNI would come back to haunt him when he was proven wrong, but the short-term damage to Flanagan was more than worth it.

  It had been a week of terrors and triumphs. Certain one moment that she had let one small thread slip her grasp, enough to unravel everything; the next moment, confident the way ahead had cleared. And in between those moments a giddy shrieking inside her mind, a feeling of being adrift and lost. The sense that she would never regain control. But those moments passed too, only to return again and again as her thoughts cycled between the best and worst of all things.

  She knew what she needed now: stability and peace. The space to calm down, to find her balance. Then she could get on with enjoying the life she had worked so long and hard at crafting for herself. All she had to do was get through these next few days and all would be as she desired.

  Patience and a steady hand, that was all.

  Roberta went to the coffee machine, lifted the cup from beneath the spout, and the other from the worktop. She carried both, steam and dark aroma rising from the frothy liquid, out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the open door of her bedroom.

  Jim waited there, sitting on the edge of the bed, hands clasped together in front of his mouth. He had put his trousers back on, the belt still hanging loose, the flab of his belly spilling onto his lap.

  He didn’t look at her, even as she held a cup in front of his eyes. He took it, but did not drink. She sat on the chair in the corner, the one where Harry had draped his clothes every night, back when he had been able to dress himself.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  Jim stared at the carpet, his toes curling and gripping the deep pile. ‘We shouldn’t have done that,’ he said.

  ‘Of course we should,’ she said.

  ‘Harry’s only just in his grave, now Peter. And we’re . . .’

  He turned his head, looked at the scattered sheets.

  ‘Fucking,’ Roberta said.

  Jim looked at her now, shocked at the word he’d been too afraid to speak for himself. But he dropped his gaze almost as soon as it met hers.

  ‘It’s not right,’ he said. ‘It’s too soon.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ she said. She blew on her coffee, felt the heat on her lips. Tasted him. ‘It’s been more than a year. You think it was all right to fuck your friend’s wife while he was still alive, but not once he’s dead? What’s the difference? Apart from being able to do it in a bed instead of the back of your car.’

  ‘It’s not right,’ he said again. ‘It’s just not.’

  Roberta set her cup on the floor, stood, crossed to the bed. She took the cup from his hand, set it on the bedside locker. Then she put her hand on his bare chest, eased him back onto the mattress. She climbed onto him, straddled him, and with her hands she pinned his wrists down behind his head. She leaned down, her mouth to his ear.

  ‘It’s not right,’ she said. ‘And it’s not wrong. It just is. Life becomes so much easier when you let go of right and wrong.’

  The tip of her tongue traced the shape of his ear. He moaned as his hips rose to her.

  ‘Believe me,’ she said. ‘I know.’

  40

  DSI Purdy had sent Flanagan home half an hour after he’d arrived at the scene. No explanation, only that he would call by and see her later. Regret had been clear on his face, and she knew the order had come from above.

  She turned on the radio as she drove the short distance to her house, tuned it to BBC Radio Ulster. The news started as she pulled her car into the driveway. She drove around to the rear of the house, shut off the engine, but kept the key in the ignition so she could listen.

  Reverend McKay’s death was the lead item, but no mention of the pestle and mortar. A straightforward suicide, according to sources. Flanagan knew the ‘sources’ were members of the congregation who had gathered outside the church and that they knew nothing of what had occurred inside.

  Alistair appeared at the kitchen window, waved to her. She returned the gesture, then raised a finger, mouthed the words, ‘One minute.’

  He nodded and disappeared from view.

  She listened to the rest of the report, unsurprised by any of it until Jim Allison said his piece. Harassment, he said, intimidated. Flanagan flinched at the words, balled her hands into fists. She thumped the power button on the radio with the heel of her hand.

  ‘Arsehole,’ she said. ‘Fucking arsehole.’

  She stayed there in the driver’s seat until the anger had ebbed enough for her to speak without a tremor in her voice. No need for the kids to see the rage on her, not with how stretched and thin everything had become in recent days.

  Alistair opened the back door as she got out of the car. He put an arm around her waist, kissed her cheek as she crossed the threshold, gave her a look that said she didn’t need to explain. She loved him then as much as she ever had, and she entered into the warm scents of the meal he’d been preparing.

  ‘Where are they?’ she asked, looking towards the hall.

  ‘Eli’s on his PlayStation,’ Alistair said, ‘Ruth’s up in her room reading.’

  ‘So we’ve got a minute to ourselves,’ Flanagan said.

  Alistair smiled and took her in his arms. They stayed like that, holding each other until she said, ‘A good man died last night.’

  ‘A friend?’ he asked.

  Flanagan thought about it for a moment before saying, ‘Yes. Yes, he was.’

  The bubbling and hissing of a pot boiling over pulled Alistair away. She watched as he lowered the heat under the pot, stirred another, peered inside the oven.

  ‘Are we going to be all right?’ she asked.

  He closed the oven door and turned back to her. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I hope so.’

  Two hours later, the children cleared their bowls of dessert and Flanagan gathered up the rest of the dishes. It had been a good meal, no brittle borders between them at the table. Just a family enjoying a Sunday lunch, and Flanagan wished she could drown out the whispering worry that lingered in her mind, along with the pangs of sorrow for Peter McKay.

  The doorbell rang as she closed the dishwasher. She looked to Alistair, and he said, ‘Go on, I’ll clear up.’

  DSI Purdy stood on the doorstep with his hands in his pockets, a frown on his face. Without a word, she showed him into the small downstairs office. Booms, thuds and shrieks from whatever game Eli was playing in the next room. Flanagan sat at the desk beneath the window while Purdy squeezed his bulk into the old wicker chair in the corner.

  ‘You know what I’m going to tell you,’ Purdy said.

  Flanagan nodded. ‘Who’s taking over?’ she asked.

  ‘DCI Conn,’ he said.

  Flanagan gave a hard laugh. ‘Christ, he’ll love that
. He’ll take every chance he can to shit all over me after the Walker case.’

  A year ago she had humiliated Conn by pulling a case from under him, proving he had it all wrong. They hadn’t spoken since.

  ‘It wasn’t my choice,’ Purdy said. ‘The ACC chose him. Either way, you knew it’d be taken from you.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But him.’

  ‘Listen, whatever Conn does with it from here on, the ACC knows you were right all along about it not being a simple suicide. If it wasn’t for you, this would’ve been wrapped up four days ago and the truth would never have come out. I’ll be reminding Conn of that, and the ACC.’

  ‘But the truth hasn’t come out,’ Flanagan said. ‘Not all of it. He didn’t act on his own. Roberta Garrick has to be interrogated.’

  ‘That’ll be Conn’s decision to make,’ Purdy said.

  ‘Can I offer to assist?’ Flanagan asked.

  Now Purdy laughed. ‘Do you think Conn will have that?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I suppose not.’

  ‘Well, then. First thing tomorrow morning, pack up everything you have on the case and give it to me to pass on. After that’s done, why don’t you take a couple of days off ?’

  She considered it for a moment. ‘No, moping around here won’t do me any good. Give me some grunt work to do, anything to keep me occupied.’

  ‘There’s always plenty of that lying around.’ He smiled, and she returned the gesture, albeit with no feeling behind it.

  ‘You know,’ Purdy said, ‘it’s all for the best. I’ll be glad for this to be wrapped up. I don’t want to leave any loose ends when I go at the end of the week.’

  ‘But you’ll know that woman got away with it,’ Flanagan said.

  ‘I don’t know any such thing,’ Purdy said, his voice hardening. ‘Besides, remember where we are. This is Northern Ireland. How many killers have we got on our streets – people you and I know have blood on their hands – that are walking around free, knowing they’ll never see the inside of a cell? Even if I thought Roberta Garrick had got away with murder, she’d be at the end of a very long list.’