Forgive Me Father

by Paul Gitsham

  ‘Of course. Moray, I’ll be with you in a moment.’

  ‘What’s the problem, Tony?’ asked Warren when the door closed.

  Sutton looked uncomfortable.

  ‘It’s about Moray.’

  Warren was surprised.

  ‘Is there a problem? I thought he was doing really well. He’s on track to complete his probationary training well within the two years, and his paperwork is in a far better state than mine was when I was at his stage.’

  ‘He is. That’s the problem.’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  Sutton sighed. ‘Sir, you’re a DCI. Why are you traipsing around bookies and homeless shelters with a DC?’

  ‘I’ve always been hands-on, Tony, and willing to get out of the office, you know that. It’s what I like about Middlesbury, most officers my rank spend half their time in meetings.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘Moray’s a probationer, he’s still learning the ropes. He’ll be a fine officer one day and I want him to get the support he needs. I learnt a lot from my own DCI, as I’m sure you did.’ Warren paused, as he remembered the history of their respective senior officers, but decided the point still stood. ‘Look, this is a fast-moving investigation, with a lot of different threads. If you think Moray would benefit from spending a bit more time working with Hutch or Mags, or even you, then I’ll take your advice, you’ve done a lot more mentoring than I have recently.’

  Sutton sighed, he could see that Warren either wasn’t getting the hint, or quite possibly was ignoring the uncomfortable truth.

  ‘Chief …’ he started, before pausing and starting again, ‘Warren. Moray isn’t Gary.’

  Warren felt as if he’d been slapped.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that you can’t keep him wrapped in cotton wool.’

  Warren was dumbfounded; Sutton ploughed on quickly.

  ‘What happened to Gary affected us all, I still miss him every day. I spent twenty minutes comforting Mags after we marked his birthday last month, and Hutch wasn’t much better. I can only imagine how you must feel, sitting next to him as it happened—’

  ‘That’s right, you can only imagine, and I’d rather you didn’t,’ snapped Warren.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ insisted Sutton. ‘Professional Standards know that. I know that, as does everyone in that office, even Karen knows it.’

  ‘I think you’ve said enough, DI Sutton.’

  Sutton ignored him.

  ‘You can’t undo what happened to Gary by being overprotective of Moray. He needs room to grow. He may be a probationary DC, but he was a very well-regarded uniform constable before he transferred over.’

  ‘I said that’s enough!’

  ‘He’s more than capable of asking a few questions in an outreach centre. And look at the bloody size of him, he can take on two normal people and not break a sweat.’

  ‘Gary Hastings had a black belt in Jiu-jitsu, and that was fuck all use in the end.’

  The moment he said it, Warren wished he could take the words back.

  ‘I’ll see myself out,’ said Sutton, without waiting to be dismissed.

  The thin partitioned wall rattled as the door slammed behind him.

  Warren slumped into his chair, anger coursing through him.

  How dare Sutton speak to him like that? Not since the two men had butted heads when Warren first transferred to Middlesbury, had the two men argued in such a way. Matters of friendship aside, Warren was still Sutton’s superior officer. He knew that if he’d spoken to Bob Windermere like that back when he was an inspector, he’d not only have ended up with a written warning on his file, he’d have found himself giving crime-prevention presentations to little old ladies at the local community centre.

  He stared through the window into the office beyond.

  After Gary’s death, they’d rearranged the layout. It was a small gesture, but nobody would have been comfortable taking his old desk, next to his girlfriend Karen Hardwick, on medical leave since his death and now entering the last few weeks of her pregnancy. On the other hand, leaving his desk empty would have been just as bad, not to mention impractical.

  And so one evening, when the number of people in the office was at a minimum, Tony Sutton and Warren had rearranged everything. John Grayson, upon hearing the sound of scraping furniture had emerged from his own office. He’d said nothing, just put down his cup of coffee, rolled up his sleeves and given them a hand.

  Gary’s death had hit them all hard. In Warren’s opinion, the small, close-knit nature of the team at Middlesbury was one of its biggest strengths, but it also meant that the loss of a team member was perhaps more closely felt than it might be otherwise.

  That was the view of the counsellor Warren had been assigned following Gary’s death. The nightmares had decreased in frequency in recent months, but he’d had another the night before – the third since the fire at the abbey. Should he report them? The counselling had been helpful, no question, but did he really have the time? He was already taking personal time out to accompany Susan to the hospital. There was a strict no phones and do not disturb rule at the counsellor’s office. Could he afford to be uncontactable during such a critical and fast-moving period of the case?

  He thought back to his last session. He’d been warned not to ignore other signs of PTSD. Was that why he was being overprotective towards Moray Ruskin? It wasn’t hard to see the parallels between Gary and Ruskin, his direct replacement. Was he letting his guilt towards what had happened to Gary Hastings colour his interactions with Ruskin?

  It was hardly fair; so far, the man had impressed Warren and everybody else with his competence. He still had plenty to learn, as his sometimes naïve questions indicated, but did he require the level of direct supervision that he’d been receiving? Particularly, did he need the second most senior officer in the building breathing down his neck? Worse, was it compromising the effectiveness of the team? He and Ruskin could have visited all those bookmakers in half the time if they’d split up; that sort of routine enquiry was far more suited to a constable – detective or otherwise – than the Senior Investigating Officer.

  When Warren emerged from his office, the rest of the team were busy. He spied Ruskin sitting next to Rachel Pymm, discussing something on her screen.

  ‘Moray?’

  The bearded Scotsman looked up.

  ‘Something’s come up. Are you OK to go visit the Middlesbury Outreach Centre on your own?’

  ‘Sure, no problem.’

  The eagerness with which the young detective jumped to his feet confirmed everything that Sutton had said. Warren looked over and caught the man’s eye. He gave a small nod. After a pause, Sutton nodded back.

  Enough said.

  Chapter 17

  Moray Ruskin pulled himself out of the tiny Fiat 500, the car lifting slightly as he removed his eighteen-stone bulk. Alex had bought the car before meeting Ruskin and it was definitely not suited for someone of his size. Unfortunately, Ruskin’s own car was having its service and MOT, so he was stuck with his partner’s for the next couple of days.

  The Middlesbury Outreach Centre, known also as the Phoenix Centre, had been in its current location for over thirty years, according to the plaque outside. Sandwiched like an ugly duckling between newly completed luxury apartment blocks and prime office space, Ruskin wondered how much money they’d turned down from developers for the land it stood on. He and Alex had looked at buying a so-called ‘affordable’ one-bedroom flat in the new complex and decided to hold off until one of them won the lottery.

  Ruskin’s parents never failed to mention how cheap houses were back in Scotland whenever he rang home. However, despite the pair meeting at Dundee University, Alex had always planned to move back to England to take advantage of the increased job opportunities near London. As living in the capital was a complete non-starter financially, they’d compromised on Middlesbury, barely thirty minutes by fast train
from central London, and where Ruskin had – in the words of his parents – turned his back on his university education and joined the police. His parents still didn’t believe that these days the police was a largely graduate profession.

  The inside of the outreach centre was painted a soothing blue, the walls covered in pin boards advertising services ranging from substance abuse counselling to HIV testing, free adult education classes, and support groups for victims of abusive relationships.

  The reception desk was behind reinforced glass, a bank of monitors showing alternating views from cameras situated inside and outside. A sternly worded sign warned that verbal or physical abuse of staff, volunteers or other users would not be tolerated, with the police called if necessary. The caution was repeated in a half-dozen languages. The ubiquitous red and white No Smoking signs had been supplemented with similar prohibitions on alcohol, drugs and weapons.

  Despite all this, the door to the reception desk had been propped open with a wastepaper basket and the place had a relaxed, pleasant vibe to it. Music came from a nearby open door, along with the clack of pool balls.

  ‘Hello officer, how can I help you?’

  The young woman behind the reception desk wore a dark-blue headscarf and a badge identifying her as ‘Nadia – counsellor’.

  ‘That obvious, eh?’

  ‘Practice. We haven’t reported anything, and there’s only one of you, so I’m guessing you aren’t here to arrest anyone?’

  ‘No, just a chat about one of your clients, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘We’re quite strict about what we say without a warrant,’ she warned. ‘We need to be otherwise our clients won’t trust us.’ She paused. ‘I’m due a break. Let’s go somewhere a bit more discreet.’

  The staffroom was locked with a mechanical keypad, so Ruskin had to hold both plastic cups of coffee as Nadia let them in.

  ‘Who can I help you with?’

  ‘Lucas Furber.’

  She frowned slightly. ‘We don’t always know our clients’ full names. Do you have a photo?’

  Ruskin passed over a copy.

  ‘Oh yes, I know him.’

  ‘He was arrested by Middlesbury Police for being drunk and disorderly back in January. The arresting officers were concerned that there may be mental health issues.’

  ‘Well, before we go any further, you should know that I’m not prepared to discuss Lucas’ mental or physical health without a court order.’

  ‘That’s fair enough, I just want to talk to him. Do you know where I can find him?’

  ‘To be honest, I haven’t seen him for a while.’

  ‘It’s really important that I speak to him. Can you think of any places that he might be?’

  She pulled her lip. ‘The last time I saw him was before Christmas. He said he’d got a room in Purbury Hostel. I’ve no idea if he is still there, they are quite strict about behaviour and have zero tolerance for drugs and alcohol.’

  ‘And you think that might have been a problem for him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ she sighed. ‘Like I said, the last time he visited it was at the end of December, and he was clearly full of the Christmas spirit if you get my drift. We don’t allow drinking or drug-taking on site, but we’re realists, especially that time of year, we know that they may have been drinking or using before they arrive here. We usually have a quiet word and if that fails tell them to go home and sleep it off. As long as they aren’t violent or abusive, all is forgiven next time they turn up. It normally works; one of our regulars gets sent home about once a month. He always comes back the next day to apologise. Usually with a bunch of flowers he’s pinched from somebody’s front garden.’

  ‘But Lucas didn’t come back?’

  ‘No. To be honest, it wasn’t a big deal at first. He was apparently a bit noisy and kept on trying to start a sing-song, which was annoying everyone. Reverend Billy was upstairs and he came down to have a word and Lucas called him a … well, I’m not going to use that word. It all got a bit heated and in the end we threatened to call the police if he didn’t leave. He hasn’t been here since.’

  ‘I assume Reverend Billy is a priest?’

  ‘Baptist minister, actually. I’m told that’s a bit different.’

  ‘Would I be able to speak to him?’

  ‘I don’t see why not, I think he’s doing a literacy class.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘Wait here, he’ll probably be down in a few minutes.’

  * * *

  Reverend Billy was a short man in his fifties with a firm handshake and a ready smile. His sweater, a bright red and green affair, was almost literally eye-watering and clashed horribly with his purple shirt. He wore a white dog collar.

  ‘I lost a bet with a parishioner, and I have to wear this jumper for a whole week, unless I’m in church.’

  Ruskin liked him already.

  ‘It was a shame about Lucas. He was a troubled young man, but there was a lot of promise beneath all that anger.’

  ‘Do you know why he was so angry?’

  ‘Sadly, no. He didn’t speak to me very often. I got the feeling that this—’ he pointed to his collar ‘—made him uncomfortable.’

  ‘Do you get that a lot?’

  ‘Hardly ever to be honest. Most of our clients are happy to speak to me, particularly when I make it clear that I’ve no intention of talking about religion to them unless they want me to.’

  ‘So what happened the day that Lucas was kicked out?’

  Reverend Billy winced.

  ‘That’s not really what happened. Lucas had clearly been drinking before he turned up mid-afternoon. The weather was quite poor, so a few of our regulars were in here sheltering from the rain, watching the TV, reading the paper or using the computers. Lucas was very hyper and he put the radio on really loud and started dancing to it.

  ‘One of the lads asked him to turn it down as he was trying to watch the news. Lucas turned the volume up. The song was Band Aid’s “Do they know it’s Christmas?”, so he started singing along and then grabbed one of the women on the computers and tried to make her dance with him.

  ‘By the time I got downstairs, he was standing in the middle of the floor shouting that it was “’effing Christmas” and we should all be celebrating. Another ten seconds and I reckon he was going to get lamped by someone.’

  ‘So you asked him to leave?’

  ‘Not immediately, no. I tried to settle him down a bit, but he called me a C U Next Tuesday. You know, I hear a lot of bad language here – I’ve got a bit of a potty mouth myself at times – but nobody has ever called me that before. That’s when I asked him to leave. I told him he could come back the next day if he sobered up and behaved himself.’

  ‘How did he take that?’

  ‘He started shouting that “we’re all the same” and that we’d all “burn in hell”. I lied and told him I had called the police, and that was when he finally left, after kicking a couple of chairs over.’

  ‘Any idea what he meant by that?’

  ‘I’ve really no idea. I like to think it was the drink and the drugs talking, but you know what they say, “in vino veritas”, so who knows what he was going on about?’

  ‘Any idea where he went after that?’

  ‘No idea. If you do find him, detective, can you let him know that there are no hard feelings and that he’s welcome back here?’

  Ruskin assured the man that he would, before heading back to the car.

  Somebody had keyed a scratch along almost the full length of the left wing. He looked around at the empty street. The arcs of the CCTV cameras above the door didn’t cover the car. He sighed. Alex would not be happy.

  Chapter 18

  Warren had to wait until Bethany Rice’s father was free, before she was able to attend the station for an interview. A few weeks shy of her eighteenth birthday, Bethany Rice was a sixth-form student who worked at the abbey on weekends. Strictly speaking, she didn’t need an appropriate adult present, since
she wasn’t under arrest and was seventeen, but Warren had learnt to choose his battles wisely, and he needed her cooperation.

  Apparently her father had been present when she was originally interviewed about Father Nolan’s death. He had reportedly been unhappy about her having her fingerprints taken for exclusionary purposes, and had insisted on going over her witness statement before she signed it, whilst helpfully explaining the rules regarding the retention of biological samples to the twenty-year veteran constable conducting the interview. The man had clearly been on Wikipedia before bringing his daughter in.

  ‘She’s doing really well, at school,’ her father had told Warren as they’d walked down to the interview suite, clearly flattered on his daughter’s behalf that she was being interviewed by a DCI. For his part, Warren was already wishing he’d passed her off to somebody else, but he had been free and wanted her interviewed sooner rather than later.

  By the time they reached the interview suite, Warren was already fully up-to-speed about the medical school interviews that Rice had recently been for, and the work experience at Addenbrooke’s hospital that she’d completed, even though her school hadn’t been as supportive as they could have been and they’d been forced to engage a tutor to help compensate for the poor teaching. Throughout this, Rice had said nothing, mostly looking at her shoes.

  Things did not improve when Warren started the interview. Mr Rice had clearly assumed that his daughter had been called in as a vital witness in the death of Father Nolan. It then transpired that Rice hadn’t told her father about the intruder in the abbey grounds.

  ‘If I’d had any idea that the site was so unsecure, I never would have let my daughter work there.’

  This last comment seemed to be aimed squarely at Warren, although quite what the man thought he could do about it was unclear. It also explained why Rice had chosen not to share the incident with her father.

  ‘I’d just finished my shift in the gift shop and I was walking back to the staff car park,’ said Rice, making eye contact for the first time.

  ‘We bought her a car after she passed her test first time,’ interjected Mr Rice. ‘Much safer than letting her catch that bus, especially when it’s dark.’