Forgive Me Father

by Paul Gitsham

  This was what worried Warren the most. But he knew there was little point arguing with her. The tenacity that had kept her on the front-line of policing for years after her diagnosis, was the same obstinacy that meant she wouldn’t let anyone dictate to her what she should be doing, her husband included, if that morning’s phone call was anything to go by. Warren had learnt that it was best to trust her judgement.

  Before her diagnosis, she had been a detective sergeant, working out of Welwyn. Although not yet in need of a wheelchair on a daily basis, over the past few years her mobility had steadily deteriorated to the point where a desk-based role was the best position for her. Keen to remain at the heart of investigations, she had undertaken additional training over several years to earn the necessary accreditations and develop the appropriate skills to become an ‘officer in the case’.

  When a vacancy had come up in Middlesbury, she had applied immediately. Not only was it more convenient for her, given that she lived locally, she liked working in small teams. Warren had been impressed with her from the moment she’d arrived at interview, and he’d been glad that John Grayson had agreed. Yet it was clear from what she had said that she still missed her old job. And from what he’d seen on the video of her interview of Rodney Shaw, she was good at it. When the case was all over, he vowed to have a proper heart-to-heart with her, and ask her what she wanted to do.

  He found it hard to imagine the team without her now. He just hoped she didn’t overdo it.

  Chapter 75

  ‘Lucas Furber was known to be obsessed with priests, Catholic priests in particular. A former friend of his claims that he had been abused as a child along with another boy, name unknown. This boy had an older brother that Lucas Furber was reportedly trying to contact after reading that his friend had committed suicide on the London Underground. I want to know who this person was, who his brother is, and what school he went to.’

  Warren had stopped by Ruskin’s desk as he circled the office, catching up. Only a handful of hours had elapsed since he’d crawled home for a short sleep, yet it was as if he had been away for days. The HOLMES2 computer system was making links and generating leads for the ever-growing team to action at an ever-increasing pace, and he felt as though he was walking the wrong way on a conveyor belt.

  Pymm had been right, everyone was struggling with the pace; even the seemingly indefatigable probationer looked tired. Nevertheless, the Scotsman practically jumped to attention.

  ‘There are over hundred suicides on the London Underground each year, with a spike around the Christmas and New Year period.’

  ‘Well, we know that Lucas Furber was 35 years old so that means he went to secondary school between about 1991 and 1998 if he stayed on to sixth form,’ said Warren. ‘Do we know what school he went to? They probably still have records of who attended which you could cross-reference with the records from the London Underground.’

  ‘No, his first appearance on the PNC was several years after he left school.’

  ‘OK, then you’ll need to whittle down the suicides. We know he was male, so that gets rid of half the cases.’

  ‘A bit less unfortunately, most suicides are male.’

  Warren acknowledged the correction.

  ‘Next, look at ages. Furber was 35. We don’t know if his friend was the same age, so you’ll need to play it safe and add five years either side, in case they were in different years.’

  ‘Males aged thirty to forty. That hardly whittles it down, they’re probably the biggest risk group for suicide.’

  Warren clapped him on shoulder. ‘Don’t forget about the source of the information. He could have been confused about the year the accident happened. You know what it’s like when the New Year rolls around and you keep on forgetting to write the new date.’

  Ruskin groaned. ‘A year either side?’

  ‘I’d make it two.’

  Chapter 76

  Warren, Sutton, Deacon Baines and Bishop Fisher were in the bishop’s office along with Deputy CSM Meera Gupta. A badly creased plan of the abbey grounds was spread across the bishop’s desk.

  ‘The architects drew this up when they were converting the house.’ Baines pointed at the plan. Under instruction from Warren, he was careful not to touch it, just in case the killer had used that actual document. ‘As you can see, some of the escape tunnels and the priest holes are marked.’

  Warren compared the plans to the photocopied sheets that Rachel Pymm had discovered amongst Vernon Coombs’ notes. ‘The shaft that Father Madden was found in is on the plan, but the tunnel running through to the exit down by the old cloisters isn’t.’

  Baines looked apologetic. ‘A full survey of the house and grounds would have been prohibitively expensive; we just blocked up the most obvious ones to make the house safe. It’s possible that there are other tunnels that we don’t know about.’

  A team of CSIs had spent the past few hours searching the tunnels for evidence that they had been used to covertly access the house during the previous murders. So far they had found no indication that the killer had used them either to enter the home or smuggle Fathers Nolan or Daugherty out. But did the killer know of routes that weren’t on the plan? Again, Warren thought of Rodney Shaw. The man had been involved in the conversion of the house and been in charge of maintenance for years; if anyone knew about secret tunnels it would be him. Or, for that matter, anyone who had seen the ancient diaries and papers stored in the archives could also have stumbled across tunnels that weren’t marked on the architects’ plan. Could the killer have been helping Vernon Coombs do his research?

  ‘Could people in the wider community have known about these tunnels?’

  Baines pursed his lips in thought.

  ‘The priest holes and escape tunnels weren’t a secret. The local Middlesbury Historical Society and the Friends of Middlesbury Abbey have had tours of the house and the abbey grounds, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them requested a photocopy of the architects’ plan. Obviously, English Heritage have a copy; I don’t know if it’s easily available via their website, but I’m sure you could contact them for one.’ He gestured at the photocopied sheets on the table. ‘As to this material … I don’t know. We’ve always been quite open about letting researchers come and see the archives, as long as they were careful.’

  ‘Do you keep a list of who requested access?’

  ‘No, sorry.’

  Warren suppressed a sigh; it had been a long shot.

  They’d contact English Heritage to ask if anyone had requested a copy of the architects’ plan recently, and they’d fingerprint the folder that the plan was kept in, but he didn’t hold out much hope.

  * * *

  After leaving the retirement home, Warren drove straight over to the morgue. As he waited for Professor Jordan to come and meet him, he called Moray Ruskin to see how he was progressing.

  ‘I have a list of twenty-eight possible identities for Lucas Furber’s friend,’ said Ruskin. ‘Pretty much all of them committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. I kept in the three suicides by other means in case Peanut heard “suicide on the Underground” and just made assumptions,’ said Ruskin.

  ‘Good work. What do you propose doing next?’ asked Warren.

  ‘I was thinking of contacting the next of kin to see if they can tell us what school they went to. Then contacting their school and asking if they ever had either Lucas Furber or this suicide victim on their pupil roll.’

  ‘Good work, Moray. I’ll get DSI Grayson to authorise assistance from Welwyn to speed things up.’

  He put his phone away as Jordan approached. He was already in surgical scrubs.

  ‘We really must stop meeting like this, Warren.’ The attempt at humour fell flat.

  Warren agreed; he’d been to more autopsies linked to this case than he’d been to during his previous three years at Middlesbury combined. He still didn’t like the smell. After swapping his street clothes for protective attire, he joined the Am
erican-born pathologist.

  ‘First of all, general health of the subject.’ Jordan dictated into his microphone.

  Warren had asked for the fastest possible turnaround in this instance. Jordan had been willing to oblige, but pointed out that the quickest way to get results would be for him to relay them directly to Warren as he performed his dissection.

  Warren had tried to hide his reluctance as he agreed.

  ‘I’ve already weighed the deceased’s major organs and performed a gross examination. The subject is 178 centimetres in height, and seventy-two kilograms in weight, with musculature indicative of a sedentary life-style. Skeletal X-rays show signs of arthritis and significant wear on the ball of the left femur, consistent with the need for a hip replacement

  ‘Brain is of average weight and appearance, and his lungs are clean and apparently healthy. Heart is of expected size with moderate plaque formation within the coronary arteries although not enough to have contributed to death. The liver presents signs of the early stages of alcoholic cirrhosis.’

  ‘He was known to be a bit of a drinker,’ said Warren.

  ‘More than a bit, I’d say. There was a fair amount of whiskey in his stomach.’

  Warren recalled that Sutton had reported that Madden was in the habit of retiring early and reading. He wondered if that was a cover for his drinking.

  ‘What about cause of death?’

  ‘Strangulation.’

  ‘Not hangman’s fracture? The drop was long enough.’

  ‘No. And he didn’t drop.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Ryan pointed towards Madden’s throat.

  ‘Look at the colour of these marks. You can see that these abrasions can only have been made if the heart was still pumping blood. The rubbing is consistent with a rough, hemp rope, of the type found around his neck. I’ve also found these.’ Warren leant closer. Within the rubbed, angry looking flesh, Warren saw tiny cuts, with traces of dried blood.

  Jordan rolled back the eyelids, pointing out the pinprick haemorrhages on the whites of the eyeball.

  ‘Petechiae, indicating strangulation.’

  ‘What’s your interpretation, Ryan?’

  ‘I think that he had a bladed instrument, such as a knife or scalpel, held against his throat, perhaps to make him more compliant. The blade was sharp enough to break the skin, hence the cuts. He then had a noose placed around his neck, and he was hoisted up, dying slowly through strangulation.’

  ‘And he was definitely killed where he was found?’

  ‘I can’t see any evidence from the patterns of livor mortis to suggest that he was moved after death.’

  ‘What about drugs?’

  ‘His stomach contained a substantial amount of alcohol, but I found no pill fragments or other evidence of ingested drugs. Obviously, we’ll need a blood toxicology report to be certain.’

  Given recent events, it came as no surprise.

  Another murder.

  Friday 20th March

  Chapter 77

  They say that a murder investigation is more of a marathon than a sprint, but Warren had always thought that was an over-simplification. It was true in the sense that even if you arrested the culprit at the scene of the crime – literally with blood on their hands – there was still a long slog to the finishing line in the dock of the crown court. But unlike a marathon, the pace in a murder investigation varied continuously. There were no pace-setters holding his team back to prevent them running out of energy before the finish line and no cheering crowds helping them push on when the end seemed a million miles away. And aside from the odd CSI, nobody was dressed as a Teletubby.

  At 8 a.m., three weeks to the day that Father Cormac Nolan had been drugged then set alight, the pace was closer to a sprint than a jog. There were now three confirmed killings at the abbey, as well as the suspicious death of Lucas Furber. The whiteboard, and Rachel Pymm’s hi-tech equivalent, HOLMES2, were filled with different threads; hundreds of data points linked the four separate killings and the sophisticated computer system was generating hundreds of ‘actions’ for officers to deal with.

  Beyond the walls of Middlesbury CID’s briefing room, the number of officers working on the investigation was increasing day by day, hour by hour. It was one of the few times that Warren didn’t resent his DSI’s absence. He knew that DSI Grayson’s continual presence at headquarters was smoothing the requests for more resources that Warren and his team were continually making, as well as deflecting, reducing and absorbing the heat and scrutiny the murders were generating.

  The latest press conference to formally announce the death of Father Madden and update the public on the progress in the other killings wasn’t scheduled until later that morning, and even Grayson wasn’t looking forward to it. There had been no disguising the heightened police presence at the abbey the previous day and the official response that there had been ‘a suspicious death’ in the abbey had done nothing to quell the rumours and speculation. The slaying of retired priests – not to mention the apparent attempts to hide their true nature by dressing them up as suicides – had captured the imagination of the public and the investigation was front page news, not only nationally, but internationally, with wall-to-wall coverage online and in the broadcast media. The press office had taken the unusual step of bringing more staff in to deal with record numbers of queries; additional officers had also been deployed to keep reporters and other nosey parkers out of the abbey grounds.

  Immediately after the press conference, Grayson was travelling to London for a meeting with senior church officials, top brass from both Hertfordshire Constabulary and the Home Office and, rumour had it, the Home Secretary herself. Good luck to him, thought Warren. Hopefully, the team would have some more progress for him to share with them.

  ‘Where are we in tracking down the person who copied the keys to the chapel and the undercroft?’ asked Warren.

  ‘We know approximately what time the killer went to the locksmith and what time he picked up his keys. Unfortunately, the taxi drivers cannot recall anything about the fare, and it was paid in cash.’ Mags Richardson took a swig from her water bottle. ‘However, both times the fare was picked up and dropped at Stonehill Mews on the west side of town. I’m liaising with traffic to see if there are any other cameras out that way that may have picked up the suspects’ car.’

  ‘Good, keep at it.

  ‘Rachel, how are your team getting on with Coombs’ notes?’

  ‘I’ve been looking through them to see if I can find who helped him compile his work. I’ve not found any direct acknowledgements, but I did find a sort of to-do list.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘Mostly lots of guff about things he needs to find out, but there was this one entry …’ She pushed a photocopy across the desk and pointed to an entry scrawled in Coombs’ familiar, slanted scrawl. ‘Buy Fr GB a pint to say thanks.’

  ‘Fr GB?’ asked Ruskin.

  ‘Gabriel Baines?’ suggested Sutton.

  ‘Great find, Rachel, he’s already on our list. If nothing else, he may be able to tell us who else worked with Coombs.’

  ‘Moray, what have you got?’

  ‘Two things. First of all, I’ve got a reply from one of Lucas Furber’s Facebook friends, and you’ll never guess where he went to school.’ Moray Ruskin was flushed with excitement. He didn’t wait for Warren or anyone else to guess. ‘The Venerable Thomas Tichborne School for Boys.’

  ‘That’s the school that Father Wilfred Dodd was “retired” from when it closed down,’ said Sutton.

  ‘Which explains why Lucas Furber was so upset. He told Peanut that “the bastard’s already dead”. Wilfred Dodd died of leukaemia back in 2012,’ said Warren. ‘Excellent work, Moray. Do you have the pupil rolls for Thomas Tichborne?’

  ‘It closed down, so I’m awaiting an email from the Department for Education. Maybe they can point us in the right direction.’

  ‘What else have you got?’
<
br />   ‘I’ve been liaising with the social media team as they sift through the Survivorsonline website. They’ve found a reference to Father Madden, but there’s no way they could have found it before his death by just searching using the keywords we had at that time. Father Madden was known to work as a school chaplain at Blessed Mary Primary School. Doing a search for the name of the school returned a single exchange.’ Ruskin picked up his iPad and started to read.

  ‘In April 2013, somebody posted a thread saying, “there was a right dodgy priest at my old primary school, Blessed Mary. He used to get drunk and make you sit on his knee and read him Bible stories. Don’t know if he ever did anything else but it was creepy as fuck. I was too young to work out what was going on then, but I know now he had a hard-on all the time. He did it for donkey’s years. They shipped him off to some place out of harm’s way in the end.”’

  ‘Bugger. There are none of our search terms there at all,’ said Warren. ‘Have we got the complete records for the residents of Saint Cecil’s from the diocese yet?’

  ‘I believe it is one of the things DSI Grayson is going to bring up in his meeting this afternoon,’ said Pymm.

  ‘Get the social media team to use their past places of work as keywords for their search.’

  ‘Any luck with that warrant to release the website’s server logs and archives?’ asked Pymm. ‘It’ll make things a lot easier for IT if they can run the data through their own search engines instead of relying on the website’s own crappy algorithms.’

  ‘Not to mention how useful it will be if they can attach IP addresses to some of those usernames,’ said Sutton.

  ‘We’ve got the warrant, but they haven’t been able to serve it, since the service provider is based in Bulgaria,’ said Ruskin.