Brian McGilloway - Gallows Lane

I returned to the hospital to check if any local vicars or priests had been doing their rounds the previous night, but the nurse in charge was certain that none had been on the general wards, unless maybe one had been called into ICU for Last Rites. I guessed, though, that this was not the case. As I was leaving, something caught my eye. On a stand in the foyer, nestled among booklets on sexual health and responsible drinking, was a pile of leaflets, still fastened together by a thick rubber band. The title, ‘Turn from Sin and Trust in Me’, stood out in block capitals.

Half an hour later, I collected Jim Hendry and set off for Coleraine. Bardwell lived in the North; he would have to be arrested there, and eventually extradited to the Republic to face charges if he had, as I suspected, killed Danny McLaughlin in revenge for the murder of Jamie Kerr.

We were in Coleraine by eleven o’clock, though it took some time to find Bardwell’s church. Finally, we found the street, a pedestrianized area covered with cobblestones which caused the car to shudder as we drove.

I had expected Bardwell to be based in a traditional church. However, it was, in effect, the upper floor of a commercial building which also housed a restaurant and an accountant’s office. The front door lay ajar, leading on to a set of old wooden stairs on which the red linoleum was faded and torn. When we reached the top of the stairs, Hendry drew out his gun and signalled that he would cover me as we entered through the glass door emblazoned with the name Reverend Charles Bardwell. Inside we found ourselves on a corridor, with six doors along its length.

‘Reverend,’ I called, pushing the first door, which led to a toilet. The second opened into a kitchen, the third an office. We trod lightly down the carpeted corridor, checking each room in turn. The fifth door we reached was the only one with a sign: ‘Prayer Room’.

‘Reverend Bardwell,’ I repeated, pushing open the door. Hendry stood to my right, his body pressed against the jamb, his gun ready in his hand. But it was not needed. Bardwell sat alone in the prayer room, his chair one of twelve arranged in a circle. Posters advocating forgiveness and rebirth curled on the walls around him, among them a larger version of the leaflet Jamie Kerr had been handing out in Lifford.

Bardwell sat, hunched in the seat, his arms resting on his knees, his hands dangling between his legs. He still wore an overcoat, which even from here, I could see was spotted with blood. On the seat beside him lay the knife. He looked up at me, straggles of black hair hanging over his face, his cheeks gaunt and stubbled. His skin was sallow, his eyes dull, his shoulders drooped.

‘Can I come in, Reverend?’ I asked. While I did not really believe him to be a threat to me, he still had a ten-inch blade sitting on the chair beside him.

He did not react, so I carefully moved into the room, breaking the circle of chairs in order to sit nearer to him, with four seats between us. I was glad that Jim Hendry stayed at the door, perhaps sensing that I might have more success in coaxing Bardwell out peaceably on my own. Still, I was equally glad that Hendry was still there, with a firearm.

‘I wondered how long it would take,’ Bardwell said finally, though he did not lift his gaze, continuing to stare at the space between his feet. ‘I’m glad it’s you.’

‘I wish I could say the same, Reverend,’ I said. ‘Anything but, in fact.’

He nodded once, his hair covering his eyes.

‘Was it because of Jamie?’ I asked, sliding myself one chair closer to him.

Again he nodded.

‘We had him for it, Reverend, and possibly the man who ordered it. All of them; all the ones who set up Jamie. We’d have got them all.’

‘For what?’ Bardwell said, looking at me for the first time, a flash of anger on his face. ‘To claim “diminished responsibility” — was that the phrase?’

‘He might not have got it,’ I argued weakly.

‘Of course he would,’ Bardwell spat. ‘No one cares. No one gives a shit.’

‘That’s not true,’ I said, moving a little closer, though still out of his range if he lifted his knife.

‘I went there last night and cut his throat. And I listened. I came back here and sat all night. “And still God has not said a word”.’ He snorted contemptuously.

‘Maybe He has said a word, Reverend,’ I said, quietly. ‘Maybe you just haven’t heard His voice.’

Bardwell looked at me blankly, as if the thought had only just struck him.

‘Jamie heard His voice, Inspector. And look what they did to him. Look what He let happen to him.’

‘ We let that happen, Reverend — us. Not God. People do those things. It’s up to the rest of us to make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

‘Are you a believer, Inspector?’ Bardwell asked.

‘I have to be, Reverend. I have to believe that what I do, somehow, makes things better.’

‘Fighting on the side of the angels,’ he said, laughing without humour.

I shifted a seat closer to him, and reached out my hand. ‘Come with us now, Reverend. We’ll take care of you.’

His hand rested on the handle of the knife beside him and, just as I myself tensed, I was aware of Jim Hendry from the corner of my eye, raising his gun, in readiness.

Bardwell looked at his hand, marked with blood, resting on the seat, as if considering for the first time the situation in which he found himself.

‘Seems a little ironic, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘A cop instructing a clergyman about faith and justice. Do you forgive those who have sinned against you, Ben?’

‘Honestly?’ I said. ‘I try. But I’m only human. We’re all only human. Trying might be the best we can do.’

He lifted the knife by the blade and handed it to me, the handle pointing in my direction.

‘You’ll need this for evidence, I believe,’ he said.

I took the knife from him gingerly, holding the handle between my finger and thumb so as to reduce contamination of prints, though I suspected such evidence would be unnecessary. Bardwell would not deny killing Daniel McLaughlin, of that I had no doubt.

Hendry approached him then and cuffed him with plastic cable ties, carefully pulling them tight enough to hold, but not too tight. Bardwell did not protest, merely offered his hands out in a gesture of surrender. Hendry checked the restraints once, before stepping back.

Then we made our way downstairs, back out on to the street. People stopped to watch our strange procession, myself in plain clothes carrying a blood-stained knife, Bardwell in his Reverend’s garb, sporting restraints; and, behind, Hendry wearing his flak jacket, gun holstered on his belt. As we emerged, the sun broke through from behind a thick bank of cloud. Bardwell lifted his cuffed hands to shield his eyes, as might one unaccustomed to the light.

Saturday, 19 June

By the time I returned from Strabane, having waited with Bardwell while he was processed, Paddy Hannon had been in Lifford station for several hours, ‘helping with inquiries’, Dempsey had told him.

He was still sitting in the interview room when I arrived. I thought of Peter Webb in this same room, relaxed, a little bewildered, certain of his innocence. I also thought of Seamus Purdy, unkempt, distressed, consumed with guilt for something in which he’d had no hand. Paddy Hannon was like neither. His whole bearing was one of arrogance. His hair was perfectly combed back, his face flushed but still smelling strongly of aftershave. His suit jacket hung over the back of his chair and his shirt sleeves were rolled up in a workman-like fashion. A packet of cigarettes lay on the table in front of him and I noticed someone had dug out an ashtray so he could smoke. His lawyer sat with him and I was not at all surprised to see that, once again, it was Gerard Brown.