Mark Pearson - Death Row

‘And who is she, then, apart from being the church cleaner?’ asked Duncton, puzzled.

Delaney gave him a flat look. ‘She was the only person ever to visit Peter Garnier in prison,’ he said. ‘She went to see him once, six months ago.’

Duncton blinked his eyes rapidly as he took it in. ‘So why in God’s name has she ended up decapitated and placed on a church altar a hundred yards from Carlton Row?’

‘None of this is in God’s name,’ said the priest, turning away from the altar.

‘Somebody is sending a message?’ Emma Halliday speculated.

‘To who?’ asked Duncton.

Delaney shrugged and looked at the priest who, puce-coloured and breathing deeply, was holding onto one of the pews facing the entrance to the church.

‘I guess that’s what we need to find out. And quickly.’

*

DI Tony Bennett sat on the edge of his bed and pulled on his right shoe, tying the laces neatly. He put his foot down and winced slightly, leaning forward to rub his ankle. It was still slightly swollen but the pain was easing. He popped a 400mg capsule of ibuprofen out of the foil strip, put it in his mouth and swallowed it with a drink of water from a pint glass that he had by his bed. He put the glass down and picked up the book that was beside it. It was the Good News version of the New Testament. He opened it at random and read a few verses to himself. He put the book back on his bedside cabinet and looked around the bedroom. It was a plain room in a one-bedroom apartment: one window looking out over a back garden that he didn’t have access to, a wardrobe, a chair with curved wooden armrests and a red cushion on it by the window. No decorations at all apart from a small wooden crucifix above his bed.

Bennett stood up, wincing a little again, and walked across to his wardrobe. He took out a smart black jacket to match his black trousers and put it on. He looked at himself in the mirror set into the back of the wardrobe door and adjusted his tie, which was blue with red diagonal stripes. He looked at himself for a moment or two longer, his brown eyes serious and thoughtful, and then slid his reflection away as he closed the door.

He stepped through to the living room. Like his bedroom there was little personality in the room: no posters or pictures on the walls, no photographs on display. It was rectangular, a modern design with a sofa acting as a partition from the kitchen area behind it. The sofa faced a television and DVD set up on a chrome stand. At right angles to the pale yellow sofa a matching armchair had been placed, and opposite that was a sideboard with a bookcase above. No books had yet been placed on the shelves but a number of magazines were arranged neatly in a pile at the base of it. Bennett crossed over to the sideboard and picked up the remote control for the television that rested on top of the uppermost magazine, Fieldsports Quarterly . He turned on the television.

He muted the sound as a barrage of noise burst from the television and animated creatures danced around the screen. Still holding the remote, he walked over to his kitchen area, which had a beech table that could seat four people, modern matching beech units with a built-in oven, a four-ring gas hob and a shiny metal sink set in a faux-marble work surface. He picked up a mug of coffee that he had made some minutes earlier, took a swig and using the remote he flicked through his pre-set favourite channels to Sky News.

Melanie Jones, wrapped in a bright red thick woollen duffel coat, with a white scarf arranged perfectly around her pretty neck, was addressing the camera. Behind her a few people had gathered at the yellow tape that was cordoning off the street, and further still behind her Bennett could see the numerous flashing blue lights of the police cars parked by the church of Saint Botolph’s. Saint Botolph, he thought to himself: another Irishman come to England to preach. Nobody knew much about him, either.

He pressed the mute button again and the presenter’s warm honey-toned voice filled the room.

‘I am sad to be bringing you yet another bizarre twist to the Peter Garnier story. Not a hundred yards from Carlton Row, which local people are now calling Death Row, where an eight-year-old boy called Archie Woods was abducted yesterday. A woman’s body has been discovered this morning in Saint Botolph’s church, which you can see behind me. Although the police have yet to release a full statement, they have informed Sky News that they are treating the death as highly suspicious. The discovery was made by Father Carson Brown, priest of the church, and we hope to be speaking to him later.’

Bennett muted the sound again. Turning to the sink, he poured the rest of his coffee away, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the handle of the mug as if to snap it off. His dark eyes were unfocused. Then he blinked, put the mug in the sink, snatched up his overcoat from the back of one of his kitchen chairs and headed to his front door.

*

An hour or so later Kate and Delaney came out of the entrance of the church as a suited team of SOCO went in. Kate nodded to the forensic pathologist, Dr Derek ‘Bowlalong’ Bowman, a cheerful portly man in his early fifties with a mass of badly managed curly hair atop a large smiling face. He was hurrying up to them at the usual busy pace that had given rise to his nickname.

‘Doctor Walker. What a delight,’ he said, his smile widening.

‘Bowlalong.’

‘Thanks for filling in — sorry I got held up. Some teenager turned over his car on the North Circular. Three mates on board. All seventeen.’ His smile disappeared momentarily. ‘So, Inspector Delaney, I see you couldn’t keep the lovely doctor away from the business end of the job.’

‘Didn’t want to wait. Not with the boy still missing.’

‘Quite so.’ Bowman turned to Kate. ‘Well, what have you found?’

‘I haven’t processed the scene at all. Just took some shots — I’ll email them over to your office later this morning,’ she said.

‘I’m led to believe the victim’s head was frozen?’

‘Or extremely chilled.’

‘Could you tell how it had managed to become separated from her body?’

Kate shrugged. ‘Cut rather than sawn. I’m guessing a large heavy-bladed implement.’

‘Like an axe?’ prompted Delaney.

Kate nodded. ‘Or a machete — a sabre, possibly.’

‘A military sabre?’

‘Maybe. We’ll know more when Dr Bowman finishes a proper post. I’m just speculating here.’

‘But to cut off a human head … that’s going to take a lot of strength, isn’t it?’

‘I would say so,’ said Doctor Bowman, with an emphatic nod.

‘Especially if the flesh was frozen,’ added Kate.

‘I don’t know,’ said Delaney. ‘If it was partly chilled it would be easier in some ways. Cleaner cuts, less blood spillage. Butchers chill their meat before butchering it, don’t they?’

‘They do, Jack. They do. Food for thought, I’d say.’ The forensic pathologist held his bag up and grinned bleakly again. ‘I’d best get to it. I’ll be back to you as soon as I can, Jack.’

‘DI Robert Duncton is in charge of this one, I’m afraid, Derek.’

‘Copy me in, though,’ said Kate.

‘You got it.’

Bowman bustled purposefully inside and Delaney and Kate walked across the small front yard, through the gate and up to the parked police cars.

Delaney leaned against the bonnet of one of the squad cars and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. As he did so a folded piece of paper fell to the floor and Kate had to bend down quickly and pick it up before it got soaked in the puddle it had landed by.

She handed it back to Delaney who opened it out.

‘What’s that?’ asked Kate.

‘Somebody the new boy Bennett is looking for. He thinks he might have something to do with the stabbed Iranian who you found off Camden High Street.’