Paul Johnson - The Death List

Father Prendegast heard a noise from the church. Mrs. O’Grady must have forgotten something. He stayed where he was. He didn’t like the way she looked at him. She knew, he was sure of it. The hypocrites, the old harpies. They all knew about him, but they pretended they didn’t. They pretended he was a normal priest rather than one who’d been given a last chance by the archbishop, and that only because the church couldn’t face the shame. Five years in an isolated retreat in County Kerry and then this run-down hole. It was only full when the sinners came at Christmas and Easter. No one bothered to confess anything other than venial sins these days, anyway. They thought that meant they could forget the truly bad things they’d done. Hypocrites. Whited sepulchers. At least he’d confessed, though it had been required of him. Confessed and asked forgiveness. His conscience was clean, even if his desires still tormented him.

Norman Prendegast drank again. The bottle was still at his lips when the sacristy door opened, and then closed again.

“Who’s that?” he demanded, his vision blurred. “Is it you, Mrs. O’Grady?”

The key turned in the lock.

“What’s going on?” the priest said, his voice wavering. He tried to get the bottle out of sight. “This is a private room.”

“Calm down, Father,” said a low male voice. “I’ve just come for a little chat.” The figure drew closer. “About old times.”

There was something familiar about the voice, although the words were free of any recognizable accent.

“Who are you?” Father Prendegast asked, staring through the whisky-induced haze. “Do I know you?”

“Oh, yes,” the man said. He was standing next to him now. “Don’t you remember me?”

A gloved hand suddenly grabbed the priest’s chin and forced his face round.

“Take a good look.”

Prendegast blinked and tried to make out the features. The man was wearing a black cap, which he took off to reveal short blond hair. That meant nothing to him. But the features did. The small nose, the half smile on the pinched lips, but most of all the eyes-so brown that he could hardly distinguish between iris and pupil. Oh, sweet Jesus, was it really him, the one who’d brought him down? After all these years?

The intruder let go of his chin and laughed. “And my name is?”

The priest licked his lips and reached for the bottle. It was knocked off the table in a swift movement, smashing on the flagstones. The smell rose up to taunt him.

“What did you do that for?”

The hand was on him again, this time tightening on his throat. “What’s my name, pederast?”

“Les…Leslie Dunn.”

The grip loosened.

“Is the correct answer, Father. You win tonight’s star prize.” His attacker’s face was close to his. “Ask me what it is, you pig.”

“Please, I’ll do anything…” He broke off as the pressure increased again. “Money…I’ve got…money.”

“Is that right, Father Bugger of Boys?” There was another empty laugh. “Well, that’s the one thing I don’t need. Ask me what you’ve won.”

“Ah…can’t…can’t breath…What…what have I won?”

He was pushed down onto the chair. Before the priest could resist, thick rope was being passed around his arms and upper body.

The face was up against his. He could smell mint on the breath of the altar boy he’d abused.

“You’ve won a first-class ticket on the midnight express to hell.”

The last thing Father Norman Prendegast saw was a shining silver knife moving to and fro in front of his eyes.

The last thing he felt was a lancing agony from behind.

Detective Chief Inspector Karen Oaten, promoted to the Metropolitan Police’s recently formed Violent Crimes Coordination Team in February, was standing in front of the altar of St. Bartholomew’s. She was in white coveralls and bootees, the SOCOs crawling around her like a pack of hounds.

“Come on, Taff,” she said, looking over her shoulder.

John Turner, wearing the same garb, came up the aisle slowly. His face was the same color as his protective suit. He had passed the inspector’s exams and moved with his boss.

“I’ll let you off,” Oaten said in a low voice. “This is a bad one, right enough.” The assistant commissioner responsible for the VCCT had made sure they got the case rather than the local division, and she’d arrived at the church just after one a.m. Even she had taken a deep breath when she saw what was on the altar.

The pathologist was still by the naked body. It was that of a flabby man in his fifties. He was lying on his chest over the altar, his legs and arms dangling down. A tall gold candlestick was on the ground, its top inserted between his buttocks.

“Who called it in?” the chief inspector asked.

“A Mrs. Brenda O’Grady,” Turner replied, looking at his notebook. “She lives in a tower block down the road. She was in here doing the cleaning earlier tonight. Before she went to bed, she saw that the lights were still on and came to check. That’s about all the sense I could get out of her. She saw the body.”

“Does she know who it is?”

“She reckons it’s the priest, Father Norman Prendegast, though she didn’t look at him for long.”

Karen Oaten nodded. “I’m not surprised.” She turned to the front. “Let’s go and see what the medic’s got.” She gave Turner a tight smile. “If you can handle it.”

He returned the smile slackly. “I can handle it, guv.” He owed Wild Oats plenty. She had insisted that he come with her to the Yard when she was singled out to join the new team. He still wasn’t sure why he was there. Maybe it was because he never questioned her authority. The other blokes in the Eastern Homicide Division had never come to terms with being told what to do by a woman.

They picked their way past the SOCOs.

“Anything interesting?” Oaten asked.

One of the technicians, a bearded man, looked up and shrugged. “There are plenty of different fibers. It’s too early to say if they’ll give you any help. No bloody footprints or anything else obvious, I’m afraid.”

They walked on up the steps to the altar. Other members of the team had already filmed and photographed the scene. The pathologist crouching down at the rear of the marble plinth was a short man with a protruding stomach whom they’d worked with before.

“Dr. Redrose,” the chief inspector said. “What have you got for us?”

“Cause of death, a single, nonserrated blade wound to the heart,” he said without looking up. “Delivered after the other wounds. I would hazard, none self-inflicted.”

“Time of death?”

“Provisionally, between nine and eleven p.m.”

“And the rest?”

“You know, Chief Inspector,” the pathologist said, “this is a first.”

“In what way?”

“In several ways. That’s why it’s so interesting.” Redrose got to his feet. “First of all, you’ve got the ornate candlestick in his rectal passage.” He inclined his head to the left. “If, as I suspect, that’s its twin, then around thirty centimeters of gold is up there.”

Turner pursed his lips. “Painful.” Although he’d played rugby union until he left Wales ten years before, he still found the results of violence hard to take.

The medic glanced at him. “Painful doesn’t even come close to describing what the poor devil went through.”

“We think he was the priest,” Oaten said.

“Ah. Sorry. The poor man of the cloth, then.” He bent down. “Next, there’s the eyes.” He lifted up the head. “Take a look at that.”

Turner steeled himself and went closer.

“Both removed with a sharp instrument,” Redrose said. “You see here? Optic nerves cleanly severed.”