If Lincoln Okafor was surprised to see DC Ramouter standing on his doorstep, he was doing a good job of hiding it.
“You haven’t returned any of my phone calls or replied to my emails. DC Ramouter,” he introduced himself as he held out his warrant card.
“It’s been a very busy time.” Lincoln Okafor stood by his front door with sweat dripping from his forehead and a towel around his neck. He zipped up his hoodie and folded his arms to protect himself against the cold.
“I called you when I was on my way over.” Ramouter tapped the side of his left ear. “You sent me straight to voice mail.” Lincoln pulled the AirPods out of his ear and managed to feign a look of surprise as though he’d forgotten they were there.
“Yeah, these things. They’re always playing up.”
“Aye,” Ramouter replied as he turned his head around at the sound of the gate being dragged across gravel and a postman made his way up the path. “Look, it’s freezing out here and I don’t think that you want the local postman to hear us talking about a murder investigation on your doorstep. If he’s anything like my postman he’ll be telling all of your business to all your neighbors. But if you’re happier standing out here,” Ramouter continued, “then I can ask you about the investi—”
“Come in,” Lincoln said quickly. He moved to the side and allowed Ramouter to step into the house.
Ramouter sat on an uncomfortable stool with a steaming cup of tea in his hand. He pressed his ring finger against the ceramic cup. He still wasn’t used to the fact that he couldn’t feel anything in that finger. The doctor had diagnosed a peripheral nerve injury. Another reminder of the damage that Olivier had caused when Olivier had stabbed Ramouter’s arm. Lincoln’s house wasn’t as big as the Annans’, but it was equally impressive. And unlike the pastor’s house, it looked like a home. Cereal-crusted bowls filled the kitchen sink, and the table still contained a young hurried family’s breakfast crumbs. Ramouter felt a pang of sadness. He didn’t expect dirty cereal bowls to remind him what he’d been missing.
“To be honest, I’m surprised to find you at home,” said Ramouter as he took a sip of weak tea.
“I don’t usually work from home, but I’ve got the gasman coming around at some point today,” Lincoln replied as he stirred sugar into his own cup. “Sorry about the mess. I had the school run and the cleaner’s called in sick. So, you wanted to talk about Caleb.”
“I’ve been trying to talk to you about Caleb for over a week.”
“Well, it’s been a lot for us to deal with. Caleb was an important part of the church and for him to be taken from us like that...” Lincoln put his hands to his face and squeezed his eyes shut. “I still can’t believe it.”
“You’re the finance director for the church?” Ramouter asked.
“Yes, that’s what I do.”
“And you’ve been the director from the very beginning?” Ramouter asked the question, though he already knew the answer.
“Yes, I can’t remember when exactly Caleb asked me to be the finance director, but it was about two months after the church started.”
“How long did you know Caleb for?”
“Over twenty years. We met at university.”
“Did you know that Caleb had previously been investigated by the Charity Commission and sent to prison for fraud?”
Lincoln’s face grew ashen and the cup of tea that he was drinking was suspended in midair. “What are you talking about?” he finally said. “I didn’t know about that.”
“You just told me that you’d known Caleb for over twenty years; he managed to keep from you that he’d been inside? He got a three-year sentence, so he would have had to have spent at least eighteen months in prison.”
“There was a time that he was away, but he told me that he was in Ghana, and that was just after his granddad died so that’s where I probably thought he was. In Ghana. Not prison.”
“If Caleb had disclosed his criminal convictions, would he have been allowed on the church board?” asked Ramouter.
“No. No,” said Lincoln. “He would have been automatically disqualified. We all could have been in trouble for allowing him on the board. But we didn’t know.”
“You never said what your day job is?” Ramouter asked as he pulled out his notebook.
“I’m a financial advisor,” Lincoln said quietly. “That’s why it made sense when Caleb offered me the finance director role.”
“Right. So, if the Charity Commission was to launch an investigation into the church, they would be looking at where the money was going, and also looking at you.”
“I never did anything wrong. I would never do anything... I have a family.” Lincoln’s face crumbled as he put down his cup.
“So why were you avoiding us?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“How close were you and Caleb Annan? Would you call him a close friend?”
“He wasn’t the godfather of my children if that’s what you’re asking, but I...respected him and what he did for us, the church and the community.”
“Respect,” said Ramouter caustically. “Were you aware that Caleb was accused of rape?”
Lincoln, still standing, gripped the back of his chair.
“I didn’t know about that. No, no, it must be a mistake.”
“It’s not a mistake. What about the young man who was found in the church? Brandon Whittaker?”
“I don’t know him. The first I knew about him was when I saw the news.”
“You’d never seen him before?”
“Never.”
“What about Alyssa Hadlow?” Ramouter asked as Lincoln grew more agitated.
“I’ve never heard of her. You have to understand. We’re not a little village church on the green. We have a large congregation. It’s impossible to know everybody.”
“She was found dead in her flat and she was a member of the church, and we know that she was in physical contact with Caleb Annan.”
“Why are you doing this to us? Why are you trying to tarnish us?”
Lincoln looked distressed as though he was personally being attacked. Ramouter could clearly see the panic in his eyes and the spotlights in the ceiling made the beads of sweat on his forehead glisten.
“We’re not,” said Ramouter. “All we want to do is find out who killed Caleb Annan and who in your church is responsible for nearly killing Brandon Whittaker and leaving Alyssa Hadlow dead in her flat.”
Lincoln said nothing. The only sound came from the ticking of the kitchen clock and the motor of the tumble dryer.
“When was the last time that you saw Mr. Annan?” Ramouter asked.
“Erm... Sunday afternoon. We had the church service, and we had a short meeting afterward.”
“How short is short?”
“Maybe twenty to thirty minutes.” Lincoln looked around the kitchen as though he expected the walls to be collapsing around him. “I didn’t kill him... I wouldn’t...couldn’t break a commandment like that.”
“I didn’t say that you did,” said Ramouter. “What was the meeting about?”
“About expanding and opening another church in Balham.”
“How did the meeting go?”
“Not well,” Lincoln said. He picked up a tea towel and wiped away the sweat from his brow. “We had an argument about money that had been taken from the church accounts. Everything must be recorded for all of the churches, but Caleb had a habit of making large withdrawals. There were some things that I missed because I was looking after the accounts for three churches.”
“Was there a lot of money going into a different church?”
“It was more a case that there was a lot of money coming out of all the churches that I couldn’t account for. We’d had a letter informing us that the Charity Commission would be performing an audit. Audits are fine if you can account for the money coming in and out, but I couldn’t.”
“How much money did Caleb withdraw?”
“It wasn’t a lump sum, but, all together, just over £300,000.”
“What was Caleb doing with the money that he was withdrawing?”
For the first time, Lincoln looked away.
“Lincoln, I’m going to ask you again. What was the money for?”
Lincoln let out a long sigh and finally sat down. “Some female members of the church had made some complaints about Caleb’s behavior. I don’t know the full details but I know that they were alleging that he’d been sexually inappropriate, so I think that you should be asking who the money was for.”
“Caleb paid the women off?”
“I don’t know for sure, but that would be my guess, because the complaints stopped as soon as the money went out.”
“OK,” Ramouter said. He scratched his head, unsure as to how he was going to phrase his next question. “Right, I’m just going to ask you. What do you know about Caleb performing exorcisms at any of his churches?”
Lincoln stared at Ramouter as though he was speaking a foreign language.
“Exorcisms? Is that what you just said?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Like the film. Spinning heads and priests turning up out the blue? I mean, I won’t lie; I’ve heard of other churches who mess around with things like that, but not us. I mean...no. We didn’t do anything like that.”
“Are you sure that you didn’t ever hear Caleb talking about exorcisms?” asked Ramouter.
“I suppose that he talked about them in his sermons but that was just normal Bible, fighting temptation, not listening to the devil on your shoulder stuff. Not people actually being possessed and healed. He used to say that if you believe in God then you have to believe in the devil, but that’s just common sense.”
“The man that was found in your church, Brandon Whittaker, he’d been tied to a bed and basically tortured,” said Ramouter.
“No. I can’t believe that Caleb was involved in anything like that. I just... I can’t imagine Caleb being so cruel,” said Lincoln. “I can’t have people thinking that I was involved in something like that. Is that why you’re here? Do you think that I was involved?”
“Well, I’m going to need a sample of your DNA in order to prove that you weren’t,” Ramouter said.
“I promise you that I had nothing to do with it, but whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it.”
Even without his DNA sample, Ramouter believed every word that Lincoln had said. “Did you trust Caleb?”
Lincoln looked up at him with crystal clarity in his eyes. “You always look for the best in people, but did I trust him? No. No, I didn’t.”