Willoughby held the gun in his right hand, arm extended in front of him, steadied at the wrist by the grip of his other hand.
He moved slowly through the churchyard, pivoting left and right as he went, his senses alert for the slightest disturbance.
He saw now that there was a light on inside the church, a faint glow deep within, suggesting a candlelit vigil rather than a service.
Perhaps the vicar was inside on church business – Willoughby couldn’t imagine what, but who else could it be? Members of the congregation decorating the church for Christmas perhaps? But wouldn’t that be more easily done in the daylight?
He had heard that churches were traditionally kept open at all times, offering asylum to all. Despite his relative youth, Willoughby had had ample experience of the criminal side of human nature. He couldn’t help thinking that this was asking for trouble.
If there was someone in there, it didn’t necessarily follow it was the man he was looking for. The way he saw it, it still didn’t make sense that the murderer would take refuge in a church. If you had just taken another life, surely the last place you would want to be was inside the house of God, with Jesus looking down at you from the cross? Unless you were a religious kind of person, that is. In which case, your conscience would no doubt be giving you a hard time. And you might have come to the church to pray for the courage to give yourself up.
Willoughby wondered therefore whether he really ought to be going into a church with his weapon drawn.
But if it was his man in there, even if he was a religious-minded killer, he was still a killer. And by the looks of it a killer who had also attacked coppers. A desperate man cornered, in other words. The fact that he was in a church was irrelevant. Except that if there was a firefight on holy ground, whatever the outcome, the papers would have a field day with it.
What would the guv’nor do?
Willoughby didn’t need to think too hard over the answer. They didn’t call him Quickfire Quinn for nothing.
Keeping his righthand grip tight, Willoughby drew the revolver close to his cheek, while reaching out towards the door with his left. Best to get in quick, he reckoned, giving whoever was in there as little time as possible to ready themselves or hide.
He clicked the latch, holding the gun out in front of him again as he slipped inside in the lee of the door. He found himself inside a small, dark porch and suppressed a glimmering claustrophobia. What if someone had been waiting for him in there with a cosh, or even worse, a gun of their own? He would be a dead man by now.
His heart was pounding as the small space filled with his panic.
Pull yourself together! You’re not dead, are you? Bloody idiot.
After a moment, he mentally added, Pardon my French. To enter a church with a gun drawn was one thing, but to start swearing? May God forgive him! Even if it was just inside his own head.
He waited for a moment for his eyes to adjust to the peculiar density of darkness in the vestibule, then turned slowly through 360 degrees, holding the gun out in front of him.
He sensed more than saw a door on each side, as well as the inner door leading to the church and the open door he had come through.
So if the man he was pursuing had come in here, there were three possible doors he could have gone through. If Willoughby chose the wrong one, he would leave the way open for the suspect to get away – or even worse, to take a shot at him, if the fellow had a gun of his own, that is.
He had to do something. But what?
The door facing him would be the first door the suspect would see, and therefore the most likely one for him to take. If he had come in here at all, it was a sign that he wasn’t thinking straight. He was walking into a box that could be easily sealed by police. Panic would have been driving him. Panic and instinct.
That gave Willoughby the rational justification he needed.
He groped with his free hand and found the inner door to the church.
His mind continued to present him with justifications for his action: if he was right and the killer was a religious type, then it was certain that he would have gone into the nave. The whole point of coming here would have been to commune with God.
If that idea of the criminal was correct, then Willoughby’s best hope of getting out of here without either shooting or being shot was to appeal to the man’s conscience. He slipped his gun back into its holster.
Sorry, guv!
His best bet was to keep things calm.
The door creaked as he eased it open. He waited a moment, allowing the affronted hush of the church to settle.
‘Is there anybody there?’ His tremulous voice reverberated, as the natural sounding box of the church amplified his nervousness as well as his words.
Still as it was, quiet as it was, Willoughby’s instinct was that there was someone there, someone who wanted to keep to the shadows. Not a vicar quietly praying to his God for inspiration for tomorrow’s sermon. Or a parishioner hanging festive bunting.
He moved forward one step into the gloom. The grinding crunch of his boot against the stone floor echoed ominously. The unseen light source was at the front of the church, low down, casting a dim glow upwards. There was no smell of burning wax, so he guessed that it was a low-wattage electric lamp.
He had to admit there were too many hiding places in the church for his liking and it made him nervous. Jumpy. Bound to.
First there were the two rows of columns that ran the length of the nave. A man might easily conceal himself behind any one of those, on either side. Or he might be lying down beneath a pew, or crouching in the gallery, or lurking behind the altar screen. Even the pulpit.
Willoughby might stalk down the aisle like a cat in the long grass, but he couldn’t help feeling like he was the one being hunted.
A strange excitement throbbed in his throat. ‘I was just passing and I saw a light on.’ The words came out in a hoarse whisper, as if he did not want to disturb the peace any more than he already had. ‘I confess I haven’t been in a church for a long time. My folks never did go in for all that God-bothering business so much. But you get to thinking, don’t you? Especially what with Christmas just around the corner and all that. And with this war on. Sometimes I wish there was someone I could talk to, you know, like God. We had a teacher at our school, Mr Bamforth. RI master, he was. I remember he once said, “You can always talk to God. No matter how bad things get. God will always listen.” That’s what he said anyway. So, like I say, I was passing and I saw the light on, and I thought, well … I wonder if God will listen now. Is that why you came here? Got something you want to get off your chest? We all do things we regret, you know. You think you’re in a tight corner. Everything looks hopeless. But then you talk it over and you realize it’s not so bad as all that.’
‘Who are you?’ The voice came from above. It was deep and resonant and commanding. If not the actual voice of God, then certainly the voice of a toff. Willoughby looked up and scanned along the gallery. He could just about make out a dim shape lurking in the shadows at one end, near to the exit, as if he had been about to make his escape but had been detained by Willoughby’s little speech.
Although he was nervous about revealing himself as a policeman, Willoughby intuitively felt the need to be honest from the outset. It was the only way to build trust, and if it came out in the future it could damage whatever relationship he might have established with the fellow, to say nothing of its effect on any legal case. ‘My name is Willoughby. Detective Constable Willoughby, of the Special Crimes Department, Scotland Yard.’
There was a heavy groan from the gallery. Then a flash and the thunderous crack of a gun discharging.
The smell of his own blood was the last thing Willoughby knew.