It started in his hands. The cold.
The shivering cold.
The numb, shivering cold.
He couldn’t feel his hands.
The Webley service revolver shivered from his grip and clattered to the floor, like an oath, a blasphemy, a desecration.
Then it spread. The numb, shivering cold spread through his bones, through his veins, through his nerves. He was nothing now but the numb, shivering cold.
And the cause of the numbness, the source of the cold was nothing but the realization that this was his fault.
He had sent this boy to his death.
If he had allowed Macadam to go, as he had wanted to, would Macadam be dead now, or would Macadam’s experience have saved him?
‘I thought I’d lost you once. I’m not ready to go through that again,’ he’d said. And he had sent Willoughby instead. He had sacrificed Willoughby.
Willoughby’s blood was on his hands. His cold, shivering hands. He stooped to retrieve his gun. He had to pull himself together – he owed it to Willoughby to pull himself together. And he couldn’t do that without a gun in his hand.
‘Here, in here.’ His voice cracked.
The blood pounding in his ear beat a jarring counterpoint to the thud of approaching boots.
The world was out of step with itself. And nothing would ever be in step with anything again.
He couldn’t make sense of it. He couldn’t make sense of anything.
He had been so sure that the murderer was long gone, that the person who had knocked SC Elgar’s helmet from his head was not the killer. That the two events were, in short, unconnected, except by proximity in time and place.
The thudding boots were slowed and stilled and silenced by the scene before them. The blood continued to pound in his ear.
‘Good God.’ It was Leversedge at his shoulder.
Perhaps it was simply shock that gave those two words their edge. Or was there something sharper in his tone? Something recriminatory?
Quinn raised his gun and made a sweeping scan of the church, as if he was casting about for something – or someone – to take a pot shot at.
‘Guv? What shall we do?’
Quinn glanced distractedly towards Leversedge, a frown of irritation in place.
He doubted very much that the killer was still there, but that was what he had thought before, at the school. He had been wrong then and if he was wrong again, it would mean they were all sitting targets for whoever had killed Willoughby. And so, by rights, he should order them all to take cover.
Instead, Quinn stood with his arms outstretched, the revolver now hanging limply in his right hand.
He closed his eyes and waited, keeping his arms horizontal, like some kind of Christ inviting sacrifice.
Genuinely, in that moment, he wished that he had been the one shot and not Willoughby. And if he had believed in prayer, the prayer he would have offered was that God take him instead.
He heard Leversedge take charge – decisive words, clear instructions, a man dispatched to fetch the ME from the school, others dispersed about the church.
Then the heavy footsteps and the warning shouts of police about their duty, stomping up the stairs to the galleries, weaving between the pews, closing down the spaces of the church to squeeze out the presence of any gunman, should there be one there still.
And you had to let them know you were there, and you had to let them know who you were. ‘Police!’ shouted at the top of your lungs, inviting them to take potshots at you, as Willoughby no doubt had, because if you didn’t, heaven help you. The law obliged you to give them the opportunity to surrender, which meant the advantage was always with the criminals. Some would say that Quinn, at certain points in his career, had ridden roughshod over such legal niceties. That was his reputation, certainly. But it was one that he disputed. Decisions made in the heat of the moment. Decisions that could mean the difference between life and death. His life, the other man’s death.
But the other man was supposed to be the villain, not one of his own.
He should have warned the boy. He should have given him fatherly words of advice. Whatever you do, don’t put yourself at risk. Don’t go into an enclosed space where a gunman might be waiting. If you think you have him cornered, wait for support. Use your whistle if necessary. Better to run the risk he gets away than to put your own life in danger. And whatever you do, don’t do this. Don’t go and get yourself killed.
He wanted so much to have said all this that he almost believed that he did.
‘All clear, guv.’ Leversedge’s voice seemed to come to him through some intervening medium, as if the church had filled with a viscous jelly while his eyes were closed.
Quinn’s arms came down slowly, a bird folding its wings. He felt the weight of the revolver like a magnet’s pull.
‘We found this upstairs.’ There was something hopeful in Leversedge’s voice that encouraged Quinn to open his eyes at last and turn towards it.
Leversedge was holding out a brown and somewhat age-worn leather satchel in one gloved hand and a white stick in the other. ‘Looks like our blind man was here.’ His emphasis underlined the scepticism they all felt about the piano tuner’s apparent handicap. ‘The bag’s empty, by the way. In case you were wondering.’
‘It was just a prop,’ said Quinn, unsurprised. ‘Part of the disguise. It might have held the weapon, but that’s all.’
Leversedge nodded and lowered the bag.
It was a valuable find. Quinn knew that he ought to give Leversedge credit. But he found it curiously difficult to do so. Instead, his next observation came out almost as an objection: ‘Constable Elgar said nothing about his assailant having a white stick. Or a bag.’
‘It was dark. He didn’t get a good look at the man.’
‘Even so, he would have noticed a white stick. No, this is not the man who knocked Elgar’s helmet off.’ Quinn looked down at the dead detective. The wonder that he had discerned in his eyes before had settled into a look of mild surprise. ‘Willoughby came looking for a prankster and found a murderer.’
Leversedge nodded and lowered the bag. ‘Well, one thing we can say, it seems even less likely now that the murderer was one of those we had in the Great Hall. Whoever it was must have been hiding here already when poor old Willoughby stumbled in.’ He looked down at Willoughby’s body in silence for some time. ‘Do you want me to tell his folks?’ Leversedge’s voice was strained. This was clearly one responsibility that he would not object to being relieved of.
Quinn holstered his gun and fixed Leversedge with a long stare. ‘No. I’ll do it.’
He filled his lungs with air and turned his back on the altar.