36
Kenny’s certainty in his guy is justified, and a couple of hours later we’re headed up to Perth in Kenny’s Range Rover.
‘What happened to the BMW?’ I ask.
‘All the best crims are in four-wheel drives these days.’
‘Crims and yummy mummies. How can we tell you all apart?’
‘The tattoos and the cauliflower ears,’ Kenny says with a grin.
‘I’m guessing a few not-so-yummy mummies could challenge that assertion.’
My phone pings. It’s a text from Alessandra.
She’s checking up on me. Doesn’t normally text at this time in the morning. I must have looked particularly shitty yesterday.
The boss wants me to forget all about Leonard and McCall, and he’ll be furious when he finds out I’ve got my own investigation going on. I need to protect Alessandra from that.
A pause. Then, ‘
I pocket my phone and look out of the window. We’re now well out of the city and almost at Stirling. The castle comes into view on my right. And beyond it, the gothic tower in commemoration of William Wallace stands out in bas relief against the Ochil Hills. I have a vague memory of an outing here organised by the nuns. I must have been about nine or ten. After a severe march up the hill, all the boys were gap-mouthed at the size of Wallace’s sword housed inside. But now I can’t see it without thinking of the shit movie Mel Gibson made about the man himself.
‘FreeDOM!’ I shout.
‘Fuck!’ says Kenny. ‘Nearly gave me a heart attack there, you prick.’
‘Serves you right for driving so fast. There’s a speed limit, you know.’
‘That’s alright. I’ve got a pig in my car.’
‘Won’t save you, mate. Traffic cops love doing other cops.’
* * *
Before long, Kenny is pulling up outside the church. The gable end of the grand building backs up right onto the street. A wide stretch of sandstone and a tall stained-glass window. Just to offset the apostolic grandeur, Perth and Kinross council have thoughtfully placed a large black bin and a small green electric box just underneath the window.
There’s a house to the side that shares a drive. It has a low wall with tall railings in front. A patch of freshly turned earth fills the space up to the front door. This area is home to a bed of severely pruned rose bushes. Dozens of them. Must be quite a sight in the height of the season.
I turn to Kenny. Say, ‘Stay.’ And exit the car.
I crunch up the gravel pathway, but before I can knock, the door opens.
‘Yes?’ a small woman asks. She barely hits five feet tall and is as thin as a church candle. Her long, white hair is pulled back to perch on the top of her head in a bun. Adds a couple of inches to her height.
‘DI Ray McBain,’ I say while pulling my warrant card out of my wallet. ‘I wonder if I might speak to Father…’ I leave a gap in the hope she might complete the name.
‘Father Stephen is at his breakfast.’ She pulls herself up to her full height. ‘He can’t be disturbed.’
I hear footsteps and a man in black appears at her elbow. He’s chewing.
‘It’s alright, Martha,’ he says. He wipes his mouth with one hand and puts the other on her shoulder. ‘I have time for the officer.’
‘But you need to eat properly, Father,’ she stretches her neck back to look up at him. Her expression softens, becomes motherly, which strikes me as a little odd when it occurs to me that they are fairly equal in the wrinkle department.
Then I revise my opinion when I remember the reverence with which the nuns treated visiting priests in the convent. Not odd at all.
Father Stephen smiles benignly at Martha and guides me into a sitting room that looks like it was furnished in the eighties. Floral print sofas with wooden arms and feet and a thick shag-pile carpet. I half expect a framed Duran Duran album cover to be on the wall above the mantelpiece. But of course, that prideful place is taken with a crucifix.
Father Stephen motions that I should sit and folds himself into a chair. He picks at his teeth. ‘Martha and her bran cereal will be the death of me,’ he smiles. ‘There’s not enough time in the day to chew that stuff.’
‘I prefer a bacon roll myself, father.’
‘Now you’re talking, young man. But Martha is worried my arteries will clog and I’ll be kicking up the roses before you can ask if I want red sauce or brown.’
‘Has to be brown sauce for me.’
‘Me too,’ he laughs. A sound that is hearty and without nuance. This is a man who strikes me as having no sides. One face fits all. What you see is all there is and ever will be. Amen.
‘It’s actually your new handyman that I wanted to speak to, Father. Is he about?’
‘Dave?’ He cocks his head to the side. ‘Actually, haven’t seen hide nor head of him since yesterday morning.
Dave. So that’s what he’s calling himself.
‘Is there something wrong?’ he asks, his face shaped in concern. A concern that appears to be wholly about Dave’s safety rather than any suspicion he might be involved in any wrongdoing.
‘We just need some help with our enquiries, Father. Other than that I can’t say too much.’
‘Hang on.’ He stands up. ‘He has a room at the back of the house. I’ll just go check…’ He turns and walks out of the room. I follow. Don’t want Dave, if he’s there, to do a runner.
We come to a wooden door. Father Stephen knocks.
‘Dave? Are you there?’
My heart is beating like a bass drum. At the other side of this door could be the man who has haunted my dreams for far too long. I wipe my hands down the sides of my trousers. Breathe, Ray. Breathe.
No reply.
‘That’s strange,’ says the priest. Looks at his watch. ‘He’s usually up and about by now.’
He knocks again. ‘Dave?’
Nothing.
‘He’ll forgive me if I intrude,’ he offers, and opens the door. I step in before him to find an empty room. If the priests thinks I’m being rude, he says nothing. My pulse slows to normal as I realise my sought-after confrontation is not going to happen. Not today at least. And I can’t help acknowledge a feeling of relief.
The room is small. It has a single bed, a pine wardrobe and dresser. The walls are empty apart from a small mirror and a painting of Jesus Christ displaying his heart. A small grass cross, like the ones given out on Palm Sunday, is tucked into the wooden frame of the mirror.
‘That’s strange.’ Father Stephen stands beside me. Now that he’s this close I can hear a rasp in his breath. Perhaps all is not well with the local priest, and that’s why Martha is so solicitous.
Standing in the centre of the room, I make a slow turn and take everything in. The space feels empty. As if it hasn’t been lived in for years. I open the cupboard door. There’s nothing inside. The same with the dresser. All of the drawers are bare.
‘But…’ Father Stephen is clearly at a loss. He looks at me. ‘He didn’t say a thing.’
‘Any idea where he might have gone, Father?’
‘He wasn’t a man who would share much, son. A bit of a closed book.’
‘What do you know about him?’
‘Well,’ he says slowly and sighs in the manner of a man who continually expects the best in people and can’t understand it when they let him down. ‘Nothing really. He answered the advert for a handyman. Clearly knew his way about a church. I recognised a kindred soul and gave him the job.’
Kindred soul. The words sour in my mind. Leonard couldn’t be further in spirit from this man.
‘Did he offer you a CV or any form of references?’ I ask.
‘No. I took him on trust as I do everyone. I find people tend to match my expectation.’
I look at the grass cross on the mirror. Shiver. The priest misreads my reaction. ‘Let’s go through to the sitting room, and I’ll get Martha to warm us up with some coffee.’
The difference in atmosphere between the two rooms is startling. This room is just like the man sat in front of me. Warm and welcoming. It gives off the sense that many people have been soothed in this space.
‘Can’t you tell me why you need to speak to him?’ he asks.
‘Sorry, Father. I can only say that we need his help with an enquiry.’
Just then Martha bustles in with a tray laden with coffee and biscuits. We break off our conversation to allow her to set out the cups and saucers and pour.
‘Just milk,’ I say.
She hands me a cup and then offers a plate of chocolate topped biscuits. ‘You look like a man who likes his biscuits,’ she says with a smile. I feel fat-shamed, and my fingers hover over a digestive before I withdraw and say, ‘No. Thank you.’
‘And Father Stephen won’t be bothering with the biscuits either. Sure he’d only be wanting one to keep you company.’
Father Stephen shoots the plate a look of longing. I change my mind and stretch my hand out to spite Martha.
‘Actually, I think I’ll have one after all. Didn’t have a chance to eat breakfast.’
With a beaming smile, the priest picks up a biscuit before Martha can march out of the room with the plate. He takes a large mouthful and, while chewing, winks at me.
‘The woman’s a treasure,’ he says. ‘But if the good Lord saw fit to give us delicious food to eat, surely we shouldn’t just focus on the bland?’
‘My thoughts exactly, Father. We can worry about the heart attack another time.’ I pat my belly in solidarity. ‘So, back to Dave. We know him as Jim Leonard.’ This man is too trusting, and he needs to know not to let Leonard back in his home. ‘He has been involved in some … very unsavoury activities. Other than that I can’t say. But if he ever comes back, you have to let us know.’
‘Good Lord,’ the priest says, his hand before his mouth. ‘He gave me a false name?’
‘Yes, and I’m worried about what other lies he might’ve told you.’
‘He didn’t tell us much at all. Only that he was brought up in Bethlehem House in Ayrshire, and from there he went to a seminary…’
‘He was in the home. Not in the seminary.’
‘He said he was in seminary for a matter of weeks when his parents both died, can’t remember how. But that meant he had to go back home to look after his twin brother who was severely handicapped.’ He shook his head. ‘Another lie, I suppose. Said he devoted his life to his twin brother.’
I think of Leonard’s killing spree and the twisted truth in this simple statement. Leonard had woven a tale knowing the mix of fact and fiction would be sufficient to elicit sympathy.
Father Stephen slumped back in his chair, his disappointment tangible. He shook his head slowly. Looked at his watch. ‘Shame it’s so early. This would be a good time for a whisky.’
‘Martha would have a fit,’ I say.
‘Just what she needs.’ Then. ‘Why would he lie to me, Ray?’
‘It’s just what he does, Father. He’s probably told so many lies about himself over the years that he no longer knows what the truth looks like.’
‘I don’t really mind him leaving without a word. It’s all transient, this existence.’ He waves a hand back and forward. ‘I gave willingly, with no expectation.’ He brightens. ‘And that rose garden last summer was spectacular.’
‘Other than the rose garden, what else did Leonard, sorry, Dave do while he was here?’
‘Oh, he was really useful. Changed bulbs, painted rooms, hung pictures, carried stuff. For a slight man he had amazing strength. And he did odd-jobs for lots of the elderly parishioners.’
‘Did he make any friends?’
‘Friends? No, not really.’ He pauses and thinks some more. ‘Sweet Lord, how could I forget? The Fords. Robert and Ken. They were twin brothers. Identical. He went over there now and again to watch the football.’
Football? My memory of Leonard at Bethlehem House was of a boy completely uninterested in sport. Unless it meant sniping at the other kids with his brother. Why would he spend time with people? He hates other people. And football?
And twins? That makes me sit up. Was Leonard trying to re-create something?
‘Could you let me know where Bob and Ken live? Might be worth asking them if they know anything about where Dave might have gone.’
‘Sorry. They both died fairly recently. It was awful. Tragic. They were a good age right enough. But fit.’
‘What happened?’ Leonard had something to do with this. I’m sure of it. My skin is prickling, my hearing on full alert.
He notices the rise in my interest. ‘Nothing dodgy, Ray,’ he replies. ‘Ken had a faulty boiler. Bob was at him to get it fixed just a few days before he died. Sadly, he never got round to it. Died of carbon monoxide poisoning.’
‘And Handyman Dave didn’t offer to fix it for him?’
‘I don’t know. Possibly. But he clearly didn’t get round to it.’
Or maybe he did. For someone who knows what they’re doing, it can’t be too difficult to prime an old boiler to pump the wrong fumes into a house.
‘Dave, sorry, Jim was a great help to Bob in the days after Ken died. He was round there almost every day. But sadly Bob succumbed to his grief.’ He crosses his legs and clasps his hands before him as if bracing himself to use the necessary words. As if he blames himself for what happened. ‘He killed himself. In the bath. It was awful.’ The last word comes out in a strangled whisper. ‘Awful.’
‘You didn’t find him, did you?’
‘No. Praise the Lord. It was Dave who found him.’
‘I bet it was,’ I say before I can stop myself.
‘Dave was kindness itself during those last few days with Robert.’ Father Stephen pales. ‘His solicitude towards a grieving man was inspirational. Any doubts I might have had about that man vanished as I watched him help Robert deal with Ken’s death. He was a real Samaritan.’
My mind is racing through the possibilities and I don’t answer. Identical twins die within days of each other. An accident and a suicide. Leonard had a part to play here, I’m certain. My worries about what he might be doing since the nun’s death at Bethlehem House had been ignored. I didn’t have the fortitude to think them through. I tucked them away in the same box I placed my concern about Joe McCall.
* * *
Thoughts, theories and suppositions chase through my mind as, wordless, I make my exit from the priest’s residence.
‘Well?’ asks Kenny. ‘Thought you were never coming out of there.’
‘I can’t…’ What do I say? I’m a despicable human being.
‘Oh aye,’ says Kenny looking over my shoulder. And then there’s a rap on my window. I turn. It’s Martha. Kenny presses a key and the window opens.
‘I heard everything in there,’ she says. Her mouth is tight. All the lines on her face seem to radiate from it, like it’s the centre of her being. ‘That man was wrong. Just wrong. Father Stephen has a particular view of the world, and it doesn’t allow him to see people like that the way they really are. Leonard? You called him Leonard?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Didn’t trust him for a second. Didn’t look at me. Looked through me as if I wasn’t even there. And what he was up to with the Fords? I thought he was maybe trying to worm his way into their wills. No kids…’ She sniffs. ‘But then he vanished as penniless as he arrived, so that wasn’t it. He did help people, but it felt that his motivation was never altruism. A Samaritan? A bad Samaritan for sure. Kindness was never his agenda, but I couldn’t work out what he was after. And all that time he spent in front of the computer? It wasn’t healthy. Probably doing that masturbation stuff,’ she spat.
I can’t take in what she’s saying. My mind is a storm. I close my eyes against the feeling of self-loathing that rushes in on me like a tidal river bore. That these men died is down to me. I stayed silent, allowed McCall to take the blame.
Permitting Leonard to carry on hunting.