DCI Ben Carson stared at the photograph of Brother Dominic’s beaten face in the centre of the whiteboard. He then turned to the team of detectives and uniformed police in the incident room of the Major Crimes Unit (MCU).
‘Who the hell would want to do this to a Benedictine monk? It makes no sense,’ he proclaimed to the room. He was genuinely incensed. His outrage completely instinctive.
For Cross this was the wrong initial question. The right one, the one most likely to be helpful, was why? Was it an act of random violence? An act of deliberate violence against a religious figure? Or a case of mistaken identity? The fact that it was someone whose links with the outside world were presumably limited, made it all the more difficult and intriguing. He looked to Ottey who knew instinctively what he was thinking.
‘I think it’s more a question of why, boss. I mean, a monk?’ she began.
‘Okay, so let’s begin with what we know,’ Carson replied.
‘Well, we don’t have an official cause of death yet, although initial impressions would indicate blunt force trauma. We also don’t have a murder scene yet, just a deposition site,’ she went on.
‘And we know that how?’ asked Carson.
Ottey turned to Michael Swift.
‘Not enough blood at the scene. There’s no iron content in the grass around nor beneath the body,’ answered Swift.
‘Do we know how long the body had been there?’ asked Carson.
‘Based on the stage of development of the larvae on the body I’d estimate three days,’ replied Swift.
‘Murder weapon?’
‘No.’
‘Anything else, Michael?’
‘We have a viable fingerprint on the back of the chair.’
‘What the hell was he doing taped to a bloody chair? It’s just too odd.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Couldn’t the print just be from normal everyday use?’
‘It’s a bloody fingerprint.’
‘Ah, okay. Good. George, you’re very quiet,’ said Carson.
As Carson hadn’t asked a question, merely made an observation, Cross didn’t reply.
‘Any thoughts?’ Carson persisted.
‘About the case?’ Cross asked.
‘Well, obviously,’ Carson replied.
‘Well, no. Obviously,’ said Cross, unintentionally causing a ripple of laughter.
‘How do you think we should proceed, George?’ said Ottey, stepping in.
‘The beating is incongruous. He’s a monk. The current forensic timings would suggest that he was tortured.’
‘Could be a revenge beating,’ Carson offered.
‘It could, but wouldn’t that be more instantaneous? One beating and done with it? Why hold him for two days? And revenge for what? It’s more probable that someone wanted something from him. But what? We need to find out how long he was at the monastery, what and who, as it were, he was before he entered it,’ Cross began.
‘It would make sense if it was someone from his past life,’ Carson commented.
‘No more sense than if it were someone he’d come across as a monk, or a monk at the abbey, if indeed sense has anything to do with it,’ Cross replied.
‘Okay, while we wait for the autopsy results let’s set up a roadside canvas around Goblin Wood and see if anything comes out of that. Continue the fingertip search of the area. George and Josie, go back to the abbey and see what you can dig up on our victim. Let’s do this,’ Carson said, sounding as though this was a positive, well-thought-out plan of action. Which it clearly wasn’t.