CHAPTER 36

Several hours later, Jess and her team had made further progress on the two ledgers found in Mary Delaware’s loft, and Dan had got a handle on the missing Bible pages.

‘Boss, they refer to a passage from the Revelations and (Isaiah 3:11). ‘Check these out,’ he said animated, passing over two print outs with highlighted text.

Jess’s eyes widened as she read the first one. ‘Bloody hell that’s the religious message the killer sprayed on the wall at Gary Turner’s crime scene.’ She read aloud the line on the second sheet, ‘Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them! They will be paid back for what their hands have done, and that was at Dani Harper’s crime scene.’

‘Exactly; we found the Bible inside a bedside cabinet in the spare room.’

‘This is good, very good, anything else?’

‘Jack thinks he’s got something on the drugs used on the victims.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Gone to the gents,’ Dan said glancing towards the door as Jack came through it.

‘Sorry, I was bursting boss,’ he said tucking his shirt in. ‘Found an empty box of Temazepam in one of the Christian Aid charity bags: sedatives that belong to a group of benzodiazepines the pathologist said were injected into both victims.’

Smiling, Jess tapped the young DC on his shoulder. ‘Brilliant spot Jack, we’ll make a detective of you yet.’

Turning to address the others Jess said, ‘It looks like we have more than enough to take to the CPS. The two ledgers contain more punishment entries for the months missing from the first ledger we received covering 1985, but strangely in the new ones there are no kids names, just Father O’Malley’s initials. However, in a footnote, I stumbled upon the initials F.D. this set alarm bells ringing, and I’m now of the opinion that the man who portrays himself as a saviour of Leek's homeless, Father Andrew Doyle is involved in all this. What that involvement is, requires more digging. I’ll be taking this up with Mary Delaware,’ she glanced at her Fitbit. ‘In about ten minutes. In the meantime, Dan, locate Father Doyle. I want him bringing in ASAP.’