The whiteboard in the main CID office now had a second name in the suspects column, beneath Lucas Furber.
‘Rodney Shaw, head groundsman at the abbey. He has historic convictions for violence and drug possession, supposedly clean since leaving prison in 1986. Everyone at the abbey was aware of his past, and regarded him as a poster boy for the power of redemption.’
It was 6 p.m. and Warren was with Tony Sutton briefing DSI Grayson on the team’s progress so far.
‘Motivation is circumstantial at the moment, but there are unconfirmed reports that he was heard violently arguing with our victim a couple of weeks prior to his death. We don’t know what the argument was about, but it is possible that he has substituted his drug addiction for a gambling problem. He has been known to frequent at least one bookmaker in town, where he was described as an unlucky gambler. The same bookie was also a regular haunt of our victim, and a worker there saw them meet, and felt that Shaw was ashamed of being seen by Father Nolan.’
‘Killing Nolan to hide his lapse seems a bit much,’ opined Grayson, indicating he had been at least half-listening as he scrolled through emails on his phone.
‘Ordinarily, I’d agree,’ said Warren, ‘however, there has been an unexplained loss of money over the past few weeks, they believe twenty pounds each day. The abbey management were reluctant to consider that there might be a thief on site, but it looks pretty obvious that they have a problem and that the person in question has access to the money before it is deposited in the bank. Shaw pretty much has the run of the place, and has been in the office plenty of times when the takings are placed in the digital safe. It wouldn’t be too difficult to memorise the code, which hasn’t been changed for years.
‘This afternoon Forensics found a significant number of twenty-pound notes in a tin, in the communal tool shed used by the grounds men and the volunteer gardeners. There were fingerprints from both Father Nolan and Rodney Shaw on the tin.’
Grayson put down his phone, his attention fully on Warren now.
‘I assume your working hypothesis is that Father Nolan bumped into Shaw in the bookmakers and confronted him over his gambling. At some point he found the biscuit tin in the shed and realised that Shaw had been stealing to support his habit? Shaw then killed Nolan to stop him from revealing this and covered up the murder by making it look like a suicide?’
‘That’s about the size of it. Obviously the exact sequence of events is yet to be determined.’
Grayson puffed his lips out.
‘It’s tenuous, Warren.’ He looked over at Sutton. ‘What do you think, Tony?’
‘I agree it’s not much, but we’ve plenty more circumstantial evidence. I think he’s at least worth a closer look, and I’d like to see what he has to say for himself under caution.’
Grayson scowled and took a sip of his coffee. He’d recently upgraded the coffee machine in his office to a new model that took individual capsules. Warren felt slightly guilty every time he had a cup; Susan had shown him an article explaining how the capsules were a disaster for the environment. But it was still the best coffee in the building …
‘What else have you got?’
‘So far, no alibi for the night in question. He claims to have been home alone when the murder took place. But we now know that’s untrue.’
‘Go on.’
‘In terms of opportunity, he admits to having his own set of keys to the chapel and the undercroft, so he could easily lock the door again from the outside and leave the communal keys inside with Father Nolan. He is trusted implicitly and he doubtless knows that the majority of CCTV cameras are fakes. He is also familiar with the retirement home; he has access to keys for all the doors and would be able to slip in and see Father Nolan easily enough without being seen by anyone else. Even if he was seen, nobody would think anything of it. He could have tampered with the alarm on the fire exit at any time in the previous six months since the last fire brigade inspection.’
‘Have Forensics found any evidence that he was in Nolan’s room yet?’
‘None so far.’
Grayson looked torn.
‘It’s flimsy, Warren. He’s lied to us about his whereabouts that night, so we could arrest him and justify a search warrant. But unless he confesses immediately, or we find something unequivocal, we’ll probably end up bailing him. Do we want to run the risk of spooking him? Officially it hasn’t even been publicly declared a murder yet.’
‘There is another way,’ suggested Sutton. ‘Arrest him over the missing money, and see if he confirms our theory about his gambling addiction. Then see if we have enough to justify a search on those grounds. The money in the biscuit tin is a few hundred pounds less than the discrepancy noted in the abbey’s takings, so assuming he hasn’t already pissed it up the wall at the bookie, it could be at home.’
‘It would take some clever wording on the search warrant, to ensure anything we find is admissible in court,’ warned Warren, ‘and it would seem a bit suspicious if the officers in charge of Nolan’s supposed suicide suddenly start pursuing a bit of missing cash.’
‘There is also the small matter of no thefts being reported at the abbey,’ added Grayson.
‘I’m sure we can persuade Deacon Baines to report the thefts, and we can use different officers that Shaw hasn’t met before to conduct the actual interviews,’ insisted Sutton.
Grayson picked up the golf ball that sat on the end of his desk, and absently threaded it through his fingers. Almost a minute passed.
‘OK. Go and speak to legal, and see if you can knock together a warrant that won’t get thrown out by a defence solicitor for over-reaching. If they can craft something, then come back and I’ll make a decision then.’
It was hardly a ringing endorsement, but Warren would take it.