‘The press conference has stirred up a fair bit of interest. Several dozen calls already,’ said Rachel Pymm as Warren came back into the office after his interview with Rodney Shaw.
‘Go on, give me the highlights.’
‘So far we’ve had calls blaming everyone from radical Islamists to a rogue IRA cell and the illuminati. Lots of helpful folks have asked if we’ve considered it might be revenge for historic child abuse – although none of them actually had anything helpful, they’d just seen it on the news. We’ve also had four confessions, all from our frequent fliers, including our best friend Colin the Crank.’
‘Well, he supposedly stitched up Lord Lucan when he was only three years old, so bumping off a couple of elderly Catholic priests should be easy for him.’
‘Quite. Maybe we should just arrest him and accept his confessions – we’d clear half the high profile cases from the past twenty years.’
‘Anything more worthy of our attention?’
‘A couple of people think they may have seen suspicious characters hanging around the abbey, we’re sending someone over to take a statement. But this one is a bit more interesting. Vernon Coombs, a former journalist on the Middlesbury Reporter. He asked for you by name.’
‘Don’t they always? Refer him to the press office,’ said Warren.
‘He’s not after an interview, he claims to have information that could help us. Besides which, I doubt he’s looking for his next big scoop.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘He’s given his address as Goldfinch Hospice up on Osprey Close. He says to pop by tomorrow morning. I wouldn’t wait too long, it doesn’t sound as though he’s long for this world.’
* * *
The interview with Rodney Shaw resumed in the late afternoon. Warren had spent the intervening hours waiting for forensics from the search, and scanning old articles on the Middlesbury Reporter website, written by Vernon Coombs.
The final article under Coombs’ by-line was dated approximately eighteen months previously, which corresponded with the small article about his retirement from the paper after twenty-two years. The accompanying picture was of a smiling, robust man with neat grey hair.
Scrolling through the other articles attributed to the reporter, they matched what the short notice about his retirement had stated. His articles primarily dealt with so-called local and community news. It seemed that he was also something of a history buff, particularly when it concerned Middlesbury’s past.
Little of his previous work seemed to be crime-related, and he wasn’t credited with reports on any of Warren’s own cases. There was no clue as to why he thought he could provide insight in the abbey murders. Warren would have to wait until the following morning to see what the man had to say for himself.
‘Shall we start where we left off, Rodney? What were you doing in the almost five hours between leaving work and receiving the phone call about the fire?’
‘No comment.’
‘Are you sure about that, Rodney? We have evidence that you were not where you said you were on the night of the fire. Juries can be a forgiving lot, but they really don’t like a liar.’
‘No comment.’ His voice was firm.
‘Do you recognise this mobile phone number? You called it the evening Father Nolan was killed, before you were informed of the fire.’
Shaw barely glanced at the number. ‘No comment.’
‘You call it quite regularly. Every couple of weeks.’
‘No comment.’
‘The night that Father Nolan was killed, he left his room by the ground floor fire exit. In addition to his footprints, we also found traces from your work boots around that door. Can you explain why his footprints and your footprints were down there?’
‘I don’t know why Father Nolan’s prints were there, but I did a fire inspection a few weeks ago. They could have been from then.’
Warren made another note. Shaw didn’t seem nearly as nervous as before. In contrast, Warren was starting to feel that they were going nowhere. They really needed to know what Shaw was doing the night of the fire, but so far they had no evidence that he had even left that area whilst the fire was being set.
Similarly, they still had no evidence that Shaw was anywhere other than his flat the night Father Daugherty had been killed.
The interview was stalled until they had more forensics.
‘Don’t go anywhere, Mr Shaw,’ instructed Warren as he terminated the interview.
* * *
‘We’re still lacking a smoking gun,’ said Warren. It was late afternoon and Warren was starting to feel the effects of several early starts and late finishes in a row.
‘What are you still looking for?’ asked Grayson. At least he’d put some coffee on.
Rodney Shaw had been arrested at 5 a.m. that morning. Warren was beginning to wish they’d gambled and held back; that way the custody clock would run out at a more civilised hour. At the same time the following morning, Shaw had to either be released, charged or an extension to custody applied for.
‘I can get you another twelve hours,’ said Grayson, ‘but you know you haven’t enough for a magistrate to grant the full ninety-six based on what you have so far. You need to come up with the goods by 5 p.m. tomorrow or he walks again.’
‘Ideally we need evidence of him leaving the ANPR blackspot and returning within that time period. We’re awaiting CCTV and witnesses for that. Unfortunately, in this case a lack of evidence doesn’t rule him out, it’s easily within walking distance,’ said Warren.
‘What about his mobile phone?’
‘It’s essentially stationary during that time, but he could have just left it in his car.’
‘You’re going to need more than that.’
‘I know.’ Warren was too tired to keep the frustration from his voice. ‘We’re awaiting more detailed records for an unregistered mobile that Shaw called at half past five that evening. He calls it regularly, every couple of weeks. Short duration.’
‘What about the night Father Daugherty was killed?’
‘We’ll know that when we get the records back.’
‘What about his movements the night Father Daugherty was killed?’
‘He claims not to have been out all weekend. So far his phone records match his account and his car wasn’t picked up on ANPR cameras. His neighbours weren’t around much that weekend and so can’t provide an alibi. He has a bicycle and we are looking for CCTV footage of cyclists in the vicinity of both murders, and forensics on its tires to see if we can place it in the grounds.’
‘This isn’t looking good,’ said Grayson.
‘We’ve got some more forensics pending. Professor Jordan found fibres inside Father Daugherty’s nostrils. They have been positively matched to a towel that we found balled up on the floor in the green house, beside a hosepipe and garden chair. He believes that Father Daugherty was essentially water-boarded, and died when it went too far. We’re looking at Shaw’s wardrobe to see if we can find any fibres from the towel. We’ve already found a couple on the wax jacket.
‘The chucking him off the bridge was a clumsy attempt to make it look as though he’d killed himself. That might explain why Shaw left the padlock key in the pocket of the coat instead of returning it to the vestry. If he wasn’t expecting Father Daugherty to die in the greenhouse, he might have panicked.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Document Analysis are looking at the note left on Father Daugherty’s dresser. If we can link it to Shaw we have a case.’
‘Fingers crossed,’ said Grayson. He placed his cup down carefully. ‘What if Shaw is innocent? Who else are you looking at? What about that disturbed young man that turned up at the home unannounced after Christmas?
‘We’ve got teams looking for Lucas Furber and trying to track his whereabouts.’
‘Well, don’t put all your eggs in one basket, Warren.’
* * *
It was already late when Warren arrived home that night. He’d seen from the drive that the bedroom light was turned off, and knew that Susan would already be in bed at this hour on a school night. He’d sleep in the spare room again.
She’d left some pasta and Bolognese sauce in a Tupperware container. The note beside it read ‘for tea tonight or lunch tomorrow. Don’t work too hard. Sxx.’
This was what he hated most about these sorts of cases – policing was a twenty-four-hour business, and as SIO, no matter how hard he tried, he’d end up working silly hours that didn’t overlap with his wife. In the past he’d gone whole weeks communicating with Susan by text message, even though they shared the same bed.
That would have to change in the future. When he was a child, his father had been away a lot when he and his brother were growing up. If Niall MacNamara had known how his life would suddenly be snatched away when Warren was only 13 years old, would he have made the effort to be around more often?
Alone in the kitchen, waiting for the microwave to ding, Warren found himself dwelling on everything his father had missed, both before his death, and after his death. The school nativity play that Warren had sung a solo in at primary school. The sports day where he’d unexpectedly won the hundred metres. His graduation from university. His graduation from police training college. His wedding to Susan. And, God willing, his first grandchild.
Warren vowed to be there for all of those events for his own child, no matter what sacrifices he would have to make professionally. He refused to miss those special, life-changing events the way that his own father had.
And the way that Gary Hastings would.