The Art of Murder

Chapter 26

Stepney, Saturday 24 January, 2.30 p.m. St Aloysius's Church on Buckhurst Street, just north of Mile End Road, was a modern concrete building. Pendragon sighed as he stepped out of the car and glanced up at the irregularly shaped stained-glass panels in the window over the entrance. He tilted his head slightly in an effort to understand what the images represented. Giving up, he glanced over at Turner. 'Not exactly Rheims, is it, Sergeant?'

'If you say so, sir,' Turner replied.

'But isn't it odd how our ancestors could construct wonderful buildings to honour their God, while today we get monstrosities like this?' The DCI waved one hand at the church.

'All about money, I expect, guv.'

'Yes, Turner. And, of course, the Catholic Church is so poor.' He shook his head and walked under the low concrete canopy that projected from the bunker-like facade, through a set of double doors and on towards the central aisle. He could see a gaggle of people standing close to the altar, and the door to the vestry stood open inwards. Inspector Towers appeared as Pendragon and Turner arrived at the altar.

'Another weird one, sir,' he said.

'Who are these people?'

'Members of the Church Council, sir.'

There were two men and two women in the group. The women were sobbing and one of the men was comforting the elder of them. The other man saw Pendragon and stepped forward.

'I'm the Churchwarden,' he said. 'Malcolm Connolly.' He was a tall, slender man in his fifties, bald but for the tufts of white hair to either side of his head. He was wearing a checked shirt and a brown tie under a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. He smelled of pipe tobacco. Connolly offered Pendragon his hand, and the DCI introduced himself. 'I found the body, with the Old Father,' the Churchwarden added.

'The old father?'

'Sorry. Father Lionel Ahern, retired. He was parish priest here before Father Michael.'

Pendragon nodded. 'I see. Well, if you could wait here a moment, I would like a word after I've seen the crime scene.'

The room was no more than three metres square, wood-panelled and windowless, with two ornate wall lamps illuminating the space. It smelled of incense and the mustiness of the recently deceased. The chair in which the dead priest had been propped up stood in the centre. Mackleby and Vickers were to one side. Dr Jones was leaning over the victim, shining a small torch into the dead eyes.

'Another fetching tableau to add to the collection,' he said, without even looking round. 'Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, I do believe, Pendragon.'

The DCI stared at the corpse. 'This is getting repetitive,' he said quietly. 'So now we have a Francis Bacon to add to the list of dead Surrealists. Marvellous.' He took a step closer. 'What have you ascertained?'

'What? In the ten minutes I've been here, Pendragon?'

'Yes.'

Jones exhaled through his nostrils. 'Victim is male, aged about fifty-five… sixty. He has a mark on the back of his neck, same as the others.'

'Time of death?'

'At least twelve hours ago.'

Pendragon turned to Towers. 'What's the victim's full name?'

'Father Michael O'Leary.'

'He's been dead for twelve hours. How come? When did that chap Connolly get here?'

'He was only found an hour ago by the retired priest, Father Lionel Ahern, and the Churchwarden.'

'Where is Father Ahern now?'

Sergeant Mackleby stepped forward. 'He's in hospital, guv.'

Pendragon gave her a blank look.

'He's in his eighties. Turned up this morning to have his weekly coffee with Father O'Leary but found the vestry door locked. He also noticed that the chair,' she nodded towards the throne-like seat in which O'Leary's body was arranged '… was missing from its usual place outside. It took him a while to get help from the Churchwarden. He had a spare set of keys and together they found the priest.'

'And the old man?'

'Collapsed on the spot. Heart attack. Rushed to the London Hospital.'

Pendragon shook his head. 'This is turning into a farce,' he said, exhaling loudly. 'Okay, Sergeant. I'll talk to Connolly now.'

Turner and Mackleby interviewed the other members of the Church Council while Pendragon led Malcolm Connolly to one of the pews. 'Talk me through finding the body,' he began.

Connolly wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead with a white handkerchief he had pulled from the top pocket of his tweed jacket. 'Sorry,' he said. 'This is all a bit of a shock.'

Pendragon grimaced. 'I understand.'

'Er, right. Father Ahern knocked on my door about midday. He was in a confused state, the poor chap. He had turned up here at ten, apparently. He has coffee once a week with Father Michael. It's been a regular date for years, since the new parish priest arrived in 2004. Anyway, he found the vestry locked and noticed that the chair had been moved. He loved that old chair. It was presented to him back in the fifties. He brought it with him to his new church.'

Pendragon nodded.

'Well, the Old Father is getting on. He went home and sat in front of the fire for a while, trying to work out what had happened and what to do. Eventually he called on me and we came back here together.'

'I see. You keep the spare keys, I take it?'

'Yes. Look, Inspector, what is this all about? Michael O'Leary was a good man. He never hurt a soul. Why would anyone do such a thing to him? And why this way? What does it mean?'

'I'm afraid we don't yet know, Mr Connolly. But I can assure you, we'll do everything in our power to find whoever did this.'

Connolly said nothing, just stared at the crucifix hanging above the altar.

'How long had you known Father O'Leary?' the DCI asked.

'Since he arrived here. I started as a Churchwarden at St Aloysius soon after it was built in the late eighties. Moved here from Hong Kong with my late wife. I worked in the Civil Service over there.'

'Would you say you knew Father O'Leary well?'

'I suppose so. We saw each other almost every day. I'm retired so I devote a lot of my time to the church. Father Michael was very popular here. Everyone liked him. That is what I find so bizarre. It couldn't have been an opportunistic murder, could it? This was planned. Father Michael was picked out.'

Pendragon nodded but refrained from comment. 'Well, thank you for your time, Mr Connolly. My officers may need to ask you a few more questions once they've had a chat with the others on the Church Council.'

'And you will keep us informed, won't you, Inspector?'

'We will,' Pendragon said, and walked back to the altar where Mackleby and Turner were still questioning the three other members. He turned as Jones emerged from the vestry.

'Usual thing, Pendragon,' the pathologist said. 'Get him over to me as soon as the lovely Dr Newman has finished dusting and poking around.' He nodded and slumped off down the central aisle.

'Sorry to interrupt,' Pendragon said, cutting into Turner's questions. The sergeant was talking to a short, ginger-haired man with very pale skin and a face spattered with freckles. 'Sergeant, I'm heading back to the station now. When you've finished questioning everyone, come and find me in my office. I have a feeling there's a long paper trail ahead of us.'

Turner nodded. 'Okay, guv,' he said, and carried on with his next question. Pendragon spotted Inspector Towers and called him over. 'Check out the car park and the main road for any CCTV. You never know, God may send us a miracle.'

Ken Towers gave him a smirk.

'I want a full report on my desk by four o'clock,' the DCI added, and the inspector's face fell.

Pendragon walked slowly towards the main doors. The voices of those standing at the altar reverberated around the room, amplified by the acoustics of the place, but they were nothing but a jumble of disconnected words. He tuned out and tried to focus on the new facts that had presented themselves. He was so lost in thought that as he emerged from the doors of the church into the car park he almost walked straight into a man wearing a greatcoat and a Chelsea FC bobble hat.

'DCI Pendragon, no less,' the man said.

Pendragon looked up, startled for a second, and sighed when he saw the face of the journalist Fred Taylor, his would-be nemesis from a local rag, the Gazette. He was a short, tubby man with a naturally ruddy face coloured further by the cold. He had a large nose that today was also tinged red and he wore round tortoiseshell-framed spectacles. Six months earlier, when Pendragon was dealing with his first case, a serial killer at large in Stepney, Taylor had taken an instant dislike to him and had done everything he could to discredit and embarrass the new DCI, including running a near-libellous piece about how Pendragon's wife had walked out on him. It had also delved pruriently into the fact that the DCI's own daughter, Amanda, had disappeared five years before. Beside Fred Taylor was a taller man in an expensive-looking leather coat buttoned up against the cold. He had a Nikon digital camera on a strap about his neck.

'God help us if good old Jack here's been put in charge of catching the Modern Art Murderer,' Taylor exclaimed, turning to his colleague.

'Hah!' the younger man snorted.

'What did you say?' Pendragon snarled.

'God help us…'

'No, Taylor, after that.'

The journalist grinned. 'What? The Modern Art…'

'Yes.'

'Well, I wouldn't be much of a journalist if I didn't know what was going on in my manor, now would I, DCI Pendragon?'

'And how did you know…?'

'About the latest horror, here at St Aloysius?' Taylor tapped his nose. 'A little birdie.'

Pendragon took a deep breath. 'I see.'

'So, if you don't mind, DCI Pendragon, Mickey and I would like to get the latest info and a few snaps for tomorrow's edition. My boss has been holding us back like we were a couple of mares on heat, to be honest. But with the third one… Well, I think even she will agree it's high time we got the story out there.'

Just at that moment, Turner and Inspector Towers came through the double doors. They took one look at Taylor and his friend and stepped over to back up the DCI.

'Excellent timing,' Pendragon said. 'These two gentlemen wanted to go barging into the church. I don't think the Council members would like that, do you?'

'Definitely not, sir,' Towers responded immediately.

'So I think we ought to ask them to lock the doors, don't you?'

Turner immediately spun on his heel.

'Wrong decision, Pendragon,' Fred Taylor hissed. 'Thought you would have learned from bitter experience not to get in the way of legitimate journalism.'

Pendragon gave him a sweet smile and walked away.