The Death List

10

Karen Oaten stormed down the corridor to the VCCT office, her cheeks red and her heart pounding. She had just spent a very uncomfortable half hour with the assistant commissioner. He had set the team up as his personal fiefdom, dispensing with the normal chain of command. He wanted to know how it was that the newspapers had found out about Father Prendegast’s previous identity before the Met. It was a good question, one to which she would also like an answer.

“Simmons!” she shouted as she banged open the door. “Pavlou! My office.” She glanced round at John Turner, who was trying to hide behind his computer. “You, too, Taff.”

The chief inspector slammed the door when her three subordinates were inside. She didn’t bother dropping the blind. She wanted the rest of the team to see what was about to happen.

“Right, you useless tossers,” she said, glaring at Simmons and Pavlou. “I’ve just had my arse chewed up and spat out by the AC. That means I’m now looking for arses for my own lunch.”

“Excuse me, guv,” D.S. Paul Pavlou said politely. He was half-Cypriot, his face permanently covered by a thick layer of black stubble. “We-”

“Shut it, you piece of shit!” Oaten yelled. “I’ll tell you when you can open your kebab-stinking mouth.” Her eyes moved on to Morry Simmons. He was pasty-faced and in his forties, a permanent detective sergeant who was only on the team because one of the other chief inspectors owed him a favor. “Try me, Simmons, just try me.”

He showed no sign of wanting to speak.

“Right,” Oaten said, glancing at Turner. “The last I heard, you two were investigating the victim’s past. You now have permission to explain to me why you screwed up.”

Neither Simmons nor Pavlou was inclined to answer.

“Open it!” Oaten shouted.

Pavlou glanced at his colleague. “Well, guv, we got as far as the bishop who had responsibility for St Bartholomew’s. He told us about the monastery in Ireland. I called, but no one there knew anything about Father Prendegast.”

The chief inspector was shaking her head. “It didn’t occur to you to ask me if you could go over there and ask in person?”

Simmons’s eyes opened wide. “What, you would have signed off on that?”

“This is the Violent Crime Coordination Team, not some local nick. Of course I’d have signed off on it.” She looked at each of them. “Or at least, I’d have sent someone with more than half a dozen brain cells over there.” She picked up one of the tabloids that was lying on her desk. “Now I don’t have to. The press has done your job for you. ‘In an astonishing twist,’” she read, “‘we can reveal that murder victim Father Norman Prendegast was a pederast given a new identity by the Catholic Church. Blah blah real name Father Patrick O’Connell, blah blah St. Peter’s, Bonner Street, Bethnal Green, blah blah former choirboys Harry Winder and Andrew Lough, blah blah subjected to repulsive sexual practices.’” Oaten glared at Simmons and Pavlou. “And how do you think the papers got hold of this?”

“Oh, that’s obvious, guv,” Simmons said, a grin splitting his sallow face. “They chucked money at anyone they could find.”

“Wrong!” the chief inspector shouted, crumpling the newspaper up and throwing it accurately at his chest. “They did what you wankers are supposed to do. They asked questions, and when people stonewalled them, they kept on asking.”

“But they went to Ireland,” Pavlou said, pointing at a picture of the monastery where the dead man had been hidden away.

Oaten groaned. “We’ve already been over that, you pillock. This isn’t about who goes where, it’s about so-called detectives who don’t know their arse from their armpit.” She shot a glance at Turner. “Help us out here, Taff. What do we do next?”

“Um, interview Winder and Lough. Find out who else might have been abused by the victim. Talk to other people who attended St. Peter’s back in the late seventies and early eighties.”

The chief inspector was nodding. “Thank God someone around here knows his job.”

Pavlou stepped forward, his expression keen. “I’d be happy to go up to the northeast to interview Lough.”

“I bet you would,” Karen Oaten replied mordantly. “The question is, am I happy to risk another cock-up by letting you go?” She rubbed her forehead. “All right, contact the locals and get them to bring Lough in for questioning. At least that should keep the press off him till you get there.” She turned to Simmons. “You get down to Bethnal Green and talk to this Harry Winder. Remind him that, even if he’s sold his story to some rag, he has to come clean with us. Think you can manage that?”

The two sergeants nodded unhappily.

“Get going then!” She raised a hand at Turner. “Not you, Taff.” She waited till the door closed behind the others. “Morons. So, what are you working on?”

“Right now Chief Inspector Hardy’s got me-”

“Never mind Hardy, you’re reporting only to me from now on. There are too many people busy building their own little empires in this team.” She gave a hollow laugh. “If you can’t beat them…Okay, let’s have it.”

Turner nodded. “Right, guv. I was looking at the modus operandi.”

Oaten sat back in her chair. “And?”

“Well, it seems to me there’s some kind of message in it.” He flipped open his notebook. “Candlestick up him, sprawled over the altar, eyes removed, the quotation in the mouth…”

“Go on.”

“The wound to the backside suggests sexual abuse, doesn’t it?”

“Mmm.”

“And the naked body over the altar makes it pretty obvious that the killer doesn’t think much of the Catholic Church.”

“What about the eyes?”

“Well, could the priest have seen things that the killer is ashamed of or that he regards as his own?”

“Possibly linked to the abuse carried out on him by the dead man?”

Turner nodded. “It seems reasonable to assume that the killer knew Prendegast, or rather O’Connell. And, yeah, that he was abused by him.”

“So we need to start collecting alibis for the night of the murder from all the choirboys and such like that we find.” Oaten smiled at him. “Good, Taff. What about the quotation in his mouth, though? How did it go again? ‘What a-’”

“‘-mockery hath death made of thee.’ I was hoping you weren’t going to ask me about that.” Turner looked at his notes again. “Maybe the killer was just making a general point about how the priest has got his comeuppance.”

“Or maybe there’s more to it than that.”

Turner shrugged.

“All right, go on working on that, but I want you to keep an eye on Simmons and Pavlou, too. And, don’t worry, I’ll keep D.C.I. Hardy off your back.”

After he’d left, Karen Oaten pushed the newspapers from her desk and opened a file. In it were her own notes about the case. She was impressed that Taff Turner had gone the same direction as she had. But she, too, was uncertain about the quote from Webster’s The White Devil, so she’d arranged a meeting at the university later in the day with a specialist in Jacobean literature. All Oaten knew about John Webster came from the movie Shakespeare in Love-he was the teenage slimebag who had dropped a mouse down Gwyneth Paltrow’s dress, and squealed on her and the playwright. He was a nasty piece of work, but that wasn’t what was giving her butterflies in her stomach. She’d seen killings as elaborate as this before. In every case the murderer had gone on to strike again-and soon.

It was why she’d joined the Met. What she’d told John Turner wasn’t the whole story. She wished she could forget, but every time she started on a murder case, she thought of her childhood friend Christy Baker. They’d been inseparable from primary through to senior school in St. Albans, they’d shared everything and competed against each other at netball, hockey and athletics without ever falling out. Then, one December night when they were fifteen, Christy had disappeared on her way home from Karen’s. It was only a five-minute walk, but she hadn’t made it. Her naked and mutilated body was found ten miles away in a ditch. The killer, a deliveryman, was eventually caught, but not before he’d claimed seven more victims.

Karen Oaten didn’t think of herself as being in the job for revenge, but deep down she knew that she wanted to catch as many sick bastards as she could. She had no sympathy for them. She’d seen what Christy’s family had gone through; she’d been there herself. It was worse than anyone could imagine.

She twitched her head and came back to the present, wondering what scenes of horror lay in store for her team in the days and weeks ahead.

Evelyn Merton looked out of her kitchen window. The garden to the rear of the bungalow on the outskirts of Chelmsford was full of spring blooms. And so it should have been. She spent hours working in the flower beds and rock garden. Since her beloved brother, Gilbert, had died two years ago, she’d had to take on lawn duties, as well. At least they weren’t too strenuous at this time of year, and the mower with powered wheels that she’d bought was a great help. Evelyn smiled as she saw a robin engaged in noisy combat as he defended his territory from another of his kind. Nature was full of hostility as well as beauty. She’d known that throughout her life, especially after she’d started teaching primary children.

It was so long ago, but she could remember many of the children that had passed through her hands. Of course, when she’d left college in the late fifties, everything had been very different. Although she’d grown up in the comfortable suburb of Chigwell, she chose to work in the underprivileged East End. The children of the poor were dressed in faded, patched clothes that had been handed down from older siblings. They were skinny, their faces wan. The National Health Service was gradually making a difference, but she still saw children with their legs bent by rickets and their complexions ruined by smallpox. At least, back then, they had understood discipline. The last years of her service in Bethnal Green had been marred by persistent bad behavior, particularly among the boys. She had been forced to take stern measures, even though teachers were no longer permitted to employ corporal punishment.

Miss Merton made herself a cup of milky tea and took it into the sitting room. Rajah, her blue Persian, opened an eye as she came in then went back to sleep, purring gently. He was old now and occasionally made a mess on the carpets but, once he’d had his nose rubbed in it, he behaved himself again. Before she settled into her armchair, Evelyn looked up at the class photographs she had hung above the television. There were rows and rows of eleven-year-olds, some of them serious but many grinning cheekily at the camera. The parents were to blame. The parents and the government. There was no discipline in society anymore. If it continued like this, she thought as she turned on the TV, there would be rioting in the streets.

The doorbell rang, provoking a sigh from Evelyn Merton. She enjoyed the morning talk shows, particularly the ones where feckless people were made to see the error of their ways.

A youngish man was standing outside, a blue cap on his head.

“’Mornin’,” he said in a bold way that immediately put Evelyn’s back up.

“Can I help you?” she asked coldly.

“Gas,” he said, smiling to reveal gleaming and unnaturally pointed white teeth. “Come to read the meter.” He looked at a clipboard. “Merton, is it?”

“Miss Merton. Very well, follow me.” Evelyn stopped and turned as she was halfway down the hall. “Show me some identification, please.”

The man closed the door and dropped the snib. He held the clipboard out to her. It was then that she realized he was wearing latex gloves. Surprised, she looked down at the board and took a heavy blow to her left temple.

She grunted, and then felt herself being dragged over the carpet to the main bedroom.

“Quiet, bitch,” the man hissed between tight lips.

“Wha…what do you…want?” Evelyn asked. “No…no money in the house.”

She grunted as she was pulled onto the bed. She could feel ropes being tightened around her wrists.

“No…no,” she said, but she could hear that her voice was faint.

Then she felt ropes on her skin. They were tightened and her legs were opened. Looking up, she realized that her wrists and ankles had been tied to the bedposts.

“No…” she said, fear making her bladder empty.

“Oh, she’s a dirty old woman,” the man said with a sharp laugh. “She’s going to have to lie in her own muck.” He took his hat off and opened the bag he’d been carrying.

Evelyn Merton watched as he zipped a white plastic suit over his clothes, then put what looked like a surgical cap over his short fair hair.

“Scream if you like, Miss Merton,” he said, emphasizing her title as if it were a swear word. “But the problem with living in a bungalow is that your neighbors aren’t very likely to hear you, especially above the racket from your television.” He smiled. “Besides, Mrs. Smith in number thirty-three is out shopping and Mr. Humboldt in number thirty-seven has been in hospital for the past ten days. Not that you’ve bothered to visit him, have you, you poisonous old toad?”

Evelyn started to sob, her eyes blurred by tears. She’d read often enough in the Mail about elderly women being assaulted in their own homes, but she’d never believed it would happen to her. Perhaps she could reason with the man. There was something about him that was familiar, but her throbbing head couldn’t make sense of it. Something about him…

Her assailant sat down on the bed near her face and leaned over. “I imagine you’d like to know what’s going on, Miss Merton,” he said, his voice steady. He had a neutral accent, but to her experienced ear there was a trace of Cockney in it. “Don’t worry, I’ll fill you in.” He gave a laugh that made her blood run cold. “But first, I’m going to shut you up. I used to have to listen to you enough.” He grabbed her face, thumb and fingers pressing hard into her cheeks. She was forced to open her mouth and a cloth of some sort was stuffed into it. She panicked as she was forced to breathe through her nose, and struggled in her bonds.

“Calm down, you old cow,” he said, the East End tones more evident. “Calm down and take your punishment like a…well, like a stinking old woman.”

Evelyn’s mind was filled with flashes from the past. Take your punishment like a man. That had been one of her catchphrases as a teacher. In the first part of her career, she’d applied the cane liberally. Later on, she’d been forced to come up with more imaginative forms of chastisement for the boys who had threatened her authority-and it was always boys. The girls had seemed to see sense when they encountered a worthy opponent and kept their heads down. Insolent faces cascaded through her thoughts: vicious, calculating little hooligans; ne’er-do-wells who’d begun smoking before they were ten and sworn like troopers…

“Mmm!” she said with a feeble groan. “Mmm!” She felt a blade close to her skin, slicing though her clothes.

“Yes, Miss Merton,” the man said, this time his voice high-pitched like one of her pupils’. “Yes, yes, yes.”

Evelyn closed her eyes as her outer and undergarments were cut apart and tugged from beneath her. No man had ever seen her entirely naked, not even Gilbert. When he had started coming to her bed not long after their mother died, she’d always kept the light off. She cringed in shame, feeling the soggy bedspread beneath her loins. Then her eyes sprang apart when she felt latex-covered fingers probe inside her.

“Well, well,” the man said, bending over her midriff. “We all thought you were a virgin, but it seems that someone’s been here.” He gave her a lascivious grin. “Or did you use a cucumber?” Then a knowing expression spread across his smooth features. “Silly me,” he said, following her eyes to the photograph on the bedside table. “I forgot. Mr. Gilbert. I remember your brother from sports days. He used to time the races.” He laughed, a cold and pitiless sound that chilled her blood. “And call us ‘dirty little tinkers.’ You and your brother were the dirty ones, weren’t you, Miss Merton? Still, nothing wrong with keeping it in the family. I had a very close relationship with my mother, too, you know. Then again, I was adopted.”

Suddenly the knife, a large blade that could have been a soldier’s, was in front of her eyes. She whimpered through the gag.

“No, Miss Merton, it’s too late to say you’re sorry.” The man brought his face close to hers. “You hurt me, Miss Merton. You hurt me a lot. Do you remember?”

She shook her head, trying to keep her eyes off his.

“Let me help you. My name’s Leslie Dunn. Mean anything to you?”

Evelyn closed her eyes. No, she thought desperately, it can’t be him. Not the weasel-faced Les Dunn, the boy who used to look at her in the most impudent way, as if she had no right to discipline him.

“I can see it does. Nice to see you again.” The man laughed. “Not.” He ran his eyes over her body. “I always thought you’d look disgusting without any clothes on and I was right.”

Then the blade was at her face again. “Let me remind you what you did to me so that you understand why I’m exacting retribution.”

She moaned again.

He ignored her. “You made me stand in the corner with one leg raised for a whole lesson, do you remember? Because I put my hand up at the wrong time. You made me crawl around on all fours like a dog for a day because you thought I’d made a barking noise. It wasn’t me, it was Richard Brady.” He gave another empty laugh. “He paid the price a long time ago. And you ridiculed me in front of all the kids, not once, not twice, but hundreds of times.” He stood up and started walking around the room in the heavy-footed way that Evelyn had always had. “‘Leslie Dunn,’” he said in a high-pitched voice, “‘if your parents weren’t drunken idiots, you’d know that behavior like yours is unacceptable in polite society. Leslie Dunn, if you can’t come to school with clean clothes, then don’t come at all. Leslie Dunn, your writing is like a brainless chimpanzee’s.’” He fixed his eyes on her. “And so on. You didn’t really think you could get away with treating people like that, did you, Miss Brother-fucking Merton?” He slapped her hard on the cheek. “Did you?”

She was so terrified that she couldn’t take her eyes off him. She watched as he went out of the bedroom, to return a short time later with a furry blue object dangling from one hand.

“Aaanng!” she exclaimed, trying to scream. Rajah was thrown at her, landing on her bare chest. She could feel his blood, sticky and warm, on her skin.

“I hate cats,” said the man she’d taught. “Now, Miss Merton, it’s time I told you what I’m going to do to you.”

As Leslie Dunn’s words cut into her brain, Evelyn felt a wave of heat flush through her veins. She didn’t deserve this. It was years ago. She’d turned out plenty of good pupils, plenty of children who would have gone on to benefit society. No, she didn’t deserve this. She’d been a good Catholic.

But, as the knife penetrated her, she acknowledged her sins. Cruelty, pride, hatred-not to mention what she had done with Gilbert for decades. Deep down, she knew she deserved everything she got.

And for her there would be no absolution.