Death Row - Mark Pearson [61]
‘I can’t process the body, you know that? We’ll have to wait for him to get there.’
‘Yeah, I know. I understand if you don’t want to do it. This isn’t a pleasant one, Kate.’
‘It’s okay. Give me five minutes.’
*
It was actually just ten minutes later when Kate walked into her kitchen to find Jack dressed and pouring some hot water from the kettle into a Thermos flask.
‘Only instant, I’m afraid – short on time.’
‘That’s okay. It’s good thinking.’
At that time of day on a Sunday morning it wasn’t busy on the roads and Delaney told Kate to ignore the speed limits. They made the trip in just over twenty minutes. As they turned the corner of Carlton Row it was still dark, although thankfully not raining, and the street was lit up with the blue lights still flashing on top of a number of police cars that had pulled up outside Saint Botolph’s. There was also an ambulance, which to Delaney’s way of thinking, given the circumstances, was as ridiculous a case of closing the stable door after the horse had bolted as he had ever seen.
He and Kate ducked under the yellow exclusion tape that had already been stretched across the street thirty yards either side of the church. He was pleased to note that the vultures had not yet gathered, but judging by the people looking out of their windows, some with phones held up to the glass, he figured it wouldn’t be long. Mobile footage was probably being sent even now over the internet and the real press cameras wouldn’t be much longer getting there, he had no doubt of that.
Diane Campbell was standing outside the church with a couple of uniforms beside her, talking to a man with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and drinking tea from a plastic beaker. Delaney assumed that he was the priest who had made the discovery, and reckoned the tea would be very sweet indeed.
‘Diane.’ He nodded at her briefly as they approached.
‘Jack. Hello, Kate. Thanks for coming.’
‘Not a problem.’
‘Do we know who she is yet?’ asked Delaney.
‘We have a shrewd idea but the vicar hasn’t been able to go back in and make a formal identification.’
‘Priest.’
‘What?’
‘He’s a priest, not a vicar.’
Father Carson Brown looked over at Delaney and Doctor Walker as if noticing them for the first time. He smiled, his face colourless, his lips thin. ‘Another true believer.’
‘I’m a true something,’ said Delaney, a little bit more of the soft brogue sliding into his voice. ‘I’m not sure what kind of believer I am any more.’
The priest looked back at him with haunted eyes. ‘Nor me.’
Delaney nodded, understanding, and turned to Diane. ‘Shall we go in?’
Diane held her arm out towards the door and Kate and Delaney followed her into the church. Delaney held back the urge to dip his hand in the holy water. He wasn’t totally sure, but he thought the water might not be classed as holy any more. Would the church need to be sanctified again? As they walked up the aisle to the altar Delaney thought it was entirely possible that that could be the case.
A woman’s head had been placed on the altar. Severed at the neck. Her eyes were open in a face that had no colour in it, apart from the eyes. Her eyes were a startling blue. Deep Arctic blue. Her head was as bald as an egg.
Kate stepped forward, putting on a pair of forensic gloves, and placed her hand on the woman’s cheek. It was cold. Extremely cold.
She turned back to Jack and Diane. ‘She’s been frozen.’
‘Where the hell is the rest of her?’ asked Diane and pointed at the woman’s forehead. ‘And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?’
Delaney looked closer. The letters H O R had been carved on the woman’s forehead. ‘I don’t know, Diane. When I was an altar boy we just had the chalice on the altar and maybe that little bell I had to ring at a certain time in the Mass. Decapitation was a bit too avant-garde for us back in Ballydehob.’
Diane was too used to gallows humour to comment. ‘Christ, I need a cigarette,’ she said instead.
‘Diane!’ Despite himself Delaney was a little taken aback.
‘What?’ she said.
Delaney gestured