Death Row - Mark Pearson [64]
‘None of this is in God’s name,’ said the priest, turning away from the altar.
‘Somebody is sending a message?’ Emma Halliday speculated.
‘To who?’ asked Duncton.
Delaney shrugged and looked at the priest who, puce-coloured and breathing deeply, was holding onto one of the pews facing the entrance to the church.
‘I guess that’s what we need to find out. And quickly.’
*
DI Tony Bennett sat on the edge of his bed and pulled on his right shoe, tying the laces neatly. He put his foot down and winced slightly, leaning forward to rub his ankle. It was still slightly swollen but the pain was easing. He popped a 400mg capsule of ibuprofen out of the foil strip, put it in his mouth and swallowed it with a drink of water from a pint glass that he had by his bed. He put the glass down and picked up the book that was beside it. It was the Good News version of the New Testament. He opened it at random and read a few verses to himself. He put the book back on his bedside cabinet and looked around the bedroom. It was a plain room in a one-bedroom apartment: one window looking out over a back garden that he didn’t have access to, a wardrobe, a chair with curved wooden armrests and a red cushion on it by the window. No decorations at all apart from a small wooden crucifix above his bed.
Bennett stood up, wincing a little again, and walked across to his wardrobe. He took out a smart black jacket to match his black trousers and put it on. He looked at himself in the mirror set into the back of the wardrobe door and adjusted his tie, which was blue with red diagonal stripes. He looked at himself for a moment or two longer, his brown eyes serious and thoughtful, and then slid his reflection away as he closed the door.
He stepped through to the living room. Like his bedroom there was little personality in the room: no posters or pictures on the walls, no photographs on display. It was rectangular, a modern design with a sofa acting as a partition from the kitchen area behind it. The sofa faced a television and DVD set up on a chrome stand. At right angles to the pale yellow sofa a matching armchair had been placed, and opposite that was a sideboard with a bookcase above. No books had yet been placed on the shelves but a number of magazines were arranged neatly in a pile at the base of it. Bennett crossed over to the sideboard and picked up the remote control for the television that rested on top of the uppermost magazine, Fieldsports Quarterly. He turned on the television.
He muted the sound as a barrage of noise burst from the television and animated creatures danced around the screen. Still holding the remote, he walked over to his kitchen area, which had a beech table that could seat four people, modern matching beech units with a built-in oven, a four-ring gas hob and a shiny metal sink set in a faux-marble work surface. He picked up a mug of coffee that he had made some minutes earlier, took a swig and using the remote he flicked through his pre-set favourite channels to Sky News.
Melanie Jones, wrapped in a bright red thick woollen duffel coat, with a white scarf arranged perfectly around her pretty neck, was addressing the camera. Behind her a few people had gathered at the yellow tape that was cordoning off the street, and further still behind her Bennett could see the numerous flashing blue lights of the police cars parked by the church of Saint Botolph’s. Saint Botolph, he thought to himself: another Irishman come to England to preach. Nobody knew much about him, either.
He pressed the mute button again and the presenter’s warm honey-toned voice filled the room.
‘I am sad to be bringing you yet another bizarre twist to the Peter Garnier story. Not a hundred yards from Carlton Row, which local people are now calling Death Row, where an eight-year-old boy called Archie Woods was abducted yesterday. A woman’s body has been discovered this morning in Saint Botolph’s church, which you can see behind me. Although the police have yet to release