Echoes of the Dead

THE BUTCHER BEYOND

DANGEROUS GAMES

THE DARK LADY

DEAD ON CUE

DEATH OF A CAVE DWELLER

DEATH OF AN INNOCENT

A DEATH LEFT HANGING

DEATH WATCH

DYING IN THE DARK

A DYING FALL

THE ENEMY WITHIN

FATAL QUEST

GOLDEN MILE TO MURDER

A LONG TIME DEAD

MURDER AT SWANN'S LAKE

THE PARADISE JOB

THE RED HERRING

THE SALTON KILLINGS

SINS OF THE FATHERS

STONE KILLER

THE WITCH MAKER

 

THE DEAD HAND OF HISTORY

THE RING OF DEATH

ECHOES OF THE DEAD

This first world edition published 2010

in Great Britain and in 2011 in the USA by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

Trade paperback edition first published

in Great Britain and the USA 2011 by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

Copyright © 2010 by Alan Rustage.

All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Spencer, Sally.

Echoes of the dead.

1. Paniatowski, Monika (Fictitious character) – Fiction.

2. Woodend, Charlie (Fictitious character) – Fiction.

3. Police – England – Fiction. 4. Detective and mystery stories.

I. Title

823.9′14-dc22

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6980-7 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-307-6 (trade paper)

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-0050 (e-book)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being

described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this

publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons

is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire

PART ONE

Whitebridge, October 1973

PROLOGUE

G
eorge Street was right at the heart of old, industrial Whitebridge. It was narrow and cobbled, and it climbed the steep hill with complete disregard for the old and frail who lived along its route. The street was lined with terraced houses which had front doors opening directly on to the pavement, and the large sash windows of all the front parlours were strung with lace curtains, in order to give those who lived there a little privacy from those who merely passed by.

It was the lace curtains that the priest noticed as he toiled his way up the street – noticed them because each and every one twitched angrily as he passed it by.

The women lurking behind the netting – their eyes following every step of his reluctant progress – knew exactly where he was going, and exactly why he was going there, he thought. And though many of them were his own parishioners – and believed, as he did, in a merciful God – they did not approve of what he was doing.

The priest looked up at the autumnal sky. Black clouds hung there – as they had all morning – like the heavy drapes in an undertaker's parlour.

It was not a day that any man would
choose
to die on, Father O'Brien thought.

But he had no doubt that – for the curtain twitchers of George Street – the imminent death of the man he was about to visit was nothing less than a sign that the Almighty shared their own feelings of righteous revulsion.

The priest felt the need to stop and catch his breath, and came to a halt in front of a house with a chocolate-brown door. His mouth was dry, and he was just wondering if he dared to lift the polished brass knocker and ask for a glass of water when the door itself opened – barely a chink – and he found himself staring into the blazing eyes of a tiny, bent woman.

‘Ah, good morning, Mrs Gilligan,' he said, in a voice which he was hoping would appear friendly and at ease, but came out as cracked and uncertain. ‘I wonder if I might trouble you for—'

‘So you're off to see
him
, then, are you, Father?' the old woman interrupted.

‘I am, Mrs Gilligan,' the priest replied.

‘Don't do it, Father,' the woman implored him.

‘I have to,' O'Brien told her.

And even as the words left his mouth, he knew that they were the
wrong
words, knew that a priest should never sound so
defensive –
so
ashamed
– of what he was doing.

‘You weren't in this parish when Lilly Dawson was killed, were you?' Mrs Gilligan demanded.

‘No, I wasn't,' O'Brien admitted.

Of course
he hadn't been there! The girl had been dead for
twenty-two
years! Generations had been born – and died – in the time since Lilly Dawson left this life. But for Mrs Gilligan – and no doubt for all the other women who lived on this street – it seemed as if no time had passed at all.

‘She was a lovely little kid. Very quiet – maybe a bit sad – but lovely,' the old woman said.

‘I'm sure she was,' O'Brien agreed

‘And she never even got to see her fourteenth birthday, did she?' the old woman asked.

‘When you think of her, you should not dwell so much on how she died,' the priest said uncomfortably. ‘Instead, you should rejoice that she is now reaping her reward in heaven.'

‘You do realize what he did to her
before
he killed her, don't you?' the old woman asked, as if he had never spoken.

‘I . . . I know that he interfered with her.'

‘He
defiled
her,' the old woman said. ‘That's what he did to her – he
defiled
her.' Mrs Gilligan paused to draw breath. ‘Don't go and see him, Father. Let him die alone. It's all he deserves.'

‘I have to go and see him,' O'Brien said. ‘It's my duty.'

‘But you'd rather not – if you had the choice?' the woman asked.

She was offering him an escape route, he realized – giving him the chance to admit that he felt just like she did, to express a loathing as deep as her own. And, for a moment, he was tempted to take that route, because, as a man, he wanted to be well thought of. Then he reminded himself that he was a priest – that when he put on his cassock that morning he had ceased to be a man at all, and had become one of God's representatives on earth.

‘I'll see you in church, Mrs Gilligan,' he said.

‘Maybe you will – and maybe you won't,' the woman replied ominously.

And then she closed the door – like a voice of conscience which had given up on him.

As Father O'Brien pressed on up the hill, he found his mind wandering back to another time – to his childhood in rural Ireland.

Back then, things had seemed so much simpler, he thought. No, he corrected himself, not just
seemed
simpler – had
been
simpler. The life of the village and the life of the church had been at one with each other. And, even more importantly, there had been a certainty to everything which was never questioned – because how
could you
question certainty?

He wished he had never been posted to this parish, where the people were as alien to his own experience as beings from outer space would have been – where, once the familiar ritual within the church was completed, he felt he had nothing in common with his parishioners.

‘You're a very bad priest,' he mumbled to himself.

And there was no mock-humility in the statement, he decided.

No, on that charge, at least, he was not guilty – for a
good
priest would never have questioned God's wisdom in sending him to Whitebridge.

He had reached his destination, and – with a heavy heart – knocked on the door.

The woman who opened the door was in her late thirties. He saw her nearly every day in church, and when he studied her thin, pinched face as she knelt in prayer, he had never been quite sure whether she was expressing her devotion
to
God or her anger
at
Him. Perhaps, he had finally decided, it was both.

‘You came,' she said – as if she had suspected that he might not.

‘It was my duty, Elizabeth,' O'Brien said, rather woodenly. ‘Where is he? Upstairs?'

‘Of course he's upstairs,' Elizabeth Eccles said, with a harshness entering her voice which could almost have been contempt. ‘Where else
would
he be? The poor man can hardly move.'

‘Of course,' the priest agreed, and tried to sound understanding.

Elizabeth looked over his shoulder, out on to the street.

‘Have you seen enough?' she screamed, her hands defiantly on her hips. ‘Have you all had your fill?'

‘Please, Elizabeth, show a little decorum in this house of sickness,' the priest said.

‘There's sickness, all right, but it's out there!' the woman retorted, now angry with the priest as well as with her neighbours. ‘Do you know how hard it's been for me, since my father came to live with me?'

‘I'm sure it must have been very—' the priest began.

‘You wouldn't believe the things they've done,' the woman interrupted him. ‘You wouldn't believe the kinds of things they've posted through my letterbox.'

‘It must have been almost as hard on them as it has been on you,' the priest said. ‘You must learn to understand them, and forgive them.'

‘And will they forgive him?' Elizabeth asked, jerking her finger towards the upstairs bedroom.

‘They must,' O'Brien said solemnly.

‘Well, they needn't bother!' Elizabeth told him. ‘My father doesn't
need
their forgiveness.'

They were still standing on the doorstep, and the priest shivered as a chill breeze suddenly blew down the street.

‘You'd better come in,' Elizabeth said. ‘He's been waiting for you.'

‘I'm sure he has,' the priest agreed.

‘He's been
hanging on
for you,' Elizabeth said, in case he had missed the point.

And O'Brien was sure of that, too – for no man wanted to face his maker with the weight that must be pressing down on Fred Howerd's soul.

The priest followed the woman up the stairs which led off the hallway, and, even halfway up them, his nostrils were already filled with stink of death and desperation.

From the narrow landing, they looked in on the bedroom. The dying man was lying on an old-fashioned oak bed. A large crucifix had been nailed above the bed, and on the wall opposite it was a painting of the Sacred Heart.

O'Brien stepped into the room, and the woman followed him.

‘You must leave us now, Elizabeth,' the priest said.

‘I want to stay,' the woman told him.

‘You can't.'

‘He needs me by his side,' Elizabeth protested. ‘What little strength he has left, he draws from me.'

‘It's not possible,' Father O'Brien said – and for once, it seemed to him, God had deemed him worthy of that tone of authority which appeared to come naturally to most other priests. ‘You cannot be here during the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation.'

For a moment, it seemed as if the woman would defy him, then she stepped back on to the landing and closed the door behind her.

Father O'Brien looked down at the sick man. Howerd had once been a powerful figure, he'd been told, but his illness had eaten away at him, and now he was little more than a husk.