Evil Intent (15 page)

Absently she picked up her mug and sipped, grimacing at the shock of the cold tea.

A moment later she went to the telephone and rang her brother’s
number.

He answered just as she had counted the maximum number of rings before his answer machine would kick in.

‘What’s up, Sis?’ he wanted to know. ‘Any more from the police, then? Did that dishy blond one try to chat you up, or do you think I’m in with a chance?’

She was in no mood for his banter. ‘Listen to me seriously, Peter.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Have you seen the evening paper? About the murder?’

Peter admitted that he had.

‘The priest who was killed – the one they were asking me about. You’ve seen the photo?’

‘Yes. Very nice, too. I’d go so far as to say drop-dead gorgeous. Oops – unfortunate choice of words.’

‘Stop it,’ she said severely. ‘I just wanted to know – have you ever seen him before? In a gay club, or…well, you know. Around.’

Peter chuckled. ‘If you want to know was he part of the scene, then the answer is no. I’ve never run across him, anyway. And I certainly would have noticed him, and remembered him.’

Callie felt let down, deflated, as she rang off. Peter’s testimony wasn’t definitive – after all, Jonah might have been extraordinarily careful and secretive if he were indeed living a double life. But if she’d hoped for instant confirmation of her gut suspicions, then she was disappointed. 

Leo Jackson’s early life, one of many children in the family, growing up dirt-poor in a Jamaican slum, had been a life in which beauty was at a
premium.
In their home there was no music, no art – just a struggle for
existence,
for enough food to keep the increasing numbers of mouths fed. That was one reason why, from an early age, the Church had meant so much to Leo. There, if not at home, beauty was to be found: beauty in the structure and language of the liturgy, beauty in the music, and beauty in the colours of the windows. Most beautiful of all, in young Leo’s opinion, was the painted reredos behind the altar, with its glorious haloed saints and its
radiant
golden-haired angels. Those angels, sweet-faced and boasting
magnificent
multi-hued wings, had sustained him through years of ugly poverty, fuelling his dreams that one day he would escape to a better life.

As a teenager, he had been shipped off to England with an older sister who was emigrating with her new husband, and Leo had put Jamaica behind him once and for all. He found his home – and his vocation – in the Church of England, throwing himself into his work with all the passionate devotion of which he was capable.

He scarcely ever thought about his past – not even about the angels.

Until the day that Oliver Pickett turned up on his doorstep, wanting to talk about faith.

He’d looked at Oliver with a faint shock of recognition. Did he know him? Had he seen him before?

And then the penny dropped, as the memory resurfaced. Oliver had the face, the form, the pure golden beauty of the angels on the reredos. All he lacked was a pair of multi-coloured wings.

At that point, Leo never dreamed of aspiring to Oliver’s love. All he wanted was to be able to look at him, to revel in so much beauty in one human form. To have that love bestowed upon him had been nothing less than a miracle: a life-transforming, life-enhancing miracle.

Now, though, Leo stirred restlessly in his oversized bed, half asleep, reaching with longing for someone who wasn’t there.

He and Oliver had agreed that with all of the police and reporters
swarming about the place, they had better be cautious; Oliver had not been to the rectory since the fatal Tuesday night.

Feeling the cool, smooth cotton of the pillow under his hand rather than a silky fall of golden hair, Leo sighed and dragged himself to
consciousness.
He stretched out for the alarm clock and squinted at it in the half light: it was nearly six o’clock, his usual time to get up.

Too early by far to ring Oliver, though. Oliver was a night owl, not a morning bird. He would not appreciate being waked from his slumbers, even by words of love and endearment from Leo.

Leo squeezed his eyes shut and tried to recapture the way it had been, just a few days ago. The way it should have been today: the long, pale limbs sprawled on the bed, the golden hair spread across the pillow.

Well, there was no point wishing for what might have been. Sighing, he got up and went for a shower.

An hour later – showered, shaved and breakfasted – Leo went into his study and reached for the phone. It was still too early to ring Oliver, but there was another phone call he needed to make. He’d been trying to reach Frances without any success, and now was his best chance, before she went off to work. The hospital’s rules against mobile phones being switched on within its premises was a damn nuisance, he’d discovered, and made it almost impossible to get in touch with her during the day, since she was never at her desk.

Graham was the one who answered, and when he put Frances on, she sounded groggy.

‘I didn’t wake you, did I, pet?’ Leo asked.

‘Not really. I mean, I haven’t really slept,’ she admitted. ‘I tossed and turned for hours. I suppose I finally started dozing a couple of hours ago.’

He was stricken. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said wearily. ‘I needed to get up soon anyway. This is my morning for taking the service in the hospital chapel.’

‘Well, I won’t keep you long. But I just wanted to see how you’re doing.’

‘Thanks, Leo.’ She sighed. ‘The answer is: not very well.’

It wasn’t like Frannie to let things get to her, Leo knew. Through all the
acrimonious debates about the priesting of women she had kept her cool, even in the face of active hostility and almost insurmountable odds. ‘The police. Are they hassling you, love?’

‘I’m sure they don’t look at it like that,’ she said wryly. ‘They’re just doing their job. But I wish their job didn’t involve trying to pin a murder on me. Odious as the man was, I didn’t kill him.’

‘I know. I know.’

‘I had one of them here again last night, going over everything,’ she confided. ‘I’m sure they think I did it. In the end, I told him that if I were to murder every male priest who ever gave me grief, I would be a very busy woman indeed, and the Diocese of London – hell, the whole Church of England – would be seriously short of clergy.’

Leo chuckled in spite of himself. ‘You tell them, pet.’

‘The trouble is,’ she analysed, ‘they just don’t have anyone else in the picture. Did you see the evening paper last night?’

‘Yes. Wasn’t that a masterpiece? Seemingly motiveless crime, indeed.’

‘Graham’s going out for this morning’s papers. I wonder whether they’ll all have picked up the story.’

‘Journalists hunt in packs,’ Leo said caustically. ‘Where one goes, the others are never far behind.’

‘Maybe I should stay at home and draw the curtains, then.’ She
sounded
only half joking.

‘Not a bad idea, Frannie love. It can only be a matter of time till
someone
tells them about what happened on Tuesday night. The only reason they haven’t sniffed it out already, I reckon, is that Vincent was too
grief-stricken
to talk to them.’ His voice was mocking. ‘Balls,’ he added
succinctly.
‘What a drama queen.’

‘But what about you?’ she asked. ‘Have you been…okay?’

‘The police haven’t been back, and I’ve sent a few journalists packing,’ Leo said. ‘I suppose it was inevitable that they should come sniffing round here, since the murder happened in my church.’

‘And…Oliver?’

‘He’s not here, if that’s what’s worrying you,’ he replied a bit more sharply than he’d intended, then relented. ‘Sorry, Frannie. I know you have
my best interests at heart.’

‘I just don’t want you to get…hurt.’

Get caught was what she meant, and Leo knew it. He acknowledged it with his next words. ‘We’re cooling it at the moment. We both thought it was best, under the circumstances.’

‘That’s good.’

Leo heard the rattle of the letterbox. ‘Post,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps it’s the paper. I’d better run, pet.’

‘Thanks for ringing.’

‘Not at all. Take care of yourself,’ he cautioned. ‘And keep in touch. You know where to find me.’

The newspaper was on the mat, and so were several pieces of post. Leo carried it all through to his study, intent on checking out the paper. But one of the letters caught his eye: the return address was Downing Street.

‘What on earth?’ Leo muttered under his breath, reaching for his letter knife.

The letter was written on heavy crested paper. He opened it, staring for a minute before his brain took it in. The gist of the letter was simple: the Prime Minister’s Appointments Secretary was happy to inform him that Her Majesty the Queen had approved his nomination as Bishop of Brixton. Downing Street would be making the announcement on Tuesday.

He stopped, and whistled. ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he said softly. ‘Bishop.’

He remembered now that he’d been chatting with the diocesan Bishop at some clergy gathering or other, and the Bishop had asked him whether he would be interested in a suffragan post, if he were to be approached. Leo had said yes, without taking the question seriously; he’d thought it was just a hypothetical one.

Evidently there had been more to it than that.

It was probably, he realised, a simple case of tokenism, of political
correctness:
the Church was anxious to be seen to promote minority
candidates
to high office, and a prominent black diocesan bishop had recently announced his retirement.

But he would take it. He would take it.

A voice at the back of his mind reminded him about Oliver. Oliver …

Leo shook his head to dispel the voice. He wasn’t about to give Oliver up, not now that he’d found true love for the first time in his life. He wouldn’t think about that now; he would worry about it later.

DI Neville Stewart was already at his desk – had indeed been there for some while already – when Sid Cowley arrived. ‘About time,’ he said sourly,
looking
up from the pile of morning newspapers he’d been perusing. ‘It’s fine for some.’

Cowley checked his watch ostentatiously. ‘I was out late last night, remember.’

‘Sorry,’ Neville muttered. ‘I didn’t mean to take it out on you. But the papers have really got me wound up. Bloody press.’

‘What do they say?’

‘It’s what they
don’t
say.’ Neville slapped his palm down hard on the papers. ‘Just lots of innuendo, implying that we don’t know what we’re doing.’

‘You talked to them yesterday,’ Cowley pointed out. ‘You dished out the results of the PM, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah, yeah. I thought if we let them off the leash a bit, fed them a
titbit
or two, got them on our side, they might be able to turn something up. Something that would help us, as well. But they haven’t come up with
anything
more than we have. To hear them tell it, the man was a bloody saint. No skeletons in
his
closet. Oh, no.’

‘I saw the evening paper.’ Cowley pulled up a chair next to Neville’s desk. ‘The way I read it, they haven’t found anything yet. But they’re still digging.’

‘And what about
you
? Have you found anything?’

‘Nothing, Guv,’ Cowley admitted. ‘I did like you said. I was out half the night, showing that photo round the clubs, the pubs. No one recognises him. He really doesn’t seem to have had a life. No women. Nothing at all like that.’

‘But someone killed him,’ Neville said forcefully. He ran his hands over his face, rubbing at his cheeks. ‘It’s just not the way these things work. Not in my experience.’

‘There are such things as random crimes,’ Cowley offered. ‘Sometimes people are killed for no good reason.’

Neville glared at him. ‘There’s no evidence of robbery, or attempted robbery. No evidence that anyone broke into the church. No good
explanation
of what Jonah Adimola was doing in the vestry, for that matter. Why did he go back, after he left Vincent Underwood? Why, unless he was
meeting
someone?’

‘You think he’d arranged to meet someone?’

‘I don’t know what to think,’ Neville confessed. ‘I just know that it’s two days on, and we haven’t got any further than we were when we
started.
I’m bloody tired, and I’m fed up.’

‘Frances Cherry,’ Cowley said. ‘What about her?’

Neville smiled grimly. ‘At least the press haven’t got on to her yet. That’s one small satisfaction.’

‘Do you still think she could be in the picture, Guv?’

‘I think, my lad, that she’s absolutely all we’ve got at the moment. After all, she did have a blazing row with him. And it was her stole round his neck – we mustn’t forget that little fact.’

Lilith Noone had, she always liked to think, grown up with newspaper ink in her veins instead of blood. Her father had owned and operated a small weekly provincial newspaper, as had his father before him. To be a
journalist
herself was what she had always wanted, but she had long since set her sights higher than the family business.

Just as well, really, as her older brother had been the one anointed to take over. Her brother was the brilliant one in the family, or so everyone thought. And her younger sister was the beautiful one, with a career as a fashion model. Lilith, stuck in the middle between the family’s two shining stars, had to make do with ambition and cunning.

She had both in abundance, along with a huge competitive streak, and those qualities had helped her to land a job as a reporter on the staff of the
Daily Globe.

But she had always considered herself a bit apart from the run-of-the-mill tabloid journalist. To put it in its simplest form, she had class. She was well
dressed, well groomed, well spoken. People who would run a mile at the sight of one of Lilith’s seedier colleagues would hesitate when Lilith approached them, and in that millisecond was her advantage. All she needed was that moment of initial contact, she often told herself, and they were hers.

She’d been a bit late getting on the bandwagon with the Jonah Adimola murder; her editor had given the story to one of the young male
journalists.
But when he’d made no progress at all, Lilith was invited to take over.

She read her way through the morning papers, then planned her
strategy.
The others seemed to be wasting their time trying to ferret out Adimola’s background, looking for scandal or the hint of scandal; she would, therefore, do something different. She would, literally, return to the scene of the crime.

Churches were not really Lilith’s patch. Yes, she’d once covered a ‘naughty vicar’ story, insinuating herself into the confidence of a woman who’d been pawed by the vicar in question during a counselling session. But that was about it. Still, she felt that she looked the part – modest black pumps, a knee-length skirt and twin-set – as she sauntered into St John’s Church, Lancaster Gate, on Friday morning.

The crime scene tape had gone, and the church seemed deserted. Disappointed, she was about to go, when she heard the sound of a hoover from somewhere at the back.

She followed the noise, stopping at the door of the small room where a woman pushed the hoover back and forth. For a moment the woman was unaware of her presence, giving Lilith a chance to observe her and decide on her approach.