Inferno (CSI Reilly Steel #2) (10 page)

After Kennedy had left for home, on a whim Chris decided to head for his best mate Matt Sheridan’s house for a long overdue visit. He’d called ahead; Matt and his wife were home and delighted at the prospect of seeing him. The couple were parents to Chris’s goddaughter, a gorgeous 18-month-old called Rachel,and he rarely got the opportunity to spend time with her.

‘I’ll just pop in for a few minutes to see Rach before she goes to bed – then I’ll be out of your hair, I promise,’ he’d told Emma on the phone.

‘Not at all, you’re staying for dinner and that’s the end of it,’ she’d insisted. As there was nothing in his own fridge but out-of-date milk and a few mouldy vegetables, Chris didn’t need too much persuading. After such a somber day it seemed fitting to spend time with people he really cared about.

‘Kiss!’ Rachel demanded when he was barely in the door of the Sheridan household – her own special way of pronouncing his name, and demanding a cuddle at the same time. Faced with such a bundle of cuteness – Rachel was all blond curls, bright blue eyes, and a big baby-toothed smile  Chris was happy to comply, although it troubled him how much the toddler had grown in the few weeks since he’d last seen her.

He and Matt played happily with Rachel until her bedtime at seven, and while his mate got the little girl ready for bed, Chris chatted with Emma in the kitchen as she prepared dinner.

‘So how’s work these days?’ she asked him, before adding pointedly, ‘And your lovely American colleague, what was her name again?’

Chris rolled his eyes. Emma was a notorious matchmaker, and he rued the day he’d introduced her to Reilly.  A few months back, when he’d had a stint in hospital following the work-related shooting injury, a visit from Reilly and his friends had overlapped.

Like the majority of the force, Chris certainly wasn’t immune to Reilly’s charms. There was no denying she was a knockout: great legs, silky hair, huge, appealing eyes ... and more than once he had surreptitiously observed the slim, muscular lines of her body when she was working at a crime scene.

But despite getting to know her better recently, he still felt like he’d barely scratched the surface. To say that Reilly Steel was a complex woman was a huge understatement.

And complex women scared Chris.

‘Work’s fine, and yes, we’re all busy – Reilly too,’ he answered briskly, refusing to be drawn. ‘Can I help with anything?’ he asked, changing the subject as Emma went about setting the table.

‘Same old Chris, all work and no play,’ Emma scolded, shaking her head. ‘But seeing as you asked ... can you organize the glasses?’

‘Sure.’ As he went to the cupboard, his gaze rested on a cream-colored card propped up against the wall on the worktop.

‘I see you guys have a wedding coming up,’ he remarked casually, as Matt returned to the room. He nodded towards the invite; the elaborate gold-colored script on mother-of-pearl card a dead giveaway. ‘Need a babysitter?’ 

Emma stared at her husband, and was it Chris’s imagination or did a strange look pass between them?

‘Um, my mum is taking Rachel – but thanks,’ Emma replied quickly.

‘Grand. I’m sure you’re looking forward to a night off – not to mention a lie-in,’ he joked, aware that since Rachel’s arrival, time away for the couple was as rare as hen’s teeth. ‘Anyone I know?’ he went on, wondering why the mood seemed to have altered all of a sudden.

‘Well, now that you say it ...’ Matt murmured, and all at once Chris figured out the reason for this silent exchange, and the uncomfortable vibe that had suddenly descended upon the conversation.

‘It’s Mel’s wedding, Chris,’ Emma said gently, confirming his suspicions. ‘We weren’t sure if you would have been—’

‘No, I wasn’t invited,’ he said, keeping his tone even. ‘She told me a while back she was getting married all right, but I wasn’t sure when ...’ He placed a wine glass in front of each table setting. ‘I’m sure it’ll be a great day. Give her my best, won’t you?’

Emma looked at him worriedly. ‘Of course.’

The conversation about the wedding had ended at that, but for Chris the incident lingered in his mind much longer thereafter.

Later that night, as he lay wide awake in the darkness, he was still thinking about Melanie, and trying to remember what she had been like back when they were together  happy together.

But all he could focus on was Melanie afterwards, when everything had fallen to pieces.

C
hris walked slowly up the path to the small semi-detached house, a bag of groceries tucked under one arm.  His dark jacket was slightly crumpled, overdue a visit to the dry cleaner.

His eyes took in the peeling paint around the windows, the tightly drawn curtains, the overgrown garden. The house didn’t quite look abandoned, but there was no question it was in an advanced state of neglect. The person living within had long ago given up caring what other people thought.

With a deep sigh, Chris reached up and rang the bell, making sure to position himself directly in front of the sun-bleached front door.

‘Who is it?’ The woman’s voice was nervous, crackly as it came out of a small intercom on the wall to the left.

He pushed the button to speak.  ‘It’s Chris.’

‘Chris who?’

He sighed. ‘Chris Delaney.’

‘Show me your ID.’

He was already reaching in to his pocket, by now familiar with the routine.  He held his detective’s badge up to the glass panel.

The shadow moved against the peephole again. Chains and locks rattled back one by one, until finally the door opened just enough for him to step in. It was slammed shut the moment he was inside.

‘Hi, Mel.’ He stood inside the narrow hallway, and held out the bag. ‘They were out of pears so I got you some apples instead.’

She took the bag, scuttled down the hall. ‘Gala? You know I only like Gala apples.’

Chris bent to pick up the pile of junk mail that lay on the doormat, before following her down the narrow gloomy hall and into the kitchen.  ‘Of course.’

Melanie set the bag on the table, and began unpacking, her movements quick, full of nervous energy. ‘Cup of tea?’

‘Please.’

It was a small kitchen with pale blue 1970s cupboards, a square Formica table in the middle of the floor, two cheap plastic chairs tucked neatly in to the table.  A blue and white checked table cloth covered the table, a small glass vase with a large faded plastic sunflower the only attempt to brighten the cold room.

He watched as Melanie scuttled around the kitchen – she was thirty-two years old, but could have passed for anything from twenty to forty. She wore a gray woolen skirt, pale blouse, baby-blue cardigan.  Her shoulder-length brown hair was scraped back in a tight ponytail, her thin face free of make-up.

The kettle rattled as it boiled, and Melanie pulled two matching mugs from the cupboard, dropped the teabags in and poured the hot water, the steam rising up briefly to wreathe her face. ‘I’ve been thinking ...’

Chris looked at her carefully, knowing by her tone exactly what was coming. He folded his hands in front of him on the table. ‘You promised.’

She reached for a tea towel, and began wringing the end of it fiercely between her hands, wrapping it tighter and tighter until her knuckles were white and stretched.

Chris leaned forward, tried to make eye contact with her. ‘Mel, it’s been almost a year. The psychologist said—’

‘ I know!’ she snapped. She kept her back to him, ignoring his imploring looks. ‘And I will, I will ...’

‘But not just yet,’ he finished softly.

‘Not just yet,’ Melanie repeated. She set the two mugs of tea on the table and finally turned to look at Chris. Then, in a flash, her face changed and her eyes brightened. ‘Oh, you bought me a packet of digestives!’ she beamed. ‘You’re so good to me, Chris. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

Chris smiled, his heart automatically softening at the sight of the rare, but achingly familiar smile.

Be patient, he told himself.  Give it time.  Just a little more time ... 

F
ather Byrne never felt closer to God than at this time of day, and in this place. Just before dawn, when the cold gray of the early morning fog shrouded the area, he turned the key in the wrought-iron lock. The hinges on the heavy wooden door groaned as he opened it to enter the beautiful old country church.

Such a shame to see it falling into decline, the priest thought, but with so few parishioners in the area and St Joseph’s only two miles away in Blessington, the parish couldn’t keep the building permanently open. The best they could do was morning communion once a week. There was no lighting, the electrics being decades old and in complete disrepair. And sadly, these days the numbers were dwindling, the faith of the flock sorely tested by revelation after revelation about dark moments in the Church’s past. 

Father Byrne liked to get in early and make sure everything was in order before nine o’clock Mass. In truth, he enjoyed spending time in this wonderful old building. There were so few like it in Ireland these days, and he admired  its traditional features: rough stonework, mahogany carvings, and of course the awe-inspiring stained-glass windows above the altar.

It was a calm, peaceful location; the opposite of the functional, purpose-built church in the town. The interior was small, the gray stone walls wearing a tired look. Ten rows of wooden pews ran up each side of the central aisle, cloaked in shadows.

He walked down the aisle, marveling how, at this time of day, the colored glass caught the light and redistributed it throughout the interior in myriad rainbows  as though God Himself was sprinkling the room with His light and love.

Heading into the vestry, Father Byrne hung up his robes. A movement outside caught his eye, and he moved towards the tiny window that looked out over the church’s expansive rear grounds.

Magpies, circling the hawthorn tree.

The birds were always plentiful around here, and he’d spied many of them on his way in. Yet this morning they seemed oddly ... agitated. And there were
so
many; considerably more than was typical.

For reasons he couldn’t quite fathom, Father Byrne felt compelled to investigate what was making the magpies so excitable. He had plenty of time; it was just before eight, and worshippers wouldn’t begin to arrive for another half-hour or so.  A walk through the grounds would be enjoyable, actually.

Using the vestry’s rear door, the priest went outside. He rubbed his hands together to try to ward off the biting chill, and took a deep lungful of the fresh morning air.

But, he realized, suddenly growing tense, there was something else present in the air that morning - a heavy odor that almost certainly wasn’t fresh.  He frowned and looked again towards the hawthorn tree.

Was that it, he mused. Had the magpies come across a dead animal – a badger or squirrel perhaps  and were feasting on the remains?  In these parts, squirrels were almost as plentiful as magpies so that wasn’t unusual. Well, whatever had the birds’ attention, he noted, it was in the vicinity of the tree.

Shuddering, but this time not from the morning air, Father Byrne strode in the direction of the tree, all the while watching the magpies and their delighted swooping dance.

But when the object of the birds’ attention suddenly came into view, the priest immediately revised his earlier belief.  Reeling back in horror, he fell to his knees and invoked all the angels and saints in heaven to protect him.

Far from feeling close to God, right then Father Byrne was certain he had come face to face with Satan himself.

Reilly was taken aback by the size of the hulking stone church.

Located in a small town just outside Blessington, an area famous for its beautiful mountain lakes, the church had been shrouded in the cold gray of the early morning fog on Reilly’s arrival,.

Although the Wicklow countryside was only a short drive out of the city, Reilly was unfamiliar with the area and she had forgotten to bring the GFU van’s sat nav. After she’d taken a few wrong turns, Chris had sent a patrol car to meet her and guide her to the location of what he’d described on the phone as ‘yet another brain-fry murder’.

As the sun rose, the church appeared huge, but an almost menacing darkness still clung to it, as though the mist had not moved on, but rather simply condensed back down into the masonry.

As the clouds parted further, the church grounds sparkled with droplets of moisture, each diffracting so that everything seemed rainbow light, except the church, which brooded with a heavy gothic gravity of mass. It sat upon a raised mound, and a macabre cast-iron spiked fence encircled it protectively. 

Entering the sanctified space, Reilly noticed that the building felt cold and forbidding, far removed from the vibrant and resplendent churches she had come across elsewhere.

It was decorated in an austere manner that suggested respectful worship a great distance removed from an unsympathetic deity.

‘Who found the body?’ she asked Kennedy.

‘The priest, Father Byrne. Chris is interviewing him now.’

As Reilly followed Kennedy through the doorway, a woman popped up from the long wooden pew upon which she had been praying.

‘Hello,’ she bubbled. ‘You must be the crime scene people. Father Byrne asked me to assist you – he’s with that nice-looking detective at the moment.’ She turned and shook their hands with a perfunctory grace obviously acquired by glad-handing her way through many church socials. ‘My name is Henrietta. I’m the chairperson of the lay committee. I help Father Byrne with the admin, and also make sure that nobody walks off with the donation box. This is just terrible,’ she babbled. ‘I really can’t believe such a thing could happen, especially around here. It’s such a quiet little place; nobody bothers anyone else and you’d never think ...’

The woman’s words went right over Reilly’s head when she looked down the aisle towards the altar.

‘Wow,’ she gasped.

A larger-than-life-size Technicolor statue of Jesus suffering horribly on the cross towered above the altar, backed by large stained-glass illustrations of the stations of the Cross.