Prayer for the Dead: A Detective Inspector McLean Mystery (38 page)

Darkness filled the inside of the church like peat water, shadows casting weird shapes in the open space. Scaffold poles marched down the aisles and criss-crossed in a tangle of metal; the untidy nest of some improbably large bird. The echo of the closing
door took less time to fall to nothing than McLean had expected, muffled by heavy wooden boards overhead. He held his hand up for silence before Ritchie could say a word, then strained to hear anything unusual in the quiet.

Nothing. Not even the muted, distant hum of the city outside. The church was unnaturally still, as if something somewhere held its breath in anticipation. Treading softly,
McLean stepped into the body of the kirk, all the while listening out for something louder than the thunder of blood in his veins, the racket of his heart beating.

The ancient, carved stone font squatted in its familiar place, where he had seen it scant months ago, but the rest of the church interior was unrecognisable. Piles of unused scaffold boards stacked up against the pews, themselves dragged
to the walls. Looking down, he saw scuffed flagstones, some inscribed with words in memory of the mouldering bones lying beneath them, barely visible in the final gloaming of the dying day. Beside him, Ritchie was turning slowly on one heel, searching for signs of life, when she let out a low moan of horror.

‘What is it?’ McLean spoke the words in a low whisper, but she was already moving away
from him at a run. And he could see for himself what had set her off.

At the far end of the nave, just as the low stone steps climbed up to the altar, someone had constructed a makeshift crucifix from scaffolding poles and what looked like roof beams. The first thing that struck McLean was its size, so much bigger than the crosses he was used to seeing on the few, uncomfortable occasions he had
found himself in a church. The second thing he noticed was that this cross, unlike the usual Christian affairs, was a crude X. The sort of thing he remembered from school and lessons in ancient history.

The third thing he saw was the naked man, arms and legs splayed, dark marks where he had been nailed in place.

‘Wait!’ McLean tried to shout, but his voice caught in his throat. It was a wasted
effort anyway. Ritchie was almost at the body now, reaching out for it. As she did so he recognised the man nailed there as the young minister, Daniel, and the pieces started to fall uncomfortably into place.

He took a step further into the church, straining his ears to hear anything over the low ‘no, no, no,’ of DS Ritchie as she tried to get to the cross and the man spreadeagled upon it. He
had thought the church empty, but it was hard to tell. Too many shadows, dark upon dark in shapes that could simply be benches stacked in a corner, or a murderer lurking with evil intent. He reached the aisle, turning slowly, letting his eyes adjust as he fumbled out his mobile phone. The screen blazed light at his touch, almost painful
to look at. Still he thumbed at it until the speed dial for
the incident room came up, clamped the phone to his ear as he approached the crucifix.

‘McLean,’ he said as soon as the call was answered. ‘Who speaks?’

‘It’s me, sir. Sandy … that is, Detective Constable Gregg, sir.’ Well it could have been worse.

‘Constable, I need a full tactical team out here as soon as possible.’ McLean gave her the address as he approached the body. The cross was surrounded
by a jumble of scaffold poles, precariously balanced one upon another so as to make getting within touching distance almost impossible. Instead of clearing them, Ritchie was trying to climb over, but every time she put a foot down the pile shifted under her and she had to step back again.

‘I can’t reach him. We need to move this.’ She bent down and pulled at a scaffold pole, then let out a shriek
as it rolled over, trapping her hand. McLean managed to find the end of the pole, lift it enough for her to free herself, then they both had to scramble backwards as the pile collapsed.

‘What’s going on, sir? Sounds like a car crash.’ DC Gregg’s voice sounded thin with the clattering of steel pipes still ringing in his ears, but McLean was more concerned by the crucified priest. The noise had
stirred him, his head shifting so slightly it might even have been a trick of the light. Except that there was barely any light in the place now to trick them.

‘I need an ambulance and a fire team. Five minutes, Constable.’

‘I’m on it, sir. Only Superintendent Duguid …’

Whatever it was Duguid wanted, McLean never found out. Ritchie had managed to pick a path through the tangle of scaffold poles
now. She reached the cross and began climbing it, looking for a way to cut her boyfriend down. The instant she touched him, the church filled with a screech like some terrible, fantastical monster roused from its slumbers.

‘You must not interfere. This is God’s work!’

McLean barely had time to react before a figure came flying through the air at him. He ducked out of the reach of a hand he thought
was going for his throat, tripped on a coil of rope left behind by the builders and fell backwards. Sharp steel glinted in the half-light, whistling through the air where his neck had been, then his head smacked against something hard. Stars crazed the darkness, a roaring in his ears like standing in a tunnel as the train comes. He fought to stay conscious, vision narrowing to a dark-circled
point that focused on the crucified priest and Ritchie’s frantic attempts to cut him down.

‘His soul is pure. You cannot stop the Lord from taking him.’ The words were oddly distorted, like a radio dropped into the bath. McLean struggled to pick himself up off the floor, hands finding everything slippery. He lifted one up, seeing it smeared in something dark, and only then did the pain register,
a cut across his palm, another at the back of his head where it had hit.

Everything was in slow motion except the man moving through the shadows. He was everywhere, flicking in and out of existence like some child’s nightmare monster. The jumble of poles was no more of an obstacle to him than chalk lines on a pavement. Closer and closer to the cross,
the crucified priest and DS Ritchie, that
wicked shining blade blazing with fire as it caught a stray beam of light from the stained glass windows. McLean knew in that instant exactly what had happened to Maureen Shenks. And why.

‘No!’ The word sounded dull in his muffled ears, but there was an urgency in it that must have carried. As he scrambled to woozy feet, so Ritchie finally turned her attention away from the cross, saw her attacker
at the last possible moment. She ducked away from him as he lunged, her training kicking in as she positioned herself best to deal with the blade. McLean stumbled towards her, the room still spinning in his head, aware somewhere in the back of his mind that he was unarmed, concussed and approaching a man with a knife. The nave seemed to draw away from him as he struggled towards the altar and
he watched in horror as Ritchie fell backwards over one arm of the makeshift cross. The man who claimed to be Norman leapt around it, his movements more like those of an ape as he pressed his advantage. She was on her back, arms up to protect herself from the stabbing knife and still McLean was too far away.

‘Norman, stop.’

Whether it was the pitch of his voice or something more fundamental,
the use of that name stopped the man in his tracks. At his feet, DS Ritchie was curled in on herself, arms covering her head, the sleeves of her jacket shredded and bloody. Bale straightened, turned to meet his accuser, and McLean realised he was much closer to the cross than he’d thought. He looked up briefly at Daniel’s pale face, wincing in pain as his head protested at the movement.

‘Do you
like what I’ve done, Tony?’

The voice was at once alien and hauntingly familiar. Older, true, but also just the same. Could it really be him? Had his grandmother lied to him about Norman’s death? Had he really survived? Grown up to become this monster?

Norman stepped lightly away from Ritchie, the knife still sharp in his grasp. As he walked around the cross, he ran his free hand down Daniel’s
naked thigh, smearing the blood that had dribbled from the crucified man’s hand down his arm, dripped from his armpit like thick, red sweat. A low noise stirred from the body, bubbles of spittle and blood leaking from his nose. Still alive. There was still hope. And help was surely on its way now. He just needed a little time.

‘I thought you died. All those years ago. Leukaemia. That’s what they
told me.’

‘Oh, I died, Tony. I had a disease that your precious science couldn’t cure. Of course it couldn’t. It was God’s will that I die. He took me into his arms and told me I was chosen.’

McLean couldn’t be sure whether his head was clearing or not, but he felt a little steadier on his feet. He edged slowly backwards, up the aisle in the direction of the font. The man who might have been
Norman followed him, still holding that wicked sharp knife.

‘Why, Norman? What were you chosen for? What was Daniel to you? What were the others?’

‘You don’t know? You can’t see it?’ Norman took a step closer and McLean could see the madness in his eyes, glinting in the last of the light. They flicked around like a bird’s. Darting here and there, trying to take in everything but seeing something
very different to the mundane.

‘Tell me what I should be seeing.’ McLean edged back another step, hoping Ritchie wasn’t badly injured. Any minute now the cavalry would arrive. Surely.

‘Of course you can’t see it. None of them could. But I can. I can see it in them. In Daniel here, in Ben and Jim and all the others. And I can see it in you.’

Norman lunged forward, knife hand outstretched. McLean
moved slowly, too slowly, his head still filled with sawdust and fireworks. A ripping sound, and he felt a tug on his jacket, a sharp pain in his side as the knife slid across his ribs. He pirouetted around, trying to get out of the way as Norman danced in the darkness, coming in for a killing strike. Something blocked him, the ancient carved stone font. He was trapped, helpless.

‘Such glory
in his work. Two perfect souls will go to heaven this day.’ Norman stepped up close, knife held high as he made to strike. McLean raised his hands in defence, knowing it was useless, remembering the mess that had been made of Ben Stevenson and Maureen Shenks.

And then confusion. A dull thud echoed briefly in the hall. Bale’s eyes shot upwards even as his knees gave way. He dropped the knife,
crumpled to the silent floor. Behind him a grinning Devil’s face loomed out of the shadows. Jo Dalgliesh held a short length of scaffold pole in her hand, an evil glint in her eye.

‘You already killed one of my friends. Got few enough of them as it is. Damned if I’m going to lose another.’

He sat on the edge of a stone sarcophagus, unsure if that was even the right word for it, as a paramedic wound a pure white bandage around his hand. McLean wasn’t quite sure if he was in shock or just working his way through the latter stages of mild concussion.
Either way, the world had a surreal tinge to it that made some things indistinct whilst bringing others into sharp relief. It was fully dark now, the street lamps surrounded by their individual insect tribes. The trees rustled in a warm breeze and the night air brought sharp smells.

‘Here, drink this.’ A smiling, worried face hoved into view, bearing a mug of steaming tea. McLean took it, nodding
gratefully before realising that it had been given to him by Mary Currie.

‘How’s DS … Kirsty?’ he asked.

‘She’ll be fine once the cuts heal. They’re only superficial. Going to need a new jacket, mind you.’ The minister sunk down on to the stone beside him. She smelled of old classrooms, he realised. Not those where he’d been humiliated in front of his peers by inadequate teachers, but the warm,
dusty, sun-filled classrooms where he’d semi-dozed and listened to wonderful stories of Roman history, Celtic warriors and adventurous ancient Greeks. The classrooms where he’d discovered poetry and realised that God was a lie. The thought brought an ironic smile to his lips.

‘Norman. How terrible. And Daniel.’ Mary Currie sounded like she was in shock herself. She probably was, and yet she’d
still made tea for the ever-growing number of police descending on her church. The crime scene.

‘He’s not Norman. Norman died when he was six years old.’

Mary’s face wrinkled in puzzlement. ‘But he lives in the house. His parents …’

McLean shook his head, winced in pain. ‘I don’t know. Smacked my head on a pew in there. Things will probably make more sense in the morning.’

The minister said
nothing more for a while. Then nodded towards the church door, wide open and with a young uniform constable standing guard outside.

‘Is he … Daniel?’

As if to answer his question, a commotion from the church door spilled several paramedics and a couple of uniform officers out into the night, wheeling a gurney. One of the paramedics was holding a saline bag up high as they bustled past. Not something
you did for a dead man.

‘He was alive when we found him. Poor bastard. Going to take some healing. Mental as well as physical.’

‘I’d better go with him. To the hospital.’ Mary Currie stood up again, too swiftly. She swayed slightly, putting a hand on McLean’s shoulder to steady herself. The contact was a reassurance, and it eased away the last of the fog from his brain.

‘I’ll make sure there’s
a constable on the rectory door.’ He looked around at the bustle. ‘Not that I think anyone’s going to try and break in with this lot here.’

‘Thank you, Tony. You’re a good man.’ She gave him a weak smile and trotted off after the paramedics.

‘So everyone tells me,’ he said, but no one heard him.

Detective Superintendent Duguid arrived long after the commotion had died down. His thinning hair
was awry, and he had the look about him of a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown. McLean spotted him climbing out of his car and going to speak to DCI Brooks, which meant he could duck out of sight behind an ornate carved headstone before he was seen.

‘Going somewhere, Inspector?’

Jo Dalgliesh was leaning against the headstone, an unlit cigarette in her mouth. As press, she should technically
have been ushered back past the crime-scene tape that surrounded the church and graveyard. DC MacBride must have said something, as all the policemen milling around were studiously ignoring her.

‘Keeping away from the boss, if I’m being honest. Not sure I can cope with a debriefing right now.’

‘Know how you feel. Going to be interesting breaking this one to the office.’

‘There’ll be a prize
or two in it for you, I’d have thought.’

‘Aye. Mebbe. Ben died chasing this though. Feels a bit … I dunno.’

‘Is that a conscience I see growing?’

‘Fuck off, aye?’

McLean risked a glance around the headstone, saw Duguid and Brooks in deep discussion, DI Spence hanging around them like a needy spaniel. They didn’t appear
to be looking for him, which was all the encouragement he needed.

‘Come
with me,’ he said to the reporter, then strode off towards the church and the shadows. She took a moment to catch up, taken by surprise. ‘Where we going?’

‘To find MacBride, maybe Ritchie if she’s not gone off to the hospital with her boyfriend.’

That raised an eyebrow. ‘Thought there was something more going on there than just devotion to duty. Why’d you need my help? Thought you couldn’t stand
the sight of me.’

‘My house is just over the road.’ McLean nodded in the general direction, then winced as the lump on the back of his head throbbed its disapproval. ‘Don’t know about anyone else, but I reckon I could do with a large dram. Figure I owe you one too. You probably saved my life back there, even if I did ask you to stay in the house with the minister.’

‘Probably?’ Dalgliesh pulled
the cigarette out of her mouth, stopped walking for a moment as if insulted. Then she shook her head. ‘Aye, probably’s right enough. Probably.’