A Journal of Sin (7 page)

‘I’ll be fine.’ He didn’t sound confident, but there was only one way to find out. Sarah passed him a pair of gloves and put on her own.

‘The killer made a poor effort to bury him.’ She looked back in the direction of the path. ‘He’s only twenty metres or so from the path.’

‘He’s hardly even been buried.’ Father Michael lay under a layer of mud, the flatness of which suggested a shovel had been used.

‘His head and legs are on show and he’s been placed, or dumped, between two tree trunks.’ Sarah crouched above his head. His eyes stared towards the sky and his soft, flabby face leant to one side. Dark blood pooled along his jawline and neck. ‘It’s unlikely the killer wanted to leave him here. It’s too far from the path if he for some reason wanted him to be found, and if you want to genuinely bury someone, you’re not going to try between two trees; the roots will only let you dig so deep.’ The wind picked up, chilling her fingers through her gloves, but easing the smell wafting from the body. Sam nodded along with her observations, holding his hand over his nose. ‘There are no visible injuries to the face or neck. Take a look and see what you think.’

He crouched on the other side of the body. ‘It’s hard to tell without moving too much. Certainly nothing on the face.’ He stood up quickly and took a stumbled step back. She looked up, but didn’t ask if he was okay again.

Father Michael wore a cassock, long black vestments rarely seen as far west as England. Priests in the West preferred black shirts with the clerical ‘dog’ collar or even simple plain clothes, something Father Michael hadn’t been short of. She removed the mud from his chest as best she could.

‘Four puncture wounds to the stomach.’ Best practice suggested that every touch, every movement had the potential to erase essential forensic evidence. Her situation didn’t allow for best practice and she knew she’d have to move the body at some stage. His clothes were thick with blood and she pulled them back further, below the waist, and saw the most gruesome injury of all: stab wounds to the genitals.

She sprung back, stumbling nto a thick tree trunk, as a powerful queasy sensation built in her stomach. She turned one-eighty, covering her mouth, expecting a surge of bile to reach up any second. There were dead bodies and there were dead bodies. This would shock an officer with a lifetime of service; this would turn the stomach of the old school crowd and those tough as nails cops she’d read about and trained under. She held it in. Sam, however, was bent over, hand on a tree supporting him as he violently vomited.

She took a couple of deep breaths to settle her nerves. ‘You should stay over there while I look over the body.’ She’d brought him along to help, but if his stomach wasn’t up to the task, she’d rather he kept his distance.

‘Sorry. I’ve never seen anything like this. I didn’t think - ’

‘It’s okay.’

Neither had she. Puncture wounds to the left stomach area. Lacerations to the penis and testicles. Seeing his body twisted her stomach in knots. These savage injuries were the product of a disturbed mind. She imagined what the reaction would be at the nick. A case like this would have everybody wanting to help. A good man murdered in such abhorrent fashion would produce the best in her work colleagues, long hours making sure everything was covered, not to mention the camaraderie that came with it. She had none of those things. She was alone. She’d expected him back by now; most missing people came back within twenty-four hours. Most were back by the time she’d filled in the MisPer log – why not this one, dammit.
Why did this one have to die out here,
she thought.
What can I do on my own?

She paced, scared she was in too deep, that she was letting everyone down: the townsfolk, who would expect her to keep them safe, and Father Michael, who deserved justice. She wished she could tell them the truth.
I’ve got little over two years in; I don’t know that much, but I’m learning all the time.
No one wanted to hear that. They looked to her to answer all their questions and they’d look to her to find Father Michael’s killer. She wanted to run, but she was here now and he was there, looking up at her.

She needed to finish the job. She changed her gloves, then leant forward over his chest as her knees sank into the mud. The putrid smell wafted up her nose. She gripped the side of his arm and rolled him towards her, checking for wounds to the back. His wrists and arms were bound with tie wraps. The cassock was intact, but she couldn’t really know if there were any wounds without removing it, and doing so out here would cover more of the body in mud, leaving the forensics team with little hope of recovering anything. With the lack of light and the weight of the body, she could do little else tonight. She covered it with the dust sheet, knowing she’d have to move it soon. She’d planned on asking Sam to help, although his reaction suggested it wasn’t something he’d agree to or be capable of carrying out.

Tonight, he wanted to go out. John normally drank at home, with the TV clicker and his thoughts for company, shunning the rest of the townsfolk whilst they cavorted with their friends and families. A chill wind blew through the town. It was quiet out, not that he’d had many other evenings out in Sunbury to compare it to. The town’s mood had changed since Sarah’s announcement; the chipper post-storm attitude dulled to a heavy, melancholic temper. Yesterday morning, he’d seen people joyfully hugging and kissing each other after two weeks’ isolation. Today, they did the same in condolence, saying things like ‘at least we’ve got each other’ and ‘I’m sure he’ll be back soon. I just know it.’ There were no hugs or kisses of either kind for him.

He wrapped a red-chequered scarf around his neck and put on his battered brown sport coat. It was all the rage when he had bought it, but now it mostly sat indoors gathering dust along with its owner. It was made for nights out, and nights out didn’t come around too often anymore. He wore the same dark jeans he’d worn all week, hand-washed once after the search of St Peters. They were comfortable and he reasoned most people wouldn’t notice he’d worn them two days running. And if he didn’t mind, and they didn’t notice, there wasn’t any real problem.

Three other people remained in the Horse and Duck; all sitting in the booths along the far wall, underneath two framed paintings of animals grazing in the fields. The bottle slid down his hand. The landlord poured him a tall glass of tap water. Landlords tended to know when the punters had had one too many. He peeled John’s hand from the bottle of Jack and placed his fingers around the cold glass of water. Drunks were good for business until they got out of control. Some just slid onto the floor in fits of giggles, whereas others told all the other patrons they loved them, always have and always will. Some would gladly redecorate the lavatories an unpleasant shade of their own lunch. And then there were the violent ones. The Horse and Duck didn’t get many of those, maybe because its landlord knew how to spot and sort them out before it got that far, often by serving up a cool glass of water.

‘Get this down ya, mate. You’ll thank me in the morning.’ The glass didn’t leave the bar and John took another swig of JD.

‘Another straight Jack.’ John’s efforts to conceal his slurring were futile when faced with an experienced landlord.

‘How about a Jack and Coke to see you off?’

‘Yeah. Fine. One of those.’ It tasted weak, but he wasn’t in the mood to argue. A woman sat down next to him. Her short, black leather biker jacket was far too clean to have ever been on the open road and, even if it had, her long, white flowing skirt would have only gotten caught in the wheels. Leather doesn’t hide the life it’s led; each crease tells so much about the wearer. All this one said was ‘hung in the cupboard; waiting for the occasional night out.’

‘Same again for me.’ She motioned to the barman with her highball in hand. The landlord’s expression said, so much for the drunk leaving anytime soon. ‘You’re John, right?’

‘Yeah.’ Women didn’t strike up conversations with him and certainly not beautiful curly redheads. He decided sticking to monosyllabic mumbles may be his smoothest move.

‘You were at the search earlier, right?’ She leant back a little and spun her chair towards him.

‘Yeah.’ Playing it safe would only hold her interest for so long; one word responses were for the handsome, quiet types and something an ill-groomed computer geek wasn't likely to get away with. He’d have to take part in this conversation soon, no matter how it turned out.

‘And you didn’t say hello? I’m shocked and heartbroken,’ she said, placing her hands on her chest, not that he needed any encouragement to look in that direction. With all his efforts spent on reining in his slurring, he’d lost control of his eyes. ‘Well, aren’t you gonna make up for it now?’

‘Hello.’ He stared straight ahead, making a special effort not to look at her breasts, not realising this was even more awkward until she began waving her hands in front of his face.

‘Well, you’re just being plain rude this evening, aren’t you?’ The landlord passed her a mojito. The Horse and Duck wouldn’t have served mojitos a few years back, but even in small towns, the market wants what the market wants. Landlords disliked the invasion of ‘bar culture,’ but would happily serve mojitos, Jaegerbombs and various kinds of Orgasms if it meant being able to stay open.

‘I’m err, just kidding, hi, I’m John. But you seem to know that already.’ He hadn’t spoken to many girls in bars, something he was certain she’d noticed. He’d been a nerdy kid, back in the days before being a nerd was cool, before TV shows made thick-rimmed glasses and being an introvert fashionable. He’d been a thin, spotty, insular nerd. He’d stayed in on weekends playing computer games under a ceiling covered in Airfix kits, and not the snap together ones either; he was building them with superglue way before the age guidance on the box allowed. His only contact with girls during those tender years were through his one school friend’s porn magazines or when Miss Simms bent down to help him with a maths problem, something he didn’t need too often. Here he was at forty-four years old having his first conversation with a female stranger in a bar.

‘Suzanne,’ she said, helping him along.

‘You were on the search too, right?’

‘Yeah. I don’t know why I went. I’m not speaking ill of someone who may be,
you know,
but I never liked him much.’

‘He’s not dead; he’ll turn up. I hear missing people tend to return within twenty-four hours. I know what you mean though.’

‘About talking ill of the dead or not liking him much?’

‘A little of both.’

‘Really? I’d have picked you as the churchgoing type.’

‘Hardly. I got married in a church. We used to go as a family, every Sunday, but after, after we weren’t a family anymore, I dropped the habit.’ He looked through his glass. Talking about it never got easier. As much as he hated it, he always brought it up first. Something about mentioning it before he was asked made him feel a little better. Mentioning the divorce cut all the small talk out, and when he mentioned that he worked with computers, it promptly ended.

‘Great, I pick the guy who starts on about his divorce within the first few minutes.’

‘Sorry.’

‘It was a joke, hun. A joke? Lighten up.’ She pushed him. He enjoyed the touch, even if it was through two layers of clothing. ‘I’ve been there myself; I know what it’s like.’

‘So, what’s your problem with Michael?’

‘I just gave you a hint. He frowned upon my divorce, amongst other things, and wasn’t shy in telling me about it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not wishing him dead or anything, I’m just not going to cry myself to sleep about it, that’s all. And you?’

‘And I want another drink.’ The landlord was clearing tables on the other side of the pub. ‘When I came back, back from the city after the divorce, I spoke to him. I had questions that needed answering. He said everything was confidential, couldn’t tell me what I wanted to know. Asked if I still went to church and, when I told him I’d stopped, all he did was tell me to come back. I knew I was done with all that, but I kept going to see him anyway. There’s something comforting about it, that someone just cares, cares for caring’s sake. We talked about the divorce, Jenny, Josh - that’s my son - and it was nice for a while.’

‘A little like free therapy?’

‘A little like free therapy.’ He smiled. ‘After a while, I felt like I’d been taken in. Like I’d needed consoling so badly, I started to believe the things he said.’ She had a way of putting him at ease, an ease he hadn’t felt around a woman in a long time. He couldn’t relax around Jenny for at least the first year, always thinking she was too good for him and expecting to come home to her standing in the corridor with her bags packed. Suzanne’s dancing fingers on the crook of his elbow sent tingles through his arm.

‘So, what did you ask him that was so confidential?’

‘Things about this and that.’

‘Fine.’ She crossed her arms and pursed her bottom lip in the cutest way, like a kid without a lollipop at a sweets-on-a-stick convention. ‘It doesn’t matter now though, right? Divorce is common. It’s life’s way of telling you things just aren’t right and you need to go looking for your true happiness.’ She meant well, but sounded like one of those pop psychology guides found on the far corner of the academic shelf in Waterstones, the ones titled
Every end is a new start
or
Find your happiness now: I did
with a picture of a tanned, suited-up American on the cover, complete with a cheesy grin and a face you wouldn’t let near your kids.

‘Nah, all women are the same. They lie until they get their money, then they take it and run,’ he said, with a perfectly straight face, leaving her in doubt whether he was teasing, being deadly serious or letting the booze do the talking. Jenny hadn’t asked for any money, just custody of their son.

‘Oh come on now, you just haven’t met the right one.’ Page fifty-six of
Master your mind, enrich your relationships,
about a third of the page down. ‘Either way, divorce is tough.’