Absolution (25 page)

‘No, no family. If my memory serves me right, her mother committed suicide.’

‘Oh, that’s awful.’

Lorna shrugged. ‘One of those things. All we had was a letter left with a lawyer, and the lawyer insisted on being told if she was moved.’

‘Why? That’s not usual, is it?’

‘No idea. It wasn’t money; it was some kind of inheritance, but worth nothing. The orphanage made a point of checking that. It always stuck in my mind. It never happened with any other kid we had, this lawyer who tracked her every move. There was a rumour that all the lawyer had was a letter to contact another lawyer in Edinburgh.’

‘Can you remember the lawyer’s name, by any chance?’

Lorna shook her head. ‘Somebody in town, no doubt. Not the sort of thing I dealt with. Sean’s not in trouble again, is he? He was such a charismatic wee boy.’ She passed the photograph over to Costello. ‘It’s a shame they went their separate ways.’

‘If they did,’ Costello muttered to herself.

∗

‘Do you think priests spend their lives celibate?’ asked Mulholland.

‘They’re supposed to.’

They both took out their warrant cards as Anderson leaned on the warm brass button next to the great door. A plastic laminated sign stated:
Please ring bell between 9.30 a.m. and noon for attention. Kitchen opens at 12. 15 daily. No queuing, please, it annoys the neighbours. Please use bins for cigarettes.

Mulholland wrinkled his nose at the insistent smell of urine. ‘Lovely!’ he said.

The door was opened by a fresh-faced man with dark blond hair. He wore jeans and a faded denim shirt, and his hands were wet as if he had been interrupted doing housework. Despite the Roman collar, he bore more than a passing resemblance to David Cassidy.

‘Police,’ said Anderson, showing his warrant card. ‘I’m DI Anderson; this is DC Mulholland. Could we have a word with Father Thomas O’Keefe, please?’

The priest nodded, retreating behind the door, wiping his hands down the front of his jeans. ‘I’m Tom O’Keefe,’ he said. ‘Please come in. I’ve about finished the dishes.’

Mulholland’s eyes flickered at his boss on hearing the soft Irish brogue.

O’Keefe disappeared into the darkness of the vestibule, picking up a chipped mug of black tea and a half-eaten custard cream from the ledge that held the phone. Anderson noticed the chains securing the phone to the wall and the bars on the window. O’Keefe strode down the hall with a purposeful vitality at variance with the smell of vegetable soup and Mansion Polish. It was easy to see why he was a success. The priest was about to turn to say something when the main door, which had not yet swung closed, banged open again. McAlpine walked in, glaring at Mulholland, his
dark eyes rimmed with red, his face gaunt and wasted. For a moment, as he stood leaning against the doorframe, the faint sunlight casting his thin face in shadow, it ran through Anderson’s mind that O’Keefe must have thought he was having a visitation from the devil himself.

‘And this is DCI McAlpine,’ Anderson said. ‘Father O’Keefe.’

O’Keefe smiled. ‘From a DC to a DCI in three minutes; I must be dangerous.’ He started fishing in his pocket for a key, hip against the door, mug in hand, the remains of the custard cream between his teeth.

The office was small and dark, and smelled of stale dust. The wooden panelling had been scratched and engraved by a thousand penknives. A sloping ceiling, painted the same sickly yellow as the walls, was stained with dried blood where the unwary had stood up too quickly. An old wooden mantelpiece in the corner was piled high with books and papers. The chaos of the room seemed to be built around the central desk, on which the computer sat in isolation. A flash of light came from the corner, and McAlpine leaned forward to see a dumpy woman in jogging trousers and T-shirt, hair dyed bright red, using a photocopier that sat precariously on an old green-baize card table. She was standing with her hand out, impatient for the machine to finish, the bright light flashing, highlighting the slight thickening of hair on her chin.

‘This is Leeza,’ said O’Keefe, by way of formal introduction. ‘I’ve forgotten your second name, Leeza.’

‘McFadyean. M small C, F-A-D-Y-E-A-N,’ she said. ‘Just give me two minutes.’

O’Keefe had moved a pile of blankets from the seat behind the computer and was now standing with them, arms out, waiting for divine intervention to clear a space. Leeza
finished her work, the paper still warm and curling, and plucked the blankets from the priest as she went past.

‘I’ll put them in the laundry.’

O’Keefe sat down, experience reminding him to bend his head. Anderson realized that the priest was a smaller, slighter man than he had first thought. Nobody spoke until Leeza had left the room, and McAlpine slowly closed the door with his foot, making sure nothing could be heard from the other side.

‘You are, no doubt, aware that there’s been a series of murders in the area. As part of our usual routine, we are flinging our net slightly wider, trying…’ Anderson was placatory.

The priest held up his hand. ‘I appreciate what you’re saying, DI Anderson. I’m not daft. I know why you’re here, and I don’t have a problem with it. In some ways, I was wondering why it took you so long. You’ll be wanting to talk about Arlene, I suppose.’

‘And what can you tell us about her?’

‘Not much, really.’ O’Keefe shrugged lightly. ‘We’d put her on a rehab programme, and an adult literacy course. Well, we were
trying
to get her on one. She had problems with reading.’

‘Did you know her well yourself, Father?’ Anderson asked mildly.

‘I’d met her, but I would never say I knew her well,’ the priest answered. ‘This place may look deserted at the moment, but once the doors open dozens – hundreds – of people are in and out. For sure, I knew her name, so when I heard the poor girl had been murdered, I checked on our involvement with her. Your first thought when such a thing happens is whether there might have been anything you could have done…’

‘So, a literacy programme – who would have been her initial contact here?’

‘It depends what you mean by contact. I suppose her social worker or her GP would have referred her. It might even have been one of the outreach workers. But, if my memory serves me correctly, she came here of her own accord. Was there not a kid involved in all this?’

‘Yes, she has a son, in care.’

O’Keefe nodded thoughtfully. ‘And I suppose he will stay in care. Our clients come here because they have decided to change, to make a positive change. I say
they,
because nobody can do it on their behalf. So we welcome people like Arlene, and do what we can to help them to help themselves.’

The three policemen remained silent.

‘So whoever it was first answered the phone,’ said O’Keefe, ‘could have been her point of contact. And I don’t know who that was. I’m sorry.’

‘What about the deliveries you get from the Save the Children shop?’ Mulholland asked, abruptly changing the subject, provoking glances from his two companions.

‘Sorry?’

‘Did Lynzi Traill ever deliver stuff from the shop in Byres Road? You do take the stuff from there?’

We’re always glad to take whatever they are unable to sell, certainly.’ O’Keefe looked totally nonplussed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘I saw her photograph in the paper, but I don’t think I ever set eyes on her, never knew her name. It meant nothing to me.’ He shrugged, sounding truly sorry. If he was a liar, he was a good one.

Anderson looked past him to the wall behind, letting time pass. Silence was good for putting a witness slightly out of their comfort zone. Anderson studied the photographs hanging haphazardly along a length of the mahogany panelling,
all framed differently, some in colour, some black-and-white, and some just photocopies of articles in the local paper. Most were of people doing strange things, obviously for charity. Anderson moved closer for a good look, and shuddered. Somebody looked as though they had raised money by sitting in a bath of worms.

He quickly asked O’Keefe, ‘Elizabeth Jane Fulton. You knew her, though?’

O’Keefe looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m not sure I do – did.’

‘Maybe this will jog your memory.’ Mulholland pulled out a photograph of Elizabeth Jane and handed it over.

O’Keefe took his time looking before handing the picture back. ‘I still don’t recall this girl. I’m sorry. She was another victim, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

McAlpine sighed as if bored. ‘So it would come as a surprise that her family thought you knew her?’

O’Keefe’s blue eyes flitted from McAlpine to Anderson. Anderson’s eyes stayed steady.

‘Can you explain that?’ asked McAlpine.

‘No, I can’t. It is as I say.’ He bit his lip. ‘I don’t know why anybody would think that.’

Anderson cleared his throat. ‘How well did she know the Reverend Shand? He was her minister. He’s on your committee, isn’t he?’

‘Andrew? Yes, he is. He’s on holiday at the moment. Majorca. Or Minorca, would it be? He’s a great birdwatcher.’

‘Maybe you would like to tell us where you were on Sunday night, Monday morning,’ McAlpine asked, looking at Mulholland, instructing him to take notes.

‘I would have to think. Sunday night, now… after Mass I went to the Western, visiting a friend. Then home, via Porters for a drink, Diet Coke because I was taking
communion for a colleague up in Rose Street. That was at eight, so I would be home by half nine.’ O’Keefe shrugged but less confidently now.

‘And you were home alone in the small hours of the morning?’

‘Priests usually are.’

‘Some priests, Father O’Keefe,’ retorted McAlpine.

‘Not funny, DCI McAlpine,’ said O’Keefe, offended.

‘McAlpine carried on without apology. What’s the set-up here?’ McAlpine was prowling round what space there was in the room. ‘How is it going?’

O’Keefe had switched to friendly mode again. ‘We’re a registered charity, and we’ve been pretty well funded, so far.’ He touched wood. ‘We got lottery money to convert the church building to its current use. And routine maintenance is done at little more than cost, almost pro bono, by a local firm. It’s their way of supporting us, and it makes a big difference. As far as running the place goes, the basic organization works by a rota system. I don’t have a parish of my own, so I’m here full time, and local clergy of all denominations come in and help out.’

O’Keefe turned and viewed the gallery of pictures behind; the pride in his achievement was unmistakable. ‘That’s me, and there’s Rabbi Shaffer. That’s Reverend Shand…’ He pointed to a photograph of a tall thin-faced man in a dog collar – definitely too old to be Christopher Robin. ‘And Father Flynn, Reverend William Macdonald.’ Two rotund, elderly men were clowning around, one on a space hopper, the other on a skateboard. Below them was a page from a local paper, a cheery line-up photo of a few old crocks playing football.

‘Have you all been here since the Phoenix opened?’

‘Apart from George. He’s been around for ages, but he
became official two, three months ago?’ O’Keefe sighed into a smile. ‘His brother died recently, so he found time on his hands. Otherwise I don’t know much about his personal circumstances.’

McAlpine leaned forward, speaking softly. ‘Father O’Keefe, could you tell us what you do know about his personal circumstances? Gossip and speculation are all we’ve been getting.’

O’Keefe bit his lip, as if reluctant to say much. ‘As far as I know, George came down here after his brother died. Alasdair had been struggling with things for a while and finally took his own life – George has never told me the details, and I have never asked. Those circumstances drove him to stay here and “live in the real world”, as he put it.’

‘And how does he fit in? He comes from such a strict faith.’

‘I was worried about that when he applied to join us. You do tend to think that anybody in the West Highland Presbyterian Kirk will be totally intolerant of all we are trying to do. But then’ – O’Keefe smiled charmingly – ‘that’s just us being intolerant of them. But George is fine. He knew he needed to get out into the big wide world. It couldn’t have been easy for him to come down here after his home – the land his family had farmed for years – was sold. But I don’t suppose there was anything to keep him there, with everything gone.’ The priest nodded. ‘He’s a good man, George.’

McAlpine said. ‘There’s nothing else. We’ll leave you to get on.’

Anderson looked at his notebook. ‘There is one more thing,’ he said as O’Keefe got to his feet. ‘Cooking goes on here, on the premises. You use knives. None have gone missing?’

O’Keefe straightened up and bumped his head on the ceiling. ‘No. They’re kept locked up in an old glass display cabinet. All the knives are numbered with Dymo tape for security. Two of the guys who make the soup were in the Catering Corps, so they keep the knives very sharp. But there have never been any missing.’

Where are the keys kept?’

‘On a hook, beside the cabinet.’ O’Keefe seemed not to notice any lack of logic.

By the time Costello left Lorna Shaw’s flat it was nearly one O’clock. She decided not to go back through the Clyde Tunnel and instead turned left to Pollok Park and the Burrell in search of some peace and quiet and a green field. She had been born a south-sider, in Mosspark, less than half a mile from here physically, but socially it could have been the other side of the moon.

She allowed her head to roll like a puppet’s as her Corolla bounced over the sleeping policemen on the boundary road. She went past Dumbreck Riding School and the fat hairy little ponies grazing in the drizzle. Then past the mounted police stables, where the horses were bigger, much more shiny. By the time she reached the car park the drizzle had stopped and the sun was thinking about coming out. Two tourist coaches were disgorging their load at that precise moment. One quick glance at
Degas’s Jockeys in the Rain
and then they’d start to queue at the café. She got out of the car and went to sit on the fence instead, listening to the steady grind and grunt of two Highland cattle grazing near by.

She took the envelope from her duffel-coat pocket and opened it, thinking she was beginning to understand Sean, except that she couldn’t get the Trude thing to fit. Had they been together, and had she left him while he was in prison?
Or were they together and seeking revenge on society? Either would fit Batten’s profile. She could match Lorna’s Sean with the Sean from the file. But she could not reconcile that with the evidence of Malkie Steele’s body and the pulpy mess Sean had made of it. She watched as one of the cows lifted her head to regard her through plum-brown eyes. Costello looked back, realizing how much she and Sean had in common, except that Sean had been surrounded by friends and staff who held him in genuine affection. Somebody had always looked out for his welfare, which was more than she could say for herself.