The Mushroom Man (11 page)

One of those big organiser bags hung over her shoulder. I ushered her into my little office and pulled out a chair for her. It was time to stop being Mr Nasty and let Mr Nice come out.

‘Sit down, Mrs Chadwick. I’m just making some tea; would you like a cup?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Right. Well, I’m DI Priest. What can we do for you?’

She held out a letter. I’ve come in response to this. It says…contact your nearest police station, so here I am.’

I read the letter twice. ‘Mmm,’ I said, several times, adding, when I’d digested the contents: ‘And what have you found at the library?’

She produced two books from the bag, with pictures of gaudy fungi on the covers. ‘These,’ she replied, fumbling with the pages. ‘In this one, page five is missing.’ She slid it in front of me. ‘And in this one, page eleven is gone.’

I riffled through the sheets. All the rest were there. The missing ones had been neatly sliced with a sharp blade.

‘These are from Heckley library, just down the road?’ I asked, pointing vaguely out of the window.

‘Yes, Inspector.’

‘Are you chief librarian there?’

‘Yes.’

I’d have to renew my membership. ‘Well, Mrs Chadwick, I haven’t a clue what it’s all about,’ I confessed. ‘But I know a good way of finding out.’

I picked up the telephone and dialled the number given for Inspector Peterson.

Father Declan Birr was the nearest that most of his flock would ever come to meeting a saint. All his waking hours were spent in worship of the Lord and the proclamation of His message. He did this in
a way the most ardent sceptic would have had difficulty faulting.

Father Birr had come up the tough way. The youngest of ten children, he overcame hardship and many tribulations to work his way through theological college. And he never forgot his humble beginnings. After stints in rural Ireland he worked in Calcutta, Mexico City and the East End of London. Always he believed in feeding the hungry body first; a full belly made for a receptive mind. He preached by example, and only tried to answer questions after they had been asked.

The phone call, received in the middle of that Tuesday afternoon, was nothing unusual. The problems of the people in the inner-city area of Sheffield where the Father now held office were little different from anywhere else in the world. Poverty, with the attendant bad housing and crime, knew no national boundaries. Another poor soul, he thought, reaching the end of its tether.

‘Of course you can come and see me, my child. As soon as possible, you say. Well, let me see. I can be in the church, that’s St Patrick’s, any time this afternoon. Shall we say…four o’clock? Will that be all right?’

He didn’t ask if the caller wanted to make a confession, or even if they were a Catholic. It wasn’t important. At this stage all that mattered was that another human being had made a cry for
help. The Father glanced up at his kitchen clock and slipped his shoes back on. As he left the house the electric kettle, with which he had intended making a cup of instant soup, came to the boil and clicked off.

The door to St Patrick’s had a character all its own. When it was ajar some freak of architecture caused an outrush of air, which would snatch the door from the hand of the hapless person who had just entered and slam it shut. The resultant reverberations would set the candle flames shimmering at the other end of the church, and columns of black smoke would spiral from them towards the roof.

Deep as he often was in supplication or meditation Father Birr could never pray undisturbed through a door slam. It was a source of amusement to him, and he privately regarded it as God’s early-warning system.

He was half expecting it, this time, for he was certain that the voice on the phone was a stranger. When it came he continued his devotions with practised serenity. The visitor would pause, then walk slowly through the nave towards the altar. The picture he would find there was all part of the healing process.

Father Birr said a final prayer asking for God’s guidance in the immediate task, kissed the altar cloth and rose to his feet. He took three steps
backwards and genuflected. Then he turned to meet his mystery caller.

Never shocked or surprised, he was not disturbed by the slightly built figure before him. It wore a trilby hat pulled down over the eyes, leaving the face in shadow. Slung diagonally across the shoulders was the strap of a large sports bag, with the name Adidas emblazoned on the end. The right arm disappeared into the bag. The hand was resting on the mechanism of the twelve-bore shotgun it contained, but the priest could not see that.

Father Birr smiled just enough to convey empathy but not pleasure. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘So glad you made it. I’m Father Birr, but most people call me Declan. Do you want to tell me your name?’

‘Yes,’ said the figure, almost apologetically. ‘I’m…the Destroying Angel,’ and a forefinger tightened around the trigger.

Declan Birr died instantly, the flash and the roar of the shotgun frozen in his mind for eternity. Behind him the candle flames shivered as the shock wave passed through them, and plumes of pollution streamed heavenwards.

Warning bells were clanging in the head of the detective superintendent who launched the inquiry into the death of Father Birr. ‘See if you can raise someone in the HOLMES unit,’ he told his sergeant as soon as he had the opportunity. ‘Ask them to input church, vicar, shotgun; that sort of stuff. There was another of these about three weeks ago, somewhere near Nottingham.’

The Home Office’s purpose-designed major inquiry computer software flicked silently through the millions of bits and bytes that represented the thousands of crimes, mainly murders, that were stored in its implacable brain. It recognised the key words quicker than a man could blow his nose and spewed out the case of Ronald Conway; investigating officer in charge: Chief Superintendent Raymond Tollis.

Fifteen minutes and four phone calls later Tollis was speaking to Oscar Peterson, asking to be picked up.

Eighty per cent of murder victims know their assailant, and the majority of cases are solved in the first forty-eight hours. After that time the odds grow longer. Unsolved murders are never taken off the books, they are just pushed to the back of the hie, to be forgotten by everyone except the people closest to them. DI Peterson was coming to terms with knowing that he might retire with the killer of Ronald Conway still free. He had decided that he could live with it.

Tollis’s phone call displeased him at first. He did not like the man and wanted to play no part in furthering his ambitions. Then his policeman’s instincts took over and his initial dismay was replaced by the familiar urge to be in the thick of the action.

A few minutes earlier he had donned a pair of old trousers, with the intention of doing an hour’s gardening before the light faded. It was part of his
self-imposed
Training for Retirement programme. Dilys noted the eagerness with which he changed back into his work suit and shoes. She pecked his cheek and told him not to wake her when he returned.

They went to the church first, having to ask directions from a woman at a bus stop. Peterson abandoned the car about fifty yards from the gate and followed in the Chief Superintendent’s wake. Over the wall, in the graveyard, a search party was methodically working its way over the ground in the gathering gloom.

Tollis ignored the lone reporter from the local radio station as they showed their IDs to the constable at the gate who was logging all visitors. Maybe there would be more when they came out. He’d better prepare some sort of statement, he thought. A short assertion that they were following certain lines of inquiry, combined with an appeal for witnesses. That should do it.

The young PC at the door glanced at their cards before holding it open for them. Every time it had slammed he felt that some vital clue was destroyed and he was responsible. Tollis strode straight through, but Peterson gave the youth a wink. At the front of the church three heads turned to examine the intruders from another force who might take the inquiry away from them.

Peterson hung back and let the chief do the talking. He was better at it. He heard himself described as ‘my righthand man’, followed by confirmation that Tollis and Andrew, the Sheffield super, had been at Staff College together. No, Andrew hadn’t applied to do the Senior Command Course this time. Everybody agreed that the killing was a ‘nasty job’.

‘Any minute now they’ll arrange a round of golf,’ the DI muttered to himself.

The body had gone, but the photographer was still there, in case the SOCOs needed him. Peterson wandered to where they were working. A pool of
blood, shaped like Australia with a smudged Gulf of Carpentaria, marked the spot where the priest had fallen. He looked in vain for Lake Eyre, but then remembered seeing a TV programme about it drying up.

Peterson turned to the photographer and jerked a thumb at the red stain. ‘What was he wearing?’ he asked.

‘His long black frock, sir, over a shirt and trousers.’

‘It’s called a cassock. Did you notice if it had any pockets in it?’

‘Pockets? No, I don’t think so, sir. Just slits in the side.’

‘Mmm, that’s what I’d have thought.’

The DI ran his expert gaze over the vicinity of the murder, for there was no doubt that it was murder, and he was certain that this was at least the second in the series. He scanned the altar – the holy of holies; the pulpit from which Father Birr would never again dispense his gentle wisdom; and the notice boards with the numbers of last week’s hymns.

It looked so innocuous, another person might have missed it. Lying on the front right-hand pew – where the bridegroom usually sits – was a piece of paper, with a prayer book resting on top so it could not blow away. Peterson walked across and bent over it. Without moving the book he could recognise the coloured illustration of a toadstool.

‘Over here, please,’ he said, catching the SOCO’s attention. He stood well back, with his hands in his pockets, so as not to contaminate the evidence. ‘That’s his trademark,’ he told the officer, ‘so give it everything you’ve got. I want to know his blood group, his skin, hair and eye colour’ – he counted them off on his fingers – ‘his DNA profile, his sperm count, fingerprints, chromosomes, what he had for breakfast, oh, and his telephone number.’ He stepped back in modest triumph to let them do their work.

‘What is it?’ asked the local super as the little group joined him.

‘Picture of a toadstool, sir,’ explained Peterson.

‘A toadstool?’

‘Actually, Andrew,’ interjected Chief
Superintendent
Tollis, anxious to assert his authority, ‘it’s called a destroying angel.
Amonita virosa
. Well spotted, Oscar.’

Get stuffed, Baldy! thought Peterson.

‘A destroying angel? Does that have any significance?’ asked Andrew.

‘Well, yes,’ expanded Tollis. ‘Our culprit uses that as his
nom de plume
. It would appear that the man we are looking for is some sort of religious fanatic.’

‘Holy Moses!’ exclaimed Andrew.

‘Quite possibly, sir,’ said Peterson.

They were all back at Don Valley nick when DC Trevor Wilson finally made telephone contact with Peterson.

‘Hi, guv, how’s it going?’

‘OK. What do you want?’ the DI asked.

‘Is it another one?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘Why didn’t you send for me?’

Peterson glanced up to see who was in earshot. ‘Because I’m just the bloody chauffeur,’ he hissed. ‘Did you want something, or is this all part of your campaign to drive me out of office?’

‘We’ve had a reply,’ stated the DC.

‘To what?’

‘The mailshot to libraries. A DI in Heckley left a message this afternoon saying his local librarian has found two books with pictures cut out.’

‘Brilliant! Where’s Heckley?’

‘Yorkshire, not far from Halifax. Do you want me to go there?’

‘When?’

‘Now.’

‘Is it an all-night library?’

‘Er, no, I don’t suppose it is.’

‘Then the morning will do. Big meeting first, seven o’clock. Then we’ll drive up to Eeh-
By-Heckley
together. And Trevor…’

‘What, guv?’

‘Just think of all those sheep!’

We hit Paul Darryl Lally’s house at seven a.m. on Wednesday morning. The seven o’clock knock on the door doesn’t have the same police-state overtones that the two o’clock one does, but it catches the suspect in the same degree of unawareness. He’s usually snug beneath his smelly sheets, and expecting to be there for at least another five hours. The criminal classes have no timetable imposed on them, so they invent their own. Their day starts at nightfall – daylight is for sleeping through.

I didn’t go in with the raiding party, but Nigel is still talking about the expressions on Mr and Mrs Lally’s faces when he shook them out of their sleep and cautioned them. They hadn’t heard the front door being sledgehammered, having indulged themselves in an evening of bondage and supermarket red wine, plus an odd snort of sherbet. First I saw of them was when they were led, bewildered and bleary-eyed, to the waiting police car. She was wearing an anorak over her nightdress, fluffy slippers and an air of disbelief. They looked as if they’d just escaped a direct hit on their home by a Scud missile.

Nigel watched them leave as if he were seeing his parents off on their holidays, then gestured me inside. He was grinning like a eunuch in a hurdle race.

‘Come and see the bed, boss,’ he said, leading me upstairs. Best offer I’d had in years. He opened a
door and stood back. ‘How about that!’ he declared.

In another room I could see Jeff Caton and the others. He saw me pass and said: ‘Come and look at this, boss.’

‘In a moment, Jeff.’

I walked past Nigel into the master bedroom. The bed was a magnificent brass job, all gleaming black enamel and gold. It nearly filled the room. The duvet cover was black satin, as were the pillows. The ceiling was mirrored and fitted with several spotlights. Nigel flicked them on and off. Dangling from each corner of the bed was a silken rope, made from red, black and white strands plaited together. A video camera stood on a tripod at the foot of the bed.

I looked across at Nigel with my best attempt at a bored expression on my face. ‘So what’s special?’ I asked.

We hadn’t gone in heavy-handed, but we’d taken a few experts with us – someone to take care of the dog; a sergeant, Frank Marriot, from the Porn Squad, and a photographer to make sure we didn’t muck up any unprocessed material. Jeff was in a room converted into a studio, with the photographer.

‘Cartier-Bresson, I presume,’ I said as I joined him. All the walls were painted white and there was a white sheepskin rug on the floor. A thirty-
five-millimetre
Minolta fixed to another tripod was pointing down at it.

‘Forensic,’ I said, indicating the rug. The photographer was inspecting the camera. ‘Any good?’ I asked.

‘Nothing special. Good enough, though.’

A voice in another room shouted, ‘Tell Charlie to come and look at this lot.’ I followed the sound into the third bedroom.

A loft ladder was in the lowered position and a pair of legs were visible at the top. ‘What lot?’ I asked.

Sparky withdrew from the aperture and looked down at me. ‘Hi, boss. It’s his dark room. There’s a light switch, but maybe we’d better let Lord Lichfield have the first look. Don’t want to spoil anything.’

Nigel wandered in to join us. ‘It’s a water bed!’ he announced.

‘I’m going back to the office,’ I told them. ‘You know what to do. And Dave…’

‘What, boss?’

‘Lock up when you’ve finished, but don’t let Nigel have the key. We don’t want him bringing that red-haired WPC from Halifax round and showing her the evidence. She might get seasick.’

Colour rose up Nigel’s neck like beetroot juice spreading across a napkin. ‘Who…how…who told you about her?’ he stammered.

I winked at him and tapped the side of my nose with a forefinger.

‘Is she a genuine redhead?’ asked Sparky.

‘Er, I’m not sure. I suppose so,’ he replied.

‘Yes, she is,’ I surmised, and fled down the stairs.

The custody officer had put Lally and his wife in separate cells. His face lit up when I walked in and asked him where they were. ‘Did they really have straps on the bed?’ he asked.

‘Not straps – silken ropes. I’ll talk to them later – let them stew for a few hours. Have they asked for a phone call?’

‘Didn’t want one. She claims her name is Fenella. Did you get a look at her?’

‘No, not really,’ I told him.

‘If I were guessing, I’d say she
had
to tie him to the bed.’

I went upstairs. As I walked into the office two voices cried: ‘Boss wants you.’ I did a stiff U-turn and walked straight out again. Superintendent Wood’s office is up another floor. I knocked and walked in. Two strangers were sitting opposite him, sipping coffee, and the two books from the library were on the desk.

‘Come in, Charlie, come in,’ Gilbert said. Flapping his hand between us he went on: ‘This is DI Oscar Peterson and DC Trevor Wilson, from Trent Division. DI Charlie Priest.’

I shook their hands. I have a bad habit when I shake hands. A few years ago one of my sergeants was convinced that the Freemasons were behind all the major crime in the world. According to him they made the Mafia look like a netball team at a garden party. In the course of his research he learnt the secret handshake.

While shaking hands in the normal manner you place your thumb in the middle of the back of the other person’s hand and wriggle it about. If they respond you say something really mundane, like ‘It’s a nice day.’

They reply: ‘Yes, and it will get nicer before it gets worse.’

Peterson’s thumb wriggled back and he said: ‘Not very warm out, is it?’

I replied: ‘No, and it will get cooler before it gets as warm as it is now, again.’

Gilbert gave me a funny look. ‘Oscar’s come about those photographs, Charlie. Can you look after him? I’ve a meeting at Division in an hour.’ Turning to Peterson he said: ‘Will you excuse me if I leave you with Charlie?’ They shook hands again and Gilbert put on his coat and left us in his office.

The DI from Nottinghamshire wore a bemused expression on his face. ‘You wouldn’t like to swap your super for that bald-headed bastard of ours, would you?’ he asked, quickly adding: ‘You didn’t hear that, Trevor.’

‘Hear what, guv?’

‘No thanks,’ I told him. ‘Gilbert’s one of the best. Mind you, the secret is to treat them right. Can I ask you a personal question?’

‘Fire away.’

‘Is Oscar your real name?’ From Trevor’s reaction I knew that nobody had ever dared ask this before.

‘Yes. My mother was a sucker for clarinet players.’

‘I thought he played the trumpet.’

‘Who?’

‘Oscar Peterson.’

‘Did he?’

I made myself a cup of Gilbert’s coffee and rejoined them. ‘Coming down a bit heavy on book vandals, aren’t we?’ I asked. ‘Or is there something else at the back of it?’

‘Books are expensive,’ Peterson told me. ‘And it leads to other things. Now he’s killed a couple of people as well.’