NO AGE TO DIE: The release of a dangerous prisoner leads to murder (DCI John Blizzard Book 9) by John Dean (free ebook reader for android .TXT) 📗

Chapter seven

Built during the sixties, St John’s Church stood within its own grounds – the tidy grassed areas and well-pruned apple trees in stark contrast to the shabby side streets which surrounded them. As Blizzard and Colley entered the building and crossed the main church, the inspector stood for a moment and surveyed the plain glass window with its image of a tank in front of the Cross, on which stood a soldier in grey uniform pointing a gun. Looking closer, he realised that there was a small figure in the background, watching proceedings. From a distance, it resembled Gandhi.

‘I prefer stained glass.’ The inspector shook his head. ‘And I still don’t get it.’

‘It’s something to do with peace, apparently,’ said Colley.

‘That’s gone well then. Bloody do-gooders.’

‘Surely well-meaning members of the community?’ said the sergeant. He shot his boss a sly look. ‘If Arthur hears you talking like that, you’ll be back on the diversity course.’

Blizzard scowled. The last time he had attended such a course, the instructor had threatened to throw him out for, as she phrased it in her feedback form, ‘poisoning the banquet’ with his attitude. Now, as the detectives headed down a short corridor leading to a suite of offices, Colley thought that he would not like to be in the vicar’s shoes.

Having found the Reverend Henry Sanders in his office, it did not appear that the clergyman was particularly keen about being in his shoes either as he sat behind his desk and nervously eyed the officers. He looked, thought the sergeant, like a man with all the cares of the world upon his bony shoulders rather than one filled with the joyful Christian message. A wiry, short man in his early fifties, Sanders had thinning, greasy receding black hair and his forehead was criss-crossed with wrinkles and glistened with beads of sweat, which he occasionally dabbed with a white handkerchief. His eyes conveyed the sense of a haunted man. The detectives were intrigued.

‘So,’ said the chief inspector, an edge to his voice, ‘I ask again, Mr Sanders, how did a baseball bat from your church end up in the hands of the person who killed Jamie Holdsworth?’

‘I have to be careful what I say,’ muttered the vicar.

‘Not to me, you don’t. In case you had forgotten, a teenage boy has had his skull beaten in. I ask yet again, can you explain how the bat from your storeroom got into the hands of the killer?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the wretched clergyman. ‘Really I don’t.’

‘But you did know that the plan was for Albert Macklin to be cared for at your hostel? And, presumably, you knew what he had been in prison for?’

‘Of course, I did.’ The vicar stared at the floor and refused to look at the inspector. ‘I know exactly what Albert Macklin is.’

‘And you think it was OK to–’

The office door opened and in walked a tall man, unannounced and without having knocked.

‘That will be all, Chief Inspector,’ he said. The voice was that of a well-educated man, smooth and confident. ‘The reverend has answered enough questions.’

‘Says who?’

‘I do,’ said the man.

‘And you are?’

‘My name is Edgar Rose-Harvey. I am the Chair of our church council. Any questions about St John’s should be addressed to me and not to Mr Sanders. I demand to know what is happening here.’

Colley surveyed the new arrival with interest. Rose-Harvey, the sergeant reckoned, could not yet be aged thirty but he had the presence of someone much older. His brown hair was cut short, clean, without a strand out of place, and his eyes were a deep piercing blue. A slim, athletic man, he was dressed in black – jacket, polo-necked sweater, sharply-pressed trousers and shiny shoes. The overall impression was of a young man in control of the situation. Blizzard would not like that, thought Colley, with a slight smile.

He was right, the inspector didn’t like it and he stood up and moved to stand within inches of Rose-Harvey, looking deep into his eyes.

‘This is a murder investigation,’ he said. ‘And in murder investigations, nobody demands anything of me.’

For a moment, Colley wondered if Rose-Harvey would try to front it out but instead he averted his eyes, shrugged, and sat down next to the vicar. Colley was surprised to see that the clergyman had started to tremble.

‘I apologise,’ said Rose-Harvey. His voice was less confrontational. ‘I was forgetting myself. These are disturbing times, as I am sure you will appreciate.’

‘Too right they are.’ Blizzard sat down again, satisfied that control was his again. ‘And this church is one of the things that disturbs me the most. I want some answers and I want them now.’

‘Of course,’ said Rose-Harvey.

Colley watched him with an increasing sense of fascination. Some people have that magnetic, mesmeric quality which means you cannot take your eyes off them, he thought, and Edgar Rose-Harvey was one of them.

Blizzard’s expression made it clear that he was not feeling the same fascination. A man who jumped to conclusions much quicker than his younger colleague, the inspector had decided within seconds that he disliked Edgar Rose-Harvey.

‘So, how can I help you?’ asked Rose-Harvey.

‘Well, for a start, I want to know how a baseball bat from your church store ended up being used to stove in a young man’s head?’

‘It’s a good question, Chief Inspector.’ Rose-Harvey looked at the vicar. ‘Was the store cupboard locked, Henry?’

‘I don’t know. That is, I’m not sure… it was supposed to be.’

‘Yes, well, I hope for your sake that it was,’ said Rose-Harvey. ‘Because we’ve told you about that before.’

The vicar seemed to cower back into his seat.

‘I also want to know about Albert Macklin,’ said Blizzard. ‘Why you agreed to take in a