in the early hours of the morning, while living off a diet of caffeine and cigarettes.
Michael looked at his reflection in the window next to him, which overlooked the station’s car park.
He looked terrible, even by his own standards.
Dark circles created the illusion of crescent moons under his brown eyes, and the corners of his mouth were turned down in a fixed sorrowful pout.
He returned his gaze to his desk, which was cluttered and stacked high with paper and files. There were dirty coffee-ring marks on the wood and month-old dust congregating around his computer monitor and keyboard.
Michael hated computers.
Computers were for the ones who were no more than a number on the payroll system. Michael was more than that and he knew it, and he had no time for modesty. Not in this job.
He was disturbed from his thoughts by the vibrating of his mobile phone in his pocket.
He glanced at the caller ID.
Claire Winters. So much for not locking horns with her today.
He sighed and tried to ignore it. After the call failed to divert to his voicemail, he decided to answer it.
‘Where have you been, Diego?’
In a bad mood, as per-fucking-usual…
‘Sorry, Guv, I’ve been out of the office for a bit and I’ve been ignoring my phone, trying to catch up on work.’
‘Well you’d better pull your finger out your arse and get down here. I’m on Ryder Way, St Mary’s church.’
Michael paused, rubbing his eyes hard as a headache began to emerge, crossing over his forehead. The blood in his ears began to pound. ‘What’s going on?’
‘We found a body.’
‘Claire, I’m working on the Hargreaves case, do I really need to be down there?’ He heard her sharp intake of breath and cursed himself in his head.
That was not the attitude to show the Guv right now, or ever.
She could bust your balls just by giving you one icy look from her emotionless blue eyes. He awaited the inevitable lashing of her tongue.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’ve had a rough morning. Don’t be another pain in my arse.’
Michael paused. ‘Where have you been anyway?’
‘It’s…it’s personal.’
‘Something wrong? You can tell me.’
She paused, part of her wanting to offload her frustrations of the morning, but then her resolve hardened. ‘What are you, my therapist? Just drop what you’re doing and get down here.’
He bristled at her words, his shoulders locking up. He lowered his voice so the next words out of his mouth came in a forceful hiss. ‘I can’t just drop everything. I’ve been working flat out and I’m this close,’ he said, miming a small distance between his thumb and finger, despite knowing she couldn’t see, ‘from getting the lead we’ve been after. The Hargreaves case needs—’
‘Fuck the Hargreaves case,’ she cut in, her patience waning. ‘I’ll reassign it to Matthews.’
Michael was silent, his face twisted. His eyes wandered back to the picture on the wall he’d studied earlier.
Gavin Hargreaves was a local thug, dealer and complete thorn in his side.
He was a man who’d been in and out of police custody for years, served a prison sentence for a drug-related offence, but this hadn’t deterred him. He carried on with his little enterprise, controlling Haverbridge’s seedy underbelly, and he’d just been accused of a serious assault.
Trouble was there were no witnesses and little evidence of Hargreaves’s involvement. If they wanted Hargreaves away for a long time, they had to gather more evidence than they had already but it was a shitty investigation.
No one would put the finger on Hargreaves, such was his power and the fear he exerted over those in his pocket. Even local gangs feared him.
Michael had been working the Hargreaves case for two months now and had no intention of letting it go to anyone, especially not DI David Matthews.
Claire sensed his anger in the silence. She let him stew a few more moments before she gave a half smile.
‘Trust me, Diego, you’ll want to take this one. Right up your street.’
‘You’ve lost me,’ he said, beginning to lose patience.
‘When was the last time you went to church?’
‘Why?’
She paused then said, ‘The deceased was a priest.’
Michael had left the station as soon as he’d ended the phone call with Claire. The roads had been unusually empty for that time of day but the closer he’d driven towards the crime scene at St Mary’s, the heavier the traffic had become.
The hacks and ghouls are already out in full force, he thought as he flashed his warrant card at officers who waved him past the police tape.
A Beds and Herts Scientific Services Unit van came into view and Michael saw a SOCO clad in a white hooded bodysuit, police evidence bag in hand, standing next to it.
Michael exchanged a nod with him as he approached and entered the church.
He found Claire was waiting for him in the entrance.
Her ice-blue eyes studied him from head to toe with no subtlety, as she held out a sealed Tyvek paper suit for him, with overshoes and a face mask.
‘Have you eaten today?’ Claire said.
Michael stopped changing and eyed her suspiciously. Her own face mask was hanging below her chin, the hood of her suit covering her hair. Her face was serious.
He half laughed. ‘I didn’t know you cared.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself. I just don’t want you spewing up and contaminating my crime scene.’
Michael zipped up the bodysuit. ‘Nothing I’ve ever seen in this job has ever made me sick. Not even close.’
Claire’s mouth twitched and she gestured over her shoulder. ‘We’ll see… You’ve never seen anything like this before.’
She raised her hand for him to walk with her before he could ask what she’d meant.
‘The deceased is sixty-two-year-old Father Malcolm Wainwright. The pathologist thinks the time of death occurred within the last two hours. Photography and videoing have been done and the SOCOs finished twenty minutes ago with not a lot to show for it. I’ve got officers on a house-to-house as we speak and the press crawling up my arse.’ She paused. ‘Fucking parasites.’
Michael stared ahead over the tops of the pews.
There were four large lamps illuminating the area near the altar and he knew that was where the body lay.
As he drew closer he caught the glimpse of blood spatters on the flagstone floor, just before they turned into the aisle. He glanced back at Claire.
‘We think that’s the deceased’s. It’s possible these drops of blood fell from the murder weapon, which,’ she said, before he could speak, ‘we haven’t recovered yet.’
‘What was the cause of death?’
Claire stopped in her tracks. ‘That’s anybody’s guess right now, given the state of the body.’
‘What do you mean?’