Forgive Me Father. Paul Gitsham
out that if Rodney Shaw had started using drugs again, then the shame of letting everyone down might have been enough for him to commit murder, but even he hadn’t sounded convinced.
But something still didn’t feel quite right. In his mind’s eye, Warren could picture the crime scene, the harsh lights bringing the horrifying tableau into sharp relief. What was he missing? What clue was there in front of him that he just couldn’t see?
Or was he missing anything? Perhaps it just his tired, overworked imagination seeing shadows where there were none. Warren knew that proximity to death – especially violent death – tended to make him morose; that had only worsened since the events of the summer. Was that all it was? The counsellor that he’d seen in the immediate aftermath of Gary’s death had warned him to look out for the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Was this one? The dreams that had plagued him the night before were unpleasant, but understandable. Everyone had bad dreams, didn’t they, especially after what he’d just seen? And the frequency of the dreams that had started in the summer had lessened in recent months. He’d mention them at his next meeting with Occupational Health, but he didn’t think it was worth requesting an earlier appointment.
Regardless, a nagging feeling in his gut wasn’t enough to warrant spending any more time on the death and so Warren decided that first thing in the morning, he’d follow Grayson’s instruction to close the case and pass it over to the coroner as a probable suicide. Then he could complete the paperwork so that he was ready for whatever came across his desk next.
With his mind made up, he’d turned off his computer, grabbed his coat and headed into the damp, misty evening. A quick call home revealed that Susan was ploughing through a stack of marking that she wanted to finish that evening, and so Warren had offered to stop off at the local Indian takeaway.
The dining room table was covered with GCSE controlled assessments when he arrived home. As Susan cleared them some space, Warren went into the kitchen and distributed the food. He was midway through pouring a well-deserved beer when the lights went out.
‘Shit,’ came Susan’s surprised voiced from the dining room.
The unexpected transition to pitch black also caught Warren by surprise and he froze. A few seconds later the sound of glugging beer turned into the sound of dripping liquid as the glass frothed and overflowed.
‘Shit,’ echoed Warren as he tried to place the bottle back on the counter without knocking anything off.
When the lights didn’t return after a few more seconds, Warren turned slowly to take stock of the situation; even the ever-present hum from the fridge-freezer was suddenly noticeable by its absence.
‘It looks as though the whole street is out,’ called Susan. ‘Not even the street lights are on.
By now, Warren’s eyes were starting to adjust to the sudden darkness. Faint, grey shadows slowly took form as the dim moonlight seeped through the slats in the still open kitchen blinds.
‘I think I left my mobile in my handbag, can you use yours?’ called Susan from the other room. Feeling foolish for forgetting that his phone was essentially a torch, Warren fumbled in his jacket pocket. Nothing. It must still be in his overcoat, hanging in the hallway.
The faint moonlight didn’t penetrate this far into the house and Warren found himself reaching out with his hands, shuffling slowly like a mummy from a childrens’ cartoon. They’d lived in the house for nearly four years, but he couldn’t for the life of him recall how many steps there were to the coat pegs. The flashing red light on the alarm system did nothing to help him judge the distance.
Or see Susan’s book bag at the bottom of the stairs.
After picking himself up and reassuring Susan that he was OK, Warren finally located his coat, and then his phone.
The light from its screen was dazzling, and Warren had to blink several times before he could focus enough to locate the icon that turned the phone’s camera flash into a powerful torch.
‘It’s a good job I got takeaway or we’d be eating cold baked beans like cavemen,’ joked Warren.
‘Well, unless we want to eat in the dark, we’d better find some candles soon, my phone battery is only on 10 per cent.’
Warren checked his, and found it wasn’t much better.
It took a couple of minutes of fumbling around before Susan located the box of candles left over from Christmas dinner at the back of a cupboard. Fortunately, she kept a box of matches in her school pencil case.
‘I knew there was a reason I married a science teacher, instead of a geography teacher,’ teased Warren.
‘I assumed it was the leather elbow patches that put you off geographers,’ replied Susan as she lit the candles. She reached around the table and gave Warren’s backside a playful squeeze. ‘Eat up quickly before the power comes back on, you know how candlelight makes me feel.’
Warren said nothing as he fumbled for his phone.
‘How could I be so stupid,’ he muttered, ignoring his wife’s flirting.
No signal. The power cut must have been quite extensive to have also taken out the local cell-tower.
Ignoring Susan’s questions, Warren scrolled through his contacts as he made his way to the hall phone. Fortunately, the local telephone exchange still had power and Tony Sutton picked up on the second ring.
‘You OK, boss? Have you lost your mobile or something?’
‘Have you got electricity?’
‘Yeah, course, I live in Middlesbury not Cornwall.’
Warren ignored the man’s attempt at humour.
‘I need you to check your email for Andy Harrison’s scene inventory and read it out for me.’
Still confused, Sutton nevertheless complied.
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s everything that’s listed. Andy’s pretty thorough, you know that. What’s this all about, Chief?’
Warren explained his flash of inspiration. There was a silence at the end of the phone before Sutton spoke again.
‘You’d better call Grayson and let him know. He needs to be the one to escalate the death to murder.’
Judging from the time displayed by the flashing clock on the oven, the electricity had been restored some hours previously, at about 1 a.m. A statement from the electricity company had been read out on the local radio as Warren drove into the office at 6 a.m., apologising to the thousand or so customers affected by a fault at the local substation.
Warren was half contemplating writing a letter of thanks.
‘Sorry I didn’t spot it sooner,’ said Warren.
Grayson waved a hand. ‘Nobody else did. So either somebody was with him when he set himself on fire, holding a light, or he was set alight by persons unknown? There’s no way he could have done it himself?’
Warren shook his head firmly.
‘The last reliable sighting of Father Nolan was after dark and there was hardly any moonlight. I can just about accept that he could find his way to the chapel, then let himself into the undercroft, but it would have been pitch black down there. There are electric lights, but they were turned off at the switch at the top of the stairs. I can’t believe that he would have gone down there, set up the chair, then gone back up the stairs, locked himself in, switched off the lights, come back downstairs, doused himself in petrol