Forgive Me Father. Paul Gitsham
was excited. Warren and Sutton hurried over to her desk.
‘They picked up his licence plate on numerous ANPR cameras, as well as several CCTV cameras that evening.’
On one of her monitors a detailed street map of Middlesbury was marked with the location of the abbey and Shaw’s flat. Blue dots showed the location of junctions with working cameras.
‘This is his journey to the abbey after he was called on his mobile phone.’ A red dotted line appeared on the map, joining up several blue dots, each of which had a time stamp next to it.
‘Well, despite what he claimed when he was interviewed, he clearly wasn’t home in front of the news when his phone went off,’ said Sutton immediately.
Sure enough, the red dotted line started in the south of the town, with the first sighting of the car on an ANPR camera three and a half miles south east of his flat, eight minutes after he received the call about the fire.
Warren squinted at the map. ‘I can’t see any way that he could have got to that part of town from his house without going past at least one camera. What time did his car arrive there?’
‘He drove there immediately after work.’ Richardson clicked the mouse and an irregularly shaped area of the map was shaded in grey. ‘All we can say, location-wise, is that his car stayed somewhere within this area for almost the next five hours, from 5.19 p.m. until seven minutes after he was phoned at five past ten.’
‘It’s a pretty large area,’ said Sutton. ‘We’ll need to narrow it down. Mobile phone records?’
‘He’s clearly lied about his whereabouts that night, I’d say that is enough justification for a warrant,’ said Warren.
‘How far is it from the abbey?’ asked Ruskin, who’d just arrived back in the office.
‘The one-way system increases the journey length, but assuming quiet traffic that time of night, then by car it would take between thirteen and eighteen minutes at normal speed, depending on where he started from within this area. But we know that he didn’t use his own car, as it wasn’t spotted on cameras again until after he was called back because of the fire,’ said Richardson.
‘See if any of the other cars that were in that area are related to Shaw,’ instructed Warren. ‘He could have borrowed a friend’s car. Check if his wife has her own car.’
‘I’ll also get onto the bus companies and cab firms and see if they picked up Shaw,’ said Richardson.
‘That’s if he used public transport,’ cautioned Richardson. ‘It’s only between 1.2 and 1.6 miles as the crow flies and Shaw’s a pretty fit man. He would have been able to easily cover that distance between the fire being set and his car re-appearing on the cameras.’
‘But why did he park his car there?’ asked Ruskin.
‘Presumably he didn’t want to park too near the abbey in case he was spotted, and his flat was too far to walk from,’ said Richardson.
‘Probably, but why here specifically? And what was he doing in the almost five hours between him driving there and going to the abbey?’ asked Sutton.
‘Location data from his mobile phone should help narrow down his exact position. In the meantime, get Rachel to compile a list of local businesses within that area. Knowing his proclivities, he could have spent some time in a local bookie or had some Dutch courage in the pub.’
It had been over five days since Father Nolan had been set on fire. Unusually, the murder was still being reported as a suicide, with limited information released to the public. The decision to do so had been justified on the grounds that the killer probably assumed that they had got away with it, and would therefore not be on their guard. Hopefully, this would increase the likelihood that they would slip up. How much longer the subterfuge would be allowed to continue was a decision well above Warren’s paygrade.
However, although Warren and Grayson ran a tight ship at Middlesbury, the number of seconded officers involved was rising rapidly, increasing the risk of a leak that the death was suspicious. And if the investigators themselves didn’t let something slip, how long would it be before members of staff and residents at the abbey started to question the ongoing presence of so many police and forensics officers?
In those five days, a lot had been accomplished, but after the first flurry of activity, the team was starting to get into a routine. It would be unfair to say that they were in a slump, but Warren knew that they could end up that way if he wasn’t careful. Fortunately, this morning’s briefing had two new, exciting leads.
Warren passed over to Moray Ruskin.
‘This is Lucas Furber, a new potential suspect. On January the ninth he gained entry to the abbey grounds and threatened both Deacon Baines and Rodney Shaw. He was clearly intoxicated and may have been suffering from mental health problems.
‘Significantly, he seems to have something against religion, specifically Christianity, although we have no evidence either way about his views on other religions. Witnesses reported that he was shouting about them all being “hypocrites”. It is also claimed that he accused them of “knowing about it” and “doing nothing” and telling them to “seek forgiveness”. We don’t know as yet what he was referring to.’
‘Are we sure it’s specific to religion and not just authority generally, or the world at large?’ asked Hutchinson.
‘Priests wearing dog collars seem to be a specific trigger for him. Apparently, the confrontation in the abbey grounds escalated significantly when Baines arrived on the scene – the arresting officers have confirmed that his dog collar was visible. A minister at the Middlesbury Outreach Centre told me that Furber seemed uncomfortable when he wore his collar, and that he too had been abused by Furber when he was under the influence. Again, he said that he would “burn in hell.”’
‘We should look into his past and see if there are any links between him and some of these cases of abuse that are becoming public knowledge,’ said Sutton.
Was it Warren’s imagination, or did he look satisfied that his stated distrust of the church might actually be justified?
Warren gave himself a mental shake, ashamed at even thinking such a thing.
‘Well, he certainly sounds like someone we should be interviewing,’ said Richardson. ‘Any idea where he is?’
‘Unfortunately, no,’ replied Ruskin. ‘The last reported sighting was early January, when he was kicked out of his accommodation. Assuming he’s still in Middlesbury, he’s either sleeping rough or using one of the shelters. I’ve organised a team of community support officers and homeless outreach volunteers to try and track him down.’
‘Excellent work, Moray,’ said Warren. ‘Next up, the groundsman Rodney Shaw. He was already a person of interest given his previous convictions and unconfirmed reports that he was heard arguing with Father Nolan. That wasn’t much more than gossip, however a witness in a bookmaker frequented by both men reported an uncomfortable meeting between the two of them; CCTV footage from the bookie is being processed to confirm this. It’s possible that Shaw was ashamed to be seen there and might have tried to silence Father Nolan.’
Warren looked around the room.
‘So far it’s pretty tenuous, but last night Mags found that he was lying about his whereabouts on the night of the fire. It’s far too soon to pull him in for questioning yet, we don’t want to tip him off, but I want to know what he was doing that night and why he lied about it.’
‘Could he and Furber have