Dead Man’s Prayer: A gripping detective thriller with a killer twist

‘Did he confide in you?’

She took her time to reply.

‘No, not really. He was a very private man. Father Boyd took his duties as a man of the cloth very seriously. He didn’t unburden himself to me or to anyone else as far as I’m aware.’

‘In that case, how do you explain the fact that you knew about the anonymous letters he had been receiving? Did he tell you?’

An expression flickered briefly across her sullen face. Shame? Fear? If so, then why?

Her solicitor was signalling that she shouldn’t say anything, but she ignored him.

‘I was putting away his laundry one day and I found them.’

‘Found them where?’ Farrell interjected.

‘In his sock drawer,’ she said, unconvincingly.

‘Why did you destroy the letter we found you with?’ asked Stirling.

‘I wanted to protect his memory,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, so very sorry. I should never have …’ She started weeping, seeming genuinely overcome.

At a nod from Farrell the interview was terminated and she was escorted back to the cells.

Farrell was still getting the feeling that something didn’t ring true but he couldn’t pin it down. Maybe his objectivity was being compromised by the past. Stirling again hadn’t noticed anything amiss. He’d thought her behaviour was consistent with the loyalty of a faithful old retainer. Was he imagining things?

Back in his office, he settled down to make some bullet points for the next briefing at 6 p.m., keen to ensure that nothing was overlooked. He weighed up the pros and cons of making it known that Boyd had tried to contact him the day he died but, on balance, decided to keep it to himself for the time being. It would have been different if they had actually spoken but as things stood at the moment there was nothing it could add to the investigation. He didn’t want his past dragged into the present if it could be avoided.

Farrell updated the rest of the team at the next briefing about his impressions of the evidence garnered from the priest and the housekeeper. As an afterthought, he asked DS Byers to try and ascertain what Mary Flannigan had been doing with her life before she worked for Boyd. She had seemed unnecessarily cagey. He also approved for circulation the identikit image of the man seen by the dog walker; although, given that it was a rear view, it didn’t take them much further forward. Finally, having done all that he could think of and with exhaustion settling like sediment in his body, he forced himself to leave and go home.

As he drove along quiet country roads on his way out to the tiny hamlet of Kelton, Farrell lowered the windows to allow the cool night air to chase away the tiredness that was slowing down his brain. The earth smelled moist and rich with unidentifiable scents on the periphery of his memory.

Turning right into the small lane, he dipped his headlights so as not to disturb his neighbours in the surrounding cottages. The stones crunched under his wheels and the tang of salt water from the River Nith drifted up to greet him. Farrell could feel his clenched muscles finally start to unknot.

What on earth …? As he reached the cottage his headlights had picked up a shadowy figure slinking round the side wall from the rear garden. The light illuminated a white face with glittering eyes briefly turned his way.

Farrell skidded to a halt and flung himself out the car and down the lane in hot pursuit. As he stumbled onto the muddy banks of the Nith, running perpendicular to the lane he had just left, the darkness closed in on him. He could only hear the sound of his ragged breathing and the sucking noise of the tidal river. After a couple of minutes, he paused to listen, trying to control his laboured breathing. Someone coughed behind him. He spun round, heart hammering.

‘Police,’ he yelled. ‘Don’t move!’

As he shone the thin light of his torch in the direction of the sound, he met the interested gaze of a belted Galloway cow.

From ahead the faint sound of mocking laughter drifted towards him on the back of the slight breeze that had got up. He spun round to give chase but it was one bit of nifty footwork too many. His feet went from under him, and he landed face down in the brackish mud.

Squelching home, he noticed more than one curtain twitching. Grabbing a torch from his car he circumnavigated the cottage checking for signs of forced entry, but there were none. At least he interrupted the burglar before he had a chance to break in. Not that he had anything worth taking.

After a long hot shower Farrell pulled on a faded pair of jeans and a navy roll-neck sweater. He padded through to the sitting room in his bare feet and inserted some Gregorian chants in the CD player. Pouring himself a generous measure of whisky, he sank back onto the leather couch and lost himself in the soothing rhythms of the music.

Later, as he got up to change the CD Farrell noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Through the door of the sitting room he could see downstairs to the front door. Something was poking out from under the doormat. Warily he went down the stairs and pulled out a single piece of paper. In ragged capitals, it said:

I’M TEMPTED TO CONFESS

YOUR GUILT WILL GROW AND GROW

ONLY YOU CAN STOP ME NOW

JUST LIKE BEFORE

Farrell sucked in his breath. What did it mean? He paced up and down the confines of his small cottage for half an hour before dismissing the letter as a crude prank. It was just a shot in the dark. Everyone had a guilty conscience about something, didn’t they? It clearly had nothing to do with Boyd’s murder at any rate and that was all he was concerned with right now. The lettering was completely different, and Boyd’s anonymous letters had been unambiguously threatening in tone, whereas this one was more couched as a sort of riddle. Probably just some yob who’d figured out he had a copper living near him and decided to have a laugh at his expense.

Utterly exhausted he climbed into his pyjamas and glanced at the towering stack of books on his bedside table. He flicked through the latest sci-fi offering from his favourite author. Tempting though it was, he didn’t have the mental energy to enter another world tonight. Instead, he picked up a well-worn leather volume. Lips moving silently, he read The Divine Office until sleep claimed him.

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_e41cefea-c833-55e0-8382-ded1584ea27b)

Promptly at ten the following morning, Farrell and McLeod entered Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary. Farrell glanced at McLeod and saw that she was looking apprehensive. For the first time he wondered if he should have brought her along. He’d figured she could use the experience. As they went down in the lift to the mortuary, it felt as though they were descending into the bowels of Hell. As soon as they arrived they were issued with robes and masks then bade to enter the post-mortem room.

As usual, the first thing that hit Farrell was the smell of formaldehyde, although it was the pungent smells creeping under the edges that really did for him. Feeling light-headed, he breathed shallowly and tried not to gag. Boyd’s body was laid out on the slab, and Farrell had to struggle not to avert his eyes. This was the first post-mortem he’d attended where he actually knew the victim. As he saw the pitiably frail body that had been disguised by the magnificent silk vestments of the Church he felt like the worst kind of voyeur. He glanced at McLeod. She was pale but bearing up.

The pathologist gave them a brief nod before starting to dictate. As it was a murder investigation, Bartle-White was assisted by an independent visiting professor of pathology from Glasgow.

After a while the officers were beckoned over by an imperious gloved finger. Bartle-White pointed to the neck of the deceased.

‘Cause of death, I would say, has been strangulation. The ligature seems to have been some kind of chain; see those indentations?’

‘Could it have been a rosary?’ asked Farrell, feeling sick to the pit of his stomach.

The pathologist stepped back, thought for a moment. ‘I suppose it’s possible, although it would have had to have been very strong to withstand the force applied.’

‘How about this?’ asked Farrell, pulling an evidence bag out of his pocket. ‘This was wrapped round the victim’s hands.’

Bartle-White studied the rosary carefully and turned once more to the deceased.

‘Yes, I should say that in all likelihood that is the murder weapon. Did it belong to the deceased?’

Farrell slapped his head in annoyance.

‘McLeod, once you’re done here, go and see Father Malone and get him to confirm whether or not this rosary belonged to Boyd.’

‘I would say that death occurred between 10 p.m. and midnight and that, judging by the lividity of the corpse, the body was not subsequently moved. There is a depressed fracture of the skull, which is the source of all the blood, but that was not of sufficient severity to have killed him outright,’ continued Bartle-White, in the manner of one discussing the vagaries of the weather.

He then picked up a scalpel, and Farrell tried not to flinch as the first incision was made. The pathologist continued his work dispassionately; his dry words punctuated by the unseemly squelches of a body giving up its secrets.

‘Hang on a moment, what do we have here?’

The pathologist held up a small silver object covered in blood and other gunk.

‘This was lodged in the victim’s digestive system. I would say it is likely it was consumed immediately prior to death,’ he said, sounding bemused.

It appeared to be a small religious icon of a baby Jesus. Bartle-White cleaned it up, popped it into an evidence bag, and signed the label. Farrell co-signed the label and gave it to McLeod.