Church of Sin (The Ether Book 1) (8 page)

“I brought you here because
after we were all sacked by Harker I asked you if you wanted to get a coffee. You said yes, so I brought you here. To a coffee house. Now apparently you’re complaining.” Ash smiled. He had been looking at her with a look of half disbelief and half admiration ever since Harker had told them they were no longer needed. 

The cafe was pack
ed with people talking business; the sort of trendy place where people didn’t complain that the coffee was too strong and tasted of syrup but instead made intelligent comments about the decor and how it’s good that the beans came from Morocco and didn’t you know that they don’t even have 3G over there but the
cuisine is to die for
.

“I hate Starbucks
,” she said, sucking in her arms to allow a bald headed man in a pin stripe to barge past her and take an empty table no bigger than a bird bath behind them. It had been a close run thing. He had thrown the sugar, extra milk and chocolate sprinkles into his latte quite recklessly and she doubted the two or three swishes of the wooden stick he had acquired were anywhere near sufficient enough to fuse everything together but, importantly, he had beaten the two students who were picking out forks for their cheesecakes to the last table in the house.

“This isn’t a Starbucks,” said Ash. “It’s called
The Coffee Lounge.
”

“It should be called
The Coffee Broom Cupboard,”
Alix said through gritted teeth.

Ash smirked, more at Alix’s obvious aversion to her surroundings than what she
had said. He cradled his hands around his cup. Alix had a cup of tea, having protested at the counter that the coffee would be too strong and, indeed, taste of syrup.

“
Un
-believable,” she remarked.

“Yes. You managed to piss off one of the most fundamental sources of work you’re going to get down here. Welcome back.”

“You were just as rebellious as I recall. And I didn’t mean
that
.”

She was gazing up at the burnt orange wall, trying to work out the abstract painting of what appeared to be a donkey
in an overcoat. Finally, her eyes fell back down on him and he became conscious of her, shifting in his seat uncertainly.

“This tea cost me two pound sixty.”

“No. This tea cost
me
two pound sixty because you claim not to have any cash on you.”

She grinned and looked down at the cup in her hands. It was nice to se
e Ash again, although she didn’t actually miss him as such, just missed
someone-like-Ash-but-not-actually-Ash-being-around-her
.

“
So, we were all just invited to participate in a government conspiracy on a moderately interesting scale, not quite Michael Moore territory but a decent episode of
Panorama
,” she said, looking over at Pin Stripe, who sat cross legged reading the Financial Times and looking
very
important. The students were standing around dumbly looking for a place to sit.

“Yeah, it’s good to be working with you again, doctor Franchot.” He raised his glass in mock celebration.

“What do you think is really going on?”

“I don’
t know, and I doubt we’ll ever know.”

“So that’s it then? We walk away? Forget it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“It’s what you meant.”

He sighed heavily. She hadn’t taken her eyes off him the whole time.

“What really m
ade you take the job?” He asked, trying to change the subject. She pushed the hair from her face and finally broke his gaze. It had been sixteen years since Zara had disappeared. She had all but given up looking for Zara herself, but she had never given up looking for an answer.

She shrugged. “Couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work full time with you?”

“I have mild to moderate OCD, people at the office hate me and I fired your predecessor on a whim,” he said. “Why would you choose to work with me?”

She laughed, although he was only half joking.

“Tell me about Katelyn and Megan Laicey,” she said.

“Katelyn and Megan Laicey are twins, altho
ugh they’re not identical. They’ve both just turned nine. Megan’s the older by two and a half minutes and has long blond hair. Katelyn has short darker hair. They both have green eyes. The rest we’re working on. The records of their biological parents have been lost. They were in temporary foster care at the time of Katelyn’s murder, living in with a relatively normal middle class family in a house close to the field where Katelyn was killed. Both were dumped on the door step of St Clair’s when they were babies.”

“St Clair’s?”

“It’s a small orphanage in Easton run by someone called Marie Harriette who was, so I am told, madder than a frog wearing a large, eighties knitted jumper. She’s known as Sister Marie Harriette but she’s not actually a nun. I don’t really get it but the point is she obsessed over the kids. Thought they were her own. Didn’t do the paperwork properly. God knows how she got away with it but the regulators left her alone and to be fair the kids were well looked after. A little too well perhaps. She fed them pork pie for breakfast and sweets for lunch, that sort of thing.”

Alix nodded her head although quite frankly she had no idea what Ash meant by “that sort of thing”. The door opened again and another draft of freezing air stung her face.
Pin Stripe snorted loudly as he turned the page of the FT. The students had given up trying to find a seat and were stood making their way through their cheesecakes huddled in a corner.

“Anyway, she died about a year ago. Took a tumble down three flights of steps.
Coroner recorded a narrative verdict, just reciting the facts, skirting neatly round the issues and coming to no particular conclusion. Another well spent wad of public money. Baron and I looked into it because there was some suggestion that one of the kids might have given her a little help down the stairs but we couldn’t get anything out of anyone. I remember interviewing Megan, or trying to. She didn’t say a word. Social told me to lay off her because she was troubled and without a complainant, that was that.”

“Do you think she was pushed?” Alix asked.

“I don’t know. There was one kid there. Real nasty. He was eleven but built like a twenty five year old. I’m not sure. Maybe he didn’t like pork pie. Either way we never took it any further so Megan and Katelyn Laicey, along with seven other unwanted urchins, were sent out to various foster homes. The twins were lucky to get somewhere close by.” Ash tailed off, realising his mistake. “Well, maybe not so lucky,” he murmured but he was drowned out by the noise of everyone around him.

“What about the foster parents?” Alix looked at him meaning
fully.

“They were more bothered about whether or not the next allowance would arrive than Katelyn’s death but
, listen, they’re just ordinary middle class people trying to cash in on the system, Alix. I know where you’re going with this.”

“Have you any idea how many murders are committed by
ordinary middle class people
with desires to
cash in
per year?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Plenty I’m sure but they gained nothing from Katelyn’s death. In fact Megan has been taken off them.”

“I’d like to speak to her.”

“No chance.” Ash laughed a little at the thought. “Listen you hardly made best friends with Amanda Harker this morning.
We’re off the case, remember? She’s off to find people who are more corruptible than us.”

“Has anyone asked her what happened?”

“I’m told she hasn’t spoken since the attack. Not a word.”

They let the moment linger, listening to sounds of others slurping their coffee and talking about the weather and how cold it was today. Pin stripe made a big fuss of turning the papers of the broadsheet and clearing his throat.
He seemed incapable of moving without grunting or clearing his throat loudly. Alix half wondered whether he was listening to them.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“I don’t know. You’re the one with the PhD.”

“I don’t have a
PhD in
knowing-what-to-do
. But I’m not dropping it.”

“I thought you’d say that”

“No. You
hoped
I’d say that because you’re just as pissed as I am.”

“Maybe,” he said.
“Maybe.”

He was about to say something else but the sound of the A-Team theme stopped him. He hit answer and made a series of grunts to acknowledge what was said, the sort of noises we reserve exclusively for phone calls.

“Come on, drink up,” he said, getting up and throwing on his coat.

“Where are we going?”

“To church.”

“Are we getting married? I don’t have a
dress.”

“You don’t need one. Just a pair of plastic gloves.”

Chapter 19

It had stopped snowing but some of the more insignificant roads hadn’t been treated and even the Outlander was struggling to retain traction on the sharper bends.

Ash had recounted his brief conversation with Baron to Alix twice now.
A local uniform had stumbled across something at a church in a small village called White Helmsley but the details that had come in were sketchy. Baron had a team on its way but the guy was so shaken and had asked for someone senior to attend. Apparently the signal was bad and whoever took the call back at the station wasn’t really sure of much more than that.

Alix had insisted that the climate control be set at a stomach churning twenty seven degrees but despite wrapping herself up in her coat and scarf she still claimed to feel cold. Ash had removed his tie and waistcoat to cope with the heat coming through the syste
m. He couldn’t cope with the dual controls set to different temperatures – something about mild to moderate OCD – and so he was now beginning to perspire. Outside it was minus five but he felt sure the Outlander would instantly melt all the snow and ice within twenty yards of where the car was, such was the temperature inside.

The conversation had been sporadic: mostly precipitated by Alix blurting her thoughts out loud about
Innsmouth and Anwick.

“Why spend so much money and plough so many resources in maintaining a facility that only uses a tiny proportion of its capacity and hide it from the public?” She had asked that same question phrased in slightly different ways three times now.

“Search me,” replied Ash, for the third time. “It makes no sense at all. But they have something to hide.” Whoever “they” were.

She turned to him suddenly.

“You’re telling me everything, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just don’t seem bothered. About all of this, I mean. You seem so relaxed.”

Ash shrugged. “This is how I am.”

She stared out the window. White fields stretched out on either side, disappearing into the miasma on the horizon. Stone farmhouses surrounded by trees dotting the landscape and occasional glimpses of the frozen river glinting in the sunlight. Zara was standing at the side of an old trailer, half buried in the snow. She wore a red coat, hood up, the same she had done on the day she disappeared. She saw Alix – she was sure of it – but she didn’t smile. Just kept looking straight ahead into the distance like always.

Alix looked again and she was gone.

She turned to look at Ash’s profile, thought about telling him what she had seen but stopped herself. She was afraid he wouldn’t understand. They had never actually spoken about it. In fact, thinking about it, did he even
know
? She studied his profile out of the corner of her eye. She could read people like a book. It was a gift, even before she pursued her profession. But not Ash. Him, she could never quite understand. Not fully.

And it frustrated the Hell out of her.

“What do you mean?” He asked after a while.

“What?”

“What do you mean
am I telling you everything?”
He sounded a little annoyed.

“I’m just asking.”

She turned her head. They didn’t speak for the rest of the journey.

*

White Helmsley was more hamlet than village. No more than ten houses, a farm shop and pub that was closed and the church. One main road running through that split into two when it reached the centre. Low, stone walls, flickering street lamps, notice boards and leaflets stuck to telegraph poles, a bus shelter covered with tags and graffiti. An old, red phone box with cracked glass. The pub –
The Wooden Bell –
was boarded up: peeling paint and flaking fascias. A wooden picnic table upturned against the wall.

“Does anyone actually live here?” Alix muttered as they slowed past a small row of
cottages, the snow that covered the driveways perfectly undisturbed.

White Helmsley welcomes careful drivers
, read the sign.

It was late afternoon by the time
they pulled up at the foot of the hill that led to the Church of Saint Mary Our Virgin behind two marked police cars. Thick flakes had begun to fall heavily around them as they got out of the car, the sort of sticky snow that clung to you instantly. Alix had to shield her eyes to look up the hill. Dark marks littered the white canvass and it took a moment for her to realise that they were gravestones. The snow had drifted up against the stone wall surrounding the bottom of the hill and was a good foot deep in places. Leafless trees covered in snow clicked and cracked in the breeze, the ancient bones of dead sentries guarding the entrance to the churchyard.

On the brow of the hill, the church was barely visible in the white haze; a ruinous citadel, thought Alix. Nothing more than a Hollywood set.

“Do you have any wellies in this car?” she called over to Ash. He was busy inspecting his phone and didn’t look up.

“Ye
ah. In the boot. With the floppy hat and the pitchfork.”

“Very funny.”

She examined her shoes. They were hardly adequate for a warm summer’s day let alone anything else. Not something you’d choose to wear to see in the next ice age. H
er feet crunched through the first layer of snow and the cold, moist feeling immediately started to seep through to her feet.

“If my feet have to be amputated because of frostbite I want you to give my shoes to the orphanage,” she said but Ash had already started to ascend the hill and hadn’t heard. With a grunt of annoyance, she trudged after him.

“What did you see that was odd about the village on the way through?” Ash called back as they started to ascend the snow covered hill. The higher they went the more the icy wind whipped around them. Ash had almost had to shout to be heard.

“No footprints,” she replied.
Even in winter where the snow was thick on the ground the British have an unrivalled urge to fall out of their homes and plunge themselves into the weather; walking dogs, going to the shop to buy milk, checking on next door. But the snowfall had only just come and it was difficult to believe that any tracks had already been covered.

Which meant that there weren’t any tracks.

At the church porch, they were met by two figures who Ash introduced as DS Keera Julian and DC Eran Green. They were both clad from head to toe in winter coats, hats, scarves and other paraphernalia. Keera Julian was clasping coffee in a paper cup. She cast her eye over Alix briefly before sniffing loudly and looking away. She had a straight and rigid face, blemished and pale skin. The thick, woolly hat that seemed to drown her head concealed long, black hair that fell around her shoulders like a mop. She stank of fags. A thick coat hid her voluptuous figure; a stark contrast to Alix’s thin frame. Eran Green was younger: a short and stumpy man. His winter apparel had expanded his sizable torso even more than usual and he seemed to take up most of the porch. He was bent over, hands supporting him on his knees. He looked ill.

“Morning, guv
.” Keera spoke with a gravelly, masculine voice.

“Have you met our
new criminal psychologist, Doctor Alix Franchot?” asked Ash. Alix smiled awkwardly. She received blank looks back.

“No,” said Keera
, ignoring her.

“What the Hell is wrong with you, Greeny?” asked Ash, taking a step back from the wheezing man as if he might explode at any point.

“Sorry, guv,” Eran gasped, barely looking up. “That’s some fucked up shit in there.”

“May be. But perhaps you can find a more convenient place to cough your guts up.
That drive was a nightmare. It better have been worth it.”

“Oh it will be, boss.” There was something about Keera’s tone that Alix disliked.

“What’s the score?” Ash.

“
Constable William Fenn here attended the village this morning to check on an old lady who lives in Blacksmith Cottage, which is one of the little bungalows off the dirt track you might have seen on the way in.” Alix looked into the porch and for the first time saw an old uniformed policeman sat near the door, head bowed as if in prayer. She thought it was odd how he hadn’t acknowledged the arrival of a senior officer but the deep breathing, the unnatural stillness and the wide, bloodshot eyes suggested he was in shock.

“Is someone looking after him?” Alix asked.

“What?” Keera looked indignant, annoyed at the interruption.

“He’s in shock. Why is no one taking him to the hospital?”

“Because we’re the only ones here.” Keera looked at Alix like it was the dumbest question she had ever heard. Even in the cold, Alix felt her cheeks redden. She shuffled her feet uncomfortably.

“Someone will take PC Fenn to hospital just as soon as I have men on the ground, Alix,” Ash said softly in her ear.

Keera shook her head like the whole interlude was quite scandalous before continuing. “Anyway, PC Fenn proceeds to the old lady’s home and surmises that she’s not in but finds the house open and unlocked. He checks on the neighbour’s and it’s a similar story but he finds tracks leading across the fields to this church. He follows them, walks inside the church and now here we are to share his discomfort.”

Alix tried to see around the door of the church but Eran
Green was blocking the way. She felt an unpleasant mixture of anxiety and excitement. This was, she thought, her first crime scene. Her previous work with Ash had been on cases that took place after the investigation, at the point where a prosecution was taking place. When the Crown needed to give the jury an insight into the defendant’s mind, a psychological breakdown, an understanding of motive and agenda, they called on Doctor Alix Franchot. But ten years of studying criminals had never actually led her to face the results of what criminals actually do. She’d met criminals. As traumatic as it was, her meeting with Anwick had been in her comfort zone. Up until he’d tried to use her as a bargaining tool to negotiate his escape of course. She’d met victims. Interviewed hundreds of both for her book. But she’d never actually seen
crimes
first hand. She’d never shared a room with death. She’d been told about pain and loss and suffering. She’d read about it, written about it, lectured about it. But she’d never actually
seen
it.

It occurred to her, stood in the freezing cold wearing such inadequate clothing, how unprepared she was. How naive she had been. The gulf between the abstract and the practical never seemed so great.
She felt a fraud. Any minute now someone would ask her,
what are you actually doing here? What’s your experience? Your role? Your point?

But then she thought of Zara. She
had
seen pain and suffering and loss. She had seen her own pain, her own suffering and her own loss. She’d seen it take her mother’s life and her father’s mind. She’d seen friends and family slowly abandon them. She’d seen their eyes averting hers; the useless gestures of tenderness become less and less frequent. The offers of help withdrawn. The quarantine setting in. The red cross painted on the door. She
had
seen what crime does to people.

She’d seen it rip her family apart at the seams. 

“Are you kidding me?” Ash’s voice shook her away from her thoughts. “Get forensics back on and tell them if
I
can get here then
they
can. I want a team here in less than an hour. Eran for Christ’s sake breath into a paper bag or something, can’t you?”

“
Sorry, guv.” Eran held up his hand defensively. “Think I’m allergic to flies.” He waved his hand around pathetically in the direction of the church and staggered away toward the bushes. Alix’s anxiety level jumped up another notch.

Flies mean dead things.

Eran having apparently ruled himself out of being helpful, Ash looked at Keera expectantly. She finished her coffee and threw the cup in a bush.

“She
gonna’ be okay, guv?” She nodded at Alix.

“She’ll be fine, S
ergeant.”

“
I should have been at the CPS meeting this morning.” Keera sounded pissed. Something close to a wry smile crossed Alix’s lips. She had met Keera Julian before whilst working with Ash. It hadn’t taken her long to sus her out. She glanced down to her feet to make sure they were still there. The cold had stripped her of all feeling.

“Open the door, Keera.” Ash’s tone was patient but firm. Keera shrugged her shoulders, gave one final, curt glance at Alix – looking as if she had eaten something that disagreed with her – and threw open the church doors.