Family photographs sat on every possible surface; I had had a good look at them while Mrs Driscoll was getting the water. In pride of place were four large, leather-framed graduation pictures, three boys and a girl awkward in mortarboards. They were all standing in stiff poses holding scrolls, and all with identical embarrassed smiles. The hair and clothes dated the pictures to the mid-nineties. The same faces smiled out of wedding pictures that were tucked away on a low bookshelf, arranged so the spouses were more or less obscured. Poor Abby had a similar lack of prominence in my parents’ front room. She would be relegated to a drawer by now, I guessed, reminded with a pang of my brother’s difficulties. From the legions of babies, toddlers and children who waved and squinted pinkly in their frames, I deduced that the Driscoll children had provided grandchildren in abundance. I didn’t dare ask about them, fearing that I’d never get Mrs Driscoll back on topic. Besides, she was not the sort of witness who required coaxing to be forthcoming. She was more than ready to talk, and was loud in her defence of the dead man’s reputation ‘Now that he’s not here to tell you himself and may perpetual light shine upon him may he rest in peace amen.’
‘Amen,’ I echoed. ‘So you were aware that he had been convicted of child abuse?’
‘Indeed I was. Not a word of it was true. That poor man, God bless him, he was the sort who’d break his heart for you. He wasn’t the man to argue. He went along with it sooner than say that the lads were lying. He used to tell me, “Mary, it was true as far as it went. I was there when they washed in the house, but I was making sure they minded themselves and the property. There was no malice in it.”’
‘But the events that were described did happen.’
She waved a finger at me. ‘You have to realise, these were poor young fellows who had no access to hot water. No one else was looking after them. Filthy, they were, and full of nits and God knows what. Father Fintan washed their clothes and let them clean themselves to give them some self-respect. You couldn’t turn your back on them or they’d rob you blind in a second. So he made sure they weren’t left alone – for their own good. He was an innocent. He wouldn’t have seen that there was any harm in staying in the one room with them. And indeed there was not. Didn’t Christ himself wash the feet of his apostles?’
‘So they say.’ All of this was delivered at machine-gun pace and I was struggling to keep up. ‘Did he do anything similar when he worked here in this parish, do you know?’
She drew herself up to her full height, which was roughly five foot nothing. ‘He did not. Nor did he need to. This area is respectable. This is not the sort of place where the children run wild. They may do that kind of thing up there in Liverpool, but not here. They wouldn’t dare behave that way. No child would ever go into that church needing to be washed, or they’d feel the back of their mammy’s hand.’ From the look on her face, I didn’t doubt it. ‘Father Fintan was a lovely man. A decent man, through and through. We were happy to welcome him back when he needed somewhere to go.’
‘Didn’t he want to return to Ireland?’
‘He had no family there any more. His sisters went to Canada, but they’re both dead now. His parents were long gone, as you’d expect. His brother was a priest on the missions somewhere – Africa, maybe. Or the Philippines. I wouldn’t know, frankly. They were scattered to the four winds, anyway, so he had no home to go back to. This was the closest thing he had to a home.’ The watery eyes blinked twice and moisture seeped into the vertical wrinkles that scored her cheeks. ‘Ah, sure we’d all like to go home, but you find out what that means when you start to think about it. It’s where they remember you, where you’re loved. That was here, as far as he was concerned. He’d been away too long from Ireland. He didn’t know it any more, and they didn’t know him. He was better off here.’
Until someone brutally murdered him, I thought but didn’t say. As if she had heard me, she fixed me with a beady eye.
‘Robbery, was it? Were they looking for money?’
‘We’re not sure of the motive yet. We’re keeping an open mind.’
‘That’s what that other fellow said. That terrible eejit who came here earlier.’
I beamed. ‘Inspector Derwent?’
‘Him. He’s an awful idiot, isn’t he? A know-all. They’re the sort who know the least.’
‘That’s what I’ve always found.’
‘He wasn’t interested in listening. Kept interrupting to ask his questions but he wasn’t even paying attention to the answers. He just kept saying, “Yep, yep, yep” when I was talking, trying to get me to hurry up. I know I can be a bit slow to get to the point, but I wanted to make sure he’d understand about Father Fintan. No one would have wanted to kill him. Not like that. God bless us and save us, when I saw what they’d done to him …’ She closed her eyes, suddenly looking frail, and I recalled what she’d found when she opened the bedroom door. At least I had had plenty of warning. I had been able to prepare myself. And I had still found it difficult to look at what remained of the old man.
‘It must have been a terrible shock.’
‘Ah, well it was, you see. But I was worried anyway because he wasn’t up. He was always out of bed when I got there. Usually he’d have been at Mass at seven. I didn’t see him there this morning but I didn’t think anything of it. I suppose I’d assumed that he wasn’t well, or he’d woken up late or something of that nature. When I opened the door and called out to him and there was no reply – well, I knew
something
was wrong, but there wasn’t any other sign that anything had happened. Except that his bedroom door was closed. When I saw that I thought he was dead, but I thought he’d have died in his sleep.’ She sounded completely matter-of-fact about it. ‘I was already praying for his soul when I opened the door and found him.’
‘That must have been very upsetting, Mrs Driscoll. So there was nothing out of place in the flat? Nothing that bothered you?’
She shook her head, but there was a tiny hesitation before she did so.
‘In the kitchen …’I began.
‘Oh, you saw that, did you? The kettle.’ She nodded, her pale eyes shining. ‘Now, I wondered about that, because he would make himself a cup of tea when he got up, before Mass. That was all he’d have. No breakfast or anything. Not until after, and even then it would only be a bit of bread. But he’d have the tea before he went out, around half past six, and I’d wash up the mug for him with his other things when I came in during the morning.’
‘Do you always visit him at the same time?’
‘After Mass, but sometimes earlier, sometimes later. The odd time I’d be as late as half ten. I was nearly that late today, as it happened. Just by chance I had a phone call from an old friend and that held me up this morning. Of all the mornings to be late. Although if I’d walked in on whoever it was, I’d be lying there dead and you’d be looking at me, not talking to me.’
She was probably right but I didn’t want to agree too heartily. ‘Better not to think about what might have happened, Mrs Driscoll. I’m glad it didn’t turn out that way.’ I hesitated before asking her a question that was potentially committing me to spend the rest of the day in her sauna of a sitting room. ‘Is there anything else you think we should know about Father Fintan or what happened today? Anything we haven’t asked you? Anything that’s bothering you? Anything else you noticed?’
‘Well, there was just one thing. It’s probably nothing. But when I was getting the milk in this morning – that would have been at twenty to seven, and I’m sure of that because I had the television on in the kitchen – I saw that there was a Royal Mail van outside the flat, and a postman going up to the door with a package in brown paper. A big thing. Rectangular, about that big.’ She sketched out a shape that was roughly eighteen inches long and a foot wide.
‘Are you sure it was Father Fintan’s door?’
She nodded. ‘I looked to see. I was going to ask him what it was when I saw him.’
‘I didn’t see a parcel in the flat,’ I said slowly, thinking about the sparsely furnished rooms I’d looked around.
‘No more did I.’ She blinked rapidly. ‘I had a good look, too. While I was waiting for the police. I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anyone hiding behind a door, you know. I couldn’t do anything for Father Fintan so I just said a few prayers for him while I was looking. No parcel at all.’
‘And no wrappings.’
‘Nothing.’ She sat back in her armchair, triumphant. ‘Not a bit of paper or anything.’
‘And you’re sure it was his flat?’
‘Positive. I saw the door open.’ She sounded definite, an ideal witness.
‘Are you sure it was an official Royal Mail van? Did it have the company livery on the side?’
‘It was red anyway.’ We were on shakier territory, I could tell immediately. She sounded suddenly vague. ‘It was the right size. I think it was. I didn’t really look at it, to be honest with you. I wouldn’t have known what sort of van it was, what make or whatever. I saw him get out, and I saw the colour of it. He was in the uniform – the jacket and so on – so I just assumed it was a proper post van. I didn’t think anything else of it.’
‘You didn’t see the number plate.’ It wasn’t a question.
She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t worry. This is really helpful. You did see the postman, which is more important anyway. Could you tell me what he looked like?’ I was trying not to sound too excited but my heart was doing its best imitation of a runaway horse at a full gallop.
‘I was looking at the package, not at him. I didn’t know he would be important.’ She sounded as desolate as I felt. ‘He was white. Brown hair, maybe?’
‘Old? Young?’
‘Not old. About the same age as Brian.’ I looked baffled and she shook her head, irritated with herself, then pointed at one of the pictures. ‘My middle son. He’s thirty-four.’
‘Height?’
The best she could do was that he was neither especially tall nor particularly small. Average, in fact. And average build. She had helped to narrow it down to about a quarter of the population of London. And that was assuming she was right about the hair colour, his age, and his race.
I thanked her anyway, genuinely grateful for some suggestion of a lead, and extracted myself from the flat at the cost of recounting, as briefly as I could, all I knew of both sides of my family. I only went back three generations, covering a span of years that she gave me to understand was woefully short and inadequate, but we parted on good terms nonetheless.
I collected Colin, who had managed to cover the rest of the street in the time it had taken me to do one interview, and we went back to the station together. As soon as we walked through the door, Superintendent Godley came to the door of his office.
‘I gather Josh is tied up elsewhere. Come and tell me what happened this morning.’
With Colin’s help I filled him in, describing how the priest had been killed and what Mrs Driscoll had seen. He listened intently, making an occasional note.
‘So we’re now looking at a very active serial killer.’
‘Or killers.’ I trotted out my theory about multiple murderers, feeling that it fell a little flat. Perhaps it was the dismaying realisation that we had hardly any leads on one killer, let alone several. Perhaps it was the sketchiness of Mrs Driscoll’s description of our one and only suspect. Perhaps it was a general lack of enthusiasm for a serious, complicated, headline-grabbing enquiry. Any or all would have been entirely reasonable.
Godley sighed. ‘Right. Well, let’s start with what we know. We need to trace a red van that may or may not have been an official Royal Mail vehicle. Colin, check with the local sorting office and see if there was anyone making parcel deliveries in that location around that time this morning, just so we can rule it out. Also, we’d better check with the occupants of the flats on either side of the priest’s, to see if they were the recipients of the parcel. There’s a chance that Mrs Driscoll got it wrong, even if she won’t admit it.’
‘Right. And then if it looks suspicious, I’ll get on with finding the van.’
‘Check the area for ANPR cameras – that’ll be your quickest route to finding it. Otherwise, call in local CCTV.’
‘There won’t be anything from the street itself,’ I said. ‘It’s all residential, no businesses. I didn’t see any private CCTV cameras on any of the flats.’
‘Nor did I,’ Colin said. ‘We’re not going to get the van outside the house. Best I can do is put it in the borough heading in the right direction, always assuming I can find it. We don’t have a make, anything on the plate or a year of manufacture. And I guarantee you, red vans will be surprisingly popular in that neck of the woods.’
‘Think positive, Colin.’ Godley’s expression lightened briefly. ‘If it can be identified, you’re the one to do it.’
The DC did not seem to be particularly cheered by the superintendent’s confidence, but then I too would have been somewhat soured by the prospect of spending many hours watching CCTV of variable quality, looking for something that might never appear.
‘It’s obvious that this one is a major enquiry. We can expect the media to be interested from now on, so I’ll let the press office know.’ Godley was back to looking grave. ‘As far as manpower goes I’ll talk to Josh about his requirements when he gets back, but in the meantime I’ll allocate officers as needed. Maeve, what are you doing next?’
‘Checking with IT to find out if anyone accessed the PNC records for both Kinsella and Palmer, or the sex offenders’ register for the area. It’s definitely worth considering that there might be someone on the inside helping the killer or killers.’
‘It is,’ Godley agreed. ‘That’s why I asked Peter Belcott to get in touch with them as soon as he got in this morning. It was before we got word of the latest murder, so he’s waiting for them to get back to him with an updated list at the moment.’
I made a fair attempt at looking pleased even though I wanted to lie on the floor and whimper at the prospect of working with my least favourite colleague, the ever-irritating DC Belcott, whose presence on the team was a constant source of bemusement to me. About the only silver lining was the thought that he had had to spend the morning on the phone to the techies, a thankless task at the best of times.