When Pye’s ring of the doorbell was answered by a severe woman in a wrap-round overall, with her grey hair tied back in a bun, the Chief Superintendent’s gathering suspicions were confirmed. ‘We’re from the police,’ he said. ‘We’d like to see Father Ahern; Dominic Ahern.’
The woman glared up at them for a second, then beckoned them inside. Pye looked bewildered as she ushered them, without a word, into a dull room off the hall, with heavy old-fashioned furniture that had seen better days. ‘How did you know, sir?’ he asked.
‘The church next door. It’s called St Magdalena’s. And this is the Chapter House, where the priests live. It takes one to know one, Sammy. Why d’you think I joined the Edinburgh force, rather than Glasgow?’
There was a cough from the doorway behind them. They turned to see a tall fair man, in his early thirties, in a black shirt and narrow clerical collar. ‘Yes, gentlemen?’ he said, in a light Irish brogue.
‘DCS Martin, DC Pye. We’re sorry to call unannounced, Father, but this has come up at rather short notice.’
Father Ahern frowned, but said nothing.
‘Last Wednesday,’ Martin continued, ‘you called the AA to report that your car had broken down in Seafield Road, just after eight thirty. You also called a minicab company and were picked up ten minutes later by a taxi driver, a Mr Quinn.’
‘Yes,’ said the priest slowly, and, the detective sensed, faintly apprehensively.
‘You may not have been aware of it then, but at that time a car showroom in Seafield Road was set ablaze. In that fire a woman died.’
‘I learned of it later,’ said Father Ahern.
‘Did you pass close by that showroom?’ asked the detective.
‘I did.’
‘And did you see anything?’
‘I saw a man leaving in a car.’
‘Did he see you?’
‘Yes.’
Something in the priest’s tone seized Martin with expectation, and seemed to prompt his questions. ‘Did you recognise that man?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was his name?’
‘I cannot say.’
‘You mean you can’t recall it?’
‘I mean I cannot say.’
‘What sort of car was he driving?’
‘I cannot say.’
‘Is it because you don’t know?’
‘Chief Superintendent, I cannot say. Do you understand me? I cannot say.’
Martin nodded. ‘I understand.’ His mind whirled as he searched for his next question.
‘Did this man recognise you, Father?’
The priest gave a tiny gasp, hesitated for a second then nodded his head. ‘Yes, he did.’
Martin looked at him, fixing him directly with his piercing green eyes. ‘Is this man one of your own parishioners, Father?’
Dominic Ahern gazed back, weighing the consequences of his answer to the simple question. ‘No, he is not,’ he said at last.
The detective grunted. ‘Thank you, Father,’ he said, ‘for your help, insofar as you were able to give it. We’ll see ourselves out.’
As the heavy brown door closed behind them with a thud, Sammy Pye could contain himself no longer. ‘Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, what the f . . . was all that about?
‘What help did he give us in there?’
‘A hell of a lot, Sammy,’ said the Chief Superintendent, ‘as much as he could without breaking sanctity. He told us that he saw and recognised the murderer as he left the scene of the crime, and that the murderer saw and recognised him.
‘He told us that, before Father Ahern knew of the fire or of Carole Charles’ death, the murderer, although he attends another church, sought him out and made confession to him, securing his silence for ever.’
‘But what does that do for us, sir?’
Martin stopped, his hand on the roof of the Peugeot. ‘For a start, Sammy, it eliminates about seventy-five per cent of the male population of Edinburgh from our enquiries!’
62
‘Holy Mother of God - if I may say so - Andy! So all we’ve got to do is trawl through all the Catholic males in Edinburgh one by one, till we find our killer.’
‘Not quite. You can forget McGuire and me for a start, and you can rule out any parishioner of St Magdalena’s.’
‘Can the PNC help, I wonder?’ Skinner mused. ‘Why not ask it to give you all Roman Catholic males with criminal form in the Edinburgh area, aged, say, between twenty-five and forty?’
‘Priorities, boss,’ said Martin. ‘Where am I going to find the manpower to follow it up?’
‘Okay, fine it down a bit more. Add in the old lady’s description of the Slateford killer. See what that gives you.’
‘But there’s no evidence, not even circumstantial, that Carole Charles and Medina were killed by the same person.’
‘Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,’ said Skinner. ‘It’s only computer time, Andy. Get the data and follow it up when you have people available.’
He fell silent. ‘A thought strikes me about Father Ahern,’ he said at last. ‘Maybe he was trying to tell you something else.’
‘Such as.’
The DCC shook his head. ‘It’s only a thought, and you’ve got enough on your plate. Anyway, it’s an area where we might need to call the Chief back into action, with the tact and diplomacy of which he’s so proud. Leave that to me.’
Martin nodded, turned to leave the office, then stopped. ‘I almost forgot. How did you get on at Shotts?’
Skinner sighed, and sat back in his chair. ‘Well. Too well. I can’t go into detail, because I swore that our conversation would be as privileged as Ahern’s confessional, but if you believe Lennie - as I do, implicitly - then far from being out to kill me, Tony Manson was my guardian angel.’
‘Which leaves you with . . . ?’
‘As far as I can see, with only Jackie Charles. Yet Jackie never did a stupid or reckless thing in his life, and for the life of me, I cannot comprehend why he would want to do anything as daft as that.
‘There has to be someone else, Andy: someone else who cut that pipe. Only I can’t see who it was.’
‘So why not leave it at that, Bob?’ said Martin, softly.
Skinner looked up at him. ‘Believe me, Andrew, with all my heart and soul, I wish that I could. But I have to go on until I find all the answers, even though I have this scary feeling that I’m never going to find the one that will let me live in peace.’
He pushed himself up in his chair and grabbed a file from his in-tray. ‘Still, this life goes on. Ask Pam to look in on me as you leave, will you.’
‘Ahh,’ said the Head of CID. ‘Something else I have to tell you. I’ve borrowed her.’
Skinner’s eyebrows rose in an unspoken query.
‘I’ve had a car take her up to Companies House, up in Saltire Court. The search of the Charles property company drew a blank. Only it did seem to confirm that, at one time, he did use his properties for private purposes.
‘So I thought to myself, suppose, after those two raids, Jackie decided that was too risky. A little while back he rolled three property-holding limited companies into one. But suppose there’s a fourth company, one that we don’t know about, in which neither Jackie nor Carole Charles is listed as a director. That’s what I’ve sent Masters to investigate.’
The DCC nodded. ‘I follow your thinking. But couldn’t he simply have bought another property for cash, without forming a company to do it?’
‘He could have, but that’s not the way he works. He always takes the corporate route, winding everything back to a holding company offshore.’