Scarlet Women

ambulance association and started giving first aid at summer shows, so that he could grope women when they collapsed in the heat. All heart, that boy. He looked for work of a musical nature, pitched up at St Aubride’s because church music was what he knew best. He then concentrated on making himself indispensable. Took over the vicar’s charitable business with a home for single mothers, which will no doubt yield other tales of touch-ups or worse when we look more closely. The vicar took him on out of Christian kindness, no doubt. As choirmaster and organist.’

‘Jesus,’ whispered Annie, thinking of the fat, pop-eyed little man she’d seen in here several times—and hardly even noticed.

‘And I haven’t told you any of this.’

She nodded. Okay.

‘Cyrus has been a busy boy. Fingers in a lot of pies. He even ran the church soup kitchen, catering for the homeless—and for the girls who work the streets.’

Now Annie felt really ready to throw up.

The choirmaster. An ugly little man of no great significance. Easy to overlook, just like the vicar himself. But the vicar wasn’t a really bad man. He was prejudiced and he had a drink problem; he wasn’t a seasoned abuser of women; he wasn’t a rapist whose sick obsessions had now pitched over into murder.

‘Can I help you?’ asked a loud male voice.

They both spun around, looked up towards the high altar. The vicar was standing there; clearly he’d been in the vestry. He’d probably heard them whispering heatedly at the back of the church.

He was staring at them, waiting for a response. Hunter walked up the aisle. Annie followed.

‘Reverend,’ said Hunter, flashing his ID as he approached the vicar. ‘I need to speak to your choirmaster, a Mr Cyrus Regan.’

The vicar looked blankly at Hunter. ‘You mean on police business?’ he asked, looking taken aback. He flicked a glance at Annie, and in that instant she could see that he recognized her. His expression changed to one of distaste.

‘Yes, I mean police business. Is he here…?’

‘Yes, he…’

The vicar’s head turned towards the organ back in the shadows near the chancel, the huge pipes rising majestically above it. Someone was there, in the semi-darkness.

‘Cyrus,’ said the vicar, but he wasn’t given a chance to finish whatever he’d intended to say. The bastard was there.

And for a dumpy little guy, he could move like lighting—as he now proved.

Cyrus Regan turned and bolted for a small door near to where he’d been standing. Annie had a quick impression of the man: middle-aged, greying, with a chubby face and bulbous eyes. Then Cyrus was gone through the door, slamming it behind him.

‘Well, I…’ started the vicar, open-mouthed with surprise.

Hunter pushed past the vicar and was after the choirmaster in an instant, Annie hard on his heels. They tore through the low door and up worn stone spiral steps that wound upwards towards a faint chink of daylight. They could hear Cyrus wheezing and puffing up ahead as he fled. The ascent seemed endless.

‘Stop! Police!’ shouted Hunter, but Cyrus wasn’t listening.

They raced on upwards. Annie could feel her heart pounding madly in her chest, Jesus, were they ever going to come to the end of this?

Hunter was gasping too, and Cyrus up in front sounded like a good candidate for a heart attack. She could hear the vicar coming up behind them, bleating about something or other, who the fuck cared what? They had to catch this arsehole before he did any more damage.

Then suddenly there was more daylight. They were near the top of the church tower. The chink of light became a flood as Cyrus flung open the door at the top. Seconds later, Hunter charged out on to the square crenellated roof of the tower. Annie followed.

Cyrus flung himself gasping across the roof and pitched up panting and wild-eyed against the low far wall. He turned and saw how close they were.

‘Stop right there or I’ll jump!’ he screeched, and stepped up on to the wall.

They stopped.

‘I just want to talk to you, Mr Regan,’ said Hunter, trying to sound calm and reassuring when he could barely get his breath back.

‘No, I’m not talking to anyone,’ he shouted, glancing back at the drop.

Annie’s heart was in her mouth. Fuck, he really means it, she thought.

‘Cyrus,’ said the vicar, coming full-pelt through the door behind them. ‘Come on. DI Hunter only wants to talk.’

‘They’ll lock me up again,’ babbled Cyrus, teetering on top of the narrow wall. ‘That’s all they ever want to do, lock me up.’

‘We have to ask you some questions,’ said Hunter, his voice soothing. ‘That’s all.’

As he spoke he was edging forward, carefully, slowly.

‘Yes, that’s how it starts,’ yelled Cyrus. ‘I’m not coming with you.’

And he turned and flung himself off the tower.

Cyrus let out an unearthly scream as he fell. Hunter moved fast, flinging himself at the edge. He caught the back of Cyrus’s jacket and grunted as he suddenly took the man’s full weight.

Cyrus dangled there, screaming and goggle-eyed with terror, swinging loose over a hundred-foot drop. Annie ran forward and grabbed at Cyrus’s flailing arm, but couldn’t catch it. She had a faintinducing view of how huge the drop was, two uniformed cops standing down below and pointing upwards, beside a cop car straight from Toytown, tiny gravestones dotting the green lawns down there, and she thought: Oh fuck.

‘Grab his arm, grab his arm,’ Hunter was gasping through gritted teeth as the rain continued to fall, making his grip on the man even more precarious.

‘Give me your hand!’ Annie was shouting at the panic-stricken Cyrus. From being ready to throw himself off the tower, he was now hanging there yelling with terror at the prospect of the fall, unable to react sensibly to anything that was going on around him.

Annie glanced back at the vicar, who was standing stock-still just outside the door to the tower.

‘Help us!’ she screamed at him, and he stumbled forward and tried to get a grip on Cyrus too.

‘I’m losing it,’ said Hunter, and Annie could see that he was. One of Cyrus’s arms was nearly out of the jacket; in a minute or two all that Hunter would be holding would be the jacket, and she couldn’t get hold of Cyrus’s arm. Once she almost reached his hand, but it was slick from the rain and her grip slipped almost immediately. She caught it again, and somehow held on.

The two uniformed cops were running into the church now, coming to help.

‘Don’t let me fall!’ sobbed Cyrus.

Jesus, and just a minute ago that’s exactly what he wanted, thought Annie, feeling like her arm was being wrenched out of its socket as she struggled to hold on to the little worm.

There was no way they were going to get him back in. The vicar was fucking useless. Hunter was trying valiantly but the jacket was folding back on itself and soon it was going to peel right off and drop Cyrus like a stone.

Cyrus’s fingers were now clamped around her wrist in a frenzy of desperation. His weight was jerking her forward and for one crazy moment she thought she was going to join him in a one-way ticket to the bottom. Then the vicar had the sense to grab Cyrus’s arm and heave.

Cyrus came up, a little.

He was babbling and crying about how he wasn’t ready to die, and Annie thought bitterly that the girls he’d killed had probably said much the same thing.

Ought to just let the sick bastard go, she thought, and was tempted to do it.

But instead she pulled and struggled, and somehow the three of them dragged Cyrus blubbering and shouting back over the wall and on to the flat roof of the church tower, where he lay sobbing, his arms over his head. They stood around him, panting,