can spot Brundall's car.'
'Right ho.'
Walters' reply was uncharacteristically cheerful. It was amazing what love could do, he thought with an edge of bitterness.
Horton checked his messages, cleared some of his paperwork with half a mind on it, the other half on that conversation between Brundall and Gilmore, and then reported to DCI Bliss.
Marsden returned from the cemetery, with the news that there were no flowers on the Brundalls' grave and no one had seen Tom Brundall there. He'd return tomorrow. Cantelli couldn't get a sighting of Brundall's car from the tapes either.
Another day without getting any nearer to the killer, thought Horton, heading out of the station, but at least they had gained some new and valuable information. He had reached his Harley when his mobile rang. His heart skipped a beat when he saw who the caller was: Reverend Schofield. Did she have some further information on his mother?
'I need to see you urgently,' she said without preamble.
She sounded out of breath and anxious. It was just after seven. 'Where are you?'
'In the church. Can you come now?'
He tensed and said, 'OK.'
It was wet, dark and windy and the traffic was thick with Christmas shoppers, and even though he was on the Harley, it still took him fifteen minutes to reach the church. He tried the front doors but they were locked so he hurried round to the back feeling a sense of danger so strong that his spine shivered and contracted. What had Anne discovered about his mother? Why had she sounded so upset?
It was even darker in the backyard without any streetlights, and there didn't seem to be any lights on inside the church. Perhaps she had returned to the vicarage. But surely she would have called him if she had.
As he pushed open the door his sense of menace heightened. He felt instinctively that something was wrong. He could have switched on the light but he didn't. Was it because he had the impression that someone or something was waiting for him, or had a noise alerted him? Perhaps it was just the rain beating against the grilled windows and the wind howling round the building sounding like a hundred dead souls wailing to be let in, or should that be out, he wondered. Whatever it was, it made his flesh crawl.
Slowly his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. There was a sink on his right underneath the window, with a cupboard beneath it. He noted the two coffee mugs on the wooden draining board as he stepped around the table in the centre of the room towards a tall cupboard where he guessed the surplices were kept. To its left were three stone steps leading up to a door. It must open up into the church, he thought. Anne Schofield must be there.
He tried the door. It was locked, and there was no key in it. He frowned. He felt cold. Leave the bloody place. She's not here. Get out now. He turned and something in the gloom caught his eye. The cupboard door was open a fraction and wedged in it was a piece of black fabric.
With a pounding heart he twisted the handle, then cried out and leapt back as the body of Anne Schofield fell out. Revulsion and shock gave way to an upsurge of anger but he barely had time to register this when he heard a clunk. Swiftly he turned and raced to the outside door knowing already, with a sinking heart, that the noise he had heard was someone locking it. Shit!
His senses heightened, he caught the soft shuffle of feet outside and with a flash of instinct knew what would happen next. He had to get out or he'd end up like poor Tom Brundall and Nigel Sherbourne.
Desperately he scoured the room but saw no way out. Then came a shattering of glass; he leapt as far away from the window as possible as a bottle crashed on the stone floor, and exploded with a great whoosh and a searing heat.
Horton dropped to the floor, choking and coughing. Think of a way out of here. There had to be one, he couldn't die here, now, like this. Gutner's words flashed into his mind as his lungs strained fit to burst and he felt as though his flesh was on fire. He'd said there was a door to the upper gallery that came up from the vestry. Yes, but where the bloody hell was it? Was it the one he had already tried? God, he hoped not.
He inched along the floor with his nose to the ground, spluttering and coughing. His eyes were smarting, his lungs screaming fit to burst. He could smell roasting flesh as the crackling fire devoured poor Anne Schofield. Where the bloody hell was this other door?
The room was filled with thick black smoke, which was hard to penetrate, but to the right of the cupboard a curtain was alight. It was the only place left. It had to conceal the door. As the flames licked around his ankles he leapt up and tore at it. The burning fabric fell on his back, and he thanked the Lord he was wearing his leathers. He'd found the bloody door. Please God don't let it be locked. He had to stand up to open it and fling it back before the black clawing smoke got to him. He had one chance and this was it.
He reached up, and scrabbled for the handle…where was it? His eyes were smarting, his lungs heaving…He had his fingers on it. He pushed against it and with an overwhelming sense of relief felt it open. Then he was through and slamming it behind him. He was stumbling, crawling and groping his way up a set of steps.
There wasn't any time to waste. Onwards he went until he was high enough to escape the choking black monster of smoke below. At last he came out to the right of the organ. Fumbling inside his jacket for his mobile phone, he prayed it wouldn't have melted in the heat. He punched in a number, hardly registering that his fingers were burnt, and found himself hoarsely and miraculously speaking to the emergency services.
Then he staggered on towards the far end of the gallery above the front door and collapsed on to the floor. His chest and throat were raw with pain, and his hand was stinging. When he coughed he brought up blackened phlegm and thought his ribs would be ripped apart. It seemed a lifetime until he heard the marvellous sound of the fire engines and saw the blue lights reflected in the windows. And in those minutes he saw a thousand times over the burning flesh of the once kind and gentle Anne Schofield and it sickened him.
But he was safe. He'd escaped, but for how long? He knew now that there had been no news about his mother. He had just assumed it. Anne Schofield had sounded distressed, not anxious, on the telephone because someone had forced her to make that call to him. She hadn't been the intended victim. He had. Quite clearly he had been lured here with one purpose in mind: to kill him. The killer hadn't succeeded, but he would try again. Next time Horton guessed he might not be so lucky.
Ten
Saturday: 9.30 A.M.
'Are you OK?'
'I've felt better.' Horton was touched by the worried expression clouding Cantelli's dark features. His throat felt as though he had been inhaling eighty cigarettes a day since he was fourteen, and a tight band of pain gripped his chest as if his ribs had been strapped up. His right hand was bandaged but his burns had been superficial. Apart from that, and being exhausted after a sleepless night, he was fine, and very glad to be alive.
'What the devil happened?' asked Cantelli.
It was the same question that Uckfield had put to him last night. Horton hadn't told him the truth and he couldn't tell Cantelli. Besides, he didn't know the truth. He had suspected that someone had lured him to his death and used Anne Schofield as bait but in the cold light of day he wasn't sure about that any more.
Sitting in his office with Cantelli the other side of his desk, Horton relayed what he'd told Uckfield and DCI Bliss: he'd called on Anne Schofield to get some background information on the relationship between Rowland Gilmore and his brother Sebastian, and had found her dead. He'd been trapped inside the building when Anne Schofield's killer had tried to destroy the evidence. Of course that didn't explain the phone call he'd received from her.
'Did the killer know you were in there?' Cantelli seemed to eye him a little suspiciously. Had he detected a lie? Had some minute gesture or inflection in his voice given him away? If anyone could read Horton then Cantelli was in with the best chance.
Horton coughed, unsure if he was stalling for time or if it was genuine, and then wished he hadn't because his chest went into a painful spasm. That would teach him to lie. He saw Cantelli frown with concern and managed to rasp, 'My Harley was parked in front of the church.'
