The Silent Pool (14 page)

Father Michael shook his head. He had a pained look on his face. ‘Don't ask me this thing I beg of you, Mr Jones.’

‘Are you going to lie in front of your parishioners? Are you going to deny paying Purple Ahmed £50,000?’

Father Michael looked at Erasmus and shook his head sadly. He looked at his feet for a moment and then directly at Erasmus, or more accurately just over Erasmus’ shoulder where Erasmus suspected there was another camera. Tears had appeared in Father Michael's eyes.

‘It's true. Stephen Francis was a broken soul. Gambling had eaten him up and his soul was heavy with that sin, but, but he was a member of our church family, at heart a good man and yes we did offer him a way out. A lot of people here know Stephen Francis. He was one of us and a soul that needed saving. He came to me and asked for help in private and now you've exposed and humiliated him in front of his friends. Shame on you, Mr Jones, shame on you.’

Cooper was looking at Father Michael with puppy dog eyes. This wasn't going to plan.
In for a penny
, decided Erasmus.

‘Did you have anything to do with his disappearance?’ He may well have asked him whether he was a cross dresser if the howls and shouts of indignation were anything to go by.

Father Michael raised his arms and silenced the baying crowd. They had turned into a mob that wouldn't have been too out of place in seventeenth-century Salem.

‘I think you had better leave. However, let me put you at ease. I had nothing to do with and do not know what happened to Stephen Francis. But I do know this, this church and I will never apologise for looking after one of its errant sheep.’

There was a roar of approval.

Father Michael looked directly at Erasmus maintaining what he no doubt thought was his most sincere expression and direct eye contact. To Erasmus it was like being back in neuro-visual psychology 101 studying faces all over again. He spotted at least four facial signs that indicated Father Michael was lying.

Erasmus bowed his head and let a small smile play on his face.

‘Sure, I'm going to leave now. I am free to leave?’

Father Michael waved Erasmus forward.

‘I believe you parked out back.’

Erasmus started walking feeling the eyes of hundreds of angry Christians burning into his back. He left he same way he had entered.

Outside there was a tall, stick-like man standing next to his car. He wore a wide-brimmed felt hat.

He smiled as he saw Erasmus approach but the smile seemed to be the kind of smile that a visitor from another planet might see the locals making and then try and impersonate. It made Erasmus’ skin crawl.

‘I'm awfully afraid some local hooligans may have damaged your car, sir.’ The man stepped away revealing the word ‘CUNT’ in dripping wet, red paint on the side of his car.

Erasmus smiled. ‘It was probably my ex-wife. And you would be?’

The man tipped his hat back revealing a wide expense of pale flesh above grey eyes.

‘Why, sir, I'm the Pastor. Good day to you.’

The Pastor started to walk away, back towards the church.

‘God works in mysterious ways. “Cunt”, eh?’

The Pastor didn't look around.

‘Indeed he does, indeed he does.’

CHAPTER 15

Despite Erasmus’ suspicions that Father Michael was lying to him, the cold hard facts of the matter were that he had zero proof that any crime had been committed. He had talked the case through with Pete over a pint in the Grapes but there seemed to be no obvious line of enquiry. If it hadn't been for the YouTube video and the restraining order Erasmus would have just let things drift and given Jenna a long, slow brush off in the most cowardly of ways.

After the initial euphoria of the Bovind Foundations announcement that it would be bailing out the city's finances people were starting to get used to the idea of the city being sponsored by a multi-national company and the general consensus was it was no different from the sponsoring of the local football teams. Gossip had switched to the death of the lawyer Malcolm Ford. The legal community in Liverpool was like a small dysfunctional family where everybody knew and disliked each other. Malcolm had been disliked by most and therefore the gossip and speculation about who may have committed the deed was wide-ranging in its list of possible suspects.

Erasmus, as a relative newcomer so still on the periphery, hadn't known Malcolm and it was only with a passing interest that he listened to the water cooler chatter.

There had been family issues to deal with as well. Both he and Miranda had been pleased at the end of the teachers’ strikes but the announcement by the Bovind Foundation had stunned the city's inhabitants as well as the rest of the country. The fact that it had been fully supported by the Mayor's office had just been an added shock.

Erasmus had voted for the Mayor, he had promised to be a bulwark against the growing successes of the Nationalist parties but here he was siding with ‘the forces of medieval reactionary Christianity’, as Miranda had put it to Erasmus in a series of increasingly fraught phone calls.

Miranda wanted to pull Abby out of her school but she was doing well and didn't want to leave. There was also the issue of finance: neither of them had the money required to put her through private school nor had they ever wanted to. It had been left with an agreement to wait and see what happened in practice when the revised science curriculum was delivered to all the public schools in the next few weeks as promised by the Bovind Foundation and the Mayor's office. What they would do if the books arrived with pictures of Romans playing with dinosaurs Erasmus wasn't quite sure about yet.

It was Pete who sent him the YouTube video in an email with the subject heading ‘You dozy bastard’.

Erasmus looked at the screen and he recognised a still image of himself in the front row of the church.

The title to the video was ‘Drunk solicitor in Church assault’.

It was as Erasmus remembered, save for one salient detail. There was no footage of Thomas trying to stand or Erasmus rescuing the boy. The video showed Erasmus run onto the stage, head butt Dave and then cut to Erasmus asking Father Michael about Stephen Francis. Erasmus came across as an aggressive lunatic.

It was Dan who brought him the news that Father Michael had obtained an ex-parte order from the court restraining Erasmus from approaching within fifty yards of Father Michael or any members of the Faith in the Community staff or indeed the Third Wave church in Wavertree.

Erasmus had been preparing to go out on a routine insurance company surveillance mission when Dan turned up at his office unannounced,

‘I don't know how you did it, Raz, but you turned a lottery win into a shit butty in just over three days. Congratulations, you're the first person I know to have a restraining order issued against them.’

‘Father Michael?’

‘Bingo! Father Michael, local pillar of the community, respected and held in high esteem even by non-church goers. And I've seen the video. It is not good,
amigo
, not good at all.’

Dan gave a little sniffle. He didn't look good, thought Erasmus.

‘You OK Dan?’ asked Erasmus.

‘Yeah, just got a cold. Caught it last night from Colombia, if you catch my drift.’ Dan gave a weak smile. ‘But, here's the key thing, Raz, I did it on my own time and didn't bring the firm into disrepute. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the Bean doesn't want any association with you at the moment.’

Erasmus flopped back into the chair he had just left.

‘I'm sacked? You have to be joking? I was only conducting this investigation because the firm asked me to do it. What about the training contract?’

‘Relax, Raz, you're not sacked, you're just going on holiday for two weeks while this dies down a bit. Things have changed since the Bovind Foundation came in and backed the council with all that religious money, the “Beard Pound” is being chased by all the law firms and we just want you to take a short break while we do our chasing.’

‘Jesus,’ said Erasmus.

‘Exactly,’ said Dan.

‘Dan, are you sure you're OK? You look like shit.’

‘Yeah, I'm fine, partied a little hard last night, came home with lipstick on my, well, let's just say it wasn't on my collar and Diane went crazy. But at least I didn't punch a Priest.’

‘It was one of his volunteer thugs in a red shirt and he deserved it.’

‘I'm sure he did. Look, I'm sorry about this but the Bean wants you gone today. Go somewhere sunny and get laid. It's the benefit of being single and we both know that you're not making the most of it.’

Erasmus nodded. ‘Yeah, maybe. The thing is, Dan, without work coming in from your firm I haven't actually got any other work on. I'm not sure what I'm going to do.’

Dan just shrugged and said two words: ‘Internet porn.’

CHAPTER 16

After two days at home Erasmus had reached the end of the various possibilities offered by daytime television and internet browsing. He needed work for him and for Sandy who he had had to tell not to come in for a few days.

He had called Dan on the second day to assess the lay of the land and had been informed in no uncertain times that the Bean's rage was undiminished. The one positive from their conversation was that Dan had sounded much healthier than the last time they had spoken.

‘She's forgiven me,’ explained Dan. ‘I just have to stay clean and away from women. She also wants me to take an HIV test before resuming relations.’

‘A wise woman,’ said Erasmus.

‘Yeah, and a scary one at that,’ said Dan.

After the call he found himself almost unconsciously opening the kitchen cupboard that contained a bottle of Yamazaki. It was ten in the morning and it wasn't so much the thought of drinking or being drunk at that time in day but rather what the rest of the day may bring if he were to let his inhibitions take flight on a sea of scotch.

He needed a focus and it was the internet that brought him it.

Browsing the BBC website Erasmus noticed with growing dismay the coverage on the council's plans and commentary on the Bovind Foundations influence on the council's policies. It was generating headlines nationally and around the world. Pressure groups both religious and secular were starting to see the city as a battleground between believers and non-believers. The latest news was that Professor Cannon, the famous evolutionary biologist and the flag carrier of the atheist movement, had announced that he was proposing a legal challenge to the council's plans in the courts. He was also talking about demonstrations outside any schools that used the new textbooks, calling them the greatest works of fiction since the Bible and the Koran, and suggesting that responsible parents pull their kids out of school.
If only it were that easy
, thought Erasmus.

He clicked another link, this one to the local BBC website. Again the headlines were all focused on the council but there was a poll showing that the Mayor had his highest ever approval ratings. It seemed that all denominations including the large local Muslim population were behind the Mayor's policies. Perhaps politicians could ‘do’ religion and succeed.

Erasmus clicked a link to a story about the death of Malcolm Ford. He hadn't paid too much attention last week, he had never known the guy and apart from a passing interest into the murder of a local lawyer, he hadn't taken a great interest. The story had been relegated to the third page but without a suspect it was running dry. It appeared under the headline ‘Death of city lawyer. Police appeal for information’.

The story rehashed the details Erasmus already knew: Ford had apparently been pushed from the twenty-third floor of the Beetham Tower Block at approximately 1.30 a.m. He had been strapped to a chair before his fall, and shots had been fired. The police said they were pursuing a number of enquiries but given the plea for any information it didn't seem to Erasmus that they had much to go on.

Erasmus was poised to click on a banner advertising private school education – usually anathema to Erasmus but in these times becoming an increasingly possible, if unaffordable, prospect – when his attention was drawn to a small grey box at the bottom of the article on Ford. It was a short biography of the dead lawyer. He gleaned that Ford was forty-five years old, married with two kids, and the rising star and youngest partner at his firm. He had a law degree from Durham University and was educated at St Edward's School in Woolton. This had set Erasmus running for the file on Stephen Francis that Pete had prepared for him. It was in the living room under a mound of newspapers and magazines – Erasmus had never been what you would call the minimalist type. He opened the file and began to pull out its contents. He knew it was in here somewhere and then he found it: a copy of Stephen Francis’ CV. Erasmus checked but he already knew. Stephen Francis had gone to St Edward's School and was the same age as Malcolm. Erasmus looked at the bio again. There was a headshot of Malcolm Ford tanned and healthy, taken somewhere hot. He picked up his mobile phone and hit speed dial.

‘It's Erasmus. Are you in?’ he asked.

Within seconds of receiving an affirmative answer he was in his old Volkswagen and heading to Aigburth.

He ran to the door, which opened before he had a chance to knock. Jenna had a wry smile on her face.

‘You don't call and then they are practically battering down my door,’ she said.

‘I need to see the photograph you showed me, the one of Stephen with Father Michael and Bovind.’

‘Yeah sure,’ said Jenna and she disappeared inside before returning with the photograph. She handed it to him.

It was just as Erasmus remembered: Father Michael standing next to upturned boat on a sandy beach, smoking a cigarette. Lounging in front of the boat were five young boys in red shirts, one of whom he recognised as Stephen, one Bovind and one was a young Malcolm Ford.

‘Holy shit’ said Erasmus, ‘maybe she is right.’

CHAPTER 17

Rachel didn't know this part of town and was struggling to find the address her editor had given her.

The story was a nothing story, a piece of crap that wouldn't even make it in the paper. She was to speak to an elderly resident who had reported drugs being sold in the alley behind her house. As if that was news in this or any other city. The police had even come and investigated so it wasn't as if she could run a police negligence angle.