The Silent Pool (26 page)

‘Jesus, their names are all here: Ford, Francis, Radzinski, Bovind, Petersen, Wareing and…holy shit!’

Erasmus showed the writing to Rachel and Pete.

Pete looked shocked. ‘You've been lied to, Erasmus,’ he said.

CHAPTER 32

The next morning Erasmus called Dan. He was in the Mosquito Lounge.

‘So they've had a change of heart?’

‘I guess they didn't want to lose his best customer, what's profit compared to love eh, Erasmus.’

By the slight slur in his words Erasmus guessed Dan had been in the bar for some time already.

‘Listen, Dan, I need you to do me a favour. I know what you said but I need you to get me in to see Kirk Bovind.’

There was a pause. Erasmus could hear the sounds of laughter in the background and easy music.

‘I told you, it's never going to happen. The firm are chasing his account. We have our best guys on it and you want me to get you in front of him, a man with a restraining order on him for assaulting a member of the clergy who also happens to be a close personal friend of Bovind's. No way.’

‘Listen, if I'm right his life could be in danger. Someone is killing his old friends.’

‘No way. This is a favour too far and anyway you don't just call Kirk Bovind. I only have his PA's number.’

Erasmus seized upon the opening.

‘Call his PA and tell him that I want to see Bovind and it's in connection with the
Everlong
. If you don't then I'm just going to drive to his hotel and speak to him anyway. At least this way you're either giving him a warning or arranging an interview he is going to want to have.’

This time there was a longer pause and the sound of a drink being sipped.

‘I believe you. I will call his assistant tell him that some crazy wants me to pass on a message and then that's it, Erasmus. We are through. I warned you about this. Stay on this number.’

Pete was driving and didn't take his eyes off the road. ‘Well, that sounded as though it went well,’ he said darkly.

Erasmus said nothing.

But Dan had made the call to Bovind's assistant and it had only taken five minutes for a reply that Kirk Bovind would happily see Erasmus. Dan had been, if anything, more pissed off when he called Erasmus back and told him that Bovind could see him right away in his hotel suite.

Erasmus sensed something was wrong with Dan, drinking this early in the day was unusual for him. He made a mental note to talk to his friend.

The hotel, the London Carriage Works, was positioned directly opposite the Philharmonic Hall and was a renovated tobacco warehouse. Dan had told them that Bovind had taken an entire floor as his base in Liverpool until he could find somewhere permanent.

There were two burly men standing outside the hotel on the pavement. They were wearing microphone headpieces and black jackets identifying them as a conspicuous first layer of security. One of them flagged their car down. Erasmus was sure there were others, out of sight, providing a more discrete, secondary level of protection.

The man motioned to Pete to wind down his window. Erasmus recognised him straightaway: it was Barry from Giles’ house. His nose was flattened to one side and he had two black eyes. The other bodyguard stood back checking the car while his friend stepped to the side of the car and shoved a bomb detector mirror underneath the car.

‘You see that guy?’ said Erasmus.

‘Roger that,’ replied Pete.

Pete wound down the window.

‘Identify yourself, please?’ said Barry.

‘I'm Bugs Bunny and the other guy is Elmer Thudd. We're here to see Porky Pig. Come on, you just flagged down our car because you've been briefed on who we are,’ said Pete.

He looked over to Erasmus in the passenger seat.

‘You!’ said Barry.

‘Hi Barry, we are here to see your boss. Sorry about the nose, it's looking pretty bad.’

Barry paused and Erasmus guessed he was weighing up whether pulling Erasmus out of the car and beating him to death would be a bad career move. Erasmus winked at him.

‘That's it! You're dead!’

Barry dived through the driver's open window and went for Erasmus. Before he reached him he was pulled backwards suddenly by his colleague. Barry looked startled. The man put his right hand on Barry's cheek and leaned in close to whisper something to him.

Barry nodded and then returned to the car. He was ashen faced.

‘Give me the keys and I'll park your car for you, sir,’ he said to Pete.

Pete handed the keys to Barry.

‘If you accompany my colleague, Edward, he will show you up to Mr Bovind's suite.’

‘Be careful with that, it's a vintage Saab.’

‘Of course, sir,’ said Barry.

Erasmus and Pete followed Edward.

‘Do you want him to destroy your car?’

Pete smiled. ‘Actually yes, the gearbox is going. I was sort of hoping he might take it for a spin and write the thing off.’

‘I don't think he will do anything. Did you see his eyes? He was terrified of something or someone.’

Pete nodded. ‘I saw.’

Edward led them through the minimalist lobby and then into one of the elevators. Inside, there was another gym toned guard. Edward beckoned them inside the elevator.

‘Matthew will take care of you from here.’

‘Hello Matthew,’ said Erasmus.

Matthew didn't reply. Instead he hit one of the buttons and the elevator began its ascent. Erasmus noticed that there was only one button and assumed this must be a private elevator purely for the purposes of reaching the suite. He was right. The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened, revealing an opulent living room area furnished with leather chaise-longue, elegant chairs and a mahogany writing desk.

Matthew stepped out into the room.

‘This way please,’ he said.

‘Swanky. It reminds me of your place but without the takeaway cartons and air of desperation,’ said Pete.

‘Very funny,’ replied Erasmus.

Erasmus and Pete followed Matthew into the suite. The living area was empty and Matthew led them through a door into an adjoining room.

This room was smaller than the previous room and there was a desk at one end behind which sat Kirk Bovind. Erasmus recognised him instantly from the newspapers. The man before them looked the same as his picture but the reality was very different. Erasmus was struck straightaway by the man's skin. At first glance it was perfect, blemish free, but after a moment it felt like he was looking at a high definition image of the man rather than the man himself. Bovind's tanned skin almost seemed to be vibrating with an eerie luminosity. It was though he had been bleached and machine cleaned to a highly engineered shiny finish. His hair, lush and blond, sprouted in a uniform, surgical pattern and was moulded into a solid mass of a side parting. Bovind looked like a man in his late twenties but the effect close up was of a man wearing another man's skin. It made Erasmus want to look away.

Bovind got up from behind the desk and shook their hands. His hands were delicate and the handshake feathery. Bovind's smile, which had switched on the moment they entered the room, was wide, bright and fixed.

‘Pete Cross, great to meet you, and you must be Erasmus Jones. Well, I've heard all about you, I don't know too many men who have court orders restraining them from approaching a member of the church!’ He laughed and slapped Erasmus on the shoulder.

‘It was a misunderstanding,’ said Erasmus.

‘Sure, sure, these things often are. Now do you guys want some drinks?’

They both declined. Erasmus was struck by Bovind's accent. It veered between old-fashioned Liverpudlian and a Texan drawl like a bumper car being driven by a drunk.

‘Please take a seat. I gotta tell you I was curious when Dan told my assistant that you guys wanted to see me and why. In my line of work death threats aren't that unusual. There are always some folks who want you to stop doing the Lord's work and, heck, there is a lot of jealousy about when you start bringing in the dollars. But when I heard you wanted to speak to me about the
Everlong
, well, I gotta say I was curious. So, what do you guys have for me?’

Erasmus took out the photograph that he had found in the school and put it on the table in front of Bovind.

‘Do you remember this picture?’ he asked.

Bovind picked up the picture. For a brief moment his smiling lips dipped momentarily and Erasmus thought he saw something else, something almost fearful in his expression. But the look was gone as soon as it appeared and Bovind was back to his default facial expression: smiling widely.

‘I sure do. It was the day that we got that darn boat out to sea for the first time. Father Michael had us working on that boat for months – ’

Erasmus interrupted him. ‘All the boys in that photograph are now missing or dead except for you. Ford fell to his death two days ago, Petersen was killed last night, Wareing drowned last week, Francis is missing and Tomas died twenty-five years ago. So that leaves you and Father Michael.’

Bovind leaned back in his chair. ‘So, you guys think that someone is murdering us? Who would want to do that and why?’

‘Well, it could be Stephen, it would explain his disappearance. But it could be Father Michael, someone we haven't thought of, or – ’ he paused ‘ – or it could be you?’ said Erasmus.

Bovind was silent for a moment and then he began to laugh and for good measure gently slapped his own knee. ‘You gotta be kidding me. Father Michael is one of the most religious, morally upstanding people I have ever had the privilege to know. He looked after us back then and now he's an inspiration to all his flock of whom I, you must know this already, am one. I just don't see it, it's nonsense, Erasmus!’

Erasmus sighed but continued. ‘I know this is going to be difficult but we think the deaths and the disappearance in such a short space of time must be linked.’

‘And why do you think its Father Michael? I know you have personal issues with him, heck he had to get a court order restraining you from being within one hundred yards of him. It sure ain't him so why not me? Maybe I'm your killer and you should be protecting Father Michael?’

Suddenly Bovind's smile dropped and he stared directly at Erasmus.

‘Because there is evidence that shows me that Father Michael was being blackmailed by Stephen Francis, I am fairly sure, but maybe some or all of the others?’

‘Blackmailed?’

‘Father Michael paid £50,000 to a loan shark who Francis owed money to, two weeks before his disappearance. Would he do that for any of his parishioners? I was asking him about that at the church. That's why he had the court order taken out against me.’

‘So you think that Stephen was blackmailing him and Father Michael had him killed?’

‘It happens, and I think that once he got started he decided to finish the job and make sure it couldn't happen again.’

‘Take out all the trash,’ muttered Bovind.

‘I wondered, and this is a little sensitive, well, I wondered if they were was ever any inappropriate conduct by Father Michael back then. He was a Catholic priest and it's not entirely unknown?’

Bovind shook his head. ‘No, absolutely not. There was nothing like that at all. People tend to think the worst of the clergy sometimes but Father Michael was never like that, not at all. He loved us all but not in any inappropriate way.’

‘But the money?’

Bovind's head snapped around and a completely new look appeared on his face. His eyes narrowed but unnervingly no frown lines appeared, his skin remained glacially smooth.

‘The money is a bit difficult to explain but here is the thing, Mr Jones, the world is too cynical, too quick to judge those who would stand up for morality and decency. You saw that with the child sex scandals in the Catholic Church. Yes, there were a few bad apples but the liberal left media lapped it up, they loved every second because they hate absolutes and God's word is absolute, don't you agree?’

The look of anger passed as quickly as it had appeared and the calm, rational Bovind reappeared.

‘What I mean to say is that there is nothing, just nothing bad about Father Michael and he is the last person on earth I would think would try and harm me or the other children. You know about Tomas?’

Erasmus nodded.

‘The Bosnian boy, he was murdered?’

Bovind examined the picture again. ‘What you don't know is that he disappeared the day this picture was taken.’

‘Is it possible that Father Michael had anything to do with his murder?’ asked Erasmus.

A look of anger flashed across Bovind's face. ‘Tomas was killed by Frank Burns, he confessed to the murder! Why would you think Father Michael had anything to do with it?’

Bovind stood up and walked to the window. He moved with a jerkiness that made Erasmus think that his youthful looks belied an inner sickness.

‘This project, my project here in Liverpool was inspired by Father Michael's example. He taught me a valuable lesson: love means nothing if you are not prepared to sacrifice anything and everything for it. Father Michael saved souls at any price and so will I, in this city.’

Bovind turned around. In the winter sunlight that shone on his face his skin seemed almost transparent, stretched so tightly as it was across his face.

‘Father Michael is not a killer,’ he was almost whispering now. ‘It was Father Michael who saved Tomas’ life, it was Father Michael who found him starving by the side of a road after his family were massacred by the Mujahideen, it was Father Michael who, as Tomas hovered between life and death in hospital, visited the boy every day for a month until he was well again and after that he arranged for him to come to the UK and processed his asylum claim. It was Father Michael who placed him with foster parents here, if he could have taken him as his own son he would have done, but Father Michel was wedded to the Church. You see the point I am making is that Father Michael loved that boy Tomas like he was his own son. But the day Tomas went missing, although it was Father Michael who reported that Tomas was gone, he was hauled off by the local police as their first suspect because that is the level of hatred, prejudice and, let's call it what it is, evil, that exists in our society against religion, Mr Jones. And now here you are again repeating the same old prejudice and lies against Father Michael.’