Scarlet Women (27 page)

Annie gave Tony his orders and told him to be quick about it.

‘Hey, you getting religion, Boss?’ he joshed.

‘Not at this late stage,’ said Annie grimly.

The church was quiet today. No choir practice in progress. She got out of the car and put her umbrella up and stood there in the humidity of a summer downpour for a moment, wondering if Hunter had already trodden the same path, wondering too if the church would be locked up and if she was going to have to schlep over to the vicarage to see the little squirt.

Little
was the operative word, but it took very little strength to garrotte someone, she knew that. Blackout in seconds, death shortly afterwards. For fuck’s sake, even a woman could do it. Certainly the vicar could, maybe thinking in his twisted,
crusading mind that he was liberating these girls from their life of vice.

Bastard.

‘You want me to come in with you, Boss?’ asked Tony from inside the car.

‘No, Tone.’ She didn’t want the vicar spotting Tony and running for the hills before she could collar him. And she wasn’t about to turn her back on the noxious little ferret, not for one second. She had a martial arts weapon, the lethal kiyoga, in her raincoat pocket. She was confident that she could handle this, was almost looking forward to it.

She went down the path to the church doors and tried one of the big circular iron handles. To her surprise, she found that the door opened. Inside, the lights were burning. Either the vicar or the verger had put them on, so she was in luck. Putting down her umbrella, she stepped into the silent church and stood at the bottom of the aisle looking up towards the altar. Rows of empty pews stretched away in front of her.

She couldn’t hear a sound. Not a murmur.

‘Hello?’ she said, and stepped forward, putting the umbrella down on the nearest pew. She slipped her hand into her pocket and clutched the cold comforting steel of the kiyoga. She felt uneasy. All the hairs on the back of her neck were erect.

No answer came. Maybe there was no one here.
Or maybe they’re just waiting for you to walk up the aisle so they can jump you
, she thought.

The door crashed back on its hinges. Annie spun round like a cat.

‘What the fuck are you doing here, Carter?’ asked Hunter, coming in with his dark hair plastered flat from the rain, droplets catching the church lights on the sodden shoulders of his raincoat. He really was a good-looking bloke; it was just a pity he was such a pain in the rear. She got her racketing heart rate back under control.

‘I’m doing your bloody job, by the looks of it,’ she hissed, angry because she’d been getting spooked.

He came towards her, shaking himself like a dog. ‘I’m
doing
my bloody job, for your information,’ he returned. ‘We’ve checked out the vicar. And on the surface, he looks spotless.’

‘Bollocks!’

Hunter winced. ‘We’re in a place of worship,’ he reminded her.

‘
Double
bollocks,’ said Annie. ‘Look—if this little shit’s been doing these girls, I want him nailed.’

‘He’s a boozer. And when he gets drunk, yes, he gets abusive, granted.’ Hunter ran a hand through his soaking hair, leaving it stuck up all over the place. He looked at her. He was obviously itching to say something.

‘Come on, spit it out,’ said Annie.

‘There are other people involved in running the church and its charitable concerns beside the vicar,’ he whispered. It echoed. Everything echoed like crazy in here.

‘Like who?’

‘The verger, two lay preachers, the choirmaster, plus several female volunteers who make tea and clean the church and arrange the flowers for Sunday service.’

‘And you’ve checked them all out?’ Her voice echoed eerily:
out, out, out…

‘Yeah—and they’re all clean except for one.’

‘Like who?’

‘Like
who
?’ He stuck his hands on his hips and stared at her. ‘
Back off
, Mrs Carter. This is
police
business. I’ve told you before.’

‘It’s my business too,’ said Annie.

‘Is it fuck,’ he snapped.

‘We’re in a place of worship,’ Annie reminded him with a grim smile.

‘Look.’ He was back to the finger-pointing again, jabbing away at the air in front of her face. Christ, he was irritating. ‘
Look
, Carter…’

‘No,
you
look,’ Annie cut in. ‘My friend’s been done. Those other girls, too. I don’t want to see any more of this. I want it cut dead
now.
’

‘We’re in agreement about that,’ he said tersely.

‘So bloody well
talk
to me. Tell me what the
fuck’s going on. You say there are other people running the show? Tell me who.’

He let out a heavy sigh and walked away a couple of paces. He seemed to count to ten. Then he walked back. ‘Okay. But this is a two-way thing, agreed? I tell you, you tell me. Clear?’

‘Clear,’ said Annie, thinking:
Dream on my friend. Become a fucking grass? I don’t think so.

‘All right then. One of them’s got previous. I’ve just had it confirmed.’

‘Previous? What for?’

‘Statutory rape.’

Oh fucking hell.

‘Served four years, been out for two. And listen—I’m not telling you any of this.’

‘Okay. Understood.’

He looked at her. ‘And anything else you know, you tell me. Yes?’

‘Yeah, right.’
Yeah, right.

‘He’s a loner. The people who do this type of thing usually are. He was employed at his local parish church in Lincolnshire and was caught saying suggestive things to the ladies who cleaned the church. But they let it pass, thought it was just eccentricity. He befriended and finally raped the daughter of one of them. He’d encouraged her to get a flame tattoo done on her inner thigh beforehand. You know these teenage girls—susceptible to flattery, new to male attention and not sure how
to handle it. She fell for it, anyway. Pretty nasty business. He got violent during the rape and nearly choked her with a scarf around her neck.’

Oh fuck me,
thought Annie.

‘Called the poor kid a whore. She was severely traumatized. When the case came to light, a couple of prostitutes in the area came forward and said that they’d been raped and nearly throttled by the man; that he’d paid them extra if they got a tattoo done on their upper inner thigh, a flame tattoo, so they had, but then he’d turned aggressive and raped them and called them whores and said the flame was a sign they were going to burn in hell. Nice man, uh? They hadn’t bothered to report it because would the police think it possible for a prostitute to be raped? You can see they had a point.’

Annie nodded, feeling slightly sick.

‘He got a prison sentence for the rape of the girl,’ went on DI Hunter, ‘then he came out and moved to London. That’s always a problem with these people. They move, they fade into the background, and re-emerge somewhere else. Sometimes with a new name, a new identity. Hard to keep track.’

‘Wait up,’ said Annie. ‘So…you’re not talking about the vicar?’

‘No. I’m talking about Cyrus Regan.’

‘Who?’

‘Cyrus Regan. He moved to London. His family had disowned him anyway. He signed up for a charitable 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.