Читать книгу Scared to Death: A gripping crime thriller you won’t be able to put down - Kate Medina, Kate Medina - Страница 18

‘Captain Callan?’

The man who had manoeuvred himself in front of Callan in the doorway, who was now holding out his hand and fixing Callan with a limpid green gaze, was as Irish as Guinness and leprechauns. He was around Callan’s own age, but there the similarity stopped. Fine ginger hair feathered his head, freckles peppered his pallid face and the skin on his bare, extended forearm looked as if it would burn to a crisp in mid-winter. His body was soft and paunchy, his features slightly feminine looking. But the expression on his face was steadfast. Callan’s gaze found the purple pentagon bordering the black crown on his epaulettes, the purple band around the cap that he was holding in his left hand, and his heart sank. He took hold of the proffered hand firmly.

‘Chaplain. What can I do for you?’

‘I’m Michael O’Shaughnessy, the padre here at Blackdown. Could I have a quiet word please, Captain.’ He glanced past Callan to where a group of shock-faced sixteen-year-olds, last night’s guard detachment, fidgeted on chairs in the larger of the two rooms that Gold had secured for interviews. ‘In private.’

The only Army officers who didn’t carry standard ranks, chaplains could hail from any Christian religion or Judaism, but were expected to provide pastoral care to any soldier who needed it, irrespective of the soldier’s faith – or lack of it. All very worthy, but O’Shaughnessy’s presence in this room with Callan’s witnesses, his suspects, made him deeply uneasy. The last thing he needed was God or his earthly representative getting in the way of his investigation.

They stepped outside and Callan turned to face O’Shaughnessy. Though shards of sunlight were knifing through the grey clouds, it had started to rain, a soft patter on the tarmac around them. The chaplain gazed blandly up at Callan.

‘You’re leading the investigation into this poor, unfortunate boy’s death, I presume?’ His tone was soft, the lilt southern Irish, nothing hurried about his diction, no urgency.

Callan nodded, feeling impatience rear its head already. He resisted the urge to glance at this watch.

‘I would ask you to suspend your interviews for a few hours, send the boys and girls back to their accommodation blocks for a bit of downtime. You can resume later today, when they’ve rested. Perhaps even tomorrow morning.’

Callan frowned. ‘These “boys and girls”, as you call them, are witness to and potentially suspects in a suspicious death.’

‘Is it definitely murder?’

‘I won’t know for sure until the autopsy, but it looks that way.’ His tone was curt, deliberately so. He still felt like shit, didn’t have the mental or physical energy to exchange niceties with the chaplain. He wanted this conversation over, wanted to get back to doing his job.

‘This is a training base, Captain, for the Royal Logistic Corps, as you know. These are kids, sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds, for the most part. They are all tired and scared. You will get far more sense from them if you give them a chance to sleep, to get some rest.’

‘This is an Army base, Chaplain. These kids joined voluntarily and were legally old enough to make that decision.’

A shadow crossed O’Shaughnessy’s face. ‘They’re hardly Parachute Regiment or SAS, though, are they?’

‘They’re still Army, none of them conscripts.’ Still witnesses. Still suspects.

The rain was getting heavier; Callan could feel cold water funnelling down the back of his neck. He flipped up his collar and hunched his shoulders in his navy suit. O’Shaughnessy appeared not to notice the burgeoning downpour. Coming from Ireland, he was no doubt used to it. ‘Nobody is going anywhere, until I, or one of my team has spoken with them. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’ Callan turned to go inside.

‘Captain.’

Callan paused, his hand on the door, but didn’t turn. ‘Chaplain.’

‘I will be around, Captain Callan. The welfare of the living in this case is as important – more so, I would venture – than the welfare of the dead.’

Don’t tell me. Your God will look after the dead.

‘And it is my job to ensure that these teenagers’ welfare is not compromised.’

Callan’s hard gaze met the chaplain’s insipid green one.

‘Of course, Chaplain, I would expect nothing less. Just as it’s my job to find out what happened.’ He paused. ‘Did you know him, Chaplain?’

‘The victim?’

‘Stephen Foster. He was called Stephen Foster.’

‘My conversations are entirely confidential, Captain, you know that.’ His soft voice didn’t rise. ‘I cannot divulge the names of those that I give counsel to. I need to be indisputably trustworthy, above reproach. No names, no comebacks, as they say.’

Callan’s jaw tightened. ‘This is potentially a murder investigation.’

‘Potentially.’

‘Whichever way you look at it, Foster is dead. Surely your professional and ecclesiastical responsibility are discharged on death.’

‘The dead leave behind families, they leave behind loved ones and they leave behind their reputations.’

‘And they need justice,’ Callan snapped. ‘He needs justice.’

‘If this is found to be murder, Captain Callan, unequivocally murder, feel free to come and speak with me again.’ His gaze slid from Callan’s and found the low cloud ceiling above them, his brow creasing into a frown as if he had finally noticed that he was getting wet.

Callan gave a grim nod. ‘The autopsy will be tomorrow morning. Don’t go anywhere, Chaplain, and don’t discuss this case with anyone. I will see you again soon, no doubt.’

‘No doubt.’

Yanking the door open, Callan pushed through, leaving the chaplain standing outside in the rain, his mouth puckered into a moue of distaste. At the rain? At him? Callan couldn’t tell and couldn’t care less either way.