The Death List by Paul Johnston Page B

felt was a lancing agony from behind.
     
    Detective Chief Inspector Karen Oaten, promoted to the Metropolitan Police’s recently formed Violent Crimes Coordination Team in February, was standing in front of the altar of St. Bartholomew’s. She was in white coveralls and bootees, the SOCOs crawling around her like a pack of hounds.
    “Come on, Taff,” she said, looking over her shoulder.
    John Turner, wearing the same garb, came up the aisle slowly. His face was the same color as his protective suit. He had passed the inspector’s exams and moved with his boss.
    “I’ll let you off,” Oaten said in a low voice. “This is a bad one, right enough.” The assistant commissioner responsible for the VCCT had made sure they got the case rather than the local division, and she’d arrived at the church just after one a.m. Even she had taken a deep breath when she saw what was on the altar.
    The pathologist was still by the naked body. It was that of a flabby man in his fifties. He was lying on his chest over the altar, his legs and arms dangling down. A tall gold candlestick was on the ground, its top inserted between his buttocks.
    “Who called it in?” the chief inspector asked.
    “A Mrs. Brenda O’Grady,” Turner replied, looking at his notebook. “She lives in a tower block down the road. She was in here doing the cleaning earlier tonight. Before she went to bed, she saw that the lights were still on and came to check. That’s about all the sense I could get out of her. She saw the body.”
    “Does she know who it is?”
    “She reckons it’s the priest, Father Norman Prendegast, though she didn’t look at him for long.”
    Karen Oaten nodded. “I’m not surprised.” She turned to the front. “Let’s go and see what the medic’s got.” She gave Turner a tight smile. “If you can handle it.”
    He returned the smile slackly. “I can handle it, guv.” He owed Wild Oats plenty. She had insisted that he come with her to the Yard when she was singled out to join the new team. He still wasn’t sure why he was there. Maybe it was because he never questioned her authority. The other blokes in the Eastern Homicide Division had never come to terms with being told what to do by a woman.
    They picked their way past the SOCOs.
    “Anything interesting?” Oaten asked.
    One of the technicians, a bearded man, looked up and shrugged. “There are plenty of different fibers. It’s too early to say if they’ll give you any help. No bloody footprints or anything else obvious, I’m afraid.”
    They walked on up the steps to the altar. Other members of the team had already filmed and photographed the scene. The pathologist crouching down at the rear of the marble plinth was a short man with a protruding stomach whom they’d worked with before.
    “Dr. Redrose,” the chief inspector said. “What have you got for us?”
    “Cause of death, a single, nonserrated blade wound to the heart,” he said without looking up. “Delivered after the other wounds. I would hazard, none self-inflicted.”
    “Time of death?”
    “Provisionally, between nine and eleven p.m.”
    “And the rest?”
    “You know, Chief Inspector,” the pathologist said, “this is a first.”
    “In what way?”
    “In several ways. That’s why it’s so interesting.” Redrose got to his feet. “First of all, you’ve got the ornate candlestick in his rectal passage.” He inclined his head to the left. “If, as I suspect, that’s its twin, then around thirty centimeters of gold is up there.”
    Turner pursed his lips. “Painful.” Although he’d played rugby union until he left Wales ten years before, he still found the results of violence hard to take.
    The medic glanced at him. “Painful doesn’t even come close to describing what the poor devil went through.”
    “We think he was the priest,” Oaten said.
    “Ah. Sorry. The poor man of the cloth, then.” He bent down. “Next, there’s the eyes.” He lifted up the head. “Take