‘No. I live alone. But think about it, detective – all that they could corroborate would be that I was in the vicinity of the murders on the night on which they were committed.’
‘At what time did your tour of duty begin on each of the nights?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Seven-thirty maybe. I never go out much before then, it’s not worth it.’
‘And on neither evening did you see anything on your rounds, any punters, any prostitutes other than the Russian?’
‘No. But the women do hide, you know. Anyway, it’s now twenty-five past nine and I really do need to do some preparation before my next client. She will be paying for… er…’ He hesitated for a moment, having lost his drift.
‘Your services,’ Alice said, rising to go.
Holding the door open for her, the pale man stood erect, and as their eyes met, he closed his as if to shield his soul from scrutiny.
There was nothing much in the fridge, so it would be a relief not to have to cook the dinner today, Mrs Donnelly thought, looking in the cutlery drawer and wondering what she should put on the table. Not, of course, that Father would like the stuff produced by Iris Pease. Far too highly spiced, and she would insist on dropping chillies into everything, even, Christ have mercy on us all, in the mince. And it was not as if she had not been told, forcefully on at least one occasion, that he preferred food without a ‘bite’ or ‘kick’ or whatever it was called.
She had a touch of the black fever that one, eyeing Father up, simpering, volunteering before volunteers had been asked for. Imposing more like! Of course, all the women on the rota were dangerous, but that one, ‘Ms’ Pease, would have to be watched, for sure, prowling around like a lioness seeking someone to devour. She knew the signs.
At least there would be time to do the crossword before she arrived, pans clanging like cymbals. And the policewoman would surely now wait until after lunch before wasting any more of their time. Mrs Donnelly searched unsuccessfully for a pen, and then sank into the chair. Opening the kitchen drawer to continue the hunt, she pushed her hand into it past envelopes, string and polythene bags, suddenly releasing a little gasp as her fingers landed in a cold pool of spilt glue. While gingerly extracting her hand, trying not to get the glue on the envelopes and other contents of the drawer, she heard the doorbell go. Distracted, she yanked her hand out, bits of wool still sticking to it, and rushed to the tap. Vigorously shaking the water off, she hurried to the front door. ‘Ms’ Pease did not like to be kept waiting.
As she talked to the housekeeper, Alice became aware that whenever she mentioned the priest, the subject of their conversation, the woman bristled, as if giving a warning against some form of intimate trespass. It was as though his name should not pass the policewoman’s lips, for fear of it being soiled in some way when spoken by her. Watching the housekeeper’s increasing annoyance, she persevered. Her reaction revealed an obsession, a fixation with the man. He was her exclusive property; his business was her business, and if she did not know what he was doing, then whatever it was could be of no real importance. By definition.
‘So, Mrs Donnelly, you said before that you couldn’t confirm that Father McPhail was present in the church on the ninth of January between about 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Is that still so?’
‘That’s right, I can’t.’ She smiled as if breaking good news, her inability to provide the priest with an alibi not troubling her. She was busily laying the table as she spoke.
‘You are aware,’ Alice said slowly, ‘of the seriousness of the charges that Father McPhail could face?’
‘Och, it’ll not come to that sergeant. You’ll get the fellow and then we’ll all get on with the rest of our lives.’ She beamed again.
‘But we think that Father McPhail may be the fellow.’
‘Do you really?’ Laying a knife and fork at the end of the table, the woman threw a patronising glance at the policewoman.
‘I’m not here on a social call, Mrs Donnelly. We do think Father McPhail may be the fellow.’
‘You’ve got to be joking! That’s a very far-fetched suggestion indeed.’
‘Well, someone killed those two women, and so far he hasn’t been able to explain away -’
‘What are you going on about, those two women! Father McPhail is no more involved than I am myself!’ She gave a brittle little laugh, dismissing the suggestion, her head cocked to the side as if to ridicule the very idea.
‘You, on the other hand, have not been tied by forensic evidence to Seafield, to the crime -’ Alice stopped herself in mid-sentence, afraid that in her frustration she had already disclosed too much, but the effect on the housekeeper was immediate.
‘Evidence!’ she said excitedly, ‘forensic evidence? Inspector, you have my word that Father has been nowhere near Seafield – or any of those kind of women.’
Mrs Donnelly was looking Alice straight in the eye, blinking hard, but never moving her gaze.
‘How do you know?’ Alice asked calmly, hiding the disquiet she felt at her earlier slip.
‘I know.’ The woman nodded hard. ‘I know.’
‘Well then, tell me how you know?’ Please God, tell me.
‘I can’t, no. I’m afraid I can’t. You’ll just have to find out yourselves.’
‘I suppose that woman from the parish is involved…’ Nothing to lose now. The time for a gamble had definitely arrived.
Mrs Donnelly’s jaw dropped open in surprise. ‘What do you know of any such woman, sergeant?’
Nothing. ‘Enough.’
Returning to her table-laying duties, the housekeeper began speaking quietly, almost as if she did not want to be heard. ‘The Sharpe woman will be somewhere in all of this, no doubt, offering the apple again. That’s what she does, you know, tempt him. Otherwise, he’d be fine. In all our years together he’s never so much as laid a finger on me!’
‘That Sharpe woman?’
‘June Sharpe.’
‘Where would I find her?’
‘I can’t tell you… I shouldn’t say.’
‘Not much help to me then,’ Alice said, closing her notebook. ‘Not much help to him, either.’
‘St Benedict’s. St Benedict’s church. That’s the place to start.’
The doorbell rang once more and the housekeeper turned slowly, disturbed and annoyed, and shuffled towards the landing in her tattered sandals. And as Alice let herself out, Iris Pease strode into the kitchen as if it were her own, chic as a Parisian, and as unexpected in the drab tenement flat as a phoenix in a hen-run.
A trace of matched DNA on the body. That was all she had to offer them. Elaine Bell stretched, pulled her chair out and rose, putting her hands on her hips and pushing her chin out. She cleared her throat several times and began striding about her room, preparing to speak. To make a speech, in fact.
‘Ladies and gentlemen…’ No more than a hoarse whisper emerged, and she clamped her mouth shut instantly. That simply would not do. She needed to appear confident and authoritative, not on the edge of collapse, weaving unsteadily towards a nervous breakdown. With a deep cough, and inadvertently triggering a spasm of spluttering, she began speaking again: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen…’ It was no good – the same weak tone, breathless, bodiless. A sodding Strepsil would have to be sucked, that would clear the passages, restore the natural timbre of her voice. In the meantime, she would continue her dress rehearsal for the press conference, but this time silently, in her head, playing all the parts.
‘The trace of DNA,’ she asked herself, in a suitably aggressive tone, ‘have you got a match for it?’
‘Certainly,’ she replied to herself, as herself. ‘And we have several leads that should produce results very shortly. I am confident -’