Dead in the Water

“So why ring me on a Sunday morning, Fargo?”

“They found something.” Fargo paused. “Something I believe is relevant to our current investigations.”

Dorkin growled a warning across the radio waves. “Tell me what they found, Fargo — in nice simple words. Then I’ll tell you if it’s relevant or not. OK?”

* * *

Walking into St Mark’s on the second Sunday in a row was a very different experience for Mullen. The first time he had been expected — indeed invited — by Rose Wilby and he had been an item of interest and curiosity to the whole congregation. He had felt surprisingly nervous about walking into church, but he had also felt welcome. This time, however, it was like walking into a foreign and hostile land. The atmosphere in the church was different. There was less chattering as people settled down, or at least the chattering was far more subdued. People were talking with lowered voices and faces, conscious of the presence up near the front of the lone figure of Paul Atkinson, who was sitting ram-rod straight and with empty seats either side of him.

A woman with grey curly hair and elegant mid-green top and skirt thrust a service sheet into Mullen’s hand and welcomed him. He stepped past her, conscious that there were people behind him, and looked around in the hope of encountering a familiar face.

“Mr Mullen!” The voice came from behind him and he turned. “How nice to see you again. I thought you might have been scared off by us all.” Margaret Wilby smiled, but there was no warmth in it, no sense of welcome.

“Perhaps I might sit with you?” Mullen responded, taking her at face value. She was probably the person he least wanted to sit next to. He imagined that she felt the same.

Derek Stanley, standing at her shoulder, stepped forward. “Of course, Doug. Very nice to see you.” He spoke in short, halting sentences. “It’s going to be rather difficult today, I fear. A time to support each other. Poor Paul.” He stumbled to a verbal halt.

“Poor Janice too,” Mullen said quickly. It was Janice he felt sorry for. Not the man who had cheated on her. Not the man who might have killed her.

“In a sense, yes.” Stanley pulled at his moustache. “But we believe she is now in a better place — and at peace with herself.”

Mullen followed them to their pew and sat down. Stanley sat in the middle, probably a deliberate move, Mullen reckoned, to keep him separate from Margaret. Stanley, he had decided, was the peace-maker, albeit a slightly odd one with a singular taste in clothes: today it was an orange polo shirt, rust coloured shorts and leather sandals of the style once favoured by Roman legionaries.

Reverend Diana Downey was as subdued as the rest of them. Her sermon seemed flat and uninspired compared to the previous week — not that Mullen had a whole lot of experience in judging sermons. She spoke of the shock of Janice’s death, but said nothing that Mullen didn’t already know. There was no date fixed for the funeral yet, she announced. “But do keep Paul and Janice’s mother in your prayers.”

As the Reverend Downey made her way down the centre of the nave and so signalled the end of the service, Stanley touched Mullen on the arm.

He flinched, caught off guard.

Stanley didn’t appear to notice. “Stay for coffee. It’s proper coffee, not instant.”

“Thank you, I will.”

“If you need me to introduce you to people, I will. I guess we must seem rather overwhelming when you’re new.”

Stanley was right. Mullen did find it challenging. There was part of him that wanted to walk straight out of the church and then keep walking until he was far enough away to open his mouth and scream.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll be OK,” he lied.

He glanced around. He wanted to ask Margaret Wilby where her daughter was. Their last meeting hadn’t finished well and he regretted that. But Margaret Wilby had exited from the pew via the side aisle and was walking up to a man and woman who were settling down onto two chairs in a corner. A shaft of coloured sunshine angled down through the window above, directly onto a

third, empty chair. It was on this that Margaret Wilby sat down.

“She has gone for prayer ministry,” Stanley said, whispering into Mullen’s ear. “Under the watchful eye of St Mark. Anyway let’s get some coffee. Come on.”

Mullen followed him, down the nave and then left towards the huddle of people queuing for a drink. Never mind St Mark, it felt like Derek Stanley was keeping a watchful eye on him.

“So, would you say you have any sort of Christian faith?” Stanley said as they stood waiting their turn.

“No.” In other circumstances — such as with a few glasses of beer inside him — he might have replied in greater detail and told Stanley how he had had some sort of belief in God until his best friend Ben had blown his own brains out one evening in the barracks. But Mullen was currently very sober. More significantly he had just spotted across the other side of the church someone he had never expected to see. It was Charles Speight. There was no doubt about it. He and a woman (his wife, Mullen assumed) were talking to Paul Atkinson.

“None at all?” Stanley said. “So why are you here today?”

“I’m searching for the truth.”

“Aren’t we all?”

Mullen wished that Stanley would leave him be. He doubted that they were seeking the same truth and in any case he was far more interested in Speight. He gestured in his direction.