Dead Man’s Prayer: A gripping detective thriller with a killer twist. Jackie Baldwin

He’d figured she could use the experience. As they went down in the lift to the mortuary, it felt as though they were descending into the bowels of Hell. As soon as they arrived they were issued with robes and masks then bade to enter the post-mortem room.

      As usual, the first thing that hit Farrell was the smell of formaldehyde, although it was the pungent smells creeping under the edges that really did for him. Feeling light-headed, he breathed shallowly and tried not to gag. Boyd’s body was laid out on the slab, and Farrell had to struggle not to avert his eyes. This was the first post-mortem he’d attended where he actually knew the victim. As he saw the pitiably frail body that had been disguised by the magnificent silk vestments of the Church he felt like the worst kind of voyeur. He glanced at McLeod. She was pale but bearing up.

      The pathologist gave them a brief nod before starting to dictate. As it was a murder investigation, Bartle-White was assisted by an independent visiting professor of pathology from Glasgow.

      After a while the officers were beckoned over by an imperious gloved finger. Bartle-White pointed to the neck of the deceased.

      ‘Cause of death, I would say, has been strangulation. The ligature seems to have been some kind of chain; see those indentations?’

      ‘Could it have been a rosary?’ asked Farrell, feeling sick to the pit of his stomach.

      The pathologist stepped back, thought for a moment. ‘I suppose it’s possible, although it would have had to have been very strong to withstand the force applied.’

      ‘How about this?’ asked Farrell, pulling an evidence bag out of his pocket. ‘This was wrapped round the victim’s hands.’

      Bartle-White studied the rosary carefully and turned once more to the deceased.

      ‘Yes, I should say that in all likelihood that is the murder weapon. Did it belong to the deceased?’

      Farrell slapped his head in annoyance.

      ‘McLeod, once you’re done here, go and see Father Malone and get him to confirm whether or not this rosary belonged to Boyd.’

      ‘I would say that death occurred between 10 p.m. and midnight and that, judging by the lividity of the corpse, the body was not subsequently moved. There is a depressed fracture of the skull, which is the source of all the blood, but that was not of sufficient severity to have killed him outright,’ continued Bartle-White, in the manner of one discussing the vagaries of the weather.

      He then picked up a scalpel, and Farrell tried not to flinch as the first incision was made. The pathologist continued his work dispassionately; his dry words punctuated by the unseemly squelches of a body giving up its secrets.

      ‘Hang on a moment, what do we have here?’

      The pathologist held up a small silver object covered in blood and other gunk.

      ‘This was lodged in the victim’s digestive system. I would say it is likely it was consumed immediately prior to death,’ he said, sounding bemused.

      It appeared to be a small religious icon of a baby Jesus. Bartle-White cleaned it up, popped it into an evidence bag, and signed the label. Farrell co-signed the label and gave it to McLeod.

      ‘When you go to see Father Malone ask him about this as well. Don’t let on where it turned up; just ask him if it belonged to Boyd or if he’s seen anything like it before. If that draws a blank, then get on to ecclesiastical suppliers; see if there’s anywhere locally it could have been purchased.’

      ‘Yes, Sir,’ said McLeod. ‘Should I get on it right away?’ she asked hopefully.

      Farrell took pity on her.

      ‘Go on, then, scarper.’

      She didn’t need to be told twice.

      The post-mortem threw up nothing else out of the ordinary. It transpired that Boyd, like so many priests, had turned to the bottle. His liver was shot through with cirrhosis. If he hadn’t been murdered, he would likely have been dead within the year.

      As Farrell drove away from the morgue he reflected that, had it not been for Boyd taking the action he did, in another twenty-five years he too might have been a lonely old man seeking solace in a bottle. Although it was out of his way, Farrell drove slowly by St Aidan’s, feeling heartsore at the way things had turned out.

      The church was located in a predominantly working-class area. It was a busy parish with a catchment area that took in ghetto-style housing estates where drugs spawned crime and poverty as well as the determinedly genteel areas of those who were either climbing up or sliding down the social scale: a true microcosm of society. Many here turned to religion as a means of combating their despair at the hopelessness of their situation. Others turned their back on God, rejecting Him with all the angry defiance of which they were capable. This could have been his parish had things turned out differently, had Father Boyd not … but the man was dead. It was a matter for God to judge his actions now. As for Farrell, he must now bring his murderer to justice, regardless of his feelings about the man.

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      DC Mhairi McLeod shuddered as she turned the key in the ignition and quit the hospital car park with squealing tyres. Note to self. Never ever attend a post-mortem again. It was one thing reading the eventual report couched in dry medical terms, most of which she had to look up in the medical dictionary she kept in her drawer. It was another thing entirely actually being present. She wondered how the pathologist could stand to do his job; day after day, hacking into people like they were just pieces of meat. Desperately she tried to delete the images of the dead priest from her memory, but they were there to stay. Dammit. It had been a helluva couple of days. She felt her nerves were stretched as taut as a violin; one good twang and they would ping apart.

      Before Farrell came along she had been aware that the other detectives had stopped taking her seriously and felt that she had failed to live up to her earlier promise. Ever since Ewan had run out on her on the eve of their wedding six months ago, she had been all over the place, more interested in having a good time than in forging ahead in her career. The career that had meant everything to her until it lost her the man that she loved. Ewan had struggled with her crazy hours, not to mention the fact that from time to time she might be placed in harm’s way. What had given him the final push to end things was when she had failed to turn up for their rehearsal dinner because she had to talk a young drug addict down from the roof of the local hospital. Farrell had been loading responsibility on her from the day he arrived. Maybe he hadn’t heard yet that she was a flake?

      Parking outside St Aidan’s, Mhairi quickly walked up the lane to the priests’ house. She banged the heavy brass door-knocker. The curtains were still shut in a few of the rooms and there were smudges on the brass plate. There were no signs of life. Growing impatient she knocked again. This time, after a few seconds, she heard a door opening deep in the interior of the house accompanied by the sound of urgent footsteps. The door was flung open and a slightly dishevelled Father Malone stood there, blinking almost comically in the sunlight.

      ‘DC McLeod … er, sorry to keep you waiting. No housekeeper, sometimes I forget …’

      ‘No worries,’ Mhairi said, smiling at the young man, who resembled a badger woken up from hibernation too soon.

      ‘Come in,’ he said, throwing wide the heavy wooden door and causing it to creak alarmingly on its hinges.

      Father Malone rushed ahead of her into the same room they had been shown a few nights ago. He threw open the curtains and whisked away a pile of newspapers from an upright chair, gesturing for her to sit down. The carpet looked like it could do with a good hoover.

      ‘Aren’t there any ladies of the parish who could come in to give you a helping hand until Mary is able to return?’ she asked.

      ‘Too many, that’s the trouble. If I let one in to help they’ll all want to do it and then it’ll