Forgive Me Father. Paul Gitsham

investigations so far are consistent with a man of Father Nolan’s age and build. I’ve sent off for dental records and taken a DNA sample if you need it.’

      Warren looked closely at the man’s hands, the skin was charred and split.

      ‘I’m not even going to ask about fingerprints.’

Sunday 22^nd February

       Chapter 6

      ‘Bad news on the CCTV front, sir.’

      Mags Richardson screwed the lid back on her ever-present bottle of water. It was first thing Sunday morning, and most of the team were already hard at work. Richardson was Warren’s first visitor that morning.

      ‘Broken?’ asked Warren.

      ‘Worse. Almost all the cameras inside the abbey grounds are fake, just a deterrent. There are cameras above the main entrance, so we have a record of paying visitors, but once you’re in the grounds, there’s pretty much nothing. According to Deacon Baines, they recently installed covert cameras in the gift shop and the café, but they are focused on the tills – they don’t pick up anything outside.’

      ‘Above the tills? Do they suspect the staff of theft?’

      ‘He was reluctant to use that word, but he reckons there is a mismatch between the takings recorded at the various till points and the money deposited in the bank. The cameras are there to help them figure out if anyone is “making a mistake”. His words, not mine.’

      ‘How much?’ asked Warren.

      ‘Not much. He reckons it’s twenty quid after each daily take, as it’s a hundred and forty on each weekly bank run, but that soon adds up. Deacon Baines figured it was probably some sort of systematic error, since the figure was always exactly one hundred and forty pounds, and made all the till staff undergo fresh training. When that didn’t work, he installed the cameras. So far he hasn’t spotted anything obvious, like people slipping their hand in the till. He still thinks it’s likely to be a mistake. The money is kept in a locked safe, before delivery to the bank, so he thinks it’s at the point of sale.’

      ‘Have they reported the thefts?’

      ‘Like I said, he didn’t want to use that word.’

      ‘Twenty quid every day could be systematic error, I suppose,’ mused Warren. ‘Maybe they are inputting the wrong figure for the daily float? But it sounds like he’s being naïve. If there is a thief, either they’re in every day and stealing from the till, or the money is going missing between cashing up and going to the bank, which is surely a much shorter list of suspects.’

      ‘I think Baines is in denial. And if there is a thief, I suspect that they will want to deal with it themselves, rather than bring in the police.’

      ‘What does the missing total stand at now?’

      ‘Six hundred and eighty pounds.’

      Warren let out a whistle, ‘That’s not insignificant. Why haven’t English Heritage called in the police?’

      ‘I get the impression that the loss is being deducted from the gift shop takings that go to the abbey, not the money deposited into English Heritage’s account from the entry charges.’

      ‘So they are keeping them in the dark?’

      ‘Sounds like it.’

      ‘Well, if they aren’t willing to report it to the police, then there isn’t a lot we can do about it. I’m not sure what the link is to our death, but keep me posted. How much footage have you secured from the wider neighbourhood?’

      ‘I’ve got teams knocking on doors. There’s a row of shops nearby that looks promising, and it’s a rough neighbourhood, so some of the houses have cameras outside; we’ll seize what we can. There are a number of junctions with ANPR cameras in the vicinity of the abbey and a petrol station.’

      ‘Stay on it,’ instructed Warren.

      He leant back in his chair, and sucked on the tip of his pen, contemplating what Richardson had just told him.

      The note in Father Nolan’s room had read, ‘Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.’

      Stealing was a sin …

      * * *

      ‘I appreciate that our Scenes of Crime teams can be unsettling, but we will try to keep the disruption to a minimum, Your Grace. Hopefully, it won’t take much longer. We’ll restrict our access to the side entrance, where possible.’

      Two days after the fire and dental records had confirmed Father Nolan as the victim. The final cause of death would be determined by the coroner at inquest, but Warren was already under pressure to dismiss it as a suicide. The sooner Warren advised DSI Grayson that the death was non-suspicious, the sooner the priest’s body could be released and arrangements made for his funeral, and the sooner St Cecil’s retirement home could return to its usual, peaceful routine, and Middlesbury’s main tourist attraction could reopen.

      Before that happened though, Warren was still treating Father Nolan’s room as a potential crime scene, and he had decided to visit the home in person again to reassure Bishop Fisher that they were progressing as quickly as possible.

      Father Nolan’s room had been on the ground floor, furthest from the main entrance. The room next to him was occupied by Father Carlos, a frail, stooped, octogenarian with poor eyesight and poorer hearing. The room directly above was an empty guestroom. Not only did this mean that nobody was likely to have heard anything, it also meant that anyone coming or going via the fire exit at the end of the corridor was unlikely to have been spotted. Nor, for that matter, were the CSIs dusting for prints and looking for other evidence likely to be disturbed.

      Father Nolan’s room had been simply furnished, but clean and tidy. He shared a bathroom with the other occupants in his wing of the house, but had his own small sink and mirrored medicine cabinet. A tall bookcase filled with a mixture of weighty academic tomes and fiction paperbacks, was one of the few furnishings that hadn’t been removed by the CSIs. A quick perusal revealed that the late priest’s recreational tastes ran toward classic science fiction, with well-thumbed copies of Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov vying for space with Kurt Vonnegut and Philip K. Dick.

      On top of the bookcase, a number of framed pictures were neatly arranged. A faded black and white wedding photo was probably of the late priest’s parents. Next to that, a less faded image contained the same couple; recognisable but significantly older, flanking a younger man dressed as a priest. Father Nolan’s ordination, Warren assumed. A few other photographs, these newer and in colour, depicted Father Nolan surrounded by different groups of people. In one, he was blowing candles from a cake decorated with a ‘25’ pattern. Judging by his age in the photograph, Warren guessed that it was the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination.

      The single bed had been neatly made, the pillows plumped up and it had clearly been unslept in when the priest’s disappearance had been discovered. However, a dent at the foot of the bed suggested that somebody may have sat there, facing the room’s single wooden chair, and so the bed had been stripped and the bedding taken away for forensic analysis. A wooden chair had also been removed, after being dusted for fingerprints.

      According to Deacon Baines, the rooms were cleaned once a week by one of the sisters that helped at the home and so he was assisting the forensic team in obtaining exclusionary prints. Sister Clara who had reported that Father Nolan was missing had already been questioned by Tony Sutton, but had been unable to give any more details.

      The small wooden table underneath the window had been dusted, and two glass tumblers, that appeared to have been recently rinsed out, had been sealed in plastic evidence bags and removed