Smirker smiles again, but I can see he doesn’t believe me.
To be honest, I’m not sure I do either.
The Shepherd sits in his rocking chair. He moves back and forth, the rocking soothing, almost as if he is once more a child in the arms of his mother. There’s a creak from the rockers on the bare boards of the floor. No carpet. The room is sparse with no floor covering except for a small hearth rug. Aside from the rocker there are a couple of wooden chairs with straight backs. A monk’s bench. A table, the surface much worn. To one side of the room stands a huge dresser, plain with no frills. There is a fireplace but no fire. Hasn’t been for years. Cold is something you get used to if you experience it for long enough.
From somewhere across the fields a bell chimes. Twelve strokes. Midnight. A new day beckoning.
The Shepherd nods to himself, the movement of his head matching the rhythm of the rocking chair. There is something mechanical about the action. Purposeful. Like the clock in the church ticking off the seconds. God marking the time until the sinners must face their day of judgement. The final toll of the bell fades and he realises that in the moment between yesterday and today something has changed. There’s been a subtle alteration in the ether. Perhaps the change is merely something physical, meteorological. Then again, perhaps the slight ripple in the air is something quite different. Perhaps it is the voice of God.
He puts his feet out to steady himself, to stop the movement of the chair. He sits in the silence of the night and listens.
God, he knows, doesn’t always announce Himself with a bang. His voice is sometimes not much more than a whisper. Only those prepared to listen can detect His presence.
The Shepherd pushes himself up from the chair and stands. He walks across to where the velvet curtains hang heavy. He draws one back and peers out into the small hours which lie like a suffocating blanket of silence across the valley. The air is still, not a branch or a leaf moving, the treetops reaching for a sky filled with crystal lights.
Just on the edge of perception he can hear singing. Two young boys performing a duet, their voices as clear as the night.
Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove
Far away, far away would I rove …
He closes the curtains, returns to the rocker and eases himself down into the chair. The music continues to play in his head until the final line.
And remain there forever at rest …
The last note hangs in the darkness before the terrible black of the night snuffs the sound out.
The Shepherd blinks. He knows the truth of it now. He realises that God has spoken directly to him. Those who have abased the pure of heart must be judged. Memories may fade but crimes are not lessened by the passage of time. The evidence must be weighed and the sinners must be punished.
And, the Shepherd thinks, the punishment must fit the crime.
Derriford Business Park, Plymouth. Monday 19th October. 3.30 p.m.
A throng of reporters clustered round the entrance to the coroner’s court as Detective Inspector Charlotte Savage emerged. Rob Anshore, Devon and Cornwall Police Force’s PR guru, drew the reporters’ attention to the person following close behind and ushered Savage away.
‘Let the Hatchet deal with this, Charlotte,’ Anshore said. ‘She’s prepared a statement in response to the inquest verdict with the official line. You know, sadness, condolences, and all that crap to start with, moving on to the utmost confidence in her officers bit to finish.’
The Hatchet. Otherwise known as Chief Constable Maria Heldon.
Heldon was a replacement for the previous Chief Constable, Simon Fox. The late Simon Fox. Fox had killed himself using a vacuum cleaner hose, his fifty-thousand-pound Jaguar, and a one-pound roll of gaffer tape. Savage had been the one to find him sitting there stone dead, a cricket commentary playing on the car radio an unlikely eulogy for a man whose idea of fair play had been to try to kill her.
Inside the courtroom she’d presented her own account of the events leading up to Fox’s death and her testimony had, thankfully, been accepted at face value. The coroner had listened to all the witnesses and weighed the evidence and after due consideration he’d arrived at a verdict of suicide. Summing up, he’d said Fox had been living a tangle of lies and deceit which had included friendship with a corrupt Member of Parliament who himself was involved with a group of Satanists. Ultimately Fox’s precarious mental state had led him to believe there was no way out other than to top himself.
Savage and Anshore stopped a few metres to one side of the entrance and they turned to watch as Maria Heldon dispatched the reporters’ questions with curt, defensive replies.
‘Chalk and cheese,’ Anshore said, gesturing at Heldon. ‘Simon Fox was a media charmer. Knew how to play the game. He was a decent man. Pity he’s gone.’
Crap, Savage thought. The real reason for Fox’s troubles was that he’d been prepared to break the rules, ostensibly to shield his son, Owen, from prosecution. Some years ago Owen had been involved in a hit-and-run accident which had killed Savage’s daughter, Clarissa. Fox had used his position as Chief Constable to obscure his son’s tracks, but Savage reckoned he’d done it more out of concern for his own career than any love for his son. She’d discovered the truth thanks to help from a local felon by the name of Kenny Fallon and some out-of-hours work by DS Darius Riley. She’d confronted Owen Fox and foolishly put a gun to his head. The lad had confessed it hadn’t been him driving the car, but rather his girlfriend – now wife – Lauren. Owen had also told Savage it had been his dad who’d decided to cover up the accident in the first place.
‘Simon Fox was a disgrace to the force,’ Savage said, trying to remain calm. ‘He let power go to his head.’
‘Really, Charlotte, I’m surprised.’ Anshore wagged a finger. ‘Don’t you have any sympathy for the man’s mental condition?’
Savage didn’t answer. Clarissa’s death had badly affected her and her family. Jamie, her son, had been little more than a baby at the time, but Samantha – Clarissa’s twin – continued to feel Clarissa’s absence as much as Savage and her husband, Pete, did. Fox’s actions had compounded the misery. His death had brought about a resolution of sorts, but nothing would bring Clarissa back. The moment when Savage had seen her child lying broken in the road would stay with her forever. The worst of it was that Savage had had to keep everything bottled up. Aside from herself, Fallon and Riley, no one knew the real truth behind Fox’s downfall or Savage’s unorthodox investigative approach. Nevertheless, Maria Heldon could smell a rat.
‘You know what they’ll say,’ she’d said when she’d questioned Savage about Fox’s death. ‘No smoke without fire.’
Well, there was fire, plenty of it, but Savage wasn’t about to tell Heldon anything of the spark which had set the flames alight.
‘Anyway, bet you’re glad the whole thing is over,’ Anshore said, sounding conciliatory. ‘Can’t have been pleasant finding Foxy in the car like that. All gassed up and turning blue.’
Anshore was a media guy, so he could be forgiven for not knowing about the finer details of carbon monoxide poisoning. Fox hadn’t been blue, in fact he hadn’t even looked dead. Just a trail of drool trickling from his mouth alerted Savage to the fact something was wrong.
As for pleasant? Well, worse things had happened.
They walked away from the court towards the car park and as they approached her car Savage turned back for a moment.