Reprobation Read online

  ‘So. Thank you for talking to me, Mikko.’

  ‘No problem. I never met a real nun. I mean, I don’t know if I even believe you. But you are the first woman to ever get on the bus and not try to fuck me, so… that’s something.’

  Helen didn’t really know how to respond to that, and she felt the urgency of her mission upon her; the rest of the band and crew had finished their breakfasts and ablutions and were making their way back to the coach.

  ‘I just needed to ask you about your music. I mean, your lyrics. What was your inspiration?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just horror stories, dude. I like horror movies, I like gross stuff – Satan, torture, death. It’s death metal, you know? It’s the formula.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. Those lyrics came from John Bunyan, from the Canons of Dort, from the scriptures. You did a lot of research.’

  ‘Why are you so interested?’

  ‘I’m a lecturer in Eschatology. That means…’

  ‘I know what it means, dude.’ Helen blushed, embarrassed at having underestimated him, but he was smiling. ‘That’s pretty cool. I would definitely take your course.’

  ‘Well, I think you could probably teach it yourself, with all your knowledge and insight,’ she said. ‘But what drew you to such… Calvinist ideas?’

  He stared ahead at the traffic for a long time; he seemed irritated, torn, and she wondered if he was going to get up and leave. She almost told him about the body, but something stopped her. And then he spoke.

  ‘When I was a kid, I had a near-death experience. I saw something. I guess all of my music ever since has been about that moment, about what I saw. Sort of exorcising my demons. I don’t really talk about it though, I just write it, play it.’

  ‘What happened?’

  He took a long draw on his cigarette. ‘I was like nine years old. We were driving up to the lakes for the summer. Me and my brother were fighting in the back, you know, playing up, and my mother kept turning around to yell at us, and then suddenly the car hit a deer, and we swerved and flipped, then hit a car coming the other way. My brother and mother were killed instantly. I woke up in hospital a week later. But before I did… I saw something.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  He looked at her and smiled joylessly, using shaky hand movements to try to explain. ‘I haven’t really talked about this since, well, since ever. I was in a place where half the world was light, and half the world was dark, and I was sort of on the line between the two. There was a gate, with a cockerel on top, and a hooded figure standing in front of it. I saw my brother and he had already gone through, to the dark side, and I was calling and calling him but nothing was coming out of my mouth. And I tried to follow him but I couldn’t move, and then the hooded figure raised his hand and pointed behind me. Like I wasn’t supposed to go. I had to turn back. I didn’t have a choice.’

  ‘What did the figure look like?’

  ‘He didn’t have a face. I mean, I couldn’t see a face, just a hood.’

  He shook himself. ‘Anyway, it’s such a cliché, right, it’s just one of those things people tell themselves, it’s stupid. The Grim Reaper. Enter ye in at the strait gate, right? Isn’t that what the Bible says? But why was my brother going into the dark and not the light? He was just a little boy. I suppose that’s the question I’ve been trying to answer ever since. That’s why I got into the whole predestination, Calvin thing. Because it felt like it had already been decided.’

  ‘It’s not stupid. Not at all. I’m sorry about your family.’ She shuffled closer so they were thigh to thigh, and put an arm around him. It wasn’t so strange, she had done this many times to comfort people at the church.

  ‘All of these things are familiar. Religions and mythologies the world over contain images of thresholds, and gatekeepers. Reports of encountering spiritual beings, and of having to turn back, are well-documented, back to the Middle Ages. It’s to do with your brain being starved of oxygen, which gives this intense, threshold-like or tunnel-like experience. And then our cultural background comes into the play with the other aspects of the vision. It’s very powerful, but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. And if it does mean something, it’s not necessarily what you think it means. Perhaps it’s just a way of the brain processing your grief, giving it a narrative structure.’

  He nodded in solemn appreciation.

  ‘So why the fuck are you a nun?’

  ‘It’s a long story. I…’

  But voices were shouting, hands beckoning, from the bus.

  ‘Fuck. We have to get to Birmingham by noon for the sound check.’

  He hopped off the bench and ground his cigarette into the grass. ‘To be continued. Some time.’

  ‘Thank you’ she said. ‘For your story, and for taking care of me.’ Mikko made a bashful attempt at a faux-chivalrous bow and winked shyly. As he turned to go she said suddenly, ‘I liked it, by the way.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your music! There was something…. grotesquely beautiful about it. ’

  He threw his head back and laughed. ‘Why the fuck are you a nun?’ He emphasised the word ‘fuck’ in this sentence by stamping his whole body into the ground with that childish energy he seemed to exude. He walked back to the bus, a half-swagger, half-traipse, and she watched as he was greeted by joshing arms.

  4.

  Red marker pen in hand, Swift studied the incident board which was gradually taking shape, while the team waited expectantly for his update.

  ‘Right, we’ve got nothing more from social media, except that there’s a very clear line between Jason Hardman’s behaviour before and after prison. Not necessarily anything unusual there, he did seem to turn over a new leaf after he left, but the problem with that is he really kept himself to himself. Mobile phone records haven’t flagged anything up yet. All we got from his mother is that he was close to a teacher from the detention centre, and that he was undergoing some sort of religious conversion. So let’s check all the churches in Seaforth, find out if he attended any of them. The only unusual item in his room was that packet of Dexamethasone, which was from a pharmacy on Granby Road. His family had no idea about it.

  ‘Me and Quinn are heading over to Tomlinson to get a name on this teacher and see what else we can find out. Dave can you and Baz go to Zeus and interview Jason’s colleagues?’

  Quinn said, ‘Boss, we could go there ourselves on the way back from Tomlinson, it’s not far.’

  Swift wavered for a second. ‘No, no, yous two go. We’ll focus on this teacher and then go to the Granby Road pharmacy.’

  Quinn looked at him strangely, just for a moment, but Dave and Baz were busy high-fiving and bantering about Zeus.

  ‘Nice one, can we go tonight? DJ Snake is playing.’

  ‘No you can’t, you divvies, go there now before opening time.’

  ***

  Tomlinson Young Offenders’ Institute was an Eighties standard institutional complex that sprawled across several one-storey buildings. Red and tan two-tone brickwork, sheet metal sloped roof, Her Majesty’s crest next to the entrance, manicured grass and paths. It was minimum security, and the only thing distinguishing it from a regular school was the abnormally high fence ringed with barbed wire. The place was very familiar to both Swift and Quinn, who had had numerous causes to visit inmates over the years. Sally Morton, the prison’s director for almost ten years, took them down the main corridor towards her office.

  ‘Just so terrible. I’ve been very upset about it, I remember him well and had such high hopes for him. I have to admit he was one of my favourite inmates ever. It’s a shame most of the other staff don’t remember him; since the privatisation we have such a high turnover. As you know.’ She gave the police officers a knowing and exasperated look as they sat down in her office; they were all victims of public service budget cuts.

  ‘So what can you tell us about Jason?’ asked Darren.

  ‘Well, he was very unlucky to be here really, it was a o
ne-off ecstasy dealing offence. He was only just over the personal use limit. So wrong place wrong time really, and they made an example of him. Kept his head down, worked hard, and we were really pleased to be able to secure an early release after nine months.’

  ‘Did he make any enemies here? Any drug contacts he might have kept on the outside?’

  ‘Nothing I can think of, no. As I said he was a great lad, and I’d have been surprised to hear if he reoffended.’

  Quinn said, ‘Jason’s family mentioned a teacher he was fond of here?’

  Sally’s face fell, and she frowned. ‘Ah yes, well that was unfortunate. Andrew Shepherd. Science teacher. We had to let him go.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It was odd behaviour. He was an excellent teacher, very popular with the students, no suggestion of impropriety, except…. Well, religious grooming I suppose you would call it. It was the prison chaplain who brought it to my attention, and when I questioned Jason and a couple of others about it, well, they said some funny things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Bible-bashing stuff, you know. And we can’t have that here – we have all religions represented and the chaplain is non-denominational. It’s such awkward ground, and you can get into all sorts of trouble nowadays. I felt bad because I was the one who hired Dr. Shepherd. PhD, Cambridge University. He was a geneticist; prizes, papers, everything. So to have someone like that teach GCSE and A-level sciences, it was such a catch for us. Total waste of time for the majority of our inmates, as you know, but Jason was different. Obviously he DBS checked and everything… I’m just glad it wasn’t, you know, anything sexual. That we know of.’

  ‘Do you know why Shepherd applied to come and work here?’

  ‘Yes – he said he was disillusioned with academia and wanted to do something for young people. He had also been signed off with depression for a long time. I think he couldn’t cope with a full-time job.’

  ‘So you fired him when?’

  ‘That would have been around June 2016. I can check the exact date in the files.’

  ‘And then do you know where he went?’

  ‘No idea I’m afraid. It was difficult to give him a good reference really, so I can’t see him working with young people again. No employer has come to me asking for a reference check. I seem to remember he lived Toxteth way, near the University, you know. I’ll look up his address for you but obviously he might have moved.’

  Swift and Quinn headed back to the car at almost a run, Swift tapping at his phone furiously. This felt like a real lead. ‘Dave, can you get me an address on an Andrew Shepherd?’

  ***

  One hour later, as dusk was falling over the tower blocks of Toxteth, Swift and Quinn raced up the steps to the eleventh floor of Kenilworth House, a particularly grim Seventies council building.

  ‘Fuckin’ hell,’ he panted, out of breath. ‘Wonder how long the elevator has been broken?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go in even it was working,’ said Quinn. ‘Stinks of piss around here.’

  Swift had brought two uniformed officers as back-up; he had a hunch about this place, probably exacerbated by the excitement of his first time getting to potentially catch a killer. They reached a nondescript apartment with a bright blue front door and a window with curtains closed. Swift rang the doorbell, then knocked, then banged. ‘Police. Open up Dr. Shepherd. Hello? Police.’

  After a minute’s silence, he stepped back and scratched his head. ‘Fuckin’ hell. We’ll have to get a warrant now.’

  ‘We don’t need one, look,’ said Colette, trying the door handle. ‘It’s open.’

  Swift glanced up and down the eleventh floor walkway. A couple of pensioners had opened their doors to observe the commotion, and at the far end a huddle of scallies were smoking, leaning over the balcony and staring in hostile silence at the police. It was only a few degrees above freezing but none of them wore a coat. ‘Go on then,’ he said, and they entered.

  Swift was always primed for smell; the initial smell of a place often told him a lot about what to expect. Here the olfactory clues were hard to define. There was disinfectant, a hospital scent; but it was mingled with rotting food, a festering damp, and sweat. And it soon became clear why. This was an apartment with a split personality, of order versus chaos, or Heaven versus Hell. Swift was not sure which side was the Heaven and which the Hell.

  ‘Don’t touch anything people,’ he yelled as he put on his latex gloves and looked around the kitchen. There was rotting food in the fridge, and dishes with congealed food in the sink. The dustbin smelled rank. Someone had been here fairly recently, and left in a hurry.

  The living room of the apartment was pristine and had been transformed into a makeshift clinic or laboratory. There was hospital equipment: a treatment bed, drip stand, monitor. In the same room was a laboratory area, with microscope, a clear box containing empty petri dishes and test tubes, and a large brushed silver unit which Swift assumed was a fridge or freezer. He opened it but it was empty, as were the drawers and cupboards. Everything appeared spotlessly clean. There were also two large machines on a wooden dining table which had been pushed against the wall and was bent under their weight. One of the machines was much larger than the other and looked like a sort of computer with a built-in printer. It displayed the branded logo ‘Revelon Sequencer.’ The other, smaller piece of equipment, looked like a fax machine, and Swift didn’t recognise it either. But Quinn came up beside him and pointed to it.

  ‘That’s a PCR machine. Or a thermal cycler. For diagnostics.’ she said.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘A-level Biology!’

  ‘The place looks as if it’s been expertly cleaned, but it’s obviously been used. Weird then that the kitchen would be such a mess. If we don’t find the bloke, forensics are gonna have a field day in here.’

  The other half of the apartment was lived-in, and recently. There were two bedrooms; the smaller bedroom had a single mattress and appeared to have been occupied recently by a woman, a young woman. There was a pile of feminine laundry, and a make-up mirror on the desk, which was littered with beauty-related paraphernalia. Teenage magazines were scattered on the unmade bed: Bliss, Cosmo, plus a Mothercare catalogue. Quinn was looking in at the doorway when Swift, who had been in the other bedroom, came up beside her.

  ‘A teenage girl who also reads baby magazines.’ he mused.

  ‘Did Shepherd have a daughter?’ asked Quinn.

  ‘We don’t know anything about him yet. But he’s our fella. Come and look at the state of this.’

  He led her to the master bedroom, and as they opened the door they were confronted with a bizarre sight. The room had a single mattress on the floor, an open rail of clothes, and was dominated by a huge desk pushed up against the far wall, which was covered in papers, drawings, and scrawlings, as were the other walls. This was the site of an urgent, if chaotic, project.

  ‘Fucking hell. It’s all religious. This is him.’

  Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil. Jeremiah 13:23

  As the proverb of the ancients says, ‘Out of the wicked comes wickedness. Samuel 24:13

  A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Luke 6:43

  Biblical quotations had been put on the wall in a sort of mind map that had become increasingly frantic. It began with print-outs, then writing and scrawls, diagrams, drawings, furious underlinings. Covering the desk and floor were stacks of literature, a mixture of scientific textbooks and journals, and religious texts. There must have been hundreds of books there, not one on a shelf. Piles and piles of papers, files which had been carefully put together but then torn open; folders, box files, with scientific labels that Swift and Quinn didn’t understand. There was barely any floor space left, and they had to step gingerly to reach the desk.

  There was one photo; in a silver frame on the desk sat a picture of three me
n wearing shirts, ties and lab coats, smiling and looking remarkably pleased with themselves. The photo montage said, ‘Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge University, 2001.’ The frame was tarnished, but it clearly meant something to Shepherd, because it had been given pride of place on his desk, with a small area cleared around it, and unblemished by the desperate, questioning post-it notes that littered the rest of the room.

  Swift and Quinn peered at the photo.

  ‘Presumably one of these guys is him.’

  ‘We’ll find out.’

  ‘I haven’t got a fucking clue what all this means, and we can’t be messing around googling.’ said Swift. ‘We need to bring in that nun again.’

  Quinn opened her mouth to say something, then stopped herself. He was the boss after all.

  5.