Mersey Murder Mysteries Collection - Books 7-9

Chapter 5

“A monastery?” Detective Constable Lenny "Tony" Curtis exclaimed at the morning briefing, after Ross informed the rest of the team where he and Drake had spent most of their night. The pair had finally managed to grab about three hours sleep before rising and quickly showering, dressing and heading back to headquarters, both arriving almost simultaneously.

“That"s what I said,” Ross replied flatly and, seeing the fixed look from Drake, corrected himself. “Actually, it"s a priory, not a monastery?”

“What"s the difference, Boss?” Curtis smiled.

“Later. For now, just be aware that it"s home to a small community of monks and nuns … where last night a monk was murdered in a particularly horrific way. The Prior just happens to be a friend of the Chief Constable. Not only that, but while DCI Agostini"s on holiday, DCS Hollingsworth has taken overall command of the investigation.”

“Oh no, the Ice Queen cometh,” Curtis quipped.

“That"s enough of that, thanks Tony. A little respect please and, anyway, The Chief Super"s not that bad when you get to know her.”

“Okay, Boss, if you say so,” Curtis grinned.

“Come on, sir, what"s the case?” Sam Gable asked, getting things back on track. She looked good, Ross thought. His detective was obviously blooming as a result of her new relationship with a Greater Manchester detective sergeant, who"d been helpful in their previous case.

“Right Sam, everyone, listen carefully. Last night, Izzie and I attended an incident at the Priory of St. Emma, at Grassendale. The place used to be St. Basil"s Monastery, years ago, but the place burned down and was left derelict until it was partially rebuilt and reopened as St. Emma. When we arrived, we discovered that one of the monks, Brother Bernárd,” Ross ensured he used the correct pronunciation for the benefit of the team, “had been found lying dead on a pathway close to the priory"s kitchen garden. He was found by a young nun and monk; they"d been taking advantage of the lighter evenings to work later than usual and were planting seeds. After finishing, they were walking back to the main buildings when they virtually stumbled over the body.” He gazed solemnly from face to face. “It appears that Brother Bernárd may have been the victim of murder by cyanide poisoning. We should know for certain this morning. Doc Nugent was on the scene when we arrived and, with the Chief Constable"s interest in the case, he"s assured me the autopsy would receive top priority; hence, I expect a call from him sooner than later.”

Drake responded to a nod from Ross and took over the briefing, as pre-arranged. “We interviewed the pair who found the body, as well as the Prior, Brother Gerontius, who first suspected cyanide poisoning. It seems he was a pharmacist before finding religion. Thanks to the fact that Sister Paulette had her wits about her, we were able to pin down an approximate time of death, as she noticed a sudden silence when the birds all fell quiet and then began again a couple of minutes later. What we don"t know, and need to find out is who, apart from the monks and nuns, might have been on the grounds of the priory around that time. The killer could be one of their own, or have come in from outside. The priory is pretty much open house for anyone wandering in from outside.”

“So we have an intimate suspect pool, but the possibility of a wider ranging one too,” Nick Dodds commented.

“Looks like it, but my betting is on an insider being responsible,” Ross replied evenly. “It"s time to get on with the job.” He turned to the team"s computer expert, Sergeant Paul Ferris. “While we"re out there, Paul, I want you and Kat to find out all you can about St. Emma"s Priory.”

“Got it,” he acknowledged.

In minutes, the squad room was deserted except for Ferris and the team"s admin assistant Kat Bellamy, who were already at work on the computers, digging into the history, short as it was, of St. Emma"s. If there was anything there that could throw light on why anybody might want to murder one of their number, the pair was confident they could find it.

* * *

The space available for car parking at St. Emma"s had probably never looked so full. As well as two vehicles from Miles Booker"s forensic team, there were four unmarked police cars and two regular police vehicles, which had brought half a dozen uniformed officers along as backup to Ross"s team. DCS Hollingsworth was making sure that Ross had every resource possible available. With the Chief Constable watching over her every move, she couldn"t afford to appear as if she were being anything other than 100% diligent in terms of the investigation.

While Ross" detectives waited by the vehicles and received a quick briefing from Izzie Drake, he made arrangements with Brother Gerontius to interview the monks and nuns that made up the permanent priory population.

“I"ve made the refectory available for you to speak to the monks, Inspector, and our small library is free for you to converse with our small group of nuns. I take it you have female detectives with you? The nuns would, I think, feel more comfortable speaking with women.”

“That sounds fine, thank you, Brother. And yes, I have three women detectives here, including DS Drake, whom you met last night.”

“Of course. I don"t wish to impede your investigation of the murder of dear Bernárd, Inspector, so I"ll allow you to get on with your job. I must inform Bernárd"s next of kin of the tragedy that has befallen him.”

“I don"t envy you that task, Brother.” Ross was sympathetic to the Prior"s responsibility, having had to inform relatives of the violent deaths of loved ones many times during his career.

“Indeed, Inspector. I also expect you"ll be receiving news of the autopsy soon?”

“Later today, I hope. I know you"ll want to be able to give the Brother"s family as much information as you can, but I must stress that this is now an active murder investigation. Certain facts can"t be made public at this time. Do you understand?”

The Prior nodded. “I"ll do and say nothing to compromise your investigation. On that, you have my solemn oath.” Brother Gerontius handed Ross two sheets of A4 paper. “Here are the names of the community members. I"ve split them into two lists, one of the monks and one of the nuns. I anticipated you might find them useful to carry out your interviews.”

“Thanks. They"ll come in useful, I"m sure.” He looked at the two lists, wondering which one of them, if any, was the name of Brother Bernárd"s cold-blooded killer. With that, he left the Prior to his own devices, and began arranging the interviews with the various members.

He looked down the list of monks" names. Brother Ignatius they"d already spoken to last night but would speak to him again to see if he remembered anything else. He"d briefly met Brother Simon, and he now saw that they would need to speak to Brothers Gareth, Antonio and Geoffrey and the nuns, Sisters Ariadne, Rebecca, Letitia and Sarah.

* * *

Ferris and Bellamy worked well together. When the admin assistant had first been assigned to the team, some of the detectives had been unsure whether the appointment of a civilian to a group of highly trained, expert investigators would be an asset or a detriment. Katrina Bellamy, known to all as Kat, had soon proved invaluable however; together with Sergeant Paul Ferris, she"d been instrumental in uncovering information that had assisted in solving many cases. This was courtesy of her quick mind and superlative abilities with the computer, which Ferris readily admitted were almost on a par with his own.

The pair of them were busy conducting what nowadays appeared to be referred to as "data mining", but which they simply saw as normal research into the history of the Priory of St. Emma.

“Interesting, isn"t it?” Bellamy said as she finished a broad-based look into the past use of the site where the priory stood. “It was a monastery for years and was virtually destroyed during the Reformation, rebuilt hundreds of years later, only to be destroyed a second time in the fire of 1912. It"s almost as if St. Basil"s carried a curse upon it, if you believe in that sort of thing.”

“Which neither of us believes, of course … do we?” Ferris turned and met her gaze.

“Of course not, but it is strange, isn"t it? A bit like lightning striking twice in the same place.”

“I"ll grant you that, but here, I just came up with a little gem from the days of St. Basil"s. Just before Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries, it was rumoured that St. Basil"s held a "great treasure", as referred to in a vague historical document written by a man called Bishop Simon de Carborough. Unfortunately, I can find no other references to this so-called treasure or to the mysterious Bishop. It"s as if he never existed … and if he did, he simply vanished off the face of the earth.”

“That is a mystery,” Bellamy concurred. “Where did you dig this up from?”

isFerris turned his computer screen so she could read the page he was referring to. It was from a website that listed "facts and legends" of pre-Reformation monasteries of the North of England, and only indirectly referred to St. Basil.

“What made you look in this site?” she asked, curious to discover how Ferris" mind worked. She"d always been proficient in her use of computers, but since joining Ross" team, she"d come to view Ferris as something of a mentor. Her skills had grown greatly as she"d watched, listened, and learned from the sergeant.

“No great credit on my part,” Ferris smiled cheerily. “I was simply looking at the history of St. Basil and this came up in the web listings for similar sites. I can"t take credit for it, Kat.”

“At least you"re honest,” she smiled in return. “That"s what I like about you, and why it"s good to learn from you.”

“Thanks, but please, where the others are concerned …”

“I know, you"re a genius,” she giggled. “Don"t worry, your secret"s safe with me.”

“Good girl. Now, what do you think about this so-called treasure?”

“We"ve not got a thing to corroborate its existence so far, so do we give it any credence, or devote more time to it? You"re the boss; you decide.”

Ferris scratched his head as he thought it over. “We"ve just had a murder committed on a site where we now have a vague reference to something of value having been present there, shortly before King Henry"s troops moved in and vandalised the original monastery. That"s the only word for what they did back in those days: sheer bloody vandalism. For whatever reason, the Benedictines left the ruins lying derelict for nearly three hundred years and then, for reasons only they knew, rebuilt the place. Why? How many monasteries, destroyed at the time of the Reformation, did they subsequently rebuild—which, let"s face it, must have cost the order a bloody great wad of cash.”

vandalism“I can see where your thoughts are taking you,” Bellamy nodded sagely, as if every word Ferris had said made perfect sense. “You think there was something there, even after all those years … something the Benedictines knew about and which they wanted to protect, right?”

“I think there"s a possibility, if the so far unsubstantiated story about the treasure is true. What I"m also thinking is that the monks, who then lived in the rebuilt monastery, could have been sent there as some sort of "guardians" of this unknown treasure—which, for all we know, if it did exist, might not have been gold-and-jewels treasure, but a religious relic, valuable only to the monks, or to religious believers.”

not“Of course,” said Bellamy with a nod. “From what I"ve been reading about the Reformation, Henry VIII"s troops looted and damaged much of what they found in the great monasteries of England. If the St. Basil"s monks did possess something very valuable, they"d have done all they could to protect it from Henry"s troops, and hidden it so well that it was never found.”

“Yes, but that leaves me with one burning question,” said Ferris with a pensive frown.

“Go on. What is it?”

“Why wait nearly three centuries to rebuild the monastery?”

centuries“They couldn"t do it during the years of the religious persecution of Catholics, could they?” she replied. “If the Benedictines were aware that the ruined monastery held a great religious relic, or gold or silver or whatever, they couldn"t have retrieved it while Catholics were being persecuted throughout England, could they?”

“Good point,” Ferris nodded in agreement. He opened another historical website. “Look here, we had a turbulent period where we had Protestant Kings and Queens, but then there were attempts by other rulers to reintroduce Catholicism to England. The Pope even declared Queen Elizabeth I a heretic and ordered her subjects to rise up against her in an attempt to restore the Catholic faith. There was a lot of bloodshed, Kat, and it wasn"t until the early nineteenth century that Catholicism was declared legal again in England, though there was still great hostility towards them in some areas. Even so, the law of England states that a Catholic can"t become King or Queen of England.”

“I never knew all this stuff.” Bellamy was intrigued by the brief look into England"s past. “The gunpowder plot by Guy Fawkes and his friends was an attempt to kill the King and destroy Parliament, and reinstate a Catholic on the throne. Lots of people blamed the Great Fire of London on the Catholics. Terrible, wasn"t it?”

Suddenly, Ferris pointed to the screen. “Look!” She fell silent as he read from the page. “Following The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, Catholics were allowed to sit in Parliament. The re-establishment of the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy by Pope Pius IX took place in 1850.” He stopped reading aloud as he waited to see if his colleague was catching on.

The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829“You think that"s significant?” she asked, bemused.

“Think about it,” he said. “The Roman Catholic Church in England was re-created in 1850 and just a few years later, the Church began the restoration of St. Basil"s and quickly installed a group of monks in the place. They lived in relative peace and harmony until suddenly in 1912, a devastating fire sweeps through the place—and I don"t yet know if any of the monks survived. If they did, they might have taken the treasure with them, or …”

“Or it might still be there, buried under the new St. Emma"s Priory,” she stated softly, as if afraid someone might overhear.

“Exactly,” nodded Ferris, “and wouldn"t that provide someone who knows about—and wants to get their hands on—the treasure with a perfect motive for murder if they thought someone else might know about it and, as such, be in their way.”

“Good God, Paul. What are you going to do now?”

“We still need to look at the history of St. Emma from when it was opened on the site of the ruined St. Basil, but for now I think it"s worth a quick phone call to the boss. I think he might like to hear what we"ve found so far.”