Something Evil Comes Read online

  She sidestepped any potential debate. ‘That kind of analysis or therapy isn’t part of what I do.’

  Above them the huge edifice of St Bartholomew’s soared, its spire piercing the swollen clouds now gathering. Hanson was suddenly aware of daylight fading fast, despite the early hour this Friday afternoon. Delaney raised his face and both plump hands towards the church building. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ He sighed, letting his hands drop, his face solemn. ‘But sadly besmirched now. As a close community here, we endeavour to look after and care for each other. My colleagues and our parishioners value the friendship that exists among us. Like all friends, we keep ourselves close. There’s so much suffering in the world today, don’t you find? Now it feels as if some of it has visited us, but we’ll remain positive.’ He raised clenched hands which to Hanson looked like hams. ‘The closeness we have will provide comfort to us all.’ He stopped, giving her a direct look. ‘I’m guessing that our God is not your god,’ he said quietly. ‘But we’re open to all who need our help. Do come again, if you need to. You’ll be most welcome.’

  A chill breeze whipped her hair across her face. ‘Thank you for your time, Father Delaney.’

  He inclined his head. She watched as he turned away, unlocked the church’s heavy door and went inside, the folds of his black cassock swirled by another sudden, sharp gust.

  Back in her room, Hanson checked the radiator, surprised to find it hot. Feeling chilled, she went into Crystal’s room which was deserted and switched on the kettle, dropped a heaped spoonful of instant coffee into a mug and waited, giving her arms a brisk rub. She poured boiling water onto granules, took the mug into her room where she stood, hands clasped around it, her eyes on the flip chart and Matthew Flynn’s face. He stared back at her, his eyes candid. She thought of his other photograph in UCU, his dead eyes full of want. She sat at her desk sipping coffee, her eyes still fixed on his face, the lilting tune in her head, one she couldn’t seem to get rid of since she’d first heard it mentioned. Oranges and lemons … She saw Matthew’s face slowly darken, the eyes hollowing out, the skin around their orbits now amber, the lips parting, pulled back in a rictus, the face ruined yet beseeching, the eyes fastened on hers, hungry, yearning despite death’s hand on him. He was coming to her now, his mouth open, ready to tell her what it was he needed. Oranges and lemons said the bells of St—

  ‘Kate?’

  Hanson’s hand jerked. Coffee flew from mug to desk. She leapt to her feet, grabbing papers, moving them out of harm’s way.

  ‘Sorry, Kate. I thought you’d heard me come in. Here, take these.’ Crystal handed her paper towels. Hanson blotted her desk and threw them into the waste bin. Crystal lifted the mug as Kate sat again. ‘Want more?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘What was so absorbing when I arrived?’ Crystal’s eyes followed Hanson’s to the flip chart. Hanson pointed. ‘Him. Matthew Flynn. Crystal, have you ever looked at a photograph and thought that the person in it wanted something? Or had something for you?’

  ‘Can’t say that I have.’ Crystal went and stood close to the photograph. ‘Who took it?’

  Hanson looked at her. ‘Do you know, that’s a question I hadn’t thought to ask? I don’t know. Why?’

  ‘I was just wondering. He looks happy. Yet wherever he was when it was taken doesn’t look that homely, does it?’

  Hanson got up, went and stood next to her. ‘I assumed someone in his family took it.’ She pointed to the dark background. ‘See that small, brighter patch with the wavy edges behind him?’ Hanson traced her finger across the smooth surface. ‘I can’t make out what it is, can you?’

  Crystal stood back, narrowed her eyes as she fixed on it. ‘It could be a window, although, if it is it’s a funny shape and very small. What you said just now. About people in photographs telling us something? Now that I really look at him, do you know what I think he’s saying loud and clear? “I love you”.’ Seeing Hanson’s surprise, she laughed. ‘My mom says I’m a total romantic.’

  Hanson grinned. ‘Your mom isn’t wrong.’

  Crystal returned to her office and Hanson lifted the photograph off the flip chart. She found herself wanting to believe that Matthew had found love. She turned it over. There was nothing on the reverse side. She fetched her phone. Her call was picked up almost immediately by Corrigan. ‘Hey, Red. How’re you doing?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. This afternoon I received a crash course in ecumenical matters, if that’s the correct word.’

  ‘Delaney.’ She heard the smile in his voice. ‘How’d you get on with him?’

  ‘OK, I think. He didn’t recognise the names, you know, Chivers, Albright or Callum but he was helpful. He has two deacons we should maybe talk to.’ She’d decided not to mention Delaney’s views on psychology. They were his and not relevant to the case. ‘I’ve got a question about the photograph we have of Matthew Flynn taken prior to his disappearance. Who supplied it to us?’ She waited, hearing pages turn.

  He was back. ‘His father, Brad Flynn.’

  ‘Did he say anything about it?’

  ‘Only that it was the latest one he had. They hadn’t got another of Matthew taken near the time he disappeared. I got the impression that he had to search for it.’

  ‘Did he say where it was taken?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Hanson thought of the photographs she regularly took of Maisie to celebrate some large or small event, or just casually, because she needed to capture her daughter’s face. She couldn’t imagine that need changing much in the next what, five years? She sighed, reminding herself that not all parents maintained an emotional closeness with their children. Her own mother arrived inside her head. Prime example.

  Corrigan was speaking. ‘I’m heading out to the house where Matthew Flynn was living when he disappeared. Hold on, Red. Watts wants a word.’

  Watts’s voice sounded in her ear. ‘How’d it go with the God-botherer?’

  She eye-rolled. ‘He told me how St Bartholomew’s is organised. It’s run as a kind of cooperative using business principles. Very modern.’

  ‘Sounds as good a way as any to get money into the collection plate.’

  She closed her eyes. Watts’s unerring cynicism could be wearing. ‘I just told Corrigan that Delaney has two deacons working with him. We’ll want to talk to them sometime. How did your interview go with Spencer Albright?’

  ‘Never happened.’

  ‘Oh? Why not?’

  ‘We can’t find him. Corrigan reckons he’s “on the lam”.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I’ve got a few contacts keeping their eyes open for him, people who know him and his usual haunts. Once we track him down we’ll have him in and he can tell us what he knows of St Bartholomew’s and any visits he might have made to it, vandalism or theft-wise.’

  Corrigan rang the bell of the three-floor terraced house and waited. He rang a second time, then a third. Stepping back from the door he looked up at the windows. All closed. Some with blinds fully down. He took out his phone. In seconds his mobile-to-mobile call rang somewhere inside. Face set, he pounded the door. ‘Police, Mr Graham! Open up!’

  Hurried feet sounded on stairs followed by more approaching the door. It was opened by a slim, bearded man in his early twenties in ratty-looking joggers and sweatshirt. He looked distracted. Corrigan walked inside without waiting for an invitation, breathing in cologne. He flipped identification, gazing around at what was visible of the ground floor. ‘Lieutenant Corrigan. I phoned you this morning to say I was coming. Is there a problem here?’

  Graham looked up at the tall officer and gave a bright smile. ‘No, of course not. I was working in my study upstairs.’

  Corrigan followed him to the back of the house, passing a large sitting room furnished in Mom-and-Pop-meets-Ikea. Graham led him into a well-equipped kitchen. ‘Coffee?’ he asked, pointing to a large stainless steel espresso machine.

  ‘No, thanks. Like I said on the phone, I
want to talk to you about Matthew Flynn.’

  Graham waved him to a seat at the table, took one himself. ‘What do you want to know?’ he asked, legs moving in little bounces.

  His index finger across his upper lip, Corrigan regarded him for several seconds. Graham looked away, then back, his hand busy at his facial hair, legs still bouncing.

  ‘Let’s start with what’s in your head right now,’ said Corrigan.

  ‘Well, Matthew, obviously. I heard it on the news and it’s very sad but I can’t tell you much although obviously I hope—’

  ‘How long have you lived here?’

  ‘I came here about a year before Matthew arrived when I started at Aston University. Matthew was offered a place there the following year but he didn’t take it up.’

  ‘So why was he living here?’

  Graham looked confused. ‘Sorry?’ He got no help from Corrigan. ‘Well, his parents own this place. I suppose he wanted to move out of their house.’

  ‘Why would he want that?’

  Graham shrugged. ‘The usual reason, I suppose. Freedom to do what he wanted.’

  Corrigan slow-nodded. ‘OK, Mr Graham. Matthew Flynn was your housemate for a while. Tell me what you learned about him during that time.’

  Graham’s hand was still worrying his beard. ‘He was pretty decent, Matthew. Nice. Unsophisticated.’ He frowned. ‘Don’t get the wrong idea. He was sharp, clever …’ He fell silent.

  ‘What else?’ prompted Corrigan.

  ‘That’s about it.’ He saw Corrigan’s face register what looked like disbelief. ‘I’m sorry but that’s all I can think of. We were three guys. You know how it is. In and out. Got our own friends.’

  ‘So, tell me about Matthew Flynn’s friends.’

  Graham pushed his hand through his hair. ‘I never met any of them.’

  Corrigan stood, face raised in the direction of the upper floor. ‘Where’s your housemate?’

  Graham was on his feet. ‘He had to go out.’

  ‘When I rang you said you’d both be here.’

  ‘He said he’d forgotten he had a late lecture—’

  ‘Same place as you?’

  Graham nodded. ‘He’s on a different course to me.’

  Corrigan’s eyes drifted slowly around the kitchen. ‘Nice house. There’s a lot of students in this city. How’d you get so lucky to find it?’

  Graham’s eyes slid away. ‘An agent was handling it. We took a look, thought it was great and signed a rental agreement.’

  ‘And the family said you could stay here after Matthew disappeared?’ Graham didn’t respond. ‘That sounds very charitable, given the sad circumstances of Matthew going like he did.’

  Graham’s head came up. ‘Like I said, we have an agreement.’

  ‘Yeah, well I guess that makes all the difference.’ Corrigan walked slowly towards the door, dissatisfaction evident on his face. ‘I still want to talk to your housemate. You say he’s not here?’

  ‘He isn’t.’

  Corrigan slow-nodded again. There were no grounds on which he could initiate a search. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Zach.’ Corrigan waited some more. ‘Zach Addison.’

  ‘I guess I’ll go find him, maybe catch him coming out of that lecture you mentioned, yeah?’

  Graham nodded, his eyes sliding again.

  Corrigan was now outside, deep-breathing sharp, cold air. He gazed up at the tall, narrow house. He had no intention of seeking out Addison. He got into the Volvo thinking of scruffy student clothes and strong cologne, one unasked question in his head: who’s heavily into marijuana here?

  Halfway through proofreading one of the draft articles she’d brought home, Hanson stopped, something relating to Matthew Flynn’s remains nudging the inside of her head: the tiny fragments of something which Chong had vacuumed off his clothes during his post-mortem. So far as she knew, they hadn’t yet been identified. She recalled Watts’s view that it was likely evidence of Matthew continuing to use drugs since his caution for possession at the age of fifteen. Drug use placed individuals at all kinds of personal risk. If that applied to Matthew, they had to know. She pulled her work diary closer. One aspect of Matthew Flynn’s young life which she wanted to get a grip on was what had happened to him following his caution. She had phoned Mrs Flynn recently and didn’t relish doing so again at this particular time. And anyway, according to her two colleagues, neither parent appeared to have regarded their fifteen-year-old son’s drug possession as a serious matter. There had been no indication that they remotely connected drug use to his disappearance.

  What Hanson wanted was solid, unequivocal information. She knew that the disposal of such cautions varied but as a minor Matthew may have been referred to a youth offending team for support and possibly a social worker. She flipped pages, checked likely phone numbers and found two. She would contact both first thing Monday.

  ELEVEN

  Hanson’s first call to Youth Offending had drawn a blank. There was no record of any referral in the name of Matthew Flynn. She ended the call and scrolled down her contact list. Time to get more specific. In the early morning relative quiet of headquarters she dialled a direct number and waited for her Social Services contact to respond.

  ‘Ruth Grayson. How can I help?’ Hanson grinned into the phone. ‘Hello, Ruth Grayson. This is Kate Hanson and I’m pretty sure you’ll find a way.’

  A peal of delighted laughter sounded in her ear. ‘Kate! How are you?’

  ‘Fine, fine. Ruth, I need information if you’ve got it. I need to know what happened to a fifteen-year-old male at the time he was given a youth caution for drug possession around five years ago. There’s nothing on the police database. Could you check it out if I give you his name and date of birth?’ Hanson supplied Matthew Flynn’s details. ‘I was thinking that due to his young age he might have been referred to Youth Offending but they say not. You’re my next hope. Actually, Ruth, you’re my only hope. Is it possible he was given social work support?’ She pictured Grayson, long-time worker in substance misuse. What she didn’t know about available services wasn’t worth knowing. Her response wasn’t optimistic.

  ‘Not too likely, actually, even for minors but I’ll check and get back to you with anything I find.’ Ending the call, Hanson joined in the conversation continuing around her.

  ‘What’s this I hear about marijuana?’

  Corrigan pointed at data on the board. She saw a name underlined. William Graham. ‘One of the guys who shared a house with Matthew Flynn. He didn’t sound too keen to see me when I phoned him, slow to open the door when I got there and even less keen to tell me anything once I got inside. But it was an interesting visit on a number of levels. One being that the kitchen is fitted out with some pretty expensive stuff, for example a large espresso machine which I know from when I was fitting out my place would have cost over a grand.’

  Hanson’s brows shot upwards. ‘I can’t see three students buying something like that. Hang on, though. That house belongs to the Flynn family. Maybe Diana Flynn wanted Matthew to have some home comforts and thought nothing too good for her youngest son?’

  ‘Possible,’ said Corrigan. ‘Except that I checked. That particular model is new. Only arrived on the market six months ago. Matthew never got to use it.’

  Seeing Watts’s wide grin she said, ‘I think I’m starting to see a link between a pricey, state-of-the-art espresso machine and marijuana.’

  ‘Knew you would,’ said Corrigan. ‘Picture this, Red. I beat on the door of the house. Like I said, Graham is real slow to respond. When he does, he’s dressed in scruffy, in-for-the-day athletics gear, yet giving off a knock-down aroma of Hugo Boss. Before I get in there I’m kind of suspicious. When I leave I definitely am. That house smelled of weed.’

  She could see there was more. ‘So, what did you do?’

  ‘Left Graham relieved but edgy. I’ve got two upstairs guys staking out the house. They’ve been there all night. When I spoke t
o them thirty minutes ago they were waiting for more officers.’ The phone rang and he reached for it. ‘Corrigan.’ He nodded. ‘Great. You filmed it? See you when you get here.’ He put down the phone, his blue eyes on Watts then Hanson. ‘Confirmation that the student house has a big sideline in horticulture. The third floor is full of hydroponic equipment, lights and a hundred-plus marijuana plants.’ He pushed the chair to recline, stretched his arms and put his hands behind his head. ‘Will Graham and his sidekick Zach Addison are on their way here.’

  Hanson stared. Zach. The name Terri Brennan had mentioned. Somebody who was no friend of Matthew’s. ‘I know that name!’ She looked at her watch and jumped up. ‘Damn! I have to go but I’ll be back at around two thirty.’

  Watts’s face was creased into a broad grin as he watched her head for the door. ‘What did I tell you, doc? This whole case is about drugs.’

  ‘Several times, according to my recollection.’

  Hanson hurried into her university room with five minutes to spare before the scheduled meeting with her research students. Dropping her belongings on the armchair she was halfway to her desk when she heard Crystal’s voice. ‘Kate?’ She looked up as Crystal appeared. ‘You’ve got a visitor.’

  Hanson continued gathering files together. ‘My research group is due here. Tell whoever it is to come back later.’ Getting no response she looked up again.

  ‘I think you need to have a brief word,’ said Crystal, indicating her room.

  Eyes on Crystal, Hanson walked to the door and stopped dead on seeing the small figure sitting there, nimble fingers tapping her phone. Maisie. ‘What’s happened? What’s wrong? Are you feeling ill?’ She went to her, glanced at the phone, recognising the ‘Fashionable 13-Year-Old Girl’ game.

  Maisie’s fingers paused. She avoided her mother’s eyes. ‘I think I might be getting a headache. I just need to be somewhere quiet.’ Sitting on Crystal’s desk, Hanson looked directly into her daughter’s face, pushing back the riot of thick curls to lay her hand on her forehead. It felt cool.