Fallen Angel Read Online Free Page A

entry?’
    Larcombe shook his head. ‘None.’
    ‘Is the priest still here?’
    Larcombe nodded and pointed to a door on the far right of the altar. ‘The paramedics took him in there. He’s in shock.’
    The door to the side of the altar was slightly ajar. Collins pushed it open with her foot and stepped into the vestry. It was a small room, dimly lit by a single light bulb. A number of cassocks hung on the wall, and the air was filled with the musty smell of incense and old hymnals. There was a steel cabinet with a flimsy-looking lock on the front – probably where they kept the communion wine, she supposed.
    Father Connelly sat on a wooden chair, his eyes staring blankly ahead of him, his deeply lined face grey and pallid. A female paramedic in bright-green overalls knelt beside him, gently stroking one of his hands. She looked up enquiringly at Collins.
    ‘You’re needed out front, one of the lads has fainted. You know what these probationers are like,’ said Collins.
    She shook her head. ‘I can’t leave him. I’ve just given him a sedative to calm him down.’
    ‘I can watch him for you,’ said Collins, smoothly interrupting.
    The paramedic looked at her patient, then back up at the DI. ‘He can’t be left alone,’ she warned.
    Collins nodded, then knelt down on the other side of the priest and removed his hand from the woman’s gentle grasp.
    ‘I’ll be back as quickly as I can,’ the paramedic said before walking briskly away.
    Collins had to move fast. It would only be a couple of minutes before the woman realized she had been sent out on a false errand – but there were a couple of questions that needed answering, and she knew from experience that it could be hours, or even days, before the doctors gave the all-clear to formally interview the old man. She took the priest’s face in her hands and turned it towards her. ‘I need to ask you some questions,’ she said in a low but direct voice.
    Father Connelly just started at her, his eyes seemingly focused within.
    ‘Can you hear me?’ she said, more firmly this time.
    The priest seemed to nod his head, though in truth it was more of a tremble than a nod. Collins had so many things to ask him. Routine questions, ones that he was in no fit state to answer.
    She ran through them in her mind. Does anyone beside you have keys to the front door? Do you know the parentsof Daniel Eliot? Why would someone leave the body of a child in
your
church?
    Then, in her mind’s eye, she pictured the torn-out page from the Bible and the words marked out in red. She recited the line: ‘
By the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners.
What does it mean, Father Connelly? Why would someone underline it in blood?’
    At first the priest just stared, as though he hadn’t heard. But, at the mention of the word ‘blood’, his whole body suddenly started to shake, and Collins felt the rough skin of his face slip in her sweaty hand. He opened his mouth and took in a gulp of air, and then another. And another. In seconds he was hyperventilating, his lungs wheezing.
    And then the paramedic returned. ‘What the hell …’ she started to say, before removing the officer’s hand from around the priest’s face. Collins stood up and let her attend to him.
    ‘He’s in no state to talk,’ the medic barked over the sound of the priest’s gasping. ‘And you knew full well there was nobody in need of my attention outside. I’ve got a good mind to report you for this.’
    The woman’s voice boomed off the walls of the small room, but Collins had already turned away. She wasn’t going to get anything out of Father Connelly at the moment.
    Back at the altar, Collins slowly absorbed the scene in front of her. She pictured the killer standing at the side of the pews, pulling on the rope as Daniel’s body rose into the air. It must have taken some strength, especially as there would have been a good deal of friction between the rope and the wooden beam. Was it