Inspector Ketch of Norwich

Shortly after midnight father Geoffrey Collins woke, startled by a noise. He switched on the bedside lamp. Youths again. The third time in just over a week. Hurriedly, he pulled on his dressing gown and made his way downstairs, remembering to collect his hawthorn walking stick from behind the front door.

When he had first moved to Norwich’s Earlham Road district some 15 years ago, there hadn’t been a youth problem. The most he’d had to endure was noisy carousing when the pub directly opposite threw out its Friday night clientele, but over the past few years, his peace and quiet had been eroded. There was the late-night joyriding which these days extended from the weekends to occasional midweek occurrences. Only last week, the corner shop had been ram raided by a gang of hooded youths. More disturbingly, his back garden, a long strip of land stretching from the conservatory at the back of the property and abutting the rear of the Cathedral, was now frequently invaded by marauding yobs late at night. In the mornings, it was not uncommon for him to find bottles of vodka, used syringes, and condoms strewn along the lawn.

As he opened the back door, a blast of freezing November air hit him. He switched on his torch and paused for a moment. He could hear the chickens in their coops sending out their alarm signals. Someone was out there in the dark, hidden somewhere among the dense canopy of hawthorn bushes and rhododendrons. “Who’s there?” he called, aware of the futility of his utterance. Suddenly, he realised he had forgotten his carpet slippers. His feet were frozen. He plunged ahead into the inky darkness, the feeble torch throwing its pale light into the gloom. He had cleared the lawn and was almost up to the chicken coops, when a hooded figure stepped onto the path. He turned and caught the glint of the blade as the figure raised its arm. There was a sharp pain in his chest, then he gasped and fell forwards, coughing blood.

It wasn’t often that Detective Chief Inspector Ketch indulged in a recreational Saturday, but today was a rare exception. Usually his idea of recreation consisted of a lie - in with the weekend newspapers, followed by a liquid lunch at the Grapes pub. But today was somewhat unusual. In fact, he had been looking forward to doing something different with his weekends for quite a while. So when he saw a poster for the event in the millennium library, he made a note in his diary. ‘Secrets of the Norwich city cemetery,’ it had read. ‘A conducted tour by blue badge guide and local historian Neil Shelley.’ Ketch had never much been interested in local history, but this event fascinated him. During his long career at Bethel Street police station, he had often passed the Victorian cemetery on the Earlham road and wondered how it came to be in such a state of neglect and dereliction. He had read an article in the local newspaper, explaining that the burial ground, opened in 1856, housed some remarkable celebrities of the Victorian age, including members of the Coleman family, manufacturers of the famous English mustard.

10 o’clock on a cold November morning found him standing alongside a small expectant crowd, surrounded by beech trees, oaks and a profusion of ornate gravestones. The guide had stopped in front of a large marble monument depicting a horse.“Here,” the guide was saying, “is the gravestone of one Richard Able, horse dealer and entrepreneur, and just over here, is the family tomb of the Coleman family. To my right, beyond the trees, lies the Jewish plot and to my left, between those overgrown sycamores, is the Roman Catholic sector. Let us proceed.”

The company pressed onwards, their footfalls ringing like pistol shots on the frozen asphalt path. Ketch glanced inquisitively at some of his elderly companions, wondering why they had turned up to the guided walk. Morbid curiosity perhaps? Beyond the sycamores, the guide paused to allow his retinue time to survey the scene. Most of the gravestones were mildewed or partly illegible through erosion. However, one very ornate tomb caught his eye. Depicting a tall figure in priestly robes, it read: ’To the memory of father Francis Ebenezer Doyle, author of ‘The Dark Night of The Soul,’ born 1858, died 1910. May the light of The Saviour Burn In Eternal Splendour.′ The Dark Night of The Soul. It rang a bell. Something he had read in his father’s study, in Wales, a Victorian tract, a ghastly piece full of hellfire, damnation and suffering. He had been 10 at the time and it had left a lasting impression on him. Doyle… Wasn’t he a Jesuit?

His mobile rang, breaking his reverie. The eyes of his graveyard companions turned on him accusingly. Ketch walked three paces into a clearing. It was D.C. Watkins. “Sorry to disturb you on your day off, sir. There’s been a murder.”

By the time Ketch arrived on the scene, the barrier tape had already been erected and SOCO were in the early stages of their operation. Ketch, who didn’t drive, had decided to walk the length of Earlham Road to the large Victorian villa which had once been the residence of father Geoffrey Collins. He hadn’t counted on his morning comprising both the long and the recently deceased, but today it was Hobson’s choice he told himself. He met Watkins at the top of the garden where SOCO had erected a temporary plastic tent, screening off the body from passers by.

“Housekeeper found him early this morning,” Watkins told Ketch. “Came round to do the cleaning and found the back door open.” He pointed to a small, grey haired woman in her late 60′s, sitting on the garden bench, being consoled by a young WPC.

Ketch donned shoes and surgical gloves, then pulled back the tent flap. The priest lay on his back, his left arm raised to his face in a defensive manner. His throat had been slashed and there were cuts to his upper torso. “Looks like he put up quite a fight,” Watkins observed.

“Any forensics yet?”

“Too early to say, sir, except for a single footprint just to the left of the body. Clearly not the victim’s.”

“Time of death?”

“Around 11 PM last night, according to Dr Hennessy.”

“Where is Carol?”

Carol Hennessy, the young pathologist, had known Ketch for some five years. Ketch harboured a secret liking for her and on occasions, they had shared a meal together.

“Inside, on her mobile, when I last saw her.”

A tall, striking brunette appeared at the back door of the property, swathed in white.

“Bad luck. Your day off, is it?”

“No rest for the wicked. What can you tell me?”

“Victim in his 60′s. Cause of death, massive blood loss. A long bladed knife, cutting straight through the jugular. Initially he was attacked from behind though. There is a long initial cut to the back of his neck. Then he must have turned round to face his attacker. Tried to defend himself with his right hand before the killer blow felled him. Attacker was most likely taller than him by a few inches.”

“Anything else?”

“Time of death...”

“I already know that.”

Ketch nodded in Watkins’ direction.

“I’ll let you know more when I get him on the slab.”

After Hennessy had disappeared once more, Ketch and Watkins went back in doors to the study. The walls were lined with theological works and among them Ketch found a history of the Jesuit order, several volumes of the lives of the saints, plus a small collection of Irish poetry. There was a musty, bachelor tobacco smell to the place.

“What do we know about Father Collins?” asked Ketch.

“A quiet man, according to his neighbours. The old woman who does for him told me he’d had some trouble with local youths lately.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“They kept breaking through the fence into the back garden. On one occasion, they stole one of his chickens. The creature hasn’t been seen since. Lithuanian kids, according to old Mrs Robinson. Collins confronted a gang of them about a week back, but they threw stones at him. There had also been an incident of dog shit through his letterbox. That was about a month ago.”

“You got a description of them?”

“I’m onto it sir. The ringleader is already known to us. A boy called Stefan Leibovitch. He lives in one of the terraced houses off the Earlham Road.”

“Neighbours? Acquaintances?”

“WPC’s Taylor and Evans are doing door to door. And we’ve contacted Father Murphy. He’s at the Cathedral offices. He was a close friend of Father Collins. Known him for 20 years.”

Ketch had passed the imposing edifice of the Catholic Cathedral many times on his way to the Bethel Street HQ. Built in mock Gothic style in the 19th century, its dark red brick dominated the skyline of Norwich. Father Collins’ office was a small, dingy room at the rear of the Cathedral, lined with books but barely furnished with a chipped formica desk and two chairs which had seen better days. Father Murphy was in his mid-30s, pale faced, lean and with penetrating, close set eyes. He spoke with a strong, lilting accent which Ketch immediately identified as being from the west of the Republic. He rose to shake hands with the Chief Inspector.

“A tragic business. I heard the news about an hour ago. What happened exactly?”

Ketch explained without going into too much detail.

“Would you care for some tea or perhaps coffee?”

When Father Murphy had returned, Ketch said: “I understand from DC Watkins here that you knew Father Collins very well?”

“Indeed. We went way back. Attended the same seminary in Cork. I suppose you could say he was my mentor.”

“You knew about these youths who’d been vandalising his property?”

“He was very distressed about it. We knew the parents of one of the boys. They come to the Cathedral. The parents both work at a wholesale book distributors on an industrial park here in the city. So there’s no one at home to supervise their kids. It’s the old story, I’m very sorry to say.”

“Do you know why they decided to persecute Father Collins in particular?”

“Good heavens, no. He had a great concern for young people. Ran a youth club in Cork for many years. That’s where I met him.”

Back in his flat off the Earlham Road, Ketch treated himself to a fish and chip supper and sat afterwards with a glass of whiskey, watching the lights of the traffic flickering beyond the lounge window. He put on a CD and listened to the soaring lyrics of Elbow’s ‘Seldom Seen Kid’ before finally retiring around midnight . About 2 AM he awoke suddenly and lay, listening to the sounds of mayhem emanating from the Earlham Road. It was the usual Saturday night debacle involving hordes of drunken teenagers. These days his colleagues rarely sent a unit to deal with the problem simply because they were inundated with problems in the centre of the city.

Unable to get back to sleep, he pulled on his dressing gown and got out his laptop. Then he googled the name Francis Ebenezer Doyle. Within seconds, he had hit Wikipedia where he found a short biography of the man whose gravestone he had glimpsed that morning in the cemetery. ‘Born 1858, died 1910,’ the entry read. ‘Francis Doyle, leading figure in the Irish Jesuit movement, author of the book “Dark Night of The Soul”, and influential Jesuit tract on the nature of suffering.’ Below was a separate entry from the book. He clicked on a PDF of the entire work. His eyes scanned the text. One entry in particular caught his attention. Headed ‘The Abjuration of The Flesh,’ it read: ‘The flesh being weak, a portal to daemonic infestation, must therefore be abjured on a regular basis. I recommend the wearing of a celice and hairshirt. In addition, the daily application of a scourge applied on the back and buttocks to guard against sexual urges and thoughts of an unseemly nature.’

The text went on, but Ketch stopped reading and disconnected himself from the net. For some while before he drifted back to sleep, he lay and pondered the day’s events. Collins was a celibate. Was it possible that he might be a paedophile? It might explain the harassment by the youths. He put his brain to rest, turned over, and drifted off into a troubled sleep, involving dark, oak lined rooms and a priest wielding a count of nine tails.

The following morning dawned fair and bright with a light covering of snow to the rooftops of the city houses. As usual, Ketch walked the length of the Earlham Road into the heart of the city, reaching the Bethel Street HQ just after 9 AM. He found DC Watkins in the Ops room.

“Stefan Leibovitch and the father are in interview room number three, guv. The boy was picked up near Castle Meadow late last night. One of a gang of 10. They’d steamed their way through the express Tesco. The security guard phoned HQ around nine o’clock.”

Stefan’s father was a lean, muscular man in his early 30s with tattooed arms and a scarred face, who looked like he’d lived for 100 years. He spoke in short, faltering sentences and was clearly unhappy about being present. Stefan Leibovitch, who bore a close resemblance to his father, sat back in the chair, hands behind his head, nonchalant, careful to avoid eye contact.

″I want to talk to you about this man, Stefan,” began Ketch, pointing to a photo of Father Collins. “You knew him, I believe.” Silence. Ketch looked at Mr Leibovitch who prodded his son in the ribs.

“Answer the policeman,” he snapped. Stefan nodded.

“You’d caused him some trouble, I believe?”

The youth nodded again.

“And why was that?”

Stefan smiled, then looked at Ketch directly for the first time.

“Because the old man was queer.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that he preyed on children.”

“Where did this take place exactly?”

“At the Sunday School and sometimes at his house.”

“And how do you know that this is true, Stefan?”

“Because he showed me photographs on his computer. And because he paid me money to keep my mouth shut about it.”

Mr Leibovitch stared at his son with incomprehension.

“And when exactly was this?”

“Lots of times it happened. He used to invite boys back to his place for what he called Bible studies. That’s when it used to happen.”

“And did he also molest you, Stefan?”

“He tried, but I refused.”

“So you what? You threatened him then?”

“I told him I wanted money to keep my mouth shut about it.”

“And he refused so that’s why you killed him?”

“No. He said no after a while so me and a few of my friends started to make trouble for him.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“We used to break into his back garden. It was fun. Once we killed one of his chickens. We stuffed shit through his letterbox. Why not? He was a disgusting little man.”

Stefan’s father looked incredulously at his son and licked his lips nervously.

“Stefan, where were you on Saturday evening?”

“Out with the gang.”

“Until when exactly?”

“Until late.”

“And can anyone vouch for that?”

Stefan shrugged. “Went to a couple of places. Prince of Wales Road. Places nearby. Dan-”

“Who’s Dan?”

“My best mate. Dan gets us all some booze. He’s 18 so he can.”

“Then afterwards, you went down the Earlham Road to Father Collins’ house?”

“Thought about doing it, but decided to give it a rest. Let the old man sweat a bit. I took 50 quid off him last week. I had enough to see me through the week.”

There followed a long silence. Ketch stared at Stefan. Somehow he believed what the youth had been telling him.

Ketch left HQ late that evening. Preliminary results from forensics offered no match with Stefan being at or even near the scene of the crime. There were no DNA traces and even the enigmatic footprint didn’t match his shoe size or type. When Watkins visited the Leibovitch residence later that day, he found a stash of £20 notes in the boy’s wardrobe which could have corroborated his story. Ketch instructed Watkins to conduct a trawl of the CCTV cameras operating on the Prince of Wales Road for the Saturday night. Then around 9 PM he made his way back to the flat, his mind mulling over the affair. In the morning he would get the IT boys to check out Father Collins’ PC files and make a thorough search of the priest’s house to see if the boy’s account held true. On his way back to the flat he dropped in for a pint and whiskey chaser. In the corner of the saloon bar, he spotted father Murphy, sitting alone with a half consumed pint of Guinness. Ketch thought he looked nervous and somewhat preoccupied.

Ketch spent some of the Monday morning liaising with two DCs at Collins’s house where his computer was removed for further investigation. As the men busied themselves with their task, Ketch perused the bookshelves in the priest’s study. Books by Cardinal Newman, St Augustine and here, curiously, on top of a shelf, a red, leather bound copy of Doyle’s ‘Dark Night of The Soul.’ He opened it. On the-fly leaf was the inscription: ‘To my mentor and guide, Geoffrey, with all best wishes, Christmas, 1987. Father Murphy.’

Ketch pocketed the book and made his way out of the back of the property, pushing under the barrier tape into the garden. It was a long, well cultivated stretch, bordered by tall pine trees and rhododendron bushes. A narrow path snaked up towards the chicken coops at the far border, but these had been empted by the RSPCA the previous day. He stood for a while, breathing in the cold winter air. To his left was a pile of compost and just beyond it, an area of what looked like freshly dug soil. He took out a packet of cigarettes from his coat pocket and lit one, drawing in the acrid smoke.

Ketch returned to the Collins’ residence around 7 PM that same day. It had been a productive afternoon. Father Collins’ PC had yielded a stash of information regarding his online activities. Once the password had been cracked by the IT boys, no less than 1000 indecent images had been accessed by them and it appeared that Collins had links with a paedophile ring operating in both Europe and America. All of which provided no further evidence as to his assailant.

By the time he reached the house, it was raining hard and Ketch, who had omitted to bring his umbrella with him, was soaked through. Revisiting the scene of the crime solo was a practice he frequently adopted. He believed that the absence of other people often sharpened his own senses and gave him an opportunity to marshal his thoughts. Although nothing might come of this exercise, it was always worth giving it a try. A clue, a single detail, perhaps overlooked, sometimes would emerge, throwing fresh light on the circumstances of the crime.

Once inside, the sky cleared and a full moon had risen low on the horizon. He decided not to put on the interior light for a few moments and sat in the leather captain’s chair for 20 minutes as he slowly began to dry out, trying to figure things out. The curious volume he had plucked from the bookshelves that morning kept coming back to him as if it were the key to the mystery.

As he was about to stand up and switch on the table lamp, he heard the sound of footsteps outside. He rose and concealed himself behind the door. Within a few seconds, the light had been switched on and he saw the figure of Father Murphy enter the room. Through the crack in the door, he caught glimpses of his face which bore a strained, haunted expression. He went to the buro and producing a long bladed knife, broke open the lock, taking out a packet of envelopes. He was about to exit the room when Ketch revealed himself. Murphy gave him a startled look and moved his left hand behind his back in an attempt to conceal the documents.

“Looking for something, Father Murphy?” Ketch enquired.

“A book I left here. Needed it for my sermon.”

“So what’s that behind your back then?”

In a split second, Murphy had produced the knife and lunged at Ketch, cutting him on the cheek. Ketch reeled back, letting him flee. He had no intention of risking his life. He was too near to retirement.

Father Murphy sat opposite Ketch and DC Watkins, pale and haggard looking, fumbling with the small rosary which hung from his neck. He was unwashed, dishevelled, and bore a large bruise on the side of his face, evidence of his recent resisted arrest. Ketch turned on the audio equipment to record.

“Interview with father Richard Murphy, 10:30 AM, November 15. Officers present: DCI Ketch and DC Watkins. Father Murphy, you’ve already told us about the reason why you visited Father Collins’ residence.”

“To get the letters back.”

“Letters which you’d written to him over a number of years, prior to your incumbency here in Norwich.”

“Letters in which on several occasions, I pleaded with him to confess his continued addiction to child abuse. And to put a stop to it once and for all.” Father Murphy sighed.

“How long had this been going on?” asked Ketch.

“For years. In some ways, it wasn’t his fault. We both attended the same school- a Jesuit school in Cork. Father Collins was three years older than me. He endured a regime of punishment there in his latter years. He was also abused by one of the brothers. It was also there that he became tainted by this cursed addiction. It was he who initiated me into that disgusting world. When I left Ireland 10 years ago, I took counselling and was able to stop abusing others. I also ceased being a catamite.”

“But you applied for the job in Norwich. When was that? About four years ago?”

Father Murphy nodded. “I had heard through a young man William Blaker that Father Connelly had continued with his awful practices. I wrote to him on several occasions. I pleaded with him to stop. He wrote back to me-such terrible things he had done. Including the murder of a young boy. He claimed it had been an accident, the results of a ‘sex game.’ That was how he described it. He had constricted the boy’s airways to heighten his sexual pleasure but things had then gone too far. That was when I applied for the posting here in Norwich. I knew something had to be done to vanquish the demon within him. I tried talking to him, reasoning with him. All to no avail. Do you know of a work by the Jesuit priest called The Dark Night of The Soul? We both had read it at the seminary. There is a passage in that work which describes how we all, at one stage in our lives, face a choice: whether to take the road up into the light or down into the darkness. Father Collins had taken the latter and there was no return to the land of the living. Oh, I debated long and hard about my proposed solution to the problem, believe me. All along I believed that there was some hope for him. Three nights ago, I went round to see him and found him with the boy.”

“Stefan Leibovitch?” Ketch interjected.

“Yes. They were inflagrante. Collins had a cord round the boy’s throat. Of course he had paid him for the ‘pleasure.’ I knew then that I had to act, I had to stop the abuse. So on the Saturday evening, I came back and lured him into the garden.”

“Where you then murdered him?”

Father Murphy lowered his head. Tears welled from his eyes.

“I prefer to describe my actions as a mercy killing. Now the fiend is no longer sleeping but dead.”

Ketch took a short cut through the Norwich Cemetery when he had finished his business with Father Murphy. It had turned bitterly cold and a north wind was blowing snow flakes into his face as he made his way into the Catholic portion of the graveyard. Here it was at last, the grave of Ebenezer Doyle, the author of The Dark Night of the Soul. He stood in silence before the elaborate gravestone for a good long while, ruminating on the day’s events, wondering why, if there truly was a God, he would allow such unspeakable acts of perversion to exist, especially among the representatives of his church on earth. Perhaps that was the greatest unsolved mystery of them all. Taking out a packet of cigarettes and lighting one, he moved on through the deserted graveyard, pausing at the exit to button up his overcoat. A pint and whiskey chaser might just do the trick.