Free So Say the Fallen (Dci Serena Flanagan 2) by Stuart Neville

Garricks.’
    McKay gave no response. He opened the door and allowed Mr McHugh into the vestry and through to the church beyond, before entering the code to disable the burglar alarm. Over the next half hour, while McKay donned his black cassock and white surplice, while he scribbled notes on loose sheets of paper he took from the old printer in the vestry, a scattering of people, more women than men, mostly elderly, sat in the pews. More of them than usual. Death brings out the God-fearing.
    And there, near the front, Jim Allison, MLA. Forty-something, tanned and well-dressed, owner of a print business on the outskirts of Moira. He’d been an elected Member of the Legislative Assembly at Stormont since the re-establishment of the devolved Northern Ireland government in 2007. A man of influence who’d fought battles for many in the parish, from denied benefits claims to planning refusals, Allison had tackled bureaucrats in every government department on behalf of his constituents.
    Although the MLA and his wife were regular attendees on Sundays, McKay struggled to remember a time when Allison had bothered with a weekday service, save for funerals or weddings. But he knew why Allison was here this morning. The parish had suffered a terrible tragedy and the local politician had come to show his solidarity with his people.
    Such a cynical thought, but McKay had been given to cynical thinking over the past few months. Since his own faith had left him, he had questioned the belief of every other person who stepped inside his church. We’re all just playing along, aren’t we? Just going through the motions, doing what’s expected of us.
    And so McKay worked his way through the service, point-by-point as prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer: the gathering of God’s people, the sentence of scripture, the opening hymn, the exhortation, the confession, the Lord’s Prayer. Like an actor who’d performed the same lines every night for twenty years, he recited each segment with detached authority.
    But today was different, wasn’t it?
    Today, they listened harder. This morning, every word he spoke carried the weight of Mr Garrick’s death. He had chosen the hymns and readings carefully to reflect the sombre mood the congregation expected from him. And this morning, he would go further. A sermon, a rarity in a weekday service. After the canticles and the psalms were done, he turned over two pages of scribbles that would carry him through the next ten minutes.
    He heard the door open, felt a cool breeze, and looked up from his own barely legible scrawls. The policewoman, Flanagan. McKay’s throat dried. She slipped into the second to last pew, exactly where Roberta Garrick had sat all those months ago. Her eyes met his, held his stare.
    Start talking, he told himself.
    Start talking now.
    ‘My friends,’ he said, or at least he tried. The words came out as a crackling whisper. He cleared his throat, looked down at his notes, and tried again.
    ‘My friends, this morning we come into the Lord’s house carrying the great weight of tragedy. You all know the Garrick family, and you all know they have endured more heartbreak than any family should. First, with the loss of little Erin Garrick,not even two years old, in a terrible accident four years ago. Back then, Mr and Mrs Garrick sought the solace of their faith, their Lord God and His son, Jesus Christ. And they sought the support of the congregation of this church, they turned to their friends here, and with your help, and the Saviour’s, they survived the loss of their only child.’
    McKay glanced up once more. Flanagan still watched him.
    And why shouldn’t she? Everyone else watched him too. That’s what they’re here for. Stay calm, he told himself. She can’t see inside you. She can’t read your thoughts. She doesn’t know the terrible things you’ve done.
    And still she watched him.
    He coughed once more, and recommenced his sermon.
    ‘Then six months ago,