Free Cherringham: A Deadly Confession by Neil Richards

stiff body from its hiding place and making some creaks of his own, stood up.
    He walked back along the corridor and into Byrne’s room. Switched on his phone light again and he played it around the room. The nun had done a good job — all the closet doors were shut, just as Jack himself had left them.
    He was about to turn and go when something by the bedside cabinet caught his eye.
    Something was different.
    But what?
    He played the light slowly across the top of the bedside cabinet. The drawer was slightly open. Jack knew he’d closed it tight, just as he’d found it.
    He walked over and slid open the drawer.
    There, next to the prayer book was a small bottle of pills.
    It hadn’t been there before.
    He picked up the bottle. The prescription label showed Eamon Byrne’s name. And the drugs, Jack suspected — would be for the priest’s heart.
    Jack knew he would have seen these if they’d been in the bedside drawer when he first looked: the nun must have brought them with her.
    Now what the hell did that mean?
    Jack memorised the name of the drugs, and left the room.
    He had the case. And now he had an unanswered question…
    Not a bad night’s work.
    Now — to let Sarah work her magic on the contents, and the mysterious Antonio Bell.

13. Wide Web
    It was nearly lunch before Sarah had a free half-hour to get back to the case.
    Being a parent did have its demands as well…
    First, she’d had to give Chloe a lift to school because she was late.
    Then, she’d had to repeat the trip because her daughter had forgotten her guitar.
    The rest of the hectic morning had been taken up reviewing the web design for a new hotel which was opening up in the village.
    Normally Sarah would have left it to her assistant, Grace, but the clients were being incredibly fussy about what they were looking for and — it seemed — needed all of Sarah’s experience to keep them happy.
    Jack had phoned twice already and although he was sympathetic she could tell he was itching to get on with the case.
    So, while Grace popped out to get them both salads, she found her notepad with all the key words from the investigation into Father Eamon Byrne’s death and started to work out exactly what progress she and Jack had made.
    Not much to go on, she realised.
    The three retreaters. The mysterious Antonio Bell. Some betting slips. Liam O’Connor. The disappearing and then reappearing meds. And the name of a hospice — what had Jack called it — St. Elrich’s?
    Then, there was the box of statements and accounts which Jack had brought over to her house last night just before she’d gone to bed.
    She hefted it up onto the desk and took out the piles of paper and old notebooks.
    Where to start?
    “Tuna or chorizo?” said Grace appearing at the door bearing the salads.
    “Tuna,” said Sarah.
    Grace grabbed a couple of plates and came and sat next to her.
    “Want some help?” she said, leafing through the old papers.
    “That’d be brilliant Grace — you sure?”
    “Beats doing brochures for Costco’s,” said Grace, tucking into her salad. “This still the case of the Flying Father?”
    “Yep,” said Sarah. “And it’s not exactly flying.”
    “What’s this lot?” she asked, mouth full, pointing to the box of statements.
    “The good priest’s files.”
    “Uh-huh. So let’s do the money stuff first,” said Grace. “Follow the money, isn’t that what they say?”
    Sarah laughed: “They do, though I’m not sure it always works.”
    “Shame Father Byrne wasn’t better at filing,” said Grace, holding up a stack of random papers. “Looks like we’ll have to do it for him.”
    “While you’re doing that,” said Sarah, turning back to her keyboard. “I’ll see what I can find online.”
    “Get me a cake from Huffington’s at tea-time and it’s a deal,” said Grace, laying out the papers on the floor and starting to sort them.
    *
    It only took five minutes for Sarah to find what she needed on Antonio Bell and