Page 37 of Her Last Breath

‘I was told she came here to use the foodbank?’

‘Yes, yes, she did. Like too many people, and every week there are more and more. And yet, Jane, people here who have so little still give what they can. I know people look on us as being deprived, crime-ridden, always high up on those awful polls of places nobody wants to live. But we have community, people look out for each other. You know this, you must remember?’

Jane didn’t tell him she tried not to. She was acutely aware that on moving to London, she had given up all of that. Had been forced to give up all of that.

‘Can you tell me anything about Alice that might help me understand what happened to her?’

‘What did happen to her?’

‘We think she was murdered.’

Father Walsh crossed himself, said a whispered prayer. ‘I thought that she … well, you know …’

‘The evidence suggests otherwise.’

He was quiet, steepling his hands in front of his mouth, before speaking again.

‘I didn’t really speak to her much, if I am to be honest, but others didn’t hold back gossiping about her. Alice was a strange case, you see. She was the girl with the well-to-do parents, grew up in a big house down in Cliviger. She went off the rails as a teenager, or so the gossip goes. Two kids from two different fathers. She chose a hard path for herself when she had no need to.’

‘Do you know who the fathers were?’

‘She never said. As far as I know, they didn’t feature in her life, likely didn’t even know about their offspring.’

Jane didn’t say what she was thinking. If Liam Harrison was any example of the sort of men Alice Rogers let into her life, she was probably well shot of them.

‘No cause to worry recently? She didn’t let on any concerns to anyone?’

‘She had issues, for sure. You know me, I don’t do tittle-tattle, but it serves to keep my ear to the ground. She was a troubled soul, lots of problems with the drugs. Some of the ladies knew her grandmother, that ended very badly.’

‘You mean the accusations of theft? At the hospice?’

‘Yes. I can’t imagine how desperate she must have been to do that.’

‘I believe you know her partner?’

Father Michael looked blank.

‘Liam Harrison?’

‘Liam? Yes, I do. I provided spiritual counselling sessions to him while in prison. I didn’t realise he was dating Alice.’

‘You make it sound so quaint.’

‘Wasn’t it?’

‘Father Walsh, how well do you know Liam?’

‘Like I said, I met him during his time inside. He was a troubled soul, of course, like everybody else in there. He had a bad childhood, abusive father, abusive stepfather. We see it so often in our work, don’t we? The cycle.’

‘I’ve seen it broken enough times to know it’s not a given.’

‘True. He didn’t really say much, if I’m being totally honest. Came more for the solace from the sheer stress of being inside. He found it really difficult, an easy target for the prison guards and other inmates. Although he had a friend, Mark, who he dragged along as well.’

‘Mark Burrows?’

‘Yes. Good chap. Again, a very troubled life, but he was more aimless than vicious. Didn’t know how to get out of the cycle he had ended up in. Had a lovely wife, still couldn’t get it straight.’

‘Father Michael, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Mark was found dead ten days ago.’