Black December (DCI Brendan Moran #1) by Scott Hunter

Author:Scott Hunter [Hunter, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Detective, murder mystery, Crime, Thriller
Publisher: Myrtle Villa Publishing
Published: 2011-11-18T00:00:00+00:00

“Well, hi!” Holly Whitbread’s face lit up with pleasure. Genuine pleasure, Moran noted. That alone made him feel a lot better.

“Well? Are you coming in, or practising for first-footing? You look frozen stiff!” Holly held the door open as a flurry of snow whipped into the cottage. “Quick!”

Moran ducked his head under a low beam and entered a surprisingly large but snug lounge, furnished with a two-seater settee and matching armchair, a low coffee table straddling a butter-brown rug, and neat, cream-patterned curtains shuttering the two leaded windows. It was tastefully but sparsely decorated, the only item of incongruity being a large wooden crucifix, suspended prominently between two exposed beams on the far wall.

Holly followed his gaze. “Comes with the cottage.” She smiled apologetically. “Bit gruesome, isn’t it?”

It was. The agonised figure of Christ looked down at them beseechingly. Above the head was a representation of the Titulus Crucis, the text shortened to INRI: IESUS NAZARENUS REX IUDAEORUM – Jesus the Nazarene, king of the Jews.

Moran studied the effigy. Was the missing relic the genuine article? He doubted it – forgeries were de rigueur in the Middle Ages. The likelihood of something as extraordinary as the Titulus surviving into the twenty-first century was remote. Or was it? The abbot had spoken of a similar fragment on display in Santa Croce, a church near Rome. Moran wondered if it had been subject to forensic examination, carbon dating . . . A line of scripture fell into Moran’s head unbidden. Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do . . .

He noted that the plaster figure had been designed with something of the reality of Christ’s sufferings in mind: here and there across the body’s painful topography bones gleamed whitely beneath the tinted skin, facsimiles of the pre-crucifixion scourging Jesus had endured. A picture of Horgan’s body came into Moran’s head, a bone grasped in one hand, the Titulus fragment in the other . . .

“Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?”

Moran tore his eyes away from the crucifix, his mind grasping at something but failing to connect. A drink? He supposed he was off duty in a sense – until he returned to the school premises. The thought of a night in the sacristy made his mind up for him. “Okay, perhaps a small glass of wine, just to warm my stomach?”

Holly smiled broadly. She was wearing a figure-hugging woollen dress, belted at the waist and stopping a good distance short of her knees. Moran found himself drawn to the gap between the hem and the point at which her legs disappeared into a pair of soft leather boots.

“Red or white?”

“Red – if you have it.”

“Shiraz or Cabernet?”

“Shiraz. Please.” Moran inclined his head in appreciation.

Holly disappeared into the kitchen. “Sit yourself down, Chief Inspector,” she called back, her voice accompanied by the clink of wine glasses.

“We’ll have to dispense with the formalities, you know,” Moran replied. “Brendan will be fine.”

“All right – Brendan.” Holly appeared in the doorway with a glass in each hand.

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