The Floating Body by Kel Richards

word—ended.
    ‘Quietly, boys, quietly,’ I urged as they packed away their books and filed out of the room for their morning break.
    With time on my hands I tucked my own textbooks under my arm and headed back to the cathedral. I wanted to climb back up to the organ loft and see just how good and clear our view had really been from that position.
    Leaving my books and class roll sitting on a small table inside the north door of the cathedral, I walked briskly to the steep stairs that led to the organ loft. Once I was up on this small platform, I went to the far end and opened the narrow window that looked out over the cathedral close.
    The full width of the square lay between myself and the roof of the Old School where Dave Fowler had died, but the distance was not great, and from where I stood there was a clear view of what Inspector Locke had called ‘the scene of the crime’.
    As these thoughts were whizzing through my head I heard a clumping below and a moment later was joined in the loft by David Evans.
    ‘Ah, Morris, I didn’t expect to find you here.’
    ‘Just replaying the events of yesterday,’ I said, a rather glum tone in my voice.
    ‘I see. And this is where you and Lewis stood and saw . . . well . . . whatever it was you saw.’
    ‘Exactly! And the view from here is excellent, so I can’t see how we could possibly have been mistaken.’
    ‘It’s all very grim indeed,’ said Evans. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, Morris, I’ll get on with my practice.’
    ‘Practise all you like, old man. I’ll just hang about for a bit.’
    ‘Suit yourself.’
    And with those words Evans opened up the console of the organ, spread out some pages of sheet music and began to gently play through something I recognised as Mendelssohn.
    After a while I grew tired of staring out of the small window, trying to replay in my mind over and over again what I had seen and what it might mean.
    I turned away from the window, leaned on the railing of the organ loft, and looked down into the body of the cathedral—allowing myself to be carried away on the wings of the music Evans was drawing out of the cathedral’s beautiful Hill organ.
    Then something caught my eye. Among the long shadows that filled the deserted church, a figure was moving—a dark figure, large and powerfully built.
    Leaning forward a little over the railing, I squinted into the shadows. As I looked, the figure passed through a beam of light falling through the rose window, and in that brief moment I saw that it was McKell.
    Now that may not have appeared startling to some people, but it certainly startled me. I happened to know, from one or two brief conversations I’d had with that prickly gentleman in my short time at Nesfield Cathedral School, that he was about as religious as I was. Which is to say, not very religious at all.
    ‘Now what,’ I asked myself in the silence of my own mind, ‘is that blighter doing here?’
    The cathedral was kept open for prayer, I knew that much. I also knew that folk from the town would, from time to time, drop in—to pray or to arrange flowers or whatever.
    But McKell? That struck me as decidedly odd. This grumbling, taciturn man, and his equally ill-mannered sister, were among the least religious people I’d ever encountered.
    And yet, here was McKell, coming to the empty cathedral on his own.
    As I watched he made his way to one of the rear pews and took a seat. Clearly he was intending to settle down for a period. This was even more extraordinary. Somehow I simply could not imagine McKell engaging in silent contemplation, or meditation, or prayer . . . or, come to that, anything else in that vast, empty building that echoed to David Evans’ exquisite organ playing.
    It was while I was wrestling with this puzzle that I saw the south door of the cathedral swing open. This was the door on the town side of the building, the one that locals would use when they visited. It opened only slowly and cautiously. Then a