The George Elms Trilogy Box Set

by Charlie Gallagher

  ‘Have you ever heard of a Brazen Bull?’ Emma’s voice was so low George had to lean in to hear her words. She shivered.

  ‘What? A brazen what? What’s this about, Emma?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I hadn’t heard of it either. I mean, why would you? But I know all about it now. I know all about it because of Henry Roberts.’

  ‘So, tell me about it. I assume I need to know.’

  ‘Oh, you do, George! Ancient Greece. They had a problem with petty crime. It was everywhere. The ruler at the time wanted a new method of punishing and executing criminals. He wanted to make them suffer in the worst way possible before they died, so that he could send a message. He wanted a device so terrible that no one would ever commit a crime again. Out of pure fear. The Brazen Bull was it. The inventor showed it to the ruler, explained how it worked, what it did. Legend has it that he was so appalled by what he saw that he ordered the inventor to be the first victim.’

  ‘That’s what that is up there? A Brazen Bull?’

  ‘Of a sort, yes.’ Emma walked back past George, back towards the clearing. The group had stayed on the outside. George walked behind Emma. He could hear the group chatting as they approached. They laughed in unison. The laughter dropped away immediately as Emma walked through them. They must have seen her expression. They all had questioning eyes for George. He ignored them. He continued after Emma. She stopped a metre short of the device.

  ‘The Brazen Bull was traditionally made entirely out of bronze. For lightness this one will be like the others. Made of copper. It has a thick skin but it’s hollow. It would have been shaped like a bull in Ancient Greece. I guess Roberts didn’t have the time or the skill to emulate that.’

  George turned to the group. They were all looking beyond him. Emma had their full attention.

  ‘The victim was stripped naked and forced inside the bull. It is just about big enough to take a nineteen-year-old, naked female. It would have been locked shut. She would have been in the pitch black. Roberts then built a stack of wood under the bull. We don’t know at what point he would have done that, but for the maximum effect it was suggested that he did it once he had his victim trapped inside. When he had enough wood he would have set it on fire. Roberts would have controlled how big the fire was. The metal, of course, would heat up. Copper is an excellent conductor of heat. The bottom would become hot to touch at first, but the whole thing would heat up. And it would get hotter all the time.’ Emma paused for a moment. She lifted her head to where the sun drifted through the canopy. ‘Can you imagine the panic, George? Can you imagine what that must be like?’

  ‘Jesus . . .’ George said.

  ‘The metal would keep getting hotter. He could have doused the flames to prolong it, or fanned them to speed it up. But, at some point, it would have started to scald. Those young women, George . . .’ She paused. She fought off breaking down. ‘They would be sweating heavily. They would be soaked. Their own sweat would heat up too until it boiled on their skin. The nerves on their hands and feet would be burnt away first — it’s not a quick process. It would have been almost a relief when it finally happened. But you can’t keep all your weight on your hands and feet forever. At some point you’re going to collapse. In the dark. In more pain than you can imagine.’ Emma turned back to the group. She fixed on George. ‘He cooked them alive, George. In the pitch black. Alone and terrified. As slowly as he could manage. That’s what you’re dealing with. That’s what devastated my team and that’s the man that we locked in a stinking cell. You need to understand who he is. Everyone does.’

  George was reeling. His mind trying to form the right response. ‘The press . . . the media . . . they just said they were burned. It read like it was after — like he was trying to get rid of the evidence. Then he buried what was left of them.’

  ‘The media didn’t get all the information.’

  ‘What did they get?’ George was still flailing, trying to make sense of what he thought he knew.

  ‘What they needed. Nothing more.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we didn’t have the bodies. Because Roberts didn’t confess. The judge, the CPS, the police . . . we all agreed to keep the details secret until we had closure. Technically the investigation is still open and Roberts’s defence team are still making noises about an appeal. We’re still looking for those missing girls. And if anyone showed knowledge of what happened here, or Roberts did at any point, it would show that they were involved for definite.’

  ‘By anyone, you mean an accomplice?’

  Emma sighed. ‘We never got a word of explanation, no admission of guilt, nothing. We can’t say what happened here for sure. I expect the full details might be released when Henry dies, especially now we have the missing girls. But his death might mean that we never actually know what happened.’

  ‘So was anything actually buried? At the other site?’

  ‘Yes, what was left of Lucy Moon when he had finished.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Imagine, George, imagine roasting a pork joint. For hours — days even. The flesh falls right off the bone . . .’

  ‘Jesus . . .’ George managed again.

  ‘Seems he wasn’t there to help.’

  ‘So, you just found her buried bones?’

  ‘Most of them.’

  ‘Most of them?’

  ‘So the bit about the animals carrying some of it off, that bit was true?’

  ‘No. We got them all, just not at the same time.’

  ‘Not at the same time?’

  ‘No. What was missing, we found when we arrested Roberts.’

  ‘He kept some?’

  ‘He was wearing them.’ Emma walked back towards George. She didn’t slow down. He stepped aside, his mouth flapping open and shut. He was trying to speak. He wanted to say something, he just didn’t know what. She kept walking. George watched her until she was out of sight among the trees.

  Whittaker was looking right at him. He was shaking his head. ‘What the hell do you make of this then, old boy?’ he managed. ‘What are you thinking?’

  George turned back to the solid-looking metal ‘bull.’ The belly dipped low, the spindly legs holding it a few feet off the ground. Plenty of room for a good fire underneath. The moss was a different colour where it hadn’t quite had the chance to re-establish itself through the earth that would have been scorched underneath.

  George felt suddenly very cold. ‘Well, he didn’t do this on his own.’

  Chapter 13

  George pushed through the interior of Belmarsh Prison, his teeth gritted, his eyes to the floor. It was a struggle for him to be here. He was having to make a real effort to keep his composure. He didn’t know if he could sit opposite that animal. Not now. The descent down the Welsh hillside and the drive to Belmarsh had given him ample time to dwell on what he had seen in that beauty spot. The journey had largely been awkward small-talk. They had tried to talk about it, but neither he nor his boss could find the right words. For George at least, the only emotion left in him was anger. Whittaker lagged a few paces behind as they made their sombre walk through the oppressive corridors. Normally they would have been side-by-side, exchanging banter. Whittaker, with his grim sense of humour and enjoyment of a wind-up, typically thrived on a prison visit — to a place where their efforts could be seen to score the occasional victory. Not today, though. Both men proceeded through the twelfth door, their heads still bent, their voices silent. The two prison guards showed them into the same side room. George recognised the same solicitor, Alan Smythe, sole survivor of Smythe, Smythe and Alexander. This time there was a recording device on the table.

  ‘We’ll go and get him for you,’ one of the guards said.

  ‘Can we have a minute or two first?’ Whittaker said. Both guards nodded. Smythe also took the hint and excused himself.

  ‘You want a tea?’ A guard stuck his head back in to ask the question.

  George looked up. Today’s two guards
were fresh faces and they seemed to constitute an upgrade from his previous experience.

  ‘Yes, please. That would be lovely,’ Whittaker said.

  George looked up at the door as it clicked shut when Smythe, a blur through the toughened glass, pushed his back to it. George noticed the heat for the first time since arriving. The room was as unbearable as ever but that door closing suddenly made it feel even more uncomfortable. It seemed smaller today, tighter. His stomach was turning over, the rage turning to disgust. He felt he might vomit and his back ran with sweat. It turned his thoughts to what Emma had said. Those girls would be sweating heavily. They would be soaked. Their own sweat would start to heat up, too, until it boiled on their skin.

  ‘We need to talk, George, before he comes in here. I can’t have you leaping over a table or doing something equally stupid. We’re here to do a job.’

  ‘I want to. I really want to. I can’t get it out of my head . . . what he did . . . I’ve never seen anything like that.’ George flopped into a chair and dropped his eyes to the floor. He heard the chair opposite scrape.

  ‘Horrible business, George. Are you okay?’

  ‘Not really, Major. Sometimes the world just makes me sick and weary.’

  ‘I know what you mean, old boy, really I do.’

  ‘I should have known there was something more to all this. When I saw the state of that DS. I could tell he had taken it hard, Emma and her team, too. I thought it was a bit of a small-town mentality, you know? Like, maybe you don’t get much violence up there and they don’t see too many dead girls. I was wrong about them.’

  ‘It’s okay to be wrong sometimes, George. Even you.’

  ‘You sound just like Emily Ryker.’

  ‘You mean I sound like somebody else who knows you well?’

  George lifted his head. ‘I’m okay, Major. I’m not looking forward to sitting opposite this piece of shit. But we’re in and out, right? He just needs to tell us that what was left in that . . . thing . . . was all that remained of that poor girl. Then he gives us the other site. Then you can task someone else with going to find it and we can go and get on with our lives.’

  ‘That’s it. You’re going to be okay to do that?’

  ‘You mean without using my bare hands to speed up his prognosis? I make no promises.’ George could tell Whittaker was lingering on him. ‘Look, don’t worry. I know how to get a job done.’

  ‘Back in the army days we had a job to do. I can’t tell you where in the world this was, George, but let’s just say it was another world altogether. We were sent to sweep a village school. A gang of rebels had taken it. Hell of a firefight. They left pretty damned quick. We had to sweep the building to be sure they were gone. They had gone, but the school had been in use when they went in. By the time they left, no one was alive.’

  ‘Jesus, Major, I can’t imagine.’

  ‘Well, I don’t have to, George, unfortunately. I can conjure up the images from that place any time I want to. And, of course, any time when I really don’t want to. We walked through that place and it was like hell itself. They were grouped together in the classrooms, all at the back, by the windows. You could see where they had been trying to get out. They never stood a chance. It was a primary school, George. I didn’t lose anyone getting inside that building, but by the time we stepped out the other side I had lost all twelve. Physically they were fine, but their heads were gone. Not straight away. We did our job, but those men were never the same. They were big blokes, George — brave and strong. Like bloody tigers. Too big, maybe. Too strong. They didn’t talk to one another. They didn’t talk to me. They didn’t talk to anyone. Sometimes we all need a bit of help to work out the world. It’s a shithole, George. There are people in it that are from a place we can never understand. I’m not one of those who say you have to learn to accept it. Luckily for us we don’t have to, because we’re police officers. We get to make a difference. We hunted down those men that were in that school and we rid the world of every last one of them. And because of that, I can live with it. I can live with what I saw because I can tell myself that I cured the world of that little part of it. Today . . . what we saw . . . we can play our part in caging it. We can make sure it never gets an opportunity to hurt anyone again. We just sit in front of him for a few minutes. We listen to his shit and we’re out. Don’t let it eat away at you. You’re part of the cure, George. Take heart from that.’

  ‘I always have, Major. It wasn’t so much what I saw today, it was what we didn’t see . . . what those girls would have gone through. And then he just leaves her in there so a few years later all we get are some stinking remains, a few bits of bone. Forensics are going to have to scrape out what’s left. How can anyone think so little of another human being? It was so beautiful up there. I’ve always loved the woods. Things like that can taint somewhere forever.’

  ‘They can. I won’t even bother saying that you should try not to let it. From now on, when we walk through a forest we’re going to think about those girls. There’s no point pretending we won’t. That’s okay. Just don’t let it be the only thing you think about. Make sure you think about what you did to stop that, about how you’re the reason it won’t happen again.’

  The knock at the door made George jump. A guard bustled in and put two teas down. He dropped them hurriedly on the table — the cups were too hot in his grip. He wore a pained expression and rubbed his fingers. George’s mind flashed to a female resting her hands and knees on searing metal, in the pitch black with nowhere to go. He shivered.

  ‘Are you ready for him now?’ The guard said.

  ‘Yes. Thank you,’ Whittaker replied.

  Roberts was led through thirty seconds later. Two guards flanked him with an arm each. It looked like they might be holding him up rather than controlling a threat. George certainly didn’t feel threatened. He wanted Roberts to be bigger, to be more of the man he was when he was first imprisoned — so he could be angry, so they could go toe-to-toe, so it would be more evenly matched. Instead, Roberts looked pathetic. He slunk into his seat directly opposite George. His eyes were down, his face twisted into a grimace, as though the act of sitting down was causing him pain. Smythe was back in the room too. He slunk into the corner. George stayed seated. Whittaker stood over his shoulder. He reached down to press the record button on the device on the table. It beeped confirmation.

  ‘I am Chief Inspector John Whittaker. I am here with Inspector George Elms and this is a recorded conversation with convicted prisoner Henry Roberts. This is being recorded for evidential purposes, which means you do not have to say anything today, Henry, and you need to be aware that anything you do say may be used in evidence. You are tried and convicted in relation to this matter so this recording only becomes significant with any future appeals or challenges to your sentence. This meeting and its recording is as per an agreement with your legal team. Do you still consent to this meeting being audio recorded?’

  ‘Yes, of course!’ Roberts grinned widely.

  ‘You have agreed to reveal the location of your victim. We are not here to discuss any other matters and we will not do so. We will not ask you any questions outside of that. We will write a short summary of what you have told us, which you will be given the opportunity to sign as correct. Your solicitor is here to oversee, but also in case you have any questions. Should you wish to speak to your solicitor we will leave the room and the recording will be stopped. Do you understand?’

  George kept his eyes down while Whittaker covered the formal points. He was concentrating on his breathing. He used the liquid in his tea as something to focus on. It fidgeted against the sides, picking up every movement from the room. Roberts didn’t reply, and George sensed Whittaker shuffling beside him. The silence continued. George felt compelled to look up. Henry Roberts was staring right at him. He was close. He was leaning forward on his scrawny neck. His cheeks were more sunken than even a few days before. He smiled as George made eye contact, those black eyes tore
right into him. He was studying him intently, his head rocked to one side, his lips curled into a sneer.

  ‘You went there, didn’t you?’ Henry said.

  George sniffed. He straightened his back. He shuffled a little further away. ‘I don’t think you listened to a word that was just said did you, Henry? There’s an agreement. Do your bit and we’ll go and do ours.’

  ‘I didn’t think you would! I thought you would come in here and pretend to have been. I would have known though, George. What did you think?’

  George turned his attention back to his tea and took a swig.

  ‘Are you wasting our time here, Henry?’ Whittaker said. ‘You need to start talking about why we’re here or we’ll be leaving. I think your solicitor can tell you what that means for your deal.’

  ‘Mr Roberts, can I urge you to discuss the matter in hand only, please? They police are only concerned with the final location. Once this meeting is complete, I can immediately push for the next phase. To get you moved.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful spot up there beyond the woods. Don’t you think, George? I spent a long time up there.’

  ‘Was she in there? Was that all that was left? And the other girl, where is she?’ George growled. He had to bite down hard to stop any more words coming out.

  ‘Tell me what you saw, Inspector. Describe it for me.’

  ‘This is not my time to speak, Henry.’ George swallowed hard. He knew Henry wanted him to lose his control. He focused on the recorder in the middle of the table. He kept reminding himself that it was all evidence, that Roberts was putting himself at the scene, something he had never done before. It probably wouldn’t make any difference, but it gave him some satisfaction at least.

  ‘Did you see the mouth? At one end of the bull. I twisted the metal to make a mouthpiece. It’s shaped like an instrument. It is an instrument! Oh, Inspector, you should see it in action! You should hear it! The voices inside, the bellows, the cries for help and then the cries of discomfort. They drift out as the softest sound, like a beautiful chorus sung just for you. It mingles with the birds, with the shuffling of the trees. Nothing artificial about that sound. It’s wild and pure. It’s the soul, Inspector. It’s beautiful when it goes.’