‘Tara, the reason Philip is here, apart from a visit home, is that I was hoping he might be able to help us with this case.’
Tara, slightly confused, returned Philip’s smile, while his father continued.
‘Just for Philip’s benefit, can you run through the details we have so far?’
‘Well, sir and Philip. Last evening we found the body of a man we’d guess was in his late-fifties to early sixties. He’d been stripped to the waist and nailed by the hands and feet to a circular wooden frame. His legs and arms were spread out, and the frame had been placed upside down against a tree. The head of the victim had been removed at the scene. Assuming for now that there has been one victim only, it was found this morning on a railing spike at Stanley Park. The victim has not yet been identified. Forensic tests might provide a DNA match with the national database. A biblical inscription was found attached to the wooden frame between the legs of the victim.’ Tara lifted her handbag from the floor, retrieved a sheet of paper and handed it to Philip.
‘Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. Proverbs chapter one, verse 31.’
‘It follows the same pattern, Philip,’ said Harold Tweedy. ‘A quotation from Proverbs. Everything is the same.’
‘The same as what, sir?’
‘I’m sorry, Tara. I should have explained at the outset. This murder, the MO, I’ve come across it before. A killing like this one happened twenty-five years ago.’
Chapter 7
Jason Collywell, my Probation Officer, suggested that if I wanted to buy a car, get my PSV license, I could get a job as a taxi driver. So far my only job prospects are a kitchen porter or labouring on a building site. Not great. The labouring job is only temporary, but it pays better than the kitchen porter. Do you know the only qualification required to be a hotel kitchen porter is that I must be able to speak English? What the fuck? This is England for goodness sake. When I met the catering manager he was less interested in my prison record and more concerned with my ability to string a few words together in the mother tongue. So, I’ve got the job. Mostly evenings, some early morning shifts to cover breakfast, minimum wage, but it’ll do for now. I’ll certainly have a go at the taxi-driving once I get enough money to buy a car. Good idea that. Might be useful for a certain hobby of mine. Collywell’s not a bad lad, getting me a job so quickly. And he isn’t the sort to sit in judgement of my past. Full of the joys really, a glass half-full type, look to the future and all that shit.
‘Mr Guy,’ he said. Calls me Mr, dear love him. ‘I’m not interested in what you’ve done in the past. We all make mistakes. I’m concerned for your future. Getting you a job, a decent place to live. I measure my success by keeping you out of prison. If we both work at that then my job is made very easy indeed.’ Apart from the Mr bit he spoke to me like we were mates. I suppose we are of similar age. He could be a good mate if he weren’t my supervisor. Seems a typical lad, pictures of the Liverpool team on his walls, a photo of his wife or girlfriend on his desk.
As long as I keep out of trouble, he says, I should do all right. Bless him. If only he knew what I’ve done and what I’m planning to do, he might not be so understanding. But hey, at least I can speak the Queen’s English.
My boss, the hotel catering manager, is Romanian. He’s a bit serious, very keen to impress the powers that be but well organised. Unfortunately, most of my time is spent in the kitchen, and the master there is the head chef. What an asshole. It’s all yes chef this and yes chef that. I reckon he’s one of those narcissistic twats who thinks he should be famous, on the telly and that. But I’ve told myself to keep my head down. Do as I’m told, don’t draw attention to myself. Most of the other workers are foreign, Polish, Romanian, a couple of Lithuanians. Makes me wonder why I wasn’t asked if I spoke a language other than English.
I’ve only had one day off so far, but I got out and about round the city centre letting my eyes wander. Lots of talent about, plenty to take my fancy. I spied this wee thing coming out of Lime Street Station. Asian, more like Thai, dressed in black jeans and boots and a fluffy white coat. Perfectly formed. I couldn’t resist a wee dander as she headed towards an office block. Haven’t had a Thai girl yet, but she certainly whetted my appetite. Have to think of an appropriate name for her. Then a devilish thought struck me. Hope she is female and not one of those Thai ladyboys that you hear about. Doesn’t float my boat, and not something I want to discover when I’m about to do the business. Not into those kind of surprises.
Didn’t take me long to start wondering what Tara was up to. Was she still a police detective? Did she still live at Wapping Dock? I took a stroll down there, just on the off chance that I might catch a glimpse of my elusive treasure. Should’ve known better that I was going to have a long wait. No sign of her coming or going. Best to start at the cop shop. I know it’s not going to be easy. For now I think I’ll concentrate on my little Thai girl.
Chapter 8
Lorraine Tweedy pushed open the door of the study and carried in a tray of coffee. Harold Tweedy was on his feet browsing his bookshelves, while Philip gathered a couple of old looking tomes from a well-worn leather briefcase. Tara helped by pouring the coffee into three cups from a china coffee pot.
‘I’ll have mine in front of the telly,’ said Lorraine in a playful whisper. ‘Silent Witness is just starting.’ With a smile at Tara she closed the door.
While the men continued to leaf through books, Tara sat in silence wondering exactly how Philip was going to help the police with a case of murder. He’d said he was interested in television, in making documentaries. What specific knowledge was he going to contribute?
‘Take a look at this picture, Tara, see how it resembles our poor victim.’ Tweedy passed an open book to her. Tara studied the drawing, the figure of a man within a circle or a wheel, his arms and his legs outstretched. A straight line was drawn from each outer point, left leg to left arm, to the head, to the right arm, right leg and back to the left leg.
‘I’ve seen this before, sir, the lines forming a pentagram. Wasn’t Da Vinci renowned for drawing something like this?’
‘It has certainly been associated with the artist, but throughout history it has taken on several meanings. I’ll let Philip explain; he studied pagan and Christian culture at university.’
Philip carried his chair around the desks to join Tara and his father. The three of them looked on the texts under the light of a single reading lamp. He placed his finger on the image of the pentagram.
‘A man drawn in such a position actually forms a five-pointed star. Simply put, the symbol of the five-pointed star is a pentagram. When placed within a circle it is usually referred to as a pentacle, but the terms pentagram and pentacle are at times nowadays regarded as the same thing. There are five points, each with its own meaning. The upward point of the star represents the spirit, while the other four points signify an element: earth, air, fire, and water.
Some people wear a pentacle as a piece of jewellery. It supposedly expresses the wearer’s feeling of a connection to the elements and their respect for the earth.
The number 5 has always been regarded as a mystical and magical number, and yet at the same time there is a human association. We have five fingers, five toes, and five senses: to see, to touch, to hear, to smell and to taste. There are five stages or initiations in life: birth, puberty, congress, parenthood and death.
In Christianity, there were five wounds of Christ on the cross. There are five pillars of the Muslim faith and five daily times of prayer.
In the 14th-century English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the symbol decorates the shield of the hero, Gawain. Each of the five points of the star represents a virtue. Gawain is keen in his five senses, dextrous in his five fingers, faithful to the salvation provided through the Five Wounds of Christ, takes courage from the five joys that Mary had of Jesus, and embodies the five virtues of knighthood. The Wiccan Kiss is fivefold
- feet, knees, womb, breasts and lips.
Five is a prime number. The simplest star - the pentagram - requires five lines to draw, and it is unicursal.’
‘Unicursal?’ asked Tara.
‘It is a continuous loop.’ Philip lifted a pencil and traced out the symbol without lifting the pencil from the paper. ‘If we place the figure of a man on a pentacle with head and four limbs at the points and the genitalia exactly central, it can be said to represent Man in microcosm, symbolising our place in the macrocosm or the universe.’
‘But what has this got to do with murder?’ She hoped she didn’t sound impatient, but she was beginning to wonder where all this information was taking her. Philip was obviously very knowledgeable on the subject, but she was going to have to extract the points relevant to her and this case. Harold seemed engrossed, while Philip smiled at her before continuing.
‘The pentacle has also been regarded as a protection against evil. The Christian church at one time used it before eventually choosing the cross as a more significant symbol for Christianity. But the pentacle may also be inverted with one point down and two points upward. This is how your crime scene looked. It implies that the spirit is subservient to matter, of man subservient to his carnal desires. The inverted pentacle has come to be seen by many pagans as an evil symbol. Fundamental Christians see any form of pentacle as such. However, there are other representations, for example, the need of the witch to learn to face the darkness within so that it may not later rise up to take control. The centre of a pentacle implies a sixth formative element – love or will, which controls from within, ruling matter and spirit by will and the controlled ‘magickal’ direction of sexual energies.’
With the heat of the room and after eating dinner, Tara was beginning to wilt under the barrage of information. So far she couldn’t see a reason why someone would want to kill their victim in this manner. What on earth were they trying to say?
‘But it has been suggested that the symbol originated much earlier with King Solomon. Then, of course, what I think is relevant to this case is that some people regard it as a magic symbol. But what is significant here in your crime scene is the pentacle's orientation. With a single point upwards the pentagram is regarded as spirit presiding over the four elements of matter: earth, air, fire and water, and is essentially "good". Writers such as Eliphas Levi describe it as a sign of evil whenever the symbol appears the other way up. A reversed pentacle, with two points projecting upwards, is believed to attract sinister forces. It overturns the proper order of things and demonstrates the triumph of matter over spirit. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns.’
‘A goat?’
‘Yes. The flaming star, when turned upside down, is the hieroglyphic sign of the goat of Black Magic, whose head may be drawn in the star, the two horns at the top, the ears to the right and left, the beard at the bottom. It is the sign of antagonism and fatality.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Are you suggesting that the murder is linked to Black Magic?’
Harold Tweedy nodded, and a cold shiver gripped Tara’s lower back in much the same way as she felt whenever she viewed a horrific crime scene. But this seemed like talk of fiction, murders caused by witchcraft? This was Liverpool for goodness sake. Surely such things did not happen here in this day and age?
‘But what does all of this mean?’ she asked.
‘The pentacle and particularly one showing the head of a goat is a classic satanic symbol. In fact it is a logo for the Church of Satan.’
‘So you are suggesting that a satanic cult is responsible for this murder?’
‘No, Tara at least not yet,’ said Harold. ‘I just want to give you some background. There is symbolism of some kind going on here. I want you to be aware of it as you proceed with the investigation.’
‘Fine, sir. Can you explain about the goat? I don’t see how that fits in with what we saw in Rimrose Park.’
Philip Tweedy gave an understanding smile then moved another of his books under the desk light. Tara watched his large hands leafing through the pages. He had well-tended nails and tiny hairs on the tops of each finger, a few freckles on the back of his hands. Suddenly, she realised that she was drifting off and losing focus on the reason why she was here with these men, father and son.
‘There are many ‘cults’ as we call them using various symbols for their own purposes. The pentacle has been used to portray both good and evil, the upturned variety most commonly associated with the occult. I didn’t mean to suggest that a goat has anything specifically to do with your case, but there is a high degree of symbolism occurring in your crime scene as you have described to me. Look at this, for example.’ He indicated a painting that sparked another shiver coursing through her.
‘This is the Hindu goddess Kali. There is a similarity between this depiction and one of the so called Dark Goddess Baphomet. She is presented as a mature woman carrying a severed head.’
Chapter 9
‘I find it hard to believe that this sort of thing could be going on in Liverpool.’
‘You need to believe it, Tara,’ said Harold. ‘Our city is no different from anywhere else in this world when it comes to murder.’
‘But sir, are you suggesting the city is awash with devil-worshippers out to kill among the general public?’ She glanced at Philip in hope of finding some rational explanation to what she had just been told.
‘Tara,’ Philip began, ‘devil-worship, satanic cults, they are really just terms of ignorance that we use to pigeon-hole certain groups of people. Our perception is of witches dancing around a fire, casting spells and calling upon a devil with horns and a trident. It’s not necessarily like that. The word ‘Satan’ simply means, from the Hebrew, ‘opposer’ or ‘he who questions.’ It’s more like an atheistic position. It doesn’t mean that all such people worship a deity, but it does result in many and varied philosophies and practices. Some take the form of cults, as we call them, where a certain mantra is followed, but others are no more than personal and privately held beliefs. From time to time some practices bubble to the surface and find an outlet in subversive groups. Anarchists, people who try to disrupt normal government, protesters at G8 summits, terrorists, Islamic extremists, neo-Nazis, those who claim to practice magic, sex magic, those who attend sex orgies and even human sacrifice.’
‘Do you think our murder is a case of human sacrifice?’
Harold Tweedy opened a folder that he’d removed earlier from his bookcase. There were several typed sheets inside, some hand-written notes and a single passport-size black and white photograph.
‘This is the case I mentioned earlier, a killing some twenty-five years ago.’ He handed the picture to Tara. ‘His name was Alastair Bailey.’
Tara examined the photo of the man - early thirties, she guessed, short hair and balding, a bright smile and a clear complexion.
‘What happened to him?’
‘He was a member of my church, a youth leader and quite a scholar of theology. He questioned everything. What I mean is he was keen to discover all he could about his Christian faith. He studied theology at university; he wanted to become a full time pastor. But his inquisitive nature was perhaps his downfall. He explored many faiths, Islam, Buddha, Roman Catholicism, paganism and Hinduism. What I believe happened was that he was really a soul in turmoil. He sought an absolute truth that he was never going to find. Eventually, having dwelt upon all kinds of religious and atheistic philosophies, existentialism, Gnosticism, Judaism, he began to investigate much darker theologies, firstly, ideas such as dualism and mitigated dualism, and then somehow he began a study into the occult and satanic practices. I remember he came to me at one point trying desperately to explain himself. You see, some of the church elders didn’t approve of his dabbling in non-Christian faiths and practices, and he was coming under pressure from them regarding his continued leadership of our youth ministry.
He was married and had two young children, and
I was growing more concerned for them as Alastair became more pre-occupied with his faith journey.’
‘His faith journey?’ asked Tara.
‘That’s how he viewed things. His research, his investigation of these religions, was all a part of his faith journey. He believed, and at the time I could understand his viewpoint, that one day he would find something that would add so much credence to his Christian faith that he would be stronger and more able to represent Christ in this world. But they were difficult conversations between us. I advised him to tread very carefully and to think first of his wife and children. Some of the elders were not so understanding, and eventually he was asked to relinquish his role as youth minister within our church. I could see how much that hurt him, the lack of trust displayed by his Christian brothers. The day he left our congregation was the last time I saw him alive.’
Tara could see Harold Tweedy reliving those events in his mind. She realised that he would have been of similar age to Alastair Bailey at that time. For a few moments there was silence as he sat gazing into the open text before him. She glanced at Philip who smiled and gave her a wink.
‘What happened to him, sir?’ she ventured.
‘Well, I didn’t hear much from him for a year or so, although I saw his wife Janet occasionally at school PTA meetings. Sadly, one day she told me that they had separated. A week or so after hearing that news, he telephoned me sounding more upbeat than I should have thought given that he had just split from his wife and family. But he told me that he had at last found real hope in his faith. He’d joined a group called…,’ Harold reached for the folder he’d opened earlier and retrieved a sheet of paper. ‘The Church of the Crystal Water.’
Lethal Dose; Lethal Justice; Lethal Mind Page 28