by Mark Roberts
‘We three Kings of Orient are . . .’
The same line over and over, sung by a creature somewhere under the water’s edge, near her head. Or was it three creatures? Normally, she was scared of nature; creatures that lived underwater were sometimes good to eat but never while they were still alive, and sometimes creatures under the water thought people were good to eat, but they were too busy singing, just around her hipbones now.
‘Field and fountain, moor and mountain . . .’
And then it hit her. The singing was coming from inside her, it was her baby. Clever boy, must’ve heard the song at Christmas and remembered the words. Strange she’d never noticed him singing before.
‘Good God!’ She couldn’t believe her eyes. They were travelling straight towards her, two on sand-coloured camels, the black one on a camel the same colour as the new flooring of her bathroom, which had cost a bloody fortune, and it was a good job Phillip could plumb that suite in; how much his labour would have added to the price Christ alone could tell.
‘Julia?’ The Chinese king, or were they just Wise Men? The Chinese Wise-King-Man spoke to her in Cantonese, the language of Yum Yums, her favourite takeaway. ‘Julia? We have travelled far.’
‘I know, I’ve heard the song.’
His Cantonese she couldn’t understand but he was speaking in English and smoking an opium pipe, so it didn’t really matter.
The black king, well spoken, the product of an English public school by the sound of it – her child would be privately educated – said, ‘We have come from afar to worship the baby.’ He had the face and voice of her consultant gynaecologist.
‘Have you seen Herod yet?’ asked Julia.
‘He told us to return, to tell him where you are. How did we come so far?’
‘You followed the star, you followed that star above my head.’
‘Herod told us where you are, exactly,’ the third Wise-King-Man, a man with no face, just a rip for a mouth, told her. He dipped a hand inside a vent in his robe and pulled out a mean-looking snake.
‘What kind of snake is this?’ she asked, calmly.
‘It’s a carpet viper,’ said Ripped Face.
He set it down on Julia’s leg. It slid up the inside of her thigh, up the slope of her belly and up between her breasts.
‘Star of wonder, star of light . . .’ Baby’s voice bubbled, and the snake stopped and remained perfectly still.
‘We come bearing gifts,’ said the snake, only with Phillip’s voice.
‘Gold, frankincense and myrrh. Let us see the baby, mother, so that we may tell Herod, to come worship the baby.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Julia felt suddenly nauseous, the snake’s eyes pouring an invisible substance that felt like warm sky under the curve of her eyelids. ‘Where am I?’
‘In a sensory deprivation chamber in the palace of King Herod.’
She reached out to touch the head of the carpet viper and it exploded into a million points of green light.
The kings were fading into the darkness behind the shimmering patterns of light.
‘Let us bring Herod so that he too may worship the baby.’
In the tight space, she raised her fists to the lid and hammered, calling at the top of her voice to those cruel and faithless kings who had now faded into the pitch black.
‘Come back! Come back for us! Take us with you! Help us, please!’
9
Chief Superintendent Baxter had framed family photographs on his desk: wife with three children, shipshape and anchored around Dad. Rosen arched his neck as he sat across from Baxter and noticed that the pictures had, very gradually, turned over time, so that they were facing more outwards to the room than towards the owner of the desk. There was, Rosen noted, no photographic record of the WPC from Islington whom Baxter had been screwing for over two years.
‘Like to talk to me about today?’
Not particularly.
Head back, pencil pointing, body stretched in a straight line. Rosen had, for a long time, tried hard to find something to like in Baxter, but even his shoes demanded disdain.
‘Which part of today do you mean?’
‘Which part do you think?’
‘Early morning, Brantwood Road.’
‘Correct,’ said Baxter.
‘Is there a problem?’
‘You tell me, David.’
‘Apart from the obvious problem of another missing mother and child and a murderer we haven’t caught yet . . .’
‘There is a problem.’
‘Go on, Tom.’ Rosen smiled briefly, falsely.
Baxter held a hand up, fingers curled into a fist, thumb extended. He looked set to start counting with the assistance of his digits. Problem? Problems.
‘One, you went over a fence at a scene of a crime to get into the garden of number 24. Had that area been examined by Scientific Support? Don’t answer. It couldn’t possibly have been, given the timescale, so, effectively, David, you contaminated a potential mine of information during the golden hour.’
Rosen made a show of digesting Baxter’s words.
‘I understand your concerns, Tom. However, I was in charge of the scene, I took a calculated risk. That risk led me to the attic, the means of entry and a potential mine of information in the golden hour!’
A tide of red was rising past Baxter’s Adam’s apple, heading for his face. Rosen perceived that this was clearly meant to be a lecture, not a debate.
‘Two, David, and it’s a general point that’s not gone unnoticed by the team; two, you’re losing your focus.’
‘Explain, please.’
‘Your mind’s not on the case.’
‘For example?’
‘You’re a million miles away.’ He pointed at his own head and then at Rosen.
‘Could you give me an example?’
‘Making personal phone calls at the scene of an abduction.’
‘Ah, DC Robert Harrison.’
‘I have several sources—’
No, you haven’t, thought Rosen, you’ve got Harrison.
Baxter smiled and shook his head slowly.
‘Look, David, how about you put in a request? Maybe a fresh pair of eyes on the case, maybe if you make room—’
‘Tom, please stop right there. It’s no secret this investigation has been dogged by sheer bad luck. But if you pull me off the case, you’re going to set matters back. Nobody has my overview of events. A fresh pair of eyes will mean going back to square one in managing this investigation.’
‘Fine. But I must tell you what’s going to happen. I’m going to initiate a peer review of the way you’re handling the case. I’m going to bring in Steve Charlton and Tom Ellis from Hammersmith to review the way you’ve been doing things. It will be a fair and very public exploration of your actions and strategies these past months.’ Baxter fell silent, waiting for a reaction that Rosen didn’t deliver. ‘You can go now.’
Between the desk and the door, Rosen mentally counted off seven senior investigating officers who had suffered directly at Baxter’s hands; seven men and women whose achievements had been whitewashed over and whose minor failings had been orchestrated into symphonies of negligence and incompetence. He was good at that sort of thing, Baxter.
Rosen stopped in the doorway, turned.
‘Tom. When Parker and Willis have finished their work, let’s sit down with two pieces of paper.’
‘I’m busy.’
‘We’ll make a list of all the forensic evidence—’
‘Did you hear me?’
‘—recovered from the loft space and, on the—’
‘Not now!’
‘—other piece of paper, we’ll make a list of what was recovered from the garden. One list will be long, one will be short.’
Baxter was on his feet, almost dancing.
‘I’ve listened to you, please listen to me,’ insisted Rosen.
Rosen held his hand up, fingers curled into a fist, thumb outstretched.
‘I checked with the sergeant’s log about my time of arrival and double-checked my time leaving the scene with Parker, Willis and my DS. I was – bodily speaking – there for two and three-quarter hours. You can speculate until you’re blue in the face about my state of mind, but I was at the scene fast and I stayed until I couldn’t squeeze another drop from it. Remember the scene-of-crime log audit that your glorious predecessor inflicted on us? When you were a senior investigating officer, you averaged one hour fifty-five in initial arrivals over ten separate murder scenes. By the light of presenteeism, I have the edge on you, Tom. Why not make a pair of comparative graphs and email them to the CC?’
Baxter, the expert statistician who used statistics to bully, embarrass and punish other officers, said, ‘You’ve told me everything I needed to know. Goodbye, David.’
10
When Rosen arrived home, Sarah was in bed. He showered and slid in beside her somewhere between ten and half past. She was in a deep sleep and didn’t stir. Within minutes David, too, was fast asleep.
At a quarter to two in the morning, the electrical rhythm in his brain shifted and he began the slow ascent to wakefulness. With his arm beneath the duvet, his hand travelled into the cold space beside him where Sarah should have been, but found only emptiness.
His feet hit the floor.
‘Sarah!’ he called, as he went out onto the landing. All the bedroom doors were closed. Light filtered from the crack at the bottom of the bathroom door.
‘It’s not locked,’ she said.
Sarah stood at the sink. She smiled at him in spite of the discomfort that creased her face. Her blue eyes were dulled with fatigue, her shoulder-length blonde hair tied back in a ponytail.
‘I’m forty-one,’ she said, wincing in the mirror. ‘But I only look ninety.’
‘You look great,’ Rosen countered. ‘How are you?’
‘It’s really uncomfortable,’ she explained. ‘Go back to bed, there’s nothing you can do, David. I’ll be fine.’
He sat next to her on the edge of the bath.
‘When did the GP say your appointment would be?’
‘He didn’t. As soon as possible was as accurate as he could be.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘If you can; but don’t worry if events overtake us.’
It was a rerun of the conversation they’d had over her GP appointment.
‘What are you going to tell them in school?’ asked David.
‘I’ll reassure them. I’m not going off my rocker again. I’m taking my lithium like a good girl. No need to book in a long-term supply teacher. What’s happening with you?’
‘Baxter’s ordering a peer review—’
‘Oh, the slimy little toe-rag. What a waste of time, what a waste of money.’
‘It’s a humility exercise. For me.’
‘Which will conclude that there’s nothing more that you could have done to catch this Herod.’
She laid her arm across his back and settled a hand on his shoulder. They looked at each other in the mirror on the wall.
‘It’s at times like this I wish I was twenty-four and still in the TA.’
He smiled, recalling that when they’d first met, he’d thought she was kidding him when she told him she was in the Territorial Army.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Why the sudden urge to step back in time?’
‘I had access to a gun back then. I’d go and put a bullet in Baxter for you. And on behalf of quite a few other people.’
‘The things we forget . . .’ He looked at his wife and remembered the young woman who was top of her squadron on the firing range, who couldn’t be beaten at darts.
‘Are you looking at my wrinkles, David?’
‘You’re not well; you look uncomfortable, not old.’
‘Old as the bloody hills my granny played on as a little girl.’
‘But not as old as me. Come back to bed?’
‘Just a little longer. I still feel like I might throw up. Any other news?’
‘Yeah, I’m revisiting a former childhood haunt in the morning. Kent . . .’
‘Kent? Why?’
‘Like beggars, desperate coppers can’t be choosers.’
‘Who are you going to see?’
‘A Catholic priest. Father Sebastian. He claims he has a specific insight into the killer’s motive.’
‘Isn’t that what the forensic psychologists get paid for?’
‘I guess.’
He felt a deadness creeping into the backs of his thighs, from his hard perch on the edge of the bath.
They were silent for more than a minute.
‘I think it’s settled down a bit. Let’s go back to bed. I’m growing sick of the sight of the toilet. If I feel the need to be sick, I’ll run.’
He followed her, turned off the bathroom light, glanced into the darkness and turned the light back on to make the way back easier if it was needed. He drew the quilt over Sarah and tucked it in around her shoulders and arms, making sure she was covered.
‘I saw Brantwood Road, on Sky News,’ said Sarah. ‘When I was downstairs on the sofa. I was channel-hopping when I could keep my eyes open.’
‘Oh, yes?’ he said breezily, but in his mind he was back in the old lady’s room, an open locket on the dresser, the faces of two children, a lock of hair; and a corpse, unmissed and unmourned, in the bed just behind him.
‘I had a thought, about this Herod. It’s more specific. He hates his mother. He hates his mother with a vengeance but – turn the light out, David.’
The room was full of textured darkness, corrugations of shadow. Sarah curled into Rosen.
‘I’ll pick you up from school tomorrow. Five-ish?’
‘Full governors’ meeting, I’m afraid,’ she replied.
‘Then I’ll see you at ten o’clock tomorrow night. I wish you hadn’t taken on that teacher-governor’s job.’ He backtracked to what she’d just said about Herod. ‘He hates his mother. The forensic psychs said as much.’
‘But somewhere,’ said Sarah, ‘beneath the depths of hatred he has for the woman who gave birth to him, he hates himself much more. Yes, he’s murdering these poor women, but what he’s doing with the babies is ritual self-destruction. He’s removing himself from the face of the earth.’
‘If he’s removing himself from the face of the earth, then what’s the reverse side of the action?’
‘What do you mean?’ Her voice was sleepy.
‘What’s he replacing himself with?’
‘Maybe that’s the scariest thing. Something inhuman.’
‘Mind if I pass that off as my idea at the next team briefing?’
‘Haven’t the forensic psychologists said as much?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
Within moments, her breathing changed and she was on the descent into sleep. Rosen, his body aching and tired, his mind wide awake, craved sleep but grew accustomed to the darkness, wondering what Herod was aspiring to and hoping that somehow the morning would bring a better day.
11
The memory of all those childhood autumns spent on that flat land brought with it a sense of shame and anger. Before the Kent farms all became fully mechanized, the work of picking hops was light and well paid. His mum had sold it to him and his brothers and sisters as an annual holiday, but as Rosen grew older, it had to become another thing to resent.
The work was monotonous, the stuff of dead ends, not of dreams. And, each year, he was thrust into the company of the same migrant families, a protracted reminder of the hand-to-mouth world he longed to escape.
Aged thirteen, he knew for a fact that football and music were never going to be his way out. Hard, meaningful work with a solid education were the key to a better life. But, each year, in September and October, he missed the first half-term of school, and from November through to the following July he felt he never quite caught up.
The weather had improved a little and the sun coaxe
d a dreamy mist over the flatlands. St Mark’s was a turn in the road away. Rosen switched on the radio, Classic FM. Vaughan Williams’s take on ‘Greensleeves’. He turned it off and stopped the car at the mouth of the entrance of St Mark’s, invaded by the strangest urge. Turn round, go home, resign from the case, give in to Baxter and straighten paper clips until you retire or die, whichever comes first.
He drove down the lane and parked at the front entrance of the monastery. There was no one there to greet him and, as he got out of his car, he imagined for a moment he was in some place deserted by all humankind.
He thought he could smell hops but it was the wrong time of year. Then, he heard a voice.
‘Can I help you?’ It belonged to a fat, bald man, sweating through exertion. He wiped his fingers on his dungarees and extended a wet hand that was still caked in dirt. Rosen recognized the voice from his answering machine.
‘Brother Aidan?’
‘Yes?’ The monk sounded mildly surprised to be identified. ‘Who are you?’
‘You left a message on my answering machine. I’m DCI David Rosen from the Met.’ Rosen showed his warrant card and Brother Aidan took a half-step backwards.
Mild surprise gave way to something more uneasy. ‘You didn’t reply,’ Aidan answered, defensively. Grey stubble dotted his face and scalp, and there was something rubbery about his features that made Rosen think of a cheap Hallowe’en disguise.
‘I did. What were you doing at nine o’clock last night?’
‘We were in evening prayer.’
‘That’s when I called you back, Brother Aidan.’
‘But who answered?’
‘Father Sebastian. I’ve travelled from London to meet him.’
‘Well, I—’
Aidan looked as if he was casting around in his mind for excuses, as if the suddenness of Rosen’s arrival made the meeting somehow a non-starter.
The prospect of yet another disappointment overtook Rosen.
‘We arranged it last night as you were praying.’
‘Yeah, yes, I’m sure you did. I’ll take you to him.’
——
WHEN ROSEN FOLLOWED Aidan across the threshold of St Mark’s, he felt the urge to remove his shoes and was glad he’d forgotten his mobile phone, leaving it in the car.