Blood Axe

by Leigh Russell

  ‘Imagine if you lived here a thousand years ago, and you saw this lot arriving,’ Bev said. ‘It must’ve been terrifying.’

  Swept along with the crowd following the rowdy costumed Vikings, they followed the procession along Parliament Street to St Sampson Square. There was a crush outside Yorvik before they turned left along Castlegate, round the base of Clifford’s Tower, to gather around the green outside the Castle museum. Ranks of costumed warriors lined up on the grass, banging their spears on their shields.

  The re-enactment began and the roar of the crowd lifted to a crescendo. A man’s voice rang out on a loudspeaker relating the story of the legendary battle. To the accompaniment of cheering from the spectators, the lines of make-believe warriors ran towards each other, slowly swinging swords and waving spears. In their everyday lives bank clerks and teachers, librarians and shop assistants, they joined together to form good-natured armies pretending to hack one another to death. Carefully staged to avoid injury, it looked like a health and safety nightmare. With the battle cries of the victors, and the yells of people pretending to be hacked down, it was an epic show. Bodies fell and lay motionless, their shields protecting their heads. One corpse wriggled away from the stamping feet of a couple of men engaged in combat beside him.

  Ian grinned, enjoying the lively atmosphere of so many people out in the open air, engaged in harmless fun. He hadn’t seen his wife looking so happy since they had moved to York on his promotion to detective inspector. After so many years, he still couldn’t believe his luck. He had fallen for Bev when they were at school together. He had never dreamed then that she would eventually become his wife. She hated living so far from her family and friends in the South. It didn’t help that her first job in York had ended disastrously, denting her fragile self-esteem. Ian could never understand how such a beautiful, capable woman could be so lacking in confidence.

  ‘You should have dressed up as a Viking warrior! I always said you look like a Viking,’ she shouted up at him.

  ‘Tall, blonde, good-looking,’ he agreed with a grin.

  In the cheerful shouting, a deep voice roared out in genuine rage.

  ‘Some fucker’s nicked me axe!’

  A huge, broad-shouldered man with a bushy beard was bellowing about a stolen weapon. He looked like a brute ready for a fight, despite his bare head. Red-faced, with the veins bulging in his thick neck, he towered menacingly over a worried-looking official in an orange hi-vis jacket.

  ‘Cost me a fucking fortune!’

  The official stared helplessly up at him. ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do…’

  ‘Nothing you can do? Cost me nearly a hundred quid! I bought it specially. You’d better bloody find it.’

  The official muttered about Festival regulations and liability for loss or damage. He looked terrified. With a sigh, Ian stepped forward to calm the aggrieved man before his frustration erupted in violence.

  ‘I’m a detective inspector,’ he said loudly. ‘Do you want to report something stolen?’

  The official threw Ian a grateful glance as Ian led the tall man away from the barrier, and the crush of spectators.

  ‘Someone’s nicked me bloody axe,’ the tall man said, as soon as they could hear one another. ‘Cost me nearly a hundred quid and the guy I bought it from told me it was a one-off. I’ve never seen another one like it. Unique it was, and it was right here.’ He held out his palm, as though his empty hand proved his claim. ‘It’s a genuine replica. Cost me a small fortune and now someone’s gone and nicked it. Bloody hell. I had it right here in my hand. Some fucker just grabbed it off me and disappeared in the crowd before I could stop him. There was no way I could see where he went. Bastard!’

  Ian asked him to describe the thief, but the tall man had spotted only a hooded figure who had slipped away before he had registered the theft.

  ‘He was too bloody quick.’

  Ian went through the motions of taking the report seriously, just to pacify the other man.

  ‘Do you have a picture of your axe?’

  ‘Picture?’

  ‘Can you describe it?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a replica of a real Viking axe. It’s got a heavy iron head with a steel edge, and a wooden handle, and there’s a rune engraved on the blade, so you should be able to find it.’

  ‘A rune?’

  ‘Yes, a rune, engraved on the blade. It’s for protection. It’s… look, I can draw it for you.’

  Seizing the pen Ian offered he drew a capital Y, adding a third middle vertical branch. It looked like a trident.

  ‘So do you mean this pattern’s engraved on the axe blade?’

  ‘Yes. That’s right. It’s a rune. Bloody hell, over a hundred quid it cost me.’

  They were interrupted by a loud roar. The battle was over. Promising to contact the man if his axe turned up, Ian took Bev’s hand. Together they watched the show draw to a close, in an explosion of fireworks. The battle victims clambered to their feet, brushing themselves down and gathering their weapons.

  Above the cacophony of voices, a scream reverberated, shrill and clear. About to walk away, Ian paused and turned to look over his shoulder.

  ‘Wait here,’ he told Bev.

  ‘Oh Ian, what now?’

  Frowning, he vaulted over the barrier, and ran towards a woman in a belted dress and head scarf. She was standing beside a man who lay motionless on the ground. The woman was flapping her arms and shrieking incoherently, staring down at the prone figure in white-faced horror. Two St John ambulance workers materialised as if from nowhere, racing towards the body. One of them knelt down and felt for a pulse. For a few seconds no one spoke, then she rose to her feet and shrugged.

  ‘He’s blind drunk.’ She turned to a festival official. ‘It’s just some sozzled idiot giving everyone a fright. Nothing to worry about.’

  3

  ‘Charles, for Christ’s sake, we’ve been over it all before and you agreed to come with me this weekend. It’s been in the calendar for weeks. You can’t back out now.’

  Charles glanced sideways at his wife. ‘There’s nothing I can do about it, there’s no way…’

  He broke off in mid-sentence as he glimpsed a bloody victim of a hit and run sprawled on the pavement in a side street.

  ‘Charles, you’re coming with me and that’s that. It’s in the calendar.’

  She paused, noticing his frown. The car behind hooted as Charles pulled into the side of the road. A few other drivers beeped their horns. One of them wound down his window to shout abuse as he drove past.

  ‘Charles! What the hell are you doing? You can’t stop here!’

  ‘Stay in the car!’

  Ignoring his wife’s shrill protest, he jumped out of the car, slammed his door and dashed back to the side street where he had seen the body. Phone in hand, he turned to check Sharon hadn’t followed him. Accustomed to viewing cadavers, he could see straight away that something was seriously amiss. Whatever had happened to her, this girl had not been hit by a car. Just as he got through to the emergency services, Sharon appeared on the corner, yelling at him. He waved at her to stay back, talking quickly into the phone all the while.

  ‘Yes, a woman’s body. What?’ He listened to the question, still gesticulating furiously at Sharon to stay away. ‘Yes, she’s definitely dead. In Cambridge Street, near the corner of Holgate Road. What’s that?’ He gave his name and occupation, registering how the speaker’s tone altered as soon as she heard he was a surgeon. ‘Look, this isn’t a pretty sight,’ he went on. ‘You need to get a team here straight away to cordon the area off. It’s… well, it’s bloody. She’s been hacked to death.’ He listened, before repeating carefully, ‘Yes, hacked to death, with a large, heavy blade of some kind, a carving knife or a cleaver, something sharp and heavy, I’d say, although that’s just an initial impression. Her head’s been split op
en with what looks like a single blow.’

  He listened again but before he could respond, the wail of a siren cut across the hum of traffic. At the same time, someone screamed. Turning, he saw Sharon, white-faced, her eyes stretched wide, her mouth gaping.

  ‘I told you to stay in the car!’ he snapped.

  Judging by the reactions of the two police officers who arrived, it was fortunate Charles had been first on the scene.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ one of the young constables muttered, wiping his mouth. ‘I just wasn’t expecting this.’ He glanced at the bloody corpse and winced, his eyes sliding rapidly away again.

  Charles nodded. Although his scrutiny of the body had been purely clinical, he could appreciate it was an unpleasant sight. With one blow the killer had cracked the woman’s skull open. Seeping from the gash in her forehead, bloody brain tissue had covered the top half of her face in a macabre eye mask. As far as he could tell, the dead woman had been young, little more than a girl. She was lying on her back, dressed in a short black skirt and denim jacket, the latter streaked with dried blood. One of her shoes had fallen off and was lying nearby in the gutter. He noted mechanically how small her feet were, a hole in her tights exposing a turquoise toenail. Behind him someone groaned. He turned and saw Sharon, propped up against the wall, still vomiting.

  ‘I told you to stay in the car,’ he repeated wearily.

  Time seemed to slow down while they stood around waiting for someone in authority to arrive and start issuing commands. Just as Charles decided he would have to take charge of the situation himself, a convoy of police cars drew up, sirens blaring, and the street became hectic with activity. People were talking rapidly on phones, a cordon appeared as if from nowhere, and a line of uniformed officers ushered away a crowd of onlookers who seemed to have sprung from the pavement.

  Charles approached a portly middle-aged sergeant. ‘I need to get to work.’

  The policeman shook his head. ‘We need you to stay here, sir.’

  Tersely, Charles explained who he was, and that he needed to get to the hospital where he had patients waiting. With a nod the sergeant made a note of his contact details and let him go.

  ‘Come on,’ Charles said, taking Sharon by the hand. ‘Let’s get you home. You’re in no fit state to go to work.’

  Hand in hand they walked slowly back to the car.

  ‘I wonder who she was.’

  ‘It makes no difference to her now. Try to put it out of your head.’

  ‘It’ll make a difference to anyone who knew her. She was murdered, wasn’t she?’

  ‘It certainly looks that way. But I don’t suppose she would have known anything about it,’ he added untruthfully.

  She must have seen the blade descending; an instant of terror before it cracked her skull and sliced through her brain.

  ‘What about her family?’ Sharon was asking tearfully.

  ‘There’s no point in upsetting yourself. The police are there. They’ll take care of everything. That’s their job. There’s absolutely nothing we can do about it. Now come on.’

  ‘I suppose we’ll hear all about it in the news.’

  ‘I daresay.’ He opened his car door.

  ‘Well I hope they catch the sick bastard who did that to her,’ Sharon said, sniffing and wiping her eyes, careless of her smudged mascara.

  Charles nodded, surprised at feeling faintly nauseous now he was no longer responsible for what happened to the dead girl. Accustomed to working in an operating theatre, even he had been shocked by the horrific sight of a girl who had been so brutally assaulted on the street.

  4

  Back at his desk, Ian was contemplating going home to see Bev when his phone rang. As soon as he hung up there was a knock on his door. It was Ted.

  ‘Ready?’

  Ian nodded and they hurried out to the car park without speaking. Ian was pleased to be working with the young sergeant. Not only was Ted efficient and easy to get along with, but he had lived in York all his life. He drove them straight to the address they had been given. Ian sat in the passenger seat experiencing a familiar adrenaline rush mingled with anxiety. Many of his colleagues appeared genuinely unmoved by crime scenes, however bloody. Ian could understand why they were eager to study a victim at the scene of a crime. Viewing a body before it was moved could assist them to ascertain what had happened. The trouble was he had not yet managed to conquer the nausea he felt on seeing a dead body. The only part of the job he dreaded even more than that was speaking to the bereaved.

  The body had not yet been taken to the mortuary. Pulling on protective gear, they entered the white forensic tent which had been erected on the pavement near the corner of Holgate Street. If he and Bev had children, he couldn’t imagine ever taking them camping. He had seen too many murder victims to enter a tent without experiencing a visceral horror.

  ‘What do we know?’ Ian asked, staring at a scene of crime officer to put off looking directly at the corpse.

  His white-coated colleague shrugged. ‘She was young, female, white; some nutter sliced vertically through the top of her head.’

  ‘Was she carrying any ID?’

  She pointed out another white-coated officer who was delicately rummaging through a blue-and-white canvas shoulder bag. As Ian approached he saw that the bag and its contents were stained with blood. Bracing himself, he turned to study the dead girl. The woolly texture of her badly bleached hair contrasted pathetically with the healthy sheen on Bev’s blonde hair. Dismissing the comparison with his wife, Ian focussed on the corpse for a moment, before addressing the officer who was holding the woman’s bag.

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Her name is Angela Jones, sixteen years old.’ He held out a student card, the edges stained with blood. ‘There’s another card, but…’ He shrugged and held out what looked like a travel card, too badly soiled to be legible.

  ‘Sixteen,’ Ian repeated glumly.

  ‘Sixteen last month.’

  ‘Anything else in her purse?’

  ‘A fiver. That’s all.’

  ‘No change?’

  ‘No coins.’

  Ian forced himself to turn and look at the girl’s face. From what he could see she was pretty, with full lips and a button nose. If he squinted until her features were out of focus, she appeared to be wearing sunglasses, because her eyes were concealed behind a mask of dried blood. From the small image on her student card he knew they were dark and assumed she was naturally brunette, as her hair was so obviously bleached.

  ‘Is there a death certificate?’

  ‘Yes. That was a stroke of luck. A doctor was first on the scene.’

  ‘Is he still here?’

  ‘He had to get off to the hospital.’

  ‘Damn. What time did he get here?’

  ‘He reported it at seven fifteen.’

  ‘Out and about early.’

  The death certificate wouldn’t reveal anything Ian couldn’t see for himself: the girl’s head had been split open by a violent blow with a large blade. He didn’t need a doctor to tell him that death must have been instantaneous. That was some solace.

  ‘Who would do that?’ Ted asked, dark eyes solemn behind his mask. ‘She’s little more than a child.’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Ian replied grimly, ‘but whoever did it, we’ll find them. And that’s a promise.’

  He was no longer speaking to his colleague. He was speaking to a young girl with dyed blonde hair; a girl who could no longer hear him.

  5

  ‘Are you going to wake her up then?’

  ‘No. Let her sleep.’

  ‘What time did she get in last night?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t hear her come in.’

  Moira put two mugs of tea on the table and sat down opposite her husband. They ate their breakfast in sil
ence: tea, toast and marmalade, the same as every morning. Neither of them spoke. It wasn’t the first time they had disagreed about Angela. Moira watched Frank’s scowl, waiting for him to calm down, but once he had finished his breakfast he started up again, his pointed beard shaking with every emphatic word he uttered.

  ‘You let that child run wild.’

  It was a familiar argument.

  ‘She’s not a child, Frank, she’s an adult, and she’s not running wild. She works hard.’

  He snorted. ‘She’s barely sixteen. That’s not an adult. And she certainly doesn’t behave like one, out God knows where to all hours, getting up to God knows what behind our backs. It’s time she got herself a job.’

  ‘They all stay on at school these days. Would you rather she stopped studying?’

  ‘I’d rather she stopped running around, wasting her time with that wild crowd. What kind of studying is she doing? She’d be much better off going and getting a proper job. One that pays good money. She should at least get herself a Saturday job if she must stay at school.’

  ‘Where’s she going to get a job? You know as well as I do there’s no work for the youngsters these days.’

  ‘So you’re happy to see her pay good money for other people to fill her head with all sorts of nonsense that’s never going to get her a proper job?’

  ‘She’s trying to better herself, Frank. Would you rather she spent her life cutting hair?’

  Frank lowered his heavy eyebrows. His bald head gleamed under the kitchen light.

  ‘It’s hardly bettering herself, haring around with other young idiots, all of them getting drunk and getting into debt. And there’s nothing wrong with hairdressing. It was good enough for you. I never heard you complaining. There will always be plenty of women stupid enough to pay other women to cut their hair for them instead of picking up a pair of scissors for themselves.’

  Moira stood up and began to clear away the plates. ‘These days they all need degrees to get jobs.’