Buried Slaughter (Brian McDone Mysteries)

by Ryan Casey

  But this wasn’t Pendle Hill. It was somewhere else.

  He pushed the paper to one side and opened it up so he could see the rest of the headline.

  His skin crawled.

  City Stunned by Copycat Killing.

  And in the accompanying image, beside the forensic teams in their special coats, a van was embossed with the words Brabiner’s Archeological Group.

  The kettle clicked. The water had boiled.

  Brian was completely still.

  After a few seconds attempting to read the words on the paper, he tossed it to one side and made a break for the living room. He couldn’t take in anything he read right now. It just didn’t make sense. The Pendle Hill Massacre had all the characteristics of an isolated event. And Mr. Davidson of Davidson Archeological Contractors‌—‌he’d been convinced that Brabiner’s was dodgy in some way.

  But now they were dead. The murderer had struck again.

  Brian fumbled with the remote and flicked on the television. In a panic, he accidentally switched over to radio mode first time around. Cursing under his breath, he changed back to the rolling news, where the bold headline reinforced everything he’d read in the newspaper.

  “…‌And three men were discovered at the bottom of a trench in what can only be described as ‘similar’ circumstances to the mass murder at Pendle Hill three days ago…‌”

  The shots were of an area that looked similar to Pendle Hill but were at the other side of the forest. Large, barren grassland. Dark grey skies. It was another place Brian used to visit as a kid. A place where his mother used to order him not to stray too far in on his own.

  Another creepy place where a murder had occurred.

  “We’ll speak with our North West correspondent, Dominic Cocker, who is at the scene. Dominic‌—‌can you describe the circumstances for us?”

  Dominic, a familiar face on North West television, had his eyes narrowed. He was biting his lip, and although he was already greying and balding, he looked like he’d aged a few years in the past day or so, as he stood with the forensics-laden backdrop of the murder scene behind him. “Sorry, I…‌Well, it’s another truly awful scene. And no matter what…‌no matter what anybody says, there are some harrowing similarities between the murder of these three men and the Pendle Hill murders.” His eyes widened. He looked in a world of his own. “The…‌It’s the bones. The pattern of the bones and the…‌the heads. It’s the‌—‌”

  The transmission fuzzed away and reverted back to a studio shot of the dark-haired female presenter, who looked rather taken aback. “Okay. We…‌we must’ve lost Dominic for a moment there. We’ll try to bring you updates as we get them. In other news…‌”

  “You okay, Bri?”

  Brian jumped. His heart raced. Hannah was standing at the door, staring at him. He hadn’t heard her come down the stairs. “Sorry, Han, I…‌” He turned off the television in an attempt to distance himself.

  “Don’t mean to disturb you,” Hannah said. “Just I heard the kettle boiling and…‌and then I heard the television.”

  Fuck. He hadn’t even made her a brew. He’d come downstairs and now all he could think about were the images in his mind of the Pendle Hill massacre site. The decapitated heads. The bones, older than the heads.

  And the bodies. Gone. Nowhere to be seen.

  “Are you okay, Brian? You look a little pale.”

  Brian tried to smile, but it was no use. He gulped. Took in a deep breath as the calm in his stomach gave way to dread and curiosity. “It’s…‌There’s been more murders. Just round the corner from Pendle Hill. Identical circumstances, apparently. And another archeological group.”

  Hannah covered her mouth with her hands. “Another? But what…‌why would that happen? Who would do that?”

  Brian rested a shaky hand on Hannah’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I don’t know. I really don’t know.” He was telling the truth. He was out of his depth, cast out of the police. No matter how much he wanted to know what was going on, he didn’t. He couldn’t.

  “Come on,” Brian said. “Let’s go have a brew.”

  The pair of them sat down and had a cup of tea together in the kitchen. Hannah scanned each and every newspaper story of the new killings, whose victims included John Brabiner himself. Every now and then, she gasped and tutted. Brian didn’t even want to ask.

  As he finished his final gulp of tea, which was bordering on cold, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He looked at it‌—‌unknown number. Strange. He answered and lifted it to his ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Brian? It’s Wallson. Guessing you’ve seen the news.”

  Brian glared across the table at Hannah, who was still fixated on the newspaper, and moved the phone away from his ear. He felt like he was cheating on her with an ex, or something. He couldn’t have her know he was on the phone to the journalist.

  “Before you hang up, I want you to know I’ve found something. Something I think you’ll want to know about very much. Are you alone?”

  Hannah raised her head and mouthed, “You okay?”

  Brian nodded and held a hand out. “Erm, yes. Just give me a moment.” He covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “Work-related. Just let me take this.”

  Hannah nodded and returned to reading the newspaper as Brian walked into the hallway, moving his hand away from the mouthpiece.

  “What do you think you’re doing calling me?” he gasped. “Do you have any idea how much trouble I’m in?”

  “I do, as a matter of fact,” David said. “And you can put the phone down and we can finish talking right now and end this whole thing. That’s fine with me.”

  “Thanks for the approval. That’s exactly what I was about to fucking do.”

  “But before you do, just hear me out. This Harold Harvey fella you told me about. I had a few little birdies do a bit of digging. Or pecking. Or whatever the fuck birdies do.”

  “And?”

  David took a few moments before responding. He clearly knew he had Brian right where he wanted him. “Well, it turns out Mr. Harold Harvey made another last-minute booking recently. Offered a very large sum of money for a certain archeological dig company to do a bit of low-key work for him.”

  Brian stuttered. He had an idea where David Wallson was going with this. “Harold Harvey hired Brabiner’s as well as Davidson?”

  David laughed. “Strange, right? Both hired at the last minute and for a large sum of cash. Both end up headless and stuffed between a bunch of old bones. But there’s something else I’ve got for you. Something very interesting.”

  Brian closed his eyes. He could hear Hannah shuffling through the newspapers in the kitchen. “Look, David‌—‌you should be telling this to the police, not me. I can’t help you with this. I can’t‌—‌”

  “We’ve got a location on Harold Harvey. An address.”

  Brian froze. “You…‌An address? What…‌Where?”

  David Wallson was silent for another few moments.

  “David? What are you talking about? Hello?”

  “Do you believe in ghost stories, Brian?” David asked.

  “Ghost stories? What do you mean?”

  “I’m about a minute away from your place. Meet me outside. You’re going to want to see this.”

  The phone cut out to complete silence. Brian stood staring at the screen, the words of David Wallson running through his mind. Harold Harvey was responsible for hiring Brabiner’s archeological group. He was involved in shady last-minute deals with both of the massacred teams.

  And then Wallson had said something about an address, before descending into supernatural ramblings.

  “Who was that, Brian?”

  Brian looked over his shoulder. Hannah was by the door. She had that look in her eye. The same look in her eye when he’d come in with news of his suspension last night. Disappointment. Curiosity.

  “Hannah,” Brian said, as he stuffed the phone back into his pocket. “There’s something I
need to do. Somewhere I need to go.” He kissed her on the cheek and made a dash for the front door.

  Before Hannah could respond, Brian was already at the bottom of the driveway.

  Chapter Nine

  “This better be good,” Brian said.

  David Wallson held his pint to his face and grinned. It was the first time that Brian had noticed the slightly chipped tooth Wallson had, as he rested it on the edge of the glass and poured some lager down his throat.

  “I’m serious,” Brian said. He lowered his voice slightly when he realised that a family a few tables down were looking at him. The log fire in the lounge area of the Grey Goose pub crackled on, autumn fast descending into winter. The walls were lined with paintings of medieval battlefields, symbols of national pride. There was a gentle hum of life about the place; an atmosphere predominantly led by a generation older than him. That was the beauty of country pubs‌—‌fewer young bastards, more old wankers. Worked fine for Brian.

  As the skinny, dark-haired bartender wiped the surface of the bar, David Wallson downed the last of his pint and leaned across the table to Brian. “Like I keep on saying, it’ll be worth it.”

  “So worth it that you had to drag me out to a bloody country pub to tell me? So worth it that you couldn’t just tell me in the car? So worth it that you had to pretend you had the fucking location of Harold Harvey?”

  David smiled again. He held eye contact with Brian before reaching into the pocket of his brown leather coat. “Harold Harvey. You did good finding that name. And we found a little out about him, too. As I said, we found out he hired Brabiner and his team to do the dig on Longridge Fell.” He slapped down a signed receipt onto the table and pushed it over to Brian. “Notice anything peculiar about that?”

  Brian glanced over the receipt. It was handwritten and signed by John Brabiner. The amount of payment was what caught Brian’s eyes the most, though. £160,120. A hell of a lot of money for one job.

  “Yeah, a fair bit of cash, right?” David Wallson said, as if reading Brian’s mind. “A very…‌specific amount of cash.” He placed another receipt onto the table and pushed it up to Brian. It was almost identical to the Brabiner receipt, only this one had different handwriting and was signed by Ian Davidson‌—‌or Mr. Davidson as he preferred. “The same amount. £160,120. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Brian held the receipts up and squinted at them both. “Should it?”

  “Perhaps if you studied your local history, four of those numbers would.”

  “What are you trying to say? Just spit it out, for fuck’s sake. I don’t have all‌—‌”

  “All right, all right,” David Wallson said. He snatched another, larger wad of papers out of his seemingly never-ending pocket and tossed them over to Brian. “You can sit there and read those while I have a pint or I can give you the shorter, more entertaining version.”

  Brian turned the page, which was filled with writing and what looked like ancient images and diagrams. He was hardly in a mood for reading though. His head was aching, probably due to the flat Coke that he’d been served. Always hated flat Coke. Reminded him of his times of desperation. “Just tell me what this is all about. What the significance of all this is. And how the hell you got your information.”

  David picked up his glass but placed it back down, realising it was empty. He eyed up the bartender and nodded at him, but to no avail. “Impossible to get some quality service in this place. Anyway, yeah. Flick to page three and it might make more sense.”

  “Now, now,” Brian said, opening up the papers. “This isn’t a copy of your newspaper you’ve given me, is it? We all know how downright sleazy your page threes are.”

  David rolled his eyes. “That’s just fun stuff. This is serious. Much more serious.”

  When Brian turned to page three, his headache intensified.

  They were close-up images of the new killing site on Longridge Fell. The first thing he noticed were the decapitated heads, the glassy eyes staring up in fear at something. Blood had oozed out of their heads like sand from an egg timer and clotted in the mud below.

  But even more intriguing were the bones that circled the heads in the exact same pattern they had at Pendle Hill.

  “Three heads, then feet, shin bones, thigh bones, arms. Looks familiar?”

  Brian closed the documents and offered them back to David Wallson. “I figured it must’ve been the same guy who did this. Clearly we’ve got a serial killer nutter on our hands. Somebody who likes to collect old bones and mix them with new stuff, I dunno.”

  David took the documents back and leafed through the pages. The gentle mutter of conversation continued in the background. Locals who gathered around the bar peered in their direction with angry red eyes. “That’s a possibility. And I believe that’s an area your old detective friends Marlow and Molfer are running with at the police. Add in the fact that an anonymous, untraceable caller notified police of the Longridge killings and, well, it sure does seem that way. But, as always, we’re one step ahead of the investigation.”

  David plonked the papers back in front of Brian like they were some kind of unwanted hot potato. Brian stared at the diagrams on the paper. There were lists of years. Dates from the seventeenth century onwards. Patterns, strange languages that he couldn’t for the life of him understand. “What’s this? And what does it have to do with the investigation?”

  A creepy smile tugged at the corners of David’s mouth. “You know those bones are from way in the past. You were the first to see it, for God’s sake. And I think you’d be a fool to believe they were just some ‘old bones’ that a serial killer decided to play around with. Look at the image in the top right. Recognise that pattern?”

  Brian squinted at the top of the page. The image was of a smiling face, surrounded by arms, legs, feet. A cartoonish, almost comical drawing, but he couldn’t deny the similarities to the very real murder scene. “But I don’t understand. Are you implying our killer had a fascination with seventeenth-century art?”

  David laughed and shook his head. “No, no. This isn’t seventeenth-century art. These are real-life diagrams from those believed to be the Pendle witches.”

  Brian couldn’t help but smile. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But are you saying now that our killer is a witch? An old witch come back from the dead to haunt the world? Just listen to yourself.”

  David shrugged. He pulled the documents back once again. “Well, I thought it might take a few things to convince you. But think back to that sum of money. £160,120. Think about it.”

  “I’m thinking. And it still seems like a crazy amount of money. Enough for a serial killer to lure a group to a certain location to get whatever kind of messed-up kick he desires.”

  “In 1612, twelve people were massacred in the lovely scenic Lancashire fields, suspected of witchcraft. They were dragged from one end of Lancashire to the other, they had rocks thrown at them, the women were fucked up the ass time after time, and still they were made to walk, all because of some superstitious locals.”

  “I heard the story once,” Brian said. “But I still don’t see what‌—‌”

  “£160,120. 1612. Coincidence?”

  The link between the sum of money and the year caught Brian off guard slightly. He really hadn’t caught on to it, but it still didn’t mean it was anything more than coincidence. “I still think you’re clutching at straws a little. I’ve no doubt your paper wants to run some zany resurrected witches story, but I’m just not interested in being a part of your superstitious bullshit.”

  David Wallson sighed. He flicked through the papers one final time, before stuffing them back into his Tardis-like inside pocket. “That’s a shame. It really is. I thought you could help us out and vice versa. Really thought we had a good deal.”

  Brian zipped his coat and stood to his feet. He nodded at David and made for the door of the pub as the log fireplace crackled into even more life, the heat radiati
ng off it way too intense for late October. “Good luck, David. I’ll keep an eye out for your story in the paper.” He grabbed the rusty brass handle of the pub door and partly opened it, the chilly air from outside a refreshing change to the overbearing heat inside.

  “It is a pity,” David shouted, “because I really have found the location of Harold Harvey. No bullshit.”

  Brian stopped. He looked back at David, who was still sat in the same position. Some other locals in the pub muttered to one another and pointed in Brian and David’s directions. One of them‌—‌a bald man with a crinkly forehead and bloodshot eyes‌—‌looked awfully familiar. “Bullshit. Where? You tell me.”

  David didn’t respond. He just sat there with that smug grin on his face, well aware that it would tick Brian off.

  Brian stormed back in David’s direction, almost knocking a pint glass from a table on his way. “I asked you a very serious question. Where is he?”

  David looked up at Brian and pointed out of the leaded window, which was slightly condensed with sweat and hot breath. “He’s buried in that churchyard across the street.”

  Brian’s stomach sank as he stared out of the window. “But he can’t be dead. When did he die? He‌—‌”

  “Harold Harvey was the man responsible for the murder of those twelve witches in 1612. He was murdered six years later at the age of 60. Are you sure you don’t believe in witches anymore, Brian?”

  Chapter Ten

  The churchyard was completely vacant, and looked like it had been for months until Brian and David showed up. Brown, crusty flowers had curled over and died, gasping through lack of water and nourishment. Headstones were splattered with bird shit and painted with graffiti. In the corner of the churchyard, a lone rabbit chewed on the head of a bunch of memorial roses.

  “So we’ve got a man called Harold Harvey who murdered a bunch of witches in the 1600s. We’ve got a payment of money with the date of the witch murders. And we’ve got a ritualistic bunch of murders that just about match the crazy diagrams of those witches all those years back. I think you can safely agree this isn’t just a coincidence now, can’t you?”