The Mayfly: The chilling thriller that will get under your skin

by James Hazel

  THE

  MAYFLY

  JAMES HAZEL

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  A conversation with author James Hazel

  A Letter from author

  Copyright

  To Jo

  Words are meaningless without you.

  ‘[Men are] creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness. As a result, their neighbour is for them not only a potential helper or sexual object, but also someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him.’

  Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

  1

  December. Post-festivities. The frozen earth was veiled in a thin covering of snow that crunched under Detective Chief Inspector Tiff Rowlinson’s boots. In a glade, the log cabin looked as though it had come out of a fairy tale, complete with a tall stone chimney and heart-shaped etchings above the door. A local landowner had built it for his daughter as a summer house sixty years ago, but it had long since been abandoned, and was now swathed with climbing plants and moss. A sanctuary built out of love and innocence, defiled in the most grotesque manner.

  Rowlinson slowly circled the little wooden structure, his hands behind his back and his coat collar turned up inside the white plastic overall. The crime scene investigators mingled uncertainly, watching where they trod. They had established a perimeter with reams of blue-and-white plastic tape around the glade. Rowlinson had been here before, too many times. He had seen too many bodies, too many weeping loved ones and too few prosecutions. He didn’t feel much anymore. The endless cycle had anaesthetised him.

  Except in these woods.

  In these woods, Rowlinson felt again.

  He approached the entrance to the cabin and ducked through the doorway. Inside, the air was stale and heavy. He fumbled for the inhaler in his coat pocket. Felt a little relief at feeling the familiar plastic tube and the tip of the metal canister. He no longer noticed the bitter cold.

  The room was empty, save for the victim. And the flesh-eating flies swarming around what was left of him. The victim’s head was slumped over the back of a wooden chair, mouth and eyes wide open. His skin was yellow and withered. A reaction to the poison, Rowlinson had been told, but he now understood a comment one of the SOCO team had made a short while ago – ‘Poor bastard looks like someone sucked his soul clean out.’

  He was naked and his arms were covered with deep lacerations, but that was nothing compared to his chest. The flesh was hanging off, exposing a crimson network of muscle and tissue. There were similar wounds on the lower half but everything was so saturated in blood, it was hard to make out which parts of him remained intact and which didn’t.

  ‘Jesus,’ a voice behind Rowlinson gasped.

  He turned to find Hardwick in the entrance, hand over his mouth.

  ‘What the hell have we got here, guv?’

  DS Hardwick was a foot shorter than his superior but still managed to fill the little cabin with his portly frame. He was a city boy with a swaggering gait, but a decent copper despite his lack of charm.

  ‘The damage is self-inflicted,’ Rowlinson said quietly.

  ‘He tore his own skin off, boss?’

  Rowlinson peered more closely. Ptyalism – excretion of foamy saliva, but to such an extent that the victim had been unable to control it by swallowing alone. At some point, he had introduced his fist into his mouth in order to induce vomiting but had ended up biting down so hard that he had almost taken his hand clean off.

  ‘The alkaloid caused unimaginable pain for many hours. To combat it, the victim attempted to fillet himself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To get at his heart, Hardwick. It was the only way to end the pain.’

  *

  Three hours earlier, Sir Philip Wren had been sitting in the study of his Kent home, his belly full of port and chicken, and his mind full of gushing phrases to use during his acceptance speech for an OBE. He had received the phone call only yesterday in the strictest confidence – the Honours Committee had resolved to acknowledge the incumbent Attorney General’s services to the legal profession and Her Majesty’s Government in the New Year’s Honours list. Finally, a lifetime’s commitment to public service was to be recognised and Wren had spent the last twenty-four hours in a state of euphoria.

  But his jubilation had been short-lived and he was now in south Wales, cold and anxious, and with a sharp pain in his head.

  The scene was as he had expected – a glade swarming with a forensic team. Blue flashing lights. A feeling of uncertainty hanging in the air. And in the centre, a little wooden cabin with hearts carved above the door.

  It’s happening again.

  He had been told that the detective in charge, Rowlinson, was competent. He had no doubt that this was true, but a local detective couldn’t possibly keep this case. Not if Wren’s fears were realised. He found Rowlinson standing with another man by the cabin door, looking at him with the same expression of uneasiness as all the detectives he had seen over the years. He didn’t blame them. If he could have it any other way, he would leave them to get on with their job – but he couldn’t. Not this time.

  He walked across the glade, conscious of the questioning eyes following him.

  ‘Philip Wren.’ He offered his hand and received a firm grip in response.

  ‘DCI Rowlinson. We weren’t expecting the Attorney General, sir. Is there a jurisdictional issue I should be –’

  ‘Not at all. No one wants to tread on any toes here, Chief Inspector. Your authority is not in question.’

  It was a lie. There was a task force already in place to take over the investigation, a sub-division of the National Domestic Extremist Unit. A covert, specialist Met unit.

  ‘Then I don’t see –’

  ‘May I see the body, DCI Rowlinson?’

  Rowlinson shifted his weigh
t from one foot to the other. The Attorney General had arrived in a Jaguar XJ accompanied by a small company of dark-suited men. These men had gathered the bewildered SOCO team together and were issuing them with confidentiality agreements to sign. After a further moment’s hesitation, Rowlinson stood aside.

  Wren inhaled the cold air greedily before stepping inside the log cabin. His stomach churned. He didn’t want to see that chicken again.

  Rowlinson stood in the doorway watching him curiously, hands wedged in his pockets.

  He cleared his throat.

  ‘The poison was administered through a catheter in his wrist, probably while he was unconscious. The poison takes over the whole body, arrests every single nerve. The pain is excruciating, but the brain is too overloaded to shut down. The sensation apparently lasts for hours, during which, as you can see, the victim mutilated himself.’

  ‘Is there anything in his mouth, Chief Inspector?’

  Rowlinson faltered. ‘What?’

  Wren felt a lump in his throat, something restricting his airway. ‘His mouth, Chief Inspector. Is there anything in his mouth?’

  Rowlinson looked behind him, as if he thought it might be a test, before taking two strides across the floorboards to within touching distance of the victim. The foam around the victim’s gaping mouth had begun to congeal but some of the froth dripped down the side of his face like egg white. Wren watched as Rowlinson peered in.

  ‘There’s nothing there.’ Rowlinson straightened up.

  ‘Check again.’

  Rowlinson bent over the body again and looked closer. Wren balled his hands into fists. Perhaps Rowlinson was right. Perhaps there was nothing there.

  ‘Hang on,’ Rowlinson said, digging a pen and a pair of blue plastic gloves out of his pocket. ‘There is something . . .’

  Wren felt the tension in his body snap as Rowlinson repositioned himself, dipped the pen into the victim’s mouth and gently eased it back out.

  ‘What in God’s name is that?’ He held up a black object to the light.

  Behind him, Philip Wren walked swiftly out of the cabin.

  2

  6th April, 1945

  Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany

  Captain Ainsworth stood outside the main gate, a cigarette clinging perilously to his bottom lip. The rain had let up in the last hour and sunlight was daring to penetrate the cloud covering.

  The 89th Infantry Division had arrived two days earlier. They had been up for a fight, but instead they had found the camp under the control of its inmates. News of the arrival of the British and American armies had reached the camp a few days previously and the Germans had begun a hasty retreat. With the command structure dissolved and most of the guards having either fled or committed suicide, a group of inmates had stormed the watchtowers. The plucky inmates – most of them Communists – had been hiding weapons for years, which they were now, finally, able to put to good use. They had even had the guts to take prisoners, showing mercy to the Nazi wardens who had shown them nothing but inhumanity.

  Ainsworth’s men had been ill-prepared for what lay waiting for them at Buchenwald. They had heard about the camps of course, and heard rumours of mass killings with gas. A Polish-Jewish lawyer named Lemkin had even coined a new word for it. Genocide. But words were so easily absorbed into the skin. Seeing a man so overwhelmed by the relief of his emancipation from a hell on earth that he fell to the floor dead at your feet. Nothing had prepared Ainsworth for that.

  They had met the Czechs first. Thousands of them crammed into spaces designed for a few hundred at most. Stripped naked except for loin cloths. Freezing. Dying. Their bodies had shrivelled through malnourishment to such an extent that they barely resembled human beings anymore. The walking dead, with yellowy-white skin that tore as easily as paper, stretched so taut that Ainsworth could count every single rib.

  With their last remaining energy, the inmates had greeted the 89th Division like heroes. So weak they could hardly walk, but somehow, they had managed to hoist up some of the infantrymen – lean and heavy lads, at that – to parade them around the camp in triumph. Embarrassed, but desperate not to offend, the soldiers had reluctantly allowed them to do it, although some of the inmates had collapsed from the effort.

  They were a mixed bunch, from what Ainsworth could gather. There were the Czechs, but then there were Poles, Soviets, French, Croats. Women too, Many of them had been forced into sexual slavery in the camp brothel. Perhaps most satisfyingly for Ainsworth, there were a few of their own: American airmen who had been shot down over occupied France; British, too. The false papers they had carried that were supposed to have helped them escape from enemy territory had backfired. When they were captured the Nazis treated them as spies and shipped them to Buchenwald along with the Jews.

  Jews. An entire race the Nazis branded the ‘useless eaters’.

  There was a polite cough. Ainsworth had been lost in his own thoughts, hadn’t noticed the corporal behind him. Henderson was a good soldier and bright for an infantry lad, but, like the rest of the boys, he looked pale and sickly.

  ‘First part of the roster, sir,’ said Henderson.

  He handed over some papers, which Ainsworth took but didn’t read. Instead, he gazed over at the horizon, past the battered-down gates and across the yard to where he could see a sign that had been torn from the wall and stamped into the muddy earth. Arbeit macht frei. Work sets you free.

  After a while, Henderson said, ‘We don’t have enough medicine for these people, sir. We can’t stop them dying.’

  Ainsworth nodded grimly. ‘If you can’t stop the bleeding, that’s no reason not to try to stem the flow.’ His stomach was churning – the chlorine tablets they added to the water didn’t agree with him. After a brief pause, he said, ‘Doesn’t make any sense, does it, Henderson?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Hitler knew the tide of war had changed months ago. The invasion of Russia was a fiasco. He needed resources, but he prioritised trains transporting Jews to death camps over his own army convoys. Tanks, soldiers, weapons, munitions. They could have made a difference. Doesn’t make an ounce of sense.’

  ‘Some say they were making sacrifices to the Norse gods, sir.’

  ‘Is that what you think, Henderson?’

  The soldier hesitated. ‘Maybe, sir.’

  ‘Did you see the Dora on the way up here?’

  ‘We all did, sir.’

  The Dora had been abandoned, but even though it was unmanned, the 89th had approached the massive railway gun with considerable apprehension. Weighing 1,350 tons, the only way for the gargantuan barrel to be moved was on double tracks. The techs had doubted it was ready for combat, but the estimated range was over twenty-eight miles.

  ‘You think a race capable of producing a weapon as advanced as that also believes in resurrecting gods through human sacrifice?’

  Henderson didn’t answer. He had turned at the sound of an engine. In the distance, a car was approaching, its wheels kicking up dust and dirt along the track. Ainsworth looked at Henderson, who turned back and barked a series of orders at nearby soldiers. They spread out across the entrance, taking shelter where they could, rifles at the ready.

  Ainsworth stood stock still in the open, a revolver hanging loose at his hip. He doubted very much the Nazis would return to try to salvage anything, and even if they did, they were hardly going to show up in a Rolls Royce.

  The car pulled up facing Ainsworth. The chassis paintwork was splattered with dirt but the areas not covered in mud were otherwise clearly well maintained. This was not a civilian car. Ainsworth held his hand up, signalling to Henderson and the rest of the boys to back off. Weapons were lowered.

  A tall man with wavy blond hair emerged from the back seat. He put on a hat and pulled a trench coat over a pinstripe suit, the coattails flapping helplessly in the breeze. He was young for someone being chauffeured across hostile territory.

  ‘Captain Ainsworth, I presume.’

&n
bsp; Ainsworth raised an eyebrow before taking the visitor’s hand. He was English, but what the hell was he doing out here? Ainsworth registered the tight grip on his hand. Not a reporter or a politician, then.

  ‘Welcome to Buchenwald,’ Ainsworth grunted. ‘Mr –’

  ‘Ruck. Colonel Ruck.’

  The visitor handed Ainsworth some papers and this time he read them with care. When he had finished, he looked up sceptically. ‘British Secret Intelligence?’

  ‘The very same. Military Intelligence, Section Five, actually.’ Ruck smiled pleasantly, the pencil moustache above his top lip curling upwards like a second mouth. His voice was as smooth as his manners.

  ‘And how is it that I can help you, Colonel Ruck?’

  ‘First, may I congratulate you, Captain, on an outstanding operation.’

  ‘Yeah. Several years earlier and perhaps we’d have actually done some good.’

  ‘Please, Captain, don’t belittle your achievement. Your very presence here had the Jerries scurrying for cover, did it not? A most satisfactory victory, I’d imagine.’

  Ainsworth resisted the temptation to say ‘get to the point’. This man was a bureaucrat. A pen-pusher. He wouldn’t have survived a battlefield.

  ‘Hardly a victory, I’d say. Forgive me, Colonel Ruck, but what is it that you’re doing here?’

  Ruck motioned for Ainsworth to re-examine the paperwork. ‘You’ll find a letter explaining everything at the back.’

  Ainsworth found the letter and read it through carefully.

  ‘I’ve never heard of these people,’ he declared.

  ‘Perhaps you would be kind enough to make some enquiries, Captain.’

  Ainsworth turned to look at Henderson. His glance was met with a blank expression. The letter had been signed by Fleet Admiral Leahy – Roosevelt’s chief of staff. The seal looked genuine enough. The signature was a good one, too. Then he looked beyond Ruck for the first time, at the Rolls and the two Yankee soldiers now standing either side of the gleaming bonnet with red spearheads on their shoulders. Black Devils. Commandos. Escorting a British secret agent with a letter from the highest-ranking military officer after the President himself, ordering Ainsworth to hand over a bunch of people under his control if they were found alive in Buchenwald.