by James Hazel
‘What chemicals?’
‘I don’t know for sure but one of the SOCO team had previous experience with poisonings. He told me that he was only aware of one poison capable of causing so much devastation. A genetically modified version of a naturally occurring compound known as strychnine.’
‘Which is what, exactly?’
‘There is a tree that grows mainly in India known as the strychnine tree. The seeds contain strychnine, a highly toxic alkaloid probably best known as the poison of choice of Nazi doctors during the Holocaust.’
‘Nazis?’ Priest’s ears pricked up.
‘Yes,’ continued Rowlinson, not appearing to notice Priest’s heightened interest. ‘The poison was given to inmates at various concentration camps, notably Buchenwald in Germany. Usually it was introduced into their food. The doctors observed the effects and measured how long different strains took to kill them. But in fact it turned out that these alkaloids weren’t very effective.’
‘Seemed pretty effective to me,’ Priest remarked.
‘Not as a killing device.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, the average dose of poison from a Golden Dart Frog contains enough venom to kill about ten thousand mice or between ten and twenty humans in less than a few minutes. Those wonderful lionfish in your apartment, Priest, assuming you’ve been feeding them, might kill you after a day or so if you’re unlucky enough to have an allergic reaction to them. The poison fed to the victim in this case falls somewhere between those two extremes, but the aim here seemed not to be to kill, or, if it was, it’s a secondary aim.’
‘So what is the aim?’ Priest felt a chill run through him. He already knew the answer.
‘They wanted to see the poor bastard suffer,’ said Rowlinson, so quietly that Priest had to lean towards him to hear. ‘The poison attacks the nerves in the spine. It produces unimaginable pain, but the neurotoxins prevent the brain from shutting the body down, which is our natural defence to extreme trauma. Every muscle in the body stretches and convulses. Oxygen can’t get to the extremities so hands and feet and face become cyanotic, meaning they shrivel and turn blue. The victim pukes and shits and spasms, usually by arching their backs to such an unnatural extent that they break their own spines. It’s the closest thing in real life to demonic possession you’ll ever see.’
‘You said the strychnine was modified?’ Priest prompted.
‘Possibly. If it was, it is simply the most terrifying chemical ever made.’
Jessica interjected for the first time. ‘What do you mean they? You said they just wanted to observe suffering.’
Rowlinson took a swig of his coffee, draining the cup.
‘We found evidence of at least six people in the cabin plus the victim, and there’s reason to believe they had stayed there, to watch the show.’
‘How do you know?’ demanded Jessica.
‘Six chairs neatly set out, theatre style.’
‘That’s what this is,’ Priest muttered. ‘They get off on it. Torture porn.’
‘Except they seem to enjoy a very particular type of torture. One that is based on the victim mutilating himself.’
‘You said they seem,’ Jessica observed sharply. ‘Present tense.’
‘I did.’
‘There’s more?’
Rowlinson reached down underneath the bench to a bag Priest hadn’t noticed before. He produced a set of papers, which he silently handed over.
Priest skimmed through them. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You knew why we were coming.’
‘I guessed,’ Rowlinson admitted. ‘You have a habit of turning up when weird things happen.’
Priest handed the papers to Jessica. ‘How did you get this?’ he asked Rowlinson.
‘I listened very carefully to the Super telling me this was in the hands of others and that I should forget I ever saw it. But a few phone calls later and I found other SIOs were in a similar position. You have papers there on at least two other similar incidents, but I suspect there are more.’
‘This looks organised,’ Priest suggested.
‘Something like that.’
Jessica shivered. ‘How do you –’ She paused. ‘How do you know they enjoy watching? How do you know it’s not that . . .?’
Rowlinson turned to look at her. ‘I apologise for having to say this. It’s a detail I’ve been trying to erase from my mind ever since I set foot in that godforsaken cabin. You know how it is, Priest. I’ve never reacted badly at a crime scene, but for the first time ever I coughed my guts up after just a few minutes near the victim. But there’s more. We found –’ Rowlinson swallowed hard. ‘Fluids by one of the chairs. There was blood and bile from the victim but traces of semen, too. Not from the victim.’
Priest rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Beside him, he felt Jessica move even closer. Rowlinson had resumed staring ahead into the distance.
‘You said one of your guys mentioned the Nazis,’ Priest prompted.
‘He mentioned a Nazi doctor called Schneider who was at Buchenwald,’ Rowlinson said. ‘Apparently, he specialised in torturing inmates with poison. Some of the guards liked to watch. I can believe it.’ He shook his head. ‘The prevalence of evil never ceases to amaze and sicken me.’
*
‘Do you like music?’
It seemed an innocent enough question but it was met with a disdainful look. Priest took Jessica’s wordless reply as a no and turned his attention back to the road ahead. The first ten miles of the return journey to London had been driven in near complete silence. He was disappointed. Music was important to him.
Jessica was poring over the papers Rowlinson had handed them, scanning every page two or three times, assimilating the information greedily.
‘You mentioned the Nazis,’ she said finally, not looking up.
‘I did?’
‘Scarlett mentioned it to you also.’
‘You two talk?’
‘That surprises you?’
‘Of course not. Sorry, I didn’t mean to judge.’
‘Fine,’ Jessica said impatiently. ‘Nazis.’
‘Do you think Miles was a Nazi?’
‘I think it’s possible.’ She paused, thinking. ‘His social media usernames all end in the same numbers. Eighty-eight.’
Priest thought about it. ‘I don’t follow.’
‘The eighth letter of the alphabet is H.’
‘HH. Heil Hitler.’
‘Probably just coincidence. But these papers are extracts from police files similar to the bundle your associate found in Wren’s office. There are at least three incidents under investigation in which a victim is tortured to death through poison. Each time there is evidence that a group of people gathered to watch it happen.’
‘The Mayfly?’
‘Maybe that’s what they call themselves.’
‘Impalement hardly fits with their MO,’ Priest pointed out.
‘From what it’s possible to understand from these papers, they operate a little like a paedophile ring,’ she said, ignoring his remark. ‘They’re well organised, clinical, careful. They make no effort to hide what they’re doing because they believe themselves to be untouchable. Whoever is the ringleader sets up a show and – I guess – a bunch of sick perverts pay a lot of money to watch.’
A knot had tightened in Priest’s stomach. ‘Hayley . . .’
‘Is the daughter of the man who was investigating this . . . what? Cult? So . . .’
‘It’s no coincidence that she’s missing,’ Priest finished.
Priest tightened his grip on the wheel and pressed the accelerator further to the floor. The old Volvo responded as he merged clumsily into the fast lane.
‘There’s still time,’ he said, although without much conviction. ‘But Hayley Wren is in great danger.’
‘Where do we start?’
Priest produced the flash drive from his inside coat pocket and held it up to the failing light. ‘We have the names of the aud
ience members, remember? Names, postal addresses, dates of birth. This is the ring, right here. It must be. This is what Miles wanted so badly.’
Jessica’s eyes widened. She looked pale, paler than usual. Almost alabaster.
‘Is –’ she started.
‘No,’ Priest cut in, anticipating the question. ‘Miles’s name isn’t on the list. Nor is your father’s.’
‘Seems careless, don’t you think?’ she said. ‘To keep a list of punters for these shows.’
‘It’s a good insurance policy – provided you keep it safe.’
‘So was Miles trying to get the list, or was he trying to get the list back?’
Priest thought back to those wild eyes staring at him from behind the drill. He was almost certain that Miles had been trying to retrieve something he’d lost, not acquire something he’d never had in the first place. Perhaps he’d been killed because of his failure to recover it. But why impale him, if that was the case? What was the significance of that?
Priest glanced over again. Jessica was leaning mournfully away from him, her head resting against the window, her auburn hair quivering with the movement of the vehicle.
‘I’m sorry,’ he offered.
‘For what?’
‘For what’s happened to you. To your family.’
‘It wasn’t of your doing.’
He reached across to her, but he hesitated. She made no effort to move, although she must have been aware of the gesture. He started to withdraw his hand but something stopped him. He burned to know what he meant to her, why he had caressed her naked skin with total freedom, without resistance, less than twenty-four hours ago and was now afraid to touch her.
Ridiculous.
With one hand still on the wheel, he placed his finger gently on to her shoulder. She didn’t respond at first, until he moved his hand down her arm, whereupon she stirred from her mesmerised state, turned her head towards him and, eventually, cupped her hand into his.
40
14th April, 1972
Kensington, London
Detective Chief Inspector Bertie Ruck chewed on his cigarette impatiently while he waited to be escorted through the hotel lobby.
Eventually, a young detective appeared, red-faced and harassed. Ruck didn’t know his name.
‘Sir,’ said the DC uncertainly. ‘I was told you were on leave.’
‘Show me.’
The DC lifted the police tape and Ruck ducked under. His old joints weren’t as agile as they used to be and the motion irritated his back.
‘You OK, sir?’
‘Fine. Which way?’
The DC led him across a marble floor towards the main stairwell. The lift was out of action, of course, and the body was on the ninth floor. They took the stairs two at a time.
‘When was the discovery made?’ Ruck grunted.
‘Earlier this afternoon. The resident should have checked out in the morning so the hotel manager unlocked the door with a master key. Apparently, the resident asked for a room on the ninth floor, knowing the hotel was half empty. It’s low season here. Manager said she made a fuss of ensuring that there was no one occupying the rooms to the side and below. Said she liked playing the violin until the early hours and didn’t want to disturb any other guests.’
‘The resident that booked the room was a she?’
‘Yes, sir. Room was booked under the name Fitzgerald, sir.’
Ruck winced as if an old wound had just been reopened.
When they reached the ninth floor they ducked under more tape and walked across the hallway to where a couple of plods stood idly, unsure as to what to do with themselves.
‘You’ve been on the murder squad a while, sir?’ asked the DC, turning to Ruck.
‘I have.’
The DC nodded. ‘Brace yourself, then. It’s not a pleasant one.’
Ruck pushed past him.
The room was like any other hotel room. Beige walls, avocado-coloured curtains, a bed, a side table and small desk. Except everything in this room was saturated in blood. Ruck took a step further in. The victim was lying on the bed; his face was contorted horribly. He was naked but his body looked as if it had been set upon by wild animals. Great strips of flesh had been torn off one side, exposing the muscle and tissue underneath.
This wasn’t a murder victim. It was a carcass.
‘There’s evidence of an entry wound on the arm, sir,’ said the DC quietly. He was standing outside the room, his hand covering his mouth. ‘There’s a puncture on his arm where something was injected. I think the injuries were inflicted post mortem.’
‘Wishful thinking, constable,’ Ruck said.
‘What’s that, sir?’
Ruck’s eyes narrowed and he clenched his fists. Something burned inside him. He took another small step forward and peered at the body. It was a man, or had been at some point. A young man at that.
‘There’s something else, sir.’
Ruck turned sharply.
The DC was holding something, his hand outstretched. ‘A note. Addressed to you.’
Ruck hesitated. He moved swiftly across the hotel room and snatched the note. The DC looked shocked. Ruck unfolded the paper.
‘We don’t know what it means,’ the DC said.
Ruck did. He passed the note back to the DC. There was nothing on it, except his name and the outline, sketched in ink, of an insect.
‘Sir? Does it mean anything to you?’
Ruck paused, motionless. Operation Mayfly, the inquisition of Dr Kurt Schneider, was a lifetime ago. Nobody still alive knew the code name; nobody except him and one other.
Although Ruck had not seen Eva Miller since the night Lance Corporal Fitzgerald had died, every day that had since passed he had woken up with her scent on him. And no matter how hard he washed and scrubbed, he couldn’t remove it.
He looked at the DC.
‘No,’ he said finally. ‘It means nothing to me.’
41
Shaken but resolute, Georgie found herself staring at Hayley Wren’s front door.
When the train had pulled into the station, she had alighted as quickly as she could, but there had been no sign of the two men who’d been in the carriage with her. The danger had been entirely in her own head.
Georgie produced the front door key from her pocket and let herself in.
It hadn’t been difficult. Georgie had gleaned from Hayley’s social media activity that she was trusting but probably quite naive. She valued her community. She was impractical, prone to forgetting things. It seemed likely that she would have left a spare key with a neighbour. Not the junkie named Binny who lived above her, but the old lady on the right, whom Priest and Jessica may have overlooked. It turned out that Mrs Mudridge, as she introduced herself, was perfectly happy to accommodate Hayley’s cousin, who had come up from university to surprise her.
‘Hayley said she left a spare key with you, Mrs Mudridge,’ Georgie had said.
‘Of course, dear! You should take it and let yourself in. I think she has tea in the top cupboard.’
And Hayley did. Herbal. A large selection, as it happened, although Georgie drew the line there. Georgie liked Wagner, and she appreciated culture, even the odd foreign film, but a cache of herbal tea that took up an entire cupboard was just creepy – and the kitchen stank of it.
It was a simple place. Original floorboards covered with a few brightly coloured rugs, Ikea furniture, a bean bag that looked like it had never been used – probably a present – cups neatly lined up in size order and a bookshelf full of Gothic fantasy. There was nothing personal that Georgie could detect. No family pictures or cards. An inherent loneliness permeated each room. If she didn’t know any better, Georgie would have said someone had recently died in this house. She shivered.
The food was off in the fridge and the smell was nauseating. Georgie couldn’t bear leaving the milk to sour any more so she threw two bottles down the sink.
Upstairs was much the same. A bathroom st
ocked with cheap high-street products and some clothes discarded on the floor.
In the bedroom, Georgie’s eye was immediately drawn to the dressing table. The temperature seemed lower in this room than the rest of the house. Carefully, she crossed the room, stepping over a can of hairspray, a few books. She sat down at the dressing table but stopped short of touching anything. The room was freezing – her breath misted in front of the cracked mirror. A feeling of unease washed over her. The table was a mess. Perfume bottles were scattered over the surface. One of them was smashed: the clear liquid had left a trail that disappeared over the far edge and the sickly smell permeated the room. There were papers that looked as though they had once been neatly stacked but had more recently been attacked with a leaf-blower. The table was askew and the mirror cracked.
And there were fingernail marks scratched into the front edge.
Georgie instantly saw it play out as if she was watching a film. She looked over her shoulder. Hayley’s assailant had been hiding in the room. She had thrown the door open, from the shower maybe. Sat herself down, not even thinking that the house was anything other than hers exclusively. He’d probably cupped his hands around her throat and mouth. Instinctively, Hayley had grabbed the table to stop herself from being wrenched away. Her hold had been weak, but the table had come away from the wall at an angle. She had panicked. Georgie looked around the room, at the chaos. Hayley had chosen fight, judging by the mess and the scratch marks. But it looked as if it was a fight that she had lost. Had the kidnapper hurt her, more than the bruises and scratches she’d have sustained from the struggle?
Georgie closed her eyes. What else happened in this little room?
She shivered again. Opened her eyes. She wondered if she should call Charlie. She was edgy, and the sound of his voice would be reassuring – but she shouldn’t be here. She had broken a promise.
Georgie got up, fumbling around in her pocket for her phone. Behind her, the bed remained unmade, the sheets draped on the floor to one side. Had he thrown her on to the mattress as well? Forced himself on top of her? Shivering, she scrolled through the contacts in her phone until her thumb rested over Charlie’s number. Something stopped her from pressing dial.