The Special Dead

by Lin Anderson

  Grant Buchanan, he believed, had been watching Leila and had been in The Pot Still or its environs that night. He’d followed Leila and Mark home to the flat and contacted the man they knew as Peter. The plan had been to dispose of Leila and pin the blame on the man she’d picked up. The hand in the video seen stuffing the cloth into Leila’s mouth had not been Grant’s, however. And they had no way of proving it belonged to Peter Charles, unless they found him, although they were fairly certain he was the signet ring wearer on Danny’s clip. The other two men in the clips hadn’t been identified.

  Both Buchanan and the elusive Peter had been involved in stealing artefacts from the Ferguson collection. Shannon had suggested to Freya that she’d found something out about the collection via the old library. That in itself probably put Shannon in danger.

  As for Barry Fraser, he’d been set the task of keeping an eye on Leila by Danny and he’d been involved in making the videos, but McNab also thought there was a chance Barry had spotted Buchanan at The Pot Still that night, but hadn’t known who he was until later. A good enough reason for his death.

  Danny had done the right thing in lying low. It was probably the only reason he was still alive. Buchanan had been vociferous in his claims that Danny Hardy had attacked him with a knife in the university basement and that only McNab’s intervention had saved his life, something McNab had flatly contradicted. He’d given a different version of the story, omitting the knife, which fortunately the boss had believed. Leila’s knife now lay on Freya’s altar alongside her own.

  Freya had watched him carefully as she’d told her black mirror story, noting the moments of recognition on his face.

  ‘That’s what you think happened, isn’t it?’ she’d said.

  ‘Close to it,’ had been all McNab was prepared to admit.

  Jeff Barclay hadn’t figured anywhere in Freya’s deliberations, which fitted as well. Jeff’s DNA hadn’t found a match with the samples taken from Leila’s flat. How and when he’d left the pub was still uncertain, but he had been charged with obstructing police enquiries.

  All in all, Freya’s contemplation of the black mirror had produced as good an understanding of the crime as he and his team had. As for the Nine, as they’d called them, Barry’s DNA hadn’t been a match for his namesake in the doll, and although Mark Howitt Senior had been identified as one of Leila’s nine, he’d claimed not to know such a group existed. If so, then maybe Leila had placed him with the others because he’d bought sex magick from her as they had, or simply because of the significance of the number nine in Wicca. The Book of Shadows was gone with all its fine detail of the men she’d encountered, but, McNab reminded himself, they still had the DNA samples, Leila’s simple drawings and what might be their first names. Not enough to go on at the moment, but maybe in the future?

  The chanting from within had stopped.

  McNab, keen that Freya wouldn’t find him lurking there, went back through to bed.

  When she climbed in beside him minutes later, he drew her into his arms.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked.

  ‘I am now,’ she said with a satisfied smile.

  72

  The book on the varieties of runic scripts used in Witchcraft would have brought an excellent price. He was sorry that it had gone, but its destruction had served a greater purpose.

  The man whose name had been given as Dr Peter Charles congratulated himself on the outcome. The old library had been destroyed and with it the Witch’s Book of Shadows. Anything the Witch had written about the group of men she’d serviced was gone.

  He was aware of the confession and the subsequent suicide of the suspect, Mark Howitt. Had they known that night that the man Leila would take home was the son of a judge who had connections to the Witch, the plan would have been changed. However, the connection had proved to be beneficial in the long run.

  Had the brother not interfered, it would have gone no further than the first Witch. On his head lay the blame for the subsequent deaths. Still, sufficient forensic evidence had been planted on the other two to give credence to Mark Howitt’s confession.

  True, one Witch remained alive, although her connection had been more with the Book of Shadows and, according to the report he’d received, she hadn’t shown it to the police before it had been destroyed.

  She might recall their meeting, of course, but he had departed the country by the time of the fire and there was little chance of tracing him. There was one other loose end, his contact in the Ferguson collection, who had since been apprehended with regard to the fire, but he was confident that nothing the man might say could lead directly to him.

  The group were now dispersed and would no longer be in contact with one another, at least for a while. Should they wish to reconvene, another European city would be chosen. Lucerne would be his choice.

  The Ferguson collection had drawn them to Glasgow and he’d succeeded in making some of the rarer items available to the members of the group. Some of them were copies, but still valuable in the worldwide trade of precious and significant writings on the occult.

  The man fingered his ring, as he was wont to do when thinking. His instinct told him that all would be well, and he trusted his instinct. His flight would be boarding soon, but there was still time for another drink. He waved the waiter over and ordered a double gin and tonic.

  Ten minutes later he noted from the departure board that it was time to make his way to the gate, and decided to visit the Gents first. Toilets on aircraft were narrow and cramped, and the first-class lounge offered a better alternative.

  The lounge had been quiet, the toilet was empty.

  He chose a cubicle and entered, securing the door behind him.

  As he unzipped his fly a strange thing happened. He heard what sounded like a cat hissing and was immediately reminded of the Witch’s cat. The night he’d visited her in the altar room, it had been sitting there, its green eyes focused on them as she had brought him to climax. She had pushed him backwards at that point to lie on the sofa, her knees gripping his waist. Then to his surprise she’d shouted an order and the cat had sprung up to settle on his face, its claws kneading his shoulder, the suffocating feel of it on his face heightening the intensity of his pleasure.

  As he allowed the memory to wash over him, his prick hardened, preventing him from urinating.

  He gripped himself, encouraging the memory now, playing it live here in the cubicle. He felt the cat on his face, his open mouth full of its fur. He heard the loud purring, the chants of the spell she’d chosen. He experienced the tightening of the cingulum, the desperate need for air, all driving him towards ecstasy.

  Then suddenly the imagined grip of the cingulum became like a metal band constricting and compressing his chest. He let go of his penis as the pain grew in intensity, spreading over his shoulder to descend his left arm like a red-hot poker.

  I need to breathe.

  He tried madly to push the imagined cat from his face, knowing all the time he wasn’t choking on its fur, but having a heart attack.

  As he dropped into unconsciousness, he was back in the Witch’s temple, the suffocating body of the cat on his face, its claws tearing at his shoulder. As he felt the Witch move against him, there was no mounting ecstasy, only pain, each of her thrusts, he knew, propelling his heart swiftly towards its final beat.

  73

  When he opened his eyes, the doll was there on the pillow, green eyes staring into his, red hair wild. Of course he’d been dreaming, because when he woke up properly, the doll had gone.

  Some nights later when they’d put out the lights, he heard the sound of their hard plastic bodies clicking and clacking together. The noise had invaded his cell, keeping him awake.

  He knew a great deal about magick, although he didn’t believe in it. Therefore he ascribed his symptoms to stress at the upcoming trial. He asked to see a doctor, but chose not to describe what kept him awake at night, saying only that he couldn’t sleep.

&nb
sp; Shortly after that, the visitations became more frequent and were now a combination of vision and sound. They consisted of a curtain of swaying dolls, their colliding limbs like the cackle of Witch laughter as they swung from the ceiling on their red cords, their shiny bead eyes fastened on him.

  It was at this point that he considered his options.

  Death being one, the other, confession.

  Time and his state of mind would tell which one he chose.

  74

  The cat dropped from the roof onto the ledge and eased its way in through the open window, springing silently to the floor.

  No longer sleek and well-fed, its green eyes wore a hungry look.

  Hearing a sound in the hallway, it headed in that direction.

  A snap of the letter box saw three circulars thrust through. The cat stood for a moment, anticipating something else, its tail upright, the tip swishing.

  A draught from the open window heralded a series of clicks and clacks from the room it had entered by.

  The cat made a beeline back there to stand and stare up at the swaying dolls. It turned, sensing a presence, and sprang towards it, rubbing its body against the slim legs, weaving between them, its purr as loud as the clicking curtain of colliding limbs.

  Notes and Acknowledgements

  My lecturer in astronomy at Glasgow University was Professor Archie Roy. He really was ambidextrous and could draw two circles and fill them in with diagrams at the same time.

  I met him again many years later when he had become the foremost authority on the paranormal in Scotland, while also Emeritus Professor of Astronomy, with an asteroid named after him: (5806) Archieroy. I called him up one day to discuss a speculative piece for television that I was writing and we met in the university common room where he told me many tales about his work with the Scottish Society for Psychical Research.

  Later I attended a series of lectures run by the SSPR at the university in which he told the story of the old library and what it contained and how this had sparked his interest in investigating the paranormal. So that much is true. I merely substituted Freya at Newcastle University for my own experience at Glasgow.

  The Ferguson collection does exist and details about it can be found on the university library’s website, some of which I used. As far as I am aware, it is still intact, and is still as valuable in terms of its contribution to our understanding of such matters. When I tried to locate the exact position of the old library as described by Professor Roy, I was unsuccessful, so I chose my own location in the tower, mainly because I used to have lectures in moral philosophy in one of the tower lecture theatres. I particularly remember the cooing sound of the pigeons directly above us as we tackled Plato’s Republic.

  As to Wicca, I found during my research much to commend it as a way of worship, including the Wiccan Rede, oft quoted in the text. Witchcraft is not merely legendary; it was, and is, still real. Some would say its doctrine is far more relevant to the times than the majority of established church texts, insofar as it acknowledges a holistic universe, equal rights, feminism, ecology, attunement, brotherly and sisterly love, planetary care – all part and parcel of Witchcraft, the old, yet new, religion.

  However, misconceptions still abound and my knowledge is not great enough to prove them all wrong. Suffice to say that every religion has its dark and bright side. And every force for good can be changed into one for evil. You only have to recall the Inquisition to know that.

  Torturing and killing women by naming them as Witches was a job perfectly designed for those who delighted in the sexual torture of the female of the species. As Magnus says in the book, there were psychopaths back then too.

  I couldn’t help but think as I did my research that Rhona’s knowledge of forensics and the science of DNA would have been seen as a type of Witchcraft not so long ago. In fact in some parts of the world, Rhona, the forensic scientist, would be regarded as a Witch at this very moment.

  Lin Anderson

  Lin Anderson has published several novels and one novella featuring forensic expert Dr Rhona MacLeod, which have been widely translated. Her short story Dead Close was chosen for the Best of British Crime 2011 and is currently in development as a feature film. Also a screenwriter, her film River Child won a student BAFTA and the Celtic Media Festival award for Best Short Drama. Currently Chair of the Society of Authors in Scotland, she is also co-founder of Bloody Scotland, Scotland’s International Crime Writing Festival.

  By Lin Anderson

  Driftnet

  Torch

  Deadly Code

  Dark Flight

  Easy Kill

  Final Cut

  The Reborn

  Picture Her Dead

  Paths of the Dead

  The Special Dead

  NOVELLA

  Blood Red Roses

  First published 2015 by Macmillan

  This electronic edition published 2015 by Macmillan

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan

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  ISBN 978-1-4472-4573-5

  Copyright © Lin Anderson 2015

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