Solomon's Key

by Tim Ellis

  ‘It’s a boon having Patrick helping us,’ she said. ‘We’ve nearly finished one room.’

  ‘Has he identified any likely suspects?’ KP asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, unscrewing the cap of the water bottle and taking a drink. ‘We’ve got three up to now. I’ve got Paul cross-referencing names and addresses on the system because they’re old cases. It’s not worth rushing out to interview these people if they don’t live at the address in their file.’

  I took a drink of stewed tea. ‘Good. So why did Mr Darwin select them?’

  ‘They were cases that were lost. The person expressed dissatisfaction with the verdict and the representation.’

  I checked my watch. It was three fifteen. ‘Are you going to finish today?’

  ‘We’ll carry on after the briefing until we’ve finished. It shouldn’t take too long. Patrick has got a formidable memory. He remembers nearly all the cases from their names.’

  ‘OK, thanks Ali.’

  We all got up and made our way down the corridor. Ali went back down to the basement, KP and I made our way to the incident room.

  We were half way up the stairs when Ted spotted us. ‘Sir,’ he called. KP and I stopped and he walked up to us. ‘This gentleman,’ he waved his hand at a small grey-haired man wearing jeans, trainers and a heavy coat. ‘Says his name is Father Jacob, and he’s here at your request.’

  ‘Yes, thanks Ted.’ He turned and made his way back down the stairs.

  I offered my hand to Father Jacob and we shook. He looked about sixty years old, but was in good shape for his age. I thought he must be on a day off because he wasn’t wearing a collar. ‘DCI Harte,’ I introduced myself. ‘Thanks for coming.’ He had a strong handshake. I noticed a tic on the left side of his face, which seemed to drag the lower eyelid down.

  ‘If I can help in any way,’ Father Jacob said, ‘then God will have made the world a brighter place.’

  I thought it was a strange response, but then I hadn’t met many Catholic priests before. Maybe they all talked that way.

  ‘This is DS Preston,’ I said, indicating KP standing on the step above me.

  She offered her hand. He bent and kissed it. ‘God has sent an angel down from heaven to light my way.’

  KP blushed and smiled. ‘Thank you, Father.’

  ‘Come on then,’ I said, nudging KP upwards. ‘Let’s not spend the day standing on the stairs.’

  She pushed my hand away and stepped down one step. ‘Lead the way, grumpy. I’ll walk with a real gentleman.’

  ‘Huh,’ I said and carried on up the stairs.

  Jonathan stood up and came towards us as we entered the incident room. Paul was at his desk on the computer and absently waved in our direction.

  Whilst Jonathan and Father Jacob were saying hello to each other and shaking hands, I said, ‘Where’s Miss Palton?’

  Jonathan looked down at his feet. ‘Suzie’s gone,’ he mumbled.

  I looked over at the desk she had occupied to make sure she wasn’t hiding or something. It was empty. No laptop. ‘Gone? What do you mean gone?’

  ‘I… don’t think she was… happy, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Happy!’ I shouted. ‘Bloody woman, she wasn’t here to be happy.’

  KP nudged me. ‘You’d better go after her and apologise. We might still need her. And the Chief will have your…’ She glanced sideways at Father Jacob.

  ‘…balls,’ I finished for her. My lip curled. ‘Yeah, well. She can have them.’ There was no way in hell I was going after Snotty Palton, except to maybe drag her back by her hair.

  ‘She did decipher the fourth message,’ Jonathan said in her defence.

  I walked over to the incident board. Underneath the photograph of India Soames, and what she had identified as Meroitic-Demotic script, Suzie had stuck the plain text.

  Why are you going to consult the god of Ekron?

  Jonathan followed and stood behind me. ‘It follows the same pattern, Chief Inspector. The message comes from…’

  ‘…two Kings, verses one to three,’ Father Jacob finished off.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Father,’ Jonathan said. ‘The important thing is that it refers to Beelzebub, who was the god of Ekron. As I’ve said, he was of the order of seraphim, and the first of Lucifer’s lieutenants. The fourth Prince of Hell.’

  Father Jacob butted in again. ‘The full text is: Why are you going to consult Beelzebub, the god of Ekron? Is it because you think there is no god in Israel?’

  I got the impression that Jonathan and Father Jacob were in competition with each other.

  The door flew open.

  ‘Gov,’ Brian said waving a CD in the air. ‘Forensics have finished with the face.’ He walked over to where Paul was sat and tossed a couple of files on his desk. ‘Two more,’ he directed at him.

  I said to KP, ‘You brief Father Jacob on where we are. I’ll take a look at what forensics have come up with.’

  She nodded.

  I moved over to Brian’s desk. He put the CD into the tray and it self-loaded. Whilst we were waiting Brian said, ‘Oh, forensics told me to tell you that they couldn’t clear up the voice of the killer from the telephone conversation.’

  ‘OK thanks, another dead-end. Let’s hope…’ I looked at the man’s face on the screen. The shadow had been removed. I knew the man. It was Tony Blair.

  ‘Shit,’ Brian said. ‘A fucking waste of time, but it’s definitely him, isn’t it Gov?’

  ‘Yes, I think we can safely assume that it is. I can’t imagine anyone else pretending to be Tony Blair at six in the morning.’

  ‘He knew what he was doing. You can’t see his ears, hair or hands. No clues to his identity at all.’

  ‘Good try anyway, Brian.’

  ‘I’ll get back downstairs,’ he said pushing himself up. ‘Briefing’s in half-an-hour anyway.’ He strode out muttering under his breath.

  ‘Yeah, see you there.’

  ***

  The basement dwellers traipsed in at exactly four thirty. Before slumping down in chairs rubbing their eyes, they helped themselves to coffee or water.

  ‘I’ve asked Ted to escort Patrick to the cafeteria,’ Ali said to me. ‘We’ll retrieve him once we’ve finished here.’

  ‘OK, good,’ I said. I raised my voice and spoke to all the team. ‘Jonathan suggested that we called in Father Jacob.’

  He had taken off his coat. A white T-shirt hung loose over his jeans, with God Lives on the front in black lettering. He bowed to the audience. ‘It is God’s pleasure.’

  I saw confused faces turning to look at each other.

  ‘Father Jacob is going to put the messages into context I hope.’ I sat down next to Ali.

  ‘With an assistant from the distinguished audience, and God’s help, your hope will be fulfilled Chief Inspector.’ He walked over to the large map of London.

  ‘Jane,’ I said over my shoulder.

  She pushed herself up wearily.

  ‘We will need a ruler and a pencil,’ Father Jacob instructed her.

  Jane leant across Brian, who raised his eyes. She grabbed a ruler and pencil off his desk and smiled at him. I’m sure he thought his luck was in. Maybe it was. Just then I had the strange feeling that there was something going on between the two of them. Something else to speak to KP about, maybe there was a lot of things going on in the team that I wasn’t aware of.

  Father Jacob put a mark on St Paul’s Road in Highbury. ‘Please be so kind as to draw a line between Windsor Way and the new location, Lady Jane.’

  Jane blushed, but did as she was asked by adding to the triangle she had already drawn yesterday between Windsor Way, Anchor Street, and Alvanley Gardens.

  ‘Now draw a line from the new location to Shaftesbury Mews.’

  ‘Christ… Oh! Sorry Father,’ John said. ‘It’s a bloody pentagram.’ Even with the additional line between Alvanley Gardens and Windsor Way, you could see it was a pentagram.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Fathe
r Jacob said. ‘One last line please Lady Jane, from Alvanley Gardens to Shaftesbury Mews.’

  Jane completed the drawing.

  KP nudged me and said, ‘You were right, Sir, the’ locations are important.’

  I grunted.

  ‘What do you mean, not exactly?’ John asked. ‘It looks like a pentagram to me.’

  ‘A pentagram has the point at the top.’ He drew a pentagram on the incident board. ‘The pentagram dates back to Mesopotamia in around three thousand BC. Later it was used as a Christian symbol of health and to represent the five wounds of Christ.’ He moved back to the map. ‘This, my friends, is the Sigil of Baphomet.’

  We sat there like schoolchildren mesmerised by Father Jacob’s words.

  ‘Satanists turn the pentagram upside down with the two points uppermost and the head of a goat inside. It is usually contained within a double circle containing Hebrew letters at each point of the Sigil, which when translated spell out Leviathan. This is called the Sigil of Baphomet, and symbolises the pit where the fallen angels are fettered.’

  ‘As interesting as this is, Father,’ I said. ‘What does it mean in the context of the murders?’

  ‘I will get to that Chief Inspector, if your patience can hold.’

  He was certainly a better speaker than Jonathan, and had the authority of age to put me in my place.

  ‘A grimoire is a text of conjurations to invoke demons. One such text is called the Key of Solomon – Claviculæ Salomonis. According to mythology, King Solomon invoked demons to build his temple. On its completion, he constrained them in a brass vessel called the Monarchia Daemon – Monarchy of Demons. Mythology has it that prior to his death, he wrote the grimoire, which provides instructions on how to release the Princes of Hell, and make them do the invoker’s bidding. He then commanded his son Roboam, to seal both the book and the brass vessel in his tomb. Babylonian philosophers are reported to have discovered The Key in an ivory case during repairs to Solomon’s tomb. It then disappears, until Godfrey of Bouillon hides it during the First Crusade at the siege of Jerusalem in 1099. That is the last reference there is to both The Key and the Monarchia Daemon. However, there is a book purported to be the Key of Solomon in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.’

  ‘Are you saying that King Solomon actually wrote this… Solomon’s Key?’ John asked.

  ‘Many have argued that the grimoire was written in the Middle Ages, but there are those who believe it is genuine. If, as suggested, it was written in the Middle Ages, it would not explain the reported sightings by the Babylonians or Godfrey of Bouillon.’

  ‘Do you think that someone has now found the grimoire? Brian asked.

  ‘Not just The Key,’ Father Jacob said, ‘but also the Monarchia Daemon. One without the other would be useless.’

  Father Jacob must have seen me tapping my fingers on Ali’s desk. ‘We’re getting there, Chief Inspector.’ He pointed to the Sigil. ‘To invoke the demons, according to mythology, each of the five Princes requires a sacrifice.’

  KP leaned forward. ‘The body parts are the sacrifices?’

  ‘Yes, beautiful angel,’ Father Jacob said. ‘Each part that has been taken represents a sacrifice to a particular Prince of Hell. Jonathan has already touched on this. The hands are a sacrifice to Mammon, the demon of avarice; the breasts and uterus are a sacrifice to Moloch, the demon of infertility; the heart is a sacrifice to Balial, the demon of lies and guilt; and the stomach is a sacrifice to Beelzebub, the lord of gluttony.’

  ‘What about the fifth..?’ I said.

  Holding up his hand, Father Jacob gave me a cold stare. ‘You will note that there are five points on the Sigil. Up to now, there have only been four murders.’

  ‘The fifth one must be Lucifer,’ KP said.

  ‘Yes, you are right beautiful Sergeant. Lucifer is lord of foresightedness. I expect the killer will take the victim’s eyes as a sacrifice.’

  Ali put her hand up.

  ‘Another angel,’ Father Jacob said.

  ‘The fifth location you’ve put on the map – St Paul’s Road in Highbury. Are you suggesting that the next murder will take place there?’

  ‘The killer has followed a strict pattern up to now. It seems logical that he will complete the Sigil.’

  Father Jacob went back to the incident board. ‘Also, let me draw your attention to two other clues, which support my interpretation of the evidence. First, the newspapers that were left at each crime scene: The Sun, Independent, Guardian, and London Daily.’ He wrote them down whilst he was talking, and circled the first letter of each. He stepped to one side and looked at us expectantly.

  Eventually, Ali shouted out, ‘SIGIL,’ as if it was a competition with prizes. ‘The Sigil of Baphomet.’

  Father Jacob smiled. ‘Yes, exactly right. The ‘I’ is missing.’ He turned and wrote the first name of the victims on the board: Sally, Irene, Gina, and India, and stood to one side again.

  ‘SIGIL,’ KP jumped in, smiling at Ali. I had begun to notice the competition between these two recently.

  ‘The last ‘L’ is missing,’ Father Jacob said.

  ‘So,’ I concluded. ‘Unless we can stop him first, the killer will murder one more person, in St Paul’s Road, Highbury, the victim’s name will begin with ‘L’, and he’ll leave a newspaper beginning with ‘I’?’

  Father Jacob gave me a look of sadness. ‘Yes, Chief Inspector you are right about the fifth victim, but unfortunately it will not be the last one.’

  My face dropped. ‘But… you said…’

  ‘There will be a final sacrifice.’ He turned to the board. ‘Let me illustrate.’ He drew an upside-down stick person, arms at right angles to the body and the legs in a v-shape. He wasn’t going to win any awards for his artwork. ‘This is how all your victims were found wasn’t it?’

  There was lots of nodding around the room, including the head on my shoulders.

  Father Jacob drew the Sigil over the stick person. Immediately, we could see the purpose of the outstretched arms and legs. ‘Once the killer has the sacrifice to Lucifer, he will need a whole person as a live sacrifice inside the Sigil before he begins the conjurations to invoke the demons.’

  ‘Why?’ KP asked.

  ‘The blood, he will need fresh blood for the conjurations.’

  ‘Where will he get the live sacrifice from?’ Ali asked.

  ‘The killer has gone to a lot of trouble matching locations with the points on the Sigil,’ Father Jacob said. ‘I can’t imagine him deviating from his plan. I think he has already identified the final sacrifice within the centre of the Sigil.’

  ‘Jane,’ I said. ‘Your job is to identify the final victim. Let’s try and get one step ahead of the killer. Get a street-level map and talk to Patrick. Find out who is connected to Darwins and lives where the centre of the Sigil falls.’

  ‘I know it sounds stupid, Father,’ Brian said with a grin. ‘But will it work?’

  Father Jacob gave us a wry smile. ‘You would think not, but there are more things in heaven and hell…’

  He didn’t finish, and the quote wasn’t right. But we got the idea.

  I thanked Father Jacob and Jonathan for their help and asked Jane to escort them out.

  ***

  KP and I strolled down to the cafeteria to talk to Patrick. It was six-fifteen. He and Ted appeared to be getting on like a swarm of locusts in a field of corn.

  ‘Thanks for looking after Patrick, Ted,’ I said.

  ‘My pleasure, Sir,’ he said. ‘We have a number of acquaintances in common, all criminals.’ He let out a laugh as he wandered off.

  ‘Patrick,’ I said. ‘We’re interested in anyone who lives on St Paul’s Road in Highbury who has a daughter whose name begins with ‘L’, and has a connection to Darwins.’

  His eyes opened wide. ‘I live there, at number 157, and my daughter is called Letitia.’ He paled visibly.

  ‘We have already established that your daughter is still in Burma, but let�
�s double check.’ I nodded at KP who went back to the incident room to speak to Paul.

  ‘Is there anyone else that you can think of?’

  He lowered his head in thought and then said, ‘Peter Graveney lives at 112. He used to work for me, but left to start his own firm.’

  ‘Does he have a daughter?’

  ‘Yes, my wife and I attended her christening three years ago. Her name is Lucy, but… surely not?’

  KP came back. ‘Paul has confirmed Letitia Darwin is still in Burma and is due to arrive at Heathrow on Tuesday evening.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ Patrick said. ‘Because of her age I didn’t add Lucy Graveney to the list of possible victims,’ he directed at me.

  I told KP what we had been talking about then said, ‘It seems unlikely Patrick, but we need to make sure. There’s no one else who you can think of?’

  ‘No, no one else.’

  ‘Thank you. Sergeant Preston will take you back down to the basement. We’re very grateful for your help.’

  ‘Anything I can do.’

  Before she went, KP leaned over and whispered, ‘You’d better put protection on Lexi just in case.’

  KP and Patrick wandered off.

  As I walked back to the incident room I mulled over KP’s suggestion. Under the circumstances, I thought it was prudent – better safe than sorry.

  ***

  Before Ali went with the rest of the team back down to the basement to finish scanning the files for possible suspects, I asked her to organise protection for Lucy Graveney at 112 St Paul’s Road in Highbury, and at my flat for Lexi. It was six-forty.

  Paul sat at his desk on the computer. ‘What have you got?’ I said to him.

  ‘Patrick’s identified seven suspects up to now,’ he said. ‘I’m just cross-referencing names and addresses.’

  KP sat on a chair and skimmed through the files stacked on Paul’s desk.

  ‘OK, good,’ I said. I wandered back to my office. I hadn’t touched my in-tray for days.

  No sooner had I started on the twelve-inch pile, than KP came in. Stupidly, I had left the door ajar.