by J. F. Penn
Suddenly, Blake saw the sheet twitch where the woman's fingers must be. The doctor stopped and pulled up the sheet, checking the straps around her wrists, making sure they were tight. He placed the knife down and returned to the bench, picking up the dirty strip of linen covered in pieces of brain. As the woman's eyes fluttered open, he wrapped the linen around her mouth as a gag. She moaned, an animal sound of terror.
"Don't struggle, my dear," the man whispered, as he picked up the knife again. "You'll be far more useful this way."
Blake tried to pull away from the vision, tried to drop through the veils of consciousness. He didn't want to watch this atrocity, but as the doctor began to cut across the woman's face, he realized his hand was strapped to the book. He couldn't leave until Crowther allowed him to, he had to bear witness. As the doctor picked up the saw, Blake felt a scream rise up within him.
Chapter 21
The gallery was tucked into one of the hidden squares in the warren of back streets within the City of London. As she walked, Jamie tried to put Blake out of her mind in order to focus on the case. She still hadn't heard from him and she was worried, but then he was probably just curled up somewhere with a shocking hangover. Maybe someone lay by his side, and she definitely didn't want to dwell on that thought. He would answer his phone when he was ready, and she had enough to deal with right now. The murder at the cathedral was now complicated by the drugged wine and the motive for the murder of the Canon was clearly bound up in the hallucinogenic experience. But what was the point of sending those people mad? Now there was another murder, and the pressure to find a viable suspect was intense.
Morning commuters rushed past, most not even glancing at the police presence and crime-scene tape. Jamie wondered what could penetrate the armor of self-protection that Londoners assumed about them like a cloak. To survive here, city dwellers needed to let the news roll off their backs, remaining impervious despite the proximity of disaster. Selective perception was the only way to avoid going completely crazy with worry.
Missinghall munched on his second cheese and ham croissant, brushing crumbs from his suit jacket as they walked towards the cordoned-off area.
"Posh place," he said. "Guess this lot can afford this sorta thing."
"Art not your bag, Al?"
Missinghall smiled broadly. "Only the kind on a beer label."
His humor soon dimmed as they approached the crime scene. They suited up in protective clothing and signed into the log, checking the protocol with officers present. They walked into the glass-fronted gallery to see a few large canvases, all modern art, completely bereft of any realism. Exactly the kind of work that would sell in this area, Jamie thought, for anyone could project their own interpretation onto the canvas. The city thrived on the scramble for personal success, and art was still a reflection of wealth, even in these days of supposed austerity. Perhaps especially now.
Jamie smelled the body before they saw it, resonant of roasted pork and not unpleasant if you didn't know what it implied. They walked into the back room of the gallery where forensic pathologist Mike Skinner was still processing what he could of the body in situ.
A man was firmly tied to a sturdy chair, in a straitjacket with crossed arms strapped to the opposite sides. Next to the chair was a black box with leads that connected to electrodes on the man's closely shaven scalp. There were burns on either side of his head, the source of the roasted-meat smell in the air. Blood had dried around his mouth and there were spots of burgundy on the straitjacket.
Skinner lifted his head from the examination, seeing Jamie and Missinghall.
"The body was discovered by the gallery owner's assistant when she came in this morning to open up. The deceased is Arthur Tindale, owner of the gallery." Not known for his small talk, Skinner's tone was efficient and to the point. "I'll need to check for certain at the lab, but I'd say cause of death was electrocution." Skinner gestured to the box next to the chair. "This is an old device, originally used in electroshock therapy for mental illness, but the safety levels have been altered to produce a deadly voltage." Skinner shook his head. "It wasn't a quick death." He pointed to the mouth of the victim. "The blood is from where he bit his tongue during the shocks. This man was tortured with smaller doses before the voltage was taken up so high that his heart stopped."
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) had been used to treat severe depression, mania and schizophrenia since the 1940s. Jamie knew that these days it was delivered with muscle relaxants, but that there was still possible memory loss and other side effects. Despite claims of medical efficacy for major depression, the public impression was tainted by visions of death-row inmates in the electric chair and portrayals in films and literature. Indeed, Ernest Hemingway had committed suicide shortly after receiving ECT, his famous description of the experience: "It was a brilliant cure but we lost the patient." This murder was about madness yet again, Jamie thought, but what was the gallery owner's connection with Monro, or the Canon at the cathedral?
"Three makes a serial killer," Missinghall said quietly, with an inappropriate tinge of excitement in his voice. Serial killers were rare, despite the intensity of media and myriad fictional characters, and they had never had a case on their team. Jamie shook her head.
"I don't think we should go down that path yet, because of the media hype it will create. There's a connection between these murders, for sure. But they aren't random, and these deaths seem to be personal, so I don't think the general public is at risk. The question must be whether the murderer is finished yet, and what Arthur Tindale did to be targeted."
One of the Scene of Crime Officers dusted the electroshock machine for prints, but Jamie suspected the scene would be as clean as the Imperial War Museum and the crypt of St Paul's.
"You can get those machines on eBay," Missinghall said, looking up from his smartphone. "Maybe we can track down someone who bought one recently."
Jamie nodded. "Definitely worth following up." She walked over to the desk now that the SOCOs had finished processing it. "And we need to know what Tindale's link with madness was. Can you get something on his background, Al?"
Missinghall nodded and turned away to start making calls. Jamie looked down at the papers strewn on the desk, not touching anything, just processing Arthur Tindale's personal space. It was chaotic, but clearly organized in his own particular way. This was a man who actively ran his business, and who cared about the art he chose for his space, not just the income it brought.
There was a mockup of a brochure on the top of one of the piles, and the striking front image caught Jamie's eye. It showed a giant skull, bisected so the viewer could see into compartments that made up the interior of the brain. Jamie bent to look closer at the incredible detail of each mini tableau. In one cell, a woman was gagged and tied to a pole as a man whipped her back, blood pooling at her feet. In another, a tiny girl was trapped inside a spiky horse chestnut, but the spines pointed inwards, piercing her body and holding her prisoner, each movement ripping open her bare flesh. Yet another compartment showed a sickly, albino rat cowering in a dark corner, baring its teeth. There was a man strapped to a conveyor belt heading for a crushing set of rollers. The same figure beat on the glass walls of a test tube as giant scientists hovered, ready to pour a vial of pale green liquid over their subject. Creatures crawled around the edges of the painting, some recognizable as worms and lizards, but others fantastical nightmares, chimaeras of horror, and each was biting at the skull, trying to burrow inside.
With a gloved hand, Jamie turned the brochure over. The painting was called Labyrinth but there was no name of the artist shown. She glanced around the gallery again, but she knew the painting wasn't there. The piece was stunning, and she would have noticed it as they walked in.
There was an empty space on the wall opposite where the body had been secured. In a gallery with so few paintings, it seemed strange that the area had been left unadorned and Arthur Tindale would have died gazing at that exact spot.
>
"Al, can you find out whether there was any artwork on this wall? The assistant should know."
Missinghall nodded, getting his phone out of his pocket. "She's still with a female officer going over her statement. I'll find out."
Jamie looked around the office space, but there seemed to be no obvious records of the artists and their work. After the SOCOs had finished, they would be able to process all this paperwork. She looked down again. The painting disturbed her, and she recognized something of the colors in it.
Missinghall caught her eye as he finished his phone call, his face serious.
"You're right. There was a painting in that space yesterday. It was called Labyrinth. The artist was Lyssa Osborne."
"We need to find Matthew," Jamie said, remembering the look on his face when he had talked about his sister. She glanced at her watch. "His Bill on mental health is due to be debated later, but if we go straight to his flat, we should just catch him."
Chapter 22
The rain began as Matthew Osborne reached the gates of Kensal Green Cemetery. He lifted his head to taste the first drops, remembering the tip of Lyssa's chin and her laugh as she used to do just that. She had loved the rain, and the sound of it calmed her even in the rollercoaster of mania. He had installed a skylight in her bedroom so she could listen to the rain at night, the lull of it soothing her to sleep. Now, he let the water trickle down inside the collar of his coat, wanting the sensation of cold fingers on his spine, wanting to shiver. Anything to feel again.
Matthew walked through the graveyard, accustomed to the path now, the tombs familiar sentinels on his routine visits. He wanted to talk to Lyssa once more, now that his course was set. Finally, there would be justice.
In the maelstrom of his plans and the deaths of those who had betrayed the mad, he still found peace here, a haven for the dead and the people who loved them. It was one of London's oldest graveyards, and the resonance of emotions tied to the dead remained, hovering, brooding.
Matthew looked up at the struts of the gas works behind the cemetery, like the ribs of a skinless drum, a skeleton of a building that looked down upon these many dead. He walked down the wide boulevard, past the rows of graves jostling for real estate in the crowded space. Kensal Green Cemetery was an eclectic mixture of historic graves, faded names etched with dates of years past and new monuments with garish colors and kitsch ornaments. Matthew looked down at one tomb, decorated with the wet remains of tinsel and a garden gnome dressed as Santa Claus. In many cultures, the living came to eat and party at the graveside, sharing food and wine in memory of those who had passed on. In London, those cultures sat side by side with the British sense of decorum and repression of emotion, the hidden depths of grief smothered by a downcast look and silent tears.
The newly dead still had people to mourn them, but Matthew knew that the majority were forgotten within three generations. People said they lived on through their children, but that was just genetics, nothing else. Most people left no trace upon the earth. Many didn't even know the names of their great grandparents, but his Lyssa deserved more than this silent grief, and today he would wreak havoc in her memory.
He stared at the rows of graves, a dominance of crosses against the pale blue sky, interspersed with melancholic angels. Was it all about legacy in the end? Only deeds remain, as our bodies disappear into the earth, rotting away. Whatever the truth, Matthew found peace here, as he had always done in graveyards. Back in the days when their parents fought after too many drinks, he and Lyssa used to sneak off to the nearby churchyard. He would recite to her from the graves, teaching her to read that way and the old-style lettering became her favorite font in later life. They had stayed there late into the night sometimes, curled up and sheltered from the wind by the heavy stones and cradled in the lush grass on the older graves. Sometimes they slept there, and Matthew remembered waking early one morning, in the first rays of sun. He had looked down at his sister's blonde hair, her long eyelashes against perfect skin and he had vowed to do anything to protect her.
He passed the grand graves either side of the main walkway, the most expensive plots in this fight for celestial real estate. Those inside were all the same in death, rotting corpses with memorials tattooed in platitudes. He 'fell asleep,' she 'rests in peace,' they all 'sleep with the angels.' Everyone was described in glowing terms: beloved husband, devoted wife, perfect father, true friend. There were no sinners in the graveyard, all were cleansed of individual personality, reduced to a name, a date and the relationship to those who buried them.
Matthew walked on through the riot of stone crosses, gravestones and small monuments. Nature was on the edge of reclaiming this land, tendrils of ivy growing up around the feet of the angels, moss on the roof of the mausoleum, the cracking tombstones and listing monuments, sinking into the earth. The limbs of trees stretched out like a blessing, shielding their charges from the rain above, the noise on the stones a soft drip. He passed a grave with an inscription from Revelation: God will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. I am making everything anew. Matthew felt a strengthening of his resolve, for he had only to go forward now. To pave the way for a new order of understanding, he had to destroy the old order, and God wasn't the only one who could accomplish that. He reached out to touch an angel guarding a tomb, a gesture he found himself repeating every visit. The angel stood in a modest pose, head and eyes down, wings folded, hands clasped with a wreath between her fingers. Behind its watchful gaze, his sister lay sleeping.
Her stone was modest. Lyssa, Beloved Sister. Nothing more, for that defined her on this earth in his eyes. Her art had been but an outpouring of her name: mad, crazy goddess. Matthew knelt by the plain granite headstone, next to the mound of earth that marked the recent grave. He imagined her precious body beneath the dark soil, the worms that curled between her ribs, the insects that ate her flesh. It didn't matter, for her physical body had never been the remarkable thing about her. It was her mind that had soared above mere mortals.
Reaching into his pocket, Matthew pulled out a slim paperback. Lyssa had loved to read, loved to perform, so he still brought her books. There were other rain-sodden texts here, the remains of words that dripped ink into her grave, trickling through the earth to write his love on her corpse.
"Oh, for a muse of fire," Matthew whispered as he laid down a new volume, the words from Shakespeare's Henry V, the last play they had seen together. It had become his regular prayer, for she had been his muse, and now her light was gone. But he still had time to make others see as she had.
"It worked, Lyssa," he whispered, patting a little of the earth back into place, as he placed the book on her grave. "The drug worked, and the sane became moonstruck in St Paul's. The effects are long lasting, and my hope is that some of them won't ever return to mundanity but will stay in that other place." He bent to stroke her headstone, his voice full of regret. "You know that other place, you chose it over me after all. Now it's time to finish what I started and I'll be with you soon enough."
Matthew stood, looking down at the plot next to her. The double headstone was only half filled with her name, the space for his still empty. The mason had refused to carve it, calling it bad luck to inscribe a name while he was still living. Matthew felt an almost overwhelming compulsion to lie down next to Lyssa's grave, to coat himself in the earth that covered her. He desired only to lie in peace with her now, but there was one thing left to finish.
A massive sepulcher squatted behind Lyssa's grave, a giant stone edifice with letters carved in its side. Dominus dedit. Dominus abstulit. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. The words were from Job, the story of a man tortured by Satan, while God allowed his faith to be tested. The sepulcher's main door had been sealed when the last of the family had been laid to rest here a generation ago, but in the recent storms the ground under the tomb had subsided. The strain on the door had cracked the entranc
e and Matthew had managed to lever it open.
Looking around to check no one was nearby, he removed the crowbar from his rucksack and went to the door of the mausoleum. Gently, he pried it open, slipping behind it into the dark. The space smelled of damp earth, and the bodies that had once lain here were dust long ago. The dead were not the ones to fear, anyway; this graveyard was far safer than the housing estates just down the road, where violence terrorized children as once it had him and Lyssa. Here there was only quiet, the soft patter of rain on leaves and stone outside, the sounds that would outlast all who visited here.
Matthew pulled a camping lantern from his pack and switched it on, the fluorescent bulb lighting the inside of the tomb. For all its exterior ornate decoration, inside was just a rack of shelves covered in the dust of corpses. A whisper of memory lingered here and Matthew was careful not to disturb what remained.
He bent down, kneeling on the floor. He reached under the bottom shelf, feeling his way to the back, and pulled out a small case, the type that could hold a musical instrument. The type that you wouldn't think of questioning in this city of ultimate acceptance. He opened it to reveal ten test tubes and two empty spots for the vials he had used at St Paul's. Plenty left for what he planned today.