Village of Ghosts

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  Constable Barnes found the body in the saloon bar of the Blithe Spirit. Only stepping out for a moment, the distraught woman said. She thought Prudence had gone down the hall to use the loo.

  Prudence had died as had all the others, spinal shock, followed by removal of the heart. He and Ravyn returned to Stafford with Dr Penworthy, leaving Powell-Mavins’ forensic team to process the scene. He glanced at the clock, forced himself into motion. He had an appointment to keep in the morgue.

  “Go on home, Stark,” Ravyn said to him in the hallway. “Get some rest. I’ll witness the post mortems.”

  “Are you sure, sir?” Stark knew Ravyn’s aversion to observing the procedures. “I can do it. I’m fine.”

  “Go home to your wife, Stark,” Ravyn said. “Let her know all is well. You’ve called her, I’m sure, but she’d probably appreciate the reassurance. She can’t be very happy about you being called out again, especially so soon after getting in.”

  “I can’t say I was either, sir.”

  Ravyn handed Stark a half-sheet of paper in a plastic evidence bag. “Angus brought this to me. Found it under the body.”

  The paper had been folded and a corner was stained with blood. Dirt from the floor had pressed into the grain of the paper He read the typed message.

  Dear Miss Holloway (the message read) Something unforeseen has come up and I must speak to you immediately. Please meet me in the saloon bar. This is strictly confidential. It will not take more than a few minutes

  “You never sent this, sir,” Stark said.

  “Read the typed signature,” Ravyn said.

  “It says ‘DCI Arthur Ravyn,’ sir, but I know you never…”

  “You’re making the same mistake Miss Holloway did, Stark,” Ravyn said, his tone edged with impatience. “Actually read it.”

  “It says DCI Ar…” His mouth moved but no sounds emerged. “It says DCI Artful Ravyn.”

  “He’s toying with us, Stark, and that will not be tolerated,” the chief inspector said. “The screams to summon us to his crime and now this. His compulsion remains his driving force, but he is trying to make a game of it. His reasons for killing remain the same, but now he is drawing us in as his adversaries. Another aspect of his nature emerges—hubris.”

  “He’ll get overconfident, sir,” Stark said. “I’ve seen it before, and I’ve no doubt you have too: a bloke gets away with murder, more from luck and circumstance than any intelligence or skill. He decides he’s smarter than the police—stop me if you can. As you say, sir, a game. One misstep, though, then it’s clap him on the shoulder, caution him, and toss him in the chokey.”

  “Well, yes, only one blunder,” Ravyn agreed. “But his is the advantage, being able to watch us from hiding. We cannot afford to wait for him to make his one blunder. It may be long in coming.”

  “Chief Inspector Ravyn,” a constable called. He rushed to the two men. “You’re wanted in Superintendent Heln’s office.”

  Stark gritted his teeth. Ravyn gave the faintest of smiles and said: “Please tell the superintendent I will be there shortly.”

  The constable fidgeted. “I’m supposed to escort you, sir.”

  “You’re to do what?”

  “I’m supposed to…”

  “Bugger off, you silly prat,” Stark said. “Can’t you see that me and the chief inspector are discussing a case? Don’t make me kick your flaming arse all the way down the hall.”

  “Ah, okay, Sarge, the chief inspector is…indisposed,” the lad stammered. “I’ll let the Super know you’ll be along, sir, as you are no longer…ah…indisposed.”

  The two detectives watched the young constable scarper down the corridor and around the corner. Ravyn turned to Stark.

  “I’m not sure whether you’ve made an enemy, but you surely put the fear of God in him,” Ravyn remarked. “It’ll be a long while before he interrupts a conversation again…even when protected by the aegis of Heln.”

  “Felt good, sir.”

  “I would not recommend resorting to that strategy very often, Stark, as it can easily backfire,” Ravyn said. “In this case, however, I would say it was just the kick in the seat needed by that young prat. It appears you’ll have to…”

  “Yes, sir,” Stark said. “I’ll get what I can from Dr Penworthy.”

  Ravyn refused the evidence bag from Stark. “Since I am going to follow the trail blazed by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, it would be best if you held on to this. Let’s keep it between ourselves, for the time being.”

  “But Mr Powell-Mavins and…”

  “You may always depend upon Angus’ discretion.”

  “Yes, sir,” Stark said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “After the post mortem, I want you to investigate Lester Post right down to his shoelaces,” Ravyn said. “Also, tear the records apart looking for that damned Boil child. Find out when and where they merge. Maybe that will give us some idea of what happened to Post after the Hatton Garden robbery. He cannot change his nature, so there has to be a connecting thread that runs through all three identities. Find that thread, we’ll reel him in.”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll do my best.”

  Ravyn smiled. “Of that I have no doubt whatsoever.”

  “Good luck, sir.”

  Stark watched the chief inspector down the hallway. Nothing in his movements betrayed any anxiety, any hesitation. He frowned, trying to understand the significance of the names mentioned by Ravyn. A dimly recalled Sunday School lesson percolated through the morass of his memory. There was a fourth man in the furnace, claimed the old story, but his name was not Ravyn.

  “I thought your guv’nor was going to attend, for once,” Dr Penworthy said when Stark entered.

  Stark donned the necessary gear. “He was summoned to…”

  “Ah, into the lion’s den,” Penworthy interjected.

  Stark sighed. “Can we move along, Doctor?”

  “It has been a long night for all of us, Sergeant.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr Penworthy, it’s just…” He paused. “Well, it’s complicated, and, truthfully, not a lot has to do with this case.” He reflected again on the poor bloke being ripped in half by the two horses; he thought he had reined in one of them, but was now not so sure. He should have taken the call, he realised. “It’s personal.”

  “As you know, the chief inspector and I often do not agree, but Arthur is correct about one thing—our private lives should remain private,” Penworthy said. “If it is indeed personal, you should keep it to yourself…unless talking about it will help.”

  “Thank you, Dr Penworthy, but, no,” Stark said. “I’ll work this out on my own. I always do.”

  “As you wish,” she said. “But the offer is a standing one.”

  Penworthy first conducted Sir Phineas Smythe’s post mortem, then that of Prudence Holloway. In each case, she moved efficiently, recording each step of the process. Stark had expected no surprises, and, indeed, there were none. Both victims died immediately from expertly broken necks. The removal of the heart in each case was on a par with that of Simon Jones, hurried but efficiently done.

  “Your killer is no stranger to this, Sergeant,” Penworthy said as she cleaned up.

  “Neck breaking or heart taking?”

  “Both,” she replied. “As I said earlier, inducing terminal spinal shock is not as easy as they show on the telly or in the cinema. It not only takes strength, it takes practice, a great deal of practice.”

  “So, a string of unsolved murders might…” He paused. “Could a child do this? I don’t mean these murders, but breaking necks in general. If a child were to start with small animals, you know, pets, could he perfect the technique and carry the skill into adulthood?”

  Penworthy shuddered. “Children are brutal creatures, like the killer-apes from which they descended. To answer your question: absolutely. A child chancing upon this method of killing would have a definite advantage over someone starting out as an adult.”

&nbs
p; “How so?”

  “As I said, sufficient strength and a knowledge of anatomy is necessary for lethal spinal shock,” she said. “But anyone wanting to be successful time after time must also be quick. There must be no hesitation, no chance for the victim to thrash about. An adult doing it for the first time, might hesitate, but not a child.”

  Stark considered the little hellions of the East End, who were often thieves and hitters almost before they were out of nappies. They were quick and vicious. Usually, it was not long before they graduated from petty villainy to murder.

  “Think about when you were a child, Sergeant.”

  “I was a handful, but nothing deadly.”

  “Actually, I was thinking of how fearless we were as children,” she said. “When jumping off a bridge into a river or leaping across a ravine while running with our mates, we didn’t hesitate. We didn’t stop to consider consequences or dangers. We just did it. If we got banged and bruised, well, that was just part of the game.”

  “So, if a little monster got the neighbour’s doggie, he wouldn’t give a flip of a thought about giving the neck a twist.”

  “Not a moment’s hesitation.”

  “If he did it enough, he’d learn to do it right,” Stark said. “He’d enter adulthood with a precise knowledge of killing.”

  Penworthy said: “Now, I’m not a psychiatrist, but I’ve studied human nature… Don’t you roll those eyes at me, young man!”

  “Sorry, Doctor, but…”

  “Yes, I know how Arthur can be, but I am not him,” she said. “Your hypothetical child would enter adulthood with a specialized skill set, but also with a lack of empathy and more than a little narcissism. That would stem from years of being a hidden killer, not only a wolf in the fold, but a wolf unsuspected by others. After all, every sort of excuse is proffered for children—boys will be boys, he’s only a child, he looks so sweet and innocent.”

  “That camouflage would cease once he grew up, wouldn’t it?” Stark wondered how much of Penworthy’s opinion of children came from study, and how much from experience. “He would no longer have people making excuses, protecting him. He would have to be more careful to keep from being found out.”

  “His techniques of hiding would have to be modified,” she said. “But he would already be an expert at it.”

  “What about the heart taking?” Stark asked. “Could that have developed in the same way as the neck breaking?”

  Penworthy shrugged. “Possibly. Little boys love to take things apart to see how they work. I suppose that one peculiar boy with a penknife over a long summer could learn more about anatomy than a medical student could in a semester.”

  “That is who I am looking for, Doctor,” Stark said. “A most peculiar boy.”

  Stark looked in Ravyn’s office, but the chief inspector had not returned, either from the furnace or the lion’s den. If he were to have half a hope of understanding what Ravyn and Penworthy said, Stark thought, he would have to upgrade his reading.

  Back at his computer, Stark searched all databases for traces of Victor Boil. With many files not digitized, he chased shadows and rumours. Victor was classed a probable suicide by the Hammershire CID at the time, but Stark found reports of vagrant boys, crimes involving a child, and suspicious deaths involving broken necks. It was slow going, but Stark felt he was making progress.

  Tracking Lester Post was another matter. His education and life were well documented. Too well, documented, Stark thought, as if carefully laid down. When he looked behind the records, actually speaking to schools at which Post supposedly trained, the block of flats where he supposedly lived, Post’s life fell apart. Out of that rubble, Stark pulled a name—Vance Brockman.

  “Any joy?” Ravyn asked as he approached.

  “Yes.” Stark hesitated, then asked: “How did…I mean…”

  “Closed doors.” Ravyn leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Heln was fit to chew carpet. ACC Ramsey had a talk with him.”

  “What about, sir?”

  “Constable Barnes,” Ravyn said. “Because of what happened to Prudence Holloway, he was planning to have her guts for garters, my own as well, and was making no secret of it.”

  “Barnes made a mistake, but anyone…”

  “Heln did not know Barnes had already submitted her letter of resignation to the Chief Constable,” Ravyn said. “She stated she did not follow my instructions, letting Miss Holloway leave the room. Heln believes I put her up to it, submitting directly to Sir Geoffrey.”

  “That’s a tough break for her, sir,” Stark said. “Don’t know her well, but she seems competent, better than most around here.”

  “Yes, she has potential,” Ravyn said. “ With any luck, the ACC will get her to reconsider; I’m sure Karen will try her best. It will still be a black mark, but time erases even the darkest stain.”

  “What about the injunction, sir?”

  Ravyn frowned. “I’m afraid that’s dead in the water. Now, tell me what I need to know.”

  With an economy of words and verbatim quotes when he could manage, Stark told Ravyn about the post mortems and the analysis by Penworthy. Then he reported what he had discovered about Victor Boil and Lester Post.

  “And who is Vance Brockman?” Ravyn asked.

  “He worked for the Noonan Crime Family.”

  “Ah, Manchester,” Ravyn said. “Drugs and nightclubs?”

  Stark nodded. “Started as a doorman…”

  “In old Desmond’s footsteps.”

  “…then was moved up when they found he had a knack for arm twisting,” Stark continued. “Necks too, I’d wager, for there was a spate of murders in Manchester at the time. The victims were all rivals of the Noonan Brothers and all died from spinal shock.”

  “You think Brockman and Post are the same man?”

  “I do, sir,” Stark replied. “Things got hot for Brockman. Seems there was a dark side to his personality they could not overlook. One of the Noonan girls ended up in hospital, so maybe something to do with that. The man sent to take care of him ended up brown bread, neck broken, and Brockman vanished.”

  “To reinvent himself as Post?”

  “Post’s life begins when Brockman’s ends,” Stark said. “He picked up knowledge about security systems with the Noonans, then increased his skills by ‘on-the-job training,’ if you get my drift. Learned how security systems work from the inside out. When he created the Post persona, he used his computer skills to insert all the educational and professional references to make it look legit. As you said, sir, a bored computer clerk trapped in his cubical—it looked good on paper, so no one bothered to do the legwork.”

  “How do you tie this to Victor Boil?” Ravyn asked.

  “Tenuously,” Stark admitted. “Here’s a scenario: Victor Boil terrorizes Little Wyvern till he’s eight, looking in windows, killing neighbourhood pets, and channelling the Warlock. When he burns down the cottage, killing Mum and Dad, he flees. He knocks about, keeping low, living rough when he has to, killing when he feels like it, and taking whatever he needs to survive.”

  “It would have been easier back then,” Ravyn said. “Computers were rudimentary, the internet nonexistent and databases insular. He could hide, but I think the issue is that no one really wanted to find him. They wanted him gone, and as long as he never showed his face in Hammershire again, the CID was happy to write him off as an unrecorded suicide. Sloppy police work.”

  “Near as I can figure, Victor gradually made his way north till he hit Manchester and became Vance Brockman,” Stark said. “He ran with street gangs, then eventually fell in with the Noonans. My best estimate is he graduated from the streets at about fifteen.”

  “Victor Boil finds obscurity in Vance Brockman, and an outlet for his violence,” Ravyn mused. “The Brockman persona becomes untenable, so he hides in plain sight as Lester Post. When Nevis and Post fall out after the robbery, with Simon Jones in the wings, he abandons the Post identity like an insect shedding a co
coon.”

  “The question, sir, is who slithered out of that cocoon?”

  “I still believe we’re dealing with a villager, a newcomer with a decade or less living in Little Wyvern,” Ravyn said.

  “We’ve run background checks on everyone,” Stark said. “All have solid histories with no gaps.” He held up a palm. “And, yes, all backgrounds verified. I co-opted a few uniforms to make the calls.”

  Ravyn sighed. “He’s somewhere in Little Wyvern, Stark, hid in plain sight, a wolf among all those sheep.”

  Stark said: “He can only make a mistake if he tries to kill again. If he decides to lay low, to not kill, he may slip away.”

  “He’ll kill, no doubt about that,” Ravyn said. “Being in Little Wyvern has awakened an aspect of his nature suppressed since he was eight. No longer is he channelling the spirit of the Warlock; he is becoming the Warlock. The séance will bring him into the open.”

  “At St Barnabas?”

  Ravyn shook his head. “No matter what Agnes Swanner may think, the Council is not going to go against the wishes of a vicar, not even one as unpopular in Little Wyvern as Reverend Allen. The séance will go as planned, near the oak from which Hezekiah Boil was hanged. Victor Boil will not be able to resist.”

  Later, as Stark headed out, he noticed a slip on his desk that had not been there before. He looked around, then unfolded the paper and read: The window is closing. There was no signature. It did not need one, Stark thought.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe the bloody Council denied our request to use the church for our séance,” Agnes said, her voice low and animalistic. “They don’t understand things are changing, the old guard fuddies, but they are. Ghosts are the future of Little Wyvern. If they can’t see that, then their time on the Council is limited. I’ll see to it.”

  “Why so important to have it at the church?” Pettibone asked. “I think it much more appropriate to have it at Hopkins’ Oak.”

  She glared across the table at him. Once more they were in the Blithe Spirit, this time in an upstairs room.

  “It’s already a sold-out event,” he reminded her, trying his best not to wilt under her stare. “Besides, think of all the changes we’d have to make. And you know the vicar would dog our every step. We wouldn’t be able to do anything he would not see.” He paused. “He would not keep his mouth shut, would he?”