Dark Coven

by Nick Brown

  “You smell awful, get upstairs, I’ve a bath running.”

  He went: it avoided having to ask her the things he wanted to, for the moment at least. She did baths well: perfumed oils, scented candles, the whole works, and he needed them to wash away the smell of the police cell and the sweat of his fear. After a few moments the door opened and she entered carrying a steaming bone china mug.

  “Here, drink this, don’t worry, it won’t put you out, quite the opposite if anything. When you come down we’ll have a glass of wine and you can talk.”

  Then, almost without moving, she was gone. He lay back in the bath sipping the infusion, whatever it was, staring out through the partially steamed up window at the bare trees tossing their heads in the wind at the edge of Lindow Moss. He began to sense the fear draining out of him, and by the time the water had flowed from hot to tepid he felt ok, even vaguely aroused.

  When he got downstairs, enveloped in a bathrobe, she was sipping a glass of wine and listening to a jazz trio playing a surprising version of Purcell’s Dido’s Lament. She got up as he entered and he saw she had changed and was wearing the soft, clingy, long white wool dress she had worn on their first date. He suspected she hadn’t anything underneath, which was confirmed when she stepped across to him and into his arms. She locked her mouth onto his and he realised how much he wanted this. He had pulled the hem of the dress up to her buttocks when something clicked in his mind, reminding him there were questions he needed to ask. He pulled his mouth free to speak but she said first:

  “Giles, baby, don’t let a little misunderstanding over a few silly bones get in the way of what really matters.”

  As she said this her hand had been inching its way down his chest towards his groin. As it reached its target, any idea of what he wanted to say evaporated.

  Later, as he lay in bed listening to her soft breathing and watching the lashing rain being driven in waves across the orange streetlight outside, an unwelcome thought came to him. How did she know about the bones?

  *******

  Viv understood she’d reached a crucial point in her relationship with the Chief Constable. He’d spent the minutes since she entered his office cursing over her handling of the arrest, without giving her chance to answer. She’d bitten her lip up to now, but it was getting to the point where it was too provocative to keep silent.

  “We look like bloody idiots, like we’ve no bloody idea what we’re doing. They make a big bloody noise about sending us some bright lass from London to show us how it’s done. Might have been better if you’d spent a bit more time on the beat: did me no harm, waited to do my qualifications, turned fifty before I started a management course. MBA it were. Now I’ve got Carver on my back for releasing that bloody archaeologist and Jim-bloody-Gibson after me for letting you arrest him in the first place. Now you tell me…”

  But she’d heard what she needed to cut in.

  “Excuse me, Sir, but how could they have known that he was being held? We released no details.”

  “No, but news travels fast and we have to keep our constituents in the loop.”

  “That could have compromised the case.”

  “Don’t you talk to me about compromising the bloody case, it weren’t me who arrested him before even bothering to check with the Greeks. Didn’t it occur to you at the time that he might have been helping them? Like it turns out he was.”

  She decided to let him talk himself out.

  “And now, and now, the bloody Greeks are interested in our killer, seems they think it’s connected to theirs, which makes me think they’re not so sure they cracked their own case. So what do you think they want to do now? Well, I’ll tell you, because it seems that your little chat with bloody Zorba went so well that they want to send someone over here.”

  Viv didn’t think she’d got Theodrakis’s first name over the phone, but she was fairly sure it wasn’t Zorba. But he was still going.

  “That’ll look really good that will, first we get sent you and now they’re sending a Greek to show us how to do things. A country where the banks have closed cos there are no bloody jobs, no bloody currency, no bloody government, and where the police all wear armour and carry guns, except now there’s no bloody money to pay them, so there’s no bloody law and order either. They’ll be sending us John Terry next to teach us about fair play.”

  He paused, out of breath, and she wondered if this was the point when she could restore an element of perspective, but he started laughing.

  “Or send Sarkosy to join our high jumpers, or Berlusconi to be the next Archbishop, or Louis Suarez to teach us self control.”

  He got out a handkerchief to wipe his eyes.

  “Ok, I’ve got it off me chest and I heard what you said about talking to Carver and Williams, you were right on that. But I meant what I said about Zorba: he goes with your team. But it’s a strange one that, he outranks you and it seems he’s well connected politically, so why do they want him sent over here?”

  He was serious now. She found it hard to get a fix on him. He was hard to categorise because underneath the ‘good old boy Lancashire hillbilly shtick’ there was an acute mind, which he obviously sometimes was at pains to conceal.

  “Anyway, apart from the cock up over the arrest I suppose you’re not doing too bad; Jimmy seems to rate you and, on the whole, he’s a good judge of character. So now I’ve bollocked you we can get on as before.”

  He picked up the phone.

  “Bring us two teas, please. Oh, and some of them assorted chocolate biscuits.”

  Then he turned back to Viv.

  “So, now tell me honestly; what the hell’s going on?”

  The admonishing was over and normal service resumed. Although not wanting to be, Viv was impressed with the way the Chief Constable was able switch from one style of operating into a more relaxed one. The tea was brought in; she composed herself to make sense of what she was going to tell him, sat back in the chair and crossed her legs.

  “The evidence takes us nowhere, I suppose that’s why we questioned Glover, and there weren’t any other leads. Compared to this, the London case was uncomplicated. There we had a torso in the river: neither prints nor head, but at least a dossier on similar and related cases, information to share, even cultural clues pointing to where communities could help us. Here there’s nothing: no context, no motive, no background. It’s as if this isn’t real, like it’s some type of horror film, nothing makes sense.”

  She paused for a moment then asked:

  “Sir, I need to ask you why there was such a delay in linking these attacks, why so little information was shared and then, after all that, why I was drafted in? It looks like the approach to all this has been turned on its head.”

  The Chief Constable grimaced and ran his large hands across the stubble on his beefy head before answering.

  “I’ll tell you this only once, after that don’t ask me again. We didn’t connect the attacks at first because there was no motive, no similarity between the victims and no common MO. It just seemed like an unrelated series of events: the early ones weren’t hurt badly, it was only after a couple of months that we got the first fatality. When we looked more carefully, it seemed there might be a pattern that linked the university with the estate at Skendleby. But we were warned off, well not quite warned off, but it was made fairly clear that there were some important planning developments scheduled for round there, and that since nothing we’d come up with to date led anywhere near an arrest, or even a lead, there was no point in causing a problem.”

  “So, what changed things so much that I was drafted in?”

  “That’s the strange part: seems that somehow the developers themselves got the shit scared out of them in some way. One of the political backers killed himself, leaving a suicide note that implied there’d be more killings. After that, having been told to lay off the case, we were told to speed things up. Only apparently, and I quote, ‘the local wooden tops weren’t up to the job’, and t
hat’s where you come in.”

  He put his head back in his hands and said in a quieter voice:

  “And perhaps they were right, we had no bloody idea. But then again, we’d had our hands tied behind our backs. Anyway, since then there’s been another killing so, as the met superwoman, you need to come up with something pretty bloody quick.”

  “Ok, but you’re going have to back me up over some strange decisions.”

  “Understood, it’s that type of case.”

  “Well, the only thing that seems to tie all this together is that, just like you said, the attacks run from the university to Skendleby, and it all kicked off once the excavation there started.”

  “Hang on; you’ve already made us look stupid by bringing that archaeologist in for questioning then holding him.”

  Viv sighed, exasperated.

  “Yes, I know, that was a mistake: but there’s still a connection. He led the excavation and was then disciplined for some weird attempt to close it back up. He then goes to Greece where there’s an outbreak of similar attacks, and he knows stuff about the bones and rituals in the killings. Stuff that we don’t know. We should try a different approach on him.”

  Now it was the Chief Constable’s turn to sigh.

  “You’ve not much chance there, you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t make an official complaint.”

  “I hope he’s still too scared to try that. I sent Jimmy to take him home, try and appease him a bit, you know, good cop, bad cop. He should be back by now, I’ll get him in and see how he got on.”

  “You’ll have to wait for that, I’ve sent Jimmy to the airport to pick up Zorba.”

  “Well, in that case, fill me in on the developments planned for the Skendleby estate by the influential Mr Carver, because I want to interview him soon.”

  “I’d stay clear of him, at least for now, you’ve stirred up enough trouble as it is. He doesn’t welcome any attention and his money’s a significant part of economic regeneration round here, so we try to forget about the dirty way he made it.”

  She could feel the petulant scowl rearranging her facial expression as she folded her arms tightly across her breasts and said:

  “I can’t accept that, Sir. Skendleby is central to us stopping these killings and if you don’t let me investigate the leads I need to then you’re stopping me doing my job, and if that’s the case I don’t see how I can continue here.”

  “They said you could turn awkward, said that all the smiley charm was just a front and that underneath it all you were a real ball brea…”

  He paused and quickly corrected himself.

  “I mean an iron fist in a steel glove.”

  She said nothing, just stared at him, aware of his discomfort. Let him stumble on while she tried to work out how to move things on. He continued to stumble but without any sign of concession.

  “Look, leave Carver alone, at least until you’ve got something concrete. There’s no connection to Skendleby in this last killing.”

  “Except that it took place less than two miles away.”

  She knew she ought to back off a bit, but also knew her own fixed mind. Her dad said she was like a dog with a bone, would never give way when she knew she was right. Instead she dropped into the intervening awkward silence:

  “I’m sorry, Sir, I can’t carry out this case with one hand tied behind my back.”

  Then she added, against her better judgement,

  “Even if it is inside a steel glove, or a velvet glove as the saying actually goes.”

  “I meant exactly what I said and I mean this too, so listen carefully. Stay away from Carver.”

  Deadlock. How long they would have remained staring at each other in stony silence and who would have given way first they never found out. There was a knock on the door and a uniformed sergeant who Viv didn’t recognise came in.

  “Sir, ma’am, I thought you’d want to hear this right away; there’s been another killing. This time on the Skendleby estate, right by the Hall.

  Chapter 9: Dazzle to Drizzle

  The dazzle of sunlight reflecting from the shiny white paper blinded him, making it too painful to read. He fished, with eyelids half closed, for the shades trapped in the lining of his jacket pocket. Eventually he worked them free and fixed them over his blinking eyes: Lion Square settled into a tenebrous and more comfortable prospect. Life was returning to normal, or as normal as it was possible to get these days as many ordinary people, guilty of committing atrocities in the aftermath of the murders, tried to forget their actions. To Theodrakis, it had been like the violent orgies of The Bacchae out of the pages of Euripides: the return of ancient horrors.

  Greece was holding its breath but the economic crisis was still biting and the few cafes still open were crowded with people huddled under sun shades, stretching out hours over a single coffee and glass of water. It was late in the year yet still the heat was intense; water was limited and fire warnings were in place. This was when the island was meant to get its rain and the newspapers were postulating that ecological catastrophe had arrived and summer would never end.

  After a moment, he restored his gaze to the short document and introductory letter. The latter was from a friend of his father’s at the ministry in Athens, and in an attempt to soften the blow it addressed him by his first name, Alexis. The document was more formal, in that he was Astinome Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis and he was directed to assist the Greater Manchester Police in their attempts to bring to justice a serial killer.

  It stank of an excuse to get him out of Samos, out of Greece: but why would they want that? He had wrapped up the case pretty neatly, and as Greece was tumbling out of the euro zone and into anarchy he guessed that the Grafficocratia in the capital had more important matters to deal with as the lull in the rioting was probably only temporary.

  This took him onto another more frightening train of thought, one that six months ago he would never have considered and would have regarded as the product of a broken mind. But his experiences on Samos had changed him irreversibly, so he let his mind wander onto the message of Vassilis.

  And not only Vassilis: he forced his memory back, back to the terrifying moment in the bar in the village. The moment when instead of sitting across the table from Captain Michales, he found himself looking directly at the messy, degraded corpse of Samarakis, staring in horror, unable to move as the partly decomposed jaw started to move and the vocal chords began functioning one last time. The apparition told him he was not finished with the horrors on Samos, but that he was doomed to follow them somewhere colder, somewhere from which he may never return. Then it was gone, morphed back into Michales.

  Maybe as a one-off he could have dismissed this as a delayed reaction to the shock his system had been dealt by his experiences over the preceding couple of months. But it wasn’t a one off: Vassilis had told him something similar and hinted that there were forces beyond his understanding which controlled his destiny and his movements, and that the free will he thought humans possessed was merely an illusion. Even Yaya Eleni warned him that the events on the island would sweep him up and carry him off in pursuit of events, and now, out of the blue, his superiors were ordering him to England.

  The thought of Hippolyta’s grandmother tore at his heart; leaving Samos meant leaving Hippolyta. Leaving his one love affair and the only successful physical relationship of his life. How could he tell her? How could he leave?

  He signalled to the waiter that he wanted to pay and braced himself for the usual argument. Since the end of the killings he’d been credited with almost supernatural powers, and everywhere he went people tried not to charge him. This was very different from when he first arrived: then they’d seen him as an evil influence from Athens, perhaps even in league with the killers. He supposed he’d have to go through pretty much the same process in England. He’d already spoken to the English officer in charge of the case on the phone, she had no idea of the horror she was up against and he envied her this temporary
innocence. What advice could he give other than run away? Despite his reputation he knew he’d been little more than an ineffectual bystander to what had happened on Samos. Forces beyond his understanding had ended the spate of unnatural ritual killings, for reasons he couldn’t even guess at. He didn’t even know if the good guys, if there were any, had won.

  Waiting for the bill, he read the orders again.

  “Following the approach of the Greater Manchester Police in England through the correct diplomatic channels, we are transferring you for a temporary posting. You are to assist the chief investigating officer there on enquiries into a series of attacks that have similarities with those you so successfully investigated on Samos. This has been sanctioned at the very highest level in the ministry in Athens. Further instructions and travel arrangements are being sent separately.”

  That was all, a short paragraph that dissolved his happiness and threatened his very existence. The irony was that at first he’d hated Samos, regarding it as a medieval backwater. Now he loved it, and had been angling for his posting to be made permanent. He felt that they owed him enough to make that happen. He had nothing against England, he’d done a year at Cambridge and quite enjoyed it, but that had been through choice.

  He gave up waiting for a bill that obviously would never arrive, left some coins on the table and moved off. Before he spoke to Hippolyta about the posting he’d see if he could find Vassilis, see if he would help. Like everyone else on the island he had stayed away from the Vassilis estate since the lynch mob had torched it after the killing of Antonis and the disappearance, presumed dead, of Alekka.

  He didn’t know what he’d find up there but had an idea that some trace of Vassilis may still be around. The mob hadn’t been able to find him and in any case, Theodrakis was pretty certain that whatever Vassilis was, he was way beyond the power of mob vengeance.

  He was about to call for a police driver when he thought better of it: no point in stirring things up again. He hated driving but reckoned this time he needed to. He was concentrating on controlling the car so much that he was half way up the isolated track leading to the Vassilis estate before he noticed that everything had changed.