Selene: A disturbing DS Jason Smith thriller (A DS Jason Smith Thriller Book 6)

by Stewart Giles

  “I still don’t understand, what’s this sacrifice you’re talking about?”

  “Human sacrifice,” Smith said.

  Whitton shuddered.

  “Once a month, when the full moon was at its brightest, a man was sacrificed in the mountains of Northern Romania. His throat was sliced open and his blood was shed onto the earth. These maniacs believed they would appease some kind of pagan spirit and the crops would prosper.”

  “Does this sort of thing still go on?” Whitton couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “It did, until very recently. The leader of these people - their high priest if you want to call it that, died three days before Christmas Day last year. I believe this Selene woman found out about it and something snapped inside her. I think she really believed she had to carry on these sacrifices.”

  “You realise that nobody is going to believe you don’t you?” Whitton said. “Do you know how ridiculous this all sounds?”

  “I know, I’m afraid I’m going to have a hard time convincing anybody about any of this. Jessica Blakemore said something a few days ago that made me think. She mentioned something about traumatic events in childhood can have severe consequences later in life. I think the five years that Selene spent with these fanatics has finally burst out of her in a terrible way.”

  “I need a drink,” Whitton stood up and walked to the back door.

  “I’ve got just the thing,” Smith went to fetch his bag from the hallway. He took it back to the kitchen, opened it and took out the bottle of Tuica. He had managed to smuggle one back with him.

  “What on earth is that?” Whitton pointed to the unusual looking bottle.

  “Fire water. Romanian moonshine. I managed to get my hands on a bottle before I left.”

  He took out two shot glasses and poured two small measures.

  “It’s advisable to down it in one go,” he said, “otherwise you’ll never manage it.”

  Whitton picked up the glass and took a tentative sniff.

  “It doesn’t smell too bad.”

  “Cheers,” Smith raised the glass to his lips and drank.

  Whitton did the same. Her eyes were soon watering profusely and she let out a small cough.

  “That’s bloody awful,” she said.

  “I know. Do you want another one?”

  “Yes please.”

  After two more shots of Tuica, Smith and Whitton faced each other across the table.

  “Nobody is going to believe you,” Whitton said again. “They’ll think you’ve lost your mind.”

  “I didn’t believe it at first, but you should see the place where this Selene woman grew up. They’re still in the Dark Ages there. Anything’s possible in a place like that.”

  “What do we do now?”

  Smith eyed the bottle of Tuica on the table and shivered.

  “We go to bed,” he said. “And try not to think of what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT

  Monday 7 February 2011

  When Smith woke up, Whitton wasn’t lying in the bed next to him. He looked around the room. A thin sliver of sunlight was shining in through a gap in the curtains. He patted the bed where Whitton usually slept. It was cold.

  She’s obviously been up for a while, he thought.

  Theakston was also nowhere to be seen. Smith got out of bed, stretched and walked through to the bathroom. The door was ajar and the light inside was on.

  “Whitton,” he said.

  He suddenly realised that it was about time he started to use her first name when they were not at work.

  “Erica,” he said. “Are you in there? I’m dying for a pee.”

  There was no sound from inside. Smith pushed the door open and looked inside. Whitton was lying naked on the tiles next to the shower. Her eyes were open and she had a gaping wound in her neck. Blood had covered her bare chest. Smith tried to scream but the sound wouldn’t come out. He rested his shoulder against the door frame. He felt his legs give way and fell to the ground next to the sink. A knife with a peculiar rounded blade lay inches from his face. He screamed again and this time the noise echoed around the bathroom.

  Smith shot up in bed and lashed out with his arms. He knocked the clock on the bedside table flying and it smashed against the wall on the far side of the room. Whitton woke up and looked at him.

  “Another nightmare?” She said.

  “Worst one yet,” Smith realised his heart was pumping dangerously fast. “You weren’t in bed and I found you in the bathroom. You were lying on the floor with your throat sliced open. It was just like…”

  “Like Lucy?”

  “It was so real,” Smith lay back in the bed. “I think I might be close to losing it. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

  “Calm down,” Whitton stroked his forehead. “I told you, I think you should speak to somebody about it. Speak to Jessica Blakemore.”

  “I thought you didn’t like her.”

  “She’s not that bad.”

  “I’ll think about it. She did say she’d be interested in hearing about the dreams. What time is it? I seem to have demolished my clock.”

  Whitton took her phone off the table next to her and looked at the screen.

  “It’s half eight, I suppose we ought to get going.”

  By the time Smith and Whitton arrived at the station, the rest of the team had already been there for over two hours. Everybody was sitting in the small conference room waiting for them. Brownhill, Webber, Bridge, Yang Chu and Jessica Blakemore were waiting in anticipation to hear what Smith had found out in Romania. Smith sat down next to Brownhill and looked around the room. The absence of Thompson was noticeable for the first time since his death.

  “Morning,” Smith tried to sound as cheerful as possible. “Have you been waiting long?”

  “Long enough,” Brownhill said. “I hope that little holiday of yours was worth it.”

  “I think so. The woman we’re looking for is a Selene Lupei. She’s a Romanian who was last seen in the Ukraine twenty years ago.”

  He stopped there. He didn’t know how he was going to word what he was about to say next.

  “Before I begin,” he said. “I would ask you to listen with open minds. Most of this is difficult to comprehend - I didn’t believe it at first but I’ve had it confirmed by a few people and it seems to make sense now. All of this was actually happening in Northern Romania.”

  He proceeded to tell them about the sacrifices, the full moon rituals and how Selene was captured when she was a small girl and forced to endure the teachings of a fanatical so called priest. When he was finished everybody in the room looked at him as though he had lost his mind. Smith had not expected anything different from his rational colleagues.

  “That’s the biggest load of nonsense I’ve ever heard,” Grant Webber said eventually. “Do you actually expect us to believe all of this?”

  “I agree,” Brownhill said. “I must say I didn’t take you for the gullible type.”

  “I didn’t believe it at first either,” Smith said. “But when you think about it, it all fits together. This high priest dies and three days a lonely man is sacrificed here in York under the light of the full moon. Another man dies when the full moon appears again less than a month later. The weapon they used to use in the sacrifice is the same one that Webber came up with from the forensics reports. Luka Gravov knew what was going on and he wanted us to stop it but he was killed before he could get to us.”

  “I think you need more sleep,” Bridge said. “Or you need to see a shrink or something.”

  “I believe him,” Jessica Blakemore said.

  Everybody stared at her.

  “I agree it’s all a bit farfetched,” she said. “But I agree with him. This woman was eleven years old when she was abducted. She was then put through five years of psychological trauma. This trauma was bound to show its ugly face in one way or another.”

  “But human sacrifices
?” Yang Chu decided to join in the debate. “Surely that kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore. People don’t believe in that sort of stuff anymore.”

  “Yes they do,” Blakemore said. “What about the Muslims - the extreme terrorists, the suicide bombers. These people are willing to sacrifice their own lives for a higher purpose. Whether we believe it to be right or not is immaterial - there are still plenty of people who think that through the ultimate sacrifice, they will reap the ultimate reward.”

  “It sounds as if you believe in this full moon crap yourself,” Bridge said.

  Blakemore suddenly turned very pale.

  “Whatever you decide to believe,” Smith said. “The fact of the matter is this: people are dying when the full moon appears. I’ve checked and we have eleven days before the next full moon. Eleven days to find this woman before she kills somebody else.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY NINE

  An hour later they gathered again in the same room. Everybody had had a chance to mull over what Smith had told them. From the expressions on their faces, Smith could see that they still didn’t believe what he had told them.

  “Time is running out,” Smith said. “A thirty six year old woman by the name of Selene Lupei is going to kill another man in eleven days time. Does anybody have any suggestions on what to do about this?”

  “We could send out a press release,” Yang Chu suggested. “We can tell all the sad, lonely men out there to stay indoors and lock their doors during the full moon.”

  Smith glared at him.

  “Any constructive suggestions?” he said.

  “I’m still trying to get my head round all of this,” Whitton said. “But we need to start looking for this woman. We know her name now and we know where she came from.”

  “But we don’t know when she entered the country,” Brownhill pointed out. “She could have been here for twenty years or she could have been here three months. We just don’t know.”

  “I have an idea,” Bridge said.

  “Let’s hear it then,” Brownhill said.

  “The photograph of the young girl - why don’t we use the photograph?”

  “It was taken twenty years ago Bridge,” Smith said. “People can change a lot in twenty years - they can make themselves change.”

  “It’s just a suggestion,” Bridge said. “But there’s this computer program - it’s more for fun than anything else but there’s an app that can be used to show what people will look like when they’re older. I have it on my phone although you don’t want to know what I’m going to look like when I’m old.”

  “Get onto it,” Smith said. “We know she has black hair. I also have a photograph of her younger sister - she’s a few years younger than Selene but she looks just like the girl in the photograph.”

  Bridge stood up and left the room.

  “What else?” Brownhill asked.

  “How does a Romanian enter the country?” Yang Chu said. “I know that recently most of the immigrants have arrived via France.”

  “Check the records,” Brownhill said.

  “If I’m not mistaken,” Whitton said. “The records are pretty sketchy. Plenty of them get under the radar and aren’t even documented.”

  The room was silent for a few seconds.

  “Go back,” Smith said eventually. “We go back to the time just after she escaped from those lunatics. She was last seen in The Ukraine in ninety one. Where did she go from there?”

  “You’re not going to the Ukraine,” Brownhill said. “I have to put my foot down on this one.”

  “I have no intention of leaving York for a very long time. I have a strong feeling that she came straight here.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t know, one of those nasty feelings I get every now and then.”

  “How does a sixteen year old girl make her way to England on her own?” Yang Chu said. “Are you suggesting she did it by herself?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know how she got here but I know one thing, I’ve seen where she grew up. I very much doubt she had a passport. I suggest we look back to ninety one and ninety two and find out if anybody matching her age and description arrived here as a refugee. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out - there wasn’t the same influx of immigrants into the country back then.”

  Brownhill realised she was nodding her head unconsciously. Jessica Blakemore hadn’t said a word throughout the meeting. She had a vague smile on her face.

  “Let’s get onto it then,” Brownhill said. “Smith, you and Whitton find out from the immigration people if someone matching Selene Lupei’s description has entered the country. Find out if her fingerprints were taken when she was processed. We need those fingerprints. Yang Chu, I’m going to educate you in the art of damage control. We’re going to help Baldwin with the barrage of phone calls we’re going to get today from people worried about what they’ve read in the papers. Baldwin won’t be able to handle it on her own.”

  Everybody stood up.

  “Grant,” Brownhill said to Webber. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to make it for dinner tonight. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a very long day.”

  “I’m going to be in the lab all day and night anyway,” Webber said. “I’m going to go through everything I’ve got again. I’m sure I must have overlooked something. We’ve never hit such a brick wall like this before.”

  Brownhill nodded even though she knew that Webber never overlooked anything.

  “Smith,” Brownhill said as Smith was about to leave. “I’ve managed to stall the Super for as long as I can but, about that bloody award.”

  “I don’t want it,” Smith insisted.

  “Smyth is adamant. Please just humour him and get him off my back. He can be a real pain when he gets a bee in his bonnet.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Smith and Whitton were sitting in the canteen drinking coffee when Jessica Blakemore walked in. She looked utterly dejected. Smith thought she resembled a lost little girl.

  “Do you mind if I join you?” Blakemore asked.

  “Of course not,” Whitton said.

  Blakemore sat down.

  “I feel like a loose wheel,” she said. “I thought I’d come here to help but nobody seems to need my help anymore. I think it’s time I moved on.”

  Smith didn’t know what to say to her.

  “I came here with such enthusiasm,” Blakemore continued. “I thought I could use my expertise to help you crack this. It all started so well but now I just feel drained.”

  “We all do,” Smith said. “This investigation has taken it out of all of us.”

  “I think I’ve worn out my welcome,” Blakemore stood up. “It’s been very interesting working with you. I’ll see you around maybe.”

  Whitton nudged Smith.

  Blakemore headed for the door. Whitton nudged Smith again.

  “What?” He said.

  “The dreams,” Whitton whispered. “You said you would talk to her about your dreams.”

  “Hold on,” Smith said.

  Blakemore turned round.

  “There is something you can help with,” Smith said.

  Blakemore’s eyes widened.

  “I’m still having those disturbing dreams,” Smith continued. “The nightmares. The double awakenings - the ones where I wake up but I’m still dreaming. It feels so real. What did you call them? Lurid dreams?”

  “Lucid,” Blakemore laughed.

  Her eyes were sparkling.

  “Anyway, can you help me to stop them?”

  “I can try.”

  “I don’t want to lie back on a couch though. I don’t want to tell you all about my childhood and all that crap.”

  “How about a drink then?” Blakemore suggested.

  Smith looked at Whitton. Her eyes should have told him she didn’t like the idea but Smith didn’t appear to notice.

  “A drink sounds great,” Smith said.
“I know just the place. It’s quiet and we can talk in peace. The Hog’s Head. I’ll meet you there at seven.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” Blakemore smiled and walked out of the canteen.

  “We’d better get to work,” Smith finished the rest of the coffee in his cup.

  It tasted different - it wasn’t as repulsive as it usually was.

  They must have changed the brand, he thought.

  “You’re the boss,” Whitton stood up and walked out of the canteen without him.

  “Are you alright?” Smith turned on the computer in his office and waited for it to boot up.

  “I’m fine, everything’s just fine.”

  Smith typed in his password and a picture of Theakston filled the screen.

  “Where do we start?” Smith said.

  “How about a drink?” Whitton said in a nasal whine. “A drink sounds great.”

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Whitton said. “Apart from the fact that you’re going on a date with that psycho woman.”

  “It’s not a date. She’s going to help me with my dreams. Christ, it was your idea in the first place.”

  “I didn’t mean you had to take her out on a date. Get into the system mainframe and look for the immigration records.”

  Smith was about to say something but changed his mind.

  I’ll never understand women, he thought.

  He found the records for all the people who had entered the country in ninety one and ninety two. Over eighteen thousand people had decided to remain permanently in the UK in those two years.

  “This is going to take some time, more than eighteen thousand people came here in two years.”

  “That’s nothing,” Whitton said. “Look at this.”

  She pointed to the most recent immigration figures.

  “Last year, over a quarter of a million people came here. The whole country is going to burst at the seams if this carries on. We need to narrow it down a bit.”