Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death

by M B Vincent

  ‘How dare you?’ laughed Pan. ‘That is sacred copulation between the ancients. I bet Dr Jessica Castle knows all about it. Now, Mr Pig, there’s some long words coming, so I’ll go slow for you. Hieros gamos.’

  Both men looked at Jess.

  ‘Hieros gamos,’ she said, ‘is sex elevated by ritual. The female, or goddess, or Mother Nature if you like, bestows qualities of leadership on a mortal male, via the energy of sex.’

  ‘Kind of Carry On up the Ancient Gods,’ said Pan. ‘Proper kinky and a lot of fun. Innit, ladies?’ He moved his legs and the bedding quaked happily.

  ‘Stop giggling!’ said Eden. ‘You seem to have many goddesses, Pan.’

  ‘Nah. These are handmaidens.’ Pan looked at Jess. Intense. A look she assumed he’d used on Caroline. ‘Not many actual goddesses around, but you do come across them now and then.’

  ‘What are all these?’ Eden pointed with his pen to a row of painted masks mounted along the caravan wall.

  ‘They’re our ceremonial masks. The masks of Babylon.’ Pan squinted round Eden at Jess. ‘Do you like them, my darling? We wear them in the pursuit of absolute pleasure.’

  ‘Not really into dodgy papier mâché. They’d look more at home in a primary school.’

  ‘Ah. Spirited.’ Pan smiled approvingly. ‘We like spirited. You, my sweet, are welcome to join us. But you,’ he turned sharply to Eden, ‘will need a warrant, my old cock, if you want to linger longer.’

  Eden took out his notebook. ‘Tell you what, I’ll show you a warrant when you show me proof of ownership of this vehicle.’

  Pan was unnervingly still until his shoulders gave way and he let out a howling guffaw. ‘Clever boy. Actually, I keep that in storage along with my other documentation. It would be reasonable, would it not, to grant me a day or two to retrieve it?’

  Eden was grave. ‘Where were you last night?’

  ‘That’d be telling.’

  ‘I expect you to do just that. Now.’

  Stalemate.

  A face emerged from under the sheet. ‘He was here,’ cheeped Caroline. Mascara made sooty tracks down her cheeks. Her pupils were pinheads.

  Jess’s insides froze. Eden was right. This wasn’t like archaeology. It was sordid.

  ‘You were here with him?’ asked Eden, pointing at Pan.

  Caroline nodded, pulling a sleeping bag up to her nose.

  ‘All of you?’

  ‘Yes,’ came a unison reply from under the covers.

  ‘We were enacting the ceremony of Babylon,’ said Pan.

  ‘What time did this ceremony start?’ Eden was dour.

  ‘Sundown.’ Pan lifted his arms as if to embrace the spiritual wonder of such a time.

  Caroline said, ‘About a quarter to nine.’

  ‘And when did it finish?’

  Pan’s smile was wolfish. ‘It’s still going.’ Bodies rippled beneath the covers. ‘Ooh,’ sighed Pan, eyes closed, lascivious. ‘Just ask ’em. I was here all night. All. Night.’

  ‘Fine,’ Eden replied, snapping his notepad shut. ‘I’m not finished with you, Pan.’

  ‘Ooh, is that a promise, sir mister policeman sir?’

  Jess and Eden sat for several silent minutes in the parked Ford Focus. He had pulled a sandwich out of a bag. He didn’t eat it. He just stared at the ramshackle caravans sinking into the mud.

  Jess needed a shower. She’d been a student; she was no stranger to grotty living. But she’d never witnessed anything as low as this. It would be sweet to punish Pan for what he was doing to Caroline.

  Eden drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Who knows if those women are telling the truth? He’s probably trained them to vouch for him. But if they say they were with him last night, I have to accept it.’

  ‘Poor Caroline,’ sighed Jess. ‘She’s got a kid. They’re vulnerable.’ An idea struck her. ‘What if he’s violent towards them?’ she asked. ‘You could get him for that at least. How about you let me talk to Caroline? Maybe I could get her to admit that he hurts them, then you bring him in.’

  Before Jess had even finished, Eden was resolutely shaking his head. ‘He’s got them in his thrall. Even if this Caroline did say something, she’d retract it afterwards. In any event, I couldn’t let you talk to her without my being present.’

  ‘I could wear a wire.’ Jess rather fancied wearing a wire.

  ‘Those masks. Of Babylon.’ It evidently cost Eden to quote Pan. ‘What did you make of them?’

  ‘Masks are profound,’ said Jess. At ease. In her comfort zone. ‘We have a fascination with them. We’ve been wearing them for about nine thousand years. Masks disguise, entertain, protect. They transform men into gods.’ She looked over at Pan’s pleasure palace, its wheels missing, bin bags taped over the windows. ‘Pan’s masks are craft-shop nothings.’ She took the sandwich from him. Death made her hungry. Like everything else.

  Eden looked at his sandwich. Mourning it. ‘Yet he did know about hieros gamos.’

  ‘People, and by people I mean blokes, often cherry-pick paganism for the rude bits. Doesn’t mean he has real knowledge.’

  ‘He clearly has a criminal history of some sort. Clued up about his rights. He can play the system.’ Eden started the car. ‘I need to do some digging.’

  ‘Do you really think it’s him? Would Pan crucify people?’

  Eden looked at her. ‘No hunches, Jess, remember?’

  ‘Not like Columbo.’ She took a last look at the campsite.

  Eden drove like a seasoned cabbie. Neat turns. Appropriate speed. As they neared the police station – he asked Jess not to refer to it as the cop shop – they passed a fleet of bulky vehicles at the Bell Street junction.

  ‘Shit. Here we go.’

  ‘Sky News,’ read Jess, as a white van stood idle at the lights, a satellite dish on its roof. ‘BBC.’ A silver trailer the size of a horsebox tailgated its uppity rival.

  ‘We won’t be able to move for reporters.’ Eden’s anger manifested in a slight tightening of his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘They’ll sensationalise everything. Get in my way.’

  Jess sank in her seat. Castle Kidbury was her secret, her haven. Tonight it would be reduced to a telegenic rectangle on screens all over the country. ‘They might help.’

  ‘The media have their own agenda. They’ll nickname this idiot, giving him publicity.’

  The leviathans dwarfed the cars around them. Made the shops look even more twee. The twenty-first century had planted a metallic paw on Castle Kidbury. Jess had pressed a pause button on the town when she left home; by coming back she’d hit play. This was a fantasy, of course; life had gone on without her. People had aged. The library had closed down. Her father had fallen ill.

  ‘The sooner we solve these murders the sooner we can shoo away Sky News.’ She sensed rather than saw the small lift of Eden’s eyebrows at that ‘we’.

  ‘This kind of scrutiny means the top brass getting nervous about the optics.’

  ‘And in English?’

  ‘I could be taken off the case if I don’t close it quickly. I need to stay. I take the responsibility of Castle Kidbury’s safety more seriously than some media-savvy blow-in. I’m local, that matters. I have far more chance of catching this individual.’

  ‘You can say bastard. I won’t faint.’

  ‘I can’t afford emotion, Jess.’

  His need to stay on the case, however, was entirely emotional. Jess believed his zeal; there was nothing careerist about Eden. I’m not cynical about him. For somebody who’d been cynical about Noddy in her high chair, this was an accolade.

  ‘I saw somebody at Gavin’s gig you should pull in.’ She hoped that was the right expression. ‘Pushy sod. Boasted that he designed the Baldur logo. The one on Keith’s body.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Too busy disliking him to ask.’

  The speakerphone butted in.

  ‘Guv,’ said Knott. ‘I’m at Theresa Peake’s abode. Can you hear me?’
r />   ‘Go ahead, Knott.’

  ‘I broke the news of the death gently to her.’

  I bet you did, thought Jess.

  ‘And she’s taken it very badly. Hysterical. Can you hear me, sir?’

  ‘Knott, this is the latest technology. I can hear you.’

  ‘She’s under sedation, sir. Doc says we can talk to her later today or tomorrow morning at the latest.’

  Jess found a packet of crisps in the glovebox.

  ‘Ms Peake’s very shocked, sir. Reckons she loved this Gavin Blake. Is that . . . was that a crisp crunching? Is that woman with you?’

  Despite being dismayed that she could be identified by the sound of cheap snacks, Jess rather liked being ‘that woman’.

  ‘Knott, get a couple of the team onto checking out all owners of vans large enough to carry a crucifix.’ Eden turned to Jess. ‘Keith’s cross was jointed in the middle. Our man’s inventive.’

  ‘Will do, sir.’

  ‘Have Paul Chappell at the Echo on standby. If our killer’s MO remains constant, he should expect a box to turn up at some point. I want it the minute it arrives.’

  ‘I’ll make that clear, sir. Can you h—’

  Eden severed the connection. ‘Five days.’ He followed a minivan through a narrow turn. ‘Since the last murder.’

  ‘Does it mean anything?’

  ‘Everything means something.’

  ‘True.’ Echoes sounded in Jess’s head now that she’d recovered from the day’s gory start. ‘Did you see that enormous yew tree in the churchyard? St Agatha’s is famous, well, famous locally, for that yew.’

  ‘And Hecate’s connected with the yew.’

  He does listen. ‘It’s a stretch, but maybe draping Gavin over Jesus on the cross is a reclamation of the church for the old ways.’

  ‘Bring me facts, Jess.’ He seemed to relent when she was silent. ‘Listen, you’re my way into this guy’s head. Keep doing what you’re doing. It’s valuable.’

  ‘What am I, though? Do I get a title? Ooh, am I a consultant?’

  ‘If you like.’

  Bit of a lukewarm response, thought Jess. ‘Don’t I get something with the title? Like an identity card? A badge. How about a siren for my Morris Traveller?’

  ‘Don’t push it,’ said Eden.

  At the window table of The Spinning Jenny, Jess trotted through her messages.

  Many from Mary:

  I’m at the police station their tea is shite

  I’ve told da copz everything five times over!!!!!

  I’m at harebell house boggie has put me to bed with soup i love boggie!!!!

  One from the faculty head at Cambridge, which she deleted without opening.

  One from her father:

  Much as I like Mary I would appreciate some notice regarding visitors.

  It was tempting to reply to the Judge with advice regarding removal of the stick up his arse, but Jess talked herself down from that ledge. It was his house, after all. He had a right to be consulted.

  Sorry Dad.

  Ogham was less dense than communications between the Castles.

  Through the window, a power-suited woman with a microphone accosted passers by outside Lady Jayne. A burly man with a shoulder-mounted camera filmed Mr Kuzbari shaking his head, dodging away. A woman laden with carrier bags ignored the reporter. Patricia Smalls crossed the road in order to casually saunter past. Jess saw the feigned surprise when they spoke to her. I hope you’ve got all day, Sky News lady.

  Jess snatched up her phone. Were she and Rupert at the asking-each-other-out-for-coffee stage? Would he take it all wrong? What did all wrong mean anyway? Should she text him? Before she’d thought it through she’d already sent a message.

  Free for a coffee at Spinning J? In need of legal advice.

  A white lie. Everybody knew they didn’t count.

  At the counter, Squeezers doffed an imaginary cap at Jess. He turned back to Meera, cupping a filthy hand to a filthy ear. ‘Eh, lovey, what’s that? No credit?’ He looked incredulous in his decrepit trench coat. Darling, who was at his feet despite the ‘Guide Dogs Only’ sign, whimpered. ‘I’m a man of my word.’

  ‘You’re a man of many words and I’m not interested in any of them.’ Meera turned her back.

  From the hinterland of the kitchen, Moyra appeared. Tall, thin, with a dish mop of peroxide hair, she backed up her partner. ‘No cash no coffee, Squeezers.’

  ‘Here, I’ll buy him a coffee.’ Jess knew she was being had. It didn’t matter.

  ‘Shame to have coffee without a nice sausage sandwich to go with it.’ Squeezers batted his eyelashes.

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘Thank you, dear lady.’

  ‘Squeezers, do not kiss my hand.’ Jess cringed in her chair as he approached, crouching, subservient. ‘Tell me something. How many times have the police called you in for one of their little chats recently? Say, in the last month.’

  ‘This month, hmm, about five times.’ Squeezers picked his nose. ‘May’s been a bit of a slow one.’

  ‘That’s outrageous, you see that, right?’

  ‘Outrageous, yes,’ said Squeezers mildly. ‘Thank you again. You have facilitated an important business meeting with my associate over there.’

  A man waved from the corner table, tucking away his copy of the Sun. Ryan, half man half rat, was Castle Kidbury’s premier creep. Mean-faced, smelling of cigarettes, he had somehow won the heart of Carli from the Royal Seven Stars.

  Wondering what kind of business these associates had to discuss, Jess earwigged. She caught only snatches of baffling conversation. ‘Washing machine.’ ‘Risking my life.’ Then Ryan banged the table. ‘I want to meet Beefy Dave or the deal’s off!’

  Beefy Dave. Squeezers’ shadowy puppet master, the one who pulled the strings of all Squeezers’ pathetic crimes.

  She realised that Moyra was talking to her, and agreed that, yes, these murders were terrible and what were the police doing about it and, no, she didn’t feel safe walking around her own town.

  Ping!

  There in five.

  He was there in four. ‘You know me so well,’ said Rupert, taking up the latte Jess had waiting for him. ‘What’s the legal problem?’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Jess. ‘I can’t really talk about it.’

  Rupert’s bottom paused an inch above his chair. ‘So why am I here?’

  ‘Because it’s sunny and you can’t work every day and there’s coffee and I’ve run out of reasons.’

  Rupert smiled to himself. Sat down.

  ‘I mean, I could ask for your input about the serial killer case I’m consulting on.’ Jess wondered how smug she looked. Very, probably. ‘But the details are classified, so . . .’

  ‘Didn’t we agree you weren’t going to get involved?’ Rupert’s face morphed from playful to grave.

  ‘We didn’t agree anything.’

  ‘This guy’s dangerous. You could end up being a target.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Jess hadn’t thought of that. Was it silly? Or was Rupert making a valid point that most adults would have thought of?

  ‘Your brother’ll kill me if I stand by and let you get yourself nailed to a cross.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the main reason I don’t want to be crucified. Because my brother would be piqued.’

  The door opened and Eddie flew in. Out of breath. ‘Emergency at my pub,’ he gasped, leaning over the counter, red in the face. ‘We’ve run out of green teabags.’

  ‘Oh Eddie.’ Moyra flicked him with a tea towel. ‘You had me worried. Thought there’d been another murder.’

  ‘No, Moyra, love. I reckon he’ll lie low for a while. He might skulk off, start again in some other part of the country.’ He spoke with the authority of an excopper. ‘The problem is once it starts to escalate. They can’t hold back. If there’s a third murder, there’ll be a fourth hot on its heels, believe me.’

  ‘DS Eden will catch him before that,’ said Jess from
her seat.

  Eddie wheeled round. ‘Eden?’ He paused. As if he had plenty more to say but wasn’t sure whether he should. ‘Solid detective,’ he said eventually. ‘Good lad.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Rupert. ‘He’s a good lad. All right, Eddie?’

  Jess wondered at the abrupt change in Rupert’s accent; he’d hurtled downmarket. Oh dear God, he was being blokey. For Eddie.

  ‘All right, Rupes,’ said Eddie. He accepted the green teabags from Meera. ‘Cheers, love. We’ve got reporters in at the Seven Stars. They’re looking for quinoa and vegetarian options and whatnot. I knew you two lesbians would have this sort of healthy nonsense in.’

  Meera rolled her eyes. Moyra shook her head. ‘We don’t have green teabags because we’re lesbians, Eddie,’ she said. ‘We have them because we’re a tea shop.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Eddie thanked them, offered to pay, was refused, said he’d return the favour. ‘Give me best to your dad, Jess,’ he said with a wink as he left.

  Colliding with Eddie, Danny and his mother came in with a flurry of ‘Oops’ and ‘No you first’ and ‘Thank you’.

  ‘Isn’t it marvellous news?’ Danny’s mum spotted Jess and squealed at her. ‘The murder! It means Danny’s exonerated.’

  Danny, at the counter, taking a scholarly interest in the iced buns, wasn’t celebrating.

  ‘I rang Mr Eden first thing and told him that Danny was in all night and I know that because now I sleep on the landing outside his bedroom door.’

  ‘That must be hard.’ For both of you, added Jess silently, watching Danny’s back as he prevaricated between pink or white icing.

  ‘I have to keep him away from her.’

  Meera silenced the cafe with a squeaked, ‘Turn it up! Turn it up!’

  Squeezers raised a grimy hand to the television fixed to the wall. Darling stole half his sandwich and bore it off beneath a table.

  ‘It’s Eden!’ Meera clapped as if she was at the circus.

  ‘Shush! Listen,’ said Moyra.

  ‘—all we can to find this dangerous criminal. In the meantime, I have no further comment except to urge local people to be vigilant. Stay safe and report anything suspicious. Thank you.’