The Nameless Dead

by Paul Johnston

  ‘Thank you. This way, please.’

  I followed the blonde doctor into a different glass room, this one with a hospital bed on it. Thick leather straps dangled down from it.

  I lay down reluctantly. ‘Is this going to hurt, Alexandra?’

  ‘You more than me,’ she replied, as the gorilla fastened the straps.

  ‘Great. Would you like to talk me through your process?’

  She started attaching electrodes to my forehead and chest.

  ‘It’s very straightforward. A cocktail of drugs will be injected and then your brain will be stimulated in ways too complex for you to understand. All you need to do is relax.’

  ‘Right.’ I felt less than reassured. ‘Two more questions. How long is this going to take?’

  ‘You’ll be back in your quarters by morning. Don’t worry, Ms. Oaten has been informed.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Tell me, will I be the same person when you’ve finished with me?’

  Alexandra Brown smiled, this time with some warmth. ‘Better, Mr. Wells. I guarantee you’ll be a better person.’

  ‘What if I don’t want to be better?’

  She ignored that. ‘Deep breath, please, as the needle goes in. Very good.’

  ‘Hey, I hardly even felt…’

  Major Andrew ‘Slim’ Carstens had commanded the City of Philadelphia Police Homicide Division for four years, but he had never seen anything like this. As soon as he’d been advised of the scene in the apartment north of the university, he had driven straight there. He’d been present for three hours and had decided to deal with the FBI people himself. A mobile command unit had been stationed on the street and he had taken refuge there as soon as he could. Just after 11:00 p.m., two men in dark suits were ushered into the trailer.

  ‘Andy,’ Peter Sebastian said, extending his hand. ‘How are you keeping?’

  Carstens stood up. ‘Pretty good. Until tonight.’

  Sebastian nodded. ‘I hear it’s a bad one. This is Special Agent Arthur Bimsdale. He watches my back.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t need that.’ The major had met Sebastian several times over the years during high-profile cases and at law enforcement conferences. He didn’t much like him.

  ‘You coming with us?’ Sebastian asked, as a uniformed officer handed him a bag containing protective garments.

  ‘Yup. Let’s see what the CSIs have turned up in the last hour.’

  ‘I gather the dead man has been identified,’ the senior FBI man said, as they headed for the three-story building.

  The major nodded. ‘Dr. Jack Notaro, history professor at the University of Pennsylvania down the street.’

  ‘What did he specialize in?’

  ‘Italian fascism, apparently.’

  Sebastian gave him a sideways look.

  ‘Who found the body?’ Bimsdale asked.

  ‘One of his girlfriends, Alicia Finn,’ Andy Carstens replied. ‘She was also one of his post-grad students. You can’t talk to her, I’m afraid. She had to be sedated. She was meant to be on a flight to San Francisco, but she missed it and came back.’

  ‘One of his girlfriends?’ Sebastian said, as they took the stairs to the second floor.

  Carstens looked over his shoulder. ‘The neighbors told my guys that he had plenty—most of them young and pretty.’

  Bimsdale cleared his throat. ‘These days most universities have regulations preventing faculty mixing with the student body.’

  ‘Nicely put, son,’ the major said. ‘I’m guessing Dr. Jack didn’t pay those regulations much attention.’

  White-suited technicians were working on the door and frame. They stood aside to let the trio enter the apartment.

  ‘Jesus,’ Sebastian said, his eyes widening.

  The body of a tall and well-built man was suspended by the ankles from a hook in the ceiling. He was naked and the points of his fingers were touching the wooden floor. The entire body was covered in so much blood that it was hard to discern at first that its eye sockets were empty.

  ‘The medical examiner reckons he was knocked out by a heavy blow to the front of his head,’ Carstens said, shaking his head. ‘Then what you can see took place, probably postmortem.’

  Bimsdale squatted down and examined the floor. ‘The blood looks like it was painted on.’

  ‘You’re right, son. There are marks from a three-inch brush on both body and floor.’ The major pointed to the table behind the corpse. ‘We think the victim’s throat was cut after he was strung up. The killer probably lifted him onto the table before attaching him to the hook, then bled him into the basin over there.’ He pointed to a red plastic container at the far wall.

  ‘Must be strong,’ Bimsdale said. ‘Unless there was more than one of them.’

  ‘There are footprints that don’t match the victim’s, size nine Reeboks.’

  ‘Meaning we have an individual with average-size feet, if it’s a male,’ Sebastian said. ‘And oversize biceps. Any other traces?’

  Carstens shook his head. ‘Smudged fingerprints. Obviously wearing gloves.’

  ‘Witnesses?’ Bimsdale asked.

  ‘None so far.’

  ‘Let’s concentrate on the body and the scene right now, Special Agent,’ Sebastian said, looking around the living room.

  ‘You need to see this,’ Carstens said, going to the rear of the body. He pointed to two gaping holes, one on each side of the lower back. ‘The killer took his kidneys.’

  Arthur Bimsdale craned forward.

  ‘He hasn’t seen that kind of mutilation before,’ Sebastian explained.

  ‘One of the victims of the Occult Killer in D.C. had his kidneys removed, didn’t he?’ the major said softly.

  Sebastian shook his head. ‘No, his kidneys were skewered, but they were left in situ.’

  ‘Still, could there be a connection?’

  ‘Too early to say, Andy. So the killer took both eyes and kidneys?’

  The major nodded.

  ‘Where’s the bathroom?’ Sebastian went in the direction Carstens pointed, stepping around a CSI who was examining a sheepskin rug.

  Another technician, this one female, was standing in the bath and bagging hair samples.

  ‘Have you checked the toilet?’ the FBI man asked.

  ‘It’s gleaming,’ the woman replied. ‘The vic must have had a cleaner.’

  Sebastian raised an eyebrow at her and headed for the bedroom beyond. The main feature was a king-size bed, covered by a quilt with what looked like a Native American design. The walls and other surfaces were not marked with blood or any other obvious sign of the killer’s presence.

  ‘This scene is different from the others,’ Sebastian said quietly, when he rejoined his assistant in the living room.

  ‘No Nazi words or symbols?’ Bimsdale asked.

  ‘No. And no body parts in the bathroom. I wonder why.’

  ‘It isn’t unheard of for killers to change their M.O.’

  ‘Thank you, Special Agent, I’ll bear that in mind.’

  Andy Carstens bit back on a smile as he came up to them. Sebastian’s tongue had always been sharp and he’d been on the wrong side of it more than once. He’d also been outsmarted, but he was damn sure that wasn’t going to happen again.

  ‘Have you looked behind all the paintings and posters?’ Sebastian asked.

  The major nodded. ‘Nothing doing. The Nazi connection was kinda public in the Boston murder, wasn’t it?’

  Sebastian nodded.

  ‘Maybe we’ll find something in daylight,’ Bimsdale suggested.

  The older men looked at each other.

  ‘Obviously you’ll want anything of that sort to be kept under wraps,’ Carstens said to Sebastian.

  ‘Won’t you, too?’

  The homicide chief nodded. ‘I’ll get extra people on the streets at first light.’

  ‘Make sure they cover any evidence up rather than destroy it,’ Sebastian said.

  Andy Carstens didn’t like his tone, bu
t refrained from comment. Peter Sebastian had been known to screw local law enforcement over big-time.

  ‘Do you want joint command?’

  Sebastian shook his head. ‘We’ll stay in the background, at least for now. Special Agent Bimsdale will keep in touch with your people.’

  The major was surprised, though he didn’t show it. Since when did the FBI stand back in a case like this? he asked himself. Then he thought about the potential consequences. If the killer was hard to catch, there was nothing but failure and opprobrium in store for the officer in charge of the investigation. Which meant two things. Slim Andy needed to keep a close eye on the Bureau’s head of violent crime. And it was time he did some serious delegation himself.

  Nine

  There was a flash of white light and I came round. Doctors Brown and Rivers huddled at the foot of the bed. I let them confer for a while, my mouth and lips drier than raisins. Finally they noticed that my eyes were open.

  ‘You’re awake!’ Rivers’s face was unusually animated.

  I looked at his colleague. Alexandra Brown’s cheeks were glowing and her eyes were bright.

  ‘Fantastic, Matt,’ she said, gripping my forearm. ‘You did really well.’

  I was glad she was happy, but I was still tied down and desperate for a drink. I looked pointedly at the cup on the bedside table.

  ‘Undo the straps,’ I gasped, after I’d been given water through a straw.

  They glanced at each other.

  ‘Not yet,’ Rivers said. ‘Dr. Brown’s protocol is that we must wait an hour.’

  ‘Wonderful. So what happened? I heard music, the Who, I think, then I was falling…’

  ‘I’ll need you to tell me everything you can,’ the woman said. ‘But the results I have so far are very encouraging. Your readings are better than I ever expected.’ She was like a schoolgirl with a new crush, though not on a human, but a process.

  ‘Calm down, Alex,’ I said.

  She shot me a look that was slightly less icy than normal. ‘Excuse me. I’ve been working on this for a long time.’

  ‘Good for you. Just tell me what it means for me.’

  ‘Very well.’ She went back to efficient-scientist mode. ‘It’s difficult to describe for the layman. Basically we tapped into the deepest levels of your memory. Much of the data will need extensive analysis before its significance can be established. The process caused you to speak numerous words in German that we think were triggers. The reverse-conditioning action that I have built into the procedure means that those words will no longer provoke you into predetermined courses of action.’

  ‘Try me.’

  She looked at Dr. Rivers, who nodded. They went over to the bank of screens at the foot of the bed.

  ‘Blaue Reiter,’ she said.

  I felt absolutely nothing.

  ‘Remarkable,’ Rivers said. ‘Quite remarkable.’

  ‘Machtergreifung.’

  The same again.

  ‘Wohlauf.’

  Ditto, and so on. In every case, I remained completely unaffected. That was unlike the sessions I’d had with Rivers, when I always had to fight the triggers’ effects consciously, with varying degrees of success.

  ‘Congratulations, Dr. Brown,’ Rivers said, gripping her hand. If he hadn’t been such a dry old stick I’d have bet on him inviting her for a candlelit dinner when we were done.

  ‘That isn’t all, Mr. Wells,’ the female scientist said, levels of formality in the lab now fully restored. ‘You also gave certain information that I think will interest our FBI colleagues substantially.’

  ‘What information?’

  ‘Please, Mr. Wells,’ Rivers said. ‘You can’t expect us to share classified material with you.’

  ‘Classified material? You just said it came from me. Why can’t I know what it is?’

  He was looking uncomfortable. ‘Those are the rules.’

  Dr. Brown was getting excited again. ‘Are you sure you have no recollection of what you said?’

  I shook my head. ‘I fell for a long time. After that, I found myself walking through a forest, and then crossing a river on a small boat. There was smoke in the air and I heard voices, a lot of them crying. I went through a ruined city, but there was no one around. Just more voices…’ The scene seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  ‘That’s very gratifying,’ Dr. Brown said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The “katabasis” was induced by my process,’ she said proudly.

  I found my bearings. It so happened that I knew what the term meant—a descent, specifically to the Underworld. When I was at college studying English, I did a project on the literary tradition of such journeys. I’d always been fascinated by the depiction of hell in Milton’s Paradise Lost. That had led me in all sorts of strange directions: from Wilfred Owen’s subterranean First World War trench poems, to the trips to the death god’s realm described by Homer and Virgil, to the urban wastelands of T.S. Eliot. I’d brought in works of art, too—ancient vases and sculptures showing Charon and Cerberus, visions of demonic horror by Hieronymus Bosch and Peter Brueghel, Rodin’s sculpted Gates of Hell. The fact that the Rothmann conspiracy had involved a satanic cult called the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant and had previously spawned a killer who left maps of hell attached to the victims meant that the literary and artistic traditions had extra significance for me, no matter what Alexandra Brown’s drugs and other methods of suggestion had brought out.

  ‘So you did brainwash me.’

  She gave me an imperious look. ‘Certainly not. My process is directed toward the extraction of material from subjects, not the insertion of predetermined stimuli. The emphasis is on making use of structures already present. Do you have some knowledge of underworld voyages?’

  ‘You’ve read my file. My whole life has been one of those recently. What about the triggers?’

  ‘What about them?’ said Rivers.

  ‘Wakey, wakey, Lester. Do you think Alex here’s process has nailed them all?’

  ‘Please don’t call me that,’ the pale woman said.

  ‘How about Sandra? Or Lexie?’

  ‘Please, Mr. Wells.’ She was irritated. One-nil to me.

  ‘Probably,’ Rivers said, in a low voice.

  ‘Is that a scientific term?’ I asked.

  ‘Unfortunately it is,’ he replied. ‘We have now identified a total of one hundred and seven trigger words and phrases. The likelihood is that there are few, if any, remaining.’

  ‘It’ll only take one,’ I said, remembering the murders in the cathedral. That shut them up.

  Eventually they loosed my bonds and let me go. My legs were unsteady and there was a vile metallic taste in my mouth. Dr. Brown said those side effects would soon disappear. I hoped the same could be said for any psychological effects of her process.

  On my way out of the lab, to my surprise, I saw that it was after four in the morning. The gorilla had been told to escort me all the way back to our apartment. I managed not to screw with him by turning into a werewolf on the way. Karen was awake, but drowsy, so I kissed her and lay down beside her.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘They told you I’d be late, didn’t they?’

  ‘Yes. What was Rivers doing?’

  ‘He’s got a new sidekick. Dr. Alexandra ‘I’m Pale Because I Only Come Out at Night’ Brown. She’s not only a grade-one weirdo, but she’s got a process.’

  ‘That sounds worrying.’

  I gave her a rundown, wondering if she’d be put through it after she’d given birth. Were the drugs safe? Then I felt myself heading rapidly toward sleep’s Niagara Falls. I managed to kiss her again before my barrel went into the watery void. My last thoughts were: what exactly was in Dr. Brown’s pharmaceutical cocktail? And was I about to set off on a trip to hell?

  I woke up with a clear head and serious hunger, having had no dinner the previous evening. It was nearly noon. Karen was encamped on the sofa, watching a
kids’ cartoon on TV.

  ‘I’m getting in training,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, we’ll be seeing a lot of those in the next few years. How do you feel?’

  ‘All right, I suppose. My appetite seems to have gone walkabout.’

  ‘So you don’t fancy a full English?’

  She gave me a foxy smile. ‘As in breakfast? No, thanks.’

  ‘Sexual innuendo at this time in the morning? Shame on you, Karen Oaten.’

  ‘Why don’t you try “Karen Wells”?’

  ‘Because I know you’ll keep your own name. That’s who you are in the Met.’

  ‘Work isn’t everything, Matt.’

  ‘I never thought I’d hear you say that.’

  She took my hand and put it on her bulge. ‘We’ve got someone else to think about now. Magnus Oliver Wells.’

  ‘Where did “Oliver” come from?’

  ‘My grandfather on my mother’s side. I liked him.’

  ‘Okay.’ There were worse names. Like Heinz. Or Sebastian. ‘I’m ravenous. Do you mind if I stuff my face?’

  Karen shook her head, then pulled me closer, her eyes suddenly damp. ‘Don’t ever leave me, Matt.’

  ‘Of course I won’t. What’s got into you?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s an emotional time. Now go and have your grease feast.’

  When I came back with a plateful of eggs, bacon and sausage, I sat at the table. Karen had drifted off to sleep, so I left the cartoon and found a news channel.

  I was halfway through a mouthful of food when I heard the announcer’s voice get serious.

  ‘In the City of Brotherly Love, a gruesome discovery,’ said the over-made-up woman with huge hair. ‘TV stations, including our own, were directed by anonymous calls to a disused factory in North Philadelphia. There, the crews found human organs said to come from murdered university professor Jack Notaro. His body was…’

  The pictures showed a scrum of cameramen and reporters around a police line.

  I watched as a tall man wearing a senior officer’s insignia on his uniform jacket and cap inserted himself between two street cops. Microphones were immediately directed at him, like arrows on their way to Saint Sebastian. Which made me wonder where the FBI man with that surname was. I was sure this was where he and Bimsdale had flown off to last night. The caption read Major Andrew Carstens, Philadelphia Homicide Chief.