Murder Path (Fallen Angels Book 3)

by Max Hardy

  ‘You do realise that technically you were withholding evidence and I could come down on you like the proverbial ton of bricks. Give me one good reason why I don’t, and what the hell is the significance of the bear.’ she fumed, still not satisfied with his apology.

  Strange looked down from her angry features to the soft toy in his hands, a slight smile breaking through his anxious face. ‘He’s called Ian. It’s Jacob’s favourite bear. One good reason why you shouldn’t come down hard on me is the other piece of information in the note.’

  ‘Which was?’ she queried, irritation simmering in each syllable.

  ‘That Jacob is alive.’ he answered, quietly.

  Cruickshank opened her mouth to speak, shock weaving through the irritation, replacing it with confusion, then closed it again, shaking her head, lost for words.

  ‘I felt exactly the same Gaynor. He can’t be alive. I was there when Featherstone Hall blew up. I saw Jacob on a TV screen, inside that crate in the middle of the drawing room in the Hall. I know he was in there when it exploded. How can he be alive? But then John told me to trust no one. His exact words were ‘Even your closest friends, family and colleagues could be playing you, just as they have been us.’ Why would he mention family, given he doesn’t have a family? I think he told me about Jacob and left Ian because he has an inkling about this family connection as well. It only slipped into place when we were talking to the Professors. John found out that Gordon Ennis was studying the Seymour family, to try and help understand why there was so much mental illness in their history. It’s the one thing the Professors called out might still be an issue with selective breeding. The internet logs we have from GCHQ show that they were researching the Seymour family. If John knows what we know, I think he will be after any information Ennis had about the Seymour Family. I also think it was his twin that Professor Auld thinks she recognised, because I know John never studied at the university. I think he will be trying to figure out a way to get into The Fielding Institute.’

  Cruickshank looked away from Strange and out of the car window, still not speaking, the fury totally ebbed from her demeanour, replaced with sombre reflection.

  Strange smiled towards her ruefully, running a hand affectionately along the pristinely straight line of the tweed skirt covering her thigh. ‘I must be a bad influence. I didn’t think they taught you to take a moment to distil information in this force?’

  ‘You are definitely an influence. I just haven’t decided what kind yet. Thank you for trusting me. That means a lot in the current circumstances. I understand why you didn’t tell me. After all, at least two people in my own team were playing me. I understand a little more about why you think Saul and Angus are being played as well, especially given Professor Auld identified someone who looks like John. I still don’t fully subscribe to that theory, but there are more facts that are starting to support it. What do you think we need to do Jerry?’ Cruickshank answered, looking down at his hand, avoiding his gaze, and placing one of hers on top of it, squeezing it tight.

  Strange looked at the side of her downturned head with a tinge of surprise in his eyes. ‘What we need to do is not lose sight of the facts, but recognise that there are people out there –Fallen Angels, The Unknown Man, even Saul and Angus- who are trying to manipulate them. Let’s get Ennis’s files before Saul manages to and see if we can get one step ahead in figuring this out. I’ll call Mick and ask him to search the archives for anything that could help us, he’s due at the Institute today anyway. John and Rebecca are still prime suspects in my mind too, but we have to fully investigate every other avenue. Come on, let’s get off to Ettrick’s place while I do that, we might find some more facts that can sort the wheat from the chaff.’

  ‘Okay. Take it as read that my mind is open. Take it as read that if you touch my thigh like that in front of anyone else, I will have you up for sexual assault.’ Cruickshank answered, manoeuvring the car back into traffic.

  ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way.’ Strange responded playfully, before continuing. ‘Right, let’s give Mick a call.’ He extricated his mobile from the inside jacket pocket and found Munro’s details, dialled and held the phone up to his ear as it was answered on the first ring.

  ‘Mick, you were quick in answering, is it quiet there at the institute?’ Strange started, putting the phone on speaker so Cruickshank could hear as well.

  ‘I was just going to give you a call Sir, I had my phone out ready. How well do you know Dr Marsha Evans?’ Munro questioned with a slight tinge of nervousness in his voice.

  ‘Can’t say I have ever heard of anyone by that name. Why? Should I have?’ Strange responded, looking over to Cruickshank quizzically.

  ‘Shit, I knew it. I fucking knew it.’ Munro blasphemed loudly.

  ‘Watch the language Mick, you are on speakerphone with DCI Gaynor Cruickshank as well. Let me guess Mick,’ Strange started, his brow furrowing as he ran a thumb over the sculpted ridges, throwing Cruickshank an exasperatedly resigned stare, ‘She’s a woman claiming to work on the Ennis case and was just picking some files up from the Institute. Close?’

  ‘Spot on. I thought you didn’t know her?’ Munro responded, confusion in his voice.

  ‘What did she look like?’ Strange asked, ignoring Munro’s question.

  ‘Old lady, I’d say mid sixties, English. Very thin with a pronounced stoop. Grey haired, wearing a tweed jacket and skirt. Strong willed and confident. She had me dancing to her tune.’ Munro responded sheepishly.

  ‘Same description as the woman who rented the apartment on St Giles. It’s Rebecca. It looks like they are still one step ahead.’ Cruickshank offered, her tone filling with frustration once more. She pulled the car off the main road and headed down a narrow cobbled street towards Dean Village, a tranquil oasis of older redeveloped mill buildings sitting on the banks of the Water Of Leith.

  ‘Mick, don’t be too hard on yourself. We think the woman was Rebecca Angus in disguise. We think she is working with John Saul. The two of them seem to be leading all of us on a merry dance. Could you ring in a description of the old woman to the station, get that circulated and, presuming she drove up there, get a PNC check done on the vehicle and check CCTV footage around the roads in Morpeth to see where it came from and has gone. It may be too late, but could you also check the archives there at the Institute for any files to do with the Seymour family.’ Strange asked.

  ‘I will do Sir. You might be right about the files. I carried them to the car for her and some of them did have the name Seymour on them. I’ll check for any others though and let you know.’

  ‘Thanks Mick, give me a buzz back with an update in an hour.’ Strange finished, ending the call with an irritated stab.

  ‘She had him carry the files to her car? And he didn’t question that?’ Cruickshank asked, her words wearing sarcastic incredulity. She pulled the car through a narrow opening between buildings into a small courtyard and parked it behind a liveried police car with its blue lights flashing. It was sitting next to two white police vans in the centre of Well Court Hall, right on the riverbank.

  ‘No more than you questioned Tait or Le Fenwick. Look, he’s not the most gifted detective, but we are all being played, even you and I. There’s a confidence that you need to convince people you are someone else. It’s not just about how you look or how you act: more importantly, it’s about knowing what makes the people you are trying to convince tick. They have us all at a disadvantage. Let’s see if this crime scene can offer us any advantages.’ Strange rebuffed with a quiet dignity as he climbed out of the car and took in the three storey sandstone buildings surrounding him.

  ‘Let’s go see then.’ Cruickshank responded curtly as she climbed out of the car and headed off to an open ground floor door where a uniformed police officer stood guard. ‘Afternoon Gifford. Who’s on site?’ Cruickshank asked the tall, rugged, slightly flustered officer.

  ‘Trentor is here Ma’am, and Laurent. Still waiting on the Medical
Examiner arriving, but I think there’s no question he is dead.’ Gifford offered, a timidity to his words.

  Cruickshank wafted past him, ignoring the obvious signs of distress he was displaying and started ascending the staircase just inside the door. Strange approached the officer and reached out a hand, gently cusping his elbow as he spoke. ‘Are you okay son? You look a little flustered?’

  ‘Sorry Sir, it’s just I have never seen anything like that in my life. It’s inhuman Sir, inhuman.’ Gifford apologised profusely, his words shaking in time with his body.

  ‘Take deep breaths son, start thinking of calming images: water, fields, clouds. Every time the horrendous image pops into your mind, counter it with one of those. It’s hard, but keep doing it, keep distracting your mind. Could you also make sure that there’s a cordon put up around the square. I noticed a few people starting to pay attention to the police vans as we drove in.’ Strange suggested reassuringly, letting his hand move from Gifford’s elbow to circle his shoulder in a comforting embrace.

  ‘Will do Sir, thank you.’ Gifford answered gratefully before heading off to one of the police vans.

  Strange entered the building and followed the booming footfalls of Cruickshank up the solid oak stairs. He looked up and saw her reach the landing above, where she shouted on Trentor. He reached the landing just as Trentor emerged from the entrance of another set of stairs leading up to the third floor.

  ‘What have we got Trentor?’ Cruickshank asked, her gaze scanning the wide hallway, dipping into the rooms behind the open doors. ‘I can’t see any signs of a disturbance.’

  ‘In the living room Ma’am, second door on the right. You’ll need to look up and trust me, you will definitely need to brace yourself.’ Trentor responded. Cruickshank strode off in the direction indicated with a gruff harrumph and a condescending glare. Strange followed her, falling in alongside Trentor as he flashed the detective a reassuring smile.

  Cruickshank abruptly stopped in the doorway, her body rocking back slightly as she raised her eye line to the tall ceiling in the room. ‘Jesus Trentor, you weren’t bloody kidding. What the hell is that?’ she asked with shock in her voice as she gingerly stepped into the room and slowly started to circle its perimeter, eyes transfixed on the ceiling.

  Strange approached the entrance and followed her gaze, his expression running through concerned, to bewildered, to horrified all in the space of a second. He started to circle the room, instinctively following Cruickshank, mirroring her transfixed gaze. Soft footfalls and the rustling swish of plastic personal protection equipment signalled the arrival of Marcel Laurent to the room. He strode in, straight to the centre and looked up to the monstrosity on the ceiling.

  ‘It is a body Ma’am. It is a body that has had every last piece of skin peeled from it. In order to ensure the exposed muscles, tendons and organs don’t fall out, it has been wrapped tightly in cling film. The body has then been nailed to the ceiling and spread-eagled in a star shape as you can see. The feathers along the length of the arms have been stapled to the exposed flesh. You can just see that a rib has been removed from his chest cavity, on the left, and that his intestines are also missing. Our skin is the largest organ in our body. It has a surface area of about two square metres and is about three millimetres thick. If you cut it into strips about a centimetre wide, then you’ll have about two hundred metres of skin. That’s what has been used to write the words that surround the body.’ Laurent informed the detectives nonchalantly.

  Cruickshank had finished circling the room and was back at the door now. She looked over to Strange, who was just finishing his revolution, and took in his gaunt, haunted expression.

  ‘Where does this put us Strange, at an advantage or another disadvantage?’ Cruickshank queried as she started to read out the words, formed in slivers of skin stapled to the ceiling around the body.

  ‘We are the Fallen Angels. I am Madame Evangeline.’

  Chapter 18

  Two different people, two different locations, two different musical instrument cases and both with the same word written on them. ‘Unas’. That is not a coincidence. And if it’s not a coincidence, it means that Ennis and McFetrich knew each other? Did they get there cases from the same place? Were they in the same band? They definitely both went to sex clubs and were both murderers. Is ‘Unas’ some reference to a murder club perhaps? Did they both know Gabriel, is that how they met? What’s the significance of an instrument case without an instrument inside?

  I hear a key slide into the front door lock. It will be Rebecca, but I can’t presume. I silently vacate my seat in front of the bank of monitors and quickly and quietly step out of the study into the main, wide hallway of the apartment and position myself flat against the wall to the side of the front door. The door opens and a plethora of plastic bags rustle through the frame, twice as wide as Rebecca who shuffles in afterwards, her cheeks rouge and blowing under the weight. I relax, stepping out from the wall to help her.

  ‘Shopping?’ I query, trying to see inside the bags as I take some off her as she kicks the door shut with a foot before dropping the remaining ones onto the floor.

  ‘Things we need for tonight.’ she replies curtly, still out of breath, but also with a heightened level of emotion in her voice. She found the institute hard and I was hard on her. I drop the bags to the floor as well and reach out my arms and embrace her, pulling her tight into my chest. I can feel her heart racing as she returns the embrace and squeezes into me. We stand in near silence, just holding and comforting, the only sound a slight muffled sob from Rebecca’s mouth, which is buried deep in my shoulder. She pulls away and looks up at me with puffy, tear filled eyes.

  ‘That was much harder than I thought it would be and I’m not talking about nearly getting caught by Munro. I mean going back to that cell and letting the memories of my time locked in there back into my mind. I don’t know how they managed to stop me killing myself.’ she says.

  ‘Sorry I had to be so harsh and push you on. I just didn’t want you to get caught.’ I answer, straightening her grey wig and wiping a forming tear from the corner of her eye with my thumb.

  ‘You’ve no need to be. It was me who stupidly went down to the cell. How’s Jacob? Have you found anything out about the name on the trumpet case at all?’ she asks, while leaning in and pecking me on the cheek before leaning down, picking up some of the bags and heading off into the study. It is incredible. In an instant the emotion is gone, the tears are dry and she is back to practical.

  ‘Jacob’s fine. We had a little chat earlier and I sat him looking out over the river. I’m sure he’s trying to use different length dilations himself to say something, I’m just not sure what yet. I’ve started to look into ‘Unas’. Other than knowing he was a pharaoh I haven’t got much farther. I was just starting to look into it when you arrived.’ I walk into the study after her, plonking my backside down into the seat and swivelling into the screens. Rebecca kicks her shoes off, takes off her tight tweed jacket and flings it and her grey wig onto a leather chair in the corner, then rolls a stool up beside me and sits down.

  ‘Don’t we need to be careful doing internet searches?’ she queries, grabbing a box of tissues and rubbing the thick caked makeup off her face.

  ‘I’m using a triple embedded server hop. The final server is somewhere in the Philippines and there is no direct connection back to this computer. Everything is proxied and encrypted. No one will ever find where we are browsing from.’ I might sound like I know what those words mean, but I don’t. All I do know is they won’t be able to track us.

  ‘Okay, so he’s a pharaoh. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of him. Is he famous for anything in particular?’ Rebecca asks, rolling her eyes at my confident tech speak, knowing full well I am about as tech savvy as a duck billed platypus.

  ‘Let’s take a look.’ I bring up the web browser I was using earlier and start scrolling through the article I had been reading on Unas. ‘That’s interesting: he was the
first pharaoh to start a funerary cult.’

  ‘What’s one of those when it’s at home? Anything like a cargo cult?’ Rebecca queries, leaning closer into the screen, her right breast caressing my arm as she does, causing my loins to stir.

  I gulp slightly before answering. She notices the hesitation and looks down to where my eyes are nervously glancing. ‘Perv. You’ll have to control your ardour a lot better than that later.’ she quips jovially, turning back to the screen while pushing her breast further into my arm.

  ‘Not quite. Cargo cults tend to be isolated tribes worshipping inanimate objects or ‘cargo’ washed up by the sea or river. Funerary cults are present in a number of older dynasties, particularly the Greek, Roman and Egyptian. It’s the religious practices centred on the dead. Particularly how the living can pass on benefits to the dead in the afterlife and appease their wrathful ghosts. You may have heard of animals, particularly cats, and also humans being buried alive with dead pharaohs. That’s what the funerary cults did and it seems our friend Unas started them.’

  ‘Is that something Ennis and McFetrich could be involved in? All of the killers the Angels have been exposing have been radicals from current religions. Is this a group of killers reviving the older religions?’ Rebecca muses, reading down through the article on the screen.

  ‘It’s a possibility and certainly something to explore. It also says Unas was the first to have ‘Pyramid Texts’ carved and painted on the walls of the chambers in his pyramid. Now what are Pyramid Texts?’ I click on the hyperlinked words and another web page opens.

  ‘A collection of 759 spells or ‘utterances’ used to protect a Pharaoh’s remains. Practiced by a funerary cult. Possibly the oldest known religious texts in the world and the oldest two hundred and twenty eight of them are carved into the pyramid of Unas. One of the most famous utterances, only found in that pyramid is the ‘Cannibal Hymn’. A god who lives on his fathers, who feeds on his mothers. Unas is the bull of heaven, who rages in his heart, who lives on the being of every god, who eats their entrails when they come, their bodies full of magic, from the Isle of Flame.’ I recite, my mind a whirl of conjecture.