Mother of Demons

by Maynard Sims

  “Then go and watch it in your room if it’s so important. We have company.”

  Tim gave Harry a surly look.

  Jason let the edge of a packet of Marlboro Lights protrude from his pocket and let Tim see them, then nodded towards the kitchen door. Tim got to his feet, walked out to the kitchen and opened the back door. Jason followed him.

  “I’m sorry about Tim. He can be so rude,” Stephanie said to Harry when they were alone.

  “He’s probably worried about his sister,” Harry said.

  “We all are, but manners cost nothing. I really don’t approve of his smoking. I hope your young friend knows that.”

  “Better nicotine than crystal meth.”

  Stephanie winced. “I spoke to Violet. She tells me that awful man is dead.”

  “Yes,” Harry said without elaboration.

  “But Alice is still missing. You don’t think she’s…” Her voice trailed off.

  “We’re doing everything in our power to find her,” Harry said.

  “George thinks we should call the police again, but after the way they were last time, I really don’t see the point. They’ll just fob us off with platitudes and heavy hints that we were less than perfect parents and drove her away.” A sob caught in her throat. “It’s not true, Mr. Bailey. We were a happy family. That holiday in Greece, those days in the scorching sun, lying by the pool, eating out in the evening at the local tavernas, were probably some of the happiest times of my life. And Alice loved every moment with us. We felt so close to her, and she said she felt the same about us. Even Tim enjoyed it. He wasn’t rude to us once. He and Alice took themselves down to the beach every day. It was like it used to be when they were small, and George and I would take them to Clacton. I used to lie by the pool and imagine them having all kinds of adventures.”

  Her voice trailed off again as she lost herself in her memories. Harry sat there, saying nothing, but wondering if Jason was faring any better.

  “When I was here last,” Jason said, lighting the cigarette he’d given Tim. “You said you’d know if Alice were dead. How can you be so sure?”

  “I just would.”

  Jason remained silent, waiting for him to elaborate.

  Tim smoked and stared down the length of the garden. It was mostly lawn and the rust-colored remnants of what was once a colorful display back in the summer.

  “Auntie Vi told us you used to work for her.”

  “Still do, on occasion.”

  “Then you’ll know Alice is a witch, like Gran. She was a witch too. I don’t know how Mum got away with it, but she’s totally straight. The closest she gets to witchcraft is listening to Harry Potter audio books, and she only does that because she has a thing for Stephen Fry.”

  He dropped the cigarette to the ground and looked to Jason. Jason offered him another and lit it for him.

  “Alice and I must have inherited the gene from Auntie Vi, Alice more than me. I get feelings and the occasional premonition, especially when Stevenage are playing. Our local soccer team,” he added by way of explanation.

  “Yeah, I guessed.”

  “But Alice, she inherited the lot from Vi. Seeing auras, a sixth sense, moving things with her mind without touching them. A whole lot of freaky stuff.”

  “Did it bother you?”

  “No, it was great. She was a sensation at parties. She could bend spoons—not the gimmicky conjuring trick that Uri Geller did. She could really bend them—tie them into knots just by holding them between her thumb and forefinger. No rubbing or stroking the metal. She’d just hold the spoon and stare at it, and the bloody thing would curl up like a pretzel. Other kids used to come to the house just to watch her, at first. Then I think she started to freak them out, so they stopped coming.”

  “When I came last time, you described her as being as mad as a box of frogs. What did you mean by that? I asked you at the time but you wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Yeah, well, I was seriously pissed of with Dad that night. He’d been going about his precious Alice. How butter wouldn’t melt. He drove her away, smothering her. She worked like fuck to get to uni, not so much that she wanted to go, she just wanted to get away from him.”

  “So mad, how?”

  “Come back inside and I’ll show you.” He led Jason back through the kitchen and up two flights of stairs, to the top floor of the town house.

  “In here,” Tim said, opening the door at the top of the stairs wide and ushering Jason inside. He followed him in. “Alice’s bedroom,” he announced.

  Jason stood in the middle of the room and let his gaze sweep over the place. A single divan bed; a wardrobe, so full the doors would not close fully; a dressing table littered with tubes and bottles of makeup; a hairbrush and dryer; a set of ceramic hair-straighteners; a box of tissues. It was a typical teenage girl’s bedroom—nothing to set it apart.

  And then he looked at the countless pictures and posters covering every inch of the wall and made a quick reevaluation. No pop idols of the day, no pinups from teen magazines. Instead, the walls were covered by posters and pages torn from books, each image a representation of a god from Greek mythology: Apollo rubbing shoulders with Athena, Hera fighting Hermes for wall space.

  Above the bed, the wall was covered by one poster, a depiction of a beautiful woman with long, flowing hair, set against a night sky, glowingly lit by a huge crescent moon.

  The woman held a bow and arrow, bowstring pulled back and taut, the wickedly pointed arrow aimed at an unseen target. The poster dominated the room, reducing all the other images to supporting characters in this Greek drama.

  “Artemis,” Tim said, noting where Jason’s attention was focused. “Goddess of the hunt and wild animals. Alice claimed her as her own, identified with her totally. It became something of an obsession for her.”

  “When did it start?”

  “When we were kids. Someone gave her a picture book filled with images of the gods—a strange thing to give a kid—and she became obsessed with it. She was never interested in Barbie or My Little Pony, but give her a cheap toy bow and arrow and she became Artemis. She’d play for hours, lost in her own little world. As she got older, the books she was given by my parents…hell…by everybody, just reinforced her obsession. Eventually her interest in Greek mythology started to take over her life. Mum and Dad encouraged her to channel her preoccupation into her schoolwork. It was why she worked so hard to get to Oxford. As I said, she wanted to get away from Dad, but if she was going to uni, she was going to get the best classical education that the system could provide. And there is nowhere better for that sort of thing than Oxford or Cambridge. Nothing second best for our Alice. Dad nearly wet his pants with pride and excitement when she was accepted for Oxford. He basked in her reflected glory for months. It didn’t matter to him that his little girl was leaving home.”

  “It mattered to you though.”

  “I knew I’d miss her and my life would never be the same again.” He laughed, suddenly and bitterly. “She used to call me Apollo. Apollo was Artemis’s twin brother, so that fitted in her mind. ‘Hey, Apollo, let’s go and play.’ She’d grab her toy bow and arrow and she’d be off, and I’d follow. Mostly to the park, but when we both got our bikes we’d cycle over to Letchworth and play on Norton Common. It’s a bit wilder over there.”

  “What kind of games would you play?”

  “Hunting, mostly. I’d go and hide and she’d hunt me down and shoot me with her bow and arrow.”

  “Didn’t it hurt?”

  Tim laughed again, a happier laugh this time as he remembered the game. “No. It was only a toy bow. The arrows had rubber section cups on the end of them, not points. But she got bloody good with it. She could get me from the most impossible angles. She told me that when she got to Oxford, she joined their archery club, started winning competitions and stuff. She was a natu
ral.”

  “But mad.”

  “Oh, totally bonkers…but in a good way.” Tim stopped and stared down at the floor. “You will find her, won’t you? I really miss her.”

  He had tears in his eyes.

  “I’ll certainly do my best,” Jason said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Could you show me Alice’s room?” Harry said.

  “Why on earth do you want to see her room?” Stephanie said, slight panic in her voice.

  “I’m trying to build a clearer picture of your daughter. Seeing her room would help.”

  Stephanie got to his feet. “Well, if you think it will help.”

  “It will. Truly.”

  “Then you’d better come with me.”

  Harry followed Stephanie out to the hall and up the stairs.

  As they reached the first floor landing, they stopped as they heard voices coming from above their heads. Stephanie ran up the next flight of stairs two at a time. “Alice? Alice?” She froze in the doorway at the top of the stairs.

  “Tim,” Stephanie said with anger in her voice. “What are you doing in Alice’s room? It’s her private space.” Harry was a few paces behind her on the stairs.

  “Well, she’s not here to complain, is she?”

  Jason stepped forward. “My fault, Mrs. Logan. I wanted to see it…for the same reason as Harry, I should think.”

  Stephanie turned to Harry, a question in her eyes.

  Harry was nodding. “I trust Jason’s instincts,” Harry said and, when Stephanie turned back to her son, winked at Jason.

  “Very well,” Stephanie said. “Anything you think might help you in bringing Alice home. I’ll leave you to it. Please try to leave the room as you found it.” She turned on her heel. “Tim, downstairs with me.” She moved past Harry and started to descend, Tim close behind her.

  “Phew, she’s—”

  Harry put his fingers to his lips. “We’ll talk in the car,” he said and walked across the room to get a better look at the pictures on the far wall. “This reminds me of Markos’s apartment in Clerkenwell,” he said. “Some of these pictures look like they’ve been torn from the pages of an encyclopedia of Greek mythology.”

  Jason nodded to an overfilled bookcase in the corner. “Well, she had enough to choose from,” he said, but Harry wasn’t listening.

  He was staring at the picture of Artemis affixed to the wall above Alice’s bed. “That’s it,” he mumbled. “How could I have missed it?” He turned to Jason. “Come on. I’ve seen enough,” he said, and then stalked from the room and padded down the stairs.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Are you still here?” Bartlett said as he walked into Susan’s office.

  “No,” she said tiredly. “I went home two hours ago. This is a mirage.”

  “Like that, is it?”

  She nodded. “Have you been at Epping all this time?”

  “Yes,” Bartlett said. “Things went a bit sideways.”

  “But it was Clusky?”

  “Oh, yes. It was Clusky all right. It’s the other two they can’t identify.”

  Susan leaned forward in her seat. “The other two?”

  Bartlett pulled up a chair and sat down. “Two young women, stabbed with a star-shaped knife. Buried in shallow graves not six feet from where Clusky was found.”

  Susan shook her head incredulously. “What’s going on here, Jake?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I saw McBride when I was there, and he’s scratching his head too. Did you know he thinks Markos was attacked by a bear?”

  “No,” Susan said. “Barking CID have shut me out. It’s their case now, and they’re not sharing information… A bear?” It suddenly sank in what Jake Bartlett had just said.

  “That’s right.” He pulled out his notebook. “Ursus arctos to be precise. A brown bear.”

  “And how did the professor arrive at that conclusion?” Susan said.

  “From the claw marks and fur found on Markos’s body.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Susan said.

  “It gets better,” Bartlett said. “He reckons Clusky was killed by a bear too.”

  “The same one?”

  Bartlett shut the notebook and put it away. “The odds against having one bear roaming through Essex are pretty high,” he said. “What odds would you give for two bears going on a killing spree?”

  “Pretty astronomical.”

  “Yeah, that’s what McBride said. He’s going to DNA test the fur to see if it came from the same animal.”

  “And what about the girls?”

  “McBride thinks it’s the same killer who killed Kerry Green. The stab wounds are identical. A five-bladed knife thrust through the aorta. Death would have been almost instantaneous.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Both had a crescent-shaped carving on their abdomens and both had a coin placed under their tongues.”

  Susan yawned. It had been a long day and she was all in.

  “You should get some sleep,” Bartlett said.

  “What would be nice,” Susan said, “would be to go to sleep tonight and wake up in the morning to a new, different reality, because this one’s shitty.”

  “Never going to happen,” Bartlett said.

  “More’s the pity.”

  “Well, that’s me done. I’m going home. My little girl, Willow, is three, and she’s starting to think her father is the boy who delivers the papers. She sees more of him than me.”

  “Good night, Jake.”

  “Night, guv.”

  Susan waved him away and dialed Harry’s number. It went straight to answer machine. “Hi Harry, it’s me again. Don’t worry; I’m not stalking you. I’m not turning into a bunny boiler, but I really need to talk to you. Two more bodies have turned up with the same MO as Kerry Green. Call me on my cell when you get this message. It doesn’t matter how late. Bye.” She stood and grabbed her coat from the stand and left the station.

  Within minutes she was walking in through her front door.

  She had just closed it behind her when her phone sounded from the pocket of her coat.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi, Harry,” she said.

  “Sorry, I’ve only just got in and heard your messages. What’s this about two more bodies?”

  “Hold on,” she said, carried the phone through to the kitchen, took a can from the fridge, popped the tab and returned to the lounge. She collapsed onto the couch and kicked off her shoes. “Right. You’re not going to believe this,” she said, and proceeded to tell Harry about the truly bizarre day she’d had.

  “This case is beginning to fry my brain,” she said. “It’s going into meltdown. And my boss doesn’t want us working together.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I was hauled over the coals by Crozier today for the same reason. Your deputy commissioner has been a busy boy.”

  “He called him too? Christ!”

  “Calm down. Crozier can get the Home Secretary to have a word in his ear. Get him off our backs.”

  “That’s all right for you, Harry, but it will fuck my career. I’ll get a reputation for being a troublemaker. I know what Mackie’s like. He holds grudges.”

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  “We carry on as we are, but we don’t visit crime scenes together. We’ll speak on our cell phones and keep each other up-to-date.”

  “Does that mean we can’t see each other?”

  “I don’t know. I’m making this up as I go along. I’ve never been in this situation before. This bloody thing is spiraling out of control. Bears! It was bad enough with devil worship and satanic cults. Now we have bears going around killing our suspects. Where’s it going to end?”

  “I’m working on a solution.”

  �
�Well, good luck with that. Let me know if you find one. I’ll raise the flags.”

  Harry could understand her frustration. He’d worked cases where nothing made any sense, and seemed to go round and round in circles, and he didn’t have to worry about someone further up the chain of command scrutinizing his every move and weighing up his future career prospects. Crozier could be a pain in the backside sometimes, but he always played fair and let his investigators use their own initiative when it came to handling a case. Susan had a hierarchy of senior officers and yards of red tape to overcome.

  “Look,” he said. “It’s late. I’m tired. You’re tired. Let’s talk about this tomorrow.”

  She sighed. “You’re right,” she said. “I just needed to vent. Sorry you were in the line of fire. Good night, Harry.”

  “Good night, Sue. And we will get together for that coffee. Sooner rather than later, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, and hung up.

  Harry stared at the phone and shook his head, dropping it onto the couch next to him. Then he pulled one of the mythology books from the pile Vi had lent him, opened it and started to read.

  He was still reading three hours later. It was all coming together in his mind. Things were starting to make sense.

  He looked at the clock. The numbers read 2.31. He closed the book he was reading and went to bed.

  “We’ve got someone interesting in interview room one,” Bartlett said as Susan walked into the station the next morning.

  “If you’ve arrested Winnie-the-Pooh, Jake, I don’t want to know.”

  Bartlett smiled. “How about Terry Butler? He walked in this morning, claiming that someone’s out to kill him.”

  “Oh, this should be interesting,” she said.

  “Right, Terry,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  Butler was distraught. His eyes were wide and he kept glancing behind him “I’ve seen her,” he said. “Watching me. First Mikey, then Fin—she probably had something to do with Davy falling under the Tube train.”

  “You’re babbling, Terry. Take a breath, calm down and start from the beginning.”