Let The Bones Be Charred

by Andy Maslen

  ‘Obsessive?’

  ‘Actually maybe over-protective is kinder. Anyway, she keeps a record of everyone who comes up asking to see any of us. If they came nosing around during office hours, one of the secretaries would have seen them. And, in fact, we only need to look at January.’

  ‘Why?’

  That’s when this draft was active. Look,’ he said pointing at the annotation in the top-right corner of the title page. ‘That’s my code for “finished this draft”. Come on, I’ll introduce you. I think it’s Mim in today. She and Anjali job-share. To be honest, I’m never quite sure which one of them will be in.’

  The woman watering a houseplant on a high shelf looked over as Karlsson and Stella approached.

  In her mid-thirties, she was solidly built though not fat, with pale, blotchy skin. Her lips, crested by a deep groove beneath her nose, moved up into a smile. She wore her pale-blonde hair long; it looked badly in need of a decent cut.

  A real Plain Jane, Stella thought. Then reproached herself. But your smile’s nice.

  ‘Hello, Professor Karlsson. How can I help you?’ she asked, putting her little plastic watering can on a nearby table.

  ‘Mim, this is Detective Chief Inspector Cole. She’s interested in who might have come up here looking for me when I was out. Say for,’ he looked upwards, ‘the month of January this year. Do you still have those notes you take?’

  ‘Yes, professor. Give me a minute.’

  The secretary sat down, clicked her mouse and tapped her keyboard, staring intently at the screen.

  ‘Yes, here we are,’ she said. ‘Shall I print it out for you?’

  ‘Please, Mim. Thanks.’

  ‘Okey-dokey.’

  Back in Karlsson’s office, Stella glanced down at the list. It was, mercifully, not a long one. Just twelve names, eight of them female.

  ‘Would you be able to put contact details against these?’ she asked him.

  ‘Can I see?’ he replied, holding out his hand.

  Stella handed him the sheet.

  ‘Yeah, this’ll be easy. They’re all either faculty or students. Would it be OK if I sent it to you this afternoon?’

  ‘Sure. That would be fine. Here’s my card.’

  He took her business card and then placed it beside his keyboard.

  ‘Would you like a copy of my book, Stella?’ he asked. ‘You might need it for the case.’

  ‘Yes please. I was going to ask, but thanks. And, um, I don’t suppose you’d sign it for me, would you?’ She felt a sudden blush heating her cheeks. God, I haven’t felt so embarrassed since I met Barney Riordan, she thought, recalling a charity ball at the Savoy Grill where she’d been squired by the Premiership footballer. ‘Sorry. I’m being silly. It’s just, you know—’

  Karlsson held up his hands, smiling.

  ‘It’s fine, really. Believe me, when your sales might go into the high hundreds if you’re lucky, signing books is one of the few perks of the job. What shall I say?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Er, could you, um, just put “To Stella”. That would be great.’

  Karlsson opened a drawer and retrieved a sleek black fountain pen, uncapped it, and wrote something on the book’s flyleaf. He blew on the writing a few times to dry the blue ink and then swivelled it round so Stella could read the inscription.

  To Stella Cole,

  Remember, pain, our urgent master,

  diminishes with time, but reason, sweet reason,

  will, always, burn brightly.

  With great respect, and affection,

  Peter Karlsson.

  ‘That’s really lovely. Who said that?’

  Karlsson grinned.

  ‘I did. I hope you don’t mind. It’s one of the maxims I live by.’

  She shook her head, feeling a lump in her throat.

  ‘No, I don’t mind at all. Thank you.’

  Harry King walked into the Philosophy building and held the door open for a woman he hadn’t seen before: she was talking on the phone. He heard a few words of her end of the conversation.

  ‘I’ve just met Karlsson. Yeah. Nice guy. Helpful. But I’d hate to think what his search history must be like.’

  Harry frowned. Changing his mind about heading for the library, he mounted the stairs and climbed up to the floor where Peter Karlsson had his office. He walked into the main office and approached the desk of the secretary.

  ‘Er, hi. I need to see Professor Karlsson please?’

  The secretary smiled.

  ‘Of course. Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘No. But something quite urgent has come up. I won’t be long. I promise.’

  Harry had met the woman before and knew how protective she was of Peter’s privacy. Which was good. Geniuses needed their thinking time. It was one of the things he loved about him.

  ‘He’s just finished a meeting. He’s in his office. You know the way, don’t you? Harry, isn’t it?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, brushing a strand of hair away from his cheek. ‘Thanks.’

  He walked down the short length of grey-carpeted corridor to Professor Karlsson’s office, knocked and went in.

  Karlsson looked up. Harry noted the brief flash of irritation. He didn’t mind. He knew Peter was good at hiding his true feelings.

  ‘Hello, Harry. What can I do for you?’ Peter said.

  Harry sat before him, hands folded in his lap.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind my asking, professor, but I bumped into a woman downstairs and she was clearly discussing you. Who was she?’

  Karlsson frowned for a second, then spread his hands wide and smiled. Harry loved him all the more for that smile. So open. So trusting. So intelligent.

  ‘I suppose I can tell you. Stella, I mean DCI Cole, didn’t swear me to secrecy or anything. Close the door, would you?’

  Harry rose from his chair and turned away from Karlsson, frowning. Stella? That’s rather intimate. He closed the door firmly then returned to his chair, folding one leg over the other.

  ‘You know the murders on the TV. The religious women. The ones they’re calling the Lucifer Killings?’

  Harry’s hand flew to his mouth.

  ‘Oh my god! You don’t mean she’s investigating those?’

  He nodded.

  ‘She came to see me because it would seem that the killer is following the chapters in my book. The first draft, I mean.’

  Harry’s eyes widened. It was a horrible thought.

  ‘But that’s terrible. When your book was supposed to warn people about the dangers of making a cult out of cruelty.’

  ‘I know,’ Karlsson said, scratching at the back of his head. ‘She said not to, but I feel partly responsible.’

  ‘Oh, Peter, no! You shouldn’t think that way. It’s not as if you’re the one murdering those poor women, is it?’

  He smiled.

  ‘I suppose not. Thanks, Harry. Was there anything else? Only I have a stack of essays to read. Then I’m in faculty meetings all afternoon. God knows when I’m supposed to get any actual work done.’

  Harry shook his head and smiled. Then he left. Poor man, he thought.

  71

  TUESDAY 4TH SEPTEMBER 8.05 P.M.

  HAMPSTEAD

  Peter Karlsson and Celia Thwaites lived in a striking modernist house on the northern edge of Hampstead Heath.

  Her parents had bought The White House decades earlier, before the insane London property boom. On their deaths, it had passed to her.

  The house sat in the centre of a half-acre of garden, hidden from the more traditionally-designed neighbouring houses by a screen of mature trees. Its white walls, large plate-glass windows and abundance of horizontal lines had led to many an architectural journalist and critic beating a path to the brushed-steel front door.

  But on this particular evening, the couple’s dinner was not being shared with a writer eager to discuss the influence of the Miami School or the difference between Bauhaus and Brutalism.

&
nbsp; Just as well, really, as they were engaged in a flaming row.

  The calves’ liver, cooked to perfection just fifteen minutes earlier, now lay cold and pallid on their plates. The wine, on the other hand, was fast disappearing.

  ‘Do you literally want to be tortured to death?’ Karlsson shouted. ‘Because, you know, please do tell me. It’ll save me worrying about where you are.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop being so melodramatic! The detective said I’d be safe as long as I stayed with other people, didn’t she? Well, didn’t she?’

  Karlsson gulped some more wine.

  ‘Yes, but in case I missed this part of the narrative out, I’m not one hundred per cent sure that Lucifer was there to agree with her.’ He slapped his forehead, harder than he intended to, raising a red weal. ‘Oh no, wait a minute! He wasn’t! So, you see, that’s kind of what I’m driving at. There’s a serial killer picking off well-known female Christians and torturing them to death based on the first draft of my book, Cee. And I’m worried he’s coming for you.’

  Celia stood up, knocking the edge of the table so that her wine glass toppled over, releasing a flood of red onto the white tablecloth.

  ‘Shit!’ She refilled the glass and glared down at her husband. ‘So, let me get this straight. I am about to be ordained as a bishop, which is the dream of so many women in the church, and beyond, I think it’s fair to say, not to mention many of my own parishioners. And you, based on a, a, hunch of some detective, want me to call the Archbishop of Canterbury and tell him that, no thanks, Ewan, after all, you know what? I’ve decided not to become a bishop. Maybe you could find a man to ordain instead? Because, guess what? I’m not going to do it.’

  Karlsson rubbed his hand over his moustache and beard, scrubbing furiously as if he might remove the wiry hairs by friction alone.

  Part of his brain – the rational, professorial, intellectually rigorous, atheistic part – knew she was right. The probability of Cee’s coming to harm was minimal. The most dangerous part of the whole trip to York was the car journey itself. She knew to avoid anyone calling himself MJ Fox. She knew to stay with other people, which would be hard not to, given the circumstances. And forewarned was forearmed.

  But there was another part of his brain that was less amenable to sweet reason. A primitive, suspicious, terrified part, driven by primal emotions, fear uppermost. A part conditioned by millennia of evolution to believe, if not in God, then in the capricious nature of the Universe to inflict pain on good people and let bad people flourish. And that was the part in the ascendant now.

  ‘Please, Cee,’ he said now, unable to force his primitive self back into the dark cave from whence it had so recently burst. ‘Please don’t go. I’m frightened. I don’t want to lose you.’

  She smiled, and came round the table towards him, her arms wide. Ashamed of the tears, which had sprung unbidden from his eyes, he let her enfold him in an embrace so tender it unmanned him. He sobbed against her chest.

  ‘Come on, darling,’ she crooned into his ear. ‘This isn’t like you. What’s got you so upset?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, his voice muffled. ‘But I’ve spent the last five years writing about the most unimaginable tortures inflicted on women of the Church, and now I find I’ve written a manual for a serial killer. I’m so scared of losing you to him. And I don’t even have anyone to pray to!’

  He laughed as he said this, not because he found it funny, but because he realised, in a flash, just how fragile an edifice he’d built to house his beliefs.

  ‘Oh, Pete,’ she said, pushing him away a little and using her fingers to wipe his eyes. ‘Do you want to pray with me now? Not to God. We can just use plain words and say what we want.’

  He sniffed loudly.

  ‘I think that could work.’

  ‘OK,’ she said with a smile. ‘Come on. Let’s go into the sitting room.’

  They sat, side by side, on a sofa, knees touching, heads bowed, eyes closed.

  ‘I don’t know how to do this,’ Karlsson said.

  ‘There’s nothing to it. Just say what’s in your heart. I’ll listen. Then I’ll say what’s in mine, and you listen.’

  ‘OK.’ He sighed. ‘I want Celia to be safe when she goes up to York to be ordained. I love her so much and I’m frightened she’s in danger. I want her to be protected. Bring her back to me safe and sound. Please. Thank you.’

  Celia squeezed his knee, then she spoke.

  ‘I want Peter to not be scared. I know he loves me and his love is so powerful that the thought of losing me is frightening him. I want him to feel that he can let me go to York to take the next step in my journey with Christ. Please reassure him I am safe and always with friends. Thank you.’

  Karlsson waited a moment longer then opened his eyes. He turned his head and looked at his wife of ten years.

  ‘I love you, Celia Thwaites.’

  ‘And I love you, Peter Karlsson.’

  Lucifer finished watching the woman’s TED talk on YouTube. For the thirtieth time.

  The Church of England vicar held her patronising smile as the video faded to black.

  ‘I’m going to enjoy torturing you. You look so sure of yourself. So smug.’

  Outside, the latest instrument of pain leaned against the wall. A six foot by three foot grille made of welded steel rods. All done by the book.

  72

  TUESDAY 4TH SEPTEMBER 8.30 P.M.

  PADDINGTON

  To celebrate wins, or forget about losses, Stella and her team installed themselves in The Green Man on the Edgware Road.

  The place was always lively, and the other punters made enough noise that the cops could discuss cases without fear of anyone overhearing. Not just Stella’s team, either.

  On any given evening, a tourist wandering into its ornate black and gold Victorian interior would be hard put to find a table or few square feet of carpet that didn’t contain at least three people based at Paddington Green nick.

  Once a month, a smaller group of officers, all women, found their way to a private room in an Italian restaurant on a street behind Paddington Station. They called themselves ‘Good Girls Drink Plonk’, an ironic reference to the old slang word ‘plonk’ for a female officer, and met in Buccia di Limone to let off steam and share a few war stories.

  Not one of them doubted her own ability to be as tough, as rigorous, or as blasé about the occasional horrors of the job as the lads; most knew they had to be more so. But there were some subjects the guys would always protest about, or turn into jokes, that they still wanted to talk about. Or turn into a different kind of joke.

  The lingering misogyny in the Met. Childcare problems. Fitting a stab vest over a big bust. Changing your tampon on an eight-hour stakeout while sharing a Ford Mondeo with a male colleague. ‘Good Girls’ offered them an opportunity to kick back and relax fully, rank forgotten for the evening.

  The humour in Buccia di Limone’s private dining room could turn very dark indeed, and the targets would probably horrify the social media feminists, but there it was. If you were job, and a woman, you had a different outlook. And sometimes you wanted somewhere of your own to talk about it.

  On this particular night, sitting around the long rectangular table covered in wine bottles, baskets of garlic bread, glasses and phones were twenty female officers, at every rank from constable to chief inspector.

  Stella, Cam, Def, Becky and Roisin occupied one end of the table, bantering and laughing with colleagues from general CID and the counter terrorism command.

  As she looked around the table, at the open, unguarded faces of her colleagues, Stella felt the tension that seemed to keep her muscles locked into a permanent state of extreme readiness begin to unwind.

  She turned to her left, where Cam sat, glass in hand, regaling a counter-terror DS with the details of Isaac Holt’s porn collection.

  ‘Refill?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, please. Thanks,’ Cam said, smiling.

&nb
sp; Stella leaned round her to introduce herself to the DS.

  ‘Hi. Stella Cole. I’m in SIU.’

  The DS, her chestnut-brown skin gleaming in the candlelight, beamed as she answered, her words tripping and tumbling over themselves.

  ‘I know! I wanted to introduce myself but, you know, I mean, you’re something of a legend to us. Oh god, I sound like such a fangirl! Sorry. I’m Alisha Rubens.’

  ‘I don’t know about being a legend, unless you mean because of my bike, which is, I have to say, legendary.’

  ‘Yeah, the boss reckons cars are for idiots, don’t you?’ Cam said.

  ‘I never said that!’ Stella said in mock horror. ‘All I said was, anyone who preferred sitting in traffic on four wheels when they could be flying down the outside on two was – OK, fine, I did say an idiot. But, ladies, you have to take my remarks in context.’

  It was as if, in uttering that single, final word, she had performed some sort of magic trick.

  The room, already dim apart from the pools of golden light thrown by the candles, darkened still further, until all that remained were the two faces looking at her, eyes sparkling, lips moving, though Stella couldn’t hear them.

  Instead, she was struggling to remember something Jamie Hooke had said in his office. She let her eyes become unfocused and stared at a wavering candle flame. Here it comes. Please don’t drift away before I’ve caught you. Here it is.

  She listened to Jamie’s voice as he told her about the patients at Broadmoor and how they felt about being incarcerated.

  ‘Stella, are you OK?’ Alisha asked, her brows knitted together.

  ‘What? Yes, fine! Sorry, I tuned out for a sec there.’