Dark Order : A Harrison Lane Mystery (The Dr Harrison Lane Mysteries Book 3)

by Gwyn GB

  ‘Risky to murder someone along a narrow path. How busy is this?’

  Urquhart shrugged.

  ‘We’ve asked potential witnesses to come forward, but nothing so far. I wouldn’t have thought at that time of night it was overly busy. Women would probably be put off by its remoteness and the tree and shrub coverage. Some couples might come along here, but at that time of night I’d say very few. He was spotted at gone 1am.’

  ‘Where was the boat from?’

  ‘It was one of Brown’s rowing boats. They’re the other side of Elvet Bridge. We’re trying to trace who hired the boats in the preceding forty-eight hours. At the moment we have one that we can’t track down at all. Looks like a false name was given.’

  ‘So this was premeditated, or could the victim have already been dead?’

  ‘He was only just dead when we got to him, so looks like there was planning involved.’

  ‘Any other facts I should know?’

  Urquhart thought for a moment.

  ‘We have a theory that…’

  Harrison held up his hand.

  ‘Please no theories, just facts right now.’

  Urquhart shook his head.

  ‘That’s it on the boat then.’

  The two of them left the relative darkness of the riverside and returned to Elvet Bridge and the City streets. The student population was evident everywhere. The narrow lanes were full of young people, some just walking, others chatting in groups. Harrison picked up snippets of conversations and heard the words ‘monk’ and ‘ghost’ mentioned more than once. This was clearly having a big effect on the city.

  It was a pretty and historic city which in parts reminded him of a smaller version of Oxford. The streets were tiled, or in some places, cobbled, not tarmacked, and filled with an eclectic mix of cafes, clothes shops, pubs and restaurants. They stopped outside the Flat White café.

  ‘The bulk of the ghost sightings are around here and in the Castle Green area. They started about two weeks ago but it’s only since the murder that people have come forward to report them. We’re getting about fifty students and locals come forward each day, and that’s the ones who come to us. We’ve seen more on social media.’ David was struggling to be heard above the sound of two men power washing the wall of what looked like a modern red brick addition, squeezed in between two older properties. They were trying to remove some graffiti from the wall. David and Harrison started walking again to get away from the noise.

  ‘Hasn’t the ghost been caught on CCTV?’ Harrison asked.

  ‘No, and that’s also something we’re struggling with,’ David said as they walked up the incline. ‘We’re getting a lot of sightings, but if it is someone playing a trick, or the killer, then they’re clever and manage to avoid cameras in the city. They also just seem to disappear. Some people have reported following the ghost and they seem to vanish into thin air. All we’ve had is the odd potential glimpse on CCTV, but we’re not even sure it is the ghost. This is Owengate which leads to Palace Green.’

  A few more yards and the huge cathedral came into full view, its stone tower rising above the surrounding buildings.

  There was no doubting it all looked impressive.

  ‘I thought the ghost had attacked some girls too?’

  ‘Well, attacked is probably too strong a word. One girl received a deep scratch to her face from the rose. She was the first to report it, she saw him before the murder.’

  ‘The rose?’

  ‘Yes, the ghost sometimes carries a single red rose stem, just like the one found with the body in the boat. One of the girls who saw the ghost got a bit cocky, she’d been drinking, and so tried to take the ghost’s cowl off its head. She got swiped in the face and the rose must have had a thorn. When her friends tried to chase the ghost, it just disappeared into thin air.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Harrison. ‘Is there a set route it takes?’

  ‘Other than the majority of sightings around the cathedral area, no. We’ve had extra officers out, but so far nothing. We’ve mapped it all, the boss should have got it all emailed over to you by now.’

  ‘OK, and anything else?’

  ‘Not really. At the moment we don’t know how the victim got to the boat, whether he was killed at the riverside or somewhere else, and other than the obvious, that the ghost is also a monk, we don’t know what the connection is between the two. We have assumed there’s a connection as they are both in monk’s clothing.’

  They stood for a few moments on the Green. David had run out of information and was weighing up what to say next.

  ‘OK, well thank you for the tour, DS Urquhart. If you don’t mind I’ll have a wander around on my own now and see you in the morning.’

  David looked taken aback.

  ‘That it? You don’t want me to stick around and guide you back to your hotel?’

  ‘No, thank you. I can assure you I’ve memorised the route. I find it useful just to take in the atmosphere of a place and concentrate.’ Harrison held his hand out to the stunned DS with the aim of ending the conversation. ‘I appreciate your time.’

  ‘Ok, right. Good night.’ The DS looked at his watch and it dawned on him that he might just have enough time to catch the lads at The Court Inn for a quick drink before closing. He wasted no time and gave just one last glance to Dr Harrison Lane. Totally not what he’d been expecting. He’d never have picked the big muscular man out in a line-up of doctors of psychology and ritualistic crime. Most of the professors around Durham were more studious types, who wore cardigans and sensible clothes. This man wouldn’t look out of place on the other side of the legal line, but he had what his mother would have called, kind eyes. What they needed right now were fresh eyes and some inspiration. They had totally drawn a blank with the investigation, and that didn’t look good in a city full of tourists and young people. The man might be a cool fish, but if he could throw some light on what they were dealing with, he was welcome.

  Harrison sat down on a wooden bench in Castle Green, just in front of a flower bed filled with rose bushes that had finished their blooms for the year and were preparing to hunker down for the cold winter. He needed to hunker down too and get into the vibe of this small city. It was a totally different feel to London, a microcosm of its own. Thousands of students and academic staff from around the world packed into a historic northern city steeped in tradition and history. Add to that a good dose of tourists, and the local people and character were combined into a multi-cultural soup of humanity. Somehow, though, the traditions and history were the blueprint on which all this life existed. It was like a sandcastle bucket. It didn’t matter what kind of sand you put into it, the grains followed the same grooves and the shape was always the same at the end.

  Sitting on the wooden bench in Castle Green, he could almost feel the history seeping out from the ground beneath him, and oozing from the stone walls of the buildings. Mature trees were smattered throughout the city and clustered the river banks. There was no doubting the beauty of the place, or its heritage, but somewhere in that soup was an evil element. A grain of black sand that had got into the bucket with its golden counterparts and was making the castle crumble at the edge. Who was the culprit and why they were here, he didn’t yet know, but the marks on the victim’s chest were going to be his starting point.

  9

  Harrison was at the morgue by nine-thirty am, the earliest appointment the pathologist could give him. The ride up yesterday had tired him out and given him an appetite, so when morning came he’d treated himself to a full English breakfast at the hotel to break his fast. It was only when he’d arrived at the morgue and was waiting for the pathologist to take him through that he wondered if the greasy breakfast had been a wise move. He had ten minutes to contemplate that question before it was answered.

  The pathologist, Sunil Sharma, was a tall, shiny headed man who hailed from Uttar Pradesh in India. His smile was warm and honest, and Harrison knew instantly that he was someone wh
o would do his absolute best for every one of his clients. Harrison followed him through the featureless grey corridors to his office, where he found a riot of colour and cheerfulness which radiated the character of its host. Harrison wasn’t the first person to wonder how he could be so positive about life when faced with death every working day. He suspected it had a lot to do with the statue of Hindu god, Vishnu on his desk and the innate appreciation of life that those who didn’t grow up with western privileges, often had. Education had clearly been Sunil’s saviour. Its importance to him was obvious to Harrison, from the mounted certificates on the office wall which would usually just be lost in the back of a cupboard somewhere.

  The office also had a warm smell of ginger and spices, a vast improvement on the smells which would greet them in the examination rooms.

  ‘Tea? It is chai ginger, or I can get you something else like PG Tips or coffee?’ Sunil picked up his own mug from his desk and walked over to a side table where a warming plate held a large metal teapot.

  Harrison rarely had caffeinated drinks, but the chai smelt delicious and he could imagine its warmth in his stomach.

  ‘A small one, thank you,’ he’d replied, hearing the adage, when in Rome, in his head.

  ‘I make it myself, fresh ginger and cardamom, plus some family spices, and of course, a little sugar.’ Sunil said to him, and handed over a half filled mug of steaming, milky tea which smelled delicious. ‘Plenty more if you like it.’

  ‘Thank you. I don’t usually drink caffeinated tea or coffee so I’ll go easy.’ Harrison took a sip and felt its warmth slide down his throat. ‘It’s good.’

  Sunil nodded and smiled. Satisfied. ‘Sets my constitution up for the day. Now, let us look at our young man.’

  The young man in question, was George Rupert Harold Marshwood, a twenty-year-old student of the University, who had been in line to inherit the title of Baron Marshwood from his father. It was a minor title, but his father had been a stockbroker at the height of the financial boom in the 80s, and his mother commanded high rates as a lawyer, so he would have also got a share in a fairly large inheritance. His younger brother, Charles, who he had never particularly gotten on well with, would now benefit from the lot. A fact that Charles was trying hard not to be pleased about. Sunil didn’t care about whether the corpse in his mortuary cold room had a title and money. He was a human being who had been murdered and deserved justice.

  Sunil turned his screen around so that Harrison could see the images he brought up from George’s file.

  ‘These will give you a clear view of the markings on his torso, because obviously I have had to make incisions for the examination. He was poisoned. Death would have been fairly quick, but brutal. You notice the way the face has contorted? He would have had paralysed facial muscles, low blood pressure, and then slow paralysis of the heart. It was Monkshood, a common plant, sometimes called Wolfbane or aconite.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve come across it before,’ said Harrison.

  ‘We believe the killer boiled up leaves and roots of the plant and put it into an alcoholic drink. A mix of vodka, apple and orange juice, honey and rum. There were high concentrations of the aconite so there was no doubting the intention.’

  There were three symbols carved into the skin of George Marshwood’s torso. Whoever had made them wasn’t an artist, or they had been made hurriedly.

  ‘They inflicted the wounds as he was dying, before death. He is likely to have been just alive when placed in the boat. He had not been gone long when they found him.’

  Harrison looked at the photographs of George’s skin. The dominant feature was what looked like an upside down hangman’s cross, but with the cross bar bent downwards at the ends. Underneath this, across his stomach, were the letters i u s t i t i a.

  ‘Justice. This is some kind of revenge killing,’ Harrison thought out loud. ‘The symbol is the Satanic justice symbol, and the letters are justice in Latin.’

  ‘We got the Latin quite early on, but the other symbol we were not sure about. There is something else too, a small tattoo, placed discreetly. It is on his left hip bone.’

  Sunil flicked through the photographs and came to what looked like a capital M with a small u and a teardrop shape dripping from it. They’d been created in black ink and stood out clearly against his marble white skin.

  ‘Mu? No idea on that one,’ said Sunil.

  ‘If you follow the pattern of the carvings, then that could be the Greek letters, capital M and a lowercase m.’ Harrison said.

  ‘As you can see, it is homemade. Either George, or someone else has cut into his skin and then put ink into the wound to create the tattoo. Now I don’t think it is likely to have been George. If you look at the angle of it and the position, he would have had to use a mirror and you know how difficult that is when you are looking at something in reverse. I do not think this was self-inflicted. It is also a fairly painful, and barbaric, way of having a tattoo done. Small needles are bad enough, but this involved slicing his flesh. Bearing in mind the nature of the symbols on his chest and how they were created, it is a similar process.’

  ‘How old would you say the tattoo is?’

  ‘Maybe as much as two years, I would say. The parents did not realise he had it.’

  ‘Anything else unusual about him?’

  ‘Yes. One final oddity. There was a small triangular-shaped piece of skin cut from his upper buttock around the time of death. Neatly done. Presumably at the same time his killer was carving up his chest.’

  ‘A trophy maybe?’

  ‘Perhaps. That is your department. All I can say with certainty is that it was removed.’

  ‘What about any signs of a struggle?’

  ‘Nothing that would indicate a fight of any form. There was some debris under his nails, which looked like they had been scraped across a hard surface and also mud, but I am thinking that was probably inflicted when he was dying in agony from the poison. There was some dust on his knees so he likely collapsed onto the ground, and some bruising where he was hoisted into the rowing boat. That is it.’

  ‘Ever seen anything like this through here before?’

  Sunil shook his head and took a big sip of his chai.

  ‘Do you want to go and see him now?’

  If Harrison was honest, he could do without it. The body had been completely examined and a full post-mortem undertaken. It was therefore highly unlikely that he would be able to glean any extra clues from it. Ideally he’d have seen it in situ, prior to Sunil getting his hands on George, but that couldn’t now be helped.

  ‘I’ll take a quick look, just to make sure I have those markings and the tattoo clear in my head.’

  Harrison wasn’t squeamish about death. He didn’t see a cadaver as a person. They were empty husks the moment death took them. He’d felt that way ever since he’d gone to see his mother in the mortuary. As next of kin, he’d been asked to identify her, and he’d also needed to see her for his own closure. Seeing someone just after they had passed away was the closest he ever got to believing in the spirit as its own separate entity. He was at his grandmother’s deathbed not long after. She’d been there, the warmth of her personality and experience filling her cancer wracked body and then, with her last breath, she was gone. He could understand why some societies believed in opening windows to let the spirit out and free.

  In some ways, not seeing the victim’s bodies as people helped him to deal with the gruesome sights he had to see, and the cruelty inflicted by others. He could view them as another clue in the case. He did always try to make a connection, however, remember that they were once living, breathing human beings. He also always made the same silent promise to every one of them, as he did to George Marshwood, that he would find his killer and make sure nobody else had to join him.

  10

  The next stop for Harrison had to be the incident room to look through all the evidence and the state of the inquiry. He also needed to see Gemma Barker for her mother, but b
efore he did that, he wanted to get a full grounding into what was going on.

  Durham Constabulary Headquarters was just a five-minute ride from his hotel in an area called Aykley Heads. It was a relatively new white building covered in large windows and set amid trees just outside of the city. It was a semi-rural location with a purpose-built open air car park that had a feeling of space. A far cry from the Met Police offices he was used to. An old cast iron police lamp was the only outward concession to history in front of its modern facade. The black painted lamp post topped by a navy blue lantern with ‘POLICE’ written in white letters was once a common landmark in Victorian Britain.

  Inside there were three floors of offices with a central open plan atrium. Harrison’s mind wandered to his own dark, window-less office. In some ways he preferred this free and light work space, but he wondered if both he and Ryan would find it disconcertingly exposed if they had to work in such an open plan way. There’d certainly be no room for his mementos of crimes.

  Harrison’s arrival into the incident room was perfectly timed. While there seemed to be a distinct lack of bums on seats in the main office, he saw a group, including DS Urquhart, in a meeting room that was on the far left. David spotted him straight away and Harrison saw him say something to the man at the head of the table, and then jump up and out of the room to greet Harrison.

  ‘Dr Lane, we’ve just started the prayer meeting. Come on in.’

  Harrison looked at him, a little nonplussed.

  ‘Morning briefing,’ David explained and waved him forward.

  Harrison walked into the meeting room and all eyes turned to look at the tall, muscular man in black bike leathers.

  ‘Dr Lane, glad you could join us.’ The man at the head of the table stood up and walked down the side to shake his hand. ‘DI John Steadman, Senior investigating officer.’ DI Steadman was a tall, big-boned man with jet black hair and a hint of a suntan to his skin which was out of place in the chilly north of England and made Harrison think he was probably of Italian or Mediterranean descent. He looked like he had once been a fan of the gym, but the extra work of being a DI, and the longer hours sat on his backside, had softened his contours. The crucial point for Harrison was the smile of welcome which involved his entire face. The reception here was distinctly warmer than the last one he’d received in Norfolk. They seemed genuinely pleased to see him, which made for a much more pleasant visit, although if they hadn’t he’d have just got on with it, anyway.