by Gwyn GB
His first visit was with an Alice Robertson, who was their first known sighting. She’d seen the monk before the girl was assaulted with the rose. Alice was a student at University College, the college which was at the castle itself. Her room wasn’t inside the castle walls, but along the street Harrison had walked up with David just yesterday. Owengate led to Palace Green from Saddler Street. Harrison didn’t want to meet her in her room, and had instead arranged to rendezvous at the top of Owengate by the red public telephone box on the edge of the Green. A rarity these days.
It was a pleasant early evening, although there was a chill to the air. Harrison could tell he was further north. Up here they still had regular snow falls, unlike the warmer south, which rarely saw the white stuff. He was glad he’d brought a jumper with him, and he walked briskly to warm up his body. Harrison had dropped into the hotel to leave his bike and freshen up. He’d find something to eat in the town.
The streets had thinned out of general public as the shops were now shut, and it was mostly students, or a few tourists out for an early meal. As the school term had started in the UK, the tourists were easy to spot, as they were almost entirely over a certain age. Holidaying was far more cost effective out of school holiday season, and most places a lot quieter, and so the retired generally traveled off season.
He loved the feel of this little city. It didn’t actually feel like a city at all, not like London with its incessant traffic, teeming streets and constant hubbub. It turned his mind to the visit from Leo Fawcett. Maybe it was time for him to move out of London. He hadn’t intended to stay there in the first place, the city life had never suited him. He’d stayed because he was lucky to have a home, thanks to his grandfather’s inheritance, and because Andrew was there. Then he’d set up the unit and met Ryan, and so he’d just ended up staying longer. What would he be leaving behind if he left now? Apart from Andrew’s face, one other came into his mind. Tanya. They might not see each other too regularly, but he’d definitely miss her company. She’d texted him earlier to see how it was going. She was out tonight, but perhaps he’d get to speak to her if she didn’t get home too late.
Alice Robertson turned out to be a bright, bubbly young woman from Bedford with long, curly, brown hair. She came with back-up, a girl from Manchester called Kaz, with a personality double her size, and a mass of Afro-Caribbean hair which framed her round face like a filigree graphite halo. The two girls appraised Harrison.
‘I told Kaz about it, didn’t I?’ Alice explained, and her friend nodded energetically. ‘Thought it was right weird cos I couldn’t see their face, but you just never know if it’s someone from the cathedral or another student having a laugh. I didn’t bother telling the police until after the murder.’
‘Can you think back to that night and tell me where you were and what time it was?’ Harrison asked her.
‘I’d just come out the Castle, been in the Undie and it was about half nine-ish,’ she replied, and then saw Harrison’s quizzical look.
‘The Undercroft, it’s our college bar. I hadn’t drunk much, just a couple. I don’t drink a lot, do I Kaz?’
‘No, she doesn’t drink much, don’t like getting drunk, do you?’
‘So it was dark, and I started heading towards my room when I saw this black figure walking along the side of Palace Green, over there.’ She pointed further along the side of the Green that they were now on.
‘Did you see where they had come from?’
Alice shook her head.
‘They walked over to that garden bit over there and laid down the rose they were carrying, stood there a few moments and then walked off towards the Cathedral. When I looked again, they’d just disappeared.’
Harrison looked to where Alice had pointed out the flower bed. It was close to where he’d sat on the bench just yesterday, a patch of around twelve feet by six feet, which had bushes growing in it.
‘And did the monk seem real to you?’
‘I thought so, but their footsteps never made any sound. I realised that after. They were light on their feet and they didn’t have a face under the hood of the cloak. It was just black inside.’
Harrison smiled and nodded.
‘I promise you I saw him, but he didn’t attack me or anything, like some people say. Didn’t really seem to bother about me at all. I thought that was a bit odd, too. They say some hauntings are like film clips that keep replaying don’t they? That they’re printed on old buildings and stuff?’
‘Some people believe that. It’s more likely that it was a person dressed as a monk,’ Harrison replied.
‘But I definitely didn’t see a face.’
‘They were probably wearing a black face mask in case they were recognised.’
‘They did just disappear,’ Alice argued.
‘Were you standing still watching them?’
‘No, I was walking back home.’
‘Then chances are you would have glanced away more than once to check your footing or to look where you were going. In those few seconds, someone could go into a building or down a side street and disappear from your view.’
‘So you don’t believe the monk’s a ghost then?’ Kaz asked, genuinely interested.
‘Our brains will interpret things according to circumstances, and our memories change over time. It’s not like extracting a piece of data from a computer, a memory can be altered just by telling someone. Did you think you’d seen a ghost when you first told Kaz?’ Harrison asked Alice.
She thought a moment, shrugged her shoulders and then shook her head.
‘It’s because of all the rumours and the murder, now you are questioning what it was you witnessed. Making the memory fit the current circumstances.’
‘I’m not lying,’ she pouted.
‘No, I’m not saying you are. I believe what you saw that night, it’s just a question of interpretation. Your brain now has other information in relation to that incident, it’s therefore imposing different criteria onto what it was you saw.’
Alice thought about it and nodded.
‘Yeah, I can see that,’ she said.
‘Not such a great story to tell in the Undie though,’ laughed Kaz, ‘definitely better when it was a murdering ghost.’
The two girls headed off giggling and left Harrison thinking. There was one other student to speak to before he headed off to find some dinner. Josh Findley was a student at Trevelyan College, one of the hill colleges further out of the main city area. Josh had also agreed to meet Harrison at the Green and he guessed that the skinny bookish looking lad that had just arrived at the phone box was him.
‘Josh?’ Harrison asked.
Josh visibly jumped at the sight and sound of Harrison, and his eyes widened.
‘Harrison Lane, we spoke on the phone.’
‘Yes, yes, that’s me,’ he replied. ‘You’re the psychologist?’ he asked, surprised, giving Harrison a quick look over. He spoke at twice the normal rate and reminded Harrison of a chattering sparrow.
‘I won’t keep you long. Just wanted to get an idea of what it was you saw. Can you think back to that night?’
‘I told the police. I was coming across the Green, you know, just been to see a friend, and I saw him walking across from there.’ Josh pointed towards Owengate, ‘and over to there.’ He indicated the flower bed again. ‘Then he went off down past the Department of Music, towards the river.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Next to the Cathedral.’
‘What time was this?’
‘About twelve thirty. I’d been with my friend, you know, working on a project with him,’ Josh qualified. ‘He’s on the same course as me.’
Harrison smiled at him reassuringly. It was obvious that Josh hadn’t yet come to terms with his own sexuality and felt the need to try to cover his tracks.
‘Did they do anything? The monk?’ Harrison asked.
‘Just stopped over there for a bit. I wasn’t watching all the time.’ Josh pointed t
o the flower bed again. ‘It was before that guy was murdered and I thought it was just someone coming back from a party.’
‘So you thought it was a real person?’
‘I thought so, yes. They seemed real enough.’
‘Anything about the monk that stood out to you?’
‘I couldn’t see their face, I suppose that’s a bit odd. Under the hood was just dark.’
‘What kind of size were they?’
‘Not as tall as me, but slim.’
Harrison estimated that Josh was about five feet eleven.
‘So they just walked down the side of the Cathedral. You didn’t see exactly where they went?’
‘No, I wanted to get home. It was late. Like I said, I didn’t think anything of it.’
‘OK thank you Josh, I appreciate your time.’
Josh couldn’t seem to get away fast enough, and half ran and half walked across the Green towards the Castle entrance, which was at the far right-hand corner. No doubt off to visit his friend again.
Harrison stopped a moment and considered what Alice and Josh had both said. The mysterious monk had walked up Owengate and along the side of Palace Green, stopping at the flower bed, before disappearing down towards the river. He’d done the same thing both times. There were a couple of other eyewitnesses who mentioned the monk walking the same route, but why was the flowerbed so important?
Harrison walked over to take a closer look. It was full of rose bushes, none of them in bloom, of course, due to the time of year. Why would someone dressed in a monk’s robe place a rose amid rose bushes? Harrison looked around Palace Green. This was getting interesting, but what the significance was, he didn’t yet know.
12
When Harrison got back to his hotel room, the first thing he did was call Tanya. He told himself it was because he felt guilty for having let her down, but if he was honest, it was because he missed her company and her voice. He’d tried to reason with himself, to quell the tension he felt every time he thought about getting more involved with her, but it wouldn’t go away. Something inside of his head, something hidden, was blocking his ability to fully commit. He missed her, he wanted her, but he just couldn’t do it. Psychoanalysing himself wasn’t working out, but he wouldn’t give up trying.
Tanya answered, and Harrison could hear she was in a car or taxi.
‘Harrison, I’m just on my way home,’ she said.
‘OK, did you have a good night?’ he asked?
‘What did you say?’
‘Did you have a good night?’
‘Oh, yes, thank you. It was lovely, actually. Look, I can barely hear you. Give me a call a bit later, can you? If you’re going to bed, don’t worry, I’ll call you in the morning.’
‘Speak later,’ Harrison replied, and he fully intended to call her and speak to her later, but he didn’t. When he got off the phone, there was an email in his inbox from Ryan, and all thoughts of calling Tanya went out of his mind.
Harrison knew, the second he saw the email from Ryan, that it was going to contain some potential leads because he only ever used emojis when he was genuinely excited. This email had two emojis in the subject line.
Quite apart from the fact that he and Ryan had a good understanding of how each other liked to work, he also had an innate ability to find the unusual amidst a massive pile of the very ordinary. It was a trait that Harrison had drummed into him from the moment they’d started working together. Most people look, but they don’t see. It was Harrison’s mantra, and Ryan took pride in ensuring he saw as much as possible. Where Harrison saw signs and clues in the physical world using his tracking skills and psychology training, Ryan did the same, but in the digital world.
The first piece of information related to reports of graffiti. These were very minor, not even reported to the police, but they’d come up on social media and in chat groups and Ryan had found them.
Spot the Durham student’s graffiti, was one post, with a photograph of a wall daubed with the words, ‘Ne fais pas ce que tu voudras’. Ryan had kindly translated it for Harrison, Do not do what you want. He hadn’t needed to translate it though, because Harrison had seen a similar quote many times before.
There were other examples of the same message, and they had all been daubed on walls around the area that most of the monk sightings had occurred. Harrison knew they were connected.
The last piece of information sent through by Ryan made for even more ominous reading. ‘First-year student goes missing’, was the headline in the Northern Echo. Eighteen-year-old Christopher Downey, son of Sir Thomas and Mary Downey, disappeared a few weeks after starting at University College, Durham. Friends said it was out of character and he hadn’t told them where he was going. Ryan had added a note to Harrison, which confirmed he still hadn’t turned up despite a reward being offered and an extensive search.
Almost exactly a year later, George was murdered. Perhaps he hadn’t been the first victim after all.
Harrison’s mind went back to his conversations with the two students earlier, and a flicker of something he’d noticed prompted him to email Ryan straight back.
‘Can you find any photographs of Palace Green from the time that Christopher Downey went missing?’
He didn’t know if Ryan was still up, but he shouldn’t have doubted him. It was incredible how quickly he could work and also incredible how many photographs got posted on social media. Even if they’d been deleted, there were ways of finding things that most people just didn’t know about. Harrison knew Ryan used Wayback Machine as one tool, but it wasn’t the only one. Within ten minutes, he had what he needed. A selection of selfies and scenic images of Palace Green from a year ago; and they showed him just what he’d been looking for.
It was a long shot, but Harrison had his shoes back on and was on his way back to Palace Green within minutes.
When he got there, it was quiet. Just the odd student or group traversing the area en route to their beds. Bats swooped around the open green catching insects, and the cathedral towered up into the dark night, its magnificent facade highlighted by floodlights in the darkness.
Harrison went straight over to the rose bed. At first he’d been worried he might not be able to see in the dark, but it worked in his favour. Shadows might sometimes hide a clue, but other times they accentuated them too. There had been something he’d seen earlier, which, combined with his latest information, added up to a potentially major find.
He’d worked on a case a couple of years back when they had a suspect, with motive and evidence that he’d killed, but no victim’s body. Cadaver dogs had searched the man’s property and found nothing, and the investigation had stalled. The trial was due to start any time, and the prosecution was looking at having to cut a deal because of the lack of a body. Meanwhile, the victim’s husband was devastated and unable to work through his grief until he’d been reunited with his wife and allowed to put her to rest. Harrison had a hunch about where the murderer might have put her, but the inquiry was out of budget and time, and it was both too tenuous for the SIO to tie up a dog team, and the weather conditions meant the dogs would have struggled to be effective, anyway. Harrison knew that there had been studies which said trained forensic archaeologists were highly accurate in detecting buried bodies, and with his tracking skills, he decided to read up on the subject and try himself. He read The Detection of Human Remains, by Edward Killam, and he spoke to some experts at the University. Then he took a week off work to systematically walk the woods where he believed Susanna Richards had been buried. It took him three days in the rain and wind, and with a bad headache from the conditions, constant concentration, and overpowering smell of pine sap; but he’d found her.
In Palace Green it would be both easier and tougher. He had one small area to consider, the rose garden, but if a body had been buried and rose bushes planted on top, then chances are it was quite deep down. There also wouldn’t be any disturbed existing vegetation, like he’d seen in the woods for Susa
nna’s grave. The soil would be uniform in colour and texture, as the whole area had been dug up at the same time. However, there was a third clear sign that remains might be buried, and that was a depression in the earth. As a body decomposed, the soil would collapse down and cause an indentation on the surface. After one year, he should be able to see that, and he’d noticed something when he looked earlier. It wasn’t going to be foolproof, but it would be another tick on his suspicion list.
Harrison paused and closed his eyes to focus his concentration. He wanted to look with as much objectivity as possible, not allow his mind to see random patterns and form them into what he expected to see there.
The rose bush area was about twelve feet long and once you knew what you were looking for, it was obvious even to an untrained eye that there was a clear dip in the middle which was just over five feet long. The light from the cathedral lights was weaker here, but there was still enough to cause clear shadowing in the dip. In addition, two of the rose bushes had slightly subsided into it. To a passer-by, it would have just seemed like uneven ground, but with the suspicion that Harrison had, it screamed buried body.
He was on the phone to DI Steadman straight away.
John Steadman answered the phone with a groggy voice.
Harrison didn’t apologise for waking him.
‘How easily and quickly can you get access to a cadaver dog?’
‘Dr Lane! A cadaver dog?’
Harrison gave him a moment to wake up.
‘I don’t know. I think we could have one on site in Durham within two hours, possibly even one. What is it?’