by Gwyn GB
‘It’s the so-called ghost monk and a young man who went missing a year ago. It’s a long shot, but one year ago there was a considerable amount of work being done on one side of Palace Green and they created a large rose bed area, exactly at the same time that a student went missing. The sightings of the ghost monk say he returns to that spot and sometimes lays a rose there. As I said, it might be a long shot but I think it’s worth getting a dog to take a look tonight, while Palace Green is quiet.’
‘You talking about the Downey lad? They searched everywhere for him. It was suspected he’d fallen in the river drunk, not the first one to have done that, but he never turned up downstream. They sent divers in but didn’t find him. It wasn’t our enquiry, one of the other teams dealt with it.’
‘I am.’
There was a few moments pause again at the other end of the phone while John worked through the cost and ramifications of trusting Harrison’s hunch and the impact if he didn’t.
‘Bloody hell, if you’re right… I’ll get onto the dog handler now. Meet you there in half an hour. We’ll keep this between you and me for now.’
Harrison had mixed feelings about the next hour or so. He didn’t want to be right because that meant another young man was dead, but on the other hand, he knew it would at least bring some closure to his parents. He also didn’t want to sour relations with John Steadman. However, he had never been someone who held back on something, just in case it was wrong. He didn’t subscribe to fear of failure. Every situation was a learning opportunity.
It didn’t take John long to get to Palace Green. Within twenty minutes, he pulled up in a blue BMW estate car.
‘The dog is on its way. ETA about twenty minutes,’ he said to Harrison as he got out. ‘Show me what we’re looking at.’
‘Two eye witnesses I’ve spoken to, said they saw the person dressed as a monk, the so-called ghost monk, enter this area from Owengate and walk over to the flower bed here. Both of them said he or she paused, placed a rose, or stood here a while, before heading towards the Cathedral, or down the side of it, towards the river. One year ago, this rose bed wasn’t here. They were digging up all along this area.’
Harrison showed the DI his mobile phone with the images that Ryan had pulled down from the internet.
‘Most importantly, you can see a dip running across the middle, an indicator that something might have decomposed and allowed the ground to collapse inward.’
John Steadman looked from Harrison to the flower bed. At first he strained to see, but then his eyes found the contours and Harrison saw the realisation pass across his face.
‘Yes, I see it. Could all be coincidence. We’ve still no idea who this monk is and what they’re playing at.’
‘Indeed, but I think they may also be responsible for some graffiti that’s been appearing. I think it’s all linked.’
Before the DI could ask Harrison anything further, or allow his doubts to take hold, the canine unit van drew into Palace Green. Harrison watched as John briefed the handler, who looked over at him, then at the flower bed and nodded. It was the perfect conditions for the dog. If there was anything there, it should find it.
The handler unlocked the back of the van and disappeared for a few moments, before a large German Shepherd jumped down, tail wagging with nose, eyes and ears ready for action. He was a gorgeous dog with a long silky black and tan coat, and he knew he was about to be put to work and was excited.
The handler had him on a thick leather lead. He motioned to Harrison and John to move away from the area and got the dog to sit. He did as commanded, his tail sweeping the floor and his eyes not leaving his handler’s face.
The officer whispered something to the dog and unhooked the lead, letting him loose.
It was all over in less than two minutes. The dog sniffed in the air, moved purposefully towards the flower bed, nose to the ground, gave it a few more sniffs and then spun round and sat on his haunches, facing his handler, tail wagging frantically. Not budging. If Harrison didn’t already know the significance of that, John’s reaction told him.
‘Shit!’ was all he could manage.
By the time Duke the cadaver dog had been rewarded with a play and lots of praise from his handler, the first police cars had arrived, with forensics not far behind them. As Duke went off shift for a well-earned sleep, an entire team set about turning the rose bed into a sealed crime scene, erecting a tent over it and bringing in specialist equipment. The DI was on the phone to the top brass at the University and Cathedral, and his boss was also on his way down to ensure they didn’t rub anyone up the wrong way. Politics wasn’t always John’s strong point.
Speed was essential. They wanted to secure the area and double check Duke’s prognosis before hundreds of nosy students woke up the next morning and started sharing the gossip on social media. There were still plenty of journalists in town too, who were sniffing around, hungry for their next headline. Chances were they’d be appearing shortly after dawn with their cameras and cheque books. The police also wanted to ensure that the killer had as little pre-warning as possible, and Christopher’s parents were fore-warned. For that, they needed to check if Duke and Harrison were right.
Harrison stepped into the background. He was convinced they were right, and he’d need to see if the remains held any further clues, but they were a while away from that stage. For now, there was nothing further for him to do. He had to let forensics do their jobs and carefully excavate to avoid losing any evidence. He walked back to his hotel through the streets of Durham city and along the river bank, and thought about the parents who tomorrow would get a phone call they’d been dreading.
13
Harrison set his alarm early. He wanted to ensure he made the most of the momentum that finding Christopher Downey’s remains would give the enquiry. He checked his phone the second his eyes were open. There was a text from John Steadman that said simply, ‘You and Duke were right. Excavating now and sent DNA for analysis’.
Yesterday there had been lots of information to take in and process. Today he wanted to sit down and work out his jigsaw of clues and see if he could find the missing pieces. He knew that the incident room would be a crazy hive of activity. For one thing, they were going to have to consult with the original team who’d searched for Christopher, then try to find links between the two enquiries.
Harrison sent a text to David Urquhart and asked him to provide all the documents he could relating to that original enquiry. It was early, just gone six am, and the hotel breakfast wasn’t even being served yet. Harrison decided to take a walk along the river, clear his head, get some exercise, and try to think.
The river was beautiful in the early morning light. When he walked away from the traffic bridge, it was quiet, just the sound of bird calls and the gentle flow of water. Occasionally a rowing quad or eight sped past, their progress barely making a sound apart from the odd bark from a cox, or the occasional swish of a poor oar stroke.
He watched birds flying low over the water, their reflections shimmering and swaying on its surface, and he breathed in the cool air. It had that smell of being next to a river, a kind of vegetational mud aroma with a hint of fish. The ground was damp, but he was in jogging bottoms and would change at the hotel before work, so he found a tranquil spot and sat down.
If, as suspected, the body on Palace Green turned out to be Christopher Downey, then it made sense that whoever was dressing up as a monk, had a connection to him and either wanted to draw attention to his death, or was visiting it as some kind of homage to his own work. He’d come across killers like that before. They would go to funerals, hang around grave sites and revisit the scenes of their crime because it gave them just a little of the kick that the original kill had given them. Also, if the ghost monk was the killer, they could be flaunting the fact that Christopher was buried under everyone’s noses and nobody knew he was there. Perhaps they even wanted him to be found so they could revel in the attention his murder would get and therefore how
clever they had been in concealing it. It also meant that they could be looking at a serial killer.
The only fly in his theories, were the other sightings of the ghost monk which weren’t around Palace Green. Was there another crime site? Another unknown victim? Or was this where the monk lived? While the police had mapped the sightings, they were getting more and more random, with no pattern to the ghost monk’s movements. The earliest sightings said the monk appeared in the Palace Green area and disappeared there also, which suggested that they might live in the vicinity, or that they were adept at avoiding CCTV and disguising themselves. He needed to track the other sightings, speak to the witnesses and double check there were no other potential crime scenes. One witness was Sandra’s daughter, Gemma, and he’d promised to speak to her and see how she was. Gemma was going to be on his priority To Do list for today.
A text came through on his phone from David, Briefing at 8am. Well done on the find, D.
Harrison headed back to his hotel, grabbed some breakfast, and was in the incident room by five to eight. The entire room was on fire: noise, phones ringing, officers rushing back and forth. He could see DI Steadman talking to another detective in his office. Two minutes later an older officer, who Harrison presumed was the Assistant Chief Constable, thanks to the badges on his uniform, walked through the incident room. Officers parted like the Red Sea as he walked towards the DIs office and entered. There were handshakes, an intense conversation, which included a glance from all three men in Harrison’s direction, and then lots of nodding.
At ten past eight, DI Steadman looked at his watch and left his office, leaving the other two to continue their conversation.
‘Briefing now, everyone, please,’ he shouted to the room.
The bodies poured like an hourglass from the larger room into the briefing room, filling the seats and leaving standing room only for the stragglers. John flicked on the screen at the front of the room and images of the freshly excavated rose garden appeared.
‘OK. Firstly, a big well done to Dr Lane, for identifying the site of these buried remains. It is highly likely that it is missing student, Christopher Downey, who some of you may remember disappeared a year ago. We’re waiting on DNA results, but from what we’ve seen of the remains so far, it fits. I obviously don’t need to tell you that this means we could now be looking for a serial killer and we need to take another look at any other missing person reports over the last two or three years to ensure there are no other victims that have gone under the radar. The body was wrapped in a monk’s habit, so we have a definite link. Initial indications however, suggest he was totally doused in bleach to thwart forensic examination which is different to how George was presented.’
A collective rustle and murmur went around the room at the mention of the monk’s habit and bleach.
‘We obviously had no reason to link his disappearance to our enquiry before, because it was thought Christopher had been drunk and accidentally fallen into the river. So what is the connection between Christopher and George? Why were they both dressed as monks? Is this some kind of perversion the murderer has? Our so-called ghost monk maybe? Is he dressing them as monks for his own reasons? I want every resource put into looking at Christopher’s background, what was going on at the time he went missing, and who were his friends. Could he have been part of a secret society that Dr Lane mentioned yesterday? We will get every assistance we need from our colleagues who looked at the original disappearance.’
‘Sir, any idea of when we’ll get confirmation that it’s Christopher?’ One detective asked.
‘I’m hoping within the next twenty-four hours. Obviously there’s not a lot left for us to use to ID him so we are also chasing dental records. I’m not sure we’re going to get a good idea of the cause of death either. I’m leaving Mr Sharma to work his magic. He’ll let us know as soon as he has anything.’
Harrison thought about Sunil and the delicious smell of his ginger Chai. His morning would not be a pleasant one and he’d need his warm elixir to help him today.
‘Dr Lane, do you have any thoughts yet as to what the monk connection might be? We obviously all know that Durham was founded by monks, but is there something more?’
‘I have a working theory which relates to both the symbols found on George and some other evidence,’ Harrison said, standing up and moving to the front of the room. He’d sent the graffiti images to David earlier and asked that they be circulated and put onto the briefing screen.
‘There have been several cases of graffiti around the Castle area of town. They haven’t been reported to authorities, they’ve just been dealt with by the property owners, but we’ve found four instances, all around Sadler Street and Moatside. Ne fais pas ce que tu voudras, which means Do not do what you want. In this form, it means nothing other than the message it is conveying, but it is the negative statement to something which has much greater meaning and has been used many times before. Fais ce que tu voudrais. Do what thou wilt, or what you want. Has anyone seen this before?’
Harrison scanned the faces in the room, hoping it might trigger a memory from someone. Blank expressions stared back and then one detective’s face changed.
‘It’s a Celine Dion song, isn’t it?’
That hadn’t been what Harrison had been hoping for.
‘I’m not sure about that, but what I do know is that this motto has been linked to the Hell Fire Clubs and also to occultist Aleister Crowley.’
The faces got blanker, all apart from the young woman Harrison had sat next to in the last briefing, Lucy.
‘The Hell Fire Clubs, weren’t they like a bunch of rich Lords who used to get drunk and have Satanic sex orgies in caves?’ The second she’d finished saying the words, she turned the colour of a tomato and clamped her lips shut in embarrassment. All eyes swivelled to Lucy and then back to Harrison, she’d whet their tabloid clickbait instincts.
‘You’re on the right tracks. Originally, it was the title of a proverb by a French Renaissance writer, who was a monk. It was later used by the Hell Fire Club as their motto, and then by Aleister Crowley’s Thelemic occult movement. The Hell Fire Club was an infamous high society social club. The most famous one was Sir Francis Dashwood’s which met in the mid-1700s. He also called it the Brotherhood, or the Friars of St Francis of Wycombe, before they moved their meeting venue and it became the Monks of Medmenham Abbey. They then cut a series of tunnels and caves into the hills around High Wycombe and they met there. He even had a portrait of himself commissioned where he was dressed as a monk. At their meetings they allegedly had mock religious ceremonies, and drank and ate to excess, while also entertaining prostitutes. This obviously all ties in with the monk theme.’
Harrison looked at the faces around the table. They were still listening. That was a good sign.
‘Then there’s Aleister Crowley, who in the late 1800s and early 1900s, also used this motto. Crowley was an interesting man, educated at Cambridge, he rejected his parent’s fundamental Christian ways and turned to ceremonial magic, studied other religions and eventually wrote a book, The Book of the Law which he said was dictated to him by a supernatural entity. This book said that followers should Do What thou wilt, and it became the basis of his occult religion, Thelema, which is said to have inspired Wicca and modern paganism and Satanism.’
The watching detectives all nodded. It had piqued their interest.
‘These are all historic examples, though. Why would it be used here today?’ Steadman asked.
‘The roots are historic, but both do still exist today. Dashwood’s nephew started the Phoenix Society or Phoenix Common Room dining club at Oxford University in honour of his uncle and that is still going, plus there are said to be a number of Hellfire clubs in existence in Ireland today. Crowley’s Thelema religion also has its followers. They’re both very much alive, and I’m wondering if we have some kind of group inspired by one or both, here in Durham.’
‘We certainly have dining clubs here. We
get the occasional criminal damage claims made by hotels and restaurants where a bunch of students with more money than manners have trashed the place. Usually doesn’t go to court because they just flash the cash and settle the damage,’ Steadman said.
‘I’m thinking the club might be a bit darker.’
‘What, like some kind of satanic human sacrifices?’ John Steadman’s eyebrows crossed in disgust at the thought.
‘I don’t know yet. The graffiti seems to contradict what the group stands for and the symbols carved onto George, suggested justice and revenge. We could have some kind of society that is targeting students, or a student society that is being targeted. I need to know more about Christopher and I need to speak to those who have seen the ghost of the monk after George was killed.’
Harrison returned to the incident room to double check the addresses he needed to visit to interview further ghost witnesses. The meeting had broken up with a babble of enthusiasm and he could hear officers discussing potential new lines of enquiry. While the stakes had doubled with the discovery of Christopher, it also meant double the chance that they might find a clue which would give them the breakthrough they needed.
He was concentrating on his screen when he became aware of someone hovering around him. It was Lucy.
Harrison stopped what he was doing and looked up at her.
‘Do you need me?’
She blushed again, something which was clearly a daily hazard with her pale skin and shyness.
‘I wondered, well I was just wondering how you knew that Christopher’s body would be there? I’ve looked at all the ghost monk reports and I couldn’t see how you could have worked that out.’ Lucy looked nervous, as though she was terrified Harrison might bite her head off.
He gave her one of his smiles, and she instantly relaxed.
‘A lot of it is looking at witness psychology and also I think we have entered a stage of social hysteria regarding the monk, so the first thing was to draw some clear timelines.’