Preacher Boy

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by Gwyn GB




  Also By The Same Author

  The Villagers

  DI Claire Falle series

  Lonely Hearts

  Home Help

  Death Bond

  Dr Harrison Lane series

  Preacher Boy

  The Horsemen

  Dark Order

  Holy Man

  Writing as Gwyn Garfield-Bennett

  Islands

  404

  PLEASE NOTE: SPELLINGS USED IN THIS BOOK ARE BRITISH ENGLISH.

  Preacher Boy

  1st in the Harrison Lane mystery series

  Gwyn GB

  Published in 2021 by Chalky Dog Publishing

  Copyright © Gwyn GB 2021

  Gwyn GB has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright holder.

  All characters and their storylines, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living, or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  A word from Gwyn

  The Horsemen

  Acknowledgments

  About Gwyn GB

  Also By Gwyn

  1

  Dr Harrison Lane pulled into Felton Woods car park and put the Harley’s brakes on, just in front of the uniformed police officer who stood there, palm forward, ordering him to stop. The young officer looked intimidated but stood his ground with the briefest of twitches, acknowledging the twenty or so colleagues who swarmed all over the area behind him. Harrison took his helmet off and an earbud out, cutting Metallica off in their prime.

  ‘This car park is closed, sir,’ the officer said. ‘I need you to leave immediately.’

  Harrison said nothing but reached inside his leather jacket and pulled out a Metropolitan Police ID card. He handed it to the officer with the raise of an eyebrow and the whisper of a smile. The card read, ‘Dr Harrison Lane, Ritualistic Behavioural Crime Unit’.

  The officer looked at it and then at the face of the man in front of him. Harrison watched as a wave of recognition, then suppressed inquisitiveness, swept across the man’s features. Without another word, he stepped aside and handed the ID back. Harrison took it with the hint of a nod, replaced his helmet, and slowly rode his motorbike into the car park, aware of the young man’s eyes following him.

  There was no apparent urgency to Harrison’s movements. Around him buzzed a swarm of activity. Police officers and Scenes of Crime personnel rushed from vehicles into the woods that formed an embrace of brown and green around the top half of the parking area. He got off his bike and stopped to take in the scene, his eyes scanning every inch.

  They had taped the car park closest to the woods off and it was empty except for a single car, a black VW Golf, almost directly in front of him. To his right a pale-faced man was talking to two police officers, a bored-looking Spaniel at his feet. Near them stood a huddle of white-suited forensic officers sorting small plastic boxes and bags at the back of their van. Three paths broke the line of trees and bushes, the middle one guarded by a uniformed officer. You didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to realise there was a body in those woods.

  Harrison already knew this; he’d received the call at 6.30 a.m., and it had taken him just forty-five minutes to get across town and out here. After running a hand through his short dark hair, he unzipped his jacket. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply so his muscular chest strained rhythmically at the white T-shirt underneath.

  He pulled the scent of the place into his nostrils: earthy, the autumnal signature of decaying leaves. A dampness was in the air; that was good. The early morning dew would act as a canvas on which any physical disturbances could be read.

  Behind him the young police officer watched transfixed as the solid bulk of Dr Harrison Lane stood planted in the middle of the car park, not moving.

  Finally, his eyelids flicked open, revealing a deep look of concentration that sharpened the brown pools of his eyes. After placing the white forensic boots and suit over his clothes, he started a slow journey towards his target.

  As Harrison walked, he examined the ground and bushes. The investigating team’s feet had stamped and churned the path, but that didn’t stop him from looking. He knew even the minutest clue could turn the direction of the case.

  A forensic photographer came down the path in the opposite direction, brushing past. Harrison’s concentration remained unbroken.

  The path led to a small clearing, a breath of sky that broke the canopy of leaves. At the edge stood two women who stopped talking and turned to watch him, but Harrison didn’t acknowledge their presence. He only had eyes for what was in front of them.

  At his arrival, the older woman, a plain-clothed police detective in her fifties and clearly in charge, motioned to the forensics team to stop what they were doing and stand aside.

  Harrison stepped closer to the centre of the clearing. A body lay amidst the mud and leaf debris. It was too small to be an adult. Pale waxy skin glistened with dew in the thin white light of the morning. He stopped and drank in the scene in front of him. Position. Cover. Conditions. Trees rose all around the clearing, forming an impenetrable circle, broken only by one entry and one exit path. Mature oaks and beech were interspersed with fir and horse chestnuts. Their trunks, skirted by elderberry bushes, were entwined with ivy that reached up towards the branches as though shackling the trees to the forest floor. Where there wasn’t ivy, the cracked brown roughness of the bark was upholstered with furred green moss and lichen.

  Other than the paths, the wood was a suffocating darkness made more impenetrable by the occasional grey barrier of stone ruins that rose like drowning sailors from the undergrowth. To those who stood in the clearing, this didn’t seem like a place to go for a stroll, or perhaps it was the focus of their visit that lent the woods their sombre, ghostly edge.

  Slowly Harrison moved forward, turning his attention back to the ground as he walked.

  He was upon it now. The body of a boy, around seven years old. He looked like he had just fallen asleep, but the rotting leaves upon which he lay were his grave.

  Harrison stopped on the forensic platform placed around the boy’s body, and dropped to a crouch. The boy’s thin upper torso was uncovered, and across his chest, “V R S N S M V–S M Q L I V B” was written in black marker.

  He turned to examine the roughly made wooden cross behind the boy’s head. It looked upside down. The arm—fixed by what appeared to be a length of wool—crossed the vertical bar around one-third from the bottom. Four candles were pushed into the eart
h at each corner. They had been lit and mostly burned down. In the boy’s left hand was what looked like a small torch.

  As Harrison turned his head, he exposed the small brown eagle tattoo on his thick neck to the group of bystanders who all stood watching silently. Even the birds had exited the clearing, as if in respect for the intensity of his concentration.

  He stood up and moved around the body, studying the ground beneath the stepping blocks laid out by forensics to protect the evidence. He almost sniffed at the air. There was something raw and animalistic about this man and the way he moved. All his senses focussed and alert.

  Harrison gave one last scan around the area just as from behind him the sound of crashing footsteps heralded the arrival of someone new into the clearing.

  ‘So the Witch Doctor’s arrived!’ A blond mid-thirties police detective walked up to the two women and nodded toward Harrison, smirking.

  ‘Shut it. Don’t start now,’ the older woman snapped at him, not taking her eyes off the scene in front of her. The younger woman, an attractive brunette, shot him a look of contempt, which he failed to notice.

  Harrison took another walk around the body, and then his face softened. The concentration slipped from him. He gave one last look to the boy, this time with compassion in his eyes, as if seeing him as a child for the first time.

  2

  Detective Chief Inspector Sandra Barker held out her hand in greeting. ‘Harrison,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector.’ He nodded back, grasping her hand with warmth. She had short dark blond hair that had turned white at the temples, giving it a streaked look. “Maturity highlights,” she called them. A feathered fringe sat above eyes that could bore into the most hardened criminals but also soften when focussed on a victim. When she smiled, creases appeared at the corners of her mouth and eyes. Her lips weren’t full, and people often mistook her resting face for one that was hard and stern. Harrison, however, knew better.

  ‘This is Dr Tanya Jones, our crime scene manager,’ DCI Barker introduced the young woman next to her. ‘Dr Jones, Dr Harrison Lane, Ritualistic Behavioural Crime Unit lead. You both know Detective Sergeant Jack Salter.’ She nodded at the new arrival.

  Harrison offered his hand to Dr Jones, who took it, not taking her eyes away from his. She wore the working uniform of a crime-scene investigator, a white microporous coverall and blue PVC overshoes, the same as every one of them in the clearing. The hood on Tanya's suit was pushed off her head to reveal long hair tied up in a ponytail. With her hair scraped back from her face, it was easier to see her high cheekbones and pale complexion. In her left hand she held her mask and the blue nitrile glove she'd taken off the hand she offered to Harrison.

  ‘It's a pleasure to meet you. I've heard a lot about your work,’ she said as his big hand enveloped hers.

  Behind them, as they talked, the rest of the forensics team worked to put up a protective tent around the boy's body. The painstaking collection of evidence would continue once they’d secured the crime scene from all the elements, and long after the detectives had left the woods.

  Keen to get on with the police work, DCI Barker cut short the introductions. 'Are we looking at some kind of satanic cult?'

  Harrison shook his head. ‘Definitely not. It's one man obsessed with religion.’

  ‘No way you could just tell that by looking,’ DS Salter butted in.

  Everyone ignored him.

  ‘There was no ritual. The boy didn't die here. He was brought and placed here. The woods were once part of Felton Abbey's grounds. You can see part of the ruins.’ Harrison turned and nodded towards the grey stones that poked above the undergrowth.

  ‘Any idea what the letters are on his chest?’ DCI Barker continued, taking out her notebook. Its blue cover carried the Metropolitan Police logo. She flicked through pages of notes to find a clean space in which to write.

  ‘It's the satanic exorcism prayer of Saint Benedict. Latin. Vade Retro Satana, Numquam suade mihi vana. Sunt Mala Quae Libas, Ipse venena bibas. Step back, Satan, never tempt me with your vanities. What you offer me is evil, drink the poison yourself.’

  DCI Barker looked up at Harrison and thrust her notebook towards him. ‘You'd better write that down for me. You think he was poisoned?’ She squinted at him as he wrote.

  Harrison shook his head again. ‘I don't think so. Obviously the postmortem will confirm that. It's not meant to be a literal meaning, and there's no obvious sign of poisoning. He looks too peaceful.’

  DCI Barker's frown turned to sadness before her face resumed its professional mask. ‘So what's with the upside-down cross and the candles? Isn't that the cross of the Devil?’

  ‘It is,’ Harrison said, ‘but I don't think that's what he intended. The man who found the body, his dog probably nudged it when he walked up to the boy to sniff him. It's only loosely fixed. The paw prints stop right next to it before retreating. The candles could represent the light of Christ; but with what I think is a torch in the boy's hand, it's more likely to be the fact your man is afraid of the dark and didn't want to leave the boy alone without light.’

  DCI Barker wrote that in her notebook.

  DS Salter shook his head.

  ‘There's something in the boy's mouth,’ Harrison continued. ‘Could be a protective talisman. I think the man who brought him here is worried the Devil's going to take him or has taken him. I believe he's been trying to teach him, save him if you like. The prayer suggests he might have killed him, thinking he was possessed. Or that he blames the Devil for his death.’

  ‘How can you say he's been teaching him? There's no way anyone could tell that!’ DS Salter tried to be a part of the conversation. This time he spoke more forcefully.

  Harrison turned and considered him for the first time. ‘Have you looked at his right hand? The boy has been writing incessantly for days. His index and middle fingers are inked and rubbed raw from constant use. His wrist carries abrasions where it had been dragged across a surface as he wrote.’

  DS Salter wished he'd taken a closer look at their victim before opening his mouth. This guy was a smart arse.

  DCI Barker took back control of the questioning. ‘So who we looking for?’

  ‘A lone killer, obsessed with the teachings of the Church and the battle with evil...’

  ‘No shit, Sherlock!’ DS Salter muttered. The three of them looked at him as though he was a complete idiot.

  ‘His struggle with it would have started in childhood,’ Harrison said. ‘Perhaps he had a strict upbringing, and the punishment was being left alone in the dark. He'll be a loner, on the edges of society. He or his family are regular churchgoers, but he might have stopped attending recently. Something triggered this. People may have noticed his absence. He's shorter than average, around five foot four or five, and of slight build. I'd say he brought the boy here four or five hours ago, and you should search for a small van, not a car.’

  DCI Barker nodded. ‘Thanks. That gives us a few leads to work on until forensics get us more information.’ She looked at Dr Jones, who'd been listening to the conversation in awe. ‘In the meantime, I've got to get through the Saturday shopper traffic to the Phillips family and tell them we've found their missing son before the press gets a hold of this. You got a spare crash helmet on you, Harrison?’

  ‘Of course. No problem. It was a pleasure to meet you Dr Jones,’ he said, looking at her and gave a smile that energised his eyes without barely moving his lips. He turned and started to walk from the clearing. As he passed DS Salter, ‘Later,’ was all he said without even a glance.

  Salter scowled after him and turned to DCI Barker. ‘Look, there's no way he can know it's just one person, let alone what he bloody looks like,’ he said in a barely hushed voice.

  DCI Barker put her notebook away, ‘Have you ever heard of the Shadow Wolves?’

  DS Salter shrugged and looked perplexed.

  ‘Google them, Jack. He was brought up by one of their best.’<
br />
  ‘What the…? And what's with the whole "Later" thing?’

  ‘He means now isn’t the time or place to tell you what a prick you can be. Drop the macho humour and try just being yourself, can you?’

  DCI Barker walked off. Behind her Jack Salter couldn't hide his annoyance, and Dr Jones had to turn away so he couldn't see the smirk on hers.

  As Sandra Barker left the clearing, she heard Salter's mobile ring.

  He sighed to himself and answered, ‘Marie...’

  She paused for a moment to turn and watch him, the irritation melting into a flicker of concern. Then she followed Harrison to the car park, where he stood staring at the ground in the taped-off area.

  ‘Definitely van tyres, but not a big company van—a private one. Small business, maybe. The tyres are different and quite worn. A fleet vehicle would likely have all the same tyres.’

  ‘Definitely his vehicle?’ DCI Barker asked.

  ‘Yup. While his tracks are mostly obliterated on the path, it's the same footprints as we saw around the body. Here, carrying the boy towards the woods, and then lighter imprints on his return. The dog walker is in trainers, but a different sole pattern.’ Harrison pointed out marks on the ground to the DCI, who looked but, try as she might, couldn't see what he saw. She nodded anyway.

 

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