The Sect (The Craig Crime Series)

by Catriona King

  Liam squinted at the screen. “What’s Toca? That image doesn’t make sense.”

  “Medieval waterboarding. Seems there’s nothing new in the torture world.”

  He tapped his screen again and enlarged the choke pear, reading aloud from another page.

  “The pear can be inserted into any bodily orifice and widened to inflict pain. It was classically used to choke, or on women––”

  Craig raised a hand to halt him. “Thanks. We get the picture.” As he scanned the images he thought aloud. “Torture, body parts removed and drugs given, all of which we think may be symbolic of our dead victims’ perceived crimes––”

  Liam cut in. “Which means victim number four was a rapist.”

  No-one disagreed. Craig continued.

  “A medieval torture implement and a Latin phrase that we believe resembles one used by the Spanish Inquisition, also medieval.”

  Davy cut in. “That meant s…someone’s confession is valid even if it’s given after torture. That’s what I was getting at.”

  Craig motioned him on.

  “The torture implement left with Bobby McDonagh w…wasn’t used until he was dead. Likewise any excisions and injections were done post-mortem, yes?”

  Craig half nodded. “I think the castration was done P.M. but check that with John, please.”

  “If they were done P.M. they weren’t done to inflict pain, so why do them at all? Yes, as a symbol of their victim’s supposed crime, but surely part of the reason the choke pear was left could have been to s…show that they’d all been tortured when they were still alive? It fits with what the tattoo says. They’d all been tortured and confessed to their perceived s…sins and the killer wants us to know that they had.”

  Andy cut in. He’d been quiet throughout the briefing, as had Jake who was staring out the window looking exhausted.

  “What torture methods did they use on them? None of the bodies except Bobby’s had torture marks, except maybe the manacles.”

  Ken answered before Davy could. “I can give you an exhaustive list of torture methods: white noise, sleep deprivation, emetics, enemas, electric shocks. It’s endless. Some never leave a mark and the marks from the others fade in a few days.”

  Carmen turned to stare at her boyfriend as Craig asked the question they all wanted to ask.

  “How do you know, Ken?”

  The soldier shook his head. “Don’t worry; I was never tortured. But before we’re sent out to a warzone we have to be prepared, so they demonstrate the interrogation techniques the enemy might use if we fall into their hands––”

  Liam interrupted. “Does torture ever work?”

  Ken shrugged. “Unlikely, even if the average soldier knew anything but their name, rank and serial number, which they don’t. That’s the stupid part. The enemy think we all know everything about the military’s plans but only the top brass really do.”

  Craig nodded. “So they get told a lot of lies to make the torture end.”

  “Exactly. Even the US Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that enhanced interrogation techniques didn’t yield useful intelligence.”

  A debate on the morality and effectiveness of torture started and Craig let it run while he poured himself a fresh drink, then he quietened the group and summarised.

  “OK. We have four victims, three that Jake says were known to social services and we’re waiting to hear on the fourth. There’s symbolic post-mortem mutilation on all of them except on Sam Beech, and we think the implement left with Bobby McDonagh could also be pointing us to torture having being used on all the victims before death, as does the tattoo. There’s also an element of ritual to all the crimes: the washing of the bodies, the bleach, although that could just be a forensic countermeasure, and the wrapping and leaving above ground.”

  Liam interrupted. “As opposed to what?”

  “Burial.”

  He nodded. “OK, but why’s the over ground location important?”

  A bell rang in Craig’s head but he wasn’t going to say anything until he was sure. He shook his head at Liam and continued.

  “There’s something else that also points to ritual; the identical stomach contents on victims one to three. Doctor Marsham has managed to narrow the food to red wine and some form of bread. We’re waiting to hear what sort. The odds are that victim four will have the same––”

  He was cut short by Liam. “Damn.”

  “What?”

  Craig read the answer in his eyes. Bread and wine; the symbolism of communion. He’d been brought up ecumenically but if his mother knew how slow he’d been to connect the dots she’d berate him for forgetting the Italian Catholic part of his heritage.

  Liam shook his head in disgust. “Bread and wine. Communion. The bastards are feeding them communion before they die.” He spotted some blank faces so he filled in the gaps. “Torture, confession, Latin tattoo, bread and wine, drowning; these gits are taking people they perceive as sinners and performing a ritual sacrifice.”

  Ken asked the obvious. “Satanic?”

  Liam snorted. “Not in their minds. There are no pentagrams or ram’s heads if that’s what you mean. This is religious and these eejits probably think that they’re saving their souls. They think they’re true Catholics, and by true I mean pre-reformation, burn all the heretics at the stake Catholics. They think they’re doing God’s work, sending sinners to their graves cleansed of their sins.”

  Suddenly he gave a heavy sigh and Craig practically shouted his next question.

  “What? What else have you realised?”

  Liam shook his head. “How could we have missed it? It’s so bloody obvious!”

  “What is? I swear, if you don’t hurry up––”

  Liam strode over to Davy’s desk and muttered something in his ear. Another tap of the smart-pad and the image of a cling-filmed victim appeared on Nicky’s screen.

  “Look.”

  Everyone looked and several shook their heads.

  Craig frowned. “What are we looking at?”

  “Washing, bleach for purification, drowning, cocooning like a chrysalis. It’s rebirth. They were being baptised into a new life!”

  ****

  Craig cut the meeting short and beckoned Liam and Davy into his office. He scribbled nine points on a notepad: sin, selection, abduction, torture, confession, baptism, communion, death, cocooned for rebirth? Then turned it to face the others and threw open the floor.

  Liam pointed to the list. “Normally people are baptised years before they take communion but given that this baptism involved drowning, the communion should come first. You can’t eat when you’re dead.”

  Fair point.

  Davy hazarded a guess at the killers’ rationale.

  “We know these guys are educated; the Latin s…says that, so does the complexity of the crimes -”

  Liam cut in. “We already narrowed it to academics and religious.”

  Davy nodded, throwing his black hair forward and giving Craig a glimpse of what had been making him scratch. He’d got a tattoo on his upper back! The glimpse was long enough to reveal it was a word, but not long enough to read what it was. Davy continued.

  “OK, so, we have academic or religious men, probably at least two of them, who…” He paused, searching for inspiration. “…who don’t believe s…society is punishing people enough for their crimes?”

  It sounded weak, but the look in his eyes dared the others to do better. Liam took up the baton.

  “If they’re Catholics then how about them thinking that the modern church is too lenient on sinners? There’re plenty of those around.”

  Craig nodded. “Go on.”

  “Well, I remember my granny ranting about Vatican Two when I was a kid; she wasn’t best pleased at losing the Latin Mass and what she saw as a watering down of doctrine. What she would have said about the latest Pope doesn’t bear thinking about.”

  Craig was surprised. “I thought people liked him. He’s present
ing a more tolerant church.”

  “Aye, most people do; they think tolerance is a good thing. But what if you don’t? What if you’re a vengeance kind of guy? There’re plenty of those in Ireland.”

  Davy was indignant. “That’s what I said! They don’t think s…society is punishing people enough for their crimes.”

  Craig stared into space. “Mind you, half the cops in the country think that as well.” He tapped the list again.

  “Right, let’s say we have a group of disgruntled uber religious people, whether that’s their day job or not we can debate later, but they believe that punishing people who they view as sinners is a good thing. OK, first on the list, sin; how do they know what supposed sin these people have committed? Two, selection; how or why do they choose them and not some other addict, rapist or paedophile? They must be getting our victims’ details somehow. Then abduction. How do they get access to their targets?”

  Liam cut in. “Social service files? They would have the details of what they’d done and where they lived.”

  “That’s always supposing that victim four turns out to be known to social services like the first three. How else?”

  Davy recited a list. “Prisons, schools, courts, council run homes, s…support services like counselling…”

  Craig halted him. “In other words, half the public sector. OK, so far we have three victims known to social services, so we have to pursue that route. Liam, tell Jake to focus there. He can call on Ken for support. Davy, dig into the victims’ backgrounds and see exactly which services each one was known to and if any of them overlapped. Add in our rehearsal victim as well. Hopefully it will narrow down to social services but I’m not holding my breath.” He took a gulp of coffee. “OK, what else? They abduct the victims, so how and where do they do it? Then they torture them and get them to confess to their so-called crimes, so they must have somewhere secluded to keep them. And do they baptise them and then give them their version of communion before drowning them, or, as Liam said, is the drowning itself the baptism? Then they’re put in a chrysalis and reborn into the next world? Are we missing anything?”

  Liam shook his head. “You’ve forgotten the most important thing of all.”

  “Which is?”

  “Penitence. There’s no point confessing unless you repent, it’s what the whole process of forgiveness and absolution is based on.”

  “And what if they didn’t repent?”

  “Execution.”

  “And if they did?”

  “Absolution and then execution, although maybe in a slightly gentler form. They were never going to let them go alive.”

  Craig thought for a moment. Elena Boraks had been shot up with Heroin post-mortem, Bobby McDonagh had been violated and victim four had been castrated. So why had nothing been done to Sam Beech? If he’d been a paedophile there were plenty of unpleasant things they could have done to symbolise his crime.

  Liam read his mind. “Sam must have repented and begged for forgiveness. The others must have told the killers to get stuffed, so evidence of their crimes was left to shame them when their bodies were found.”

  Craig was about to explore the point when Davy interrupted.

  “But w…why dump them where they did? They’re all nondescript rural locations, insignificant unless the killers live in Downpatrick. And all the victims so far came from County Antrim, so why not find a dump site nearer them?”

  Liam shrugged. “You’ve said it. The killers may live in Downpatrick.”

  Davy continued. “They could do. It’s called the nearness principle or RAT, relative activity theory. The killer balances their need for anonymity with the desire to operate in an area where they feel comfortable. W…White killers travel further than black, old further than young, but typically there’s a central buffer zone round where the killer lives.”

  Craig shook his head. That wasn’t it but he wasn’t sure exactly what was yet. He changed tack. “That reminds me, how is that search for clinics and factories going?”

  “I’ve found a few possibilities. I’ll get them to you.”

  Liam returned to the earlier points like a dog with a bone. “And why leave them in the open air? Why not bury them? We wouldn’t have found them for years if they had.”

  Craig didn’t answer, just stared into space, tapping a pen irritatingly against his teeth as he did. They were very white and Liam wondered how he kept them that way, given the amount of coffee and red wine he drank. Suddenly the tapping ceased and Craig grabbed Davy’s smart-pad. He realised instantly that Davy would work much faster and handed it back, urging him to pull up a map of Downpatrick as he talked.

  “OK, I think they left the bodies above ground because they wanted them found. Simple as that. Although given the early Christian element, maybe that’s also how bodies were disposed of in those times?”

  He glanced at Davy for an answer and the analyst shook his head. “Nope. Irish people were buried in tombs long before Christianity arrived.”

  “OK, so they just wanted the bodies found quickly and they chose one area to leave them. Not the same location each time but very close by.”

  Liam interjected. “We’d cordoned off the earlier scenes so maybe that’s why they had to shift to different spots.”

  “Or maybe they would have done so anyway.” Craig pointed to the map. “Mark each of the dumpsites please.”

  As Davy obliged, Liam returned to an earlier point. “But why Downpatrick when the Vics all came from Antrim?”

  The answer was about to become clear. Davy tapped his smart-pad and four red crosses appeared. Craig’s eyes widened in disbelief; he couldn’t believe that he hadn’t seen it before but he couldn’t trust it just yet.

  “Join them.”

  Red lines appeared, forming an almost perfect square. Liam leaned in urgently.

  “Enlarge it, lad.”

  “W…What is it? What can you see?”

  Liam’s pork sausage finger jabbed at the screen.

  “There! Smack bang in the centre of the square.”

  “The buffer zone where the killer lives?”

  Liam snapped back. “No. Look, for goodness sake.”

  The others peered at the screen, shaking their heads as Liam rolled his eyes.

  “You mean you can’t see it? What sort of Irishmen are you?” He jabbed again and Davy swatted away his hand. “There, in the centre. It’s Dichu’s Barn!”

  Craig made a face. “OK, you’ve officially lost me. Who the hell is Dichu?”

  Liam tutted exaggeratedly, relishing the chance to show off. “Dichu was a pagan chieftain converted to Christianity in the fifth century by St Patrick. He gave him a barn to hold his services in and they called the whole area…” He gestured at the map. “…Saul, from the Irish Sabhall Phádraig, meaning Patrick's barn. It’s the modern name for a townland near Downpatrick.”

  Light was starting to dawn.

  “Anyway, the modern Saint Patrick’s Memorial Church is said to be built on the site of the original barn.” He jabbed the centre of the square. “Right there. They’ve only gone and drawn a square around the church using dead bodies!”

  Davy eyes widened in awe. “That’s brilliant!”

  Liam was still expounding. “It’s Church of Ireland nowadays but back then, pre-reformation, everything was the same. It’s a nice place; they have a round tower. Real wee tourist attraction. I took Danni down once when we were courting.”

  Craig had already tuned out. He was too busy thinking about what it all meant to speak. By choosing Saul the killers had harkened back to the start of Christianity in Ireland, when belief was strong and people lived in the fear of God. They’d also mimicked the torture and execution of later rigid, pre-reformation Christians, the Spanish Inquisition. After a moment he tuned back in, to find the others engaged in a religious debate that ranged from Paganism to Christianity and back again. He interrupted.

  “This is all fascinating but it’s not getting us any closer t
o catching them.”

  “But we can s…stop them killing again, boss.”

  “How?”

  “Cordon off everywhere around the s…square. If they can’t dump there then maybe they won’t kill.”

  For a moment Craig was tempted. It seemed simple and would show the brass and the media that they were doing something. Then he shook his head.

  “All they’ll do is find somewhere else with religious history and there are plenty of those in the North. What we can do is mount surveillance to catch them next time they try to leave a body. Davy, what’s the perimeter’s mileage?”

  He tapped for a moment before answering.

  “About nine miles. Do you think the area round the church is the killer’s buffer zone? That they live or w…work there?”

  “No, it’s the historical significance they’re after. Check the limits of the church grounds; I don’t want an argument over territory when we leave officers there. Wherever the property boundary is that’s where we start surveillance and we’ll end it on the other side of the red lines. My money says these guys are so obsessive that they’ll have to leave bodies along the lines they’ve already drawn.

  Liam whistled. “Surveillance will take a hell of a lot of uniforms.”

  “The locals can help and ask Jack for some men. Andy can run that side.”

  Liam guffawed. “And the fact it’ll keep him twenty miles away is just an added bonus.”

  Craig smiled. He loved it when a plan came together.

  “OK, that might catch them leaving future victims there, but we’ll have to cut them off at the source if we want to avoid more deaths.” He turned back to Liam. “Jake’s seen the therapist for Bobby McDonagh and Elena Boraks and he’s working on some things from that. Andy’s going to be in Downpatrick, so when Ken and Jake have finished whatever they’re doing they can start working their way down Davy’s list. Liam, you and I will focus on the main suspect groups; religious and academics. Guess which one you’re taking.”

  Liam rolled his eyes. “Just what I need in my life; more priests. OK, what are we looking for?”

  “Even if our killers are finding their victims through the services Davy listed it’s unlikely that they began life there. These are highly educated people with knowledge of a rare language, religious history and symbolism, and my gut says they developed it in either the church or academia. It may even have got them kicked out. Look for any priests or brothers who were asked to leave, or who left voluntarily when their interests and the church’s diverged. Narrow it to men between the ages of twenty and fifty.”