by Jack Murray
‘How did he get on?’ asked Wag McDonald, genuinely curious.
‘Sadly, it wasn’t his night,’ replied Kit to the guffaws of the McDonald brothers and the great discomfort of poor ‘Haymaker’.
As Kit said this, the door opened. Into the office walked two women. The taller woman glared at Miller and then looked at Kit. Wag McDonald smiled and leaned back on his chair.
‘Couldn’t have timed it better, my love. Gentlemen meet Alice Diamond. She is…’ He paused for a moment and shot Miss Diamond a look. She raised her eyebrows and smiled.
‘An associate,’ continued McDonald. ‘An associate of the hoisting variety. Alice, do you want to tell Lord Aston, and his man, why he’s here?’ As he said this, he took a photograph from his desk drawer. He handed it to Alice Diamond.
For a moment she seemed overcome. She looked hard at the photograph and then handed it to Kit.
The image shocked Kit. It showed a young woman. Naked and dead. The wound around her throat was clear. So, too, were the markings on her stomach. It took Kit a moment to register what he was seeing.
‘Good lord,’ he said before fixing his gaze on Alice Diamond.
‘Who is she?’
‘Enid Blake,’ replied Miss Diamond. Her voice was deep, and she spoke slowly. Kit remained silent so she continued.
‘Enid was part of our group. Some of us do shops, others find work in houses and then, well, you know.’
Kit nodded and looked, reluctantly, at the dead woman.
‘When did this happen?’
‘They found her body last night.’
The next question was on Kit’s lips, but he stopped himself just in time. He looked at the grim face of Wag McDonald. The gangland leader seemed to read his mind.
‘We have our sources.’
‘I think I’ve met him,’ replied Kit, thinking of Sergeant Wellbeloved.
McDonald nodded but did not offer any more information on their source. He regarded Kit closely. He could see Kit’s eyes were on the photograph.
‘What do you see, Lord Aston?’
Kit returned his gaze to McDonald. Unlike the photograph that Churchill had shown him, the shape carved into the stomach of the young woman was all too clear. For some reason, Kit sensed that McDonald knew what they were dealing with here. The murder had little or nothing to do with the frequent internecine wars between the gangs. This was of a wholly new character and all the more unsettling for being so.
‘Do you recognise this symbol?’ asked Kit. McDonald merely nodded.
‘Do you?’
‘Yes, it’s a pentacle. Inverted. If this means what I think it means, then you’re dealing with a cult. A cult dedicated to Satan.’
‘Can you help us find who did this?’
Kit had suspected this was coming but one question remained unanswered, although he suspected he knew.
‘Why me?’
McDonald glanced up at Alice Diamond and smiled grimly. The answer was provided by the tall, utterly compelling woman with the expressionless grey eyes standing by McDonald’s desk.
‘Because it was your lot who did it.’
11
‘Really quite roomy,’ said Kit, sitting somewhat squashed between Wag McDonald and Alice Diamond. They were in a car driving towards Stepney. In the front sat the driver, ‘Haymaker’ Harris, alongside Miller and the diminutive associate of Alice Diamond who had been introduced as Maggie Hill. The latter young woman spent most of the journey staring at Miller. There was something manic in her eyes that suggested either a psychopathic disposition or that she had fallen in love.
Sadly, for Miller, this was true on both counts.
‘Who are we going to see?’ asked Kit after he had been told of their destination: a church hall in the east end of London.
McDonald allowed himself a smile and he replied, ‘As we’re dealing with the “Old Nick”, I thought it made sense to visit a priest.’
Nothing else was added to this rather enigmatic, albeit logical, remark. The rest of the journey took place in a rather odd silence. Particularly odd, in fact, from where Miller was sitting.
The journey to the East End took Kit through some of the most deprived areas he’d seen in a long time, certainly since a trip to India the previous year. He caught Wag McDonald’s amused glance at him.
‘A bit different, ain’t it?’
Kit nodded. It was. It looked like civilisation had ended several minutes previously. They pulled up outside a church hall in the middle of hell. A crowd of children quickly gathered around the car. All of them were dirty. They were not quite dressed in rags, but many had no shoes. A land fit for heroes, thought Kit bitterly.
‘Haymaker’ got out of the car and was about to administer a few clips around the ear before Wag McDonald cautioned him.
‘Leave it. Here, which one of you lot is the oldest.’
The tallest boy stepped forward. He seemed no more than ten or eleven. His sallow face emphasised a large nose. He looked underfed but there was no mistaking the burning pride in his eyes.
‘What’s your name, son?’ asked McDonald.
‘William, sir. William Hill.’
‘Can I call you Billy?’
‘Most do.’
‘Right, Billy. One of the men over there is going to give you some money. Make sure the car is clean when we get back.’
Billy Hill turned to Kit and Miller. Kit smiled at McDonald’s cheek as well as his shrewdness. Meanwhile, Miller stepped forward and handed the boy several shillings. With a nod from the boy, several of the children ran off to get buckets of water.
‘Thanks, Billy,’ said Kit. McDonald contented himself with waggling the boy’s hair.
The two men walked alongside one another into the hall.
‘How long will it be before young Billy is a rival of yours?’
McDonald smiled at Kit and replied, ‘It’ll be his only way out of this, your lordship. Might even recruit him myself. The kid’s a natural leader.’
Miller, meanwhile, found himself accompanied by the two women. Alice Diamond began to engage Miller in conversation, rather like a father would a young man come to take his daughter out for a walk.
‘So, you were a burglar. How’d you end up with ‘im?’
Miller gave a very edited version of their meeting that significantly reduced the extraordinary heroism he’d shown in rescuing Kit from No Man’s Land during the War.
‘Where do you live?’
Miller glanced at the Amazonian ‘hoister’?
‘You fancy paying us a visit, darling?’
He smiled as he said this. It always worked. The cheek. As ever, the reaction on Alice Diamond’s face told him he’d hit his target.
‘Get out of it,’ laughed the huge hoister. ‘Just curious.’
Miller grinned and told them a little bit more about his life in Belgravia, although he didn’t mention the address. They followed Kit and McDonald into the church hall. It was crowded with men and women. All had made an effort to dress for the church: suits and dresses held together by prayer. All were poor. All hopes had been crushed by the reality of life and the fear of sin. They were being fed in the makeshift soup kitchen.
‘Nice place,’ said McDonald spying the man they had come to see. He was small, powerfully built and a priest. His grey hair peeked out from the sides of his hat. He was sitting with a group of destitute women.
The man in question noticed the arrival of McDonald and the others. His face remained impassive but the anger in his eyes was unmistakeable. He excused himself from the group and walked over towards the new arrivals.
‘If you’ve come to confess, McDonald, I don’t think there’s long enough in the day.’
‘Don’t worry, Father Vaughan. I need your help, definitely not His by the looks of this place.’
Father Bernard Vaughan glanced around him before replying with barely disguised anger, ‘We all need His help.’
‘Where is He then?’ replied McDonald
. His head jerked up a fraction and he waved his arm around him. Both he and Vaughan glared at one another like two fighters seconds before the bell rings. Finally, the priest registered Kit and looked him up and down. Kit saw that Vaughan was probably around seventy years old. His beak-like nose and bearing seemed almost noble. In fact, he had been born into a wealthy family.
‘As Mr McDonald seems in no rush to introduce me, my name is Aston. I believe I may have met your brother.’
The priest listened to Kit. It was clear he came from another world than the gang leader. The question to Kit was in his eyes, but it was McDonald who answered.
‘I think explanations as to why we are here and why Lord Aston is associating with the likes of me should be answered somewhere private.’
Even Father Vaughan could not argue with this logic, although the fiery chaplain would dearly love to have done so.
‘Follow me. I’ll give you five minutes.’
Vaughan spun around and walked in the direction of a door at the back of the hall.
-
‘Haymaker’ Harris stood outside keeping a watchful eye on the boys surrounding his car. Strictly speaking it wasn’t actually his car, but he felt a degree of ownership that bespoke a man who took pride in his job and had a high degree of loyalty to his employer. Wag McDonald had always looked after him. The very least he could do was return the favour.
He was pretty sure that he couldn’t trust the gang of boys as far as he could throw them. To be fair, this would have been a considerable distance. Billy Hill recognised the lack of trust. After directing his ‘men’ on operations, he sidled over to ‘Haymaker’ to keep the powerful-looking man on his side.
‘How’d you join this gang, mister?’
‘By minding my own business,’ replied ‘Haymaker’. Oddly this was true. Towards the end of his career, when he was losing more than he was winning, he ignored those moments when wins that should have been losses were wins. He kept silent when he saw his opponents leaving the dressing room with a few more readies in their pocket than he’d earned for the previous three fights. Strangely, he was never asked to take a dive. He had just about enough self-awareness to know that it probably wasn’t necessary in his case.
The answer upset young master Hill.
‘C’mon, mister. Only asking.’
‘Haymaker’ suggested that he shouldn’t thereby providing young Billy Hill with an early lesson in how to manage staff loyalty. The boy nodded and then walked away to ensure his team were doing a good job.
-
The office was crowded. Alice Diamond and Maggie Hill turned down Kit’s offer to take the two seats in front of Father Vaughan. As soon as they were all seated, McDonald spoke.
‘Look at these.’
The two photographs Kit had seen earlier were put on the table causing the priest to inhale noisily. He shook his head, genuinely upset by the image. He looked up at McDonald and then at Alice Diamond. She stared back at him impassively but remained silent. This wasn’t just out of respect for McDonald; something in the intensity of the elderly priest made her nervous. Out of the corner of her eye she saw McDonald glance up at her. This was her cue to speak.
‘She was one of my girls. Enid Blake.’
‘Is this the medium murder I read about earlier?’
‘Probably,’ replied McDonald.
The priest pointed to the pentacle carved onto her body. He looked at the two men seated in front of him.
‘You know what this is? What it means?’
Kit nodded and replied, ‘I knew a man in France. Hodgson. William Hope Hodgson. He wrote a bit about the occult.’
Vaughan made a face at the mention of Hodgson.
‘Cheap thrillers. I’m surprised that you read such rubbish, Lord Aston.’
‘I do not read the genre, Father Vaughan. I heard the stories directly from Hodgson while we were sitting in a trench waiting to attack the Germans.’
McDonald glanced at Kit and felt like cheering. He’d never seen Vaughan taken on like this before. There was an unmistakable note of respect in the look. He’d been there. He’d felt what Kit would have felt sitting there with the men, guts churning. Anybody who could sing or tell a story was esteemed, cherished even.
Vaughan nodded and accepted the mild rebuke.
‘Why do you think the murderer has used this symbol?’
Rage flared into the eyes of Vaughan. His face seemed like it would explode.
‘I’m glad you said murderer, Lord Aston. Make no mistake, you are dealing with people who have murdered many times before in this way. The blood sacrifice is as old as man. It was practiced in Egypt, Mexico. Even Abraham would have performed it.’
‘Why?’ asked Kit.
‘Power. To show they had the power or, perhaps, to gain some sort of magical power if the sacrifice was performed under certain conditions: a ceremony, within a pentacle.
In this case I think that they are trying to dress their evil acts as part of some ritual to Satan, but they are nothing more than murderers. They are impotent frauds. Ninety-nine percent of them. Their beliefs are a sham. Be it the occult, spiritualism; it’s all the same. Fakery. And you have fools like Doyle going around legitimising this fakery.
Kit was taken aback by the vehemence of the attack on Doyle, however one question burned through the tirade.
‘Sorry, Father Vaughan. May I interrupt for once second? You said “they”. If you don’t mind me saying, it implies you know who they are.’
Vaughan looked at Kit. The rage in his eyes died immediately. In its place there was only sadness. A deep well of desolation.
‘I wish it were so. I cannot prove it is a group, or indeed the same group. I am convinced , however, there are some amongst them who have perpetrated the vilest of crimes on young women. They have been doing so for many, many years. I first saw this type of crime fifteen years ago. I’ve heard of similar. The authorities have never spoken of it probably because they fear panic may set in.’
‘Or, indeed, others copying these despicable deeds.’
‘True, but there is one other reason.’
Kit looked at Father Vaughan and for those few moments there was silence inside the office. Finally, it was McDonald that spoke.
‘You think the murderers are amongst them, don’t you? The authorities. The toffs.’
Vaughan glared at McDonald.
‘As if you can speak.’
‘Not my game padre.’
Kit held his hand up and removed from his pocket one of the photographs given to him by Churchill. He placed it on the table alongside the picture provided by McDonald. Aside from the indistinctness of the markings on the dead body, they seemed enacted by the same hand.
Both Vaughan and McDonald were in shock. It was Alice Diamond who reacted first.
‘Who is she?’
Kit looked at her and replied, ‘I don’t know. I’ve been asked by someone to find out who she is and who…’ He left the rest of the sentence hanging. Then he added a question that seemed superfluous.
‘It’s difficult to see the young woman’s stomach, but it seems there are markings on it. Do you think it could be the same person who did this?’
Father Vaughan stared reluctantly at the second picture. He placed his finger on what looked like the apex of a star.
‘I cannot say for certain but her age and what is visible of the marking makes me think it is the same hand. When did this murder occur?’
‘1908. I know you will see this as a sign of the rich covering the tracks of their crimes but I’m not at liberty to say more on the subject. I will confirm that all evidence, and there is precious little, suggests it was perpetrated by rich people in a druid ritual.’
‘When in 1908?’ asked Father Vaughan.
‘August, we believe.’
Vaughan sat back in his chair. He seemed confused. Then he saw Kit looking at him with a frown on his face.
‘It seems strange,’ said Vaughan. ‘Dates are im
portant for these madmen. Druids revere the summer and winter solstice. Satanists, on the other hand, venerate St Walpurgis Eve and, All Hallows Eve. Both dates are important for their ceremonies. All of these dates can involve human sacrifice for their neophytes who wish to attain higher levels of enlightenment within the group. If the sacrifice happens on a day outside their traditional calendar, then it leads me to suspect that it is simply a case of murdering someone who may reveal who they are.’
‘Are you saying that the killer can be anyone in the group?’ asked McDonald.
‘The whole group is complicit. I understand it’s usually a designated High Priest who performs the actual sacrifice. I believe the blood is used as part of the ceremony for the neophyte. I cannot bring myself to say what I have heard but these are truly depraved individuals, and they must be brought to justice. Is this why you are involved, Lord Aston?’
Kit was aware that all eyes in the room were on him. His face was set, his heart heavy but he felt an anger burning inside.
He nodded in confirmation.
-
It was night, closer to nine than eight. Vaughan was true to his word and ended the meeting after five minutes. Kit returned to the Elephant and Castle to discuss with McDonald his thoughts on how they should proceed. Throughout the meeting, Miller stood uncomfortably aware of the lovestruck gaze of Maggie Hill. Had their day not been shrouded in such a desolate subject, Kit might have made great sport of the romantic feelings provoked by his manservant. ‘Haymaker’ drove Kit and Miller back to Belgravia accompanied by Alice Diamond, who was curious to see where they lived.
‘I say ‘Haymaker’, can you stop over there for a second?’ asked Kit, spying a flower seller as the car approached Grosvenor Square.
This brought a smile from Alice Diamond.
‘In trouble, are we?’
‘I rather suspect I am.’
A few minutes later the large car pulled away from Aunt Agatha’s mansion in Grosvenor Square. Kit stepped up towards the front door. It was answered by Natalie. After a few pleasantries Kit walked towards the drawing room. Natalie opened the door for him.
