by Paul Finch
‘Good God!’ Mike Garrickson said, peering up the motorway embankment. ‘Good God in heaven!’
‘Well he isn’t down here, I’ll tell you that, boss,’ Gary Quinnell replied in a daze. ‘Not today.’
‘They wouldn’t like that in Chapel, Gaz,’ Shawna McCluskey replied.
The big Welshman made no further response. His mouth had sagged open. Heck understood why. For everything they’d experienced thus far in this specialist murder squad, none of them had ever seen anything like this. In fact, it was likely that no one had seen anything like this for several centuries or more.
‘Someone tell me this isn’t real,’ Charlie Finnegan said.
‘This is the most real Good Friday you’re ever likely to experience,’ Garrickson replied.
Mid-way up the slagheap slope, three heavy crosses had been set up in a row. They had been constructed from new, freshly-sawn timber, and were all roughly the same size: their uprights stood to about eight feet; their crossbars, which had been bolted into squared-off grooves cut specifically to accommodate them, spanned about six feet each. At first glance, the symmetry of the display was amazing, even down to the naked bodies spread-eagled on each frame. Those to left and right were white males of as yet undetermined age, but in rank-poor physical condition – spindly, undernourished, covered with old scars and jailhouse ink. Their legs were mottled purple by post-mortem bruising, their lifeless faces fixed in contortions of agony. The one in the centre was a white female; she was in a slightly better state – if it was possible to use those terms to describe someone who had died by crucifixion. Her fair hair hung down over her face in a stringy mat, covering it, but her body was hourglass shaped, only wrinkled here and there, which suggested she’d been no more than thirty years old. She was white as porcelain, though, like the others, her lower limbs were tinged purple where the blood had settled after death.
The only movement came from the early-season flies crawling on the bodies, and the two Merseyside medical staff in Tyvek coveralls, taking measurements and writing on clipboards. Further out, beyond the inner cordon of tape, officers from the Merseyside photography unit were packing up their gear.
There were ongoing gasps as more SCU arrived, crowding into the narrow space behind the screens. It occurred to Heck that Claire would turn up at any moment. She’d presumably set off at roughly the same time as all the rest, but she’d be driving her own car and was unlikely to be as gung-ho about getting here as the others. It was tempting to go around to the other side and wait for her, to advise her to gird herself for what she was about to see, but there was no time. Heck was already assessing the scene, trying to bring a professional eye to bear, and immediately noticing oddities.
Whoever the three victims were, they had been transfixed to their crosses in the traditional way, by nails or spikes. No other bindings were visible – no ropes, no chains. But there was a variation from the norm – at least the norm as it appeared in Church artwork. The victims’ hands were all hidden from sight, because they had been nailed to the back of the crossbar, the steel driven in from behind. Likewise, they had not been nailed through the front of the feet, but through the ankles, one to either side of the upright. So four nails had been used per victim, instead of three. Heck wondered if this could be a mistake, though so far the killer had been very meticulous. If he had consciously altered the method that everyone else believed had been used when Christ had been crucified that first Good Friday two millennia ago, then something told Heck that everyone else was wrong.
‘When in Rome,’ he said under his breath, ‘do as the Romans do …’
Quinnell glanced around at him. ‘What’s that?’
Heck turned to Gemma. ‘Ma’am, this guy knows what he’s doing … to the absolute letter.’
‘Gotta be more than one guy,’ Shawna said. ‘To pull off something like this.’
Heck nodded. ‘I thought that when I saw the shots from Yorkshire – there were two implements used to break open that chimney breast; a pick and a hammer. That meant two assailants. Now I think there are more even than that. Maybe more than three.’
‘More than three?’ Shawna looked astonished.
‘This was put on as a show for motorway users on Good Friday morning. Must have been erected during the hours of darkness last night, that’s what … eleven hours? Knock a couple off either side to allow for twilight. Say seven hours of pitch-darkness. Not long enough for anything less than a whole gang of them.’
Quinnell turned to Gemma. ‘What do you think, ma’am?’
‘I think we need more men,’ she said, white-faced. ‘A lot more.’
Chapter 14
‘There is no question that this is a despicable crime,’ Claire said. She looked cool and composed, oblivious to the camera-flashes on all sides of her. ‘We are as shocked as the public by this incident, but all that will do is reinforce our determination to bring the person responsible to justice.’
‘Do you have any leads yet?’ a local reporter asked.
‘At present we’re considering an organised crime connection – possibly with Liverpool. But that’s all I can say at the moment, for reasons which I’m sure you’ll understand.’
‘Have you identified the three victims?’ came another question.
‘We have but I’m not at liberty to disclose any of those details until the next of kin have been informed.’
‘Have you located the next of kin yet?’
Before Claire could reply, another journalist asked: ‘Are the victims members of a Church group?’ The query had come from a brassy-looking woman with peroxide-blonde hair pulled in an unattractively tight bun. She’d elbowed her way to the front of the press pack on the forecourt at Manor Hill Police Station, and now offered a Dictaphone for Claire’s response. ‘What I mean is, could this be some kind of revenge attack … is it perhaps connected with a child abuse enquiry, or something similar?’
‘There’s no evidence to suggest anything of that nature,’ Claire replied.
‘No evidence?’ The brassy blonde laughed. ‘You’ve got three bodies nailed to crosses on Good Friday. If that’s not an attack on the Church, I don’t know what is.’
‘All I’d say is that things aren’t always as they appear.’
‘Good answer,’ Gemma said.
She, Garrickson and Heck were watching Claire’s performance on live television in Gemma’s office, though this was little more than a partitioned area of the Major Incident Room. Given recent events, it would have been a crass decision to continue with the plan to locate the MIR twenty-five miles away in Bolton. Gemma had thus latched onto nearby Manor Hill, an old-fashioned Merseyside nick, which rather fortuitously had a one-storey prefab annexe to its rear, formerly used for admin but now defunct. With the assistance of the local chief super, she’d commandeered this to house the MIR and use as her official HQ. There was still plenty of installation work to be done. Tech guys carried computer terminals in and laid cables and phone-lines along skirting-boards; sparkeys checked light fittings; Merseyside bobbies, stripped to their shirt-sleeves, helped SCU officers bring in desks, tables, filing cabinets and so forth. However, most of the team was already hard at work, their phones trilling, their keyboards rattling.
‘That won’t reassure the locals, miss,’ another reporter called. ‘Whoever’s done this … is there a chance they may strike again?’
Heck watched Claire intently. She had been badly shaken on arrival at the crime scene, but now was handling herself with aplomb.
‘There’s nothing to suggest that either,’ she said.
‘Have there been any other murders like this?’ someone else asked.
‘At this stage, there is no reason to assume the perpetrators of this crime have committed similar offences elsewhere.’
‘Perpetrators!’ the brassy woman said. ‘So you think there’s more than one?’
This revelation prompted a dirge of renewed shouting, which briefly seemed to leave Claire fazed.
She could only mumble her first response, apparently struggling with the realisation that she’d made an error.
‘That was a slip and a half,’ Garrickson said.
Gemma shrugged. ‘It ties in with the mob cover-story.’
‘We must consider all possibilities,’ Claire replied on screen.
‘How many perpetrators are you looking for?’ the brassy woman asked.
‘We can’t put a number on it yet,’ Claire said.
‘But three people were nailed to crosses!’
‘Yes, we picked that up.’
‘Tetchy,’ Gary Quinnell said, having just come in.
‘Is there anyone the public should be looking out for?’ another reporter queried.
‘We’ve no suspects as yet. But assistance from the public is always welcome. If there is any information anyone wishes to impart to us, the phone-lines are now open – the numbers are detailed on the press release and with Crimestoppers.’
Another reporter came forward. He was older and bespectacled, with thick, sandy hair which simply had to be a toupee. He had the air of a time-served hack. ‘Miss Moody?’ he said, his accent strong Scouse. He too offered her a microphone. ‘If this is a one-off incident related to underworld activity, or if that’s what you suspect it is, why is it not being handled by the Merseyside Murder Squad? In fact, why is it being handled by the Serial Crimes Unit, not Merseyside Police?’
‘Fuck!’ Garrickson said. ‘Didn’t take them long to find that out.’
‘Merseyside Police are still involved in this investigation,’ Claire countered.
‘Yeah, but only as junior partners.’
‘We can’t keep these things quiet,’ Gemma said resignedly. ‘Every cop on Merseyside knows we’ve taken charge of this case.’
On the TV screen, Claire was looking progressively less comfortable telling such blatant lies. ‘As a three-victim murder, this incident falls well within the Serial Crimes Unit’s remit …’
The old hack seemed unimpressed. ‘But most of the time you hunt serial killers. Can you categorically assure us that isn’t what you’re doing here?’
‘As I said before, there is no evidence that this trio of homicides is connected to any others currently under investigation in the United Kingdom.’
‘Is the Serial Crimes Unit going to make as big a foul-up of this as they did the M1 Maniac murders?’ someone else asked.
‘I’m sorry, that’s all I’m able to tell you at the moment.’
There was another clamour of questions, but Claire merely turned and re-entered the building. Gemma switched the TV off and sat down.
‘That went well,’ Garrickson opined. ‘Don’t know why she didn’t just give them the policy log.’
‘I’m not sure what else she could have done,’ Heck said.
‘How about stick to the official line? How about “we don’t know anything yet … thanks for your interest”?’
‘In that case why bother having a press conference at all?’ Quinnell wondered.
‘What do you want, Gary?’ Gemma said, finally noticing he was there.
‘Oh …’ He consulted his pocket book. ‘More info on the deceased, ma’am. Seems Kate Rickman was reported missing midday on April 4th, when she failed to open her charity shop in Toxteth to receive some deliveries of second-hand clothing. Merseyside began looking for her seriously the next day when her burned-out car was found on wasteland near the old Burtonwood brewery, which is not that far from here. The other two are Carl Croxton and Lee Cavendish. Both Salford boys, both had form as long as your arm. Croxton was reported missing by his common-law wife … would you believe forty-eight hours after he failed to return home from one of his nightly jaunts. That was on March 30. Lee Cavendish was never reported missing at all – just happened a member of Merseyside CID, who’d recently transferred in from GMP, recognised him.’
‘All formally identified?’
‘Correct. Common-law wife in Croxton’s case, mother in Cavendish’s case, and Kate Rickman by her ex-husband.’
‘Two thieves and a charity worker,’ Heck mused. He glanced at the fistful of print-outs he was carrying; most depicted artistic renditions of Christ’s crucifixion. ‘He’s following the script so far …’
Shawna McCluskey stuck her head in. ‘Ma’am, Professor Fillingham’s here.’
‘Show him in please.’ Gemma stood up. ‘Gary, can you give us a minute?’
Quinnell nodded and withdrew, just as a rather dapper chap entered, short in stature and thinning on top, but possessed of a neat salt-and-pepper beard and moustache, and wearing a tweed suit and bright pink bow-tie. Professor Donald Fillingham was senior forensic pathologist at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. At Gemma’s request, he had performed the post-mortem examinations on the three victims earlier that evening. As they’d only spoken on the phone so far, Gemma shook hands with him, introduced herself, then DCI Garrickson and DS Heckenburg.
Professor Fillingham’s blue eyes twinkled as he appraised Heck. ‘Heckenburg? … weren’t you the one who raised a question regarding the crucifixion method? The way the bodies were nailed?’
‘Oh … yeah.’ Heck was surprised. He knew that Gemma had sent along some preliminary crime scene observations, but he hadn’t thought she was paying much attention when he’d gabbled to her about the correct way to fix someone to a cross.
Professor Fillingham was clearly a man who believed in getting down to business. ‘Perhaps you could elaborate on that?’ he said.
‘Erm … sure.’ Heck laid his print-outs on the desk. ‘According to some research I did – and it was only quick, I must admit – the way we’ve always assumed Jesus Christ died might be incorrect.’
He held up one particular sketch. It was crude, just a line-drawing, but it illustrated a figure bound to a wooden cross, his ankles nailed to the sides of the upright and his arms spread, but his hands pinioned to the back of the crossbeam rather than the front.
‘This apparently is the way Middle Eastern archaeologists now think it used to be done,’ Heck said. ‘Apparently they’ve found some skeletal remains – bones with bits of rusty nails stuck through them. But it’s a fairly new theory. Which … well, if it’s correct, means that our boy is bang up-to-date.’
The pathologist assessed the sketch, and then flipped through one or two other documents, all of which displayed more traditional images of Christ’s death. ‘It would make sense,’ he said. ‘May I sit?’
Garrickson pulled him up a chair, and they sat around the desk together.
Fillingham pored through the images again, before adding: ‘You see … crucifixion actually poses quite a few problems for the crucifiers. If someone was nailed to the cross in the way we normally assume Jesus was … with one nail through his feet and one through the palm of each hand, the weight of his body just wouldn’t have been supported. Especially as the victim became weaker. The hands would simply have torn away from the nails, and the weight of the body falling down would have done the same with the feet. Even if the nails penetrated the wrists, and were lodged in place between the radial bone and the ulna, the weight of an average human body, particularly at the point of death, would have made it fall forward … the wrists would have torn free again, and so the feet. But with both ankles nailed securely to either side of the central post, and the arms pinned to the rear of the crossbar, the weight of the body is then very evenly distributed, even in death. It couldn’t simply fall off the cross. Not until it had turned to carrion.’
They listened to this dispassionate explanation with as much detachment as they could. When the corpses had been taken down late that afternoon, the process had so closely resembled movies they’d seen about the life and death of Jesus – the limp bodies being lowered in slings, forlorn figures waiting at the foot of each cross to receive them – that it had touched feelings many of them hadn’t known since childhood.
‘How does someone actually die on the cross?’ Gemma asked.
‘Well …’ The pathologist gave a wry smile. ‘This may be the good news.’
The three cops glanced at each other.
‘First of all, we need to understand that crucifixion is normally one of the most terrible forms of death imaginable. In the Ancient World, it was reserved for the lowest of the low – slaves, outcasts and rebels. The victim was transfixed to a cross, suspended by nails which would cause him to suffer prolonged and extreme agony. But he would only finally expire from exposure, dehydration or hypovolaemic shock. Jesus is believed to have died relatively quickly – within three hours – because he’d suffered massive blood-loss from the Roman scourging. Healthier specimens could linger for days …’
‘And that’s the good news?’ Garrickson said in a distant voice.
‘The good news is that our three victims had been dosed beforehand with flunitrazepam.’
‘The date-rape drug?’ Heck said.
The pathologist nodded. ‘That’s one of its uses, yes. On this occasion it served the dual purpose of making it easier to crucify the victims and preventing them crying out or shouting for help once they’d been suspended. But the net-result was that all three were likely already unconscious when they were actually crucified. Their whole bodyweight was thus supported by their outstretched arms, which caused hyperextension of the chest-muscles and subsequent asphyxiation.’
‘So they died quickly?’ Gemma said.
‘Mercifully so, yes.’
‘Bit of a downer for our killers,’ Garrickson observed.
‘They gave up the perk of crucifying their victims in private and watching them die slowly, because for them it’s more about making a public spectacle,’ Heck replied.
‘Well they’ve certainly achieved that,’ Shawna said from the doorway. ‘’Scuse me, ma’am.’ She laid an evening newspaper on the desk top. Its front page headline read:
