by Ed O'Connor
‘Sauerwine!’ he called out. The PC broke off from his conversation with Dexter and hurried over.
‘What’s up, sir?’ he asked as he arrived at Underwood’s desk.
‘When we were at Mary Colson’s house you said something about planets. Something to do with horoscopes.’
‘Not exactly horoscopes, sir. It was a joke. I used to moan to her about not having a girlfriend. She liked to wind me up. She said there was some planetary alignment this week and that it was good for the sex drive. You know, it’s supposed to improve your fertility. As I say, it was a joke really.’
Underwood felt a terrible sinking feeling in his stomach. He found a newspaper on an adjacent desk and flicked through to the horoscopes page.
He ignored the absurdly generalized selection of predictions and scanned down to the note at the bottom: ‘Remember tonight at 11.27 GMT the five inner planets come into orbital alignment with the sun. This is the first major astrological event since the full planetary alignment of 2000.’
It couldn’t be a coincidence. He looked at his watch. He had less than two hours to find Rowena Harvey. Dexter joined him at his desk.
‘What news?’
Underwood looked at her closely. ‘Your eyes are red.’
‘I’m knackered,’ she replied.
‘I’m not an idiot, Dex.’
She ignored his comment. ‘What’s all that?’ She pointed at the papers in his hand. Underwood handed them over.
‘I found them at Jack’s house, buried in the garden. They’re his consultation notes on our boy. No names unfortunately. He thinks he’s become some Hindu god called Soma. I spoke to Miller. The Fly Agaric mushroom was apparently seen as containing the essence of this Soma.’
Dexter read through the notes at speed.
‘He is one sick puppy,’ she observed quietly. ‘How did Jack get involved in all this?’
‘Money,’ Underwood said bitterly, ‘twenty-five grand by the looks of it. Whoever this fuck-up is he’s got some wealthy connections.’
‘How did the SOCOs miss this stuff?’ Dexter asked, her eyes never leaving the page.
‘It was under a paving stone. It’s forgivable.’
Dexter shook her head. ‘Not by me.’ Her eyes fixed on a piece of information.
‘What’s this “YXH” reference mean?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s a short form of the killer’s name. The notes seem to imply it represents a person or a place.’
Dexter bit her lip as she tried to concentrate. It seemed vaguely familiar to her.
‘If it is a place,’ she reasoned, ‘then the “H” could stand for Hotel.’
Underwood nodded. ‘Or hospital. Maybe even “House”.’
Dexter looked back down at the page. Her mind was frantically sifting through the litter cluttering her consciousness: Mark Willis, her flat, her ruined shoes, Adam Miller, Thetford Forest, Feltwell and Hockwold cum Witton. Then she suddenly saw what she had been looking for; like a little girl finding a photo in a cluttered drawer or recognizing a face in an unfriendly crowd.
‘Bloody hell, John,’ she said simply, ‘I know where he is.’
65
The God Soma sat, naked and cross-legged in the woods near the front entrance to his driveway. He enjoyed the damp pressure of the soil against his bare skin. He was the Soma. He licked the red and white cap of a Fly Agaric mushroom as if he was tasting his own blood. The lights were beginning to creep at the corners of his eyes like insects crawling out from under stones. He wasn’t afraid. The moment of his incarnation was approaching, rumbling across the heavens with a pirouetting inevitability.
He had brought his watch outside with him. It would be essential that he did not lose his sense of time. He had set the alarm for 11.15. That would give him adequate warning to marshal his thoughts and return to the library in time to penetrate Rohini at precisely 11.27. He had already moved her downstairs from their bedroom. It had been a tricky process: she had kicked and fought against him but ultimately he had secured her to the wooden table in front of his eager disciples. He had brought a knife with him to free her of her bindings; to allow her to succumb to his touch freely. Now he had only to enjoy the rotating heavens until the moment arrived.
Alison Dexter’s Mondeo raced north out of New Bolden just ahead of the spinning blue lights of the police squad car that she had requested as back up. Underwood gripped his armrest nervously as they passed ninety miles an hour.
‘I’m still not sure that I understand how you figured this out,’ he said, his eyes never leaving the onrushing road.
‘Miller and I found a site in Thetford Forest this afternoon. There were a bunch of mushrooms that matched the ones used by the killer. They had been dug up recently. The site is on the edge of the forest and faces west across fenland. From that point you can see, three or four villages. One of them is Yaxford. Look at your map.’ She tapped the Ordnance Survey map Underwood had resting on his lap.
‘Yaxford Hall,’ he noted.
‘Y,X,H.’
‘We shouldn’t really go charging in without a warrant,’ he observed.
‘You want to explain that to Rowena Harvey?’ Dexter asked.
‘I know.’ Underwood checked his watch. ‘We haven’t got long.’
‘Look, we’ll just knock on the door and see what happens.’
The two cars roared through the Cambridgeshire night, splitting the silence of the vast and sombre fens, throwing blue and yellow light into the void.
The Soma found himself at one with the soil. It was a profoundly beautiful experience, the white wash of the stars above him, the gentle rushing of the wind against his face. He saw that his limbs were fizzing and disappearing, his corporeal form was vanishing before his eyes. He was becoming the essence, the very juice of life itself. He was melting into the soil like rainwater and erupting forth into the red and white beauty of the plant god. He sensed his erection grow from his body just as the plant god grew from the soil. The lights were strong in his eyes: spectacular spirals of blue. He could hear the rushing of the ocean that had been his amniotic fluid. Shapes began to emerge through the kaleidoscope; hard edges appearing from the cornucopia of formless elements. The shapes became recognizable to him. The Soma felt fear and fury rise from the ground and engulf him.
Dexter turned into the gravel driveway of Yaxford Hall and pulled up. The squad car stopped behind her. She unlocked her door and stepped out into the cold night air. PC Steven Evans, the driver of the squad car, wound down his window.
‘I want you two to wait here,’ Dexter told them. ‘Keep your car parked on the drive. You’re blocking the entrance so he won’t be able to make a bolt for it.’
‘Would you like one of us to go in with you, ma’am?’ asked PC Dawson from the passenger seat.
‘Inspector Underwood and I will go up to the main house. Stay sharp. If we call you, come running.’
‘No problem.’
Evans and Dawson unclipped their seat belts and climbed out of the Volvo. Dexter returned to her car. The old house loomed large and impressively above them as they drove up to the main door. It was an eighteenth century country manor house with a flight of stone steps leading up to the front door which was flanked by two crumbling stone pillars.
‘Jesus,’ Underwood breathed. ‘This place is huge.’
‘Doesn’t look like anyone’s at home,’ Dexter observed peering through the windscreen. ‘There are no lights on.’
Underwood looked up at the crumbling stonework façade of the house. ‘The front door’s open,’ he said.
Dexter nodded. ‘There’s torches in the boot.’
They got out of the car, nervously checking the blackness around them for any signs of movement. While Dexter removed two power torches from the rear of the car, Underwood noticed two vehicles parked at the side of the house: a Porsche 911 and a Toyota Land Cruiser.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ he asked.
Dexter shone her
torch at the jeep. ‘Yep. It’s a Land Cruiser.’ She unclipped her radio and leaned against the side of her car.
‘Evans, this is Dexter.’
‘Go ahead, ma’am,’ came the crackling reply.
‘This is the place. Get onto control and have them send a SOCO team and some extra plods.’
‘Will do.’
‘We’re going to check the building. Check in every five minutes.’
‘Understood.’
Underwood was facing the black mass of the building apprehensively.
‘You ready?’ Dexter asked.
He checked his watch. It was after 11p.m. He hoped they were in the right location.
‘Let’s get this over with.’
The torch beams illuminated the steps and the gaping dark mouth of the doorway. Underwood and Dexter approached cautiously, watching their footing on the cracked and uneven stonework. Stepping inside the entrance hall Underwood immediately noticed the smell of death and decay. It made him shudder. They surveyed the gloomy hall with their torches. Underwood tried a light switch. Nothing happened.
‘I don’t fancy this,’ Dexter muttered suddenly. ‘This nutcase could be anywhere. Getting ready to shoot us full of that mushroom shit.’
‘I know.’ Underwood took a step forward. ‘But we haven’t got time to piss around.’ He jumped slightly as his torch beam illuminated a stag’s head mounted on the wall. The two shaky circles of light drifted across a series of oil paintings that stretched up the stairway.
‘You think we should split up?’ Dexter asked without enthusiasm. ‘We’d search the place more quickly.’
Underwood didn’t fancy the idea of creeping about in the dark by himself, nor stepping backwards onto a loaded needle. ‘No. Two sets of eyes are better than one.’
Dexter was relieved. She shone a torch down the stairs that led to the basement. ‘Shall we start downstairs then?’
PC Evans called through Dexter’s message to the control centre then rejoined Dawson outside the car. His fellow officer was shining his torch into the dense clump of trees and hedgerow that ran parallel to the driveway.
‘You see anything?’ Evans asked.
‘I thought I could hear something moving around,’ Dawson replied.
‘Probably a badger, mate.’
Dawson swung his torch in a sweep across the lawn. ‘This is a big gaff. Must be twenty acres.’
‘Easy,’ Evans agreed.
‘Bugger to maintain, though.’
Evans turned away and looked hard into the woods. ‘Can you hear that?’
‘What?’
‘A kind of beeping.’ Evans craned his neck in the direction of the sound. ‘Coming from over there.’
Dawson could hear something too, a vague electronic noise. ‘What is it? A mobile phone?’ he whispered.
Evans shook his head. ‘That’s a watch alarm, mate. You go down the drive and cut back into the woods. I’ll go in here, flush him down towards you.’
‘Shouldn’t we call in?’
‘Just get a fucking move on,’ Evans hissed.
Dawson jogged down the drive for about thirty metres then vanished into the trees. Seeing him disappear, Evans lit his own torch and stepped into the trees. He could hear the beeping ahead of him. Twigs cracked underfoot as he approached. He strained his eyes to see into the darkness either side of his torch beam. Something slammed into him from below and to his right. Evans felt the breath squeezed suddenly from his lungs as he was driven hard into a tree. The Soma rammed his knife into Evans’ abdomen and savoured the warmth of blood as it entwined his wrist. The policeman fell wheezing to the ground, fumbling for his police radio. The Soma picked up the handset himself and retreated into the woodland.
Dawson could hear the beeping more loudly now; he pushed his way through the dangling branches and leaves, tracking his torch across the ground. After a moment, he saw the watch lying amongst the grass clumps and dirt. He knelt and using a pencil from his pocket lifted it from the ground. It was a digital diver’s watch. The time was 11.01.
‘Stevo?’ he called into the woods. ‘I’ve found it.’
No reply came. He unclipped his radio. ‘Stevo, can you hear me?’
The Soma brought a rock down against the back of the constable’s head with ferocious enthusiasm. Dawson slumped forward, face down in the dirt, blood trickling from a dirty wound on the crown of his head. The Soma removed his police radio.
Inside the house, Dexter stopped in her tracks. ‘Did you make that out?’ She asked Underwood after Dawson’s call for Evans had spluttered through their radios.
Underwood wasn’t listening. They had found the kitchen. He shone his torch into the huge work area. There was rubbish and soil everywhere. Broken glass crunched under foot. Dexter joined him and looked at the scene of chaos. She noticed there were two blue cool-boxes sitting amidst the detritus; she kicked the lid off one: it was stained black with blood. Underwood found the same residue in the second box. On the work surface was a pile of mushrooms. Dexter looked them over but didn’t touch anything: she already had bad dreams.
They left the kitchen area and after checking the remaining utility rooms in the basement, headed back upstairs to the ground floor. The smell was powerful again, twisting and nauseating. Underwood gestured Dexter towards a drawing room. She looked inside. Rubbish spewed from the fireplace across the floor. Dexter’s torch also highlighted audio cassettes scattered around the room. She jumped as her foot kicked against something hard; she looked down as a Rubik’s Cube rolled awkwardly away from her.
Underwood moved further down the main corridor, pushing open a heavy oak door. His eyes took a moment to adjust the darkness. The room stank: Underwood knew he had located the source of the smell. He froze as he heard shuffling and swung his torch towards the far end of the room. There his torchlight picked out the shape of Rowena Harvey’s naked body strapped to a table with rope.
‘Dex!’ he shouted, stumbling across the room towards Rowena. Rowena Harvey’s eyes were alive with terror before she recognized Underwood above her. He untied her hands from beneath the table and tore the gag from Rowena Harvey’s mouth. She was hysterical with panic. Dexter entered the room and hurried over. She sat Rowena Harvey upright on the table, removed her own jacket and placed it around her bare shoulders.
‘Rowena,’ Underwood said, ‘it’s me. Look, it’s John.’ Rowena stared at him without any obvious sign of recognition. ‘Where is he?’ Underwood asked. ‘Where is the man who took you?’
Rowena Harvey shook her head slowly, her entire body quivering with fear.
‘Let’s get her out of here,’ Underwood ordered. ‘She needs a doctor.’
‘Agreed.’ Dexter stepped back then suddenly span around clutching her neck. ‘What the fuck was that?’
‘What?’ Underwood snapped as he helped Rowena Harvey to her feet.
‘Something just fucking landed on me.’ She looked at her hand and saw a dark circle of blood. ‘Shit, I’m bleeding.’
Underwood suddenly shone his torch up towards the ceiling. Jack Harvey’s severed head stared back at him. Dexter’s torch then illuminated Sarah Jensen’s head, also hanging about a metre from the ceiling directly behind Jack’s. Together, the two narrow beams of light traced the grisly line back across the room. Five human heads dangled on ropes from the ceiling. There were five heads hanging in a line and staring directly at the spot where Rowena Harvey had been tied down, like coins aligned on a table.
‘Oh my God!’ Dexter breathed.
‘We need help,’ Underwood replied. Staring up at the ceiling was making him feel nauseous, as if he was seeing the sky swirling above him.
Dexter unclipped her radio and brought it close to her mouth, her eyes never leaving the ceiling.
‘Evans. This is Dexter. Have we got an ETA on the support yet?’
There was silence.
‘Evans or Dawson. This is DI Dexter. Respond please.’
Static crackled from the
radio. Then a voice she didn’t recognize hissed through the white noise.
‘Under the milky ocean,’ came the icy reply, ‘something is not quite right.’
Dexter felt a rush of fear and flashed her torch around the room.
‘Time to go,’ said Underwood.
They helped Rowena Harvey to the door and Dexter checked that the corridor was clear before they crossed the entrance hall to the front door. It was locked. Dexter frantically rattled at the handle.
‘It’s jammed, for Christ’s sake,’
‘Try the windows.’ Underwood looked around him, shining his torch into the gloom, trying to anticipate the ambush that he knew was coming.
High above them, leaning over the oak banister on the first floor landing at the head of the grand staircase, the Soma looked down on his people in amusement.
‘They’re nailed shut.’ Dexter gave up heaving at the sash windows. ‘We’ll have to smash them. I need a chair or something.’
The Soma stepped down from heaven, dressed in a tall hat bedecked with jewels and a belt of moonlight glitter. He slipped gently through the clouds and entwining spirits towards the chaotic earth. He passed his father halfway down the staircase, ignoring the hideous kink of bone where the old man’s neck had broken. He floated towards the noise, clutching the elixir of immortality in his hand.
‘In the library,’ Underwood instructed Dexter. ‘There’s a chair behind the door.’
Reluctantly, Dexter hurried back through the darkness of the corridor. Underwood remained with Rowena Harvey in the hallway.
‘Get me out of here,’ she implored.
Underwood heard a creak above him and looked up, his torchlight penetrating the darkness and illuminating the face of the descending Soma: a needle glistened in the sudden light. He advanced to the foot of the staircase. Rowena Harvey started to scream. Dexter emerged from the library hauling a wooden desk chair.
‘Get to the car,’ Underwood snapped as she came alongside him. ‘Get her out of here.’
‘Welcome to the incarnation of the lunar race,’ announced the Soma, raising his arms in joyous benediction to the strange new figures below him.
