Church of Sin (The Ether Book 1)

by James Costall

  “Do you have any wellies in this car?” she called over to Ash. He was busy inspecting his phone and didn’t look up.

  “Yeah. In the boot. With the floppy hat and the pitchfork.”

  “Very funny.”

  She examined her shoes. They were hardly adequate for a warm summer’s day let alone anything else. Not something you’d choose to wear to see in the next ice age. Her feet crunched through the first layer of snow and the cold, moist feeling immediately started to seep through to her feet.

  “If my feet have to be amputated because of frostbite I want you to give my shoes to the orphanage,” she said but Ash had already started to ascend the hill and hadn’t heard. With a grunt of annoyance, she trudged after him.

  “What did you see that was odd about the village on the way through?” Ash called back as they started to ascend the snow covered hill. The higher they went the more the icy wind whipped around them. Ash had almost had to shout to be heard.

  “No footprints,” she replied. Even in winter where the snow was thick on the ground the British have an unrivalled urge to fall out of their homes and plunge themselves into the weather; walking dogs, going to the shop to buy milk, checking on next door. But the snowfall had only just come and it was difficult to believe that any tracks had already been covered.

  Which meant that there weren’t any tracks.

  At the church porch, they were met by two figures who Ash introduced as DS Keera Julian and DC Eran Green. They were both clad from head to toe in winter coats, hats, scarves and other paraphernalia. Keera Julian was clasping coffee in a paper cup. She cast her eye over Alix briefly before sniffing loudly and looking away. She had a straight and rigid face, blemished and pale skin. The thick, woolly hat that seemed to drown her head concealed long, black hair that fell around her shoulders like a mop. She stank of fags. A thick coat hid her voluptuous figure; a stark contrast to Alix’s thin frame. Eran Green was younger: a short and stumpy man. His winter apparel had expanded his sizable torso even more than usual and he seemed to take up most of the porch. He was bent over, hands supporting him on his knees. He looked ill.

  “Morning, guv.” Keera spoke with a gravelly, masculine voice.

  “Have you met our new criminal psychologist, Doctor Alix Franchot?” asked Ash. Alix smiled awkwardly. She received blank looks back.

  “No,” said Keera, ignoring her.

  “What the Hell is wrong with you, Greeny?” asked Ash, taking a step back from the wheezing man as if he might explode at any point.

  “Sorry, guv,” Eran gasped, barely looking up. “That’s some fucked up shit in there.”

  “May be. But perhaps you can find a more convenient place to cough your guts up. That drive was a nightmare. It better have been worth it.”

  “Oh it will be, boss.” There was something about Keera’s tone that Alix disliked.

  “What’s the score?” Ash.

  “Constable William Fenn here attended the village this morning to check on an old lady who lives in Blacksmith Cottage, which is one of the little bungalows off the dirt track you might have seen on the way in.” Alix looked into the porch and for the first time saw an old uniformed policeman sat near the door, head bowed as if in prayer. She thought it was odd how he hadn’t acknowledged the arrival of a senior officer but the deep breathing, the unnatural stillness and the wide, bloodshot eyes suggested he was in shock.

  “Is someone looking after him?” Alix asked.

  “What?” Keera looked indignant, annoyed at the interruption.

  “He’s in shock. Why is no one taking him to the hospital?”

  “Because we’re the only ones here.” Keera looked at Alix like it was the dumbest question she had ever heard. Even in the cold, Alix felt her cheeks redden. She shuffled her feet uncomfortably.

  “Someone will take PC Fenn to hospital just as soon as I have men on the ground, Alix,” Ash said softly in her ear.

  Keera shook her head like the whole interlude was quite scandalous before continuing. “Anyway, PC Fenn proceeds to the old lady’s home and surmises that she’s not in but finds the house open and unlocked. He checks on the neighbour’s and it’s a similar story but he finds tracks leading across the fields to this church. He follows them, walks inside the church and now here we are to share his discomfort.”

  Alix tried to see around the door of the church but Eran Green was blocking the way. She felt an unpleasant mixture of anxiety and excitement. This was, she thought, her first crime scene. Her previous work with Ash had been on cases that took place after the investigation, at the point where a prosecution was taking place. When the Crown needed to give the jury an insight into the defendant’s mind, a psychological breakdown, an understanding of motive and agenda, they called on Doctor Alix Franchot. But ten years of studying criminals had never actually led her to face the results of what criminals actually do. She’d met criminals. As traumatic as it was, her meeting with Anwick had been in her comfort zone. Up until he’d tried to use her as a bargaining tool to negotiate his escape of course. She’d met victims. Interviewed hundreds of both for her book. But she’d never actually seen crimes first hand. She’d never shared a room with death. She’d been told about pain and loss and suffering. She’d read about it, written about it, lectured about it. But she’d never actually seen it.

  It occurred to her, stood in the freezing cold wearing such inadequate clothing, how unprepared she was. How naive she had been. The gulf between the abstract and the practical never seemed so great. She felt a fraud. Any minute now someone would ask her, what are you actually doing here? What’s your experience? Your role? Your point?

  But then she thought of Zara. She had seen pain and suffering and loss. She had seen her own pain, her own suffering and her own loss. She’d seen it take her mother’s life and her father’s mind. She’d seen friends and family slowly abandon them. She’d seen their eyes averting hers; the useless gestures of tenderness become less and less frequent. The offers of help withdrawn. The quarantine setting in. The red cross painted on the door. She had seen what crime does to people.

  She’d seen it rip her family apart at the seams.

  “Are you kidding me?” Ash’s voice shook her away from her thoughts. “Get forensics back on and tell them if I can get here then they can. I want a team here in less than an hour. Eran for Christ’s sake breath into a paper bag or something, can’t you?”

  “Sorry, guv.” Eran held up his hand defensively. “Think I’m allergic to flies.” He waved his hand around pathetically in the direction of the church and staggered away toward the bushes. Alix’s anxiety level jumped up another notch.

  Flies mean dead things.

  Eran having apparently ruled himself out of being helpful, Ash looked at Keera expectantly. She finished her coffee and threw the cup in a bush.

  “She gonna’ be okay, guv?” She nodded at Alix.

  “She’ll be fine, Sergeant.”

  “I should have been at the CPS meeting this morning.” Keera sounded pissed. Something close to a wry smile crossed Alix’s lips. She had met Keera Julian before whilst working with Ash. It hadn’t taken her long to sus her out. She glanced down to her feet to make sure they were still there. The cold had stripped her of all feeling.

  “Open the door, Keera.” Ash’s tone was patient but firm. Keera shrugged her shoulders, gave one final, curt glance at Alix – looking as if she had eaten something that disagreed with her – and threw open the church doors.

  Chapter 20

  Deep underground in the basement of the City Hospital where the dead were filed, Ernst Stranger had spent the last fifteen minutes pacing frantically up and down. Occasionally, he dared to glance at the dreadful thing he had unveiled inside a bag that should have contained the body of young, dead girl. He had managed to get his breathing under control and was now trying to work out what to do next.

  In ordinary circumstances, Ernst was supposed to report any abnormality to his line manager. In two y
ears, he had done that only once, when he was left with the body of an old man who died from cancer. Ernst had noticed cuts on the wrist and wondered whether anyone else had spotted them.

  But Ernst wasn’t supposed to look at the bodies.

  Ernst was supposed to just tag them, store them and log them on to the hospital database. Ernst had been shouted at that day. He had almost lost his job. Ernst didn’t want to lose his job. Not again. And the shouting reminded him of the school bullies. He had cut deep into his skin that day. So what else was he supposed to do?

  Also, what if this was something to do with him? What if someone knew what he was doing down here in this decaying isolation? What if someone knew about his... his fondness for his subjects? So they sent him a message. A joke, maybe. That was possible. Telling people about it meant he would be caught out. So he wouldn’t tell. He wouldn’t.

  Finally, there was also the question of the tag and the message written on it.

  Ernst peaked under the bag for the fifth time, hoping desperately that this time he would see the corpse of a young girl and not the mangled wreck of flesh that stared back at him the first time around.

  It was a dog, he thought. But its body had been so savagely ripped open that it was no longer recognisable as a dog. It was putrid. An eyeball had been squeezed out of its socket and a large chunk of flesh had been torn away from the creature’s mouth exposing its yellow teeth in a permanent, menacing grin.

  He hadn’t noticed it, but he had dug so deeply into the scratch on his neck that fresh blood was freely trickling down the back of his shirt. Fortunately, he wore a dark blazer that covered up most of the mess he was making. The pain brought him a little comfort but not much. On the fifth time he looked at the dead dog, he noticed a green tag stuck to one of its hind legs that had been snapped awkwardly backwards. He quickly snipped the tag off and studied it. It simply had a name and a mobile telephone number on it and the words, “Property of...” written in red italics above. The handwriting was quite beautiful.

  Ernst spent a long time studying the message. The name meant nothing to him but he couldn’t help feel that somehow he had no choice but to – what? – dial the number?

  In Ernst Stranger’s head, things started to take shape.

  He picked up the phone and dialled.

  It rang twice before a gruff female voice answered.

  “Yes?”

  “Amanda Harker?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve got your dog here.”

  Chapter

  21

  Alix hadn’t notice her hand grip Ash’s arm tightly.

  The sound of the flesh flies feeding on the dead enveloped around her. They were the first on the scene. Flocking in their hundreds to the feast.

  Alix had never smelt death before but she knew what it was. Our ancestors had no other way of protecting themselves against disease than interpreting the chemical reactions in their brains associated with the smell of death as something bad, something to be avoided. That same response survives today and it is the reason why death is instantly recognisable to us even when sensed for the first time.

  It was repulsive and she clasped her hand to her mouth and felt her stomach churn violently.

  The pile of bodies was stacked before the altar. Man and woman dumped unceremoniously on each other in a bloody mass of mangled flesh. Their clothes had been torn from their bodies. Dried blood stained every exposed limb; every bulging, fat stomach; every repugnant wound. The bodies were so tightly packed in the human pyre that it was impossible to tell what appendage belonged to what torso; what foot to what leg; what head to what neck. Areas where deep wounds had been opened revealed parts of organs, intestine, tissue and muscle. The victims appeared to have been horribly mutilated before being dumped together.

  Alix’s eyes glazed over and she thought for a moment that she might faint. Nothing could have prepared her for the rush of fear and horror that had jolted her so intensely and so intimately. She found it difficult to focus on any particular part of the macabre jumble of cadavers. To her, it just looked like one pulsating, deformed entity; an indistinguishable mass of pinks, whites, reds and purples. Occasionally, part of a face peered out, the expression contorted in the way that a face would contort when staring through into the valley of Hell. An automated response flickered at the back of her mind. It was a statement, a bold and unequivocal statement.

  She collapsed on a pew and slid towards the far end of the building. She had wrapped her arms tightly around her as if in some way it protected her from the revulsion she had witnessed. The sudden force of sitting down, the blood rushed from her head and the feeling of nausea overwhelmed her. She bent forward and vomited.

  Ash had stood beside the final pew staring blankly at the pile of naked bodies for several minutes before speaking. Keera had been right. He had never seen anything like this.

  “Does anyone else know about this?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “Get on the radio and get me as many people up here as you can. I want roadblocks stopping all access to this village. I want warrants to search every house, farm, shed and building. I want a forensics team. I want Maurice Reid leading it and I want the coroner here. I want a list of every resident in this Hell-hole and I want some identification to start.”

  Keera nodded and turned to walk away before stopping and looking at him over her shoulder.

  “By the way, your girlfriend spewed on a pew.”

  Chapter 22

  “I’m sorry,” she said, slightly out of breath. “It was the smell.”

  Ash had led her out to the porch where there was some shelter from the wind. He put his hand on her shoulder, examined her face. She looked very small and pale all of a sudden. He resisted the urge to put his arm around her. PC Fenn was sat on the other side looking just as pale but at least he was managing to drink from a bottle of water.

  “You okay?” Ash asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” She smiled wanly, liking the fuss but not liking the fuss. Then suddenly she felt guilty. Ash needed to be doing his job, not sitting with her.

  “Okay. I need to get hold of the DCI. You gonna’ be okay for a moment?”

  “Yes. I’ll be fine.” She felt relieved he wasn’t lingering.

  He touched her arm lightly; she felt the contact and smiled. He disappeared out into the snowstorm, phone already at his ear.

  She looked around the porch. At the faded newsletters with pictures of smiling children, at the leather-bound hymn books discarded in the corner. Everything was caked in dust. Above the arch over the interior doors, some wording had been carved into the stone. The work was crude, the letters jolty and misplaced:

  Damn the flesh that depends on the soul. Damn the soul that depends on the flesh.

  She considered it for a while but the scripture meant nothing to her. Religion had always held a strange position in Alix’s life. Her mother had been Catholic, her father indifferent. Their differing views had caused a strain in their marriage anyway. And Zara was the last exertion of force that snapped the wires holding them altogether. It wasn’t long before her mother succumbed to illness and drifted away, both physically and emotionally from all of them. She filled her time in between asking God why her child had been taken from her. Asking for her to be returned. It was her father who had led the campaign for Zara’s return. Press conferences, interviews, appeals for information, charity events, private investigators. There was even talk of a book deal at one point. Thank goodness he never went through with it. But for all the time that Vaughn Franchot invested trying to find his youngest daughter, he let his eldest slip quietly away from him.

  She felt stupid, annoyed with herself for causing a scene. She was supposed to be helping and so far she had pissed off a leading Q.C., stormed out of her first meeting with her new boss, got them all taken off a high profile job and puked up on a crime scene.

  “Good start,” she mumbled under her breath. The mistake, perhaps
, was drinking that can of Dr Pepper this morning.

  She sighed heavily, knowing that she would have to go back into the church if she were to salvage any dignity from today. Keera Julian brushed past her as if she weren’t even there as she walked to the back of the church. She slurred something inaudible as she past. It was unlikely to be a compliment on her dress sense, Alix concluded.

  From the back of the church, the human pyre loomed high above the altar like some deformed demon, a mash of mangled flesh fused together with congealed blood and gristle. A few tortured faces were visible, their eyes seemingly locked on to her. It was just her and the bodies. And the flies.

  She approached the front of the church apprehensively, pausing a moment at the crossing. The bodies were piled in front of the altar, in an area of the church known as the apse. To her left and right the church building hollowed out into two rooms – the north and south transept – to form the cross. She took a deep breath and stepped beyond the final pew, walked forward, close enough to reach out and touch.

  Wedged through the centre of the pyre, hung inanimately over the edge, was a boy of no more than fourteen. There was a deep gouge under his neck. Alix put her hand up to him. She had no intention of touching but she felt that she needed to acknowledge this child in some small way other than by staring at him. The cut was deep enough to have killed him. And yet it was clean, meticulous. Surgeon quality.

  Execution. Not the work of a psychopath. Or at least not one who was completely out of control.

  She shivered. The boy must have a family; parents; people he loved; people who loved him. Now he was no more different than the meat in a butcher’s window. She swallowed hard, brushed the flies from her face and knelt down so she was level with him.

  “Who did this to you?” she whispered.

  She looked further in; the face of the boy blurred as her eyes refocused to the distance. The altar was splattered with blood. Defiling the altar: a metaphor for the disobedience of God. But there was nothing metaphoric about what had happened here. Symbolic perhaps, but not metaphoric. It was a challenge to God’s power. The church was not just a convenient forum to accommodate this act, she thought. It was the very purpose of it.