by Ryan Casey
DI Marlow sighed. He broke Brian’s stare. Wow. That was one bloody thing Brian had not been expecting—to outstare Marlow. But really, what the hell was he thinking? He had no rights, not anymore. If he were a DS again, he’d probably punch someone square in the face for taking such a “holier than thou” stance.
“You can follow. But only because it’s you, Brian. And you hold all responsibility for anything that might happen to you. Fucking hell, Brian. You really are a snaky prick these days. I blame that Wallson dickhead.”
DI Marlow pushed past Brian, still unable to make eye contact with him again. The other three officers followed.
“Welcome aboard, Dete…Well, Brian,” DS Carter said. She grinned. She had a really pretty smile. Just a shame it was tainted ever so slightly by that mole of hers.
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Carter. Now let’s get a fucking move on.”
Brian followed DI Marlow and the others through the fields as they shone their torches in every direction. From time to time, Brian heard noises around them—leaves brushing against one another in the wind. The squelching of the muddy grass. He thought back to that silhouette. The way it had stood there and watched him, then turned away.
Those words he spoke. “History decides the innocent from the guilty.” He wanted to understand. He wanted to get his head around those words.
But every time he tried, he heard another sound in the distance. Or another officer slipped in the mud. Or an intense, shitty smell invaded his nostrils.
“I don’t see fuck all out here and I hardly think we will do until morning,” DC Wilson said.
“Keep walking,” DS Carter said, brushing her hair behind her ears as she almost lost her balance in an indentation in the mud. “If Brian says he saw somebody out here, then he can’t have gone far.”
“Besides, the dog came running back,” DC Wainwright said. Her voice was shaky and uncertain. “It must’ve been in this field. Marie…she has to be close by. Right?”
“We just keep looking,” DI Marlow said. “The sooner we can find some footsteps or anything like that, the better.”
Footsteps were proving a problem. Brian had been convinced the silhouette would’ve left behind at least one print, especially in this thick mud. But in the end, it turned out the mud had worked to the suspected killer’s advantage. There were holes in the ground, sure, but they were everywhere. It was nigh on impossible to distinguish a footprint from a natural indentation in the ground.
And of those rare few that did leave marks, they all looked different. Different sizes, different soles. They’d have to get a forensics team down here to investigate and match up with the shoes. They’d have to ask every possible person. This killer couldn’t be perfect. He had to have left something lying around. He had to.
“What’s that over there?” DC Wainwright asked.
Brian shone his torch in the same direction as the rest of them.
“Must be an old farmhouse or something. Probably worth taking a look. But first, let’s just finish the perimeter. There might be something—”
“We need to go inside that farmhouse,” Brian said.
DI Marlow rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Brian, you’re here on my shitting goodwill in the first place. Do not push your luck, sunshine. Just don’t even think about it.”
Brian raised his hand where his torchlight was shining. “The door. Look at it.”
The other officers looked around. It took them a few moments, but the way their torches settled was enough proof for Brian that they’d seen what he’d seen.
On the large metal makeshift door of the farmhouse, a huge question mark had been drawn. There was something wrapped around the rusty handles too, but it was too hard to make out from this distance.
“What…what do you think it means?” DI Marlow asked. His voice cracked. Brian hadn’t ever seen him this shit-up before.
But Brian didn’t feel his best either. He’d seen the question mark before. He couldn’t remember where, but there’d definitely been a similar question mark to this at some point in his life. Maybe was just coincidental.
But he couldn’t shake the crippling sense of déjà vu engulfing his body.
DI Marlow coughed. “Okay, this is how we’re going to do things.” His voice was back to its gruff, masculine old manner. “Carter and I will head for the doors. Wainwright and Wilson—you get ready to blind the fucker with your torches. If he’s hiding out in there, then we need to be on our guard. Bear in mind that there’s a potential hostage situation here as well, so…Hey! Brian, you twat!”
Brian disregarded DI Marlow and sprinted as fast as he could in the direction of the farmhouse. He knew he’d seen a huge question mark like that before. In fact, he knew exactly when and where it was. He’d received a card with it on in the post a couple of months back. Addressed to him. Thick red felt tip. No words inside the card.
“McDone, you tit! Come back here right now before I’m forced to arrest you!”
But Brian wasn’t stopping for anyone. His heart raced. His legs stung from the run across such shitty condition of grass. He held his torch up against the metal door of the abandoned farmhouse and stared at the question mark.
It was red.
He wiped his finger against it. Took a sniff of the substance.
Only difference was, this was blood, not red felt-tip pen.
He lowered his torch and looked at the handle as the other officers got closer and closer. His stomach sank and his knees went weak as he stared at what it was around the handle.
It was another clump of Marie’s hairs. No doubt about it, Marie always had that blonde-tipped hair. Pretty short too. Poor girl. Had a harsh tongue, but she was alright really. He could only hope that she hadn’t suffered.
Granted, that hope was a paper-thin one.
The booming voice of DI Marlow blared into his ear from a close distance. “Who the fuck do you think you are, Brian? You’re going to get yourself killed. You’re going to—”
“There’s another piece of scalp and hair wrapped around these doors,” Brian said, pointing his torchlight at his discovery. “If you’ve got a weak stomach, you might want to turn away.”
Wilson and Wainwright obliged, tutting and covering their eyes. Marlow, Carter and Brian stared at the handle of the door. The tension was so strong in the group that it was almost tangible, as sweat poured down Brian’s forehead.
“I know you’ve got a personal interest here, Brian,” DI Marlow said. His beard was mangled with sweat and snot as he panted after his jog. He reminded Brian of himself a few years back. Fat fuck, pitiful at exercise. “I know you have these personal interests of yours, and I feel for you. But you’re just being boneheaded stupid. You need to let us look inside.”
Brian held his jaw tightly. As much as he wanted to open up that rusty old door and find out what hid behind the question mark, DI Marlow was right. It wasn’t his place to open the door.
He stepped aside and held a hand out. He contemplated leaning against the wall of the farmhouse, but it was covered with slimy green moss. The safety of the country lane seemed so far away now, with only the torchlights for any sort of company. If they went out, they’d be lost. Truly.
DI Marlow looked around at the rest of his officers. He nodded at them, and they all nodded back in acknowledgement. “I’ll open the door up. Watch my back. Please.”
Then, keeping his eyes on the door, he shoved his finger in the middle of the tightly wrapped clump of hair and snapped it free of the door.
The door didn’t take much opening after that. It partly swung open, creaking as it did.
There was a dim light coming from inside the farmhouse.
“Is that a light?” DS Carter asked, echoing his thoughts.
DI Marlow coughed and stepped back, covering his face with his sleeves. It must’ve been bad if he put scalp-covered hands that near to his face right after contact.
“Holy shit,” DC Wilson
said, heaving into the grass. “It fucking reeks in there.”
The smell hit Brian soon after. He couldn’t help but cough. It smelt like somebody had left a bottle of milk in front of a radiator for six months, shat in it, drank it, sicked it up, then put it in front of the radiator for another six months.
Only a thousand times worse.
Clenching his nostrils with his fingertips and trying his best not to breathe through his mouth, Brian stepped past the inhibited officers, who were too caught up on trying to get over the smell when he caught sight of what was causing it.
At first, he couldn’t comprehend it, as he clenched the side of the sharp doorframe. He couldn’t understand what he was looking at, in the dim lamplit light of the room, which moths and bluebottles buzzed around.
He didn’t understand it, but he knew. Deep down, he knew.
He stepped across the floor. His shoes were squelching again, but it wasn’t because of mud this time.
It was the blood. The pool of blood spread across the dirty white floor, leading towards a green blanket at the other side of the room.
As DI Marlow and the others continued to heave, Brian took a few more steps through the pool of blood and got a closer look at the blanket, lit up by the torchlight in the corner of the room. Bluebottles were flying around the blanket. As he stepped closer, their buzzing wings intensified in volume.
There was something under that blanket. He knew there was.
He reached out his hand. The blanket was partly stained by blood and other peculiar substances. He wrapped his fingers around it, something squishing in his grip.
He tensed his body, and he pulled the blanket back.
When the party of bluebottles buzzed up from the mound and Brian’s eyes had time to really focus on what was in front of him, it wasn’t long before he was throwing his dinner up on the floor, into the bloody mess below.
Chapter Seventeen
Brian’s vision had long ago clouded over. He knew exactly what he was looking at; what had been hidden away beneath that mouldy green blanket. He’d had an idea before he’d even entered the musty, damp old farmhouse.
But nothing could prepare him for what it actually was.
He rubbed his eyes and took another glance in the direction of his discovery.
The direction of the rancid, decaying smell that had everyone on their knees, heaving and retching their guts up.
It was a pile of bodies.
They were fully stripped down, all of them completely pale. Bluebottles buzzed around the plastic-looking skin. All of them piled on top of one another, legs intertwined and sexual organs dangling freely, so void of life.
And each and every one of them was missing a head.
“Brian,” DI Marlow said. He rested his hand on Brian’s shoulder and tried to pull him away, but he was too weak, as he covered his mouth with his other hand.
The other two officers stood by the door, unable to keep whatever food was left inside themselves.
“We have to go,” DI Marlow said, in between two chesty coughs. “We…we have to get a team down here. To sort…to sort this out.”
Brian stepped back, but his eyes were unwavering as he focused on what was in front of him now. Eleven torsos, all of them with perfectly sliced bloody stumps on their necks, some of the blood tainting the putrid flesh of the other bodies underneath.
Eleven bodies. Twelve supposed killings.
“You…Back to your girlfriend…To tell her.”
Despite the presence of eleven wretched headless bodies, it wasn’t those that Brian’s eyes were most preoccupied with now. Instead, it was what sat on top of the bodies. What sat staring at him with fearful, dead eyes.
Matted blonde-tipped hair.
Marie’s head rested on top of the pile of torsos. Somewhere underneath, her torso had been ripped from her, tossed onto the pile like a sick sort of combination game, never again to be realigned. Her eyes were grey and glassy. Her mouth was open wide, blood and yellowing saliva dried onto her chin. There were several deep indentations on top of her head. Whatever had happened to her, she had suffered. There was no denying that she’d received some rougher treatment than the rest of the heads.
“We need a group down at Longley fields…the farm behind it. Fuck. I can’t…I can’t even begin to…” DI Marlow’s voice was distant. It sounded like he’d left the farmhouse. Brian wanted to do the same. His heart raced. His mind spun. More than anything, he wanted to get out of here. He wanted to run.
But something kept him in that room. Something other than the mound of corpses and the decapitated head of his girlfriend’s sister.
There was a question mark etched on her forehead, sliced right through to the skull. A part deep within Brian feared that she might’ve had to suffer that alive after all.
But the way the blood ran from the deep slice. The red question mark.
The same question mark he’d seen on the door of the farmhouse.
The same question mark he’d received in a blank card in the post all those months ago.
He felt something grab his shoulder and pull him out of the farmhouse as he stared back at the scene of bloodshed in front of him. DI Marlow and DS Carter. He let them pull him away. He’d seen enough. More than enough.
He couldn’t speak, but mostly because he felt in complete and utter confusion. The bodies terrified and disgusted him. The smell made him want to vomit for eternity. The sight of Marie’s head and the ordeal she must have suffered sent shivers through his entire body.
The question mark, however, scared him the most. Was he a greater part of all this than he’d first thought?
Eleven bodies. Eleven heads.
Twelve people killed by Harold Harvey back in the 17th Century.
Had all of the modern-day victims received a card with a question mark at some point?
Was Brian next on the list?
The first thing DI Marlow did when Brian and he exited the farmhouse was slide shut the rusty old steel doors.
DC Wilson shook his head. He was shaking, and his eyes stared at the ground below. “This can’t…It can’t be…This is fucked up. So fucked up.”
DS Carter patted him on his shoulder, but she too was shaking. She chewed her lip, which made the mole above her mouth even more prominent. “Stick with us, Wilson. It’s grim as fuck, sure, but we’re police officers. We’ve got to stay tough. If we don’t, then who will?”
DC Wilson half-smiled. He didn’t seem totally convinced.
DI Marlow peered at Brian as he lowered the phone from his ear. His hair looked like it’d turned a new shade of grey since they’d entered the farmhouse. “We…Someone’s heading this way. The bloodies are going to take a look. Fuck. The head. The woman. Was that…?”
Brian nodded. He didn’t have to speak. The head belonged to Marie.
DI Marlow brought his fingers through his greasy hair and sighed. “I’m sorry, Brian. I don’t agree with your methods sometimes. Barging on in there was fucking dimwitted. But this is family. You shouldn’t be here. You should be back over there. I…You can be the one to tell your girlfriend. If you’d like.”
An intensifying sense of foreboding crashed against Brian’s body. He’d have to tell Hannah that her sister had been decapitated. That her sister was the latest victim of “Harold Harvey”, or “Harold Harvey II” as the police were now referring to him.
He couldn’t even bear to think what might have happened had Hannah decided to come out for a late-night walk with her sister. Thank God she was okay, if that was any kind of consolation.
Blue lights sparked up in the distance down by Longley Road.
“That’ll be the forensics,” DI Marlow said. “Carter—you make sure Brian gets back, won’t you? And Brian.” He held out his rough-skinned hand. “I’m truly sorry about your loss. If it’s not looking ahead a bit too much, we’ll have to bring you in to the station. Have a word with you about this private investig
ation of yours you’ve been running with Wallson, as well as…well. You said you saw the killer earlier. We need to discuss that, too.”
Brian held DI Marlow’s hand for a few seconds longer than a typical handshake before letting go and turning to DS Carter. She looked at the ground and half-smiled.
“We ready to go?” Brian said. His voice was croaky. He hadn’t spoken in a short while, and all that heaving had taken it out on his chest.
DS Carter nodded. “I…I’m sorry too. Come on. Let’s get you back.”
The pair of them walked away from DI Marlow and DC Wilson, away from the abandoned farmhouse, away from the horrors they’d had to witness.
Except Brian was walking towards a whole new horror. He never did relish informing somebody that a loved one was dead. But he’d never had to break the news to anyone as close as Hannah before.
DS Carter and Brian didn’t exchange many words as they waded through the slushy mud on their way back to the road. The blue lights had stopped, and teams of forensics ran past with torches, offering words at the pair of them, but it all seemed such a haze. It wasn’t like a crime scene. It was way too personal.
As they reached the hedge that separated the field from the road, Brian spotted Hannah waiting with a police officer. Both of them had a cup of Starbucks coffee in hand as they stood in front of Marie’s cottage. They looked relatively calm. Engaged in casual conversation. This just made Brian’s stomach knot even more.
He felt a squeeze at his hand. It was cold, and made him jump, but then he looked and saw it was DS Carter. She smiled at him, or did the best she could, at least. “I know this isn’t going to be easy. But you’re a former cop. You’re tough. You can do this. And for what it’s worth, I’ve got your back.”
Brian gulped, and nodded at DS Carter, before turning back to the opposite side of the hedge, where police cars were gathered and Hannah waited for some sort of news. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”
He took a deep breath and stepped from behind the hedge.
Hannah didn’t notice him right away, but as soon as she did, her face dropped. She rushed in his direction. Frowned at him. Scanned his eyes and mouth for some sort of answer.
