The Psalm Killer

by Chris Petit

  With a broken leg, thought Vinnie, or worse.

  They stayed in the bedroom and watched him dress, then led him outside to a waiting car with two more men inside. His escorts pushed him into the back and got in on either side and the car pulled away. Everyone’s actions seemed perfectly rehearsed.

  Vinnie tried to protest his innocence but only a whine came out. The man in the passenger seat turned round and jabbed a gun at his forehead, scaring him like never before. Vinnie was convinced they were going to make an example of him and shoot him dead. The story was that they were going to do it to someone sooner or later. He was even more sure when the man worked the gun housing, feeding a round into the barrel, which left him horribly aware that the bullet in the breech was the one that would drill its way into his brain. He started to sob and didn’t care who saw.

  Outside everything looked desperately normal – bricks and concrete and the beginnings of an indifferent blue sky. Inside the car the silence felt dreadfully loaded.

  ‘This’ll do here,’ said the gunman.

  Vinnie started gabbling the end of the Hail Mary, over and over – ‘Now and at the hour of our death’ – praying like never before, promising to live the life of a saint if God or the Blessed Virgin got him out of this. He looked frantically for any sign that he might not be about to be killed and found none. They were parked by an empty space of grass, with two weak saplings protected by wire cages. He could see his own body dumped on the grass, like time had jumped.

  The four men sat in silence while Vinnie bawled like a baby until one of them lit a cigarette.

  ‘For God’s sake, give him one too if it’ll shut him up,’ said the man with the gun.

  Vinnie, thinking this was the condemned man’s last cigarette they were offering, shook his head furiously and gulped for air, hoping that refusing might somehow keep him alive.

  ‘Ah, for Christ’s sake, stop your snivelling. Take the fucking cigarette and get a grip.’

  They lit it for him. He was still whimpering and that with the smoke started him coughing.

  ‘You do smoke?’ asked the driver laconically, speaking for the first time.

  Vinnie nodded, still coughing.

  ‘That’s all right, then. We wouldn’t want to be encouraging bad habits.’

  ‘His first and last cigarette,’ said the man with the gun, laughing, which was enough to set Vinnie off again.

  ‘Government Warning,’ said the driver, deadpan, emphasizing every word. ‘Smoking can damage your health.’

  The man with the gun turned and smiled, then jammed the pistol point hard against Vinnie’s knee, making him yelp. He dug it in harder until Vinnie cried out with fear.

  ‘They say the pain is indescribable.’

  ‘Read that,’ said the driver, producing a folded piece of paper from his pocket.

  It was a typed statement with Vinnie’s full name and address at the top, followed by a confession of his crimes, namely petty larceny and car theft, a promise to not offend again and, if further offences were discovered, then he should be aware of the consequences. His name looked strange spelt out in full, as though it belonged to someone else. Vincent Gerard Declan O’Connor. He wondered how they knew about the middle names.

  A delay followed while a pen was found for Vinnie to sign the paper. He scribbled his name with difficulty because of the trembling.

  The gunman said, ’If we find you up to your old tricks you know what to expect.’

  Vinnie said nothing, but they wanted to hear it from him.

  ‘What do you get?’

  ‘Broken bones,’ mumbled Vinnie.

  ‘At the very least,’ said the driver. ‘We come to your house, we take you away, we tie your arms behind your back, we put the sellotape over your mouth, and we shoot you – in the elbow or the knee, or maybe just in the back of the leg, if we’re feeling lenient. Or we smash your bones with a baseball bat or drop a breeze block on you, which makes a terrible mess. But you know all this. The thing is, are you clear about it?’

  They showed him some pictures to underline their point. The man next to Vinnie shoved him forward, making sure he saw each one as it was held up, half a dozen Polaroids of smashed knees and elbows, ghastly nightmare cocktails of gristle and bone. The worst was of a large exit hole that had taken away the whole kneecap, leaving only a soggy, unprotected pulp.

  ‘Colt .45. Make sure that’s not you, Vincent.’

  The man in the passenger seat looked him levelly in the eye, speaking politely, with no need of threat any more, like they were exchanging pleasantries over a shop counter.

  ‘Now mind how you go.’

  All Vinnie could think was that he wasn’t going to die after all. He was aware only of his breathing and his relief. It was a miracle he’d not shat himself. God was understanding in His infinite mercy. He fucking well must be if He was letting him off with a warning. The sun came out from behind a cloud, just for him.

  6

  BY late morning lack of sleep was telling on Cross. He looked through his window at the barracks’ dreary courtyard. Not yet lunchtime and the lights were on. He often felt overwhelmed at the start of a case. With the greater issues so insoluble, it was hardly surprising.

  He turned to Hargreaves. ‘Who’s working on the advertisements? ’

  ‘Westerby.’

  Westerby was the new posting, a serious-looking young woman with a face he could imagine belonging to Joan of Arc or one of the saints in the stained-glass windows of the churches of his childhood. He wasn’t sure why. There was nothing particularly otherworldly about her. She smiled easily, showing good teeth, and did her blonde hair in a way that reminded him of women in films from the 1950s, and seemed more feminine than many policewomen, without adopting the fluttery manner of some.

  Cross looked at a photostat of the relevant page of advertisements, which was from an edition of one of the city’s newspapers of the week before. His eye was drawn to a long and rambling Prayer to the Holy Spirit that ended:

  The person may say this prayer for three consecutive days, after the three days the favour will be granted. This prayer must be published after the third day. C.S.

  What on earth did that mean?

  ‘Tell Westerby to double-check this,’ he said to Hargreaves, ‘and any others that look like they might be religious cranks. It’s a possibility. At this stage anything is.’

  He also told him to contact the two soldiers who had reported the theft of the Range Rover for a statement, and to go through the men’s hostels and see if any regulars were missing.

  After Hargreaves had gone, Cross went over the other advertisements.

  A BIBLE QUESTION: What does God say concerning governments? ANS Read Proverbs Chapter 29 verse 2.

  DENTURE GRIEF. Dental implants may solve your problem.

  PROFESSIONAL CHINESE MAN, educated, late 30 would like to meet lady, for friendship.

  CHRISTIAN WIDOW, 29 would like to meet Christian male.

  SOPHISTICATED BUSINESS LADY in my 40s. I drive a very sporty car, sail my own yacht, surf, water and snow ski, hill walk and chase rallies. Own house in it’s own grounds. Genuine replies only please.

  This hotchpotch of yearning, superstition and dread struck him as uniquely Irish, even the sophisticated businesslady with her oversell. He noted the misplaced apostrophe, so characteristic of the North. The next advertisement was more succinct than the Prayer to the Holy Spirit, though just as cryptic and puzzling.

  WHEN GOD has forsaken His Mansion the Devil must do His work.

  What did that mean? Whose work precisely? God’s or the devil’s?

  Whenever Cross met Ricks he was reminded how well some of the community did out of the Troubles, and none more than the pathologist, who did better than most – with little risk to himself – carving up all sides with equanimity.

  Ricks was an urbane man, around fifty, with irritating, pedantic manners and pampered skin that he kept carefully talced and after-shaved. A well f
ed jowl extended to his neck, bulged over an expensive striped collar and told of long, leisurely dinners in the finest restaurants, testaments to a private income and a lack of any Mrs Ricks to support.

  His upstairs office carefully distanced Ricks from the grisly nature of his work. He surrounded himself with expensive personal furniture that included an enormous, elaborately carved partner’s desk that he sat behind, pouring tea into bone china. Everyone else Cross knew made do with mugs. An antique lamp cast a comforting pool of light on to the dark green leather surface of the desk.

  Through the window, darkness fell over the city skyline. Rain was forecast. Cross usually enjoyed walking but he didn’t relish going back into the cold. A biting northeast wind had chased him all the way there.

  Ricks pursed his lips. ‘Sugar?’

  Cross shook his head and tried to bury the thought that one day this fussy man’s white hands might cut him up.

  ‘He was dead when the first car hit him,’ said Ricks as he handed over the tea. ‘If he had been standing there would be signs of impact, as your chap suggested. Completely crushed head, as you saw, which doesn’t make our job any easier.’

  ‘Dead rather than unconscious when he was hit?’

  ‘I’ll get to that in a minute. He would have snuffed it soon enough anyway. Your man was on his last legs. Cirrhosis of the liver. With such advanced damage to the internal organs it’s hard to put an age to him. Between fifty-five and sixty-five? Maybe younger, could be older. What else? Five nine, twelve stone three. No teeth, no dentures. Nothing on the fingerprints yet?’

  Cross shook his head and asked the cause of death.

  ‘Hard to say, given the state of the head. The wrist wounds – well, there’s no tearing to suggest they were supporting the weight of his body. If he was nailed to anything he was probably nailed to the floor.’ He paused and gave Cross an arch look. ‘No other evidence to suggest torture, but I can’t say for sure because he’s a dog’s dinner, frankly.’

  He made a steeple of his fingers and smiled. Ricks enjoyed his little performances, and Cross indulged him, suspecting that there was more.

  Ricks toyed with his half-moon glasses for effect.

  ‘Your man’s been as dead as doornails for some time.’

  Cross obliged with a puzzled look.

  ‘In fact, I’d say he’s been dead for weeks.’

  ‘What about decomposition? There wasn’t any.’

  ‘Nor would there be, if?’

  ‘If what?’ Cross wished Ricks would get on with it.

  ‘If the body was frozen.’

  ‘Frozen?’

  ‘As bizarre as it sounds, yes.’

  ‘Frozen?’ Cross repeated, in genuine astonishment.

  ‘The brain still was, partly. Lucky for you, a) that I went back to check for any bullet wound: none, by the way; and b) managed to squeeze you in at such short notice. If we’d opened him up much later he would have thawed out completely.’

  Ricks giggled. It was the first time Cross could remember him showing any sign of mirth.

  Hargreaves showed no surprise when Cross told him to investigate deep freezes.

  ‘Domestic or commercial, sir?’

  Hargreaves could be quite a comic when he wanted.

  ‘Domestic first. Big enough to hold a body.’

  He reported back that there were several such models, and several thousand in all, spread over Northern Ireland.

  Cross groaned. The men’s hostels had come up with nothing, nor had missing persons. Most murders got solved through some break in the first seventy-two hours, a deadline they were well past.

  ‘By the way, sir,’ said Hargreaves. ‘The two witnesses of the vehicle theft. One’s on leave in the UK and the other is indefinitely unavailable.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s been assigned to another undercover operation.’

  ‘I hope you made it clear how much we appreciate the army’s co-operation.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I told them they were bastards. ’

  Meanwhile, Westerby’s check on the personal advertisements had revealed that two of the three religious ones – the Prayer to the Holy Spirit and the one about God’s thoughts on business – had been placed by a brother and sister named Wilson. They were in their forties, neither was married and they shared a fanatically neat house in Ballymacarrett. They also published an occasional pamphlet under the name Carriers of Christ, a copy of which Westerby produced for Cross.

  He flipped through several folded and stapled sheets of A4, poorly typed photostats whose content was the same infuriating mix of the discursive and the cryptic as the two advertisements in the newspaper.

  ‘What are the Wilsons like?’

  Odd, said Westerby. Margery Wilson had answered the door looking like something out of a museum, wearing clothes and make-up at least four decades out of date. Brother Raymond by contrast wore cheap army surplus and went barefoot. Westerby had found his unblinking stare from behind thick lenses as disconcerting as his first words to her: ‘Many stray from the path of the Lord. Be thou saved.’

  ‘Do you think they’re fanatics?’ asked Cross.

  Westerby shook her head and said she thought them highly eccentric and probably harmless. ‘It’s possible, I suppose, that they had contact with the dead man through their pamphlet. They have occasional meetings and Bible sessions with like-minded people. They don’t have a deep freeze, by the way, not in the kitchen, and I couldn’t see anything like a shed in the garden.’

  ‘Garage?’

  ‘No garage. But I can’t really see them caught up in anything like this, they’re too involved in each other. Except that—’

  ‘Except what?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. Pure supposition. But it could be a reason for blackmail.’

  She remembered the way the sister had smoothed her skirt and given her brother sly, sidelong glances of adoration.

  ‘Suppose.’ Cross smiled at her and she smiled back gratefully.

  ‘Suppose they sleep together,’ said Westerby.

  ‘What? I thought they were brother and sister.’

  Westerby nodded uncertainly, deciding that she was probably the victim of an overactive imagination. Cross’s astonishment seemed to confirm it. Westerby became embarrassed. ‘It was just a thought, sir.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Cross, suddenly embarrassed too. ‘I’m sure your instinct is right. Is there anything to back your hunch, beyond supposing?’

  ‘I did take a quick look upstairs when I asked to use the toilet. There’s only one bedroom from what I could see – the others were studies or prayer rooms. And there was only one bed in the bedroom. So I suppose I thought blackmail.’

  ‘Do you think we should talk to them again?’

  Westerby seemed surprised to be asked. ‘I’m not sure, sir. I suppose they’re the only obvious lead.’

  ‘What about the third advertisement, do you have anything on that?’

  ‘The one about the devil’s work?’

  ‘If that’s the one about a mansion.’

  Westerby consulted her notes.

  ‘Oh, yes. The paper is still trying to chase that up. They seem to have mislaid the details.’

  ‘Let me know when you know.’

  As she was leaving, Cross thought of something else.

  ‘How long does food take to defrost?’

  ‘It depends what it is.’

  ‘Say a chicken.’

  ‘I don’t know. Six or seven hours.’

  ‘If it takes a chicken seven hours, then how long shall we say for our man?’

  They were both amused by the absurdity of their conversation.

  ‘Thirty-six. I’m just guessing,’ she said.

  ‘Do one more thing for me tomorrow, would you, first thing. Find out from the Electricity Board if there were any power cuts in, say, a two-day period before the discovery of the body.’

  Cross and Deidre sat in silence through the whole of Newsnight, but wh
en she made a pretence of watching the programme after, Cross got up impatiently.

  ‘Can we have that off?’

  ‘It’s interesting.’

  He turned it off anyway. ‘Not as interesting as us.’

  Deidre looked at him in angry surprise.

  Cross started on his prepared speech. ‘I was thinking I should stay somewhere until we or you or I or your friend sort something out. We could tell the children I have to go on a course for a few weeks.’

  Far from his announcement having the placatory effect that he had anticipated, it enraged Deidre. ‘What about your affairs?’ she snapped.

  ‘What affairs?’

  ‘Come on, you’ve had affairs.’

  ‘It’s not true. There haven’t been any.’

  ‘Men have affairs.’

  ‘I’m telling the truth.’

  ‘Anyway, you’re not walking out now,’ she said with finality.

  He listened to her accuse him of playing the injured party instead of facing up to facts, and realized how unprepared he was for this talk, in spite of initiating it.

  ‘I could face the facts a lot better if I knew who he was,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘Can you hear how pompous you sound?’

  The criticism stung.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘And where does that leave us?’

  ‘You’re not breaking up this family.’

  Cross suspected that it was her parents’ disapproval of separation and divorce that was motivating her line. He tried to get angry but couldn’t. It was like they were discussing other people’s lives.

  ‘Where shall I sleep?’ he asked.

  ‘Where you like. It’s your bed too.’

  After they turned out the light, she surprised him by turning to him fiercely and saying, ‘Hold me.’

  He did, with mixed feelings, thinking she was testing him. He wanted her and didn’t, and suspected she felt the same.

  ‘It’s you I want, not just sex,’ he said and, to his amazement, she laughed and said, ‘Try separating the two,’ and kissed him hard, making her need clear.