Ritual

by Ryan Casey

  The fact that she was worming her way in; that she was making Brian care.

  The letterbox flapped.

  “Holy fuck.”

  And then Annie was banging at the door, rattling at the handle.

  “Annie,” Brian said, still not sure what was going on. “Annie what’s—”

  “She’s in there. There’s — there’s fucking blood in there.”

  Brian tried to hold Annie back but she just kept on banging at the door, kept on rattling at the handle.

  She’s in there. There’s blood …

  He started to fear the worst when Annie finally stepped aside. When he crouched down and peeked through the letterbox, throat tight, heart racing.

  He saw the hallway.

  Saw the chairlift by the stairs on the left.

  Saw the hallway corridor right down to what must be the kitchen.

  Saw …

  Shit.

  Blood.

  A body.

  A body completely still.

  “We need to—”

  He was about to say “report this” when he felt the door tumble in front of him.

  Fell face flat onto the doormat.

  And he didn’t understand what’d happened until he saw the plant pot by the door wobbling beside him.

  Annie rushing through into the house.

  A spare key. A spare fucking key.

  Fuck.

  “Annie!”

  He saw her running towards the fallen body of Mrs Kershaw and he had images of the lounge door swinging open; of Joe Kershaw jumping out with one of his syringes and stabbing her in the neck, sucking the blood out of her body …

  And then he realised Annie had stopped.

  Way before she got to Mrs Kershaw.

  Right by the foot of the stairs in the spot that was just out of view from outside.

  He saw what Annie was looking at and his heart sank.

  Saw the blood.

  The blood covering the cream carpet of the stairs, the wooden flooring at the foot of it.

  Saw the person sitting on the fourth step.

  Slouching against the wall.

  Eyes closed.

  Blood pouring out of two deep cuts in each of his arms.

  Empty of pills at the foot of the stairs.

  Joe Kershaw.

  “Fucker,” Brian said, hurtling towards Joe. “Don’t go fucking dying on us.”

  He got to Joe Kershaw as Annie ran on to Mrs Kershaw. Brian felt his neck. No pulse. No —maybe a pulse. Maybe the lightest fucking pulse in the world.

  But his skin was cold and pale.

  His hands were covered in blood.

  Hair wedged between his fingers.

  His mother’s hair.

  “Fuck,” Brian said again, as he moved his hand away from Joe Kershaw, as he looked at him crouched there, dying, dead. So many answers; so many questions still remained, but all of them started with this man.

  Dying …

  Dead?

  “Horr-rrace …”

  A wheeze

  Fuck.

  A wheeze from Joe Kershaw.

  Still alive.

  Still not dead.

  “Joe!” Brian said, sitting right in front of him. He smacked his cheeks to try and drag him from unconsciousness. “What did you say? What did you fucking say?”

  Saliva dribbled down Joe’s pale chin. It still had wiry specks of bumfluff, signs of a man who’d never shaved in his life.

  “Joe, what—”

  “Horace … made me … bad thing …”

  “Who’s Horace, Joe? Who’s Horace?”

  Joe peeked through the slit of his eyes at Brian.

  More phlegm oozed out Joe’s mouth.

  Another wheeze.

  “Who’s Horace, Joe? Please, don’t fucking die on us. Don’t die on us. Not fucking done with you, mate. No way.”

  But this time, Joe didn’t drool.

  Joe didn’t wheeze either.

  His eyelids met.

  His breathing stopped.

  Joe Kershaw was dead.

  Twenty-Two

  Jodie Kestrel never liked cutting through the woods on her evening walk with her dog. But it was such a short section of the route in the grand scheme of things that she told herself she was being stupid, tried not to let it bother her.

  She saw the woods approaching up ahead. Saw the tall, thick oak trees and the masses of darkness behind the pillars of bark. Sandy, her golden retriever, was off his lead just ahead of her. Never any worries about him running off or bumping into any other dogs. Nobody ever came this way. Part of the reason why she liked it so much. The solitude. The time alone with her own thoughts.

  She needed a lot of time alone with her own thoughts after losing her sister.

  She took a deep breath of the stuffy summer evening air, let its gentle warmth fill her lungs. Shitty summer really. But all summers were destined to be shitty from here onwards. After Melissa’s sudden death in a car accident on the motorway last August, the sun always made Jodie wake with the shivers, weirdly. Brought her crashing back to that fateful day when she’d been lying in bed on her day off work. The news. The news that Melissa was dead. Lorry toppled over, crushed her instantly. Sudden death. A consolation, people said.

  Jodie hated it when people said things like that. Why couldn’t they just speak the truth and say it like it was? Melissa died. Her ribs and her spine and her organs got crushed. Her skull cracked and for an instant, a painful instant, she was very much aware of what was happening to her.

  That would be the instant she died with.

  The instant she took to the grave.

  The instant everyone took to the grave.

  But that wasn’t even the worst part of it all.

  The worst part was the person lying next to Jodie when she’d received the news about her sister’s death.

  Simon.

  Melissa’s husband.

  Jodie let the thoughts disappear from her mind as she got closer to the entrance to the woods, Sandy running on ahead. She didn’t mind if he went exploring in the woods. Always came back. That was the thing about Sandy. He loved her unconditionally no matter whether she started sporadically crying or had to take him a shorter walk ’cause she just wasn’t feeling up to it, mentally and therefore physically. He understood. He loved her. Loved her like no one else ever could.

  He’d been great for her. He was six—she’d rescued him last year from a local dog home —but he still had his puppyish instincts. Mischievous around the house. Playful as hell. But hey, Jodie couldn’t complain. He was making up for a youth he’d never had, probably. Doing what so many humans who’d being robbed of youth should step back and do, too.

  Because we only get one shot at this.

  One shot, then curtains.

  And you never know when it’s coming for you.

  It might be on the motorway when the car in front of you pulls in and you don’t see it ’cause you’re busy reaching for a piece of chewing gum.

  It might be in the middle of a shopping centre—a sudden bleed on the brain, instant and climactic.

  Or it could be in these woods …

  Jodie shook her head. Walked into the woods. Felt the cooler air surround her. The leaves were so still, not rustling in the breeze, not anything. No sound of birdsong. Nothing like that. In fact, if she listened hard enough, she could hear the slight rumble of traffic down this hill, down in Preston. A reminder that life went on, even if she was up here away from—

  She suddenly became very aware that Sandy had drifted out of her sight. And that was strange. She could’ve sworn he was in front of her just moments ago.

  “Sandy?” She looked to her left, to her right, through trees and back at the field she’d just come from. Tried to listen, but no rustling. Usually he’d be rummaging away trying to unearth a large stick, something to bring back to Jodie.

  Right now she heard nothing.

  Jodie felt a shiver creep up her arms
. What if he’d hurt himself? What if he’d slipped and snapped his neck? She’d seen something on a programme once about that. More common in dogs than people think. All it takes is one misstep, one little misjudgement of the terrain and …

  She heard a rustling behind her and relief filled her body.

  She started to turn, breathing easier now. She’d been irrational. Paranoid. Like a bloody mother. He was okay. He was here. He was …

  But when Jodie turned around, she didn’t see Sandy.

  In the darkness between the trees, she saw a silhouette.

  Not a dog’s silhouette.

  A person.

  Standing opposite her.

  Looking right at her.

  Her first gut instinct was just to say “hi”. Because that’s all this was. A stranger. A passerby. Other people could walk round here. Wasn’t like she owned the place.

  But she couldn’t speak. For some reason, she couldn’t speak and couldn’t move. She was rigid. Rigid with fear.

  Because this wasn’t normal.

  This wasn’t right.

  She thought about shouting for Sandy again. About calling out for him, hoping he’d come back and protect her from this … well, she couldn’t even make out who it was. They were hooded. Dressed in black. They were—

  She felt a heavy hand fall down on her shoulder.

  And before she could scream, another hand covered her mouth.

  So strong. Dragging her back, dragging her away from this hooded silhouette, palm tasting of sweat and … and manure, too. Manure. Shit.

  Shit.

  She tried to kick out with her running trainers and fight back. Tried her damnedest to struggle away. But with every move, the hands around her just got tighter, her breathing got more blocked.

  The silhouette just kept on looking, kept on watching.

  She knew right then what was going to happen. This was the kind of story she’d read about. They were going to rape her. Strip her and rape her and—and leave her broken. Leave her a shell.

  Or maybe it was to do with …

  No.

  Oh God no.

  The person behind her pushed her down to her knees. Pushed her down so she was kneeling on the bed of leaves, woodlice creeping onto her pink shorts.

  She almost gave up hope when she saw Sandy.

  Saw Sandy in the distance.

  Right through the trees, right behind the silhouette.

  The hooded silhouette which was coming towards her now.

  She tried to communicate with Sandy. Tears rolling down her cheeks. Fear in her eyes. He had to see. He had to fucking see. He had to help her. She needed his help. She needed him. She loved him and she needed him and he was here to protect her, he was here to—

  And then Sandy turned away.

  Ran.

  Jodie let out her biggest shout yet. Clamped her teeth down on the palm, which didn’t do a thing to budge it. Tears streaming. Head spinning.

  Hooded silhouette getting closer, closer …

  She closed her eyes and waited for whatever was about to happen to her. Waited for it to finish. Because it would finish. It might be hell but it’d be over. She could do this. She could stay strong. She’d be okay soon. She’d be okay.

  She kept on believing that right ’til the last breath left her lungs.

  I’ll be okay.

  Even after all the pain and all the agony, her final thought.

  I’ll be okay.

  Then eternal blackness.

  Twenty-Three

  The pathologist’s office just down the road from the station was far from Brian McDone’s favourite place in the world.

  Which is probably why DCI Marlow had him sent down here to check on the results from the post-mortem.

  He stood in the cool room, eyes blinded by the bright lights bouncing off the shiny white tiles and metallic surfaces. Couldn’t stop yawning. It was ten a.m. so hardly early, but he hadn’t slept too well last night. Not after the events of the day before. Finding Harry and Carly’s bodies. Going to their old house and discovering the bathroom filled with sacrificed animals in the weirdest fucking scene Brian had ever seen. Then going across the road to the neighbour’s, Joe Kershaw, and finding loads of mice with the heads clipped off.

  Finding Joe Kershaw’s mum, beaten to death.

  Joe Kershaw in critical condition. Not dead like Brian had first thought, but far from living in any traditional sense of the word, that was for sure.

  “How’s life, Detective?”

  Jeeves, the chief pathologist, broke Brian out of his trance. He was a short man with grey hair and a constant frown. He liked the stereotypical pathologist vibe he gave off, to the point Brian wasn’t even sure if Jeeves was his actual name or if he’d just christened himself that to sound more “sciency”.

  Nice guy, sure. But just a bit of a creep.

  Brian nodded. “Not so bad, Jeeves. Not so bad.” He didn’t ask how Jeeves was doing in turn. Didn’t want any small talk, not now. Just wanted to get the post-mortem results and get out of here. Preferably with his appetite intact.

  Jeeves made a little “hmmph” sound.

  Then he tilted his head, stepped around the metal slabs in the centre of this small room—this windowless dungeon that Jeeves called home—and he pulled back the blankets.

  Brian’s stomach sank the second he saw Harry and Carly’s faces again. Something about seeing bodies on Jeeves’ table that just rammed home the reality of death. This was what everything came to: slabs of meat on a table.

  Then discarded.

  Worm food.

  Even if you donated an organ, eventually that person would die and the same thing would kick in, just like it always did.

  Rot.

  “Hope you’ve got plenty interesting for me,” Brian said, mind spinning with the exhaustion of just one day on a case like this. Damn, getting way too old.

  Jeeves half-smiled. “Oh I do. I do indeed. First, I’d like you to take a look at the markings here. On both of their cheeks. You see them?”

  Brian looked at the bodies, Harry Galbraith followed by Carly Mahone. He nodded when he saw the purple bruises on their faces. “They weren’t what I’d’ve initially noticed,” he said, referring to the clipped tops of the ears, the crushed eyes, the “M” symbol on their stomachs, the pale, punctured skin.

  “And that’s where you and I differ,” Jeeves said. Smile getting ever larger. Definitely enjoying this way too much. “It looks to me like the … I’ll keep things in layman’s terms. I know how frustrating the higher jargon can be for a man like you.”

  “Very kind,” Brian said, gritting his teeth.

  Jeeves nodded, the smile on his face clearly showing he knew he’d got the better of Brian. “Both the lady and the gentleman were beaten. And from the bruising on their faces and the state of the bone underneath, they were beaten quite heavily with a blunt object for quite some time. A hammer or a mallet. Something like that.”

  Beaten by a hammer or a mallet. The temperature of the room seemed to lift, the smell of peaches in the air from Jeeves’ air freshener doing nothing to aid the atmosphere other than ruin fucking peaches for life.

  “What’s interesting to me is that they both appear to have been beaten in almost exactly the same position. The left side of the face.”

  “Not hard. Right handed perp. See a lot of cases like this.”

  Jeeves raised his eyebrows and tilted his head. “Perhaps so. I could believe that.”

  Oh shit. He has a backup ready.

  “If it weren’t for the apparent symmetry on the rest of the bodies.”

  Brian didn’t say anything for a few seconds. He let Jeeves have his moment of glory—moments of glory he always seemed to have when he was working on a case, especially one Brian was involved in.

  And then, noticing Jeeves wasn’t going to say any more without prompt, Brian said, “What symmetry?”

  Jeeves put his hands behind his back and stepped around the body. �
��Glad you asked, McDone. Thought you were going to stand there gawping all day.”

  “Trust me. I’d rather be anywhere than here.”

  Jeeves didn’t seem to hear him. “The puncture marks. On the body. You’ll have noticed them. What do they look like to you?”

  Brian rubbed his eyes and squinted at the serrations in the pale skin of both Harry and Carly. “Stab wounds?”

  “Of a sort,” Jeeves said. “Any idea how many?”

  “Does this have a point?”

  “Believe me, McDone. Everything has a point. How many ‘stab wounds’?”

  Brian tugged at his collar and lifted his shoulders. Wasn’t sure how much longer he could dick about in here. He needed a coffee and he didn’t even fucking like coffee. “I dunno. Fifty.”

  “Thirty, to be precise.”

  “Right. Thirty then.”

  “Thirty puncture wounds on both the lady and the gentleman’s body. In identical places. Not to mention this symmetrical M shape.”

  Brian didn’t want to give Jeeves the pleasure of admitting he’d missed that when he’d found the bodies down by the canal. After all, he’d seen the M shape. Seen they were pretty similar. And he’d seen the stab wounds. Seen them on the inside of the arms, in the necks, in the chest, right down the body. But he hadn’t noticed they were identical too.

  “Symmetry somehow doesn’t appear to complement murder, does it?” Jeeves asked, grinning freely now.

  “So you think we’ve got a serial killer of some kind?”

  Jeeves shrugged. “I’m not a criminal profiler. That’s your jobs. But it does appear to me that there are some … some rather ritualistic elements to these murders.”

  Brian swallowed the sickly lump in his throat. “Like?”

  “Well, these puncture wounds in such symmetrical positions for one. And then there’s the presence of severe anal fissures—”

  “They were raped?”

  Jeeves opened his mouth and held it there for a moment. Then he took his glasses off and wiped them, popped them back on the ridge of his nose. “Brutally,” he said. “No traces of semen on either body yet but it’s clear to me that there was some kind of sharp instrument involved at some stage of the intercourse. I’ll spare you the pleasure of staring at their anuses —”