All Saints- Murder on the Mersey

by Brian L. Porter

  “I just received a call to say a body's been discovered in the churchyard at St. Mark's in Croxteth. It's another shocking mutilation scenario I'm afraid. According to the officers who responded to the 999 call, they've never seen anything this bad in their lives, and Sergeant Donaldson has been on the force for over twenty years and has seen most things it's possible to come across in that time. If he says it's bad, believe me, it is. He's aware of the Remington murder but he assured me, when he was put through to me, that this is much worse. I want you there as soon as possible Andy. Take as many of the team as you can spare from here, if they're not actively pursuing any leads on the Remington case.”

  “Right, sir. Paul, you stay here and work on those records. With any luck, we may find a connection between Remington and the latest victim once we know who it is. Did the sergeant tell you if he'd managed to I.D the victim, sir?”

  “No, he didn't. There was too much confusion at the scene he said, and he didn't want to disturb anything before C.I.D arrived on site. He's had the wherewithal to ask for forensic back-up and the duty pathologist is already on his way to Croxteth. You'll be pleased to hear it's your old friend, Dr. Nugent,” Porteous informed them.

  “It would be,” said Ross, “but at least Fat Willy knows what he's doing and understands the urgency of what we need.”

  “Right then, you'd better get going, Andy,” Porteous urged him.

  “Consider us gone, sir,” Ross replied as he motioned for the team to follow him and Drake as they led the way from the conference room.

  * * *

  Located virtually next door to Norris Green, Croxteth, 'Crocky' to most of its inhabitants is a fairly modern addition to the suburbs of Liverpool, despite being located close to Croxteth Hall and Country Park, once the home of the Earls of Sefton. Just prior to World War Two, large areas of housing were built there to house skilled workers from the English Electric and Napier factories who had moved to the area from the towns of Slough and Rugby. Later, families who had lost their homes during the bombings of the second world war moved into the area, which gradually grew over the years until it became what it is today, a large urban housing estate, which together with its neighbour, Norris Green, is one of Europe's largest housing developments.

  St. Mark's church stood on the edge of the estate, close to the road leading to the country park, making it slightly isolated from the main housing areas of Croxteth. It was a small church, with a graveyard to the rear, and a small and continually dwindling congregation. The events of that morning would surely serve to reduce it still further.

  Sergeant Vince Donaldson had taken charge of the situation as soon as he'd realised the importance of the crime scene. His partner, Constable Tim Mallory had quickly surrounded the entire church grounds with crime scene tape, making the whole of St. Marks an island of police and forensic activity. Donaldson had also requested additional uniformed officers from the local station and a total of six constables now stood ready to assist the detectives in any way necessary.

  Ross and Drake led the way into the churchyard, where they were met by Donaldson, who'd had Constable Mallory on lookout for their arrival. Followed by Sam Gable, Derek McLennan and 'Tony' Curtis, they followed the sergeant along the narrow path that led round the church itself to the graveyard at the rear.

  As soon as they turned the corner that gave them visual access to the graveyard, Ross saw just why Porteous had said this was worse than the previous day's crime scene.

  “Bloody hell,” he exclaimed.

  “Oh…my…God,” Izzie Drake choked the words out.

  “Holy Mother of God,” came from Sam Gable, who held her hand to her mouth in shock.

  “Oh, fuck,” was D.C Curtis's reaction, and whatever Derek McLennan was about to say never actually came out as he lurched off the path into the grassed area between two graves and for the second time in two days, was violently sick.

  The scene before them was, Ross thought, surely something from a 'B' grade Hollywood slasher movie. About twenty yards ahead stood a grave, decorated as graves often are with the statue of a winged angel that Ross estimated to be around six to seven feet tall, the deceased obviously having been from a family able to afford an expensive funeral and the aforementioned grave statuary.

  Far from appearing as a symbol of God's love, or of peace and benevolence, the angel instead presented them with a vision straight from hell. Tied to the outstretched wings of the angel with what looked like barbed wire, were the arms of the victim, crucifixion-style. The man's naked body hung in place across the front of the angel, his waist again secured by more wire, with his feet tied similarly, his legs bent unnaturally backwards to bring them into contact with the base of the statue.

  Even without the benefit of Dr. Nugent's examination, Ross felt sure the victim had been alive when his murderer had fastened him to the angel. The amount of blood that had fallen to the ground from the man's wrists, his torso and feet surely indicated he'd been breathing at the time and must have endured interminable agony. Far worse however, were the additional wounds inflicted on the naked man. Whoever had perpetrated this horror had literally slashed the man's lower torso wide open and the detectives were faced with the horror of seeing the man's intestines and entrails literally dripping from the open gut. The victim's blood obscenely stained the consecrated ground red, both the grass and the once white surface of the grave stone itself. As with Matthew Remington, once again the man's penis was missing, a bloody void in its place and Ross held no illusions as to where they'd find it. Again, at first glance Ross could see no sign of the victim's clothes or belongings

  “Who the hell could do this to another human being?” Izzie Drake was the first to break the shocked silence that had befallen the group.

  Before anyone could proffer an answer, the sound of horrified gasps and exclamations from behind them announced the arrival of medical examiner William Nugent and his assistant, Francis Lees, accompanied by two obviously unnecessary paramedics. They were closely followed by Miles Booker and his team of four Crime Scenes Officers who had arrived simultaneously with the M.E.

  “Och, man, ye've really got a doozy for me this morning, Inspector Ross. The poor soul. Ah cannae imagine any human being doing this to his fellow man.”

  “Sergeant Drake said virtually the same thing just as you arrived, Doc. This is just about the worst thing I've seen in all my years as a copper.”

  “Aye, well, standing here talking about it isn't going to help us find his killer is it? Come on, Francis, we've work to do.”

  Francis Lees followed the doctor, and as they began their initial examination of the body, to establish that the victim was in fact dead, though no one could be in any doubt as to the fact, Miles Booker walked up beside Ross.

  “Jesus Christ, Andy. This is bloody grotesque.”

  “Tell me about it, Miles. I'm not sure my team can take much more of sights like this.”

  “Yeah, I can see young McLennan has lost his breakfast again.”

  Both men looked towards the death scene as Nugent beckoned to them. He and Lees, dressed in their white forensic suits and matching boots, resembled a pair of rather deformed wingless angels themselves as they tentatively examined the corpse.

  Ross and Booker walked slowly towards the two men, stopping a few yards away, conscious not to disturb any trace evidence.

  “Got something, Doc?” Ross called to him.

  “Just confirmation your man is dead, Inspector. Mr Booker, does your team have a ladder in your van? I need to get up there and take a closer look at the victim. It's a good six feet to the top. We've tried not to disturb anything in the immediate vicinity, but I need to examine him in place before we take him down.”

  “Sure, Doc, give me a minute.”

  Booker sent a member of his team to fetch the ladder and in the meantime, Ross made an observation.

  “Miles, I don't understand how the killer got him up there, or how he's overpowering his victims. Remington
was no weakling, by appearances, and this poor sod looks quite well-built and muscular.”

  “Have you had the toxicology report back on number one yet? Maybe he's drugging them first”

  “Ha, give the Doc a chance, Miles. Even Nugent can't quite work miracles. You know as well as I do it can take up to forty-eight hours to get the tox report, and let's face it, he didn't have a whole body to work with did he?”

  Just then, one of Booker's crime scene techs arrived with a lightweight collapsible aluminium ladder and within a minute, despite his bulk, Nugent had ascended the angel and was carrying out a close-up examination of the victim. Meanwhile, one of Booker's men had identified a number of unidentified footprints in the immediate vicinity of the grave on which the victim had been displayed and was taking casts of the imprints, being careful to eliminate the prints left by Nugent and Lees in their need to carry out their initial examination. As everyone carried out their allotted tasks and with Ross's team pretty much idle for the moment, he sent Izzie to bring Sergeant Donaldson to him.

  “Who found the body, Sergeant?”

  “The vicar, sir, a Reverend Blake.”

  “Shouldn't that be Father Blake?”

  “No sir, this is a Church of England church.”

  “So, our killer isn't just targeting Catholic churches as his kill sites. Either he doesn't really care about the religious aspect or he wants to take it out on all religions by leaving his victims in churchyards. Hard to fathom really. Ross looked at the gravestone again and at the incumbent angel, noting the family name on the long, horizontal slab of marble. I doubt the Seagrove family ever envisaged anything like this taking place on their last resting place,” he mused, and turned to Drake. “Make a note of the family name, Izzie. We may find some significance in the killer's choice of gravestones by the time we're done with this bloody case. We might even have to investigate the families buried here and at St. Matthew's”

  Drake nodded and dutifully noted the Seagrove name in her notebook.

  William Nugent, his initial examination concluded, had descended from his position on the ladder and now walked across to Ross and Booker.

  “Right then, Mr. Booker. Your people can carry on and do whatever needs to be done. As for your victim, Inspector, I believe your murderer has escalated his level of violence in terms of his means of execution.”

  “In what way, Doc?”

  “Once we get him back to the mortuary I'll be able to tell you more, but for now, I think I can safely say that this poor man was still alive when he was hauled up and secured to the statue.”

  “Hauled?” Ross asked.

  “Yes. There are marks under his arms and around his chest to suggest the killer tied a rope of some sort around the body and then literally hauled him up there. I found footprints some yards to the rear of the statue where he probably stood and heaved on the rope to slowly lift the body into place. You can see the indents where he dug his heels into the ground to gain purchase. Also, the amount of blood loss around the wrists, torso and ankles indicate he bled profusely from those wounds, which he wouldn't have done if he'd been dead at the time he received them. I can see numerous scratches all over the back too, where the dead weight of the body has caused it to sag forward, where he scraped against the angel as he was hauled up.”

  This information confirmed what Ross had initially thought.

  “So, he knew what he was going to do before he got here and came prepared.”

  “I think so,” said Nugent.

  “There's not much more I can do here. Let's get him back to the mortuary and I can get to work,” said Nugent, beckoning to the paramedics who would have the unenviable task of transporting the body, and its associated entrails and organs to Nugent's own domain, where a full post-mortem examination could be conducted.

  “Perhaps, if they've got all the photos they need and your initial search for trace evidence is completed, Mr. Booker, you can get your crime scene people to take the body down and bag the organs so the ambulance crew can move everything back to the morgue for me?”

  Booker nodded and moved off to organise his crime scene team.

  “Oh, one more point, Inspector.”

  “Go on, Doc. What is it?”

  “You're going to have the unenviable task of notifying a widow, I believe. Yonder laddie is wearing a wedding ring, so either he's married, or divorced and just hasn't bothered removing the ring. Some men do that, don't they?”

  “Yes, they do, Doc, thanks. Don't suppose you took it off to see if there's any engraving inside the ring?”

  “Perched on a ladder? Do me a favour, Inspector Ross. I'm nae stupid enough to try that. I'll make it a priority when I get him to the lab.”

  “Right, thanks Doc.”

  * * *

  Leaving the specialists to handle the removal of the body, Ross and Drake stood looking at each other for a few seconds as they contemplated what they'd seen in the last hour or so. It was Drake who broke the silence.

  “Sir? Are you with me? We need to move on this. What do you want the others to do?

  “Yes, sorry, Izzie. I was just trying to think this through. There seems no way the two killings can be connected to Claire Morris so it's now totally safe to conclude her rape isn't part of our killer's overall scenario.”

  “Unless this victim is connected to Claire, sir?”

  Ross nodded, thoughtful.

  “A possibility, Izzie but somehow I doubt that. We do need to identify this man though, the sooner the better. Come on, we'd better go talk to the priest, sorry, the vicar. Get the others to start an immediate search of the area. Have Donaldson leave two men on duty here to secure the scene along with McLennan, if he's stopped throwing his guts up all over the churchyard and then team his officers up with our people. There aren't many houses in the immediate vicinity of the church so it's possible someone may have noticed something out of the ordinary.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don't know, Izzie, but this bastard came prepared. I suspect he brought the victim here in a van or truck of some kind. He'd have needed a vehicle that could carry a ladder and whatever tools he needed to pull this off. He had to have had a roll of barbed wire with him and some pretty heavy duty gloves with which to apply it to the poor sod. He'd have needed cutters, God knows what else. This took time to execute, Izzie. If he did this in the dark or half-light of dawn, he'd have needed a powerful torch. He must have been supremely confident he wasn't going to be disturbed while he did this. Once we get an approximate time of death from Doctor Nugent we'll have a better idea of the timeline. I want to know exactly what time sunrise occurred. He needed light to see what he was doing, so may have strung the victim up to the statue and completed his killing ritual as the sun rose.”

  “Right, sir. When you said ritual, does that mean you think…?

  “I don't know what to think yet, Izzie. Let's not discount anything until we know more.”

  “I understand, sir,” she replied as another thought struck the D.I.

  “And another thing. If he was awake, the victim must have screamed his head off. Someone in one of those nearby houses just might have heard something.”

  With the team quickly allocated to their various tasks, Ross and Drake prepared themselves for an interview with the Reverend Blake, whom Donaldson had sent back to the vicarage, accompanied by one of his uniformed officers, to await the arrival of the C.I.D detectives.

  Chapter 10

  Confession

  The fourth confession of the morning at St. Luke's Parish Church sent shivers down the spine of Father Gerald Byrne. As the voice, quite clearly that of a young woman, a teenager perhaps, on the other side of the confessional screen described her inner torment, it brought back memories to the priest, painful memories that he'd rather remain locked away in the deepest part of his soul. But, even as the young woman divested herself of sin before God, hoping for an absolution, Byrne knew that those memories, now resurfaced, could never be put back
in the convenient mental box where he'd managed to store them for so many years.

  As the woman/girl eventually fell silent, waiting for his response, a new and terrible burden came to rest on the shoulders of the Catholic priest. Bound as he was by the sanctity of the confessional, Byrne knew he could never reveal any of what the young woman had just imparted to him, no matter what the eventual outcome may be, a fact that troubled him deeply, far more than it should do, given his priestly status.

  Byrne rushed through the next stage of the confessional, the young woman probably being surprised at the priest's response and lenient penitence he demanded of her. As he heard her footsteps recede towards the church exit, Byrne slumped against the wall of his side of the confessional, his head resting on the cold, hard wood as his mind filled with recollections of those things and events he'd much rather remain locked away.

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession.”

  Byrne was suddenly brought back to reality by the voice of the next occupant of the confessional box. For now, he needed to concentrate on the here and now, put the past aside, and yet, the priest knew now that the past could never be totally put to one side, locked away out of harm's way, and, after hearing the previous occupant of the confessional's story, Father Gerald Byrne was now a worried man, afraid the past and the present were about to collide, and there was little, if anything he could do to prevent the events that were to unfold.

  Confession finally over, Byrne virtually staggered from the church and on arrival at the manse, he almost collapsed into a softly upholstered, welcoming armchair in the living room. Hearing his entry through the front door, David Willis, who'd been carrying out visits to sick parishioners that morning came into the room, ready to offer Father Byrne a refreshing cup of tea. One look at the Father's face however, made Willis stop in his tracks, a worried look upon his face.

  “Father, are you alright? You look pale. Are you ill?”