Her Moons Denouement (Fallen Angels Book 2)

by Max Hardy

  ‘Where are you Campbell.’ she whispered under her breath, scanning the kitchen in front of her, casting the pen beam over the table and the worktops, all the way to the back door out into the garage. The back door that was open.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be here.’ Tait said, apropos of nothing, talking into the air as she walked through the kitchen quietly, with Jackson in tow, to the back door. She angled the beam into the garage, picking out the bits of car dotting the floor and the hidden door that was propped open on the back wall. She stepped into the garage, flashing the light down the front end, seeing nothing moving in the consuming darkness veiling the dust encrusted remnants of vehicles.

  Jackson was about to step into the garage after her, but she put out a hand and with a firm voice said ‘No Jackson, stay.’ The dog sat, head tilted to one side, tongue lolling out of his panting snout. ‘Good boy.’ she praised, then turned and approached the opening in the back wall, shining her light down the step ladder, letting it play on the hewn granite.

  ‘Campbell, are you down there?’ she shouted, listening intently to the silence emanating from the hole. No answer. She pulled the cord for the light and smiled to herself when nothing illuminated, and then started to descend the step ladder, looking down and flashing the pen light into the base. She reached the bottom and stepped into the small room, letting the beam move over the wooden floor, up to the empty bed and then around the bare granite walls. Nothing. She approached the nearest wall and started to run her hand over it methodically, starting at the top and going from left to right.

  ‘No sign of Campbell. Mark my location.’ she said, again into the air, to no prompt. She moved down the wall, crouching as she got lower, focusing the pen light under the bed, seeing a piece of cloth poking out from between one of the floor boards. She sunk to her knees and reached under the bed, pulling the material out.

  ‘Looks like a ripped piece of a police uniform. My guess would be Campbell. He may have caught them coming out.’ she said, putting her hand to the floor as a confused expression crossed her face. Her hand started to vibrate, in time with the floorboards that started to shake.

  ‘Something’s happening. The floor…’ she screamed just as the boards beneath her feet fell away from behind her, into the ground, knocking her off her feet and causing her to slide down the opening floor. She scrabbled for purchase, trying to grab the leg of the bed that wasn’t falling. She missed it and tumbled down into a dark, consuming pit that swallowed her whole.

  Chapter 32

  ‘More skirmishes broke out yesterday at churches over Edinburgh with a total of twenty five arrests being made. The heightened police presence in the city and the zero tolerance approach we are taking ensured that they were all short lived. In all cases, the incitement was instigated by groups protesting in defence of their particular religion. Police Scotland are running the protection of the City and the containment of the skirmishes as a Major Incident and will keep a focus on it until the troubles die down.’ Cruickshank started, speaking into a bank of microphones in front of her, looking out into a sea of vulturous faces feeding on the intonation and inference of every word she uttered, rolling them around in their mind into lurid headlines. The press room was packed, every seat taken and every alleyway and gap in the room filled with TV crews, reporters and photographers.

  Cruickshank continued indomitably, her features stoic, her voice trembling with authority. ‘We are still pursuing criminal investigations into the three mass murderers, the three suicides and the identity and whereabouts of the group calling themselves ‘The Fallen Angels’. If any member of the public has any information that may help us with any of those criminal enquiries, especially if they know any of the people identified as being involved in them, then please ring Police Scotland immediately. A number of prominent politicians and business people were arrested as part of our investigation, but I can confirm that they have all been released and no charges relating to this investigation were made. We did however make a number of charges relating to other offences. That is all I am able to say at this point.’

  Camera’s started flashing, followed quickly by a crescendo of questions blurted out from the crowd of journalists, all vying for immediate attention. Cruikshank stood and addressed the audience again. ‘I am sorry ladies and gentlemen, that really is all I am able to say at this point. There will be another press briefing at eighteen hundred hours and we hope to have some more information for you then.’ She turned from the briefing bench and walked stiffly, head held high, out through a door to the left, questions still being hurled at her receding back.

  She shut the door and leant against it, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, before opening them again, three of her Senior Detectives waiting in the foyer for her.

  ‘I couldn’t even say we have a number of people helping us with our ongoing enquiries. We are exposed and the press are gunning for us. Riots in the city, murders and suicides: it is chaos out there. We need to focus today and show that we are making progress. Where the hell is Tait, she’s ten minutes late!’ Cruickshank admonished, as she strode past the three Detectives.

  DI Purves spoke up bravely. ‘I haven’t seen her this morning Ma’am. I left a message on her mobile about fifteen minutes ago.’ she finished, falling in line behind her.

  ‘Not what I expect from a senior on this team. Has anyone been to check on Bentley this morning with her not being around?’

  ‘Yes Ma’am. Le Fenwick was down earlier. Bentley had pains in his chest. Le Fenwick thinks he’s suffering from stress. He’s advised us to wait a while before we start questioning again.’ Purves answered.

  ‘For fucks sake, he’s the only unofficial suspect we’ve got and we can’t question him because he’s feeling a bit stressed! Gregory, go and find Le Fenwick and tell him to come and see me.’

  ‘Will do Ma’am.’ Gregory answered as he peeled off the back of Cruickshank’s entourage and headed back down the corridor. Cruikshank entered her office, Purves and Trentor following her in.

  ‘Now, we have a briefing at ten and I want a plan of attack from each of you on every single lead we have outstanding. I want a dust down of everything we have already checked and a peer review done on our assumptions. We need to break something today and that has to be before another person ends up dead. Any questions?’

  Purves and Trentor shook their heads simultaneously, speaking in tandem as well, ‘No Ma’am.’

  ‘Well, what are you waiting for, get to it!’ she shouted as she dropped her eyes back to the open folder on the desk in front of her, just as the phone beside it rang, the two Detectives turning to leave.

  ‘Yes!’ she barked down the line, her expression turning from frustrated to serious as she listened.

  ‘Purves, Trentor, back her now!’ she shouted towards the receding Detectives, who turned on their heels and walked back into the office.

  ‘Yes Ma’am.’ Trentor enquired, entering first, noting her agitatedly pointing digit instructing them to sit.

  ‘And the press have it already? What time is it going out? Shit, that’s in fifteen bloody minutes. Have I got it?’ Cruickshank asked, urgency in her voice and actions as she quickly turned the computer monitor next to her on and started wiggling the mouse beside it agitatedly. She looked at her e-mail. ‘Right, got it.’ she finished, hanging the phone up without a goodbye.

  ‘We have a video already this morning from the ‘Fallen Angels’. The press have it too and the major news channels will be airing it in fifteen minutes. Let’s see what they have in store for us today.’ Cruickshank said sarcastically, clicking on the MP4 file attached to the e-mail.

  Windows Media Player started up and the screen went black. Four tiny letters popped up in red in the middle of the screen, then started to grow, filling the screen with the word ‘FEAR’.

  ‘What do you fear?’ the words burst out of the computer speakers loudly, the voice filling the room, the screen changing to show images of Liam O’Drisco
ll, Imam Mann and Chodak’s victims quickly flicking by.

  ‘Do you fear someone you ask for help?’ An image of Liam O’Driscoll appears, lingering for a moment to be replaced by Imam Mann’s, then after the same interval Chodak’s, pausing on his face.

  ‘Do you fear the faith that is meant to comfort, that is meant to love, that is meant to forgive, that is all about peace? That is his faith.’

  The screen turns black. Two green circles appear, slowly growing to reveal two eyes, the eyes blinking as the blackness fades out, to be replaced by the half white painted face of Madame Evangeline in her Pierrot outfit, sitting behind the same nondescript desk, with the same Cezanne picture behind her.

  ‘This man, Chodak, a Buddhist Monk, let his victims believe in the spirituality of love and of sex. He was meant to be celibate but he lured women into a secret, forbidden world of Tantric sex. They participated willingly, becoming his Mudra, believing that they were entering into a spiritual relationship, but in reality becoming victims of the tantric female sacrifice. His intent was always to kill them because they were older women, because the way of Tantra identified them as demons.’

  Madame Evangeline’s face is replaced by another picture, of an Asian woman, with a short brown bob, slight wrinkles on her brow and crow’s feet in the corner of her eyes, but with unblemished smooth skin otherwise, her dark brown eyes intense and her smile effervescent.

  ‘Aira Lee was one of his Mudra. He made her swear to keep their tantric relationship secret. He made her swear, using the fear of his faith, of a millennia of hellish torments if she told anyone, as a threat. But she was stronger than the fear of his faith, strong enough to discover what he was really doing, strong enough to expose him and his faith.’

  Aira’s image faded, replaced once again with Madame Evangeline, who raised a tissue to her face and wiped away the white paint from around her left eye.

  ‘We have exposed three murderers and their fifteen victims. We have one more to go. One more vicious, evil murderer to expose. One more man who has killed more women than the other three monsters combined. One more man who, somewhere in Edinburgh right now, has recently trapped their latest victim.’

  Cruickshank’s phone starts ringing and she looks at it in frustration, picking it up and turning back to the screen. ‘Yes!’ she shouts.

  ‘His faith tells him that everyone is born a sinner, and as such is subject to God’s wrath and the punishment of death, which means eternal separation from God in Hell. Do you fear his faith?’

  Cruickshank turned from the screen, shock overwhelming her face as she looked at her colleagues. ‘What time did they find the body? Any indication yet how long it had been in the water? He was here at nine last night, I saw him just before he went out to the house for the evening. Is there any sign of Tait? What the hell was she doing there?’

  ‘Tonight at nine o’clock we will reveal his faith, we will reveal who he is and we will reveal the atrocities he has enacted upon this world in the name of his faith.’

  Cruickshank replaced the receiver, still looking at her colleagues in disbelief, shaking her head. ‘Campbell is dead. They found his body floating in the Forth, just down from Bentley’s house. He was strangled. The car Tait has booked out is at Bentley’s house as well. There is no sign of her. Do either of you know why she was there?’

  ‘We do not ask you to believe in us. All we are doing is revealing the atrocities that these monsters enacted in the name of your faith. We only want you to ask yourself one question, as you look into the eyes of his next victim.’

  All three detectives turn to the screen on hearing those words, watching the image fade to near darkness, only Madame Evangeline’s eyes left. They turn from emerald to blue, then the blackness starts to fade out and a face starts to appear.

  ‘Ask yourself, why do I fear my faith? Even Fallen Angels Have Wings. We are the ‘Fallen Angels’ and I am Madame Evangeline.’

  The face on the screen shifts into focus and Cruickshank jumps from her seat, grabbing the phone and hitting the last call button furiously. ‘How the hell can that be!’ she shouted, panicking, looking incredulously at the two Detectives who were just as dumbfounded.

  ‘McCalvey, we have to stop them broadcasting that video. This one isn’t just about people who are already dead. They have one of ours. It’s Annie. Whoever this person is, they have Annie Tait.’

  Chapter 33

  The police car pulls away from the kerb and heads off down into Randolph Crescent away from DI Tait’s apartment. I watch from a little way down the street, standing behind an outcrop of trees on the roundabout at Ainslee Place, waiting to see if anyone else comes out. It was strange seeing the images of Madame Evangeline quickly followed by DI Tait on the news. In succession, the bone structure is nearly exact and the general proportions of the face are the same. Massah had me thinking yesterday that Tait was another of Eve’s aliases. I find it hard to believe, considering I had sat in a room right next to her and not even got an inkling of that. That’s not possible considering how intimate I have been with Eve. She was also at the foot of the Monument yesterday a few seconds after I saw Eve. She couldn’t have been in two places at once. But then, neither could Jess when I knew she was in the hotel room with me on that fateful New Year’s Eve. We’ve got to check it out, because Tait lives slap bang in the middle of where Rebecca and Eve used to meet.

  I walk over the road onto the pavement by her apartment, nonchalantly strolling by, gazing up to the windows as I do, looking for any sign of life. There is none. I take my mobile from my jeans pocket and call Rebecca.

  ‘The police have just gone. Meet me around the back in five minutes.’

  We walked down this street last night on our reconnaissance and had checked out the backs of the apartments, voyeuristically peeking through gaps in curtains. Rebecca was right. We saw some hellishly depraved sights last night. The back of the buildings are accessible via Dean Gardens, just around the corner. I walk swiftly in that direction, gazing into every window of the terraced Edwardian Townhouses as I pass them. Most are offices, or consulates on the first couple of floors, with the apartments being on the top floor generally. I turn a corner into Dean Gardens, walking through the dense verdant trees and thick luscious grass until I reach the back fence to Tait’s townhouse. Rebecca steps from behind a tree and joins me at the gate leading into the long, well maintained garden. Today she is wearing a blonde wig in a short bob, with huge black mirrored sunglasses covering most of her face.

  ‘Are you sure it’s empty?’ Rebecca asks, leaning over and pecking me on the cheek. She does it so naturally, with a warmth to the touch of her lips that is comforting.

  ‘I saw the boyfriend leave shortly after the police arrived. He seemed to be upset, stomping off in the direction of the park. It doesn’t mean he won’t come back so we better get in and out quickly. Remember, anything that would suggest Eve. Think about makeup, prosthetics, wigs. Think about the clothes you know she wears. Think about perfumes, jewellery and intimate things. It will be that type of thing that will give her away.’

  ‘I don’t see how she can be Eve. You saw the news this morning. I mean, why would the ‘Fallen Angels’ put out a video with Eve and Tait in it if she is the same person. What are they trying to achieve?’

  ‘I don’t know. What I do know is that this building is slap bang in the middle of your old whoring ground and there’s just the slightest chance Tait is Eve. Anything is possible with these guys.’ I answer as we stalk down the side of the garden, keeping close to the boundary fence. We arrive at the base of the outside fire escape, blooming flower pots sitting on the rusting wrought iron steps. I step a careful path through the vari-coloured flora, Rebecca close behind, and ascend all the way to the back door of Tait’s apartment. I quickly look around, watching for watchers. I can only see a few people strolling through Dean Gardens, enjoying the late morning sun. I can’t see anyone in the gardens of the other houses.

  I slide a pic
k into the Yale lock on the back door and wiggle it agitatedly. It turns and I push the door open, surreptitiously slinking into a small kitchen, Rebecca directly behind me.

  ‘I’ll check the bedrooms, you check the living areas.’ Rebecca instructs, surprising me with her forthright command of the situation. Her dominatrix coming out. I nod and then start searching the kitchen. What strikes me immediately is how sparsely furnished it is. Apart from two cups and a still wet spoon, there is no other crockery visible, either on worktops or in the sink. I open a few cupboards, which are also empty and pull a few drawers, not surprised to see they are empty too. I walk from the kitchen into a narrow short hallway, the main front door at the far end of it on the right, a bedroom at the far end on the left and two doors opposite me.

  Two doors with a wall in between them. A wall with a picture on it. The picture is a Cezanne. ‘The Abduction’. It’s believed to represent the abduction of Proserpine by Pluto. Gods and Goddesses. I don’t need to see any more. Eve has been here.

  I hear a click to my right and the handle on the front door turns.

  ‘Rebecca, hide!’ I whisper loudly as I start to step back into the kitchen just as the door opens, catching a glimpse of a man in a tweed suit. A man I recognise instantly. I stop on my heels, staring down the hall in utter disbelief as Harry Massah enters the apartment, smiling in my direction as he sees me.

  ‘Good morning John, where’s Rebecca?’ he asks conversationally as he approaches. My mind does somersaults. He is not surprised we are here? How does he know Rebecca is with me? How does he know that I have even met up with Rebecca, I never told him? Where the hell did he get a key from? Does he know Tait?