The Horsemen: A Harrison Lane Mystery (The Dr Harrison Lane Mysteries Book 2)

by Gwyn GB

  Also By The Same Author

  The Villagers

  DI Claire Falle series

  Lonely Hearts

  Home Help

  Death Bond

  Dr Harrison Lane series

  Preacher Boy

  The Horsemen

  Dark Order

  Holy Man

  Writing as Gwyn Garfield-Bennett

  Islands

  404

  Contents

  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Afterword

  Dark Order

  Also By Gwyn

  About Gwyn GB

  PLEASE NOTE: SPELLINGS USED IN THIS BOOK ARE BRITISH ENGLISH.

  Published in 2021 by Chalky Dog Publishing

  Copyright © Gwyn GB 2021

  Gwyn GB has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright holder.

  All characters and their storylines, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living, or dead, is entirely coincide

  The Horsemen

  Gwyn GB

  1

  He wasn’t sure which emotion was in control of his body. Nerves or excitement. He suspected they both had their part to play in his slightly wobbly legs and the betraying squeaks coming from his stomach. He was standing in the graveyard, next to the headstone marked Robert Henry Lester, just as he’d been told to do.

  It was dark. Apart from the fact it had just gone midnight, the moon was only a thin strip of white struggling for attention behind black clouds, which seemed to have gathered above him in readiness for something. His eyes had started to adjust to the lack of light, but that had in some ways made it worse. All around him shadowy gravestones rose from the ground, while the whispers of the breeze came at him from all directions, carrying rustling and scratching sounds which hinted at the fact he wasn’t alone.

  He felt them, but only a split second before they were upon him. The distinctive dusty smell of hessian covered his head and hands grabbed both his arms. He gasped for air as his heart beat wildly and he stifled the urge to shout and run.

  ‘We are The Horsemen,’ said a voice. ‘Do you wish to become one of us?’

  ‘Yes,’ he croaked out, throat tight, mouth dry, but mind made up.

  Two men guided him, one on either side, gripping his arms and leading him back through the churchyard.

  Gravel on the path under his feet.

  The squeak of the wooden gate as they exited.

  Then through the weave of the hessian bag over his head, he saw some light, and he was half pushed, half guided into what he guessed was a car seat.

  All this time, the men around him were just footsteps and breathing. They didn’t say another word until they’d reached their destination. The inner sanctum. Then the chanting began.

  Now there were more of them. Voices all around him as they led him into whatever place they had arrived at. Flickering lights. Candles maybe?

  The constant, steady beat of the chant.

  A loud knocking as something was banged on the ground in front of him. It made him jump and silenced the room.

  They pulled the hood from his head.

  In front of him was what appeared to be an altar, candles on either end, but it was the man who drew his eye. Wearing a black hooded cloak and with a white wooden mask of a horse’s skull on his face and head. In his hand, he clasped a large wooden staff with horns on the top and a hoof on the bottom.

  ‘Are you here to swear allegiance and brotherhood to The Horsemen?’ the figure asked him.

  ‘I am,’ he replied. The hairs were raised on the back of his neck and his palms felt sweaty, although he wasn’t hot. He dared not take his eyes away from the figure, but in his peripheral vision he could see others sitting around him, their faces also hidden behind the white masks of wooden horse skulls.

  ‘Is it of your own free will?’

  ‘It is”

  ‘And who vouches for this man? Who will swear he is worthy and well qualified?’

  A figure stepped forward from his right side.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Then the candidate must kneel and the initiation ceremony commence.’

  2

  The fact it was a Saturday was both good and bad news, depending on whose viewpoint you considered. For Detective Sergeant Mark James, it was good because it meant Dr Harrison Lane had a couple of days off and might just agree to help him. For Harrison, if he agreed, then his plan to get out of London and head to the New Forest for a spot of walking and getting back in touch with nature, would go out the window. The only positive was that DS James was from Cambridgeshire police, and while it meant pointing his Harley in the opposite direction, he was at least going to escape the city.

  ‘It’s just bizarre,’ the DS was explaining. ‘The way we found his body, and the horses… If it leaks to the press, we’ll be swamped, and the nature reserve will be flooded with nutters wanting to see if they can find some kind of spiritual connection. I need answers now so I can work out what we’re dealing with.’

  Harrison listened to the DS’s voice grow slightly more breathy as his anxiety levels ramped up. He stared out of the enormous windows in his Docklands apartment. Outside, the Thames flowed brown, and the sky showed the promise of rain. It wouldn’t be a great weekend for walking and enjoying the views, anyway. There’d probably be mist or fog by the time he got to the New Forest.

  ‘Is the body still in situ?’ he asked. He liked to review the scene as untouched as possible.

  ‘Yes,’ Mark replied eagerly. ‘Forensics are still working. It’s going to be at least another two or three hours before we can move him.’

  ‘OK. I’ll be there.’

  DS James ended the call with a sigh of relief. He wasn’t sure if the lack of conversation reflected Dr Lane’s mood at being called on a Saturday, or his reputation for going about things in a somewhat maverick manner. Either way, he was glad that in a couple of hours the head of the Met’s Ritualistic Behavioural Crime Unit would be standing by his side. Harrison’s reputation for helping solve bizarre cases was something he could be sure of.

  It was the deep guttural sound of the Harley Davidson that first alerted Mark James to Harrison’s arrival. He was stood on Burwell Fen, part of the Wicken Fen Nature Reserve. They were at least a good forty minutes walk from the visitor centre and so Mark had given Harrison directio
ns to meet them at the intersection of Priory Drove and the aptly named Harrison’s Drove which sat on the other side of the National Trust land. Although Harrison had to park up a good five minutes walk from him, the engine noise carried. There was nothing to soak up the sounds. In front of him was the flat landscape of the Cambridgeshire Fens. The only structures breaking the neat line of endless sky were the electricity and telephone pylons along the edges of the Fen, and the occasional cluster of trees.

  He was on the outskirts of an area once marshland, where peat and reeds had been harvested for centuries, battles fought and lost. Kings and monks hid from advancing armies, and the final battle between locals and noblemen took place as the Duke of Bedford, aided by a Dutch engineer, started to drain the Fens in the 1600s with a series of ditches and dykes. A couple of centuries later, in 1899, Wicken Fen became the very first National Nature Reserve in England. It was still beautiful, but today an icy shiver had settled in DS Mark James’s spine. His mood reflected the slate grey heavens above, but it had been brought on by the sight that had greeted him when he arrived. A small herd of the wild Konik ponies that grazed the Fen, seemed to be standing vigil over the body. They’d been forced to move away now with all the activity, but not so far that he couldn’t still see them staring. It felt like the ponies were watching their every move.

  Mark had brought his children here countless times, to ride their bikes, run around looking for butterflies, and to wear them out in the fresh air. He was glad they weren’t here today. Fortunately, it had been an adult who’d come across the remains of the man. It had been obvious the death wasn’t natural.

  Dr Harrison Lane strode towards him. Even from a distance he looked imposing. Wide, angular shoulders in a black leather jacket. A few centuries ago, he’d have been the kind of man that you’d be hiding in the reeds from if you didn’t know him. Mark walked forward slowly to greet him. The police incident line was behind him, a large area cordoned off and guarded by officers waiting for forensics to give the all-clear before a fingertip search could be undertaken. He wasn’t too optimistic. It had rained heavily in the night, evidence would have been washed away or deteriorated, and the herd of wild ponies had already trampled the ground.

  ‘Dr Lane?’ He reached his hand out in greeting. The man in front of him was muscular and tall. If he’d an image in his head of what a doctor of psychology and ritualistic crime might look like, he was definitely not it. Short black hair and a thick neck led down to a body which wouldn’t look out of place on a cage fighter. The small brown eagle tattoo on his neck added to the overall effect. Still, he came well recommended.

  ‘DS James.’ He nodded back.

  ‘Thanks for coming, I really do appreciate it. He was discovered this morning by one of the reserve staff. We don’t think that—’

  ‘If you don’t mind I’d rather you let me look at the scene before you tell me what you think. It prevents any confirmation bias.’

  DS James found himself with his mouth half open. He closed it. He didn’t know what to say next.

  ‘Could I be allowed to view the scene alone?’ Harrison asked. ‘It helps me focus on the facts and evidence.’

  They’d come to stand at the edge of what was clearly the controlled zone. A box of forensic over shoes and suits was on the floor next to a uniformed officer with a clipboard. Behind him they had erected a tent over the site of the body. The threat of further rain and a brisk breeze necessitated the protection of any remaining evidence. It also prevented the countless rubberneckers, attracted by the police activity, from seeing the victim. DS James had seen several pulling out their phones and taking photographs, no doubt for a social media update which would inevitably bring the local media here before too long.

  ‘Er, yes, let me speak with the crime scene manager,’ DS James replied and putting on a fresh pair of over-shoe covers, headed off towards the tent. If he was honest, he felt relieved to step away from Harrison Lane. Although he was the Senior Investigating Officer and in charge here, the man made him feel like a rookie. There was a commanding presence about him which, despite the open landscape, seemed to fill the air. It was both unsettling and reassuring at the same time.

  3

  Harrison Lane stood just inside the designated police cordon, forensic overshoes and suit on. Almost all the investigating team were behind him, but the crime scene manager had insisted on staying close to the body to ensure there was no contamination. He’d never heard of Dr Harrison Lane, and he was damned if he was going to let some stranger compromise his crime scene.

  Harrison walked forward a few paces and stopped. He needed to clear his mind, channel his focus after the ride up. Cars and motorway miles still flashed through his head. The beat of heavy rock guitars reverberating between his ears. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, feeling his muscular chest fill with fresh air and his shoulders relax. Harrison caught the scent of peaty earth, the faint odour of still water, and a hint of horse dung. He stood rooted to the ground and tipped his head slightly for the wind to blow directly into his ear, rather than allow the cascading cacophony to rush over its surface. Now he could pick out individual sounds. There were birds not too far away. Their calls similar to those you’d find on the seashore in winter. The breeze rattled tree branches to his right, the rustle of dry leaves and creak of wood. Tall dry grasses bent in the wind. Underneath all this was the sound of the ground itself. The porous soft peat had a life of its own. You could almost hear the water soaking into it, the occasional pop as a bubble of air or gas escaped. Harrison felt the steady beat of his heart, the rhythmic in and out of the air in his lungs. He tasted the fresh air, flavoured with thousands of years of organic matter, compressed into an earthy sponge. He tried not to think of the generations who had stood here before him, their history all around, but instead rooted himself firmly in the here and now. Only once the Fens had filled him, from head to toe, did he open his eyes again, ready to see.

  Harrison didn’t look at the scenery, or the threatening skies, he dropped his eyes to the ground. There was a clear path marked for personnel to travel to and from the body, and another area that was out of bounds. Harrison stopped and looked at the track of footprints which were marked and protected on one side. They were dug into the soft soil and pointed towards the body. Some were obliterated by a thick tyre mark which ran through their middle. He knelt and looked more closely at the tracks, comparing depth of footprint to his own. His eyes focused along the trail to the forensics tent, and he stood back up, but didn’t follow their lead. He’d been given permission to walk where he needed and instead, he began a large clockwise journey around the area, not once taking his eyes from the ground.

  A clump of small trees held his attention for a while and here he picked up more of the footprints which led to and from the site of the body. This time without their tyre mark companion. The closer he got, the more horse's hoof marks there were. Finally, he came alongside the edge of shallow water. There were tall grasses along its shore and occasionally he stopped and looked where these had been bent and broken.

  Into the forensic tent and in front of him lay what looked like the body of a boy in his late teens, spread-eagled, face down. His skinny torso wore a Berghaus waterproof jacket, and water covered his lower legs, which were clad in jeans. The body had been roughly strewn with branches, as though somebody had attempted to hide it. Underneath the platform that forensics had placed around the body, Harrison could see a second set of footmarks. Almost certainly those that belonged to the ranger who’d discovered the corpse. The clear indicator, apart from the branches, that this had been a deliberate act, was the large iron horseshoes, one of which pinned the dead man’s left wrist to the ground. They’d been used like staples, only it was highly unlikely that the victim would have been able to attempt an escape. These weren’t meant for that purpose in life. One of them lay to the right side where somebody had attempted to roll him over, presumably to check for signs of life.

  Cause
of death was almost certainly related to the ligature marks around the man’s neck. From the angle of them and the burns, it looked like a hanging. Harrison took one last look and then stepped back outside. A thin mist of rain had started and was patterning the surface of the water, creating a whisper of a dance. In the far distance he could see a row of trees large enough for the man to have been hung, but nothing close. His weight would have snapped the thin branches of those he’d looked at earlier, before death had its chance to claim him. From the evidence he’d seen so far, this didn’t surprise him.

  Harrison’s brown eyes narrowed. He needed to see more, but for that the body would have to be turned over so he could examine it.

  DS James waited expectantly at the edge of his crime scene, watching Dr Harrison Lane pace, head bent, around it. The pathologist had just arrived, and he too was pacing impatiently in front of him, waiting to go in, muttering about being busy and having someplace else to be. As soon as Harrison looked to have finished, Mark gave Dr Andrew Marshall the all clear to head to the body. He needed an approximate time of death asap, as well as confirmation of ID and mode of death. The rest he needed Harrison Lane to work out.