‘All the gods ask of you is one simple act of devotion, one small sacrifice to prove you are worthy to accompany us on our journey into the light of salvation.’
It hadn’t sounded like a small sacrifice. Shocked, he had dared to challenge the leader.
‘Why her, of all people?’
‘You know the answer to that,’ the leader had answered gently, ‘just as you know what you must do.’
Now that he was going to see him again, all at once he wasn’t sure he had understood the leader’s intentions correctly. He pulled the robe over his head. The fabric that appeared to fall in soft folds on the other disciples felt rough against his skin.
‘I’m ready,’ he croaked.
He was speaking as much for himself as for her, but the girl was already walking away. He followed her slim figure back down the stairs and into a room off the hall where more white-robed disciples sat facing each other in two rows. On a dais at the far end of the room sat the leader himself, gazing down the rows towards the newcomer.
‘You are welcome.’
The voice rang out, seeming to echo inside his head as the leader addressed him directly. He nodded, too overcome with emotion to speak. He was in the inner sanctuary. Nothing else mattered.
‘Look at this man,’ the leader told the others. ‘Look at him carefully.’
Ten pairs of eyes turned to stare at him. He stood quite still, unable to drag his eyes away from the leader’s face.
‘This man wishes to join us,’ the leader said, staring at him as though reading his thoughts. ‘He wants to become a disciple. He is willing to make the supreme sacrifice and dedicate his life to our cause.’
Embarrassed, he wanted to explain that it wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice really. His life wasn’t that great. While he wondered whether he dared speak, the leader handed each of them a small portion of ambrosia, food of the gods. As if by magic, a silver goblet appeared in the leader’s outstretched hand.
‘Drink from the cup of salvation,’ he intoned.
‘Drink from the cup of salvation,’ the disciples chanted in chorus.
‘He is welcome here,’ the leader said softly.
He thought he would faint with joy as he gazed into the leader’s hypnotic eyes. The room seemed to spin until all he could see were those huge dark eyes, gazing into his mind.
‘I have done what you asked.’
‘Approach.’ The leader smiled at him. ‘We will call you Warrior.’
‘Thank you,’ he stammered.
His legs crumpled beneath him and he collapsed on the floor at the leader’s feet.
Two disciples lifted him into a chair. The leader stared at him, his eyes glowing with kindness.
‘Is anything troubling you?’
Warrior hesitated.
‘Tell me what is in your mind,’ the leader insisted gently.
‘I want to stay here. Let me come and live with you, and be your disciple.’
The leader shook his head, his expression sad.
‘You are not yet ready to live among us, but your time will come soon. Don’t be afraid. One day you will perform a great service for the cause, and you will never leave us again. Now, tell me, was it done wisely?’
He nodded his head, eager to tell the leader how he had found her sitting on a park bench in the park one evening. The place had been deserted. It had been easy. But the leader raised his hand.
‘We will not speak of this again. Come, sit with us until you have to leave.’
At a signal from the leader the disciples sat down.
A few motes of dust floating in the air vanished as he sat among them, relieved that he had passed the test. The room fell silent. All eyes remained fixed on the leader’s beatific smile. His silent presence reassured them of the peace that passed all understanding. Nothing ever stirred in that silent room. Time itself was stilled. The disciples sat like statues, their hands folded neatly in their laps. Warrior felt his spirits soothed by their serenity. In the leader’s presence all his fears faded away, and he could breathe freely for the first time in years.
The leader broke the silence. His voice was like rippling water, enveloping them in its tranquillity.
‘All around us people are engaged in struggle. Here we are at peace.’ He had stared directly at Warrior. ‘You are a true follower. Your soul has begun its journey to the eternal light. You will be with us for all eternity. Through sacrifice you will attain salvation.’
The other disciples took up the chant, repeating it over and over again.
‘Through sacrifice we will attain salvation.’
9
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, IAN checked to see who else was around that weekend. He hated viewing cadavers in the mortuary. It was worst when he had to go alone. Even the dour presence of his detective inspector offered some distraction from a body, but Rob had been called away to a meeting that morning. Ian’s spirits lifted when he discovered that Polly was on duty. He found her in the canteen.
‘Late breakfast or early morning break?’ he asked as he joined her.
He nodded at her large glass of orange juice and plain buttered toast.
‘You look like you’ve got a hangover. I mean because you’re drinking orange juice,’ he added quickly, seeing her face twist in exasperation.
‘A date at the morgue?’ she laughed, when he invited her to accompany him. ‘You certainly know how to give a girl a good time.’
He smiled, pleased to see her good mood restored.
‘Do you want to come? Or are you busy?’
‘Sure I’ll come. Why not? Anything’s better than being stuck here.’
‘Thanks, Polly. Only Rob’s tied up and it’s good to have someone else to bounce ideas off.’
He didn’t tell her how much he would value the diversion of her company. She chatted happily in the car and he hardly thought about the viewing on the way to the mortuary. But as they stepped into the cold hushed building, a familiar dread took hold of him.
He led Polly along the corridor, determined not to show his feelings. It was embarrassing, and pathetic, for a detective working on murder investigations to experience a physical revulsion at the sight of a corpse at an autopsy. He could cope without difficulty at crime scenes – as long as the murder wasn’t too gruesome – but seeing a victim carved up on a slab, like the carcass of a cow or a sheep being prepared for the butcher, made him heave. Sometimes he had to dash to the toilet to throw up. He wondered what Polly would think of him if that happened, and told himself fiercely that he would be fine.
‘Do you always put on a mask?’ she asked him and he nodded.
‘It’s just as well to be protected,’ he replied, aware that he sounded pompous. ‘And it helps with the smell.’
The truth was that with the lower part of his face covered, it was easier to conceal his revulsion.
The pathologist was leaning back against a table, chatting to one of his colleagues, mask dangling carelessly from one ear. His relaxed attitude calmed Ian, who was familiar with Dr Millard from previous cases. It was reassuring to know the post mortem was in his reliable hands. The pathologist’s nickname at the station, Dr Death, was a good-natured reference to his skeletal physique, an impression heightened by his bald head. But he was friendly and helpful, as well as competent. After an exchange of greetings they stood in silence for a moment, gazing at the body displayed on the table. She looked very small, like a plastic model of a person, so that Ian felt a curious sense of detachment from her. He wondered if this was how other officers always felt when they viewed autopsies, and whether he had finally managed to master his emotional response at the sight of a cadaver.
‘This is a woman in her fifties,’ Millard began quietly.
Ian was taken aback by an unexpected surge of anger. He wanted to protest that the bundle of skin and bones on the table wasn’t a woman at all.
The dead woman’s hair had been shaved to expose a nasty bruise on the side of her head where she had fa
llen, or been hit. Naked, she lay flat on her back, her eyes closed, her face a white mask of displeasure with the ends of her lips curved downwards, and her eyebrows lowered in vexation. Her chest had been cut open but she was otherwise intact.
‘We don’t have an identity yet,’ Millard went on in his low even voice. He could have been chatting about the weather. ‘Her clothes are casual but they look quite new, and she seems to have looked after herself. The chances are she had a regular dentist which means we should get a match with dental records before too long, hopefully before the end of the day. Is there anything from your end to tell us who we’re looking at?’
Ian shook his head. There had been no reports yet of a missing woman matching the description of the body discovered on a park bench.
‘Is it safe to assume the cause of death was the stab wound in her chest?’ he asked.
‘Yes, death resulted from a stab wound, as you can see.’
‘She was attacked from the front?’ Ian continued, pressing the pathologist to reveal as much as he could about the nature of the attack.
Millard nodded, his bald pate shining under the bright lights as he lowered his head.
‘Yes, although there’s no sign of any defence wounds, which is a bit odd given that her killer must have been standing in front of her.’
Ian seized on the remark.
‘Odd in what way?’
‘You’d expect there to be some indication of a struggle, even if he took her by surprise. Yet there’s no evidence of any attempt to escape, either before or during the attack.’
‘It was night-time, and the park is poorly lit. Presumably she didn’t see him coming.’
‘She might have known him,’ Polly said.
‘True.’ The pathologist inclined his head. ‘It’s possible she was caught completely off guard, but even so, she didn’t die immediately. Why didn’t she react in any way? A scraping of skin or a speck of blood under her finger nails would have made our job so much simpler.’ He sighed. ‘She hasn’t made it easy for us.’
‘Talk us through how she died,’ Ian said after a brief pause.
‘She died within minutes from blood loss and shock.’
The pathologist probed inside the woman’s chest with a bony finger. Glancing up, Ian saw that Polly’s eyes were glued to Millard’s skinny hand. She didn’t look at all perturbed.
‘It was unfortunate for the victim that the killer managed to drive the blade right between her ribs. It was a lucky hit,’ Millard went on.
‘What do you mean, lucky?’
‘Lucky for the killer, that is. Each rib being wider than the spaces between them, there was more than a fifty per cent chance the blade would have glanced off a bone instead of penetrating directly into the heart. Although we don’t yet have an identity for the victim, we can say for certain that she was in her mid-to-late fifties, five foot one in height, and slight. She was brunette, turning grey, and reasonably fit for her age. She had a child by caesarean section,’ he pointed to a line that ran across the lower part of her abdomen, ‘and she was married, or at least she had been.’
Ian nodded. He had already seen the dead woman’s wedding ring. It had been removed, but the indentation was still visible on the ring finger of her left hand.
‘What about the attack? Is there anything else you can tell us about that? What about the wound itself?’
‘She was stabbed once in the chest with a blade with one sharp cutting edge. The other edge of the blade was blunt. As you can see if you come closer, the wound is sharper at one end than the other. This isn’t always obvious, as the blunt edge of the knife often splits the skin, making the laceration resemble a double edged knife wound, but in this instance the nature of the blade is apparent. Look, there’s a clear difference between the rounded end and the opposite angle of the wound, which has a sharp point. The blade was at least ten centimetres long, although it’s impossible to be exact. The depth of the wound may be longer than the length of the knife due to indentation caused by the impact of a forceful thrust with the knife. The measurement of the long axis of the wound, from angle to angle, is seven centimetres, four millimetres wide. That gives us the width of the blade at its widest as possibly five centimetres, tapered from tip to hilt, the exact angle of the taper impossible to ascertain. The blade wasn’t serrated.’
They gazed at the body for a minute.
‘What can you tell us about the nature of the attack?’ Ian persisted.
‘It’s difficult to say anything with absolute certainty.’
‘OK, but off the record, what’s your impression? Would it take considerable strength to inflict a wound this severe?’
‘Not necessarily. There are so many other factors that might influence the outcome. Remarkably little force is required to produce a deep wound like this, especially if the stabbing action is fast. The important determinant is the sharpness of the blade. This kind of wound can be produced with minimal force. But markings on the skin around the entry site, which indicate the knife had a handle, suggest the wound was made with some force to bruise the skin like that, so the blade might not have been razor sharp. In fact, assuming I’m correct about the cause of the bruising, this was a forceful penetration effected with considerable violence. And there’s something else that will interest you. The blade of the knife was misshapen.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The wound track wasn’t absolutely straight which means the blade had been bent before this attack took place.’
Ian considered the wound more closely, interested in spite of his revulsion.
‘Can you make any estimate about the height of the attacker, from the direction of the stabbing?’
‘Not really, I’m afraid. The victim of a stabbing like this is rarely static. The knife entered the upper part of the left side of the chest and travelled downwards but that doesn’t necessarily mean the killer was taller than the victim who may have been crouching, or in this instance probably seated. Examination of the skin wound, and the direction the blade took through the deep tissues, is no more than an indication of the direction of the blade relative to the body. You’re asking me to make a judgement about the height and strength of the killer but to draw any such conclusions from the evidence here would be no more than speculation. I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess.’
Millard had provided quite a lot of information about the actual knife wound, but nothing about the killer. Having learned what he could, Ian was pleased to leave the mortuary.
‘I ought to like him, but he gives me the creeps,’ he said.
‘I know,’ Polly agreed, misunderstanding what he meant. ‘He’s so skinny. It can’t be healthy.’
10
LATER THAT MORNING THEY learned that the dental records of the victim had provided a definite match. The detective chief inspector called the team together to make sure everyone was up to speed with the information. The dead woman’s name was Martha Martin. She was a fifty-three year old former nurse who had been married to Henry Martin for thirty-two years. She had given up her career when they had married. Her husband, who was now fifty-nine, worked as a washing machine installer for a local branch of a nationwide chain that supplied white goods and other domestic electrical equipment. They lived in Herne Bay with their only son. Rob and Ian set off to deliver the news to Martha’s husband – possibly her killer.
As they drove to Herne Bay, Rob speculated about why the victim hadn’t been reported missing.
‘It’s nearly twenty-four hours since she was killed. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that the alarm wasn’t raised?’
‘Perhaps her husband thought she’d gone away somewhere,’ Ian suggested. ‘It only happened last night.’
He wondered what he would do if Bev didn’t come home one night. If he was on a case, the chances were he’d be so tired by the time he arrived home he would go to bed assuming she had gone out for the evening. Fast asleep, he wouldn’t even realise that she hadn’t come home. In the
morning, he would be surprised to discover she had gone out early without leaving a message. He would suppose she had told him she would be going out, and he had forgotten about it. Only when she failed to come home for the second night would he actually start to worry.
‘Without a handbag?’ Rob persisted. ‘I thought women never went anywhere without their handbags? I know my wife doesn’t.’
‘But remember, she had no money, phone or keys with her. It doesn’t mean she went out without them. Who goes out without a key at least?’
‘True. She must have lost them, bag or no bag, or, given that she was stabbed, it’s more likely she was mugged.’
Rob sat back and lapsed into his customary silence. Ian didn’t mind. He had problems of his own to think about. Bev had been furious about his call-out the previous evening.
‘You’d better not be home late again tomorrow,’ she had warned him as he left. ‘You know I hate being left alone in the house at night.’
He had promised to be back as soon as he could. It was a vain promise because his time wasn’t his own once he was assigned to a case. His thoughts were constantly with the victims, puzzling over what had happened to them. He had been home before two the previous night only because he had driven like a maniac, cursing himself for agreeing to live so far from the station. He might as well not have bothered speeding because Bev had been asleep when he raced upstairs. She had still been asleep when he left home that morning. He had hesitated over whether to wake her up but had decided against it. There was no time for another row.
Henry Martin lived near the coast in a corner property on Beltinge Road, a street of large detached houses. Some had been divided into flats, while a few had been converted into nursing homes for the elderly. With cars parked on both sides, the road was still wide enough for two vehicles to pass. The detectives exchanged a grim look as Rob reached out and rang the bell. From the other side of the door they heard a faint clanging before the door was flung open by a middle-aged man. Tall and sturdy, white hair neatly combed above an unlined face, he carried himself with an air of confidence.
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