The Repenting Serpent

by Wes Markin

  There was a knock at the door. PC Sean Tyler poked his head round.

  ‘The print … it is Preston’s. He was in a few years ago on a drunk and disorderly; we tagged him then.’

  Jake was already on his feet. ‘So do we have him?’

  ‘Bad news I’m afraid. We went to pick him up from the White Hart – he’s not there. He went out at nine according to the hotel, and he hasn’t been back since.’

  ‘Check his house out now,’ Yorke said, ‘and bring his wife into this station. We need to know as much as we can about this man … now.’

  Minutes away from sunrise, DS Iain Brookes nursed his final bottle of Asahi on his motorhome doorstep. He looked out over the trees, poking out of the ground like the hands of buried giants who may have once ruled the world, and listened. He heard the occasional rustle but was unable to determine the source. Animals or merely the wind? He thought of Louise Lynn, an elderly lady in an adjacent motorhome. She’d had a house rabbit that had happily hopped around the site until a fox had struck. She had welcomed it back in with its stomach split open, and its insides hanging loose like the udders of a cow.

  This wasn’t the place for people to be struck down like Jessica had. They did a good job. Iain and his colleagues. Wiltshire had low crime rates. This wasn’t America with its colourful carousel of murderous fanatics and self-proclaimed artists! What had happened? Where had this come from?

  Even if Preston was responsible, he wouldn’t get any time with the creep. His role in this whole shitty affair would simply end with him at the back of a courtroom. A spare part. Forced to watch Preston take his chances with the lottery of the legal system.

  The sun finally rose. He took no solace from the destruction of darkness by light. He could take solace from only one thing.

  He looked down at the cloth-wrapped item that Riley had given him earlier, accompanied with the words, ‘Don’t open it now. I’m sure you know what it is and every part of you is screaming out that it’s not right. But that’s the way it is. There’s a maniac out there right now, and I’m not having you sitting vulnerable with that boy of yours. I promise I’ll answer all of your questions about where and why after they’ve got this maniac, but until then, that stays here, with you.’

  He unwrapped the Glock 26 pistol; a gun that he was familiar with from his firearm’s training.

  So, as the birds began to sing in a cloudless sky, to a sun that gave light but promised warmth that would not come, and the foxes moved amongst the trees, he decided that the hunt was on.

  It had to be … what choice was there?

  He turned the gun over in his hand; the polymer frame was light and cold to the touch. He ejected the magazine and emptied it into his palm. The cartridges sparkled in the sunlight.

  He was crying now harder than ever before. He could feel the darkness that had consumed her, consuming him too.

  Dr Carl Reiner watched Karen Firth bring a sudden end to a long period of catatonia because she didn’t like what was on today’s menu. She arched her back, lashed out at the nurse, and the feeding bag exploded on the floor at his feet, soaking his shoes.

  In his fifteen years as Director of the Mary Chapman Assisted Living Facility for the Elderly, he had seen many displays of aggression from patients in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s, but never anything like this.

  Karen thrashed her head from side to side whilst froth oozed from the corners of her mouth. She succeeded in landing a foot on the chest of Terrence Lock, a nurse who had just brought her back from the hospital. Winded, he stumbled back. Then, she demonstrated that her strike wasn’t a one off and buried her bare foot in the stomach of Megan Broadhead, a nurse on the other side of the bed. She collapsed backwards against the wall.

  Finally, Reiner observed a third nurse, Ryan Marshall, with large upper body strength, overpower Karen and plunge a needle into her thigh. Karen glared at Reiner, but as the sedative cooled her heated brain, her look turned to one of gratitude and her limbs relaxed.

  Reiner kicked the mush from his shoes and took a step towards Karen. She gurgled and small bubbles burst at the corner of her mouth.

  He looked between the faces of the nurses. ‘Please get back to your duties now, thank you.’

  The skeletal nurse, whose uniform hung off him like a bin bag, said, ‘Are you sure you don’t want us to see if she’s alright?’

  Her synapses are being ravaged by dementia, he thought, of course she’s not alright.

  ‘That will be all, thank you, Terrence.’

  Terrence pushed the empty wheelchair out of the door, closely followed by Ryan and Megan.

  From his pocket, Reiner took a handkerchief embroidered with his initials. He leaned forward and dabbed the froth at the corners of Karen’s mouth. He could tell that she had been a beautiful woman before the living death had set in. Her eyes and nose were petit, and she wore an endearing set of dimples. Her long-gone husband would certainly have admired her in her youth. Not that he would recognise her now if he were alive; with the living death, not only do you become unfamiliar to yourself but to others too.

  He continued to wipe her face with his handkerchief, unveiling her dignity as if he was simply wiping dust away from an old painting, acknowledging all the time that the dust would fall again. Just like it did on so many of his other patients in this place.

  He took his phone out of his pocket and searched for Dr Page – he would be eager to hear of this latest event—

  Karen’s hand darted out and snaked around his wrist. He heard his phone clatter on the floor. He attempted to untangle her hand, but her fingers bit too deep into his wrist.

  Far too deep for someone in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s and someone sedated up to the eyeballs.

  ‘Jessica?’ Karen said with her eyes locked shut.

  Reiner knew that Jessica was her daughter. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Iain?’ Karen said.

  Her son-in-law.

  Reiner paused before replying in the negative again. Maybe, he should find out what was wrong? ‘Yes,’ he said.

  Her eyes burst open. Reiner would have jumped back if she wasn’t gripping him so tightly. ‘You are in danger.’

  She spoke so clearly, without a pause. He wished someone else was still in the room with him to observe this phenomenon; no one was going to believe him. ‘Why?’

  ‘The jaguar waits in the trees.’ Her voice was becoming louder and clearer.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s disgusting, Iain. Its skin is all covered in blood and flesh hangs from its teeth.’

  The grip was starting to hurt so Reiner shouted for the nurse. ‘Terrence!’

  He wrenched back again, but her hand gripped even harder.

  ‘Terrence!’

  ‘His mirror can see inside all of us.’

  Karen released his arm and he jumped back.

  The door burst open and Terrence Lock burst in. He injected her with more sedative, but it was unnecessary, because Karen’s head had already slumped to one side.

  2

  WITH THE BLOOD-RED snake curled around his wrist, his father sitting to one side of him on the sofa, Riley on the other, and Bryan Kelly continually cleaning the kitchen, it should have been impossible to feel lonely.

  But he did. And it was the loneliest he’d ever felt. He couldn’t remember ever feeling such a desperate urge to hug his mother. His father ended a phone call next to him.

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Dr Reiner at Grandma’s home. She’s ill and he wants me to visit.’

  ‘Can I come?’

  His father turned away. ‘It doesn’t sound good, Ewan. Plus, you’re going away. Grandad’s coming.’

  ‘Dad …’

  ‘We’ve talked about this, and we’re not talking about it again. I need to figure it all out and make sure everything’s alright.’

  ‘Safe?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Safe.’

  Ewan sighed. He
didn’t have a great urge to see his grandma anyway. Not because he didn’t love her, but because he’d never really known her. She’d been sick for as long as he could remember and now all he could really think about was how unfair it was that she’d outlived his mother.

  And he did get on well with his grandad, who was his dad’s father.

  ‘Please don’t make this harder than it has to be.’

  Ewan sighed. He touched his dad’s buttoned shirt. ‘Have you changed?’

  He looked away. ‘I will. Before I leave.’

  Yorke ended a phone call with Brookes regarding the fact that he was heading in to see Jessica’s mother, Karen, at Mary Chapman this morning. Yorke had asked to meet him there as part of a series of interviews with Jessica’s relatives. Brookes had warned him that getting any information out of her about Jessica at this stage of her dementia would be impossible, but Yorke decided it was worth pursuing anyway.

  It was eight-thirty in the morning and he looked around the incident room at those assembled for morning briefing. It was busier than it had been in the early hours of the morning, and all the core and non-core team members were now present. He could tell from their worn faces that very few, if any, had managed some sleep.

  With the return of Yorke, Gardner continued where she’d left off with the report on the interview with Robert Preston’s wife, Yvonne.

  ‘She knew years before she finally chucked him out that he had a problem. Several women had already complained about him staring, and following, in public places. But it’s when she first got into his office drawers and found the photos of all the women that she fully accepted it. He’d taken photos of women without them realising, probably on his phone, before printing them out.’

  ‘Upskirting?’ Jake said.

  ‘No,’ Gardner continued. ‘Just photos of ordinary women doing ordinary things.’

  ‘Iain said that Jessica was certain that Preston had taken a photograph of her at parent’s evening on his mobile phone.’

  ‘Weirdo,’ Topham said.

  Gardner said, ‘It gets weirder when you consider how many photographs of different women there were. Yvonne said she found hundreds.’

  There was a moment of silence whilst Dawson from HOLMES typed loudly.

  ‘Was there a photograph of Jessica in there?’ Jake said.

  ‘She wasn’t sure. She knew who Jessica was, but she doesn’t recall her photograph. She also burned all the photos when she threw him out two months ago.’

  Yorke jumped in. ‘The accumulated CCTV footage around the area near where the emergency call was made has flagged up Preston’s blue Ford. We can conclude, reasonably, that he made the emergency call. It doesn’t sound like Jessica would have had him over for his dinner, so his print places him as an intruder. The APW is out but CCTV lost him when he ventured back out to the Salisbury Plains. So, we don’t know where he is yet. We will continue chasing up all his associates and family members – someone will have some idea where he will be hiding.’

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Gardner said.

  Patricia walked in; she had a laptop tucked under the arm. She had a slide show ready. He’d already seen it over an hour ago. He shuddered over the memory.

  Yorke said, ‘In our last meeting, I suggested that the mutilation was done with precision. Dr Wileman has kindly agreed to talk us through her findings regarding the cause of death.’

  She set up the laptop in the corner of the room and a projector in the centre of the ceiling hummed. Yorke pulled down a screen at the side of the room. It remained blue for a moment, while Patricia’s laptop sprung into life, and a surreal ocean-blue calmness descended over the room; even Dawson stopped typing for a moment. A couple of flickers later and the screen was filled with a graphical image of a chemical of some kind.

  ‘Tetrodotoxin.’ Patricia turned to face her audience. ‘It was in Jessica’s blood.’

  She looked from face-to-face, waiting for some recognition that didn’t seem to be coming. Until, eventually, Gardner said, ‘Pufferfish?’

  ‘Yes!’ Patricia said, sounding a little too excited for the situation. ‘It’s in other sea creatures too. However, she had not ingested any sea creature or any source of tetrodotoxin for that matter; yet, there was enough in her bloodstream to kill her. We’ve checked the body over for needle marks, but we haven’t found one yet.’

  ‘Does that mean she died before … you know?’ Topham said.

  ‘We can’t confirm that Detective. Tetrodotoxin is a neurotoxin, it paralyses the victim, leaving them in a state of near death, but often conscious.’

  ‘And aware?’ Yorke said, struggling to make eye-contact with his lover while she discussed something so abhorrent.

  ‘Possibly. The respiratory muscles start failing within minutes of the toxin kicking in. Whoever did this could have waited until after respiratory failure, which could have taken up to ten minutes,’ Patricia said.

  ‘So, why didn’t the bastard use a different kind of anaesthetic?’ Jake’s face reddened. ‘Did they take pleasure from this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Patricia continued. ‘Apologies for the next slide.’ She pressed a button on a remote and displayed a close-up of Jessica’s opened chest. She flicked the laser pointer on the remote at the centre of the atrocity. ‘We’ve had it looked at by several surgeons. This is almost professional. It is called a median sternotomy.’ She ran the laser pointer over the cavity. ‘It began with a vertical incision with a scalpel down the centre of the chest. A sternal saw, which is a battery-operated bone cutter was then used to slice through the breastbone.’

  She hit the clicker again and took them to a picture of a sternal saw. It resembled a power drill. ‘It works by retracting a tooth-covered blade back and forth at lighting speed—’

  ‘I’m sorry …’ Jake rose to his feet and left the room.

  Patricia scanned the faces in the crowd and then looked at Yorke. ‘Shall I continue?’

  Yorke nodded, and wanted to say something, but he found himself completely lost for words.

  She moved back to the previous slide of Jessica’s chest.

  ‘After the saw was used, Jessica’s sternum was cracked open and wedged apart by a steel retractor; finally, the pericardium, a double-walled sack, was sliced open to expose her heart.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Gardner said, ‘I can’t hear any more.’

  Several officers at the end of the table were looking away from the screen.

  ‘Can you summarise please Dr Wileman? We appreciate your efforts, but the level of detail is proving difficult for some people,’ Yorke said.

  ‘I’ll try,’ she said, clicking through to a sketched diagram of a heart. She used her laser pointer again. ‘The heart has been removed carefully by cutting through the great vessels here, and the left atrium here.’ She mimicked a slicing movement with the laser. ‘In fact, the method was almost identical to the one used for heart transplants, except … here, the killer cut through the pulmonary veins in the left atrium, which would be left in place for the donor heart to be sewn. My conclusion on this is that the killer has operated with some skill. He could be a surgeon or at least someone very practised.’

  ‘Could he have practised this by using animals?’ DS Simmonds asked.

  ‘Potentially. I don’t see why not … on animals with similar biology.’ Patricia said.

  ‘How about training himself with the internet?’ Topham said.

  ‘Like I said, it’s skilful, but I guess anything can be learned with time and effort.’

  Yorke wondered what had gone so wrong in life that he was now discussing the forced removal of his friend, and colleague, DS Iain Brookes’ ex-wife’s heart. He looked at his watch. He would be meeting him in less than an hour. How could he keep what he knew about Jessica’s fate off his face? There was something here that nobody should know regarding the death of a loved one.

  ‘Then, there is the flesh from her thighs.’
/>   ‘Fuck,’ Topham said under his breath.

  ‘The pieces were one-inch wide and five-inches long. Exactly. Again, the killer avoided all arteries. He was skilled again.’

  ‘So, we are dealing with Jack the Ripper,’ Topham said. ‘In Salisbury?’

  Yorke flashed him a look; he lowered his eyes.

  ‘Nothing under her nails and no other sign of struggling or fighting. She may have been drugged by the tetrodotoxin before she had chance. We turned up some black hair on her body.’

  ‘DNA?’ Yorke said.

  ‘No follicular bulb I’m afraid.’

  Yorke reminded himself that hair does not contain nuclear DNA, which is only present in the follicular bulb when it is torn out of the attacker’s head. Even then, it would only contain mitochondrial DNA which could only be used to link the killer to the crime after capture.

  Gardner, whose face was a creased mask of hours of tears and sleeplessness, looked up at Patricia. ‘Was she sexually assaulted?’

  ‘No evidence of that. We have suggested that her blouse and bra were removed to mop up during the procedure.’

  Gardner sighed. Yorke detected some relief in there.

  ‘Anything about the urine yet?’ Yorke said.

  ‘There were no traces of any substance abuse or alcohol in the urine. We were discussing the lack of trace evidence and someone suggested that the perpetrator may have worn surgeon’s scrubs? This would link to the idea of him being medically trained?’

  ‘Thank you, Dr Wileman.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘That’ll be all for now.’

  As she left, she smiled at Yorke, but he struggled to smile back. He knew it wasn’t her fault that she’d just brought so much darkness into the room, but still, hearing that horrendous tale, unfolding from the lips of someone he was growing ever more intimate with, had made his whole being sink.

  As he wrapped up the meeting and issued assignments, a memory kept plaguing him. Something that had started at the back of his mind and had burrowed its way forward, like a tumour, over the last few minutes.