Glasgow Noir Box Set

by Gavin Graham

  “Do you have an address?”

  “Yes…” he took a folded piece of paper from his pocket and looked around the empty Masonic room, conspiratorially, before sliding it across the table to Mac.

  “Right, Minister, I can’t thank you enough. It must have taken a great deal of courage for you to come here and bare-all like this.”

  “Thank you, Inspector. Oh, and if you don’t mind? Please keep my reputation and my daughter’s memory intact, this meeting and my involvement in the case should stay strictly between us. OK…?”

  “You have my word, Minister, you have my word…”

  Chapter 74

  Hail Satan!

  There is nothing more wickedly contagious than a corrupt mind…

  Siobhan used to go for summer holidays in the Welsh town of Kidwelly. Her Scottish uncle lived there and had become close friends with Colin Batley, the leader of a local sex cult. Their ritualistic ceremonies were immersed in the teachings of Crowley and they celebrated the concept of free-sex. During the summer of 2010, Siobhan became heavily indoctrinated into this concept of ‘open indulgence in accordance with free will’ and she was offered up by her evil uncle for ‘initiation’. She was subjected to a process of drug-induced hypnosis and the male participants were allowed to have their way with her in every way imaginable. When it was time for the Grand Master to take his turn, she would awake from her trance and enjoy multiple orgasms with him, their sweat-laced bodies entwined, she’d moan obscenely with her back arched, her eyes closed and her mouth agape, like some kind of a mythical whore within the candlelit circle as cult members would chant: “Hail Satan! Hail Satan! Hail Satan!” The leader would release his fluids inside her body, and leave her soaked and gasping upon the floor, having enjoyed his multiple violations of her. When he was done he’d invite all of the Brothers and Sisters to come naked to the altar and fiend upon her with their hands and their mouths, ravenously, like a pack of wolves might take to a dead deer in the woods.

  That was her ‘initiation’.

  For the remainder of her holiday, the leader would often take Siobhan to his caravan for a more intimate and private form of sex, in fact, it happened almost on a daily basis and the sordid relationship was even encouraged by her malevolent and deviant uncle, himself a man who hated mainstream religion and had written a book titled: God, the Almighty Illusion. He told her: “It was an honour for me to see you and feel you in the ceremony, by my own tongue, but now you must bow to the Master and be his slave, in the flesh, and in the spirit.”

  She was brainwashed. “Do what thou wilt,” she responded. “And, so shall he.”

  “Hail Satan!” he responded.

  “Hail Satan!”

  Each day at the caravan he sodomised her and each day she grew to have an insatiable appetite for his endless intrusions, in her mouth, and in every available part of her body. Sometimes, he had an animal in a cage and he asked her to kill it and he would pleasure himself as he watched and she would gather the blood to perform a high-ritual, just the two of them, in the confines of the mobile home, a small shrine to the occult and to The Devil himself. After all the sex, and killing and ritualistic doings were done they would lay down together and he would offer up his great intellect and other-worldly knowledge for a sermon of further indoctrination, a process he’d used with all female members. Even when they drank and took drugs he would wait till she was drifting from the conscious, being re-born within her subconscious, and he would teach her and guide her to be an Unsung Satanist forevermore, to live in the shadows and kill at the dark altar and to worship those of evil practice and esoteric charisma.

  After the animals: the rats, then the dogs, then a pig, then a horse…it was time for her to kill a human being…before the circle…and she did…a masked woman was drugged and put on her knees before her. Siobhan took an almighty sword with a golden handle that was encrusted with a pentagram and she put it into the hole where the mouth was and she put the point to the back of the throat where she slowly began to feed it down, fighting through the bodily resistance of organs, down into the gut, where she twisted the awesome blade and put downward force on the handle so that the tip of the sword made an exit-wound at the spine. She held the spiked body in place as it gargled and bled, a blood-red river, magnificent as it was, so-much-so it made her smile and tremble with delicious adrenalin, and she made eye-contact with each and every member of the circle so that they could see just how much power that she truly held in that magical moment of taking a human life.

  At the end of her holiday they agreed to get married and she would be his High Priestess. When she returned to Glasgow, though, her fantasy fell apart, as news spread that a ‘sexual-abuse ring’ had been uncovered in Wales and the cult leader was arrested.

  Her uncle had gotten away on time and had disappeared to America. There had always been rumours that he had been the one who informed the Police but that had never been confirmed and she certainly thought better of him to do a thing like that. On the other hand, she’d seen the look in his eyes, when she told him about their talks of marriage. Perhaps, he saw, that it had all gone too far, that he’d never intended it to escalate to such a ridiculous level.

  She watched him on TV as he was ushered from his house by Police in handcuffs, and he smiled at the camera, like he was smiling right at her, like he was sending her a message. She didn’t cry, never, although she loved and worshiped him, she took a vow then to serve The Devil, and that when the time was right and she got a ‘sign’ from a suitable messenger, that she would embark upon a crazed killing-spree and that one day, the whole world would know her name. Not a single soul had ever known about her unsung adoration for the Satanic cause, born amidst a haze of esoteric hypnosis and occult kinks, but from that moment onwards she was devoted to the Service of Evil; she had always been – The Unsung Satanist.

  Chapter 75

  The throne & the cauldron

  You never know what goes on, behind closed doors…

  The address led them to an abandoned pub, formerly known as The Old Clyde Inn, it was all boarded-up now and covered in graffiti. From the outside, you’d never know what kind of debauchery went on inside, for it was the actual work of The Devil’s spawn. This was the location where the killer dumped the bodies and the corpses were being used by The Order of the Black Chapter, offerings to Satan.

  They had intel on the ceremonies. A circle would be formed, each member would remove their cloak but keep their masks on, golden masks of creepy anonymity, and they would kneel before the body and the Grand Master’s throne, naked and faceless, and they would cut off a piece of the victim’s corpse and throw it into a large, black cauldron before renouncing the words: “Hail Satan!” It could be an ear, a cheek, or the scalp, but they were apparently encouraged to be as brutal as they cared to be, so a whole leg or arm could be sawn off, a head, and on one occasion a new member removed a brain with his bare hands.

  “Hail Satan!” The other members would chant the same, in unison, as the naked and bloodied members went to lay upon a silken bed. The next member would be invited to do the same and, in the end, they would all lay upon the same bed, a fleshy feast of sex, a free-for-all orgy, the only rule being that every female Satanist had to take turns in pleasuring the Grand Master as he sat at the throne and watched the orgy unfold. Each one had to be smeared heavily in blood around the face, neck and breasts as they performed their enthusiastic acts of oral sex at his Unholy Altar.

  That was cult-protocol.

  It was a dire and disgusting affair.

  Vile and evil.

  The caretaker’s body was there to be torn and dismembered and thrown into the cauldron. The newest member was a man named James, and the standard method of recruitment had been used, a note with a telephone number placed in the inside cover of a book, in the occult section of a Waterstones book shop in the city centre. It was always the same book, one of sexual witchcraft, erotic black magic and human sacrifice, a book that no God-f
earing Christian would go anywhere close to in a million years. If the candidate made the call, he or she would meet with the Master, promises would be made, of boundless sex orgies, and the quenching of an eternal thirst; a blood thirst.

  The new candidate never made it into the ceremonial quarters. Jimmy had been there, hidden in the back-room as he removed his clothes. He put a gun to the man’s head and he was covertly extracted from the site. Jimmy was now the man in the black cloak, masked, and he was armed with a semi-automatic.

  He entered the room and was awe-struck by the atmosphere of the place.

  Cold in an inexplicable way.

  There were smells of death and blood that he’d never encountered before.

  There was a heavy presence in the room; evil was in that room.

  As he was invited up to the plate, he stood before the dead body, and he looked down at it with quiet disgust. It was a pale-bluish-grey, mottled with open-wounds, gashed, and porous scum had settled around the open scars. The flesh looked soft and cold, almost slippery. The face looked frozen, a pained expression on the dead man’s face, his mouth open, in a silent scream.

  Jimmy took it all in and tried his best not to gag.

  “Remove your clothes, kneel down, and take a piece of this blind follower to a false God,” the Master spoke, the silence of the coven eerie and chill.

  The Swede went down on one knee and looked at the pale, dead face of the screaming corpse, too close for comfort. He put a hand inside the cloak, they expected him to retrieve a cutting utensil of some sort, but he didn’t. He stood up abruptly and drew his pistol, aiming it at the throne-keeper’s chest at point-blank range. “The game’s up, ya’ bastard, you evil cunts are all getting the bloody jail,” he growled menacingly at the Master as members of The Order fumbled in a panicked attempt to flee; knowing that their reign of evil was over.

  One way in, one way out...

  An arresting team was in position.

  Chapter 76

  The smugness of evil

  It is true, and we are all guilty of it, that we see the woods yet are blind to the trees…

  He had long black hair that was tied back in a ponytail, dark and squinting little eyes that were almost rodent-like, and a forehead that was abnormally square-set and wide. He looked like a guy who was into some weird shit, basically, and the smugness on his face made Mac want to slap him hard across the jaw. The Grand Master was an arrogant bastard, that much was true, but the reality of his predicament was inescapable.

  “We found a freezer on the premises, it was piled high with human limbs, wrapped in cellophane, and two human heads. Those two heads had belonged to members of the Church that were recently murdered by a Glasgow serial killer. What were you planning to do with all those human parts?”

  “Dispose of them, eat them, whatever.”

  “Whatever? Are you some sort of cannibal?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Are you the killer?”

  “No.”

  “So, you just invite your chums for a dress-up party, dismember a few bodies and when you’re done having sex you eat what’s left of the corpses for dinner?”

  “We don’t play games, Inspector, what we do is of major symbolic significance and is the mere beginning of a universal awakening – a Satanic revolution. We nominated an individual who had a particular skill-set, one who was capable enough and competent enough to feed our ceremonial doings with members of the enemy-set.”

  “Enemy-set?”

  “Christians, hypocrites, delusional morons, pillars of Scottish society…you know the type, surely?”

  “None of them deserved to die, innocent children for God sake, those two kids hadn’t done any harm to anybody, they didn’t have to get caught up in all this, and they didn’t deserve to die…”

  “That was not planned or endorsed by me, I have to say, but the killer I assume had reasons for it, I’m sure of it, and it is not for me to argue against the reasoning of a willing hunter. Do what thou wilt…”

  “Shall be the whole of the law…”

  “Ah, Inspector, so you do know something of the esoteric and the occult…I find this endearing…”

  “I know that people like you need some form of mumbo-jumbo to justify your evil acts.”

  He smirked.

  “And, that is what you are, plain evil.”

  “I agree with you whole-heartedly, I am evil, as we all are evil to some extent. Are we not?”

  No response.

  “But, Inspector, I have to tell you that we don’t need justification for what we do. It is justified by the lies and the crimes and the great scandals. What a serial killer does is no different, actually, to what governments do on a major scale. Give a man a uniform and he’s a hero for killing women and children. But, act alone, as a lone wolf, an outsider, and you may prepare to be branded as evil. You want people to fear whatever is outside of government control, yet you want the same fearful lambs to praise those who kill for God, Queen and country? It is so hypocritical and pathetic…”

  “Well, it’s a fascinating hypothesis, I’m sure. However, the reality is, the game is up for you as it will soon be for your occult killing-machine. So, you have two options, you can co-operate and reveal the killer’s identity, or you can remain silent and bathe in your own stupid arrogance…”

  “Inspector, I don’t have to tell you anything…”

  “You won’t be so smug in jail, Son, I can assure you of that. People in Barlinnie, see, they really don’t like freaks like you. Life is going to be very difficult for you in there.”

  The Satanist raised his chin with self-righteousness. “I didn’t do anything, I didn’t kill those people, so you can’t send me to prison! I was merely a point of butchery and disposal. The man who disposed of the trash.”

  “A point of disposal, chopping them up and brewing them in a witch’s cauldron, turning them into a Sunday stew before you and the gang celebrate by having an explicit orgy? Oh, the Judge and Jury will just love it, I can assure you. If you think you are an innocent party here then you’re clearly more delusional than I thought.”

  The cult leader twisted his face in yet another gesture of defiant smugness.

  “I can assure you, nobody will be sympathetic to your Devil-worshiping cause, your fascinating claims to ignorance and justifiable reasons to kill innocents. If you co-operate, on the other hand, help us bring in the killer, we can make sure that you get the best chance at staying out of prison, or, at the very least, getting a reduced jail sentence…”

  He smiled again, ever so defiant.

  “Tell me who he is, The Unsung Satanist, tell me now!”

  Now the Grand Master erupted with laughter. “You really don’t have a clue, do you!?”

  The Inspector frowned and raised an eyebrow.

  “The killer is not a he, Inspector, the killer is a she.”

  Chapter 77

  A face emerges from a bleak shadow

  And the question will always be asked, by every wise man: How could I have been such a fool?

  “What is it Jimmy, it better be good…”

  “I think I know who the killer is.”

  “We had it all wrong, the killer isn’t a man, it’s a woman.”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, I think I know who she is…”

  “Who…?”

  “I think you better take a seat and pour yourself a stiff drink.”

  “Oh, bloody hell, just blurt it out, will you?”

  “It’s Siobhan, Boss, she’s the killer.”

  “Uch’, away n’ give yourself peace lad, don’t be wasting my bloody time…”

  “She has this room Mac, in her apartment, it’s kind of a shrine, dedicated to a whole range of serial killers such as John Moffat, who she calls ‘The Ash Man’, and Richard Ramirez, the American Satanic serial killer. She has things that I believe belonged to Moffat, pornographic pho
tographs, a blood-stained hammer, knives coated with blood that he used to stab the women that he killed. Also, bits of jewellery and underwear, bras and panties, stuff that Moffat would have taken from his victims and kept as souvenirs. It’s really fucking weird, Boss, it’s not normal.”

  “She was the first one on site when they raided Moffat’s residence, she had access to it all, she could have taken anything, but why would she keep evidence for herself?”

  “There is other stuff there, relating to the occult and the teachings of Alesteir Crowley, photographs of Satanic ceremonies and sex orgies, animals being sacrificed, people with weird masks with horns and shit like that. I stumbled across the room one night by accident, I wasn’t snoopin’ Boss, I swear…”

  “Aleister Crowley, the most wicked man to ever walk this fine earth…”

  “Aye, that cunt.”

  “Wait a wee minute, what were you doing up in her flat in the middle night?”

  “Oh, c’mon Boss, yer’ no stupid…”

  “Naw, Son, I’m no stupid. I know a scallywag when I see one, you’ve been pumping her, haven’t you?”

  “I was, Boss, aye…” Jimmy huffed and bowed his head.

  “Oh, that’s all, is it? You better not have got her pregnant, Jimmy…”

  “Boss, you’re missing the big bloody picture here, would you listen to what I’m telling you? Siobhan – I think she is the killer. At first, I thought it was her way of engaging with the case, you know, immersing it all into her head-space n’ all that. You know? Trying to understand it, do all the research, take it to a whole new level. I’m sure there are cops that do that kind of thing, I saw it on an American FBI show once, they embrace the eccentricity of investigative work, do things their own way, mavericks and all that. Anyway, it’s more than that with Siobhan, it’s an obsession, she’s obsessed with The Devil, and she has a pentagram tattooed on her arse.”