by Graham Smith
‘What’s the cellar like?’
‘It’s a cellar of a house that’s falling down.’ Again his head shook. ‘It’s not what you’d call the safest place. Looks like the ceiling could collapse at any moment.’ He pointed at Dr Hewson who was loitering amidst a cloud of vape smoke. ‘He’s itching to get in, but until we can get the fire brigade to put some props in there, the site has been closed off.’
‘Nobody is stopping me.’ O’Dowd reached into the back of the CSI van and grabbed an oversuit. ‘You coming, Beth?’
Beth was already reaching for an oversuit of her own.
The place may be a little unsafe, but the owner had got in and out unscathed, and so had whoever had left the bodies. The chances of a collapse when they were in there would surely be minimal.
Thirty-Three
Beth followed O’Dowd along the footpads laid by the CSI team as they made their way to the cellar. Either side of them, knee-high nettles brushed against their trousers looking for bare flesh to sting.
The nettles dwindled as they made their way into the house, which, despite its name, Beth couldn’t think of as a castle without an encircling wall complete with crenelated battlements. In a far corner there was a tree stump whose top showed bright yellow, indicating the recent attentions of a chainsaw. Large areas of the floor were covered with debris that had fallen from the wall tops and every one of the walls featured the pink sandstone used to construct the house. Regular holes cut into the walls marked where floor joists had been positioned and there were empty blackened pockets which had once been fireplaces.
Unlike Arthuret Hall, Highstead Castle didn’t carry so much as a hint of eeriness. It was tranquil, benign and seemingly innocent. But while the house couldn’t assume guilt, there was no question that someone was responsible for the bodies that lay in its cellar.
The footpads led to a doorway in a wall where a staircase stretched down to blackness and then stopped. O’Dowd’s torch flashed across the rubble and weed-strewn steps. ‘Bloody cowards. When we leave here, remind me to let that bunch of CSI chickens know a pair of girls had more guts than them.’
Beth didn’t answer. Instead she pointed her torch at the stairs and picked her way down carefully after the DI. Cobwebs lined the corners between wall and ceiling, and there were large patches where the plaster of the cellar’s ceiling had fallen away to expose the timber laths. There was scurrying as rodents retreated from the invasion of their domain. The air contained mould and decay and hung with a stench that was dark and malevolent.
As Beth reached the wall that ran to her right at the bottom of the stairs, she realised that despite the fact she was breathing only through her mouth, the smell was pushing insistently up her nose. In the absence of VapoRub, she pulled a packet of mints from her pocket and stuffed one up each nostril.
O’Dowd’s torch began a slow anticlockwise sweep of the cellar. When it got to ten o’clock it picked out a body. A naked man.
Further round it swept, nine, eight o’clock, more than once it picked out a pair of eyes or a long tail, and then at seven, it picked out another naked form. This time it was a woman.
Together the two police officers stood at the foot of the stairs – O’Dowd had insisted they go no further so as to minimise their contamination of evidence – and shone their torches over the woman’s body.
What Beth saw would live with her forever. The lower parts of the woman’s legs were eaten away to the point of being skeletal, her arms hung from the ties binding her to the wall and while they couldn’t see her face to judge her age there was a firmness to her form that suggested youth.
When their torches played over her back, Beth’s gasp beat O’Dowd’s by the merest fraction of a second. A pair of colourful wings were fixed there. To Beth they looked to have belonged to a parrot or some other exotic bird. Like the ones on Angus Keane’s back, the wings were folded neatly against the body. There were areas on the woman’s shoulders and neck which showed where rodents had climbed up and, having found a perch, gorged upon her bare flesh.
Something at the edge of the torch’s beam caught Beth’s eye and made her redirect her aim.
‘Ma’am, do you see what I see?’
‘If you mean the scorched effect on the laths by her head, then yes, I see it. Let’s have a look at the guy now.’
Beth’s torch found him first. He was tied to hooks, which she guessed once held cuts of meat or game birds. His arms were spread wide and there was not a stitch of clothing on him apart from laceless boots on his feet.
It wasn’t the most striking thing about him though. That was the pink flesh which remained unsullied by decay. A number of bite marks covered his body, but unlike the woman in the opposite corner, at no point could Beth see bone.
Her torch crept up his body, past his genitals and over his taut stomach and hairy chest until it showed his face. His mouth was a blackened pit, with burn-blistered lips that had contracted back to expose every tooth in his mouth.
O’Dowd’s torch then traced the outline of his body and, just as Beth expected, the tip of a wing protruded from his back. This wing bore no vibrant colours, instead it was made up of speckled brown shades designed to camouflage its owner rather than attract a mate.
Holding her torch away from her body, Beth gave the cellar another scan. As much as she wanted to leave and breathe fresh air again, there was something nagging at the back of her mind and she knew it was connected with a detail she’d just seen in the cellar.
The foot of the walls gave her no clue, so she lifted her torch and traced round the edge of the ceiling. Nothing. She zig-zagged the beam across the floor and still found nothing. Exasperated, she eased the torch around the room at waist height. When the beam returned to its original twelve o’clock position, she found what she was looking for.
There was a door handle protruding from the wall on their right.
Thirty-Four
Beth nudged O’Dowd, eliciting a shriek and a curse, as she drew the DI’s attention to where her torch was shining on the ground beside the door. There was a quarter circle where the door had scuffed its way through the detritus on the floor of the cellar when swung open.
‘I hope to God I’m wrong, ma’am, but something tells me there’s more than just these two bodies down here.’
O’Dowd gave a hissed sigh as her answer.
Beth eased past the DI and, with her torch pointing down, picked her way to the door. It was half rotted in its frame. She cast a look at O’Dowd, who’d followed, for permission, and once she’d seen the curt nod, wound her fingers around the handle.
When she swung the door to open it, it came free in her hands and toppled towards her. O’Dowd’s shoulder was the first thing it hit before pivoting towards Beth and thwacking rotten timber into her forehead.
‘Careful!’
There was more than admonishment in the DI’s voice. Fear and disgust added layers, as did excitement.
Beth understood the emotions. She felt them too. Her pulse was racing at the horrifying thrill of finding dead bodies in such a derelict environment. The idea of breathing your last in such a place terrified her, but it was counteracted by the charge of excitement that came from the knowledge she was exploring a killer’s stomping ground. Tracing his footsteps and looking for clues which would help her catch him.
With the door leaning against a wall, she flashed her torch into the opening. The remnants of a partition crossed the room and disappeared into blackness.
She inched forward, sliding her feet so she didn’t trip over anything. As they bumped against something, her torch picked out a skeletal hand ahead.
Beth felt hot breath on her neck as O’Dowd crowded into her back.
‘C’mon, move forward so I can get a decent look.’
A push on her back caused Beth to stumble forward before she could lift her foot over whatever it had butted up against.
She staggered three paces before gravity won its battle with posture. As s
he fell, Beth tumbled into the base of the partition. She had just enough time to duck her head into her shoulders so her face wasn’t the first point of contact. She dropped the torch as her hands reached out to break her fall.
Even over her pained yelp, she heard the splintering of timber, and felt the whoosh of air caused by sudden movement and the pitter-pattering that forewarned an avalanche. She tried to stand so she could make a run for it, but she was trapped beneath what she guessed was the partition.
Beth thrashed for a moment to no avail. As the splintering sounds increased in volume, she did her best to curl into a ball and wrapped her hands over her head.
A loud crack filled the air and there was a sudden thumping on her body as the ceiling fell in on her.
The air was knocked from her lungs, and as Beth gasped for oxygen she inhaled through her nose. The relief of getting a precious breath was tainted by the foulness of the room and its contents permeating the air.
Now she had to fight the gorge rising in her throat, as well as the oppressive weight pushing down on her body. There was no way she could allow herself to be sick while trapped.
Beth forced herself to swallow the bile so she could concentrate on breathing again. She couldn’t die in here. Wouldn’t die in here. She refused to accept the possibility that she would die in this rat-infested cellar. Too many others had and she wasn’t prepared to join them.
Something crashed against her head and she felt everything go fuzzy.
Thirty-Five
The man who used a false name sat in his favourite chair and sipped from the mug of coffee he’d made himself.
He needed time to reflect, to regroup his thoughts and plan for what lay ahead.
That the police had visited him wasn’t the greatest surprise. He’d expected it to happen at some point in his life. Just not so soon.
His plans wouldn’t change, there was no call for alarm, but there was a call for caution. Selecting Angus Keane for his project had been delightful, but he now realised it had brought him the wrong kind of attention. He’d wanted to make a statement, with Angus, he just wasn’t ready to be recognised as the speaker.
Still, he reasoned, the police had been on a fishing trip. Casting their bait onto his waters to see if he’d bite.
Like that was going to happen; he was too smart to be caught by a couple of women. One of them may have risen a few ranks, but if her age was anything to go by, she’d peaked at detective inspector. That meant she wasn’t clever enough to play the game. And if she couldn’t get herself up the police ranks, there was no way she was going to have the intelligence to catch him.
The younger one may be a different case. Her eyes held traces of wisdom and worldliness that belied her tender years. If they came to him again, she was the one who would bear the most watching.
The man’s fingers drummed on his knee as he thought of her. The disfiguring of her face made him interested. He knew her surname was Young but he didn’t recall her full name. His mind went back to her flashing the wallet with her badge at him. He visualised the moment and let his subconscious pull up the details. He’d only had a brief second to look at it and hadn’t paid much attention, but in a flash he recalled her Christian name.
He closed his eyes in rapture as he thought of how delicious it would be to involve a police officer in his project.
The more he thought about it, the more the idea grew on him. It would be dangerous, audacious and very relevant to his project, but most of all, more than anything else, if it went to plan and he got away with it, he’d demonstrate his superiority. Prove that he was the cleverest. The best. The bravest.
Too many people looked at him in ways he didn’t like. They were jealous of him. His money, his success in business. He’d show them all just how inferior they were to him. The snide looks would stop then. So would the whispering that he knew went on behind his back.
That Carleton Hall was police headquarters added an extra layer of deliciousness to the idea. To take someone from the police’s stronghold and transfer them to a grand house of his choosing, turn them into a tribute and display them would prove his worth.
What a message it would send.
More than anything else he’d done, or planned to do, using DC Young as part of his project would deliver the message of his superiority. He would show them all. Every last one of his doubters. They may not know of his role in it, but they would all know about his project. Each would marvel at the man who led the police on the merriest of dances. Wonder who it was.
In his own secretive way he’d achieve infamy, a modern-day Scarlet Pimpernel, although Jack the Ripper would be a more accurate allusion.
He’d broken cover with Angus Keane. Left the builder in a place where he was sure to be found. After that he’d retreated back to the shadows for his next kill. There was no telling when the victims at Highstead would be found, but that didn’t matter to him. So long as he knew they were there, the project could continue.
The venues where he housed his darlings were chosen with care. They made a statement, although he doubted that anyone was clever enough to understand it. He had the site for his next display already earmarked, and it, far more than Arthuret Hall, would announce his presence to the world.
No longer would he be the boy who cowered in a cellar where his dragon of a mother couldn’t find him.
Thirty-Six
Consciousness returned to Beth in a series of incremental stages. Her entire body ached, and when she teased her eyes open, there was nothing but blackness. A heavy weight pressed down on her body making it hard for her to move and tough to breathe. There was a muffled shout as someone called her name. She tried to shout in reply, but her mouth didn’t produce anything beyond a croak.
For a moment Beth struggled to identify where she was. Why she couldn’t move and why someone was shouting for her. She just wanted to wriggle herself comfortable, find somewhere she wasn’t crushed and didn’t have jagged things sticking into her.
Some of the weight shifted from her legs.
Again the voice shouted for her. ‘Beth? Are you okay? Please, Beth, answer me.’
The shouts were punctuated by crashing sounds as weights were lifted from her body and tossed away.
It sounded like O’Dowd’s voice. Why would she be trying to wake her?
‘Ma’am?’
‘Beth? Oh thank God you’re alive.’
Why wouldn’t she be alive?
It was when Beth drew a breath through her nose that her memory came back. The stench of death was a reminder like no other. She gagged and swallowed three times before she got control of herself.
Her breathing stabilised itself in the exact moment confusion became fear. She was trapped in a cellar with three dead bodies. O’Dowd was there and although she could feel an incremental lightening of the weight pinning her to the floor, it wasn’t happening anything like quick enough for Beth.
Around her was blackness, death and decay. She lay in filth and detritus among the droppings of mice, rats and other wild animals. Fear turned to panic. She thrashed, squirmed and wriggled to no avail. Thanks to O’Dowd’s efforts, her legs had some room to move but there was no space for her torso or arms to travel more than an inch before they met resistance.
A hand grabbed her ankle. Squeezed. Not hard, but there was enough pressure to offer comfort and support.
‘Keep still. I’ll get you out.’
‘Hurry. Please hurry.’
Another brief squeeze was followed by the sounds of more debris being lifted from her. Beth could feel a continual easing of the pressure on her body as O’Dowd doubled her exertions as she fought to free her. Unable to have any input with the rescue, Beth lay still and concentrated on taking steady breaths and keeping her eyes pressed shut.
Beth felt her legs come free, but she lay still in case she kicked her rescuer. There were grunts and curses flooding from O’Dowd until all of a sudden there was silence.
Some rubble was lift
ed from her head and she saw the flash of a torch beam against her eyelids. When it shifted she opened an eye and saw O’Dowd illuminating her own face.
The DI had blood running from a cut in her forehead and she was grubby, but there was relief in her eyes.
‘Beth, there’s a large beam that’s trapping you. It’s too big for me to lift by myself, which means I have two options.’ Even before she paused her sentence, Beth could see the hesitation on O’Dowd’s face. ‘I can go and get help. Or I can try to pull you out.’
‘Please, don’t leave me. I don’t want to be left alone, not in here.’
The words were spoken before Beth had given any thought to O’Dowd’s suggestions. There was no way she wanted to be alone down here. Not when she was surrounded by death.
Besides, how long would it take O’Dowd to persuade some of the men to come and rescue her? They may well refuse on the grounds of their own safety. It was a right they had. She and O’Dowd had taken a risk and it had backfired on them. They had to get themselves out of this. Beth wasn’t an arch feminist, but neither did she want to come across as the kind of helpless bimbo who was forever needing a man to rescue her.
‘Please, ma’am. Don’t leave me.’
‘Okay.’ O’Dowd lay down the torch so it was illuminating them. ‘I’m going to try and drag you out. Wriggle your body when you feel me pull. You ready?’
‘Yes.’
Beth held her body tense and got ready to follow O’Dowd’s instructions.
‘On three.’ She felt two hands wrap themselves around her right ankle. ‘One. Two. Three.’
On three, Beth drove her arms upwards to minimise her width and thrashed her body while trying not to wrench her foot from O’Dowd’s grip.
She felt herself slide about six inches before coming to a halt. As well as the distance travelled, she’d managed to roll herself from her left side onto her back. There were rocks and other things pressing into her back, but they were minor discomforts that were more than tolerable if it meant she’d soon be free.
