He ripped the head off the orange baby. ‘I didn’t take a bribe from Big Johnny Simpson. Talk to Professional Standards – they’re looking through every penny I’ve got. Yes: I cocked-up the crime scene, but I didn’t do it on purpose.’
‘Hmmm …’ She chewed in silence for bit.
A squall of wind rocked the car, rain buckshotting the roof, setting it ringing.
Mother devoured another baby. ‘They’re going to grab this case off us if they can.’
Of course they were.
‘Two victims mummified and a third brining, ready for smoking? That spells “serial killer” in eight-foot-tall flashing neon letters. There’ll be a media outcry, public panic, press briefings, idiots hanging about outside Divisional Headquarters doing serious pieces to camera …’ A yellow jelly baby lost its life. ‘They’ll want a superintendent running it.’
Callum wrote his name in the dashboard dust. ‘Yes, but a superintendent won’t want to get their hands dirty, will they? No, they’ll want someone else to do the actual police work, in case it all goes horribly wrong. Plausible deniability.’
‘Oh goody, a poisoned chalice. My favourite.’ She held the paper bag out again. ‘We’re fighting for this one, Callum. It’ll probably be the last chance Andy gets to put a killer away. I won’t let them take that away from him.’
‘We should run a dental records match on Glen Carmichael and his two mates. Just in case.’ He popped a green jelly baby in, feet first. ‘And Powel’s got a forensic psychologist down to consult on his severed feet, Dr McDonald. She was the one they brought in to work the Birthday Boy case? We could tap her for some Behavioural Evidence Analysis.’
‘What’s that when it’s at home?’
‘They’re not allowed to call it “profiling” because of the TV. Might help?’
‘Not if it’s Glen and his mates who’re the killers …’ A shrug. ‘But what the hell. We’ll get DNA and a facial reconstruction on the go too. I’ll fight with our esteemed masters about the budget later.’ She put the sweeties away. ‘Anything else?’
Callum wiped the dust from his fingertip onto his trousers. ‘When you dragged me out here, I thought you were going to fire me.’
‘Did you?’ A shrug. ‘I just fancied a jelly baby – they always taste funny in the mortuary. Like death.’
Sharp salty cheese, soft claggy bread, smooth silky butter, and the tangy vinegar crunch of Branston Pickle. Callum sat in the APT lounge and chewed.
Elaine had stuck another little note in with his sandwich. Today it was a lumpy drawing of a flat fish, with a speech balloon above its head: ‘YOU’RE MY SOLE MATE!’, with the subtitle, ‘BARRY THE FISH IS TERRIBLE AT PUNS’, and a lipstick kiss.
He smiled at Barry, then tucked him into his jacket pocket – ready to join the others when he got home.
A copy of Hey You! magazine lay on the coffee table, all shiny and shallow. Apparently some plastic-faced, talentless, Z-list nonentities were celebrating the first anniversary of the renewal of their wedding vows! Picture exclusive! Oh my God! How exciting!
No wonder people turned into serial killers.
Still, it was his own fault for finishing The Beginner’s Guide to Shoplifting that morning, instead of saving it for lunchtime. Could’ve had something decent to read instead of this.
He flipped the magazine open to a big photo spread of Mrs Plastic Face and her equally gormless-looking husband of eighteen months. Eighteen months married and they’d already reached the heady milestone of a vow-renewal anniversary.
Someone grunted their way down into the couch on the other side of the coffee table.
Callum took another bite. ‘According to this, she’s just signed a publishing deal: two million quid for four books.’
‘How is that fair?’ McAdams sighed. ‘A book deal for an idiot who can’t write her own name, / The public should know better, but they’ll buy it just the same, / The publishers will lap it up, to boost their bottom line, / And if they’ll publish crap like that, why won’t they publish mine?’
Callum flipped the page again. ‘Move over Pam Ayres, we have a new Poet Laureate.’
‘Shouldn’t you be doing something?’
‘I am. I’m eating the sandwich my pregnant girlfriend made me for lunch.’ He held up a finger. ‘And before you start: I’ve already got the DNA sent off from all three bodies, got Lucy to X-ray their heads for dental chart comparisons, contacted Dundee University’s facial reconstruction bods, asked the media department to send out “have you seen these men” posters for Glen Carmichael and his mates, and Dr Alice McDonald has agreed to pay us a visit as soon as she’s finished drafting her preliminary report on Powel’s severed feet.’ Another bite of cheesy pickly goodness. ‘So yes, right now I’m eating my lunch and reading about vacuous nonentities who spent more cash on a vow-renewal anniversary celebration than you or I will make in a year.’
‘Just because Mother’s softening on you, doesn’t mean I am, Constable. And for the record: summary narrative is the hallmark of a lazy writer.’
He turned the page. ‘Ooh, look here: it says she’s bringing out a line of perfumes, that’ll be nice, won’t it? Silicone Implants à la Botox, a fragrance for women.’
‘Fine.’ McAdams stood. ‘When you’ve finished your meagre repast, I want those dental records checked. And find out who they bought the flat from. Maybe he’s the one in the bath. God knows I’d happily kill the idiot who sold us our house.’
‘Sarge?’ Franklin poked her head around the door. ‘Sorry, but there’s a Dr McDonald in the observation room asking to see the team. Says she’s consulting?’
‘That’s me.’ Callum popped the last chunk of sandwich in his mouth and sooked his fingers clean. Flipped the magazine shut and stood. ‘Feel free to tag along, if you like.’
He sauntered out, past a frowning Franklin, and down the corridor into the observation suite. It was subdivided into booths by a series of half-height partitions, each area looking out over one of the dissecting room’s twelve cutting tables. The booths all had their own whiteboard, DVD recorder, collection of uncomfortable plastic chairs, and TV screen.
Dr McDonald was sitting cross-legged on the floor right in front of the TV, still wearing her pink scrubs and stripy top, elbows on her knees, hands on her cheeks – holding her head up. Like a little kid watching cartoons. In front of her, the screen had a top-down plan view of the cutting table, a wrinkled leathery body lying dead centre curled up on its side. Figures flickered and swam around it, moving impossibly quickly, lurching in and out of frame.
She’d swapped her mortuary-issue wellies for a pair of red high-tops, and added a pair of glasses to her ensemble. The fast-forward post mortem reflected in their lenses.
She looked up as Callum walked in. ‘I’ve watched it five times now.’
He waited, but nothing else was forthcoming. No babbling. No non sequiturs.
OK …
She unfolded her legs and stood. ‘I’ll need to see the crime scene.’
‘I can probably swing that.’
McAdams marched into the room, followed by Franklin. Still no sign of Mother.
A big smile and McAdams stuck his hand out for shaking. ‘Detective Sergeant McAdams, you must be Dr McDonald.’
She looked at the offered hand as if he’d grown a vast pale hairless spider at the end of his arm.
The awkward silence stretched.
He lowered his hand. Stuck it in his pocket instead. ‘This is DC Franklin.’
‘Before we start, here’s how this works,’ McDonald walked to the whiteboard and wrote ‘VICTIMOLOGY’ on it in red marker, ‘I give you a series of educated guesses, based on the information you give me. If I don’t know something I’ll mark it as an assumption and you have to take anything based on that with a whole carton of salt. Agreed?’
‘You’re going to profile our serial killer?’
‘OFFENDER BEHAVIOURAL INDICATORS’ went on the board next.
‘No, I’m going to give you educated guesses, remember?’
‘CRIME SCENE INDICATORS’
McAdams leaned back against the partition wall. ‘Go on then, guess away.’
‘PSYCHOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY / BOUNDARIES’
‘From what we know right now, our suspect is probably a goal-orientated killer. It’s possible preserving the victims turns them into some kind of fertility totem, but I don’t think he kills them for sexual release. He kills them so he can mummify their bodies. That’s his goal – it means something to him. What is the bigger question.’
‘I’ll settle for who.’
‘Statistically it’s going to be a white male, mid-twenties. He’ll have access to a facility for smoking meat, and or fish, and experience in using it. You don’t jump right into this kind of thing without practice.’
McAdams snapped his fingers at Callum. ‘I want a list of every smokehouse in a twenty … make it fifty-mile radius.’
Dick.
Callum made a note anyway. ‘What about Glen Carmichael, Brett Millar, and Ben Harrington? Any chance the three of them are killing as a team?’
Dr McDonald looked back at the TV, with its flickering ghosts. ‘There’s a chance, but it’s not very likely. Two of them, maybe – one dominant, one submissive – but three would be very unusual. It’s hard enough getting three men to agree on what pizza toppings to order, never mind how to select, kill, and preserve their victims.’
Fair enough.
She leaned in closer to the screen. ‘Our offender’s an artisan and an artist. This kind of work takes time, care, and skill. He’s probably unattached, lives alone where no one can interfere with his work. He’ll drive a big car, or a van – he needs to be able to transport the bodies.’
Franklin shook her head. ‘We found one of them in the boot of a wee Kia Picanto – small four-door hatchback. You don’t need that much space.’
‘Not when they’re mummified, but while they’re still alive? You need more room.’
And Franklin explodes: in three, two, one … But she didn’t. She just nodded.
‘His post-murder activities are highly ritualised too. Removing the organs and preserving them separately, then stitching them back into the body cavity.’ She wrapped the fingers of one hand into her hair, fiddling with the curls as her eyes narrowed and her voice dropped off to a murmur. ‘You don’t just mummify people for fun, do you, no you don’t, you do it because you want them to live on in the afterlife, you deify them …’ She let go of her hair and straightened. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some sort of religious upbringing.’ She pointed at the whiteboard, where ‘PSYCHOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY / BOUNDARIES’ was written. ‘I need to know where the victims came from before we can work out where he’s likely to live.’
Callum nodded. ‘We’re working on it.’
‘Also,’ McAdams took a marker from the shelf beneath the board and uncapped it, ‘we need to decide what we’re calling our boy. Can’t have a serial killer novel with an unnamed antagonist.’ He printed ‘IMHOTEP’ right in the middle. ‘Before the tabloid newspapers come up with something more lurid.’
‘Ah …’ Dr McDonald bit her top lip. ‘It’s a nice thought, I mean I know we’ve got to call him something, but “Imhotep” doesn’t actually work, does it, because Imhotep was Egyptian and Egyptian mummies are always preserved lying flat, and the curled body posture our suspect uses to pose his victims is more reminiscent of ancient Peruvian burial techniques, which results from a completely different cultural and religious background.’ She shrugged. ‘“Paddington” would probably be more accurate, you know, strictly speaking, because of the Peru connection, I think we should definitely call him Paddington, it just makes a lot more sense.’
‘And one final thing.’ McAdams smiled. ‘Aren’t you going to say it?’
Dr McDonald wrote ‘PADDINGTON’ on the board. ‘Aren’t I going to say what?’
‘It’s a cliché of the genre, but the profiler always says it at the end of the briefing.’
A frown. ‘Nope, you’ve lost me.’
‘He will kill again!’
‘Of course he will.’ McDonald stuck the lid back on the marker pen. ‘He’s a serial killer, it’s what he does.’
— Imhotep —
“Well, well, well,” the God Wolf growled, “if I’ve not just caught the tastiest little morsel in the whole dark world.”
“You can’t eat me!” gasped Imelda. “I’m made of bones and stones and glass and groans, and if you eat me you’ll get a terrible tummy ache and die!”
The God Wolf smiled at her. “I’ll take my chances,” he said. And swallowed Imelda whole.
R.M. Travis
Imelda’s Miraculous Dustbin (1999)
Stay away from ma b*tches, they ain’t down with no snitches,
I got me my riches, givin’ punks like you stitches!
Donny ‘$ick Dawg’ McRoberts
‘Livin’ Free Or Dyin’ Tryin’’
© Bob’s Speed Trap Records (2014)
17
The God-In-Waiting sways gently in the smoke, head down, hands making delicate figure-eight patterns as it swings. No movement of its own, just that final rattling breath, then peace and stillness. Grace and purity.
It’s time.
The racks beneath the God-In-Waiting are full of fish, hanging from their poles like the divinity above. He removes the poles, stacking them on the rack next door to cool. It’ll be a good batch of smokies. They always are when a new god comes into being. Must be the air.
Or maybe it’s the cleansed body, hanging above them as they smoke? Maybe it’s the juices that drip like tears from the body as it takes on its final form? Whatever it is, the result is excellent fish.
Next is the scraper – just a plank of wood fixed on the end of a broomstick – he uses it to push the smouldering embers away, heaping them up against the far wall. Then stands beneath the God-In-Waiting.
It’s beautiful …
Once Upon A Time
The man hanging on the wall has got nothing on but a kind of nappy, wrapped around his waist. His skin is a dark, rich wood, polished so much it glows against the cross. Someone’s made him a hat of barbed wire, which must hurt something horrible.
A wobbly voice fills the air, echoing back off the church’s stone walls. ‘Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth …’
It’s a pretty sound – even if the words are just made-up – floating above the pews, wrapping around the big wooden man. Maybe it makes him happier if people sing to him? He looks very sad.
Father’s over by the altar, talking to the priest man. Both of them dressed in black, like crows – though the priest man’s got on a kind of dress. Both are wearing those little white things around their necks. Dog collars. Both pretending to be something they’re not.
‘Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua. Hosanna in excelsis …’
The man’s been stuck to the cross with big metal nails, and there’s holes in his side. Maybe that was mice? There’s mice in Father’s house and they eat holes in everything. Scurrying about in the dark. Leaving their little black presents behind.
‘Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Hosanna in excelsis—’
‘NO! NO! DAMN IT, OLIVER!’ A man’s voice, not pretty and floaty, but hard and grating. ‘How many times? It’s pronounced, “ex-chel-cease”. We’re going to stay here and do it again and again until – you – get – it – right!’
Father looks up at the gallery that runs above the back six rows of pews, where the organ is. Then down at him. ‘Justin, thumb out of the mouth, eh champ?’ He smiles. ‘You’re a big boy now.’
Justin’s not his real name: it’s from Father’s favourite album, about a little boy who turns into a rabbit and has to save the world from the king of dead things. And Justin’s as good a name as any.
He takes his thumb out of his mouth and wipes it dry on his T-shirt. ‘Sorry, Father.’
‘That’s my boy.’ Then Father shakes hands with the priest man and wanders down the apse. Ruffles Justin’s hair. ‘Come on, slugger, time to go home.’ He turns and waves at the priest man as they leave the church.
‘Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth …’
Down the steps in the warm sunshine, one hand on Justin’s shoulder. Steering him to the car with its little Scottish flag fluttering on the end of the aerial. ‘In you get.’
Justin does what he’s told.
Gravel scrunches and crunches under the wheels as they leave the church grounds.
‘Did you hear the singing, Father? Wasn’t that—’
The slap is as hard as it is quick, snapping his head to the side, the sound like a gunshot going off.
‘Don’t you dare embarrass me like that again. Sucking on your thumb like a baby. That what you are? A baby?’
He blinks the tears back. Bites his lip. Lets the burning needles sink into his cheek. Don’t cry. Feed off the heat. Don’t cry. It’ll only make it worse.
‘You want to wear nappies and sit in your own filth again? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?’ Little flecks of spit settle against the dashboard. ‘ANSWER ME, DAMN YOU!’
Justin takes a deep breath.
Don’t cry.
Feel it burn. Own it.
He stares down at his hands, curled in his lap. ‘No, Father. Sorry, Father.’
‘Good boy.’ And just like that the storm passes, the clouds’ shadows slip away and Father smiles at him again. ‘Come on, why don’t we go get some ice cream? We can bring some back for Mummy, she’ll like that, won’t she?’
Justin nods, even though it’s not true. New Mummy doesn’t like anything. She just cries all the time.
‘And, slugger?’ Father ruffles his hair again, the fingers warm and hard where they dig into his scalp. ‘You stay away from church music, it’s nothing but lies. See these?’ He lets go of Justin and unhooks the white band from around his throat. Shakes it like a dead mouse. ‘They call them a “dog collar” for a reason. They choke you. There’s a chain that clips onto them, so you can go walkies. Because it’s all lies: the churches, the hymns, the bible, the whole God-bothering holier-than-thou, deviant filth-mongering lot of them. Lies and liars.’
Justin doesn’t move.
This can go one of two ways, and one of them ends with screaming and bruises and getting locked in the Naughty Cupboard – peeing blood for a week.
Father clicks on the car stereo, and the album picks up where it left off. A hissing of drums, then the man’s voice comes over the top, quiet as treacle. ‘You have to hide right here, right now, you have to stay so still, / Cos Justin, little rabbit boy, the night-time means you ill, / There’s monsters here, there’s monsters there, and they’re prowling through the gloom, / Stay still and oh so quiet, or these woods will be your tomb …’
Father squeezes his shoulder. ‘Come on, champ, let’s go get that ice cream.’
But not this time.
Now
He stares up at the God-In-Waiting. It’s not as beautiful as the wooden man on the cross, not yet, but it will be. It’ll be better. So much better than a dead thing carved from a dead tree, hanging in a dead building.
It’ll be a god …
He unhooks the rope from its cleat on the wall and takes the strain. Lowers the body, hand over hand, until it rests on the freshly cleared floor. Picks it up off the hot stone slabs – it isn’t hard, the cleansed remains weigh almost nothing. The weight of sin is gone, purged, purified.
The God-In-Waiting is pale and soft, but that will change.
Everything will.
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