Chapter Fifteen
Wade Street was a thickly shadowed curve of tall Victorian red-brick terraced houses, lined with parked cars and the odd ragged sapling. Rose parked a hundred yards from Brask’s address. Yes, she could have done it by the book. She could have forwarded Brask’s call to dispatch, but for her money, Rose thought she was a sight better than whichever pair of wet-behind-the-ears constables happened to respond to Brask’s call.
She was quicker by herself. Better by herself.
She grabbed her baton from the glovebox, jumped from her car and loped warily towards Brask’s place. About twenty yards short she spotted a figure in the shadows outside Brask’s address. The sight of it made her pause.
After a moment’s watching she let out a breath: it was Brask. Shivering on the pavement in pyjama bottoms and a short leather jacket. Alive. Safe.
He looked up at her approach.
‘Is he still in there?’ was Rose’s first question.
Brask nodded stiffly. It was a cold night, dank and bone-chilling.
‘I think so,’ he said. ‘He got in through a window – the noise woke me up. It sounded like he was coming up the stairs, but he must have ducked into one of the other bedrooms up there. I got down the stairs and found the hall window open. That’s when I called you.’
‘Is there a back way out?’
‘The kitchen door – or a jump out of the upstairs windows into the bushes if he was desperate … and there’s a skylight. Opens on to the roof.’
‘Okay.’ She moved out into the road, scrutinizing the narrow-fronted house as she went. Steep stairs. Lots of windows. Lots of outs. She flexed her legs and arms almost unconsciously. She jerked out her baton to its full length, took a limbering-up backhand swipe through the air.
Over her shoulder she said to Brask: ‘If you see him come out the front, yell.’ Then she quickly closed the distance to the house. The front door opened quietly, which was something: she’d been braced for an ear-splitting gothic creak – it was that kind of place, and that kind of night. The hall was dark and deserted. Rose closed the door softly behind her and paused at the foot of the stairs.
Waited. Listened.
A noise – the slightest of noises. Might’ve been a mouse under the boards. Might’ve been the next-door neighbour rolling over in bed.
Rose cocked her head, held her breath.
And again, a rustle, from inside this house, definitely, and from this floor – down the hall, one of the back rooms. There was a kitchen there, she already knew (her mind raced: knives, cleavers, flames – no place for a fight); and there was another room, adjoining the kitchen. Must be small, she thought, picturing the dimensions of the building. A study?
A small room meant not much space for throwing a punch or swinging a baseball bat.
And no stairs to be dangled over.
Rose edged down the hall. The door of a room on her right at the far end of the passageway was open.
Another noise.
If the intruder was the big Croat she’d seen at Katerina’s meadow and again at All Souls, this was going to be over very quickly. Maybe she’d stand a chance if it was Dmitry Rakić. Rakić wasn’t a big man, and besides, he’d be too smart to do a real number on a copper. Maybe.
She hesitated a yard from the door. The small noises went on, intermittently. They were the sounds of a person at work, hurried, perhaps, but careful. Meticulous even.
Whoever he was, he hadn’t heard her approach.
Rose moved forwards into the open doorway. Yes, a study: desk, office chair, dully gleaming PC screen, bookcases, a winged armchair – and a crouched figure in the furthest corner. Hidden by shadow. Was it Dmitry Rakić? The figure was roughly the right size and build, but she couldn’t say for sure.
Rose’s nose wrinkled involuntarily. A musty, familiar smell.
She lifted her baton and charged forwards.
The back of the man’s neck was her target. Aim carefully, hit hard: job done.
Never quite that easy, though.
At her first step the man whirled. He straightened like an uncoiled spring and raised an arm defensively. He was hooded, dressed in black.
Rose crashed through his attempt to block her and brought the baton whistling down. He writhed, grabbed – got lucky. His hand, broad and sinewy, closed around the shaft; he yanked it with astonishing strength. Rose’s thumb twisted backwards. Her baton fell with a clatter to the floorboards.
Shit.
She lunged for the man’s neck and tried to wrap an arm around his throat. He made a gurgling grunt, jerked his head forwards. With his hood pulled low and his chin forced down into her forearm, there was nothing to see of his face but a jutting white nose.
‘Police,’ Rose hissed.
The man squirmed and braced his feet against the bookcase. She said it again: ‘Police.’
He bit her. She felt his teeth tear the skin of her arm.
Rose swore savagely – then swore again as the man broke her grip, scrambled free and made for the door. She lunged after him, following the sound of his panting breath.
Her grasping hand closed on his sleeve. She hauled and felt his arm crash against the edge of the heavy dark-wood door. She renewed her grip and pushed, the arm bent backwards.
The man’s animal cry of agony ran through Rose like a knife blade. She felt his hand close in her hair and bunch into a fist. There was a moment of fierce pain as her scalp felt as if it was about to be ripped open – then the side of her forehead crashed into the weighty brass doorknob. The last thing she heard was the sound of his fleeing footsteps.
A dark blur in an off-white oval resolved itself into a face. A saw-edged baritone hum became a voice.
‘You’re all right,’ said Brask. ‘Inspector? You’re all right.’
She pressed a hand to her head. No blood – just a banging pain behind her eyes. She was getting used to that. The bright light in the room made her nauseous.
She sat up and looked around.
‘Where is he?’
‘He got out the back way.’ Brask put his hand on her shoulder. ‘You were out cold. Take it easy.’
‘Did you chase him? Did you see him?’
Brask gave her a look.
‘I was a little more concerned about the police officer lying unconscious on my study carpet.’
Rose shook her head. Civilians.
‘Come on. Let’s get you on to the chair. Easy now.’ He took her elbow and helped her to her feet. The room spun gently.
‘Oof.’
‘I know. You must’ve taken quite a whack, Inspector. We ought to get you to a hospital.’
‘How long was I out?’
‘Can’t have been long.’
‘Then I’ll be fine. No hospital.’ Rose hated hospitals. She’d hated them since she was five years old.
‘But you –’
‘No hospital. What happened?’
‘I heard a bang, came running. The back door was still swinging. A minute, not much more.’
She sighed. Tried to think past the ache in her head.
In a voice heavy with meaning, Brask added: ‘He left something.’
Rose looked up and followed the professor’s gaze to the wall behind her.
It wasn’t quite like the others. It was a thing of bones, but elongated, more like a crude figure than a cage, and it was dressed with feathers, black feathers – a crow’s or rook’s maybe. Again the bones were greased and held in place by leather thongs.
It lay on a shelf of the bookcase. Oil had pooled on the fine-grained wood.
‘Any significance to these books?’ Rose asked, squinting at the embossed spines.
‘Not that I can figure. They’re not in any order – I haven’t gotten around to arranging my books properly since I moved in. Besides, I don’t think he meant to leave it there – you interrupted him, remember.’
‘Right. He was probably planning to string it up like before.’
‘I can’t say I like his idea of interior decoration. It’s a heck of a thing.’
‘Uh-huh.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘Look, Professor. It’s time to start taking this seriously. Whatever this is supposed to mean – it’s a threat. You’ve been beaten up; now your house has been broken into. The bottom line is you’re not safe. I’m going to put a security detail on you.’
Brask leaned on his desk, spread his hands.
‘How can I let you do that? I know how it is, Inspector – you’re way underfunded, stretched too thin as it is. You just don’t have the resources. How can I justify you going out of your way to protect me when the maniac who killed Katerina is still out there?’
Rose gave him a calculating look.
‘We have a watch on Dmitry Rakić,’ she said levelly.
‘Yeah? What about his goons?’ Brask asked, pointing to the artefact of feathers and bones. The professor shook his head slowly. ‘Anyway, I heard the news reports. I know about the second killing, that poor farmer.’ He caught Rose’s eye and held it. ‘It’s not Rakić, is it? I mean, I know the guy’s a psycho, a real nut, but …’
‘We’re looking at all the angles,’ she said. Carefully – feeling the world lurch – she got to her feet. ‘Come on. We’re getting you out of here.’
Brask looked surprised.
‘It’s a little late for a hotel.’
‘You can stay at mine, on the sofa.’ She raised a hand to forestall Brask’s reply. ‘No arguing, Professor. Getting yourself killed won’t help us find this guy. I want you out of harm’s way. Go and get dressed.’
On the doorstep, heading out, Rose stumbled, caught herself, gripped the door frame. Took a long, steadying breath. Saw Brask watching her with concern.
She threw him her car keys.
‘You’d better drive,’ she said.
Brask fixed a pot of strong coffee while Rose moved around the small flat, picking up discarded clothes, shifting stacks of binders and papers, tidying away Chinese takeaway cartons, empty mugs, unwashed plates. It felt like she was hardly ever here … how the hell had she managed to get the place in such a mess?
‘Don’t have many guests,’ she muttered apologetically. Also, she thought, I’m a slob.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Brask handed her a pungently steaming cup. ‘You have a lot of more important things to worry about. You’ve had a heck of a time lately, Inspector.’
Don’t I know it, Rose thought. Her thumping head and sore limbs reminded her of it every time she moved.
‘Listen,’ she said, sinking into the spare chair, ‘I’m going to call you Matt, and you’re going to call me Lauren. I’m too bloody tired for anything else.’
Brask smiled: ‘Sure.’
She sipped the potent coffee. Closed her eyes for a moment, let the world settle into place. But it wouldn’t quite settle right. How could it?
A late-night interview with a victim’s sister. Two weird bone sculptures. A break-in and a fight. Just another day on the Thames Valley beat, she thought wryly. It didn’t matter how tired she was, she wasn’t going to get much sleep tonight. Police work could do that to you: leave you utterly exhausted but at the same time buzzing, wired, keyed-up.
She glanced at Brask. He was staring into space – looked almost as knackered as she felt.
‘What do you know about the murder of David Norfolk?’ she asked.
The professor blew out a breath, rubbed at his brow.
‘Not much. Only what I read in the papers. A family man, right? A farmer. Worked with charities. Seemed like a good guy.’ He looked at Rose searchingly. ‘The reports said he’d been – mutilated?’ A pause. ‘Was it … was it like Katerina?’
Brask’s a part of this now, Rose thought. He’s involved, deeply involved – and that means he’s here to stay.
This was a guy who committed to his causes, she knew. A fleeting thought struck her: it must have taken something serious, something big, to make him leave the priesthood. From what she’d seen of the professor she didn’t think it was in Brask’s character to give up.
But that was a conversation for another time.
‘Can I tell you,’ she said slowly, ‘what was done to David Norfolk?’
Brask set down his coffee cup. Sat forwards. Nodded.
‘Go ahead,’ he said.
She tried not to leave anything out, tried to remember every detail of that terrible scene in the birch wood. The thick iron nail in the grey bark. The bolt of hessian that fluttered in the breeze. The nightmarish robe of skin. And the body – the dark-red, blood-red body of the farmer, flayed cruelly bare, frozen in unimaginable anguish.
Brask listened carefully, grimly expressionless.
When she was done – finished, spent, empty – Rose prompted: ‘So – what do you think?’ She thought of the grim medieval images of poor St Catherine. ‘Do you know what it might mean? The scenes are so elaborate. There must be a reason the killer’s going to so much trouble. What’s the message meant to be? What’s he trying to do?’
Instead of responding, the professor reached for Rose’s laptop, which was open on the coffee table. With his jaw set, he tapped in a search term. Spun the laptop to show Rose the screen.
She flinched. Couldn’t help it.
The screen was filled with image after image of men bound, stripped and having the skin cut from their flesh.
‘The martyrdom of St Bartholomew,’ Brask said. ‘One of the great themes in medieval art.’
Rose scrolled slowly through the pictures.
‘Maybe our man fancies himself as an artist,’ she murmured. A few names she’d heard of were showing up on screen – Michelangelo, Bronzino – along with a lot more she hadn’t. The paintings were visceral, powerful, grotesque.
‘Do you want to know the story?’
Rose grimaced. ‘No. But tell me anyway.’
‘Bartholomew was one of Christ’s Apostles – we also know him as Nathaniel. We don’t know a lot about him, but according to tradition he travelled widely in the east: Persia, Mesopotamia, maybe even India.
‘He’s said to have finished up in the kingdom of Armenia, on the Black Sea. He converted the Armenian king to Christianity and destroyed all the idols in the temple. The king’s brother, in a fury, had him seized, beaten and –’ he made a weary gesture towards the images on the screen – ‘executed.’
‘By being skinned alive?’
‘Uh-huh. Actually there’s quite a tradition of flaying as a punishment in that region. In Mesopotamia, eight hundred years before Christ, rebel leaders captured by the emperor were often skinned alive. And if you know your Greek mythology –’
‘I don’t.’
‘– then you’ll remember it features there, too. Apollo flayed the satyr Marsyas for daring to challenge him. There are dozens more examples. Everywhere from medieval France to Aztec folklore.’
‘Christ. What a way to die.’
‘Quite a martyrdom,’ Brask agreed.
Rose looked at him.
‘I think you’re going to have to talk me through that, Matt,’ she said. ‘Martyrdom – dying horribly for a good cause, right?’
Brask shrugged, nodded.
‘Kind of. I can only give you the Catholic take on it. The ancient martyrs are hugely venerated within the Church. These were the guys who, in the first centuries after Christ’s death, endured all kinds of persecution – in the Roman Empire and elsewhere – for their faith. We’re talking around two hundred and fifty years of victimization and torture.’
‘But the idea is that martyrdom gets you fast-tracked to heaven?’
‘It’s – complicated.’ Brask grinned. ‘Everything’s complicated in the Catholic Church. But yeah – a person who is designated a martyr is considered to have been accepted into heaven.’
‘So it’s not all bad,’ Rose remarked drily.
‘That’s one way of looking at it.’
They both stared at the screen. A dozen despairing faces stared back at them.
An hour later the coffee pot stood empty and Rose and Brask were side by side at the kitchen table, leafing through the files sent over by Interpol.
You’re in deep now, Professor Brask, she’d thought as she’d dug out the folder from her briefcase. No going back.
These were the old cases that bore a resemblance to Katerina’s murder: major mutilations, pseudo-religious imagery, bone extraction. She’d asked for a broad sweep and the Interpol researchers had obliged. The file was a horror movie.
Rose thought – no, knew – she’d got used to it, grown hardened to violence and bloodshed and death over her years on the force. But this was something else. These crimes populated the nightmarish outer fringe of what humanity was capable of. They represented the kind of horrors that were well outside her scope of experience – or at least they had been, until some monster delivered them right to her doorstep.
The crime-scene photos showed limbs hacked away. Organs cut out. Faces and genitals mutilated. Victims sawn open like joints of meat prepared for cooking.
Almost all women, Rose noted bitterly.
At her side, Brask had grown pale, his cheeks hollower, his brow creased – but he worked on; he was on to something, he reckoned. The fates of the martyrs, the executions of the early Church. There were some resemblances here, he’d said – ‘Echoes, tributes, homages, call it what you like.’
‘We’d call them copycat killings,’ Rose said.
‘Look here.’ Brask had pulled out three files from the pile he’d set aside. ‘From north-east France, back in 2005. Cold cases. Horrific stuff – but kind of familiar.’
His voice was heavy with meaning; Rose didn’t quite see why. She swiftly scanned the printouts.
‘I don’t see it,’ she said. She tapped the top sheet with her pen. ‘This woman was cut into pieces, completely dismembered. That’s not how our man works.’ So far.
‘They all were. Three victims. No’ – he moved another page on to the pile – ‘make that four. All cut into a dozen pieces. Not our guy’s MO at all, I know – and the lab in Rheims got nothing from examining the body parts.’ He looked at Rose. ‘But I think I know why. Look here.’
He fished a sheet of photographs from the pile. Rose bent over and stared at them. Black-and-white crime-scene photos. She’d looked at them once already: twelve pieces of a human body, twelve lumps of neatly butchered meat, laid out on a stone-flagged floor. Police tags and tapes marked the distances and angles.
She was no good at guessing games.
‘What am I supposed to be seeing?’
‘There’s no reason you should see it – no reason anyone should, unless they knew what they were looking for.’
Rose turned to Brask. Unless they thought like a psychopath.
‘So what is it?’
Brask angled the sheet of pictures.
‘It isn’t easy to see, with the camera position where it is – but there’s a pattern here. Look. Imagine the body parts are points on a chart.’
‘Join the dots, you mean?’
‘If you like.’ He traced a fingertip across one of the photographs. ‘From here – to here – to here –’
‘Matt, for God’s sake –’
‘– to here – to here … Do you see?’
She was about to say We’re wasting our bloody time here or This is getting us nowhere or I could be doing some real police work right now, Professor –
– when she saw it.
A figure. A human body, mapped out in body parts like a constellation drawn in stars. Arms outstretched.
‘What the hell?’
‘Art.’ Brask said the word sharply, ironically. ‘I know it, I know this shape, this figure. The arms held out like that, the tilt of the head, the position of the legs.’ He shook his head, looked at Rose. ‘It’s St Peter – St Peter, the father of the Church, who was crucified upside down because he declared himself unworthy of suffering the same punishment as Christ.’
Rose was sceptical. She squinted at the grotesque outline in the pictures.
‘How can you possibly know that? It could be anyone.’
‘Caravaggio,’ Brask said stonily. ‘I’ve looked at the painting a million times. It’s Caravaggio’s Crucifixion of St Peter. It’s one of my favourite Renaissance pieces. Or used to be.’
Rose had been leafing through the autopsy reports on the four victims. Now her mouth went dry.
‘Matt.’
‘And in this one the outline suggests the dying pose of St Paul, in the nineteenth-century painting by –’
‘Matt. Look. Look here – and here – and here –’
A portion of bone had been removed cleanly from the victim’s forearm … The body showed clear signs of a recent surgical operation to remove the first bone of the left thumb … The victim was missing a portion of vertebra …
The wording was different in each report but to Rose the meaning was plain.
To Brask, too.
‘This can’t be coincidence,’ he said. ‘And did you take note of the causes of death? Stoning. Burning alive. These aren’t twenty-first-century homicides, Lauren.’ He looked at her gravely. ‘These are martyrs’ deaths.’
But Rose had stopped listening. She was staring at the first page of the first file – the crime report, the call log from when the first grisly mosaic had been found laid out on the floor of a Saint-Dizier basement.
The date-stamp in stark black type: 4 October.
‘Katerina was found,’ she breathed, ‘in the early hours of the fourth of October.’ She snatched the second file from Brask’s hand, tore through to the relevant page. Her pulse thundered in her temples.
‘Lauren, what the –’
‘Tenth of October.’ She let the file drop, looked at Brask. ‘The body of David Norfolk was found on the tenth.’
Brask’s jaw dropped as he reached the same conclusion Rose had just come to. She was already reaching for the third file. Whatever the date on it was, Rose thought desperately, it was more than a clue, now.
It was a deadline.