Soul Seeker (31 page)

Like all policemen, Smillie hated having to give the bad news, and he could have passed the task on to Frobisher, except that Frobisher was a hundred metres away doing exactly the same thing to a different grieving, devastated family. Smillie thought it important that the relatives be given the bad news – he found himself laughing inside at his use of the euphemism ‘bad news' by a senior detective; the ‘bad news' that all dreaded, that all had probably imagined might come to them at some time or other, that all had assumed never would come. He did not take that lightly, had a kernel of humanity – one that was deeply hidden lest it break forth and ruin his carefully crafted image of cold, mirthless sod – and was still proud to appreciate that he was in the job to serve, not just to ‘catch'. He knew that Beverley and Braxton and all the rest would be astonished to find that he gave sanctity to these thoughts – Frobisher might not, for Frobisher had been with him for six years and had been through much with him – but this did not bother him, indeed it made him feel secure and safe; he was a member of the crowd, one of the anonymous, indistinguishable many.

Yet that did not make it any easier as he sat in that kitchen and watched Antonia Barclay clutch her husband so tightly it might have been that she wanted to squeeze him out of life, even squeeze him out of existence itself. Her keening was dreadful, made worse because it was an old woman's voice, bearing the grief of being both a grandmother and a mother, trembling with both anguish and age. He could not see her face but he could see her husband's and could see on it stoicism undermined by the tears that trickled down amongst the fine, grey hairs of his stubble, could hear the soft comforting noises that meant both nothing and everything, as he comforted her. Next to him, the large, ugly priest who had been introduced to him as Marcus reached across, a hand on each of them, his face contorted with grief and compassion.

It was a scene he had been forced to witness too many times before, would have to witness many times to come, and no amount of repetition would inure him to it; indeed, repetition seemed to sensitize him to it, and he briefly wondered if his insistence on performing this sorry duty implied some sort of masochistic, or perhaps voyeuristic, streak within him.

He said in a gentle voice, ‘Perhaps we should ask your GP to call, Dr Barclay.'

Andrew's eyes flicked up to him but he didn't break off his low, nonsensical comforting. The priest said, ‘It's Dr Llewellyn, from Newent, I believe.'

Smillie looked across the kitchen table at the fifth member of the cast, a female police officer he did not know very well. He said under his breath, ‘See to it. Get him here now.'

She hurried outside to comply.

The glimmer had become dazzling, almost incandescent in her head; it blotted out – no, Lancefield realized, it somehow
synergized
with her previous despondency, turning it somehow from a thing that fed on her to one that succoured her. Malcolm Willoughby had attended an Alcoholics Anonymous group, albeit only for a month or so. His mother, annoyed despite the chemicals in her system that were damping down all but the most disruptive of emotions, had eventually recalled that it had been one in a church hall somewhere in Gloucester, she thought.

‘St Mark's?'

Lancefield had asked perhaps, she felt afterwards, too eagerly. The woman – a bloated face framed in an angular fashion by lanky, greying hair, beneath which was a figure clothed in an oversized and faded navy blue cardigan and jeans that could have fitted a bull – had appeared to think long and hard, but had eventually decided that, yes, that could have been the place. Lancefield had thanked her, but knew better, even in her slightly deranged state of mind, either to betray or to feel too much elation. She had driven back to the station in a calm, almost detached manner, but she had felt like a pressure cooker with a sticking safety valve. She considered calling Beverley, but something told her not to.

FIFTY-SIX

E
ven the term ‘shallow grave' was doing it a kindness. Barely any digging had gone into the disposal of the two boys' bodies; they had been laid to rest in a slight depression and then hastily covered with soil, mulch, vegetation and stones from nearby. The dying evening sun shone through the partial overhead canopy, dappling the area in a way that ought to have been enchanting, but was only deeply depressing. It was a hurried, shoddy affair.

Eisenmenger had never been able to cope too well with the murder of children. He had none of his own, did not even particularly want any, yet there it was, this weak point. He found it ironic that in any other profession and for billions of people on the planet, it would not have been considered anything other than a virtue, this squeamishness, yet for a forensic pathologist it was seen as an undesirable trait, something to be kept hidden lest it bring down shame. He had even tried to give up his chosen profession following the death in his arms of Tamsin, burned to death by her insane mother, but somehow it had never happened. Somehow, he had been dragged back, attracted against his own will once more to dance with death, to look into the heart of man's last and only true friend.

‘Strangled?'

Beverley, standing behind him as he crouched before the two bodies, clearly did not harbour such flaws in her character. Keeping his voice low and steady, he said, ‘I think so.'

There had been a similarly untroubled scenes of crime officer taking photographs, but who was now finished. The forensic team, attired as Eisenmenger was in the oh-so-fetching all-in-white, new-this-season protective suit, were carefully scrutinizing the ground; they had found precious little, and little that was precious. Eisenmenger stood up and, his face composed, turned to face her. ‘There are definitely fingermarks around their necks. Assuming that there are no wounds on the backs of the heads or torsos, and assuming that—'

She interrupted irritably. ‘I know, I know. Wait for the post-mortem.'

He shrugged; her testiness was of no importance to him. He pointed at the derelict building that rose above the trees. ‘What's that place?'

‘The Grange. It's falling to bits.'

‘What was it? A stately home?'

‘At one time. Over the years, it's been a lot of things. During the war, it was some sort of army training headquarters. Before that it was a lunatic asylum.'

Around them, the woods were being combed by uniformed officers, and there were six police cars and a black private ambulance parked along the track to the Grange. Another car drew up at that moment, with Smillie and Frobisher climbing out. Neither of them looked happy. They strode up to Eisenmenger and Beverley. ‘Well? Anything?'

The forensic team had finished and Eisenmenger just ordered the bodies brought up from their sorry sepulchre; they were laid on a pale-blue sheet of plastic and then, at Eisenmenger's order, turned. He let Beverley explain his findings to Smillie while he examined the backs of the corpses.

Smillie said, ‘I think we can safely say that your Internet killer isn't responsible.'

Eisenmenger stood up. ‘Certainly, there are features missing that we've come to expect – the shaven heads, for example.'

‘It's quite obvious that Somersby did it, purely because the boys stumbled in on his little factory.'

‘He's admitted it, has he?' asked Beverley.

‘Not yet. I haven't had a chance to talk to him.'

‘So it's pretty circumstantial at present.'

Smillie scoffed. ‘There's “circumstantial” and there's “circumstantial”, chief inspector. I'd say that the bodies of two boys not ten metres from a highly illegal drugs kitchen will weigh fairly heavily in the mind of the average juror. Anyway, I think I can persuade Mr Somersby to tell me all about it.' Beverley said nothing and Eisenmenger was trying to attract the attention of the photographer to take pictures of the back of the bodies. Smillie asked, ‘When will you do the post-mortem?'

Eisenmenger looked at his watch. It was nearly eight and rapidly approaching darkness; lights were being unloaded from an equipment van that had just arrived. ‘I should be ready by about ten.'

‘Good.' To Frobisher, Smillie said, ‘Let's go and talk to Somersby in the meantime.'

Eisenmenger walked away and having directed the photographer in which pictures he was to take, he asked Beverley, ‘What do you think? Was it Somersby?'

She said hesitantly. ‘He certainly has a motive and, as you said, it isn't the normal MO of the Internet killer, is it?'

Eisenmenger shook his head but said, ‘There are one or two things that worry me, though, Beverley.'

‘Such as?'

‘Why bury them so close to where they were working? Why not somewhere else on the estate, well aware from here?'

‘Because he thought he was safe here, where he has the only key and no one else comes. Moving the bodies would be riskier than burying them on site.'

‘Then why not on the other side of this area, why so close? And why so shallow?'

‘Perhaps he was going to come back and bury them deeper when he had more time. He couldn't be found when we first tried to talk to him; perhaps we called him in the middle of digging.'

He looked neither convinced nor sceptical. After a moment, he asked, ‘Is Somersby a big man? Strong?'

‘Not especially. He's fairly lean and wiry, but not a muscleman. Why?'

But, frustratingly, he would say only, ‘I'll tell you after the post-mortem.'

‘I appreciate that it's getting late, Dr Aldrich, but it is potentially very important.'

Dr Aldrich, the incumbent of St Mark's Church, was small and, it appeared, irascible. He was balding and clearly his physiology felt that this alopecia needed compensation, for the hair follicles in his nose, his eyebrows and his ears had leapt into action, enthusiastically sprouting a chaotic tangle at each of these sites. There were also scattered hairs around the base of his neck, popping up cheekily from the depths behind his dog collar, and the sum of this was to give the impression that he was inevitably surrendering to relentless hirsutism. He was, too, a careless shaver – as evidence by small cuts on the top lip and around the chin and so, overall, he presented a picture of a man who had higher things on his mind than physical appearance.

‘I have a meeting with the bishop in ten minutes.'

‘
Very
important.'

He sighed. ‘Very well, but be quick.'

Lancefield and Dr Aldrich were standing in the vestry of St Mark's, a feeble light bulb bravely fighting the oncoming gloom of night, and failing; Lancefield could see that the lampshade was covered in a uniform layer of soft dust. The place smelt of damp and she wondered if that was how heaven smelt, if it was the scent of God. Around her was a mess, evidence the vestry was as much a store cupboard as an office. She had not been invited to sit and was relieved not to have been. She asked, ‘Does Alcoholics Anonymous meet here?'

He shook his head at once. ‘No. Is that all?' He was all but ushering her out. He had a shabby, dark-grey overcoat on and around his neck was a black scarf; since the night was quite mild, it appeared to Lancefield that he felt the cold.

‘Not in the hall at the back?' The church itself, a Victorian building cloaked in the grime of fifty years of heavier and heavier traffic, was near the centre of Gloucester, on a corner by the inner ring road. Behind it was a hall made of prefabricated panels and in a poor state of repair.

‘Of course not. I said that they don't meet here.'

‘But have they ever?'

‘Yes, but that was over a year ago. Before I arrived.'

‘What about records of the meetings? Where can I find those?'

‘My dear young lady, how would I know? Do they even keep records? I sincerely doubt it. Now, if that is all—'

‘Do you know who ran the meetings?'

Becoming increasingly impatient, he was actually herding her out of the room as he replied, ‘My predecessor here.'

‘Who is that? Can I speak to him? Do you know where he is now?'

She was outside in the church proper, the empty font behind her. Dr Aldrich had his back to her, locking the door. He turned around. ‘His name is Marcus Pilcher. I believe that he now serves in the parish of Colberrow.'

Fisher rang Lancefield as she was heading out of Gloucester, heading north along the A417. ‘I think I've identified another victim.'

‘Which one?'

‘The beheaded woman, the one with “Maureen” tattooed on her back.'

‘And?'

‘I think it's Maureen May. She lived in Barton Street, Gloucester. She was a prostitute, living on her own.'

Which made sense. Barton Street was a black hole, a zone of anonymity in which someone could die and remain undiscovered for months. ‘Did she have a drink problem?' she asked.

Fisher was taken aback. ‘I didn't ask. Is it important?'

‘It doesn't matter. Have you let the CI know?'

‘I've left her a message. Where are you?'

Without a pause, without even a question in her mind as to why she was doing it, Lancefield replied, ‘I'm on my way home.'

FIFTY-SEVEN

O
utside it was raining heavily.

‘Has Somersby confessed?'

Beverley and Smillie were standing in the corner of the dissection room, whispering to each other. It was nearly twelve and Eisenmenger had his back to them as he dissected an organ pluck that was painfully small. Smillie did not enjoy autopsies and found most pathologists arrogant and patronizing. He found the whole process upsetting and was always put off his food for at least a day afterwards. He beckoned Beverley outside into the body store where a bank of fridges formed one wall.