The Dark Place (5 page)

Cathy the Cat was sprawling out upon a badly stained mattress, her skinny frame propped up by a family of orphaned cushions. A sunburst of red hair fanned on the cushions. Her eyes were green and luminous as absinthe. Star of David earrings were tooled tightly into the lobes of her ears. She was wearing an anarchist tank top depicting a cracked, inverted champagne glass with the words
Fuck The System
stencilled in black, goal-posted strategically between two very erect nipples. Faded tattoos – most of which appeared to be self-made, prison-types – branched from her arms. Only one of the tattoos appeared to be professionally done. It was creepily ornamented: a pubescent angel with a syringe being inserted into its wings, transforming them into sharpened blades of dripping blood.
Hell’s True Angel
stated the legend directly beneath the angel’s feet.

Despite Cathy’s slenderness, Karl thought that her arms looked muscularly chiselled for giving headlocks, and that he would certainly hate it to be
his
head in the wrestling match.

The room smelled wet and rusty. A faint lofting stench of urine and reeking chemicals that smelled like rotten eggs mixed with paint thinner.

“Hello,” said Karl, his hand outstretched towards Cathy. “My name is –”

“I already
know
your name, and your supposed business here. What
exactly
is it you want?” asked Cathy, ignoring Karl’s hand. Tilting an
egg-timer
, she began watching its contents flow softly, filling the empty glass belly underneath. “I would say you have less than two minutes.”

“I was told you might be able to help me with my enquiries. Michael explained that you –”

“Michael can tolerate hunger, but silence has always been a mean torture for him. He can’t keep that bucket mouth of his shut. Isn’t that right, Michael?”

Without replying, Michael slinked sheepishly away, leaving Karl and Cathy alone.

While Cathy watched Michael’s shadow disappear, Karl studied patches of baldness on Cathy’s head.

“From numerous bottles being smashed against it,” said Cathy, almost blasé, catching Karl. “The numerous dead wounds have left tracts where my hair will never grow again. Pretty, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t mean to stare.” Yet, despite the ugliness of the scars, it was obvious to Karl that Cathy had once been extremely attractive.

“Here. Take your photo back,” said Cathy, standing slowly up, allowing her hair to fall over the balcony of her shoulders. “I don’t like your look or smell. You have the sneaky stench of a cop about you.”

“Cops travel in a totally different direction from me.
Persona non grata
is the phrase they normally use when describing me.”

Cathy studied Karl for a few seconds. “What’s her name, the girl in the photo?”

“Martina. Martina Ferris.”

Cathy yawned like a sluggish cat. “She said her name was Angela Reilly. Came here a few weeks ago, wanting to ‘fit in’. She didn’t strike me as the type that could ‘fit in’ anywhere, let alone in
this
world.”

“You refused to let her stay?”

“This is my kingdom.”

“I notice there are no other women here.”

“That’s best for the family. The men get confused. They still retain their testosterone, despite how they look. Their minds are inclined to wander into darkness, allowing their cocks to become stiff dowsing rods.”

“I see.” Karl gave a quick cough. “You don’t feel threatened by all the men in here?”

For a moment’s flash, Cathy’s green eyes did a strange movement of tiny flickering. Her face tightened, and then just as quickly relaxed. Suddenly, she stood toe-to-toe with Karl, her face close to his, her mouth seductively open. Her breath smelt of stale medicine. He noticed for the first time the family of metal studs embedded in her tongue. They made him think of silver mushrooms.

“Do I look the type of person easily threatened?”

“Not the type at all, Cathy. It was a silly question. You have to forgive me. I’m notorious for asking silly questions.”

“Good. Understanding goes a long way,” replied Cathy, glancing at the egg-timer. “I think you’ve overstayed your welcome,
Karl
.”

“What about Martina? Is there anything you can tell me? She could be in danger.”

“You’re very persistent for not being a cop –
allegedly
. What’s in this for you?” Cathy placed a sharp fingernail on Karl’s cheek. Traced his jawbone. “Did you pimp her out? Has your fat golden goose fled its cage, left you with rotten eggs on your face?”

“Nothing like that. Just trying to make sure she’s safe.”

Cathy’s fingernail travelled to Karl’s mouth, tracing the little flesh indents on his lips.

“She said something about heading down to Dublin, find a friend who’s in a hospital of some sort,” said Cathy. “Now, go. Visiting is over.”

“N
ot too far now, Max,” said the man, patting the dog’s head before continuing the journey towards Black Mountain via the pathway known as Mountain Lonely. A few minutes later, he cut across Hatchet Field – so-called because of being shaped like an old hatchet – and let the dog off its leash despite a warning sign advising against such action.

“Go on, Max! Good dog!”

The dog went bulleting ahead, barking with excitement.

Less than thirty minutes later, the man finally rested atop Black Mountain, taking in the spectacular views over Belfast with a pair of Pentacon Cobra wide-angle binoculars.

“Beautiful!” he exclaimed, rotating slowly, catching sight of Donegal in the far distance, before capturing Scotland, the coasts of England and the Isle of Man, all in one panoramic scoop. “Where in the world would you get see such sights on a Wednesday morning, eh, Max?”

Max commenced barking at his master’s voice before drinking quickly from a skinny stream veining inwards from the hillside. Seconds
later, the dog was away in hot pursuit of a motley crew of flea-infested rabbits out enjoying some early morning sex.

“Max! C’mon, boy. Don’t go too far ahead.”

Abruptly, the dog stopped dead in its tracks, standing stiffly before growling at a small mound of puckered earth where one of the rabbits made good its escape. The hairs on the dog’s back suddenly began spiking eerily.

“Max! C’mon the hell with you, now!”

The dog, normally obedient, ignored him.

“
Max!
Get back here!”

Max was getting old
and
deaf, thought the man, justifying the dog’s unusual behaviour.

As he approached, Max began howling and sniffing at the ground, throwing its body back with a jerk, as if its nose touched something hot.

“Max? I don’t have time for this nonsense with rabbits.”

Max began barking uncontrollably, digging furiously.

“Max! Will you cut that out! Look at the state of your –”

Suddenly, hordes of filthy flies – wings lit green with small splashes of light through the slats – buzzed angrily at the man, hitting his face forcefully, some entering his mouth and windpipe.

“Bastards!” he shouted, almost choking on the black sludge. The flies tasted like excrement and raw meat. He felt like vomiting, but stubbornly held it. “Filthy bastards!”

Max’s barking became louder.

“Max! Get the hell away from –”

The sun came into play, just at the right moment, landing rays on the washed-out piece of whiteness slightly hidden in the darkened soil.

“What on earth?”

Covering his mouth with a hand, the man nudged the ground with his boot, overturning the soil. The earth was spongy and easily succumbed to the push of the boot. There was a muted metallic odour to the overturned dirt that made him think of decaying onions.

At first, he thought the whiteness a piece of broken plate or an upturned cup from a campsite. Only when his boot investigated the soil
further was all revealed.

“Oh dear lord …”

The face was barely visible behind a mask of leaves and soil. The gaping skull had been bleached so thoroughly its lines held dark, almost carbon shadows; teeth and jaws gaping up at the sun down there in the damp darkness of hellish ground. The flesh – what little there was left – was winter pale and off-yellow, like hardened cheese in a darkened cupboard. Colourless eye sockets glared at him from their dark passages.

Suddenly wilting to his knees, the man bowed his head, as if praying, retching violently.

The man was no expert, but as he buckled over in the filthy nightmare, he suspected from the braces gating the teeth that this was probably the skull of a child barely in its teens.

“H
ello, Tom,” said Karl, standing at the office doorway of best friend and forensic pathologist, Tom Hicks.

Glancing up from his computer screen, Hicks looked slightly on edge.

“Karl? What the hell are you doing here?”

“Lovely greeting. Haven’t seen your grumpy old gob in months, and that’s what I get?”

“Don’t you know Wilson is upstairs in his office? For God’s sake, man, show some common sense – even though I doubt you have any.”

“That’s what I always admire in you. Your honesty. Anyway, my delightful ex-brother-in-law is way down my list of priorities, right at this moment.”

“I’m serious, Karl. I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but I’ve heard through the grapevine that he hates your guts.”

“The day I worry about a wanker like Wilson is the day I stop being a private investigator. You more than anyone should know I’m not easily intimidated, Tom.”

“I’m getting too old for old men acting juvenile.”

“Speak for yourself when you say old. Anyway, I brought you a
present,” said Karl, handing Hicks a book.

“Don’t tell me you finally got one of those books of yours published?” said Hicks, taking the book, looking at the cover. “Peter Mullan? Why does that name ring a bell?”

“It should. We were in the same class for about a year. Looked a bit like a weasel. Always complaining.”

“Oh, yes … now I remember him,” said Hicks, smiling. “He’s an author?”

“A bestselling one, the bastard. Had to buy that in Eason’s this morning where he was signing. Fifteen bloody quid it cost. Is it any wonder people don’t buy books any more? Got him to inscribe it to you. That’s your birthday covered, next month. So don’t be asking for anything else.”

“Did he remember you?”

“Of course he bloody remembered me. I saved him from a couple of hidings in school, you know. He owes me,” stated Karl. “That’s why I gave him a copy of my new manuscript and asked him to have a look at it. Hopefully, he’ll give me a cracker blurb. Sometimes that’s all it takes to win a publisher over.”

“I’m embarrassed for you.”

“Don’t be. I’m not. Besides, the squeaky wheel always gets the oil. If you don’t ask, you won’t get.”

“You still haven’t told me what caused all this bad blood between you and Wilson.”

“Best you don’t know.”

“The last I saw you two together, I had to separate the both of you, rolling in the muck, punching the daylights out of each other – and at a funeral of a murdered officer, into the bargain,” said Hicks, looking at Karl in such a way it made Karl’s neck itch. “That poor girl, Jenny Lewis. What a horrible tragedy – her and the mother. Not forgetting Detectives Cairns and McKenzie, of course.”

“Of course.”

“They never did find the killer – or killers. You’d think Wilson would have made the murder of three of his detectives a priority, wouldn’t you?”

“Has he recruited any new members of staff?” asked Karl, carefully evading the question.

“So far, he’s hired one young detective. Extremely wet behind the ears, by the cut of him. There’s talk Wilson is after two more to fill the ranks of his depleted crew, but is refusing to take on a female, after what happened to Jenny Lewis.”

“Has Wilson tried to heavy-hand you?” replied Karl. “Remember, he more or less threatened you at the funeral?”

“That was all in the heat of the moment. We give each other a wide berth now. If we happen to stumble into each other in public, we nod professionally as if nothing ever happened.”

“Glad to hear you two are so cushy-wushy, now. Which reminds me. Fancy going to a birthday party tomorrow night?”

“Whose party?”

“Ivana’s.”

“I … I can’t. I’ve tickets to
The Thirty-Nine Steps
in the Grand Opera House tomorrow night.”

“What a strange coincidence.”

“Stop making everything out to be a conspiracy. Anne’s been waiting months to see it. Tell Ivana happy birthday and that I’m so sorry I can’t be at the party.”

“I bet you are.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m simply saying that you’ve never approved of Ivana’s lifestyle.” Karl began grinning. “Perhaps if you give it a go, you’d feel differently towards Ivana.”

The normally stoic Hicks looked momentarily knocked off balance. “If you saw the number of victims of sexually related diseases that I have, you wouldn’t be standing there grinning like a damn buffoon or taking such a deadly subject so lightly.”

“Okay. Point taken,” conceded Karl, the grin slowly fading. “Shall we change the subject? Something less deadly?”

“How’s Katie doing in Edinburgh?”

“Seems to be settling in fine, though I hate the thought that she’s so far from home. I’m always worrying about her.”

“Young people are very resilient, Karl. Believe it or not, we were young once,” stated Hicks, attempting a smile.

“I can’t remember an old dinosaur like you
ever
being young. Even when we were in school together, you were old.”

“Always tell Katie that her godfather is watching her progress. Who knows? She might even want to take over from me, when I retire.”

“You’re like Cliff Richard. You’ll never retire,” replied Karl, quickly sidestepping the suggestion. The thought of his beloved Katie following in Hicks’s footsteps, chopping up the dead, held little appeal for Karl. “What can you tell me about the body found in the Black Mountain area, yesterday?”

“Not much. I’m backlogged by almost four reports, so I’m badly behind schedule. I’ve no assistant to help me, due to more cutbacks, and I’m still examining a body of a young woman discovered last week near the city centre.”

“I didn’t read about any body being found last week in the city centre,” said Karl, looking slightly puzzled.

“Yes … well … this particular body was found in the vicinity of Victoria Square.”

“That new shopping centre?”

“Yes.”

“And? Why wasn’t it reported?”

“Your guess is as good as mine; but let’s just say I’m becoming almost as cynical as you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They spent what? Almost a billion, or close to, on building Victoria Square? The city council apparently spent almost three hundred thousand advertising its importance for the city. Do you think it would look good discovering a body two days before the grand opening, one street away from their field of dreams?”

Karl’s face reddened slightly. “Bastards … so it was all hushed-up in the interests of the caviar and champagne brigade?”

“Those are your words, not mine.”

“Nice bunch of scumbags we have running this great town of ours,” responded Karl, removing the photo of Martina before handing it to
Hicks. “I’m searching for this young girl. Her name’s Martina Ferris. I’m hoping you tell me it isn’t her whose body was discovered in the Black Mountain or the city centre.”

“I’m still working on the reports and waiting on dental records,” said Hicks, studying the photo. “Her left eye. What happened?”

“Lost it to a pen wound, a few years back.”

“Definitely not the body in the city centre.”

“Why?”

“No indication of an eye replacement,” said Hicks, reaching for a beige-coloured folder and extracting a single page from a family of others. “Having said that, there are similarities.”

“Such as?”

“Female. Sixteen or seventeen years of age. Officers at the scene wrongly classified her hair as red, when in fact it was blonde.”

“Had it been dyed? Martina could be classified as a punk, from her photo.”

“No. Not dyed. So much blood had escaped from the head wound, transforming it into strawberry red.”

“Horrible …”

“It gets worse. Parts of her insides were missing, surgically removed.”

Karl’s face knotted slightly. “What? You’re saying someone murdered her for body parts?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“You think someone’s selling the parts on the black market?”

“Initially, yes. But only the liver and kidneys are missing.” Hicks rubbed his red, sore-looking eyes before continuing. “Are you familiar with the word ‘vorarephilia’?”

“If it isn’t in Kid’s Scrabble, I haven’t heard of it. I suspect you knew that before you asked. Showing off again.”

“Vorarephilia is the sexual attraction to being eaten by, or eating another person. It’s also known as phagophilia or simply called vore for short.”

Karl made a face. “I thought that was cannibalism.”

“Cannibals eat for survival and tribal domination – not sexual perversion,” corrected Hicks. “The fact that the kidneys and liver alone
have been removed is an indication – though not conclusively – of possible vorarephilia. The word ‘vorarephilia’ is derived from the Latin
vorare
, swallow or devour, and the Ancient Greek word
philia
, meaning love.”

“How sick is that? You really believe that this is some sort of ritual killing for sexual gratification?”

“We may only ever find that out if the killer is apprehended and confesses. Other than that, it’s an educated guess. There was one glaring inconsistency, though.”

“What?”

“Her body weight.”

“What about it?”

“Not enough calcium to support the fat contents of a normally developed body.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Karl.

“Accelerated formation of cells and protein.”

“In layman’s terms?”

“The young girl’s body was carrying too much weight for the skeletal system to support. Similar to placing a ton of metal on a cardboard box. It was only a matter of time before it collapsed.” Hicks began hitting a few keys on the computer’s keyboard, and suddenly the screen transformed from black and white text to a colourful three-dimensional illustration. “This is the skeletal system. Look inside this bone. See how it works?”

Karl studied the screen, the open bone and the traffic of colours mixing with coded lineage references.

“What exactly am I looking
at
, Tom?”

Hicks sighed impatiently. “Bones are composed of tissue that may take one of two forms. Compact or dense bone; and spongy or cancellous bone. Most bones contain both types. Compact bone is dense, hard, and forms the protective exterior portion of all bones. Spongy bone is inside the compact bone and is very porous. Spongy bone occurs in most bones. The bone tissue is composed of several types of bone cells embedded in a web of inorganic salts, mostly calcium and phosphorus, to give the bone strength, and collagenous fibres and ground substance
to give the bone flexibility.”

“And …?”

“It takes time for bone build-up. Nature is very patient, knowing calcium can only accommodate precise weight-values through longevity. However, the bones of the young girl were fooled into believing they were strong enough to withstand this sudden impact of alien matter suddenly thrust upon them. What should have taken years was accomplished in days, possibly weeks.”

“She was thin, then suddenly became fat?”

“That’s not very PC, and it’s certainly not how
I
would phrase it, but yes.”

“How is that possible?”

“I don’t exactly know. I’ve sent some of the bone and skin tissues to Queen’s. Professor Ashley Kelly at the science lab is looking at them as we speak. Hopefully, she’ll have an answer soon.”

“If that is how she died, why the horrendous blow to the head?”

“Possibly a hate-induced frenzy. The killer wasn’t satisfied with simply murdering the victim, he wanted –
or needed
– mutilation as well, probably thinking that if –”

Hicks suddenly stopped speaking, tilting his head slightly.

“What? What is it?” asked Karl.

“The lift. Someone’s coming down. I think you’d better leave now, in case it’s Wilson’s new man looking for a report on the young girl.”

“You think I’m frightened of Wilson?”

“You? No! Not
you
. Everyone knows how tough you are.”

“No need to be so sarcastic.”

“In case it’s slipped your mind, I’ve got to work here.”

“Will you keep me informed of any developments concerning the body in Black Mountain?”

“Yes! But go –
now
. Use the back entrance.”

The lift door opened just as Karl walked by. A fresh-faced young man stepped from the lift, staring.

Karl stared back.

“How’s it going?” asked the young man, smiling.

Karl glanced at the anxious face of Hicks before answering.

“Not too bad. Haven’t seen you about before. You must be new, Detective …?” said Karl, extending his hand.

“How did you know I was a detective?”

“I didn’t, but I do now,” smiled Karl.

“Detective Chambers. Malcolm Chambers.” The young detective’s smile broadened as he shook Karl’s hand. “Only been on the job for a week, but already I feel like a veteran. I’m working for Detective Inspector Mark Wilson. Do you know him?”

Karl nodded. “I’ve heard of him. A bit of a legend, apparently. They say he’s one of the best detectives in town.”

“You got that right,” beamed Chambers. “You part of the pathologist team?”

“Not really. I’m from … the private sector.”

“I didn’t catch your name?”

“I didn’t throw it,” replied Karl. “No doubt I’ll be bumping into you in the future, Detective Chambers. Take care.”

Outside, Karl was about to climb into his car when a voice asked, “Still driving that old piece of shit, Kane? Thought I recognised it.”

Karl turned to see Edward Phillips, one of Wilson’s ex-detectives, walking towards him.

For a second, Karl thought about getting in the car, simply driving off. Instead, he decided to stand his ground.

“I heard you’d retired, Phillips.”

Phillips stopped directly beside Karl, eyeballing him.

“Retire like my old pals Bulldog and Cairns? You wish, Kane.”

There was a strong stench of whiskey escaping from Phillips’s mouth, and Karl immediately regretted not getting in the car and leaving. He had heard the rumours of Phillips’s dismissal from the force two months ago, accused of shaking down drug dealers and pimps in the north of the city. He wondered what the hell Phillips was doing at headquarters?