Shadows and Spirits

Chapter 4

“Samuel Gibson. Please open the door,” McEwan said.

There wasn"t a breath in the close as the assembled group all waited for an answer.

“We"re here with the Claymore Consultancy, as they attempt the arrest of the now notorious Sigil Slayer.” A chirpy voice said in a low whisper. A pencil beam of light, from a hand held camera, shone in the woman"s face.

“Lady, shut the f**k up.”

“You have until the count of three Mr Gibson,” McEwan said. “One. Two. Three. We"re coming in.”

“We"re going in, stand by.” The crash of static on a radio.

“Goran, Ian, be my guest,” said McEwan, gesturing to the door and standing aside.

Bam The ram struck the door, the sound echoed up and down the Dennistoun tenement. The door held. Bam Harder this time, wood splintered. Bam Third time the charm, the door jam broke and swung open.

A foetid smell wafted out to greet them. Sour rotten eggs, sulphurous, like the Devil had just passed through. McEwan took the lead. He walked through the door into a wide hallway. Careful not to touch anything, he switched on a torch and swung the beam into the open kitchen on his left. Clean. He moved to the end of the hall and pushed the door with his foot.

“Anything, sir?” said JJ, from the front door.

“Detective McEwan, as the video journalist assigned to this case, I am fed up with the coarse treatment meted out to me and intend to file a complaint.”

“Agnetha, I"m trying to work here,” McEwan said, over his shoulder. The woman never seemed to learn when to stay out of the way.

He poked his head round the door. The smell was stronger here. Perhaps Old Nick had paused here. When he saw what lay inside, he was sure someone diabolical had been at work. On this case he had become used to such things. “Better get the forensics guys up from downstairs,” McEwan said. He moved back to the front door. “No one else gets in there until they"ve done their work.”

“But Detective, how am I to document this for our viewers?”

“Agnetha, you can do exactly what your print colleague Mark is doing and wait.” Mark Johnson smiled and nodded.

* * *

When the forensics team had all but finished McEwan and JJ entered the living room. It had a high ceiling, complete with cornicing and central rose decoration, from which the main light suspended. The room was painted a warm magnolia colour. A large, cream sofa sat in the middle of the room facing a widescreen TV. All the wooden areas, the doors, the skirting boards and the recess in the wall, were painted a rich mahogany. Small, cream shaded table lamps stood on mahogany side tables. A white marble fireplace stood over an original tiled hearth. The cosiness of the décor seemed at odds with the idea of a serial killer"s home.

The photographs and news clippings that covered the walls broke the homely feel. Sigil Slayer Strikes Seventh read one of the most recent tabloid headlines. Detective Dead-end accused another. McEwan didn"t need reminding of his failings in pursuit of this case. The albatross round his neck hadn"t fallen yet. He silently cursed the papers and their editors. Unfortunately, their sales were effectively paying his salary.

McEwan studied the photographs of each victim in turn. “What do you think?” he asked JJ.

“I"m just glad that the number of bodies we"ve found matches up with the women in the photographs,” she said. Her eyes were wide, fearful. This was not the first time they had seen something like this, but they were both fighting the urge to get out.

The bodies had been carefully positioned for each photograph. McEwan wondered if there was some hidden layer of meaning. Since each body had been found in this pose, it made it unlikely anyone had interfered with the bodies, such as moving them from another site. The evidence from each locus pointed to only one person having been there.

McEwan turned his attention to the body on the Chinese rug in front of the fireplace, its head rested on the hearth. The body, like the other victims, was naked. As with the others, the characters that had given the Sigil Slayer his nickname had been inscribed into the flesh. Surrounding the body were a number of old, thick, leather-bound books. Pages lay on the floor like autumn leaves, ripped from the books. The images and symbols on the pages were replicated in the carvings on the dead body. The corpulent man appeared to have been killed in the same manner as the other victims of the killer.

A cruel-looking scalpel had been discarded on a small side table. “Let"s say,” McEwan said, indicating the table, “that this is the same ancient chirurgeon"s scalpel that we found in the auction house catalogue.”

“And that this man has been killed by his own knife,” said JJ.

“Then either this man was not our murderer, or somehow, someone, has killed a serial killer, using his own methods,” said McEwan, shaking his head in disbelief. He looked at JJ, who smiled thinly. It seemed their victory had been robbed from them. A new mystery had arisen to take the other"s place.

* * *

A high insect whine rose rapidly in pitch, succeeded by a flash of light and the buzz as film wound on its spool. The flash jolted McEwan from his reverie. The light wounded his tired eyes. He rubbed at his temples and surveyed the room again.

If Samuel Gibson was the perpetrator of these crimes, how had he died in exactly the same manner as his victims? Either the killer was one step ahead, or a new one had emerged from the shadows, perhaps usurping the mantle of the Sigil Slayer.

The photographer finished his work and mercifully began to switch off the bright lamps. “I"ll be glad to get out of here,” said Geoff. He opened the door into the hall, yellow light flooded the room. He began to pack away his equipment. “I had no idea it would be like this. I usually do portraits, graduates and babies, that sort of thing. The smell…” Geoff crinkled his nose in disgust, and narrowly avoided retching.

“You"ll get used to it, Geoff,” McEwan said. Geoff appeared to be turning green.

“I should have them for you by the morning,” Geoff said, a little too cheerfully, before he escaped out the front door. Although he had been highly recommended, this was the first time Geoff had actually been brought in to do the photography at a murder scene.

“I hope to get you the results of the post mortem in the next few hours, if you want to come down to the morgue?” said Malcolm. Malcolm had been working as the pathologist on the case since the investigation had begun. His closely shaved head of white hair and thick beak of a nose reminded McEwan of an American eagle.

“What"s your initial assessment?” said McEwan. Two crime scene detectives began placing the body carefully into a bag.

“Well, from the liver temperature, I"d say he died about five or six hours ago, right where we found him. He appears to have been stabbed by a knife and shortly after his death the characters were inscribed on his body.” Malcolm"s accent was British, but quite neutral. McEwan had not yet managed to place it anywhere. Neither had he plucked up the courage to ask Malcolm, for fear of meeting his exasperated stare.

“Just like the others,” McEwan said.

“I"d say so,” Malcolm said.

“OK, thanks Malcolm. I think I"ll pass on the post mortem and catch up with you in a few hours,” McEwan said, yawning. “I need some sleep.”

“Lucky for some. You know, I nearly got some before you called,” Malcolm said.

On a hunch McEwan stepped past the body, now being placed on a stretcher. He went over to a photograph of who they thought was the first victim. He peeled up the corner. The wall was paler underneath the picture than around it.

* * *

McEwan left the tenement building, glad to breathe the wet, fresh air, and glad to be free of the throng of journalists who had kept him there. He headed toward his car, walking stiffly. It began to rain, but the water on his face freshened him.

“Thanks.”

McEwan started, until he saw Mark Johnson emerge from a close doorway. “Jesus, Mark, you scared the life out of me.”

“Sorry, Detective. Didn"t mean to startle you.” Johnson grinned.

“Sure you didn"t,” said McEwan. He ducked into the close beside Johnson.

“Thanks anyway, I always enjoy seeing her taken down a peg,” Johnson said, still smiling.

McEwan sighed. “Agnetha was being a pain Mark, it wasn"t just spite.”

“Thanks for the scoop too,” Johnson said.

“I thought you were covering the case.”

“I was, but the editor got fed up with the lack of progress. He moved me on to something else. You"re lucky. No solution, no fee.”

“Don"t remind me. Look, off the record?” Johnson nodded. “If I hear a word of this, I"ll never give you a scoop again.”

“You know me, off the record is off the record,” said Johnson, trying to look shocked that his journalistic integrity was doubted. “What is it?”

McEwan looked at Johnson. “I still don"t know that we"ve got the guy.”

Johnson looked surprised. “Why?”

“Someone killed him. Could be the real killer.” While Johnson thought this through, McEwan looked out at the sky. “Look, it"s pissing down and I"m knackered. I"m going home.”

“No problem, I don"t have a home, so I forget everyone else does,” said Johnson. “You run along.” Johnson was left wondering about the killer"s killer. He felt afraid now, being so close to the scene of the crime. Up til now only women had been killed.

McEwan reached his old car and quickly shuffled off his overcoat and jacket. He hung his jacket on the hook in the rear of car, getting wet while he did so, before swinging into the driving seat. He started the engine and headed south for home.

How had the letters been carved into the murderer"s flesh? He could have done it to himself ante mortem, but it must have taken a good deal of mental strength to avoid going into shock. Also, how did the knife, which in this theory must have also been used to commit suicide, get onto the side table? Someone else must have done it. It couldn"t be suicide. It had to be murder.

McEwan had been taught at university that the commandment should correctly read Thou shalt not murder, which seemed to let a lot of killers off the hook.

The car headlamps skimmed the surface of the wet streets, dancing over ruts and faded white lines, folding around the odd wisp of mist. The wiper blades broke up the view into brief frames and for a few moments the world seemed more like a projection, where the film had come to an end and the reel was slowing down. Groups of dark figures stood around braziers on street corners. Makeshift barricades blocked some roads.

McEwan nipped into Allison Street, off Victoria Road, and crawled along looking for a space amongst the ranks of cars. Eventually one presented itself and he walked back to his flat.

After wrestling with the main tenement door he climbed the stone stairway, being careful not to trip over the minor fissures that were the hallmarks of subsidence in the area. His second floor flat appeared nondescript from the outside, the door coloured by a faded mahogany stain. The nameplate was tarnished at the corners, where the occasional polish had failed to clean up all the brass. He fumbled his keys in the locks and, with relief, finally made it home.

McEwan flicked on the hall light and walked in, past the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen on the left. He turned right into the front room. Although spacious, the three-seat sofa and two armchairs seemed to occupy most of the room. He had a small stereo and a modest TV. A small regiment of CDs, in no particular order, sat on the shelves in a little recess near the bay sash windows. McEwan closed the grey curtains. He picked up the universal remote from the laminate coffee table and switched on the TV.

He had just missed himself on the news report. The programme focussed on the occupation of Taiwan by Chinese forces, the pre-emptive invasion had occurred after Taiwanese bombers had been implicated in the death of 50,000 factory workers on the Chinese mainland. American aid was paralysed due to the Chinese owning so much of America"s foreign debts. The Bangalore call centres riots had left 500 people dead, after the police had provoked a peaceful protest over equal working conditions for different castes. The riot was punctuated by the announcement that many of the jobs were being transferred to Ecuador.

He went across the hall into the kitchen. A large, original fireplace, with a gas heater, took up a lot of room in the kitchen. Nothing sat on the mantelpiece save a few fading postcards from distant friends on holiday in even more distant locations. In a large alcove, that at one time used to be a cupboard, was an old desk salvaged from his parent"s house. Most of the time he ate dinner there, even though an old PC, with a cathode tube monitor, sat on top of the desk.

He took the steel kettle off the hob, filled it at the sink and lit a gas ring. While waiting for it to boil, he threw a tea bag, taken from a caddy on the worktop, into a chipped mug from the cupboard beneath. The ritual, not quite a proper tea ceremony, began to help him unwind.

He no longer tried to forget the more unpleasant aspects of his job. Nothing he had tried made them go away. He"d finally given up smoking as a crutch. Although right now the desire to smoke again was strong. He wanted to relax, but he knew it wouldn"t do him any good. He had even tried to see if meditation would help.

He finished making his cuppa and returned to the front room. With a heavy sigh, he collapsed into his armchair and flicked through the TV channels as a way to distract himself from his thoughts. He only had access to council telly, but he wasn"t looking for content; the rapid colour and the liquid ideas helped soothe him. He enjoyed the little death of that hypnosis-induced nirvana. There was a momentary peace, an inner tranquillity.

This peace was undermined by the sense that someone was walking over his grave. It was like that creepy, spine shiver feeling he got when someone was reading over his shoulder. He was sure no one was in the flat, but could not shake the sense of something left unspoken, like a conversation that had ended unexpectedly. He rose from his chair and did a quick check. He felt foolish opening cupboard doors in the hall, spooked like a child anticipating leg-grabbing horrors under the bed. Maybe Johnson jumping out on him had left him tense? He went to the window. Lightly brushing aside the curtain he looked out into the street below. Nothing moved, but rivers of rain in the gutter.

Except, perhaps, in the shadow of the close over the road.

Did someone retreat back a step, seeing the curtain twitch? He eased back the curtain to a crack and waited. Nothing moved, not even a cat seeking dry ground in the deluge.

He sat back in his chair. The after effects of the adrenaline surge made his nerves jangle. They were sensitive, but everything had its edges rounded off. He was tired. The cascading TV images brought him no peace as he flicked through the channels. In despair he hoped that sleep would take him away from the world for a while.

McEwan washed his face in the bathroom and then closed the hatch over the shower drain, in case he tripped over it in the night. With no room for a bath in the narrow room, he had had a small raised area built to cover the plumbing. He went into the bedroom, sank onto his futon, and tugged the duvet over him.

Sleep and McEwan were inconstant bedfellows. Like a capricious lover sometimes she stayed, sometimes she teased. All too often she left early in the morning without saying goodbye. For once McEwan slept the sleep of the damned.