Mother of Demons (6 page)

Chapter Eleven

Harry opened the folder Jason had given him and sat looking at a photocopied photograph of a young, pretty, blonde woman. Violet wasn’t wrong. This could have been Alice’s twin sister. There was a slight difference in the shape of the nose, but the resemblance was fairly close. He read through the news clippings, and offered the folder to Jason.

He shook his head. “I read it on the Tube. What do you make of it?”

“Strasser—or should we start calling him Markos?—sounds like a nasty piece of work, and I can understand Vi’s desire to get Alice away from him.” He lifted the picture from the folder. “And he obviously has a thing for blondes.”

“So do I,” Jason said. “But I don’t go round abducting them and keeping them prisoner.”

“May I remind you that Alice walked out of a secure clinic of her own free will and, as far as we know, went back to him? What does that tell us about her state of mind?”

“You met her parents. I should imagine she left to avoid suffocation.”

Harry dropped the picture back on the desk. “Exactly. We could be dealing with nothing more than a case of teenage rebellion—a bit extreme, but all the
facts
in this case point to that.”

The telephone on his desk buzzed twice. An internal call. He picked it up. “What can I do for you, Martin?”

“Strasser,” Martin Impey said. “You asked me to dig. I have done. I’ve uncovered a few things you might find interesting.”

“We’ll be right down,” Harry said, cradled the phone and turned to Jason.

“My researcher has a few facts about Strasser…sorry…Markos.”

They took the elevator and five minutes later were sitting in Martin’s office.

There were three desks in the office One of them, the biggest, was Martin’s; the other two were occupied by his assistants. Martin introduced them to Jason. “Maggie and Christine, my right and left hands,” he said.

Jason had been shown to a seat and was staring with admiration at the bank of computer screens covering one wall of the office. Each of the desks had wireless keyboards, a computer mouse and flat screen monitor. “I’m impressed with the tech,” he said.

“Eyes and ears on the world,” Martin said with a grin. “We were upgraded last month after years of waiting. We have some powerful servers in the room next door. It gives us access to worlds I could only have wet dreams about before.”

“You’re a geek,” Jason said.

“And proud of it.”

“Well you know what they say: ‘The geek will inherit the earth’,” Jason said.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Martin, what have you got for me?”

Martin switched his attention. “Yes, right. Well, for starters, Erik Strasser isn’t really Erik Strasser. He’s really—”

“Anton Markos,” Harry finished for him and watched Martin’s face fall.

“You knew? Do you how long it took us to discover that?”

“I only found out myself last night. Too late to call you and let you know.”

“I suppose you know about his arrest in Greece and subsequent release?”

Harry nodded.

“How did you find out?”

“Vi Bulmer told me.”

Martin let out an exasperated sigh. “Vi bloody Bulmer. I might have known. The department spends a couple of million on this computer setup, and Vi achieves the same results with what, a bloody telephone?”

“She has an extensive network of contacts,” Harry said.

“And a very large and well-read library,” Jason put in. “Plus the fact that her brain is a huge repository of arcane and obscure details.”

“She’s a bloody witch,” Martin said with a smile. “Well, let’s have all of it. What else did she tell you?”

As Harry filled him in, Jason struck up a conversation with Christine Buckley, the younger and prettier of Martin’s assistants.

“Martin, do you have photos of all Markos’s victims in Greece?” Harry asked.

Martin leaned over his desk and started hitting his keyboard. “Screen four, Harry. To your left.”

Harry walked across to the bank of screens and stood in front of the fourth one along. A few seconds later the images of four young women appeared. All of an age. All pretty. All blonde. Anton Markos definitely had a preference. “Jason,” he called. “Take a look at these.”

Jason broke off his conversation with Christine and went across to where Harry was standing. “Over what period of time were these girls abducted?” Harry asked.

“Over a period of three years.”

“And the police did nothing during that time?”

“From the reports I read, no. Three of the girls were released during that period. All admitted being with him, all said they had been with him voluntarily. All had developed an addiction to heroin.”

“And the fourth girl?”

“She was still with him when they found her. Drugged out of her mind on crystal meth. He’d moved on from heroin by the time he took her. She wasn’t so adamant that she was there by choice. It was her evidence that the police based their case on.”

“Precarious.”

“Very. It took three months of intensive digging into Markos and his life, during which time they located the first three girls. With their identical stories that they’d gone with him voluntarily, the police had nothing but the fourth girl’s testimony. A week before the trial was due to start, the case fell apart. The fourth girl changed her story and said she’d been with him of her own free will. All the police could run with in the end was having sex with a minor. The legal age in Greece is fifteen. That girl there, the second one along, Alysia Carras, was only fourteen when Markos started having sex with her, so they proceeded to trial with that. But the case never reached the courtroom. It looks like palms were greased—pardon the pun—and the charges went away. Anton Markos was released and dropped off the face of the earth. At least, as far as I can ascertain.”

“And then he resurfaces in Germany as Erik Strasser,” Harry said.

“Indeed.”

“Anything else? Vi tells me he’s the high priest of a coven based here in the UK. Has she got her facts wrong?”

“Ah,” Martin said. “Yes and no. He does lead a group of quasi-religious nuts, but I wouldn’t describe it as a coven as such.”

“What would you describe it as then?” Harry said. He was growing impatient. He wanted something, anything that would show Violet Bulmer was telling the truth.

“They call themselves the Children of Hecate. It’s a cult who worship a Greek goddess of that name.”

“So witchcraft yes or no?”

“Yes
and
no. Are they Satanists, no; are they Wiccan, again no. But Hecate is the goddess of witchcraft and sorcery, so yes. If you were painting the history of witchcraft on a very large canvas, they’d probably occupy a tiny spot in the bottom left-hand corner. I really know precious little about them, and despite all this,” he swept an arm around the room, “so far, I’ve found out bugger all.”

Susan Tyler walked into her office and picked up the ringing phone. “DI Tyler.”

“Detective Inspector, it’s Duncan McBride,”

“Hello, Professor,” Susan said. She’d recognized the Scottish lilt to his voice before he introduced himself. “What can I do for you?”

“Could you pop along to the mortuary? I think I have something you’re going to want to see.”

“Concerning the body this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t you tell me over the phone?”

“Yes, I could. But I think you’ll want to see for yourself.”

“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

The mortuary was situated in the basement of University College Hospital. Susan had been there a number of times before, but visiting the place still filled her with dread. She wasn’t sure if it was the clinically spotless white tiles; the stainless steel tables, each with a drainage gulley; the sharp, antiseptic smell of the place; or maybe the banks of steel doors lining the walls, each a door to a refrigerated tomb. The presence of death freaked her out, and the experience of being here lived with her for days afterwards.

She pushed through the rubber entrance doors. McBride was there, his chubby form hovering by a stainless steel table. He was dressed in blue scrubs that barely contained his girth, his fluffy hair escaping from a blue scrub cap. Goggles were perched on his forehead and he wore latex gloves on his hands.

“Professor McBride,” she said as she entered the room.

McBride’s assistant was standing at a steel table holding another corpse, weighing something red on a set of scales that hung from the ceiling. Susan averted her eyes.

McBride turned to face her, his cheeks ruddy, his eyes large, magnified by the rimless spectacles he wore. In his hand was a long surgical knife, slightly curved. It glinted in the fierce overhead light. Duncan McBride looked like a slightly malevolent dwarf, a psychotic Doc from Disney’s
Snow White.
“I’m sorry,” he said in his soft Edinburgh burr. “I have a hectic schedule today, so I had to make a start. Come closer. You’re not squeamish, are you?”

Susan took a breath. “No,” she said. “I’ve seen dead bodies before. This isn’t my first postmortem.”

“That’s right, it isn’t,” McBride said. “You came down for that really nasty rape and homicide last year. I remember now.”

“What was it you wanted to show me?”

He stood aside, revealing the body of the girl they had recovered from the banks of the Thames. The only difference now was that she had a Y-shaped incision stretching from her pubis to her shoulders.

“I was just about to open her up. Want to watch? You’ll have to gown up, of course.”

“I’ll pass. What was it you wanted to show me, Professor?”

He looked a little disappointed. “Shame. I rarely get an audience—apart from Phillip here. And he’s seen it all before…many times. The novelty’s worn off now, hasn’t it, Phillip?” Phillip, his assistant, looked around at them, grimaced and carried on checking the scales.

“It’s this,” McBride said and pointed to the wound on the girl’s breast. “What do you make of that? Look at the shape.”

Susan leaned forward and looked at the wound.

“It’s deep, about six inches,” he said. “But the shape. Weirdest thing.”

“It’s a star,” Susan said.

“Yes, a star. Made by a knife with five blades. Five blades somehow joined together to make one weapon. I took a photo of the wound.” He walked across to the desk in the corner and came back clutching an eight-by-ten-inch color print. He handed it to Susan Tyler.

“When I first examined the body, I thought then that it had all the hallmarks of a ritual killing. The bound wrists and ankles, marks where the head was restrained, and now this.”

It not only showed a blown-up image of the wound, but McBride had taken a pen and connected the points of the star. She looked at the shape he had formed by joining them.

“It’s a pentagram,” she said.

“Indeed it is. Are there any covens active in the area?”

“Not that I’m aware.”

He looked disappointed again. “And then there’s this.” He pointed to a wound about three inches long, just above and to one side of the pubic bone—the crescent Miriam Jackley had pointed out to her at the riverside.

“Yes,” she said. “Miriam showed me earlier.”

“It was inflicted postmortem. The girl was dead when someone carved this into her. The shape of the stab wound, the crescent carving and the coin in the mouth indicate to me that there is an occult link to this. And you’re not aware of a coven operating around here?”

“I’ve had nothing across my desk suggesting there is.”

“And then there’s this. A small stamp on the back of her hand.” He lifted up the limp arm for Susan to see. On the back of the hand was a small, circular ink stamp.

“May I have a photo of this, and the wounds?”

“Of course,” McBride said. “Phillip, fetch the camera.”

Ten minutes later the photos were dropping into the printer’s collection tray.

“I wanted to show you firsthand,” McBride said, handing her the prints. “It might aid the investigation and help you find her killer.”

“How old do you think she was?”

“Sixteen. No more. Could be younger. Tragic. I hope you catch whoever did this.”

“Well, I’m going to try. Can I have a copy of your report?”

“Of course. I’ll get it sent over as soon as it’s typed up.”

Susan went back to her car and drove back to the station. She was starting to get a bad feeling about this case.

Chapter Twelve

“Vi, have you heard of the Children of Hecate?” Harry said. “It’s the name Markos’s followers give to themselves.”

“I’ve never heard that term used before.” Violet sat in her library, a pile of books stacked on the desk in front of her. She was still wearing her dressing gown. She hadn’t even showered yet. The email from her contact in Bremen had come in at seven, and since then she’d had her head buried in various textbooks and had been firing off emails to her contacts throughout the world. Personal hygiene had taken a backseat.

“How did you find out?” she said into the phone.

“Martin, here in the office. He and his girls were working on it all day yesterday, and again this morning.”

“So you’ve stopped doubting me?”

“Vi, I never—”

“Harry, you know better than to flannel me. I knew from the outset that I hadn’t convinced you, but I knew also that you would come round, once you’d dug a bit and discovered the facts for yourself.”

“Martin was right. You
are
a witch.”

“But a white one, Harry, not a black one. Never black.”

“So we’re moving forward. I was thinking of getting John McKinley to join the team.”

“McKinley? Do I know him?”

“You met him once. African American, tall enough to play for the Harlem Globetrotters.”

“Oh, John, yes. I remember. Charming man.”

“And a powerful psychic. I think we might need him.”

“I think you could be right. I got an email from my friend in Bremen. He’s found out why Markos was removed as CEO at Hematite Software.”

“Why”

“Wolfgang Metz, the chairman at Hematite, has a granddaughter, Karin. Markos started a relationship with her.”

“Let me guess, a blue-eyed blonde?”

“On the money,” Violet said.

“What is it with this guy and Nordic types?”

“I don’t know. It seems to go deeper than just a penchant. He seems to be specifically targeting them. There’s an underlying motive. So far I haven’t discovered what it is, but I’ll get there. Anyway, he zeroed in on Karin Metz, much to her grandfather’s disapproval. They began a relationship, and old Wolfgang moved quickly to knock it on the head. Maybe he could see something in Markos that everyone else seemed to miss.

“Unfortunately Karin took his interference badly. She was totally in Markos’s thrall, and her grandfather’s actions started a family rift that still rumbles on to this day.”

“What was the upshot?”

“Well, Wolfgang Metz is no fool. With some shrewd boardroom maneuvering, he had Markos removed as CEO, effectively putting him out of work. He also has some powerful friends and he called in some favors. The police got involved at the highest level, and a judge slapped a restraining order on Markos that stopped him having any contact with Karin. Markos was now in a corner. Thanks to Wolfgang, he was unemployable in Germany and he couldn’t have contact with Karin. So he left and came to England to start again.”

“I see a pattern emerging here. Flee, rather than face the consequences of his actions.”

“Exactly. And he carries on where he left off. Going by his past history, his involvement with Alice has nothing to do with romance, or, if it has, it’s from her side only. To him she’s just a cipher. She could be any pretty blonde. I think the man’s sick.”

“Well, he obviously has issues,” Harry said. “How does all this tie in with the Children of Hecate?”

“I don’t know. But I think if we keep examining Anton Markos, we’re going to find out. I’m glad you’re bringing John McKinley in. He can help you here in London. I think Jason can be useful elsewhere.”

“Really? Where?”

“Austria. Karin Metz’s family shipped her off there to get over the affair with Markos. She now works as a ski instructor in Kitzbühel. Send Jason over there. Get him to use his charm on her. I know Jason’s strengths. He can charm the birds off the trees. See what he can get her to spill about Markos. It may be our chance to finally get an advantage over him.”

“Do you think Jason will agree to go?”

“He’ll agree, and I should think he’ll love every minute of it.”

“Can you ski?” Harry said when Jason entered the office.

“Yes, why?”

“Because you’re going on a trip. How does an all expenses paid holiday to Austria sound?”

“What’s the catch?” Jason asked suspiciously.

“You’re going to have to form a relationship with a beautiful young blonde and pump her for information about Anton Markos.”

“Sometimes this job sucks,” Jason said with a smile.

Susan walked into the incident room and across to the board affixed to the wall. The board was empty apart from a photo in the center, taken on the riverbank. The room was half-full. Witherspoon and Bartlett were there along with two detective constables, one male, one female. The male DC, Tom Fox, was three years out of Hendon and was climbing rapidly up the promotion ladder. He was expected to reach the rank of sergeant before he hit twenty-five. Gillian Ryder had already reached twenty-five but was still a DC and showed no great ambition to climb higher.

“What have you got for me?” Susan said.

“We have a name for the victim,” Gillian said. “Kerry Green, sixteen, from Hackney. She was already in the system, a couple of juvies and a shoplifting charge last year that resulted in her being printed.”

“We’ve also identified the caller,” Fox said. “His name is Arthur Lane.”

“Do we like him for this?” Susan said.

“I went to interview him first thing. He’s seventy-two, a retired postal worker from Penge. He saw Kerry’s body and called it in.”

“Why didn’t he leave a name?”

“The usual,” Fox said. “Didn’t want to get involved.”

“So if he lives in Penge, how did he get to see the body?”

“He’s been staying with his sister in Belvedere Road. He was walking her dog along the Embankment.”

“So we have no lines of inquiry so far.”

There was a general shaking of heads around the room.

“Well, I’ve just got back from a meeting with McBride at UCH. There were a few marks on the body he wanted me to see.” She opened her briefcase and took out three color prints. She pinned them to the wallboard and stood back. “Okay. Image one: the stab wound, and probably this is what killed her. Notice the shape of the puncture wound.”

“It’s a star,” from the room.

“Professor McBride believes it was made by a five-bladed knife.”

“Odd.”

“Yes, that’s what he thought. He thinks it’s five blades welded together along the blunt edges, contained in a single handle. He thinks it might be ceremonial in some way. As you see, it leaves a star-shaped wound. I don’t know how significant this is, but if you join the points of the star together, they form a pentagram, an occult symbol. So we need to look at any groups in the area with some kind of black magic connection. Check with local cemeteries—see if they’ve had any incidents of graves being interfered with, headstones defaced, statuary vandalized, that kind of thing. Also check with the library and local bookshops to see if they’ve been asked for any books on the subject.”

“What about the Spiritualist church in Cooper Street?”

“No, we won’t go after the Christians just yet. Let’s concentrate our efforts on the fruit loops and oddballs.” She turned her attention back to the board. “The second photo. Someone carved this into Kerry’s flesh, postmortem according to McBride. Again the symbol suggests some kind of occult connection. It’s a crescent and could signify a new moon. And finally this, the remains of an ink stamp on the back of her hand.”

“That’s a nightclub reentry stamp,” Gillian said.

“Reentry?” Susan queried.

“Antismoking laws. If you’re at a club and you want to go outside for a cigarette, they stamp the back of your hand so you can go back inside without having to pay again.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of that. Right, Gill, make copies of the photo and get uniforms to canvass the clubs in the area. See if anyone can identify it. And that is all, for the time being. We need to tell Kerry Green’s parents and get them over to UCH to identify the body.”

“I’m on it,” Witherspoon said.

“And while you’re at it, have a word with them, gently, to see if they knew of any involvement their daughter had with any cults or groups. You never know; we might strike it lucky. But, I emphasize,
gently
. Kid gloves.”

Susan went back to her office and picked up the phone. She took a crumpled card from her top pocket and dialed.

“Harry Bailey?”

“Mr. Bailey. I don’t know if you remember me. Detective Inspector Tyler, Waterloo Road CID.”

“Inspector, yes. Of course I remember you.”

“How’s your boss, Mr. Crozier, after his stabbing?”

“He’s made a full recovery, thank you.”

Two years ago Simon Crozier had been attacked, stabbed by a woman with a kitchen knife, walking home along the Embankment. DI Susan Tyler had been the SIO on the case.

“What can I do for you, Inspector?”

“I need your help with a case I’m currently investigating.”

“Sure,” Harry said. “Anything I can do to help.”

“Last night a young girl, Kerry Green, was murdered. A single stab wound to the heart.”

“And?” Harry said. “How would that concern Department 18?”

“We have reason to believe it could be some kind of ritual killing. From the investigation of your boss’s attack, I discovered that your department deals with the weird and the wonderful, so I thought we might share a mutual interest. Can you come down here so we can talk?”

“No,” Harry said. “But you are welcome to come here. You remember where we are?”

“I do. Thirty minutes?”

Susan walked back to the incident room. Jake Bartlett was standing, staring at the photographs on the board.

“Jake, I have to go out for an hour or two. You can get me on my cell.”

“Nasty,” Bartlett said, pointing to the photo of Kerry on the riverbank. “She was only a kid. Sixteen. My Casey’s age. We’ll get the bastard who did this.”

“Yes, Jake.” Susan squeezed his arm. “We’ll get him.”

“Right, you’re on a flight out of Gatwick at 17.50 to Munich, and a taxi’s booked to take you to Kitzbühel. You’re staying at the Hotel Jägerwirt, bed and breakfast. You can organize your own evening meals. There are some very nice restaurants in the town. It will give you a chance to find somewhere classy to take her to dinner. The ski school is affiliated to the Jägerwirt, so you should cross paths with her without much effort.”

“How will I know her?”

Harry slid a photograph across the desk. Jason spun it around to see it.

“Yowza!”

“Yowza? What are you, fourteen?”

“She’s hot.”

“She’s also damaged goods. She narrowly escaped Markos’s clutches, but while she was with him she was totally infatuated. We don’t know her current state of mind, so tread lightly. Remember, her family is very wealthy, very protective and very powerful. You’ll probably be vetted in some way minutes after making contact with her. Don’t give them any cause for concern. We want information. We don’t want to drive her to a breakdown. Okay?”

“I hear you. Well, I should go home and pack. How long is the hotel booked for?”

“You’re booked in for three nights. It would be nice if you could get some results sooner.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

As Jason walked out of the office, he passed an attractive woman in the corridor, possibly mid forties with neatly bobbed, light brown hair. She was wearing a dark blue business suit. “Harry Bailey?” she said.

“Keep walking. The door at the end.”

Susan thanked him, reached the door and knocked.

“Come in.”

She pushed open the door and stepped inside.

Harry was on his feet and walking around the desk to greet her as she stepped into the room. “Inspector Tyler,” he said. “A pleasant surprise to hear from you. Here, take a seat.” He guided her to an office chair opposite his, and went back to the other side of the desk and sat down. “Now, how can we help you? You said something about a murdered girl?”