Mother of Demons (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Bastards! They weren’t listening to him. Terry Butler walked away from Waterloo Road police station, hoodie pulled up to cover his head, his eyes dancing from side to side, watching the street. Why didn’t they believe him? He had seen her through the window, standing outside the squat. He’d ducked back out of sight, but he was sure she’d spotted him.

He’d go away, away from London. He had an aunt in Braintree. He didn’t like her and she didn’t like him, but she was his mother’s sister and was really into families pulling together in times of crisis. And this was a crisis.

He took a right into Lombard Street and stopped dead. The blonde girl was there, standing at the end of the street: standing and staring at him, holding her arm out in front of her, as if pointing at him, but her fist was clenched. His instinct was to turn and run, but his legs were paralyzed. “What do you want from me?” he yelled.

There was no one on the street he could turn to for help. He simply stood rooted to the spot and stared back at the girl. Alice, not Arty. That was her name.
Alice
.

He’d call out to her again—try to reason with her. Tell her that what happened that night wasn’t his fault. It was Fin. He was to blame. He opened his mouth, but the words never reached his lips. The girl moved her other arm behind her, opened her fingers, and something hit him in the chest, burning a hole straight through it, making the back of his jacket explode in a crimson shower.

Butler fell forward onto his face, breaking his nose on the tarmac, not that it mattered. He died a few seconds later.

“Hi, Maria. It’s Harry.”

“Hello,” Maria Bridge said.

“How’s life treating you in Edinburgh?”

“Fine, Harry, just fine. Look, I really have to get to the hospital in a moment.”

“Yeah, sure. I won’t keep you. I know you have a busy life.”

Up until six months ago, Harry had been in a relationship with Maria. She’d been the doctor who had treated Crozier after his attack. The relationship ended when Maria said she’d had enough of living in London and working at a busy metropolitan hospital and decided to move away. The fact that she’d gone to live in Edinburgh and work at one of the busiest hospital in Scotland suggested to Harry that it was him and not London she’d had enough of.

“Look,” she said. “I meant to call you but…well, you know what it’s like. When we were together, our work was always an issue. Scheduling times when we could be together was—”

“Stop, Maria. I didn’t call you to discuss our relationship. I respect your decision to leave London. Let’s leave it at that, okay?”

“Okay. Then why did you call?”

“I need some information about crystal meth addiction.”

“Are you sure you’ve called the right person? I’m a surgeon. I take out peoples’ appendixes, repair people when they injure themselves. If you want to talk about drug addiction, you’d be better off talking to a counselor.”

“And I’d get a load of mumbo jumbo about social causes, psychological issues, and the reason why they’re taking it in the first place. I need to talk to someone who’s been at the sharp end, who has seen addicts on meth highs, without being lectured about how they got there. I figured, with the time you put in at the accident and emergency department of a busy London hospital, you would have dealt with junkies doing just that, not looking for a referral to rehab. What can you tell me?”

“Methamphetamine is a psychostimulant that can induce a state of euphoria, increase libido and heighten concentration, among other things. Those are the plus points. On the downside, it can cause irritability, aggressiveness and excessive feelings of power and grandiosity.”

“So if you believe you’re an immortal, crystal meth will fuel that belief?”

“Oh, yes. It can turn a control freak into a megalomaniac and lead some anonymous bureaucrat to believe they’re Napoleon Bonaparte. I saw both in my time at St. Thomas’s. The most dangerous issue here, though, is when the user is tweaking or bingeing, they can suffer from hallucinations so vivid that they seem real, and disconnect from reality. Then they can become a danger to themselves and others.”

“Well, that’s all I wanted to know really. You’ve been very helpful.”

“You’re welcome. Look, Harry, I wish things had turned out differently. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s life, Maria. It happens to all of us. Maybe I should have handled things differently, but we’ll never know. Look me up if you come down to London.”

“I don’t suppose you have much call to travel to Edinburgh.”

“No, not a lot.”

“Well. If you do…”

“Yeah, I know where you work. Thanks for your help, Maria,” he said and rang off.

“She’s hunting,” Harry said to Jason and McKinley. “She’s not Alice Logan anymore, not in
her
head. She’s Artemis, the hunter.”

Jason stared at him. “What are you talking about, Harry?” he said.

They were in Harry’s office, Jason seated across the desk from Harry. McKinley was sitting to one side, watching Harry with rapt attention. “So who’s she hunting, Harry?”

“Anyone who crosses her path and tries to hurt her, and those she’s sworn to protect.”

“This is making no sense, Harry,” Jason said.

“No, it didn’t to me until last night. I saw Alice’s bedroom, and I went home and gave myself a refresher course on Greek mythology. And earlier I spoke to someone who knows about the effects of the crystal meth that Markos got her addicted to. I think Alice now believes she’s Artemis, something she’s played at being in the past. The drug has twisted her mind and caused her to lose all sense of reality.”

“So is that all we’re dealing with here?” McKinley said. “A junkie?”

“If only it were that simple,” Harry said.

“I’ve just come up with something on Mikey Gibson,” Bartlett said as he walked into Susan’s office.

“And?”

“He was killed yesterday in Leather Lane.”

“That’s the market, right?”

“Yeah, he had a stall there.”

Susan closed her eyes. “How was he killed?”

“Wounds to the chest and eye. We’re waiting for the lab report to establish cause of death.”

“Any witnesses?”

“Two women, one of whom fainted. We’re questioning them now. And another stallholder, a Mr. Ali Khan, says Gibson was on his stall as usual, talking to a potential customer. She went, and a minute later Gibson keeled over onto his stall. Khan said it looked like he’d been shot, but Khan didn’t hear anything to suggest that was the case. No gunfire, nothing. One minute he was standing there, and then there was blood on his clothes, and then his eyeball ruptured.”

Susan drummed her fingers on the desk. “Did Khan give a description of the potential customer Gibson was talking to just before he died?”

“Female. Young, pretty and blonde.”

“Shit!” Susan said. “Get Butler back in.”

“Too late.” Gillian said from the doorway. “Terry Butler has just been found dead in Lombard Street. Miriam Jackley’s been called. She’s on her way there now.”

Susan looked at Bartlett. “I know, Jake. I know.”

“Tell John what you told me last night when we left the Logans’, Jason.”

Jason stood up and started pacing the room. “Alice Logan seems to have paranormal powers, inherited from her aunt, Violet. Tim Logan describes Vi Bulmer as a witch, but I’ve seen her in action. She’s not a witch per se but she does have some very well-developed psychic powers: clairvoyance, ESP, psychometry, precognition, telekinesis… You name it, Vi has it.”

“Which, if Alice has inherited half of the powers Vi has, makes her very dangerous indeed.”

“And if she’s inherited all of Vi’s powers?” McKinley said.

“Then we’re in trouble,” Harry said.

“So what about the bear?” Jason said. “Psychic powers don’t explain the bear attacking Markos.”

“That brings us back to Greek mythology,” Harry said. “The closest relation of the name Artemis in Greek is
árktos
—bear, and according to mythology, a cult arose around Artemis, probably a survival of some ancient totemic and shamanistic rituals that would have formed part of a larger bear cult found further afield in other
Indo-European
cultures. Did you know that the bear is one of the oldest European deities?” Harry stopped talking and flipped open a book on his desk and ran his finger down the page.

“Artemis also turned her handmaidens into bears and made them dance for her, and she herself has been depicted in bear form.”

“Christ, Alice has gone all the way in her delusions, hasn’t she?” McKinley said.

“But Harry,” Jason said, “all this is
mythology
. It doesn’t explain the bear that attacked Markos. That was real, very real.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me…yet. But there has to be an explanation,” Harry said. “A bear? In Epping Forest?”

“Maybe she’s a shape-shifter as well?” Jason said.

Harry shook his head. “Unlikely. It doesn’t fit with the myth, so I’m keeping an open mind about that one,” he said. “I know shape-shifters exist, because I’ve dealt with one before, but I don’t think Alice is a shape-shifter. What it means, though, is that we need to keep our wits about us, and—”

“So, what’s your take on Anton Markos now?” Jason said. “Do you still think he was responsible for the deaths of the doctor and nurse at the Mayberry Clinic?”

“I think Anton Markos had some limited psychic power, but basically he was a charlatan,” Harry said. “A smooth talker, able to bend young women to his will and make them act out of character. But ultimately he was a sad, deluded man who dedicated his life to bringing his fantasy, his passion for a picture, into reality. He wanted to reestablish the goddess Hecate here on earth. Drugging the women he desired, using human sacrifice and whatever means he thought would help him achieve his goal. Ironic really. He tried to reestablish Hecate on earth, and got Artemis instead. And his folly killed him.” He looked steadily at Jason. “We say nothing to Vi about this until we’re sure.”

“This is going to break her heart, Harry.”

“I know it will,” Harry said grimly.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“DI Tyler.”

“Susan?”

“Harry, can this wait? I’m up to my eyes at the moment.”

“I won’t keep you,” Harry said. “I just needed to tell you. The emphasis on finding Alice Logan has shifted. We now suspect she was instrumental in Anton Markos’s death.”

“And how long have you waited to tell me this?”

“Minutes. I’ve only just finished putting it all together in my head.”

“Well, I’m ahead of you, Harry. We now have an all points out across London to find and apprehend Alice Logan.”

“Why the change?”

“We believe she might be responsible for the deaths of Mikey Gibson and Terry Butler, and possibly two others.”

“Who are they?”

“Those two, together with Fin Clusky and Davy Coltrane, were all at Anton Markos’s apartment when Alice was there. There was some kind of incident with Alice on the balcony. She was as high as a kite. They were all goading her and taking the piss. Now they’re all dead, the latest being Butler, who was killed minutes after we interviewed him. Though how she knew he was here is anyone’s guess.”

“She’s hunting them down, Sue, and wiping them out. She believes she’s Artemis, Greek goddess of the hunt.”

“I don’t believe this,” Susan breathed into the phone. Louder, she said, “Why and how?”

Harry gave her a concise version of his theory. “Basically, she’s destroying anyone she believes is mocking her or potentially hurting her. It’s why I think she killed Markos. He got her hooked on drugs and he was using her. Fin Clusky too, if she thought Markos was getting the drugs from him.”

“And the two girls who were buried where we found Clusky?”

“No. I think you can lay those squarely at Markos’s door. It was probably Clusky who disposed of the bodies, which explains
where
he was killed. Alice wasn’t responsible for them, or Kerry Green for that matter. Their bodies all had crescents carved into them postmortem. The crescent is the symbol for Artemis, and all three girls had coins placed under their tongues to pay for their journey across the River Styx. Alice was trying to ease their passage to the other side. Artemis, in legend, was also the protector of young women. She was doing what she saw as her duty by them.”

“This is all totally whacked out,” Susan said. “I’ve got a drug-fueled psycho, who believes she’s some sort of goddess, with paranormal powers and a huge chip on her shoulder. That’s one for
Crimewatch
.”

“It doesn’t end there, Susan,”

“What do you mean?”

“The Children of Hecate. They were all complicit in the sacrifice of the girls. How many hassocks did they recover from the warehouse?”

“I don’t know. Barking police have shut me out of the investigation. I don’t have access to that information, but I would say fifteen, possibly twenty.”

“Then we have fifteen or possibly twenty more victims. She’s going to try and hunt them all down and kill them.”

Susan sat back in her seat. “Shit,” she said. “But we don’t know who they are.”

“No…but Alice does,” Harry said.

BBC News London
.

A bright-eyed young woman appeared on the screen, standing roadside. Behind her, trees and greenery.

“And finally: police in Essex today cordoned off certain areas here at Epping Forest, after a man was reportedly attacked by a
bear
.”

She was trying hard not to smile and pressed on regardless. “A police spokesman said they were treating the threat as ‘credible’.”

The screen switched and a policeman in a crisp and very smart police uniform, complete with peaked cap, appeared on the screen against the backdrop of a large glass building bearing the legend
Essex Constabulary
, written in blue letters on a cream-colored board. The red bar at the bottom of the screen read,
Chief Constable Edward Marr, Essex Police.

“At the moment we are treating this report as credible, and we would ask the public to avoid the cordoned-off areas of the forest, and to help their local police by reporting anything they see that they would consider to be unusual. While we don’t think there’s any immediate threat to the public, we would ask for their vigilance and ask them to keep clear of the forest until we have completed our inquiries. Thank you.”

The screen switched and bright-eyes was back. “Earlier, we spoke to Mike Preston, bear-keeper at Colchester Zoo.”

What followed was a two-minute talking heads piece, dragging in comments from experts on bear behavior.

Back to bright-eyes. “I think the message is, don’t go down to the woods today, as you could well be in for a big surprise.” She smiled at the last comment, obviously pleased with herself for managing to get her quip into the broadcast. “Sasha Lancaster, BBC News, Epping Forest.”

Harry’s phone rang. “Have you seen the news?” Jason said.

“I’ve just watched it. A four-minute fluff piece at the end of the broadcast, in the
humorous stories
spot. I don’t think they’re taking it seriously.”

“I agree, but how else could they have handled it without causing panic? I thought the policeman got the tone just about right. Panic is the last thing the police need just now. In all honesty, there’s no real threat to the general public. Alice is targeting specific victims. I don’t see her as a danger to anyone else. Mind you, if I were a member of the Children of Hecate, and knew what was going on, I’d be shitting myself.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Jason said, a shade begrudgingly. “What are we supposed to do? Sit back and do nothing?”

“Pretty much. I doubt they’ll find anything, and if they do, Susan Tyler will hear, and she’ll call me.”

“So we sit and wait for Alice to make her next move?”

“As I see it, Jason, we don’t have any choice. At the moment, Alice is in the wind. She could be anywhere. We have to wait for her to show herself again.”

“And in the meantime, someone else is going to die.”

“I know,” Harry said. “I know.”

By the dim light of his sitting room desk lamp, James Chesterton sat at his PC, trawling through Internet sites, looking for some club, some group to fill the hole in his life that, until recently, had been filled by the Children of Hecate. Not that he was ever a believer, and some of the rituals, especially the kneeling and the chanting, were a bit of a pain, but the naked girls on the altar, the knife and the blood, well… Not even the porn sites he frequented on the Internet could give him that kind of rush.

Chesterton was thirty-two, unmarried, and still lived with his aging parents. He occupied the back part of the house: two rooms overlooking the garden. One room was a bedroom with a pine bed, a wardrobe, a chair and very little else. One wall was given over to
Star Wars
wallpaper, very old and fading slightly, but that didn’t matter. Color pinups from lads’ mags and “top shelf” periodicals were stuck to the wall, and hid the fact that C-3PO was looking a little tarnished and Chewbacca looked like he was molting.

The other room was what he called his bachelor pad. From the black velvet drapes to the red leather Ikea couch, he liked to think of it as his seduction room. The unpalatable truth was that, on the rare occasion he found a girl to come back to his place with him, she was turned off either by his bookcases filled with
Star Wars
and
Doctor Who
action figures, or by his mother, usually wearing her nightdress, who would bustle into his room unannounced to see if Johnny or his “friend” would like a “nice cup of tea”.

He had just opened a page on sci-fi collectables when something tapped lightly on one of the glass panels of the French doors. The house was large. His elderly father was the vicar at St. Bede’s Presbyterian Church, a hundred yards up the hill, and the house was the vicarage attached to it, where the family lived on Reverend Chesterton’s stipend and the small amount of cash James brought home from his job at the local Halfords.

He spun round at the sound at the doors, his pulse rising slightly. He thought it might be Thea, a rather plain girl with mousy, usually unwashed hair who worked at the fish shop in town, who had promised him she would come round to see him one day.

He got up from the computer and cupped his hand to peer out at the darkened garden. He squinted. He could just about make out the rounded shape of the box hedges his mother so lovingly trimmed, the ornamental concrete birdbath, and the stand of five apple trees at the bottom, but not much else.

Blaming his imagination, he pushed away from the doors and went back to his computer. Before he could refresh the screen, he heard another sound. This one was like a fingernail being drawn down a chalkboard. He sprang up from his seat again and went to investigate, unlocking the French doors and yanking them open.

He stepped out into the night, pulling his woolen cardigan tight around him to ward off the chill, and someone whispered his name.

“James.”

It seemed to come from the area of the garden where his father grew vegetables. He looked intently but couldn’t see anything, but then he heard a sound, a kind of shuffling, the sound a hairbrush being drawn over coconut matting would make.

“Is anybody there? Thea, is that you?” he hissed, and glanced back into the room to make sure his mother hadn’t come to investigate.

“James.” Another whisper.

He took three steps onto the crazy-paved path, and had almost reached the greenhouse when something reared up from the vegetable plot.

Huge, with long dark fur, the bear towered above James. It opened its mouth and gave an ear-splitting roar that seemed to rattle his head and caused his bladder to open and expel its contents down his leg, soaking his pants. The bear raised its long claw-sharp arm and brought it slashing down, tearing James’s face from his skull. It slashed again and opened up his chest to the rib cage, several of the claws catching in his ribs and ripping them out of his chest.

With a mewling cry, Chesterton fell to the path and died a few seconds later.