The Gordian Knot (Stone & Randall 2) Read online

  The Gordian Knot

  (Stone & Randall 2)

  Tim Ellis

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  Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2013 Timothy Stephen Ellis

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  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  All places, locations and characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual places, locations, or persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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  Books written by Tim Ellis can be obtained either through the author’s official website: http://timellis.weebly.com/ at Smashwords.com or through online book retailers.

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  To Pam, with love as always

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  A big thank you to proofreaders James Godber and Steve Jones

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  The Gordian Knot

  Pertaining to Gordius, ancient king of Phrygia, who tied a knot that, according to prophecy, was to be undone only by the person who was destined to rule Asia, and that was Alexander the Great who cut it in half with his sword.

  Also, a metaphor for a difficult or intractable problem.

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  Chapter One

  Monday, December 3

  Molly showed her warrant card to the uniformed officer standing at the door, put on the blue paper suit, gloves and boots, and then walked past him through the arched doorway into the Church of St Peter-in-Chains on Hegel Street in Hammersmith.

  Why was she always notified of a murder between two and four in the morning? The dead could wait – they had nothing else better to do. Somebody should use the brains they were born with and realise there was no urgency required, that the hardworking police deserved a full night’s sleep and that they should report the murder at eight o’clock in the morning to the front desk sergeant by filling in a form in triplicate like any sane person.

  She wasn’t officially back from her three weeks’ sick leave until eight o’clock, so she would have been within her rights to tell the person who had called to take a long walk off a short pier. The trouble was – that person was Chief Superintendant Avril Smart. ‘Yes, Ma’am. Three bags full Ma’am. I’ll get right over there, Ma’am.’

  ‘Welcome back, Gov,’ her partner, DC Tony Read said. Tony had joined the Homicide Team at Hammersmith after pounding the beat for five years in Pimlico. He kept his black hair short and gelled, and always looked clean and smart in casual clothes. Slightly taller than her five feet ten, but underneath his clothes he had the body of someone who could have been a professional middleweight boxer if it hadn’t been for his glass jaw. He was still single, and had a passion for fast women and even faster cars. She had no doubt that once he’d grown up, he would be a good catch for any woman.

  ‘She looked up at the crucified priest. He was naked except for a white clerical collar around his neck and a crown of thorns on his head. Blood was still drip-dripping into the widening pools on the stone floor beneath him. ‘Hardly.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  Ah! The million dollar question. Let’s get right to it. No messing about with Tony Read. After a week in hospital the Chief had given her three weeks off that she would rather not have had, and she’d been going to trauma counselling twice a week. Had the patronising therapist helped? Was he able to stop her waking up in the night screaming and drenched in sweat? No, he hadn’t helped. But she was determined not to live the rest of her life with the mindset of a victim. She’d rather die than let the nightmares beat her.

  She alone knew that the serial killer Jacob had paid her a visit in the hospital; she hadn’t even told Randall about it. Where was Cole Randall? No doubt he was wrestling with his own demons, but he should at least have called her – the bastard.

  ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ she replied.

  ‘DI Stone,’ Chief Scientific Officer Carl Perkins said as he walked towards her. ‘I was wondering if you’d be assigned to the case.’

  ‘Why?’

  He shrugged. ‘Well . . . It’s not a run-of-the-mill murder, is it?’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘You seem to get the weird ones.’

  She hadn’t given it much thought before, but Perkins was right – why was that? Wasn’t she damaged enough as it was?

  ‘So, what have we got here?’

  Perkins grinned like the masque of death. ‘I think it’s fairly obvious what we’ve got here, Inspector.’

  She really wasn’t in the mood. ‘It’s going to be one of those nights, isn’t it?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Perkins said, his grin disappearing.

  ‘When I lock everybody up for being assholes.’

  Perkins screwed his face up. ‘It doesn’t appear as though three weeks off has improved your disposition.’

  ‘Just get on with it, Perkins.’

  ‘What we have here is a crucified priest.’

  The priest was nailed to a wooden cross that had been suspended from the central stone arch by a rope. ‘I can hear the cell door with your name on it creaking open.’

  He gave a strangled laugh. ‘As you can see, we haven’t taken the body down yet . . .’

  ‘I think we’ll have to take all your clothes for forensic examination . . . Well, you know the procedure. We’ll carry out a strip search, of course . . .’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you to arrive.’

  ‘I’m here now, so let’s get the poor bastard down.’

  Perkins nodded at a couple of his people. They began the delicate job of lowering the heavy wooden cross to the floor.

  ‘Tony?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There’s a cell at the station for you as well, you know.’

  He gave half a laugh showing good teeth. ‘Oh yeah. His name is Father Nathan Grove. He’s a priest.’

  ‘Is it because it’s the middle of the night?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Tony gave a stupid grin. ‘Of course he’s a priest. He’s forty-seven years old and he’s been the parish priest here for eighteen months. That’s as much as I’ve been able to find out about him. I called the Archbishop, and his secretary answered. He said he’d ring me back once he’d spoken to the Archbishop.’

  Molly nodded.

  Avoiding the three-foot circle of blood, the cross was slowly lowered to the floor in the central aisle between the wooden pews.

  ‘It’s like an old school reunion,’ Doctor Maurice Firestone – the forensic pathologist from Hammersmith Hospital – said as he walked towards them.

  ‘You took your time,’ Molly said.

  He smiled. ‘You weren’t thinking of starting without me, were you?’

  What the hell was he so happy about? It was the middle of the night for Christ’s sake. Maybe she’d been away for too long. Maybe she’d forgotten what a shit job this was.

  ‘Can we get on with it?’

  He knelt down next to the body. ‘Mmmm. I could be wrong, but those look like real nails to me. What do you think, Perkins?’

  ‘The metal content will need analysing, but you could be right.’

  Tony spoke up first. ‘What do you mean, “Real nails”? Nails are nails, aren’t they?’

  ‘Except when they’re Roman duplex nails,’ Doc Firestone said. ‘Duplex nails have
an extra ridge on them . . .’ He pointed at the nail in the priest’s left wrist, which was protruding about a quarter of an inch above the skin. ‘It makes it easier to pull the nail out after the victim dies. Historically, five inch nails were driven between the metacarpals in the wrist and the heads of the radius and ulna, and seven inch nails through the heels.’

  ‘How do you know all this crap, Doc?’ Tony asked.

  ‘A lifetime spent reading instead of living, detective.’ The pathologist pinched the skin, pressed the fingernails and opened the dead man’s eyes. ‘Mmmm, he’s not been dead long. I would guess between one and two hours – expired possibly about midnight.’ He briefly examined the wound on the right side of the man’s chest and stood up. ‘The five wounds of Christ,’ he said.

  Molly bent over to look more closely. ‘The nail wounds on his hands and feet, and the lance wound which pierced his heart?’

  ‘Exactly. Except that, Christ’s crucifixion wasn’t any different to the thousands of other crucifixions at the time. The post mortem will verify it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the fatal blow was caused by a Roman lance. The killer appears to have replicated the crucifixion in every other detail. Well, except for the clerical collar, the crown of barbed wire and that . . .’ he said pointing to something neither Molly nor Read could see.

  They shuffled further forward.

  Above the dead man’s head, instead of INRI – Jesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews) carved into a wooden plaque – was ATHEOS.

  ‘What does it mean?’ Tony asked.

  The Doc smiled. ‘I’m sure you’d be able to solve the case in a jiffy if you knew that.’

  ‘It’s Greek. It means: “Godless, without God,”’ Molly said reading from her phone.

  ‘So much for solving the case,’ Tony said.

  Doc Firestone rubbed the stubble on his chin. ‘So, you know what it means, but not what it means in this context.’

  Tony scratched his head. ‘I should have stayed in bed.’

  ‘Does it mean that the killer considered the priest Godless? Or, is the killer Godless? Maybe, it has nothing to do with God. Maybe . . .’

  ‘Thanks for your input, Doc,’ Molly interrupted him. ‘I’m sure we’ll figure it out in time.’

  ‘As you wish, Inspector.’

  ‘Anything else for us?’ Molly asked.

  ‘Nothing springs to mind.’

  ‘Post mortem?’

  ‘Tomorrow at ten.’

  ‘Not today?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I’ve been up most of the night, and I also have a bit of a backlog to clear.’

  ‘Maybe we should put the investigation on hold until we’ve had a good night’s sleep, Tony?’

  ‘I like that idea,’ he said and grinned.

  The Doc ignored her quip. ‘Right, I’ll return to my nice warm bed. You know where to send the body, Perkins?’

  ‘We’ll need to take him off the cross to move him.’

  ‘Of course, but send the nails with him in an evidence bag, I’d like to take a look at them in relation to the wounds. I might even write an article on the pathology of crucifixions for the Lancet. Also, I’d like a copy of the photographs and the film.’ He pointed to a forensic officer with a digital camcorder.

  Perkins nodded.

  ‘Good seeing you again, Doc,’ Tony said.

  ‘What about you, DI Stone?’

  ‘If I never see you again it’ll be too soon.’

  ‘Always a pleasure. I’ll see you at the post mortem tomorrow then. Have a nice day.’ He set off down the aisle towards the main door.

  She took another look at the murdered priest and wondered what it was all about. Why leave the clerical collar on? Why replicate Christ’s crucifixion? Why use Roman-period nails and a lance? What did the killer mean by carving ATHEOS into the cross?

  ‘Where did the cross come from, Tony?’

  Tony shook his head. ‘I assumed it was already here. A church is a good place to keep a cross.’

  ‘Where though?’

  They looked around, but couldn’t see any obvious place where the cross might have been.

  ‘You’re taking the cross into custody, aren’t you, Perkins?’

  ‘Yes, but I haven’t figured out how yet.’

  ‘Maybe the Archbishop will know if the cross was already here?’ Tony suggested.

  ‘Yes, maybe he will. Who found the body and called it in?’

  Tony referred to his notebook. ‘Peter Gillibrand. He used to be a chartered accountant, but he gave it all up to live on the streets. He was passing by, saw the lights on, thought he’d come in to get warm and have a sleep, found the body instead.’

  ‘Did he see anything that might help us?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How long did you say this Archbishop was going to be?’

  Tony grinned. ‘Aren’t you glad to be back?’

  How could she be mad at someone who grinned all the time? ‘Ecstatic.’

  Chapter Two

  The Archbishop’s secretary rang Tony back at three-fifty. He said that, due to an important meeting in the morning with Cardinal Moravia from Rome that couldn’t be re-scheduled, the Archbishop was unable to attend St Peter-in-Chains church in the early hours. The secretary apologised, and informed them that the Archbishop would make time in his busy schedule to see them between eleven and twelve o’clock later in the day.

  Molly snatched the phone out of Tony’s hand. ‘You’re joking, right?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ the secretary said. ‘Who am I speaking to now?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Molly Stone. So, as I understand it, one of your priests has been crucified in his own church, and the Archbishop can’t be bothered to come here and help us get to the bottom of it – is that right?’

  ‘Unfortunately . . .’

  ‘We’ve been waiting here like whores on a street corner for the Archbishop to arrive . . .’

  ‘I don’t think . . .’

  She’d ended the call and chucked the phone back at Tony. ‘Doc Firestone had the right idea. I’m going back to bed. If those men of God don’t give a toss about one of their own then why should we?’ She turned on her heel like a ballet dancer and headed off down the aisle.

  Tony ran to catch up with her. ‘Are you sure, Gov?’

  ‘I’m sure. You’re in charge. I’m not going to stay up all night and then work all day. I’ll be in at nine. We’ll catch up, brief the Chief and then go and see the Archbishop.’

  ‘I’ll stay here, shall I?’

  ‘Do what you want.’

  She exited the church, climbed into her car and drove off. The Chief would probably charge her with dereliction of duty or something, but she didn’t care. What was the point of standing around in a freezing church waiting for people to wake up?

  Maybe she wasn’t ready to go back to work. Maybe she was too damaged to investigate horrific murders anymore. Maybe she should apply to work in traffic or something less demanding. Maybe . . . She reached home at four twenty-five and crawled back into bed. After a couple more hours sleep she’d be fine – wouldn’t she?

  She was damaged goods. On the outside she looked all right, but inside – where it was dark and nobody could see – she was a mess. No man would ever want her.

  ***

  Cole Randall stretched.

  He’d moved out of the damp one-bedroom hovel on Ravenscourt Road, and now lived with Kiri in the flat above her cafe – the Pepper Pot – on King Street in Hammersmith.

  He didn’t really want to get up, but the faint aroma of breakfast cooking was tunnelling up his nose and activating the olfactory system in his brain. He also needed a piss.

  After emptying his bladder he checked his phone messages. He had two voicemails: the first was from Salih Reis to tell him that Molly Stone had gone to church at two fifteen this morning, and the other was from John Crabbe informing him that no one was following Molly or Salih Reis.

 
He’d decided not to take seventeen year old Athena Izzard up on her offer to work for her company – Security Solutions – as a consultant. Instead, he’d bought a forty-nine percent stake in the company with a large portion of his compensation money from the Criminal Justice Board. He still had the money from the sale of his house, the back-dated salary they didn’t pay him while he was locked up in Springfield Asylum, and each month he received his full police service pension that had been re-instated, so it hadn’t left him short of a few coppers to rub together in the winter.

  After protracted negotiations, it was agreed that they’d branch out into private investigations because, when all was said and done, he was a lot more than merely a security consultant. They would change the name of the company to AI Investigations and Security – AI being Athena’s initials – and it would also move them up the pecking order in the Yellow Pages. Athena would run the day-to-day business as usual, they’d have a board meeting once a month and he would decide what work he did and when he did it.

  Reis and Crabbe were two of four operatives working for him. He’d been remiss on two occasions. The first time was failing to notice that the Hansen brothers were targeting Molly. And the second was letting Jacob Hansen get away from the disused abattoir in Blood Alley, Shepherd’s Bush. He knew Jacob was still out there and waiting for the opportunity to kill Molly and finish what he’d started. But Randall had unfinished business with Jacob of his own. The bastard had – after all – killed his wife and children.

  ‘Oh, you’re up?’ Kiri said as she came into the bedroom. She’d already showered and dressed, and would be opening the cafe soon.