The unforgiven dead, p.23
The Unforgiven Dead, page 23
He turned on the tap again and doused his face in icy cold water. This time he did not look in the mirror when he straightened up. Instead he grabbed a green paper towel from a shelf by the sink and slapped his face dry. He balled up the soggy paper and chucked it in the bin on the way out of the toilets. He thought of Eleanor Chichester and her insistence that everyone wore masks. How was his mask holding up? he wondered, slipping into the incident room.
Not well, he surmised.
He immediately spotted Gills, standing by the murder board and chatting to Crowley. He wore his good tweed suit with a salmon-pink shirt and an emerald-green tie. His burgundy brogues were buffed, but the laces didn’t match, those on the right being multicoloured affairs salvaged from a pair of old hiking boots Angus vaguely remembered. His hair was the usual chaos, though—like spindrift blown from the crest of a wave.
Crowley called for everyone’s attention, then introduced Gills as “an authority on Highland folklore and ancient customs.” Gills gave a bashful smile, but when Angus caught his eye, his friend’s stare was hard as granite. Behind Gills’s head, Faye Chichester’s picture on the wall stared at Angus with beseeching eyes.
You could have saved me!
He wanted to leave, but his legs acted of their own volition, propelling him to a chair beside Nadia. She glanced up as he sat, and smiled. “Perfect timing.”
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
“The floor is yours, Dr. MacMurdo,” Crowley said with a sweep of his arm.
Gills nodded his thanks. He appeared completely at ease, as if he spent every Monday evening addressing a roomful of Scotland’s elite murder detectives. And Angus. He perched casually on the desk, thin legs sticking out in front, crossed at the ankles to reveal a few inches of white sports sock.
“Sacrifice, ladies and gentlemen, is what I’m here to discuss with you,” he began. “We all have to make them.” His eyes flicked to Angus, emphasizing the tacit rebuke. “But how many of you have made a sacrificial offering to a god or goddess? Not many, I’d wager, and those who have are keeping quiet about it, eh?”
Angus heard a few disembodied laughs.
“Sacrifice is how the ancients communicated with the divine. And the ultimate expression of that was blood, or human, sacrifice. Roman sources claim Celtic druids engaged widely in human sacrifice. Julius Caesar, writing in 44 BC, describes living humans being immolated in huge wicker figures.”
Gills’s silken voice catapulted him back to the Old Manse: to the smell of wet dog and whisky; to the tick of the grandfather clock; to the creak of leather as he squirmed on the retro armchair and described the horrors his mind had conjured.
He watched as Gills slipped off the desk and tapped a key on his laptop. A flat-screen monitor mounted on the wall behind sprang into life.
“Human sacrifice is a practice as old as the world itself. From the Inca to the Indians, the Egyptians to the Japanese, the power of human sacrifice was at once a near universally held belief. This poor chap here”—he tapped the image—“is about to be sacrificed by a Tahitian chief to the war god Oro. Captain Cook recorded the ritual during his exploration of the Pacific islands in 1774. The chief believed the human sacrifice would help him in his battle against the chief of a nearby island. And that, in essence, is what most human sacrifice is about—communicating with the divine. Just as Agamemnon killed his daughter Iphigenia to placate the goddess Artemis, and thus reach Troy to sack the city, sacrifice is a means to an end, usually to attain supernatural intervention.”
Memories that Angus had long buried clawed their way to the surface as Gills talked. He saw himself as a skinny child, body convulsed in tears, as he tried to explain that first vision. He recalled his father’s angry glare, those strong hands bunching into fists. You’ll never talk of this again! Do you hear me, boy! Then suddenly he was pelting towards the Old Manse, tears burning his cheeks.
He looked up and found Gills staring at him with the same frustrated look he gave Bran when the dog tipped over the kitchen bin in search of scraps.
Angus closed his eyes and recalled the comforting earthy aroma of tobacco from the pipe Gills used to smoke, and the musty scent of aged books when he’d walked into the study in the Old Manse for the first time. In his mind’s eye, he saw Gills plucking books off the shelves, as if he were picking brambles from the thicket that grew in the woods behind his house. He felt the weight of them in his arms. Read this, and this . . . and old J. G. Campbell could help too.
His eyes snapped up in time to see Gills tap his laptop. The image of Tahitian sacrifice vanished. “Sacrifice also spares followers from a deity’s wrath,” Gills declared. “Religions, from time immemorial, are based on fear. Take Christianity, for example, and the concept of Christ as the eternal sacrifice for the sins of mankind; or where sinfulness in life is punished by eternal damnation. So it was with pagan beliefs. The gods controlled our fates and had to be propitiated with appropriate offerings.”
Gills tapped the laptop, and a photograph of a leathery-looking mummified corpse appeared on the screen. “Some of you will no doubt be familiar with bog bodies. These handsome fellows are found across Europe, preserved in bogs, with some of the best examples coming from Ireland. This charming chap is known as Clonycavan Man, recovered from a bog in County Meath. He suffered a gruesome demise, having been disembowelled and struck three times across the head and body with an axe. His nipples have also been cut off, which has led academics to theorize that Clonycavan Man was a failed king. In ancient Ireland, suckling a king’s nipples was a gesture of submission: to have them severed would symbolically have made him incapable of kingship. In this era, rulers were profoundly associated with the land. If harvests failed, it was not the fault of the weather; it was the result of poor kingship. If harvests failed several years running . . . well, the king was not long for this world.”
Memories flitted through Angus’s mind, like the fledgling swallows that nested under the eaves of the Old Manse. He smelt the pine air freshener that dangled from the rearview mirror of Gills’s Ford Anglia. He felt the summer breeze on his face as they flew past Eilean Donan Castle on the way to Kirkton to play Kinlochshiel in the cup. He saw Gills teaching him how to fly-fish in the hill loch above Glenruig. He pictured a patchwork of green fields and rugged tree-covered mountains from the top of Dunadd hill fort. He saw a footprint cut in the rock, and heard Gills telling him about the ancient kings of Dalriada who were inaugurated at Dunadd by placing their foot in the indent. He saw his own grubby Adidas Samba trainer, tiny when placed in the footprint. He recalled a biting cold that had spread up his legs, as if he’d stepped into a stream of energy stretching back to the beginning of time. Then Gills’s hand on his shoulder, warm and solid. Tell me what you see, young man. I’m not here to judge.
A lump lodged in Angus’s throat. All Gills had ever done was try to help him, but he’d turned his back on the old man. He felt the bottle of pills in his inside pocket, pressed against his heart—antipsychotics used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other major depressive disorders. He pictured himself standing in the kitchen of the Old Manse, dripping seawater onto the parquet floor, arms tired from pumping on Ethan’s chest. Words ripped from his raw throat: I’m done, Gills! No more! This is fucking useless!
Please, Angus, you’re not ill. This is a gift few possess. It’s like a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it becomes.
So if I don’t use it, the muscle will wither away?
I don’t—
Then that’s what I’ll do—I’ll let it wither and die.
Angus tugged his mind back to the incident room. On the screen, Gills had brought up another warped-looking corpse. The body was well preserved, the face like a motion-blurred photograph, mouth agape as if he had been screaming for centuries. Angus saw Lewis Duncan, lips drawn back in a howl of agony as the flames carved his face.
“This is perhaps the most famous bog body: Lindow Man. He was found facedown in Lindow Moss in Cheshire. But he was no lowly pleb. His diet and manicured nails suggest he was of high status, perhaps a druidic prince. Around the first century AD, Roman forces had overrun southern Britain. The native Celts faced annihilation, their beliefs trampled under hobnailed boots. As religious leaders, the druids were seen as intermediaries between man and the gods. Lindow Man’s sacrifice was, in this context, a last throw of the dice, a desperate plea to their gods for divine intervention.”
Gills gave the officers a tight smile. “Lindow Man suffered a threefold death.” He counted off the methods of violence on his fingers: “He suffered three stunning blows to the head, delivered with the sudden force of a thunderbolt. He was then strangled with a garrotte knotted in three places and made of fox sinew, his blood drained. Finally, after he was already dead, he was symbolically drowned. His third death.”
Angus felt as if someone had opened a window to let the night in. He glanced around him. Even those who had at first appeared sceptical seemed to prick up their ears: the similarities between this ritual murder and Faye’s killing were undeniable. He felt Nadia watching him, but his eyes were on Gills. His friend stared at him, an almost pleading expression on his craggy face.
Close your eyes and see.
“Why three deaths, Dr. MacMurdo?” Crowley asked.
“Because three was the Celts’ sacred number,” Gills replied. “It linked their tales, legends, and deities, and is a frequent motif across their art and literature. Many of their gods and goddesses have three aspects, and the vast vibrant Celtic pantheon is dominated by three mighty gods, each of whom have a thirst for human sacrifice.”
He tapped the laptop and a triptych of gods appeared on-screen: a muscle-bound bearded man with a lightning bolt over his shoulder; a robed figure hacking a tree with an axe; and a fierce god with arms upraised, clasping two smaller human beings in his hands.
“Taranis, the thunder god, with his chariot wheel; Esus, the lord and master; and Teutates, the god of the tribe. They would have gone by different names locally, but this triad was worshipped across the Celtic world, from Ireland to Gaul.”
“So they were the top dogs, like Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades?”
Angus glanced at DC Lockhart, who had asked the question. She sat with her legs crossed, notebook out, like an eager student in one of Gills’s lectures.
“If you like,” the old man replied. “Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades were the children of the Titans. Like the Greeks, the Highlands has its own Titan.”
He jabbed the keyboard and another image appeared: a one-eyed crone with blue-tinged skin. She carried a staff and rode on the back of a wolf. Angus recognised the image from the lecture Gills had given to the German exchange students.
“This is Beira, Queen of Winter. The Bone Mother. Known in these parts as the Cailleach. She’s the oldest deity we know of. Older than the Celtic people. Older than time, perhaps. She has three aspects—maiden, mother, and crone—which embody the cycle of life and death. Most tellingly, the Cailleach is said to rise on Samhain. Faye was killed on Samhain, which, for those of you who don’t know, is the pagan festival that spawned Halloween. For the ancient Celts, it was a dangerous liminal time when the veil between this world and the otherworld was gossamer thin. Spirits and creatures from the realm of the dead could cross freely into our world.”
The room was now eerily silent, nothing but the odd stifled cough and the whish of notes being taken to distract him from his friend’s voice. Gills had his audience hooked. Angus thought of all the stories Gills had told him over the years, about old kings and queens, giants who lived in mountains and fairies who shape-shifted into animals. Myths and legends that the old man treated with reverence.
Crowley cleared his throat. “This goes no further than this room, Dr. MacMurdo. But there is a remarkable similarity between the death of this Lindow Man and Faye’s murder.”
Gills slapped the laptop shut and the monitor on the wall went blank. He linked his hand behind his back and looked down at his brogues, but appeared not to care about the mismatched laces. “Here’s the thing, ladies and gents,” he said, now looking up. “If we hadn’t recovered Faye’s body, the tide would have claimed her. Like Lindow Man, she was a high-status sacrifice, a laird’s daughter. An offering to whom, I can’t say. By whom is for you to determine. But what I can tell you is this: Lindow Man was not the only body pulled from Lindow Moss.”
His eyes flicked to Angus.
Close your eyes.
“I fear Faye’s murder might only be the beginning.”
And see.
Angus slumped down on the monks bench and kicked off his boots. His brain had reached a saturation point but continued to churn. He closed his eyes but found no respite there, as images of mutilated bog bodies and Gills’s pagan gods flickered through his head. He stood and walked across the hall. The living room retained a residue of heat from the woodburner, and a lingering hint of Ash’s perfume. He opened the drinks cabinet and sloshed some Talisker into a crystal glass, spilling some on the worktop. “Bugger,” he muttered. “Fucking-buggering-fuck!”
“Wow, someone’s swallowed a dictionary.”
He spun round and saw Faye curled on the couch, her legs tucked under her. She wore his old shinty hoodie, the one that Nadia used to wear. The sweatshirt was so large, it covered her knees. Her legs, the few inches he could see, were bare, the skin mottled.
“Your drinking is starting to freak me out,” she said.
“I’m freaking you out?” He took a swig of Talisker but almost missed his mouth. Liquid dribbled down his chin, as if he were his father in the care home.
“I need you sober, Angus. With your wits about you.”
He crumpled down onto an armchair next to Ash’s clarsach. “I need you to leave me alone.”
“They chose me for my royal blood,” she said, ignoring him. “That’s fucked up.”
His fingers felt like sausages as he reached into his pocket and took out the bottle of pills.
“We’re dealing with something out of the ordinary,” Faye said. “Crowley and the other cops can’t see that, but you can, Angus.”
He unscrewed the lid and tipped out a handful of pills.
“Leave. Me. Alone,” he growled.
“They do things in threes—that’s what Gills said. Do you want two more murders on your conscience?”
Angus threw the handful of pills into his mouth and chewed them, welcoming the bitter, acrid taste. A powdery substance coated his mouth, but he continued to grind up the pills, eyes burning into Faye. The girl watched him. Disappointed. At length, he reached for his glass, took a gulp of whisky, swilled it around his mouth, swallowed. Choked. He folded forward, coughing and spluttering, his lungs burning. He tasted bile, a prelude to vomiting. Blindly, he staggered from the snug and reeled down the hall towards the bathroom. He shoved open the door and fell to his knees as his mouth filled with vomit. He grabbed both sides of the toilet, got his head over the bowl, and jackknifed, sending a torrent of undigested whisky, pills, and bile into the water. His back arched as he retched, again and again. With each spasm he saw the Dark One looming over Faye, thrusting a knee into her back. . . .
He whimpered, convulsed one last time, and slumped down on the cold bathroom tiles. His stomach felt like a wet cloth that had been wrung out. His eyes stung with tears. Suddenly the bathroom light flicked on, momentarily blinding.
“Angus, what the fu—”
Ash stood in the doorway in her nightdress, concern etched across her face. He hauled himself into a sitting position. “Something went down the wrong way,” he said.
“Aye, whisky by the smell of it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The question flew out, harsher than intended.
“Calm down, Angus. I was joking.” She stepped forward and helped him to his feet.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”
“Nah. I just need to sleep.”
She placed a gentle hand on his cheek, searching out his eyes. “Are you okay, a chuisle? You’ve had a darkness hanging over you recently. Like when we first met.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. Tell me what’s bothering you?”
I can’t! I just can’t!
“Is it the case?” she asked. “It must be awful dealing with that. I understand, Angus.”
No, you don’t.
“I’m fine,” he mumbled again. “Just tired.”
A spark of anger flashed in her eyes. She let her hand drop to her side.
“Tired. Right.” She glanced away from him, a hint of irritation tainting her words.
He followed her through to the bedroom. A charged silence hung between them as he undressed to his boxer shorts and slipped under the duvet. Ash lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling. “You need to talk to me, Angus,” she said. “This moody silence shit has to stop. I can’t go through all that again.”
It was Angus who now felt a surge of anger. “Give me a break. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“Right, and I don’t.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It’s implied.”
He bit his lip, rather than blurt out the curse that was on his tongue.
They lay for a long minute in simmering silence, each daring the other to speak.
It was Ash who threw the first punch. “Do you really want to have children, Angus?”
The question caught him off guard. “Where did that come from?”
She gave a quiet, despondent laugh. “If you don’t know, then I’m not going to explain it.”
