The Marks Of Cain Part 3

Ducking under the police tape he was met at the threshold by the bright young face of DS Tomasky. Sanderson's new junior officer, a cheerful Londoner of Polish descent. Simon had met him once before.

'Mister Quinn...' Tomasky smiled. 'Fraid you missed the corpse. We just moved her.'

'I'm here because the DCI called me...'

'Wants his name in the tabs again?' Tomasky laughed in the pleasant autumnal sunshine. Then he stopped laughing. 'I think he's got some photos to show you.'

'Yes?'

'Yeah. Pretty gruesome. Be warned.'

Tomasky leaned an arm across the doorway, physically barring the journalist from entering the house. Beyond Tomasky's arm, he could see two more forensic officers stepping in and out of a room, with their blue paper facemasks hanging loose.

'How old is the victim?'

The policeman didn't move his arm.

'Old. From southern France. Very old.' From southern France. Very old.'

Looking up at the stucco frontage of the house, Simon glanced left and right.

'Nice place for an old lady.'

'Tak. Must have been wealthy.'

'Andrew, can I go in now?'

DS Tomasky half-smiled.

'OK. The DC is in the room on the left. I was just trying to...prepare you.'

The detective sergeant gestured Simon through the door. The journalist walked down the hallway, which smelled of beeswax and old flowers and the gases and gels of forensic investigation.

A voice halted him.

'Name of Francoise Gahets. Never married.'

It was Sanderson. His lined and lively face was peering around the door of the room at the end of the hallway.

'DCI! h.e.l.lo.'

'Got your notebook?'

'Yes.' Simon fished the pad from his pocket.

'Like I said, name of Francoise Gahets. She never married. She was rich, lived alone...We know she's been in Britain sixty years, no close relatives. And that's all we've got so far. You wanna see the SOC?'

'Unless you want to get, ah, pizza.'

Sanderson managed a very faint smile.

They crossed the doorway. As they did Sanderson continued: 'Body was found by the cleaner yesterday. Estonian girl called Lara. She's still downing the vodkas.'

They stepped to the end of the sitting room. A white-overalled, white-masked forensic officer swerved out of the way, so the two men could see.

'This is where we found her. Right here. The body was moved this morning. She was...sitting right there. You ready to see the photos?'

'Yes.'

Sanderson reached to a sidetable. He picked up a folder, opened it, and revealed a sheaf of photographs.

The first photo showed the murdered old woman, fully clothed, kneeling on the floor with her back to them. She was wearing gloves, oddly enough. Simon checked the photo against the reality in front of him.

Then he looked back at the photo. From this angle the victim looked alive, as if she was kneeling down to search for something under the TV or the sofa. At least she looked alive if you regarded her up to the neck only.

It was the head that made Simon flinch: what the murderer, or murderers, had done to the head.

'What the...'

Sanderson offered another photograph: 'We got a close-up. Look.'

The second photo was taken from a few inches away: it showed that the entire top of the victim's scalp had been wrenched away, exposing the white and b.l.o.o.d.y bone of her skull.

'And check this one.'

Sanderson was proffering a third image.

This photo showed the detached scalp itself, a b.l.o.o.d.y clogged mess of wrinkled skin and long grey hair, lying in the carpet; rammed through the hair was a thick stick some kind of broom handle maybe. The grey hair was tightly wound around this stick, many many times, all twisted and broken. Knotted. Knotted.

Simon exhaled, very slowly.

'Thanks. I think.'

He gazed around the room: the bloodstains on the carpet were still very visible. It was fairly obvious how the killing must have been done: bizarre but obvious. Someone had made the old woman kneel down, by the TV, then they had forced the stick through her long grey hair, then they had turned the stick around and around, winding the hair ever tighter on the stick, chewing all her hair into one great painful knot of blood and pain, tearing at the roots of the hair on her scalp, until the pulling pressure must have snapped, tearing off the entire scalp.

He picked out one of the last photos. It was taken from the front, showing the woman's expression. His next words were instant and reflexive.

'Oh my G.o.d.'

The old woman's mouth was torqued into a loud yet silent scream, the last frozen expression of her suffering, as the top of her head was twisted off, and popped away.

It was too much. Simon stiffened, and dropped the folder of photos on the sidetable; he turned and walked to the marble fireplace. It was empty and cold, with dried gra.s.ses in a vase, and a photo of some old people. A kitsch plaster statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary smiled from the centre of the mantelpiece, next to a small ceramic donkey. The yawning image of his brother, his hands coated in blood, came unbidden to his mind.

He purged it, and turned.

'So...Detective...judging by that broom handle...it looks like...They twisted and twisted the hair, until it ripped off the top of...of her head?'

Sanderson nodded.

'Yep. And it's called knotting.'

'How do you know?'

'It's a form of torture. Used through the centuries, apparently.' He glanced at the door. 'Tomasky did his research, like a good lad. He says knotting was used on gypsies. And in the Russian Revolution.'

'So...' Simon shuddered at the thought of the woman's pain. 'So...she died of shock?'

'Nope. She was garrotted. Look.'

Another photo. Sanderson's pen was pointing to the woman's neck; now the journalist leaned close, he could see faint red weals.

It was puzzling, and deeply grotesque. He frowned his distaste, and said: 'But that's...rather confusing. Whoever did this, tormented the old woman first. And then killed her...expertly...Why the h.e.l.l would you do all that?'

'Who the f.u.c.k knows?' Sanderson replied. 'Bit of a weird one, right? And here's another thing. They didn't steal a thing.'

'Sorry?'

'There's jewellery upstairs. Totally untouched.'

They walked to the door; Simon felt a strong urge to get out of the room. Sanderson chatted as they exited.

'So...Quinn. You're a good journalist. Britain's seventh best crime reporter!' His smile faded. 'I'm not kidding, mate. That's why I asked you here you like a b.l.o.o.d.y mystery story. If you work out the mystery, do let us know.'

5.

When he came to, groggy and numb, they were both outside, by the door to the bar. In the mountain sun. The girl was bleeding from her forehead, but not much. She was shaking him awake.

A shadow loomed. It was the barman. He was standing, nervously shifting from foot to foot, wearing an expression of compa.s.sionate fear.

He said in English, 'Amy. Miguel I keep him inside but but but you go, you must go go now '

She nodded.

'I know.'

Once more the blonde girl grabbed David's hand. She was pulling him upright. As David stood, he felt the muscles and bones in his face he was hurting. But he wasn't busted. There was dried blood on his fingers, from where he must have tried to protect himself and protect the girl.

'Crazy.' She was shaking her head. 'I mean. Thank you for doing that. But crazy.'

'I'm sorry.' David was wholly disorientated. She was British. 'You saved me first anyway. But...I don't...don't understand. What just happened in that bar?'

'Miguel. It was Miguel.'

That much he knew already. Now she was tugging him down the silent Basque street, past little restaurants advertising raciones raciones and and gorrin gorrin. Past silent stone houses with towers.

David regarded his rescuer. She was maybe twenty-seven, or twenty-eight, with a determined but pretty face, despite the bruise and the blooding. And she was insistent.

'C'mon. Quick. Where's your car? I came by bus. We need to get out of here before he gets really angry. That's why I tried to pull you away.'

'That wasn't...really angry?'

She shook her head.

'That was nothing.'

'Sorry?'

'You've never heard of Miguel? Otsoko Otsoko?'

'No.'

'Otsoko is Basque for wolf. That's his codename. is Basque for wolf. That's his codename. His ETA codename.' His ETA codename.'

He didn't wait for any further explanation; they ran to his car and jumped in.

David stared at her across the car. 'Where should we go? Where? Where?'

'Any village that's not Lesaka. Head that way...Elizondo. My place.'

David gunned the engine and they raced out of town. Amy added: 'It's safe there.' She looked his way. 'And we can clean you up, you're still a bit of a mess.'

'And you?'

Her smile was brief. 'Thanks. Go this way.'

David twisted the wheel, his nerves tautened by the idea of Miguel, 'the Wolf'. The barman and the drinkers had obviously dissuaded Miguel from further violence: but maybe the Wolf would change his mind.

The Wolf?

David sped them urgently out of the little town, past the Spanish police, past the last stone house; he was agitated by all the puzzles. What had happened in the bar? Who was Miguel? Who was this girl girl?

He realized, again, that her Spanish had been spoken with a British accent.

What was she doing here?

As they raced down the narrow road, through the sylvan countryside, he sensed that he had to inquire, that she wasn't just going to tell him too much, unprompted. So he asked. Her face was shadowed with dapples of sun light and dark shadows that disguised the bruising on her face as she turned. His first query was the most obvious of all.

'OK. I guess we go to the police. Right? Tell them what happened.'

He was astonished when she shook her head.

'No. No, we can't, we just...can't. Sorry, but I work with these people, live with them, they trust me. This is ETA territory. And the police are the Spanish. No one goes to the police.'