Murder Path (Fallen Angels Book 3) (2 page)

Chapter 2

‘John Saul killed my son and Rebecca Angus killed my daughter.  Until you tell me that they are in your custody and have been charged with those offences, I will not answer a single one of your questions.’

Pastor Edward Bentley glared defiantly across the dull grey Formica table in the interview room towards Detective Chief Inspector Gaynor Cruickshank’s stoic gaze, noting the almost imperceptible flaring of her nostrils as he responded to her twenty sixth question with exactly the same answer.  His bandaged hands were resting on top of the table and he was rubbing the palm of one over the back of the other, at the place the bandages were blood red, at the point the nails had been hammered through them a few hours earlier during his public crucifixion.

Cruickshank removed the penultimate photograph from the Manila file in front of her and placed it with the other twenty six already facing toward Pastor Bentley.  ‘Beryl Rodgers.  Went missing in 1995.  Her severed, mutilated hand was also found in the underground chamber where you dismembered her alive and ate her while she watched.  Your pubic hair and DNA are all over the hand.  Exactly the same as the other twenty six hands.  Twenty seven women Pastor Bentley.  Do you not have one ounce of guilt for the atrocities you enacted upon them?  Don’t you think it is time to confess your sins, to seek your Father’s forgiveness?’ 

Pastor Bentley smirked, one corner of his mouth twitching slightly as he leaned over the table and placed his bandaged hands palm down over the photographs in front of him.  His palms started to circle slowly, moving the photos, ruffling them at the edges.  He didn’t take his dilated eyes off Cruickshank as he answered her, scrunching the photos as he did. ‘I have already told you.  Until you tell me John Saul and Rebecca Angus are in your custody and charged with the murder of my children, I will not answer a single question.’

Not breaking his stare, not succumbing to the flagrant defiance Bentley was demonstrating while defiling the photos, she deftly slid her fingers inside the Manila file one last time and held one last image up in front of her.  An image of Pastor Bentley next to a man with pure white, slicked back hair.  A tall man with a handsome angular face.  ‘So, if you don’t seek your father’s absolution, is it this man you are trying to appease?’

Bentley’s smirk morphed into a sneer as he clenched his fists, in obvious delirious agony, around the photographs and lifted them to his face, letting a probing tongue lick the images, his twitching nose feigning breathing in their odour.

‘He’s revelling in this Gaynor, he’s getting off on everything you are asking him.  Every question, every photograph is allowing him to relive exactly what he did to those women.  I’d suggest you stop.’  The words resonated inside Cruickshank’s skull from the hidden earpiece she was wearing.  She attempted to hide the surprise at hearing the voice but her eyes instinctively glanced towards the large mirror on the wall to her left. 

Bentley saw her glance and his sneer widened even further.  ‘I gather I’m not the only one who has to obey the voices in their head?  You can tell those voices the same as I have told you continually.  You will get nothing from me.  Not another word until Saul and Angus are detained.’

A hue of rouge started to rise from the perfectly ironed lace collar of the white blouse that Cruickshank wore under her navy blue twin set, the frustration not making it into her still stoic glare.

‘Interview terminated at 8:48 am.  Pastor Bentley, I would ask you to seriously consider taking legal representation before our next interview.  The physical evidence we have is overwhelming and I am more than confident the Crown Prosecution Service will grant me permission to arrest you, with or without your statement.  I will be back.’  Cruickshank stated flatly, standing authoritatively, straightening down her impeccably lined skirt as she did.  She walked around the table, not looking at Bentley as she approached the door to the interview room, nodding at the PC standing quietly in the corner of the room as she reached for the handle.

‘Most of these women served a veritable banquet.  Compared to them, your scrawny frame would hardly even serve an amuse-bouche.  But then every ‘body’ has its place on the plate.  Even yours DCI Cruickshank.  Go and talk to the voices in your head.  I will wait patiently for your return.’  Bentley slavered, still licking the crumpled photographs in his fists. 

Cruickshank paused a moment with her hand on the door, rocking back on her heels, her lips pursing, holding back furious words, before she whipped the door open and strode purposefully out, slamming it behind her.

‘Fucking mad bastard.’ she mumbled under her breath as she surged down the corridor of interview rooms indignantly, the fury and frustration boiling from her neck into her fiery façade.  ‘And what the hell does that suave sod think he’s doing interrupting my interview!’ her mumbling continued as she rounded the end of the corridor and headed animatedly toward the interview control room. 

The door opened as she approached, a tall, emaciatingly thin man with a white Afro, wearing a moleskin three piece suite, paisley braces and brown brogues stepping out to greet her.

‘Gaynor my darling, how you doing!’ Detective Chief Inspector Jeremiah Strange effused, a warm endearing grin spreading to his vibrant eyes as he stretched out his arms offering up an embrace.

Cruickshank’s determined, furious stride didn’t stop and her arm raised as well, not in a reciprocal manner, but with a damning, pointed forefinger that thrust hard into Strange’s oncoming chest.

‘What the hell do you think you are playing at Strange?  You distracted me and he saw it.  He saw weakness.  He is going to use that now and it will be even harder to break him down!’  Cruickshank admonished, stopping as Strange backed up slightly, but still hammering her forefinger accusingly into his chest after every word.

Strange’s expression didn’t flinch and still oozed endearment as he raised his arms in surrender, steadying his footing under her onslaught, a disarming chuckle entering his voice as he spoke.  ‘Whoa there girl.  He was getting off on every single photograph you put in front of him.  He was reliving the torture he inflicted on them.  Did you not see that?’

‘Firstly, I’m not your darling.  Secondly, I’m definitely not your girl and thirdly, I am well aware that he was getting off on the pictures.  He was also becoming emotionally involved.  If he’s emotional, I will find a crack and I will exploit it.  Up to that point he had been an impenetrable wall.  Back to bloody square one now.  Fourthly, what the hell is your boy up to?’

‘Okay, okay, I am sorry.  I didn’t think it through.  Partly I just wanted you to know I had arrived.  If I had for one second thought that hearing my voice would distract you as much, I would have kept quiet.  I really didn’t think I would make such an impression on you.  It is your investigation and I should keep my bulbous meddling beak out of it.’ Strange ruefully apologised, his grin subsiding, but still playfully present as he lowered his arms around Cruickshank’s prodding finger, gently forcing it off his chest.        

Cruickshank’s eyes widened and a look of utter incredulity danced around her agape features.  ‘Jesus Strange, go and check that ego in at the desk will you, it’s bloody criminal.  I didn’t ask you up here to be battered by your obsequious charm.  I want to know what the hell John Saul is up to.  The one thing our mad Pastor Bentley has bob on, is that John Saul and Rebecca Angus were involved in the death of his children.  We have their fingerprints and DNA all over the bodies and the murder weapon.’ she finished, pushing his hands away from her still viscous finger.

‘No, John can’t have been involved in their murder, there must be some kind of mistake.  I know he has been under a lot of pressure, but I can’t believe that of him.’  Strange responded, his countenance changing to concerned as he took in Cruickshank’s confrontational candour.

‘You better follow me then and have your beliefs changed.  It’s been a week of that up here in Edinburgh.  The Fallen Angels are making everyone question their beliefs.  You can start by looking at this picture.’  Cruickshank chastised, thrusting the picture of Pastor Bentley and the white haired man into Strange’s still outstretched hands before she turned on her heels and strode off down the corridor at a pace. 

‘We found that photograph in Saul’s hotel room, along with a full evidence wall of very damning information, and one or two crucial pieces of evidence.’

‘Who is that with Bentley?’  Strange asked, falling in behind Cruikshank’s military march towards the Incident room. 

‘That we don’t know.  What we do know is that he knew all four of the serial killers that the Fallen Angels exposed this week.  We found photographs of him at the residence of the Fallen Angels who committed suicide.  It’s more than probable Saul’s hotel room was also the abode of Madame Evangeline, or Jessica Seymour or Eve or Annie Tait, whatever name she wanted to be known as, the Angel who committed suicide last night.’

‘More than probable?’

‘We found her DNA on Saul’s bed.  Along with her sexual fluids, mixed with Saul’s semen.  How’s your belief standing up?  This is really going to test it.  There was another person’s sexual fluids and DNA intermingled with them.  Those of Rebecca Angus.  Seems your boy had both of them on the go, at the same time.  Does that sound like him?’  Cruickshank added with a hint of rancour, waving officers in the corridor to one side as she continued her unwavering march.

‘No, it doesn’t.  There must be something more to this than John just being involved with these two women?’

‘Oh, there is.  You haven’t heard the half of it yet.  That’s why I asked you up here.  Did you know for example, that Saul has a white mobile phone: which I gather was evidence from the Featherstone Hall case, where his wife died?’ the last few words were filled with scathing venom.

Cruickshank thrust the door to the Incident room open and strode into the empty room, heading straight for the evidence wall that had been taken from Saul’s hotel.  There was a table in front of the wall, on which were a number of items, one being a white mobile phone.

Strange followed with a perplexed furrow on his forehead, taking in the photographs, notes, post-its and other paraphernalia in front of him.  ‘That should be locked up back at Northumbria headquarters.  Along with quite a few images on that wall.’ 

‘I thought as much.  Then there is this.’  Cruickshank proclaimed, holding out a computer hard disk drive. 

Strange looked at it, then back up to Cruickshank, his gaze nonplussed.

‘Judging by your expression, I gather you have never seen this disk drive in relation to the Featherstone Hall case?’

‘No.  What is on there, exactly?’

‘Exactly twelve hours seventeen minutes and three seconds footage of Rebecca Angus being interviewed by Dr Ben Hanlon.  Recordings taken over the course of one day, which according to my search of the case notes from Featherstone Hall, were never mentioned.  How are you rationalising that, Strange.  How is your belief marrying these facts with your view of John Saul? Because from where I am standing right now, with all of this evidence in front of me, there are at least twenty different charges I could throw at him, the daddy of them all being the murders of Desiderata and Fenny Bentley and possibly his own wife and son.’

Strange shook his head slowly, his eyes wide in disbelief, his scrawny shoulders sagging under the weight of Cruickshank’s accusations, under the weight of evidence in front of him. He scanned the wall, attention caught by the word ‘Doppelganger’ under a blurry photograph of a man in a limousine who looked like Saul, and another photograph of Saul with Jessica Seymour.  He bent over the table to take a closer look at the post-it next to the two photographs.

‘I have a twin, with three exclamation marks after it.’  Strange read out loud, the tone reflective.

Hurried footfalls pre-empted the arrival of DI Barry Trentor through the door into the Incident room.  They didn’t interrupt Strange’s ruminations, but Cruickshank snapped the second she heard them, before the Detective was fully in the room.  ‘We are busy Trentor, whatever it is, come back later!’ she ordered, throwing a scowling glare in his direction.

Trentor stopped on the threshold of the room, teetering in the thermals of Cruickshank’s terse tongue.  Bravely, he spoke, the words coming out nervously.  ‘I am really sorry Ma’am, but you need to know this.  We may have another murderer.’

‘Stop dallying in the doorway and get over here and brief me then.  Have the Fallen Angels been in touch again?’