Cold Sacrifice (35 page)

‘It’s worse than that. If I’m right – and God knows I hope I’m not – but if I am, then he not only killed his mother, he tried to pin the murder on his father. My guess is he waited until he was eighteen so he could inherit the house and his mother’s estate. Then he planned to get both his parents out of the way so everything went to him.’ He paused, watching Polly’s face as she registered the enormity of what he was telling her. ‘It’s the most evil murder I’ve ever come across,’ he added.

‘I should have gone round there.’

‘Don’t blame yourself. No one could have seen that one coming.’

‘You saw it,’ Polly muttered.

Ian gave her a sympathetic grimace. There was nothing he could say to make her feel better.

T
HEY KNOCKED SEVERAL TIMES
before a window opened upstairs. Mark leaned out to see who was at the door.

‘What do you want?’

Ian was careful not to say anything that might arouse the young man’s suspicion.

‘We need to ask you to confirm a few things about your father.’

‘What about my father?’

‘We have him securely behind bars but he’s refusing to co-operate with us, and we need your help to clear up one or two small matters.’

Mark hesitated then disappeared. They waited but he didn’t come to the door. Ian knocked again, then sent Polly round to the back of the house. Mark’s refusal to admit them was futile given that they had seen he was in, but if he really was the killer he must be insane and unlikely to behave rationally. Ian knocked once more. Without waiting any longer for a response, he fished out his set of keys and attempted to let himself in. If he couldn’t unlock the door, they would have to break in.

Having called for back-up Ian phoned Polly, but she didn’t answer.

‘What the hell is with this place?’ he muttered uneasily as his key turned, with a sharp click.

It was like the
Marie Celeste
. First Mark disappeared, now Polly wasn’t answering her phone. Trying not to make a sound, he stole into the house. The only natural light in the hall came from a small window halfway up the stairs. The darkness was hushed. Ian felt as though someone else was there, listening and watching, preparing to strike. He hesitated, holding his breath, straining to see or hear any indication of movement in the house. There was a muffled scratching in the walls, and a faint ticking of pipework. Then he heard a choking sound, as though someone had been running and was out of breath. Following the noise, he crept along the hallway. At the door to the kitchen he paused, momentarily dazzled by sunlight streaming in through a large square window. Squinting, he saw the back door was wide open. Beside it Polly was standing rigid, her eyes wide with terror. Mark was pressed up against her back, one hand clutching both her wrists in front of her, the other holding the point of a long-bladed kitchen knife beneath her chin, forcing her head back. Ian froze.

‘Let her go, Mark,’ he said, doing his best to keep his voice level. He sounded robotic. ‘There’s no need for you to be upset. We only want to ask you about your father. You know we have him locked up. He can’t hurt you again. You don’t need to be scared any more.’

‘You’re lying.’

Polly kicked out behind her. Mark tightened his hold on her.

‘Mark, you’re not in any trouble, but you will be if you hurt a police officer. She’s got nothing to do with any of this. She just drove me here. I know you’re frightened, but you need to calm down and think about what you’re doing.’

Mark seemed too agitated to take in what Ian was saying. It was difficult to be sure with his dark eyes, but Ian thought his pupils were dilated. He was mumbling incoherently about salvation. Ian paused, momentarily lost in an all-consuming fear.

He had led Polly straight into the arms of a serial killer.

‘Mark,’ Ian tried again.

His throat was so dry he could hardly speak. He struggled to stop his voice shaking.

‘Polly came here to help you. She’s your friend. I’m the one who wanted to come here. It’s down to me that we’re here. Let her go and we’ll leave. Let her go, Mark. Drop the knife and let her go.’

He stopped, aware that Polly was gagging, her head forced back so far she was struggling to breathe. Mark jerked his head towards the other side of the room.

‘Get over there, now!’

Ian hurried to comply.

As soon as the table was between them, Mark began hauling Polly sideways across the kitchen towards the hall, keeping his eyes fixed on Ian all the time. Not looking where he was going, he stumbled. When Ian started forward, Mark jerked the knife so that it pressed harder against Polly’s throat. She cried out in alarm. Ian drew back, his hands raised in a gesture of submission as he watched his colleague being dragged from the room. He waited until they were out of sight before racing silently after them. Peering into the hall, he stared at Mark’s back framed in the open front door. A police car was waiting outside. Mark spun round, the knife still at Polly’s throat. He glared at Ian.

‘Send them away!’ he shouted frenziedly, ‘send them all away!’

It wasn’t easy keeping his eyes fixed on Mark as two uniformed figures appeared in the open doorway. From their position behind Polly, they couldn’t see the blade pressing against her throat.

‘Put the knife down,’ Ian called out loudly. ‘Stop pressing it to the constable’s throat.’

In his zeal, he had shouted too loudly. Aware that something was amiss, Mark tensed. He jerked the blade so the tip of it pierced her skin. Ian watched a thread of blood trickle down her neck, unbelievably dark against her skin. He took an involuntary step forward. As he did so, Mark shuffled backwards, dragging Polly with him.

‘Get away from me!’ Mark shrieked.

The two uniformed officers simultaneously lunged forward and seized Mark’s arms, rendering him helpless. The knife dropped to the floor. It lay on the carpet rolling almost imperceptibly from side to side, reflected light winking from the shiny surface of its blade. Mark put up no resistance as he was handcuffed. Keeping up a constant babbling, he seemed oblivious to his capture.

‘Is that a Hail Mary he’s reciting?’ one of the constables asked.

Ian shrugged. He couldn’t speak. All that mattered was that Polly was safe. Her assurance that she was fine was the only time Mark seemed to take any notice of what was happening.

‘Fine, fine, we’re all fine,’ he cried out in a curious singsong voice. ‘Everything’s fine, fine fine!’

‘Shut it,’ a uniformed constable snapped.

Mark lowered his head and resumed his mumbling.

‘I told you to shut it,’ the constable repeated.

‘Leave it,’ Ian said. ‘He’s a nut job.’

‘Sorry, sir. All that gibbering was getting on my nerves. What the hell is he on?’

‘God knows.’

Ian drove Polly back to the station while Mark was taken off in a van.

‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ he asked several times.

‘Stop going on about it, will you?’ Her angry outburst startled him. ‘For Christ’s sake, you’re worse than my bloody father. In fact, you sound just like him. I’ve already told you I’m fine. How many times do I need to say it? I mean, I was shaken, who wouldn’t be? I was bloody petrified. I thought he was going to kill me –’

‘So did I.’

He didn’t admit out loud that if Polly had been killed, it would have been his fault. He wondered if she was angry with him for leading her into danger, but was too drained to summon the courage to ask her if she blamed him. Meanwhile, she hadn’t stopped talking.

‘But he didn’t hurt me, did he? Not really. It’s only a scratch, and now I’m fine, and it’s all part of the bloody job, isn’t it? So just shut up about it, will you?’

Under normal circumstances it would have been unacceptable for a constable to be so rude to a senior officer, but being threatened by a knife-wielding maniac was hardly an everyday occurrence. They drove the rest of the way back to Woolsmarsh in silence.

As Ian was about to get out of the car, Polly put her hand on his arm to stop him.

‘Listen, I spoke out of turn back there –’

‘It’s perfectly understandable. You were in shock. As long as he didn’t hurt you, that’s all that matters. I’m not going to ask you again if you’re OK, but I am going to recommend you speak to someone about what happened today.’

‘I don’t need to speak to anyone, I’m OK.’

‘Yes, I daresay you are, but that’s not my call to decide.’

‘Well, thanks for not reprimanding me for speaking to you like that. It was uncalled for and I am sorry, really I am.’

Ian was the one who should have been apologising for almost getting her killed. Instead he said cravenly, ‘Like you said, it’s all part of the bloody job, isn’t it? Now, you need to get that scratch seen to, and then you’re taking the rest of the day off.’

It was slow going, questioning Mark about the murders. When he wasn’t muttering to himself, his answers made no sense. There was no way he was going to stand trial as though he was sane.

‘What are you talking about, Mark?’ Ian pressed him, trying to understand his excited chatter. ‘I’m sure it’s very important, but I can’t hear what you’re saying.’

Mark stared Ian in the eye and spoke slowly and clearly.

‘The unenlightened do not hear.’

‘It’s a waste of time trying to talk to him,’ Rob said when they took a break. ‘He’s barking. We might as well leave it for the psychiatrists to try and fathom.’

Fascinated by Mark, Ian was keen to carry on. It was difficult enough to accept that he had killed his own mother in a fit of insane rage, but setting up his father to take the punishment for it was an act of calculated evil hard to credit.

‘He seems to be on some kind of religious trip, sir, although he denies being a Catholic like his mother.’

Only when asked about his relationship with his parents did Mark make any attempt to respond to questions directly. Even then his answers didn’t make much sense.

‘Mark, if you hated your parents so much, why didn’t you move out? You’re eighteen. You didn’t have to stay with them.’

Mark looked at Ian in surprise.

‘I don’t hate anyone,’ he said mildly. ‘Hatred is evil. Hatred leads to damnation.’

‘You killed your mother and tried to get your father locked up for it. So I’m asking you again, why were you so full of hatred for those closest to you? What had they done to you?’

Mark shook his head. He looked serene.

‘None of this has anything to do with hatred,’ he repeated gently. ‘Her death was an act of sacred love –’

He broke off abruptly and pressed his thin lips together until they disappeared altogether.

‘What are you talking about? What kind of love would make you kill your own mother?’

Mark opened his mouth to speak and Ian leaned forward, keen to catch every word.

‘Eternal salvation is mine,’ Mark intoned softly.

His eyes glazed over as he murmured to himself.

‘Eternal salvation is mine.’

I
AN FELT DRAINED BY
the time he reached home that evening. Throwing his coat on the stand in the hall, he went into the living room and collapsed on the sofa, too tired even to sit up.

‘We got him,’ he announced. ‘We caught the crazy bastard.’

Bev clapped her hands in the air, like a child.

‘Tell me about it.’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Of course I do. Why do you always shut me out like this?’

‘It’s not just you. No one could understand unless they do the job themselves.’

‘I’ve never understood your obsession with dead bodies, that’s true enough.’

He tried to explain that it wasn’t the dead he investigated, but the living. Henry and Mark were the people who interested him, not Martha, once she was dead.

‘But you got him, you arrested your killer. I want to know all about it,’ she insisted.

‘Oh, Christ, all right. If you really want to know, we arrested a man for stabbing his mother to death and accusing his father of committing the murder, plus he killed two more women, one strangled, the other suffocated – one of them left a seven-year-old son with no parents – and this crazy bastard threatened to kill my constable during the course of the arrest. Are you happy now? Is that what you wanted to hear?’

Bev looked suitably shocked.

‘Bloody hell. Did you say he killed his own mother?’

‘Yes. Like I said, he’s crazy. We couldn’t get a word of sense out of him. Not surprising, when you consider what he did.’

‘But how can you be sure it was him then? I mean, he must be insane –’

‘What? What do you mean, how can we be sure it was him? What kind of a question is that?’

‘I only meant, if the guy’s insane, you can’t necessarily believe everything he says so it might be – well, misleading. He could be making it up, fantasising. You know what I mean.’

Ian stood up and went into the kitchen without bothering to respond. This wasn’t a press conference. He wasn’t obliged to answer inane questions in his own home. If Bev thought she could do the job, she was free to join the force. He wouldn’t stand in her way. Let her try putting up with the shit he had to deal with, day after day. Grabbing a bottle of beer, he returned to the living room and sank back on the sofa again.

‘No dinner tonight?’

‘I wasn’t sure what time to expect you, so I thought we’d get a takeaway if you were home in time.’

‘It’s never long before she starts with her digs,’ he muttered.

‘Ian, you look shattered. Why don’t I run you a bath and then I’ll phone the Chinese? What do you fancy? Sweet and sour pork?’

And just like that, he was a happily married man once more. There was only his promotion to discuss and all would be well in the Peterson household. They would move to York and live happily ever after.

To his consternation, he began to shake. He couldn’t help himself. Now it was all over, he was experiencing a physical reaction to the stress of the investigation. This had happened to him before, but only when he was alone. It never lasted long. He looked away, embarrassed, but Bev had noticed. She came and sat beside him and put her arms round him. Her sympathy only made him shake more violently.