Old Snow

By Ross Wilson

Detective Inspector Harker is a man on a mission: to find the serial killer of innocent young girls before yet another victim is discovered. The killer is also a man on a mission: to add to the macabre tally of ‘sacrifices’ to his celestial lord, Uriel. A religious maniac is loose in society and it’s Harker’s job to find him. The trouble is, the mad killer is clever, very clever and in this darkly disturbing thriller the reader is taken on an unforgettable journey through the twists and turns of an investigation which seems to be getting nowhere - until a vital telephone call to a taxi company leads to a violent climax.

URIEL
ARCHANGEL OF PURITY
"The world is corruptible, flawed and discordant. We must scour it of its imperfections, returning it to its former state of glory."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781326559090

Book preview

Old Snow

OLD SNOW

By

Ross Wilson

Copyright

Copyright © Ross Wilson 2016

eBook Design by Rossendale Books:

www.rossendalebooks.co.uk

eBook ISBN: 978-1-326-55909-0

All rights reserved, Copyright under the Berne Copyright Convention and Pan American Convention. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organisations, events or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

Prologue

Deep in hidden forgotten places where the heat of the sun is forever shunned, here lies the realm of old snow. High on summits of unconquered mountains, in shadowed valleys of uncharted tundra, never visited by a spring thaw, never surrendering to a summer sun, each flake jealously guarding their countless memories of eons gone by. Their secret memories, sending their whispered messages to the special few chosen to be servants of Uriel; Old snow, old memories, a new beginning.

(i)

‘Deus, in adiutorium meum intende. Domine, ad adiuvandum me festina. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc et …’

The chanting voices were abruptly silenced by the intrusion of the dishevelled creature bursting into the chapel. Sandaled feet muddy and wet, snow still clinging to the brown habit, melting and dripping to form a small puddle on the marble tiles.

Whispers now, disturbing the quiet, echoing into lost alcoves and recesses. Some of the younger monks in a state of confusion, questioning stares; older veterans of the order of St. Benedict frowning, disdainful looks towards the intruder who had dared interrupt Vespers.

The Abbot rose and slid past the assembled monks towards where the interloper stood, he knew this fellow Brother well, knew there must be a reason for this desecration. The man’s head was bowed low as if unwilling to meet the questioning stares of the assembly and the Abbot placed a hand beneath the distressed Brother’s chin, gently raising his head to look into the man’s face. Long black streaks were etched into he man’s cheeks where tears had followed the contours of an aged wrinkled face and the ancient eyes displayed a mixture of shock and fear.

The old man was well into his eighties and as permanent a fixture of the monastery as the huge crucifix adorning the North wall of the chapel. Brother Ignatius, the title he had chosen when he had first come to the monastery many years before, a name taken from the martyred Bishop of Antioch. He stared wildly into the Abbot’s eyes before falling to his knees in an uncontrollable fit of sobbing.

‘The visiting Novice Nuns, both of them. Oh my God! Who could have done this terrible thing?’

The Abbot knelt down by his side and at the same time gestured for two of the nearest monks to come to the aid of their stricken Brother.

‘What do you mean?’ asked the Abbot, ‘what has happened?’

‘Murdered, both of them; two young lives gone forever, why?’

The Abbot’s face turned ashen. Surely Brother Ignatius had to be mistaken, an old man, failing eyesight, prone to wild imaginings, surely this must be the case and he tried to reassure the distraught Brother.

‘I saw both the Sisters returning to their quarters before Vespers, I’m sure they have read their nightly prayers and are by now fast asleep.’ The Abbot however nodded to one of the monks who had come to the aid of Brother Ignatius and pointed towards the main door of the chapel. The monk nodded back in response, it was obvious the unspoken command was for him to go check on the two Novice Nuns.

Outside and passed the main chapel lay a small but picturesque pond, a place meant for solitary meditation, festooned with lily pods, a Monet postcard. The snow was falling harder now, covering the cobble stoned courtyard. And there, stood over the bodies of what were unmistakably the two Novice Nuns was Brother Michael, smiling, blood on his hands, a bloody knife at his feet.

(ii)

The Abbot raised the elderly Brother to his feet and walked him over to the nearest pew, surely there had to be some rational explanation for the poor man’s delusions, but no sooner had he seated Brother Ignatius down on the hard wooden bench when the door to the chapel again flew open and the monk who had gone to check on the Novices rushed in, racing and tripping to fall at the feet of the Abbot.

‘They’re dead!’ He screamed through tears, ‘there was blood, a knife, and I think it may have been Brother Michael!’

The Abbot was halfway to the chapel door even before the monk had finished his sentence. There was just no way this could be happening, not here, not in a place watched over by God. He found Brother Michael kneeling over the Nuns’ bodies, praying out loud, almost screaming the words, beseeching Uriel to accept his offerings and initiate both Novices into the Angel of Purity’s Heavenly choir.

The Abbot could see the bloody knife lying at Brother Michael’s feet but it was obvious the girls had met their ends drowned in the lily pond, both face down in the murky waters. And then he noticed both of the girls’ left hands. Each of the Novice’s ring fingers had been cut away just below the first knuckle. The Abbot rushed forward, grasping Brother Michael by the front of his habit, trying to control a rage he was unaccustomed to.

‘Why? Why have you done this?’

The smile was still firmly fixed on Brother Michael’s face.

‘They have joined Uriel’s celestial army, ready to fight at the Angel’s side in the upcoming war for supremacy in the new Heavenly order.’

‘What?’ screamed the Abbot trying to repress the anger he felt and somehow stop it from manifesting itself into an uncontrollable violence.

‘I have saved them, rescued them before they could be defiled, before their souls could be irretrievably corrupted.’

‘You’re mad!’ shouted the Abbot.

‘I saw the way Father Francis looked at them, saw how he lusted after them, it would only have been a matter of time before both were befouled and tarnished beyond salvation. That’s why the Father is here is it not? Hiding here on sabbatical leave? How many young girls has he condemned to Hell due to his indiscretions? How many more innocents will he yet corrupt to fulfil his carnal desires?’

The Abbot was lost for words, how could he respond? This was indeed the reason Father Francis was in residence at the monastery, hidden away by the hierarchy of the church, but in no way could Brother Michael ever use this as an excuse for the killing of two innocent girls. He thought about the two Novices, they had been indoctrinated into the Sisterhood straight from a church orphanage, had reached an age where they could no longer reside in such an establishment. Their choice had been clear, join the Sisterhood or be thrust out into an uncaring world to fend for themselves. What choice did they have?

Brother Michael was kept locked in his cell that night, locked in his cell for the next seven days. The monastery lay high amongst snow clad peaks, far away from prying eyes, far away from a world all too eager to leap upon and expose any indiscretion on the part of the Church. The Abbot stayed awake every night that week, one of his order had committed the ultimate sin, could never be absolved for such an unforgivable crime.

How could he possibly resolve this issue without yet again bringing the Church into disrepute? The hysteria and accusations concerning certain priests and choirboys had just begun to fade into obscurity, and now this. He was determined he would not be the one to cause yet another investigation into the Church or their orders.

The two Sisters had been living at the monastery no more than a month, sent there at the request of their Mother Superior to learn from one of the Brothers who had recently returned from the Central African Republic. That unforgiving place ravaged by war and famine was to be where they would be carrying out God’s work, and the knowledge the Brother would have been able to impart to them would have been invaluable.

Who else knew they were here the Abbot thought? All those residing at the monastery and the hierarchy of the Sisters’ convent most certainly, but whom else if anyone? Two girls, no known relatives, raised from infants under the guiding hand and unforgiving eye of the church, would they be missed by anyone other than a select few? Brother Michael should be punished for his crimes, handed over to the authorities; it was the right thing to do. But now over a week had slipped passed, Brother Michael languishing in his cell, the Abbot himself praying day and night for some sign, any sign that would guide his hand.

And then it was all too late, much too late. How could he possibly contact the police almost two weeks after the gruesome murders? They would ask why the crime had not been reported immediately, asked why the two girls had been buried before the authorities had been notified and any post mortems carried out, asked a multitude of questions he was now unable to answer. He knew he would have to contact the Novices’ superiors, explain his decision for not contacting the police and convince them that the actions he had taken were to protect the Church. He hoped that after careful consideration they would agree that the choice he was about to make was clearly the only one possible. The two girls would simply cease to have been, all records expunged, the only clue to their existence the two unmarked graves side by side outside the monastery walls.

But still the problem of Brother Michael, what was to be done with him? Too late to hand him over to the police, impossible to keep him locked in his cell indefinitely, there was only one solution. The next morning at dawn he was led to the main gates of the monastery, cast out into the snow filled mountains, banished from the order, the huge oaken doors closing behind him with no words spoken.

Cold, cold enough to freeze the blood in his veins, but Brother Michael smiled. He knew his path was a righteous one, knew Uriel was pleased with his offerings, knew the Angel of Purity demanded others.

High between the mountain peaks the snow lay thick on the ground well into mid April most years and even then patches would refuse to surrender to a spring thaw, surviving until once again the frosts of winter reclaimed the landscape, lying undisturbed, secreted in crevices and shadowed gorge’s, hidden from the summer sun. In these places lay the old snow, guarding their glacial memories until able to bestow them upon the first snowflakes of a new winter, surrendering their arcane knowledge. And in turn these icy flakes would bring him their whispered messages, their secret messages, messages for his ears alone.

CHAPTER 1

Flurries of snow agitated by violent gusts were being driven inland as if being expunged from the pulsing ocean. Grey dark waters stretching out to meet a grey dark sky where both merged at some point undeterminable to the human eye.

Barely past midday Xmas eve and the all too familiar scenario was beginning to unfold yet again, just as it had the year before and the year before that, leaving him staring downward at the naked body of a young girl barely in her teens, déjà vu. He looked on in silence as the police photographer and his assistant photographed and video recorded the body from every angle.

The snow was beginning to bank up and form ridges and small mounds all along the seaward side of the pale naked corpse at his feet. Harker brushed the build-up flat with the side of his shoe and watched as two uniformed officers pegged and taped off the rocky outcrop where the girl’s body lay. All three had already spent the last two hours patiently documenting the crime scene with the aid of the Scene of Crime Officer who was now furiously trying to preserve the killing ground, the unrelenting gale and ferocious waves threatening to destroy all around them.

He knew the incident room back at divisional HQ would already be swinging into action; countless telephones manned, white boards waiting to be scrawled upon with any clues or information, a host of laptops linked to the Home Office Major Enquiry System Computer so that any correlation could be pinpointed immediately.

No Press yet; either too early or too damn cold to have one of their crews on the scene, thank God. The last thing he needed was being forced to deal with those insensitive bastards. He could see the headlines now, ‘Xmas Serial Killer Back’, ‘The Bridegroom Killer Returns’. That was the name they had bestowed upon this animal, christened in a baptism of innocent blood; the Bridegroom Killer.

He could have retired years ago, should have retired years ago, his thirty years were long past. It was times like these he wished he had.

This would be the madman’s first victim this winter, the first of seven if past years set a precedent. There had been seven on each of the previous two years, all young girls, all left naked in the snow, all bearing the madman’s trademark, the severed ring finger. The missing digit was the fact the newspapers had pounced upon and then came up with their bizarre nickname, the Bridegroom Killer.

On both the past two years each girl had been murdered only days apart before the killer had suddenly and inexplicably ceased his barbaric sacrifices, leaving no clues, exhibiting no apparent motive. This girl would be number fifteen; there was no mistake in that, the missing ring finger of the left hand bore sad witness to the fact.

He forced himself to look down at the naked girl by his feet and hoped to Hell he would not be the one given the task of informing the family, she was no more than a child he thought, Hell of a Xmas present.

Over the incessant crashing of angry waves he could hear the faint whine of a siren in the distance, its wail an unwanted intrusion, growing louder with each passing second, disturbing his thoughts.

The snowfall had increased in its intensity, cocooning the body, engulfing the pale corpse as if the icy flakes sensed their time was now short. And then there were those other faint sounds, so faint that he wondered if he could actually hear them at all, the snowflakes gently brushing against each other as they fell, caressing each other, whispering their secrets to one another.

Harker lit up a cigarette as the two officers began erecting a plastic walled tent over the body, sliding together the fiberglass poles and pulling the sheet taut over the flimsy frame. He was glad when they had finished, he had seen enough, out of sight but impossible to be out of mind.

An ambulance drew to a halt on the cliff road above and he watched as three men in navy blue anoraks exited the vehicle. He recognized the medical officer even from this distance, Doc Holiday. Not that this was his real name, or even that any comparison could be drawn between the man and Wyatt Earp’s compatriot, it was simply the name everyone knew him by due to his habit of taking at least four vacations a year.

Normally some local doctor would have had the misfortune to be summoned to such scenes purely to pronounce the victim dead but Harker wanted Doc involved right from the start of the investigation, wanted him to see the body before it was removed, needed him to know the madman had returned. Doc Holiday had been the pathologist who had carried out the post mortems on all previous fourteen victims and this unfortunate girl would also soon grace his autopsy table. He had a long standing investment regarding the case of this maniac, built up over the killing years, as did Harker.

The Doc’s two assistants wrestled a collapsible stretcher from the rear of the vehicle and all three slowly began making their way down the frozen slope, down to where they would rather not be, down to an icy tomb, down to Hell.

The cliff path could prove treacherous even on warm summer days; here in mid-winter with a storm wind fighting every step it invited disaster. Harker reckoned the descent would take them a good fifteen minutes at least. It had taken him that long to make the arduous journey and Doc. Holiday was two years his senior and certainly not as fit.

Snow had laid a soft blanket on the roof of the tent and he brushed some of the flakes aside with a gloved hand; shhhh they complained as they cascaded downward, shhhh they whispered angrily to one another. He thought about the events of that morning, not casually, but setting out a chronology of all the facts at his disposal.

The typed note had been pinned to the stationhouse door in the early hours of the morning; his name in bold capitals on the otherwise blank envelope, the bastard was making it personal. No-one had seen who had left it there; no-one had even bothered to notice it until 10 a.m. that morning. The contents were short and to the point, directions to where the girl could be found and almost as an afterthought the lines ‘Pure and at peace, pure and at peace, at peace at peace with Uriel.’

He had no need to check out the Uriel reference, Angel of Purity, guardian angel of a madman. He had followed that trail before. This was not the first time the lunatic had made mention of angels. Twice before notes had alluded to the fact that they were dealing with some kind of religious nutcase. Harker’s skin prickled as he mouthed the words, ‘pure and at peace, pure and at peace, at peace at peace with Uriel.’ There was no argument that the girl was now at peace, but whether she sat cradled at Uriel’s feet was another matter altogether. He had no doubt at all that the madman who had caused him endless nightmares had returned to terrorise his sleeping hours once more.

He was still caught up in his thoughts as Doc and his team struggled over the boulders towards him, each of them slipping more than once on the treacherous mix of seaweed and ice.

‘So, what have you got for me?’ asked Doc, ‘must be important for you to request my presence.’

‘He’s back,’ answered Harker.

Doc Holiday’s face visibly fell; he knew exactly who Harker was referring to and shook his head in a disbelieving fashion.

‘Are you sure? I mean are you really, really sure?’

Harker simply shrugged and pulled back the tent flap, Doc Holiday’s reaction was immediate.

‘Christ! Is this bastard ever going to stop?’

Doc knelt over the body and opened the small case he had been carrying, rubbing some talc on his hands before slipping them into a pair of surgical gloves. He tilted the girl’s head one way then the other, then upward.

‘Some blood staining around the eyes and nose, looks like we have some cyanosis but that may just be due to the cold, hard to tell here. Help me roll her over.’

Harker bent down and both men gently turned the girl onto her front.

‘No visible wounds on the body apart from the missing finger and I doubt she bled to death. I’ll need to do a full autopsy to determine the immediate cause of death but my first instincts are that the proximate cause is asphyxiation.’

‘The others were drowned,’ remarked Harker.

Doc Holiday sighed, ‘I can’t tell if that’s the case here until I get her back to the morgue, check for water in the lungs and air passage.’

‘I want to know as soon as you have the results,’ said Harker, ‘and if she has been drowned I want samples of any water you find.’

‘I’ll make sure the forensics lab give any specimens priority treatment,’ replied Doc, ‘but I don’t know why you’d expect them to come up with anything new? Fourteen girls already, sorry fifteen, but fourteen samples already; all of them analysed and all of them from the same source based on the debris and diatoms we’ve found. None of them have ever managed to lead us to the body of water where the girls met their deaths.’

‘Like you say, all of them from the same source; we have to know if the samples taken from this girl if in fact she was drowned are identical to the others. I have to rule out the possibility of a copycat killer.’

‘You think that’s maybe the case?’ asked Doc.

‘I don’t know, but I do know there are a lot of sick bastards out there looking for their two minutes of infamy.’

Both exited the tent and Doc Holiday nodded towards the two men who had accompanied him down the cliff path. Without hesitation they unrolled the body-bag, clicked the portable stretcher into place, and entered the tent. Doc Holiday looked upwards towards the cliff edge.

‘It was Hell enough getting down here, clambering back up is going to be a bitch.’

Harker noticed the two uniformed officers were busy re-taping off parts of the crime scene, the wind having ripped sections of the tape free and leaving the ends flapping aimlessly. Not that anyone in their right mind would clamber down the Cliffside and intrude on the scene if they absolutely didn’t have to, not in this weather anyhow. Even the crime scene groupies and ghouls who were almost always drawn to scenes of chaos would think twice before braving the icy slopes.

He had already conducted a spiral search of the area before the other two officers had arrived, methodically working his way out from the girl’s body in ever increasing circles. He had found nothing of value, not even a footprint. If any evidence had been left behind it had been blown away by the winter gale or washed away by the incessant waves which crashed along the coastline. Indeed, his crime scene was in grave danger of being totally obliterated by the storm. Had the killer planned for this?

Before placing the girl into the body bag one of Doc Holiday’s assistants had photographed the body from numerous angles, close up of the face, pubescent breasts, and the mutilated hand where the ring finger should have been. No wedding ring would ever adorn that finger, no suitor to ever proffer a gold band.

There was no indication of who she was, who she had been, and Harker knew he would have to wait until some worried father or mother reported their child missing. Only then would he be able to put a name to the lifeless face. He hated that part, it made him feel dirty, ashamed, but most of all it left him with a raging anger towards the beast who had committed such a horrific act.

The familiar pattern was beginning to evolve. No clues left at the scene, no obvious motive sexual or otherwise, and if others were to share this unfortunate girl’s fate he knew there would be nothing to connect any of the victims other than the fact that they would all be young girls and all of them virgins.

There had been no rhyme or reason to any of the previous murders, why should he expect any here? Why all prepubescent girls? What was the significance of the missing ring fingers? He remained at the scene long after the others had gone; hoping the solitude would somehow clear his mind and grant him the clarity he needed that would allow him to unravel what had taken place here. The skies grew ever darker, the angry waves mocking him as they crashed against the rocks. It was late now, almost 11p.m., and he turned his back on the spot where the girl had once lain and made his way to the unwelcoming cliff pathway with only one thought in his mind.

‘Sooner or later the bastard would make a mistake, they all did. At least he hoped they did.’

CHAPTER 2

‘Twas the night before Xmas, but not all the Earth stood still. Almost twelve miles from the gruesome scene, passed a tangled maze of boarded up factories and disused yards stood one of the less desirable suburbs of the city; filled to the brim with an overabundance of losers, no-hopers, and those who had simply tried so many times and eventually resigned themselves to their fate.

Clouds of smoke rose and swirled around the bare ceiling lamp as he chain smoked a pack of Malboro, staring downward onto the street below through curtain-less windows.

Outside the world was continuing along on its merry way, oblivious to the figure studying the winter scene. An all-night Pharmacy on the corner, wire mesh stretched across its windows and door, shatterproof glass between the counter assistant and any would-be customer, signs of the times. Dubious ladies of the night flaunting their drugged raked bodies, eagerly giving up their humanity to any depraved soul, any psychopath, anyone willing to meet their price; their pimps out of sight in shadowed doorways and darkened alleys.

He detested these women; they disgusted him and deserved their special place in Hell. But he had to smile at the irony of it all, these bitches were probably the only ones one hundred per cent safe from him simply because of their impurity.

He lit up another from a smouldering butt and watched a tall blonde sporting nothing more than a pair of undersized hot-pants and bikini-top get into a white unmarked transit van which then sped off at breakneck speed, the driver wishing to escape the seedy district as quickly as he possibly could, fearful of his registration plate being caught on some covert security camera.

He blew out a puff of smoke and smiled as he watched the van make a right and disappear around a corner at the end of the street; you will never outrun the eyes of the Angels, somewhere, sometime, you will be held to account for all your sins. He believed this with utmost certainty, acknowledging the fact that he himself had many that could never be absolved or forgiven. This was the new Sodom, the Nova Gomorrah, and his sacred task was to save the innocent while still innocent and have them join Uriel’s legions.

He thought about his latest victim. She must have been no more than fifteen; should have been home in bed at 2 a.m. in the morning, so much better for her if she had been. Almost absentmindedly he glanced down at his watch, less than an hour and it would be Xmas Day. He had promised himself his first offering of the season would be before Christ’s Birthday bringing his grand total to seventeen, an early present for the Angel of Purity. Another innocent soul to add to his celestial collection, harvested before it could be inevitably corrupted, initiated into Uriel’s heavenly choir. Uriel had demanded seven on each of the previous two years, fourteen to add to his first sacrifice of the two Novice Nuns, and now another had entered the ranks of the angels.

He had left his calling card, the left ring finger neatly severed just below the first knuckle. He knew Detective Harker would have little doubt that this indeed was the handiwork of the Bridegroom Killer, giving notice that his nemesis had yet again returned to haunt both his waking and sleeping hours.

The Bridegroom Killer, he wondered why the newspapers had labelled him with such a strange pseudonym, was it simply because he removed the fingers from his victims that would normally adorn a wedding band? He much preferred the nom de guerre of others, Yorkshire Ripper, Hillside Strangler; even unassuming family doctors had warranted a better nickname than he, Doctor Death. Now there was a name to conjure with, the self-effacing Mr. H. Shipman, suspected of sending over two hundred and fifty souls to meet their maker. It appeared the newspapers had lost what little imagination they had when it