Judgement - The Devils of D-Day - The Return

By Christopher E. Howard

Youths on the rampage; Senseless attacks on pensioners and the vulnerable. A bungled theft of an especial tome... and the stage is set for a series of events that will lead to anarchy and mayhem on an unprecedented scale!

 

Judgement has come....

• Language: English
• Publisher: CC Readers
• Release date: Nov 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223919773

Christopher E. Howard

Born in Harrow; living and educated everywhere else. Since leaving school, Chris has worked in the Opal mines of Northern Australia, as a working miner/first aider then he completed a nursing course, before progressing to a full surgical residency at Darwin Hospital. Whilst working as a surgeon, Chris did a Journalistic Course, which spurred his creative writing. On submitting his first piece and being lucky enough to receive not just publication in Australia, but also becoming an award winning story - Lost In REM - which earned great notoriety. This led to the point where he was invited to join Jeff Besos and about twenty other authors in an early discussion in Belgium, to explore the Amazon Books platform being created. He joined the National Geographic in the mid-1980s as a combined Medic and Copy Editor with the first job working on a field trip in Papua New Guinea - followed by other assignments with ecological ethos backgrounds. Along the way he also ended up covering war correspondence as he often seemed to be in the right spot to write newsreel events, during which time he visited the four corners of the earth. One year, during a sabbatical with a friend he drove a 400 herd of Arab horses across the Trans Val from Libya through to Zaire, taking about 4 months for the trip. He has achieved an MD, an MA in the English Language and another complete MA in Woodworking – three of his main vocations. Christopher E Howard, MA. MD. MA. .a.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Applegate Mob

Another weekday evening on the busy and notorious Applegate estate: The autumnal dark streets thrum with cars, while residents fill the glowing local corner shops and pubs; the last minute purchase – or pint – before going home.

Mist with its spectral curiosity has rolled in from the nearby southern fens trying to dampen its inhabitant’s spirits, its fingers groping for purchase amid the parks and malls, the roof slates and streetlights, but the heat from the houses alone has forced it back, its tendrils evaporating, recoiling from suburbia and all its evils.

In the one central park, the main core of the Applegate mob, over a hundred assorted youths have congregated, the air tinged with menace. Milling about, they chat vociferously, lamenting heavily about the economy, all the social demands they know so little about. They light a small fire with plastic bottles and rubbish they have brought, the yellow flames flaring brightly for a moment, causing concern for passing dog walkers as they are taunted over the railings.

The disturbance is a complete ruse, keeping the police occupied, two passing patrol cars kept busy, trying in vain to keep an eye on each end of the park’s entrances – keen to be seen to be upholding law and order amid the nearby streets.

In another part of the sprawling Applegate estate the Faety brothers – along with two other accomplices – and two girls – are making their way stealthily through the alleyways, sidestepping the litter and dog shit, keeping their heads down, their voices low.

They are on their way to a break-in.

At the end of the long winding Applegate road from which the estate takes its name, there is a small selection of the original buildings still standing; Georgian semi-detached three storey edifices; leftovers from the construction when the new estate and all its amenities erupted from the soil.

The cul-de-sac has been the location of more than one or two excursions by several youth members over the recent months, the small raids already resulting in rich pickings, the sheds containing new and old garden equipment; chainsaws, rotavators, spades and shovels, shears and secateurs, and some older but still viable scythes, sieves, etc – plenty redeemable – especially when five or six quid will buy you a pack of twenty four cans of lager.

The brothers – habitual burglars – stand tall and rangy, as do their accomplices – the petite girls ideal for entering small spaces – one member of the team so tense having only just served a stretch for aggravated breaking and entering, he was more than ready to commit murder this time, if anyone is stupid enough to try and get in his way.

The Applegate estate on which most of the six petty criminals lived was relatively new, although it contained one or two older, more solid properties, kept for local colour and culture, the green at the end of Applegate road being one such ornamentation. It had once stood around a small decorative pond, creating a pretty end to the thoroughfare, but for safety reasons – the residents of the small close – all elderly – had the pond filled in a few years ago, not realising at the time they’d made an ideal melting pot for many a youth.

A new ‘A’ road had cut along one side of the close sometime during the expansion of the Applegate estate, a new industrial estate springing up as well on the other side, quickly smothering any remaining buildings belonging to that era, alienating the green still further.

The extensive back gardens of the old houses were a haven for youngsters of all ages, from innocent explorations to nefarious trysts and dealings, older career criminals finding the access to the outbuildings and the houses themselves conveniently overshadowed – and with easy egression into the alleyways and lanes behind; the sparse collection of pensioners unable to protect and police their properties anymore. The isolation – being hemmed in by the main road one side, with its inaccessible flyover, and the new development of the labyrinthine estate on the other – had become more than a little daunting for the remaining residents.

Bobbies no longer patrolled on foot anywhere near the little cul-de-sac anymore, it being miles away from the newly built headquarters; and patrol cars could only slow down on the hard shoulder, to cast a wary eye over the lit houses of the green in the evenings; a car needing a good reason to make the tortuous journey through the estate and right to the end of the Applegate Road.

In number twenty three ‘The Close’, Applegate, sisters Freya and Mary Sidcombe, both in their dotage, were heartbroken over the loss of their friend and confidante Helda, maliciously killed as she had trundled home to The Close in her buggy the previous week, four or five thugs waiting for her as she had wended her way back from a local shop, the nature of her demise, shocking them to the core and upsetting the whole community as well. The Neighbourhood Watch had redoubled its efforts in the light of the recent outcry – but had to admit to being unable to police every corner of The Close at every minute of the day, the back gardens especially far too expansive.

Do you know Freya, spoke Mary that evening, I don’t feel up to going to the WI tonight. Why don’t you go and give my regards, and I’ll watch a video? I’ve got that copy of Louis Armstrong singing his old songs, that’ll keep me entertained.

Well, if you’re really sure, dear. I don’t think we’ll be very long tonight anyway. Several ladies are missing and I think the hall’s wanted in the morning, the cleaners need to give it a good going over, so I’ll be home early. Keep the doors locked, won’t you?

Oh, don’t worry, dear; I won’t be skipping down to the pub in my wheelchair, any time soon!

They both laughed, the levity seeming a little sad in light of the latest travesty.

The taxi arrived for Freya around seven thirty, and in pitch darkness, many of the nearby streetlights vandalised and broken, she left the front door of her house, shutting it firmly behind her.

The taxi driver was kind enough to leave his cab and see her across the green, the both of them waving to dear old John Stantincone of number twenty four, the old boy not missing a trick, she thought, as he made his way back inside his own dwelling.

Eight o’clock that night and the villainous team had arrived, having quietly climbed over several garden fences to reach the back of numbers 21 – 27 The Green, standing in the shadows of a crumbling summer house. The wood, soft and pulpy from decades of neglect crumbled under their exploratory fingertips; the ornate style harking back to a time of garden parties and local gymkhanas; a rich time of plenty – the youths unable to comprehend the significance.

The Faety brothers scanned the back gardens, pushing their Beanie hats back off their eyes, the big spaces separated only by short rotting picket fences or a fallen down collection of posts, the wire in a tangled heap, the grass, weeds and brambles having grown through and obliterated everything, the once manicured lawns and tended rose beds given over to decadence and decay.

The brothers kept everybody else back, taking only Tina, one of the girls and silently and quickly, scudded across the open expanse of the garden, rapidly making it to the end house; a large coal bunker; burgeoning lilac tree; and the rotting hulk of an adjoining outhouse screening them from the road.

The empty dwelling was that of the arson attack victim, Helda Stevens; most of the group thinking she had no need of her property now.

Experienced hands felt around the wood of a kitchen window, finding the same depreciation, a small spade-ended jemmy bar from a rucksack, quickly cutting through the pulpy wood and filler, finding the stave and lifting it.

Within seconds Mark Faety had the window open and could lift the slim form of his girlfriend to climb through.

Nice arse, smiled Mark’s brother, Puk laconically, waving then to the others to join them.

Tina wormed her way in, using the sink to hand-stand on, athletically allowing her legs to follow, bending and swinging round to sit carefully, tidying down her jumper.

In the darkness she swivelled her head to appraise the kitchen, the room a large galley arrangement.

She pulled a small micro torch from her jeans, using it carefully to scan her surroundings, the kitchen having once had all the mod cons, she noted, clean and tidy, developed for wheelchair use, the house creaking and seething with odd smells and strangeness.

She jumped down from the worktops quietly, and made her way rapidly through to the rear door, scanning the hallway with her light as she progressed; easing back the bolts and twisting the low set locks when she arrived, to let in the gang.

Inside, the five other members struggled out of their rucksacks and holdalls, scrutinising each other for the first time that night in the dim illumination.

The brothers were tall and unkempt, Mungo a heavyweight of Asian descent bulky and powerful, the ideal back-up man. Agu, the fourth member of the males was a half-crazed crack-head and psychopath who no one really liked, but could be handy should things get ugly.

They regarded each other with stoical respect, the team selecting small jemmy bars and hefty flat-bladed screwdrivers – ideal for forcing small locks on drawers.

We’ll take the upstairs, spoke Mark, Mungo nodding as they stood in the gloom of the abandoned house.

Without another word the team set about their business, the Faety brothers taking the stairs with Tina, while Mungo, along with Agu, covered the ground floor with the other girl, Libby.

Anything and everything was for grabs, the gang knowing everyday items such as mobile phones, lap tops, radios, sound systems and speakers – if not too big – had an intrinsic value: but so too did CDs and their players, even if they weren’t current, old stuff selling on the estate just as well as modern. Jewellery of course was a major find along with cash and credit cards, but so too were other electrical items like paper shredders, electric can openers, and cooking equipment, mixers and the like.

The team, experienced house breakers all, remained remarkably quiet as they moved efficaciously from room to room.

It wasn’t long however, before they realised the family had been hot off the mark and had travelled from the four corners of England to ransack the place; drawers pulled out and emptied – left on floors, cupboards rifled through, doors left ajar, sideboards and chests denuded, everything remotely of value taken.

Shit! muttered Mungo as he stomped – none too quietly – back down the hallway, calling up the stairs, the place has been totalled, guys! There’s fuck all left!

They congregated back in the downstairs kitchen, looking about despondently, making sure they’d got all their equipment and nothing had been left in a room anywhere, cursing their bad timing.

Even the carpets have been ripped up, spat Tina, disgustedly.

What about next door, asked Agu?

It’s empty as far as I know. The old biddies go out every Wednesday, WI or something. Mark Faety rummaged in his satchel for his cigarette tin, knowing a smoke wouldn’t go amiss, keeping the window open.

Ten minutes later a decision had been made and the gang left the house to skirt next door, Mark’s brother seeing a light down the passage way.

They probably left one on, you know, for security reasons. There doesn’t seem to be anybody in.

Ok, let’s do it.

The window was soon forced, Tina alighting on the work surfaces again like a cat, lifting herself down to stand in the darkened kitchen. She sensed the house had recently been occupied, detecting cooking odours, the tinge of an odd incense or perfume, trying to ignore it as she made her way quietly to the back door to slide back the bolts.

They were soon inside, Mark and his brother, with Tina heading for the stairs, alighting up them spiritedly, unable to see into the lit front room too clearly.

Mungo and the other girl skirted along the downstairs hallway, stopping at the first door they came to, Agu tiptoeing onward to the lit front room.

At the entrance to the front parlour, he took a firm grip of his hand axe, an extremely useful weapon which he’d brought along and felt good in his fist, being startled by the squeaking of a wheelchair as soon as he arrived.

He stepped back swiftly, moving into the gloom of the hallway; the others having disappeared into a room off to his left behind him, meant he was all alone.

The squeaking increased, getting louder, the wheelchair executing a slow about turn, Agu’s pulse starting to race.

The noise jangled his nerves, making him edgy. He held the axe in both hands against his chest, watching in horror as a shadow formed on the floor before him, telling him someone was in the house, an elderly crippled spinster by the look of the outline on the carpet.

Jesus, fucking Christ, he spat under his breath, forgetting himself!

The shadow grew, the squealing drilling into his mind, Agu, watching on in building rage as the shadow crept ever forward, toward the open and darkened hallway.

‘Get back you stupid old bat,’ he thought in near panic, ‘just curl up and die won’t you, and let me get on with the job!’

His mind swirled in turmoil. He had no time for escape, the wheels of the chair starting to impinge on his space. Any minute she would roll on through and find him standing there.

‘Oh, hello, I’m your friendly neighbourhood psychopath, come to chop off your head. Would you like a nice cup of tea before the festivities, you stupid fucking old cow?’’

‘Dear god, why me,’ he thought, raising the weapon?

Something had woken Mary Sidcombe. Having dozed off amid Louis Armstrong over an hour ago, the deep melodic songs coaxing her into a doze, a low voice she thought might have emanated from the television woke her abruptly, realising as she looked at it though, that it was blank, the DVD having ended. She looked at the time and realised her sister would be home soon, and fancied putting the kettle on for her, deciding to fix herself a cuppa too. As she spun round in her chair, an unnatural creak on the stairs made her perk up.

She cocked her head, listening, and then tutted to herself.

It’s just the old house, she joked aloud, pushing herself forward.

At the doorway she paused again, thinking she heard the shrill giggle of a young girl.

‘It must be outside on the green,’ she thought, her pulse quickening.

She wheeled herself forward and just saw a blur, before the axe blade swung forward, hitting her squarely atop the skull, killing her instantly.

Agu had panicked, already hearing the prison doors slam in his face yet again, the memory galvanising his resolve. Desperate not to be caught, he lashed out, more in fear of being discovered than anything else, shocked at the unparalleled adrenaline pumping through his system, and the ease in which the axe had struck and sunk in.

It had made a sickening dull sound, he recalled, as if he’d connected with soft timber, finding however, the blow had been so fierce, the weapon had stuck securely.

He had let go of the handle momentarily, as the old woman’s shocked eyes registered him, then they glazed over, her wizened old head falling to one side, the eyelids closing, Agu blowing out a sigh of relief.

He wrestled with his axe then, trying to turn away from the old lady’s frozen features, putting his foot to the wheelchair, his heart hammering in his chest, finally yanking it free with a jerk, viscous blood spurting out with the blade, Agu avoiding it at all costs.

He couldn’t stand the dreadful mask of the old woman’s face, so he pushed the occupant of the wheelchair back into the room, spinning her round then to face the TV again.

He waited for his pulse to slow, wondering if the others had suspected anything, then wiped his axe clean with a corner of the old woman’s blanket, putting it away in his haversack, selecting an old long-bladed chisel to prise open drawers and cupboards, tossing the rucksack aside and taking another close glance at his victim, finding only a thin trickle of blood had escaped down one side of her face, another glob soaking into her shawl around her shoulders, the deep gash in her head glistening with dark blood, stark against the papery white of her skin.

Her hair was withered and crinkled and her mouth was hanging open in a most grotesque way, looking so much just like a hole in her face, he mused callously, the pale features appearing to go an even worse hue of grey as he stared.

He lifted the cowl she had around her shoulders and used a corner of it to wipe the blood from the side of her face, the act making her cheek a little rosy, Agu, then arranging the material over her head and making it appear as if she had just dozed off.

He heaved in another sigh, then went about his work, telling himself he’d better find something of interest after all this!

In the front room, Mungo and Babs had struck gold, literally. Jewellery, not glass or dress either, but heavyweight stuff; brooches, bangles, and bracelets, silver plates and goblets, and a host of other small electrical goods, tucked away in drawers and at the back of cupboards, no good for the two elderly spinsters anymore, but a treasure trove for the burglars, the two stuffing as much as they could into their rucksacks and holdalls.

Upstairs it was the usual fare; teas maids; clock radios; a dusty lap top; some dress jewellery – nice gold cufflinks Mark pocketed, thinking someone would buy them.

Agu moved to the front of the room and peeped out through the drawn curtains, guilt hanging from his shoulders, his nerves in tatters, finding the green outside deserted. The street up from the cul-de-sac was empty too, the youth relaxing a little and turning back to appraise the room, finding the décor a little odd for a couple of old ladies; wainscoted walls; tailor-built shelves, cupboards and sideboards; strange objets d’art standing in niches, crystal balls, several ornate caskets containing very ornate daggers, Agu wondering at the collection and the black onyx skull leering from a backlit shelf above. ‘Not your usual homely fare,’ he cogitated, walking over immediately to the glass topped display cabinet containing two very ornate knives; Agu wondering whether it was worth taking the whole thing, attempting to lift the box and finding it quite heavy. The display case was open, so he lifted the lid and reached in gingerly, lifting one out to examine it closely.

He’d never seen anything like it, the moulding around the hilt exaggerated – the material curling around and into itself as if the horn had been alive once and twisted itself around the handle. He put a thumb to the blade and finding it fairly sharp, laid it carefully in the bottom of his rucksack, doing the same with the other.

As he straightened, a lectern pushed against the wainscoting of the wall attracted his attention.

It was the small gap down the edge that gave the experienced burglar an inkling, Agu putting the rucksack down carefully and stepping over to it, took hold of the well-crafted item and, after looking it up and down, eased it away from the wall.

He had expected perhaps a wall safe, but was moderately rewarded by discovering the lectern itself had a compartment in its back, holding a heavy book by the look of it, the youth not ignorant to the fact that some dusty old tomes could bring in a sizable reward. He reached in his pocket for a clasp knife and the honed blade sliced through the retaining duct tape like butter, allowing the book to fall forward, catching the tome and peeling away the protective newspaper, a smile creasing his lips as his eyes fell on ‘The Book of Shadows’.

It was a handsomely bound edition, the black leather shiny and the gold and ruby piping and corner edging exquisite, Agu frowning over the words embossed on the front and the four strange symbols. He ran his fingertips over the embossing feeling the workmanship, entranced by its presence and weight. ‘A treasure,’ an odd voice told him. ‘To be respected and revered.’

‘To be sold,’ Agu thought. ‘To the highest bidder!’

He had to admit, standing there, with the old biddy dead in her wheelchair, and her home being ransacked, he’d never in his life held anything like the Grimoire.

He turned the book over in his hands, finding it was kept sealed by four leather straps, locked together over the pages by delicate brass clasps, each, he noticed having one symbol apiece, miniature versions of the ones on the front cover.

‘I’ve got to look inside,’ he thought. He studied the tiny locks, considered that he could waste valuable minutes messing about trying to force them, so simply ran the blade of his sharp knife through the restraining leather straps, each cut seeming to make the room move in closer around him.

Agu glanced over his shoulder, folding up his knife and putting it back in his pocket hurriedly.

The bang of a car door outside nearly jerked the book from his hand! Upstairs there was panic as he heard Tina call out a warning. Someone was coming. In the room next door, Mungo and Babs were already carrying out their bags and moving them to the back door.

Mark and his brother made it downstairs in a hurry, their feet thumping on the stair carpet, a stash in their arms.

He stopped and backtracked, poking his head in the front room where Agu was still standing with what looked like an ornate bible in his hands.

Bit fucking late for a sermon Agu, for Christ’s sake, come on, someone’s coming!

Fuck ‘em, Agu, spat, opening the cover.

"Christ!"

Mark scampered with his rucksack to the back door.

He was on his way back, ready to admonish Agu, when the front room ignited in a blinding bright light, forcing Mark back on his heels. "Jesus!"

Before Agu, a pearl light had exploded from the book, transfixing him, the opened pages spewing out an insidious gaseous gleam, outshining the lit room, the eldritch light cutting straight through him like laser beams. The hovering glow grew whiter, more intense, then, before he could topple the book from his hands, the light exploded violently, a furious scintillating flash, tearing itself apart and disappearing into the ether, searing the back of Agu’s retinas, vaporising his eyeballs as it shot through him.

"Christ – !"

Mark, who’d just neared the doorway, had dived for cover, shielding his eyes again, the explosion of light hurting his vision.

He scrambled back to his feet, giving his eyes a few seconds to adjust, then, dropping his hands, glanced back into the room, blinking furiously, the afterglow still affecting his eyesight.

Something had pole-axed Agu.

An atomic hell had exploded in his face, frying his brain and tearing out the life. The light had passed clean through him, spearing him to the spot, a malevolent force; a sickening miasmic residue had been left invading his body, the ichors poisoning his capillary and blood system, turning them to stone, the fluids grinding to a stop, the plasma setting like concrete.

The arteries in Agu’s face expanded and bulged, his lungs heaved and shuddered and died along with the rest of him, the flesh turning grey/green, brittle and hard. He’d gagged, his tongue protruding.

His body trembled in the aftermath, shaking as a spectral hand had reached in, and as the light had fizzled away, tore his very soul out with it.

"Agu," Mark called from the doorway, aghast at the transformation!

The book slammed shut under its own volition, making Mark jump, sliding from the youth’s hands and falling heavily to the floor with a heavy thud that made him flinch again.

As Mark’s vision cleared, his first reaction was that a police grenade of some kind had been lobbed through the front window, but he’d heard no glass breaking and, as he scrambled to his feet the curtains were unruffled.

Agu was still standing there rock still, frozen in situ. He’d gone an awful colour, as if he was standing under eldritch disco lighting, the skin of his face cracked and peeled, the veins in his neck swelling, pumped ready to burst, his mouth forced wide open in a silent scream.

"Agu, for fuck’s sake, snap out of it – we gotta’ go – Agu!"

Mark glanced down at the book, the beautiful black leather-bound volume glistening with reverence on the floor, just waiting to be snapped up...

As footsteps sounded outside on the path leading to the front door, he scampered across to Agu’s feet scooping up the Grimoire, standing quickly to study him.

As he drew level with his face, he shied away, not wanting even to look.

Something had gone horribly wrong with him, he cogitated wildly, a psychotic episode, he wondered?

The next moment he heard the rattle and jingle of keys at the front door.

Mark panicked, holding the book tight to his chest and reaching out with a hand, not able to believe what he was looking at, convinced it was some kind of trick.  Agu, for –

It was then that his attention was drawn to the old spinster hunched up in her wheelchair down by his side, set before the TV, blood soaking through the white cotton shawl, the head tilted at an oblique angle.

He didn’t need to be told what had happened, it all spoke for itself. Agu had lashed out at the old lady with some heavy implement, he guessed, and in one foul swoop, killed her probably; a warning call from the back door, bringing him sharply back to the present.

He took one more look at Agu, shaking his head, then legged it, charging from the room and along the hallway.

He had no time to wonder at the blackened and smoking eye sockets, a sticky phlegm having dribbled down his cheeks, the grey/green putrefied skin, already peeling and cracking, the veins in his neck bulging and looking as he’d suffered a heart attack or seizure, the youth appearing frozen stiff – scared stiff, Mark pondered, bundling himself through the back door.

The sound of the key in the front galvanised his actions. A yell from Tina – and Mark took his leave, just managing to close the door behind him as the front one swung open.

Freya Sidcombe had waved to the taxi driver as she let herself in, calling out Mary! I’m home, dear.

Outside in the garden, Mark had closed the door fully shut, the locks engaging with an audible clunk, leaving it to race across the ground, falling over the straps to his rucksack as he sagged into the shadows and relative sanctuary of the summer house, ‘The Book of Shadows’ clamped in his arms.

Where’s Agu, Mungo asked immediately?

Not coming, gasped Mark.

In the darkness, everyone stared. What do you mean, ‘he’s not coming, queried Tina? He was right behind you!

He’s had it. Done in. He’s not coming.

I’ll go back and get him, ventured Mungo, dropping his haul of treasure.

No! You don’t understand, insisted Mark, almost grabbing him! He’s killed the old lady in there. He done her in – had a break down.

"Jeeze," gasped the girls!

Wait a minute, spoke Mark’s brother. He’s not waiting for the other old biddy is he?

No, Puk. Believe me. He's done for. He had some sort of seizure after he killed that old lady.

Seizure, asked Mungo?

I don’t know...

Come on. Let’s get out of here. We’ve got quite a haul –

A shrill scream from the house was all they needed.

The pitiful ululation could be heard half-way down the street, John Stantincone across the road, the first to take action, the distressed cry meaning only one thing.

He scrambled out of his chair in which he’d been dozing and, pulling back the curtains of his front room, turned on the lights in his house, illuminating the front garden. He ambled to his front door to stumble as fast as he could across the wet grass to Mary and Freya Sidcombe’s home, the front door of their dwelling wide open, lights burning.

As a friend, John Stantincone stepped up and into the foyer, finding purchase on the door jamb, the terrible legacy of trauma already heavy in the air.

Mary? Freya?

Oh, John... he heard Freya call!

He stumbled along the hallway and to the entrance of the front drawing room, finding Freya distraught on her knees beside her dead sister, her head buried in her lap; his eyes taking in the youth Agu still standing in the middle of the room stone dead, his face a grisly mask of rictus.

John shuffled forward, placing a hand tenderly on Freya’s head, taking in the sad white mask of death her sister portrayed, the shock and terror in the last few seconds of her life, taking any semblance of decorum from her delicate features.

He turned away, realising then with steely resignation that ‘The Book of Shadows’ had been found and taken, examining the lectern and pushing it back thoughtfully to the wall. He ambled his way over to the petrified youth, and after looking him up and down, took him by the shoulders to ease him backward and down onto the carpet, grunting under the weight, letting him fall heavily to the floor, rolling him then onto his side.

He reached for the telephone to call the police.

Chapter 2

Asoft evening mist , swirling slowly in from the nearby fens and marshes, had coiled over The Green at the end of Applegate Road, giving the little close an almost surreal, peaceful atmosphere, Detective Giggs having conferred with several uniformed officers stood alone for a moment, reflecting and mediating, finding himself again in the familiar surrounds of The Green, sick to the stomach with yet another major incident marring the small collection of houses.

If the recent burglaries and illegal gatherings hadn’t been enough, resulting in arguments with the residents – the local police constantly being called – an arson attack on an extremely old lady only a week ago totally sickening the local community – now the youths had gone and broken into yet another dwelling; this time committing murder in the first degree!

Dear god, Detective Giggs agonized, shaking his head, sighing inwardly to himself! It was certainly one for the annals of the police’s new regional headquarters situated nearby, augmenting Scotland Yard’s; the massive collection of colossal buildings coordinating and centralising England’s crime forces, containing one of the best forensics departments in Europe; the huge metropolitan sky scrapers, boasting many specialist departments, Giggs only just getting used to the new environment from the shabby run-down building they used to inhabit.

Impressive though as they were, they had little impact on the tearaways of the estate they almost overshadowed, as if the buildings were so indomitable in their glitzy, shiny facades the mice simply scurried about unconcerned beneath; the impressive monoblocs unable to dissuade the heinous crimes of today’s youth as they went about their aimless existences, the mindless thugs hell bent, it seemed, on destroying the tenuous fabric that bound their very society together.

Inside number twenty three, The Close, the forensics and police constables were leaving, having removed the body of Mary Sidcombe, leaving a specialist to examine in situ the corpse of a notorious psychopath known simply as ‘Agu.’

At forty eight – and with nearly twenty years in the study of forensics – acting head, Bessel Dolan of the new HQ, had assumed he’d seen it all.

Nothing, however, had prepared him for the gruesome cadaver awaiting him in the front room of number twenty three, The Green, Applegate road, that evening; the youth seemingly petrified – as if he’d been sealed in a dusty tomb in Thebes (or somewhere nearby), for a thousand years. Even his clothes, brittle and a little cauterised, looked as if a burning heat had emanated from within the body, the scientist suspecting a rare kind of spontaneous combustion perhaps, the skin an unusually grey/green pallor, like rotten meat, exacerbated, he realised, by the emerald curtains hanging over the huge bay window. The dead youth’s skin was dry and desiccated as parchment in texture, appearing as if every atom or molecule of moisture had been evaporated from the tissue, leaving it rock hard and flaked.

Apart from two forensics operatives dusting here and there, the downstairs was empty, the sister of the deceased spinster found dead in her wheelchair, having been taken by a younger woman – who Bessel vaguely recognised as a local clairvoyant, for a cup of tea up in a bedroom, no doubt with some medication prescribed by a visiting doctor. The front room he was kneeling in had a strange ambience all of its own, not helped he reflected, by the sparkling curtains and the glistening little stars embossed into the heavy fabric, giving the room an extra spectral gloom all of its own. The curtains seemed totally at odds with the dark red wood of the furniture, he noted, which itself appeared to exude an odd ambience, as if it had been more alive once than it should have been, the amulets and carved wooden masks adorning the walls suggesting the spinsters had practised necromancy at one time, Bessel not at all familiar with witchcraft, or sorcery, having in mind a picture of pretty young maidens dancing about in a forest under a blood red moon, totally naked.

He shook the image from his mind’s eye and returned to the present, shifting his weight from kneeling by the victim, wondering if the old biddies had cast a spell over the burglar, the milieu of the room and décor rather puzzling, the strange artefacts and symbols a little unnerving, his eyes sliding from the corpse to rove around the room again, having never touched on Wiccan theology, the old religion as arcane and as strange as its pagan gods to him.

He returned his attention to the frozen youth yawning, wondering if the kid had a family that worried or cared for him, hoping to whatever god there was swirling about in the cosmos above, that the bastard had met his match in the afterlife.

‘He’d died a pretty gruesome death here, by all accounts,’ he reflected, examining the teenager’s skin once more, totally perplexed.

The youth’s veins bulged, as if they’d been pumped full of an extra five litres of fluid – or to be more correct – he judged, liquid concrete, his gloved fingertips probing the carotid artery in the dead youth’s neck and finding it rock solid.

‘What the hell could have caused this,’ he mediated, knowing he wasn’t going to resolve much until he got the corpse back to his laboratory?

The skin has dried out, peeled and cracked, he sighed into his little pocket tape recorder, all apparently within a short space of time; approximate time of death – and Bessel glanced at his watch, around eleven – a little early for rigor mortis – yet, the young man has set rock solid, complete muscle and tendon contraction and a discolouration and desiccation of the skin, possible hyper-tension just before death, perhaps causing the condition.

Bessel Dolan paused, then noted the time and date and location again for his own edification, the forensic scientist wondering just what he’d find when he got him back and opened him up.

He could do no more here, he reasoned, pushing himself to his feet, collecting his paraphernalia and giving his team – who were now loitering in the hallway – the okay to wrap and ship the body back to the labs.

Outside, Detective Giggs waited patiently, having scoured the area, discovering the offenders had broken into the house next door first, but finding the house already cleared out, had obviously decided the house adjacent might hold more interest, the perpetrators not realising it was occupied. They’d been disturbed – and panicked – it seemed, one of them had struck out at the frail old lady in her wheelchair, lashing out without thinking probably, killing her instantly – one fatal blow to the front of the skull ending her life, the blade of an axe undoubtedly – found in the youth’s rucksack – being the most likely weapon.

It was also likely that the offending youth was the one lying dead in the