Deadly Ritual Read online

  Francis licked his lips. “All right. Follow me.”

  They took the lift up to the fourth floor, and when the lift doors opened, Francis gave Alfie yet another chance to back out. Alfie shook his head. Now he was convinced Francis had made up the whole thing. There was no Mr. X. Francis just wanted Alfie to be impressed.

  Of course, Mr. X couldn’t be true. He was just some mythical figure designed to scare children into behaving themselves. It was like his grandma telling Alfie that Santa wouldn’t leave him any presents if he were naughty.

  Alfie smiled as he followed Francis out of the lift and along the corridor. Alfie wrinkled his nose. It smelled of boiled cabbage up here.

  Francis stopped when they reached flat number forty-two.

  He raised his hand to knock, but the door was slightly ajar.

  “It’s open,” Francis whispered. He pushed the door open a little further.

  There was a strange music drifting out from the flat, a mixture of chanting voices and drums.

  Francis slipped his head round the door.

  “What is it?” Alfie tapped his shoulder.

  But Francis didn’t move.

  Alfie moved forward to see what Francis was looking at.

  At the same time, Francis took a step backwards, bumping into Alfie.

  Alfie’s nose cracked hard on the back of Francis’s shoulder. “Ow, watch where you are going.”

  But Francis didn’t answer. Instead he carried on backing up, pushing Alfie back out of the flat.

  “What are you doing?” Alfie asked, rubbing his sore nose.

  Francis ignored Alfie. His eyes were wide, and his jaw was slack as he stared at the entrance to the flat.

  Alfie had had enough of this. Francis was just winding him up.

  “I’m going,” he said.

  With luck, he’d get home before his aunt, and she’d never find out he hadn’t gone straight home after school.

  Francis’s jaw worked up and down a couple of times. Now he was really going over the top. He looked like a goldfish, opening and shutting his mouth like that.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Alfie asked, as he pushed past Francis to look inside the flat.

  It was hard to see anything at first. It was dark outside, and the only light in the flat came from one flickering candle.

  As Alfie’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the door opened directly into a sparsely furnished living room.

  In the centre of the room, a large hooded figure crouched over something on the floor.

  It took Alfie a moment to realise the thing on the floor was a person. A person who was lying face down on the bare floorboards.

  Alfie blinked trying to take it all in.

  The hooded figure picked up a huge knife and slashed the air. The blade seemed to glow in the candlelight. He murmured words Alfie didn’t understand.

  The hooded figure set down the knife and picked up a small wooden dish. He dipped a hand in the bowl’s contents, and as he withdrew his hand, dark liquid dripped from his fingertips.

  He used his fingers to smear the dark substance across the victim’s forehead.

  Alfie took a step back. They had to get out of here before they were seen.

  The hooded figure grunted as he flipped the body over. The person on the floor didn’t make any effort to escape. Was he dead? Unconscious?

  The hooded figure grabbed the knife again. This time there were no words.

  He pressed the blade to the victim’s shoulder. As the blade scraped its way over flesh, the first crimson flush of blood appeared on the man’s back.

  Alfie held his breath. He tried to move back. But Francis was behind him, rigid with fear, and Alfie couldn’t get past. If they could just get out now without being seen, it would be okay.

  He shoved Francis who stumbled against the wall.

  Alfie could see the exit. He tugged at Francis’s hand and tried to pull him into the corridor.

  Francis started to shake, then he made a low gurgling sound that made Alfie panic. Alfie clamped a hand over Francis’s mouth.

  But it was no good.

  Francis’s scream bubbled to the surface. It echoed around the walls of the corridor, distorting the scream into something terrifying.

  The hooded figure slowly looked up from his task and directly at Alfie and Francis.

  He couldn’t see the figure’s face beneath the hood, but Alfie was positive he could see theirs.

  Alfie frantically yanked on Francis’s arm. But Francis wouldn’t move.

  “Come on. We need to get out of here,” Alfie hissed.

  At the back of his mind, Alfie had a nagging hope that this was all some kind of joke. But when the hooded figure began to walk towards them, Alfie felt his stomach twist.

  Alfie pulled again on Francis’s arm, but he was completely unresponsive.

  Alfie let go of Francis’s arm and ran down the corridor. He was running so fast he crashed into the door leading to the stairwell. He was back on his feet in an instant, taking the stairs three at a time, jumping and stumbling as he headed for the exit.

  Why hadn’t Francis moved? Had it all been a stupid Halloween trick? Alfie wasn’t going to hang around to find out. If Francis wanted to scare him, he had succeeded.

  Alfie reached the bottom of the staircase, and a moment later, he burst out into the square. He didn’t pause for breath. He took off at a sprint and didn’t stop running until he’d reached his aunt and uncle’s flat.

  4

  WALTER HARWOOD JUMPED. THE soles of his Wellington boots slapped against the black mud of the riverbed as he landed.

  He stood still for a moment, breathing in the sharp tang of the river, savouring it as he looked out at the inky, darkness of the River Thames.

  He grinned. He had stayed away for too long.

  The sun would be up soon, and he would have to share London with the rest of the population, but for now, he had it to himself, and he loved it.

  He carefully pulled the tatty old metal detector from its case. He couldn’t believe his father had kept it. How many years had it been since the old man had used it? Fifteen? Twenty?

  Walter inspected the machine and tightened a screw on the handle. It was funny how something like this could hold so many memories.

  Walter had sat stony-faced for weeks beside his father’s bed at the hospital. He’d arranged the funeral and greeted his dad’s old friends with a polite thanks for coming, Dad would have appreciated it, at the wake afterwards.

  He’d managed to hold it together until five days after the funeral. That was when he had decided it was time to clear out his father’s flat.

  Even then, he’d been okay, methodically sorting through his dad’s possessions and separating them into piles for the charity shop and piles for his sister.

  His steely self-control had stayed with him until he’d reached the top shelf of his father’s wardrobe. His fingers had closed around a long thin object. At first, he couldn’t place it. Then a moment later, he realised what it was, and the memories came flooding back with force.

  Walter gasped and flopped down to sit on the floor with his back propped against the bed. He unzipped the case to reveal the metal detector.

  He remembered when his dad had first bought it. He’d phoned Walter, full of excitement, eager to tell him about his new toy. He’d wanted Walter to go with him to the river to test it out.

  Walter leaned forward and rested his head on his knees. He had told his dad he was too busy. Fool. What he wouldn’t give now for just one more day with his dad.

  He blinked back tears as he rubbed his thumb over a rough patch of rust on the metal.

  It had been something they’d done together. Mudlarking on the Thames. Walter could still remember the first time his father had taken him down to the river. Walter’s head had been full of the treasure they were going to discover.

  So the years had passed with Walter and his father combing the river at low tide, searching for t
heir treasure. Walter couldn’t remember when he had stopped or why. His father had kept on visiting the Thames, but Walter had grown interested in other things.

  Their first discovery had been a clay pipe, white as bone. Later, Walter came to realise that the pipes were a common find, but on that day, he was full of excitement as he thought he’d discovered an ancient pirate’s pipe. Cupped in his father’s strong hands, it had looked so fragile.

  Walter shook his head at the memory. When had his father’s hands changed from the strong ones that held the pipe, to the shaking, weak hands that had clutched Walter’s in the hospital?

  Alone in his father’s bedroom, Walter had lowered his head and cried.

  Now, Walter looked down at the pristine, silty sand beneath his feet. There could be anything down there. Maybe old coins or buckles. Things that had been lost for years. The river could wash up things it had claimed centuries ago.

  Walter smiled. Maybe today would be the day he uncovered his big find, the sort of treasure he’d dreamed about as a boy.

  On every trip, Walter’s father used to say he had a feeling in his bones that their big discovery was just around the corner.

  Walter took another breath of the tangy air and looked up and down the beach. He was out of sight from the road above, which was a good thing. You were supposed to have a permit for mudlarking these days.

  As he took a step forward, the mud sucked at the soles of his wellingtons. The silt here could be notoriously tricky, and it was easy to get stuck, especially when the tide went out as far as this. The trick was to keep moving and never stand still for too long.

  His Wellington boots made squelching noises with each step, as he set off towards the river line. He would need to keep an eye on the tide.

  The tide was low, which meant he could explore more of the riverbed. Walter held the metal detector in front of him. He’d begun to move it slowly back and forth when something caught the corner of his eye—something that shouldn’t be there.

  He turned, frowning at the object. Back when Walter used to walk up and down this stretch of river with his father, he’d seen all sorts of discarded rubbish. Pushchairs and shoes were popular. Sadly the river was a bit of a dumping ground. It always had been. Even back when the Victorian street urchins had been the mudlarks, earning their living by digging in the riverbed, searching for discarded coal and other things they could sell.

  Walter walked towards the large, black object. As he got closer, the silt and sand sucked hard on his Wellington boots, making each step slow and ponderous.

  As he got closer he saw that it was a black refuse sack. The water lapped at the bottom of the bag. Someone had obviously dumped their rubbish in the river. Some people had no respect.

  Walter kneeled down beside the bag and yanked at the black plastic. It was very heavy, which took Walter by surprise. He couldn’t even lift it. What the hell was in there?

  It was hard to see. The sun was only just cresting over London, highlighting the buildings in the distance and glinting off the Shard.

  Walter peered down at the refuse sack. It was sealed with brown parcel tape. Walter fumbled with it for a moment, but the tape was too strong, and he couldn’t rip it.

  Sod that for a game of soldiers, Walter thought, and decided to create a hole in the plastic. He pulled out his Leatherman penknife and carefully cut a hole in the plastic.

  A foul odour seeped out immediately. As Walter ripped open the hole wider, he choked.

  He’d seen plenty of things dumped in the river, but this was a first. Walter careered backwards, landing on his backside in the soft silt. The smell overwhelmed him, and he felt the need to vomit.

  He put his hands down to push himself up, but the silt gripped and sucked at his hands.

  The river wasn’t willing to give up its victim. Walter started to panic. He imagined himself sinking into the silt along with the dead body.

  Stop being such a bloody fool, Walter told himself. He needed to stop panicking. He wasn’t going to get anywhere at this rate. He needed to stay calm and spread his weight over the sand.

  Carefully extracting each of his hands, Walter shifted his weight. He rolled over onto his front and spreadeagled himself, trying to spread his weight over as much area as possible.

  He whimpered with relief as the tight suction eased its grip on his limbs, and he was able to get up to his knees and then back on his feet.

  He was covered with the grimy brown mud from the riverbed. Walter looked back at the black plastic bag and blinked a couple of times.

  A human hand was sticking out from the hole he had created. Walter swallowed. The hand almost looked as if it were waving at him.

  Walter’s father had always said the next big find was just around the corner. But Walter was pretty sure he hadn’t meant this.

  5

  DETECTIVE SERGEANT MACKINNON DESCENDED the slippery steps. These days the steps down to the river didn’t get much use, but each step had a dip in the middle, created by the traffic of previous generations of Londoners. He gripped the thin handrail, but even that disappeared halfway down.

  Once he was safely down the treacherous steps, Mackinnon saw that the tide had turned, and water was already lapping the bank where the body had been discovered. The team had needed to work quickly to log as much evidence as possible before the river claimed it.

  Thankfully, most of the initial work had been completed, and the pathologist was getting ready to have the body moved. The crime scene staff were packing up their equipment and loading it back into the van at the top of the river.

  DI Tyler was on the phone gesturing with his right hand as was his habit. Mackinnon thought he heard Brookbank’s name mentioned and decided not to approach Tyler yet.

  DC Charlotte Brown was talking to one of the crime scene photographers. When she saw Mackinnon she waved, and he walked over to her.

  “Nasty one,” she said, holding out her mobile phone.

  Mackinnon angled the phone so he could see the image on the screen clearly. It looked like a flat disc of wood. “That was found in the boy’s mouth?”

  Charlotte nodded. “It was in a red velvet pouch. Tucked in his right cheek.” She raised a hand to her own cheek.

  “Any idea what it’s for?” Mackinnon asked.

  “Not yet.” Charlotte zoomed in on the image. “See that. It’s marked with a cross.”

  Mackinnon studied it for a few moments, then said, “What about the victim?”

  “Young black male. No ID as yet.”

  “How young?”

  Charlotte shrugged. “Hard to say. Pathologist guessed at mid to late teens.”

  “How was he killed?”

  “Not clear on that yet. There are stab wounds, a couple of them might have been fatal, and his back has been slashed from shoulder to hip bone, diagonally on both sides. The knife wounds formed a cross just like on the wooden disc.”

  Mackinnon took in a breath of misty air and looked out over the water. Above them on the street, life was going on as usual. A red double-decker bus rolled by, and people rushed along the embankment in the fine drizzle, eager to get on their way. No one noticed the crime scene below.

  DI Tyler put his phone in his pocket and gestured for everyone to gather round. Mackinnon and Charlotte headed towards him.

  “Okay,” Tyler said. “We will have a briefing back at the station, but I want you…” He pointed at Mackinnon. “… to go and see an expert on West African anthropology at Kings College London. I’ve just spoken with her on the phone. She’s on the list, and the Metropolitan Police have used her before. I want you to take a photograph of that flat wooden thing we found in the boy’s mouth and show it to the professor. Let’s see whether she can shed any light on it.”

  DI Tyler turned to Charlotte. “I need you to look at missing persons. There’s no ID on him, so whoever dumped him didn’t want to make it easy for us, but he is a teenager. He is likely to have family. His parents are probably looking for
him. He’s been in the drink for a couple of days, so someone must have noticed he’s gone.”

  After Tyler finished assigning tasks, he gave Mackinnon the details for the anthropologist, and Charlotte sent a copy of the image of the wooden disc to Mackinnon’s phone.

  Mackinnon climbed the stone steps to the embankment and headed for the nearest underground station.

  It took only ten minutes to get to the Strand, which was where the professor of African anthropology was based. Mackinnon scrolled through his phone to check the details Tyler had given him.

  The anthropologist’s name was Professor Matić. Mackinnon pondered over the name. It wasn’t a name he’d come across before, but he didn’t think it sounded West African in origin.

  Mackinnon showed his ID at the reception desk in the front of the large Kings College building.

  Students, scurrying between lectures, filled the grand entrance hall, and two open stairways curled upwards to the mezzanine level.

  The chap on reception gave him directions to Professor Matić’s office on the second floor.

  As the students poured down the stairs, Mackinnon suddenly felt very old. They all looked too young to be at university.

  He strolled along the corridor following the receptionist’s instructions, but he couldn’t find Professor Matić’s office. When he reached the end of the corridor, there was a large lecture theatre. He peered inside, but there was no one in there.

  He must have taken a wrong turn. He headed back the way he had come, and instead of turning right at the top of the staircase, he turned left, and two doors down, he found Professor Matić’s office.

  Mackinnon rapped on the door. There was no answer, and as he held up his hand to knock again someone walked behind him.

  A young girl, hugging a ring binder to her chest and a rucksack slung over her shoulder, asked, “Are you looking for Professor Matić?”

  Mackinnon nodded.

  “She’s taking a lecture now, but she should be nearly finished. I can take you to the lecture theatre if you want?”

  Mackinnon thanked her and followed her to Professor Matić’s class.