Dark Order : A Harrison Lane Mystery (The Dr Harrison Lane Mysteries Book 3) Read online

  Dark Order

  3rd in the Harrison Lane mystery series

  Gwyn GB

  Also By The Same Author

  The Villagers

  DI Claire Falle series

  Lonely Hearts

  Home Help

  Death Bond

  Dr Harrison Lane series

  Preacher Boy

  The Horsemen

  Dark Order

  Holy Man

  Writing as Gwyn Garfield-Bennett

  Islands

  404

  Contents

  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Thank You

  Holy Man

  Also By Gwyn GB

  About Gwyn GB

  PLEASE NOTE: SPELLINGS USED IN THIS BOOK ARE BRITISH ENGLISH.

  Published in 2021 by Chalky Dog Publishing

  Copyright © Gwyn GB 2021

  Gwyn GB has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright holder.

  All characters and their storylines, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living, or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Also, just for the record, I went to Durham University and it’s fab. There were no murders while I was there so don’t believe everything you read :)

  1

  The music thumped across the beach, drowning out the sound of the incoming tide. The Nightcrawlers’ beat was accompanied by a host of out of tune voices shouting, ‘It’s Friday then…’ which quickly degenerated into a mash of forgotten, or too drunk to sing, lyrics. The party was firmly nestled within the sand dunes, well away from any potential complaining neighbours on the north-eastern coast of England, and just over an hour’s coach drive from Durham city. It was well organised. A huge bonfire had been lit, ready for when the two coaches full of University students had arrived, while a generator provided power for the music.

  The bar was a big free-for-all pile of everything alcoholic you could think of. Several plastic bins were labelled ‘Moathouse Monks Mead’ and were filled with a reddy brown liquid that tasted of nothing more than fruit juice with a hint of honey, but would have you over the limit to drive with just three sips. Luckily nobody there was planning on driving home.

  The two coach drivers were sitting well away from the revelry, discussing the behaviour of their passengers, while nursing a warm coffee in the mid-October evening. Their conversation was interrupted by two female students giggling and tripping down one of the sand dunes in front of them. Under the light of the moon, the two men watched as the pair started to take each other’s clothes off, giggling and kissing, oblivious to their audience. It was tempting to let them carry on, but Derek, who had three teenage daughters at home, stood up and reached in through his driver’s door, turning on the engine and flooding the dunes in front of them with headlights. The pair didn’t seem that bothered, but ran off back towards the party, laughing.

  There were others like them, peeled off from the main group, making out in the dunes, but most of the sixty students danced around the big bonfire, plastic drink glasses in hand, shouting, singing.

  At the stroke of midnight, the music stopped. A few in the group knew what was about to happen, but most of them were oblivious, as around the surrounding dunes there appeared figures in black cloaks. They were chanting, ‘Timeo enim Deus vester ipse est hic in nobis, Timeo enim Deus vester ipse est hic in nobis’ over and over. The others started to join in, standing and watching as the monks stood atop the dunes, hands clasped together piously, looking down on them all.

  Soon the stragglers had rejoined the group around the fire, ready for the main event, and they were all chanting together. ‘Timeo enim Deus vester ipse est hic in nobis.’ Their voices entwined with the whispers of the sea as its waves dragged back down the beach.

  Then one monk turned and disappeared, coming back with a pig. Several of the girls in the group gasped and cried out as they saw the silver blade of the knife in his hand.

  For a moment, there was silence.

  ‘For Bacchus and Venus,’ the black-cloaked figure shouted, and turned, plunging the knife down towards the pig.

  More of the girls squealed in shock.

  The monks disappeared.

  There was chattering, and the pitch of shocked voices around the firelight, as the silence of the night held them all stunned.

  They didn’t wait long. Within seconds, a black line of monks trooped into the gathering carrying enormous platters of hog roast pork and bread rolls. The shock turned to laughter again as they heard the squealing of the indignant, but unharmed, pig being loaded back into a truck to be taken away by the muttering farmer. They had paid him well for their fun.

  The music resumed as the party goers helped themselves to the hog roast, watched by the monks, masked and hooded. All the young men were waiting to see if they would be chosen. This was a preference party, a choosing of who would go forward for the selection dinner to become a Moatside Monk, the most sought after new student dining society in Durham. Tonight, just two would receive the invites, their chance to join the elite and become one of the brotherhood. Plenty of money was a prerequisite, titles and the right schooling helped too, but there was more to being a monk than that. They’d all been watched throughout the evening to see if they fitted the club’s criteria. No one knew who was a monk already, although some had their suspicions. What they did know, was that becoming a Monk was a lifelong pledge, a vow of secrecy in return for a brotherhood that would help you throughout your career, an invisible hand to lift you to the highest echelons of society, and guarantee the best dinner parties you’d ever been to.

  Only a few had been to the preference party before, but there was just one who wasn’t laughing or drinking with the others. They watched in the shadows, away from the bonfire. Horrified. Not because of the fake pig sacrifice, or the drinking, but because they couldn’t believe it was all taking place again, exactly as last year. After what had happened, did they not learn their lesson? Feel some guilt? Had he been forgotten so easily? Even the chant showed they still thought themselves above all laws: earthly and heavenly. Fear your God, for he is here among us. There was one Monk in particular, who thought himself a god, untouchable. It couldn’t be allowed to happen again. The Moatside Monks had to pay for their past sins.

  2

  The roadworks site manager rushed over and looked as if he was about to hug Dr Harrison Lane as he got off his Harley Davidson bike. Thankfully, it was just an emotional feeling, which he kept to himself and didn’t put into practice.

  ‘Dr Lane, I’m so glad to see you. They’ve downed tools and won’t get back
to work, it’s costing the company a fortune. We’re behind schedule already and I’m getting it in the neck from my boss. I need you to tell them it’s all rubbish, persuade them they’re not going to be cursed.’

  Harrison looked at the anxious face of Max Fuller. The orange high vis jacket he wore added an extra hue to his already flushed face, and he seemed unable to stand still for even a few seconds. He didn’t need to be a psychologist to know that Max was stressed. They were at a major crossroads in London, or at least, what should be a major intersection. Right now it was a roadworks site devoid of any workers, and all around them the scowling faces of daily commuting traffic were being re-routed in the opposite direction. At the far end of the site, Harrison could see a large huddle of men who looked like a group of frightened school boys. In the middle, a police car had pulled up and a uniformed officer stood peering into a large hole.

  ‘The pathologist is coming,’ Max Fuller continued. It seemed to help him to talk and wave his hands around. ‘We’re supposed to have a roundabout built in the next five days. I just don’t know what to say to them. This isn’t going to take too long, is it?’

  Harrison ticked off all the textbook anxiety signs and felt for the man. He was only in his early thirties, and clearly out of his depth. Lewisham police had put in the call to Harrison. As head of the Ritualistic Behavioural Crime unit, this wasn’t his usual kind of case. He was pretty certain it wasn’t going to be a recent death, but the response of the work crew and the impact it was having on London’s traffic flow warranted an immediate response in the public interest.

  They walked towards the uniformed police officer and the large hole.

  ‘Any history about this site?’ Harrison asked Max Fuller.

  He shrugged. His brain was probably incapable of recalling much right now, but Harrison thought it was worth a try.

  ‘Plans showed there’d been a crossroads here for forever. It was enlarged over the years and now they want a roundabout.’

  ‘Ok.’

  Max stared at the big man in front of him, searching Harrison’s face for some indications of what he was thinking. He gave nothing away.

  A ladder was leaning against the edge of the hole, which was around four metres deep and fifteen metres wide. The object of all the fuss was lying at the bottom of the hole, its yellowed bones contrasting with the dark, almost black soil around it.

  Harrison had a good view from the top. The broken stake through its torso, where once a heart would have been, and the decapitated skull between its legs, were the cause of the huddle of men. He could hear from the voices which reached his ears that most of them were Eastern European, where superstitions were more deeply believed. The part of the world where vampire legends were part of their folklore.

  Harrison looked around the site. It was difficult to tell exactly where once the old crossroads would have been, but the buildings surrounding it gave him some indications. The footprint of their foundations had probably not changed too much over the years, although they wouldn’t have even existed when this person found their way into the soil.

  He was pretty sure about what he was looking at already, but climbed down into the hole, more for show in front of the men than anything else. If he was to persuade them he knew what he was talking about, he needed to look as though he’d done a thorough inspection.

  The bones and skull showed significant age. They were yellowed and pitted, and it wasn’t lying neatly on its back, but looked more haphazard in its placement, as though little care had been put into its burial. It was the placing of the skull which gave Harrison the biggest clue. He wasn’t an expert in archaeological remains, but he knew what beliefs people had put into practice over the centuries.

  ‘You can cancel the pathologist,’ Harrison said to Max as he climbed back out of the hole. ‘The victim has been dead for hundreds of years,’ he added with a wry smile. ‘You’ll be wasting their time. You need a forensic anthropologist. I’d contact the Museum of London Archaeology unit if I were you. Will they understand me, or do you have an interpreter?’ He nodded towards the large group of men, who were all watching him intently.

  ‘The foreman will interpret anything that’s needed,’ Max confirmed, reaching for his mobile phone. ‘Archaeologists? Don’t they take like forever to dig over things?’

  Harrison didn’t reply. That was one stress he couldn’t help with and left Max to report back while he walked over to the group of around twenty-five labourers. They were all dressed in high vis jackets and carried the weather-beaten look of men who were used to working outdoors. They looked pretty tough, not the sort you’d want to cross in a bar fight, but right now their superstitions had reduced them all to a fearful gaggle who looked at the tall, muscular man approaching them in black bike leathers, with a mix of distrust and hope. Close on Harrison’s heels came the police officer, who was interested in hearing what he had to say. Max followed up the rear.

  ‘My name is Dr Harrison Lane, I am head of the Metropolitan Police’s Ritualistic Behavioural Crime unit,’ he started, allowing a brief pause for the interpreter to repeat his words. ‘The skeleton which you uncovered this morning, is from the Middle Ages, probably around six hundred to seven hundred years old. The reason it was placed in the way you found it, is because they probably committed a serious crime, such as murder. In those times, they sometimes hung the accused, after execution, in cages at crossroads for all to see their punishment. They called it gibbeting. Their bodies were then disposed of nearby, away from consecrated ground. Christians at the time believed that in order to rise from the dead on Judgement Day, a body had to be whole. This is why the head has been severed and placed between his legs. They were denying him that opportunity and ensuring a bad man didn’t walk again. The stake through his torso is a little extra insurance. This is not a vampire burial. There are no items placed in the jaw of the skull as we have seen in suspected vampire burials in Europe. There are no curses associated with burials like this. He is merely a man who was not well thought of, disposed away from holy ground because of a crime he committed in life.’

  Harrison stopped for a moment as the interpreter caught up and the group of men responded to his words with murmurs and other noises of apprehension. Behind him, the police officer humphed in appreciation.

  ‘I know this,’ continued Harrison, ‘because there have been other bodies found in the same way in London. Recently there was one in St Mary Spital. You have nothing to fear from this burial. An archaeologist will come and take the remains away.’

  Someone asked the interpreter something.

  ‘They want to know if you are sure it is not vampire,’ he said to Harrison.

  ‘I am sure. A vampire wouldn’t have been buried at a crossroads like this. This is someone who they wanted to punish and show everyone what happens if you commit crimes like they did.’

  ‘But the stake?’ The man pressed.

  ‘It was merely a superstition among some to prevent violent criminals from rising again on Judgement Day. This person had his judgement here on earth and uncovering him will not change the fact his head is no longer attached. He cannot come back to haunt you. He is unable to rise. His executors made sure of that.’

  The interpreter nodded at Harrison’s words and repeated them back to the waiting men. He seemed placated, which boded well. Harrison could almost feel the collective wave of relief flow through them. There was much discussion in their native tongue, but the mood was positive.

  Harrison looked at his watch and turned to Max.

  ‘I have to go. Get the archaeology team from MOLA here, they’ll take him away. I think they’ll probably agree with what I’ve just said.’

  ‘It’s crazy. I can’t believe they think it might be a vampire,’ Max said.

  ‘Fear has many deep-rooted causes,’ Harrison replied, ‘and superstitions and folklores have been passed down for generations. In their minds, it is a possibility and not fiction.’

  With that, he headed
back to his bike. He had a meeting with DS Jack Salter to get to in order to put to rest some fears of his own.

  3

  ‘Here he is, the vampire slayer of Lewisham,’ DS Jack Salter laughed out loud at his own joke, a trait he was fond of, but it also raised a few smiles and smirks from the team around him. Harrison knew it wasn’t meant in disrespect, he’d worked with Jack enough times now to brush his humour off.

  The blonde-haired DS was sitting at his desk, a half eaten ham and cheese roll in front of him, and a drunk takeaway coffee cup and croissant wrapper in his bin, evidence he’d been there for a while already. Harrison thought his face looked more relaxed, and like he may have gained a kilo or two in the last few weeks. That was a positive.

  They were in the Major Investigation Team incident room at Europe’s largest purpose-built police station. Harrison recognised many of the faces, plus a few fresh ones. There was a low-level hum of activity around them. Officers on the phone, fingers typing on keyboards. He could usually tell what stage an investigation was at by the activity levels in the room. Harrison glanced over at Jack’s boss’s office. DCI Sandra Barker wasn’t in residence.

  ‘Sounds like you got your teeth into the problem,’ Jack said to him. ‘Hope it wasn’t a pain in the neck.’ The suspected vampire had been the talk of Lewisham police station that morning and every vampire joke in the book had been aired.