Angel of Death

  Angel of Death

  And so it begins…

  Anna-marie Morgan

  Copyright © 2019 by Anna-marie Morgan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For my beta-readers, Jenny and Barbara. Thank you.

  Contents

  Foreword

  1. Alone in the wood

  2. Angel of Death

  3. Ed Lawton

  4. Broken

  5. Heart-to-heart

  6. Emmanuel Tunicliffe

  7. The gamekeeper

  8. An unexpected illness

  9. Prey

  10. What friends are for

  11. Krysta

  12. Eva Wilde

  13. Death strikes twice

  14. The favour

  15. Killer’s missive

  16. Double event

  17. Safety first

  18. Futurecon

  19. Karen’s home truths

  20. Spectres

  21. Jake Bannerman

  22. Tasha’s return

  23. Trouble at the farm

  24. Eva

  25. Killer profile

  26. Capture

  27. Terror

  28. Something shady

  29. Corruption

  30. Isolation

  31. Tightrope

  32. Time running out

  33. Showdown

  34. Revelation

  Afterword

  Also by Anna-marie Morgan

  Foreword

  I sit in the wood, my eyes closed

  Inaction, no falsifying dream

  Between my hooked head and hooked feet

  Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

  Excerpt from 'Hawk Roosting' by Ted Hughes.

  1

  Alone in the wood

  Krista crouched low, chin on her knees, hugging them tight as she listened to the throaty engine of a nearby truck. Holding her breath as though the vehicle itself might hear her, she pushed tangled hair from her face, telltale mud staining her cheeks. It wouldn't do to get caught. Not now. Not while she was on her own.

  The truck continued on and she exhaled with a sigh, reaching into her pocket for the perfume bottle and the precious spray she had prepared that morning

  The icy air had hints of moss and dank wood. It pervaded her clothing and would cling to her for the rest of the day. There was no regret in that. She was of the earth and to the earth she would return. At one with the environment.

  With the sun not yet above the horizon, she worked with focussed efficiency, spraying foliage and gnarled tree roots along the path she knew the dogs would take. And they would come through here, yelping in excitement, striking fear in the hearts of the helpless. But now the canines would falter, blundering and falling over one another in their eagerness to kill. Sniffing and panting in confusion while searching for a scent much harder to find, hearing the hooves of approaching horses, their riders dressed in finery. These huntsmen had little patience with dogs not up to the job.

  She stood to survey her work and ease the ache in muscles stiffened by the bone-chilling cold.

  Krista swung her head at the crack of a twig behind her, just before the mallet crashed into the small of her back with a sickening thud. Excruciating spasms radiated from her core to every part of her.

  It took barely a microsecond for her legs to fail, but it seemed a minute, maybe two, in a mind wracked with pain. Adrenaline surged through every artery, capillary and vein.

  She lay on the ground, consciousness fading in and out. The mallet smashed her right arm followed by her left.

  She didn't register the blow to the left.

  He lifted her as a child might lift a doll. A dead weight. Limp and still. Broken limbs swaying in the air as he hoisted her over his shoulder and carried her to the back of the Land Rover. He threw her in like he might an old sack. There was no resistance. She landed in a misshapen heap.

  The early January sun, barely above the horizon, encouraged the frozen dew to join the mist blanketing the valley below. All was quiet, save for the birds which darted to-and-fro, tossing up leaves to peck at the crawlies beneath.

  He filled his lungs, feeling the sun heating the area between his shoulder blades, controlling the clouds he created with pursed lips as a smoker might when making smoke rings.

  The mallet, he threw after the woman. Even if she were to regain consciousness, she couldn't use it. Not now.

  He moved with purpose, yanking open the driver's door. The hunt would come past within the hour, finding her the way he wanted them to. On her very own stage. Her death scene.

  "Good Morning, ma'am." Callum cleared his throat, hands thrust deep in his overcoat pockets.

  "Hello, Callum." She took in his sunken eyes, and lips pressed in a thin line, and felt a knot developing in her gut. "It's not good, is it?"

  He shook his head, turning to approach the victim with her. "She's been dead for several hours, at least. Body's cold, but cooling would be relatively fast at this temperature. She wasn't here last night according to the gamekeeper."

  "Is Hanson here?"

  "He is." Callum jerked his head. "He and his team are setting up equipment in the tent."

  They discarded their coats on boxes, at the edge of the cordon, grabbing SOCO suits from an open crate.

  Yvonne took a deep breath, her eyes examining the trees and fields along the Kerry Ridgeway, on the edge of Ceri Forest, in a place known as Block Wood. In the distance, a thick, white mist rose in the valley below.

  The victim was fully clothed and propped against an Ash tree surrounded by conifers, not two hundred feet from picnic tables and the main road.

  Her killer had chosen a public place, situated atop a tourist site on a road used in ancient times by drovers taking their goods and cattle from Wales to the thriving markets in England.

  The woman appeared as if she were sleeping, head lolled to the left. Dressed in a Khaki army surplus coat and black jeans, there were no visible marks on her from the front. He had splayed her legs and a single white Swan feather lay between them. Plum-coloured boots held clumps of mud and leaves, and shredded grass protruded from the toes.

  Her eyes were wide open, frozen in a death stare indicative of the shock of the assault and a horror that was unexpected.

  Her arms, pulled behind her and wrapped around the tree trunk, had bones protruding under, or even through, the skin. Long, dark hair lay in a plait over her shoulder. He had placed the girl's hands one over the other and driven a nail through them.

  "Crucified." Callum sighed, his eyes, half-lidded, as Yvonne joined him behind the tree.

  "She was conscious for a time." Hanson, the pathologist, approached from the tent. He pointed to the victims hands. "The flesh is torn around the nail as though she spent some time trying to pull herself free. She couldn't because her upper arms were shattered by the blows. I suspect he also broke her back. I can't confirm that until we get her into the morgue."

  "So, he smashed her arms to make them wrap around the tree?" The DI rubbed her chin. "What's with the feather? Did the killer leave that there? It looks placed, to me."

  Hanson nodded, moving his mask down from his mouth. "There's resin or glue present on the tip as though it had been a part of something else. I agree, it's a staged scene. As soon as the photographer has been, we'll bag it for testing. One thing's for sure, a bird didn't drop it here."

  Yvonne knelt to peer at the thick substance on the feather. She pursed her lips. "I wonder how long she was conscio
us?"

  Hanson shook his head, his expression, grim. "She likely died from a mixture of shock and cold and, likely, internal blood loss. At these temperatures, I don't think it would have been longer than two hours. I'll know more after the postmortem, I'll give you a better idea then. We'll do a full range of toxicology tests as well, as you'd expect."

  "Who found her?"

  Callum checked his notes. "Trevor Tindall, the gamekeeper for Ryde Hall reported it."

  Yvonne made a note. "Thank you."

  A large plastic spray bottle caught her attention. "What's in that?"

  "I can smell citronella. Can't you?"

  "Yes, you're right. Looks like she was a hunt saboteur."

  "I'd say so."

  Dewi approached from the road. "I just heard. Got here as fast as I could." He held his jaw. "Dental appointment. Sorry."

  “Brace yourself, Dewi." Yvonne looked back towards the victim.

  "Oh God." Dewi ran a hand through his hair, a look of recognition on his face.

  "Dewi?"

  "That's Krysta. Krysta Whyte."

  "Known to us?"

  "Yes."

  "Hunt saboteur?"

  "Yes, she and her friends have come to our attention several times over the last few years. Land invasions, that sort of thing."

  "She'd annoyed a few landowners then?" Yvonne pursed her lips. "A motive for the killing, right there. Callum, could you set up an interview with the owner and gamekeeper of Ryde Hall as soon as possible? Also, check out anyone else with reason to be on the land and in the forest."

  "Will do, ma'am."

  "And speak to uniform. I want this place gone through with a fine-tooth comb. We'll need formal identification. Dewi, we'll break the news to Krysta's parents."

  Dewi blanched. "Right, you are."

  2

  Angel of Death

  He examined his wings, pupils widening, forehead lined above the eyes as he found a gap in the left one. That wouldn't do. He pulled it towards him, grabbing the plywood frame from the back, running his nose along the soft feathers at the front, breathing the bird scent.

  On the stove, a steaming pot bubbled away, rabbit skins breaking down and releasing the collagen that would make his glue. Not long, now. His wings would be whole again.

  Lifting the right one, he slid his arm through leather straps, made to hug the forearm and upper arm, like one might find on a shield. Likewise, the left.

  Above his head, they cast a menacing shadow on the wall opposite, where he hovered like a black hawk, diving for prey, or else a demon, scrutinising potential victims below, while holding power over their life or death.

  The surge of blood and adrenaline conjured up the feeling he could do anything. Be anything. Raw and omnipotent. Divine and monstrous.

  Turning to the mirror, he examined himself, naked from the waist up. The muscles of his torso, taut and undulating, he held the wings aloft once more. In his mind, he soared above the fields and houses, master of all, eyes wide for his next kill.

  A hissing from behind, reminded him of the boiling pot. He checked his watch. Three hours. The stew would require at least another three hours before the remains turned to glue.

  He grabbed a bottle from the shelf and poured olive oil into his palm, applying it to his shaved chest, using both hands to spread it around while studying his image in the mirror and caring not that his skin was pale or beginning to show the signs of age. He found pleasure in it. It would have pleased him even more if he could have been as white as the swan feathers comprising his wings.

  Throwing himself to the floor, he began press-ups, alternating between full palms, knuckles, and thumb and first finger until, barely having broken a sweat, he counted fifty. Then, it was crunches of various sorts followed by a run, for which he drove himself to the lakes near Bwlch-y-Garreg. Middle of nowhere and stunning in its bare, windswept beauty. Green hills to the fore gave way to purple hills in the distance.

  Lenticular clouds peppered the azure sky, reflected in the water below. Patterned ice lay thick among the reeds as his breath rose in a fine mist. The cold air hurt his lungs. He liked that. It tingled his skin and brought his thoughts into sharp focus.

  He pushed himself hard. Five miles in fourteen-and-a-half minutes.

  Sweat beading on the end of his nose, he stopped dead as he caught sight of a man in a flat cap, staring out over the lake, cane in one hand and a pipe in the other, spoiling the view. He imagined pushing him in, holding his head under until the bubbles ceased before watching the body sink into the cold, deep water.

  "Nice day for it."

  He started. The man with the pipe had turned to greet him and, though his mind was engaged in evil, he waved back.

  Irritated by this involuntary reaction, he scowled and continued running, vest clinging to his skin. He would head home only after he was spent.

  3

  Ed Lawton

  Ed Lawton stubbed his cigarette in a half-filled ashtray on the home-made coffee table between them. At least, Yvonne thought it home-made, fashioned as it was from a weathered wooden pallet. He turned his attention to rolling another smoke, frowning in concentration.

  Yvonne watched in silence as he spread the tobacco along the middle of the paper. His dark head bent forward to lick and seal it.

  Yvonne ran her hands down her wool-mix skirt. She cleared her throat and his eyes rose to meet hers, their cool-grey glistening from the tears he held onto.

  "I'm sorry for your loss." The sentence clotted in her throat which she cleared while watching for movement in his face. "I'm aware that this isn't an easy time for you-"

  "You're right. It's not." Ed rose from his chair and walked to the window, one hand combing through short, sandy hair. He stood with his back to her, his linen shirt and jeans, crumpled like he'd spent the night in them.

  She chewed the inside of her cheek.

  "We told her not to spray alone."

  "Who's we? Who else understood that she sometimes went on her own?"

  "Me and her other friends from our saboteur group."

  "Could you give me a list of their names?"

  "Sure." He walked back towards the DI.

  "Why did she go there alone?"

  "I don't know. I mean, I don't imagine what she was doing was all that effective, anyway. But she thought it helped. She would always join the rest of us later, but she'd start alone, at the crack of dawn, spraying the places the foxes might go to ground before meeting with us for more general disruption and monitoring of the hunt."

  "When you say monitoring-"

  "Filming. We film many of the hunts we follow."

  "Do you have any recent films with Krysta on them?"

  "We do. Most of them are on our Facebook page, including one or two in which someone assaulted her."

  "I see. I would like to see those. Would you write down the name of your page for me and the names of your friends?" She handed him her notebook and pen.

  "Sure. I'll give you the name of our main page, you'll find all of our saboteur colleagues and friends on that page." Ed scribbled it in her book and handed it back to her.

  "Thank you. How long had Krysta been a saboteur?"

  "She was one of our longest serving members. Started a few years before I did. She began with her local group at college around ten years ago and, when I met her, she told me it had been the first student society she joined as a fresher."

  "Is that how you two met?"

  "No. I didn't meet her until two years ago. I was with the North Wales Hunt Saboteurs and we met up with the Shropshire guys to disrupt a Shropshire hunt. We regularly work jointly these days. She stood out. She was so... so committed. Determined. I admired her for that."

  "How long were you living together?"

  He spun to face her. "You know, she would have found all this attention from police ironic. She spent years trying to get your lot to help enforce the law and stop illegal hunting. She felt the responses she got were wishy-wash
y and half-hearted. Her words. She didn't believe the police cared about the ban. And, now, here you are, investigating her murder, which happened while she was trying to do your job for you."

  "My job is to investigate murder." Yvonne kept her tone even.

  "Yeah, because humans matter more than animals, right?"

  "I didn't say that."

  "But them's the rules." He sneered at her.

  "I don't make the rules, Ed. I just work within them, doing what I can. You want Krysta's murder solved, and the perpetrator put away, don't you?" She tilted her head as though to peer under his half-lidded eyes.

  "Of course I do." His lips moved, but his teeth didn't. They remained clenched, his expression broody.

  He rolled up his sleeves, and the DI spotted the many freckles amongst the hair on his arms. "Where were you on the morning Krysta was killed?"

  "I was here, waiting for her to rejoin me before we set off to Ryde Hall farm in the vehicles. When she didn't show, I assumed she'd gone straight there, and I travelled alone. I was late to the hunt that day, but the other monitors can confirm my arrival."

  "What about while you waited for her? Can anyone corroborate your presence here?"

  Ed shook his head. "I don't think so."

  He sighed. "Krysta would have sacrificed her life to save a fox or any animal. That's the sort of person she was. Seems, she did just that. I don't expect you to understand." His eyes narrowed, face muscles twitching.