Wolf Angel, Mark Hobson [best free ebook reader for pc .txt] 📗

Prisha stopped before another one of the victims. The figure on the metal autopsy table was burnt beyond all recognition, and he had adopted the familiar pugilistic attitude of most burn victims, a ‘boxer-like’ body posture of flexed arms and knees and clenched fists. The smell was revolting, and Pieter took an involuntary step backwards.

“This was the tram driver. When we found him he was still in his seat at the front of the tram, hunched over his controls.”

After a moment, she resumed her stroll.

“All very normal from a pathological point of view. Normal, that is, until we come to these.” She came to a halt next to the row of body bags.

There were six of them lined up against the back wall.

“The attackers I’m guessing?”

“Correct. Again, most of them died from injuries sustained during the battle. Nothing odd about that. I didn’t pay much attention to them initially. I wanted to start with their victims, the members of the public and the police officers, and so most of last night and through the early hours I concentrated on the other deceased. It was only when I checked on them a short time ago that I noticed… ah…”

Pieter glanced at her. “Noticed what?”

Prisha pursed her lips, her eyes darting back and forth over his face as though weighing something up in her mind.

“Perhaps you’d better see for yourself.”

She reached across and slowly unzipped the nearest body bag, and then stood back to watch his reaction.

Pieter didn’t know how to react. He didn’t fully comprehend at first what he was actually seeing.

Inside was the skeletal remains of one of the gunmen. Not a fresh corpse as he was expecting, but just bones. A full set, laid out on the table, the bones already turning brown with age. Some of them actually rotting and crumbling, with the skull having already collapsed in on itself.

“These are not the bones of a recently deceased person, Inspector. I’ve worked on several cases involving the discovery of interred murder victims, many of them dug up decades after they died. So I know old bones when I see them. I will need to do more tests to be sure, but I’d estimate that if I didn’t know otherwise this person, and the other five with him, died many years ago.”

As if to prove her point she reached out and touched the rib cage with the tip of her pen, and the bone crumbled to dust.

Pieter had no response. The skeleton on the table, along with all of the other cadavers set out in the room or stored away in the freezer unit, was no more than eighteen hours old. But the level of decomposition overnight to these six was undeniably much more advanced than that, was of the nature of someone long-dead. The flesh and organs had already gone, a process that would takes months if not years, until all that remained was a pile of old bones turning to dust.

He became aware that Prisha was looking at him. Perhaps she was not expecting a reply from him. Going from the expression on her face, a worried frown creasing her brow and a hint of fear in her eyes, she merely wanted confirmation that he saw what she saw. That she wasn’t imaging this.

Eventually she broke the silence herself.

“If you think that is weird, then wait for this.”

She walked away and then came back with a sheet of paper. Catching a brief glimpse he saw a list of letters and notations, lots of medical words that made little sense to him.

“The results of the tests on your soil sample. I was told that you found this in your home?” She appeared sceptical.

“That’s right. On the floor of my attic.”

“Right. Well, they ran various tests to determine what it was, what compounds and chemicals it was made up of. So I can tell you that it contains, amongst other things, oxygen bacteria of the Enterobacteriaceae family such as gram-positive cocci and Stayhylococcus. They then heated the sample to detect traces of yeasts and mould, as well as – get this – saline fungi.”

Prisha, seeing the confused and slightly glazed look on his face, lowered the paper she’d been reading from.

“I’ll put it more simply for you. The soil from your house contains seaweed and soil from a cemetery. Grave dirt.”

Pieter gave a nervous little laugh. “Ok”

“Can I tell you something? And you must promise me that this goes no further than these four walls.” She’d lowered her voice, but her assistant was well out of earshot. “I have my reputation to maintain.”

“Knock yourself out.”

“My partner, Rowan, she is into all kinds of whacky stuff. New age remedies, Wiccan legends, Harry Potter. It must come from her Irish roots. Anyway, during our time together I have picked up the odd piece of trivia from her regarding these things, she leaves books lying around the flat which when I’m bored I have glanced through, like you do.”

Pieter nodded encouragement, wondering where this was going.

“Have you heard of a foot-track spell?”

“Pardon? A what?”

“A foot-track spell. Somebody who wishes you harm will put a concoction of ingredients, such as elements from animal foetuses, baby blood, soil from the grave of a recently deceased person, really revolting things like that, they will put this on the floor where a person – in this case you - will walk through it. To curse them, to cross them. Did you walk through it?”

Pieter looked at her, his mouth hanging open, wondering if she’d been on the weed overnight.

“Uh… yes, I think so.”

“Do you have the shoes or slippers you were wearing?”

“I was in my bare feet.”

“Shit, then you have a problem.”

“I do?”

“Well if you believe this kind of thing,” Prisha smiled at him sheepishly. “Which, being of a scientific bent, I don’t. But if you were susceptible to it, and open-minded enough to be concerned, then certain consequences may occur as a result of walking through a foot-track spell.”

“Consequences?”

“Of a health-related nature.