Angels Bleed (Fallen Angels Book 1) Read online

  Copyright © 2013 Max Hardy

  ISBN-13: 978-1494298647

  ISBN-10: 1494298643

  The moral right of Max Hardy to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  Selected Lyrics from ‘When Doves Cry’ © Prince

  By Max Hardy

  Novels

  Angels Bleed

  Her Moons Denouement

  The Murder Path

  Poetry Collections

  Soul Whispers

  My Dark Disease

  The Alchemy Of Swaying Hips

  For Liz, forever.

  Angels Bleed

  Pigments of pain

  scream scarlet.

  A swelling stain

  in the relief

  of his tapestry,

  where angels bleed

  in the ignominy

  of his seed.

  His omnipotence cedes

  impotence, portents

  inked in blotches

  left diseased,

  as angels bleed

  theirlast refrain.

  11:54 pm

  The crystal chandelier shimmered an iridescent pink from the blood spatter that coloured it. Above it, the ornate white ceiling rose was equally covered with a dark red dotted trail. The trail spread out in two directions over the ceiling, one down a large bay window wall, where its path was lost temporarily in the deep burgundy of the closed suede curtains before it reappeared on the plush white carpet. In the opposite direction, the arterial arc added a macabre lustre to the fruits on Cezanne’s ‘Basket Of Apples’ original painting, before heading off into the carpet back to its source, the congealing pool of blood circled in halo around the battered head of the naked dead body in the centre of the room.

  DI Saul knelt on his haunches, gently rocking to and fro just at the side of the body, an arm resting on his knee, the hand holding his chin. His brow was furrowed, a slight frown disturbing designer stubble. He sniffed a few times and murmured an audible ‘Mmmm.’, before taking the pen that was in his hand and poking a blood free spot on the forearm of the corpse.

  ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’ he asked, rhetorically.

  PC Buglass, a young skinny lad, uniform looking oversized on his small frame, was standing directly behind Saul with an open pad in his hands taking down notes as directed.

  ‘You mean apart from the obvious dead body, gallons of blood and that huge crate in the middle of a drawing room?’ Buglass replied.

  ‘Just thinking out loud Buglass. The blood looks fresh. It’s starting to congeal slightly around the edges but is still fluid where it’s pooled. Above the overpowering scent of those candles there is also a distinct odour of decomposition, which suggests to me that the body has been here for some time. It’s fairly stiff as well. It feels like rigor has started to set in. Have we got an ETA for SOCO and the Duty Medical Officer?’ Saul asked.

  ‘Should be here any minute, they said about midnight.’ Buglass replied, sniffing the air furtively.

  Saul stood up and looked around the room once more. Apart from the arterial spatter circling out from the body in two directions, there were no other visible signs of blood on the walls or furnishings. There weren’t any smear marks where the corpse had fallen and no sign of any disturbance or struggle at all. Even the white carpet was spotless save for the pool of blood around the body, not a single drop evident outside that area.

  Each corner of the room contained wrought iron candelabras with six, recently lit foot tall candles flickering on each. In front of Saul was a wall with a large open fire, orange flames dancing on the burning logs in the grate. Insidious gargoyles chased playful, teasing cherubs around a gothic style black granite surround and mantle. Above this and looking slightly out of keeping with the rest of the room was a large plasma TV hung on the wall.

  In an arc around the corpse and crate and facing the fire were three antique black leather Chesterfield sofas. Behind them was a Steinway grand piano and on the full length and height of the wall behind that, rosewood bookcases filled with old leather bound books. There was an occasional table to the side of the window. On top of it was a white Bakelite telephone and a TV remote control.

  ‘Were you running this weekend?’ asked Buglass, doodling on his notepad.

  Saul was still surveying the room and took a few seconds to answer. ‘Yes, down in Manchester for the half marathon. I was just on my way back when I got the call about this.’ he walked over to the Cezanne as he was talking. ‘It was a good race. I managed to knock six seconds off my Personal Best.’

  ‘You must be nearing world class now with the amount of running you do. How much did you raise?’

  ‘Hardly world class. Hopefully about three thousand this time: as long as you tight bastards put your hands in your pockets and cough up. It all helps.’ He turned around to face the room, then back to the picture again.

  ‘The interesting thing about this picture Buglass, is its disjointed perspectives. Cezanne painted it from two different viewpoints. If you look at the table, the left side is on a different plane to the right side. The tilt of the bottle and the incline of the basket are at different angles to the other items, so when you look at it closely, things don’t seem quite right. I’m getting the exact same feeling about this scene.’ he said, turning back to face Buglass. ‘You have a large country house which to all intent and purpose is derelict apart from this one room: one room opulently decorated and full of very expensive and particular furnishings, a corpse and a crate. It feels like a Tracey Emin piece.’

  ‘A what? ’ asked Buglass quizzically.

  Saul shot a fleeting derogatory glance across to Buglass before taking in the room again. ‘She’s an artist: allegedly. She is the woman who put her piss and cum stained bed sheets, condoms, dirty knickers and other paraphernalia from her bedroom onto a bed in the middle of an art gallery.’

  Just then Saul’s mobile rang. He took it out of the inside pocket in his tuxedo jacket, looked at the screen and sighed heavily, frustration evident in the way he stabbed the ‘Decline’ button. He put it back into his pocket.

  From outside the open door of the room Saul heard a resonating guffaw. ‘Oh Christ, please tell me Darrie isn’t on call tonight.’

  ‘Based on that laugh, I would say he definitely is!’ Buglass answered, a look of disdain crossing his face.

  A short, rotund character appeared in the doorway. Candle shadows danced over the food stained Onesie he was wearing beneath a creased and dirty Hacking jacket that was two sizes to small, accentuating the girth of a stomach that arrived before he did. The stylish garb was bottomed off by pink spotty Cath Kidston wellies. Candle light shone from the perspiration meandering down the brow of his bald head, which joined the droplets forming from the pores on his ruddy cheeks.

  ‘Oh my word, what and absolutely sumptuous room. I wasn’t expecting that. Saul!’ Darrie exclaimed extrovertly. ‘My good fellow, that Tuxedo looks dashing on you tonight. Have you dressed especially for this location, or have we dragged you from one of your high society occasions? Am I OK to come in and where can I walk?’

  Behind Darrie a bespectacled head wearing a plastic PPE hat seemed to float from side to side, its body hidden behind his full figure. ‘Hold up Darrie, you need your shoe covers on.’ said the head, which belonged to Harris, the Scene of Crime Officer.

&nbs
p; ‘Be a darling and slip them on for me would you Harris?’ asked Darrie, lifting one of his feet backwards while holding onto the door frame coquettishly. The floating head rolled its eyes.

  ‘Good evening gentlemen. You are fine to walk from the door up to here, in front of the body. This side of the room seems clear. Harris, can you start taking a few pictures of the body. Darrie, I want you to take a look at it straight away, there are a few things about the corpse that are troubling me at the minute. No, no social occasion tonight. I was supposed to be out with Sarah for our wedding anniversary.

  ‘In a Tux, my, aren’t you the gentleman. How are you Buglass, still enjoying life in the closet? I have the address of a lovely lithe Latino lothario if you are interested? Loves cock, especially cock in denial.’ Darrie shared with a wicked glint in his eye as he walked across the room towards them.

  ‘Piss off you sad queen.’ Buglass retorted petulantly.

  ‘Darrie, stop winding him up and let’s focus on the body here, please.’ Saul stated sternly.

  Harris came into the room too, dressed in blue plastic PPE overalls. He set down his bag onto one of the Chesterfields, took out a camera and began taking photographs of the body and the immediate vicinity.

  ‘Right Darrie, you’ll need to squat down here to see and specifically smell what I need you to, as the vanilla scent from the candles is masking the odour unless you are up close.’ advised Saul as he got down on his haunches again.

  Darrie huffed, put one hand on Saul’s shoulder and eased himself down onto his knees. ‘You know, I really do wish more murderers would kill people on tables or benches. They just don’t consider the stress it puts on the heart of a portly fellow such as myself, having to go down like this.’

  He sniffed, the playful expression he had on his face, hoping someone would bite at his innuendo, instantly turning intent. ‘That’s decomposition. I wouldn’t expect that so soon, not when you still have a pool of congealing blood.’

  ‘I know. And look at this.’ Saul responded, taking his pen and poking the arm again where he had previously. ‘There is no give in the flesh at all. It feels like rigor has already set in.’

  ‘That doesn’t just look like rigor.’ mused Darrie. ‘Harris, I’m going to touch the skin on this one part of the arm, can you take a photo please. There’s dark colouring on the top of the exposed arm which looks like Livor Mortis. It suggests to me that’s where the blood has settled in the corpse. The problem is it’s on the top of the arm, not the bottom. This body has been turned over a long while after death.’ He put his hand on the forearm and sighed deeply. ‘I can tell you now that the fresh pooling and blood spatter on these walls isn’t from this body.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Saul

  ‘Well, if I’m not mistaken, and I rarely am, this fellow has been frozen and is currently in the process of thawing. Put your hand here and you will feel the cold coming from the skin, that’s why there is no give.’

  Saul did as requested, a look of incredulity crossing his features. He looked at Darrie. ‘So, we’ve got a body here that’s not recently deceased, setup in a scenario to make it look as though he’s just been killed?’

  Harris interjected. ‘I would second that. If you look at the arterial arc on the walls, the pattern is far to uniform. It also starts on the floor from around where the throat is. The body looks to have fallen face down. That type of spatter wouldn’t happen. If anything, you would expect to see spatter in a circle of descent on the floor where the body has fallen. You wouldn’t expect to see a blood trail then hitting the ceiling above it.’

  ‘That may not be all.’ said Darrie. He took a tissue out of his jacket pocket. ‘Harris, I’m just going to wipe a little of the blood off this fellows hairline, are you alright with that?’

  ‘As long as it’s a little, it’s okay with me.’ Harris answered quizzically, bending over the body with Saul and Darrie. Buglass also joined them, not wanting to be left out. Four shadows weaved a flickering dance on the walls, intertwining as they got closer to the body. Darrie rubbed away a patch of blood around an inch square from the hairline, revealing a row of neat stitching.

  ‘Harris, can we turn this fellow over gently please, I have a feeling, either he has had a god awful facelift, or….’

  Harris nodded and helped Darrie with the body, being careful not to disrupt the vicinity. It was fairly easy to do as the corpse was indeed still frozen. As they lifted, they noticed that the carpet below was still white, suggesting the body had been placed there and then the blood poured around it.

  On its back, they could now see the almost blood free face of a youngish man. His eyes were closed. A dark shadow of eyeliner was visible on the bottom lid with mascara accentuating the lashes. The pallid cheeks looked to be made up with foundation, a slight blush of rouge giving them colour. It was apparent now that there was no cut to the throat which could have caused the spatter in the room. What was also evident, on the naked torso, were tramlines of stitching in a ‘Y’ shape, from each shoulder to the middle of the chest, then from the chest down to the stomach.

  ‘Or he has had an autopsy.’ Darrie began. ‘Which suggests he has been dead for a very long time. Not only that, the make up on his face smacks of funeral parlour glam, suggesting he has already been buried: and given that he is here, presumably exhumed!’

  12:20 am

  The little finger of each hand was tapping out an indelible litany on the arms of the chair, syncopated with the slow turning of her wrists forcefully against the leather straps that bound them to it. The wrists oozed blood and puss from the lesions caused by the friction of the motion. On her exposed forearms, before another strap tying down the elbows, hundreds of scars, burns, cuts and gouges were visible: a battlefield of harm, a litany of war.

  ‘Day 15 Rebecca, how are you feeling?’ The nebulous voice echoed around the padded cell, the tinny tincture produced by the ceiling speaker it came out of not diminishing the deep resonance of the man speaking.

  Above the elbows, yet more straps were wrapped tightly over her chest. Two more secured both her neck and her bald head to the back of the chair. Similar weals to those on her wrists were visible where she gently gyrated her head against the bindings. Her eyes were closed. The only thing she wore was a green hospital theatre gown which hung limply from her emaciated body.

  A stuttering giggle escaped from her mouth. ‘Feeling!’ she slurred, partly due to the plastic contraption in her mouth that stopped it from fully biting closed and partly due to the gnawed and withered stump that used to be a tongue. It was too small now to reach the front teeth or top of the mouth to round her words.

  ‘I try hard not to feel. The pain helps. It distracts my mind. There’s not enough of it though, not nearly enough of it since you started to take me off my medication.’ Her body tensed as she visibly pushed it wherever possible against her restraints, forcing the point home. ‘No, not nearly enough!’

  ‘I’m sorry about that, but we have to get you to a place where we can talk, off the medication. You and I both know what you would try and do if you weren’t restrained.’

  She began shaking furiously and screamed. ‘Then why don’t you let me! Why don’t you fucking let me end this miserable desolation? I am beyond redemption, beyond saving, beyond repair!’ She stopped shaking just as suddenly as she had started, slight sobs stuttering from her open mouth. ‘What good does any of this do? It doesn’t change a thing….’

  Her fingers started their litany again, the wrists circling against the restraints. Her head was bald, pock marked with craters where large clumps of hair had been ripped out, taking the scalp with it. There were more cuts and burns visible here as well. Her legs were damaged in a similar fashion and also bound tight. Underneath the wooden chair, which was bolted to the floor, was a bucket from which the smell of stale urine and faeces emanated. A cannula was secured to her left arm, the drip tube going off to a stand that had three different solutions feeding into it: feeding
her. There was nothing else in the cell, save for a camera on the ceiling.

  ‘Your lips are whispering Rebecca. Your fingers are tapping. Is there music that helps distract you?’ he asked.

  Her eyes had been closed, but she opened them and stared directly at the camera, looking into it for a full minute before replying. ‘Can you remember the first time that you kissed a girl?’ she asked.

  There was a few seconds delay before he answered, ‘1974. I was seven. It was a sunny summer’s day in July, just before we were due to break up for the holidays. Our school was a mixed school but at breaks the girls and boys would play in separate playgrounds. The teachers would stop us from mingling with each other. However, if you went down to the railings at the bottom of the yard, they couldn’t see you. I had fancied Carolyn for what seemed like aeons but was probably only since Maths that morning. Both sets of our friends had been daring us all morning to have a snog and at lunchtime we sneaked to the bottom of the fence and did it. We kissed through the fence. I even slipped her a bit of tongue. I’d like to say it was romantic and special, but seven year olds really haven’t got a clue. To prove how much we didn’t have a clue, I remember coming back to my mates who were waiting in the dinner queue, all pumped up with adrenaline, all excited from carrying out the clandestine deed. I think my exact words to them were ‘I didn’t just kiss her; I fucked her as well!’ My seven year old peers had told me that’s what putting your tongue into a girl's mouth was. How about you?’

  She was still staring at the camera, wrists, head and ankles all straining against the restraints, inflicting the maximum possible pain.

  ‘Aren’t boys monsters. Taking something so pure, so innocent and wrapping sex around it.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s just boys, I think it’s what you hear, what you learn about relationships as you grow up. People tell you things and as a child you don’t have the mechanisms in place to challenge if what you are being told is the truth or not. I think it was my seven year old girlfriends who told me about fucking. I would imagine you believed you could get pregnant from a toilet seat well into your teens. Tell me about your first kiss.’ he asked again.