The Fifth Grave, page 31
part #1 of DCI Jacob Series
Cut short by the surgical crack of three rifle shots, Spargo’s attack was over, and his dead body fell to the floor, the sound of his last breaths muted by the thick blanket of blood-flecked snow.
Jacob turned away as Spargo’s body slumped to the frozen ground, and then ran to Anna. On the horizon, Morgan and the armed policemen were running up to the monument. Over by the visitor centre Holloway and the two guards were also making their way towards them through the blizzard.
Jacob ripped off his peacoat and threw it over the top of Anna, wrapping his arms around her to keep her warm and out of the snow. “It’s okay,” he said. “I can see the ambulance. It’s driving up through the snow.”
She stared back, numb and terrified.
“It’s over,” he said. “He’s dead and it’s over now.”
CHAPTER 44
New Year’s Day, 1st January 2019
The following day, Jacob had quietly escaped from the press pack at the station and driven back to the Old Watermill. He had left Marcus Kent to explain to the world how he had solved the crime and taken the opportunity to get back home for the day. When he got there, he found the kitchen door unlocked and stepped inside to find Sophie Anderson pouring two glasses of wine.
“Hello stranger,” she said.
“Make yourself at home.”
“You did tell me where the key was.”
“True.”
“Wine?” she asked, hesitatingly. It looked like something was on her mind.
“Thanks – what’s that amazing smell?”
“I’m cooking roast beef for dinner. Want some?”
“Count me in,” he said.
They sat at the table and she finished pouring the merlot. “I heard about Anna,” she said. “How is she now?”
“She’s going to be all right. Just needs a few days in hospital to get over the effects of the drug.”
Sophie shuddered. “I can’t imagine how awful that must have been.”
Jacob nodded. “Apparently, this drug freezes you but leaves you conscious, so the victims were aware of everything.”
“Good God,” she said. “That’s horrible.”
“It’s called succinylchloride, or SUX for short. Another word for it is suxamethonium chloride. According to Mia Francis, it’s a medication used to induce temporary paralysis, usually as part of a general anaesthetic. Its trade names are Anectine or Quelicin. It’s a serious drug used to cause paralysis as part of RSI.”
“RSI?”
“Rapid sequence intubation. It’s a protocol followed by doctors when a patient’s airway is obstructed and immediate intubation is required. Normal procedure would be to administer the drug alongside a sedation so the patient isn’t conscious when the paralysis occurs for obvious reasons. Not being able to move anything, including your eyes, would be extremely distressing for anyone. She’s lucky to be alive.”
The fire crackled in the kitchen hearth as she handed him the wine glass.
“It was a very brave thing that you did, Jacob.”
He took a sip and warmed his hands by the fire. “I did my job. That’s all. She’d have done the same for me.”
“And no one told Kent about my working on the team?”
He shook his head. “Not that I know of, but I’m sure it’ll get back to him at some point.”
She went quiet for a moment.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It was thanks to you we got Miranda Dunn.”
“It’s not that,” she began. “Listen, there’s something I need to tell you.”
He set down his glass on the mantelpiece and walked over to her. “What is it? You look terrified.”
She opened her bag and pulled out a small engagement ring box.
“I’m flattered but we only met a few days ago.”
She managed a broken smile. “It’s not a ring, Jacob. Look.”
She opened it up to reveal a small silver coin with an image of a honeybee imprinted on it.
“What is it?”
“It’s Charon’s obol,” she said quietly. “The ancients put them in the mouths of the dead so they could pay the ferryman.”
He felt his heart quicken. “Just stay calm.”
They both knew the significance of the coin, and now Sophie broke the silence.
“This is Charon’s obol, Jacob! The currency the dead had to pay for their crossing over the Styx or the Acheron. These were an important part of Keeley’s ritual killing – he believed he was liberating their souls, not simply killing them.”
He heard the fear in her voice.
“I know it was,” he said calmly, “but that’s not what this is.”
“Keeley left these coins in the mouths of his victims because like the ancient Greeks and Romans he believed that when you die you have to cross a river – the Styx – to get from the land of the living to the land of the dead. Charon is the ferryman who takes you across, but you have to pay him to do it. That’s why he left the coins in their mouths – because the ancients did it. I know it’s him! It’s Keeley, I just know it!”
“It’s probably just a crank.” Jacob turned the coin over in his hand. “Just take it easy.”
With trembling hands, she turned the coin over and studied it with wide, terrified eyes. “I’m no expert on numismatics, but it looks exactly like the ones we found in his victims’ mouths.”
“Numismatics?” Jacob said.
“It’s the study of currencies and coins. During the Keeley case we hired a leading numismatist named Dr Belinda Thomas and she gave us everything she could on the coins used by him. They were authentic, ancient coins from around 500 BC and always uniface, meaning that the image was punched into one side only. In every case, the coins he used were gold foil, and bearing the image of a honeybee. Exactly like this one!”
“I remember your expert from the trial. As I recall, she said in court that these obol coins are not particularly rare. You can pick them up online for a few hundred quid, so anyone could get hold of one of these. It doesn’t mean it’s him.”
“I don’t know, something about this isn’t right. Could he have posted this to me from prison?”
He thought it over. “Prisoners are free to send letters and packages but unless they’re to or from solicitors or the courts they’re usually checked by officers, besides there’s no post mark.”
“Are there other ways he could have sent this to me?”
There were other ways, he thought. One of the most common these days was to use a drone to take the package in or out of the prison. He’d already imagined Keeley using just such a method to get the coin out of the prison, but that would require an accomplice and Keeley was renowned for working alone and never trusting anyone.
“He threatened to kill me if he ever got out of prison, Jacob.”
“He’s not going to get out of prison. He’s locked up tight in the Monster Mansion and he’s never getting out.”
“The Monster Mansion?”
“Wakefield.”
She shuddered. “Please, can you check he’s still there?”
“I think we’d have heard if the Ferryman had escaped from prison, Soph.”
“Please!”
Jacob looked into her eyes. “Wait there and I’ll make some calls.”
He returned a moment later and set his mobile down on the sofa. “He’s exactly where he’s supposed to be, locked up in Wakefield.”
“You’re sure?”
He nodded. “It’s the biggest high-security prison in the country and they’re very good at what they do there. Like I said, he's locked up and there’s no postmark so it’s almost certainly the work of a crank who saw you in the news because of the Russell case.”
“Yes, you’re probably right. It’s a crank.” She dropped the coin back into the box and snapped it shut, putting the box on the table and turning away from it.
“Try and forget about it. You can’t let it ruin your life.”
He saw her visibly relax in the knowledge it was just a crank. After a while, she sipped some of the red wine and gave him a mischievous smile. “You know, you called me Soph a minute ago.”
“Did I?”
“Yes, you did.”
“I can’t think what came over me. Would you prefer Dr Anderson?”
“Soph’s just fine,” she said, taking a step towards him.
Jacob set down his wine glass and pulled her closer to him. “Here’s to a brand new year.”
“And a brand new start in life,” she said.
They fell down on the sofa among the scatter cushions and kissed in front of the fire. Through the window the storm began to break apart to reveal the setting sun, lighting the snow clouds a coral pink as it sank slowly towards the horizon.
EPILOGUE
In the darkness of his solitary confinement cell, Professor Alistair Keeley watched the news with feigned disinterest. They had caught those responsible for the murders on the downs. According to the reports there had been six of them in all, in some kind of a druidic cult. Engaged in an initiation ritual, they had killed one of their own and buried her in the woods where she had lain in the earth for over a quarter of a century.
He struck the match on the concrete floor and lit the tip of his cigarette. A new smoking ban had led to the creation of so-called Frankenstein fags, hideous contraband smokes made from anything anyone could lay their hands on, including tea leaves, nicotine patches and even pages torn out of the prison chapel’s Bible.
Now, Keeley dragged on his cigarette with a grimace. He felt the hot smoke enter his body and breathed a sigh of relief as the sedation worked its way across his tense muscles. Staring at the television’s ghostly digital flicker, he tried to imagine what had happened up in the woods on that autumn night so long ago. He silently admired the cult for the length of time they had evaded detection.
Most impressive.
According to police reports, their leader was a police doctor who called himself Magalos, the Celtic god of the hunt. A nice flourish, and he smiled at the irony as he took another long drag on the foul cigarette. He pushed a pile of folded newspapers to the side to make way for an empty tobacco tin which he now used as an ashtray. He looked back up to the news. The television was on a bracket on the far side of the cell and he craned his neck up to see it. The sound was muted so as not to attract the attention of passing prison officers. He read the subtitles, but more captivating was the sight of a dead man being stretchered away from Stonehenge.
Fascinating.
Then he saw the face of Detective Chief Inspector Jacob as he explained how the case had been brought to a conclusion. Justice has been served, he said, and then on the subtitles a name came up.
Dr Sophie Anderson.
She had apparently played a critical part in bringing the case to an end, just as she was responsible for his incarceration like an animal in this terrible place.
This was the woman who had destroyed his life, wrecked his academic career and deprived him even of his liberty. He felt his entire body tighten, and the blood began to rush into his head. Dizziness engulfed him. His heart pounded in his chest and his mouth went copper dry. He closed his eyes and visualised the Underworld. Here, his soul would live for eternity and finally he would find the peace he so desperately craved. The peace that Sophie Anderson had denied him.
When he opened his eyes, he had calmed enough to look at the television again. The news was over and had been replaced with a weather map. Atlantic cloud banks and sleet. A break in the storms but more on the way. He thought of the storm he had brought into Dr Anderson’s life when he’d sent her the ancient coin and a grim, crooked smile danced on his gaunt, unshaven face. That would have surely put the cat among the pigeons.
He dragged the last of whatever was in the cigarette into his body and exhaled the noxious blue smoke into the darkness of his new universe.
Justice has been served.
Not yet it hasn’t, he thought.
But soon.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I hope you enjoyed reading this novel as much as I did researching and writing it. I tried to incorporate a detective story with some of the action and adventure to be found in my thriller novels and I hope this worked in a way you enjoyed. As for the location, Wiltshire doesn’t seem to be overburdened with fictional detectives and yet there is so much history and heritage there to explore, plus it’s a county I know very well so the choice seemed obvious.
It goes without saying that the Wiltshire Police force that employs Jacob and his colleagues is entirely fictional. Originally they all worked for a fictional invention of mine called Downland CID and were going to be focussed specifically on the Downs but I didn’t want to restrict the team to any part of the county so in the end I transferred them to Wiltshire CID so they could have a bigger patch to work on.
Jacob’s next case is The Sanctuary and his third outing is The Devil’s Den both of which are scheduled to release in 2019. In addition to these, I have a second (and quite different) detective series I’m excited to share with you and more information concerning the first novel in that series should be coming soon.
Finally, if you enjoyed reading The Fifth Grave please consider taking a moment to leave a review. It only takes a few seconds and helps to increase the visibility of the novel to other online readers.
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DCI JACOB WILL RETURN IN THE SANCTUARY
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Other Titles by the Same Author
The DCI Jacob Mystery Series
The Fifth Grave (A DCI Jacob Mystery)
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The Tomb of Eternity (Joe Hawke #3)
The Curse of Medusa (Joe Hawke #4)
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The Aztec Prophecy (Joe Hawke #6)
The Secret of Atlantis (Joe Hawke #7)
The Lost City (Joe Hawke #8)
The Sword of Fire (Joe Hawke #9)
The King’s Tomb (Joe Hawke #10)
Land of the Gods (Joe Hawke #11)
The Cairo Sloane Series
Plagues of the Seven Angels (Cairo Sloane #1)
The Avalon Adventure Series
The Hunt for Shambhala (An Avalon Adventure #1)
Treasure of Babylon (An Avalon Adventure #2)
The Raiders Series
The Raiders (The Raiders #1)
The Harry Bane Thriller Series
The Armageddon Protocol (A Harry Bane Thriller #1)
COMING SOON
The Orpheus Legacy (Joe Hawke #12)
The Sanctuary (A DCI Jacob Mystery)
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Copyright © 2019 by Rob Jones
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THE FIFTH GRAVE is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and occurrences are entirely fictional products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Rob Jones, The Fifth Grave
