What She Saw (21 page)

‘Is that OK?' asked Rosen, kindly.

‘Much better.'

She opened the folder and handed Rosen two pages of twenty separate symbols. They were the same symbols scratched onto the wall in Bannerman Square, the same as the UV marker on Stevie's leg.

‘This is the Celtic oracular alphabet,' she said. ‘The written form dates from the fourth century and was widely used to mark stones in Scotland and Ireland. But it's much, much older than that, and possibly predates the Roman invasion. It matches the English alphabet but only has twenty symbols including two phonic blends. There are no oracular matches for the English letters J, K, P, V, W, X, Y or Z.'

She moved the oracular alphabet aside. Beneath it was Henshaw's email with his own decontextualized imitation of the graffiti from Bannerman Square.

‘Five words on the top line, five on the bottom. There's the alphabet,' said Professor Coltraine. ‘The Vs and the Ys are modern English. The top line says, “The eye is the believer” while the bottom line says, “The eye is the deceiver.”'

Rosen found the clearest shot that Corrigan had taken of the UV symbols on Stevie's leg, the whole message, and showed it to Professor Coltraine.

‘See we is many. See I are one,' she said, without hesitation.

Rosen wrote the English translations on two separate pieces of paper and handed them to Henshaw. ‘What do you think?'

‘More contradiction? Give me a minute, David. Let me think.'

‘What can you tell me about the alphabet?' Rosen asked Professor Coltraine.

‘It's called Ogham, after the Ogmos, the Celtic god of knowledge and communication. The parallel god in Gaul was Ogmios and in Greece, Hermes. The shape of the symbols indicates it started out as a series of secret hand gestures – a secret sign language.'

Deftly, left hand acting as the vertical spine of the symbols and the digits of her right hand as the horizontal slashes, she signed
the
.

‘The alphabet survived because the Druids started marking it on tombstones and road signs. It can be found as far away as Spain, Portugal. The Celts were a widespread people. Each letter relates to a tree that was sacred to the Druids. The B to the birch, the L to the rowan.'

Rosen showed her a picture on his phone, the two symbols on the Portakabin on Bannerman Square.

She looked up at Rosen and said, ‘N and D. Ash and Oak.'

‘Are they malevolent signs?' asked Rosen.

‘Not as such.'

‘You're aware, Professor Coltraine, of where this graffiti was discovered?'

‘No.'

‘How could this alphabet relate to fire?'

Within a breath, she said, ‘Oh, no! The little boy. And the teenager.'

‘Can you tell me how Ogham and Druidism might relate to the deaths of those two boys?'

‘Certainly. There's a clear link. We know this thanks to the Roman invasion of Britain. Pliny and Caesar both wrote about Druidism. The Druids practised human sacrifice; burning their victims as a means of appeasing the gods and ensuring the rebirth of crops, new life.' She paused. ‘It's strange. . .'

‘What's strange?' asked Rosen.

‘Modern druids abhor violence. They're peace-loving eccentrics.'

If only
, thought Rosen, recalling the bitter tears shed by Stevie's mother.

Rosen saw Feldman and Gold looking over, smiling. Feldman made to stand up but Gold held him down in his seat with a hand on his shoulder. ‘He's busy, Feldman,' Rosen lip-read Gold's words.

Turning back to the matter in front of him, Rosen showed Coltraine a photo of the graffiti eye on his phone.

She assessed it. ‘The all-seeing eye: it's both a protective symbol
looking out, and a conceptualization of the inward-looking eye, the human soul, a soul that can be born again into many bodies. Are you aware, Mr Rosen, of tomorrow's date?'

‘May the first. Is it significant?'

‘Highly,' replied Professor Coltraine. ‘Tomorrow is the most significant night in the Druids' religious calendar. Tomorrow is Beltaine Night, the night of the Beltaine Fire. They used to use hostages from war and battle and if there were no hostages, criminals, burning them alive in huge cages of wicker, shaped into giants. It is the culmination, the night of multiple human sacrifice by fire.'

‘Thomas and Stevie,' said Henshaw. ‘They were preparations, a rehearsal. One ritual. One reprisal. Thomas was a hostage. Stevie a criminal, for going to the assistance of their hostage.'

‘What's the window of time for Beltaine Night?' asked Rosen.

‘Sunset to evening astronomical twilight,' replied Professor Coltraine. ‘First of May, in London, that's 20. 24 to 22.55.'

‘Two and a half hours, just before half-eight until five to eleven,' Rosen said. ‘Evening astronomical twilight. What is that?'

‘It's the point in time when the sun's relationship to the horizon is such that the sky turns completely dark.'

Henshaw showed Professor Coltraine a photograph of the UV spirals on Stevie's toes.

‘The spirals predate the Ogham. They're symbols of life, death and rebirth,' explained Coltraine.

‘What's their significance?' asked Rosen.

‘Whoever's made these marks is claiming ownership of the victim's body and staking a claim to his soul in the afterlife.' An uncomfortable shadow fell across her face.

‘What is it?' asked Rosen.

‘If this. . . murderer. . . these murderers. . .' Professor Coltraine spoke hesitantly, as if thinking out loud. ‘If they function like
ancient
druids. . . well. . .'

Rosen recalled the phone call from Stevie's mobile. The death threat rang in his ears.

‘Go on, please tell me what you're thinking,' Rosen encouraged her.

‘I hope it isn't the case but. . .'

He saw Tracey Leung enter, excited.

‘From their religious point of view, they have no choice. They have to make human sacrifice.'

‘I'd be grateful if you could keep this to yourself,' said Rosen.

‘Of course,' she replied. ‘Anything else?'

‘No. Thank you for your help, Professor Coltraine.'

She stood up. ‘I'll leave the symbols with you, in case. . .'

As Henshaw escorted Professor Coltraine out, Rosen joined Gold and Feldman.

Bellwood hurried in. ‘What's going on?' she asked.

‘There's going to be a blood bath tomorrow night,' said Rosen. ‘A fire storm.'

50

8.15 P.M.

R
osen, Henshaw, Corrigan, Bellwood and Leung were around Feldman's laptop on the desk he shared with Gold. Gold's side of the desk: a jungle of stationery with memos to self on randomly placed Post-its; Feldman's side: pens set out in evenly spaced parallel lines around a neat and tidy ring-bound notebook.

‘What have you got?' asked Rosen.

‘A sequence of CCTV, a journey with a beginning, a middle and an end, with three clean shots of the green Renault Megane.'

‘Show me.'

Feldman set up the sequence and asked, ‘Ready?'

‘Go on, Feldman.'

Tracey Leung was beside Rosen, her face a mask of anticipation and hope.

He pressed ‘play' and a frozen image of an anonymous-looking road came to life as a light-coloured car sailed past the CCTV camera.

‘Where's this?' asked Rosen.

‘This is Blackheath Road. The Megane's travelling west to east towards Lewisham Road. The car's doing forty to forty-five like it's in a real hurry but it doesn't want to be pulled up for speeding. And he's camera savvy – he knows where each camera's fixed because each
time he comes up to one, he accelerates to sixty or seventy mph. Here it is.'

The Megane nosed quickly into the frame and the film stopped on a full shot of the car in which Thomas Glass was soon to become a human torch.

Sitting quietly on the back seat, Thomas was in clear shot, his face just above the bottom of the window, one hand touching one eye. The time in the corner of the screen read 8.54.13.

‘We've only just found it. We've called CC4U, video enhancement. We've emailed the footage, we mentioned Thomas Glass and they're working on it as we speak.'

‘Great work. Any shots of the driver?' asked Rosen.

Feldman pressed ‘play' again. ‘Junction of Blackheath and Lewisham Roads, we get the Megane from the other side.' The brief sequence concluded with an indistinct image of a man at the wheel.

‘Zoom in, Mike.'

Feldman optimized the image of the man and, as the picture got bigger, it lost clarity.

‘Baseball cap, could be between the ages of fifteen and fifty. And where's his other hand?' asked Rosen.

‘What do you mean, David?' said Corrigan.

‘He's got one hand on the wheel, his left hand, and his right's suspended in mid-air.' Rosen considered the picture and, imitating the pose of the man at the wheel, the coin dropped. ‘You're right, he is camera savvy, but he didn't get the timing dead on the beat.'

‘Well?' said Corrigan. ‘What was he doing with his right hand?'