‘I’m sure I’ve seen these before somewhere.’
‘In a church probably.’
‘So they aren’t Satanic?’
Matt laughed and shook his head. He pointed at one of them: a letter P with a T across its stem. ‘This is called a Staurogram or a Tau-Rho. It’s from ancient Greece. It’s a combination of their word Tau – that’s the T-shape – and Rho – that’s the bit that looks like a P.’
‘Yeah, but what does it mean?’
‘It’s an alternative symbol for the cross. The early church used it. It’s not that common, but you do see it in a fair few chur—’ he stopped talking.
‘What?’ Larry said.
Matt dropped lower. Became a dwarf at the bottom of the door. He grabbed one of the shelves to steady himself. ‘Wow.’
‘Wow, what?’
He tapped a finger toward the paper, being careful not to actually touch it. ‘Can you see the animal picture?’ The sheet was sodden with dried blood.
‘Yes. We thought it might be a swan.’
‘It’s not. It’s a pelican. I haven’t seen one of these in years.’ Matt gazed at the scrawled animal. The wings were hunched up over its chicks as it fed them with long slivers of pink meat, which dangled from its beak. ‘There’s a legend …’ he said to Larry, but with his eyes fixed on the bird. ‘There’s a legend … during a time of ancient famine, a mother pelican got desperate to feed her young. There was nothing left to feed them so she used her beak to tear open her own flesh. She fed the meat to her young, so they’d live. She let them drink her blood too.’
‘Well, that’s messed up.’
‘So says the Catholic?’ Matt looked up at him. ‘Larry, the Christian church picked up on this legend and applied the symbol to Jesus. They said he was like this mother, giving his flesh and blood, so that his children could live, and be restored.’
‘Ah, right. When you put it that way it’s not that bad—’
‘Actually the Christian gospel is still pretty twisted … pretty dark …’ Matt said. ‘Anyway. This pelican symbol’s cropped up in Dante, in Shakespeare and it was especially popular in medieval times. Pilgrims sometimes wore a badge with it on, with rubies for the blood.’
‘And today?’
He screwed up his face. Shook his head, ‘You occasionally see it in churches, though not that often. I’m pretty sure some Cathedrals have a golden lectern depicting this …’ Matt said. ‘Anyway, it’s a sign of Jesus’s provision and protection. I wouldn’t say it’s that well known.’
Larry rubbed his chin for a moment and turned back so he could watch the corner of gore. He had his fingers hooked on the back of his neck. Matt noticed Larry did that a lot when he was thinking.
He pushed himself back up and heard his knees grinding. ‘So she locked herself in …’ Matt leant toward the door, ‘with just a latch?’
‘Yes. Obviously the dog couldn’t work it so he was trapped and flipped out.’
‘But up until the attack, she could have easily left.’
He nodded. ‘They keep iPads in here for music work so they tend to lock it with a key from the outside. But there’s a latch on the inside that’ll open it up. It’s there in case kids get shut in and need to get out.’
‘So … she closed it with the latch on …’ He caught Larry’s eyes. ‘Hiding from someone outside? In the classroom maybe?’
Larry said nothing, just walked toward the door and pushed it open, gesturing for Matt to follow. ‘Speaking of animals.’
It felt good to get out of the metallic, cloying air of that butchers room. He followed Larry across the class, stepping wide over the pool of dog blood that he suspected would never, ever come out of that wood.
They reached the back of the classroom.
‘And this is the other thing,’ Larry said. ‘Why would she do this?’
The wall was covered with children’s pictures, but now they were closer he could see there was something wrong with them.
‘They’re upside down,’ Matt said.
‘All of them.’
Matt hinged himself at the hip and tilted his head so he could see them the right way up. They showed animals from music, songs and symphonies, scrawled in crayon. No pelicans, that he could see. He could see the rips and tears in the corner of the pictures, where someone had pulled them from the wall and stapled them back up again. Blood started rushing to his head.
‘Did you fingerprint the stapler?’
Frank Sinatra replied, singing Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars ….
He turned back upright and saw Larry scrabbling for his mobile.
‘Give me a sec.’ Let me know what life is like on Ju— ‘Hello? This is Forbes.’ He wandered over to the window to answer.
Matt waited, perched on the edge of the kids’ tables while he scanned the strange pictures. Stick people and animals, paraded across the wall on their heads. Pointed ears shot down like legs while legs sprouted upward like pointed ears.
The smell of blood was still there, making his nostrils twitch.
Larry stood at the window for a minute. Nodded a few times, then he said, ‘Thanks,’ and dropped his hand in his pocket. He clapped his hands together. ‘Well … I’m sorry for wasting your time, Matt.’
‘Huh?’
‘Pathologist just got back. He’s confirmed the cause of death. Mrs Ellis died from a deep dog bite to the side of her throat. Nothing more.’
‘But you suspected there might be something else? Another wound maybe?’
‘I was keeping an open mind. But there aren’t any other unusual prints in there either. It’s her hand on the stapler. Her hand on the door latch. Looks
