in the round. The billowing hills were the terraces, the audience, the bleachers. And the stone circle itself was the stage, the altar, the mise en scene. But a stage-set for what?
Boijer's radio crackled. He pressed the button and talked to one of the Cumbrian officers. Forrester listened in. It was clear from Boijer's expression and his perfunctory words of acknowledgement that the Cumbrian police were still drawing a blank. Maybe the gang hadn't come here after all.
Forrester walked on. A fox was stealing over a field and edging along a copse across the nearest valley: a furtive blur of brushy red. But then the fox turned and gazed behind it, staring directly at Forrester, showing a wild animal's fear and cruelty. Then it was gone, darting into the woodland.
The sky was clouding over: at least partly. Patches of black were scudding across the moorland hills.
Boijer caught up with Forrester. 'You know, sir, we had a weird case in Finland a few years back. Might be relevant.'
'Case of what?'
'It was called the Landfill Murder.'
'Because they buried the body in a dump?.'
'Sort of. It started in October 1998. If I remember right, a man's left leg was found on a dumping ground near a little town called Hyvinkaa. North of Helsinki.'
Forrester was confused. 'Weren't you already living in England by then?'
'Yes, but I followed the news from home. As you do. Especially grisly murders.'
Forrester nodded. 'What happened?'
'Well, the police got nothing at first. Only clue they had was the leg. But then there were suddenly…well, all these headlines…The police claimed they had arrested three people suspected of the murder and they claimed there were indications of satanic worship.'
A wind was kicking up. Whistling across the ancient circle.
'In April 1999 the incident came back into the headlines, when the case went to court. Three kids, young people, were charged. The strange thing is, the judge ordered that the court records should be suppressed for forty years, and all the details kept quiet. Unusual for Finland. But some of the details leaked out, anyway. Horrible stuff. Torture, mutilation, necrophilia, cannibalism. You name it.'
'So who was the victim?'
'A guy of about twenty-three. He was tortured and killed by three of his friends. I think they were all in their early twenties or late teens.' Boijer frowned, trying to remember. 'The girl was 17-she was the youngest. Anyway the murder took place after a bout of drinking. Days of it. Homemade schnapps. Brennivin they call it in Iceland. The Black Death.'
Forrester was interested. 'Describe the murder.'
'He was slowly mutilated with knives and scissors. Killed over a period of many hours. Bits of him were progressively cut off. The judge called it a prolonged human sacrifice. After the victim died the three friends abused the body, ejaculated into his mouth and so on. Then they cut off his head, and I think his legs and arms. And they removed some his internal organs, kidneys and the heart. They dismembered him, basically. And they ate some of the body.'
Forrester was watching a farmer, striding down a country lane, half a mile in the distance. He asked, 'And what does this tell you? I mean, what association do you make with this case?'
His junior shrugged. 'The kids were all Satan worshippers, death metal fans. And they had a history of sacrilege. Church burnings. Desecrating tombs, sort of thing.'
'And?'
'And they were into paganism, ancient sites. Places like this.'
'Though they buried the body in a landfill, not at Stonehenge.'
'Yes. We don't have a Stonehenge in Finland.'
Forrester nodded. The farmer had disappeared behind a rise in the landscape. The ancient standing stones were growing greyer and darker as the clouds covered the sun. Typical lakeland weather-from shining spring sun, to brooding, winter cold in half an hour. 'What were the murderers like? What's the sociology?'
'Definitely middle class. Rich kids even. Certainly not from the fringes.' Boijer zipped up his anorak against the gathering cold. 'Children of the elite.'
Forrester chewed a stalk of grass and regarded his junior. Boijer's bright red anorak brought a fierce and sudden image to Forrester's mind: a body gutted open, unzipped, oozing red blood. Forrester spat the stalk from his mouth.
'Do you miss Finland, Boijer?'
'No. Sometimes…Maybe a little.'
'What d'you miss?'
'Empty forests. Proper saunas. And I miss…cloudberries.'
'Cloudberries?'
'Finland's not very interesting, sir. We have ten thousands words for getting drunk. The winters are too cold, so all you do is drink.' The wind brushed the Finn's blonde hair over his eyes, he swept it back. 'There's even a joke. They tell it in Sweden. About how much the Finns drink.'
'Go on.'
'A Swede and a Finn agree to meet to drink together. They bring several bottles of very strong Finnish vodka. They sit across from each other in perfect silence, and pour glasses of vodka, not speaking. After three hours the Swede fills both glasses and says 'Skol'. The Finn looks at him in disgust, and asks: 'Did we come to talk or did we come to drink?''
Forrester laughed. He asked if Boijer was hungry and his junior eagerly nodded; with Forrester's assent, Boijer went off to eat his usual tuna sandwich in the car.
The DCI walked on alone, brooding, surveying his surroundings. The forests around here were government owned: Forestry Commission plantations. Strict squares of sterile firs marching across the landscape like Napoleonic regiments. Platoons of birches, marching silently and unobserved. He thought about Boijer's story. The Landfill Murders of Hyvinkaa. Was it possible that the Sacrifice Gang were burying corpses or bones or objects, not digging things up? But nothing appeared to have been buried in Craven Street. And nothing was buried in St Anne's Fort. But had they checked properly?
Forrester had reached the edge of the stone circle. The silent grey menhirs curved away from him on either side. Some seemed to be sleeping: prone and fallen like mighty warriors slain. Some were rigid and defiant. He remembered what he had read about Castlerigg; about the squarish enclosure of 'important but unknown purpose'. If you had come all this way to bury something, this was surely where you would do it-in the most symbolic part of the site. If Castlerigg mattered to you, this was your target.
The detective scanned the circle. It didn't take him long to find the enclosure: a rectangular site marked out by lower stones, besides the most eroded megaliths.
For twenty minutes Forrester examined these lower stones. He padded and prodded at the damp dark soil and the soggy, acidic turf. A soft lakeland rain started to fall. Forrester felt its cold drops on his neck. Maybe he was heading up another cul de sac.
Then he spotted something in the long wet grass: a small line of sliced earth. Dark soil disturbed, then replaced, barely visible to the naked eye-unless you knew what you were looking for. He knelt and dug at the sods with his bare hands. It was unscientific-Forensics would be appalled, but he had to know.
Within seconds his fingers touched something cold and hard-but not a stone. He dislodged the object from its little grave and brushed off the soil. It was a small glass vial. And inside the vial was a very intense-looking liquid the colour of dark red rum.
25
The streets were red with blood. Rob was walking through the old town to meet Christine, at the caravanserai. It was dusk. Everywhere he looked: he saw great splashes of blood-up the walls, along the pavements, outside the Vodafone outlet. The locals were slaughtering goats and sheep-and doing it publicly, in the
