Oddjobs Read online

  “Don’t you dare, fox. You touch the sheep and – ggh! – I’ll pop one in your mother-adn-bhul ass!”

  Fluke took a step towards Archdeacon Silas Adjei.

  “You hearing me?” Tony T shouted.

  Fluke shrugged. “But I’m a fox.”

  “Tha’s deep,” said Death Roe.

  “Gonna get me – ggh! – that on a tattoo,” agreed Pupfish.

  Fluke held out his fox to Silas’s sheep. “Nom.”

  “Boom!” said Tony T. “Now your punk ass is dead, bindog.”

  “Well, it’s nice to see you’re getting into role,” said Leandra.

  Tony T jumped down from the chairs. “I’m just – ggh! – gonna get me a bigger boat.”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said Nina, “we need to borrow Silas.”

  Silas’s eyebrows went up questioningly.

  “Something’s happened in Pigeon Park,” she said.

  Silas passed his sheep to Fluke. “Sorry, lads. I’ll be back.”

  “I’m sure you need me too,” said Vivian.

  Nina made a noise. “I don’t know,” she said and then caught the desperate glint in Vivian’s eye. “Sure, maybe. I can step in here.”

  “Church man,” nodded Death Roe and gave Silas a fist bump as he left.

  “This has got to beat zombie taxi drivers,” said Nina to the room once the others were gone. “So, what’s this game?”

  “It’s a lateral thinking puzzle,” said Leandra.

  “Got to get the sheep, the fox and Pup’s melons across the river,” said Tony T.

  “And Tony – ggh! – keeps getting us killed,” said Pupfish.

  Nina looked at the papers and toys. “Tony, you’re the sheep now.”

  “Hey – ggh! – I’m the farmer.”

  “Hey, you bought the farm. Doesn’t make you a farmer.” This drew a laugh from the others. “Death Roe, you’re the farmer now.”

  Vivian insisted on sitting in the front as Chief Inspector Lee drove her, Morag and Silas round to St Philip’s Cathedral. She did this for no other reason than that she always sat in the front of cars. She wasn’t a child.

  St Philip’s, less than half a mile from the Library, had been built in the eighteenth century as a parish church and elevated to cathedral status when Birmingham was made into a city. In Vivian’s eyes, it was an entirely unremarkable building but for some fine stained glass by the Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones and the fact that it was the third smallest cathedral in the country.

  Ricky parked by the iron railings that ran around Pigeon Park, the wide green space that surrounded the cathedral. There were police officers at each of its narrow gates, keeping passersby out.

  “Who found the body?” asked Morag, once they were through the cordon.

  “Katie Lightfoot, the canon something,” said Ricky.

  “Canon liturgist,” said Silas. “How is she?”

  “They’ve taken her to the station to take a statement,” said Ricky. “She’s quite shaken, I believe. It’s not a pleasant sight.”

  “And that’s what makes you think it’s Venislarn,” said Vivian.

  There was a police van beside the statue of Bishop Gore and a pair of constables in high-vis waterproofs at the cathedral door. They waved them in.

  “Do I need to remind you not to touch anything?” said Ricky.

  Beneath an iron staircase, a detective talked to a man in a dog collar. Silas went to the man, put a hand on his shoulder and spoke words of comfort that were too quiet for Vivian to hear. In the cathedral proper, Scenes of Crime were sweeping along the pews. Much of the activity was focussed around the altar and the naked body draped across it. There was blood on the stone floor around the altar. A lot of blood.

  The altar sat before three large windows of stained glass at the east end of the church. The nativity, the crucifixion and the resurrection. Vivian hadn’t realised until that moment that Edward Burne-Jones had been very fond of red. Angelic robes and Roman standards turned the morning sunlight a rich and bloody crimson.

  “No head,” noted Vivian as they approached the altar.

  “Severed.” Ricky pointed. “Behind the altar.”

  Morag was slowing, falling back.

  “Problem, Miss Murray?” asked Vivian.

  Morag looked pale – well, she was a pale and pasty sort but she looked even paler now. “I… I think I might know who it is.”

  Vivian was impressed. “You recognise him? Without clothes and, I must emphasise, without a head?”

  Morag cut left through the pews to skirt the pool of blood and get behind the altar.

  “Maybe he has a distinctive scar,” said Vivian reflectively.

  “Well, he’s a ginger, I can tell you that much,” said Ricky.

  “Motherfucker!” shouted Morag furiously.

  “Miss Murray,” Vivian called to her.

  “That bastard motherfucking glun’u hole!”

  “Miss Murray!”

  Silas Adjei came scurrying up the aisle. “May I remind you that this is a church!” he hissed loudly.

  Morag backed away from the altar, fist in her mouth. The muscular young man lay on his back on the altar. His bloodless arm was draped over one side of the altar, and the cleanly severed stump of his neck rested over the end. His head wasn’t the only thing missing. His groin was a concave hemisphere of ravaged tissue; his genitals had been torn out.

  “I’m assuming this was Venislarn,” said Ricky, “or a really jealous wife.”

  “I know who did this,” said Morag, her voice ragged with emotion.

  “You do?”

  “Shardak’aan Syu, August Handmaiden of Prein. You want to put out a photofit? She’s about twelve feet tall, has ten legs and is armoured with the faces of screaming babies.”

  “That makes sense,” said Vivian.

  “Makes sense?” said Silas indignantly. “Our altar defiled with bloody murder?”

  Vivian twirled a finger over the scene. “This is not a murder scene, not specifically. The Handmaidens of Prein decapitate their lovers at the moment of climax.”

  The archdeacon’s eyes bulged. “He and a Venislarn were…” He couldn’t find an appropriate word and just made a wordless murmur, “…on our altar?”

  “Who do you think he is?” Ricky wanted to know.

  “His name’s Drew. Name was Drew,” Morag corrected herself quietly. “I don’t know his surname or if that was even his real name. We’ll have registration documents for him. There won’t be any family who are looking for him.”

  “So, it’s entirely in your court.” Ricky looked at Vivian, trying not to sound relieved.

  “Do they not know what this place is?” said Silas. “Have they no inkling of the offence they’ve caused?”

  “This is, in all probability, a very calculated piece of offence,” said Vivian. “It is a message. I do not know if the Venislarn are specifically aware of the purpose of the altar in the act of communion. The body and blood of Christ, made real in this way.” She made a noise to herself. “It is probably just a serendipitous coincidence.”

  “I’m going to kill her,” said Morag coldly.

  “You’ll do no such thing,” said Vivian sharply, “and you should know better than to even suggest it. This is a very deliberate act by a member of Yo-Morgantus‘s court. I would normally expect us to be notified of such atrocities in advance.”

  “They’d tell you they were going to do something terrible?” said Ricky.

  “I believe your lot used to have an equally pragmatic relationship with the IRA,” replied Vivian.

  “Then I need to go to the Venislarn court.” Morag turned on her heel.

  “To make enquiries,” said Vivian. “Nothing else.”

  “Naturally,” agreed Morag. “Besides, I left my shotgun in Scotland.”

  “And we shall arrange the speedy removal of this body,” said Vivian, “before public interest is roused.”

  Silas was looking at his phone. �
�I think it’s already too late for that.”

  Nina skipped down to reception and rapped on the glass. Lois, on the phone, irritably waved her away. Nina pushed the glass aside and scoured Lois’s desk area below the reception window.

  “Pardon?” said Lois into the phone. “No, madam, I don’t know anything about that. I’m not sure what I’d be apologising for.”

  Nina flicked through the staplers, Post-Its and pens on the desk.

  “I’m sorry, madam, but I’ve no idea why you’d think we’d do that.” She scribbled on a Post-It and give it to Nina. It read ‘Get Ingrid!’

  Nina nodded and scribbled ‘Glitter?’ on the Post-It and passed it back to Lois.

  “Excuse me for a moment, madam.” Lois put her hand over the phone. “Glitter?” she said.

  “Yes,” said Nina. “Do you have any?”

  “Glitter?”

  “Yes.”

  Lois blinked. “Glitter?”

  “Yes. You know, little bits of glittery stuff. For making cards, Christmas decorations and vajazzles. Gold or silver or whatever you’ve got.”

  “I don’t have any glitter,” said Lois as though Nina was an idiot. “Can you find Ingrid for me? They need a Venislarn medical team over at the Cube.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “They’re saying Yo-Morgantus has been poisoned. By us.”

  “Why would… How would we do that?”

  Lois shrugged. She went to speak into the phone again and then stopped. “Why do you want glitter?”

  “Me and the fish-boys are doing arts and crafts, of course,” said Nina. “I’ll find Ingrid.”

  They sat at pews to the rear of the cathedral to discuss what was to be done. Vivian, Archdeacon Silas and Chief Inspector Lee had been joined by the bishop’s deliverance advisor, Rita Giffen, and Canon Kevin O’Driscoll of the Roman Catholic diocese who, as far as Vivian could ascertain, had come to offer sympathy and have a bit of a nose about.

  “We can have the body bagged up and out of the door in minutes,” said Ricky.

  Silas held out a gently interrupting hand. “There are three priorities that I can see. There is the physical matter of removing the body of this poor dead man and the evidence of what happened here. There is then the matter of the media who are already camped outside and who would love to know that a ritual sex-murder has taken place in the heart of the city’s Christian community.”

  Canon Kevin’s face twitched but he said nothing.

  “Thirdly,” continued Silas, “there is the spiritual attack upon our church. We must respond appropriately to this unholy stain on our church and to the meaning of this event. I do not want to do anything that will spread any contamination. What does this attack mean, Vivian?”

  “Many of the Venislarn’s motives are entirely unknowable,” answered Vivian. “We ascribe them personalities and motives much as we identify shapes in clouds. The true Venislarn are entirely alien to us. But their intermediaries and agents: their actions are sometimes open to interpretation. This. This is a territorial display.”

  “They’re claiming this space as their own?” said Silas.

  “They have sought out your most important building and then…”

  “Pissed all over it,” said Rita, the deliverance advisor. “Like a tom cat.”

  “Rita,” said Silas.

  “But that’s what’s happened,” said the round and ruddy-faced woman.

  “Yes,” agreed Vivian.

  “So, this is indeed a spiritual attack.” Silas shook his head in despair.

  “I would not know about such unscientific mumbo-jumbo,” said Vivian. “Consider this the planting of a flag, a declaration of conquest.”

  “Dear Lord,” said Canon Kevin.

  “In one sense, you should be flattered,” said Vivian.

  Silas was momentarily speechless. “Flattered?”

  “The Venislarn could have done this in the council house, in the centre of the Bull Ring, in the Town Hall. But they chose a church. This church. It indicates the apparent importance of this place and the perceived power of the Church.”

  “And yet they chose to do it here rather than over at St Chad’s,” said Canon Kevin. He tried to keep his tone neutral but Vivian could detect an edge.

  “You think this should have happened in the Catholic cathedral?” Silas allowed a grim gallows-humour smile onto his face.

  “No, Silas. This should not have happened anywhere.”

  “No.”

  “But… if one was talking about religious importance and power…” the Catholic said softly.

  “Really?” said Silas.

  “His Holiness, the Pope, has long accepted the unique role the Church has in combating this invasion. As the largest and oldest branch of the Christian faith…”

  “Kevin, this is not the place for such arguments,” said Silas.

  “I was not arguing, only offering my sympathies that this incident has accidentally befallen your place of worship.”

  “Thank you.” Silas nodded in reflection. “Of course, if you were to actually count the number of Roman Catholics versus Anglican worshippers in the city…”

  “Oh, come now!” said Kevin.

  “If you’re talking about a popularity contest, Kevin, then I’m sure you’d come out –”

  “Really?” Vivian did not disguise her annoyance. “You want to bicker about who’s got the biggest God?”

  The archdeacon and canon held up hands in apology and disagreement.

  “Shall I get Mr Ahmed from the Birmingham central mosque?” she said. “I bet he could knock both your attendance figures into a cocked hat. Shall I? I have his number. Yes? No?”

  “We are merely discussing the intended meaning, the symbolism behind this attack, weren’t we, Kevin?” said Silas.

  “Exactly, Silas,” said Kevin.

  “Good,” said Vivian, “because from where I am sitting it sounded like you were arguing over whether the mafia had put the horse’s head in the wrong bed.”

  “We need to perform a service of cleansing and rededication as soon as possible,” said Rita.

  “These creatures are not devils or demons or any other form of supernatural entity,” Vivian corrected.

  “And yet you call them gods,” said Silas. “Rita is right. If this is a deliberate attack on a place of worship, then it is a spiritual attack.”

  Vivian looked pointedly over to the bloody floor around the altar. “It is going to take more than a splash of holy water and a few Hail Marys to shift that.”

  Kevin smiled at Silas’s frown.

  “Fine,” said Vivian, “whatever you C of E lot have instead. A few kumbayas.”

  “Or a quick harvest festival,” suggested Ricky.

  “Are you trying to mock the Church?” said Silas.

  “Try? No,” said Vivian. “Let us elevate our minds above mere religious details and decide what we are going to do with the body. I can get a clean-up crew and a black ambulance over here within the hour but there is a BBC news crew already camped outside.”

  “We must be rid of them before we can cleanse the church,” said Rita, already planning the spiritual spring clean.

  “But the damage to the Church as a whole if it is discovered someone has died here would be incalculable,” said Silas.

  “You would deceive the public?” said Rita.

  “I would want to protect their faith.”

  “Could we not just get the TV people to go somewhere else?” suggested Canon Kevin.

  “How would we do that?”

  Kevin looked at Ricky.

  “Uh-huh,” said Ricky. “We may live in a police state but we don’t have to keep reminding people.”

  “I was just thinking a bit of ‘Move along, move along. There’s nothing to see here.’”

  “Not confiscate their cameras and arrest them under some dubious anti-terrorism powers?”

  “Or that,” said Kevin. “I do believe the cameraman looks a bit Musl
im-y.”

  “Really, Kevin?” said Silas.

  “It’s usually justification enough for the boys in blue.”

  “We’re not arresting the camera crew, not even if one of them starts shouting ‘God is great’ in Arabic.”

  “In the old days,” said Kevin to Vivian, “your lot would just arrange a diversion. Start a fire somewhere or blow something up to draw them away.”

  “That was Greg’s speciality,” said Vivian. “Master of misdirection. We do not have the time or budget for that now. I do have a solution, however.”

  “Yes?” said Silas.

  “You keep the body here.”

  “Come now,” said Silas unhappily. “Where would we put a dead body?”

  “It is a church, archdeacon.”

  “You do have tombs,” said Ricky.

  Rita made a disagreeable noise, like she was trying to swallow a hedgehog. “The spiritual significance…” she managed to say.

  “This man was ritually murdered,” said Silas. “Decapitated. His genitals scooped out like, like…”

  “The worst Ben and Jerry’s flavour ever,” said Ricky.

  “That hardly seems grounds for refusing him a Christian burial,” said Vivian, “even a temporary one.”

  “Deuteronomy twenty-three one,” said Rita automatically.

  “It’s unseemly,” said Silas.

  “Really?” said Ricky. “Beheaded and his jewels ripped off? Sounds like the kind of thing the Romans used to do to Christians.”

  “I’m not going to entertain comparisons between this man and –”

  “St Gustav of Bad Königshofen,” said Kevin. “Martyred by some mad Germanic king.”

  “See?” said Ricky.

  “I seem to recall he chopped his own testicles off in a fit of piety but the broad details are the same,” said Kevin.

  “It’s preposterous,” said Silas. “You speak as though there are empty tombs where we can conveniently store this man’s body.”

  “Have you actually checked?” asked Vivian.

  The lift doors opened and Morag stepped out into the top-but-one floor of the Cube. The air was hot and unpleasantly sweet-smelling.

  Dr Ingrid Spence and Rod stood by the window overlooking the city’s canal network. Ingrid’s T-shirt said ‘98% Chimpanzee’ but it was quickly being covered up by the yellow biohazard suit she was climbing into. Apart from a line of dried blood across his shirt and tie, and the pristine dressing around his left hand, Rod looked back to his usual Herculean self.