Sam Christer - Turin Shroud Secret

The Stonehenge Legacy

Published by Hachette Digital

ISBN: 978-0-7481-3001-6

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright 2012 by Sam Christer

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Hachette Digital

Little, Brown Book Group

100 Victoria Embankment

London, EC4Y 0DY

www.hachette.co.uk

To Donna and Bill for your priceless gifts
of time and understanding

One by one the devotees remove bricks from the centuries-old sanctuary. They know they are unleashing a force that will kill most horribly, one that will either save everything they hold sacred or destroy it for ever.

And Joseph bought a linen shroud and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock.

English Standard Bible

WEDNESDAY EVENING
BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES

There are many reasons why he kills. Why, right at this moment, he is about to kill again.

It is a need. A craving. An aching, gnawing compulsion. Like sex. When hes not doing it, hes thinking about it. Fantasising. Planning. Rehearsing. Killing to him is as necessary and inevitable as drawing breath. Only more pleasurable. Memorable.

This one is going to be easy. Perfect. The best yet. The unkilled always are. Thats what he calls them. Not the living. Not the next victim.

The unkilled.

A quiet neighbourhood. A woman living alone. One not even aware that while she busied herself in that pretty rear garden he slipped into her life and home.

Hes been lying in wait for hours, unnoticed like a dog in a favourite hiding place, his ears twitching as he follows her sounds around the darkening house, his furtive mind imagining her every movement.

Theres a thin clattering noise shes tidying up after her dinner for one.

A soft thump shutting the dishwasher.

Tumbling clunks. Ice from the dispenser on the tall fridge by the kitchen door. A glass of water to take to bed.

Click, click, click. Turning out the lights. Closing doors.

Bump, bump. Bump, bump. Footsteps. Coming upstairs. Heavy footed. Desperate to lie down on her big soft bed and sleep.

A soft click. A bedside lamp warms the big bedroom with a buttercup glow.

Running water. A shower. Nice and hot. A warm soak to make her clean for bed.

Fresh for death.

He waits. Counts off the seconds and minutes. Seven hundred and twenty seconds. Twelve long minutes. Now the whirr of a hairdryer. Best not to go to sleep with wet hair. Most unhealthy. The television mutters. Music. A film. News. Shes zapping. Searching for something to distract her from the rigours of the day. The Tonight Show. Conan. House.

Click. The crackle of static on the plasma screen.

Silence.

A final click. The lamp.

Darkness.

He lies there. Beneath the bed. Savouring the floating echo of the last sounds like a sliver of communion wafer dissolving on the tongue.

Soon he hears the whisper of her breathing, faint sighs rising like soft light breaking the dawn sky. Sleep is gently preparing her for God and for him. He rolls out from his shelter. Slow. Graceful. Careful. A deadly animal emerging from cover. Exposed in the wild. Closing on its prey. Tingling with anticipation.

He puts one hand around her throat and places the other across her mouth. Her eyes flash open with shock. He smiles down at her and whispers, Dominus vobiscum the Lord be with you.

THURSDAY MORNING
MANHATTAN BEACH, LOS ANGELES

Its November but still ninety out on the dunes. California does that sometimes. A golden fall to make up for a poor summer. Thirty-year-old homicide detective Nic Karakandez makes a visor out of his right hand and strains his blue-grey eyes at the sparkling diamond swirl of the Pacific. Dressed in faded blue jeans and a black leather bomber jacket, the big cop stands out on top of the sands.

Hes staring hard and seeing more than anyone else. Certainly more than the sand-crusted stiff that the ME and CSIs are bent over. Way more than the bobbing heads of swimmers gawping from the waves.

Nic sees the future.

A month from now to be precise. His boat heading out to sea, wind billowing in the sails, a reel or two hanging over the back and a time when jobs like this sorry floater are nothing but distant memories.

Nic! Get your ass down here.

Theres only one woman in the world who speaks to him like that. He drops his hand and squints at his colleague and boss, Lieutenant Mitzi Fallon. Im coming give me a chance.

The thirty-nine-year-old mom of two is twenty yards ahead of him, down a dip in the soft Californian sand. Hey Big Foot are you the fast-moving murder police I taught you to be or have I got you mixed up with some pale-throated sloth?

He cant help but laugh. Im the fast-moving murder police, maam. What exactly is a sloth?

Short-necked, fat-assed mammal. Sixty million years old and spends most of its time sleeping.

I wish.

Mitzis been breaking his balls since his first day in the department more than five years ago. He pads alongside her as they head towards the fluttering tape ten yards from the oceans edge. Pretty soon the crime scene will be gone. Washed away by Lady Tide, that ancient accomplice to so many murders.

They badge the uniforms guarding the area, slip on shoe covers and join the ME, Amy Chang, a second-generation Chinese medic with a brain as big as the state deficit.

Afternoon, doc, breezes Mitzi. Any chance your poor lady there died of natural causes? I gotta be at a soccer game tonight.

The pathologist doesnt look up. She knows them both well. Too well. Not a chance. Not unless its considered normal to go swimming fully dressed after youve just had two teeth pulled out, an eye removed and your throat slit.

Man, thats some careless dentist. Nic leans over the body.

Obamas got a lot to answer for, adds Mitzi. He never should have messed with the health care.

He got Bin Laden, though that gives him a Get Out of Jail Card as far as Im concerned.

Amy looks up and shakes her head in mock disgust. You two jokers got a single ounce of respect for whats going on here?

Nic catches her eye. Theres a spark between them. Small but its there. He blows it out before she can even blink. Tons, he says. We just hide it well. Black humour is the only way we know to protect our fragile constitutions.

Amy stares him down. Sick minds are more like it.

The lieutenant rounds a CSI sifting sand for anything that might have come off the body and got buried or trodden on. She circles the corpse, staring at it from different angles, like its a piece of modern art that doesnt yet make sense. Any ID on her?

None, says Amy. Surely you knew you werent going to get that lucky?

Just hoping. She circles again. Slower this time, stooping to study the vics hands and feet. Any idea how long shed been in the water?

Amy looks up again. Cmon, Mitzi, I need to check body temperature and tides youre way too early to get a polite answer.

Amy forces a thermometer through the eye socket into the brain. It will give her a window of about three hours on the time of death. She glances up at the pull and push of the waves beside her. Once shes consulted a tidal expert, shell have a good idea of where and when the vic met her end. She notes the body temperature then uses scissors to cut off the fingernails and bags the clippings.