The Genesis Secret

13

The flight to the Isle of Man, across the Irish Sea, was bumpy but brief. At Ronaldsway airport Forrester and Boijer were greeted in the arrivals lounge by the Deputy Chief Constable, and a uniformed sergeant. Forrester smiled and shook hands. The four policemen swapped names: the DCC was called Hayden.

They walked out into the car park. Forrester and Boijer exchanged glances-and shared a brief, knowing nod at the Manx sergeant's rather odd white helmet. Very different to anything on the mainland.

Forrester already knew of the Isle of Man's special status. A Crown colony, with its own parliament, its own flag, a heritage of ancient Viking traditions, and its own unique police force, Man was not an official part of the United Kingdom at all. They'd abolished flogging only a few years ago. Forrester's SIO back in London had briefed Forrester carefully on the slightly unusual protocols involved in visiting the Isle.

The car park was cold, with a hint of rain in the air; the four men walked briskly to Hayden's big car. Silently they sped through farmland, down to the outskirts of the main town, Douglas, on the western coast. Forrester buzzed down his window and looked out, trying to get a feel for the place: a sense of where he was.

The lush green farmland, the rainy oak woods, the tiny grey chapels: they looked very British and Celtic. Likewise, as they reached Douglas, the huddled houses along the beach, and the flashier office blocks, reminded Forrester of the Scottish Hebrides. The only indication they were outside the UK proper was the Manx flag; the symbol of a three-legged man on a bright red background, which rippled in the drizzly wind on several buildings.

The silence in the car was broken by occasional chit chat. At one point Hayden turned and looked at Forrester and said, 'Of course we've kept the body at the scene. We're not amateurs.'

It was a strange remark. Forrester guessed these policemen, from this tiny force-two hundred officers or fewer-might resent his presence. The big man from the Met. The interfering Londoner.

But Forrester had a serious task in hand; he was very keen to see the crime scene. He wanted to get to work straight away. Protocols or no protocols.

The car swerved out of the town and threaded down a narrower road with high woods to their right and the choppy Irish Sea to their left. Forester noted a jetty, a lighthouse, some small boats bobbing on the grey waves, and another hill. And then the car dived between some rather grand gates and swept up to a very big, old, castellated white building.

'St Anne's Fort,' said Hayden. 'It's offices now.'

The place was roped off with police tape. Forrester saw that a tent had been erected on the front lawns and glimpsed a policeman carrying an old Kodak fingerprint camera into the building. Climbing out of the car Forrester wondered about the capabilities of the local force. When had their last homicide been? Five years back? Fifty? They probably spent most of their time busting dope smokers. And underage drinkers. And gays. Wasn't this the place where homosexuality was still illegal?

They went straight into the house, through the main doors. Two younger men wearing antiputrefaction masks glanced at Forrester. One of them was holding a tin of aluminium powder. They stepped into another room. Forrester went to follow the forensic officers but Hayden touched him on the arm. 'No,' he said, 'the garden.'

The house was enormous, yet characterless inside. It had been brutally converted into offices: someone had ripped out the previous interiors and installed strip lighting and grey partitions, filing cabinets and computers. There were models of boats and ferries on some of the desks. A couple of nautical charts hung on a wall; the offices presumably belonged to a shipping corporation or marine design company.

Following the Deputy Chief, Forrester stepped into a hallway from which big glass doors opened on to a wide rear garden, closed in on all sides by high hedges, and a wooded rise right at the back. The garden had been rudely dug up in various places; in the middle of these chewed-up green lawns was a large, yellow, crime scene tent, the flap zipped shut, concealing whatever was inside.

Hayden opened the glass doors and they walked the few yards to the yellow tent. He turned to the two London officers. 'Are you ready?'

Forrester felt impatient. 'Yes, of course.'

Hayden pulled back the flap.

'Fuck,' said Forrester.

The corpse was of a man in his thirties, he guessed. It had its back to them; and it was stark naked. But it wasn't that which caused him to swear. The man's head had been buried headdown in the lawn-with the rest of his body sticking out. The position was at once comical and deeply unsettling. Forrester immediately guessed the victim must have asphyxiated. The murderers must have dug a hole, forced the man's head in, then packed the soil around, suffocating him. A nasty, weird, cold way to die. Why the hell would you do that?

Boijer was walking around the corpse, looking appalled. Even though the tent seemed to be colder than the windswept garden outside, a distinct smell came off the body. Forrester wished he had one of the SIRCHIE masks to block out the odour of decomposition.

'There's the Star,' said Boijer.

He was right. Forrester walked around and looked at the front of the corpse. A Star of David had been gouged into the man's chest; the wound looked even deeper and nastier than the torture inflicted on the janitor.

'Fuck,' Forrester said, again.

Standing next to him, Hayden smiled, for the first time this morning. 'Well,' he said, 'I'm glad you feel the same way. I thought it was just us.' Three hours later Forrester and Boijer were sharing plastic cups of coffee in the big tent at the front of the mansion. The local cops were arranging a press conference, in the 'fort'. The two Met officers were alone. The corpse had finally been moved, after thirty-six hours, to the coroner's lab in town.

Boijer looked at Forrester. 'Not sure the natives are very friendly.'

Forrester chuckled. 'I think they had their own language until…last year.'

'And cats.' said Boijer, blowing cool air across his coffee. 'Isn't this the place where they have those cats without tails?'

'Manx cats. Yep.'

Boijer stared out through the flapping open doorway of the police tent, at the big white building. 'What would our gang be doing out here?'

'Christ knows. And why the same symbol?' Forrester knocked back some more coffee. 'What more do we know about the victim? You spoke to the scene of crime guy?'

'Yacht designer. Working upstairs.'

'On a Sunday?'

Boijer nodded. 'Yep. Usually the place is deserted, at weekends. But he was working his day off.'

'So he just got unlucky?'

Boijer swept his blonde Finnish hair back from his blue Finnish eyes. 'Like the guy in Craven Street. Probably heard a noise.'

'Then came downstairs. And our lovely killers decided to cut him up, then stick his head in the ground like a croquet hoop. Till he died.'

'Not very nice.'

'What about the CCTV?'

'Nothing.' Boijer shrugged. 'The woodentop told me they'd drawn a blank on the cameras, all of them. Zip.'

'Of course. And the prints and footwear marks. They'll get nothing. These guys are insane, but not stupid. They are the opposite of stupid.'

Forrester stepped outside the tent and gazed up at the house, blinking away the soft drizzle that was now falling. The building was dazzling white. Newly painted. Quite a landmark for local sailors. High and white and castellated, right above the jetty and the port. He scanned the battlements and scrutinized the sash windows. He was trying to work out what linked an eighteenth century house in London with what looked like an eighteenth century house in the Isle of Man. But then something struck him. Maybe it wasn't. He squinted. There was just something wrong with this building. It wasn't the real deal-Forrester knew enough about architecture to surmise that. The brickwork was too neat, the windows all recent-no more than ten or twenty years old. The building was evidently a pastiche, and not an especially good one. And, he decided, it was possible the killers knew this. The modern interior of the modern house was entirely undisturbed. Only the gardens had been dug up. The gang had obviously been looking for something, again. But they weren't looking in the house. Only the garden. Apparently, they knew where to look. Apparently, they knew where not to look.

Apparently, they knew quite a lot.

Forrester turned his collar up against the chilly drizzle.