The Phantom Ritual (DCI Morgan Chester: Case One)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Fifty-seven-year-old Carla Lewis heard the ear-shattering scream erupt from the house next door. Silence then fell. At first, she thought it was the foxes fighting as usual, but she could not shake the reminder of the recent serial killer documentary she watched on Sky Witness hours earlier. Carla watched through the slit in her blinds and saw nobody leave the property in the last forty minutes. The time on her clock showed as quarter past five in the morning.

She knew the couple next door since they moved in six years ago; a respected hard-working doctor who was rarely home and a shy stay at home wife who fluttered around. From time to time, she had seen the husband sneak home in the middle of the night.

Occasionally they would cross paths and exchange warm greetings. She gained the wife's trust enough to get a spare key to the house in exchange for cleaning the house on weekends. Clara offered to do this free of charge as a gesture of goodwill.

The wife recently opened up to Clara about her fears that her husband had been cheating. Clara had no choice but to bite her tongue; she, too, thought he was a cheater. She loved drama but also refused to be the trigger.

When they arrived home yesterday afternoon, the wife had a face like thunder. Clara heard some shouting and crashing that sounded like plates had been thrown. The husband's cheating ways must have finally surfaced. And then no more noise came from their home. She thought the argument had ended, and they might have made up. But a nagging sensation pulled at her stomach after the noise this morning. She decided to call the police.

Two local police officers arrived half an hour after her call had been logged. She met them at the steps of the house and unlocked the front door for them. The officers called out for the couple by their first names and shone their torches in the unilluminated hallway.

One of the officers noticed scratch marks and blood splatters by the radiator as they crossed the threshold. Pictures that hung on the wall were now strewn across the floor with tiny shards of glass.

They decided to split up. One officer took the hallway. He noticed the door embedded in the staircase; he slowly opened it and turned on the light with the cord that dangled above him. The stairs were made of strong wood, and blood had marred the surface. Unaware of the discovery that waited for him, he climbed down the stairs.

The second officer looked around the kitchen; everything seemed to be in place. He glanced out of the kitchen window and noticed a figure in the garden. He tiptoed to the patio door and shone his torch through the glass and onto the unknown figure, the light stunned him, and he dropped the shovel in his hands to the ground. The officer got a clear look at the man's face. It was Dr Aaron Buck.

Aaron cursed, turned on his heel, and sprinted for the fence.

"Dr Buck, stop!" the officer called out as his hands fumbled to unlock the patio door and slide it open.

Aaron jumped over the fence and ran into the football field behind the house, vanishing into the darkness. The officer attempted to chase after him but stumbled into a ditch.

A shallow grave.

He pulled himself out of the grave and bolted back into the house, calling for his partner, who met him in the hallway. Without a word, he turned and walked down the stairs, his partner silently following behind him. Inside the basement revealed the reason why Aaron was digging the shallow grave in the garden.

Handcuffed to the metal wired bed was the mutilated body of Aaron's wife, Jane Buck. Her throat was slit, blood stained her inner thighs, and the side of her face caved inwards.

Next to her body was a note covered in bloody fingerprints and a picture of a blonde woman paper clipped to it.

DCIMorgan Chester is next.