Free Those Who Feel Nothing by Peter Guttridge

that she had done a few weeks ago about an uncluttered desk equalling an uncluttered mind. She wondered impishly if Hewitt’s implementation of the course’s recommendations was the same as hers. Gilchrist’s desk was also bare. But that was because she’d crammed everything into her drawers and now couldn’t find anything.
    â€˜Oh Christ,’ Hewitt said. ‘Then he
was
doing a bit of amateur archaeology.’
    â€˜In the middle of the night?’
    â€˜But cemeteries are his thing, aren’t they? He could argue he didn’t want to upset the locals.’
    â€˜There’s more, ma’am. I’ve just come from his house.’
    â€˜And you found?’
    â€˜He was living with the mummified bodies or skeletons of possibly twenty-five other women. He dressed them like dolls and kept them round his house.’
    Hewitt looked intently at her bare desk. ‘Run that by me again?’
    â€˜The women’s skeletal or mummified remains have been dressed in knee and ankle socks, dresses, aprons, ribbons. Some have Little Bo-Peep hats on. In the basement one group of dolls were sitting at a dinner table set for afternoon tea. One chair was empty at the end. Presumably his. On closer examination of the house we found other remains stuffed under beds and in cupboards. There were two up a chimney.’
    â€˜Jesus.’
    â€˜I don’t think Jesus had anything to do with it.’
    â€˜But none recently dead?’
    Gilchrist shook her head. ‘All look like they’ve been in the ground decades before he got at them.’
    Hewitt made a quick sign of the cross. Gilchrist was surprised. She’d never thought of her boss as religious. She’d given no indication a few months earlier when fundamentalist Christianity and the occult collided in Brighton.
    â€˜What are people like?’ Hewitt said. She looked as sour as her new face would allow. ‘You never really know, do you? Rafferty? The man is insufferable but he is also very bright. He’s on TV. He writes newspaper columns from time to time. He’s a historian and a journalist. He speaks four languages.’
    Gilchrist was surprised at Hewitt’s naïvety. ‘All except human, ma’am?’
    Hewitt looked at the ceiling. ‘So what are we going to charge him with?’
    â€˜I have no idea. Grave robbing?’
    Hewitt leaned towards Gilchrist. ‘Is this more of that black magic nonsense you dealt with a few months ago? Is he a black magician?’
    Gilchrist grimaced. ‘There are no black magicians, ma’am. Just people who think they are. But, no, on the surface this doesn’t seem to have anything to do with black magic.’
    Hewitt stood and leaned forward, pressing her palms into her desk. ‘OK then, Sarah. I want to be sure this doesn’t get into the papers. So long as it doesn’t we can handle it discreetly. If it does it will be massive.’
    â€˜Yes, ma’am,’ Gilchrist said, remembering Constable Stanford’s parting expression. Thinking: that bird has probably already flown.
    You take the coach from Phnom Penh north-east to Siem Reap. The journey takes all day but is not unpleasant. You have a bench seat to yourself. You sleep in the morning and at a stop in a village around lunchtime try a plate of fried locusts from a street vendor. You’ve had them before as a delicacy. They taste of nothing much but the salt on the crunchy carapace and evoke for you not Cambodia but the first occasion you had them on the other side of the world.
    It was in Oaxaca, Mexico, in a restaurant on a balcony overlooking a square that was occupied by government tanks recently involved in putting down an insurrection. A teacher’s strike that had got out of hand. Judging from reports a few months ago it happened all the time in Mexico. Who knew teachers could be so vicious? Actually, you did. Catholic upbringing.
    Calm had now been