Imposture (DI Gardener 6)

“Why would they need a unit at all?” asked Gardener. “They could all have worked from home.”

“Maybe there was a lot more to it than computer viruses,” said Rawson.

“Could have been a smokescreen,” offered Gates. “Maybe they just rented a big unit somewhere whether they needed the space or not.”

“For what?” Gardener asked.

“No idea,” offered Longstaff, “but let’s face it, money was no object. And if one of them had this in mind all along, the big unit would be perfect.”

Gardener figured they may have hit on something. “Okay, point taken. I need someone to start checking units and warehousing within a fifty-mile radius.”

“I’ll take that, sir,” said Patrick Edwards.

Gardener was beginning to appreciate Edwards. He was young but willing, rarely shied away from anything he was given, and often volunteered for jobs other people wouldn’t want.

“Excellent, Patrick. Get Benson to help you. But before you guys go anywhere, I’m afraid we still have more information for you.”

Chapter Forty-one

A collective sigh rattled around the room but Gardener understood it. Sometimes the mountain continued to grow and you could see no way of scaling it. He picked up the two scrolls containing the biblical quotes, now sealed in evidence bags.

“We’ve now discovered that two of the victims each had a paper scroll accompanying them.”

“I never saw one on Michael Foreman,” said Rawson.

“None of us did. It was stapled to his back.”

“Stapled?”

“Yes,” said Reilly, “four, one in each corner of the scroll, and they were heavy duty. I reckon whoever did it wanted the scroll to stay where it was because they were embedded into bone.”

A few of the team winced and sucked in breath.

“What do they say?” asked Sharp.

“They’re biblical references.”

“Great,” said Thornton, “we’re not dealing with a Bible basher as well, are we?”

“I’m going to let Sean explain them.”

“Hang on a second,” said Rawson, retrieving his phone from his jacket.

“What are you doing?” asked Reilly.

“I’m going to record it and translate later.”

Reilly stuck two fingers up as the rest of the team cheered. When the noise died and the tension dropped, Reilly stood at the front.

“They are from The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as described in the last book of the New Testament. It’s the revelation of Jesus Christ to John the Apostle. The chapter basically tells of a book, or a scroll in God’s right hand. It’s sealed with seven seals. The Lamb of God opens the first four of those seven seals, which summons four beings that ride out on white, red, black, and pale horses.

“Now, interpretations differ in most accounts, but the four riders are seen as symbolising Pestilence, Famine, War and Death. The vision is that the four horsemen are to set a divine upon the world as harbingers of the Last Judgment. One reading binds the four horsemen to the history of the Roman Empire, an era that followed The Book of Revelation being written. In other words, they are meant as a symbolic prophecy of the subsequent history of the empire.”

“So who was wearing what?” asked Sharp.

“When we found James Henshaw this morning, his scroll represented Famine; extreme scarcity, especially of food.”

“Guess they got that one right,” offered Rawson.