December 11, 2022 Edinburgh, Scotland
The apartment had already taken on the putrid stench of death. Ripped open and eviscerated as if someone had dug through the intestinal tract, the contorted body lay surrounded by chaos: furniture overturned, pillows gutted, drawers emptied, carpeting pulled up, the ransacking seemingly desperate but futile. One blinding flash of a police camera followed another as the grisly evidence was gathered. Outside, along the wet cobblestones of Church Street, a crowd had gathered around the black-and-white coroner’s wagon and turned as one to watch a tall, athletic man in his early forties exit an unmarked vehicle, enter the building, and bound up the two flights of stairs to the murder scene. “What do we have here?” demanded Inspector James Macfadden, Special Investigations Unit of Scotland Yard, as he strode into the steamy room. He grimaced when the odor of rotting flesh assaulted his nostrils. “Inspector.” Constable Nigel Brodish, Edinburgh police, was caught off guard by the sudden appearance of an official from the Yard’s international branch. “We didn’t expect anyone from intelligence on the case. We’d been told it was a local matter.” Andrew Goliszek 2 Macfadden’s steely gray eyes zeroed in on the body. “Afraid not, Constable,” he said tersely. Brodish peered at the body with greater intensity as if reevaluating its significance. “It’s a nasty one, sir. If you ask me, it was a goddam animal behind this.” Macfadden lifted a handkerchief to his nose and walked slowly around the body. At Scotland Yard for nearly two decades, he’d seen it all, hardened by years of exposure and desensitization, assigned to the most gruesome cases until he could look at lifeless eyes and cold flesh and see nothing but a piece of evidence from which to pluck the clues that would lead to a final resolution. And though adept at hiding his emotions, the violent murders and terrorist bombings that indiscriminately tore innocent victim’s arms and legs from their bodies were something he couldn’t comprehend. Now, lying before him like a slab of butchered meat was yet another example of everything he hated about a degenerate society that would make someone do something like this. With keen eyes, he outlined the body and stared at the dried blood that had soaked nearly half the carpet in the room. He spoke softly, trying to free his mind of needless words as he concentrated. “Aye, an animal it was, Constable, but from the condition of this flat and the poor bastard’s dissected innards, I’d say it was an animal looking for something important.” He made a 360-degree sweep of the room before returning to the body, then leaned forward for a closer look at the stomach, which sat atop the chest in two finely cut longitudinal sections. “Has this body been moved?” “No, sir,” Brodish answered. “Hands and feet are Rivers of the Black Moon 3 still bound, mouth gagged to prevent him from screaming. As you can see, there’s quite a gash on the left side of the head. No doubt the cause of death.” “I’m not so sure, judging by the amount of blood.” Macfadden drew a wide arc with his index finger, indicating where blood had spilled onto the carpet, then pointed to streams of dried blood that spread outward from the body and where pulses of blood had spurted as a result of pressure from severed arteries. “This bloke may have been unconscious, but he was still alive when he was dissected. The heart continued to pump blood out into the room until it stopped. And by the contortions of the body, I suspect he might have come to before he died.” Brodish took a deep breath and swallowed hard at the thought of it. “Poor bastard woke up and realized what was happening.” “It’s obvious that whoever did this didn’t find what he was looking for,” Macfadden continued. “No, this was no ordinary animal, Constable. This was a careful, premeditated search for what must have been worth digging through someone’s guts for.” “Microfilm?” “Perhaps. A piece of paper. A small object. Who knows?” Macfadden removed his drenched raincoat, took out a pair of latex gloves, and snapped them on. “Look here.” Lifting one of the loose pieces of stomach, he removed thin slivers of glass and several threads of carpeting from the chest, placing them in the palm of his extended hand. “These were stuck to the flesh beneath the stomach by body fluid, which means the body was the last place the attacker looked. And if he’d found what he was looking Andrew Goliszek 4 for in the stomach, he wouldn’t have dissected nine feet of intestines… probably had the bloke tied up while he searched the flat, then in desperation whacked him across the temple and decided to look inside one final place. No, it’s a safe bet nothing was found.” Macfadden signaled for the body to be taken out and, with his eyes to the floor, maneuvered carefully around debris that was scattered as if a windstorm had rumbled through. “Where’s the landlord?” he asked, eyes still focused on the floor. “On holiday,” Brodish answered. “Neighbor says he left five days ago and should be back tomorrow.” “Did you question the other tenants?” “Only two. Neither heard anything. But they both work and probably weren’t home when it happened.” “Yes, of course. Anyone who’d done this would have made sure no witnesses were present. Anything else?” “They confirmed the name Richard Zarnoff, but not much else. Both agreed he was a strange sort. Kept to himself. They didn’t see much of him during the time he’d been here.” “What was he doing here?” The black body bag moved past them and disappeared through the doorway. Macfadden waited for a response as he walked to the window and looked down at the crowd. “All they know is that he was some sort of scientist. Spent some time in Africa, they found out during one of their conversations with him. He was planning to attend a scientific meeting at the Hilton next week before going back home to America.” “Which is where?” Macfadden turned back to Rivers of the Black Moon 5 Brodish and peered at him from atop the rim of his glasses. “Salt Lake City, Utah. He worked at the university medical center there.” “Odd.” Macfadden’s mind was now sifting through bits and pieces of the preliminary evidence, comparing what he’d just been told to what he already knew. According to Brodish, an American AIDS researcher named Richard Zarnoff travels to Edinburgh from Africa, rents a seedy room in an out-of-the-way section of the city, and lives in near seclusion for a month until being brutally murdered and mutilated a week before attending an international AIDS conference. But there’s more to this, Macfadden reminded himself. Such as the fact that a few days before the corpse turned up, Scotland Yard had been informed by FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. that a top American AIDS researcher was missing somewhere in Europe and thought to be carrying data that would turn the scientific community on its head. And what would the researcher’s name be but Dr. Richard Zarnoff, of course. And what better setting to stun the scientific world than at an international conference. Whoever had done this to Zarnoff was no lone sociopath, Macfadden was certain. “Have you talked to anyone else?” he asked Brodish. “No, but one of the tenants suggested we try the local pub crowd. She’d heard from the regulars that a few pints loosened the bloke up a bit, if you know what I mean.” “Right. I’ll go down and get a pint myself…maybe get lucky. Find out how many scientific societies are involved in this conference next week. Names of Andrew Goliszek 6 organizers, speaker coordinators, vendors, everything. If Dr. Zarnoff was going to present some of his work, I want to know what it was.” “Right, sir. I’ll report to Scotland Yard as soon as I find anything.” Macfadden turned back to the rain-streaked window in time to see the coroner’s wagon pull out and head south on Church Street toward St. Mary’s Hospital, where an autopsy would determine the time and exact cause of death before the remains were sent back to the States. He followed the wet tire tracks with his eyes, then looked up at the leaden morning sky that hung over Edinburgh, wondering if it was all worth it: the gruesome bodies, the sickening smells and scenes of death, the failed marriage that grew as lifeless as the corpses he examined and finally ended with adultery during one of his investigative trips abroad. Nothing in his secretive world made sense to him anymore, each case more vile and confusing than the last. It was as though his ordered world were losing whatever remnants of civility it had; and in each tortured body, every mutilated face and terrorist attack, Macfadden saw a growing social abyss and feared he was becoming more a part of the violence and the hatred than he’d ever imagined. “Will you be needing anything else from us today?” the police photographer asked as he packed up. “No,” Macfadden answered with a deep sigh. “Just make certain I get a detailed report when you’ve finished.” “Very good, sir.” The forensic investigative team remained busy, dusting for remaining prints, combing through every Rivers of the Black Moon 7 square inch of the apartment, gathering every piece of evidence it could pluck from the wreckage. Macfadden tiptoed carefully around the mess, took a last, cynical glimpse backward, and inhaled deeply the second he escaped into the hallway, though the foul air had already polluted his mind and, as if to remind him again of the vile nature of his work, had buried itself deep into the fibers of his tweed jacket.
