The Nameless Dead Read Online Free Page A

the city—they’ve got two small kids—but up here he was less concerned.’
    Sebastian and Arthur Bimsdale got as close as they could to the hanging man, the younger agent visibly shaken. Sterling Anson, a Caucasian in his early forties, was naked, the ends of his long brown hair dipped in his blood. The wound across his throat was wide and clean-edged. Apart from the removal of his eyes, his chest and abdomen had been mutilated. He had been cutfrom groin to sternum, with another incision running across the belly button.
    ‘It’s inverted,’ Sebastian murmured, glancing at his assistant. ‘If he was standing the right way up, the cross would be upside down.’
    Jamieson was immediately alert. ‘You seen something like this before?’
    ‘Not exactly,’ the FBI man replied, turning to the CSI. ‘Has anything been drawn or written in the house? Anything in red?’
    The blonde woman shook her head. ‘What were you expecting?’
    Sebastian didn’t answer. The swastika in Laurie Simpson’s apartment had been kept from the media to avoid copycat actions. ‘Have you been through all the rooms?’
    The woman looked at Jamieson and raised an eyebrow. ‘We know our jobs, sir,’ she said, her chin jutting.
    ‘Not suggesting you don’t. But this killer strikes me as highly devious.’ He turned to Bimsdale. ‘Arthur, you go with Martine here and check downstairs. Lift all the rugs, take all the pictures down.’
    ‘No stone unturned,’ said the young agent earnestly.
    Peter Sebastian watched them go and then looked at the detective. ‘We’re going to do this floor together. Have you got a camera?’
    Jamieson nodded, his expression stony. ‘Why would the murderer hide something when he left his victim in full view?’
    The FBI man gave a humorless smile. ‘Two pretty dubious assumptions behind that question. First, justbecause Sterling Anson was made a display of doesn’t mean the killer wasn’t subtle in other ways. Second, you just classified that individual as male. Why?’
    The detective rubbed the back of his head. ‘It would have taken some strength to haul him up there,’ he said, looking at the beam. ‘Even though he wasn’t the biggest of men.’
    ‘And there are no women strong enough to do so?’
    Jamieson raised his shoulders, but he looked unconvinced.
    Peter Sebastian ran his eye around the room again. As with the first floor, the furniture was old and the décor in tatters. There were several reproductions of artworks on the wall, but his attention was immediately attracted by an amateurish painting of Martin Luther King above a bookcase. He stepped over, his heart pounding, as he realized that the other frames were all slightly awry, while the doctor was perfectly aligned.
    ‘Take some shots,’ he said to Jamieson, and when several angles had been photographed, he reached out and took the painting down. The wall behind was unmarked.
    ‘Damn,’ he said, under his breath. Then he turned the frame around and got an immediate adrenaline rush. Two inches high and painted twice in red was the letter S —jagged and fraught with the weight of history.
    ‘Shit,’ said the detective, ‘Is that what I think it is?’
    ‘If you’re thinking that those letters form the initials of the SS, Adolf Hitler’s elite guard, then the answer is affirmative.’
    ‘So some neo-Nazi bastards did get him.’
    Sebastian didn’t reply. He wasn’t worried about neo -Nazis; his concern was over the son of a genuine Nazi— Heinz Rothmann, responsible for the failed plot to kill the President in the autumn. He stepped out of the room after giving Sterling Anson’s body a last look. It wasn’t just that Rothmann junior saw himself as a real Nazi. He had also resurrected the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant, a vicious cult that included among its rituals human sacrifice—with the victim suspended from an inverted cross, throat cut and eyes put out. The problem was, Heinz Rothmann had disappeared more