The Book of Death (Bourbon Kid 4)

on
the news. His files say he spoke with you about it on a couple of occasions. I
want to know what you’ve got on it.’
    Clay leaned back in his chair.
‘It’s the child killer case isn’t it?’
    ‘Yeah. How d’ya guess?’
    ‘Because it’s been pissing me
off how De La Cruz never did anything with it. And like you, I can’t work out
how it never made it onto the news.’
    Harker liked the fact that his
colleague seemed to care as much as him. ‘I’ve got a theory on that. I think De
La Cruz was protecting the killer.’
    ‘I can believe that, but why?’
    ‘I suspect it was another
vampire.’
    Clay screwed his forehead into a
contorted frown. ‘That would actually make sense. The evidence would back it up
too.’
    ‘Good. So what have you got? Any
DNA or anything?’
    ‘Not exactly,’ said Clay turning
back to his computer. He started tapping away at the keyboard as he spoke.
‘However, there’ve been seventeen murders that I know of.’
    ‘Actually it’s more like eighty
six.’
    Clay raised an eyebrow. ‘Like I
said, seventeen that I know of. But in terms of DNA we’ve got nothing,
no saliva, blood traces or anything like that. What we do have to link all
seventeen of the murders i—’
    Harker interrupted. ‘A green
tongue and bite marks on the neck?’
    ‘How did you know?’
    ‘Like I said, I’ve been going
through De La Cruz’s files. The bite marks yells vampire at me, but I don’t get
the green tongue part.’
    ‘It’s a kind of poison. All
these kids were drugged by an unidentifiable green solution. It causes almost
instant paralysis.’ He paused and peered over his glasses once more, no longer
tapping on his keyboard. ‘But there’s something else. Something that De La Cruz
dismissed out of hand as coincidence, but quite clearly it’s a huge clue in the
case.’
    Harker perked up in his seat.
‘What?’
    ‘For twelve of the seventeen
victims we found something else. Grey hairs. Usually only one, sometimes two or
three, but on several occasions the victims had the grey hairs underneath their
fingernails.’
    ‘Like they fought back before
the paralysis set in?’
    ‘Exactly.’  
    ‘Well can you get a DNA match
for the hair?’
    Clay grinned. ‘Good question. De
La Cruz was taking away all the hairs away to analyse them himself, but he
never returned any of them. Kept claiming I’d never given them to him and all
kinds of other excuses. But, lucky for you, I kept the most recent one. Never
told him about it. I knew he would make it vanish if he got his hands on it, so
I kept it here and did some analysis.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘It’s not human hair.’
    Harker raised his eyebrows to
emphasise his surprise at the remark. ‘What?’
    ‘It ain’t human hair. It’s goat
hair.’
    ‘Goat hair?’
    ‘Goat hair.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘And nothing. It’s goat hair.
You’re the detective, not me.’
    ‘So, it’s like a trophy or
something? A calling card to identify the killer?’
    Clay shrugged. ‘Like I said,
you’re the detective. Personally I would have said the green poison and the
bite marks were a perfectly adequate calling card. No need to leave the goat
hairs intentionally too.’
    ‘True.’ Harker scratched his
chin. ‘So why goat hair? I guess I can go looking for someone who owns goats.
This could be a fairly useful clue.’
    Clay smiled. ‘Yeah, all you
gotta do is find a vampire who happens to be a goat herder in his spare time.’
    ‘You got any better
suggestions?’
    ‘ Jesus , Harker, you’re
slow.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘It’s not a goat herder or a
shepherd you need to be looking for.’
    Clay turned the monitor on his
computer around for Harker to get a good look. He stared at the screen for a
few seconds, puzzled by the picture of a person he recognised. Then the truth
hit home. He shook his head. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Goat hairs. Sonofabitch.’

 
    Eight

 
    Ulrika Price had encountered
numerous problems during her time as Head Librarian at the Santa Mondega
Library, but right now she had possibly the most serious crisis of her career.
She had lost The Book of Death. Rameses Gaius, her master, had entrusted her as
the keeper of the book with two simple instructions, log names in it when
instructed to and never under any circumstances lose it. The previous day she
had logged three names in it at his request, but then she had carelessly left
the book unattended and it had vanished.
    She had suffered a