Читать книгу The Element Of Death - Steve Wilson - Страница 10
ОглавлениеOne – Goblins and Elves
The phone rang shortly after six p.m. and I replaced my bookmark before putting my novel down on the table. I hadn’t spoken to anybody for a couple of days, so my voice was a bit throaty as I answered. “Ben Watson speaking.”
“Watson. There’s been a…it’s a bit difficult to talk about on the phone. There’s been an incident and it involves you.”
I knew straight away who the caller was: DI Jordan Creswell, my former boss; it was rare for any of those bods to call anybody from my department. There could only be one reason. “Is it anything to do with Gregory?” I asked. “He hasn’t been seen, has he?”
“Not exactly, but there’s been a murder which fits his MO and there’s something you need to see.”
“Why me? I’m back-office now, I don’t do crime scenes. Besides, I’m…not at work at the moment.”
“I know all about your situation, Watson, and I know you’re not a front-line officer any more. Normally, I’d leave you geek-guys to your computers and puzzles, but this isn’t normally. You’ve been named, specifically. There was a message, scrawled on the wall in the victim’s blood, and it was for ‘Holmes’ lapdog’. Get down here. Now.”
I shuddered. It was beginning. “Okay, I’ll get straight over. It’ll be good to get out of here. I know that might sound odd, considering what you just said, but we’ve all been expecting something like this and nothing is worse than sitting around waiting for it to happen.” I was about to put the phone down, when I added, “Hadn’t you better tell me where ‘here’ is? I know I’m a technical guru, but that doesn’t make me a mind-reader.”
He gave me the address and I jotted it down. The murder had occurred in the Sherwood district of Fulwood, one of the more select areas of Preston, and they were waiting for me to get there.
Despite the urgency, there were things I had to do before I could leave. I was a bit like Rupert Penry-Jones’ character in television’s Whitechapel, who was sometimes unable to function as a result of his neat-freak OCD tendencies. I wasn’t as bad as he was, but I couldn’t leave without tidying up. I picked up the novel I had been reading, Conan Doyle’s The Return of Sherlock Holmes, and removed the bookmark; I would have to finish The Adventure of the Dancing Men another day. I placed it on its shelf in the ceiling-high bookcase, and also put Christie’s The ABC Murders back in its correct place, in between 4:50 from Paddington and The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding. Finally, I returned The Da Vinci Code to sit alongside Brown’s other Robert Langdon novels. Then, and only then, did I set off for the car. As I headed towards it I let my mind wander over the events of the last couple of weeks; I had thought about them a lot during those fourteen days.
*
Gregory’s escape had been headline news for most of the past fortnight. The public were aghast at the fact that such a notorious serial killer could be on the loose again, and debating continued long into the night in parliament as the coalition government tried in vain to justify their policy on private security firms being given responsibility for the country’s most evil criminals.
At a local level, Lancashire was on high alert, and all police leave was cancelled while the local constabulary set about house-to-house searches in a bid to catch him before he began a new killing spree. Everybody remembered the chilling words that he uttered from the witness box during his trial: You haven’t heard the last of me. I would have been happy if I’d finished them all, but you stopped me before the final one. When I return, I will start again, and it will be a longer sequence next time. Bear that in mind, and tell Holmes’ lapdog that I’ll arrange something special, just for him.
Holmes’ lapdog. That was what he had derisively called me throughout the trial. He maintained that his capture owed nothing to good policing methods and everything to a blundering patrolman who struck lucky. The man on the beat will be a deadbeat by the time I’m through with him was one of his more printable statements.
The force took the threat seriously enough so that as soon as news of his escape hit, they despatched a patrol to keep watch on my home; in these days of cutbacks, that was a big investment to make. Even so, had Gregory headed straight for my place once he was out, by the time the patrol was authorised and mobilised it would have been too late for them to stop him.
I remembered the exact moment I heard about his escape with crystal clarity. It was October eighteenth at three-fifteen in the afternoon. It was the same day I found out what was really happening with Monika and I had been sent to ‘work’ at home following the incident at the station. But I didn’t want to think about that right now. Instead, I let my thoughts wander to the beginning, and the time that I thwarted Morgan Gregory.
*
I was a policeman on the beat in those days, and had been for several years. As I was in my late twenties, I knew I should really be advancing in my career, but I enjoyed my job, and consequently didn’t push myself forward as much as I should have done.
Much of what I did would come under the heading of community policing — something that is sadly missing now with all of the cuts that have taken place — although there were times when it could be a harrowing role. The Gregory case had put us all on edge. Nobody knew anything about him — even his name was unknown then — and that added to the air of menace surrounding the killings. He had chosen his victims according to some bizarre ritual so that each killing had a link to the old nursery rhyme. You know, One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told. His first killing had taken place at a funeral home, the next at a maternity unit.
The whole country was nervously waiting for him to strike again, even though he had confined his first six murders to the North of England. Everybody was desperately trying to convince themselves that they were safe because they had nothing to do with the final line of the rhyme, the secret never to be told; but everybody had secrets, so nobody was safe.
I was on patrol in Garstang and had been called to deal with a domestic disturbance. The woman, Beverley Evans, had thrown her boyfriend out after she had found out he had been cheating on her and the man hadn’t taken too kindly to it, hence the reason I had been sent for. I made it abundantly clear to the man that he was no longer welcome in her home, and returned to Ms Evans’ address to let her know that we had taken the appropriate action. As I was about to leave, I saw a box full of lingerie on a chair in the front room, and she saw me looking at it.
“It isn’t what you’re thinking,” she said.
“How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“I know. Believe, me, I know.”
“Enlighten me, then, Ms Evans.”
“You’re thinking, ‘Where have they come from?’ and ‘What sort of establishment is this woman running?’ Admit it.”
“I’ll admit to being curious as to what they are doing here. Since you’ve brought the subject up, what are they doing there?”
“They’re samples from work. I’m a bra specialist — I work for Seductively Secret as a demonstrator. I’ve a party tonight, that’s why I’ve all these,” she said, flinging her arms wide to show another two boxes on the other side of the room.
“Well, each to their own. I’ll say goodnight, Ms…” And then it hit me. The entire force had been puzzling over where the killer the tabloids had nicknamed The Magpie Murderer would strike next. It had been four weeks since his previous killing, and, as they had all taken place at four-weekly intervals, we expected that the final one would occur some time during that day. We just had no idea where, that was the problem. All we had to go on was that the victim would somehow be linked to a secret.
“About this party. Is it something your company organised?”
“After an invite, are you? Sorry, men aren’t allowed in. We don’t do those sorts of functions.”
“No, that isn’t it at all. This is an official enquiry.”
“Oh,” she replied, clearly taken aback. “No, this is something I’ve organised. We do freelance work as well as what the company arranges for us. This job came from…” She paused a while as she sorted through her bag, looking for her diary. “Here it is, look. Mr Pica rang me four weeks ago. He was very specific about it being tonight, and at exactly twenty past eight. I had to decide whether or not to rearrange a couple of things to accommodate. But, as you can see from the stock, he’s bringing hundreds of women along to the warehouse and I could make more money tonight than I normally do in a month, so it was an easy decision to make.”
I thought for a moment before replying. Gregory’s obsession with detail, especially as far as timings were concerned, was something that I was acutely aware of, having similar compulsions myself. Another officer might not have even noticed, but the time resonated with me. I could visualise the symmetry of the numbers, and, allied to the name of her employer, I was now convinced that I had made a key breakthrough in the case.
Ms Evans was looking at me, expecting a response to her answer, so I asked, “And does this sort of thing normally happen?”
“No, not normally. But it does on occasion, so it’s not totally unheard of. Why? Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know. Leave it with me.”
I rang the station and told the desk sergeant what had just taken place. “It was when I heard she worked for Seductively Secret that I wondered. And then, when she told me the time of the meeting, it seemed to confirm it. Do you think there’s anything in it?”
“Maybe, maybe not. What was the man’s name again?”
“Pica.”
“Peeker? Sounds like we’ve a peeping Tom on our hands, not a serial killer.”
“No, it’s not spelt like that.”
“How do you spell it, then?”
“P-I-C-A.”
“That’s a strange name… What was that? Just a minute, Eddie Parkinson is talking to me.”
Parkinson was one of the senior officers, and he was often the victim of ribaldry because of his love for birds — the feathered kind, I must add. On this occasion, his ornithological knowledge was to prove invaluable. I could vaguely hear the discussion taking place, and then the sergeant spoke to me, very slowly. “Eddie has just informed me that the scientific name for the magpie is the Pica Pica. I think you might have found our killer.”
And so it turned out. Instead of Ms Evans, an undercover police detective went to the warehouse, where she found nobody in attendance but Morgan Gregory. He wasn’t, though, expecting the back-up that broke into the building moments later, and the killer was apprehended before he could complete his ‘rhyme’ killings. Everybody was surprised when we discovered that he was a young, baby-faced, clean-cut man who was a few months short of his thirtieth birthday. He was barely older than me, and what I would have described as 'eminently suitable; if your daughter had brought him home to meet the family, most parents would have been delightedly making wedding plans.
The evidence against him was overwhelming. Gregory didn’t even deny his part in the ritualistic slaughtering, but he claimed that it wasn’t murder, as he was obeying orders from a voice only he could hear; it was a convenient defence, and experts lined up to confirm his insanity. His conviction was never in question, but instead of spending the rest of his life in a maximum-security prison — which could easily have been sixty years of incarceration — he was sent to the mental health institution that ultimately allowed his escape; the system had failed the British public once again.
As for my own career, it changed markedly after that night. Any officer might have made the connection had they been in my situation, but I liked to think my peculiar talents had come to the fore that evening. I had always been fascinated by words, numbers and patterns, and, because of the nature of the Magpie rhyme, had possibly put more thought into it than most. As soon as Beverley Evans mentioned who she worked for, my subconscious picked up on the name and made the link. Gregory might well have derided me for being lucky; I liked to think that it was good policing, hearing a seemingly innocuous word and understanding its relevance.
Buoyed by the headlines the case generated, I found myself moved away from the front line and thrust into the plain-clothes role that I had never previously considered. Only Eddie Parkinson seemed to resent my success, claiming that if it hadn’t been for his specialist knowledge, we wouldn’t have known it was Gregory. I ignored his cheap jibes, though, and threw myself into my new job with gusto, yet I didn’t forget the chance encounter that had put me in that position. I used my spare moments to research thoroughly into the Magpie Murders, to try and get into the killer’s mind in the hope that it might prepare me for my new career.
It worked, perhaps too well in one respect. I became obsessed with my attempts to understand him, to the extent that, like Gregory, I became a slave to the clock. At first, it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience, though I found myself unable to make a move into or out of a building unless the second hand had reached the sixty-second mark. Nobody else was aware of my new-found foibles, fortunately, and my work didn’t suffer to any noticeable extent.
I didn’t find my new position as easy as I had thought it would be. I had to try and get used to the fact that a detective’s life was nowhere near as precise as a beat constable’s. In my old role, I had a defined set of rules to work to, and kept meticulous notes detailing exact times, locations and actions. All of that seemed anathema now, and I began to realise that the ‘maverick’ detectives portrayed on screen were not as far from reality as I’d believed. Nevertheless, I tried my best to adapt to the expected persona of my new role, and, although I didn’t know it at the time, the Gregory incident would eventually change my life.
*
I felt as if I’d been released from captivity as I drove through the Preston streets. I’d no idea how long my ‘working’ from home would have continued, but the phone call from Creswell altered the dynamic. Now, I was on the case once more. I knew I would have to face blood and gore once again, but it still felt good to be back in action following my enforced sabbatical.
I arrived in Fulwood and parked the Jaguar in a leafy suburb close to the newspaper buildings. I wondered if the press were already onto this case. It was easy to see where the crime had taken place, as dozens of police cars were on the scene. I walked over to the Do Not Cross line, flashed my warrant card and ducked under the tape. The house was a fairly modern detached two-bedroomed affair, and looked to be in immaculate condition. I stepped onto the plush white carpets, my feet sinking a couple of inches into the deep pile. The living room was tastefully decorated and a white three-piece suite took centre stage; or, it would have done under normal circumstances. Now, though, it was heavily blood-stained, as was everything else within the room.
My immediate reaction on entering the room was to gag at the stench. “What is that?” I asked.
A PC, from the local nick, no doubt, answered. “It smells a bit like ammonia, sir.”
“Where’s it coming from?”
“It appears that the body was doused in it for some reason.”
I walked towards it, and the smell intensified. The combination of ammonia and the stink of death was overpowering. I sneezed and reached for a tissue.
“Careful, sir. You’ll contaminate the crime scene.”
“I probably already have,” I muttered, reminding him that I hadn’t been given any protective clothing to wear when I entered the building. I leant over the body, looking at all of the disfigurations. “Were these made before or after death?” I asked.
“The pathologist hasn’t said yet, sir.”
“Where’s the message? The one I’ve been called here to see.”
The officer pointed towards the far wall. I looked across, at the dried maroon lettering that stood out sharply against the bright white wall-covering; the woman really had loved that shade. The letters covered three quarters of the wall space. “That must have taken a lot of writing. Who would have thought a body could contain that much blood?” I looked at the officer, who shrugged his shoulders.
DI Creswell saw that I had arrived and he walked towards me. “How are things, Ben? Have you got over…? I mean, how are you dealing with the Monika situation?”
“Monika?” I laughed. “She’s not a problem, I assure you.”
Creswell looked relieved, and I could understand why; especially if he knew how I really felt about her.
*
Monika. I certainly wasn’t ‘over’ her, and I wasn’t dealing with the situation well at all. My time at home hadn’t helped me come to terms with what had happened; in fact, now, it was all about Monika.
I hadn’t been a detective long when our paths crossed. I was working on a joint venture with the German Bundespolizei in Düsseldorf. Our remit was to investigate a sex club that was believed to be a front for a large drug importing and exporting operation. That was where I met her. It was exactly seven years ago to the day. Just to make it clear, she, too, was working undercover, and I was assigned to work alongside her. Our first meeting, though, didn’t augur well for the future. I remembered in great detail how she sashayed in at quarter past three in the afternoon as if she owned the place. She reminded me of the oval-faced actress Naomi Archer, star of one of my favourite television shows from my youth, All Saints and Sinners, but I tried to ignore that image. I disapproved of women who willingly worked in the sex trade and didn’t want to associate the person standing in front of me with the woman I had a crush on during my teenage years.
“You can’t come in here,” I said as she tried to enter the club.
From the look of disdain on my face, she obviously knew what I was thinking.
“I’m working here,” she replied, in a voice without a trace of accent. She spoke slowly and carefully, as if she were explaining her actions to a child.
“Not today, you aren’t. The club is closed. This is official police business. I suggest you go somewhere else and do whatever it is that you do. Go on, leave, achtung,” I added, thinking that she’d probably understand more if I used her native tongue.
I expected her to go, but she just said, “Gott im Himmel, dummkopf.”
I looked startled, and she laughed, icily. “I thought that would get a reaction. You English think we all talk like that. I will not leave because I am on duty here.” She pulled out a card and held it close to my face. It read ‘Monika Ziegler, Polizeimeister’. “Satisfied? We are to work together on this case.” She flicked her head, sending her flowing blonde locks cascading over her face, but the look she threw at me indicated that she had no hope that ours would be a successful collaboration.
I tried to make up for the bad first impression I had made by buying Monika what I thought was an amusing present as a reminder of my misunderstanding during that meeting. It was a purple aluminium mini vibrator. Unfortunately, Monika failed to see the funny side of this, as she said, “I wouldn’t be seen dead with that inside me!” I realised that, instead of improving matters, I had made an awkward situation much worse.
However, despite our rocky start, the joint operation was a success. I soon saw that she was extremely proficient in her job, and I think that she found me to be a fairly competent policeman and gradually began to have a little respect for me.
The more we worked together, the more we began to understand each other, and we found that we shared common interests in music and literature. I knew that the appeal of Conan Doyle was worldwide, but I hadn’t expected Christie, with her tales of predominantly upper-class middle England, to travel so well. Monika was twenty-seven, three years younger than me, and lived in Mönchengladbach, a journey of around half an hour by rail from Düsseldorf. She had always wanted to work in England, and this case gave her the opportunity to experience, at firsthand, British policing procedures. When the case was successfully concluded, I returned to Preston, but we kept in touch and six months later she transferred to the Lancashire Constabulary, and came to live and work at what we termed ‘the station’ at Hutton.
Our working relationship extended our friendship away from the station, that friendship became a romance, and eventually we moved in together. That was six years ago. In the months and years since, a lot had happened. Being a front-line detective brought me into contact with some of the lowest of life forms. I would defy anybody to witness some of the brutalities that man inflicted on his fellow man and remain unchanged by them. Some people could get through this and come out the other side unscathed. I wasn’t some people.
My response was to immerse myself in my work, almost to the exclusion of everything else. I didn’t even notice the effect this was having on Monika, although, with hindsight, I suppose it was obvious. The more I withdrew into myself, the more my compulsions began to take over. At first, she found my little foibles endearing. I was obsessively neat and tidy. She wasn’t. She would come in from work and fling her jacket across the room, then smile while I stopped whatever I was doing to ensure it was picked up and neatly put away in the correct place. I couldn’t settle until the washing up was done; Monika would happily go out leaving a sink overflowing with pots.
She stopped smiling about my idiosyncrasies when they began to affect her life. My obsession with the clock was becoming so serious that it affected everything I did. I viewed it as therapeutic, as concentrating on the clock allowed me to temporarily prevent the gory images from overwhelming me, but I hadn’t taken into consideration the effect I would have on Monika.
What had initially been an inconvenience, as I would wait until the second hand reached sixty before doing anything, became a problem when I found I had to wait until the minute-hand also reached a five-minute mark, and then it was further extended to my only being able to enter or leave a room at quarter-hour points.
Whenever we went out, it became a major operation, and on numerous occasions we were late because I had been unable to leave until the minute hand completed its slow traverse across the clock face. It put a strain on our relationship, although I worked hard to combat my illness. Eventually, when my inability to make an instant decision almost led to a colleague’s injury, I had to admit that it was having an effect on my ability to do my job, and I applied for a transfer to a less onerous position.
Management were sympathetic and allowed me to transfer to a back-office role at constabulary HQ in Hutton, where my technical expertise came to the fore. I knew more than most about computers, and I had the type of mind that could solve logic problems that baffled many people. Working on the crime-fighting software packages seemed the natural way to go, especially as in that job my obsessive behaviour was less likely to put any other officers at risk. Away from the front-line action, I was once again able to make a valued contribution to the crime-fighting team, and I began to exert a level of control over my obsession, although I was never able to banish the images that were imprinted on my mind.
Although I kept my rank — indeed, in some aspects I was seen as important as any DI as cyber-crime was becoming one of the biggest problems for forces worldwide — Monika was less happy with the change. I had told her it would be healthy for our relationship, as to be together every day at work and every night at home, especially given the stressful nature of much of what we encountered, would have put too much strain on any couple. At least, that was my opinion.
I didn’t see how much things had deteriorated until a few weeks ago. I remember every moment clearly. It was the first day of autumn, and with the changing of the seasons came an unexpected — for me — changing in our relationship. The time was shortly after three in the afternoon and we were at home, watching the DVD of The Hobbit, but Monika seemed distracted. I paused the film and asked if anything was bothering her. It was. I wasn’t making her happy any more. The clock chimed the quarter hour, but it was as if it were sounding a death knell to our relationship. Half an hour later, Monika was leaving, her bags already packed, to ‘stay with a friend’ while she thought things through.
I resolved to become a new man, to win her back, and began to court her at work with gifts of chocolates and flowers, while giving her the time and space to ‘find herself’. I had decided to leave it exactly four weeks from the night she left, then I would ask her to move back in again. I used those days well. Monika’s leaving had an effect on me that no doctor had been able to match, and I gradually began to take control of my life again. I still had obsessions, and I supposed I always would, but I didn’t let them govern my life any more. I was looking forward to her surprised reaction when she saw that the clock no longer influenced my actions.
The day before the four weeks was up, I found out that the ‘friend’ she was staying with was Theo Atkins, one of the detectives who we had both worked alongside when I was on the front line. It was hard to put into words how I felt when I found out. I supposed if I had to describe my feelings in five words, they would be desolate, betrayed, hurt, bewildered and angry. I tried to exclude Monika from blame, reasoning that she must have been extremely vulnerable and lonely after the break-up. No, there was only one villain of this piece.
I didn’t say anything to her when I saw her at work; I didn’t say anything to Atkins. Not verbally. My fists spoke for me, Atkins was hospitalised, and I was sent home with a huge question mark dangling over my career.
I was lucky, I supposed. Morgan Gregory’s escape that same day, and the well-known threats he had made against me, changed everything. My bosses decided a course of action of ‘working from home’ would be in everybody’s best interests, and that was where I had spent much of the intervening time, catching up on my reading and spending hour upon hour thinking. I thought about Monika constantly during that period, grudgingly accepting the reason for her leaving but imagining a range of increasingly unlikely scenarios where she came back to me. It was only the thought of getting her back that kept me going through my darkest moments. Not once did I feel remorse for what I had done to Atkins; doubtless he had felt none when he stole my woman from me.
*
I snapped back to the present as I realised that Creswell was talking. “…a nasty case here, Watson. A man doesn’t want to see more than one like this in his career.” Creswell looked older than his fifty-nine years. It was hardly a surprise. For a man who was on the verge of retirement, to be faced with a serial killer on the loose for what might be his final case was tough indeed. I felt sorry for him as I saw him brush back the few remaining strands of ginger hair that made him the spitting image of the man from the Hamlet advert; it was tough on him, yes, but, unfortunately, it went with the territory. Besides, he was able to dish it out, so he had to be able to take it as well; think of the irascible editor J Jonah Jameson in the Spiderman films and you’d have a pretty good picture of the DI. His colleagues would often refer to working for him as being in a love-hate relationship without the love part.
I could see that he was waiting for me to respond, so I asked him, “Any ideas what happened?”
“Not yet, though the pathologist reckons she’s been dead for about twelve hours. Her name is — was — Mandy Norris, twenty-four years old, single and an investment banker. She was one of the high-flying set.”
“So robbery’s a likely motive, then?”
“It doesn’t look like that, but we can’t be certain yet. If it was robbery, they left plenty behind. Her purse contained several hundred pounds, and it was in plain view in her bag.”
“So I guess it does sound like him again, then. What time was she killed?”
“I wondered when you’d ask that. I take it you’re still obsessed with the clock.” His face was expressionless as he spoke, but I could detect an element of contempt in his voice. I surmised that this was probably my one and only chance to convince him that I was fully recovered. And, once he had accepted that I was no longer a liability, I was certain that the word would get around and Monika would return home. That, though, would have to wait for another day.
“The clock watcher?” I said, with a hint of a grin. “That was another person in a different life. Here, I don’t need it any more.” I took off my watch and threw it onto a chair. “I mentioned the time because it was the right question to ask. I’ll put it another way, then. Did any of the neighbours hear anything?”
Creswell smiled. “You still have that investigative streak about you, don’t you? Such a shame, such a waste. To answer your question, the woman next door said she heard a scream at around four a.m. She was annoyed, because she expected they would have stopped by that time.”
“They?”
“The trick-or-treaters. They were around in droves until almost midnight, according to the neighbour, but it had been reasonably quiet since then.”
“If that was the case, didn’t she think to report it at the time?”
“No, because she said she heard the woman laugh as well. And, as I said, there’d been screams all night with it being Halloween. There are a lot of younger people in the neighbourhood and four a.m. is still early as far as they’re concerned. If she’d reported every scream, there’d have been police here on a dozen occasions.”
“Old Hercule was right,” I muttered.
“What was that?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking of a line I read recently. Something that Poirot said. To paraphrase it slightly, when do you notice an individual scream least? When it is one of a number of related screams.”
“You and your damned detective fiction! This is real life, damn it, not a story book. Somebody is dead here. It’s nothing like anything you’ve read. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sorry, sir. Of course I understand. What do we know about the victim?”
Creswell let out a deep breath before continuing. “From what we’ve been able to gather so far, she was out last night at a Halloween-themed event with some friends from work. They said the party broke up in the early hours, they all left the club, and that’s the last any of them saw of her. She didn’t turn in for work today, but they figured she’d probably had too much to drink. She wasn’t the only absentee, as a few of the girls had over-indulged themselves.”
“Who found the body?”
“Her boyfriend — he’s with the same bank. He had been to a morning meeting in London, and left for the capital yesterday early evening. He arrived back early this afternoon to find this. His alibi is rock-solid, though we don’t really need it. Not with that,” he added, pointing at the wall.
“I’d expected he would target me instead of embarking on another spree,” I said. “Not that I want some maniac to try and kill me, but at least it would stop innocents like Amanda here from getting themselves butchered.”
“Amanda? Oh, Mandy, you mean.”
“Yes, that’s right, Mandy. I guess it’s my formal logical side, imagining her entry on the police database under her full name.”
“Yes, I suppose so. Anyway, we’d hoped he would go after you — not that we want any harm to come to you, Ben. You remember what he said at his trial? He promised you a special welcome, but he also said he was going to start again, but on a longer sequence this time. You stopped him when he’d completed six of his seven self-appointed tasks. He is an obsessive. His mental state can’t allow something to remain unfinished. He has to have a perfect run. The problem is, how many will he go for next time? Ten? Twenty? A hundred?”
“Thanks,” I said, wryly. “So what you’re really saying is that if I hadn’t called it in when I found that underwear model, she would be dead, but nobody else would be in danger. That makes me feel really good about myself. Of course,” I added, “given his mental state, who’s to say that he wouldn’t have started a brand-new series anyway? Ten years is a long time. His first series lasted half a year. We could easily have had half a dozen such sprees since.”
“You misunderstood me. I didn’t mean to imply that you were in any way to blame. You were a damned good copper who used your initiative when we’d been trying to locate the potential victim for several weeks, without any success.”
“I know, it’s just me feeling a little sorry for myself. I realise that you don’t blame me for what happened tonight. The problem is, I blame me.”
“Don’t! That’s an order. I still outrank you, so put any such nonsense thoughts right out of your head. Now, about this message.”
“Thanks,” I replied, “and the best thing for me to do is try and solve this before it escalates out of control.” I looked at the congealed writing again, then walked over for a closer view. “I was right,” I said. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“I know. That’s one reason why we called you in. The other, of course…”
“Yes, I know. Because the killer has aimed it specifically at me. I know that, and, believe me, I’m not over the moon about it. I’m still a serving officer, though, so it’s my duty to respond. I accept that I’m probably the last person you want looking at this, given what nearly happened last time I was on a case.”
“No, that’s not true at all. We called you in because of your obsession with him over the past ten years. There’s nobody else — other than Gregory himself — who understands his mind as much as you do. We’re going to need to get inside his head to work out what he’s going to do next. You’re going to need to get inside his head.”
“Thanks, boss,” I muttered. I read the message:
This is for Holmes’ lapdog. He thinks he’s so clever, so if you want to try and stop the next one happening, you’d better hope he’s as good as he says he is.
I paused. “That’s the easy bit,” I said, trying to inject a small amount of levity into a sombre situation. I read the remainder, the part that didn’t make sense:
Kds’r rszqs vhsg zm dzrx nmd. Sghr hr sgd ehqrs ne lzmx. Gnv lzmx? Ad z fnakhm gdmbglzm, dke. Knnj enq Zmcx vgdm sgd mdws nmd nbbtqr.
“Any ideas?” asked Creswell.
“Not immediately.”
“Isn’t there some software you can use to crack codes like these?”
“There are plenty of applications out there, yes, but solving this depends on the code used. Some cyphers require a keyword, and without that you don’t stand a chance.”
“We’re stuffed, then.”
“No, I don’t think so. The message is clearly taunting me. There’d be no point to it if it was impossible for me to crack. Leave it with me — I’ll get home and work on my laptop to see what I can find. Can you email me a photograph of the message to make sure I don’t write it down incorrectly? The positioning of the letters might have some importance.”
*
I arrived at HQ shortly after eight a.m. the following morning. Any awkwardness that might have been felt at my return had gone; this case was far more important than petty jealousies. I was relieved to find that Atkins was still on sick leave, and, as he had never been the most popular detective at the station — only Eddie Parkinson took his side — the sympathies were well and truly with me.
Creswell was pacing nervously up and down as I arrived. “Any luck, Ben? Have you cracked it?”
I didn’t usually like it when he called me Ben instead of Watson; it usually meant he was in desperate need of help, and I lost a little respect for him each time he verbally grovelled to his team. This time, though, I understood his need.
“Yes, it was straightforward. Let’s start with an easy one—”
“There’s no need to flaunt your cleverness over the rest of us. It might be easy to you, but to us more normal mortals—”
“No, sir, you don’t understand. That’s how the message begins. ‘Let’s start with an easy one.’” I pointed to the photograph of the message from the crime scene, which was on the incident board:
Kds’r rszqs vhsg zm dzrx nmd. Sghr hr sgd ehqrs ne lzmx. Gnv lzmx? Ad z fnakhm gdmbglzm, dke. Knnj enq Zmcx vgdm sgd mdws nmd nbbtqr.
“In cryptology terms, the killer has used a Caesarian Shift cypher. In this case, it’s a simple one-letter backward displacement code, so ‘Kds’r’ is actually ‘Let’s’.”
“You’re losing me already, Watson.” Now that I had given him something, the more formal and in control Creswell returned. I knew that he probably did know what I was talking about, but he was an old-school copper who felt it didn’t suit his image to take note of all the ‘poncy university gobbledygook’ that people like me spouted.
“I know you don’t want all the details, but this really is a straightforward code. For every letter in your message, you substitute the one before it in the alphabet, so instead of writing ‘b’ you write ‘a’. Look, I’ll write the two alphabets out for you as it might make it easier.”
I wrote, on two lines:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
ZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY
Creswell made a grunting noise as he cleared his throat. “I see that you understand what you’re talking about, but, as far as I’m concerned, the message is just a jumble of letters. How did you know he’d used that sort of code?”
“If you look at it, it’s easier than you think. You see that single ‘z’ in the message? Well, you can assume that’s a word on its own, and it will either be ‘a’ or ‘I’ — if we assume it isn’t text speak for ‘u’. Think of the alphabet as circular. As z then comes immediately before a, it makes sense to assume that the word is ‘a’ and the one-letter displacement is being used. The message then translates to: ‘Let’s start with an easy one. This is the first of many. How many? Be a goblin henchman elf. Look for Andy when the next one occurs.’”
Creswell rubbed his chin. “Who the hell’s Andy? And what does that bit about goblins and elves mean? This isn’t Lord of the Rings.”
I flinched at the name, and he gave me a strange look; he wasn’t to know that his mentioning Tolkien’s novel reminded me of the afternoon when Monika left while we were watching The Hobbit. I tried to sound calm and collected. “There’s nothing that springs to mind from the book that could explain the ‘Andy’ part. Maybe one of the actors in the film was called Andy? Andy Serkis perhaps? Even if it is supposed to be him, I really don’t know the connection.”
“If you don’t know, then I doubt it can refer to an actor. It was aimed at you, so he must expect you to be able to understand it.”
Parkinson had been standing quietly off to the side, but he began to speak animatedly to rebuff the DI’s suggestion.
“Why must he? Watson’s decoded the message, so surely the rest is up to us real detectives, He’s back office now, remember. Besides, we know Gregory was mentally unstable, so why should we expect any message he leaves to actually make sense?”
I could see the veins bulging in Creswell’s neck. He didn’t like being interrupted, and he especially didn’t like being contradicted. I could tell that it was taking all of his effort to speak calmly and clearly as he responded. “You’re wrong, Eddie. Yes, Gregory claimed to be mentally unstable, but you know as well as I do that it was all just an act for the jury. His detailed level of planning proved, to me at least, that he was eminently sane. This message was intended for Ben, so I’m certain there’s something there that he can make sense of.”
Creswell turned to face me. “About the back-office part,” he said, putting an arm around my shoulder. “We’re going to need every man we have on this case, Ben, so I want you to go back out there with the team. We’re already two down — Atkins is on long-term sick, and Monika has returned to Germany. We all thought it best, considering what had happened. So I need you to be with us. With your experience, and as you have encountered Gregory before, I want you to be my right-hand man.”
He didn’t specifically say I was to blame for the team being short-handed, but the implication was evident. I wasn’t bothered about Atkins in the slightest, but the Monika situation was different. I tried to keep my voice calm and measured. “I didn’t think she’d leave. Can’t we do anything about it?”
“No, it’s all been sorted at the top level. She’s gone back to work with her previous section for a year’s secondment. It’ll give everybody some time to come to terms with things. I know she meant a lot to you, but, like I said, it’s for the best.”
My mind was in turmoil. I hadn’t expected this. She was going to be out of my life for a whole year. I had made plans, and she was central to them all. Now they were crumbling before my eyes. “When will she be back,” I asked, trying to keep the rising panic out of my voice.
“She left the day after the incident occurred. Like I said, we all thought it was for the best, and it was all sorted with a couple of top-level phone calls. She’s due to return next October.”
I considered what that meant, and took a deep breath. “I thought that she was with Atkins. Didn’t that mean anything after all?”
The DI paused before replying. “He’s gone over there as well. Once he’s fit for active duty again, he’ll be on secondment to the Bundespolizei. We’ve owed them that ever since we poached Monika from them. He’s due to return on the same day as Monika, October seventeenth next year.”
I forced myself to relax. “I guess I didn’t realise how much I would miss her. I assumed she’d be around, and I suppose I assumed things would find their way back to how they used to be.”
“It’s time to move on. You’re how old — thirty-eight, thirty-nine? There are plenty more women out there. Forget her.”
“I’ll try, boss.” As if that were possible. “Anyway, it looks like we might have our hands full trying to catch a psychopath. Next October will be here before you know it.”
Just then, a junior officer came in. “I’ve brought the lab report on the Norris death, sir,” he said, handing a manila folder to the DI.
Creswell opened it and read the two A4 sheets thoroughly. “Not a great deal to surprise us here. DNA shows traces of the victim and her boyfriend, naturally, and also Gregory. The only surprise, I suppose, is that there isn’t much of Gregory’s DNA at the scene.”
“I see what you mean,” I said. “He isn’t making any attempt to hide the fact that he’s behind this, so why wasn’t there more to find?”
“Unless,” he added, “he was covering himself up to avoid getting soaked in her blood? He knew what was going to happen, so maybe he wore gloves, or a face mask. Whatever he wore, he took it off when he left so nobody seeing him would suspect a thing.”
I thought about what I’d heard. “Yes, I can see that. He might even have put overalls on. Whatever he used, perhaps he ditched them somewhere nearby.”
“We haven’t found anything, but I’ll order another search. Somebody might have seen some in the bins without taking notice of them.” Creswell called one of the junior officers over and gave him the new search instructions.
“What about the murder weapon? Any clues as to its whereabouts?”
“They found it. It was one of the victim’s own knives and he’d replaced it on the rack after cleaning it. There were clear traces of blood at a microscopic level, and the pattern of some of the cuts she had received matched exactly to the knife’s serrated edge.”
“I’m beginning to get an idea of his thought processes,” I said. “He isn’t trying to hide who he is, but he still isn’t going to take the risk of bringing his own knife, and then potentially being found with it? Much better to travel light. Even though he has such a high profile, he has one of those ordinary faces that means he could almost be in this room right now and we’d never spot him.”
“Not quite,” said Creswell. “I’d know him anywhere, and, I’m certain, so would you. If not,” he added, “you’d better study those pictures long and hard. If we don’t get him first, at some stage he’ll come after you.”
“Thanks. It’s a sobering thought.”
“I know, but it’s true. Don’t underestimate him just because he hasn’t tried to get you yet.” Creswell skimmed through the report once more. “There are details about the liquid that the body was covered in. It was something called hydrazine or diazane. Have you ever heard of it?”
“Can’t say that I have,” I replied. “Was that what caused the ammonia smell?”
Creswell read some more. “Seems like it. The report says it’s a colourless flammable liquid with an ammonia-like smell. It’s highly toxic and dangerously unstable unless it’s in solution. They use it in rocket fuel. Acute exposure can damage the liver and kidneys and it’s also corrosive. They say it can be a carcinogen.”
I let out a low whistle. “Rocket fuel? How could he get hold of that?”
“It isn’t just rocket fuel. It’s in some pesticides as well, and in chemicals used in photography. So I guess you could get hold of it easily enough.”
I thought for a few moments. “This doesn’t make any sense. From what you’ve said, hydrazine is pretty unpleasant, but surely that amount isn’t going to kill anybody. At least, not straight away. Why bother when he’d all but gutted her already?”
“It wasn’t used to try and kill her. The report clearly states that it was added after she was dead. They could tell by the level of seepage into her open chest cavity and the fact that there was no blood flow at the time.”
“I repeat, then. Why bother?”
“That,” said Creswell, “might be the key question.”
*
The next few weeks passed far too quickly for the investigating team, although, with Monika never far from my thoughts, time dragged for me. Despite conducting house-to-house searches across the county, there was nothing to indicate that Gregory existed. I was tasked with trying to solve the puzzle that had been left for me, but, as I repeatedly told Creswell, out of context it made no sense. He was seriously unimpressed.
Everybody called Andy on the criminal database was checked and investigated, but nothing of any significance was found. As the month drew to a close I was called into Creswell’s office. It was just after midnight, and I was about to leave for home after another frustrating evening. I was unprepared for what came next.
In contrast to the haggard appearance that had been his constant companion for the last four weeks, he looked positively relieved. “Do you know what today is, Watson?”
“No, sir. What do you mean?”
“The date. It’s the thirtieth. We’ve just ticked over to a new dawn.”
I looked at him as if he’d lost his marbles. “Yes, it is. And tomorrow will be the first.”
“You don’t get it, do you? The Norris killing took place on the night of October thirty-first, November first. That’s twenty-nine or thirty days ago now, depending which date you take. All of Gregory’s murders last time took place at four-weekly intervals. Exactly four weeks, almost to the minute. I was dreading getting a call yesterday to say he’d struck again, but he hasn’t. I think we might be all right.”
I didn’t want to disagree with my boss when he was so obviously filled with relief, but I felt I had to. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Remember the code I cracked? It told us it was the first of many. He left a cryptic message that we haven’t been able to decipher yet. He must be planning more.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t. But what if something has happened to him? There hasn’t been a single sighting of him since the murder. What if he was the victim of a hit and run or something like that?”
“You’re grasping at straws, boss. There’d been no sign of him before the last one, but it still happened.”
“Yes, but that was only a fortnight. This has been almost a month. A month! Surely there would have been something in that time if he was still alive, if only something to taunt you — us — for our lack of progress. I can feel it in my gut, Watson. Everything is going to be okay.”
I looked at him, reading the desperate hope in his eyes, eyes that begged please let me be right, but I couldn’t find the words to reply; I knew that we hadn’t heard the last of Gregory.
