The memories fade, but you don’t forget. For a while, I waited for a knock at the door, but no one suspected an eighteen year old. I joined clubs when I retired, new hobbies and pursuits opening up to me, yet I remain distant from those who reach out for friendship. It’s too late for me to change now.
My new green wellington boots from the sale at Shoe Zone grip the pavement nicely. It is perfect snow: the kind that crunches as you walk on it; the stuff that sticks together like glue and would roll into the biggest snowmen.
The village is peaceful. The individual stone houses and cottages look beautiful sticking out of the white background. This area used to almost be a separate entity to the centre but, in 1967, Peterborough was made a new town to house London’s overspill population. The pace of development was incredible. Thousands of homes spread out and surrounded picturesque areas like mine with faceless houses that all looked the same.
A short walk away, the Herlington shopping parade’s brutal architecture wouldn’t look out of place in Russia. Only the minimart is open. As usual, numerous young kids hang around outside when they should be in bed. The temperature can only be a few degrees below zero, and I perspire in my layers. I can’t spot either of the Chapman sisters, and there are too many people about. Although I’m not worried that anyone will remember me. No one ever does.
A man with a growling Staffie lurches past. Shouted voices and herbal smoke from the wide open window of a flat above the shops drifts into the street. I imagine quite a few here lead criminal lives. There are always those who choose to break the law. This is the moment to decide if I should act.
I could go back home, turn the computer on and resist. That’s what I’ve done for all these years if I felt the stirrings of anger at the world’s injustices. It’s easy to find relief now just by typing the words into Google. That reminds me of putting things straight back then and that’s enough. I used to think everything should be left in the past.
I read that self-harmers in prisons are given red pens to draw lines on their legs or arms. It signifies the bloody cuts and gives them the same sense of release without causing any damage. I would type red snow into the search engine and it always calmed me down.
But today for some reason that control has disintegrated. Now I’m sure I will kill again.
I think back to the lives I took before. They were different times then. There were no forensics as such and there didn’t seem to be much interest in solving the crimes either. I read an article later showing offences in the city dropped after my murders. Perhaps I did the police a favour. I should do so again.
I saunter through the streets behind the shops. This part of Orton Goldhay, a suburb of Peterborough, is mostly pedestrianised. The wind swirls through the alleyways that were supposed to make everywhere accessible but ended up as a maze into which the crooks could escape. Unless the helicopter they share with two other forces is nearby, the police have no chance.
There’s no one else about, just the crunch crunch crunch of my footsteps. I find my way to the edge of the field behind the school and pause to catch my breath. The view is magnificent. A huge expanse of snow unsoiled by humankind stretches out into the distance.
Did guilt retire me from killing all those years ago? Didn’t I choose life? I’m beginning to feel that I haven’t lived one. I’ve changed these last few weeks. I’m starting to think that the deeds I did back then are my only achievements of any note. If I’m to start again, it will need to be tonight as, according to the weather forecast, the snow will have melted by midday tomorrow.
I was patient in the past, waiting months for the right conditions. Now, time is not on my side. Besides, it doesn’t matter if I get caught at this stage. I want the world to know. If my family’s deaths are remembered due to my notoriety, then so be it.
Two tall youths walk towards me, both wearing thick, dark hoodies. I stare at their faces through the flakes, and I’m pretty sure one is Big Chapman’s block-headed boyfriend. The men don’t notice me. One has trainers on, the other slip-on black shoes, and they slither and slide on the pavement, focusing on where they place their feet. It’s crazy footwear for a night like this. They stop to light cigarettes and throw the matches over a fence.
I follow behind, close enough to hear their swearing, grinding my teeth.
I’m too old to attack two youngsters, unless I’d brought a gun, of course, but one of these losers will do if I get the chance. At the kids’ BMX track, where the snow-covered humps resemble mini-Himalayas, the men bump fists, and one darts down an alleyway. The other has a furtive look around, but doesn’t glance behind him. He heads to the metal container that they use as a café when the busy meets are on.
Ironic that the boys who raced around here on their bikes are using the same bicycles to deliver drugs. This man is part of it. He stands at the corner and urinates on the floor. The splashing hides my approach. The snow is ruined, soiled by a worthless yob. Sometimes they make it too easy.
I know what to do, even after all this time. The padding on my special gloves gives me extra grip. With a snarl, I stab the sharpened screwdriver into the middle of the target’s back. Its brilliant point slips in with no resistance and I ram it home. The worry of not being strong enough was unnecessary. I think it enters the spinal column, which will instantly incapacitate him. If my aim was out, I might have speared the heart or a kidney, or maybe the liver. Any of them will do.
The youngster arches his back. His scream bursts out, loud and shrill, long and clear, but is swallowed by the night. I resist plunging the sharpened end in again and again. I was younger and angrier all those years ago. Family motivated me. That’s not the same drive as wanting to rid the world of worthless drug dealers. He falls to his knees, his head turning in agony. I ignore the man’s pain-filled, snarling threat. It’s over for him. I’m shocked though. It’s not Block-head, but he has the look of a criminal.
I crouch over my victim and do the world a favour. The blood in the snow can be my reward.
12
DI Barton
Barton’s eyes opened slowly, and he stared at a colossal violet-blue sun. It took a few moments for him to realise that he was looking at the TV. The film had clearly finished a while back. He didn’t bother with a watch these days, so hunted for his phone, which had slipped onto the floor. The screen flashed notifications as it turned on. Worryingly, there were two missed calls from DS Zander and one from Detective Chief Inspector Naeem, his immediate superior. He jerked upright.
Climbing from the recliner, he stretched his back out, and realised he felt refreshed, apart from the wet patch on his bum. The phone told him 6:00. He hoped the empty beer bottle lying on its side explained his damp rear. Eight hours’ uninterrupted sleep though was a distant memory and might even be worth an accident.
Two of the missed calls occurred two hours ago, the other just a few minutes ago. He rang DCI Naeem, the last one.
‘Hi, John. Sorry to call you early when you’re off, but we’ve found a body on your patch.’
‘Murder?’
‘Yes, it looks that way. Young male and a violent death.’
‘How recent?’
‘No rush to get here. The doctor confirmed life extinct an hour ago. It’s like something from a horror film. The pathologist has just arrived, but the remains are solid, so the culprit will be long gone. I know it’s your day off, but I thought you’d want the option to be involved. DS Zander was first officer attending around 3:00. I told him not to ring you. I wanted you getting your rest because we’ll need refreshed officers to solve this as fast as possible.’
‘I’ll be there within the hour. Where is it?’
‘The BMX track behind Steve Woolley Court. You can’t miss it, everyone’s here.’
‘Make that thirty minutes.’ Barton disconnected the call.
Barton’s brain whirred and he thought of Lawrence. He hadn’t heard him come back in last night. Cursing as he stood on a plastic dinosaur in the gloom,
he shuffled his feet along the laminate floor so he didn’t repeat the incident. Ears strained as he moved from the lounge. The boiler kicking in was the only sound.
Terrible thoughts gathered in his head but the years on the job enabled him to put them to one side. There was always time for fear later. He bounded up the stairs and opened Lawrence’s bedroom door. A crumpled, seemingly unslept-in duvet covered the bed. Barton’s heart raced.
A slim foot slid out of the covers. He crept as lightly as he could to the headboard. Lawrence didn’t look so gobby when he slept. Barton kissed his fingertips and placed them on the lad’s forehead. And breathed.
He jumped as he shut the door when a shout came from Layla’s bedroom.
‘John, is that you? If not, who the hell let a rhino in the house?’
Barton popped his head into his daughter’s room. A peaceful looking Holly cuddled up with Layla. She waved at him.
‘Did you fall asleep in here again?’ Barton asked. Holly often succumbed to the cuddle for a bit ploy of Layla after she had her story.
‘Sorry, John. I’ll make it up to you. Did you wait up for me long?’
‘I was buttered up and ready to go for hours.’ He gave her a wink. ‘Look, they’ve discovered a body over at the BMX track. I’m going over there. You know the score. I’ll grab a quick shower, and ring you when I have more details.’
The light remained on in his younger son’s room as usual. Barton’s weight on the bare floorboards made an almighty creak as he stepped across them and when he peered in, Luke’s eyes opened.
‘Daddy, you told me bacon comes from pigs.’
He sat on the edge of the bed and ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘That’s right.’
‘Does it come out of the pig like milk comes out of a cow?’
At four years old, Luke was a proper boy and he preferred his facts grisly.
‘It is the pig, so it’s really a pig’s bottom sandwich, not a bacon sandwich.’
‘I want a pig’s bottom sandwich now.’
‘Okay, ask your mum when it’s time to get up. Go back to sleep.’
Grinning, and knowing Luke would be up within a few minutes, Barton crept into his own bedroom and smiled at the matching bra and thong on his pillow. Next time. His freshly washed fleece hung on the door, so he took that, clean clothes and thick socks, and showered in two minutes. While brushing his teeth, he stared at his reflection in the mirror.
The hair he had left, he kept short. His forehead was getting higher and soon he would want to shave his head, but that made him look thuggish. When he played with the kids in the pool on last year’s summer holiday, Luke shouted, ‘Monster, monster’, and Lawrence, watching, had called out, ‘No, I think it’s human.’ That was a bit how he felt, like a hairy backed, great white beast. Ten years had raced by since he’d joined CID. Had his department aged him or life itself?
Holly arrived and peed behind him; the mystery long gone. She slapped him on the bottom.
‘Oi! You fell asleep downstairs.’
‘No, I did not. I was limbering up and poised for a marathon session.’
‘You never came to bed. Our duvet is as I left it.’ At his open mouth, she laughed and said, ‘I should be the detective.’ She kissed him, and he didn’t mind her morning breath.
Barton tiptoed downstairs as best he could and checked his watch. Fifteen minutes: not bad. With the kettle boiling, he delved into the cupboard under the stairs and pulled his walking boots out and one of the big flasks he kept there. As he laced his footwear up, his brain clicked into gear.
People thought of Peterborough as a London-commuter town but it was closer to Birmingham than the capital. Most people had heard of it but weren’t really sure where it was. A high-speed train exported people to London in fifty minutes but hadn’t imported the deadly crimes. Peterborough had few murders and most of them were domestics or involved alcohol so were easily solvable.
He wondered what type this would be. Professionally, he looked forward to the challenge, but he also appreciated that whoever had died last night would have a mother and others who cared. It wouldn’t be one person’s life ruined.
He shouted up the stairs that he was leaving and thought back to his comment to Holly earlier that she knew the score. She worked as a teaching assistant, which fitted around the children’s lives perfectly. That was how they rolled. His job came first, and she never complained. Strange how he had never considered that before. Was it fair? Maybe he’d surprise her later by putting her naked-lady apron on and doing the vacuuming. That always made her laugh.
Outside, he entered a winter wonderland. Three inches of snow had buried all the vehicles, but he didn’t worry about clearing the windows or his car starting. A murderer had struck less than a five minute walk from his house.
13
DI Barton
When he arrived at the field at the edge of which sat the BMX track, there was no mistaking the crime scene. Even though clouds hid the moon, glare from the emergency vehicles’ lights lit up the gloom, reflecting light off the snow. It could have been daylight. The fierce wind from earlier had blown itself out. He strode across the snow covered grass and could tell the temperature was edging above freezing as the snow turned to slush under his feet.
An unexplained death grabbed officers’ attentions. Any personnel out on the road attended if they had nothing better to do. Barton nodded at a traffic officer leaving the scene and the man pulled a grim face.
Cambridgeshire constabulary was an average sized force with an average sized budget. They suffered under the financial cuts, as had most, but the previous year crime increased by a shocking 25 per cent. The most damning stat was that seventy-eight crimes were committed for every thousand people. With who knew how many offences going unreported, the actual figures were likely to be much worse.
Not only London commuters flocked to the city for its inexpensive housing, but many immigrants also arrived for the plentiful jobs. Peterborough sat on the transport crossroads between the capital and the north. Being on the edge of the fens, the city was surrounded by flat, cheap land. Warehouses and distribution centres abounded. Ikea and Amazon gave thousands of people a chance, even if they didn’t speak English, as they stepped off the buses from Eastern Europe and the police budget hadn’t increased in line with the rising population.
Thankfully, murders were rare. This wasn’t London, and it certainly wasn’t America. The homicide rate was a measly twelve per million people but Barton never thought about that side of things. His attitude had always been to crack on with it. Do his best. And that started by putting his brain in fact mode.
Female murder victims usually get killed by their current or previous partners but as this victim was a man, probably a friend or an acquaintance had murdered him. When they found out who victims were, it usually pointed in an obvious direction towards likely suspects. There was over a 30 per cent chance he would have been killed by a sharp instrument. Most likely a knife.
The outer cordon was manned by a uniformed officer who Barton didn’t know, so he showed his warrant card when challenged. After checking her name badge, he watched PC Zelensky fill in the scene log before she raised the tape for him. The increase in crime meant they had finally started recruiting again.
This new recruit looked about nineteen and eight stone. She was in for a steep learning curve, but she’d had the balls to challenge him, so kudos to her. Officers, often the higher ranks, would try to barge in and peek at gory scenes when there was no need for them to be there. The scene guarders were not just present to stop the public.
The first person he recognised next to the tent and inner cordon was Detective Chief Inspector Navneet Naeem, his immediate superior. She would be the Senior Investigating Officer. Barton loved her name. She kept her relationship with her inspectors and sergeants formal, but she and Barton had known each other for years. She’d introduced herself to him all that time ago when they were both beat constables by joking that he wo
uldn’t forget her name because it sounded like a character from Star Wars.
She was fifty-five and retiring in six months. Peterborough had always been a multicultural place, and ethnic minorities were well represented in every department. She broke the mould though. Her parents had come over from India in the fifties, and she’d had a normal education and an arranged marriage at twenty. At forty, when the children could just about look after themselves, she decided she wanted to be in the police. It was almost unheard of back then, a woman of her background and age.
The whole department loved the story. She said at the interview, ‘I want to work in CID.’ The expression on her face meant no one smiled.
When Barton joined CID ten years ago, she was already a Detective Sergeant. When she attained DI, he made DS, and when they promoted her to DCI, he made DI. She often joked that his sticky doughnut fingers had got stuck on her coat-tails. Now he wanted her final position, but worried it might be a step too far for him.
Despite what he’d read in many detective novels, Detective Chief Inspector remained primarily a desk job. The DCI ran the investigation, but wouldn’t be out knocking on doors or grilling suspects and witnesses. That was Barton and his team’s task and he was a natural at it. His paperwork, on the other hand, could be improved, and he wondered how he’d feel doing more of it.
He also lacked confidence in dealing with the top brass. When he first arrived in uniform two decades ago, the management rubbed their hands at his size. He couldn’t even count the number of football matches he’d attended for crowd control. If a disturbance broke out in a pub, they called Big John Barton. Send in the battering ram.
The Snow Killer Page 6