James Locker The Duality of Fate
Martin Lundqvist
Published by Martin Lundqvist, 2018.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
JAMES LOCKER THE DUALITY OF FATE
First edition. July 20, 2018.
Copyright © 2018 Martin Lundqvist.
ISBN: 978-1386246503
Written by Martin Lundqvist.
Also by Martin Lundqvist
The Divine Zetan Trilogy
The Divine Dissimulation
The Divine Sedition
Standalone
Matt's Amazing Week
James Locker The Duality of Fate
Watch for more at Martin Lundqvist’s site.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By Martin Lundqvist
Chapter 1 A new detective
Chapter 2: The Miranda DiMaestro murder
Chapter 3: The police work around the Miranda DiMaestro murder
Chapter 4: The Jessica Hall murder
Chapter 5: Gentlemen: we got a serial killer
Chapter 6: The attempted murder on Emily Luong
Chapter 7: The Case gets solved
Chapter 8 Darkness unfolds
Also By Martin Lundqvist
Chapter 1 A new detective
1.1 Prologue
Crime Inspector James Locker was lying awake in his bed sweating. He had been off his anti-depressants for a while which was a necessary step to feel anything at all and go back to a healthy life. James Locker was thinking about her, and he still could not comprehend what had happened that fateful day seven months ago. He and Emily Luong had had a massive fight. Why had they fought? His memory was so blurry on the subject; that he now in retrospect could not understand it. She had left with $ 20,000 of their savings and a day later he had received a text; that she despised him and she never wanted to see him again. Of course, he could have filed a police report with the stolen property department as it technically was his money she had taken. But he never bothered about this, money was not an issue for him, and his primary concern was to understand what had happened so he could avoid it happening again. Getting his revenge by turning her in, to his colleagues and having her deported to some third world hellhole; well he just loved her too much to do that even though she had broken his heart. He thought about calling her, but he did not.
Ironically his career had never been going as well as it had the last seven months. He had been able to solve some high-profile cases through his intelligence and dedication to his work. Not feeling anything in particular and walking in an emotional desert was apparently a good thing when it came to solving murder cases, and he had been promoted to police inspector a few months ago and seemed to be first in line to further promotions if the legendary Crime Detective Michael Fuller was to resign. Not that he thought that would happen anytime soon though as Michael Fuller had 9 years until retirement and was a man who was actually living for his work; probably due to lack of other areas of joy in his life. In this way, the current situation of James Locker and Michael Fuller were pretty similar.
James Locker's nightstand clock showed 3 AM which was 5 hours to go before he and his colleagues and best friends Thomas Anderson and Adam Smith were heading to the airport for a month of travel in Asia. They have persuaded him to join them for a crazy month of trips, adventures, boozing, and banging. Or as Adam Smith had put it “Hey look, James, I know it’s been tough for you with this Emily thing, but it’s time to man up and meet some other girls. Let’s go to Asia, and hook you up with at least ten girls so you can finally feel attractive enough to find the awesome girl we both know is out there for you”. James Locker smiled realising that his friends would probably pay some local talent to pretend to be genuinely interested in him and then sleep with him to build up his self-esteem. He decided to go for the plan with the motivation “Why not, it can only work better than the talk about my childhood crap that my psychologist has charged me an arm and a leg for in the last seven months." If his friends, however, did not intend to pull this off, he would not visit prostitutes on his own. Not because he had any strong moral objections to pad sexual services, but merely because he was not very turned on by the impersonality and dirtiness of the whole business. James Locker took a shower, made himself some breakfast and enjoyed it in front of the TV while waiting for his friends. In spite of his insomnia, he felt relaxed knowing that he would probably fall asleep on the plane and thus have more energy than his friends once they reached the destination. The date was the 17th of July 2013.
1.2 A past case summarised at the police station
AS THREE BROKEN, BUT happy heroes James Locker, Adam Smith and Thomas Anderson came back to the police station a month later. To their great joy, the impressive Michael Fuller had solved another challenging, high-profile case while drinking whiskey in his bathtub at a record pace giving them at least a few quiet days before the heat started again. The police policy was rewarding the staff for solving a case quickly and correctly as this encouraged staff to work a lot of overtime in the critical first days of a murder case. Since the police department lacked the funds to give performance bonuses, the staff members were rewarded with the cases being divided equally between the different murder investigation teams. Since Michael Fuller was an incredibly dedicated detective, this usually meant they would have to work very hard for the first few days until the solution just magically popped into Michael Fuller's head, often while he was drinking whiskey in his bathtub. It was an internal joke in the department that if they gave Michael Fuller a tub and a whiskey bar in his office, he would never need to go home, and the rest of the staff would never need to go to work. This joke was of course not entirely accurate as it sometimes happened that James Locker solved a case or two, especially since his break up from Emily Luong. Michael Fuller also needed the rest of the staff to find the clues he then would use to get the full picture; required to apprehend the perpetrator and put him or her behind bars. What was true was that Michael Fuller was an exceptional talent and that more than 90 % of the cases assigned to his team ended up with conviction.
Michael Fuller greeted the talented trio:
- Good day mates, how great it is to see you all. Due to my brilliant brain, I solved another tricky case last Friday, so this won't be the worst return to work for you. Let's go to the lunch room and have a chat about your holiday and my latest case!
They went into the lunch room, and each had a cookie. James Locker started the talking:
- Hey, Michael, I can't get how you solved that last case so fast. To me, the situation seemed completely psycho, from what I read in in the newspaper over the internet.
Thomas Anderson interrupted the conversation:
- Sorry guys for not reading the newspaper while enjoying my life 8000 kilometres away, what was the case?
Michael Fuller
- It was the Father Walker case; a senior Anglican priest was killed and found horribly mutilated.
Adam Smith
- Yeah, we get those cases sometimes, what was the full story?
Michael Fuller
- We found the priest tied to the altar. His genitals were first corroded away by boiling sulphuric acid, and then half his face was burnt away by the use of a blow torch. After that, the numbers 666 were tattooed on his forehead, and finally, a sharpened crucifix was driven straight through his heart.
Thomas Anderson
- That's psychotic, how did you solve it, through looking for an escaped patient from a mental institution?
Michael Fuller
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- Not really, you see this act took a lot of planning; firstly the perpetrator would have to sedate the priest to get him tied up on the altar. Secondly getting all this equipment mentioned would be complicated for a person with a mental health condition chased by the government to acquire and thirdly I got a feeling this case was very personal against this specific man and not just aimed at any priest.
James Locker
- Yeah, I agree with all these claims but yet I don't fully understand how you could get this Agnes Montecristo woman that quickly, I mean after all they had not met in seven years.
Michael Fuller
- Because I am better than you are mate, I am more experienced, and I have a wealth of knowledge. You see in contrary to your belief I am not only lying alone in my bathtub listening to classical music and drinking excellent Scotch. The bath and whiskey, indeed help my thought process, but to have a method of reflection a man also needs input from the outside. No a lot of the time I read, and I can honestly say at the age of 56 that I have probably read all the literature even remotely related to my field as a crime detective.
James Locker
- I see. What source of ancient wisdom were you applying this time?
Michael Fuller
- I found the solution in the third amendment to the Anglican religious law written by the Archbishop Humphrey Godspeed during the witch hunts in 1734...
- In this book, I found out that the murder entirely resembled an execution method for one, particularly horrible crime.
Adam Smith
- So the priest was a child molester then? That seems like an old story these days.
Michael Fuller
- Not exactly, the punishment was for a man who raped his sister and the outcome was a demonic child, in a modern speech a child suffering from incest-related diseases
James Locker
- So you found his sister then?
Michael Fuller:
- Yes, but it was not easy since no sister existed in father Walkers family history. But I realised one thing, the perpetrator must be a woman in father Walkers past. I asked the church administrator for the names of formerly devout churchgoers who just suddenly stopped going. That how Agnes Montecristo's name came up. After checking the registry, she indeed had a daughter born approximately nine months after she stopped going to church. These events took place, as I said earlier, seven years ago.
Adam Smith:
- So how did you proceed?
Michael Fuller
- I just confronted her with what I knew, and as I expected, she broke down immediately. But don't worry even if she changes her mind we have a lot of evidence against her now! If you are interested, you can read about in the report when it's time for her trial.
James Locker:
- I am sure I will, but until then I just have one question, why did she act the way she did?
Michael Fuller:
- Well. She was very religious, and abortion was out of the question. So to protect her unborn baby from the truth, she just left and kept the secret for herself. She did pretty well; she moved to the USA and set up a religious bookshop, which was flourishing. All of this changed a year ago when her daughter got sick, and the hospital deemed it was due to incest-related diseases. The social services took custody of her child, and this scattered her life. She decided to go back to Australia and get revenge on the man who ruined her life.
Thomas Anderson:
- A truly tragic and scary story
Adam Smith:
- Indeed but let’s now focus on something genuinely uplifting and inspiring instead: let us tell you the great story of our wonderful month in Asia!
1.3 An awesome month in Asia.
SINCE THEY WERE NOT very busy, they went out to buy some excellent and massively overpriced coffee at the local coffee shop and then brought it back to Michael's office to have a chat about their holiday. Due to clumsiness Adam, unfortunately, managed to turn on the microphone to the intercom which led to the rest of the Central Sydney Murder Investigation Department hearing their conversation.
Thomas Anderson:
- Woo, how strange this coffee tastes? I can’t remember when I last had a non-alcoholic drink, apart from water that is.
Michael Fuller
- So you did not drink coffee at all in Asia? The caffeine withdrawal must have been killing you?
Thomas Anderson:
- We drank heaps of coffees boss, just that all of the coffees were of the Irish variety
- The problem with drinking Irish coffee in Thailand, however, is that you have to get it mixed with the local Thai Whiskey which has a rancid taste. But since they charge an arm and a leg for real Scotch over there, we just had to suck it up and drink it anyway. The effect is the same, and after a few drinks your tastebuds numb off, and it all tastes the same.
Michael Fuller:
- Yeah, so say the aboriginal goon drinkers as well. Although I am a well-paid man with sophisticated taste, so I only drink whiskeys that come at around $100 a litre.
Adam Smith:
- Oh anyway, the lousy whiskey had an impressive effect on James who managed to outperform even the highly set hunting goals we had in mind for him. For the first time since Emily came into his life, he was back to being the master hunter we all know he is.
Michael Fuller:
- Hunting goals? Let me get this straight you guys set up a goal for how many women James should have sex with?
Adam Smith:
- That is correct sir. You see, according to Neil Strauss in the Game, the best way to get over an ex-girlfriend is to hook up with ten random women. Since we have been listening to him whining about Emily for seven months, we thought it was time to get him laid to end the whining once and for all! And how he did it 12 women in a month! Master Hunter is back.
Michael Fuller:
- So you guys bought prostitutes in Asia, and now you brag about it? How lame is that?
James Locker:
- To be fair Adams story is not accurate. I did date the same woman for most of my time in Asia, and she was awesome, but sadly I did not feel that she was what I am looking for. I might have had sex with two other women, but that is far from the man-whore Adam describes me as.
Adam Smith:
- I stand corrected. To be fair since I did not put a spy cam in James' hotel room; I don't know what he did with the women he brought there. He did, however, bring 12 women to his rooms during our holiday. To me it seems highly illogical to bring a lot of women to your room without enjoying the spoils of your conquest, but if that's what he likes who am I to object?
- But he is right about the women not being prostitutes. His cover story about going to a third world hellhole to find true love, also known as buying a wife, worked out just fine. Since he is only 32, have a fit body and a hot face he was a lot more attractive than the other wife buyers over there that were generally over 45, fat and ugly. I must say...
Adam Smith was interrupted when the newest addition to the team Samantha Robinson entered the room. She was 22 years old and fresh from the academy. Samantha was around 170 cm tall weighing around 60 kilos. She had the perfect mix of strength and physique as well as femineity. Samantha was all in all a beautiful policewoman and would probably have won "the hottest policewoman of the year" competition provided of course that the Sydney police department promoted such a contest, which they did not. She smiled at Adam Smith with a very sarcastic smile.
Samantha Robinson:
- Great to have you back guys, and it’s even greater that you are sharing the best of your stories via the intercom.
Adam Smith panicked and turned off the intercom, and the other guys did not feel at ease either.
Samantha Robinson:
- Don't worry guys Adams voice is the only one that I could hear, probably due to him sitting closest to the microphone.
The other guys looked relieved while Adam Smith looked like he was getting close to a panic attack.
Samantha Robinson
- On and don't worry about me reporting you to HR. I don't mind you sharing your hunting stories, although it would probably be better if you did so at the pub during after-work drinks than on the CSMI intercom.
- Oh and Adam I bet you a hundred bucks that the BITCH is angry with you right now.
The BITCH was the commonly used nickname of Barry Itch, the head of The Central Sydney Murder Investigation Department. He had received his nickname the following way: The E-mail addresses in the CSMI department was in the format [email protected] which lead to the E-mail Address of Barry was [email protected]
He was a very tedious and annoying person who through his strive for political correctness and antidiscrimination policies was the de-facto dictator of the department. This dictatorship was because of his rigid interpretation of anti-discrimination policies where most things could somehow be considered to be offensive to someone. Barry Itch was the most easily offended person ever so most of the time anyone in the department felt offended it was Barry Itch who was behind the report. He was thoroughly disliked, and there were two disparate theories in place as for why he acted the way he did.
- Michael Fuller and James locker thought he acted the way he did to overcompensate for how he acted when off duty. From this point of view, they believed that he was living in a Sadomasochistic relationship with his wife, and thus acted overly politically correct to cover this up as he lived in shame of his real behaviour. Since both Michael Fuller and James Locker disliked people who they believed were beating up their wives, they disliked Barry Itch thoroughly
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