by Ken Preston
“I don’t know, but the last thing I expected to find was Toothy Naturist Man, prowling around with his dick in his hand. What about you, Coffin? Way I hear it, you just got out of jail yesterday morning. Not exactly keeping a low profile, are you?”
“Haven’t had much choice in the matter,” Coffin said.
“You hear about those two crackheads got killed yesterday? You know anything about that, Coffin?”
“Only what I read in the papers,” Coffin replied. “You’re not telling me everything, are you? How did you know to go to that house?”
Emma shrugged. “Reporter’s intuition, I guess.”
“Bullshit.”
“You don’t believe in intuition? Listening to your gut?”
“The only thing my gut tells me is when I’m hungry and when I’m full. What my eyes and my ears are telling me right now is that you’re full of shit.”
“Now who’s being charming?”
The door opened, and Karl walked in, holding up another first aid kit, like it was a trophy. “Finally found one!”
“Sorry, Karl, we won’t be needing it anymore,” Emma said, her eyes fixed on Coffin. “Mr Coffin’s decided it’s best if he leaves now, goes and gets proper medical treatment at a hospital.”
Karl looked from Coffin, to Emma, and back to Coffin again. “Yeah? Is that what’s really going on? Because I’m getting a different vibe here.”
Coffin stood up. “Is that your gut talking?”
Karl stepped quickly to one side as Coffin pushed past him and out of the door. Gel haired guy gave Coffin the dead eye as he walked through the newsroom, but Coffin ignored him.
Karl and Emma watched Coffin until he had disappeared behind the elevator doors.
“What was that all about?” Karl said.
“Coffin wanted some info I wasn’t prepared to give him,” Emma replied.
“Same as the info you’re not prepared to give me? I still have no idea what happened to you, today. You look like you’ve done ten rounds with Mike Tyson. What happened in that house, Emma? And more importantly, seen as we had a reporter on the scene when the shit went down, which from the state of you and Joe Coffin, I’m guessing is what happened, why the hell aren’t we writing it up for tomorrow’s edition?”
Emma looked away, bit her lip. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
Emma looked back at her editor. Her eyes were shiny. “Coffin should have snapped that guy in two as soon as he saw him. You’ve seen Coffin now, seen him in the flesh. He walked into your office, he filled it, right? Didn’t seem possible that we could fit inside, too. The man’s huge.”
Emma took a deep, juddering breath, as she remembered the fight, the blood spraying across the walls and the floors, Coffin’s flesh splitting apart in ragged rips.
“What happened, Emma?” Karl whispered.
“I watched them fighting. And no matter how many times Coffin put this guy down, he got right back up again. It was like watching the fucking Terminator, Karl. He absolutely would not stop.”
“But Coffin stopped him in the end. The police are down there now, probably taking the body back to the morgue as we speak. Once the police break the news they have the guy who’s been slashing people’s throats and drinking their blood, that’s it, it’s over.”
Emma scrubbed at her face. All she wanted was to climb into bed, forget about everything for a few hours. “I don’t know, I’m not sure it is over. I think this runs deeper than any of us realise, and Coffin’s mixed up in it, somehow.”
Karl raised an eyebrow. “You should be careful, Emma. You don’t want to go messing with Joe Coffin, or anyone from the Slaughterhouse Mob, for that matter.”
“Too late for that, I’m already in way too deep with three of them.”
Karl sat down behind his desk, pulled the cigar from his mouth and examined the soggy end, all chewed up and falling to pieces. “Three of them? Who else you been rubbing up the wrong way, besides big old King Kong?”
“Tom Mills was about ready to punch my lights out, permanently, this morning, and then there’s Steffanie.”
Karl threw the cigar in the bin, and leaned forward, his elbows on his desk, his hands together, fingers interlocked in a steeple shape.
“Steffanie’s dead, Emma,” he said.
“Yeah, I know.” Emma rubbed her face in her hands. “You hear about that murder of the homeless guy they found this morning?”
“Yeah, we’ve written it up for tomorrow’s edition. Why?”
“He had his throat slashed, just like Steffanie and Michael, right?”
Karl opened his drawer, pulled out another cigar, and peeled the clear plastic wrapper off. “Well, that was one of his wounds, yeah.”
“One of his wounds?”
“Didn’t you read the copy? Poor bastard was carved up so bad, he looked like he should have been hanging from a meat hook in a butcher’s shop. We’re still waiting for a statement, once they’ve had an autopsy done, but from what I hear, it looked like he’d been attacked by a savage animal. The same way Coffin looked. Trust me, Emma, I think your guy’s the man everyone’s been looking for.”
“So the papers won’t be going with the Birmingham Vampire angle tomorrow?”
Karl jammed the cigar in his mouth. “I doubt it. Who knows, they might run with it the day after. What’s going on, Emma? You see a vampire at that house?”
“No, of course not,” Emma said.
“It’s just, if you thought you had, it would have been kind of a big coincidence, you know.”
Emma sat up. “What are you talking about, Karl?”
“Couple of days back, we ran a story about a furore at the city blood bank. Seems there was an inconsistency in the audited stock levels, and the actual stock levels.”
“You mean someone’s been stealing blood bags? But who would do that, and how?”
Karl shrugged. “Who knows, maybe it was Count Dracula, wearing his invisibility cloak.”
Emma stood up. “I’m going to head home, get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Karl got up from behind his desk and walked over to Emma, put a hand on her shoulder. “You seen Nick, yet?”
“No, he’s handling the crime scene down at the house.”
“Don’t you think you should tell him you were there? Hell, Ems, you’re a witness. You should be going to the police with what you saw, with what happened to you. So should Coffin.”
“Joe Coffin got out of jail yesterday. There’s no way he’s going anywhere near the police.”
“And what about you? Why are you avoiding them?”
Emma thought about this for a moment. She thought about seeing Tom Mills, rushing those two people out of the house, draped in blankets. Smuggling them away in his car. One of them had been a woman, she was reasonably sure of that. But the other one, he’d had to carry. What the hell was that all about?
“Emma?”
“Huh?” Emma looked at Karl, came back from inside her head.
“You should go to the police, Emma.”
“Maybe,” Emma replied. “I’ll see you in the morning, Karl.”
Emma left the office, and Karl watched her go, a look of deep concern on his face.
shania twain is a lesbian
Blue light washed over the house in waves, casting deep shadows and then chasing them away, over and over again. A police car and a Scene Of Crime transportation unit sat on the drive, with two police cars parked on the street.
Vaughan Pierce sucked hard on his cigarette butt, and then flicked it across the drive. It landed in a small shower of sparks. Pierce let the smoke trickle slowly out of his nostrils.
Smoking seemed to be about the only pleasure he had left in his job. The government had sucked his pension scheme dry, frozen his salary, increased his working hours, and were now drowning him in paperwork and health and safety protocols. Technically speaking, he wasn’t allowed to smoke at a scene of a crime, bu
t, technically speaking, he didn’t give a shit.
Suzanna Webb, his fellow Scene Of Crime Officer, bent down and picked up the cigarette butt.
“Should I put this in an evidence bag?” she said, holding the offending article up. “I bet we could get some very interesting DNA evidence from it.”
“Sod off,” Pierce growled.
“Charming,” Suzanna said, and popped the cigarette butt in a plastic bag, and handed it to Pierce. “Here, you can do whatever the hell you want with it.”
“Yeah, well, I can think of a couple of things.”
Suzanna held up a hand, palm out. “I don’t even want to know where you are going with that. What’s got into you, anyway? You look like you finally figured out Santa Claus doesn’t exist.”
“Didn’t I tell you to sod off?” Pierce said.
Suzanna grinned. “You know me, Vaughan, I never do what I’m told.”
Pierce stuffed the bag in his trouser pocket. “What are you doing back in a hazard suit? I thought we’d finished here?”
“No such luck,” Suzanna said, zipping up her white plastic overall. “We need to get the body out of the cellar and back to the morgue.”
“Says who?”
“DCI Archer, that’s who.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Pierce muttered. He had a quick look around. “Is he still here?”
“No, he’s done his bit, had a look around, and buggered off back to the station.”
“We’re not going to get any respite on this case, if Archer’s in charge. He’s been bloody crying and pouting ever since he got hauled over the coals by Superintendent Burrows over that mess with Joe Coffin.”
“The Terry Wu case?”
“That’s the one. Everybody’s favourite Detective Inspector is convinced that Coffin did the killing, but he hasn’t got a shred of evidence. He neglected to tell that to Burrows, though, who backed him all the way until Craggs’ lawyers accused Archer of harassment. Bloody embarrassing for everyone if that had gone to court.”
“Why didn’t it?”
“Everyone backed off when Coffin attacked that poor sod in the pub, and he got sent down for assault.”
“Maybe a Triad assassin murdered Terry Wu,” Suzanna said.
“You’ve been watching too many crappy movies.”
“Hey, it’s a known fact that Terry Wu had Triad connections. The gang’s called something like the Black Dragon Ghosts, or the Seven Monkey Devils, or something like that.”
“Like I said, Sooze, too many crappy movies.”
Pierce pulled another cigarette out of the packet, and then thought better, and put it back.
“Isn’t Coffin due out of prison any day soon?” Suzanna said.
“Yesterday.”
“You think he had anything to do with this?”
Pierce snorted. “Are you kidding me? The guy gets out of prison and the first thing he does is try and decapitate some poor bastard with a mantrap? I don’t think so.”
Suzanna threw her hands in the air. “All right, Miss Marple, put your handbag away, I was just thinking out loud, that’s all.”
“You and me, we’re not paid to think. That’s the job of important people, like DCI Archer. Anyway, where are Gary and Steve? It’s their job to cart the bodies around.”
“They’ve been called out to another job, over in Handsworth.”
“Shit! I’ve been freezing my arse off out here half the sodding night. You think we’re going to get overtime for any of this?”
Suzanna laughed. “What are in those cigarettes of yours, Vaughan? C’mon, suit up, and then let’s figure out how we’re going to get that poor bastard out of that cellar.”
Pierce pulled another hazard suit out of the back of the van, ripping open the plastic packet it was stored in, and shook it out.
“It is a weird one though, isn’t it? What the hell do you think happened down there?” Pierce said, as he stepped into the suit and began pulling it up over his legs and his waist.
Suzanna shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s like something out of that film with, you know, um, whatsisface who played that guy who got his teeth drilled through by Laurence Olivier.”
Pierce held up a hand. “Wait, I’m confused. Is Laurence Olivier in the film you’re thinking of, or in the other film with the teeth?”
“The film where he drilled through the other actor’s teeth.” Suzanna sighed, her eyebrows scrunched up in thought. “That guy who shot the shark in Jaws was in that movie too.”
Pierce pulled his arms through the hazard suit. “Well, we’re getting somewhere I suppose, at least we’ve got the name of a film, now.”
Suzanna snapped her fingers and grinned. “Roy Scheider!”
“Okay, great, so Roy Scheider’s in this film where someone ends up with a mantrap on his head?”
“No, you idiot, he’s the guy who shot the shark in Jaws!”
“And?”
“And, he was in that other movie with Laurence Olivier, who drills holes in the teeth of the guy who’s in the film where somebody winds up with a mantrap over his head.”
Pierce zipped up his suit. “I still have no idea what you are talking about.” He swept his arm out towards the steps leading up to the front door. “After you, darling.”
“Why, thank you,” Suzanna said. “You do know how to treat the ladies.”
They walked up the steps together and into the entrance hall.
“I certainly do,” Pierce replied. “I don’t take all the girls to the scenes of hideous murders, you know. Not on a first date, anyway.”
“Oh my, I must be special,” Suzanna said.
They headed down the hall, past blood splatters over the walls, and stopped at the top of the cellar steps.
“You know what?” Pierce said. “I’ve been to hundreds of brutal, bloody crime scenes, but this one is the freakiest yet.”
“I know what you mean,” Suzanna said. “I’ve heard of plenty of inventive ways to kill someone, but this is just flat out weird.”
“Yeah.” Pierce looked at his partner. “You thought of the name of that film, yet?”
“No, but it’s on the tip of my tongue.” She stuck her tongue out at Pierce.
“You’d better put that thing back, unless you’re prepared to use it.”
“Yeah, you wish.”
“Anyway, I was just thinking, if you can remember the name of that film, it might be a clue.”
“A clue?”
“Yeah, I mean, what we have here might be some kind of copycat killing.”
“Yeah, right. I can see why you’re not paid to do the thinking round here,” Suzanna said.
They walked down the cellar steps, Pierce in front. In the powerful beams of floodlights set up on stands, every nook and cranny of the cellar was exposed in harsh, bright light. There were rows of empty earthenware jars stacked at the back, their insides caked with a dry, flaky brown substance.
The two SOCOs stood by the body, lying on its back on the cellar floor beside a deep hole, the head trapped within the rusty jaws of the mantrap.
“Bloody naked, too,” Pierce muttered. “And painted in blood. You ask me, this was some kind of satanic ritual.”
“You think he had a hard on, when it happened?”
Pierce turned and looked at his partner, his eyes round with surprise. “What?”
“You know, like in that James Herbert book, where the teacher gets his cock chopped off with a pair of shears.”
“Really? Roy Scheider in that one, too?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Well, pardon me for not being an expert on the film career of Roy Scheider, whoever the hell he is.”
“Was.”
“Huh?”
“Whoever he was. He’s dead.”
“Right. Just like this crazy bastard here. You think we can get him in the van with that thing around his neck?”
“I’m not sure we can even get him out of the cellar with that thing around
his neck.”
“You took photographs, right?” Pierce said.
“Only about a gazillion of them.”
“Then I say we take that thing off his head before we do anything else.”
“You’re the boss.”
“You better believe it.”
They stood either side of the body and knelt down. Pierce leaned in close and looked at the iron jaws, where the teeth had sunk into the man’s neck. Was it his imagination, or did the wounds not seem anywhere near as awful as they had? And his face, too. When they first saw him, earlier on this afternoon, the victim looked like someone had bludgeoned him in the head with a crowbar. But now? His face was still a mess, but not quite as bad as it had seemed earlier.
“Hey,” Suzanna said, breaking into his thoughts. “It’s still my choice of music on the way back, right? I’m sick of all that Led Zeppelin crap you keep playing.”
“You know what, Sooze, I like you and all, but even I have my limits. Led Zeppelin happen to be the second best band in the whole world, and I’m not letting anyone, and in particular somebody who’s idea of a great album is Now That’s What I Call Music 132, tell me otherwise.”
“Aww, come on, Vaughan, don’t be such a grouch. I thought you were enjoying the music on the way over here.”
Pierce looked back down at the body. “I don’t think so.”
“But it’s country and western,” Suzanna said. “Now, I happen to know you like country and western, especially, who is it, oh yeah, Hank Marvin.”
Pierce looked up at Suzanna. “No, I do not like Hank Marvin. Hank Marvin plays with the Shadows, who used to be Cliff Richard’s backing group. I hate and detest Cliff Richard with every bone in my body. Okay?”
“Hank Marvin’s not country and western?”
Pierce sighed. “No, you’re thinking of Hank Williams.”
“Oh.” Suzanna shook her head. “I’m rubbish with names, aren’t I?”
“Sooze, are you telling me you went out and bought a Hank Marvin CD, because that would be even worse than the crap you were forcing me to listen to on the way over here.”
Suzanna laughed. “No, of course not! But really, I thought you kind of liked Shania Twain.”
Pierce dropped his face into his hands. “No, Sooze, you thought wrong.”