Blood On the Wall

by Jim Eldridge

‘So what are you saying?’ demanded Stokes.

  ‘I’m saying this doesn’t look to me like Islamic terrorists.’

  ‘So who is he? Could he still be our murderer?’

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Georgiou. ‘Or he could be just some loner jumping on the bandwagon.’

  ‘The press will have a field day with this!’ groaned Stokes. ‘You have to sort it out, Georgiou. Find out who this character is.’

  ‘I think that might be a job for GCHQ, sir,’ said Georgiou. ‘And then the Terrorist Squad.’

  ‘You said you didn’t think he was a terrorist!’ said Stokes.

  ‘I said he doesn’t look like or use the same language as an Islamic terrorist,’ countered Georgiou. ‘At least, not the ones we’ve seen broadcasting their demands on TV and the web.’

  ‘Yes, well, I guess you’d know, if anyone,’ sighed Stokes.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Georgiou, irritated.

  ‘Well, with your background. The Middle East.’

  ‘My background is London,’ said Georgiou firmly.

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Stokes uncomfortably. ‘The point is that was the chief constable on the phone and he’s worried how this is going to turn out. If this is a terrorist plot we’ll be right in the firing line! The press. Politicians. Demonstrations!’ He glared accusingly at the phone on his desk and growled, ‘New York will be just the start of it!’

  FIFTEEN

  Iain Conway sat in the small room above the Chinese takeaway, his notebook open on his lap, pen in hand, nodding and making notes as Mrs Sun poured out her grief. The shop was in Botchergate, not far from the railway station, in a long street filled with pubs and other takeaways of all sorts: Chinese, Indian, Turkish, Greek, as well as a plethora of burger bars, all selling the same rehashed meat under a variety of names: Mexican Burger, Burger-Q, New York Burger.

  The pubs and bars along the street offered the same variety: an Australian bar, an English bar, a Scottish bar. A serious drinker could sup the whole of the United Nations in a pub crawl along Botchergate, interspersed with munching on indigestible so-called international cuisine, most of which tasted the same: burger and chips. With or without mayo or sauce.

  Han Sun Chinese takeaway was the same as most along the street: a takeaway at the front opening on to the pavement, with a cramped kitchen behind. And, above, a tiny cramped flat which housed the Sun family: the late Mr Sun and his wife, Mrs Sun’s younger sister, May, and Mrs Sun’s two brothers, Mr Li Key and Mr Li Chan. There was no sign of any children in this room or elsewhere in the flat, or any clues that children lived here: no toys, no comics.

  Conway nodded intently as he listened to them talk. Mainly it was Mr Li Chan, the elder of the two brothers, who did the talking. He was talking now, while Mrs Sun cried and her sister hugged her to her, doing her best to comfort her. Mr Li was talking angrily about racist attacks they’d suffered. He seemed sure that the killing and beheading of Mr Sun was an extension of these racist attacks.

  ‘We come to this country, work hard, pay taxes, and they spit at us. Break our windows!’ said Li. ‘We call police! Police do nothing!’

  ‘We’re not sure if there’s a racist motive behind this dreadful crime,’ said Conway, choosing his words carefully. ‘The method seems to have been the same as in two other recent cases, but both of those were English people.’

  Mr Li shook his head angrily.

  ‘This racist!’ he insisted. ‘Who else want kill my brother-in-law? He good man. Have no enemies. Always pay taxes. Pay bills on time. He gentle. Everyone like him.’

  At this, Mrs Sun wailed again and began crying loudly and painfully. Her sister threw her arms around her and hugged her close, letting the widow sob into her. So much pain, thought Conway. So much grief. And we get it all the time. No one ever hears good news from us. It’s always: ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. Your husband, wife, son, daughter, has been killed.’ And then the face looking out from the doorway would fall, the tears would start. Sometimes they’d faint. At least this time, the family had already been given the bad news and Conway was there to fill in the details of Mr Sun’s life, and what he might have been doing near Birdoswald at midnight.

  ‘He not go there,’ said Mr Li, again shaking his head firmly. ‘Racists take him there and kill him.’

  ‘What racists?’ asked Conway.

  ‘Racists who break our windows. Shop windows,’ he added. And then, in case Conway had forgotten, he repeated: ‘We tell police.’

  Conway made a note to check with HQ as to when these attacks on the Suns’ takeaway had been carried out, and whether there’d been any progress in finding the culprits. He doubted it. There’d been a rise in racist attacks lately, mainly against Pakistani-owned shops and businesses. Or, rather, against business owned by people that these racists thought were Pakistani. Which meant that Indians, Burmese, Sikhs, Greeks, Turks, even some darker-skinned Spaniards, had been attacked under the mistaken belief that they were supporters of Islamic fundamentalism, and so responsible for attacks on British troops in Afghanistan. Racists and bigots weren’t noted for their intelligence, reflected Conway. And that extended to his own countrymen and the outbreaks of violence whenever Rangers and Celtic played in an Old Firm game. Protestant and Catholic. The Union Jack and the green, white and gold of the Irish flag. Broken bottles and knives. God save us from the mindless havoc of bigots and racists, thought Conway ruefully.

  He stayed for another half-hour, filling his notebook with details about Mr Sun’s last hours, and then, after once more offering his condolences, walked down the narrow stairs to Botchergate. As he reached the street, his mobile rang.

  ‘Conway,’ he said.

  ‘Tennyson,’ said the DS. ‘Something’s come up. The boss wants everyone back here for a meeting, so if you and Richard can get here as quick as you can, that will be very much appreciated.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Conway. ‘I’m just in Botchergate. I’ll be there in five minutes.’

  He hung up, and frowned. That was one question that really puzzled him: where was Richard Little? When he’d called at the Littles’ house that morning, Vera had told him that Richard was ‘still at work’. This puzzled Conway. What work? Did Richard have another job at night, a moonlight? Richard had never mentioned anything about such a thing to him. And there’d been something in Vera’s manner that had been odd. Furtive. She’d been pleasant enough to Conway when she opened the door to him, but there had been something else behind her plastic smile: tension. She looked worried.

  Something’s wrong, thought Conway. It could be that Richard and Vera were having problems. If so, he wondered whether he should say anything to Georgiou. Georgiou would certainly wonder where Richard was. Whatever was going on, one thing Conway knew was that Richard wasn’t ‘at work’. Tennyson had said for him and Richard to get back to HQ. So if Richard wasn’t at work, and he wasn’t at home, where was he?

  Maybe Vera had just been lying, and Richard was at home, but hadn’t wanted to show himself. Maybe that’s why Vera’s manner had been so shifty. But, if that was the case, surely Vera would have come up with a better excuse than ‘he’s still at work’. She’d have said that Richard was ill in bed at home, asleep, or something. Or maybe ‘being at work’ was just the first excuse to come into her head.

  He thought it through. Vera was shifty. Maybe lying. Lately, Richard had been acting oddly. Tense. Tired, as if he hadn’t been sleeping properly. All of which suggested that there was something not right between Richard and Vera. But if Richard and Vera were having personal problems, that was their business. Conway was sure that Richard wouldn’t thank him for bringing their boss into it. For the moment, the best thing was to keep a low profile on it.

  The rest of the team were already assembled when Conway walked into the briefing room. Seward, Taggart and Tennyson were clustered around a laptop, studying the screen, while Georgiou stood behind them, pointing at different parts of it. Georgiou look at Conway as
he joined them, an inquisitive frown on his face.

  ‘Where’s Little?’ he asked.

  ‘I couldn’t get hold of him,’ said Conway.

  Georgiou frowned.

  ‘Why? Wasn’t he at home?’

  ‘No,’ said Conway. ‘I tried his mobile as well, but he’s not answering.’

  ‘That’s not like him,’ said Georgiou.

  ‘It’s possibly nothing,’ said Conway, keen to move off the topic. But, knowing that Georgiou wouldn’t let the subject rest, he added reluctantly: ‘It’s just a hunch, but I get the impression things may not be right between him and Vera.’ He knew that anything else he said would just raise further, and more awkward, questions about Richard.

  ‘Marriage!’ snorted Tennyson.

  ‘Let’s leave that for the moment,’ said Georgiou, cutting off further discussion about the pros and cons of marriage before Taggart could rise to the bait. He pointed at the computer screen. ‘Right now we’ve got a PR problem to deal with because it’s giving our lord and master upstairs, and his lord and master, the chief constable, panic attacks.’

  ‘Worse than three headless bodies?’ asked Conway.

  ‘Yes,’ said Georgiou. ‘Take a look.’

  Conway stepped forward and looked at the figure on the screen: the shapeless smock, the hood, heard the ranting voice, and he drew in his breath sharply.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ he said, awed. ‘Not Al-Qaeda claiming these!’

  ‘That’s what Superintendent Stokes seems worried about. And the chief constable,’ muttered Georgiou. ‘But take a closer look.’

  Seward and Taggart moved their chairs to one side so that the big Scot could get a better look at the screen.

  ‘That’s an ankh,’ he commented, pointing to the shape that Georgiou had earlier identified to Stokes. He frowned, pointing at another. ‘And that’s a swastika. Or, almost a swastika.’

  ‘The original swastika symbol,’ said Taggart. ‘I did symbols for one of my modules on my OU degree. The swastika was a symbol denoting Shakti in Indian religions. Hindu or Buddhist. It was only turned into a Nazi symbol in the 1930s.’

  Conway frowned. ‘So what are we saying?’ he asked. ‘That this guy’s a Nazi?’

  ‘No,’ said Taggart. ‘If he was, he’d be using the modern version of the swastika, not the ancient Indian one. There are also other symbols in the background. Some are conventional religious symbols, some are pagan or pre-Christian.’ She pointed at the screen. ‘Those are ancient runes from Scandinavia. And those mixtures of lines in small groups are Ogham.’

  ‘Ogham?’ echoed Conway.

  ‘A pre-Christian form of writing,’ explained Taggart. ‘They were carved into trees or the corners of stones. The lines are symbols, with a different number of lines meaning a different word.’

  ‘Still this OU degree?’ asked Conway.

  Taggart nodded.

  Conway sighed. ‘I’m surrounded by intellectuals,’ he sighed.

  ‘I haven’t finished it,’ said Taggart. ‘I’m just doing a module now and then, when I can.’

  ‘So, any deductions on this guy?’ asked Georgiou.

  ‘A religious nut, but not for any particular religion,’ suggested Tennyson. ‘Listen to him rant. The only reference to religious is when he says the victims were killed because they were “ungodly”. That covers a lot of things.’

  ‘In fact, I’m not sure if it’s actually a religious nut,’ said Taggart thoughtfully. ‘There’s such a mish-mash of symbols here. It reminds me of those geeks who spend all their time in their bedrooms playing fantasy fighting games on their computers, and give themselves names like WarDeath.’

  ‘But even they sometimes come out of their bedrooms and start killing people,’ put in Georgiou thoughtfully.

  ‘Usually with automatic weapons,’ added Tennyson.

  Conway gestured at the screen.

  ‘So, could he be a suspect?’ he asked.

  ‘If he is, hopefully we’ll find out soon enough,’ said Georgiou. ‘I’ve got GCHQ digging into it to try and trace where the website’s coming from.’

  ‘It could be anywhere on the planet,’ said Taggart. ‘America, Asia, Australia.’

  ‘If that’s the case, it means he’s not our killer,’ observed Tennyson.

  ‘No, but he may be connected to the killer,’ said Georgiou. ‘An accomplice. The public voice of our secret assassin.’

  He pressed the pause button, and they all looked at the shape on the screen, stopped in mid-rant, arms thrown up high.

  ‘There are too many lunatics out there,’ sighed Conway. ‘Once upon a time they just stayed in their rooms, or walked along the street talking to themselves. Now, with the internet, they have a global audience.’ He shook his head. ‘Instant uncensored communication! All it does is make a bad world worse!’

  ‘Maybe, but at least you can get the racing results quicker than you used to,’ observed Tennyson.

  SIXTEEN

  The briefing over, Georgiou detailed the team their immediate tasks. Tennyson was told to go to the IT department to try and dig deeper into tracing the website. Seward and Taggart were to continue interviewing everyone in Tamara Armstrong’s circle, from a list of names they’d compiled.

  ‘It’s going nowhere, boss,’ Seward complained.

  ‘Dr Kirtle seemed to think Tamara knew her killer. If we can find any link between Tamara and Michelle Nixon, or Han Sun …’

  ‘There isn’t one,’ said Taggart. ‘Not between Tamara Armstrong and Michelle Nixon, anyway. There are no names as a common link. No common group. Neither of them were connected in any way, not socially, not even in the kind of shops they went into, the places they went to, or the magazines they read.’

  ‘Check Tamara out against Han Sun,’ said Georgiou. ‘Talk to her friends. Find out if she ever went there for a takeaway.’

  ‘It’s clutching at straws!’ Seward protested.

  ‘Right now, straws are all we’ve got,’ said Georgiou gloomily.

  Seward and Taggart nodded, and left, their faces showing they were unconvinced. Georgiou turned to Conway, and for an awful moment Conway thought that Georgiou might be going to ask him about Richard Little, but instead the inspector wanted details of Conway’s visit to the Han Sun family, and what he’d been able to find out about Han Sun’s last known movements.

  Conway told him what he’d learnt: that Han Sun had closed up the takeaway at midnight. Mrs Sun had been upstairs, getting things ready for breakfast for the next morning, waiting for her husband to come up from the shop.

  ‘Her two brothers also live above the takeaway. They share a room. They both work in the kitchens. Mrs Sun’s sister works on the counter, along with Mr Sun, the victim. The sister has her own room upstairs, as well.’ He gave a sigh. ‘It’s a very crowded flat.’

  ‘Tensions between them?’ asked Georgiou.

  ‘Not that I picked up,’ said Conway. ‘I’m just saying that it’s so crowded they don’t have any choice but to keep a very close eye on one another.

  ‘Anyway, according to Mr Li Chan, the older brother who does most of the talking, he and his brother and their sister went upstairs to have a late-night drink of tea with Mrs Sun, and then they went to bed, leaving Mrs Sun to wait for her husband. But he never came up.’

  Georgiou frowned.

  ‘He never came upstairs?’

  Conway nodded. ‘That’s what they said.’

  ‘So they … what … just went to bed? Didn’t anyone go downstairs to the shop to see where he was?’

  ‘Not according to Mr Li,’ said Conway. ‘I couldn’t get much out of Mrs Sun, she doesn’t speak much English. Nor does the younger brother. So I got most of this information from Mr Li and Mrs Sun’s sister.’

  ‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’ asked Georgiou.

  ‘Not really,’ said Conway. ‘It often happens that one of a couple goes to bed before the other one, and then falls asleep.’

  ‘So let
’s look at the scenario,’ said Georgiou. ‘Mr Sun is downstairs in the shop. It’s midnight. He’s locked up. Where are the stairs between the shop and the flat? Does he have to leave the takeaway to get up to the flat?’

  Conway scanned his notes.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘He can do, because there’s a separate set of stairs from the street to the flat, with a separate door, so people can go in and out of the flat without going through the shop. But there’s another flight of stairs at the back, from the kitchen, that go directly up to the flat.’

  ‘And which flight of stairs does Mr Sun normally use after he’s closed up the shop?’

  Conway checked his notes again.

  ‘According to Mrs Sun, he uses the stairs from the street,’ he said. ‘At least, that’s what her brother, Mr Li, translated what she said as.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Georgiou. ‘Think about it, Iain. He’s in the shop. He’s already locked the door to stop more customers coming in. There’s a set of stairs in the kitchen that takes him up to his flat. Why would he bother to unlock the shop, go out into the street, lock the shop door, then unlock the door from the street to go upstairs?’ He frowned. ‘Did you see where the two sets of stairs came into the upstairs flat?’

  ‘Yes.’ Conway nodded.

  ‘Do either of them go straight into one of the bedrooms?’

  ‘No,’ said Conway. ‘They both came up to a landing.’

  ‘So it’s not a case of not using one particular set of stairs because it goes into a personal living space of his brothers-in-law, or his sister-in-law.’

  ‘No,’ said Conway, shaking his head.

  ‘So, it’s still the same question,’ said Georgiou. ‘Why does Mr Sun use the stairs from the street rather than from the kitchen?’

  Conway shook his head again.

  ‘No idea,’ he admitted. ‘Do you think that’s what happened? That he went outside to go upstairs using the door from the street, and was grabbed by the killer, who then took him to Birdoswald?’

  This time it was Georgiou’s turn to shake his head.