Blood On the Wall

by Jim Eldridge

  ‘And what’s that?’ asked Georgiou.

  Again, Willis laughed.

  ‘Really, Inspector, don’t pretend to be naïve. I am going to hang her up and cut her head off, of course, just like the others.’

  ‘Who is it?’ asked Georgiou. Although he was trying to present a calm front to Willis, he could feel his heart pounding, feel an icy sweat.

  ‘One of your detective sergeants,’ said Willis. ‘The butch one with the short hair. DS Seward, I think.’

  Georgiou shook his head.

  ‘You’re lying,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’ said Willis with a smile.

  He took a small black folder from his pocket, opened it, and tossed it on the table for Georgiou to see. It was Seward’s warrant card.

  ‘So?’ said Georgiou. ‘You could have got that any way. Picked her pocket.’

  Willis smiled again and shook his head.

  ‘Really, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Why on earth should I lie about this? You’re going to die very shortly. I thought it would be interesting for you to know this last part of my plan.’

  ‘Why should I be interested?’ asked Georgiou.

  ‘Because you need to know that in the end we beat you.’

  Georgiou frowned.

  ‘Beat me?’ he echoed. ‘Who?’

  ‘Not you, Inspector. Your race. The Romans and Greeks. The so-called conquerors of the world.’

  ‘I’m not Greek!’ exploded Georgiou angrily. ‘I’m British!’

  Willis shook his head.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ he said. ‘The British were almost wiped out by your kind two thousand years ago. But we survived. Some of us. We never went away. You tried to wipe us out but we came back.’

  Now the smile and any hint of humour, ironic or otherwise, had gone from Willis. As he looked at Georgiou, his eyes burnt with passion and hatred and anger, like one of the revivalist preachers Georgiou had seen on the screen in old films. Or like some of the radical Imams who preached Islamic purity, rousing their followers up to kill all unbelievers.

  ‘You came here to conquer us, the greatest military machine the world had ever known. The Roman army had conquered the whole of the known world, and now it tried to conquer Britain. But it couldn’t, because it had never faced an enemy like the British. Pure fighting spirit. A warrior race like no other.’

  ‘The Romans fought plenty of other so-called warrior nations,’ said Georgiou, racking his memory, searching for information from those history lessons at school. The names of the old tribes came to him: ‘The Gauls in France. The German tribes.’

  ‘Yes, but none of them so powerful that you needed to build a wall to control them.’

  ‘The Romans were nothing to do with me,’ repeated Georgiou firmly.

  ‘The Roman Empire was built on the conquests of the Greeks,’ countered Willis. ‘The Romans built their culture on what they took from the Greeks, so, to all intents and purposes, it was the Greco-Roman Empire. You are a Greek.’

  ‘My father was from Cyprus. My mother was English. I was born in this country. I’m British.’

  Willis shook his head.

  ‘It’s in the blood,’ he said. ‘Who we are, what we are. You’re a Greek. The great conquerors. You and the Romans.’

  He’s mad, thought Georgiou. Absolutely mad. But terrifyingly clever with it.

  ‘Your Roman allies built the wall. Seventy-four miles long, from coast to coast. It was said to be the greatest engineering achievement ever. But for the Britons it was a massive symbol of the greatest possible oppression.’

  The wall, thought Georgiou. Diane Moody had been right. This had been about Hadrian’s Wall.

  ‘Haltwhistle, Birdoswald and Stanwix,’ he murmured. ‘Points along the wall.’

  ‘Not just points,’ said Willis. ‘Major Roman forts. And Stanwix was the largest fort on the wall by far. And the second largest fort on the wall–’

  ‘Was here,’ Georgiou finished for him. ‘At Bowness on Solway.’

  Willis nodded. ‘Maia, to give it its proper name,’ he said. ‘And what have you people here done? You have built a Roman temple here in this village to celebrate it!’

  Georgiou shook his head. ‘If you’re referring to the building on The Banks, it’s not a Roman temple,’ he said.

  The Banks, as the one open area of public amenity in the village was known, had been a place for the Edwardians to sit on the grass and picnic and look out over the Solway Firth in the early years of the twentieth century. As the twentieth century had moved on, so time had taken its toll on The Banks. Gravity had meant the paths had slipped. At one point the local council had even talked about closing it off as dangerous. Then the local village community group had stepped in. They leased The Banks from the parish council at a peppercorn rent and set about working with local organizations to raise the money to restore it. This had coincided with the opening of Hadrian’s Wall Trail as a major tourist walk. At the eastern end of the trail was Segedunum, Wallsend in Newcastle. The other end of the trail, the official western end of the wall, was at Bowness on Solway. And so funding had been found to restore The Banks to its former glory. And, as much of the money came through the official tourist channels, it had been agreed that the renovation and restoration should have a Roman theme. Plants that the Romans had brought with them to Britain were planted. Replica Roman pottery was made as decoration. A Roman-style mosaic was created by the children from the village school under the direction of a local artist. And the old brick shelter with a corrugated tin roof had been demolished and replaced with a new building from which keen birdwatchers could shelter from the elements as they followed their hobby, watching the wading birds and the geese out on the mudflats of the Solway. To reinforce the Roman theme, this building had been designed and constructed completely along Roman lines. No nails had been used in its construction, just wooden pegs, as the Romans had done. The roof had been tiled with specially made replica Roman tiles. The building was a marvel of Roman workmanship, 2000 years after the original craftsmen had worked at this same spot.

  ‘It’s a temple,’ insisted Willis. ‘And, as such, it’s the perfect place for my last sacrifice. It even has stout wooden beams for me to hang your sergeant from.’

  ‘There’s no need to do this,’ said Georgiou. ‘Kill me, OK, if it satisfies some twisted sort of logic in your mind. But why kill my sergeant? You’ve made your point already with the other three bodies. You don’t need another one.’

  ‘It’s the end of the wall, Inspector,’ said Willis calmly. ‘It will drive my message home, so there will be no mistake. Another headless body. The British way of war. It’s a spit in the face of the Romans!’

  ‘The Romans have gone!’ insisted Georgiou desperately. ‘They went sixteen hundred years ago. Not gloriously, either. They just faded away. Your precious Barbarians beat them.’

  ‘But no one remembers that,’ said Willis. ‘There’s nothing to mark them going. Just fading away, as you say. Well, people will remember now. Four headless bodies along the wall. And once they realize the message, they’ll be waiting like scared rabbits for the next one. Where along the wall will it happen next? Wallsend? Corbridge? Chesters? Vindolanda? Housesteads? They’ll be talking about this for years. Decades. Waiting for the next one. Terrified!’

  ‘But why my sergeant?’ repeated Georgiou.

  ‘Because it makes it personal,’ said Willis. ‘It points the finger at you. She’s murdered here by you. You commit suicide.’ He smiled. ‘I saw the two of you the other night here, coming out of the pub. Everyone will assume there was something between you that set you off.’

  ‘And how am I supposed to commit suicide?’

  ‘Whisky and sleeping pills,’ said Willis. ‘It’s nice and uncomplicated. No messing about with guns and stuff, where they can use scientific tests to see which hand you used to fire it, that sort of thing.’

  Willis produced a bottle of pills from his pocket.

  ‘I bought t
he pills. A very common sort. Available in every chemist. And you have whisky here already, I see.’

  For the first time Georgiou noticed his bottle of whisky on the table.

  ‘I force them down your throat, and then it’s off to your fake Roman temple with your unconscious sergeant. And that’s it. All over.’

  ‘Someone will see you,’ said Georgiou. ‘This is a very small village.’

  ‘If they do, that’ll be even better,’ said Willis. ‘I’ll be wearing one of your coats and a hat pulled well down. But, to be honest, I doubt if anyone will be at The Banks at this time of night.’

  Willis flipped the top off the bottle of pills.

  ‘Well, I think we’ve talked enough, Inspector,’ he said. ‘It’s been nice talking to you, but I have work to do.’

  Georgiou watched Willis unscrew the top of the bottle of whisky and pour a large measure into a glass. There had to be a way out of this! There had to! He would jam his mouth shut and resist! But he knew he wouldn’t be able to, not for long. Willis would clamp his nostrils shut tight, and sooner or later Georgiou would be forced to open his mouth, and then the whisky and the pills would be forced in. It wouldn’t matter if the whisky spilled: the investigators would just assume that Georgiou was so drunk or drugged he couldn’t control the glass.

  Willis smiled and walked towards Georgiou, the whisky bottle in one hand, the bottle of pills in the other.

  ‘Open wide,’ he chuckled. ‘Take your medicine like a good boy.’

  Georgiou clamped his jaws shut tight and glared at Willis, who shook his head.

  ‘Dear oh dear,’ he said. ‘It looks as if I’m going to have to be very strict with you.’

  He put the bottle and pills down on the table, and then suddenly whirled round and smashed his fist into Georgiou’s nose. Georgiou rocked backwards at the force of the blow and the chair tipped over, Georgiou crashing to the floor. The pain on his bound arms was excruciating, as was the pain in the centre of his face. He was sure his nose was broken. He could feel blood trickling down his throat.

  Willis picked up the whisky bottle again, leaving one hand free.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said, moving to stand over Georgiou. ‘Now gravity can be our helper.’

  And he reached down with his free hand and dug his fingers into the sides of Georgiou’s mouth, prising his teeth apart, while at the same time upending the whisky bottle over Georgiou’s blood-filled mouth. Georgiou resisted, trying to block the whisky with his tongue, but it was no good, Willis was too strong, his powerful grip slowly forcing Georgiou’s mouth open wider …

  The sound of glass shattering suddenly filled the kitchen, and the pressure on Georgiou’s face was released as Willis fell back … and kept falling.

  Then there was an even bigger sound of glass shattering, and Georgiou was suddenly aware that his window had been smashed in, and the barrel of a rifle was poking through the tatters of glass hanging from the frame.

  Willis lay on the floor next to Georgiou, his face creased in pain, blood spreading out from a wound in his shoulder.

  Then the kitchen was full of people. Men in black wearing body armour and armed with automatic rifles. And Debby Seward. She was the first to get to him, while the armed men were forcing the wounded Willis to lie face down with his hands and legs spread-eagled.

  ‘It’s OK!’ said Seward.

  She had half lifted Georgiou and was cutting at the electrical wire that tied his wrists with a pair of wire cutters.

  ‘He said you were in the van,’ said Georgiou. ‘Unconscious.’

  ‘Lucky for me I’ve got a strong constitution,’ said Seward grimly. ‘I came round quicker than our friend here allowed for. The trouble was he had me tied up like the others, so I couldn’t get free.’

  ‘Then how…?’ asked Georgiou.

  ‘I managed to get my hands on my mobile phone and texted Mac Tennyson. He arranged for the Armed Response Unit. While one lot were getting me out of the van, the rest were staking out your house, getting ready to bust in. When they saw Willis hit you they realized they had to act quickly.’

  ‘I’m glad they did otherwise it would have been a stomach pump job.’

  Seward had finished cutting the wires that bound him, and Georgiou struggled to his feet. His head still ached. First the blow on the back of the head, then the hard punch in the face. And on top of being knocked unconscious just a few days before. His head was taking a lot of punishment lately.

  He became aware of Tennyson joining them, his face a picture of worry.

  ‘You OK, guv?’ he asked.

  ‘As well as can be expected, considering the circumstances,’ said Georgiou.

  Willis had been hauled to his feet and handcuffed.

  ‘Watch that wound,’ said Georgiou. ‘We want him alive for trial.’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ said Tennyson sourly. ‘OK, lads, get him in the ambulance.’

  ‘An ambulance as well,’ commented Georgiou.

  ‘We guessed there might be a casualty,’ said Tennyson. ‘I’m just glad it’s not you.’ Then he looked closer at Georgiou, at the blood around his nose and mouth.

  ‘Shall I get one of the paramedics to look at that?’

  Georgiou shook his head.

  ‘Cotton wool, a couple of aspirin, and a night’s rest should do the trick,’ he said.

  ‘But doesn’t it hurt?’

  ‘Yes. If you must know, it hurts like hell. And I’m sure it’ll still hurt tomorrow. But what will make it feel better is knowing we’ve got chummy safe and sound under lock and key.’

  Tennyson nodded, and gestured towards Willis, who was being hustled out of the room. ‘I’ll just go and do the formal stuff, read him his rights, and I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Then Tennyson was gone.

  ‘We’ll put some plastic over the window, sir,’ said one of the ARU. ‘It’ll keep out the draught tonight.’

  ‘That’s fine. Thanks,’ said Georgiou.

  He still felt groggy. He sat down and felt his nose. It seemed to be swelling up. Aspirin, cotton wool and rest; that’s what he’d told Tennyson he needed. The truth was he just wanted shot of them all so he could collapse and suffer in the privacy of his own home.

  Seward sat down near him and looked at him anxiously. She gulped, and then said:

  ‘Look, I’m not sure you should be on your own tonight. Not after what’s happened.’

  ‘I’ll be OK,’ said Georgiou. ‘You’re the one who needs looking after.’

  ‘I wasn’t hit over the head. Again.’

  ‘You still don’t know if the tranquilizer has a knock-on effect,’ pointed out Georgiou. ‘If you ask me, you’re the one who needs treatment.’

  ‘Maybe I just need some rest,’ she said. ‘After all, we’ve caught the killer. Case closed.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Georgiou.

  There was a pause between them. A difficult one. Both could feel it. Georgiou looked at Seward, at the expression on her face, the concern for him writ large, and he wanted to hold her, take her in his arms and say, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.’ But he knew that if he did it wouldn’t stop there. Not for him. Not tonight, not after all that had happened. Thinking that she was going to be savagely killed by Willis. Thinking of her as he sat tied to that chair, desperate to save her, but unable to move.

  He looked at her, her eyes scanning his face, her hands clenching and unclenching with some sort of inner tension. Say it is just sympathy, like before, he thought, and I say something … make the wrong move. She’s my sergeant, for God’s sake! And a really good one. She would be in her rights to demand a transfer. And what would that do to me? To the squad?

  Seward was the first one to break the difficult silence between them.

  ‘Look,’ she said, and even as she spoke she knew she sounded awkward and clumsy, but she had to say it. ‘The way you are, the way I am …’

  Before she could continue, Tennyson had returned and joined them.

&n
bsp; ‘All done and dusted,’ he said. ‘He’s been formally charged and the ARU are taking him to the infirmary to get the wound seen to. I’ve told them to keep an armed guard on him at all times.’

  ‘Good,’ said Georgiou.

  Tennyson looked around the room.

  ‘You’ll need to get that window fixed,’ he said, indicating the remains of the glass.

  ‘I’ll sort it out tomorrow,’ said Georgiou.

  ‘Right.’ Tennyson nodded. Then he turned to Seward and said: ‘I suppose you’ll be wanting a lift back to Carlisle?’

  Seward hesitated, shot a look at Georgiou, her eyes making a silent appeal. But either Georgiou didn’t see it, or he ignored it, because, after what Seward thought was the briefest of hesitations, he nodded and said: ‘She will indeed, Mac. Thanks.’

  Seward hesitated again, then nodded. But this time her eyes weren’t on Georgiou. The fire had gone out of them. She stood up.

  ‘Get some rest,’ she said.

  ‘And you,’ he said. ‘And if you don’t feel OK in the morning—’

  She cut him off with a shake of her head.

  ‘I’ll be in tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about me.’

  Then she walked out.

  ‘See you tomorrow, guv,’ said Tennyson. He grinned. ‘A big score to us, eh!’

  ‘Yes,’ echoed Georgiou. ‘A big score to us.’

  Copyright

  © Jim Eldridge 2013

  First published in Great Britain 2013

  This edition 2013

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1217 0 (epub)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1218 7 (mobi)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1219 4 (pdf)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 0855 5 (print)

  Robert Hale Limited

  Clerkenwell House

  Clerkenwell Green

  London EC1R 0HT

  www.halebooks.com

  The right of Jim Eldridge to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988