by Giles Ekins
He goes back to the bed, sits down heavily and holds his head in his hands and sobs in anguish, wiping his stinging tears away with the black silk scarf, black silk which smells faintly of morbid strangulated sweat, the sweat of fear.
There is a click as Selene opens the hotel room door with an electronic key card. She is simply dressed as usual when not on stage, a short black leather jacket over a pale cream silk blouse buttoned to the throat, knee length black pencil skirt, black stockings and black patent shoes with 4” heels. She looks stunningly elegant, ethereal, ice cold beauty, the beauty of sunlight dappling across the pristine beauty of a diamond sparkling iceberg, shimmering ice-blue and silver. Beautiful but oh so deadly. She takes off her jacket and hangs on the back of a chair. Wherever she had come from, it has not been raining.
Charlie looks up, ‘It’s you, isn’t it, you fucking witch?’ he scowls, ‘It’s you making me do this,’ stabbing at Lauren Scholes photograph, the black silk fluttering in his hands like a banner…
‘What, Charlie,’ she answers all innocently, ‘what on earth are you talking about?’
‘You and that foul fucking Tchort. You’ve got inside my head, fucking with my head.’
‘You’ve been drinking again, haven’t you? ‘she chides, as though talking to a delinquent child,, ‘Way too much. Lie down Charlie, why don’t you lie down and have a little sleep, you’ll feel better, much better. We’ve got a show tonight, remember? Lie down eh? Sleep it off.’
‘Fuck the show,’ Charlie says savagely, ‘Fuck you. Fuck Tchort. Fuck the whole stinking lot of you; fuck off back to Hell or wherever, fucking with my head. Making me do these things.’
‘What things, making you do what things Charlie?’
‘These things!’ picking up the newspaper and throwing it at her. ‘Killings! Making me kill for Tchort. What do you call it? Tribute? Tribute for Mr. Tchort? Fucking witch.’
Charlie holds head in his hands, shaking it from side to side in anguish, near to breaking point, lurching ever closer to the black abyss. ‘Oh Jesus, why ever did I ever get involved in this? I should’ve listened, I should’ve listened, I knew it was wrong, I knew it was too fucking good to be true, there’s no such thing as a free meal, never was, never will be,’
Selene sits down next to him on the bed and tries to put her arms about him. Angrily, he pushes her away.
‘Witch, stinking fucking witch. Leave me alone; get the fuck out of my head. GET OUT OF MY HEAD! Leave me alone; for God’s sake just leave me alone.
‘Ssshhhh, Charlie, you’re a bit distraught that’s all but there is no need, you are among friends now, truly, just try to relax.’ Putting her arms around him again, leaning up against him, resting her head on his shoulder, her perfume is subtle but sensual, alluring, and despite himself, Charlie began to feel aroused but then his pent up anger flares up, searing through him in wave upon heat-raged wave.
‘Is that all you can say, relax, you’re among friends now? Jesus Christ, you’re like a fucking parrot, you know that?’
‘Charlie no, no, just relax, you are so tense.’ Selene pleads, clinging tightly onto him, he can feel her breasts against him and his erection flares and an overpowering red rages scorches through him as he flings Selene back onto the bed, ripping her blouse open, revealing her breasts for as usual she wore no bra.
‘You and that fucking Tchort,’ the red mists pounding in his skull, ‘I’ll show you, no Charlie don’t do this, no Charlie you can’t do that. Fucking with my head.’
Selene tries to fight him off, but he is beyond reason, and her half-hearted efforts to cover herself only serve to inflame him even more as he rants incoherently.
‘The Great Charlie Chilton, the world’s great magician. Charlie Haydock Chilton mustn’t forget the Haydock, must we he always did wonder, did Tchort. Mr. Tchort demands his tribute. Kill her, strangle her, the great illusion, the ice queen virgin, snot nose bitch, is that it?’ he raves, slapping her across the face. ‘Is that it bitch, too fucking good for the likes of Charlie Chilton. Is that it?’ he screams, reaching down to drag up her skirt, frantically Selene pushes at his hands, but he is to strong, a maniacal strength possessing him. ‘Tribute? I’ll give you tribute,’ dragging her skirt up over her hips and ripping aside her G-string. ‘Virgin Snow Queen? You and that fucking Tchort. Nobody fucks with The Great Santini.’ He frees his erection from his boxer shorts, as hard and as fierce as any he has ever had and thrusts into her. ‘How’s this for tribute, huh? You tell that to fucking Tchort, tell him he’s got another tribute, and add this to his collection.’
The rape is soon over and he rolls over to bury his face in the pillows. ‘You tell that to Mr. Tchort,’ he sobs, now drained of all his rage and tangled emotions.
Selene says nothing, simply lies there, her chest heaving, tangled skirt and torn G-string bunched up about her hips. Her eyes are wide open, shining, and although she is disheveled and there is blood on her lip from where Charlie slapped her, she has a triumphant, self-satisfied elated smile on her face. Beside her Charlie sobs quietly in his misery.
THIRTY-SIX
Task Force Salford, Manchester
Kellick of the Yard rides again.
QUITE WHY THE LINCOLNSHIRE POLICE TOOK SO LONG, more than two weeks after the death of Sandra Worthington, to discover that she had been seen leaving the dressing room of Charlie Chilton at the Embassy Theatre in Skegness, was never fully established. Even the subsequent Barrowbridge Enquiry into the Headhunter murders and investigations could not come up with a viable explanation for such a failure, a fatal and glaring lapse in procedure especially since the same witness also told the local police that Charles Chilton had been seen hurrying out of the theatre, apparently after Sandra, but these vital pieces of intelligence did not come to light until some 17 days later, by which time there had been three more murders.
The witness, Carole Portman, another back stage groupie, assumed that her information had been followed up and acted upon, presumably clearing Charlie from any involvement in Sandra’s death. DI Walter Sparrow was ultimately deemed culpable of the failings in the Skegness enquiry and was demoted back to unformed Sergeant. He would not be the only officer to suffer from the fall out of the investigation and enquiry.
Belatedly, the intelligence that Sandra Worthington had been seen in the dressing room of Charles Chilton, a stage magician who had performed in Skegness that night was finally inserted into the system and Charlie’s name went onto the incident board but still nobody in the Task Force made the connection with the touring Billy Boy Boston tour.
It was a Manchester DC of Nigerian extraction, Nkoya Adebayo, known as Koy, no relation to Miriam Adebayo but who felt a Yoruba kinship with her murdered namesake who finally made the connection.
The night before on a rare night off, she had gone with friends to see a band she liked called ‘Straightjacket’ (she secretly fancied Matt, the bass player) who were on tour and it planted in her mind that the Headhunter Killer could be a band member or a roadie, somebody involved with a travelling tour or show. Next morning it was a simple matter to Google ‘shows in Skegness’ on that date, then shows in Llandudno, shows in Buxton and shows in Hull.
The only touring show that fitted all four venues on the nights in question was ‘The Billy Boy Boston Tour.’ The only downside was that there was nothing that correlated with the first killing in Manchester. But nevertheless an elated Koy took the print-outs to DS Dave Thornton. ‘Good work, Koy, this looks promising, I’ll take it upstairs, you keep digging, OK?’
Somewhat disappointed, Koy went back to her desk, she had wanted to take it ‘upstairs’ herself, a bit of credit was never to be underestimated. Nevertheless, she set to and began trolling for related intelligence from Skegness, the first venue in the tour at which there had been a murder. ‘Gotcha,’ Sandra Worthington had been seen leaving the dressing room of a Charles Chilton, magician, who was seen shortly thereafter leaving the theatre. Koy googled the itinerary for the B
illy Boston Tour and learned that they were performing that night at the Seville Theatre at Whitburn on Sea.
Charlie was now very much a person of interest to the police.
This potential breakthrough was taken to DCS Kellick who immediately cancelled his golf game, deciding that he would drive across to Whitburn on Sea and arrest Charles Chilton for questioning in relation to the Headhunter killings in person. He was suddenly buoyed, salvation was at hand, promotion and an eventual knighthood still beckoned.
As a matter of professional courtesy he telephoned Superintendent George Glaisby at Whitburn police station to advise that he would be coming but would not give a reason even when asked directly by Glaisby. The last thing Kellick wanted was for some country plod at the arse-end of nowhere to make the arrest and steal his glory. After a hasty lunch and a brief conference with senior members of the Task Force, three unmarked police Volvos set out for the 193 mile journey from Manchester to Whitburn on Sea.
Kellick of the Yard rides again.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Whitburn on Sea
Ad astra per alia porci.
IT WAS MID AFTERNOOON AND CHARLIE WAS DOZING, for once his sleep was untroubled, unhaunted. Selene had left, when and how he could not have said or even how long he had been asleep. Some slight noise disturbed him and rolling over and opening his eyes he found Asmodeus Tchort standing beside the bed. With a start and stifled scream he sat up, then wishing he hadn’t as a surge of bitter bile rose to his gorge which by swallowing hard he managed to force back down but which left a sour acrid taste in his mouth.
‘Charlie, Charlie’ Tchort said sadly, ‘I looked upon you as my own son but now you have betrayed me.’ There was no anger in Tchort’s voice, merely sadness and disappointment.
‘Betrayed you! What have you done to me!’ Charlie croaked indignantly, ‘why are you destroying me?’ getting his feet shakily, tucking his flaccid penis back into his boxer shorts and making his way to the bathroom. He badly needed to urinate and wash his face. Dressed only in his boxers he felt very vulnerable and so donned the thick white terrycloth dressing gown supplied by the hotel which hung on the back of the bathroom door. He then filled a tumbler with cold water and drank it straight down to relieve the dryness in his throat, filled the glass again and made his way fearfully back into the bedroom to where the Devil and his judgement awaited him.
Tchort was now seated in the easy chair by the window, one leg crossed over the other, elbows resting on the arm of the chair, his fingers steepled together in a characteristic pose. He looked relaxed and benign, inviting Charlie to take the chair in front of the dressing table. Nervously Charlie sits, his heart pounding in trepidation and wraps the dressing gown tightly about his bare legs as if this might offer protection from the wrath of Satan. For a long drawn out minute Tchort says nothing, merely looking at Charlie, appraising him as if he were an item of livestock he was considering to purchase.
Finally he broke the fearful silence. ‘You ask why I have destroyed you Charlie, but haven’t you destroyed yourself, all I have done is to offer you fame and fortune. Is this how you repay me?’
‘I…did not know, how could I know, all these killings? The taking of those heads. The dreams, the terrors, the nightmares. Sometimes I think I’m going crazy.’
Yes, Charlie, you are going crazy, ‘Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius.’ (Whom the gods would destroy, they first drive mad) ‘Every gift comes with a price, this you know, how did you put it, there is no such thing as a free lunch. No such thing as a free illusion or a free van.’
‘But the killings, those girls, why did you have to kill them? And others, Jimmy McGuire and the Attack Dogs bass player, you killed them as well, didn’t you?”
‘No, you killed hem Charlie, from the moment you stood before that mirror in Doreen’s apartment, the path was irrevocable.’
‘But why destroy me like this, what have I ever done to you?’ Charlie asks bitterly, a plaintive whining pitch to his voice. He knew, of course he knew that there is always a price to be paid, no such thing as a free illusion, he would be deluding himself to think otherwise, had known it all along. But the price was far, far higher than he could have ever imagined. All those deaths. All those heads.
‘There is always a price to pay Charlie, you know that and you know that others have paid that price for you, and it is that knowledge that is destroying you, that others have paid your price.’ Tchort studied his fingernails for a second or so, as though gathering his thoughts together.
‘You are, how shall I say, a case study…’
‘A case study?’ Charlie asked indignantly but Tchort held up his hand to silence him.
‘Please do not interrupt me. You are. I think, essentially a good man, as poor Sandra Worthington said; you’re a nice man, kind, respectful.’
‘Not so nice now,’ Charlie mutters.
‘A good man, but weak, a man of butter,’ Tchort continues in his pedantic schoolmasterly way. ‘You see Charlie; I feed on the weakness of men, I get more satisfaction from the downfall of one good man than from ninety-nine inherently evil men who were already mine. You know of course what St Luke says about a repentant sinner?’
‘Aye, sort of, like.’
‘I’ll quote from the King James Bible, I so much prefer the King James don’t you? These modern translations just don’t have the poetry of the King James.’
‘Aye, suppose, ‘though I can’t say I’ve seen that much of later versions, but aye, nothing like the good old King James. So what does St. Luke have say about the sinner, then? I can’t quite recall.’
‘I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance’ Tchort quotes in a resonant voice as if he was reciting to an audience.
Something a bit skewed here, Charlie thinks, ’The Devil quoting passages from the Bible, surreal, way beyond surreal.
‘So, Charlie, I rejoice over one good man gone bad, one good man perverted more than nine and ninety evil men.’
‘Makes sense in a twisted sort of way, I suppose.’
‘The vile, the evil, the killers and the cannibals and torturers they come to me in their thousands, by the shipload. What use are such creatures to me, the vile, the filth, the scum, child murderers, what do I want with them? I let them burn. What need have I for deluded suicide bombers, bringing down airplanes or blowing up the innocents by the score expecting to be transported to Paradise and the 72 virgins that await them?’
‘Deluded fools,’ Tchort declared, his yellow eyes blazing with indignation, ‘they come to me and I give them their reward, 72 harpies to rip and tear their flesh for eternity. Martyrs they call themselves. But no, they are not martyrs, the true martyr dies in battle, sword in hand facing his enemy, for them there is Paradise and I bear them no grudge for they are true men. But I tell you Charlie, religion, any religion, every religion has killed far more people, a thousand fold, a million fold than I have ever done. How many millions have died in the name of religion?’
‘But people, some people, they worship you, and have died for that. Witches burned, sacrifices. Tribute.’
‘True, but they do this because they fear me, not because they love me, they seek fame and fortune, not my love. But what I truly relish are the good men, the good men corrupted, corruptus in extemis, corrupted in the extreme, you would not believe the number of Popes who came to be mine, Benedict IX, Gregory VII, John XX amongst others. Good men. Men like you Charlie, basically good with no inherent evil but weak and pliable, as it were, tabula rasa, a clean slate on which to draw.’
Even in his dire distress, Charlie briefly thought of making a joke about Tabula Rasa along the lines of ‘didn’t she used to be in films?’ but thought better of it. ‘Aye, well I’m no Pope, that’s for sure. But t I don’t understand, the cost of all this, the advance, the illusions, the van, all costing a pretty penny, thousands, thousands, why? Why, all that just to
…corrupt a nobody like me?’
Because it amuses me. ‘Do you think I care about the cost? The money? What do I care for money, money is merely a tool, a means to an end.’
‘Aye, right, understood. Stupid of me, I should have guessed. But regardless of all that, I am sorry, truly sorry ‘bout what happened earlier. With Selene, I mean. I am ashamed of myself, deeply ashamed. I just don’t know how it happened, what came over me. I’m dead sorry, I know I’ve let you down, I’ve let me down.’
‘Some days are just bad days and are best forgotten.’ Tchort said, giving Charlie a reassuring pat on the shoulder. But this is not one of them.
‘So, so what happens now?’ Charlie asks fearfully, ‘Harpies to tear my flesh for eternity?’
Tchort consults his watch. ‘I suggest you get showered and dressed, you have a show to put on tonight.’ And what a show it will be.
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s it.’
‘I mean what about… Las Vegas and all that?’
‘If you can complete the remainder of the tour to my satisfaction, then we shall see, when you complete the tour, we’ll talk again.’ Tchort responded, a thin humourless smile on his face that Charlie did not see, adding, ‘Ad astra per alia porci.’ (when pigs can fly to the stars)
‘What?’
‘You really should take the trouble to learn some Latin phrases Charlie, they are really wonderfully expressive.’
‘Aye, course, but that last one?’
‘To the stars… despite difficulties.’ Tchort extemporised, lying through his somewhat pointed teeth.
‘To the stars, aye, to the stars, I like that.’ Charlie replied, toasting Tchort with his glass of water.