Past Mortem

by Ben Elton

  ‘But he never got the chance.

  ‘No, because Neil Bradshaw never came back from the newsagent.’

  The seed shed in which Neil Bradshaw had been found dead stood alone, isolated from the other farm buildings by a large field, and it was here that Newson and Natasha met Douglas Goddard, the farmer who had rented the shed to the killer.

  ‘We never met,’ Goddard told them. ‘He only dealt with me over the phone. Said he was an artist, he needed privacy to work and apparently my shed had perfect ambience.’ Goddard was standing in the shadow of a dilapidated combine harvester around which many weeds had grown, weeds that were now stealing their way up into its mechanism.

  ‘He left cash in an envelope in my post-box down at the road and made it very clear that if he was disturbed he’d be off and take his money with him. I didn’t mind a bit, a quiet tenant’s a good tenant as far as I’m concerned, and he paid well over the odds. I’d like to add, Inspector, that I intended to declare the cash in my tax return, and I still do, of course, although it seems funny now, almost like blood money. I’ve thought about giving it all to charity, as a matter of fact.’

  From the way this last sentence was left hanging in the air it was clear to Newson that thinking about it was as far as Goddard would ever get with his charitable instincts. Newson had already learnt from the original interview notes taken by the Stratford police that Mr Goddard had been at great pains from his first interview to stress his intention to declare the rent he had received. Indeed, he seemed to view the whole affair as an effort by an anonymous murderer to get him into trouble with the Inland Revenue.

  ‘I was happy to let the seed shed out because I don’t need any seeds at the moment, seeing as how the whole farm’s lying fallow. Look at my combine, sunflowers in the cab. Strange sort of farming, I call it, but then these are very strange times. Did you know that the Department of the bloody Environment pay me to sow meadows? I mean, what’s the use of a meadow when it’s at home? You can’t eat dandelions.’

  ‘Meadows are an essential element in biodiversity,’ Newson explained. ‘The wild flowers bring the insects, the insects bring the birds.’

  ‘And what do the birds bring? Bird shit,’ the farmer replied. ‘It’s like with my hedges. I’m not allowed to tear them up. My own bloody hedges! Just so some hedgehog’s got somewhere to sleep for the night. Who, I should like to know, gives a toss where hedgehogs sleep? You townies, that’s who. You don’t know the first bloody thing about country life, but that don’t stop you making rules about it.’

  ‘Excuse me, but you seem to be mistaking us for people who are remotely interested in your opinions,’ said Natasha, who had a hangover and was in no mood to put up with the whining of reactionary countryfolk.

  ‘Steady on, Sergeant,’ Newson said.

  ‘Well, just ask him what we need to know and then we can get out of this bloody field.’

  ‘You can’t talk to me like that, young lady,’ Goddard complained.

  ‘Of course I can,’ Natasha replied. ‘Just like I can check the tax discs on those two clapped-out old bangers I saw in your barn. You have to register all vehicles these days, you know.’

  ‘Look, we won’t keep you long, Mr Goddard,’ said Newson in his most conciliatory tone. ‘I just wanted to confirm that you only ever saw your tenant visit once.’

  ‘Like I said, I never actually saw him at all, but on that Monday morning, the one after the Sunday when I now know that poor bugger got kidnapped, I saw there were a van parked down at the shed. As I told your blokes at the time, I think it were probably a Toyota Hiace, but I couldn’t be sure ‘cos like I say I’d been told to steer well clear and I did.’

  ‘You weren’t curious at all?’

  ‘Why would I be? The bloke said he was an artist. I don’t give a toss about art, do I? He paid. That satisfied my curiosity.’

  ‘And the van was there all day?’

  ‘Yes!’ Goddard said with-the exasperation of one who has had to tell his story before. ‘It were there all through Monday and it were still there when I turned in that night. I remember because he was still playing his music…’

  ‘You mentioned the music to the officers at the time, but you didn’t say what music it was. Do you remember?’

  ‘I could hardly hear, what with it being so far away and that, but at night the wind changed and I caught the odd bit. Old stuff, from when we were kids. You know, Slade, glam rock an’ that, least it could have been.’

  Inspector Newson thanked the farmer for his help and he and Natasha made their way down to the seed shed that no longer contained seeds.

  Despite the fact that the murder had taken place almost a year earlier, the scene remained very much as it had been when the starved and mutilated corpse of Neil Bradshaw had been carried from it. Either out of sloth or squeamishness, Goddard had elected to let things lie and the crude soundproofing with which the killer had lined the walls and ceiling was still in place, as were many of the planks, bolts and bars that had been installed in order to make the shed into a secure prison.

  ‘He must have soundproofed the place just before he left, or Goddard wouldn’t have heard the music,’ Newson said.

  ‘Maybe,’ Natasha replied. ‘Although if it. had been on loud enough he might have heard it anyway.’

  ‘Well, he certainly used the music to cover up the sound of Bradshaw’s screams.’

  ‘Which gives you a link to the Bishop murder, I suppose.’

  ‘It’s something, isn’t it?’

  Together they looked around the silent, empty shed. The air was heavy and stale and smelt of hay and dirt.

  ‘If the killer hadn’t stopped paying the rent I imagine the corpse would still be here,’ Newson observed, for it had only been the absence for a week or two of his cash envelope that had led Goddard to investigate. ‘I suppose our murderer knew how long it takes for a man to die of thirst, and once he knew his man was dead he didn’t want to waste his money paying any more rent.’

  The floor of the shed was bare now, but the scene-of-crime photographs showed that it had once been littered with instruments of torture: pliers, clamps, tweezers and a vice. An examination of the corpse suggested that these tools had been used to torment the victim’s genitals and -nipples.

  ‘So the torturing didn’t kill him?’ enquired Natasha.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But it would have hurt.’

  ‘It certainly would.’

  The autopsy made grim reading. The killer had begun the torture using his hands, squeezing and poking at the victim’s crotch and chest. The pectoral -bruising in particular showed evidence of hard gripping and squeezing by both a left and a right hand, lots and lots of fingerpad bruising.

  ‘He groped him?’ Natasha said.

  ‘Essentially, that’s what he did,’ Newson replied, ‘and not very gently either. He really bruised the man’s chest. Digging his thumbs deep into the pectorals. Bradshaw was quite a big man. He had tits, and the killer really went to work on them.’

  Natasha grimaced. ‘When I was fifteen I had a boyfriend who used to grope me too hard.’

  Newson gritted his teeth and swallowed.

  ‘He used to stop when I asked, but only after I’d asked a few times,’ Natasha said. ‘Years later I worked out that he had enjoyed the pain he caused me.’

  ‘Why did you let him do it?’

  ‘I didn’t, I dumped him.’

  ‘After how long?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know…A month.’

  ‘A month? You let him hurt you for a month before you dumped him?’

  ‘It might have been less…Could have been a bit more. Natasha looked embarrassed. Newson did not pursue the point.

  ‘After the groping, the killer began to use his tools.’ It made Newson’s own balls ache just to say it.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Natasha, for want of a more useful response.

  ‘Then Bradshaw was sodomized. The pathologist was pretty certain it was don
e with the handle of a claw hammer that was found with the pliers.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘Then he put a pair of knickers on his victim.’

  ‘What, lingerie?’

  ‘No, just white cotton girl’s knickers from Marks & Spencer. Also a short, pleated tartan skirt.’

  ‘So the suspect crushed Bradshaw’s balls and then dressed him in knickers and a skirt? Do you think he wanted to turn him into a girl? Like some weird transsexual thing?’

  ‘I don’t know. That wouldn’t explain him torturing the man’s nipples.’

  ‘So how did he finish him off?’ Natasha asked. ‘I’m sorry, I know I should be up to speed on all this, but I was pissed last night with the girls. It was a meeting of the All Men Are Bastards Club.’

  ‘It’s the men you choose to associate with who are bastards.’

  ‘No, you’re wrong there. It’s actually been scientifically proven that all men are bastards. Not you, obviously, you get a special exemption.’

  Inspector Newson presumed that this must be on account of the fact that he was short, mild and clearly in Natasha’s opinion devoid of any hint of danger, sexuality or anything that she might find remotely attractive. ‘I’m honoured,’ he said.

  Newson then explained that after. the killer had had his fill of torturing Bradshaw, he had placed food and water on a little ledge, which he had secured to the wall about eight and a half feet from the ground. The killer had then put a chair below the ledge. By standing on the chair Neil Bradshaw would be able to stretch to within half an inch or so of the supplies but no nearer.

  ‘That’s just medieval,’ said Natasha.

  There were four holes in the floor just in front of the chair, where a television camera had been bolted to the boards, lens pointing upwards. The camera had been connected to a television monitor suspended on a bracket from the ceiling directly above the ledge.

  ‘The camera had no recording function. It merely transmitted a live picture to the screen.’

  ‘So Bradshaw had to watch himself reaching for the food.’

  ‘Watch himself from below.’

  ‘Weird angle to choose. You’d have thought the sicko would have wanted Bradshaw to stare into his own desperate face.’

  ‘No, he wanted Bradshaw to stare up the skirt.’

  ‘That is so weird.’

  ‘Yes. At this point we presume that the killer left Bradshaw to it. Bradshaw died about a week later from his wounds, which by then were rotting and infested. You can see from the way the planks beneath the ledge are scuffed that the tormented man repeatedly stood on the chair and reached for the water which was forever beyond him. Those scratches on the wall below the ledge were made by his fingernails.’

  After a half-hour or so inside the shed, which told Newson nothing more than he knew already from the crime reports, he and Natasha repaired to the Dun Cow, a nearby pub which promised basket lunches.

  ‘The victim,’ Newson explained after they had ordered their food, ‘was probably kept in the van in which he was snatched for the rest of that first Sunday and was delivered to the seed shed under cover of darkness.’

  ‘Well, then, this killer,’ Natasha replied, ‘and let’s remember we still have no proof that these killings are connected, but if they are, this killer seems to have been pretty lucky in how little initial resistance his victims put up.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps he knew them all.’

  ‘Wide circle of friends. A north London builder, a Manchester squaddie, a Kensington slapper, and this bloke…’

  ‘The curator of Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, who incidentally owned the, largest stash of pornography the investigating team had ever encountered.’

  ‘Anything dodgy?’

  ‘Dodgy, yes, but nothing illegal.’

  ‘Why would our man know all these different people?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t he?’

  ‘There has to be a motivation. Knocking off acquaintances from various parts of the country just because you know them isn’t enough.’

  ‘Well, he likes killing people, and it’s easier to capture people you know.’

  ‘Shit. With friends like that, eh?’

  ‘On the other hand, perhaps he didn’t know them.’

  ‘In which case how does he get into their homes and lure them into vans?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Possibly,’ Natasha said, attacking her scampi and chips, ‘because ‘he’ is actually four different people who conducted four completely separate murders and we’re wasting our time.’

  At that point Natasha’s mobile rang. Newson knew that it was Lance.

  ‘I’m not going to answer it,’ she said and let it ring. Moments later when her phone rang again she did answer it, and retreated to the car park to conduct her conversation in private. When she returned she looked angry as she usually did after her conversations with Lance.

  ‘I don’t know why you bother going outside,’ Newson said. ‘You always tell me what he says.’

  ‘He says I’m suffocating and possessive.’

  ‘Why should he care what you are? He dumped you. You’re finished. He has no right to be ringing you up to tell you what you are and aren’t.’

  Newson did not need the embarrassed pause that followed to work out that Natasha and Lance were once more an item.

  ‘That didn’t take long, did it?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘He came round last night.’

  ‘I thought you were at a meeting of the All Men Are Bastards Club.’

  ‘He was there when I got home, on the couch.’

  ‘He had no right to let himself into your home. You should have arrested him.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘You’re being stupid. Anyway, he said he knew he’d been a prick. He was really nice and totally sorry.’

  ‘I thought all men were bastards?’

  ‘They are, but they’re all we’ve got. Look, Lance has shit to deal with too, you know. He’s uptight at the moment.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s all right, then.’

  ‘He said I had to give him another chance, that I owed him that at least.’

  ‘You don’t owe him anything. He owes you a lot of rent, but you don’t owe him anything. I told you he’d come back. You said you wouldn’t have him.’

  ‘It’s partly my fault. I mean, I do work a lot and I’m really into my job.’

  ‘Which is commonly considered to be a good thing.’

  ‘Yes, but perhaps I should’ve made more time for him and me. I mean, he’s not working, is he, and I’ve got a pretty cool job, and that can be quite undermining for someone, particularly a bloke, and sometimes I don’t think I’m sympathetic to that. I think I need to be there for him more.’

  ‘I thought you were being suffocating?’

  ‘Yeah, but he says I have it both ways. Like I want him to be a proper boyfriend, be faithful and not be out all night getting pissed but, on the other hand, I have this great job to do and I’m always going on about it and I need to give him some space but also be there for him, which I think is actually quite reasonable.’

  Newson took a deep breath. He should- not, absolutely should not be having this conversation. Even if he had not been remotely attracted to Detective Sergeant Wilkie it would have been inappropriate for him to be party to his subordinate’s private life in this way. But he was attracted to her. He was in love with her. He thought about her when he went to sleep at night and he was thinking about her when he woke up in the morning. He was obsessed with her, and allowing himself to masquerade as nothing more than a sympathetic friend was simply feeding the obsession. He could not help it, though. Talking to Natasha about her boyfriend was the only intimacy with her that he had.

  ‘I’m trying to understand his argument here,’ Newson said. ‘He’s saying that if you don’t want him to screw around and get pissed
all night you need to take less interest in your work?’

  Natasha did not reply.

  ‘Natasha, this man is using you. He bullies you when you’re together and when he drops you he bullies you into having him back…’

  ‘I said I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘But we are talking about it.’

  ‘I knew you’d be like this.’

  ‘How else can I be?’

  ‘I’m not hungry. I’m going to sit in the car. See you when you’ve finished.’

  And Detective Inspector Newson was left alone with his chicken and chips.

  ELEVEN

  Inspector Newson and Sergeant Wilkie spoke little on the drive back to London, both of them lost in their own thoughts. Newson sat in the passenger seat, staring out of the window in order to avoid spending the entire journey taking sidelong glances at Natasha’s legs as she changed gear. Instead he tried to concentrate on murder. He racked his brains, searching for a single name or detail to connect conclusively the Willesden killing of Adam Bishop with the three earlier crimes.

  There was nothing. Of the thousands of names that had been entered into various crime reports, the neighbours, friends, colleagues and enemies of the deceased who had been interviewed, not a single name cross-referenced between one murder and another.

  Similarly, of all the tools, tapes, prints and microscopic threads that had been identified and catalogued by the various forensic teams, not one item was duplicated in any of the killings. Duct tape was a feature of three out of the four crimes, but it was the commonest type of duct tape. Rope had been present at the same three murder scenes, but rope that could be bought at any DIY shop or superstore.

  Nonetheless, Newson persisted in his suspicion that the crimes were connected and that he was dealing with a single serial killer. The circumstantial similarities were too strong. Over a period of not much more than a year, four murders had taken place in which the victims had allowed themselves to be subdued, held captive and then, while still conscious, were subjected to a lengthy, ritualized torture and killing. The victims had been conscious of their fate, not just the pain but the manner in which the pain was inflicted. It was important to the killer that they knew what was happening to them, that they understood what was happening to them and how it was going to end. Newson presumed that the killer’s motives were sexual because he couldn’t think of any other reason why someone would do these things except for the excitement, besides which, as he knew from his own experience, in the long run, everything came down to sex.