Past Mortem

by Ben Elton

  Newson recognized the name. Pru was Natasha’s younger sister.

  Ed’s the same as ever. He’s so funny it’s obvious he fancies me. The other girls laugh about it all the time, and I honestly believe he thinks we don’t know…

  Newson’s eye flicked down the page.

  Ed and I have this weird relationship where we talk about all sorts of private stuff but never the one thing I know he’s really thinking. I ought to be annoyed, but actually I think it’s sweet.

  Hope began to surge through Newson’s body.

  It certainly makes a change from Lance. At least Ed seems to give a shit how I feel…

  Jameson had lied! The bastard had lied and if Newson had not discovered Jameson’s computer he would never have known the truth. He would have moved Natasha on from his team as quickly as possible and believed for the rest of his life that she despised him. Relief flooded over him like a warm bath, combined with rage that Jameson’s intentions could have been so cruel.

  He heard a sound behind him. He spun round, trying to remember the attack and defence stances from his brief and unimpressive efforts at aikido training while fumbling in his pocket for his personal alarm. There was no way on earth he could fight Jameson, he knew that.

  It was the hotel manager. ‘Inspector,’ he said. ‘The night porter told me that you were looking for Mr Jameson. I wonder if I might trouble you again for your ID.’

  Newson offered his credentials, which the manager studied with great care before saying, ‘Mr Jameson was on the squash court. He asked for it to be opened late. I suppose it’s possible he may still be there; we have a steam room and there are refreshments. Would you like me to take you there?’

  Together they descended into the hotel basement.

  ‘Who was he playing?’ Newson enquired. ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘No, the gym and court are open to non-residents if they join our health club, and there is an entrance directly from the street.’

  ‘The door can be opened from the street?’

  ‘Not in the evening. Mr Jameson would have had to let his guest in.’

  Newson knew that he should call for back-up. If Jameson was still there he intended to arrest him immediately for IT crime and information theft, but Jameson was aware that he was under suspicion of murder. If he was guilty he might fight. He would certainly run. Either way Newson knew that he should wait.

  But he couldn’t. He had to confront the bastard. Newson and the hotel manager walked along the basement corridor and approached the door marked ‘Health Club’. It was only then that he heard it.

  There could be no mistake.

  Everybody wants to rule the world.

  Tears for Fears, Songs from the Big Chair, 1984.

  Newson sprang forward, grabbed the handle of the door and pushed. It was locked. Inside, the song was ending. He commanded the manager to produce his master key as another song began.

  ‘The Power Of Love’. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Welcome to the Pleasure Dome, 1984.

  Someone was playing an early-eighties compilation album.

  ‘Open it,’ Newson instructed, ‘and wait here.’

  The manager unlocked the door and Newson entered the club. The squash court was to his right, behind a perspex wall. It was empty. To Newson’s left was a gym with weight-training equipment and treadmills. It was also empty. At the end of the corridor a T-junction pointed to the pool and spa, and the changing rooms, male and female.

  The boys’ changing rooms. An alarm bell rang in Newson’s head, competing for his attention with the sound of pop music from two decades before. The pop music of his schooldays. And of Jameson’s.

  He rushed past the gym and down the corridor, turned the corner at the end and pushed open the door of the male changing room.

  Jameson was dead.

  His hands and feet were tied and his entire body, from neck to toes, was a bloodied pulp. He lay on his side on the floor, his face turned upwards. Somebody had written on his forehead ‘I am queer’, just as Jameson had once done to Gary Whitfield.

  Newson’s phone rang. It was Natasha. ‘Ed, I’ve spoken to Helen Smart and Henry Chambers and asked them to check back over the dates I’ve given them…

  ‘Call them back and tell them not to bother,’ Newson replied. ‘The ground has shifted again, but this time, thank God, it feels a little firmer beneath my feet.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I finally have a theory.’

  ‘Oh, good.’

  Newson asked Natasha to join him at the Rossiter Hotel, and then alerted the murder team to Jameson’s killing. He secured the scene, and returned to Jameson’s room and his computer. He typed the name ‘Helen Smart’ into the search engine but found no connecting icon to show that Jameson had been accessing her communications. There was one small folder but it contained only a copy of the same jpeg of Helen naked and one email, the message that Jameson had himself admitted to sending, in which he had advised her to find closure. Jameson and Helen were not connected. What was more, since Natasha had spoken to both Helen and Henry Chambers that evening, it was clear that neither of them could have had anything to do with the murder of Roger Jameson.

  Helen Smart was not the killer. Newson was glad, for her sake and her son’s. He had never really believed that she could have been. Jameson had seemed a much more likely contender. Newson had genuinely suspected him, but now Jameson was dead. It would probably be little consolation to Jameson’s immortal soul, but he was off the hook.

  ‘First on the scene again,’ Dr Clarke said across the bloodied corpse of Roger Jameson, which lay on a cold slab in the West London Police Mortuary. ‘You seem to be making a habit of this, Inspector.’

  ‘I intend to ensure that Jameson’s is the last murder in this particular series,’ Newson replied.

  ‘Let’s hope so. Anyway, it’s the usual story. This man was chemically overpowered by means of a spiked drink.’

  ‘Yes, we found the glass, beer and a small dose of Rohypnol.’

  ‘Small is right. There’s very little in the stomach. He probably wasn’t even rendered unconscious.’

  ‘Just woozy enough to be unable to prevent himself being bound.’

  ‘Yes, he wouldn’t have been able to defend himself.’

  ‘So the killer gave him a light dose because he was in a hurry and didn’t want to risk Jameson’s being unconscious and missing the fun.’

  ‘Hypothesis is your department, Inspector,’ Clarke said. ‘As I have told you many times, I prefer not to speculate.’

  Dr Clarke seemed much more her old self. Newson preferred her like this, brisk and bossy. Glancing at her hands, he noticed a wedding ring through one of the bloodied translucent gloves. On their previous meeting she had not been wearing it.

  ‘All right, Doctor. Speculation aside, how did he die?’

  ‘His neck was broken.

  ‘With what?’

  ‘Some kind of heavy whip. You can see that there are two or three massive weals on his upper shoulders and the back of his head. I’d say the killer delivered five or six blows and one of them. broke his neck, finishing him off.’

  ‘And the other blows?’ Newson was referring to the fact that Jameson’s entire body had been whipped raw,

  ‘Incredibly painful, but not life-threatening. Basically, Jameson was given a savage whipping, which resulted in the massive skin trauma that you can see all over him. Then the killer switched weapons and broke his neck.’

  ‘And the whip — the first weapon?’

  ‘Ah, now that’s interesting. There’s a huge number of fibres left in the wounds, so we can be quite certain what the killer used for a whip. Take a look at this — ’

  ‘I don’t need to look,’ Newson said. ‘I know what he whipped Jameson with. Wet towels.’

  ‘Goodness gracious. How could you have guessed that?’

  ‘Because it’s all described on the Friends Reunited site. Twenty years ago Roger Jameson tormented a boy by
whipping him with wet towels. Then he wrote ‘I am queer’ on the boy’s forehead. The mills of God, eh?’

  It was after one o’clock in the morning when Newson and Natasha left the mortuary.

  ‘He killed twice in twenty-four hours. He thinks he’s invincible,’ said Newson.

  ‘Isn’t he?’ Natasha replied.

  ‘No. Not any more.’

  ‘He doesn’t have a lot of respect for you, though, does he?’

  ‘Ah yes, you’ve spotted that, then.’

  ‘He’s killed two of your classmates now.’

  ‘Yes, I think we can put the first down to coincidence, but the second was definitely personal. This man has supreme self-confidence, we’ve known that from the start. Look at the little details he puts into his murders. He wants to show that he can do whatever he likes whenever he likes.’

  ‘And of course he can.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true. So far he’s pissed all over us from a very great height. His vigilante campaign has been a stunning success and he’s moved on to sourcing his victims via Kidcall instead of Friends Reunited. However, when he found out that I was leading the hunt my guess is that he remembered my name from the Christine Copperfield internet exchange. Having made that connection he would have recalled that there was a second bully in my class, and he couldn’t resist dealing with him too. Just to make it absolutely clear who’s boss and that in our shared lives I might be the policeman but he holds the moral high ground.’

  ‘Wow. One mad fuck.’

  ‘Exactly. The fact that we’ve started to investigate people at Kidcall must also have rattled his cage. I think he wanted to hit back.’

  ‘So you think the killer has only recently become aware of you?’

  ‘Yes. Just as I’ve become aware of him. Can we get a coffee somewhere? Perhaps a sandwich?’

  They got into Natasha’s car, Newson noting once again how she winced as she stooped to get in. She drove them to a twenty-four-hour service station and parked in the air and gas bay. Newson picked up a microwave coffee and two chocolate chip cookies.

  ‘So,’ he said when he was once again sitting beside her in the car. ‘I think I know who the killer is.’

  ‘Good work, fellah!’

  ‘Unfortunately I don’t have a shred of proof.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘So I’m afraid that we’re going to have to entrap him. The problem is, he knows me.’

  ‘I see. So what you’re saying is that I’m going to have to entrap him.’

  ‘You don’t have to do it. In fact, I can’t believe I’m asking you. After all, this bloke is certainly the most efficient killer you or I have ever encountered.’

  ‘That’s all right. I’m used to dealing with bullies.’ Natasha shifted in her seat.

  ‘Natasha, did Lance hit you again?’

  Suddenly her face was furious. ‘Yes, he did! All right? You said he would and he did! And I’m the fucking moron who took him back and let him do it. The bastard fractured two ribs. You were right. I was wrong. Hooray. I’ve let down the whole of womankind. Whoopy ding-dong.’

  Newson did not reply and they sat in silence for a while.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Natasha at last.

  ‘That’s all right. No problem.’

  There was another brief silence. This time it was Newson who broke it. ‘So what did you do? You know, after he hit you — ’

  ‘After he kicked me.’

  ‘After he kicked you?’

  ‘What do you think I did? I arrested the little prick.’

  ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘I fucking did. I nicked him for assault.’

  ‘But that’s fantastic! Did he come quietly?’

  ‘He was furious. Couldn’t believe it. I mean, he was white with rage and I could see his fists clenching, so I reminded him that he was under arrest and that if he hit me again it wouldn’t be a domestic any more, it’d be assaulting a police officer, which was just a little bit serious.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Then I called for back-up and they took him in. End of story. Fuck him.’

  ‘Natasha.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Will you have dinner with me?’

  ‘I thought we were going to catch a killer.’

  ‘After that.’

  ‘Maybe; I’ll think about it. Who’s the killer?’

  ‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes. The key is that everybody trusts him. Even Roger Jameson let him in. They always let him in.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  On the evening of the third day after Trevor Wilmot and Roger Jameson died, Natasha sat alone in her little flat.

  ‘Third time lucky, eh?’ she said. ‘Hope you can hear me.’

  Down in the street Newson sat in his car with a small receiver in his ear. ‘Yes, I can hear you, Sergeant,’ he replied, although he knew that she couldn’t hear him.

  Somewhere, circulating in the surrounding streets, was an anonymous van in which six more police officers waited for Newson’s instructions to move in. They had been there on the previous two evenings, but so far the man Newson suspected of being the serial killer had failed to rise to the bait.

  The bait consisted of a series of urgent and desperate appeals to the Kidcall website. A young female police constable was being terrorized by her supervising sergeant, Natasha Wilkie, an evil bully of a woman.

  §

  I know that you’re really only interested in schoolchildren, but I’m only eighteen and I don’t know who else to turn to. I was bullied at school too and I partly joined the police because I wanted to learn to stand up for myself. I never expected it would be worse here, but it is, much worse. I work at New Scotland Yard, seconded to one of the murder squads. I just do filing and stuff, but I thought it would be so exciting. Instead my life has been utterly ruined. The truth is that I’m seriously thinking about killing myself because I just don’t want to get picked on any more. The funny thing is that the team I’m with are working on a bullying case! There he is, high and mighty Detective Inspector Newson, trying to catch some killer who’s obsessed with bullies, and he doesn’t even bother to stop what’s going on in his own team.

  Newson had concocted his story carefully, wanting to appeal to the killer’s vanity, sense of drama and distorted views on fair play. He felt sure that if the killer believed that he, Inspector Newson, was turning a blind eye to bullying, it would make the bait all the sweeter.

  I haven’t told the inspector, of course. If I did I think Sergeant Wilkie would kill me, but he must know what she’s like. She makes all the girls’ lives a misery, but particularly mine because I’m small and new, I suppose. Every single day she gets me in the ladies’ and pushes me around, pulling at my clothes, deliberately laddering my tights. I don’t know if it’s sexual or whatever but her favourite thing is to flush my head in the toilet. I can hardly bear to type the words. I feel so humiliated. I know I should stand up for myself and make a complaint, but I can’t Everybody’s scared of her and it would be her word against mine. She’s so cruel, it’s as if she lives to torment me. She loves Westlife and I tried to make her like me by telling her I was a Westlife fan too, but she just said that they’d never look at a little slut like me and then made me stand in the middle of the office and sing ‘Flying Without Wings’. She’s always trying to think of stuff to torment me. What can I do? What can I do?

  Natasha had objected to the bit about the toilet. ‘He’ll come round and shit on my head or something.’

  ‘I’ve got to make it tempting. I think it’ll intrigue him. He hasn’t drowned anybody yet.’

  The fictitious teenage constable had been sending messages all week, sometimes dropping little hints that the evil Sergeant Wilkie lived alone. Now all Newson and his team could do was wait.

  Shortly after eigh
t thirty they were rewarded. An inconspicuously ordinary car pulled up outside the entrance to Natasha’s apartment block and a man got out, carrying a case.

  Newson watched as the figure pushed one of the bell buttons on Natasha’s front door. ‘Fuck, I think this is it,’ he heard Natasha whisper. There followed the sound of Natasha crossing the room.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  Newson could hear the voice of the visitor coming through Natasha’s intercom.

  ‘Natasha Wilkie?’

  ‘Yes. Who is it?’

  ‘This is Dick Crosby.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Come on, Natasha, you know me. Dick Crosby. Geeky guy with beard. Billionaire, you know the one. I’ve got some good news for you.’

  ‘This is a wind-up, right.’

  ‘No, not at all, Natasha. You probably know I own the Telecom network. Well, the last call you made on your phone was kind of a lucky one, because it was the billionth one since I took over, and you may remember that I pledged a million pounds to my billionth caller.’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’

  ‘Well, you’d better had, girl. Come down and see. I always promised that I’d do this anonymously. Of course, if you let me use it publicly that would be nice, but it’s up to you. I have your cheque right here. I want to be able to give it to you personally.’

  ‘I’m coming down to see if it’s really you.’ Natasha was playing the part well, trying not to appear too eager. Any girl would clearly need to see the person claiming to be Dick Crosby before letting them in. But the moment anyone actually laid eyes on the great man all their defences would evaporate instantly. He was the ultimate celebrity. Everybody knew him. Everybody would be pleased to see him.

  The figure at the door waited for Natasha, glancing about, nervous lest he be seen. That, of course, was the downside of his celebrity. He would need to be very careful approaching the houses of his victims. Newson noticed that Crosby had taken the precaution of wearing a hooded top.

  The door opened. Natasha stood for a moment in front of her visitor. ‘Oh, my God!’ she said.