The Hypnotist And The Barrister, had been the headline in one tabloid when his affair with Trish was exposed. Weight Control Wizard’s Wife wants £1,000,000 in settlement. Most of the gutter press had picked up on Janet’s demands when the divorce became public property yet, none of them were interested in his ex-wife’s affair with the headmaster of an upmarket school in Cheshire.
The terrible two years after his rampant success and wrecked marriage had generated this desire for obscurity. He wanted to enjoy his life in private. Thankfully, the press soon forgot him and moved on to other, equally famous targets who had slipped from the pedestal of godhead into mere mortality, leaving him with the privacy he so craved.
And now, into the routine domesticity, Mrs Hitchins had dropped a plain brown, 9”x4” envelope.
Bearing a first class stamp, his name and address were neatly typed on the front. The unevenness of the typeface told him it had been produced on a manual typewriter not a modern word-processor driven printer. A 60s freak, such anachronisms always interested him and for a moment he thought it might be from a fellow devotee. But it was not. When he unfolded the single sheet inside, he found it contained only the two sets of dates, which had been produced on the same typewriter as the envelope.
“You should tell the police.”
Trish’s announcement snapped him out of his ruminations. He was surprised by her suggestion. “The police? Are you mad?”
“This is unsolicited mail,” she insisted. “If nothing else, it’s a nuisance, and as you’ve already said, the writer seems to be saying he’s been committing a crime for the last two years.”
His response was predictably cynical. “So I take it to Barn Street and tell them what? Somewhere out there is a woman who’s been abused for the last couple of years and they should look for her. I don’t know who she is, I don’t know where they should start looking.”
Trish would not be moved. “The police will run forensic tests on it, Felix. Take it to them.”
Croft was trying to think up another objection when Mrs Hitchins turned up the volume on the radio.
“It’s seven thirty here on Radio Scarbeck, your local, local station, and this is Jonathan Bream with the local news. A massive police operation is under way at Scarbeck Point after a woman’s body was found early this morning. Here’s our reporter, Carol Russell.”
The reporter’s voice took up the commentary to the accompaniment of distant voices and heavy machinery thrumming in the background.
“At a quarter to six this morning, a man on his way to work, taking a short cut across the Point, discovered the body of a woman. Within twenty minutes, a forensic team had cordoned off the area, keeping everyone out, including a crew of workmen fencing the area off in advance of Sunday’s demolition of Cromford Mill. Superintendent Ernest Shannon, the head of Scarbeck CID, arrived about half an hour later, but refused to comment. Security is tight and the police have taken the extraordinary step of putting up their helicopter to keep the flying, prying eyes of the media at bay. Scarbeck Point is an urban beauty spot, a green belt less than a mile from the town centre, a haven for wildlife, a popular spot with birdwatchers and picnickers, and has spectacular views across the whole of Greater Manchester. This level of police activity surpasses anything local residents have ever seen, and there is widespread speculation that Scarbeck’s serial killer, The Handshaker, has struck for the eighth time.”
On a signal from Croft, Mrs Hitchins turned the volume down. “You see,” he said to Trish. “The police have enough on their plate without me bringing matters like this to their attention. The man is probably a crank. He probably read of the Heidelberg case on my website.”
“Felix, I mean it. They may be snowed under with The Handshaker killings, but that doesn’t mean to say they can neglect routine policing.”
A few moments of silence followed. Trish injected a gleam of determination into her eyes, and Croft capitulated.
He stood up. “I’ll telephone them.”
He left the room and presently Trish heard him negotiating on the telephone. He returned several minutes later in an even worse mood.
“They want me to bring it to the police station.” He glowered out at the weather. “It’ll take absolutely ages to get there in this weather and at this hour.” He slipped on his blazer and picked up his newspaper.
“Ask for one of the senior officers,” Trish insisted.
“I should have thought they’ll be busy out at Scarbeck Point –”
“Felix, if you leave it with the desk sergeant, it will be forgotten. You need to speak to someone in CID, preferably a sergeant or above.”
With an incomprehensible grumble, Croft left.
3
The Handshaker pressed a pay and display ticket to his windscreen, and reclined in his seat.
His philosophy was simple. Never break the law and you would not draw attention to yourself. Paying the outrageous parking fee of £1.60 for an hour was one way of ensuring that no one paid him any particular attention. He was just another motorist parked at the station, waiting for the 8:37 from Manchester or the 8:52 from Rochdale. He might be waiting to board one of the trains, he might be meeting a passenger; he might simply be a train spotter, but he was definitely not doing anything wrong.
Scarbeck station was situated at the lower end of the by-pass, near Shambles roundabout, a mile from the town centre. The station was unmanned, catering for two pay trains per hour in each direction, and there were no prying CCTV cameras; not even on the car park. There was nothing to steal and nothing to vandalise other than the cars parked outside. When he first began his activities, The Handshaker had seen the potential as a pick up point for women he used occasionally. Those women he chose not to murder. Those women he could revisit when the fancy took him.
Idly, he checked the time. She would be here soon to catch the 8:52 to Manchester, but this morning she would not board the train. Indeed, she would never board any train, ever again.
The foul weather showed no sign of abating. Wind and rain buffeted The Handshaker’s car. A heavy lorry trundled along the by-pass a few yards from him, ejecting sheets of spray from its multiple wheels, and saturating the Peugeot’s windscreen. The weather forced The Handshaker’s memory back 30 years to another wild and windy day in a cemetery two hundred miles away.
Thirty years. It was hard to believe it was so long ago.
He remembered the stench from sodden ground covered in a mulch of rotting vegetation, a litter of leaves fallen from the oak, beech, yew and ash trees that gave the cemetery its sombre air. He remembered the silence, the lack of noise from the main road passing the cemetery gates, a stillness punctuated only by the rustle of the wind in the trees and the minister’s droning voice as the coffin was lowered into its resting place. But he found it difficult to recall his emotions. Did he cry or did he remain the stalwart son, putting on a brave face for his mother?
The one emotion he could remember was anger. Time may have dimmed the memory, but not the fury: a gnawing sense of injustice that his father, a great man, a man of international repute, could be taken so early in his magnificent life. Three decades was a long time to bottle up that fury, but the wait would be worth it. Just a few more days…
Another stream of traffic accelerating along the bypass broke into his memories and brought him forward in time to a lay-by on a Midlands trunk road, where he had waited for a breakdown truck to arrive. While he waited, he had scanned a tabloid newspaper and learned that the Guru of Weight Control had decided to retire from the public spotlight to take a post at the newly opened University of North West England.
It was the kind of news item he would normally have ignored, but with nothing better to do until his car was repaired, he read it, spotted Croft’s name and his blood boiled.
He still had the cutting at home, pasted into a scrapbook, and whenever his resolve flagged he would read it again, even though he could recite it practically verbatim.
Master h
ypnotist and weight control expert, Felix Croft, whose book “Imagine Your Weight Away” has sold over ten million copies worldwide, is retiring from public life to take the post of Head of Department for the School of Parapsychology at the recently founded University of North West England. Interviewed yesterday at Oaklands, his recently restored moorland mansion, Croft said, “I’ve had enough of being public property. It’s reached the stage where I can’t go into a bar anymore without someone challenging me to hypnotise them. I’m retiring to pick up my investigations of psychic phenomena with the backing of the UNWE.”
Guru? Master hypnotist? Expert? The Handshaker had raged inwardly. Croft, like his snooty father, was nothing more than a snivelling conman, a privately educated, upper middle-class word merchant possessed of a glib tongue and a lot of neck.
If anything had brought about The Handshaker’s move to Scarbeck, it was that article.
The double blast of a train horn brought him from his grumbling reverie. He checked the dashboard clock again. 8:42. The train from Manchester, on its way to Rochdale, was arriving five minutes late. She was pushing her luck. With barely ten minutes to spare, if the Rochdale-Manchester train arrived early, she would miss it.
A police patrol car pulled into the car park and stopped a few yards from him. The Handshaker watched the two officers light cigarettes. Skiving, he guessed. Sneaking an unauthorised break, and probably breaking the rules on smoking in police vehicles. They felt secure. The town centre huddled on a steep hill the other side of the bypass, a higgledy-piggledy collection of old and new buildings, but the four-storey police station could not be seen from here so logically, the two officers could not be seen from there.
The Handshaker was not worried about them. Every move he made was so innocuous that even when he took her, the police would not suspect anything amiss... if she ever turned up.
He frowned. She was really pushing it today. If she arrived really late, she would inevitably rush from the car to the station and his chance would be gone.
He knew where she was. All roads from the east converged at a notorious bottleneck known as Pearman’s Junction, about two miles out of town. Construction work on a bus lane was under way at the junction, restricting the traffic to a single lane, and to compound the problem, there were also six sets of traffic lights between Pearman’s and Shambles roundabout. It all made for a monumental traffic jam adding anything up to half an hour to journeys into Scarbeck. It was odds on that she was sat somewhere in that sea of vehicles.
Perhaps she would not be going to work at all today. Perhaps she was ill. Unlikely. She had gone yesterday. He had sat here and watched her board the train, and if she were fit enough yesterday, she would be all right this morning. Besides, she was one of those dedicated career women who would still turn out for work if her legs were hanging off.
Thoughts of the traffic problems turned his mind to Croft. He worked at the university and did not normally come this way, but this morning, The Handshaker knew Croft would have to go to the police station, and that would bring him into town, right past Shambles and the station.
He smiled at the thought of what that note would have done to Croft. The Heidelberg reference was obvious, but the idiot would not yet have linked it to The Handshaker killings. The police would do that. And even when he did get the connection, he would not realise its full implication. Not until this evening.
He checked the clock again. 8:45. She was really cutting it fine. Fortunately there was just enough leeway in his overall plan to let him miss her today, but he had to have her no later than tomorrow.
He glanced into the rear view mirror and amongst the throng of cars coming off the roundabout and accelerating along the by-pass, he saw her black Audi. While the rest of the traffic hurried straight on, she swung into the station car park and reversed into a space a few cars along from him.
Perfect. A quick check to ensure the police were paying no particular attention, and as she crossed to the ticket machine, inserted her coins, he got out and made his way to her.
“Nasty morning,” he said, shrinking into his coat from the weather.
Taking her ticket, she turned to face him and smiled in recognition. “Oh, hello. Small world. Going to Manchester or Rochdale?”
“Neither.” He gripped her wrist; she stared, her features running quickly through alarm to anger. “Combarus.”
The command, first used over 80 years ago in pre-war Germany, had the necessary effect. There was no physical change in her – perhaps a slight and momentary glazing of the eyes – but she was completely under his control.
He handed her a sheet of A4 paper. “Go to your car, put the parking ticket on the windscreen, leave your keys in the ignition and put the sheet of paper in the glove compartment, then join me in my car.”
She obeyed. So intense was her programming that she could do no other.
Two minutes later, while she sat acquiescently in the passenger seat, and right under the noses of the two police officers, still chatting and smoking in their car, he drove away.
4
In the wood and glass reception area of Scarbeck police station, Croft’s head was bent over The Independent’s back page crossword.
7 across, disestablished annual account accrual in a northern town (4) nagged him. It was only four letters, and with nothing to give him a clue other than a letter ‘B’ at the start of the word, his mind had seized up.
Irritation didn’t help and the journey into Scarbeck, exasperating for the calmest of motorists, had provided plenty of that. For Croft, who usually avoided the town by cutting across the moors to the motorway, it had been even more frustrating, but he had no choice. Trish, he realised, had been right, and he wanted to know what the police would make of the note.
After taking almost 45 minutes to make a journey that should have taken no more than 15, he had now waited a further half hour, perched on an uncomfortable wooden bench watching men and women, police officers and members of the public, coming and going. Some passed through the security door to the other side of the counter, others approached the desk sergeant, a surly, middle-aged individual by the name of Simpson.
Croft had found the sergeant unhelpful, but he blamed himself. He had followed Trish’s advice and asked to speak to someone in charge.
Simpson seemed to take the request as an affront to his own authority. “Superintendent Shannon is out, sir. His 2IC, Detective Inspector Matthews, is in. I can get her if you wish.”
Croft recalled Trish mentioning something about senior officers. Was an inspector senior enough? “She has the authority to investigate, er, possible offences?”
Simpson looked down his nose at Croft. “In Superintendent Shannon’s absence, sir, there is no higher authority than Inspector Matthews.”
He nodded. “Fine. I’ll speak to her then.”
“And what is it about?”
Croft hedged. “I’ll tell her when I see her.”
As far as Sergeant Simpson was concerned that appeared to cross the thin red line. Grumpily, he indicated that Croft should wait on the benches. “I’ll get her for you, but you may have to wait. It’s been a busy morning.”
And Croft had waited, but he was beginning to resent it. He concentrated on the crossword again in an effort to subdue his annoyance.
Beyond the public entrance, the foul weather continued its assault, the heavy rain taking its toll on Tuesday morning shoppers. The bus station across the road was practically deserted, and the few people wandering the streets were wrapped in heavy clothing.
Thoughts, as turbulent as the weather, whirled around his head again, the same unanswered questions that had plagued him at home. Why had this mystery correspondent written to him? Was it a cryptic confession, a threat, or the work of a crank? In a town of over 100,000 people, how would Croft know if a crime like Heidelberg had been committed? There were hundreds, probably thousands of women out there who were subject to abuse of one kind or another, but how would anyone isola
te the one woman who was not the object of routine domestic physical and verbal cruelty but of specialist…
The door opened letting in a blast of cold air and a spray of rain. Two uniformed constables entered, removing their caps and shaking the water from them. They were laughing over some private joke.
“Nipples like strawberries, and just as sweet.”
Croft frowned at the innate sexism. They laughed again. A light bulb lit in Croft’s mind. Strawberry, berry, bury. Of course, it was so obvious.
Disestablished annual accrual. An annual accrual on a bank account was interest. Deduct the letters E-S-T from interest, in other words, disestablish it, and he was left with the word inter, which was another word for bury, and Bury was a northern town. He reached into his breast pocket, took out an engraved, gold plated ballpoint, and inked the word in.
With the clue solved, reality intruded once more.
Scarbeck nestled under the Pennines on the extreme northeast outskirts of Manchester. A former mill town, officially classified as a deprived area under EC rules, it was a community living in fear of one elusive and dangerous man. The Handshaker. The sobriquet was a mystery to everyone, and hardly accurate in Croft’s opinion. Each victim had been hanged, so why had they not dubbed him The Hangman?
According to the media, the police did not even have a suspect, and Croft could well imagine that tempers ran high in this station. They were unlikely to be enthusiastic about chasing up the speculative words of a… a what? He supposed they would consider the writer a crackpot. Croft thought differently. The coded reference in the note spoke to him, and he knew that the writer, whoever he was, was not merely an oddball. If the note told the truth, he was just as dangerous as The Handshaker.
Irritably, he checked his watch then got to his feet and crossed to the counter again. “Excuse me.”
Simpson, busily completing some kind of documentation, looked up. “Yes?”
The Handshaker Page 2