The Handshaker

by David Robinson

Millie’s normal decisiveness left her. “We’re not sure, but when he abducted Janice Turner, we publicised a CCTV image from the market security cameras, in which the man we wanted to interview was holding Janice’s hand. Ernie mentioned it, if you recall. We assumed the man was trying to drag her away, but then the note turned up with the signature on it, and we took a different line. He may just have been shaking hands with her.” Taking in Croft’s look of accusation, she hurried on to explain, “We’re not saying that the man in the photograph is The Handshaker. He was simply someone we wanted to speak to because he was one of the last people to see Janice alive. She was carrying bags – shopping we assume – and we figured she was on her way off the market when she spoke to this guy. Neither she nor the bags were ever seen again, until she turned up naked and hanging from a tree in the Parish Church yard.”

  Croft would not entertain her excuses. “That man was The Handshaker,” he asserted. “He saw the photograph, realised the interpretation you would put on it, and thought of his own nickname.” Croft’s smooth features creased into a frown of great worry. “Shaking hands to say hello, shaking hands to trigger a post-hypnosis suggestion making her docile, compliant, and obedient; it’s the most natural thing in the world. You meet someone you know, he offers his hand and you shake it. I told you, this man knows his victims.”

  Darkness had descended by the time Millie left. On duty for a compulsory evening shift, which would keep him here until 9:30, he locked the notes in his briefcase then cut along to the refectory, where he chewed his way through a bland, tasteless salad. The place was well lit, warm and comfortable, half full of staff and students, but he had little mind for the surroundings. His eyes strayed constantly to the briefcase and its contents. It was almost as if the sheets inside were calling to him, urging him to tackle their complex messages.

  He enjoyed intellectual puzzles. He had become a sudoku fanatic almost overnight, and had been tackling cryptic crossword puzzles since he was twelve when he would often study his father’s completed Times grid, analysing the answers to see how the old man had arrived at them, effectively backward engineering the puzzle in the same way the compiler must have done. At university, he had compiled his own puzzles for the student magazine and had received much acclaim for the obscurity and general difficulty of some of his clues. Even now, he still compiled the odd puzzle as and when time permitted, usually placing his work in dedicated puzzle magazines.

  Working his way through the meal, he reminded himself that The Handshaker was no crossword puzzle. Women were dying. Eight already and how much longer before number nine was abducted?

  It was too much to hope that these notes would give him any clue to The Handshaker’s identity. Scarbeck CID had a team of psychologists, criminologists, and experienced detectives working on that problem and they had got nowhere, so it was safe to assume that he would not make any headway either. Rather, he hoped it may give him a deeper insight into the man’s makeup and thereby help the police narrow down the possible suspects.

  “At the moment we have no suspects,” Millie had admitted, confirming what Croft, along with most of the town, already knew. “To be more correct, just about every man in Scarbeck is a suspect, aside from those who volunteered for DNA testing last year.”

  Twelve months previously, after the killing of Sheila Greenhalgh, in a sure sign of desperation, the police had put out a call to males in Scarbeck asking them to come forward for DNA testing and about 10,000 had done so, and yet the man still evaded detection. They had not anticipated that The Handshaker would come forward, but they had hoped for a better response, which would have allowed them to narrow down the suspects. As it was, although 10,000 was good, it meant that over 40,000 men had not volunteered.

  From there the police had staggered on from one murder to another and made little progress.

  All of which, he reflected as he left the dining hall just after 5:30, got them no nearer knowing why he had suddenly elected to drag Croft into his world of insanity.

  Getting back to his room, he first checked his mobile phone and again rang Trish, only to receive an automated message telling him that her phone was switched off.

  It was strange. Even when she was in court, she usually managed to find a minute or two during which she would ring or text him, if only to let him know that she was all right, or more frequently to get the day’s frustrations out of her system, and even if she had been with a client earlier, she should have rung by now.

  He called her chambers.

  “Hello, it’s Felix Croft, can you tell me, has Ms Sinclair left yet?”

  “Sorry, Mr Croft, she’s not even been in.” Julie, the receptionist, a petite brunette in her late forties, knew Croft and was quite happy to divulge what could be considered confidential information. “She didn’t ring, either. Not like her at all.”

  Strange. Why would Trish… Croft suppressed a sense of growing alarm. “She was fine this morning when I left. I suppose she could have taken ill quite suddenly. If she contacts you, and I doubt that she will now, would you ask her to ring me on my mobile?”

  “Of course.”

  He cut the connection, then dialled Oaklands. He let the telephone ring out for several minutes before finally cutting the connection off. Mrs Hitchins went home at twelve and Croft did not have her home number to hand.

  Although concerned, common sense told him that somewhere along the line there would be a perfectly reasonable explanation. She had probably taken very ill all of a sudden, and gone to bed to sleep it off. Her father’s death, back in May, still troubled her. That kind of shock, as Croft well knew, could linger in the system for years, and could easily takes its toll on a person.

  Making a mug of tea, he turned his thoughts to The Handshaker notes. He could hold back his curiosity no longer, and seating himself at the desk with his electric fire turned towards him, churning out its meagre heat, he opened his briefcase, took out the A4 sheets and scanned the first note.

  It had been received the morning after Pauline Brooks was found hanged in Alexandria Park. Like the one Croft had received, it was produced on a typewriter.

  brakes up no oil i shag this one and she’ fukin bril and she riggle lyke a fish on a lyne but this is ony the begginningg.

  Croft noticed instantly that it didn’t matter whether “brakes” was spelled as it was or spelled “breaks”, the only reason for its inclusion was to provide an anagram of the victim’s name: Brakes up no oil. Pauline Brooks.

  In the second note, referring to the death of Emma Fisher, the anagram was just as easy to see.

  Ayve kilt another she’s got such a tite and suking yoni frame is hem witch hangs on to mi nob ill suspend her up there with god.

  Frame is hem virtually leapt off the paper at him, although he wondered whether it would have done had he not known her name.

  Consulting the background notes Millie had left him, he learned that Emma was 28 and had been abducted from the Bentley Grange area of town as she made her way home after a late night party at a pub. Her friends had insisted that she had had a few drinks but was sober when she left. A bus driver recalled seeing her on his last run, and she got off at the terminus on the Bentley Grange estate. There were only two other passengers on the bus, both male, and they got off at the terminus too. Both men had come forward after seeing her photograph in the newspapers and both men were cleared of suspicion. Three days after her disappearance, workmen found her body hanging from a girder in the rear yard of a warehouse off Manchester Road.

  The remaining notes told Croft nothing, but in each case, there was the anagram of the victim’s name. Janice Turner became ran in jet cure, Sheila Greenhalgh was I gag hells hare hen, Pat Laughlin became plug hail tan. Eggs marg rig rat was a substitute for Margaret Griggs, Aileen Collier was I clean role lie, and Susan Edwards was drawn sea suds. This man was not merely raping and murdering the womenfolk of Scarbeck, but he intended making sure that the police knew they were his victims by cryptically nam
ing them in his communications.

  Reading through the badly cobbled texts, Croft noticed a change after the murder of Margaret Griggs, when the notes took on an almost verse-like quality. While the early correspondence was simply boasting, hiding the name of the victim, the later ones took on a more surreal aura.

  With Eggs marg rig rat

  as I fukt her too

  rope swings on

  There was no poetic meter recognisable to Croft.

  Narrowing his thoughts he stared at the verse for a long time. Why the change? Why suddenly break up the piece into clear lines? After going to such trouble to make himself appear illiterate, why suddenly demonstrate this knowledge of…

  It struck him. He read it again and one final time to ensure he had not made a mistake. Then he scrabbled about the desktop seeking the note concerning Aileen Collier.

  pulld it off in her quim

  evry time after tea

  all i lie role clean

  rubbing it on her tits

  They were acrostics.

  Reading the letters down at the beginning of each line and carrying on with the letters down at the end of each line, from the note concerning Margaret Griggs he got W-A-R-T-O-N and from Aileen Collier, he got P-E-A-R-M-A-N-S. Margaret had been abducted from the Warton area of Scarbeck, and Aileen had been taken at Pearman’s supermarket. The Handshaker was confirming his identity by telling the police where he was picking up his victims…

  Croft frowned. That was not right.

  He took up the background information again and studied it.

  Margaret was not abducted from Warton. Aileen collier was. And it was Susan Edwards who had been snatched from Pearman’s car park. That meant The Handshaker was not confirming where he abducted his victims, but where he would strike next.

  Heart pounding with excitement at the knowledge that he could help put the police ahead of the game for the first time, he fumbled through the morass of paper on his desk until he found the verse concerning Susan, which had arrived at the police station this morning as he received the Heidelberg note.

  Of ’em all shes gr8t drawn suds sea

  A tidy bint and such fukin gud fun

  Kilt her I’ve left her stone dead

  L8r I’ll show u I never miss

  His heart leapt. Oaklands! His own home!

  Gathering up the papers, jamming them into his briefcase, he dashed from the room, scurried along the corridor to the stairs, and hurtled down them taking them two at a time. He burst through reception, paused briefly at the counter to tell them he had an emergency, and then rushed out of the college, leaping into his car.

  Frantically, he fumbled the keys into the ignition and at the same time fished into his pocket for his mobile phone. He dropped the phone, gunned the engine and jamming the transmission into ‘drive’ leaned over into the passenger footwell to retrieve the phone as he tore away from the building.

  He barely paused at the main gate, and cut up a large van as he joined the homebound traffic. As he drove, one eye on the road, accelerating onto the motorway, he recalled Millie’s number on his mobile. She took an age to answer and he was already heading for the motorway by the time he got through.

  “Millie. It’s Croft. The Handshaker. He’s after Trish.”

  13

  At the police station, having photocopied Croft’s article for distribution to the investigating team, Millie read through it a couple of times, then sat back, mulling over her thoughts.

  Her first impressions were that it was impossible, but the more she read, the more convinced she became of its reality. It had happened, and if a hypnotist back in the thirties had managed to abuse his skill to this extent, why not now, here, in Scarbeck, in the 21st century with its plethora of chemical substances to assist the criminal.

  Croft, she suspected, was right, but where did it take them?

  Millie, an I.T. graduate, knew the risk of relying too heavily on one person’s opinions. She liked Croft, despite his arrogance and barely concealed sexual attraction to her, but she could not blindly follow his lead based on an obscure case that was almost eighty years old and which had happened in another country, another world.

  Despite his scepticism and dislike of Croft, Shannon had already ordered the junior officers to chase up the hypnosis angle with the families, but what could she, Millie Matthews, do to speed things up, get this deranged individual locked up for the safety of every woman in the town?

  She logged onto the Internet with the intention of searching once more for references to the events in 1920s/30s Heidelberg, then changed her mind and promptly logged off again.

  It was almost six and time to call it a day. She was tired, hungry, in need of a shower, a little TV maybe, and a good night’s sleep.

  She cast a quick look over her shoulder and through the window.

  Night had settled and vicious rain still pounded the town. The rush hour was in full flow, a constant stream of headlights cutting through the evening gloom. She lived a mile or so out of town, and to avoid the hassle, she usually ate nearby, a pub meal or takeaway, allowing the traffic time to calm before she made the journey home. She would go to the pub now. Croft’s article had given her something to think about and by the time she returned tomorrow it would be with a fresh mind.

  She was gathering together her belongings when her mobile rang. An excitable Croft telling her that The Handshaker was after Trish Sinclair.

  “Calm down,” she urged. “Just calm down.”

  “Calm down?” he yelled. “Trish hasn’t rung me all day and she hasn’t been in work, and the note you received this morning told me that the next victim would be picked up at Oaklands. How the hell do you expect me to calm down?”

  “Picked up at Oaklands?” Millie was puzzled. “I read it and it doesn’t say anything of the kind.”

  “Yes it does, only cryptically.”

  Over his voice, she could hear the roar of an engine. “Felix, just cool it. Are you driving?”

  “Yes. I’m on my way home.”

  “Well, pull over,” she ordered. “You should not be driving while you’re on the phone. Come to think, the state you’re in, you shouldn’t be driving at all.”

  “I don’t have time to pull over,” he whined. “I have to get to Oaklands. Just get yourself and your team out there.”

  The line went dead.

  For a moment, Millie considered calling him back, but she knew there was no point. He would not answer because he would not want to hear what she had to say.

  She looked around the CID room for possible assistance. At his desk, Dave Thurrock was studying the early edition of the Scarbeck Reporter, waiting, like her, for the rush hour to die down before he made his way home. Sharing the desk, DS Rob Fletcher, currently assigned to the SOCOs, worked at his computer. The two men were friends, but Millie understood the rapport between them had cooled after Fletcher made sergeant before Thurrock, and Thurrock was unable to understand that the decision had been made on the basis of Fletcher’s diligence at the side of his own indolence.

  Her eyes passed around the room and settled briefly on the whiteboard, where all The Handshaker victims’ details and photographs were displayed. After Croft’s agitated call, Millie wondered if photographs of Trish Sinclair were soon to be added.

  Ernie Shannon had gone home half an hour ago, and deciding that she did not need any other assistance, she gathered together her belongings, and with a muttered, “See you tomorrow,” left.

  If nothing else, it would give her the opportunity to spend more time with Croft and see just how a millionaire lived.

  14

  To avoid the rush hour jams, Croft chose a more circuitous but faster route along the motorway, heading for the moorland roads.

  But it would not save him any time.

  After killing the call to Millie, he hared along the feeder motorway and joined the M62, only to find all three eastbound lanes slowed to a crawl. He cursed. He only needed the motorway for
one mile, to the next junction.

  Somewhere up ahead, through the rain, he could make out the blue flashing lights of a police car on the hard shoulder. A minor accident, he guessed, and the rest of the traffic on one of Britain’s busiest stretches of road were slowing down to gawp at the scene.

  The slow progress compounded the anxiety in his gut, a fretting, jangling of his nerves, manifesting itself in exasperated pleas to “get a move on” or “come on for god’s sake”, spoken only to his empty car.

  Rain poured in a relentless stream from the night and the damp air above the motorway hung heavy with exhaust fumes, highlighted by pools of headlights that ran back as far as he could see in his mirror, and red lights running as far forward as he could make out through the windscreen. He was tempted to run onto the hard shoulder, but the next junction was under reconstruction and a few hundred yards ahead, a familiar line of red cones blocked the option.

  As he crawled along, he racked his brain for logical reasons why Trish should be incommunicado all day, and he could find none, other than an accident at home, which was as bad, if not worse, than the nightmare of her having been taken by The Handshaker. At least if this maniac had captured her, she may still be alive, but if she had tripped and fallen down the stairs she could have lain there, injured, all day.

  It was not possible. Trish was getting ready to leave when he drove out of Oaklands. She was due in chambers at ten. If she had had an accident, it would have been while Mrs Hitchins was still there and his daily would have contacted him. Trish had not had an accident and she had not arrived at chambers. There was no reasonable explanation for her silence. Short of a serious illness overtaking her or an accident involving both her and Mrs Hitchins, with both of them carted off to hospital, Croft was left with the worst scenario.

  For what seemed like hours, he crept along, his agitation increasing, frustration mounting almost to bursting point. Traffic stopped altogether as he reached the half-mile marker, and for agonising minutes, did not move again.