The Handshaker

by David Robinson

  And when it was done, when he had ejaculated, on the bed rather than on her body, he dressed slowly, mechanically. Only the occasional twitch told him that Joyce was still alive.

  Leaving the tools scattered on the carpet, picking up his overcoat, he reached into the inner pocket and carefully removed a gold plated, ballpoint pen wrapped in tissue. Kneeling at the side of the bed, he allowed the tissue to flop open and the pen to roll under the divan.

  Satisfied, he got to his feet. A simple call to the law tomorrow morning should be enough to see Croft arrested. It would not take the police long to learn that he was innocent and he should be free within 24 hours, but that would be ample time for Croft to learn the meaning of punishment before he met his destiny.

  November 17th

  31

  “Good morning, Mr Croft, sir.”

  Mrs Hitchins delivered her customary greeting and placed the mail on the kitchen table.

  Reacting with a taciturn grunt, Croft picked up the envelopes, sifting through the usual collection of bills, statements, official letters and junk, putting to one side, those that were addressed to Trish, until he came across another plain envelope with his name and address produced by typewriter.

  After another largely sleepless night, tossing Millie’s final question over and over in his mind, racking his memory for those who might possibly bear him or Trish ill-will, it was almost as if the sixth sense he had so long sought in others, had manifested itself in him and told him to expect this third communiqué in three days.

  He made to tear it open. Mrs Hitchins tutted. “Are you sure you should be doing that, sir? The police will want –”

  “Want what?” he cut in. “More of the same forensic that tells them nothing? The Handshaker has Trish and I want to know where she is.” He tore the envelope along its sealed, top edge, squeezed the edges to pop it and under a baleful glance from his housekeeper, drew out the sheet of A4, unfolded it and read the two lines along the top edge.

  Check load glint on sow for the latest suspension.

  And where wee grind eats it, they saw a bum fall.

  The first thing that struck Croft was that every word was correctly spelled. There was no use of text shorthand, no vernacular and the punctuation, such as there was, was precise. There was no acrostic, but several possible anagrams. While Mrs Hitchins simmered in silent disapproval of his blatant disregard for police instructions, he took out his pen, snatched up The Independent and using the blank margins, began work on the puzzles.

  In the first line, the anagram stood out; load glint on sow. Taking the word, check, in context, as an instruction to investigate, Croft assumed that the anagram was a location and struck out the word “towns”, then “land”, leaving O-G-L-I-O, from which the only word he could get was “igloo”. No matter which way he looked at it, town’s land igloo made no more sense than load glint on sow.

  Scrubbing that and finding no words such as ‘road’ or ‘street’, he looked for abbreviations, like ‘Rd.’ or ‘St.’ but all he could get out of it was Downing St., which he knew to be somewhere in West Scarbeck. Even then he was left with the letters, O-L-A-L-O.

  Then he noticed that the centre portion of ‘load glint on sow’ almost spelled Adlington, a small town south of Chorley on the A6, where he had attended a sixties-themed car boot sale some years previously. The word had nothing to do with Scarbeck, but reminded him of Allington, the village just along the road from Oaklands. Using that as a starting point, he eliminated the letters of ‘Allington’ from the anagram and the solution shouted at him. Allington Woods! He was being instructed to check Allington Woods.

  Frozen to his seat, he stared from the sheet of paper through the windows and across the rear of the house, beyond the high retaining wall to the dense foliage of the woods. Check Allington Woods. He snapped out of his trance, leapt to his feet and ran.

  “Mr Croft,” the daily called as he disappeared into the hall.

  He dashed for the front door and, barely pausing to snatch up a dark blue, waterproof blouson, rushed out of the house into torrential rain. One word rang through his head; a word not mentioned in the note. Trish!

  No point taking his car, he thought as he ran between the blackened, sandstone pillars at the boundary of his property. The entrance to the woods was less than three hundred yards along Allington Lane and there was no proper track through the woods for a car.

  His clothing was instantly soaked as he struggled to put on and zip up the blouson while still running. He hardly felt the cold, barely noticed that the thin coat, designed to stave off summer showers, had already adhered to his wet shirt. He was due to attend a staff meeting at the university at ten o’clock – the Vice Principal was an unsympathetic cow when she wanted, and would not let him duck out on the grounds of Trish’s abduction – but thoughts of the UNWE were furthest from his mind. All he could think of was an anagram pointing him into the woods and the remote possibility that Trish may be there, still alive. It was no better than a faint and ridiculous hope. All logic told him that if she was there, she was dead, but even that tiny spark of optimism, as distant and dim as the most remote star ever seen by human eyes, drove him through the foul weather and into the woods.

  Croft hurried through thick grass and moss that formed a soft and treacherous carpet underfoot. Which way, which way? He was confronted with thousands of square yards of land, most of it a condensed mass of uncontrolled vegetation. There were three or four paths through the woods coming out in various places: Allington, the main road between Allington and Esterham, the moors, and Huddersfield Road, but in the dim light of a grey, rainy November morning, all he could see were dark trunks and fading foliage, a riot of centuries old, arboreal propagation, twisted into dark, often macabre shapes.

  Was that a pair of green eyes staring at him or his imagination? Croft blinked the rain away and they were gone.

  He paused a moment to considered his options. If this note was serious, and he had no reasons to suspect it was not, then The Handshaker must have brought her here by car, and although there was no vehicle track this side of the official car park, it was well known that lovers often drove into the woods.

  He cursed his hastiness. If he had stopped to think, instead of rushing blindly out of the house, he would have brought a flashlight with him so he could check the grass for signs of a car having been driven this or that way.

  He pressed forward, running along a barely visible path of flattened grass that had been worn down by years of common usage. His foot slipped, he threw out an arm to prevent a fall and his hand landed in something soft and vaguely disgusting. Mud? Shit? He didn’t know and didn’t pause to wonder. Instead, he righted himself and pushed on, running blindly, deeper and deeper into the woods, driven on by the image of a woman struggling to cling to whatever was left of her life, and the absurd hope that he would be in time.

  He tripped over an extended, buried root and fell flat on his face. His clothing now thoroughly soaked, he swore, got to his feet and stared wildly around. In the semi-darkness, monstrous things lurked, moving, shifting stealthily, surrounding him. Something flitted through the branches above him and he looked up in alarm, the rain streaming into his eyes.

  He took several deep breaths and forced himself to calm down.

  You are a rational, educated man and there is nothing in this wood that can hurt you. Think. Use your mind.

  Reason began to take over. He turned his mind from imaginary fears populating the dark woods with hideous creatures, turned it from The Handshaker’s actions, and concentrated on The Handshaker as a person. What was he about? A braggart. A man who had successfully eluded detection and arrest for two years and yet a man with a desperate urge to show the world how smart he was. He would not wait around. He had not planted some clever trap for Croft. That would not serve his ego. He had left a body here – Trish’s body? Croft prayed it was not – but he would not hide it too deeply. It would not be in broad daylight, but it would be easy
to see for someone who knew it was there. So where?

  There were, Croft knew, a number of clearings in the woods, places where, during the summer months, visitors to the area would pause to catch their breath, listen to birdsong, watch squirrels dart through the trees. They were used infrequently at this time of year and only then by couples seeking somewhere for discreet sex. Perhaps… No. Croft cut the thought off before it could properly mature. Those same couples would present too big a risk for The Handshaker. He could never afford to be seen stringing up one of his victims. It had to be somewhere other than the clearings. Somewhere deeper in the woods, somewhere where perhaps the maintenance workers might find her when they came to repair the fences or trim the trees overhanging Oaklands’ retaining wall, or clear out…

  His thoughts came to a tumbling, stuttering halt. Oaklands’ retaining wall! How many times had he complained to the council about trees encroaching on his property? It was somewhere to his left; twenty, thirty yards away. Not far. Would The Handshaker have the audacity to leave her there where he may have been seen from the first floor windows of Croft’s home? Would he have left her hanging so that in her final moments she would be able to see the place where she had been so at peace with the world? He wanted Croft to find her, so the answer was obvious. Yes, he would.

  The rain ran down Croft’s face in a continuous stream. Making his way towards the dark shadow that was the high wall surrounding his property, he was suddenly aware that he was filthy. Less than an hour ago, he had climbed out of the shower, slipped on a pristine, white shirt, clean tie, brushed off his business suit and prepared for the coming day’s argument with the Head of Department, the Bursar and Vice Principal. Arguments on student numbers, on research funding, on meeting government targets. Now he was wet, mud-stained, clambering, scratching his way through impossibly dense and untamed woods on the trail of a madman and his acts of savagery. There was something surreal about it.

  Close to the wall he looked in either direction. The maintenance men had done their job well this year. Looking up he could see the bland, leaden cloud unleashing its fury on the land. Following the line of the wall east and west, there was not a single branch threatening his property.

  Then he saw her.

  At first he thought it was some strange configuration of an oak tree; a branch hanging down at a severe angle, depressed into a contorted bow by the weight of wet weather and the restrictions of the wall just a few inches from its tip. As he narrowed his eyes on it, he could see that it had a rough, human form. It was no overhanging branch.

  He trod the soft, damp grass along the wall side, frequently stumbling on the uneven ground, putting a hand to the mossy stone to support himself.

  Under the tree, he trembled, afraid to look up. Not Trish. Please don’t let it be Trish. He realised instantly that his prayer was so unfair. Some woman had been hanged here, and if it was not Trish, then it meant some other poor creature, every bit as innocent as his partner, had met her doom.

  Her feet were twelve to eighteen inches from the ground, well within his line of sight. To avoid looking at them, he concentrated upon his shoes, the black leather soaked and already showing a line of ingrained, white salt. He was conscious once more of his own disarray, the wet shirt sticking to his chest as it dried from his body heat, his legs, trembling, aching after their mad dash, the trousers of his business suit creased, bagging, soaked in a mixture of cold perspiration and even colder rain. His heart pounded and he began to shiver, as if, with the end of his crazy race into the woods, the cold had permeated for the first time. He knew, however, that the beating of his heart and the shivering had nothing to do with breathlessness or the cold.

  He drew in breath, charged his lungs with oxygen and stared at those feet, forcing a memory into his mind of Trish’s feet. Did they look the same? It was impossible to know. Feet were not that recognisable. They were bodily addenda, not enhancement. A woman’s feet did not attract a man, her personality and the rest of her body did.

  Slowly he forced his head up to look up and up past the strong legs, the flat tummy, sagging breasts until they came to the dead, staring features.

  Relief flooded him, followed rapidly by guilt at the relief, followed even more rapidly by fury.

  In life Victoria Reid – she was still recognisable as the woman whose face had been all over the previous evening’s Scarbeck Reporter – had been a vibrant and attractive woman; a curvaceous and sexy temptress, a little lacking in breast to be a true beauty, but nevertheless holding forth promise as a thrilling partner. Now she was a mere shell. The eyes were open, staring at the ground. Her tongue lolled grotesquely from her mouth, the blonde hair was a straggled mass of weed strung around her neck and face, the skin had a grey cast and a leathery look to it. Around her face, she was bright red, and there was a barely visible weal where the narrow rope had cut into her skin. Her legs too were livid, the blood having settled to the lowest point. At her midriff, the skin had already begun to wrinkle, prior to flaking. He did not know how long she had been here and he dare not touch her. Naked, dehumanised, she had suffered god knows what indignities heaped upon her by this evil man only to be faced by the final terror of a slow and tortuous death, without even the blessing of a long drop to break her neck and leave her unconscious while she expired.

  Croft fell to his knees, the frantic dash from Oaklands to this shocking site of execution, the horrifying sight up above, had drained him of energy. He felt sick, wanted to throw up, but he forced the queasiness down. In its place, there came a growing sense of rage. Rage for this innocent woman whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, rage against the arbitrary manner in which The Handshaker had dragged her – and Croft – into this web of insanity, and rage against the man himself. A maniac, whose clasped palm spelled death for anyone grasping it.

  32

  The Handshaker was up early. It was the habit of a lifetime and old habits were never truly conquered. However, even if he had been in the habit of lazing away half the day in bed, like the late Alf Lumb, he would still have been up early this morning. He needed to be out in Allington Village to watch developments.

  Driving off the estate, he stopped outside the newsagents opposite the Winridge Inn, and rang the police station from a call box.

  “Listen, mate, no names, no pack drill, but that pross what lives on Dorset, I bin watching her, see, through the binoc’s and she’s hanging there in the bedroom. The curtains is open and everything and you can see her.”

  He slammed the phone down on Sergeant Simpson’s protests that he needed the caller’s name and address.

  33

  In Shannon’s office, Millie did not like the things her boss told her.

  “So we’re looking for someone other than The Handshaker,” she argued, “but where do you get the idea that it’s Croft?”

  “Can you think of anyone else?” demanded the superintendent.

  Without bothering to ask permission, Millie lit a cigarette. “Ernie, I had a meal with this guy last night. You should see the state he’s in. If he’s not eating himself inside out over Sinclair’s disappearance, then he’s the best actor the Oscars have never seen.”

  “And that’s all it is. An act.” Shannon reached across and pulled the string on the window-mounted extractor to draw her cigarette smoke out of the room. “Think, Millie, when he first came here on Tuesday morning, who did he ask to speak to? The desk sergeant? One of the DCs? No, he specifically asked for me. The officer in charge, and when he couldn’t have me, he settled for you. Someone senior. He even waited for three quarters of an hour to speak to you. Why?”

  “Because Sinclair advised him to,” Millie reminded him. “She’s the big legal eagle, isn’t she? She knew that if he brought it to anyone else’s attention – Ronnie Simpson say – it would be filed and forgotten. Because it referred to this Heidelberg stuff, it meant that it was a dangerous piece of paper and needed urgent attention. So she told him to ask for you. N
o one else. That way it would get the attention he believed it warranted.” Millie looked down her nose. “And he was right, wasn’t he?”

  “Was he? Let me run another idea past you. Just suppose Sinclair was already dead on Tuesday morning –”

  Millie cut him off. “She can’t have been. The daily saw her leave for work, and we can soon confirm that by talking to her.”

  “All right, all right.” Shannon paused to cool his temper. “Let’s suppose that for the last god knows how long, their relationship’s been on the slide and Croft sees that she’ll take him for a fortune if it comes to a split, so he plans to do away with her. Remember, Millie, most murders are domestics. So he cobbles together this plan. He’ll send himself notes churned out on a manual typewriter, chocabloc with anagrams which are easy for him to crack because he put them together.”

  “And how did he know The Handshaker sends us typewritten notes; we’ve never said anything to anyone about it?”

  Shannon was derisively dismissive “For crying out loud, that’s easy. The first note really was from The Handshaker, remember. Maybe that’s what gave him the idea.”

  Millie considered the implications and didn’t like them. “What about Sandra and Alf Lumb?”

  Shannon shrugged. “Adding grist to the mill. He murders Alf, rushes into town to get there when Sandra is about to throw herself off and even after Begum told him to keep back, he pushed his way through and talked to Sandra. Now everyone heard him tell her she was in no pain and she should come down, but Begum also heard him say the only sound of any importance was his voice. You’re the one who’s been sold on this hypnotism thing since he turned up. How do you know that his words weren’t a trigger ordering Sandra to chuck herself off the balcony? You don’t.”

  Millie’s unwillingness to accept the idea showed through. “All I can say is you’re gonna have a hell of a job proving it.”