Addicted to Death

by Matthew Redford

29

  AstraArms

  Wortel pulled up outside the house of Alex Pine, turned off the car engine and looked up to see if he could see any movement inside. Nothing. He closed the window and climbed out of the car. ‘Nice and quietly now’ he thought to himself just as his mobile beeped into life.

  Cursing under his breath, Wortel grabbed his phone and looked at another text message which was once more in a language he didn’t understand.

  ‘Usted no respondió. ¿Por qué? Ellos me van a matar.’

  Flicking his phone to silent he made his way to the front door and peeked carefully through the letterbox. He heard no movement inside and stepped onto the front garden to look through the French window. Cautiously placing one foot next to a dying brown shrub and the other alongside a smaller, barely living spiky green plant, he peered through the window. Again nothing. And yet his senses said something wasn’t sitting quite right.

  He made his way down the side of the house and into the overgrown back garden. Some wooden placards lay discarded among the grass including one which Alex was carrying the night he had been seen on the CCTV confronting Professor Partridge.

  Wortel looked through the kitchen window and saw some newspaper cuttings and photographs spread on the dining table. He inched along carefully using his heightened sense of smell to see if he could pick up any scent of Alex Pine or Victoria Plum. Nothing. He reached the back door and noticed that it was ajar. Not forced open, just ajar.

  Wortel opened the door and entered the kitchen. While the furnishings were modern they had not been cleaned in more than a little while. He moved closer to the kitchen table and looked at the newspaper cuttings. The Blacktail murders and the killing of Professor Partridge looked back at Wortel. Sitting alongside the newspaper cuttings sat a video tape which was marked up for the night of the murder at the Strawberry Strip Club. Wortel let out a long sigh and shook his head realising that Pine himself must have sent the footage to the Food Related Crime Division. He had played Wortel and his team like a fiddle.

  He moved the cuttings to one side to get a better look at the photographs. The Blacktails were there with a red cross drawn through the face of each of them. So was Professor Partridge, again with a red cross adorning his face.

  Wortel turned to the next set of photographs and felt his heart sink. Victoria Plum looked back at him, the red cross matching her damson coloured skin. And Charles von Blimff, but just his picture with no cross through his face.

  Wortel called the office and relayed the scene to Oranges and Lemons who, while shocked at the discovery, were secretly enjoying the thrill of their first murder hunt. In return they told him that Dorothy was still in the mortuary pulling the place apart searching for something, although what that thing was, she didn’t yet know.

  Wortel listened to Oranges and Lemons as he moved through the rest of the deserted house. He slowly made his way up the stairs and opened the door to the spare bedroom. His gasp caused Oranges and Lemons to fear for their boss’s safety.

  “Sir what is it?” asked Oranges.

  “Are you okay boss? Talk to us,” implored Lemons.

  “Boys. Go and fetch Dorothy and tell her to get down here with a forensic team. I’ve got blood and, wait; yes there’s a sticky residue. I think this is where he was keeping Victoria Plum.”

  “Where are you going sir?” asked a concerned Oranges.

  “He’ll be going after von Blimff. I’m heading for AstraArms.”

  Wortel burst into Charles von Blimff’s office, pushing past his startled secretary who bore the look of a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming car. Wortel noticed her look and his mind conjured the image of Warren in that pose. Pushing the image from his mind, not without taking a little pleasure at the thought, Wortel stopped as quickly as he’d entered. The office was empty.

  “You shouldn’t be in here. Please leave or I’ll call security.”

  “Where is von Blimff? Tell me, it’s important,” shouted Wortel.

  “This is his private office. The police then, yes, I’ll call the police.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” snapped Wortel as he tossed his ID across the room to the increasingly panic stricken secretary. “I am the police. Now tell me. Where is von Blimff?”

  Realising she did actually have the police already in the office, albeit a genetically modified carrot Detective Inspector, just served to confuse the secretary further who mumbled something about wishing she still worked at the funeral parlour as the dead never talked back, before turning on her heel, tossing the ID card back over her shoulder, and leaving never to be seen again.

  “At least tell me where he lives. No, well thank you very much. You’ve been a great help,” called Wortel after the departing secretary.

  Wortel walked over to von Blimff’s desk and looked for anything that could tell him where he lived. Nothing. Wortel tugged at the desk drawer and found it locked. “Bugger, bollocks and double shit,” said Wortel, thankful that the secretary had now left the room.

  His mobile telephone in his jacket pocket started to vibrate. Wortel removed it from his jacket while trying to work out how to break into the desk drawer without causing too much damage to what appeared an incredibly old, and therefore expensive, desk.

  “Wortel here.”

  “It’s Dorothy. I’ve found what Dr Richards wanted you to see.”

  “Tell me.”

  As Dorothy relayed her news Wortel sat himself down in von Blimff’s chair. “And you’re 100% sure?”

  “More than 100% Wortel. It’s definitely the double A emblem and it’s made of material not eggshells. It must have come from the murderer.”

  “It doesn’t make sense. I need time to think. I’ll call you back.”

  Wortel hung up and stared at his mobile trying to make sense of what Dorothy had just told him. He looked at the desk and willed the drawer to open. It didn’t budge. ‘Ah well, Archibald will cover the cost I’m sure’ thought Wortel to himself as he reached for an ornamental paperweight holding down some documents on the corner of the desk before bringing it crashing down against the lock of the drawer.

  He heard wood splinter but the drawer refused to buckle. Again he raised the paperweight up high, using all of his carrot strength, which to be fair was not that much, and crashed the paperweight down against the locked drawer. This time he heard wood and metal crack and the drawer yielded.

  He pulled out the papers and started to skim read. The home address of Charles von Blimff was there in black and white. But it was the rest of the papers that held Wortel’s attention.

  What he read hit him hard. He looked again at the desk drawer and found his eyes being drawn to the small leather wallet staring back up at him. Wortel took out the wallet and flicked it open. Wortel pulled out a mass of credit cards and other items and began to thumb through them. Finding what he was looking for he turned and stared out of the window, taking a moment to admire the view all the while rotating the membership card for the Strawberry Strip Club in his hand.

  Wortel took the lift to the ground floor, papers in one hand, membership card in the other. As the lift doors opened he burst out and sprinted through reception, sending the revolving doors into a tailspin. Unlocking the car he leapt into the driver’s seat, started the ignition, put the car into gear and screeched away from AstraArms.

  As he drove Wortel called into the station.

  “Send back-up to Withering Heights.”

  30

  Withering Heights

  Withering Heights stood imposingly on the edge of Moxley Park Gardens, a giant monstrosity of a concrete structure which, the designers claimed, represented the never ending struggle of the human race to find itself. Critics claimed Withering Heights looked like an oversized metallic cucumber.

  Wortel pulled up outside Withering Heights and looked around for his back-up. Realising it hadn’t arrived, he decided he had no choice but to head in anyway. Wortel looked down the names listed alongside each suite and
spotted Charles von Blimff listed against suite 45 on the ninth floor. And there was another name he also recognised. Fatima Jaffy.

  Wortel spoke quickly to Fatima Jaffy who was more than happy to let him inside. With the entrance door released, Wortel made his way into the lift selecting the ninth floor. To Wortel it felt as though the lift took an age to reach its destination although in reality it was there within next to no time. The lift door opened and Wortel stepped cautiously into the hallway. He read the sign on the wall, turned to the left and headed towards suite 45.

  As he made his way carefully down the hallway, Wortel noticed a stain on the carpet. Bending down he ran his fingertips over the stain and detected blood. With Suite 45 beckoning Wortel, he approached slowly seeing further blood spots pooled on the carpet outside. The door to Charles von Blimff’s suite stood before him and he edged closer putting his ear to the door. He strained to hear the conversation from within and although he could hear muffled voices the words were indistinct.

  And then he heard a scream. And then another.

  Wortel took two paces backwards and with all his might he threw himself towards the door which gave way sending Wortel hurtling inside. He scrambled to his feet and staggered from the hallway, past the dining area and into the living quarters. Victoria Plum sat in the middle of the room, tied to a chair, her mouth gagged. A trickle of blood ran from her lip, dripping from her chin and staining her shirt. Wortel saw her, noticed the look of fear in eyes and raced to her side pulling at her ties and ungagging her mouth.

  “…Wortel…,” she retched, “…look out…”

  Wortel heard the door creak and as he spun round he came face to face with Charles von Blimff, dressed from head to toe in tweeds, shotgun cocked over his arm.

  “So very pleased you could join me DI Wortel. I have to say that when you burst through the front door just now I was a tad upset at the interruption, but actually I think things could turn out for the better. Do you like my residence? It has a certain quality don’t you think? I particularly like the decoration.”

  Wortel looked around the room and saw the mounted heads of a rhino, a lion and a tiger and recalled how von Blimff had boasted about his hunting exploits the first time they had met.

  “Shot them myself. I told you that I’m a great hunter. That’s how I was able to take out that muscle sprout so easily. He was so shocked.” von Blimff laughed out loud. “And to think I set the whole thing up myself. He thought he was meant to kill me when I was always going to kill him instead. Certainly threw you off the scent didn’t it.”

  As much as Wortel hated to admit it, his attention had been distracted.

  “So I assume that you sent the bunch of grapes to my house to kill me there as well?” asked Wortel.

  “Oh no,” said von Blimff. “That must have been an order from your Loony Cow friend whatever his name is.”

  Wortel sagged inside. Even if he survived this scenario, he had a Fatwa on his head from MadCow McBeef.

  von Blimff recaptured his attention. “What’s the saying, kill two birds with one stone? Well, what about kill a plum, a carrot and an annoying protestor with a giant spoon and a bullet. Doesn’t have the same ring does it?”

  von Blimff flicked his wrist and the shotgun locked into position. “Musa – come.”

  The imposing figure of a fedora-wearing, giant six-foot plus banana ducked as he entered the room. In front of him he pushed forward Alexander Pine who was also gagged and bound. Musa pushed Pine to the floor. Victoria Plum looked in his direction and went to move to her former lover. von Blimff pointed his weapon at her and stopped her dead in her tracks.

  “I’m sorry my dear but I can’t let you do that. You see I’ve been planning to frame our young friend here and I don’t want anything to prevent that from happening now. You see, everyone will think that he killed you and when they find the weapon on his person he will also be framed for the murder of Benedict and Darcy Blacktail and our dear friend Professor Partridge.”

  von Blimff was centre stage and loving every moment.

  “And you see, everyone will think that after you and he split he went into a jealous murderous rage. Add in this anti-GM propaganda and it’s no great surprise that he went on a killing spree. And this is where my good friend Musa comes into his own. He will be the star witness. He is going to claim that he saw you escape the clutches of our young man here and that you asked him to help you reach me. Musa naturally obliges a damsel, or should I say damson, in distress and here we are, only our young fall guy has beaten you here and, well, carnage ensues. You die, I shoot him and that’s job done.”

  von Blimff had a fanatical glint in his eyes. “And then you arrived DI Wortel. So, how can I fit you into this story? Well, how about in the commotion I accidentally kill you too. Oh the regret I will claim. And of course, Musa here will back me up. It’s all quite simple.”

  “Except it’s not, Mr von Blimff.”

  von Blimff turned to Wortel. “I’m sure you’re trying to buy time, but do go on.”

  He was trying to buy time. Where was his back-up?

  “I’ve been to your office and I’ve found this report as well as your membership card. It seems AstraArms have been making a number of food items rather addictive. I’ve already called the station and told them so you might as well come in quietly. I know Professor Partridge wanted to back out – he told Victoria on his deathbed – it’s genius. You make normal day to day food and drinks addictive, everyone buys more to feed that addiction and you make an absolute fortune. And I’m guessing the new food tax is tied in here somewhere but that’s just my supposition. Yes, yes, it makes sense doesn’t it, it helps to fund the black hole in the Government finances. I bet that’s what you were agreeing with Chancellor Smith.”

  von Blimff’s face hard hardened but Wortel hadn’t finished.

  “And I’m pretty sure that Partridge called you about the blackmail threat he’d received and so you took action. Here’s the sad thing Mr von Blimff. Benedict Blacktail never sent the message. Travis Dwyer did and he has made a full confession. So this thing…,” he said, waving an arm at Musa, “…murdered the wrong people at your beck and call.”

  Victoria Plum looked aghast. “Partridge was muttering about food addictions after he’d been attacked. I heard his last words but didn’t know what he meant. But he said Charles was in danger so I sent the note to the police.”

  Wortel looked at Plum. “That’s not quite true Victoria. He was saying that von Blimff is danger.”

  Tears started to run down Victoria’s face. “When the police asked me for a list of people who were at the club on the night Professor Partridge was murdered I saw your name on the list. But I knew you weren’t at the club and while the officers were busy I called you. You asked me to cover for you as you said someone was trying to frame you. You lied to me.”

  von Blimff nodded.

  “How could you? You told me to go to your country home and wait there until it was all over. And then he turned up.” Victoria pointed a finger towards Musa, “and before I knew what was happening he’d bound and gagged me and I was taken to Alex’s house under the cover of darkness. Alex was tied up when I got there. I think he enjoyed whatever punishment he’d dished out to Alex.”

  von Blimff’s expression remained stony faced. “I am sorry you ended up in this Victoria, that was never the intention. But needs must.”

  “What about Mum? Think of her. You said she helped save you after you lost Rosamund and Jasper.”

  von Blimff rocked back on the spot, his eyes widening. “How dare you bring their names into this?”

  Wortel sensed a shift in von Blimff’s tone and continued trying to buy time. Where the hell was the back-up? “Credit where it’s due though Mr von Blimff. The food addiction plan has worked out well. So which foods? No hold on let me guess. Those breakfast cereals?”

  “Yes.”

  “These new peanuts and crisps?”

  “Yes and yes.”
>
  “And that new bottled water which has just come on the market?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about Twigsticks?”

  “No. They are just plain disgusting and I can’t even explain their sales figures,” said von Blimff wrinkling his nose at the thought of those hideous sticks of nastiness.

  “But enough of this jollity,” cried von Blimff. “It ends now.”

  Wortel tried stalling for one final time. “Oh before you do kill us all, you might like to know that we’ve also found the double A emblem on the bodies of the Blacktails. That ties you right back in to their murders.”

  von Blimff looked at Musa who dropped his eyes to the floor. “No matter,” said von Blimff. “We’ll just say that Pine wanted to implicate me. It makes no difference in the end.”

  He raised the gun and pointed it directly at Wortel and Plum. Wortel turned his back and closed his eyes as he shielded Victoria Plum from the impending bullet. The gun fired but Wortel felt no pain instead hearing von Blimff shout and curse. Wortel opened his eyes and turned back to face the gunman to see Fatima Jaffy wrestling on the back of von Blimff.

  “I know you said to stay in my suite, but I bet you’re glad I didn’t listen,” shouted Fatima.

  “I sure am, but look out.”

  Musa moved forward and grabbed Fatima throwing her across the room. She crashed into the fake fireplace, her head hitting the brickwork knocking her unconscious. The shotgun was dislodged from von Blimff and, as he tried to regain his composure, Victoria Plum darted forward and kicked the weapon away from his outstretched hand. Furious von Blimff struck Plum across the face sending her stumbling backwards. Wortel caught the falling damson and steadied her. Musa raised his killing tool, his large metal spoon, aloft and prepared to swing. Alex Pine hopped forward and threw himself at Musa hitting him around the knees. Musa buckled and cried out in pain. Both man and banana got to their feet at the same time with Musa swinging the spoon in a violent rage glancing Pine on the temple sending him sprawling across the floor towards von Blimff.