Killing by Colours

by Wonny Lea

  Martin nodded with a lot of sympathy, as bullying of any kind was high on his list of things he hated. ‘It’s possible that the killer was either a cub or a scout and that his team leader or even the scoutmaster gave him a hard time – “sought him out for ridicule and scorn” according to the poem. My money would be on it being the scoutmaster, as in my mind that fits more with what I believe the age gap is between the victim and the killer. I would guess that Mr Davies was in his seventies and my gut feeling is that our killer is in his fifties.’

  ‘So what are we thinking?’ asked Alex. ‘We have some man in his late fifties, possibly older, who is now looking back over his life and killing the people who hacked him off at various key points. First of all it was one of his primary school teachers and today we have possibly got his scoutmaster. Who would be next as he was growing up – possibly the first girl who dumped him?’

  Martin admitted he had been thinking along those lines. ‘In doing so we are both jumping the gun because, at the moment, we don’t know if Miss Rossiter ever taught our killer or if Mr Davies ever had any connection with the Scout movement.’

  ‘The net is just too wide at the moment,’ he continued. ‘What we do know is that during the course of her teaching days Miss Rossiter taught just over a thousand children. We are making our way through the names that were on the papers we collected from her house. It is beginning to look more and more as if these were not her regular pupils. Their work is either outstanding and she was encouraging them further or poor and she was giving them extra tuition. We have picked up on one unusual name and traced it to a man who has reason to remember Miss Rossiter favourably.’

  ‘He remembers being given extra English lessons at Miss Rossiter’s home because she deemed that he was exceptionally gifted. It seems she was right on that score, because he has just returned from a tour of America where he had been enlightening them on the works of Shakespeare.

  ‘His name made it easy for us to find him, but in some cases we only have a first name to work with. The school in which Miss Rossiter worked is cooperating with DC Cook-Watts but some of the children she taught at home could have come from anywhere – there would be no records of them.’

  Martin rubbed the sides of his face and tried to free himself from an uncharacteristic mood of depression. He had a bad feeling about this case and he forced his mind to focus away from the fact that the killer had known both his victims and also knew him. Now wasn’t the time to be having these thoughts – they were for a more private time – but he knew they would have to be addressed and soon.

  The briefing had come to a natural end and Martin checked that everyone knew what had to be done before the next session, and he set that for six o’clock. ‘By then we will have the PM results, and hopefully something from the security cameras that DC Cook-Watts is checking. Uniform are continuing to look around the area and interview people from the adjacent units, they may have some news by then, and DS Pryor and I will be back from Watch Towers.’

  ‘When the news breaks of this second murder we will have headlines indicating that a serial killer is on the rampage in our city and speculations about his next victim. God knows how but we are going to have to keep one step ahead of the press. I would like to say one step ahead of the killer, but there is no doubt in my mind that he has a masterplan and unless we can put a stop to it there are five other names on his hit list.’

  Chapter Seven

  Victim a pervert?

  On the way to Ely it was Matt who voiced the concerns that Martin had been pondering earlier. ‘The two victims clearly had a profound effect upon our killer, but it’s quite possible that they barely remembered him – if at all. It must be like that when someone has had a long career in, say, nursing. The nurse would have met thousands of people, and would probably only remember a handful, but if the point of contact had been a matter of life or death the patients and their relatives would be likely to remember the nurse.’

  Matt then got around to what he was really thinking. ‘I suspect that over the years and especially when you were in uniform, you made countless arrests that you can’t even remember – but I guess that the criminals all remember you.’

  Martin nodded. ‘I know where you’re going with this, and yes, I must have been a thorn in the flesh of many criminals. If this man is working his way through his life cycle and killing off his perceived tormentors then I could be one of them. He obviously knows me, as is witnessed by the letters being sent to my home and the direct mention of my name in the poems. It’s the knowing my home address bit that doesn’t fit with the theory that he’s someone I’ve dealt with professionally, as I can’t think of a single case where anyone I arrested knew where I lived.’

  ‘You take care, guv,’ replied Matt. ‘This one definitely knows where you live, and to be honest we’re all a bit concerned for your safety.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Martin with all the enthusiasm he could muster. ‘I get the feeling that this bastard is more out to get me in terms of damaging my reputation as a detective rather than actually killing me. Nevertheless, thank you for your concern, Matt. You can rest assured that I will be taking care.’

  ‘It’s on the right, just over there,’ said Matt as Martin turned the car into a side road. ‘PC Williams was right when she told me that the houses on either side of Watch Towers are boarded up.’

  Martin pulled his car into the kerbside and both men got out and looked at the outside of the building. It was in serious need of some TLC and it looked as if all the litter that had been dropped in the street had settled in an untidy collection at the side of the front door.

  ‘If I ended up in a place like this,’ said Matt, ‘I think I might even be grateful if someone finished me off – maybe not in such a violent way as was used on Mr Davies but, bloody hell, no self-respecting person would want to live here!

  ‘PC Williams said that if we got no response from the buzzer labelled “Administration” we should bang on the window nearest the front door in the hope of waking up one of the attendants.’

  Martin had already pressed the buzzer once and was now leaning on it with no apparent response. Just as Matt was about to pound on the window they both heard a woman’s voice echoing down the corridor with anything but dulcet tones.

  ‘If you boys don’t get your fingers off that buzzer I’ll do something to you that will make sure you never father any kids – enough is enough and you are really pissing me off now.’

  The voice could have come from a grizzled old dockworker, and so both men were taken aback when a petite young woman, probably less than twenty years of age, opened the door. She looked a mess, with her poorly applied eye makeup smeared across her face and her dyed blonde hair showing signs of dark roots. When she saw the two detectives she stopped shouting and quickly fastened the top two buttons of her blouse that, up until then, had left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

  Without giving her the chance to open her mouth again Martin showed her his warrant card and introduced himself and Matt.

  She obviously didn’t have a quiet voice as even now she bellowed. ‘OMG, I thought it was those little buggers from the end house. They lean on that buzzer at all hours of the day and night – especially when they know I’m busy.’

  Martin wondered exactly what she had been ‘busy’ doing but he kept his thoughts to himself and just asked her if a Mr Victor Davies was one of the residents.

  ‘Vile Vic, yes, he is one of ours but he’s not here. I wouldn’t normally know if he was in or out, but I saw him going out this morning. He had this envelope in his hand. Made me think, ’cos yesterday, for the first time since he’s been here, he had a letter.

  ‘At first I thought it must be his birthday because it was one of those coloured envelopes, you know, they usually come with a card that matches, but it was more official-looking because the name and address weren’t handwritten. My boyfriend wanted me to open it but I told him one of the attendants was sacked for d
oing that so I just took it to Vic’s room. He doesn’t like me calling him Vic so I do it just to annoy the man. He’s a real creep.’

  She was still addressing Martin and Matt as if they were both profoundly deaf and they were all still standing on the doorstep.

  ‘Would it be possible to speak to you inside?’ asked Martin. ‘We have some questions and we will need to see Mr Davies’ room.’

  She made no attempt to let them in but showing his impatience Matt took a step towards her and she had no option other than to move out of the way. The first door along a short stretch of corridor had originally been labelled “ADMINISTRATION” using stick-on gold letters but some letters were missing and others moved so that it now read “A MINI ST ATION”.

  From inside the room a man’s raspy voice shouted, ‘Get your arse back in here, Lucy – I’m not paying for half a job.’

  ‘You can’t just barge in there!’ yelled Lucy, but her words fell on deaf ears as Matt was already in the room. He had heard the man shouting and so knew there would be someone inside, but the elderly man sitting in the chair without his trousers, and in a state of semi-arousal, was a bit of a shock.

  It was also a shock for the man, who quickly used his discarded pants to hide his dignity.

  Martin and Matt were left in no doubt about what Lucy had been busy doing when the buzzer called her away and Matt was not prepared to hide his disgust. ‘What’s this?’ he asked looking around the room. ‘The administration office for Watch Towers or your own private knocking shop?’

  ‘It’s nothing like that. Joe is one of the residents and I was just helping him with a little problem.’ For the first time the level of Lucy’s voice was within the realms of normality and she looked a bit shaken.

  Matt shook his head. ‘But not out of the goodness of your heart, as you’re getting paid for your services if what Joe said is true.’

  ‘Of course it’s not bloody true,’ shouted Lucy with renewed volume. ‘Joe’s an idiot and most of the time he doesn’t know what day it is – he’s grateful to have me to talk to a couple of times a week, aren’t you, Joe?’

  Matt looked at the man who had struggled into his trousers and was now standing at the side of the chair with his head bowed. A mixture of anger and pity grew inside Matt as he recognised that this man was not as old as he had originally thought, but just looked very downtrodden by life. Joe obviously didn’t know what to do next, and so Matt suggested he should return to his room and he shuffled off with a grateful but vacant expression on his face.

  Martin turned to Lucy. ‘Do you have a similar twice a week therapy session with Mr Davies?’ he asked sarcastically.

  ‘What! Are you mad? I wouldn’t go nowhere near that perv – and anyway he would be more interested in my boyfriend than me. He’s been done for it you know – at least that’s what I heard. It was years ago but he got away with it ’cos none of the boys would speak out and their mothers couldn’t prove nothing.’

  Even with a bit of prompting there wasn’t anything more that Lucy and her double negatives could tell them about Mr Davies, and the only paperwork available on the residents was a wooden box file where they picked up his full name, date of birth, doctor’s contact details, previous address, and next of kin.

  The next of kin was recorded as a Mr Thomas Davies with an address in Swindon, and alongside his telephone number was a message written in red ink, ‘To be contacted only on the death of the resident and at no other time.’

  Well, he would be contacted now, that was for certain, but it could wait until they got back to Goleudy. Martin held his hand out towards Lucy and asked for the key to Victor’s room. She started to quote the rules regarding staff going into residents’ rooms in their absence but Martin had had enough of her deciding how best to use the system to her own advantage. ‘This is a murder investigation,’ he said bluntly. ‘The keys please.’

  ‘What murder? Who’s been murdered?’ Lucy wasn’t upset by the suggestion of a murder, and if anything she was excited and she shouted even louder than before.

  Martin insisted she stay in the office and the two men made their way to Victor Davies’ room. In the corridor Matt put his hands over his ears. ‘What a woman,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t speak at all – every word is a shout and the sound of her voice is still booming around my brain. Here it is, Room 11.’

  An A4 sheet of paper was stuck to the door, and the message written on it in perfect copperplate stated quite unambiguously that the resident of this room did not want to be disturbed.

  The room was bigger than Martin had expected, and was in the form of a bedsit, with just one internal door leading to a very small toilet and shower room. Although the décor was shabby the room was immaculately tidy and the bedsheets at the end nearest the window sported perfect hospital corners. There was one armchair and a smallish television standing on a high table. The only other furniture was a bedside table, a freestanding wardrobe and a plain wooden upright chair placed alongside a chest of drawers. It looked as if the latter was used as a desk as the calligraphy pens and ink used to write the notice on the door were set out at the back in regimental style.

  Along one wall was a counter with built-in cupboards below and on the top was a microwave oven, a kettle, a toaster, and a small fridge just big enough to take a couple of pints of milk and one or two other items, but there was actually nothing in it. Matt opened the cupboards and there was nothing in them either – not even a tin of beans or a jar of coffee. But then there wasn’t a cup, plate, spoon, or frying pan either.

  ‘It looks as if no one lives here,’ said Matt. ‘Even if he used to eat out every day he surely would have wanted the occasional cup of tea or a mug of coffee, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘There’s a carrier bag from the Red Cross charity shop on the floor of the wardrobe and it’s full of trousers and sweaters, but there’s nothing hanging up, and not a thing in the way of shoes or socks anywhere.’

  Martin continued opening the drawers in the desk and came across some papers. He thumbed through them but there was nothing recent and the only thing that vaguely caught his interest was a map and some directions to a campsite.

  ‘We’ll take this lot back with us,’ he told Matt. ‘Although I don’t relish the prospect we will have to speak again to the not-so-lovely Lucy before we go.’

  Matt cringed and locking the door behind them he pocketed the key. ‘I’ll hang on to this,’ he said. ‘I’ll get uniformed officers to call in twice a day for the foreseeable future – that should put a stop to Lucy’s antics until the relevant officials see fit to rehouse these God-forsaken residents.’

  Martin made the session with Lucy as short and to the point as he could and he answered none of her questions other than to say he had every reason to believe that it was Mr Davies who had been murdered. She said she had never been in Mr Davies’ room, as no one was allowed in, and all the staff had to do was to check once a day that he was still alive.

  The only relevant piece of information she was able to give came via something she had learned from her boyfriend. ‘Robby says that if he passes Big Bites Café on his way to see me Vic is always sitting in the seat nearest the door and staring through the window. He’s never with nobody and always sits in the same seat but as I said before the man is a creep – or at least he was a creep – I still can’t believe he has been murdered. Bloody hell! How?’

  Martin ignored the question and after putting the papers from Mr Davies’ room into the boot he left his car outside Watch Towers and walked with Matt in the direction they had been given for the café. It was less than five minutes away, and large white writing on the front windows advertised a ‘fit for a king breakfast with toast and coffee for just £3.99’.

  Although it was way past breakfast time this still seemed to be the meal of choice for the dozen or so men who were sitting in groups of three of more. It immediately struck Martin that a table with just one chair and situated near the door was vacant and he visualised the
man whose body he had seen earlier sitting there.

  As the two detectives entered the café an almost instant hush fell and not for the first time Martin wondered if he had ‘police officer’ tattooed across his forehead. The silence became almost palpable as he took out his warrant card and introduced himself and Matt to a grossly overweight man with long black hair tied back in a ponytail.

  ‘I’m Lee Simms and I own this place. What may I do for you?’ the man asked Martin. ‘I take it you haven’t come to sample my cooking, even though this lot will vouch for it being excellent value – especially the breakfast. Isn’t that right, boys?’ He waved his arm in an all-embracing way towards his customers and got a few nods and some muted response. It was clear that none of his regular customers wanted to join in his banter: they were all much more interested to find out what the detectives wanted, as it obviously wasn’t the well-advertised breakfast.

  Knowing that his every word was being listened to Martin asked Mr Simms if he knew anything about a man who was possibly a regular customer and who normally sat in one of the window seats.

  There was an immediate response and Lee pointed to the single chair that Martin had noticed. ‘That’s where he usually sits,’ said Lee. ‘He’s been coming here for years. Every single day, rain or shine. The only day we don’t open is Christmas Day and I don’t know what he does then.

  ‘That’s the strange thing. I can tell you more than you would care to know about all my other regulars but the man you must be talking about is an unknown entity. I began chatting to him in my usual way when he first started coming here, but he basically ignored me and everyone else.

  ‘Just before you arrived we were all talking about him because he hasn’t been in today. We all call him ‘Daily’ because none of us know his real name. He has the full breakfast every day, but he does vary the time he comes in so I was still expecting to see him. Has something happened to him?’