Killing by Colours

by Wonny Lea

  He drew back the curtains in the lounge and saw that it was still raining, and he wondered how he was going to spend the day. No Shelley, and no chance of doing anything in the garden, so maybe he would just read a novel. He would have to do something, or else his mind would be back on the job and there would be no chance of any respite.

  His landline rang and Martin could see immediately that it was Shelley. ‘Good morning, my guardian angel,’ he said. ‘I hope I didn’t give you too much trouble last night?’

  Shelley replied. ‘You sound a hell of a lot better than I was expecting you to – seriously, I’m amazed, I wondered if you would even answer the phone; thinking you’d still be out of it. Do you know that you and Alex finished off that bottle of whisky we bought him for his birthday – and you’d already had a couple of beers before that?’

  Martin winced at the very thought of it and then told Shelley that although he couldn’t remember the details what she said came as no surprise. He added. ‘I wonder how Alex is feeling this morning but it’s really good news about the baby. Do you think she’ll be all right?’

  Martin knew that Shelley was one of the few people that Charlie spoke to regarding her spinal injury and he was pleased to hear her reply.

  ‘When they were talking about getting married Charlie spoke to obstetricians about her chances of getting pregnant and carrying a baby to full term. They were extremely optimistic on both those counts but there is a very high possibility that she will need a Caesarean section – still, she’s not worried about that.

  ‘Sorry I can’t chat any longer – my dad wants his breakfast and so it’s insulin time. I only rang to check you’re OK.’

  ‘I’m more than OK, thanks to my chauffeur, and some woman who stripped me naked and put me to bed. I love you, Shelley Edwards. Have a good day and I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘I love you too, you drunken old sod.’

  ‘Hey, less of the old!’ replied Martin as he replaced the receiver and went in search of something to read.

  The day had a definite autumnal feel and Martin pulled on a sweater before going upstairs to the room his aunt used to sleep in. He browsed through the bookshelves that had, in the main, been untouched since she died. The last thing he wanted was a crime novel; that would be far too real. He chose a nineteenth-century classic and sprawled on top of his aunt’s old bed. He was soon in a very different world to the present, though not a better one. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn took a first-hand look at entrenched racism, intolerance of anyone different, and even feudal killings. Martin wondered if society had learned anything over the past century. He came across little notes that Aunt Pat had made placed between some of the pages and found himself agreeing with most of her comments.

  Martin heard a vehicle pull up at the entrance to the cottages and with a sinking feeling he saw that it was a Royal Mail van. For the past three weeks he had dreaded the post arriving. He strained his eyes to see what the postman was carrying.

  There was no sign of a coloured envelope and he began to breathe more easily, but he had to answer the door as one of his letters was too big for the small letterbox that he was always intending to replace.

  The postman greeted him with a smile and a good-natured complaint about the weather. He handed Martin an A4-size white envelope and two letters. One was clearly a bank statement and the other his personal mobile phone bill. All were addressed to ‘Mr Martin Phelps’ – not a ‘DCI’ or a coloured envelope in sight. Martin thanked the postman and heaved a huge sigh of relief.

  Lulled into a false sense of security, he opened the large white envelope and got a sickening shock. Inside was a yellow envelope, formally addressed to ‘Detective Chief Inspector Martin Phelps’. Martin knew that his worst fears were about to be realised.

  He didn’t open the yellow envelope, just picked up a jacket and headed for his car. On the way down the path he called Matt and in less than half an hour they were both in Incident Room One, reading the latest poem and debating the possible consequences.

  Now it’s yellow, yellow, yellow

  have you not got it yet?

  Still working on the other two

  on that I’ll take a bet.

  He stole away the one I loved

  drove off without a thought.

  The bitch will not be laughing now

  as his last breaths are caught.

  Two down but they were easy prey

  this one will be more fun.

  It may need more than just a knife

  and so I’ll take a gun.

  It’s time for action, Martin Phelps

  so time, I’ll give you more,

  With this one done I calculate

  the number left is four.

  ‘Well, it’s certainly the same man,’ said Matt. ‘It couldn’t possibly be a copycat, we haven’t let the press know that the previous envelopes were sent to your home. This bastard thinks he’s clever – he’d know you’d be looking out for another coloured envelope.’

  ‘We have been, of course,’ replied Martin. ‘The sorting office on Penarth Road has been on standby, ready to alert us day or night if a coloured envelope addressed to me at the cottage came through their doors.

  ‘We should have second-guessed that he’d switch to another means of getting his poetry through. Get on the phone to the sorting office, Matt – I want to know when any letter or parcel addressed to me, in whatever capacity, is received by them. I don’t want to wait until it’s delivered, I want every piece of my mail as soon as they get it. I don’t just want stuff that is addressed to the cottage – I want anything that they receive addressed to me at home, at work, or anywhere else. Will they be able to do that?’

  ‘They’ve been only too pleased to help so far, but their systems are totally automated and as I understand it they use the postcode, not the name, as the key factor – but I’ll get on to them straight away.’ Matt walked towards the door and Martin called after him.

  ‘Will you also make sure that our traffic division knows that if they get a call from us to pick up anything from the sorting office it must become their top priority.’

  ‘Will do,’ replied Matt. ‘I’ve just heard Helen’s voice and the rest of the team are either here or on their way in. Where do you want us?’

  Martin replied. ‘Here, and as quickly as possible. This evil bastard says he has given us some time but he alone knows what he means by that. Get everyone rounded up and we’ll start a session in five minutes.’

  Using the last of the smaller whiteboards Martin did as before and wrote the poem out so that everyone could see it. He then moved the boards around so that all three poems stood side by side in the order that they had been received.

  He was dealing with only the third serial killer of his career. The first one had been when he was a newcomer to CID. Martin had never been satisfied with the outcome of that case, the conviction of a young man with mental health problems for the murder of three prostitutes working around Cardiff Central bus station. It still concerned him that the crucial evidence, which had been missed initially, suddenly turned up in the man’s flat when the investigation looked to be on the point of failure.

  Those three women had been left with their throats cut, so knives had been used by that killer too, but it now looked as if the poetry writer was thinking of stepping things up a notch and using a gun. Martin worried for the safety of both the public and his officers, but for the moment there was no way he could protect them because he had no idea where or when the third murder would be committed. He prayed that somehow it could be prevented.

  The team assembled and Sgt Evans confirmed everyone’s belief that no serious crime had been reported that morning. ‘We’ve sent officers out to one domestic disturbance and two minor RTAs and that’s about it, but I’m sure things will change as the day goes on.’

  ‘OK,’ said Martin. ‘You can all see the third poem and it comes close to our speculation last week as to who the third victi
m would be. We thought it could be someone the killer had been in a relationship with, or someone who had caused a break-up between him and someone he loved. It seems to be the latter, as described in the second verse.

  ‘I have no doubt that the killer will strike again today, even though the last verse suggests he’s going to give us more time. He’s still playing games. The colour is our only real clue as to where the murder will be carried out, and we now know how tenuous that clue can be. It’s only with hindsight that we know that the second victim was to be found in a place that squeezed oranges – we would never had guessed that, would we?’

  DC Cook-Watts answered Martin’s question. ‘No, I don’t think we would have but now that we know the colour clues are likely to be cryptic we will have to do some lateral thinking.’

  ‘Let’s do it, then,’ suggested Martin. ‘Someone’s life may depend upon us coming up with a venue linked to the colour yellow, so what have we got?’

  Various members of CID and uniformed officers offered suggestions.

  ‘There’s the Big Yellow self-storage company.’

  ‘Yellow Brick Road – they do hypnotherapy for all sorts of things.’

  ‘There’s something called the Yellow Card Centre at the University Hospital of Wales but I don’t think it’s a public place. It’s somewhere where doctors and nurses report adverse drugs reactions and other things – so maybe not a sensible suggestion.’

  Martin interrupted. ‘I’m not looking for sensible suggestions – just call out anything that comes into your mind regarding the colour yellow.’

  ‘A place where they squeeze lemons.’

  ‘Cardiff Yellow Pages.’

  ‘The Woodville pub in Cathays gives you a discount if you sign up to their yellow card scheme.’

  ‘Double yellow lines.’

  ‘The Primrose garden centre in Rookwood. Primroses are yellow.’

  ‘The three yellow ellipses at the Cardiff Bay barrage.’

  ‘The Yellow Kangaroo in Elm Street.’

  The suggestions dried up but Martin had managed to write all of them on the space beneath the yellow poem.

  ‘There are probably many more that we have not considered and from what we’ve so far seen of the twisted mind of our killer the venue could just be somewhere where a yellow bus passed through last week. But we can’t just hang around doing nothing and if this colour yellow is the only slender clue we have let’s continue to work on it.

  ‘Are there any places amongst those that have been suggested that we think would be attractive to our killer? He’s no shrinking violet – he’s not averse to killing in a public place and seems to thrive on taking calculated risks. If we could put ourselves in his shoes, where would we choose to be sure of getting away with this third murder? Are there any common denominators between the first two? Come on everybody, think, time is of the essence.’

  Sgt Evans suggested two similarities. ‘You would usually travel to both sites by car, although the killer may have parked his some distance from where he did the killing. He used places where access wasn’t that difficult. There are just public barriers at the Red Dragon Centre, and only limited monitoring at the Tremorfa Industrial Estate, so I think that rules out Big Yellow Self Storage because you need codes and swipe cards to get access to that building.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ said Martin and he rubbed Big Yellow off his list. ‘I’m also going to wipe off “double yellow lines” as that’s an impossible thought – where in Cardiff are there not yellow lines of one sort or another? I can’t see this clever swine using the same type of venue twice and so “a place where they squeeze lemons” is also coming off the list.’

  Matt suggested ‘Cardiff Yellow Pages’ be removed as none of them could even guess where it was produced. There was no science or even any obvious rationale to the process but doing nothing was not an option. He looked at what was left and asked Martin what he intended to do next.

  Martin replied. ‘There is one other I want to remove and that’s the “Yellow Card Centre”. The hospital is an extremely busy place and parking can be a nightmare, so there’d be no guarantee that a potential victim would turn up at a specified time. If I were the killer planning my next homicide I would see that venue as providing too many opportunities for error.’

  Everyone agreed, and Matt added, ‘So we are left with five possible venues based on the suggestions we’ve come up with but if you asked another group of twenty or more people you could be looking at an entirely different set of yellow places.’

  ‘I don’t disagree,’ said Martin. ‘Yes, they would probably come up with some we haven’t thought of but we all know Cardiff very well and I think the five places we’ve come down to are distinct possibilities. It’s now ten past ten and we’ve heard nothing regarding a third strike from our killer so for some reason he is giving us more time – we were actually at the scenes of crimes for the other two before this time on the respective Saturday mornings.’

  ‘Perhaps he wants to be caught,’ suggested Helen. ‘It has been known.’

  ‘Maybe,’ responded Martin. ‘Let’s not forget that he is taunting us with the fact that even if he is successful today there are still four people he plans to kill.’

  ‘What are the three yellow ellipses?’ asked Helen.

  ‘What would I do without my nieces and their homework projects?’ laughed Matt. ‘It’s a piece of public art by a Swiss guy called Felice Varini. 3 Ellipses for 3 Locks. Basically, it’s three yellow strips painted on the locks, the gates, and the outer sea wall. It was designed to highlight the main working parts of the barrage, and if you walk around the area it just looks like splashes of yellow paint, but it’s much more than that. The whole project is very clever, we found a spot where the so-called “anamorphic illusion” can be seen in its entirety … but, anyway, I won’t spoil it – you should all go and see for yourselves.’

  ‘Remind me to put your nieces on the payroll,’ said Martin, smiling. ‘Could you see the killer stabbing someone there?’

  Matt though for a moment then replied. ‘Yes, I would say that as a murder spot it’s a contender.’

  ‘OK,’ said Martin. ‘So this is what we do. We work through the other four suggested sites and we form a group decision about the feasibility of a murder at each. If we decide a venue is likely to interest the killer we act on it immediately. Having decided the barrage is a possibility I would like you, Sgt Evans, to get officers to that area as quickly as possible. Ensure they all have a description of the man we are looking for and it is likely that he will be wearing the same headgear and carrying the same canvas bag. You will need to ensure that all your officers are issued with protective vests, and something we haven’t yet spoken about this morning is the threat in the poem of him using of a gun. I want this man caught, but not at the expense of any of our officers or random members of the public.

  ‘We know he is in control when carrying out a planned execution, but we have no idea how he will act if cornered. He could turn his knife on any one of us or any member of the public. We just don’t know, so no heroics, please.’

  Sgt Evans nodded, and with three constables in tow he left to action the first of potentially five operations.

  Who suggested Yellow Brick Road?’ asked Martin.

  One of the PCs raised a hand. ‘They specialise in hypnotherapy, and something called Neuro-Linguistic Programming, NLP. They’re based in Roath, and I know about it because my sister went there for treatment to help her lose weight, see. She lost just over three stone, so no medals for guessing she thinks it’s fantastic.’

  ‘Yes, but would our killer think it a fantastic place for his third murder? What about access?’

  ‘Well, it’s on The Parade in Roath, guv, so there is street parking – though on a Saturday morning it would be busy.’ Looking around, Martin could see a number of people shaking their heads, but in his view it was bizarre enough to be considered by the killer.

  He asked the PC to chas
e after Sgt Evans and arrange for officers to be stationed in and around the area adjacent to Yellow Brick Road, and then turned his attention to the three remaining venues.

  ‘Would The Woodville be operational at this time of the day?’ asked Martin.

  Matt replied. ‘I very much doubt it. I just Googled their website and they don’t open until 11.30 on a Saturday.’

  ‘I was going to say let’s skip that one, but remembering that the killer is giving us extra time today maybe 11.30 is on the cards.’ Martin thought for a moment. ‘We’ll just put that one on the back-burner and take a better look at the remaining two – the Primrose Garden Centre and The Yellow Kangaroo.

  ‘I’ve been to that garden centre twice, and it ticks all the boxes in terms of easy access and the yellow link could obviously refer to the name but also to the unusual display system they have. Unlike most garden centres they don’t display their plants and flowers in groups of the various species, but they group together all the different species and market them by colour – it’s very effective.’

  Matt thought that such an idea would appeal to the killer, and suggested that he and DC Cook-Watts check that one out.

  ‘Yes, do that,’ said Martin. ‘As I said before, I want you all back here safe and sound at the end of the day. I would prefer that you were seen as live cowards rather than dead heroes, so remember the colour yellow and don’t be afraid to hide behind it.

  ‘Before you disappear, what about The Yellow Kangaroo? I don’t think we can rule it out, so I’ll take whoever can be spared and have a look at that option myself.’

  Matt said what everyone else was thinking. ‘You insisted that we take extra care, so remember to apply the same rules to yourself. We have every reason to believe that you are somewhere in this bastard’s sights so the rules are even more applicable to you.’