Blood Axe

by Leigh Russell

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ he replied, ‘but of course you should go and see your family again if you want to. You know I’d come with you only I can’t take any leave right now.’

  Bev stared at him with an odd expression. She looked almost put out by the idea that he might want to accompany her. In a way he could understand that he would only get in the way if she wanted to spend time with her family. All the same, he was uncomfortable suspecting that she would prefer to go without him. He sighed. If anything Bev seemed to be growing increasingly resentful of his job. It was as though she believed he stayed in it only to spite her. He tried to put a brave face on the situation, but their marriage was a sour disappointment to him. He was pretty sure she felt the same way. He tried not to feel cheated. They had lived together for years before they married, but she had left it until after the wedding to be completely honest about her feelings. In a way, her deception was to blame for the breakdown in their relationship, although she held him responsible for it.

  Ralph arrived at work first the next morning, as Ian suspected he probably did every morning. Ian watched his lanky figure striding towards the entrance, looking neither left nor right, his attention fixed on the museum, as though he couldn’t wait to get there. Ian couldn’t suppress his own excitement, remembering George’s suggestion that the killer could be someone who worked at the Viking museum. Coupled with Jimmy’s revelation that Ralph talked to the weapons, it raised a tantalising possibility. Wondering what Ralph could be saying to the weapons when he thought no one was listening, Ian followed him. After a moment, Ralph answered the bell.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said cheerily when Ian announced himself. ‘Come on in.’

  The buzzer sounded and Ian made his way up the stairs.

  ‘For the purpose of elimination,’ he said carefully, ‘can you confirm for me where you were on the evening of the Sunday before last?’

  Ralph nodded to indicate he understood, and said he had been at home.

  ‘Is there anyone who can confirm that?’

  Ralph lived alone. He had no alibi on Sunday night. Ian moved on to ask about Wednesday when Tim had been decapitated. The jewellery shop was only a short walk away. Tim had been murdered between eight and nine that evening. Ralph had been at his desk until around half past seven.

  ‘Was anyone else here with you?’

  Ralph shook his head uncertainly. ‘We have security cameras at the entrance,’ he added, ‘so you should be able to see what time I left.’

  ‘And did you go straight home?’

  Ralph had gone to a local Chinese restaurant for something to eat before heading home. Ian made a note of the details. It should be easy enough to corroborate the time he had left the restaurant since he had paid with a credit card, which would enable them to estimate the time of his arrival. He had no alibi for the Sunday night when Angela was killed, at around midnight, but if a little checking showed that he had been in a restaurant the time of the second murder, then they could discount him.

  Once he had finished talking to Ralph, Ian asked to speak to Oliver. The young man smiled shyly at him as he came in.

  ‘Come in,’ Ian said.

  Oliver sat down, blinking nervously. Ian quite liked the youngster. Reminding himself that he might be addressing an insane killer, he began to question him gently about his movements on the Sunday evening when Angela had been killed.

  ‘That Sunday, I remembered where I was, after the last time you were asking me. I wasn’t here, I was in Leeds.’

  Oliver explained he had gone there with a friend from university. ‘There was a group of us. It was his mate’s birthday so we all went round there.’

  ‘A party?’

  Oliver shrugged. ‘Not exactly. There were only six of us. We had a takeaway, got a bit pissed, you know. It was nothing much, just a few guys. We had a laugh, though. It was all right.’

  ‘What time did you leave there?’

  ‘We stayed over. The others are all still at uni so it didn’t matter and…’ He glanced round and lowered his voice. ‘I took the Monday off – it was quite genuine. I was sick...’

  He gave Ian a list of names and contact details for friends who could confirm that he had been in Leeds that night. His alibi was less clear-cut for the time of Tim’s death as he had left work late that Wednesday, and couldn’t remember whether he had gone straight home or not. Ian hoped that either Ralph or Oliver was lying about his alibi. It would make the resolution of the investigation so much easier, and faster. It was imperative they caught this psychopath quickly. While he remained at large there was a possibility he might claim another victim.

  Straight away Ian despatched a team of constables to call on Oliver’s friends, visit the Chinese restaurant, contact Ralph’s credit card company, and check CCTV film from outside the Jorvik museum. The conclusion after all the checking was that none of the staff at Jorvik had been free at the time of both murders, apart from Ralph who would have had to run very fast from Jorvik to the jewellery shop and then straight to the Chinese restaurant. It seemed almost impossible for him to have done all that, and arrive at the restaurant without any sign of a struggle or a weapon.

  ‘What if they’re in it together?’ Ted asked as they were having a drink that evening after work.

  Ian frowned. ‘Who?’

  ‘Well, we’d need to look at all of the statements, but take Ralph and Oliver for example. Ralph has no alibi for Sunday night, and Oliver has no alibi for Wednesday evening, so what if they were working together? One did one murder, the other did the other one? I mean, they have alibis for different evenings.’

  ‘That’s a point, although is it likely there would be two such lunatics in one place at the same time?’

  ‘Both playing at being Vikings. They could be having a kind of competition to see who can kill the most people.’

  ‘And claim the most booty,’ Ian added, catching Ted’s drift. ‘But they’d have to be sharing an axe, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘If you can have one replica, why not two? I know it sounds crazy.’

  ‘Murder doesn’t always follow any rules. We’re dealing with someone who is crazy.’

  ‘Maybe more than one person,’ Ted reminded him.

  ‘Madness is unpredictable. We can’t rule anything out at this stage, not without cold, hard evidence. And so far all the evidence really shows is that this killer’s insane. And it looks like he might be selecting victims randomly.’

  ‘He or they,’ Ted reminded him.

  Ian nodded. The theory didn’t make the investigation any easier. It added to the uncertainty – and doubled the risk of more deaths. All the same, he had to concede that Ted had a point.

  ‘Your decision log’s improved,’ Ian said as they stood up.

  ‘It’s like being back at school.’

  ‘I know. But it’s…’

  ‘In my own interest,’ Ted completed his sentence, and they both smiled.

  40

  While a team were checking out alibis, Ian spent the next morning scrutinising the connection between Ralph and Oliver. Ted’s suggestion that Ralph and Oliver might be working together might seem unlikely, but it was feasible. At least it was something to go on. Of course the two men worked together, but Ian could find no evidence of any special relationship between them. As far as he could ascertain, they had never met before Oliver started his job at Jorvik. The main challenge to the theory came from George, who insisted that a violent killer like the axe man was far more likely to be working alone.

  ‘The chances of discovery would be doubled for one thing,’ he pointed out.

  ‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’ someone said.

  ‘Not for the killer. What I’m saying is, it doesn’t fit the profile. This type of killer typically works alone. He’s in it for the thrill and part of that is the secret. Being the only one who knows
what’s happening gives him a sense of power, and that’s an important part of the whole enterprise. Being in the know. He wouldn’t want to sit around planning his campaign with an accomplice. You take this night, I’ll take that. He wouldn’t want to share his knowledge. Alone, he feels all-powerful.’

  ‘Like God,’ someone muttered.

  ‘Plus,’ George went on, ‘if there were two of them committing murders together, they would be unlikely to be working together at the museum as well. It’s too risky.’

  For once, Ian was inclined to disregard George’s reservations. It seemed pointless to apply reason to the actions of this killer. Eileen agreed with Ian.

  ‘Insanity is unpredictable,’ she said. ‘We need to keep an open mind about Ted’s idea that Ralph and Oliver might be working together.’

  In the meantime, none of the research teams had come up with anything helpful. There was no record of mental illness or violence in either Ralph’s or Oliver’s history. Jimmy had a similarly anodyne life story. None of the staff at the museum had any recorded trauma or criminal activity, apart from a couple of women working there. Sophie had been arrested once for a drug offence, while in her first year at university. Charges had been dropped. She hadn’t even been cautioned. A woman who worked in the gift shop had been accused of stalking her ex-husband about ten years before. An injunction had been served against her and that had been the end of it. Other than that, a few minor traffic offences were the closest any of the museum employees had come to breaking the law. None of that helped the investigation into the recent atrocities. They were really working in the dark.

  The papers had been quick to find the connection between the two murders. Ian swore. Andrew Hilton had been talking to the papers. It wasn’t clear whether he was complaining or boasting about his stolen axe that had been used to hack two people to death.

  ‘Cost me over a hundred pounds,’ he was quoted as saying. ‘So I hope the police catch this maniac soon.’

  Whatever happened, there was no way he was going to recover his stolen axe. It would remain in police possession permanently. Ian would make sure of that. One paper had published a sketch of the missing axe, with a caption, ‘Have you seen this axe?’ The papers were intrusive, and frequently inaccurate. They had published a photograph of Angela’s grieving mother and stepfather, alongside the image of the axe that had killed their daughter. But at the same time, he had to concede that the papers performed a useful function. There was a slim chance someone might actually have noticed the unusual markings on the blade. In all the phone calls coming through to the switchboard, there might be one that led them to the killer’s identity. It was possible. It seemed that Ian’s hopes were justified when Sophie came to the station asking to see him.

  ‘Says she saw something in the paper,’ the desk sergeant added.

  Ian’s heart thumped. She might have noticed someone carrying an axe with the algiz rune engraved on the blade. Working at Jorvik, she was well placed to recognise such symbols. This could be the lead they had been hoping for.

  ‘If it’s dripping with blood, that could be another clue,’ Ted called out with a grin as Ian hurried from the office.

  Sophie was sitting in an interview room twisting a tissue nervously in her thin fingers. Staring across a table at Ian, her eyes wide with anxiety, she looked more like a frightened rabbit than ever. She crossed her legs and leaned forward slightly in her chair, without taking her eyes off Ian’s face.

  ‘It was in the paper,’ she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

  ‘There’s no need to be nervous. Just tell me what you saw.’

  ‘It was his face.’

  ‘His face? Whose face do you mean?’

  ‘I recognised him. The man who was following me. It was that poor girl’s stepfather.’

  Not for the first time in the investigation, Ian felt sceptical about a witness. He decided on balance it would be best to challenge her statement straight away, before making a formal report of it. He didn’t want to gain a reputation for distrusting young women.

  ‘You stated quite clearly on a previous occasion that you couldn’t see what he looked like, because he kept to the shadows,’ he reminded her, checking his notes as he spoke. ‘Are you sure you recognised him?’

  ‘Yes.’ She sounded slightly hysterical. ‘When I saw him, I knew it was him. I mean, I’d forgotten... I couldn’t remember him very well, so when you asked me last time, I just said I didn’t see him because I didn’t know what else to say. I panicked. But when I saw him in the paper, I recognised his face straight away. You don’t think I’ll be the next victim, do you?’

  ‘Don’t worry. We’ll catch him soon.’

  She smiled gratefully. ‘I hope so. It’s so scary, knowing there’s a killer on the streets.’

  Ian gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘Like I said, we’ll catch up with him very soon. Now, I’d like you to make a formal statement about the man you recognised in the paper.’

  She seemed very nervy and he suspected she might have an overactive imagination. Even so, he had to accept the possibility that she was telling the truth. It was hard to be sure. Somewhere along the line, things had to start to make sense. The alternative was too terrible to contemplate.

  ‘She looked very disappointed when I walked in. I think you’d better watch out. She kept asking me where you were,’ Naomi teased Ian after he had sent her to take Sophie’s statement.

  He laughed. This kind of ribbing was fine between colleagues, but it wasn’t the first time a vulnerable young woman had thrown herself at him in such an obvious way. With a quip about women who fancied men in authority, he hurried back to his desk. Two young women had come forward to cast suspicion on Angela’s stepfather. Ian wondered how significant their claims were.

  41

  Eileen summoned Ian for an informal update on how the case was moving forward. She sat very upright, her fingers drumming an impatient rhythm on her desk. Her jaw looked even more square than usual, her nose sharper, as though she was trying to sniff out the meaning behind his words. Her impatience was almost palpable.

  ‘Between you and me,’ Ian said, ‘I’m not sure Sophie is a very reliable witness. When I spoke to her at the museum, she was adamant she hadn’t seen her alleged stalker’s face. Now she’s equally positive she recognised Frank Carter in some fuzzy black-and-white image in the paper. It doesn’t really stack up.’

  ‘Help me understand this, Ian. Why would she lie about it?’

  Ian hesitated to admit that he thought Sophie might be trying to make him notice her. Apart from the fact that he had no real basis for his impression, he was reluctant to sound narcissistic.

  ‘Just attention-seeking,’ he replied vaguely.

  Eileen nodded. It needed no clarification, really. The police were used to cranks, do-gooders, and out-and-out oddballs. Bored and deluded, desperate for an audience, if they weren’t responding to every request the police sent out for information, they would be reporting psychic communications from the other side.

  ‘You think she’s a time waster?’

  He nodded cautiously. ‘She works at Jorvik, so we’ll try to keep her on side, but her claim that Frank has been stalking her is just so much guff, if you ask me. Of course we’re looking into it. Naomi’s gone to question Frank concerning his whereabouts at four thirty on Monday.’

  Remembering Naomi’s reaction when he had doubted Zoe’s second-hand accusation of attempted rape, he didn’t add that he thought Sophie was fabricating her story. He was confident Frank would be able to establish he had been at work on Monday when Sophie was on her way home, not hanging around outside Jorvik museum stalking her.

  They talked some more about the case, agreeing that, with no reason to target particular victims, the killer was going to prove difficult to track down.

  ‘Sooner or later he’s going to make a
mistake, and then we’ll get him,’ Eileen reassured Ian with a show of confidence he suspected she didn’t feel.

  ‘Let’s hope he messes up sooner, rather than later,’ he said.

  The longer the case dragged on, the more chance there was that someone else would lose their life to this demented killer. Meanwhile, time was passing. Angela and Tim had been brutally murdered within the space of three days. A week had now gone by without any more attacks. Eileen was hopeful that the killing spree was over. Ian wasn’t convinced.

  ‘It’s been a week since the last killing. What’s he waiting for?’ she asked.

  ‘Opportunity.’

  Remembering that Bev was going to see her parents the next day, he turned down Ted’s offer of a quick one for the road and went straight home. Thoroughly disgruntled by the frustrations of the case, he tried to put it out of his mind. He stopped on the way home to buy some flowers. Despite his exhaustion, he decided to take his wife out for dinner.

  ‘That was a bit daft seeing as I’m going away tomorrow,’ she told him when he handed her the flowers, but she looked pleased. ‘They’re lovely.’

  ‘I thought we might go out for a bite,’ he suggested.

  He wasn’t disappointed when she told him she would rather stay in and pack that evening.

  ‘You don’t mind, do you? It’s just that I planned to get ready this evening, wash my hair and all that.’

  ‘No. Of course not. To be honest, I’m pretty shattered.’

  She could have spent all day packing for her trip, but he genuinely didn’t mind. He was content to phone for a takeaway and slouch in front of the television. He tried not to think about the investigation, but it was impossible to shut it out of his mind. Naomi had easily established that Frank had indeed been at work on Monday until half past five. Sophie was, at best, mistaken in identifying him as the man who had followed her to her bus stop. Alternatively she might be a fantasist, lying in a bid for attention.