by Vince Vogel
Dorring felt protective. By the looks of things, the old man had been set upon by a gang. Most likely much younger than him. It was bullying and Dorring hated bullies. A protective anger rose up in him. Otis saw the look and rolled his eyes.
“You gonna go tell his mum for me?” he said.
“So it was one guy?”
“Three,” the old man said. “But not all at once.”
Dorring’s brow creased. “I don’t get it,” he said.
“You’re not s’posed to,” Otis said, leaning over and switching off the light. “Now go to bed. We’ve got to be up in four hours.”
6
For the next weeks, Dorring began to feel the place growing over him like moss on a rock. It became a part of him; from the old man, to Maria, to his fellow workers, including Milan. He began to know the names of all his neighbours and coworkers. There were many of them and he would spend so much time nodding and saying hello that it was almost exhausting in itself without the twelve hours of daily backbreaking labor. He’d impressed them with his trench digging abilities and he’d become stuck with it ever since. But it worried him not one bit. His prowess with a pick or a spade gave him some worth there that he wouldn’t ordinarily get if he was picking apples at a pedestrian pace.
As to his time with Otis, over the weeks he came to admire and respect the old man. There’d been no moments of supreme violence, like those experienced by Milan, and Dorring put that down to a bad day. Instead, what Dorring experienced with the old man was like what a son experiences with his father. Otis took it upon himself to train Dorring in his ways. Whether that was making and setting the best traps, skinning and gutting animals, fly fishing, or how to keep as quiet as a mouse when moving through a forest, it didn’t matter. If the old man knew something that Dorring didn’t, he would pass it on.
And there was much that he knew.
Otis was the owner of a vast knowledge of the countryside. Every animal, insect and plant, he knew by heart and was more than willing to hand that knowledge down to Dorring. As they walked through the woods, he would be like a sage to his follower.
Dorring got to know a little more of Otis too in the passing weeks. One night they were sitting out back of the caravan, having just eaten two barbecued trout they’d caught earlier that day. They were both leaning back with their boot heels resting on the table, the dog curled underneath, the crickets sounding in the grass and the stars giving them all the scenery they’d ever need.
“You know, there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you,” Dorring said after awhile.
“Yeah?” the old man said in a drawl, his tired eyes gazing blankly at the sky. “What’s that?”
“On my first day, Milan spoke with me.”
Otis groaned and rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah. What’d he have to say?”
“I think you can guess.”
“Depends if he lied.”
“He said you held a knife to his throat over an argument about Bess.”
Bess was the dog.
“Then he told you the truth.”
Over the weeks, Dorring had tried to place the crazed attacker that Milan described with the good man that he had come to know. It was hard and even the admission of guilt wasn’t enough to convince Dorring Otis was capable.
“I s’pose I did go a little too far,” the old man added after a while.
“Was it really because he left some bones out?”
“Yeah. Pretty stupid, huh?”
“Not stupid. Just a little harsh for something so minor. I’m sure he didn’t mean for the dog to eat them.”
“He didn’t. But you see, Bess ain’t just any ol’ dog to me. She’s a part of something more than that.”
Dorring gazed sideways at the old man. His eyes were glazed over and he looked terribly sad.
“What’s she a part of, Otis?” Dorring asked.
The old man didn’t directly answer the question, but instead began explaining it his own way.
“When I came back that day from the field and found her choking under Milan’s trailer; when I saw the blood; I went numb. It were like it were me choking on them bones. I pulled her out from under an’ carried her back here. I managed to get them bones out of her an’ hoped to hell the ones she’d swallowed wouldn’t cut her insides. Because to lose this dog will mean to lose…” He trailed off for a moment, his blank eyes staring into the abyss of his soul. “I had a family and Bess was a part of that,” he went on. “A real piece of heaven. Me, my woman an’ my girl. An’ Bess was a part of that. We got her as a puppy when Jess was three month old. They had five years together. They’re practically the same age. So this dog is important to me. She’s my only link back to that time. If she had of died that night, so would I.”
His eyes became intense and Dorring realized Otis was trying to tell him something more than the words would allow.
7
Detective Sergeant Robert ‘Bob’ Barker pulled up on a posh west London street and gazed along the stone columns that lined the entrances to the buildings. Not a single fence post or hedge leaf was out of place and the pavements were clinically sterile, devoid of rubbish or cracks. In the doorways, they were devoid of tramps. And on the walls, they were devoid of graffiti. Devoid of life, Barker could have added. Because for all its sterile, white gleaming charm, west London always looked dead to him. Compare it with the teeming, overflowing life of the poorer districts, and it felt more like a museum for show than a place for life to be lived.
It was said that Bob Barker was old school. And that meant that he was old too. A year from retirement and living day by day with the itching feeling that he wasn’t up to it anymore. That the job had passed him by. That technology wasn’t his thing and now that it had become an integral part of policing, it meant that that too was no longer his thing.
As he stared up at the pristine facades of the buildings, there was a tap on the window of his car. Turning to his right from the driver’s seat, he saw the fresh face of a young police constable.
Barker unwound the window and glared at the copper with a disappointed expression.
“PC Dixon, sir,” the cop said. “It’s a big one.”
“How big, Dixon?”
“It’s in there at the Belgravia. Posh men’s club. Pretty prestigious. The bloke’s been identified by staff as Charles Carter. Identification in his wallet confirms it.” The constable gazed at the detective, waiting for some reaction. When it wasn’t forthcoming, he added, “You do know who that is, don’t you, sir?”
“Haven’t got a dicky bird, son. I take it from your smug grin that I’m supposed to. So come on, out with it.”
“Well, he’s real rich. Mates with the prime minister. Owns a huge construction company. Got made an Order of the British Empire by the Queen a couple of years back. In the papers a lot. Society section. Him and his missus are always doin’ stuff for charity.”
“Ah! Well, that’s where you have me. I don’t read the papers and I don’t watch television. I spend my time doing something that will soon enough become extinct. I read books.”
“I read too, sir,” PC Dixon said with an affronted expression.
“Yes. But when I say read, I mean more than the latest Jack Reacher thriller. Have you ever read history?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Then you won’t know where this road got its name from.”
“You mean this one; Cock Lane?”
“Yes, I do. You’ll be surprised to find out that it’s not from any association with the poultry industry that it got its name. It was because it was one of London’s first streets to be licensed for prostitution during the Medieval era.” Barker instinctively glanced over the constable’s shoulder at the columned facade that stretched along the edge of the road. “It’s certainly come a long way. Before, you would have found maidens crying down their prices to you from the balconies. These days it’s kept more hidden.”
“But sometimes it creeps out between the gaps, sir,” the con
stable stated.
“It appears it has. Now let’s go see our man Carter.”
Barker got out of the car and followed PC Dixon to the open door of the gentlemen’s club. As the constable had stated, the place was called the Belgravia. But there was no sign to point this out. It was one of those establishments that does its best to look as unremarkable as possible, like a guilty man in a police line up. The front of it was painted white and the curtains in the tall windows were all drawn. It looked innocent enough. But scratch a little deeper and it begins to look anything but.
At the door, a police constable stood to the side and permitted them when Barker showed his identification. He and PC Dixon ventured into the wood paneling and leather furniture of the place. It appeared deserted, as though all the ‘gentlemen’ had evacuated it. There was good reason for this, Barker pointed out in his head.
“Isn’t this the place that Iranian nuclear scientist was blown up in all them years back?” Dixon asked as they traveled up the lift.
“It is,” Barker replied. “Looks like they redecorated.”
On the fourth floor, the lift doors slid open and the two men stepped out onto a corridor. At the end, another uniformed constable stood beside an open door. As they walked towards it, the flash of a camera burst inside the room. Barker always found it eerie. The sound of the camera and the sharp illumination of light. For forty years he’d come to know that flashbulb and it unsettled him. Because how could he help but associate the flashing of a camera with death?
“Gotta ask you to put these on,” said the constable standing at the open door.
Barker didn’t say a word as the man handed him some shoe protectors. He slipped them over his worn leather moccasins and then he and Dixon entered the room.
They immediately saw the blood. Hell, you could smell it. The windows were closed. Glancing at them, Barker saw that they were bolted shut. The panes looked inches thick and were probably bullet proof plexiglass. There was air conditioning. It blew the stench of the room about. Musty sweat and the metallic, fleshy stench of blood.
The curtains had been opened and a wedge of sunlight shone into the room and settled on the bed. It illuminated the corpse of Charles Carter, OBE, and the blood that covered the white sheets shimmered in the sunbeams like hot coals. He was lying on his side with his hands clasped around his throat. They were red now. Covered and resembling red latex gloves. His face still wore the mask of horrifying death. He’d been there since last night, apparently. Found by housekeeping only an hour ago. Rigor mortis would have set in. He’ll wear that mask to his funeral, Bob Barker thought to himself as he stared at the bulging eyes of Charles Carter, OBE.
It looked like he’d been shocked by the attack—wide-eyed face contorted into a look of surprise. There were no obvious signs of a struggle in the room. No knocked over furniture, nothing broken or out of place. Well, except for the corpse, of course. There were no signs of a struggle on the body either. Charles Carter’s naked flesh wasn’t bruised, scratched or punctured in any way. His hands and forearms weren’t marked. He hadn’t attempted to defend himself. The blow had come out of nowhere to Carter. He’d been relaxed and then he had been dead.
All around the room, there was movement. Forensic experts collecting evidence from the room. Police photographers snapping away at anything the forensics boys told them to. They collected hair, dusted for prints and recorded everything of the room. Barker ignored them as he stood alongside Constable Dixon, gazing down at the bed.
“Terrible way to go,” the constable said and Barker rolled his eyes.
How many times, he asked himself, had he heard those same words muttered at a crime scene?
Too many.
“We got CCTV?” he asked Dixon.
“None, sir.”
“None?” Barker said, screwing his face up and turning sharply on the constable.
“There’s no cameras here,” Dixon said sheepishly, as if the fact would be somehow blamed on him. “They say it’s for members’ privacy. No cameras, no recording.”
“What about the staff?”
“They’re having their statements taken now, but it looks like they reckon he was alone all night. I spoke with the manager. Apparently, the victim came on his own at seven. Had some drinks in the lounge with some other members and then went to bed at ten. That was the last anyone saw of him. No visitors to the room.”
“But he was visited, Constable. Unless you’re saying he cut his own throat.”
“Maybe someone will come forward.”
Barker smiled. He wouldn’t have thought so.
“What evil have you been up to, Mr. Carter?” the detective whispered to the corpse. “Whatever it was, it looks like you were bang out of luck. Looks like you met a devil of your own.”
As he said this, a forensics officer who was collecting fibers from a pillow on the other side of Carter stood up and said, “I’ve found another one.”
“The blonde ones?” said a colleague, who was dusting a polished walnut bureau in an opposite corner.
“Yes. Straight and long, like the last. Right on the pillow. I don’t reckon it would have been here before the victim checked in. I don’t think this is the sort of place they’d allow such a thing as a hair to get on their clean laundry.”
“You found something?” Barker asked across the bed.
The operative glanced over at him, having placed the hair into a small plastic baggie.
“We found several blonde hairs,” he said, “on the bed and also in the bathroom where someone had cleaned themselves up. We think the person may have been here with him last night.”
“You found prints too?” Barker asked the man by the bureau.
“Yes. Several.”
“What about the murder weapon?”
“Found in the bathroom,” the operative informed him. “A kitchen knife he were using to cut limes. Room service had brought it up to him along with a bottle of spiced rum at five minutes past ten p.m., when he’d just retired to bed.”
“Where is it?”
The operative by the bureau came away from it and went to a square leather case. Unzipping it, he brought out a clear evidence bag containing the bloodied weapon. Standard kitchen knife about four inches long. It was an opportunist’s weapon. Wasn’t brought along specifically for a premeditated murder, but was grabbed up and used on the spur of the moment.
The detective felt he had an idea of how it went down and the long blonde hair almost confirmed it for him. Carter was in bed with someone—possibly female, but the long blonde hair could belong to a man. Blondie didn’t like what was going on. She picked up the knife and slashed it across his throat. It was probably no more than a defensive motion. She was probably as surprised as Carter when the blood started spraying out of his neck. By the amount of blood, she’d hit the carotid artery and he’d emptied within seconds. Death had come quick.
Barker went to the ensuite bathroom. A forensic photographer was taking pictures of the bathtub. He stopped when the old detective entered and came away. Inside the tub was blood. On the tiled walls, there were handprints that spread through it, part washed away.
“You think you can get a fingerprint from them?” the detective asked.
“Probably not. The water means that they’ve run down the wall slightly. They’ll be partial at best and probably too stretched out or faint to get anything accurate.”
Barker stepped out of the bathroom and back to the bed. He stood glaring down at the corpse for another minute and then, as though disgusted by the sight of it, he left the room.
8
That night, Dorring was awoken by heavy footsteps on the gravel outside. Parting the curtains and glancing out, he saw the distraught face of Maria running towards the caravan. By the time she reached it, he was at the open door, standing on the threshold in his underwear.
“It’s… Otis,” she said breathlessly. “He’s… hurt.”
Within a minute, Dorring was dressed and
running with her out of the camp to the top of the dirt track. Standing there was Milan, holding up a motorbike.
“This is for us,” Maria said as they reached him.
Dorring put a greasy smelling helmet on and Maria did the same. Then he got on and she placed herself behind him. The bike was gutless. An old, rickety 500CC Honda with a bad bulb in the front lamp, so that it illuminated only the first four yards ahead.
Having managed to get the thing down the bumpy dirt track, Dorring hit the road and opened it up a little, Maria clinging to him from behind. Through the avenues of trees, they zoomed along at eighty, Dorring leaning the bike around the corners and heading in the direction Maria cried into his ear. She was an experienced passenger, leaning and moving with him in unison, expertly understanding how to distribute her weight at the corners.
They left the woods and traveled along narrow lanes underneath the silver glare of a full moon. Along the base of a vale, they came to rows of cars parked all along the edges of the road. At the end was a farm with tractors and other equipment parked on a large concrete lot surrounding silos and other farm buildings. Knots of people stood around between the vehicles. It was almost one in the morning on a Saturday and the place looked like a night club at kicking out. On the largest of the warehouses, the doors were wide open. Inside was a crowd of people standing within the gloom of dim electric light.
Dorring parked the bike and he and Maria got off. Immediately, a large man in a peaked cap and check shirt bounded up to them.
“Who the heck’re you?” boomed from his ruddy face.
“Where is Otis?” Maria asked in a worried tone.
The ruddy face softened and a look of concern came to him.
“You his mate what can take him?” the ruddy-faced farmer asked.
“Yes,” Maria replied.
“Then follow me.”
They followed him into the warehouse. In the center of it was a rectangle bordered by bales of straw. At the edge, a huge man with glistening, sweat-coated skin sat in shorts, with bloodied and taped up swollen hands. He couldn’t even hold his pint with them and a friend leaned the glass against his cut lips, tipping the amber fluid down his throat. Inside the mouth, several teeth had been snapped off and the beer washed the blood down. As to his face, it didn’t look like one anymore. Looked more like a lump of clay that’s been kicked around a studio for several days; all lumpen and out of shape; more like a misshapen potato than a head. As the beer was poured into his mouth, his huge body pulsated in and out. He looked physically shattered.