A Passion To Kill (DI Matt Barnes Book 5)

by Michael Kerr

  “Have you drawn anything else, Dr Beth?” Millie Ledger said.

  Beth flipped the pages of the pad over slowly to display several other sketches. The children were impressed.

  “Who else likes to draw things?” Beth asked the small gathering around her.

  “I do,” ten year old Chloe Harper said. “I like to draw cartoons in coloured crayons.”

  “That’s nice, Chloe,” Beth said. “I’d love to see any of your paintings or drawings. It’s my favourite hobby.”

  Martin wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure what, so kept his silence. Maybe he would show Dr Beth some of his drawings, if he could pluck up the courage to approach her. She seemed really nice, and he wished that she had been his mum, or that his mum had been more like her.

  It had been just after eleven a.m. when Shelley Carmichael had been led into the interview room, where Matt and Marci were already sitting at one side of a metal table that was bolted to the floor. They were both drinking coffee and pretending to be ultra-relaxed. Matt had an A4 size envelope with what he hoped would close the case in it.

  The officer that accompanied Shelley told her to sit down at the other side of the table, and handcuffed her hands to a steel hasp on the top that was only used as a restraining method for violent prisoners.

  There was a video camera mounted near the ceiling in a corner of the room, and the ever-present twin deck recorder on the tabletop, to tape all interviews with suspects or prisoners that had been charged.

  Shelley had spent a long night and morning alone in a holding cell. She had no idea how they had come to the conclusion that she was the killer, and wondered what they had to incriminate her. She regretted not getting rid of the parka, which she knew they would have found. Perhaps just one single hair of a victim on it would prove to be her downfall. She should have burned the bloody thing. And how had they found out about what she had done at school?

  Both of the cops looked smug. She could smell the strong coffee that they were drinking. The dark-haired female that she had thrown the kettle full of hot water at had a red blotch on the side of her face and neck, but she was smiling. Pity it hadn’t been boiling and scarred her for life. These two were dangerous. The bitch had punched her hard in the stomach, which was still sore, and the pig that had caught her in the bunker had broken her nose and hit her on the chin, causing her to bite through the tip of her tongue. If she hadn’t been cuffed to the table she would have clawed his fucking eyes out.

  Matt was in no hurry. He didn’t need to rush the proceedings. Shelley was waiting for him to speak, to start accusing her and get her to talk. But he needed to get her measure and break her down in his own good time.

  Ten minutes passed before Shelley broke the heavy silence.

  “So say something, charge me with an offence or let me go,” she said painfully, due to her inflamed and throbbing tongue. “The silent treatment won’t work, because I didn’t do it.”

  “Do what?” Matt said.

  “I didn’t murder anybody.”

  “Of course you did,” Matt said.

  “You have no proof of anything.”

  Matt picked up the envelope and withdrew half a dozen stills taken from CCTV footage at Warren Street Station and slid them one at a time across the tabletop, facing Shelley.

  After she looked at the fourth one, Shelley’s face drained of colour.

  “That’s you,” Matt said. “You missed one of the cameras and raised your head slightly for a second.”

  “It’s blurred. It could be anyone.”

  Matt smiled. “No, Shelley, computer analysis is pretty advanced these days. It can map a face and provide positive identification.”

  The image was false but good. Kenny Ruskin had manipulated it using a photo of Shelley taken from her cottage. It now appeared that her head was tilted up at an angle that showed her features. He’d used a technique similar to Photoshop, but more advanced.

  “And if that wasn’t enough, look at the mark on the front of the parka, on the left front near the bottom.”

  Shelley saw the small crescent smudge. It showed up on all the photos.

  More of Kenny’s work.

  “NOOO!” she screamed, attempting to pull her hands from the cuffs, as if being free of them would somehow help her escape the predicament she was in.

  “Yes,” Matt said. “You murdered three people in cold blood. You can admit it and offer extenuating circumstances for doing it, or have your day in court and let a jury decide.”

  Matt took the photos back, stood up and left the room.

  “You want some advice, just between the two of us?” Marci said.

  Shelley didn’t reply.

  “Plead temporary insanity, or say that you were coerced into doing it. Better to receive treatment in a hospital than spending the rest of your life in prison.”

  Marci shrugged and followed Matt out and shut the door behind her.

  “You think she bought it?” Matt said.

  Marci nodded. “Definitely. The doctored photos did the trick. Kenny is a wizard. And I just suggested that she should consider an insanity plea and give herself a chance of being rehabilitated and eventually released.”

  “Okay, we’ll lose the photographs, then go back in and start from the top with the video and tapes running. The first interview didn’t take place.”

  “It was illegal, boss.”

  “So was what she did,” Matt said. “I’ll use every means at my disposal to put people away if they deserve it, and she does.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  THERE was a sense of urgency. Time was running out like sand through an old-fashioned hourglass. He needed to use what was left of it to do as much as possible. He recalled a quote from Dr Seuss: ‘How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?’ That summed it up. In many ways he still felt that he was the boy he had been, looking forward to the adventure of life that was ahead of him, but which had not lived up to expectation. And now at the relatively young age of fifty-eight he was near the end, and had to face it and get past it. He had not achieved anything outstanding, but that was of no real importance. He had never been competitive or yearned for fame or fortune. It didn’t mean anything. He had led a quiet, uneventful life comprising all the normal highs and lows that the majority of people experienced. Only by avenging Josie Madsen’s death had he come to know that he could make a difference. It was a revelation. He could do good deeds, and rid the world of those that had forfeited a right to be a part of it.

  He slept until five p.m., and then showered, dressed, drank tea and took his medication before leaving the bungalow to drive west on the A118 to Dalston.

  He parked in an alley that ran along the rear of a terrace row on Bellamy Street. Fitted the silencer to his gun and tucked it in the waistband of his chinos and got out of the car and walked back to the street. He knew the house number. He had visited the area weeks ago, and a shopkeeper had been happy to make his feelings known regarding Ian Peterson being back in the area, living in the community with no shame over what he had done. He had given the address freely, with no prompting.

  The glass in the top half of the front door of number twenty-six had been shattered. A piece of plywood had been screwed into the space. Gabriel knocked on it, and a few seconds later a young woman opened the door eighteen inches. The hall light was off, but he could see that she was slim, had frizzy auburn hair worn back in a ponytail, and large green eyes that looked too big for her pixie face. All she was wearing was a long grey tee-shirt that was hiked up slightly; enough so that a part of the thick bush at the fork of her legs was visible.

  “Whadya want?” she said through a wad of gum she was chewing, open-mouthed.

  “I’m Gabe,” he said. “I was told that Ian might be interested in work.”

  “He’s out. Come back later, or leave your phone number, or if you�
�ve got thirty quid burnin’ a hole in your pocket, come in an’ spend it on a little bit of what you can see.”

  Gabriel looked down at what was obviously on offer. “I’ll come in and wait if that’s okay,” he said.

  He followed her in, closing and locking the door behind him. Her arse cheeks looked very appetising. He felt himself harden. The gloop that he took had not affected the blood flow to his penis. It was stiff before he entered the small living room. The TV was on, tuned to a radio station pumping out noise that he did not associate with real music. The only other light was from a table lamp with an energy-saving bulb in it that hardly brightened the dim surroundings.

  “I’m Rita,” the young woman said as she pulled off the tee and began to massage her small breasts and stroke her nipples with the balls of her thumbs. “How do you wan’ it?”

  “Any which way,” Gabriel said, happy to take advantage of an offer he had not expected but had no intention of turning down. It didn’t harm to go with the flow. Leaving DNA just didn’t seem to be an issue any longer.

  He stepped up close to her, reached out and held her breasts, then slipped his right hand down to find her centre, to find it slick and warm. It wasn’t just the money, she wanted the sex. Maybe her doomed boyfriend couldn’t get it up, or perhaps she needed more than one man was capable of giving to her.

  “Get your gear off an’ lay on the hearthrug,” Rita said. “Ian won’t be back for at least an hour.”

  He backed off to stand in front of a small two-seater settee, to undress carefully, shoes and socks first, and then his clothes, ensuring that Rita did not see the gun as he folded his trousers and placed them on a cushion with his shirt and coat over them.

  He got down on the rug and she was all over him, knelt at first, taking him into her mouth. She then straddled him and brought herself off in seconds. Rested for a few seconds and then started again, grunting as she attained a second and then third orgasm before he came and began to wilt.

  “That was brill,” Rita said breathlessly as she climbed off him and pulled her tee-shirt back on. “I need a cig an’ a drink. How about you?”

  “Have you got any Scotch?” Gabriel asked as he got up and slowly dressed, feeling weak after having a twenty-odd year old jumping his aching bones, but in no way complaining. It was impossible to know what surprises were going to happen in life. The unexpected bout of sex had been one of the better ones.

  “I’ve got a drop of cheap Aldi stuff,” Rita said as she mopped her still bare crotch with a tissue.

  “That’ll be fine. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  They spent half an hour sitting on the settee and talking before Gabriel heard a key turn in the door lock.

  Ian Peterson walked into the room and stopped dead when he saw Gabriel sitting on the settee. He looked questioningly from the man that he had never seen to Rita.

  “This is Gabe,” Rita said, standing up. “He wanted to see you about a job, so I said he could wait.”

  “Go upstairs and get dressed, you slut,” Ian said to Rita, and then turned his full attention to Gabriel. “I suppose she fucked you,” he said. “She can’t help herself; she needs cock like a junkie needs a fix.”

  “It passed the time,” Gabriel said, standing up and drawing the Browning nine-millimetre and pointing it at Ian’s chest. “Lie down and put your hands behind your head. Do it now or I’ll shoot you.”

  Ian knew that if he attempted to turn and run out into the hall he would be killed. He didn’t move, just asked, “Who the fuck are you?”

  Gabriel shot him in the left foot. The suppressed sound of the shot was drowned by the music from the TV as Ian screamed like a girl in a horror movie and dropped to the floor.

  Rita came down the stairs wearing a clean tee-shirt and a pair of tight blue jeans, and put her hands up to her mouth as she saw Ian writhing around on the floor, and the man that she had just shagged holding a gun.

  Sometimes you have to think of the many and not about the individual. Rita could identify him, and so she was a liability. “Turn around and kneel down,” he said to her, and she woodenly obeyed him.

  She began to sob as he gently pushed the end of the silencer against the back of her head, but felt nothing as the bullet passed though her skull, to exit through the bridge of her nose, punch into wall plaster and send chips of underlying brick flying out as it flattened and lodged in the hole that it had made.

  Rita fell forward with her head twisted to the side. Most of her nose was now just a scrap of raw, red meat decorating the wall, and blood pooled around her head and soaked into her hair and the carpet.

  Gabriel watched as the fingers of one of the now dead woman’s hands moved, to claw and straighten out twice before becoming still. He supposed that he should feel a little guilty, or even ashamed of what he had done, but he did not. She knew what kind of lowlife Peterson was, but condoned what he had done by standing by him.

  Ian was in agony. Blood was seeping out from the top of his trainer. He didn’t know who the man was. It didn’t make any sense. And then Rita had been told to kneel down and he’d watched as the maniac shot her in the back of the head. He saw the spray of blood hit the wall, and her head smack on the floor and turn to face him. Her bright green eyes stared at him, but they were fixed and unseeing. He began to shake.

  “Stretch out flat on your front and put your hands behind your back,” Gabriel said quietly. “Or you get the same as your randy girlfriend.”

  Ian complied, and heard what he knew to be the ripping sound of duct tape as it was wrapped tightly around his wrists.

  “Who are you?” Ian asked again.

  “Like they say in the movies, I’m your worst nightmare,” Gabriel said as he rifled through Ian’s pockets and removed his wallet, car keys and mobile phone. “Get up and walk through to the kitchen and open the back door.”

  Moaning as he shuffled to the settee on his knees, keeping his injured foot off the floor, Ian somehow levered himself up into a standing position against it, only able to use his right leg to accomplish it.

  “I don’t think I can walk,” he said.

  “If you don’t want to be shot like a sitting duck, you’ll manage to,” Gabriel said.

  With sweat pouring from him, Ian limped into the kitchen, putting all his weight on his right foot and just the heel of his left on the floor. Spiking pain lanced up his leg and he emitted a whining sound through clenched teeth.

  There was no one in sight in the alley, and his good friend the dark once more aided him in his nefarious work.

  He thumbed the remote and the lights on his car winked as the doors and boot were unlocked.

  Opening the boot, he told Ian to climb in, which he did, groaning as he sat on the edge and rolled back and sideways.

  Gabriel placed a length of the wide duct tape across his mouth, then closed the boot and drove away from the area. Stopping at a phone box midway between Dalston and home, and wearing gloves, he dialled 999 and told the operator that someone had been murdered at twenty-six Bellamy Street in Dalston. That was it. He hung up. Let them work for it and make the connections. He was sure that Barnes would, once they determined that Peterson had been the girl’s partner and checked on the missing man’s background.

  Backing up close to the garage, he got out of the car and opened the door, then opened the boot lid and told Ian to get out, but ended up having to help him. He supposed that with your arms pinioned behind your back and a bullet hole in your foot, it would prove awkward.

  Ian saw that the man was not holding the gun. For just a second he thought that he could head butt his captor and escape, but realised that he could hardly hobble, let alone run away.

  “Go inside and sit on the floor against the back wall,” Gabriel said, ripping the tape away from Ian’s mouth.

  Ian limped across the concrete floor, and when he had slid down and was seated, Gabriel closed the boot lid and then the garage door.

  “Why are you doing this?” Ian
asked. “What have I done to you?”

  “Offended me,” Gabriel said as he drew the gun. “You murdered a decent, elderly man who’d spent his life teaching, and should have enjoyed a peaceful and happy retirement.”

  “It was self-defence,” Ian said. “And I’ve served my time.”

  “You broke into his house and stabbed him to death.”

  “Why do you care what I did?”

  “Because someone has to. I’ve made it my business to deal with animals like you. I’m The Clown.”

  Ian was totally consumed with numbing fear. He’d read about this maniac. Knew that he killed people and left their bodies to be found. The police obviously hadn’t released all the details, but it was common knowledge that the killer put masks on his victims.

  Gabriel smiled as he walked the length of the garage, pointing the pistol at Ian’s head as he advanced.

  “No, please, no,” Ian pleaded. “Don’t do this.”

  Gabriel said nothing; just hit Ian across the side of the head with the barrel of the gun, and then hit him twice more, until he slumped over unconscious. Using a length of nylon rope, he fashioned a noose, placed it over Ian’s head and tightened it around his neck, tying the other end of the rope to a wall bracket above him. After putting fresh tape over his mouth and binding his ankles together, Gabriel was satisfied that the young man would not be going anywhere.