by Michael Kerr
As the weather girl appeared, to theatrically wave her hands over a map of the British Isles and guarantee a humid day and high pollen count, Laura was already back upstairs getting dressed.
“What’s the matter?” Jim asked, propping himself up on one elbow as Laura darted about the bedroom.
“A screw at Long Hutton went berserk with a 12 gauge and declared open season on inmates, then blew his own brains out. They didn’t name him, but I know it was Ron Cullen, the father of one of the Tacker’s victims.”
“You sure?”
“Do bears shit in the woods?” Laura said, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek before running for the door.
“Meet me for lunch,” Jim shouted as she clattered down the staircase.
“Same pub, one o’ clock. Okay?” Laura called back.
“I’ll be there,” Jim said a split second before he heard the front door slam. Sitting up, he planted his feet on the cool, varnished floorboards at the side of the bed. Took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. God, being back in the sack with Laura had graphically brought it home to him just what he’d been missing. Sex with someone you want to be with and share your life with was more than just a physical act. It transcended just getting your rocks off. Making love with Laura was about more than fleeting gratification. It was a bonding; an expression of pent-up emotional needs that could not be replicated with another partner.
“It was Cullen,” Hugh said, appearing at Laura’s door within seconds of her sitting at her desk. “I knew he was a cold fish. He topped twenty sex offenders and murderers, all serving life, and then ate his shotgun.”
“Who’s mopping up at the scene?”
“DCI Thornton. He’s out there now with the SOCO and the pathologist.”
“It’s tragic, Hugh. Cullen was in a position to take his revenge on the same sort of degenerates as the one who killed his daughter, and just flipped and did it. But it has no bearing on our case, other than being a direct result of what our boy did to Heather.”
Hugh sighed. “A lot of screws and coppers are like loaded guns. I’ve heard more than one say that if he ever got diagnosed with anything terminal, he would do something similar to what Cullen’s done.”
“Yeah, but it’s usually just talking the talk, isn’t it? This is the first time that one has actually gone over the edge and done anything like this.”
“Well, none of those wankers will ever be a threat to anyone again. He just reintroduced the death penalty for a limited run.”
“You sound as if you approve of what he did, Hugh.”
“Professionally, I see it as a crime committed outside the law. Personally, I think he provided a service that has been redundant for far too long. I’m one of those hard-liners who would not only bring back topping, but backdate it. The prison system is getting clogged up with lifers who should have been put down decades ago. What do you think, boss?”
“I think that my view on capital punishment is irrelevant. It’s our job to catch them. I try to keep that as the only priority, and leave the courts to weigh them off.”
“Was that a for or against the death penalty?” Hugh pushed, his eyes twinkling.
“Let’s just say that if there was a system that could guarantee that no innocent man or woman was sentenced to death, then I would consider it in a different light for certain offenders.”
“That was a yes, boss, whichever way you wrap it up.”
“Shut up and pour the coffee, Hugh. You’re giving me a headache.”
Jim spent the morning going through the reports again, searching for the slightest detail that he may have missed. There was nothing. He showered, drank too much coffee and watched news updates on the unfolding prison drama. He had nothing but admiration for the killer screw. The dark side of him was always pleased to see bad guys get their asses vaporised. He had lived with violent, sudden death, and both seen and suffered the results of what sick and twisted psycho’s could do. If milk is bad, you flush it away. And if meat has turned rancid, you bin it. He saw rotten humanity in the same light. If it was no good, feed it to the nearest waste disposal unit available. The lenient treatment of life’s worst scum did not make the world a safer place for honest folk; ergo, the law was an ass, far removed and at odds with the society it was supposed to protect and serve. All decent Americans had been happy to hear that Bin Laden had met a violent end. Call it revenge, justice, closure, whatever. It had undoubtedly resulted in millions of folk punching the air and shouting Yesss at their TV screens.
Jim watched the hands of the carriage clock on the mantel in the lounge creep round with protracted, tortoise-like stealth. And finally at a little past noon he left the cottage and headed for York, eager to be with Laura again, missing her with a passion that he could not have imagined just twenty-four hours previously.
He was early, bought the drinks and settled at a small corner table in an alcove, from where he could see the door. It was exactly one p.m. when Laura breezed in, and his heart raced as she walked toward to him; the love light in her eyes shining, making him feel like saying the words to some ‘Always and Forever’ type of late night song that he had heard on countless smooch FM radio stations.
“I’ve got something you might find interesting,” Laura said, producing a printout and handing it to him as she sat down.
“You’ve got a lot of things I find interesting,” he replied, taking the piece of paper, but keeping his eyes firmly on Laura’s, holding her gaze and speaking volumes without words, as she was held mesmerised by his magnetic stare.
“Stop it,” Laura said, turning her head away. “I feel like a rabbit in a car’s headlights when you do that.”
“Do what? I didn’t do anything. I was just looking at you.”
“You know exactly what you were doing, Jim Elliott. It wasn’t just looking, it was almost hypnosis. There should be a law against you Yanks coming over here and looking at womenfolk that way. You’ll be offering me nylons and chocolate next like they did way back in World War Two.”
“You should be so lucky. I don’t offer bribes to the law.”
“Shame. I’m open to a good bribe from time to time.”
“Let’s pursue this line of thought tonight, back at the cottage. I’m sure I can find you something as hard and sweet to suck on as a block of dairy milk.”
“You’d better look at that list, before I run you in for...for making lewd remarks that are likely to make me blush.”
Jim looked at the list of names and descriptions of a dozen missing teenage girls, and at the times and dates of their last known whereabouts. They were all fair-haired or blonde, with blue eyes, and they shared another common denominator; none had ever been seen again. The last on the list had gone missing just six months ago and the earliest over three years back.
“This looks good,” Jim said. “I need to see a map to pinpoint exactly where they were last seen. It should give us his home territory.”
“If it is him, all those locations are southeast of the city,” Laura said, wanting to light just her third cigarette of the day, unable to in the pub, but pleased at the success she was having in cutting down. “I’ve got a map of the York area in the car. You can study it while I drive you to the crime scenes you wanted to see.”
“Forget those, Laura. I wouldn’t find anything. This is more important. Let’s go back to your place and work on it.”
As they rose to leave, Hugh Parfitt walked into the pub, saw Laura and pushed his way through the lunch-time crowd, making a beeline for them.
“Boss?” Hugh said, looking from Laura to Jim and back again.
“Jim Elliott...DS Hugh Parfitt,” Laura said by way of briefly introducing the two men.
Jim shook the young cop’s hand. It was a dry, cold, vicelike grip, intended to be challenging and slightly intimidating. Jim matched it, then increased the pressure as he smiled and returned the guy’s fixed stare. For a fleeting hundredth of a second, he saw a soulless and uncompromising dark qualit
y under the surface of affability, which seemed as wild as a storm-lashed and cruel sea. The youthful good looks and the too-quick pleasant smile were a mask that failed to hide a calculating, intelligent, and in some way dangerous mind from Jim’s honed skills of character analysis.
“Good to meet you, Jim,” Hugh said. “Can I get you both a drink?”
“Thanks, but no. We were just leaving.”
“American, huh?...Jim Elliott. The name rings a bell,” Hugh said. “Are you in law enforcement?”
“I used to be,” Jim replied. “A long time ago.”
“Got it!” Hugh said, grinning. “I’ve read about you. You were an FBI profiler. Didn’t you catch a guy in Baltimore or Philadelphia? Called himself Lucifer and used to burn his victims when he was done with them, to supposedly deliver their souls to hell or something.”
“It was Baltimore, and he called himself Lucien.”
“So are you here to help us nail our killer, Jim? Or is your being in York at this time just pure coincidence?”
“Jim’s an old friend, Hugh. He’s not on the case. He’s in PR now,” Laura said, trying to end the conversation, walking towards the door as she spoke.
“Once a cop, always a cop,” Hugh observed, turning up the voltage of his Burt Lancaster smile, before abruptly turning away and heading for the bar.
“Hugh is a good copper,” Laura said as they drove out of the city in Jim’s Cherokee. “He’s just a bit overprotective of me. Looks after my interests.”
“I never said a word,” Jim replied.
“You didn’t have to. I could tell you didn’t like him.”
“I don’t like or dislike him, Laura. I don’t know the guy. I just got a feeling about him. He isn’t all he seems to be.”
“Who is?”
“Point taken. I’m just on edge. His mother probably loves him.”
That evening, he settled in what had been his father’s armchair. It was worn and shiny-backed with frayed arms. Decades’ worth of dust and sweat and grease had formed a patina of grime, overlaying the paisley pattern from all but the outer sides and rear of it. He had once dug his hands down the gap between the arms and seat and found a few pre-decimal coins; old pennies and even a dull, lacklustre florin that would be a ten pence piece nowadays. There had also been a black plastic comb, still holding some of his dad’s Brylcreem-coated hair in its teeth. He had returned the items to the dark chasms of the chair, which was, as the farm around it, a time capsule; his link to a past that still played such a major role in his life. He had made few changes. The house was almost as it had been when he was a child. His parents’ clothes still languished in drawers and hung limp and moth-eaten on wooden hangers in the utility wardrobe in the front bedroom. Old framed prints and monochrome photographs adorned the walls, preserving the colour of the wallpaper beneath, which had faded around them, and in places curled away from the encroaching damp. Outside, the land had been neglected. A large patch of weed-filled ground marked the spot where he had burned down the chicken shed. His memory of running around it whooping and shouting as the stinking hens clucked frenziedly as they were roasted alive still made him smile.
He sat forward, with a plate of ham sandwiches on his bare knees and a glass of milk in his left hand, grinning at the scenes being shown on the six o’clock news. It was giving updates on the previous night’s fun and games at Long Hutton prison. It transpired that the screw who’d gone off his rocker had been the father of one of his mother’s incarnations. It gladdened his heart that so many of the worst cons in the system had been offed in a twisted form of revenge, at his instigation. It was one of those days that seldom come along; almost equalling that long gone morning when he had been standing in the rain, watching his father die under the tractor, his body crushed and his last minutes full of pain and a fear that was so profound that he had almost been able to taste it.
The regional news came on, and Trish Pearson’s head and shoulders filled the screen. “Last night,” she said dramatically – as if she gave a fuck – with her eyes not making contact with his, but reading from an autocue next to the camera lens, “a tragedy took place inside one of Britain’s top security jails. A warder, his mind crippled by the recent rape, mutilation and murder of his only daughter, lost control, and in a state of unimaginable mental anguish proceeded to shoot twenty inmates to death in their cells, before killing himself. There are two issues here. Firstly, how could a warder be able to walk into a prison with a shotgun and boxes of cartridges? And secondly, I think it safe to say that the real blame for what happened can be squarely placed at the feet of the mad-dog killer who continues to prey on young women in the York area. The sick and twisted coward who has been nicknamed the Tacker must be caught and caged for the rest of his natural life. And now we go to our outside...”
“You’re next, you bad-mouthed bitch,” he screamed at the set, shooting to his feet, causing the plate of sandwiches to fly off his knees to the matted carpet, as did the glass of milk, which slipped forgotten from his hand. “You’ve gone too far. It’s time we met face to face… again.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
HE waited for his strongest ally, which was nightfall, and then loaded the blue plastic fertiliser sack and its contents into the boot and drove west, into the city and out of it towards Knaresborough.
Crossing the bridge over the River Nidd and passing the entrance that led to Mother Shipton’s cave, he left the road on to a forestry path, cutting the lights and driving at little more than walking pace, aided by pale moon glow. He parked in thick bracken among trees that hid the Mondeo completely from sight of the road.
He had reconnoitred the area, planned this novel disposal days ago, and was now excited at the prospect of his work being found. Detective Inspector Laura Scott and her posse of nose-blocked bloodhounds would get even more bad press as his reign of terror struck even deeper into the hearts of the population of North Yorkshire.
By the time he reached the edge of the rock cliff that overhung the cave below it, his shoulders were aching and his calves and thighs burned. The body was a dead weight, literally. And as he shrugged it off, for it to thud on rock that was only sparsely covered with a paper-thin layer of lichen and weed, he stretched and rolled his shoulders, twisting his neck from side to side, grunting at the complaining of his tight muscles. Hefting the sack over the spiked, six-foot-high iron poles of the security fence had tested him to the limit.
Fifteen minutes later, he was finished. He had taken the corpse from the sack and lowered it over the edge by a rope that was tied to one of its ankles at one end, and secured to one of the sturdy railings at the other. The cadaver hung, a grisly, ashen, spectral form against the wet limestone, to drip with water that was so rich in minerals that if the body were to be left, it would form a rock coating; a cast that would be as fine as any sculpture. It was a shame that the tourists – who would flock here in the light of the following day – would miss this new addition to the famous petrifying wall. But he was sure that it would be found, and that the attraction would be closed as the plods searched in vain for clues.
Thirty minutes later he pulled back out on to the A59 and headed for home with Tina Turner belting out that he was Simply the Best through all four speakers, and at a volume that inflamed his spirit and assaulted his eardrums with a decibel level that, given time, would have damaged his hearing permanently.
At the house, he stripped off his clothes to sit cross-legged on the bedroom floor, shuffling a thick pack of Polaroids as though they were playing cards, to turn them over one by one and place each face up on the pair of panties that had belonged to the pictured prey. Each was unique, generating sublime memories of his past exploits. His breathing became quick and laboured; pulse racing. Sensory overload made him dizzy. Selecting a pair of stained, black satin panties, he draped them over his erection and gently barrelled his fist around the silky material.
“The ones on the list were all taken within a ten mile radius,” Jim sai
d, drawing a circle on the map that encompassed an area with the village of Wheldrake at its centre. “He’s in there somewhere. Now that he’s giving the bodies up, he’s started taking them from farther afield. He won’t expect us to put it together.”
“That’s still a hell of a big area to check out,” Laura said as she studied the map.
Jim was unfazed. “Think positive. We have the technology. The electoral roll will throw up all single men living at outlying addresses. And then it’s just a matter of elimination.”
Laura frowned. “You really think it will be that simple?”
“Yeah. Once you’ve got a list, a house-to-house will find him. There’ll only be a few six-footers that fit the description. And with just a handful of suspects it will be easy to do background checks. I think he’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”
Laura reached for the phone and called Hugh.
“I’ll see to it,” Hugh said after Laura had run through the plan that she and Jim had formulated.
“I really think we’re getting close, Hugh. He was careless with the ones he took earlier. He didn’t bother going too far from his home for them, because he was sure that they were never going to be found. I imagine that when we locate him, we’ll find the remains of more victims nearby, probably buried on his property.”
“It sounds too neat to be that easy, boss. But I’ll get right on it.”
It was daylight when Vince Hopkins ambled along the concrete path that curved down towards the streaming face of the cave. He had been asleep in the small hut since before midnight, failing to carry out the required hourly patrols of the tourist attraction, complacent over his role as security guard, having only twice in ten years experienced minor problems with trespassing teenagers. And they had not caused him any grief. Just ran off when he shouted at them.