by Glenn Cooper
Hathaway turned back to the loudmouths and said, “Any of you ever killed a man? Raped a woman? Raped a child?”
“Here!” the landlord shouted. “I’ll have no talk like that in my pub.”
Hathaway turned a deaf ear to him and said, “If you have, I’ll see you in Hell.”
The carnage that ensued was swift and furious.
At the sight of Hathaway pounding a knife into a chest, Talley and the others were on their feet and swarming on the youths, stabbing bellies, slashing throats in a bloodletting befitting an abattoir. The landlord tried to flee to the lounge bar but Chambers was over the bar counter with a rather elegant vault catching the man with one knife-blow to the back and another through the thin part of the skull.
That left the two older men who remained frozen at their table, watching the events unfold as if they were on a movie screen.
When Talley approached them it became clear they were both very drunk.
“We won’t say nothing, will we?” one of them slurred.
“I know you won’t,” Talley said.
“We’ll be off now,” the other said, his voice shaking as much as his hands.
“Here’s the good thing,” Talley said, his kitchen knife dripping blood on the floor. “We’ve had proper grub and our bellies are full. So we won’t be eating you after.”
“After what?” the first man asked in terror.
Talley raised the knife. “After this.”
Ben’s mobile woke him out of a dreamless sleep. Ordinarily he muted his phone at night so as not to disturb his wife, but he wasn’t taking the chance of missing a vibration. Brahms’s Third Symphony set him reaching for the unit and his wife moaning in irritation.
It was 2 a.m.
He listened, asked only a few questions in a low voice and got up.
“What is it?” his wife asked.
“Sorry, I’ve got to go.”
“Where?”
“Nottingham.”
“Bloody hell. Don’t wake the children.”
He lived in a mews in Kensington, a swanky pile he would not have been able to afford on a civil servant’s salary. But he was from money, lots of money, and his parents had bought the place for them when the second child arrived. The house had become an asset in his rise through the ranks at MI5 as he strategically invited superiors over for couples’ suppers, reinforcing the impression that he was one of them—which he was. Now, as he tiptoed through the dark house, scooping up car keys and swigging orange juice directly from the carton, a no-no in front of his wife, he became grimly resolute. He would not allow the horrors of what had apparently just happened in Nottingham to invade the world of his innocent, sleeping girls.
At half past four in the morning an MI5 helicopter deposited Ben, a small forensics team, and his two guests in Green’s Mill Park in Sneinton, a short distance from the Carpenter’s Arms.
During the flight, Murphy had raised his voice over the din, “Are you sure there weren’t any female victims?”
“That’s what I was told,” Ben had replied, opening a laptop computer and logging on to a cellular network.
He had called up a map of Nottingham and soon was looking at a street view of the Carpenter’s Arms.
Rix had been looking over his shoulder. “Is that a live camera feed?”
“No, it’s archived from a previous drive-by.”
“Just of Nottingham?”
“No, much of the country, in fact much of the western world.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Is this only for spooks like you lot?”
“No, it’s for anyone with a computer. Costs nothing to use. We spooks have access to live closed circuit TV feeds, mostly from urban areas, but not from this part of Nottingham.”
“And you can look things up, fast.”
“We can. Anyone can.”
“Show me.”
“You move the cursor up to this box by sliding your finger then typing in what you want to find out.”
“Now show me how your people were able to find out about Murphy and me.”
Ben had obliged and Googled their names. A host of archived newspaper articles had filled the screen detailing the tragic events of 1985.
“Fuck me,” Rix had said. “Being a copper’s got to be dead easy now.”
“Some things are easier, some are harder.”
“And you can use this to find people you’re looking for?”
“That’s right. You just type in their name and follow your nose.”
“Anyone can do it.”
“Anyone.”
“Who’s got these computers?”
“Most everyone these days in one form or another.”
“And what if you don’t have one, then what do you do?”
“There are public places in cities and towns called Internet cafes where you can rent them for a small fee. Anything else you’d like to know?”
When they landed, a police van drove them the rest of the way. Knots of neighbors woken by police and ambulance sirens lingered outside the taped-off pub and a few print reporters tried to ask questions as Ben and his team breezed by on their way to a crime-scene tent erected by the rear entrance. They donned disposable coveralls and booties. The Chief Constable of the Nottinghamshire Police was waiting for them inside. He came forward and introduced himself, holding up his gloved hands to excuse the lack of hand shaking.
“Chris Plume, Chief Constable. We all look the same in these monkey suits.”
“Ben Wellington, security services. May we have a look?”
“These men with you?” Plume said, wrinkling his nose and staring at Murphy and Rix.
“They are.”
“I see. How’s your stomach?” Plume asked.
“That bad, eh?”
“Worst I’ve ever seen. It’s a challenge walking about and finding bits of floor not covered in blood.”
“How many casualties?”
“Six patrons and the publican. It was his missus who sounded the alarm when he failed to come home after closing time. She sent their eldest son down here to check on him and, well, you’ll see what he found. While we were responding to this incident, we received a 999 call to an address on Holborn Avenue, a few streets away. The nature of the call was curious to say the least. Not three minutes later, you lot called from London. I didn’t know MI5 had the capability of listening in on the 999 network nationwide.”
“Should be no comment,” Ben said, “but we do. In special situations.”
“That’s what you’ve got here, Mr. Wellington. A right special situation. Would you mind telling me what we’re dealing with here? Pub killings aren’t the usual purview of MI5.”
“We don’t believe it’s an ordinary pub killing.”
“Do you have reason to suspect a terroristic connection?”
“We do which is why we’ll be invoking primary jurisdiction.”
“Might this be related to the South Ockendon terrorism investigation?”
“I couldn’t comment on that. I’m sure you understand.”
As they donned their forensics gear Murphy asked Ben why it was necessary to gown up.
“So we don’t contaminate the crime scene with our own footprints, fingerprints, clothes fibers, DNA.”
Rix chuckled. “Waste of time. We know who did this, and anyway it’ll never go to trial, will it?”
Ben couldn’t disagree but he simply said, “Well, let’s keep up appearances. For the local police.”
Ben was the first inside and he stopped in his tracks just beyond the threshold of the public bar. He hoped that his hesitation would be taken as a sign of wanting to absorb the big picture, but in reality he had to steady his nerves. He had seen death from violence before but not often and not on this scale. Work at MI5, particularly at his level, was a largely bloodless affair but this was not. It was a massacre of unfathomable proportion.
He gingerly stepped forward, minding the chief constable’s admonitio
n. Finding non-bloody patches of floor to tread on was like playing hopscotch.
The six victims immediately visible were not simply murdered, and somehow the word butchered didn’t seem appropriate either, since butchers are methodical and purposeful in their work. These men were slashed, stabbed, and even dismembered in the kind of apparently wanton frenzy that implied, what was it, he thought?—almost an orgiastic sadism.
Rix and Murphy looked at each other and nodded.
“Rover work,” Rix said.
“No doubt about it,” Murphy added.
“Please keep your voices down,” Ben told them. “How can you be so sure?”
“They don’t just take a man down,” Rix said. “They destroy him. It’s their way. They enjoy maiming, they enjoy eating, they enjoy striking fear into the hearts of ordinary Hellers like us.”
“I see. Well have a look about if you will,” Ben said, trying to keep a professional tone. “See if anything catches your eye which might give us an indication on where they might have gone from here.”
The chief constable sidled over to Ben’s side. “Those two seem a bit rough around the edges for MI5, I would have thought.”
“We’ve expanded our recruitment efforts of late.”
“Have you now?”
Ben watched as Rix called Murphy over behind the bar to have a look at the landlord. “I want to go to Holborn Avenue as soon as we’re done here,” Ben told the chief constable.
“Of course. We’ve got the house secured. Were you able to listen to the entirety of the 999 call?”
“I was.”
“What did you make of it?”
“Which part?”
“The part where the bloke says that his brother’s come back from the dead and tied him and his missus up.”
“Ah yes, that part.”
“Well?”
“The man sounded intoxicated,” Ben said, peeling himself away.
They elected to walk the few blocks to Holborn Avenue to trace the path the rovers would have taken and to look for CCTV cameras positioned along the way. The chief constable promised to canvas shop owners along Sneinton Dale in the morning and confiscate all recordings.
Ben caught up with Murphy and Rix who were several paces ahead. “Anything catch your eye?” he asked.
“Yeah, they’re well fed,” Murphy said.
“How do you know that?”
“Because none of them were gnawed on,” Murphy said, as if it was the most obvious of all forensic conclusions.
There was a police cordon in front of Harold and Maisey’s house. Ben informed Plume that he wasn’t needed for the interviews and the chief constable grumbled that he might as well go home to bed. Ben didn’t disabuse him of the notion.
Harold was sitting on his threadbare sofa in the lounge nursing a cup of tea. Maisey sat beside him holding a cushion to her chest, lightly rocking back and forth. They looked up when Ben entered with the two Hellers.
Maisey clutched the cushion tighter and began to cry and Harold sniffed the air and said excitedly, “What? More of them? Get them away from us!”
Ben identified himself and ordered the two Nottinghamshire officers to leave the house and when they were gone he told Harold and Maisey that they were perfectly safe.
“The Security Service is quite concerned for your safety and welfare, Mr. and Mrs. Hathaway. These gentlemen are assisting us in our inquiries. They are not like the men you had in your house earlier.”
“Do you believe us?” Harold asked excitedly. “The police told us I was drunk, which maybe I was, but it was still the truth.”
“Yes, I believe you,” Ben said. “May we sit?”
“Are you dead too?” Maisey asked Rix and Murphy.
“Do we look dead, luv?” Murphy said.
“No, but they didn’t neither.”
Ben wasn’t interested in the conversation progressing along these lines. “We understand you believe that one of the men was your brother,” he said.
“I don’t believe it,” Harold said. “It was him. It was Lucas. I don’t know how it was him but it was him.”
“What do you think, Mrs. Hathaway?”
“I wouldn’t know, would I? He was dead before I ever met my Harold.”
“I see. So I take it that the men didn’t return here after visiting the Carpenter’s Arms tonight.”
“They did not,” Harold said. “I undid my ropes and called the police. Lucas and the others didn’t come back.”
Rix couldn’t seem to stand listening to Ben conducting the interview on his own. “How many men were with Lucas?”
“There was three others,” Harold said.
“Did you catch their names?”
“Only one of them. They called him Talley.”
Ben saw the impact the name had on the men. He let Rix carry on. “Did Lucas or these men talk about any women?”
Maisey had wanted to speak and she interrupted. “Was that the one who tried to have his way with me? Was that the one called Talley?”
“That was another one,” Harold said.
“How come you didn’t do nothing to stop him?” she yelled.
“I didn’t know nothing about it, did I?” Harold said. “It was Lucas who busted it up to his credit.”
“Were two women mentioned?” Murphy asked.
“No, no women,” Harold said.
“How did they arrive here tonight?” Rix asked.
Harold shrugged. “By car I presume.”
“You didn’t see it?”
“That’s what I presume means.”
“Did they say where they’d been before they got here?”
“They didn’t say and I didn’t ask. Somehow the question of how my brother had returned from the dead was more on my mind than their bloody itinerary.”
“And what did they offer by way of explanation?” Ben asked.
“They didn’t offer nothing by way of explanation. Just that it was so.”
“Did any of them say where they might go next?” Ben asked.
Harold and Maisey both shook their heads.
Ben thought for a moment and followed up with, “Would Lucas have any other relations or ex-wives or girlfriends he might want to contact after all these years?”
“Relations, no. He was never married. As to girlfriends, I wouldn’t have a clue. I was still a lad in Nottingham when he was off to London.”
Suddenly Maisey said something puzzling to Ben. “You know, we don’t have much money.”
Ben asked why she was mentioning this.
“Well, Harold and I was talking quietly amongst ourselves a short while ago that we could probably make a lot of money selling our stories to The Sun about how his dead brother come and visited us.”
“I see. Well, it’s a matter of national security that you not do so. I’m sure you’re both very patriotic individuals.”
“Sure we are,” Maisey said. “Queen and country and all that. But we really don’t have much money.”
Ben stood up and the Hellers followed suit. “I think I can give you the assurances of Her Majesty’s Government,” Ben said, “that your cooperation and your silence on this sensitive matter would entitle you to a cash award.”
Harold started to protest. “We don’t need no government …”
“Shut up, Harold. You wasn’t nearly violated tonight by a dead man. We’d be most grateful to get the cash.”
On the street, just beyond the incident tape, Ben motioned Rix over and noticed with a tinge of alarm that Murphy had wandered off. A policeman was doing a roll-up and Murphy was bumming some tobacco and papers off the curious man. Before the officer could ask where Murphy was from, Ben collared him and led him off, and as they walked, Murphy happily rolled a cigarette one-handed, as if he’d never stopped.
“Still got it,” Murphy said proudly. “They wouldn’t give me any in Dartford. No smoking policy or some such bollocks.” He called over to the policeman for a light and a box of matches fl
ew through the air. When he inhaled the first drag pure pleasure overcame him and he closed his eyes. “So much better than sex,” he said.
“Awfully glad to hear it,” Ben said. “More importantly, we have no idea where your rovers have gone. I would think it would take the better part of eight hours to assemble all the CCTV data and see if we can identify them leaving the pub and the number plate of a car they may be driving. By then they will be far afield and possibly in another vehicle. So our best bet is you. Where do you think they might be heading next?”
Murphy was too preoccupied with nicotine to answer. Rix said, “From what I hear, Talley’s an ancient cunt, hundreds of years removed from this world. I couldn’t say about the other two. Don’t know who they are. Then there’s Hathaway. Come to think of it, he had a girlfriend who came from Suffolk, didn’t he, Murph?”
Murphy shrugged and blew a perfect smoke ring, then launched another smaller ring through it, followed by a “did you see that?”
“She was always saying that she was going to go back and live in her parents’ pretty little cottage one day and leave London in the rear view mirror.”
“Which village?” Ben asked.
“I think it was called Hoxne,” Rix said.
Murphy smiled and blew another ring. “Yeah, that’s my recollection too,” he said.
“What was her name?” Ben asked pulling out a small pad from his jacket pocket.
“Janice,” Rix said. “I can’t recall her last name. How about you, Murph?”
“Your memory’s better than mine. I thought it was Jane.”
“No, it was Janice.”
“Do you remember her address?” Ben asked.
Rix said, “No, but she used to keep a picture of that cottage on a corkboard in her kitchen and I used to see it every time I went in there for a beer. I’d remember it if I saw it.”
“Then I suppose we’re going to Suffolk,” Ben said.
Murphy stubbed out the spent roll-up. “We’re with you, Benjamin, as long as we stop at a tobacconist along the way.”
The morning haze hadn’t burned off yet but the promise of sunshine thrilled them. Before leaving the car they liberally splashed on stolen cologne. On the sidewalk they furtively glanced at passersby for any reaction.