by John Stewart
Chapter 33
The sight of the fresh looking bloodstain coupled with the restraints on the chair sent Mike into cop mode. He quickly scanned the apartment, searching for any signs of a disturbance. The rooms seemed tidy apart from the bedroom, which had obviously been slept in and there were two empty wine glasses and an open cigarette box on the kitchen counter. The small splash of blood near the bedroom doorway told Mike that someone was hurt, but he didn’t know who or just how bad. The picture on Rebecca’s phone gave him reason to suspect Simon’s involvement in the murders and maybe even Rebecca’s attack and as he stood over the solitary bloodstain, he feared the worst.
Hoping to avoid any further contamination of the crime scene, he decided to stand outside the apartment while he rang Sloane. As Mike explained the situation, Officers Grant and Evans arrived with their witness. Mike handed Officer Grant the phone and Sloane briefly explained Mike’s presence with a string of falsities in an effort to mask his own inaction. Officer Grant stayed with Mike while Officer Evans brought the disgruntled Mrs. Christie back to the car. Within fifteen minutes, three uniformed officers along with two Crime Scene Investigators arrived upstairs. The C.S.I.’s began photographing every inch of the apartment and documenting the trajectory of the blood spatter on the floor. Out in the hallway, Mike had been given protective shoe covers to preserve any trace he may have transferred from the apartment. The top floor of the building quickly became a hive of activity with residents standing in the hallway inquiring about what was happening. Sloane arrived shortly after the others and redirected Officers Grant and Evans back to the station with Mrs. Christie until he could return and figure out where to put her. When he got upstairs, he saw a concerned looking man sitting on a chair in the hallway, wearing shoe covers.
“Michael Wesley, I take it?”
Mike stood up to greet the detective with a serious expression. “People call me Mike,” he said shaking his hand.
“So, what’s going on here?” Sloane said arching his head into the room opposite.
Mike shrugged his shoulders while gesturing his hand toward the door. “You tell me. All I know is what I already told you, that Simon Meadowcroft entered this building with a dark haired woman and now the only apartment he had access to has a homemade torture chair and blood on the floor. I’m not a detective like yourself, but I’d say someone was hurt.”
“Did you see anyone leave the building?”
“No, but I had a camera on the doorway. If anyone left, it would have caught them. The memory card is in my car outside. Will I run down and get it?”
“No, give me your keys, I’ll go.”
Mike handed over the keys and waited until Sloane returned with the small helmet camera in his hand.
“We’ll have to get this to a computer and check the footage.”
Mike already had his phone’s memory card removed.
“No need, you can check it on this.”
Sloane handed over the camera as Mike once again removed its memory card and placed it into his phone. As the playback began, he returned it to Sloane, who watched with a certain level of curiosity.
“So, do you always bring a camera around with you?”
“No,” Mike said with an apprehensive smile. “It was just in the glove box, came in handy though.”
“Sure did, might invest in one myself,” Sloane said as he scrubbed through the footage until Simon and his mystery guest appeared onscreen. He paused the playback and raised the phone closer to his eyes.
“Not a great angle of her face!” Sloane said almost critically.
“Not a lot I could do about that. I was in the Physic Garden looking for him at the time.”
Sloane gave an apologetic nod as he scrubbed through the rest of the video file. “No, he never left. Not by the front door anyway. Must have gone out the back.” He handed Mike the phone and turned to face the apartment. “Don’t delete that video, we’ll need it,” he said as he went inside.
From the hallway, Mike heard Sloane instruct an officer to open the panic room door. The request was met with resistance from the lead C.S.I. as they hadn’t finished photographing the room in situ. Mike listened intently as Sloane went on to berate the unsuspecting officer standing guard at the door.
“That back room should have been cleared before anyone was allowed enter you fucking idiot!”
Mike heard the stuttering officer try to explain how he was told not to disturb a crime scene. “The blood sir, I didn’t want to step…”
“People come first! Jesus Christ, for all we know someone could be locked in there,” Sloane said before he could finish.
One of the C.S.I.’s interjected, noting the direction of the blood suggested movement away from the door, not towards.
“Thanks for the insight into blood spatter patterns Burrows, just get it open, now!” Sloane demanded before dictating the key code and calling for Mike to come inside.
With raised truncheons, two officers opened the panic room door using the key code provided to reveal nothing but a ladder leading to a closed roof hatch.
Sloane walked inside and looked around.
“Everything looks okay. Burrows, check the roof for anything out of the ordinary. I need to get back to some real work,” he said with a dismissive tone. “Tonight is gonna be a busy night. Wesley! These two officers will take you to HQ. I’ll meet you there and get your statement.”
“What about the chair? Don’t you think a chair with restraints attached is a bit suspect?”
“That’s always here. Sometimes the witnesses we hold here are prisoners and try to escape, so the lively ones go in the chair.”
Mike gave a sceptical expression.
“Okay, if you say so. I just need to make a quick call.”
“Don’t take all day,” Sloane said with a frustrated expression as he headed for the stairs.
Mike called Rebecca noting that he needed to charge his phone.
Rebecca was dead to the world when the call came through. After Mike’s earlier call, confirming he was okay, she had fallen asleep on the couch and she saw the time was past noon as she answered.
“Mike! Where the hell are you now? You said you’d call me back soon. What went on last night?”
“Sorry Becca, I fell asleep in the car waiting for Simon to leave the house.”
“Did you talk to him about the picture?”
“No, I didn’t get to, something else came up.”
Mike went on to explain what had happened that morning and that he was on his way to the Met HQ to give a statement about the events that led to Simon’s apparent disappearance.
Rebecca was furious with him for getting so deeply involved while she was left on the sidelines, but tried not to show it.
“Becca, we’re pulling up now. I’ll call you when I’m done okay?”
“I can pick up the car and collect you,” Rebecca said, desperate to feel useful.
“No, the Guy Fawkes protests will be starting up later and I don’t know how long this will take. Don’t worry, I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Okay, stay safe. I love you.”
“Love you too,” Mike replied with a laugh, surprised by the statement as Rebecca wasn’t one for displaying emotions over the phone.
Mike was given a vending machine coffee by one of the female receptionists while he waited to be called into Detective Sergeant Ethan Sloane’s office. After almost an hour, Sloane appeared in the waiting area and called him in.
“Sorry for the wait, busy day,” he said as they entered the interview room and sat down. “So, from the start, tell me what you know about Simon Meadowcroft and these cases.”
Mike took a deep breath and began explaining his involvement in the cases, from Simon’s first call, through to discovering the picture of him with the victims and the unknown blonde female. He finished by explaining how he followed Simon to the house and what happened that morning. Sloane listened without interrupting and when Mike wa
s finished there was a long silence.
“That’s some story Mr. Wesley. So tell me. What were you going to do when you caught up with him?”
Mike hadn’t thought that far ahead. Finding the picture on Rebecca’s phone had put him on autopilot.
“I’m not sure. I wanted to know if he had anything to do with Rebecca getting hurt and why he never told us about the picture of him with the victims. When I saw him with the woman today, I thought the worst.”
“How do you mean by the worst?”
“Well, I thought she could be the other girl from the photo, maybe she’s the last victim.”
“Simon is a lot of things, but a serial killer? No way. There’ll be some explanation why he withheld that picture, maybe he was scared, I don’t know. He called me a few days ago looking for information about the crime scene locations. We go back, so I gave him temporary access to the camera feeds across the city.”
“That’s why he wasn’t looking into the Order of Thelema lead, he already had a better one,” Mike said as Simon’s apparent reluctance to follow up on the Thelema lead began to make sense.
“A better lead from the camera footage?” Sloane said with a doubtful expression.
“Yeah, when I told him about linking the body locations with the Thelema Hexagram, he didn’t seem overly interested. I got the impression he had something else going on, but he never mentioned the cameras. Maybe he found something on them.”
“Like what? The woman from the photo? And what then? He kidnapped her, took her to the safe house and killed her? I can’t believe he’d be capable of that,” Sloane said shaking his head.
Mike looked him in the eye.
“A man in your position should know better than to assume you know what people are and aren’t capable of, Detective. Maybe he’s not a killer, but what if the killer found him?”
Chapter 34
Rebecca hung up the phone with a sigh of relief. Hearing from Mike had put her at ease and fighting off the fatigue, she sat up on the couch and began to think about how she could be of some help with the latest developments. The Order of Thelema and its two lodges in London was the only thing left to investigate. Simon had said he couldn’t access the membership information as he was no longer a detective, so after a quick shower, she decided to look up a friend from home and try a different angle.
Gregory Walsh was sitting at his desk in the Edgeworthstown Garda station, filling out some overdue paperwork relating to Halloween fireworks violations when his phone rang. Seeing it was Rebecca’s number, he picked the phone up and answered with a smile.
“How’s sleeping beauty? I hope the big lad is looking after you.”
“Hi Greg, I’m grand thanks. How are you? Hope I’m not interrupting a hot date,” she said with a laugh.
Gregory looked around the office at his two male co-workers. “I wish! All is quiet on that front I’m afraid.”
“Ah well, fewer distractions from the crime fighting.”
“Not too much of that lately either. I spend all my time behind this bloody desk or out on patrol. Not very exciting.”
“Well, maybe I can spice up your day?”
“Go on,” Gregory said, sitting upright in his chair.
“I need you to request some information for a story Mike and I are working on.”
“Okay, what do ya need?”
“I need a list of members from the two Order of Thelema Lodges, here in London.”
Gregory wrote down the request as she spoke.
“Order of Thelema? Never heard of it.”
“Not to worry, from what I can gather, it’s a sort of Masonic order type thing, all very secretive. I just need the names of the London lodge members, but they won’t give them out to a civilian, especially a reporter like me. Do you think you can try?”
“Well, I’ll certainly give it a go. Gimme the numbers and I’ll see what they say.”
“Great, thanks Greg.” She called out the two numbers as Gregory wrote them down.
“I’ll let you know if I get anywhere with them.”
“Thanks again Greg. Say hi to Helen and I’ll get Mike to give you a shout. High time we paid you guys a visit.”
“Deffo! Tell the big lad I said hey.”
“Will do, bye.” Rebecca hung up the phone with a brief smile. Hearing Gregory’s voice reminded her of home, but it also brought back some of the memories that had kept her away.
Just over an hour later her phone beeped. It was a text from Gregory. “All sorted, check your email. Chat soon.”
Rebecca had her laptop ready on the kitchen table and opened the email without delay.
“Hey,
I can’t believe that worked, I told them I was working on an international missing person’s case and their information would be invaluable. Once I gave my badge number, they were happy to assist and gave me everything, happy days.
List attached
Gregory Walsh
Edgeworthstown Garda Station
Co. Longford.”
Rebecca read the message with a grin and opened the attached list. It had sixty-seven names in total, none of which stood out until she read the sixty-second name.
“The hospital,” she said aloud, holding the back of her head. Since seeing Mike’s artwork on the map printout, she had been getting vague memories of seeing a Thelema style necklace, but couldn’t figure out where she had seen it until she saw the name Claire Swindon on the list. Making the connection completed the blurry image of the Nurse Swindon wearing the necklace the day Rebecca first awoke from her coma. “It has to be connected,” she thought as her head whirled with theories.
Gregory’s list also included details such as home addresses and dates of membership commencement. Rebecca wrote down Claire’s address and excitedly picked up her phone to call Mike. Unfortunately, it went to voicemail as Mike was in the middle of being interviewed by D.S. Sloane and the tech department had his phone. She considered contacting the police station, but the journalist in her took over and she left the apartment to speak to Claire herself.
Claire’s address was on Harrington Street, which was just over a half hour walk from their apartment, so as Mike had the car, Rebecca opted to take a walk. The day was dull and getting dark by the time she arrived at the Harrington House high rise flat complex. She checked the flat number as she approached and slipped in an open service door next to the recycling bins. Once inside, she climbed four flights of stairs and walked along the open balcony to flat number thirty-two. She took a deep breath and knocked on the door. As she waited for an answer, she realised she hadn’t given much thought to what she was going to say when got there. Before she could concoct a line of questioning, the door to her left opened. Rebecca turned with a startle to see an elderly woman exiting her flat.
The old lady greeted Rebecca with a smile.
“Hello dear, are you looking for Claire? I think she’s moved out. There was a lot of commotion here last night, moving furniture and the like. She never even stopped in to collect her spare key.”
Rebecca saw her opportunity to get inside and gave the old lady a broad smile. “Well, actually I’m from building management. You’re Mrs…?” Quickly flashing her press identification while the question took the neighbour’s attention.
“Bond, just like the spy,” she said with a proud expression.
Rebecca took out her notepad and flicked through the middle pages. “Of course, number thirty-one, Mrs. Bond. I see you’re down here as the spare key holder for Miss Swindon.”
“That’s me,” she replied with another smile.
“Well, Mrs. Bond, as Miss Swindon has cancelled her lease, we require all keys be returned to management,” Rebecca said with a friendly yet official tone.
“Oh, of course,” the old lady said opening her shoulder bag. “I keep it on me in case I get locked out myself.”
“Good thinking,” Rebecca said with a patronising smile that luckily went unnoticed.
“H
ere it is, I knew I had it in there,” Mrs. Bond said, handing Rebecca the set of keys.
“Thank you very much Mrs. Bond, I’ll be sure to recommend you to the new tenants.”
“Very good pet, I must be off now. Nice to meet you.”
“A pleasure to meet you too Mrs. Bond. Have a lovely evening.”
As the old lady shuffled off towards the elevator, Rebecca opened the door and slowly entered the one bedroom flat. Inside was small with only two main rooms and a bathroom, all of them stripped of any personal items. Rebecca scanned the main room for any clues to Claire’s life, but all that remained was some old newspapers and takeaway menus. She then checked the bedroom where she saw an Internet modem connected to the wall. This struck her as a strange thing to leave behind and she took out her phone to check for a WIFI signal. The modem was still working, telling her that Claire may not have finished moving after all. With more urgency in her step, she opened the wardrobe and the bedside drawers. The wardrobe was empty, but inside one of the bedside drawers was a small laptop. Before she took it out, she heard the rustling of keys and peered out the bedroom door to see the silhouette of a person through the front door’s frosted glass. She immediately backed into the bedroom, hoping against hope that she had simply clashed with a potential tenant viewing.