by Nigel Cooper
‘I’m here to give myself up,’ came the male voice as he entered Parkside police station and walked up to the glass counter.
The enquiry officer looked up to see a Roman Catholic priest standing before him in full clergy dress, his blood-soaked hands held up in mock surrender. He was soaked in blood from head to toe – literally. He looked like he’d been in the middle of some sort of bloody carnage. It was in his hair, all over his face. His white plastic clerical collar was splattered with crimson and although his long cassock was black, it too was obviously soaked in fresh blood.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said the enquiry officer, shocked by what stood before him. Although the man covering the enquiry office wore a standard issue white police shirt complete with blue epaulettes, he was simply a civilian, hired to staff the enquiry office out front, nothing more.
‘No, I’m afraid I don’t quite have that status, I only wish I did. However, I am a priest. My name is Derek Stanton, Father Derek Stanton. I believe you’ve been looking for me,’ he said in a calm matter-of-fact gentlemanly, if slightly creepy, tone.
‘I’m sorry?’ said the enquiry officer.
‘Over the past twelve months?’
‘Ok, you’re going to have to give me a little more information, Father,’ he said, not quite having the experience nor the expertise to deal with the blood-soaked clergyman.
‘Jamie and Edward Kramer – the four-year-old twins – ring any bells?’ he said, raising an eyebrow.
The penny dropped. ‘Dear god,’ said the civvy, seriously shocked.
‘I’ve been saying that a lot recently, but somehow it doesn’t seem to have worked. I don’t think he’s really listening to me anymore; come to think of it, I’m not sure he ever did,’ said Father Stanton.
‘You mentioned the Kramer twins, what do you know about them?’ said the enquiry officer, looking him up and down, blood and all, desperately trying to assess the situation and getting ideas above his station that he could actually handle it.
‘Well now, let me see, ah yes, I took them exactly one year ago today and approximately, hmmm,’ he said, pausing to look at his wristwatch, ‘40 minutes ago … I killed them both in cold blood … just over a mile from here, actually,’ he said, looking up at the enquiry officer. ‘You know what the amazing thing is? I’ve just walked across the city, past all the tourists, students and happy shoppers looking like this,’ he said, gesturing to his blood splattered face and blood soaked clergy attire, ‘and all I got were a few questioning glances, but basically nobody really gave a shit.’
The enquiry officer was too shocked to speak and the magnitude of the situation suddenly sank in. He took a moment to compose himself. Father Stanton could practically hear the cogs turning in the enquiry officer’s head so he decided to throw another spanner into the workings of his mind. ‘You really don’t want to know what happened between my kidnapping them a year ago and their brutal slaying 40 minutes ago. But, if your morbid fascination does get the better of you, you could always watch the countless hours of the home video footage – I recorded everything you see.’
‘Ok, stay right there, don’t move,’ said the enquiry officer, as he decided, about bloody time, that he could not handle this horror alone and needed help. He dashed out of the office and along the corridor to the custody suite to find a custody sergeant or two who could come and help him deal with the situation out front.
‘Sergeant, I need help, out front, right now.’
‘What is it?’ asked the custody sergeant.
‘There’s a priest out front, he’s soaked in blood from head to toe and he’s claiming that he kidnapped and killed the Kramer twins.’
The custody sergeant and a detective constable, who was standing next to him, chased after the civvy enquiry officer and out to the front desk. When they got there they couldn’t believe what they saw. The priest looked like the main character from a slasher movie. Upon seeing the blood-soaked priest, the DC bolted straight around to the door that led into the public area where the priest stood. He burst through the door and strode over to the priest; he stopped short by a few feet and assessed him.
‘You know about the Kramer twins? You have information about them?’ said the detective.
‘Know about them? I’d say, I’d probably even go as far as saying that I know – or rather, knew – them better than their own parents. I knew them … intimately, detective,’ he said. Although his voice was cool and collected, the DC could clearly see that something was not right about this guy, the vibe he gave off was all wrong, something in his eyes, strangely deranged, not a single sign of any recognisable human emotion.
‘You son of a bitch, turn around and put your hands behind your back,’ said the detective. The priest obliged, slowly and calmly, without a care in the world. The detective put the palm of his hand into the priest’s back between his shoulder blades and pushed him up against the wall while taking his cuffs out with his other hand. The custody sergeant appeared in the public area to assist while the detective clapped the handcuffs onto the priest and then realised that he’d got blood on his hands in the process.
‘Shit,’ he said, looking at his bloody hands – talk about every contact leaves a goddamn trace’.
‘Where are they?’ demanded the custody sergeant.
‘Close,’ said Stanton.
‘Where?’ shouted the detective, still pissed at the priest for getting blood all over his hands and shirt cuffs.
‘My church, beneath it actually, in the crypt. They’re dead of course, as of 40 minutes ago.’
‘Which church?’ said the detective.
‘All good things come to those who wait,’ said Stanton.
‘Ok, let’s get him out back to the custody suit,’ said the custody sergeant, ‘I’ll contact the MCU.’
‘I’m ahead of you,’ said the detective, opening the security door.
They took the priest directly to the charge desk at the back of the police station.
The custody sergeant made a quick phone call to the Major Crime Unit at Hinchingbrooke Park FHQ to let them know that they had a suspect for the Kramer twins kidnapping and murder in custody at Parkside nick. Meanwhile, the arresting officer stood next to the priest on the other side of the charge desk and waited. The custody sergeant soon returned and, with another colleague, stood on the other side of the charge desk and prepared to book the suspect in. The arresting officer didn’t bother to explain the circumstances, grounds for arrest, or what offence the priest had been arrested for as the custody sergeant was there to witness the arrest anyway. Typically, the police would want proof of the crime, even in a bloody situation like this, when somebody walked into a police station and confessed to a crime. There are lots of nut jobs around who crave attention and will say anything to get it, even if it means getting it from the police. But, this was not a typical scenario, for a start, this guy was a priest, or at least he was dressed like one, and secondly, he was soaked in blood from head to toe, and there was something about the man that just didn’t sit right, he was creepy somehow. The arresting detective and the custody sergeant were somewhat thrown by the bloody priest, what he’d said, and the potential magnitude of the situation to the point that some of the standard procedural routine got a little lost due to the custody sergeant and the detective being a little shocked by what they’d seen, they weren’t exactly thinking straight and an element of improvisation had ensued.
Regarding proof and confirmation that what Father Stanton was saying was true, the arresting detective and the custody sergeant figured the MCU boys from FHQ could look into that when they got over to Parkside.
In the secure confines of the custody suite one of the officers uncuffed him while custody sergeants proceeded to ask the priest the standard set of questions and entered the particulars onto the computer.
‘Ok, can I have your full name, please?’ said the custody sergeant.
‘Stanton, Father Derek Stanton,’ said the priest, calmly and matte
r of fact. The custody sergeant entered Stanton’s name into the computer.
‘Date of birth?’
‘Seventh of July 1965.’
The custody sergeant entered the details then paused momentarily – staring blankly at the screen – as he remembered an article he’d read a few years back about the most dangerous zodiac sign according to the FBI’s statistics across the pond – Cancer. Stanton, born on the seventh of July makes him a Cancer.
It all came back to him, the custody sergeant remembered reading something along the lines of cancerarians coming first in the list of those having the most lunatic personality and psychopathic tendencies of all the zodiac signs and that it was difficult to predict their instincts. They are intelligent and very good at hiding their crimes and have the highest percentage of being involved in serial killing, and on top of that they use multiple ways of killing people – often very bloody and very violent due to their hot tempers.
The custody sergeant looked up from his computer screen at Stanton and studied his eyes. They were set back into his blood-splattered pale face, making them look even more black and demonic as the sunk-in eye sockets sat back, in the shade of the Neanderthal forehead ridge just above the eyebrows. Yeah, this fucker’s right up there with all the other psychos, he thought. The custody sergeant broke eye contact, unable to look into the priest’s eyes a second longer – it was like staring into the abyss.
‘Address?’
Stanton gave up his address on the church grounds readily.
‘Do you have any physical or mental health illnesses?’ asked the custody sergeant. It was a routine question that all arrestees get asked, but if what the priest was claiming, that he’d murdered the Kramer twins, then some sort of mental issues would probably be a given, not that a mental nut job would volunteer that information, or even know it.
‘If I had any mental issues do you think I’d be aware of them in any intellectual or rational capacity, sergeant?’ said Stanton, that oddly deranged look that seemed to sit somewhere behind his eyes was there again, creeping out the custody sergeant.
He tried to ignore it and continued to tap away at his keyboard using just one finger of each hand, analysing each letter carefully before stabbing at it, then looking up at the screen to confirm his inputs.
‘Ok, I’m going to tell you about your rights. You have the right to have someone informed that you’ve been arrested, is there anybody you’d like us to contact for you?’
‘No.’
‘You have the right to a solicitor. If you have a solicitor we can contact them, otherwise we can appoint one for you?’
‘That won’t be necessary, sergeant.’
‘You have the right to read the Police & Criminal Evidence Act codes of prac—’
‘I won’t be needing it,’ said Stanton, cutting the sergeant off mid sentence.
‘Do you have anything in your pockets?’ said the custody sergeant.
‘Yes.’
‘Can you remove any items you have on your person and place them here,’ he said, gesturing to a space. Stanton removed his keys, wallet and a half eaten packet of Bassetts Jelly Babies.
‘I’ll also need your watch and any jewellery.’
Stanton removed his watch and a plain silver ring from his right index finger.
‘Do you have anything else on you, anything at all?’
‘No.’
‘Ok, put your arms out wide while I search you,’ said the detective standing next to him. He snapped on a pair of surgical gloves while Stanton put his arms out wide, his hands held up a little higher than his shoulders. Suddenly he took on a whole knew religious look entirely. If he’d had a heavy metal haircut with a center parting, a beard, and tilted his head to one side and put on a mournful look…
The detective finished his search.
‘Ok, you can put your arms down now.’
All Stanton’s personal items were seized and bagged up, and then he was led along to the cells by the detention officer. In this case, a dry cell (no toilet or sink) so he could not wash away any evidence, in this case, blood, blood and more blood. Just outside the cell he was ordered to remove his shoes, for two reasons. First, it is standard practice to remove prisoner’s shoes – if they have laces – before locking them in a cell in case they try to hang, or strangle, themselves with the laces, but in this case, Stanton’s blood splattered shoes were evidence so they would be bagged and tagged. Then, the detention officer thought about the priest’s white (or rather crimson and white) plastic clerical collar and pondered for a moment. He wasn’t sure if the priest could do himself any harm with it – strangle himself for instance – or not, so he decided to have one of the custody sergeants bag and tag it anyway.
22 minutes after the custody sergeant made the call to FHQ in Huntingdon two detectives arrived at Parkside police station from the MCU to interview the suspect. The A14 from Huntingdon to Cambridge was relatively clear by A14 standards, but the detective driving the pool car had still hit the blues-and-twos switch and hammered it down the fast lane.
By the time the two detectives arrived, Stanton was in the dry cell with a detective constable and a forensics Scene Of Crime Officer. The SOCO photographed Stanton, in all his bloody clerical attire: full length, medium shot, close ups of his hands and face… The detective then worked with the SOCO to seize his blood-soaked clothing for evidence. Each item was bagged separately and then non-intimate samples were taken: hair combings, nail scrapings, nail clippings, hand swabs…
There was still more to be done: intimate samples, fingerprints, photograph, mental health assessment and the like, but first they had to get Stanton into a paper boiler suite, into handcuffs and into the back of the pool car outside so he could show the two detectives from the Major Crime Unit exactly where the dead Kramer twins were. There was a choice of a standard police issue white paper Scene Of Crime suit, green scrubs, or a used cotton tracksuit, but the arresting officer didn’t want to give Stanton the latter two cosy options, fuck him, he could freeze his arse off in a cheap paper SOC suit while he was here.
DC Walcott put the handcuffed Stanton into the back of their pool car, belted him up, then got in the front passenger side while his colleague from the MCU, DC Jack Ruddock, fired up the engine.
‘Where exactly is the church?’ said Ruddock, turning around to face Stanton.
‘St Catherine & St Benedict, on Histon Road,’ he said.
‘I know where that is,’ said Walcott. Ruddock put the car in gear and pulled out of the police car park.
Just over ten minutes later they arrived at the church. DC Walcott held onto Stanton’s arm as he led the detectives into the church, through a small storeroom, through another door, along a passageway, through another smaller door and down some stone steps. There was a long corridor with three doors off it, Stanton headed for the last door on the right, which was bolted closed with a deadbolt on the outside, which looked like it had been fitted recently, the door also had an old mortise lock. DC Walcott had had the foresight to bring Stanton’s keys along. While Walcott held onto Stanton’s arm, Ruddock slid the large bolt across and then tried the door, locked. Walcott handed him the bunch of keys, Ruddock didn’t bother asking Stanton which one. The large old black key was obviously the only one that was going to fit that big old wrought iron lock. He turned the key and pushed the door open.
‘Ok, keep him out here, I’ll check it out,’ said Ruddock, entering the old crypt with caution.
Within seconds of entering the old stone basement crypt the horror of the situation became blatantly apparent, the carnage was like nothing Ruddock could have ever imagined, so much blood, that all too familiar metallic blood smell that Ruddock had smelled a hundred times before, but this was something else entirely. The stench made Ruddock gag – he almost threw up on the spot. The overwhelming reek of ammonia burned into his nostrils and throat. He looked, or at least tried to, at the Kramer twins, or what was left of them. One of them was tied – face
down – on an old white Victorian hospital style metal bed. Ruddock could barely look at his naked body, or what was left of it, he had no idea what Stanton could have done to achieve such a horrific end product – it was unearthly, from a different place altogether, a Hell that he was not familiar with, nor did he want to be. His twin brother was nailed to the wall to the left of the bed, literally, large black wrought iron things that looked like they’d been here for hundreds of years. He’d been nailed – his delicate little feet a foot from the floor, his face pressed up to the wall – through his tiny wrists with another two through each ankle, in such a way that his little legs were splayed wide open. The horror story here was just as bloody and evil as the one on the bed. Ruddock could smell the fear just as much as the blood and piss on the stone floor and the faeces in the bucket over by the wall. He looked to the back of the room and saw a digital camcorder mounted on a tripod, the red record light still blinking. Ruddock looked at it, into the lens, wondering if he was being recorded. He pondered some more, was he actually featuring at the very end of some sort of sick snuff film? The thought of being part of this sick fucker’s homemade horror movie made his blood boil.
Ruddock suddenly felt very sick and very strange and surreal as he stood there in the middle of all the carnage – the evil Hell-like scene. He had to get out of there, now!
He burst out into the stone corridor and pulled the door closed behind him and looked at Stanton, who just looked back at him without a care in the world, perhaps even a hint of a smile behind those sinister eyes of his, Ruddock couldn’t be sure. Overwhelmed with hate and anger, he lunged at Stanton, grabbed him by the throat and pinned him up against the wall. During the brief moment it took him to draw his right arm back and clench his fist he thought about whether he should smash out his front teeth or splatter his nose across his face, he decided on both, several hard punches aught to do it. But before he could launch the first, Walcott lunged between Ruddock and Stanton to intervene the imminent assault. He put the palms of his hands onto Ruddock’s chest and tried to push him back, to no avail. Ruddock – 44 years old, six foot one and quite a burly man – didn’t move, not even an inch, as the younger 26-year-old detective tried to push him back; Ruddock was like a solid bronze statue bolted to the ground, his body refused to budge.