by Guy N Smith
“Circumcised,” Ford was trying to staunch the blood with a bandage from the first aid box. “And I’d guess it ain’t official.”
Anything out of the ordinary was bad medicine in the Barker Street area.
* * * *
Ford was impatient but he didn’t know it as he waited in the ward sister’s office. He didn’t need to keep checking his watch because he knew the time. He didn’t fidget because that was a waste of energy. He just sat staring at the emulsioned wall, when Maurice Gee was fit to be questioned, they’d tell him. Until then he would just wait.
His expression was blank but he hadn’t switched off. He went back over the known facts from the time they had first found the assault victim. Maurice Gee; aged 55; separated pending a divorce; telephone clerk; no record. Found circumcised. You don’t confuse facts with theories.
Ford had stayed on at the hospital, there was something about this business that intrigued him. If it was worthwhile the chief would give him the case.
9.22 am. The detective had been here nine hours, a hospital orderly had given him two bulletins. They’d see if he was fit to talk.
“You can go on now, Sergeant,” the grey-haired sister had a disapproving expression on her rotund features. “Mister Gee has regained consciousness but he’s very weak. I can’t let you stay with him more than ten minutes.”
A nod was a sign that the officer had heard and understood. He followed the other down the corridor, flared his nostrils at the overpowering smell of disinfectant, passed through the door that she held open for him, heard it swing shut behind him. The tiny single ward reminded him of the interrogation room back at HQ.
The man in the bed looked pathetically small and wasted, a corpse that somehow managed to open its eyes. The expression in them was one of terror.
“I’m a police officer, Mister Gee.”
The other stirred. Ford read guilt in those eyes; he had seen it often enough to recognise it. The lips moved but no sound came from them.
“Can you hear me?”
The faintest of nods.
“Can you speak?”
A whispered, “Yes.”
Christ, what a fucking creature. Contempt, but Ford pushed it away. This job had no place for emotion. “What happened? Can you tell me?”
“Girl. A big girl.” The voice tailed off.
“You were hunting prostitutes.” A statement, not a question this time.
No answer.
“We’re not going to charge you.” Because we can’t unless you’re a persistent offender with a car. “Can you give me a description of your attacker?”
It came out falteringly, the size and the dress. Fair hair. He hadn’t seen her face. The place, one of the houses scheduled for demolition back of Barker Street. She hadn’t taken his money, just his foreskin. Ford would go and see if he could find it.
“Time’s up, Mister Ford!” The voice at the door, she wasn’t allowing him a second’s extension.
“I shall need to talk to you again, Mister Gee,” Ford’s parting shot. If the guy was scared then he didn’t have any sympathy for him. Nor for the slut who had cut him. They were as bad as each other, vermin on the city streets.
Ford hoped that Dawson would assign him to the case. He could hit the whores and druggies at the same time; this business was probably connected, anyway.
* * * *
If your rank was below DCI the only time you were likely to sit in Detective Chief Superintendent Clem Dawson’s office was for a bollocking. And you needed to have made a big balls-up for it to go beyond the divisional supervisor. Sergeants or constables who trod the third storey landing usually had their arse kicked out of the Force.
Ford was an exception to the rule and his colleagues hated his guts for it.
Dawson’s voice was quiet, you had to lean forward to hear what he was saying, and if you missed something you just hoped you’d get the gist of it later. He seemed to sag in the rotating chair, it squeaked every time he shifted position. The window was always kept closed, the chief didn’t like fresh air, the atmosphere was thick with pipe smoke. A pre-war Erinmore tin occupied a prominent place on the carved mahogany desk; he believed in tradition and old-fashioned virtues. And they were fast rubbing off on his protégé.
“It could be just a one-off,” Dawson came to the point, like the younger man he didn’t bother with a lead-up, “at the moment we’re not giving it priority. These guys ask for what they get, I’ve got no sympathy whether it’s VD or Aids except when other folks get infected. All the same, we’d like to know the motive behind it. You’ve interrogated Gee?”
Ford nodded, told him. “He just picked up a girl, one smarter than your usual Barker Street slag. She didn’t take his money, just circumcised him.”
“Crazy. If she is crazy she might do it again. If it’s revenge for something, she’ll let it go at that. For the moment, treat it as an extra assignment but not at the expense of the rest. Drugs and prostitution are top of our list, I just wonder if there’s a link, rival gang warfare, a revenge mutilation”, he shrugged his shoulders, “I’d like to know. Maybe we never will.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Not me and Arnold. Me.
“We had to ease up on the purge,” there was a tinge of regret in the chief’s voice; he needed a confidant.
Not Melton. Nor Fallon. Obliquely they had helped to put the pressure on him. Directly it came from the courts; we can’t cope with any more minor offenders and it’s costing us money. “Play it cool for a bit and we’ll reap dividends,” his lips twitched in what might have been a hint of a smile. “Let ‘em all come back, whores and their clients, then we’ll have to go again, catch ‘em all in the big net. As it is, they’ve gone to ground, working from home.”
Ford nodded, it was expected of him. A subordinate sympathiser, he knew when he was being groomed.
“But I need a man to go in there incognito. I’m taking you off the patrols, you’ve got a free hand. The only person you’re answerable to is me. It doesn’t have to be that obvious, though.” It might have been another knowing smile.
Ford nodded again, his pulses speeded up just a fraction. Neither the DS nor the DCI would like this but they could do fuck all about it.
“I’d like to get this circumciser, see what’s behind it.”
“Me, too. Sir.”
“I don’t think you’re going to find out anything more from Gee. I’ve spoken to his employers; he used to be a model clerk. Since his wife left him he’s become an office sex pest. Nothing out of the ordinary, touching women when he talked to them, innuendoes. He once asked a teenage girl telephonist to go back to his place. He stopped it after he was warned; I guess that’s when he turned to prostitutes. After one or two complaints his bosses gave him a written warning. Could be he’s a sexual deviant, got trying something on with this girl he picked up. Maybe the knife was his, he threatened her and she got it off him, which wouldn’t be hard to do,” this time Dawson smiled fully, “and used it on him. But we can’t get distracted by theories. I’ve put a reporting restriction on the incident. If she’s going to make a habit of it, then we don’t want to scare her off, do we?”
“No way.” Because neither you nor I give a shit about whore hunters’ foreskins.
“Play it your own way, Sergeant.” That was the biggest compliment any DS was ever likely to get from the chief. “Put your reports in through Fallon. If I need you, I’ll call you.” Dawson tapped his pipe out in the ashtray, began teasing a flake of tobacco in the palm of his hand. It was a sign the meeting was over.
“Thank you, sir,” Jason Ford headed for the door. A half glance back into the room as he left; the DCS was poring over a file, did not look up.
Go do your own thing, Sergeant.
* * * *
Serena was leaving, Ford knew that the moment he let himself into the house. You didn’t have to have made it to a Detective Sergeant with the vice squad to read into the suitcases in the hallway, the coats and
jackets draped over them. She didn’t take that much luggage for a dirty weekend. This time she wasn’t coming back.
It didn’t even come as a shock. His wife was upstairs, he could hear her moving about, quick footsteps across the bedroom and back, drawers opening and closing. Just checking that she had not overlooked anything.
He waited in the living room for her to come downstairs, that was the best way. He didn’t want a confrontation. Not even a farewell, it if came to that.
He noted that the leather-cased mantelpiece clock was gone, the one her sister had given them for a wedding present. He’d become fond of it but he wouldn’t argue ownership. Not over anything just so long as she went. Then he heard Serena coming downstairs.
“I’m sorry, Jason,” she stood in the doorway, said what everybody was expected to say in these circumstances.
He did not reply, did not wish to involve himself in an exchange of small talk lies. He wasn’t sorry, either, just relieved that it had all come to a head. He wished she’d done it weeks, months ago; it would all be over and done with by now. He noticed that she was wearing a green two-piece which he hadn’t seen before. He wasn’t going to ask who had bought it for her; she would tell him if she wanted to.
“I’ll contact you with an address and phone number shortly.” When the sting has all gone out of this.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to knock the fuck out of him, whoever he is,” he spoke emotionlessly, the way he always did. “Sorry I can’t give you half the house but it belongs to the Force. They’ll probably move me out into single accommodation.”
“It’s the Force that’s to blame. If you want somebody to blame, Jason. There has to be a particular kind of woman who can stick being married to a copper, not knowing whether he’s going to come home in one piece. Somebody who can sleep on their own and not sit up biting their nails when he’s on nights.”
“Your nails look pretty good to me,” he deliberately focused his gaze on her long, manicured and varnished fingernails. “Mostly I had to get you up when I came in off nights.”
She flushed slightly, said, “I’ve only taken what’s mine.”
He let his eyes rove around, settled on that empty space on the mantelpiece. “I might be late for shifts without a clock.”
“The radio alarm’s by the bedside, five minutes fast, as usual.”
“That’s nice. Give me a bell when you’re ready. You might have problems, I’m going to be out a lot from now on.”
“Much the same as before,” she turned, checked as if to say something, changed her mind and went through to the hallway. He heard her opening the front door, putting her suitcases outside on the step before closing it after her. He found himself listening for a car; he only heard those passing by on the road at the bottom of the drive. She hadn’t even called a taxi, she was going to walk to the station. Or else meet her lover somewhere.
It was the silence that got to him first, the sheer emptiness of a house that was devoid of a ticking clock, no television left to run whilst she attended to a convenience meal in the kitchen. No washing machine whirring and clanking, telling you it was time for a new model. Not that Serena did much of those things anyway, it was just knowing that she wouldn’t be doing them any more that hit you.
He would go downtown later; from now on his routine was his own. A lazy copper could have skived, sat home or gone to the pub, made out he was on a job undercover if word got back to the boss. He could have worked it anyway he’d wanted except that he wouldn’t. Which was why Dawson had picked him out. The boss knew his men better than they knew him. Officers who would work a double shift, if necessary, and not try to book the overtime.
Ford went upstairs, bathed. A psychological cleansing rather than a bodily one. He didn’t take any longer than was necessary, dried himself and got a change of clothes. A suit that was ten years out of fashion, well worn. He even knew how a nine-till-fiver walked, how his mind worked. They were the life’s blood of the prostitution industry. He was looking for a big girl.
Provided what Maurice Gee had said was true.
Ford was downstairs choosing an overcoat to match when the phone rang. He let it ring six times before he decided to pick it up. It was too soon for Serena to be calling him yet. He didn’t expect to hear from her within the week.
It was Fallon. The DCI sounded pissed off, that was probably because the chief had been briefing him, overriding the pecking order. Sorry if I’ve disturbed you, Sergeant, but these days I don’t know whether you’re on or off duty. If the bloody boss is delegating then he should bell you himself. I’m only ringing you because those are my instructions, otherwise I’d be more than happy not to have you on the job.
“Yes?” Ford’s brusqueness checked the caller, had him holding off.
Words that didn’t register at first because subconsciously Jason Ford had hoped it would be Serena. I’ve changed my mind, can you come and pick me up because the suitcases are too heavy to carry all the way back again? No such fucking luck.
Just information, not even a recall from off-duty. This is what I’ve been told to tell you, you can please your bloody self whether or not you do anything about it. The DCS says that you have to know. I’m only passing the message on. Here it is.
Ford stiffened, forgot all about his marital problems. Suddenly he didn’t have any time to brood over them. Right now it would not have made any difference whether Serena had gone or not. She certainly would not be figuring in his plans for the next few hours. The Chief had called him, via the divisional supervisor. Get downtown and see what the hell’s going on. The duty DC’s had picked a guy up on Bird Street. Somebody had circumcised him.
14.
Kate had gone to the park just after midday. Not to sketch although she carried a sketchpad under her arm. Not because it was warm and sunny, she would have gone even if it had been raining.
She went because of a direct afterthought concerning last night. False hopes that had been rudely shattered in the kitchen shortly before Paul had returned. For perhaps a quarter of an hour, the time it took her to run home from her most recent vantage point half way down Bird Street, she was ecstatic. Euphoric. Everything pointed to her having found the man she was hunting at the third attempt, her quest for revenge had been fulfilled. Even had that wild hope been realised, she doubted whether she could have stopped. Her lust for human flesh became insatiable; it transcended a rapist and a father who had abused his young daughter.
The voice, cultured, heavy with lust, moaning pleasurably as she had stroked him, stalled for time whilst she confirmed her electrifying suspicion. Had Doctor Whittaker checked her blood pressure from that moment onwards when she had switched on the torch then, in all probability, he would have summoned an ambulance.
The size, the shape, were right. Skin that was long and pliant, threatened to slither from between her forefinger and thumb as she pushed it right back, pulled it forward, held it at full stretch.
Triumph and anger mingled, then she cut, two half moons that met like she was peeling an apple; so precise, so swift. She felt the foreskin come away even as the blood began to pour. His screams were a symphony that followed her all the way home, still echoed in her brain as she tipped the bloody contents of the polythene bag out onto the draining board.
Only then was Kate aware that she had made a mistake.
The flesh didn’t wrinkle in that peculiar flowered shape the way it should have done. She pulled it, stretched it; it wasn’t as long as she had earlier believed although she knew that she had sliced through the full extent of the tautness; she had not made an error of judgement in the torchlight, she had been biased, created her own illusion. She had seen what she wanted to see, convinced herself that she had found that which she was seeking. And she had been wrong.
Her victim was the correct species but the wrong man. Oh, Jesus Shit.
Despair. She had just bottled and stored her latest grisly acquisition when Paul came into the flat. Kate went straig
htaway through into the bedroom. Even he was safe tonight.
She could go on circumcising forever and still not find her man. The chances of him picking her up must run at a million to one; he probably didn’t go cruising, he just raped. City rapes ran at an average of two or three a week with only a 30% detection and arrest success rate. Depressing facts and figures, the more so right now.
She was reaching out for her pills when the idea hit her, sent the plastic bottle toppling to the floor. She did not retrieve it at once, she needed to think before her brain was blanked out. She saw a faint light at the end of her tunnel of hopelessness. It began to glow more brightly.
The unknown man had raped her in the park, so might he not return there in search of another victim? If he did and she just happened to be there, all alone on that old tree stump …
I do apologise.
Now that was strange, the entrance gates were chained and padlocked. Kate tried to remember what day of the week it was, her latest tablets fogged her memory for a while in the mornings. Wednesday or Thursday, it did not matter which, there was no obvious reason for closing the recreation park. It was supposed to be open from 9 am till dusk, seven days a week … except for one day each year, she vaguely remembered reading something about that in the Herald, a 24 hour closure once in every 365 days was required by law in order that the council’s right of ownership be maintained. Just her bloody luck that that day had to be today.
The warden locked the gates every evening but it didn’t keep out the vandals. They went in over the railings, an easy climb; security was merely academic. Kate held back a second, was there any point in her scaling the fence? It wouldn’t stop a rapist and if he found a solitary woman inside then there was no way anybody would be able to come to her aid.
Within seconds she had dropped down on the other side, rustled her way through the rhododendrons, impervious to the stench and touch of starling droppings. A thrill coursed through her powerful body, she fingered the handle of the hobby knife in the pocket of her jeans; willed him to come to her today. In broad daylight there could be no mistake.