Young, Gifted and Deadly

by William Stafford

  Miller grunted and drove on. “And when did you pass your test?”

  “Never mind that, Miller.”

  “Man of your age! Can’t even drive!”

  Brough turned traffic-light red. What was worse than being reminded of his lack of a driving licence was Miller bringing up the ‘a’ word. And he didn’t mean ‘arseholes’.

  “Eyes on the road, Miller!”

  “Are there?” she smiled sourly. “I didn’t see them.”

  They trundled along in disgruntled silence. Miller navigated the one-way system into the town centre.

  “Keep your eyes peeled for a parking spot,” she instructed him. The closure of Dedley Police station had led to a rapid, almost indecent, selling-off of its car park. An annex of Dedley Technical College was already on the site.

  Brough had to get out of the car to guide Miller to a tight space outside the Nail U Good manicure parlour.

  “And the other?” she asked, locking the car and hitching the strap of her bag onto her shoulder.

  “The other what?”

  “You said one was garrotted, one was immersed-”

  “Immolated!”

  “Yes; another was hung-”

  “Hanged!”

  “And another was - what? The lights went green.”

  “Ah, yes.” He read from the book as they walked to the station. “Another man - a trader, although in what it doesn’t say - was torn to pieces.”

  “Ugh,” said Miller. “Does it say how?”

  Brough turned a page and read again. “The account is lacking in detail.”

  “Pity,” said Miller. “Might have helped us work out where the next one is going to be.”

  Brough looked up from the book. “Go on, Miller.”

  “Well, it seems to me somebody’s following the killings in the book. Perhaps it’s Donald Phillips himself. Perhaps it’s whosit - his son.”

  “Callum.”

  “Callum.”

  “Bloody hell, Miller. You might be on to something. Wait till I tell Wheeler.”

  He strode ahead.

  “Er - sir!” Miller called after him. “Watch out for the-”

  Brough skidded and had to cling to a lamppost. He saw what he had trodden in and swore.

  Miller grinned. “The hell hounds am out early this year.”

  ***

  “Bloody hell, lads; you don’t have to follow me in here and all. I don’t need nobody to shake it for me.”

  Si Wren and Bobby Hobley looked uneasily at each other. Their brief, given to them in unequivocal terms, was to stick to the supermarket boss ‘like shit to a blanket’ - although the longer they spent in the company of Dennis Lord, the poor PCSOs wondered whether they were the blanket.

  “Nothing’s going to hurt me in there, is it?” Lord jerked his thumb at the door to the male staff toilets. “Perhaps one of you would care to pop in and give it a courtesy flush or warm the fucking seat for me.”

  “Um, no, you’re all right,” Si Wren looked at his boots.

  “Take your time,” suggested Bobby Hobley with a nervous laugh.

  “Time’s money, bugger-lugs,” Dennis Lord patted the PCSO’s cheek a little too roughly. “Back in the day, I’d hold it all in, wait until I got home, but nowadays,” he pulled out his smartphone, “Thanks to these little babbies, I can conduct business with anybody in the world while I’m on the bastard shitter. Ain’t technology bostin’?”

  He pushed his way backwards through the door. A few seconds later, Hobley and Wren heard the slam of a cubicle door, followed by a thud as the bolt was rammed home.

  The PCSOs backed from the door, dreading the sounds that might follow. Hobley fished out the earbuds attached to his mp3 player and offered one to his colleague.

  “Ta,” said Wren. “Bit of a twat, isn’t he?” He nodded at the door and the horrors beyond.

  “The way he talks to people, it’s not on. Bastard this and fucking that.”

  “Remind you of anybody?”

  “Ah, well, you see, when she says it, it’s different. She’s coming from a different place.”

  “She’s not a Dedley wench, then?”

  “Oh, ar! Her’s from round here all right. What I mean it, when her swears at you, it’s because she wants the job done right. That prick in there calls you a shit because he thinks you am one.”

  Si Wren nodded. He moved his head in time to the tinny track hissing in his earhole. “Love this.”

  “Tune!” agreed Bobby, swaying in synchronisation with his partner.

  ***

  The phone buzzed insistently, as though an angry bee was trapped inside it. Logger watched it shake and vibrate on the table, too afraid to answer. After what seemed an age, the phone lay still. Logger, realising he had been holding his breath, exhaled.

  A beep startled him: a voicemail message.

  Logger froze. He had taken the unilateral decision to have nothing more to do with his mystery caller. People he had been asked to target were turning up dead - horribly dead. Murder had not been part of the original bargain.

  As though seizing a handful of nettles, Logger picked up the handset and played back the message.

  “I don’t know what you’re playing at, you little shit, but you answer the phone when I call you. We can’t afford to let up now. We must keep applying pressure. Two people are left. I want you to get to them both. I don’t care what order you do it. Just don’t let me down. There’ll be money in the usual place. And erase this fucking message!”

  The phone fell silent. Options flashed on the screen:

  REPLAY, KEEP, DELETE.

  Logger’s thumb hovered for a few seconds before he made his choice.

  ***

  “Honestly, Detective Henry, I shall be quite all right from here.”

  Harry Henry dithered on Beatrice Mooney’s doorstep, wondering whether he should point out the latest victim had been hanged in her own home from her own light fitting.

  “All right,” she relented. “You may come in and check under the bed and in the airing cupboard or anywhere else you see fit, if it will put your mind at ease.”

  “Cheers.” Harry pushed his glasses up his nose and stepped over the threshold. “Won’t take long. And we’ll have a car outside.”

  “Well, I should hope it would bloody well be outside,” Beatrice Mooney kicked off her shoes and padded along the hall to the kitchen.

  “Hold up!” Harry Henry skirted in front of her. He gave the door a cautious push before springing into the kitchen with his eyes darting in all directions. Behind him, Beatrice Mooney laughed; he really was the most ridiculous man.

  Her phone rang. The ridiculous detective froze. Rolling her eyes, she answered, moving out of the kitchen and into the hall.

  “Yes... yes... Understood,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Why must I be the one saddled with...?”

  She returned to the kitchen to find Harry Henry with his head in the oven. “Oh, dear! Not that bad is it?”

  Harry Henry straightened, banging his head. Beatrice Mooney struggled to contain her laughter.

  “I’ll just - quickly...” he pointed at the ceiling. He hurried out, rubbing his head.

  Ridiculous.

  Beatrice Mooney’s amusement faded when she realised she was still holding her phone. The call exacerbated her impatience with her so-called police protection. Beatrice Mooney had an itch and she was eager to scratch it - as soon as that ridiculous man was off the premises. She heard him banging about, checking wardrobe doors, the bathroom cabinet... There was a rattle and swish as he pulled aside the shower curtain, bringing it down on top of himself. There was a clunk as the detective toppled into the bath.

  I’d be safer without him, Beatric
e Mooney reckoned.

  And free to do what I want to do.

  ***

  Brough and Miller reported to Dedley nick and showed Chief Inspector Wheeler the book.

  “Haven’t got time for Jack-a-fucking-nory,” she sneered. “Give me the highlights.”

  While Miller nodded along in support, Brough explained how there had been a slew of murders centuries ago, when merchants and aldermen of the town were slain in ways similar to the crop currently under investigation. The five-pointed star had been drawn at every scene - as described in the book by Donald Phillips, husband of the female victim and father to Callum, one of the hooded vandals from the supermarket.

  Wheeler listened. She pulled a face. “And where is this Donald Phillips now?”

  Brough and Miller shared a helpless look.

  “We have been unable to trace him,” said Brough.

  “Well, you’d better fucking trace him before we have to trace a chalk line around another fucking victim.” She paused; the laugh she expected was not forthcoming.

  “Er...” said Miller. “The book says the next one was torn apart.”

  “That’s right,” said Brough.

  “Does it say how?”

  “No...”

  Wheeler scratched at her crewcut. “Well, as long as the other two am safe in police protection-” she paled. “What the fuck am I saying? Tell Pattimore and Shit-for-brains to get their arses to Beatrice Mooney’s gaff and give our friend Harry a hand. I’m off to the supermarket. Dennis Lord may be the biggest cunt in Dedley but I’d rather he wasn’t torn to pieces on my watch.”

  She dashed from the room just as Pattimore and Shit-for-brains came in.

  “What’s up with her?” Stevens laughed. “Got the shits, has she?”

  “Figuratively, perhaps,” said Brough.

  “You what?”

  “We’ve been interviewing the deputy head,” Pattimore smiled at Brough and nodded at Miller. “He knows a lot of background.”

  “But you don’t think he’s responsible,” Brough found himself smiling back.

  “No.”

  “Cracking story, though,” Stevens enthused. “Lots of horror. Murders, the lot. All it lacked was a woman with big-”

  “Here,” Brough held out the book to Pattimore. “This tells the same story. See if you can track down the author. Local man.”

  “Name of Phillips...” Pattimore read the cover. He took the book; his fingers brushed Brough’s fingers. Their eyes met.

  “As in Callum... um, Phillips,” said Brough, unwilling to break eye contact.

  “Right!” Stevens snatched the book away and flicked through it. “What’s this shit? No fucking pictures?”

  “And we’d best be off to look for Callum,” suggested Miller, edging to the exit.

  “See you later,” said Pattimore.

  “Um, yes,” said Brough, stumbling away. “Oh, yes: Wheeler wants you two to help Harry.”

  “Right,” said Pattimore, with a nod.

  Brough nodded back and went out.

  Miller waited until they reached her car. “What the hell was that?”

  “What the hell was what?”

  “You and Jason. The long, lingering looks.”

  Brough turned red. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied.

  ***

  “All right, Log?” Dogger zipped up his hoodie and joined his friend at the kerb outside his house. “What’s going on?”

  “Where’s Bonk?”

  Dogger laughed. “I’m not his keeper.”

  “He could do with a keeper,” grumbled Logger. He thrust his hands into his hoodie pockets and moved off. Dogger followed suit.

  “He’s with his brother, I think.”

  “Shit!” Logger spat.

  “At Costbosters.”

  “Shit!”

  “Is something wrong, Log? Have you heard from - you know?”

  Logger grunted. “There’s two left. He doesn’t care what order we do them in - he’s leaving that to my wossname.”

  “You’ve got a plan! You have! I can see it in your scowl.”

  Oh, I’ve got a plan all right, thought Logger darkly. I’ve got one hell of a plan.

  “So, who am they then?”

  “Who am who?”

  “The two left.”

  “You’ll find out,” said Logger, enigmatically. His air of mystery excited Dogger, who skipped alongside him like an eager puppy.

  “Right,” Logger stopped at the corner. “You fuck off to Costbosters, fetch Bonk. Meet me back here in an hour.”

  Dogger was a little perturbed by the prospect of splitting up but he nodded obediently. “Um, what about Callum?”

  “What about him?”

  “Shall I fetch him and all?”

  Logger shook his head emphatically. “Let’s leave that specky twat out of this one, shall we?”

  “Oh,” Dogger looked surprised. “More money for us, I suppose.”

  “Go on, then; off you toddle. Fetch Bonk like a good boy.”

  Dogger saluted but he stayed where he was. “Where am you going?”

  “Never you mind!” Logger snapped, startling him. “Never you fucking mind.”

  ***

  Callum negotiated his way over the stile, using the carrier bags of food as ballast. Visions of tightrope-walking sprang to mind; I could still run away to the circus, he mused sourly.

  He jumped to the gravel path, his eyes darting around. There were no cars on the square patch of paved area and the visitor centre wouldn’t be open for another month at least. Dedley’s nature reserve was world-renowned - well, among those who held such things in esteem - for its limestone caverns and its abundance of fossils - but it was not open to the public all year round. Thus, for now, it made the perfect meeting place.

  Bring offerings, the Goat Man had said. Bring sacrificial offerings.

  Callum had spent his allowance on a wide range of foodstuffs - from Cigs, Figs and Wigs. He’d deemed it prudent to keep away from CostBusters for a while. He hadn’t known what to bring exactly so he’d bought something to represent each of the five major food groups. The Goat Man had been less than specific but, now that he thought about it, Callum supposed meat would be the preferred option.

  Well, it’s a good job I bought those southern-fried chicken portions then, isn’t it?

  He skirted the visitor centre, taking time to admire the view. The Squirrel’s Hole nature reserve was at the top of a range of hills, exceeded in height only by the mound that was home to Dedley Castle and its zoological gardens a mile away. At the foot of these hills nestled a council estate that shared the nature reserve’s name as though that would render it more picturesque and appealing.

  What an eyesore, Callum thought! At least one of the trio of idiots lived down there in that squalor. Perhaps all three did; Callum did not care to know.

  The path became less maintained and more irregular and took him away from the cabin where visitors could pick up leaflets and cups of tea and through denser undergrowth. Callum had to take more care where he stepped. A thorny tendril snatched at one of his carrier bags, tearing a hole when Callum pulled it away.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” he snapped, and immediately felt foolish. Shouting at a shrub! I’m nervous, he supposed.

  The path curved and sloped downward, taking him away from the view of the estate. Loose stones rolled from his footsteps like skittish mice. Dropping steeply, the path took him to the mouth of one of the caverns. Despite outcry from many naturalists and palaeontologists, the entrance had been filled with concrete ‘for reasons of health and safety’. The once-smooth surface was now pockmarked and covered with graffiti; the place was still a favourite haunt o
f locals. A smattering of used condoms and discarded syringes was testament to this fact.

  Callum waited; it was the designated spot. Here, the old prior had been run to ground and sealed in a cave, all because he had executed his rivals and tormentors. It hardly seemed fair. Callum had read it in the book that had appeared, as if by magic, on the desk in his bedroom one day.

  Time was ticking by. Mum would be wondering what had happened to him, he reckoned. Perhaps I should give her a call...

  There was no signal. Oh, well.

  The late afternoon sun was low, shining almost directly into his eyes. His spectacles glinted in the glare. He squinted until a merciful cloud rolled across the offending orb. A shadowy figure was revealed, standing on a nearby outcrop, towering over the scene.

  Callum gasped. The figure was sporting a long, tattered coat that reached the ground, a cowl that cast his face in shadow and - Callum hoped it was a headpiece - a pair of curling horns.

  Behold! The Goat Man!

  “There you are, my boy!” the horned figure spread his arms in a welcoming gesture.

  The cloud moved on its way and Callum was dazzled again.

  ***

  “Excuse me,” said Brough to the man who was trying to enter Dedley nick as he and Miller were trying to get out of it.

  “Sorry,” said the man, and then, “Excuse me.”

  Brough nodded and kept walking.

  “No, I mean excuse me as in ‘please may I have your attention for a moment?’”

  Brough stopped and turned. Miller was in the doorway, looking the man up and down and smiling.

  “Yes?” Brough’s tone was gruff.

  “Do you work here?”

  “Yes!” said Miller. The man ignored her.

  “We don’t deal with parking tickets,” Brough warned impatiently.

  “We’m detectives,” added Miller. This caught the man’s attention.

  “Good,” he said. “Then perhaps you can tell me what the fuck’s going on at my house.”

  “I’m sorry?” said Brough.

  “I arrive home to find it all taped off and a constable at the gate who won’t breathe a word.”

  “Ah,” said Miller.

  “Oh,” said Brough, only now registering the man’s agitated state. Distress had formed a sheen of sweat on his brow.