The Initial Blow

by Paul Vincent Lee

  They left the restaurant shortly after with Allan pondering where to go for a drink and Max Kermack pondering his next move.

  Chapter 16

  Healy and Dornan were sitting in McFarlane’s office early the next morning. McFarlane was in high spirits; convinced that now all the murders had been cleared up. Over the previous half hour Dornan and Healy had detailed their conversation with Mary Stringer.

  ‘So what you’re saying is that you think Banks killed the three victims, other than Connor; he is Azrael?’ asked McFarlane.

  ‘Well, it’s a possibility, yes.’

  ‘Sick bastard.’

  ‘We haven’t proved it, though, sir.’

  ‘Oh, you will, Susan, I’m sure of that. Too early to call in the press boys, do you think?’

  ‘We haven’t even arrested him yet.’

  ‘Fair enough, but let me know as soon as you do. And, Matt, we’ve got Turner bang to rights for the Connor killing. Right?’

  ‘Well...probably...yes.’

  ‘Great.’

  Dornan walked to her office and called the profiler. ‘Alec, Susan Dornan here. We’ve got a strong suspect for the Azrael killings. You said the killer probably had a mother thing. Can you tell us anything else?’

  ‘Well, he’s probably killed before. You linked the Connor killing to any others?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Your suspect, is his mother still alive?’

  ‘Wouldn’t think so.’

  ‘Start there, then.’

  Dornan called Jack T’Baht in. ‘Any luck finding Banks?’

  ‘No, Ma’am. I called the solicitor who vouched for him but he hasn’t seen him for a few weeks, he says.’

  ‘Some guarantor! OK phone his solicitor back and tell him we are going to apply to exhume Banks’ mother’s body. It’s a long shot I know, but it might get a reaction’ instructed Dornan.

  She would be right about that….but it would not be the reaction she expected.

  ***

  The day had worn on and spirits were beginning to sink in the squad. Boom Boom Banks was nowhere to be found and nor, it seemed, was Ivana Jakonowski. Dornan was meeting Ray Ford that evening and had hoped to at least have Banks in custody and have arranged for Ivan Jakonowski to have a look at him the next day. She had had to admit to herself that she found it unlikely that Banks would not have raised an eyebrow or two had he tried to book into a hotel; so he obviously wasn’t the man with Kate Turner in “The Cathedral House” which meant it looked as if the identity of her mystery lover, if he existed, would go to the grave with her.

  Jill French also had unanswered questions over Banks as Azrael. After such elaborate planning would he really have bothered with the initials clue? Would he even have heard of KT Tunstall? Where did the gold necklace come from? By all accounts Banks was a complete mess so could he even have managed to plan all this?

  Matt Healy had gone home. He had hinted to Dornan about a meal but she had pretended not to catch on and he had just left it. Bitch. He felt strangely detached over the Banks situation. He had made the running on it and had stormed ahead after speaking to Mary Stringer but now he had similar doubts to French. He sat in the near darkness, only a table lamp light in the corner illuminating the gloom. His stereo played quietly in the background. He stared out the window for a while seeing nothing. His eyes turned to the sideboard and the expensively framed photo perched there. Think I may have made a mistake here, Mum. Sorry.

  ***

  The next morning, Boom Boom Banks was sitting by the river. The evening before he had been semi–coherent and had remembered to call his lawyer by reversing the charges from a call box. His friend told him of the police action over his mother’s death. Now he neither knew nor cared what plain he was inhabiting at that moment. His mind was in a state of flux, somehow moving between catalogues of times and places past and present, at a rapid rate. Yet moving slowly, drifting; able to drink in every detail.

  The doll he adored but his father abhorred; the room where bad boys go; the priest who comforted him; the priest who discussed his wrongdoing well into the night with his mother; his success at exams but never “full marks”; his joy of medicine but hospitals “full of whores”; his realisation that Potter was right and that religion was “the wound, not the bandage”; his mother passing over and now, as he’d always feared, passing back.

  Boom Boom stood up; his stature unsteady.

  He knew there were so many wrongs, so many things that only he could put right.

  He walked to his favourite restaurant.

  Boom Boom’s favourite Italian eatery was busy. Not full, a handful of tables were available, but he would only need one. He had been fortunate when he arrived at the front door. There were no members of staff near the entrance and he had walked in unhindered, and was approaching a table fairly near the centre of the restaurant, before he was really noticed.

  A few customers had noticed his distinctive odour as he passed their table but by the time a waiter had noticed him it was too late.

  Colin Boom Boom Banks had climbed on top of the table he had chosen; and had let his stained, baggy trousers drop on to the pristine red and white checked table cloth before any member of staff had been able to intercept him. They were now in a state of complete apoplexy as to what to do about the unfolding events, especially when Boom Boom brandished a large knife from within the folds of his coat. There were no shouts or screams, more a case of groups of people sitting in mesmerised silence, some even laughing nervously.

  ‘This has been my favourite restaurant for some time now, delightful cuisine. Mine hosts graciously phoned the police for me a couple of weeks ago and I am now allowing them to repeat their kindness’ Boom Boom announced.

  ‘I have done many wrongs in my time on this earth, some I am even unaware of, I’m sure, including killing a woman I met by the river only a few weeks ago. What has driven me to this sorry excuse of a man you see before you today? This, always this.’

  Boom Boom reached down, slipped his hand between his legs and pulled his withered and wrinkled penis from what appeared to be a pair of soiled football shorts.

  ‘Well, no more. The pain has to stop.’

  Boom Boom took the knife and in one movement cut off his penis.

  There were no more sniggers from the diners. Screams and shouts filled the space that once housed casual chat. Blood arced from between Boom Boom’s legs but he remained standing, his eyes shut tight, his lips mumbling some long forgotten prayer. The inside of his head began to swirl, he shouted something about not wanting to go to his room.

  ***

  Ivana Jakonowski was pleased with her choice. Her new job, and no tax to worry about, had allowed her to save up enough to buy a mobile phone. The sales assistant in the Costco Store not far from her flat was taking her details. Ivana had known that she would have to give proof of address etc and, so, had brought her rent book and passport with her as the utilities were not yet in her name.

  ‘Some phone companies are a bit difficult with handing out contracts to, eh, foreigners, no offence, but if I photocopy your passport and fax it over to them, they’re usually OK.’

  Some 15 minutes later Ivana had her new phone. She was in the system.

  ***

  Susan Dornan had reluctantly cancelled her dinner date for that night and was now sitting beside Colin Bank’s bed. When the call had come through about what had happened to Banks, she couldn’t quite take it in but the bizarre seemed the norm in this man’s case. She had interviewed both staff and customers in the restaurant and all agreed that the tramp had admitted to killing a woman “by the river.”’ She had been informed by doctors when he arrived at the Victoria Infirmary that, under normal circumstances, the patient would live but that Colin Banks was in such a state of bodily decline that he wouldn’t see out the night.

  ‘Colin, Colin. My name is Susan, I’m from the police. How are you feeling?’ Dornan knew the question was banal but
just what do you ask a man who’s just cut off his own penis?

  ‘It all had to stop. No self-control. Make things happen, don’t let them happen, eh, constable.’

  Dornan let the rank issue pass; she had to establish Banks’ meaning.

  ‘Did you kill Kate Turner, Colin? The woman by the river, the woman you found, did you stab her with your knife?’

  Colin Banks seemed to be examining something on the ceiling. Saliva seeped from the corners of his mouth, moving slowly across the grey stubble of his weathered face and staining the pillow.

  ‘Colin, listen to me. You are going to die. If you killed the girl tell me now, a deathbed confession. It’s the right thing to do. Are you Azrael?’

  ‘Die? Mark Twain said he had been dead billions of years before he was born and not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

  But he spread joy, I spread misery. It’s right that it stops now.’

  ‘Do you like to read, Colin?’

  ‘No more reading for Colin, I fear.’

  ‘Are you guilty, Colin, I must know. Did you kill those women? Are you Azrael?’

  Colin Bank’s brow furrowed.

  ‘Do you believe in angels, sergeant?’

  ‘Yes, yes I do, Colin. Are you an angel, Colin? An angel of mercy, maybe?’

  Boom Boom’s eyes closed.

  ‘Colin, Colin. The women, Colin, did you kill them?’

  ‘An angel? Yes, it’s true I’m an angel. I’m not innocent. So many bodies’ Banks muttered.

  ‘Then you deserve to be punished, Colin.’ Dornan was surprised by the venom in her voice.

  ‘Ah, officer, I’ve had a lifetime of punishment, this isn’t punishment, this is release,’ merely a whisper now.

  ‘Did you kill your mother as well, Colin?’

  Boom Boom felt the tears forming in his eyes as he turned his face into the pillow.

  Even now she is here.

  A nod of confirmation followed as Colin Banks’ head slumped onto his skeletal shoulders.

  Susan Dornan left the room to phone McFarlane and Healy; Professor Colin Boom Boom Banks, Good Boy, had left the room forever.

  ***

  It was a dank morning in the Incident Room. The atmosphere a strange mix of satisfaction, pleasure even, uncertainty and disbelief. No-one was quite sure how to react to the fact that the recent spate of murders had all apparently been solved. All the squad knew that normally people confessing to murders meant virtually nothing; as every nutjob and zoomer in Glasgow usually held their hands up for any crime that appeared in the news, but this was different. Colin Banks was a front line suspect and, most importantly, his had been a deathbed confession. Chief Superintendent McFarlane had called a case review meeting for that morning where all the details of the case were to be gone over with a member of The Procurator Fiscal’s Office, there to advise on the way forward. The meeting would be followed by a press conference that he would obviously chair. Susan Dornan was deep in thought.

  ‘What do you really make of this confession, Susan?’ Healy’s voice bringing her back into the present.

  ‘Not sure, really. You?’ Dornan replied.

  ‘Could be true but I’m not convinced. I know I started the ball rolling with Banks. Well, T’Baht did really but you know what I mean. Banks was a weirdo without question but I just don’t see him for this.’

  ‘I still think it was Harris that killed Kate Turner and him hanging around when Julie Connor was killed bothers me more than slightly. I saw his face when Jill and I questioned him, Matt. There’s something not right there.’

  ‘That long weekend in Marbella still says it’s Joe Turner for his wife and Julie. The other two I can’t quite work out. The cards are the flies in the ointment. But if either of us are right about the first two, then the same guy did all four. I’m sure of it.’

  Chief Superintendent McFarlane was standing at the front of the room just to the right of the Incident Board where the photos of the four victims and three suspects were pinned. Colin Banks’ face eerily appearing twice; one from when he was alive-ish, and one from when he was most certainly dead. Strangely, Banks looked more content in the mortuary photo.

  ‘Well done, Susan. Another case wrapped up quickly. I’ve called a press conference for 1.00 p.m. if you want to sit in.’

  ‘I’m not sure things are definitely resolved, sir. Still a lot of unanswered questions.’

  ‘Yes, yes, but mostly side issues. The murders are the issue and we’ve got our men.’

  ‘Well, I’m just about to review the case with the squad, sir, if you want to sit in, hear all these, eh, side issues.’

  ‘Listen, Susan. I don’t see your problem. We’re under intense pressure internally and externally with the press etc. You’ve solved the murders in pretty record time, not to mention spectacular style as far as the press goes, and you seem to be looking for reasons to scupper the whole thing.’

  ‘I just want to be sure, sir.’

  ‘Did you or did you not ask Banks if he was Azrael?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right. Did you or did you not ask him if he had killed three of our victims?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did he or did he not answer “yes” to those two questions?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘Right, cases closed, job well done. Speak to the PF, agree what the final scenario is and move on. Matt, organise a night in the pub tonight for the squad will you? First couple of rounds on me.’

  The meeting with the PF was brief. She was happy with McFarlane’s assessment of the situation and pointed out that the defence lawyer of any other suspect put on trial for the Kate Turner murder would only have to tell the jury of a deathbed confession from someone, that the police themselves had proved was at the initial scene, to have the case blown out of the water; then the Azrael card would be introduced and everything would fall apart.

  That evening’s celebratory drink had started all fairly subdued. McFarlane excepted. He had been true to his word and had stood the first couple of rounds and left a further fifty pounds behind the bar before making his excuses and leaving. As time passed and McFarlane’s generosity had started to kick in, the atmosphere lightened.

  ‘At least you’ve made a whirlwind start to your new post, Susan,’ said Healy.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose but....’

  ‘Look, I know what you’re thinking and I’m not entirely happy with all of it myself but you know yourself that’s police work. You never get all the answers. Besides, we’ve got Turner, we’ve got Harris and closed the files on the two others.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say closed. I’m still going to follow up on Harris being at “The Marriott” and we’ve never really pursued him over his first wife either. But not tonight. A few more drinks in here is my sole plan.’

  The table John Frame was sitting at ended up being shared by a group of girls obviously intent on getting a head start on the alcohol front before heading off to a club to celebrate one of their number’s recent engagement. Much to Jack T’Baht’s disgust. Frame had entered into the spirit of things and, at McFarlane’s expense, was giving the girls his lowdown on marriage.

  ‘I blame my mum for my views. When I was a kid, I asked her what a couple was and she said, “oh two or three”.’

  One of the girls tried to bring T’Baht in to the conversation but he made it clear he wasn’t interested. She stood. ‘I’m going out for a fag.’

  ‘Smoking is bad for you,’ said T’Baht.

  ‘Yeah, well my dad lived till he was 86’ she replied.

  ‘Smoker?’

  ‘Naw, he minded his own business,’ she shouted as she headed for the door, convulsing her friends.

  T’Baht turned to Dornan. ‘Godless,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Jack. Religion is not always the answer.’

  ‘You don’t believe?’

  ‘Well, I like Jesus but he loves me so it’s awkward.’

  Just another harlo
t.

  Shortly afterwards Jack T’Baht made his excuses and left. Frame was in full flow with the future bride.

  ‘So hen, how long should it take for your man to open a can of beer?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘No time, it should be open when you bring him it. I’m only joking; marriage is actually a magic thing.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Aye, it turns a fox into an elephant.’

  ‘That’s awful, you.’

  ‘I know. Actually I like fat girls.... and mopeds.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Well, they’re both fun to ride until your pals find out.’

  Healy and Dornan were enjoying the banter, the tension of recent weeks ebbing away. Dornan though, was slightly peeved that Ray Ford hadn’t replied to her text saying she wouldn’t be over later.

  ‘Fancy catching something to eat, Matt?’ asked Dornan. ‘I stay here much longer, I’ll be totally pissed and Frame will have me committing suicide for even thinking of marriage.’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’ They left the pub a few minutes later to cat calls and shouts of “Light weights”. Healy practically oblivious to the ribbing, deep in thought.

  ***

  Later that evening Azrael, too, was deep in thought. The Lord had called on him. His mission was not yet over. He listened to his music, searching for signs, but none came. He walked to the window. Looked out. Orange tinted darkness. Not tonight. Soon, but not tonight. He slipped into bed. He lay lost in his calling. He thought of the whores. His blood thundered through his brain and penis. He plunged the knife into Kate’s breasts. His mind swirled. His body rigid. His torment spurting from his body. He slept.