A pause. I heard clicking sounds of cameras and foot steps conking against the floor.
Baker: “Aside the three of you, who else resides here?”
Howard: “None."
Baker: “What is the relationship?”
Howard: “Brothers, my immediate younger ones."
Baker: “And your parents?”
Howard: "Our father's late. Our mother eloped with a man."
Baker: “They loved tattoos?”
Howard: “Who?”
Baker: “Your younger ones?”
Howard: “We never did. The man who stole our mother and her love from us is a tattooist."
Baker: “Where are they now?”
Howard: “Somewhere in the Windy City.”
Baker: “He’s American?”
Howard: “African American. He’s Black:” A pause. He began to cry loudly.
Baker: “Was any of them diagnosed with gonorrhea?”
Howard: “How can you be asking me that?” Crying transformed into a sob.
Baker: “We found this vial of ceftriaxone and syringe here. We searched the house... Or are you…the one treating gonorrhea…”
A gruesome death is a public event. Cops destroy privacy in order to build a concatenation.
Howard: “I had no idea if they were diagnosed with anything. I never heard any of them complain of any pus-like discharge from their male organ. I don't have gonorrhea.”
Baker: “They had girlfriends?”
Howard: “They never brought any to the house.”
Baker: “You have a wife?”
Howard: “I’m not married.”
Baker: “Engaged?”
Howard: “No!”
Baker: “A crush?”
Howard: “I’m tired of this flimflam. I know you're suspecting me. I think I’d need to take a lie detector test to prove to you I didn’t kill them. They were my brothers. The only family I had. How could I take their lives?” He sobbed.
The mood of the tape had begun to decidedly infect me. My eyes became teary.
I heard footsteps conk against the floor and walked towards them. It was DCI Hugh. I recognized his voice.
DCI Hugh: “Your wish is granted. You’d take the truth verifier test.”
The tape came to an abrupt end. I reached for the recorder, turned it off and retrieved the tape.
My head was jammed. How am I supposed to make a concatenation of all these and fish out the red herring?
When I’m approaching, or I reach, the ragged edge of worn out day, I wank.
I pushed back my chair and was up my shoulder. I proceeded to my bedroom and undressed. Every of my clothing was on the floor. I pulled out my drawer and reached for my nipple clamp. I fixed it where it was useful. I reached for my personal lubricant and moisturized my hand with it.
I made a small ‘o’ with my pollex and index fingers. I moaned as I made my man–pike pass through the small ‘o’, thrusting it to and fro. I had already zoomed into cloud nine, journeying into a fantasy that seemed eighty percent real. It seemed real – Sharon Stone was gently biting my nipples while Angelina Jolie was kissing and licking my man-pike.
While I jerked off, memories of my adolescence visited my head. My mother had caught me wanking in the bathroom while I was twelve. She beat me and didn’t stop to quote scripture. 'Onanism' was what she called it. She had said I’d go blind and grow hairs on the palms of my hands if I continued. I was scared. I didn’t do it for two years until there was a relapse; and the relapse became recurrent.
In about four minutes thick semen sprayed in the air and wet the floor. My man–pike gradually limped. I breathed hard. Gently, I removed the nipple clamp I had pegged to my nipples. My nipples hurt, but it was worth the journey.
Before I had the chance to clean up the mess, my phone sang its Grande Valse for the third time.
CHAPTER SIX
I backed my 2001 Toyota Echo out of my residential driveway and headed for 68C, St George’s Square, Pimlico.
The prediction of Doctors Knapman and Bradford had come to pass. This monster is working and walking his way into the serial murderers' hall of fame.
I neared the venue and saw siren lights competing with the daylight. The scene was a disaster site. The engine of an ambulance rumbling loudly. BBC news crew had already stationed. I parked behind what resembled Reverend Bean's car. I alighted! Eyes giddy, the buttons of my long–sleeved red shirt was inappropriately fastened inside my black Jacket. Jots of semen became visible on my pants. I began to pray for the jots to go unnoticed by the eyes of the people.
Several uniformed men were guarding the entrance, which was open and barred by a blue and white barricade tape, warning: NO ADMITTANCE.
The living room was immaculate and spacious as his office. It carried an aura that would make you think God himself dwelt here.
On the couch was Reverend Bean who sat devastated.
The coroner, Doctor Daniel and Doctor Knapman entered. DCI Hugh must have informed them. He didn’t inform me. A uniformed officer at NSY who had been loyal did as soon as he got wind of the ‘999’ call made by Reverend Bean.
Chief Hugh eyed me as I paused by the almost purple corpse on the brown-rugged floor. The deceased had only a D&G boxer on. Like the slain twins he was. I squatted and fixed my eyes on his bare hair-free chest. What I saw startled me - "go kook inks".
My stomach knotted like a fist. I needed to use the john. This villain was most assuredly crazy, slick and dangerous.
DCI Hugh excused me; we moved away from the corpse while Doctor Knapman did his examination and Doctor Daniel watched. The fingerprints department of the SCD processed the scene. They coated every surface with dusting powder. Others captured everything on videotape.
“The coroner counts on you.” DCI Hugh said.
I swallowed spittle while I still, partially, looked at the corpse on the floor. I just gave a nod to answer him. I had been turned into a James Bond who fixed the mess of M'.
He continued, “No doubt he died like the first victims.”
I looked at him and didn’t know what to say until we heard Doctor Knapman mutter “cyanide–poisoning”.
“Cyanide is almost impossible to get."I said to DCI Hugh.
“Money answers all things." He declaredly said.
“Then this killer must have access to a laboratory stocked with cyanide salts.” I remarked.
“You bet." He said and walked towards the coroner who was with Doctor Knapman.
As the corpse was being examined, I began to draw a concatenation. The first victims were members of ‘All Souls’. They were White Britons. Now this one, also a White Briton. He worshipped at 'All Souls' too, I guessed.
I approached Reverend Bean as he stayed calm on the couch.
“Sorry Reverend”. He seemed calmer. “I’m not interrogating you.”
With a blank face, he looked at me, “My nephew. He was a law student. A good Christian. He never kept girlfriends. He never missed a ceremonial meal.”
That was all I wanted to know. He worshipped at 'All Souls'. “But why the tattoos?” I asked myself.
A radio message was relayed to the ambulance. Minutes later, two paramedics came in with a stretcher. They carried him away.
Reverend Bean was wiping his tears.
Doctor Daniel walked to me, “We’re counting on you. We can’t have an insane artist confiscate Westminster's peace." She walked out the door, followed by Doctor Knapman.
DCI Hugh and I followed. Reporters armed with notepads and tape recorders began asking questions. The coroner gave no comment except "His cause of death is yet to be determined. When we do and it’s suspicious, the appropriate agencies would swing into action."
She was struggling with a mini-stampede. They didn’t believe her. The death already had enough 'suspicion'. They sensed she was conceding 'things' from the public. I guess she didn’t want to create a pandemonium in Westminster; and, again, helping the SCD suppress ‘man hu
nts’.
The reporters would not let her pass until the uniformed cop came to her rescue and saw her off to her red Alfa Romeo.
She drove off.
I went back to ask Reverend Bean few questions. If it was Detective Baker, his micro cassette recorder would have had its batteries exhausted by now: I ‘loathed' the micro cassette recorder during investigations. Sometimes I wondered what kind of detective I was.
He had been at his Southampton office until he came home to lunch and found his nephew’s corpse. Only he, his daughter and nephew, who had been murdered, inhabited this apartment. He wasn’t home when the sinister creature must have visited. I wasn’t 'assuredly' sure. For all I knew he, Reverend Bean, could be the villain.
I asked about his daughter’s whereabout and I learned his daughter is a staff at the University of Westminster. Abigail is a lecturer in the Department of Industrial Chemistry and hadn’t been home for three days.
I began tracing the dots of connection: Abigail, industrial Chemistry, Cyanide poisoning …. Except she didn’t draw a tattoo. I wasn’t sure.
“She now stays in the staff quarters?” I interrogated.
“No. with her boyfriend.” Anger was dancing in his eyes.
“Who’s her boyfriend and where’s his residence?” I probed.
“I’m not in the mood to talk about that. Go to her workplace and interrogate her. I’m done.” He walked away. “I have got clients waiting.”
Familiarity really breeds contempt. He wouldn’t have dared this if DCI Hugh or DI Baker was handling this case.
“What manner of man would lose a loved one and still have the right mind-frame to perform his work?” I muttered to myself as I walked to my car.
CHAPTER SEVEN
March 13 was working out its unlucky superstition.
It was a quarter of five. I had already reached Regent Street. I drove pass the main gate of the University of Westminster after the routine security check by the security personnel.
I reached the School of Physical Sciences which stayed next to the School of Life Sciences. I pulled into the parking lot and alighted; and wiped my oily face. I asked questions and I learned she (Abigail) was almost rounding off a lecture.
Regina Cypher’s workplace was the department of Industrial Chemistry. She was a cleaner and her ‘department’ was the Industrial Chemistry’s laboratory where she earned a monthly remuneration of thirty pounds.
We first met in a public john where she had attempted suicide almost two months ago.
A man had put her in the family way and jilted her. She induced abortion and her uterus was wounded. The five-month foetus was brought out of her dead. The medic verdicted that she may never conceive.
I felt sorrow and compassion for her suffering. I managed to talk her into giving me the handgun. Her beauty radiated the more she wept.
She agreed to talk.
That afternoon we talked over fish and chips, and her story was intriguing; a perfect adaptation for Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. An orphan. No siblings. Found her way into London by an illegal means. A man - a detective – crossed her path and sweet–talked her with his saccharin–coated tongue into believing that he was going to marry her. The going was rosy until she announced her pregnancy to him. Then she found out he had a wife. She was ‘duressed’ to get rid of the pregnancy. And when she threatened to get even, he threatened to make sure she was deported to her home country – South Africa.
He won. She acquiesced.
To cushion her pain and soothe his conscience, he pulled strings and secured her a servile job at the University of Westminster’s School of Physical Sciences’ Industrial Chemistry’s Laboratory.
Since that incident at the public john our path wove into each other like ivy on a baobab. We became friends like the biblical Job and Elihu. And when she called me today to meet her at the 'dirty' coffee shop, I didn’t hesitate to grant her request. I am still not sure if my feelings for her are plutonic or erotic. At the coffee shop I talked her out of taking a job at a 'sex shop' advertised by neon at night, and not very far from the University.
The remuneration was enticing. I told her to turn it down, and I promised to find a way to help her get a decent work with a robust remuneration. I didn’t know if she had began to fill a vacuum that Katherine couldn’t.
Just before I could completely walk out of the parking lot, the 'mountain came to Mohammed'.
“Good day,” a romantic voice dissolved into the thin air, “I was told the celebrity detective was after me."
“I'm not after you." My face grinned.
“Am I a suspect in a murder investigation?” She broke into a smile.
I chuckled. I was convinced that she wasn’t yet aware of her cousin’s death. I hate to be a bearer of bad news.
“Have you been home today?” I interrogated.
Her mood changed. “Is my father dead?” she said.
I couldn’t think of any euphemism. “Your cousin is dead. He was murdered." I bit my upper lip and released it. “Came to confirm if you were at work."
Before I finished my sentence, she was already in a black Nissan Note driving out the parking lot.
I was extolling the creator for making her handsome and ‘bosomy’ until I saw the Nissan Note speeding away. “She certainly is not the only one driving a black Nissan note in all of Westminster but probing her will make headway. Why could she possibly be trailing me?” I thought.
****
Leaving the enclave of the University of Westminster, paying Damola Atkins a visit was next on my agenda. Damola and I had been friends since the inception of our high school days. Contacts broke the moment I left for Hendon Police College. We had same passion for the art of tattooing. Infact he was my protégé until my mother did all within her power to dissuade me from being a tattooer. She even went the extra mile of breaking with her friend of ten years standing because her son who was a tattooist nurtured my talent and interest after school hours. For two years I was a protégé and just when my talent was about to metamorphose into a skill that would employ me and others, mother said “NO”.
My first indelible mark on anyone’s skin was a blank map of Africa. In the tattooed blank map I mapped out the location of Nigeria. That was all. Nothing special. My clients, while I was still a protégé, were British Nigerians only. Damola Atkins was the first I tattooed on. He really promoted my work of art such that in the first week sixteen students had booked sessions. I was the newest big thing to hold the London tattoo industry in my palms until my mother dashed my aspirations against a rock; and since then I never heard from my protégé.
But while at Hendon Police College, I learned by rumour that Damola had a tattoo studio at Baltimore Boulevard.
I parked behind a delivery van the moment I saw 'ATKINS STUDIO' sign which would be made beautiful by neon at night. I alighted and walked into the studio.
I was flabbergasted.
“…Leave us alone. Stay away from us. She is over eighteen and has decided for herself what she wants. Stop coming to my lair to create a scene. If it lingers, ma pa e… ma pa e danu…”
Damola wasn’t in. I saw someone else. He had barged in on Reverend Bean to warn and threaten him earlier today.
“Good day!” I paused and continued “ I am–“
“Detective Inspector Wole Robert. You can’t draw a tattoo on the face and expect it to be hidden when you don’t wear a veil." He said.
He pronounced “Wole” the way my mother had always wanted it to be.
If my mother was here she would have kissed his forehead and given him free 'greengroceries'.
He was ‘tattooing’ on a client while three apprentices watched. He dropped the tattoo machine, or gun, and insisted that we go into his office.
I obliged.
“Damola is dead. Hit by a stray bullet from one of your kind. I took over. I know you’re looking for him. He always talked about you." He dispassionately said.
“W
hen did the stray bullet hit him?” I was horrified by the news.
“You were still in Hendon’s four walls.” He said.
I was lost for diction as my eyes scanned the walls of his office and fixed themselves on the catalogue of which the blank African map was included." You draw this?” I asked as I pointed at it.
He smiled. “Yes I do. Damola said he got if from you. Very nice art. Afrocentric. Partially ‘negritudinal’. I have it on my chest."
I smiled. My eyes continued scanning, and on his table a portrait of Abigail and him was showcasing. They held each other closely that Abigail’s bristols gasped for breath. They looked straight into the camera.
“Why did you disrespect Reverend Bean today?” I said with my eyes still fixed on the portrait.
“That dude ain’t no Reverend. He’s a hypocrite. Never will I receive communion from him again." He breathed.
“He’s a hypocrite?” I paused. "Is that why you came to create that scene?”
A vein at the centre of his forehead became visible. “He came to create a scene here first. He humiliated me before my clients. I had to get even. I returned the favour."
I derailed. “You knew me. Why didn’t you holler?”
“My mind was already poisoned by anger." He said in his defence.
I still focused on the portrait, unknown to him.
Reverend Bean doesn’t approve of the relationship either because he’s black or a tattooer, I assumed.
"I’m Wole!” I said.
“I already know." He looked at his wrist adorned with a Rolex.
“What’s your name?” I came out straight.
“Femi. Femi Atkins."
****
I found myself parking behind Reverend Bean’s 2002 Acura MDX. He was still in his office.
His nephew’s death seems to not get to him.
“Was he normal?” I thought “Perhaps he’s distracting himself so he wouldn’t be consumed by grief." I continued thinking.
Wednesday: Story of a Serial Killer Page 3