“First thing on Easter Tuesday morning I want you to tender a confession to the police and your association.”
“They’d revoke my licence. I may even go to jail."
“That’s what I need. I won’t stain my hands with your filthy blood."
“Please!”
“Easter Tuesday morning. FYI, there’s a twenty six pound sterling worth third party tied round my left wrist in case you’re thinking lying to the police in your statement and taking advantage of me not saying the Miranda warning. And don't get it twisted. This was never a bashing. I didn't do this to you because you're unstraight. Don't you dare accuse me of hate crime because if you do . . . never mind."
“Please!”
“She trusted you and you proved her wrong."
“Please!”
“Prepare your script for Tuesday morning."
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
I pulled into my residential driveway, wishing I was never a cop. Wishing I had lived my dream. Wishing wishes were horses. Wishing there wasn’t the word called ‘beggar’.
I selected the right key to the front door and entered after it opened. I worked both arms out of the sleeves of my long-sleeved blue D & G shirt after I had successfully unfastened the waist-clipped gun holster and the buttons of the D & G. Some of my body hairs had 'tentacled’ to my white inner sleeveless vest. If I wanted to give crime a thought I would first have to undergo electrolysis. Infact Katherine had suggested electrolysis but I declined. She didn’t like my hairs. “Hirsutism disgusts me” she had said on two occasions while we had a together bath.
Time crawled, and in order not to be a devil’s factory I used my bathroom. I needed a shave and a cleansing bath after today’s hectic toll.
I put my electric razor in order, and thoroughly soaked my beard and waited two minutes for the shaving lather to soften the whiskers. Aerosol shaving preparation was my brand. They do well for me in eliminating the oils that coat my face hairs. Sometimes I wished I had a dry skin. I took time to not shave my hairs against the grain so as to preclude ingrown hairs.
While I was fifteen I had fully become hirsute and resultantly shaved twice weekly. After one of my shaves I had ingrown hairs which led to pore-clogging and infection. The experience wasn’t comical.
“You’ve either been shaving with a dull cutting edge blade or you’ve been shaving against the grain. Oh God! You’re just like Bayo your father who needs me to teach him everything, even down to shaving the hairs in his anus.” My mother said to me.
And ever since then she’d been the one doing my shaving until she was convinced that I could handle a shave.
I was loosening the twine of my bathrobe when my Nokia’s Grande Valse sang. My left hand’s pollex punched the answer key and I married the phone to my left ear.
Me: “You got me distressed doc!”
Doctor Knapman: “My sincerest apologies. The revelry was over-whelming. Not taking your call was inadvertent."
Me: “Been waiting for you to deliver your promise to no avail.”
Doctor Knapman: “Called to let you know that it’s in your email waiting to be read ”
Me: “Thanks doc!”
Doctor Knapman: “We hope it helps in catching the killer."
Me: “Verily!"
We hung up.
I hurried to my PC and started windows.
On the Yahoo sign in page I only clicked on 'sign in' since my PC always remembered my yahoo ID and password. In seconds my email opened, and I moved the mouse and clicked 'inbox' and my messages displayed. Doctor Knapman’s was last in ascending order. I opened it and downloaded the file to desktop.
When I was done downloading, I right-clicked my mouse for 'options' and clicked 'open' but was unable to read it. Gosh! It was a portable document format, or PDF, file and I had initialized my PC earlier this month without installing an 'Adobereader'.
I visited Adobe’s website and downloaded Adobe Reader, or acroread, and agreed to its terms of service.
I read the article.
Its author was Doctor Knapman, and it had been published in various journals of some UK universities.
Hours moved, I reached a resolve but I wasn’t confidently confident.
My PIR motion sensor camera stayed in my right palm while I cogitated.
****
Easter Monday, Fools Day, April 1.
Danielle rang me up and told me Hugh had arrested my mother. I thought she was playing the ‘April Fool’ game with me until I reached New Scotland Yard.
“They found her prints on two scenes of the Wednesday murders.” Danielle was saying.
“Two scenes?”
“On the door knob of your wife’s bedroom and on the stool she used on me at the Reverend’s. 'Too planned to be a coincidence’ Hugh said." Danielle explained.
“Good Jeez!”
“Hugh is convinced that she’s aiding and abetting you.”
“He can’t be serious.”
“When I called you he was doing a pre-test interview.”
“So he has her plugged to the machine now?”
“Yes.”
I hurried to the CCTV viewing area. A polygraph test was being conducted.
DCI Hugh is a member of the British Polygraph Association, or BPA, and it was all too common for an innocent person to fail his interrogation for no reason which resulted in a false criminal accusation.
The polygrapher is not one’s friend even if he or she tries to convince one he or she is on one’s side. Outright deception! What the polygrapher frequently does is attempt to plant fear in the ‘interviewee’ by hyping the accuracy of the polygraph machine. For the love of God the polygraph machine isn’t God! The more one’s afraid that the skeletons in one’s closet would be unearthed; the greater one’s physiological reactions would turn out. Enough!
They came out of the room. My mother had sweat all over her. One didn’t need a polygraph expert to tell one that she had performed badly.
“I’d have no option than to charge your mother with murder." Hugh was saying.
“You’d not sir."
"Of course I’d. Nothing would give me pleasure than to see you disgraced out of Met. I promised you that you’d regret the day your ancestors smelled this continent." He said in a whispering tone the others would need hearing aids.
“And I promised you I couldn’t wait." I gave a Mona Lisa smile. "It was a shame you couldn’t recognize a waterproof spy watch when you saw one. Mirandize her and I’ll screw every protocol, go by the back of the Assistant Commissioner for the SCOD and place my plastic bag on the table of Sir Logan."
“You’re making a loud noise.”
“I was witty enough!”
Hugh turned to the others who also watched the polygraph examination, “She passed!”
My mother hugged me and whispered into my ears, her voice teary, “I didn’t kill anybody! Do you believe me?”
“Go home mother!”
Time was so fast, and Danielle had returned from lunch before she met me at my desk. Each time she was at my desk, I was a cynosure.
She sat and dabbed her temples, “I’m lost. You asked me for Doctor Trevor’s residential address on Easter Sunday and on Easter Monday he throws himself in front of a moving train at Paddington. Is that a coincidence?"
“Is this another fools’ game?”
“I’m not a fool.” She slid her Samsung to me. “There!”
I gave an unconfirmed-belief look and took the phone which was displaying a West End breaking news.
I smiled like Mona Lisa, “Poetic Justice!” I thought.
“Yes. A coincidence.” I returned her phone. “Coincidences are real and true. They always happen."
“You’re quoting your mother now?”
“There’s something you must help me do.”
“What on earth?”
I pulled out a cylindrical white device, or my PIR motion sensor camera, from my drawer and gave it to her.
“Wh
at am I to do with this?”
“Plant it”
“Where?”
“Ten, Eccleston Square.”
“That’s illegal”.
“Breaking into 300C Park Lane wasn’t illegal."
“This is blackmail. Thought you had forgiven me."
“Not blackmail. I forgave you. Just seeking a favour."
“What do you plan to achieve with this? I'm assisting in this investigation. I should know."
“It should only bother you how you’d break in to plant it and break in when I need you to get it out."
“Good grief!” was all she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Easter Tuesday night.
I was lost in rapture as my man-pike passed through my hand’s small 'o', and a plank, propelled by a gloved hand, hit me from behind. I think I saw the gloved hand and the masked face.
“You black son of a black bitch”. Spat the angry voice.
The voice looked familiar. I could swear I know this voice.
The plank hit my head again.
I oozed out into unconsciousness after my assailant wet the floor with petrol. I perceived it.
“. . . And I’ll do all within my power to support the Met."
“Our paths cross again."
". . .One a day keeps your doctor away."
“You black son of a black bitch.”
I was inside a Rolls Royce. My father was driving. My mother kissed my forehead and said “I love you.”
“When will we visit Nigeria?” I said.
“After you finish high school.” My father said before the brake failed.
An accident happened and the Rolls Royce was on fire.
My flesh was being singed. I could smell it. It smelled like roast meat.
Passers-by were calling for help.
I could feel my flesh burning. Live burning. Like Anne Askew was burnt on a stake for heresy. But I hadn’t committed any heresy.
I was in a fire and brimstone, and Samaritans carried me out of the fire before it got the chance to singe me.
****
I was kneeling before a dazzling masculine entity. His back was to me.
“Earthlings!” His voice was ominous and shook the surroundings to their very foundations.
My heart was on a marathon. My lips seemed sealed.
”Humans!” The voice thundered in the still air.
My hairs stood erect. My lips quivering.
"Dust!” Thundering intensified. “Do you believe in resurrection?”
My tongue loosened. My body was breathing. I didn't know where the courage came from. “If all the steak we’ve grilled would be resurrected, then I believe."
“I proved you wrong. I wrote the promise of resurrection not in books alone but on every leaf in spring time."
“Is Katherine worthy of the spring time promise?”
“A promise is an assurance. An assurance builds on optimism. Optimism is a disposition to hopefulness and firm confidence."
****
I felt my body abseiling into a ditch. I sneezed.
The smell of the room I was in was virtually abstruse. I was in a bed and only I occupied it.
My vision was hazy.
I went back to sleep.
****
Easter Wednesday, April 3.
Easter Thursday, April 4.
Easter Friday, April 5.
Easter Saturday, April 6.
****
Saint Thomas Sunday, April 7.
My mother was by my side, and I’d be discharged today.
“Your fire alarm was a deus ex machina. You’d have been cremated alive." My mother’s right hand rubbed my head. “Not to worry, you’re hirsute. Your hairs would always grow fast."
I sighed. I had no diction.
“God, our Lord, always answers prayers. He never sleeps nor slumbers. The tattoo-killer has been nabbed. Infact, right now, he’s in the hottest portion of hell, burning!”
“Who?”
“Scotland Yard believes he’s the one who attempted to murder you."
“Who?”
"I'd always had the feeling that it was him." She passed me editions of the Evening standard which stayed on the table in the ward.
Wednesday edition. The highlights were:
DI WOLE ROBERT SAVED FROM AN
ARSONIST’S ATTACK: HIS APARTMENT
IN UTTER RUIN.
TATTOO-KILLER KILLED BY HIS
INTENDED SIXTH VICTIM:
KILLER IS BLACK- FEMI ATKINS
I opened to the page which carried the tattoo-killer’s story. Screw my story. Why should I even read about myself?
Tattoo-Killer Killed By His Intended Sixth Victim: Killer Is Black- Femi Atkins
Doctor George Howard of the department of Nutrition, School of Life Sciences of the University of Westminster, whose younger brothers, Gareth and Gavin, were maiden victims of the serial tattoo-killer's wickedness, had mother luck on his side this morning when Femi Atkins of Atkins Studio at Baltimore Boulevard attempted to murder him.
Doctor Howard was on his way out to work when the serial tattoo-killer, Femi Atkins, broke in on him and at gun point ordered him to undress. He did remove his clothes as ordered and then the serial monster inserted the needle into his neck. While he pushed the plunger down, already injecting some drops into him, Doctor George the victim displayed bravery. He kicked the gun from the assailant’s hold, quickly reached for it and shot at him after which he dialed the emergency line. While…
It continued. There were many photographs of Femi Atkins. They filled almost a whole page. My attention span was weakening. I dropped it and grabbed the other.
Thursday’s edition:
DCI Hugh of The SCD Charged with Manslaughter
Respectable Detective Chief Inspector Hugh Thomas Hugh of the Specialist and Crime Directorate of Westminster has been charged with manslaughter. According to his daughter, Lindsey Hugh, who watched the ugly scene, DCI Hugh and his medic-wife were in a heated quarrel before he pushed her down the stairs. The apple of discord was…
I stopped. I didn’t need to read further to glean the squalid details.
I grabbed Friday’s edition:
DCI Hugh Pleads Guilty.
Ruth Rowley, New DCI.
After the…
My attention span had dropped to a zero level. I returned all tabloids to my mother who returned them to the table she had collected them from.
“A cop lady, Danielle, came!”
“She did?”
“Yes. She sent flowers." She sighed. “Even if she sends all the trees on the planet, I’d never let you re-commit the mistake of marrying another Katherine. Never! And yes we thank their ancestors for civilizing the African continent and merchandizing us as slaves. And…”
“She brought me flowers?”
“Yes."
“Where are they?”
“Stuffed in the garbage where it belongs."
“If you don’t stop wielding your poknosy staff in my life, you leave me no option than to look for the mother I never had.”
“Joke of the day!”
“A promise is an assurance."
****
Monday, April 8.
My fire alarm was a 'Jesus’ and my neighbors were Samaritans. My assailant would have first disabled the fire alarm if he wanted me to be ashes. When my neighbors heard the fire alarm sing, they didn’t display indecision. They dialed 999; and while they waited for the fire fighters, they came for my rescue before my hairs would have been completely singed.
I saw death in the face. I had first hand experience of what being a comatose was like.
Danielle came to check on me, it was five o’clock in the evening.
“Did you google my address?” I tried the Mona Lisa smile.
“I didn’t break in”.
“I know. There was no feminine scent unless you stopped wearing the perfume."
"I wear the feminine scent when I want to ca
tch men like you.” She grinned.
We stopped the jokes.
“You retrieved the device?”
“No. Hard luck."
“Hard luck?”
“He caught me planting it. He ordered me, at gunpoint, to confess the instigator or he was going to blow me.”
“You sang like a bird with no stop key?”
“To save my head."
“And the next thing he came to set my house ablaze?”
“No. everyone's sure Femi did it.”
“He caught you planting it and you couldn’t tell me on Tuesday morning at work?”
“I’m sorry. I intended planting it on Tuesday evening."
"But I asked you on Tuesday morning and you said you had it fixed on Monday."
“I’m sorry. I lied. I hadn't fixed it then. I just didn't want you worried."
I decidedly hated her guts. "Where's the device?” I stretched my hand.
“He confiscated it. Perhaps he wants to sue me.”
“He won’t. He’s got skeletons in his cupboard. If he opens the can, worms would crawl around him also.”
“How do you mean?”
“I just want to blow a hole the size of a fist in his head.”
“Why? He was Mr. Atkins’ intended sixth victim.”
“No. Femi was his sixth victim.”
“You can’t be serious.” Femi’s prints were on the tattoo machine. Femi is the killer.”
I scream, “No, the beast George Howard is the killer.”
“No. George Howard couldn’t have injected himself with cyanide. He couldn’t have done that grisly and gruesome thing to his brothers. You’re being paranoid here. You just hate the guy. For the love of God the Doctor is a respectable man and not some psychopath.” Danielle said at the very top of her voice.
Wednesday: Story of a Serial Killer Page 10