by Robert Wilde
The lady looked round, the forecourt was clearly empty and would be for some time as it was three thirty in the morning and only the rapists were out looking for stragglers.
“That would be excellent!”
“Best give us the chocolate first,” Nazir reminded her.
“Make it ten quid’s worth but stick in some cola too, thanks” Dee added.
“Have I missed something?” Joe said as he arrived to see two people involved in a seminar and the other two pigging out.
“He was most specific, he wanted to see as high a ranking detective as we could get to him.”
“Before he dies?”
“Yes. He isn’t going to make it through the night, and you’re here, so go straight there and find out what the fucker wants.”
Maquire shook his head. Night time drives to dying men, was he in a noir or something? Still, at least the man hadn’t been brutally murdered, so unless he’d been doing the brutal murdering what could he have to confess? Definitely one for the memoir.
Maquire was out the door and into his car, pulling up at the hospital twenty minutes later. He was expecting to fight through NHS tape, but found a young woman outside who was running up to everyone in a suit.
“Are you Maquire?”
“Yes, who am I speaking to?”
“I’m Susan, the granddaughter, please come this way, he’s not got long left.”
Maquire looked at Susan, a tall brunette with bags under her eyes, and realised he was intruding into a family losing their father and grandfather. Oh please can this not be something really fucking awful.
“What’s it about?” he asked.
“Gramps won’t say, will only talk to you.”
He felt bad about the memoir thing now, but they were soon at a door and being shown in.
A man lay in the bed, but only notionally, as the many machines and pipes attached to him seemed to be doing all the work. As the man tilted his head pain was all over his face, and his eyes widened.
“De..tec…tive,” the man said, trying to sit up, until Susan gently pushed him down again.
“Please be quick,” she said, as the room emptied of people, all of whom looking accusingly at Maquire, until he was alone with the man.
Realising what he had to do, Maquire sat right by the man and leant near his mouth. For his part the man summoned up the last remaining vestiges of will and energy, and explained “in 1995…June 5th…1995…I killed a woman…called Joan Zager.” Normally Maquire would have expected ‘oh for fuck’s sake’ to cross his mind, but this was getting serious.
“Do you have proof?”
“Look into it… false alibi… her knickers in my attic… do the right thing.”
“Do the r….” but he caught himself from saying it full of indignation and began scribbling down. There wasn’t much more information forthcoming, as the man closed his eyes and Maquire dashed over, wrenched the door open and shouted “quick!”
He was declared dead a few minutes later, and Maquire wasn’t sure whether to slink away or tough it out. He was saved by Susan, who approached him.
“I’m sorry,” he began.
“Don’t be. He died at peace, whatever he had to tell you, he did it, and he’s asleep now.”
“I…err…” he had no words.
“Does Gramps want you to do something?”
“Yes. Yes he does.”
“Is it bad?”
“To be candid Susan, it’s very bad indeed.”
“And you think we’ll hate you once this comes out?”
“That happens a lot, so yes.”
“We won’t. Whatever Gramps gave you, whatever he knew, or did, he wanted something done. So do it.”
Maquire had the feeling this poor young person didn’t know what they were asking.
Dee leapt to her feet and dashed to the door, “pizza’s here!” she called to reassemble the group. She was showing such energy because it was technically her who’d left the oven off, leaving them with a cold lasagne and the need for urgent takeaway food, so she’d tried to turn the experience into something exciting: the online service gets here quicker than the phone, there’s hot dog in the crust, she had some barbecue sauce in the cupboard.
The others weren’t convinced, but they went along with the plan. Unfortunately, when Dee pulled the door open it wasn’t a pizza delivery boy.
“Hello,” Maquire said, shuffling his feet.
“What are you doing here?” she spat.
“I see things are still a bit awkward.”
“You’ve been inside me and walked away, of course things are a bit fucking awkward.”
“I’ve come about work. Are you still investigating?”
“This job you wanted me to quit? Of course I’m still doing it.”
“Then we need to talk, I need your team’s help.”
“So I can risk myself now you don’t need to worry?”
“Please, Dee, this is very serious.”
“This better be fucking impressive,” she said, turning and marching into the lounge and leaving him to close the door. They both found the other three stood listening.
“I guess you heard.”
“Ummm, yeah.”
“Hello everyone,” Maquire said refusing to meet anyone’s gaze.
“Get on with it.”
“Alright, this is the situation. On June 5th1995 a woman called Joan Zager was murdered. I’ve dug her details up, and she was beaten, then strangled with a belt, before being dumped.”
“They have you on cold cases?” Pohl asked.
“Not exactly, because late last night I was called to a hospital to hear a man confess to the murder. He told me to search his attic, and as he informed me there were a pair of ladies pants tucked away in an envelope. We found them, and I’m sure DNA testing will match them.”
“Doesn’t sound like you need me,” Dee sneered.
“Us,” Joe corrected.
“Well this is the bad part. Joan’s case was closed years ago, when the serial killer Ralph Spall confessed to killing her. He’s in prison, he killed a lot of people, and suddenly he might not have killed Joan after all.”
Dee was silent, thinking, Nazir did his out loud. “So Spall lied when he said he’d killed her?”
“He might have done. Which begs the question why, and what else has he lied about.”
Dee had stopped thinking. “So you’re hoping we short the investigation by getting to Joan’s ghost and asking her.”
“Yes, I want to know what I’m potentially dealing with here before everything goes shit shaped.”
“I think we can do that,” Pohl committed, cutting Dee out of the decision making process.
The group hadn’t been drinking – the wine for the lasagne had been left – so they were able to drive off immediately and pull a night shift. Luckily Maquire and Dee had separate cars, so Joe rode with the detective and everyone else rode with Dee, who sat there in bitter silence for the whole trip. Nazir and Pohl soon gave up trying to talk, and the radio hummed away. Maquire, meanwhile, found Joe also silent and staring at him accusingly. All in all, it was an uncomfortable trip.
They finally reached the site of the murder, switched their engines off, and got out. The moon was high, there was natural night, and the air was hot enough for them to stand without jackets.
“Let’s get on with it,” Dee hissed, so Joe put the machine on the seat of the passenger seat and everyone crowded round.
“Is anyone there? Joan, are you there?”
“Hi, hi, you can hear me?”
“Yes, yes we can.”
“Oh thank the lord. It gets so lonely out here.” Dee noted this and turned to make sure Joe wasn’t about to forge anymore connections. He was expecting this, caught her eye and shook his head.
“Hello, Joan, I’m Detective Inspector Maquire…”
“You didn’t tell us you’d been promoted!”
Everyone looked at Maquire, who then appeared a
bit embarrassed.
“I told Dee,” he explained.
“Must have slipped my mind” she hissed.
“Why are you here?” Joan asked.
“Could you give me a description of the man who killed you?”
“After all this time? Haven’t you caught him?”
“Therein lies the problem. We have two people both saying they killed you.”
“You’re very popular,” Joe added until everyone glared at him.
“Oh, he was six foot, easily, very well built, and had brown hair.”
“Brown hair?”
“Yes.”
“Spectacles?”
“No.”
“That’s very interesting.”
“And?” Dee prompted.
“Spall is a bespectacled ginger man. The person who confessed to me was a tall, broad, brown haired man.”
“Then Spall lied.”
“Yes. And this opens up a whole can of shit.”
“What happens now?”
“I’m going to the prison, see if I can’t get him to confess, which would make everything much easier. You, can you go look up the killings, and try to find more ghosts, get more descriptions. Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
Dee half smiled. “Knowing the answer before you ask the question. Always the best way.”
Maquire didn’t like prisons, and he wasn’t alone. But he didn’t like them because they were filled with people who hated him and who’d, at best, stab him to death if he ever found himself in one. No, he didn’t like them because of the claustrophobic sense you couldn’t get out, not just for a walk, even if all hell broke loose. And as they admitted him through the doors and safety precautions it was explained that, in the event of hell or even a similarly bad riot, no one would negotiate him out.
Trapped again, he thought to himself, but he was soon waiting in a room while Spall was fetched, and they’d even allowed him a cup of coffee in a non-threatening cardboard cup. It tasted like oil and slurry, but it was still coffee and he hadn’t slept that night.
Spall, however, very much had, and he was grinning when invited into the room. Maquire had never seen him in real life, and was taken by how easily the wiry man moved. You could imagine him being deadly, even if he had the face of someone who could recite every episode of the Big Bang Theory.
“You’ve come to see little old me,” Spall grinned, and Maquire took an instant dislike. The man is pleased to see me. He’s an attention whore, he wants police here as often as possible. That could be important.
“I’ve come to speak to you about the murder of Joan Zager. In…”
“Oh yes, I remember her, how she choked as I tightened the belt around her little neck.” Spall grinned, leering, watching Maquire for a reaction. So he received one.
“I’ve received a tip off, which suggests someone else killed Zager.”
“What?” Was that genuine indignation?
“You heard. So we’re going to be looking into it. Closely. If you want to be exonerated, now would be a good time to tell us all about it.”
“I gave you a full description of that night. I killed her. I’ve never tried to deny it.”
“So you are adamant you killed all those women?”
“And men!”
“Okay, all of them.”
“Should I have a lawyer here?”
“You don’t need a lawyer to tell me yes or no. Did you kill everyone you’ve been convicted of?”
“Oh yes!”
Maquire nodded. So he lies about this. What else could he be lying about?
Maquire didn’t have to give the quartet any information from a police file, all he needed to give them was one of the books on the subject, and he’d pulled the most academically worthy out of a bookshop that morning. The question was, how academically worthy was it really?
The team turned Dee’s third bedroom into an operations centre, with a map on the wall pinned with each murder, scans of the victims, a large picture of Spall himself from his TV court pomp, and post it notes filled with information. It looked smart, it looked impressive, and when they finished they stepped back to consider.
“I think we’ve done a great job,” Pohl concluded.
“Although,” and Nazir had to be the dissenting voice, “perhaps we should get out there and find, I don’t know, the actual killers?”
“Learn to appreciate pure bureaucratic beauty,” Dee smirked.
“The thing I love about bureaucracy is how easy it is to get fake papers and hide in it, not the six colours of post it notes and you pinning like it’s a voodoo doll.”
“Spoilsport. Right, who’s driving?”
Joe bought the car to a halt, rain hammering off the windscreen.
“Are you sure this is it?” Nazir said, peering out of the windows and seeing only offensive raindrops.
“Sat nav says yes, and I’m sure this is a ninety degree bend on the road.”
“Alright, that’s good enough.”
Joe now opened his door and some of the wetness struck him on the leg, but Dee shouted “close the door!”
“What? We have to ask the ghosts…”
“Yes, we have to ask the ghosts, but why exactly do we have to get out of the car? We can talk in here, they’re ethereal or what have you. Us getting wet doesn’t make a difference.” Dee was adamant.
“But it’s polite!” Joe protested.
“Polite? They’re dead Joe.”
“But still thinking.”
“To be fair,” Pohl added from the back, “it is very, very wet out there.”
“It’s wetter than a paedo at a child’s beauty contest.”
“And that Nazir is why you don’t write for a living.”
“All right, we’ll do it in here, pass the machine, careful, don’t knock your eye out, okay.” The machine was turned on. “Is anyone there?” Silence. “Anyone?” Still silence.
“Shit, no ghost,” Dee concluded.
“Final chance,” Joe said.
“Wait, wait, sorry, you’re not some of those tourists are you?”
Everyone looked at the box and the voice. “Tourists?”
“Yes, sickos who go to all the murder scenes, take pictures. Can you believe one group even posed like they found me! And they found me showing my pants!”
“So you’re definitely Cara O’Conner?”
“Yes. And you are?”
“Investigating cold case murders with our new technology.”
“Good. So I give you a description of the killer and an account of my movements that night?”
“Oh yes,” Dee said, pulling out her recorder. Cara filled the next twenty minutes with a detailed account, the sort of thing you prepare when you’ve had years stuck on your murder site. Then she got to the man who’d done it.
“Six foot six, Nordic, blonde, real Nazi type.”
“So he definitely wasn’t ginger?”
“No, not at all, why would he be ginger?”
Dee decided to tell the truth. “Well, before we came along, the man in prison for killing you was ginger and definitely not six foot six.”
“Oh. Well they cocked that right up.”
“Yes, but the question is how?”
“So will you find him?”
“We work with the police Cara; and we promise you they will attack this like never before.”
Nazir knew not to make a smutty comment about Maquire and Dee. He didn’t want to have to walk home.
This time the car pulled up and it was dry, sunny and beautiful. Dee attributed this to her driving skills. They were on a woodland track, but the body had just been dumped in a ditch to the side. A ditch which was now filled with plants.
“Strange to think isn’t it,” Pohl began, “that somebody was killed and left in this place of natural power.”
“Don’t get all ley lines on me mother,” Dee smiled.
“I mean the real power of nature, the awe, the intricate network of forces.�
��
“No more David Attenborough for you.”
“Shall I switch on?”
“Yes Joe, yes.”
“Hello, is anybody there?”
“Why have you stopped?” The voice was clearly annoyed. “This is my part of the woods. Go away.”
“Are you Nick Dolan?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“We’re looking for you.”
“Well bugger off!”
Dee had a hand to her head. Sighing, she explained “we’re looking for your murderer. I don’t suppose you can give us a description?”
“No, I can give you a name. I know exactly who the bugger was.”
“Well that’s handy,” Nazir conceded.
“It wasn’t Ralph Spall was it?”
“No young man it wasn’t. It was the bastard who pinched my wife.”
“I see a common theme,” Pohl concluded.
“And you have a name?”
“I can give you an address so you can go round and kick him in the cock.”
“That would be very helpful. Although we can’t promise we’ll do that, we will make sure the police re-examine your case.”
“What? They got that wrong as well did they? I blame Thatcher for…”
“Just turn him off,” Dee commanded.
Everyone was holding a bowl of Chinese food sourced from the marvellous place round the corner, and this included Maquire, who Dee had let cross her threshold again with all the reluctance of a virgin inviting in a vampire. Nazir had organised food, and the Inspector was taken up to the operations room.
“This is very impressive,” Maquire said.
“Thank you,” Pohl replied, “we took care to get it as organised and useful as possible.”
“Oh, sorry, I meant the food.”
“You’ve got their special Chinese Style Duck, simple but lovely” Joe explained.
“It is…” then he saw Pohl, “but the work you’ve put into that wall is excellent. We could do with hiring you.” Didn’t do to piss everyone off.
“Thanks,” Pohl grudgingly conceded.
“So what did Spall say?” Joe asked.
“Said he’d done everyone. Was most keen to stress it. But you’ve discovered…”