LOOT & I'M WITH THE BAND: The DCS Palmer and the Serial Murder Squad series by B.L.Faulkner. Cases 5 & 6 (DCS Palmer and the Serial Murder Squad cases Book 3)
Page 27
Palmer and Singh came out through the big stage door.
‘Needle in a haystack, guv. He could be anywhere here.’
‘Or he could be miles away by now.’
Officers one and two joined them.
‘Anything?’
Palmer knew the answer.
‘Sorry sir, not a sniff.’
Sergeant Singh’s radio crackled into action.
‘Officer code three, come in please.’
‘Go ahead three,’ Gheeta answered.
‘We have the local senior officer with us and given him a quick idea of what’s happened. He’s got Elliott in his car, and the good news is that we’ve found Brown’s hire car. It’s locked, and Brown’s not in it, over.’
Gheeta looked at Palmer for instructions.
‘Tell them to move away from it; get out of sight and hopefully he’ll return to it and they can grab him.’
She relayed the instructions.
‘Okay, will do. Where are you? The senior officer wants to make contact, over.’
Gheeta told him, and within a minute a squad car pulled up and a uniformed officer emerged and put on his cap; Palmer noted by the three pips on his shoulder flash that he was a Chief Inspector, two ranks below himself. He held out a hand to Palmer, who shook it warmly.
‘Chief Superintendent Palmer, Serial Murder Squad, Scotland Yard. This is DS Singh, my number two.’
The Chief Inspector acknowledged Singh.
‘C. I. Rush, West Mercia. I got a brief update from your two chaps, but you’d better bring me up to speed.’
Palmer explained the situation as quick as he could.
‘So basically,’ he concluded, ‘We’ve got a pretty devious and clever serial killer somewhere around here whose last little escapade went wrong and caused all this havoc, and who is probably still going to try and kill Mr Elliott. This is your patch Chief Inspector, so over to you.’
He noticed Rob Elliott sat in the back of the police car and gave him a smile; Elliott was as white as a sheet and trying to come to terms with the fact that he could well be a small pile of ash by now if Brown’s plan had worked.
C. I. Rush thought for a while.
‘Well, as you say he could still be here or he could be long gone. I think the best thing is to get the public away as quickly as we can and then do a thorough sweep search. I’ve sent my DS up to the security suite; I know Jameson, the Security chap here, he used to be one of my Inspectors.’
That explained Jameson’s calm approach to the situation, thought Palmer.
C. I. Rush’s radio interrupted their conversation. It was his DS, who told them that the concert had been officially cancelled and the hall was now empty and secured. C. I. Rush acknowledged the information and carried on talking to Palmer.
‘I think the best idea is to get a controlled public exit. We’ll get the barriers shut on all the vehicle exits except one, and then your chaps will be able to check every car and coach leaving to make sure this Brown chap doesn’t get out that way. How does that sound?’
Palmer nodded.
‘Sounds good to me. I’ll get my chaps over there; they have mug shots of Brown, so they won’t miss him.’
Peter Brown sat in the driver’s seat of the Revolution Transit, deep in the shadows at the back of the car parks. In front of him the public panic seemed to have quietened down a lot with the arrival of the emergency services, and the police and people were getting into their vehicles and making for the exits. He had the local radio station on and heard that the police had closed the approaching M42 either side of the NEC turn off, so people could leave quickly through the main exit only.
Shit! they’ll be checking the cars for me… I’d never get through in this bloody van anyway…
He moved it forward slowly and round the perimeter of the car park, the opposite way to that which the public were going towards the exit. He kept close to the edge of the tarmac in the tree shadows, no lights on. Suddenly there was a loud banging on the partition between the cab and the back; the roadie was awake and lay on his back kicking it. Brown took no notice because he’d seen something far more interesting. As he turned a corner of the car park towards the back of the hall, there was that bastard Palmer and some other officers standing talking; and there was… He couldn’t believe his luck… and there was Rob Elliott in the back of a police car.
Brown laughed an insane laugh out loud and shouted at the windscreen in front of him.
‘Got you! Elliott, I’ve got you! Prepare to join the others, you fucking bastard! Prepare to join them!’
He yanked the wheel, pointed the van at the police car and stamped the accelerator to the floor; the tyres screeched for grip as the power hit them and the van took off towards Elliott like a missile.
‘Look this way Elliott, look at me! I’m the last person you’ll see before you die! Remember me, do you?
Chapter 21
It was one of those autumn days that cinema films always conjure up for funerals; dim and dank, a mist hanging in the air and an eerie stillness all around. At the cemetery, Palmer knelt and laid a simple wreath on the grave; then standing up, he turned and walked the few steps back to where DS Singh and AC Bateman, both in uniform, stood with their heads bowed.
‘Bloody waste of a life, eh?’
‘Such a shame, guv. Such a shame.’
‘Going to double the ruddy paperwork – I’ll have writer’s cramp by the time I finish all the reports on this one.’
‘Guv! Give the dead a little respect!’
Bateman gave Palmer a sideways glance.
‘Talking of reports reminds me, I haven’t had the last case report updates as yet.’
‘They’re on my desk, sir; working on them now.’
‘I’m sure I saw your nose grow a few inches just then, Chief Superintendent.’
They all smiled, then turned and walked a few paces back to where Rob Elliott, his broken legs covered in plaster and supported on crutches, stood with a private nurse beside him; he was visibly in tears. Palmer patted his shoulder.
‘Could have been you, Rob. Could have been you, old son.’
They all turned and made their way back to the stretched limo.
Chapter 22
A week later, the Armitages sat in their Cornish kitchen and looked at the array of Jaijin Chinese porcelain laid out on the table.
‘Does look nice, doesn’t it? Pity to sell it,’ Mrs Armitage said with a smile. ‘You can see Maurice had taste.’
Mr Armitage was more cynical.
‘All I can see is us on a world cruise, and a big bank balance to come back to, so don’t get attached to any of it. The first lot is going up to a saleroom next month, then the rest will go bit by bit. It’s what we deserve after all those years working for him. That house was promised to us, so this is our compensation – our pension. Stroke of luck Brown killing himself at the NEC; now nobody can point the finger at me for Maurice’s murder, and we can begin selling it off and starting our life of luxury.’
He gave a little laugh.
‘Turned out to be the perfect murder after all.’
Back in the Team Room at the Yard, they relaxed with a coffee. Gheeta walked slowly alongside the evidence table, looking at all the relevant personal belongings of Peter Brown that SOCA had pulled out from his bedsit and garage; they were going to be boxed up and archived, in case any distant relative emerged in the future to claim them. Claire was inputting text for the final case report as Palmer read it aloud to her from his notes. Gheeta felt very sad as she turned over the bits and bobs.
‘It’s not much when you think that this little lot was basically Peter Brown’s total possessions.’
She picked up an old leather wallet and opened it, taking out a CD.
‘Guv…’
Palmer turned in his seat as she held the CD towards him.
‘According to the label on this, it’s the missing CCTV from the day Jade was murdered. I’d forgotten all about
that. Brown must have taken it away with him after he killed Jade. Bit irrelevant now; do we need to take a look?’
Palmer put down his papers, stretched his arms above his head, and rubbed his tired eyes.
‘Better had.’
THE END
The Author
B.L.Faulkner was born into a family of petty criminals in Herne Hill, South London and at this point we make it clear that he did not follow in the family tradition! However his childhood and teen years spent around many of the London 1960-70s ‘faces’ gave him much background material for the Palmer books. One ex Met DI even reckons he can name who Faulkner’s characters are based on...he can’t because they aren’t. They are all ficticious.
His mother had great theatrical aspirations for young Faulkner and pushed him into auditioning for the Morley Academy of Dramatic Art at the Elephant and Castle where he was accepted but only lasted 3 months before being asked to leave as no visible talent had surfaced. Mind you, during his time at the Academy he was called to audition for the National Youth Theatre by Trevor Nunn...50 years later he’s still waiting for the call back!
His early writing career was as a copy writer with the advertising agency Erwin Wasey Ruthrauff & Ryan in Paddington during which time he got lucky with some light entertainment scripts sent to the BBC and Independent Television and became a script editor and writer on a freelance basis working on most of the LE shows of the 1980-90s. During that period, whilst living out of a suitcase in UK hotels for a lot of the time, he filled many notebooks with Palmer case plots and in 2015 finally found time to start putting them in order and into book form. Six are finished and published so far, more to come. He hopes you enjoy reading them as much as he enjoyed writing them.
Find out more about B.L.Faulkner and the real UK major heists and robberies including the Brinks Mat robbery and the Hatton Garden Heist plus the gangs and criminals that carried them out including the Krays and the Richardsons on his crime blog at geezers2016@wordpress.com
Take care and thank you for buying this book. An honest review on Amazon or any other online retailer would be very much appreciated.
B.L.