by Brian Hughes
“Actually, Sir, I think y’ might mean chimpanzees…” Nesbit knew he was pushing his luck. But this sort of denunciation in front of Clewes was going to take a lot of living down.
Hodges was in no mood for education. “You’ve accomplished nothin’! Thirty years, Reg! Thirty bloody years of waitin’ for the big break and when y’ finally get the chance to shine y’ blow it! Well, at three o’clock this afternoon all of that’s goin’ to change.”
Hodges threw the fountain pen across his documents dramatically. For several moments nothing could be heard other than the drum of fingertips. Malcolm was the first to break the lull. “What’s going to ’appen at three o’clock, Sir?”
“There’s a chief inspector comin’ down from Scotland yard, that’s what.” Hodges’ smiled smugly. “A Chief Inspector E. Brabbon to be precise. So you’d better get your act in order for then, otherwise…put that bloody pipe away, Inspector!”
Startled, Nesbit stuffed his oxford behind one ear.
“If I see that pipe one more time, I’ll ’ave it confiscated, you ’ear?” A nod signified that Nesbit had indeed heard. “And while we’re about it, there’s a Councillor Ordenshaw in the next office wants a word. Somethin’ about puttin’ ’er life at risk without consultin’ ’er first! Not t’ mention the unauthorised gathering in the ’olding cells downstairs that Constable Parkins locked up yesterday!”
“Ah, yes…” Nesbit fumbled with the pipe stem, trying desperately to ignore the longing. It had to be said that Parkins was not renowned for his ironic humour. “Now that I can explain…”
“I’m not buggerin’ interested in explanations, Inspector. I want answers! There’s a serial killer on the loose out there and I want ’im caught!”
“If I might, Sir.” Nesbit lifted one finger. “The actual definition of a ‘Serial Killer’ is somebody who ’as killed at least five…”
“No, y’ might bloody not! Now get out of me office and get y’self cleaned up. Y’ smell like a Turkish brothel keeper’s jockstrap.” Hodges’ pounded the desk top so violently the paperweight tottered towards the edge. “And put a plaster on that nose before it goes septic!”
Nesbit span on his heels and started the solemn march towards the exit.
“One more thing, Reg.” Oh, for God’s sake! “If I ever ’ear you mutter another comment like the one I ’eard you mutter outside just now, I’ll ’ave your bloody guts for garters. Do I make meself clear?”
Nesbit nodded. The sort of nod that spoke more than any amount of verbal abuse would. “Perfectly clear, Sir…” He trudged despondently into the hallway. The tiniest whisper fluttered back from his lips.
Malcolm watched him leave, wanted to join him and felt the sweat trickling down his the collar. Hodges shuffled his papers round his desk. “Now then Malcolm…there’s no easy way t’ break this to y’, I’m afraid…I’ve got a bit of bad news.”
After some obvious mental anguish he drew in a deep breath and launched himself into the following speech. “It appears that your ’ome was broken into in the small ’ours. Nobody was ’urt mind…” he added hastily as worry drained what little colour survived from Malcolm’s cheeks, leaving each freckle stranded like an island.
“So there’s nowt t’ worry about on that score. I’ve asked Sergeant Partridge to pop in on ’is way ’ome and mek sure everythin’s all right. Now listen Malcolm…” Hodges’ voice dropped to a whisper. “Keep an eye on that stupid old duffer, will y’? You’ve got a better nose for this sort of thing than he ’as. He’s too old an’ set in ’is ways.”
He sat back, attempting to throw his junior colleague a wink. Unfortunately it looked as though he’d suffered a stroke down one side of his face.
“Try and catch this killer before he strikes again, eh lad? Let’s see if we can’t get one up on the bloody idiots at Scotland Yard.”
Devils Wood on the outskirts of town was really just an enclosure of trees. It had only survived because it would have cost the council too much to pull it down and turn it into something better. Its meagre wildlife had also been recognised by Agatha McBride (environmentalist) as being protected under the Public Commons Act. So now the wood was an oasis of nettles amongst the brick world of suburban Lancashire.
For a child it was a paradise. The choking thickets were the canopy of a jungle, a rotten trunk, the fallen log across a ravine.
And to a Jack Russell it was heaven, full of exciting sounds and alluring smells. Pooch had spent an hour trying to dig a badger out of its set, only to discover it was a crocus bulb. He’d had a splendid outing so far, having outwitted his owner at the first opportunity. Simon Jenkins’ distraught voice was still echoing around the trees.
Pooch had relieved himself beneath the parasol of a giant hogweed and startled a rabbit by sniffing its bottom. Now, amongst the brambles and old tin cans, he’d discovered something more intriguing. His teeth were embedded in a velvet sleeve, which in turn was hooked on toa briar. His claws scrabbled in the loose soil.
“Pooch! C’mon y’ stupid mutt!” Simon Jenkins, unlike his pet, was not having the best adventure. He was covered in mud, his denims hanging from his knees where the branches had raped his legs.
He didn’t care whether Pooch was alive. But the thought of going home with only a collar and his mother thrashing him, bothered him greatly.
Then he spotted the stubby tail in the undergrowth. It was wagging excitedly, as though trying to thumb a lift. “Y’ stupid ’effin’ animal!” Parents would be surprised at the amount of bad language their kids use when phrases such as ‘Happy Father’s Day’ appear to elude them. “I’m gonna beat the livin’ daylights out of y’!”
Simon grabbed the tail with both hands. He dug his heels into the soil. Pooch seemed to have gained some weight since that morning. There was also a great deal of snarling from his front end.
Simon pushed his glasses up his nose and squinted.
“I know you, don’t I?”
Both boy and dog toppled backwards. The woman sat up, her hair full of dead leaves. “Ah yes…I do know you!” There was a creak and the metamorphosis happened again. It’d be pointless to repeat what’s already been described elsewhere in this book. Suffice it to say that moments later the clown was bearing down on Simon meancingly. “Boy!” he concluded.
Simon wanted to run but his legs were paralysed, the only sensation being Pooch digging into his thigh.
“Have you any idea what you’ve done?” The sawn-off shotgun was dragged from the undergrowth. The barrels swayed in front of Simon’s face. “Have you boy?! No…no…”
An inner struggle broke out across the clown’s features. “No, I mustn’t…”
It was a fight his better conscience would lose at any moment. Struggling desperately he stumbled onto his feet and lurched off towards the edge of the wood.
It wasn’t stubborness preventing Nesbit from attending to his headache. It was just that, having read all the Mini-Mystery sections in the station’s magazines, he’d then read the medical sections with growing consternation.
The same obsession that men have for ‘Overhead Camshafts’ and ‘Twin Valve Engines,’ is reflected in women by pharmaceutical matters. Unfortunately, whereas women revel in other people’s suffering, men develop the symptoms and spend the next three months waiting for death. Over the years Nesbit had suffered from polio, dysentery, pre-menstrual tension, kidney failure and thrush. He now operated a self-imposed ban on any glossy magazine with Mel Gibson on the cover.
“Councillor Ordenshaw have anything helpful to add to the investigation, Sir?” Malcolm shuffled the cards and turned an ace.
Nesbit shook the final relief maps of mud from his mackintosh, a chunk in the shape of North Africa shattering on the floor.
“’Fraid not, Clewes.” The division door closed with a thud. “We spent the past three quarters of an ’our discussin’ the merits of hedgehog sauté.” He stuffed his treasonable oxford between his teeth. “Now, t’ business…”
“Chinatown.” Malcolm pointed at his superior. “That’s it, Sir. Jack Nicolson in Chinatown wore a plaster on his nose all the way through the film.”
“Now listen t’ me, Clewes!” Nesbit prodded his oxford in Clewes’ direction. “We’ve got less than six ’ours to find this murderin’ bastard, and so far we ’aven’t even established a motive!”
“Why don’t we just leave it, Sir? Until the chief inspector arrives.”
There was a lull, as though the forces of aggression were gathering their troops along Nesbit’s eyebrows. “Leave it? LEAVE IT?”
“Well, it’s highly unlikely the killer will str…”
“If you think I’m gonna be ordered around by some trumped-up, cigarette-smokin’, shiny-suited smart-arse with a degree in social sciences Clewes, then y’ obviously don’t know what sort of man I am.”
Actually Malcolm was well aware what sort of man Nesbit was.
“Now let’s apply ourselves t’ the task at hand and send this Chief Inspector…” Nesbit struggled to remember the chief inspector’s name. Malcolm felt it wise to interject before tempers broke loose.
“Brabbon, Sir.”
“This Chief Inspector Baboon packin’. What ’ave we got so far?”
“Surprisingly little.”
That much was true. The black and white photographs of the murder victims on the station wall had been used for target practice by one of the Old Bull and Duck’s darts team.
Malcolm swallowed and continued, thoughtfully. “Several eye-witness accounts, none of which correspond with each other, and various unrelated murders with no connection.”
Tap, tap, tap went the mud-encrusted oxford against Nesbit’s teeth. “What did the pathology report say about Mrs Preston?”
“Well…” Malcolm fumbled with the pages by his elbow, dropped several sheets down the side of his chair and read the first couple of paragraphs to himself. “They’re quite sure she’s dead, Sir. Oh yes, and the back of her head had been blown off by a shotgun.”
A snort created two pleats down Nesbit’s moustache. “Right…as Sherlock ’Olmes always said, ‘If you eliminate the impossible, whatever’s left, ’owever improbable, must be the truth.’”
“So, what are you saying, Sir?” Malcolm frowned. “That Mrs Preston was kidnapped by Martians with a fondness for dipping soldiers into the back of human heads?”
“Connections, Clewes.” Nesbit was trundling off in his own direction. “What’s the connection between an old woman who runs a café, a solicitor and a civil servant?”
“They’re all dead?”
“Apart from that!”
“I’ve no idea Sir. P’raps we ought to telephone James Burke and ask ’im?”
Nesbit glanced at the clock above the notice-board. Only five hours forty-three minutes before doomsday. What they needed now was some sort of miracle.
“Another Hob Nob, Sergeant?” Jack Partridge fumbled with the saucer, then crammed the biscuit into his mouth. “You look a bit peaked. Shall I turn the ’eatin’ up?”
“No, thank you Mithith Clewth.” Mrs Clewes was already turning the knob. “I’m jutht a bit tired, thath all.”
“You’re not gettin’ enough sleep.” Malcolm’s mother shuffled herself into her armchair, patting her skirt down as she did so. “I said t’ meself as soon as y’ walked through that door, that nice Sergeant Partridge is goin’ without sleep ’cos of all this worry…”
“Not at all, Ma’am…” Partridge swallowed, the Hob Nob creating a bulge in his throat. “It’s just that I was on me way ’ome from doin’ night shift y’ see…”
“I’ve got some of Malcolm’s Night Nurse about somewhere…” She stood up again and rifled through the pottery shire-horses that forever dragged their loads along the sideboard. “It always used to get ’im off to the land of Nod when he was a little boy.”
It didn’t require any great detective skills to understand why Malcolm would have needed it. Forcing down on the chair arms, Jack struggled to his boots. He managed to reach about half way before Mrs Clewes pounced on him.
“More tea, Sergeant?” Exactly where she’d produced the teapot from was anybody’s guess. Jack covered his mug with his hand, but it wasn’t enough to stop the old dear from pouring. Fortunately the tea had gone cold.
“I only called t’ check up on you and Timothy…” Jack reluctantly collapsed back into his chair, wiping the tea from his fingers with his overcoat.
“Oh, that’s nice, dear…sugar?”
He shook his head.
“It isn’t often that we get to meet one of Malcolm’s friends. He’s such a quiet boy, tiptoeing round the ’ouse at all ’ours.”
That wasn’t the impression Jack had got of his colleague. He remembered what Clewes had been up to on the station counter at the Christmas ball.
“Any’ow…” Jack accepted another Hob Nob and allowed his host to continue rambling. “We’re both fine. Whoever broke in didn’t ’ang around long.” She cocked an ear against the living room door. “Actually, Timothy’s bein’ very quiet today. I’d better just check on what he’s doin’.”
As she rose Sergeant Partridge made to stand up himself. A shrivelled hand forced him back onto the cushion.
“No, no, don’t you bother t’ get up. I’ll be back down in a moment.”
Ever since Dorothy, Malcolm’s detestable ex-wife, had taken leave of her senses to pursue a dustbin man, Mrs Clewes had been worried. She was worried about the impact the divorce would have on Timothy. In her day divorce simply wasn’t an option. Her own marriage had survived for long enough. Well, until that fatal accident involving the 9a from Long Benton anyway.
What was wrong with cooking meals, scrubbing gussets and cleaning up after your partner? “These bloody emaciated women…” she often told herself. “They’ve no idea ’ow good they’ve got it. Now when the war was on…”
If the truth be known, Timothy’s tantrums could be put down more to the lack of discipline and all the afternoons off school. Malcolm’s mother had spoiled her grandchild rotten.
Timothy looked mischievously up from the monitor as his grandmother entered with her hands on her hips.
“Now Timothy! How many times ’ave I told you not to mess with that confirmal thing?” More times than enough. Not that it made any difference.
“Sorry Grandma, I was just…” Timothy climbed down from the stool and dragged it back beneath the attic hatch.
“You were just nothin’. If your father finds out what you’ve been up to, he’ll skin your hide!”
She moved towards the Dinky truck. Timothy had abandoned it after a vigorous off-roading session over the mouse-mat. Best to clear the evidence out of the way before Malcolm returned.
Just as she was picking it up something unusual caught Mrs Clewes’ eye. Through the window, on the gravel drive outside, she noticed a bright red ball. It resembled a squashed tomato.
“I’d best be off, Mrs Clewes.” The words were wheezed from the out-of-breath sergeant in the doorway behind her. The silence that followed brought an expression of intrigue to Jack’s face. He followed the geriatric’s gaze.
“Tell me, Sergeant…” Mrs Clewes turned to stare at his belt buckle. “Did you notice that thing on your way up t’ the front door?”
Here is madness. So little is known about it, though few are ignorant of its power. This particular nutter is wearing size thirty-two shoes. Shoes that leave footprints across the damp mud at Nine Acres Farm. Something appears as though from nowhere. It tries to block the killer’s path. At first it’s nothing more than a line against the barn. Then it broadens and assumes the shape of a man. In a flurry of guano the clown skewed to a halt. Several startled chickens ran away clucking.
“Professor Jarvis?” The painted mouth snarled. “I am correct, aren’t I?”
“Yes, you are correct, Robin.” Jarvis held out his hand in an offer of companionship. “I’ve come to help you.”
“Oh no!” The c
lown fell to his knees, clutching his belly. “You’re not taking me back there, Professor.”
“Listen to me, woman. You have to help us! There’s more at stake here than your own personal needs.” Jarvis’ drew his sallow face closer. The clown could feel his cold breath.
“Never! I’m not going back to the house of wax. I couldn’t stand another hour amongst those neon children on that God forsaken hill!”
“Listen to what I have to say, fool!”
The miserable clown sagged, steadying his fall by placing his hands in a puddle of fertiliser. “I have killed, Professor. I have killed…” His apathetic tones became more dramatic. “And I have enjoyed it!”
He lunged towards the lecturer. Jarvis flinched and then vanished.
“BUT NOW IT ENDS!!” With a creak the bloodstained shotgun tore the clown’s fingernails apart. It rattled as the barrels were pushed between his teeth.
That was where his story ended. The explosion plunged Jarvis into despair. Splinters of the clown’s skull scattered noisily across the cobbles in a smear, resembling the offal spilt down a butcher’s slurry trough.
Chapter Seven: The Three Students
Bureaucracy in the police force is a fact of life. Everything must be logged in triplicate, filed and photocopied before being sent off to various institutions. So when you consider that less than one third of crimes are actually solved it’s understandable that the more non-administrative sort of minds tend to wander. Let’s look at an example. The pathologist’s report concerning the death of Mr Godswick (Solicitor):
Time Of Death: According to the contents of the stomach...four ounces of soggy cornflakes, two slices of toast cut into soldiers and a hard boiled egg...probably some time after breakfast. Had it been my miserable, money-grabbing student of a son, I would have therefore estimated three o’clock in the afternoon. However, being Mr Godswick, a notable member of society as opposed to a hormone-driven degenerate, and having taken the body temperature, I must conclude that the time of his demise was roughly 6.30 am.