Laughing Boy

by Stuart Pawson

  “Thanks, Adrian.” I wrote his number at the foot of one of the pages and rotated my ballpen in my fingers, tapping each end in turn against the table: pointed end, other end, pointed end, other end. All around us people were rising to their feet, scraping chairs against the tiled floor, going back into the fray. “But we’re only looking for one person?” I said.

  “Well, unless he has an accomplice.”

  “Is that likely?”

  “I don’t know. What degree of effort was required to move the bodies?”

  “A fair bit, but not enough to make a decision on.”

  “It’s a possibility that he has a woman friend who shares his inadequacies. It’s surprising how these people seek each other out, and then one influences the other into their particular brand of perversion.”

  “But not two men?”

  “I don’t think so. If the victims had been raped, I’d have said yes, but not in these cases.”

  “So,” I began, “if our friend has discovered that violence could give him the orgasm to end all orgasms, what will his next move be?”

  The doctor grimaced before answering. “That’s the frightening part, Charlie,” he said. “I dread to think what he’ll do next. I just dread to think.”

  Chapter Four

  There was a note on my desk. It said: You’ve been seen out jogging. Only a Yorkshireman would indulge in such ungentlemanly practices, and was signed by Nigel.

  “What did he want?” I asked David, handing him the note when he joined me in my little office.

  “Dunno, wasn’t in. Is it true?”

  “What?”

  “That you were out jogging.”

  “I might have been.”

  “Crikey, you are taking it seriously, aren’t you.”

  “Yeah, well. I thought about that little girl, the fireman’s daughter, and…” I pulled a face and shuddered. “…Whooa! It gave me a nightmare. I think we should make it special, go out for some corporate sponsorship, not just a few quid from family and friends.”

  “What about the foot-and-mouth. Everywhere’s closed off.”

  “It’ll all be open by June, won’t it?”

  “Might not be.”

  “OK,” I said, “let’s follow the fire brigade’s example. They’re doing it up ladders, aren’t they?”

  “So I believe.”

  “In that case, we’ll do it here, up and down the back staircase. If we start at sea level, that’s…oh, about eleven thousand feet of climbing – about two miles.”

  “Straight up.”

  “Yep. No problem.”

  “It’ll be a killer.”

  I leaned forward on my elbows, saying: “We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. President Kennedy said that.”

  “They were going to the Moon.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But they weren’t walking it.”

  “It’ll be fun. So how’ve you gone on?”

  “Useless.”

  The troops had all been out doing followup interviews with the sightings resulting from the appeal. It’s not a very efficient process. For every hundred contacts we only catch about twenty of them at the first call, and then about half of the remainder when we go back in the evening. We whittle it down until there is a residue of three or four that we never find. That’s out of a hundred. Sometimes the figure we start with is in the thousands.

  “Any mention of a white pickup?” I asked.

  Dave shook his head. “No, why?”

  “A young couple came in this morning, said they saw one on Monday night at about the right time. One of those great obstrockless things with the tyres and spotlights.”

  “Haven’t heard anything about it. Want me to run it through the computer?”

  “No, Pete was handling it. It’s probably harmless.”

  “Did NCIS ever come back to you?”

  “No,” I replied, remembering that it was Dave who first suggested the link between the Gillespie and Heeley murders and reaching in my drawer for my diary, “let’s give them a wake-up call.”

  Carl Warburton was at his desk, which was a surprise. Catching trout in the Calder is usually easier than finding the man you want in this organisation. I reminded him that our two murders were now three and pointedly asked him what he’d found out for us about possibly related cases.

  “Hasn’t anybody been back to you, Charlie?” he asked.

  “Not a word,” I told him.

  “Oh. I started trawling through the database but when I mentioned to the boss what I was doing he told me to leave it with him. I got the impression he knew something and was going to ring you straight back.”

  “Well he hasn’t.”

  “Let me have another word with him, then, and I’ll definitely get back to you. We have a few cases on the books, obviously, but let me see what he says.”

  “OK, as quick as possible, please.”

  “Will do.”

  Dave asked: “What’s he say?” as I replaced the phone.

  “He’s done sod all about it,” I told him.

  “Typical. Fancy going for a jog after work?”

  “Where?”

  “Couple of times round the park.”

  “Good idea. Why don’t you see if anybody else is interested.”

  To give my mind something different to think about I found a ruler and went to the foot of the back stairs. Each step was twenty centimetres high and there were thirty-two of them between the ground floor and the top, which gave a total rise of six and a half metres. The heights of the three mountains added up to 3,406 metres, so according to the calculator we’d have to run up and down the staircase 524 times to cover the equivalent height.

  Sheest!

  I was back in the office recovering from my efforts when Chief Superintendent Natrass of NCIS rang back. His message was short and simple: get my ass down to New Scotland Yard first thing in the morning, even if I had to hijack a plane. He wouldn’t enlarge on the phone and I went home totally bemused, not knowing if he wanted to see me about the murders or something entirely different.

  Four of us turned up for the jog in the park, including Big Geordie. We appointed him coach, because he turned out a few times for Halifax RL and plays union for the police, and he put us through some stretching exercises before we set off.

  As they say: it’s like banging your head against a wall – great when you stop. We did two turns around the park, partly on the path, partly over the newly-mown grass, and arrived back at the cars wheezing, coughing and sweating like there’d been a gas leak in an old-people’s home. We’d a long way to go, but we’d get there.

  I forsook the obligatory shandy and went home for an early night. The British Midland flight I’d managed to book a seat on left Leeds at 06:40, to give all the high-powered executives who used it a full day in town. To them this was routine, to a hick like me it was a novelty.

  If they’d known a car was meeting me they’d have been impressed, even if it did turn out to be a Sierra with fake-fur seat covers, taken off observations in some South London borough. I tried small talk with the DC driving it, but his manner made it quite clear that he hadn’t joined the Met to chauffeur people like me who couldn’t read a tube map. I gave up trying and watched the traffic.

  New Scotland Yard is on Victoria Street, handy for the Palace and the Department of Trade and Industry. My driver stopped under the familiar three-sided sign and I got out. The journey from the airport had taken five minutes less than the flight down, and the service was terrible.

  It improved once I was inside. A stunning young lady in a uniform blouse with epaulettes took me upstairs to a meeting room and found me a coffee. I’d hardly taken in the view from the window when Chief Superintendent Natrass and a DI called Martin something joined me. Natrass had a grey crew-cut and bristly moustache, and favoured short-sleeved shirts. Handshakes all round and he asked if I’d had a good flight. I replied that it had b
een fine and that was the polite chat dealt with. We got straight down to business. At his invitation I spent the next fifteen minutes outlining the three murders and why we thought they might be linked. I told them about my conversations with the psychologist because I thought they’d be big on stuff like that and said that he’d confirmed our worst fear – that there was a steady escalation of violence.

  The two of them shared uneasy glances and Natrass cleared his throat. In front of him, on the table, was a pile of documents which he divided into three files, each about half an inch thick. He took a ten-by-eight black-and-white print from the first one and said: “You referred to your cases as M1, M2 and M3, Charlie. I know you don’t mean to dehumanise the offences, but it does save confusion, so I’ll do the same. This is case number one. Thirty-two-year-old female, found dead at the side of a road near Waltham Abbey.” He turned to his colleague, saying: “Martin.”

  Martin slid a map across to me and pointed to the place. North London, just outside the M25. I wondered if there was still an abbey there. I looked from the map back to the photo of the victim. She was lying face down, with her arms and legs spread wide and a trickle of blood from her head making a dark patch against all the shades of grey.

  “Killed instantly,” the superintendent continued. “Injuries consistent with being struck by a motor vehicle.”

  I looked at him, wondering for a split second why he’d flown me to London to look at pictures of a hit-and-run, but I kept my counsel. He reached into the next file and slid another photograph my way. This time the victim was a teenage youth, lying on his back, arms flung upwards and ankles neatly crossed.

  “Number two,” Natrass said. “Nineteen-year-old male, killed by a single blow to the head with the proverbial, probably a hammer. Weapon not found, body apparently not moved.”

  Martin pointed to the spot on the map again. North London, out towards Hatfield. I had dozens of questions to ask, including one about that stressed apparently, but I guessed he was skipping all the details to come to some big point, so I just said: “Go on.”

  “Victim number three,” he continued, pushing the next picture my way. “Twenty-five-year-old female, again killed by a blow to the head, this time by something like a baseball bat. Moved about five miles after she was killed and dumped in a field.”

  Martin showed me that she’d been killed near Harlow and her body left further towards the M25. I studied the photo. She was wearing a smart suit and had long fair hair. I turned the picture over and read her details: Samantha Jayne Wesley; date of birth 7th June 1974; lived in Harlow. It didn’t say that she was a happy, outgoing girl, with lots of friends and a zest for life. It didn’t say that she loved her mum and had a boyfriend and wanted to travel and get married and have at least four kids. It didn’t say lots of things, like why some moron with the IQ of a fruit fly thought he had some God-given right to snuff her out. She was lying in what first-aiders call the recovery position, on her side with her knees drawn up and her arm reaching forward. I gently placed the photograph alongside the other two and looked at Superintendent Natrass.

  “When?” I asked. “When did these happen?”

  “October and November, 1999.”

  “Eighteen months ago. What time of day?”

  “Evening. Seven, eight and ten o’clock, near enough.”

  “Similar to ours. I can understand the link between two and three, but why are you including the hit-and-run? There’s obviously something you haven’t told me.”

  He did what I think was the nearest thing to a grin he was capable of and said: “Roly Fearnside spoke very highly of you, Charlie. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Commander Fearnside,” I said, smiling at the memory. “Yeah, we worked on a couple of good cases together and got lucky. How is he? Has he passed the stage where he’s calling in every week to see how you all are?” The last time I’d spoken to him was when he phoned me to say that he was retiring.

  Martin coughed and the superintendent stared at me for a few seconds. “You haven’t heard, then,” he said.

  “Heard what?”

  “That Roly died.”

  “Oh God, no. When was this?”

  “’Bout a year ago, maybe less. He only had three weeks, poor sod, then a coronary got him.”

  “Oh heck,” I said. I’d liked Roly. He was a brusque, military type, born to lead and doing it with style. The sort that died out along with trolley buses and unlocked churches.

  “I believe he invited you down to work with him,” Natrass was saying.

  “Mmm,” I agreed. “It was mentioned. He couldn’t drag me away from God’s own, though.” Natrass had a North-Eastern accent, and I was aware of how parochial I sounded.

  “You probably made the right decision, Charlie. It’s all bloody paperwork here. But Roly was a good judge of a man, and if he wanted you, that’s good enough for me.” He rearranged his papers and went on: “You suggested that I was holding something back, and you were right. Four months after Samantha Wesley’s murder, in March 2000, the SIO on the case received a note. Here’s a copy.”

  I reached out and took the A4 sheet he held towards me. It was dark at the edges through being misaligned in the copier, but the three lines of typing were distinct enough. Bang in the middle of the page were the words:

  X Y Z

  ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

  This is the Eye Of The Storm

  “Anything else?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Yes,” the chief super said. “In with the note were press cuttings for the three killings, just so we knew what he was talking about.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Any forensics from the envelope?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Posted locally?”

  “Central London.”

  I was stalling for time and running out of ideas. Some nut was claiming to be a serial killer, but so what? It happened all the time. They knew that, so why were they bothering me. If this was some sort of test I was failing it, abysmally. I pushed the note forward until it was lined up neatly with the middle photograph, making a perfect capital T. It’s something I’ve found myself doing a lot, lately. Maybe I should have a word with Adrian about it. He’d know a name for it, if not a cure.

  One, two, three, I thought, looking at the pictures and remembering a snatch of song. It’s elementree. X,Y, Zee…

  “Oh my God!” I exclaimed. “Oh my giddy aunt! Now I see what it’s all about.” There it was in the photographs, spelled out by the bodies and arms and legs of the three victims. X, Y and Z, I am the killer and I enjoy my work, writ large, not in blood, this time, but in flesh.

  “Let’s stop for a coffee,” Natrass suggested, and I agreed with him.

  He gave me a lightning tour of the department, introducing me to more people than you could shake a truncheon at. Everybody was busy at a workstation, working on programs with acronyms that might someday pass into the language. We were using HOLMES, and I’d heard of HITS and CATCHEM, used in child murder cases, but what the devil was CORPSE? The sight of all those po-faced characters hunched over their keyboards made me think that I’d made a good decision when I rejected Roly Fearnside’s offer, even if it had included promotion.

  Martin had things to do, so Natrass and I had a serious head-to-head in his office. “You must’ve asked for psychiatric help on this one,” I stated. “What did they say?”

  “You’re right,” he told me. “We spoke to everyone we could. Considered opinion is that the first one, the hit and run, may have been an accident. He stopped initially, perhaps, but it gave him such a high that he fled the scene and resolved to repeat the experience.”

  “But with a bit more personal input next time,” I suggested.

  “Mmm, something like that.”

  “So why the XYZ business?”

  “Because all the publicity reinforced his feelings. It was like a drug to him. Alternatively, he wanted to prove that he’s so
much cleverer than we are. He’s laughing at us, as you saw. Who knows what goes through a mind like that?”

  “But that’s just what you’re supposed to do,” I said. “Get inside his mind, learn to think like him. Isn’t that what it’s all about?”

  “Bullshit, Charlie. And meanwhile, while we’re getting inside his mind, he’s out killing. It’s his guts I want to get inside, not his mind.”

  “I know the feeling. So you think he’s re-surfaced and moved up North?”

  “I’d say so, wouldn’t you?”

  “Where’s he been for the last eighteen months?”

  “Who knows? Maybe he had a scare, decided to lay low for a while. Got married, perhaps, but the gloss is wearing off. We thought that maybe he’d topped himself, but it looks as if we were wrong.”

  “You didn’t go to the press.”

  “No. That was my decision. I thought it might rile him. We even leaned the other way a bit – denied they were linked. These pictures have never been made public, of course, so I hoped we might goad him into contacting us with more information to prove he was the killer, but we haven’t. Now it’s looking as if I’ve painted myself into a corner. Have you gone public with yours?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t an operational decision, we had a leak and made the best of it.” No point in admitting that I’d goofed at the press conference. I clicked my ballpen and placed it in my pocket. He’d certainly given me something to think about. “Presumably you want me to keep mum about all this,” I said.

  He leaned forward on his hairy arms, saying: “What I want, Charlie, is for you to take the case on. We’ve had eighteen months of calm – the eye of the storm – and now we’re through that and on your patch. Six murders so far, six separate investigations. We need someone with your experience and ability to think laterally to take an overview. I can offer you Acting DCI and whatever resources you need. My advice would be to work on the quiet with a small, hand-picked team, at least to start with, but it’s up to you. What do you say?”

  It wasn’t what I’d expected. Sometimes, with big cases, everybody with an eye on promotion wants to jump aboard. Other times they stay clear, especially when the press are on a witch-hunt and things aren’t going too well. In those cases we find someone fresh-faced and ambitious and put them in charge, and it’s muck or nettles for them. Alternatively, we bring out the old war-horse who thinks we’re in business to catch criminals and doesn’t know how to say no, and we let him get on with it. This looked like one of those.