Four British Mysteries

by Thomas Brown

  The man giggled obscenely. ‘All in good time. Now if I release my grip, I want your promise not to try anything silly like trying to run away. You can’t run away and if you try I shall get mad and that means I’ll probably hurt you.’

  The sentiments were expressed in such a matter of fact way that they filled Sheila with all-consuming dread.

  ‘Now, are you going to be a good girl?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘’That’s very sensible,’ he grinned, releasing his grip on her throat. ‘Now I’ve got my car outside and we’re going for a little ride.’

  He took her arm and pulled her towards the door. ‘Now, no funny business. OK?’

  She nodded, her mind whirling with desperate thoughts.

  Outside, was an old Vauxhall which he’d driven up the drive right to the front door. With swift deft movements, he opened the boot. ‘Step inside, my dear.’

  Sheila Llewellyn looked at him with incredulity.

  ‘Do as you’re told, if you know what’s good for you.’ He squeezed her arm until it hurt.

  Sheila was tempted to try to break free and make a bolt for it down the drive, but some instinct stopped her, told her that she wouldn’t make it and then, who knows what the brute might do to her. With a sinking heart she clambered into the boot of the car.

  ‘Lie down and curl up,’ he snapped.

  She did as he ordered and then darkness enveloped her as he slammed the boot lid down.

  Moments later as the engine revved into life and began to judder forward, Sheila Llewellyn curled her hands into tight fists so that the nails dug into her palms and very quietly she began to cry.

  * * *

  ‘I’ve had word from the fire officer in charge of last night’s blaze,’ said Sergeant Sunderland as he wandered over to David Llewellyn’s desk. His boss was staring at a pile of papers, but not really seeing them. His mind was elsewhere.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he looked up distractedly. ‘What’s he got to say?’

  Sunderland perched on the edge of the desk. ‘Apparently they did find a body in the shell of the house this morning. Or to be more precise the remains of a body. It’s too far gone to be any use to us. Apparently they can’t even tell if it’s a man or a woman.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Just some bones and ash.’

  ‘So we don’t know if it’s Sexton or not,’

  ‘Well, it was his house.’

  Llewellyn shook his head. ‘That proves nothing. There’s something fishy about this affair. Look at the facts. Sexton visits Northcote on a regular basis in the loony bin on the premise of writing a book about criminal madness or some such. Suddenly Northcote escapes – very easily it seems – and disappears. And strangely Sexton seems unable to explain Northcote’s behaviour or to help us in anyway. In fact, his lack of assistance was in essence a hindrance.’

  ‘Then the murders begin,’ added Sunderland.

  ‘Yes… in the same manner as before. And then we find Sexton’s cigarette case at the scene of the most recent atrocity. You know what I wonder, Sunderland, don’t you?’

  Sunderland threw his boss a quizzical look. ‘Not sure.’

  ‘I wonder if these two were in cahoots. I mean it’s a fairly unhealthy pursuit to keep visiting a cannibal murderer, isn’t it? Perhaps Sexton developed a curiosity about the killings… about the ritual of eating flesh. Maybe he wanted to try them out for himself.’

  Sunderland grimaced. ‘It’s enough to turn your stomach.’

  ‘Your stomach, yes, ‘cause you’re a straight forward pie and chips man, but to some twisted minds like Northcote … and maybe Sexton… it’s lovely grub.’

  Sunderland grimaced again. ‘You’re putting me right off my lunch.’

  Llewellyn afforded himself a little smile at his sergeant’s discomfort. ‘Well, whether they were working together or not, we are still no nearer catching either of them. And, I hate to admit this, but I’ve no idea what we’re going to do next. We seem to be up that creek without a bleedin’ paddle.’

  With this dark admission, both men fell silent. At length, Sunderland roused himself. ‘Shall I make us both a cuppa?’

  ‘Why not?’ sighed Llewellyn. ‘It might help invigorate the brain cells.’

  Sunderland had only just left the office when the telephone rang. David casually lifted the receiver, ‘Llewellyn,’ he said.

  There was a pause before the caller spoke. ’Good morning, Inspector. This is Dr Ralph Northcote.’

  David’s body stiffened and a little electric charge seem to run up his backbone. He sat bolt upright in his chair, gripping the phone hard enough to snap the receiver in two.

  ‘Oh, yes…’ he found himself saying, his words escaping somewhat muffled from a dry mouth.

  ‘Oh, I assure you I am Ralph Northcote. This is not a hoax call. Surely you remember my voice… from before.’

  David thought he did. ‘What can I do for you?’ he said as casually as he could.

  Northcote chuckled. ‘It’s more a case of what I can do for you. You see I have your wife… but I really don’t want your wife, I want you.’

  ‘Sheila…’ stuttered Llewellyn, fear and apprehension fogging his brain.

  ‘Yes, little Sheila. Blonde-haired Sheila. I have her.’

  David shook his head in disbelief. Was this maniac telling the truth or was it some cruel, wild bluff?

  ‘I called on her this morning and persuaded her to come away with me. She was not too keen at first, but you know I have my little ways of persuasion.’

  ‘Bastard.’

  ‘Of course. That goes without saying.’

  ‘If you have hurt her…’

  ‘Oh, please, don’t trot out the impotent threats. If I have hurt her… there is nothing you can do about it, Inspector. However, I have not hurt her. Really, I have no interest in hurting her, although I am sure her flesh is quite tasty…’

  David’s stomach lurched and he wanted to bellow a stream of obscenities down the phone at his tormentor, but his wiser nature told him that not only would it not help the situation but it might make it worse.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want you. I want to do a swap. You for your wife.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘I thought you would agree. But you must obey my instructions to the letter or I will slit dear Sheila’s throat and prepare myself a very tasty snack. Is that understood?’

  For a brief moment, David wondered if this were really happening. Was it just a bad dream? A cruel nightmare from which he would wake any second. But as he stared unseeingly at the black telephone he knew in his heart that it was real. Very real.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘You tell no one – no one about this call. Your colleagues must not know. You are in this on your own. Is that clear?

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘At six o’clock this evening, you will be on the corner of Horseferry Road and Millbank by the Lambeth Bridge down by the river. There is a telephone box there. I will ring you and give you further instructions. I cannot emphasise enough that no one must know of this arrangement and you must come alone. Failure to comply with these instructions and… well, it’s goodbye Sheila. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do as you are told and your wife lives. Act foolishly and… well you know the consequences.’

  The line went dead.

  For some moments David Llewellyn sat like a frozen statue, his hand still gripping the telephone receiver in his hand, his heart thumping in his chest. Suddenly he became conscious of a trickle of sweat travelling down his cheek from his temple. He slammed the receiver down savagely and grabbed a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and mopped his face.

  ‘Tea up,’ cried Sergeant Sunderland, breezing into the room carrying two mugs and plonking one down on David’s desk.

  Automatically, he picked up the mug and took a sip of the hot tea.

  ‘So, what do we do next, sir
?’ said Sunderland, returning to his usual perch on the end of the desk.

  David desperately tried to force his scrambled brain into functioning normally. When he eventually spoke, he found that his voice emerged in a strange mechanical fashion reminiscent of a speak your weight machine.

  ‘I’m… I’m not sure. Things… are a bit … desperate. Look, Sunderland, why don’t you take a trip to Sexton’s surgery and… have a snoop round his office… his files. See if you can come up with something.’

  Sunderland looked at his boss with some concern. He seemed odd somehow. His face was white and damp with sweat and he was talking in an weird way.

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’

  ‘I feel a bit queasy. Probably a dodgy sausage I had for… breakfast. Anyway, you get off and see what you can sniff out at Sexton’s surgery, eh?’

  ‘I can finish my tea first, can’t I?’

  Llewellyn forced a smile. It almost hurt him. ‘Of course. As for me, I’ve got a little lead I’d like to follow up.’ Without a further word, he snatched his hat and coat from the rack and left the room.

  Sunderland gazed at the full mug of tea, untouched, on his boss’s desk and raised his brow in surprise.

  ‘Now what’s got into him?’

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, David Llewellyn was in the bathroom at home, his head over the toilet bowl. He had just relieved himself of his breakfast, including the supposedly dodgy sausage. His stomach was now empty, but he was still retching, his ashen face bathed in sweat.

  On leaving the Yard, he had telephoned home, hoping against hope that Sheila would pick up the receiver at the other end. But it just rang and rang. And rang. He had then driven like the devil back to his house trying but failing to block out all the dark and despondent thoughts which were desperate to crowd in and taunt him.

  On arriving home and finding the door ajar, his worst nightmare was confirmed. He carried out a cursory search of the house but knew he would find nothing. Northcote had been telling the truth. He had Sheila in his bloody clutches. It was then that the overpowering sense of nausea overcame him and he rushed to the lavatory to be sick.

  After a while, he rose from his crouching posture and washed his face and swilled his mouth out with cold water. As he gazed at his haunted face in the bathroom mirror, one question above all pounded in his mind, thundered repeatedly in his brain like the stroke of a blacksmith’s hammer. What was he going to do? What was he going to do?

  THIRTY

  I was in business again! The following morning after my adventures with the Horsefield family, I was visited by a new client. Time was when such a small, rather sordid case of suspected adultery would have seemed small beer and depressed me, but after the several empty ‘feeling sorry for myself’ months, to get a regular client seemed wonderful. Normality seemed to be rearing its head again. It was a remarkable feeling and I am sure Max would have been pleased for me. I blew a kiss to her picture on my desk.

  I was just lighting a celebratory cigarette when the telephone rang. Wow, I thought, not another client? I was wrong.

  It was David Llewellyn.

  * * *

  I met him in The Guardsman at noon and we secured one of the little private booths at the rear of the saloon bar. Here, away from the noise and the smoke we were afforded a little privacy. My friend looked terrible. His face was grey as though all the blood had been drained from it and his skin had a damp sheen to it. His eyes blinked nervously as he raised his pint glass to his lips.

  I knew something was wrong – very wrong. I had deduced that from the tone of his voice and his strange manner during the telephone call. He had told me nothing, only that he needed to see me urgently. David never asked to see me urgently.

  ‘What’s this all about?’ I asked casually, eager to get the ball rolling.

  David ran his hand over his face. ‘It’s this Northcote case.’

  ‘Northcote. Mr Cannibal?’

  David nodded. ‘He’s got Sheila.’

  ‘What do you…?’

  ‘What the hell do you think I mean? He’s got Sheila. He’s abducted her.’

  ‘My God!’ I said, my mind filling up with questions, only to ask the one that I shouldn’t.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m bloody sure!’ His eyes widened in anger and his hand shook so much, the beer slopped over the side of the glass.

  I touched the sleeve of his coat with what I hoped was a reassuring gesture. ‘Tell me about it.’

  David took a large gulp of beer before responding. ‘He came to the house this morning after I’d gone to work and… took her. Then he rang me at the Yard. He said he’ll let her go in exchange for me.’

  ‘Exchange. A kind of swap?’

  ‘He wants revenge. I was the copper who nabbed him in the first place. I’m the one responsible for getting him locked away for life. Now he intends to get his own back. I’m supposed to be in a phone box down by Lambeth Bridge on the Millbank side at six this evening and he’ll give me more instructions. Where to go. Where to meet him. Once he’s got me, he’ll let Sheila go.’

  Like hell he will, I thought but knew now was not the time to air such an opinion. Instead, I said nothing.

  ‘The problem is,’ he continued after another gulp of beer, ‘there has to be no police involvement. I’ve got to do this on my own or else… or else he’ll slit Sheila’s throat.’

  ‘But you can’t do this without a surveillance team to help.’

  ‘I can’t risk it, Johnny. If he gets a whiff of a police presence… I just can’t risk it. I’ve got to do it on his terms… for Sheila’s sake’. There was a catch in his voice and he turned his head away momentarily while he brought his emotions in check.

  I wanted to say all kinds of sympathetic, reassuring and encouraging words but I was well aware this is not what David wanted to hear just now. Besides, I knew I would struggle to make them sound convincing. In truth, my old friend was in a no-win situation. How can you take the word of a mad killer as gospel? This Northcote creature may well have killed Sheila already; if not, he wasn’t going to release her when he’d got his hands on David. What fun he could have torturing Sheila while David was forced to watch. Or vice versa. My heart sank at the thought of this impossible situation. I knew that David was an experienced and intelligent enough policeman to be fully aware, as I was, of the drastic implications of this terrible scenario. His face clearly indicated that this knowledge was tearing him apart. And there was nothing I could say that would alter the situation.

  ‘I need your help’, he said quietly but forcefully.

  I did not have to think about a reply.

  ‘Of course. Whatever I can do.’

  ‘I need you as my shadow tonight. Even if the bastard gets me, perhaps you’ll be able to get him.’

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, I sat hunched over my desk, staring into space, both hands grasping a mug of coffee. I was miserable and I could not believe it. I had started the day with a brightening of the spirit. After the dark months after Max’s death, I felt I was reaching for the light again – normality at least. I had completed the case for Father Sanderson and I’d got myself back on the detective treadmill. Things were looking up. And then came the hammer blow. I had just lost the love of my life and now one of my friends, a man who has been so good to me, was in great danger of losing his.

  Whoever was in charge of our Fate up there needed a good kick in the crotch.

  I broke my reverie to glance at my watch. It was only three thirty. Time goes so slowly when you are waiting. I had great forebodings about that evening’s venture. I did not know how it could end happily. I chided myself for being so negative but the feeling of dark apprehension would not go away.

  On leaving David at lunchtime, I had gone along to Barry Forshaw’s garage to hire a motor for the evening. If I was going to follow David, I needed my own set of wheels. Certainly shank’s pony would not do and equall
y the situation was far too dangerous and uncertain for me to rely on the services of a taxi driver. Barry was an old client of mine. I had extricated him from a forged number plate business when he’d gone in too far. With my help, we exposed the gang and I managed to get Barry a reduced sentence for helping with the arrests and turning King’s evidence. He’s been grateful ever since.

  ‘I have a nice little roadster, you can have,’ he said, leading me into the compound at the back of the garage. The motor certainly looked smart and nippy, but just a little too individual and therefore too noticeable. I needed something that would blend in with the stream of traffic and not catch anyone’s eye. An ordinary motor.

  ‘What about the Wolseley?’ I asked, moving over to a shabby-looking vehicle.

  ‘That old thing. It’s been around the block a few times, I can tell you.’

  ‘Just the kind of crock I’m after. It is roadworthy, I suppose.’

  Barry grinned at my impertinence. ‘Certainly,’ he said, with feigned irritation. ‘I don’t deal in any other kind of motor car.’

  ‘Good. Then I’ll take it. How much?’

  ‘Bring it back in the morning without a scratch on it and a full tank of petrol. How about that?’

  ‘You got a deal.’ We shook hands.

  The car was a bit clunky, but so am I as a driver. I’m in control of a car so infrequently that I remain as rusty at the steering wheel as the mudguards on this old jalopy. I hoped that I was up to my duties for this evening. I drove around for about an hour getting used to the controls and feel of the vehicle before heading home. It certainly was a sturdy drive. Driving this for a month would certainly develop one’s arm muscles.

  I drained my coffee mug, lit a cigarette, and glanced at my watch again. The hands had hardly moved.

  Would this evening ever come?

  Suddenly the rumbling of my tummy alerted me to the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and that consisted of a cup of tea, a scrappy piece of toast and a fag. I needed some grub to help sustain me through the ordeal tonight. I decided to pop down to Benny’s and treat myself to one of his specials. I smiled at the thought. Knowing Benny’s cooking it would hardly be a treat and it certainly wouldn’t be special, but at least it would be warm and I’d have a chance to see the old boy. I felt sure that his banter would help lighten my mood temporarily before setting out off on my evening adventure.