15 Signs Of Murder (Fifteen thrillers)

by Luis Samways

  Thirty-One

  Hamish had been driving for an hour. He was on his way to Ashford cemetery. It was out in the countryside, and he had just turned onto some country roads. They were winding and narrow. Leaves and branches from the trees on both sides of the tight road were brushing against the paintwork on his car. On any other day, he’d be angry at the thought of his car being scratched. But his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking. Thinking hard.

  As he drove, he paid a minimal amount of attention to the long, winding road. He paid just enough attention as to not crash. But his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking of causing damage. Causing pain. His mind was racing with ideas on how to secure the safety of his friend, Demi. At first, he was a little scared by the idea of him racing off to Ashford and saving Demi. But now — now he was excited by it.

  It was a strange sensation. Anticipation. Glee. Fear. Bloodlust. Anger. Remorse. All of those feelings were colliding inside his chest, making him breathe heavy and his hands sweat. He hadn’t killed anyone in ten years. He’d only done it once. The person deserved it. He never got found out for it, so he’d let the memory of it sink into his subconscious.

  He was taking the curves of the country road at speed. But he was thinking hard about his last kill and the feelings he’d experienced once he did it. Hamish didn’t like reliving his past. He had a troubled one, after all, and sometimes troubled memories were best left under boulders, so they can’t be turned, like stones. But on occasions like this, it would help to turn those stones over and relive the painful times. He attempted to do so, but every time he remembered the fateful night when he’d taken that person’s life, the boulder came crashing down and diluted the memory.

  It was no use. He wasn’t going to remember what he did or why he did it. He’d buried it deep, so deep that he couldn’t find it again once he tried. It worried him a little. Knowing that he killed a man but couldn’t remember doing so. People like Donny the Hat killed people and didn’t remember why. Which was understandable, in a sense, seeing as Donny had killed so many. It would be a tremendous task just to remember each one.

  But as Hamish drove, he started to become angry with himself. The trees continued to sway down the country road. The dirt beneath the tires crunched, and the brambles scratched the car’s bodywork. But he was seething. Angrier than he had ever been. He wasn’t Donny the Hat. He hated Donny and everything he stood for. But there he was, memories blank regarding his first kill.

  “I should remember!” he bellowed out of the blue. His voice boomed and echoed off the silence and emptiness inside his car. It was as if his voice was the only sound on those country roads.

  But then the sound of his engine kicked back in, and he could hear again. However, the memory of his first kill still evaded him. He decided right then that he wasn’t going to attempt to remember his past. He’d leave it alone, untouched and undisturbed under the boulders in his memory banks.

  He was ready to make new memories anyway. Fresh ones. Ones he wasn’t afraid to remember. No matter how bloody or how brutal he was going to be toward Donny, he was just fine with remembering every second of it.

  As he continued to drive, he noticed that there was a turn-off on the left of the long, winding road. A sign was placed just before the turn-off. It had two arrows, one pointing straight that read “Ashford,” and the other pointing right, which read “Crewford.” He slowed down a tad and took the right. He knew he was going the wrong way, but he had a special delivery to pick up, so he could afford the diversion.

  After ten minutes driving down yet another country road, he came across a small shack. He recognized it. The shack could be described as an outhouse. But everyone he knew referred to it as “the Shed.”

  He pulled up just outside the Shed and put the gear into neutral, then killed the engine. He sat in the car for a few minutes, staring at the outbuilding’s door. It was made out of wood. The walls were also made out of wood. It had a little porch that was made of decking. It stretched around the whole perimeter of the building. Trees surrounded the Shed, like an enclosure. The birds were singing up high, and the sun was barely visible through the canopy.

  Hamish looked at the clock on the dash. He was on time, but the person he was meeting there wasn’t. He was just about to get out of the car when he heard a vehicle pulling up from behind. He quickly darted his head around the headrest and saw a car coming in behind him. It parked next to the driver’s door. If Hamish wanted to get out, he wouldn’t be able to. They were practically trading paint.

  Hamish quickly rolled down the window. It made a slight screeching sound as it disappeared into the door. The car next to his did the same. It was an inconspicuous car. The same make as Hamish’s. Maybe even the same model. But Hamish didn’t care to check. He was there to do business.

  As the car’s window rolled down completely, he saw the person he was waiting for sitting in the passenger seat. The driver of the other car was wearing sunglasses, but Hamish wasn’t there to speak to the driver. He was there to speak with the passenger.

  “You got the boom stick?” Hamish asked.

  The passenger nodded. He reached down into the foot well and pulled out a plastic bag. It had something short and thick in it. The bag was wrapped up tight.

  “You got the money?” the man asked.

  Hamish reached into his glove compartment and pulled out a wad of Her Majesty’s tender. He flicked the wad out of the window. The man in the passenger seat caught it in one hand and chucked the bag at Hamish with the other. Both cars then suddenly turned their engines on and went their separate ways. The car with the gun seller drove off in the direction Hamish had come from, while Hamish turned right after coming back up on the intersection and made his way to Ashford.

  The plastic bag with the shotgun in it was sitting on the passenger seat. He gave it a few glances as he got nearer to Ashford. He then reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a small carton. Its lid was half torn off. Hamish could see shotgun shells sticking out through the broken lid. In total, there were thirty-two shells in the carton.

  Hamish would only need six. Two shots each. Buckshot to the head.

  He smiled at the thought of him blowing Donny the Hat off the face of the earth. He passed a sign that read “Ashford – 10 miles.”

  It wouldn’t be long until Donny was in orbit.

  Thirty-Two

  DCI Francis and DI Craig were summoned to their station chief’s office. They sat outside the office in a hallway. The experience resembled being called to the head teacher’s office in school. It brought back memories of mischief and uncertainty to Lionel and Amy.

  “Remember in school when we used to get called to Mr. Pritchard’s office on a daily basis?” Lionel asked as they stared at the beige paint that plastered the dank hallway.

  Amy smiled. It did bring memories back to her. Memories she cherished. She and Lionel had come up through their childhood together. They’d spent primary school with each other, and even middle and high school. Then they went to college and finally ended up in the academy together. They’d spent many years by each other’s side. Many nights in each other’s company. But the one thing they hadn’t done together was “it,” and “it” was all Lionel wanted to do with Amy, but she didn’t want to ruin their “friendship.”

  “Being called to the head teacher’s office was a long time ago, Lionel,” she said after a brief episode of silence. She had been thinking a lot about the circumstances surrounding their missing number-one suspect and whether it made her a missing witness or a fugitive. Amy didn’t really care what it made her, but she did care about the reasoning behind her disappearance. None of it made sense.

  “It may have been a long time ago, but it still feels like yesterday,” Lionel said.

  “What?” Amy asked, a little confused.

  “You know, school. It may have been a long time ago, but it still feels like yesterday to me.”

  Amy gave her long-time partner and friend a sm
ile. “Yeah, they say it’s the best time of your life,” she said, her facial expression changing slightly.

  “You didn’t enjoy school?”

  She refrained from answering straight away. She was trying to string the right words together to make a valid statement, but in the end she settled for a simple reply. “Nope. Didn’t enjoy it one bit.”

  Lionel was about to dig a little deeper into his partner’s lack of enjoyment in her school years when the door in front of them, surrounded by the beige paint, opened, and their boss stepped through. He signaled them in with an urgent wave. He didn’t even raise his head to look at them. He was too busy going through something on his phone. They both looked at each other for a split second and then got up. They walked up to the door, and their boss stepped aside to let them through. It was a tight squeeze, but they all got in, and the door shut behind them.

  “Take a seat,” their boss said, still looking at his phone, still ignoring them.

  Lionel and Amy sat and waited a whole minute before their boss so much as said another word. He spent that minute walking around and texting. Then he sat behind his desk and put the phone down. It echoed slightly in the still and quiet room. He then stared at a picture of his wife on his desk. He didn’t touch it, though. He just stared. From what Amy and Lionel could see of the woman, she was a pretty specimen. Long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. The look on their boss’s face suggested that the texting was a distraction from work, a distraction he wasn’t enjoying. It looked like he was having issues at home. But he stopped looking at the picture of his beautiful wife and then gave his undivided attention to the two detectives sitting across from him. He broke into a sincere smile.

  “Don’t look so glum,” he said out of the blue.

  Amy and Lionel looked at him, confused.

  “We’re not glum, sir,” Lionel replied.

  “Well, you could have fooled me. Way I see it, you’re single and carefree. Trust me when I say this — don’t get married, and don’t get divorced.”

  Amy looked a little shocked at the statement and was about to defend her honor when Lionel squeezed her leg to stop her from talking.

  “We aren’t even shagging, sir,” Lionel offered as a joke.

  “Good,” their boss replied.

  A second or two of silence followed, and then it was back to business.

  “What’s this all about, sir?” Lionel asked. Amy was shocked into silence. She got like that often. Easily offended, that is.

  “We have a lead on one of your suspect’s associates. Apparently, he’s the brother of the guy we suspect to be dead. The burnt-out Aston Martin guy. What was his name?”

  “Nathan,” Lionel interjected.

  “Nathan Richards,” Amy reiterated.

  “That’s right. Nathan. His brother is Donny the Hat Harrison. They’re half-brothers or something. I don’t know. Don’t really care, to be honest. Both of them are twats, and both of them would be better off dead. But dead means questions need to be answered. I don’t really care who answers them — I just want them answered. Division won’t stand for unanswered questions, and we can’t just sit on a dead gangster. Especially one with the legend of Donny the Hat as his own brother. That in itself makes this case a whole lot more interesting.”

  “What’s the lead?” Amy asked, feeling a little impatient. Her boss tended to take a while to get to the point.

  “Oh, yes. The lead. Basically, we have CCTV footage of Donny being driven around in a hearse.”

  “A hearse?” Lionel asked.

  “Yeah, one of those meat wagons they use to transport coffins to funerals. They usually have horses attached.”

  “Like a chariot?” Amy asked.

  “Nope. This one is a bog-standard hearse. Four wheels. Vauxhall. Stretched. But that’s beside the point. We find it strange that Donny is being spotted in such a vehicle. Especially since we haven’t located the body of his brother.”

  “Could he be going to his brother’s funeral?” Amy asked.

  “Nope, not until we find the corpse. It’s been removed.”

  “Couldn’t they just have a funeral anyway?”

  “Not without a death certificate, and you can’t get one of them until you produce a body.”

  There was silence in the room for a while. All three of them were thinking hard. Amy was tapping her foot. Lionel was blinking heavily, and their boss was staring at his wife again.

  “So what’s he doing in a damn hearse?” Lionel asked angrily.

  “Maybe somebody else’s funeral? An associate or something,” Amy offered.

  “You’re on the right track. But personally, I believe he’s driving your suspect around in the back of the coffin. I believe he’s about to bury her alive.”

  Lionel and Amy looked at each other and then back at their boss.

  “But what makes you think that?” Amy asked.

  Their boss didn’t answer straight away. All he did was get up from his chair behind the desk and point at his phone. Amy and Lionel looked confused for a second or two. But then they clicked.

  “Someone ratted him out?” Lionel asked.

  “Bingo!” their boss said.

  “Who would do that? Somebody with a death wish, obviously,” Amy said.

  Their boss nodded and said, “It was Donny’s driver. We have him on our payroll. He grasses all the time. The guy’s pretty much responsible for tipping us off on Nathan’s disappearance. He sees himself as a good guy. But the thing is, this guy is just as crooked as Donny. I think he’s ratting him out because of something deeper. Something that we aren’t picking up. Maybe he wants to take over from Donny.”

  Amy shook her head and said, “But surely if he’s grassing for you, then you have dirt on him. Once he’s served his purpose, then you lock him up and throw away the key.”

  “That’s where it gets hazy. We have nothing on this guy. Not even a damn name. The guy grasses because he wants to. He’s as clean as a whistle.”

  All three of them went silent once again until Lionel spoke up.

  “So what did he say Donny was planning on doing to her besides burying her alive? Anything else?”

  “Not really. He just said we ought to get down there fast. It could be our chance to catch him red-handed and send him down for a long time.”

  “So what are we waiting for?” Amy asked.

  That was when their boss shook his head and sat back down. He caught another glimpse of his wife in the photo frame and sighed loudly.

  “The grass says he doesn’t think Donny will go quietly. He thinks he’ll go out shooting and force us to shoot back. And I don’t know if it’s worth the risk. I’d rather see him in prison than in the ground. Plus, I don’t want to risk the lives of any of our men.”

  “So we’re just going to let him bury our number-one suspect?” Lionel asked.

  Their boss didn’t answer. He just sighed once again and looked back blankly at Lionel and Amy.

  “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t like. Sometimes we need to sacrifice something for the greater good. It pains me to say this, but at the moment, the Met aren’t prepared to sacrifice jail time for the Hat versus the life of some low-class bimbo killer.”

  Thirty-Three

  Demi could hear the sound of shovels hitting dirt. She could also hear the sound of faint chatter coming from her ex-boss and his stooges. They sounded jovial and were enjoying the experience. She was not. The air was getting thicker, and she was feeling faint. The anger she was experiencing was bubbling in the pit of her stomach. She wanted nothing more than to burst out of the coffin and break their necks. She wanted them to die for doing what they had done to her. She didn’t think she deserved to be locked away in a room, covered in her own feces, and then put in a coffin and threatened to be buried alive. All she had done was defend herself. Nathan was going to rape her. He was going to hurt her. In fact, he had hurt her. He had punched her. Twice. Really hard. What else was she supposed to do? Take it? />
  Demi wasn’t the “taking it” type. She was the “make them pay” type. If somebody hurts her, she hurt them back. And right now, all she was feeling was hurt. So she had a whole lot of hurt to dish back out.

  “I’m going to kill all of you!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “Just wait! I’m going to make you wish you never did this to me! You hear me, Donny? You want to know how much your brother cried and whimpered as I killed him? He begged like a little bitch. ‘Oh, please, Demi. Please don’t hurt me!’ Not so brave, was he?” Demi screamed.

  The sound of shovels hitting dirt ceased for a second or two. Then came the sound of approaching footsteps. Demi braced herself. She thought that she was going to be shot through the coffin. Maybe Donny would grow tired of her threats and screaming, and empty a clip into the cheap wood she was encased in.

  “Go on, then! Do it! Kill me, Donny! Just like I killed your dumb fuck of a brother!”

  Silence followed. All she could hear was her heavy breathing. She reached for her oxygen and inhaled. Her feet and hands were free, but she was so weary that she couldn’t quite move them. She thought that maybe she only had one last bit of effort in her before her body broke down into nothing and she finally died. She didn’t want to waste it on getting angry, but she needed to vent her frustrations. It was all she had left. That, and the box she was in.

  “Can you hear me in there?” a faint voice said. It was coming from above her, behind the coffin lid. It was Donny, and he wasn’t using the walkie-talkie. He was tapping on the wood above her, as if he was knocking. “Hello?” she heard him say.

  She punched the lid above her. Her fist buckled on impact, and her wrist bent at an angle. She screamed in pain.

  “Oh, good. You’re there. I just wanted to let you know that we’re about halfway there to getting you into your new home. I hope you enjoy peace and quiet, because I’m afraid there isn’t much going on six feet under. Maybe you’ll get lucky and befriend one of the worms that will be munching on your dead skin. I hope I’m the last thing you see when you take your final breath. I want you to see my face as you close your eyes. I want you to scream for me as your heart goes out of whack and finally gives in.”