15 Signs Of Murder (Fifteen thrillers)

by Luis Samways

  “How much longer until we get to the other scene you told us about?” Lionel asked as he tagged along behind the old-looking farmer who had stopped them in the middle of the road earlier.

  “Maybe five minutes. Depends how quickly your feet move,” the farmer replied.

  “Great,” Lionel heard Amy say from behind him. He turned to smile at her, but she was looking at the ground. She had a scornful look on her face. He could tell that she wasn’t in the mood to be walking, let alone taking orders from a decrepit old-timer farmer.

  “What’s your thoughts on the coffin, then?” the farmer asked, still leading the way. They were walking down a dirt road. It seemed to go on for miles. Straight ahead, with no end in sight.

  “It’s a coffin, that much we can tell,” Amy offered in response. The farmer spat on the ground and started to mumble. Amy was a little disgusted by it and made sure that she didn’t step on his spit.

  “I know it’s a coffin and all, but what are your thoughts on it? I mean, why would he be burying someone out there? And why did whoever was in that coffin smash a hole in the top and go walkies? Dead people don’t punch their way out of coffins,” the farmer said, stepping over some medium-sized pebbles that were scattered on the sides of the road. To Lionel, the road appeared never ending. The night air was making him feel wobbly, and the darkness was filling his mind with thoughts of dread. It was safe to say that he wasn’t really in the mood to be answering questions from an inquisitive farmer, no matter how much of a help he had been in tracking down the bodies. So he let Amy answer once again.

  “I can’t really say how she escaped,” Amy offered in response, soon realizing she’d said too much. She stepped over some rocks this time, nearly tripping over one of them, but she steadied herself on Lionel’s shoulder. He didn’t acknowledge it at all. He just left her be. He was in a world of his own, thinking about thick duvets and double pillows. He didn’t have time to be worrying about the rocks on the ground.

  “So the person in the coffin was a woman?” the farmer asked, momentarily stopping dead in the road and turning to face his official guests.

  “We can’t really say too much more. We’ve said enough as it is,” Amy said, feeling a little frustrated at herself for spilling the beans so easily.

  “Wow, didn’t know the woman had it in her,” the farmer said, stepping over a rather large puddle. Lionel did the same, but Amy was too busy trying to decipher what he meant and ended up knee high in water. She cursed and stepped out of the large pothole-like puddle and continued to walk. Neither Lionel nor the farmer acknowledged her misstep. They knew all too well that she wasn’t in the mood for light ribbing.

  “What do you mean, you didn’t know she had it in her? It sounds like you know who was in there,” Amy said, her feet making squelching sounds as the water sluiced off her lower body.

  The farmer turned around and stopped. He smiled and spat on the ground once again.

  “Dear, everybody knows what happened in that field. I’m surprised you guys are the only ones who don’t know!” he said, turning back around. He began to walk once again, but this time he took a left. Lionel and Amy followed, and they all made their way through a clearing in a bush. Tire marks scarred the dirt road beneath them. Bits of grass and chunks of soil lay on the ground, resembling some sort of explosion. As they walked through the clearing, they appeared in a field. Lionel followed the tread marks from where he was standing all the way down to a barn in the distance. The marks rolled down the hill and became two sets of marks at the bottom. A car sat next to the barn. Another one seemed to have crashed in the bushes near the other car.

  “A lot to take in,” the farmer mentioned as he continued to walk.

  “Talking of a lot to take in, enlighten us on your theory that everybody knows what happened in your field,” Lionel said. It was the first thing he’d said for a while. It caught Amy off guard. She was used to being the talker out of the two of them. Sometimes Lionel would say his piece, but mostly he remained quiet.

  “As I said, everybody knows what happened. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what happened,” the farmer said.

  “As I said, enlighten us.”

  The farmer stopped. They were halfway down the field now, edging even closer to the barn. He turned around and looked at Lionel, who was still the closest to him. Amy was waddling behind. Her jeans felt heavy because of the extra weight from her little swim in the pothole earlier.

  “Look, Detectives. We are simple folk down here. We stay out of people’s ways. We don’t say too much, just in case we speak out of line. We know when to keep our mouths shut. It’s an art that most simple people learn. But don’t mistake simple for stupid. We hear the whispers going around. We know what the gossips are saying, and we certainly know that Donny the Hat wanted revenge for his brother’s murder.”

  Amy looked surprised. “You guys heard about that down here?” she asked.

  “Yeah, we did. And we also heard that he had some woman hostage for it. Some killer. Something Reynolds.”

  Amy shook her head in disbelief. “Why didn’t you call the police?” she asked.

  The farmer smiled and spat on the ground again. It revolted Amy some, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Because I didn’t want to be the next person on his list to bury. Plus, rumors aren’t proof of anything. People talk, and sometimes I listen. It doesn’t mean it’s true.”

  Lionel smiled and said, “Well, this time it was true. So in the future, when you hear rumors regarding London gangsters and hit women, then please be my guest and dial 999.”

  The farmer grinned and turned back around. “Besides, I called you as soon as I found dead people on my land. So I did my part, and now it’s time for you to do yours.”

  Amy looked at the back of Lionel’s head. They were still walking in a single file toward the barn. As it loomed closer, she knew that whatever lay in there was going to blow the whole thing wide apart.

  She was ready to put an end to this. She was ready to find Demi Reynolds.

  Forty-Eight

  Demi had been driving for an hour or so. She was on her way to her bug-out spot. Somewhere deep down in a Kentish forest, she had hidden a bag with passports, money, and documents. She knew that she’d one day need that bag. She just didn’t know the circumstances behind it. But now they were as clear as day, staring her straight in the face. She needed to get out of the country and forge a life someplace else. She couldn’t afford to allow herself to be captured. It wouldn’t do her any good being locked up in prison. Demi wasn’t built to be caged. She was built to be free. To roam free and do what she pleased. But all that changed when she entered the killing game.

  Part of her thought that being a hit woman would help her be free. In a sense, it did. She was free from being a law-abiding citizen. But many might see it differently. Sometimes even she did. She was trapped. She was shackled by greed and money. She didn’t stand for anything. Until now, that is. Now she stood for justice, and she liked it more than money. She didn’t feel like she needed to mourn the people she killed today. It was all done out of necessity. She didn’t feel one ounce of remorse. And it felt good.

  As she drove, the terrain around her changed from concrete to marsh. Marsh to trees. Trees to forest. She was nearing her bug-out spot. It had been two years since she had visited the area. She told herself that she would do so to check that the contents of her stash were untouched. The last thing she wanted was for her bug-out bag to end up in the wrong hands. None of the documents contained her real name, obviously, but they did contain her likeness. Her image. Somebody could easily put two and two together and get four. She wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

  In the past when she’d visited her spot to check on the bag, she would go to extra lengths as to not be followed. She’d take three days off. Travel to Kent. Go to the nearest village. Get a hotel. Visit the Winston Churchill estate and then make her way to her bug-out bag. She made sure she did thi
s religiously, even coming to Kent and not checking on the bag. She had been building herself a motive. A motive to visit this area. When people asked where she had been when she returned, she could tell them truthfully that she’d visited Kent. That she’d gone to see the house that Churchill lived in when the Second World War was at its peak. They’d shrug it off, but little did they know she was doing more than that. She was preparing for her safety.

  Demi looked at the clock on her dash. It was now 8 a.m. There was a fog in the air. It was hovering over the tarmac as she drove toward her destination. The tarmac below her car soon morphed into woodland as she made a turn. The suspension from the 4x4 bounced her up and down. The road behind her signified danger as she glanced at it through the rearview mirror. She looked straight ahead through the windshield and cast her mind back to the last time she’d driven down these parts. It didn’t take long for her to begin to recognize the lay of the land. Fragments of her past visits pulsed through her mind. The woodland dirt road began to narrow, and something in her head told her to make a left. So she did. She turned into a small clearing that stretched for a mile or two. She headed straight down the clearing, passing trees and bushes at thirty miles an hour. The farther she went, the more still the air became. The fog had risen to the tops of the trees like a blanket trying to capture the sun and shield it from these parts.

  It was a dark place. A place that would suit the desolate of mind and the depraved. She didn’t like being in these parts, but that was where her ticket to freedom was lying, and it wouldn’t be long before she had it in her hands.

  The clearing changed from a wide-open space to a narrow line of trees. The fog had risen higher and the sun was gone, making the air seem moist and smell of greenery. She pulled up to the foreboding line of trees and turned the engine off. She didn’t waste any time. She got out of the car and trudged through the thick undergrowth that coated the forest floor. The sounds of birds chirping and other animals screeching echoed in the atmosphere. It made the area seem dangerous, and in truth it was. But she didn’t care for the wildlife. As far as she was concerned, anything that wanted to eat her could go right ahead and do it. But if they weren’t going to get it over and done with now, then to hell with it. She had things to do and couldn’t be worrying about such trivial matters.

  She made her way toward the line of trees. The 4x4 she came in sat behind her. She could hear the metal creaking as the cold air interacted with its warm surface. She stood there for a long while and stared at the trees. She counted from left to right. Two minutes later she was done. There were eighty-nine trees in total. They were all positioned next to each other. She was looking for tree number thirty-three. The number had no significance to her other than being the number belonging to the tree that held her ticket to freedom.

  By her count, she was standing next to tree number thirteen, so she made her way past the twenty insignificant trees until she reached her tree. When she did, she stood there for a while and admired it. The tree wasn’t anything special compared to its friends next to it. The tree was big like the others. It had bark like the others. It had no leaves because it was autumn, and was old like the rest of them. That’s why she’d chosen that tree. It was just like the majority of trees out there. Forgotten by most. Left alone for hundreds of years. Not thought about twice. But Demi, on the other hand, had thought about this tree a lot. In fact, it was all she could think about. Some nights it kept her up. But now she was there, ready to find out whether the tree had kept its secret.

  Whether it had kept her secret.

  She got down on one knee and searched with her eyes for something. For a split second she didn’t see it, and broke into a panic. But then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw what she was looking for. It didn’t stand out much because it was just a rock. But to Demi it wasn’t any rock. It was the Rock. And not the professional wrestler. But something bigger and badder. It was the rock where she’d chose to hide her ticket to freedom. She hadn’t spent much time picking a rock, but she chose that one. And now it was the only rock she cared about.

  “There you are, baby,” she muttered under her breath.

  She reached for the rock and closed her eyes in anticipation. She lifted the rock and opened her eyes back up. Demi looked down and saw what was under the rock and sighed. There were leaves. She brushed them off. Under the leaves was a plank of plywood. She hoisted it out of the ground. Under that was some soil. She dug for ten seconds and then saw what she had come all this way for. Lying there untouched and undisturbed was a see-through bag containing money, passports, and paper. She took out the bag and brushed it off. She didn’t open it to check inside. She knew that was pointless. Someone wouldn’t pick and choose what to steal. They’d just take all of it.

  Demi got back up and turned on her heels. She didn’t notice, but in doing so, she managed to drop something. It fell out of her pocket with a light thud. She didn’t hear it, though. She was too busy breathing heavily. She didn’t think twice about hanging around. Demi ran to her car and opened the door. She jumped in and fired the engine up. She placed the see-through bag in the glove compartment. By the time she began reversing, it had started to rain. As she drove away, she was in a good mood. For the first time in weeks, she was smiling. She hadn’t forgotten about the events that had happened to her, but she knew that she was on the other side of them for the first time. So that thought made her smile. Little did she know that she wouldn’t be smiling for long. Because as she drove off at speed, mud flicking off her tires, she was unaware that lying next to tree number thirty-three was the handgun she’d used to kill the men back at the barn.

  And a little rain shower wasn’t going to wash off those prints.

  Forty-Nine

  DCI Francis walked into the barn first. She got tired of waiting and pushed past the farmer and Lionel. She wasn’t in the mood to be patient. All she wanted to do was examine the scene and track Demi down.

  As she walked into the barn, the musty smell of gunpowder and damp mixed in the air. It made her cough a few times. She looked up and saw the ceiling of the barn ascend and curve on both sides. Long beams of wood on either side were littering the air with dust. The old, brittle lumber was polluting the air. Amy covered her mouth and scanned her immediate area. She saw two wooden support beams in front of her. Each of them was spaced out a few meters. They were both riddled with bullet holes. She was just about to get a closer look at the beams when she heard her foot step into something squelchy. She looked down and saw a pool of blood. A man lay on the ground, right in the entrance to the barn. She hadn’t clocked him before. She was too preoccupied with whatever was shedding off the beams above her head.

  “Second body,” she heard someone say from behind her.

  Amy turned around and saw her partner’s face come out of the shadows, followed by his body.

  “What?” she asked.

  “That’s the second body. We nearly missed the other. It’s outside, lying in the long grass next to that clapped-out banger. Must have taken a shot to the head, seeing his skull is split in two.”

  She nodded at Lionel and pointed at the body near her feet. “Looks like the same story with this guy,” she said.

  “Whoever killed these men seemed to be pretty handy with a heater.”

  “I concur,” another voice said.

  They both turned around and saw the farmer standing by the barn doors. He was gazing in expectantly. Amy gave him a look, and he tipped his hat and walked away. He walked around the barn and leant on its side. He tilted his hat and shaded his eyes from the morning sun. The farmer waited there until they were done.

  “I hate that guy,” Amy said once he was out of earshot.

  “He doesn’t seem too bad. It could be worse,” Lionel offered.

  “How?” Amy asked.

  “He could be you!”

  Amy shoved her partner playfully and turned back around. She stepped over the body in the entrance. The sound of the soil below her tur
ned from squelchy to dusty within a few paces. It then returned to squelchy once again. She looked down and saw another pool of blood. A big one this time. It was near the first support beam. She noticed the beam was peppered with holes. Looked like shotgun shells had been let off in the barn.

  “Red buckshot case,” Lionel said from behind her. She turned around and saw him picking up a shell casing with the nib of a pen. He held it up for her to see and then bagged and tagged it. She turned back around and thought about making her way around the support beam that had been peppered by shotgun shells. Amy pondered for a while but then decided to put a brave face on. She wasn’t good with dead bodies. But for some reason, she’d decided to become a homicide detective. She’d thought it would curb her problem with the dead, but in actual fact, it made it worse. Besides, she couldn’t do anything about it now. It was done. She was a detective and had to deal with the dead. So that’s what she was doing. Dealing with the dead.

  “You okay?” she heard Lionel ask from behind her. She ignored him and made her way around the severely shot-up timber support beam. As she did so, she heard the squelching under her feet intensify. She cleared the beam at a forty-five-degree angle and was met by the source of the massive pool of blood.

  “Two dead bodies. One gut shot and the other a head shot. The gut-shot guy is a big guy. Somehow, he doesn’t seem to fit the same dress style as the other three dead men in the barn,” Amy offered as she knelt down and examined the big guy behind the pillar. Lionel did the same, but he examined the man next to the big guy. They were spaced apart, so Amy knew that they had been killed separately. Judging by the angle, the dead body in the entrance was responsible for one of those two men’s deaths, if not both.