What must THAT look like? He thought briefly, picturing how it would look on TV, the press conference from hell with the funny little OCD man losing control.
Walters had taken the Microphone and was telling everyone they would call the press conference to a close if they didn’t calm down. It didn’t seem to make a difference.
This was all playing in the background to Lentus though, as he was squinting against the lights and watching what was happening between Shanks and another man. He watched Shanks throw a punch at the man who had toppled over onto him. At least that’s what he assumed. The growing crowd of inquisitive people continued to grow and surge behind them.
All the time he watched, the crowd behind was either falling over, also unable to fight the momentum of the crowd pushing forward to see what was going on; or they were fighting back, pushing against the human tide. This was happening all around the press area, the noise levels having brought more people, all trying to push to the front. The few police stationed on the peripherals were soon unable to hold this human wall back and public merged into press. All hell proceeded to break loose.
Gavin, meanwhile, had lost the plot. The man he had punched took it on the chin. Gavin held him up with one hand, bunching his coat in his fist; and Lentus watched him hit him twice more, and then a third time. Then a final time.
He watched the man’s head rock back with each punch, and then, his face seemed to change and the scene slow down for Lentus.
As if suddenly filled with energy where he had been on the verge of unconsciousness, the man took hold of Shanks’ fists, the one grabbing his coat and the one that had been punching him and twisted them, hard. The balance had suddenly, tangibly twisted and Lentus saw it happen.
Even over the shouts and the pandemonium Lentus was sure he heard Gavin’s cry. Then he watched, as if in slow motion, as the unknown man grabbed DC Shank’s jacket collars, lean back and then head-butt him full in the face. Shanks seemed to go limp, like a doll, but was held up by his victim-turned-assailant.
The man turned his head, and looked at Lentus directly in the eye; through the moving, swarming bodies, the flashing lights and the cacophony of noise. Blood was splattered across his face, he smiled at Lentus, showing reddened teeth. But it was the eyes, Lentus was to try to explain to people afterwards. The eyes were pure evil. Not a hint of compassion in them, just pure, keen hatred and a maniacal glee at what he was about to do under the noses of them all. It had to be him.
Chapter 53
Polly was once again by his side, and went through the routine once more as she spat out her fingers and thumbs, dried blood calmly falling to the floor once again.
‘Lenny! It’s him, I’m sure it’s him. He’s returned to the scene of his last crime. Hurry, catch the bastard!’
She looked at him, and whether there or not, her big eyes were full of love and trust. He had failed to protect her the first time. He had failed as her brother.
Lentus thought his heart would burst as he looked at his dead Sister. Then, emboldened by the rage, the sheer anger of his only family being so cruelly taken from him; he jumped into action. He grabbed Walters by the arm and shouted in his ear, trying to be heard over the din, ‘Someone’s just assaulted Gavin! Over there.’
‘What?’ Walters shouted back, barely audible over the riot that was happening around them.
Chairs were toppling, lights crashing to the ground as angry press fought off people they thought were attacking them, when all they were doing was being pushed from behind.
Lentus again pointed over to where DC Shanks was being dragged through the crowd, the maniac using his back to plough through those around him. Shouts and screams added to the soundtrack of the malevolent scene unfolding before them.
They watched for a split second, the bloody grin and dark devilish eyes looking directly at them, walking backwards, dragging the unconscious and limp Shanks with him. And then he was swallowed up in the crowd of surging and moving bodies, all running here and there, prompting them into action.
As one, they vaulted the tables they were still stood behind and ran, shouting, after them, into the crowd. He barely noticed that there were still some flashes popping in his eyes, pictures still being taken by those not overcome with the panic that seemed to have gripped the assembled throng.
The further they got, the more hysteria seemed to be abating, and people were seeing sense and starting to disperse away rather than towards the scrum.
This aided Lentus and Walters, who suddenly found themselves in relative calm and the sounds of Christmas carols pumping from the speakers in the entrance to the Shopping Centre. However, their prey was nowhere to be seen.
Where were his other policemen? Sorting it out in there, he realised. He cursed himself for not calling for more to follow them, but could waste no more time. There were now only two of them and they had to act fast, so as cliché as Lentus realised it was, they had to split up. There were only two directions the freak could have gone to have disappeared from sight so quickly. One direction was inside, into the still open shopping centre, and the other was in the opposite direction, out of their eye line and back around and behind the crowd they had just exited from.
‘Walters, go that way!’ he pointed towards the latter of the choices, ‘I’ll check inside’.
‘Yes, Guv! Be careful.’ Then DC Mark Walters ran off, searching here and there, head bobbing and look left then right.
Lentus ran towards the building. He had two options. Into the Shopping Centre directly, or into the toilets which also had a door into the mall. He ran up towards the main doors but something caught the attention of his peripheral vision. There was a streak of red on the door frame of the entrance to the men’s toilets.
Got you, fucker! He thought, a spike of triumph in him that was short lived when he realised he actually had nothing to defend himself with, let alone detain the bastard when he finally got him.
Shit.
He looked around for something, anything nearby that would serve as a weapon. If he could just knock him out, he could use his belt temporarily as a restraint. A few feet away, by the shrubs and bushes that were near to the benches was a bin. He rushed over to it, picked it up and unceremoniously emptied it on the floor. Conscious that he was wasting valuable time, he kicked aside the various detritus until he saw something that would do. An empty glass wine bottle.
He picked it up, contemplated smashing it on the brick surround of the soil area housing the bushes, then decided a knocked out murderer would be better than a stabbed one, despite what he felt like doing to him. As ‘Last Christmas’ started over the speakers, he noticed that a few press had found him and cameras were trained on him. He stood by the door, looked at them, and put his finger to his lips to ensure their silence.
Right, George Lentus. Time to step up, lad. He thought in his original Yorkshire accent.
He gripped the neck of the empty wine bottle and pushed open the door.
Chapter 54
The toilets stank. It was the end of a busy day and they had obviously yet to be cleaned. It was nothing though. Just a stench. There were more important things to worry about.
Like his Sister’s killer. So near now. Was this the showdown, finally?
He surveyed the room. To his right was a row of sinks. Also on the right hand side was a line of six urinals. Above them was some mindless graffiti and the standard array of spit and giant bogies.
On the left hand side, before the other door that entered into the shopping centre, were four cubicles, all with their doors closed. Lentus heard a shuffle behind him and swung round, bottle wielded. It was the reporters, being a pain in the arse and doing their jobs. They were filming him! He didn’t have time to do anything more than silently shoo them away, then hush them again when he realised that there was zero chance of them fucking off.
He walked over to the first cubicle, and braced himself. He used the bottle to push open the door then swing up his arm ready to at
tack with it should the need arise. It was empty.
He backed out of the first cubicle and faced the second, once again steeling himself. He pushed the door open again, to be faced once more with a disgusting soiled, yet empty cubicle.
He heard something shuffle in the next stall. His heart leapt into his mouth and his pulse raced as adrenalin pumped through his body. He was going to get him, he was hiding in the next toilet.
DI George Lentus stood outside the third cubicle. The third. He tapped the bottle twice against his leg. Then twice more. Then again.
He was giddy with adrenaline yet his senses were crystalline and clear as he looked at the cubicle door. He held his breath and held out the shaking bottle in his hand, then pushed on the door with the glass base of the bottle. It wasn’t locked, but it refused to open fully. Something was in its way.
The shuffle came again, then a gurgling, bubbling sound.
COME ON LENTUS, he urged himself
He kicked the door, the door that had been knocking against DC Gavin Shanks’ foot. Once past the heel of his shoe, the door banged against the wall of the next cubicle and stayed open. Shanks’ body acted as a door stop.
Lentus groaned as he took it in.
Shanks was half slumped and half sat, propped up between the toilet and the cubicle wall. His face was a bloody pulp, covered in gore, teeth and shit. Judging from the state of the porcelain of the toilet, his face had been repeatedly hammered against it. There was hair and flesh attached to it. Shit that must have already been on the rim had dents in it, filled with blood.
The last of the air in his body was bubbling out through what was left of his face, but there was no life left in him. The eye left in its socket, and the one hanging from the broken socket were both lifeless. His jaw hung, broken, and his police ID wallet was in what you could call a mouth.
‘Someone call an ambulance’ he said to the press, who carried on filming and taking pictures. Lentus knew it was too late, but screamed again ‘CALL A FUCKING AMBULANCE, INJURED POLICEMAN!’
This prompted some action, one of them pulling out a mobile phone. Lentus couldn’t help but think that whoever finally did it, would come across the Samaritan.
Whatever. He looked at the visceral scene before him. Flesh, blood, bone, shit, hair, teeth. Shanks deserved a better death than this. This was fucking low.
The sob came from him, and he didn’t even realise he’d been crying. He sobbed again. He couldn’t stop it, his shoulders hitching from them as they came in wave after wave.
He was crying for them all. For Polly. For Shanks. For all the other victims. He was crying as he realised he had almost had him, but had been lured, unprepared, into a premature showdown. He had had him and then he had slipped through his fingers.
The flashes continued behind him and the click and whir of cameras. The fuckers were still on it. In a rage, still crying, he grabbed the door and after prising it from behind Gavin’s arm, the only thing holding it closed; he slammed it in the faces of the press.
And there it was, on the back of the now closed door. In blood, written with a fingertip:
GOOD LUCK LENTUS
Underneath, too uniform to be anything but contrived, there it was. A perfectly formed fingerprint in the blood of DC Shanks.
Chapter 55
Underneath the security checked, screened and carefully opened jiffy bag that had arrived in that morning’s post, the old, scuffed and now nearly unused VCR creaked and whirred as the videotape played its message once again.
Lentus stared at the screen of the TV, the burning eyes seeming to jump out from the balaclava that hid the rest of his features. Only a dark background, dimmed lights and a head and shoulders were visible. No clues as to where it was filmed. Only the maniac’s eyes seeming to drill into Lentus’ soul, staring right into the camera.
He had already played the tape a multitude of times, each time hearing something new, each time his blood running cold. This man was not going to stop, and had thus far remained completely anonymous and uncaptured on film as well as in person.
He heard Polly spit the fingers out, ‘He’s craving attention Lenny, he’s going to slip up’.
And now he had the fingerprint. He had a location where he had been where he could surely find clues, or at least near there. A camera at the press conference, or on a street or in a shop nearby surely had captured some image, something more than the memory of his form glimpsed through a crowd, or this image of his unrepentant eyes. Surely.
He looked at Polly, sat at his side; just his subconscious and not a ghost. He looked at her ravaged features as the recorded final words are delivered again, echoing around the room as the tape whirs on.
‘My turning was swift, and unsubtle. It began in a way that many people experience. I just dealt with it differently….
………and then I just turned, DI Lentus. And I don’t intend to stop.’
To be continued.
Acknowledgements
I’ve always looked forward to this bit. I owe people some words.
Thank you, reader. I hope you’ve enjoyed this first offering, and that you will move on to reading the two further books in the trilogy, which will be out as soon as possible.
Thanks go to the ex-girlfriend that royally screwed me over way, way back and made me angry enough to write that first chapter. Thanks go to Sam Duffin for her life coaching and support, as well as to Pamela Wyles who kicked my arse to get on with it. Thanks, la, to Bozatron for her early ideas and positivity. Also to my Dad and Mum who have always been there through my screw ups. Same to my Sister, I hope this makes you poo.
Thanks to all those that read snippets and gave feedback, all of whom feature in this book or will in the next two. Thanks to Valerie Worboys who proof read the whole darn thing, Tommy Phillips for the book cover and Kyle Sherwood for pictorial help too numerous to list.
Thanks to Countdown Books, namely Ian Jefferies and Paul Hallam who made it possible to get this bad boy published. Thanks to my terrible stutter that made me read grown up books to learn alternative words so that I could avoid the linguistic pitfalls. Also to James Herbert, Stephen King and Clive Barker that helped me through my journey.
Special thanks to Vicky Phillips, who has put up with me banging on about this forever.
Finally, I’d like to dedicate this to my recently departed cousin, Damon Chambers. Miss you, mate.
Paul David Chambers
November 2014
Manners Cost Everything (Manners Trilogy Book 1) Page 17