Power and Control

by Robert H Wilde

  “Did you know if you break a cola can right you can produce surgical sharp metal?”

  “Thanks, Lindleman. Next time I need to kill myself during a picnic I’ll know what to do.”

  “Hello?”

  A man had appeared. He was a builder, and you didn’t need any great skills to see that as he was wearing a plaster covered overall.

  “Hi, I’m DI Sharma?”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah, you wanted to talk to me?”

  “Please, sit down, can we get you a drink?”

  “Would murder a brew.”

  The builder couldn’t see Lindleman’s face, which was smirking at the choice of words.

  When the tea was served, Sharma began. “We believe you’ve done some work for the elders of your church?”

  “Yeah, yeah, always happy to help. I’m good at my trade, got the best tools, quality work.”

  “And you didn’t have any problems with the elders? Specifically, Quince and Cribb?”

  The man’s face was a battleground, as he tried to bury something seemingly awful. “No, it was all fine.”

  “So, if we said we have an email from you to them, alleging a non-payment…”

  “Erm… we had a disagreement. But it’s nothing for the cops.”

  “What was the disagreement?”

  “Do I have to answer? Do I need a lawyer?”

  “You’re welcome to pause this and get one, but we’re not accusing you. We’re just establishing the problems you’ve faced in your business.”

  “Look, I’ve had trouble. I can’t deny I’ve argued with the elders, I guess there’s loads of witnesses and that. And yeah, I emailed my complaints. I’m owed money. But they’re my elders, so I don’t have no criminal complaints, yeah? No need to police this. I’m handling it.”

  Sharma sighed. He really was so tied into the church he would not turn to the police even as his business faced total collapse. The church had their nails dug into him. Question is, would he kill? It didn’t look like it.

  “Is that a company of cleaners?” Grayling asked, looking at a white van.

  “Yep, looks like it,” Susan confirmed.

  “Let’s hope they aren’t thorough,” Maruma said as the trio exited the car and walked over. “Hello, hello, cleaner?”

  “Subtle,” Grayling noted.

  “Yes?” a woman said appearing with an actual mop.

  “I’m DC Maruma, and these are my colleagues and we have to ask you to stop cleaning please.”

  “Wha… why?”

  “This property belongs to Harry Webb, right?”

  “Yes, our employer.”

  “We have a warrant to enter and search these premises, so you can go home for the day. Still charge him but go home.”

  Seeing a chance for a fag and some coffee while being paid, the two cleaners hastily packed up and left, leaving the detectives and Susan stood in a hallway.

  “Split up and search?”

  “Aye,” Grayling said. She went in search of an office or some such, and while she didn’t find a dedicated room, she did discover a large bedroom with the sleeping arrangements at one end, and a desk set up at the other. The drawers could be easily opened by her gloved hand, and there was a computer which would be seized and studied. But that wasn’t what caught her interest.

  “Susan, come here.”

  The sound of footsteps, “Yes?”

  “Most people don’t have safes in walls or places to hide stuff. They don’t even have convenient loose floorboards on the edges of carpet. Most people have to hide stuff in believable places, so the fact one drawer of this filing cabinet is locked, and the others aren’t is making me wonder.

  Maruma grinned, appearing up the stairs, “there’s a spare set of keys hanging in the kitchen.”

  A little bit of testing keys and a small one unlocked the drawer. It opened to reveal a line of files hanging off their little hooks, but if you pulled them forward and looked behind, there were things tucked into the back.

  Grayling lifted out a small red book labelled ‘journal’. A flick showed neat hand-written sections and there was a name inscribed in the front.

  “Jonathan Stewart,” Susan said aloud. “You were right Sol, there was a diary.”

  “And what have we here?” Grayling said as she pulled out a page of the journal which was laying folded in the cabinet.

  THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF JONATHAN ‘J-STEW’ STEWART

  “Well, well, well, Harry Webb went into the deceased’s room, took the diary and the will and buggered off without telling anyone or getting help. Just as we thought,” Grayling grinned. “This has gone from borderline legal therapy to evidence we can nail him on. Wick owes us a cake for ever doubting us.”

  “A cake?” Susan asked Grayling.

  “Well of course a cake. We don’t do stickers on a wall chart, we do cakes.”

  “Stickers are healthier,” Maruma noted.

  “I have a great metabolism, which runs on sugar.”

  Quince was pacing round his office in a circle which had begun to make a mark on the carpet. An empty bottle laid on his desk, but not wine, he’d moved beyond that, this was an empty whiskey bottle. He didn’t even like the taste, but he did like the way it cut through him like fire while wrapping him in a fog. You didn’t know your decision making was impaired, you just thought you had a terrible clarity. But yes, yes, he had some plans.

  He was juggling three issues. The first was someone had killed Cribb and you couldn’t rule out them wanting to kill Quince too. That made him check all his doors at night, lock in extra security, wander round constantly looking over his shoulder. That was a problem which had to be solved. Then there was the evidence of the elder’s misdoings, which might be a terrible problem if the police discovered it as they surely could. That was also a problem which had to be solved.

  Yet no solutions presented themselves. The third problem, however, had an out. The police were looking into the conversion classes, which Quince had helped organise. If the evidence of those could vanish then one of the three problematic legs would be kicked away. As he paced, as he drank, as he sank into the addled fake logic of a paranoid human, the problem seemed to present the answer. He needed Webb gone, problem solved, and there was an obvious way to get rid of him.

  Quince strode out of his office, through a side door and into the car park, where he got into his vehicle and drove it even though he’d passed the legal limit quite a while ago. No one stopped him, they must all be busy with criminals or so he thought, and he soon hammered on a door and woke up Stuart.

  “Hey boss.”

  “I need you to do something for me.”

  “Yeah, sure boss, anything.”

  Quince barged past and went into the kitchen, where he leaned on a table.

  Front door closed; Stuart nodded.

  “I want you to remove Harry Webb from the picture.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Webb, the gay conversion guy, probably a queer himself, I want you to remove him.”

  “Yeah, I got that bit, but what do you mean ‘remove’?”

  “What do you think I mean?”

  “I dunno boss, to be honest.”

  “I want him dead. Killed. Deceased. Unable to fucking talk.”

  “Ah.”

  “You need to do it soon.”

  “Nah mate, nah you got the wrong man.”

  “How can I have the wrong man?” Quince hissed.

  “I’m an addict. I hit a few people. But I ain’t killed any.”

  “Well start.”

  “I don’t think I can mate; I really don’t think I can. I mean, is that a Jesus thing? Killing someone?”

  “We are allowed to protect our churches.”

  “We are?”

  “Remember the crusades? Christians taking the sword and defending themselves,” which obviously was a complete lie, but it sounded good to Edward.

  “Is that what they were doing?” Stuart asked.


  “Yes. Webb is going to cause the destruction of the church. He needs to die.”

  “Does he?”

  “Well unless you want to kill the whole Morthern CID.”

  “Yeah… look I’m not gonna do it.”

  “Stuart!” Edward hissed desperately.

  “But.”

  “Yes?” Hope.

  “We’re a broad church, right?” Stuart was sure he’d heard that mentioned a lot, a way of saying the church welcomed literally anyone who’d obey and reject those who didn’t. “You welcomed loads of people. Lots of ex-cons like me. There is a guy who killed someone, he comes now; has more tattoos than a Russian sailor. We’re in the same substance survivor group. I bet he’d kill someone for you.”

  “Really?” Quince asked, getting excited that this might, actually happen.

  “I think he’d love it truth be told.” And, he was right to think that.

  “Can you ring him? Now? Can he do it soon?”

  “You don’t ring people over stuff like this. Let’s go see him.”

  Which was why Quince drove once more, through the night, to a grimy tower block which rose like a middle finger in the sky. It was the sort of building that had been designed as a literally towering example of futuristic living, a community which rose into the sky and built with the latest technology, but had turned into a rotting, collapsing hymn to everything that destroyed society. It sat there in the middle of the landscape demanding to be knocked down, but filled with the desperate, paid for by the nail cuttings of a government that didn’t care and fed into the pockets of landlords who’d have their tenants in rabbit hutches if it would get them more money.

  If you’d asked Quince to describe an ex-con who’d murdered someone, he’d probably have said face covered in tattoos. The man who answered the bell was big, broad and had a face covered in them, the sort of face that was never going to easily pass a job interview again or hide from witnesses without a bloody big mask. The language was that of cliché, the skulls numerous, the attempt to find a validation and a soul in a heart which had lost both.

  “A’ght man,” he said.

  “This, ‘ere,” Stuart began, “is Edward Quince. Elder of New Hope Church.”

  “A’ght, helped me man.”

  “Now, I have a proposal for you,” Edward began, still feeling the fog of alcohol. “Would you like to help the church and the interests of Jesus, and secure our futures, by using a very special skill you possess?”

  “Ye, ye man. ‘Appy ta.”

  “Good. You see, I want you to kill someone for me.”

  Without even blinking the man replied, “jus’ one? Killing’s fun.”

  “Yeah, just one for now, I can give you all the details.”

  “Lay the deets on me man and I pull up for ya.”

  “Does that actually mean yes? Can anyone tell me if that means yes?”

  “It does,” Stuart confirmed.

  “I’m so excited,” Susan said as she rode in the back.

  “What?”

  “We’re going to make an arrest, an actual arrest, my heartbeat is really going, is yours?”

  Grayling turned a corner. “Yes, actually; yes, it has gone up. But you’ve seen an arrest.”

  “Yes, but this one is hours’ worth of work.”

  “Our work,” Grayling replied teasing.

  “Well, that is very true, but shadowing you isn’t exactly relaxing you know.”

  “We’ll get you a nice massage after,” Maruma said.

  “Now you sound like a creepy old man,” Grayling pointed out.

  “I mean like a sports person. They have them. Team masseuse.”

  “Well don’t start trying to get a puzzle room solving team masseuse,” Grayling replied.

  “What’s our estimated time of arrival?” Susan asked.

  “A minute or two. Shame he wasn’t in when we searched the place, we wouldn’t have had to drive around looking for him only to be told he was back at home.”

  The car went at the speed limit. The police couldn’t just dash about over it without a good reason, and there was no intelligence suggesting Webb was making a run for it. In fact, none of the church seemed about to do a runner at all.

  One more corner, and Grayling pulled to a halt on the side of the road. The three climbed out, with Grayling checking her extendable baton was at her hip in case she needed it, and they walked up to the front door of Webb’s place, the detective’s side by side and Susan at the back. When they arrived, everything looked in order.

  Maruma rang the doorbell, and they waited.

  After a short while they rang again, and received no reply, so they started looking in through the windows. They saw a lounge with the sort of white leather armchairs sensible people avoided and could tell the toilet was empty. They slipped down a side passage, through an unbolted gate and found themselves in a neatly trimmed garden which had a slightly open door into the back of the house.

  Maruma and Grayling nodded to each other and there was a small snick as the baton extended. Both stepped into a kitchen that was also white. This wasn’t the place for jokes, and they fanned out, soon finding the lower level of the property empty. They came to the stairs and slowly went up, listening carefully but hearing nothing except their own movement. At the top of the stairs they had several places they could go including the office cum bedroom, but the open bathroom seemed the best as there was a foot sticking out of it. Still being careful, they checked and found a body, but the rest of the house was otherwise empty.

  Back at the corpse, they checked for a pulse. A man lay on the ground, his face twisted in pain, his skin pale and the burn marks of a rope round his neck. A man who matched the description of Harry Webb.

  “What are you doing to me!” Maruma complained as he stepped over the body and checked the rest of the bathroom.

  “Wait,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The bath has been full of blood.”

  “Do you lot want to come in?”

  This was asked by Steve McGovern, in his role as Scene of Crime Officer for the murder. But at this moment he was dressed in his all-in-one white bodysuit, with blue mask and gloves, and so went by his other nickname ‘Mr Hazmat.’

  “Yes Hazzy.” Sharma said.

  Four members of the MCU had attended. DC’s Grayling, Maruma and Lindeman, as well as DI Sharma. Their investigations seemed to have been tied even closer together.

  “Come in, I have completed a preliminary look.”

  They marched in and soon crowded into the hallway. The body looked up at them accusingly.

  “This is Howard Webb, he has a driving licence in his wallet, which was in his pocket. That’s the easy bit. There are considerable rope burns around his neck, the product of a cord being wrapped round the body and being throttled. However, he died from the stab wound.”

  “Sorry, what?”

  “Yeah, that’s the funny thing. He’s dressed, but the clothes are wet. He has a stab wound to the chest which I think penetrated the heart given the blood which pumped out into the bath. My feeling is Webb was naked, perhaps showering, when he was attacked, and killed with a blade which we haven’t found. When dead, someone dressed him and used a cord to try and replicate the injuries of the church elder you found.”

  “That’s… that doesn’t make any sense,” Susan said.

  The MCU turned to look at her. “Is that a problem?”

  “Well yeah, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “That’s the thing Susan, why would it make sense? One of the biggest mistakes you can make in life is to assume people will be logical. They often aren’t,” Maruma explained, “people are raging balls of emotions and chemicals and they do things that just don’t stand up to analysis. But that still tells us something. The first strangulation was a determined in and out by someone in command. This is a bodged up shitshow by someone who’s operating in a much more chaotic capacity. This is different people, one trying to mimic another.
But don’t expect it to make sense, it rarely does.”

  “Okay.”

  Grayling smirked, “Maruma also dislikes YouTube ‘everything wrong with the movie’ and ‘how it should have ended’ videos and kittens.”

  “I have nothing against kittens. Kittens are the internet.”

  “I bet you’d punt one over a crossbar for a copy of some obscure game,” Lindleman teased.

  “How high is this crossbar and is it moving?”

  “The kitten or the crossbar? Anything can be arranged for a TV audience.”

  “Gentlemen, there is a corpse in the room,” Sharma reminded them. “And two killers. Which is excellent, at this speed we’ll have one each to deal with. Now, we better find this knife and get that guy to a mortuary. For all we know there’s another layer to this onion hidden away in him.”

  “You could have said on him.”

  “Shush.”

  “Hey, Pierre, my man, not seen you for ages!”

  It was a woman’s voice who called out, and the man it was aimed at instantly recoiled, but caught himself, turned and waved. “Hi, sorry, been under the weather.” It wasn’t a lie, he looked like a man who’d been under a mental weight. The woman smiled warmly and gave a thumbs up but didn’t push it; just said “here if you need a shoulder,” so Pierre turned back to the queue he was in. A church group that was attended by several dozen people famous for providing a hearty evening meal to anyone who came, and Pierre had come for his. As he was preparing for the curry they were serving, he heard the voice of a woman totally new to him.

  “Hi there,” she said with the caution of someone who didn’t talk to strangers much.

  “Hi,” he replied as he turned and saw a smiling face.

  “I heard you were called Pierre; you are Pierre, right?”

  “Yes?”

  “I just think that’s such a cool name, I always wanted to visit France. Oh, shit, you might not be French, sorry.”

  Pierre smiled, “I’m Belgian actually, a long time ago, but hey, I won’t get as annoyed as my countrymen would.”

  “Oh, good, I’m Karen by the way,” Karen said. She’d been coming to the church groups long enough that she’d started to initiate conversations with people and maybe help recruit them, help them stay, and Pierre had seemed a kindred spirit. To Karen, he seemed to have the eyes of a man who’d tried to kill himself. The sort of eyes she saw in mirrors.