He grinned and turned the music of his favourite Christian rock band up ever higher. He didn’t care if anyone passing heard it.
Another group of people were awake, but they weren’t drinking, and they weren’t partying. They were, however, exercising their pitch-black senses of humour.
“So, let’s get this straight,” a woman said, as she stood in a wide protective suit with a blue facemask pulled down because now, she was outside and able to relax for five minutes. “You volunteer to go and get coffee because you know a twenty-four-hour Maccy D’s, and you go and get coffee, and you come back with coffee, but there is no sign anywhere of a McFlurry?”
“What?” another one of the forensics’ team protested as they put their own protective suit on. “I said coffee, you said coffee. I got coffee. No one told Edmund Hillary to fuck off cos he’d climbed Everest and not the moon.”
“The moon, nor Everest, do not serve ice cream and actual fucking burgers right there next to it, and somehow you stood there, smelt that lovely aroma and came back with just this.”
“Right, firstly,” he said putting on gloves, part of a suit which was designed to prevent the forensic team leaving any misleading evidence of their own behind, “coffee is not ‘just this’, it is a life-giving elixir from the gods. Secondly, maybe I’m a vegan and don’t want to get burgers or dairy products.”
“Yeah good point, cos we’re not the fucking police or anything. If I was a hairdresser maybe I’d forget that last week we all had a curry and you ordered something called the Meateor, which combined enough meat to run the Grand National and enough cream to fill the front row of a One Direction concert.”
“My sister is a hairdresser.”
“I apologise to your sister, who no doubt would have bought me some fucking food.”
“Hello,” came a voice from inside, where the rest of the team were combing the Cook residence harder than the owner of a Cruft’s finalist. “Sorry to bother you but how about some help in finding evidence instead of discussing food choices.”
“You got something?”
“I believe I’ve found some fibres,” came the voice.
“Oh right, you see, a woman doing her job, instead of you half-assing it by just getting coffee.”
“At least I keep you entertained,” the man replied.
“My dog keeps me entertained, and he licks his own balls.”
“Thanks for the moral support,” came a voice from inside, “but at this point I’d like your physical presence even more.”
“Right, let’s get back to work, so we can send the MCU off after someone before sunrise.”
“They’re not vampires.”
“Do not get me started on fucking vampires; fuck anyone who thinks they’re sparkly mother fuckers…”
“Deportment class called; you missed the vocabulary session.”
“But not the fucking McFlurry one. Caramel is on now too!”
The world had exploded as every siren was going off at once. At least that’s how it felt to Edward Quince as his phone rang. He turned over as painfully as a man with a complete elephant sat on his head and realised what the noise was. Normally a man that hungover in his own bed with no recollection of how he got home would just roll over the other way and pray for death, but Quince saw that the call was coming from the NHS, or specifically the number he’d saved as the commissioning part of the current Community Mental Health Trust. Interesting, even to a man whose body thought it was dying.
“Hello?” he said activating the call and hoping he wasn’t slurring.
“Hello, Mr Quince? It’s Gemma from the CMHT. You might remember…”
“Yes, of course, I remember you, commissioner, psychologist, a fan of obscure teas.”
Gemma laughed a genuine laugh and not the one she’d developed for patients. “Yes, yes that’s me. Are you free to talk for a few minutes?”
“Yes of course.” I need water, painkillers and sleep, but not as much as my ego needs this call. “What’s up?”
“We’ve been impressed with the work you’ve been doing with the service users of our trust,” by which she meant mentally ill, “and we were hoping to commission you to provide services,” by which she meant giving money, as a private concern was cheaper than hiring NHS Staff; ‘you can get rich off us while we all still pretend the government care for the sick’.
“That sounds fantastic,” Quince replied, his coyness blunted by pain and his desire to expand his empire the precise opposite. “I assume there’s a long process to go through. Not that I’m opposed to that. I have the patience of a… saint.”
“Yes, we’ll have to ask our service users, and all that sort of thing, but really, it’s a formality, I’m letting you know so you can get ready and then we can get the handover facilitated. We’re very impressed with the results you know,” and, of course, the savings she’d make to be handed over to the people at the very top, and nowhere near the bottom.
It’s a funny old thing, pain. It can bring you low and make you feel like your body was rotting away. But Quince’s pain began to recede as endorphins flooded through him, the chemicals which came with absolute victory. He had murdered his opponents and now he was being rewarded for it. How absolutely perfect.
“We will have to schedule a meeting,” he said, high on glory, “although I suppose there will be lots of those!”
“Oh yes. We’re shifting a lot of money your way, might be some bad PR as a couple of charities lose out, but honestly you’re top of our list.”
Quince could have laughed. When the call ended and the phone was turned off, he did laugh. Victory was the best painkiller of them all.
Koralova looked at the tree. It was just a tree, but…
“Do you think we appreciate nature enough?” she asked.
“What?” Kane said, genuinely confused.
“Nature. We walk around all the time, keeping an eye out, but do we ever actually appreciate nature? We look for criminals, drug paraphernalia, wrongdoing, all that stuff, but here’s a tree, a beautiful majestic tree rising into the air and I ask myself, do we take enough notice?”
“Unless someone’s hanging off it, I don’t notice, no. Have you been using this drug paraphernalia?”
“You’ve no soul, Kane.”
“You’re in need of sleep Koralova.”
“Maybe. Oh, there’s a bin up ahead, you checked it?”
“No, I’m zooming in on whatever is behind the cable tv, internet, thingamabob box.”
“You did the last one of those.”
“So, I’m doing this one too. You can have the next pair.”
“Great, so I get a bin then?”
“Yes, yes you do.”
Koralova sighed and walked over, looked in, looked up and then looked back very quickly.
“Well fuck me sideways.”
“What?”
“There are two bloody plastic gloves in here.”
“So?”
“No, no, two plastic gloves that are bloody.”
“Fuck a duck,” Kane ran over. Two blue plastic gloves, lying at the top of a waste bin in the search area of the Cook murder. Both PC’s now craned their heads to look at the surrounding area of the bin.
“Nah, couldn’t be.”
“Just some grease.”
“Yeah. Yeah, still go get a fucking umbrella or something.”
Kane ran off for some protective covering, while Koralova left the gloves in situ and radioed in. Kane soon returned, but the rain held off and fifteen minutes later forensics were on the scene. Ten minutes later and so were the MCU.
“Hello people,” said Lindleman getting out of a car.
“You look like you’ve slept on a sofa,” one of the forensics team replied.
“And that, me laddo, is because I have slept on a sofa. I believe you have found something worthy of waking Leviathan in her cave.”
“You mean he?”
“No, I mean DI Sharma who woke up to send me h
ere.”
Forensics looked pleased with themselves, as did the PC’s Koralova and Kane. “We have a bloody pair of gloves. We’ll need to test the DNA, of course, but the blood type matches the victim and it’s in the area so….”
“Excellent,” Lindleman said, pleased.
“No.”
“What?” Lindleman tried to clarify.
“We haven’t told you the excellent bit.”
“Now I am intrigued, go on.”
“When they took these gloves off, they got sloppy. We have fingerprints. Well, a print on the glove where the second one was pulled off but it’s a fully developed one, as perfect as you can get.”
Lindleman grinned, “I owe you all a drink.”
“How about a McFlurry?” a forensic asked.
“Why is everyone laughing?” Lindleman asked. “Never mind; anyone run these against the database yet?”
“They are fresh out of the oven; we’ll get them run now.”
Karen had spent a restless night, which was a nice way of saying she hadn’t slept and had laid curled up in emotional paralysis. But there had come a knock on her door when the sun rose, from her flatmate, reminding her they were due in church to help. Karen wanted to stay in bed, even though she didn’t sleep, wanted to hide away from the world but she owed this man, she liked this man, and she thought that if she just went along with normal life then she could put this nightmare behind her, that maybe she could carry on and it would all be ok. So, she got up, showered and dressed in a church appropriate selection of clothes, and found herself back there that morning. But there was a salve in the happiness and smiles of those around her, and she began to get lulled into the church pretence. Maybe it hadn’t happened she told herself, maybe she had been wrong, it wasn’t true, all those doubts and fears buried under the smiles and hugs. So, she picked up a tray of mugs and one of the large coffee jugs and walked out to help serve.
People came up to her, happy and Karen served them. She forced a smile and discovered that it got easier the more you did it, that the human mind could gloriously overlook terrible things as long as they were slightly hidden.
Then they stopped being hidden.
Edward Quince came around the corner and Karen froze.
Edward Quince grinned and clasped a few hands and spoke in his familiar voice, a tone Karen could now only associate with lies and death.
Edward Quince came up to Karen, asked how she was doing, and put one of his bloody murderers’ hands on her shoulder as he took a mug.
Karen dropped the tray, dropped it right on the floor and she turned and ran, right out of the building and into the car park, then beyond it onto the street. Her jagged breathing only failed her here and she dropped to her knees; not a panic attack in the sense of an uncontrollable terror, but a direct reaction to something that had happened which blew her mind apart. The church was evil, corrupt, a bloody nightmare.
She heard people coming; her friends to find where she was and what was happening. She ignored them, as her world turned hollow, as her support network eroded, as the bridge over her madness collapsed at the hammering of Quince and she fell headlong into it.
“What shall we do?” a concerned parishioner said as he debated putting a hand on her shoulder.
“Shall we get Elder Quince?” one asked.
Karen let out a guttural ‘noooooo’ and started crying.
“How about an ambulance?” another tried.
“Doesn’t she have a sister?”
“Leave me alone,” Karen said as she rose and began to run again, further still.
“I feel like I should get some towels and hot water,” Lindleman said as he paced around the Bunker. He was joined in frenetic impatience by Grayling and the pair were doing a series of irregular laps round the desks. Maruma was calmer, lying on the sofa, eyes open but body still, in a strange state of zen. Sharma was working the computer, and Susan was sat in a corner watching like a hawk who’d just found a family of mice about to make a run for it.
“You’ve never had kids,” Sharma replied.
“Well no.”
“I can tell. Hot water and towels are fuck all use, clearly written by some guy who hadn’t the first idea.”
“The hot water would be good for…” Lindleman paused, “no I got nothing, what is the hot water good for?”
“It isn’t,” Sharma replied. “Why does this computer system always jam at the most annoying moments. All I want is an ID on one fingerprint, all it has to do is work that much. It would have been quicker to have a filing cabinet.”
“It would have been quicker,” Grayling began, “to have driven to the next county and used their network.”
“Wait, wait, action. The fingerprint is…” a long pause in which they all gathered round the monitor, before Sharma spoke, “a match, it’s a fucking match. It’s a match for…” and a record appeared. “Harry Shaver.”
“Nice. Who’s he?”
“He is an absolute twat,” Sharma replied.
“You know him?”
“He’s been in and out of prison for years. Mentally an idiot, happy to punch someone in the face to round off a night out. I can only assume he’s been going to this church to pretend he’s born again and now someone’s given him the slightest of nudges and he’s killing. Fuck, why do we give the repeatedly violent such short fucking sentences. Oh yeah, he punches someone every so often, let’s have him on the streets. Bollocks.”
“And relax?” Lindleman tried.
“What? Oh yeah right, sorry, so Harry Shaver. Ironically, he matches the terrible description we have in that he is a lump with a vague thuggish face, so that fits. The question is, where he’s going to be so we can go and arrest the bugger!”
“Send this out to all units” Grayling instructed.
“Yeah, everyone, keep an eye open, we’ll start at his home and work our way round from there. Home, pub, betting office, off licence, probably the school when it’s chucking out time, that sort of fellow. Shame Jeremy Kyle isn’t on anymore or he’d be at home watching that for tips on decorum.”
“You got it boss.”
“Also,” Sharma said holding a finger up, “book the firearms team. Get them heading our way now. We might need them, and advance planning might be the only way that’ll ever happen.”
Quince watched Karen running out of the building. That was very odd, normally people adored him, and he turned to the horrified faces of those around. “What is wrong?” he asked.
A young man, torn between running after her and being near Quince, replied, “she’s got a history of mental problems, today must be too much.” Quince nodded. After all, the church did take on a lot of people with various health needs, and of course he was going to have the contract from the CMHT soon. So best look after this situation.
“Go after her,” he ordered, “and make sure she is alright.”
Watching them go, Edward turned his mind back to the rest of the parishioners and staff. In fact, it was sometime later when he went into his office, sat down and sipped his mug of coffee that he wondered. That girl had certainly had a severe reaction, you could almost think she’d had it at seeing him. But why would Quince ever cause that response in someone? It was odd, and as he began his work it kept coming back to him. Why had that girl run off?
Paranoia is a curious beast, and Quince began to feel he’d missed something. An important fact or connection, that this woman hadn’t just had a panic attack but had run away from him. It ate away, a corruption inside him, until he put his work down and picked up his phone. He called the woman who ran the café.
“Hello, it’s Quince. That girl who ran off today, what’s she called?”
“Oh, hi sir, yeah, that’s Karen Edwards.”
“That’s what I wanted to know, thanks!”
Quince turned and tapped on his computer to bring up the records they kept, and he found Karen Edwards. Possibly an abuse of power or data protection or safeguarding to keep notes on e
veryone for the benefit of the elders, but hey, he was a killer now. So, Karen Edwards, has a history of mental illness, suicide attempts, spent time in a mental ward, lives with her sister Susan Edwards, a journalist, then moved in to be with…
Wait.
Wait a fucking minute.
Quince read back. Karen Edwards, the woman who acted so surprised when she saw him, is the sister of Susan Edwards, a journalist. A woman with the same name and career as the woman following the Morthern CID around.
Quince’s paranoia wasn’t now corrosive, it was doing a Hiroshima.
What the fuck does she know, his mind wondered? What have the detectives found to cause her to react like that when she saw me? She knows! Oh, my fucking god she knows, they know, they’re onto me. Jesus, but no, no, how could they? There’s no way the detectives know, and the only way Karen would know was if she’d…
He’d discussed the murder, in this office, with staff in the building. A quick mouse-click and a rota was produced and yes, Karen Edwards would have been working when he was offering to pay thousands to his tame killer.
Oh, fucking god, he thought, Karen knows.
Lindleman put his radio to his mouth. “I can hear a television on and there’s been some movement, so somebody is inside.”
“Good,” replied Wick through the radio, “are we sure it’s Shaver?”
“No,” the constable replied, tucked into a bush a little way down the street from Shaver’s home, “I spoke to the neighbours and they say he lives alone, just has a lot of strange visitors. But good news, one of those visitors has been identified as Quince.”
Power and Control Page 23