by Blake Banner
I shook my head that I didn’t know. Turned to look at her and shook it again. Pretty soon, we crossed the bridge over the subway and turned right onto Olympia Way. We eventually found the multi-story car park, left the car on the fourth story, and made our way on foot to the main entrance of the exhibition center. On the way I had a look at the leaflet Harry had given Dehan. It said:
SATAN’S CAVE
ONLINE STORE FOR KICK-ASS MERCHANDISE
AND MORE.
They had everything from leather cigarette pouches and customized Zippo lighters to Viking drinking horns and confederate flags emblazoned with the skull and crossbones. There was a picture of him in one corner. He had aged, but not much. His long, sandy hair was a bit thinner on top, his beard, which had been copper, was now turning gray, but aside from that, he was pretty much the same hard-ass desperado he had been fifteen years earlier. His stall was number six six six. It kind of had to be.
We stepped through the main doors and into Geek Junction. The entire hall, which is vast, was draped in black cloth, with bits of broken castle dotted here and there. Many of the larger stalls were designed like dungeon entrances or ancient taverns from Cimmeria.
We strolled down the central aisle. I glanced at Dehan’s face and smiled. She didn’t look at me, she just said, “What?” and before I could answer, “Did you ever play?”
“Dragons and Dungeons? No. You did, though, didn’t you?”
“You kidding? I wasn’t even born when it came out.”
“Yeah? I wasn’t born when Clue and Monopoly came out. I still played them.”
“That’s different.”
“Confess.”
“Yeah, OK, I was addicted for, like, two years.”
“It’s written all over your face.”
“So you’re smart. Who knew.”
“I am struggling not to imagine you in a brass bikini.”
“Try harder. Look, there it is, over there.”
We were at an intersection of two aisles. Two corners down on the left, there was a large stall, part castle wall and part bearskins. Sticking up over the corner pole was a luminous cube with the number 666 on it. Dehan looked up into my face.
“You want me to go talk to him? Get him onto the subject of gun control. How hard it is to get a piece in this country…”
I smiled at her. “He’s a white supremacist militia man. You are half Mexican and half Jewish. How do you think that’s going to work out?”
She slid her eyes sideways. “I could use the Force. I trained as a Jedi too, you know?”
“I know. But this time, let’s just pay him a surprise visit.”
He was crouching behind a counter that was draped with black velvet and laid on top with trays of silver rings and torques, mostly bearing either skulls, dragons or wolves. Hanging on the back wall were samurai swords, Viking swords and battle axes. There were also drinking horns, flagons and various other bits of kit for anybody bent on remembering their previous incarnation as a heroic barbarian.
I leaned on the counter and spoke quietly. “I hope you’re not hiding back there, Brad.”
He looked up and his eyes shifted from my face to Dehan’s and back again. They said he recognized me, but he asked, “Do I know you?”
I felt a slow, hot rage begin to build in my gut, but I kept my voice quiet. “Well, that’s a little rude, Brad, to kill a man’s wife and not remember his face. That’s not polite.”
He frowned at me, then began to smile. “No, not coming to me. But you know, when you do as much whoring as I do, it’s hard to keep track of every bitch you fuck and kill, and who she was married to. It’s a lot to remember. Was there anything else?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Where were you between the hours of ten AM yesterday and ten AM this morning?”
He burst out laughing. “You have got to be kidding me, man! I do not believe this! I don’t have to answer your fuckin’ questions, man!”
I nodded, “That’s true. But you know what, if I talk to my buddies at the CID about all the war games you get up to out in the wilds of Arizona, and your far right white supremacist friends here in the U.K., they might feel like asking you a few questions themselves. Do you know how long they can hold you without charge here, Brad? Fourteen days, and upon application by a police superintendent, that can be extended indefinitely.”
He shook his head, narrowing his eyes at me. “You can’t do this. You ain’t a cop here. I heard you went back to New York.”
Dehan smiled. “You know what? I think he does remember you.”
“Oh, Brad remembers me. We’re old buddies. We go back a long way, don’t we, Brad? Brad’s the man who killed my first wife. You don’t get much closer than that, do you?”
Beads of sweat had started to appear on his temples. “What the hell’s going on, man? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He looked at Dehan. “This guy is always trying to frame me. But I never done nothin’ ’cept try and make an honest living. He hates me because I’m a redneck, but hell! There ain’t no shame in bein’ a redneck!”
I let him run down. When he’d finished, I shrugged and said, “You know what the tragic irony of this whole thing is, Brad? I always believed you were innocent. That whole task force was convinced you were guilty, but I kept telling them, serial killing was not your scene. You might kill for an honest reason, but not just for kicks.”
He looked confused. “Well, that’s right. I ain’t never been into that weird shit.”
“So where were you, Brad? Or would you rather the antiterrorist squad ask you?”
“Oh, man!” He heaved a big sigh. “Last night? I was at home. I got stoned with some chick and watched a movie.”
“How about in the afternoon?”
“I was here, setting up the stall.”
“All afternoon?”
“Yeah, all afternoon! Of course all afternoon! This is my fuckin’ business. It’s what I live on. What do you think I was doing the day before opening at the biggest fuckin’ exhibition in Europe?”
“How about in the morning?”
“At my apartment, loading up the van, where do you think? You know, you cops make me sick! You shit and the department is there to wipe you fuckin’ ass. You need a car, you need a holiday, you need a doctor, you need a fuckin’ shrink. The PD is there to take care of it. Me? A regular guy like me? I have to do the whole fuckin’ thing myself. And believe me, it ain’t easy when some fuckin’ cop has decided you killed his fuckin’ wife and one way or another you are going down for it!”
His voice had been steadily getting louder, until his face flushed red and he shouted the last words. People turned to stare, then went on their way.
The three of us were quiet for a moment, then I said, “So what you’re telling me is that you have no alibi.”
He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I am telling you. And you have no evidence to put me at the scene, or instead of some crazy New York bozo and his girlfriend, they’d have English cops here putting me in cuffs. So get the hell out of my face.”
Dehan said, “What scene, Brad?”
He made a face that said she was stupid. “Seriously? What scene? What, you think you caught me out? Oh, wait, you’re asking me where I was yesterday just to pass the time? Or the crime was committed in a space-time vortex so there was no actual scene? Get real, sister!” He shook his head and said, “Now tell me not to leave town and walk out a here like you didn’t just make fuckin’ assholes of yourselves.”
I ignored him and asked, “Who was the girl you watched the movie with?”
“I’m going to count to three, then I’m calling security. Then I’m going to call my attorney and sue your ass!”
“Yeah, I remember you had an attorney back in the day. What was his name? You still got the same guy? Nigel? Nigel Hastings?”
“One, two…”
I sighed. “OK, Brad, we’re going. Just one question before we do.”
“What?”
“Y
ou know Don McLean’s song, Pride Parade?”
He screwed his face up at me like I was talking word salad at him. “What?”
“Don McLean. You know who Don McLean is?”
“Yeah, I know who fuckin’ Don McLean is. What I don’t know is what the fuck you are talking about. You want to get the hell out of here? I’m trying to promote my business.”
I raised a hand. “Bear with me, Brad. Don McLean recorded a song in 1972 called the Pride Parade.”
“So what?”
“What did you think of it?”
“Nothing. I didn’t think anything of it. I don’t know the fucking song. Pride Parade? What is he, gay? I know he married a Jewess and he has Jewish fuckin’ kids! Now stop wasting my fuckin’ time and get the hell out of here!”
I smiled at Dehan. “Thanks, Brad.” I winked at him. “Catch you later.”
We walked back down the aisle and stepped out of the exhibition hall into the heat of the late afternoon. We fell into step, walking slowly back toward the parking garage. I pulled my cell from my pocket and checked that I had recorded our last exchange. It was all there.
Dehan said, “You want to tell me what that was all about?”
I put my hands in my pockets. “Don McLean was married for thirty years to a Jewish woman, Patrisha. Both his kids were brought up Jewish.”
“OK…”
“Brad Johnson is an active white supremacist and, like most white supremacists, he is also deeply anti-Semitic and buys into the whole Rothschild, Zionist conspiracy for a one world government theory, all that crap.”
“So it makes sense that he wouldn’t be all that interested in… Oh, wait…”
“Exactly. The guy who killed Amy, Cindy, Sally-Anne and Kathleen clearly has an abiding interest in Don McLean.”
She frowned. “And Pride Parade?”
“He understandably mistook the meaning of the title, which has nothing to do with being gay. Gay used to mean happy, pride used to mean pride, now they are both associated with homosexuality, something which Brad abhors. So he asked if Don McLean was gay. Somehow, I think that our killer would not have made that mistake. Either way, the first thing that came to his mind was not American Pie. He may be many things, but he is not our serial killer.”
“What do you want to do now?”
I gave it some thought. “We go and have a talk with Harry. Let’s see what he’s found out about this girl, Katie. I also need to look at the file on Hattie. I’ve never…” I faltered. “I’ve never been able to bring myself to read the file. But I think it’s time, Dehan. Maybe I have a chance here to nail the bastard and lay her to rest at last.”
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. We have three crimes here, Stone, six murders and three crimes. We need to keep them clear and separate in our minds.”
“I know. Three crimes and only one suspect. That’s no accident.”
“What do you mean?” She stopped on the corner of the parking garage. “No accident how?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know yet, but I can tell you it’s no accident.”
I thumbed my address book and called Harry.
“John, where are you?”
“We just came out of the Olympia.”
“Excellent. How did it go?”
I looked at Dehan a moment. “It was interesting. We need to talk.”
“Good, come over to the embankment. I’m in my office. I’ll tell them to expect you downstairs and show you up.”
“Harry? I’m going to need a couple of things.”
“Anything. Name it.”
“I need the file on Hattie’s death.”
He was quiet for a moment, then said, “OK, John, but let’s not get sidetracked.”
“Don’t worry about it. That’s not going to happen.”
He didn’t sound convinced. “Hang on, John, not so fast. Are you sure you’re up to reading that report?”
“Yes. Just please do it, Harry.”
He sighed, “OK, if you’re sure.”
“I am. Another thing. The note that was pinned to Katie’s eye. Have you got a copy of it?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“I’m going to need that, and copies of the other four from fifteen years ago. Can you do that for me?”
I could hear him making notes. “Yes, sure,” he said. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, a big bottle of Bushmills.”
He laughed out loud. “Same old John Stone. I’ll have it all waiting for you when you get here.”
“Give me twenty minutes or half an hour.”
Dehan was standing with her hands in her pockets, shaking her head at her feet. She looked up and her face was eloquent of a curious mixture of admiration and despair. “A bottle of Bushmills? Seriously? A detective inspector of Scotland Yard asks you what you need, and John Stone, with his two king-sized cojones, says, a bottle of Bushmills. You are singular and unique, Sensei. They made you and they broke the mold.”
I gave a small laugh and started to walk again toward the entrance of the parking garage. “It’s not as outrageous as you might think, Little Grasshopper. There is, as the old cliché would have it, a method to my madness.”
“You have a reason for asking Scotland Yard to provide you with a bottle of Bushmills.”
I nodded. “I prefer it to Scotch. It is distilled three times, so it’s smoother. And did you know that the ten-year-old single malt is matured in bourbon casks as well as oloroso sherry casks?”
She took my arm in both of hers and rested her head on my shoulder. “Nope, I didn’t know that, Sensei. You are my source of useless information in shining armor.”
“You are impertinent, Dehan.”
“Will you punish me?”
“See?”
“With handcuffs?”
“See? Impertinent.”
FOUR
We parked on Richmond Terrace, on the other side of iron gates that are only ever opened to a select few. I figured Harry hadn’t been wasting his time over the last fifteen years. We were met at one of the side doors by a cop in uniform and taken up to an office on the fourth floor. It was an office with an unobstructed view of the back wall of the building next door, so I guess Harry still had a way to go.
Aside from the lack of a view, it was comfortable in an old world sort of way, with a small fireplace that now stood cold and a large, oak desk with scars and ink stains that said it had been used over the decades, and possibly a century or two. The rest of his furniture was comfortable but nondescript.
He stood and smiled as we came in and the door closed behind us. “John, Carmen, thank you so much for your help. Do sit, please. Tea? Coffee?”
We told him no and sat at his desk in comfortable, nondescript chairs. I was still trying to figure things out. I looked around. “We have a desk which we share, in a room full of a bunch of other detectives, so we can all hear each other think. Hearing yourself think is more of a challenge. We call it the Detectives Room.”
He gave a single laugh that was more of a bark. “Cubicles and partitions! That is the new way, I’m afraid. It’s the same here. I am privileged to have this little cubbyhole.”
That was Harry and the Brits all over. They don’t tell you it’s none of your goddamn business. They agree with you, have a laugh, and by the time they’ve finished talking, you realize they’ve changed the subject without answering you. One thing was clear, anyhow. Whatever job he did, it entitled him to more than a cubicle and a partition. He lowered himself into his black leather swivel chair and jerked his thumb at the window. “View’s not up to much, but at least I won’t get shot by a sniper.” Before I could ask him if that was likely to happen, he pulled over a file and a couple of A4 manila envelopes and handed them to me. Then he pulled open a drawer and took out a bottle of Bushmills and three glasses. The file was Hattie’s. While he poured, I opened the envelopes. They were the scans of the notes that had been left pinned to each victim.
I borrowed a p
en from the pot on his desk and wrote the date of each note in the top right margin of each scan. Then I left all five scans on my right and took the glass of Bushmills that he was handing me.
“Cheers!”
We toasted and sipped. Before he could speak, I said, “Have you any more information on Katie?”
“Not much. No match for her fingerprints or her DNA in the system. Our ME says the cause of death was the stab wound to the heart. All the mutilation was post mortem, just as in the other cases.” He frowned. “Curious thing, the clothes she had in her wardrobe were all expensive, but also very good quality…”
Dehan gave a laugh that sounded like a gurgle. “So it wasn’t expensive trash?”
He nodded. “Exactly. You’ll find that people who come into money suddenly will buy indiscriminately, shopping for labels. People who have grown up with money all their lives are less impressed by labels and are more interested in quality.”
I said, “Savile Row versus Armani.”
“Precisely. Now the clothes we did find there, as I say, were very good and very expensive, some of them from bespoke tailors, but there was very little of it. That made me examine her hair and her nails…”
Dehan was nodding. “Expensive manicure and haircut.”
“Yup.”
“But she’s shacked up in a dive in Whitechapel.”
“Odd, isn’t it? Now, we have a possible lead. We started looking into missing persons reports and there is a girl reported missing from her home in Chelsea, name of Katie Ellison. General description seems to fit. So I thought I’d wait for you and we could go and see her flatmate together.”
Dehan looked at me. “Flatmate? Is that like a roommate?”
“Yup.”
“So if her real home is this place in Chelsea, that would explain why she had so few clothes at the dive, but it begs the question, what was she doing there?”