Suspended Retribution

by Rob Ashman

  Why did you sit here? Were you waiting?

  ‘Roz!’ It was Mitch calling from the bathroom. ‘You might want to see this.’

  She broke her train of thought and went to join him.

  Mitch was kneeling by the side of the body. ‘The vic sustained several blows to the side of the head but it is unlikely that’s what killed him. More likely he bled to death.’ He held up an evidence bag containing one of the severed hands. ‘We will know more when they do the post-mortem.’

  Kray stared down at the translucent face. ‘My word, it’s Billy Hicks.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Most of the bloody force knows him. A one-man crime wave is our Billy. Did the killer cut off his hands when he was alive?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Atkins. ‘The cut marks are ragged suggesting the victim was struggling when his hands were severed.’

  ‘Do you have a time of death, Mitch?’ Kray continued.

  ‘Not with the body being immersed in cold water for so long. I need to do more tests.’

  Kray turned to Atkins. ‘I found bleach on the base of the doorframe leading into the lounge, there might be blood spatter. I will leave that to you guys.’ She handed back the black light back to the SOCO. ‘Also check out the armchair, it has some sort of residue on it. It doesn’t appear on the other pieces of furniture, just the chair. It would be good to know what it is.’

  Back in her car Kray stared into the distance, her mind churning over what she had seen in the flat. She could see the killer sitting in the armchair waiting for Hicks to arrive, she could see them fighting in the lounge and the killer emptying bottles of bleach into the bath.

  You wanted to cover your tracks, then you leave dirty great footprints in the carpet.

  Kray’s head was buzzing.

  That’s not careless, it’s like you only did half a job.

  21

  I am now faced with a dilemma. It is fast becoming obvious how this is going to pan out. My target is swinging on the handrail running along the bar in the Cat and Mouse, screeching like a banshee. She’s just been joined by three blokes who are pissing themselves laughing. One of them is scrawny like a recovering heroin addict, the second man is tall and gangly and the third is a pig ugly guy with a turn in his eye and a beer gut. It’s a little after four in the afternoon and she is nine pints down, her friends are catching up fast.

  ‘What’s the matter, Biscuit, don’t you know this one?’ she yells across the bar, all four of them dissolve into gales of laughter. Biscuit ignores them and continues to sip his beer, staring into space. Sooner or later a song will come on and Biscuit will do his thing.

  I have been coming here for two months, watching Biscuit do his thing is a sight to behold. He is probably early fifties and always wears the same battered parka coat and combat trousers. He carries a rucksack and sits on the same stool, feeding money into the jukebox mounted on the wall next to him.

  Biscuit mimes to every song he puts on, but he doesn’t simply nod his head in time with the music like the rest of us. No, when Biscuit mimes a song he goes all out. Facial expressions, arm movements and occasionally slipping from his stool to spin on the spot, are all moves within his repertoire. Along with pointing at the ceiling in a Saturday Night Fever pose when the choreography demands it.

  ‘Don’t you know the fucking words, Biscuit?’ she yells at him again. Biscuit is somewhere else.

  The truth is he doesn’t know the words. Many weeks ago, after one particularly lively rendition of Mustang Sally, the landlord told me that twenty years ago Biscuit used to play lead guitar and sing in a band. They did the clubs and were pretty good by all accounts. Then he suffered a stroke while on stage and his path to stardom ended. Nowadays he knows every word to every song that comes from his era but anything produced later than that fateful day he fell into the audience, skips his memory.

  I asked the landlord, ‘why is he called Biscuit?’

  ‘No idea. Don’t think even he knows why.’

  At last a song comes on that Biscuit knows and the show kicks off. It’s Sandy Shaw singing Long Live Love, the song where Biscuit likes to spin on the spot while miming the chorus. From his seated position, his facial expressions and wind-milling arms go into overdrive.

  ‘Hey, Biscuit, you fucking retard, what’s in the bag?’ pig ugly guy calls out.

  ‘Oi! Biscuit, do you want to spin on this?’ The gangly one holds up his middle finger. All four of them howl and slap each other on the back. ‘I said what’s in the fucking bag, Biscuit?’

  Where is that judge now to see what he allowed to walk the streets when he was doling out his good deed for the day? I can feel the knot of anger in my belly. I glance across at the man working behind the bar. He is making himself busy cleaning glasses so he doesn’t have to look at what’s going on.

  She pushes the lanky lad and he lurches across the pub like a stick insect, making a grab for the bag. But he is so pissed he keels over onto a table.

  More howls of laughter.

  ‘I’m gonna piss myself!’ She screams clasping both hands to her crotch and scuttling off in the direction of the toilets.

  I empty my glass and wave it at the barman. He raises his hand and pulls a fresh glass off the shelf. The lanky stick insect has managed to right himself and is leaning with his arm across the shoulder of the pig ugly one for balance.

  Biscuit finishes with a flourish and plonks himself back onto his stool. The next song comes on and he doesn’t know it.

  She comes back. ‘I did piss myself.’ She thrusts her pelvis in the direction of the other three to show a dark stain on her jeans between her legs. ‘I actually fucking pissed myself.’ They fall about giggling.

  Biscuit gets down from his stool, picks up his bag and shuffles off in the direction of the gents. This is the moment I’ve been dreading – I have to stay focused.

  ‘What’s in the bag, Biscuit?’ She lunges at him as he passes but he manages to avoid her grasp. He disappears from the bar. She pulls the guys in close, whispering and chuckling, then the three men peel off and follow Biscuit through the door.

  Fuck! Keep your eyes on the prize. Don’t get diverted.

  I spin my beer glass around on the bar.

  Don’t get diverted.

  I can’t do it, and go to the gents.

  I push open the door. A stainless-steel trough runs along one wall with three stalls set against the opposite wall. Biscuit is cowering in the corner with the pig ugly one standing over him, the heroin addict is rooting through his bag.

  ‘Fucking beat it,’ pig ugly says as I walk in. The door bangs shut behind me. I stand my ground.

  ‘You fucking deaf?’ said the gangly one.

  ‘Fuck off if you know what’s good for you,’ said the other.

  ‘Yeah and that’s the problem, I’ve never been great at knowing what’s good for me,’ I say, returning his stare.

  ‘Are you trying to be funny?’ said pig ugly guy, moving away from Biscuit.

  I am buzzing. I can’t stop myself smiling, I feel alive.

  ‘What the hell are you grinning about?’ pig ugly says.

  ‘I don’t know, I can’t help myself,’ I reply.

  ‘There’s fuck all in here,’ said the heroin addict. He hurried over to Biscuit and thrust the bag in his face. ‘Why the fuck do you carry around an empty bag?’

  Biscuit reached out and tried to wrestle the bag off him. The pair of them have a playground game of tug of war over who was going to get the bag.

  ‘He’s gotta have money on him,’ said the stick insect. ‘Come on retard turn out your pockets.’

  ‘I said fuck off.’ The pig ugly one takes three steps towards me. He gets no further.

  I slam the heel of my hand into his nose. He staggers backwards, clutching his face. The toe of my boot crunches into his bollocks and he crumples to a heap. The gangly one throws a clumsy haymaker as he runs for the door. I swing my arm and the inside of my forearm catches hi
m full in the throat. His legs go from under him and he cracks his head on the floor as he lands on his back. I stamp twice on his face. The pig ugly guy is struggling to his feet, coughing and croaking. I march over and drive my elbow into his chin, snapping his head back into the wall.

  The heroin addict still has hold of the bag but he’s frozen to the spot, his eyes as wide as saucers. His sunken face says, ‘No, please don’t.’ I drive a hammer blow into the side of his head and he goes down with a splat, and stays there not moving.

  I put my finger up to my lips, crouching beside Biscuit. ‘Shhh. Time to go back into the bar and pretend nothing happened. Do you understand?’

  He nods.

  He scrambles to his feet and is out the door.

  I turn, kick the pig ugly bloke one more time in the head for good measure and stroll out.

  I take my seat at the bar and sink my pint in one. Biscuit is sitting on his bar stool, sipping his drink and staring into space, despite the fact that I’m sure he knows this song.

  I scour the room.

  Fuck it, she’s gone.

  22

  The stick insect staggers out of the Gents at the same time that I step out onto the pavement. I can hear a commotion kicking off behind me. I’m mad with myself for having lost her. I stride up the high street, jerking my head from side to side, glancing up and down the side roads.

  Where the hell are you?

  The late afternoon air begins to clear my head following the effects of the beer. If this goes tits-up I have seriously screwed my schedule. A little further on I can hear raised voices, one of them is wailing like a banshee.

  A bald-headed man dressed in an ill-fitting uniform is standing in the doorway of a shop with his arms outstretched barring the way in.

  ‘You are not allowed in, madam and if you don’t move away I will contact the police.’ This must be one of her favourite shoplifting venues.

  ‘Do what you want, you bald twat. I wouldn’t be seen dead in your fucking shop anyway.’ The banshee is slurring her words, she now seems oblivious to the piss stain on the crotch of her jeans. I breathe a sigh of relief.

  Thank God for that.

  I slow my pace to do a little window shopping.

  ‘Stick your shop up your arse,’ she says, giving the security guard the finger as she slopes away. She zig-zags up the road, shouting abuse at random strangers.

  This is uncharted territory. Normally she would stay in the pub until either she keeled over or it was throwing out time. Or in her case, throwing up time. It’s five o’clock and all bets were off as to what was going to happen next.

  She bumps into a group of people who are gathered on a street corner, all of them in much the same state as her. There is much backslapping and exaggerated hugs as she makes her presence felt. I can hear her voice above all the others.

  ‘Then … then … I left them in the pub, what a bunch of muppets. They kept buying the beer so I legged it while they were chasing Biscuit in the toilets. I’ve only spent twenty quid all day and I’m fucking hanging. Oh, and I pissed myself laughing, look!’ The damp crotch display seemed to bestow on her even more credibility within the group.

  As I sober up, my rage intensifies.

  She peels off the side of the group and waddles along, waving her goodbyes. Suddenly she slumps down on a seat at a bus stop. This is way out of the norm. While I’m trying to work out what the hell she has in mind, a bus shows up and she sticks out her hand to flag it down. The doors hiss open and she staggers on board. I turn my walk into a jog and follow suit.

  ‘Where do you want to go, mate?’ the bus driver asks as I stand on the front step.

  ‘Oh, err.’ I look at the route plastered onto the wall and it all falls into place. I give him my destination – figuring out she’s on her way home. Perfect!

  I sit and gaze at the houses passing by the window. My adrenaline pumping hard, my hands trembling. After twenty minutes I hear a ‘ding’ and the bus slows down for the next stop. She sways past me holding onto the seats to steady herself.

  It’s getting dark as we step down onto the pavement. She turns left and wobbles up the road. I wait a few seconds, pretending to look for something in my wallet, then follow her. It’s a short walk to her home, a ground floor flat in a new development, all courtesy of the council. Two town houses have been knocked together to form six one-bedroom flats, all of them decked out with the latest mod-cons. She was given it after her partner, Leah Bramhall, had thrown her out. This followed a particularly violent episode when she had stabbed Bramhall twice, once in the leg and once in the shoulder. When the victim was admitted to hospital they found her body peppered with cigarette burns.

  A judge decided that behaviour like that was okay and hence she’s been walking around scot-free getting pissed every other Wednesday, after she’s been to the job centre to bag more cash.

  I spot the house coming into view and quicken my pace. I have to time this right.

  She reaches the front door and opens it with her key, oblivious as I tailgate her through. She bumps her way up the corridor, bouncing off one wall then the other. Flat number two is on the right. She stops and fiddles with the key trying to get it into the lock. I pause about six feet away, leaning against the wall.

  ‘Come on you little fucker.’ She studies the key and turns it the right way up.

  I hear the lock disengage and the door open up. I make one last check around me and rush forward, shoving her in the back with both hands. Her head slams into the door and she topples headlong into the hallway, landing heavily on the wooden floor. The door clatters against the wall as she skids into a heap against the far wall. In one leap I’m on her, punching her hard in the side of the head. She groans and goes limp below me.

  I close the front door, grab her collar and drag her into the next room, heaving her onto a dining room chair. I take four cable ties from my pocket and secure her wrists to the arms of the chair and her ankles to the legs. I then head into the kitchen to find a couple of tea towels. I stuff one in her mouth and secure it in place with the other. Her head is slumped forward onto her chest, a purple bruise spreading across her cheekbone.

  I return to the kitchen, it is certainly well kitted out. The item that interests me most is the knife block. I remove each one in turn and examine it, they have hardly been used and are razor sharp.

  I can hear her coming around, groaning in the other room.

  ‘You enjoy burning people and playing with knives,’ I call out to her, removing the aerosol can and lighter from my pocket. She grunts and rocks back and forth, straining against the ties.

  Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. I can’t decide which one to choose.

  I take the whole knife block with me into the lounge.

  ‘I’ll let you keep your clothes on, this isn’t about sex.’

  23

  Kray was a troubled woman. She had spent the rest of the day working with her team, progressing the leads on the Cadwell case while setting up new lines of inquiry for the untimely demise of Billy Hicks. Having arrived home late she was now slumped in a hot bath with a bottle of wine for company.

  Millican had left a couple of voicemail messages but she was too preoccupied. She had called him back, made her excuses and promised to see him soon. She was alarmed at how easily she had transitioned from ‘Sorry, I gotta dash’ to ‘promise to see you soon.’ Normally that in itself would warrant a bath and a bottle of wine, but not tonight. She lay in the bath, her mind wrestling with the events of the day.

  It’s like you did half a job.

  The bath and wine did nothing to quell her angst and she went to bed with the words still whirring around in her mind. After several hours of tossing and turning she got up and headed off to the station.

  * * *

  Tavener walked into the incident room to find Kray already there, surrounded by several half-drunk cups of coffee.

  ‘Bloody hell, Roz, I thought I was early.’ He looked at his watch, it read 7a
m. ‘Has your house burned down?’

  ‘Funny guy.’ She flashed him a sideways look. ‘I couldn’t sleep so I came in.’

  Tavener followed her gaze to the large whiteboard covered with photographs and printed notes.

  ‘You’ve been busy,’ he said taking a seat.

  ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about Cadwell and Hicks. Something was bugging me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh that doesn’t matter.’ Kray was not about to embark on a convoluted discussion about the significance of a job half done. She wasn’t sure it made sense to her and, besides, Tavener thought she was crazy enough already.

  ‘Before we get into this, did you apply for the role in CJU?’ Tavener asked.

  Kray looked down into her lap. ‘I did.’

  Tavener nodded his head, it was a real tumbleweed moment. ‘Okay so why don’t you tell me what’s been keeping you awake?’

  Kray smiled. ‘We have—’

  Dan Bagley burst into the office. ‘Roz, can I have a word please?’ While he phrased it as a question, it was certainly an order.

  ‘I’m just in the middle of something.’

  ‘Now, Roz, I need to speak with you now!’

  Kray got up from her seat and followed Bagley out. He took her into the nearest available office and closed the door.

  ‘I thought I made myself clear yesterday that I wanted the Stapletons front and centre of the investigation into the Cadwell death. Then I’m scrolling through my inbox to find you have de-prioritised them in an email you sent out at five this morning. What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘Targeting our resources to those lines of inquiry which are most likely to bring a result.’

  ‘I told you the Stapletons are our best chance of getting a result.’

  ‘They’re not.’

  Bagley turned a shade of red which would be considered unhealthy for a man of his age.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because of a man found yesterday floating face down in a bath of bleach with his hands cut off.’