by Jay Nadal
His eyes widened in shock as he watched Rollings bend down by the fire and retrieve a small tin of black shoe polish bubbling away in the red embers. Matthew struggled, his breathing fast and heavy as panic consumed him. Ford grabbed Matthew’s face, firmly gripping his chin and forcing him to look forward. Tears streamed from Matthew’s eyes as he shook his head violently trying to free himself. Only high-pitched, muffled cries indicated the terror that engulfed Matthew.
He became increasingly frantic, his head tossing and turning left and right as he tugged on the ropes that secured his arms. His body twisted and contorted as if possessed, beads of sweat racing down his face with the increasing effort.
Rollings walked slowly towards Matthew with a glint in his eyes. One gloved hand carried the bubbling tin, the other held a thick paintbrush. He nodded at Hunter who pulled down Matthew’s pyjamas bottoms and underwear. He sniggered as he relished the opportunity to break the boy’s fragile confidence and self-esteem even further. Matthew stood trembling, naked from the waist down. Cold, sweaty and humiliated, his fate was in their hands. He had nowhere to go and no way of releasing himself. Tired, exhausted and dazed, the last shred of fight drained from his small body.
Rollings stood before Matthew, his face expressionless, a cold stare fixed on the boy. He knelt down and smothered Matthew’s testicles with hot, black liquid shoe polish. Blackballing was the ultimate punishment and a long-standing ritual in boarding schools up and down the country. Once cooled and dried, the polish would be hard to remove.
Matthew’s high-pitched screams intensified as they echoed around the room, each piercing cry bounced off the walls. He writhed in pain as his body bucked back and forth in an attempt to escape the searing heat that torched him. Tears streamed from his sore, wide, scared eyes. His cheeks reddened as the pressure built in his face. Each stroke of the polish-laden brush left him clenching his fists and curling up his toes.
Rollings ripped the duct tape from Matthew’s mouth. His skin pulled and burnt as the firmly fixed tape tugged at his wet, stinging skin. He screamed in agony through bleeding lips.
Another stroke of the brush prompted a haunting, shrill of a scream that raced through the room. His raw and hoarse throat burnt as if a hot poker had been shoved inside it. The blood-curdling screams were in vain because no one would hear him. The old room had been the former music room. Despite its state of disrepair, the walls still reflected sound from soundproofing that remained intact.
He prayed the torture would stop. He pleaded in his mind with silent words unable to escape from his mouth. His ginger hair now heavily matted in sweat clung to his face shielding his eyes. He couldn’t take any more. His body was spent. His pain threshold had been breached.
19
Scott’s thoughts still troubled him as he made his way into work. The intimidation he’d witnessed yesterday had not only distressed but concerned him as well. Three against one meant the odds were heavily stacked in favour of the bullies who’d been harassing Matthew. An early morning run along the seafront hadn’t helped to shake off the nagging feelings that clung to him like glue.
On this occasion, Abby had joined him. She was a far more competent runner than Scott. He saw it as a way to stay relatively fit and get a bit of a cardio. Abby, on the other hand, always saw it as a competition. Rivalry was something he had noticed in Abby. She would strive to be the best in everything she applied herself to. She was a good mum to her kids, and a top-class copper. She hated failure, and that was the catalyst that spurred her on. It was a quality he admired in her.
His gentle jog along the seafront had become yet another challenge for Abby. She’d left him for dust at the 3K mark when he’d chosen to turn around, leaving Abby to run an extra 5K, which was closer to her preferred distance of between eight and eleven kilometres. She had wanted to shake off a mild hangover after her date the night before with Jonathon, an optician.
Scott had teased her as they ran together, questioning whether Jonathon had forgotten his glasses at the office. She replied by saying that she’d quite enjoyed this whole dating lark but found it stressful with the whole dressing up thing and sorting out childminding. It was typical Abby, the pessimist.
The duty sergeant had buzzed Scott in acknowledging him with a nod. Scott could hear Mike’s voice echo from the floor above as he made his way up the stairwell. He found Mike outside the CID office in deep conversation with the same female police officer that he’d seen on previous occasions. They were talking in hushed tones which came to an abrupt halt when Scott loomed nearer. Mike had a pathetic grin on his face that suggested things were going well. The female officer looked rather more sheepish as she made her excuses and scuttled off down the stairs, casting a brief, embarrassed sideward glance at Scott as she brushed past him.
“Don’t tell me you…” Scott said, pointing over his shoulder and shaking his head.
“Oh, yeah…well worth a round of drinks and curry that I paid out last night.”
“One of these days, all these women are going to gang up on you, strip you naked and tie you to a lamp post…as revenge.”
Mike didn’t have an answer as he followed his boss through the double swing doors on to the main floor.
Scott headed over towards the incident board to see if anything new had been added. The before and after photos of the two deceased men stared back at him. The images of victim two were less encouraging to look at, his face half the size of what it would have been prior to the fall.
“Okay team, let’s get an update. What’ve we got?” he asked as he perched on the edge of a desk.
Raj threw his pen on the table. “I’ve been talking to the other teachers and Mary Harrison the deputy principal. Johnson was a well-liked man, firm but fair. I got the impression from talking to some of the staff members that he kept his private life to himself. They weren’t able to shed any new light on the situation. Some seemed devastated at recent events, and others appeared unaffected which to me seemed so weird.”
“Mary Harrison has been signed off work with stress, so I went to see her at her home. Apparently, the whole situation is getting too much for her. She seemed at odds with the principal. I got the impression they didn’t see eye to eye.”
“In what way?”
“Not sure to be exact, Guv. I pushed her a bit, and came to the conclusion that Collier wants things done in a strict, traditional way, and Mary Harrison wants to inject more variety into the school and make it more appealing and modern.”
Despite Abby having run further than Scott, he couldn’t believe that she’d still managed to complete her run, get to the station and shower, and be at her desk before he’d arrived.
“The pathologist’s report on Giles Rochester is on the system now, Guv,” Abby said, chipping in. “We know he died as a result of the fall. He had multiple fractures to both arms, his hips, several broken ribs and severe trauma to the head. However, Dr Hall also identified a red band of bruising around the victim’s neck. It’s about an inch wide.”
“Strangled?” Mike interrupted, looking bemused. “I thought he just jumped or was pushed.”
Abby continued flicking through the notes online. “Yes, he did die as a result of the fall, but Cara, I mean Dr Hall, identified a red banding, but only around the front of the victim’s neck. There’s some localised bleeding where whatever was used cut into the skin. The tiny lacerations, she believes, are from applied force.”
“Could he have been strangled and then thrown over?” asked Raj.
“I doubt it. You’d have to be pretty strong to lift a dead weight and throw it over some barriers,” Scott replied.
Scott turned to the incident board, and put a question mark by the word suicide. This potentially looked like a second murder investigation. He made a mental note to talk to forensics about it. The victim’s car needed to be examined in closer detail.
“Sian, what have you got for us?”
“I’m still working through the phone number
s and contacts, Guv,” she said, resting her elbows on the desk and leaning forward, her hands clasped together. “But what I did notice was that the same number we repeatedly found on Johnson’s phone was also on victim two’s phone. There are lots of lovey-dovey messages between the two numbers, and lots of calls placed between them. As we know, it’s a pay-as-you-go number that hasn’t been registered, so I’ve drawn a blank there so far. I’ve sent the phone back to the high-tech unit to see what they could retrieve.”
“How about CCTV?” Scott enquired.
“There isn’t a lot of CCTV coverage by the car park, or in the surrounding streets. However, we picked up the silver VW Golf driving past Worthing rail station in the direction of the car park. It’s a bit of a grainy image because it was dark, but from the stills I pulled off, there only appears to be one person in the car, the driver,” Sian said, passing round a few copies.
Scott tapped his whiteboard marker by the images of victim two, before pinning one of the still images beside Giles’s case details. “So he went alone. Who did he meet there?” he asked quietly as he stared at the grainy image depicting the single outline of a figure in the driving seat of the VW Golf.
“Quite possibly, Guv, but there’s nothing on CCTV. There’s no one walking towards the car park, and no one walking away either,” Sian said, scratching her forehead.
Scott stepped up to the board and stared at the grainy image for a few moments. “Sian, if you look at the image closely, something looks odd. I can’t tell if it’s a street light reflection distorting the image or something else. I’ll get it checked out anyway.”
Scott’s observation caused the others to examine their copies in closer detail. Mike squinted as he strained to see the finer detail and Sian rested her glasses on her head to get a closer look.
“Well, even though he hasn’t been formally identified yet, we’re working with the assumption that the victim from the car park is Giles Rochester. Forensics will no doubt confirm that with DNA sampling taken from his toothbrush. He’s too messed up to have a visual ID and Collier would have been best suited to do that.”
“In the meantime, Sian, what happened with the search of staff members?”
“One name has come up, Guv. John Morecombe. He was sacked about a year ago after confronting Collier about bullying of both staff members and pupils. He wasn’t there long, one academic year. Last known whereabouts according to the electoral register has him down in Crediton in Devon.”
“Did you follow up?”
“Yes, Guv. I spoke to our colleagues down there. Crediton is a bit of a backwater to be honest. They had less than fifty crimes reported in the previous twelve months, and the local station is just a neighbourhood unit mainly manned with PCSOs. They checked his last known address and he’s since moved on. He’s not known to them. I checked with DVLA and the Motor Insurers’ Bureau, and there isn’t a car registered in his name. He’s disappeared off the radar. I’ll check with DWP in case he’s been drawing benefits somewhere. There’s also the local authority and local education authority in case he’s been working in schools, and I’ve still to do financial checks with Equifax.”
Scott shifted as he settled on the edge of her desk. “Good job, Sian. Circulate his details locally and with the Devon lot. Check neighbouring counties too. We need to find him if nothing more than to just eliminate him from our enquiries. He may have an axe to grind…”
“Enough to kill?” Sian asked.
Scott shrugged in reply.
The team headed back to their desks in a flurry of activity.
Scott pushed through the door and was greeted by the constant tapping of keyboard keys that bounced off the walls around him. To him, this office was where the magic happened. Highly trained specialists partnered with forensics and outsourced specialists to scrutinise evidence that in his experience made the difference between a conviction and a crime going unsolved. He thought of them as techies and geeks, but in reality, they were talented, calculated individuals with naturally curious minds.
Digital forensics was the more formal title for the unit. A team trained in forensic video and image analysis. Technically Scott wasn’t well versed in the finer points of their role; he just needed them to deliver results. They’d be called upon to assist with tasks like transcoding, image enhancing, slowing and enlarging video footage, right through to more complex tasks that officers needed such as reverse projection and reconstructions, height calculation and comparative analysis. Whatever they did always left Scott in awe.
Martin Jones was a thin, middle-aged man with bony fingers that hovered over his keyboard like the spindly legs of a daddy-long-legs spider. They moved with grace and speed as his fingers splayed out, reaching all corners of his curved keyboard with ease.
“Hi, Martin. Good to see you. Everything okay?”
“Yep, all good on the Western Front. Hear you’ve got a tricky case running. What do you need?”
“I need the image on this video still enhanced if you can,” Scott said, handing Martin a memory stick.
Martin plugged the stick in and opened its directory. The still image of Giles Rochester behind the wheel of his car filled the screen. “Any part in particular?”
“Yes, the driver in particular.”
Martin opened up another application on his screen and then dragged the image into it. A few clicks isolated the area in question and then he scrolled on the wheel of his mouse. Each click sharpened the image a fraction until it was clearer.
“That’s the best I can get it,” Martin said.
They both peered closely at the highlighted section. Rochester had a distressed expression on his face. His head was firmly pulled back into his headrest and his teeth were clenched with his lips pulled back in a snarl.
“Looks like he’s got some sort of restraint around his neck. See that white line?” Martin pointed out with a flourish of tapered finger.
“Looks like he’s being held in place?” Scott offered.
“Looks like that to me, too. You’ve got someone else in the car with him.”
20
The figure smiled. He’d gained access to the ground-floor apartment with remarkable ease. Posing as a delivery driver, he’d pressed the buzzers of the other apartments in the block. No one had come to meet him, or even questioned him, such was the frequency of this type of request; other residents had become blasé about security.
Using a crowbar, the door had offered little resistance as it cracked open, splinters of wood littering the floor. He gently closed the door behind him. He stood there in the hallway with his eyes closed. His heart thumped violently in his chest; his shoulders rising and falling quickly. He inhaled deeply, taking in the heady concoction of lavender scented air fresheners and her perfume. Yes, her perfume. She still liked her Armani Code. His stomach flipped and his cock twitched as he licked his lips. He slowly opened his eyes, revelling in the sensual feelings that rippled through his body.
He walked through the apartment going from room to room admiring the decor. She still had taste; he could see that. Everything was perfectly matched and laid out. She had expensive taste now. The main bedroom was to the left, the bathroom to the right. A large reception room opened up further on the left with a secondary small bedroom directly opposite which had been converted into a study. Beyond them lay the kitchen, with white double French doors that led out onto a small courtyard garden. He glanced through the doors. “How cute,” he said, looking at the small wrought-iron circular table with two chairs, a small potted red plant adding the contrasting feature.
Walking back into the large reception room, he stroked the back of the L-shaped chocolate brown, crushed fabric sofas that added grandeur in proportion to the room. Two empty Veuve Clicquot champagne bottles sat at opposite ends of the mantelpiece above the wrought-iron fireplace. A vase with daffodils took prominent position on the hearth. Magazines had been splayed in a fan shape across the white chunky IKEA coffee table. Far too neat.
He loved her bedroom; it was exactly how he’d imagined it. The bedroom was minimalistic white, even down to the duvet cover. He gently stroked the soft cotton before moving to the pillow, picking it up and burying his face in it. The bristles from his stubble scratched the surface. He inhaled deeply; the smell aroused him. It was a familiar smell, something he found hard to pull away from. The way her smell lingered on the pillow, even in the air, that deep, intensely sexy scent she continued to wear.
He headed towards a four-drawer chest that was nestled in one of the alcoves. Pictures of her posing with friends in a bar sat on top, along with a silver ornament that said ‘Love’. He pulled each drawer out, fondly stroking all the items of clothing before pushing each one back in. He reached out for one of the two small drawers at the top, his pulse quickening. He was excited at the prospect of what he’d find; he could now reacquaint himself with her intimately.
He loved this drawer and what it said about her. How tidy, how ordered, how sexual, how teasing she was. He pulled out several pairs of knickers, the soft, delicate fabric brushing against his coarse skin. Thin, tantalising, frilly knickers, lots of creams and whites. She’d always loved those colours. He was excited at discovering that she had a few pairs of G-strings hidden towards the back, neatly out of view behind her day-to-day practical M&S knickers.
Every woman had some; he was sure of that, whether bought by themselves or by their lovers as a special treat or on impulse. Maybe she’d bought them for herself to feel sexy, or bought them for him. They were nothing more than little threads of fabric that masqueraded as underwear. Lacy strips, delicate red bows, see-through lace. Scrunching them up in his hand, he smelt their fresh, clean femininity. He smelt her. They were soft, so sensual, so sexy. He could almost imagine his lips pressed against her flesh, tasting her, her scent deep within his nostrils.