The Element Of Death

A serial killer brings terror into the community as he strikes repeatedly and seemingly at random. At the scene of each crime, he leaves behind a coded message that is designed to taunt the police officer who ended a killing spree ten years earlier, with the killer still having unfinished business. Can he be stopped this time before he completes his grisly sequence?

Also by Steve Wilson

Who Wants to Live Forever?

The Element of Death

Steve Wilson

www.CarinaUK.com

STEVE WILSON says: I’m a late-starter as far as writing goes, with my first fantasy novel started in 2000, although it did stem from an idea that I’d been mulling over for some ten years. That novel eventually became a trilogy, but my writing was sporadic during the next few years.

In 2004, I attained a Post Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing, and not long afterwards, I joined a local writing group, where I found being amongst like-minded peers of great benefit. In 2011 — after writing predominantly short stories for several years — I registered for the National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo, with the aim of writing a 50,000 word novel in thirty days, and the end result of that was my first published novel, Who Wants To Live Forever?.

I took part in NaNoWriMo again in 2012, writing a sword-and-sorcery fantasy novel set on a world with two suns, but in 2013 I went back to crime writing, which is how The Element of Death came into being. I have always enjoyed trying to solve puzzles, either in books or on screen, and I wanted to pay my own homage to writers such as Conan Doyle in this novel by devising the various coded messages that are left behind at the crime scenes.

With acknowledgements to the great crime fiction writers, especially Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Dan Brown, for providing the inspiration for this novel

This book is dedicated to my wife and children, who have always encouraged me in my writing, and to my friends and colleagues at Fylde Brighter Writers, whose support has been invaluable. I am also indebted to Victoria, Helen and Sue for their editorial assistance and advice, both of which have, in my opinion, helped make this a better novel.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Author Bio

Acknowledgement

Dedication

November 1st

One — Goblins and Elves

November 30th

Two — A New Partner

December 26th

Three — ’Tis the Season to be Sorry

December 27th

Four — Periodic Success

January 25th

Five — Dancing Men

February 14th

Six — Little People and Bigger Problems

March 1st

Seven — A Picture From Germany

March 17th

Eight — Angels and Demons

April 23rd

Nine — Chasing Wild Horses

April 25th

Ten — Morse and Remorse

June 29th

Eleven — A Weekend in Dortmund

September 21st

Twelve — Track and Felled

October 18th

Thirteen — All Done

Afterword — Halloween

Extract

Endpages

Copyright

November 1st

Mandy opens her front door when she returns home and screams as somebody pushes their way in after her. Then she laughs. It is one of her friends, playing a Halloween prank. Again.

“Very funny, you had me going for a moment there. Who is it? Alison? Or is it you, Joey? Still hoping I’ll change my mind, are you? Anyway, the joke’s on you — it’s after midnight now so it’s no longer Halloween.” She looks at the clock; it is four minutes after four a.m. She wonders if the ‘rule’ about midnight is right, or is she thinking of noon on April Fool’s Day instead?

The figure, covered from head to foot in light blue operating-theatre scrubs, doesn’t move. “Come on, this isn't funny any more.” She is beginning to get worried. It is one of her friends, isn’t it? He — she thinks it is a he; it must be Joey — starts to walk towards her. Now she is more than worried. She no longer believes it is a prank.

She tries to run to the door, but he is faster and cuts off her escape route. His arm is round her neck and she takes a deep breath, ready to scream for help, but as she breathes in he pushes a chloroform-doused cloth over her mouth and nose. She loses consciousness.

*

When she comes to, she is unable to move. Her arms are bound tightly behind her and thick rope bites into her ankles. She can still smell traces of the chloroform on the cloth that is now being used as a gag. She screams but no sound comes out. Then she sees him, and wishes that she had remained unconscious.

He is balancing a twelve-inch carving knife in his gloved hand. She knows that knife; it is one of hers and is sharp enough to slice a hair lengthways. She imagines he is smirking at her, but cannot see his expression behind the mask. Only his eyes are visible, and they bear down on her. Then she hears him laugh.

*

He sees the look of terror in her wide-open eyes. She is probably wondering, Why me? He wonders if she would find it as funny as he does if she knew that it was because, initially, she reminded him of somebody else. Now he looks at her closely, he no longer sees the resemblance. She is just a victim of fate, a casualty of the game that he is going to play. She never will know any of that, though. He laughs again.

He switches the television on, just in case he needs to mask any noise. The volume isn't turned up high, but is loud enough to drown out any unusual sounds. He is surprised to see that the news channel comes on; he thought that she would be more of a soap fan, or perhaps a viewer of one of the many music channels. The solemn tones of the newscaster carry across the living room.

“Police are still searching for the escaped serial killer, Morgan Gregory. It is almost a fortnight since he absconded from the secure mental health unit of the hospital in Lancashire, and in that time nobody has seen him and there are no clues as to his whereabouts.”

He laughs. That isn’t quite right, is it? I’ve seen him, and I know where he is, but then again, I would do, wouldn’t I?

“…public are reminded not to approach him but to telephone the police if they have any information as to his whereabouts. Gregory is infamous for the so-called ‘Magpie’ murders that occurred a decade ago, and if it hadn’t been for the quick thinking of a local police constable he might never have been caught. In other news …”

He doesn’t smile any more. Quick thinking? That wasn’t what was said all those years ago. Then, it was more a case of being in the right place at the right time. Or the wrong place and time, whichever way you liked to look at it. He stares at the woman again. She has heard the news, and she has made the connection. The newscaster almost seemed disappointed that there were no sightings. Perhaps it was a slow news night and they were short of anything else with which to fill the programme? Well, after tonight, there will be no shortage of stories on which to report.

He weighs the knife once more in his hand, and the woman’s eyes widen even further. If it weren’t for the gag, he imagines that everybody within thirty miles would be able to hear her screams. He can even see flecks of red appearing around the tight edges of the cloth; they are just a prelude to the coming blood-letting.

Slowly, as if to savour every last second, he takes the knife and slits open her blouse and her skirt, flicking the halves to either side to reveal her pale skin. Her chest rises and falls like an express train; his calmness is more than surpassed by her panic. Even more slowly, he begins to trace a line around her body, starting at the nape of her neck, just below the necklace that contains her initial in gold: an ornate letter M that is becoming moist with her sweat. He moves the blade lightly across the ribs on her left-hand side, scoring it over her flat stomach and down to her thighs, before returning along a similar route up the right-hand side. As careful as he is, he cannot prevent the occasional piercings, and soon droplets of blood are standing up in more than a dozen separate locations. He looks at his handiwork. The image isn't quite right.

Forcing himself to remain calm, he repeats the process, tracing a route a fraction of an inch inside the first line. He knows he has to take it slowly and carefully. Even though the previous murders occurred some years ago, he has standards to live up to. Besides, the police have to be one hundred per cent certain who it is they are dealing with. He wants them to know. He needs them to know. He doesn’t want them to waste any time looking for somebody else. That would take away all his enjoyment.

He remains dissatisfied with the shapes that he has carved, and begins again. After three more circuits, five ovals of decreasing diameter can now be seen, the angry red swellings standing out against the woman’s porcelain body. The picture isn’t perfect, but she is prepared. He takes the knife again, and this time he gently pushes the point until it is located in the loose skin between the second and third oval; with a well-practised motion, he twirls the knife handle and an inch of skin curls around the point, forming a cylindrical cone around the silver blade. Then he begins to pull.

*

It doesn’t take as long as he expects. He looks at his handiwork, and is surprised that a single body can contain so much flesh. Or so much blood. He wipes his brow inadvertently; his hand still holds the knife, and he is fortunate not to cut himself. A single hair floats down and settles on her blood-stained fingers. He makes no attempt to remove the strand. Indeed, he wants it to be found; there must be no doubt as to who they are dealing with.

But, just in case they are too stupid to see what is before their eyes, he will leave them a message. He knows how they will react; they will see his name and they will call him. It will begin, and, eventually, his vengeance will be complete.

He takes an artist’s paintbrush from his tool bag and dips it in the congealing blood before beginning to write on the walls. It is a short message, but it has to be written ever so carefully. He takes his time, checking and rechecking to ensure there are no mistakes. At last, he is satisfied. He returns the brush to the bag, then cleans the knife thoroughly and replaces it on its stand. Finally, he removes his blood-encrusted outer clothing and packs it away carefully inside the bag, which also holds two bottles. He has already used the one containing chloroform, and now he takes out the second bottle, filled with what looks like water. He removes the stopper and pours its contents, an oily, colourless liquid, all over the butchered body. A strong smell of ammonia fills the air.

Then, taking care to make sure that everything is left exactly as it should be, he leaves the flat. It is just before a quarter to five in the morning and everywhere is in silence. It has taken exactly forty minutes. He steps out into the streets and, sticking to the shadows, he heads for home.

Everything is in motion now; let it begin, he thinks as he climbs into bed.

One – Goblins and Elves

The phone rang shortly after six p.m. and I replaced my bookmark before putting my novel down on the table. I hadn’t spoken to anybody for a couple of days, so my voice was a bit throaty as I answered. “Ben Watson speaking.”

“Watson. There’s been a…it’s a bit difficult to talk about on the phone. There’s been an incident and it involves you.”

I knew straight away who the caller was: DI Jordan Creswell, my former boss; it was rare for any of those bods to call anybody from my department. There could only be one reason. “Is it anything to do with Gregory?” I asked. “He hasn’t been seen, has he?”

“Not exactly, but there’s been a murder which fits his MO and there’s something you need to see.”

“Why me? I’m back-office now, I don’t do crime scenes. Besides, I’m…not at work at the moment.”

“I know all about your situation, Watson, and I know you’re not a front-line officer any more. Normally, I’d leave you geek-guys to your computers and puzzles, but this isn’t normally. You’ve been named, specifically. There was a message, scrawled on the wall in the victim’s blood, and it was for ‘Holmes’ lapdog’. Get down here. Now.”

I shuddered. It was beginning. “Okay, I’ll get straight over. It’ll be good to get out of here. I know that might sound odd, considering what you just said, but we’ve all been expecting something like this and nothing is worse than sitting around waiting for it to happen.” I was about to put the phone down, when I added, “Hadn’t you better tell me where ‘here’ is? I know I’m a technical guru, but that doesn’t make me a mind-reader.”

He gave me the address and I jotted it down. The murder had occurred in the Sherwood district of Fulwood, one of the more select areas of Preston, and they were waiting for me to get there.

Despite the urgency, there were things I had to do before I could leave. I was a bit like Rupert Penry-Jones’ character in television’s Whitechapel, who was sometimes unable to function as a result of his neat-freak OCD tendencies. I wasn’t as bad as he was, but I couldn’t leave without tidying up. I picked up the novel I had been reading, Conan Doyle’s The Return of Sherlock Holmes, and removed the bookmark; I would have to finish The Adventure of the Dancing Men another day. I placed it on its shelf in the ceiling-high bookcase, and also put Christie’s The ABC Murders back in its correct place, in between 4:50 from Paddington and The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding. Finally, I returned The Da Vinci Code to sit alongside Brown’s other Robert Langdon novels. Then, and only then, did I set off for the car. As I headed towards it I let my mind wander over the events of the last couple of weeks; I had thought about them a lot during those fourteen days.

*

Gregory’s escape had been headline news for most of the past fortnight. The public were aghast at the fact that such a notorious serial killer could be on the loose again, and debating continued long into the night in parliament as the coalition government tried in vain to justify their policy on private security firms being given responsibility for the country’s most evil criminals.

At a local level, Lancashire was on high alert, and all police leave was cancelled while the local constabulary set about house-to-house searches in a bid to catch him before he began a new killing spree. Everybody remembered the chilling words that he uttered from the witness box during his trial: You haven’t heard the last of me. I would have been happy if I’d finished them all, but you stopped me before the final one. When I return, I will start again, and it will be a longer sequence next time. Bear that in mind, and tell Holmes’ lapdog that I’ll arrange something special, just for him.

Holmes’ lapdog. That was what he had derisively called me throughout the trial. He maintained that his capture owed nothing to good policing methods and everything to a blundering patrolman who struck lucky. The man on the beat will be a deadbeat by the time I’m through with him was one of his more printable statements.

The force took the threat seriously enough so that as soon as news of his escape hit, they despatched a patrol to keep watch on my home; in these days of cutbacks, that was a big investment to make. Even so, had Gregory headed straight for my place once he was out, by the time the patrol was authorised and mobilised it would have been too late for them to stop him.

I remembered the exact moment I heard about his escape with crystal clarity. It was October eighteenth at three-fifteen in the afternoon. It was the same day I found out what was really happening with Monika and I had been sent to ‘work’ at home following the incident at the station. But I didn’t want to think about that right now. Instead, I let my thoughts wander to the beginning, and the time that I thwarted Morgan Gregory.

*

I was a policeman on the beat in those days, and had been for several years. As I was in my late twenties, I knew I should really be advancing in my career, but I enjoyed my job, and consequently didn’t push myself forward as much as I should have done.

Much of what I did would come under the heading of community policing — something that is sadly missing now with all of the cuts that have taken place — although there were times when it could be a harrowing role. The Gregory case had put us all on edge. Nobody knew anything about him — even his name was unknown then — and that added to the air of menace surrounding the killings. He had chosen his victims according to some bizarre ritual so that each killing had a link to the old nursery rhyme. You know, One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told. His first killing had taken place at a funeral home, the next at a maternity unit.

The whole country was nervously waiting for him to strike again, even though he had confined his first six murders to the North of England. Everybody was desperately trying to convince themselves that they were safe because they had nothing to do with the final line of the rhyme, the secret never to be told; but everybody had secrets, so nobody was safe.

I was on patrol in Garstang and had been called to deal with a domestic disturbance. The woman, Beverley Evans, had thrown her boyfriend out after she had found out he had been cheating on her and the man hadn’t taken too kindly to it, hence the reason I had been sent for. I made it abundantly clear to the man that he was no longer welcome in her home, and returned to Ms Evans’ address to let her know that we had taken the appropriate action. As I was about to leave, I saw a box full of lingerie on a chair in the front room, and she saw me looking at it.

“It isn’t what you’re thinking,” she said.

“How do you know what I’m thinking?”

“I know. Believe, me, I know.”

“Enlighten me, then, Ms Evans.”

“You’re thinking, ‘Where have they come from?’ and ‘What sort of establishment is this woman running?’ Admit it.”

“I’ll admit to being curious as to what they are doing here. Since you’ve brought the subject up, what are they doing there?”

“They’re samples from work. I’m a bra specialist — I work for Seductively Secret as a demonstrator. I’ve a party tonight, that’s why I’ve all these,” she said, flinging her arms wide to show another two boxes on the other side of the room.

“Well, each to their own. I’ll say goodnight, Ms…” And then it hit me. The entire force had been puzzling over where the killer the tabloids had nicknamed The Magpie Murderer would strike next. It had been four weeks since his previous killing, and, as they had all taken place at four-weekly intervals, we expected that the final one would occur some time during that day. We just had no idea where, that was the problem. All we had to go on was that the victim would somehow be linked to a secret.

“About this party. Is it something your company organised?”

“After an invite, are you? Sorry, men aren’t allowed in. We don’t do those sorts of functions.”

“No, that isn’t it at all. This is an official enquiry.”

“Oh,” she replied, clearly taken aback. “No, this is something I’ve organised. We do freelance work as well as what the company arranges for us. This job came from…” She paused a while as she sorted through her bag, looking for her diary. “Here it is, look. Mr Pica rang me four weeks ago. He was very specific about it being tonight, and at exactly twenty past eight. I had to decide whether or not to rearrange a couple of things to accommodate. But, as you can see from the stock, he’s bringing hundreds of women along to the warehouse and I could make more money tonight than I normally do in a month, so it was an easy decision to make.”

I thought for a moment before replying. Gregory’s obsession with detail, especially as far as timings were concerned, was something that I was acutely aware of, having similar compulsions myself. Another officer might not have even noticed, but the time resonated with me. I could visualise the symmetry of the numbers, and, allied to the name of her employer, I was now convinced that I had made a key breakthrough in the case.

Ms Evans was looking at me, expecting a response to her answer, so I asked, “And does this sort of thing normally happen?”

“No, not normally. But it does on occasion, so it’s not totally unheard of. Why? Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know. Leave it with me.”

I rang the station and told the desk sergeant what had just taken place. “It was when I heard she worked for Seductively Secret that I wondered. And then, when she told me the time of the meeting, it seemed to confirm it. Do you think there’s anything in it?”

“Maybe, maybe not. What was the man’s name again?”

“Pica.”

“Peeker? Sounds like we’ve a peeping Tom on our hands, not a serial killer.”

“No, it’s not spelt like that.”

“How do you spell it, then?”

“P-I-C-A.”

“That’s a strange name… What was that? Just a minute, Eddie Parkinson is talking to me.”

Parkinson was one of the senior officers, and he was often the victim of ribaldry because of his love for birds — the feathered kind, I must add. On this occasion, his ornithological knowledge was to prove invaluable. I could vaguely hear the discussion taking place, and then the sergeant spoke to me, very slowly. “Eddie has just informed me that the scientific name for the magpie is the Pica Pica. I think you might have found our killer.”

And so it turned out. Instead of Ms Evans, an undercover police detective went to the warehouse, where she found nobody in attendance but Morgan Gregory. He wasn’t, though, expecting the back-up that broke into the building moments later, and the killer was apprehended before he could complete his ‘rhyme’ killings. Everybody was surprised when we discovered that he was a young, baby-faced, clean-cut man who was a few months short of his thirtieth birthday. He was barely older than me, and what I would have described as 'eminently suitable; if your daughter had brought him home to meet the family, most parents would have been delightedly making wedding plans.

The evidence against him was overwhelming. Gregory didn’t even deny his part in the ritualistic slaughtering, but he claimed that it wasn’t murder, as he was obeying orders from a voice only he could hear; it was a convenient defence, and experts lined up to confirm his insanity. His conviction was never in question, but instead of spending the rest of his life in a maximum-security prison — which could easily have been sixty years of incarceration — he was sent to the mental health institution that ultimately allowed his escape; the system had failed the British public once again.