The Element Of Death

Creswell was pacing nervously up and down as I arrived. “Any luck, Ben? Have you cracked it?”

I didn’t usually like it when he called me Ben instead of Watson; it usually meant he was in desperate need of help, and I lost a little respect for him each time he verbally grovelled to his team. This time, though, I understood his need.

“Yes, it was straightforward. Let’s start with an easy one—”

“There’s no need to flaunt your cleverness over the rest of us. It might be easy to you, but to us more normal mortals—”

“No, sir, you don’t understand. That’s how the message begins. ‘Let’s start with an easy one.’” I pointed to the photograph of the message from the crime scene, which was on the incident board:

Kds’r rszqs vhsg zm dzrx nmd. Sghr hr sgd ehqrs ne lzmx. Gnv lzmx? Ad z fnakhm gdmbglzm, dke. Knnj enq Zmcx vgdm sgd mdws nmd nbbtqr.

“In cryptology terms, the killer has used a Caesarian Shift cypher. In this case, it’s a simple one-letter backward displacement code, so ‘Kds’r’ is actually ‘Let’s’.”

“You’re losing me already, Watson.” Now that I had given him something, the more formal and in control Creswell returned. I knew that he probably did know what I was talking about, but he was an old-school copper who felt it didn’t suit his image to take note of all the ‘poncy university gobbledygook’ that people like me spouted.

“I know you don’t want all the details, but this really is a straightforward code. For every letter in your message, you substitute the one before it in the alphabet, so instead of writing ‘b’ you write ‘a’. Look, I’ll write the two alphabets out for you as it might make it easier.”

I wrote, on two lines:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

ZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY

Creswell made a grunting noise as he cleared his throat. “I see that you understand what you’re talking about, but, as far as I’m concerned, the message is just a jumble of letters. How did you know he’d used that sort of code?”

“If you look at it, it’s easier than you think. You see that single ‘z’ in the message? Well, you can assume that’s a word on its own, and it will either be ‘a’ or ‘I’ — if we assume it isn’t text speak for ‘u’. Think of the alphabet as circular. As z then comes immediately before a, it makes sense to assume that the word is ‘a’ and the one-letter displacement is being used. The message then translates to: ‘Let’s start with an easy one. This is the first of many. How many? Be a goblin henchman elf. Look for Andy when the next one occurs.’”

Creswell rubbed his chin. “Who the hell’s Andy? And what does that bit about goblins and elves mean? This isn’t Lord of the Rings.”

I flinched at the name, and he gave me a strange look; he wasn’t to know that his mentioning Tolkien’s novel reminded me of the afternoon when Monika left while we were watching The Hobbit. I tried to sound calm and collected. “There’s nothing that springs to mind from the book that could explain the ‘Andy’ part. Maybe one of the actors in the film was called Andy? Andy Serkis perhaps? Even if it is supposed to be him, I really don’t know the connection.”

“If you don’t know, then I doubt it can refer to an actor. It was aimed at you, so he must expect you to be able to understand it.”

Parkinson had been standing quietly off to the side, but he began to speak animatedly to rebuff the DI’s suggestion.

“Why must he? Watson’s decoded the message, so surely the rest is up to us real detectives, He’s back office now, remember. Besides, we know Gregory was mentally unstable, so why should we expect any message he leaves to actually make sense?”

I could see the veins bulging in Creswell’s neck. He didn’t like being interrupted, and he especially didn’t like being contradicted. I could tell that it was taking all of his effort to speak calmly and clearly as he responded. “You’re wrong, Eddie. Yes, Gregory claimed to be mentally unstable, but you know as well as I do that it was all just an act for the jury. His detailed level of planning proved, to me at least, that he was eminently sane. This message was intended for Ben, so I’m certain there’s something there that he can make sense of.”

Creswell turned to face me. “About the back-office part,” he said, putting an arm around my shoulder. “We’re going to need every man we have on this case, Ben, so I want you to go back out there with the team. We’re already two down — Atkins is on long-term sick, and Monika has returned to Germany. We all thought it best, considering what had happened. So I need you to be with us. With your experience, and as you have encountered Gregory before, I want you to be my right-hand man.”

He didn’t specifically say I was to blame for the team being short-handed, but the implication was evident. I wasn’t bothered about Atkins in the slightest, but the Monika situation was different. I tried to keep my voice calm and measured. “I didn’t think she’d leave. Can’t we do anything about it?”

“No, it’s all been sorted at the top level. She’s gone back to work with her previous section for a year’s secondment. It’ll give everybody some time to come to terms with things. I know she meant a lot to you, but, like I said, it’s for the best.”

My mind was in turmoil. I hadn’t expected this. She was going to be out of my life for a whole year. I had made plans, and she was central to them all. Now they were crumbling before my eyes. “When will she be back,” I asked, trying to keep the rising panic out of my voice.

“She left the day after the incident occurred. Like I said, we all thought it was for the best, and it was all sorted with a couple of top-level phone calls. She’s due to return next October.”

I considered what that meant, and took a deep breath. “I thought that she was with Atkins. Didn’t that mean anything after all?”

The DI paused before replying. “He’s gone over there as well. Once he’s fit for active duty again, he’ll be on secondment to the Bundespolizei. We’ve owed them that ever since we poached Monika from them. He’s due to return on the same day as Monika, October seventeenth next year.”

I forced myself to relax. “I guess I didn’t realise how much I would miss her. I assumed she’d be around, and I suppose I assumed things would find their way back to how they used to be.”

“It’s time to move on. You’re how old — thirty-eight, thirty-nine? There are plenty more women out there. Forget her.”

“I’ll try, boss.” As if that were possible. “Anyway, it looks like we might have our hands full trying to catch a psychopath. Next October will be here before you know it.”

Just then, a junior officer came in. “I’ve brought the lab report on the Norris death, sir,” he said, handing a manila folder to the DI.

Creswell opened it and read the two A4 sheets thoroughly. “Not a great deal to surprise us here. DNA shows traces of the victim and her boyfriend, naturally, and also Gregory. The only surprise, I suppose, is that there isn’t much of Gregory’s DNA at the scene.”

“I see what you mean,” I said. “He isn’t making any attempt to hide the fact that he’s behind this, so why wasn’t there more to find?”

“Unless,” he added, “he was covering himself up to avoid getting soaked in her blood? He knew what was going to happen, so maybe he wore gloves, or a face mask. Whatever he wore, he took it off when he left so nobody seeing him would suspect a thing.”

I thought about what I’d heard. “Yes, I can see that. He might even have put overalls on. Whatever he used, perhaps he ditched them somewhere nearby.”

“We haven’t found anything, but I’ll order another search. Somebody might have seen some in the bins without taking notice of them.” Creswell called one of the junior officers over and gave him the new search instructions.

“What about the murder weapon? Any clues as to its whereabouts?”

“They found it. It was one of the victim’s own knives and he’d replaced it on the rack after cleaning it. There were clear traces of blood at a microscopic level, and the pattern of some of the cuts she had received matched exactly to the knife’s serrated edge.”

“I’m beginning to get an idea of his thought processes,” I said. “He isn’t trying to hide who he is, but he still isn’t going to take the risk of bringing his own knife, and then potentially being found with it? Much better to travel light. Even though he has such a high profile, he has one of those ordinary faces that means he could almost be in this room right now and we’d never spot him.”

“Not quite,” said Creswell. “I’d know him anywhere, and, I’m certain, so would you. If not,” he added, “you’d better study those pictures long and hard. If we don’t get him first, at some stage he’ll come after you.”

“Thanks. It’s a sobering thought.”

“I know, but it’s true. Don’t underestimate him just because he hasn’t tried to get you yet.” Creswell skimmed through the report once more. “There are details about the liquid that the body was covered in. It was something called hydrazine or diazane. Have you ever heard of it?”

“Can’t say that I have,” I replied. “Was that what caused the ammonia smell?”

Creswell read some more. “Seems like it. The report says it’s a colourless flammable liquid with an ammonia-like smell. It’s highly toxic and dangerously unstable unless it’s in solution. They use it in rocket fuel. Acute exposure can damage the liver and kidneys and it’s also corrosive. They say it can be a carcinogen.”

I let out a low whistle. “Rocket fuel? How could he get hold of that?”

“It isn’t just rocket fuel. It’s in some pesticides as well, and in chemicals used in photography. So I guess you could get hold of it easily enough.”

I thought for a few moments. “This doesn’t make any sense. From what you’ve said, hydrazine is pretty unpleasant, but surely that amount isn’t going to kill anybody. At least, not straight away. Why bother when he’d all but gutted her already?”

“It wasn’t used to try and kill her. The report clearly states that it was added after she was dead. They could tell by the level of seepage into her open chest cavity and the fact that there was no blood flow at the time.”

“I repeat, then. Why bother?”

“That,” said Creswell, “might be the key question.”

*

The next few weeks passed far too quickly for the investigating team, although, with Monika never far from my thoughts, time dragged for me. Despite conducting house-to-house searches across the county, there was nothing to indicate that Gregory existed. I was tasked with trying to solve the puzzle that had been left for me, but, as I repeatedly told Creswell, out of context it made no sense. He was seriously unimpressed.

Everybody called Andy on the criminal database was checked and investigated, but nothing of any significance was found. As the month drew to a close I was called into Creswell’s office. It was just after midnight, and I was about to leave for home after another frustrating evening. I was unprepared for what came next.

In contrast to the haggard appearance that had been his constant companion for the last four weeks, he looked positively relieved. “Do you know what today is, Watson?”

“No, sir. What do you mean?”

“The date. It’s the thirtieth. We’ve just ticked over to a new dawn.”

I looked at him as if he’d lost his marbles. “Yes, it is. And tomorrow will be the first.”

“You don’t get it, do you? The Norris killing took place on the night of October thirty-first, November first. That’s twenty-nine or thirty days ago now, depending which date you take. All of Gregory’s murders last time took place at four-weekly intervals. Exactly four weeks, almost to the minute. I was dreading getting a call yesterday to say he’d struck again, but he hasn’t. I think we might be all right.”

I didn’t want to disagree with my boss when he was so obviously filled with relief, but I felt I had to. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Remember the code I cracked? It told us it was the first of many. He left a cryptic message that we haven’t been able to decipher yet. He must be planning more.”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t. But what if something has happened to him? There hasn’t been a single sighting of him since the murder. What if he was the victim of a hit and run or something like that?”

“You’re grasping at straws, boss. There’d been no sign of him before the last one, but it still happened.”

“Yes, but that was only a fortnight. This has been almost a month. A month! Surely there would have been something in that time if he was still alive, if only something to taunt you — us — for our lack of progress. I can feel it in my gut, Watson. Everything is going to be okay.”

I looked at him, reading the desperate hope in his eyes, eyes that begged please let me be right, but I couldn’t find the words to reply; I knew that we hadn’t heard the last of Gregory.

November 30th

Trixie looks at her watch. It has been a slow night. Business is always bad once the cold sets in. It might be okay for those who have a nice warm bed to go to, but for her, out here by the garages on the industrial estate, finding punters hasn’t been easy.

The guy who said he’d be here doesn’t even have a car. That’s his problem, she thinks. He’s the one who’ll be exposing himself to the biting wind. She has only come here because there are far too many other women on her patch. Some of them aren’t even from the town; no, the city, she corrects herself. She detests them, coming over here and taking her business. Who do they think they are? She knows, though. They think they are younger than her, and they are right.

She takes another look at the time. Almost one in the morning. She’ll give him another five minutes, then she’ll go. She isn’t that desperate for a client. But he did promise to pay her very well. She wonders what she’ll be expected to do to get the money. She wonders, but doesn’t mind. Anything is fine, she thinks. I’ll use the cash to buy nice Christmas presents for Ciaran and Eilidh.

She hears footsteps and turns to face the direction they are approaching from. Yes, this will be him. He’s carrying a large bag in one hand and holds something under what looks like a rug with the other. What sort of kinkiness is this guy into? She smiles. The kinkier the better, as far as she’s concerned, as she runs through her fetish charge rates in her mind.

*

He doesn’t say a word as he follows her into the garage, but he makes certain that the door is firmly closed behind them. She shines a torch in his face and begins her spiel. “It’s a tenner for straight sex, anything other than that is extra. There aren’t any limits as long as you’re prepared to pay. What’s your perversion, then?”

He pulls some lengths of rope out of the bag. She smiles. “Bondage, eh? Normally that would be another twenty, but I like being tied up, so let’s call it another fifteen, eh? Money first,” she demands, holding out a dirty hand.

He lets her have it, a backhanded slap across the face that sends her flying backwards. Even though his gloves have tempered the blow a little, she is still knocked senseless. He picks up the torch that fell as she landed and shines it on her. He can see the tears welling up in her eyes and the look of disbelief on her face. What a stupid woman. In her profession, doesn’t she realise that every john could be the one who kills her? If she hasn’t before, then she will now. He shines the torch on his watch to check the time: 01:01. Perfect.

He takes the rug off the object it is concealing, and watches her eyes widen in terror as she sees what he has brought with him. Before she can react, he pounces, grabbing her scrawny left wrist, and with practised ease he secures it with the rope to the top-left corner of the huge wooden X. Then, in turn, he secures her remaining wrist and her ankles to the other three corners.

She screams repeatedly as she tries to prevent him, but she is no match for him. He doesn’t mind the noise, for there is nobody around to hear her. Besides, he is looking forward to hearing her later on.

Before that can happen, though, she has to be prepared.

He makes sure that the ropes are tight, then he hauls the cross up and leans it against the wall so she resembles a Catherine wheel on Bonfire Night. Taking out his knife, he deftly removes all of her clothing. He takes the whip from his bag. It has a wooden handle and a series of three leather thongs, each containing embedded sharp stones. He holds it in his right hand for her to see, then flails it and brings it down on her naked flesh. And again. And again.

He reaches into his bag and removes the gas cylinder. He affixes a tube to the end and then forces it through her clenched teeth. He turns on the nozzle and allows the gas to enter her mouth.

After a couple of seconds, he stops the flow and removes the tube. She shouts at him, asking why he is doing this to her, but her voice is high-pitched, as if it came from an old vinyl record that has been played at seventy-eight rpm instead of forty-five, and he laughs.

Then he reinserts the tube, turns the nozzle on and this time he doesn’t turn it off until the cylinder is empty. While he waits, he takes a brush from his bag and, holding it in his left hand, begins to cover the bristles with her blood, which appears in new locations on her body with each additional flail of the scourging whip.

*

The lifeless body of the prostitute slumps as much as it is able to, given the constraints of the ropes. He no longer notices her. All of his attention is on the message that he has painstakingly painted on the wall. The blood had dried, but the words are clearly visible.

He packs away all of his tools, makes sure that he has left nothing behind, and exits the garage, this time leaving the door open to ensure that she is found.

Two – A New Partner

Creswell was desolate. I felt sorry for him. I understood what he must be going through, and I could empathise with his reasoning when he had tried to convince himself that there wouldn’t be any more murders. Anybody could have reacted in the same way, as the fantasy was infinitely preferable to facing up to the grisly truth.

We were at the crime scene in Preston’s Deepdale district and he was constantly pacing up and down, muttering to himself. “I was so certain that it wasn’t going to happen. I allowed myself to believe it because I wanted to believe it. He’s changed to the end of the month, that’s what he’s done. One at the end of October and now the second at the end of November. I’ve already cancelled all leave for New Year’s Eve.” He took a long look at me. “I hadn’t realised how badly you were affected by crime scenes. Were you always like that?”

“No,” I said, wiping my nose on my sleeve. “Only recently. It’s the smell, I think. Or perhaps it’s just psychological?”

“Hmphh,” he exclaimed. I think any talk of psychology was beyond his capacity for understanding. He was a good detective, but limited in other areas. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought you here. A photograph of the message would be just as effective.”

“No, you were right to call me. There’s something about the scene that you can’t replicate in a lab. I might see — or even smell — something that could possibly help solve this whole mystery.”

“And put that bastard Gregory behind bars, where he should have been all along.”

I echoed his sentiments. “So, what is the story here, then?” I asked.

Creswell called for one of the other officers on duty, and he opened his notebook and began to read. “At half-past six this morning, Mr Benjamin Crowley was taking his dogs for a walk across the waste ground when one of them began barking intensely and ran off towards these garages. Mr Crowley followed the dog into the garage, and came upon the scene here. The woman—” he pointed at the body, which was spreadeagled immodestly “—was well known to us at the local station. She goes by the name of Trixie Lahore. Originally from Dublin, she moved to Preston twenty years ago and has been on the game ever since.”

“Trixie Lahore?” said Parkinson, laughing unsympathetically. “A bit like Ronseal, I take it? ‘Does exactly what it says on the tin.’”

“They all do it,” replied Creswell. “I suppose they think it makes them sound more exotic to the punters — a little bit of Paris in Preston.”

“Paris? Her only link with the garlic-eaters would be having French fries with her battered cod of an evening.”

“That’s as maybe, Eddie, but, like I said, she isn’t the only one. She’s had countless cautions and prosecutions, but this is just what these people do. Without their clients, they probably wouldn’t have the money for their daily fixes. It seems that this time, her luck was out.”

“It seems that she ran into our serial killer,” I interjected. “I don’t think luck had anything to do with it, though. He would have planned this. It’s an isolated spot, so he would have been able to work away undisturbed. Any idea what time it occurred?”

“We’re waiting for the pathologist’s report for specific details, but he reckons it would have taken place shortly after midnight,” answered Creswell.

“What about the way she died?”

“Again, we’re awaiting the report, but he says the flaying probably wasn’t enough to kill her. That’s all I could get him to confirm, though. We’ll have to wait till tomorrow to get the full details.”

I walked over to take a look at the message on the wall:

Pqv xgta engxgt pqy, ncrfqi, ctg aqw? Aqw fkfp’v uqnxg vjg hktuv enwg, uq cpqvjgt qpg fkgu. Ocmg uwtg aqw gplqa Ejtkuvocu, dgecwug aqw’nn dg hct vqq dwua vq egngdtcvg Pgy Agct.

“Any ideas?” asked Creswell.

“Not yet. It doesn’t look like it’s the same as last time, that’s all I can say for now.”

“You wouldn’t expect it to be, would you? He’ll try and test you to make you look useless.”

I looked at Creswell. “That’s quite perceptive of you. I was going to say that he wouldn’t know whether we’d solved the last riddle or not, as we haven’t told the press. If that were the case, he might have used the same coding convention on the assumption that we hadn’t solved it, as we weren’t here to stop this crime. But I think you’re probably right — he’s going to try and make every one different to show me up for the incompetent fool that he always claimed I was.”

“Besides,” added Creswell, a little unnecessarily in my view, “you didn’t solve the last one, did you?”

“Don’t blame me for that. I gave you the name ‘Andy’, but you couldn’t find him.”

“I wasn’t meaning that. What about the pixies? You haven’t made sense of that yet.”

“You mean a goblin and an elf, not pixies. I’m still looking at that. Email the photograph to me and I’ll get started on this one. I’ll work from home and see if I can come up with anything.” I was not in the best of moods as I left.

*

I had calmed down by the time I returned to work the next day. I understood why the DI was acting that way, as he was under intense scrutiny. The press were having a field day at how our incompetence had freed the serial killer, with some of the more right-wing nationals demanding the return of the death penalty; it wasn’t totally clear whether this just meant for people like Gregory, or if it was intended to include those it deemed responsible for his being at large.

We could deny any responsibility for his escape until the end of the world, but it wouldn’t make the slightest difference in those people’s minds. We — the department — had been judged and convicted without having an opportunity to protest our innocence. Consequently, I had sympathy for Creswell, as he was the face of the department in this crisis. I wasn’t, therefore, particularly looking forward to seeing him, as the news I had to convey wasn’t great.

As I walked into the station, the desk sergeant called me over. “Can you have a word with those two?” he asked, pointing towards the waiting area. “It’s the victim’s parents, Mr and Mrs O’Reilly.”