Fifty Two Weeks of Murder (14 page)

Chapter 4

The road along the Thames was filled with traffic, but it ground to a halt at the sight of an armed man walking towards the Scotland Yard entrance. Tourists and locals alike scrambled for cover as a squad of armed police officers swarmed from the Yard and flanked him, taking cover behind walls and cars. Mal told them to back off and clear the site and they reluctantly shepherded civilians from the area. 

The gunman was covered in blood. Cloying and sticky, it clung to his clothes, his skin and his hair, plastering it flat. Anders could see clumps of gristle clotting his tie and levelled her gun as she moved left and Barry circled the other side, careful not to place himself in line of Anders’ weapon and her to his. The gunman was plump and looked as if he’d never done a hard day’s work in his life, his chubby hands soft and manicured, his suit perfectly cut and his shoes unscuffed, gleaming in the midday sun.

He looked terrified as he stumbled towards Mal who strode confidently in his direction. The gunman held his weapon loosely by his side and it looked like an old handgun from the Second World War. Anders readied to shoot if he raised it, but she wasn’t sure the gun would even fire, it looked so old. She saw Barry prepare to do the same from her peripheral vision and scanned the area quickly. It was clear of civilians, the armed response team having hurried them from the area and secured it. There were at least a dozen guns aimed on the man, though only Anders and Barry were out in the open. She wasn’t worried. She knew that either herself or Barry could shoot him before he raised his weapon high enough to hurt someone.

“I’m Deputy Chief Constable Mal Weathers,” he said, his voice carrying clear across the suddenly silent street, a cool breeze wafting off the Thames and snapping at the flags above the Scotland Yard building. “I’m leading the taskforce currently assigned to catching Lord Buckland. I’m told that you have requested my team. What’s your name?” The gunman looked confused for a moment, clearly distressed, before focusing his attention on Mal.

“Why are they armed? Will they shoot me?” he asked. His voice was raw and strangely childlike, his chords scratched to ruin from shouting and screaming as he’d walked along the river. Mal raised his hands in a placatory gesture.

“You
are
carrying a gun. How about you drop that so we can have a chat?”

“They’re pointing their guns at me. I’m not pointing mine at anyone.” Mal indicated for Barry and Anders to lower their weapons and they did so reluctantly. He yelled for the armed response unit to stand down and there was a tense moment as their sergeant weighed up overruling a superior officer. Eventually, he nodded and they slunk into the shadows, their presence felt but not seen.

“There,” said Mal softly, his gentle Welsh accent soothing and full of kindness. “They’ve lowered their guns. What’s your name?”

“Steve,” he said. “Steven Kelly. I didn’t want to do it. I thought I did. I thought that what Buckland said was true. That we had to start a revolution. That life didn’t matter. It was cheap. Isn’t that what he said? There’s too many of us.”

As he spoke, Jesse relayed information into Anders’ earpiece.

“Steven Kelly, lives in Brixton, works in the PM offices, a few hundred metres from where you are now. Recently divorced. I’m sending a car to his work and his home, see what he’s done.”

“And his ex-wife’s place,” called Abi in the background as Mal inched closer to Steven.

“There are plenty of us Steve,” he said. “That doesn’t make life any less sacred does it? We value life, we treasure it and we fight to survive. We celebrate every birth and mourn deeply every loss.” Anders heard his voice catch, as if he recalled some great tragedy in his life. He spoke from the heart and Steve saw it too.

“That makes it worse then doesn’t it? What I’ve done.” Mal moved closer, almost close enough to reach out. Steve’s hand twitched and Mal stopped, Barry and Anders raising their weapons in response. Steve hadn’t noticed, focused as he was on Mal.

“I don’t know what you’ve done Steve. Whatever it is, I’m sure that you are deeply sorry. That you didn’t mean to. That’s why you’re here. To turn yourself in.” Jesse’s voice burst through Anders’ earpiece, startling her. Keeping her breathing steady and calm, she listened to Jesse as Mal talked quietly with Steve.

“Shooting at his workplace. Seems his fantasy involved blowing his boss’ brains out and throwing him from a window. Then he shot the secretary, his ex-wife, and apparently spent five minutes sobbing over her corpse. I’m listening to a recording of the nine, nine, nine call from the building. Sounds like several more shots were fired, but it’s garbled and panicky.”

Gun works then
, thought Anders to herself as Mal spoke, failing to calm Steve who started pounding his skull with a clenched fist.

“It was supposed to make things better,” he shouted, frustration coursing through him, his body shaking with rage. “I was helping us all, making things better.”

“That’s the thing about fantasies Steve. Oftentimes, it’s best that they stay that way. We don’t always act out our fantasies because we know the hurt they’ll cause. Having them and feeling them makes us cope with the world as it is, not as we want it to be.”

Steve calmed at that and gave Mal a listless look.

“Is five million pounds worth it?” he asked. Mal gave the question some thought.

“That’s not for me to say. Hand me your gun and I’d love to talk it through. You and me.” Steve gave a long sigh and shook his head sadly.

“It’s not, you know. It really isn’t.” He gave a short, bitter bark of a laugh. “Heck, I don’t even know if I won.” A sudden thought hit him. “I forgot to take a picture.”

With that, he raised his gun. Mal lurched forwards, but was unable to cover the distance to wrestle the weapon from Steve as he lifted it to his own head. Two shots rang out, loud in the street, echoing off the concrete buildings and rolling away, screams of shock and fear in its wake.

The first bullet hit Steve in his shoulder and the second his arm. He spun to the floor, gun spinning away and blood gouting from his wounds. A silence smothered the street then as Mal turned to see that Barry and Anders had both fired. The sudden calm was punctured by screaming as the shock of Steve’s wounds wore off and the excruciating pain set in. He writhed on the floor, clutching his injuries as Mal ran to him, taking off his shirt and pressing it to the bullet wounds to stem the bleeding.

“Ambulance on the way,” said Jesse over Anders’ earpiece. She went to help Mal as the sounds of London slowly seeped back to the blocked off street, the city no longer holding its breath. He shook his head at her as she knelt down, removing her jacket and stuffing it hard against the second wound.

“This has got to stop,” he said. As the blood pooled around Steve, she looked down and knew that as each week went on, it would escalate further. They were only in the second week and there were another fifty to go.

Chapter 5

As Barry filled in the weapon discharge forms, Anders and Mal completed the incident report. Steve had been taken to hospital and they’d managed to stop the bleeding. The paramedics couldn’t say whether he’d survive or not.

“Should have let him bleed out in the street,” muttered Duncan as he sat down next to Anders. The team were all in the central Hub, working at their desks and filing paperwork. Since the NCA had been labelled ignorant and ill-informed by a High Court judge over their work practises in twenty fifteen, they’d had to be more diligent with their paperwork. Barry looked up as he typed on his computer, massive hands dwarfing the keyboard as he poked each key with a forceful thump.

“No way. Suicide’s too easy for that guy. He needs to pay his dues in the here and now.” He glanced at Lucy. “If there is a Heaven and Hell, he can damn well wait until we’re done with him first.”

As he spoke, Jesse switched on the projector, the whirring noise from the machine loud in the confined space. While it warmed up, he turned on the speakers and they all heard Lord Francis Buckland’s voice before the picture came on screen. He was standing outside the MP’s offices and speaking to the press.

“It is a truly tragic event that has happened here. As I have said many times in the past week, I cannot in any way condone my brother’s actions. They are a despicable affront to humanity. We were raised as children of Christ, promoting charity and Serviam above all else. I have initiated several new projects with the sole purpose of…” Anders tuned him out as she finished her report. A chime on her computer showed an email had come through and she opened it up to find Ben’s crime scene report from the Docks. Swiping the screen, she sent it to Jesse who put it up on the projector.

“It’s only preliminary,” said Anders as the team looked at the report. She stood up and switched the lights off. By now, the team had learnt to sit back and let her work when she wore this look of intense concentration. It was as if nothing else but the crime existed.

“Jesse, can you get Helen on loudspeaker please?” she said as she walked to the projection image on the wall. “Show me picture three. Zoom in.” A close up of Boyle’s decapitated limb filled the screen and the team shifted in discomfort. Abi didn’t, intent as she was on watching Anders.

I could write a paper on this woman
, she thought as Anders had Jesse zoom in and out of several photographs, scanning back to previous ones, laying the images over each other and placing them in columns on the screen.

“Helen, you there?” asked Anders as a fuzzy noise came over the speakers.

“I’m here love,” replied Helen. Her voice was muffled by the mask she wore for Boyle’s autopsy in the pathology lab. “What’s up?”

“Take a look at the left Ulna, right Tibia and right Patella. Tell me what you see.” A scuffling could be heard over the speaker as Helen sifted through body parts until she found the right ones. Eventually she spoke.

“You could be right. I’m not going to bet my career on it, but I think there is a possibility. That’s as far as I’ll go.”

“Thanks Helen, I’ll leave you to it.” As Helen hung up, Anders turned to the team who had been waiting patiently. She pointed to the photographs that she’d had Jesse sort. “What you’re looking at are the saw marks made by whatever device Buckland used to hack Boyle’s limbs off. This one here, three strong thrusts of a saw, this one, shallow cuts, followed by deep strong ones. This last one, smooth and steady, but not as deep with each cut.”

“Oh,” said Abi as realisation dawned. “You think there’s three people. First one is Buckland, strapping lad that he is, the second, someone new to this. Hesitant at first then getting into it, but strong too and then someone weaker, but not hesitant.” She gave a triumphant look. “And here’s me thinking you lot were policemen of the highest calibre,” she gloated. Mal gave her a sardonic look.

“So the crucifixion, you say we have two people and now you say we have three?” he asked. He’d changed into a new flannel shirt, causing Anders to wonder if he had a supply of them tucked away somewhere. Her own jacket had been ruined by Steve’s blood and she’d thrown it away with some regret. She had loved that jacket.

“You heard Helen,” she answered. “There’s not enough evidence. Buckland could be at an awkward angle, or he could have slipped. There could be any number of variables. Having said that, with the evidence from the first crime scene, I’m certain he is not working alone.”

“I agree,” chipped in Barry. “He’s not working alone. For starters he doesn’t have the technical knowhow to outsmart our own little hacker boy here.” Jesse gave him a pained look and Barry winked at him.

“I’m with Anders too,” said Duncan. “How else did someone without any medical training keep Boyle alive for so long?” He still had a thick bandage around his arm, but had removed the sling. His normally pale complexion had become slightly less grey and he was recovering well.

“I agree with Anders and Duncan,” said Lucy, causing Mal to give her a strange look.

“Seems we have some harmony on the team,” he said. “Good. Let’s expand the search. Work over the crime scene again. Eliminate everything we know to be Buckland’s and work on what’s left, see where it leads us.” He indicated the screen where Francis Buckland was still talking to the press. “I’ll see if I can get his DNA sample again. He seems willing, but the lawyer isn’t. At the very least, it will help us eliminate his brother from the crime scene. Barry, I want you to coordinate the search of the new buildings Jesse has found. Anders, you can…”

He stopped as the phone rang and Jesse answered it. Mal waited patiently for him to finish and hang up. Before Jesse could speak, the phone rang again. Another conversation.

“Ok boss,” Jesse said when he was done. “Interpol called, says the Spanish have caught the winner of week one, a Devonte De La Cruz. They’re on the way now.”

“That was quick!” exclaimed Duncan. Jesse laughed as he recounted how the winner had been caught trying to buy a new Ferrari with his Debit card.

“And the first call?” asked Mal impatiently. Jesse grimaced.

“Another entry. Up in Liverpool, next to the Kop. Something about a Blood Eagle?” Duncan spoke, earning a few shocked looks from the team.

“It’s an old Norse ritual, a sacrifice to Odin. You cut the ribs from the backbone and then pull out the lungs. Make’s an Eagle’s wing. What? I do read, you know.”

“Oh sure, when we were growing up, he read Dandy, Beano, all the classics,” said Abi sarcastically. Jesse gazed at the pair and shook his head. Duncan was a scruffy layabout, whilst Abi was prim and proper.

“How you two are related is beyond me.” Ignoring Jesse, Mal turned to Duncan and Lucy.

“You two get up there and take the scene. Seems like someone’s fantasy is to become a Viking or some such. Anders, you can meet and greet with the Spanish folks. Until they get here, help Barry but make sure Helen and Ben don’t need you first. Abi, I need an updated profile on Buckland and something on what his disciples might be like. I’ve a feeling they’ll be popping up everywhere.”

There was a brief pause as his words sunk in. He clapped his hands together loudly in the silence.

“Let’s go!” Chairs scraped and tables shifted backwards as everyone moved to their tasks, galvanised into action. Anders and Barry turned to Jesse as he printed out a list of new properties they could search. Taking the list from the printer, Barry scanned down the sheet before turning to Anders.

“I got this,” he said. “You go help Helen out, get us some more evidence.”

“You sure?” He waved her away.

“Yeah. It’ll take me a while to draw up some warrants and coordinate the different boroughs anyway.”

Anders made her way to the lab to find Helen surrounded by bags of body parts, each one labelled and sealed tight. She was just opening one as Anders entered.

“Need a hand?” Helen gave a sigh of relief and nodded to the sink.

“Scrub up love, you’re a life saver. I need to reassemble poor Boyle here and see if there’s anything missing before scanning him into the computer.” Anders moved to the sink and grabbed a lab coat before scrubbing her hands and forearms.

“Where’s Ben?” she asked, turning the tap off with her elbow and slipping on some latex gloves and a face mask.

“At the Dockyard, making sure SCO don’t screw up,” replied Helen as she removed a toeless foot from a bag and laid it on the metal gurney in an approximation of where Boyle’s foot would be. Anders opened another bag and grimaced at the toes that greeted her. She started matching them up as Helen placed the second foot down.

“Have you seen the way he looks at you?” asked Anders mischievously. She knew Helen had been shaken by what she had seen and guessed, correctly, that levity was a good coping mechanism for her.

“No different to how he looks at you,” she replied, arching a perfectly manicured eyebrow at Anders.

“It’s different with you, like he’s imagining the two of you as a couple. It’s more thoughtful when he sees you.” Helen chuckled, the sound at odds with the severed hand she was holding.

“Bless him. You just want to mother him, sort that mop of hair out and feed him up a bit. I hear you and Lucy are best buds now. What brought that on?”

“Nothing like seeing a fellow police officer chopped up to give you some perspective I guess. She invited me to her church group. Said she wanted to show them how narrow minded they were.” Helen almost dropped the bag she was lifting.

“Bloody hell,” she exclaimed. “I hope you told her to shove it.” Anders smiled and shook her head.

“I gave up justifying my existence a long time ago, but if it makes things easier here, then it may be worth it. She’s quite sweet when she’s not scowling.”

“I’m not sure her face even knows how to not scowl.” They worked in companionable silence for a while as Boyle’s form slowly took shape. Helen had taken her shoes off to work, padding softly around the table, but Anders had left hers on and the sound of her heels echoed around the room. Helen gave an approving look at the court shoes she wore with a red undersole.

“I have to ask. How can you afford those Louboutin’s on your wages?”

“I was famous for five minutes in America. Made enough for us to live comfortably.” Helen gazed at her thoughtfully.

“That photo right? That serial killer you tracked down?” Anders focused on her job, not looking at Helen as she spoke, working on reassembling Boyle and not really wanting to engage in recalling that ordeal.

“That’s it,” she said absently.

“I read you lost your fiancé at the same time. I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been hard.” Anders gave her a ghost of a smile.

“It was.” She held her gaze a short moment and Helen could see the grief etched in her soul. Then it was gone and Anders went back to work, engrossed in her task. Helen looked at her a moment longer before probing further. She loved people and wanted to know everything there was about someone. There were so many facets to Anders that Helen found her to be an enigma she wanted to unravel and get to know.

“The way Jesse tells it, you made a truckload of cash helping a crime lord in New York and used that money to win big at an illegal poker game.” Helen kept her eye on Anders, but she was giving nothing away.

“Don’t believe everything that man says. He likes a good story.” Knowing she wasn’t getting anywhere, she changed her approach.

“Drinks tonight?” she asked.

“I’d love to, but I’m taking Aaron to a soccer game. Tomorrow night? I’d love you to show me around.” Helen gave her a cheeky grin.

“I think you and I will have some fun,” she declared. They worked well together and soon had the corpse reassembled. As Helen scanned the body into the computer so they could analyse the cuts and breaks that Buckland had made, Anders checked the body for any further evidence. It was a painstaking task and it was many hours before they were done.

The moment they finished, Mal entered, looking slightly nervous.

“Anything?” he asked. Helen grimaced.

“Not much beyond our preliminary findings. We’re just waiting for the spectrometer and the electrophoresis to finish up, see if they yield anything.” Mal grunted and turned to Anders.

“A word?” He walked out, leaving Anders to remove her gear and follow him into the corridor. He paced nervously as she drew near and looked around to check they were alone.

“I was. Well, I was wondering if you’d like to... Um.” Anders had never imagined that he could be nervous and was taken aback.

“Go out for a drink?” she said, helping him out. Mainly through pity.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m not normally nervous.”

“You’re my boss,” replied Anders. “Won’t that be a conflict of interest?”

“We’re adults,” he replied. “And professionals. We can keep them separate. Besides, nothing’s happened yet.”

“You know what I am,” said Anders, a little more bluntly than she meant to. Mal frowned and lifted his hands up in consternation.

“No, it’s nothing like that,” he said quickly. “When I look at you, I see nothing more than a beautiful woman, inside and out. What you are, or were, never occurred to me until you raised it now.” Anders softened somewhat. She saw the truth in his words.

“You like soccer? Or football as you call it?” she asked. “I have some tickets for the game tonight. Cassie will be delighted to give her ticket to you.” She smiled at him as he grinned at her.