Past Mortem (40 page)
Authors: Ben Elton
THIRTY-SIX
N
ewson woke up in his hospital bed knowing that the game was not quite over. He and Natasha had been treated for severe stomach disorders caused by ingesting slurry. Natasha now lay in the next room. They had spoken briefly after having their stomachs pumped, and she had almost forgiven him for rescuing her only after she had spent three whole minutes with her head immersed in the contents of one of Dick Crosby’s septic tanks.
‘I can’t believe you were outside fighting Lance while I was being murdered,’ she said.
‘I wouldn’t call it fighting. It was more of a mugging.
‘You’ll have to prosecute him.’
‘Maybe. I’m not sure. Bit embarrassing, really. I mean, I didn’t even land a blow. Besides, I have some sympathy for him.’
‘
Sympathy!
’
‘Yes, he may be a nasty bully, but he’s a sad one. Sad and pathetic. And he’s definitely in pain. He loves you, you know, in his own inadequate way.’
‘Well, whatever, I still say you should nick him.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
And now, alone in his room, Newson knew that he hadn’t finished. He had most certainly stopped the serial killer. Chief Superintendent Ward had even been moved to send a note of congratulation along with a modest bunch of carnations. Of course there would be an inquiry into Dick Crosby’s death, but Dr Clarke, who had been waiting with the emergency response team and attended the scene, testified that Sergeant Wilkie had been very close to the onset of brain damage, and that Newson’s prompt actions had saved her life.
But the case wasn’t over. Something was missing. Newson sat up in bed, pain gripping his bowel and stomach, and knew what it was.
What had Crosby done about his own bully?
The one who’d made that lonely little boy so miserable that he’d turned into an embittered killer?
Newson begged a nurse to bring him in a laptop and a phone line. With trembling fingers he dialled up the online
Who’s Who
. There was Crosby. Next, Newson went to Friends Reunited and entered the name of the public school that Crosby had attended as a scholarship boy from the age of thirteen. Crosby was not listed, but Newson hadn’t expected him to be. Instead Newson typed in a name that had lived at the back of his mind for two whole years.
Scanlan-McGregor
.
He was there! The mysterious peer who had disappeared without trace had attended the same school as Dick Crosby, and at the same time. Newson jumped from his bed and grabbed his trousers. He struggled down the corridor, pulling them over his pyjamas and dialling into his mobile at the same time.
Natasha called after him.
‘Where are you going? We’re ill!’
But Newson was already speaking to Scotland Yard. He needed sniffer dogs and an emergency search warrant. ‘If you can’t get a warrant just bring a sledgehammer.’
The team were to meet him at the London residence of the deceased billionaire Dick Crosby.
As he drove in a squad car to Crosby’s Belgravia house, Newson despatched teams to investigate Crosby’s country mansion and shooting lodge in Scotland. But something told him that if his hunch was correct the answer lay in London. Scanlan-McGregor’s body had never been found, yet Crosby had made no effort to hide his other victims’ corpses. Perhaps Crosby had hidden the body in order to avoid the possibility of his connection with Scanlan-McGregor’s being discovered.
Or perhaps he had not killed him
.
If Crosby had not killed him, then he had decided to keep him. And Newson imagined that a man like Crosby would keep the things he valued close to hand.
It did not take the dogs long. In the beautiful basement kitchen of Dick Crosby’s London mansion a false wall was soon discovered, behind which lay what could only be described as a torture chamber. This tiny cell had been Lord Scanlan-McGregor’s home since his kidnapping eighteen months earlier. It would later be discovered that during that time Crosby had subjected Scanlan-McGregor to all the tortures he had used on his other victims. The unfortunate peer had been the guinea pig for Crosby’s carefully planned assaults: he had been bashed over the head with books, had had his upper lip cut and stitched, his nipples had been crushed, he’d been jabbed with a pair of compasses, the skin on his chest had been bleached, and his pubic hair had been dyed red. He had survived, however, and as the door was kicked down and Newson pushed his way through, Lord Scanlan-McGregor raised his head, blinking in the unaccustomed light, and in a hoarse voice that nonetheless revealed the plummiest of accents, said, ‘You took your farking time. Where’s that little bastard Crosby? I’m going to kill him.’
‘Too late,’ said Newson. ‘I did that.’
Scanlan-McGregor re-entered the House of Lords six weeks later, just in time to vote against a ban on fox-hunting. He would later remark that attending a public school was excellent training for being trapped in a torture chamber by a sadistic lunatic.
‘Old Scanlan-McGregor may be a bastard, but he’s a stylish bastard,’ said Natasha while perusing the thick leather-bound menu at the Savoy Grill.
‘Natasha,’ said Newson.
‘I’m going to have a bloody big steak,’ she said. ‘I think my guts can finally handle it.’
‘Natasha,’ repeated Newson.
‘What are you having? Got to celebrate. We caught a serial killer and no longer have gastroenteritis.’
‘
Natasha
,’ said Newson rather too loudly, causing those at nearby tables to turn and stare.
‘What?’
‘I don’t think we can work together any more.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m in love with you.’
‘Ah, that’s a shame.’
‘What? That I’m in love with you?’
‘No, that you don’t think we can work together. Couldn’t we risk it?’
‘So…it’s not a shame that I’m in love with you? Or is it?’
‘I don’t think it is at all. I think it’s great. You don’t know me, of course, so you’ll probably change your mind, but — ’
‘Never! Bloody never. Look, Natasha. I know it’s very early days, but will you — ’
‘You see,’ said Natasha, ‘as always you’re right. It
is
early days. Let’s order. I’m starving.’
THE END
