Chapter Twelve Tidying Up Loose Ends
Things were beginning to get out of hand with Brand making his own decisions after Roger had painstakingly worked out a plan to discredit Wragg by making Brand promote him to Chief Inspector. Now the whole police force were out hunting him because Brand was not thinking straight and had buggered the whole thing up. Roger’s plan did not involve the Chief Constable, but now he was in hospital fighting for his life. Roger wondered how Brand got his promotion to Commander. He must have bribed somebody, because Roger thought he was incapable of understanding plain English and there seemed to be an empty tunnel between the ears. Brand was so thick that he hadn’t realised he had signed his own death warrant.
Roger couldn’t take the chance that the man working in the garage had not seen him arrive in the taxi, so he had no option but get rid of him. He was going to hide him in the garage, but the taxi came to pick him up quicker than he had anticipated and Roger ran back across the road in case the taxi cab driver saw a body lying there and he would have had to do away with him as well. Roger had to make up this story about meeting his fiancée at Charing Cross Station so the driver would go quickly before the police arrived. Life for Roger was hairy and beginning to be complicated and after the night was over he was going to regroup his thoughts and try and recruit another policeman. Funny really; he wouldn’t have far to look for a crooked copper or two.
Rushing back to Charing Cross was a hair-raising journey as the driver of the cab found new ways of getting there. He even went down a one way street the wrong way and apologised to each passing motorist and shouted out,
‘I’m new.’
‘Pity the poor passenger!’ shouted one response.
Roger found his way to the office above the station to where the announcer would be after making some enquiries by flashing Commander Brand’s identity card which he had lifted from his pocket in the pub. Thankfully there was only one person in the office who had just started his shift. Roger clobbered, tied and gagged him and made the announcement using the ten minute delay time he had heard announced as he entered the station. He rushed with his metal case hitting his legs as he scrambled to an vantage point and pieced together his rifle in readiness. He was some distance away from where Brand was now standing and there were not so many passengers waiting that end of the platform. The train was coming at a good speed and the cross hairs of the telescopic sight blurred for a moment. He twisted the knurled cap at the end and it all came into focus. He pointed the gun at Commander Brand’s back and squeezed the trigger twice. There was a slight sound of “PHUT – PHUT” as each bullet whizzed away. He saw Brand’s arms flail the air in some desperate attempt to stop himself falling. He fell just as the train entered the first part of the platform. If the bullets failed to kill him straight away, the train would undoubtedly finish him off.
There were lots of ifs and buts in Roger’s life at the moment but now he had got rid of the interfering Brand, he could get back on course in killing off the thieving sods who stole the money he had invested in this company. He had invested £46,420 – but they stole it instead and they thought they could get away with it by saying it was swallowed by a downward dip on the market. Obviously they had underestimated their client.
* * *
The headlines from all the Nationals were of the shooting of Commander Brand at Charing Cross Station and the hit and run victim, Chief Constable Eric Carter the day before – both high ranking police officers who worked at New Scotland Yard. Both stories had six inch columns which upset the public who read the papers that a serial killer was on the loose. They were advised that they should go out in pairs and not to use paths that had no lamp posts to light the way. If you were a long distance sniper it wouldn’t have made much difference as was the case of Commander Brand. One paper reported that Commander Brand committed suicide because his wife had left him. As Brand wasn’t married anyway, it was just amazing where reporters got their information from. The Chief Constable’s report was a bit of a mystery and it could have been the same person who had a vendetta against high ranking Police officers. The next paragraph read ‘D.C.I Wragg better watch his step as he has just been promoted Chief Superintendent and now in charge at New Scotland Yard.’ Wragg was ninety nine percent sure that Commander Brand was the man behind the wheel of the car that attempted to kill the Chief Constable, but for some reason he didn’t know why for sure and only surmised it was a way to stop Wragg asking questions. To Wragg it seemed ludicrous that someone should go to such lengths and if Brand had lived, he would be a very dangerous person to be in opposition of everything he was supposed to stand for.