Chapter Six A Killer Let Loose
Roger Grey was preparing for his next hit. Guy should have been next but he found out that Guy was the only one on the board of directors that did not know about the money that was stolen from him. He had decided to let him off the hook for now and focus on a certain John Whip. He hadn’t really decided yet how he was going to deal with him.
* * *
Inspector Wragg had mused over the clues that he had gleaned from the two murder scenes, the letter with threatening content, initials of the names who were the board of directors and the typewriter that the killer had used to type the letter, although at the last murder scene all he had was a burnt offering, nothing concrete. The backroom boys were still pouring over the typewriter hoping to find something. They were going to dismantle the machine and scrutinise every part, hoping for that elusive finger print even though Inspector Wragg didn’t think there would be. The man acted as if he was a professional; he hadn’t made any mistakes. Inspector Wragg was certain it was a man after all. In his opinion he didn’t think a woman would have the stomach for doing the murders in such a way. It was bad enough when women spotted a mouse or a large spider.
I suppose the best thing to do to halt the murders would be for him to arrest the members of this firm and put them in prison. The thought had crossed his mind, but unfortunately no-one had come forward to accuse them of fraud, so status quo had to exist. Wragg knew the consequences of no action on his part in this matter and the only accuser was hell bent on murdering them instead. Inspector Wragg thought it might be a great turn off to stop other people thinking of doing the same. He was glad he was a policeman. It appeared that the financial world was a cut-throat business. Not the best of words that Wragg had thought of, but to the point and true.
The light was dimming outside and the street lights were beginning to flicker on and he watched as each light became full and the streets were bathed with a shaft of light. He looked at the clock on the wall of his office and sighed. Time to go home to the wife, have tea, tell her what a rotten day he has had, go to bed early, read a little and then sleep. Perhaps he would awake with fresh ideas on how to catch this killer.
* * *
November the 5th was in four days time and Roger knew his next victim was going to become Guy Fawkes. Getting John Whip alone was going to be difficult and getting him to a bonfire site at this late stage would be fraught with danger as most bonfire piles were guarded. He wanted his victim to be alive when he placed him amongst wooden slats, but he had to be hidden from public view.
* * *
Having heard of the murders on the radio and television, John Whip decided to go on an unpaid holiday and he grew a beard. It had developed rapidly in the two weeks since he was last in attendance at his place of work. He didn’t know whether the offices were closed permanently as the two main directors had already been murdered, or whether he should assume that nothing was amiss and go to work as if an innocent person should. He had rung the office once to find Guy Arnold had ventured to the office and nothing had happened to him. John had sent his wife and two daughters away to their other house in the countryside. Food was getting low and John would have to do some shopping. Dressed in some old gardening clothes and with his beard he looked a different person. He felt confident he wouldn’t be recognised and he decided to risk driving to the superstore to park in their multi-storey car park and he was lucky enough to be able to secure a ground floor space.
* * *
Inspector Wragg was getting rather tired of being called out at unsocial hours but then again being an Inspector hoping to be promoted to Chief Inspector he didn’t want to let himself down by being passed over to let a much younger and less competent man beat him for promotion. He knew that much younger persons were joining the force and they were full of energy and bounce that the Commander of police admired in his men rather than their local knowledge.
Inspector Wragg’s unsocial hours usually started at a minute after five pm and especially when his wife who really didn’t understand her husband’s hours always expected him home at five thirty or if the traffic was fierce six pm.
Inspector Wragg telephoned Gladys on his mobile while driving to the scene of a reported incident to say he would be late coming home. With his siren blaring he paved a way through the dense traffic. He flung his mobile over to the constable sitting in the passenger seat and asked him to shut it down. The Inspector knew he had breached a cardinal sin by using his mobile while driving, but then again he wasn’t given much time to phone his wife in a more leisurely manner at the office as he had received the call just as he walked down the steps at the rear of the building and was seen by the Commander running towards his car. Inspector Wragg was hoping the silly old goat was looking out his window as he always tended to do when Wragg left the office to go home. As if Wragg’s thinking process had betrayed him, the Commander of police walked back to his desk and picked up the phone. He spoke. ‘Where’s Wragg off to in such a hurry?’ The muffled answer seemed to deflate the Commander as he replaced the phone.
The radio in Inspector Wragg’s car came alive with a shushing background noise and then a clear voice informed him that the Commander was asking after him. ‘What a nosy old sod he is, where does he think I’m going? Another bloody late tea for me, and furthermore these evening calls are playing havoc with my digestion.’
It wasn’t what Inspector Wragg was expecting with this call. An abandoned car in a multi-storey car park. It had been there for two days and the caller had thought it might be a suspect terrorist plant with high explosives in the boot. Inspector Wragg wasn’t going to take any chances and called for the army. He explained the situation and he was instructed by the person at the other end of the phone to move any civilians and vehicles away from the target area. There were a few late shoppers and when they saw the presence of so many policemen they seemed to panic. Trying to waylay their fears the Inspector ushered them to their vehicles and sent them on their way towards the entrance part of the building. The authorities had managed to disable the barrier and it was in the “UP” position and no-one paid for their parking that day.
Inspector Wragg informed the Army Captain that there might be a body or somebody alive in the boot of the car that they going blow up in a controlled explosion. The Army Captain was adamant. There was nothing he could do about it, one man against many persons in the multi-storey car park and the shops nearby full of customers. His orders were clear. He had to go against the Inspector’s wishes. A small device was attached to the car by a robot and sandbags were placed by the bomb disposal team to cover the whole vehicle. The operation took three hours and by that time most of the cars had left the car park and the shops had closed a little earlier and put up their steel shutters against the blast they were all expecting. Inspector Wragg’s mobile phone rang. It was his wife. Wragg spoke briefly ‘Sorry luv, can’t stop – look at tonight’s news on TV.’
It was hardly an explosion to write home about, although the boot lid flew into the air and smoke poured out. There was no-one in the boot. Halfway through the operation Inspector Wragg phoned in the car’s registration and knew the identity of the next one on the list due to be murdered. Either John Whip was in the car or been taken prisoner and hidden somewhere out of sight. With Bonfire night coming up shortly all leave had been cancelled and everybody would be out on the streets looking for trouble spots. Inspector Wragg’s posse would be giving a close look at bonfire sites as Wragg had this quirky idea at the back of his mind that the next victim would be on his own funeral pyre.
* * *
Roger Grey looked at the news of the incident at the multi-storey car park on television where he had abducted John Whip by pretending to be a beggar. As Whip bent down to put a five pound note in the hat, Roger sprayed something quite potent into his face and he collapsed next to him and it looked for awhile that there were two beggars. One had an empty bottle of whisky in his hand and was possibly drunk and the other was calmly begging until a man in a security uniform asked them to move. Roger asked the man to help him carry his friend to his car which would have looked better if it was in a junk yard. It wasn’t locked and the security man chucked his friend in the back seat which was torn, stained and smelt as if someone had urinated in it quite recently. The man went away quickly. Roger climbed into the back seat and placed tape across John Whip’s mouth, taped his hands and feet together and placed a scarf over his eyes before driving off.
Roger thought what a waste – I could have left him in the boot of his car and let the army blow him up. Roger was in his kitchen preparing a meal for two and if he had given it more thought at the time, by now he would be eating alone and enjoying the TV news.
* * *
Inspector Wragg held a briefing session at 8pm – other policemen were drafted in from surrounding districts in one of the largest searches Wragg had organised. The Commander thought it was unnecessary and a strain on the budget. He didn’t like Wragg, who was promoted from the ranks and transferred to New Scotland Yard – his record for catching the criminal element had been proven time after time. As far as Wragg was concerned Commander Brand was a twit of the highest order and the silver braid on his hat must have weighed heavy and the hat two sizes too big for his head – he must have been blinded and deafened by the brim to what was going on around him. Anyone can twiddle a pencil and look important, but can they hold their nerve in a field of operation and come face to face with someone holding a gun? Wragg had been highly decorated before being transferred to London. He didn’t forecast the event. His transfer papers and records had not been sent as administration wasn’t too hot in the countryside police house he once operated from. He had tackled two men during a bank raid. He just happened to be drawing some money out as they came in – it just wasn’t their day.
There were four policemen in every group to inspect the wooden piles of wood and brush built up over the week and although there had been a guard most of the times to protect their property, there could have been some lapses. Tomorrow was November the fifth and the killer would have had to place his victim during the week or at the last moment at night and Wragg had visions that either tonight or early morning before dusk would be the killer’s only allotted time. Wragg was patient and he reckoned that the operation would start at 03:00. Unmarked police vehicles were going to be used and no sirens or flashing lights to be used. The brief lasted an hour and everybody was to find somewhere comfortable to sleep and an alarm would wake them at 02:45.
* * *
Roger packed himself some sandwiches and a flask of coffee. He ushered John Whip to the car and placed him in the boot. He sprayed John’s face from the same bottle he used when he first captured him and John Whip went to sleep. He then injected something else in his arm. This would keep him under sedation for 48 hours. Roger’s old banger was one of those cars you could push without any effort, find a hill and coast down, dive into the driving seat and start the car. Roger was lucky that he lived on a hill, even if the hill faced the wrong way to where he really wanted to go. As the car gathered momentum he spied a police car in a side road. He fired the engine and turned on his lights and he was doing the right speed. The two policemen looked as if they were fast asleep. They were alert and tried to read the registration of the car and reported the incident to New Scotland Yard. They were told not to follow. After a short period of time the car came back past their side road. They tried to eyeball the registration again, but there was so much mud splashed against it it was impossible to read. They reported back that the car had doubled back and had taken a road leading out to East Sussex.
Wragg couldn’t sleep at all and he was glad of his affliction of insomnia and he was able to calculate to a certain degree where this car was going. He didn’t know who the driver of the car was and if those policemen had been able, Wragg would have guessed that the car was not registered to the person he was looking for.
The Commander came bouncing in and wanted to know the state of things. ‘Well sir,’ Wragg began, ‘We have movement of a car heading towards East Sussex.’
‘Do we know who the driver is?’
‘No sir,’ said Wragg.
‘What good is that Wragg!’ he said loudly for everyone to hear. ‘It’s the only vehicle that’s moving from London to the Sussex Coast.’ said Wragg.
‘Well,’ said the Commander hitting his trousers with his baton. ‘They could be a family starting out early on holiday.’
‘No sir, I don’t think so there was only one person in the car.’
‘Perhaps the rest of the family are asleep and you can’t see them.’
‘I don’t think so sir.’
‘Don’t think…..don’t think Wragg, what a weak assumption that is!’
‘I believe this is the car we are looking for SIR!’ said Wragg equally forceful. The Commander left the room. That man thought Inspector Wragg is a complete and utter moron and as about useful as a chocolate teapot.
* * *
Roger had that sly smile on his face as he drove off towards East Sussex. He knew the police were on the look-out for him and after the multi-storey car park fiasco with the army bomb disposal team, he had in-advertently alerted them into action, he viewed it like a chess game. Inspector Wragg was going to be a formidable opponent and he wondered when someone with a higher intellectual brain was going to become his nemesis. Most of the police force would be thinking that he was going to plant his victim at the nearest convenient bonfire pile. It would be too easy for the police to follow and it was likely he would be captured. Roger didn’t mind being captured but not yet. He had been a member of an elite force, going to foreign parts where needed to quash un-wanted coups from dictators who were bent on stirring up trouble. He was part of the team that had put an end to the siege at an Embassy in London. He could kill a person with just a finger and thumb placing pressure on a vulnerable part of the neck. He wanted to play around, make it more exciting for himself. These directors of the firm he had placed his trust by giving them more than fifty percent of his savings to invest had chosen the wrong person to defraud and whether they had spent the money or not was not going to save them. Both of his first two victims had begged for mercy and showed him that they had not spent the money and had given him the bags back. Of course Roger took the money back but killed them anyway. He had taunted them with the same sentence of “promise me you won’t do this again to anyone!”
Roger cut the engine and glided to a halt outside a small cottage and began to laugh. If only John Whip could see he would have rejoiced had he not been trussed up and blindfolded. Roger was outside John Whip’s own home in the countryside. He investigated and sure enough in the garden was a huge bonfire pile with a funny looking guy presumably made by his children sitting on top. Roger slung John over his shoulder and carried him round the back to the garden and carefully placed him well inside the core of the pile of wood. He returned to his car without incident, released the brake and pushed his car along the quiet country lane and after about fifty yards – got in and drove off. He began to laugh, he laughed so much he nearly hit a tree.