The Complete H-Series of The Eulalie Park Mysteries

by Fiona Snyckers

  She couldn’t wait any longer. She needed to find his lair now.

  Donal

  Trainee Constable Donal Macgregor reported for duty the next morning at his local division police station.

  An elite riot squad was being put together in response to the Scotland First march that was due to start at eleven.

  The neighborhood that the neo-Nazis were planning to march on was near Leith, but less gentrified. It consisted of a narrow road the length of two city blocks. It had become popular with locals and tourists alike because of the ethnically diverse shops and restaurants that lined both sides of the street. Kosher delis rubbed shoulders with Ethiopian restaurants and Italian bakeries. They offered authentic delicacies from all over the world.

  Most of the owners lived in apartments upstairs, which made them even more vulnerable to aggression from the neo-fascists. Their lives and livelihoods were at stake.

  Several attempts had been made to stop the march. The residents and business owners of the little street had drawn up a petition. They had even applied to court for an urgent interdict against the marchers. All these attempts had failed. Scotland’s free speech laws were strong. The organization had insisted that its demonstration would be peaceful, which made it difficult to justify a ban.

  All the police could do was make sure they were well prepared for any trouble.

  Donal chose to interpret the temporary lifting of his suspension as a good sign.

  “They wouldn’t trust me with this job if they really thought I had done something wrong,” he told his sister the night before. Catriona agreed, but with reservations. She suspected that her brother’s superiors were quite capable of using him to fill out the numbers in a riot squad and then put him back on suspension the next day.

  Catriona had been shocked by what she had seen in the financial statements she had examined that night. This was more than just carelessness or a little white-collar skimming. Someone was systematically defrauding the department of thousands of pounds each month. What lengths would that person go to in order to protect themselves from discovery? When she left her brother’s flat that evening, she had been seriously worried.

  The trainee constables of Donal’s year had received anti-riot training, but none of them had put it into practice. There were scenarios that could be simulated in training, but a riot wasn’t one of them. The station had several fully qualified officers with several years’ experience who had never experienced a riot at first hand before.

  Scotland First boasted on its website that several thousand people were planning to join the march. The police were operating on the assumption that this was accurate.

  It was clear from the demeanor of Donal’s fellow trainees that news of his suspension had reached their ears. They avoided his gaze and greeted him stiffly. It was so noticeable that even Donal with his limited ability to read people’s faces picked up on it.

  Constable Burns looked particularly surprised to see him.

  “Are you sure you’re meant to be here, Macgregor? I think there must be a mistake. You’re still on suspension, my lad.”

  “No, it’s correct,” said Sergeant Shortridge. “I was notified last night that he should be called in. It’s a case of all hands on deck. At least he’s had the training.”

  Burns looked anything but convinced.

  The men and women of the local division queued up to receive their Kevlar vests, riot shields, and helmets. Then they joined another queue to receive the riot sticks they would use for crowd control. Donal’s stomach lurched at the thought of using his against a human being.

  When all the equipment had been issued, they were assembled for a briefing.

  “Senior officers will be issued with teargas canisters, Tasers, and firearms loaded with rubber bullets. There will also be water cannons on standby. These are last-resort measures. Ideally, they will not have to be deployed at all.”

  Sergeant Shortridge looked around at the sea of faces. “Our job is to protect the shops, shop keepers, cars, and residents of the road. Our job is not to interfere with the marchers as long as they are proceeding peacefully. If situations do arise, we want them to be defused as quickly and quietly as possible. You have all been trained in how to de-escalate tense situations. That’s what we are aiming for today. We don’t want to see any scenes on the evening news that bring shame upon this department. Are we clear?”

  There were mutters of agreement. No one wanted to be the person whose face was on the news.

  As they filed out of the local division, Donal heard some of his colleagues speaking regretfully about how much they had been looking forward to ‘cracking some Nazi heads.’ He was not a violent man, but he couldn’t help feeling sympathy for the speaker. He had never dreamed that he would be doing crowd control at a march where Nazi symbols were openly displayed. It made him want to crack heads too, but he knew himself well enough to be sure that he could keep his temper under control.

  It was a volatile situation. Scotland First were trying to be as provocative as possible. Many of the police were spoiling for a fight. The residents were upset and indignant that this march was being allowed to happen at all. The whole thing was a powder keg. Donal hoped that no one would toss a match into it.

  They split up into police minivans that would transport them to the scene. Each officer carried his or her own equipment, so fitting into the minivans was a tight squeeze.

  Donal found himself in a van with his fellow trainees. He had always been an outsider – the one who was more likely to listen than to contribute to the conversation. Nothing had changed, except that now his outsider status was not voluntary. The other trainees were physically leaning away from him, as if the disease of failure were contagious. It was almost unheard of for a trainee officer to be suspended just weeks away from his graduation.

  At ninety-two weeks, the worst was over. You had almost completed your training, and you had passed your last fitness test. It was unusual for someone to fail at this stage.

  Donal remembered his latest bleep test, running up and down on the squeaky floor of a gymnasium at the training academy. You had to sprint across the floor from one end of the gym to another in time to a series of electronic bleeps. The bleeps got closer and closer together as you were supposed to increase the speed at which you ran across the floor.

  Donal remembered finding his first fitness test very challenging, but he had aced the last one effortlessly. His physical fitness had improved in leaps and bounds over the last two years. Now it seemed as though it was all for nothing.

  The vans drew up at the entrance to the Bolton Road where the march was due to start in less than an hour. Sergeant Shortridge met them as they got out of the van and led them to their stations.

  Donal took up his position outside a North Indian spice shop. It was an ordinary weekday morning, but the street was quieter than usual. Customers had stayed away to avoid getting caught up in the march. Losing revenue was part of what annoyed the shopkeepers so much.

  It was a few minutes to eleven when the first reports about the size of the march began trickling down the line. It was much smaller than anticipated. There were a couple of hundred people present, rather than thousands.

  “That’s good news for us, lads,” Constable Burns shouted up the line. “But don’t get complacent. With the right provocation, a couple of hundred people can do a lot of damage. I can hear chanting. It sounds like they’re turning into the Bolton Road now.”

  Donal and his colleagues straightened up and held their riot shields up to cover their upper bodies.

  A crowd of protestors made haphazard progress down the street. Some of the locals booed them. Every time they heard a boo, Donal and his colleagues looked out for stones or any other objects that were being thrown at the protestors. Fortunately, there were none.

  The protestors carried flaming torches and sticks. As they drew level with Donal, one of them raised his stick to smash a car window.

  Donal stepp
ed forward immediately and used his own stick to block the protestor. The blow of stick against stick vibrated all the way up his arm.

  The protestor turned towards him, snarling.

  “Move along,” Donal said. “Any damage to private property will result in immediate arrest. If you want to finish this march, keep moving.”

  The protestor glared at him but moved on to catch up with his fellow marchers.

  A scuffle broke out near the Italian bakery. The owner, a temperamental man, hadn’t been able to resist taunting the protestors. Three of them turned to attack him, and the police stepped in to break it up.

  Donal kept an eye on a couple of protestors who were lurking too close to the entrance of an electronics shop. It looked to him as though they were going to try their hands at a spot of looting.

  He had just started towards them when he heard a popping sound and felt a hard blow under his left collar bone. It made him reel in his tracks. The two would-be looters turned and ran away.

  Donal tried to stagger after them, but his legs were weak. He felt himself sinking to his knees.

  His shoulder felt as though it were on fire.

  Constable Burns appeared in his line of vision. The shock on his face was unmistakable.

  “Call an ambulance,” yelled Burns. “This man has been shot.”

  Chapter 5

  Eulalie

  The University of Cape Town was built on a sloping expanse of land with Table Mountain rising as a breathtaking backdrop behind it.

  Eulalie knew there were homeless people living in the lower slopes of the mountains. During the day, they came to town to forage for food, money, and alcohol.

  These people were known locally as bergies, which meant ‘mountain people.’ The police and campus security believed that the man who had tried to attack her was part of this community.

  Eulalie had her doubts.

  Her impression of him was not of a homeless person. She had only seen him for a split second but the snapshot in her mind was of a gym-fit, middle-class young man. His all-black outfit might have been anonymous, but it was not cheap.

  It had been interesting to hear that Whitney had the same impression. A bergie living rough and addicted to alcohol would have a distinctive smell to anyone who came close to him. Whitney hadn’t mentioned that. She was convinced that she had been attacked by a white, well-educated man. Someone who showered regularly and brushed his teeth.

  Eulalie was more convinced than ever that this was no vagrant. This was a serial sadist who had probably been fantasizing about hurting women for years. He had started off tentatively with the first victim. Then he had grown bolder with Whitney. And now he had almost killed his third victim.

  What would he have had in mind for Eulalie and Fleur? There was no doubt that he was accelerating and becoming more reckless.

  It was possible to keep one person under control with a knife but controlling two was much more difficult. When the fight-or-flight reflex kicked in, one of the women was likely to bolt. Did you chase after her and allow her companion to escape, or did you let her get away while you held on to her companion? Whichever one escaped would report the incident to campus security, immediately precipitating a manhunt.

  All in all, attacking two women at the same time seemed like a stupid thing to do – a stupid, impulsive thing. This was a man who lacked self-control.

  He was getting ready to strike again – possibly as soon as tonight. Eulalie was sure of it.

  Back in her dorm room, she put on a pair of thick, stretchy leggings and a tight-fitting black hoodie. She slipped her feet into a pair of rubber-soled ankle boots that she used for rock climbing back home. She braided her hair and twisted it into a tight bun, so it would be out of her way. Then she took a small backpack and filled it with a bottle of water and a pack of sandwiches. She sent Fleur a message telling her that she wouldn’t be in for lunch as she was going to walk the mountain trails behind campus. The reply came back quickly.

  Fleur: OK but stick to the marked trails and make sure you’re back before dark. You don’t know the mountain. It’s treacherous. One moment it’s clear and the next moment a mist rolls in so that you can’t see your hand in front of your face. Hikers get lost up there every week and have to be rescued. Try not to be one of them.

  Eulalie had to smile.

  Eulalie: Yes, Mom.

  As she walked towards the mountain, Eulalie realized it had been nearly a day since she had last felt that lonely and disorientated feeling. It had been hours since she had thought of home and longed for Prince William Island.

  She had been so wrapped up in the mystery of who this man was and how to find him that she had forgotten to feel miserable. It helped to have a purpose.

  She swung her arms as she walked and smiled up at the sky, feeling the mild sun against her cheeks. This might not be home, but it was a beautiful place, and she was privileged to be spending four years here.

  It helped to have made a friend, too, and to be heading out on her own into an unfamiliar mountain armed only with a few supplies.

  Fleur’s warning had amused her. She had no intention of sticking to the marked trails or of being back before dark. In the forest where she had been born, there were no trails. The villagers who lived there made sure of that. They were careful not to keep using the same routes in case pathways formed. They valued their isolation from the world. There were pathways in and around the village, of course, but none that would lead an outsider to it.

  Mists and fogs held no terrors for Eulalie, even though she knew that Fleur was right – Table Mountain attracted mist and low-lying cloud like flypaper attracted flies. It could roll in within minutes, cutting your visibility to zero. But that was fine. Eulalie was used to zero visibility. Her ears and nose would serve as her guides when her eyes became useless. Even more powerful was her internal GPS that kept her oriented in the most difficult conditions.

  Eulalie had been a teenager before she had discovered that not everyone shared her ability to find her way around. It was something she took for granted, like her sense of balance. She had it, her grandmother had it, and everyone who had been born in her village had it too. It was a surprise to discover that there were people in the world who were capable of getting thoroughly lost.

  She headed in the direction that her attacker had fled after he gave up the chase the night before. It was the same direction that he had approached Whitney Jackman from - the south-east. He had a lair in that direction, Eulalie was sure of it. He might not have been homeless and living rough, but he had a temporary base from which he launched his attacks. If she could only find it, then tonight the hunter would become the hunted.

  As she reached the edge of campus, Eulalie left the marked trail. She scrambled up the side of an incline to reach the contour path above. Then she turned to take stock, trying to see the campus from his point of view.

  If she were a predator looking to cut young women off from safety, where would she wait?

  It didn’t take her long to spot a lookout point. It was a rocky promontory that jutted out over the path far below. The rocks would provide excellent cover for a watcher, who would have a wide-angle view of the whole campus.

  The only problem was that the average person would need rock-climbing equipment to get up there. Eulalie knew she could free-climb it, but there were few who could say the same. It was too inaccessible to be used by the predator, but she could use it to keep an eye on him.

  She positioned herself at the base of the rock face that led up to the promontory. It was no more than fifty feet up but covered in dry sand and loose scree. It was late summer – the dry season in Cape Town. Wild fires ran rampant at this time of year, threatening communities that had been built up into the fire line.

  This part of the mountain hadn’t burnt in years. It was as dry as tinder. The grass was like straw and the rocks were loose and slippery from being coated in fine dust. Climbing it would not be easy and Eulalie couldn’t afford
to be reckless. This was not her territory. She would proceed carefully and test each handhold before she put her weight on it.

  Much more slowly than usual, she began her ascent.

  It was easier than she had anticipated. Under the loose shingle, dry grass, and sand, the bedrock was solid.

  She reached the bulge of rocks where the overhang began. This was the trickiest part of her climb. She would essentially be clinging to the rocks upside down as she cleared the overhang. She tested her handholds and found them to be secure.

  Eulalie was just rounding the bulge of the overhang when a scream from below made her freeze.

  Her right hand slipped, sending a shower of pebbles and dust down to the path fifty feet below. Clinging to the rock like a spider, Eulalie regained her grip and pulled herself vertically up the promontory until she was sitting on the rocks and looking down at the path below.

  Two hikers were standing on the path looking up at her, shading their eyes with their hands against the midday sun. The woman had her hand clamped over her mouth, suggesting that she was the one who had screamed.

  “I’m sorry!” she called up to Eulalie. “I made you lose your grip. You could have fallen. I just got such a fright when I saw you up there.”

  “It’s okay,” she shouted down to them. “You startled me, that’s all.”

  “What do you think you’re doing climbing without equipment like that?” the man said, his tone scolding. “You could break your neck.”

  “I’m a free-climber. I have a lot of experience, don’t worry.”

  “How? You’re about twelve years old.”

  “I’m eighteen, actually. I managed not to fall when your companion scared the life out of me, so that should tell you something.”

  The man just shook his head. “How are you planning to get down from there?”

  “The same way I got up. But first I’m going to eat my lunch.” She reached into her backpack and pulled out her packet of sandwiches. She waved them at the hikers below.