A Step Into The Dark

by Vince Vogel

  “Have you determined the weapons that are missing?”

  “Yes, ma’am. The .44 Remington Magnum was indeed in his collection and is missing. Other missing weapons are a .300 Win Mag sniper rifle, along with most of its cartridges, and a Tavor TAR-21 assault rifle with its ammo. In both cases, a single box was left in the drawer underneath.”

  “He was letting us know. You have any idea how much ammo he’s got?”

  “A lot,” was all the woman said as they gazed at the killing machines in front of them.

  Alice thought of the seven dead teenagers she’d witnessed being cut up only moments ago. She thought of the parents. Of more parents. Of this maniac hunting through the streets and woods of London. An assault rifle and a sniper rifle. A lot of ammo. It got worse.

  As to the autopsies, they’d gone without incident. The causes of death were all massive trauma and blood loss through gunshot wounds. The bullets retrieved were confirmed as belonging to the class of .44 hollow-point magnum round.

  Other news was that the tire tracks they’d collected belonged to a number of vehicles. Which, in truth, wasn’t any news at all. The only thing to note had been the fact that the impressions were deep. Meaning the tires were new. This suggested that he was actively making sure he wouldn’t be pulled over.

  “It’s pretty scary,” the ballistics expert said, breaking into Alice’s thoughts.

  “What is?” the detective asked in an irritable tone.

  “That there’s someone out there with all that and willing to use it.”

  “Then we better do our best to catch him before he gets a chance to.”

  Without so much as a goodbye, Alice left the room, followed by the building, and got in her car. Driving in the slipstream of traffic through the sunny city, she gazed out at the passing streets. They were all filled with colorful people enjoying the sun. Outside the pubs, smiling faces stood drinking and smoking. Above their heads the hanging baskets were overflowing with colorful mixes of petunias and other red, white and purple flowers.

  Alice switched on the radio. It was Commander Ross. He was giving another press conference and was once again denying the involvement of an Islamic extremist. Apparently someone from Daesh had taken credit online. But it was easily dismissed. The article had claimed that they’d used Kalashnikovs smuggled into the country and that it was three women who performed the act of jihad.

  “I can firmly deny,” Ross was saying over the radio, “that Daesh has anything to do with this. Firstly, we are looking for a lone person. Not a group. The killer also used a .44 Remington Magnum handgun. Not an AK-47 as the article in question related.”

  More questions regarding Islamic fundamentalists came Ross’ way. Alice had her brows furrowed as she listened. They always had their own agendas, she thought. Always tried to shape the world in the image of their own myopic preconceptions. It wouldn’t help, she said to herself. It is what it is. No outside terrorist network brainwashing British citizens into acts of murder could be blamed this time. No. This one was all ours.

  22

  The guard that was on watch outside Micheal Burke’s room was armed, though the chances that the gunman would come back were extremely slim.

  Inside the hospital room, the teenager sat up with his mother on the bed beside him, her hand stroking his short hair. At the end of the bed was his father, who Alice couldn’t help noticing was much younger than the mother.

  All three of them turned their eyes to Alice as she came inside. She held her ID out and stated her name. The mother introduced herself as Catherine Burke and the father was David.

  “I don’t think he’s ready yet,” David Burke said, standing up.

  He was a barrel-chested man of five feet ten. He looked like he worked out extensively, his arms bursting out of his T-shirt. He was slightly pug-faced, a stubby nose poking out in the middle, two beady eyes sitting on either side.

  “We won’t be going into too much detail,” Alice reassured him.

  “It’s okay, Dad,” Micheal said. “I wanna answer the questions. Try and help them any way I can.”

  “But you remember what the nurse said,” his father replied, “you’re in shock. Talking about things could make you have another panic attack.”

  “I’m alright, Dad.”

  David Burke looked at his son with compassionate eyes. He was biting his lip. He’d probably thought his boy was dead when the initial report had gone out. Now he looked as though he would never let him out of his sight again.

  “Dave,” his wife said softly, “if Micky’s alright with it, then we should let her ask him.”

  “Sure,” the father relented.

  Alice took a chair from the wall and brought it to the bed. She sat and gazed at Micheal Burke with the softest look she was capable of.

  “My colleague informed me,” she said, “that you stated you believed a torch was attached to the killer’s gun. Can you elaborate on that?”

  Micheal Burke’s sad eyes gazed into space and he nodded.

  “It was a pencil torch,” he muttered. “One of those really powerful ones. I was thinking about it last night. It must have been on the gun.”

  “He spoke to you,” Alice said next, “can you tell me exactly what he said?”

  She had her pencil and notepad out.

  “He shouted to look at him first,” the kid began. “But all I could see was the light. Then I thought he was gonna shoot me, but he pointed the gun away. Just started talkin’ instead. He basically said, ‘You don’t have to worry. Your friends are with me now. They’ve become a part of me and will be inside of me forever. When I die, we will all be together in paradise.’ And that was it. He went and I stayed there and listened to him fire the gun some more and then a car drive away. I waited… I was scared…”

  Tears began to fall. He turned with frantic eyes to his mother. She pulled his head in tight and held him as he sobbed.

  “You any idea what animal did this?” David Burke asked.

  “Not yet,” Alice said to him. “However, I was going to ask Michael if he knew of anyone that would target him or his friends.”

  “You know,” the father said, “we spoke about it last night. Micky and me. He told me something.”

  “What was that?” Alice inquired, turning to the teenager.

  He looked up from his mother and she let him go.

  “Yeah,” the teenager said. “There was somethin’ I didn’t say to the other cop because I didn’t think of it until this morning when Dad and me were goin’ over stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  “There’s this kid at school,” Micheal replied. “His name is Stuart Chadwell.”

  Alice wrote down the name.

  “He goes to your school?” she asked.

  “Yeah. To St. Helens. He’s in our year.”

  “What makes you suspect him?”

  “He trolls us.”

  “You mean abuses you online?”

  “Yeah. He’s always sendin’ us stuff. Tellin’ us he wishes we were dead. How we’re all fake and how we should all kill ourselves.”

  “Does he use his name in these exchanges?”

  “No. He always creates fake accounts and friends one of us or one of our friends so that he can see our pictures and posts. I’ve had to block him on Instagram loads of times.”

  “Tell her about the message on Facebook from yesterday,” David Burke pushed his son.

  “I was about to,” the boy hissed irritably, before turning back to Alice. “Yesterday when we were settin’ off for the woods, Jess took a selfie of us all and posted it on Facebook. First, it was nice posts from our mates, but then Chadwell started spewing all this shit about how he wished someone would come and murder us while we sleep in our tents.”

  He gazed at Alice after saying this, the electric light glimmering off his eyes.

  “Do you think it means anything?” David Burke asked.

  “I’m not sure,” the detective replied. “I’ll
go and speak to this boy.”

  “But he threatened them and now they’re dead.”

  “Has he ever acted violently towards you or your friends before, Micheal?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “You told me he threw a brick at Dylan,” the father said.

  “He did, but it missed.”

  “When was this?”

  “Nearly a year ago. He threw a brick at Dylan because he called Chadwell’s mum a whore.”

  His mother gave him a stern look.

  “It was only a joke,” he argued. “We used to take the piss out of him a bit. Everyone does. He’s a freak. Talks to himself and everythin’. He used to piss his pants in year nine when we were thirteen. Shit himself once during P.E. Complete freak. Sits on his own all the time. Tells us he’s making a bomb to blow us all up. Complete nah nah.”

  “You shouldn’t be mean to him,” his mother scolded gently. “He’s probably very lonely.”

  “Did this Stuart person ever talk about guns?” Alice asked.

  Micheal had to think.

  “He reckoned he shot his uncle’s twelve bore once. Reckoned he killed a dog with it. Like I said, he’s a freak.”

  “Did you ever confront him over the messages?”

  Micheal Burke went a little sheepish. He turned his eyes to the bedsheets.

  “Yeah. Several times.”

  “Did it ever get violent?”

  The teenager looked up at his father.

  “Tell her,” David Burke said.

  “We got ahold of him once. Put him in the boot of a car and drove him about a bit. Roughed him up. But we didn’t hurt him.”

  “Did he stop after that?”

  “No. It’s been worse since.”

  “Do you have copies of this social media exchange? Especially the one from Facebook yesterday.”

  “Here,” David Burke said, leaning down into a rucksack and retrieving a laptop. “I brought his laptop in for you to see.”

  “What!?” the teenage boy exclaimed, shuffling forward in his bed. “You can’t give her my laptop.”

  “She needs to see them, Micky,” David Burke said.

  Switching on the laptop, he opened the messages and showed the detective. Sure enough, there were several very violent messages wishing terrible things on the friends during their camping trip.

  I hope someone comes by with a machete and cuts your smug heads off.

  Maybe I might come by the woods tonight with a can of petrol and a lighter. Burn you alive in your fucking sleeping bags, you pieces of shit.

  Then to a picture of only the four girls, he wrote: I hope you get raped in those woods.

  “I’d like to take the laptop,” Alice said.

  “What!?” Micheal Burke protested. “You can’t.”

  “Chill out, Micky,” his dad said. “I’m sure she’s seen pornography before.”

  The teenager went red.

  “I just don’t want her havin’ my laptop, is all,” he grumbled.

  “We’ll stick to your social media accounts,” Alice assured him.

  “But you’ll look into this Stuart guy, won’t you?” Catherine Burke asked her.

  “Of course. I’ll check him out as soon as I’ve left here.”

  Something beeped and David Burke checked his phone.

  Looking up at his wife, he said, “I gotta go. Shift starts in an hour.”

  He stood up, came over to his wife, held her tight in his arms and kissed her forehead. He then hugged his son, leaned his forehead gently into the teen’s and assured him everything would be alright.

  “I better be going myself,” Alice said, standing up from her chair. “If you recall anything else, contact me immediately.”

  She took a card from her wallet and handed it to Catherine Burke. The detective then took the laptop and placed it under her arm.

  “I’ll walk with you,” she said to David Burke, and they left the room together.

  Walking out of the building through busy corridors, Burke turned to Alice and said, “I’ve actually got something else for you. I left it in the car. It’s Micheal’s mobile phone. You’ll probably find stuff on there too. Apparently, this kid got their mobile numbers and sent them threatening texts.”

  They walked out of the hospital and to his car. It was a brand new Citroen. He opened the driver’s door, leaned over and popped the glovebox. Alice observed the vehicle. On the back seat, she saw a large, navy blue coat laid out. It had London Fire Brigade across its back.

  “You’re a fireman?” Alice said as David Burke came out of the car, holding the phone.

  “Yeah. Since I left the army.”

  He handed her the phone. A sticky label was on it with the password.

  “Is that where you’re going now?” Alice asked.

  “Yeah. Probably to spend the night sitting about waiting for something. We usually end up testing equipment or servicing the vehicles. It’s all go in the London fire brigade.”

  “You couldn’t get time off while Micheal is in hospital?”

  She asked because he seemed the type that would drop work for his son.

  “I tried. Believe me, I tried. I got switched onto the late nights so I could be here during the day. But today, I wasn’t able. We’re so understaffed now it’s impossible to switch shifts or have a day off. I’m one of the only full timers there.”

  “Must be tough.”

  “Yeah.”

  They said goodbye and Alice walked off to her car. The first thing she did was put in a call about Stuart Chadwell. Then she drove back to the Yard.

  23

  Jack was driving Jean and Tyler home, having taken them both to the amusement arcade and then to an American style diner, where they’d pigged out sitting in a leather-bound booth. All the windows were down and the warm air was gently blowing through the car. The music was on low. It was Pink Floyd. Dark Side of the Moon. Even the boy didn’t mind this one and just sat back listening to the strange, progressive rock album.

  It was the Great Gig in the Sky, the warbling and haunting vocals of the female singers raising up to a gentle crescendo with the piano and guitars and drum loops, trying to impersonate death in one bittersweet piece of music and going so far as to allude to it beautifully. I am not frightened of dying. Any time will do…

  Jack awoke from the music as they passed the burned-down remains of an old sports club. It was surrounded by a large green with several oak trees sticking out of it.

  He recalled it from his memory instantly. Recalled seeing the flaming sports club on footage from a VHS videotape that was sent to the local police. It was the first of many.

  They drove down a road that ran through the center of the green and Tyler’s ears instantly pricked when he spotted an ice cream van on the horizon, parked at the side of the road.

  “Ice cream,” the boy emitted like an alarm.

  Jack gazed out at the green. Knots of people sat around on picnic blankets. Mothers walked prams and buggies. Kids played soccer. The playground was teeming with bodies. It appeared the whole place was enjoying the green, why not them?

  “Ice cream?” Jack said, turning to Jean in the passenger seat.

  She turned from the passing scene and smiled at him. It confirmed it. Jack parked, they got ice cream, and then walked into the park, Jack and Jean at the front and Tyler bobbing behind.

  They walked toward the burned shell of the sports club. It had once been a wooden building about thirty feet square with changing rooms and a small clubhouse. It was now only four black walls with nettles and brambles interweaving the rest. The roof was long gone. Jack had watched it burn on the video.

  He drew them towards the burned remains and led them through a gap in the overgrowing weeds.

  “What’ve you taken us here for?” Jean asked as she licked her ice cream.

  “I can tell you a story about this place,” he said to her and Tyler as they walked along broken things into the burned shell.

  �
�It weren’t you, was it?” the boy snapped back cheekily.

  “No,” Jack replied, piercing his eyes at Tyler. “I didn’t do it. We never found out who it was. The closest we got was knowing that it was some kid. We named him the ‘Fire Starter’. You know, after the song.”

  “What song?” Tyler asked, looking dumbly at him, his ice cream dripping in his hand.

  “Doesn’t matter. Anyway, this kid used to burn stuff and send us videos of it.”

  “What sort of stuff did he burn?” Tyler asked.

  “Empty buildings like this clubhouse. He moved up, though. Started setting fire to large buildings like warehouses. Stuff that wasn’t so empty. Caused loads of damage.”

  “How much?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack groaned. “Millions of pounds. But that wasn’t all. In these videos, he used to put this voice on. This growling voice. Pretend he was real tough.” Jack paused for a moment. Narrowed his eyes. As he’d said the words he’d been struck with deja vu. It was what Micheal Burke said last night. That the killer put a voice on.

  “Granddad?” Tyler said, waving his hand in front of Jack’s face.

  The latter turned to him.

  “You alright, Jack?” Jean asked.

  He turned to her.

  “Eh. Nothing,” he said. “What was I saying?”

  “Shall we call the old people’s home?” Tyler joked. “Get a nurse to run you a nice hot bath and put you to bed?”

  “I was thinking about something. Now shut your cake hole and eat your ice cream.”

  “You were talking about some kid startin’ fires,” Jean suggested to Jack.

  “Oh yeah. He used to start going on about how he was gonna punish the world. In this growling voice and everything. Burn it all down. Destroy us all. All the good people, he used to say. He would get us in our sleep. Used to mention serial killers like they were his heroes. Used to talk about—” He stopped himself and turned to Tyler, who was watching him intently. “Anyway,” he continued, “he used to go on about stuff.”