by Conrad Jones
‘Oh my God,’ he cried. ‘Who are you?’
‘Stand on the table, Max, it’s question time.’
CHAPTER 4
I made a tearful Max thread the nylon rope around the bolt which held the hanging wicker chair, I put the noose around his neck, then tossed the chair into the corner of the room. The slipknot was tight against Blackman’s spinal column and he had to stand precariously on tiptoes to stop the rope strangling him. Tears ran down his face and he shook uncontrollably.
‘Do you know who I am?’ I asked him.
‘No,’ he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.
‘Do you remember a policeman being murdered in Trearddur Bay last year by an author who had apparently gone on a murder spree?’ I cocked my head and assessed his reaction. His eyes widened as the incident came back to him.
‘Yes,’ he grimaced.
‘He was a member of the Order of Nine Angels,’ I watched his face tighten at the name. ‘So was your boyfriend Critchley.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Max whimpered.
‘You’re a liar.’
‘I’m not.’
‘A lot of Niners have lied to me before they died.’
‘I’ve read about it,’ he nodded and closed his eyes. ‘I didn’t know that he was one of them. Please don’t hurt me.’
‘Good, I can tell that you know who I am now.’
‘I remember your face from the papers.’
‘Do you know why I killed that policeman and the others?’
‘Yes,’ he whispered.
‘Don’t talk, just nod yes or no.’
Max bit his lip and nodded his head quickly. ‘Please don’t hurt me.’
‘I killed them because they were members of a nexion,’ I watched his face for a reaction. He understood the meaning of the word. ‘You know what a nexion is don’t you, Max?’
He nodded yes and a sob escaped his lips. He was going to speak again. ‘Shut up and listen,’ I held up my finger and put it to my lips. ‘I’m going to ask you some questions. You will answer them quickly and you will answer truthfully, or I will kick that table away and leave you to hang. Do you understand?’
He nodded and tried to reply but I raised my finger again. ‘Don’t speak or you’re dead. Just nod yes or no, understand?’
He nodded yes and closed his eyes again.
‘You had a relationship with Critchley for a number of years, didn’t you?’
He nodded yes.
‘You went to the farmhouse that day for sex, didn’t you?’
He nodded again.
‘It was his thing, bondage and treating you rough wasn’t it?’
He nodded yes.
‘He didn’t try to kill you, did he?’
No, this time.
‘You went to the rituals in the cellar willingly, didn’t you?’
He squeezed his eyes tightly and nodded yes.
‘Were you a member?’
Max closed his eyes tightly to avoid the question, so I nudged the table with my foot. He wobbled and nodded yes in a panic.
‘Did you go every full moon?’
Yes.
‘The other men who attended the sinister,’ I put my foot against the table and wobbled it. ‘Do you know their names?’
Yes.
‘Do you have their contact details?’
Yes.
‘Are they in your mobile phone?’
Yes.
I reached into his jeans pocket and took out the phone. I scrolled through the list of contacts, thirty people in all and read out their names. He nodded yes to four of the men who were listed in his contacts.
‘Are they local?’
Yes.
‘Now think carefully,’ I wobbled the table again. Tears were streaming from his face and a deep red welt was swelling on the soft skin beneath the noose. ‘Did you ever meet a black woman called Fabienne Wilder or Baphomet?’
He tried to swallow but couldn’t. He nodded yes.
‘Recently?’
Yes.
‘Was she pregnant?’
Yes.
‘Was her face scarred?’
Yes.
‘Did she visit this nexion often?’
No.
‘Did Critchley invite her?’
No.
‘Was it one of the other men on this list?’
Yes.
‘So, Critchley wasn’t the Temple Master?’
No.
‘Which one of them is?’ I flicked through the four names in turn. ‘David Harris?’
No.
‘Gwillam Hughes?’
No.
‘Glynn Williams?’
Yes.
‘And he is in touch with Fabienne Wilder?’
Yes.
I felt a knot tighten in my stomach. I’d found someone who knew where she was and how to contact her. I looked at Blackman with contempt and thought of one more question. ‘Did you take the young boy you were accused of molesting to the cellar?’
He sobbed loudly and shook his head, no. ‘Please.’ he whined.
‘Shut your face.’ I snarled. All sympathy had gone from my being months ago. ‘But you took him to Critchley, didn’t you?’
Yes. Tears dripped from his chin onto the table.
‘Were you there when he murdered the other men?’
‘Please,’ he whined. ‘He was frightening.’
‘Where you there when he killed them?’
He nodded yes.
‘Were you involved in the abuse and murders?’
‘Please,’ he jabbered. Snot and dribble mixed with his tears now, dangling from his chin like jelly stalactites. ‘He got so involved with it all that he became a monster. I was frightened of him.’
‘So, you were scared?’
Yes.
‘How do you think those men felt?’
He dribbled like a baby; his face twisted in self-loathing. He was as guilty as Critchley was.
‘Have you got any porn films?’
He looked confused and nodded yes.
‘Are any of them from the farm?’
Yes.
‘Is there one in the DVD player now?’
Yes.
I grabbed the remote and pressed play with the butt of the gun, careful not to touch it with my hands. The sound of panting and moaning, mixed with the disturbing voice of a man begging for the torment to stop, drifted from the screen. I pushed the barrels of the gun under his chin with one hand and unfastened his trousers with the other, pulling his jeans and boxer shorts down to his knees with one tug.
‘The police will love this DVD when they find you, Max.’
His face was a mask of confusion and fear. I stepped back and kicked the table from beneath him and watched his face turn purple as he choked to death. His eyes bulged and turned a deep red as the blood vessels burst. The slipknot hadn’t worked. It didn’t break his neck but to be honest, I didn’t think that it mattered. Watching the little pervert swing, his legs kicking out in thin air was more satisfying than hearing his neck snap. When the twitching had stopped, I picked up my holdall and headed back onto Caer-glas Road. Max Blackman was on his way to hell, where he belonged.
CHAPTER 5
Ironically, I was sitting in a café in Wales eating a full English breakfast when the first reports of Blackman’s death hit the news. The police had forced entry when his friend had reported that he wasn’t opening his front door or answering his phone. The initial investigation revealed that he had committed suicide or died during some kind of sexual activity and that no one else was being looked for in connection with his death. By lunchtime that day, speculation that Blackman had been Critchley’s lover and possibly his accomplice in the murders at the farmhouse was rife. Details of the DVD collection were being leaked by the police. The Press ripped his initial accounts of the alleged assault by Critchley to shreds and by teatime the following day, he was being painted to be as evil as the cannibal killer himself.
> I felt satisfied with the way Blackman had been dispatched. I took out his mobile phone and texted a message to four names in his contacts list. It was time to ask Glynn Williams where Fabienne Wilder was.
CHAPTER 6
Max Blackman had been dead for over a week when I decided on my next move. I was sure that the police were calling it a suicide or misadventure and they’d gone quiet on his death. The DVDs had yielded enough evidence to implicate him in the murders and irrefutable evidence to connect him to the rituals held at the farm. No one had a clue that I was involved in his death, so for now I was in the clear. As long as I didn’t do anything to connect his death to the remaining Niners then I couldn’t see any reason why the police would re-open the inquest into his death. Going straight for Glynn Williams was my first instinct, but I was worried that if I did that, the others would scurry under a rock and Fabienne Wilder may disappear again. I wanted to make sure that the men in Dewi Critchley’s nexion were either exposed to the public and the police as accomplices or exterminated without alerting Jenifer that I was close. One way or the other it suited me. Once I’ve identified a Niner, I never leave them behind.
The Press reporters were becoming tired of smearing Blackman’s character and most of the big named reporters were returning to the cities. The television crews had moved onto the next big story, wherever that was, reporting on someone else’s misery. Llangollen was morphing back to a picturesque market town and the tourist trade was bracing itself to go into hibernation for the oncoming lean winter months. Some reporters were digging up local stories from the last few years and trying to find tenuous links to the temple beneath the farmhouse. They focused on one incident, which had happened a few years ago and it was replayed on all the television stations worldwide.
Teenager guilty of pensioner’s ‘vampire ritual’ killing.
(Taken from the BBC News online)
A teenager from Anglesey was today found guilty of murdering his elderly neighbour and drinking her blood in a vampire ritual. An art student aged seventeen, was jailed for a minimum of twelve years after being found guilty of butchering the woman at her home in Llanfairpwll, Anglesey, last November. The ninety-year-old widow’s heart was cut out and her blood appeared to have been drunk from a saucepan. The teenager was obsessed by vampires and killed the old lady in a bid to become one of the creatures.
He denied any involvement in the murder and claimed his alleged fascination with vampires was no more than a ‘subtle interest’.
After the verdict was reached, Mr Justice Richards lifted an order banning his identification. Hardman was convicted by a unanimous verdict. The seventeen-year-old wept when the male foreman read out the verdict and his mother shrieked and sobbed in the public gallery.
Judge Mr Justice Richards said all the evidence pointed to the fact that Hardman believed he could achieve immortality by killing the woman and drinking her blood.
Mr Justice Richards said, ‘You have been convicted by the jury on the strength of the most compelling evidence. ‘The horrific nature of this murder was plain to all. It was a vicious and sustained attack on a vulnerable old lady in her own home, aggravated by the mutilation of her body after she’d been killed.
‘It was planned and carefully calculated. Why you should have acted in this way is difficult to comprehend but I’m drawn to the conclusion that vampirism had indeed become a near obsession with you, that you really did believe that this myth may be true, that you did think that you would achieve immortality by the drinking of another person’s blood and you found this an irresistible attraction. I can make an allowance for a degree of confused thinking and immaturity, for some childish fantasy, but the fact remains, this was an act of great wickedness and one that you have not faced up to and one for which you have not shown any remorse. You hoped for immortality but all you have achieved is the brutal ending of another person’s life and the bringing of a life sentence upon yourself.’
Hardman – who had lived just a few yards away and had been the woman’s paper boy – mutilated her body before placing pokers at her feet in the shape of a cross. Her heart had been removed, wrapped in newspaper and placed in a saucepan on a silver platter next to her body. The prosecution said her killer drank her blood in a’macabre ritual’. They also said that the teenager – who denied the charge – was obsessed with vampires and the occult and had told others he wanted to kill someone, in order to become immortal. You can google the murder to find the entire details.
The prosecution also outlined how Hardman had scoured the Internet for vampire websites and had read a magazine which featured an article on how to conduct a black mass. Although the case had all the markings of a satanic ritual murderer acting alone, I had the feeling that Williams’s influence may have spread across North Wales. It would be an uncanny coincidence if it wasn’t connected. The teenager could have been an ‘initiate’ trying to progress himself into the sinister by the act of murder. It’s difficult to understand what goes through someone’s mind when they select a victim to slay. The poor old lady was right on his doorstep, so how he expected to get away with it would be beyond anyone with average intelligence. I was convinced that the four men on my list would have been breathing a sigh of relief as the focus moved away from their immediate area and zoned in on Anglesey. That was perfect for me, as when I started hunting Angels, I wanted them to be off guard.
CHAPTER 7
Harris was relatively easy to find. I had his mobile number, but I didn’t want to use it just yet, until I had a solid plan. A direct call from a stranger would spook him. Until I was fully prepared to capture him, I had to keep my powder dry. I needed to research my prey. I wanted to see him in the flesh and analyse his basic movements. I needed to know if he travelled alone and how much of a handful he would be when we met. I didn’t know what he looked like, or what he did for a living. He could be a policeman for all I knew about him. He could be the only gay in the village, or he could be the heavyweight champion of somewhere random. Confronting a giant or a man who was a trained fighter was a dangerous gamble to take and the odds would be against me unless I studied him first. If he was always in the company of other males, at work and socially, then it would be more difficult still. It was not the type of surprise I wanted. Making sure that it would be simple to take him out was uppermost in my mind.
I couldn’t leave a trail of dead occultists across North Wales without pinpointing my whereabouts to the police. I was still high up on their wanted list and I knew that I wouldn’t last five minutes in jail. I just don’t have the temperament to be incarcerated. I freak out if I have to stay indoors all day, let alone be locked inside a six-foot cell with just another criminal for company. If captured and convicted, I would be a high risk to the public and sent to a category ‘A’ prison for a long time, probably life. Prison would be full of the Niners’ affiliates too. I would be silenced within days. Although there had been some sympathy for my position, especially after Constance was recovered unhurt, I didn’t think that there was any guarantee a judge would see it that way. There was a swell of public support following her release and the ensuing flurry of nasty facts that was unveiled about her captors. The surviving Niner was sent down for fifteen years, which didn’t seem long enough to me. I may get some consideration for extenuating circumstances, but I doubted it. I always hope for the best but plan for the worst.
If you’re looking for a target’s whereabouts, then the easiest way to find them is via their telephone number. Electoral lists are useful but if you’re looking for someone with a common name, the telephone directory is the best way to narrow it down. When I looked through the telephone book, there were hundreds of listings with the surname Harris and the initial ‘D’ was common too. I decided to take the direct route to narrow the search and came up with a ruse. I called his mobile number from a telephone box. It took me twenty minutes to find a phone box in working order. I opened the door and the smell of stale urine hit me in the face. A dark stain f
lowed out of the booth and snaked across the pavement, still damp and sticky from the night before. I dialed his number.
‘Hello,’ he sounded cautious because the number that I’d rung from wasn’t listed in his phone. The fact it was a local number would work in my favour.
‘Is this David Harris?’ I asked.
‘Yes, who is this?’
‘Have you still got the van for sale?’
‘No, I’m not selling a van.’
‘Have you sold it?’
‘No, I’ve never had a van for sale. You’ve got the wrong number.’
‘Bloody hell, sorry I was told there was a van for sale in Corwen.’ I was taking a gamble on where he was. ‘Are you in Corwen?’
‘Yes, but I haven’t got a van.’
‘I must have the wrong David Harris then, sorry to bother you,’ I lied. ‘I don’t suppose you know a David Harris who has a garage there do you?’
He hung up, but I’d narrowed it down to the same village as the one that Max Blackman was from. There were three D. Harris listed in the directory for Corwen. I stuffed another pound coin into the phone and dialed the first one on the list. It rang three times before the call was answered by a woman.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, is David in please?’
‘There’s no David here, doll,’ she replied politely.
‘Sorry I ‘ve been given this number about a van for sale and was told to ask for David Harris,’ I lied again.
‘No. I’m sorry, doll, there’s no one here by that name. My name is Harris, but it’s not David, doll, it’s Diane,’ she chuckled.
‘Sorry to bother you,’ I hung up and dialed the next number. This time a man’s voice answered. ‘Hi is that David?’
‘Derek speaking, who is this?’
‘Sorry, wrong number.’ I hung up again and wrote down the last remaining address. If he was the D Harris listed in the directory, then he lived at 16 Williams St, Corwen. I needed to be sure that the Harris listed was a David. I dialed the landline number from the directory and after a few rings a woman’s voice came onto the line.
