Initial

by S Thomas Thompson

  InitiAl by Steven Thompson

  To Mum and Dad, thank you for all the support and belief in me.

  ISBN: 9781980330486

  Written and copyright 2020

  1

  He stood over her looking down at his prey. She looked for all the world like a normal person. But he knew differently. She was chosen to be here at that time, in that place. He knew what he had to do next. She would set an example to others. This was the real start of his work. This was the one he had planned for.

  She looked up at the man above her. He was stood in front of a bright light. He wasn't familiar to her in any way. She wondered who he was. She couldn't see his face. He spoke not much louder than a whisper so she couldn't make out his voice either. She wanted to know who he was. But that wasn't the biggest or the most pressing thing on her mind. She wanted to know what he has planned for her. She didn't have to wait long.

  He moved with clinical speed. Just before she saw his hands move quickly towards her, she heard him say something. Again, she couldn't make it out. A few seconds later she was lying in a small pool of her own blood. He dropped something before walking away. He was glad that he lived alone so he could get cleaned up without interruption or detection. He smiled to himself as he strode towards home. The dark of the night shielded him from any prying eyes that might have been present on the short journey.

  2

  Augustine Boyle was woken by the vibration from his mobile phone. The nights where he really needed a good sleep he turned off the alarm and left it on vibrate. It was always the case that these were the nights he got a call. Boyle struggled with his sleep.

  He hadn’t slept well for weeks, or it could have been months or perhaps years. He didn’t know what it was that had made this happen. It could have been age. Most of his family suffered with it. His father barely slept beyond the early hours of the morning and drifted off to sleep in the early evening. Augustine missed most of evening television but the invention of TV recorders helped him catch up in the first few hours of the day, so by the time the rest of the country had awoken he had caught them up with their viewing habits. He could then join in on conversation with everyone else at work (when he chatted at work) or with the rest of the family (if he had one). It could have been that. His aunts all suffered with a similar disease. The disease of not being able to sleep. Many people in his profession were night owls. They worked late when the rest of the world had switched off. But he worked early before the rest of the world had even switched on. It made him feel like he had a head start on the people he was trying to catch. Augustine was sure they didn’t get up as early as him.

  But maybe his sleep was the consequence of those people and their crimes. The things he had seen over the years were enough to keep anyone awake. When he first started his career in the police he was told by the more experienced detectives that you get used to it. The repeat effect of seeing decaying or mutilated bodies was supposed to numb the senses to it. On the first occasion, it would all be too much, even for those with the strongest stomach. The smell was worse than the sight, but the pair of them together turned every stomach the first time. But for Augustine it happened just about every time. He had picked up the technique of using Vaseline to cover the nostrils and prevent most of the smell entering his system. That was the only way he could stop the vomit from travelling in the opposite direction. But the images couldn’t be blocked in the same way. There was no method possible of stopping them from entering his brain through the eyes. Augustine was sure that if there was, he would have tried it. The people that he was sent to avenge were a regular theme of his dreams. They would just lie there, as they had when he first encountered them, looking ready for the ground. Have you ever had a friend who was just there? When you look back at the moments of your life, they were present at every one. But they never instigated anything nor were a major player. They were just there. Well these bodies were the same in his dreams. Augustine could see them, they offered nothing in the way of conversation, or even movement but they were always present. Augustine wanted to help, and it was the ones that he had not been able to help that came back to him more frequently. They were the ones that spent the most time with him while he was asleep. There were times when he didn’t even want to go off to sleep because he knew what was coming. But when Augustine drifted off, it wasn’t long before the stationary bodies were there in front of his eyes, waiting for him to help. He was as helpless in his dreams as he was in real life. He had no answers there either.

  But maybe it was his bladder that kept him awake in the early hours. As he had got older and his body had shown signs of age, he was far more aware of his bladder than ever before. Someone he worked with told him that everything was fine until you reached the age of 40, then bits start to drop off. He hadn’t realised what she had meant until the age reached him. He went from someone who visited the doctor every five years or so to someone who was there every six months. He didn’t want to go, in fact tried to put things off, but there was always something in the pipeline nagging away at his conscience until he had to give in and go back to see the doctor. He felt like a hypochondriac, but it was just the passing of the years. Forty changed a lot of things for Augustine. And his bladder was front and centre of his attention in this matter. Not that he ever went to see a doctor about it. It just worked without care or attention for his entire life without him even being aware that it was present. Then suddenly after 40 it reminded him every morning that it was there, functioning and needed some relief. What else could he do? Maybe it was his bladder that kept him awake.

  But in Augustine’s mind there was something even more pressing that was keeping him from sleeping beyond the point where his alarm clock changed from showing a ‘4’ at the front of the time to showing a ‘5’ for him. It was linked to the passing of time. He only had so long left on the planet and wanted to leave his mark. As a forty-something with no kids, no marriage (not even a failed one behind him) and no long-term relationship his legacy was looking likely to lie away from passing on his good looks (his own view) his dogged determination (the view of his superiors) and his organisation (definitely the view of others) to someone else. He would have to make his mark through his work unless the unlikely occurred and he met up with a woman that could put up with all his shit, understand that he worked ridiculous hours and still wanted to have children with him after all of this. Augustine didn’t hold out much hope. He had a series of short-term relationships that fizzled out when the women actually realised what being his partner actually meant. Not that many of these moved along far enough for the other party to consider calling themselves his partner. He hated the word anyway and only used it when he felt he had no choice.

  Augustine wanted to leave his mark on the planet. The people he read about at university seemed like the type of people that would be remembered in centuries to come. He studied linguistics at Lancaster University and much of the study had been concentrated in the 40 years before his degree so, unlike history or English literature, there were no luminaries that had been around for centuries. The biggest name in linguistics was more famous for his work outside of the discipline than inside. Noam Chomsky had made his name as a thinker and theologian in the consciousness of the world but his seminal work on linguistics was something that drove the study of the subject forward. Augustine wanted to know that more recent linguists were still being studied and debated hundreds of years after their death, and his death for that matter. That was the way he wanted his work to be viewed in the future. He wasn’t quite sure how that would happen but for now he contented himself with working as hard as he could and always putting his name forward for the most difficult assignments. The ones where he ended up without a result in many cases and saw the bodies in his sleep fo
r months after. One day he would solve something that looked unsolvable and maybe his legacy would grow from there. In the meantime, he would look to Chomsky for inspiration.

  Augustine Boyle would talk to the others in his team as though he were the great thinker and had all the answers. The problem was that they had worked with him long enough to know that this wasn’t true. So, on the short ride to the station that morning from his home in Washington Village, he thought about what words he could use to inspire them anew. The early signs were that this was another murder from someone who was careful at the scene. The early forensic work had thrown up nothing at all. Back when he first worked on the force, people were giving up clues left, right and centre. Even with basic detection techniques there were footprints, stray hairs and fibres and fingerprints galore to choose from when piecing the case together. Now it seemed as though every murderer wore gloves, shaved off all their hair and possibly worked naked as well. Augustine blamed it on the proliferation of shows on TV that gave an insight into the way that detectives solved crime. From Crimewatch to CSI there were ideas there that would get the criminal mind going. Everyone wanted to commit the perfect crime. Just committing any old crime didn’t seem in vogue. There were many cases that seemed unsolvable from start to finish. Not that the police force ever let this information be public. As far as the family were concerned, the police were doing everything in their power to solve the murder and bring the perpetrator to justice. In many ways they were, but with little to go on, everything in their power was very little at all. Augustine had been brought right up to date by the officer that was controlling the scene over the phone. There felt like little to go on. As he pulled around the last few corners to the station at The Galleries, he slowed a little to compose himself. It was becoming routine to meet together at the station when dealing with a murder. If the body was cold and the event had happened some time before then they were losing little by not going to the scene straight away. If the body was warm, then there were reasons to get there as soon as they could and look for clues in the locality. For some reason, many murderers hang around for some time after the crime. They are curious about the police investigation and whether they are bagging up any evidence. But after finding a body that has been there for a while, even only an hour, the latest thinking in police circles that an organised team back at the station was far more beneficial to the investigation than rushing to the location the body had been found in. Plus, it gave the forensics team some time to get their work done without being disturbed. In the day and age of specialist teams and computer analysis, most crimes were solved by crunching the numbers, looking through the evidence and following the most likely outcomes. Augustine wanted to get his team on board with this one. He wanted their full attention so he spent the last few turns of his steering wheel considering what he might say.

  “This one is different, ladies and gentlemen.”

  “I need your full attention on this case.”

  “We really have something to work on here.”

  “Do me proud.”

  But none of these felt right. He had to tell himself that he would find the right words when he was in front of the team. He lived closer than most so he still had some time to think about it when he was sipping his cup of tea in the briefing room. There was something that did make this case different he did need their full attention and, unlike so many other similar cases in the past, they did have something to work on. Maybe this would be the start of his legacy.

  Around half an hour later Augustine was sat in front of the rest of his team. There were only five of them on the team now. Augustine blamed cutbacks but it was at least in part that resources were directed to other detectives that took on cases that were easier to solve. As with any part of society that was subject to government funding, the figures dictated a lot in the police. If something brought great returns on the investment then it was well funded. If it didn’t then it was seen as unnecessary expenditure and culled. In many ways, he was fortunate that his predilection to pick up the most difficult cases hadn’t seen his team cut even further or be out of business altogether. He had known of other detectives in other regions reassigned to different parts of the force if their results were not up to scratch. The fact that Augustine struck lucky, as his superiors saw it, every now and again was probably the sole reason that he was still operating his team. He stood in front of them. He would rather have seen them eye to eye, but protocol dictated that the commanding officer stood and he couldn’t very well see the rest of them standing up with him at this time of the morning. Augustine was strange in this way. Sometimes he didn’t pay a second’s thought to protocol, while other times he stuck to the book like his career depended on it.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we have something really interesting here. It seems as though this might lead on to more murders so we need to solve this one as soon as we can,” he announced. He had never felt comfortable addressing a crowd of people in a formal situation. Even just the group of four others that he was used to and worked with day after day gave him butterflies that he had to control. Augustine used some of the lines he had put together in the car. They were like a crutch and he was sure that if he recorded and played back his talks that he would have started them all with the words ‘ladies and gentlemen’ and also used the word ‘interesting’ somewhere along the way. He had been on courses designed to help him become a better presenter. They included tips like ‘imagine the audience naked’ and ‘plan out what you want to say on prompt cards’ in exchange for his time. But the people he had assembled in front of him here were not the type that anyone, no matter their imagination, would want to think of without any clothes. And he couldn’t very well plan a talk on a murder that hadn’t even been committed yet. That would put him right at the top of the pile of suspects. He took all of this in his stride and carried on in his normal manner. They knew what to expect and in many ways that was a good thing. If he suddenly turned up with the most polished presenting style in the world then they would be unnerved by it. The last thing that anyone needed was an unnerved team of detectives.

  He then played his ace card. He knew that this was the one that would get their attention. All his life he had been told to keep the ace card and play it as late as possible. His grandfather told him to keep the ace card, or the best domino, in your hand and only use it at the killer point in proceedings. But Augustine always wanted to play it as soon as possible. Once playing cards when he was younger, Augustine had what he thought was a killer card in his hand. He kept hold of it to use at the most pertinent part of the game. The part where it would turn everything in his favour. That point never came and he lost the game of cards with his best card still in his hand. He vowed never to finish anything with his best card still in his hand again. He wanted the opponent to know that he meant business and he wasn’t afraid to play his cards when he felt like it, not when the game dictated. In this instance, the ace card would grab the attention of the team and hopefully transform this case into one that they all believed in.

  “The killer left a note at the scene. He left a single card with the single letter ‘A’ on it. We have no idea yet what this means in terms of the crime, but for us it means a case that has interest. It means a case that can take us somewhere. It means a case where we don’t feel like we are banging our heads against the wall,” explained Augustine. He was talking while looking at his feet, not something that would have helped him pass those courses on presentation. He quickly caught himself and forced his stare away from the floor and towards the people gathered in front of him. They were all sat on the edge of their chairs paying full attention to his every word and every movement. Finally, something had given him the ability to hold the attention of the room for longer than a few seconds. It was a shame that it was a case rather than his style that had engaged the room so, but whatever it was, Augustine would take it. He could also see his boss stood at the back of the room, listening to the way he addressed his troops. She was arou
nd the same age as Augustine and had a similar lifestyle to him - no long-term partner, no kids, no husband - ex or current. In fact, she had been thrown the accusation that incensed Augustine at times, the one that she had been married to the force, and been as aggressive towards the accuser as Augustine was to his. It was a lazy way for people to think. The two of them were dedicated police officers and had worked their way up to their position sometimes by putting in extra hours but what profession nowadays didn’t need that extra sacrifice to get to the top? Augustine used to compare his role to that of the banker who worked back when the markets were in turmoil or the bank faced a crisis that needed extra manpower to deal with. His boss, Marie, used to tell people that she was no different to the accountant that worked ridiculously long hours around the end of the tax year. Either way, they were having the same argument with different people. They were like kindred spirits but the feelings stopped there. There was never going to be anything romantic between the two of them, even if they felt like the last two left on the shelf a lot of the time. Marie was listening as intently as the rest of the team.

  “I have spoken to forensics and there is nothing from either the paper or the ink that gives us much to go on. The paper is a mass-produced brand that can be bought in any stationers or supermarket for a few quid a ream. The ink is from a common or garden printer that is the number one seller on Amazon. Do you know how many of these have been sold over the years?” Augustine started breaking down the case, piece by piece. But whatever he said would not have the same impact as the statement about the letter on the piece of paper. Maybe his grandfather was right about not playing your trump card too early.