Initial

by S Thomas Thompson

  The next voice he heard was Electra. She spoke softly, “I would estimate about five thousand a year, the way Amazon goes about its business.” She was answering his question about the number of printers sold. She never had got used to the way Augustine asked rhetorical questions. Electra, not her real name, was someone that wanted everything in her life compartmentalised and computed. She couldn’t leave something unanswered, so whenever Augustine threw in a rhetorical question he would get an honest answer. Electra provided them. It put him off track for a few seconds before he got back to his train of thought.

  “It is on Grey Street, in the centre of Newcastle, a short ride from here but we need to be wary about how we go about this. Forensics have almost completed their work and that part of the investigation will be over by the time we get there. But I don’t want the public alarmed or alerted. Rush hour will be upon us almost as soon as we get there, so people will stop to have a look if we make it obvious there is something going on. It is cordoned off now, so we will take a look, make our individual notes before convening to ask the relevant questions straight after. If we are quick and the weather is OK, then we can do this just around the corner and get out of sight before people start making their way to work. Let’s get on the move,” Augustine finished his brief instructions to the team. As they got up, each was handed a piece of paper with the basic details derived from the forensic investigation that had already been carried out that morning. It was a confirmation really that they had very little to work with so far. Augustine looked towards Electra and she immediately offered to drive him there. This would give them time to talk. He knew that she had the most innovative brain out of the crew and he wanted her take on what she had heard so far. Although the letter on a piece of paper was something to go on, it wasn’t going to solve the case on its own. He needed to think outside the box with this, and Electra was the perfect sounding board for this.

  She wasn’t given the name Electra when she was born. Her parents preferred the name Alice King. She had graduated from university with a joint degree in law and computing and it was while on her computer course that the name Electra first arose and stuck. The rest of her year were interested in computers on a practical level. They wanted to know how to programme them, what they could do with them and how this fitted into a future role in industry. Not Electra. She wanted to know everything, including the theoretical stuff and the way that computers transferred energy from the socket on the wall to the power to derive the number pi to thousands of decimal places or calculate a prime number with hundreds upon hundreds of digits. Her interest in the electrical side of things came through in the questions she asked her tutors. And the name Electra stuck, because of her fascination with the electrical pulses that converted power of one kind into power of another. From the power made by burning nuclear fusion, to the power to push human comprehension further.

  Electra was around five feet three with short blonde hair that she often wore in a wave across her head, like it was a homage to punk rock that had already fizzled out before she was born. She was often mistaken for a lesbian, and approached on more than one occasion, but was definitely straight. She had passed from one man to another since she was old enough to have a relationship but none had ever really worked out. Augustine went through phases in his life where he could find beauty of one kind or another in every single woman he met. Some would be young, some old but he would see something beautiful in their eyes, their smile, their hair or something more like the rest of the men he met - their tits or arse. Electra was different. She would find something negative to focus on in every relationship after it had been going a few months. Just as men felt they were established and settled, she would have worked herself up about an aspect of the man, sometimes incredibly obscure, that she just couldn’t get over. Sometimes it was the state of their white underwear after they had worn it for the day, other times it was that they were maybe carrying a little too much weight around the middle. But whatever other people could easily overlook or attempt to rectify (dark pants would have resolved one problem, cutting back on food and exercising the other) but she just couldn’t stop obsessing about it and in the end, broke it off with the man. He would usually be devastated as it wasn’t something that had ever been mentioned before. She would feel a huge sense of relief that this issue was now done and dusted and she could get on with the rest of her life. That was until a few months later when she had built up another problem with another man and pushed him out of the door. But none of that bothered Augustine. She may have had a hectic and complicated private life at times but it never affected her work. She was always there on time, worked back late voluntarily if needed and was his sounding board when he needed someone to think differently. And that was exactly what he needed at that point. They walked slowly to her car as he finished off his first drink of the day. It was cold by that time but Augustine didn’t care. He had never developed the ability to drink tea or coffee when it was hot. Others had usually finished their cup and he was still mulling over whether it was cool enough for the first sip. He looked for a bin inside the last few steps of the station before realising that there was one in the car park. He glugged the last of the cold tea and placed the paper cup in the bin near to Electra’s car. She was already inside and added a few revs of the engine to heighten the urgency of the situation to her teammates. Augustine jumped in and the two were away down the road in no time at all. The roads were still incredibly quiet and she drove on the edge at the best of times.

  3

  Electra looked across at Augustine. He rarely looked nervous, always in control, unless he was sat in the passenger seat of a car. She had known him for well over ten years and he looked no different than when she was first introduced. His curly hair didn’t seem to grow and he never spoke about it being cut. With his dimly-lit eyes and never having facial hair to speak of it was as though his head was cryogenically frozen back to a time in his mid-twenties.

  Augustine started to ask her questions. He wanted to know what she thought.

  “What did you think of all that, Electra?” Augustine knew that there was no point in beating around the bush or trying to be cryptic with her. She only really dealt in absolutes and besides they didn’t have long before they would be at the scene. There was no time at all for small talk.

  “Well, Gus,” she always called him Gus even though nobody else ever did, he didn’t mind as long as it was just her. “I am thinking that this is not a one-off. Unless there are other letters that are being uncovered as we speak, this signifies the start of something, or even the middle or the end. Just because we have found this body and this letter first, it doesn’t mean that this is the first victim,” she told Gus in a way that resembled a parent-child relationship. She spoke to everyone as though they were intellectual inferiors, and because of her large brain and ability to use it to full effect, they usually were. Augustine was one of them. But he didn’t care one iota. It was the type of thinking he had come to expect from Electra and quite frankly the kind of thinking he had come to rely on. The rest of the team had their skills, but none could out-think Electra. He sat in silence and let her continue. He feared that an interruption might stop her flow of thought.

  “And the killer is trying to tell us something, or tell someone something. Most murders, and we are assuming this is a murder, aren’t we? Most murders are committed in the heat of the moment. We are taught that in primary school, we know that from the movies we see and then we have that drilled into us every day of our working lives as cops. So, most murderers don’t take the time to plan to the degree that they leave little or no evidence, although we are seeing far more of this in our investigations day by day. But then if we add on the extra layer that we have a murderer that doesn’t want us to know who he is, and I say ‘he’ because this sounds like a crime of power and that is almost exclusively associated with male murderers, but the same murderer wants us to know something. And he wants to control the timeframe that we know thi
s information. By leaving only a single letter, as far as we are aware at this moment in time, then we can assume that this isn’t a hugely long message. By studying any history books relating to crime he will know that most murderers only ‘get away’ with a few deaths before they are caught. He can’t have a four-page essay readied for us,” she explained as the car came to a halt. Augustine had been so transfixed by the monologue of his colleague that he had completely lost track of where they were. They were at the scene. There were still most of the signs of darkness present. The street lights hadn’t faded, the birds were to begin their chorus and it felt early to everyone. There wasn’t any sign of the impending rush hour so they jumped out of the car to go about their work and clean up before prying eyes turned this into a social media phenomenon. People just loved to gossip about something happening in their own back yard. Augustine Boyle had a feeling that they needed to keep a wrap on this for as long as possible to deny the murderer publicity and to get on with the investigation without press scrutiny and the calls from hundreds of people who will claim to know something about the murder.

  In the latter stages of an investigation, the publicity is helpful. If the trail starts to run dry then the police often need some help from the public and end up going to Crimewatch to assist with their enquiries. But this was only useful when they had no more leads. If the detectives working the case had pulled on every string they had and ended up with nothing at the end of them, then the public could be of assistance. But the team working the case knew that people would waste their time with calls in this event. Some people meant well, but called in with a name way off the mark, others just made a random call on the off-chance that someone vaguely criminal that they knew night be involved so they could claim the reward while others were just malicious. In their force, this was known as the Dan Miller effect. There was someone who would call in with every crime, every appeal and every Crimewatch re-enactment with the name Dan Miller. It was obviously someone that they didn’t like for one reason or another and they took out this hatred by calling in the name Dan Miller for everything. Whether the suspect was a six foot, eight-inch black male or a five foot nothing female with blonde hair, this character would always call in the name Dan Miller. It got to the point where the police had to protect their scant resources and the guy was arrested for wasting their time. He ended up with community service and a suspended sentence and it stopped him calling in that same name time and time again. But in the early days of an investigation, the police worked best on the evidence they had to hand. Calls from the public were taken and investigated, but not sought after actively. This meant that they could generally sift the good leads and allocate the right manpower to them, while gathering the evidence that the scene and crime dictated. Augustine was happy that there had been no calls relating to this so far. It was in Newcastle city centre that was usually deserted at that time of the morning in the middle of the week. Great for the criminal, and good for the team that could get to work in their own way, rather than following leads that may send them absolutely nowhere.

  The two got out of the car. Augustine jumped up as soon as his feet hit the ground. Something inside him told him that he should be first to the scene. Electra must have had the same feeling because she was quickly alongside him and opened her stride to move ahead without appearing to run and turn this into an all-out race. Augustine was much taller than her and, as a consequence, had a much longer stride so quickly drew back level with her and then matched her step for step so they both arrived at the taped-off area at the very same time. He could have used his authority to hold her back or raced ahead and left her behind but he knew that he needed her on-board with this investigation and he wanted to appease her. They both flashed their ID at the officer stationed at the entrance to the enclosed alleyway and he lifted the tape for them to pass. Augustine looked back in the direction they had just come from as he passed under and saw the rest of the team walking at a fast pace to catch them up. He smiled at them before moving towards the scene with Electra. If only the two of them could solve these case on their own, he thought, we make a good team.

  As they walked the last few steps to the body, which was being dimly lit by a portable light, the kind that reminded Augustine of the cinema, it was obvious that the body was not in one piece. Augustine reached for his pocket and applied the Vaseline to his nostrils. Even in the outdoors, he feared the smell of the deceased would be present and he would be overcome by the stench of death. He looked at the body laid out in front of him and wondered how long he would see her in his dreams. It was often the first thought that came over him when he saw a new victim. The sight was so gruesome that he hoped this one wouldn’t stay for long at all.

  The tall buildings either side of the alley made it feel narrower than it actually was. The city centre had a habit of doing that. Augustine hunched his shoulders when he first walked in as though he needed to make room for his frame, but it could easily hold several people walking alongside each other. He looked up at the sky and saw some blue start to mix with the black. The top of the building seemed an eternity away. Augustine wondered if they were being watched. It was as though there were eyes in the sky, beaming down on the work he carried out, judging whether he made the right moves or made a mess of it.

  The body was clothed. That was an initial sign that this wasn’t a sexual crime. The body was wearing a cheap suit, probably from Primark or George at Asda, the type that young girls buy when they first get a job in an office or a bank - in fact anywhere that they are not provided with a uniform. They buy something cheap and useful before they get their first job and then move on to something more up market when they receive their first pay packet. Amazingly, the head was still wearing a baseball cap. The two parts seemed so incongruous that Augustine at first wondered if they were from the same person. The baseball cap warranted a different outfit on the body; the body in its suit didn’t feel like it would have been attached to a head with a hat of any description. The whole team was assembled by now and they all looked just as puzzled as Augustine looked across them for a reaction. He looked back at the body. It was laid on its back with the feet pointed up towards the sky. One arm was laid at an awkward angle, as though it was pointing in a certain direction. It didn’t feel as though it hadn’t landed there naturally and had been manipulated into that position. But as this was the first beheading victim he had ever seen in his life, he put all preconceptions to one side and decided that this must be the way that people fell and landed when having their head taken from their shoulders by what had clearly been a sharp weapon.

  He bent over the body and looked as closely as he could without touching the single piece of paper that contained the letter ‘A’ that had given this investigation so much intrigue. Augustine had asked the forensic team to replace it on the chest of the victim for maximum effect when his team arrived. He liked the theatre of it. It was approximately four inches by four inches and printed with a regular ink, in a regular script like any regular letter. There was nothing that marked it out as being somehow linked to a murder except for the fact that it was laid precisely in the middle of the chest of a decapitated body. Augustine was expecting it to take on some sinister aspect and turn him cold but when he focused solely on the letter it meant absolutely nothing. He looked at the team and they all nodded then they had seen enough. The full forensic reports would be back waiting for them at the station and they had a little bit of work to do at and around the scene first.

  Augustine instructed the team to walk the area for a few minutes before they would convene in the next alleyway to ask questions and discuss what they had found. He asked them all to look around at the surrounding buildings as they walked to see if there were any CCTV cameras that might pick up a glimpse of the killer, or more. Inevitably there were none there. It was as though the killer had thought long and hard about how to work all of this to his advantage. It seemed like they were coming up against someone cold, ruthless and very organised.
Augustine wondered how they might be able to crack the hard shell of the way the killer had constructed the crime scene and get to the inside where it was easier to make progress. From bitter experience, he knew that that first strike of that cracked the shell was always the most difficult. But once they got to the softer parts inside, there was always more room to manoeuvre. They had to get inside this case as quickly as they possibly could. He dispatched Electra to be present at the post mortem examination so she could see if there was anything unusual there.

  Augustine had always found pathologists excellent at what they did, but it was something they saw every day of their working life. They no longer saw a body of a person in front of them, just a cadaver that needed to be dissected and analysed. Unless you got lucky and found a pathologist that had only been doing the job for a short while, they you would end up with a clinical report that established facts like time of death and method of death, not that there was little doubt with this one. But what he wanted was a cop’s view on this. He wanted someone who would pick up the little signs as the pathologist made their incisions, weighed the organs and did all the other parts of their routine. A cop could pick up the look on the pathologist’s face as they cut open part of the body and examined what he or she found. Electra was the most eager to face the brutality of the post-mortem from his team and also the most likely to analyse the situation for all the small signs that told stories that the black and white pages of a report could never tell.