Initial

by S Thomas Thompson

  “Boyle, you are easily scared for a cop,” Gary sneered as though it was another victory for him. Augustine conceded that he was probably right.

  “Let’s go and see what the museum has for us today,” chirped Augustine as he tried to make light of the situation. He had told himself that he wasn’t going to be dragged down into Gary’s way of speaking to people. He would just ignore the barbs and pretend he was working with someone nice. That was the plan, anyway.

  They walked across the deserted street to the side of the museum to be greeted by a security guard. He was a huge man of around six feet seven and looked like he worked out twice a day, but the man looked broken. He was shaking as though he had a fever and his eyes were reddening. He had been the person to find the body on his normal rounds to make sure the perimeter of the museum was secure and free from the druggies that frequently jacked up in the alleys behind the museum. At one stage, they started installing security cameras to monitor the activity but there was simply too many dark areas and places to disappear from the view of the CCTV to have everything covered. It was far more efficient to have to guards, and have one walk the perimeter every hour or so. It kept a presence and they could work together if needed. One on the outside of the building, and one with access to the security cameras that were installed. It had worked fine to that point, anyway.

  As they walked around the left-hand side of the building as you faced it, the guard explained what he had been doing in the moments before his grim discovery, the one that had so visibly shaken him. He was wearing one of the high visibility jackets that seemed to be compulsory in the security industry over the top of a black uniform from head to foot. Augustine wondered if a lighter uniform might have rendered the fluorescent yellow jacket unnecessary. The man wore steel-toed boots as though he was going to need protection on that part of his body more than any other. If there was a reason for this then Augustine wanted to know what it was. But now was not the time.

  “I was half way through my checks. John, the other guard was talking to me on the radio about the price of fish and chips in the local area. It wasn’t very interesting but when you have worked the same shift with the same guy for years, there is little new to talk about. I did notice in the alley that there were a few bags of rubbish left. It happens every now and again. I think it is the local takeaways that don’t want to pay to have their bins emptied. Christ knows how much that would cost them, a few quid a week I suspect. So, I moved them to the top of the alley and I was going to put them in the bins as I finished. I never know what is in them and I want to get straight back and wash my hands afterwards. A bit of a cleanliness freak, I confess. There are the bags,” he explained as they walked past three black bin liners that were stacked one on top of the other ready to be taken to the large bins that were now situated at the front of the building. Augustine assumed that they were ready for collection before the museum opened, in fact before the rest of the city had woken from its slumber and started to go back to business again.

  The guard continued, “I’ll get rid of them when we come back out. My name is Steve, by the way.” The rest of them nodded at Steve. He stooped as though they would find it difficult to see him with all his height. “I turned back after moving the bin bags and started to walk to the far corner of the building. From there it is only a few more checks before I could come back, get rid of the bags and be back inside again. That was when I noticed something that I first thought was moving. It must have been the breeze that rustled his clothes or something. I don’t know why I thought he was moving, so the first call I made was for an ambulance. I thought if there was any movement then there might be a chance he was still alive. But when I took a closer look….” his hands shook. Then his whole body. He took a deep breath and continued, “the lady on the end of the phone told me she would call the police as well. They arrived together and I showed them back here in the same way I am showing you. The man from the ambulance was only here a few seconds. The body was a body and no longer a person.”

  As he finished speaking they reached the far corner of the museum. The guard asked to be excused and walked away. It was clear to Augustine that he had seen more than he wanted already and just escorted the police there out of duty rather than any desire to follow those footsteps again. The team all looked at each other before stepping closer to the body.

  The body on the ground had been killed and cut, but it wasn’t clear whether the cutting had been done before the killing or vice versa. It was clear that it was a man, but there was little else to give away the identity. The face had been cut in a horizontal direction around six times. Two were deep. There had been some teeth pulled and the blood from the gums was all over the bottom half of the man’s face. He was wearing a suit of some description, Electra thought it looked expensive and she knew a little about fashion and a lot about spending money on clothes. The man’s fingers had all been cut off and were scattered around the body like a garnish to a meal. It was as though their killer had started to enjoy his work. Close to the museum was a body that was arranged as though some sick mind believed it to be a work of art.

  “Don’t throw those bags away,” shouted Augustine to the guard as he walked back along the alley at a snail’s pace. Augustine Boyle had a thought that they might contain some clues. Best to leave the crime scene as it was. Not just the part that forensics had marked, but the entire alleyway. He’d love to close the whole museum, but knew that was a reach too far. Augustine hated the fact that they had a Museum of Innocence in a town where he saw so little innocence. Even those that were killed were more often than not far from being without their flaws. He had opposed the plans from the museum from the very start, quite vocally until his bosses put pressure on him to remain impartial. If he went for the jugular now, then he would be accused of bias. The end of the alley was as far as he could go in terms of protecting the scene. He asked one of the forensic team that were left when the body would be removed. He had some time. The rest of the team were sent out to take a look at the surrounding area, Electra was assigned to accompany the security guards to look through the CCTV footage while he grabbed a forensic and opened one of the bags. The contents of the bag were all connected to each other. Not the takeaway rubbish that the guard expected. They all led to the identity of the man laid at the end of the alley. Dental records confirmed that early the next morning.

  By this time, the word had got out and there was a growing crowd assembled at the front of the museum. The fact that several police cars had arrived at the building with an ambulance and then some activity along the side of the museum had been reported on social media and this had been given legs by the quick way of sharing news. Augustine scanned the scene. He found it disturbing. It was like the masses that gathered to watch people thrown to the lions in ancient Rome or those that assembled at the stocks to throw rotten food at a criminal. But they wouldn’t be able to see the body. People were congregated so they could tell their friends on social media that they were there. This was another reason that Augustine spent as little time as possible on social media networks. It was full of people who wanted the rest of the world know to know that they were close to danger or celebrity. It didn’t impress him. He was sure it impressed nobody except the vacuous. As Augustine surveyed the area directly around the body just to double check that the forensic team had been as thorough as he would expect, he heard a voice shout out from the crowd.

  “Detective, what did you find back there?” the voice came from the middle of the crowd and it was in dark shade, so Augustine couldn’t make out where it was coming from exactly. He looked intently but knew it was a futile act.

  Augustine stepped forward and tried to make out the place in the crowd where the voice was emanating from. The voice walked along the back of the group of people to shout out something else from a new location. He knew exactly what the detective had found in the alley. He had been responsible for the body.

  “Detective why haven’t you solved the grow
ing number of murders in the city?” he shouted from his new vantage point. He wanted to play with the detective that he saw in front of him. The voice was deciding whether he would want to involve the man he had come to learn was called Augustine Boyle in one of his future killings. He was deciding if Boyle would live or die at an unspecified point in the near future. He circled back to where he had just come from. The voice looked carefully at the surroundings. He had already seen the other detectives disappear to where they had been sent and looked over his shoulder for any other police in the background. He had one more thing to say before he left. There was nobody to be seen.

  “Detective, what is the meaning of the letters left on the chests of the victims?” he said as he began to walk away from the crowd. It would have been a throwaway comment but for the fact that these pieces of paper hadn’t been released to the press.

  Augustine ran towards the crowd of people at the end of the alleyway. The details about the letters left weren’t in the public domain at that point and he looked across the crowd as he ran. If the man who had shouted knew about the letters then maybe he knew something about the murders. Augustine rushed to the crowd but there seemed to be nobody who knew the identity of the man who was shouting towards the detective. By this time, he was back in the shadows a street away. The voice had decided that the games he had been playing were not enough. He wanted to toy with the lead detective. But he now knew that any spectators to a murder investigation would be watched carefully. He knew this was probably his one and only chance to decide whether he was going to kill detective Augustine Boyle. He smiled as he made up his mind. The decision made him happy.

  Augustine knew that he had to follow the voice. There was only one possible direction that he could have escaped in and not be seen. The Market Street across the back of the crowd was long. If he had run left or right, then Augustine was sure he would still be able to see him. It was early in the day and Augustine was deprived of sleep, but the adrenaline kicked in and he started to run towards the road directly behind the crowd. There was no traffic. The police cordon had seen to that, so he got his head down and sprinted. Augustine had some catching up to do. As he reached the end of the first building on the road, Augustine noticed that there were scores of options for the voice to disappear into. Even at that time of the morning, he could have access to buildings, given the right code or pass. There were more side streets and alleys appearing with every stride. Augustine though that the voice would try to get as far away as possible, so kept on running hard along the same street. It was only when he was starting to flag that Augustine spotted someone else running about 100 yards in front of him. By this time Augustine was breathing heavily and had nothing extra left to pick up the pace. He opened his stride in an attempt to maintain speed and concentrated his vision on the man squarely in front of him. Augustine regretted wearing work shoes as the heels banged on the paving slabs underneath his feet. This would alert the runner if got near. But he had no choice but to keep chase.

  The voice looked over his shoulder and spotted Augustine behind. He quickly darted right at the next intersection onto Grainger Street, past the takeaways and crossed the road into the shadows. It wasn’t the ultimate in protection, but made it much harder for the detective to see his quarry. Augustine took a deep breath as he turned the same corner, desperate for one last effort. But as he turned right, he saw nothing. There was nobody in sight. There was no movement that caught his eye. This could go on all day, he thought before deciding that he should head back to the museum. Augustine had defeat etched all over his face as he stood back over the body. He could feel the sweat running down his back and his heels ached from running hard in the wrong shoes.

  Augustine looked back at the letter ‘L’ laid on the chest of the man on a small square of white paper. It wasn’t as pristine white as the letters left on the other two victims, but the body had been attacked in a far more brutal way. There were etches of red seeping through the paper but the letter was unmistakeable. It was another message for the police. But what could it be? Augustine sighed and swore under his breath. This hadn’t ended. He only hoped it wasn’t just the beginning. He had to do something to break this cycle of death.

  24

  “What we have here is someone that wants to fuck with us,” Augustine raved. He wasn’t at his best on no sleep at all and the events of the last 24 hours were catching up with him. He had a headache from the lack of sleep and the last of the red wine leaving his system. From the museum, he had returned to the station to release Scott Sharpe into the ready arms of his lawyer. The fact that the transfer from the prison had taken longer than expected, even in the middle of the night with no traffic on the road, meant that he had to sit in a room with Cal Green for far longer than he wanted. Cal made no attempt to hide the huge grin on his face. Augustine tried to make small talk but the slimy lawyer had only one topic of conversation. He wanted to celebrate the little victory that he had over the detective that he had running battles with over the years. He wanted to rub it in as much as Gary Hole. It was a painful experience but Augustine’s mind was working towards the ongoing investigation and where it would go from there. Like the other killings, there was no forensic evidence and no CCTV footage. It was obvious by now that the killer wasn’t lucky. He was very good at what he did.

  The three bags that were found in the alley were filled with possessions of the victim. There were some of his clothes, bank statements, his wallet filled with ID, bank cards and with a wad of notes. So, they knew it wasn’t linked to money. Any self-respecting criminal would take all the cash from a wallet. This killer had bagged it all up with a whole other load of stuff from the guy’s life and left it near to the body. And the body told its own story. It was quite simply a mess. The cuts and marks left signified some frenzy but the scene didn’t offer any clues to the attacker. How could he kill someone in such a way but not leave a single trace of hair, fibre or anything else that could identify him? Was he a ghost?

  Augustine lead the team in their discussions about the investigation. He wanted to know their thoughts on what was going on. More importantly he wanted their thoughts on where to take this next. The voice that shouted from the crowd clearly had some information. Was it time to go public and appeal for some help with this? The murders had been reported in the papers but hadn’t really been linked at that time by the journalists. They were diverse people from diverse backgrounds but Augustine and the team of detectives sat in front of him knew the connection. They had a fair idea that the same killer was responsible for all the murders. In fact, Augustine relied on the fact that it was one killer. The thought that there were a group of killers out there made his blood run cold. If that was the case, then Scott Sharpe could have been involved after all, no matter what his instincts told him.

  “Boyle there is nothing to go on,” Gary shouted in the middle of the discussion. The rest of them already knew this but they wanted to look for solutions rather than wallow in the issues that they knew were already present.

  “Gus, he’s right. The post mortems gave us nothing, the CCTV images were crap and it seems like the guy that shouted at you from in front of the museum knows more about it than the entire police force put together,” Electra highlighted the issue that Gary was trying to put across, but she delivered it with a lot more style and grace.

  “So, we need to look at it from a different angle. What are the letters telling us? We now have two victims with the letter ‘L’ on their chest. They are linked in the mind of the killer. How are they linked to us?” she added with a lot more positivity and direction than Gary. He had left her feeling undermined and vulnerable the last time they had discussed the case and now she wanted to make him feel the same way. Gary sneered at her. She knew she had got to him and looked over to Augustine with a sense of satisfaction that didn’t often come around Gary.

  But before Augustine could speak, a voice came from to the side of him. He had forgotten that Lou was in the room just be
cause there were louder voices. Augustine hadn’t heard what was said the first time, but by the look on the faces of the rest of them, he was the only one.

  “I think it is liar,” Louis repeated for the benefit of Augustine. “I think that the ‘L’ stands for liar. We have a banker and a politician. Not exactly the kind of people that are known for telling the truth in the current climate. Jeff Caine has been exposed on many occasions for stretching the truth just about as far as it goes. The banker that we now know as Martin Doggett is one that has made his way up in the bank and was investigated recently for insider trading. It isn’t much of a leap to believe that the killer lost money that was perhaps managed by Doggett. I think that these two with the letter ‘L’ on their chest are being marked as liars.”

  Augustine stood and looked into the eyes of Lou. He could see the years of experience in those eyes and listened intently as the most experienced member of the team explained why he thought that the letters were a classification rather than a message, as they had previously believed they were being given. While this made a lot more sense than being given a message letter by letter, it also meant that they were no further forward in the investigation. What could they do to protect all liars? Who did the killer believe were the biggest liars in society? How could they protect all estate agents, he thought to himself and chuckled internally? He was as convinced as Lou but it did nothing for the investigation.