Initial

by S Thomas Thompson

  “So, where do we go from here?” asked Augustine. He was practical to the extreme and although this was an interesting conversation, it did nothing at all for the way that they were going to catch the killer.

  “I say we warn the public. Maybe this is the line in the sand that stops everyone from lying,” cracked Ash. He hadn’t said anything for a while and thought that he needed to speak up. He knew it wasn’t helpful at all, but wanted the others to be reminded that he was still there. He continued, “but seriously, there has to be a way to work this out. A killer with a message that only stays between him and the police isn’t really getting that message across. What could he have expected from us? There were no reports of the letter on Caine’s chest even though the press got to him before us. If he had any idea about the way we work, then he would at least suspect that we wouldn’t make this public. He is so organised in other areas. I think that he would know how we work.”

  “In that case, the message is for us and nobody else,” Augustine and Ash finished the sentence in unison, as though they had been rehearsing it for weeks. But what had actually happened was the two men had thought of the same idea at the same time. It dawned in them both that the letters were for them to decipher, not for the public. It was the only way.

  “I think we need some help,” Augustine explained to the team. He had someone in mind. It was a fellow alumnus of Lancaster University that he had first met at a party for the great and good that had come out of that institution, a few years earlier. Augustine told the rest of them to crunch the numbers and check all angles. Speak to all the local newspapers to see if someone had been threatening violence or complaining day after day about the liars in society. This may have given them a clue as to who might be angry enough to do this. If Lou was right then this maniac wouldn’t restrict himself to just killing. His anger would come out in other ways too.

  Augustine picked up the phone and dialled, “Hello. Can I speak to Tim please? Hi Tim, it’s Augustine Boyle. You know you said to call if I need your help? Well, I think I could do with a chat. How are you fixed tomorrow morning? Yep, ten sounds great. I’ll come to you. We don’t want the professor of psychology walking into a police station now do we? It might cause all manner of headlines, especially with a serial killer on the loose. Great. See you tomorrow.”

  After the discussion and the telephone call, Augustine felt energised again. It felt as though they were making some progress, even if it was only activity at this stage. The enquiries with the newspapers might bring something. It was more than they had already. Augustine spent the next few hours on the phone to different editors that he had befriended over the years in the job. His team did the rest with some of the reporters that the detectives inevitably bumped into when their jobs were focused on the same place at the same time. They might have to be a little exchange of information in return for the details they were after but at least there might be something to go on. One editor said that he recalled something a while back about letters coming into the office regarding the number of liars in society, but would have to get one of his team to look into whether it was something they kept hold of or trashed. There was so much coming through, and this wasn’t the only nutcase as the editor put it, that they didn’t always keep hold of what they received.

  By this time, Augustine felt the ordeal of a sleepless night catch up with him. It was two in the afternoon. He had been up since five the previous morning and those 33 hours had seen him do a full day’s work, go on a date, have a few drinks, lead a murder investigation and have to put up with Cal Green and his triumphalism. It was time to catch up on some sleep. Augustine asked all the others if they needed anything before trudging off in the direction of the front of the office. He had asked Electra to drive him home and she would pull the car up for him to jump in. He had a couple of short conversations to have on the way out and felt that it was best to meet Electra rather than traipse all over the station or keep her waiting in the meantime. He spoke to his boss, Marie about the mess with Scott Sharpe. She had a press conference later and wanted moral support more than anything. It looked like Cal Green was going to file a complaint and make their life as difficult as possible for as long as he possibly could. She just wanted confirmation that they followed procedure to the letter. He then had a quick chat with his equivalent officer in the vice team to see if they had any more information on the first victim. They had been asking questions regarding this but hadn’t found out a great deal when Augustine checked. He then ran through to the front of the building and met Electra. She was ready to take him back home. He was ready for bed. There was little conversation in the car. Electra was deep in thought about what the letters might mean and how they could get ahead of the game rather than receiving a call when a body was found. And Augustine was so tired that he kept nodding off. She dropped him off and he barely had enough energy to close the curtains before falling into bed fully clothed. He stayed there until the next morning. He slept like he hadn’t for years. But his dreams were filled with new bodies. The prostitute, the banker and the politician were all present. He was sure they would remain there until he found out who had killed them.

  25

  “Just wait there, Mr Boyle,” said the receptionist at the psychology department at the local university, “I’ll let him know you are here.”

  Augustine looked around. It was typical of a university, he thought, that they didn’t even have a system where she could call through to him. While the rest of the world had moved on, this corridor looked like the one that he had sat in during his days at university some twenty odd years earlier. It still had the carpet that looked like it was reclaimed from a pub, the yellow walls (why did universities insist on yellow walls?) and the fittings that looked like they should be in a museum dedicated to 1950’s life. Augustine knew that universities didn’t want to spend money frivolously but surely a lick of paint and a new carpet wouldn’t cost the earth. He waited in a chair that felt like it was the only thing in the vicinity that didn’t predate the 1970’s and that included all the people he could see. It was exam time so around a third of the university were either deep in study or in deep shit in the exam room. Silence. Nobody leaves in the first or last half an hour. No smartphones or looking across at the paper of the person sat next to you. We shall begin now. And it was party night at the local nightclub for the rest of then, so the 9.30am start that Augustine chose had meant he was on campus well before those suffering from the night before had got up. He had agreed ten o’clock with Tim, his psychology contact, but decided that seeing as he was up, he might as well be early. The worst that could happen was that he would be offered a cup of tea and be made to wait for a short while. But people generally didn’t make him wait. The fact that they were told a detective was sat waiting for them prompted most to put down what they were doing and be available. Tim was no exception to this.

  A few seconds after the receptionist had returned, Tim followed. He hadn’t really lost any of the looks that Augustine had noticed the first time they had met. Added to this he had searched him up on the university website, which by that time had put all the yearbooks online, and he hadn’t really changed at all since he was at Lancaster University. Tim was around six-foot-tall with no noticeable fat on him. He had worked out one way or another all his life and this kept him lean. At that point in time it was swimming that took his fancy and he used to get up and swim fifty lengths every morning before coming in to work. It was easy to do on a university campus with swimming pool and sports centre attached so he kept it up. Tim knew it wouldn’t keep him interested for more than a year and he would have to find some other way of keeping fit. But in the meantime, he loved to swim.

  “Morning August. How are things? I expect not so well if you’ve come to see me,” Tim started the conversation. Augustine didn’t reply. He looked at the receptionist who was listening intently to what was going on. He didn’t want her to think that he was here for a therapy session. He stood up and Tim
turned on his heels and walked back in the direction he had appeared from. Augustine thought this must be the signal to follow and so he did. He looked the receptionist square in the eyes as he walked past so she was fully aware that he knew he was being watched. Augustine didn’t really have any idea why he did it, but it made him feel a little better as he walked down the short yellow corridor to the room with the professor’s name on it. They walked in and sat down. Augustine looked for a chair that wouldn’t look like he was being analysed but couldn’t find one so just sat where his eyes were shielded from the worst of the sunlight. As he sat down he felt a presence in the room. He looked over his shoulder and saw the receptionist had followed the two of them. She asked if they wanted a drink. Augustine was going to decline so he could have some privacy but as Tim had asked for a coffee he thought it better if he joined in. Augustine asked for a cup of tea. He had never got into the whole coffee thing and he got a massive headache a few hours after drinking the stuff. He began to speak to Tim.

  “We have a killer who is playing with us. He leaves a letter on the chest of each victim. A single letter. At first, we thought it was a message, but one letter at a time that could take forever. We now think that the letters are a code. We think he is classifying his victims in terms of why they were killed. I’d like your input on it, if you don’t mind, I’ll wait until the drinks are here and then we can look at the photographs. They may take a strong stomach and I don’t know if your receptionist...”

  “Vera? She’s fine. She has seen all manner of things. We aren’t squeamish here,” Tim interrupted.

  “I didn’t think I was until this case,” Augustine lied. He suddenly felt very guilty about lying to a psychologist. He didn’t know if they had some sort of magical power where they could detect a lie. He decided that the truth would be his only currency from then on in. The tea and coffee arrived and Augustine still waited until the receptionist was out of the room and the door was closed before he opened his case and spread out the images of the brutal deaths on the floor between him and the psychologist. The blood stains on the bodies picked up the red flecks in the carpet. The two men studied the images for a few minutes without speaking. The air was thick with concentration. Both men looked as though they were seeing these for the first time. Tim actually was on his maiden run through the photographs, but Augustine was searching. He was searching for something that he hadn’t seen at the scenes or hadn’t picked up when looking at the photographs since. He wanted to see if there was another clue besides the single letter. They offered nothing in terms of the investigation. As Augustine looked at each picture he remembered the location where the body was found. He remembered the smells that had invaded his nostrils and left him feeling sick. He remembered the bodies appearing in his dreams. Tim was looking at the cuts on the victims more than the letters left on their chest. Once he had seen this detail once, it became irrelevant to him. As Augustine had already found, it gave up no clues to the police investigation. It was fascinating from a psychological point of view but needed no further study at that point in time.

  “What did these people do,” Tim asked to break the silence.

  “The two L’s were a banker and a politician. The A was a sex worker,” Augustine tried to give away as little as possible. He wanted a fresh pair of eyes on the investigation and didn’t want to lead Tim along any line of thought. He took a long sip of his tea with his eyes pointed out of the window.

  “And I assume that you have considered the possibility that the ‘L’ stands for liar?” he asked without breaking his stare from the images laid out on his office floor. Images of extreme brutality that showed a killer, if it was only one, that seemed to have no boundaries. Missing fingers and a severed head were only part of the rage he inflicted on his victims. The question of whether these injuries were inflicted before or after death was the main one on the mind of Tim but he didn’t dare ask. Augustine decided that the question was rhetorical and didn’t answer. He was still sipping tea.

  “They could be codes from different killers that are working together. ‘A’ could have killed one person and ‘L’ could have killed the two others. Instead of classifying the victims, they could be a means of classifying the killers. Have you thought about that?” Tim enquired. This time it was clear that the question was not rhetorical.

  “I don’t dare think like that,” replied Augustine as he put his tea cup down on the floor next to him. He hadn’t quite finished but never really got to the bottom of the tea. He hoped he would get to the bottom of this case.

  Tim took up the slack in the conversation, “so, apart from giving you things to think about that you don’t want to contemplate, what have you come here for? What do you want from me?” He had plenty of questions, aside from the one he dared not ask, and decided to start with this one. The answer might lead to many more.

  “I want to see if you have a breakthrough. I want to know what type of killer…” Augustine paused. It wasn’t for effect. His mind had disappeared back to his dreams. He wondered what bodies would appear in them that night.

  “What type of killer leaves a note for the investigating police team on the chest of the victim? I would say that the calculated nature of that act mixed with the frenzy that the injuries on these bodies suggest, that you are dealing with a dangerous man. He can be calm enough at times to plan these attacks but wild enough to leave a body looking like this,” Tim explained. He considered the question but then drew back from it. He couldn’t figure whether it was relevant or just his inquisitiveness getting the better of him.

  “His planning goes much further than that. He has left us nothing. There are no traces of fibre, no footprints, no fingerprints and not even the grainiest of CCTV images. It’s like a ghost has committed these crimes,” Augustine explained in the most pained of tones. He wanted to give his fellow alumnus something to go on. But that wasn’t possible. He had laid all his cards on the deck. His grandfather wouldn’t be pleased.

  Tim stopped for a few moments to consider what he could say next. He felt the pain from August and wanted to deliver some good news but there wasn’t much. If the killer was as organised as it appeared then this could go on for some time until he slipped up or the police got lucky. He looked across at the face opposite him. It was like the face of a child that really wanted something. But he couldn’t deliver. There was so little given to work with. He could only delver a warning.

  “Be careful. This guy could kill for some time and may even become involved in watching you work. You need to watch your back at all times August.,” Tim told in a slow voice and Augustine felt shivers run down his spine and into his boots. He knew that this was going to be a case that would affect him personally. And this time it would be far more than lost sleep and visiting corpses in his dreams. This time he had a feeling that the killer was watching him. He had felt it since the day before at the museum and the voice shouting from the back of the crowd. He just hoped the voice would return and watch some of the other investigations if he killed again. They would be ready for that.

  26

  The days went by without anything else from the killer. The only hook the team had was the return call from one of the editors that had been asked to look back at the letters the paper was receiving. He had called back only a few hours after first speaking to Augustine Boyle but by that point the lead detective had gone home to bed and the editor wouldn’t speak to anyone else. He wanted something in return from Boyle and thought that dealing with one of his underlings wasn’t going to give him access to the juiciest gossip. Boyle learned when he arrived back at the station after speaking with Tim that the editor wanted him to call back. He made it his top priority when he sat at his desk. This happened only a few minutes after walking in the door. He first checked that the team were OK. He then scheduled a meeting with Gary to keep him onside and in check. He had neglected to do this as things took a turn for the worse and resolved to get him back tightly under his wing again. He knew Gary wou
ldn’t like it but what else could he do?

  Augustine sat down and dialled the number. He had no idea why he insisted in using the landline when he walked around with a mobile phone in his pocket all day but it felt right for police business. It felt formal. It felt as though that was the way he should be working.

  “Hi Sam, I was returning your call. Do you have something for me?” Typical Augustine. Straight to the point. He didn’t bother with the small talk and just wanted answers. He had been like it all his life. It was little wonder he turned out to be a cop.

  “It could be something, it could be nothing. There is no name or address but we did get a lot of letters regarding the liars in society a while back. All typed on the same cheap paper. It seemed like it was part of a series of rants. They were mixed in with similar rants about people being amoral. Who uses the word amoral anymore? Surely he means immoral?”

  There was a short pause at the other end of the phone before Augustine said, “I’ll be right over.” And he put down the phone. Gary would have to wait. The editor didn’t even get a chance to ask what was in it for him. Perhaps that was where Boyle was going, to dig up something juicy for him. He would find out when the detective arrived at his office. He guessed by the rush in Boyle’s voice that he would see him within the hour. He was half right. It only took Augustine Boyle half an hour to knock on his door and take a seat. And he had brought with him another detective. Much nicer to look at than Boyle, thought the editor. Why can’t I get visited by more police that look like this? He added in his head.