Initial

by S Thomas Thompson

  “You’re bleeding Augustine. There is blood on your jacket,” Christine said as he considered what he might do next. He had been feeling weaker since he bumped into the cleaner in the corridor. He wanted to get up and chase the man in the corridor. Even if he wasn’t the killer, he would have been the last person to walk past that room. He would surely know something. He looked at the blood on his jacket and felt a small pain in his side. Augustine felt dizzy and sat down. The room was spinning around him.

  36

  He opened up his stride. He was sure that the man he passed in the corridor was the detective he had viewed and shouted at when they were investigating one of his pieces of work at the museum. What the fuck was he doing there? Was he following him? Was he on to him? If he had been alone then he could maybe have killed the detective too, but three bodies in one night was too much. Plus, he had only come out with one letter. He had read a lot about killers and they got caught when they started to improvise. The detective and the woman he was with were not part of the plan, so it was best he left them behind. But that was one hell of a bump he gave that nosy detective. He hoped that he would be well enough to receive his punishment when the time came.

  He didn’t know if the alarm had been sounded. He didn’t know if there would be other police officers waiting for him outside of the theatre. So, he waited until he saw someone else leave. He put his foot in the exit door as though he was following but waited for a minute just to see if the person in front of him was stopped. It looked as though the coast was clear so he headed out of the building and back along the route home. He knew that route well and was sure that he could be safe from the prying eyes of the CCTV cameras that were starting to invade every corner of towns and cities large and small. The fact that conservation was an important thing in the North East of England had meant that many protested against these cameras being mounted in buildings that had been in existence for hundreds of years. It was his salvation in many ways, and he scoured the planning permission part of the websites of local authorities to see when another planning application was made for another camera. He would stoke up the passion of people online so that they organised an opposition to these ‘eyesores’ and kept him with as little surveillance as possible.

  But he had some thinking to do on the way home. He didn’t know whether to travel home and lay low for a few days, or whether that was going to be a risk. He had no idea why the detective was there, but the fact he didn’t stop him in the corridor and smelt like he had been drinking was an indication that it perhaps wasn’t on business. Was his home now under watch? Did the detective let him go only to be picked up when he got home? He didn’t think that this was anything other than a coincidence but wasn’t willing to take a risk.

  The Metro journey was one of looking over his shoulder. His clothes were dark, as were the streets outside. A bus back to Washington brought him close to home. He headed towards his home street but didn’t turn down it. He stopped in the shadows for a few moments and looked to see if there was anything unusual in the street. He couldn’t see any cars that were not already there and thought that if the police were waiting for him it would be in a car. The risk was too much to take. He started walking again. He knew a place that would offer him sanctuary at any time of the day or night. It was only a few minutes away and he could stay there for as long as he needed.

  37

  There was nobody in view when he got there. It was past midnight when he arrived and he just opened the door and slipped inside. It was always like that. The door was always open for those that were in need. He found a place to sit and tried as best he could to get comfortable. What he had seen and enacted on someone else that night would be enough to stop most from sleeping for weeks. But not him. It was all part of his work. It was all part of his mission. The person that he finished off that night deserved everything he got. The detective deserved the same fate too.

  It was quiet and he knew that he wouldn’t be disturbed for hours. Nobody else would enter the same building unless they were in the same need as him. If someone else walked through the doors he would greet them as a kindred spirit. Otherwise he would just get some rest and think about going back home. How long would he need? Would it be safe in the morning? Would he need a few days? Or would it never be safe to return home? His home would give the police all the clues they needed that the occupant was the killer, but very few to his identity. The computer was encrypted beyond anything the police could lay their hands on quickly, but he was sure that they could work on it over a matter of days to reveal some of the secrets inside. The walls were covered with every last detail of his plans. Maybe the police could search though records and link him to the home, but it was paid for in cash with no names asked. There were weapons, but they were immaculately clean and who didn’t have a weapon of one sort or another in their home? A kitchen knife in one pair of hands can be used to make a meal but in another pair of hands can be used to kill and maim. A ceremonial sword looks innocent on the wall of a home but can look deadly when taken down from the wall and put into the hands of someone with grudge. He was sure that if they were able to connect the property to the killings, it would be more difficult to connect him to that property. He had done his homework. He had carried out his research. He was diligent. At least as diligent as he could be. As he closed his eyes, he saw the detective that he had encountered in the corridor of the theatre. He felt no remorse for his act that night, but couldn’t get the image of the detective out of his mind.

  38

  Christine paced up and down outside the hospital. She hadn’t smoked for years but the events of that evening had driven her back to that bad habit that she had carried out from the age of 17 until her early thirties. As she walked up and down the smoking area, Christine tried to remember what made her stop. Most ex-smokers she spoke to had a story that they could tell about what had driven them to stop smoking. For some it was a health scare, for others a close friend or relative that had passed away from smoking-related illnesses, but everyone had a story. She had been in shock so much during that night that she clean forgot what her story was. She racked her brains but the more she tried to force the memory to the front of her mind, the more her brain resisted and buried it deep beneath a mound of other information that was of no use whatsoever.

  She had all kinds of thoughts come to the front of her mind but not the one she wanted. For some reason, she thought about prime numbers, an episode of EastEnders she watched about fifteen years earlier and the exact name of the colour of the paint in her living room. But none of these gave her a way in to why she stopped smoking. Why she had started again, only half an hour earlier, was easier to work out. She didn’t need her brain to work with her on that one. She was worried about the fate of the person she had accompanied to the hospital. She admitted to herself that it didn’t look good. He has been taken there by ambulance with a single stab wound to the side. It had punctured several of his organs and the fact that he moved around after he was stabbed had made the bleeding worse.

  A figure walked outside. He stopped and looked at Christine. He didn’t want to deliver her the bad news, but she had to know.

  “He’s gone. There wasn’t a great deal that could be done for him. A stab wound to the side doesn’t feel like much at the time it happens. People think that they have been punched or just bumped into, and they often don’t notice the puncture wound until it is too late. I think that is why I ended up with his blood on me. The man that killed him must have had it on his clothes when he bumped into me.”

  Christine broke down in tears. She had no idea what to do in a situation like this. Her experience of death had always been people who were ready to go. Her paternal grandparents were the first to go in her life, both in her late teens while at university. And it didn’t feel real. She went back home for the funeral, but it always felt to het that they would be back at home when she returned from uni. They never were.

  She looked at the man who had delivered th
is news to her, hoping that he would have the answers she was reaching out for. He had none.

  Back at the station, the news hit the team hard. Electra walked into Augustine’s office to get some space form the rest of them and to try to make some sense of it all. There was none. They all knew this was no ordinary killer. He was out there, killing people at will.