The Anagramist

by David W Robinson

He had opened her up, but only to the point where she was able to offload the bile eating into her. Now, she was twenty miles away, and there was nothing to say that she would open up to the doctors, nurses, her fellow patients. Follow-up sessions would be necessary, but his technique of annoying her might have gone over the top.

  As he and Becky climbed into bed half an hour later, he concluded the tale with his worries, and Becky, supportive as always, could only comment, “If she doesn’t ring you, more fool her.”

  Drake ignored her opinion. It was a biased factor of their relationship, not Sam Feyer’s needs.

  Becky, as always, was asleep in a matter of minutes. Normally, Drake would be too, but his agile mind, now free from the distraction of Sam Feyer’s problem, turned inevitably to the slaughter of Shana Kenny and its potential effect on his partner.

  A good proportion of the station’s husbands and wives worried about their spouses. It was a natural consequence of the increasing levels of violence in society, and yet he had never been concerned for Becky’s safety. She came home with scratches and bruises now and then, and once, she had sported a prominent black eye, but by and large, she was capable of looking after herself, and she was an efficient police officer. In the event of trouble, her first course of action, before intervening, was always to call for backup.

  Howley was a comparatively small town, with a population of less than 50,000. It was politically slightly to the right, a stable, settled and tolerant community. Football hooliganism, for example, once the mainstay of violence throughout England, was not an issue. Immigrants, Asian or East European, numbered about one percent of the population, yet racism, prevalent in so many large cities, was likewise, kept to a minimum in Howley, and many of those guilty of it were well known to the police. The same could be said of sexism, ageism, and other issues like homophobia. There were examples, naturally, but not to the same degree as they were in other towns and cities, which in turn meant that Howley was a relatively peaceful place.

  Not that there was no crime. Of course there was. But it tended to be the low-level offences, and the major problem – and here there was a direct comparison to the larger centres of population – was drugs. Dealing was not exactly rife, but it happened, and dependence led to the inevitable incidents of burglary and car theft, with concomitant violence, and the occasional outbursts of street fighting.

  Drake had grown up in the town, and aside from his time at the much hated Nostell school and three years at university, he had lived here all his life. He’d seen most of the world, but always returned to Howley, and in his living memory, he could not recall a crime as vile and violent as the murder of Shana Kenny. There were killings, but they were often the result of domestic disagreements going too far, and with a few exceptions, such charges were usually reduced to manslaughter.

  Despite his abhorrence at the murder of this young woman, a part of his mind could not help wondering how the population in general would react. Radio Howley had carried the story on local bulletins, and TV cameras had been present in the college grounds when he left at six o’clock. No doubt it featured on the regional TV news in the early evening. Aside from carrying the story as its front-page headline, the early editions of the Howley Reporter had run a piece on Shana, which extolled her virtues as a ‘diligent, hard-working student who would have been an asset to the administration department of any business’.

  The phrase, ‘never speak ill of the dead’, crossed Drake’s mind when he read the piece online, but he charitably accepted that it may very well be the truth. He did not know her. A student of the college she might have been, but he had never had any dealings with her.

  This level of publicity, he reasoned, would produce a number of effects, chief amongst which was fear. It was a double-edged sword. The dread of a killer lurking out there would encourage the townsfolk, particularly the women, to be wary, to ensure that they were always with groups of friends or relatives. But at the same time, it could be blown completely out of proportion, and limit the sense of freedom everyone enjoyed. The police – and this would have a direct effect upon Becky and him – would take steps to ensure high visibility, a greater number of officers on the streets. That would mean Becky working a lot of overtime whether or not she wanted it. And if, as he suspected, the Anagramist was only just beginning, if he was a serial killer, the police would surely draft in teams of detectives from Leeds, Bradford, even as far afield as Wakefield, to hunt the man down. They would be dedicated men and women, skilled at their work, but they would also be strangers to Howley, and that could prompt increasing unrest.

  Whatever happened, whether it was another murder, or whether the Anagramist moved elsewhere, he guessed it would be a long time before the peaceful, even tenor of life in Howley returned to normal.

  ***

  In North Leeds, Sam lay on her side, staring at the familiar, uninspiring wall, her thoughts following the usual, downward spiral reaching for that cesspit of self-pity, self-recrimination, and the shattered remains of what might have been.

  Drake’s card lay on the bedside cabinet alongside her clock. She had meant to drop it in the drawer; out of sight, out of mind, but she had been unable to muster the energy required to deal with it.

  At intervals during the afternoon and evening, the forty-five minutes she had spent with him kept coming back to haunt her. Ever since her arrival in this haven of gloom, she had instituted a policy of non-compliance. Her conversations with doctors, nurses, carers were short and to the point, that point being ‘leave me alone’. She had seen a psychiatrist. Not that she wanted to, but it was part and parcel of the regime. He had declared her mentally sound, but suffering from depression. And he needed years of training to work that out? She had seen a psychologist, then a psychotherapist – a brace of disciplines which to her way of thinking had always been interchangeable – and she refused to cooperate with them, leaving them to draw their own conclusions.

  Why then had she engaged with Drake? What was so special about him?

  She knew him, all right. She knew who he was the moment he mentioned his name. At her elevated rank, police work was as much about man-management as it was investigation, and Drake’s books on motivation and self-motivation were on the recommended reading list. That aside, she knew of his father. Ted Drake was one of the most prominent, non-ministerial MPs in this part of the world.

  She knew that his overbearing hubris was false, but couldn’t work out its purpose. Was it supposed to make her smile, make her angry, generate the level of contempt which she ultimately displayed, or develop a feeling of humorous comfort, similar to the feelings a stand-up comic would engender in his audience?

  Too many people in Peace Garden House were of the opinion that she was losing her grip on reality, when in fact, the opposite was true. She had too firm a hold on the consequences of her actions, and from her point of view, it would be preferable to lose that grip. Drake seemed to sense that, hence the manner in which he had sat in the armchair alongside her bed, ignoring her while speaking to her about this woman who had wrecked his life when she left him.

  She had no idea whether the story was true or a pure invention designed to open her up. Thinking back on it, she guessed that whatever its purpose, it had planted the first seeds of empathy in her.

  She did not want it. She wanted Wes Drake to have never visited. She just wanted to be left alone.

  The time was coming up to midnight, sleep would only come with difficulty, and she refused to accept the offer of diazepam. Sam Feyer had never been dependent on drugs of any description, and she was not about to start now.

  But in amongst the usual nightmare memories of the enquiry, the investigation into herself, the trial, Wes Drake kept appearing like some omnipotent angel… or demon.

  January 27

  Chapter Ten

  Even in the depths of winter, it seemed to the Anagramist that the darkness descended only slowly. It was a pity. He liked the darkness. But he knew when he planned his
mission that there would be long periods of inactivity.

  Not that he was entirely idle. Planning, he had learned, was the key to ultimate success, and he spent much of his time in this old, decaying house, planning, practising, practising, planning.

  The entire exercise depended as much as anything, on speed. Not so much with the first tart. He’d dealt with her in the early hours of the morning, when there was no one else about. Tonight he would be moving earlier. Still in darkness, of course. This was the first month of the year, and it was dark by five o’clock. But tonight’s strike would take place at a time in the evening when there were other people about. There were ways of dealing with them, but so early into his plans, he would rather not.

  And so, he rehearsed.

  Standing just behind the door of the ageing study, he gauged the distance to the cut out by the desk, a piece of plywood which he had carved roughly into the shape of a man. Eight, ten feet? He picked up one of six throwing knives by its sharpened tip, assessed the aim with a critical eye, drew back his arm and let it fly.

  The skill with throwing a knife was judging the number of turns it would make in the air. He needed it to make only half a turn, and that dictated the precise moment he needed to release it.

  He got it wrong. Not for the first time. The knifepoint nicked the target at a steep angle, and dropped harmlessly to the dusty carpet. It had not completed the necessary half turn.

  He cursed, and picked up the next knife. This was even less successful. The knife struck the board in a vertical position, point down. It had made a three-quarter turn, and dropped again to the carpet, where it hovered briefly on its point before falling flat.

  How was it possible that he could miss when he practiced daily? Anger, he deduced. Anger eating away at him, a rising fury that would only be satisfied when…

  He sucked in his breath, picked up a third knife, and repeated to himself over and over again, judgement and muscle memory, judgement and muscle memory. Judge the aim, judge the moment of release, and make your muscles remember both. It was precisely the same principle as a darts professional would employ. Time and again those people could hit double and treble top, and it was all about muscle memory.

  His third attempt was perfect. The point sank briefly into the board, before sagging and dropping to the floor. That would not happen with a live target. Skin, sinew, muscle was softer than the unyielding surface of this target. When it struck, the knife would penetrate, hopefully by a couple of inches. Enough to disable his opponent, and while the target was disabled he would cross those few feet and deal the final blow.

  His fourth attempt was similarly accurate, the fifth landed as the first attempt had done, nicking the target, but his sixth was as good as the third and fourth. He collected the knives, returned to his starting position, and tried again, and again, and again, until, after half an hour, he could successfully strike target four or five times out of six. He needed to practice and practice, and time was not on his side. There were just five or six weeks before the grand finale.

  With the time coming up to eight o’clock, he gathered the knives and made his way down into the cellar, switching on the lights as he descended the stone steps.

  Reports of Shana Kenny’s death had amused him. Stabbed in the back and then her throat cut. Stabbed? The word conjured images of him rushing up behind her and sinking the knife into her. It never occurred to these idiots, amongst whom he counted the police, that the knife might have been thrown. How come the pathologist hadn’t queried the depth of that back wound? If he’d stabbed her, he would have used such force that it would have penetrated far deeper. Instead, the medical examiner declared that the initial wound was designed only to disable her. Well, that much was true, but there were no grounds for anyone thinking that he had reserved his strength when plunging the knife into her.

  Morons. That’s what it amounted to. So-called professionals, men and women who seriously lacked the intelligence to look either side of the rails on which they had been trained to run. It would be interesting to see how Drake reacted after tonight.

  His first email to one of Howley’s most successful men had never been mentioned in any of the media reports, although he knew for a fact that Drake not only visited the police station, but talked to DI Pollack when he got back to the college. Pollack, he guessed, would take more notice of Drake than Adamson, but even so they had obviously placed little significance on the email. That, too, would change tomorrow.

  Reaching the dirty, stone floor of the cellar, he cast a casual, disinterested glance at the large holes, and the collection of bones thrown into one corner. Two skulls, God knows how many ribs, leg bones, hands and feet. He was uncertain how many women were buried under the cellar, but it should be two. There should be a man here, too. He was not responsible for any of them, but his father’s confession confirmed two women and one man.

  He switched on the power feeding the grinding wheel, and started it up. Fortunately, the house stood quite some distance from its nearest neighbour and no one would hear the noise of him sharpening the blades. Its isolation was not entirely fortuitous. The old man had chosen the family because of it. No near neighbours to raise the alarm when they heard someone screaming for their lives.

  The implements were theatrical throwing knives, by convention, they were not normally sharpened, other than the point which was designed to stick into solid wood (not plywood, which had a different surface consistency). He sharpened them because of the multiplicity of uses to which he put them. Cutting a throat was difficult with a blunt blade, and removing the head, which he had planned for the future, would be impossible. These blades would slice through skin, muscle, sinew, and especially the thin bones of the human neck. Messy, sure, but what the hell, he was no surgeon.

  When he was happy, he made his way back upstairs, into the dingy kitchen, where he opened a can of baked beans and warmed them on a primus stove. Using only a spoon, he ate them from the can. A proper meal could come later, or perhaps not at all. Once again, the need for speed forbade a large meal.

  When he was through, he washed the inadequate food down with a glass of beer, and then changed into a fresh set of black jeans, trainers, jumper, and especially the black balaclava. Like his other set, they would need washing when he got back tonight. The ruler pocket in the right leg of the jeans had been adapted to accommodate one knife. When going after a target, it was all he needed.

  At nine thirty, he stepped out of the house into the night, fixed the false plates to his car – he never knew who might be taking notice or how many traffic cameras he might pass – and climbed into his compact Renault for the short journey into Howley. His target had been chosen, the movements patternised, and at this hour on a Monday night the Anagramist knew exactly where to hide himself.

  ***

  Gary Fellows had been a tutor at Howley College virtually since the day he came out of university, and evening shifts were part and parcel of the job. Night school. That’s what they used to call it in the days when his parents were young. For a maths tutor, it was an acceptable soubriquet. It was like school; an addendum to basic education. So many young people came out of school with poor literacy and numeracy skills that they had to come to college in order to learn those basics and give themselves a chance of landing a job.

  Gary didn’t mind. Twenty-nine years of age, he lived with his girlfriend, who happened to be a nurse. Her awkward shifts had a bigger effect on their life than his irregular hours.

  Despite the warnings from the principal, head of department and especially the police, he had no problem with her coming home in the dark. He couldn’t drive. Not after a conviction for drink a year back. If his girlfriend wasn’t able to pick him up, like tonight, he took the bus, and then walked through Wharfeside Park to their shared flat. The park was darker than the streets – obviously – and there were any number of bushes and trees where a potential attacker could emerge. She didn’t have that problem. She drove all the way to the f
ront of the house. And he wasn’t worried. According to rumour, the guy who killed Shana Kenny went after young women. Let him try it with Gary or his girlfriend. During his university years, he was a member of the students’ karate club. He knew how to look after himself.

  All the same, when he climbed off the bus just before ten o’clock, he could not help thinking of Shana Kenny.

  In Gary’s opinion, Shana was not much better than a little tramp. She flaunted herself at the boys in college, showing off proud breasts, wearing skirts that were indecently short, purposely crossing her legs to expose more of her slim thighs. It was tempting to say that the girl got what was coming to her after all that advertising.

  But that kind of thinking was reprehensible. Whatever the rights and wrongs of Shana’s behaviour, she did not deserve to die under the hands of a rapist, some prick who did not understand that ‘no’ meant no and decided that killing her was preferable to few years in prison.

  The police had spoken to him early on the day of her murder, and he was careful to say nothing against her. He insisted that the girl was an average, not outstanding student, one whose attention was inclined to wander now and again, but aside from that, her attendance in college was regular, and her results, through continuous assessment and examination, were good enough to ensure her on-going education.

  The knowledge that there was a violent rapist – something the police had refused to confirm or deny – in Howley was not lost on Gary. When he got off the bus, he contemplated walking round the park, rather than through. In the two weeks since Shana’s death, the public furore had calmed. With no news coming from the police, the media had moved on to other, more immediate topics, like Brexit. But there were still whispers of vigilante action, private citizens, mainly men, vigilantes fuelled by drink, ready to take the streets, and Gary did not want a crowd of uncontrolled bananas giving him a beating purely on suspicion.