The Anagramist

by David W Robinson

  He nodded at a café. “Let’s get a cup of tea.”

  Five minutes later, they sat at a corner table in the small cafeteria, close to a radiator helping to dispel the late February chill. Drake set tea and biscuits in front of them, and was about to launch into his explanation, when Sam held up a finger to silence him.

  “You’re going to take him on, aren’t you?”

  He tore open a pack of McVities Shortcakes biscuits, took one and passed the other two to Sam. “That’s the plan.”

  “This isn’t Dodge City, Wes. It’s not a case of this town ain’t big enough for the two of us, and you’re not John Wayne.” She took a biscuit and nibbled on it. “How much experience do you have of throwing knives?”

  “None.”

  “Whereas he’s the son of a well-known stage performer. What price he’s been throwing them for years?”

  “He only bought them before Christmas?”

  “Which is three months’ more practice than you. I understand what you’re going through, but has this last two weeks robbed you of your intelligence?”

  Immediately, she regretted having said it. She was simply giving vent to her feelings, and from her point of view, it was the truth, but in his bereaved state, still pining, grieving for Becky, he would not thank Sam for pointing it out. She prepared for a tirade of anger.

  It never came. Drake was quite calm when he responded. “He kills every two weeks. His next attack will take place on the ninth of March. That’s how long I have to master the basic principles.”

  Conversely Sam’s irritation was beginning to get the better of her. “You’ll be no match for him. While you’re farting around taking aim, his first knife will sink into your chest.”

  Drake shook his head. “If either of us is not thinking, Sam, it’s you. I’ve been doing my research—”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “When thrown, the knife travels at about twenty-five feet per second. At a range of, say, twenty feet, which is roughly the distance he threw the last time he went for me, I’ll have about point eight of a second to avoid the blade, and this time, I’ll be facing him. I think I can do it. But there’s more. This time, I’ll be throwing at him.”

  Sam countered quickly. “And your knife could land by the handle not the blade. That’s if you even hit the target. And if he misses with his first knife, he’ll have a second ready.”

  “All true, but irrelevant. My skill, or lack of it, will make no difference. Put yourself in his place; you’re throwing a knife at me, but there’s one coming at you. What are you gonna do?”

  The logic was inescapable. “Duck.”

  “Correct. How quickly do you think I can cover the twenty feet between us? And while you think about that, take into account my school days, when I could do the hundred in twelve seconds. I’m taller, fitter, stronger, and I suspect, faster now. Before he can take a second knife, I’ll be on him, and at close quarters, one-to-one, I’ll kill him.”

  She shook her head, opened a second packet of biscuits, this one containing ginger nuts, took one and chewed on it. “If this goes wrong…”

  Drake shrugged. “If it goes wrong, at least the police will know for sure who he is and where to find him, because I won’t go down without taking him halfway there.”

  “That’s not what I meant, Wes. If this goes wrong, and you really do kill him, you’ll be looking at a murder charge.”

  “But he’ll never terrorise anyone else.”

  She dunked her biscuit. “It’s not gonna work, Wes. Think about this. He’s working to a plan. Has been from the start. You’re assuming he’ll abandon that plan to go for you again. It’s not gonna happen unless you can draw him out. So how do you propose to do that?”

  “I’m not. You are.”

  Shock ran through her. “Me?”

  “Think about it. After last time, he’ll be very wary of coming for me again. But he threatened you, didn’t he? All right, so he didn’t name you, but you are the only person I was seeing in Leeds who could be described as a crazy bitch, although even if you were crazy bitch, I wouldn’t describe you as such.”

  His thin attempt at humour lifted her spirits a little. “I’m not sure whether you’ve just complimented or insulted me.”

  Drake reached across the table and took her hand, playing with her tiny, delicate fingers. “I haven’t said much over this last couple of weeks, Sam, but you have been a rock. Without you, I’d be much worse than I am, and you have my eternal gratitude. But I need to see this man stopped, and you are the only one who can help. You don’t have to do it, obviously. We would need to bring the Howley police in on the idea, and we’d need to take every possible precaution to ensure your safety, beginning with a stab vest. I know how to taunt him, I know how to bring him out, but I have to offer him a target, and it can’t be me.” He went on more urgently. “I’ve thought about this seven ways from Sunday, and if I could get him to take me on, then I would, but it won’t happen. If I goad him, challenge him, he’ll simply kill another innocent person, just to prove how easy I am to beat. But if we offer you, will he be able to resist?”

  She took time answering. Drake’s actions, his gratitude, his confession that without her he would not have made the minimal progress that he had, moved her, and reinforced her realisation of two weeks previously on her reasons for becoming a police officer. She did not relish the prospect of becoming a target for the Anagramist, but she recognised the sense, the logic behind Drake’s rough plan, and at the same time she realised it was her duty.

  “Have you worked everything out in detail?”

  “No. But I do have this.”

  He reached into his pocket, took out his smartphone, and called up the note pad. He opened it up, laid the phone on the table, and turned it towards her.

  It was a three-line verse entirely in keeping with those the Anagramist had sent, those so familiar to Drake and the police.

  Hugs Ava than a man

  Harm bard doll riff

  Tout chart

  She raised querying eyebrows at him and he translated it.

  “Samantha Vaughan, Bradford Hill Farm, cut throat.”

  The translation sent a shudder through her. It was almost like an epitaph, a literal cause and location of death engraved on her tombstone. She picked up on a minor point.

  “My name is Feyer.”

  “Yes, but he doesn’t know that.”

  The half answers were beginning to frustrate her further. “He didn’t write this, Wes. You did.”

  “That’s true. But if the police put it out to the media as if they’ve received it from him, what will it do to him? Think about it, Sam. We know its fake, but the only other person in the world aware of that is him. I said if we don’t do something, another innocent person will die in two weeks. He’ll find interpreting that verse as easy as I crack his. Easier. It will annoy the hell out of him, it’ll drive him nuts, and he’ll feel compelled to go for you, if only to make the verse come true. The difference is, we’ll be ready for him.” Drake finished his tea, checked his watch and leaned back in his seat. “Time we were getting a move on. Naturally, you don’t have to do this. We should be able to find another volunteer from the Howley force.”

  Sam was already beyond that stage. “No. You’re right. He threatened me, if only in passing, and in theory, he won’t be able to resist it. I can’t say I’m happy about it. I didn’t join the police to become a dead hero… heroine, but if this is what it takes to bring him down, then I’ll do it.”

  Drake stood up. “In that case, let’s get moving. We need to sort out the details with Terry Lumsden.”

  February 28

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “… Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our sister, Rebecca, we therefore commit her body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life …”

  Becky’s ambiva
lent attitude to religion prompted her to insist upon a secular funeral, and Drake (whose beliefs tallied perfectly with hers) pressed for her wishes to be followed, but he was not her next of kin. Her parents, brother, and two sisters had insisted upon a Christian burial.

  After her body was released, he had visited the funeral director’s chapel of rest, where she lay, the shroud covering her all the way up to the chin. Drake was no stranger to funeral parlours, nor to the sight of a body in a coffin. At the age of nine, he had kissed his mother’s forehead. He had seen his grandfather and grandmother lying in rest. But this was different. He had no idea whether the morticians or pathologists had stitched her head back onto the rest of her body, and he could not bring himself to do anything but look upon her and weep. It was almost as if the knowledge of her severed head meant she would not feel his touch or his kiss.

  Sam was with him, holding his hand, silent in her support.

  Still unable to bring himself to return to Moor Heights Lane, Drake arranged for the cortege to leave from his father’s house. He was in the first limousine with Becky’s parents, his father and other family members (along with Sam) in the cars behind. Two police motorcycle outriders led the hearse to Howley Paris Church, and at the rear of the cortege, there were two more police patrol cars and another brace of motorcycle outriders.

  Drake sat in the front pews, within a few feet of Becky’s casket. Sam was alongside him as she had been since the day after Becky’s murder, and throughout the service, she held his hand tightly. Drake could only retain a hold on his emotions by switching off, and mentally running through Hamlet’s famous, to be or not to be, soliloquy, a short yet renowned piece of Shakespeare he had been compelled to learn by heart at school. That was a punishment, but he had never forgotten those lines, and during the service, it came as an adequate distraction.

  Chief Superintendent Lumsden read the eulogy, and for his part, Drake was able to dismiss the platitudes. ‘A paradigm of the modern police officer’ Becky might have been, but did the chief superintendent really need to lay it on so thickly?

  The police were present in numbers, all of them in best uniform, complete with white gloves, six of them acting as pallbearers. And if he disregarded the chief superintendent, he could not ignore the genuine tears of Becky’s colleagues, particularly those of Kirsty Pollack. During her career Becky had helped bring on many of those present, including Kirsty, and if his partner’s ambitions were more modest, she had cheered and encouraged those, like Kirsty, who rose through the ranks to positions above her.

  His family, naturally, had turned out to pay their respects, but aside from his father, who had known Becky at least as well as his own sons and daughter, it was as much a demonstration of support for him as it was grief for Becky.

  With the service over, the crowd at the graveside began to dissipate. First it was her police colleagues, then friends, and finally, one by one her family, until the only people left were Drake, her parents, Kirsty, and Sam. Eventually, even they moved on. He shook hands with her father, hugged her mother, gave Kirsty a hug, and then, suddenly, he and Sam were alone staring morosely into the hole in the ground, and he pined for her. On Drake’s instructions, the limousines collected family and took them to the wake. He and Sam would follow by taxi.

  He knew she would never die. As long as he lived, she would live inside him. Her smiling face would always be there, her throaty laugh would echo in his head until the Grim Reaper came to call for him.

  It had been a difficult week. Lumsden had come out initially against the plan, rough as it was, to taunt the Anagramist, but with patience and persistence, Drake and Sam had eventually persuaded him, and it helped that Adamson and Kirsty readily agreed with it. After half an hour, still with reservations, the chief superintendent gave the idea his blessing, but it was under strict understanding that Sam’s safety was paramount. She was issued with a stab vest, and Drake insisted that she wear it at all times. Under his repeated pressure, she capitulated, but refused to put it on for Becky’s funeral.

  “He’s not crazy enough to have a go at me with crowds of people around me.”

  Drake acquiesced, but at all other times, particularly when she was going out alone, he insisted that she wear the clumsy, cumbersome garment under her topcoat.

  She was followed by plainclothes police officers everywhere she went. The men and women were volunteers, picked from the MIT officers, people who, according to the police way of thinking, the Anagramist was unlikely to recognise. Even when she visited the supermarket with Drake, those officers were never far away.

  At Bradford Hill Farm during the days leading up to the funeral, the tension was so thick it was almost tangible. Drake retreated further and further into himself, and Sam, aware that Friday would see him at his worst, remained permanently vigilant against the possibility of a total breakdown.

  But there never was any risk. True, he was moody, immersed in his grief, but he maintained iron self-control, using distraction techniques (such as Shakespeare’s famous lines) the effectiveness of which his years of experience had proved to him.

  At his father’s home, notwithstanding the variable weather, he spent many hours of each day in the back garden throwing the recently purchased knives at his improvised target. Sam watched him on several occasions. At a distance of eight to ten feet, he was reasonably accurate, and able to land the knife in the wooden board four or five times out of six. Increasing the distance reduced the accuracy, and by Thursday afternoon, he was consistently working from twenty feet, at which distance, his skill improved only slightly. Most shots failed, and his average was no better than one or two from six.

  In an effort to ease the pressure upon him, she brought the subject up at dinner on Thursday evening, and he was willing to explain.

  “It’s muscle memory. When you get a successful shot, you have to train your muscles to remember exactly where and when to release the blade. But as I said when I bought the knives, it doesn’t matter. Confronted with the Anagramist, I’ll throw, he’ll duck. It’s a natural reaction when anyone throws anything at you, and it’ll give me enough time to get to him.”

  If the week was stressful for him, it was just as bad for Sam. Night after night she slept in the room next to him, but the increasing pressure meant she spent many hours awake, staring at the walls or ceilings, as lost in her problems as she was in his. Time and time again, the vision of Don leaving the dock and bawling out his threat against her life came back to haunt her, but now it was compounded by a similar vision of the Anagramist sneaking silently up behind her and cutting her throat, the only major area of her body not protected by the stab vest.

  There were other problems, too. She was alert for the sounds of Drake expiating his distress. On a number of occasions, she heard him softly crying to himself, and she longed to go to him, but she knew he would simply brush her off. There were many occasions when, as in the café on Tuesday, he readily expressed his gratitude for her support, but equally, there were times when he would say nothing, and she could feel the icy chill emanating from him, and it seemed to her that he did not want her anywhere near him.

  She was also aware of stirrings in herself. Despite the best intentions, she was becoming attracted and attached to him. It would be ridiculous to describe her feelings as anything like love, but at those times when she actively considered the matter, she realised she was finding pleasure in being with him. It was as frustrating as it was useless. At some point in the future, he would emerge from his grief and probably seek out a new relationship, but that would be at least a year, possibly two or more in the future. In another month, she would be gone from his life, settling into her new calling on the coast. She, too, could possibly be seeking out a new relationship, but it was unlikely to be with Wes Drake, and no one, not even Drake himself, knew where his future would take him.

  As they walked from the graveside and passed under the canopy of the lych gate where a taxi waited for them, her thoughts turned to t
he Anagramist.

  Drake had received another message from him.

  All right so should have been

  Lace bee crate

  Instead of dare crack bee

  Still with her reed he saved

  When it should have been yours

  Sam did not take long to interpret ‘lace bee crate’ as Rebecca Teale, and the message served no purpose other than to cast Drake deeper into his depression.

  Utterridge’s information had turned out to be useless, as Drake insisted it would be. The name and address on the gas bill were fakes. There was no Ribbledale Street in Bradford, and although a check on the name Brian Glendenning revealed a number of hits, none of them fitted the grainy image taken from the security camera footage.

  It led Adamson to conclude that the person they were seeking was, indeed, Bruno Wrigley, Maurice Glenn’s illegitimate son, and he had gone to some lengths to hide his real identity. The video footage showed a man whose height was estimated at five feet eight inches, but he’d demonstrated his awareness of Utterridge’s security arrangements by the simple expedient of wearing a baseball cap, the peak of which he kept pulled down to hide most of his face. He was wearing a heavy, quilted topcoat – quite logical for late December – but it had the effect of covering his physique, and when he handled the knives, it was apparent that he was wearing woolly gloves. He paid in cash, and he did not remove the gloves to count out the notes.

  Without an accurate image of his face, his age was impossible to determine, and the police e-fit specialists did what they could, but with so little information to go on, the bland likeness they drew up was no better than the one they had created from his former employer’s information, and could have fitted thousands of men in Howley.