The Snow Killer

by Ross Greenwood

Barton had received a reply from DCI Naeem confirming she was in her office. He got in the car and made sure Ginger had the recent intel. He had always found that talking to the officers involved on a one-to-one basis brought results. They enjoyed throwing ideas at him knowing they wouldn’t be ridiculed. Sometimes the team had the answers between them, but nobody had put them together.

  ‘You’ve been doing this job a long time, Ginger. What do you think of the ancient Snow Killer angle?’

  ‘Nothing astounds me any more. It’s unlikely because they are meaty crimes, but pensioners nowadays are different from how our grandparents acted. My neighbour’s parents backpacked through India last year and they’re both nearly seventy. An eighty year old near me still works at the supermarket and jogs to work. Look at the Hatton Garden Heist. Three of them were pensioners.’

  ‘The MO on two of the other hits is similar to Brick and Celine’s. They have to be connected. Maybe it’s a revenge attack of some kind.’

  ‘But why? None of the people killed were born when they occurred. We weren’t alive either. Although annoyingly, I knew there were unsolved murders from way back in Peterborough. I should have mentioned it.’

  ‘I suppose I did too. In fact, I only read last week that a quarter of all homicides in the UK are unsolved. Who knows? Perhaps our guy did loads of them.’

  51

  DI Barton

  Barton found an empty seat back at the station and logged onto his email. The report on the historical killings had landed. DCI Naeem arrived as he pored through the information.

  ‘Give us an hour, Boss. It looks like this is it.’

  ‘You sure?’ she asked.

  ‘The similarities are chilling.’

  Barton made notes as he read, with his mind processing the material. He couldn’t see any mention anywhere of the words Snow Killer. He was momentarily distracted by childish giggling over near the photocopier. Ginger and an open mouthed Malik leaned into one another. Ginger did an over-exaggerated hand gesture from his chin to his navel, clearly pretending to be heavily pregnant. He whispered something to Malik, and they both chuckled.

  Barton’s frustrations over the last few months solidified. With Frankenstein style grace, he walked over with stiff limbs and a mad expression. The two men didn’t see him until too late. He grabbed both of them by the knot of their ties and shook them. His voice came out as a growl.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Ginger’s face reddened, and Malik’s eyes closed. Barton wondered if he’d passed out and took a deep breath. He eased his grip. ‘You insulted a sergeant whom I like much more than you two scrotes.’ Malik’s eyes opened, but neither man returned his blazing stare. He pushed Malik to one side and bent down so they faced each other. ‘Get out of here. If I catch you gossiping again today, I will impregnate you.’

  He glanced around after Malik had fled and was relieved to find an empty room. He stepped back from Ginger and folded his arms. ‘Talk.’

  ‘It was just a joke.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘She’s been throwing up in the morning.’

  Barton stared at the ceiling. ‘Everyone knows?’

  Ginger nodded.

  ‘Let it be known that I will be furious if I see or hear anything else similar. What is wrong with you? You’re in your forties and gossiping like an old woman. You’ve got so much talent, but half the time you’re a drain on the department. Is that how you want to be remembered?’

  He expected Ginger to shrug it off, but instead he felt a connection. The man’s eyes welled up. ‘It won’t happen again.’ He sniffed.

  Barton would put money on Ginger feeling his age in the same way he was. But as opposed to having a family like Barton, Ginger was twice divorced and childless.

  ‘You understand these kids look up to you. Why don’t you be someone they really respect? Or one they remember many years from now when they reflect on who helped inspire them at the start of their careers?’

  Barton returned to his seat and continued to analyse the information. After he’d read it all twice, he found the Google icon and, with a few clicks, brought up the weather forecast.

  52

  DI Barton

  As Barton made his way to DCI Naeem’s office, DS Kelly Strange arrived at work after starting late due to last night’s door knocking exercise.

  ‘Kelly, come with me. I’m updating the boss, so you may as well hear it at the same time.’

  ‘Sure, I can report last night’s findings to you both.’ She widened her eyes and blinked theatrically to let him know she had something interesting to tell them.

  When they got to the DCI’s closed door, Barton stopped. ‘How’s everything else?’

  ‘All good, actually. The man responsible, as we shall call him, rang me, and he’s coming over tomorrow night. Said he’ll bring a takeaway. Assuming it’s not to take away the baby, it sounds positive.’

  ‘Excellent. Still happy with your decision?’

  ‘Very much so.’ She nudged him on the arm with her fist. ‘I can’t wait for maternity leave.’

  Barton wondered how she’d feel changing ten nappies a day. He knocked on the office door, which Naeem opened.

  ‘Come in, you two. I hate working Saturdays, so let’s get on with it. I’m up to speed with Brick’s demise. Are we any closer to solving this? There’s a lot of people interested now, and an arrest or even a suspect would be helpful. If there wasn’t such a bloodbath in London at the moment, this place would be crawling with shiny buttons.’

  She sat behind her desk. Barton paused to allow Strange to take the first seat in front of her. Barton peered over Naeem’s shoulder at a picture of her family on the wall. There were two boys: a handsome roguish one wearing a skin-tight shirt, and a studious one with pink glasses. He coughed to stop himself laughing. Even so, he had a grin on his face when he started talking.

  ‘I’d like to hear an update from DS Strange on last night, but I do have a few theories.’ Barton cleared his throat and managed to look serious. ‘The first is a straightforward revenge attack or maybe vigilante killings. The second is a serial killer from the past come back to life for reasons unknown.’

  Naeem drummed her fingers on the desk and gave him a suspicious glance. ‘I know which one I’d rather be reporting back. Okay, Kelly, fire away.’

  ‘Right. I split the six DCs into pairs due to the fact we could be disturbing a murderer. We covered the six streets you requested. I flitted between the teams as back up. It was the usual mixture of annoyed or bored householders. There were plenty of unusual people. Your street in particular had some weirdos, John. One guy informed me Margaret Thatcher would sort the criminals out. When I explained she died years ago, he told me not to be so stupid and slammed his weird, bright red door in my face. Another answered her door in her underwear, which gave the two DCs a shock as she had plenty of curves.

  ‘An older woman explained she had Parkinson’s and didn’t go out much, and a guy who lived near the green told me three times he was eighty years old. He then stated that he hopes the Snow Killer has returned because the police are useless. However, a man down Baggswell Lane said he had seen someone in a white coat on the night of the murder. He’d been cycling home from work. He was heading to your end, John. The time fits. He couldn’t give a description due to the conditions apart from they were not particularly tall.’

  Barton perked up. ‘That matches with what Flying Finn told us he saw. It’s still not much, although apparently we all shrink as we age.’

  ‘Let’s hear these theories, then, John.’

  Barton opened his notepad. ‘The most likely initial explanation is a drug related crime to take over the Chapmans’ area. The picture I’ve built up now on Celine is that she’s legit and has been for years. Little Chapman is still dealing, by my reckoning. She uses street kids to move her product but, judging by the lifestyles of all of them involved, Britney included, I don’t believe it’s on a huge scale.
<
br />   ‘However, if we assumed Celine was involved then it’s fair to say that somebody else could have thought the same thing. They may also have guessed that Brick and even Terry Sax were involved. If it wasn’t money related then maybe it was for revenge. If we look into any drug related deaths or overdoses in the recent past, we might find someone with a dead friend, child or relative, who now holds a grudge.

  ‘They might have decided the police weren’t up to the job and taken it upon themselves to put matters right.’

  ‘Sounds possible,’ said Strange. ‘I can check out the recently deceased angle tomorrow. Oh, that’s Sunday. Will we get paid double time?’

  Naeem laughed. ‘That’s the only thing I know that won’t be happening over the next few days.’

  Barton was on a roll and continued without listening. ‘That leads us to the vigilante theory. Maybe there isn’t anything as drastic as an overdose in the background. The Colonel who lives near me says he wishes the Snow Killer would take out all the junkies. He could mean drug addicts or drug dealers.’

  ‘Definitely not him though?’

  ‘No, he’s knackered; bad hips, back, the lot, and it wouldn’t be very cunning to mention the Snow Killer if he was him. He will be the eighty year old you spoke to. It might be someone like him, though, who is either younger, or fitter. As Ginger reminded me earlier, some elderly people pump iron, do yoga, and all sorts nowadays. The Colonel is a peculiar bloke, but a murderer, no. So, I’m guessing a fit, short, older, angry person is responsible.’

  ‘Was he a colonel?’ asked Strange.

  ‘Good question. That would indicate a military background and familiarity with guns,’ said Naeem.

  ‘No,’ said Barton. ‘I asked him that when I first met him. It was a moniker from a team he used to manage years ago, and it stuck.’

  ‘What next?’ asked Naeem.

  ‘I’ve seen the files for the three historic kills. The first happened at a house in Woodston, which is about a mile away. Someone stabbed and killed a criminal nicknamed Goof in a similar manner to Terry Sax. It was more brutal, but perhaps the culprit was younger. The second murder, if you can believe it, occurred with a small-bore rifle in the churchyard just up the road from me. He was known to the police too. The third victim, another felon, got beaten to death with a hammer in a field near The Boy’s Head pub.’

  Naeem leaned back in her seat. ‘Bullseye.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Where’s The Boy’s Head?’ asked Strange.

  Naeem answered. ‘Oundle Road, about a mile from the latest murders. It’s a Tesco Express now. Go on, John.’

  ‘The Boy’s Head was only around the corner from where they found the first body. All three men were known to associate with each other. The notes on the first murder are much more detailed. I’ll check with Records if there’s more, but the information on the second two is sparse, almost like the record is far from complete.’

  ‘They could easily have lost or misplaced items from back then.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what’s annoying. I can tell they discovered the victims in the snow from the crime scene descriptions. But there’s no mention of a Snow Killer. However, most of the detail is in regard to the first murder, so there wouldn’t have been a link at that point.’

  ‘No suspects?’ asked Strange.

  ‘Nothing. They interviewed people from the pub and surrounds, other villains by the looks of things, but no one said anything. If they were taken out by another crew, or belonged to a bigger operation, it’s not surprising that nobody talked. It could have been a hired gun from out of town. He turned up, took them out, got called the Snow Killer by the media for the last one, but his job was done by then, so he disappeared. The case went cold.’

  ‘But now we have three more deaths with remarkably similar MOs. Could it be someone who killed them all back then and quit, but now they’ve started up again?’ said Naeem.

  ‘That’s perfectly possible. We may never know for the earlier deaths, but the person responsible could still be living here. Maybe they’ve killed again, and it’s not been linked. Or it might be a bloke who lived at the same time and now copies the murders. It’s reasonable to assume that we might have a serial killer on our hands.’

  Naeem stood and paced the room, clearly thinking fast. ‘We should warn people to stay in. I’ll talk to Headquarters. This will be national news tomorrow. They’ll be calling it serial killings, whether we like it or not.’

  Barton noticed Strange was deep in thought. He continued. ‘Let’s look at the facts we do know. These aren’t random kills. All the victims have been criminals or at least been involved in crime. Joe Public is probably safe if they keep out of the way. I’m guessing it’s someone from back then. Our suspect is going to be over seventy, male, shortish, and own a white coat. They will live in the area, possibly even go to the church.’

  Strange got to her feet. ‘The hammer was left at the scene. So was the screwdriver. This person wants us to know they did it.’

  ‘Maybe they’re taunting us?’ added Barton.

  ‘What would be more worrying,’ cut in Naeem, ‘is if they have a message. They may be coming to the end of their lives and need their story heard. They want the world to recognise they are the Snow Killer.’

  Strange agreed. ‘Yes. That would be bad. Like a zealot, they’d have no anxiety over getting caught or killed. Anyone who gets in their way would be in extreme danger.’

  Naeem had been making notes as she spoke. ‘There’s no point in having a big meeting as we don’t have enough staff on. These are the tasks we need to look at. We ought to get an Armed Response Vehicle driving around the area asap, two if possible. We need more information on overdoses in the city for the revenge angle. Someone should also talk to the vicar at the church. I want officers watching Baggswell Lane, the field where Brick was taken out, and maybe the BMX track where Terry died.’

  She tutted. ‘My old Chief Super attended the awards thing last night. I didn’t think to ask him, but he worked this area years ago. I’d guess he was a DCI like me then. I’ll get hold of him and see if he remembers the case. Does it say who the Senior Investigating Officer was, John?’

  ‘An Inspector Griffin.’

  ‘Right, let’s find out if he’s still alive and able to shed any light on the subject. God, I need more bodies for this. Are you both free tomorrow?’

  Barton sighed. ‘I’m seeing my mother in the morning and she’s cooking for us. I haven’t seen her for a long time, and I want to check she’s okay.’

  Naeem sighed. ‘All day?’

  ‘I can be back mid-afternoon. I’ll pop into the church on the way. There’s bound to be a service around ten in the morning.’

  ‘That will have to do. It’s crazy to think there’s a homicidal nutcase out there, and we still have little concrete idea of who they could be.’

  Barton’s phone rang. He answered it and stared at Naeem as she listened. ‘It’s a message from Zander. Britney is nowhere to be seen. He posted a uniform on her door but I reckon we should upgrade that to some armed personnel. She has to be the favourite for the next target. Zander is out hunting down her underlings for her mobile number or whereabouts. He’s also put out a BOLO (be on the lookout) for her. Let’s hope we get to her before the killer does.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Naeem. ‘I’ve never known anything like this. It could be a tough day tomorrow.’

  Barton was the final person to stand. ‘We do have a bit of time. The murders occurred when it snowed, and I checked the weather forecast. We aren’t due any on Sunday.’

  ‘When are we next likely to get some, John?’ asked Naeem.

  ‘Monday.’

  53

  DI Barton

  Barton woke at 5:00. He lay there with his pulse racing. They say many people have a sense of impending doom before something terrible happens. And that was how he felt. Next to him, Holly made the weird gentle clicking snore thing she often did when she was exhausted
. He flushed hot. He couldn’t recall the last time he took the kids out to give her a break. Was it over a month since he’d cooked her a decent meal? He didn’t even know where they kept the ironing board. Barton pushed those depressing facts aside and focused on the case. He took a deep breath. The finale approached.

  ‘Get up if you can’t sleep, John.’

  Smiling, he slipped from the covers and discovered he was fully dressed. He couldn’t remember going to bed. He moistened his dry mouth while recollecting draining the vestiges of a bottle of wine. He relieved himself and stopped to look at Luke and Layla sleeping. Life goes on.

  When he got downstairs, he found defrosted bacon on the cooker. With the oven fired up, he took five plates from the cupboard and flicked on the kettle. Was it the last supper or the final meal of the condemned? While he poured juice for everyone, Barton tried to push the melancholy from his mind. He’d always been pragmatic. Perhaps he should talk to a professional.

  Having to wake the kids was usually unnecessary when the smell of bacon wafted through the house. He plated the sandwiches up and they arrived in thirty second intervals, Layla last of all.

  ‘Where’s the brown sauce?’ she said.

  ‘Next to the houmous in the fridge. I thought you wanted to be a vegan?’

  She gave him an if-looks-could-kill scowl and then smiled. ‘Love you, Daddy.’

  Recently, he’d endured a big spiel from her about how a typical pig factory generates the same amount of raw waste as a city of twelve thousand people, but it wasn’t a day for cheap point scoring. He stared forlornly at the single remaining slice of bacon, and ate it out of the pan.

  The family managed to take turns in the bathroom without killing each other and then clambered into Barton’s Land Rover. He looked forward to seeing his mother, though he knew it would still be bittersweet when he remembered his father. The kids loved being with his mum, too. Even Lawrence didn’t moan. He found her honesty highly amusing. Barton thought Lawrence enjoyed the fact that, with Nanny, he would always be a child and could enjoy being spoilt without thinking it reflected on him badly in some way that only a teenager would understand.