by Ian Williams
‘Good morning listeners, this is Chris Moyles, the saviour of Radio 1, it’s exactly 7 o’clock on Thursday 14th September and this is the new single by…’
Snooze
‘And then I was out last night with my bird and Comedy Dave and we accidentally fell into the…’
Snooze
‘London’s first sperm bank was a total disaster. There were only two donors, one missed the tube and the other came on the bus’
‘Ha, ha ha ha…brilliant’, Ian mumbled as he came round from his slumber, before hitting the snooze button for a third time on the clock radio.
He yawned loudly, rubbed his eyes and turned over to look at his sleeping wife, giving her a playful poke in the ribs. She jumped suddenly, opened her eyes and whispered ‘I got in from work three hours ago, will you just get up and out so I can go back to sleep…..and if you try and prod me again with your finger, or anything else for that matter which is unfortunately the same size as your finger I will break it off, snap it in two and post it to your mother….’ And with that she turned over in a single motion and pulled the duvet over her head.
Ian lovingly smiled at his wife momentarily, the smile then turning mischievous as he turned over and silently reset the alarm to go off in another thirty minutes with that loud and annoying ‘BEEP BEEP BEEP’ sound which brought anguished sighs and resigned looks onto peoples faces all over the world as the realisation kicked in it was time for work.
He pulled back the duvet and sat upright, placing his feet firmly on the floor and using his arms to propel him upwards into a large stretch and yawn, his scrawny arms outstretched, his slight beer belly protruding over his England boxer shorts. He made his way to the bathroom in that sort of sleepy early morning shuffle people do, across the slightly worn red carpet and out into the hallway for the short walk to the bathroom. The light switch cord was pulled and the bathroom became bathed in a brilliant white light which was a shock to the system. Ian let out a little whimper and blinked repeatedly as his eyes tried to re-adjust to the excessive lighting, his dazed look, five o’clock shadow and scruffy hair reflecting back from the mirror above the small white sink.
Ian still didn’t do mornings. He was not sure why, whether it was because his parents always let him lie in bed when he was younger, or maybe it was genetic. Ian had this theory whereby whatever time you were born decided whether you were a morning or night person. He had asked lots of people over the years and only a few had gone against his general theory. He was born at 11:30 p.m. and so this made him a night person, which explained no matter what shift he did or when he got back home he always felt awake about 7 p.m. His wife on the other hand had been born at 6 a.m. and seemed to be far too happy in the mornings, along with sometimes wanting a bit more happiness thrown into the bargain, but then Ian wasn’t complaining as it was damn sight more pleasant a wake up call than that bloody alarm clock, although perhaps less messy. Alternatively it was all the going out he did when he was younger, when 7 a.m. normally signalled the end of the night rather than the beginning of another day, but Ian was definitely not a morning person
Ian removed his boxer shorts and got into the shower. Turning the dial clockwise the system kicked into life and immediately sprayed cold water all over his lower torso and legs.
‘Ow ow ow, too cold, too cold’ and then the hot water emerged a few seconds later ‘ow ow ow too hot too hot’. Ian quickly reached for the dial and turned it down. His wife was always having showers with the water way up on the 9 setting, far too hot for him, 6 was about his maximum and he always forgot to check in the mornings as he had to concentrate on more mundane tasks such as breathing and standing up, before graduating up to more difficult issues such as how hot the shower was or even where the hell was he. He did keep asking his wife to turn it down again after she had finished but she never did. However woe-betide him if he ever left the toilet seat up. He didn’t any more as it had become an involuntary action these days…he had been trained, cajoled and punished over the years so was now considered ‘house trained’ just like a dog, perhaps he should just change his name to ‘Rover’ and start sleeping in a basket in the kitchen…although the thought of having to lick his own balls was maybe a little bit too excessive Although, come to think of it…..
After a quick shower and shave with his electric shaver, he dried himself off, sprayed himself liberally with his deodorant and went to get dressed. Sneaking around the semi darkened bedroom he sat on the bed and put on his dark blue socks before taking his trousers off the hanger and putting these on then opening his side of the fitted wardrobe (which was about fifteen per cent of the total, but then wasn’t that the case for all men) then rifling through his shirts before realising that although there were six very clean shirts hanging up not a single one of them had been ironed. Rather than go through the rigmarole of taking the ironing board out, filling the iron, turning it on, waiting for it to heat up, blah blah blah he put a shirt on and vowed to keep his jacket on all day. Besides his little alarm clock joke he had set for his wife was going to happen in the next ten minutes so he needed to get out of the house and fast.
A quick bowl of Kellogg’s cornflakes in the white Jasper Conran bowls that had been given to them as a Wedding present was wolfed down before the bowl was put into the sink…but not before he had drunk the last drops of milk directly out of the bowl of course, a thin sliver of milk ran down the side of his mouth which he expertly caught in one motion with a green tea towel as he put the bowl in the sink.
Then it was a case of grabbing his jacket, keys, wallet and police ID before slipping on his regulation black shoes and opening the door. Ian paused briefly and looked at his watch….’three, two, one, go’
‘BEEP BEEP BEEP’ came the noise from upstairs, quickly followed by the sound of rolling thunder as Louisa turned over and thwacked the cancel button before throwing the clock across the room where it sailed into the corner and rested in the laundry basket snuggled between Ian’s England boxers and Louisa’s nurses uniform which she had flung there at four a.m..
‘I’ll get you later for that Carragher’ she shouted down the stairs before turning over again and going back to sleep, the hint of a smirk on her face
‘I hope so’ was Ian’s riposte as he closed the door and got into his blue Ford Mondeo. Granted it wasn’t his car of choice but he got it cheap from the force one and a half years ago and with the increases in interest rates at the time money was being absorbed by the mortgage and the Labour government’s constant tax hikes and poor pay increases for the police force. Plus they had been saving for a baby. Not literally of course, they weren’t going to purchase one off the internet or anything, more to have some money tucked away so when the time came they had a financial cushion to cope with the multitude of nappies, clothes, toys, prams, buggies and baby food which was required. Unfortunately six months later the news had come through that Louisa had a miscarriage. She had been nearly three months pregnant at the time and they had been dying to tell everyone, however they had decided to wait for the three month scan to confirm everything was fine. Louisa had awoken suddenly one night with a pain in her stomach, she had immediately blurted out ‘there’s something wrong with the baby’ they had not bothered with an ambulance, one of Ian’s few decisive moments in his life had been to get dressed and take his stricken and crying wife down to accident and emergency where they had been fast tracked through and the doctor had confirmed their worst fears.
Ian secretly thought back to that night every now and again, he could remember every last detail. The doctors name, all his features, his silly Homer Simpson tie, the Gold Rolex watch on his left wrist, the sign in the booth they had been in, recommending a flu jab for people at risk, old age pensioners, the very young, pregnant women….he remembered the pregnant women phrase in particular, as he hugged his wife who was crying silently in his arms, her tears dripping down the back of his blue Diesel jumper with the number seven on the left breast, he had stared at that sign, a knot
of pain in his stomach, a tear running down his cheeks, the pain as he had dug his nails into the palms of his hands until his knuckles were white and there were red marks on his hands, ‘maybe someday’ he had thought as he read that sign over and over and over again.
That had been well over a year ago now, they had never mentioned babies again, had only really had sex a few times, predominantly a drunken fumble after a big night out when the alcohol had made them forget the past and they just both wanted to show to each other how much they meant to them, how much they loved each other. However at all other times it was this strange invisible object in their life which they carried everywhere and saw everywhere, from toy adverts on the television, to young mums out in town doing their weekly shopping, friends having children and coming round, it was omnipresent in their lives and neither one of them was prepared to even mention it. So they had just got on with their lives. Louisa had thrown herself into her nursing job, doing extra shifts (the money had come in handy as well), going out with friends more, even taking up French lessons. Ian had done the same, he had started learning French with his wife but two things got in the way. Firstly, once he knew all the swear words, he had lost interest, but also and more importantly Monday night was football night so it worked out quite well, Louisa would go for her two hour lesson and Ian would shout at the television and drink a few cans of beer. The baby savings account had been quietly forgotten about, the £300 direct debit still came out of their account but neither one of them wanted to suggest cancelling it, or maybe using the money for something else. There was nearly £7,000 in there which could have bought a new car, a few decent holidays or maybe a new bathroom as the old one was getting a bit tired. However if that happened that would mean giving up on baby, the final physical piece of evidence that Louisa had once been pregnant, that their hopes for the future had seemed to stretch out for miles ahead, so the balance just kept getting bigger, month on month, but that was okay as even though sex was infrequent and they had not mentioned children since the incident Ian never gave up hope, one day it would happen. He clung onto that in times of despair and unhappiness and was sure that Louisa did to….one day.
Ian arrived at New Scotland at 8:50 a.m. the London traffic had been its usual horrendous mayhem but he had made it with ten minutes to spare before the meeting to discuss the evidence and the results from the DNA testing and lab work. It was a nice sunny day today, only eighteen Celsius according to the weather report on the radio but that was enough as far as Ian was concerned. He figured he would go out for lunch today after the meeting as it was going to be a long one and the ensuing follow up work would be horrendous so he would need time to prepare and think things through, and what better way to do this than with a nice pint of 6X bitter accompanied by steak and kidney pie and chips and lashings of tomato sauce, oh and a side order of peas.
After the death of Mel Johnston things had really started to escalate. The death had been all over the news. The press weren’t too bothered about a drug dealer or nearly dead penniless alcoholic but Mel Johnston had been a ‘normal respectable’ person, plus the manner of death had been awful. The Chief Super had trebled the manpower on the case and the Forensics team were told in no uncertain terms to fast track the work required and as the Chief Super put it ‘I don’t care if you have to work twenty four fucking hours a day, just get it done and lets catch this madman’. He could be quite succinct when he wanted to be, the Chief Super, however at other times his philosophy seemed to be why use one word and two minutes when you can use thirty words and ten minutes.
Ian made his way to the second floor for the briefing, in the newly refurbished presentation room. This used to house an overhead projector, a chalk board and twenty plastic chairs. It was now akin to a Bill Gates wet dream. There was an integrated sound system and digital projector linked up to a computer, it was all wi-fi’d, networked and integrated (whatever that meant). The plastic chairs had gone to be replaced by an L shaped table which could seat twenty and had microphones in so people could be conferenced in if required wherever they were in the world. It was all very impressive but Ian liked the simple things in life. There was always something wrong in here, whether the system needed rebooting, the conferencing system cut people off or the computer crashed. Lets face it you didn’t need to reboot a chalkboard did you, and if people couldn’t hear you, you simply talked louder rather than having to phone IT to ask them where the volume control was.
The room was already packed. The investigative team had expanded to sixteen people who were all here this morning. Ian settled into his seat near the front. He wouldn’t normally sit so close but there was good reason today. Just as he was tapping his pen on his opened pad in walked the vision of loveliness that was Nicola Trenchyard, a former primary school classmate and now Forensic scientist at the Met. Behind her came Chief Superintendant Bishop carrying the box of physical evidence which he carefully carried and put down on the front desk after a simple nod from Ms Trenchyard. She looked around the room then gave Ian a warm smile. They had been friends for a long time, firstly meeting at Primary school before going to high school together. They had kind of dated each other when they were sixteen, but when their paths diverged, she went to college to study for her A levels in chemistry, Biology & Physics and he went away to police training. They had kept in touch and it had been him doing all the phoning. By the time he got back from three months training she was already dating the sixth Form Rugby captain which had been the rumour his best friend Tony Hankinson had told him on the train on the way home. He had vowed to ‘knock his block off’ as soon as he saw him, however on meeting the two of them in the pub that very night he changed his mind as her new beau was, to coin a phrase ‘built like a brick shit-house’, so he had bit his tongue and behaved impeccably all night as although he knew he would never be going out with Nicola again, he didn’t want to lose her as a friend.
As Ian was lost in teenage parties past and memories of fumbling with the clasp on Nicola’s bra the Chief Super stood up and with a loud clap called the meeting to order.
‘Now gentlemen, and ladies of course’ he turned apologetically to Nicola who gave him a slight nod of acknowledgement ‘we finally have all the information back from the forensics department and Ms Trenchyard here in the next two hours will be giving you all a full debrief’
Ian smirked like a little school boy at the weak double entendre and casually hid his grin behind his cup of coffee. As he looked over Nicola had spotted it straight away and gave him a knowing glance with one raised eyebrow as if to emphasise that even at thirty three Ian was still just a childish boy.
‘So anyway I will now hand this meeting over to Ms Trenchyard’ the Chief Super said in closing. Nicola stepped forward, remote control in hand, stood to the left of the projector and began her presentation.
‘Right then, morning ladies and gentlemen, we shall begin with the agenda where we will go through the following items
The murder scene of James Benjamin Langan
Finger prints
DNA samples
Markings on assorted drinking glasses
Other potentially related evidence
The murder of Saul Barraghan
Finger prints
DNA samples
Other evidence
The murder of Mel Johnston
Finger prints
DNA samples
Other evidence
Summation of findings
Conclusion
So forensic scientist Nicola Trenchyard began with murder one. ‘Okay so at the Honey club here are various photos of the crime scene.’ The next twenty slides were assorted photos ranging from the bloodied corpse of James B Langan to the open safe, the scattered drugs on the desk, the assorted drinking glasses, the empty bottles, the gun cartridges and the money on the floor. They were shown in silence as a slideshow, Nicola pausing for fifteen to twenty seconds to let everybody survey the photos and absorb the detail. The room was silent a
part from the whirr of the cooling fans in the laptop and the slight noise of traffic which invaded through the double glazed windows with the silver shades pulled down which also banished the warm September weather to purely outside of this room.
‘Firstly finger prints. The forensics team picked up well over forty prints in that room; they were reduced down to what were considered twelve fresh prints of people who had been there that day and prior evening. With the help of all of you here today we have found all twelve persons associated with these prints which are:-
James Benjamin Langan (deceased)
Crystal – Bonnie Woods (dancer)
Phoenix – Sandra Smith (dancer)
Bacchus – real name Richard Bird of Flat 3 57a Abbey Road, St Johns Wood who has now been arrested and charged with possession of firearms, buying and selling of weapons, counterfeiting CDs & DVDs, and drug possession / drug dealing.
Jake Hurry – Manager of the Honey club
Edward Grant – Honey Club Bar manager
6 bar staff that had all gone up to serve drinks. They are Paul Smith, Timothy Maas, Jamie Sabiela, Catherine Bishop, Lynda Hervey, and Madelyn Priest.
Nicola efficiently went through another five slides explaining the DNA evidence, how they had taken swabs from all the parties mentioned above which had then been analysed and cross referenced with the available physical evidence before getting to the next point.
‘Now gentlemen finally something interesting, of the glasses a number were ruled out through the original fingerprints analysis, DNA match ups and also finding out the lipstick make and colour used by Ms Smith and Ms Woods. Once this was complete there was one glass which proved useful. This was the glass that had James Benjamin Langans fingerprints on but also a lipstick marking which was not that of Ms Smith and Ms Woods. However there were no other prints on the brandy glass which leads me to suspect that the murderer could have been female and was wearing gloves to stop leaving any prints. Quite why she did this is unknown, as taking a drink and leaving some evidence behind when she had taken care to wear gloves is interesting. Unless this is just meant to throw us off the scent by giving us false evidence and making us assume the killer was a female.
Other interesting pieces of evidence are the open safe and the money and gun cartridges on the floor. It has been confirmed by the bar manager that there should have been over £10,000 in the safe but instead there was simply a few hundred on the floor. Also in the safe was a substance which is consistent with the oil that a gun is cleaned with and has been identified as Bisley Silicone Gun oil where a case of this was also found at the flat of Richard Bird a.k.a. Bacchus along with the same type of gun cartridges which were found on the office floor. Therefore this seems to suggest that the money and gun have been taken, although this was probably not the motive for the murder, it looks as if the safe was open when the killer was there so simply took the opportunity to grab a few extra items.
There were also a few grams of cocaine on the coffee table and desk and the test results shows Mr Langan had consumed a few grams himself as the levels in his body were very high. Also in his blood stream was an extremely high level of alcohol, cannabis, amphetamines and Valium. We think after such a crazy night he was so high he consumed two Valium which would have knocked him out for quite a few hours which would have actually made it easier for the killer to get at him. Whether the killer had prior knowledge of this is another matter.’
‘We also have this’ Nicola clicked the remote control and up on the screen came the CCTV footage of the Bobo gang. ‘I appreciate this is tenuous as there is no real connection with anything else other than that the Bobo gang were enemies of James Benjamin Langan. However it could be noteworthy so has been included. This is also relevant once we get on to Saul Barraghan’s murder.
Moving onto murder two again the first twenty slides show assorted photographic evidence of the murder scene. Note the door was broken by the police on entering the flat. The next five slides are of the kitchen, nothing much here really apart from empty vodka bottles and used tea bags. The next six slides show the living room of Mr Barraghan’s flat. Note the hole in the cushion which was used to muffle the sound of the gun. Here is the stereo which was turned up to assist in concealing the sound of the shot.’
On this slide was the cheap small green stereo with FM/AM radio, a tape player and flip top lid for the CD player. To the left you could see the cd case of ‘Frank Sinatra’s greatest hits’.
‘Bloody wonderful album that Ms Trenchyard’ came a voice from the back
‘He certainly went his way didn’t he’ came another shout from the back.
‘Quieten down please gentlemen’ insisted the Chief Super as he stood up and craned his neck to see to the back of the room and the potential instigators of the unnecessary comedy lines. ‘I’m watching you PC McKeverne, be quiet and when you think you are about to say something….DON’T’ admonished the Chief Super.
‘Sorry Chief’ came the response.
‘Anyway as I was saying’ continued Nicola ‘you can see that there is blood on the floor from just outside the living room to the bathroom. And as you can see from the shots in the bathroom this is where he was opened up. You will note he is lying on a rug which we assume was in the living room. He then either fell onto it or was pushed onto it before being dragged into the bathroom for his impromptu operation’
And at that the room went silent as the blood stained ring of towels, the open wound on Mr Barraghan’s side, the old fashioned thick rug which was a dark red colour and the pool of blood and entrails which circled the body were all up there on the giant screen in glorious full colour and high definition.
‘It has been noticed by the pathologist that there was actually already a mark on the murdered victim’s side. Unfortunately for him he had already had an operation eighteen months ago now where his liver had been replaced due to years of alcoholism. He had actually been alcohol free for the first six months but he inevitably got dragged back down into alcoholism and was certainly on his way to ruining another liver’
‘From the statements taken from the next door neighbour it is apparent that there was a woman present, however she was not seen and so we have absolutely no evidence as to what she looks like. There are actually a number of surveillance cameras in the area however the local gangs made short work of them one bonfire night and so they have not been repaired for over ten months now. We have struck lucky however as we have found a washed mug in the sink which contains a half a fingerprint which is the left hand thumb. The murderer was careful enough to clean up after herself however she missed a small section of the mug which contains her print. Unfortunately there is not enough there to allow for a full scan so we can run it through the police database but if we catch her we can get a match.’
‘However the extremely interesting fact is this’ And with that Nicola brings up another slide of a clear plastic bag holding a gun inside. ‘This is a Browning Buck Mark pistol. However it is not just any Browning Buck pistol. This is the pistol that Richard Bird a.k.a Bacchus sold to James Benjamin Langan and was subsequently stolen from his safe. It is also the pistol which has been used on two murdered drug dealers over two years ago where James Langan was the main suspect but no evidence was found against him. We therefore have a clear link between the two murders. Another piece of interesting information, which unfortunately is again a little difficult to link with hard evidence at this stage is this’ Nicola looked at the screen as a close up of the business card from the ‘Edgware road Loan Company’ was displayed. ‘To explain, this is one of the companies which the Bobo gang use and is essentially a loan shark company. We will need to ascertain whether Mr Barraghan actually owed any money to the Bobo gang or not before this piece of evidence becomes significant however Chief Inspector Bishop will discuss that at the end of this presentation’
‘So that brings us nicely onto the latest murder of Mel Johnston.’ Another twenty slides are shown, showing the murder sc
ene, the close up of the bruising on Mel’s neck, the open chest wound, the same ring of towels around the body.
‘We are assuming that Mel was about to go out running. His stopwatch was actually still running so we know the exact time of the confrontation at least was 6 a.m. We are assuming that somebody was waiting for Mel to appear or that they rang the bell. The assumption is that they were waiting for him and as Mel opened the door they produced a weapon and got him back up to the flat where they sat him down on the black leather sofa and hit him across the back of the head. This slide shows the statue that was used to hit him with. The slide on view was of a modern statue all twisted metal that resembled absolutely nothing. The base was a heavy rough hewn rock which had been flattened on the underside so it stood up of its own accord. The lump of rock looked solid and there was a blood stain all over one part of it where they had connected with the back of Mel’s head. He would then have slumped forward or fell onto the floor. They then rolled him over, prepared the scene and operated on him removing his heart. The alarming thing is he had only just received a new heart eight months ago after complications when running the Paris Marathon. We are looking into the donation of the organs for Mr Barraghan and Mr Johnston. We do not know whether Mr Langan had any organs replaced as we are still looking into the files. As you can understand Mr Langan liked to keep a low profile so records of his movements are sketchy but we will continue to search. Also at this stage there is no obvious link back to the Bobo gang’
‘Still just in case there is a link I will task DI Ian Carragher to go down to the records office of NHS UK transplant to investigate any possible link. And there is of course the operation which Chief Inspector Bishop will be telling you about in a minute. I have already requested a court hearing in order to get the necessary paperwork from NHS UK as of course this kind of information is kept secret in order to protect the donor’s identity and also the recipients. We should be getting this later on today so DI Carragher, you can go there tomorrow and see what you can find out’
DI Carragher nodded an acknowledgement and Nicola Trenchyard carried on.
‘So in summary it looks like all three murders could well be linked. The murderer killed James Benjamin Langan and then stole the gun and £10,000 from the safe then moved onto Saul Barraghan who was shot in the back of the head before taking his liver and leaving the gun behind. They then moved onto Mel Johnston, attacking him in the early hours of the morning and leaving unseen at an un-established time of day. In short we are dealing with someone who has developed a taste for murder. They may have murdered a number of other people in the past so we are looking into unsolved murders in the London area, as you can imagine there are lots of them but we are paying particular attention to the two drug dealers already mentioned plus any other murder where body parts were taken. We need more clues here as at the minute we only have the lipstick mark on the glass from Mr Langans club and a half a thumbprint from Saul Barraghan’s flat where they washed a mug but did not do it thoroughly enough. Also the link to the Bobo gang is an interesting one but we need to keep digging as we simply do not have enough information at the minute. To understand whether it’s a psychopathic serial killer or a well known dangerous Polish gang is key as the clock is ticking. We have a lot of work ahead of us so let’s get to it’
Ms Trenchyard clicked off the overhead projector and switched off her laptop. A murmur went around the room as the officers all began talking about what they had just seen, the severity of the murders and who could possibly have carried out these types of attacks. They argued between themselves as to whether it was gang related or was it something else…only more evidence would suffice.
The Chief Super rose and brought the meeting to order again. ‘People’ he boomed with a clap of his hands ‘tomorrow will go some way to understanding this current conundrum. DI Carragher thinks that the Bobo Gang could be linked. We have a lot of evidence to link them to it in some way. Whether they have hired some sadistic bastard to actually do their contract killing is another matter. They may have a new member of their gang who we know very little about as it’s not like them to do this sort of thing. But tomorrow at 11 a.m. we will find out. We go in hard and we go in fast. There will be an armed unit on standby and I want the café closed and sealed off, all three members of the gang need to be there as I want them all arrested, a thorough search of the café needs to be carried out and I want the flat upstairs emptied, Anybody in there take them in for questioning. Get forensics crawling all over the place.
Chapter 10 – ‘Would you like another drink?
