Personal

by S Thomas Thompson

  “Well I actually would,” Al was great at thinking on his feet and bet from his experience of this neighbourhood that the report would have been anonymous. “I was the one that made the call. I was just checking that I had given all the right details over to you guys. I couldn’t sleep thinking about it.”

  The police officer looked him up and down. There had been no name attached to the report but something didn’t feel right about the man stood in front of him. He could well have been the one that reported the car, but the fact that he was stood in front of it when he turned the corner just raised his suspicion level. He wanted to ask a few more questions. The car wasn’t involved on any crimes as far as they were aware at the time, but there wasn’t a great deal else going on at that time of the morning. It had been a couple of days since anyone was killed and the chief had asked for a greater presence on the streets as part of the reassurance of the public. This was all a part of that reassurance. He wanted to let the people who were concerned about the events know that they were being looked after. He wanted to let the criminals know that they were being watched. Officer Lane felt that was how it went. They couldn’t catch the man that was killing all these people on the streets of the city, so the smaller players ended up getting caught for things that they were getting away with in the recent past. The killer was making it difficult for everyone else in the city, not least the petty criminals that usually worked under the radar – or at least only popped their head up onto the radar screen every now and again.

  “What concerned you so much about this car then? It looks like any other car in the city. It’s bashed up from the busy streets, just parked here, not doing anybody any harm. Why call it in? Why not just leave it? Most people think that the police have enough to do without chasing abandoned cars,” the police officer was deciding whether to get out of his car and stand with the man he had found staring into the empty vehicle. He had a sneaking suspicion in the back of his mind that he might try to run, but he wasn’t entirely sure why he felt that way.

  “It just stands out in this street. We have all lived here a long time and I suppose we don’t like anything different coming into our little world. It doesn’t belong to any of us, so I wondered why it had been left here. Some cars come and go in a few hours. This has been here for…”

  Al slowed as he didn’t really know how long it had been there. It wasn’t there when he left to deal with the entertainer in the theatre. It could have arrived at any time after that.

  The crackle of the police radio interrupted him anyway. The police officer disappeared back inside the car and listened intently to what was being said. From the outside of the car Al could pick up the odd word.

  “…break in… damage…city centre….immediately…”

  “I’ll get it taken away,” the police officer said as he drove off. The fact that some low-grade criminal had saved the man who the whole police force was chasing with a passion was not lost on Al. He laughed all the way from the car to his home. He walked back to his room and laid down to sleep, but not before having the shower that his body and mind had craved for some time. It was a restful sleep. For Al, this encounter confirmed his belief that he was in total control. It confirmed to him that the police were no closer to knowing who he was then when this all began. The brush with the detective in the corridor outside the performers room was coincidence after all. He could begin his plans again. This time he would not be rushed.

  8

  After dealing with the break in, the police officer, Andy Lane, spoke to the transport department to get the vehicle towed away and taken to the impound for the rightful owner to be reunited with it. Something nagged away at the back of his mind about the man stood in the street at that time of the morning. He wasn’t sure that he was involved with the theft of the car, but still didn’t feel easy about the conversation or the answers he was given in that short space of time they were face to face. He vowed to go back to the street and take a look in more detail when he had the time. It would all be part of the high profile policing he was asked to carry out. He could justify it to anyone that asked, not least of all his boss. But he would keep it to himself for the time being. PC Lane didn’t want to bother anyone else with it. He just had that nagging doubt that you get about certain people at times. It might come to nothing, but there could be something in it.

  9

  The room was silent. Five people all sat with their guns trained on each other. There was a tension in the air. Nobody knew who would shoot first, and what would happen after that. They all had a great deal to lose at that moment in time. Augustine Boyle looked across at the other four, one by one and tried to determine a way out of this that would work for everyone. But he knew that no words would make things better. It was time for action.

  Laser tag always ended up like this. The five on the team had gone for a bonding session and they were all close on the scoreboard with almost no time left. Gary was in the lead and didn’t see the need to back down. ‘Why him?’ Augustine thought. He could cope with anyone else winning this. They would see it as fun. But Gary would see it as a further sign of his superiority over the rest of the team. Augustine could see the clock ticking down. They had all tried to get to the base and fire the shot that would catapult them into the lead. This was probably the police way of thinking that had brought them all together at the base. Cut to the chase, find the most important part of the situation and deal with it. But when you have five people that think in the same way then the result is they all stand facing each other in a standoff.

  Twenty seconds left.

  Augustine wondered if anyone else was going to make the first move. His next team bonding session would be something less competitive. Or he would do it when Gary was next on holiday. No, that wasn’t right. He was the one that needed these more than the others. He looked at Lou who was on the lowest score. Some might see this as a ‘nothing to lose’ situation but not Lou. He looked resigned to defeat. It wasn’t that he was easily beaten, but he preferred to save his efforts for the real world. Lou had never understood the focus on video games of the younger generation. Why waste all that effort on capturing imaginary bad guys when there were enough real ones to catch on the streets of their own city? Why not go outside and play a real game of football than sit in your room and play an imaginary one? Augustine decided that Lou wasn’t going to be the one to defeat Gary.

  Fifteen seconds left.

  He looked at Electra. She would give anything to defeat Gary. She didn’t want him on their team from the start. She was professional enough to have tried to make him welcome but his attitude got in the way. He saw women as servants or potential sexual conquests. When she made it clear to him that he wasn’t going to get her to make him a cup of tea on demand or drop her knickers for him ever, he lost interest in her and treated her like shit. She dealt with him in the same way.

  Augustine wanted to make eye contact with her to see if she was going to work with him to finish Gary off. But she had her eyes locked on her prey. She was zoned in on Gary. Augustine wondered if she was trying to hypnotise him into inaction. The stare was so strong and hard that Augustine gulped. She could lock anyone in her stare for whatever reason she wanted. Gary was forcing his eyes open so he didn’t blink first. Every action, every situation was like a competition to him. Electra would want to win with every ounce of her being, but wouldn’t be reckless in her pursuit. Each action would need to be calculated. But she didn’t have much time.

  Ten seconds left.

  Augustine looked towards Ash. He was already looking back. The two of them had developed an innate understanding of each other during their time together. Ash felt the same way about Gary as the rest of the team. He was in second place and was probably the most likely to overtake Gary in the scoring. Just one hit more or one damage less than Gary would put him into the lead and take the day.

  Augustine was trying to think of how to communicate that they go for Gary together. Two of their hits on him
meant that Gary could only respond to one of them. This would lose him the game. The clock was ticking and the time for the final action was nigh. Augustine closed his eyes for a second while deciding what to signal. When he opened them again Ash had a broad grin on his face. Augustine knew that he didn’t need to make any signal. As the last few seconds ticked down, the triggers were pulled and the flash of the vests the players wore pulsated so many times that nobody could be sure who was being hit and who was making those hits.

  The screen with the scores went off and the tension grew again to the level it was at when the five of them were facing each other. Augustine was pretty sure he had hit Gary but saw his vest flash too, so he was also pretty sure he had taken at least one hit. They went to the cool down room and waited for the screens to show the scores. It was all part of the theatre of the activity. The short wait for the scores meant that the excitement levels were still set at maximum even after all the running around and shooting. Most of them sat looking at the floor, while waiting.

  “Fuck it,” shouted Gary. They all knew this meant that he hadn’t won. For Lou and Electra this was enough. They could sit in the bar afterwards and be satisfied that it wasn’t Gary, no matter who it was. But for Augustine and Ash, there was more to it than that. They both arrived at the laser tag with only thoughts of winning on their mind. They looked at each other before looking at the scoreboard on a small television screen in the top right-hand corner of a dark and dirty room.

  “Yes! Gotcha Gus!”

  Augustine sighed at two things. Firstly, he had lost to Ash. Secondly there was now someone else that was calling him Gus instead of Augustine. He would have to wait until the next time to deal with one. But he couldn’t fight the other. He had grown to love his name Augustine since he left school and could walk away from the teasing over it. Even the pricks in the force that used the August part of his name to mock him, didn’t bother him now. But he much preferred Augustine over Gus. He felt that Augustine gave him an air of authority and set him apart from others. Gus could have been just about anyone – there was only one Augustine that he knew of.

  They all got up together and left the small room before the tension grew again. The next stop was the pub and a few drinks, but most of the team decided not too many as they had to be back at work at various times the next day. Gary would be the first in, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell that from the number of beers he was pouring down his neck. The defeat had obviously hit him hard and he wanted a few cold ones to numb the pain or move his mind on to something else.

  Augustine always tried to keep the conversation as far away from work as possible on these occasions as they were designed to help build the team and get to know each other but the high profile of the case that they were working on and the fact that it occupied the whole team all the time meant that this was an impossible task on this night out. He first tried telling people to talk about something else if he overheard them discussing the case with each other, then moved to the tactic of steering the conversation in a different direction before giving up and letting them talk. He thought that maybe it might help them process the information and be closer to a breakthrough. The only thing that was even close to a breakthrough at that point though was the fact that he has accidentally bumped into the man he thought was the killer while off duty one day – not much of a breakthrough as far as Augustine Boyle was concerned. While others talked about the case with a great deal of discretion (they were sat in a public place) Augustine withdrew into himself. He started to think about the life that he had led that ended up with him sat in that bar at that particular time. He often used to disappear into his own thoughts and try to analyse the path that lead him to that exact point.

  He wasn’t the type of person that believed in fate. He didn’t for one second think that he was born to do this job, live this life and end up here. Augustine Boyle believed that his life, and the life of anyone else for that matter, was a series of choices, with each choice steering the person one way or another to the next choice and the one after. He believed in essence that life was one huge decision tree with one choice leading to two potential second choices, four on the next level and so on. With scores of these decisions to make every day, the lower levels of the decision tree went into their trillions and beyond. But Augustine thought he could boil all of these decisions down to a few important ones. Sure, the choice of what to eat for lunch might lead to a higher fat intake and the raised chance of heart disease in the long run but it wasn’t a decision in isolation that would have a major significance on his life. But the decision of what to study at university or what promotion to seek in his profession was something that would impact his life for a very long time in the future. These were the decisions that would influence his life and lead him to the point he was at.

  So, while the others chatted, Augustine dipped in and out of the conversations to make it look like he was present, when he actually wasn’t. He thought about the last change in job he took. It was several years ago and at the time felt like a natural progression. But now it felt like a mistake. It felt like one of the major decisions that had pointed him to this seat, in this bar with these people. It wasn’t that he was desperately unhappy with the people, the place or the job he had, but that there might be better out there. If his decision making in the past was different then his situation would be different too. He knew that bad decisions could leave him far worse off than he was at that point in time, but he also believed that better decision making, especially those important ones, could have given him an easier life. Not that he would have any idea how to cope with an easy life. It was just a thought process that he had to go through.

  “Gus, what’s wrong?” Electra interrupted his thoughts. She wanted him as part of their conversation. He was the facilitator in the group as well as the de facto leader. He was the person who could weld together the different ideas of the group unto something cogent that would stand up to some scrutiny. She thought that he could get a great deal from the conversations they were having.

  Plus, she wanted some protection from an increasingly drunk Gary. He hadn’t said anything that was inappropriate or offensive but it could be close at hand.

  “I’m OK. Just mulling over the last few weeks. We need a break in this case and I nearly had it by chance. I bumped into the guy but for some reason he got away. I want all of this to end,” Augustine looked from the distance, where his thoughts had been for some time, to the foreground where he found Electra looking straight in to his eyes as he spoke.

  “I think you might get a lot from this conversation. I know I’d get a lot from you being part of it,” Electra spoke as though she needed him more than ever. It was a way she had with words that was incredibly persuasive to Augustine. He wanted his team to get along and be as one. He wanted them all to feel safe and happy in their job. But he had a soft spot for Electra. He could see a bright future for her. He didn’t want her to become disillusioned in any way. He joined in.

  “So, where are we now?” Augustine spoke across the group. If he was to be part of the conversation then he had some catching up to do. The rest of them were only too happy to fill him in. Augustine listened, questioned and argued. He wanted to put all of their thoughts to the test. Discussing a case over a few drinks was an effective way to find consensus and examine theories. But it wasn’t one that could be found in any policing manuals. The rest of the evening was as interesting for Augustine as any he could remember for some time. They would all go away with different thoughts and come back the next day. It could be the change that they were looking for in the way they approached the case. The conversations with the aid of alcohol meant that nobody was afraid of saying something wrong and all theories were listened to. The answers might come from this, thought Augustine. Even if they didn’t, the team felt stronger – even Gary who didn’t need a few drinks to speak his mind.

  10

  Al had been sat in his home for days since the last killing. He want
ed to regroup, catch up on lost sleep and make detailed plans for the next person who needed to be taught a lesson. In fact, he was working on a few at once. He felt as though he had let himself down with the last murder. It had gone to plan up to a point but the risks involved were far too great to do it like this on a regular basis. Part of the reason he was doing this was to prove a point to some of the people he had argued with in the past. He wanted to prove that his way was correct and they were wrong. But to do this he had to kill a lot of people without getting caught. Taking risks like the one he had felt compelled to by the newspaper article questioning his ability would leave him closer to detection and arrest. That would make his plans look foolish. He wasn’t prepared to do that again.

  He walked to the bathroom and got out the shaving foam. This had become more than just part of the way he went about his work. It had become a ritual that he would go through every few days. There was little if any growth of hair on any part of his body but he had to keep it free from hair. His bathroom was tiled with mirrored tiles on every surface, including the floor. It was well lit so he could see every part of his body. He didn’t want to run the chance of leaving any trace of hair next to any of the people he killed. He was sure that if anyone ever entered the property and looked in the bathroom that they would find him very strange indeed. But he didn’t care. Everything about his life over the past few years had been geared up to the work he was carrying out at that point. He had tiled the bathroom himself so it did what he needed. Planning and attention to detail had always been a part of his life. He was known in school as someone that would pick up the teacher or one of his classmates on the tiniest detail or fact that was out of place. And now he was using that attention to detail to create something that would teach people his way of life. He looked at his reflection in one of the tiles and caught the smirk that was working its way from his mouth to his eyes. He loved doing what he was doing. It made him feel fulfilled.