by James Arklie
‘Sorry, Joe. It’s the three of you and you’re on your own.’
*
Kline wandered back to his desk and delivered the news. He told them to grab their coffee and pastries. Artie was being torn away from his research and was reluctant to go. He wanted to know where he was going. Kline told him. Artie wasn’t impressed. ‘Why?’
Ten minutes later Kline parked up in a car park by the Red Funnel terminus. They all got out of the car and perched their backsides on the bonnet. Kline gazed at the immense size of the two cruise liners and let the residual heat from the engine warm his backside and the sun warm his face.
For a couple of minutes, they bantered. Angie and Kline teasing Artie about the broad smile on his face.
Angie said, ‘Tell you what, boss, that date night…’
Kline finished the cliché grinning. ‘Had clearly been a great night.
Artie tried to change the subject. ‘What are we doing here?’ Kline realised Artie never called him ‘boss’ or by his name.
‘I have a theory that needs testing.’
Kline told them his idea about the seaports. ‘We may have been looking in the wrong place. If we change our perspective from the apartments to the ports it may give us something different.’
Artie reached into the car for his iPad, scrolled and pulled up a couple of pictures.
‘Look. Two of the women were on their balconies. See the way they are facing. Not the obvious way to align a sunbed on the balcony. I’d have to check how the sun moves round the building, but they could be in the shade. And Evelyn….’
Kline agreed with him. ‘Odd one out.’
She lived in a major seaport but not right by the sea, the way the other four women did. But it’s often the exception to the rule that proves the rule.
Angie had retrieved her own iPad and was scrolling through images. Kline didn’t have one, so ate croissant and sipped coffee. A different perspective had them looking at the crime scenes in a different way.
He said to Artie, ‘You’re suggesting the alignment is deliberate. Pointing towards something.’
‘Definitely.’
Kline had an idea of what that might be. It was the reason they were looking at two cruise liners each loading a few thousand anonymous people for one or two weeks of partying.
Angie found it first. ‘Shit, boss. You just have to find the right pictures.’
She held out her iPad and Artie came across to join them. ‘Look, Sydney Harbour. Picture across the balcony. Cruise liner in the background.’ She flicked across.
‘Here, Keri-Keri. Through the sliders. Across the bay. Not a cruise liner, more like one of the smaller boutique liners that only accommodate a few hundred passengers.’ She flicked again.
‘St. Malo. There. Through the window, but out there. A large cruise liner.’ Next image.
‘Piraeus. The same, plus ferries galore.’
She didn’t bother with Evie. She had four out of five and she knew Evie was found on the kitchen floor of her farmhouse. Not a cruise liner in sight. The exception.
Kline placed his coffee on the bonnet and crossed his arms. ‘How does this sound? Our killer books himself a nice cruise. Gets onboard here, or maybe takes a plane first and gets on in, say, Miami or Singapore. Cruise sets off and arrives in a port for the day. In the evening, killer goes for a run ashore and goes out on the prowl. He finds himself a victim, kills them, gets back on board, has dinner, goes to bed and during the night the cruise liner sails away to its next destination.’
Angie’s face showed her astonishment. ‘Shit. The body is found sometime next day. He’s disappeared. On his way to the next port or even a different country.’
Kline nodded, as a basic theory it worked. ‘Exactly. He’s careful and kills just the once each cruise.’
Artie joined in. ‘Until the next year?’ He snapped his fingers. ‘And always May.’
Kline felt something stirring. ‘Exactly. Each year, he books a new cruise, somewhere different.’ He spread his hands. ‘And so it goes on. For at least five years.’
Kline gazed across at the hulking magnificence of the Queen Mary 2. Easy to be anonymous on something that size. ‘The world’s first global serial killer.’
Artie was shocked. He’d taken a couple of steps away from Kline. ‘Part of the fun of his annual holiday was to commit a murder?’
‘No. His annual holiday was to commit a murder.’
Artie took another step, perhaps not believing that Kline could come up with a theory of such perversion. ‘And as a sick joke, he aligned the bodies to face his means of arrival and escape?’
‘Why not? He likes to play games as well as kill.’
Kline could see Angie searching for the flaws. Kline acknowledged there were plenty.
She said. ‘Doesn’t have to be passenger. It could be any seaman. Merchant, Royal Navy…’
Kline wasn’t going to argue. ‘Agreed. This is a theory that needs testing.’
Artie said. ‘And it doesn’t fit with finding the name Aletheria at the first killing.’
‘Unless the name Alice means something to our killer. Perhaps he searched out these women in order to create the name Alice.’
Angie added, ‘And it doesn’t explain why he seems to be targeting you.’
Kline agreed, ‘Not yet it doesn’t.’ Kline could tell Angie was liking it as a theory. Perhaps they finally had a framework they could work on.
Angie was still musing. ‘A package holiday to kill. Back then you’d be virtually untraceable.’
Kline pushed up from the bonnet. It was time to move this on. ‘So, we already know that we are dealing with a sad, sick, murdering bastard, but the question becomes, if this is part of his MO, how do we use it to find him?’
*
Jenny’s service was Humanist. Jenny had suggested it to Kline after they’d attended the funeral of one of her friends. She wasn’t religious and neither was Kline, but Jenny felt they ought to have something to provide them with a sense of release and a chance for closure. Kline had shrugged his acceptance, uncaring and at the same time, had agreed the same should be done for him.
Kline had tried to keep the service private. His choice, not Jenny’s. But it was gate-crashed by a group of old friends. They glared at a miserable Kline with defiance, saw that he wasn’t going to resist and switched it to hugging.
Kline had discouraged friends from visiting Jenny in the home. He effectively isolated her. He kidded himself it was to protect her dignity, but now realised it was because he was being selfish and keeping her to himself. Possibly there was a sense of guilt in there as well. It’s always the fault of the driver. That in some way, he had let her down. It may also have been a sub-conscious acknowledgement that she was really dead. Who wants to visit a warm dead person?
They didn’t sing. Jenny always said a congregation’s attempts were pathetic and let’s face it, thought Kline, they often are. So, Kline stared at her beautifully woven wicker casket and listened to Men of Harlech, sung by a Welsh Miner’s choir. Kline had covered her casket in red roses; there was not a lily in sight.
That was followed by Cockney Rebel, the ‘come up and see me some time’ one. A Jenny joke, but Kline rubbed an ache in his back, thought of bloody urine and told her it might not be that long.
One of the friends jumped up defiantly and said a few words, even though Jenny had told all of them to tell her to her living face what a wonderful, kind person she is and not wait until she was dead and say what a wonderful person she was. Kline smiled his way through it sadly and quietly suggested to Jenny she come back and haunt them all.
On a large screen there was a picture of Jenny as a teenager, all pout and sex, revolving with another of them both on their wedding day and a third on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.
Their thirtieth was due this August, pearl, and Kline had bought her pearl earrings and a pearl necklace ready for the occasion. The Hospice had dressed her in her favourite pal
e blue dress and Kline had carefully looped the necklace round her neck and slipped the earrings into her ears. The blue of the dress brought out the blue in her eyes, but he was never going to see that again.
Kline didn’t notice at the time, but during the two minutes silence to remember and reflect on Jenny’s life, Luke Walton slipped into the back of the room.
And then suddenly, that was that. How can people disappear from us so quickly, thought Kline? They die in an instant and now, in just a few short minutes, they’d said goodbye to a long and fabulous life.
Kline stepped forward, placed a kiss on her coffin and watched Jenny slide away from him forever. And as the black curtains swung back into place, there was little else left for him to do, but cry.
Uncontrollably.
As his heart broke.
*
Kline was back in the office at four pm. He’d left his grief in his car with Charlie. They’d had a hug and Kline had relived the funeral for him verbally. ‘It’s important you know all about it, little fella. And it’s all right to cry, Charlie. It’s good to cry, part of letting go, letting your emotions out. As much as you want, okay?’
Outside the funeral, Kline had hugged the friends again. Agreed they should catch up soon (knowing they wouldn’t) and not be strangers (knowing they would). Let’s be honest, he told himself as they walked away, that’s the way it goes.
Luke Walton had been hanging back in the doorway, he tried to give Kline a hug as well. Kline stepped away, firing a warning with his expression. Walton gave him an accepting smile from beneath his mop of blond hair. Kline guessed that Jehovah’s Witnesses get used to living with rejection.
‘I understand. Sorry. I will continue to pray for Jenny. You know she is in a great place now. The best place.’ His blue eyes swam with enthusiasm and belief.
‘I will pray for you as well, Joe. For your recovery and for God to help you to understand and accept her death.’
Kline gave him the indulgent little laugh of the atheist who doesn’t want to be rude.
‘I’m sure she’s somewhere, Luke. Not quite sure where. As for understanding….’
Kline let that go because he would never understand how any Deity could allow a serial killer to run loose, keep killing and live, yet take Jenny. There again, if you reflect on that, thought Kline, which one would you invite to dinner?
Luke the disciple hadn’t finished his sermon. ‘Jenny will be welcomed into God’s Kingdom, Joe. The good, the bad, the evil, the sinners, all are made welcome.’ Kline frowned at him and he quickly clarified, ‘Jenny was only good.’
Kline gave him another half-smile. How the hell could he know? Kline turned away rudely and walked off. After a few steps, he regretted it, the guy was only trying to be pleasant. Kline turned back, but Walton had gone.
It left Kline with a choice of one of two things; pub and a lonely drinking session that led to oblivion, or back to work.
He could drink later with Angie, if that’s what he wanted, so he’d gone back to the office, where both Angie and Artie had risen from their chairs as one and hugged him. It was a three-way hug of solidarity. Christ, thought Kline, look at us, what a trio of emotionally traumatised misfits.
They all sat down and Kline realised they were waiting for him to say something inspirational. All he could think was that the ALICE murders were taking them in so many directions they had become directionless. Perhaps Dave Barker was right, they should focus solely on Evie.
Kline closed his eyes and saw Jenny, young and vivacious, up on the screen at the funeral. He opened them and looked across the desks at the pictures of Bryony James up on the whiteboard, laughing and dancing without a care. Bryony was dead, Jenny was now ashes, but from ashes great things can rise.
Kline swished to and fro in his swivel chair to get their attention, then leaned back.
‘My first boss took me to the pub at the end of my first day. He, we, got pissed. He gave me his drunken insight into an investigation. It’s like a steam train, he said. You’ve seen it on the films. A massive directionless lump of iron resting in a station. Coal being heaped into a furnace, water being fed into a boiler. Slowly, the fire starts to roar with power and the water starts to steam. Valves hiss, gears clunk as they are engaged, brakes are released and slowly, slowly, the wheels start to turn.’ Kline could see Artie frowning, his mouth half-open, wondering if Kline had lost it.
‘From that moment the lump becomes a train. It has tracks to run on that provide direction. Gradually, as it leaves the station, momentum builds. And it builds and builds until it becomes unstoppable.’ Artie glanced at Angie for reassurance. She was smiling and shaking her head.
Kline had started to smile himself, knowing he was sounding ridiculous. ‘In that moment that sleek, well-oiled, carefully crafted, precision-built machine starts to sing a song of joy and freedom. It has found the solution to its ugliness. It’s found the answer and it’s inner beauty. Solutions and answers. Building momentum slowly. Direction.’
Artie was blinking as he stared at Kline. Christ, he’s actually thinking about what I said, thought Kline. Angie was laughing, ‘My first boss got me pissed and told me that same story. Puffa trains, boss? They went diesel and electric in the sixties. I think it’s time for a new one.’
Artie had listened though. ‘We’re a train stuck in the station.’
Kline nodded and pointed a finger. ‘Exactly. I knew I’d get through to someone one day.’ He was smiling, they were all smiling. ‘We are. And it’s been my fault. I’ve been stuck in a siding.’ A siding called Jenny, thought Kline.
‘We need to get the train moving out of the station. So, you first Arthur. Summary in two sentences. Your thoughts of where we are with this investigation and which direction we should take next.’
Artie opened his mouth to speak, but his telephone rang. He looked at Kline who nodded for him to answer it. Ten seconds later, Kline’s plagiarised speech was committed to the bin of history and the smiles had gone from their faces.
Dr Alan Bleakley, woman beater, switcher off of life support machines, and the man who was becoming suspect number one, had been murdered.
Cruelly, viciously and very, very, violently.
*
Kline drove them straight back to Builth Wells. He knew he had to see the murder scene first-hand. Also, on his call to the DI in charge, he’d insisted Kline get back over there because of what he knew and to eliminate any DNA contamination.
Kline was sure that at eight pm on most evenings in Summer, the country corner of Builth in which Bleakley resided, was normally a lovely spot. Tonight, it was a sea of police cars, a large black van, a SOCO truck, blue lights and a lot of policemen generally hanging about.
DI Dai Barber was waiting at the front gate. He was in his thirties, dark haired, dark-eyed and spoke with a very Welsh lilt. They all shook hands pleasantly enough, but his tone was suspicious and annoyed. Simple reason being that yesterday Kline had travelled onto his patch, interviewed a suspect, left and not told the local force. And now that suspect was dead.
They used the bonnet of DI Barber’s car as an office and Kline spent ten minutes telling him everything. He listened intently without asking a question until the end.
‘What you’re telling me, is that there are plenty of people who would want him dead?’
Kline nodded at the understatement.
DI Barber added, ‘Women in particular?’
Kline made a so-so face. ‘Not necessarily but most likely.’
‘And he only caused a death once? This Bryony James?’
‘As far as we know. Why?’
Dai Barber looked towards the rose framed front door and a uniformed female officer making notes on a clipboard. ‘Because in my experience a beating given, gets a beating back. But whoever did this to him hated him with a vengeance.’ He glanced at Angie, making an assessment before he continued.
‘Someone took a machete to him. Chased him round his house and hacked the p
oor bastard to death.’
Dai Barber pushed himself to standing. ‘Get the gear on and come take a look.’
They followed him through the front door. Kline remembered the image of the sad, stooped man, bending under the weight of the life he’d created for himself. Who knows, thought Kline, maybe he welcomed this as a release. Maybe he was a coward, like me, unable to take a life, especially his own. Waiting for someone to come and do it for him.
Kline paused just inside the hallway. From there he could see left into the kitchen and to the right into the lounge area. For once, Kline was grateful that the body, and the parts hacked off had been removed. It must have been a mess.
Blood splatters were everywhere, covering the walls, ceiling and carpets. The smell in the air was thick and cloying. Angie was swatting the air round her as the flies of the summer evening were appearing from the surrounding countryside seeking a midsummer feast. Christ, thought Kline, it was going to take SOCO an age to catalogue this beauty. It wasn’t as though they could go round opening all the windows and letting some air in; the scene had to stay intact.
Dai Barber pointed at the ceiling and round the rooms. ‘We reckon the chase started here, at the front door, went upstairs where it ended.’
‘Based on?’
He raised an eyebrow as though it was obvious. ‘Blood. Shit loads.’ He led them into the lounge area. ‘For some reason the killer dragged the body back down here.’
Kline’s eyes followed the smear of blood until it reached the outline of a body on the floor. There was something strange about it. ‘You have a picture?’
DI Barber waved across one of the SOCO team who brought up an image on an iPad. Kline leaned forward and Angie tucked in beside him. The body was a mess of appalling violence. Angie whispered, ‘Bloody hell.’
Agreed, thought Kline. Bleakley had done some shitty things in his life, but no one deserved to die like this. It would have been terrifying.
