by Neil Randall
While FBI agents were flown in to investigate the original killings, another massacre took place, this time at a bordello some thirty or forty miles from town. Here the men (those also engaged in drilling activities, but on temporary leave due to the first set of murders) were slaughtered in the exact same way as their colleagues. This unnerved the multinational corporation so much they suspended drilling activities indefinitely, withdrawing from the area, never to return.
The killings stopped.
This led federal investigators to believe that the murders must’ve been undertaken by members of the Red Indian community, reprisal attacks for the desecration of holy ground. When questioned about the identity of the killer, Native American descendants living in the area, those who had, and would go on, tirelessly trying to protect their sacred land, said that the evil white workers had been murdered by the Bogeyman. One journalist, who questioned police afterwards, was guilty of a clumsy misquote. Next day, in one of the largest papers in the state, the headline ran: LOCAL NATIVE AMERICAN REPRESENTATIVES SAY THE BOGE RESPONSIBLE FOR KILLINGS. A name which, in the fruitless months of investigation that followed, stuck, becoming the stuff of legend and folklore, ingrained in the minds of local people.
Perhaps most baffling of all, none of the crime scenes yielded any physical evidence whatsoever – not a finger- or footprint, fibre of clothing or strand of hair.
Certain of a concrete link, so closely did the murderer (or murderers) M.O. match the unsolved killings that took place all those years ago, Kennedy was convinced that he was dealing with a twisted copycat killer. The only thing lacking in this case was a clear motive. When considering the victims’ backgrounds, he found nothing which could connect them to the previous killings. Here were an impoverished band of migrant workers, men who moved up and down the country, who picked seasonal fruit and vegetables, worked in factories and fields, sometimes even went off to sea. They were, in effect, invisible men, men who had slipped through the cracks of society, certainly not those engaged in activities which could’ve caused heinous offence to a deeply spiritual people.
The case stalled.
While Kennedy investigated an unrelated matter, another gang of workers was found murdered in a boarding house not ten miles from the town of Nattawa, in the exact same fashion as the other men. Again cards were left on the victims’ foreheads. And, after a thorough forensic examination of the crime scene, no physical evidence was found.
“How could this many men be killed in their sleep, and not a single trace be left behind?”
Chief Forensic Officer, Lee Rinder, shook his head. “Hell if I know, Pete. Looks like we really are dealing with the bogeyman.”
In this second set of slayings, however, two of the murdered men were well-known to local police. Miguel Munez and Hector Rodriguez were wanted in three states for a string of sexual crimes, including the rape and kidnap of two young girls under the age of consent. When Kennedy studied the case files, he found links to a string of other sexual assaults, one of which included a rather bizarre complaint against Rodriguez, filed by a woman who claimed to be his common-law wife. In the writ, she accused Rodriguez of knowingly infecting her with a sexual disease. In the margins of this typewritten report, someone had written out in block capitals: WOMAN NOW DECEASED, CAUSE OF DEATH, SECONDARY INFECTIONS ASSOCIATED WITH UNNAMED SEXUAL COMPLAINT.
Certain he was onto something Kennedy looked through all outstanding cases of sexual assault, rapes and kidnappings that had taken place over the last few years. Plotting a course across his own and neighbouring states, tallying up unsolved cases, he was able (and this was a laborious, time-consuming process) to connect a string of sexual offences to certain locations at a time of the year when strawberries, for example, were in season, another case, asparagus. In this fashion, he proved that men murdered at both scenes had been picked up by police for minor offences – drunkenness, petty theft, vagrancy – placing, at any one time, a handful of workers in that particular gang within the vicinity of a sex crime.
More tenuous, but nonetheless telling, he stumbled upon an article from a medical journal highlighting a dramatic increase in the spread of sexual infections in those areas around the time the migrant workers were in situ. In particular, there was contemporaneous evidence of an unexplained sexual disease, the likes of which medical practitioners had never seen before, a black rash oozing a curious oily discharge. But all those infected with the rash, and all were poor, working class people, or those of the lower criminal classes, prostitutes, especially, either disappeared or were found dead from an undiagnosed illness.
Frustratingly, after convincing his superiors that there was a sexual angle to the murders, they stopped. And to this day, the slayings remain unsolved.
As a postscript to these bizarre events, Pete Kennedy, who lived to be ninety-three years old, never got those gruesome killings, and the mystery surrounding them out of his mind. In his retirement years, he became obsessed with examining the case, going over files, witness statements, even taking the time to visit people from the Native American community, especially those of advancing years who may well have remembered both sets of killings. And although he turned up no new evidence as such, nothing that could shed any real light on the murders, let alone indicate who the killer was, he did find one chilling coincidence: the dates and timelines of each set of murders had some kind of pattern or correlation with the ancient story of Chief Wanayama, who, so legend has it, was violently slain, along with his entire village, by original European settlers. If Kennedy’s calculations are correct, the killings will recommence on October twenty-ninth 2014.
So beware:
The Boge, the Boge is not a real man
The Boge, the Boge will kill you out of hand
The Boge, the Boge will make you understand
The Boge, the Boge is the bogeyman
As soon as Katie had finished reading the article, she called Ryan. He picked up on the fourth or fifth ring. From the background noise, the splashing water and echoey laughter, she could tell he was bathing the twins.
“Give me your email address, will you?”
“My email address?”
“Yeah. I need to send you a link. I just read something on the internet that really freaked me out, something I think you should look at, something important.”
“Erm, okay.” He gave Katie the address.
“Great. Cheers. When you get the twins settled, read it and call me back, okay? Like I said, it could be important.”
***
“Where did you find this stuff?” asked Ryan.
“On some website,” Katie replied. “I remembered the story, the one about the Indian tribe, Chief Wanayama, the one the Boge told you and Jacque that time, and…Look. I know it sounds stupid, but do you think the Boge might be some kind of nutcase, that he read the same story on-line and is planning to recreate the murders? I mean, there’s been one body washed up already, and in the paper, it said that the back of her head had been hacked off.”
“Yeah, I know. But they also said it could’ve been done by a boat propeller, you know, after she drowned, and her body was bobbing up and down in the sea.”
“Still, there are far too many coincidences. So, what I think we should do is meet up tomorrow, maybe go and see the Boge, have a look around his place. Who knows? He might have got Jacqueline hidden away up there somewhere. You said yourself that he was the only one who’d give her weed on tick. Perhaps she went back for some more and –”
“I can’t – not tomorrow. I’m working two shifts. Henry’s going to take the kids. Maybe you should just tell the police, show them the article, tell them everything you know.”
“No way. They’d think I was off my head. What about the day after tomorrow, then? Let’s meet up, talk things through.”
As they made arrangements, the front door swung open. A moment later, she heard Michael’s booming voice – evidently, he was talking on the telephone.
“Cheers
, Ry. Give me a call when you can get away. Better shoot off now. Michael’s just got home from work and he’s a bit funny about me talking to other fellas on the phone.”
When she finished with the call, she shut her laptop down and listened in to Michael’s conversation, which had continued all the way into the kitchen.
“Yeah, the Old Bill has been asking questions ‘bout a missing girl…Look, Jase, no-one’s gonna find her, all right. If push comes to shove, tell ’em the truth – two birds up and did one, not the first time, won’t be the last. We’ve got all bases covered. If they look into the operation, we’ll get a slap on the wrists, no more…I might have to call in a favour or two, though. But as long as you’ve behaved yourself we shouldn’t have any problems.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Two Days Earlier: The Saturday Night
Michael Babb hadn’t won a single hand at cards all evening. A creature of habit, he liked to call into the Warwick Club every Saturday night, early doors, to have a drink with the lads, in the private room out back, sit around a card table, smoke a few cigars (fuck the smoking ban), knock back a dozen or so Jack Daniel’s and cokes, relax, and take a few quid off a few local mugs.
Only tonight things hadn’t gone to plan.
Already he was three hundred quid down, hadn’t been dealt any decent, half-playable cards. Like a twat, he’d tried to bluff his way to a couple of respectable pots, but hadn’t been convincing enough to scare anybody off (who’d put his cards in if he was holding a straight flush or four bullets, eh?)
Just as Michael was starting to lose his cool, to feel that prickly anger rise, just as he was starting to feel his drink, to look around the table, to try and find something to take offence at, the door creaked open, and in rushed Jason.
“Mike,” he leaned close and whispered, “can I, erm…have a quick word, like? It’s important.”
Strangely enough, this interruption didn’t piss Michael off as much as he would’ve expected. Perhaps an excuse to leave a game that had given him not the slightest sniff of good fortune was just what he’d been looking for.
Getting up, he made his apologies (“bloody work, eh, lads? Never stops – not even on a fucking Saturday night!”), called Jason a total cunt for interrupting the game, and then led the way to the corridor outside.
“What is it?”
Jason, looking fidgety and nervous, gulped back some saliva. “It’s, erm…one of the birds at the house, she’s only gone and got herself dosed up with a S.T.I. or something, had to go up to the hospital today, so she reckons, keeps harping on about needing her passport back to get a prescription.”
Babb took a step back into the light, and fixed Jason with the kind of hard-faced, murderous stare that had reduced far more resolute men to shivering wrecks.
“And you wouldn’t have anything to do with this, by any chance, would you?”
“No, no,” he said. “I just didn’t know what to do – ’bout the passport – and would never have dreamed of bothering you here at the club.”
Babb checked his watch – a jewel-encrusted Rolex Oyster Perpetual – half-ten.
“Well, look, it’s too late to do anything tonight, and it’s Sunday tomorrow. So just tell her I’ll be round first thing Monday to sort this shit out. Soft-soap her, say I’ll pay for any prescription she needs, say it’s in her contract of employment, that the welfare of our workforce is very important, blah-blah-blah. That should satisfy her, all right.”
***
Michael Babb stepped out into the cold, dark, blustery night. There was no-one else around; the narrow back streets were empty, the only sound the swirling wind blowing in off the sea. Pulling up the collar of his camel-skin coat, he looked right and left, and crossed the road in the direction of the taxi rank.
“Oi, Michael!”
He swung round to see Jacqueline Franklin, Katie’s nightmare of a druggie mate, striding over, her heels clopping against concrete, her body language bristly and confrontational.
“What’d you want?”
“I wanna have a word with you, you bastard.”
Somehow, and rarely did any restraint police Michael’s more violent reactions, he refrained from smacking her straight across the face – no-one ever, ever spoke to him like that and got away with it.
“Drop your fucking tone.” He rounded on her, fists twitching; fit to strike out if she said another word.
“Hit a woman, would you, Michael? Yeah. Just your style, that. One of those Polish girls you’ve got locked up in that house told me all about it.”
This took him aback. He lowered his fists.
“What are you on about? You been smoking something again?”
“No,” she said, jabbing a finger in his direction. “I happened to bump into one of your bloody slave workers, in bits she was, told me all about Jason creeping into her room at night, having his way with her, forcing himself on her, promising all sorts, and the way you rip them off, taking all their money, so they’ve got nothing left at the end of the week.”
Having just spoken to that soppy, cry-baby wanker Jason, he knew that this had more than just a semblance of truth about it.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes I do, Michael. What’s more, so will the police. There’s nothing I hate more than bastard men like you, exploiting women, treating them like objects, like we’re nothing but –”
“You’re way off the mark. You’re talking shit. You’re –”
“You won’t mind me making a report to the Old Bill, then?”
Their eyes met. A car with a loose fan belt screeched its way along Church Street. A gust of strong wind sent a stray carrier bag rustling high up in the air.
“What’d you want?” said Babb. “Money? A few quid to get you out of the shit?”
The way her features, so implacable a moment ago, softened, the way she bit into her bottom lip, told him that all her good intentions, principles, her fighting for the righteous cause, sticking up for those foreign birds, had gone straight out of the window. Like everybody, Jacqueline had her price.
“Look. I ain’t done nothing wrong, Jacqueline. I just supply accommodation and jobs to a few foreign workers, people who were starving, who couldn’t make a living in their own country, that’s all. If any of my employees have stepped over the line and taken advantage, I’ll look into it – you have my word on that. But I don’t need no aggravation, the law sniffing ’round, so why don’t we come to some arrangement, eh?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Emergency Town Council Meeting
“Such is the seriousness of the outbreak,” said Dr Preston Gambil, “it presents a very real and present danger to the health and well-being of local people. In my opinion, therefore, we have but one course of action available.” He made brief yet meaningful eye contact with each of the eight men sat around the conference table. “Firstly, we must close the town for seventy-two hours, call in the military to block each and every exit road, allowing no vehicles to leave or enter the exclusion area. Secondly, we must undertake a leaflet drop, informing residents of the outbreak of an unknown, potentially dangerous infection. Thirdly, we must set up a quarantine zone, perhaps a tent on the local football pitch would suffice.”
“Quarantine!” said Lord Campbell-Harding. “Isn’t that a tad drastic?”
“Drastic?” cried Gambil. “Didn’t you listen to my colleague’s presentation? In the last week alone, over one hundred local residents have contracted some kind of virulent sexual infection. Rigorous tests have been undertaken at the main hospital, but this is unlike anything we’ve ever encountered before. The incubation period is far from straightforward, cells appear to mutate quicker in some than in others, attacking healthy cells, destroying the immune system. If we don’t try and isolate it at source, we could have an epidemic on our hands.”
“He’s right, Bertie,” Dr Mitchell said to Lord Campbell-Harding. “I myself have examined thirty or more cases
. Extreme as these measures may appear, I feel we have no other option.”
“Thank you, Dr Mitchell.” Gambil nodded appreciatively. “Now, I’ve already liaised with local police.” He glanced down at a piece of paper on the table. “A, erm…Detective Inspector Hepworth has been conducting an investigation into a missing local woman, who may have been knowingly infecting her partners with the very disease that has baffled our laboratories. In the course of his enquiries, he’s interviewed a number of infected men, and has information regarding dozens of others who may have been at risk.”
“So this is definitely a sexually-transmitted infection, then?” said Councillor Wilmot. “Like A.I.D.s in the nineteen eighties, something the youngsters have been passing around amongst themselves?”
“At this stage,” said Gambil, “we can’t categorically state where and how this infection originated or how it’s been transmitted, as not all problems with the genital region are contracted through unprotected intercourse.”
“But surely,” said Lord Gerald Fellows, a retired judge, the oldest man present, “if a young man puts his private part inside a young woman and next day it looks like it might fall off, then chances are he’s got himself a dose of the clap or something, what?”
Gambil let out a weary-sounding sigh.
“Look. Whatever we’re dealing with here, it needs to be isolated and monitored, in a controlled environment. We need to undertake more tests, and, ultimately protect other residents from potential infection.” He looked around the room again. “So can we take a vote, please? Everyone in favour of closing the town for the seventy-two-hour period suggested, raise your hands now.”
Chapter Thirty
Leaflet Distributed to All Householders, 4th November, 2014
