The Deep Secret

by David Robinson

  Finished with the laminate press, in possession of front and rear plates for the Range Rover, he wandered round the shop, taking a few items here and there, including a large hunting knife. Then he took the money from the cash register, added it up to about two hundred pounds, stowed it in his pockets, and made his way out to the rear of the shop, where he spent a further five minutes attaching the new plates (a simple enough job using double-sided adhesive tabs to stick them on) before climbing into the Range Rover and driving off.

  He’d had a good day. He and Gerry had taken turns with the nurse from Leeds before dumping her in a field between Huddersfield and Manchester, then they’d had turns about with both Trish and Belinda Sinclair, but, unlike Gerry, he had used condoms. Any semen they found in the women would be Gerry Burke’s, not his.

  Thanks to Ted Sinclair, he had sufficient changes of clothing to alter his external appearance, but it was getting late and he needed somewhere to rest for the night. Hotels were out of the question. If and when the cops went public, it would be too dangerous to stay anywhere so public. It would have to be a farmhouse or something of that nature. The three guns he had taken from Ted Sinclair’s cabinet would be sufficient to secure lodgings.

  He grinned at the thought. “Preferably somewhere with a tasty piece of tail living in.” Now he laughed. “If not, I’ll just have to pick up some tart off the street.”

  ***

  “I never thought I’d see the day when I would welcome you back, Croft, but I’m glad you’re here.”

  Settling into a seat alongside Millie and opposite Superintendent Shannon, while Thurrock leaned against the wall at the rear of Shannon’s small office, Croft smiled thinly. “The feeling is mutual, Superintendent, so let’s get down to business. What’s the state of play?”

  “First off, let me offer my condolences for Ms Sinclair.”

  “We can deal with the tears and sorrow later,” Croft insisted. “Where are we at?”

  Shannon drew up a small stack of reports, and began to thumb through them. “I assume Millie has brought you up to speed as far as she knew.” He looked up while Croft nodded confirmation. “Well, this report came from Warrington about an hour ago.” Again he looked into Croft’s eyes. “How well did you know Ted Sinclair?”

  “Well enough to know that he didn’t like me,” Croft admitted. “Trish’s family never approved of our relationship, and whenever we met, I was, er, cold-shouldered.”

  He was braced for some comment from either Shannon or Thurrock, but the superintendent refrained.

  Instead, Shannon asked, “You don’t know how many pistols and rifles he owned, then?”

  “He was into guns,” Croft said hazily, “as Warrington have apparently confirmed. That’s all I know. Trish never approved and I have to say, neither did I.”

  “Yes, well, the Warrington boys would agree. He was a member of a local gun club and, of course, his pistols should have been kept on club premises, not at home. When they checked, there’s a 12 gauge shotgun, a Webley .22 revolver, and a Colt 45 automatic missing. The latter is a bit of a collector’s item, but it was a live weapon. They don’t know for sure yet, but they think our man must have found it and shot them all with these weapons.”

  “What about the two patrol officers, sir?” Thurrock asked.

  “Unlucky,” Shannon said with a scowl. “We called Warrington after Millie spoke to you first thing this morning, Croft, and they sent the nearest patrol car straight to Sinclair’s house. When the two officers didn’t report in, and on the back of our second call to them, Warrington sent in another car. They found both officers in the hall. Male, shot in the head, female shot in the back and the head.”

  “I’m sorry,” Croft said. “I know how much it hurts you people when one of your own is murdered.”

  “Every policeman in the country will want to get his hands on the bastard,” Thurrock muttered.

  Ignoring the remark, Croft asked, “What happened with Burke?”

  “He was found in a lay-by about nine miles from the Sinclairs’ place, on the Northwich road. Both barrels of a 12 gauge at point blank range. I said Sinclair was licensed for one such weapon and it’s missing. The pathologist in Northwich, Warrington or where the hell ever, has speculated that the shotgun wound was post mortem. Don’t ask me how they know these things, but that’s what he’s saying.”

  Croft stared through the single window at the rooftops of Scarbeck town centre, trying to slot the disparate pieces of information into place.

  It was a sight he had become so familiar with since moving to this little town nestling under the Pennine moors. It was a sight he had hoped never to take in again, and now that he looked upon it, the memories of those distant, damp, cold days and nights returned to haunt him.

  Bringing his focus back to Shannon’s tiny office, he said, “He killed Burke first, maybe hit him with the proverbial blunt instrument, then blew away his face. An obvious and crude attempt to prevent identification.”

  “That’s how we see it. We can’t imagine Burke just laying there while his accomplice blew his head off and there are no signs that he was restrained.” Shannon consulted his notes again. “It hasn’t yet been officially confirmed that it is Burke, but privately, there is absolutely no doubt. Prints confirm that it is him, but we’ll have the DNA analysis by Wednesday or Thursday. Preliminary reports indicate that Ted Sinclair, too, was already dead when he was shot. That’s not confirmed yet, but he was struck on the head with the same blunt instrument. The gunshot was post mortem.”

  Croft tossed the information in his mind once more. “A test,” he declared. “He or they were testing the weapons before killing Trish and Belinda.”

  Eyebrows rose around him.

  “We know Burke. We know his forte is strangulation, whether by hanging or ligature. He gets off on the struggle… he got off on the struggle. Now he and his pal have raised their game. They shot a dead man purely to test the weaponry. Chances are it wasn’t Burke, but our Mr X. He’s armed and he means business.” Croft took in their faces and, satisfied that they were accepting his analysis, he asked, “What happened with Belinda and Trish?”

  “Patricia tied to the bed, Belinda laid across her.” Shannon replied. “Semen in both vaginas. They were raped before they were murdered. We’re hoping the semen will give us a lead on our man.”

  “Millie told me.”

  “That’s the old Burke; the one we all know,” Millie said. “Any news on the nurse from Leeds, sir?”

  “Only the routine details,” Shannon replied. “Chloe Richardson, aged thirty-nine, worked at the Leeds General Infirmary. Her car was found along the road from the Sinclairs’ place, but there’s no sign of her. We have Motorway Control going through all the CCTV footage at the appropriate times for traces of the car.”

  Croft shook his head. “They will have disposed of her before they ever got to this side of the Pennines, and he won’t have used the motorway from Leeds. Too quiet at the time of day. CCTV would have picked the car up. They probably came across the Pennines on one of the old trunk roads from Huddersfield. The road from Longwood to Scarbeck is quite lonely these days. If I were you, Shannon, I’d get your people, or the West Yorkshire force, checking behind the dry stone walls or the reservoirs in the hills around Scarbeck.”

  With pursed lips and a tiny shrug of the shoulders, Shannon conceded the point. “Millie said you didn’t believe they’d come here.”

  “No. I don’t believe they would stay here,” Croft corrected. “They already knew Trish wasn’t here, but you didn’t. Leaving a deliberate trail and making their way in this direction would be enough to put you and West Yorkshire on full alert, and while you were watching for them, they probably slipped through South Manchester and out to Warrington. But there’s a large gap between the abduction of this Chloe Richardson, giving them plenty of time to do what they wanted with her – and we all know what I mean by that – then murder her and dump the body somewhere on the moors.�
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  “You believe she’s dead?” Millie asked.

  “Let’s not fool ourselves about Burke, eh?” Croft suggested. “He’s a sadist. He gets off on the death struggle, and human life doesn’t mean that, to him.” Croft snapped his fingers to emphasise his point. “If there were some means of maintaining that struggle so he could keep an erection, he’d employ it, but there isn’t, so the logical conclusion to any of his acts is the death of the victim. He doesn’t care. He’s had his orgasm and there are plenty of unwary women out there. I think we can assume the same is true of his friend.” His eyes narrowed and the deep V of a frown formed between them. “What I can’t understand is why they killed Trish, and why did he murder Burke?”

  “A change of plan?” Millie asked.

  “I’m guessing, remember, but I imagine Burke would have wanted her as bait in the trap, but she was murdered and so was he. Why? Why did our Mr X think differently? Where’s my motivation for meeting him?”

  “Anger?” Thurrock suggested. “You must be pretty pissed at him.”

  “Yes, but it would make me more likely to avoid him, especially considering he’s armed. I’d leave him to your people.”

  “How do you know he’ll want to meet with you?” Shannon demanded.

  “I know why Burke contacted me. He wanted the most powerful hypnotic weapon so he can further his insane search for permanent gratification. I can only assume his accomplice wants the same thing.”

  “This Deep Secret stuff?” Shannon asked and Croft nodded. “I thought you said it was nonsense.”

  “As far as I’m concerned it is,” Croft replied. “I haven’t read much of Zepelli’s manuscript. I haven’t had the time. But he insists The Deep Secret is hidden in the code, and by that, I assume he means the passage of twaddle on page two.” His features darkened again. “Our man must be a hypnotist in order to use it. If not, it means he’s working for someone else who’s paying for it. He will be in touch, but if we tell him that I don’t have it, he’ll disappear.”

  “So we lead him on?” Millie suggested.

  “I lead him,” Croft corrected her. “Superintendent, as we speak, there’s been very little publicity on this matter. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll go public on it all. Bring it into the open, and stress that I have been called back from the Canary Islands to help track him down.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but that’s crazy,” Thurrock objected from behind them. “You could start a panic.”

  Again Croft disagreed. “First, it will alert people to the danger, and make them more wary. Second, he will be trying to follow your efforts. He needs to know where you’re up to. I said to Millie earlier, he’s making a lot of this up as he goes along. Help him make it up. Push him into changing his plans frequently. He wants The Deep Secret. He won’t let me deliver it until he’s arranged a killing bottle and I’m in it, probably with some innocent woman as the bait to draw me in. He’ll arrange it so you can’t be present. Like the last time with Burke, it will come down to him and me. Let’s go that way and then when the crunch comes, I’ll face him.”

  Shannon tapped his fingers on the desk, his eyes turned away from them, staring through the windows, weighing the odds. He whipped his head backed and faced them.

  “I don’t like it, but I think you’re right, Croft. I’ll speak to the Chief Super and we’ll get a word with the CC, see if we can’t get other forces to go with us. I don’t like putting you in the firing line, but if you’re willing to take the risk, then we should be, too. Now here’s how we play it. Dave,” he addressed Thurrock, “you and Rob Fletcher will work with me, liaising with all other forces. Millie, you are assigned to protecting Croft. You’re firearms trained, and you will carry a weapon.”

  “Sir, I—”

  “No arguments. I want you armed. I’ll clear it with the Chief Constable’s office.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Shannon concentrated on the hypnotist. “As of now, unless things change, we’re in your hands. I’m ready and willing to listen to everything you have to say. I want this bastard behind bars or dead, I don’t care which, as soon as possible.”

  ***

  The High Point was a shabby, run-down hotel on the outskirts of Scarbeck, just off the bypass, but for Croft it was preferable to Millie’s offer of a bed at her apartment.

  “After Trish, you are probably the best thing that ever happened to me,” he told her over a mixed grill in the hotel’s dimly lit restaurant. “But if I stayed with you, we’d end up screwing, and I don’t want to. Not tonight. I’m too tired, and I don’t yet know how I feel. It’s been a hectic eighteen hours, and I haven’t come to terms with anything yet. Maybe tomorrow.”

  Millie had argued, but only from the point of view of his safety.

  “I told you, I’m perfectly safe. I don’t have what our boy wants. Not yet. He won’t go for me until he’s sure I have it.”

  So Millie left him to sleep as best he could in a small, cramped room on the first floor, but sleep was a long time coming. Listening to a couple next door having sex, listening to another resident coughing as he climbed out of bed, and then flushing the lavatory, listening to the sounds of the kitchen below, and thinking about Trish.

  And yet, there were no tears. When he thought about her, all he could feel was absolute fury, and the target of that fury was out there, somewhere, planning… planning what? More murders? More rape? Or just Croft’s demise?

  But he had a weapon: one that he had not been aware of until a chance remark from Millie told him.

  Talking over dinner, their conversation veered away from him spending the night with her, and turned naturally to the pursuit of Gerald Burke.

  “Felix, this Deep Secret thing—”

  “It’s a myth,” he interrupted. “A daydream which belongs to the mind control fantasists. I told you this once before, Millie, if it were a reality, don’t you think the governments of the world would know? All right, all right, I’ve read Zepelli’s official biography, and I’ve seen his claims in the latest manuscript to the effect that Julius Reiniger taught him the secret. But Julius Reiniger is probably dead. So is Zepelli, and aside from the mention of the code in the manuscript, which, coincidentally, I don’t know if I can crack, The Deep Secret died with them.”

  “But then you’re not reading the same manuscript as Burke and his pal, are you?”

  Croft was puzzled. “Yes, I am.”

  “No. You said you had it transcribed onto your computer. They must have read the original handwritten thing. If Zepelli had, f’rinstance, hidden the secret in those, wossnames, acrostics, like his son used in some of his early Handshaker notes, they won’t come out the same on your computer because you probably get more words on a line than someone does when they write by hand.”

  It was a moment of stark realisation. Croft sat back, so suddenly that Millie looked alarmed. “Jesus, you’re right.” He fell silent a moment. “But they can’t be acrostics.”

  “Why?” Millie asked.

  “Gerry Burke understood acrostics. You just said, he used them on some of The Handshaker notes. With nothing to give him a hint in the manuscript, the first thing he would look for would be acrostics.” He beamed at her. “Millie, I have to go to Oaklands tomorrow.”

  A fret of worry furrowed her brow. “That could be dangerous.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s the only place I can go where I can find absolute peace. And anyway, my copy of Zepelli’s autobiography is out there and I may need it.” He smiled at her. “Don’t worry, he won’t come for me. Not at Oaklands, and not while your gunmen are outside. He’ll have made his own arrangements for me.”

  11

  (As recounted by Anna Etzler to Franz Walter and later, by Walter to Julius Reiniger.)

  Heinrich would have many reasons for remembering Monday August 20 1934.

  On the previous day, the German people went to the polls, but this was no democratic election. It was a plebiscite, giving Germany th
e opportunity to approve Hitler’s new powers and recognise him as The Führer. The referendum had returned no less than 38,000,000 ‘ja’ votes giving the National Socialists overwhelming approval for their programme of reforms. On Monday morning, for the first time since taking up his post in Heidelberg, Herr Etzler arrived at his desk with his National Socialist party badge pinned to the lapels of his business suit and no one, not his controller, not his clerks, offered a word of complaint.

  At eleven o’clock in the morning, the entire departmental staff were scheduled to take the oath of allegiance, now compulsory for all public officials. Etzler had spent most of the weekend learning it off by heart.

  I swear I shall be loyal and obedient to Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the German Reich and people, respect the laws, and fulfil my official duties conscientiously, so help me God.

  Most of those in the office had their reservations. Public employees, they pointed out, were supposedly impartial and above politics. By swearing an oath of allegiance to Hitler, they were compromising that impartiality. Etzler had no qualms. He had long ago realised that Germany needed a man like the Führer to lead her back to greatness and if the cost of having Hitler at the helm was the loss of freedom from political interference, then it was a small price to pay.

  The day, however, was not all sweetness and light. Indeed, it had begun with a cloud not on the horizon but hanging over the house: His wife.

  Anna was becoming more and more depressed and agitated and her behaviour was becoming more eccentric. Only a month ago, she had been to the doctor asking for sleeping pills, and now she was acting secretively. Going out without telling anyone, including Heidi, the housemaid, where she was going, staying out until quite late in the evening. Twice in the past week he had come home from the office to find his wife out and no dinner prepared, and this morning she had snapped at him over breakfast.