The Deep Secret

by David Robinson

  Walter sighed with exaggerated patience. “Please listen to me, Captain. I am not a Jew and I am not a communist. I am a good German with a love of my country.”

  “A good German?” Lehrer shouted. “You’re not even a member of the party.”

  Struggling to keep his temper, Walter forced his tone to the conciliatory. “I have never been interested in politics.”

  “Take him back,” Lehrer shouted.

  He injected a note of pleading. “Sir, if you will permit me a few more minutes, I will demonstrate how I may be of use to the war effort.”

  Hauptmann Lehrer held up his hand to stop Kohler from dragging Walter out. “What kind of demonstration?” A hint of suspicion still resounded in the tones.

  “I need only Private Kohler and yourself present. I promise it will just take a few minutes of your time, but it would not do for anyone else to see this.”

  Lehrer returned to his seat. “Very well. Continue.”

  “First, Captain, I need you to give Private Kohler a direct order that he is not to release my chains.”

  Lehrer laughed. “He is a true German, a man who knows how to follow orders. He would never release your chains except upon my direct command.”

  “Nevertheless, sir, I need you to reiterate that to him.”

  Lehrer shrugged and eyed the confused private. “Kohler, under no circumstances will you release this prisoner from his chains. Do you understand?”

  Private Kohler snapped to smarter attention. “Yes, sir.”

  Lehrer smiled at Walter. “There you are, Jew. Now show me whatever you wish to show.”

  Walter half bowed, turned and touched Kohler on the shoulder. “Combarus.”

  There was no discernible change in Kohler. A slight glazing of the eyes, and little colour coming to his cheeks, but otherwise, he appeared to Lehrer as he always had.

  “Herr Kohler, you will unfasten my chains and remove them.”

  Lehrer looked on, at first angry, then horror-struck as Kohler unhooked a bunch of keys from his belt, and proceeded to unfasten Walter’s shackles.

  “Stop,” Lehrer shouted. “Kohler. I order you to stop.”

  “He cannot hear you, Captain,” Walter said. “He is working under my command, sir, not yours. I have complete control over him, and he is unaware of it.” The criminal hypnotist held out his hands, free of chains while the hypnotised private bent to unfasten those at his ankles. “If, sir, I was the unscrupulous Jew you insist, I would have had him turn his rifle upon you and shoot you dead. But I am a good German, Captain. I can be of service to my country.” Walter smiled. “Can you imagine what use the Reich can make of this power? The power to interrogate enemy agents and have him deliver the truth in a matter of minutes.”

  Behind the desk, Lehrer was still gawping.

  Walter smiled again, this time in victory. “Is my country ready to send me to war?”

  14

  Croft unlocked the door to Oaklands, and was relieved to hear nothing but the bleep of the intruder alarm. Not that anyone else could have been inside. The two armed police officers on the gate had assured him that no one had been near the place all night.

  He punched in the four digit code to silence the alarm. “At least the door doesn’t creak,” he said to himself.

  Despite the summer heat outside, the interior felt chilly, but he reminded himself that the place had been left empty for the last nine months, and he had set the heating to come on twice a day for an hour to air the place off.

  He gazed around the grand, palazzo style hall, with its ornate floor tiles, and display cabinets filled with antiques, some of them worth hundreds, thousands of pounds. There was an atmosphere of neglect about it. The banister of the curving staircase lacked the gleam it had enjoyed when Mrs Hitchins, his daily, gave it a weekly going over. A film of dust had gathered over the glass of the cabinets, too, and even the ornate chandelier hanging from the ceiling lacked sparkle.

  His footsteps echoing around the cavernous space, he made his way to his study, a room dedicated to his obsession with the 1960s. Books, some of them, once again, quite old, lined the walls, and on an old-fashioned, G-plan sideboard sat a Dansette record player alongside a Remington, manual typewriter. Looking along the shelves, he picked out his copy of H.E. Hammerschlag’s Hypnotism and Crime and dropped it in his pocket. Further along, he took down his copy of The Great Zepelli – A Life on Stage and dropped that in the other pocket.

  It was tempting to ignore Millie’s advice and move back in, but he could imagine her reaction.

  “Don’t, Felix.”

  It would be as simple as that.

  He was also tempted to open up the garage and get his Mercedes back on the road, but it, too, had stood for nine months. It would need a full service before he could even think about it.

  Anger and grief still clouded his thinking. A night in the High Point Hotel had done nothing to assuage either. They would ease with activity; the task of hunting down this madman. Perhaps tonight he would accept Millie’s offer of a bed. Making love to her would lower his testosterone levels, and that too would help his thought processes.

  A wave of guilt rushed through him. Trish was dead. Ted and Belinda were dead. Other innocent people had died. And all he could think of was his own primeval needs.

  He slumped into the dusty chair behind the desk, leaned forward on his elbows. Hands clasped beneath his chin.

  Trish hated this study. To her it was a piece of history, a throwback to the fusty rooms of Heads of Chambers. She tried many ways to persuade Croft into modernising it, but he always refused. Once, she had stood in the doorway clad only in frilly underwear and dark stockings.

  “If you promise to modernise this place, I’ll fulfil this promise,” she said, sweeping her hands down from breast to thigh to emphasise the promise in question.

  Croft had found it amusing, titillating, and she fulfilled the promise anyway, but he refused to budge on the matter of the room.

  It was a single, vicarious, and happy memory from the contented years they had spent together, and as it took form in his head, others rushed in to join it. The pressure of the last twenty-four hours built, combined with the stress of the last twenty months, and turned the heat on the icy front he had put up. Croft fought it. A single tear trickled from his eye and he broke, burying his face in his hands, crying for his lost love. The grief, the emptiness, the loneliness that had enveloped and restricted him since the night Trish was first abducted, flooded out in an uncontrollable wave of raw emotion.

  Loxley men do not cry, Croft. Crying is a sign of weakness, and Loxley men are not weak.

  The headmaster’s litany, so often repeated, usually after a beating, and reinforced by his autocratic father, resounded in his head, and added to the anger. Croft ignored the memory and allowed his emotions to run their natural course. Deep beneath the uncontrollable weeping, the tiny voice of reason spoke to him. Loxley men can cry. Let it out. Let it all come out now.

  Memories of Trish assailed him and brought further anguish. A happy, smiling Trish, never beautiful, always attractive, always alluring, seductive, a woman in love with a man who silently worshipped her.

  The images switched. Now she was cold, grey, naked, laid on a mortuary slab, her organs removed for forensic examination. First robbed of her sanity, then robbed of her dignity, now robbed of her life.

  Croft wept further, and through the tears appeared the face of Gerald Burke; The Handshaker. A mindless, lunatic murderer, laughing gleefully at Croft’s distress, gloating in the pain he had caused. Alongside it was the blank, unknown face of Burke’s accomplice who had callously murdered Trish before disposing of The Handshaker.

  The racking sobs subsided, fires of anger began to build inside, threatening to well up, burst forth in a wave of indiscriminate destruction, lashing out at everything and anything.

  Croft reined in both his pain and his anger. He took a few deep breaths, sucking in the still, stagnant air of Oaklands. H
e called on his reserves of courage and determination.

  “Whoever you are, you’re a dead man.”

  ***

  “Felix? Are you there, Felix?”

  Croft was still in the study, working through the early pages of Zepelli’s handwritten manuscript when Millie’s voice floated through from the hall. “In here,” he shouted.

  He heard her heels clicking across the hall tiles. Then she appeared in the doorway, pouting her disapproval. “I thought I’d find you here. Didn’t you listen to what was said yesterday? It’s dangerous for you to be alone.”

  He nodded at the window, indicating the general direction of the outside. “Your armed guerrillas are outside, and anyway, it wasn’t me who didn’t listen. It was you and your colleagues. He will not come here. And even if he did, he wouldn’t kill me.” He lifted the manuscript from the desk and dropped it back down again. “Not until I’ve cracked this.”

  Millie sat opposite him and changed the subject. “Sleep well?”

  “Not especially. Strange hotel, life partner recently murdered. These things tend to keep you awake.”

  She sighed. “If you need to talk, Felix, I’m here. I may not be much use, but I have a good listening ear.”

  “You’re doing your job, Millie, and you’re doing it well.”

  “I care about you,” she insisted. “You’re more than just another case file. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

  Croft snapped a large elastic band round the manuscript and put it back in the folder. “No. And if you still insist, I’ll take up your offer tonight. No sex… well, no guarantee of sex, but a bed anywhere would be preferable to that appalling hotel.”

  “No problem,” she replied. “Now, we’d better get a move on. Shannon’s expecting us.”

  “Briefing?”

  “Probably.”

  “One thing.” With the folder still open, Croft removed the solicitor’s letter and handed it over. “William T Harper, Solicitor. An address in Bath. Can you run a check on him?”

  Millie shrugged. “Sure. Any particular reason?”

  He held up the folder. “He’s the lawyer who sent this to me. He must know something of Burke and his family.”

  Millie tucked the letter in her bag, and as she did so, Croft noticed the ugly shape of an automatic pistol.

  “Shannon was serious then?”

  She smiled. “I’ve never yet used a firearm anywhere but on the range, but Ernie is insisting, and I have to follow orders.”

  Croft moved to the far wall, where a solid, steel Chubb safe sat incongruously amongst the wooden furniture. Bending down, he turned the dial, twice left, once right, snapped back the handle and drew the safe open. There were a few documents in there; a copy of his will, which, he reminded himself, would need changing, a few insurance policies, but that aside, it was empty. He dropped the original, handwritten manuscript inside and closed the safe, spinning the combination lock to secure it.

  “Won’t we need it?” Millie asked.

  He shook his head. “Your people can work on my transcript and I have that on the laptop.”

  She nodded and ushered him from the house. “Shall we?”

  Locking up at the house, Croft climbed into her Vauxhall.

  “I’ll tell you what I don’t understand,” she said, firing the engine. “Burke. He tried his damnedest to kill you the year before last. Now he suddenly got together with our man and they decide they want you to solve this Deep Secret crap. How come?”

  Croft waved to the officers stationed by the blackened, sandstone pillars at the entrance to his mansion as Millie pulled out onto Allington Lane, and turned right towards Scarbeck.

  “I can only speculate that it wasn’t Burke, but Mr X. Gerry Burke was no fool. He knew I was the best when it comes to these things. As good as his father ever was, every bit as good as we’re led to believe Franz Walter was. X must have persuaded him to let me crack Zepelli’s code before killing me, and if Burke fed him enough information about me, then X’s threat to carry on killing is the bargaining chip.”

  Millie eased up at the junction of Allington Lane and Huddersfield Road. Checking over her shoulder that the road was clear, she accelerated away. “And how will you deal with that?”

  Croft’s smile was more serious. “I’ll handle it when I need to. Right now, like X, I’m making it up as we go along.”

  ***

  A half hour later, they joined Shannon in his office. He looked tired, drawn, as if he had not slept.

  “Here’s what came in overnight. Warrington first. The pistol used to kill Ms Sinclair and her sister-in-law, along with the post mortem shot at Mr Sinclair, has been positively identified as the Webley .22 belonging to Ted Sinclair. Ballistics matched up the bullets taken from the bodies with samples from the gun club Mr Sinclair was a member of.” His tired eyes fell on Croft. “I’m sorry. If you find this distressing, I’ll cut it short.”

  Croft shook his head. “I can cope. I need to know whatever you know.”

  Shannon referred back to the draft reports. “The two police officers, however, were killed with the Colt 45 automatic.”

  Croft nodded. “Ten to one Burke and his pal noticed the gun display and took the first one they could lay hands on. After they’d finished with Trish, Belinda and Ted, they then took more guns, including that Colt. It’s a more powerful weapon than the Webley.”

  “That’s how Warrington see it,” Shannon agreed. “They found a single bullet in what was left of Burke’s brain, and that, too, was from the 45. They had that right, too, by the way. Burke was already dead when the shotgun was used on him. It was a crude effort at hiding his identity.” The superintendent dropped the first sheet face down on his desk, and concentrated on the next. “Preliminary indications are that semen found on both women is Burke’s. Too early for a definitive analysis. That’ll take a few days. What’s odd is that Burke’s is the only semen, but there are traces of lubricants commonly used in condoms.”

  “Your conclusion?” Croft asked.

  “I can only speculate,” Shannon replied.

  “Another effort to hide his identity,” Millie put in. “He knew we’d identify Burke somewhere along the line, but he wants to keep himself secret as long as possible.”

  “That’s how I see it,” Shannon agreed.

  “It sounds reasonable, but we still have the lawyer in Bath to go on.” Croft took a moment to explain how he had come by the handwritten manuscript. “It seems to me, he must have some knowledge of Burke’s history and that may give us an inkling into X’s identity.”

  “I’ll get the lads onto it when we’re through,” Shannon promised. Once again, he slipped the top sheet to his desk and began to read from the next. “Chloe Richardson, the nurse from Leeds: her body was found dumped in a field behind a dry stone wall on the Longwood to Scarbeck road, as you suggested yesterday. It was a good call, Croft. West Yorkshire say that she, too, had been raped, and again, the preliminary reports suggest it was Burke, and again there are traces of condom lubricant.” He slipped that sheet to the back, too. “The proprietor of an auto spares shop in Northwich was found beaten to death early this morning. The Cheshire police have reports of a vehicle similar to Ted Sinclair’s, a dark-coloured Range Rover, seen hanging about the vicinity for some time yesterday afternoon. Their forensic people are going over the shop, looking for traces of our man, but that’s not going to be easy, especially in a shop and especially considering we don’t know who he is. Cheshire are guessing, but they say it looks like some tools and an angler’s-stroke-hunter’s knife were taken from the shop and the till was empty.” Turning to the final sheet, Shannon placed them flat on the desk and read aloud again. “Finally, this came in about an hour ago. The owner of a farm between Nantwich and Audlem was found battered to death and his dog shot with a .22. His wife was found upstairs, tied naked to a bed, her throat cut with a hunting knife, the likes of which was missing from the auto spares shop. She’d been raped; no semen but traces
of condom lubricant. We can’t officially link these last two crimes to our man until such times as we have some corroborating evidence like a ballistics match on the bullet from the dog.” Shannon eyed Croft. “Why the sudden change to cutting throats with a hunting knife?”

  Croft guessed that the superintendent would already have an opinion from the police profilers and was merely seeking to confirm it, or get a handle on Croft’s grasp of events.

  “A demonstration,” he declared. “He’s showing us just how cruel he’s prepared to be.”

  “Exactly what our people said,” Shannon replied, confirming Croft’s thoughts. “If it is him, he’s travelling south, and not heading for Scarbeck.”

  Shannon and Millie looked to Croft who chewed over the information. Eventually, he said, “Bristol is too obvious.”

  “Why Bristol?” Shannon asked.

  “Burke lived there for most of his life. His father, Zepelli, toured Great Britain, but his home base was the Bristol Hippodrome. Gerry Burke was born and raised in Bristol, brought up and educated there after he was thrown out of Granthaven. When Zepelli died in prison, his body was released to the family, and he’s buried in Bristol.”

  “Burke is dead,” Shannon reminded him.

  “I know. But do you imagine that Burke and X met only recently? All right, they might have done, but think about it, Shannon. The solicitor who sent me the manuscript is in Bath, less than fifteen miles from Bristol. Everything would, logically, point to someone from that area and by default, someone from Burke’s past.”

  The superintendent nodded. “All right. Do we have an address for Burke in Bristol?”

  Croft shook his head. “Someone will have. The local authority, I should imagine. Burke only moved up here about six, seven years ago, so the records will be fairly fresh. Chances are,” he went on while Shannon scribbled a note, “the house would have been in his mother’s name, not his. Georgina Burke. It could even be in his father’s name, I suppose; Graham Burke, but he died over thirty years ago.”

  “I’ll get onto it.” Shannon glanced at his watch. “The Chief constable’s going on TV in about an hour. We’re taking your advice, Croft, and going public on it. Now, what do you have for us?”