‘So why the pantomime with the electric flex?’ I asked.
‘Simple. I thought even you would realise that. It had to be in the papers, with photographs, so they knew the deed had been done. Same with that black piece of shit. A nice touch, don’t you think, hanging him over the toilet?’
‘And what about the doc?’ I asked. ‘What about John Williamson?’
‘Same again. To get in the papers, so the world would know that Acting Detective Inspector Priest, scourge of the murderers, wasn’t as clever as we all thought he was.’
‘But why the doc? What had he done to deserve that?’
‘Yes, it does seem odd, doesn’t it? Let’s say it was just an indulgence of mine. I chose the doc to hurt you, Priest. To jolt your complacency, you and that celebrity woman of yours. What’s she called: La fucking Gazelle? You like skinny women, do you? They turn you on, do they?’
‘You’re mad!’ I told him, spitting the words out like they were poisonous. ‘You’re stark raving mad. You’re crazier than anyone I’ve ever had the pleasure of arresting.’
‘Don’t say that!’ he yelled at me. The gun was wavering wildly but he brought it under control. ‘Don’t ever call me that again.’
‘You’re as mad as a fucking hatt—’
He fired and my head exploded. I clutched my left hand over my ear and the protectors had gone. He’d hit one side and sent them and the safety spectacles spinning off. I looked at my hand and there was blood on it.
I was thinking forensic, now. His story was a good one, but that was one bullet that didn’t fit the screenplay. I could feel blood running down my neck and under my shirt. That wasn’t in the script, either. I said, ‘You’ll never get away with this.’ I wanted to tell him about Dave’s phone call, but it might have put Dave in danger. It was pathetic, but the best I could do, so I said it again, ‘You’ll never get away with it.’
He bent down and picked up the sniper rifle. ‘It’s got to be this one, I’m afraid,’ he told me. ‘And a body shot. I’d be happy to shoot you in the head, but one in your guts will look more like an accident, don’t you think. You shouldn’t take more than a minute or so to die.’
He slid the bolt to rack the next cartridge into the chamber. It’s the sickliest sound on earth when you know it’s for you. I lifted my Glock and pointed it at his head.
‘Put the gun down, Stanwick,’ I said.
This time he laughed out loud. ‘Sorry, Charlie, but three fives are fifteen. Your gun’s empty.’
I placed the dot on the front sight right between his eyes. The eyes of the Executioner. A definition came into my mind: Executioner: noun, one authorised to kill on behalf of the state. Murderers kill for gain, or because they are mad, or for a variety of other reasons. Stanwick thought he was doing society’s dirty work, at least to begin with. Until the madness took complete control. Up to that point he thought that he, Mark Stanwick, was the state’s executioner.
But he was wrong.
I brought the outer dots up until all three were in a line, like Orion’s belt across his forehead. Stanwick’s shoulders stiffened with renewed purpose and he levelled the rifle at my stomach.
The explosion sounded like two express trains colliding head-on in my skull. Stanwick’s head snapped back and he kept right on going. His feet didn’t move or stagger to keep him upright because there was nothing sending signals to them. There was a brief flash of a white triangle under his chin as he went over backwards and a wet thud as he hit the floor.
I lowered the Glock and saw the effigy of Elvis swaying slightly. He had a new, bigger hole through his head, surrounded by bits of brain, bone and blood that were already running down and dripping onto the concrete. I looked down at the man who wanted to kill me and noticed that even the soles of his shoes were polished. That’s an arrestable offence in itself.
‘Seventeen,’ I said. ‘I lost count. I put seventeen in.’
Chapter Thirteen
Sonia ran in a 5,000 metres track race at Birmingham the following weekend. She’d joined Oldfield Athletic Club and taken part in an inter-club league event. It was a good field, with a couple of invited competitors sharpening themselves for the Athens Olympics and others hoping for a last chance to catch the selectors’ eyes. I went with her and we travelled down on the Friday. I was suspended from duty, so having time off wasn’t a problem.
The wind was blustery for the race, and it caused problems for Sonia, her tall frame being knocked about by it. She finished mid-field, but was happy with her time. She said she didn’t have the depth of training to do much better, but it would come. When we arrived home there was an email on my computer for her from her contact in South Africa. It said that Cape Town University was still looking for an athletics coach for their women’s team, and she had to get her application in.
‘What do you think?’ she asked, showing me the copy she’d made.
‘Like it says,’ I told her. ‘Get your application in.’
Dorothea Stanwick didn’t need any encouragement to spill the beans on her husband. What clinched it for me was when Dave told me she admitted that Stanwick had stopped at the bus station on their way home from the Rotary spring ball to make a phone call, saying that his mobile battery was flat and refusing to use hers. That was the triple-nine telling us to go to Lapetite’s address. He also, she said, had asked for his clothes to be washed that day, and they were covered in white dust, ‘like plaster of Paris’.
We – well, they – found scrapbooks in his den, containing cuttings of major cases going back over twenty years. The Midnight Strangler and Lapetite were in there, their stories bordered with highlighter pen. Somebody called William John Hardcastle had been singled out, too, but we found him alive and kicking. Dave went to see him and he remembered a caller who came to his door a few weeks earlier, but Dave didn’t tell him how lucky he was. They also found cuttings from the Gazette about Sonia and me.
After I’d shot him I carefully laid my gun, with its one remaining bullet, on the concrete and went looking for Damian. He was curled up on the floor in the control room with a bullet through his head. I went outside and sat on the ground for several minutes, where the golfers couldn’t see me, and wondered what sort of a world I was living in. When all this is over, I vowed, I’ll be out of it. I rang HQ and set the wheels in motion.
Before the SOCOs and the new SIO went in I carefully explained the sequence of events. I showed them my ear, which had stopped bleeding; told them where the bullet would be; explained about the demo with the sniper rifle; told them that the bullet intended for me was already in its breech. I drove my own car back to Heckley where the doc looked at my ear and the photographer captured it for posterity. The doc stuck a plaster on it and said I’d survive. I made a statement, sitting in one of the interview rooms, and one or two of the troops popped their heads round the door to show their concern and say well done. I wasn’t allowed up into my office.
It was nearly ten when I arrived home, and Sonia was eating what had been intended as our evening meal. There was a cloth on the table, the wine was breathing and the candles were burned halfway down.
‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ I said, standing in the doorway, turned sideways, my bloody shirt and ear away from her.
‘Couldn’t you find a telephone?’
‘No.’
‘Your dinner’s ruined.’
‘I’m not hungry. What’s the occasion?’
‘None,’ she replied.
‘You could have fooled me.’
‘I waited for you.’
‘I’ve been busy.’
‘Too busy to phone?’
‘Yes. I said I’m sorry. So why the candles? It’s not your birthday.’
‘I wanted it to be special. Looks like I wasted my time, doesn’t it? I’ve sent off my application for the job in South Africa, that’s all.’
‘Have you?’ I said, then, ‘It’s a great opportunity for you. It’s the right thing for you to do.’ We
were silent for a while, until I said, ‘I’m off for a shower,’ and turned to go upstairs. She didn’t say, ‘What sort of a day have you had?’
‘Oh, you know,’ I’d have replied. ‘I only killed one man today. I pointed a gun at his head and pulled the trigger. It wasn’t in the heat of the moment, like the last one. I had plenty of time to consider what I was doing. It was him or me, so I decided to blow his brains out. Now I’m suspended until someone I don’t know, who wasn’t there, decides that I had no alternative and therefore am not a murderer.’ That’s what I would have said, if she’d asked, but she didn’t ask.
And she didn’t ask if I’d like to go to South Africa with her, either.
A cosh of exactly the right size was found behind a loose plank in Stanwick’s shed; the bullet that killed Damian and the one that nicked my ear were matched to the Glock with Stanwick’s fingerprints all over it; and his prints were on the sniper rifle, too. A young Sikh assistant in the T-Mobile phone shop in Stantown picked out Stanwick’s mug shot from the album we showed him. Eventually bits of trace evidence sealed the case, but right from the beginning I was in the clear.
At one time I would have been told to stay at home until an enquiry board studied the facts, which might take two years, and reinstated me, but not now. Now they find you a job where you can’t do too much damage while you wait for the clampers to free the wheels of justice. Three weeks after the shooting I was back at work.
The inspector in charge of the area’s case-building unit was off sick after a suspected heart attack, so I was asked to temporarily take over. The units are a new initiative, employing civilian staff to release proper policemen from the mountain of paperwork that every incident generates. They do exactly what it says on the packet: take statements; gather all the relevant documentation; plug any loopholes they might find and present the case to the prosecution service. Many of the staff are ex-police officers, the gender ratio is about 50:50 and the heart attack wasn’t stress-induced, so I wasn’t complaining.
Sonia was officially offered the job in South Africa, and spent her time shopping for tropical gear. She finished third in a 10K race in Milton Keynes in her best time since her comeback. I took her down and we made a weekend of it, visiting Whipsnade Zoo on the Saturday. Sonia had suddenly developed an interest in wild animals, particularly big cats. She flew out of Heathrow on the first day of August and I watched the giant plane climb into the sunrise until I was at risk of permanent damage to my eyes. Then it was the long drive home to Heckley.
The inquest on Stanwick ruled that he was lawfully killed. Later, Alfred Armitage, Jermaine Lapetite and poor old Doc Bones were judged to have been unlawfully killed by a person known to the court. The case was passed to the prosecution service and filed away under NFA.
Dorothea Stanwick made a brave recovery and sold her story to the Sunday Echo. They trumpeted it on the front page under the banner: I Was The Executioner’s Sex Slave. It probably wasn’t what she expected, but the £50,000 they paid her will have deflected much of the embarrassment. £150,000 if you believe the local rumours.
Enthused by the Olympic Games and scared by medical stories about cholesterol levels, some of the troops started jogging regularly. After a while I joined them. When the weather was good we ran through the woods and round the golf course, on the route I used to take with Sonia. Afterwards we would call in the clubhouse for a well-deserved shandy or six.
Once or twice I saw Dorothea there. She was with a local councillor whose lifestyle was disproportionate to the modest business he ran. Not many fish and chip shop owners drive round in Porsche Boxsters. I wondered whether he was attracted by Dorothea’s homely good looks, or the £150,000, or the Sex Slave bit. I hoped she wasn’t heading for another calamity in her life.
Sonia had emailed me to say she arrived OK, and a few days later I received a long one from her telling me all about it. The facilities were terrific she said, and the climate wonderful. She was staying in a rented bungalow with three others near a place called Simonstown, which was handy for the beach. They trained in the evening and then sat on the stoop sipping wine as the sun went down behind Table Mountain. She didn’t enlarge upon her housemates.
I told her about the inquests, about the jogging, and how following Jeff Caton up the hill wasn’t as nice as chasing her. She told me that she’d been on a trip to a game park. I told her that the weather had deteriorated. And that was about it.
I didn’t apply for the case building unit job and it was given to a female inspector from Huddersfield. I gave her a day of my time and moved back to Heckley nick, kicking young Caton out from behind my desk.
The following Friday evening the phone rang at home. I was looking through a seed catalogue that came in the post, with Radio Three’s Late Junction playing softly in the background. The pictures of flowers barely registered because my mind was elsewhere, thinking about the case and the people who’d been affected by it. We see people at their worst and at their best in this job. Two by two they came to me, like the animals in the Bible story: Stanwick and Lapetite; Dave and Maggie, working their butts off to solve the case; Doc Bones and Julie Bousfield, who never hurt a fly between them; Midnight and Gazelle. I shook my head to clear it and picked up the phone. It was the duty inspector, wondering if I could do his shift for him. Was I back at work? Something had cropped up in his personal life and he needed to go away for a couple of days. The duty inspector is there to investigate any suspicious deaths there might be, overnight, anywhere in the division.
‘You don’t mind, do you, Charlie?’ he said.
‘No, not at all,’ I told him. Of course I didn’t mind. It’s what I do.
Chapter Fourteen
News item
Western Cape Times
Cape Town, 6th December 2004
Athletics, Cape Province championships:
Miss Sonia Thornton unexpectedly stepped off the track with one lap to go while holding an unassailable lead during the Ladies’ 5,000 metres final at Green Point stadium on Saturday. It is believed she suffered a recurrence of the knee injury that kept her out of the 1996 Olympic games. The race was won for the third year in succession by Miss Eunice Mboto. A spokesperson for Miss Thornton said the injury would not prevent her completing her one-year contract as coach to the UCT athletics team.
About the Author
STUART PAWSON had a career as a mining engineer, followed by a spell working for the probation service, before he became a full-time writer. He lives in Fairburn, Yorkshire, and, when not hunched over the word processor, likes nothing more than tramping across the moors, which often feature in his stories. He is a member of the Murder Squad and the Crime Writers’ Association.
www.stuartpawson.com
By Stuart Pawson
IN THE DI CHARLIE PRIEST SERIES
The Picasso Scam
The Mushroom Man
The Judas Sheep
Last Reminder
Deadly Friends
Some by Fire
Chill Factor
Laughing Boy
Limestone Cowboy
Over the Edge
Shooting Elvis
Grief Encounters
A Very Private Murder
If you enjoyed Shooting Elvis, read on to find out about the other books in the
Charlie Priest series . . .
To discover more great crime novels and to place an order visit our website at
www.allisonandbusby.com
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The Picasso Scam
Detective Inspector Charlie Priest believes in doing things by the book. It’s just that, in the heat of the chase, he sometimes turns over two pages at once. His unorthodox ways have held him at inspector level for a record-breaking length of time; however DI Priest does get results. When Charlie suspects a now-respected businessman, with a background of extortion and GBH, of involvement in international art fraud, he’s taking on an enemy with friends i
n high places. But Charlie can be persistent to the point of recklessness – and, once he’s realised that there’s a link to the lethal doctored heroin that’s striking down the local kids, no threat will stop him …
The Mushroom Man
There’s nothing Detective Inspector Charlie Priest hates more than a case involving children. When Georgina, the eight-year-old daughter of local businessman Miles Dewhurst, goes missing, Charlie and his colleagues soon start to fear the worst. Charlie’s suspicions are focused on Dewhurst and, in a race against time to find Georgina, Charlie’s life is further complicated when it seems a killer is targeting clergymen. Three have died suddenly, and a picture of a Destroying Angel mushroom has been left beside the body of the latest victim. But why would a serial killer focus on men of the cloth?
The Judas Sheep
Detective Inspector Charlie Priest is officially on sick leave, but this brief break from work comes to an abrupt end when Mrs Marina Norris’s chauffeur is found dead from unnatural causes – namely a blast to the head from a Kalashnikov. Meanwhile, big-time drug smugglers on the Hull–Rotterdam run demand his attention. His contact, Kevin, is a lowly cog in the great smuggling wheel, and easily hoodwinked into believing that Charlie’s line of business is similar to his own. But the real villains are not such pushovers, and when Charlie uncovers a connection with his previous enquiry he realises that he’s on very dangerous territory indeed.
Deadly Friends
When Dr Clive Jordan’s dazzling career is brought to an abrupt end by a bullet, his colleagues are devastated – especially the female ones. If the doctor hadn’t been as discreet as an undertaker’s cough, Detective Inspector Charlie Priest would suspect a jealous husband. But it’s not going to be that simple. Charlie knows for certain there’s a killer on the loose – and almost certainly a rapist as well. The chances of bagging either of them seem slim, but Charlie’s a lot tougher and smarter than his affable manner indicates, and that’s bad news for the villains on his patch.
Shooting Elvis Page 26
