by David Hodges
Oates raised both arms, with the razor blade still extended in his right hand, and made a show of a slow clap. ‘So, it’s clever old Jack after all then, is it?’ he sneered. ‘Took you long enough to pull everything together though, didn’t it?’
Almost too casually, the psychopath reached up to grip the bell rope sally above his head with his free hand. ‘And I’ve still won the final round,’ he added.
Fulton swallowed hard, dropping the half-smoked cigarette on to the floor and quickly coming off the wooden pillar, his eyes locked on to the rope with an anxious intensity.
Steady! Say something – anything to distract him.
‘Maybe,’ he agreed, his voice strangely constricted, ‘but it won’t do you much good unless you get some medical help pretty soon. You’re bleeding like a fractured drainpipe.’
Oates glanced at his injured hand, which still appeared to be dripping, and drew a muffled choking cry from Skellet when he gave a sharp tug on the rope. ‘His bloody Dobermann,’ he explained with feeling. ‘Thought I had totalled the thing, but that was a big mistake. Still, I enjoyed finishing it off.’
Fulton’s eyes flicked desperately round the room, looking for something – anything – that would give him an edge. But there was nothing.
He eyed the noose round Skellet’s neck and grimaced. ‘Don’t you think you’ve got enough blood on your hands already, without his as well?’ he rasped.
Oates grinned again. ‘No blood this time, Jack – quite clean really – and old Norman here deserves a proper send-off after what he did. That’s why I decided on a different sort of exit from the others.’
‘Perverting the course of justice in exchange for a hefty bribe is hardly a hanging offence.’
Oates was unable to conceal the admiration in his voice. ‘Very good, Jack,’ he said. ‘You’re certainly on the ball tonight.’
‘It wasn’t that difficult to work out, George,’ he retorted. ‘With Halloran as the SIO, there had to be corruption involved somewhere and I was able to put the rest of the bits together when I screwed your house.’
‘Ah, you found the crime file then?’
‘Yeah, and it put you right at the scene of the Drew House fire with Skellet and Halloran. Surprised you live in that dive in Rafferty Close after the bung you must have received, though.’
Oates affected an exaggerated sigh. ‘Blame the old gee-gees for that, Jack. Blew most of my cut paying off bad debts incurred at Cheltenham and Ascot. Still, the deal for me was not just about money; it was also my ticket to CID, all courtesy of good old Corkscrew—’
‘Which you later cocked up by falling asleep on the job,’ Fulton sniped, then changed tack when he saw Oates’s expression harden.
Careful, man. Don’t wind him up!
‘So what made you suddenly decide to turn on the others, then? Conscience catch up with you, did it?’
‘No, Jack, testicular cancer did. Second hit. Matter of weeks left, I’m told.’
As with Skellet, Fulton was fresh out of sympathy. ‘So that’s why you mutilated Lyall and Cotter,’ he said, more as a statement than a question.
There was an unholy light in Oates’s eyes now, a backlit madness which made Fulton’s flesh creep. ‘The whole lot of them needed to be punished and publicly humiliated for what they’d done,’ he rasped. ‘Score and Halloran had already got their just deserts, so it was time the others were called to account. After all, why should they escape retribution? Be allowed to carry on with their nice comfortable lives as if nothing had happened, while I’ve just an early grave to look forward to?’
But Fulton only half-heard him, his eyes flicking involuntarily towards the roof as he detected the unmistakable thud of approaching rotor blades.
Damn it, the cavalry! The last thing he needed was for the force helicopter to zoom in with all the panache of Top Gun and spook razor boy before he could get to him.
‘Go to church, as a child, did you, Jack?’ Oates queried, giving another light pull on the bell rope and eliciting a further predictable choking cry from Skellet.
The question was sudden and unexpected and with his mind already focused on the approach of the helicopter, Fulton was thrown for a couple of seconds. ‘What if I did?’ he replied.
‘Do any bell-ringing, did you?’
What the hell was he on about now? Surely he had to be aware of the helicopter closing in?
‘Some.’
Oates sighed. ‘Me too. Happy days, weren’t they? Innocent, uncomplicated.’ He peered up towards the ceiling, as if searching for something. ‘Not like today, eh?’
The sound of the helicopter was unmistakable now and the thud of its rotor blades had been joined by the faint wail of sirens.
Damn the idiots! Whatever had happened to the so-called silent approach?
Oates cocked an ear in the direction of the sounds and his grin returned with a vengeance. It was obvious that in some perverse way he was enjoying the brinkmanship of the situation, especially the frustration it engendered in Fulton. ‘You see, I got to thinking,’ he said, ‘that deep down, old Norman here might like to try his hand at a bit of campanology.’ He chuckled. ‘After all, going by the look of him, it must be ages since anyone rang his bell. That’s why I thought I might ring it for him.’
The rope tensed slightly as Oates’s left hand almost imperceptibly adjusted its grip on the sally. The movement was not lost on Fulton.
He’s going for it, man, move!
The voice in his brain galvanized him into immediate action, but even as his toes dug into the soles of his scuffed suede shoes, Oates sprang on to one of the wooden boxes behind Skellet, his right hand still clutching the open razor and joining his left on the sally as he hauled on the bell rope with all his strength.
The thunderous roar of the helicopter, now hovering directly overhead, was accompanied by the erratic clanging of the heavy tenor bell. Fulton glimpsed an ethereal shape, writhing and twisting like some grotesque string-puppet as it sprang upward in front of him through the sudden blinding whiteout created by the chopper’s powerful spotlight lancing through one of the windows.
Something struck him a sickening blow on the side of the head, bringing him down on to one knee, and a wet stickiness (blood?) began dribbling down his forehead into one eye. Though dazed and bewildered from the blow, some inbuilt sense of self-preservation kicked in and he managed to throw himself to one side, into the protection of the doorway, as a hail of debris rained down from the bell chamber and Norman Skellet’s body, somehow parting company with the rope, was deposited on the floor just feet away.
At the same moment a choking scream came from somewhere in the midst of it all. Fulton wiped a sleeve across his clouded eye, and as his good eye tried desperately to adjust to the glare, his myopic gaze was instinctively drawn upwards. Like a vision from a nightmare, a huge domed shape had torn itself free of the bell chamber’s massive A-frame and, with a tortured shrieking of twisted severed metal, was tumbling downwards through a tangle of displaced beams, which snapped like matchsticks in its path.
Oates did not stand a chance and his upraised arms were a futile defence against the ton of Whitechapel cast iron which bore down on him. The next instant the thing seemed to swallow him whole, smashing through the rotten floorboards of the bell-ringing room with the explosive impact of a depth charge, missing Skellet’s prostrate body by a fraction, and carrying the psychopath before it – to spread his mangled remains over the unyielding stone flags at the foot of the tower.
For several seconds after the tenor bell’s destructive plunge Fulton did not move. Instead, he sat there as if in a trance, staring through the glittering specks whirling like the grains of a mini sandstorm in the Cyclopean eye of the helicopter’s spotlight. His gaze remained fixed, unseeing, on the gaping hole where the floor had once been, and on Norman Skellet lying beside it, miraculously still alive and jerking fitfully in a series of grotesque spasms as he desperately sucked in lungfuls of the stale pollute
d air he had been denied.
Then came the sound of heavy boots hammering on the stone steps of the tower and the intense red spot from the infra-red sights of a police Heckler-Koch sub-machinegun fastened on his right cheek, as a hoarse voice shouted: ‘Armed police. Don’t move!’ That sharp menacing command prompted mental re-engagement with reality and the sudden realization that the nightmare was over. After the worst week of butchery he had encountered in his service – which had seen his own life torn apart and his career reduced to tatters – someone of a much higher authority than the English justice system had decided to ring the final bell!
after the fact
THE PHONE CALL summoning Fulton to the chief constable’s office came as he was wading through a pile of month-old newspaper cuttings covering the Slicer case, borrowed from the incident room. The chief’s secretary was icily non-committal as to what the ‘old man’ wanted to see him about. ‘Tomorrow morning at ten-thirty then, Mr Fulton,’ she repeated and put the phone down.
Fulton stood there for several minutes, staring out of the lounge window and turning things over in his mind. He was relieved to see just two of his neighbours standing gossiping in the street by his gate, instead of the droves of press reporters and photographers who had besieged his home for so long.
He had already been officially told that he was off the hook for the murder of Janet and her boyfriend, Doyle, after Oates’s DNA had been found on the abandoned pickaxe handle used to batter them both to death, and that had to be the best news he had received for many days. As a bonus, formal court proceedings for all his other misdemeanours had also been ruled out as ‘not in the public interest’ by an unusually conciliatory CPS, in consultation with the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and, incredibly, no disciplinary action was to be taken against him either. Someone at the top, it seemed, was doing their level best to ensure that the the Slicer case was completely buried with the remains of George Oates, and he could certainly appreciate why.
The dramatic and gruesome end to the Slicer’s bloody vendetta had resulted in a media feeding frenzy, fuelled by a leak suggesting a police corruption scandal involving Norman Skellet, and although the head of force operations had been packed off to the police convalescent home – ostensibly to recuperate from a broken leg and a dislocated vertebra – Fulton suspected that this was just a diversionary tactic, designed to remove him from public scrutiny for a while in the hope that the news media would tire of the whole issue and go after another more productive story.
The blaze of publicity that would have resulted from a crown court prosecution or internal disciplinary action against the ‘old school’ SIO the press had hailed as the hero of the hour was the last thing the chief constable needed. Without a doubt strings had been pulled and favours called in to ensure that it did not happen. But Fulton fully appreciated that this did not mean his transgressions had been forgiven, and whilst he was relieved to know that he would at least hold on to his job and rank until his retirement, he knew only too well that the force had other ways of showing its displeasure. He felt sure that the imperious summons to the ‘big house’ meant the end of his CID career and an enforced move to some dead-end position, like manager of the headquarters control room – with all the humiliation that that would entail.
The chief constable, Harry James, was not wearing a smile when Fulton was shown into the plush inner sanctum the following morning. He was surprised to see Andy Stoller, now resplendent in the uniform of an assistant chief constable, sitting in one corner, a cup of tea or coffee balanced on one knee, and the force personnel manager, Jennifer Strong, sitting in the other. His spirits sank even further. This was a hatchet job if ever he saw one.
‘Good morning, Mr Fulton,’ the chief snapped, motioning him to the chair in front of his desk. ‘I thought it was about time you and I had a chat.’
Fulton sat down unsteadily, feeling much like the little boy confronted by the parliamentary inquisitors in W F Yeats’s famous painting, And When Did You Last See Your Father?
The chief sat back in his own padded chair, his gaze fastened intently on Fulton’s perspiring face. ‘I have to tell you that I have today promoted Mr Stoller here Assistant Chief Constable, Operations,’ he announced. ‘Mr Skellet has been – ah – persuaded to take early retirement on health grounds which will take effect when he finishes his convalescence.’
‘Should have been sent down,’ Fulton grated, unable to help himself.
The chief frowned. ‘I don’t want to hear talk like that,’ he admonished. ‘Mr Skellet has been through a very traumatic time and only escaped death by the narrowest of margins. I gather Oates still had his razor clutched in his hand when he was found and Scenes of Crime believe that he must have inadvertently cut through the bell rope as he was pulling on it.’
‘Lucky old Skellet,’ Fulton muttered with heavy sarcasm.
Stoller’s interruption was as sharp as it was unexpected. ‘Shut it, Jack,’ he snapped.
James threw his new ACC a swift, irritable glance, then stared at Fulton again with even greater intensity. ‘Mr Skellet has been fully investigated,’ he said softly, ‘and he strenuously denies any wrongdoing. There are no witnesses to say otherwise and no documentary evidence to support the allegations made in the report you submitted. Therefore the matter is now closed.’
Fulton felt the anger rise in him, despite his precarious position. ‘You mean “buried”, don’t you, sir?’ he said and out of the corner of his eye he saw Stoller visibly wince.
James leaned forward, his eyes like gimlets. ‘I mean “closed”, Superintendent, and that is that – got it?’
Fulton had no option but to capitulate. ‘Yes, sir,’ he replied, but his truculent expression did not alter.
James continued to study him critically for a moment, as if trying to will him into submission. ‘Good. Now, you should also know that I have promoted Detective Chief Inspector Gilham to Detective Superintendent, Northern Crime Area.’
Futon felt the room sway slightly. So that was it: his worst fears confirmed and the end of his CID career. ‘Yes, sir.’
James gave a grim smile. ‘And where do you think that leaves you?’
‘In the shit, sir.’
The chief nodded slowly as if in agreement, then abruptly leaned forward again, staring at him almost balefully. ‘You are a pain in the bloody backside, Jack,’ he rasped. ‘Always have been and always will be; awkward, stuck in the past, bloody minded and totally disrespectful. In fact, you are your own worst enemy!’
‘Yes, sir.’
James sighed and straightened up. ‘But unfortunately you are a damned good detective – and just the man I need to head the new force serious crime squad.’
Fulton stiffened in his chair and gaped, for once lost for words.
‘A position,’ the chief continued, ‘that carries with it the rank of detective chief superintendent incidentally. So congratulations – and bugger off!’
Fulton was on cloud nine as he drove home, still hardly able to credit what he had just been told. Twice he nearly ran into the back of vehicles waiting at traffic lights and a speed camera flashed at him as he passed it at around forty-two miles an hour in a thirty limit.
He was still in a surreal light-headed mood when he eventually got home, but he came down to earth when he not only saw Abbey’s Honda parked outside his bungalow, but the lady herself actually standing inside his open front door.
‘Hi there, Chief Superintendent,’ she called, waving a bottle in her hand as he lumbered up the path. ‘I thought I’d pop by to help you celebrate.’
He stared at her in blank amazement. ‘How the hell did you find that out?’ he gasped.
She moved aside as he strode into the hallway. ‘Aha,’ she replied with an extravagant wink, ‘news travels fast in these here parts, you know.’
He stared around him almost wildly. ‘And how did you get in here?’
She followed him through to the lounge. ‘Met a ma
n coming out as I arrived.’
‘A man?’
She nodded towards the coffee table and a bottle of champagne standing there on a silver tray. ‘He left that for you.’
Fulton snatched up the small envelope leaning against the bottle and tore it open, his face hardening as he read the message on the card inside.
SAID YOU SHOULD GET THE LOCK ON THEM FRENCH WINDERS FIXED, JACK. CONGRATULATIONS, CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT AND HAVE THIS ONE ON ME!
MICKEY VANSETTI
‘The cheeky bastard,’ Fulton breathed, then turned when he heard the clink of glasses.
‘I think the champers would be a lot better than my wine?’ Abbey said with a grin. ‘Do you want to open it or shall I?’
Fulton’s face still registered bewilderment as he stared at her. ‘I thought you’d be celebrating with Phil?’ he said.
She picked up the bottle and began to remove the wire from the cork. ‘Phil and I have broken up, Jack,’ she replied. ‘I told him it wouldn’t work and he’s now back with Helen.’
‘What, just like that?’
‘Just like that.’ She carefully twisted the cork, held it, then removed it with a slight popping sound, but the champagne did not explode from the bottle as Fulton had expected and he raised an eyebrow. ‘Where the hell did you learn to do that?’
She laughed, pouring out two equal bubbling measures. ‘I can do lots of things – you’d be surprised.’
‘What sort of things?’ He grinned, for the first time for years feeling optimistic and alive.
‘Now, now, one step at a time, Jack,’ she warned, treating him to a radiant smile and raising her glass. ‘Cheers.’
Copyright
© David Hodges 2010
First published in Great Britain 2010
This edition 2011
