Unlikely Killer

by Ricki Thomas

  Reno shook his head. “I think that’s just a gameboy.”

  Jack refilled the bag, remembering the order they’d been in, zipped it, and slung it at Reno. “Put it back and sod off. Dunny, get Paul.”

  The door slammed behind the boys, Jack breathed a lengthy sigh, his snooping having yielded no results. What was that damned man up to? And why did Paul disturb him so much?

  Paul pushed the door wide and strode in, shoulders back, with an air of confidence. He closed the door. Jack frowned at him, and, sighing once more, opened the top drawer of his desk and withdrew a Colt Python .357 Magnum pistol. He placed it on the blotter, then pulled out a box containing fifty bullets, which he laid beside the gun. Paul leant forward to grasp the pistol, Jack grabbed his wrist. “Money first.”

  Paul’s cold glare sent a shiver along Jack’s spine as he reached into his trouser pocket, he threw a brown envelope onto the desk. Eyes fixed on Paul’s, Jack opened it and flicked through the notes. “I won’t count it, I trust you. Take the gun.”

  Unspeaking, Paul took the gun, lifted his trouser leg, and tucked it into his sock securely. He shook the trousers down, forced the box of bullets into the pocket of his fleece, and left the room.

  “Fucking hell! What is that bastard up to?” Jack was unsure if he admired Paul’s steely reserve, or if it terrified him. One thing he did know was that he never wanted to make an enemy of him.

  Paul sauntered towards Eduardo Delfini’s regular table and slid onto a chair beside him. Eduardo couldn’t conceal his delight. “It’s my gorgeous tease, you still tease me today?” He winked, his hand straying onto Paul’s leg.

  Paul stared directly into Delfini’s soul, the edges of his lips curled into a slight smile. “Tonight’s the night, I want you tonight.” Delfini gulped, surprised, and he felt his penis throbbing as it hardened. “On my terms, though. We’ll meet up after the bar closes at one o’clock, not here, but down the road, by Blackfriars Bridge, this side of the Thames.”

  Delfini, his breathing shallow and fast, could barely speak, his imagination anticipating the feel of Paul’s robust body, of being inside it, coming inside it. His voice was gravelly. “You want Jack Weston not to see. I do as you say, I can’t wait.”

  Paul laid his hand gently on Delfini’s leg, Eduardo groaned, his pants straining with his pleasure. “Believe me, I can’t wait either!”

  Delfini arrived at Blackfriars Bridge just past one in the morning, the warm night air hugging his body whilst the Thames rippled gently beside him. He could barely contain his excitement. Surveying the river, the gentle undulation twinkling in the light of the many lampposts, he could see the HMS President. Although the roads were still busy with a constant stream of traffic, the sound of the lapping water was soothing.

  Glancing at his watch, Delfini scrutinized Temple Avenue, screwing his elderly eyes to see more clearly. He was pleased to see Paul’s boyish form striding towards him. He grinned, and once more he felt his manhood stiffening within his pants.

  As Paul reached Delfini he dragged him under a tree, and dropped his holdall on the dusty pavement. Eager, Delfini tried to kiss him, but Paul pushed him away. “My terms, remember Eddie, my terms.”

  “I remember, my lovely tease, I always listen to what you say to me.” Delfini pushed his hardened groin into Paul’s, disappointed to meet with softness. He gyrated his hips, forcing his stiffness at Paul, desperate to have his rigidity returned.

  Paul shoved Delfini back, a sneer of distaste fleeting across his face. “I like it rough, Eduardo, I like rough games.”

  “Pauly stop, you make me come too soon.” Delfini gasped as he fondled his own crotch, a drip of saliva running down his bristly chin.

  Paul studied his watch. “It’s half past one now, I want us to do it at exactly two o’clock. Do you understand?”

  “Oh, yes, Pauly, yes.” Delfini’s pupils were fully dilated as he groped through his trousers.

  “So take your hand off yourself.” Paul’s eyes were full of contempt. The bulge in Delfini’s trousers subsided as Paul continued. “We will stay here and be silent until quarter to two, then I will take you to the bridge. You will do exactly as I say.” And grew again.

  “I will.”

  Paul took Delfini’s hand and led him to the centre of the well-lit bridge. Several cars passed, but Delfini was too enraptured to notice. Paul was oblivious. He stopped, dropped his bag on the ground, undid the zip, stood up and pushed Delfini roughly against the edge of the bridge with his body. Delfini’s penis pulsed against the taller man’s leg, Paul smiled. “I want to tie you, will you do that?”

  Surprised, Delfini hesitated, but not for long, he was too anxious for the act to continue. “Anything for you, Pauly.”

  Deftly, Paul pulled the rope from the bag, he slipped the ready prepared noose over Delfini’s neck, tightening it. Delfini stiffened, his native Italian skin paling. “I not sure, Pauly, tie my hands, my feet, but not my neck.”

  In one flowing movement, Paul lifted his leg and removed the unloaded gun, he forced it against Delfini’s chest and cocked the hammer. Delfini flinched. “You said you would do exactly as I say. I don’t like people who lie to me.” The twinkling in Paul’s eyes had gone, replaced by a cold, hard stare. Delfini felt his bladder empty.

  “Pauly, you do what turns you on, I will enjoy you anyway.” He knew he wouldn’t, not now.

  Paul tucked the gun into his trouser pocket, took the length of rope and tied it securely to the railings at the edge of the bridge, Delfini could feel but not see the movement. Paul checked his watch, the time was eight minutes to two, he needed to get a move on if the duty was going to be on time. He reached back into the bag, took out half a brick, and placed it in Delfini’s jacket pocket. A quarter brick was placed into the left trouser pocket, and four large stones in the right.

  Delfini’s body was tense, he was terrified. In his sixty-two years of life he had never been so scared. But suddenly he felt Paul’s hand on his groin, and his terror began to dissipate, everything was going to be fine. Paul tugged at his flies, and Delfini began to stiffen once more. The zip fully opened, Delfini felt Paul’s hand grope inside, then a cold, hard feeling replaced the hand. Paul dropped a broken brick in Delfini’s pants, and roughly pulled the fly up again. Delfini’s panic had returned.

  “You’re ready.” Paul stated indifferently as he zipped his bag and tossed it over his shoulder.

  Now trembling, Delfini wondered if this was a joke, perhaps all this was a plot to shame his family, embarrass his employers. “How about I pay you to let me go?”

  Paul’s answer came without words. He bent down and tucked both arms tightly around Delfini’s legs, and, lifting his body with ease, he hurled it over the railings. Paul heard the crunch of Eduardo Delfini’s neck snapping, and a faint splash as the dying man’s brogues entered the water. Paul leant over to ensure his duty was complete. Eduardo’s body, or was it Gian Roberto Calvi’s, hanged there beautifully, just as it had done twenty-six years before. Another destiny completed, and Paul was relishing the role God had chosen for him. Very much.

  Wednesday 18th June

  The time was three fifty five in the morning and the police patrol boat neared Blackfriars Bridge on its routine daily patrol. Along the riverbanks birds chirped the dawn chorus, cheered by the summer warmth as the sun tentatively peeped over the horizon. Two disinterested constables sat at the helm, half-heartedly scanning the familiar surroundings. It appeared to be just another regular day, until they spotted the unusual, albeit not unknown, sight of a body hanging from the railings of the bridge. They radioed for assistance, and soon the road across the bridge was teeming with constables and paramedics, investigating what they believed to be a suicide.

  Juan Delfini was woken by the doorbell chiming, he clambered wearily from under the snug covers, swearing when he noticed it wasn’t even six in the morning. Maria haughtily tugged the pillow over her head. He dragged a silky black housecoat over his nakedn
ess, and traipsed downstairs towards the front door. Surprised and somewhat apprehensive, he moved aside to let the two uniformed police officers through.

  “What’s all that noise, Juan baby?” The naturally nosy Maria had heard the voices below.

  “It’s just the police, honey. I’ll deal with it, you go back to sleep.” A hint of resignation tinted the words, which crime of his had they discovered this time?

  Maria sat upright, relief seeping through her as she realised her husband was about to be arrested again. She lifted her hand to her face and gently probed the scabby swellings and bruises, wincing at the sharp pains. Juan had always been a bad boy, that’s what had attracted her to him, but she’d never expected the beatings once they’d married. She was resolved to them now, it was just a part of her life, and the only time she didn’t need heavy make up was when he was locked up. Go back to sleep, she thought, not a chance! Maria wanted to wave him goodbye.

  She climbed out of bed, expecting to see Juan from the top of the stairs, handcuffed and being lead away. But he wasn’t. She strained to eavesdrop on the conversation as she trotted down, and gasped.

  She shoved the door open. “Dead?” She questioned. “Who’s dead?”

  Juan was pale, he was balancing on the edge of the sofa, his shoulders slumped. He raised his eyes to her inquiring face. “My father is dead, honey. I have to identify the body.”

  Maria flicked her wrist at Juan, dismissive. “Rubbish, that is! That old bugger, he don’t just die. They got the wrong man, baby.”

  “They found him hanging from a bridge, they say it’s suicide.”

  “No way, baby, the old bugger wouldn’t do that, they got the wrong man.”

  Juan, dapper in his charcoal grey Armani suit, the hairs on his exposed chest cushioning a hefty gold medallion, gasped, and turned away from the limp, mottled body. “That’s my father.” Involuntary tears stung at the back of his chocolate brown eyes, and he swallowed hard to keep them at bay. He would grieve later, in private.

  The constable led him away from the chapel of rest. “I know this is difficult for you, sir, but we will need to speak to you about your father. Let me know when would be a good time and we’ll come to you.”

  “You taking me back to my house? I speak to you then, my father was a good man, I tell you all about him.” Juan wiped the stray tear from his eye with his jewelled hand, before it could be noticed.

  After the horror of Katie Joyce’s death, it had occurred to Krein that there may be other deaths around the country that hadn’t been attributed to her murderer. He had appealed to MacReavie, and subsequently to Walker, that all recent deaths across the country, regardless of their cause, were now logged onto the Police National Computer. The idea was to investigate each death to establish if there had been a previous death within the last hundred years or so under similar circumstances.

  With over half a million people dying each year in Britain, this would be a huge operation, and expensive too, and the idea was met with incredulous opposition. Krein pushed, and pushed, standing his ground, and eventually his nagging bore fruit. Walker managed to persuade his superiors, in conjunction with concerned government officials, to allow them to investigate any deaths deemed as suspicious, see if they bore any comparison to a previous death.

  The cost of the operation was justified, amazingly, within a few days, when Eduardo Delfini’s supposed suicide was found to be strikingly similar to the death of Gian Roberto Calvi, dubbed ‘God’s Banker’ by the press, in nineteen eighty-two.

  Krein read the report he’d printed from the Holmes System avidly. Known as Roberto Calvi, sixty-two at the time of his demise, the president of the Banco Ambrosiano of Milan had been found hanging from scaffolding at Blackfriars Bridge in the early morning of the eighteenth of June, twenty six years before. Although the death was initially considered to be suicide, various anomalies were discovered during the investigation, and his family was insistent that Roberto wouldn’t take his own life, so eventually the case had been reviewed. To date no one had been found guilty of killing him.

  Delfini and Calvi were both sixty-two, the order of stones and bricks in their pockets were identical, and, when the bodies were discovered, the bottom of the trousers were sodden. They both wore dark suits, both were Italian, and both died at approximately two in the morning on the eighteenth of June.

  Krein relayed his suspicions to a stunned MacReavie, who contacted the investigating officers in London. The pending post mortem was brought forward, and a murder investigation launched, linking Delfini’s death to Katie’s, Alan Benton’s, and Annabel’s, should they ever discover where her body had been dumped.

  Krein had never dealt with a case like this one before. It had him baffled, and he wanted to understand the killer’s mind, he felt it would assist with his detection. Jaswinder Kumar, a criminal psychologist with an extraordinarily good reputation, agreed to a meeting to give her views of the murderer, based on the information Krein had.

  She knocked and entered his office, he drew a sharp breath, her beauty was outstanding. His speech faltering embarrassingly, he gestured a chair, and spent the next thirty minutes furnishing her with the notes he had. She listened politely, registering his words, taking her own notes, and asking question when she needed to. He finished, the room remained silent as she digested and deliberated the information. Finally she was ready to impart her psychological summary.

  Jaswinder’s speech was slow, each word stressed carefully to ensure Krein understood. “Obviously this man is planning his crimes meticulously, and the results are unfortunately fatal for his victims. However, I do not think he is evil, per se, I think it is far more likely that he is ill.”

  “Sick!” Krein spat the word vengefully. She stared at him, the contemptuous look in her eye silencing him.

  “There appears to be psychotic and schizophrenic tendencies, I think that the man probably believes he is being ‘told’ to commit these acts in the form of hallucinations that are very real to him, and that is a symptom that occurs in psychosis, although some believe it is an exclusive condition of schizophrenia. I personally think that the symptoms of the three main forms of psychosis tend to overlap, as do many others. However, saying that, I think there are other psychiatric disorders to contemplate.”

  Jaswinder took a deep breath, considering her next words carefully. “What do we know about this man? He is by all accounts scruffy, self-neglect is a common sign of several mental illnesses, from depression through to schizophrenia and psychosis. Yet conversely, he seems to be obsessively tidy, orderly. When he broke into that house in,” she consulted her notes for the first time, “Halesworth, he cleaned the basin after using it to wash himself.”

  “How do you know that?” Krein was dumbfounded.

  “The statement. The woman mentioned that she’d noticed that day that the basin was very clean, stating that she and her partner weren’t the tidiest people.” Krein felt ashamed, that hadn’t seemed important when he’d studied the statement. Jaswinder continued. “Katie Joyce’s flat was impeccably tidy when her mother first went to look for her daughter, and she tells us that Katie was messy by nature. There is also continual attention to detail in the killings, and the reproduction of past murders, even to the stones in the pockets of the latest suspected victim. Think of the candle lamp that was in Katie’s hand, her black dress, her neat chignon. The man is obsessive, he researches the murders, selects a suitable victim, I mean age, perhaps looks, general similarities, and then he plans to commit the copycat crime in the same place, at the same time, on the same day.”

  Irrationally, Krein was annoyed with Jaswinder, she was thorough to the point of tedium. He snapped, foolishly. “Tell me something we don’t know, we’ve already guessed he’s mentally depraved, I mean you don’t slice through someone’s neck if …”

  That stare again. Ashamed, he stopped ranting. “You have an unfortunate choice of words, Mr Krein.”

  And his indignation towards her
was back. “Look Miss Kumar, his victims, robbed of their life, their families, robbed of their loved one. They wouldn’t mind me being politically incorrect.”

  Why did he dislike her so much? He glared into her eyes, feeling himself melting into the velvety chocolate, wishing he could loosen her hairpin and watch her silky black hair tumble over her shoulders. Shocked, he realised he fancied her.

  Her words broke the uncomfortable silence. “Mr Krein. May I remind you that it was you who asked me to meet with you. You wanted my opinion on the wanted man’s psychological profile. It is not my fault that this man is killing, it is not my fault that the victims’ families are hurting. If you want my cooperation, then please have some consideration for my professional ability, and some respect for me personally.”

  Chastised, and humbly sheepish, Krein bowed his head. “I’m really sorry, Miss Kumar, this case has become the most difficult in my entire career.”

  Jaswinder’s face softened into a smile, and his heart leapt. He guiltily glanced at the photo of Linda on his desk. “Yes, probably the most frustrating I should imagine. This man is good, he appears to be a chameleon, he blends into society without so much as a suspicion against him.”

  “So what next? What will he do next?”

  “Another murder, undoubtedly. I think he will be feeling very clever by now, I think his mind will be so numbed that he will be finding the act of killing pleasant, I think it will make him feel powerful, in control. In my opinion, you need to find out when, where, and how past murders in this country were committed, and you need to increase policing in the areas of these cases at the time and date of the previous killing.”

  “Needle and haystack, then. I don’t think the bigwigs would be willing to allow us to finance an operation that extensive.”