All Saints- Murder on the Mersey

by Brian L. Porter

  A visit to the staff room followed where Proctor introduced him to the few teachers who were present at the time, and then he was led to the headmaster's office where, unfortunately, Mrs. Davis, the head's secretary informed them that Mr. Machin was teaching and wouldn't be free until after lunch, and would be sad to have missed Father Byrne, but she was sure he'd look forward to seeing him on his next visit. Gerald Byrne replied that he understood how busy the head must be and he too would look forward to a future meeting, though inwardly he felt the headmaster might have made time to meet him, as he'd known in advance of his visit. He concluded this was a sign of the times, the church no longer wielding the strings of power at Speke Hill as it used to, and his part, therefore, in the overall scheme of school life, would be far les than he'd perhaps imagined.

  Not until they exited the main school building towards the end of his visit did the two men find themselves speaking of anything attached to their joint past at Speke Hill.

  As they walked down the sweeping arc of steps that led from the main doors down into what was now a much larger car park than used to exist there, Proctor suddenly stopped and pointed to a point to the left of the low wall that stood along the length of the steps.

  “Do you remember when old Father Loony used to park his old motor cycle just there every day?”

  Gerald Byrne couldn't help but smile at the sudden recollection.

  'Father Loony' had in reality been Father Rooney, who taught both geography and history. The name 'Loony' had been affectionately applied to him by pupils who found it quite incongruous that a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, and a serious teacher of stuffy old geography and history would finish teaching for the day and then change into full motorcycle 'leathers' before mounting his gleaming, powerful Norton Commando motorcycle, revving the engine in a display of power, and then zooming off, in a cloud of exhaust smoke, down the drive and out onto Woolton Road, destination unknown.

  The boys who'd drooled over Father William Rooney's superb Norton machine would have been surprised to know the priest was a member of the Liverpool Motor club, a long established group catering for both motorcycles and motor car enthusiasts, and often rode his bike in various road trials and shows. Likewise, many of the club members would have been astounded to know that the rider of the red and black Norton was a Roman Catholic Priest, and not a rather well-turned out 'rocker'.

  Gerald Byrne smiled as he recalled the motorcycling priest.

  “Yes, I remember him well. He used to help me quite often with history projects, and he also helped to fuel my thirst for knowledge of life in the priesthood. He made me realise you could be a Catholic priest and still have a life that included outside interests, as he had with his motor bike. He was a great Rugby League fan too, and used to travel to watch Wigan's matches whenever he could.”

  “I didn't know that, about the Rugby, I mean,” Proctor replied.

  “He told me he used to play the game himself for an amateur club in his teens, and even had trials for Liverpool City, at the old Knotty Ash Stadium but never quite made it. Most people have forgotten them now of course. They moved and changed their name to Huyton and then slowly slid into oblivion I seem to recall.”

  “I remember them,” said Proctor. “Never very good, were they?”

  “Maybe not, but they played the game because they loved it, a bit like Doncaster and Batley in those days, always bottom of the league but still turned out every week and their small band of supporters would follow them around the North of England in the hope of an occasional win to talk about.”

  “You played rugger for the school, didn't you, Gerry?”

  “That was Rugby Union,” Byrne nodded in reply. “The good Fathers of Speke Hill preferred us to play according to the amateur code, which most schools did in those days.”

  “Who'd have thought you'd have ended up as a rugby player though? You were a bit weedy as a lower, if you don't mind me saying.”

  Gerald Byrne inwardly seethed at Proctor's obvious reference to their days in the lower school, when he'd been small enough to be on the receiving end of Proctor's 'pranks'. It was only when he'd attained his teens that his muscular development had kicked in and Gerry Byrne had grown into a strapping rugby winger and footballer. Not wanting to rise to the bait, he instead took a deep breath before replying, diplomatically,

  “We all developed at different times and in different ways in those days, Mark. I recall you suddenly putting a few pounds on in your teens, after all that boxing you did.”

  This was a clear reference to the fact that Mark Proctor gradually went from well built to rather flabby, and by the time he reached school leaving age, his boxing days were already behind him.

  “Yes, well, I managed to lose some of that weight in later years so I could qualify as a P.E teacher,” Proctor responded.

  It was now becoming clear that the atmosphere between the two men was growing strained and Father Gerald Byrne quickly made his excuses and walked away from Mark Proctor, wishing in a very non-Christian way for God to send a thunderbolt to strike the man down, to the car where young Father Willis had patiently waited for him while he'd 'enjoyed' his visit to Speke Hill. Willis turned the car radio off as Byrne opened the car door and they were soon on their way, back to the sanctuary of St. Luke's, where Byrne later insisted on Father Willis hearing his confession

  What the young priest thought when he heard Father Byrne confess to wishing Mark Proctor some kind of harm, only he could know, thanks to the sanctity of the confessional, but, on hearing Byrne's words, Father Willis couldn't help raising an eyebrow in surprise at the thought that the new Parish Priest might not be as pure and Godly as he'd initially thought him to be. But then, he comforted himself with the thought that it was only a silly wish, brought about by some reference to an event that had taken place a long time ago…wasn't it?

  Chapter 6

  'Razor'

  “Any luck with the victim's fingerprints, Paul?” Ross spoke into his mobile phone as soon as he and Drake walked out of the doors of the mortuary building. Detective Constable Paul Ferris, his team's collator and expert on all things of a computer based nature had received the prints only an hour or so earlier but had achieved success already.

  “Got a hit right away, sir. The victim is in the system. His name's Matthew Remington, aged forty-eight, known to his friends as 'Razor', for obvious reasons. Not very original I must say, naming someone after a brand of shaving products. Seems our Matthew had a record going back quite a few years, mostly minor stuff, petty theft, taking a vehicle without consent, a couple of assault charges, but, get this, sir, his most recent conviction though it was a few years ago, was for a sexual assault offence.”

  At that, Ross's mind immediately switched on to the hacking off of the victim's sexual organ. Could this murder be a simple case of revenge by someone connected to Remington's victim?

  “Good work, Paul. We'll be back in a few minutes. Get me all the information you can on this 'Razor' Remington. Let's see if someone decided to exact a brutal revenge for his last offence.”

  “I'm on it already, sir,” Ferris replied, as Ross pressed the red 'end call' button on his phone.

  “I take it Ferris came through quickly,” said Drake as she drove towards headquarters.

  “He did, Izzie. The guy was a sex offender by the name of Matthew Remington”

  “A ha,” Drake replied, her thoughts immediately echoing those of the inspector. One of the reasons the two worked so well together was their uncanny way of thinking along parallel lines at times.

  “Exactly,” said Ross. “It looked bad, but the solution may be simpler than we thought.”

  Drake fell silent for a few seconds, and Andy Ross knew her brain was ticking over, an idea forming in his sergeant's thoughts.

  “You're thinking of something, Sergeant, I can tell. Come on, out with it.”

  “Well, it might be nothing, but I wonder if there's any significance in the fact that the
victim's name was Matthew and his body was found in St. Matthew's churchyard?”

  “Good point,” Ross conceded. “Let's see what Ferris has got for us when we get back before we begin jumping to any conclusions, though”

  An hour later, having taken time to study the information D.C. Ferris had unearthed on the victim, Andy Ross and Izzie Drake sat in the small 'murder room', a small conference room used by the murder investigation team for the purpose of team meetings and where Ferris had already begun composing his 'murder board', a large whiteboard that would hold all the information on the case, and where all the team's planning and strategy meeting were held.

  As well as Ross, Drake and Ferris, also present were D.C's Samantha Gable and Lennie Curtis, the newest member of the team. For some reason, despite his real name being Leonard, his colleagues had chosen to address the young D.C. as 'Tony', naming him after the famed American Film Actor. Ross guessed it was probably due to Curtis and the actor having similar looks and hairstyles that made the detective look like the actor in his Vikings days. Sam Gable had initially been seconded to Ross's team three years previously and had since been made a permanent member of the murder squad, after spending years working in vice. Gable and Derek McLennan had only just returned from their initial sweep of the vicinity of St. Matthew's, with none of the residents having reported seeing or hearing anything out of the ordinary in the hours preceding the discovery of Matthew Remington's body. McLennan was conspicuous by his absence, a fact not unnoticed by Andy Ross.

  “Where's Derek, Sam?” he asked Gable.

  “He won't be long, sir. He was rather embarrassed about throwing up at the murder scene, and felt a bit, well, you know, unclean. He's in the gents now, changing into a shirt he managed to borrow from one of the uniform boys who had a spare in his locker.”

  As though on cue, the door to the conference room opened and Derek McLennan walked in, looking a darn sight better than when Ross had last seen him at the murder scene, or body dump. Ross still wasn't certain which description could be best applied to the churchyard. Dr. Nugent thought the man had been killed on site, there being enough blood to qualify the churchyard as the location of the murder, but, there was still a chance the man had his throat cut elsewhere and the blood at the scene was a result of the multiple mutilations carried out on the victim.

  “Sorry I'm a bit late, sir,” said McLennan as he ran his fingers through his tousled hair, still wet from his attempts to tidy himself up in the gents' toilets. His borrowed shirt hung on him a little, being at least a size too big for him, but at least he'd regained some of his natural colour again. “I was…you know, just…”

  “Don't worry about it, Derek. We know it was bloody awful back at the churchyard. You're only human, so nobody's going to hold it against you. Come on in and sit down, while Paul brings us up to date regarding our victim. All yours, Paul.”

  D.C. Ferris stood and moved to stand in front of the whiteboard. He'd already appended photos of Matthew Remington's body, provided in double-quick time by the forensics team as well as a copy of his prison mugshot which had already caused one or two raised eyebrows as the team members realised their victim was an ex-con. Ferris had also added comprehensive crime scene photos, a picture of the Parish Priest, Father Donovan, where he got it from, Ross wondered in admiration, and finally a photograph of a young woman, who looked to be in her early twenties, and as yet unknown to anyone other than Ferris himself. As the rest of the team fell silent, Paul Ferris began.

  “Thank you, sir. Okay everyone, it's confirmed that our victim is one Matthew 'Razor' Remington. I'm sure I don't need to explain the source of his nickname.”

  A short chorus of laughs and groans followed, before Ferris continued.

  “Remington was 58 years old, locally born, lived on Hazel Avenue in Norris Green and worked at the Motor Vehicle Factory at Halewood.”

  “I knew it,” exclaimed Derek McLennan, now feeling a little more like his usual self.

  “Eh, what's that, Derek?” Ferris sounded a little annoyed at the early interruption.

  “Oh, sorry Paul. It's just that we found a key at the scene that I thought looked like a locker key from Halewood. I've seen one before.”

  “Right, okay, thanks, Derek. Now, where was I? Yes, right, looks like our victim was a bit of a scally in his youth, always in trouble for one thing and another. Nothing serious, just a long string of petty crimes, though he gradually worked his way up to a couple of assault charges in his thirties. He was married for a short time, God bless the poor woman who fell for his particular charms, and his wife, Margaret, known as Maggie, left him after he was jailed for the second assault charge. The marriage had lasted eight years apparently, but only because he spent four of those years in prison. She still lives locally, in Norris Green.

  Anyway, our friend would probably have remained under the radar if he'd stuck to the petty stuff, but not long after his wife did a runner on him, he really messed up. A young woman called Claire Morris,” he pointed at the picture of the young woman on the whiteboard, “was raped after leaving a pub in Croxteth. I'm not going to go into all the details, as they're all in the files I'll pass out before we leave the room, but her assailant grabbed her from behind, dragged her onto a building site, and made her strip her skirt and underwear off in front of him before raping and sodomizing the poor girl.”

  “So he was a right bloody sadist as well,” said Izzie Drake.

  “Sounds like it,” Ferris replied, “Claire stated later that she felt he wanted to humiliate her, as well as doing what he did. When he'd done with her, he gave her the skirt back but kept her underwear.”

  “The bastard wanted a trophy,” Lennie 'Tony' Curtis snapped. “Sounds to me as if the low-life scumbag got what he deserved.”

  Ross felt it wise to interject at that point.

  “D.C. Curtis. I'd be grateful if you kept those thoughts to yourself. Whoever or whatever he may have been, Remington was a human being, and one who's been murdered in a particularly brutal way. It's our job to catch his killer, and we'll do our job to the best of our ability. I will not have anyone in this city taking the law into their own hands, besides which, whatever we may think of Matthew Remington, he was caught, tried and convicted and served his sentence, so technically, he'd paid his debt to society. He didn't deserve to die like that. If any of you are uncomfortable investigating his death, speak up now and I'll have you removed from the case.”

  A deathly silence filled the room for a few seconds. Although Ross felt pretty much the same as his young detective constable, he had to maintain his own position as head of the unit and at the same time make sure his team didn't lose sight of their duty to uphold the law. After what seemed an interminable silence, Curtis spoke up.

  “I'm sorry, boss. I spoke without thinking. It won't happen again.”

  “Good,” Ross replied. “Anyone else got anything to say?”

  Silence.

  “Right then, please continue with the briefing, Paul.”

  Paul Ferris cleared his throat loudly, and took up the reins of the briefing again.

  “Right,sir. Where was I? Oh yes, Claire Morris managed to stagger a few hundred yards until, as luck would have it, she spotted a passing patrol car and literally stepped out into the road right in front of it. The driver only just managed to stop in time without hitting her. The two officers in the car ascertained what had happened and called the incident in. One of them stayed in the car with Claire, waiting for the ambulance and back-up while the other officer made an examination of the building site in a search for clues.

  Thanks to them coming on the scene so quickly, forensics were on the scene in no time and Claire was examined at the hospital within an hour of the rape taking place.

  Remington was soon picked up and Claire picked him out of an identity parade, and the case became what the Americans call a 'slam dunk.' He got eight years, was released in five, placed on the sex offenders register, and nothing more was heard of
him until his body was found this morning. Seems he'd kept his head down and had been working at Halewood for the last three years. That's it, folks.”

  Ross took over once again.

  “Thanks, Paul. Now listen up everyone. I want this killer caught quickly. Don't ask me why, but I've got a bad feeling about this case. The way Remington was killed was so brutal that I feel we haven't heard the last of this killer. Whether he's someone seeking revenge for what happened to Claire, or some kind of vigilante, he's got to be found before he does anything else.”

  “You think he could strike again, sir?” asked Derek McLennan.

  “I don't know, Derek, but he virtually butchered Matthew Remington and I sure as hell don't want to think he might do the same to someone else. Sergeant Drake has a short list of assignments for you. Listen carefully, and let's move fast, people, but also, let's not miss a thing. Be professional, understand?”

  Murmurs of assent circulated round the room as Izzie Drake stood up.

  “Okay, everyone, here goes,” she began. “Derek and Sam, I want you to take the Claire Morris file and go through it with a fine tooth comb. Then, go and talk to everyone involved, her family, friends, whoever gave statements at the time. If they're in that file, talk to them, got it?”

  “Okay, Sarge,” said Sam Gable. “What about Claire Morris? Do you want us to speak to her as well?”

  “No Sam, you two stick to the other witnesses and family members. The boss and I will talk to Claire. She'll need very careful handling. Tony”, she said, referring to Lennie Curtis, “I want you to go out to the factory at Halewood. Talk to Remington's boss, supervisor, co-workers. See if anyone knows if he had anything on his mind recently, whether he told anyone about any threats he might have received, you know the type of things to ask.”

  “Right, Sarge,” Curtis replied.