‘Jesus Christ!’
Palmer and Singh raced to Timms-Beddis and turned him onto his back. Gheeta called in the others on her radio and put out a call for any available backup in the vicinity to attend, before ripping the blood soaked shirt sleeve off Timms-Beddis and tying it tightly around his upper arm to try and staunch the blood coming from a deep cut on his forearm. He was obviously in deep shock and shaking uncontrollably.
‘She stabbed me,’ he blurted out between sobs. ‘Stabbed me… I’ll die… She stabbed me, said she wanted the keys to the store building… I wouldn’t give them to her and she stabbed me.’
‘Calm down, sir, you won’t die; it’s only a surface cut,’ Palmer lied, as he could plainly see it was down to the bone. ‘Doctor’s on his way, we’ll soon have you patched up.’
The Firearms Officers had arrived. One knelt with his pistol aimed up at the windows above them in the warehouse.
‘Christ, what happened here, sir?’ asked number two.
Palmer was quite calm. Gheeta had noticed this before in her boss; when the shit really hit the fan, his mind became clear, his orders precise and correct, and he gave the aura of being in total control; which, of course, he was.
‘Our target is inside. She’s armed with a knife, and she is very, very dangerous.’
The sound of sirens announced the arrival of some backup at the front of the main building.
‘You two go round the back of this building and check any back doors and ground floor windows, in case she makes a run for it that way. But remember, she is very, very dangerous. She’s not armed, but if the knife comes out then taser her immediately. If it all goes belly up, you have my authority to use your weapons. That’s an order, okay?’
They both nodded and were gone, as half a dozen uniformed officers from the local Camberwell and Peckham stations came round the corner of the main building and joined Palmer and Singh. Gheeta was on her radio again, ordering up an ambulance for Timms-Beddis, who seemed to have calmed down considerably after being told he wasn’t going to die.
Palmer quickly told the uniformed boys his and Sergeant Singh’s names, their Squad details, why they were there, and what had happened. He had two of them lift Timms-Beddis and cart him away to await the medics, and seal off the entrance from the road with the officers already there; the last thing he wanted was the nosy public making a nuisance of themselves.
‘Guv…’
Gheeta pointed to the steel door. Smoke could be seen creeping out from the top of it. She clicked on her radio again and asked for the fire brigade to attend, quickly.
Palmer looked at the smoke.
‘Dolland said that she had said she would burn the place down. It looks like she’s keeping her word. Everybody back to the other side of the square. We don’t know what’s inside that building; this place is an art college, so could be pyrotechnics.’
They all moved away to a safe distance.
‘Give the Firearms boys a call and see if they can see anything round the back.’
They couldn’t. There was a back door to the building, but it was shut and solid; no ground floor windows. But they could see smoke seeping out of the first and second floor windows. There was a steel zig-zag fire escape, with doors off to each of the six floors. Should they try and get inside from one of them?
‘No,’ was Palmer’s strong reply.
The fire was taking hold. Red and bright yellow flames could be seen through the first and second floor windows ,which were beginning to crack and fall out with the heat. Palmer was starting to feel the heat from the building too.
‘Unless she gets to the fire escape at the back, she’s not going to get out of there.’
Gheeta’s radio beeped. She took the message.
‘Miss Jacobs has arrived, sir.’
‘Bring her round.’
Gheeta relayed the message, and a minute later a shocked-looking Miss Jacobs arrived in the company of a uniformed officer. She held her hand to her mouth in horror at the scene.
‘Oh my God… oh My God….what happened?’
Palmer gave her one of his ‘calm down it’s under control’ smiles, although he knew it was not.
‘The fire brigade are on their way, but we need to know what that building is used for?’
Miss Jacobs seemed mesmerised; her eyes didn’t leave the building.
‘Props. I mean, everything; everything we need to run the College and teach the students. Theatre props, costumes, cameras, machines, control desks, back drops – everything. Oh my God, this will finish us.’
‘Is there anything in there that might explode? Stage pyrotechnics, fireworks?’
‘No, not allowed by law. They are in a separate secure shed at the end of the playing field.’
She pointed to the field.
‘Good,’ Palmer said, relieved.
‘Oh my God! The cylinders are in there, the gas cylinders!’
‘The what?’
‘Propane gas cylinders. The heating in the theatre and rehearsal rooms is very old and inadequate, so we supplement it with gas fires. We don’t have gas in the building, all electric; so we use bottled gas. They should be kept outside, but we had so many stolen that Timms-Beddis stores them inside there.’
The fire was now plainly in charge. The heat from the flames licking out of the broken windows was becoming uncomfortable for them a good forty yards’ distance away.
‘Right you lot, back round the corner out of sight of the building please. NOW! If those cylinders go up, one of them could come across here at the speed of light and take you out.’
They all moved round the corner to safety, leaving Palmer and Singh. The sound of the fire engines approaching could be heard.
‘They won’t get down that drive, guv; too narrow.’
Gheeta was crouched next to Palmer, looking at the windows for any sight of Mrs Dolland.
‘They’ll have to run the hoses from the road. That’s going to take time.’
‘Chief Superintendent!’
It was Miss Jacobs, peering round the corner and calling. Palmer waved her back, shouting:
‘Miss Jacobs, please get out of sight!’
‘I will, but I thought you ought to know about that building.’
She was having to shout above the noise of cracking timber and splintering glass.
‘What about it?’
‘It’s the one that the girl jumped from. The sixth floor corner window.’
She pointed up to the window and ducked back out of sight, just as the first two gas cylinders exploded inside the building, followed by a rumble as a floor collapsed.
‘Dolland’s not going to get out of there, guv and we can’t do anything, can we.’
It was a statement not a question.
‘No, nothing. We can’t do a bloody thing. Oh Christ… look.’
Gheeta followed his gaze up to the sixth floor corner window. It was getting blackened from the smoke inside, but the outline of a figure desperately banging fists against it could be seen.
‘She won’t be able to open it,’ Miss Jacobs said, poking her head round the corner again. ‘They’re all double glazed and locked. Oh my God, she’ll burn alive in there.’
Another scuffle behind them and some shouting announced the arrival of Mr Bennett, trying to escape the clutches of two officers holding him back.
‘Let him through!’ Palmer ordered, and Bennett joined them crouching against the wall. He offered his explanation before Palmer could ask.
‘She rang me just as my solicitor got me bailed out; said she was here, and to come over. She didn’t say she’d set the place alight.’
‘You knew what she was doing all along didn’t you, eh?’ Palmer shouted above the crackling of the burning building. ‘She rang you after every murder, didn’t she? We have the phone records.’
‘Yes, yes of course she did; if she was caught, I was going to continue until they were all dead. But she did it, didn’t she… she got our dear
Angela’s revenge. Where is she?’
‘She’s in there,’ Palmer shouted above the crackling and banging from the inferno.
A steel pole smashed through the sixth floor corner window as Dolland frantically tried to escape the flames. Bennett looked up to the window as the glass fell and shattered on the ground.
‘Oh God she’s going to jump! Evelyn don’t ...wait!!’ he shouted. ‘WAIT!’
He made to run across the gravel towards the building, but Palmer had his arm held tightly. Up at the broken window, Dolland used the steel pole to hit at the jagged glass edges around the window frame to make a large enough escape hole, and began to pull and push herself through, her clothes in flames.
‘She’s going to jump, guv!’
Gheeta’s panicked shout was made as Mr Bennett got away from Palmer’s grip and ran blindly through the swirling smoke towards the building, in the vain and stupid hope that he might catch her.
Without thinking, both Palmer and Singh went after him. Palmer made it first, his sciatic pain in the leg dulled by the surge of adrenalin coursing through his body. It was a futile and stupid effort to pull Bennett out of the way of the plunging, flame engulfed body, which hit them both and the ground with equal force.
Chapter 35
Mrs P. poured Gheeta a cup of tea in the Palmer kitchen and sat down at the table beside her.
‘Such a stupid man, I told him to take the retirement package they offered last time but he won’t! He won’t hear of it; says he’d be bored rigid.’
‘He’d be missed, Mrs P. I’d really miss him, and I know the team would. Not many like your husband left in the force.’
‘No, and very nearly one less, wasn’t there? Fancy trying to catch the falling lady – stupid man.’
She shook her head in disbelief.
‘It was all very spur of the moment, Mrs P., sort of an immediate reaction; we just ran after Bennett. I don’t think the governor was trying to catch the lady; he just wanted to get Mr Bennett out of the danger.’
‘You had more sense.’
‘Probably not; I was just slower off the mark. Anyway, that was all two weeks ago. How is he doing?’
‘Leg in plaster, arm in plaster and a sling – and miserable with it.’
‘Miserable?’
‘He wants to get back to the Yard, back to work; doctor says another week before the plaster comes off and he can walk normally again. So you’ve another week of peace.’
‘Be good to have him back, we do miss him.’
‘So would the family if he’d been killed.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘Well, he’s got a large family, and sometimes I think he’s got to slow down and give them more time. The Met would still function if Justin took the holiday time he’s entitled to. Seems that every time we decide to take a holiday, some serial killer pops up and ruins it. He’s had one Christmas Day at home in the last eight, and he’d only seen little George twice before this accident.’
‘It’s a funny thing, Mrs P., but being in the police is a bit like being in a large family. My mum thinks I’m married to the force. Can’t explain it, but it gets into your blood. It’s a drug.’
Mrs P. put a hand on Gheeta’s shoulder.
‘I know. I knew I’d be competing with it when I married him. And I know that sometimes he worries that he hasn’t given me as much time as he ought.’
She smiled.
‘But he has. I tell him that I wouldn’t want it any other way. Our family is built on a rock, Gheeta, and that rock is Justin. But don’t tell him I said so.’
They both laughed. Then Gheeta got serious.
‘You know, Mrs P., I was thinking about the case on the way over here. The whole Bennett family wiped out because of revenge, and five other families mourning the loss of a loved one. Doesn’t make sense, does it? Nobody wins, everybody loses. If one of your family was really hurt or even murdered by somebody, would you take revenge Mrs P.?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘I wouldn’t have to; Justin would kill them,’ she said with a smile. ‘And with his experience he’d probably get away with it, eh? Give me your cup, I’ll make a fresh one and you can go and bring him up to date with all the office scandal. He’s in the lounge watching telly.’
Chapter 36
In the lounge Palmer was indeed watching telly; but not the Barcelona game he wanted to watch on Sky ‘catch up’. His leg and arm in plaster prevented him from bending far enough to reach the remote, which lay on the floor where Daisy the dog had kicked it as she made herself comfortable on the sofa next to Palmer. So the TV had auto-tuned into the last channel Mrs P. had been on last night: Skype. And who was already on it?
‘Oh, hello Justin!’ said Benji giving a little wave, ‘How are you today? I was just going to chat to my pal in France, but you popped up so I thought I’d say hello. You been drinking? Because you look plastered to me! Hee hee, get it? Plastered? Just a little joke – you look a lot better… Anyway, I need to talk to Mrs P. about her dahlia tubers; time to think about lifting them and storing. You need some dry sand, and a cool place in the garden shed – I cut back my Syringa yesterday, did you notice from your upstairs windows? Well, it was getting a bit straggly… and your wisteria is just divine. Mine has been a disappointment this year, probably the late frosts. Did I tell you about the mole I had in my lawn? Well, I looked out, and I thought a dog had got in and dug a hole – not your Daisy, of course, I do love your dog. She’s so gentle… Anyway, when I got out to look at it…’
He carried on, unaware that Gheeta had come into the room , seen the situation, and picked up the remote out of sight of the Skype web cam. She held it towards Palmer, but just out of his reach.
‘I was thinking that Detective Inspector Singh has a nice ring to it, guv.’
Palmer smiled.
‘If that Sky Sports channel isn’t on in ten seconds, young lady, it’s more likely to be Constable Singh!’
THE END.
A KILLER IS CALLING
Chapter 1
‘It’s just a mess, Justin. An unholy fucking mess.’
Professor Latin held the brain scan negative up to the light box on the wall of the New Scotland Yard Pathology Lab and shook his head in bewilderment.
‘Imagine a ball of rubber dropped onto a fucking hot stove, and this is what you would get; goo, sticky fucking goo.’
‘Hmmm.’
Detective Chief Superintendent Palmer leant nearer to the light box as he fumbled his spectacles from the inside pocket of his trademark Prince of Wales check jacket and peered through them.
‘So what causes this goo then? How does a human brain disintegrate into this kind of a mess?’
He looked at Latin inquisitively over the top of his specs, hoping for an answer that would at the very least give him some lead to pursue. He also hoped the answer would be without Professor Latin’s liberal use of the F word, as his second-in-command Detective Sergeant Gheeta Singh was with them.
‘No idea, Justin, never come across it before. No fucking idea.’
Palmer’s hopes of an expletive-free answer sank without trace as the professor continued.
‘All I can tell you with certainty is that it’s not drugs. We’ve done a complete gas and TL chromatography screening, and nothing shows up. Fuck all.’
Behind them DS Gheeta Singh took a call on her mobile, catching Palmer’s eye as she spoke quietly into it. He raised his eyebrows to the heavens, anticipating problems as she clicked off, and her expression told him it was not good news.
‘What now?’ he said, slipping his specs back into his pocket.
‘I think we have another one, sir; he’s been riding the Circle line for a day, and nobody noticed.’
Detective Superintendent Justin Palmer loved his job and being one of the ‘old school’ detectives at the Yard, he treated his Serial Murder Squad like his own child. Now fast approaching retirement age and having turned down early
retirement repeatedly each time it had been offered by the powers on the fifth floor, he was getting that buzz of excitement he always got as a new case unfolded. He knew that if he took an early retirement package, the first thing the suits on the fifth floor would do would be to disband his squad and amalgamate it with the CID as a ‘cost-cutting’ exercise. As far as Palmer was concerned, that wasn’t going to happen as long as he could put it off.
Outside the Pathology Laboratory he removed his grey trilby and settled into the back of a squad car, as Gheeta slipped in the other side. At least with the modern day squad cars he could stretch his legs a bit and relieve the stabs of sciatica that an old back problem had a habit of sending down his left thigh; the old style small Panda cars had been a source of continued pain, and he had been glad to see the back of them.
‘Right then,’ he said, nodding to the driver. ‘Acton Tube station. Let’s see what we have this time.’
The tube train had been backed off the District Line into the sidings at Acton Town station. Palmer and Singh stood in the carriage, looking at the body of a young man slumped on a corner seat. To all intents and purposes he could just have been asleep, resting against the heavy plastic partition beside his seat. But he was dead, not asleep. There were no immediately visible signs of why he was dead; just a thin line of congealed blood that ran from his left ear down over the lobe onto his neck.
The British Rail Police Inspector was unmoved; he’d seen it all before. The addicts seemed to find tube trains ideal for shooting up; he guessed it was because the trains all had a fairly quiet section to their routes once they were outside the hurly-burly of Westminster and the City. It was a section on the line where the lost souls of humanity could do the deed undisturbed. He had little doubt that the pathologist would find the tell-tale needle marks, and the dealers that rode the tube like parasites in a giant worm would now have one less customer to feed off.
POETIC JUSTICE & A KILLER IS CALLING: The DCS Palmer and the Serial Murder Squad series, cases 3 & 4. Page 10
