Young, Gifted and Deadly

by William Stafford

  “You think she rode off into the fucking sunset?”

  “It’s a possibility,” said Pattimore. “Unless you’ve got a better idea?”

  “Um,” Harry Henry was already thumbing his smartphone. “Stable’s not far from here. Up near Gornal.”

  “Feels like we’m clutching at straws,” said Stevens.

  “What else have we got?” said Pattimore.

  Harry Henry waved a finger. “She did have a phone call. While I was here, checking the house.”

  “Who from?” said Stevens.

  “I don’t know,” Harry admitted. “Something private, I know that.”

  “Think, Harry! Did she say anything that might indicate...”

  “Um...” Harry Henry’s forehead furrowed. He took off his glasses and wiped them on his knitted tie.

  “This is a waste of fucking time,” said Stevens.

  “Um,” said Harry Henry. “Come to think of it, she did mention something about being saddled with something.”

  “Good enough!” said Pattimore. “Come on!”

  ***

  Brough and Miller delivered Donald Phillips to the Railway Hotel - he couldn’t go home just yet and neither did he wish to. In the car, heading back to the nick, Brough pored over the book, searching for ideas.

  “Torn apart... torn apart...” he flicked back and forth. “If you were going to tear someone apart, Miller, how would you do it?”

  “With my bare hands!” Miller laughed. “If I was angry enough.”

  “I don’t doubt it for a second. But how would a mere mortal go about it, do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I remember an old film, set in a jungle or somewhere. They got this bloke and they tied him to these trees. They’d pulled the treetops down and tied them to the ground, tied the bloke between them, cut the ropes or whatever and whoosh, he goes flying through the air in different directions all at once.”

  “Ugh,” said Brough. “It’s a possibility, I suppose. Where in Dedley are there trees?”

  “Oh, there’s one or two dotted around,” said Miller. “Field Park, for example.”

  Brough nodded. “You’re making sense, Miller.”

  “First time for everything!”

  “No, no; I’m sure it’s happened before.”

  His phone rang. Pattimore.

  “Jason! Hi! How are - things? At Mooney’s house, I mean.” Brough cleared his throat; Miller rolled her eyes. Brough listened. “No!... And what makes you think she’s gone there?... Makes sense, I suppose... Do you want me on your back? I mean, to back you up? I mean, do you want back-up? Not necessarily me, but... Well, keep in touch, yeah?”

  He put his phone away just as Miller pulled on the handbrake.

  “Everything OK?” she asked, pointedly.

  “She’s run off. Beatrice Mooney. You know, the head teacher. Jas - Pattimore reckons she’s gone to the stable where she keeps a horse.”

  “Does he now?”

  “Yes. It’s as good a place to start as any.”

  “I’m not disagreeing,” Miller laughed, “You don’t have to be so defensive on his behalf.”

  “I’m not being.”

  “Think about it. Horses. They could tear somebody apart no trouble.”

  “Not more old films, Miller?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. Used to watch them with my mom. Only thing that held her attention at the end, in that home. They reminded her of the old days.”

  “When she used to tear people apart with horses?”

  “No, silly. When we used to watch old films together when I was a girl.”

  Brough nodded. “It’s not a completely implausible scenario, I suppose. Well done, Miller.”

  “Can I have that in writing?”

  Brough’s phone rang a second time. Wheeler.

  He had to hold the handset away from his ear; there was never a need to put the chief inspector on loudspeaker.

  They listened to her diatribe. Between the swearwords and the railing against the police community support officers - in general and in particular - they gathered that supermarket magnate Dennis Lord had gone AWOL, and Wheeler didn’t have a fucking clue where.

  When he could get a word in, Brough brought her up to speed with Pattimore’s news. This gave rise to more swearing but that was no surprise.

  “Shall we go to the stables as well, Chief?” Brough sounded hopeful; Miller noticed.

  “Nah,” said Wheeler. “Get your arses to the supermarket. By the time you get here, I might have thought of something to do with you.”

  Brough pocketed his phone and caught Miller’s eye. “What are you smirking at, Miller?”

  Miller grinned. “Nothing. Sir.”

  ***

  “Where is he?”

  “Where’s who?” said Dogger.

  “Bonk, you twat,” Logger was annoyed. Dogger explained about Bonk’s weird behaviour in the supermarket. Logger was philosophical. “Oh, well. We can do without him. Come on.”

  Dogger had to hurry to keep up. “Where am we going?”

  “Just hurry up,” said Logger, without looking back. “The stables near Gornal - do you know them?”

  Dogger pulled a face. “Should I?” Then he brightened. “Am we getting a horse, then? Log! Log! Am we getting a horse?”

  “Not exactly,” said Logger. “I had a message. That’s where the next target will be.”

  “What then?”

  “You’ll see when we get there,” said Logger.

  Hoods up and hands in pockets, the two boys skulked through the streets, leaving Dedley behind. Ahead, the village of Gornal nestled around the base of a hill. Beyond it, the green belt and the stables.

  A popular destination, all of a sudden.

  16.

  Dogger tugged at Logger’s sleeve. “There’s a light on,” he whispered. “Somebody’s here!”

  Logger shook him off. It was true: the dim glow of lamplight shone weakly from the stable. “Be a pussy all your life,” he sneered. “It’s probably just a night light for the ’osses.”

  Dogger blinked. “Really? Really, Log? Is that what they do?”

  “I don’t bloody know, do I?”

  In his annoyance with Dogger, Logger momentarily forgot he was supposed to be sneaking around. A few yards from the building he slowed his stride to a creep and hunched his shoulders. Dogger did the same; he didn’t like being in Logger’s bad books - with Bonk otherwise engaged, Dogger was the only one in the firing line.

  They snuck toward the stable door, which was closed but not bolted, and flattened themselves against the wall like they had seen on the telly. Logger took something out of his hoodie, something cylindrical and black. Dogger’s eyes widened.

  “You’m going to hit her!” he breathed, both astonished and appalled. “You’m going to cosh old Mooney!”

  Logger frowned. “No!” He unrolled the cylinder. “It’s bin bags, you fanny.”

  “You’m going to put her in a bin bag.”

  “Not exactly. Now, shut your gob and follow me.”

  He dropped into a crouch and gave the door a gentle push.

  Inside, in a stall, Beatrice Mooney was on tenterhooks. She was also beginning to get cramp in her knees. Hardly a patient woman in the best of circumstances, she was two minutes away from giving up on the whole palaver and going back home.

  The horses in the neighbouring stalls stirred, hoofing the floor and snorting. Beatrice Mooney tensed. At bloody last, he was here!

  She attempted to dispel her irritation and get herself into a mood more appropriate for the activity ahead. She listened - she could barely hear the shuffling of feet amid the growing disquiet of the stable’s equine residents. It sounded like he
was going from stall to stall, when she had distinctly told him which one she would be in. Why do people never listen?

  And there was the irritation again! Perhaps he was deliberately trying to piss her off, she wondered. Perhaps it was another of his kinks.

  A pair of feet appeared under her stall door. Scruffy Converse that had seen better days. Odd, thought Beatrice Mooney, holding her breath. She had been expecting green wellies.

  And then a second pair of similarly scruffy footwear appeared. She certainly had not been expecting that. Perhaps it was going to be kinkier than she had imagined. Two rugged stable hands to break in the bucking bronco...

  “Ready?” said a voice.

  “Ready?” answered the other.

  Before Beatrice Mooney could think, two pairs of hands were raised over the stall door, shaking bin bags of freshly gathered horse manure all over the cowering head teacher.

  Beatrice Mooney screamed and caught a mouthful of dung. Gagging and gasping, she flung open the stall door, startling two hooded boys who staggered backwards in shock. She was unable to stand up straight with a saddle on her back, so she scrambled around on all fours, coughing and shouting, arching her back as though trying to throw an invisible rider.

  Logger and Dogger clung to each other as their head teacher reared up and rolled around, her face a vivid shade of purple. In their stalls, the other horses whinnied and screamed and stamped.

  “Oh, fuck,” said Dogger.

  “Let’s fuck off,” suggested Logger. The youths headed to the exit, each carrying a bulging bin bag. They made their escape just seconds before the headlights of a Ford Capri stretched their beams across the yard.

  “Fuck me,” Dogger panted. “That was close.”

  “One down, one to go,” said Logger. He thrust his bag at Dogger’s chest. “Carry this, will you? I’ve got a stitch.”

  ***

  The Goat Man came to a sudden halt. Callum almost walked right into him. Puzzled, he watched as the Goat Man tilted his head this way and that, angling his horns in different directions.

  “Sir?” said Callum, after a minute of this.

  The Goat Man sprang around. “Change of plan, my boy!”

  He strode off, back the way they had come. Callum hurried after.

  “We’re not going to the stables, then?”

  “Not anymore,” the Goat Man called back without turning around.

  “Oh.” Callum was disappointed. He had envisaged some kind of unholy ritual, a counteraction to that holy night in a stable long ago and far away. The opposite of a birth. “Where are we going now?”

  The Goat Man took the road that would lead them to the town centre.

  “Up!” said the Goat Man, pointing at the evening sky. “We’re going up in the world!”

  ***

  Chief Inspector Wheeler rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. It had been a long day and there was something about spending time with a couple of shit-for-brains hobby bobbies that was making the day stretch into a fortnight.

  “I know I’m asking the fucking impossible,” she groaned, “But think, for fuck’s sake! You was with him all bloody day before he morphed into Harry fucking Houdini. Did he say or do anything that might tell us where he pissed off to? Any calls that he received, any calls that he made? Any fucking thing at all!”

  Si Wren and Bobby Hobley looked at their laps, certain the shouty lady would commence waterboarding them at any second. They were sitting side by side in the office of their absentee charge while the chief inspector railed at them. There was something of a hostage situation to the scene.

  Si Wren let out a squeak. From his anus. Wheeler rounded on him. With him seated and her standing, they were eye to eye. He recoiled from her stark, ophidian stare.

  At Wren’s side, Bobby Hobley stifled a yelp of terror - it escaped from his nostril in the form of a snot bubble.

  Wheeler despaired. “Frig my labia like Lawrence of Arabia.”

  “Um,” said Bobby Hobley with a wet sniff. “We didn’t think it polite to earwig.”

  “It’s - manners,” added Si Wren.

  “Oh, is it?” Wheeler roared. “Well, pardon me, Little Lord Fuck-Knuckle, we wouldn’t want you to do anything that might offend your dear mama! Close your eyes! Both of you! Now!”

  The PCSOs jumped. Hobley yelped. Wren reached for his hand. They were certain their time was up. There was no saying what the nasty, shouty lady would do to them but they were guessing it might involve bowls of ice-water and electrodes.

  “Keep ’em closed!” Wheeler warned. They could hear her walking around them - prowling around the chairs. “Keep them fucking peepers fucking well shut! Now, I want you to fucking relax. I want you to relive your time with our mutual friend, Mr Dennis Lord, and I want you to retrace every footstep, rehear every fucking word.”

  Si Wren fidgeted on his chair. Bobby Hobley’s head lolled. He snored.

  “Fuck sake,” said Chief Inspector Wheeler.

  There was a knock at the door; the PCSOs almost jumped out of their hi-viz tabards. Charlie West’s head popped into the office.

  “What the fuck do you want?” Wheeler snapped.

  “Um - not sure if it’s of any use but we’ve just taken delivery of tomorrow’s Dedley Chronicle.”

  “Let me get the fucking flags out.”

  “No, but this might help.” Charlie pushed open the door and held out a copy of the latest edition of the local paper.

  His hand’s not shaking, Wheeler was pleased to note. Unlike Bubble and Squeak who were quivering like terrified jellies in an earthquake. She read the headline. Her expression brightened.

  “Charlie West,” she grinned, “I could fucking fuck you red raw.”

  “Please don’t,” said Charlie West.

  ***

  Logger and Dogger swaggered into CostBusters as if they owned the place, swinging bulging bin bags at their sides. They strolled along the aisles, looking for the third member of their triumvirate.

  “We could ask him,” Dogger pointed out a member of staff who was building a pyramid from cans of baked beans. “Hey, mate, you seen a kid called Bonk? I mean Nat West. As in the bonk, do you get it?”

  The shelf-stacker turned. “Do you know, I’ve never got it until now?”

  The others gaped. It was Bonk, but his hair was combed, his hands and face were clean and he was standing up straight. Crucially, he was no longer sporting his hooded jacket.

  “Christ, Bonk,” said Logger, feeling the sting of betrayal.

  “What have they done to you?” gasped Dogger. “Have they swapped you with an alien?”

  “Soz, lads,” said Bonk. “Cor speak to you right now. I’m on the clock.”

  Dogger and Logger let out cries of horror.

  “What happened to you, man?” Dogger was incredulous.

  “I doubt it’s brain-washing,” said Logger. “Listen, Bonk, we’ll get out of your way if you tell us where the boss’s office is.”

  Bonk’s heavy brows dipped in a frown of suspicion. “Why?”

  “We want to see him,” said Logger, finding himself adopting a rather business-like tone.

  “Got him a present,” Dogger held out a bin bag. Logger nudged him to lower it again.

  “He ain’t there,” said Bonk. “They’m all looking for him. The coppers. Everybody. Even my brother.”

  “Hmm,” said Logger. “And you’ve no idea where he’s gone?”

  “Who? My Charlie? He went into the office to show the cops the paper.”

  “What paper?”

  “This one.” Bonk led them away. “We’ve got stacks of them.”

  ***

  The Serious team reconvened at Dedley nick. Stevens and Pattimore had brought a red-faced Beatrice
Mooney in for safe-keeping. She was in an interview room, trying to live down her humiliation and she was keeping her lips buttoned over the identity of her no-show lover. Stevens couldn’t stop sniggering.

  “It’s like this video I downloaded the other night. Rodeo Bitches.”

  Miller cut her eyes at him. “Didn’t that win this year’s Oscar for best screenplay?”

  Stevens shook his head. “Well, it certainly didn’t win Best Costume. Because there weren’t none!”

  Brough raised his voice. “If we could focus on the case?”

  “Brough’s right,” said Pattimore. “There’s still a potential victim out there. And a killer too.”

  Brough sent him a grateful smile, which did not go unnoticed by Miller. Christ, she thought.

  “With Ms Mooney tucked away-”

  “Yee-hah!” Stevens interrupted.

  “-it is our best guess that the killer will go after Dennis Lord who, as it turns out, has eluded the PCSOs. And Chief Inspector Wheeler herself.”

  The team sucked in air, picturing how incandescent with rage their boss would be at that moment. Harry Henry raised a hand.

  “Yes, Harry?” Brough nodded.

  “Um,” he stood - every time for Harry Henry, getting to his feet was reminiscent of a new-born fawn taking its first steps. “We think the killer might try to tear Dennis Lord apart in some way. It probably won’t be horses, as we thought with-”

  “Bucking Beatrice!” Stevens interjected, slapping his thigh.

  “-Ms Mooney,” Harry continued. “So we need alternative ideas.”

  Brough grinned. “Harry... I can tell by the look on your face, you already have an idea.”

  Harry Henry’s cheeks grew hot. He waved his smartphone. “I’ve been looking into ways they used to kill people back in the day. We’ve seen a hanging, a garrotting, an immolation-”

  “A what?” blinked Stevens.

  “Setting on fire,” the rest of the team chorused.

  “Go on, Harry,” Brough encouraged.

  “Um, well, according to local history, the next person was torn apart, but I want to look at it another way.”

  “Put back together, do you mean?” scoffed Stevens.