The newsreader sounded bored as she told the listening public that a thousand jobs were to be lost at a local factory. Then, without any discernible break, she went on to announce that the police were no nearer apprehending a man who had strangled a woman in her own home the previous week but they were linking it to a similar murder three miles away. George shuddered and switched the radio off.
As he looked up he saw a movement. A dark figure flitting against the laurel hedge that separated number five Canley Street's front garden from the world beyond. George held his breath and watched.
* * * *
Karen Ablet froze when she heard the noise downstairs. She sat quite still on the edge of the double bed and listened. Nothing. It was most likely a cat knocking something over outside, she told herself as she slipped her feet into a pair of pink fluffy slippers. But it was as well to make sure . . . especially since the letters had started to arrive. The police had promised to keep an eye on the house, but she knew that they only sent a patrol car round every hour or so. Hardly a deterrent.
She opened the bedroom door and stepped out onto the silent landing. It was always the same when Julian was away: Every slight sound in the house or garden took on a sinister significance. And those letters—threatening, bitter, vicious letters—had only made things worse. She peeped over the banister into the hall. Moonlight was shining through the stained glass in the front door—the original old door that she and Julian had so lovingly restored when they had moved in—casting still and unthreatening shadows onto the hall floor. There was nothing there that shouldn't have been there. No noise. Nothing wrong. Nothing to worry about.
She turned and walked back towards the bedroom, wanting nothing more than to return to bed and drift into a deep, comfortable sleep. Julian was back from his conference tomorrow so she wouldn't be alone for much longer. But just as she reached the bedroom door, the explosion shattered the calm silence of the night and she threw herself onto the landing carpet, her arms instinctively raised to protect her head.
She lay there terrified, hardly daring to move. She was sure she could hear the sound of running feet outside and as they faded into the distance, she shifted a little, testing her limbs. Her body felt stiff but, as far as she could tell, she'd suffered no lasting damage. Gathering courage, she looked up. She had expected to see a blazing fire or a cloud of dust, but the house looked quite normal in the watery moonlight that seeped in through the large landing window. She struggled to her knees; then she pushed herself into a standing position. She needed to check that everything was all right. In Julian's absence, she had to be brave.
Creeping down the stairs on tiptoe like a burglar, she saw the damage. The stained glass of the front door was lying in jagged jewels on the carpet, glinting in the jaundiced light from the street lamp outside. She was about to turn on a light to assess the extent of the damage but she stopped herself. Perhaps that was what they were waiting for—a good view of the target. She realised that, as she was only wearing thin slippers, it wouldn't be wise to go down into the hallway amongst the splinters of glass so she stood halfway up the stairs and pondered her next move. From where she stood she could just make out the brick they had thrown. The letters had threatened something worse than a brick through the window but perhaps the protesters’ courage had failed them. Or perhaps this was just a warning. A brick this time—a fire bomb next.
Karen turned and started to walk back up the stairs, making for the phone in the bedroom to call the police. Then she heard the doorbell ring twice and a man's voice calling through the glassless door. “Mrs. Ablet. Are you all right?”
The voice sounded authoritative, concerned. But caution took over and she froze on the stairs, listening.
“Mrs. Ablet, it's okay. He's gone. I saw him running off. Mrs. Ablet, are you in there?”
She relaxed. It sounded like Bill, her next-door neighbour. He was a terrible busybody but on this occasion she was grateful for his interference. Then she hesitated. Hadn't Bill mentioned he'd be away for a few days? She could hardly remember their last conversation over the back garden wall because his chatter always went in one ear and out of the other and she never really took in what he was telling her. She dashed upstairs to put on some shoes before hurtling downstairs to open the front door, her feet crunching over the broken glass. Once Bill was inside she would call the police—and perhaps he'd know of a decent glazier.
* * * *
George thought that Karen Ablet looked rather surprised to see him standing there on the doorstep. But that was only to be expected. He was a complete stranger, after all.
“I thought you were my neighbour,” were her first words. Then she looked him up and down and presumably concluded that he didn't fit her mental picture of an animal-rights protester. When she pulled her dressing gown protectively around her body he smiled and assumed an expression of concern to put her at her ease.
“No need to worry, Mrs. Ablet. My name's George Billings and I'm a private investigator. I'm acting for the gentleman who's hoping to buy your house: That's how I came to know your name.”
The suspicion on the woman's face faded a little and George continued, “Your potential purchaser, Mr. Fields, wants to know about the area and whether there are any potential problems with noise or vandalism, that sort of thing. I happened to see a young lout chuck a brick through your front-door window and I just thought I'd check to see if you were okay.” George hesitated, looking down at the hall floor. “Do you want a hand clearing this lot up?”
“I was just going to ring the police.”
“No need. I've already called them on my mobile phone.”
“Thanks. That's very good of you.” She hesitated, and George knew that she was still wondering whether she could trust him. Then she gave him a weak smile. “You'd better come in.”
He stepped into the darkened hall and felt glass crunching beneath his feet.
“My husband will be so upset about the door. We paid a fortune to have it restored.”
“Your insurance'll cover it, won't it?”
“I suppose so.”
“If you've got a piece of wood or hardboard I'll make the door secure for you. No good leaving it like that.”
“Shouldn't we wait for the police?”
“I don't think there's much need. I'm an ex-copper myself. They'll just want to take a statement. It's not as if they'll find much forensic evidence if the brick was chucked from outside.”
He could see her expression in the moonlight. Her wariness had vanished as soon as he'd told her that he was an ex-policeman. That was a good touch.
“Shall I put the hall light on?”
“Better not. He might still be out there. I suggest we go into the back. You look as if you could do with a cup of tea.”
She led him through into the kitchen and flicked on the light switch. He could see her properly now. She was more attractive than he'd imagined; in her thirties with dark hair and a mole on her left cheek. And he could just make out the shape of her slim body beneath the thin silk dressing gown. He knew it was rude to stare so he looked around and saw that one corner of the large kitchen was filled with stacked cardboard boxes; things packed away in preparation for the house move. There was a pile of dirty dishes stacked up in the sink and, to the right of the doorway, a metal clothes rack stood festooned with women's tights and underwear.
“I'm sorry about the state of the place,” she mumbled, fidgeting with her wedding ring. “I'll put the kettle on. I take it you'd like a cup of tea while we're waiting for the police to arrive?”
“That'd be lovely. Thanks.”
George swung round suddenly. “What the hell was that?”
“What? I didn't hear anything.”
“A noise.”
“The police?”
“Didn't sound like it. It could be the bastard who chucked the brick come back for another go. I'll go and see.”
As he moved towards the hallway he glanced back over his shoulde
r. Karen Ablet was watching him anxiously.
“Be careful, won't you,” she said, almost in a whisper.
He smiled reassuringly. “Perhaps you'd better pull the kitchen blinds down. And I'll switch the light off. We don't want to make it easy for them if they decide to come round the back, do we?”
She made for the window and as the thin blind fell into place he turned off the light and the room was plunged into darkness. Then, as soon as George's eyes had adjusted to the filtered moonlight, he scooped a pair of damp tights from the drying rack and stretched them in his hands until they were taut.
Karen Ablet's head was outlined against the blind as she fumbled for the kettle, a standing target just waiting for him. He crept up behind her and slipped the soft nylon swiftly over her head before twisting until the tourniquet tightened around her neck. He closed his eyes and squeezed, the thin nylon biting into his hands. But in his excitement he felt no pain. Nothing could stop that feeling of power. The power over life and death.
Karen Ablet's hands fluttered like trapped birds making their bid for freedom against the cage of death, and it wasn't until she had been still for half a minute that George loosened his grip and let her lifeless body slump onto the kitchen floor.
He knelt down beside her and arranged her clothing. He always arranged their clothing properly . . . just as he liked it. He struggled to roll the tights onto her limp, unresisting legs and then he laid her on her back with her hands folded across her chest, his ritual completed.
He stayed kneeling by her body for a while, staring at her contorted face in the dim light. This would be his last time in Manchester. He had claimed three lives there now—and even though the name was false and the car stolen, the police had seen his face. GHB Investigations would disappear into the night and reappear under another name in another place. He had begun with one killing in Glasgow, then he'd gone on to Edinburgh for two more before travelling south. Next time he would go to London: It was bigger and more anonymous, with more streets to watch and more lone women. George smiled to himself as he caressed Karen Ablet's lifeless body. Three was enough in one city. He was moving on.
* * * *
Pete Fields considered himself experienced in the business of terror. The brick had tested the waters. When he had shattered the front-door glass and no lights had come on in the house, he'd known that there was nobody at home. Now, round the back of the house it was the same story. The place was in darkness. It would be the ideal time to strike, when the house was empty and there'd be no loss of life to tarnish the image of the Cause. Julian Ablet was going to pay for his crimes against the defenceless creatures he routinely tortured to death without a pang of conscience. He was going to lose his home.
Fields knew all about Canley Street because he'd hired a strange, seedy little man called George Billings to watch the house, spinning him a plausible yarn about wanting to buy the place. Billings wasn't the type who would ask questions, so long as the money was right, and he had provided detailed reports on the comings and goings at number five. Hiring Billings meant that Fields hadn't had to run the risk of keeping watch personally, and he felt rather pleased with himself. It had all worked out rather well.
But now was the time to act. He lit the rag in the neck of the bottle, hurled it through the kitchen window, and ran down the garden as the back of the house exploded in flames.
* * * *
“Police have identified the woman who died in a blazing house in Canley Street late last night as Mrs. Karen Ablet, aged thirty-five, wife of research scientist Julian Ablet, who had recently received threats from an animal-rights organisation. A spokesman for the fire service said that the fire had been started deliberately. Police are still trying to identify a middle-aged male who also died in the blaze, probably trying to escape from the burning house.”
“And now for the rest of the news. Manchester police have issued a statement saying that there is every indication that two recent murders of local women are linked to three similar murders up in Scotland, one in Glasgow and two in Edinburgh. Some newspapers have dubbed the killer ‘The Pantyhose Strangler’ and police admit that they are still no nearer catching the culprit. Now on to the weather. . . .”
Copyright © 2012 by Kate Ellis
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Novelette: TEMPORA! O MORES! OLYMPIAD!
by Steven Saylor
* * * *
Art by Jason C. Eckhardt
* * * *
The third in a series of stories about the young Gordianus the Finder that EQMM has been running, “O Tempora! O Mores! Olympiad!” will appear later this year as part of Steven Saylor's latest novel. Other recently published stories that will feature in the book are “Styx and Stones,” from the anthology Down These Strange Streets, edited by Charlaine Harris, and “Something to Do With Diana,” from The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction, edited by Mike Ashley.
Have you ever seen anything like it?” said Antipater. “Have you ever imagined such a spectacle?”
I had not. Romans love a festival; a play or two put on in a makeshift theater, an open-air feast, chariot races in the Circus Maximus—all these things I had seen many times in my eighteen years. But no celebration in Rome could compare with the free-spirited chaos, or the sheer magnitude, of the Olympiad.
Greeks love an athletic competition. One could almost say they live for these events, where naked young men show off their manly prowess in fierce competitions. Several cities in Greece host such contests, but the Games at Olympia, held every four years, are the grandest and most well-attended. They are also the oldest. Antipater and I had arrived for the 172nd Olympiad. Multiplying that number by four, I realized that the Games at Olympia had been going on for nearly seven hundred years. When the first Olympiad was held, Romulus and Remus were mere infants suckling at the she-wolf's teats, and Rome did not yet exist.
This would be the third Olympiad Antipater had attended in the span of his long life. It was to be my first.
Simply to reach Olympia proved to be an ordeal. From Ellis, the city that administered the Games, the journey took two days. The road was jammed with wagons and pedestrians. Antipater and I rode in a hired mule-cart along with several other travelers, proceeding on the crowded road at a pace that bored even the lazy mules. Food and wine, sold at roadside stands or from moving carts, were plentiful but expensive. Water was harder to come by. After a long, hot summer, the river that ran alongside the road was nearly dry. Local landowners with access to a spring charged exorbitant fees for drinking water. Bathing was out of the question.
On the first night out we slept on the ground, for the rooms at every inn were already taken, with some guests sleeping on the rooftops. Many travelers brought their own tents. Some of the richer visitors, accompanied by entourages and slaves, brought entire pavilions. Competition for flat, smooth patches of ground amid the rocky terrain was fierce.
“Where will we sleep when we reach Olympia?” I asked.
“About that, Gordianus, you need not worry,” said Antipater, and I did not ask again. On our journey to see the Seven Wonders, I was learning to trust my old tutor about our travel arrangements and not to question him too closely. Having faked his own death in Rome, he was traveling incognito, for purposes that had never been made clear to me. In public, I addressed him not as Antipater of Sidon, but by his assumed name, Zoticus of Zeugma.
On the second day, as we drew near Olympia, the road became so congested that the cart came to a standstill.
“Let's walk the rest of the way,” said Antipater, climbing cautiously from the cart. He stepped behind a boulder and I followed him, thinking he meant to relieve himself and ready to do so myself. But as soon as we were out of sight, Antipater produced an eye patch and affixed a putty nose to his face.
I laughed. “What's this, Teacher? Do you intend to put on mime shows when we finally reach Olympia?” The query was half in earnest. Like all poets, Antipater loved
to entertain an audience.
“I am disguising myself because I do not wish to be recognized in Olympia,” he whispered.
“But that hasn't been a problem so far.” Antipater's poems were famous, but his face was not. Before we left Rome he had shaved his beard, and that had proved an adequate disguise. No one had yet recognized him.
“True, Gordianus, but as you can see, the whole of the Greek world is arriving in Olympia. There's no telling whom we might encounter. So while we are here, I shall sport a false nose as well as a false name.”
I laughed. “How peculiar you sound! It must be the putty, pinching your nose.”
“Good. My voice shall be disguised as well.”
Instead of returning to the crowded road, Antipater insisted that we follow a winding footpath up a hillside, saying it would be worth our while to see the lay of the land. When we reached the crest of the hill, I turned around and saw below us the valley of the river Alpheus, with Olympia laid out like a city in miniature.
Properly speaking, Olympia is not a city but a religious center. Its only purpose is to host the Games, which are dedicated to Zeus. I had expected to see a racetrack or two, some public squares for the wrestling and boxing competitions, crowds of spectators here and there, and of course the Temple of Zeus, which contained the famous statue by Phidias, the Wonder of the World we had come to see. But everything about Olympia was of a magnitude far exceeding my expectations.
I took in the awesome natural beauty of the setting, an alluvial plain dotted with poplars, oaks, and olive trees, with pine-covered hills in the distance. Looming just behind Olympia was Mount Kronos, not a particularly high peak but imposing because it stood alone, and famous because of its history; on its summit Zeus wrestled his father, the king of the Titans, for control of the universe. In the valley below, Apollo once took on Ares in a boxing match, and emerged victorious. Off to the east, where the stadium now stood, Apollo defeated Hermes in a footrace. Heracles himself paced out the running track for them—and there it was, freshly groomed and ready to be used by this year's contestants, covered with raked white sand that sparkled under the bright sun.
EQMM, May 2012 Page 6
