by Stan Mason
The Swedish student’s body was wheeled out to the main room and Hunter screwed up his face as the pathologist cut open the abdomen of the dead woman. He stared at the cadaver briefly before turning away sadly. She had been such a beautiful student with blond hair, blue eyes, a perfect figure, and, no doubt, a personality to match. What a waste, he thought miserably.
The pathologist delved into the body pulling parts this way and that until she finished her examination. Eventually, she looked up at the architect with a wry expression on her face. ‘It seems that she did have an abortion, probably only two days before she died. I won’t go into the medical details but that’s how it appears.’
‘Thank you very much,’ Hunter told her appreciatively. ‘I owe you one.’
The body was wheeled out into the corridor and the architect left putting his handkerchief to his nose. The stench of death was so vile that it would continue to haunt him for at least the next twenty-four hours. He sat in his car thinking about the case. Inge Carlson had been injected the same way as Sophie Taffler. It was patently clear that Amy Chester had been given a similar dose but there was no proof of it as Amy’s body had been cremated. No doubt, Elspeth Dainty had suffered the same fate. It was becoming quite clear to the architect that each of the victims had had an abortion within a short period of time before their death. Someone was hunting the women possibly on the grounds that they were deliberately destroying human life. It was a reasonable assumption but it still didn’t get him any nearer to solving the case and catching the killers.
Hunter’s next port of call was the only hospital located within the circle drawn around the police station. He drove there in the hope of learning something to his advantage and introduced himself to the chief of hospital security. The man seemed quite willing to answer all his questions knowing about the architect from the article in the local newspaper.
‘How may paramedics do you have employed by the hospital?’ he asked point-blank.
‘There are eight,’ replied the man firmly.
‘Any women?’
‘No... not at this hospital. No women.’
‘Can you tell me their ages,’ continued Hunter coolly.
The security man scratched his head to think for a few moments. ‘Three are in their twenties, three in their thirties, and two in their forties.’
‘I’m interested in the twenties,’ declared the architect hoping to find out more information. ‘What are their names?’
‘There’s Ted Fellows, Graham Trott and Terry Machin.’
‘What can you tell me about them?
The security chief pressed some buttons on the computer module on his desk and waited for the pages to come up.
‘Ted’s twenty-nine years old. He has a wife and six children.’
Hunter’s face dropped at the information. There was no chance of Mr. Fellows being a suspect.
‘Graham’s twenty-eight. He’s married with four children. And then there’s Terry who’s twenty-three. He’s not married.’
The architect brightened a little, disappointed that no women were employed as paramedics. However, he realised that a nurse or a doctor could have borrowed a paramedic’s jacket to undertake the evil deed.
‘I’d like to talk to Terry,’ he suggested hoping for a positive response.
‘There he is,’ stated the security chief pointing out of the window. ‘If you hurry you’ll catch him.’
The architect raced out of the building waving his arms at the paramedic. Machin stopped in his tracks until Hunter caught up with him.
‘I just want to ask you a few questions,’ he uttered, puffing with the effort. ‘What do you know about Amy Chester or Inge Carlson?’
The paramedic stared at him strangely. He was a weedy little pale-faced man with a slight limp, someone totally unlike a killer.
‘Who?’ he asked puzzled by Hunter’s question.
The architect realised that he was on a bum steer with the man. He looked so weak and feeble, Hunter wondered how it was possible for him to life patients onto the stretchers. In any case, he looked nothing like the image of the face-fit he had seen in the police station. Without doubt, the killers were not paramedics but just wore similar jackets to cover their tracks when an abduction was taking place. He drove away from the hospital rather disappointed that he had come away empty-handed. He recognised that there might be another hospital within the ten mile radius but, at the same time, he felt that he was chasing rainbows.
He spent the rest of the day touring the area to see whether he could find the building with a permanent canopy supported by two thick columns. He started out from the police station driving south and then returned after seven miles to take a different route, continuing by means of a compass in an attempt not to miss any roads where he might find the building. However, despite the care he took to determine each road, he could only cover part of the circle by the time darkness arrived. Tired and fed up, he gave up the quest intending to continue the following day although he considered that the ten mile radius was more likely to reveal the building. However an awkward thought pervaded his mind. What if Sophie had misjudged the time taken to get to the police station? She had told the police that it took between fifteen to twenty minutes to get there. In her poor state of mind at the time it could have taken twenty-five minutes which meant that the circle needed to be extended further. If that was so, he was wasting him time looking within the seven mile limit.
The following morning he went to the office which Sophie intended to manage. He was uncertain whether the woman would discuss her private life with him but he had to ask her whether she undergone an abortion in the short time she had spent in London to to link up the case with the other victims. He pressed the bell on the door and waited but no one came to answer the call. He looked at his watch and stood on the doorstep hoping that she would soon come. Shortly a man arrived to open the office door and he stared at Hunter bleakly.
‘What do you want?’ he demanded curtly holding the door so that the architect was unable to get inside.
‘I’ve come to see Sophie Taffler,’ replied the architect.
‘What did you want to see her about?’ The question was fired at him sharply.
‘It’s a private matter... personal.’
‘How do you know Sophie?’ The man was clearly refusing to offer any information about her.
‘I met her yesterday,’ replied Hunter. ‘As I said, it’s a personal matter. I need to speak with her.’
‘Well you’re unlucky,’ related the man bluntly. ‘She’s went back to Israel today. If you want to speak with her you’ll have to hurry to Heathrow Airport.’ He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘There’s half an hour before she takes off.’
Hunter screwed up his face wryly. It was so important for him to find the answer to a question even though she might refuse to reply. If she revealed the truth, it would advance the investigation by geometric progression for she would be able to tell him the name of the people or the organisation who had carried out the operation. An idea formed in his mind that the female involved in the killing actually worked in an abortion clinic but where was the place? There were at least three options. It could be a doctor who had been struck off the medical register working illicitly on his own. Secondly, it might be a woman working in a back street to earn herself some money. Thirdly, it could be a registered hospital that carried out such operations legitimately. The options were open-ended and only Sophie could narrow them down to one single element.
He thanked the man for the information and reluctantly went on his way. What rotten luck that Sophie had decided to return to her homeland before he had the chance to speak to her. However her absence did nothing to help him in his cause. In an indirect way, he believed that Sophie’s visit to London had been mainly to have an abortion. As a result, he was convinced that each w
oman abducted by the killers had recently experienced such an operation. It was the trigger that made them targets!
***
A relatively unimportant event took place on the following weekend at Hunter’s house without his knowledge. Its significance was of no particular interest to the architect except for the problems caused by the debris and disturbance left in practically every room.
He had not been home for some time which was well noticed by someone seeking a place to live. It happened to be a wandering gypsy, wearing moth-eaten clothing, who had no apparent abode. He had been watching the house from a short distance away for a few days realising that no one seemed to live there, especially as no lights were turned on at night time. The man considered that the owners were probably on vacation but the idea of squatting in an empty house until anyone returned was too attractive to miss. Consequently, he entered by climbing on to the roof and prising open the skylight, lowering himself into one of the bedrooms. He went directly to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator to find it full of food, albeit most of the milk had curdled. He placed a number of items on a tray and took it into the lounge, sat on a comfortable armchair and put his feet up on the coffee-table. He switched on the television set, pressing the remote control to change channels at his whim, and munch the food he had brought with him. When he had finished eating, he tossed the scraps on to the carpet before climbing the stairs to enter one of the bedrooms. He opened one of the wardrobes staring at the volume of suits, shirts, socks and underwear... it was an Aladdin’s cave of treasure! He removed all his old wore-out clothes and went into the bathroom to shave and then returned to dress elegantly in the finery he had found. He stared in the mirror to recognise that he had joined the human race again. That night, he retreated to the master bedroom and lay full-length out on the bed. It was soft, smooth, gentle, something he was totally unused to. At three-thirty in the morning, he began to dream and his mind began to spin so that he felt he was going round in a vortex. He suddenly opened his eyes, his attention being driven to the foot of the bed. He blinked twice and sat up sharply in fear. There stood the misty apparition of Ruth Hunter looking at him across the bed. He tried to speak but nothing came out of his mouth and he continued to stare at the spectre with horror showing on his face.
‘We’re running out of time,’ uttered the ghost, much to the gypsy’s astonishment. ‘You must catch Amy’s killer soon or it will be too late!’
‘Baamaaabaa!’ the man managed to say as though he had cotton wool stuffed in his mouth.
‘You have been told!’ retorted Ruth’s spirit curtly. ‘You have been warned! If you fail, I shall haunt you for the rest of your days!’
The apparition then faded away leaving the gypsy terrified. He pulled back the sheet, scrambled out of bed, dressed quickly, and ran out of the house as fast as his legs would carry him. Homeless he may have been but houses with ghosts should be well avoided. It was an experience he had never known before and one he did not wish to see again.
It was some days later before Hunter returned home. He was unable to understand how scraps of food lay on the carpet in his lounge, the upstairs bed had been slept in, and the wardrobe doors were open. Had he known that the person who had broken in had faced Ruth’s apparition, he would certainly have doubled up with laughter.
***
The party at the Master’s house went with a swing. About forty people had been invited, every one of them a relative or friend of Todd and Martha Masters. Hunter rued the fact that he had no family of his own. He was a single child, his parents were dead, and he had lost touch with his cousins, nephews and nieces many years earlier. Yet the Masters had accepted him into their fold. Ellen handed him a drink and began to introduce him to other guests in the room. The wine flowed well and everything was set for a great party. Hunter joined a group of people with Todd Masters, listening to the flow of conversation and, as most of the men were builders, they had a lot in common.
After a while, he edged his way towards Ellen and took her hands lovingly. ‘Your parents really know how to throw a party,’ he told her. He mused that he had fallen on his feet. He had met a simple schoolmistress by accident, with whom he had fallen in love, and now he was going to be part of a wealthy family who had taken him into the fold and offered him employment as a senior architect in their business. It was something that only happened in dreams!
Todd approached them shortly and put his arm around Hunter’s shoulders. ‘I’ve got some really good plans for you, my boy,’ he told him. ‘You’re going to design the highest building in the whole of Britain. It’s a multi, multi million pound project and I want you to head the design work. How soon can you start?’
‘Very shortly, Mr. Masters,’ he replied.
‘I think you can call me Todd from now on if you’re going to be my son-in-law.’
Martha Masters came over to join them. ‘When are you two going to get married?’ she asked point-blank, clearly wishing to plan the wedding.
‘We’re not getting married until Jeff’s caught Amy Chester’s killers,’ said Ellen quietly. ‘Jeff’s dead wife’s spirit keeps appearing at his house. She won’t leave him until Amy’s killers are caught.’ There was a brief silence as Martha stared at her in disbelief. ‘I don’t want her to interfere in our relationship. So the faster the mystery’s solved the quicker we can marry.’
‘But what if the mystery’s never solved?’ asked Todd with concern.
‘Then we don’t get married!’
‘This is a pretty poor state of affairs,’ rattled Mrs. Masters bleakly. ‘Clearly you’re both in love with each other. I think you should bite the bullet and get married in church.’
‘I know you’d love that, mother,’ countered Ellen smoothly, ‘but it’s not going to happen. In fact we may have one of the longest engagements on record.’ She burst into laughter at her own comment much to the discomfort of her parents.
‘Do you mean it about not getting married until I find Amy’s killers?’
‘I did,’ she replied tersely.
‘It’s not certain that I’ll succeed in finding them but life must go on,’ responded Hunter.
Martha began to become anxious and turned to her husband. ‘Can’t you do something, Todd?’
He lit a large Havana cigar and turned back to them. ‘Well firstly it’s in the hands of the police. Secondly, I know nothing about the problem so I can’t get involved. I can only stand on the sidelines.’
‘They’re so much in love,’ commented Martha with annoyance. ‘They shouldn’t have to be held up by something like this! It’s ridiculous! Whoever heard of a person life to be put on hold because of the spirit of his dead wife?’
‘Just give it time, Martha,’ suggested Todd sagely. ‘I’m sure the boy will sort it out. If it came to a bet, I’d put my money on him rather than on the police. He’s got brains and I trust him.’
The Masters then turned to their guests. They had arranged a party and it was going to be enjoyed by everyone!
***
A few nights later, Hunter was fast asleep in bed with Ellen. Before he dozed off, his mind was flooded with details of the case and he thought that they would keep him awake all night. He began to dream but it turned out to be a nightmare. He could see Ruth standing in the road with a large car looming towards her, knocking her down. Her bones began to fall apart from the tissue and they spread all the way across the road with the car speeding off into the distance. Blood ran from her body and she was calling out to him in a high pitched voice.
‘You will die!’ she screamed. ‘You will die a merciless untimely death for your iniquity!’
He twisted and turned violently to try to escape from the nightmare and suddenly woke up, disturbing Ellen who stared at him wearily as she tried to recover some of the sheets and blankets.
‘It was Ruth. She was horrible!�
�
‘Now you can see why I can’t marry you.’
‘I don’t blame you,’ he responded tiredly.
She turned over and rested her head on the pillow. ‘Don’t wake me until seven-thirty!’ she warned him, ‘or I’ll be even more horrible than Ruth!’
Eventually he dozed off but it was a light restless sleep. At eight-thirty, his mobile telephone rang and he was surprised to receive a call from Jessica Harrow, the medium who had carried out the séance.
I can’t seem to detach myself from the spirit of your dead wife,’ she informed him miserably. ‘I’ve held two séances in the last two weeks and she’s come to me on both occasions.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘She’s trying to communicate with you but says you’re not there.’
‘I’m not at the house these days. I’ve been keeping out of the way.’
‘She wants to tell you a few things to help you find Amy’s killers. You see she’s in limbo and will stay there until you solve her problem.’
Hunter was fed up with mediums. They related very few details and he wished he hadn’t become involved with them.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you,’ he reaffirmed.
There was a long pause before the medium continued. ‘She told me that the people in Amy’s death are a brother and sister.’
‘Why didn’t she tell me that before?’
‘She didn’t know.’
The information was very useful in its own way but it didn’t really help him. ‘I wish she would tell me their identity. In that way, I could possibly free her spirit.’
‘She can’t do that.’ The medium disliked explaining matters concerning what she knew about the next world. ‘There’s something else! She mentioned a person called Elspeth Dainty. Are you aware of something of that name?’
‘What did she say about her?’ asked the architect.
‘She said the woman had been expecting a child.’
‘Did she say the woman had an abortion?’
