by Ryan Casey
He should’ve felt good. He’d caught a killer.
But something just didn’t feel right.
Twenty-Four
“Come on, Brian. Don’t give me that. I can tell there’s something on your mind.”
Brian didn’t want to open up to Hannah. He didn’t want to burden her anymore. He’d been a ratty sod ever since this Elaine Schumer case had opened up. And the truth was, he should be done with it now. They had the guy, Bobby Wisdom. Sure, they hadn’t charged him with murder yet, but it was pretty clear he’d sexually assaulted Elaine, and it didn’t take a genius to put two and two together and figure out what must’ve happened next.
Brian should’ve been happy.
But something wasn’t right.
He felt Hannah’s hand brush against his chest as he lay back on their bed. He stared up at the dark ceiling. He’d stared up at it so many times in the darkness and let his thoughts wander. Deep in the night, when Hannah snored gently beside him, and when Sam was quiet in the other room, he’d looked up at that ceiling and wondered what would’ve happened if he’d played the chief constable thing differently. If he’d let him live.
Or if he hadn’t even gone after the chief constable at all. After all, he was let off the hook. The case of the ritual murders was closed.
He should’ve let go. But he couldn’t. Why?
“Brian?”
Brian looked to his side into Hannah’s eyes. “You should get some sleep.”
“What’s bothering you?”
Again, Brian just wanted to get the truth off his chest. He wanted to tell Hannah every single thing that’d happened. He wanted to ask her what to do about it. She was so good at giving advice. He’d needed her advice for a long time now.
But he couldn’t put her in any danger, so he couldn’t say a thing.
“The Elaine Schumer case,” Brian said, resisting the urge to let the truth of the chief constable’s death all out. “There’s things that don’t add up.”
“I thought you’d arrested a guy?”
“We did.”
“So you were right?”
“What?”
“You suspected someone all along. And you were right.”
Brian realised how stupid it was now he heard it like that. “Yeah. I guess I did.”
“Then why can’t you let it go?”
There were a few answers that came to mind. Bobby Wisdom was the obvious suspect. Fuck, he even had a pair of Elaine’s spunk-stained panties with him and ditched them right by where her body was found. He got rid of all the CCTV and claimed it’s because he was trying to destroy one little bit of footage. He was the guy. He had to be the guy.
But on the other hand, there were discrepancies. Why would Bobby go to the trouble of destroying every single piece of CCTV, only for incriminating evidence of him entering Elaine’s room to show up? Why would he leave Elaine’s underwear on the roof, where he must’ve known it’d be found?
Sure, he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. That much was obvious.
But was he really that careless?
“I just don’t want the wrong guy to go down for this,” Brian said.
Hannah circled her hand around Brian’s chest. “You’ve always had such a sense of justice,” she said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Ever since I first met you. As much of a tool as you were, you always had this sense of right and wrong that I just found admirable.”
A bitter taste filled Brian’s mouth. He turned away from Hannah. “I’m not so sure.”
“It goes beyond your job,” she said. “Sometimes you put your life on the line for things that you know aren’t necessarily the right way of doing things. Sometimes you dig a little deeper, even if it gets you into trouble. And sometimes you do… you do things you aren’t supposed to do. You never accept the first answer. That’s good.”
Brian suddenly felt a whole lot more reassured about what he’d done to the chief constable.
He’d followed his instincts, and his instincts told him it wasn’t fair if he or the rest of his psychotic cult pulled the strings of crime in the North West of England.
He’d made a decision, and he’d live with it.
He just hoped it wouldn’t come back to bite his family.
“Thank you,” Brian said.
“For what?”
He looked out at the light beaming from the lamppost down onto the street. “You’ve no idea.”
He looked out of that window for another few hours. He listened to every single noise, made sure none of them were any kind of threat to him or his family.
When sleep started to wrap its arms around him, he turned over and stared up at the ceiling, Hannah snoring gently beside him.
All he heard was Bobby Wisdom’s desperate voice protesting his innocence.
“The other person. The other person!”
Twenty-Five
Michael Reed couldn’t escape the news of Elaine’s death no matter where he looked.
He lay back on his bed and browsed Facebook on his iPad, like he always did at this time of night. He knew he should probably change out of his clothes, but similarly, he knew damned well what always happened when he planned on changing out of his clothes and falling to sleep. He’d wake up in the morning still fully dressed, iPad pressed across his face with the screen covered in drool, and the photo of a fit girl accidentally “liked”.
Every night ended in shame. Every day began in shame.
But no more shame than right now.
He saw all the statuses about Elaine and the hairs on his arms stood on end. He could still hear his dad wandering around downstairs, like he always did when he’d just finished work late. A part of Michael wanted to go downstairs and talk with his dad. He just needed someone to talk to right now. Someone to let the truth off his chest to.
But he knew this wasn’t the kind of thing he could just chat casually about.
Besides, this was about more than just him…
The wind rattled against his single-glazed window. Michael felt a slight breeze creep its way through. He knew it wasn’t all that cold, but he felt totally shaky. He hadn’t stopped shaking since that day. Since that moment.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever stop shaking again.
He scrolled further down his Facebook page and he saw more statuses about Elaine’s death.
RIP Elaine!
Such a sweet girl. Didn’t speak much but always smiled at me. You’ll be missed. X
:( Rest in peace angel.
So many reminders of what had happened. So much outpouring of grief. And rightly so. Elaine was a nice girl. Michael had known her for a long, long time. Longer than any of these fake Facebook friends, even.
He’d known her right from when she was just seven years old. He was six years older. They’d always got on, though. Good bit of banter between them right from an early age; banter that continued right into their teens and twenties. Michael was twenty-seven now. Elaine had drifted a little since she’d started university, sure, but he still saw her every now and then.
It was hard not to.
She was his sister, Sammi’s, best friend.
He opened up the chat window for Sammi. He wanted to message her and ask how she was getting on. But what did you say to someone who’d just lost their best friend? Sammi had chosen to be at her student flat right now. She said it helped her keep her mind off things. Michael felt bad for her. Really bad.
He wanted to tell her everything was going to be okay, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.
He closed the chat window and scrolled back up his Facebook timeline. When he reached the top, he noticed a status Elaine had uploaded a while back, one that was rising to the top now that it’d got many likes since her death.
Nothing is more beautiful than life itself.
Michael felt tears welling up. That was Elaine all over. Positive. Optimistic. Hopeful. She didn’t deserve what’d happened to her. She
didn’t deserve any of it.
He felt Elaine’s profile drawing him in. He knew he should close his iPad. He knew what always happened at this time of night. One of the things that led to the shame in the first place.
He knew there was no turning his back on it.
He opened Elaine’s profile and clicked on her photos. With every one he scrolled through—ones of her on holiday in Cuba, another of her on a night out dressed in a tight skirt—he felt himself getting hard and he knew how wrong it was. Elaine was dead. She was dead, and she was his sister’s best friend.
He didn’t have to do this. He didn’t have to…
He saw the naughty, teasing photo of her leaning forward with a friend by her side, hands on her boobs, pouting ironically.
But there was nothing ironic about it to Michael.
He moved his hands down under the sheets and stroked his dick. He felt the shame being taken over by sexual desire. In his mind, he felt Elaine’s warm skin. He took her erect nipples into his mouth and nibbled on them while she moaned with pleasure.
Then he moved down between her legs and licked her clit with his tongue.
He kept on wanking harder and harder, his eyes closed now, not needing the photo of Elaine for any inspiration. She was riding his dick now. Riding it hard. Then he flipped her over and pulled his dick out of her vag and stuck it in her ass.
She protested. She didn’t want it there. She was a good girl.
But he fucked her anyway.
He grabbed her hair and pulled her back and fucked her hard as tears rolled down her cheeks.
He choked her, made her cough, and when she looked back up at him she was smiling, animalistic and smiling.
She was enjoying this.
She was enjoying it a lot.
He felt his dick reach bursting point and imagined himself spanking her ass.
He imagined himself pressing his hands around her neck, and her strangling him back.
And as he reached the point of no return, he saw her naked body underwater, eyes wide and bloodshot, hands slapping at him, gargled screams begging him to let go.
He snapped from his thought and threw his iPad across the room. He stopped masturbating, but it was too late. Sperm shot out and covered his grimy bedsheets.
As he orgasmed, Michael rolled his head over onto his pillow. He felt nothing but shame.
He saw Elaine’s gargling body fighting back against him.
Then he saw her body going still.
The final spurt of semen splattered all over his mattress.
Twenty-Six
“So, wait a second, Brian. You thought there was something off about the Elaine Schumer case, and we found out you were right. Woo-hoo. Con-fucking-grats. But now we’ve found out you were right, that’s not enough for you. You think there’s something else going on. Right?”
Brian heard Annie’s condescending tones and wished he’d never said anything. The pair of them sat in the work canteen. It was an absolutely roasting day, and the air con had gone in here, which made the whole place very smelly. “I know it sounds mad.”
“You got that right,” Annie said, chewing on a bacon sandwich. A little brown sauce dripped out of the bottom and onto the table. “It does sound mad.”
“Bobby Wisdom sexually assaulted Elaine Schumer. I accept that. Fuck, he might’ve killed her.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“There’s so many problems. Why would he go to the effort of destroying every bit of CCTV footage except the one of him entering Elaine’s room?”
“Because he’s careless. He panicked.”
“Right. Then why does that footage just so happen to show up in public toilets right by the hotel?”
“He must’ve been carrying it with him. Figuring out what to do with it.”
“Okay. I mean, I don’t buy that. But let’s go with that. Why does he leave Elaine’s room, go upstairs, then just ditch her underwear on the roof?”
“He shagged her. He tore those thongs off in a red haze or something.”
“He told us he might’ve had a cheeky wank over them. Nothing more.”
“And you believe him?”
Brian leaned forward, trying to lower his voice. It was hot, there was a wasp terrorising some officers at the far side of the room, and it was so easy to get agitated right now. “Look. I don’t think Bobby Wisdom’s an angel. Far from it.”
“Thank God. Or I’d really be questioning your morals.”
“But at the same time, I’ve been in this job long enough to know when something’s not right.”
“So that’s what this is all about? A hunch?”
“I’ve had hunches in the past. Most of them turned out to be true.”
“Brian, listen to yourself,” Annie said, lowering her bacon sandwich. “We’ve got the guy. He’s probably gonna go down for her murder, with a little more investigation. You should be happy.”
“And the codes?”
“What?”
“The codes required to get to the roof.”
“Well, Bobby must’ve either found them—”
“They were untouched. Right where Dan left them.”
“So Dan must’ve told him. I dunno. But we go on what we have. Bobby went into Elaine’s room with some fucking date-rape drugs, came out looking all sheepish with her thongs in his back pocket. Later that night, she turns up dead with his sperm all over those panties.”
“So you think he killed her in the room?”
“What?”
“The autopsy showed Elaine drowned. If she died in the room, how did she drown?”
“Fuck, I dunno. Maybe he held her head in the sink. Maybe he drugged her then took her to the roof and things just went wrong up there. Seriously Brian, what’s up with you? I wish you had this kind of passion with every case.”
Brian leaned back and shook his head. “I just don’t think ‘I dunnos’ and ‘maybes’ are the right way to decide someone’s fate.”
Annie stood. “Well sometimes you’ve just got to connect the dots. It’s a fucking primary school dot to dot, Brian. Learn how to draw a line.”
She walked off and left Brian alone in the canteen.
He looked around the canteen, fanning himself with his phone.
“The other person. The other person!”
Who? Another member of staff? If there was someone else, was there a chance they could’ve seen Bobby Wisdom? Maybe they knew about him following Elaine.
Maybe they used that knowledge to their advantage…
Maybe Elaine was just on the phone to them.
Or maybe there was no one at all, and it was just a lie.
“Hey.”
Brian turned around.
Annie was by the door. She had her phone by her side. “Come over here.”
Brian got up and walked over to Annie. He was fully prepared for another grilling. But as he got closer, he realised she looked pale. “What’s up?”
“It’s Bobby Wisdom,” she said. “That sick bastard’s been released.”
Brian narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“He’s got an alibi. Someone claims to have seen him leaving work. We don’t have enough evidence to keep him any longer. His thirty-six hours are up.”
“But he could’ve—”
“Still killed her in the room? Right. You’ve changed your tune. Anyway, that’s not everything. There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Hotel Death have been in touch. They say they’ve found traces of a technical fault with the locking system. Apparently, the codes have been fucking up for days and letting anyone in, regardless of whatever code they enter.”
Brian’s stomach turned. “So that means anyone could’ve got to the roof.”
“It means Bobby Wisdom didn’t need a code to get to the roof, Brian. I don’t like the way you say ‘anyone’.”
She turned around and walked away, leaving Brian to consider the options.
“Bo
bby was convinced there was someone in that room with Elaine,” he called.
Annie shrugged. “Maybe there was. Maybe there wasn’t. All I care about is the evidence. And I’m gonna do everything I can to find the truth. Bobby’s going down for this. We’re not gonna let him crawl away this time.”
She walked off and disappeared from sight.
Brian looked at his watch. He still had time off for lunch.
He knew where he needed to go.
Twenty-Seven
Brian looked down the corridor of Baker’s Inn hotel towards the stairs leading up to the roof and he knew he really shouldn’t bloody be here right now.
He looked at his phone. Twenty minutes of his lunch break left. He’d not technically done anything wrong. Not yet. But planning on testing out that door and working his way up to the roof? Yeah. He guessed that was pretty wrong.
But screw it. Hannah was right. Sometimes he did the wrong thing to reach the right outcome.
He was becoming a lot more comfortable with that reality now.
He walked down the corridor towards the door. To his right, he saw the lift, which was closed off. He imagined he was Elaine Schumer, standing outside it, then seeing something. Something she had to walk towards.
What was it?
What had she seen?
Who had she seen?
And was that before or after the footage of Bobby Wisdom entering her room? It had to be before, surely?
Or maybe he was who she was so afraid of?
Brian didn’t know. He just knew one thing. He had to walk towards that door and he had to test it out.
He headed closer towards the door. Every step he took, he felt like someone was watching him. He knew he was doing wrong, technically, but he had to see that roof for himself. If there’d been some of Elaine’s thongs found up there, then maybe there’d be something else.
He put his hand on the front of the door and pushed it gently. It didn’t budge, as expected. He looked over his shoulder. No one there. But there was a creepy feeling that someone was watching him.
He entered a random string of six digits. Shit, what was he even thinking? They’d probably repaired the system by now.
