The Big Ben mystery

by Fernando Trujillo

  It was pure madness. Something to go crazy laughing about. But they were the questions, one way or another. And they were going to be asked because his desire to unravel the whole damn thing was overwhelming. The question about what his wife's death had to do with all of this was raging through his mind like a hurricane. It was driving him on like nothing had ever done before.

  "It's time to get some answers," he said, standing up. "We've got to corner one of these clowns and drag the truth out of him one way or another."

  "Wait a minute. Have you taken in everything that I've told you?" she insisted on repeating. "When they kill, they move in to the victim's house."

  He studied her expression and then got the idea.

  "William Black! If your theory's right, then the killer's living there now."

  "Exactly."

  "Let's find out then. And if his surname's White, then he'd better start praying."

  "Well, bless my soul," Lance Norwood said, coming through the door. His coat was wet around the shoulders, and his hair was all over the place. "I hope I haven't interrupted anything important."

  "Lance! Put it on hold, dumbbell."

  "There, there. I'm not as stupid as I look. Am I, Carol?"

  "Nothing's happened here, Lance. Absolutely nothing."

  Lance poured himself a coffee and stared at them.

  "Seriously? That's even worse. You're over age. What are you waiting for?"

  "How did you get in?" Aidan asked him bluntly.

  "The door was open."

  "OK. It's time to get a move on. We're off to William Black's…"

  "That's not necessary. I heard what you were talking about on my way in," Lance said, sipping the coffee. "I know who the new owner of that house is. His name's Peter White. The only problem is that he's already dead. If you want to see him, you've only got to go down to the mortuary. I'm sure old Fletcher's digging though his guts now. And William Black's widow was right. He was a dead ringer for William, except for the colour of his eyes and hair."

  "I'm impressed to say the least," Aidan said. "How did you find all this out?"

  "It wasn't hard. After you left us last night I got a taxi for Carol then received a call that there'd been a murder round the corner from where I was. I called you, but you'd signed off for the day." He paused. "Seems a metal boomerang chopped Peter White's head off, the same boomerang that destroyed the lamp post before it crashed into our car."

  "It must've been that bloke I was chasing. The one that that idiot Blair stopped me getting to," Aidan said.

  "That's what I thought. But he looked different from the other boys in black."

  "Yeah. But he's one of them, sure enough," Aidan said, firmly, avoiding telling them what Wilfred had told him about there being four male models and a woman. "Let's find out," Carol said. "I'll bet the new owner of William Black's old house is the boomerang man."

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 14

  James White didn't feel even a glimmer of excitement. Four aces! He'd heard about poker players being dealt a hand like that. It should have been eating him up inside. Adrenalin should have been running every which way in his body, the pile of money in the middle of the table adding fuel to the fire.

  But all he felt was extreme boredom. He looked at the four aces in his hand again, and when he was convinced that he was dead emotionally he put the cards back on the table, face down.

  "You're pathetic," James White accused his playing partner. "Irritating, absolutely despicable. I curse the day we met each other."

  Dylan Blair frowned with an expression of uncertainty and his permanent smile receded, but he managed to keep his dissatisfaction in check.

  "What's upsetting you, James?" he said sincerely. "Is it that you're winning? And you'll keep on winning, although you're going to lose this hand. So why all the hostility, then?"

  They'd been playing poker for two hours. Dylan had organized the game out of boredom, and also because he wanted to learn to play like a professional. And tonight, with nothing else on his plate, he figured was as good a time as any to learn. There were four at the table, James and him and two other well-dressed gamblers. One of them had been a finalist in a prestigious international tournament and the other was a croupier at the casino where Dylan had started the run of luck that had led to him building his fortune. The croupier and Dylan had been good friends ever since that night more than three years before, when Dylan had been asked to leave when it looked like he was going to break the casino.

  "Exactly, that's the problem," James observed, airily. "You're taking all the fun out of this game."

  "What's the point of winning?" Dylan asked. "You should be happy. Not the opposite."

  "Because there's no pleasure in taking money off an amateur like you. You've lost a fortune in the last couple of hours and haven't won a single hand. There's no fun in that."

  "What's the beef? I should be spitting chips, not you. Why don't you just cool it, James? We were having a good time before you started whingeing."

  "Things were bad enough before," James went on. "I was bored out of my brain and now you've ruined one of the few things that amuses me."

  "Let's take a break," Dylan said, dropping his hand on the table and moving his chair closer to James's while the other two went to the bathroom. No one was too concerned about leaving the hand unplayed. "You're looking at everything the wrong way round, my friend. I've got money, so you've got money too. Our health's fine. We can do whatever we want. All we have to add to that is to have a little fun."

  "The punch you got in the face has affected your brain," James said, leaning back to study the bruising around Dylan's eye. "You should take a look at yourself. You look awful. And you haven't even told us who gave you the black eye."

  "Forget my eye. We're talking about your lack of faith."

  "Nice way of expressing yourself," James complimented him, looking around the room. "You haven't forgotten our special situation, have you? Yours is a bit better than mine, but not by much. And I reckon you'll botch it. I'll do my part well enough, always supposing that one of the Blacks doesn't get to me first."

  "Maybe I'll botch it. But that doesn't concern me. What's important is the attitude. All of this is going to take a long time. I want to enjoy myself now," Dylan informed him, watching James White continue to look around the room. "Do you mind telling me what you're looking for? You're making me nervous."

  "The drink," James answered. "I can't see the bottle."

  "We finished it a while back. I warned you about having the game here. If we'd played at my house we would've had scantily clad waitresses serving us anything we wanted," Dylan Blair grumbled, thinking about how he'd tried to get out of coming to White's flat. But the short man was stubborn. He wouldn't budge, and they'd found themselves as guests in the atrocious mess that was James White's living room.

  James lived on the sixth floor of an attractive block of flats. There was nothing luxurious about the flats but they were comfortable. The problem wasn't the flat but James White himself. He'd turned it into a pigsty in little more than a day. Dylan Blair knew his friend had no intention of settling down anywhere, and as a consequence, didn't look after any place he lived in, but the mess around Dylan now was too much. As soon as the millionaire had come in through the door, he'd made a mental note to come back a week later. If James was capable of getting it to look like this in one day what would it be like after seven? The only thing mildly acceptable about the whole deplorable place was the three porno movies on the table next to the television.

  "You don't seem that stupid," James said. "Your house is out of my area. I can't travel that far and you know it. Why don't you buy a house near here?"

  "Because you will move again and constant moving bores me."

  "Whatever you say," James said. "Life stinks. I don't even know where I'm going to be tomorrow, let alone making a decision about the future."

  "At least, you're conscious of your own truth. The rest do
n't even know who they are. Doesn't that make you happy? It makes you special."

  "My friend," James White said, with a look of pity on his face, "you couldn't have said anything more stupid. We're absolutely incapable of controlling our own destiny. Our fate is determined by a strange individual sitting in a wheelchair. Do you think that should make me happy? At least, the rest live in a bubble, and that gives them some sort of hope. They think they can find some direction to their lives, living in the dark the way they do. I can only sit and wait."

  "You're too negative," Dylan admonished him. "I don't propose to listen to your self-destructive rubbish anymore. You've got to pick the baton up. Enjoy life. Look at me."

  "Nothing works. It's not that I haven't tried. You're like you are because you know that one day you'll be in one of those wheelchairs. What I don't get is that despite the great risk you're running, you don't seem worried. How do you manage that?"

  "That's my secret," Dylan whispered. "But I'll tell you because you're a good bloke. It's very simple, really. In the first place, there's no point in worrying before you have to. My safety is guaranteed for almost forty years. And in the second place, the risk is only theoretical. We can't be sure what will happen."

  "That is without any doubt the most ridiculous… most stupid reasoning I've ever heard. How can someone who knows what you know think like that?"

  "By applying logic. Seeing is believing."

  "I refuse to argue this with you," James informed him. "Your way of thinking is beyond me."

  "You're not going to put your little white suit on, are you?"

  "That's out of my hands, my friend."

  "That's good, because I'm going to lift your spirits whether you like it or not," Dylan promised him.

  "I doubt it. But try if you want."

  "OK. But first, I'm going to win this hand," Dylan said, throwing the rest of his money on the table. "I'll see your bet."

  "As you wish," James said, turning his cards over. "Four aces, loser."

  "Impressive. But it's a pity, though," the millionaire said, turning his cards over one after the other until James White was astonished to see another set of four aces looking up at him.

  Dylan Blair looked smug.

  "You were right. I feel better," James said. "At last, you've learnt how to set a trap."

  # # #

  Lance Norwood's eyebrows arched to breaking point and his eyes shone in amazement. He couldn't believe what he was looking at. He was in a state of complete shock. And after what seemed an eternity he finally exclaimed, "You must've stolen it."

  "No," Aidan Zack replied calmly.

  "You've swapped something for it then."

  "No, not that either."

  "You drugged some poor individual then."

  "Are you sick, Lance?"

  "You've done something. Don't lie to me. How else could you get something like this?"

  "It doesn't surprise me that you're reacting like this, but it belongs to me."

  "Look how stupidly the two of you are carrying on," Carol sighed. "Men are so simple."

  "Simple? Are you looking at the same thing I am?" Lance despaired, trying to understand how Carol could show such indifference standing in front of one of the greatest masterpieces of engineering of all time. "Women don't understand anything. I'm going to check this out right now."

  He took his phone out of his pocket, rang the police station and got them to do a check on the number plate of the car parked in the street in front of them. He hung up after a minute and walked slowly towards the tall, smiling detective.

  "I can't believe it. It's registered in your name."

  "I've already told you that, dumbbell."

  "Can I drive it?"

  "No."

  "Only a couple of blocks."

  "No way."

  "I'd give up following you around for a month."

  "Stop lying."

  "I'd wash your clothes and be your personal maid."

  "I thought you were sick."

  "I'd edit your reports."

  "You already do that."

  "But I'm talking about doing them well."

  "You're pathetic," Carol interrupted them. "Show a little dignity, for God's sake. It's only a car after all."

  "You're kidding, aren't you? That's not a car there. Maybe you can't see the difference. You're a great reporter and a beautiful woman, but listen to me when I tell you, don't get involved in a conversation about cars. This is a Ferrari. There’s nothing more perfect in the world."

  "I said it was just a car, didn't I?" she said, jumping in the back.

  "I just can't understand how this finished up in the hands of Aidan here," Lance grumbled, sitting down in the front passenger seat.

  "A friend gave it to me," Aidan informed him, studying the set of keys.

  "That's hard to imagine. You don't have friends, remember. And if you did, they wouldn't be giving you one of these. Not after seeing you drive around London in that old rust-bucket of yours for the last few years."

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 15

  Bent over with his head on his chest, Trevor Deemer dragged himself along the street towards the entrance of the building. He seemed infirm, the victim of some insidious disease, as he stumbled slowly to the door. He opened it slowly, as if it weighed a ton, and began trudging up the stairs to the first floor.

  Only a few days before, he had been a happy man. His thirty-three years had been lived simply without any major problems. He'd passed through good times and bad like most, and had arrived at the point of fulfilling his greatest dream, when at the last moment, it had disappeared.

  It had all happened too quickly. And, like a scene out of a movie, had seemed unreal. But it had happened, and Trevor had been incapable of doing anything to stop the thing he wanted most in this world from disappearing.

  He knocked lightly on the first-floor door. "Open the door. It's Trevor."

  He waited a moment without hearing anything the other side, then knocked again, harder this time. But there was no sign of life behind the door.

  "I only want to talk," he said. "I know you're there, Helen. I'm not leaving here until I see you."

  Nothing. He began punching the door, kicked it once, then leant his tired body against it, begging the woman to open it. Finally, he heard the key turn, and he stepped back, his heart beating faster. The door creaked open, revealing the tall figure of the woman he loved.

  Her voice was barely a whisper. "You shouldn't have come."

  She'd been crying, her eyes red, her cheeks swollen, but she was still the most beautiful woman that Trevor Deemer had ever seen. Nothing could take her beauty away. He held himself back from taking her in his arms and holding her as tight as he could with what little strength he had.

  "I don't want to bother you," he said, taking in the seven feet of her spectacular body, and her face, a mask of pain and melancholy. "I just want to understand. I think I deserve an explanation."

  Helen Black turned and left the entrance without looking at him. He followed her in silence, sat down in front of her, and paid attention to nothing else in the room but her.

  "I spoke with your family," she began to say in a trembling voice. "I tried to explain that it wasn't your fault, that I was the only one responsible. I know how terrible all this has been for you."

  "You just left me, Helen. You should have said something."

  "I… I thought it would be easier if you didn't see me again," she explained, with a look of profound sadness on her face. "I'm so, so sorry."

  "Why?" Trevor asked, desperate to know why she'd abandoned him in the middle of the wedding ceremony. "I need to know why."

  "I had no choice. If I had been able to, I would have done it some other way."

  "I believed in you, Helen. I thought you loved me."

  "I was sincere in everything I said," she assured him with surprising firmness in her voice. "I love you, Trevor, more than anything in the world. But I can't marry you
."

  "If you love me like you say you do, how's that possible?"

  "Because I can't marry anyone, Trevor. Not you or anybody else."

  Trevor was getting more confused by the minute.

  "You've got me beat. Why didn't you tell me that when I proposed?"

  "I didn't know then. I didn't find out until I was about to say, I do." She took a deep breath. "It's difficult to explain."

  "Try!" the word came out of his mouth like a spat seed. He was clutching at straws, hoping she could give him something, anything, to explain the mystery of her running down the church aisle and out of his life. But until now there'd been nothing, not even a clue.

  "It's… it's because of my surname," she finally said. And that didn't appear to help him any the more. He'd come to hear the truth, to face up to the revelation of there being someone else, or any other painful explanation for her actions. But blaming the surname was cryptic. "I can't lose my name. And if we got married I'd have to give it up."

  "What?" Trevor's face twisted into a series of grotesque grimaces. "You left me because you couldn't change your name?"

  "I told you, you wouldn't understand. It's got nothing to do with your name. It's just that I can't change mine."

  "Why not?" he asked, scratching his head.

  "I can't explain why. And you wouldn't understand anyway. It just has to be Black."

  Trevor took some time to digest the new facts. It was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. So mad, in fact, that he had no idea what to say next. It crossed his mind that the whole thing was one great joke, or that Helen herself had flipped. And they seemed the most plausible of a dozen other crazy theories that were weaving their way through his head.

  He looked at her again, at her precious black eyes, shining sadly, but as intelligently as ever. She was the same perfect woman that he'd wanted to spend the rest of his life with only a few days before.

  "If the problem is the name," he said, resigned to understanding as much as he could, "we can fix that. Being married or not doesn't bother me. I only want to be with you, Helen. It's the same to me."